ALL ABOUT WORDS

An Introduction to Modern English Lexicology

 LEXICOLOGY, ITS SUBJECT MATTER AND AREAS OF CONCERN
HISTORY OF LEXICOLOGICAL STUDIES

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

   1. “What’s in a name?” – arbitrariness in language

   2. Problems inherent in the term word
   3.  Lexicon and lexicology.    Lexicology as a branch of linguistics studying words         
   4. Areas of concern for lexicology: semantics, morphology, etymology, lexicography
and corpus linguistics
   5. Lexicology as a level of analysis
5.1.   Lexicology vs. phonology
5.2.   Lexicology vs. syntax (grammar)
   6. Related fields
6.1. Lexicology and pragmatics
6.2. Lexicology and sociolinguistics
6.3. Lexicology vs. psycholinguistics and cognitive studies
   7. History of lexicology
7.1. Early studies in India, China, the Islamic World, and Europe
7.2. Origins of lexicological research in the West
7.3. Lexicological studies in Russia and the Soviet Union
7.4. Contribution of Ukrainian linguists to lexicological studies.
 When all things began the Word already was.
The Word dwelt with God,
and what God was,
the Word was.
                           (Book of Jesus, Vol. I, Ch. 20)

   1. “What’s in a name?” – arbitrariness in language                             

     “We may not attribute the same degree of mystical significance to the words as we find in
the opening lines of the Gospel according to St. John (in the New English Bible version). But
compared to grammar, there is a special relation between us and the world, founded on the
mystery that a name calls up an entity in the world around us, and vice versa” (Quirk and Stein
1990: 136).   An important part of the intellectual quest that we hope this book will be is to
understand this most basic question: What are words and why are they important? From fairly
early on in life, we understand that words evoke images and ideas in our mind, thus giving us a
key to the outside world. Words are crucial, because they provide a commonly shared medium
for conveying meaning in a message. Words have evolved through the ages in lockstep with
humankind. Perhaps more than any other factor, it is the mastery of language that sets us apart
from the animal world. But words are slippery things. We often hear statements such as “those
are only words.” It is well-known that they can be used to deceive as well as to illuminate. In any
debate, similar language is used by both sides to present completely opposite views (Brown
1994: 1).
       It is only natural that for many years scholars and students of language should have
speculated on the phenomenon called “language”, but many questions around it still remain
unanswered. We cannot yet answer the question where language comes from, how some words
are made up, and how meaning is generated. We know little about the mechanism by which a
speaker’s mental process is converted into sound groups called “words”. We are not yet aware of
the reverse mechanism – how the listener’s mind converts the acoustic phenomena into notions
and ideas and what provides the basis for establishing understanding in a two-way process of
communication. The nature of the lexicon, therefore, was and still remains an area of great
interest to both scholars and lay public. 
Since ancient and medieval times people have sought to understand the mechanism of relations
between the word and the object (phenomenon, quality, action) it denotes. It is logical to assume
that there is a direct relation between the word and the referent, but we do not know what is
primary and what is secondary. This, in turn, gives rise to a question: why is the same object –
which is called a referent1 – in different languages called differently (e. g. книжка (Ukr.), книга
(Rus.), ksiezka (Pol), a book (Eng.), das Buch (Ger.), le libre (Fr.) etc.? Moreover, some
languages have developed diametrically opposed meanings for words that clearly go back to the
same source: the Russian запомнить (‘remember; commit to memory’) vs. zapomnieć, which in
Polish means ‘to forget’ or vrijednost in Croatian, meaning ‘value; worth’ vs. вредность in
Russian, which means exactly the opposite: ‘harm, harmfulness’. Phenomena such as these
across languages clearly point to a lack of logical or natural connection between the meaning of
a word or phrase and the spoken sounds or written form that represent that meaning. This
suggests that the relation between the word and its referent is arbitrary, i.e. linguistic signs and
1
A referent is an entity (object, person, action, etc.) to which a linguistic expression refers
the meanings they represent do not neatly match each other. Not only do we find different words
for the same concepts in different languages, but what additionally bears out the idea of
arbitrariness is the fact that different languages have a different number of words designating the
same objects and phenomena. For example, whereas the Eskimos have countless words for snow
and ice, Germanic, Romance, Slavic and other language groups have only a few words to
designate different kinds of snow (e.g. packed snow, powder in English). So, too, does the
indigenous language in Hawaii, Ōlelo Hawaiʻi, abound in wave nomenclature, which is lacking
in most other languages. The reasons for these discrepancies between languages are fairly
obvious: coming in contact with certain phenomena in their environment, speakers of a language
are compelled to find designations for them. The English to love can be either «любити»  or
«кохати» when we translate it into Ukrainian. To illustrate the point further, the Dutch slak
could be either snail or slug when translated into English. The English blue can mean two
different colors in Ukrainian and other Slavic languages. And in some indigenous languages of
Australia, the word that seemingly designates “father” is, in fact, a term that refers not just to
one’s biological father, but rather to a range of male relatives, including the father’s brothers,
parallel cousins and even certain great-grandsons.
   A famous quotation from Shakespeare is an apt illustration of this, largely random, relation
between the word and what it stands for:

   What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

   By any other name would smell as sweet…
            (W. Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2)
   
To speak of arbitrariness in language is not only to say that one concept in one language can
become two in another, or that two can be collapsed into one. More importantly, languages often
see the world differently. They divide reality up differently, they focus on different criteria, they
structure experience in different ways. In the case of kinship terms that we have discussed above,
English highlights biological relationships, whereas Australian Aboriginal languages focus on
social structure. As a result, a word which English speakers might expect to refer to a unique
individual refers, in fact, to a group of people who share a similar social place or role in the
community (Halliday 2007: 59). All of this means that in designating objects and phenomena in
a language, it is crucial to look to the structures and systems that language itself generates
and embodies. So if one wants to understand the kinship terms that are used dialectally in, say,
Western Ukraine (зять, свекруха, швагро, стрий, вуйна etc.), one should not attempt, as
Halliday warns, to “set up some universal transcendental framework, but rather try to get inside
the language itself” (Ibid.). If there are words that seemingly mean the same – “uncle”, e.g.
вуйко and стрий, but are clearly different and evidently neither provides a neat match for the
English counterpart, the questions to ask here are: how do these two terms contrast in meaning
with each other? What are the extra meanings that one possesses and the other doesn’t? What are
the other kinship terms that are used alongside these in Western Ukraine? How do they appear in
discourse? What kind of systems and structures do they enter into?
   All these meanings may be arbitrary in the sense that there is no predetermined framework
that says all languages must make this or that distinction (e.g. the difference between a brother
on the mother’s side and a brother on the father’s side has to be accommodated, i.e. there have to
be different words to denote them, like вуйко and стрий in the region of Ukraine mentioned
above), but they are certainly not arbitrary in the sense that individuals can play freely and
randomly with the language. While there is scope for creative “departures” in the language –
whether in the colorful turn of phrase of a poet or writer or in the entertaining zaniness of a
comedian – what holds a language together and makes it work as a language, is the social
convention or agreement that underpins it. A word means what it means because that is what
people here and now in this community take it to mean. Fundamentally, language rests on social
convention.
 However, after making a long and compelling case in favor of arbitrariness, we have to note
that not every contemporary approach to language shares the Saussurean view that the linguistic
sign is arbitrary. Most notably, for cognitive linguists, language is not structured arbitrarily. We
will see later on in this chapter and especially in the chapter on idioms, how cognitivists prove
that the choice between the name and what it stands for is not random, but, in fact, motivated.

2. Problems inherent in the term word 

   As may well be clear by now, the present study is concerned with words and words as
meaningful units of communication constitute the subject matter of this book. The term “word”
is not a well-established element in the British tradition. Proof of that can be found in D.
Crystal’s A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, which says that intuitively all language
speakers know what is meant by a “word” (Crystal 2003). By and large, they have no difficulty
recognizing words on a page, spelling them correctly, looking them up in dictionaries and even
playing games with them. They usually manage to use the right word in the right place. But one
does not have to go far to see that a word is far from the simple and obvious matter it is thought
to be and as a term it remains an extremely vague notion. When we look a little more closely,
it becomes clear to us that we are sometimes not even sure where a word begins and where it
ends. Is English-speaking one word or two? How do we decide about sequences like lunchtime
(rather than lunch-time or lunch time), dinner-time, breakfast time? How many words in isn’t,
pick-me-up, CD? How about words that are spelled and sound alike, pairs like shape (‘the outline
of’) – shape (‘to mold’), content (‘that which is contained’) – content (‘happy’), like (‘similar
to’) – like (‘to be fond of’) etc.? Apart from that, what about variants of one word, like give,
gives, gave, given, giving? Suppose we encounter the sentence Stop procrastinating, and, if we
are unfamiliar with the word ‘procrastinating’, we will use a dictionary to translate it. But it is
not ‘procrastinating’ that we will be looking for, but rather ‘procrastinate’, since we feel it to be
the base form and, as such, only this form – and not procrastinating, procrastinates or
procrastinated – will represent the word in the dictionary.  We assume that the word
procrastinate is something more than a word – it is the unit of meaning which is behind the
words  procrastinating, procrastinates and procrastinated and its semantic and grammatical
content will be carried over to all the other inflected forms. So are these four different words, or
is there just one word procrastinate with many forms? Similarly, are girl and girls, friend and
friendly one word or two? Are loud, louder, loudest three forms of a single word loud? If so,
what about good, better, best? Or five and fifth, one and first, two and second? And, by the same
token, what about multiword combinations? Coming across the sentence He is all fingers and
thumbs for the first time, we need to look it up in the dictionary. We are familiar with the
meanings of individual words – all, fingers and thumbs – but those meanings put together do not
seem to make any sense. Apparently, the meaning of the whole phrase is different from the
combined meanings of the constituent words. The sentence He is all fingers and thumbs is
idiomatic, i.e. containing a unit of meaning larger than a single word and its ultimate meaning is
a result of reinterpretation of individual senses of the items constituting the phrase. Do we
consider all the items within it as separate words or the entire combination as one word? Clearly
finding answers to all these questions is by no means a straightforward matter.
   Furthermore, words are seldom if ever used in isolation and thus the meaning of a word is
revealed only when it is realized in a context. So aside from making sense of individual words,
language speakers need to be able to make words work together in concert. Very often we are
puzzled why it is appropriate to say to do business but to make money, to say a strong wind but a
heavy rain or a bright sun but a vivid example, etc., especially given the fact that Ukrainian uses
the same word for both collocations in each pair (cf. сильний вітер/дощ; яскраве/-ий
світло/сонце/приклад). This list is endless. It is impossible to predict which words can go
together with one another and which cannot. Collocability, i.e. the tendency of words to occur
together in different contexts, is a difficult area to navigate, and especially for a language learner,
collocations have to be learned, just like individual words that make them up. We may wonder
why the English use both sustain and suffer to go with losses, damage, injuries (cf. Ukr.
«зазна(ва)ти втрат, шкоди, збитків, травм тощо»), but only suffer can collocate with defeat,
unlike Ukrainian, in which the verb «зазнавати» shows more consistent, and therefore, more
predictable patterns  («зазнати поразки»). On the other hand, language speakers should be
conscious of the rhetorical effects that words can generate:”…a word can hurt, excite, and decide
a case” (Quirk, Stein 1990: 126).  It takes a certain level of language proficiency and
communicative competence to appreciate metaphors in speech and writing (e.g. It’s about time
the company stepped up to the plate and resolved the conflict), puns (e.g. When the going gets
tough, the tough get creative; Atheism is a non-prophet institution), oxymorons (e.g.
compassionate capitalism, permanent revolution, conspicuously absent, devastatingly handsome,
peaceful jihad etc.), zeugmas (e.g. You are free to execute your laws, and your citizens, as you
see fit [from Star Trek: the Next Generation] etc. All of these examples demonstrate that their
adequate perception requires a level of comprehension far beyond the level of a word, since the
semantics of individual words cannot account for the semantics of the entire sentences. They also
prove yet again that the right choice of words is the speaker’s tool and the speaker’s weapon.
The wrong word may hurt or, indeed, even become a source of conflicts.
   Language is as immeasurable as reality itself; many questions arise once we start analyzing
it. Nevertheless, we do know by now that there is nothing accidental about the vocabulary of a
language – each word is a small unit within a vast but perfectly balanced system.
   Modern theories of language are more concerned with how language works than why it
exists. As a result, they tend to base their principles on observations of one or many languages.
The theory will therefore depend on what is observed. In each field of knowledge concerned
with language there are differing and often conflicting ways of observing linguistic facts.
Speculating on the lexicon of a language, however, is common to any philosophical trend
dealing with languages. 

   3. Lexicon and lexicology.  Lexicology as a branch of linguistics studying words  

            
   The term “lexicon” has been known in English since the early 17 th century, when it was
used in reference to a book containing a selection of the words of a language and meanings,
arranged in alphabetical order. The term itself comes from Greek lexis, designating “word”,
phrase ‘lexikos’ denoting “of/for words”. It is used today in this word-book meaning, but it has
also taken on a more abstract sense, especially within linguistics, referring to the total stock of
meaningful units in a language – not only the words and idioms, but also parts of words that
express meaning, such as prefixes and suffixes.
   There are three terms that nominate the total word-stock of a given language:  vocabulary,
lexis and lexicon. A comparison of the words will show that the three items may be considered
more or less synonymous. However, it must be added that some scholars, Jackson and Zé
Amvela in particular, regard the first one as more colloquial, the third more learned and
technical, and the second as situated half-way between the other two (Jackson, Zé Amvela 2007:
2).
   To study the lexicon of English, accordingly, is to study all aspects of the vocabulary of the
language, i.e. how words are formed, how they have developed over time, how they are used
now, in what ways they relate in meaning to each other, and how they are handled in dictionaries
and other word books. It is a study that is carried out within the framework of lexicology – a
branch of linguistics concerned with the study of the meaning, structure, origins and uses of
words. As is apparent from this working definition, the notion of ‘word’ is central to the study of
lexicology, although the term ‘word’ itself, as has already been shown, is by no means a
straightforward one and we will be looking at it in a little more detail later in the book.           
 Lexicology presents a wide area of knowledge. Within its scope we find historical
lexicology, which traces historical changes of words in the course of language development;
comparative lexicology, studying correlations between words in closely related, or cognate 2,
languages; contrastive lexicology, which aims at establishing facts of typological similarities 
and differences between both related and unrelated languages; descriptive lexicology, analyzing
the current state of the lexical plane of language in all its entirety; applied lexicology, covering
terminology and lexicography; computational lexicology, dealing with the computational study
of dictionaries and their contents, and some other disciplines dealing with word studies. Adjacent
fields of linguistic inquiry are onomasiology, terminology, semantics, phraseology, etc. The
relation of lexicology to linguistic semantics is still a matter for debate, as is it to word-
formation, which many schools include in lexicology (it is an approach that is also taken by the
present book). Linguistic semantics is closest in its focus to lexicology, but it studies issues in
more depth, while lexicology is broader in the scope of problems it addresses. Descriptive
lexicology can make different things its primary object of study depending on your theoretical
frame of reference. It can be (a) semasiology-oriented, in which case it aims at a comprehensive
study of various aspects of words’ meanings; (b) onomasiology-oriented and address issues of
word designation, ways of nomination and questions of motivatedness; (c) semiotics-oriented,
which means it explores words as a function of signs; (d) sociology-oriented, which focuses on
social stratification of vocabulary, its variation (social and regional) and language change; and,
finally (d) functional, which looks at how lexical units function in actual speech and writing
(Selivanova 2006: 281).
Present-day lexicology makes use of a wide range of methods of linguistic inquiry, most
notably contrastive, distributional, componential, oppositional, transformational analysis,
etymological analysis, lexico-semantic analysis, cognitive-onomasiological analysis, semantic
structure analysis, conceptual analysis, all kinds of statistical methods etc.
Lexicology as a separate field of linguistic inquiry did not take shape until structural
linguistics became firmly established on the linguistic scene in the early 20 th century. It has to be
pointed out, however, that the term “lexicology” itself was introduced as early as 1765 by Denis
Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alambert, who viewed lexicology as one of the branches of
linguistics alongside syntax. The first attempts to make sense of and systematize the word-stock
of language were made by the scholars of the Prague Linguistic Circle as well as German
linguists working in the Neo-Humboldtian tradition, notably Leo Weisgerber, Jost Trier, Gunther
Ipsen, Walter Porzig and others. It must be noted, however, that even before them, these
questions were given considerable attention by the Ukrainian philosopher and linguist
Oleksander Potebnia and Russian semasiologist Mikhail Pokrovsky.

4. Areas of concern for lexicology: semantics, morphology, etymology, lexicography

and corpus linguistics

   Of all the different aspects of lexicology, the most important are the semantic, structural
and functional ones. These aspects are closely interrelated, as they cover all characteristics of
words and contribute to the same idea – the meaningful use of words in speech.
   Semantics usually involved in lexicological work is called lexical semantics, which is
somewhat different from other linguistic types of semantics as the latter take the notion of
meaning in a much broader sense. These include phrase semantics, which is concerned with the
meaning of items within an idiomatic phrase, semantics of the sentence, which handles the
meaning of sentences as well as the meaning relations between sentences, and, finally, text
semantics, which focuses on the meaning that the entire text generates and analyzes what
linguistic levels contribute to that and how. In addition to these, some linguists quite
appropriately identify pragmatic semantics, which studies the meaning of utterances in context
(Jackson 2002: 6). Lexical semantics, alongside with word-formation (morphology), etymology,
and lexicography coupled with corpus data, makes up all the basic areas of investigation for
today’s lexicologists.  At the same time, however, it is – quite appropriately – referred to as the
2
Cognate languages or words have the same origin
central branch of lexicology. The importance of meaning in linguistic analysis follows in a
straightforward fashion from the primacy of semantics in virtually all theoretical frameworks of
linguistic inquiry: cognitive, and even structuralist and generativist linguistics. Semantic
structural relations of lexical entities can usually be discussed in three different ways: from the
point of view of (1) their semantic similarity, (2) lexical relations such as synonymy, antonymy,
and hyponymy, and, finally, (3) syntagmatic lexical relations. The central problem of lexical
semantics is the problem of meaning of individual words and that of groups of words, as well as
its ontology and basic properties. The scope of the word’s meaning as well as the change and
development of meaning is taken in a broad sense in lexical semantics. In this overview, it might
be useful to introduce two terms which may seem more relevant to sentence semantics, and
syntax in general, but which reveal a lot about lexical meaning, so we will briefly examine them
here. They are acceptability and meaningfulness. Although related, these concepts are quite
distinct. They are important for our discussion of meaning because we may have utterances that
are meaningless but acceptable, while others may be meaningful but unacceptable. Consider the
following:
I saw a 70-year-old child.
That woman is a man.
These two sentences may well be seen as nonsensical in that what they state is at odds with
our knowledge of the world: there are hardly cultures in the world in which people above twenty
are considered children, let alone people so much older. Being a child and being seventy are
things that seem to cancel each other out. Similarly, a human being cannot be both a man and a
woman at the same time. Nevertheless, we feel that way about these sentences only until we find
that it is possible to conceive of contexts in which situations described above are acceptable. For
instance, a seventy-year-old child referred to in the first utterance may well be a victim of
progeria, a rare genetic condition whereby patients age prematurely so that a ten-year-old child
resembles someone considerably advanced in years. In the case of the second utterance, a
character may be a man biologically and play the role of a woman. Sentences like these may
initially sound meaningless, but a closer look at their immediate context of use reveals that they
make perfect sense and are, therefore, quite acceptable. What is important to note here is that
creative examples such as the two sentences above are in no way exceptional but actually
extremely common in our everyday use of English. There are other types of ‘meaningless’
utterances that may be acceptable for various reasons, e.g. they may involve different figures of
speech intended to create a wide range of rhetorical effects: Long Day’s Journey into Night (title
of a play by Eugene O’Neill), Do not go gentle into that good night (a poem by Dylan Thomas)
or poetic lines in Ukrainian «…одна із пелюсток розсуне стіни» (from a poem by Кost’
Moskalets’). Metaphoric, metonymic, oxymoronic etc. utterances tend to give an initial
impression of meaninglessness by virtue of their defying common sense, as it were, but they
operate according to their own rules and within respective genres and there is never a question as
to their acceptability.
As opposed to utterances that are, on the face of it, meaningless but acceptable, the ones that
are unacceptable include assertions that are false because they stand in contrast to what we know
about the world and, therefore, contradict ordinary logic. For example, on the face of it, the
sentence The basket ate the vegetables may be seen as syntactically meaningful. It will not take
long, however, to realize that even syntactically, – let alone ontologically 3 and semantically –
this sentence is seen as an error in predication, which means that the nouns for subject and/or
object are not compatible with the verb. Hence the subject basket is syntactically unsuitable to
the predicate verb ate – the grammatical meaning of the verb eat presupposes a subject that is an
animate being. This sentence is unacceptable because what it describes cannot be: baskets do not
eat vegetables and there is no other way around it (unless we deal with certain genres where
there is suspension of disbelief, like fantasy, folk or fairy tales etc.). Such examples only point to
the fact that semantics, syntax and lexicology as aspects of linguistic analysis are inextricably
3
Ontological means referring to the way things are; to do with the nature of things and their existence.
intertwined: the questions of lexical semantics go beyond the level of the word, and syntax is
invariably bound up with words’ meanings.
   The questions of word structure and dynamic word formation in English are addressed by
lexical morphology, which covers the problems of classification of morphemes, morphemic
types of words as well as lexical vs. syntactic derivation.  Morphemes are the smallest
meaningful units that constitute words. They are ‘smallest’ or ‘minimal’ in the sense that they
cannot be taken apart any further in terms of meaning. According to Katamba, ‘morphemes are
the atoms with which words are built’ (Katamba 1994: 32).    
   If we consider the following words: back, son, with, reinstitutionalization, irredeemable in
terms of their structure, we will find that some of them cannot be analyzed further into
meaningful units (back, son and with), while others can (re+institute+ion+al+iz(e)+ation,
ir+re+deem+able).  The items back, son, with, re-, institute, -ion, -al, -iz(e), -ation, ir-, re-,
deem, - able are all morphemes. From this follows that some are simple words while others are
only parts of words, even though all of them meet the definition of a morpheme. On the one
hand, they are minimal, since they cannot be broken down further into meaningful units; on the
other hand, they are meaningful, because we can easily identify a relationship between them and
what they stand for in the non-linguistic world of our experience.
   Morphemes that can stand on their own are referred to as ‘free’ morphemes. Those that can
occur only alongside others are known as ‘bound’ morphemes. As is evident, a discussion of the
construction of words, and the distinction between different types of words is hardly possible
without morphological analysis.
   Studying the meaning of words and their semantic relations, lexicology is often interested
in the history of the word or even in the history of the vocabulary or lexicon. Etymology is the
study of the history of words – when they arose and from what source, as well as how their form
and meaning have changed over time. The term goes back to the Stoics, a group of Greek
philosophers and logicians who lived in the early fourth century BC. The Stoics noticed an
incongruity between the form of the words in the language and the things that these forms stood
for. Since they were convinced that language should be regularly related to its content, they
undertook the study of the original forms of words, called etyma (roots) in order to establish the
regular correspondence between language and reality. This kind of study later became known as
etymology. Apart from providing useful information about origins of words, etymological
analysis can establish relationships between words and also identify cognates (see above) in
other languages. For all its advantages and indisputable value, however, etymological research
can often fall short of its goals. This happens because, firstly, some words are not etymologically
related to ancient forms, which makes it difficult to trace their origins. As a result, the forms
from which such words are said to derive can only be produced by analogy. Secondly, while it is
often possible to establish the exact time when some terms entered the language, it is clearly
impossible to say exactly when a form fell out of use, especially because words disappear in a
very gradual process that can span years, decades and, indeed, centuries. But the most crucial
difficulty that etymological analysis is fraught with is that there can be no single ‘true’ or
‘original’ meaning, since human language stretches too far back in history and words’ meanings
are fluid: they can erode or, conversely, give rise to or branch off into new ones. Many words in
a language have a ‘checkered history’, i.e. in the course of their evolution they have had their
meanings replaced by new ones until they have reached their current meaning. Halliday
specifically stresses the need to be cautious about the idea of ‘original meaning’ (Halliday 2007:
41). Sometimes we can identify the origin of a word – as, for instance, with the word boycott,
which is believed to have come from the name of a land agent in 19th-century Ireland, who was
‘boycotted’ by tenants. But in many cases, there is no justification for calling an earlier meaning
‘original’. The adjective nice provides a good illustration of exactly this kind of situation. A
study of the history of the word reveals that it once meant ‘silly’, but before that it must have
been related to ne (‘not’) and se (most probably meaning ‘cut’). But even if we get this far in the
analysis, we will still be left with the Latin items ne and se, the origins of which we will not be
able to unearth. In other words, no matter how far back one goes in history, one cannot expect to
reach the beginning of time.
   All of this suggests that a study of the historical development of a word has relevance only
with respect to the word’s form, but not its meaning. It is possible, by means of etymological
analysis, to establish the original form of the word or the word’s cognates, and to determine
whether similar-sounding and similarly spelt words constitute a case of polysemy or homonymy.
It is, however, impossible to tie the current meaning of the word to its original one, as this will
deny the social reality of linguistic change. To illustrate this point, Warburg tells the story of a
lawyer who disputed a witness’s use of the word hysterical (Warburg 1968: 351-352). The
witness had described a young man’s condition as ‘hysterical’. But, the lawyer pointed out, this
word was derived from the Greek hystera, meaning ‘uterus’ or ‘womb’. The young man did not
have a uterus, so, the lawyer claimed, he could not possibly be ‘hysterical’.
   Would a good lawyer really expect to score a point by this kind of appeal to etymology?
Not many native speakers would be willing to change their view of the current meaning of the
word hysterical. It is true that the word is based on the Greek for ‘uterus’ – incidentally, the
Greek element appears in that sense in English medical terms such as hysterectomy and
hysteroscopy. But what is more important is that words often change their meaning and the
modern meaning of hysterical has more to do with uncontrolled emotional behavior, by men and
women alike, than with the uterus as a bodily organ. So, as is obvious, invoking etymology to
determine a word’s meaning may often prove to be a futile exercise.
In addition, one should always bear in mind the possibility of what has come to be known as
‘folk etymology’, a process whereby an erroneous origin becomes enshrined in the language and
in which the pronunciation or spelling of a word is modified on a false analogy. “When people
hear a foreign or unfamiliar word for the first time, they try to make sense of it by relating it to
words they know well. They guess what it must mean, and often guess wrongly. However, if
enough people make the same wrong guess, the error can become part of the language” (Crystal
2003: 139). This is how folk or popular etymologies arise.
The word bridegroom, for example, has no historical connection with the groom employed
to take care of horses. The OE word that present-day bridegroom goes back to is brydguma,
where guma was a word denoting ‘man’. The word ought to have become bridegoom in modern
English, but as the word guma had fallen out of use, the word goom was popularly reinterpreted
as groom. Some folk etymologies are more complex. For example, in the case of the verb depart,
its use was initially restricted to wedding contexts, where it meant ‘separate’ in the expression
“till death us depart”. With time, this meaning became obsolete and, as a consequence, was
reinterpreted as do and part, hence the corresponding modern English expression “till death do
us part”. Along the same lines, many people seem to share Samuel Johnson's opinion
that bonfire means a 'good fire,' originating from the French bon. What it really stands for,
however, is 'bonefire.' In old times, dry bones were used as fuel, a practice which, in fact,
continued down to the 1800s. The vowel o was shortened before –nf, which constituted a regular
change before a cluster of consonants, and a native English word began to look half-French
(Liberman 2009: 47). Some other examples illustrating folk-etymological origins of English
words include kitty-corner, stepmother, stepdaughter, forlorn hope, curry favor and others.
Although Liberman believes that folk or popular etymologies should not be underestimated as a
factor of language history, for many familiar words owe their form to it (Liberman 2009: 46),
most scholars seem to agree that folk etymology is not a very productive process in modern
English and has accounted for comparatively few coinages.
Etymology is routinely used to clarify some questionable meanings, so it is also a matter of
lexicography – the science and art of dictionary compiling, which is concerned with the
problems of defining words, especially words with multiple meanings, decisions concerning
entry words, labeling lexical items and the like. Lexicography, therefore, is the theory and
practice of composing dictionaries. Sometimes lexicography is even considered to be a part or a
branch of lexicology, but the two disciplines should not be confused: lexicographers are the
people who write dictionaries, they are at the same time lexicologists too, but not all
lexicologists are dictionary-makers. It is often said that lexicography is the practical lexicology,
while the pure lexicology is mainly theoretical. By practical lexicology we mean applied
lexicology, which is practically oriented though it has its own theory. In its widest sense,
lexicography may also refer to the principles that underlie the process of compiling and editing
dictionaries. Some of those principles are clearly lexical or lexicological in nature, while others,
according to Jackson, stem from the specific domain of book production and marketing (Jackson,
Zé Amvela 2007: 9). Some linguists believe that lexicographical compilation may be considered
as derived from lexicological theory (Jackson 1988: 248). However, it should be acknowledged
that it is only in recent years that the link between lexicography and linguistics has been clearly
established. For example, the accuracy and consistency in the transcription of words or the
adoption of a descriptive4 as opposed to a prescriptive5 approach to lexicography are direct
applications of linguistic principles. It may be argued that initially lexicography developed its
own principles and traditions independently of linguistic research; but this is no longer the case.
In fact, since current dictionaries are put together mainly by lexicographers who have been
trained in linguistics, we are seeing an ever more substantial input from lexicology. For its part,
lexicographical practice provides a useful input for lexicological research. Lexicographers have
done much in the way of categorizing semantic relations and the products of their work have
inspired much of the lexicological research. It has to be pointed out that the value that
contemporary dictionaries – by virtue of huge corpora generated by electronic data banks they
draw on – now have for present-day lexicological research cannot be overestimated. The ready
availability of huge banks of electronic data have provided hitherto unobtainable evidence of
language use, indicating subtle discriminations only suspected before. In other words, now that
lexicographers have made it possible to track thousands of occurrences of words and phrases in
their real settings, lexicologists have begun to appreciate how important a record of use in
context can be for determining the real meaning of a word. For example, many dictionaries of
English have defined (and still define) the word big in terms of large and vice versa. The
evidence from concordances of occurrences of these adjectives in extensive modern text
archives, however, demonstrates convincingly that although these two words do overlap in some
contexts, they are differentiated systematically in many others and the reason for these
differentiations lies in different collocational patterns (Hartmann, James 1998: x). Additionally,
the compilation of large-scale corpora can enable the recording and documentation of language
change in progress – an area of concern for lexicologists, as we will see later on. For example,
the language of computing has given us backformations such as input and output as verbs.
According to one of the corpora (compiled by James et al., 1994), verbal usage of these forms
constitutes about five per cent of the total occurrences of input and output. However, the
evidence is that there is variability in the formation of the past tenses: input/output vs.
inputted/outputted. Nevertheless, according to the same source, the weight is still toward
input/output, rather than their inflected (weak verb) counterparts (Ibid.). On the other hand, the
use of input/output as the past form can cause confusion, since their usage as noun modifiers can
have two conflicting senses: e.g. input data as “data to be input” or “data that has been input”. It
is thus evident that a certain linguistic instability occurs when a new form conflicts with the
language system, according to which most new verbal formations follow the morphological
pattern of weak verbs (-ed). This example demonstrates how informative are the data from large
corpora – in this case concordances – for lexicological analysis. On the one hand, they provide
accurate information on how words behave and how their forms (and meanings) develop (in our
example, variation of input/output and inputted/outputted) and, therefore, make it easier to
monitor language change. On the other, they allow to detect subtle differentiations in the use of
input/output vs. inputted/outputted, which would be difficult to establish otherwise. Besides, they

4
Explaining linguistic facts as they actually are, not as someone wants them to be
5
With a prescriptive approach to dictionary-making, lexicographers do not objectively describe what the facts of
language and usage are, but rather say what they should be.
increase the potential to develop new theories with greater observational power than scholars
ever had before and linguists can develop more probabilistic or mathematical understandings of
language than was possible before (Ibid.).
   It should be pointed out, however, that lexicology is not the only branch of linguistics
which provides an input to lexicography. Clearly, morphology, syntax and phonology also do.
And sociolinguistics, too, contributes, not only in the study and selection of the language variety
to be included in the dictionary, but also in the inclusion of information on style, dialects and
registers.
   Lexicology also draws on phraseology for its data and analysis. The latter studies
compound meanings of two or more words, as in to be down for the count or throw the monkey
wrench into the works. Because the entire meaning of these phrases is not immediately
retrievable from the meaning of the words making them up, “phraseology examines how and
why such meanings come in everyday use and what possibly are the laws governing these word
combinations” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicology). One of the key questions of
phraseology, therefore, is the question of lexical motivation of idioms, i.e. whether the combined
lexical meaning of an idiom is deducible from the meanings of its constituent components. The
data provided by phraseological study helps to shed light on the limits of the word’s meaning
and define the limits of cohesiveness between words following each other in context.
    
   5. Lexicology as a level of analysis

   Lexicology is just one of many levels of language analysis, others being phonology,
morphology, syntax, and semantics. Even though attempts have been made to treat any of these
levels in isolation, it must be noted yet again that none of them can be studied profitably without
reference to the others. All these different levels of analysis interact with one another in various
ways, and when we use language, we unconsciously call on all of them simultaneously. Since we
have already briefly touched on morphology and semantics, we will now consider the relation of
lexicology to phonology and syntax. 

   5.1 Lexicology vs. phonology

   On the face of it, it may seem that these two do not really relate in any significant manner.
A closer look, however, will reveal that words are conditioned by a number of phonological
features. Phonology is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound patterns and their
meanings in a specific language (or languages). Whereas phonetics is about the physical
production and perception of the sounds of speech, phonology describes the sound function
within a given language or across languages by way of meaning distinctions. Phonetics is strictly
about the physical aspect of sounds; it has nothing to do with meaning. Phonology, on the other
hand, is both physical and meaningful. It explores the differences between sounds that change the
meaning of an utterance. In view of this, we are concerned here with phonological features of
sounds, rather than their articulatory characteristics, which usually have little to do with
semantics, variation and, ultimately, distinctions between sounds.
   A close analysis will reveal that in many cases the difference between two otherwise
similar-sounding – and sometimes identically spelt – lexical items amounts to a difference at the
level of phonology. Phonemes follow each other in fixed sequences and if a sequence is changed,
words do not make sense.  Consider the pairs of words deep and dip, pin and pen, meat and mitt,
leak and leap, row (line of things) and row (short angry argument), lead (show the way) and lead
(metal), wind (phenomenon of nature) and wind (to turn or twist s/th) and many others. They
differ only in one sound and yet the difference has a serious effect at the level of lexical
semantics.
   In some cases, the phonological difference is caused by the stress pattern, which may occur
at the initial, medial, or final position. Compare the following pairs of words 'content (noun), vs.
con'tent (adj), sus'pect (verb) vs. 'suspect (noun), 'subject (noun; adj.) vs. sub'ject (verb) or
'import (noun) vs. im'port (verb).
   Stress in compounds provides another example demonstrating the link between phonology
and lexicology. A 'green 'house is any house that is green, and equal prosodic stress can be found
on both elements (or, according to psycholinguist Steven Pinker, the second one is accented
more heavily). A 'greenhouse, the compound, may have started out as any other green house, but
now it is a special house – “a glass house for growing plants”. In some cases, however, there
may be little or no difference in meaning between two lexical items that are written as one word
or as two separate words. A case in point is sea bed vs. seabed.
   Thus, sound patterns, such as stress placed on particular syllables, may indicate whether the
word is a compound or whether it is an adjective + noun phrase.
   Compare the stress patterns of the compound nouns and the corresponding adjective +
noun phrases:
Compound Adjective + Noun
'redhead 'red 'head
'second-guess 'second 'guess
'greyhound 'gray 'hound
'sandbag 'sand 'bag
 
As a rule, the main, or the primary stress (‘) falls on the first component of the compound as
in: sandbag – a bag filled with sand, used for protection against floods, explosions etc. (LDOCE
2003). However, in the adjective + noun or noun + noun phrases like black berry, as opposed to
any berry of green, yellow or red, both words can be equally stressed.
   Besides, in English, as in many other languages, there are certain phonological features that
mark word-limits and thus divide the flow of speech into words. 

   5.2 Lexicology vs. syntax (grammar)

   Grammar is known to be the earliest among linguistic studies. The first books on linguistics
which appeared in ancient times were grammar books (e.g. Ars Grammatica by Eliy Donat
(Rome, IV с. AD). Thus, grammatical relations were studied much earlier than lexical and
semantic and the links between grammar and lexicology are very old, deep and various.
   It is common knowledge that the focus of grammar study is forms of words (morphology)
and forms of word combinations (syntax). Words, as was already noted, seldom occur in
isolation. They are usually arranged in certain patterns that show the relations between the things
they stand for.  As a basic assumption, we believe that we might know all the words in an
English dictionary and still be unable to speak or understand the language. Consequently, to say
that a person ‘knows‘ English, presupposes that they know some rules of combining words into
sentences, which are known as the rules of syntax.
   The relationship between lexicology and syntax is far from straightforward, however. For
example, the famous sentence Colorless green ideas sleep furiously, suggested by Noam
Chomsky in 1957 (more on Chomsky below), though undoubtedly well-formed syntactically, is
completely nonsensical, as it runs counter to what we know about the world. The sentence
vividly demonstrates the distinction between syntax and semantics: a perfectly grammatical
sentence may make absolutely no sense. So, in order for words to join in a meaningful syntactic
whole, they have to meet certain lexical, grammatical and semantic conditions.
Besides, lexical and syntactic meanings are often interdependent. Thus, the verb to have can
realize its different meanings only depending on the syntactical function it performs in a
sentence. In the sentence He has connections in high places, we understand that the verb to have
is used in the sense that something is available for somebody to use, which is an extension of the
verb’s primary meaning of owning something. In another sentence, They’ve been having fights
over money, the verb to have is used in the meaning of “experiencing; going through something”.
On the other hand, a more divergent use of to have is evident in the sentence He has arrived (has
lost his way, had phoned, had missed the bus), where it functions as an auxiliary to form Perfect
tenses. In yet another sentence, He has to look for funding to continue research, to have is used
to express modality – if you have to do something, you must do it because it is necessary or
because somebody forces you to do it. The latter two cases are a vivid illustration of the
grammatical, rather than lexical use of to have. So are the sentences He had his tooth filled and
She has had her bank account hacked, where the grammatical meaning clearly overrides the
lexical one in the semantic structure of the verb to have, which – in the construction to have s/th
done (for you) – means “to pay a professional person to do some work for you” or “to have a
misfortune befall you”. When the grammatical meaning takes over, the primary lexical meaning
of the lexical item – at least in one of the senses – is considerably weakened, often to the point of
a complete loss. This route of development of a word’s meaning is known under the term
grammaticalization – a process whereby lexical items develop grammatical functions and lose
all or part of their lexical meaning – and a more detailed discussion of it will follow later in the
book. We are using it here to make an argument that the two kinds of meaning – lexical and
grammatical – are inextricably linked and mutually dependent on each other, since both of them
make up the word meaning and neither can exist without the other. Even though lexical
semantics traditionally focuses on content words, such words cannot be studied on their own, i.e.
in an agrammatical vacuum. Some lexical properties, like certain aspects of verbs’ meanings,
have effects throughout the sentence. So, for instance, a difference between the verbs spot and
see can be described in terms of aspectual properties of the verbs: spot describes a punctual
event, while see does not. This in turn affects which tense and aspect markers 6 can be present in
the same clause and how such markers are interpreted. So, I saw the bird all day long can
describe a continuous seeing event, while I spotted the bird all day long must be interpreted as
repeated instances of spotting events. These verbs’ semantics, therefore, has an effect on the
grammatical reading of a sentence: it affects the category of aspect, which is part of the syntax of
a sentence. In view of this, most linguists agree that it is impossible to say where the lexicon
ends, and syntax begins (Hollmann 2009: 526).
   Similarly, instances are not few when the syntactic position of a word or group of words
does not only change its functions but the lexical meaning as well. An adjective and a noun
element of the same group can more or less naturally change places as in the example:
Venetian blind – blind Venetian
boat house – house boat
racing horse – horse racing
whale killer – killer whale
   These pairs of noun combinations by virtue of a small structural change, notably inversion,
are quite distinct semantically: a Venetian blind is entirely different from a blind Venetian. The
difference can be clearly seen from the lexicographical interpretation: horse racing means “a
competition or an election, in which horses with riders race against each other” [LDOCE], while
racing horse has the meaning of “a horse bred to go very fast and be used for racing”
[LDOCE].  As to the last pair, virus killer can mean a computer software program which
eliminates viruses, while killer virus has the meaning of a deadly virus, a pathogen that kills, e.g.
HIV-AIDs, Ebola etc. The same is true of other constructions, like the noun + of + noun
combination. When the nouns diamonds and queen, for example, ‘trade’ places in the of-
construction, the resulting meanings have nothing in common: diamonds of the queen vs. the
queen of diamonds (diamonds is one of the four suits in a set of playing cards). This is even more
so for fixed noun phrases, such as salt and pepper, for example. The ordering of elements within
a phrase like this is crucial as salt and pepper has the meaning of “condiments”, but if it is
reversed to pepper and salt, the meaning changes to “graying”, as in ‘pepper-and-salt hair’ 7.
Shifts in syntactical patterns, therefore, affect lexical semantics, which proves yet again a
6
In the narrow sense, a marker is a free or bound morpheme that indicates the grammatical function of the marked
word, phrase, or sentence.
correlation between lexical and grammatical meaning in the semantic structure of words. The
inextricable unity of syntax and lexicon led M.Halliday to introduce the term lexicogrammar,
thus collapsing the usual distinction between the two.
    
   6. Related fields
 6.1 Lexicology and pragmatics

Related to semantics and, therefore, lexicology is the field of pragmatics, which studies the
relation between what is said and those who say it. Pragmatics, or pragmatic semantics, studies
the meaning of utterances in context. Pragmatics analyzes how meanings of words can vary
depending on the context of use. For example, an utterance can change from being a question to
a threat if the context warrants such an interpretation. An otherwise innocuous question such as
'Are you going to give me the money?' could easily be understood as a threat in certain contexts
even though its interrogative form and the words on their own do not necessarily carry that
meaning. It is crucial to understand that it is the context and the shared knowledge of the
interlocutors that determine the most acceptable meaning of the utterance. It has to be said that
quite a few factors are responsible for ways in which the contexts affect the meaning of a word,
let alone an utterance.
A word or group of words may be correct in so far as it observes the syntactic and lexical
rules of English, but it may be unintelligible because the constituent elements do not combine to
produce a meaningful statement in the English language. The sentence proposed by Noam
Chomsky which we discussed earlier, Colorless green ideas sleep furiously, is an apt illustration
of this point. Nevertheless, the reverse is also true. An utterance may be seemingly nonsensical,
but, in fact, make perfect sense, i.e. be meaningful in the context of its use. If we were to stumble
across the sentence: If you have some liniment, I'll put it on my dignity, for most of us it would
make little or no sense, since in no human culture we know do people heal their hurt or offended
dignity by putting liniment on it. Liniment is a fluid medication that is normally rubbed into skin
when it (the skin) feels sore or stiff and is, therefore, used to relieve a physical, but not
psychological, condition. For this utterance to make some sort of sense there would have to be a
‘suspension of disbelief’ on the part of the addressee. Particularly if s/he tries to imagine a
situation in which this might be possible. Like, for instance, in certain genres that can
accommodate such semantic flexibility. So, if the utterance is to be understood as meaningful, it
must belong to such a genre. The most likely type is that of children's literature, which makes
extensive use of fantasy and ‘defeats’ expectations. And sure enough, the sentence is taken from
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (L’Engle 1973: 20), a children’s science fantasy which
has typically sci-fi elements like travel through time and space, magical beings, and other worlds
and where the main characters – three children – are transplanted to fantastic new planets in far-
off galaxies. The utterance itself is produced by a celestial creature, one of the main characters in
the book. This is the kind of context where improbable things, like healing dignity with liniment,
can happen and they are intrinsic to the genre of children’s sci-fi literature. So meaning and
interpretation of words and especially strings of words are closely bound up with the context,
type of text and genre in which they are found.
What all of this means is that words – as linguistic signs – possess not only semantic
characteristics and certain syntax but also pragmatics. Signs of language can make, and usually
do, a certain impression, which can have positive, negative, neutral and a whole range of other
effects in between positive and negative on those who use them. Many scholars have drawn
attention to differing ways of conveying the same message (cf. Ukrainian Чом ти побиваєшся?
vs. Чого ревеш? or a similar opposition in Russian between Златокудрая дева, чего ты
трепещешь? and Рыжая девка, чего ты трясешся?, which was famously suggested by
K.Chukovsky to indicate a marked difference between the two utterances which in terms of
7
It must be noted, however, that the form ‘salt and pepper’ with reference to hair is increasingly becoming more
common (e.g. Now he is 55, has short salt-and-pepper hair and is wearing stylishly comfortable clothes).
information are basically the same8). The speaker makes a choice of language means when
formulating a message in accordance with his or her intention of producing a certain
communicative effect. Thus, we can safely say that a message – which naturally consists of
individual words – always possesses a pragmatic potential, which can be realized in all sorts of
ways in different acts of communication. Thus, a study of words and word groups cannot avoid
an analysis of form and content of texts, which, ultimately, brings out their meanings in those
contexts. Only through this kind of approach can we expect to gauge the word’s real and
projected pragmatic potential and the effect it may have on the listener.

6.2 Lexicology and sociolinguistics 

Apart from a range of grammatical patterns in which words can be used, they are associated
with a particular type of linguistic situation that determines the choice of words. It is now
commonly taken for granted that the right choice of words depends not only on their meanings,
but also, to a great extent, on their social and communicative appropriateness in a given context.
These aspects are studied by sociolinguistics, which is a study of the effect of any and all aspects
of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociolinguistics). More specifically, sociolinguistics focuses on
variation, regional and social differentiation of language, i.e. regional dialects and social dialects
or sociolects, as well as registers, language change etc. – essentially, a correlation between
various social factors (age, gender, class, ethnicity, occupation) and linguistic behavior.
Sociolinguistic research started with the study of how languages change over time and space,
which has come to be known as regional variation. Regional variation is defined in terms of
such characteristics as phonological, grammatical, and lexical features and is believed to relate to
two factors: time and distance. For example, the British and American varieties are contrasted as
the dialects of English separated by over two centuries of political independence and the Atlantic
Ocean. To provide a further illustration, the Northumbrian dialect and Cockney are nearly 300
miles and many centuries apart.
Regional dialects can be considered at different levels of specificity. At the highest level, we
can distinguish between national varieties: not only between British and American, as was
mentioned earlier, but also others that are recognized in many countries as English varieties in
their own right: Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Indian, Pakistani, Irish,
Scottish, Welsh English and others. In addition, there are major regional dialects within most of
these countries, which are responsible for much further variation. For instance, while most of the
US uses you both as a singular and plural second-person pronoun, the Southern and south
Midlands dialects of the US have a contrast between you (singular) and you-all or y’all to refer to
more than one: Where are y’all going?
At the same time, sociolinguists today are generally more concerned with social variation in
language than with regional variation. This type of variation is a direct result of how membership
in different social groups affects linguistic, including vocabulary, characteristics. Sociolinguists
assume that if we know certain things about one, we can predict certain things about the other.
What they are essentially looking for is measures of social variation to which they can relate the
kinds of linguistic variation they observe. So the problem becomes one of finding factors in
society that show a relationship to such matters as whether or not a speaker says doin’ or doing,
she live or she lives, they don’t know nothing or they don’t know anything, ain’t or is, etc. To
establish such relationships, one has to collect enough data concerning different variants of usage
and to draw certain conclusions about the social distribution of these variants. To be capable of
such conclusions, sociolinguists must be able to relate the variants in some way to different
social factors: social-class membership, gender, age, ethnicity, and so on. It is worth pointing out
that while it is fairly easy to relate linguistic patterns to factors such as gender and age, relating
8
The utterances are similar in what pragmatics refers to as proposition, which is often defined as “an assertion about
the world”. This kind of meaning is known as propositional (meaning)
them to factors such as race and ethnicity is somewhat trickier, since, on the one hand, these are
much more subjective in nature and, on the other, there is always a possibility of overlap from
other factors. Yet, according to Ronald Wardhaugh, the most complicated factor of all is social-
class membership. Social-class stratification involves classifying people in accordance with their
occupation, education, income level and even housing (its type and location). It should be further
noted that there is a current emphasis on lifestyle in classifying people, which involves analyzing
them in terms of church membership, recreational activities, patterns of consumption of goods
etc. – all important factors that help to more accurately classify people according to class.
   Another type of variation – many linguists traditionally call it stylistic variation – also
affects social contexts of use. In this regard, some scholars employ the term register (Biber et al.
1999: 15), which is defined with respect to situational characteristics such as mode (spoken –
written), interactiveness – non-interactiveness, spontaneity – non-spontaneity, the setting,
purpose, audience and topic of communication. If we compare different registers from the
viewpoint of these characteristics, the differences will be very obvious. For example, the register
of academic writing will differ from the conversational register in that the former is written,
usually not interactive or spontaneous, mostly informative and produced with specialist
audiences in mind. As to conversation, it is usually spoken, interactive and spontaneous.
Although conversational partners may pursue a range of communicative objectives, these tend to
focus mostly on the lives and interests of the speakers. In addition, the interlocutors share the
same physical and temporal space and often share personal background knowledge (Biber et al.
1999: 16).
All of the above illustrates variation within language. Different structural types of the lexicon
provide various options in constructing speech. Speakers should be aware of the idea of variety
and scope of lexical items and make their choice of the appropriate word with regard to the
situation and the communicative effect they are aiming for.

6.3 Lexicology vs. psycholinguistics and cognitive studies 

The subject matter of linguistics is language as a system. It aims at a detailed description of

the structure of that system and how it functions. But methods employed in today’s linguistics
alone cannot account for the complex processes that operate in human language. Linguistics as a
science, therefore, looks to other fields of scientific inquiry to seek answers to questions
traditional linguistics has not been able to give satisfactory answers to. Psycholinguistics is one
such field. As a fusion of psychology and linguistics, it is the study of psychological and
neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language.
Psycholinguistics draws on a wide range of scientific fields to study how the brain processes
language: neurobiology, information theory, linguistics and cognitive science. Psycholinguistics
covers cognitive processes that make it possible to generate a grammatical and meaningful
sentence out of vocabulary and grammatical structures, as well as the processes that make it
possible to understand utterances, words, texts, etc.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycholinguistics). As is obvious, it is a broad interdisciplinary
field, determined by a very complex nature of language itself, which is a result of certain
neurobiological processes, on the one hand, and sociocultural factors at work, on the other. The
importance of psycholinguistics to lexicology consists in the fact that it seeks to find out how
words are retrieved from the mental lexicon when an individual hears a word and sees it written
or printed on a page. This branch of scientific inquiry also addresses questions related to how
people – adults and infants – learn a language, both first and second. Accordingly, a great deal of
research focuses on how this ability develops and diminishes over time.
What is particularly relevant for the study of words, however, is cognitive aspects of the use
of words, most notably issues addressed by cognitive linguistics, which interprets language in
terms of concepts. It is directly relevant for the study of words, since research into the concept
vs. word dichotomy goes back decades, if not centuries, and still has many questions
unanswered. Cognitive scientists argue that knowledge of linguistic phenomena – i.e. phonemes,
morphemes, lexemes, and syntax – is essentially conceptual in nature. In fact, cognitive
linguistics provides the most important interface between psychology/psycholinguistics and
linguistics. It spans three key areas of study: cognitive semantics, cognitive approaches to
grammar and cognitive phonology. All three are very closely associated with lexicology, but
cognitive semantics especially has a direct bearing on it, since it deals primarily with lexical
semantics. The latter, which examines the word’s meaning, is, as has been noted already, at the
core of lexicological studies. Innovations brought to the study of word meaning by cognitive
semantics include prototype theory, conceptual metaphors, and frame semantics. Judged by the
sheer amount of research that has been carried out in the last decade, this is probably the most
productive framework in present-day semantics (Geeraerts 2010: xiv).
Central to many cognitive studies is the notion of categorization. Categorization is viewed as
the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. It implies
that objects are grouped into categories, usually for some specific purpose
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorization). Categorization received a major input with the
pioneering research conducted by Eleanor Rosch, who claimed that some members of a category
are necessarily more central than others. This claim, which implies a graded notion of categories,
is commonly known as prototype theory and is a central idea in many models of cognitive
science and cognitive semantics. According to this theory, we all have an image of a
prototypical member in a category. When Ukrainians are asked to think of a bird, they are most
likely to think of a sparrow (горобець) and less likely to think of a humming bird (колібрі). By
the same token, Shevchenko (Шевченко) will be the most ready example of a poet and a chair or
a table will be the first (or nearly the first) choice of a furniture item. So each time we encounter
a putative member of a category (bird, furniture etc.), we judge how much they resemble this
prototype: the closer the resemblance, the more likely we are to assign them to the category in
question, and therefore label them with a corresponding word (Hollmann 2009: 527). Prototype-
theoretical semantics has provided important points of departure for interpreting many notions in
lexicology, e.g. semantic change, lexical fields, taxonomies, objective vs. socially-guided
categorization of reality, conceptualization of reality etc.
Besides, taking their cue from ground-breaking research by Michael Reddy, Eleanor Rosch,
Charles Fillmore and others, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have redefined metaphor by
showing that generalizations governing poetic metaphorical expressions are not part of language
but of thought and apply not only to literary, but ordinary, everyday language as well (Lakoff,
Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1990; 2008). Within this theoretical framework, metaphor is understood as
any mapping (Ukr. “проекція”) between normally separate conceptual domains (spheres). The
purpose of this mapping is to structure an abstract and unfamiliar domain in terms of one that is
less abstract and more familiar. What is revealing is that many of the most basic concepts in our
conceptual system are also normally comprehended via metaphor – concepts like time, quantity,
state, movement, change, action, etc. Let us consider, for example, how Lakoff interprets anger
in terms of one of possible mappings, notably as ANGER IS FIRE9:

Those are inflammatory remarks.

She was doing a slow burn.
He was breathing fire.
Your insincere apology just added fuel to the fire.
Afer the argument, Dave was smoldering for days.
That kindled my ire.
Boy, am I burned up!
He was consumed by his anger.

9
It is now established practice to capitalize conceptual domains
 These metaphors highlight the cause of anger (kindle, inflame), the intensity and duration
(slow burn, smoldering, burned up), the danger to others (breathing fire), and the damage to the
angry person (consumed) (Lakoff 1990: 388). The overlap between the effects of angry behavior
and an angry person, on the one hand, and the characteristics and effects of fire provides a basis
for these metaphors. Lakoff argues that a feeling (anger, in our case) has a rich conceptual
structure and the nature of metaphors that represent emotions is closely linked to our bodily
experiences. This basically means that there is an objective basis for conceptual metaphorical
expressions and that they are, therefore, motivated. This, of course, goes against the grain of
many traditional approaches to meaning and motivation behind meaning (in idioms, for example)
and has necessitated a drastic overhaul of the question of motivation behind words’ and
expressions’ meanings.
Research in cognitive linguistics has been brought to bear on many areas of lexicological
analysis, most notably patterns governing polysemy, generalizations governing novel
metaphorical language, processes of semantic change and metaphor and metonymy in general.
All these patterns are ultimately crucial for word semantics.

   7. History of lexicology.
   7.1. Early studies in India, China, the Islamic World, and Europe

   Can lexicology be traced back to its earliest sources? Like all systematic study of the
formal patterns of language, lexicology depends on language being written down. Oral cultures
are capable of developing highly elaborated forms of speech and rhetoric, but only after writing
evolves does attention come to be focused on grammar and vocabulary. This typically began as a
way of keeping alive ancient texts whose meanings were beginning to be lost as the language
continued to change. In India, between 2nd and 3rd centuries BC, the first glossaries appeared
whose primary function was to make the difficult and opaque words in the Vedas (which by that
time were already a thousand years old) known to a wider public. With time these glossaries
evolved into something that was close to what we now know as dictionaries. In the 7 th century
AD, the scholar Amera Sinha put together a Sanskrit dictionary, the Amera Kosha. Over ten
centuries later it was still in use. It was translated into English by Colebrooke and published in
1808. It is known to have been a source that Roget drew on for ideas for his celebrated
Thesaurus. In later centuries came more dictionaries, the best known of which were the
Abhidhana Kintamani and the Desinamamala, dictionaries of Sanskrit and Prakrit respectively,
compiled by Hamacandra. These date from the 12th century. By this time Indian scholarship in
grammar and phonology had made significant advances and dictionary-making was part of the
systematic description of language.
   In China the earliest record of lexicological work is a thesaurus, the Er Ya ‘Treasury of
Fine Words’. Compiled in the 3rd century BC, it is a list of approximately 3,500 words that were
found in ancient texts. The words were arranged under 19 headings: the first three sections
contained words of a general nature – nouns, verbs and figurative expressions; the remaining 16
were grouped thematically under the headings Kin, Buildings, Implements, Music, Sky (i.e.
calendar and climate), Land, Hills, Mountains, Water, Plants, Trees, Insects and Reptiles, Fishes,
Birds, Wild Animals and Domestic Animals. Each word was glossed, defined or otherwise
explained. The study of vocabulary in China developed in three major directions: (1) recording
dialect words, as in the Fang Yan, by Yang Xiong (1st century AD); (2) tracing the origins of
written characters, as in Shuo Wen Jie Zi, by Xu Shen, in the 1st century AD; and (3) describing
the sounds and words and classifying them according to rhyme, notably in the Qie Yun (AD 600)
and Tang Yun (AD 750). By the time of Ming and Qing dynasties, large-scale dictionaries and
encyclopedias were being compiled. Especially stand out the Yongle Encyclopedia (1403-1409)
in 10,000 volumes, few of which, however, have survived; and the Kangxi Dictionary (1716),
which contained some 50,000 characters together with pronunciation and definition.
    As opposed to China, where little attention was paid to grammar (Chinese words are
invariant, so the question of why words change in form simply did not arise), both Arabic and
Hebrew traditions are rich in grammatical scholarship. The earliest Arab grammarian, al-Khalil
ibn Ahmed is known to have begun work on an Arabic dictionary, applying a phonological
principle to arranging words. But it was Persians who played the leading role in lexicography in
the Islamic world. They put together two dictionaries, one of Farsi-dari (Persian literary
language) in the 9th-10th centuries and the other of Farsi, Lughat-e Fars, in the 11th century. The
former has not survived, but the latter is extant. Persian scholars also had the lead in bilingual
dictionaries. They are known to have produced Persian-Arabic (11 th century) and Persian-
Turkish (from the 15th century onwards) dictionaries.
   Topically arranged wordlists were also produced by Egyptians; they are known to have put
together thesaurus-like lists of words from as early as 1750 BC. None of them has survived,
however. Like in India, Greek lexicographers put together glossaries of less-known,
sophisticated and archaic vocabulary found in ancient texts – Homeric texts. Apollonius, an
Alexandrian grammarian of the 1st century BC, compiled a Homeric lexicon, but both this and
the later glossaries by Hesychius are now lost. The most prominent lexicographical work of the
Byzantine period was the Suda, a tenth-century etymological and explanatory dictionary of
around 30,000 entries from literary works in Ancient, Hellenistic and Byzantine Greek and
Latin. It is noteworthy that lexicographical research of that time accompanied the spread of
education and the promotion of emerging literary languages. Starting from 1450 bilingual
dictionaries were being produced for use in schools, initially for learning Latin (Latin-German,
Latin-English, etc.), but soon afterwards also for the newly-emerged languages of Europe. But as
the fledgling national languages of Europe were taking hold, some countries felt that some sort
of regulation was needed to keep the grammar and lexicon of their languages intact and immune
to foreign influences and modernization. Many European countries believed that the best way to
look after a language was to place it in the care of an academy.  As a result, national academies
sprang up all around Europe with the sole purpose of establishing norms for the definition and
usage of words. The first such body, the Accademia della Crusca, was set up in Italy in 1582
with the object of purifying the Italian language. Precisely to this end, it produced Vocabulario
degli Academici della Crusca in 1612. Before long, France followed suit with its Académie
française, which set the pattern for many subsequent bodies. The French academy, in its turn, put
out the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française in 1694 (the lexicographer Furetiére was expelled
from the Academy because he published his own dictionary, the Universal Dictionary
Containing All French Words, in 1690 before the official one had appeared). Several other
academies were founded in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Spanish Academy was founded in
1713 by Philip IV, and within 200 years corresponding bodies had been set up in most South
American Spanish countries. The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786; the Hungarian in
1830. There are three Arabic Academies, in Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. The Hebrew Language
Academy was set up more recently, in 1953. The dictionary of the Spanish Academy was
produced in 1726-39, and that of the Russian Academy in 1789-17994. By the 19 th century the
great publishing houses were bringing out extended series of lexicological works: notably in
France (Littré, Dictionnaire de la Langue française, in 1863-78; and Larousse, Grand
Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe siécle, an encyclopedic dictionary in 15 volumes, 1865-76) and
in Germany (Meyer’s Great Encyclopedic Lexicon in 46 plus 6 supplementary volumes, 1840-
55). Each of these major works was followed by a large number of ‘spin-off’ publications of
various kinds [Halliday, Yallop 2007 : 19].

7.2. Origins of Lexicological Research in the West.

  It will probably be safe to say that lexicology – just as linguistics in general – owes the most
to western linguistic tradition. It is a long and continuing tradition deeply rooted in philosophy,
logic and, more recently, psychology. While Western scholars are by no means the only ones
modern linguistics draws on, they have been the most influential by shaping the way present-day
linguists talk about linguistic signs, meaning, and discourse in general. In this short overview, it
is impossible to do justice to all of the Western scholars who contributed to making linguistics
what it is today. In view of the objective limitations of the present book, we will confine
ourselves to a brief description of views developed by those scholars that helped lay the
foundation of modern linguistics in general, and lexicology in particular.
  Among such early influences, Wilhelm von Humboldt is often cited as the precursor of
modern linguistic anthropology, sociology of language, linguistic pragmatics and philosophy of
language. In his essay concerned with questions relating to the philosophy of speech titled The
Heterogeneity of Language and its Influence on the Intellectual Development of Mankind (1836),
he "... first clearly laid down that the character and structure of a language expresses the inner
life and knowledge of its speakers, and that languages must differ from one another in the same
way and to the same degree as those who use them. Sounds do not become words until a
meaning has been put into them, and this meaning embodies the thought of a community”
(Encyclopædia Britannica 1911). Von Humboldt was particularly important for the
development of semantics because he introduced a conceptual distinction between an outer and
inner linguistic form. The outer linguistic form, according to Humboldt, is the material phonetic
side of language; the inner form is the specific semantic structure, lexical or grammatical, that
lies behind the outer form and that differentiates one language from another. And it is precisely
because languages carry with them different inner patterns of meaning that they can embody the
specific view of a language community (Cruse 2010: 18). Humboldt is credited with being the
first European linguist to identify human language as a rule-governed system, rather than just a
collection of words paired with meanings. Many decades later, this idea became the cornerstone
of Noam Chomsky’s theory of language. Chomsky is known to quote Humboldt's description of
language as a system which "makes infinite use of finite means". What this means is that an
infinite number of sentences can be generated by employing a finite number of grammatical
rules. While there are significant differences between the two scholars’ views of language, it will
be true to say that Humboldt’s ideas had a role to play in the subsequent development of theories
to do with language generation. In addition, more recently, Humboldt has also been viewed as a
forerunner of the theory of linguistic relativity, which, almost a hundred years later, was
elaborated by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf and is now commonly known as the Sapir-
Whorf hypothesis.
The 19th century, which was a time of historical-philological orientation in linguistics, saw an
increased interest in the semantic evolution of words, a fascination with the correct description of
the historical development of words and meanings. Here is how Max Hecht summarized the
subject matter of historical-philological semantics: “Semantics is linguistically valuable to the
extent that it chronologically classifies meanings in the interest of lexicography, and writes down
the laws of semantic change in the interest of etymology…” (Hecht 1888: 5). Alongside these
concerns, linguists working within the historical-philological tradition engaged in a thorough
reflection on the nature of semantic facts. They, just like the cognitive linguists that came almost
a century later after them, treated meanings as psychological ‘representations’ and assigned
semantics to the field of psychology, an approach that was later discarded by structuralists. The
two major figures representing the mainstream of this tradition were Michel Bréal in France and
Hermann Paul in Germany. Bréal, often referred to as a founder of modern semantics, argued
that an adequate understanding of words in their contemporary meaning requires a thorough
knowledge of their semantic history. According to Bréal, words may change their meaning
because language users are trying to express something new and they adopt the language to their
needs. And as they do, they change it. Significantly, Bréal highlighted the psychological
orientation of the study of meaning, which was a novel approach to the interpretation of lexical
semantics. The psychological approach involved two major aspects: meanings were considered
psychological entities and, therefore, changes of meaning were the result of psychological
processes. The scholar was convinced that the general mechanisms of semantic change constitute
patterns of thought of the human mind (Geeraerts 2004: 12), a belief that was a precursor to the
modern experimentally established views of cognition. Breal’s contemporary, Hermann Paul, a
German linguist and lexicographer also focused on the psychological perspectives of language
use believing that it takes the mind of the language user to get language moving (Geeraerts 2004:
17-18). Among the most outstanding ideas in Paul’s legacy was the distinction between the
‘usual’ and the ‘occasional’ meaning of a word or expression. He treated the usual meaning as
the established meaning among speakers, one that is shared by the members of a language
community. The occasional meaning, on the other hand, involves semantic ‘departures’ that the
usual meaning undergoes in actual speech. While the usual meaning is like a semantic
description that we find in a dictionary and which is generally known to all the speakers of a
language, the occasional meaning is the concretization that such a general concept receives in the
context of a specific utterance. Another pillar of Paul’s understanding of semantics was his
approach to context. For him, context was key to understanding the shift from usual to
occasional meaning (Geeraerts 2004: 15). The third pillar of Paul’s views, according to
Geeraerts, consists of a dialectic relationship between language structure and use. A
manifestation of it may be the fact that occasional meanings that are used very often may
themselves become usual. So, on the one hand, usual meanings may lead to deriving occasional
ones, but on the other, the contextualized meanings may become conventionalized (Ibid.). Paul is
thus credited with developing a pragmatic theory of semantic change: the precondition of
semantic change is the modulation of usual meanings into occasional meanings.
  The founder of modern 'scientific' linguistics as we know it today, however, is now
universally believed to have been Ferdinand de Saussure. Most of the ideas he developed in his
lifetime are contained in his lecture notes, which were put together by two of his students and are
known today as Cours de Linguistique Générale or Course in General Linguistics. The views he
elaborated in the Course remain influential and generate debate to this day. He made a clear
distinction, for example, between describing the history of a language and describing how it is at
any particular point in time, a distinction between a diachronic perspective on language and a
synchronic perspective. If that distinction seems self-evident to us nowadays, that is partly
because Saussure firmly established it. Central to Saussure’s theory of language is his view of
the nature of the linguistic sign, which he describes as an inseparable combination of a signified
– a concept or meaning – and a signifier3, which is understood as the spoken or written form that
represents that meaning. This view contrasts with a long and continuing tradition in linguistics,
according to which you can separate form and meaning. Saussure argued that you can no more
separate the signifier from the signified than you can separate the front and back of a sheet of
paper (Halliday, Yallop 2007: 58). Another statement made in the Course that is important for
the study of words is that linguistic signs are arbitrary. Arbitrariness, according to Saussure, is
not just a matter of the lack of logical or objective connection – for the most part – between the
meaning of a word and its form, either spoken or written. Arbitrariness, as we noted briefly
earlier, is also evident when different languages are compared with regard to the same concepts.
In addition, Saussure was the first linguist to see a distinction between what he called langue and
parole. By defining langue and parole, Saussure differentiated between the language as a system,
made up of grammar, spelling and pronunciation, and how it is used in the actual utterances, i.e.
the concrete use of the language. This differentiation has relevance for the study of words as
their meanings may differ in langue and parole. The language as a system would fail to explain
how we are able to produce and make sense of utterances that are possible – in fact, quite
common – in real contexts of use. The following Ukrainian sentence, for example, is a case in
point: Юлія (Тимошенко) – єдиний реальний чоловік у нашій політиці. Ukrainians
knowledgeable in domestic politics will easily recognize the problem posed by this (real!)
example. People who have little knowledge of Ukrainian politicians will have difficulty
understanding why a woman (the name Юлія clearly points to that) is referred to as a man. The
semantic component female identified by a woman’s name clashes with the word чоловік, which
is meant to describe her. What this example shows, however, is that assigning meaning to words
in parole may be a much more subjective process than the traditional view of language – langue
– suggests. In actual fact, creative examples like this are in no way exceptional but actually
extremely common in our everyday use of language. Based on important research from the
1970s, which we briefly outlined above (Rosch 1973, 1978; Labov 1973), scholars argue that
category boundaries (man / woman) may shift depending on situational context, which belongs
to the sphere of parole. So in the context of our example about Yulia Tymoshenko, the category
of men has somewhat shifted its boundaries, so that it may include women, if they engage in
politics in ways typically more associated with men, display the male cut-and-thrust style of
behavior and show assertiveness and even aggressiveness in conducting business. It has to be
noted, however, that although Saussure is credited with making a distinction between langue and
parole, as a structuralist he was more interested in the langue rather than individual instances of
language use. Overall, it is easy to see why the ideas outlined above have permeated the study of
words until this day. And even though the Saussurean approach may not be universally
approved, it has shown its strength in its continuing appeal to substantial numbers of linguists
and social scientists.
A scholar who did not align himself with any of the linguistic schools of that time was Emile
Benveniste, a one-time student of Saussure. His approach to language was a fusion of
structuralist ideas and comparative-historical linguistics. In his works, and particularly in his
monumental Problems in General Linguistics, Benveniste touched upon a wide range of
linguistic issues from subjectivity in language to semantics of personal pronouns and typology of
relative clauses. He made a significant contribution to Indo-European morphology by providing
a detailed description of the rules of nominal word-formation in Indo-European languages.
Besides, Benveniste refuted behaviourist interpretations of language, which were prevalent at
that time, by demonstrating that human speech, unlike non-human communication – the so-
called languages of bees and other animals – cannot be merely reduced to a stimulus-response
system. A central concept in Benveniste's work was the distinction between the énonciation (the
act of producing an oral or written utterance) and the énoncé (the utterance itself, oral or written)
(Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory 1993: 540). This distinction arose from his
study on pronouns. The énoncé is the statement independent of context, whereas the énonciation
is the act of stating as tied to context. In essence, this distinction moved Benveniste to see
language itself as a "discursive instance" – fundamentally as discourse. It may be safe to say that
Benveniste’s work was a precursor of discourse studies, as his research on the actual utilization
of language, communicative grammar and deictics prepared sufficient ground for it.
Leonard Bloomfield, who worked concurrently with Saussure on the other side of the Atlantic,
was an American linguist also operating within a structuralist framework. Bloomfield’s
influential book Language, which came out in 1933, presented a comprehensive description of
American structural linguistics. As a proponent of Neogrammarian tradition, especially early in
his career, Bloomfield emphasized the importance of the central Neogrammarian hypothesis of
the regularity of sound change (a diachronic sound change affects simultaneously all words in
which its environment is met, without exception). He was noted for putting a special emphasis
on formal procedures for the analysis of linguistic data. Bloomfield greatly contributed to the
development of comparative-historical linguistics. In Language, the American linguist made a
coherent argument in favor of steps essential to success in comparative work: (a) gathering
appropriate data in the form of texts which must be studied and analyzed; (b) application of the
comparative method; (c) reconstruction of proto-forms, i.e. finding linguistic forms which the
analyzed data originated from. Drawing on his extensive experience in Sanskrit studies,
Bloomfield made a significant contribution to the elaboration of such key linguistic concepts as
linguistic form, free form and others. Similarly, Sanscrit sources gave rise to Bloomfield's use of
the terms exocentric and endocentric used to describe compound words, which are still relevant
today. Even more influential, however, were his definitions of the basic units of language. He
interpreted a phoneme as ‘a minimum same of vocal feature’ (that is, as a physical piece of
speech rather than as an abstract construct of the linguist). A morpheme was defined as the basic
unit of grammatical arrangement, a ‘minimal form which bears no partial phonetic-semantic
resemblance to any other form’ (Booij, Lehmann 2000: 218). The word was ‘a minimum free form’,
the smallest unit that can occur in isolation, and might consist of one morpheme (man, but), or
more than one (manly, therefore). The influence of Sanskrit texts is also present in Bloomfield's
approach to determining parts of speech (Bloomfield used the term ‘form-classes’). In addition,
Bloomfield’s other significant contribution to lexicology was his examination of linguistic
change. His classification of the types of semantic change is, at its core, relevant to this day.
We would not do full justice to linguistic thought in the West if we failed to mention the
contribution made by what is now generally referred to as the Prague school, school of linguistic
thought and analysis established in Prague in the 1920s by Vilem Mathesius, a Czech linguist
and scholar. The Prague linguistic circle (PLC) as it was called included among its most
prominent members Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Roman Jakobson, Sergei Kartsevsky (all three Russian
émigrés), René Wellek, Jan Mukařovský and many others. Central to their fundamental
perspective was a view of language as a synchronic and dynamic system. The fundamental
theoretical platform of the PLC can be described as a combination of functionalism (every
component of a language at every level – phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, sentences – are
meant to fulfill a particular function) and structuralism (linguistic expressions essentially derive
their meaning from their relation to other expressions, i.e. from their position in a whole field or
network of expressions and structures available to users of the language (Wunderlich 1979: 230).
They regarded language as a system of subsystems, each of which has its own problems but
these are never isolated since they are part of a larger whole. As such, a language is never in a
state of equilibrium, but rather has many deviations. It is these deviations that allow the language
to develop and function as a living system (Ibid.). Although linguists of the Prague school
contributed to several areas of linguistic thought, we will briefly outline only ones which had the
most far-reaching implications for lexicological analysis. The PLC scholars primarily
distinguished themselves in the study of sound systems. Nikolai Trubetzkoy, in particular, led
pioneering research in the domain of phonology, particularly in analyses of the phonological
systems of individual languages, and in search for general and universal phonological laws. In
his seminal work, Principles of Phonology, he famously defined the phoneme as the smallest
distinctive unit within the structure of a given language. This work was crucial in establishing
phonology as a discipline in its own right, and, most importantly, separate from phonetics. The
PLC developed distinctive feature analysis, whereby each sound is seen as a phonological entity
made up of contrasting articulatory and acoustic characteristics, with sounds perceived as
different due to at least one contrasting feature that they possess. Even though the work of the
PLC linguists was initially inspired by Saussure, the approaches they proposed constituted a
radical departure from the classical structural position initiated by the eminent Swiss linguist.
They suggested that their methods of studying the function of speech sounds could be applied
both synchronically, to a language as it exists, and diachronically, to a language as it changes.
Within their framework, synchronic and diachronic approaches were seen as closely
interconnected and influencing each other. Besides, the functionality of elements of language
and the importance of its social function were key aspects of their linguistic perspective. Prague
school has had significant continuing influence on many fields of semantics, phonology and
semiotics.

A linguist who joined the field decades after de Saussure and had a profound effect on many
subfields of linguistics is John Rupert Firth. Apart from doing a lot of work in phonology, a field
in which he was descriptively and theoretically innovative, Firth wrote about meaning and about
language in general. For Firth, meaning is function in context, and consistently with this broad
claim, not only words but even sounds of language have meaning. Firth seemed to equate
meaning with use (a word, for example, is meaningful because it serves some purpose in genuine
contexts) or with context itself (a word’s meaning is the range of contexts in which it occurs).
And if for some, this extension of the notion of meaning was seen as going a little too far, what
is significant here is Firth’s attention to what could be observed and his rejection of the kind of
linguistic description which deals with invented examples considered outside any real context
(Halliday 2007: 61). The influence of Firth’s views on the study of words is evident in much of
present-day linguistics: he was a major influence on M.A.K. Halliday, and hence on the
development of modern functional linguistics, and on John Sinclair and the development of
corpus linguistics. The development of corpora, the large electronically accessible collections of
textual material, has made Firth’s seemingly odd statements about meaning as use and meaning
as context far more credible. Now that it is possible to keep track of countless instances of word
use in their real settings, it is apparent how informative a record of use in context can be – and
how wrong our intuitions sometimes are (Ibid.).
A considerable contribution to the study of word meaning was made by John L. Austin.
According to George Lakoff, Austin’s views on the relationships among meanings of words are
both a crystallization of earlier ideas in lexicography and historical semantics and a precursor of
the contemporary view of polysemy. In his celebrated paper The Meaning of a Word (written in
1940 and published in 1961), Austin asked, “Why do we call different (kinds of) things by the
same name?” The traditional answer is that the kinds of things named are similar, where
“similar” means “partially identical”. This answer relies on the classical theory of categories. If
there are common properties, these properties form a classical category, and the name applies to
this category. Austin argued that this account is not accurate. His analysis attempted to explain
relations between the multiple senses of a word by distinguishing between central and non-
central senses of a polysemous word. The senses may not be similar, but instead they are related
to one another in other specifiable ways. It is such relationships among the senses that enable
those senses to be viewed as constituting a single category (Lakoff 1992: 18). Austin thus
prefigured much of contemporary cognitive semantics – especially the application of prototype
theory to the study of word meaning (Ibid.).
Working in an entirely different field was another scholar whose contribution to linguistics
cannot be overestimated – Noam Chomsky, an American linguist who is believed to be one of
the originators of ‘mentalist’ school. Chomsky explored a wide range of issues, but he is
primarily credited with a generative theory of language, according to which language, as a
strictly patterned structure, can be generated through a number of finite grammatical rules, which
amount to a series of basic, ‘stripped-down’ sentences. Since these sentences seldom, if ever,
appear in their ‘stripped-down’ form in actual speech, it means they will have undergone certain
transformations, hence also the name ‘transformational’ grammar. The program of cognitive
linguistics initiated by Chomsky and his colleagues in the 50s and 60s proposed a distinction
between ‘deep’ and ‘surface’ structure in language. At least in the early stages of this program,
deep structure was assumed to have a mental reality closely related to meaning: ‘It is the deep
structure underlying the actual utterance, a structure that is purely mental, that conveys the
semantic content of the sentence’ (Chomsky 1966: 35). Another view that was offered was that
this deep structure might be universal: ‘The deep structure that expresses the meaning is
common to all languages, so it is claimed, being a simple reflection of the forms of thought’
(Ibid.). Along the same lines, he argued that ‘mental processes are common to all normal humans
and that languages may therefore differ in the manner of expression but not in the thoughts
expressed’ (Chomsky 1966: 96). Chomsky’s Cartesian Linguistics offered a classic defense of
mentalism by reviving the concerns and perspectives of the rationalists of the 17 th and 18th
centuries, most notably philosopher Descartes.

It would be wrong not to mention the contribution made by Uriel Weinreich, an American
linguist who, apart from his other studies, i.e. sociolinguistic research, advocated the increased
acceptance of semantics. In his works Explorations in Semantic Theory and On semantics, which
were published posthumously, he argued for “creating a coherent body of semantic description”
(Weinreich 1972: 5). Weinreich formalized such notions as ‘designation’, ‘denotation’,
‘polysemy’, ‘idiomaticity’, and ‘taxonomy’ and attempted to link them to the main body of
formal linguistic description. Words as well as the world itself display the ‘orderly
heterogeneity’, according to Weinreich and his students William Labov and Herzog, which
characterizes language as a whole (Weinreich, Labov, Herzog 1968). By “orderly
heterogeneity”, they mean that there is a system to extensive variation in language. The view of
vocabulary from the perspective of variation has had profound implications for further research
into how words function and correlate with each other. Furthermore, Labov’s The word
boundaries and their meanings discusses methods of investigation of words and their meanings
and focuses primarily on the study of the variable conditions that govern denotation (Labov
1983: 30).

It would be a mistake not to mention the componential theory developed by linguistic

philosopher Jerrold Katz and his colleagues Jerry Fodor and Paul M. Postal. Their approach can
be considered a precursor to later interpretations of meaning, in that it was the first serious
attempt to integrate semantic and syntactic aspects of language within the generative approach to
linguistics (Murphy 2010: 49). Since the group brought the problems of syntactic and lexical
meaning closer together, theories of grammar, as a result, became much more lexically-driven.
The componential analysis revolves around the idea that the meaning of words can be analyzed
in terms of their basic semantic primitives (markers and distinguishers). At a time when
generative grammar, which dominated the linguistic scene at the time, did not concern itself with
lexical meaning, componential approach was a serious step forward in understanding different
aspects of words’ meaning.

Chomsky’s structuralist view of language was challenged by another noted linguist, Michael
Halliday, whose ideas have had an enduring influence on the linguistics of the 20 th century.
Halliday’s interest has been in what he calls "naturally occurring language in actual contexts of
use" in a number of languages (he is himself an expert on Chinese), whereas Chomsky was
concerned only with the formal properties of English. In his approach, he moved away from
structure to consideration of grammar as a system, as a meaning-making resource and
description of grammatical categories by reference to what they mean (Halliday, Matthiessen
2004: 10). Halliday is best known for his Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL), a theory that
takes into account the contextual dimensions of language and views linguistics as the study of
how people exchange meanings through the use of language (Halliday 1994). The approach
emphasizes the functions of language in use, particularly the ways in which social setting, mode
of expression, and register influence language choices: “Meaning is a product of the relationship
between the system and its environment” (McArthur [ed.] 1992: 460). This implies that language
must be studied in contexts such as professional settings, classrooms, etc., and emphasis should
be placed on particular aspects of a given context, i.e. the topics discussed, the language users
and the medium of communication. Halliday is credited with introducing the concept of
lexicogrammar, which combines syntax, lexicon, and morphology. Halliday believes that these
three components must be described as one as we seem to process and store larger chunks of
language. Besides, viewing lexicogrammar as one entity helps determine certain patterns of use,
like collocability, for example: some lexical/syntactic patterns are more likely to co-occur than
others depending on the context and type of text that they are used in.

A linguist most known for his work on semantics is John Lyons. His most extensive work on
lexical semantics was a two-volume book, Semantics, where Lyons engaged in a discussion of
sense, reference and denotation, structural semantics and semantic field theory, which he helped
to develop. Apart from Semantics, his other texts – Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics,
Chomsky, and Linguistic Semantics – are still widely read and very much relevant to the
current thinking on the issues he wrote about.

The semantic behavior of words has also been a focus of attention for D. Alan Cruse. In his
textbook, Lexical Semantics, Cruse establishes the descriptive facts about lexical relations that
any formal theory of semantics should be concerned with. Among the topics covered in depth are
idiomaticity, lexical ambiguity, synonymy, hierarchical relations such as hyponymy and
meronymy, and various types of oppositeness. 

But what had a particularly dramatic impact on the study of lexis and all lexis-related areas was a
cognitive approach to the study of language. Cognitive linguistics, as it came to be known, views
linguistic knowledge as part of general cognition and thinking; linguistic behavior is not
separated from other general cognitive abilities (reasoning, memory, attention or learning). This
new paradigm, which emerged in the 60s and 70s, can be seen as a reaction against the then
dominant generative paradigm, which pursued an autonomous view of language. Within this
framework, the knowledge and experience human beings have of the things that they know well,
is transferred to other objects with which they may not be so familiar. George Lakoff and Mark
Johnson were among the first to point out this conceptual potential, especially in the case of
metaphors. However, this does not only apply to the field of metaphor but also to other figurative
resources which are believed to deviate from the rules of grammar in more traditional generative
linguistics, such as metonymy (Ibarretxe-Antuñano : 7). An area that received particular impetus
from cognitive studies was the conception of the linguistic sign. According to the traditional
Saussurian view, the linguistic sign is arbitrary. While it is true that there is always a certain
arbitrariness in the association of words with what they mean, this arbitrariness, according to
cognitivists is limited. The choice of the sequence of sounds see in English (or ver in Spanish,
бачити in Ukrainian, ikusi in Basque etc.) to express the concept of vision is arbitrary.
However, what it is not arbitrary is the fact that these same sequences of sounds are also used to
express knowledge and understanding as in He saw there was no other option left for him but
agree; Я бачу в мене не залишається жодних шансів, etc. As Eve Sweetser points out, we
intuitively notice that there must be a reason why we can use the same verb see in these two
‘apparently’ unrelated meanings – perception (seeing) and cognition, i.e. understanding
(Sweetser 1990: 5). We sense that this choice is not random, but well-motivated, so it is not at all
accidental that see in the meaning of perception has yielded the meaning of cognition
independently in all of the above languages and probably many others. This fact clearly argues
for the arbitrariness (motivatedness) of the linguistic sign, i.e. the word.
Apart from this, cognitive semantics has made many other specific contributions to the study of
word meaning, most notably the prototype model of category structure, the conceptual theory of
metaphor and metonymy, the theory of frames and Idealized Cognitive Models, mental spaces,
conceptual integration theory and others (for prototypes see above). According to Dick
Geeraerts, cognitive semantics is arguably the most popular framework for the study of lexical
meaning in contemporary linguistics (Geeraerts 2010: 183).

Some other linguists that have made and continue to make a significant contribution to the study
of the word, its meaning, use and functions are David Crystal, Geoffrey Leech, Douglas Biber,
Tom McArthur, Howard Jackson, James Pustejovsky, Zoltán Kövecses,William Croft, M.
Lynne Murphy and many others. It is hardly possible, in view of the obvious limitations of this
chapter, to give a detailed account of research that has ultimately contributed to the study of
words, so clearly this account will be unavoidably limited and biased toward some scholars and
their views at the expense of others. Some will even fall by the wayside, as a result. We are
aware of this inadvertent bias and tend to see it as an unavoidable drawback in a textbook like
this.

7.3. Lexicological Studies in Russia and the Soviet Union

   Russian and subsequently Soviet linguistics made a significant contribution to world
linguistics in general and to lexicology and lexicography in particular. Russian traditions are
especially rich in historical study of languages, i.e. comparative linguistics, grammatical
scholarship and lexicographical research. Much of the work carried out by early Russian
linguists contributed to the data underlying subsequent lexicological studies.  The most noted of
Russian scholars were F.F.Fortunatov, whose major contribution to linguistics was in the general
theory of morphology, A.K.Vostokov, whose innovative studies of comparative Slavonic
grammars proved fairly influential, F.I.Buslayev, a champion of comparative linguistics and the
author of the still relevant classification of secondary members of the sentence. Among other
linguists that impacted Russian lexicological research were W.Porzeziński (historical
morphology of Baltic and Slavic languages), A.M.Peshkovsky, who focused on semantic aspects
of syntactic constructions, A.A.Shakhmatov, a pioneer of textological research, Ushakov et al.
At a later point, a major contribution to Russian linguistics was made by Baudouin de Courtenay,
a Polish linguist, who spent most of his life working at Russian universities. Among the most
notable of his achievements is the theory of the phoneme and phonetic alternations. Owing to his
work in this field, he became a major influence on 20 th century linguistic theory as his findings
subsequently laid the foundation for several schools of phonology. Among some of his other
contributions that had a bearing on lexicology is a distinction between language as an abstract
group of elements and speech, i.e. how language plays out in the actual speech of individuals.
This distinction, which had profound implications for future linguistic research and for
Saussure’s ideas in particular, had significance for the study of words in context as the focus of
word study shifted to differences between paradigmatic and syntagmatic use of lexical units. As
a lexicographer, Baudouin de Courtenay is credited with revising Vladimir Dal’s Explanatory
Dictionary of the Live Great Russian Language in its third and fourth editions, which was a
marked improvement on Dal’s not wholly satisfactory alphabet-nest system.
  Lev Shcherba, one of Baudouin de Courtenay’s pupils, helped him shape the modern
interpretation of the phoneme, which he defined as the grouping of sounds into "sound types".
Beyond phonology, Shcherba made significant contributions to the wider fields of linguistics and
lexicography. He gave a lot of thought to the concept of the word, believing that as a term it is
indefinite in the extreme. His very important contribution to the field was a study of meaning,
where he argued that all language comes down to the question of meaning. In his view, if sense
and meaning are removed, all language is gone. In contrast to Ferdinand de Saussure, he
recognized three, rather than two, objects of study in linguistics: speech activity, language
systems, and language material. He placed emphasis on the capacity of the speaker to produce
sentences never previously heard, an issue that was to become important for the linguistics of the
later twentieth century and in many ways predated Noam Chomsky’s generative grammar. He
also emphasized the importance of experiments in linguistics, particularly those with negative
results, developing methods which provided profitable ways of exploring language phenomena
in field studies. He was a teacher of the lexicographer Sergei Ozhegov, the author of the most
widely used Russian dictionary.

  A significant contribution to linguistics in general, which was important for lexicology as
well, was made by V.N.Voloshinov and M.M.Bakhtin. In contrast to many linguists before them,
Voloshinov/Bakhtin10 took linguistics beyond the word and sentence level, arguing for an
approach to language as a socially constructed sign system. For them, language was the medium
of ideology, and could not be separated from it. Ideology, however, is not to be understood in the
classical Marxist sense as an illusory mental phenomenon which arises as a reflex of a "real"
material economic substructure. Language, in their interpretation, is what allows consciousness
to arise, and is in itself a material reality. Because of this belief that language and human
consciousness are closely related, they held that the study of verbal interaction was key to
understanding social psychology.
 In contrast to de Saussure, they argued that it was a mistake to attempt to study language
abstractly and synchronically. Words, in their interpretation, are dynamic social signs, which

10
Since it has not yet been conclusively proved that Bakhtin and Voloshinov are two different scholars and many
believe that the name Voloshinov was used by Bakhtin as a pseudonym, it may make sense to refer to both of them
together when Voloshinov’s views are discussed
take different meanings for different social classes in different historical contexts. The meaning
of words is not subject to passive understanding, but includes the active participation of both the
speaker (or writer) and hearer (or reader). While every word is a sign taken from an inventory of
available signs, the manipulation of the word contained in each utterance is regulated by social
relations. Bakhtin used to say that people do not have long memories but words do, meaning
that the current semantics and structure of words reflects the long ‘journey’ in time that these
words have made.
As a linguist with a Marxist background, Mikhail Bakhtin criticized the splitting of langue
and parole as separating individuals and society where it matters most, at the point of production.
He developed a 'dialogic' theory of utterances where language is understood in terms of how it
orients the speaker/writer to the listener/reader. Words are subject to negotiation, contest and
struggle, since language is strongly affected by social context. Modification of langue at the
point of parole is used to create new meaning, either where the speaker has limited grasp of
language or where deliberate distortion is used.
  Another celebrated Russian linguist who made a significant contribution to the field was
Roman Jakobson, who for the better part of his life lived and worked abroad, first in Europe,
then in the USA. At the time when Jakobson arrived on the linguistic scene, the latter was
overwhelmingly neogrammarian and the only scientific approach to language was by studying
the history and development of words across time, i.e. through the diachronic approach.
Jakobson, following de Saussure’s work and his strong emphasis on the synchronic study of
language, did a lot to popularize the study of a state of language at any given time. That marked
a gradual shift from historical linguistics, which was the modus operandi of 19 th century
linguists. Jakobson developed an approach focused on the way in which language's structure
served its basic function and that was to communicate information between speakers. Besides, he
later went on to develop three ideas in linguistics that seem to play a major role in the field to
this day. Those are the concepts of linguistic typology, markedness, and linguistic universals,
ideas that are tightly intertwined: typology is the classification of languages in terms of shared
grammatical features (as opposed to shared origin), markedness is a study of how certain forms
of grammatical organization are more "natural" than others, and the concept of linguistic
universals is concerned with the study of linguistic characteristics that are intrinsic to all
languages. The influence of Jakobson’s views is evident in much of present-day linguistics as
most of his ideas have been taken up and further developed and his interpretation of language
phenomena is still very much relevant today. 
   In the former Soviet Union, the study of vocabulary, became an even more important
element of linguistics.
   Soviet books and articles on lexicology were abundant and readily available, although there
sometimes was criticism from Western linguists that they were not scholarly enough (Weinreich
1980: xi). But even if these criticisms were often justified, the fact remains that in Soviet
linguistics, lexicology was accorded special attention. And while the exclusive focus on
vocabulary, according to Uriel Weinreich, was unusual for Western linguistics, the Soviet
lexicological material (ideological indoctrination aside) offered a “goldmine” of information for
researching "systematic properties" which could be put to use in teaching lexis. Here is an
excerpt from Weinreich’s article Lexicology that came out in Current Trends in Linguistics (ed.
by Th.Sebeok). The article offered valuable insights into the state and contribution of the 1950s-
1960s Soviet lexicology to the field at large:
   To an American observer, the strangest thing about Soviet lexicology is that it
exists.  No corresponding discipline is officially distinguished in Western European or
American linguistics; in such American textbooks as H.A.Gleason, Jr.’ Introduction to
Descriptive Linguistics (New York, 1955) or C.F.Hockett’s Course in Modern Linguistics
(New York, 1958) there is  no mention of lexicology, and what these books have to say
about the study of vocabulary bears the marks of half-hearted improvisation. By contrast,
Soviet textbooks assign to lexicology a prominence comparable to that enjoyed by
 phonology and grammar. A sizeable literature of articles, dissertations, book-length
monographs, specialized collections, and a lively stream of conferences on various
lexicological subjects, reflect the relative importance of lexicology in the economy of
Soviet scholarship.
(Weinreich 1980a: 315) 
   This comment by Uriel Weinreich, dating from 1963, is a telling confirmation of the role
lexicology played within Soviet linguistics and the contribution it made to the overall study of
language. In the opinion of many, therefore, it was unfortunate that Western scholars had limited
access – if any at all – to research data provided by Soviet lexicologists. The situation in the
West was exacerbated by the fact that the communicative method in the area of teaching
languages was enjoying widespread popularity, which, regrettably, left the teaching of specific
linguistic information, including vocabulary, increasingly on the sidelines. A notable neglect of
lexicological issues by Western scholars continued into the 1980s and 1990s. 
   What another Western scholar, the well-known British lexicographer A.Cahill, had to say
more recently on the subject seems to bear out Weinreich’s earlier view: 
   In a recent study, Carter et al. (1988) have argued that over the last thirty years,
vocabulary and vocabulary teaching have been unduly neglected by linguistics, applied
linguists and language teachers alike. This may well be true of Western Europe and the
United States where, as they argue, the dominance of syntactic models of language has,
until recently, relegated the study of vocabulary to the periphery of linguistic
scholarship. This criticism is, however, demonstrably not applicable to the study of
language in the Soviet Union, where lexicography in general, and pedagogical
lexicography in particular, has never ceased to be a major subject of interest to Soviet
linguists and language teachers. 
   (Cahill 1989: 18)
   As is evident, it is now generally recognized that lexicology took shape in the Soviet Union
as a linguistic discipline in its own right. It was Soviet scholars that brought into prominence and
developed certain aspects in the study of words and the lexicon of a language. Most notably, the
idea of the unity of form and content in the general theory of words as well as the theory of
polysemy and the inner form of the word were discussed by M.Pokrovsky. E.Polivanov,
V.Zhirmunskiy and V.Vinogradov introduced a sociolinguistic approach to the study of words. A
number of scholars, most notably L.Scherba, A.Smirnitsky, O.Akhmanova, Yu.Rozhdestvenskiy
sought to define word versus concept. Typology of word meanings was in the focus of
Vinogradov’s and A.Smirnitsky’s scholarly pursuits. Soviet lexicologists wrote a substantial
amount about idioms – pharaseological units – as multiword lexemes whose semantic import is
different from combined meanings of lexical items that make them up. Research carried out by
Vinogradov, Kunin, A.Smirnitsky and others was a major step forward in the treatment of
idioms, devising typologies of phraseological units and even putting together comprehensive
(bilingual) dictionaries of idiomatic expressions (Kunin).
In today’s Russia, the range of linguistic research that has a direct impact on lexicological
studies is extremely wide, given the arrival on the linguistic scene of new and profitable
approaches and methodologies (cognitive studies, pragmatics, dialect studies and
sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and others). As a result, there probably are more linguists
working in fields that indirectly affect lexicological research than ones that explore traditionally
lexicological areas (word-formation processes, derivation studies, polysemy, homonymy and
others). Some of the studies that have put Russian linguistics at the forefront of world linguistics
are those that deal with word semantics (A.Ufimtseva, I.Arnold, M.Nikitin, Ye. Kubriakova, I.
Sternin, Yu. Apresian), word-formation (Vinokur, Ye. Zemskaya, Ye. Kubriakova, problems of
phraseology and idiom analysis (V.Vinogradov, O.Akhmanova, Smirnitsky, V.Teliya, Kunin,
R.Frumkina, N.Amosova, B.Larin), theory of nomination (O.Akhmanova, A.Smirnitsky,
Yu.Karaulov, Ye.Kubriakova, D.Shmeliov), meaning relations (D.Shmelov, Yu.Apresian,
Ye.Ginsburg, L.Novikov, S.Berezhan), non-standard vocabulary (M.Makovskyi, V.Khomiakov,
A.Shveitser), types of meaning (N. Arutiunova, Ye. Paducheva), problems of lexicography
(L.Stupin, I.Galperin, Yu.Apresian, Yu.Karaulov)

7.4. Contribution of Ukrainian linguists to lexicological studies

 
Lexicography in Ukraine

Dictionary making emerged in Ukraine as early as the 13th century with small reference lists
explaining obscure and hard-to-understand terms used in religious texts. The second half of the
14th century saw the emergence of another type of dictionaries – bilingual (translation)
dictionaries, in which Church Slavonic words were rendered into a common language. One such
work of lexical reference was Лексисъ с толкованіємъ словенских словъ просто (Glossary of
Slavonic words popularly explained) that was not published until three centuries after it was
written. It is considered to have been the oldest Ukrainian dictionary. Among the later
dictionaries that held sway not only in their time but even later and had a profound effect on
subsequent lexicography were a dictionary compiled by Lavrentiy Zyzaniy, a scholar, theologian
and translator, and one put together by Pamvo Berynda. Zyzaniy’s dictionary (1596) was the first
Ukrainian dictionary to come out in print. The dictionary – its word list amounted to 1061 entries
– was intended to be used as a reference in school teaching. Zyzaniy was the first in Ukrainian
and East-Slavonic lexicography to develop and employ most of the major methods applied in
present-day lexicography. The principles that the dictionary used were later borrowed by Pamvo
Berynda for his Лексикон (Lexicon), as well as by some Russian dictionary makers. Berynda’s
dictionary, which saw the light of day 30 years after its predecessor, Zyzaniy’s dictionary, was
arguably the most significant accomplishment in Old Ukrainian lexicography: it contained over
seven thousand entries for common and proper names – Church Slavonic terms – with
definitions and explanations in the Ukrainian language of the early 17th century. The dictionary
utilized all possible lexicographic methods available at the time, ranging from the arrangement
of entries, through illustrative examples to notes on orthography, etymology and idiomatic use.
Berynda’s Lexicon offers insights into the late 17 th century realia and is a fairly faithful record of
the language people used at the time. In addition, the dictionary is known to have had a role to
play in facilitating not only Ukrainian lexicography, but also Polish, Russian, Belorussian and
Romanian. Berynda’s Lexicon became the foundation of another work of lexical reference,
Синоніма славеноросская, a manuscript dictionary of the 17th century whose compiler is
unknown. It was the first serous attempt at a bilingual dictionary listing words of Old Ukrainian.
The author clearly intended to revise and improve on Berynda’s dictionary.
However, the first work of lexical reference that registered the evolving modern Ukrainian
literary language (18th century) was a supplement to the first edition of Ivan Kotliarevsky’s
mock-poem Aeneid («Енеїда», 1798). The poem was a travesty of Virgil's Aeneid, written in the
tradition of several existing parodies of Virgil's epic. The author’s skillful use of ethnographic
detail and the fact that it was an original work of considerable artistic merit ensured that it was
an immediate success and gained great popularity among Kotliarevsky’s contemporaries. But
above all, it was Kotliarevsky’s innovative use of racy and colorful colloquial Ukrainian that not
only spawned several imitations, but, in fact, began the process by which the Ukrainian
vernacular acquired the status of a literary language, thereby supplanting the use of older,
bookish linguistic forms (Encyclopedia of Ukraine). The popularity of the poem and its
extensive use of vernacular Ukrainian forms, which were not always comprehensible to the
public, led to a compilation of a glossary which contained around a thousand Ukrainian words
interpreted in Russian. The glossary gave rise to a plethora of similar works that came out in the
first half of the 19th century, which were designed to interpret unfamiliar words in Ukrainian
folklore and literary works by Ukrainian authors.
Although the lexicographic works above played a considerable standardizing role, there was an
acute need for a fuller and more comprehensive dictionary of the Ukrainian language. Exactly
for this reason, Mykhaylo Maksymovych, an ethnographer and philologist, called on
lexicographers, linguists or simply ardent students of the Ukrainian language to compile such a
dictionary. Very possibly in response to this appeal, Pavlo Biletsky-Nosenko, a fabulist,
ethnographer, educator, and lexicographer, compiled a dictionary entitled A Dictionary of the
Little Russian or Southeast Russian Language («Словар малороссийского или юго-
восточнорусского языка»), which, regrettably, was lost in manuscript form. It was, however,
compiled anew in 1838–43. Based primarily on Poltava dialects, it also included words
excerpted from literature, some from the Middle Ukrainian period. A work of 380 pages, it was
the largest Ukrainian dictionary in the first half of the 19 th century. Yet, it was not until 1966 that
the dictionary came out in print. In view of its unfortunate history, this solid lexicographical
work exerted no influence on the development of Ukrainian lexicography.  
The 19th century saw the arrival of a few influential works in ethnography and dialect studies. It
was a time when glossaries and dictionaries containing Ukrainian dialectal and vernacular lexis
and various kinds of ethnographic materials were springing up around the country. One such
work was a dictionary compiled by Oleksander Afanasiev-Chuzhbynskyi, a romantic poet,
ethnographer, and belletrist. In the 1850s, Afanasiev-Chuzhbynsky visited Ukraine with an
ethnographic expedition and subsequently, apart from a book in which he described his journey
and a number of academic articles on Ukrainian ethnography, he compiled a dictionary of the
Ukrainian language («Словарь малорусскаго нарЂчія»). The dictionary was unfinished and
published only in part (1855). Despite this fact, Afanasiev-Chuzhbynsky, unlike his
predecessors, managed to collect and register a far greater number of Ukrainian words.
The next substantial lexicographical project was one carried out by Mykhaylo Komarov, who
published it under the pseudonym M.Umanets and A.Spilka. This was a four-volume Russian-
Ukrainian dictionary («Словарь російсько-український») that came out in 1893-1898 in Lviv.
Apart from the scrupulous and self-sacrificing work done by Komarov himself, the dictionary
was a result of the concerted effort on the part of Kyiv, Odessa and Uman intelligentsia, who
invested a great deal of time, energy and ideas to make it happen. The dictionary was the biggest
of its kind: it contained as many as thirty-seven thousand entries. The Ukrainian material was
excerpted from authentic popular speech, as well as from some works of literature and
periodicals. A serious drawback of the dictionary was that citations in it were sparse and taken
chiefly from ethnographic sources.
In the period between 1894 and 1898, another noted lexicographer was working on the
preparation of a Ukrainian-Russian dictionary. It was Yevhen Tymchenko, who was also a
linguist and a translator. The dictionary, which was prepared in a Russian orthography, was later
converted to the Ukrainian orthography, augmented, and published by Borys Hrinchenko in four
volumes (1907-1909). The history of Hrinchenko’s dictionary – which is now viewed as a
significant feat of Ukrainian lexicography – was such that Hrinchenko, like many in his time,
had a passion for ethnography, an interest that led him to collect material for a dictionary. He
incorporated a great deal of this material into the 68,000-word «Словар української мови»
(Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language). Hrinchenko’s dictionary contained also materials
collected by Panteleymon Kulish, the Kyiv intelligentsia, and the editorial board of Kievskaya
starina. The dictionary was based on ethnographic records and excerpts from literary works
published mostly between 1798 and 1870. Until recently it was considered to be the fullest
Ukrainian dictionary of its kind and one of the outstanding dictionaries in Slavic lexicology. The
dictionary, which was an important step in having the Ukrainian language recognized as official,
went down in the history of this country’s culture and language not only as a remarkable
collection of words of the turn-of-the-century Ukrainian, but also as a turning point in Ukrainian
orthography (it laid the foundations for contemporary orthography). The dictionary was prefaced
by Hrinchenko's valuable and insightful survey of Ukrainian dictionary-making.
A turning point in the development of Ukrainian lexicography was a proclamation of Ukraine’s
independence in 1918, when all prohibitions vis-à-vis the Ukrainian language were lifted. This
gave a fresh impetus to the development of Ukrainian technical terms and scientific
nomenclature, as well as led to major advances in lexicography and general language awareness.
This was a time when an interest in specialized vocabularies rose exponentially. The problem of
Ukrainian terms was addressed by the Ukrainian Scientific Society (Kyiv), Kamianets-Podilskyi
University, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and others. In the short period between 1918 and
1919, as many as twenty various dictionaries were produced. Moreover, in order to provide
coordination and guidance in the matter of terminology development, a new institution – the
Institute of Ukrainian Scientific Language – was put in place in 1921. Ukrainian lexicography
and terminology, as Anatol Vovk, a distinguished Ukrainian scholar working in the area of
terminology aptly noted, experienced “a golden decade” between 1921 and 1931, a success
which was, until then, unparalleled in the world’s lexicographical practice. It was then that the
main foundational principles of Ukrainian lexicography were laid down, among them being (1)
terms should be rooted in popular language, (2) if a term is unavailable in the native language, it
should be created on the basis of existing morphemes, (3) only if a newly-coined term is, for
whatever reason, inappropriate, should one be borrowed instead from another language, (4) the
designation must be clear, accurate and unambiguous, (5) further word forms should be easily
derivable from the term. Within the ten-year timeframe, around fifty various dictionaries were
published and drafts of dictionaries in humanities and sciences prepared. Linguists who played
an important role in the normalization of the Ukrainian scientific terminology were Olena Kurylo
(more on her see below), who worked specifically with terms in the fields of botany and
chemistry, P. Tutkovskyi (geological terms), I.Sheludko and T.Sadovskyi (technical terms),
Kh.Polonskyi (natural sciences), V.Favorskyi (physics) and others. All in all, 20 (out of
projected 34) Ukrainian-Russian dictionaries (sometimes also with German, French and Latin
equivalents) in the series “Supplementary materials to Ukrainian terms and nomenclature” were
published at that time. These spanned a wide range of disciplines in natural and social sciences.
However, the most significant of all Russian-Ukrainian dictionaries of that time was the
Academic Russian-Ukrainian dictionary, prepared and edited by a group of linguists and
lexicographers working for the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences: Vsevolod Hantsov (В.Ганцов),
Hryhoriy Holoskevych (Г.Голоскевич), and Maria Hrinchenko(va) (М. Грінченко(ва). The
editor-in-chief of volumes 1-2 (four issues) was Academician Ahatanhel Krymskyi
(А.Кримський) and of volumes 3-4 – Serhiy Yefremov (С.Єфремов). Three volumes of the
dictionary were published (up to letter P), but the final fourth one, which was ready to be
printed, was brought to an abrupt halt in 1932-1933, when there was a dramatic change in the
policies of the Soviet government meant to put an end to Ukrainization. The volume was
destroyed and the manuscript was never recovered. The lexicographers’ work was declared
subversive and they were charged with sabotage. Many of the linguists and dictionary-compilers
employed by the VUAN (Ukrainian Academy of Sciences) were arrested by the NKVD and
imprisoned; some disappeared or died under unestablished circumstances. Needless to say,
volumes 1-3 of the dictionary were banned and destroyed. Until this day, this lexicographic work
is considered unparalleled in its scope, most notably vis-à-vis the material gathered for it,
diversity of citations and the fact that the compilers introduced a wealth of varied idiomatic
equivalents, thus producing, in effect, a dictionary of synonyms and a dictionary of idioms rolled
into one (Шерех 1954: 10). Despite its age, complicated history, and incomplete status, this
volume is still as relevant as ever and many academics, students and language enthusiasts turn to
it as their reference of choice when it comes to Ukrainian word usage, idioms and even
synonymy.
Given the fact that what followed was decades of persecutions and reprisals against many
members of intelligentsia, very little by way of lexicography was published in the years leading
to and following WWII.
In the post-war years and until now, all dictionary-making has been entirely the purview of the
Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (now NANU), which
was named after Oleksandr Potebnia in 1945. Since the early 1950s the institute has prepared
and published a number of dictionaries, among them being a Ukrainian-Russian Dictionary in 6
volumes compiled under the direction of I.Kyrychenko (100,000 entries, 1953-1963) and its
abridged version under the direction of V.Ilyin (1964), a Russian-Ukrainian dictionary in three
volumes (S.Holovashchuk et al., 1968), explanatory Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language in 11
volumes (P.Horetskyi, A.Buriachok, 1970-1975) and a number of other projects.
As regards English-Ukrainian and Ukrainian-English dictionaries, the most significant ones in
the post-war period were an English-Ukrainian dictionary compiled by Mykhaylo Podvezko
(М.Подвезько) and K.Hryhorenko (К.Григоренко) in 1948, followed by a Ukrainian-English
dictionary («Українсько-англійський словник») compiled by one of the original two authors –
Mykhaylo Podvezko – which went through two editions (1952, 1957). The latter dictionary
contained over 60 thousand entries. Materials used for this dictionary were later used as a
foundation for another English-Ukrainian dictionary that was a result of collaboration between
Podvezko and Mykola Balla (М.Балла) (1974). The latter, building on the 1974 dictionary,
compiled a new two-volume dictionary, which came out in 1996. The dictionary was a solid
lexicographic work with as many as 120 thousand headwords. It was the most comprehensive of
English-Ukrainian dictionaries that had ever been published. In fact, this dictionary has gone
through multiple editions since its first publication (1998, 2001, 2006, 2007). The 1998 and 2001
editions were a result of collaboration between Balla and Yevhen Popov (Є.Попов). Each
subsequent edition has grown in scope and contained a larger number of entries (175,000 in
2007). Besides, mention should be made of Complete Ukrainian-English Dictionary by J. N.
Krett and C. H. Andrusyshen, which came out in Canada in 1955. The publication of this
comprehensive dictionary was considered an important event in Ukrainian-Canadian scholarship
at the time and, according to many, this lexicographic work, if not without a number of
drawbacks, in many respects remained unsurpassed for decades. The dictionary was later revised
and republished (1985). In addition, the last decade of the 20th century saw a publication of
another English-Ukrainian/Ukrainian-English Dictionary, one by V.Busel (В.Бусел) (1997,
2010).
Specialized dictionaries of English were compiled by K.T.Barantsev (К.Баранцев), a professor
of Kharkiv University: his Phraseological dictionary of English, Dictionary of Synonyms and
English-Ukrainian phrase-book («Англо-український фразеологічний словник») came out in
print in 1956, 1964 and 1969 respectively. At the time of its first publication, Barantsev’s
bilingual phraseological dictionary was, according to many, a great lexicographic
accomplishment, even though it was agreed that it suffered from somewhat indiscriminate entry
selection (Starko 2006: 1048). There have been more recent additions to bilingual phraseological
dictionaries, of which the two most notable are a semi-bilingual dictionary of idioms (Chambers
English-Ukrainian Dictionary of Idioms, 2002), which was compiled by way of adding
Ukrainian equivalents to the existing monolingual dictionary and an English-Ukrainian
handbook of proverbs and sayings by O.Yu. Dubenko (2004), in which a typical entry consists
only of the English expression and its Ukrainian equivalent(s), without any examples, labels or
other additional information. Two other dictionaries are focused on certain types of expressions:
word pairs, speech idioms and interjections: English-Ukrainian Dictionary of Word Pairs
(Medvedeva, Dajneko; 1994) and English-Ukrainian Dictionary: Speech ldioms, Interjections,
Onomatopoeia (L.Medvedeva, N. Holden; 2003) [Ibid.]. Despite all these efforts, the problem of
phraseology within English-Ukrainian lexicography remains acute and a comprehensive
bilingual English-Ukrainian, and especially Ukrainian-English phraseological dictionary, is long
overdue.
Some problems notwithstanding, Ukrainian lexicography has advanced steadily since the turn of
the 21st century, having grown by at least fifty titles, diverse in scope, focus and approach. This
activity was triggered by consumer interest, on the one hand, and, on the other, it came as a
result of purposeful and consistent efforts on the part of Ukrainian lexicographers to create a
solid national lexicographic foundation and to offer a diverge range of lexicographic products
geared both to the Ukrainian academic community and ordinary language users. Over the last
decade, a number of dictionaries have been published that vary in content, type of data
presentation (alphabetical, reverse, illustrated etc.), area of expertise (terminological), scope
(comprehensive, concise, pocket dictionaries), target audience and user sophistication (learner,
specialized, advanced dictionaries), the number of languages involved (bilingual, multilingual)
etc.
In the first decade of the present century, English-Ukrainian lexicography was boosted by the
addition of several new large-scale dictionaries: a comprehensive English-Ukrainian dictionary
(«Великий англо-український словник» ) compiled by M.V.Adamchyk (М.Адамчик)
(Donetsk, 2002), a comprehensive contemporary English-Ukrainian / Ukrainian-English
dictionary («Великий сучасний англо-український, українсько-англійський словник») put
together by A.P.Zahnitko (А.Загнітко) and I.G.Danyliuk (І.Данилюк) (Donetsk, 2002), an
English-Ukrainian learner’s dictionary with commentary on usage and grammar tables («Англо-
український навчальний словник з методичними коментарями та граматичними
таблицями»), which was compiled by a group of authors (V.I.Perebyinis, E.P.Rukina,
S.S.Khidekel; Kyiv, 2002) and, finally, a comprehensive English-Ukrainian dictionary
(«Великий англо-український словник») claiming over 110,000 entries and compiled by
M.H.Zubkov (М.Зубков) (Kharkiv, 2003). The more recent arrivals in the field have been an
English-Ukrainian (100 000 entries) and Ukrainian-English dictionary (200 000 entries),
compiled by a team of lexicographers under the general direction of Yevhenia Horot (Є.Гороть)
and published in 2006 and 2009 respectively.

Linguistics in Ukraine

In Ukraine, most linguistic issues tended to be treated within broader linguistic, ideological and
political issues that constituted the Ukrainian cultural context of the 18th – 20th centuries. Since
the development of the Ukrainian nation, and, therefore, its language were, at any given time,
effectively at the mercy of the power that happened to rule the country, the work of most
Ukrainian linguists necessarily revolved around issues relating to the origins of East Slavic
languages, emergence of Ukrainian, dialectal varieties of Ukrainian, language codification and
standardization, standardization of orthography and the like.
A linguist often credited with founding Ukrainian linguistics was Pavlo Zhytetsky (Павло
Житецький). He carried out in-depth research into the history of the Ukrainian language,
literature and folklore. His major interest was in the historical phonetics of Ukrainian, which
yielded a fundamental work in which the linguist attempted to answer a number of questions
related to the Ukrainian sound system, Нарис звукової історії малоруського наріччя (1876).
His Нарис літературної історії малоруського наріччя в XVII ст. (An еssay on the literary
history of the Ukrainian language in the 17 th century) was a pioneering survey of 17 th and 18th -
century literary Ukrainian. Of immeasurable value was also his meticulous study of
the Peresopnytsia Gospel (Ukr. Пересопницьке Євангеліє): although the Gospel was a
translation into vernacular Old Ukrainian, Zhytetskyi clearly demonstrated its direct influence
on the later form of literary Ukrainian. The scholar rejected Mikhail Pogodin’s and Aleksei
Sobolevsky’s hypothesis about the origins of Ukrainian, and argued that Kyivan Rus’ was the
cradle of the Ukrainian nation, and that Ukrainian linguistic traits were already present in 12 th-
century literary monuments. The linguist was also involved in work leading to the publication of
Borys Hrinchenko’s Dictionary of the Ukrainian language, a work which had a lasting influence
on many generations of Ukrainians.
Working concurrently with Zhytetskyi was a linguist whose legacy left an indelible stamp on
not only Ukrainian, but also Russian as well as Slavic linguistics as a whole. It was Oleksander
Potebnia. His interests lay in general linguistics and comparative studies, including studies of the
development of the Ukrainian language in the broadest (East) Slavic context. Potebnia, whose
ideas of language were rooted in Gumboldt’s philosophy, was able to move beyond the eclectic
views of his predecessors and develop ideas that showed he was far ahead of his contemporaries.
Before him, the field of Slavic historical syntax had mostly been confined to inventories of
grammatical constructions collected from various literary texts. He made a radical revision of the
field by showing in what way category and construction changes were inextricably linked to
changes in ways of thinking. This was possible through integrating historical, dialectal and
folkloric materials. His comparative analysis helped him to discover elements of prehistoric
syntax in more recent constructions and, by so doing, to demonstrate the historical character of
syntactic categories and parts of speech.
It is important to point out that there were a number of other linguists working and
contributing to Ukrainian scholarship at that time, but, in view of the understandable limitations
of the present book, it is hardly possible to do full justice to their efforts here. Some of them
were Mykhaylo Maksymovych (М.Максимович), Yakiv Holovatskyi (Я.Головацький),
Orlovskyi (Орловський), Kochubynskyi (Кочубинський), Kost’ Mykhalchuk (Кость
Михальчук) and many others. Maksymovych, for example, is noted for his publications on the
classification of Slavic languages. He is also known to have been the author of an etymological
spelling, which has since been referred to as maksymovychivka. One of the other linguists
mentioned above, Mykhalchuk, is believed to have been one of the founding fathers of Ukrainian
dialectology, since he was the first, according to Sherekh, to use a method of sociolinguistic
surveys and to incorporate in his research methods of investigation that were not employed by
his contemporaries (Шерех 1954: 502-507). Besides, Mykhalchuk is credited with making a
compelling case for the classification of Ukrainian dialects into three big groups – a view that
was attacked repeatedly from different quarters at different times, but was later validated by
Zilynskyi (Зілинський), Hantsov and Kurylo, and thus managed to stand the test of time. Not
only that, Mykhalchuk was able to convincingly demonstrate when, why and how exactly those
three dialectal groups came about (Шерех 1954: 502-507).
A galaxy of scholars whose work has indelibly inscribed their names into the history of
Ukrainian linguistics and lexicography were Vsevolod Hantsov (Всеволод Ганцов), Ahatanhel
Krymskyi, Serhiy Yefremov (Сергій Єфремов), Hryhoriy Holoskevytch (Григорій
Голоскевич), and Maria Hrinchenko(va) (Марія Грінченко(ва), all of whom were involved in
the lexicographic project we mentioned earlier, a dictionary which continues to set lexicographic
standards to this day. They all shared an interest – to varying degrees – in questions of Ukrainian
dialectology, ethnography, language standardization, orthography (especially Holoskevych) and
some others. Hantsov, in particular, developed methodological foundations for the dialectal
stratification of Ukrainian and raised a wide range of theoretical and methodological issues
relating to the phonology of Polissia accents, i.e. ones found in the north of Ukraine. Nor can
one overestimate the role he played in facilitating Ukrainian orthography. Kurylo, on the other
hand, did some pioneering work in the area of Ukrainian terminology: her contribution to the
terminological systems of natural sciences – botany, chemistry, and anatomy – can hardly be
overestimated. Her scholarly interests, however, ranged over considerable breadth: apart from
dialectological and terminological studies, Kurylo is credited with producing illuminating
analyses of Ukrainian syntax and phraseology, most notably in her Notes on contemporary
Standard Ukrainian («Уваги до сучасної української літературної мови», 1923). Much of the
value of this work lies in the fact that it identified a number of distinctive characteristics of the
popular Ukrainian language that, in the author’s view, should have the primary role to play in
laying the foundations for Standard Ukrainian. Also working at that time was Vasyl Simovych, a
linguist whose primary areas of interest were phonology and morphology. His other interests
were the history of Ukrainian spelling and the issues of standard language and linguistic norms.
Simovych was the first eminent Ukrainian phonologist who espoused the principles of the
Prague Linguistic group. At the same time, his structuralist views went hand in hand with the
Humboldt-Potebnia approach to language as an expression of spirituality and national identity.
As is obvious, despite the repression that marked the late 19th – early 20th century period,
Ukrainian scholarship made significant strides.
Strictly lexicological problems, as may well be expected, tended to be treated in terms of
their practical application, in connection with the establishment of a system of Ukrainian
terminology, of a standard literary Ukrainian lexicon, and of standard orthography. Research in
these fields was conducted by scholars such as Hryhorii Kholodny (Григорій Холодний), who
dealt with the general principles of terminology, Tadei Sekunda (Тадей Секунда), who explored
the principles of technical terminology, as well as Mykola Osypiv (Микола
Осипів), Yevhen Hrytsak (Євген Грицак), who looked into the issue of neologisms. One would
hardly do full justice to Ukrainian lexicology without mentioning the names of Andriy Biletskyi
and Leonid Bulakhovskyi (Леонід Булаховський), whose work spanned several decades of the
early and mid-20th century. Biletskyi’s interests were manifold. His scholarly output spanned
nearly all branches of linguistics, ranging from historical linguistics, etymology and typology
through grammar and phonology to lexicology and lexicography. Bulakhovskyi was noted for
his versatile philological interests, but is best known for his extensive research into various
issues of Slavic, Ukrainian, and Russian philology, elaboration of questions related to the
emergence and development of a standard language and exploring various problems of
semasiology and lexicology. His publications on phonology, most notably on issues of stress in
the Ukrainian, Polish and Czech languages, are ones that particularly stand out among his
scholarly publications. As a linguist – as well as a person – he was held in high regard by
George Shevelov, to whom he was first a mentor and then a friend. His Historical commentary
on Standard Ukrainian («Історичний коментарій до української літературної мови») is
viewed as a fundamental contribution to the study of historical phonology, morphology and
syntax of literary Ukrainian. The Russian-Ukrainian dictionary (1948), which he co-edited, has
been through five publications.
The 1920s and -30s were also a time when a great many various articles on lexicography and
the theory and practice of translation were written [Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993].
Among other linguists who devoted a great deal of attention to lexicological problems,
specifically in the language of various literary authors, were Oleksa Syniavskyi, Mykola Sulyma,
Ivan Ohiyenko, George (Yuriy) Shevelov, Hryhoriy Levchenko, Ivan Bilodid, Pavlo Pliushch, I.
Hrytsiutenko and a few others. Although it would be a notable exaggeration to claim that
lexicological issues were extensively explored in Ukraine at that time, it is safe to say that some
areas, most notably various aspects of the lexicon of literary Ukrainian, did receive systematic
treatment: by I. Troyan in An Advanced Course in the Ukrainian Language («Підвищений курс
української мови», 1930),  by Yuriy Sherekh in his Outline of the Ukrainian Literary Language
(«Нарис української літературної мови», 1951), and by Petro Horetskyi in A Course in the
Contemporary Ukrainian Literary Language («Курс сучасної української літературної мови»,
1951).
In the context of Bulakhovskyi’s contribution to the field of Ukrainian lexicology and
linguistics in general, it will be appropriate to examine at some length the outstanding role that
was played by his student, George Shevelov (Юрій Шевельов). He was undoubtedly a towering
scholarly figure (Ilnytzkyi 2002) on the Ukrainian cultural, linguistic and literary criticism scene
of most of the 20th century. George Shevelov’s scholarly output could be compared to that of an
entire academic institute. His works have an immediate bearing on the study of words, since
much of his research in linguistics revolved, among many other things, around lexicological
issues. He wrote on etymology, morphology, phonology and syntax of such Slavic languages as
Church Slavonic, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Polish, Russian, Belarusian, and most
extensively, Ukrainian. The publication of his signal work, “A Historical Phonology of the
Ukrainian Language”, in 1979, prompted the scholarly world to revisit not only the historical
phonetics of the Ukrainian language but also the history of the language itself. In it, Shevelov
took issue with the view hitherto dominant in the academic world – namely, that the Ukrainian
language had developed in the period following the destruction of the Kyivan Rus' state by the
Mongols from a supposedly common Old Rus' language. He made a compelling case about the
historical continuity of the Ukrainian language arguing that Ukrainian has had its own
characteristic development from early on, on par with that of other great Slavic languages. Even
though there has been a lot of research into the phonological systems of Slavic languages, not
only Ukrainian, since the publication of Shevelov’s work, it is worth noting that his work
remains the only fundamental study of the historical phonology of any Slavic language.
In order to trace the development of Ukrainian from the Proto-Rus language to the present day
and to establish cause-and-effect relationships between individual phonetic changes, Shevelov
used extensive historical, dialectal and textual material. In view of this, his scholarly scope
reached far beyond lexicology, syntax and etymology. His insightful forays into issues relating to
Ukrainian literary language, the impact of Chernihiv and Halychyna dialects on the formation of
literary Ukrainian, interlingual contacts between Slavic languages, anthroponymic studies etc.
were nothing short of a breakthrough for Ukrainian linguistics. His other works – such as The
Syntax of Modern Ukrainian (1963), A Prehistory of Slavic: the Historical Phonology of
Common Slavic (1965), Die Ukrainische Schriftsprache, 1798 – 1965 (1966), Teasers and
Appeasers: Essays and Studies on Themes of Slavic Philology (1971), The Ukrainian Language
in the First Half of the 20 th Century: Its State and Status (1989) – not only have greatly
contributed to the firm establishment of Ukrainian as a component of Slavic Studies around the
globe, but have also made a valuable contribution to the investigation of various lexicological
problems. His impact on the way Ukrainian linguistics in general and lexicology in particular
viewed issues related to the genesis of Slavic languages, their phonological structure, historical
phonology of Ukrainian, social and functional aspects of language use etc. has been remarkable.
Valuable research was also carried out by Shevelov’s contemporary and friend, Oleksa
Horbach (Олекса Горбач), a Slavic philologist, dialectologist and lexicographer. His major
contribution was in the area of territorial dialects, onomasiological studies, cross-linguistic
contact, and various aspects of the Church Slavonic language. An expert on the varieties of the
Ukrainian language – although he spent most of his life outside of Ukraine – he wrote a number
of books and articles on regional dialects of Ukrainians living in Poland, Romania, Slovakia and
the former Yugoslavia. A major area of interest for him was social slang (the "argot" of students,
criminals, soldiers, beggars, itinerant musicians and trades people), on which he published
widely. His major work in this area, which marked a considerable step forward for Ukrainian
sociolinguistics, lexicology, lexicography and Ukrainian culture in general, was Арґо в Україні
(Argots in Ukraine), a work which occupied him for over five decades (2006). In addition,
together with George Shevelov, Horbach contributed substantially to a major project in the area
of Ukrainian linguistics, the ten-volume Енциклопедія Українознавства (Encyclopedia of
Ukrainian Studies), authoring over 100 entries, many of which appear in translation in the five-
volume English-language Encyclopedia of Ukraine.
Since the 1930s the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR
(currently the Institute of Linguistics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine) has been
the co-ordinating center of Ukrainian lexicology. In 1965–1969 it published the periodical
journal Lexicology and Lexicography («Лексикологія та лексикографія»). Until fairly recently
Ukrainian theoretical lexicology was somewhat underdeveloped, according to Encyclopedia of
Ukraine (EOU). However, in the 1970s several publications on theoretical lexicology appeared:
the collection Problems of structural lexicology («Питання структурної лексикології», 1970),
L. Lysychenko's Lexicology of the Contemporary Ukrainian Language: Semantic Structure of
the Word («Лексикологія сучасної української мови: семантична структура слова», 1977),
M. Kocherhan's The Word and Context, («Слово і контекст», 1980). Of significant import, too,
was his From the History of Ukrainian Lexicology («З історії української лексикології»,
1980). Besides, 1983 saw the publication of The History of the Ukrainian Language: Lexicon
and Phraseology («Історія української мови: лексика і фразеологія»), a work edited by
Mykhailo Zhovtobriukh and Vitalii Rusanivsky. Despite the fact that it was not devoid of
ideological bias and suffered from excessive descriptivism, it had the virtue of providing a
comprehensive treatment of lexical and idiomatic aspects of the Ukrainian language
(Encyclopedia of Ukraine, 1993).
More recently, scholars who contributed or continue to contribute – to varying degrees – to
the study of various aspects of words are Yuriy Zhluktenko, Semenets, Lesia Stavytska
(examination of slang and argots), V.Levytskyi (methods of semantic analysis; phonosemantics),
S.Hurskyi (word semantics), M.Zadorozhnyi (problems of phonology), Roksolana Zorivchak
(phraseology in the context of translation studies), Nimchuk, Azhniuk, Taras Kyiak
(terminology), Oleksandr Ohui, Perebyinis (issues of lexicography), Ilko Korunets (contrastive
typology of English and Ukrainian), Selivanova (Селіванова), Yuriy Zatsnyi (innovations in the
English word-stock) and many others.
Textbooks and manuals in English lexicology that have been published in Ukraine over the
last several decades have been authored by K. Barantsev (Баранцев К., 1954, 1955), Rayevska
N (1957), M.Mostovyi (Мостовий М., 1993), L.Verba (Верба Л., 2003), D. Kveselevych and
V. Sasina (Квеселевич Д. І., В.Сасіна, 2001), Ye. Horot et al. (Гороть Є. та ін., 2011),
A.Nikolenko (Ніколенко А., 2007), Soloshenko O. D. and Yu. A. Zavhorodniev
(О.Солошенко, Ю.Завгороднєв, 1998; 2008).

TERMS AND CONCEPTS IN LEXICOLOGY

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

1. Two approaches – diachronic and synchronic – to language

study
2. Word, lexeme, lemma
 3. The Word and Its Associative Field
4. Lexical fileds (Semantic Domains)
5. Word families
6. Word classes
7. Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations
8. Discrete vs. continuous

1. Two approaches – diachronic and synchronic – to language study.

There are two principal approaches in linguistic science to the study of language material:
synchronic and diachronic. The synchronic approach to the study of vocabulary is concerned with the
lexicon of a language as it exists at any one time, whereas the diachronic approach deals with the
changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time. It analyzes the changes language
forms have undergone over a period of time. So if vocabulary is studied diachronically, it is considered
from the perspective of the processes through which it evolved. It must be noted that language study in
the 19th century was overwhelmingly diachronic, but in the 20th century, emphasis shifted to synchronic
analysis. Ferdinand de Saussure was the first to postulate the priority of synchrony. He believed that no
knowledge of the historical development of a language is necessary to examine its present system. He
was also the first to employ the terms ‘synchronic’ and ‘diachronic’. The Swiss linguist used the analogy
of a tree-trunk to describe the difference in the two approaches: a vertical cut was diachronic, while a
horizontal cut synchronic.
 If we were doing a synchronic study of slang, and more specifically, a study of items, for
example, that are common at all times, denoting attitudes of approval and meaning ‘s/th superior,
excellent’, we would be looking at words like cool, awesome, rad, and analyzing them in present-day
contexts, primarily in speech (like in a sentence, She seems quiet at fist, but she's actually pretty rad
when you get to know her) or the writings of contemporary authors and even in the current media
publications (I'm writing about this only because it's a holiday and I really wanted to show you guys
how totally awesome this James Cameron movie is). If, instead, we were more intent on a diachronic
study of such slang items, we would be more likely to consider, on the one hand, how these words came
to be, how they were used before, what meanings they developed over the years, how exactly the
processes of replacement of one item by another happened, what variation (of different vocabulary
items) was in evidence at different points in the past etc. Alongside with that, we would most probably
look at some other items that were and have been used in that meaning. We would find out, for example,
that what was the bee's knees in the 1920s was swell in the 30s, keen in the 50s, groovy in the 60s, neat
in the 70s, wicked for some time in the 80s, cool up to now as well as rad, and also awesome. Over the
years, there have been terms like funky, the cat’s pajamas, dandy, aces, tubular, hip, unreal, def, fly,
rocking, and many others. This list could probably go on and on.
What is important to remember, however, is that the two approaches do not rule each other out,
so they should not be viewed in opposition to each other. In fact, they are interconnected and interrelated
because every linguistic structure and system is in a state of constant flux so that the synchronic state
of a language system is a result of a long process of linguistic change. So in any study, when we are
after a comprehensive picture of whatever we investigate, it is best when the two approaches are made
to work in sync. Mikhail Bakhtin used to say that people do not have long memories but words do,
which means that the current semantics and structure of words reflects the long ‘journey’ in time that
they have made. So discovering words’ histories can shed light on their current usages. In fact, in some
cases without delving into the word’s history, it is impossible to make sense of what it means now. A
phrase sometimes applied to the county of Suffolk in Eastern England, silly Suffolk, is a case in point.
Most people who are unaware of the past meanings and origin of the word silly may take it as an
allegation of foolishness or backwardness. However, even a cursory examination of the word’s
etymology will reveal that it had an older sense of ‘happy’ (cf. German selig, ‘blessed’), but this sense
has been ousted by the current meaning of ‘foolish’ or ‘absurd’. The phrase silly Suffolk dates from the
days when Suffolk was one of the wealthier counties, and, therefore, ‘happy’ or ‘fortunate’. Indeed, if no
such ‘background check’ on the word is carried out, one can hardly come up with a reasonable
explanation or interpretation of the phrase.

2. Word, Lexeme, Lemma

To designate a totality of words in a language, its stock of words, different terms are used in
English: ‘vocabulary’, ‘lexicon’, and ‘lexis’. These items are in fact synonymous and we will treat them
as such in the future. However, it must be added that the first is more colloquial, ‘lexicon’ is the most
learned and technical and lexis is halfway between the other two. According to T. McArthur, the editor
of The Oxford Companion to the English Language, the term ‘lexis’ is especially favored by British
linguists to designate the vocabulary of a language or sublanguage, consisting of its stock of lexemes,
while their American counterparts tend to use ‘lexicon’ for that [Companion, p.602]. Lexis became
popular because it is unambiguous, as opposed to lexicon, which has a much longer history, and partly
for this reason, many more concurrent meanings. Apart from its technical – more recent – sense, lexicon
has been used to designate a work of reference listing and explaining words: a dictionary, glossary, a
word list or a thematic work of lexical reference [Ibid.]
The notion of ‘word’, as is obvious, is central to the study of lexicology and one cannot get on
with other issues in lexicology without answering the question ‘What exactly do we mean by the term
‘word’? So far we have proceeded from the assumption that the word is the basic unit of the language
system, the largest on morphological and the smallest on syntactic plane of linguistic analyses.
However, to demonstrate that this interpretation, if clear, helpful and satisfactory in many linguistic
studies, falls short of explaining many other uses of the term, and, therefore, is by no means definitive,
let us consider the entry on word in the second, 1989 edition of OED, which displays its senses under
the three headings (which were also used in 1927 by C.T.Onions):
(1) Speech, utterance, verbal expression, divided into eleven sense groups: speech, talk,
utterance; a speech, an utterance; speech as distinct from writing; verbal expression as
contrasted with thought; contention, altercation; a report, news, rumor; an order, request;
a promise, undertaking; a declaration, assertion; an utterance in the form of a phrase or
sentence, a saying or proverb; a divine communication, scripture, and Christ.
(2) An element of speech, a single twelfth sense initially defined as: ‘a combination of vocal
sounds, or one such sound, used in a language to express an idea (e.g. to denote a thing,
attribute, or relation), and constituting a minimal element of speech having a meaning as
such’. This technical definition is followed by the seven sense groups: a name, title, idea,
term; engraved or printed marks on surfaces; in contrast with the thing or idea signified;
the right word for the right thing; a telegraphic message; a mathematical sequence; a
string of bits in a computer.
(3) Phrases, a heterogeneous collection of such usages as take a person at his word, in so
many words, word of honor, and by word of mouth.
These three headings go to show that identifying what word is does not seem to be a simple task,
since one inevitably comes up against a number of difficulties due to the fact that the term ‘word’ is a
polysemous one. Besides, popular usages – a number of senses that ‘word’ has come to traditionally be
used in – have also had a role to play in developing its many designations. The technical definition is
listed twelfth in OED, since the dictionary was compiled on historical principles. Even though more
contemporary dictionaries – which tend to place the technical sense first – may offer somewhat
simplified and more straightforward definitions (for example, the 1985 edition of American Heritage
Dictionary defines word as ‘a sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing or
printing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or of a
combination of morphemes’), the term may still invoke several senses at once, which may sometimes be
confusing. In order to overcome this problem, a range of other, more technical terms have been
suggested. These are lexeme, lexical unit, and lexical item, which are devoid of other, non-technical
meanings and, therefore, make sense delimitation easier. Of these, lexeme is probably the most
commonly used. It is used to denote a unit in the lexicon (lexis, vocabulary) of a language. Its form is
governed by sound and writing or print, its content – by meaning and use. Thus, deforestation is the
realization in speech and writing of a single English lexeme, while the word anger represents two
lexemes (one for a noun, the other for a verb). So each lexeme corresponds to one separate entry in the
dictionary. On the other hand, words like fine and date stand for many lexemes. It would be difficult to
unequivocally determine the exact number of lexemes that each of them represents, since there is no
uniform approach in dictionaries as to what constitutes a separate meaning in a word. Fine, for example,
represents at least four lexemes: an adjective (“acceptable”; “healthy”; “of very high standard”;
“small”), a noun (penalty in the form of money), an adverb (“in a satisfactory manner”) and a verb
(“make s/one pay money as a punishment”). By the same token, date accounts for several distinct
lexemes as a noun and a verb.
Some lexicologists, however, deem it practical to make a distinction, as Howard Jackson does,
between orthographic, phonological words and lexemes. According to Jackson, orthographic words are
words in writing, sequences of letters bounded by spaces. Phonological words are words in speech, i.e.
sequences of sounds. And finally, lexemes, within this classification, refer to words in the vocabulary of
a language [Jackson, 2002; ]. While this may be a sensible distinction to make, we will use the term
‘lexeme’ to refer to all words regardless of where they are used.
Conventionally, a lexeme’s inflections – as in our case, inflected lexemes fines, fining (Present
Participle), finer (adjectival and adverbial comparative degree), finest, etc. – do not count as separate
lexemes, rather as variant forms. However, derivative forms (finely, refine, finery etc.), as is to be
expected, do. They will, therefore, have their own entries in most dictionaries and will be treated as
headwords. In English, as in many other languages, lexemes may be single words, parts of words (auto-,
-logy, -ville, -city, -fest (combining forms): gabfest, chinfest, slugfest, wordfest) and idiomatic
expressions: take the cake (e.g. You've done some pretty stupid things, but that really takes the cake!),
pay lip service (e.g. Little has really changed despite lip service paid to the democratic process), go the
extra mile (e.g. He's a nice guy, always willing to go the extra mile for his friends).
How dictionaries treat lexemes – as separate entries under their own headwords or as part of
other entries – varies significantly. This depends on many things: the size and type of a dictionary, a
policy dictionary-compilers adopt toward headwords and other factors. The general rule of thumb for an
average-sized dictionary is that different parts of speech within one word (anger as a verb and anger as
a noun) will count as separate headwords. So will lexemes that do not go back to the same etymological
source (the noun date as “a particular day of the month or year”, “appointment” and as “a type of fruit”.
But there is little consensus even with regard to these basic principles, which entries for date, for
example, readily demonstrate: in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, date as a kind of fruit
is not listed under a separate headword, whereas in the Free Online Dictionary, it counts as a separate
entry.
The term lemma is sometimes alternatively used in lieu of the word headword. Besides, one
sometimes encounters the term citation form instead. Lemmas, just like headwords, represent a set of
related forms of a lexeme in a dictionary. They stand for all the inflected forms of a word.
Conventionally, the lemma is chosen to be the least marked, i.e. basic form among all the forms of a
lexeme. For example, the lemma ‘give’ represents forms ‘give’, ‘gave’, ‘given’, and ‘giving’. The
difference, therefore, between a lemma and a lexeme is that the latter designates the entire set of all the
forms that have the same meaning (give, gave, given, giving), while lemma refers to the particular form
that is chosen by convention to represent the lexeme (give).
Now that we have established the meaning and relative interchangeability of the terms lexicon,
lexis and vocabulary, on the one hand, and on the other, the meanings behind the concepts word, lexeme
and lemma, the question that naturally invites itself here is how the total stock of words in a language is
structured and organized. There have been a number of attempts to establish some general principles on
which vocabulary is organized. These attempts have focused on these main areas: that of individual
words and their associations; that of lexical fields, word families and lastly, that of word classes.

3. The Word and Its Associative Field

Following de Saussure’s notion of a language as a system of mutual relations, it is quite plausible

to assume that every word is involved in a network of associations that connect it with other lexical
items in the language. They can be seen as associations of words with the other words or things that ‘go
with’ them, whether on semantic, syntactic or morphological grounds [Murphy M.L., p.66]. The idea of
associative semantics can be attributed to de Saussure and his followers. It must be noted that Saussure’s
associative relations were not limited to any fixed number of relation types, nor did he distinguish
between semantic and other types of relation. Unlike de Saussure, his disciple Charles Bally limited his
attention to semantic associations among words within associative fields. Bally described a word’s
associative field as a ‘halo’ radiating from it and dissipating [Murphy, p.66]. Using the French linguist’s
example, the word ox brings to mind related words of different categories: cow, bull, calf etc., and plow,
tilling, yoke, etc. In addition, the word brings forth associations with qualities like patience and strength.
In modern approaches to associative fields (Jackson 2007; Murphy 2003), associations are not confined
to semantics. Apart from a similarity of meaning, they can be invoked on the basis of similarity in form
and, finally, on the basis of a combination of these two similarities. In de Saussure’s graphic
representation, a given term is like the center of a constellation, the point where an infinite number of
associative lexical items converge. So if we were to pick a word, stockbroker, for example, we would
find quite a few lines of associations radiating from it. One line connects this noun with other nouns
designating occupations and professions: doctor, teacher, architect, actor etc. Another one connects it
with words denoting occupations within the domain of business and finance: banker, financier, Wall
Streeter, investor etc. Yet another one associates it with words designating concepts to do with buying
and selling shares: stock exchange, market, shares, securities, transaction, buy/sell shares etc. Line four
associates the noun stockbroker with nouns that have the same structure: bookmaker, newscaster,
mindbender etc. A fifth line associates the central term with the adjective clever, the adverb never and
the inflected adverb quicker by accidental similarity in their endings. It goes without saying that each
line has no limit and that an infinite number of words can be added to those already suggested. It should
be noted that each ‘constellation’ necessarily borders on others, as members of one are also members of
others or are in some way associated with them.

4. Lexical fields (Semantic Domains)

Some isolated attempts have been made to study the structure of some semantic or lexical fields,
such as the hierarchy of military ranks, color terms, numerals, and kinship terms. Most of these attempts
are directly or indirectly connected with what has come to be known as the theory of ‘semantic fields’ or
‘lexical field theory’. An example of a simple semantic field would be the conceptual domain of
cooking, which is divided up into the lexemes bake, boil, fry, sauté, stew, roast, etc. Some other terms
that are alternatively used for ‘lexical field’ or ‘lexical set’ are a ‘semantic field or ‘semantic domain’.
Linguist Adrienne Lehrer has defined semantic field specifically as "a set of lexemes which cover a
certain conceptual domain and which bear certain specifiable relations to one another" [Lehrer, p.283].
David Crystal defines a semantic or lexical field as a ‘named area of meaning in which lexemes
interrelate and define each other in specific ways’ [1995, p.157]. To put it in simpler terms, a lexical
field is a group of words or lexemes whose members are related by meaning, reference, or use.
Sometimes a lexical field is defined in terms of the following conditions that it should meet:
 the lexemes are of the same word class;
 their meanings have something in common;
 they are interrelated by precisely definable meaning relations.
One of the first examples of a lexical field was that of kinship terms, which comprises the
lexemes: father, mother, son, daughter, cousin, nephew, uncle, aunt, grandfather, grandmother, in-laws,
etc. Field theory was first put forward by German and Swiss scholars in the 1920s and 1930s. According
to some researchers, however, its origin can be traced back to at least the middle of the 19 th century. A
basic premise of semantic field theory is that to understand lexical meaning it is necessary to look at sets
of semantically related words, not simply at each word in isolation [Lehrer, p.283]
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 as a result of the impact of various forces such as the disappearance of previously existing
lexemes, or the broadening or narrowing of the meaning of other lexemes. In other words, lexemes may
lose one meaning and instead develop another. The system is mainly characterized by the relationships
of synonymy and antonymy, hierarchical, general-particular and part-whole relationships, and also
relationships of sequences and cycles. Here are some examples that illustrate each of these relations:

TYPE OF SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIP ILLUSTRATION

SYNONYMY Error, mistake, blooper, slip-up,

miscalculation, slip, gaff, oversight etc.

ANTONYMY
Poor – remarkable, outstanding, marvelous,
(Contrary to expectations, he gave a very poor
performance) excellent, dazzling

HIERARCHICAL Military ranks – lieutenant, colonel, general,

major, sergeant, captain

Stationery – paper, pen, pencil, eraser, ink,

GENERAL-PARTICULAR ruler

Plane – fuselage, landing-gear, wing, rudder,

cockpit, engine, flaps, ailerons
PART-WHOLE

Spring, summer, autumn/fall, winter

SEQUENCES AND CYCLES

These relations hold not only between individual lexemes but also between specific lexical fields
and the vocabulary as a whole. One of the early theorists, Jost Trier, put it like this: ‘Fields are living
realities intermediate between individual words and the totality of the vocabulary’. This means that
conceptual domains are divided up into individual lexemes, which, in their turn, may form subfields. For
example, the lexical field of color terms will include the lexemes: red, brown, black, yellow, blue etc. In
its turn, the lexeme ‘red’ may be further considered as a lexical subfield that comprises other lexemes:
crimson, scarlet, vermilion, cardinal etc.
As might be expected, the lexicologist who attempts to assign all the words in English to lexical
fields is bound to run up against a number of difficulties. According to Crystal, these difficulties are of
three kinds:
(1) some lexemes tend to belong to fields that are vague or difficult to define. E.g., it’s not
clear where the lexemes noise or difficult should be assigned.
(2) Some may be quite legitimately assigned to more than one field (orange, e.g.)
(3) A challenge to define appropriately and accurately a lexical field in relation to other
fields, on the one hand, and, on the other, in relation to its constituent lexemes.
To use Crystal’s example, is it more appropriate to say that tractor belongs to the
field of ‘agricultural vehicles’, ‘land vehicles’, or just ‘vehicles’. Should the
lexeme flavor be a member of the lexical field of “taste” or should the word taste
be a lexeme of the field “flavor”? Or maybe both of them should be treated in a
broader semantic field, under an umbrella term “sensations”. There is no easy
answer to that.
The existence of these difficulties is a pointer to the fact that the English vocabulary is
not made up of a number of discrete lexical fields in which each lexeme is neatly pigeonholed in
its appropriate niche. It also goes to show that language cannot be analyzed into well-defined and
watertight categories. The analyst will always have to take a number of difficult decisions to
accommodate fuzzy cases. However, it must be acknowledged that large numbers of lexemes can
indeed be grouped into fields and subfields in a clear-cut manner, which is an indication of the
usefulness of the theory of the lexical field in lexicology.
 5. Word families

Another useful way of taxonomizing words is by grouping them into ‘families’ on the
basis of their morphology. Word families are form-based paradigms, as opposed to lexical or
semantic fields, which are meaning-based paradigms. A word makes up a word family together
with all its forms – both inflected and derived. A family, therefore, consists of a base form, its
possible inflectional forms, and the lexemes derived from it by means of suffixation and
prefixation. For example:
think (verb)
thinks, thought, thinking ( inflections )
thinkable, thinker, rethink, unthinkable, thought-out, thoughtful, thoughtless
(derivations)
or:
word (noun)
words, word’s, words’ (inflections)
word (verb), wording, wordy, wordiness, reword, wordless (derivations)

Each of these families is bonded by a common root word, although the resultant
connections of meaning are also an important bonding feature.
The family link can be shown through definitions: one word provides material out of
which the other's definition is built (a teacher is a 'person who teaches'). Similarly, a duckling is
'a small duck'; reintroducing is 'introducing again', and so on.
Even though a similarity of form is often linked with a similarity of meaning, a link of
form can exist without any link of meaning. For example, understand clearly consists of under +
stand, but there is nothing in its meaning that would suggest 'standing' in its conventional sense.
Moreover, even when form and meaning appear to be in step, this is not always the case. The
traps are well known – a solicitor does not solicit, which means “asking for money, donations
etc.”, nor does an undertaker (“funeral director”) undertake, which is “take on (a responsibility
for s/th)” and being uneasy is not the same as “being difficult”. Similarly, fuse has nothing in
common with defuse (a situation) or refuse (an offer). Moreover, a derivational suffix does not
necessarily guarantee that the morpheme to which it is attached is itself a word in its own right.
For example, whereas actor contains the verb act, there is no such verb for author, tailor and
doctor.
On the other hand, there are semantically related words whose structure does not
immediately suggest similarity. For example, words death, dead and die are represented in three
seemingly unrelated lexical entries, since the morphological processes that were historically
responsible for these derivational variants are no longer productive. Nevertheless, we perceive
these words as related, because our concepts of the words are related and, as a result, we put
them in the same category – a category of underivable d-words to do with “death”. Similarly, to
live, life and (a)live are not related in the mental lexicon, but can be related in our conceptual
apparatus, since we can recognize the phonetic and semantic similarities among them [Murphy,
p.57].
To better understand the idea and to further develop the notion of word families, Bauer
and Nation proposed a set of levels into which families can be divided (Bauer, Nation 1993). The
levels are established on a number of criteria to do with the frequency, productivity, regularity
and predictability of the affixes that are employed. These criteria are applied to English affixes
so that the inflexional affixes and the most useful derivational affixes are arranged into a graded
set of seven levels. The criteria are ordered according to their importance. The first concerns
frequency [], specifically the number of words in which an affix occurs. For example, -er occurs
far more frequently than –ist to form ‘agent’ nouns from verbs (employer, violinist). The second
criterion is productivity, i.e. the extent to which an affix continues to be used to form new words:
-ly is still highly productive in deriving adverbs from adjectives (shrewdly, cannily, astutely),
 while as an adjective-forming suffix it is far less productive (cowardly, saintly, gentlemanly,
godly). The third criterion concerns the predictability of the meaning of the affix. By way of
example, -ness is only used to form nouns from adjectives to convey the idea of ‘quality of’
(orderliness, craziness), whereas –ist has a whole range of meanings (obstructionist noun vs.
alarmist adjective). The remaining criteria are to do with regularity of spelling and pronunciation
(of the base and affix) and that of the function of an affix in terms of the word class of the base
to which it attaches (Jackson 2007: 20).
On the basis of these criteria, Bauer and Nation establish seven levels of family
relationship. At the first level, each word form is seen as a different word. Therefore, there is no
family. At the next level, they group words that have a common base but variant inflectional
suffixes (noun: country, countries, country’s, countries’; verb: try, tries, tried, trying; adj.: big,
bigger, biggest). The third level groups words formed by means of ‘the most frequent and
regular derivational affixes’: -able, -er, -ish, -less, -ly, -ness, -th, -y, non-, un-. At level four, they
bring together forms with ‘frequent, orthographically regular affixes’: -al, -ation, -ess, -ful, -ism,
-ist, -ity, -ize, -ment, -ous, in-. Level five has words derived with the help of some fifty ‘regular
but infrequent affixes’, e.g. - let, -anti, sub- etc. At level six come forms derived by ‘frequent but
irregular affixes’: - ee, - ive, re- etc. And finally, at level seven there are words formed by means
of classical (Latin and Greek) roots and affixes: philology, astronaut and the common prefixes:
ab-, ad-, dis-, ex- etc. [Bauer]
The practical benefits of an analysis in terms of word families, especially one described above,
can be found in language teaching and in lexicography. The set of levels established by Bauer and
Nation has value in guiding teaching and learning by helping standardize vocabulary load and
vocabulary size research. It is also useful in guiding dictionary making. For lexicographers, such an
analysis provides a more secure basis for the treatment of affixes and derived forms in dictionaries.

6. Word classes

The notion of word class may also be used to account for the structure of the vocabulary as a
whole. Following an approach that goes back to the ancient grammars of Latin and Greek, traditional
grammars of English distinguish eight parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb,
preposition, conjunction, and interjection. More recently, however, grammarians have elaborated them
into further classes. Here is how Quirk et al. distinguishes between different classes:
(a) open classes: noun, adjective, verb, adverb;
(b) closed classes: preposition, pronoun, determiner, conjunction, auxiliary verb;
(c) lesser categories: numeral, interjection;
(d) a small number of words of unique function: the particle not and the infinitive marker to.
[Quirk et al. 1985 : 67]
Most generally, the first class comprises full forms such as green, figure, forgive, badly etc.,
which is to say, forms of major parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs), the other class
consists of ‘empty’ forms like the, of, to, and the like, which do not automatically suggest any
identifiable meaning. These tend to be defined in terms of their syntactic function, rather than
semantically.
According to A. Akmajian, open- and closed-class items differ in several respects.
(1) Open-class words are typically words belonging to categories that can be and
frequently are added to over time. It is this characteristic that gave rise to the
designation itself, “open-class’. Conversely, the closed-class items belong to categories
that are rarely added to (hence relatively “closed”). If, by way of example, we consider
the category of noun, to name just one, we will not have to go far to see that this class is
potentially infinite, since it is continually being expanded as new scientific discoveries
are made, new products are developed, and new ideas are explored. In the late 20th
century, for example, developments in computer technology have given rise to many
new nouns: Internet, website, URL, CD-ROM, email, newsgroup, bitmap, modem,
 multimedia. Verbs have not been too far behind either: download, upload, reboot, right-
click, double-click etc. The adjective and adverb classes are also being expanded by the
addition of new words, though far less prolifically.
(2) Open-class words have explicit descriptive content, whereas closed-class items help
define the syntactic structure of the expressions they are a part of.
(3) Educated speakers of English know about 60,000 open-class items, but there are only
about 200 closed-class items.
(4) Closed-class items have fewer syntactic category ambiguities (such as the noun-verb
ambiguity of jump) than open-class items. Besides, closed-class words are even in the
most diverse contexts almost always semantically transparent, while open-class items
are considerably more ambiguous.
(5) Closed-class items average much higher frequencies of occurrence than open-class
items [Akmajian, p.457]
Other terms used to designate the category of closed-class words are ‘grammatical’ or ‘empty
word-forms’, ‘form words’, ‘function words’ or even ‘ structural words’. All these terms reflect
the view that the main function of this category of lexical units is syntactical, rather than
nominative, affective etc. Open-class lexemes, in their turn, can also be referred to as ‘lexical
words’ or ‘content words’.
It must be pointed out, however, that there does not seem to be a clear-cut distinction
between the two classes. It might make better sense to speak of a continuum or cline ranging from
content words like conscience, dry, fine to words generally devoid of semantic content such as, for
example, it or that in a sentence like ‘It is apparent that this is not the case’. A sentence suggested
by M.A.K.Halliday to illustrate the same point is It always snows on top of the mountain, where he
places items like snows and mountain at one end of the spectrum, it and the at the other, while
words like always and top lie somewhere along the middle of the cline [Halliday, p.3].
Besides, although many ‘empty’ words may be classed as grammatical words, they are
clearly not devoid of semantic content. The sentence The house is on the river has quite a different
meaning when ‘on’ is replaced by ‘by’ or ‘beyond’. Just as drastic a change in meaning is manifest
in the sentences: The bridge has been closed for repairs, The bridge is under repair and The bridge is
beyond repair. By the same token, the coordinators ‘and’, ‘or’ or ‘but’ are not mutually
interchangeable as they are not synonymous. Thus there is no exact point where the lexicologist
stops and the grammarian takes over; each one can readily enter into the territory of the other
[Halliday, Lexicology and Corpus L…, p.3]
It is generally assumed that all English words without exception must belong to one or more
word classes. It is, by and large, hardly possible to tell which word class a word belongs to by simply
looking at it, though inflections may often provide a clue (-able, for example). But in the overwhelming
majority of cases, one needs to study a word’s behavior in sentences, since in English words may often
belong to more than one class: Leaving for the station 20 minutes before the departure of the train was
cutting it fine (adverb) and The grain was ground into very fine flour (adjective). The usual rule of
thumb here is that all words that function in the same way are members of the same word class.

7. Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations

A useful way of taxonomizing relations between words is along the syntagmatic – paradigmatic
dimension. Ferdinand de Saussure was the first to note that meaning arises from the differences
between signifiers, i.e. words, and that these differences are of two kinds: paradigmatic and
syntagmatic. Saussure introduced the concept of paradigmatic under the label ‘associative’ relations,
but now Roman Jakobson’s term is used, which was adopted at the suggestion of the Danish linguist
Louis Hjelmslev in 1963. The idea behind paradigmatic relations is that 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. For example, sky and high reveal a certain similarity because they are members of the
set of English words that rhyme with eye. They are, therefore, related and their relation describes co-
membership in a definable set [Murphy, p.8]. So the relation between sky, high and eye is the rhyme
relation, and the criterion for membership is similarity of word-final sounds. This set of words, which
can be continued indefinitely, forms some sort of paradigm. Saussure used the word paradigm to refer
to a class of elements with similarities. So a paradigm can be described as a set of lexemes that share at
least one similar characteristic. Lexical items can make up paradigms on the basis of semantics,
structure and other identifiable criteria. Inflectional paradigms, for instance, include the possible
variations of a lexical item in some inflectional category, such as number. So a morphological
paradigmatic relation exists between child and children. Paradigmatically related words are, to some
degree, grammatically substitutable for each other. For example, stupid, tricky, funny, etc. can sensibly
and grammatically appear in expressions such as ‘a stupid question’, ‘a tricky question’, ‘a funny
question’, etc. In this way paradigmatic relations stand in contrast to syntagmatic relations, which are
relations between words that go together in the same syntactic structure. For example, we can speak of
syntagmatic relations between items powerful, tsunami, hit and Japan in the sentence A powerful
tsunami hit Japan. A syntagm is an orderly combination of interacting signifiers or words that forms a
meaningful whole within a text – sometimes, following Saussure, called a 'chain'. In language, a
sentence, for instance, is a syntagm of words; so too are paragraphs and chapters. Relations within them
are called relations in praesentia since the words involved are actually co-occurrent items. For example,
all the items from the sentence above – ‘a’, ‘powerful’, ‘tsunami’, ‘hit’ and ‘Japan’ – are engaged at the
same time, so the relations that hold between them are syntagmatic in character. Conversely,
paradigmatic relations are often described as relations in absentia, because the items involved consist of
both a word present in the utterance and others that are not actually in that utterance but that are
potentially substitutable for it in that context. For instance, from a set of items that make up a paradigm
comprising hit, strike, rip (through), sweep (through) etc., only one – hit – is actually utilized in the
sentence, while all the others could potentially replace it: A powerful tsunami struck / ripped through /
swept through Japan.
The notion of co-occurrence is very important in syntagmatic relations. What is meant by this is
the fact that a use of an item in a sentence leads to certain expectations with regard to other items that
will be used in the same context. For example, the verbs ‘hit’, ‘kick’ have to be followed by an object,
as in Paul hit the wall, rather than Paul hit*, which is not an acceptable sentence in English.
The dichotomy of paradigmatic vs. syntagmatic relations is sometimes viewed as a dichotomy
between substitutional and combinatorial sense-relations. Substitutional relations are those which hold
between intersubstitutable members of the same grammatical category, whereas combinatorial relations
are observed conventionally between different grammatical categories.
Besides this view, paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations are often seen like axes, the horizontal
and vertical ones. Syntagmatic relations are represented by the horizontal axis, while the paradigmatic
relations are aligned with the vertical axis. What follows is a graphic illustration of such vertical and
horizontal alignment:

bomb extensive

↕ ↕

hurricane widespread the country.

↕ ↕ ↕

An tsunami did minor the car.

↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕

The ↔ earthquake ↔ caused ↔ severe ↔ damage ↔ to ↔ the property.

↕↕ ↕ ↕ ↕ ↕

That twister inflicted insubstantial the area.

↕ ↕ ↕

fire irreparable the community.

↕ ↕

flash floods considerable

Syntagmatically, a term derives its value from the signs that are present alongside with it.
Vertical, or paradigmatic relations, on the other hand, are contrastive. Paradigmatically, a term derives
its value from its contrasts, i.e. other members of the same class that are absent from the text. In the
sentence above, each term derives its meaning from contrasting, absent signs. The “earthquake” is not
“tsunami”, “twister”, “hurricane”, “flash floods” etc., “cause” is not “did” or “inflicted”, even if they are
very close in meaning, and “severe” is not “minor”, “insubstantial”, “irreparable” and so on. Saussure
stresses that the value of a sign is determined by both the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic relations –
simultaneously by the presence and lack of other signifiers.
An interesting example was offered by J.Culler, who used the idea of syntagmatic relations and
paradigmatic contrasts involved in restaurant menus:
In the food system... one defines on the syntagmatic axis the combinations of courses which can
make up meals of various sorts; and each course or slot can be filled by one of a number of
dishes which are in paradigmatic contrast with one another (one wouldn't combine roast beef and
lamb chops in a single meal; they would be alternatives on any menu). These dishes which are
alternative to one another often bear different meanings in that they connote varying degrees of
luxury, elegance, etc. [](Culler 1985, 104). In Semiotics for beginners
Roland Barthes also contributed his view of this opposition by outlining the paradigmatic and
syntagmatic elements of the 'garment system' in similar terms. The paradigmatic elements are the items
which cannot be worn at the same time on the same part of the body (such as a hat and a cap or trousers
and a skirt etc). The syntagmatic dimension is the juxtaposition of different elements at the same time in
a complete ensemble from hat to shoes [R.Barthes, 1967 in semiotics for beginners]
It is noteworthy that, as the realm of combination, syntagmatic relations are characterized by
such parameters as agreement (or concord), government and predication, while paradigmatic axis – the
realm of selection and substitution – is marked by synonymy, antonymy, and other lexical-semantic
relations. Let us consider, by way of example, synonymic relations. The preposition besides, as in
Besides going to aerobics twice a week, she rides horses on Saturdays, will be studied paradigmatically
vis-à-vis other items of similar meaning like in addition to, apart from, aside from, etc. All these items
are synonymous and, in many contexts, interchangeable. Besides, paradigms can be made up of
antonymic, paronymic relations (words that are almost homonyms, but have slight differences in
spelling or pronunciation and have different meanings), like affect vs. effect, and, as was mentioned,
other, non-semantic relations.
It should be noted that meaning of lexical items within paradigms often differs from the meaning
of items in syntagms. Syntagmatic relations is where meanings shift and develop. These shifts ultimately
bring about changes in meaning within paradigms. This partly explains discrepancies between meanings
of entries in dictionaries – arranged paradigmatically – and the actual usage of the words in speech. A
close observation of a lexical item – agenda – in LDCE (2003) and in actual speech demonstrates clear
differences in its semantics:
 PARADIGMATIC PERSPECTIVE SYNTAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE
agenda

1 a list of problems or subjects that a Excerpt from an Internet article:

government, organization etc is planning to

deal with In a recent article published on Yahoo.com,

be high on the agenda/be top of the agenda De La Hoya discussed why he has

(=be one of the most important problems to had so many trainers in his professional

deal with) career. De La Hoya admitted that most of

Measures to combat terrorism will be high on the trainers he has had were pushed on
the ag agenda. The government set an agenda for
him.
constitutional reform.

political/economic/legislative/domestic etcDe La Hoya said other trainers were pushed on

agenda him from people with their own agendas,

Our Centre has limited its research agenda to and further stated that he never brought

four areas. them in.

2. the ideas that a political party thinks are "With these other trainers, I never brought

important and the things that party aims to them in or asked for them. People had

achieve: their own agendas and brought them in

The Republicans have stuck to their and pushed them on me. Why would I be

conservative agenda. asking for all these different trainers?"

3. a list of the subjects to be discussed at a

meeting:

the next item (= subject) on the agenda

As is clear from the definitions of agenda in LDCE and its ‘behavior’ in an article, none of the
definitions exactly fit the actual meaning of the lexeme in the text. The actualized meaning of agenda in
the article is ‘an unspoken, often covert, set of problems that a person or group of persons have’, which
clearly carries negative connotations. This sense is conspicuously absent from the paradigm of
dictionary meanings above. With time, new utterances will bring out new shades of meaning in words
and that is exactly how change in meaning occurs. Semantic differences between words within
paradigms and syntagms at any one time reveal that the lexicon of the language is never unvarying or
fixed, but rather a constantly changing and evolving system.
 8. Discrete vs. continuous

In the present work, we proceed from an assumption that much in language is a matter of degree
and that there are hardly any clear-cut categories, whether we deal with word meaning, morphological
patterns, idiomatic expressions, semantic relations between words etc. By this, we mean that few
categories within the study of the lexicon can be described as discrete, that is having clear and distinct
boundaries separating them from other categories. The idea of discreteness implies that the categories
are fundamentally different and that there is a sharp dividing line between them. The non-discrete
alternative, on the other hand, or what can be called continuous, suggests that categories grade into one
another. In other words, they gradually merge into each other and there is no clear demarcation line
between them but, instead, the boundary is blurred and fuzzy. The nominal equivalents of the adjectival
forms discrete and continuous are discreteness and continuum. It must be noted that dichotomies (the
divisions of concepts or classes of things into two parts that are both mutually exclusive, i.e. nothing can
belong simultaneously to both parts and every member of the class is in one part or the other) are very
common in Western thought and linguists have been particularly fond of them. The idea of a dichotomy
is a prime example of the discreteness principle. There are quite a few phenomena in lexicology as well
as linguistics that have been traditionally treated by linguists as rigid dichotomies: competence and
performance, grammar vs. lexicon, morphology vs. syntax, homonymy vs. polysemy, connotation vs.
denotation, literal vs. figurative, derivational vs. inflexional affixes, idiomatic vs. non-idiomatic etc.
This list is hardly exhaustive. By taking the approach of treating language phenomena as discrete, one
focuses only on the representative examples from the two extremes of the continuum and unavoidably
overlooks the intermediate cases. A good illustration is the traditional distinction between lexical and
grammatical classes of words, or content words vs. function words, which we discussed a little earlier. If
we restrict our attention to forms like airline, downsize, workforce, significantly, as in The struggling
airline has significantly downsized its workforce again, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to
forms like be and it in It’s raining or that in I know that everybody was busy at the time, the differences
are, of course, striking. These examples confirm the theoretical distinctions between the two classes in
that content words carry most of the semantic content communicated by the sentence, whereas function
words provide only grammatical ‘support’. However, one does not have to go far to see that things are
far from being as straightforward as they seem at first sight and intermediate examples are easily found.
A closer scrutiny of the major word classes reveals that they all have central and peripheral members
and that there is a great deal of overlap between them. For example, many grammatical morphemes are
meaningful and some are arguably as elaborate semantically as many content words. It would be hard to
claim that modals, for example, must as in He must have given up on the idea, have less semantic
content than such lexical morphemes as have, thing or stuff, as in What did he talk about? – Stuff. By the
same token, one would further argue that grammatical morphemes contribute semantically to the
constructions they appear in: ask for vs. ask about, try to complain vs. try complaining, etc. By way of
illustration, let us consider the following pair of sentences: Despite threats, the people put up resistance
to collectivization and How did Stalin put down resistance to collectivization? Clearly, putting up
resistance and putting it down (cf. Ukr. «чинити опір» vs. «придушити опір») convey two nearly
opposite ideas, and hardly anyone would argue against the semantic contribution of adverbial particles
up and down in these contexts. A comparable semantic ‘load’ of many function words proves yet again
that the boundaries between these two groups are blurry. In addition, a word may belong to more than
one word class. For example, out does not have the same semantic ‘weight’ as an adverb (It’s cold out
there) and as a preposition (She ran out the door), to say nothing of its function as a verb (The truth
about him will out), and as a noun (Say you’ll be on a trip; that should give you an out).
Much the same is in evidence with content words as well. A closer look at nouns designating
quantifiers will also reveal fuzzy edges. Expressions like a shred (of truth), a speck (of dust), a grain (of
sense), a dash (of romance) etc., which are often described as “unit nouns”, clearly occupy a middle
ground between function and content words because they display characteristics of both: they mean a
small amount and carry a weakened semantic ‘load’, but at the same time they are used as full-fledged
lexical words in other contexts, which tends to ‘rub off’ on them as function words.
Finally, certain classes of function words, just like content words, readily accept new members.
Quantifiers, prepositions, postpositions, conjunctions, and subordinators are commonly innovated.
Similarly, other lexical categories, parts of the lexicon and groups of words lie on a continuum
and cannot be easily categorized. Slang is an interesting case in point. We use the term “slang” to refer
to extremely informal vocabulary that is not considered standard by most members of the speech
community. Slang tends to vary widely across social, ethnic, economic and geographic areas even
within a single language community. Because of this, its vocabulary is far from homogenous and
includes a ‘mixed bag’ of usages. Besides, this lexical stratum is always in a state of flux. The ‘lifespan’
of slang items is relatively short, as new words and expressions come to life almost on a daily basis
whereas others fall into disuse. Sometimes, when a slang item grows more and more popular until it
becomes the dominant way of saying something, it generally comes to be regarded as mainstream and
even part of standard vocabulary. When that happens, the original slang users often replace it with other,
newer and lesser-recognized terms. All of this means that, at any one time, many items may be
undergoing a change in status and ‘float’ somewhere between slang and other types of lexicon. This
accounts for all kinds of usages within slang vocabulary ranging from merely colloquial lexis through
jargon and other informal specialist vocabularies to taboo, swearing and vulgar words. This kind of
continuum explains the impossibility of demarcating pure slang from other lexical strata. This is
probably the reason why some slang lexicographers, most notably Eric Partridge, an eminent British
researcher of slang as well as a lexicographer, called his famed collection of slang words and
expressions The Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. The overwhelming linguistic data,
therefore, seem to suggest that most categories form a gradation instead of being sharply dichotomous
[Langacker 20], as was traditionally believed.
 Where Do English Words Come From?

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

1. Historical development of English vocabulary

1.1 The Old English Period (450-1066)
1.2 The Middle English Period (1066-1500)
1.3. Early Modern English (1500-1800)
1.4. The Modern English Period (1800-present)
2. Native English vocabulary
2.1. Anglo-Saxon element in English
2.2. Celtic element in English
3. Borrowings from classical languages
4. Scandinavian loanwords in English
5. French borrowings in English
6. German and Dutch loanwords
 7. Spanish, Portuguese and Italian borrowings in English
8. Words of Slavic origin in the English language
8.1. Ukrainian borrowings in English
9. Assimilation of borrowings

All languages of the world are grouped into about 300 language families, on the bases of the
similarities of their word stock and grammar. One of these families, the Indo-European, includes
most of the languages of Europe (Ukrainian being one of them), the Near East and North India.
One of the branches of the Endo-European family is called Italic, from which the Romance
languages developed. Another is called Germanic, which had three branches: North Germanic,
East Germanic, and West Germanic.
The East Germanic branch developed into Gothic, which died out. From the North
Germanic modern Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic)
developed. The West Germanic branch developed into Modern German, Dutch, Frisian, and
English.
The English language originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects spoken by the Germanic
tribes – the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes, which conquered Britain in the 5th century.

1.1. Historical development of English vocabulary

The historical development of the vocabulary of the English language is traditionally

divided into the Old, Middle and Modern English periods. Each of them had its own contribution
to the development of the lexis of the language.

1.1.1. The Old English period (450-1066)

The first Old English inscriptions were written around the fifth and sixth centuries in the
runic alphabet brought by the Anglo-Saxons. These are, however, short texts which do not yield
much information on the structure of old Germanic languages. The literary age began only after
the Christianity of England in the V century, introduced by the Roman invaders, and the first
manuscripts were glossaries of Latin words translated into Old English. The most important
literary work known since that period was an old English epic the Beowulf, written around 1000.
Most OE texts were written in the reign of King Alfred (849-899), who arranged for
many Latin words to be translated, but the total corpus is considered to be relatively small. D.
Crystal points out that “the number of words in the corpus of Old English compiled at the
University of Toronto, which contains all the texts, is only 3.5 million – the equivalent of about
30 medium-sized novels” (Crystal, 2003: 10).
The OE alphabet was very similar to the one we use today, but its distinctive feature
was the absence of capital letters. A few letters were shaped differently and some modern letters
were missing, while the numbers were only Roman. There was a great deal of variation in
spelling and the same word could be spelled differently on the same page. A marked difference
between poetic and prosaic texts is noticeable: while the majority of words in prose are close to
Modern English, words in poetic texts are different.
OE lexicon looks quite familiar and a modern English speaker can easily recognize
singan as sing , drinkan as drink, stod as stood and so on. But at the same time some words,
thought look familiar, have a different meaning in Modern English; e. g. wif refers not only to a
female spouse, but to any woman; sona meant ‘immediately’ rather than ‘in a little while’; and
meat was used in the meaning ‘food’ rather than ‘the flesh of animals used for food’.
Grammatical relations in OE were expressed by the use of inflectional ending. Only in
Middle English the inflections were lost, and the word order came to express grammatical
relations. This crucial change in the structure of the language took place in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries and is explained by the fact that it became increasingly difficult to hear and
pronounce them.
During the Old English period there was the Viking invasion of the 7-th-9-th centuries,
which had a significant impact on the development of the vocabulary, but we are going to dwell
upon it later.

1.1.2. The Middle English Period (1066-1500)

The Middle English period is characterized by a great impact of the French language,
which after the Norman Conquest, became the ruling language in the educational, administrative
and religious aspects of life. Due to that, the early materials are quite infrequent, because they
were written in Latin or French. Much of the earlier Middle English literature was of the
unknown authorship, but to the end of the period the situation had changed. Among the
prominent names of that time was Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of the famous ‘Canterbury
Stories,’ and later on the poets who are collectively known as the ‘Scottish Chaucerians’. They
all contributed greatly to the development of the language.
The language of this period is characterized by a great diversity in spelling, according
to Jackson and Zé Amvela “it was even greater than that found even in Old English. Even in an
edited text, we still find variant spelling, e.g. naure, noeure, ner, neure, all standing for never
(Jackson, Zé Amvela 2007: 30).”
What this period is particularly characterized by is the massive borrowing from French,
caused by the French-English bilingualism which was introduced by the Norman Conquest of
1066.
Today, when English is one of the major languages in the world, it requires an effort of
imagination to realize that 400 years ago English was a despised language. Only a few million of
rural people living on the British Isles used English as their mother tongue, and the rest of the
population were speaking the French language, as they found it nobler, more attractive and more
privileged. The effect of the borrowings on the balance of the vocabulary was enormous.
According to D. Crystal, by the end of the thirteenth century, some 10,000 French words had
come into English. These were mostly the words dealing with law and administration, but there
were also borrowings from such fields as art, medicine and everyday life. D. Crystal concludes
that three quarters of them are still in use today. Due to this fact English retains probably the
richest vocabulary, and most diverse shading of meaning, of any language. As B. Bryson writes,”
For almost every word we have a multiplicity of synonyms. Something is not just big; it is large,
immense, vast, capacious, bulky, massive, whooping. No other language has so many words all
saying the same thing. English is unique in possessing a synonym for each level of our culture:
popular, literary, and scholarly – so that we can, according to our background and cerebral
attainments, rise, mount, or ascend a stairway, shrink in fear, terror, or trepidation, and think,
ponder, or cognate upon a problem” (Bryson 2009: 62). However, borrowings were not the only
way of increasing the vocabulary; the other processes of word formation, such as compounding
and affixation, which were already established in Old English, continued to be used.

1.1.3. Early Modern English (1500 – 1660)

The Modern English period begins at about 1500 and lasts well into our own times. Within
the Modern English period it is customary to distinguish between Early Modern English (1500 –
1660) and Late Modern English (1660 till our own times). It should be noted that such dates as
1500 or 1660 cannot be taken literary: they are merely a convenient means of expressing the
statement that by the end of the 11th and again by the end of the 15th century changes in the
language accumulated to an extent which makes it possible for scholars to indicate the
beginning of a new period in its history.
There might be no consensus about the beginning of this period, but many consider the
invention of printing as a determining factor. Printing played a great role not only in fostering the
norms of spelling and pronunciation; it also provided more opportunities for people to write and
to give books a much wider circulation. This period includes also important scientific
discoveries and the exploration of Africa, Asia and America. But the most significant factor,
which shaped the development of the language, was the “Renaissance” – the period,
characterized by a renewed interest in the classical languages and literature, and by major
developments in sciences and arts. All these factors had a major impact on the vocabulary of the
language; a considerable number of Greek and Latin borrowings were introduced into the
language to express new concepts, techniques and innovations. In fact, it is generally
acknowledged that the increase in foreign borrowing is the most distinctive feature of the
Renaissance for English (Crystal 1995: 60).
It is generally accepted that the most prominent figure of this period was William
Shakespeare (1564-1616), whose role in the language could hardly be overestimated. The
Shakespearian impact on the lexicon is immense: his poems and plays introduced or popularized
thousands of new words in the language.
Another distinguished work of Early Modern English was the King James Bible (1611). It
was appointed to be read in churches throughout the kingdom and had enormous influence on the
people and the language. “There are many phrases in the King James Bible that have entered the
language as idioms, though sometimes with minor changes in grammar and vocabulary, e.g. a
wolf in sheep’s clothing, in the twinkling of an eye, the salt of the Earth, can leopard change his
clothes, money is the root of all evil, if the blind lead the blind, etc. The frequency of occurrence
of such phrases in both literary and everyday language is a clear indication of the impact that the
King James Bible continues to have on contemporary English (Jackson, Zé Amvela 2007: 33).”

1. 1. 4. The Modern English Period (1800-present)

Modern English is characterized by another influx of the vocabulary, which was provoked
by three main factors: the unprecedented growth of scientific vocabulary, the emergence of
American English, which turned to be a dominant variety of the language, and other varieties
known as ‘New Englishes’.
English scientific vocabulary has been growing steadily since the Renaissance, but the
nineteenth century, due to the consequences of the industrial revolution, and as a period of
extensive scientific exploration and discovery, was the boom of innovations in the sphere of
lexis. As H. Jackson mentions, “by the end of the nineteenth century, one could actually speak of
“scientific English as a variety of the language”. A number of terminological systems covering
the whole scope of science have been formed.
 A remarkable factor of the historical development of English was its establishment in the
New World and the emergence of the USA as the leading economic state of the twentieth
century. Although there are still marked differences between British and American English in the
sphere of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, the extensive growth of communication and
the development of mass media are making these varieties more and more alike.
In sociolinguistics the global spread of English has been viewed as two diasporas, the
former of which involved migration of English speakers from the present British Isles to
Australia, New Zealand and North America, and the latter transported the language to Asia and
Africa. “Those English users who left the old country for new ones brought with them their
resource of language and its potentials for change, which are always with us, though we are not
often called upon to contemplate them explicitly. Thus, the language was brought into new
socio-linguistic contexts, and these contact situations have had striking and lasting effects on
English in these regions, so that although these contemporary Englishes have much in common,
they are also unique in their grammatical innovations and tolerances, lexis, pronunciation,
idioms, and discourse (McKay, Hornberger (eds) 2010: 25).”
Though Indian English, Philippine English, Singapore English, and African Englishes have
the distinctive features of their own, vocabulary is the area in which these new Englishes best
assert themselves (Jackson, Zé Amvela 2007: 36).
As Baugh and Cable (1993:1) put it: “The diversity of cultures that find expression in it as
a reminder that the history of the English language is a story of cultures in contact during the
past 1500”. Following such reasoning, it seems inadequate to deal with loanwords simply
linguistically, and ignore the political, economic, social and technological events that brought
words like robot, Cossack, intifada, perestroika, embargo, tycoon, paparazzi, glasnost, fiasco
and the like into the scope of English vocabulary.
Nowadays borrowing takes place on an unprecedented scale, partly because of the
enormous number of new inventions in the 20th century made by people of various nationalities
and partly because international communications are much more rapid and important than a
century ago (www, international TV networks like CNN, mobile telephones, social networks
(Facebook, Twitter), Skype, etc.). As a result, foreign words enter a language like English easily,
often without any change in their spelling and pronunciation, e.g.: blitzkrieg (from German – a
swift intensive military attack, designed to defeat the opponent quickly), lunnic (the name of the
Soviet spacecraft), chernozem (from Ukrainian – dark soil), polka (a Polish folk dance), kibbutz
(from Hebrew - a collective agricultural settlement in modern Israel). To render such words into
English does not only require time, but would lose a lot in translation. English with its
“cosmopolitan vocabulary” (Baugh and Cable 1993:9) does not seem to mind the overwhelming
influx of foreign words into its ranks. Quite the opposite, it has always shown a “marked
tendency to go outside its own linguistic resources and borrow from other languages (Baugh and
Cable 1993: 10).”

2. Native English vocabulary

2.1. Anglo-Saxon element in English

The original stock of the English vocabulary is made up of Anglo-Saxon element and English
proper element, which was partially influenced by Celtic.
Anglo-Saxon words appeared in the language around the 5th century A.D., when the
Germanic invaders migrated to the British Isles. These are the words of high frequency, like the
articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliaries and modal verbs (shall, will, can, may,
must), as well as verbs and nouns, denoting everyday objects and phenomena, such as the parts
of the human body (arm, foot, head, heart, chest, bone, eye, ear), domestic life (house, home,
door, floor), animals (dog, hound, sheep, swine, cow, hen, fish, goat), the natural landscape (cliff,
hill, field, hedge, meadow, wood), the calendar (day, month, sun, moon, year), some common
adjectives (black, dark, long, good, white, wide), and common verbs (become, do, eat, fly, go,
help, kiss, live, love, see, sell, send, think) (Crystal 1995: 124).
As it is obviously seen from the above, the Anglo-Saxon words are short and concise root
words, which are highly frequent in both literal and colloquial discourse. They make up the core
of the language vocabulary.
As far as the frequency of words is concerned, we have to assume that there are half a million
words in English. Some of these half-million words are very frequent, such as the function
words (a, the, to, etc.); some of them are quite frequent (say, the 20,000 or so headwords you
would find in a typical pocket dictionary); and the rest of them are less frequent. The most
frequent word in English is the definite article the, and nearly all of the most frequent hundred
words are function words, such as pronouns and prepositions. Among the most frequent words
there are only a few nouns and verbs which can be said to have a meaning of their own, and all
of these words are highly ambiguous or fuzzy (words like thing or set) (Halliday et. al. 2004:
115).
There is a strong tendency, noticed by B. Bryson, to keep the Anglo-Saxon noun but to
adopt a foreign one for the adjectival form. Thus, figures are not figurish; they are digital. Eyes
are not eyeish, they are ocular. “English is unique in this tendency to marry a native noun to an
adopted adjective. Among other such pairs are mouth/oral, mind/mental, book/literary,
water/aquatic, house/domestic, moon/lunar, sun/solar, town/urban” (Bryson, 2005: 68).
The bulk of the Old English word stock has been preserved, although some items have
passed out of existence. The Anglo-Saxon element is estimated to make about 30% of the
English vocabulary. The semantic and word building ability as well as frequency value and
collocability of these words is great and they make up a core part of the language vocabulary.

2.2. The Celtic element in English

In the 5-th century AD the Germanic tribes migrated to the British Isles and occupied most
of their territory.
The Celts, the original inhabitants of the British Isles, retreated to the North and South
West of the country (modern Scotland, Wales and Cornwall). They had little cultural contacts
with the invaders, thus the Celtic language had little impact on Old English. Few of these
borrowings remained in Modern English (dew, bald, bard, down, druid, cradle, twig, hue); a
couple of them are used in local dialects of Scotland, Wales and Cornwall.
By far the greatest influence of the Celtic language upon English was upon the names of
places. This is natural, since place names are commonly adopted in great numbers from the
aboriginal inhabitants of a country. Celtic place names are therefore found in all parts of the
country in the names of rivers (Avon, Exe, Esk, Don, Usk, Severn, Thames, Trent, Ouse and Wye,
originating from the Celtic words meaning ‘river’ and ‘water’).
The Celtic aber ‘mouth’ is found in Aberdeen, Aberfeldie, Abergeldie, caer ‘castle’ in
Caercolon, Caerleon, dun ‘a protected place’ is recognized in Dunbar, Dumbarton, Dundee.
Town names include: London, Bray, Dover, Kent, Leeds, York and a lot of others, which are
common in all parts of England, though much more largely in Scotland and Ireland (Emerson
2005: 152).
In later periods a few more loan words were introduced into English through Irish Gaelic,
Scots Gaelic and Welsh – shamrock, Tory, clan, loch, slogan, budget, whisky, and crag.
Some Celtic words penetrated into English through other languages. Thus, the words beak,
budget, bulge, cloak, clock, gravel, harness, javelin, job, lawn, mineral, trousers, tunnel came
via French.
 All in all, there are no more than two dozen Celtic words in English. That testifies to the
fact that English is primarily a Germanic language. (Jackson, Zé Amvela 2007: 30).

3.3. The Classical element in English

For centuries, formal education in Europe has been closely associated with the teaching and
learning of Latin. Through a long period of time Latin was the classical and cultural language of
Western Europe, and it had an enormous impact on all Western European languages. From the 4-
th century BC to the 5th century AD it was the language of the Roman Republic and Empire and
from the III century to the XX century – the international vehicle of the Roman Catholic Church
and the learned language of Western Christendom (McArthur 1992: 586). Particularly since the
Renaissance, Latin has always been the scholarly and literally seed-corn for the vernacular
European languages. English has proved to be the most receptive among the Germanic languages
to direct as well as indirect Latin influence, largely as a consequence of the Norman Conquest.
A large part of the lexicon of Latin has entered English in two major ways: mainly religious
vocabulary from the time of Old English until the Reformation, and mainly scientific, scholarly
and legal vocabulary from the Middle Ages onwards.
The OE period of Latin borrowings is called the ‘plant’ period, since most of these terms
indicate special spheres in which the Roman invaders excelled and which they brought with
them to the British Isles. Many of them have survived into Modern English and their origin can
be easily traced, e.g. plante, plant (Lat. planta), pipper, pepper (Lat. piper), win, wine (Lat.
vinum), plum (Lat. prunum), beat (Lat. beta), buttere, butter (Lat. butyrum), cese, cheese (Lat.
caseus).
Another sphere of connection of the two languages deals with Christianization of the British
people. This time may be called the period of ‘church’ borrowings. Among them were: candel,
‘candle’, sealm ‘psalm’, munyk ‘monk’, mynster ‘monastry’, maesse ‘mass’, sealm ‘psalm’,
maegester ‘master, alter ‘altar’. During this period a number of OE words acquired a new
‘Christian’ meaning: heaven, hell, God, gospel, holy, Easter, ghost, sin.
In the Middle English period Latin words were borrowed through French – the language
which had a dominant influence on the growth of the Middle English vocabulary. Many
borrowings also occurred directly from Latin, and it is sometimes very difficult to identify the
origin and the source of the borrowing.
Sometimes the same word reached English at different times, and from different sources,
having undergone various degrees of filtering, and thus can exist in English in two or more
related forms, as with canal and channel, regard and reward, pour and pauper, catch and chase,
cave and cage, amiable and amicable (the examples are taken from Bryson 2009: 66). Such
words are termed etymological doublets – two or more words of the same language that come
from the same root.
The simultaneous borrowing of French and Latin words caused a highly distinctive feature
of modern English vocabulary – triplets - sets of three items, all expressing the same notion but
differing slightly in meaning or style, e.g. hotel, hostel and hospital; strait, straight, and strict;
kingly, royal, regal and others. The Latin caput (head) and its French derivative chief appear in
a series of meanings equally varied, in such words as captain, capital (city), capital (property),
chief (noun and adjective) and chef (of kitchen). B. Bryson mentions another triplet –jaunty,
gentle, and genteel, all from the Latin gentilis. But the record holder is almost certainly the Latin
discus which has given us disk, disc, dish, desk, dais, and discus (Bryson 2009: 67).
There are cases when etymological doublets are the result of borrowing different
grammatical forms of same word, e.g. the comparative degree of Latin ‘super’ was ‘superior’,
which was borrowed into English with the meaning ‘high in some quality or rank’. The
superlative degree (Lat. supermus) in English is ‘supreme’ with the meaning ‘outstanding,
prominent’. So, ‘superior’ and ‘supreme’ are etymological doublets.
 In Early Modern English period the effect of the Renaissance began to be seriously felt in
England. We see the beginning of a huge influx of Latin and Greek words, with many of them
being learned words imported by scholars well versed in those languages. Latin continued to be
the primary language of scholarship, and most of the borrowed words belong to such fields as
religion, science, law and literature. In literature some writers used Latin words deliberately to
produce literary or elevated styles. Religious terms of this period include: collect, mediator, and
redeemer. Legal terms include: client, conviction, and subpoena. Those connected with
scholastic activities are: library, scribe, theory, metaphor and simile. Scientific words include:
equal, dissolve, essence, medicine, etc. The law, for example, has taken many terms from Latin,
such as: ad litem (‘in a lawsuit’), bona fide (‘with good faith’), ad hock (‘not planned, but
arranged or done only when necessary’), prima facie (‘at first impression’), subpoena (‘under
penalty’ – i.e. to attend court’) and some others. Medicine, on the other hand, has a tendency to
borrow words from Greek: an inflammatory disease ends in -itis (peritonitis, bronchitis), a
surgical removal ends in -ectomy (hysterectomy, vasectomy), the medical care of particular
groups -iatrics (paediatrics, geriatrics).
A number of terms were borrowed from Greek via Latin, and the influence on English
was largely lexical and conceptual with some orthographic and other effects. As it was noticed
by McArthur (Mc Arthur 1999: 453), for speakers of English Greek has been traditionally
perceived as remote, esoteric and yet worth some respect: compare the idiom It’s Greek to me (I
can’t understand it) and the saying The Greeks had a word for it (expressing a traditional view of
the richness of the language). Greek words, word-forming patterns and word elements were
adopted and adapted into Latin and passed through it into many Indo-European languages. The
significant influx was in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, e.g. rhetorical, catalogue,
analytical, dogma, psychology, stratagem, synonym, pseudonym and others.
Sometimes, a Latin or Greek adjective was adopted, but the native one kept as well, so
we can choose between motherly and maternal, earthly and terrestrial, timely and temporal.
Borrowings from classical languages continued into the Modern English period and at
that time English borrowed words and morphemes from Latin and changed them into new words
which did not exist in classical Latin. Such words are termed Neo-Latin and they were used
literally or for the purpose of expressing scientific ideas to form the basis for the majority of
modern scientific terminology. This was the period when terminology, or what we actually
mean a kind of terminological ‘lingua franca’ used as a means of international communication,
was coined. If we consider the system of linguistic terms in contrast, we can easily demonstrate
what can be described as an ‘international dimension’:

a) Linguistic terms derived from Greek:

English French German Ukrainian

Phonetics phonetigue Phonetik фонетика

Paradigm paradigme Paradigma парадигма
Morphology morphologie Morphologie морфологія
Deixis deixis Deixis дейксис
Synthetic synthetigue Synthetisch синтетичний

b) Linguistic terms derived from Latin:

English French German Ukrainian

Intonation intonation Intonation інтонація

Article article Artikel артикль
Function function Funktion функція
Articulation articulation Artikulation артикуляція
Inflexion flexion Flexion флексія

The peculiarities of the national metalanguage come to the fore when a sequence of
international terms is broken by a nationally based term. The following cognates can be used as
an illustration:

English French German Ukrainian

Mark marque Merkmal знак

Neutralization neutralization Aufhebung нейтралізація
Timbre timbre Klangfarbe тембр

The two variants – the nationally based and the international ones - can be co-existent,
functioning side by side:

English Ukrainian

Temporal часовий, темпоральний

Vocative кличний відмінок, вокатив
Аttributive означальний, атрибутивний
Transitivity перехідність, транзитивність
Inflexion закінчення, флексія
Definition визначення, дефініція

Not only words, but morphemes of classical origin were borrowed into English as well.
Moreover, such neo-classical words are used abundantly not only in international terminology,
but in other spheres of modern life.
A number of compound words were formed from roots that are taken from the classical
languages (Greek and Latin) and put together to form, for the most part, new words that were
unknown in classical Greek and Latin. They are known as neo-classical compounds, e.g.:
Anthro- (human) + -morphic (in the form of);
Biblio-(book) + -graphy (writing);
Bio- (life) + -logy (study);
Neuro-(nerve) + -algia (pain);
Tele-(distant) + -pathy (feeling);
Xeno-(foreigner) + -phobia (fear).
The adoption of a great amount of foreign words caused the emergence of hybrid words in the
English vocabulary. “Hybrids are words, whose elements come from more than one language:
television (from
Greek tele-, Latin vision), jollification (from English jolly-, Latin ification) (MacArthur 1992:
490). There are two basic types of forming hybrid words: 1) a foreign base is combined with a
native suffix, e.g.: colourless, uncertain; 2) a native base is combined with a foreign affix, e.g.
drinkable, ex-husband. There are also many hybrid compounds, such as schoolboy (Greek +
English), blackguard (English + French). Many hybrids have been considered as barbarisms,
some have not survived; others are now part of the language. Hybridization has grown steadily in
the 20th century, with such words as genocide, hypermarket, microwave, homophobe,
biodegradable, photo-shop, and megastar. It is particularly common where English is used
alongside other languages.
 TASK 1.

(1) Specify the period of the following Latin borrowings and point out structural and
semantic features of words from each period:
Wall, cheese, intelligent, candle, major, moderate, priest, school, street, cherry, phenomenon,
nun, plum, pear, pepper, datum, cup, status, wine, philosophy, method.

(2) Arrange the following Latin loan words into groups according to the period of their
borrowing:
Altar, angel, animal, ass, beet, bishop, butter, camp, candle, cap, chalk, cross, cup, devil, dish,
for, genius, inch, index, item, junior, linen, maximum, mile, mill, monk, mute, oil, palm, pea,
peach, pear, pepper, pine, plant, plum, port, pound, priest, psalter, school, senior, series, stratum,
street, tiger, veto, wine.

(3) Give Modern English equivalents of the following abbreviations of Latin origin:
A.D.(Anno Domini), a.m. (ante meridiem), e.g. (exempli gratia), etc. (et cetera), i.e. (id est), lb
(libra, librae), NB (nota bene), PS ( post scriptum), op. cit (opere citato), p.a. (per annum), p.m.
(post meridiem), v.v.(vice versa).

3.4. Scandinavian loanwords in English

From the end of the 8-th century to the middle of the 11-th century Britain suffered from
several Danish or Viking raids, which in 878 resulted in the occupation of a great part of the
country. The linguistic effect of the Danish conquest was a contribution of a great many
Scandinavian words to the English vocabulary.
Since the varieties of Old Norse brought to England were close to English of that time, the
Scandinavian invaders did not have too many difficulties in making themselves understood, and
the contact between the invaders and the natives was intense. Given the fact that the two
languages, Old Norse and Old English, were so similar, the perception of Old Norse words as
foreign must not have been high. In many cases the forms in both languages were similar (due to
their generic relationship) and so cannot be retrospectively distinguished. However, there are
certain characteristic features of Scandinavian as opposed to English which are reliable in
identifying borrowings. The most evident one is the consonant sound cluster [sk]. In Old English
it was palatalized at an early stage; in Scandinavian this sequence was retained in its
unpalatalized form. This means that the native English words have [sh]: ship, shin, fish, while the
Scandinavian loans have [sk]: score, scowl, scrape, scrub, sky, skirt, skill, bask, whisk.
The vowel in a word can also be an indication of the Scandinavian borrowing. Thus, the Old
English diphthongs were replaced by long vowels, but in Old Norse they remained and this fact
can explain an unexpected vocalism in some later English words such as: dairy, die, hale, swain.
Due to the fact that the Scandinavian invaders were in close contact with the native English
population, the loan words could be found in all spheres of everyday life. All in all there are
about 2000 Scandinavian loanwords in English, which can be grouped into word classes :
1) Nouns: anger, bag, booth, bulwark, cake, cart, club, crook, dirt, egg, fellow, fir, fog,
gate, gun, gap, guess, harbour, husband, kid, leg link, race, lump, rug, reef, scales, skin,
slang, snob, window, wind.
 2) Verbs: blend, call, cast, clip, crave, crawl, cut, dash, die, droop, gape, grasp, give,
glitter, happen, hit, hurry, jump, kick, lift, leak, nag, raise, rid scare, sniff, struggle,
stumble, take, wag, want, welcome.
3) Adjectives: awkward, big, cozy, flat, happy, nasty, odd, shy, sly, tight, tipsy, ugly,
wrong, weak.
4) Pronouns: they, them, their, same, both.
Sometimes Scandinavian loans involve a little more than the substitution of one word for
another, but some borrowings that expressed new concepts (such as certain Scandinavian legal
terms) or new things (for various kinds of Viking warship) (Jackson, Zé Amvela: 43). A large
number of duplicate words also arose from this contact. In some cases the OE word was
retained, in others it was an ON (i.e. Old Norse) borrowing, as egg vs. OE ey, sister vs. OE
sweoster, etc. In a number of cases both words survived, but while OE words are standard, their
ON equivalents are dialectal: yard vs. garth, church vs. kirk, leap vs. laup, lum vs. chimney,
neep vs turnip, vennel vs alley, true vs. trigg. All these dialect forms belong to Scotland or the
North of England.
Doublets are similar in their phonetic form as can be recognized from the examples above.
However in many cases there are loans which have developed a certain difference in meaning:

OE ON

Whole hale
Shriek screak
Ditch dike
Rise raise
Craft skill
Shirt skirt
Ill sick

The extent of Scandinavian influence on English can be determined by looking at the place
names of Scandinavian origin on the British Isles. There are a great many places with the suffix -
by (meaning ‘village’): Fleckeby, Appleby, Derby, Ashby, Schysby; the suffix -toft (meaning ‘a
piece of ground or homestead’): Eastoft, Nortoft, Brimtoft; the suffix -thwaite (meaning ‘an
isolated piece of land or clearing’) as in Applethwaite, Braithwaite, Satterthwaite.
Though borrowings from Scandinavian are not numerous, they are part and parcel of the
English vocabulary. There is much truth in Otto Jespersen’s words: “…Scandinavian loan-words
are homely expressions for things and actions of everyday importance; their character is utterly
democratic. Just as it is impossible to speak or write in English about higher intellectual or
emotional subjects or about fashionable mundane matters without drawing largely upon the
French (and Latin) elements, in the same manner Scandinavian words will crop up together with
the Anglo-Saxon ones in any conversation on the thousand nothings of daily life or on the five or
six things of paramount importance to high and low alike. An Englishman cannot thrive or be ill,
or die without Scandinavian words; they are to the language what bread and eggs are to the daily
fare (Jespersen 1912: 80).
It should be mentioned that English continued borrowing from Scandinavian in later periods;
among the recent borrowings are the following: rug, ski, rune, saga, tungsten, easel and
ombudsman.
 TASK 2.

(1) Arrange the following Scandinavian borrowings according to the word class they belong
to:
Anger, birth, both, to call, to cast, to clip, to die, to doze, fellow, flat, gate, to get, to glitter, to
happen, happy, to hit, husband, ill, knife, to lift, loose, low, meek, odd, to raise, root, saga, same,
sister, skill, skin, sky, sly, to take, they, though, till, ugly, to want, weak, window, wing, wrong.

3.5. French borrowings in English

The Norman Conquest of 1066 had an enormous effect on language development. The
language, spoken by the Normans, known as Norman French became the language of the King’s
court, the government and the new upper social classes. Norman French was therefore the
language of honour, chivalry and justice. Such a context was favourable for the development of
French-English bilingualism: many Normans learned English in their everyday contacts, while
Englishmen learned French to gain advantage from the aristocracy. Indeed, Matthew of
Westminster said, ‘Whoever was unable to speak French was considered a vile and contemptible
person by the common people’ (1263).
There were three periods of French borrowings. The first, from about 1066 to 1250 represents
the height of the Norman power. French was the language of the aristocracy and therefore also
the language of prestige, government and polite social intercourse. English was the language of
the common folk and menials. There were not many French borrowings at that time, since
English was used largely in its own, low-level arenas, and French and English speakers were
kept separate.
The second period, roughly from 1250 to 1400, represents the period of the abundant influx
of Norman French borrowings. According to D. Crystal (Crystal 1995: 46) by the end of the
thirteenth century, about 10,000 French words were borrowed into English, and about 75% of
these words are still in use. These words were quickly assimilated into English; i.e., English
suffixes, etc., were freely added to the borrowed French words; e.g., gentle, borrowed in 1225, is
found compounded with an English word, gentlewoman, in 1230 (Baugh and Cable 1993: 444).
French loanwords of that period could be found in all domains, namely those relating to:
1) Law and administration: accuse, advocate, arrest, attorney, constable, court, crime, deny,
goal, jail, judge, justice, prison, punish, verdict.
2) Military affairs: admiral, arms, battle, camp, chivalry, combat, command, defence, destroy,
enemy, navy, penalty, soldier, surrender, traitor, troops.
3) Political life: empire, government, policy, parliament, minister, state, sovereign, crown,
power, administration, office, counsel, mayor, agreement, treaty, reign, civil.
4) Titles and professions: baron, duke, duchess, prince, emperor, count, viscount, butcher,
painter, tailor, barber, carpenter, draper, forester, grocer, merchant, apprentice,
surgeon, physician.
4) Religion: abbot, clergy, preach, sacrament, service, tempt, saint, charity, faith,
commandment, baptize, parish, divine, chapel.
5) Cuisine: biscuits, boil, dinner, fry, pastry, pork, roast, soup, stew, spice, sausage, veal,
jelly, salad, juice, sauce.
6) Names of plants: cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, onion, radish, cucumber.
7) Names of precious stones: amethyst, diamond, emerald, pearl, ruby, sapphire, topaz,
turquoise.
 8) Fashion: luxury, coat, collar, lace, pleat, embroidery, frock, garment, gown, robe, cotton,
fur, button, fashion.
9) Terms for emotional states: ease, disease, joy, delight, felicity, grief, despair, distress,
courage, passion, desire, jealousy, ambition, arrogance, despite, disdain, malice,
envy, certainty, doubt, enjoy, despise, furious.
10) Geography: country, coast, river, valley, lake, mountain, frontier, border, city,
hamlet, village, estate.
The third period of French borrowings is from around 1400 onwards. Its feature is that,
unlike the loanwords of the first two periods, which expressed the core notions and became
quite nativised (it takes some effort to imagine that the words like arm, car, case, change,
clear, dance, fine, line, finish used to be aliens in English). The later borrowings from French
were more distant from the core, being more refined and sophisticated, with their evident
‘French flavor’. Notice the spelling and pronunciation of some of these words: ballet, tableau,
statuesque, cliché, coup d’état, motif, format, trousseau, lingerie, rouge, avant-garde, vis-á-vis,
etiquette.
Words that were borrowed from French into English after 1650, mainly through French
literature, are not so numerous and many of them are not completely assimilated. These
borrowings fall into the four broad categories:
1) Words relating to literature and music: belle-lettres, conservatoire, brochure, nuance,
pirouette, vaudeville;
2) Words relating to buildings and furniture: entresol, chateau, bureau;
3) Words relating to military affairs: corps, echelon, fuselage, manoeuvre.
4) Words relating to food and cooking: ragout, sauté, hors d’oeuvre, cuisine;
French borrowings which came into English after 1650 retained their spelling, e.g. the
consonants p, t, s are not pronounced at the end of the word (buffet, coup, debris). The typical
French word combination of letters ‘eau’ can be found in the borrowings: bureau, gateau, art
nouveau. Some of the diagraphs retain their French pronunciation: ch is pronounced as [k], e.g.
chic, chef, parachute; qu is pronounced as [k], e. g. bouquet, quartet; ou is pronounced as [u], e.
g. coupe, boutique, soup.
It is evident, that this heavy borrowing from French had several effects on English. Firstly,
native English words were replaced by the borrowed ones. Secondly, native and loanwords were
retained with a differentiation in meaning (swine – pork, house – mansion, calf – veal, sheep –
mutton, hearty – cordial).
Etymological twins (the borrowings from different languages which are historically
descended from the same root) emerged. E. g.: senior (Latin), sir (French); captain (Latin),
chieftain (French); canal (Latin), channel (French); secure (Latin), sure (French). Some of them
originated from the same language, but where borrowed at different periods. E. g.: cavalry
(Norm. French), chivalry (Par. French); travel (Norm. French), travail (Par. French); chief
(Norm. French), chef (Par. French). Etymological twins may also be known as doublets, and may
occur as triplets or more, as in: hospital (Latin), hostel (Norm. French), hotel (Par. French); right
(Germanic), rich (Celtic), regalia (Latin), reign (Norm. French), royal (Par. French), real
(Portuguese).
Finally, as a result of Middle English borrowing from French and Latin, Modern English
abounds in synonyms of three levels: informal (English), literary (French) and formal (Latin),
as in:

English French Latin

ask question interrogate
rise mount ascend
fire flame conflagration
holy sacred consecrated
end finish terminate
 hatred enmity animosity
kingly royal regal

In general, as the examples cited confirm, the synonym from the Latinate strata tends to
be used in more formal context, than the one from the Anglo-Saxon stratum.
French influenced not only the vocabulary of English but also its spelling, since the
manuscripts were written by French scribers as the local population was mainly illiterate, and
the ruling class was French. Runic letters, remaining in English after the Latin alphabet was
borrowed, were substituted by Latin letters and combinations of letters, e. g.: the letter ‘v’ was
introduced for the voiced consonant [v] instead of ‘f’ in the intervocalic position (lufian – love),
the diagraph ‘ch’ was introduced to denote the sound [t∫] (chest) before the front vowels where it
had been palatalized, the diagraph ‘sh’ was introduced instead of the combination ’sc’ to denote
the sound [∫] (ship) etc. As it was difficult for French scribers to copy English texts they
substituted the letter ‘u’ before ‘v’, ‘m’, ‘n’ for the letter ‘o’ to escape the combination of many
vertical lines: sunu-son, luvu-love.

TASK 3.
(1) Pick out Norman and Parisian borrowings from the following sentences.
1. It was while they were having coffee and a waitress brought a message to their table. 2. I
know nothing about the film world and imagined it to be a continuous ferment of personal
intrigue. 3. A limousine and chauffeur, available at any time from the bank’s pool of cars, were
perquisites of the executive vice-president’s job, and Alex enjoyed them. 4. His bandaged head
was silhouetted in the light from the little window. 5. Apart from being an unforgivable break of
etiquette, you only make yourself extremely ridiculous. 6. However this John Davanent
evidently knew more about the army and commerce than either of them.

(2) Arrange the following French borrowings into: a) law terms; b) military terms; c)
religious terms; d) cookery terms; e) art terms; f) medical terms.
To accuse, admiral, army, arrest, art, bacon, banner, battle, to boil, cadet, clergy, colour, conquest,
court, defence, dinner, fatigue, fortress, fruit, genre, gout, image, jelly, judge, juice, malady, music,
mutton, ornament, pain, paradise, pastry, pulse, remedy, saint, sausage, siege, surgeon, talent, to
taste, toast, veal, vinegar, war.

3.6. German and Dutch loans

From the Middle Ages on, various kinds of contacts have existed between the Dutch and the
British. In these contacts English borrowed from Dutch a lot of nautical terms, as the Dutch
were eminent in this field. Among these are: bowline, bowsprit, buoy, commodore, cruise, deck,
keel, leak, reef, skipper, smuggle, yacht. The Dutch and Flemish were also famous for their cloth
making and associated commercial activities. Together with cloth they exported the words
dealing with this domain: cambric, duck, jacket, nap, spool. Other commercial terms include:
dollar, groat, guilder, and mart.
Loanwords also came into English through contacts between American and Dutch settlers,
who lived close to each other sharing the territory and the languages. The diversity of contacts
accounts for the wide range of loanwords: boodle, boss, cookie, cranberry, dope, lowery, Santa
Clause (Sante Klaas, Saint Nicholas), spook, waffle.
Another region of contacts was in South Africa, where South African Dutch (Afrikaans)
was spoken. From this language English has borrowed a few lexical items, among them are:
apartheid, commandeer, commando, outspan, spoor, trek, veld.
The contacts between English and High German were not so beneficial. Words have been
borrowed in specialist fields, such as geology and mineralogy: cobalt, feldspar, gneiss, nickel,
quarts, seltzer, zinc. Some food and drink terms include: delicatessen, frankfurter, noodle,
schnapps. German borrowings can be easily identified in English by their phonetic form, e.g.:
blitz, ersatz, Gestalt, hinterland, leitmotiv, rucksack, umlaut, waltz, Weltanschauung. They also
preserve morphological and graphical features of the original language and are non-assimilated.

3.7. Spanish, Portuguese and Italian borrowings in English

Apart from Latin and French, English has borrowed from other Romance languages, such
as Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. Many Spanish words have come into English from three
primary sources: many of them entered American English in the days of Mexican and Spanish
cowboys working in what is now the U.S. Southwest. Words of Caribbean origin entered English
by way of trade. The third major source is the names of foods which had no English equivalent
as the intermingling of cultures has expanded Spanish diet as well as Spanish vocabulary. Many
of the words changed their meaning upon entering English, often by adopting a narrower
meaning than in the original language.
Spanish and Portuguese borrowings could be arranged into the following groups:
1) Food and cookery terms: apricot, avocado, banana (the word, originally of African origin,
entered English vie either Spanish or Portuguese), barbecue (from barbacoa, a word of
Caribbean origin), tomato, vanilla.
2) Military and political terms: armada, conquistador, comrade, embargo, guerilla, junta.
3) Nature phenomena: El Niňo, hurricane, savanna, tornado.
4) Trade and business terms: cargo, embargo, bonanza, El Dorado
5) Names of dances and musical instruments: tango, rumba, habanera, guitar.
A good mixture of English and Spanish can be observed in Spanglish (a blend of English
+ Spanish) – a variety of English heavily influenced by Spanish, commonly spoken in US
Hispanic communities and the British communities in Argentina. For example, a fluent bilingual
speaker addressing another, like bilingual speaker, might indulge in code switching (a linguistic
term denoting the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety in
conversation) with some words, changing them into English, as in the sentence: ‘I’m afraid I
can’t report at the meeting next week porque tengo una obligación de negocious en Chicago,
pero espero que I’ll do it a week after’.
The influence of Italian on English is mostly lexical and has continued over many
centuries. Since medieval times, Italian has had a strong influence on French, as a result of which
many borrowings into English have had a distinctly Gallic aspect, as with battalion (16 c: from
battalion, from battaglione), caprice (17 c: from caprice, from capriccio, the skip of a goat, a
sudden sharp movement), frigate (16 c: from frigate, from fregata), picturesque (17 c: from
pittoresque, from pittoresco, with assimilation to picture). Direct borrowings fall into four broad
categories:
1) Terms from the old pan-European tradition of using Italian to discuss and describe music: e.g.:
adagio, alto, andante, basso, bel canto, cello, coloratura, concerto, contralto, crescendo,
diminuendo, divertimento, duet, fortissimo, libretto, pianoforte, pizzicato, scherzo, solo, sonata,
violine.
2) Comparable literary, architectural, artistic, and cultural terms, such as canto, conversazione,
cupola, extravaganza, fresco, novella, palazzo, stanza, tarantella.
3) Internationalized culinary terms, such as lasagne, minestrone, mozzarella, pasta, pizza,
ravioli, spaghetti, vermicelli.
4) A variety of social words, including alfresco, bimbo, bravo, confetti, dilettante, fascist,
fiasco, gazette, ghetto, gigolo, graffiti, incognito, mafia, regatta.
Some loans have adapted the spelling, such as macaroni (from Italian maccherony). In
addition, some words have moved to a greater or less extent from their original area of
application to a wider use, as with crescendo, piano, solo.

3.8. Words of Slavic Origin in the English Language

Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of
the Slavic peoples, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of
central Europe, and in northern part of Asia. Scholars traditionally divide them into three main
brunches:
1) East Slavic, which further subdivides into: Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian.
2) West Slavic, including: Czech and Slovak, Upper and Lower Sorbian (minority languages in
Germany), and Polish.
3) South Slavic, which further subdivides into:
a) Western subgroup composed of Slovene and Serbo-Croatian;
b) Eastern subgroup composed of Bulgarian, and Macedonian (See Wikipedia).
Most scholars agree that despite a comparable extent of historical proximity, the Germanic
languages demonstrate less significant Slavic influence, partly because Slavic migration mostly
headed south rather than west and partly due to political reasons, when there was a tendency to
diminish Slavic contribution to Germanic languages.
The Slavic nations have also made a contribution through the millions of immigrants to the
English speaking nations from that part of Europe. That is why Canadian English is featured by a
number of borrowings from Ukrainian, e. g.: babka, bandura, borshch, chernozem, cossak,
hetman, holubtsi, hopak, pysanka. American English shows more significant Slavic influence
due to Yiddish. The term ‘Ameridish’ is used to describe new words, or new meanings of
existing Yiddish words, created by English-speaking persons with some knowledge of Yiddish.
Some of these words have the Slavic diminutive suffix –chik(-ik)(-ic): e.g.: boychick – boy,
young man; nudnik – a pest, ‘pain in the neck’, a bore (from Ukrainian or Polish ‘nudne’);
alrightnik – a male or female individual who has been successful, nouveau riche; bulbenik – an
actor, who muffs his lines (from bilbul – mixup (alternative theory- bulba (Ukrainian)– potato).
Some words in the process of borrowing can undergo some semantic transformations, as
the Russian word babushka (an old woman), which has restricted its meaning to - ‘a headscarf
tied under the chin, worn by Russian peasant women’. The original meaning of this word - ‘an
old woman or grandmother’ is preserved in the recent coinage babushkaphobia – ‘dislike of or
aversion of grandchildren, fear of grandmothers’.
Having analyzed the lexical transfer between English and Slavic languages, Danko Ŝipka
has made the following conclusions: 1) Lexical and cultural influence from subordinate to
dominant language is by and large limited by the culture-bound items. Borrowed vocabulary
items remain marginal in the overall English vocabulary. Several exceptions from this trend, i.e.
words which have made it to the core of the English vocabulary as a result of the butterfly effect
and can not be accounted for by some general trend. 2) Lexical influence of each particular
language is directly proportionate to the language size. Exceptions from this general trend occur,
as demonstrated by East Slavic languages, when one language clearly dominates others. 3) The
timeline of borrowing is directly proportionate with the growth and deepening of the
international communication networks of the twentieth century (Ŝipka 2004: 353-365). If
we examine the total English vocabulary closely, we see that a great proportion of it consists of
words of ultimately foreign origin. Yet, according to Algeo (Algeo 1991: 4): “Many such words
were actually formed in English, so the extremely high percentage of borrowing sometimes
reported for English is exaggerated”. He traditionally divides borrowings into three types:
simple loans, adapted loans and loan translations.
Simple loans are words adopted directly into English, sometimes with minor changes in
pronunciation to make them conform to English sound norms and patterns. Occasionally,
spelling changes of a similar kind are also required but with no major change of form. E.g. artel,
troika, perestroika, glasnost, pryzhok (from Russian), dumka (from either Czech or Ukrainian),
and polka (from Polish).
Adapted loans, on the other hand, involve some morphological change (change of form),
rather than slight modifications of phonology and orthography. In other words, they are adapted
from their foreign word pattern into a more native (English) one. For example, a foreign ending
may be omitted and replaced with a native suffix: E. g.: constructivism (from the Russian
konstructivizm, folkloristics (from the Russian folkloristika) and akathisia (from Czech
akathiste).
Loan translations or calques differ from the above borrowings in that they are not foreign
in their form but in the meaning they convey, i. e. instead of borrowing the form of a foreign
word, English sometimes borrows its meaning, rendering the foreign sense by suitable words in
the form of literary translation already part of the English vocabulary. E.g. wall newspaper
(transl. from Russian stengazeta), godless (transl. from Russian bezbozhnik), biogeochemistry
(transl. from Russian biogeokhimia), superplasticity (transl. from Russian sverkhplastichnost),
foregrounding (transl. from Czech aktualisace).Often calques exist alongside the corresponding
simple loans they translate: bachelors and the Russian holostiaky, saturdaying and the Russian
subbotnic, plum pox and the Bulgarian starka.

3.8.1. Borrowings from Ukrainian

English words of Ukrainian origin are words in the English language which were borrowed
or derived from the Ukrainian language.
Some of them may have entered via Russian, Polish, Yiddish or some other languages. They
may have originated in other languages, but are used to describe notions related to Ukraine.
Some are regionalisms, used in English-speaking places with a significant Ukrainian diaspora
population, especially in Canada, but a number of them have entered the general English
vocabulary. E.g.:
bandura – a stringed instrument,
borscht – (Ukr. borshch) beet soup, also the expression – cheap like borscht,
cossack – (Ukr. kozak), a freedom-loving horseman of the steppes,
gley (Ukr. hley), a sticky blue-grey waterlogged soil type, poor in oxygen,
hetman – a Cossack military leader,
holubtsi – plural – (Ukr. singular holubets) – cabbage rolls,
hopack – a lively traditional dance,
pysanka – a decorated Easter egg,
steppe – a flat, treeless plain,
varenyky - boiled dumplings with potato or curdled cheese.

3.8.2. Borrowings from other languages in English

Being very flexible, English continues to enhance its vocabulary by taking in loanwords from
around the world. Some recent borrowings include: ciabatta (a type of open-textured bread made
of olive oil (Italian)), gite (a self-catering holiday cottage for let in France (French)), intifada
(the Palestinian uprising against Israel (Arabic)), juggernaut (a very large lorry for transporting
goods by road (Hindi), karaoke (an entertainment in which people take it in turns to sing well-
known songs over a pre-recorded baking tape (Japanese), nouvelle cuisine ( a style of preparing
or presenting food, with light sauces and unusual combinations of flavours and garnishes
(French)), ombudsman (a commissioner who acts as independent referee between individual
citizens and their government or its administration (Swedish), paparazzi (a freelance
photographer who specializes in candid camera shots of famous people and often invades their
privacy to obtain such photographs (Italian), perestroika (the policy of reconstructing the
economy, etc., of the former Soviet Union under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachov (Russian),
salsa a) a type of Latin American big-band dance music, b) Mexican source (Spanish), tikka (of
meat, esp. chicken or lamb) marinated in spices then dry-roasted, usually in a clay oven
(Punjubi).
3.9. Assimilation of borrowings
The degree of assimilation of borrowings depends on the following factors: a) the language
group the word was borrowed from (the assimilation is easier if the word belongs to the same or
closely related groups of languages); b) oral or written way of borrowing (words borrowed orally
are assimilated quicker); c) how often the word is used in the language (the greater the frequency
of its usage, the quicker it is assimilated); d) how long the word lives in the language (the longer
it lives, the more assimilated it is).
Accordingly, borrowings fall into the following groups: a) completely assimilated; b)
partly assimilated; c) non-assimilated (barbarisms).
Completely assimilated loanwords are those that are not felt as foreign words in the
language, they are found in all the layers of older borrowings.
They may belong to the first layer of Latin borrowings, e, g: cheese, street, wall, or wine.
Among Scandinavian borrowed words we find such frequently used nouns as husband, fellow,
gate, root, wing; such verbs as call, die, take, want and adjectives like happy, ill, low, odd and
wrong. Completely assimilated French words are extremely numerous and frequent. Nowadays it
takes some effort to imagine that such everyday words as table, chair, face, figure, finish, matter
are aliens to the language.
The second group containing partially assimilated borrowed words can be subdivided into
subgroups:
a) Loan words that are not assimilated semantically, because they denote objects and
notions peculiar to the country from which they come. They may denote foreign clothing:
mantilla, sombrero; foreign titles and professions: shah, rajah, sheik, bei, toreador; foreign
vehicles: caique (Turkish), rickshaw (Chinese), food and drinks: pillow (Persian) sherbet
(Arabian); foreign currency: hryvnia (Ukraine), rupee (India), zloty (Poland), peseta (Spain).
b) Borrowed words that are not assimilated grammatically, for example, nouns
borrowed from Latin Greek which keep their original plural forms: bacillus - bacilli, crisis -
crises, formula - formulae, stratum – strata, index; indices. Some of these can also take typically
English plural forms, but in that case there may be a difference in lexical meaning as in: indices:
indexes, mice: mouses.
c) Borrowed words that are not completely assimilated phonetically. The French words
borrowed after 1650 afford good examples. Some of them keep the accent on the final
syllable: mach'ine, car'toon, re'gime.
This group is fairly large and variegated. There are, for instance, words borrowed from
French in which the final consonant is not pronounced, e.g: ballet, buffet, corps. Some may
keep a diacritic mark: café, cliché, fiancé. Specifically French digraphs (ch, qu, ou) may be
retained in spelling: bouquet, brioche, chef, nouveau riche.
It goes without saying that these sets are intersecting, i.e. one and the same loan word
often shows incomplete assimilation in several respects simultaneously.
The third group of borrowings comprises the so-called barbarisms, i. e. words from
other languages used by English people in conversation or in writing, but not assimilated in any
way, and for which there are corresponding English equivalents. The examples are the Italian
addio, ciao - goodbye, the French affich - for placard and coup or coup d’ Etat – ‘a sudden
seizure of state power by a small group, the Latin ad libitum – at pleasure and the like.
 These words are on the outskirts of the literary language, but they are used for certain
stylistic purposes. Many of them have their synonyms in the literary language, e.g. chic –
stylish, bon mot – a clever witty saying, ad hoc – for this particular purpose, impromptu –
improvised, without preparation, unplanned.

TASK 4.

(1). Give the English equivalents to the following non-assimilated borrowings and define
their origin
Nota bene, padrona, á la carte, ad hoc, brioche, concierge, têt-á-têt, ménage á trios,
alameda, ad libitun, coup de maitre, déjà vu, hors d’oeuvre, sensu lato, modus Vivendi, parlando,
pas de deux, pari-mutuel, noblesse oblige, pousada.
 The English Word as a Structure

Chapter overview

1. What a minimal unit of language is

2. Inflection and derivation
3. Productivity of affixes
4. Compounding.
4.1. Structure of compounds
4.2. Classification of compounds
4.2.1. Compound nouns
4.2.2. Compound adjectives
4.2.3. Compound verbs
5. Conversion or zero-derivation
5.1. Types of conversion
5. 2. Productivity of conversion
6. Some other minor types of word formation
6.1. Reduplication
6.2. Reversion
 6.3. Shortening and graphical abbreviation
6.4. Acronyms
6.5. Blending
6.6. Sound-imitation (onomatopoeia)

1. What a minimal unit of language is

In any science, one of the basic problems is to identify the minimal units, the basic parts of
which more complex units are constructed. Most people, if asked what a minimal meaningful
unit of language is, would have already had the answer – a word (lexical unit). In fact, this notion
is quite familiar for most of them and we can easily distinguish words in a stream of speech
sounds, since their existence is taken for granted by most of us. Proceeding from the definition of
the lexeme “Lexeme (lexical unit) is a unit in the lexicon of a language, whose form is governed
by sounds and writing or print and its content – by meaning and use (MacArthur 1992: 599)” we
can observe, that although this unit can occur in isolation, they are not the minimal meaningful
units of language, since they can be easily broken down further.
Very often there are cases, when we are able to understand words, which we have never
encountered before. In the run up to the latest US presidential race we have come across the
word infomercial. Even if we have never heard this word before, we can understand
effortlessly that this is a case of blending (telescoping) – a way of word formation when
words are created from the parts of the already existing lexical items. The first part of the
word information and the second part of the word commercial are combined to form a blend.
E.g.: The program gave a new meaning to the word “infomercial” and, for that matter, to all
the notions of political advertising”.
We know this word because we know what the words information and commercial mean and
we have unconsciously broken down the word infomercial further.
So if the words can be broken down further, they are not the minimal meaningful units of
language. The traditional linguistic term for these minimal meaningful forms is morpheme
and they are studied in terms of morphology.
Morphology is the component of grammar that deals with the internal structure of words
(Dobrovolsky 2005: 111).
A morpheme is also an association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern. But
unlike a word it is not autonomous. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of
words, not independently, although a word may consist of a single morpheme. They are not
divisible into smaller meaningful units. That is why the morpheme may be defined as the
minimum meaningful language unit.
The term morpheme is derived from Latin morphe – form, - eme, the suffix, which
denotes the smallest unit or the minimum distinctive feature, so the morpheme is the smallest
meaningful unit of form.
Morphemes in English, as in other languages are divided into two types:
1) those which can occur alone, as individual words,
2) those which can not.
The two types are called free and bound morphemes. Thus, the two morphemes of the
lexeme active are act - and –ive and the former is free and the latter is bound. .
 A word has at least one lexical morpheme. The lexical morpheme is regarded as the root of
the word, all the other are bound morphemes, they are either grammatical (inflections) or
lexical-grammatical.
Any concrete realization of a morpheme in a given utterance is called a morph.
Hence, the forms rat, care, form, -ing, -s and re- are all morphs. Morphs should not be
confused with syllables, which are parts of words and are isolated only on the basis of
pronunciation.
An examination of a number of morphs may show that two or more morphs may vary
slightly and still have the same meaning. For example, the indefinite article may be used either a
or an, depending on the sound (not the letter) the following word begins with. Morphs which are
different representation of the same morpheme are called allomorphs of that morpheme (from
Greek allo ‘other’ and morph ‘form’). For example:
a comma vs. an article
a bottle vs. an apple
a university vs. an institute
The word ‘versus’ suggests, that the above morphemes are mutually exclusive and their
distribution is different: the allomorph a is used before words beginning with consonants and an
– before lexemes, which start with vowels.
Another example of allomorphic variation is the pronunciation of the preterit and Past
Participle suffix –ed in the following cases:
helped
played
defended
The morpheme is pronounced as [t] in the first case, it is realized as [d] in the second and [id] in
the third. In this case the choice is determined by the phonetic structure of the stem.
There are three basic types of words in English – simple, complex and compound.
Simple words as can, pen, dad, make and the like can not be broken down into smaller
meaningful units, they are all free forms. They are root morphemes and the root is the primary
element of the word, its basic part which conveys the fundamental lexical meaning. There are a
great many root – morphemes, which can serve as words, such as: act; fact; sun; man, etc. You
have noticed that the root in English is very often homonymous with the word. This fact testifies
to the analytical structure of the English language. Native English words are mostly root-words,
while borrowed or loaned words consist mostly of bound morphemes. To exemplify this let us
consider the French borrowings: arrogance, charity, courage, involve, legible, etc. All of them
are vivid illustrations of the abovementioned fact.
Complex (or derived) words such as handful, eastward, contemporary, sportive are
formed from root words by adding some bound morphs – suffixes or prefixes, while
compound words (or simply compounds) are formed by combining two or more words (free
morphemes), e.g. hangover, sunflower, good-for-nothing.
Bound morphemes are affixes, and they are of three types: suffixes (-ly), prefixes (re-)
and bound bases (cran-berry). A suffix is a morpheme following the stem and forming a new
derivative in a different word class: black, blacken, blackness. Some suffixes can differentiate
between lexical-grammatical classes of words, which belong to the same word class: -ify and -
er are both verb-forming suffixes, but the former is the suffix of causative verbs (horrify,
purify, justify) and the latter is used to form frequentative verbs (flipper, glitter, twitter).

2. Inflection and derivation

Suffixes are of two types, they can be either inflectional or derivational.

‘Inflection is a general grammatical process which combines words and affixes (always
suffixes in English) to produce alternative grammatical forms of words’ (Jackson, Zé Amvela
2007: 82). For example, the preterit and Past Participle forming morph -ed is an inflectional
morpheme. That means that the preterit form worked, for instance, does not reproduce the
lexical item, which is substantially different from the infinitive form work, it is simply a
grammatical form (inflectional variant) of one and the same word.
Derivation is a lexical process which results in forming a new word out of the existing
ones by addition of a derivational affix. For example, the suffix -tion when added to the
words consider or decorate derives the nouns consideration and decoration, which are quite
different words. Following Jackson we may agree, that ‘the term “derivation” refers to the
creation of a new word by means of the addition of the affix to a stem (Jackson 1985: 340)”.
A derivational affix in English is either a prefix or a suffix. There may be more than one
derivational affix per word. “A derivational affix has one of two functions: to convert one part
of speech to another (in which case it is called class changing) or to change the meaning of
the root (in which case it is called class maintaining) (Brinton 2010: 78)”.
Such affixes are important in the creation of new lexemes in the language, thought they
do not always change the grammatical class paradigm. The derivational suffix –ish when
added to the adjectives blue, red, green can modify lexical meaning the adjective base
without changing the part of speech - ish (bluish, reddish), but when added to the nouns girl,
boy, book, child it causes the change of part of speech paradigm: - ish - (girlish, boyish,
bookish, childish).
Productivity of derivationa affixes may range from very limited to quite extensive,
depending upon whether they are found preserved in just a few words and no longer used to
create new words or whether they are found in many words and still used to create new words.
An example of an unproductive suffix is –th in growth, width, wealth , whereas an example of a
productive suffix is –able in the words dependable, movable, changeable, rechargeable and the
like.
There are only three derivational prefixes in English (they are no longer productive),
which are able to change the word class: a- (ashore, asleep, alive), be-
(bewitch, befriend, bedeck ) and en- ( enlarge, enrich, enable, ensure). Other prefixes change
only the meaning of the root, not its class. Prefixes fall into a number
of semantic classes in English, depending upon the meaning that they contribute to the root.
There are several semantic classes of prefixes in English, the Table below presents a list of
them, suggested by L. Brinton (Brinton 2000: 87).

Table 1. Semantic Classes of Prefixes in English

(a) Time

pre - prearrange, presuppose, preheat

post – postgraduate, postmodernism, postwar
after- aftershock, afterthought, afterglow

(b) Number
By- bilingual,
tri- tricycle, triannual, triconsonantal
multi - multinational, multilingual, multimillionaire
mono- monolingual, monotonous,

(c) Place

in- inward, in-patient, ingrown

ex- exhale, extract,
inter- interconnect, interbreed, interlace
d) Degree

super- supersensitive, supersaturated, superheat

over- overanxious, overconfident, overdue
under- underestimate, underpay

(e) Privation

a- amoral, apolitical, asymmetric

un- unlock, untie, unfold

(f) Negation

un- unafraid, unsafe, unwise

anti- antisocial, antitrust, antiwar

(g) Size

micro- microcosm, microchip, microfilm

mini- miniskirt, minivan, minimall
hypo -

Inflectional affixes are morphemes conveying grammatical meaning. They may be

defined as ‘relation markers’ that fit words for use in syntax (Jackson, Zé Amvela 2007: 83).
Their distribution is known to be regular, that is they lend themselves to paradigms of major
word classes. So, the paradigm of the noun student may be illustrated as follows:
Student (base form)
students (plural form)
student’s (possessive form)
students’ (plural possessive form).
An inflectional affix in English is always a suffix; there may be one per word. A
particular inflectional affix is attached to all or most members of a certain word class, that is
we can distinguish between: a) noun suffixes (those forming nouns) – -er, -dom, -ness, -ation;
b) verb suffixes (those added to form verbs)– -en, -fy, -ize; c) adjective suffixes - -able/-ible, -
less, -full, -ic, -ous; d) adverb suffixes - -ly, -ward.
The distinction between the derivational and inflectional affixes is not always clear-cut.
For instance, the adverb forming suffix –ly is used to form adjectives of the lovely type
(lonely, lively, friendly and the like), the ‘past participle’ suffix –ed is used to form adjectives,
e. g. long-legged, curly-haired, four-wheeled.
Words without their grammatical morphemes are known as stems. A stem may consist of
the root alone, as in (room, box, child) or may be complicated (boxing, childish,
encouragement).
A synchronic description of the English vocabulary deals with its present-day system and
its patterns of word-formation by comparing words simultaneously existing in it.
If the analysis is limited to stating the number and type of morphemes that make up the
word, it is referred to as morphemic. For instance, the word carelessness may be analyzed
into three morphemes: the root –care- and two suffixes –ish and -ness.
A synchronic morphological analysis is most effectively accomplished by the procedure
known as the analysis into immediate constituents (IC’s). Immediate constituents are any of
the two meaningful parts forming a larger linguistic unity. First introduced by L. Bloomfield
in his book “Language” in 1933 it was later picked up by and developed by the American
structuralists, notably by Wells (1947) and Nida (1960) (Robins, 1989: 45). The main
opposition dealt with is the opposition of stem and affix. It is a kind of segmentation revealing
not the history of the word, but its motivation, i. e. the data the listener has to go by in
understanding it. It goes without saying that unmotivated words and words with faded
motivation have to be understood as separate signs, not as combination of other signs.
The method is based on the fact that a word characterised by morphological
divisibility (analysable into morphemes) is involved in certain structural correlations. This
means, as Z. Harris puts it, “the morpheme boundaries in an utterance are determined not on
the basis of considerations interior to the utterance but on the basis of comparison with other
utterances. The comparisons are controlled, i. e. We do not merely scan various random
utterances but seek utterances which differ from our original the only in stated portions. The
final test is in utterances which are only minimal different from ours (Harris 1951).
A sample analysis which has become almost classical, being repeated many times by
many authors, is L. Bloomfield’s analysis of the word ungentlemanly. As the word is
convenient we take the same example. Comparing this word with other utterances the listener
recognizes the morpheme –un- as a negative prefix because he has often come across words
built on the pattern un- + adjective stem: uncertain, unconscious, uneasy, uninformative,
unnatural. One can also come across the adjective gentlemanly.
Thus, at the first cut we obtain the following immediate constituents: un- +
gentlemanly. If we continue the analysis, we see that although gent occurs as a free form in
low colloquial usage, no such word as lemanly can be found, so this time we separate the final
morpheme. We know, that there are many adjectives of the pattern noun stem + -ly, such as
womanly, masterly, scholarly
with the same meaning of “having the quality of the person denoted by the stem”, we also
have come across the noun gentleman. So, the first two stages of the analysis resulted in
separating a free and a bound form: 1) un- + gentlemanly, 2) gentleman + -ly. Now we
can make another cut. That is, gentle- + -man. A similar pattern is observed in nobleman, so
we can state adjective stem + man. Now, the element man may be classified as a variant of the
free form man. The word gentle is open to discussion. It is obviously divisible from the
etymological viewpoint: gentle < (O) Fr. gentil < Lat. gentiles permits to discern the root or
rather the radical element gent- and the suffix -il. But since we are concerned with with
synchronic analysis this division is not relevant.
To sum up: as we break the word we obtain at any level only two IC’s, one to discern
the root or rather the radical element gent- and the suffix –il. But since we are only concerned
with synchronic analysis this division is not relevant.
of which is the stem of the given word. All the time the analysis is based on the patterns
characteristic of the English vocabulary. As a pattern showing the interdependence of all the
constituents segregated at various stages, we obtain the following formula:
un- + {[(gent- + -le) + -man] + -ly}
Breaking a word into its immediate constituents we observe in each cut the structural
order of the constituents (which may differ from their actual sequence). Furthermore we shall
obtain only two constituents at each cut, the ultimate constituents, however, can be arranged
according to their sequence in the word: un- + gent- + -le+ -man + -ly.
It must be said, that derivational affixes do not always change the grammatical class
paradigm. The derivational suffix –ish when added to the adjectives blue, red, green can
modify lexical meaning the adjective base without changing the part of speech - ish (bluish,
reddish), but when added to the nouns girl, boy, book, child it causes the change of part of
speech paradigm: -ish - (girlish, boyish, bookish, childish).
There is no clear distinction between the derivational and inflectional affixes, since one
and the same suffix can be used in either function.
TASK 1.

(1) Comment on structural types of words. Arrange the following words into
(a) simple; (b) derived; (c) compounds; (d) derivational compounds:

Teenager, ill-mannered, railway, childish, bald-headed, toy, deaf, deaf-mute, act,

actor, friend, friendship, boyishness, everything, open-hearted, old, old-timer,
normal, honeymooner, bare-legged, pencil-sharpener, meltdown, outsmart, single-
mindedness, disgruntled.

(2) Comment on the inflectional and derivational functions of suffix –s if added to the
following nouns:
Duty, custom, direction, power, humanity, picture, honor, color, development, work,
talk.

(3) Add a prefix with the meaning of oppositeness, negation, etc. to these (there may
be more than one):
Able, literate, reasonable, sense, to function, proper, believer, to inform, certain,
accurate, capable, to behave, regular, to wrap, respective, official, standard, smoker,
to translate, apt, nourished.

3. Productivity of affixes

A diachronic approach to the stock of English morphemes helps to distinguish the

opposition of productive and non-productive affixes. The word-forming activity of the affixes
may change in the course of time; some affixes remain productive, while others become non-
productive; there are cases when affixes become “dead”, so they cannot be separated from the
stem, and the word becomes morphologically indivisible.
We call productive those affixes and types of word-formation which are used to form a
new word in the period in question. Thus, the noun newbie is a neologism which is formed
via derivation on analogy with other words like walkie- talkie.
The most productive English prefixes are: de – productive primarily in technical
vocabulary (degazonate, decompose, desegregate, defrost, decontaminable), re- with few
exceptions only goes in transitive verbs, meaning ‘again’ (reassure, reform, reassemble,
recount, reverse, retrain), pre- (prefabricate, prenatal, premature), non- (non-operational,
non-governmental), un- (undoubted, unlock, uninstall, unpack, unsaddle), anti- (antibiotic,
antivirus).
Non-productive are prefixes en-(em-) - (endanger, enlist, enslave, entrust, entrust), dis-
(disallow, disbelieve, distress, disarm) con- (consign, confuse, conflict, concede), since they
do not give innovations any longer.
The productivity of an affix should not be confused with its frequency – which is a
synchronic feature and is characterized by the fact that a great number of words with the
morpheme in question exist in the language. Thus, the nominal suffix – th is quite frequent in
Modern English, since there are a lot of words, modified by the morpheme in question (e.g.
truth, growth, wealth, width), but it does not give rise to innovations any longer.
So, in Modern English the following suffixes are productive: -ing; -ness; -er; -ee; -ism; -ist
and the suffixes -al (rural); -ancy/ency (valency); -ant/ent (constituent)
-th(strength) are considered non-productive.
The productivity of affixes can change in the course of time. Thus, a number of
innovations with the suffix -dom were observed in American English: anorakdom, stardom,
corporatedom, couchpotatoedom, hackerdom, multimillionairedom, thrillerdom,
supermoledom.
The same is true about the suffix –hood, whish is descended from Old English –hάd
and has cognate equivalents in Old Saxon and Old High Germanic. The suffix forms abstract
nouns from concrete ones with a meaning of ‘state, condition, quality, rank’: childhood,
falsehood, priesthood. It was considered to be unproductive (Bryant 1945: 302), but the recent
clipped words fan ‘fanatic’ and zine ‘amateur magazine’ can take this suffix, resulting in the
forms of fanhood ‘the state of being a fan’ and zinehood ‘the state of being an amateur
publication’. More innovations can be found in computer language: printhood, nethood, etc.
Moreover, some affixes are open to innovations due to their usage sphere expansion
(Zatsnyi 2007: 176). For example, the suffix -able was traditionally used to form deverbal
adjectives (readable, moveable, washable), while nowadays it is widely employed in forming
denominal adjectives (microwave – microwaveable, oven – ovenable, cartop – cartoppable)
(Zatsnyi, 2007: 176).
Recently, the intralingual suffix -ism, has been frequently used to form nouns, denoting
a kind of discrimination towards some category of people: ablelism, fattyism, heterosezism,
smokeism, etc. The suffix -ism, correspondingly, has acquired with discrimination: ageist,
disableist, sexist, etc.
An affix should not be confused with a combining form. A combining form is also a
bound form, but it is always borrowed from another language, namely, from classical
languages, in which it existed either as a free form (a separate word), or as a combining form
as well.
Many English words contain roots (stems or bases) borrowed from Greek or Latin words.
For example, the word port comes from a Latin word portare, meaning ‘to carry’. The root
meaning of import is ‘to carry in’ and export is ‘to carry out’. Report is ‘to carry back’,
especially a message. A porter is one who carries. A series of ‘port’ words can be continued:
airport, deport, passport, seaport, transport.
There are cases when the second component of Greek or Latin origin is functioning as a
kind of semi-suffix, e.g. mania (from the Greek word mania – madness) in the words:
Euromania, mediamania, footballmania, coffemania and the like. Another example is
phob( phobia) which is used to form words technophobia, homophobia, cancerphobia,
xenophobe, claustrophobe and a lot of others.
Combining forms are often used to build new compound words, especially in science
and technology. For example, bio- functions for formation of similar innovations in the
meaning of “biotechnology” or “connected with biotechnology”. The very concept of
“biotechnology” (or gene modification)” appeared to be so popular that to denote it, except
for the word biotechnology, a number of synonymous words and word combinations were
formed: biomanufacturing, genetic engineering (GE), genetic modification (GM), genetic
technology. Synonymous abbreviations GM, GE also participate actively in a word and phrase
formation process. Moreover, the formation of antonymous paradigm is observed on their
basis: anti-GM, anti-GE, non-GM, non-GE. A new word-formation element –genomics is
distinguished in the sphere of ecology. The names of new sciences derive from it:
aromogenomics, nutrigenomics, toxicogenomics, chemogenomics.
The word-building element euro- is a kind of a combining form, which can be used as a
separate word (euro – a clipping from the word European, a unit of money that can be used in
most countries of the European Union) and give rise to a number of recent innovations:
eurospeak, eurocent, Eurocrat, Eurodollar, Eurocorps, eurosceptic, etc.
Another example of such innovative trends is the coinage of ‘cyberneologisms’ in the
English language, which began in the 90-s of the 20-th century. The combining form cyber-
alongside with its traditional meaning ‘relating to computers’ is often used in its narrow
meaning ‘relating message information in Internet’, e. g.: cybercash, cyberspace,
cybercommuter, cyberinvesting, cybersurf and the like (Zatsnyi 2007 : 166).
 The same is true with the element -e (abbreviation of the word ‘electronic’). This prefix
has become very productive nowadays, denoting notions relating to computer technology and
Internet, particularly to the spheres of electronic business, (e-banking, e-trading, e-cash),
electronic publishing (e-book, e-library, e-title, e- reading) (Ibid: 167).
As we can see combining forms are often the results of clipping adjectives or
substantivized adjectives. The combining form -aholic (holic) means ‘infatuated by the object
expressed by the stem’, e.g. workaholic, coffeeholic, bookaholic, shopaholic and the like.
Another form eteria meaning ‘self-service’ was formed by clipping the beginning of
the word cafeteria; it gave rise to such innovations: booketeria, groceteria, booteteria.
Combining forms are sometimes called semi affixes or pseudomorphemes because they
are neither roots nor affixes; these are shortened forms of the words which can be attached to
roots to form new lexemes.

4. Compounding

Compounding or word-composition is one of the highly productive types of word-

formation in Modern English. Both compounding and derivation create new words from the
already existing morphemes. Derivation is the process by which a new word is built from a
base by addition of either prefix or suffix. Compounding is the process involving combination
of two bases, either with or without prefixes or suffixes. The noun dealer, for example, is
formed from the verb to deal via derivation; the word ladybird is created from the words lady
and bird by means of compounding and the lexeme bar-keeper is the combination of both
types.
Compounding has its own peculiarities as to the means used, the nature of bases and
their distribution, as to the range of application, scope of semantic classes and the factors
leading to productivity. The words formed by means of compounding are called compounds.
They are widespread in English and in other related languages, especially in German.
Compounds are words made up of two derivational bases which are both free forms.
The bases may be of different degrees of complexity: simple: honeymoon, derived: key
holder and compound: windscreen wiper. Compound words are inseparable vocabulary units.
They are formally and semantically dependent on the constituents forming them and the
semantic relations between them.
Compounds are of different degree of complexity, e.g. side-track, off-spring, good-for-
nothing, Jack-of-all-trades, middle-of-the-road, might-have-beens.

4.1. Structure of compounds

Structurally compound words are characterized by the specific order and arrangement in
which the two bases follow one another. The order in which the two bases are placed within a
compound is rigidly fixed in Modern English and it is the second component which is the
head member of the words, i.e. its structural and semantic centre.
A change in the order and in the arrangement of the constituents indicated the compound
words of different lexical meanings:
Fruit-market (market where fruit is sold)
Market-fruit (fruit designed for selling)
As we can see from the example, a change in the order and arrangement of the
constituents of the compound may destroy its meaning. Thus, the distributional pattern of a
compound has a certain meaning of its own which is largely independent of the meanings of
the constituents.
A further theoretical aspect of composition is the criteria for distinguishing between a
compound and a word-combination. According to H. Jackson, phonological, syntactic and
semantic grounds can be distinguished (Jackson, Ze Amvela 2007: 93).
 The phonological criterion for compounds may be treated as that of a single stress. If the
word has one primary stress it is treated as a separate word. This is commonly applicable to
many compound nouns, yet it does not work with compound adjectives. C.f.: a ‘handful, a
‘slowcoach, a ‘blackbird, but ‘blue-‘eyed; absent-‘minded; ‘sound-proof; ‘ill-mannered.
Sometimes in the course of time the words have undergone some phonetic changes: e. g.
breakfast = break fast, (The diphthong [ea] is shortened to [e]); cupboard=cup + board (the
consonant [p] is mute); shepherd; twopence.
The compound words acquire a new stress pattern, different from the stress in the
motivating words. E.g.: altogether -> all together; gentle man -> gentleman; black bird -
>blackbird. Besides, there is no juncture between the parts of a compound.
There are three stress patterns of compounds:
a) stress on the first component as in:
΄alarm-clock, ΄ tea-bag, ΄ contact-lens,’ windscreen,’ money-order,’ doorway.
b) a double stress, with a primary stress on the first component and a weaker, secondary
stress on the second compound: ‘washing-‘machine,’cotton wool, air-‘traffic,
’data-‘processing.
c) both constituents have level stress: seaside, arm-chair, hot-red.
Sometimes stress can distinguish compound word-groups, especially when the
arrangement and order of the constituents is the same.
E.g.: green house’ – (a glass house for cultivating delicate plants)
‘green ‘house – (a house painted green)
a ‘dancing-girl (a dancer)
a dancing-‘girl (a girl who is dancing)
But stress can not be regarded as a proof of the inseparability of a word. At the
same time the phrases tomato-soup, commander-in-chief indicate the inseparability of the
meaning, but one can not be sure that these are compound words. The same is true with
idioms – in the least; in no time; in the long run, which are characterized by a high degree of
semantic cohesion.
Compounds may also be distinguished from phrases in that way they have
specific syntactic features. All compounds are non interruptible in the sense that
in normal use their constituent parts are not interrupted by any extraneous
words, which confirms the assumption that compounds are inseparable lexical
units. So, the meaning of the compound handful (handful – a special measure,
the amount of something, that can be taken in one’s hands) is different from
the meanings of the words full and hand. The difference lie in the fact, that no
word can be inserted between the components of the noun handful, while the
phrases the hand, which is full of money, the hand was full of sand, etc can
sound quite natural.
In the word group hand full each of the constituents is open to grammatical changes
peculiar to its own category as a part of speech.
Two hands full of money;
a hand, which is full of money.
The compound handful is not subject to such changes as too handfuls. As a lexical unit it
may acquire all features typical to its grammatical class. So, the main feature in which
compounds differ from phrases is their indivisibility. The words of the free phrases may be
separated by some other words:
a ‘greenhouse - a green wooden house;
a black ‘board - a black plastic board
Thus, another distinctive feature between compounds and free phrases, according to H.
Jackson, is modification. Modification refers to the use of other words to modify the meaning
of a compound. Since the compound is a single unit, its constituent elements cannot be
modified independently; however, the component as a whole may indeed be modified by
other words. For example, air-sick may occur neither as ‘hot air-sick’, with hot, modifying
air, not as ‘air-very sick’ with very modifying sick. However, when we say ‘John was
seriously air-sick,’ seriously modifies the whole compound, not just the first component
(Jackson, Zé Amvela 2007: 94).
Graphically most compounds have 3 types of spelling – sometimes they are written with a
space between the two elements, they may be spelt with a hyphen (-) joining the two elements
or as single orthographic words. Although ‘English orthography is not consistent in
representing compounds,’ (Dobrovolsky 1991: 126) these types of spelling together with
structural and phonetic peculiarities serve as an indication of inseparability of compound
words in comparison with phrases. In modern linguistics the form of a compound word
predetermines its definition: everything what is written solidly is supposed to be one word.
But the graphic criterion of distinguishing between a word and a word-group does not
seem to be sufficiently convincing. Thus, the spelling of many compounds varies even within
the same book. So, the word sun-burn = sun tan; sunburn – the condition of having skin that
is red and painful, as a result of spending much time in the sun.
Usage in British English and in American English differs and often depends on
the individual choice of the writer rather than on a hard-and-fast rule; therefore,
open, hyphenated, and closed forms may be encountered for the same
compound noun, such as the triplets container ship/ container-ship/ containership and
micro missile/ micro-missile/ micromissile , reflecting the same uncertainty or flexibility as in
businessman/ business-man/ business man.
In this case the semantic criterion seems more reliable. Compound words tend to acquire
a meaning of their own, which is different from the meanings of its components, thus
becoming very much like idioms.
So, the meaning of the word butterfly is impossible to be deduced from the components
‘butter’ and ‘fly’, that points to the highest degree of semantic cohesion in the word.
Analyzability may be further limited by cranberry morphemes and semantic changes. For
instance, the word butterfly, commonly thought to be a metathesis for flutter by, which bugs
do, is actually based on an old bubbe-maise that butterflies are petite witches that steal butter
from window sills. Cranberry is a part translation from Low German, which is why we
cannot recognize the element cran (from the Low German kraan or kroon, ‘crane’). The
ladybird or ladybug was named after the Christian expression “our Lady, the Virgin Mary”.
Another example is lady-killer – the word means neither a lady nor a killer, but a man who is,
or thinks he is irresistibly fascinating to women.
In some cases the meaning can be deduced from one of the components, while another
seamed rather obscure, e.g.: jelly fish- a sea animal that looks like jelly and can sting you.
Though it is not a fish at all, the general meaning can be easily retrieved.

4. 2. Classification of compounds

Compound words are classified according to different principles:

1) From the point of view of the word class compound words represent (functional criterion).
It is natural to assume, that if the two constituents of a compound belong to the same
grammatical class (noun + noun, verb + verb) the resulting compound would belong to the
same class as well. But in the cases with the constituents belonging to different word
classes the result is not so evident. According to Howard Jackson, ‘as a general rule, the
word class of the last element of the compound determines the grammatical class of the
compound’ (Jackson, Zé Amvela 2007: 96).
The majority of compounds are compound nouns and their variation is of the following
types:
N + N compounds (coach potato, network, newsagent)
N + V compounds (rainfall, eavesdrop, moonshine)
 N + Adv compounds (looker-on, passer-by)
These were the cases when the noun is the initial position. When the second element is a noun
and the first one is a verb, an adjective or an adverb, the variations are as follows:
V + N compounds (pick pocket, play mate, killjoy, swimwear)
Adj + N compounds (low price, tight corner, briefcase)
Adv + N compounds (down town, back-talk, online)
Verbal compounds are less numerous and their types are as follows:
V + N compounds (washing machine, driving license, swimming pool)
V + Adv compounds (drawback, lookout, take-off).
These are the cases when the verb is in the final position:
N + V compounds (haircut, crack down).

Compound verbs are mostly:

a) verbs formed by means of conversion from the stems of compound nouns: to snub-
nose; to sidetrack; to handful, to spotlight; to pinpoint.
b) verbs formed by means of back- derivation from the stems of compound nouns: to
baby-sit; to house-keep; to spring-clean.
Compound adverbs or pronouns are less numerous:
Somewhere, somehow, anyhow, moreover, whatever, inside, although, elsewhere,
anyway, upside, etc.
2) From the point of view of the means by which the components are joined together
3 types of compounds are distinguished: neutral, morphological and syntactic.
In neutral compounds the process of compounding is realized by a mere
juxtaposition of two stems: shop-window, egg-cup, jelly-fish, self-made, dustproof.
Depending on the structure of the constituent stems three subtypes of neutral
compounds are distinguished:
a) simple neutral compounds,
b) derivational compounds (those which have affixes in their structure):
absentmindedness, bald-headed, honey-moons, baby-sitter. This type is the result of both
word forming processes – composition and derivation. It is one of the highly productive
means of word building in Modern English.
c) contracted compounds – these compounds have a shortened (contracted) stem in
their structure: T-shirt, V-day, X-rox, V-necked, H-bag.
Morphological compounds are not numerous. This type is non-productive. It is
represented by words in which two compounding stems are combined by a linking element
(usually letters o or i) – Anglo-American, Indo-European, handiwork; craftsmanship,
speedometer, spokesman.
Syntactic compounds – represent typically English type of word-formation. These words
are formed from segments of speech, phrases, preserving their conjunctions, articles,
prepositions. E.g. – Jack-of-all-trades, good-for-nothing, hide-and-seek, bread-and-butter,
touch-and-go, such-and-such. In these cases the conjunction is made by means of the
particle.

Table 2. Classification of compound words according to the word classes.

bedroom
water tank
noun +noun motorcycle
printer cartridge
rainfall
noun + verb haircut
train-spotting
 noun + adverb hanger-on
passer-by
washing-machine
verb + noun driving license
swimming pool
lookout
verb+ adverb take-off
drawback
greenhouse
adjective + noun software
redhead
adjective + verb dry-cleaning
public speaking
adverb + noun onlooker
bystander
output
adverb + verb overthrow
upturn
input

Compounds nouns often have a meaning that is different from two separate
words.
Stress is important in pronunciation, as it distinguishes between a compound noun
(greenhouse) and an adjective with a noun (green house).
In compound nouns the stress usually falls on the first syllable:

a ‘greenhouse = place where we grow plants (compound noun)

a green ‘house = house painted green (adjective and noun)
a ‘bluebird = type of bird (compound noun)
a blue ‘bird = any bird with blue feathers (adjective and noun)

Many common compound nouns are formed from phrasal verbs (verb + adverb or
adverb + verb), for example: breakdown, outbreak, outcome, cutback, drive-in, drop-out,
feedback, flyover, hold-up, hangover, outlay, outlet, inlet, makeup, output, set-back,
stand-in, takeaway, walkover.

4.2.1. Compound nouns

Most English compound nouns are noun phrases (= nominal phrases) that include a
noun modified by adjectives or attributive nouns. Due to the English tendency towards
conversion, the two classes are not always easily distinguished. Most English compound
nouns that consist of more than two words can be constructed recursively by combining
two words at a time. The compound science fiction writer, for example, can be
constructed by combining science and fiction, and then combining the resulting
compound with writer. Some compound, such as salt and pepper or mother-of-pearl, can
not be constructed in this way, however.
Since English is a mostly analytic language, unlike most other Germanic languages, it
creates compounds by concatenating words without case markers. As in other Germanic
languages, the compounds may be arbitrarily long, e.g. trade union delegate assembly
leader.
 However, this is obscured by the fact that the written representation of long
compounds always contains blanks. Short compounds may be written in three different
ways, which do not correspond to different pronunciations, however:
1) The solid or closed form in which two usually moderately short words appear
together as one. Solid compounds most likely consist of short (monosyllabic) units that
often have been established in the language for a long time. Examples are housewife,
bookcase, lawsuit, wallpaper, etc.
2) The hyphenated form in which two or more words are connected by a hyphen.
Compounds that contain affixes, such as a house-build(er) and single-mind(ed)(ness), as
well as adjective-adjective compounds and verb-verb compounds, such as blue-green and
freeze-dry, are often hyphenated. Compounds that contain articles, prepositions or
conjunctions, such as mother-of- pearl and salt-and-pepper, are also often hyphenated.
3) The open or placed form consisting of newer combinations of usually longer
words, such as distance learning, player piano, lawn tennis, etc.
In addition to this native English compounding, there is the classical type, which
consists of words derived from Latin, as horticulture, and those of Greek origin, such as
photography, the components of which are in bound form (connected by connecting
vowels, which are most often –i- and –o- in Latin and Greek respectively) and cannot
stand alone.
In general, the meaning of a compound noun is a specialization of the meaning
of its head. The modifier limits the meaning of the head. This is most obvious in
descriptive compounds, also known as karmadharaya compounds, in which the modifier
is used in an attributive or appositional manner. A blackboard is a particular kind of
board which is (generally) black, for instance.
In determinative compounds, however, the relationship is not attributive. For
example, a footstool is not a particular type of stool that is like a foot. Rather, it is a stool
for one’s foot or feet. (It can be used for sitting on, but that is not its primary purpose). In
similar manner, the office manager is the manager of an office, an armchair is a chair
with arms, and a raincoat is a coat against the rain. These relationships, which are
expressed by prepositions in English, would be expressed by grammatical case in other
languages. Compounds of this type are also known as tatpurusha compounds.
Both of the above types of compounds are called endocentric compounds because
the semantic head is contained within the compound itself – a blackboard is a type of
board, for example, and a footstool is a type of stool.
However, in another common type of compound, the exocentric or bahuvrihi
compound, the semantic head is not explicitly expressed. A redhead, for example, is not a
kind of head, but is a person with a red head. Similarly, a blockhead is also not a head, but
a person with a head that is as hard and unreceptive as a block (i.e. stupid). And someone
who is barefoot is not a foot – they are someone with a foot that is bare. And, outside of
veterinary surgery, a lionheart is not a type of heart, but a person with a heart like a lion
(in its bravery, courage, fearlessness, etc.).

These are the ways to tell the two apart:

1) If you are able to paraphrase the meaning of the compound “[X. Y]” to A
person/thing that is a Y, or …that does Y, if Y is a verb (with X having some unspecified
connection), this is an endocentric compound.
2) If you are able to paraphrase the meaning if the compound “[X. Y] to A
person/thing that is with Y, with X having some unspecified connection, this is an
exocentric compound.
 Exocentric compound occur more often in adjectives than nouns. A redhead girl, for
example, is not a girl that is a red head, but a girl with red head. Similarly, a V-8 car is a
car with a V-8 engine rather than a car that is a V-8, and a twenty-five-dollar car is a car
with a worth of $25, not a car that is $25. The compounds shown here are bare, but more
commonly, a suffixal morpheme is added, esp. -ed. Hence, a big-eyed person is a person
with big eyes, and this is exocentric.

On the other hand, endocentric adjectives are also frequently formed, using the
suffixal morphemes –ing or –er/or. A shareholder is clear endocentric determinative
compound: it is a person who owns shares in a company. The adjective, car-carrying, is
also endocentric: it refers to an object which is a carrying-thing (or equivalent, which
does carry).
These types account for most compound nouns, but there are other, rarer types as
well. Coordinative, copulative or drandva compounds combine elements with a similar
meaning, and the compound meaning may be a generalization instead of a specialization.
Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example, is the combined area of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but a
fighter-bomber is an aircraft that is both a fighter and a bomber. Iterative or amredita
compounds repeat a single element, to express repetition or as an emphasis. Step-by-step,
cha-cha, goody-goody, bye-bye and go-go-go are examples of this type of compound,
which has more than one head.
In the case of verb + noun compounds, the noun may be either the subject or the
object of the verb. In playboy, for examples, the noun is the subject of the verb (the boy
plays), whereas it is the object in callgirl (someone calls the girl).
A black board is any board that is black, and equal prosodic stress can be
found on both elements (or, according to psycholinguistic Steven Pinker, the second one
is accented more heavily.) A blackboard, the compound, may have started out as any
other black board, but now is a thing that is constructed in a particular way, of a particular
material and serves a particular purpose; the word is clearly accented on the first syllable.
Sound patterns, such as stresses placed on particular syllables, may indicate whether
the word group is a compound or whether it is an adjective- + -noun phrase. A compound
usually has a falling intonation: “bl`ackboard”, the “White House”, as opposed to the
phrases “bl`ack b`o`ard”, “ white house”.
(Note that this rule does not apply in all contexts. For example, the stress pattern “white
house” would be expected for the compound, which happens to be a proper name, but
also found in the emphatic negation. “No, not the black house; the white house!).”

4.2.2. Compound adjectives

English compound adjectives are constructed in a very similar way to the compound
noun. Free-for-all entrance, newly-born child, left-hand drive, sugar free cola, and hip-
hop music are only a few examples.
In most cases a compound adjective is a modifier of a noun. It consists of two or
more morphemes of which the left-hand component limits or changes the modification of
the right-hand one, as in “the lightweight champion”: light limits the weight that modifies
champion.
In case the hyphen helps the reader differentiate a compound adjective from two
adjacent adjectives that each independently modifies the noun, a compound adjective is
hyphenated. Compare the following examples:
(1) “acetic acid solution”: a bitter solution producing vinegar or acetic acid ( acetic
+ acid + solution)
 (2) “acetic-acid solution”: a solution of acetic acid
Compound adjectives originating from a verb preceding an adjective or adverb are
usually hyphenated as well.
E.g.: feel good - a feel-good factor; first come, first served – on the first- come-first-
served basis, buy now, pay later - buy-now pay-later purchase
Compounds with an adjective preceding a noun to which -d or -ed has been added
as a past-participle construction, used before a noun are always hyphenated.
E.g.: a middle-aged lady, a well-bred student, a self-made person, rose-tinnted glasses.
The same is true about a noun, adjectives, or adverbs preceding a present participle
(long-lasting impression, a never-ending song, a good-looking girl) and numbers spelled
out as numerics: a fifty-year-old castle, a five-page letter, a ten-dollar banknote.
Compound adjectives with the names of colors and geographical names also take
hyphens: Anglo-Saxon invasion, Afro-Caribbean culture, French-Canadian community, a
dark-blue blouse, rosy-pink cheeks, etc.
The following compound adjectives are not normally hyphenated when there is
no risk of ambiguity: a Saturday night party, a stone dead idea, brand new jeans.

4.2.3. Compound verbs

A compound verb is usually composed of a preposition and a verb, although other

combinations also exist. Most compound verbs are formed from compound nouns by
means of conversion or reversion: to barkeep, to babysit, to breastfeed, to counterattack
and the like.
Compounds composed of two verbs are usually hyphenated: to dry-freeze, to drip-
dry.
Compounds verbs composed of a noun and adverb are comparatively rare, and the
noun is generally not the direct object of the verb.
From a morphological point of view, some compound verbs are difficult to analyze
because several derivations are plausible. Blacklist, for instance, might be analyzed as an
adjective + verb compound, or as an adjective + noun compound that becomes a verb
through conversion. Most compound verbs originally have the collective meaning of both
components, but some of them later gain additional meanings that may predominate the
original, accurate sense. The semantic unity of both constituents of the compound verb
can be very strong and sometimes the resultant meanings are seemingly barely related to
the original contributions, e. g: to brainstorm, to ghostwrite, to blackmail, to brain-drain.
English has a number of other kinds of compound verb idioms. There are compound
verbs with two verbs (e.g. make do). These too can take idiomatic
prepositions (e.g. get rid of). There are also idiomatic combination of verb and adjective
(e.g. come true, run amok) and verb and adverb (make sure), verb and fixed noun (e.g. go
ape); these, too, may have fixed idiomatic prepositions (e.g. take place on).
Distinction should be made between traditional well-established compounds, like
snow-white, up-to-date, hard-up and the like on the one hand, and the less conventional
formations like She gave me a don’t-touch-me-or-I’ll-bite-you look; The book was so un-
put-downable that I spent all night reading.
The letter examples are individual situational coinages, which are the outcome of using
compounding as a creative process. Occasional formations often contain metaphors
endowed with emotional-expressive-evaluative connotations. The meaning of occasional
formations is context bound, i.e. unpredictable when considered outside the respective
context; it can be rather complicated and connotatively charged.
 TASK 2.

(1) Arrange the following into compounds and free word-groups:

Punctuation mark, excellent mark, top mark, birthmark, burn mark;

material comforts, creature comforts, rear seat comfort, comfort zone;
whale bones, whaleboat, whalebone, killer whale, whale killer;
bright side, winning side, riverside, soft side, downside;
silver platter, silver spoon, silver bullet;
bear market, bear hug, bear tracks, bear sightings, bearskin.

(2) Arrange the following compounds into compounds proper and

derivational compounds:

Old-timer, honeymooner, food stamp, narrow-minded, late arrival,

holiday-maker, mean-spirited, wide-eyed, bushy-tailed, straight shooter,
cranberries, cutting-edge, state-of-the-art, tour de force.

(3) Identify compounds in which semantic integrity is idiomatic in character:

Blueprint, bluestocking, Bluetooth; Dogleg, doghouse, dog collar, dog-eared,

dog days, dogfight,
Ladybird, ladies’ man, lady-in-waiting;
Wall-eyed, wall painting, wallpaper, wall-to-wall;
Homework, homeschooling, home front, home loan, home truth, home
base, homespun.

5. Conversion or zero-derivation

As it has been stated above, the process of forming of a new word is sometimes
combined with its transference from one part of speech to another. This is one of the main
sources of replenishing the English word-stock with new words. There are no
morphological restrictions for conversion. The very term “conversion” was introduced in
1891 by Henry Sweet in his book “New English Grammar”. There were other terms to
introduce the process (e.g. functional change, functional shift, zero derivation, root
formation, etc.), but the term conversion proved to be the best.
The process concerns numerous cases of phonetic identity of words, belonging to
different word classes. For example, bottle is primarily a noun, but in the sentence “He
has bottled the wine himself “it is used as a verb in the sense ‘to put into a bottle’.
Another case could be catch, where the verb can also be used as a noun. There are many
cases of conversion e.g. dirty – to dirty (adjective to verb), skin – to skin (noun to verb),
spill – spill (verb – to noun), spoon – to spoon (noun to verb) and it is still a productive
process, especially from nouns to verbs:
What are the sources of conversion in English?
Since the late Middle English period, when most of the inflections surviving from
the Old English finally disappeared, it has been easy to shift a word from one part of
speech to another without altering its form. A verb like care can be turned into a noun
simply by using it in a syntactic position reserved for nouns, as in He took care of the
puppy until it grew into a big dog, where care is a noun, direct object of took.
 “This process, called functional shift, is an important concomitant of the historical
change of English from a synthetic to an analytic language, and has greatly enlarged the
vocabulary of the English language in a very economical way. Since the words so created
belong to a different part of speech and hence have a different grammatical distribution
from the that of the original, they must be considered new words, homonymous in the
base form with the words from which they were derived, rather than merely extensions of
meaning [ W. Nelson Francis. The English Language. New York. 1965, p. 156].
The second source of conversion was the borrowing from French a number of words
of the same root but belonging in French to different parts of speech. These words lost
their affixes and became phonetically identical in the process of assimilation, e. g. crier
(v), cri (n)> cry ( v,n); eschequier (v), eschec (n) > check (v, n ).
Thus, from the diachronic point of view distinction should be made between
homonymous word-pairs, which are the result of the loss of inflections, and those formed
by conversion.
The word being converted into another part of speech changes its paradigm. The
semantic connections and syntactic functions of the word are changed completely.
He is a father of three children.
He fathered three children.
As a noun the word father can take the plural form (They are fathers of three
children), can be used in the possessive case (They are father’s children) and in the
possessive case plural (They are fathers’ children) and can be used in the syntactic
functions of subject, object or predicative.
As a denominal verb father takes the ending -s to mark the third person singular (He
fathers three children); it can form Past Indefinite and Past Participle (He fathered three
children. He has fathered three children.) and can add the -ing suffix to form verbals. Its
syntactic function is also different – now it is a predicate.
So, in the process of conversion the words change the paradigm. Since, conversion
may be defined as the formation of a new word through in its paradigm.

5.1. Types of conversion

Not only the most numerous cases of conversion denominal verbs and deverbal
nouns prove that, such changes can be observed in terms of other parts of speech, e.g.
round – n., adj., v., prep., adv.; out – n., adj., a., prep., interjection.
Conversion prevails in verb-formation. New verb are formed from nouns:
an agent – to agent;
a feature – to feature;
a season – to season;
a film – to film
Even some compound nouns get shifted to verbs: E.g.:
a pinpoint – a very small point or dot of smth. (tiny pinpoint of light)
to pinpoint – to say exactly what the facts about smth. really are (the new
report pinpoints the drawbacks of the new educational system)
a stream line – the line which is long and steady
to streamline – to make something such as business , organisation etc. work more
simply and effectively.
Such examples are not infrequent nowadays, though a century ago such phenomenon
was not typical.
Verbs, converted from adjectives are less numerous. The trait examples are: bare –
to bare; blind – to blind; empty – to empty; secure – to secure; The more recent examples
are: animate – to animate; brief – to brief.
Other parts of speech which are able to be converted into verbs are
secondary parts of speech: to average; to back; to better; to double; to forward; to
hollow; to out; to rough; to up; to down; to ouch; to zoom.
Some verbs get converted from shortenings:
E.g. to bach – from bachelor
to adlib – to say smth. in a speech, performance or play etc. without preparing
or planning it.
The reverse process is also productive.
Verbs are able to be converted into other parts of speech, namely into nouns:
to affect – affect; to chain – chain; to find – find; to fix - fix; to implant – implant; to
join – a join; to push – a push; to rave (at) (to talk in angry, uncontrolled way) – a rave
(band culture).
Some new nouns are formed from prepositional verbs:
a black out;
a hair do
The compound nouns round-the-clock (24 hours); off-the-record (confidential); teen-
age can be used attributively. E.g. round- the-clock party; off-the-record interview; teen-
age children.
Even grammatical forms can be converted.

must n. – this is a must

must adj. – It’s a must-read novel.

Some adjectival phrases can be converted:

black mail - to blackmail;

gas pedal - to gas pedal;
home arrest - to home arrest;
cast iron - to cast iron;
belly dance - to belly dance.

Quite numerous are cases of conversion in compound words. For example, compound
verbs can form nouns.
to carry over – a carry over;
to come down - a come down;
to knock about - a knock about;
to pay out - a pay out;
to hang over - a hang over;
to set out - a set out.

Nouns formed from adjectives are less frequent. It cannot be easy to transform the
meaning of quality into the meaning of an object, possessing it. The examples are:
agrarian – an agrarian; auxiliary (verb) – an auxiliary; blank (space) – a blank (leave
blanks between words); grand (dinner) – a grand (a thousand pounds of dollars); native
(local) – a native; private – a private; public – a public; senior – a senior.
Substantivation as a process of adjectival conversion is widely spread in ME,
especially with proper nouns. Names of the inhabitants of the cities, countries, names of
nationalities: American, African, Armenian, Ukrainian.
Substantivized adjectives can be: fully substantivized (they can take an article;
used in the possessive case), e.g. a beloved, the beloveds; a captive; a female; a relative;
a native; and partially substantiated (do not acquire any new paradigms, they are used
only with definite article and are collective), e.g. the rich, the mighty, the wounded, the
 learned, the mute, the slow, etc. Besides they keep some qualities of adjectives (e.g.: they
can be modified by adverbs). E. g.: the very rich, the badly wounded etc.

5.2. Productivity of Conversion

From the above examples it can be seen that some cases of conversions are productive,
others – are not (nonce-words). And it seems strange, that such widely used verbs like:
ask; argue; reduce; reflect, and the most frequently used nouns like: road, way, still
escape conversion.
Most scholars agree that “conversion is usually restricted to unsuffixed words”
(Contemporary Linguistics 1993: 119), though there are some other restrictions that
should be mentioned:
1) Geographical and proper nouns are not converted into verbs.
2) Non-converted are nouns with suffixes - ation, -ing, -ty.
3) Some words of very determined semantics like fact, knowledge, road, way are
not converted.
4) Terms are hardly converted.
There are cases when conversion is accompanied by ablaut, the replacement of a
vowel with a different vowel: sing – song, shoot – shot, sell-sale.
Ablaut was frequent in earlier stages of English, and some traces remain in Modern
English, though the process is no longer productive.
Very often in the case of the derived nouns there is a stress shift, which is used to mark
the difference between related nouns and verbs. E. g.: s'ubject (n) - subj'ect (v); 'contest (n) –
cont'est (v); p'ermit (n) – per'mit (v). This means of word-formation is based in the shift of
stress in the source word, e.g.: progress (n) – progress (v); perfect (adj) – perfect (v); frequent
(adj) – frequent (v); abstract (n. adj.) – abstract (v); insult (n) – insult (v); permit (n) – permit
(v); conflict (n) – conflict (v); survey (n) – survey (v).
Some lexicologists believe that since there is overt change in pronunciation, this is true
derivation rather than functional shift. Contrary to the position adopted by the majority of
scholars, the authors of the book “Words, Meaning and Vocabulary” Howard Jackson and
Etienne Zé Amvela do not recognize a class of ‘marginal cases of conversion’. From the point
of view adopted in this book, “ if there is any change in either spelling or pronunciation, as a
word is transferred from one word class to another, we cannot speak of conversion” (Jackson,
Zé Amvella 2007: 101).
But these two processes are obviously closely related.

TASK 3

Group the words formed by sound-interchange into: 1) those formed by ablaut (vowel
interchange) and suffixation; 2) those formed by consonant interchange; 3) those formed by
combining both means:
Long (adj) – length (n); speak (v) –speech (n); strike (v) – stroke (n); house (n) – house (v);
loose (v) – loss (n); shelve (v) – shelf (n); proof (n) – prove (v); serve (v) – serf (n); deep
(adj) – depth (n); clothe (v) –cloth (n); bite (v) – bit (n); prove (v) – proof (n); believe (v) –
belief (n); knot (n) – knit (v); halve (v) – half (n).
 6. Some Other Minor Types of Word-Formation

6.1. Reduplication

Studying English compounds we came across a lot of words made by doubling a

stem, as in bye-bye, goody-goody, fifty-fifty, which are made without any phonetic change
or the examples like: ping-pong, shilly-shally, mish-mash (these latter are the cases with a
variation of the root-vowel or consonant).
This type of word – building is called reduplication, the second type of which is
called gradational reduplication. This type is greatly facilitated
by a great number of monosyllabic words in Modern English. Most words made by
reduplication are colloquial expressions:
ship – shape – “neat and clean”;
chit –chat (n) – “conversation about things which are not important”;
dilly – dally – “ to waste time, to do nothing”;
zig – zag – “a pattern that looks like a line of Z’s joined together”
topsy – turvy – “in a state of complete disorder”: He left his room all topsy-turvy.
rat – race (or confusion) – “a continual routine of hectic competitive activity” .
There are several types of reduplication process in English of various degrees of
productivity:
1) Baby-talk reduplication, e.g.: choo-choo, wee-wee.
2) Multiple partial reduplication, e. g.: hap-hap-happy (as in song lyrics).
3) Deprecative reduplication, e. g.: table-shmable
4) Rhyme combinations, e. g.: super-duper, willy-nilly, pall, mall, hanky, panky.
5) Ablaut combinations, e. g.: flim-flam, sing-song, riff-raff, mish-mash.
6) Intensive reduplication, e. g.: You are sick, sick, sick!
Reduplication has many different functions: it can express disparagement (riff-raff,
hotchpotch, namby-pamby), intensification (super-duper, tip-top), diminution (teeny-
weeny, shilly-shally), onomatopoea (tick-tock, ding-dong) and alliteration (ping-pong).
Alliteration in style is the repeated use of the same letter or sound, usually the first letter of
successive words. It is often used in poetic language (“Born on the swollen, swaying,
swishing seas”), in advertising (“Buy Brown’s Best British Biscuits”) and newspaper
headlines (“Fighting Football Fans Face Fines”) to provide reinforcement and emotional
emphasis.

6.2. Reversion

Reversion by which we infer a short word from a long one is an active derivative
process at the present time. Familiar examples are: automate from automation, destruct
from destruction, enthuse from enthusiasm, greed from greedy, sedate from sedation,
televise from television and the like.
The process is based on analogy and has only diachronic relevance. Let us take as an
example the verb to hi-jack, which has appeared recently. The initial form of the noun was a
high-jacker – with the suffix - er, denoting the doer of the action. In case of subtraction of the
suffix –er the word looks like a verbal stem (high-jack), which can be used in active and in
passive voice and is able to form verbals – hi-jacked; hi-jacking.
The same process is observed in case of other suffixes subjected to subtraction: -
ment; -ie:
to broil – a broiler;
 to burgle – a burglar;
to cell – a cellar;
to sculpt – a sculptor;
to bombard – bombardment;
to barkeep – a barkeep;
to book – a bookie.
If we take the noun writer we reasonably connect it with to write – editor must have
the basis to edit. But, historically speaking, things are different, the verb to edit is derived
from editor, to barkeep – a barkeep; to thought-read - though-reading; to vacuum – clean
a vacuum – cleaner; to buttle – a butler; to burgl –a burglar; to typewrite – a typewriter.
Reversion may be found in the formation of words belonging to different parts of
speech:
1) verbs made from names of agent with suffix –es; -ar; -or; -our/eur; -ar; -rd.
e.g. broker, winder, benefactor, sculptor, hawker.
2) verbs made from nouns with suffix –ing.
e.g. a kitting - to kittle;
to house-keep – housekeeping.
thought-reading – to thought-read

3) verbs made from nouns with abstract suffixes; -ence; -tion; -y; -ment; -age; -ery.
e.g. to bombard –(from) bombardment;
to reminisce – reminiscence;
to televise – television;
to emplace – emplacement.

4) verbs made from adjectives:

e.g. luminescent – to luminesce;
frivolous – to frivol.

5) nouns made from adjectives:

e.g. greedy - greed
nasty - nast

It must be emphasized that back-formation is another manifestation of the fact a

language is a more or less balanced system, the components of which stand in reciprocal
connection with each other.

6.3. Shortening and graphical abbreviations

Distinction should be made between shortening which results in new lexical units and
specific types of shortening proper to written speech resulting in numerous graphical
abbreviations which are only new ways of representing words and word groups.
e.g. RD – for road; ST – for Street; N.Y. – New York

As other European languages English has a lot of Latin borrowings: They are used in their
shortened form: e.g. (for example) i.e. (id est) – that is; p.m.(post meridiem); i.bid. –
(ibidem) – (in the same place); loc. cit. – locus citato – (in the place or passage quoted).
Graphical abbreviations are mostly used in written speech, occurring in various
types of texts, articles, advertisements. In reading many of them are substituted by the
words and phrases they represent.
E.g.: Dr – doctor; Mr – mister; GMt – Greenwich Mean Time; M.P. – member of
parliament.
 An abbreviation is sometimes achieved by omitting one or several letters.
E.g.: ads-address; adv – advertisement; C-in-C – commander-in-chief; X-mas; X-rox.
When initial letters are doubled they mean plurality: Ll – lines, pp – pages.
Abbreviations belong to secondary nomination of objects are often stylistically
coloured words mostly used in informal styles: dad, prof, ref., phone, Tom – Thomas. In
English abbreviations may end not only final consonants but vowel as well:
E.g.: Fri; ave; usu; Colo.
Shortenings (or contracted words) are produced in two different ways. The first is to
make a new word from a syllable of the original word. The latter way lose its beginning
(“tele” phone, “autobus” auto) , its endings or both the beginning and ending (flu –
influenza, bridge – refrigerator).
Shortenings in oral speech are called clippings. This phenomenon appeared at the
beginning of New English period and was especially popular in the XX th century. At first
proper names were shortened:
Ben – Benjamin, Nick – Nicolas, Pete – Peter.
Clippings often begin life as colloquial forms, such as the clipped forms: prof
(professor), gym (gymnasium), lab (laboratory), chem (chemistry) and the like.
The history of the American okay (also spelled OK, O.K.) seems to be rather typical.
It is a colloquial English word denoting approval, assent, or acknowledgement. ‘Okay’ has
frequently turned up as a loanword in many other languages due to its ability to change the
word class without changing its form (conversion). As an adjective ‘okay’ means
“adequate, acceptable” (Is it okay to discuss it in his presence?), often in contrast to
‘good’ (The hotel was okay); it also functions as an adverb in this sense. As a noun and a
verb it means “assent” (You can’t reject, you okayed it). As an interjection it can denote
compliance (Okay, I’ll be the first), or agreement (Okay, okay, let it be).
The origin of ‘okay’ is not known and has been the subject of much discussion over the
years (See Wikipedia). One of the theories suggests that this initial shortening was firstly
used in the US Presidential election campaign of Martin Van Buren, the eighth President
of the USA (1837 – 1841). At that time there was a rise of quirky abbreviations for
common phrases, for example, ISBD was used for “it shall be done”, SP for “small
potatoes” ( The Internet fashion for condensing phrased into abbreviations is certainly not
new). It went further and the abbreviation O.K. appeared in the “Boston Morning Post”
newspaper. Originally it was spelt O.K. and was supposed to stand for ‘all correct’. The
purely oral manner in which the sounds were recorded for letters resulted in O.K., though
it should be A.C. Even though the candidate lost the election, but he brought a big
popularity to the word ‘okay’ which is used worldwide.
It is worth mentioning that clipping is not much a method of forming new words
as altering old ones without changing their meanings. Clipped words are rather numerous
in various languages, though they often co-exist with the original source word, but
function as independent lexical units with certain phonetic shape and lexical meaning of
their own. For example, doctor, doc – one who practices medicine, Dr. or Dr (title) – a
person who has obtained a doctoral degree.
Clippings show various degrees of semantic dissociation from these full words.
Some are no longer left to be clippings: pants (pantaloons); bus (omnibus); bike (bicycle).
Others are highly synonymous with slight semantic dissociation (cap-tick match.) As
usual clipped words belong to the some part of speech as their prototypes; in most cases
clippings are the nouns and adjectives which are much more rarely used.
E.g. civvy – civil, nogo – no good one, prep. – preparatory.

Clipped verbs are either diatonic formation - to mend – to amend, to tend – to attend;
or clippings of the conversion type: to taxi, to phone, to X-rox.
 According to the form of the clipped part of the words, these are three types of
clippings:
1) Words that have been shortened at the end – the so – called – aposcope: (hols –
holidays, to dub – to double, vac – vacation, props – properties, ad – advertisement),
2) Words that have been shortened at the beginning – aphaeresis: car (moto-car),
phone (telephone), copter (helicopter), fend (defend), story (history), chute (parachute).
3) Words in which some syllables or sounds have been omitted from the middle –
syncope. Very often such words retain their final consonant: cons –convenience, flue –
influenza, tec – detective, specs – spectacles.

6.3.1. Lexical shortening

Transformations of word groups into words involve different types of lexical

shortenings:
1) Substantivzation. Consists in dropping of the nominal element of the frequently used
attributive word-group. E.g.:
a documentary film – a documentary
a perambulator cart - pram
permanent waves - perm
a public house - pub
an editorial – an editorial article
the finals – the final exams

According to Dubenets (Dubenets 2010: 68) there are two types of partly substantivized
adjectives:
1) those which are used only in plural form (collective nouns), such as: sweets, news,
empties, greens, finals;
2) those which have only the singular form and are used with the definite article. They
also have the meaning of collectivity and denote a class, a nationality, a group of
people: the dead, the old, the injured, the unemployed the English, the Dutch.
Sometimes substantivized words can develop several meanings: a topless 1) dress
bathing suit; 2) a waitress dances; 3) a bar, nightclub.
Substantivization is often accompanied by productive suffixation: e.g.: a two-decker,
a one winger, a smoker, pop music.

2) Acronymy. A minor but nevertheless much used word-formation process takes the initial
letters of the phrase and creates a word, called an acronym. Either the acronym is pronounces
as normal word (e.g. AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), UNESCO (United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), FBI (Federal Bureau of
Investigation), PIN (Personal Identification Number) or the letters are spelled out (e.g. ATM
(Automated Teller Machine), HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), OPEC (Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
There is a type of acronyms, called initiallism. This term originally described
abbreviations formed from initials, without reference to pronunciation. During the mid-20th
century, when such abbreviations became increasingly common, the word acronym was
coined for abbreviations pronounced as words, such as NATO and AIDS. Of the names,
acronym is the most frequently used and known; many use it to describe any abbreviation
formed from initial letters. Others differentiate between the two terms, restricting acronym to
pronounceable words formed from the initial letters of the constituent words, and using
initialism or alphabetism for abbreviations pronounced as the names of the individual letters.
In the latter usage, examples of proper acronyms would be NATO (pronounced [`neitou]) and
radar ([`reidar]), while examples of initialisms would include FBI ([,ɛf,bi:’aɪ/) and HTML
([,eɪtʃ,ti: ,ɛm’ɛl]).
There is no agreement on what to call abbreviations whose pronunciation involves
the combination of letter names and words, such as JPEG ([dʒeɪ.pɛg]) and MS-DOS
([ɛm.ɛs.dɔs]). These abbreviations are sometimes described as acronym–initialism hybrids,
although most would group them under the broad meaning of acronym.
There is also no agreement as to what to call abbreviations that some pronounce as
letters and others pronounce as a word. For example, the Internet term URL can be
pronounced as individual letters or as a single word.

Some of the acronyms have become so normal as words that people do not think of
them as abbreviations any longer, and so they are not written in capital letters. The
examples of such words are: laser – light amplification by stimulated emission; radar –
radio detection and ranging; asap – as soon as possible.
Typically English are the abbreviations, in which first component of a compound
word is contracted, and the second is used in its full form:
T-shirt – (tennis shirt), H-bag – (handbag), A-bomb (atomic bomb), E-board (enemy
board), V-day (victory day), H-bomb (hydrogen bomb). These words made by both
shortening and compounding and they are quite productive nowadays.
The intensive Internet communication and speech economy fashion gave rise to
numerous condensed phrases (quazy acronyms), such as: yuppy - young urban
professional, dink - double income no kids, woopie – well-off older person, GLAM –
Grinning Like a Maniac and the like.
A further type of acronym is formed by taking the contracted forms of the words of a
phrase, e.g.: biopic (biographical picture), infotech (information technology), pixel
(picture element), el-hi (elementary and high school). These are syllabic acronyms, formed
by the syllables of one word and the root of another.
In modern Internet communication there is a strong tendency to use shortenings
combining digits and letters, so-called digital abbreviations: 4U (for you), U2 (you too),
sk8ter (skater), 2th (tooth). (Examples taken from Saban 2010: 317). In these words
syllable substitution based is on homophony (B10 = beaten), or on partial similarity of
pronunciation (10X= thanks, thr4 – therefore, X-I-10= exciting). They are treated as
acronyms. However, the newly formed lexemes are far from the prototypical view of an
acronym that is “a word formed from the first letters of a group of words” (LDCE : 14),
as digits substitute not only the beginning letters of words (w00t - We Own the Other
Team), but are also used instead of sounds (“u:” in d00d - dude), cardinal and ordinal
numbers (Hi 5/^5 - High Five; 3GPP - Third Generation Partnership Project), syllables
(K9 - Canine), part of a syllable (AAR8 - At Any Rate), or words (1 - “I”, 2 – “too”, 4 –
“for”, etc.).

6.4. Blending

Certain English words are formed by combining parts of two words, often the first part
of one and the last part of another (smog = smoke +fog) and sometimes the two first parts
(moped = motorized, pedal assisted bicycle). Another term for a linguistic blend is a
portmanteau word (plural portmanteaux or portmanteaus) and some other examples are as
follows:
brunch = breakfast + lunch;
meangy (mean + stingy)
 telecast (television + broadcast)
pastime (past + time)
chunnel (channel + tunnel)
Oxbridge(Oxford + Cambridge)
transistor ( transfer + resistor.
Sometimes one of the elements does not lose any syllables, e.g.: car + hijack = carjack;
cheese + hamburger=cheeseburger or there are shared letters: e.g.: circle + clip=circlip;
floppy + optical= floptical, twig + igloo=twilit.
Blends are often formed from two synonyms to combine the meaning of both, e. g.:
detectfiction (detective+fiction), slanguage (slang+language), megalog
(magazine+catalogue). Mostly blends are formed from a Adj+N word group, such as: sitcom
(situational comedy), informercial (information commercial), medicare (medical care), bit
(binary digit).

TASK 4.

(1) Define the original components of the following blends:

Netiquette, emoticon, technophobe, spam, transceiver, motel, Eurovision, Interpol, Oxbridge,
Spenglish, Eurasia, spork, slanguage, newtopia, glumpy, btunch, absotively, flextime, seadrome,
webinar.
(2) Comment on the phenomenon of shortening. Arrange the following items into shortenings
formed by: a) apocope, b) aphaeresis, c) syncope.
Pub, fridge, fancy, photo, chap, doc, bod, bike, specs, pop, flu, van, prep, cause, exam, chute,
ma’am, tween, ad, fan, cap, za, math, lab, story, phone, mend, fend, vet, auto, drome, sis, zoo, gent.
(3) Arrange the shortenings below into: a) graphical; b) lexical.
Cab, Ltd, Gen., flu, Mr., Col., doc, Prof, Inc, lb, pants, Co., e.g., i.e., B.A., pp, ext, LCD, Mrs.,
UFO, St., PTO, AIDS.

6. 5. Sound – imitation (onomatopoeia)

Onomatopoeic words are those which seem to sound like their meaning. They imitate, echo or
occasionally suggest the object they are describing, such as bang, click, hiss, hush, buzz or
animal noises such as moo, quack or mew.
According to the “Britannica World Language Dictionary” the term omanotopoea means: 1) The
formation of words and imitation of natural sounds.
2) An imitate word
3) The selection and use of such words. [ Britannica Word Language Dictionary.
Volume one – Encyclopedia Britannica. INC – Chicago , 1960.4 , 883 ]
The word onomatopoeia has been borrowed from Greek , thus it means the process of marking
words (from onoma- a name and poiein- to make).But the meaning has been extended to making
words in a specific way - by echoing a sound that is linked the thing we want to nominate.
Linguists today often prefer other terms for denoting this process, like echoism or sound
imitation. [Левицкий, 1989:166 ( Левицкий В.В.Звуковой символизм. Проблемы
фоносемантики.–Пенза, 1989).
Words coined by this interesting type of word-building are made by imitating different
kinds of sounds that may be produced by animals, birds, insects, human beings and inanimate
objects.
It is of some interest that sounds produced by the same kind of animal are frequently represented
by quite different sound groups in different languages. For example English dogs bark (cf. the
Ukr. гавкати) or howl ( the Ukr. вити). The English cock cries cock-a-doodle-doo (cf. the Ukr.
Ку-ку-рі-ку). It is only English and Ukrainian cats who seem capable of mutual understanding
when they meet, for English cats mew or miaow (meow). The same is true about cows: they moo
(but also low).
Thus, the structure of onomatopoeic words, typical for one or another language, depends
on the cultural peculiarities and geographic situation of a particular nation.
Different languages assimilate the sounds of the outer world in different way, and sound
imitating words do not coincide, though sometimes they may bear some similarity. For
example, the French word cocorico corresponds to the very similar Ukrainian кукуріку, but is
completely different from English cock-a-doodle-doo. Moreover, it is reasonable to mention
that every language does not only have a particular sound form of onomatopoeic words, but
also the natural phenomena imitated by means of onomatopoeia differ. For instance, in English
there is vocalization of a sound which water makes before going down the drain - gurgle, and it
can be hardly found in Ukrainian; the same in Ukrainian there is a sound imitation of the
nasty cough - бyxu that is impossible to find in English. Here are some peculiar onomatopoeic
words in English:
Btippity-blop-blop-ver-slotch - the sound of a stomach illness; bong - the sound of
bells; braap - the sound of oral flatulence; burble - the sound of a lidded pot brimming
with boiling water; clang - the sound of a hammer hitting a sheet of metal; gurgle - the
sound water makes before going down the drain; ka-balm - the sound of an exploding
grenade; kerplunk - the sound of a wrench being dropped into a water-filled basin; lub-dub -
the sound that the heart makes according to anatomy textbooks; purr - the sound of a cat or
well-groomed automobile; whoosh - the sound made by every flying object on taking off;
yip - the sound made by a small dog.
And in Ukrainian: бринь - the sound produced by the string of the music instruments; бухи - the
imitation of the nasty cough; гу-гу - the sound of noise of wind; черк- the abrupt sound caused
by rubbing of one object against the other; гульк - the sound used for vocalization of
unexpected, sudden action.
Semantically onomatopoetic words fall into a few very distinctive groups: 1) words
produces by human beings in the process of communication: giggle, chatter, babble;
2) sounds produced by animals, birds, and insects: croak, cuckoo, hiss;
3) words imitating the sounds of water, the noise of metallic things, forceful movements, etc.:
click, bang, swing.
4) words representing some qualities of light: shine, shimmer, glitter, twinkle, gloss, glint, glow,
flash, flicker.
5) words representing fast motion: swish, swoosh, whoosh, zap, zing, zip, zoom.
6) words associated with specific musical instruments: ting, ding, clang, jingle, rap, rattle,
plunk.
Onomatopoeia can be used as a linguistic device in many types of writing. Onomatopoeic
words, being highly emotional, are often used metaphorically and are widely employed in
fiction, namely in a descriptive context. Here is an abstract from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland” (Carroll 1979: 174), which is an inexhaustible source of linguistic
puzzles and paradoxes:
“ The grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds
– the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep bells, and the Queen’s shrill cries to the
voice of the shepherd boy – and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the
other queer noises, would change to the confused clamour of the busy farm- yard – while the
lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s heavy sobs”
In this example onomatopoeic words sound as if echoing what the author sees and
describes, they can be perceived not only in written form but orally as well.
 Very often onomatopoeia is employed by poets to convey their subject to the reader. One
of them is of Sir Alfred Tennyson, whose use of the musical qualities of words to render the
rhythms and meanings is amazing. The last lines of his poem poem “Come Down, O Maid”,
where m and n sounds produce an atmosphere of murmuring insects illustrate his telling
combination of onomatopoea, alliteration and assonance:

“…the moan of doves in immemorial elms

And murmuring of innumerable bees”.
Numerous examples of onomatopoeia can be commonly found in poems and nursery
rhymes written for children. Onomatopoeic words produce strong images that can both delight
and amuse children. Some examples of onomatopoeic poems for children are “Baa, Baa, Black
Sheep” and “Old Macdonald” (Mother Goose Rhymes 1988: 55, 167). Both of these poems use
onomatopoeic representations of animal noises to entertain.

WORD SEMANTICS

CHAPTER OVERVIEW
 1. The concept and definition of meaning
2. The notion of word
2.1. The word defined
2.2. Characteristics of words
2.3. Ambiguity in the notion of word
3. Word meaning
3.1. Word as a linguistic sign
3.2. Denotation and connotation
3.3. Inherent and adherent connotation
3.4. Pragmatic meaning
4. Polysemy
4.1. Ways to have multiple senses of a word
4.2. Polysemy in dictionaries.
4.3. Problems inherent in the concept of polysemy
4.4. Analyzing meaning
5. Homonymy
5.1. Homonyms defined
5.2. Types of homonyms
5.3. Homonym clashes
5.4. Polysemy vs. homonymy

One cannot get on with other issues in lexicology without answering the question ‘What exactly
do we mean by the term ‘word’? To demonstrate that it is by no means easy to give a
satisfactory, least of all definitive, answer to this question, let us consider the entry on word in
the second, 1989 edition of OED, which displays its senses under the three headings used in
1927 by C. T. Onions:
 (4) Speech, utterance, verbal expression, divided into eleven sense groups: speech, talk,
utterance; a speech, an utterance; speech as distinct from writing; verbal expression as
contrasted with thought; contention, altercation; a report, news, rumor; an order, request;
a promise, undertaking; a declaration, assertion; an utterance in the form of a phrase or
sentence, a saying or proverb; a divine communication, scripture, and Christ.
(5) An element of speech, a single twelfth sense initially defined as: ‘a combination of vocal
sounds, or one such sound, used in a language to express an idea (e.g. to denote a thing,
attribute, or relation), and constituting a minimal element of speech having a meaning as
such’. This technical definition is followed by the seven sense groups: a name, title, idea,
term; engraved or printed marks on surfaces; in contrast with the thing or idea signified;
the right word for the right thing; a telegraphic message; a mathematical sequence; a
string of bits in a computer.
(6) Phrases, a heterogeneous collection of such usages as take a person at his word, in so
many words, word of honor, and by word of mouth.
These three headings go to show that identifying what word is is not a simple question to answer,
since one inevitably encounters a number of difficulties when attempting a definition of the term
‘word’. The technical definition is listed twelfth in OED, since the dictionary was compiled on
historical principles, but more contemporary dictionaries tend to place their technical sense first.
Thus the 1985 edition of American Heritage Dictionary, for example, defines word as ‘a sound
or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing or printing, that symbolizes and
communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or of a combination of
morphemes’. The number of senses that word has come to traditionally be used in has led to a
range of other, more technical terms (lexeme, lexical unit etc.), which are devoid of other, non-
technical sense and, therefore, make sense delimitation easier.
The Word in Different Languages. The nature of word varies from language to language. For
example, there is no equivalent in English to the Ukrainian рута-м’ята. It is one word in
Ukrainian, but it would take many more words to translate it into English. Even then it would be
a very descriptive translation: a plant in Ukrainian folklore which people have attributed
different (mystical) properties to. It is often seen as a symbol of a girl’s young age. Even in
cognate languages, seemingly similar words (ones with similar forms) may be far removed from
each other semantically. The words zapomnieć in Polish and запомнить in Russian, which
clearly go back to the same source, may be conceived as variations of the same word, but, in
fact, they mean almost the exact opposite of each other.
In effect, the conception ‘word’ is determined afresh within the system of every language, and as
a result the word-as-element-of-speech is language-specific, not language-universal. The various
kinds of languages have their own broadly similar words, but even so there is variation from
language to language inside a category, as we have seen with examples in the cognate languages
Polish and Russian.
This necessarily brings us to the question of meaning.
The term meaning has been notoriously difficult to define as one of the most elusive concepts in
linguistics. This is because when we attempt to define meaning, we need to cover a whole range
of linguistic and extralinguistic factors that come into play at the same time. This is part of the
reason why scholars are divided as to what constitutes meaning and the ways in which it should
be described (Palmer 1982: 9). As far back as 1923, C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards in The
Meaning of Meaning argued that the terms meaning and to mean cannot be interpreted and
defined in a single way. To illustrate this, they listed at least 16 different interpretations of the
verb mean. Interestingly enough, the more recent research reveals even more divergent
approaches and terminologies used in the field.
Following Ogden and Richards, who maintained that ‘meaning is a relation in the mind between
facts and events on the one hand and the symbols and words you use to refer to them, on the
other’, Ullmann has gone further by using the term meaning to designate ‘a reciprocal relation
between name and sense, which enables them to call up one another’ (Ullmann, 1964).
On the other hand, M. A. K. Halliday and J. R. Firth argue that meaning is a ‘function of the
description at all levels’ or a ‘function in context’ respectively [].
Another problem that the meaning of a word poses is that different scholars attach varying
significance to the inherent properties of the word, on the one hand, and
contextual/functional/situational meanings, i.e. meanings that words acquire in various contexts.
V.Vinogradov, for instance, contended that ‘the meaning of the word is about the socially
recognized and established contexts of its use more than about anything else…’ [Vinogradov,
1953 : 6]. Conversely, other scholars construe meaning as an indispensable inherent property of
the word as the basic unit of language. Neither of the approaches, however, if applied to the
exclusion of the other, can satisfactorily answer the question of meaning. Only if they are
effectively reconciled can we expect to plausibly interpret the word’s meaning whether it is
freestanding or used in context. Ullmann argued that if ‘words had no meaning outside contexts,
it would be impossible to compile a dictionary…Single words have more or less permanent
meanings, they actually do refer to certain referents, and not to others, and this characteristics is
the indispensable basis of all communications’. He went on to say that each word has a hard core
of meaning which is relatively stable and can only be modified by the context within certain
limits’ [Ullmann, 1962]. One should read this as proof that words cannot be used arbitrarily or
acquire meaning only in context. From this perspective, the correlation between ‘meaning’ and
‘use’ acquires a new meaning, since ‘meaning-in-abstraction’ (fixed lexical meaning) has been
shown to depend on ‘meaning-in-situation’ and vice versa []Leech, 1981 : 341]. This meaning
vs. use dichotomy is conventionally discussed in terms of static vs. dynamic meanings in
Western linguistic tradition. Dynamic or functional meaning cannot be interpreted without
recourse to pragmatic analysis, whereby meaning is perceived as something that is performed
rather than something that exists in a static way. In pragmatics, meaning is a result of interaction
between the users of language, which is to say, it is ‘negotiated’ between speaker and hearer
[Leech, 1981 : 320]. Here is how the opposition between static and dynamic meanings can
sometimes be represented:
STATIC DYNAMIC
Found in dictionaries Observed in actual use
Denotative Connotative
Isolated meaning Meaning deriving from context
Conventionalized Creative
Regulated by authority Negotiated between users
Base-meaning Extended meaning
Predictable Unpredictable
Impersonal / generalized Personal / particular

Intuitively, all speakers of a language know what a word means. They can single words out in
utterances, recognize them, replace them with others. But as a term, word remains extremely
vague and ambiguous. In view of this, D. Crystal in A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics
suggests that the term ‘word’ be replaced by such terms as lexical item, lexical unit, or lexeme.
The term ‘word’ is used to designate an intermediate structure between a whole phrase and a
single sound segment. All this while, we have been working on an assumption that words (just as
well as phrases and sentences) are a total of meaning and form. In fact, in English, as in any
other natural language, for that matter, which has a writing system, words have both a spoken
form and a conventionally accepted written form. The reason why it is not easy to define the
word is exactly because several different criteria come into the definition of the word, depending
on whether the focus is on its representation, the thought it communicates (its meaning) or
purely formal criteria.
The first type of definition relies heavily on writing traditions, and those are that we use spaces
to separate sequences of letters and characters. Having said that, it should be noted that these
traditions do not always correspond to functional realities. E.g., if we look at the phrase ‘a new
Democratic party leader’ or ‘a useless waste paper basket’. The spaces between the words in
these sequences do not have the same value. The words ‘democratic party’ and waste paper
basket’ are a lot more closely linked than ‘new’ and ‘Democratic party’ or ‘useless’ and ‘waste
paper basket’. The latter constitute semantic units, while the other words in these sequences do
not. On the other hand, words written differently – state-of-the-art and statewide, for example –
are similar in terms of a single unit of thought that they represent. The same goes for idiomatic
and loose expressions: The silver earrings she was wearing were beautifully hand-crafted. More
investment isn't a silver bullet for poor neighborhoods/There is no silver bullet for this problem.
Consequently, a definition based on writing traditions alone cannot be entirely satisfactory.

The second type of definition takes the indivisible unit of thought as its frame of reference. The
major problem that this view of the word has to overcome is that of ‘delimitation’, which offers
three possible alternatives:
(a) the word as it is represented in writing represents a thought unit or a psychological unit.
This is the most common case and the easiest to observe: chicken, chair, try, faith,
intelligence.
(b) The word forms one block but includes two units of thought: spoonful, rethink, turnoff.
(c) A semantic unit exceeds the limit of the graphological unit and spreads over several
words: the word is only a part of a more complex unit: to all intents and purposes, by all
means, in flagrante, non sequitur.
And, finally, the third type of definition is based on purely formal criteria. One of the first
scholars to suggest a formal definition of the word was L. Bloomfiled. He contrasted the
word with other units: a morpheme, which is, following the Oxford Companion to the
English Language, a minimal unit of form and meaning, and the syntagme (or structure),
which consists potentially of more than one word. A morpheme as a minimal form may be
either free or bound. A free morpheme is one which can stand on its own. Conversely, a form
which does not occur alone is bound. E.g., like and think are free, whereas -able and re- in
respectively likeable and rethink are bound. Hence, a word is construed as a form which can
be freestanding and have meaning, but which cannot be broken down into elements that can
all occur alone and also have meaning. Bloomfield’s analysis cannot be seen as satisfactory
either, since it does not account for grammatical morphemes or compounds, for example.

It is important to make a distinction here between lexical and grammatical words. Most
generally, the first class comprises full forms such as green, figure, badly etc. , which is to
say, forms of major parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs), the other class
consists of ‘empty’ forms like the, of, to, and the like, which do not automatically suggest
any identifiable meaning. These tend to be defined in terms of their syntactic function, rather
than semantically. This distinction correlates with the distinction between open-class and
closed-class word-forms, which has found its way into most modern schools of grammatical
theory. It is easy to see why these classes are called what they are: the category of lexical
words has thousands of nouns, to name just one, and new items are constantly added to the
list. Grammatical words (prepositions, articles, conjunctions, forms indicating number, etc.),
on the other hand, contain relatively few members and since the additions are rather rare,
they are construed as closed sets. Other terms used to designate the category of
‘grammatical’ or ‘empty word-forms are ‘form words’, ‘function words’ or even ‘ structural
words’. All these terms reflect the view that what we call empty word-forms differ
grammatically and semantically from full word-forms. They are conventionally defined
within the framework of Bloomfieldian and post-Bloomfieldian morpheme-based grammar
on the basis of Bloomfield’s definition of the word as a minimal free form.
 It must be noted that there does not seem to be a clear-cut distinction between the two
classes. It might make better sense to speak of a continuum ranging from content words like
conscience, dry, fine to words generally devoid of semantic content such as, for example, it
or that in a sentence like ‘It is apparent that this is not the case’. Besides, although many
‘empty’ words may be classed as grammatical words, they are not completely devoid of
semantic content. The sentence ‘The house is on the river’ has quite a different meaning
when ‘on’ is replaced by ‘by’ or ‘beyond’. By the same token, the coordinators ‘and’, ‘or’ or
‘but’ are not mutually interchangeable as they are not synonymous.

CHARACTERISTICS OF WORDS
There are certain characteristics that are considered essential in the definition of the word in
English.
(1) The word is an uninterruptible unit. When elements are added to it to modify its
meaning, they are never included within the word. The root of the word is always left
intact, whatever manipulations are carried out. Internal stability of the word is never
compromised. The extra elements are added either in the pre- or post-position to the
stem (prefixes and suffixes, respectively). A stem may consist of one or more
morphemes, whereas a root is used to refer to a stem consisting of a single morpheme.
(2) Secondly, the word may be made up of one or more morphemes. If it is a one-morpheme
word, it cannot be broken down further into smaller meaningful units (e.g., man, dog, cat
etc.) They are termed ‘simple words’ and are ‘minimum free forms’, since they may
stand by themselves and act as minimally complete utterances. If more morphemes than
one make up a word, they may either be complex or compound. Complex words are ones
that can be broken down into one free form and one or more bound forms: uncool,
breakable, prettier etc. Compounds, on the other hand, consist of more than one free
form (candlestick, arrowhead etc.) A mention needs to be made also of words
incorporating both complex and compound forms (unturndownable, windshield wiper,
ungentlemanly). Having said that, it is not always obvious whether or not a given sound
sequence should be considered a morpheme. The morpheme, for instance, may have
ceased to be recognizable due to the process of linguistic change. The word like
‘window’ is a case in point (-ow is related to ‘eye’). As is ‘refer’, where the morpheme –
fer comes from Latin ‘ferre’ (carry). When we deal with cases like that, the common
practice is that, unless the word can be completely analyzed into morphemes, it should
be regarded as unanalysable. Another possibility that needs mention is that a morpheme
may not constitute a morpheme in all its occurrences (-er in ‘quicker’ and ‘plumber’ is a
suffix, but in ‘never’ and ‘answer’ it is not a morpheme).
(3) The word is part of the hierarchy at the level between the morpheme and the phrase, as it
occurs typically in the structure of phrases (morphemes are used as building blocks to
construct words, words, in their turn, are used to build phrases, phrases to build clauses,
and clauses to build sentences). This is the typical mapping of lower level into higher
level units. This is not to say, however, that higher level units may not be used to
construct lower level units. For example, Johnny-come-lately (Informal: a newcomer,
latecomer, or late starter, especially a recent adherent to a cause or trend) can be used as
an attribute to modify another noun as in She might take offense if some Johnny-come-
lately thinks he can do a better job.
(4) Finally, it is an essential feature of the word that it should belong to a specific word class
or part of speech. Where the same form appears in more than one class, which happens
quite frequently in English, we should regard the various occurrences as separate words
(fine, think etc.)

THE WORD AS A LINGUISTIC SIGN

It would not make sense, while engaging in a discussion of the word, not to look at it from the
perspective of semiotics. Semiotics, as a study of signs, sees the word as a linguistic sign.
According to Saussure, the linguistic sign is a two-faceted mental construct. It is seen as an
organic unity between a concept and a sound form. The two sides of the sign are:

 the signifier (the shape" of a word, its phonic component, i.e. the sequence of letters or
phonemes) – «означальне» (словесно реалізована одиниця)

 the signified (the ideational component, the concept or object that appears in our minds
when we hear or read about the signifier) – «означуване» (одиниця смислу).

(The signified is not to be confused with the referent. The former is a mental concept, the latter
the actual object in the world)

Semiotic triangle

SENSE (CONCEPT; CONTENT)

WORD (EXPRESSION; REFERENT

SIGNIFIER) (OBJECT; REFERENCE)

A referent is the concrete object or concept that is designated by a word or expression. A referent
is an object, action, state, relationship, or attribute in the REFERENTIAL REALM. Writers have
variously said that an expression stands for, designates, refers to, or denotes its reference.

 
 
 Ogden and Richards (1923) semiotic triangle

Sowa (2000) writes about Ogden & Richards' (1923) triangle of meaning: "The triangle in Figure 1 has a
long history. Aristotle distinguished objects, the words that refer to them, and the corresponding experiences in the
psychê. Frege and Peirce adopted that three-way distinction from Aristotle and used it as the semantic foundation for
their systems of logic. Frege's terms for the three vertices of the triangle were Zeichen (sign) for the symbol, Sinn
(sense) for the concept, and Bedeutung (reference) for the object." With many signifiers that stand for abstract
notions, notions that constitute really high levels of abstraction, which is to say, do not really exist other than in our
minds, a concept and a referent are always somewhat symbolic. We don't have access to them outside of
representation. The relationship between a symbol and a concept is a complex one, as a mental representation that
the sign evokes is mediated by a lot of factors: our past experiences, pre-conceived notions and cultural constructs.
This means that one and the same linguistic sign is sure to evoke different mental representations (concepts) for
different people. If not given explicit context, on hearing the word tank different people will think of different
objects (tanks as heavy military machinery, as a water tank, fish tank, fuel tank etc.) Even if the context is provided,
as in I’ve never seen a tank up close as part of a discussion about military vehicles, the word will conjure up a
different mental picture for those who participate in it. Some will think of the old-type tanks used in WWII, others
will imagine the new sophisticated, state-of-the-art vehicles, still others will think of the ones that the US has used in
the Iraqi war. Our access to concepts, therefore, is mediated in many different ways and they (concepts) may be
communicable only through other representations, which are signs themselves.

DENOTATION AND REFERENCE

The relation of denotation holds between a lexeme and a whole class of extra-linguistic objects. Lyons, for example,
defines the denotation of a lexeme as ‘the relationship that holds between that lexeme and persons, things, places,
properties, processes and activities external to the language system’ [Lyons 1977: 207]. The denotative meaning of a
signifier is intended to communicate the objective semantic content of the represented thing. So, in the case of a
lexical word, say "book", the intention is to do no more than describe the physical object. Any other meanings or
implications will be connotative meanings. To say what the word ‘job’ denotes is to identify all those entities in the
world that are appropriately called ‘jobs’. What dictionaries give us as explanations for lexemes are in fact what we
call a denotation. So the denotation of the lexeme ‘job’ would be ‘a regular activity performed in exchange for
payment, esp. as one’s trade, occupation, or profession’. This is not to say that the denotation of the word will be
the same across dictionaries. In fact, description of an entry, which is what, in fact, denotation comes down to,
varies from dictionary to dictionary, from thesaurus to thesaurus etc. In another dictionary, Oxford English
Reference Dictionary, the word job is described as ‘a paid position of employment’ or, in another meaning, ‘a piece
of work, esp. one done for hire or profit’. Whenever we come across an unfamiliar word, we usually start looking
for its denotation, which we find in dictionaries, encyclopedias, references etc. As opposed to denotation, the
relationship of reference holds between an expression and what that expression stands for on particular occasions of
its utterance’ [Lyons 1977 : 207] Lyons further notes that reference, unlike denotation, depends on specific
utterances, not on abstract sentences. In addition, reference is not normally applicable to single word forms and
never to single lexemes. The crucial difference between reference and denotation is that the denotation of an
expression is invariant and utterance-independent (invariant means ‘constant, not varying, unaffected by a change
in the situation, specific context’). It is part of the meaning which the expression has in the language-system,
irrespective of its use in any given context’. Reference, in contrast, is variable and utterance-dependent. For
example, the word ‘president’ always denotes a position or an official elected to preside over a body of people (of a
country, a company, at a meeting etc.). This is the inherent meaning that the lexeme possesses, irrespective of a
concrete utterance. At the same time, the phrases ‘He is now president-elect’, ‘How is the president going to react?’
or ‘He felt like a president during the Watergate scandal’ will refer to different members of the class and,
consequently, mean a different thing – in this case, person, on different occasions of utterance. The important thing
to remember is that lexemes as such do not have reference, but may be used as components of referring expressions
in particular contexts of utterance.

DENOTATION VS CONNOTATION
Scholars are divided in their treatment of the distinction between denotation and connotation, or
denotative versus connotative meaning. As we have already seen, denotation suggests a certain
‘cognitive, conceptual meaning’ or, simply put, objective meaning of a word. Denotative
meaning refers to the relationship between a linguistic sign and its referent (or denotatum),
whereas connotation is essentially stylistic and constitutes additional properties of lexemes
(colloquial, baby, biblical, casual, dialectal, formal etc.). Very often, the connotation of a lexeme
amounts to the positive or negative associations it evokes or conjures up (cf. Ukr. викликає,
пробуджує). Lyons offers an illustration of the distinction between denotation and connotation
by way of the opposition between lake and loch in Scots English. Denotationally, the two items
are similar, and all that sets them apart is their differing connotations. In fact, lake has a perfectly
neutral connotation, while loch, which is Gaelic in origin and used in Scotland in place of lake, is
often invoked in contexts to do with that particular part of Great Britain, for all kinds of stylistic
effects or in poetic contexts. Another example may be Good night vs. Nighty-night. Denotation
and connotation are both important in order to determine word meaning in a given context.
Freedom fighters – insurgents/ rebels – terrorists.

Connotation is also known as affective meaning, since it refers to the emotive or

associational aspect of a term. Connotation may be personal (stemming from experience, e.g.
swimming) or common to a group (such as emotions raised by the name of a political leader: G.
W. Bush). Connotations often give insight into the associations of the real usage of a word.
Some words have particular negative or particular positive connotation and they spread it across
the phrase or the sentence they occur in. For example, terrorism or terrorist, that denotes
‘someone who uses violence such as shooting, bombing to obtain political demands’, is usually
used in negative context and with a connotation that is typically disapproved of. On the other
hand, cheer, denoting ‘to shout showing happiness, praise, approval or support of somebody or
something’ usually has a positive connotation and spreads it across the sentence it is used in,
occurring typically with the nouns: audience, spectators, fans, etc.
Connotation may be more restricted in scope to a particular generation (blitz to people
living in the Second World War) or to a group of people (black cloud – bad luck that a medical
professional brings with him or her’, to bounce back – to be readmitted after being discharged
from hospital) or even to a personality.
Connotation may be restricted to particular group of people, for example the name
reservation has a negative connotation among Native Americans – an intern camp of sorts.
“Since ‘tribe’ has assumed a connotation of primitiveness and backwardness, it is suggested that
the use of ‘nation’ or ‘people’ replaced the term whenever possible in referring to Native
American peoples” (Moor 2005:53).
Connotation which is shared by a large proportion of speakers can be considered as a
contributory feature to the meaning of the lexeme.
Connotational meaning in dictionaries is usually identified by means of semantic labels
such as derogatory, pejorative, euphemistic. In a number of cases, however, the negative and
positive aspects of words remain implicit in the denotational part of the definition, or rather, the
denotational definition is formulated in such a way that the connotational information may be
derived from the choice of words in the definition. For instance, crook is defined as ‘a dishonest
person or criminal’; the negative charge of the words in definition may indicate the pejorative
load of the headword.
The art of choosing the right word is also dependant on what the register for the concept
you want to convey is, or what your opinions are. Using the right word one will make our
writing and speech more accurate, descriptive and interesting. We usually have to ask a question
whether this is the right word to communicate the meaning we want to or there is another one
that expresses it better.
To illustrate this, let us consider the following phrases: ‘the little house’, ‘the diminutive
house’, ‘the petite house’. How does the meaning of the phrase change with little, diminutive or
petite? All these words have overlapping and synonymous meaning but each of them provides a
particular connotation. Little may suggest endearment as well as size, diminutive – good
construction, and petite – prettiness and quaintness. Of course there are no set rules, the
meanings of words are constantly changing and also depend on the background of the reader and
the context in which they are used. A ‘diminutive house’, for instance, might also convey to
someone else the idea of a pitiable or contemptible residence and not particularly that of a good
construction.
 Connotation is the pragmatic communicative value which the word receives depending on
when, where, how, by whom, for what purpose and in what contexts it may be used. In other
words, connotations render the emotional associations the words suggest. For example, chubby,
plump, tubby and obscene all have related denotative meaning (fat), but different connotative
meanings. And careful writers choose words both for what they mean and for what they suggest.
And if we are trying to pay someone a compliment, we better get the connotation right.
Here is another example. The following words refer to “thin”, but the connotations may
be quite different depending, in part, on the context in which they appear: bony, frail, lanky,
slender, skinny, thin and slim. Some of these words tend to carry favourable connotations (slim –
someone who is slim is attractively thing (LDCE), slender – thing and graceful (LDCE), others –
unfavourable (lanky – unattractively tall and thing (LCDE), scrawny – unattractively thing and
weak looking (LDCE), others are fairly neutral (thin – having little fat on your body (LDCE).
There are four types of connotation: stylistic (rhetoric), emotional, evaluative and
expressive/intensifying. The four components may be all present at once, or in different
combinations or they may not be fond in the word at all. There are words without any
connotations (terms, for example).
Emotional connotations render various feelings or emotions (e.g. mom vs mommy).
Feelings differ from emotions. Emotions like joy, disappointment, pleasure, worry, surprise, are
more short-lived. Feelings imply a more stable state, or attitude, such as love, devotion, pride,
dignity, respect, etc. It is important to distinguish words with emotive connotation from words,
describing and naming emotions and feelings, like frustrated, angry, joyful, irritation, etc.
Emotionally charged words can cover the whole spectrum of both positive and negative
emotions, from surprise, respect, tenderness and other positive emotions on the one hand to grief,
irony, scorn and hatred on the other.
The emotive charge of words is to a great extent ‘contextually dependent’, as it greatly
depends on the situation, the speaker and the speaker’s attitude towards the utterance. In some
cases words which seemingly devoid of any emotive connotation may possess strong emotional
implication. As an example we can suggest the word ‘prison’ and imagine the scope of emotions
it can evoke in a convict, a doctor who works there, an architect designing the building, and a
passer-by.
Evaluative connotation shows approval/disapproval of the object being discussed (e.g:
group
vs gang). With descriptive words a car can be expensive, with evaluative connotation it can be
overpriced; a house can be left by its owners, or it can be abandoned. As with emotive
connotation evaluation can be subjective, for example, the attribute in ‘an adorable puppy’ is
subjective, as a different person may say that the puppy looks ordinary.

In some contextual setting the word can realize its positive meaning, in the other one – negative.
This is enantiosemy – a case of polysemy in which one sense is in some respect the opposite of
another. Enantiosemy is realized by means of a specific prosody of the utterance that is the tone,
the pitch of the voice, etc. In other words, it is created by the “incompatibility of lexis and
prosody, that is to say the direct meaning of the word and the purport of the intonation with
which it is spoken” [Минаева, с.55].
The example is the word precious, which means – ‘of great value or beauty’ as in ‘precious
stones’, precious pictures’. But in a certain context the adjective can be used with pejorative
connotation, showing that you are annoyed that someone seems to care too much about
something: Your precious career is becoming more important than your family! Here the
prosodic invariant is pronounced with a mid-falling tone and a small pause before it. This
prosodic variant is typical to the words with pejorative connotation. By using different kinds of
prosodic arrangement, the speaker can express anger and irritation, irony or sarcasm as in the
sentence: You’ve got us into a nice mess!
 TASK 1
Try to determine the connotations of the italicized words:

1. Linda had to figure out how to pay the rent after her
husband spent the money on another of his hare-brained
schemes.
2. I had to fork out a lot for that present.

3. Give mommy the doggie then.

4. Let me get you the aforementioned.

5. I hear you raise a lot of sheep down under.

6. Some other people commented that they saw Bill Clinton

schmoozing with reporters.

7. Please tender exact fare and state destination.

8. I wouldn’t yell like that if I were you.

TASK 2
Each of the short passages below is fairly objective and colorless, using
words with neutral connotations. You are to write two new versions of
each passage: first, using words with positive connotations, to show the
subject in an attractive light; second, using words with negative
connotations to describe the same subject in a less favourable way.
1. Tom does not weight very much. He has dark hair and a small
nose. He usually wears casual clothes.
a) Identify and describe this particularly attractive person.
b) Identify and describe this particularly unattractive person.

2. Rachel is always careful with her money. She neither borrows nor
lends money, she always keeps her money in a safe place, and she
buys only necessary things.
a) Describe Rachel as a very economical person, and say how
impressed you are by her sense of thrift.
b) Describe your disapproval or scorn on her being so tight-fisted.

3.3. Inherent and adherent connotation

The connotative component of meaning can be occasional or usual (inherent or adherent).
Connotation can be inherent to the semantic structure of the lexeme – the words on their own
imply positive or negative appreciation. Names like Napoleon, Bill Gates or Judas cannot be
uttered without invoking a world of associations. The words like drunk, murder, pervert, call up
horrible images that their dictionary definitions may simply not suggest. The same is true about
associations which the words angel, faithful, beautiful, super can awoke.
An inherent connotation can change the basic meaning of words and that of the words it touches.
For example white can suggest purity, innocence (the white wedding dress), lion – courage,
Paris – love and romance, snake – deviousness, paparazzi – intrusion into one’s private life).
Sometimes the words can have only adherent (occasional) connotation acquired in a certain
context. We know that words chance their meaning depending on where they are placed. The
word ‘great’ seems quite a clear word to understand, but its meaning, the images and ideas it
creates in the mind change drastically when you speak of a ‘great man’, great river’ or a ‘great
elephant’. When notional words are used metaphorically about something that is pleasant or
unpleasant for the speaker, we deal with adherent connotation. This metaphorical meaning is
lexicalized, it is a set phrase – bear (a big man who is rough and bad tempered), beast (someone
who is cruel or unpleasant or something that is difficult to deal with), vulture (someone who uses
other people’s troubles for their own advantage),
scroodge (someone who hates spending money - ), scarecrow (an object made to look like a
person that a farmer puts in a field to frighten birds).

3.4. Pragmatic meaning

The term ‘pragmatics’ is attributed to Morris (1938:6), who defined pragmatics as the study
of “the relation of signs to the interpreters”. Though the original concept of pragmatics has
changed within the framework of linguistic exploration, its impact is noticeable in the
interpretation of this category in linguistics. The term refers to a brunch of linguistics that
originated from different linguistic, philosophical, logical, rhetorical, semiotic and sociological
traditions. Its subject matter is often defined as the study of the intended speaker’s meaning.
Pragmatics overlaps with semantics, stylistics, and sociolinguistics and this term also denotes
linguistic phenomena studied by the discipline in question.
The pragmatic aspect of lexical meaning is the part of meaning that conveys information on the
situation of communication. According to Apresyan (1988), [Apresjan, J.D. (1988)
Pragmatičeskaja informacija dla tolkovogo slovarja. In Problemy Intensional’nosti: sbornik
nauchnykh trudov (pp. 7-44). Moscow] pragmatic specifications of meaning deal with the
representation of the speaker’s attitude to reality, the message and/or the interlocutor, which is
encoded in linguistic signs as units of language system, cf. the adjectives famous and notorious.

Notorious and famous both mean ‘very well-known (to the general public); but the former is
unfavorable, the latter favorable; thus, ‘a famous writer’ but a ‘notorious criminal’. Notorious, in
short, is famous in a bad way – for crime or excessive vice’. The cliché it is notorious properly
means no more than ‘it is common knowledge that…’, but current usage invests it with
pejorative connotation. Note, however, that a person may in his or her lifetime be so notorious
that after his/her death s/he becomes famous: Charley Peace, the murderer” (UA).

The definition contains the pragmatically-relevant semantic specification of famous and

notorious that determines their lexical-semantic valance with nouns denoting social roles and
pragmatic specification of famous and notorious, the letter being pejorative. The meaning of the
phrase it is notorious that also contains pragmatic aspect.
Kipfer (1984:41) [Kipfer, B.A. (1984). Workbook on Lexicography. [ Vol.8. Exter Linguistic
Studies.] (p.p. 1 -172). Exter: University of Exter.] Work maintains that pragmatics refers to
language varieties, their settings in time and space, and their relationships with speakers,
audiences, and subject matter. In dictionaries, this kind of information is presented in the form of
usage labels – lexicographic indicators that are usually presented by way of abbreviations, as
slang, rare, Scot, etc. Usage labels are intended to specify the limitation of use of the lexical
items according to time, place, and/or circumstances of communicative interaction.[Kipfer, B.A.
(1984). Methods of ordering senses within entries. In R> R> K. Hartman (Ed.), LEXeter ’83
Proceedings. Papers from the International Conference on Lexicography in Exeter, 9-12
September 1983 (pp.131 -140). Exeter: University of Exeter.
According to Landau (1989:175), the most common kinds of usage information (i.e. pragmatic
meaning of words) designated by usage labels, are as follows:
1. currency or temporality: archaic, obsolete;
2. frequency of use: rare;
3. geographic variation: AmE, BrE, etc.
4. specialized terminology: chemistry, astronomy, etc.
5. restricted or taboo usage: vulgar, obscene;
6. insult: offensive;
7. slang: slang;
8. style, functional variety, or register: informal, colloquial, literary, poetic, humorous;
9. status label: non-standard, substandard, illiterate.

The pragmatic aspect of meaning emphasizes the mode of communication (writing vs. speech)
and style (formal vs. informal) as well as the desired effect on the addressee. Pragmatic meaning
often contains the information on the tenor of discourse. The tenors of discourse reflect how the
addresser (the speaker or the writer) interacts with the addressee (the listener or the reader).
Tenors reflect social or family roles of the participants of communication. A mother will talk in a
different way a) with her child b) about her children. The situation may involve a stranger talking
to a stranger, an employer interviewing an employee-to-be, two teenage friends talking about
their matters, student being examined by the professor, etc.
Pragmatic meaning may also contain information about the social system of the given language
community, its ideology, religion, system of norms, regulations and customs, everything which
Zgusta called ‘cultural setting’. The newly coined words chairperson, policeperson,
spokesperson emerged due to the norms of ‘politically correct language’ – language, behavior,
and attitudes that are politically correct are carefully chosen so that they do not offend or insult
anyone.
To summarize we may define as pragmatic a meaning that expresses a discursive function, an
aspect of speech act, or a communicative function.

TASK 2.
State the difference in the pragmatic aspect of lexical meaning in the following pairs of words.
Pay attention to the register of communication and define the possible participants and their role
on which tenors of discourse are based.

1. Quality – thing: There are many qualities in his character that appeal to me. The thing I
like about Susan is the way she copes with her troubles.
2. Start – commence: We plan to start the project next week. Your first evaluation will be
six months after you commence employment.
3. Girl – lassie: She is happily married with two children – a boy and a girl. The lad had
never seen such a bony lassie.
4. Fat – overweight: Are you suggesting I’m too fat? The check up showed that Sally was
fifteen pounds overweight.
5. Kid – infant: Keep an eye on the kids while I water the flowers. An infant’s skin is very
sensitive.
6. Physician – doctor: A committee of three physicians was appointed to consider the case.
Can anybody call the doctor?
 7. Joke – gag: Everyone laughed except Mr. Broadbent who didn’t get the joke. It was a bit
of a running gag in the show.

POLYSEMY

A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the
ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other
guy whips out his cell phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator:
“My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator, in a calm soothing voice says: “Just
take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is
heard. The guy's voice comes back on the line. He says: “OK, now what?"
 
It seems make sure has (at least) two different senses. The first is: to find out if something is true
or to check if something has been done, and the second one is: to do something so that you can
be certain of the result. These two rather contradictory meanings are played upon in the joke
above, creating a humorous effect.
Polysemy refers to a situation where the same word has two or more different meanings.
According to Wikipedia, it is the capacity for a sign (e.g. a word, phrase, etc.) or signs to have
multiple meanings. If we look at the noun line, we’ll see that it has got over 10 different
meanings (a mark on a piece of paper; a row of people; wrinkles; a telephone connection;
railroad track; opinion/attitude; words you say; a particular way of doing s/th, rope/wire, etc.)
The senses of the word may be more or less distant from one another: walk (action, street) are
relatively close, while case (box/container) and case (situation /example /criminal case) are
much further apart.
Many words have more than one meaning and multiple meanings are surely a normal
state for most common words in English. Monosemantic words, i.e. words having only one
meaning are comparatively few in number; these are mainly pronouns and numerals. The
greatest number of monosemantic words can be found among terms, the very nature of which
requires precision. But even here we must mention that terms are monosemantic only within one
branch of science.
e.g.: to dress – to bandage a wound (medical terminology);
to dress – to prepare the soil for planting seeds (terminology of agriculture);
to dress – to decorate with flags (naval terminology).
Words belonging to the most active, vitally important and widely used part of the
English vocabulary are generally polysemantic.
The older a word is, the better developed is its semantic structure. The normal pattern
of this development is from monosemy to a simple semantic structure of 2 or 3 meanings
with a further movement to an increasingly more complex semantic structure. The
average number of meanings of the commonly used words ranges from five to about a few
dozen. In fact, the older and the more common the word is, the more meanings it has. A
dictionary in its descriptive function will have to give a list of definitions for each of the
different ‘meanings’. But the language is an infinite combination of meanings and it is a
pointless exercise to pick a word and give its ‘true meaning’, since new meanings are
constantly generated in speech.
Thus, according to LDOC, the noun mind in Modern English has 13 meanings:
1) brain, thinking process, I don’t know what’s going on in her mind.
2) decide (to make up ones mind, to change one’s mind, to be in too mind) I just couldn’t
make up my mind, so in the end I bought both.
3) thinking about smth. (to come to mind, to cross/enter one’s mind; turn one’s mind to)
Let’s now turn our minds to tomorrow’s meeting.
4) worry/stop worrying (on one’s mind).You look worried, Sarah. Is there something in
your mind ?; to be out of one’s mind with grief/worry etc.
 5) crazy, mentally ill (to be out one’s mind, to lose one’s mind, to be in one’s right mind).
I feel like I’m going rut out of my mind.
6) forget (to put smth. out one’s mind, out of sight, out of mind, to slip one’s mind).
7) remember (to bring to one’s mind, to keep smth. in mind, to bear smth., at the back of
one’s mind).
8) opinion; To my mind this is the best drawing of his. (to speak one’s mind; to have an
open mind /close mind; to be of the same mind ( We’re all of the same mind on this
issue)).
9) strong/ determined (to have a mind of one’s own.) Even at the age of three John had a
mind of his own. (to put one’s mind to smth.) It won’t take you Jody to do it if you put your
mind to it.
10) attention (to keep ones mind on smth.) It was difficult to keep my mind on polysemy
with spring emotions overloading you.
11) imagine it’s all in your mind. (in one’s mind’s eye) She could see in her mind’s eye the
whitewashed cottage of her childhood.
12) intend/want (to have smth. in mind; to have a good mind to do smth./ to have half a
mind to do smth.)
13) intelligence He is one the finest political minds in the country. He was a bright child
with an enquiring mind. Great minds think alike.
This list of ‘meanings’ may vary from dictionary to dictionary, which means that it is
not exhaustive. Many words have more than one meaning and multiple meanings is surely
a normal state for most common words in English. A dictionary in its descriptive function
will have to give a list of definitions for each of the different ‘meanings’. In the light of
that to pick on a word and give a ‘true meaning’ to it is a pointless exercise. Newly created
words which this word is at the time of their creation may well remain chaste and pure for
a time but they too will soon lose their purity and diversify.
Words with multiple meanings can sometimes cause ambiguity in speech and create a
humorous effect, as in the following example:
Mind you, I don't mind minding the children if the children mind me.
1. Mind you is an expression used to qualify a previous statement suggesting: I must tell
you on the other hand.
2. I don’t mind means: I have no objection.
3. Minding the children means: Looking after the children.
4. If the children mind me means: If the children keep out of my way.

A polyseme is a word or phrase with multiple, related meanings. A word is judged to be

polysemous if the senses of the word are related. Since the concept of relatedness is the
touchstone for polysemy, judgments of polysemy are not always straightforward.
Obviously, delving into the words’ etymology is a helpful method in making judgments
about polysemy. Since applying pre-existing words to new situations is a natural process
of language change, tracing links between meanings will help determine polysemous
relations between them. But attempts to go back to the roots of the word are not always
possible, because word meanings drift and their origins become untraceable. What once
might have been a useful distinction of meaning may no longer be so. Some apparently
unrelated words share a common historical origin, however, so etymology is not an
infallible test for polysemy, and dictionary writers also often defer to speakers' intuitions
to judge polysemy in cases where it contradicts etymology.

There are several tests for polysemy, but one of them is zeugma. If one word seems to exhibit
zeugma when applied in different contexts, it is likely that the contexts bring out different
polysemes of the same word. If the two senses of the same word do not seem to fit, yet seem
related, then it is likely that they are polysemous. The fact that this test again depends on
speakers' judgments about relatedness, however, means that this test for polysemy is by no
means foolproof, but rather merely a helpful, conceptual aid. “Mr Jones took his coat and his
leave”.

“He [Mr. Finching] proposed seven times once in a hackney-coach once in a boat once in
a pew once on a donkey at Tunbridge Wells and the rest on his knees.”
[Flora Finching] - (Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, Chapter 24)

 Oh, flowers are as common here, Miss Fairfax, as people are in London." Oscar Wilde,
The Importance of Being Earnest (Cecily is making a catty remark to Miss Fairfax, a
Londoner, by using "common" in two senses, namely "numerous" and "vulgar" as in the
expression "common thief.")

 "The Russian grandees came to Elizabeth's court dropping pearls and vermin." Thomas
Babington Macaulay

 "Are you getting fit or having one?" From the television program M*A*S*H

 "You held your breath and the door for me."

(Alanis Morissette, "Head over Feet")

 "You are free to execute your laws, and your citizens, as you see fit." From the television
program Star Trek: The Next Generation

In most cases, only one of the meanings of a polysemous word will fit into a given
context. Occasionally, though, ambiguity may also arise. There are cases when the meaning of
the word is ultimately determined not by linguistic factors but by the actual speech situation in
used. The meaning of the phrase I’ve got it is determined not only by the grammatical or lexical
context but by the actual speech situation. To get may mean to possess or to understand. It
should be noted, however, that the less specific the context, the greater the possibility of
ambiguity: if someone watching television comments What a case!, it may not be immediately
clear to other people unaware of what the program is about whether the comment refers to a legal
case or to a container. (Other examples: Look at that bat under the tree. Susan may go to the
bank today). But in natural speech and writing, however, ambiguity happens rarely, since the
context determines what meaning gets actualized. Unless, of course, the interplay of meanings is
invoked deliberately, and that, as we have seen, is often done in jokes or for stylistic effect. This
technique is often resorted to in the media, advertising and TV commercials. A polysemous
effect, whereby two or more meanings of a word come into play, is most often placed in
headlines, subheadings and captions.

'Chill out with Beaujolais' (TONY, 10-17.06.1999)

‘How Not to Be All Wet’ (Esquire (04.1998)

A Whole Lotta Dough (TONY, 10-17.06.1999)

‘We are Chicken,…but We Admit it’ (TV Commercial for a chicken restaurant)

Ways to have multiple senses of a word

Words are constantly changing their meaning. Dictionaries are a good illustration of that. For
example, the latest edition of Webster’s dictionary included some 10,000 new words along with
100,000 new meanings to words already existing and some 225,000 revised definitions.
A closer analysis of a relationship between different meanings of the same word will reveal that
they can be in metaphoric relations or relations of metonymy (metaphoric relations are relations
of similarity while metonymic relations are those of contiguity).

The term metaphor refers to a situation where a word appears to have both a ‘literal’ and
‘figurative’ or ‘transferred’ meaning. The words for parts of the body provide the best illustration
of metaphor. For example, we speak of the hands and face of a clock, the foot of a bed or a
mountain, the leg of a chair or table, the tongue of a shoe, the eye of a needle, etc.  
Some other examples of metaphoric relations between different meanings are to milk,
a mole, to digest, to play it by ear, to play footsie.

On the other hand, metonymy refers to the use of a single characteristic to identify a more
complex entity and underlies a very common process of human cognition: it is common for
people to take one well-understood or easy-to-perceive aspect of something and use that aspect
to stand either for the thing as a whole or for some other aspect or part of it. Here is an
illustration of metonymic relations within one entry, which reveal different aspects of the same
frame:
 The New York Times is most interesting on Sundays.
 The New York Times employs hundreds of writers.
 I found 4 mistakes in The New York Times this week.

Results of semantic change

The basic distinction is to be made between semasiological and onomasiological mechanisms of

change. Semasiological mechanisms involve the creation of new readings within the range of an
existing lexical item. Onomasiological mechanisms, conversely, involve changes through which
a concept is expressed by a new or alternative lexical item. So, semasiological innovations
provide existing words with new meanings whereas onomasiological innovations couple
concepts to quite unpredictable words within the language.
Within the set of semasiological mechanisms, a further distinction involves changes in
denotational and connotational meaning.
Results of semantic change within the denotational aspect of meaning could be either
restriction or extension of meaning. 
Another term for ‘restriction’ and ‘narrowing’ of meaning are ‘specialization’; ‘extension’
equals ‘broadening’ or ‘generalization’.
Restriction of meaning can be illustrated by the semantic development of meaning of the
lexeme hound, which used to denote ‘dog of any breed’, but now it is used to denote ‘a dog used
in the chase’.
The process of restriction is sometimes called specialization of meaning, since the word with the
new restricted meaning is often used in the specialized vocabulary. Another example of
generalization is the word of French origin arrive, which etymologically meant ‘to reach the
river’s shore, to come to the bank’, but which now is used in the meaning ‘to reach a destination’
in general.
Extension of meaning is the reverse process, when the word from the specialized vocabulary
passes into the mainstream vocabulary and becomes common. For example, the word target
originally meant ‘a small round shield’, and now it is usually used in the meaning ‘anything that
is fired at’. Salary once had the meaning of “the money to buy salt with”. Now it means “money
to buy anything”. Thing once meant anything that can be agreed on in trade. Now it has a
generic meaning. Town once meant fence. Now it denotes a settlement.
A more recent example is the noun ‘gender’, which, according to Colon Yollop (Lexicology and
Corpus Linguistics: 44) is a good illustration of how words’ meanings reflect social changes.
Until quite recently, dictionaries gave as the main use of gender its meaning in grammar as in
talking about the two genders (masculine and feminine) of nouns in French or Spanish, or the
three genders (masculine, feminine of neuter) of nouns in Latin and German. By the end of the
1980s, due to some social developments, dictionaries were recording gender as having a
significant and formal use for something like ‘the fact of being male or female. The word has
largely replaced sex in this sense, for sex has increasingly been used as shorthand for ‘sexual
intercourse’. And the word gender has increasingly appeared in various kinds of academic
discourse in the words and phrases like ‘gender issues, gender differences’, etc.
Results of the semantic change can be also observed in the connotational aspect of meaning,
which can be ether amelioration or pejoration (deterioration) of meaning.
Amelioration of meaning is a shift towards a more positive emotive meaning, it means the
improvement of the connotational component of meaning. For example, the word minister was
originally used in the meaning ‘servant’, but in the course of time it has developed another
connotation: ‘a civil servant of higher rank, a person administering a department of state’. Fame
meant news (good or bad). Now it means glory. Nice meant foolish. The word was gradually
specialised in the sense foolishly particular about trifles. Then the idea of folly was lost and
particular about small things, accurate came into existence. To adore had the meaning to speak
with, to greet, to address. Now it means to love, to worship.
Pejoration (deterioration) of meaning is the opposite case; it is a shift towards a more negative
emotive meaning, when the derogatory or pejorative connotational meaning develops. For
example, the word boor originally denoted ‘a peasant’, but later acquired a derogatory
connotational meaning ‘a clumsy or ill-bread fellow’. Idiot meant private in Greek and
uneducated in Latin. Now it has a negative meaning of a fool in both languages. Greedy meant
hungry. Now it means stingy. Villain meant a person living in the country. Now it means a
scoundrel.
The way words change meaning through time can sometimes be amusing or perplexing. A word
can change its meaning into its own opposite. For example awful, quite obviously was formed to
denote something that was deserving, or full of awe. The classical example of pejoration is the
word silly that began its existence meaning blessed or happy in the XIth century, transforming
into pious, innocent, harmless, feeble minded and ends up describing someone foolish or stupid.
Moreover, the term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups, but not in others, for
example hacker - the term used for computer criminals as well as for quick and clever computer
experts.
Distinction should be made between pejorative and ameliorative shifts on the one hand
and euphemisms and dysphemisms on the other. Euphemism is the use of a positively (or less
negatively) connoted word instead of a negatively one. Thus, pre-owned is a euphemism for
second-hand, enhanced interrogation for torture, industrial action for strike.
We use euphemisms to make softer the items which should be said bluntly, the term
covers the cases of substitution of an inoffensive term (such as to pass away instead of to die or
public woman or prostitute instead of whore). We use euphemism when we speak about socially
tabooed things, such as age, sex, drugs, illnesses and other things. We may be motivated by
kindness or at least politeness. For example, instead of saying directly “She’s very old”, which
sounds unpleasant, we replace the insulting words with euphemisms: “She’s not as young as she
was/she’s getting on/she’s advanced in years”. To avoid referring too directly to embarrassing
matters we use the words the restroom, the ladies’ room, comfort station, public convenience,
loo, WC (water closet), the powder room, the reading room, the smallest room for the bathroom,
which is a euphemism itself. Another example, suggested by K. Allen and K. Burridge, is “the
word ‘crazy’ originally meant ‘cracked, flawed, damaged’ and was applicable to all manner of
illness; but it has now narrowed to ‘mental illnesses’. It captures the stereotypical mental patient
as someone ‘flawed, deficient’ (cf. mentally deficient), and it is the basis for many euphemistic
expressions for ‘madness’: crack-brained, scatter-brained, shatter-brained, head-case, nut-case,
bonkers, falling to pieces, have a (nervous) breakdown, head case, having a screw loose, one
brick short of a load, not a full load, not playing with a full deck, three cards short of a full deck,
one sandwich short of a picnic, two bob short of a quid, not the full quid, this elevator doesn’t
go to the top floor, a single short; and perhaps he’s lost his marbles.” (Keith Allen and Kate
Burridge, Euphemism and Dysphemism: Language used as a Shield and Weapon. Oxford Univ.
Press, 1991).
The term euphemism is closely connected with the notion of political correctness.
“Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies and behaviour seen as
seeking to minimize social and institutional offence in occupation, gender, racial, cultural, sexual
orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability and age related contexts, and,
as purported by the term, doing so to an excessive extent” (Wikipedia). Below are the examples
of politically correct words used in the lexical group “professions”:
Cleaner – environmental technician, housewife – domestic engineer, fireman – firefighter,
photocopying clerks – reprographics engineers, telephonist – voice data executive, typist –
digital data executive, unemployed – involuntarily leisured, between career changes, infinitively
idled (Cristina Gray “Celebrating the Diversity of American English”, workshop materials,
TESOL-Ukraine Conference, Lviv, 2000).
Though meant to sound polite and diplomatic, politically correct words can be used
dishonestly to hide the mistake or blunder; they can create a lot of deception and lies. “Political
language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an
appearance of solidity to pure wind” (George Orwell “Politics and the English Language”,
1946).
Political correctness may lead to doublespeak – the language intended to distort or
obscure its actual meaning.
When we think of dysphemisms, we think of words that are substituted because their
connotations are more distressing than the words they replace. When euphemisms try to hide,
dysphemisms intend to expose the idea; they are meant to shock or offend. They are usually used
in slang, where a relatively neutral word is replaced with a harsher, more offensive one.
Dysphemisms in slang may also serve as in-group markers to signal closeness of people.
The examples are animal names applied to people: old coot, old bat, chicken, snake,
dog, cow, ass, hog and bitch, for example. Such words have undergone such drastic changes in
their
meaning, that they are no longer used in their primary meanings. The example is the word cock
in the early 17-th century developed a meaning ‘male sex organ’ alongside its primary meaning
‘male domestic bird’. Attempting to avoid the risks of evoking the negative connotations of the
sense, the American users of English gradually stopped using the word cock in its primary
meaning and in American English it is substituted by the lexeme rooster.
Polysemy in dictionaries

Despite the seeming simplicity, the concept of polysemy is complex and involves a certain
number of problems. Many of these problems are primarily to do with how polysemous words
are represented in dictionaries. The challenges that dictionary compilers most often encounter
with respect to polysemy are of three kinds. The first type involves establishing whether they
deal with polysemy or whether it is a case of homonymy. Dictionaries have to decide whether a
particular item is to be handled in terms of polysemy or homonymy because a polysemous word
will be treated as a single entry, while a homonymous one will have a separate entry for each of
the homonyms. This, however, does not necessarily mean that this ‘rule of thumb’ works
consistently. The policy that a dictionary adopts depends on different factors, the size of the
dictionary being one of them. Smaller-sized dictionaries, for reasons of limited space, tend to
bracket homonyms together under the same headword. As a result, there is no way of telling
whether one deals with the senses of a polysemous word or distinct homonyms. Even some
average-sized dictionaries may lump homonyms together in one entry. LDOCE is a case in point.
For example, while the Oxford English Reference Dictionary (OERD) or Random House
Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (RHWUD) treat such lexical items as punch in the meaning of
“a hit”, punch as “a metal tool for cutting holes” and punch in the sense of “a type of drink” as
homonyms and, therefore, as separate items, LDOCE puts them indiscriminately in one entry, as
different senses of the same word. Other similar examples include band in the sense of “a group
of musicians” and band as “a flat, narrow piece of material with one end joined to the other to
form a circle”, bat in the sense of “a flying mammal” and bat as “a special stick that is used in
some sports”, bank as “land along the side of a river” and as “a financial institution”, etc. These
differences are clearly a result of certain policies adopted by dictionary-makers. Considering the
more-than-average size of OERD and WUD and the much smaller size of LDOCE, such policies
are arguably motivated by space constraints.
If lexicographers do establish that they deal with polysemy, another potential problem is the
sequencing, or ordering of the senses that the word has. It is obvious that different senses of the
same word are not ordered randomly inside a lemma. The sequencing of the senses is by no
means arbitrary and there is usually a very distinct regularity to it. The kinds of ordering may
vary from dictionary to dictionary, but commonly they include:
(1) Historical or etymological – the older before the newer. Following a historical order,
some lexicographers give the oldest recorded senses first, even if these are now obsolete
and largely unknown. The historical principle used to be a universal practice until the end
of the 19th century. (2) Frequency – the common before the rare. Most modern
dictionaries intended for the learners of the language use a corpus to establish which are
the most frequent uses of a word in a large quantity of text, and, consequently, list senses
of a word in order of frequency. This has been the primary criterion in most present-day
dictionaries. (3) Logico-semantic, the general before the specialized, the concrete before
the abstract, and the literal before the figurative.
Apart from the approaches listed above, a compiler may order the senses in a way that makes the
defining easier and more concise. Although no objective criterion lies at the heart of this
approach, it is probably of help to the reader. For instance, the word season is commonly used in
phrases like the football season, the rainy season, the holiday season, the tourist season, a
season ticket, out of season, etc. These uses taken together probably outnumber what many
people may think of as the basic meaning of season as “time of year; one of the main periods
into which a year is divided, one of the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter”.
Nevertheless, the dictionary compiler may judge it sensible to open the entry with this particular
sense not only because this is what most readers expect, but also because the subsequent
definitions of season, like “the usual time for something”, examples of which have been cited
above, may seem easier to grasp if they are preceded by the supposedly basic sense [Yallop,
2004 : 26].
It sometimes seems to be mere convention to list certain meanings first. For example, definitions
of the word have in most dictionaries begin with the sense of “possess” or “own”. Indeed, many
people traditionally consider these as the fundamental or ordinary meanings of have. At the same
time, extensive corpus data indicate that the uses of have as an auxiliary verb (as in She has
always been like that) and in constructions expressing modality, like have / have got to (as in
You have to keep an eye on them) are a lot more frequent than the supposedly fundamental uses
like They have three pets. These uses of have are a vivid illustration of the fact that the most
frequently used sense of a word is not always the one that strikes most people as the core
meaning. This traditional approach may well start to change as increasing amounts of objective
data from computerized corpora have more influence on the practice of dictionary making.
A third challenge for lexicographers is deciding how many ‘meanings’ or ‘senses’ of a word to
recognize. The decision depends on whether the lexicographer is, according to Allen, a ‘lumper’
or a ‘splitter’ (Allen 1999:61). By “lumpers” he means dictionary compilers who tend to lump
meanings together and leave the user to extract the nuance of meaning that corresponds to a
particular context. On the other hand, “splitters” seek to discriminate between even the minutest
senses and list them separately within an entry. The distinction corresponds roughly to that
between summarizing and analyzing. Most lexicographers, however, tend to overdifferentiate
senses, since they seek to give a better understanding of the multiple meaning of words. If, for
example, we compare how complain (v) is treated in different dictionaries, we will find that
LDOCE (2003) and СOBUILD (2006) list two senses of the word, while others – RHWUD
(1996) and OERD (1996) – register 3. Interestingly, these meanings do not coincide even in the
first two that list only two meanings. They both list the main sense, that of “express annoyance,
dissatisfaction, resentment etc.” first, but while СOBUILD has “tell of your pain or illness” as its
second sense, LDOCE records an entirely different meaning in its second spot: I/he/they can’t
complain – “used to say that a situation is satisfactory, even though there may be a few
problems”. The meaning listed second in СOBUILD is not treated as an independent sense in
LDOCE, but rather as a phrasal verb: complain of (an acute pain, severe headaches, insomnia
etc.). The three senses in the other two dictionaries do not seem to coincide either. Apart from
the two main senses cited above, OERD lists additionally “make a mournful sound; groan; creak
under a strain”, which does not appear anywhere else, while RHWUD has “make a formal
accusation” as its third sense, like in They eventually complained to the police. It is apparent that
the sense of “make a formal accusation” is a result of the first – and probably the main – sense
(“express annoyance, dissatisfaction…”) splitting up into two. To illustrate the variation in
presenting polysemy across dictionaries, the table below demonstrates differing listings of
meanings for overwhelm, squint and crush in LDOCE, COBUILD, OALD, and RHWUD
[Havronska, 2010 : ]

LDOCE COBUILD OALD RHWUD

overwhelm 5 2 4 5
squint 2 1 3 6
crush 5 4 6 12

The table and the discussion above demonstrate that we cannot assume that the wording of a
dictionary definition and, importantly, how dictionaries go about listing different senses of a
word are, if not entirely arbitrary, then certainly not an ideal representation of what the word
means.

ANALYZING MEANING

Meaning is a complex phenomenon which is difficult to analyze. As we have already suggested

that the meaning of words involves its relations with reality, and the language is in some sense
grounded in reality, at the same time it involves sense relations with other words in the
vocabulary and the collocational relations that may hold between it and co-occurring words. A
major breakthrough into the problem was the introduction of ‘componential analysis’, suggested
by some semanticists and lexicographers (See Nida 1875 and Leech 1981), who discovered that
meaning can be divided into a finite number of components. These minimal components of
meaning are called semes, they are universal to all languages, and they are the ‘bricks’, from
which the meanings of all words can be composed.
Semantic components are typically represented in opposition, e.g.: + animate vs. –animate. It
means, that the meaning of any word may be composed either of the component + animate or
the component
– animate. To illustrate this, consider the following words: a cow and a pear. The meaning of
the former word would include the + animate component, while the meaning of the latter would
include the - animate component. It becomes evident, that this +/- animate opposition serves to
differentiate between two large groups of words in the vocabulary of the language. These
components are of the highly general abstraction. There may be found components of a more
specifying character, for example +- mammal to substitute + animate and +- fruit to substitute
–animate.
Let us attempt a componential analysis of the lexeme cow. A cow is a female animal, it belongs
to the class of mammals. So there can be identified at least two components of meaning: +
animate and +mammal. Going further in differentiating meanings, we have to find the
component to indicate that cow is the female in contrast to the bull. This component can be
marked as – male. Another feature of a cow is its ‘age’ – we have to show that it is a fully
grown, adult animal, in contrast to the calf. This component can be defined as +adult. So we
have identified three components of the noun cow: +mammal, – male, +adult. There are some
more nouns referring to adult female mammals – vixen, birch, mare, sow, doe. We need another
component to distinguish cow from one of these. We suggest the word + bovine, originating
from the Latin word , on analogy with +canine used for the dog.
Within a genus these components can distinguish the meaning of the closely related lexemes, e.
g.:
bovine adult male
bull + + +
cow + + -
calf + - +/-

The +/- indicates that calf is not differentiated for gender. Each lexeme has the set of components
to convey the meaning. They all share +bovine, which is a common component. The others
serve to distinguish the meanings and are therefore differentiating components

HOMONYMY

Traditionally homonyms are held to designate different words (lexemes) with the same
form. Even though they have the same shape, homonyms are regarded as distinct lexemes,
primarily because they are semantically unrelated and have different origins. So,
according to McArthur, lexicographers generally take the view that homonymy relates to
different words whose forms have converged while polysemy relates to one word whose
meanings have diverged or radiated [ ].
For example, the lexemes tear1, which means ‘pulling or ripping apart’ and another
orthographic doublet tear2, denoting ‘the drop of salty liquid that comes from the eyes
when someone weeps’ have different origins. They are both from Old English, the first
from teran and the second from tẻar. [H. Jackson, Lexicography, p.]. Lexemes that share
the same spelling, but have a different etymology, are termed homographs (a Greek word,
meaning ‘same (homo) +writing’), e.g. wind, live, sow, irony, lead, etc.

1) The strong wind prevented us from boating. Don’t forget to wind your watch.
 2) They used to live in a small country cottage. My favourite singer is giving a
live concert tonight.
3) There was a sow with five piglets on my uncle’s farm. The farmers sow the
seeds in spring.

Homonyms are not a homogenous group, however. The sameness of shape, which characterizes
homonyms, can refer to different aspects of their form. Thus, we distinguish between
homographs (lead, row), lexemes that are spelt the same but pronounced differently, and
homophones, which show the reverse situation: they have an identical sound form, but are spelt
differently (flour-flower; sight – site; rain – reign – rein). Homographs are not very numerous in
English; much more common seem to be the homophones: e.g. air/heir, groan/grown, pray/prey,
whether/weather, etc.
There are absolute homonyms, which are supposed to meet the following three conditions:
(1) they are unrelated in meaning;
(2) all their forms are identical (belong to the same word class);
(3) the identical forms are grammatically equivalent. Absolute homonyms are fairly
commonplace, e.g.: band1 (n) – a company of musicians
band2 (n) – a trip or loop of something;
fall1 (n) – the act of falling, dropping or coming down
fall2 (v) - to move to a lower position or level
On the other hand, there are also partial homonyms, which are to say cases where (a)
there is identity of (minimally) one form and (b) one or two, but not all three of the above
conditions are satisfied. E.g., the verbs ‘find’ and ‘found’ share the form found, but not
finds, finding, or founds, founding, etc. The two homonymous verbs ‘lie (lay, lain)’ and
‘lie (lied, lied)’coincide only in their initial form. It is worthy of note that there is a
correlation between points (2) and (3), which means that the failure to satisfy (2)
correlates with the failure to satisfy (3). This is not common to all the languages, but it is
certainly common to English.
Partial homonyms are of two types: homophones and homographs. Homophones are
words identical in sound but different in spelling and meaning:
Made 1 (adj) – formed
Maid 2 (n) – a female domestic servant
Bread 1 (n) – a common food made of baked flour
Bred 2 (adj) – reared in a special environment or way
Sum1 (n) – a particular amount of money
Some2 (pronoun) – an unspecified amount or number of
Homographs are words identical in spelling but different in sound and meaning:
Row1 (n) – a number of persons or things in a line
Row2 (n) – a noisy acrimonious quarrel
Desert1 (v) – to leave empty or leave completely
Desert2 (n) – a large sandy piece of land where there is very little rain and not much
plant life.
Words which coincide in sound and spelling but differ both lexically and grammatically
are grammatical homonyms:
e.g. bear(noun) – bear(verb)
grave (adjective)- grave(noun)
When homonyms belong to different word classes, as in the case of rear, which has
different lexemes as a noun (at the rear of the house), an adjective (a rear entrance), a
verb (to rear the children), each homonym has not only a distinct meaning, but also a
different grammatical function. The same observation could be applied to the pairs of
words such as stick (verb) and stick (noun), seal (verb) and seal (noun) , mean (adjective)
and mean (verb).
 Words not homonymous in their initial forms but only in their secondary ones are
called homoforms.
e.g. paws - pause
saw - saw
mpu - mpu

English vocabulary is rich in the pairs and groups of homonyms. Their identical
forms are mostly accidental. The majority of homonyms coincided due to the phonetic
changes they underwent in the course of their development. In the process of
communication, they are more at an encumbrance leading sometimes to confusion and
misunderstanding. Yet it is this very characteristic which makes them one of the most
important sources of popular humor producing pun.
1) A tailor guarantees to give each of his customers a perfect fit.
2) – Waiter!
- Yes, sir.
- What’s this?
- It’s bean-soup, sir.
- Never mind what it has been. I want to know what it is now.
3) Їла диню нині Ївга,
А ти нині диню їв, га?!

Sources of homonyms:
1) Phonetic change which words undergo in the course of their historical development.
As a result of such changes, two or more words which were formally pronounced
differently may develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms.

e.g. long1 – O.E. longian

long2 - O.E. long
I - O.E. ic
eye - O.E. eaзe

2) Borrowing: a loan-word in the final stage of its phonemic adaptation may duplicate in
form either in native word or another borrowing:

e.g. angle1 – O.E. angel (вудка)

angle2 - O.E. angulus
arm1 – As arma (рука)
arm2 – Latin (weapon)

3) Conversion:
e.g. make1(v) – make2(n)
comb1(v) – comb2 (n)
pale1 (adj.) - pale2 (v)
find 1 (n) – find2 (v)

4) Shortening:
e.g. cab1 (cabriolet)
cab2 (cabbage)
cab3 (cabin)
rep1 (representative)
 rep2 (repetition)
rep3 (repertoire)

5) Derivation: e.g. reader1 (a person)

reader2 (a book)

6) Split polysemy
mouse1 (animal)
mouse2 (part of the computer)

As a semantic structure of a traditional polysemantic word presents a system within

which all its constituent senses are held together by logical association.
e.g. spring1 – spring2 – spring3 – spring4
match1 (game)
match2 (couple)
match3 (a small stick with a special substance on it used to make fire)
Hear is the list of homonymous pairs with their origin.
hate (v) – hate (n) (OE hatian v. – hete n.)
work (n) – work (v) (OE weorc n. – wyrcan v.)
drink (v) – drink (n) (OE drincan v – drinc n.)
point (n) – point (v) (OF point, pointer, n. – pointer v. > point n. v.)
note (n) – note (v) ( OF note, n., noter, v. > note n., v.)
answer (n) – answer ( v) (OE answaru, n. – answarian v.)
smile (v) – smile (n) (Scan. Smirk v.)
place (n) - place (v) ( L. platea n. )
In Ukrainian the word гриф (a mythical creature which is a borrowing from Greek), гриф
(частина струнного музичного інструмента, a borrowing from German), гриф
(штемпель на документі, a borrowing from French).
Homonym clashes
As homonyms are words which share the same form, there might be a danger of
homonymous clashes in the sense that two words with absolutely different meanings may
both make sense in the same utterance. Consider the following utterances:
The night was short (part of the
The knight was short;
Jane didn’t like the flour (the substance)
Jane didn’t like the flower (the plant).
The main reason for not having a homonym clash is not even the difference in word class
and the difference in spelling, but the difference in overall context. Consider the following
pairs of homonyms: lead (noun) vs lead (verb), stick (verb) vs stick (noun). These words,
apart from difference in meaning and the word class, can hardly occur interchangeably in
the same context. The distribution between such words is complementary in the sense that
the context, in which one word occurs, does not presuppose the other word. Besides, since
each member of the pair differs in the word class, the choice of the one homonym instead
of the other is determined by the rules of syntax.
Homonyms do not present any harm to language since they belong to different word
classes (nose (noun) and knows (verb)), apart from that it is difficult to imagine the
context, in which both words could come together. Moreover, homonymy is a source of
humor, based on word play in which homonyms substitute each other or are used in an
inappropriate context.
Homonyms in English cause trouble for lexicographers, since they can be listed either as
separate headwords or under one headword. For example:
hooker1 – a commercial fishing boat using hooks and lines instead of nets;
 hooker2 – a person or thing that hooks.
At first glance, it would be natural to include the meaning of hooker1 into a more general
meaning of hooker2. But the basic criterion lexicographers use to identify homonyms
(homographs) is etymology: if two or more different origins can be identified for the same
spelling, then the orthographic word is entered as many types as there are different
etymologies. In the case of hooker, the first homograph is identified as a loanword from
Dutch hoeker in the seventeenth century, and second is the derivation by means of the
suffix –er from the verb hook, which has its origin in the Old English hoc.
Another example is the word line, which has three homographs based on the word class
membership – a noun, a verb and an adjective. It has entered four times into LDOCE on
the basis of etymology; it has its origin in Middle English linen, derived from lin, the Old
English foe flax, which developed into modern English linen. The other entries for line
originate from Old French ligner, though this word goes back to a Latin word meaning
‘made of flax’.
For any orthographic word, therefore, for which a lexicographer identifies multiple
meanings, a decision must be made whether different meanings arise from polysemy or
because they are homographs. The lexicographer applies a criterion of etymology,
according to dictionary policy, that of word class membership. If the criteria are satisfied,
then multiple headwords are entered in the dictionary. If not, then a single headword is
entered with multiple meanings or senses.
English has a non-phonetic writing system, in the sense that there is no one-to-one
correspondence between the letters in writing and the sounds in the pronunciation of
words. Consequently, writing often helps to differentiate between the words which are
identical in sound. Writing provides a quick and easy way of removing confusion. For
example, if there is any misunderstanding between the speakers concerning homonyms
like knight and night or right or write, they may spell the words to avoid confusion.
Most scholars agree that there is no clear-cut dividing line between polysemy and
homonymy. The major difficulty is to distinguish how far meanings have to diverge in
people’s minds before they treat them as separate words.

Task 1.

Decide on what the following jokes are built:

(1) – My wife is an angel!

– You are lucky! Mine is still alive.
(2) An advertisement of the jeweler’s shop: “If you want to give her a ring, give us a ring”.

5.4. Polysemy vs homonymy

One of the most important and intuitively most salient distinctions in connection with our
topic is the one between polysemy and homonymy. This distinction has already been touched
upon in Section 1 above. Deane (1987: 21-36) quotes a sizeable body of (mostly European)
literature beginning with Bally that dealt with this distinction before the beginning of modern
polysemy research. His summary of this literature reveals that the conception I have outlined
in Section 1 was one of the two standard linguistic models for polysemy and homonymy from
the beginning. To recapitulate, this model (which I will refer to as Model A in the following)
claims that polysemy occurs when the same word (or lexeme) has different readings. The
concrete, observable readings relate to the abstract, not directly observable lexeme in the same
way as contextual (and, to put it more precisely, contextually determined) variants of
abstract morphological or phonological units in actual utterances relate to these abstract units.
Homonymy is then considered to be two or more words that happen to have the same form.
The other model of polysemy (Model B) concentrates less on relating the different meanings
of words. It rather holds that polysemy can be assumed if a word behaves as a single
linguistic sign, i.e. its syntactic, morphological and semantic properties remain constant if it
is used in different meanings. For example, one indication that two instances of words belong
to different lexemes is if they are spelled differently.
5
Another one is that a word should only
have one set of morphological properties.
6
Yet a different method that mostly leads to the
same result as this latter one is to check if two meanings of a word belong to the same
semantic field. If not, they are homonyms. Further semantic tests include checking if the word
has the same set of synonyms and antonyms when used in different meanings. Distribution
tests that are related to pronominalization and zeugma, still widely used today, also appeared
in the earlier literature.
7
It should be noted that Model A entails that the relation between the contextual variants and
the abstract word meanings ought to be governed by specific rules of alternation (as is the case
in phonology and morphology), i.e. certain regularities and some systematicity should be
expected to be observable. This does not necessarily follow from Model B. This takes us right
to the second important distinction to be discussed next.
 SEMANTIC CHANGE ON THE LEXICAL LEVEL
LINGUISTIC PROCESSES RESPONSIBLE FOR IT

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

9. What leads to new meanings?

10.Factors influencing semantic change.
11.Development vs. Change of Meaning.

12.Processes Responsible for Semantic Changes and Shifts.

13.Types of semantic change.

14.Transference based on Similarity (i.e. Metaphor).

15.Transference Based on Contiguity (i.e. Metonymy).

16.Generalization vs. Specialization of Meaning.

17.(A)melioration vs Pejoration of Meaning.

18. Grammaticalization.

19. Some Explanations of Semantic Change. Sociolinguistic

Perspectives.
In what ways do words’ meanings evolve? It is understood that polysemous words develop their
meanings gradually, over decades, even centuries or, indeed, millennia. Conventionally, the
older a lexical unit happens to be, the better developed and more sophisticated its semantic
structure is. For instance, an overwhelming majority of the most common verbs in English with
multiple meanings like be, give, go, come, pick, put, bring, make, turn etc. originated in the Old
English (OE) period. These verbs are notable examples of the most sophisticated patterns of
polysemy. Their semantic structure reveals a diverse assortment of meanings: abstract vs.
concrete, literal vs. transferred, general vs. specific etc. Incredibly, the verb get and phrases with
it take up 29 columns in the OED 2nd edition.
The common development of a word’s semantic structure is from monosemy to polysemy,
whereby new meanings branch off from the initial one, thus turning the word’s structure from a
less developed into a more sophisticated one. What is important to understand is that words
develop their complex semantic structure over long periods of time – even though individual
meanings can spring up literally overnight. Besides, the process of a word’s evolution is an
ongoing and never-ending one. By way of illustration, let us consider the verb get, which we
mentioned above. It dates back to circa 1200, when it was incorporated into Middle English –
originally from Old Norse, where it had the form geta, meaning "to obtain, reach". At the time,
the verb had a limited range of meanings and only later did it acquire new meanings and develop
set phrases: get wind of s/th ("become acquainted with s/th") evolved around 1840, from earlier
to get wind "to get out, become known" (1722). Another lexeme, get out, as a command to go
away, is from 1711. On the other hand, the adjective get-rich-quick was attested from 1904, first
recorded in O. Henry’s short stories. To get out of hand originally meant “to advance beyond the
need for guidance” (1765), while later it developed its current meaning of “to get out of control”.
More recently, colloquial registers and numerous nonstandard varieties of American English
have developed a new meaning, that of “have, possess” for the past form of get, like in I got
something to say to you. In all probability, this arose through dropping the auxiliary have from
the past perfect form have/has got. Interestingly, the reanalysis of got as a present-tense form has
even led to the creation of a third singular gots in some varieties of English, especially African
American Vernacular English. So a sentence like “Do you got five dollars?” is not uncommon in
nonstandard American English. It only goes to show that semantic change operates across the
entire vocabulary and never stops.

This raises a number of quite legitimate questions. First, why should new meanings come about
in the first place? Is it a response to some extra-linguistic factors or is it due to inherently
linguistic phenomena? What circumstances trigger new meanings? Other questions to be
answered here are: What processes are responsible for changes in the semantic structure of
words? What exactly happens when words build up meanings? How exactly do meanings
evolve?
To attempt to answer these questions, we will address issues related to what has come to be
known as semantic change. The term means change in the meanings of words, especially with
the passage of time. Semantic change presupposes that every word has a variety of senses and
connotations which can shrink, be added, removed, or altered over time, often to the extent that
cognates across space and time have very different meanings. The Russian запомнить and the
Polish zapomnieć, which can be traced back to the same source, mean the exact reverse of
one another. Examples like that are in evidence across related languages and are not
difficult to find.
Semantic change is one of three major processes to find a designation for a concept. An example
of a recent semantic change is the word mouse. With the advent of computer technology, the
word for the rodent started also to refer to the input device. As a result, the semantic structure of
the word has become more complex.
It is clear that shades of meaning that words have at any one time can give rise to more tangible
changes over time. In linguistics, a shade of meaning has come to be viewed as a ‘glimpse of
things to come’, a vision of the future’, as a sign that the meaning is undergoing change. Some
scholars believe that shades of meaning are a signal of transition from monosemous to
polysemous words. This is not to say that the reverse is not possible. By the same token, shades
of meaning can also be seen as flashbacks to the old, already defunct or disappearing meanings.

What Leads To New Meanings?

No one knows exactly how this happens. In the connection between sound (form) and meaning –
the very essence of language – both form and meaning are in the state of flux. While form
changes, the meaning associated with it can change as well, sometimes slightly and sometimes
drastically. Thus over the past thousand years, disk, disc and dish have diverged slightly in form
and meaning, all having developed in English from Latin discus. Diverging only slightly in form
but quite markedly in meaning are bleach and black, which developed from the same Proto-Indo-
European root of several millennia ago. Diverging drastically are colony, wheel, and cycle (from
Proto-Indo-European k(w)el-), which have changed both in form and meaning since Proto-Indo-
European times, when they had an identical source. These realignments between form and
meaning took place over many years. But changes in the correspondence between form and
meaning never stop and are currently ongoing in all strata of the English vocabulary, both
standard and non-standard. In the past two decades, the form crack, which was already in the
language meaning ‘opening, gap, break’, has become associated with a lethal drug, thus
expanding its semantic content. The same goes for the word hijack, which came into use in the
meaning of “to take control of the plane (ship, etc) by violent means and threats”, but later
expanded its meaning and began to be broadly used in the sense of “taking control of something,
primarily ideas, ideologies, theories, etc., and using them for your own purposes”, as in
Revolutions are often hijacked by people who had little to do with what started them in the first
place. Words which expand their semantic content may often upgrade or lower their stylistic
status in some of the meanings. The word hurl, for example, which in the general vocabulary
means ‘to throw with force’, has been appropriated in slang as one of the many synonyms for
‘vomit’. A great many words and expressions can “tell” a similar story.

To get a better sense of possible changes in meaning (and form), let us consider a sample of the
Lord’s Prayer in Old English, as it would have been spoken in about A.D.1000:

Fæder ūre, þū þe eart on heofonum,

Father our you that are in heaven,

Sīe þīn nama gehālgod,

 be your name blessed,

Ūrne gedæghwamlican hlāf syle ūs tō dæg,

Our daily bread give us today

Although we can make out some of the words here, such as Fæder for ‘father’, clearly this
language is opaque to us, to the point that word-for-word translation is necessary for us to make
it out. Today, students of Old English, even if they are native English speakers, must study it as a
foreign language, and mastering it, by many accounts, is as difficult as mastering German, which
is its close relative. Word order is different from what we are used to (‘father our’ instead of ‘our
father’, ‘our daily bread give us’ instead of ‘give us our daily bread’). For every word, like
Fæder, that we can make out, there are others completely unknown to us today, such as syle for
give. When we look even more scrupulously, we will see that the meanings of the words that we
use today have changed. For example, the word hlāf (loaf) meant ‘bread’ at the time, but today
has been restricted to the meaning of “bread that is baked in one piece”. This is not to say that
the word ‘bread’ did not exist at the time. It did, but it meant any piece of food (crumb, fragment,
morsel). Only gradually did it develop its present meaning, replacing the word hlāf. Even the
sound system is vastly different from today’s. English no longer has words like hlāf, in which h
precedes l, and in Old English, there was no such thing as a word beginning with v (McWhorter
2000: 9). The changes that have happened in a thousand years give us an idea of how meanings
can drift, evolve or erode and what other, more profound, changes a language can undergo.

Factors Influencing Semantic Change

New names can come from many sources: entirely new words are coined, words are borrowed
from other languages, new words come about as a result of word-building processes (derivation,
compounding, abbreviation, conversion etc.). But language has another, very productive way of
designating new objects at its disposal, which is applying existing words to new objects. The
resultant semantic changes are sometimes classified according to whether they are driven by
factors within the language itself, or by factors working from outside of language. These two
types of factors are traditionally referred to as linguistic or language-internal and extra-linguistic
or language-external. The latter, which are also known as historical, are related to societal
changes, i.e. changes in culture, ideology, technology, general knowledge and also people’s
attitudes. These, in turn, also fall into several types and may be due to the following:
(1) Need to give names to new objects as they come into being. Life brings about new objects,
artifacts and concepts that need to be named. It makes sense to use existing words to designate
new phenomena on the basis of some similarity or connection between them. Many words have
come about this way. For example, when the first textile factories sprang into being in England,
they did not generate a new designation, but rather the old word mill, which had been used in the
language for centuries, was applied to the new fact of industrial development. This nomination
was possible by virtue of the fact that the newly emerged type of a manufacturing machine was
driven – just like the original mills – by wind or water. Thus mill ended up with another
meaning, apart from the old one (“a building where grain is crushed and ground into flour”).
A more recent example of a similar utilization of an old lexical item can be exemplified by the
lexeme Trojan horse or simply Trojan. Assimilated by OE from Latin, the word Troian was
initially used in reference to a king of Phrygia, the mythical founder of Troy. Interestingly
enough, the expression Trojan horse, which originated from Virgil’s epic poem Aeneid (1st c.
BC), would not come into use until the late 16th century. As might be expected, the expression
came to mean “any trick or stratagem that causes a target to invite a foe into a securely protected
place”. When, with ever growing computer use in the 1980s, computer users were confronted
with a problem of malicious computer software, the word Trojan started to be applied to a
harmful computer program that is disguised as something innocuous or useful and, by virtue of
this fact, invites the user to run it, concealing a harmful payload. The payload may take effect
immediately and can lead to many undesirable effects, such as deleting the user's files, or ‘kick
in’ later and do damage to the computer. The transference that occurred was possible due to a
similarity between the historical Trojan horse and the recent one in that the victim is unaware of
being deceived and ‘swallows the bait’ willingly.
It is now a well-established view that language is social behaviour and meaning a social
phenomenon. By this we mean that language ‘exists’ because of its life in social interaction, that
meaning, in fact, is shaped and negotiated in social interaction. Meaning, therefore, must be
studied with due recognition of its social setting. For most of us, language is realized –
actualized, made real – in a wide range of settings, such as homes, schools, workplaces and
stores among many others. Our sense of what is normal usage, of what words mean, is constantly
shaped by such experience. To illustrate this point, M.A.C.Halliday and C.Yallop cite the word
stakeholder. Until the latter part of the 20th century, the meaning of the word was something like
‘the person who holds the stakes in a bet’. English-language dictionaries published before the
1980s record only that sense. By the end of the 1980s, however, the word was being used in a
commercial sense, as in an Australian newspaper’s reference to ‘the best interests of the
company taking into account the stakeholders’. From this kind of use in commercial and
financial contexts, the word extended into other institutional uses, so that we find, during the
1990s, a university talking about its ‘accountability and information provision to external
stakeholders’, for example. A website relevant to the construction industry speaks of the
importance of the ‘collaborative efforts of all stakeholders’ and then helpfully specifies
stakeholders as designers, engineers, property consultants, technologists, clients and the local
community, ‘among many others’. From uses such as these it is clear that stakeholder can no
longer be taken in the sense of someone who is holding or directly investing money (Halliday
2007: 53). Rather, in the current usage stakeholder is someone who can affect or be affected by
the actions of the business as a whole.
Yet another example, one of a more recent origin, is the word Madoff, which offers an
illustration of change both in meaning and in morphological characteristics. The word originated
from a proper name, Bernard Madoff, a name which in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008-
2009 became associated with dishonest practices in business and finances. Bernard Madoff was
an American stock broker and investment advisor who operated what has come to be known as
the largest Ponzi11 scheme in history. As a result of his fraudulent practices, thousands of
investors lost billions of dollars. Given the blatant nature of the scheme that Madoff ran for many
years and the fact that so many people fell victim to his financial machinations, his name started
to be used in contexts involving deception and fraud in financial circles. As the proper name
became a common noun – designating deceptive practices in general, primarily in business – it
gradually acquired the paradigmatic characteristics of the latter: as a generic noun it represents a
class of entities rather than a unique entity. Common nouns are normally not capitalized, but
since Madoff constitutes a fairly recent development of meaning – as of today, it is not yet
registered in dictionaries – it has not yet acquired all of the characteristics that typify common
nouns and is still capitalized in most contexts. As a common noun, however, it has inherited a
wider range of forms. Unlike the proper name it arose from, Madoff is now mostly used as a verb
and, consequently, is characterized by a paradigm of verbal forms: Madoffed, Madoffing etc.:
Five Ways to Avoid Getting Madoffed or We are seeing unfold before us nothing short than the
Madoffing of the U.S. financial system. This is just one example out of many that illustrate how
language builds up meanings and, therefore, expands semantic content within the same word. It
also illustrates just one of the many processes that are responsible for the renewals, shifts and
erosions of meaning that language naturally undergoes over time. Besides, it reveals how the
configuration of the semantic content of a word may undergo change and also affect its
morphological parameters. In addition, all these examples show that meanings are constantly
being negotiated by communities that use them. Our notion of what words like Trojan,
11
A type of fraudulent investment operation in which new investors’ funds are used to pay the earlier investors. The
scheme continues to operate, as long as there are more new investors.
stakeholder, Madoff mean is dependent on our discourse, on our experience of these words and
the social environment in which these words arose: in the case of stakeholder, for example, the
widening scope of the word went hand in hand with an increasingly commercialized perspective
on services such as education and health through the 1990s and the extension of many
commercial and financial terms into general administrative discourse.

(2) A further important illustration of socially-motivated semantic change can be what has been
described by Steven Pinker as euphemism treadmill. A euphemism is a word or an expression
used in place of an offensive or unpleasant equivalent to mitigate or soften the negative effect on
the listener. The need for a euphemism arises when a referent associated with social taboos needs
to be named, or rather renamed as the original designation is considered a taboo word. After a
while, however, words originally intended as euphemisms may degenerate into taboo words
themselves by losing their euphemistic value and acquiring the negative connotations of their
referents. Since, as a result, they can no longer soften the offensiveness attached to the referent, a
new euphemism usually springs into being. The following lexical progression is sometimes cited
as a classic example of euphemism treadmill. The words idiot, imbecile, and moron were once
neutral terms for a developmentally delayed adult. Since negative connotations, according to this
principle, tend to crowd out neutral ones, the three words, with time, developed strong negative
overtones. In response, the phrase mentally retarded was introduced to replace them. With time,
however, mentally retarded, too, developed pejorative connotations and started to be considered
vulgar, since it was commonly employed as an insult with reference to a person, thing, or idea.
As a result, new terms like mentally challenged, with an intellectual disability or with special
needs and having learning difficulties have replaced retarded. What we see happen here is a shift
in connotations in all of the initially neutral words. In its turn, a changed connotation is a trigger
for the development of a new term. Since changed connotations are a result and a reflection of
negative social attitudes, each new replacement is clearly seen as influenced by language-
external factors. In a similar fashion, a chain of successive terms appeared for people who have
physical disabilities:

lame → crippled → handicapped → disabled → physically challenged → differently

abled

Likewise, Negro became black, which, in its turn, led to African American; Oriental became
Asian; Hispanic became Latino. All of these examples show that a word for an emotionally
charged concept is replaced in hopes of redefining people's attitudes toward the concept. But
instead, the new word becomes tainted, prompting the search for yet another fresh word, and so
on.

(3) Negative connotations of the word in one of its meanings leading to a change in another as
well as in the word’s overall semantics. Let us consider a brief history of the word gay, which is
often cited as a classic illustration of such a situation (Hollmann 2009: 531). Until a number of
decades ago, it was commonly used to mean ‘cheerful’. Nowadays, however, the word ordinarily
conjures up a homosexual person, while the older meaning has virtually disappeared. On the
other hand, there are many cases where older meanings happily coexist with newer ones. While
the word screen, for example, nowadays primarily means ‘TV or computer screen’, its older
meaning of a large wooden panel (used to separate one part of the room from another) is very
much alive and still widely used. In order to understand, therefore, what has happened to the
word gay, we must realize the social and cultural environment in which these changes take place.
The new meaning of gay is a socially loaded concept, and speakers may have been
understandably unwilling to create confusion between the old and the new meaning of the word
and, as a result, might have avoided using the original sense of gay altogether. This, in turn,
might have been the reason for the ‘cheerful and excited’ meaning of gay going out of use. Thus,
language-exterior factors come into play in the form of socially-induced change in the patterns of
use of the word, which ultimately influences the direction or/and outcome of the change in the
semantic configuration of the word.

On the other hand, words develop new meanings for inherently linguistic reasons. The main
language-internal factor is other changes in the lexicon, and in the meanings of lexical items.
Probably the best illustration of language-internal factors at work is (1) the phenomenon of
synonymy. Often word meanings and entire words can be ousted from language following a
‘clash’ between synonymic words. Under such scenarios, a redistribution of meanings occurs as
a result of synonymous words coming into contact with one another. For example, the verb
starve, which goes back to Old English (steorfan) and now means ‘to suffer or even die from
hunger’, used to simply mean ‘to die, to perish’. But when the verb die came from the
Scandinavian, there was an overlap between their semantic structures. For a time, these words
were used interchangeably. Eventually, however, starve lost its meaning of ‘die’ and gradually
changed it to its current, much narrowed, meaning.
Synonyms bad and evil provide another interesting illustration of a similar development. The
word bad, which, according to most etymological dictionaries, was first recorded in the 12 th
century, was a rare word before 1400. The word evil was used instead in most of the current
senses of bad. In fact, evil was the more common word until around 1700, at which point a
‘reversal of roles’ took place. The redistribution of semantic content between the two synonyms
led to evil drastically narrowing its range of meanings to ‘morally wrong, cruel’ while bad took
over most of the meanings that evil originally had. As a result, evil is now mostly restricted to
written contexts, while bad is in the category of the most common one thousand words in
English [LDCE].
(2) In a discussion about factors influencing semantic change, one cannot ignore processes
related to what is known as lexical field or word-field theory. This theory, as was discussed in
Chapter 2, was introduced in 1931 by the German linguist Jost Trier. According to Trier, words
acquire their meanings through their relationships to other words within the same word-field.
What this essentially means is that an extension of the sense of one word leads to a narrowing of
the meaning of one or several neighboring words. Trier postulated that whatever changes occur
in the semantic structure of individual words, words in a field, by and large, fit neatly together
like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. If a single word undergoes a semantic change, then the entire
structure of the field is rearranged. Even though Trier’s original assumptions have been
challenged and his theory modified, it is now recognized that changes in the semantic structure
of the word do not happen as if that word operated in isolation, but, rather, changes in the
meanings of individual words affect the semantic structure of adjacent words. Although for
scholarly convenience, the ‘story’ of a word can often be told without bringing in too many other
words, such ‘stories’, however, are often complex and disseminate across whole networks of
words. If we were to consider a part of such a network – such as the set of all domestic fowl, for
example – it would become obvious that many processes involving semantic change are found to
be working together: the reference of one word widens while narrowing another. The word
chicken, which dates back to the OE period, started ‘life’ in the meaning of ‘young fowl’. It
narrowed in reference in ME, when its use was restricted to the meaning of ‘young chicken’.
Since then, though, its meaning has generalized drastically to include the meaning of hen, which
by then had been the common term for ‘the adult female chicken’. Now, even though hen has
retained its tightly circumscribed semantic niche (‘the adult female of the domestic fowl’ and
‘the female of any bird’), it has narrowed in reference and frequency of use and it is currently the
word chicken that is the most common term for the Ukrainian lexeme ‘курка’ and for ‘the meat
of this bird eaten as food’. This example proves that processes of semantic change that tend to
spread across entire networks of words constitute an important linguistic factor affecting shifts in
the meaning of words.
(3) Furthermore, semantic change is often generated in words with potential for confusion.
Scholars believe that languages generally do not allow unclear usages to become prevalent, but
instead tend to ‘fix up’ any true impediments to comprehension that language can accidentally
create (McWhorter 2000: 76). John McWhorter offers the word wont as an illustration of this.
Although registered by most dictionaries, this lexical item meaning “having a tendency to do
s/th” (as in She was wont to say things like that) is no longer a vital part of the spoken language.
The reason for it, according to John McWhorter, is that it is virtually impossible to utter it
without creating a confusion with want, especially because its meaning even encroaches a little
on the meaning of want. Since the language can’t have both of these words when their forms and
meanings are so closely related, there is a strong possibility that wont may fall by the wayside,
especially considering that want is obviously the more indispensable of the two [Ibid.].
In our discussion of social and linguistic factors, it is important to remember that the distinction
between the two is somewhat arbitrary and there is hardly any watertight distinction as, by and
large, they tend to operate hand in hand.

In addition to it, there are all kinds of cognitive factors that engender semantic change. What
needs to be understood is that historical semantic change is not random but is cognitively guided.
For instance, it makes sense for the name of an individual with a salient characteristic to become
a common noun applying to other people with that characteristic. Thus from Ebenezer Scrooge
of Ch.Dickens’s Christmas Carol comes the common noun scrooge for ‘a miserly person; a
mean-spirited skinflint’ («скнара, скупий») as in ‘His scrooge of a wife won't let him buy new
golf clubs.’ Slang makes use of the same type of logic, as when Barbie, a popular type of doll in
the shape of an attractive young woman, used as a child's toy, becomes the noun for ‘a
painstakingly fashionably dressed and groomed young woman’ (Is this Barbie of a friend of
yours coming too?). Or another example, to come (crawl) out of the woodwork («лізти з усіх
щілин; виповзати з усіх шпарок; лізти звідусіль»), illustrates a different process, whereby an
idiom denoting an action that characterizes only one group of living things – insects – extends its
range and starts to be applied to many other animate (and inanimate objects) that act in the like
manner: When a rich person dies, so-called relatives are bound to come (crawl) out of the
woodwork.

A good illustration of the fact how words currently develop new meanings would be regular
updates of the biggest dictionaries, like OED, for example. Because word meanings drift, new
ones come to life, others disappear, the dictionary updates its entries on a regular basis. The
words ‘hell’ and ‘heaven’ are a good example of ongoing change. Heaven, as opposed to hell, is
expansive and open, its phrases largely positive (e.g. a marriage made in heaven, to move
heaven and earth), though a flutter of frustration can intervene (heaven knows, for heaven's
sake). Heaven occurs in Beowulf, and so has coexisted with all the changes that have taken place
within English over the years. Much the opposite can be said of its counterpart hell (which,
however, shares with heaven its longevity in the language). Hell is a ‘bleak’ word, its phrases
and compounds are negatively colored (all hell breaks loose, hell on earth, hell-mouth, hell-bent,
hell-ship). Up till now, hell had one hundred and forty-two sections, while heaven had forty-six.
Now, however, according to the most recent updates of OED, heaven has had eleven new senses
added, while hell has had six more.

Development vs. Change of Meaning

It may seem reasonable to make a distinction between the terms ‘development of meaning’ and
‘change of meaning’, even though many scholars tend to use these terms interchangeably. By the
term development of meaning, most linguists mean a semantic process whereby one meaning of a
word gives rise to another, and, as a result, the new meaning and the one which generated it
coexist in the semantic structure of the word. The phenomenon of polysemy may serve as a good
illustration of this process. All the senses of a polysemous word, except for the original one(s),
are due to the process of development of meaning. On the other hand, change of meaning, in its
strict sense, involves a process whereby the old meaning is supplanted by the new one so that the
old meaning can only be encountered in set expressions that arose at the time when the now-
defunct meaning was in use. For example, in the OE period the word meat meant ‘food’ in
general. With time, it has narrowed in meaning and in Modern English has come to mean ‘flesh
of animals used as food’. Now the old meaning can only be found in some fixed expressions
with the word ‘meat’, e.g. one man’s meat is another man’s poison, be meat and drink to s/b, as
well as compounds such as sweetmeat, nutmeat, mincemeat.

One of the processes that illustrate how development of meaning comes about is radiation.
Radiation is an extension of a word’s meaning, with new meanings radiating from a central
semantic core to embrace many related ideas. This process of semantic change results in a
multiplication in the senses of a word, phrase or lexeme. Radiation can affect one language –
semantic extension occurs within one language – or it can spread across a number of languages.
By way of illustration, pἁpuros in classical Greek, originally referred to a reed common in
Egypt, was used among other things for making into a writing surface. The word then came to
refer to the writing material produced, and this is the dominant sense of the Latinate English
word papyrus. Apart from English, pἁpuros has been incorporated into other languages. The
word entered English primarily as ‘paper’ – without the original sense ‘reed’ and referring to
writing material made from any source, whether reeds, cotton, linen or wood pulp. Once in the
language, the meaning of paper has radiated to include a written document or documents (from
the 14th century), a newspaper, a written or printed essay, a bill of exchange, and money (from
the 17th century), and a set of questions in an examination or test (from the 19 th century).
Radiation within a single language – English – can be exemplified by the word head. Originally
head referred to the part of the human body which is above the torso. Since the top of a nail, pin
or screw is, like the human head, the top of an outline, that sense has become included in the
meaning of head. Since the bulb of a cabbage or lettuce is round like the human head, that sense
has become included in the meaning of head as well. The meaning of the word head has radiated
out to include the head of a coin (the side picturing the human head), the head of the list (the top
item in the list), the head of a table, the head of the family, a head of cattle, $50 a head, etc. In
the like manner, the word has radiated into other strata of vocabulary, notably slang, where it has
built up a wide range of meanings: “headache”, “bathroom, toilet”, “drug addict”, which is
usually used in a compound with the preferred drug as the first element (crackhead, dopehead,
etc.). Radiation operates through many different processes: metaphor, metonymy and all kinds of
semantic shifts. A lot of polysemous words have sprung up in English, as in many other
languages for that matter, by means of radiation. Some other words that have similarly radiated
meanings outward from a central core are heart, root, foot, sun, line, eye, tree, etc.

All of this does not mean that development and change of meaning are discrete categories. The
process of radiation does not necessarily suggest that all of the radiated meanings survive or that
the original meaning is retained. Oftentimes radiation is accompanied or followed by a
disappearance of one or several meanings, in which case change of meaning is in evidence. The
patterns of semantic change (and development) are usually very complex and more often than
not involve several processes at work – either concurrently or successively. For purposes of
convenience, therefore, we will use the terms “semantic change” and “change in meaning”
irrespective of whether we talk about change or development of meaning.

Processes Responsible for Semantic Changes and Shifts

But the big question is ‘How exactly do words acquire their new meanings? What processes are
at work that eventually lead to semantic changes or shifts?’ Going back to one of the previous
examples, Trojan, let us consider why it was this particular word and not any other that came to
designate harmful software. Come to think of it, there clearly was some connection between the
then existing sense of the word and the new phenomenon to which it was applied. Both referents
of the word – the original one and the new – were insidious and harmful, which is common
enough ground. Besides, with both the ancient Trojan horse and the present-day malware, there
is an unsuspecting victim: in the case of the former, it is Troy and its residents and in the case of
the latter, it is a computer user, both of whom are blissfully unaware of the impending danger. So
it stands to reason that when malicious computer software appeared, the most natural association
was with a perfidious trick designed to set a trap for an unsuspecting victim, the designation for
which already existed in the language. In fact, it is important to point out that all cases of
development or change of meaning are based on some kind of association. The process of
development of a new meaning or shifts in the existing one(s) has come to be referred to as
transference. Care should be taken not to say ‘transference of meaning’, as some people do,
since it is not the meaning but the word that is being transferred from one referent onto another.
Transference generally results in the appearance of a new meaning.

Types of semantic change

Semantic change, as was mentioned, can take many different directions, which is a basis for
many classifications of types of semantic change. Over the years, a number of classification
schemes have been put forward. For many years, one suggested by Leonard Bloomfield back in
1933 has dominated discussions about semantic change, at least in the English-speaking
academic world (Bloomfield 1933):
 Narrowing: change from superordinate (higher) level to subordinate (lower) level, e.g.,
meat "food" → "flesh of an animal";
 Widening: change from subordinate (lower) level to superordinate (higher) level, e.g.,
bird "nestling, young bird" → "bird";

 Metaphor: change based on similarity of thing, e.g., out to lunch “out to have a meal" →
"not in touch with reality";

 Metonymy: change based on nearness in space or time, e.g., tree huggers / tree nymphs
→ "environmentalists";

 Synecdoche: change based on whole-part relation, e.g., town "fence" → "city";

 Hyperbole: change from stronger to weaker meaning, e.g., astound "strike with thunder"
→ "surprise strongly";

 Litotes: change from weaker to stronger meaning, e.g., kill "torment" → "kill";

 Degeneration: e.g., knave "boy" → "servant";

 Elevation: e.g., knight "boy" → "knight".

Since then, new typologies have been suggested, but, on the whole, they approximate the
original one suggested by Bloomfield. The typology we propose in this book is similar, at its
core, to Bloomfield’s, but it has been somewhat modified in view of the new research on
language change that has been done since the American linguist’s contribution.
Going back to the issue of transference, scholars generally differentiate between two major types
of transference, one based on similarity, and the other – on contiguity (association). We will now
consider each of them in turn.

Transference based on similarity

This type of transference is better known under the term ‘metaphor’. The word comes from
Greek μεταφορά – metaphora – meaning "a transfer", from μεταφέρω – metaphero ("to carry
over, to transfer") and describes a situation where two seemingly unrelated objects are indirectly
compared. More generally, a metaphor is the kind of transference that describes a first subject as
being or equal to a second subject in some way. Thus, the first subject can be economically
described because implicit and explicit attributes from the second subject are used to enhance the
description of the first. This device is traditionally common in literature, especially poetry, where
with a limited number of words, emotions and associations from one context are associated with
objects and entities in a different context. Come out of the woodwork, which was discussed
earlier, would be a typical example of this type of transference.

As is apparent, metaphor constitutes an indirect reference. As a tool of poets, it has been

discussed since the times of Aristotle. Observers over the centuries have marveled at the
potential of metaphor in literature to push at the boundaries of human thought and experience.
The great twentieth-century American poet Robert Frost put it this way: “Poetry begins in trivial
metaphors, pretty metaphors, ‘grace’ metaphors, and goes on to the profoundest thinking that we
have. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another”
[R.Frost, 1966 : 36]. Consider the following example taken from W.Shakespeare’s As You Like
It:

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances.

This well-known quotation is a good example of metaphor. In these lines, "the world" is
compared to a stage, the aim being to describe the world by taking well-known attributes from
the stage.
Linguists, however, have long noticed that metaphor is widespread not only in literary
language, but in ordinary, nonliterary uses of language as well. These observations go as far back
as Bloomfield (1930s). Yet only in the past several decades have theoretical concerns led to a
close scrutiny of metaphor by linguists. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in the seminal work
Metaphors We Live By argued that metaphors are primarily a conceptual construction, and,
indeed, are central to the development of thought: "Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of
which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature" [Lakoff, 1980]. Following
Lakoff, Eva Kittay maintains that “the cognitive force of metaphor comes, not from providing
new information about the world, but rather from a reconceptualization of information that is
already available to us” [Kittay, 1987]. Within a cognitive framework, metaphor is a primary
way in which we accommodate and assimilate new experience about the world. Hence it is at the
source of our capacity to learn and at the center of our creative thought. The idea behind a
conceptual metaphor is that metaphors are not only expressed in words, but are also habitual
modes of thinking underlying many related metaphoric expressions.

Metaphor, unlike metonymy, crosses spheres of use – so-called content domains – and names
one thing by something in another domain. This calls forth a likeness or analogy between things
that are fundamentally different. Thus ‘the data storage capacity of a computer’ is called memory
because of its resemblance to the human mental faculty. Likewise, ‘a list of alternative directives
in a computer program’ is a menu because the listing and choice features are similar to the
method of selecting food and drinks in a restaurant.

Let us consider some more examples from the sphere of computers, notably that of
computer virus, a notion that emerged fairly recently. It is manifested linguistically in
expressions like the following:

Viruses are programs developed by renegade computer operators who

covertly implant them in other programs.
Infections can spread from computer to computer as fast as the Hong Kong
flu.
Files are contaminated by infectious bytes.
Compuserve can never be completely immune to hidden killers.
Data physicians develop vaccines, disinfectants,...
The only way users can be assured that their programs are healthy is
through safe interface.
(examples taken from G.Fauconnier, 2006 : 18)

We can see that vocabulary from the domain of health, biology and medicine is being
used to talk and reason about the domain of computers and programming. Metaphorical
mappings – correspondences between objects from two otherwise unrelated domains – are
established between the computer domain and health-and-medicine domain. Viruses have been
mapped onto undesirable, harmful programs, which replicate themselves, erase files, and so on.
Vaccines are mapped onto programs that counter the viruses; physicians map onto computer
technicians, attempting to block the action of the harmful programs, and so on. Metaphorical
mapping is only possible thanks to analogy – generic similarities between the situations in the
two domains in question.
I.A.Richards – incidentally, long before Lakoff and Johnson – in The Philosophy of
Rhetoric (1936) analyzed metaphor in terms of tenor and vehicle. The tenor, according to him, is
the subject to which attributes are ascribed, whereas the vehicle is the subject from which the
attributes are borrowed. Tenor and vehicle are sometimes referred to as ground and figure by
other scholars. In the excerpt from Shakespeare, the world is the tenor and the stage is the
vehicle. "Men and women" are a secondary tenor and "players" is the vehicle for this secondary
tenor. Lakoff and Johnson devised a terminology of their own by referring to tenor as target, and
to vehicle as source. So in Lakoff’s terminology, in the case of computer virus metaphor,
harmful software, computer technicians, and so on are the target, while “viruses”, “physicians”
etc. are the source.
This and other examples of metaphor demonstrate two important characteristics of
metaphor. First, the comparison between the source (in this case, virus) and target (malicious
computer program) is only partial: we are not implying, for instance, that the software has the
properties of a biological organism. Second, the source is more ‘concrete’ than the target. To see
that this is the case, consider that most of us, by and large, have a fairly good idea of what
viruses do, how the body responds when affected and what should be done to fight them. The
target “computer malware”, on the other hand, is much harder to identify and for most people it
is a lot more of a grey area than biological viruses.

For Lakoff, the greater the levels of abstraction, the more layers of metaphor are required to
express it. People do not notice these metaphors for various reasons. One reason is that some
metaphors become 'dead' and we no longer recognize their origin. Another reason is that we just
don't "see" what is "going on" [Lakoff]. According to Lakoff, the development of thought has
been the process of developing better metaphors. The application of one domain of knowledge to
another domain of knowledge offers new perceptions and understandings.
Metaphoric view of the world is a very common phenomenon across different types of discourse
and seems very much ‘at home’ in media texts. Economic, political, ecological etc. texts feature
a great amount of metaphoric reconceptualization: The bank is prepared to pick up more than
just a few crumbs from Wall Street’s table; The fund has started trying on his sister’s clothes;
The companies are known to have stepped on each other’s toes before (The Economist, 28.12.
2006). What we observe in the sentences above is that family relations are mapped onto relations
between and inside financial institutions.

For the most part, language users easily adjust the link between sound and meaning required by
metaphor. Speakers of English, for example, have no trouble applying the word garbage to
‘useless and inaccurate data generated by a faulty computer program or error.’ Over time or with
frequent use, the metaphoric origin of words and expressions is sometimes forgotten. Metaphors
that brought about such words and phrases are traditionally called dead metaphors. English
words that contain the base -ject started as metaphoric uses of the Latin word for ‘throw’:
conjecture – ‘throw together, dejection – ‘throw down’, project – ‘throw forth’, reject – ‘throw
back’. Even expressions whose metaphoric origins are not buried in foreign etymologies often
escape notice – for example, “the eye of a needle,” “the heart of the matter,” “the tongue of a
shoe,” “the leg of a chair”, “the hand of the clock”, to name just a few. The interesting thing
about “dead metaphors” is that cognitive linguistics views them somewhat differently from the
more traditional – structuralist – approaches to lexical meaning……….

Perhaps the most obvious set of metaphoric words in English applies the characteristics of
animals to humans and their activities. The straightforward transfer of a name from an animal to
a person includes, among many others, dinosaur, designating ‘an old-fashioned person’; magpie
– ‘a talkative person’; night owl – ‘a person who stays up late at night’, doves and hawks,
denoting ‘people who prefer a peaceful resolution of a conflict to war’ and ‘people, esp.
politicians, who believe in using military force’ respectively. The compound catnap implies a
comparison ‘nap like a cat’, and dog-ear means ‘the turned-down corner of a page of a book’
that looks like a dog’s ear. Few passengers aboard a 747 associate the pilots’ cockpit with a hole
where cocks fight, but the connections with the animal kingdom are still apparent in cat-and-
mouse game, dog-eat-dog world, the rat race, play possum and many others.

Special mention must also be made of idioms or idiomatic expressions, of which many –
if not most – employ metaphoric transference: bite the dust, be out of the woods, bend over
backwards, let the cat out of the bag, take the bull by the horns, to name just a few.
Metaphorically reconceptualized multiword lexemes are marked by an especially high degree of
vividness of expression. A typical semantic development is when an expression is initially used
in its literal meaning and after a while its semantic structure expands to include a non-literal,
figurative sense. By way of illustration, the idiom step up to the plate started out as a literal
description of a player in baseball, notably a batter, moving near home plate 12 in preparation for
striking the ball when it is pitched (The batter stepped up to the plate and glared at the pitcher).
With time, the idea of “moving into position to hit the ball”, which comes at a crucial point in the
game and often decides the outcome, became associated with an important moment in general
and a need to behave responsibly. So stepping up to the plate in the sense of “preparing to hit the
ball” has been mapped onto “taking responsibility for doing something”: When they became
aware that the only thing holding us back was a shortage of money, the company felt compelled
to step up to the plate. This case of semantic development also goes to show that processes of
semantic change often happen in conjunction with one another, as metaphorization here occurred
alongside generalization.

Home plate refers to a place where you stand to hit the ball in baseball and the last place the player who is running
12

must touch in order to get a point (from baseball)

Given the tendency of the general vocabulary toward metaphor, it is not surprising that informal
vocabulary, especially slang, makes extensive use of metaphor (gold-digger, dead from the neck
up, embroidery, typewriter meaning “machine gun”). As an obvious instance, the pattern of
animal metaphors well established in general English occurs also in slang: fox (s/one who is
sexually attractive), dog (an unattractive woman), (the) bird (a very rude sign made with the
fingers) etc. The word ‘animal’ itself, for example, can be used as the second member of a
compound or phrase meaning ‘enthusiast, fan’ as in party animal, heavy metal animal, skiing
animal and others. If we consider words that are used in slang to designate people in a state of
alcoholic intoxication, most, if not all of them, are built on metaphoric transfer: bombed, blasted,
ripped, stoned, wasted, shredded, tattered, slaughtered, hammered, totaled, fractured etc.

Transference Based on Contiguity

This kind of transference is also known as linguistic metonymy. Metonymy, like metaphor
involves some sort of connection between concepts, but in this case there is no similarity
between them. They are, however, closely linked in some other way, for example, because one is
part of, or contains, the other. In other words, it is the use of one thing to stand for another that
has something in common with it. Metonymy vividly demonstrates that language often refers
indirectly. Both kinds of transference – metonymy and metaphor – involve the substitution of
one term for another. But while in metaphor, this substitution is based on similarity, in the case
of metonymy, the substitution is based on association or contiguity. To ensure a clearer
understanding of the fact that metonymy works by virtue of association between two concepts
and metaphor by the similarity between them, we can use the notion of domains. Metaphor
makes a comparison between two concepts belonging to two different domains (computers, for
example, have nothing to do with biological viruses; the two notions, therefore, belong to two
unrelated domains, or spheres), while metonymy compares two concepts from the same domain
(in the metonymic use of Vatican, the name of the place stands for the Pope and the Catholic
Church in general, but they are clearly related as Vatican is the location of the Pope’s residence).

Two examples drawn from Dirven, 1996, help make the distinction between metaphor and
metonymy more vivid and obvious. The phrase "to fish pearls" is based on metonymy, as it
draws from "fishing" the idea of taking things from the ocean. What is carried across from
"fishing fish" to "fishing pearls" is the domain of usage and the associations with the ocean and
boats. The phrase, however, is perfectly clear and unambiguous in spite of rather than because of
the literal meaning of fishing: we are aware that no fishing rods or nets are needed to procure
pearls or that pearls are not related to fish. Conversely, fishing for answers/deals/information –
which is clearly used metaphorically – transfers the concept of fishing into a new domain. If
someone is "fishing" for information, we do not expect them to be anywhere near the ocean;
rather we transfer elements of the action of fishing (waiting, hoping to catch something that
cannot be seen) into a new domain (a conversation). Thus, metonymy works by calling up a
domain of usage and an array of associations (in this case, boats, the ocean, sea life, sea floor
etc.) whereas metaphor picks a target set of meanings and transfers them to a new domain of
usage [Wikipedia].

If we ask someone if they watched Larry King or Hanna Bezulyk last night, we actually want to
know whether they watched the TV show that the famous talk show host was in. This type of
metonymy is sometimes called pars pro toto (“part for whole”). Another example of it would be
where we use the phrase Number 10 or Downing Street to refer to the British Prime Minister
(and probably his government), who lives at 10 Downing Street or the White House to refer to
the U.S. President. In this case, the U.S. President’s place of residence stands for the highest
office in the USA and also policies conducted by the president’s administration.
The reverse, so-called totum pro parte (“whole for part”) is also possible. When we say that the
United States waged war against Iraq in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, we do not mean that the
entire country, i.e. every U.S. citizen became involved in the military invasion of Iraq. What we
imply – and what everybody understands – is that only a small fraction of the American
population, indeed, a small part of the U.S. army was sent to fight in Iraq. Likewise, by saying
that Liverpool should attract a famous football coach as its trainer, one does not refer to the city
as a whole, or even the whole Liverpool Football Club, but only the part that is made up by the
people in charge of the club. These two types of metonymy – pars pro toto and totum pro parte –
are sometimes subsumed by the term synecdoche, which is considered by many linguists a
subclass of metonymy.

In cognitive linguistics, metonymy refers to the use of a single characteristic to identify a more
complex entity and is one of the basic characteristics of cognition. It is common for people to
take one well-understood or easy-to-perceive aspect of something and use that aspect to stand
either for the thing as a whole or for some other aspect or part of it. Lakoff noted that
“metonymic concepts allow us to conceptualize one thing by means of its relation to something
else”. For example, journalists are called the press because of the machinery used in the printing
process. If someone in the checkout line at a grocery says ‘I am parked across the street,’ the
hearer unmistakably realizes that it is not the speaker but the speaker’s vehicle that is parked
across the street. The ability to make complex and multiple connections between form and
meaning is central to human cognitive and linguistic ability, and most of the time we are
unaware of the series of semantic transfers that the interpretation of a word or phrase requires.

Most of the names for nonprimary colors, for example, have arisen as a result of metonymy.
Orange, peach, olive green, avocado are the colors associated with the fruits bearing those
names. By the same token, aqua, alongside with aquamarine, is the blue-green color of seawater.
Lavender and violet are shades of purple that take their names from flowering plants. The list of
metonymic color terms could go on and on: cream, ivory, lime, rose, ebony, navy, to name just a
few.

In the well-known proverb The pen is mightier than the sword, ‘the pen’ stands for an instrument
of reasoned persuasion, and ‘the sword’ is an instrument of coercion. The proverb is really about
the power of reason over force, not about pens and swords.

There are multiple types of association between two concepts where one is used to stand for the
other. They can be associated together because they are typically encountered in the same
context, and, as a result, the image of one conjures up the image of the other. They may also be
associated on the principle of common function, cause and effect, genus and species etc. Let us
consider some of the relations that may hold between a concept and its metonymic
“counterpart” (some examples are taken from Metonymies in English, 1999):

• the kind of metonymy in which reference to a whole organization is used to stand

for the people who actually make a decision or perform an action. E.g. The
statement caused a stir in the Pentagon; Exxon has raised its prices again; The
Army wants to reinstitute the draft. The police knocked down my door when they
came early in the morning.

• the kind in which reference to a tool is used to stand for the user of the tool. E.g.
The sax has the flu today; The gun he hired wanted fifty grand.

• the kind of conventional metonymy in which reference to the place where an

 event occurred is used to stand for the event itself. E.g. Pearl Harbor still has an
effect on our foreign policy; Chornobyl silently continues to claim its victims.

• the type in which reference to the producer of a product is used to stand for the
product itself. E.g. It’s good because it’s a Sony. He bought a Nokia this time
around. He's got a Picasso in his living room. I hate reading Heidegger.

• a metonymic relation in which reference to a characteristic or important part is

used to stand for the corresponding whole and vice versa. As was mentioned earlier,
this type of metonymy is often referred to as synecdoche, which in turn can be
broken down into pars pro toto and totum pro parte. E.g. We don't hire longhairs
(i.e. people with long hair, esp. hippies); Do you like my new wheels?

• the one in which reference to a thing perceived is used to stand for the perceptions
it gives rise to. E.g. There goes my knee (the knee stands for the pain in the knee)

• the kind of metonymy in which reference to the controller of a controlled entity,

such as an organization or tool, is used to stand for the controlled entity. E.g.
Napoleon lost Waterloo (Napoleon stands for the French army).

• a metonymic relation in which reference to the place at which an institution is

located is used to stand for the institution itself. E.g. The White House isn't saying
anything; Paris is introducing longer skirts this season; Hollywood isn't what it
used to be; Wall Street is in a panic.

Meanings produced through transference based on contiguity often originate from geographical
or proper names. Hoover or Xerox in the sense of “vacuum cleaner” and ‘photocopier”
respectively originated from the names of trademark manufacturers that produced them.
Similarly, the name of a manufacturer is frequently transferred onto its product: You can use a
Kleenex to mop it up. Likewise, the name of a painter is frequently transferred onto one of his
pictures: It’s an early Turner. He bought another Renoir for his collection.

Generalization of Meaning vs. Specialization of Meaning

A semantic change can often involve a change in the range of meaning. This change involves an
increase or a decrease in the number of referents a form designates. As a result, the meaning can
end up as either broadened or narrowed. By way of example, the word dog used to refer not to
any dog but to some specific large and strong breeds. It did not acquire the meaning it has today
until the end of the 16th century. It might be interesting in this connection to compare English to
Dutch, which has retained this distinction: to a Dutchman the word dog summons up an image of
a Great Dane or some other such breed. To talk about dogs in general, a Dutchman would use the
word hond. Interestingly, the English cognate hound has gone in the opposite direction: it now
describes some particular breeds that are used in hunting. The development the English dog has
undergone is commonly known as generalization, a process of semantic change that widens the
meaning of a word, phrase or lexeme. Sometimes alternative terms, broadening or widening, are
used. What the example with dog illustrates is that generalization leads to the use of a word in a
broader realm of meaning than it originally possessed, often referring to all items in a class,
rather than one specific item.
It has to be pointed out that generalization is an integral process of human cognition. People
generalize concepts so routinely in communication that they are, more often than not, unaware of
it. When, for example, the meaning of the word daughter was first extended from that of "one's
female child" to "a female descendant" (as in daughter of Eve), the listener might not have even
noticed that the meaning had been extended.

Many English words have arrived at their current meaning by the process of generalization. In
Middle English, for example, the word pigeon meant a young bird, especially a young dove, but
from the late 15th century has come to refer to the whole family Columbidae, a family that
comprises pigeons and doves. Dove is now generally used for a smaller variety of pigeon.

One of the earlier examples is the French verb to arrive. It started life in English in the narrow
sense of ‘to come to shore; to disembark’. With time, however, it has considerably widened its
range and scope of combinability and has come to encompass all of the meanings suggesting
‘arrival, coming’. The semantic shift involved was transference based on contiguity or
association as both senses share the concept of coming. Similarly, place derives from Latin
platea, "broad street", but its meaning grew broader than the street, to include "a particular city",
"a business office", "an area dedicated to a specific purpose" before broadening even wider to
mean "area". In the process, the word place displaced the Old English word stow and became
used instead of the Old English word stede (which survives in stead, steadfast, steady and – of
course – instead).

By the same token, the word meander originally designated a particular winding river in Asia
Minor, but it has now generalized to mean ‘to wander aimlessly’. In the American South the
term coke can refer to ‘any carbonated beverage’, not just Coca-Cola.

Non-Standard items likewise show generalization. Perhaps the best current example of
generalization in slang is the word dude. When it started cropping up in American English in the
1880s, dude meant ‘a man extremely fastidious in dress and manner’. By one route of
development, dude became associated with city life and fashion and then with the East. By the
1920s, this meaning was captured in the expression dude ranch, which is still in use. In another
route of development, the notion of dressing sharply dominated, and dude became ‘a man who
dressed stylishly and flamboyantly’, a meaning preserved among black speakers, who also
generalized dude to ‘any male’. With the stereotypical use of dude by black entertainers in the
1970s and 1980s, this meaning became widely known, if not extensively used. By the early
1990s, thanks in large part to the popular television character Bart Simpson, dude became even
more general, referring to both males and females.

Such shifts in meaning are usually slow and tendential, rather than rapid and absolute. Often
early usages continue indefinitely alongside later changes that have become dominant, as was the
case with pigeon and dove in the early 16th century. As change unfolds, terms may acquire
further meanings within a set of words. In the aforesaid example, pigeon is not a symbol of peace
as opposed to dove, which can be used to designate a pacifist, someone who is opposed to
violence as a means of settling disputes and prefers negotiations to armed conflict. On the other
hand, one can only pigeonhole information, never dovehole (!), and only pigeonholes are
interpreted as specific categories or compartments into which things are (mentally) arranged, as
in a sentence: You cannot fit certain things into neat pigeonholes.

A loss of force or vividness often takes place in conjunction with generalization. Intensifiers and
hyperbolic expressions are particularly susceptible to such loss, a process sometimes called
emptying. Over the last couple of decades, the word awesome generalized to the point of
emptiness because of the speech of adolescents popularized by films, television, and advertising.
A word can be emptied of its specific meaning and retain only a positive or negative value.
Common examples in Standard English are intensifiers such as very, awfully, terribly,
terrifically, fearfully and others.

Conversely, by specialization of meaning one understands a process of semantic change in

which the range of referents decreases and narrowing occurs in the meaning of a word. This is
why this process has been dubbed as narrowing. For instance, in Middle English, deer meant a
four-legged beast (compare with German Tier), but the early restriction to one kind of animal has
long since eclipsed the earlier meaning. Such specialization is slow and need not be complete.
Fowl is now usually restricted to the farmyard hen, but it has retained its original meaning of
‘bird’ in expressions like the fowls of the air or wild fowl. Another example is the earlier
mentioned word hlāf in Old English, which meant ‘bread’ at the time. Over time, however, the
word has been restricted to the meaning of ‘loaf’. The same happened to the word bread, which
displayed a broader semantic range in Old English and used to mean any piece of food. Only
gradually did it develop its present meaning, replacing the word hlāf in its original meaning (late
12th century). The process responsible for the shift in both cases has been narrowing or
specialization.

Categories like generalization and specialization are not always sharply distinguishable. One
may shade into another or develop from another. For example, before pigeon meant ‘a young
dove’, it meant ‘any young bird’. It therefore narrowed in meaning from ‘young bird’ to ‘young
dove’. Only then did it generalize from young dove to any dove-like birds.

(A)melioration vs Pejoration of Meaning

Sometimes the connotation associated with a term becomes more favorable or less favorable,
opposing processes being called amelioration or melioration and pejoration. Terms elevation
and degradation or degeneration of meaning are interchangeably used to designate the same
processes. (A)melioration is a process of semantic change in which there is an improvement or
“upward’ shift in the meaning of a word. For example, nice has meant a variety of things since
the 13th century:

I
13th – 16th c – foolish, stupid;
14th – 16th c – lascivious, loose;
15th – 16th c – extravagant, elegant, rare, strange;
16th – 17th c – effeminate, shy, tender, slender, delicate, unimportant;
17th – 18th c – over-refined;
16th – 19th c – careful, precise, intricate, fastidious;
18th – 19th c – dainty, appetizing;
17th – 20th c – refined, cultured, discriminating;
18th – 20th c – agreeable, pleasant.
Another word, pastor, likewise underwent (a)melioration, originally meaning "shepherd" (a sense
surviving in the word pastoral), but coming to its current sense of "minister" by the extensive
Christian references to "the Lord is my shepherd" as a call to ministry.

(A)melioration over time accounts for the current meaning of many English words. For example,
dizzy, which once meant ‘foolish, stupid’, now means ‘having the sensation of whirling or falling’.
The ancestors of knights were ‘boys’, and the steward was the ‘guardian of the pig sty’. In each of
these cases, the second meaning acquired a positive evaluative connotation that was absent in the
first meaning. So we are dealing with a realignment of the connotative components of the word.
Here are some other examples of words that have found their way into present-day English through
the process of amelioration:

Word Old Meaning

enthusiasm "abuse"
guts ("courage") "entrails"
pastor "shepherd"
pluck ("spirit") as in
"act of tugging"
He has a lot of pluck
queen "woman"

Amelioration is widespread in slang, perhaps because the generally negative tone of a large portion
of the slang vocabulary offers many opportunities for words to acquire more positive or elevated
associations. Many words enter slang from the taboo terms of subcultures. Jock, now a widespread
informal designation for ‘athlete’, developed via jockstrap (athletic supporter), in which jock meant
a ‘male sex organ’. The verb boogie ‘move, dance, perform’ originally referred to syphilis and
entered the informal language of the mainstream from boogie-woogie of black musicians. The
world of black music was also responsible for popularizing the ameliorated meanings of jam, jazz,
and juke – all of which originally had sexual referents.

Let us consider a recent case of (a)melioration in British English – that of the word rude – as it is
illustrated in the following two lines taken from a popular song (cited after W.Hollmann, 1997:
528):

I didn’t wanna bowl over all geezer and rude,

Not rude as in good, but just rude like uncouth.

These lines illustrate that the word rude, whose original meaning of ‘unmannered’ is obviously
rather negative, can nowadays be used in a more positive sense. According to young people in
Britain today, the word’s exact meaning is something like ‘physically attractive (often in a slightly
vulgar way)’. Besides, it tends to be applied primarily to females (as in “Now, the girl is rude...
You'll be on your knees soon"). In order to understand the development of this more positive
meaning, we may need to look to some youth subcultures, most notably dancehall and hiphop. In
1960s Jamaican English, expressions rude girl or rude boy were used to refer to ‘cool’ members of
the dancehall scene. From there, according to Hollmann, they may have spread – due to migration
and the popular media – to the UK. The sexual connotations of the new use of the word may be
attributable to the fact that rudeness in Jamaican English was used to mean ‘sexual intercourse’.
This is a very plausible interpretation of the route that the word rude has gone to diversify its
semantic structure and to include the currently popular sense with positive connotations.

The opposite of amelioration is pejoration, in which the connotations evoked by a word become
less favorable. This process of semantic change involves depreciation or a ‘downward’ shift in the
meaning of a word. Latin villanus became Middle English vilain/vilein (a serf with some rights of
independence), then Modern English villain (a scoundrel, criminal).

The word gaudy was derived from the Latin word gaudium, "joy", which was applied to praying,
which was seen as a type of rejoicing. Because the most common prayers in Middle English times
were the prayers of the rosary, Middle English gaude came to be associated with the rosary and
came to mean "an ornamental rosary bead". Unfortunately, not all who prayed with the rosary were
genuinely pious; many were like the Pharisees of old and just wanted to be seen praying – religion
for them was decorative rather than functional. As a result, modern English gaudy gradually
acquired its current meaning of tasteless or ostentatious ornamentation.

King James II is known to have called the just completed St. Paul's Cathedral amusing, awful and
artificial. If one were to call a newly completed museum or concert hall amusing, awful and
artificial today, they might be accurate but they would most probably mean something quite
different from King James. When he lived, those words meant that the cathedral was "pleasing,
awe-inspiring and artful" respectively. The meaning of each word has grown more negative with
time. So much so that in the case of some of them – amusing especially – they cannot be used with
reference to buildings, unless some special effect is intended.

Pejoration has shaped the current meaning of many English words. Ghost once meant simply
‘spirit’, as it still does in the Holy Ghost. A thousand years ago, the meaning of silly was ‘happy,
blessed’. This case of semantic change is rather remarkable, given the fact that the word has gone
from something like ‘blissful’ or ‘blessed’ all the way to ‘foolish’. The contrast between these two
meanings is so pronounced that it is clear that there must have been some intermediate stages.
Using an etymological dictionary, we may piece together the various steps. The earliest recorded
examples of the word occur around 1200, and in the first 100 years or so the meaning was quite
clearly ‘blissful’ or ‘blessed’. The following example taken from the OED illustrates this (although
it is conveyed in more modern English): ‘Oh Jesus, blessed is that abbey and silly [blessed] is that
religion’ [Abbey of Holy Ghost]. The next stage is the rise, toward the end of the 13 th century, of the
meaning ‘innocent’ or ‘harmless’. Consider, for instance: “Alas”, he said, “this silly [harmless]
animal, that does not do anything amiss!” The following step is the development of the meaning
‘deserving of pity or sympathy’, as in “Silly [i.e. pitiable] Scotland, which is in great need of help”.
The next meaning is ‘weak/feeble’, first in relation to physical strength or fitness, then also of
intellectual capacities, i.e. ‘ignorant’: “The silly herdman all astonnied stands [Surrey, Ӕneid].
Finally, in the 16th century, we arrive at the meaning of ‘foolish’, as in (without translation into
more modern English): “In pride wee speake it, or at least inwardlie thinke it, wee are not as those
seely Idiotes are [Babington, Commandm.] Having worked out the different stages of this
development, we are now in a better position to understand how the word silly could have
developed from blessed or blissful, which were very positive (especially in the Middle Ages), into
something as negative as its present-day meaning of ‘foolish’. The key is to realize that while the
development as a whole is very drastic, the individual steps are not. Thus ‘blissful/blessed’ is not
that far removed from ‘innocent/harmless’. More precisely, blissful and blessed people are often
also innocent and harmless and vice versa. As there was thus some overlap between the categories
of blessed/blissful people and things and innocent/harmless people and things, speakers may have
interpreted utterances about, for example, a blessed religion as statements about harmless religion.
The same reinterpretation may have driven the next step: innocent/harmless people or things often
deserve our sympathy. So if this is the case, this will often be because they are too weak to stand up
for themselves, either physically or intellectually. And people who are ignorant may of course
display behavior that others consider foolish. In light of these changes, the old phrase ‘silly Suffolk’
can only be accurately interpreted in the Middle English context of the then relevant meaning of
silly, which was ‘happy/blessed’.
What we have here, therefore, is a chain of semantic developments where a word starts out by
referring to one category of things, then moves on to an adjacent, partly overlapping category, then
to another, and so on.

It is worthy of note that in the history of the English language, a disproportionate number of words
referring to females have undergone pejoration. This is obviously not a strictly linguistic
development, but rather social and cultural as it reflects societal attitudes to women in the course of
historic development. Hussy ‘a lewd or brazen woman’ developed from ‘housewife’. Biddy ‘hen’,
bitch ‘female dog’, and vixen ‘female fox’ have all become derogatory terms focusing on alleged
objectionable behavioral traits in women (biddy – an annoying old woman; bitch – insulting word
for a woman; vixen – an offensive word for a woman who is bad-tempered or who fights). Fairy –
originally ‘enchantment, magic’ (c.1300) and later ‘imaginary creature with magic powers’ – has
become a derogatory term for a ‘male homosexual’ in slang vocabulary. Here are a few other
examples of words which have undergone degeneration of meaning: crafty used to mean "strong";
cunning meant "knowing" before it acquired its current meaning; egregious "distinguished,
standing out from the herd"; harlot "a boy"; notorious "famous"; obsequious "flexible"; vulgar
"popular".

It has to be said that all these processes of semantic change are extremely complex and the semantic
structure of words usually reveals that there have been several processes at work in the course of
the word’s history. Apart from that, many processes can be seen simultaneously working together :
the reference of one word widens while narrowing another (chicken generalizing to include the
meaning of ‘hen’), the reference widens in one period and narrows in another, sometimes
establishing regional preferences (cock in BrEng vs. rooster in AmEng or maize in BrEng and corn
in AmEng). The reference can extend figuratively (chick coming to mean ‘a young woman’), across
registers (triggering new meanings in non-standard varieties, for example: cock for a male sex
organ) or idiomatically (no spring chicken), permitting a special use in one place but not another (in
Scottish English hen as a term of endearment in and around Glasgow, comparable to duck(s) in
parts of England). It has proved useful therefore to discuss semantic change in terms of webs of
shifting forms and relationships rather than words on their own. In such a way, changes across
whole semantic fields can be accounted for, since a change in one item typically affects semantic
structure of other words [T.McArthur : 913].

TASK 1

Identify semantic processes responsible for the current meaning of

the word or the meaning it acquires in the following sentences:

 Who is the fancy pants with all that jewelry? (slang “effeminate or showy male”)
 The House was called to order.
 What a joker! The guy fractured us (slang “cause to laugh hard”)
 The governor is foaming at the mouth because they didn’t pass his legislation.
 He’ll fry for those murders.
 There’s no such thing as free lunch out in the real world.
 He is a real – excuse my French – bastard.
 We have always remained loyal to the crown.
 She’ll marry you over my dead body!

 The Iraq democracy is in its infancy.

Grammaticalization

So far our focus has been on changes in meaning in lexical items, but semantic shift can affect
grammar as well. The causes and mechanisms involved in lexical semantic change and grammatical
semantic change are closely intertwined: there is actually a lot of overlap. Indeed, many linguists
nowadays agree that it is impossible to say where the lexicon ends, and syntax begins [Hollmann :
526]. In view of this, we will consider yet another direction in which semantic change can move,
and that is toward a more pronounced grammatical meaning in the semantic structure of a word.
The process whereby this happens is generally referred to as grammaticalization. The latter is often
seen as the source of the majority of grammatical changes that languages undergo [Croft,156].
Grammaticalization is the process by which lexical items or constructions with specific lexical
items develop grammatical functions, leading to the reinterpretation of the lexical items as
possessing grammatical functions [Ibid.]. When that happens, we see an extension of a form to
functions and contexts not previously associated with that form. Let us examine what in present-day
English is known as be going to + Inf. and will + Inf. future tense constructions. These two
constructions started out with the verbs go and will used in their original lexical sense. In the case of
go, it was the meaning of motion, which the verb has retained in present-day English. I am going to
London was the only type of construction possible for go. The old sense of will, on the other hand,
has almost completely disappeared: it used to mean something like “want; desire”. An example
taken from Oxford English Dictionary and dating from c. 1200 testifies to this: Wenne ϸu wult more
suluer, sӕche hit at me suluen (When you want more silver, say it to me) [Hollmann : 538]. As is
evident, originally both these verbs would not be combined with infinitives. Over time, however, it
became possible to combine them with infinitives and that is when the grammatical meaning within
these constructions crowded out the lexical one.
In the case of be going to, the older, motion meaning still co-exists today with the newer, more
grammatical use; in the case of will the original, volitional use is now almost obsolete – we say
“almost” because while sentences like the one above (will followed by NOUN) are not acceptable
today, will in the sense of “want’ is still very much in use (Ask him if he will marry you). In other
words, when lexical expressions develop into grammatical constructions, the older meanings may
but need not continue to exist. If they gradually die out, there are often some remnants that persist
for quite some time. The American linguist P.Hopper calls this the principle of persistence, one of
several principles, or typical characteristics, of grammaticalization.
Generally, lexical words have more semantic features – are more specific – than grammatical words.
When a verb meaning “want” becomes a future marker, it loses the feature VOLITION, but keeps
the feature FUTURE, which is present already in the meaning of ‘want’. So, as is obvious, when a
lexical item becomes more grammatical, semantic reduction takes place. This process constitutes
another principle, one that is now commonly referred to as semantic bleaching. The latter can be
described as the loss of semantic content. More specifically, semantic bleaching refers to the loss of
all (or most) lexical content of a lexical item while only its grammatical content is retained.
In many languages – not only in English – an acquisition by verbs of auxiliary functions provides
the most vivid illustration of grammaticalization. Another interesting example of
grammaticalization is that of the process in which the lexical cluster let us – for example, in the
sentence "let us go" – is reduced to a single word let's as in the sentence "let's you and me fight".
The phrase has lost its lexical meaning of "allow us" and has changed into an auxiliary, while the
pronoun 'us' reduced first to a suffix and then to an unanalyzed phoneme.
Other parts of speech can also – although more rarely – undergo grammaticalization. By way of
illustration, let us consider at some length an evolution of very as an intensifier. Since many
linguists consider intensifiers as grammatical items, the development of the intensifying adverb very
can be legitimately treated as an example of grammaticalization. When the word was borrowed
from French, following the Norman Conquest, its meaning of ‘true’ or ‘real’ was borrowed along
with it. The French adjective vrai still means precisely that, and if one recalls the English words
veracity, verify and veritable, they will discover that all of these words have an element of ‘truth’ in
their meanings. Thus, when a speaker of Middle English described a man as a very knight they
meant that he was a real or true knight. Whether or not someone was a bona fide knight could be
established objectively: one would have been born as one or have been knighted by another knight.
Nowadays if we say that language change is a very interesting area, we use the word very in a
much more subjective sense: someone else may well disagree with our personal evaluation
(Hollmann, 2009: 533).
It is worthy of note that grammaticalization always involves a loss of categories: adverbs,
auxiliaries, prepositions and other minor categories always derive from the prime categories NOUN
and VERB, sometimes ADJECTIVE, never the reverse.

An idea that is often cited as yet another of the basic principles of grammaticalization is the
unidirectionality principle. The latter presupposes that the development of lexical elements into
grammatical ones, or less grammatical into more grammatical, is the preferred direction of
linguistic change and that a lexical item is much more likely to move towards a grammatical
function than for a grammatical item to move towards a lexical meaning.

Grammaticalization therefore is a powerful tool of linguistic change, as it creates new function

words and constructions within language, by separating functions from their original lexical items
(i.e. from content words). It is a field of research in the wider study of language change, which
focuses on a particular interaction between processes of lexical and grammatical change.

TASK 2

Identify sentences where the verb want shows clear signs of grammaticalization
and is used as a modal rather than lexical verb:

 You are welcome if you want to share some of your concerns with us.
 With things like that, you always want to be sure that your decision won't
negatively impact someone you love.
 Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at our site?
 He may want to try the shirt on to see if it fits.
 It’s not like they want to give you a pay rise or anything like that.

 Here’s why you may wanna consider this other option.

Some Explanations of Semantic Change.

Sociolinguistic Perspectives.

Most examples of semantic change discussed above happened quite a while ago and correspond to
considerable intervals in the history of English (e.g. the change in the meanings of silly or nice –
shifts that span several centuries). They are distinct cases of diachronic change: changes that
happen through time.
Other changes, on the other hand, are happening as we speak. Rude, as we have seen, has only
acquired its meaning of ‘attractive’ very recently. While many students and generally people in
their twenties in Britain have readily embraced it and report using it, most people in their 30s and
40s would generally not use it, and sometimes do not even recognize the newly acquired meaning.
As such, this change has not come to its completion as it has not yet been adopted by the whole
British English community (Hollmann 2009: 534). The question arises as to when we can
legitimately state the fact of a semantic change: when a single speaker has created a new usage,
when a number of language users have implemented it or when the entire speech community has
done so? In this case we talk about a synchronic situation.
In his discussion of this issue, W.Croft distinguishes between two stages in any change that is
underway: the innovation, which constitutes the first instance(s) of the new usage, and the
propagation (spread to other members of the speech community). Thus we see semantic change and
language change in general as both synchronic and diachronic. It is important to point out that the
propagation – spread of a new variant – in many cases does not go all the way to completion. This
is not to say that propagation always results in change not being finalized. In the case of the
previously discussed rude, for example, one could make a reasonable guess that it will never be
adopted by all speakers of (British) English. Words for ‘attractive’ proliferate at a high rate thus
replacing each other fairly rapidly. It is therefore likely that rude in the new meaning will be short-
lived and the next generation will coin other words to convey the meaning in question. In fact, new
usages may never spread beyond their innovators. These unique usages are usually termed nonce-
formations or nonce-words, notions that will be discussed later in the book.
One may wonder why nonce-formations sometimes ‘stop in their tracks’ and do not spread to other
speakers. Why do some changes only spread to a few speakers while others spread to most of them
and, indeed, across whole communities? It is now common to explain the different outcomes of
innovations in social terms. Most notably, new usages are viewed from the perspective of the notion
of prestige. By prestige scholars mean the level of respect accorded to language forms (indeed,
language varieties and even languages) as compared to other language forms (language varieties) in
a speech community. The concept of prestige attached to language variants is closely related to the
prestige speakers enjoy in society. In fact, there is a strong correlation between the prestige of a
group of people and the prestige accorded to the language they speak, as “language is intertwined
with culture”. The notion of prestige was first introduced and described by William Labov, who
postulated that if a language change has originated in a group which has prestige in the eyes of other
groups within a speech community, it has a better chance of being adopted by those groups [Labov].
The language of high-status groups is usually associated with positive prestige, while the varieties
spoken by lower-status groups are believed to be linked to negative prestige. So, roughly speaking,
if a new usage has prestige because it is used by a speaker whom other speakers would like to be
associated with, then the innovation is likely to catch on and spread. Going back to the recent
semantic development of rude, it is reasonable to assume that some young British English speakers
ascribed some form of prestige to certain members of music-related subcultures, which may well
have led them to adopt novel expressions such as rude boy / rude girl (“cool boy/girl”). In his later
work on linguistic change, Labov brings linguistic fashion into the discussion, arguing that
linguistic change is similar to fashion. Linguistic fashion rests on the notion that such change is
motivated by the need to be liked by the others as well as the desire to be different (Labov 2001:
361). The latter is closely linked to the principle of nonconformity, which also, according to Labov,
has an important role to play in the spread of language change. The idea behind this principle is that
linguistic changes are a manifestation of nonconformist behaviour, i.e. not accepting ways of
thinking and behaving that are generally accepted by the majority, and they tend to be most
generated by people and groups who consistently defy established norms in society (Labov 2001:
516).
 MEANING RELATIONS

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

1. What do we understand by meaning relations?

2. What exactly are sense relations? Reference relation vs. sense relation
3. Synonymy
3.1. Strict (absolute) and loose synonymy
3.2. Criteria for absolute synonymy
3.3. Areas of distinction between synonyms
3.4. Reasons for extensive synonymy in English
4. Antonymy
4.1. Types of antonyms
4.2. How common is the relation of antonymy?
4.3. Co-occurrence of antonyms
5. Relations of taxonomy or hierarchical relations
5.1. Hyponymy as ‘the kind of’ relation
5.2. Meronymy as the ‘part of’ relation
5.3. The notion of lexical gaps or lacunas
6. Collocations and collocability
Meaning relations. Reference relation and sense relation

A discussion of meaning typically starts with a definition of meaning relations. These are ordinarily
described – in the narrow sense – as semantic relations between concepts and meanings.

To continue a discussion of meaning, one cannot proceed without drawing a distinction between the
reference of a word and the sense of a word. The former is seen as an external meaning relation: it
is the relationship between a word and the entity that it refers to or designates in the physical world,
our mental world or the world of our experience [Jackson, 106]. It must be noted, however, that this
relation holds between a lexeme and an extra-linguistic object on concrete occasions of use, i.e.
reference fully depends on concrete utterances rather than abstract sentences. It is, therefore, viewed
as an utterance-dependent or context-bound relation. It is, in other words, a property of expressions.
Jackson goes on to point out that reference is not, by and large, applied to single words or word
forms used on their own. For example, in naturally occurring speech the word president is not
typically used by itself. This lexeme will be normally embedded in a specific context, and as a
result, it will appear surrounded by other lexemes that will indicate the specificity of the context and
a particular referent: The President felt almost like his predecessor during the Watergate scandal.
The lexeme president in this utterance does not mean “the official leader of a country that does not
have a king or queen” (LDCE) in general, but instead one of the US presidents that came after
R.Nixon – not F.D.Roosevelt, for example. Obviously, the reference of this utterance is determined
by the denotation of the lexeme president, but the denotation is modified by the specific variables
(social, cultural, personal etc.) of that particular context. By contrast, sense relations describe
internal meaning relations. By ‘internal’ we mean that such relations hold between words within the
vocabulary. The most obvious sense relations are those of ‘sameness’ and ‘oppositeness’. These are
normally referred to by terms ‘synonymy’ and ‘antonymy’. For example, talkative has a relation of
synonymy with chatty, nosy, forthcoming, and a relation of antonymy with lexemes taciturn,
reticent, silent, reserved, and unforthcoming. This is not to say that such lists are always entirely
accurate or complete. Other sense relations – hyponymy and meronymy – arrange words of the
vocabulary in hierarchies as they constitute the kind of correspondences that relate words
hierarchically. For example, rodent is in a hierarchical relation with animal, which is a more general
term, as is it with rat or rabbit, which are more specific terms.

Synonymy.
According to most researchers, English possesses probably the richest vocabulary, and most diverse
shading of meanings, of any language. English speakers can distinguish between house and home –
as, for instance, the French cannot – between continuous and continual, sensual and sensuous,
forceful and forcible, childish and childlike, masterful and masterly etc. For almost every word there
seems to be a multiplicity of synonyms. Something may not just be big, but large, immense, vast,
huge, enormous, bulky, massive, whopping etc. No other language has just as many words all saying
the same thing. It is a well-established fact that English is unique in possessing a synonym for each
stratum of vocabulary: popular, standard, and scholarly or informal, neutral and formal, according
to another classification. As a consequence, depending on the background of the speaker, his or her
intelligence and social status as well as the circumstances of the immediate situation and individual
intentions, we can rise, mount or ascend a stairway, shrink in fear, terror or trepidation, and think,
ponder or cogitate upon a problem [Bryson, 62] .
Although synonymy is one of the fundamental linguistic phenomena that influence the structure of
the lexicon, it has been given far less attention in linguistics, lexicography, semantics, and
computational linguistics than the equally fundamental and much-studied polysemy. Whatever the
reason, synonymy has often been thought of as a ‘non-problem’: either there are synonyms, but they
 are completely identical in meaning and hence easy to deal with, or there are no synonyms, in
which case each word can be handled like any other. But a closer examination of synonymy shows
that it is just as complex a phenomenon as polysemy and that it inherently affects the structure of
lexical knowledge.
According to the most simplistic approach to synonymy, words and expressions with the same
meaning are deemed to be synonymous. This definition, however, cannot be viewed as self-
sufficient without certain caveats. According to Lyons, two points should be noted about this
interpretation. First, it does not restrict the relation of synonymy to lexemes: it allows for the pos-
sibility that lexically simple expressions may have the same meaning as lexically complex
expressions. For example, one-word items insane or crazy are synonymous with multi-lexeme
structures be out of one’s mind, have a screw loose, have taken leave of one’s senses, not be all
there, be one sandwich short of a picnic, etc. This points to the fact that synonymy is essentially a
semantic relation, rather than lexical. Second, it makes identity, not merely similarity, of meaning
the criterion of synonymy. In the discussion that follows, we will consider whether identity of
meaning is a tenable concept when it comes to synonymy.
Apart from the definition above, there have been many other, somewhat differing definitions. These
are only some of them:
• Synonyms are defined as words of the same category of parts of speech conveying the same
concept but differing either in shades of meaning or in stylistic characteristics;
• Synonyms are words with the same denotation, but differing in connotations;
• Synonyms are words that are identical in “central semantic traits” and differ in only
“peripheral traits”;
• Synonyms are defined as words that are interchangeable at least in some contexts without
any considerable alteration in denotational meaning.
A detailed and quite all-encompassing definition was suggested by I.Arnold, who defined
synonymous lexical items as two or more words of the same meaning, belonging to the same part of
speech, possessing one or more identical meaning, interchangeable at least in some contexts without
any considerable alteration in denotational meaning, but differing in morphemic composition,
phonemic shape, shades of meaning, connotation, affective value, style, emotional coloring and valence
peculiar to one of the elements in a synonymic group [].
Synonyms can be any part of speech (e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions etc.) as long as both
members of the pair are the same part of speech:
 petty crime, minor offense, misdemeanor (noun);
 student and pupil (noun);
 buy, purchase, acquire, snap up, pick up, take over (verb);
 die, pass away, expire, go to meet your maker, breathe your last (breath), give up the ghost,
croak (sl) (verb);
 beautiful, attractive, pretty, gorgeous, stunning, drop-dead gorgeous (adjective);
 sick, ill, ailing, poorly, unwell (adjective);
 quickly, fast, speedily, swiftly, rapidly, in a flash, in a jiffy (adverb);
 on and upon (preposition);
 round and around (preposition);
 freedom and liberty (noun);
 dead, deceased, late, pushing up the daisies (sl) (adjective).

It is worthy of note that synonyms are defined with respect to certain senses of words. For instance,
pupil as the "aperture in the iris of the eye" is not synonymous with student. Similarly, expired as
"having lost validity" (as in grocery goods) does not necessarily mean death.

A handy, albeit very general distinction is often made between ‘strict’ and ‘loose’ synonymy. In the
strict sense, synonyms are lexical items that would have to be interchangeable in all their possible
contexts of use: a speaker or writer would have a free choice of either one or the other word in any
given context. Whichever word was picked would have no effect on the meaning, style or
connotation of what was being said or written. However, linguists argue that such strict synonymy
hardly exists, or that, if it does, it is observable in restricted situations: for example, where semantic
change is underway or in the case of specialized vocabularies and terms. For instance, terms speech
disorders, speech defects, disorders of speech and even defective speech may well be viewed as
fully synonymous in a paper on disorders in the nervous system that result in poor articulation.
Jackson and Zé Amvela note that strict synonymy is uneconomical since it becomes a source
of unnecessary redundancy in a language [H.Jackson, 108]. Having a totally free choice between
two words for a particular context, the scholars note, is a luxury that we can well do without [Ibid].
Indeed, it would appear that where, historically, two words have been in danger of becoming strict
synonyms, one of them has either changed its meaning in some way or fallen out of use. For
example, when the word sky was borrowed from Old Norse into English, it came into competition
with the native English word heaven: both words denoted both the physical firmament and the
spiritual realm of God and the angels. With time, the meanings within this synonymic pair were
redistributed. So, in due course, sky came to designate just the physical, and heaven just the
spiritual, though each is still sometimes used in the context where the other would normally be
expected: Angel in the sky vs. The sun was blazing down from the clear blue heavens. By the same
token, when spirit was borrowed from French (ultimately from Latin), it came into competition with
the native English ghost (compare: Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit): spirit has taken over as the term with
the more general meaning, and ghost is more or less restricted to ‘disembodied spirit’ meanings. So
what happened was that "ghost" and "spirit" effectively switched places over some 300 years. This
is not to suggest, however, that change is no longer in progress. Some English speakers argue that
English should reclaim ghost as in Holy Ghost because of the muddled concept of spirit and
spiritual in modern English. They make this argument by saying that many ‘spiritual’ people have
‘spiritual’ thoughts and live ‘spiritual’ lives without any relationship to the Holy Spirit.
The on-going “tug-of-war” between ghost and spirit reflects the dynamics and evolution of
English. Similar reversals and developments have been in evidence throughout much of the English
word-stock. By way of illustration, let us consider the following archaic or already defunct words,
which have either lost currency and been replaced by new vocabulary (items in brackets) or have
been relegated to marginal spheres of use:
culver (pigeon), divers (various), dorp (village), erst (formerly), fain (willing), levin
(lightning), trig (neat), warrener (gamekeeper), wight (human being) yare (readily), etc.
(examples cited after Jackson and Zé Amvela [p.109])
What people normally mean by synonymy is, by and large, varying degrees of ‘loose’ synonymy,
whereby there is not only a significant overlap in meaning between two words, but also
differences. That is to say that in some contexts at least they cannot substitute for each other.
Consider the synonyms set up and establish: they are substitutable in the context They want to set
up/establish their own import-export business, but not in the context David claimed that the police
had tried to set him up, or in the context I can never establish whether she is telling the truth.
Similarly, long and extended are only synonyms in one usage (a long period of time and an
extended period of time) and not in others, such as a long arm and an extended arm: it is not
possible to use extended in lieu of long in the sentence: He won't escape the long arm of the law).
As is evident from these cases, synonyms may be substitutable where their meaning overlaps, but
where a meaning falls outside of the shared area (set up – ‘to trick someone in order to achieve
what you want, especially to make it appear that they have done something wrong or illegal',
establish – ‘to find out facts that prove that something is true'), one cannot be used instead of the
other. Synonyms may be closer or more distant in meaning, though it is not clear how this might be
measured. Nor is it clear whether there is a limit at which the concept of synonymy becomes
meaningless.
In view of all of the above, distinctions that are now commonly made are between strict or absolute
and loose or near-synonyms, which demonstrate a loose relation of sameness. Many of the
expressions listed as synonymous in ordinary or specialized dictionaries are what may be called
near-synonyms: expressions that are more or less similar, but not identical, in meaning. Further
examples of near-synonyms in English are mist and fog, stream and brook, and dive and plunge.
The synonymic sets can be extended to include even more items:
 alcoholic, drunk, drunkard, boozer, sot, lush, (wino), (booze-hound);
  afraid, apprehensive, aghast, alarmed, anxious, scared, terrified, horrified, fearful,
frightened, terror-stricken, (petrified);
 quickly, fast, speedily, rapidly, swiftly, promptly.
Let us now consider the notion of absolute synonymy, as suggested by Lyons, in contrast not only
with near-synonymy, but also with the broader notion of synonymy. Two (or more) expressions are
absolutely synonymous if, according to Lyons, they satisfy the following three conditions:
(1) all their meanings are identical;
(2) they are synonymous in all contexts;
(3) they are semantically equivalent (i.e., their meaning or meanings are identical) on all
dimensions of meaning, descriptive and non-descriptive [Lyons, 61].
How condition (1) works or does not work can be exemplified by the type of synonymy that
exists between adjectives big and large. Let us consider the following three sentences:
a) They live in a big/large house;
b) I will tell my big sister;
c) I will tell my large sister.
In sentence a, the two words would generally be regarded as synonymous. It is easy to show,
however, that big and large are not synonymous in all of their meanings: i.e., that they fail to
satisfy condition (1) and so are only partially, not absolutely, synonymous. Sentence b is lexically
ambiguous, by virtue of the polysemy of big (big in size and big as old(er)), in a way that sentence
c, “I will tell my large sister” is not. All three sentences are well-formed and interpretable. They
show that big has at least one more meaning which it does not share with large and that is “older or
more like an adult”. There are many such examples of polysemous lexemes that are synonymous in
one or more, but not all, of their meanings [Lyons, 62].
What is at issue in condition (2) is the collocational range of an expression: the set of contexts in
which it can occur. It might be thought that the collocational range of an expression is wholly
determined by its meaning, so that synonyms must of necessity have the same collocational range.
But this does not seem to be the case. Mistake vs. error can serve as an example. There are many
contexts in which ‘mistake' cannot be substituted for ‘error’ without violating the collocational
restrictions of one or the other. For example, only error can be used in be in error, by trial and
error, do something in error, etc. By the same token, only mistake is possible in sentences of the
type: “Make no mistake about it|” or “He took my suitcase by mistake”. Substituting one for the
other in instances like these would be collocationally unacceptable or unidiomatic.
Condition (3) deals with expressive and all other connotational nuances of meaning that are part of
the semantic make-up of synonymous units. It is intuitively obvious that a whole set of words
including wasted, bombed, plastered, hammered, trashed, lit up like a Christmas tree, etc. or be
unglued, unzipped or off one’s rocker, out to lunch, around the bend, have a screw loose, etc. are
more expressive of their speakers' feelings towards what they are describing than ‘drunk’ or
‘insane’, with which they are perhaps descriptively synonymous.
In view of the above, it becomes apparent that even though the meanings of two words may be the
same – or nearly so – there are characteristics of synonymous words that almost never coincide. We
have narrowed these down to three (although different authors may suggest other sets of such
properties) and these are frequency, distribution and connotation. These three criteria can, for the
most part, be profitably used to distinguish items in synonymic sets. From the very start, however, it
is crucial to point out that there is a considerable overlap between them. So although each can
sometimes account for differences between synonyms on their own, more typically, they tend to
correlate with each other. Therefore, they should only be used as very general points of reference,
since words tend to differ on many dimensions at once. For instance, differences in the frequency
of use characterize most items within synonymic sets. Very few words in English – as in many
other languages, for that matter – appear with the same frequency as their synonyms. For example,
according to most lexicographical sources, the verb help is part of the most common words of the
English language. LDCE labels it as an item that belongs to one thousand most frequently used
words of spoken and written English. On the other hand, its synonym, assist, albeit a fairly common
word in English, is, according to LDCE, somewhat less common than help. It falls into the category
of three thousand most frequently used words. Much the same differences show up in most other
synonymic sets: begin – start – commence, enemy – foe – adversary – nemesis, etc. It has to be
noted, however, that frequency correlates to a great extent with another variable, distribution.

By distribution we mean either dialectal or functional distribution. If we take an approach to

English from the perspective of many varieties that make it up globally, it becomes apparent that
different members of synonymic sets come from different varieties. The varieties or dialects in
question may be one of the national standards, e.g. British, American, Canadian, Australian,
Pakistani, South African or any other nationwide variety of English; or they may be a regional
dialect within a country or area, e.g. Tyneside, West Midlands, South-West dialects of British
English or African American Vernacular English, North, South and Midland dialects of American
English. Here are some examples of synonym pairs in British and American English:

BRITISH AMERICAN
boot trunk
bonnet hood
lift elevator
underground subway
pavement sidewalk
tap faucet
spanner wrench
windscreen windshield

Very often differences between items within synonymic sets amount to minor differences in the
form of the item or elements within a multiword lexeme. As a result, items in synonymic sets
reveal differences that are more subtle and nuanced than is often believed:

BRITISH AMERICAN
to the full to the fullest
clued-up clued-in
change gear change gears
on the cards in the cards
fully-fledged, fully-grown full-fledged, full-grown
like a red rag to a bull like waving a red flag in front of a bull
like death warmed up like death warmed over

One can make an argument, however, that the above items representing the two varieties are not
different lexemes, but rather differing forms of the same lexemes, which in the course of historical
development gave rise to divergent forms. One way or another, they constitute different lexical
items and often different entries in dictionaries and the choice of one item over the other inevitably
signals a choice of one variety as opposed to the other. It is sensible, therefore, to view the forms
above as members of synonymic sets in their own right.

Likewise, it is easy to find synonymic pairs in which one word comes from one of the standard
varieties of English and the other (or others) – from one or several regional varieties. Below are
examples of synonyms illustrating a dichotomy between standard British and northern British
English:

STANDARD ENGLISH NORTHERN BRITISH ENGLISH

anyway anyroad
armpit
child
 frightening oxter
money bairn
sandwich fleysome
brass
butty

Similarly, we find the same pairing between synonymous items from standard American
English and regional American varieties:

STANDARD AMERICAN SOUTHERN DIALECT

pants britches
peanuts goober peas
people fokes
creature critter
to be going to to be fixin’ to
(as in I am fixin’ to leave)
ask [æsk] ask [æks]
throw a fit/tantrum pitch a hissy/conniption
kick up a fuss kick up a ruckus
show off cut up (as in
“Now don’t you girls
cut up in church today, d’you hear?)

A study of this type of synonyms can contribute to dialectal research as charting the distribution of
words with the same meaning across territories under study helps identify dialect areas by drawing
lines separating the areas in which each variant is used (in dialectology, such lines are called
isoglosses). One such study, undertaken in the 1970s, revealed the distribution of different
synonymous variants of cottage cheese across the United States: Dutch cheese, pot cheese,
smearcase in northeastern states and curd, curd cheese, sour milk cheese, and cruds or crud cheese
as midland and southern forms [Sandra Lee McKay, p.156-157].
Apart from dialectal territorial or regional distribution, it is also sensible to talk about sociolectal
distribution. There are social dialects (or sociolects 13) as well as regional ones and the term dialect
can also refer to differences in speech associated with various social groups or classes. Various
factors can be used to determine social position: occupation, place of residence, cultural and
educational background, racial or ethnic origin, level of income, religion and others. Such factors as
these do appear to be related fairly directly to how people speak. People from different social
classes speak differently. Company executives do not talk like office cleaners and lawyers hardly
speak in the same way as the criminals they represent in court. There is a British ‘public-school’
dialect, and there is an “African American Vernacular English’ dialect found in cities such as New
York, Detroit, Buffalo and others. Social dialect research in many English-speaking countries has
revealed a consistent relationship between social class and language patterns. It is now fairly safe to
claim that people who come from different social groups speak different social dialects if they use
different grammatical constructions, different pronunciation and words. By sociolectal distribution
of synonyms, we mean that different members in a synonymic set can belong to different social
dialects, or rather synonymous words representing different social dialects. For example, in the
1950s in England many pairs of words were identified which, it was claimed, distinguished the
speech of upper-class English people from the rest. Upper-class speakers used sitting room rather
than lounge (which was prevalent in the speech of working class and lower middle class), and
referred to the lavatory rather than the toilet [Holmes, 149]. Some other synonyms featuring
differences in sociolectal distribution may be:

13
Sociolect – a social dialect or variety of speech used by a particular group, such as working-class or upper-class
speech in the UK [McArthur, p.946]
 UPPER-CLASS NON-UPPER-CLASS
SPEAKERS SPEAKERS
sofa settee
relations relatives
bag handbag
writing paper notepaper

A choice of one item as opposed to the other usually signals – alongside with other markers of
social position and status – what social stratum a person comes from. Obviously, one word alone
cannot be an infallible way of categorizing varieties. There have to be other important indicators –
on different linguistic levels: phonology, grammar etc. – working in concert and manifesting
themselves consistently in the speech of an individual or a language community that would point to
one sociolect rather than another.
A second general way in which synonyms may be distinguishable – we will call it functional
distribution – relates to the different functional styles and registers that members of a synonymic set
may be part of. By “register” we mean “a speech variety used by a particular group of people,
usually sharing the same occupation or the same interests (e.g. baseball fans, members of the same
reading club, animal-rights activists etc.) (Longman dictionary of applied linguistics). We typically
distinguish between unmarked member(s) of a synonymic set – the more neutral, general or
mainstream items – and marked member(s), i.e. coming from a more circumscribed area of usage.
For example, what is generally known as a black eye (bruising around the eye commonly due to an
injury to the face) is technically referred to by doctors as periorbital hematoma. The latter is seen
as part of a certain register, in this case of the professional jargon peculiar to the medical profession.
On the other hand, this medical condition can often be called a shiner, a term that is considered very
informal – even believed to be slang in some quarters – and is typically encountered in the speech
of adolescents. A differing functional distribution of the members in a synonymic set can simply be
along the formal – informal dimension. One in a pair of synonyms may be used in a more formal
context than the other; or one of the pair may belong to slang or colloquial English, while the other
is in more general use. Let us consider some examples of synonymic pairs where one of the pair is
usually used in a neutral setting and the other in a more formal context:

NEUTRAL FORMAL
argument disputation
cat feline
beauty pulchritude
earthly terrestrial
timely temporal
death decease, demise
give up renounce
read peruse
letter missive
praise eulogy
The formality – informality dimension is closely bound up with such variables of communication as
a setting, topic and social distance between the participants of the interaction. For instance, a
negligible social distance between speakers, a casual topic and an informal setting will contribute
to a choice of the more informal synonym in a set. And conversely, an official setting and a solemn
topic will determine a selection of the more formal of the synonyms (demise as opposed to death,
demolish as opposed to pull down, mend one’s ways as opposed to get one’s act together). It would
be a mistake to think, however, that the formal or informal dimension is only determined by opting
for a formal or informal lexical equivalent. The choice of the right words will have to be
accompanied by other appropriate linguistic choices, like the use of suitable grammatical
constructions. For example, if we compare two sentences that express the same message – Refuse
should be deposited in the receptacle provided vs. Put your rubbish in the bin, Wendy – it will be
obvious that the formality of one and the informality of the other is not only in the words, i.e. in the
choice of the right member of the synonymic set. The first uses a passive grammatical structure,
should be deposited, for example, which avoids any mention of the people involved. By contrast,
the second utterance uses an imperative form of the verb put and an address form, Wendy, which is
typical of conversation. This utterance is more direct and it specifies whose rubbish is the focus of
the command. The formal refuse, deposited and receptacle are less frequent words in British
English than their informal synonyms rubbish, put and bin. Both sentences perform the same
function – they give a directive – but they are not interchangeable. Each of them has its own
functional distribution in the language. But again, by way of reiteration, lexical choices are only one
of several linguistic means that contribute to the formality or informality of what is expressed.
Apart from the formal – informal dimension, synonyms can also be distinguishable along the
standard – nonstandard dimension. By this we mean that some members of a synonymic set are part
of standard, while others may be slang, argot, taboo, etc. Here are some synonym pairs from
standard English and American slang:

STANDARD ENGLISH AMERICAN SLANG

prison can, slammer
drunk bombed, tanked, hammered
kill waste
money dough, moolah, cabbage
girl chick

It goes without saying that each national variety of English has its own slang. Here are some
synonymic pairs representing Standard English and British slang:

STANDARD ENGLISH BRITISH SLANG

astonished gobsmacked
destroy zap
steal nick
crash prang
face phisog
prison clink
money rhino, spondulix

It is worthy of note that for some ordinary language words, such as ‘drunk’, ‘insane’, ‘stupid’, or
‘money’, designations for common emotional states and generally different kinds of human
condition, slang synonyms proliferate. In many cases, they far outnumber their synonymous
counterparts from general vocabulary. This is explained by the fact that slang, by nature, tends to
seize on the flawed and imperfect. Generally things that meet with social disapproval are a source
of numerous slang terms. Besides, since the connotational component is often said to prevail over
the denotation in slang words, and the number of possible connotations is potentially infinite, the
number of slang terms can be accordingly countless. The connotation of such items, although
varying from word to word, is, by and large, disparaging and derogatory. A series of slang
synonyms for ‘talk; chat’, for example, amply illustrates this point: chew the rag/fat, shoot the
breeze/wind, run off at the mouth, have verbal diarrhea, talk the hind legs off a donkey, blow off
one’s trap, bat the breeze, wag the tongue, shoot the bull, blow hot air, shoot one’s kisser off, sling
the lingo etc. Needless to say, this list hardly exhausts all possible slang designations for the
concept of “talking”.
And finally, a third way in which synonym pairs may be distinguished is where connotations
differ. Two words may largely share a denotation, in referring to a particular entity, but they may
have divergent associative or emotive meanings. Take the words push and shove: their denotation
largely overlaps – forceful propulsion forward; but shove connotes roughness or haste, which push
does not. Here are some further pairs of synonyms that differ in their connotations (in brackets):
ambiguous vs. equivocal (deliberately)
famous vs. notorious (disreputably)
 hate vs. loathe (with disgust)
misuse vs. abuse (for the wrong/dishonest purposes)
obtain vs. procure (with effort)
persuade vs. inveigle (with ingenuity or deceit)
proud vs. haughty (with disdain)
recollection vs. reminiscence (with pleasure)
simulate vs. feign (with craftiness)
Arguably, both members of each pair of synonyms belong to the same dialect (the standard) and to
the same level of formality. It is the additional connotation of the second member of each pair that
distinguishes them.
Some Soviet and Russian linguists take the discussion of connotation even further and distinguish
between the following connotations: those of intensity, degree, aspect, duration, etc.

TASK 1
What distinguishes each of the following pairs of synonyms – frequency,
distribution or connotation?
1. insect – creepy-crawlie;
2. nose – schnozzle;
3. complaint – grievance;
4. crazy – bonkers;
5. unpleasant – revolting;
6. to control – to bring under control;
7. to retreat – to back out.

From this discussion of synonymy it follows that the idea of identity is an untenable concept.
Firstly, it is not applicable to polysemous words, as examples with set up vs. establish vividly
demonstrate. English, like most other languages, for that matter, has no evidence of words with
multiple meanings that would have a synonymic counterpart with exactly the same set of
meanings. No two words, i.e. two sets of meanings can be completely identical. Besides, most
synonyms in the language, even very close, defy absolute identity by virtue of the fact that
language eschews absolute synonymy: near-identity between synonyms tends to trigger processes
which either lead to changed or modified meanings or to a loss of one of the words altogether.
Consequently, synonyms in language will inevitably demonstrate distinct semantic characteristics,
be it in frequency, dialectal or functional distribution or connotation. There is often a correlation
between these dimensions (e.g. the more formal synonym is necessarily less frequently
encountered in language and vice versa; the neutral synonym is usually the most frequent of the
set, etc.).

TASK 2
Do you detect differences between the near-synonyms in each set?
1. a) The current campaign is just the first leg of an aggressive three-
to-five-year direct marketing plan.
b) The current campaign is just the first leg of a pushy three-to-
five-year direct marketing plan.
2. a) Was the man drunk or crazy or both?
b) Was the man inebriated or crazy or both?
c) Was the man pissed or crazy or both?
3. a) “You’ll stay right here”, commanded Bill Doolin, covering
Red with his rifle.
 b) “You’ll stay right here”, ordered Bill Doolin, covering Red
with his rifle.

The problem of synonymy is particularly evident in translation. Even for a simple word like
«невдаха», one discovers that there are quite a few English equivalents (at least nine in standard
English, including colloquial): failure, loser, underachiver, might-have-been, also-ran, underdog,
never-was, runner-up, nonstarter, not counting numerous slang options. Needless to say, there are
countless possibilities that one would have to consider on a contextual basis.

TASK 3
Suggest Ukrainian equivalents for various synonyms of the lexeme
mistake. Consider such criteria as frequency, distribution
(formality – informality) and connotation of proposed equivalents:

Buying the farm was the biggest mistake of her life.

The report concluded that the accident was caused by human error.
I'm sure it was just an oversight that your name wasn't on the list.
Mercifully, circumstances now allow me to rectify this faux pas.
Molly knew she could not afford to make a single slip.
But seldom has a military miscalculation been so gross and retribution so
immediate.
He didn't offer Darren a drink, and Marie did not appear to notice the
lapse.
I hope it was a slip-up rather than genuine ignorance.
Major management blunders have led the company into bankruptcy.
You made a boner that time.

Reasons for Extensive Synonymy in English

English is an example of a language that is particularly replete with synonymous pairs. Historical
circumstances are believed to be responsible for this, and specifically the fact that other languages
continued to exist alongside English for centuries at different periods of its evolution. The
extraordinary synonym richness of English, therefore, arose from the blending of words from
different language sources in its vocabulary. This is also the reason why English borrowed from
other languages literally wholesale, especially from French and Latin. England was diglossic 14 in
the broad sense after 1066 when the Normans were in control. French was the language of the court,
administration, the legal system, educational institutions and high society in general. English was
the language of the commoners: the peasants in the field and the least statusful people in towns. The
following words provide a graphic illustration of this situation:

ENGLISH FRENCH ENGLISH

ox boeuf → beef
sheep mouton → mutton
calf veau → veal
pig porc → pork
The English calf becomes French veau as it “migrates” from the farm to the dinner table. As a
consequence, English ends up with two words where originally there was only one: one word
denoting a farm animal, the other becoming a designation for the type of meat of the respective

Characterized by a co-existence of two varieties of one language (or, in the broad sense, two different languages), of
14

which one is the high prestige variety (or language) and the other the low prestige variety (language).
animal (pig vs. pork). Such tangible shifts within a lexical domain are just one illustration of the
“across-the-board” changes that occurred in English during those times.
The list below shows synonymic pairs with lexical items that have their origin in Old English (on
the left) and those which are loan-words from French or Latin (on the right), which often came
through French:
ask for request (Fr)
din commotion (L)
drop globule (L)
glove gauntlet (Fr)
need require (Fr)
rope cable (Fr)
full replete (Fr)
copy replica (Fr)
It is apparent that Old English lexemes are, by and large, shorter than their French or Latin
equivalents. They also tend to belong to the neutral and colloquial language, which means that they
constitute items of a much higher frequency, whereas their Latinate counterparts belong to a more
formal context.
Another pattern is also in evidence. Words that entered English directly from Latin tend to be more
formal and technical than their synonyms that were borrowed as a result of the Norman French
invasion. Examples below illustrate this tendency, with the French-derived word on the left and the
Latin-derived word on the right:
commencement inception
devise excogitate
generous munificent
imprison incarcerate
mount ascend
pardon amnesty
urgency exigency
This does not mean that this ‘rule of thumb’ works consistently and all Latin-derived words are
more formal and less familiar. In the course of the language evolution, some loans from Latin were
incorporated into the common language (tendency, promise, prefer etc.). However, the undeniable
tendency is for words derived from Latin, especially ones borrowed into Latin from Greek, to be
part of formal and technical registers.
Just because native English words tend to be shorter and show a higher frequency of use, they tend
to be preferred in everyday speech. Their frequent occurrence results in more vagueness vis-à-vis
their borrowed counterparts and also the tendency to convey more shades of meaning, as opposed
to loanwords, which are, by and large, more precise and restricted. This characteristic arguably
makes loanwords more difficult to handle. In addition, native English words are considered to be
more emotional, while many polysyllabic loans from Greek, Latin or Romance languages are felt
to be more formal, matter-of-fact or detached. For instance, in informal contexts, when faced with
the choice between nourishment, nutrition and food, most people are likely to opt for the short
Anglo-Saxon word, food. Formal situations, on the other hand, may call for borrowed equivalents.
In some contexts, it may seem more appropriate, for example, to allude to a nauseating odor or
even an obnoxious effluvium rather than a nasty smell (Jackson, Ze Amvela, 2007 : 54).

The concept of synonymy reminds us yet again that a word can express a myriad of implications,
connotations and attitudes in addition to its basic ‘dictionary’ meaning. Synonyms can often differ
from one another in only subtle nuances of meaning. In view of this, in order to find the right word
to use in any particular situation – the one that precisely conveys the desired meaning and yet
avoids unwanted implications – one must carefully consider the differences between all of the
options.
ANTONYMY

As opposed to synonymy, antonymy, which conveys the idea of oppositeness, is probably a less
pervasive meaning relation in the vocabulary of English. It, however, is essential in structuring the
vocabulary of English. Moreover, the concept of oppositeness influences our thinking and
communicating to a significant extent, since it is not only a lexical relation, i.e. relation holding
between words primarily belonging to the same class, but, above all, it is a semantic relation, which
means that oppositeness may be expressed by structurally different words and words belonging to
different word classes. So antonyms, or opposites, are words that lie in an inherently incompatible
binary, i.e. twofold, relationship: if X ≠ Y, it follows that A may be X, but not Y.
It must be noted that unlike synonyms, antonyms do not usually differ in style, emotional coloring
or distribution.
Antonymy is most evident in the adjective word class, where a good many words occur in
antonymous pairs, e.g. male – female, high – low, long – short, wide – narrow, new – old, beautiful
– ugly, fast – slow, confident – diffident, light – dark, straight – crooked, deep – shallow. While
antonymy is found in abundance primarily among adjectives, it is not restricted to this word class:
precede – follow, lend – borrow (verbs), death – life, deference – impudence, vanity – humility
(nouns), noisily – quietly, frequently – rarely (adverbs), up – down, into – out of (prepositions),
after – before (conjunctions or prepositions).
Apart from morphologically unrelated antonyms, as in the examples above, English can also
derive antonyms by means of prefixes and suffixes. Negative prefixes such as dis-, un-, non-, a-,
in-, -ir, or im- may derive an antonym from the positive root, e.g. disbelief, disproportionate,
unimposing, non-negotiable, impossible, amoral, atypical, imbalance, inappropriate, irrational.
This patterning, however, does not always show consistency, as the following antonymic pairs
reveal: encourage – discourage, but entangle – disentangle, increase – decrease, include – exclude.
Similarly, the suffixes - ful and -less may derive pairs of antonyms, e.g. careful – careless, cheerful
– cheerless, fearful – fearless, thoughtful – thoughtless. It, however, does not always work that way,
as hopeful and hopeless, for example, demonstrate. Grateful has no counterpart *grateless. Nor
does priceless have the counterpart *priceful.
Antonymy is necessarily related to the concept of binary opposition, since binarity is quite
intrinsic to the notion of contrast. By “binary”, as was mentioned earlier, we mean “twofold;
characterized by or consisting of two parts or components”. Since binarity in lexical contrast can
arise in a number of ways, most researchers usually single out several types of binary oppositions
within antonymic pairs:
(1) Most opposites are usually inherently binary – that is, binary by some logical necessity.
Such is the case for scalar opposition, in which more or less of some property is
measured [Murphy, 182]. Scalar opposites describe opposite relations on a one-
dimensional scale. Since a single dimension allows for only two directions, binary
opposition arises naturally, as in wide/narrow, smooth/rough, tall/short etc.
(2) On the other hand, L.Murphy distinguishes binarity by coincidence. If it
just so happens that only two items belong to a contrast set, then they are, by default,
antonymous. For instance, humans have only two types of limbs, so arm and leg
automatically contrast by virtue of being the only members of the category HUMAN
LIMB [Murphy, 182].
(3) The inherently binary nature of negation allows for the third type of
binary contrasts. For morphologically-rich languages, opposite words can be created
through negative morphology, which was touched upon earlier, as in blue/non-blue,
logical/illogical, do/undo, safe/unsafe. These binary opposites are referred to as
morphological antonyms [Murphy, Ibid.]. The affixes in derivational antonyms deny the
quality stated in the stem.
Interestingly, opposites are simultaneously different and similar in meaning. Typically, they
differ in only one respect, but are similar in most others, including similarity in grammar and
positions of semantic abnormality.
 It is worthy of note that not all words have an opposite. Some words are non-opposable. For
example, the word car has no word that stands in opposition to it (hence, the unanswerability of
What is the opposite of car?). Other words are opposable but may have an accidental gap in the
vocabulary of a given language.

TASK 4
Choose the word best expressing the most opposite meaning.

thorough blocked, gentle, careless

establish notice, recognize, destroy
cease lose, leave, continue
considerable accidental, small, unkind
betray save, conceal, give
interested concerned, indifferent, indefinite

Typology of antonyms
In contrast to synonymy, antonymy covers a number of different types of oppositeness of meaning.
Typically three types are identified:
(1) gradable antonyms;
(2) contradictory or complementary antonyms;
(3) converse antonyms.
Antonym pairs of these types express oppositeness in rather different ways, though it is not clear
that we as speakers are necessarily aware of these differences or that they play a part in how we
store antonyms in our mental lexicon.
Group (1) includes pairs like the following:

beautiful ugly
expensive cheap
fast slow
hot cold
increase decrease
long short
love hate
rich poor
wide narrow
sleep insomnia
humility vanity

These pairs are called gradable antonyms because they do not represent an either/or relation; the
relation that holds between them is rather a matter of degree. The words can be construed as terms
at the opposite ends of the spectrum or continuum. The more/less relation is evident in a number of
ways: the terms allow comparison and contrast, e.g. ‘My car is more expensive/less expensive than
yours', ‘He prefers a good walk to a good meal'; the adjectives can be modified by ‘intensifying’
adverbs, e.g. very, exceptionally, extremely, exceedingly, extraordinarily, etc.: very cold,
exceptionally comfortable, extremely hot, extraordinarily beautiful. The terms do not represent
absolute values; for the adjectives the value depends on the noun being described; the width of a
rubber band is on a different scale from the width of, say, a road. In such pairs of adjectives, one is
usually a marked term, the other unmarked. This manifests itself, for example, in questions such as
‘How long is the street?' To ask ‘How short is the street?' already assumes that the street has been
identified as short. The use of long does not make an assumption either way. By the same token, old
in ‘How old is Angela?’ does not in any way suggest old age, whereas ‘How young is she?’ would
necessarily imply young age. Also, in giving dimensions, one would use the ‘larger' term, e.g. ‘The
crowd was 10,000 strong’ (not weak).

Category (2) antonyms can be exemplified by the following pairs:

asleep awake
dead alive
on off
permit forbid
remember forget
shut open
true false
win lose

Contradictory or complementary antonyms that these pairs represent constitute an either/or relation
of oppositeness. A person can either remember or forget, an action can either be forbidden or
allowed, a statement can be either true or false and an animate being can be described as either dead
or alive, but not as some grade of these or as being more one than the other. The assertion of one
implies the denial of the other member of the pair: if you lose a contest, then you have not won it;
if a switch is on, then it is not off, and if a person is awake you cannot claim they are asleep. In
addition, in the real world, it is difficult to imagine a middle ground between the extremes presented
by most of the complementary pairs. Another way to think about this is that the antonyms in a
complementary pair do not have a comparative and superlative. For example, nothing is dead-er
than dead or when a kettle is on, it cannot be more or less on.

And finally, group (3) antonyms are represented by the following pairs:

above below
before after
behind in front of
buy sell
give receive
husband wife
parent child
teacher student
employer employee
speak listen

These are normally referred to as converse pairs of antonyms – sometimes called relational pairs –
since for each pair of antonyms, one expresses the converse meaning of the other. In the case of
sentences with buy and sell, for example, the same transaction is expressed from different
(converse) perspectives:
Lydia bought the car from Kirsten ↔ Kirsten sold the car to Lydia.
Similarly, with nouns such as husband and wife, or student and teacher, a sentence may express the
relationship in one of two, converse, ways:
Gabriel is Carlos’ student. Carlos is Gabriel’s teacher.
The same is also true for prepositions like above and below.
The spaghetti is on the shelf above the rice. The rice is on the shelf below the spaghetti.
This situational understanding means that someone or something could end up in multiple pairs
of relationship antonyms. The same person could be child to a parent, student to a teacher, and
employee to an employer.

Co-occurrence of antonyms
In rhetorical speech or writing, one often encounters a juxtaposition of contrasting ideas that are
expressed through antonyms. In such cases antonyms occur together, either within the same
sentence or in adjacent sentences (Fellbaum 1995). One reason is that certain idiomatic expressions
are structured in this way, e.g. a matter of life and death, from start to finish, the long and the short
of it, neither friend nor foe, wanted dead or alive, to search high and low. A second reason is that
antonyms may be employed in rhetorically sophisticated and persuasive piece of speech or writing
to enhance its communicative message. In rhetoric this is called antithesis, a device which brings
out a contrast in the ideas through an obvious contrast in the words, clauses and sentences. The
oppositeness is not so much lexical as it is semantic:

When there is need of silence, you speak, and when there is need of speech, you are dumb; when
present, you wish to be absent, and when absent, you desire to be present; in peace you are for war,
and in war you long for peace; in council you descant on bravery, and in the battle you tremble."

Or another, similar example taken from the Bible:

To everything there is a season,

a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal ...
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to lose and a time to seek;
a time to rend and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

Literature, as is to be expected, is a major source of antonymic kind of rhetoric. The familiar phrase
Man proposes: God disposes is a well-known example of antithesis, as is John Dryden’s famous
description: Too black for heaven, and yet too white for hell. It is hardly surprising that
contemporary literary and media writers consistently resort to antonymic effects to make a
rhetorical flourish, e.g. Is this the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? Besides,
antonymy is often used in ordinary language to simply emphasize a point, e.g. It was a remark
made in private, not in public, or He has utilized the pictorial logic of the photograph to confound
rather than to clarify space. Another context in which antonyms are typically employed is where
reference is to a change of state, e.g. The tour gets underway early in the morning and is not over
until late at night.
We tend to think of antonymy as a relation holding between words belonging to the same word
class, but since antonymy is a semantic relation, it may hold between words that belong to different
word classes. For example, in Lighten our darkness, we pray, a verb and a noun form an antonym
pair. In She remembered to shut the door but left the window open, a verb and an adjective are in a
relation of antonymy.
Another form of semantic opposition is manifest through another stylistic device, oxymoron.
Oxymoron conflates contradictory or incongruous ideas to create a rhetorical effect by paradoxical
means. In oxymoron, oppositeness is usually achieved by combining words belonging to different
word classes that carry opposite meanings: insanely smart, obscenely cute, deeply shallow,
beautifully flawed, affordable luxury, peaceful jihad, genuinely hypocritical etc.

Multiple Antonyms. Contextual Antonyms

One thing to keep in mind about antonymic relations is that some words can have more than one
antonym. Depending on the situation, the antonym of happy could be sad, angry, disappointed, or
disgruntled. And, depending on the context, antonyms of fresh could include clichéd, stale, moldy,
and standard. Straight presents a similar situation: it could be the antonym of crooked, curved, and
deceitful. In the context of homosexuality, on the other hand, straight is the antonym of gay. The
reason for it is that the words we seek to find antonyms for are polysemous. In the case of the
adjective clear, for example, a number of various antonyms can be identified depending on which
of its numerous meanings is articulated. If this lexeme is used in the context of ideas that are easy to
understand, then possible antonyms are ambiguous, confusing, vague. If it is meant to refer to the
weather (clear day; clear skies), the antonyms will be cloudy and possibly overcast. If we talk about
clear memories, the opposite concept will be conveyed through the lexemes indistinct or dim. On
the other hand, the meaning of ‘easy to make out or see through’ calls for the antonymic words
opaque, hazy, and fuzzy. The list can go on and on, given the fact that clear, even by most
conservative estimates, has at least eighteen different meanings (LDCE).
A look at antonymy from a different vantage point – syntagmatic relations – reveals a
correspondence between the opposites that can be and often is more flexible than is evidenced
within paradigms. Use of antonyms in actual speech can also demonstrate quite rigid
correspondences, like in There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you
in places where winning means survival and defeat means death. Lexemes winning and defeat stand
in a relation of direct oppositeness, whereas the relation holding between survival and death is that
of near-oppositeness and is contextual. The contrast between these two words is to be understood in
terms of the logical implications of the entire sentence. Such a relation can be exemplified by an
epigram:
All I ever get from you is grief,
Why can't you give me some relief?
Clearly, the lexemes grief and relief are not antonyms in the narrow sense of the word, but the
context turns them into contrasting concepts. The context enhances a sense of oppositeness and
provides an internal counterpoint through an implied contrast. Contextual antonyms are, therefore,
words that are opposite in meaning only under some specific conditions. The textual fragment that
follows is another vivid illustration of an oppositeness that comes out in certain or limited
situations:
For a season, a gifted speaker can inspire with his words. But for a lifetime, this presidential
candidate has inspired with his deeds.
Season vs. lifetime and words vs. deeds constitute contextual opposites, as the oppositeness is
only actualized in this particular sentence, and not necessarily in any other. Contextual antonymy is
quite common both in speech and in writing by virtue of the fact that when ideas, concepts etc.
stand in opposition to each other, they tend to be more obvious, and, therefore, more salient in
whatever discourse they happen to appear.
Because of this potential, not only have many delightful and succinct phrases, idioms, and even
cliches based on contextual antonymy become an integral part of the language, but also a lot of
creative writing and speech depends on this ad hoc semantic relation. Seen as a vehicle for a pithy
statement and persuasive argument, contextual antonymy is often employed in political speeches,
public debates, sermons, lectures, interviews and the like. Here are a few notable examples of
contextual antonyms taken from a famous speech, I Have a Dream, delivered by
Martin Luther King, Jr. on 28 August 1963:
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand
today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great
beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of
withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later,
the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains
of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty
in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
 Technically, beacon light of hope and flames of withering injustice are not directly opposite.
Nor are a lonely island and a vast ocean. The context of the message, however, in particular the
rigid binary relation between poverty and material prosperity, augments the contrasting ideas
conveyed by the relatively opposite island and ocean. Similarly, the otherwise non-antonymic
lonely and vast, when qualifying island and ocean respectively, end up enhancing the contrast.

TASK 5
Identify and discuss contextual antonyms in further extracts from the same speech
by M.L.King:
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the
dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to
lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now
is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering
summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating
autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat
of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of
freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not
be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain
shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be
made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it
together."

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With
this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful
symphony of brotherhood.

Antonyms, as words marked by a natural or innate and irreconcilable opposition, reflect

cognitive as well as objective relations found outside the language. Oppositeness, therefore,
influences our thinking and communicating to a significant extent, and the widespread use of
antonymy definitively demonstrates it (Jones 2002).

How pervasive is antonymy?

When we say ‘widespread use’, however, we need to specify exactly what we mean, since the
lexeme ‘widespread’ is not an absolute, but relative term. If you look at any dictionary of
synonyms and antonyms, you will find a far greater number of synonyms than antonyms. So for all
the seemingly frequent occurrence of antonyms in language, sameness of meaning seems to be a
more pervasive semantic relation than oppositeness of meaning. Why should this be so?
One reason must be the extraordinary synonym richness of English arising from the blending
of words from different language sources in its vocabulary. A converse reason is that the number of
words and their related concepts that allow an opposite is limited, whereas there is no such
theoretical limitation on the relation of synonymy.
As we noted earlier, the largest group of antonyms are to be found in the adjective word class,
among the gradable adjectives. Pairs of gradable antonyms often occur in binomial phrases where
antonyms are connected by and: blow hot and cold, search high and low, the long and the short of
it, etc. Some adjective antonym pairs belong to the complementary type (dead-alive, open-shut,
singular-plural). Many adjectives, however, are not gradable, e.g. those referring to material
(wooden, plastic, velvet), provenance (African, Qatari), shape (round, square). Some non-gradable
 antonyms can, however, be made gradable in an appropriate context, e.g. She's more English than
you or I (i.e. she behaves in a manner that is more characteristic of English people than you or I do).
Other word classes contain antonym pairs, but to a lesser extent, and only of the
complementary and converse types. Gradable antonyms are found only in the adjective class, or
among adverbs derived from adjectives (slowly – quickly, frequently – rarely, closely – distantly).
The noun class contains some complementary antonym pairs (sloth – diligence, joy – sadness, sleep
– insomnia) and some converse antonym pairs (parent – child, teacher – student, employer –
employee). Similarly, the verb class contains some complementary antonyms (go – stay, float – -
sink, gather – scatter), as well as some converse antonyms (buy – sell, own – belong to). We have
also noted some antonym pairs among prepositions/adverb particles: on – off (complementary),
above – below (converse). But in all word classes other than adjectives, the incidence of antonym
pairs is restricted.

Hyponymy and meronymy

Hyponymic and meronymic relations constitute sense relations that relate words hierarchically.
The underlying observation is that some words have a more general meaning, while others have a
more specific meaning, while referring to the same entity. For example, tree and oak may be used
to refer to the same object, but oak is a more specific designation of the object than is tree. Indeed,
tree may be used to refer to objects that are not oaks, but which share with them the essential
features of 'treeness' (i.e. large plants, with trunk, branches, leaves, etc.). By the same token,
fuselage, wings, landing gear and aircraft come from the same technical sphere of air navigation,
but the difference between them is that only the first three describe parts of a plane.
Both tree and oak and landing gear and aircraft are related to each other by a hierarchical
relation of generality/specificity. However, the two pairs of words illustrate different types of
hierarchical relation. In the case of tree and oak, the relation is a ‘kind of' relation: an oak is a kind
of tree. This is the relation of hyponymy. In the case of landing gear and aircraft, the relation is a
‘part of' relation: a landing gear is part of a plane. This is the relation of meronymy (Cruse 1986).
One can probably begin to appreciate the extent to which these hierarchical relations structure the
vocabulary – hyponymy more so than meronymy – when one considers that these relations reflect
the taxonomies, or classification systems, of the natural sciences, or, indeed, those that we make
informally in talking about the world that we live in and experience. Let us look in a little more
detail at each of these relations.

Hyponymy - the 'kind of' relation

The relation of hyponymy serves to structure large parts of a language's vocabulary. The
organization of a work like Roget's Thesaurus (e.g. Kirkpatrick 1995) suggests that it is perhaps an
all-pervasive structuring relation. It is most evident in the taxonomies of natural phenomena (see
Godman and Payne 1979, McArthur 1981), e.g.
Plant

fungus lichen shrub creeper tree

mushroom toadstool ivy bindweed conifer deciduous

 pine spruce oak ash
This is not by any means a complete taxonomy, or a very accurate one; it is merely to illustrate the
hyponymy relation. The term at the top of the hierarchy (plant) has the most general meaning, and it
can be used to refer to all the objects denoted by terms below it. It is a ‘superordinate’ term. It is
often called a hyperonym. Those immediately below it, the directly ‘subordinate’ terms are its
hyponyms. So tree is a hyponym of plant, but it is in turn a hyperonym / superordinate to conifer,
deciduous and so on.
As is to be understood, hyponymy relations are not restricted to the classification systems of natural
phenomena. They are found elsewhere, like in taxonomies of human artifacts.
It is important to note is that hyponymy hierarchies are not necessarily either complete or neatly
arranged. After all, our vocabulary presumably contains the words that we, as members of a
particular culture or speech community, need in order to communicate with each other about our
environment and our experience. In many instances, we do need words of varying degrees of
generality, so that we can refer to classes and sub-classes of entities; but that does not mean that
they will always form a neat system of terms.

Meronymy - the 'part of' relation

Just as the concern of scientists to classify natural phenomena is reflected in the semantic relation of
hyponymy, so too their concern to analyze phenomena into their parts is reflected in the semantic
relation of meronymy. The ‘part of' relation can similarly be represented by a hierarchy of
superordinate and subordinate (meronym) terms, e.g.
Plant

cap hair petal stamen

Reading from the bottom of the hierarchy, petal and stamen are parts (meronyms) of flower;
flower, root, stem, etc. are parts (meronyms) of plant. The superordinate term is not merely a more
general way of talking about its meronyms, as in the hyponymy relation, though there is a sense in
which the use of a superordinate term includes reference to the meronyms. Flower refers to the
entity in its totality, including its petals, stamen, stalk, and so on; but these are not more specific
kinds of flower, but rather different parts of it that together make up the whole.
Such part/whole relations exist between many words in the vocabulary. Most human artifacts
are made up of parts, which we usually want to label with their own terms. A knife consists of a
blade and a handle. A fountain pen is made up of a cap, a barrel, a nib, a reservoir (for the ink); the
cap is made up of the cap itself and the clip. Most obviously, the meronym relation applies to
entities that have concrete reference. But we also divide more abstract entities into their parts, e.g.
Day
dawn morning afternoon twilight evening night

The terms day and night occur twice in this hierarchy because day refers both to the period of
twenty-four hours and to the part of that period which enjoys daylight; night is in contrast with this
second meaning of day and also refers to the darkest part of it.

It must be noted, however, that although relations of hyponymy and meronymy are undoubtedly
important in the structuring of vocabulary, they do not seem to operate in an altogether systematic
and unequivocal way. What is meant by this is the fact that there are many lexical gaps that are
shown up once we begin to build words into hyponymy and meronymy trees. Another problem that
often arises is that co-hyponyms are not always distinguished on the same basis (function, size,
shape, etc.). When a new word is coined, consideration is hardly given to its place in the structure of
vocabulary – it comes into being because there is a need for it in the language and it fills a certain
real gap, but not because it fills a gap in a classification system.
 MULTIWORD  LEXEMES

Chapter overview

1. Lexeme. Multiword lexemes

2. Varieties of multiword lexemes
3. Multiword verbs
4. Idioms and idiomaticity
5. Semantic characteristics of idioms
6. Syntactic properties of idioms
7. Traditional vs. cognitive view of idioms
Arbitrariness vs compositionality of idioms
8. Variability within idiomatic vocabulary
8.1 Morphosyntactic variation
8.2 Syntactic variation
8.3 Lexical variation
8.4 Semantic variation
8.5 Regional variation
9. Lexical and grammatical valency
10.Collocation, a relation of mutual expectancy
11.Summary
We have previously defined the notion of a lexeme. By way of a reminder, lexemes are “units of
lexical meaning which exist regardless of any inflectional endings they may have or the number of
words they may contain” [Crystal, 2003 : 118]. According to O.Selivanova, the term was first
introduced by O.Pieshkovsky in 1918 [Selivanova, 2006 : 280]. Pieshkovsky, however, defined
‘lexeme’ as a group of associated words, a meaning that is now obsolete (the term “semantic field”
is now used instead). Since then the term has gone through multiple modifications and is now often
understood in line with whatever linguistic school or tradition utilizes it. Within French linguistics,
lexeme has been seen as an abstract unit of the lexicon, as opposed to words, which are construed as
realizations of lexemes in speech. André Martinet, on the other hand, used the notion of lexeme to
make a distinction between a full-fledged word and a morpheme. According to yet another
approach, one taken by Uriel Weinreich, lexemes are held to be any units of the lexicon, including
set expressions and idioms [Weinreich, 1980]. In keeping with Crystal’s definition, a lexeme
corresponds to an entire set of forms that a word can take. In the present book, we treat a lexeme as
a unit of the lexicon – single words or groups of words – whose meaning is held to underlie a series
of related forms, for example, sing, sang, sung, singing, which are assumed to have the same
meaning, “sing”. By the same token, the penny drops, the penny dropped, the penny is dropping,
etc. are all different forms of the same lexeme. Within a lexeme, it is common to differentiate
between the headword and other – derived – forms. Some words, however, like prepositions and
adverbs, have no grammatical variants and are constituted by a single form (at, down, twice). Most
words, on the other hand – nouns, verbs, adjectives – have several forms apart from the headword
(in the lexeme go, for example, go is the base form, while goes, went, gone and going are all
derived forms; the noun brother has forms brothers, brother’s, brothers’) and all of them jointly
constitute a lexeme. As is apparent, a lexeme may be made up of one word – girl, move, fast, five,
up – but it may also consist of more than one word, e.g. damage control, up close, beef up, bear
down on, comfort zone, mission creep, grease sb’s palm, cut to the chase, etc. Since such lexemes
consist of more than one element, we will refer to them, following Weinreich, Jackson, Ze Amvela
and others, as multiword lexemes.   As examples given above suggest, multiword lexemes are what
can be described as a ‘motley crowd’: they are represented by a mixed bag of compounds,
multiword verbs, collocations and idioms. In the present chapter, we will not analyze compounds 15
as they are given enough attention in the chapter on word formation.

VARIETIES OF MULTIWORD LEXEMES

There have been multiple attempts to make sense of multiword lexemes, which some lexicologists
call – excluding compounds and free word combinations – phrasal lexemes [Jackson
Lexicography : 5]. Various attempts have been made to classify them, since these lexemes seem to
have a number of common features. Accordingly, different approaches to their classification have
been proposed, thus giving rise to several different classifications based on various principles.
Because of the enormous structural variety of such lexemes, there is a large number of structural
classifications. Some lexicographers tend to classify them under two general headings – phrase
idioms and clause idioms [Oxford dictionary of idioms : xi] (the term ‘idiom’ is often used
indiscriminately for many types of multiword lexemes). Within these major groupings several
further categories are found. For example, the most commonly occurring patterns within phrase
idioms are noun phrases (red herring), adjective phrases (thin on the ground; few and far between),
prepositional phrases (in the nick of time) and adverbial phrases (anything but). The most common

15
Some linguists treat compounds as minimal idiomatic expressions [Weinreich, 1972; Makkai, 1972]
clause patterns, according to the authors of ODEI16, are verb (V) + complement (go ballistic), V +
direct object (pull one’s punches), V + direct object + complement (paint the town red), V +
indirect object + direct object (give s/b the cold shoulder) etc. Apart from these two groups,
sometimes another category is singled out, and that is expressions that span whole sentences,
sentence idioms. Examples of such sentence-long expressions might be The early bird catches the
worm; If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen; Diamonds
are a girl’s best friend; The buck stops here and many others. As these examples make clear, this
group is a motley collection of items. The first three examples cited will be conventionally
recognized as proverbs or sayings. The others, on the other hand, are referred to as catchphrases.
Catchphrases usually originate with famous people, viz writers, public figures, popular entertainers
etc. The buck stops here, for instance, was ‘popularized’, if not invented, by the US president
Truman. This is just one of many attempts to classify phrasal lexemes according to their structure.
According to another similar attempt – one by Jackson – the entire body of phrasal lexemes can be
divided into several – fairly arbitrary – groups:
(a) A structure that consists of a noun + preposition + noun, e.g. rite of passage, bone of
contention, man about town, meals on wheels, leave of absence, age of consent, etc.
(b) A phrasal structure that is made up of a noun in the possessive followed by another noun,
e.g. lady’s man, collector’s item, hell’s half acre, fool’s paradise, baker’s dozen, nobody’s
fool, athlete’s foot, etc.
(c) A phrasal structure that consists of two words of a similar type (noun, verb, adjective etc.)
joined by the conjunction and. Such structures are typically called binomials. Here are a
few examples of such phrasal lexemes: spick and span, nip and tuck, bells and whistles,
bricks and mortar, wine and dine, (the) straight and narrow, backwards and forwards,
footloose and fancy-free, gloom and doom, name and shame, grin and bear it, hustle and
bustle, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, fire and brimstone etc. It may be reasonable also to
assign to this group similarly structured lexemes joined by the conjunction or: sink or swim,
make or break, like it or lump it, sooner or later, shape up or ship out. Apart from
binomials, this group also includes trinomials, structures that consist of three words of the
same type, e.g. any Tom, Dick or Harry; right, left and center; hook, line and sinker, etc. As
is obvious, a number of these items are used metaphorically: the phrase bells and whistles
has nothing to do with bells and whistles literally, but refers to extra features which are
added to a product (a car, mobile phone, computer software) for show rather than function,
e.g. We want a basic car. Not one with a lot of bells and whistles.
(d) A phrasal lexeme that consists of a verb + adverb (sometimes called a ‘particle’) to form
what is known as a ‘phrasal verb’: look up, pass out, do up, get in, make off, pin down, waste
away, hammer out, ratchet up etc.
(e) Finally, phrasal lexemes that are typically metaphorical or figurative in meaning. They are
what most lexicologists refer to as idioms. Idioms contain a range of structures from a
phrase up to a whole sentence, e.g. a skeleton in the cupboard, get a kick out of s/th, come to
a pretty pass, fall by the wayside, spill the beans, etc. These structures are believed to
possess two essential characteristics: their meaning is more than the meaning of the sum of
their parts, and usually figurative; and they have a relatively fixed structure.   The idiom pick
s/b’s brain(s) has the figurative meaning of “to ask s/b who has a lot of knowledge and
expertise about s/th for information and advice about it”, and there is no possibility of
substituting or adding anything to its structure. In fact, the only substitution possibilities are
appropriate inflections for the verb pick and an appropriate possessive pronoun or noun in
the place of somebody’s. Predictably, idioms show a diversity of form and meaning.
If you consider a range of idioms, you will notice that in some cases, a literal interpretation
is also possible. For example, the mostly British idiom give s/b a leg up is primarily used in
the meaning of “help s/b to succeed”, which is figuratively reinterpreted from the literal
sense of “help s/b to get up to a high place (to mount a horse, for example) by joining hands

16
Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms
 together so they can use them as a step”. The literal use of this expression is also common.
Only the context can reveal whether the literal or the metaphorical, i.e. idiomatic, meaning is
the intended one.
As is easy to see, many groups of phrasal lexemes have been left outside of this classification. For
example,  adjective/participle + noun structures, which are fused in character (wet blanket, cold
turkey), noun + noun combinations (cat bird seat, backseat driver),  adjective + preposition + noun
combinations (thin on the ground, high on the hog), phrasal structures of the type as smooth as a
baby's bottom, ugly as sin, crazy/balmy as a fruitcake, and many other types – this list is far from
exhaustive – are conspicuously absent from it.
There have been other classifications based on structural criteria along similar lines. However,
important as structure is in defining the character of a phrasal lexeme, it does not answer key
questions as to its nature. Idiomaticity 17, as is repeatedly noted by linguists, is largely a semantic
matter, rather than grammatical or lexical. Idiomaticity is manifested in much the same way in
expressions of different structural types and the term ‘idiom’ has been applied without distinction as
to pattern, i.e. irrespective of the structure of the unit [ODEI, 2010 : xi]. Therefore, the structural
principle of classifying phrasal lexemes, although not without considerable value, has limited
potential for grasping the nature of such lexis. On the other hand, approaches that are based on their
meaning are a cornerstone of the modern understanding of phrasal lexemes. This is the case exactly
because they are central to understanding what makes a combination of individual lexemes a fixed
semantic unit, with its meaning seemingly divorced from the current meanings of its components.
There have been many attempts to classify phrasal lexemes according to semantic criteria.
Exceptionally influential – primarily in the Soviet Union – was a classification proposed by
V.V.Vinogradov, a Soviet scholar whose views were tangibly informed by the Swiss linguist
Charles Bally. Vinogradov took the notion of motivation as the reference point of his classification.
Although his interpretation of motivation – the relation between the overall meaning of the phrasal
unit and the individual meanings of its constituent parts – was to be considerably modified by
scholars that came later, especially ones working within the cognitive framework – his classification
still has resonance for many contemporary linguists studying idioms. Vinogradov divided
phraseological units18 into three groups depending on the degree of motivation and semantic
cohesion (here: degree to which elements of a phrasal combination are bound up with each other):
phraseological fusions, phraseological unities and phraseological combinations (collocations).
By phraseological fusions he meant units that are completely non-motivated. The elements of such
lexemes are fused in character. For example, in the idiom blow the gaff, which means “let out a
secret”, the resultant meaning of the idiom has completely obliterated the meanings of the parts that
make it up.
The intermediate group, phraseological unities, comprises items that are partly motivated, as their
meaning can be usually retrieved through the metaphoric meaning of the entire phrasal lexeme.
Most phraseological unities are built on a metaphoric or metonymic image, e.g. pat on the back –
“expression of praise or congratulations” as in The award she received was a nice pat on the back
for her good work; can of worms – “problematic matter, troublesome situation” as in Don’t open up
a can of worms by questioning his qualifications.
Finally, the last category, phraseological combinations, are motivated word groups. Not only are
such lexemes motivated, but they also contain one component that is used in its literal meaning
while the other is used figuratively. The cohesion between the elements within such word
combinations is substantially looser than what has been observed in the previous group. As a result,
a certain degree of substitution is allowable within phraseological combinations. Although such
substitution results in a changed meaning of the whole combination, it does not affect the
metaphorical reading of the figurative element, e.g. bend the truth, bend the law, bend the rule, etc.
Even though this classification has been criticized on the grounds that it makes rather arbitrary
judgments about motivation, figurativeness and cohesion of elements within phraseological units,
its focus on motivatedness of word-combinations continues to be the approach taken by many

17
A more in-depth discussion of idiomaticity follows shortly
18
‘Phraseological unit’ is a term used in Soviet, Russian and often Ukrainian lexicology to refer to what we call ‘phrasal
lexemes’ in the present book
contemporary researchers of idiomaticity. The reason for it is that motivated and non-motivated
multiword lexemes are not water-tight categories, i.e. the distinction between idioms and non-
idioms is not clear-cut. If that is the case, it will be more logical to think of these categories as
shading off into each other along a cline or continuum. That is exactly the approach taken by
A.P.Cowie and the compilers of the Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms. Their view of
idiomaticity – not as dissimilar to Vinogradov’s classification as one might imagine – recognizes
that the meaning of a combination may be related to those of its components in a variety of ways.
At the same time, it also takes account of the possibility of internal variation, or substitution of part
for part. The application of these two criteria has produced the following categorization:
(1) Pure idioms. This type of non-motivated phrasal lexemes – idioms in the strict sense of the
word – is limited to the type illustrated by kick the bucket, blow the gaff or trip the light
fantastic (meaning “to dance”). Expressions in this group account for probably the smallest
number of items. According to Cowie, pure idioms form the end-point of a process by which
word-combinations first establish themselves through constant re-use, then undergo
figurative extension and finally ‘petrify’ [Introduction, 2010 : xii].
(2) Figurative idioms. These expressions have a figurative overall meaning and also keep a
current literal meaning. A vivid example of this category is the idiom close ranks. Literally
it is used with reference to soldiers, who, if they close ranks, stand closer together. On the
other hand, the figurative reading of this idiom yields the meaning of “joining together to
protect each other, especially because your group, organization etc. is being criticized”.
Earlier on in the chapter, we have discussed word-combinations bells and whistles and give
s/b a leg up. These expressions are idiomatic in the sense that variation within such units is
seldom found. For example, one can’t replace up in the expression give s/b a leg up with
down. This is not to suggest that variation is not possible at all: the expression a skeleton in
the cupboard can be alternatively used alongside a skeleton in the closet.

(3) Restricted collocations. In such combinations, sometimes referred to as ‘semi-idioms’, one

word (i.e. in the case of two-word expressions) has a figurative sense not found outside that
limited context. The other element appears in a familiar, literal sense: a foregone conclusion,
a blind alley, jog s/b’s memory, checkered career etc. Some members of this group allow a
degree of lexical variation (apart from checkered career, we can talk about checkered past
or checkered history), and in this respect restricted collocations resemble the next group.
(4) Open collocations. These word combinations are most sharply and easily distinguished
from idioms in the strict sense. They can also be referred to as ‘loose’ or ‘free’ collocations.
These terms suggest that elements in such combinations are freely recombinable, as, for
example, in set / give / follow an example or a good / vivid / telling/ notable/ prime example.
It must be noted that in open collocations, each element is used in a common literal sense
[Ibid.].
The continuum or cline that these four categories represent can be roughly presented like this:

Pure idioms Figurative Restricted Open collocations

idioms collocations

Idiomaticity continuum

On the left of the cline, we observe the ultimate degree of idiomaticity or complete opaqueness. As
we move to the right, the opacity of phrasal lexemes diminishes and they become more transparent,
until, on the far end of the spectrum, we find the highest degree of transparency: free word
combinations. The idea of ‘gradualism’, i.e. degrees of motivation, that is demonstrated in the
syntactic deficiencies and freedom of lexical substitution, goes back to Dwight Bolinger, who
argued that idioms, in effect, shade into collocations, and collocations into free constructions, in
both compositionality and productivity [Bolinger, 1975].
In our treatment of multiword lexemes, we take a similar, albeit somewhat looser approach. We will
consider separately and at length idioms and collocations. Apart from these two groups, different
varieties of multiword verbs will be discussed, a category that is marked with a considerable
degree of idiomaticity.

TASK 1
Decide which of the italicized multiword lexemes are used in a literal sense or
idiomatically:
1. I wonder why she always wears jewelry that jumps out at you.
2. You've done some pretty stupid things, but that really takes the cake!
3. I am too short; I think you’ll have to give me a leg-up.
4. They had to jump through hoops to get their visas in time.
5. I saw that he needed help so I gave him a leg-up with his homework.
6. She’s waiting for her doctor to give her the green light to play in the finals.
7. When he got to first base, the crowd started cheering.
8. The two boys put on masks and jumped out at their victim.
9. He struck pay dirt with his second novel, which quickly became a best seller.
10. The President has enough on his plate at the moment, especially with
inflation and everything.

MULTIWORD VERBS

By “multiword verbs”, most people tend to understand what has come to be known as phrasal verbs.
This, however, is only partly justified. Indeed, in multiword verbs, the verb and one or two other
constituents can be analyzed together, as a single unit. On the other hand, the group of multiword
verbs comprises not one, but rather several types of verb structures. Following many Western
researchers [Quirk et al., 1985 : 1150], we will make a distinction between phrasal verbs,
prepositional verbs and phrasal-prepositional verbs. The criteria used to demarcate these three
types are: transitivity (a property of verbs that determines whether they can take direct objects:
stand vs. throw→ a ball) and the position of the direct object, on the one hand, and the number of
particles that the main verb can take, on the other.
 Prepositional verbs are all transitive, and as such, are always followed by an object: cater
for/to (all tastes), account for (differences), bear on (the national policies) etc. What sets this
group of multiword verbs apart from phrasal verbs, for example, is that the object never
goes between the verb and the particle: cater all tastes for/to(?) would be ungrammatical.
 Phrasal verbs can be both transitive (drop the kids off and pick them up from school) and
intransitive (bear up: I wonder how he is bearing up after what has happened; go down:
How did your speech go down?). Transitive phrasal verbs, as opposed to the previous group
– prepositional verbs – are characterized by the fact that the object may take two alternative
positions: either following the particle (There’s little that bears out this idea) – or going in
between the verb and the particle (to bear it out). It must be borne in mind that the object
expressed by a personal pronoun is constrained with regard to its position as it can only
occupy the middle spot between the verb and the particle: bring her up, pull it off, put you
out, but not bring up her (?).
 Phrasal-prepositional verbs occupy a middle ground between the two previous subgroups.
Their most distinctive feature is that they have two particles (get away with murder, catch up
on the news, fall down on one’s job, be in on the plan). Besides, like prepositional and some
phrasal verbs, phrasal-prepositional verbs are transitive.
It has to be noted that all these verbs vary in the extent to which the combination preserves the
individual meanings of verb and particle. This means that they vary in the degree of transparency
(or opaqueness) of the meanings of these forms. If we consider prepositional verbs like ask for or
complain about, the meanings of these verbs are easily derivable from the meanings of their
constituents. Conversely, cases like come by, e.g. Money is not easy to come by (Ukr. «роздобути;
дістати») or fall for, e.g. How could you fall for a trick like that? should best be treated as idiomatic
expressions, since their meanings cannot be easily deduced from the meanings of their constituent
elements. Incidentally, the possible Ukrainian equivalents for fall for s/th, which, among other
possibilities,  are «повірити», «попастися», «купитися», «повестися», «клюнути» also show
differing degrees of figurativeness (not to mention differing degrees of (in)formality).
The meanings of phrasal verbs demonstrate a similar continuum. Intransitive phrasal verbs are made
up of the main verb followed by a particle. In most cases, particles are adverbials of place. As a
rule, the particle cannot be placed separately from the verb.  This means that saying I am paid
already (?) up would be ungrammatical. Having said that, particles referring to directions can be
modified by intensifiers, e.g. get right down (to business), run straight out, take right off, move way
up, etc. It should be noted that some of these phrasal verbs have a literal or near-literal meaning,
others are more or less figurative. For example, in one of its meanings, take off is literal (e.g.
referring to aircraft leaving the ground), in others it is figurative: one in the sense of “imitate” as in
He always takes off his boss, another in the sense of “achieve success”, e.g. At the time, this literary
movement was only beginning to take off, etc.
Similarly, just as with the previous group of words, there is a great deal of variation in the extent to
which phrasal verbs preserve the individual meanings of the verb and the particle. In some cases the
meanings of the phrasal verbs can be derived from the parts making them up. In others, there is little
probability that their meanings will be easily arrived at. Verbs like make out (in the sense of
“understand”), shoot up (meaning “take drugs using a needle”), turn up (“appear”) are all cases in
point.
Finally, much of the above is true of phrasal-prepositional verbs. Like the previous two subgroups
of multiword verbs, some phrasal-prepositional verbs are more idiomatic than others, and their
meanings are less easily guessed at. Some of them, like shy away from or follow up with, are
understood effortlessly from their individual elements, as the resultant meanings are merely
extensions of the meanings of the verbs constituting them. This may also be the case for verbs in
their literal and figurative senses. Stand up for, come up to, run away with (in the sense of “to win
easily”) and others may well have a figurative meaning, but it is not at all difficult to derive their
meanings from their constituents. At the same time, there are others which are fused combinations
and it is often difficult, if not impossible, to work out the meaning of the multiword verb from that
of its constituents. Put up with is a case in point. This multiword verb means “tolerate” as in I can’t
put up with people shouting at others, but it can also be used in the sense of “stay”, in which case
put up is used on its own, without with: You can put up at a hotel for the night.

TASK 2
Decide which of the three – phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs or phrasal-
prepositional verbs – are found in sentences below:
1. Who do you think put her up to that idea?
2. It is on the cards that the Prime Minister will step down.
3. Unhappy young people will often strike out at the people closest to them.
4. One should always allow for the possibility that the weather may change.
5. I am not going to sit around watching people go down like ninepins.
6. Nobody predicted that he would walk away with a $50 million award.
7. The same, by the way, goes for the other two of you.
8. The government is not ruling out the possibility of military intervention.
9. I came away with the impression that the company was very well run.
10. I am counting on you; please don’t let me down.

IDIOMS AND IDIOMATICITY

 It has long been recognized that expressions such as down for the count, bring home the
bacon, think outside the box, pay lip service, red tape etc. are not only structurally irregular but also
semantically peculiar. They are conventionally referred to as idioms. According to a traditional
definition of an idiom, the latter is an expression whose overall meaning cannot be inferred from the
meanings of the components that make it up. Here are just a few of some other definitions that have
been proposed:
“… groups of words with set meanings that cannot be calculated by adding up the separate
meanings of the parts” [Bolinger 1975 : 100];
“… multi-word unit(s) which (have) to be learned as a whole, along with associated
sociolinguistic, cultural and pragmatic rules of use” [Alexander, 1978 : 178];
“… having meaning not deducible from those of the separate words” [Sykes, 1982];
“a form of expression, construction or phrase peculiar to a language and often possessing a
meaning other than its grammatical or logical one” [Cuddon, 1999: 412]
These are all somewhat broad and general definitions and in spite of the increasing number
of studies on idioms, scholars have not been able to answer definitively what constitutes an idiom.
Neither have they been able to agree on many other issues related to idioms. What, however,
everyone recognizes is that any definition of an idiom will contain three elements: (a) idioms
consist of more than one word; (b) idioms are fixed collocations (i.e. word combinations); (c)
idioms are semantically opaque [Wallace, 1982 : 118].

Furthermore, one has to distinguish idioms from idiomaticity. Weinreich defines idiomaticity as “a
phenomenon which may be described as the use of segmentally complex expressions whose
semantic structure is not deducible jointly from their syntactic structure and the semantic structure
of their components” [Weinreich, 1972 : 89]. Some scholars argue that idioms and idiomaticity are
not identical despite their close relation. All idioms naturally indicate idiomaticity but not all word
combinations that show idiomaticity are idioms. Thus, such word combinations as a vivid example,
richly deserve or telltale signs clearly indicate idiomaticity (esp. the last one of the three), but are
not idioms, since they are quite unrestricted in their variants. By contrast, the components of idioms
cannot be changed or, even if they can, this can happen only within certain limits. Idiomaticity is
believed to be pervasive in language, it is “present and seen or felt everywhere” [Hocket,
1958 :172].

As we have made clear, in many cases it is hardly possible to predict the meanings of the
idioms on the basis of the meanings of their constituents. For example, when we say He had to deal
with a lot of red tape in that country, we do not mean that he literally encountered a lot of long red-
colored pieces of plastic or cloth (not to mention that even if one were to arrive at a meaning like
this, they would have to discard it right away as it does not make sense by virtue of the fact that it is
at odds with how we perceive the world). What we in fact mean by this sentence is that he had to
grapple with unnecessarily complicated bureaucratic procedures. Likewise, when we hear someone
say When she changed her testimony, she actually pulled the rug from under her defense attorney’s
argument, we are unlikely to understand this to imply that she literally pulled a carpet from under
her defense counsel’s feet. Instead, without much difficulty we will recognize its true meaning, and
that is ‘suddenly unsettling or upsetting someone by taking away something that they were
depending on’. Some other examples of idiom are put one’s best foot forward, at cross purposes, at
the back of beyond, not to have a leg to stand on, pull no punches, jump on the bandwagon, hit the
nail on the head, come up short, a shot in the arm, swallow something hook, line and sinker, come
out of the closet, etc.
From the examples cited above, it is fairly apparent that many idioms are recognized as
‘dead’ or ‘frozen’ metaphors. For example, swallow s/th hook, line and sinker originated from a
fishing idiom, which referred to a (big) fish swallowing the baited hook and then the entire line and
sinker (lead weight). It is easy to see how this image gave rise to another meaning, i.e believing or
accepting a lie completely, through a metaphorical reinterpretation as in:  He told her a rather
suspicious story of having been invited by her father, and she seemed to swallow it hook, line and
sinker. When a metaphor-based idiom comes into use, its metaphoric image is novel and obvious,
and is initially perceived as such. But very soon, when such idioms are established as fixed lexical
items, dead or frozen metaphors tend to lose their vivid character and, as a result, speakers lose
sight of the idiom’s origin and no longer appreciate the metaphor behind it.  Whether this is the case
varies from idiom to idiom, and transparency of the original metaphoric image can range anywhere
from complete opaqueness to full transparency. For instance, the metaphorical background of the
oft-cited kick the bucket is not readily apparent to most English speakers and is even disputed by
some scholars. Conversely, the metaphors behind the idioms come apart at the seams, upset the
apple-cart, stir up a hornets’ nest, ruffle s/b’s feathers and many others that A.P. Cowie assigns to
the second category in his classification 19 are immediately identifiable, which also contributes to the
meanings of the idioms being easily deduced. If motivation within idioms is high, they
consequently display a lower degree of idiomaticity.   
                                                                      
SEMANTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF IDIOMS

Semantic peculiarities of multiword lexemes have a high relevance in highlighting the

difference between idiomatic expressions and free word combinations. We shall, therefore, turn to a
discussion of the semantic ‘profile’ of idioms and address the principal semantic criteria that set
idioms apart from free word-groups.
a. A hallmark of idioms, according to the traditional view, is their semantic non-
compositionality. The meaning in idioms is a result of the mutual interaction of constituent
elements and expresses a single concept. By way of illustration, deliver the goods with the
meanings of individual components weakened or lost, conveys a single idea: “to honor one’s
pledge; to keep a promise”. The meaning here resides in the entire idiom rather than in that of the
individual constituents. By contrast, the lexical meaning of a free word combination, e.g. deliver a
parcel, may be described as the cumulative meaning of the elements constituting it: deliver and
parcel. As is obvious, each element in a free phrase has a much greater semantic independence and
stands for a separate concept. Every word in a free word combination can form additional syntactic
ties with other words outside the expression, retaining its individual meaning as it does so.  This
kind of semantic unity makes idioms similar to words. The semantic similarity between the two is
manifest in the fact that the meanings of idiomatic expressions can be paraphrased and conveyed by
a single word. For example, buy the farm, a slang idiomatic expression whose meaning is
understood in its entirety and is not related to the meanings of the individual words, can be replaced
in some contexts by the single-word verb die. In the same fashion, the phrasal lexeme up for grabs
can be reinterpreted through the adjective available.
b. Metaphoricity of idioms, which is regarded as their most essential feature. The non-literal
character of idioms accounts for their semantic opacity, or in other words, a lack of transparency.
Metaphoricity suggests that the actual meaning of idioms is figurative (we also use the term
“transferred”) and it stands in opposition to the literal meaning of a free word combination. The
transference can be based on metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche.
It is worth pointing out that the degree of transference varies considerably and may affect the
entire unit or just one of its constituents. For example, idiomatic expressions a wild goose chase or
die on the vine exemplify a metaphoric transfer of all the components, whereas phrasal lexemes
dead on one’s feet, meaning “tired” or the wee hours, meaning “early hours of the morning”,
constitute partial transference, i.e. the elements feet and hours have retained their literal reading.
c. Idioms are seen as conventionalized expressions. By the conventionalization of idioms we
mean that over time many literal expressions have been re-used so many times in specific language
situations that they have become conventionalized, idiomatic, and fixed in their meaning.
Conventionalization is the end result of what initially was a free word combination, or in Makkai’s
description, an “ad hoc expression” [Makkai 1972 :122]. The current meaning of idioms is what we,
as members of a social community, take it to mean; it is the meaning that is established by
convention.
d. Many, if not most, idioms have the potential for ambiguity. Since most idioms are
constructed from elements that are also used non-idiomatically, they may have either a literal or
19
This classification is discussed earlier in the chapter
idiomatic interpretation. This is the source of the ambiguity of many idiomatic expressions,
especially those with metaphorical origins. If, by way of example, someone blows the whistle, it
may well be the case that they produce a high whistling sound with the help of a small object that is
expressly used for that purpose. This is often performed, for example, by a football referee when he
sees foul play on the pitch. This is a literal interpretation of the idiom. On the other hand, by
blowing the whistle on someone, whoever does it may be trying to expose or make public something
wrong that somebody has done, which constitutes the idiomatic meaning of the expression.
Similarly, the already cited above expression pull the rug from under somebody can be easily put in
the context of children playing and engaged in some mischief. At the same time, the expression can
be just as easily construed as ‘suddenly unsettling or upsetting someone’. The number of idioms
that have potential for ambiguity is enormous. However, the linguistic reality is such that in
everyday communication most potentially ambiguous situations that stem from idiom use are
defused. Abdullah and Jackson believe that once a reader or hearer realizes that a given expression
is an idiom, even if they are not sure of its exact meaning, they will automatically discard the literal
meaning of the expression and try to deduce its idiomatic meaning [Abdullah, Jackson, 1999]. This
arguably raises the question of the role of context in interpreting, comprehending and translating
idioms. It is very often impossible to infer the meaning of a phrase until it is seen in its immediate
context. Context is essential for the interpretation of literal language, as even literal expressions can
lead to misinformation and confusion on the part of the listener or reader if they are outside their
natural context. In the case of idioms, however, context seems doubly important. Let us consider,
for example, the idiom red tape, which was already given some attention above. Taken out of
context, it can have the literal meaning of a “tape which is red”. Considering it in an article from
The Independent, however, which reads: EU announces a 'bonfire of the red tape', it takes little
effort to conclude that it should be interpreted as “(unnecessary) bureaucratic rules and paperwork”.
The context in which the idiom occurs, therefore, plays a crucial role in the elimination of a
potential ambiguity.
e. An important, if not obligatory, characteristic of idiomatic expressions is the presence of a
cultural component in their semantic structure.  This component plays a special role in the
emergence of an idiomatic unit and the formation of its semantic structure. Idioms are firmly
embedded in cultural tradition, which marks them as bearers of cultural information, based on a
unique experience of the nation.  Many of the idioms are closely associated with the historical /
cultural context from which they originate. For example, the idiom mind one’s p’s and q’s
originates from the early pub days,  when beer and ale were served in pint and quart containers. The
tab was kept on a chalkboard used to count the pints and quarts that the customer consumed. So
minding your p’s and q’s means watching your alcoholic intake and, consequently, controlling your
behavior. As is obvious, the origin of the idiom is inextricably bound up with Britain’s historical
context and, incidentally, dates from the Roman period. The idiom, therefore, bears the stamp of the
country’s historical and cultural development. Likewise, the American idiom jump on the
bandwagon goes back to the old-time political campaigns, when candidates would attempt to gain
supporters with a small parade that included a band. If the campaign became successful, other
politicians would try to join in by jumping on the bandwagon in the hope of being associated with
the campaign. Since the idiom implied that people sought to join something only because it was
successful, jumping on the bandwagon is imbued with derogatory connotations. Some scholars
believe that of all the possible types of knowledge relevant to figurative language, so-called
"cultural knowledge" seems to be crucial.
f. Idioms may enter into the same kinds of semantic relations as individual words. It has been
shown that words may stand in certain sense relations: homonymy, synonymy, polysemy and
antonymy. The same is assumed to apply to idioms: they may be seen as standing in the same
relations. For example, idioms pie in the sky, pipe dream, and castle in the air may be viewed as
synonymous and referring generally to unrealistic hopes and/or wishful thinking. Restricted
collocations a saving grace and a redeeming feature (meaning “a property or characteristic which
(partly) makes up for one’s other faults or shortcomings”) or idiomatic expressions cheap as dirt, a
dime a dozen, two for a penny are another two examples of synonymic relations. Synonymy is
particularly common between idiomatic expressions from different registers and stylistic layers, as,
for example, between the neutral roll out the red carpet or give s/one the red-carpet treatment and
the very informal put out the welcome mat for s/one. Besides, many idioms, just like individual
words, may have more than one meaning. An example of a polysemous idiom is the expression on
the spot, as it can mean (1) here and now; immediately, as in They say they’ll shoot him on the spot
if they see him; (2) in the place where something is happening: We ought to find out the views of the
people on the spot; (3) in an embarrassing or difficult situation, under pressure: The water
commissioner was on the spot during the drought. Polysemy, just like synonymy, is particularly
evident across registers and styles. In the sentence This phone may keep you up at night, since it is
lit up like a Christmas tree, the underlined idiom means ‘very bright’. In slang vocabulary,
however, this same idiom is often used in the sense ‘very drunk’, as in the sentence: He stumbled in
at two in the morning lit up like a Christmas tree. As regards a relation of antonymy, expressions by
accident and by design/on purpose (E.g. You might cut yourself by accident; you wouldn’t cut
yourself on purpose; Nobody will ever know whether this happened by accident or by design) may
serve as good examples. For further illustration, a relation of oppositeness also holds between go up
in the world vs. come down in the world. It should be borne in mind, however, that most
semantically opposite idioms are characterized by relative oppositeness, which means that they may
differ in shades of meaning, connotations, stylistic coloring etc., e.g. a stone’s throw away vs. in the
middle of nowhere or in the back of beyond. While a place that is a stone’s throw away simply
means that it is close, the expression in the back of beyond, in addition to the sense of remoteness,
connotes inaccessibility and may even imply a provincial or unsophisticated character of the place.
As will be seen further on, non-compositionality, or arbitrariness, as a property of idioms is part of
their ‘nature’ only in accordance with the traditional understanding of these lexical units. The more
recent, i.e. cognitive studies of idiomatic expressions, take the view that there is clearly motivation
behind the occurrence of particular words that participate in a large number of idioms.

TASK 3
Each sentence below contains an idiom which has a synonym in another sentence.
Identify these synonymic idioms.

(1) He finally bit the bullet and left.

(2) One is cautious in the future if they have been hurt in the past: The burnt
child dreads the fire.
(3) He lost his house, his car, his investments – the whole shooting match.
(4) Having no swimming gear, they decided to swim in the raw.
(5) She was completely taken in by his sob story.
(6) I was more than disconcerted when somebody walked in and found me in
my birthday suit.
(7) To everybody’s surprise, she grasped the nettle and told them how she felt.
(8) What a dummy! He swallowed that crazy story hook, line and sinker.
(9) The last time he ate fish, he nearly choked. He’s stopped eating fish
altogether – once bitten twice shy.
(10) I want the big hard drive, the enhanced keyboard, the wi-fi – the whole
kit and caboodle.

SYNTACTIC PROPERTIES OF IDIOMS

If we compare words, free word combinations and idioms from the point of view of their structural
integrity (cf. Ukr. «цілісність форми»), we will find that words will end up on one end of the
spectrum and free word combinations on the other. Idioms will be somewhere in between. Let us
illustrate this with parallel examples of a word and free word combination, e.g. shareholder and
holder of shares, which mean, to all intents and purposes, the same thing: someone who owns or
controls shares. The word is structurally integral in that it has a common grammatical form for all of
its constituent elements. The grammatical change in the word shareholder implies that an inflection
that is added to it refers to both components – share- and -holder – simultaneously. By contrast,
each element of the word-group holder of shares can change its grammatical form independently of
the other. As a result, we can have holder of a share, holder of shares, holders of shares, holders of
a share. Idioms, on the other hand, are characterized by a high degree of structural integrity.
Following Cruse, we hold a view that all idioms are elementary lexical units: although they consist
of more than one word, they display to some extent the sort of internal cohesion that we typically
expect of single words [Cruse, 1986:38]. At the same time, unlike words, they can be subject to
occasional grammatical changes. These changes, however, are rather few, limited and usually
restricted to uses where the focus is on rhetorical effects, a stylistic flourish, or jocular tone. For
example, one can conceive of contexts in which Bloody Mary, which means “an alcoholic drink
made from vodka, tomato juice, and spices”, can acquire idiosyncratic grammatical forms like the
Bloodiest Mary (as in How to Make the Bloodiest Mary?), Bloody Marys (to order another two
Bloody Marys).
We will now consider in a little more depth some of the other syntactic peculiarities of idioms that
stand them in opposition to (primarily) free word combinations.
Idioms reveal syntactic properties that impose a number of restrictions on how they are used, i.e.
(1) they typically resist interruption;
(2) it is generally not possible to re-order them;
(3) as a general rule, in an idiomatic expression none of the words may be freely replaced by a
synonym,;
(4) they do not normally allow the use of the corresponding passive alternative;
(5) they typically resist changes in the grammatical parameters of their constituents (e.g. the
number in nouns, degrees of comparison for adjectives etc.) [Ibid.].
This means that idioms are subject to certain syntactic limitations. Just like with words, which are
considered uninterruptible units, it is generally not possible to add extra words to idioms and keep
their idiomatic interpretation. For instance, saying to pull someone’s left leg instead of the standard
to pull someone’s leg ruins the idiom and transforms it into a free word combination. Similarly,
modifying the idiom to kick the bucket (“to die”) by adding an adjective as, for example, in to kick
the large bucket, results in the disintegration of the idiom and, as a consequence, the expression is
interpreted as a loose word combination. The reason to pull someone’s left leg and to kick the large
bucket have no normal idiomatic interpretation, i.e. they lose their idiomatic character, is because
the nouns leg and bucket carry no meaning within these respective idioms. So if these words have
no meaning of their own, there is nothing for left and large to modify.
The same is true of re-ordering. If we use the above idioms in the sentences What Jack pulled was
his sister’s leg (?) and It is the bucket that her uncle kicked (?), it will be obvious that the re-
ordering of constituents leaves the sentences with no idiomatic reading.
With regard to a replacement of a constituent within an idiom by a synonymous word or group of
words, idioms generally resist that as well. As with the previous processes that compromise the
integrity of idioms, substituting basin for bucket and arm for leg (kick the basin (?) and pull
someone’s arm (?) respectively) will undermine the idiomatic status of these idioms. Similarly, in
wash one’s dirty linen in public, linen cannot be replaced by shirts, nor can thought be replaced by
idea in have second thoughts. This is, of course, not to say that there exists no variation within
idioms: wash one’s dirty linen is used alongside its alternative variants wash one’s dirty laundry
and air one’s dirty laundry, which are more common in American English. Variation, in fact, is
commonplace among idioms. When we talk about substitution of elements in idioms, it is arbitrary
substitution that there exist clear constraints on.
As regards changing idiomatic expressions to passive forms, idioms, for the most part, resist this
transformation as well. Only the literal counterpart of the idiom kick the bucket has a passive
variant, viz.  The bucket was kicked by Sheila.   Similarly, an attempt to transform He finally bit the
bullet and quit his job won’t yield any satisfactory result, since the bullet was bitten (?) makes no
sense literally, let alone idiomatically.
Finally, idioms are generally noted for a rigidity of the grammatical characteristics of their
constituents. For example, it is not possible to change the number of the noun in the idiom to keep
up with the Joneses to singular. Nor can daisies be replaced by its singular counterpart in push up
the daisies (slang), which means “to die”. Pushing up the daisy (?) is nonsensical and, therefore,
unacceptable. Possessive case nouns cannot be replaced by nouns in the nominative case, as, for
example, in straight from the horse’s mouth. In a similar fashion, best cannot be supplanted by good
or better in idiomatic expressions best man and one’s best bib and tucker.
Lastly, it is assumed to be self-evident that none of the words in an idiomatic expression may
normally be omitted. So *turn a new leaf, and *wide of mark are unacceptable because essential
elements (over and the respectively) have been omitted. Only turn over a new leaf and wide of the
mark have the intended idiomatic reading.

TRADITIONAL VS. COGNITIVE VIEW OF IDIOMS

ARBITRARINESS VS. COMPOSITIONALITY OF IDIOMS

It will probably be safe to say that not many problems in lexicology and linguistics in general have
generated as much debate as that of the arbitrariness or non-compositionality and compositionality
of idiomatic expressions. Whether linguistic signs are arbitrary or non-arbitrary (compositional) has
baffled linguists on other levels as well – on that of a word, for example – but idioms seem
particularly pertinent to the discussion. The dichotomy between the two seems to lie along the
divide between two different schools of thought: traditional vs. cognitive.
According to the traditional view of idioms, they are regarded as a special subset of the lexicon, as
an idiosyncratic part of the larger category of words. The assumption is that they are a matter of
language alone, which means that they are held to be items of the lexicon independent of any
conceptual system. In keeping with the traditional view, all there is to idioms is that they possess
certain syntactic properies and have a meaning that is special, relative to the meanings of the forms
making them up. Another defining characteristic of this approach is that idioms are seen as
independent of each other, a view that follows directly from the previous observation that idioms
are just a matter of language. If this is the case and idiomatic expressions are indeed only a matter
of languge, then we just need to characterize them – in exactly the same way as we approach words
– one by one according to their syntactic properties and meaning and in isolation from each other at
the conceptual level. The most important ingredient of the traditional view is that there is no link
between the form and the meaning of an idiom, i.e. the pairing between its components and its
meaning is an arbitrary one, lacking all motivation.
As opposed to this view, the cognitive approaches to idioms regard them as products of our
conceptual system and not simply as a matter of language, i.e. a matter of the lexicon. Contrary to
much of early research on idioms, George Lakoff and other cognitive linguists have demonstrated
that the meanings of idioms are not arbitrary, but in fact motivated. To see the difference between
the traditional view and cognitive, let us consider the following examples that involve idioms
revolving around one concept, FIRE:

She was doing a slow burn.

Your son will hit the ceiling when he hears that: he has a short fuse.
When opposed, contradicted or challenged, he could breathe fire.
Relations between them have almost reached boiling point.
After the row, she was spitting fire.
They really need to let off steam.
He blew a fuse when he saw a dent in his car.
Jim was really hot under the collar when he found out.
He is angry as it is: why are you fanning the flames?
Boy, am I burned up!

It is obvious from this set of examples that anger (angry state, furious condition etc.) is
conceptualized as fire, i.e. understood in terms of fire. Here we have idioms that are related to
various aspects of the phenomenon of fire and deal with (high) temperature (hot under the collar),
what fire results in (boiling point), the danger it presents (spit fire, breathe fire) etc. As the
examples suggest, in addition to the word fire itself, several other words are used from the domain
of fire, such as burn, hot, fan the flames etc. These and many other examples suggest that it is the
concept and the conceptual domain of fire – and not the individual words themselves – that take
part in generating ideas that stand behind idiomatic expressions. The individual words only reveal
this deeper process of conceptualization [Kӧvecses, 2002 : 201].

TASK 4
In the sentences below, the metaphor of ‘fire’ is used to talk about the concepts
ENTHUSIASM, ENERGY, LOVE, and CONFLICT. Group the sentences
according to the concept they describe:

(1) His performance is good, but not good enough to set the world on fire.
(2) The home team is always hard to beat, especially if it is really firing on all
cylinders.
(3) Don’t be such a wet blanket.
(4) The move only fanned the flames of the disagreement.
(5) It was a minor squabble till Lizzie added fuel to the flames.
(6) You are playing with fire if you don’t pay your debts in time.
(7) She carries a torch for him.
(8) The killing sparked off the violence.
(9) Don’t burn the candle at both ends.
(10)The team played so well that the crowd caught fire.

By way of summary, idioms consist of two or more words and their overall meanings are not
predictable from the meanings of the components. According to the traditional view of idioms,
idiomatic meaning is essentially arbitrary. The cognitive linguistic view of idioms is similar to
traditional thinking in that the meanings of idioms are not entirely predictable. Where these two
approaches diverge, however, is over the question of motivation. As opposed to the traditional view,
the cognitive approach insists that a large part of an idiom’s meaning is motivated [Kӧvecses,
2002 : 210]. The three cognitive mechanisms that are responsible for making the idiomatic meaning
motivated are (1) metaphor, (2) metonymy and (3) conventional knowledge (the knowledge of the
world) [Ibid.].
Given this conclusion, another claim is also true: many, if not most, idioms are products of our
conceptual system rather than simply a matter of language. This means that they do not just amount
to the question of the lexicon. They arise from our more general knowledge of the world, which, in
its turn, is embodied in our conceptual system. So assuming that idioms exploit our knowledge of
the world – the knowledge that is already there – we can rely on this knowledge to make sense of
idiomatic meaning.

TASK 5
Identify the specific metaphors or metonymies that underlie the following idiomatic
slang or informal expressions:
(a) roll out the red carpet (“give special treatment to an important visitor”);
(b) throw a monkey wrench in the works (“do s/th that will cause problems or
spoil s/one’s plans”);
(c) take s/th lying down (“accept s/th negative without defending oneself”);
(d) get cold feet (“become frightened”);
(e) put s/th on the back burner (“to delay doing s/th until a later time”);
(f) leave s/one holding the bag (“leave s/one to suffer all the consequences or
blame”);
(g) hate s/one’s guts (“hate s/one intensely”);
(h) bend over backwards (“put out great effort”);
(i) shot in the arm (“s/th that gives new energy or enthusiasm”).
 TASK 6
The sentences below contain idioms related to the heart. Identify what cognitive
mechanisms (metaphors, metonymies, conventional knowledge) are at work in
these idiomatic expressions.
(a) Would you agree to marry him? – In a heartbeat.
(b) The team seems just a heartbeat away from another victory.
(c) You shouldn’t take things like that to heart.
(d) In that respect, Gerry is really a man after my own heart.
(e) When he heard the news, his heart was in his boots.
(f) Lisa has set her heart on getting a pet monkey.
(g) Actors have to learn their lines by heart.
(h) At his parties, you can eat and drink to your heart’s content.
(i) Our hearts go out to all those waiting for the news of their loved ones.

VARIABILITY WITHIN IDIOMATIC VOCABULARY

It is assumed that the capacity for variation is the integral property of the functioning
language. Without variation, language change and development are inconceivable. So in the present
book, we proceed from the assumption that variability, as a property intrinsic to language, is
inherent in all language units and levels. The terms “variation” and “variability”, although not
entirely interchangeable, are often used synonymously. The term “variation” refers to the actually
present differences among units within the same linguistic category and can be directly observed.
Variability, by contrast, indicates the potential, or propensity, for variation. For the purposes of our
discussion, the difference between variation and variability is of little significance, so the two terms
will be used interchangeably.

The fixedness of form that we have argued for does not suggest that idioms do not tolerate any
variation in their structure. It is pertinent to recall John Sinclair’s observation that ‘“fixed phrases”
are not in fact fixed’ [Sinclair, 1996 : 83], which we will take as our starting point in the discussion
of idiomatic variation. In fact, idioms are not rigid to the degree that some scholars make out.
Rather, they show a remarkable range of syntactic and lexical modification. Let us now consider a
few different types of idiomatic variation in turn.

(1) Morphosyntactic variation. The criterion of fixed form gives the impression that idioms
are not structurally flexible, but it is true only to a certain extent, since they are not
completely frozen forms, as we have observed earlier. Morphosyntactic variation covers
inflectional variants of one or several idiom constituents. This includes noun inflection
(pluralization, possessive case), verb inflection (tense forms), adjective and adverb
inflection (degrees of comparison), as well as the flexible use of determiners and quantifiers
[Langlotz : 179]. It has to be noted that such structural and morphosyntactic variants do not
usually affect the idioms’ semantic or pragmatic characteristics:

crack one's brain vs. crack one's brains

rack one’s brain vs. rack one’s brains
have a quick wit vs. have quick wits
get hold of s/th (Br.) vs. get a hold of s/th (Am.)

Some idioms can accommodate an even more significant departure from their original form
(it can also be called “base” or “canonical” form):
In the past, he’d had many close calls, but this one was the closest.(close call)
 Jesse had a narrow shave and Ben an even narrower one.
In another example, The Government had to swallow some bitter pills, the variant of the original
expression swallow the bitter pill features variation in the determiner (some instead of the) and the
plural form of pill.
(2) Syntactic variation involves changes in the constructional organization of the canonical
form of idiomatic expressions. The most minimal way in which an idiom can be altered from its
base form is variation in tense, number, word order etc.
The demand for the latest Apple device is going through the roof.
Sales of those products are going through the roof.
It was then that inflation went through the roof.
Inflation had accelerated and commodity prices had gone through the roof.
Even the most opaque idioms – kick the bucket, blow the gaff, shoot the breeze etc. – are
subject to such modification (He kicked the bucket recently; They’ve been shooting the breeze all
morning). This variation demonstrates that idioms have, on the one hand, internal structure of their
own, and, on the other, are syntactically similar to individual words: they behave in the same
manner in sentences.
Some idioms can even have variable word order, e.g. have a screw loose – have a loose
screw.
Furthermore, the discussion of the syntactic properties of idioms has made clear that what is
readily noticeable about idioms is that they seem to resist passivization. A passive version of They
had their ups and downs, which would read Ups and downs were had by them (?), does not make
any sense. However, the story does not end here and we clearly observe variation, for there are quite
a few idioms that are perfectly able to undergo passivization. For instance:
There are some other loose ends that need to be tied up (from tie up loose ends);
No stone was left unturned during the investigation (from leave no stone unturned).
The legitimate question why some idioms resist passivization while others quite happily
lend themselves to it has been effectively answered earlier. The reason why only some idioms are
capable of this syntactic transformation has to do with greater or lesser levels of transparency (or
opacity) of their semantic structure. Idioms with more transparent structure are more likely to
undergo passivization than syntactically opaque ones. Semantically and structurally non-transparent
bite the dust, kick the bucket or buy the farm cannot be used in the passive while the transparent
raise eyebrows, rock the boat, keep sb in the dark, leave sb holding the bag and many others can.
To a large degree, the dividing line seems to run along pure and figurative idioms discussed at the
beginning of the chapter.
(3) Lexical variation. This type of variation refers to alterations in an idiom’s lexical
constituents. It means that one or more parts of the original idiom can be alternated between
semantically similar words, such as the noun part, the verbal part, the preposition etc. The
substitution of words within one semantic class is a fairly common phenomenon in this kind of
lexical variation:
burn one’s boats burn one’s bridges
set the world on fire set the world alight
on cloud seven on cloud nine
soak up the sun soak up the rays
put your foot in your mouth put your foot in it
The important point to be made here is that such variation does not usually affect the
semantic characteristics of the idiom. For example, comparing born in the lap of luxury and cradled
in the lap of luxury, it is clear that lexemes born and cradled belong to the same semantic group.
Although not exactly synonymous in the strict sense of the word, they are equally contextually
appropriate for the situation they describe: being born or raised in affluent style.
Particularly notable is the alternating use of verbs in verbal idioms, such as set/put, put/lay,
catch/get, keep/leave, jump/climb/get etc.
set the world to rights put the world to rights
live the life of Riley lead the life of Riley
set the record straight put the record straight
 catch some Z’s get some Z’s
lay your cards on the table put your cards on the table
lay s/th on the line put s/th on the line
turn one's mind to s/th give one's mind to s/th
jump on the bandwagon get on the bandwagon
Modification of an idiom on a lexical level is a perfect illustration of variation in the idiom’s
canonical form. Lexical variation can manifest itself in various kinds of modification to the
idiom’s constituents:
 Substitution. The idioms in the list above are all examples of one component of an idiom
being replaced by another. If we consider a pair of sentences, I am not someone who you
could describe as leading the life of Riley and He, just like his father before him, was living
the life of Riley, it is clear that alternating forms like this – which possess similar semantics
and are used synonymously (live a life – lead a life) – does not really have a bearing on the
semantics of the idiom and, indeed, on the overall sense of the utterance.
 Omission. This type of modification involves leaving a part of the idiom out without altering
its original meaning. The idiomatic expression scrape the bottom of the barrel, which
means ‘to select from among the worst’, often appears in a shortened form, as in They are
really scraping the barrel if they’re hiring that dummy. Sometimes another component of
this same idiom can be dropped, the verb, and the meaning is still easily retrievable: Now
we are really down to the bottom of the barrel, which reads ‘have to content ourselves with
poor alternatives’.
 Somewhat similar to omission is truncation, which involves cutting off a part of an idiom.
The fragment most often cut off is the idiom’s end part. This is particularly common with
units of a longer stretch: sayings, catchphrases and clichés, which are predominantly of
sentence length. These expressions may be structurally shortened for a variety of reasons
and with a number of effects. It should be noted that traditional proverbs, for example, tend
to be used in a narrow and relatively stereotyped set of functions [Cowie, 2010 : xv]. Thus
too many cooks spoil the broth is typically used to comment disapprovingly on an activity
where too many people are involved, which can thus jeopardize the outcome of the activity.
By the same token, A stitch in time saves nine is conventionally used as a favorable
comment on timely and judicious action or to reinforce a recommendation. Often it may be
sufficient only to hint at the whole by the use of a part, as in Well, I knew everything would
go wrong – it’s the usual story of too many cooks or A stitch in time, you know! Sometimes
the fragment will take on a life of its own as a phrase idiom, as has been the case with an
early bird, which co-exists in present-day usage alongside the longer, original version The
early bird catches the worm [Ibid]. A similar story is behind the idiom a rotten apple, which
originated from One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel or a black sheep, which started life
as the black sheep of the family.
 Addition. This kind of modification may occur when there is a need to specify the referent
expressed by any of the idiom’s components. For instance, the popular idiom jump on the
bandwagon, which means ‘join a popular movement or activity’, is extensively used in the
media with a noun or adjective in front of bandwagon, indicating the kind of activity being
joined: Everybody has jumped on the renewable-energy bandwagon. The possibilities for
modifying bandwagon in this particular idiom seem endless: jumping on the austerity
/globalization / internet / anti-smoking / pro-choice etc. bandwagon (The Economist).

(4) Semantic variation. With this type of variation, which is the most sophisticated re-working
of an idiomatic expression, idioms also allow for a surprising amount of flexibility. It may
involve modifications similar to those described above – extension, substitution, subtraction etc.
– as well as some others, but the most crucial thing about them is that such refashioning brings
about changes in the semantics of the idiom and, as a result, in the context in which it appears.
In the sentence In his movie, the actor stars as Tommy, a former jailbird and very much the
rotten apple of his military father's eye (The Telegraph), we observe an interesting case of
fusion of two idiomatic expressions: the apple of s/b’s eye and a rotten apple. As a result, the
 emphasis within the idiom and the context of the sentence is rearranged. The expression the
apple of one’s eye is traditionally used to refer to a ‘person or object that one holds dearest’ and
carries an unambiguously positive connotation. On the other hand, a rotten apple, which means
‘a bad individual that has a corrupting influence on all the others in a group’, possesses
semantics that is clearly at odds with the semantics of the other expression. This almost
oxymoronic combination results in the obliteration of the positive semantic content and
produces an image of someone who is immoral and corrupt, even though they might have been
loved and cherished in childhood.
Idioms are commonly refashioned by speakers to achieve a number of other striking stylistic
effects. An interesting example of a stylistic manipulation of the idiom involving word-play is
the following headline:
Red flag to a dragon: sending the right signal to a pushier China (The Economist)
The modification of the original idiom like waving a red flag in front of a bull through dropping
a part of it and, even more importantly, through a substituton of one of the key words is
motivated by the needs of the relevant context – the text is about China and the dragon is taken
to be a symbol of that country. Such substitution is made possible also through a semantic
closeness between words bull and dragon. Alongside dragon, the idiom brings to mind the
Communist red flag of China. Yet, as the second part of the headline explains, a red flag
suggests provocation on the part of the West, on the one hand, and, on the other, a stop sign –
urging China to slow down.
That was an example of invoking different meanings of an idiom simultaneously, which is
extensively employed in puns. The pun in Those who get too big for their britches will be
exposed in the end relies for its effect on polysemy. Given that there may be two
complementary readings of the underlined fragment – literal and figurative – such lexical choice
suggests that the author intended the resultant meaning to be potentially ambiguous. The idiom
get too big for one’s britches means ‘become too self-important and conceited’. The figurative
reading of the phrase calls for the interpretation of expose as ‘show or reveal the truth about
s/one, especially when it is bad’. At the same time, if interpreted literally, the entire sentence
can be understood in the following way: ‘When someone’s pants become too small for them, the
garment falls apart at the seams and it becomes obvious to everybody’. It can be argued that
both meanings are present at the same time, and that examples such as this are intended to have
a double meaning.
Puns are frequently used in advertising as a rhetorical device to promote a given product or
service by creating humour, attracting the reader’s attention and adding persuasive force to the
message. An advertisement promoting film, Kodak Gold, juxtaposes the literal interpretation of the
free word combination with the idiom (as) good as gold meaning ‘very well-behaved’:
Kodak Gold: Is your film as good as Gold?
It needs to be pointed out that manipulations with idioms are never arbitrary. Substituttion,
extension, omission etc. of idioms’ components allow certain aspects of meaning to come to the
fore. The basic meaning of the idiom is usually retained, but the modification allows further
information to be conveyed.
As has been repatedly pointed out, the possibility of modification has to do with the
transparency (or opaqueness) of idioms. There is more potential for variation in more motivated, i.e.
more semantically transparent idioms: rock the European Union boat (from rock the boat), get a
few more kicks out of their own can (from kick the can down the road), jump on the politically
correct bandwagon (from jump on the bandwagon), etc. For example, such opaque idioms as kick
the bucket, buy the farm, bite the dust, chew the fat, or trip the light fantastic – which are assigned
to the class of pure idioms – hardly lend themselves to semantic variation by virtue of the fact that
the idioms’ components are devoid of meaning of their own within these expressions, and,
therefore, cannot be modified. By contrast, the scope for creative modification is greater for
metaphoric idioms, by virtue of the transparency and graphic power of the image behind them.
It might also be appropriate to talk about variation in spelling, e.g. proper Charley vs.
proper Charlie (charley, charlie), but since such variants do not account for much variation in
general and have no real effect on the semantics of an idiomatic expression, they will not be
discussed in the present book.
(2) Regional variation. Apart from the kinds of variation described above, idioms can vary
along yet another, cross-dialectal axis. As might be expected, the form, meaning and use of
idiomatic expressions cannot be uniformly the same across different national varieties of
English: British, American, Canadian, Australian, South African, Indian, Pakistani, Nigerian
and many other forms of English that are spoken around the world today. It is also taken for
granted that this dimension encompasses not just the national varieties, but also the regional
dialects of a single country. Cross-dialectal, or regional variation involves differences on
various language levels: phonological, grammatical, lexical etc. Vocabulary differences will
be addressed in more detail in a discussion on vocabulary variation (Chapter 10?). In this
chapter, we will examine how idiomatic expressions can vary across dialects. We can divide
idiom variation along a geographical or dialectal axis into several categories (although there
is some overlap between them):
 Varieties can have different idioms to convey the same (or very similar) concept. For
instance, Indian English has an expression that is not common in either Britain or the USA,
on the anvil, which means ‘in preparation; about to appear or happen’, as in There are a few
new roads on the anvil. This idiom, although variety-specific, conveys a concept that is
universal, but the phrase itself is not necessarily known – let alone used – outside of South
East Asia. The more universally known English expressions that render a similar idea are
the informal in the pipeline or in the works.
 Idioms that reflect cultural differences, often with no equivalent in the other variety. Every
regional and national variety has a body of idioms that are indigenous – and often confined –
to their area of use. The cultural component in the idioms of this group seems to be the most
distinct. The Australian fair dinkum, on the wallaby track (‘wandering about looking for
work’) or waltz matilda (‘travel about carrying a swag’), are prime examples of culture-
specific expressions, idioms that are inextricably linked to the culture in which they emerged
as they bear witness to the cultural contexts that gave rise to them. For example, the Indian
English out of station meaning ‘out of town’ has its origins in the posting of army officers to
particular 'stations' during the days of British colonization. Many culture-specific idioms in
one variety of English tend to lack equivalents in others, e.g. AmE shoot the breeze (‘chat
informally’) has no BrE equivalent idiom. Similarly, the BrE fall off the back of a lorry (‘be
stolen’) has no equivalent idiom in AmE.
 Different degrees of lexical distinctions in the same idioms are responsible for a significant
amount of dialectal variation within phrasal lexemes. These differences are most easily
observable in the forms of idioms used on the different sides of the Atlantic:

BRITISH AMERICAN
not touch s/th with a bargepole not touch s/th with a ten foot pole
sweep under the carpet sweep under the rug
touch wood knock on wood
(not) see the wood for the trees (not) see the forest for the trees
be left holding the baby be left holding the bag
have green fingers have a green thumb
be on the cards be in the cards
throw a spanner in the works   throw a monkey wrench in the works
be all fingers and thumbs be all thumbs
blow your own trumpet blow your own horn
like death warmed up like death warmed over
like a red rag to a bull like waving a red flag in front of a bull
put/stick your oar in put in your two cents’ worth
to all intents and purposes for all intents and purposes
take s/th in one’s stride take s/th in stride
lead s/one a merry dance lead s/one a merry chase
■ Same idiom, different or additional meaning in other varieties. For the most part, varieties of
English share the core body of idiomatic expressions. Some idioms, however, can have a different
or additional meaning apart from the one shared by, if not all, at least by most major varieties. For
example, the adverbial phrase flat out, which is used in different varieties of English, can mean
different things depending on which variety and what context it appears in. It can mean ‘as fast and
with as much effort as possible’ in BrE, as in They were working flat out to get the job done on
time. In American English it tends to be employed in the meaning ‘in a direct and straightforward
way’: Why don’t you ask her flat out what it is all about?; ‘completely’, as in I am flat out broke
and ‘at top speed’, e.g. He was going flat out when he hit a tree. In the speech of Australians it
usually means ‘very busy (or fast)’, e.g. I can't take on another project, I'm flat out.  This by no
means suggests that meanings do not spill over from one variety to another – this, in fact, happens
all the time.
A further important point to be made is that each variety undergoes independent linguistic change
over time and because of it, distinctions in the structure, meaning and use of idioms can become
more pronounced. One variety may preserve archaic expressions that another or others have lost, or
may introduce new meanings for old idioms which others do not have. An interesting example is
the expression do the needful. This expression, now archaic or used humorously except in Pakistani,
Indian, and Sri Lankan English, means "do what is requisite or necessary". The expression was
current in both British and American English well into the early 20th century, but has now gone out
of use. On the rare occasions when it does appear in British or American English, it is usually
parodied as an example of contemporary South Asian English or to make a reference to a country
from that region. There is a plethora of examples like this. In other scenarios, an expression can
arise in one variety, be adopted by another and be actually associated with the ‘host’ variety. Paddle
one's own canoe, which has taken a curious path of development over the past three centuries, is
one notable example. It is an American English idiom of the late 18th and early 19th century that was
derived from the speech of the American natives. Interestingly, this idiom has gained such wide
currency in British English that it is now preferred in that variety, which is evidenced by the fact
that LDOCE specifically labels it as British.
One final point to be made is that there is a distinction between idiomatic variation and idiomatic
synonymy. Variation usually involves the same structure; most of the lexical items are also the
same. Generally one lexical element is subject to variation, e.g. simile-based phrasal lexemes
denoting the quality of stupidity as stupid as a goose / an ass / a donkey / an owl / a log / a sloth
demonstrate variation. On the other hand, expressions like as daft as a brush, as thick as two short
planks, silly like a stunned mullet, as free from sense as a frog from feathers, nutty as a fruitcake, as
balmy as a bandicoot (Aus.), etc. will be generally considered synonyms.

LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL VALENCY

If we were to take any word and consider different possibilities for the nearest  ‘neighbors’ of this
word in sentences, we would find that such possibilities have a certain degree of predictability. For
instance, if we consider the word problem in a range of contexts, there is a strong likelihood that
one of a number of verbs will also occur somewhere in the same sentence or text: address, pose, fix,
solve, resolve, have, etc. The noun criticism is often encountered in the same contexts as adjectives
harsh, fierce, strong, severe, incisive, vehement, sharp, etc. As regards verb combinations, the same
noun can be part of a number of word groups, such as take criticism, accept criticism, attract / draw
criticism, face criticism, level criticism (at s/b), come in for  criticism, come under criticism, etc.
What we deal with here is characteristic word combinations whose lexical constituents have a
developed an almost idiomatic relation based on their frequent co-occurrence. This tendency of a
word to appear “in the company” of another/other specific word(s) is commonly referred to as
lexical valency or collocability.  This tendency is even more evident in situations where such
predictability is higher, e.g. between watch and television, avid and reader, company and takeover,
or dividends and pay.
Halliday calls collocation a “co-occurrence tendency”, and states that collocation is one of the
factors on which we build our expectations of what is to come next” [Halliday 1985, 312-313].
The first scholar to suggest the terms collocation and collocability was the British linguist J.R.Firth.
Firth did not give any explicit definition of collocation but he rather illustrated the notion by way of
an example like this: 'One of the meanings of ass is its habitual collocation with an immediately
preceding you silly...' Although some of his other contributions to linguistic and stylistic analysis
had a considerable impact right after he proposed them, his notion of collocation was not seriously
considered until much later. After Firth, the term was further elaborated on by a number of linguists
[Practical Guide to Lexicography : 109]. Firth insisted that the meaning of words depends on their
co-occurrence in texts. Thus, one of the meanings of night, according to Firth, is its collocability
with dark, and of dark – with night. [Firth, 1957 Modes of Meaning :196].  By the same token, part
of the meaning of television is that it co-occurs predictably with watch, and part of the meaning of
watch is that it co-occurs predictably with television. So the co-occurrence of lexical items has a
degree of predictability, and they each contribute to the meaning of the other.
The range of lexical valency or collocability is linguistically restricted by the inner structure of the
vocabulary. Most notably, it is restricted by synonymy relation. What is meant by this is that
lexemes may be synonymous, but they do not necessarily collocate with the same words. For
example, although mistake and error are usually treated as synonyms (make a mistake – make an
error; grave / serious mistake – a grave / serious error, etc.), one does not have to go far to see
their interchangeability end. One cannot use mistake in place of error in such multiword
combinations as be in error, do something in error, human error, error of judgment. Nor is it
possible for error to collocate with the same words as the lexeme mistake in by mistake or make no
mistake (about it), etc.
Lexical valency acquires particular importance when one deals with polysemy, i.e. when one needs
to make distinctions between different senses of a polysemous word. Differing collocability patterns
are highly relevant in establishing the correct meaning of a polysemous word in sentences. For
example, the word oil as “thick liquid made mostly from plants  and used especially in cooking”
collocates with such adjectives as vegetable, olive, coconut, fish, sunflower, cooking, essential etc.,
whereas in the meaning of “thick, dark liquid from under the ground from which petrol is
produced”, the lexeme oil enters into the combinations oil production, oil company, oil reserves, oil
refinery, oil supplies, oil rig, oil slick, oil tanker, etc., on the one hand, and, is combined with
adjectives crude, domestic etc., or verbs strike, extract, drill (for oil), on the other (needless to say,
these lists of examples are not fully representative of the collocational behavior of these words).
Lexical connotation is to be differentiated from grammatical connotation, which is a grammatical
rather than a semantic relation. Grammatical connotation, or grammatical valency, is a habitual
occurrence of a word in specific syntactic structures. In the narrowest sense, grammatical
collocation refers to the specific preposition that must follow a particular verb, noun or adjective:
approve + of, insist + on, keen + on, dependency + on, etc. In a broader sense, grammatical
connotation is associated with any kind of syntactic element that must accompany a particular word
(again, primarily nouns, verbs and adjectives). For example, the verb deny is normally followed by
a gerund or ‘that’ clause, decide takes an infinitive clause, the adjective tumbledown is typically
used only before a noun and so on.
As may be expected, members of synonymic sets tend to possess different grammatical valency. Big
and large are conventionally treated as synonyms, but, in fact, there is not much of an overlap in
their grammatical valency (this has been confirmed in the last decades by computerized
examination of large text corpora). Whereas big can be used in the syntactic construction to make it
big, meaning “to achieve success”, no corresponding construction of the same type is possible with
large.  At the same time, large, as opposed to big, is commonly used with quantity words such as
“number” and “amount”, e.g. large amounts of money, a large number of seabirds, etc.

COLLOCATION, A RELATION OF MUTUAL EXPECTANCY

As was noted above, collocation constitutes a syntagmatic relation that a word contracts with other
words occurring in the same sentence or text. The Oxford Companion to the English Language calls
it a relation of mutual expectancy or habitual association [McArthur, 1992]. The occurrence of one
word predicts a likelihood that another word will occur in the same context, either in some syntactic
construction or across the syntactic boundary. Although collocation tends to occur most often
between words in specified syntactic relations, e.g. subject + verb (tap + leak), or verb + object
(watch + television), adjective + noun (inveterate + liar), adverb + adjective (wildly + popular), or
verb + adverb (travel + widely), collocation as a meaning relation of predictable co-occurrence may
be found in different sentences (usually adjacent) within the same text:
We need to get someone to fix that faucet. It’s been leaking for too long.
Or:
Let’s see what’s on television tonight. I haven’t watched it in a while.
Here the verb fix collocates directly with the noun faucet in a verb + object structure. However, it is
obvious that leak, although part of an independent syntactic structure, collocates with faucet as well,
but less directly in a subject + verb structure. In a similar fashion, television collocates across the
sentence boundary with watch in a verb + object combination. It may be interesting to note that
Firth introduced two terms: collocation for semantic association (which may occur across sentences
within a text) and colligation for syntactic association of lexemes [ Pract Guide to Lex : 109].
Nevertheless, the majority of linguists use the former – collocation – as a general category to refer
to both types of co-occurrence.
It has already been suggested by the present discussion that the mutual expectancy of two words
could be stronger or weaker. The strength of the bond between the items in a collocation is believed
to be determined by (1) the direction of expectancy, and (2) the number of predictable words.
Using the example cited above, with watch and television, it seems that the direction of the
collocation relation affects the strength of the predictability: the collocation from television to watch
is stronger than that from watch to television. In a different type of collocation structure, devout
Christian, which constitutes an adjective + noun combination, the collocation from devout to
Christian is stronger than it is in the reverse direction, primarily because the number of nouns that
are predicted by the adjective devout is limited – apart from Christian, the choices are mostly
confined to the names of believers in one of the religions: devout Muslim / Jew /Protestant /
Mormons etc. The number of adjectives that may occur with Christian, on the other hand, is much
larger: conservative, modern, fundamentalist, evangelical, true, orthodox, early, etc.
The same point can be made by comparing the verbs wreak and cause in the verb + object syntactic
structure.  The collocational patterns of the two verbs are different primarily in the number of
objects that they can take. Wreak is chiefly combined with havoc / mayhem / destruction, on the one
hand, and vengeance / revenge, on the other. By contrast, cause can enter into an infinite number of
verb + object combinations (to cause uncertainty / delays / trouble / an epidemic / problems /
confusion / traffic jams / fire / death, etc.). The verb wreak, therefore, has a stronger collocational
relation with its object nouns than does cause.
It seems reasonable to conclude that collocation should be viewed as a matter of degree and
different types can be placed along a scale or continuum, ranging from weak collocation with only
the slightest degree of predictability of co-occurrence (grave/deep/primary concern) through
medium-strength collocations (hold a conversation, a major operation, expensive tastes, a loud
shirt, etc.) to strong collocation that has a high degree of predictability.  If collocations are seen as a
continuum, then, at least in theory, one can single out any number of such groups. In the section on
varieties of phrasal lexemes, we discussed a classification of idiomatic expressions proposed by
Cowie, according to which collocations are divided into two major categories. These two groups –
restricted and open collocations – represent differing levels of opacity or transparency [Cowie,
2010 : xiii]. Open-type collocations are fairly loose as both their elements have considerable
freedom to enter into other combinations. The reason for it is that both of the elements are used in a
common literal sense.
In restricted collocations, on the other hand, one element appears in its literal sense, whereas the
other one is used figuratively. Importantly, its figurative sense is often unique to this particular
combination as it does not extend beyond its limited context. For example, the adjective in a clean
sheet yields a literal reading while the noun is used figuratively. Other examples of collocations of
this type are friendly fire, potted version, hot favorite etc.
Restricted collocations are effectively what other lexicologists have called “fixed collocations”
[Partington, 1998]. In a fixed collocation, co-occurring lexemes are in an almost unchanging
syntactic and semantic relationship with one another. Constituents of fixed collocations do not
typically co-occur with other lexical units freely: only a few, if any, words may be substituted for
the co-occurring lexical units. A typical example of a fixed collocation may be the combination
inveterate liar, where the choice of a noun to go with the adjective inveterate is most likely to be
liar. Even though there may be a few other possibilities besides liar that can accompany inveterate
(such as smoker, womanizer), this choice is extremely limited. There are some combinations whose
constituents – at least one – are not used with any other lexical items. A good example can be shrug
one’s shoulders, where shrug is commonly accompanied only by shoulders, and is not really used
with any other noun. This characteristic has led some scholars to call such collocations unique
[Lewis, M., 2000: 63].
As has been repeatedly suggested in the course of the present discussion, there are still many
unanswered questions with regard to collocations and other multiword groups. In particular, there is
a question concerning criteria distinguishing free word combinations from collocations, on the one
hand, and collocations from idioms, on the other. For instance, is the expression be in prison a
collocation or a free combination of words? Some respectable dictionaries of collocations (CDE) do
not feature it, thus excluding it from collocations. At the same time, the fact that prison is used with
zero article indicates a certain degree of idiomaticity, which allows us to assign it to the category of
collocations and to view it as synonymous with another collocation, serve a prison term, for
example. In fact, some other expressions are based on the same principle (in British English, at
least), e.g. be at / go to school, be at / go to university, be in / go to hospital, go to church. It is
important to point out that these collocations differ in meaning from similarly-structured free word
combinations which are built in accordance with the relevant grammatical rules: be at a school, go
to the hospital, go to the church etc. Due to the fact that go to church and go to the church carry
differing meanings, it is logical to consider the be at / go to school, be at / go to university, be in /
go to hospital group among collocations.

TASK 7
Identify what concept all of the metaphoric idioms below exploit in the following
sentences.
1. Their marriage seems to have reached the end of the road.
2. One little bump in the road and you give up?
3. Me and Tom? We go back a long way.
4. It’s been a long journey, but the party still has a long way to go before it
can dominate the political landscape.
5. We’ve come a long way, baby.
6. What will the company be worth a few years down the road?
7. One way or the other, we’ll figure something out.
8. If you set out to conquer the world, you need to know how to do it.
9. He’s started looking for a job, which is a move in the right direction.

Summary

In this chapter, we have examined multiword lexemes in their different forms and manifestations by
looking specifically at idioms, multiword verbs and collocations. We established that idiomaticity is
not a discrete category, but rather is represented by a cline, with the most opaque idioms on one end
and loose collocations on the other. The chapter highlighted the most important semantic and
syntactic properties of idioms, and, in particular, their most characteristic limitations, which set
them apart from free word combinations. In addition, it was also necessary to compare the
traditional and cognitive approaches taken to the interpretation of idioms, the ideological divide that
determines whether idioms’ meanings are arbitrary or motivated. It was shown convincingly that a
large part of the meaning of many idioms is motivated. The chapter has also touched on different
types of variation that is found in the form, meaning and use of idiomatic expressions.
Finally, we have discussed collocation and collocability and seen how words may predict the
presence of others in a context, due to a meaning relation of mutual expectancy.

VARIATION IN THE LEXICON

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

1. The notion of variation. Pervasiveness of variation.

Dimensions of lexical variation in English
2. Territorial, or geographical, variation
2.1 British English vs. American English
2.2 Antipodean English: AusE and NZE
2.3 Canadian English
2.4 Outer Circle national varieties of English
2.5 Non-standard varieties within national varieties
2.6 Regional variation within the UK
2.7 Cockney: General characteristics
2.8 American Regional English
2.9 African American (Vernacular) English
3. Social variation
3.1Language-user vs. language-use varieties
3.2The notion of sociolect
3.3Vocabulary and gender
3.4Vocabulary and age
3.5Euphemisms and taboo words
3.6Slang and jargon
4. Language-use or stylistic variation
4.1Formal words
4.2Informal vocabulary
 4.3Registers
5. Temporal variation
5.1 Neologisms
5.2 Obsolete, obsolescent and archaic words. Historisms

The notion of variation. Pervasiveness of variation.

Dimensions of lexical variation in English

The language can often be seen by public as a monolithic body of words, a myth which dictionaries
often tend to reinforce. We imagine dictionaries to be representative collections of words that exist
in the language, the lexicon that an educated speaker of the language knows or should know. But
once we open the dictionary of English, for example, and take a closer look at the entries, we see
that things are far from being as straightforward as we imagined. It is not long before we discover
that quite a number of words are marked with labels of one kind or another, e.g. spoken, taboo,
American English, slang, not polite, law, Australian English, baseball etc. The myth of a language
as a monolithic body of words that are never changing, diverging or varying is very quickly
dispelled. The labels that we find in dictionaries indicate that words have limitations, being
restricted in functions and areas of use. The existence of these restrictions points to the fact that
there are entire sets of words or whole vocabularies that are confined to one area of use or another.
It seems, therefore, reasonable to look at the entire word-stock in terms of dimensions of variation:
the ways in which lexis varies according to regional (or territorial) characteristics, social and
stylistic factors, as well as context, and how this leads to the development of socially circumscribed
and specialized vocabularies. In other words, by variation we will mean regional, social or
contextual differences in the ways that a particular word (part of a word, collocation or idiom) is
used.

It has been noted more than once that languages are in a constant state of flux. There is no language
in the world – except a dead one – that does not keep changing all the time. In the chapter on
language change it was also pointed out that variation is a prerequisite for any linguistic change –
no change in phonology, grammar, morphology, lexis etc. will come about without variation
preceding it. What this, in effect, means is that there is a lot of variation on all language levels
happening at any given point in time. This chapter will explore different dimensions of variation
which will cover how language and, specifically, vocabulary varies in relation to who uses it, under
what circumstances, how, for what purpose, and to whom. It means we will discuss in detail such
aspects of variation as regional (territorial), social, stylistic, and even temporal, i.e. variation with
regard to where the words are in their ‘life cycle’ (at the point of emergence or going out of
circulation or even out of language altogether) and relevance for language users. We will focus our
attention primarily on lexical aspects of variation, while grammatical, phonological, etc. aspects
will be treated in passing (throughout this discussion, it will be implicitly assumed that variation is
afoot on all levels of language without exception at all times). In a discussion of regional variation,
some, if very limited, attention, will also be given to the morphological characteristics of words in
different varieties, as well as the use of prepositions and articles, as they have a direct bearing on
the form and meaning of individual words.

Territorial, or geographical, variation

“Everybody says words different,’ said Ivy. ‘Arkansas

folks says ‘em different, and Oklahomy folks says ‘em
different. And we seen a lady from Massachusetts, an’
 she said ‘em different of all. Couldn’t hardly make out
what she was sayin’!”
– John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

The most obvious type of language variation is variation in space, which constitutes, in fact,
geographical, or territorial variation. This is also the most widespread type of dialectal
differentiation. It is particularly apparent in English, a language which, unlike many others, is
spread around the world and spoken natively on almost every continent (with the exception of
South America).
Geographic dialects include local ones, such as the Yankee English of Cape Cod or of Boston. On
the other hand, they include broader regional ones, such as Southern, New England, Appalachian,
and Texan in the US or Yorkshire, Geordie, and Scouse in the UK. Local dialect is a subset of
regional dialect. Local dialects may be specific not only to a particular city, but even to particular
neighborhoods of a city, such as between Brooklyn and the Bronx in New York City
Before we look at greater length at British, American, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian
English, we should put these varieties in a larger linguistic context and remind ourselves that they
exist against the backdrop of an even larger linguistic diversity, among many other varieties of
English. Besides, there is another important point that needs to be made. Varieties of English (as
well as varieties of other languages, for that matter) differ not only qualitatively – in that one variety
may have a specific feature which is missing in another variety – but also quantitatively – in the
sense that although different varieties may have the same feature, it will be manifest in these
varieties to differing degrees.
Finally, before we embark on an in-depth discussion of the specific features that make each variety
distinct, it may be useful to introduce a model that can offer a profitable approach to the varieties of
English that exist in the world today. This model is referred to as the Concentric Circles model
and was proposed by Braj B. Kachru, a leading scholar in the field of world Englishes (Kachru
1994; 2008). According to his model, all the English varieties used in the world today fall under one
of three circles: the Inner, Outer or Expanding Circle.
The Inner Circle consists of the old-variety English-using countries, where English is the first or
dominant language: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand
(Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching 1996: 78). In these societies, English has been the
dominant language for a long period of time and there does not seem to be a question of any
language other than English being used in an extensive sense in any public domain, whether it is
media, government, education, legal system etc. (Ibid.) This is not to say that other languages are
not spoken in these societies; in fact, some languages enjoy considerable influence. Nevertheless,
the domains in which these other languages are used are primarily confined to home and street
contexts, the playground, informal communication in the workplace and the like. Spanish in the
United States is probably the most vivid case in point.
The Outer Circle encompasses countries in Asia and Africa, where English has had a long history
of institutionalized use and where it spread through the colonization carried out by Britain and the
US. These are typically postcolonial nations where English is so deeply embedded in various
societal practices that even though colonial practices are long gone, English has retained its status
and role as administration, governance, media broadcasting, education, the legislature and judiciary
may all be carried out predominantly in English. The countries that make up the Outer Circle are
India, Pakistan, Nigeria, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Tanzania and Zambia.
In these regions, English is not the native tongue, but serves as a useful lingua franca in
communication between different ethnic groups. Tellingly enough, in all of these countries English
enjoys official status: either as the only official language (Nigeria and Zambia) or as one of several
official languages in the country.
And, finally, the Expanding Circle comprises countries where English plays various roles, is
extensively used in many different contexts and just as widely studied: China, Japan, Indonesia,
South Korea, Nepal and some others. These roles can be explained by the fact that these countries
have been experiencing technological and scientific growth, which is impossible without sufficient
contact with the leading scientific, technological, financial and cultural power in the world, which is
the United States of America. But not only that, English has long performed the role of lingua
franca in the developed world, a language which makes possible the interface between the
professional, scientific, academic, artistic, environmental etc. communities of different countries. In
this light, English is seen as key to being competitive in the world market with respect to different
forms of human activity. The Expanding Circle group is expected to grow as economic,
technological and scientific progress gains momentum in various developing countries. What
should be kept in mind, however, is that it is hardly possible to establish the total number of
Englishes worldwide, as new varieties are constantly being discovered and developed.
With the above-described model in mind, we will consider the Inner Circle varieties in some depth
and only touch in passing on the Outer Circle ones, for reasons that they play far more restricted
roles in the world and are hardly used outside of their respective regions.
It is only natural that we should begin with an overview of the two major English varieties
constituting the Inner Circle, i.e. British and American English.

British English vs. American English

It seems sensible to start our discussion of divergences between British and American varieties with
a remark that at the level of educated speech and writing, there are relatively few differences in
grammar between the two varieties. Those that do exist tend to be rather trivial when considered
from the standpoint of mutual understanding. Vocabulary differences, on the other hand, are
numerous and capable of causing varying degrees of comprehension problems.
It should be noted that linguists tend to treat British and American English as if they were two
entirely homogenous and discrete varieties. This might make the presentation of the differences
more straightforward, but it does obscure the fact that there is a lot of regional and local variation
within the two varieties. Besides, in the era of global media and communication, which tend to lead
to cultural and linguistic uniformity, there is considerable mutual influence of one variety on the
other, particularly of American on British English. As a result, what is seen as American usage by
older generations of British English speakers may seem perfectly acceptable British English usage
to younger speakers of the British variety (Trudgill, Hannah 1994: 56).
The British and American varieties of English account for around 70 per cent of mother-tongue
English speakers, with Americans outnumbering the British by four to one, according to data cited
from Crystal (Crystal 1995). These two are also the major players in the English-language teaching
market. And even though British English speakers are often reluctant to admit this, American
English seems to be the dominant variety in the world today, as a consequence of all kinds of
political, cultural and economic dominance of the USA. So, as has already been noted, due to the
influence exerted by the US way of life, film industry, pop music and cultural values, many
vocabulary items that used to be restricted to AmE, have now been incorporated by BrE and have
become part of the British mainstream language.

British vs. American English: key lexical differences.

Three approaches to classifying vocabulary differences between BrE and AmE

As has been established already, the most tangible differences between the two varieties are found
within vocabulary. There are thousands of words that differ in their key meaning(s), in one
particular sense or usage, or are totally unknown in the other variety. Major lexical divergences
between British and American English are due to a number of reasons. The most obvious is that
new objects and experiences were encountered in North America that needed designation. They
were named either through adapting the vocabulary of the old country that was left behind or by
creating new words: e.g. corn is the general English term for grain and denotes the most common
grain crop, which is wheat in England but maize in North America; the word robin denotes a small,
red-breasted warbler in England whereas in North America, the word is used to designate a large,
red-breasted thrush.
Technological and cultural developments that have come about since the two varieties went their
separate ways have also been a cause of differences in vocabulary. Such areas are plentiful, e.g.
terms for parts of cars: AmE windshield vs. British windscreen; AmE trunk and hood vs. BrE boot
and bonnet; terminology from different sports: AmE home run, pitcher, get to first (second, third)
base etc. (from baseball); BrE pitch, wicket, bowler; differences in institutions of education: AmE
high school, major (main subject), co-ed (female student); BrE public school, form (educational
level), reader (associate professor), etc.
Yet another reason for vocabulary differences is the influence of other languages. AmE, unlike BrE,
has borrowed extensively from a variety of languages (some of these loans have eventually found
their way into BrE as well), including: Amerindian languages – hooch, meaning ‘alcoholic liquor’,
moccasin, toboggan, kowtow, meaning ‘be too eager to please s/one in authority’; Spanish –
tornado, tortilla (thin flat bread), burrito (a type of Mexican dish); a whole range of African
languages – jazz, banjo, goober (peanut) etc.; Yiddish – schmaltzy (excessively sentimental), schlep
(to drag, carry), putz (an offensive word for a socially inept male), schtick (a feature s/one is famous
for), German – spiel (a quick speech intended to persuade people to buy s/th), angst (strong feelings
of anxiety or unhappiness), blitz. Indian languages were a particularly rich resource of lexical items
designating indigenous flora and fauna (hickory, meaning ‘type of tree akin to walnut’), as well as
geographical names (Saskatchewan, Tallahassee, Albuquerque and many others).
In order to make better sense of the entire mass of differing vocabulary between BrE and AmE, it is
reasonable to break it down into groups that will account for various types of differences. Several
such classifications have been attempted – each takes a different criterion as a reference point. We
will cite three of them here.
Benson et al. have identified ten groups of lexical differences between the two varieties by
comparing them not just to each other, but primarily to World English (WE), a variety of
international English which English speakers with differing English backgrounds can use with each
other (when they meet at conferences, business meetings, on holiday etc.)20
Some words are specific to either the American or the British variety and not used in WE, some are
variety specific but used in WE, some have an extra sense which is only restricted to one variety.
Here are the first five categories of the ten identified by Benson et al.:
I. Words that reflect cultural differences, with no equivalent in the other variety, e.g. Ivy League,
Groundhog Day, Thanksgiving, Honours Degree, A-Levels etc.
II. Words that are variety-specific but which have an equivalent in the other variety, e.g. baggage
room (AmE) – left-luggage office (BrE); generator (AmE) – dynamo (BrE); hire purchase (BrE) –
installment plan (AmE) etc.
III. Words that have at least one sense in WE, with an additional sense or senses specific to either or
both varieties. For example, caravan has the WE sense of “a company of traders or other travelers
journeying together, often with a train of camels, through the desert”, but it has the specific sense in
BrE of “a large enclosed vehicle capable of being pulled by a car or truck and equipped to be lived
in”, which is equivalent to AmE trailer. Another example is homely, which has the WE sense
“characteristic of or suited to the ordinary home; unpretentious”, and with a BrE sense of “(a
person) warm, friendly, domesticated in manner or appearance”, but an AmE sense of “plain or ugly
(of a person, dog etc.)”. A further illustration is the word bathroom, which has the WE sense of ‘a
room with a bath or shower (possibly a toilet)’, but it carries the specific meaning in AmE of ‘a
room with a toilet’. Some other American words like that are regular, school, to ship and many
others. By the same token, WE words that have similarly additional senses in BrE are to mind,
smart, leader etc. Leader, for example, apart from several commonly known WE senses, is used in
the meaning of ‘a piece of writing in a newspaper giving the paper's opinion on a subject’ in British
English (AmE uses editorial instead).
IV. Words that have a single sense in WE and have an equivalent word in either AmE or BrE. An
example is ballpoint pen, with BrE equivalent biro. WE filling station has AmE equivalent gas
station and BrE equivalent petrol station.
V. Words that have no WE meaning, but different specific meanings in the two varieties. For
example, flyover in AmE means “a ceremonial flight of aircraft on a special occasion over a given
area”, which is equivalent to BrE flypast. In BrE, however, flyover means “a bridge that takes one

20
David Crystal disputes whether such a variety yet exists [Jackson, Ze Amvela, 2007: 141]
road over another road” and is equivalent to AmE overpass. In AmE public school is a free school
financed by the state, whereas in BrE it is a private, fee-paying educational establishment.
David Crystal has adopted the scheme described above and offered his own fourfold division,
which is based on the criterion of crossover potential21 of equivalent words between the BrE and
AmE varieties:
(a) No crossover potential from either side, e.g.

BrE AmE
nappy diaper
motorway freeway
paraffin kerosene
spanner wrench
post code zip code
sweets candy
camp bed cot

(b) Crossover potential from AmE to BrE, but not the other way around; so the AmE word is in
WE, e.g.

BrE AmE
Tin can
pancake crepe
chips French fries
rubber eraser
lead leash

(c) Crossover potential from BrE to AmE, but not in the reverse direction, so the BrE word is
part of WE, e.g.

BrE AmE
Bath bathtub
coffin casket
curtains drapes
autumn fall
tap faucet
queue line
tights pantyhose

(d) Crossover potential both from AmE to BrE and from BrE to AmE; so both words are in WE,
e.g.

BrE AmE
Luggage baggage
nightdress nightgown
post mail
jumper sweater
aerial antenna

(cited after Crystal, 1995: 309)

Yet another classification has been offered by Peter Trudgill and Jean Hannah.
They break down all the vocabulary differences into four main groups:
(1) Same concept, different word. Most lexical differences between the two varieties belong to
this category. There are two subgroups within this group: a) one in which the corresponding
21
Crossover potential can be roughly translated as ‘потенційна здатність переходити (з одного варіанту в інший)’
 equivalent is not widely known in the other variety, and b) that in which the corresponding
word is known. Here are examples of the first type:

AmE only Corresponds to BrE

muffler (on car) silencer
rookie first-year member
sophomore second-year student
washcloth face flannel
emcee compere

BrE only Corresponds to AmE

nought zero
treacle molasses
dynamo generator
hire purchase installment plan
spanner monkey wrench

As to the second subgroup, examples of it include:

AmE BrE
to check to tick
to call to ring
to make a reservation to book
game match
couch, davenport sofa
purse handbag
elevator lift
diaper nappy
yard garden
mortician undertaker
realtor (real) estate agent
pullman car sleeping car
cellphone mobile (phone)
comforter duvet
truck lorry

(2) Same word, different meaning. This category of words is believed to be the most
problematic for the speakers of the other variety. For obvious reasons, it seems even more
problematic for foreign learners, so special care should be taken to explain the subtle
distinctions to them. It has to be noted, however, that such items are few in number:

Word BrE meaning AmE meaning

homely down to earth, domestic ugly
nervy nervous bold, cheeky
to tick off to scold, chastise to make angry

In some cases – they are even more limited in number – the BrE and AmE meanings of the
word have evolved in almost diametrically opposite directions, e.g. to second-guess, to table
etc. Depending on the variety of English, the verb second-guess can mean either ‘to try to
predict what will happen or what s/one will do’, as in He lived royally by his ability to
second-guess the stock market, or ‘to criticize or bemoan something after it has already
happened’, as in the following sentence: We’ve lost – there's no point in second-guessing it
now. Of the two sentences, the first sounds natural in both varieties, but as to the second
one, which refers to the criticism of a game after it happened, it is more characteristic of
 AmE. In the case of table, the British tend to use this verb in the sense of ‘to formally
present a proposal or the like for discussion’, as in We expect the question to be finally
tabled some time next week, while in AmE it will most likely be used in the opposite
meaning of ‘shelving (a proposal, bill, measure), i.e not discussing it’, e.g. Tabling a bill in
Congress often means getting rid of it altogether.
(3) Same word, additional meaning in one variety.
There is a considerable number of words of this type, some of which can be confusing and even
cause communication problems between speakers of the two varieties. The additional
meaning is often due to a metaphorical extension of the shared meaning:

Additional meaning in AmE:

Word Shared meaning Extra meaning in AmE

school ‘a place where children are ‘a college or university’
taught’
to ship ‘to transport by ship’ ‘to transport by ship, plane,
train or truck’
regular ‘habitual, consistent’ ‘average, ordinary’
bathroom ‘room with bath/shower and ‘room with toilet only’
sink’
cute ‘very pretty or attractive (of ‘sexually attractive’
puppies or kittens)’
dumb ‘mute’ ‘stupid’

Additional meaning in BrE:

Word Shared meaning Extra meaning in BrE

to mind ‘to obey’ ‘look after’ as in
Mind your head; Mind your
grammar
smart ‘intelligent’ ‘wearing neat attractive
clothes’
rug ‘a thick carpet’ ‘a thick wrap or coverlet’
‘an office of any doctor’
surgery ‘a medical operation;
operating room’ ‘border between two
frontier ‘a wild, open space’ countries’

(4) Same word, difference in style, connotation, or frequency of use. While words that differ
in style, connotation and frequency of use will generally be understood by speakers of the other
variety, their use may sometimes result in a miscomprehension of the intended message. Misuse
of these words can lead to misunderstandings of a pragmatic nature, rather than to any real
communication problems. For example, the adjective clever, which generally carries a positive
inherent connotation in British English, can be interpreted less favorably by Americans if
encountered, for example, in a sentence like this: As a journalist, he was always very clever and
persistent. Some other examples of words in this category are:

Word BrE usage AmE usage

autumn common; all styles uncommon; poetic or
formal (fall is used instead)
uncommon
to fancy common; informal less common; usually
clever common; positive negative
 positive
quite negative or neutral uncommon; considered
fortnight common; all styles archaic or poetic

Trudgill and Hannah believe that it is the use of these types of words that often reveals which
variety of English a person has learnt (Trudgill, Hannah 1994: 90).

TASK 1
Supply the missing equivalents in two
of the three columns:
Words and word combinations in BrE equivalent AmE equivalent
Ukrainian
квартира; помешкання ………………… ……………
……………… ………………… elevator
……………… flypast ……………
бляшана банка; бляшанка ………………… ……………
……………… ………………… bill
……………… fancy (v) ……………
черга (за чимось) ………………… …………….
……………… shop assistant …………….
……………… ………………… leash
……………… chopping board …………….
……………… broadsheet …………….
……………… ………………… op-ed
редакційна стаття ………………… …………….

With the homogenizing influence the global media have on culture and language, it is not surprising
that words that arise in one variety are often borrowed into the other. While the bulk of borrowings
is from AmE to BrE, examples can be given for borrowings in both directions:

BrE borrowings from AmE AmE borrowing from BrE

brief-case penny
cafeteria copper (cop)
teenager smog
billion
snowplow (snowplough)

A more recent example of borrowing is the word over-the-top (‘extreme or unreasonable to the
point of seeming stupid and absurd’), which goes back to the World War I usage. LDOCE labels it
as British English informal. However, it is now widely used on the other side of the Atlantic as
well. So much so that most Americans would probably have difficulty identifying it as borrowed.
Here is an example of its use in an American blog: The characters and stunts are so over-the-top
that taking them seriously is more absurd than allowing yourself to laugh at them.
In other cases, a word may not have actually been borrowed, but it has become familiar and well
understood in the other variety. For example, most speakers of American English will understand
that flat means apartment. Likewise, few BrE speakers will misinterpret AmE drapes (meaning
‘curtains’) or giving s/b a ride (‘giving s/b a lift’). Things are, however, different with very informal
vocabulary, the kind of lexicon that rarely finds its way into the media. When it comes to non-
standard vocabulary, particularly slang, for the most part a particular word or sense is not going to
be understood by speakers of the other variety.

TASK 2
Determine who most likely wrote this passage: a speaker of British or American
English? What pointers helped you decide? Explain your answer.
 These days it seems to me that Asian American organizations and
watchdog groups are totally "missing the plot." They get their
panties in a twist over just about anything and are looking for any
excuse to join the mad dash for the politically correct bandwagon.
Sometimes they are justified but I often sense that their rage is a
knee-jerk reaction that only displays their inability to see beyond
the construct of Asian American protocol. What bothers me is that while they claim
to promote diversity, they often tend to have a lopsided view of the world wherein
the Asian is always the victim by virtue of race and every argument is colored to
suit their agenda. No offense, but I think this is a case of hypersensitivity and a
lapse of cross-cultural communication. ‘Banzai’ is a British parody of Japanese
game shows and I found it to be infused with British and Japanese humor as well
as the current irreverent sense of American humor that has been the trend in pop
culture. It's a counter-culture hodge-podge that is so completely deranged that you
would have to be mentally challenged to take it seriously.

Differences in the use of prepositions

On the whole, the two varieties have a common pool of prepositions to draw from. The differences
come, rather, in additional items that one or the other variety may use or in modifications to the
existing prepositions.
(1) Here are a few prepositions which differ in form in the two varieties:

BrE AmE
Behind in back of / behind as in:
Why don’t you put it in back of / behind the
shed?
out of out as in: She walked out the door
round around as in: He turned around the corner

(2) There are some prepositions which are used identically in most cases in the two varieties,
but diverge in usage in certain contexts. For example, in phrases indicating duration of time,
BrE uses for where AmE has a choice of for or in:

BrE and AmE AmE

It hasn’t rained for days / weeks in days / weeks
They haven’t heard from him for ages in ages

(3) While speakers of BrE use mainly the preposition at in constructions of the type at the
weekend, at Thanksgiving, at Christmas etc., their American counterparts seem to prefer
over in such cases: over Easter, over the weekend etc. On the weekend is also possible in
AmE. Although the use of over is acceptable in BrE, it is not very common.
(4) AmE has a sense for the preposition through which is absent from BrE. It can mean 'up to
and including', as in Monday through Friday, children aged seven through twelve, while in
BrE this sense is rendered with the help of constructions Monday to Friday or Monday up
to Friday. When the idea of inclusiveness needs to be emphasized, it is usually specifically
stated (especially when ambiguity is possible): Monday to Friday (inclusive) or Monday
up to and including Friday.
(5) BrE and AmE have a somewhat differing use of prepositions in and on. In a number of
cases where BrE has in, Americans prefer on:

BrE AmE
be in a team be on a team
 live in a street live on a street
be in a list be on a list
be in a sale be on sale

It has to be noted, however, that although in in the construction in the street seems to be
preferred in BrE, this usage has become more flexible now, particularly in specific
combinations: in / on the high street: A new bookshop had opened in / on the high street.
(6) Both BrE and AmE use prepositions to and past in reporting time, as in ten to five, twenty
past seven. At the same time, Americans have a wider range of prepositions to use in such
contexts, notably till, of, after: ten of / till five, twenty after seven. Importantly, the choice of
the preposition will depend largely on the region of the USA.
(7) AmE tends to omit the preposition on before a specific date or day of the week where in
BrE it is considered obligatory:

BrE AmE
The talks ended on September 15. The talks ended September 15.
This must be completed on Friday. This must be completed Friday.

The same holds for sentences describing habitual action or repetition:

BrE AmE
Many college students study by day and work Many college students study days and work
at night. nights.
On Sundays he takes his son out. Sundays he takes his son out.

(8) In constructions indicating a period of time from or after a certain moment, the preposition
from is often dropped in BrE, which does not usually happen in AmE:

BrE AmE
a month this Friday a month from this Friday
a week today a week from today

(9) Besides, there are a few verbs in BrEng and USEng which differ in the prepositions or
prepositional adverbs they collate with:

BrE AmE
to battle with / against to battle
to check up on to check out
to fill in (a form) to fill out
to meet (=have a meeting) to meet with
to prevent (from) to prevent from
to protest at / against /over to protest
to stop (from) to stop from
to talk to to talk with / to
to visit to visit with

The last verb on the list is a particularly telling example of a difference, which reveals itself not
only on the lexical level, but also affects the semantics of the verb. The corresponding structure in
AmE is not an exact equivalent of visit, since it carries an additional sense of ‘communicate; have a
talk’, as is evident in the following sentence: Why don't you kids play outside while the adults visit
with each other?
The list we have given is by no means exhaustive, but it should give some idea about the extent of
differences observed in the use of prepositions in the two varieties.
Differences in the use of articles
Although all of the general rules of article use that apply to BrE also hold for its American
counterpart, there are some minor cases where they diverge:
(1) There is only partial overlap between the use of count nouns which do not take an article, if
used in an abstract sense (be taken to prison, go to church, travel by car etc.) A few such
nouns have this property in one variety but not in the other:

BrE AmE
to be in hospital to be in the hospital
to be at university; to be at a university
to go to university to go to a university
to be in class to be in class
to go to class to go to class

(2) In BrE, constructions with a temporal meaning containing the word all can appear either
with the definite article or without it: all morning and all the morning. By contrast, in AmE
the construction without the article is by far the more common: all afternoon, all week, all
evening etc. It must be added, however, that if the sentence in which this phrase appears is
negated, both varieties omit the article: It hasn’t rained all year.
(3) The temporal construction next day, used in both varieties to refer to events in the past, does
not necessarily require the definite article in BrE, while it is obligatory in AmE:

BrE AmE and BrE

That happened next day. That happened the next day.
Next day, his absence became obvious. The next day, it all became clear.

(4) American English is somewhat more flexible with constructions involving the word half
which is followed by a unit of measure. Whereas BrE has only one possibility (half an
ounce, half a dozen, half an acre etc.), AmE has also alternative forms: a half hour, a half
kilo, a half dozen etc.)

Spelling differences

In the time that has elapsed since the 17 th century, alongside other differences that have taken
shape between the British and American varieties of English, there have also emerged regular
spelling differences. Some of them were a result of conscious regularization – in particular,
Noah Webster’s efforts in his 1806 dictionary – while others are due to American innovations,
of which there are plenty in different areas of language. In yet other cases, the differences reflect
variation in the earlier stages of the development of English (before the emigration to the
American continent) and the fact that the two varieties followed different variants as their
standards [Trudgill, Hannah 1994: 83]. There are systematic and non-systematic spelling
differences, like, for example, aluminium (BrE) vs. aluminum (AmE) or tyre (BrE) vs. tire
(AmE). The list that follows provides systematic differences between British and American
orthography:

BrE spelling AmE spelling

-our: labour, favour, honour, odour, colour, -or: labor, favor, honor, odor, color, flavor
flavour
-re: theatre, centre, fibre, litre, spectre -er: theater, center, fiber, liter, specter
-ce: defence, licence, offence, pretence -se: defense, license, offense, pretense
-ise: apologise, organise, analyse, naturalise, -ize: apologize, organize, analyze, naturalize,
capitalise, dramatise capitalize, dramatize
 -ou-: mould, smoulder -o-: mold, smolder
-ae-, -oe-: encyclopaedia, anaesthetic, -e-: encyclopedia, anesthetic, fetus, ameba,
foetus, amoeba, manoeuvre maneuver
-dgement: judgement, abridgement -dgment: judgment, acknowledgment
double consonant: traveller, quarrelled, single consonant: traveler, quarreled, leveling,
levelling, kidnapper, worshipping, counsellor kidnaper, worshiping, counselor
single -l-: skilful, instil, fulfilment, instalment, double -l-: skillful, instill, fulfillment,
enthrall installment, enthrall
-st-(restricted to a few words): amidst / amid, no ending: amid, among, while
amongst/among, whilst/while

The two varieties also differ consistently in whether they hyphenate certain words or keep them
fused or write them as separate words. The differences are relevant only for compounds and
words with prefixes. BrE tends to use a hyphen in such words, whereas in AmE they are written
either as solid words or as two separate words:

BrE AmE
day-dream Daydream
ash-tray ashtray
book-keeper bookkeeper
flower-pot flower pot
note-paper note paper
anti-aircraft antiaircraft
short-change shortchange
co-operate cooperate
ultra-modern ultramodern

An important note must be added that a hyphen is usually kept in AmE if it separates identical
vowels (anti-imperialism, pre-existing etc.) or if the stem starts with a capital letter: neo-Nazi,
anti-American, anti-Semite etc.). An important point to be made here is that these differences
reflect only general trends and there are many individual words that do not conform to such
categorizations.
Besides, BrE tends to retain the French diacritics 22, while, according to Trudgill and Hannah,
Americans may be more flexible in this regard: entrée vs. entree, fiancée vs. fiancee, café vs.
cafe, raison d'être vs. raison d'etre etc. (Trudgill, Hannah 1994: 86). However, just like with the
previous rule, the decision to either keep or dispose of the diacritics varies from word to word
and ultimately depends on the policy of a specific publishing house.
In addition, there are a number of non-systematic differences in spelling – individual words that
differ in a letter or a cluster of letters:

BrE AmE
cheque Check
programme program
draught draft
plough plow
gaol jail
speciality specialty
sulphur sulfur
aluminium aluminum
tsar czar
tyre tire
jewellery jewelry
22
A small mark placed usually over, but sometimes under or through a letter to signal a word of foreign origin and a
different pronunciation
 whisky whiskey
woollen woolen

As was already emphasized, the differences between the varieties are often not absolute, but rather
matters of frequencies. Besides, the distinctions are by no means ‘set in stone’; instead, they are
very fluid. Just as the two cultures are open to each other, so are the languages spoken on both sides
of the Atlantic.
As a final remark, all of the examples above only begin to illustrate how vast and subtle the
differences between British and American English are, differences that have come about as the two
nations have developed their own identities and pursued their own goals since the first settlers
arrived on the American shores in the 17th century.

TASK 3
Identify features that suggest that the fragments that follow below have most likely
been produced by either British or American speakers (media and fiction writers) :

1. Is a collapse in the cards? Sorting fact from fiction can help investors
navigate the subprime debt debacle.
2. “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his
mind wonderfully”.
3. We need someone that can hit the ground running and is a proven leader of
a law enforcement agency. I encourage you to vote Brian Bicknell for your
Klamath County sheriff.
4. He was portly and was propped on a pair of aluminium crutches.
5. It was so homey and refreshing that I sat down on the floor and read and
looked and ate and laughed and cried, in my usual absurd way.
6. Newspaper subheading: Roger Bray on the latest gizmos to make life
easier for the business traveller.
7. Moreover, they had a hostage and could not take public transportation. She
wondered how many Jaguar stretch limos there could be in London.
8. Young men turned their heads to look at the old man’s lovely daughter, but
ignored the old woman’s homely girl (Fairytale).
9. As I rush out of the door, I notice a poster – “Fancy going to Mongolia on
an expedition?” it asks.
10. Fache set it back in the box and gazed absently out the jet’s window at the
hangar, pondering his brief conversation.
11. The perception of man as warrior and fierce competitor comes at least as
much from the endeavours (war, business, football, etc.) he’s been involved
in as it does from his basic nature.
12. Advertisement: We offer accommodations that are comfortable and at
affordable rates.
13. Actress Julianne Moore also was feted with a statuette for her portrayal of
Palin, a performance that received pans from right-wingers.

Antipodean English: AusE and NZE

Some scholars tend to put the Southern Hemisphere varieties of English – Australian, New Zealand
and South African – together, since the three seem to have a lot in common. So much so, in fact,
that some people may have difficulty telling them apart, despite the thousands of miles that separate
Australian and New Zealand English from South African. In not only linguistic features, but also
sociolinguistically, the English language of these countries is similar. There is very little regional
variation in the English used here, especially if compared with the amount of regional variation
found in Britain, although there is probably more variation of this type in South African English
than in the other two countries. Given the fact that the best-known variety that belongs to the Inner
Circle in this part of the world is Australian English, we will examine the lexis of this particular
variety in most detail.
English has been spoken in Australia since the late 18 th century, and as of now, the country has
about 15 million native speakers. Apart from grammatical and pronunciation differences between
AusE and its British and American counterparts, the English used in Australia differs in its
vocabulary as well. However, it must be borne in mind that vocabulary differences between the
Australasian varieties and BrE, for example, are very insignificant when compared to differences
between British and American English. Nevertheless, they are numerous enough at the level of
informal vocabulary.
The sources of some of the intrinsically Australian lexis are Australian aboriginal languages, from
which the early settlers borrowed extensively, primarily in such areas as flora and fauna, which had
many unique features to them. Probably the best-known examples of such loans are dingo,
kangaroo and wallaby. Other words reflect local culture and specific activities peculiar to the
region, e.g. boomerang, billabong (‘a small lake, a section of still water adjacent to a river’),
boondock (‘mountain’), bogey (‘a bath’), morwong (‘fish’), brolga (‘bird’) and some others. One of
the common words today is the word cooee, which originated from one of the indigenous languages
spoken in the Sydney area as a shout used in the Australian bush to attract attention, find someone
missing or indicate one’s whereabouts. It means ‘come here’ and if it is loud and shrill enough, the
call can carry over a considerable distance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooee). The word has
become popular especially as part of the names of organizations, places and events. It has even
given rise to the expression within cooee of, meaning ‘not far from’, which until recently was
largely used in the negative – not within cooee of – in the sense of ‘quite far from’. Now, however,
one encounters such usages as in Can anybody out there in the golfing world give me the heads-up
on whether it is possible to book and play just 9 holes, especially in coo-ee of Tokyo; 10 fun and
quirky things to do within cooee of Matakana or This young golfer was the only Australian within
cooee of the lead, two strokes behind Tiger Woods and Luke Donald after the second round. The
last example is an illustration of a figurative extension of this expression, which is now becoming
rather common.
Here are a few distinctive features of AusE that involve the use of vocabulary and the specific
lexicogrammar of some items:
(1) Australian English seems to have more of shortened forms like footie (‘football’), uni
(‘university’), barbie (’barbeque’), classies (‘classified ads’), beaut (‘beautiful’), garbo (‘garbage
collector’), firies (‘firefighters’) etc.
(2) Abbreviated nouns ending in –o are much more common in AusE than in either BrE or AmE,
and many forms occur which are not known in other varieties: arvo (‘afternoon’), muso
(‘musician’), doco (‘documentary’) etc.
(3) Collective nouns like government, team, committee and some others tend to take a singular verb,
just like in AmE.
The government is considering a novel way to reduce the deficit.
The jury has not reached a verdict on that issue.
The team has lost twice this season.
The reverse is true for British English, where the above three sentences would tend to have the
plural forms are and have respectively.
(3) In colloquial AusE, the feminine pronoun she can be used to refer to inanimate nouns and in
impersonal constructions:
She’ll be right (‘Everything will be all right’)
She’s a stinker today, which means ‘The weather is excessively hot today’. (Examples borrowed
from Trudgill and Hannah 1994: 20)
(4) Some AusE speakers may use whenever to refer to a single occasion rather than to a habitual
action as is the usual practice in other English varieties:
Whenever she got married, she moved south
(‘When she got married, she moved south’).
(5) In some constructions, Australian English speakers may prefer an infinitive, rather than a
gerund, which is the only standard in other varieties:
Some people delay to pay their tax (instead of ‘delay paying’).
(6) It is usual in AusE to use thanks rather than please in requests:
Can I have another beer, thanks?
(8) Abbreviated personal names ending in -za are common, e.g. Bazza (‘Barry’), Mezza (‘Mary’)
etc.
The English of Australia seems to incorporate many lexical items that are believed to be unique to
the continent as they were coined – not borrowed from the Aboriginal languages – to describe the
unique reality encountered there. The best-known of these is probably outback, which means ‘the
country remote from major centers of population; pertaining to or characteristic of remote parts of
the country’. Another coinage is jackeroo, a word meaning ‘a person working on a sheep or cattle
station (often with a view to acquiring the practical experience and management skills desirable in a
station owner or manager)’. Yet another intrinsically Australian expression is fair dinkum, a phrase
which can mean anything from ‘true’, ‘speaking the truth’ to ‘authentic’, ‘real’, and ‘genuine’.
Even though one component, dinkum, may have originated from a dialect in the East Midlands in
Britain, where it meant ‘hard work’, the expression itself, in its current form and meaning, is strictly
Australian.
However, in spite of the seemingly numerous loans from the local aboriginal languages and
peculiarly Australian lexis, most dissimilarities between AusE and other Inner Circle Englishes are
purely intra-English (Trudgill, Hannah 1994: 21). What is meant by this is that the majority of
Australian words come from a general English pool of lexis and the distinctions observed in
Australian vocabulary involve differences – sometimes very subtle – in frequency of use, style, and
connotation or in only one particular sub-sense of a word. For this reason, lists of corresponding
vocabulary items which are often given to illustrate the differences between AusE and BrE, on the
one hand, and AusE and AmE, on the other, tend to be somewhat misleading, since they suggest,
rather simplistically, very categorical differences between respective equivalents.
(1) As was indicated above, Australian English has most of its vocabulary in common with the
other two major varieties, but the meanings assigned to the same lexical items often differ across
the varieties. For example, paddock, which is used in all three varieties and in BrE and AmE has a
restricted meaning of ‘a field that is used for grazing horses or the enclosure where horses are
saddled and mounted’, in AusE has a broader meaning covering any enclosed field or pasture.
Similarly, the word lolly, which is an abbreviation of lollipop and is used in AmE and BrE mostly
to refer to ‘a piece of hard candy attached to the end of a stick’, has a generic meaning in Australia
corresponding to sweet in BrE and candy in AmE. Differences can also include an additional
meaning in one of the varieties. The word station, for example, is a case in point. Apart from all the
other senses that are shared between all three varieties, in AusE the lexeme station also refers to a
large cattle or sheep farm.
(2) Besides, many lexical items that are shared by the varieties differ from each other in frequency
of use and their relative distribution across the variety. By way of illustration, rubber boots, which
is the standard American term for the British wellington boots or wellingtons and Australian
gumboots, can also be used in Australia alongside gumboots. The difference lies only in the
differing frequencies of use that these equivalent designations demonstrate. Another example is the
word singlet, the standard Australian equivalent for the American undershirt. Singlet is known and
used in Britain, but the corresponding term that is overwhelmingly preferred in Britain is vest, a
word that is not usual in AusE at all. Stroller and push-chair are another pair of equivalent terms
with differing distribution across the varieties. Stroller is used in AusE and AmE, but not in BrE,
where push-chair is common. However, some forms of AusE also use push-chair or pushy
(Trudgill, Hannah 1994: 23).
(3) Many usages are attributed to differing styles in which the same lexical items can be used. For
example, some words describing European-type countryside, are unusual in AusE and when they
are used, they have a poetic or even archaic flavor to them, e.g. brook, stream, meadow. Dress and
frock are another pair of lexical items that differ stylistically across the three varieties. Although all
three permit both words, frock is common in AusE and AmE, but sounds old-fashioned in Britain,
where it is unlikely to be used, for example, in advertising, as it is in Australian English. By the
same token, the AusE word gumboots, which was discussed earlier, although understood in Britain,
sounds rather archaic there.
The most pronounced lexical distinctions within the English-speaking world, however, are found at
the level of colloquial speech, and especially in slang. Here is a list of such items that should give
an idea of how little overlap, if any, there is between Australian slang and the slang circulating in
the other Inner Circle varieties of English:

AusE slang Translation into general English

to chunder to vomit
crook ill, angry
a dag an eccentric person
a drongo a fool
a sheila a girl
to front up to arrive; to present oneself
to bot to borrow
hard yakka hard work
to shoot through to leave
tucker food
a wog a germ
a spell a rest, a break
a humpy a shelter, a hut
to chyack to tease
an offsider a partner, companion
a chook a chicken
a larrikin a young ruffian
to fine up to improve
beaut very nice, great
to retrench to sack, make redundant

The English of New Zealand, although similar in many respects to Australian English, has some
unique characteristics, especially with regard to vocabulary. This is because immigration to New
Zealand took a different course from that to Australia. Even though some settlement got underway
in the late eighteenth century, it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that large numbers of
settlers began to arrive here. It is believed that while NZE has a lot of vocabulary in common with
AusE (sheep station, bowser (‘gas pump’), domain (‘public park’), it has two particular groups of
words that make the NZE vocabulary distinct from the English lexis elsewhere. Its unique character
is primarily due to the impact of the Maori, the Polynesian inhabitants of New Zealand who arrived
some 500 to 1000 years before Europeans, so the first group comprises words borrowed from
Maori. The most striking evidence of these borrowed words is in the hundreds and hundreds of
Maori place names all over New Zealand. But primarily this set of words reflects various aspects of
Maori life: flora and fauna indigenous to New Zealand, e.g. totara (‘tree’), kumara (‘sweet
potato’), katipo (‘spider’), tuatara (‘lizard’); Maori traditional culture, e.g. pa (‘village’), haka
(‘war dance’), tangi (‘ceremonial funeral’), tapu (‘sacred’), wahine (‘woman or wife’); more
general vocabulary, e.g. aroha (‘affection, love, sympathy’), pakeha (‘white person’), hui
(‘meeting’), taihoa (‘wait!’) etc. Although a rather large number of Maori words have found their
way into the usage of English speakers, they are used, according to Trudgill, solely in connection
with Maori culture (Trudgill, Hannah 1994: 27).
The other set of distinctive NZ vocabulary comes from the adaptation, modification and extension
of BrE lexis to the culture of NZ (Jackson, Zé Amvela 2007: 146). In fact, this group of words
accounts for most differences in vocabulary between NZE and other English varieties. The NZ
word for a holiday or beach cottage is bach, which has been clipped from bachelor. What in BrE is
a council house is referred to as a state house in NZE. A university graduation is called a capping
ceremony and a chilly bin is what Americans commonly refer to as a cooler, the British as a cool
box and Australians as an esky.
Since NZE is firmly based on BrE, there is considerable overlap between the vocabularies of Britain
and New Zealand and, conversely, one observes significant differences between NZ and American
lexis, which the table below amply demonstrates:

NZE BrE AmE

mincemeat minced meat ground meat (beef)

porridge porridge oatmeal
sweets, lollies sweets candy
jelly jelly jello
jam jam jelly
beetroot beetroot beet
spring onions spring onions green onions
grill grill broil
takeaway takeaway takeout
chilly bin cool box, cool-bag cooler; ice chest
flat flat apartment
flat mate flat mate roommate
tap tap faucet
power socket power point; socket (electric) outlet
rubber rubber eraser
torch torch flashlight
duvet duvet comforter
gumshoes wellington boots; rubber boots
wellingtons
roundabout roundabout traffic circle
car park car park parking lot
footpath; pavement pavement sidewalk
toilet toilet; lavatory washroom; bathroom;
restroom

Although one may be left under the impression that NZE vocabulary is not much different from that
of British English, it is estimated that NZE has under four thousand distinctive words or senses of
the words that are part of the frequently used lexis (Ibid.)

Canadian English

The English used in Canada has its own unique characteristics that make it distinct from other
English varieties across the world. The variety owes its distinctiveness to its unique historical path
of development and the demographic and sociolinguistic context that the first immigrants found
there on arrival. One should bear in mind that this national variety has coexisted for some 230 years
with Canadian French, which is almost a century older, as well as with indigenous languages, viz
Iroquois, Cree, and Inuktitut and a range of immigrant languages such as Italian or Ukrainian.
Importantly, its proximity to the US and the common origins in the mix of British dialects have led
some researchers to claim that there is no such thing as a distinct Canadian English. When scholars
make this claim, they usually cite the lack of phonological and orthographic standardization for
Canadian English (CanE), the scantiness of distinct Canadian lexis, and the presence of
regionalisms associated with various parts of the US. However, these are countered by the argument
that although few linguistic features may be unique to any dialect or variety, the confluence 23 of a
particular set of characteristics is what makes it unique. And there is no denying the fact that there

23
A combination or co-occurrence of things or events
is no other English variety in the world that has the same pattern of features as Canadian English.
Besides, a variety can also be distinct by characteristics other than its vocabulary.
According to the 2001 census, Canadian English is spoken as a first or second language by over 25
million – or 85 percent of – Canadians. As to Canadian pronunciation features, they are overall very
similar to American, which is especially true for Central and Western Canadians.
Where Canadian English shares vocabulary with other English dialects, it tends to share most with
American English. For instance, automotive terminology in Canada is entirely American. Canadians
may prefer the British term railway to the American railroad, but most railway terminology in
Canada follows American usage (e.g., ties, as well as cars rather than sleepers and wagons).
According to the editor-in-chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, the dictionary contains over
2,000 words that are unique to Canada (Deachman, 2005). She cites words such as eavestrough
(‘gutter’), gravol (‘an antihistamine used in the prevention of nausea, esp. in travel sickness’) and
cheezies (‘snack food made from aged cheddar’) – the latter pair being the generic forms of
trademarked product names – as examples of words that are actually virtually unknown outside
Canada.
Present-day CanE vocabulary is a result of a unique combination of factors, some of which continue
to this day (data borrowed from McArthur (ed.) 1992: 181)
(1) Borrowing from indigenous languages, of which there are two kinds: one is the Canadian
Indian languages, such as Cree, Dene and Ojibwa, and the other, the language spoken by Inuits,
Inuktitut. As is common with borrowings of this kind, most loans tend to relate to flora and fauna,
early social and economic experiences and survival. By way of example, the Indian languages
contributed words such as chipmunk, moose, muskeg (‘bogs; mossy land’), muskrat. From Inuktitut
come kayak, husky, anorak, parka etc., some of which have firmly established themselves in the
world’s major varieties of English. All of the names of the native peoples in Canada have all gone
through various spelling changes in the past 20 years, or even changes in the name. So the people
who used to be called the Ojibway are now called the Anishinabe, for instance [Deachman, 2005].
(2) Borrowing from French. As was mentioned earlier, English in Canada has been consistently
influenced by a sustained contact with French. Some spheres of life have a particularly high ratio of
words of French origin, e.g. words that designate Canadian historical realities, like seigneury, for
instance. Apart from the ancient legacy of well-established French vocabulary, CanE has a variety
of usages that are characteristically North American: cache (‘a place for storing supplies; a supply
of goods‘), Métis (‘a person of mixed blood‘), voyageur (‘someone traveling the Northern
wilderness‘), tuque (‘a knitted cap‘), caisse populaire (‘a credit union’), portage (‘getting a canoe
past rapids’) etc. The co-existence of two official languages has brought about various usages,
including the attributive use of the name Canada in the names of government departments, national
organizations, agencies and institutions: Revenue Canada, Air Canada, Loto Canada etc. The two
languages in contact are also responsible for the mixing of English and French lexemes within one
name – a phenomenon intrinsic to Canada and Canadian English, e.g. Jeunesses Musicales of
Canada (‘Musical Youth of Canada’).
(3) Modification – extension and adaptation – of traditional lexis. It is true that CanE has most
of the English vocabulary in common with either British or American vocabulary. Yet, the English
spoken in Canada has had the meanings of countless words that it shares with the major varieties
extended or altered to meet the unique contexts of North America. Such words include status Indian
(‘someone officially registered as a Canadian Indian’), province and provincial (referring to the
major administrative divisions of the country), reserve, as opposed to AmE reservation, which
means the same thing (McArthur (ed.) 1992: 182). Collector, when referring to highway collector
lanes, is uniquely Canadian. As is obvious, in many cases, it is the meaning of the word or one of its
senses, and not the word itself, that is distinctly Canadian. By way of illustration, below comes a list
of usages that are uncommon outside of Canada:

CanE usage Explanation

all dressed pizza or burgers with all the toppings

chesterfield couch
 Girl Guides Americans call them Scouts, just like the boys
housecoat bath robe
parkade parking garage
pogey unemployment insurance
seat sale a ticket or fare sale (usually for a plane or bus, but
occasionally for an event)
serviette napkin
toboggan sled
tooni Canadian two dollar coin
tuque a warm, knit hat
two-four a case of 24 beers
washroom bathroom

Outer Circle national varieties of English

The global spread of the English language as one of the most far-reaching linguistic phenomena of

our time is already an established fact. Evidence of this worldwide phenomenon of language

contact, variation and change can be seen through such designations as world Englishes, new

Englishes, modern Englishes, West African Englishes, South African English, Australian English,

Indian English, to name just a few. The fact that English has gained worldwide prominence does

not mean that it is used exactly the same way everywhere. In fact, the reverse is true. Although

British imperialism resulted in the global spread of English, the English of the Filipinos is quite

different from that of Canadians or Kenyans, and that a continuum exists between the various

practices constituting English language usage throughout the world. The present form of any

English in the Outer Circle is the outcome of its contact with the indigenous languages of the region

where it was brought. It is a well-known sociolinguistic fact that when two or more languages and

cultures come into contact, different types of sociolinguistic chemistry take place. Sometimes a

diglossic situation may result, or language shift, or even language death. In some other instances, it

can lead to the formation of a pidgin, a creole, or even the birth of a new language altogether (Sebba

1997). Instances of these various possibilities can be found in different contact situations around the

globe. Each of the new Englishes has distinct characteristics, as well as distinct linguistic and

cultural identities, largely due to the different historical, geographical, political and socio-cultural

factors that gave birth to them. Thus, Nigerian English will differ from either Ghanaian or Indian
English. Each variety, however, will also have various sub-varieties or dialects, reflecting its

multilingual environment. 

Whereas in the Inner Circle English spread primarily as a result of a migration of English speakers,
the spread of English in the Outer Circle occurred largely as a result of colonization by English-
speaking nations. In these countries – India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, Malaysia, the Philippines,
South Africa, Singapore, Tanzania and Zambia – two major scenarios played out. In some
countries, e.g. Nigeria and India, English evolved into an elite second language, while in others –
Barbados and Jamaica – it gave rise to English-based pidgins and creoles (McKay 2002). Where
English developed as a prestigious second language, only a minority of the society acquired it. On
the other hand, in the other group of countries, where English was responsible for the development
of pidgins and creoles that were based on it, a lot more people were exposed to it.
Kachru points out two main characteristics that mark out most Outer Circle varieties: nativisation,
which means that the variety has developed its own characteristic structural features, and
institutionalization, which is to be understood that the variety has become the standard in the mind
for the speakers (Kachru 1992: 55). Since these varieties have more restricted roles, usually
confined to the region of their use, we will not specifically discuss the characteristics of any of them
here. Suffice it to say, what is currently happening with English is not an anomaly, as some may
think, but rather a normal and natural linguistic process that inevitably occurs once a language
spreads out and affects as many people across continents as English does today.

Non-standard varieties within national varieties

It would be erroneous to assume that variation stops at the level of national varieties. In fact, all
major standard varieties are under pressure from within, pressure that comes from relentless
regional variation.
It is important to bear in mind that non-standardness lies at the other end of the continuum of
standardness. Varieties characterized by the use of non-standard forms are often referred to as
vernacular dialects. Some researchers may refer to these vernacular varieties as nonstandard
dialects or nonmainstream dialects (Wolfram 2006: 14), but whichever term is preferred, they all
describe varieties that make use of forms which fail to conform to what is traditionally considered
standard usage. It is important to note that, from the linguistic standpoint, vernacular dialects are
not in any intrinsic way better or worse than standard varieties.
Despite the popular belief that dialect vocabularies are declining, there remains a significant
amount of lexical diversity within the major varieties. This can be demonstrated by lexical
variation across Great Britain. Let us consider, for example, the variety of words used for
“bread roll” in different parts of the UK. People who live in Lancashire call it a barm cake,
while those living in Leeds will most likely ask for a bread cake. A baker offering it to you in
Derby will probably call it a cob, whereas in Coventry, you will hear it referred to as a batch.
And all of these different designations will denote very much the same thing. Similarly,
speakers in different parts of the US will use different words to refer to the same concept, e.g.
soda, pop, cola, and tonic to denote a particular kind of carbonated beverage, or hoagie, sub,
po’boy, grinder, hero, cosmo, torpedo, bomber, zeppelin (or zep), and wedge to refer to a
sandwich on a long individual bread or baguette (Wolfram 2006: 60).

Regional variation within the UK

Traditionally, dialect areas in Great Britain are divided into five groups: Northern, Midland,
Eastern, Western, and Southern. These five major dialects are further subdivided into more
localized varieties, e.g. Northern dialect area encompasses Cheshire, Cumbrian, Scouse, Geordie,
Yorkshire, Northumbrian, Lancastrian and some other varieties; the Southern group of dialects
includes Received Pronunciation (RP), Cockney, Estuary English, East Anglian, Kentish, Sussex
and Inner London English. We will not go into the characteristics of all of these varieties with the
exception of only one, Cockney, because, on the one hand, there are too many of them, and on the
other, they are non-standard and, therefore, uncodified. Instead, we will briefly look at some of the
words used by some varieties to give an idea of lexical and semantic processes that are at work in
dialects. The reason we believe it may be worthwhile to dwell at greater length on Cockney is that
Cockney is a major element in the English of London, since it is the core of a diverse variety spoken
by a considerable number of people in the greater London area. Besides, it is a variety with a rich
history which has been around for at least four hundred years.
The lexis of dialects seems to be their most conspicuous feature for outsiders. In the case of
unusual and unknown grammatical forms, those unfamiliar with the dialect may be able to infer
the meaning readily. When we encounter a novel lexeme, however, we can at best guess its
meaning from the context. This will include both forms that are peculiar to the dialect and forms
that are also common elsewhere, but have a distinctive meaning in the dialect. So the word beer-off
found in East Yorkshire is a distinctive form that designates an off-licence or liquor store (AmE).
The word is hardly used anywhere else. On the other hand, happen is a high-frequency verb in
Standard English, but in some Yorkshire dialects it can be used as an adverb as well, in the sense of
‘maybe’ or ‘perhaps’, as in Happen it may rain tomorrow. As these two examples demonstrate,
dialects can make use of words that are peculiar only to that area, or they can use lexical items that
are common elsewhere – in Standard English, in particular – but in certain senses that are not found
anywhere else. By way of additional illustration, the conjunction while indicates simultaneous time
in Standard English, whereas East and West Yorkshire dialects utilize it in the sense that is
normally expressed by “until” in Standard English. Andrew Moore provides an illustration of it by
quoting one of the characters from a program on BBC Radio 4 (24 January, 2004): A lot of men go
out in the morning. They don't get back while seven o'clock at night... (Moore 2002).

Cockney: General Characteristics

As was mentioned above, the term Cockney is somewhat loosely used with reference to usage in the
wide London area. Some linguists tend to make a distinction between core Cockney and fringe
Cockney. Core Cockney is the broadest accent, meaning that, if all Cockney usage is placed on a
continuum, it will display the most typical features of the dialect. It is based on the usage centered
on the East End of London, with fringe forms shading out into the suburbs and even counties
around the city. Cockney is the core of the working-class London speech, and as such, it is probably
sensible to regard it as a kind of sociolect. Its status of a social dialect is determined through social
factors such as class, social background, education, income level and social aspirations. So to be
even more precise, Cockney can be viewed as a class-based social dialect. What this, in effect,
means is that the lower the social status a person enjoys, the less schooling they have had and the
lower the wages, the more extreme forms their dialect reveals. Apart from the factors noted above,
locality obviously cannot be discounted either, since Cockney has long been associated with the
East End and the inner suburbs of east London.
As to the characteristic features of the Cockney speech, they are found on all language levels, but
primarily in pronunciation. The following phonological features contribute to core Cockney speech:
(1) the replacement of dental fricatives [Ø] and [ð], as in thief and brother with [f] and [v]
respectively: [fi:f], [br˄və]. This feature is sometimes referred to as ‘th-fronting’; (2) ‘h-dropping’
(or ‘aitch-dropping’): like with many varieties of English in England, Cockney speakers do not
pronounce the initial [h] in words like house, hammer, or his: ‘ouse, ‘ammer, ‘is etc. On the other
hand, they sometimes add [h] before initial vowels where it is not supposed to appear: Did you
hever see ‘er? (3) Cockney usage involves significant distinctions in the pronunciation of English
diphthongs. Cockney is well known for its use of [ai] for [ei] and [oi] for [ai]. As a result, words
like great, date, skate will sound like [grait], [dait], [skait], and the sounds in why, lie, high are
more like what we hear in boy, joy etc. Besides, it uses the diphthong [əi] where Standard English
(SE) has [i:]: neat, seat, treat etc. Conversely, the SE diphthong [au] is monophthongized and
replaced by [a:]; so the vowel sound in mouth, town, about is more like the monophthong in laugh.
(4) The glottal stop feature, which involves a complete or partial closure of the glottis 24 during the
24
The space between the vocal cords which, when opened and closed, helps to produce sounds
articulation of another sound: a glottal stop is produced simultaneously with another consonant. As
a result, glottal stops such [p], [t], and [k] in final position are almost invariably glottalized (Wells,
1982): pat, up, mock. Glottalization of t can also manifest itself in the intervocalic position, in
which case the glottal stop completely replaces the t-sound: water [ˈwɔːʔə], Britain [ˈbrɪʔən], city
[ˈsɪʔɪ]. So a sentence like A little bit of bread with a bit of butter on it, as articulated by a Cockney
speaker, will sound more like: A li’le bi’ of breab wiv a bi’ of bu’er on i’25.
Apart from distinctive pronunciation, differences are also observed in grammar and vocabulary.
Cockney grammar is, by and large, characterized by ‘general’ non-standard features, such as double
negation or misused tense forms of verbs, e.g. I seen it yesterday or He done it all right instead of
saw and did. Cockney does, however, have a feature of syntax that is not typical of non-standard
English varieties elsewhere. This peculiarity involves omitting prepositions to and at in relation to
places: He’s goin down the pub or They’re over me mum’s meaning He is going down to the pub
and They are over at my mum’s (place) respectively (McArthur (ed.) 1992: 226).

As far as Cockney vocabulary is concerned, its best-known and most-discussed feature has always
been rhyming slang. It is a form of slang that originated in the 18 th century as part of creative
word-play, on the one hand, and, on the other, as part of the lingo of thieves and other marginalized
groups because it contributed to the secretiveness of communication. Some scholars believe that
rhyming slang was never a major feature of Cockney usage and its spread is primarily due to radio
and television (McArthur (ed.) 1992: 868). A rhyming slang expression is created from a binary
expression that rhymes with a single word that gives the expression its meaning, e.g. apples and
pears means “stairs”, Adam and Eve – “believe”, trouble and strife – “wife” and bowl of water –
“daughter”. What often seems to pass unnoticed by many is that in real use – and particularly in the
secret lingo of criminals in the past – the second element is usually dropped, which makes it, on the
one hand, more obscure and, on the other, far less easy, if not impossible, to work out the actual
meaning of such a word: Why don’t you use your loaf for a change? (loaf of bread – “head”) or
Take a butcher’s at that car! (butcher’s hook – “look”). Rhyming slang, even if often used for
effect, is still very much a part of the true Cockney culture.

TASK 4
By surfing different Internet sites, find out the meanings of the rhyming slang items
below, which are set in bold:

1. He’s looking for someone who could lend him an Oxford.

2. Your Uncle is in the laundry.
3. I have no idea what he’s rabbiting about.
4. The couple had another bull the other night.
5. It’s gonna take more bees than that.
6. Most girls would be happy to have such long bacons.
7. Pass the Army, will you?

TASK 5
In 2009, a number of East London ATMs offered customers the chance to
withdraw cash using written prompts in Cockney rhyming slang. Try to explain
what they meant by asking customers to enter their Huckleberry Finn and by
informing them that the machine is reading their bladder of lard. Besides, how
would you interpret the following instruction that was given:

You'd better get ready to use your loaf if you want to get your hands on some
bread.

25
The use of apostrophe signals the omission of the t-sound
American Regional English

If we consider dialect situation within American English, we will find that the changing patterns of
immigration, population movement and, therefore, shifting patterns of cultural and linguistic contact
have brought about changes in the dialect landscape of the United States. Despite the erosion of
dialects that was predicted in view of intensified population mobility and the advent of new
communication technologies, extensive research indicates that American dialects are alive and well.
William Labov and his associates have determined that the three major dialect divisions indicated
by early dialectologists still seem to be in place: Northern (Northern Cities area), Midland and
Southern (Labov, Ash, Boberg 2005). Although most dialect geographers tend to divide the USA
up into these three major dialects, some still prefer to refer to the second dialect area as General
American in view of the fact that it is the largest of them all and covers the most geographically
remote areas: it comprises Northern, Central Eastern, Midland, and Western dialect areas (Trudgill,
Hannah 1994: 43). It has to be noted, however, that many modern linguists have recently been
sharply critical of the term ‘General American’ in view of the fact that the days when huge areas of
the country used a similar phonology are long gone. In fact, the West, for example, has become a
distinctive region, and some West Coast speech varieties are even leading the spread of a number of
dialect features throughout the US. Just to give one example of such change, the use of go and be
like to introduce quoted speech (So she goes, “You are going out with him?” and I am like, “What
are you, nuts?”), which started in California a few decades ago, is now widespread throughout the
US. Not only is it now commonly used in the US, but it is also very much in evidence in other
English-speaking countries, notably Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Labov further indicates
that the basic dialect divisions may actually be intensifying rather than weakening (Wolfram,
Shilling-Estes 2006: 131).
The Northern division is marked by such vocabulary items as pail rather than bucket, angleworm
for ‘earthworm’, and pit rather than ‘seed’ in a cherry. Phonologically it has a phonemic distinction
between the vowels in hoarse and horse, [s] in greasy (rather than [z]) and [uw] in boot. Eastern
New England is set off from the rest of the Northern dialect area by the absence of postvocalic [r]
(in words like car, barn and color) and the use of [a] for [æ] in words such as aunt, last and half
(Contemporary Linguistics 1993: 445).
Midland English is set off, among other features, by the use of such lexis as skillet for ‘frying pan’,
blinds for ‘window shades’ and poke for a ‘paper sack’. In terms of phonological differences,
Midland dialect is characterized by postvocalic [r] and the use of [Ø] in with instead of [ð].
Southern Midland speakers use redworm for earthworm, pack for carry and pronounce the vowel
sound in night and ride as [a] rather than [ai] (Contemporary Linguistics 1993: 446).
Finally, the Southern dialects are distinguished by the absence of postvocalic [r], the use of tote for
carry, snap beans for string beans, and mighty for very. Besides, Southern English is noted for its
use of idiosyncratic might could in the meaning of ‘might be able to’ (as in the sentence I might
could have finished chopping wood if it hadn’t rained), be fixin’ for ‘be going to; be getting ready
to’ (as in I’m fixin’ to leave), and the differentiation between a singular you and plural y’all (you-
all).

African American Vernacular English

African American Vernacular English (AAVE), African American Language, African American
English, African-American English Vernacular or Black English Vernacular are all designations for
English as used by a majority of US citizens of Black African background and comprising a range
of urban and rural dialects (McArthur (ed.) 1992 : 133). Outside the academic community, the
variety is also known as Ebonics. Since the variety characterizes the speech of an ethnic group
within an English-speaking country regardless of the geographic location of its speakers, we deem it
appropriate to regard AAVE as an ethnically-based social dialect.
The status of AAVE is a matter of controversy, as some insist that it is a language in its own right
while others see it as a variety of American English with its limitations. Most modern linguists
work on a premise that no dialect or variety is intrinsically bad or good and that a non-standard
speech style, which AAVE undoubtedly is, is not defective speech but different speech. Besides,
they have been able to show that Black English is far from being a careless way of speaking
Standard English. Instead, it is a rather rigidly constructed set of speech patterns which are manifest
in the same way in sounds, structure, and vocabulary as in any other variety (Seymour 1994: 123).
In order to build up a fuller picture of this variety, we will briefly discuss the grammar of Black
English before moving on to vocabulary.
In terms of grammatical structure, Black English has a number of highly noticeable features that
set it apart from standard English:
(1) Multiple negation or negative concord, which it shares with other non-standard dialects: E.g. It
ain’t no cat can’t get in no coop meaning “There’s no cat that can get in a coop”.
(2) It, as in the sentence above, replaces there in the construction there is/are:
It ain’t no cat … stands for There is no cat…
(3) The copula be is often left out, as in You dirty cat. He no good.
(4) Inflections for plural, possessive and tense forms do not work in the same way as in Standard
English: That his sister car meaning “That’s his sister’s car”; There were just three desk for “There
were just three desks”; He know it for “He knows it”.
(5) The use of habitual be as in They be fighting or She be working. These sentences mean “They
are always fighting” and “She is always working” respectively.
(6) The form been (usually stressed) conveys a remote past event, as in She been had dat hat, i.e.
She has had that hat for quite some time.
(7) Sentences corresponding to perfect tenses in Standard English are sometimes conveyed by the
use of done. For example, the AAVE sentence She done read her paper is grammatically equivalent
to the SE “She has read her paper”.
(8) The use of aspectual steady (most often with progressive verbs):
He be steady rappin’ (i.e. He constantly raps). The word steady is used to mark consistent,
persistent and intense actions (McArthur (ed.) 1992: 134). It is important to point out that the
differences identified above have developed on the basis of grammatical features traceable to a
whole range of West African languages (Wolof, Yoruba and others) that constitute the linguistic
heritage of African American speakers in the US.

TASK 6
Identify the features in the passage below that stand out and set them off from
standard English:

It’s a girl name Shirley Jones live in Washington. ‘Most everybody on her
street like her, ‘cause she a nice girl. Shirley like a boy name Charles. But
she keep away from him and Charles don’t hardly say nothing to her
neither.

Vocabulary of African American Vernacular English

Although the distinctive character of Black American English is most evident in its phonology and
syntax, it is also manifest in its lexis. AAVE does not have a vocabulary entirely of its own: it
shares most of its lexis with other varieties of English. Besides, there is considerable overlap
between Black English Vernacular and Southern dialects and informal varieties of English spoken
in the US. At the same time, Black English speakers do use a number of words that are not found
elsewhere. On the other hand, they use many standard English words in ways that deviate from
more traditional uses.
It has to be noted that standard English owes quite a few words to AAVE and to the West African
languages that contributed to its development. Among such words are gumbo, banana, jazz, okra,
yam etc. Apart from standard words and expressions, American English and other varieties of
English have incorporated various informal words and phrases from Black English, e.g. chill out,
funky, soul, main squeeze etc.
It may be reasonable to divide the vocabulary used by African American speakers into the
following three groups:
(1) words that are not part of standard American English (crunk – good, fine, hype), honey dip – a
term of affection for a desirable girl or woman, whip – car, throw shade – to criticize, demean,
insult). Many of such words describe areas of life where African American speakers have
traditionally held attitudes different from white people or which reflect a historically asymmetrical
relationship between black and white people in the US. For example, there are several words in
Black English referring to white people that, for obvious reasons, are not part of mainstream
American English. These include the use of gray as an adjective for “whites”. Its exact origins are
unclear but it is possible that the word originated from the color of the uniforms that the
Confederate soldiers wore during the American Civil War. Ofay is another designation for a white
person that carries even stronger pejorative connotations. Some other examples of words and
expressions that belong in this category are diss – “disrespect; insult”, bourgie – “middle-class”,
hood – “ghetto neighborhood”, homeboy – “s/one from one’s gang or neighborhood”, krunk –
“exciting”, saddity – “snobbish and pretentious black person”, to drop a dime on s/one – “to report
s/one to the police”, etc.
(2) words that have distinctly different meanings from their counterparts in standard American
English, e.g. cop – “to steal”; brother / sister – “a way of talking to or about an African-American
man / woman, used especially by African Americans”, to muscle – “to attack”, badge –
“policeman”, heavy – “ten-year prison term”, to take a hit (on s/th) – “to take a certain amount of
s/th”, etc. This is not to suggest that the lexical items enumerated above are not also used in their
traditional meanings, i.e. meanings in which they operate in standard American English. For
example, the word kitchen in AAVE is referred both to the room one cooks in and to the hair at the
nape of the neck.
(3) words that are used with a differing pragmatic meaning from that used in standard American
English. This group is limited in number. One of the most vivid examples of such words is the word
nigger. It can be traced back to the Spanish and Portuguese noun negro and was originally used in
neutral contexts to refer to black people. Now the semantics of the word is far from neutral: it is
considered a very offensive term to refer to black people and can be encountered only in extremely
pejorative contexts. The implied racism of the word nigger has made its usages social taboo. At the
same time, although it is considered a racial slur in the mouths of white people, it does not
necessarily have the same ring when uttered by Afro-Americans themselves. Gloria Naylor attests
to distinctly positive contexts in which the word appeared among African Americans when she was
growing up. According to her, the word could be applied to a man who had distinguished himself in
some situation that brought the approval of his interlocutors, as in “Did Johnny really do that?”
“I’m telling you, that nigger pulled in $6,000 of overtime last year. Said he got enough for a down
payment on a house.” (Naylor 1994: 306). Furthermore, when the term was used with a possessive
adjective by a woman – ‘my nigger’ – it became a term of endearment for her husband or boyfriend
[Ibid.], e.g. My nigger wouldn’t have let it happen to me.
It is worthy of note that a woman could never be a ‘nigger’ in the singular, with its highly positive
connotation. In that sense, it is the noun girl – but only when used in direct address – that serves as
its closest equivalent, e.g. “G-i-r-l, stop. You mean you said that to his face?” (Naylor 1994: 307).
In this context, the word girl is used as a token of respect for the woman being addressed in
recognition of her wit, nerve and/or daring that she had shown in the situation under discussion.
It has to be noted that popular music and especially hip-hop, which is intimately related to
the African American oral tradition, has made many AAVE usages very attractive to non-black
artists. This, in turn, has popularized many features of Black English among wider public,
especially adolescents. Vocabulary items such as dig, diss, rap, etc. have started to seem colorful
rather than socially stigmatized as they might have been several decades ago.

TASK 7
By using available Internet sources, identify and interpret the peculiar AAVE
grammatical structures and vocabulary items in the sentences below:
 (1) The professor be tripping dem out using big words dey can’t understand.
(2) Sam came walking out the guest room, he walked over and dapped me up, he’s
honestly one of my main niggas, when I was on the road he would be looking over
my little sis for me and he’s always had my back even back in the day when I ain’t
had nothing.
(3) Have Lang drop y’all off at the crib, I’ll be over in a bit.
(4) You’d better straighten up and fly right, or you gonna get fired.
(5) “So you ain’t gon give ya baby zaddy a hug den?”, he said laughing.
(6) Them students be steady trying to make a buck.
(7) She come acting like she was real mad.

It is important to note that dialects and varieties form a scale and can be usually differentiated on a
‘more-or-less’ basis than on an ‘either-or’ one, which means that, in most cases, the differences
amount to how common an individual feature is rather than whether it is present or entirely absent.
Both regional and social dialectal areas should best be treated as existing on a continuum rather than
having distinct, non-fuzzy boundaries.

Social variation
"Language differences play an important, positive role
in signaling information as well as in creating and
maintaining the subtle boundaries of power, status, role
and occupational specialization that make up the fabric
of our social life."
(John J. Gumperz, Discourse Strategies, pp. 6-7)

Language-user vs. language-use varieties

In this book, care has been taken to differentiate between social and stylistic variation. By social
variation, we will mean variation in features of language that governs language use depending on
social class, ethnicity, social background, income level, gender and age. Here, we deal with what
Halliday called language-user varieties (Halliday, Hasan 1990: 41-43). These are considered to be
relatively permanent, background features of language, over which people, by and large, have
relatively little conscious control. Geographically differentiated dialects are probably classic
examples of language-user varieties. Likewise, we tend not to change our way of speaking that is
related to class, education, gender or age, as we go about our daily business, and usually do not
even realize that it is there (Crystal 2003: 290). On the other hand, stylistic variation relates to
situational, personal or occupational choices of language patterns. These choices are governed by
formality – informality considerations, the topic, setting and purpose of communication as well as
the varieties associated with occupational groups (media people, university professors, doctors, taxi-
drivers etc.). They are seen as temporary features of our spoken or written language, over which we
do have some degree of conscious control (for instance, we deliberately switch to baby-talk when
the situation requires it). We routinely adopt different group uses of language as we go through our
day (family, job, religion, sports etc.). According to Halliday, these are called language-use
varieties (Halliday, Hasan 1990: 41-43).

The notion of sociolect

In the previous subchapter, we have dealt with variation in space, i.e. the kind of variation that is
found across geographic areas. Such variation is often a result of isolation, distance or boundaries
(geographic, political etc.). Boundaries are, however, often of a social nature, in which case we
speak of social dialects. By social dialects, or sociolects, we mean varieties of language used by
groups defined according to class, education, age, sex and a number of other social parameters.
Social dialect research in many different countries has revealed a consistent relationship between
social class and language patterns. People from different social classes speak differently. The most
obvious differences – in vocabulary – are in many ways the least illuminating from a sociolinguistic
point of view. In the 1950s, in England many pairs of words were identified which, it was claimed,
distinguished the speech of upper-class English people (U speakers) from the rest (non-U speakers).
U speakers used sitting room rather than lounge (non-U) and referred to the lavatory rather than the
non-U toilet. Here are some other examples of this kind:

U SPEAKERS NON-U SPEAKERS

sitting room lounge

lavatory toilet
lavatory paper toilet paper
have a bath take a bath
sofa settee
bag handbag
sick ill
relations relatives
vegetables greens
wireless radio

By looking at this table, one may think that this differentiation is rather categorical. Things are not
that simple, however, because words easily cross the boundaries of the U-group and are assimilated
by other social groups. Besides, U-speakers, just like any other group, can be mobile and change
status in the course of time but they bring words with them. In the meantime, what typically
happens is once a word is assimilated by other social groups, new terms are introduced in their
place. There is no empirical research to back up these claims, but even if they exist, they are
superficial. The barriers between groups are not insurmountable and they conceal the relative
fluidity of social class membership. People can move up and down the social ladder and this
potential mobility is mirrored more accurately in other aspects of their speech – such as
pronunciation (Holmes 1997: 149).
As has already been made clear, bank managers do not talk like office cleaners and lawyers do not
speak in the same way as the burglars they defend. Class divisions are based on such status
differences. Status refers to the deference or respect people give someone – or don't give them as
the case may be, and status generally derives in Western society from the material resources a
person can command, though there are other sources too. Family background may be a source of
status independently of wealth (the youngest child of an earl may be poor but respected) (Ibid.).
There is no doubt that education, which is directly linked to the socioeconomic potential of a
person’s family, will affect that person’s language. For example, regardless of what part of the
country they may come from, university students both in the UK and the US are all likely to speak
Standard British or American English respectively. Initially, students in the UK, who come from
Liverpool, Birmingham and London will sound very different; so much so, in fact, that in the
beginning, they may even have difficulty understanding one another. With time, however, as they
get to know each other better, their accents and linguistic patterns will start to converge and they
will start to iron out differences in pronunciation, without often realizing it. According to Talbot,
many British students report that when they go back home for holidays, their old friends accuse
them of ‘talking posh’ (Talbot 2010: 19). The study of the lexicon typical of certain social groups
and contexts can not only give clues about the linguistic behavior of the group, but can also help
establish certain correlations between social status, social identity and linguistic patterns.
From this follows that any study of vocabulary, if it is to account for the many factors that
determine word choice, has to look into the very contexts in which this vocabulary is produced. By
way of illustration, let us consider in a little more detail what differences can be identified between
the following sentences conveying roughly the same idea:
1. The man is in love with the lovely girl.
2. The gentleman is enamored of the charming lady.
3. The guy got a crush on the cute chick.  
 4. The bloke/chap fancies the bonny lassie.
5. The dude’s crazy about this here broad.
Variation is a characteristic feature inherent in most linguistic means, since there usually are
multiple ways of saying the same thing. In the examples above, every sentence signals a different
social situation even though the general idea expressed in them is, essentially, the same. We say
“essentially” because, for example, the predicates in these sentences are expressed by verbs and
expressions that display variation in terms of degree, intensity, manner, etc. of the action described.
The first sentence can be regarded as the most neutral. The speaker, in all likelihood, is detached
and emotionally uninvolved and sounds as if s/he is impartially reporting or commenting on a
situation. The situation itself, which calls for this kind of neutral language, may well presuppose –
but does not have to – a certain social distance between the person speaking and the one(s) being
spoken to. Neutral language is almost always used between people who either do not know each
other or do not know each other very well. The speaker is most probably not reading any additional
meanings into the words s/he is saying. Apart from the word lovely, which carries mostly positive
connotations – emotions and associations evoked by a word2 – the words used in the first sentence
are largely neutral or, as contexts like this tend to be described, stylistically unmarked. Sentence 2,
on the other hand, brings to mind a formal situation in which the use of the words gentleman and
lady to designate “man” and “girl” is appropriate. Neither can enamored be employed in speech as
it is considered extremely formal. A sentence like this is most likely to be encountered in literary
writing. Conversely, sentences 3 and 4 are more likely to be spoken than written. The vocabulary
employed in both these sentences belongs to informal and very informal strata (e.g. bloke, chick)
and the contexts evoked by these utterances are social milieus of adolescents, youth
subcultures (esp. sentence 3: cute, chick) and other informal social groups. There is a marked
difference between 3 and 4, however. They represent two different varieties of English – American
and British respectively. Words like guy, cute, chick – in the senses of the present context – would
be somewhat uncommon in British English, while the reverse is true of the British counterparts:
chap /bloke are not really used outside of the UK, and certainly not in the US. Incidentally, chap
and bloke, although synonymous, are not entirely the same, as bloke is more informal and, besides,
they conjure up slightly different connotations. There is even more than that to sentence 4, however.
Apart from its colloquial character, the utterance is imbued with additional associations. The words
bonny and lassie evoke stylistic connotations of a place, notably Scotland and the north of England,
by virtue of their Scottish origin. This sort of wording could be employed for rhetorical purposes
and/or to add a facetious touch to what is being conveyed. In different contexts, it can produce
different stylistic effects and be imbued with a different pragmatic meaning. And, finally, the last
sentence represents American non-standard speech and, apart from lexical (dude, broad),
contains grammatical markers of non-standard language. The latter is manifest through a
syntactic construction this here + Noun, which corresponds to Standard this + Noun and is
characteristic of uneducated or/and dialectal speech. The standard vs. non-standard dichotomy is a
reflection of social stratification of language, and vocabulary in particular. The sentence is rich in
connotations, and may have multiple interpretations, which may range from jocular (dude, broad) to
offensive (broad is an impolite term for a woman). It is noteworthy that dude, which goes back to
the late 19th century, was popularized by black speakers (1920s – 1930s) and especially by black
entertainers in the 1970s and 1980s. In one route of development, dude generalized to “any male”
and it is in this meaning that the word has become known and currently widely used, as in And then
this dude came up to me and said…. But this is not the only meaning of dude. It has now become a
multipurpose word with a broad semantics and, apart from the sense described above, it is used for
emphasis, to convey emotion, as a term of endearment, as a form of address etc., e.g.  Dude, you
have no idea! or Hey, my dog died yesterday. – Dude, I'm so sorry.  All these senses may also
contribute to the possible readings of the analyzed sentence.
   It is thus safe to conclude that not only is vocabulary subject to a great deal of variation, but,
more often than not, this variation is socially motivated: either by way of certain social
characteristics of the speaker (age, gender, social class, ethnicity etc.), but also by parameters of the
social situation in which communication takes place (formal – informal; personal – public etc.). The
latter two are generally regarded as stylistically motivated variation. Words do not occur in
isolation, just as language does not function in a vacuum. It is essential to know what governs
speakers’ choices, what options (of words) are at their disposal and what effect different words
might have on the listener or reader.

Vocabulary and gender

Differences in women’s and men’s speech are another source of variation in language and most
linguists seem to agree that women’s speaking styles are somewhat different from men’s. Even as
early as in the 60s and 70s of the previous century, sociolinguistic surveys claimed to have
discovered an intriguing difference between the language used by women and men, namely that,
across social classes, women consistently tend to use more of the features associated with the
prestige ‘standard’ variety of a language than men do (Talbot 2010: 19). Initially, most of such
research was done on English-language material, but, more recently, similar findings were produced
for a range of other languages. The first English-language study was conducted by the American
sociolinguist William Labov, who, in order to carry out his experiment, examined language
variation in New York City. Labov worked within the variationist framework, which he, in fact,
largely devised and initiated. The starting point for such kind of variation analysis is identifying a
(socio)linguistic variable – a feature of language which is not used uniformly across a speech
community or in the speech of an individual [Contemporary Linguistics 1993: 430]. In other
words, it is a linguistic feature that is known to vary from context to context, e.g. pronouncing
doing as [΄du:iŋ] as opposed to [΄du:in]; saying I didn’t tell no lie vs. I told no lie /I didn’t tell any
lie or Where’re y’all going? vs. Where are you all going? The study of linguistic variables means
studying social contexts that require the use of one variant over the other. For example, it has been
consistently established that doin’ is favored primarily in vernacular speech and very informal
contexts, while its counterpart doing is the standard form. This distinction in the pronunciation of -
ing distinguishes social groups in every English-speaking community in which it has been
investigated (Holmes 1997: 152).
The study that Labov conducted involved a sample of the New York City population that
represented different social classes. The interview was intended to elicit a range of ‘styles’ of
speech, from highly self-conscious and formal to unguarded, casual and relaxed, i.e. informal.
Labov found that the higher the social status of a person was, the more often the prestige variants
occurred in their speech. And another finding that emerged as a result of this experiment, which is
particularly important for the purposes of the present discussion about gender-related differences,
was that in each social class women consistently produced more of the prestigious forms than men
did (Talbot 2010: 20). There have been attempts to explain this divergence. One answer which has
been suggested to the question ‘Why don’t men use more standard forms?’ is that men seem to
prefer vernacular forms because they carry connotations of masculinity, even machismo, and
toughness. Men, therefore, regard vernacular forms positively and value them highly, even if they
do not always admit to doing so (Holmes 1997: 175). It has been suggested by sociolinguists that
vernacular forms carry an inapparent form of prestige for male speakers – Labov called such type of
prestige covert prestige, as opposed to overt prestige (Labov 2006: 85), such that is obvious and
has a ready explanation. Labov noticed that even speakers who often believed the forms in their
own (social or geographic) dialect were ‘wrong’, ‘bad’ or ‘inferior’, were loyal to this dialect and
often spoke tenderly about it. Labov realized that there must be some underlying reason for such
attitude, which he identified as a signal of group identity. Speakers – men in our case – use
vernacular forms to gain recognition, acceptance, or solidarity with another – non-prestigious –
group of people, or to signal to other speakers their identification with that group. By way of
illustration, Eminem, a white American rapper who is one of the best-selling artists in the world,
uses a considerable amount of non-standard forms in his lyrics. His departure from more standard
forms is probably best seen as a deliberate convergence with the community of rappers and their
audiences, since this kind of language enjoys prestige in these communities. In line with the same
interpretation, women, by contrast, gravitate much more strongly towards standard speech forms
than men because they are more status-conscious than men. Standard language is generally
associated with high social status, and so, women – who are considered more aware of the fact that
the way they speak signals their social background and status in the community – use more standard
forms as a way of claiming such status. It is suggested that this is especially true for women who do
not have jobs and are dependent on their husbands for sustenance, and, therefore, make up for the
lack of status by the way they speak. Women are believed to shy away from non-standard forms
more frequently because such forms supposedly convey a lack of sophistication associated with
working class. In other words, women seek to distance themselves from the ‘rough and tough’
behavior as well as speech of the least statusful people in society (Talbot 2010). Another
explanation that has been proposed points to the way society tends to expect ‘better’ behavior from
women than from men. Little boys are generally allowed more freedom than little girls. Misconduct
from boys is much more readily tolerated, while girls are more quickly corrected. For the same
reason, women are assigned a role of modeling correct behavior in the community. Following this
argument, then, society expects women to use more correct and standard speech, especially because
they are looked upon as models for children’s speech. According to yet another explanation, groups
in society that are subordinate tend to be more polite. It is argued that women, as a subordinate
group, tend to show respect for other members in the society by using careful and polite speech.
Besides, this explanation ties in with the social status explanation, which suggests that by using
more standard forms women are looking after their own need to be valued by society (Holmes
1997: 173). Finally, in Peter Trudgill’s account, women give preference to standard forms because
they see them as acceptable in men, but do not find them ‘desirable feminine characteristics’
(Talbot 2010: 25). None of these explanations have been entirely satisfactory and some other
interpretations of the phenomenon in question have been proposed, but the fact remains that men’s
and women’s attitudes towards standard and vernacular forms are different.
Apart from this, male and female speakers demonstrate differences in the kind of vocabulary they
use. Robin Lakoff, an American sociolinguist who conducted a considerable amount of research
into women’s language, suggested many interesting ideas about women’s use of language that
explain some differences between men’s and women’s linguistic patterns. It must be noted here that
these are an example of gender-preferential differentiation – a phenomenon reflected in the
relative frequency with which men and women use the same lexical items or other linguistic
features [Contemporary Linguistics 1993: 433]. By contrast, gender-exclusive differentiation –
some forms are used only by women and others are used only by men – reflect sex-exclusive social
roles. In societies with speech-exclusive speech forms, one finds very little, if any, overlap between
the responsibilities of men and women. In Western communities, where women’s and men’s social
roles overlap, the speech forms they use also have common characteristics, which means that the
sexes do not use completely different forms, but rather, different quantities or frequencies of the
same forms. Robin Lakoff proposed that women's speech tends to exhibit higher frequencies of
certain features, including:
(a) Lexical hedges or fillers (e.g. you know; well; sort of; you see; it seems like);
(b) ‘Empty’ adjectives (e.g. charming; cute; adorable; gorgeous etc);
(c) Precise color terms (e.g. olive, aqua, magenta, bottle green, aubergine etc.) – women, in
general, have been shown to use a greater variety of specific color terms than men;
(d) Intensifiers such as just, so, really (I like him so much);
(e) Tag questions (e.g. It’s not the most important thing in the world, is it?);
(f) ‘Superpolite’ language, often in the form of indirect requests and euphemisms (e.g. Do you
think the meeting is going to last much longer? for May I leave?; Would that be OK with you if
I…);
(g) Avoidance of strong swear words; instead, ‘toned-down’ words like fudge, my goodness,
goodness gracious, gosh, dear me etc. are used;
(h) Use of emphatic stress, e.g. It was a BRILLIANT performance;
(i) Rising intonation on declaratives, e.g. It’s really good [Lakoff, 1975: 49-57].
Although Robin Lakoff has since been criticized for an overly simplistic approach to male – female
linguistic differences, she did identify a number of linguistic forms that clearly mark off women’s
linguistic patterns from men’s. The criticisms mostly concern the fact that generalizations are made
regardless of whether gender is relevant or not and that no attempt is made to examine how gender
interacts with other aspects of social identity and communicative situation (socio-economic status,
solidarity and social distance, background, age etc.). For instance, what seems to be overlooked by
Lakoff is that many of the above characteristics are probably due to the tasks traditionally
performed by women, rather than to women’s innate preferences and predispositions. For example,
there is no evidence to suggest that women have more acute color perception than men. This
particular difference is probably due to certain conventional activities that involve a subtler
differentiation between different colors in which women engage more than men. On the other hand,
men are believed to possess larger lexicons in areas associated with traditional male activities.
With time, therefore, when research into the issues of gender-related language differences became
more sophisticated and rigorous, scholars in a number of different disciplines (including sociology,
linguistics, anthropology, psychology etc.) have independently arrived at the idea that activities
(teaching, a job interview, a football game, a family argument, etc.), rather than abstract differences
between the speech of men and women, should be the basic unit of analysis. By examining
activities, it becomes clear that “the same individuals articulate talk and gender differently as they
move from one activity to another” (Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching 1996: 244). Focusing
on activities and later on communities of practice26 – linguists have been able to see that gender is
not something fixed and given, but, rather, a part of social identity which is created, maintained,
contested and shifted in the course of interaction. This approach has changed the research question
from what the differences are between men’s and women’s use of language to when, whether and
how men’s and women’s speech are similar and different.

Vocabulary and age

Language, including vocabulary, can also vary according to how old the speaker is. Apart from
vocabulary, age groups are differentiated by voice pitch, pronunciation and grammar. There are
patterns that are appropriate for ten-year-olds or teenagers which disappear when they grow older.
These are referred to as age-graded patterns. The extensive swear word vocabulary that seems to
characterize the speech of adolescents to a much larger degree in comparison with older people, for
example, is likely to change and diminish over time. Though these words continue to be part of
their vocabularies, the occasions on which they might use them shrink, especially as they begin to
have their own children and socialize with others with young families. Just as with swear words,
most sociolinguists have found that adolescents use the highest frequencies of vernacular forms,
especially if these forms are clearly recognized and identified as non-standard (Holmes 1997: 184).
Such forms are believed to perform the function of solidarity markers. It was long observed that
young members of New York gangs tend to delete the –ed at the end of verbs, which signals past
tense, much more often than older gang members. They are, for example, more likely to say It pass
him instead of It passed him than adults from the same social group and in the same contexts. This
tendency also holds for multiple negation, which will also show up more frequently in the speech of
the younger members of the same social class. This is often explained by different levels of peer
group pressure for different age groups. The use of vernacular forms tends to peak during
adolescence, when peer group pressure not to conform to and defy society’s norms and conventions
is greatest. Vernacular patterns go significantly down after 30-35, but, interestingly, they rise again
in old age, when social pressures are no longer strong as people retire and find themselves in a more
relaxed phase of their life.
Slang is another area of vocabulary that reflects a person’s age. The slang items that enjoy currency
among adolescents would normally sound odd in the mouth of an older person. Slang refers to the
changing and fashionable vocabulary of sociability that young people use casually with one another.
Slang is an important integral part of the language of the young because of the social functions it
performs. Some scholars believe that the social potential inherent in language is intensified in slang
(Eble 1996: 2). Slang identifies members of a group, which is arguably its most important function
in the communication of teenagers and college students. Sharing and maintaining a constantly
changing in-group vocabulary aids group solidarity and serves to include and exclude members. In

26
“an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in an endeavor. Ways of doing things, ways
of talking, beliefs, values, power relations – in short, practices – emerge in the course of the mutual endeavor” [Eckert,
McConnel-Ginet, 1992 : 471-472]
addition, slang may provide the young with a means of subtle rebellion against the pressures that
they face: family, home community, teachers etc.

Euphemisms and taboo words

In a discussion of social aspects of lexical variation, one cannot ignore euphemisms and taboo
words. Use of euphemisms is bound up with social norms of behavior, e.g. desire to be courteous,
considerate, and to avoid potential offense to the hearer. It is also directly related to taboo in society
– and hence in language – as it emerges as a response to it. Euphemisms arose to replace sacred
words that were not to be spoken aloud.
A euphemism (from Greek, meaning “use of good words”) is a word or expression that is supposed
to ‘put a better face’ on something people find uncomfortable. Using a euphemism means
substituting a mild, inoffensive, or comforting lexeme for one that is negative, taboo, offensive, or
too direct. Euphemisms have been around since there has been taboo in society.
Euphemisms can be used in a wide range of situations and for a number of reasons, e.g. to soften
the impact of a harsh truth by using words and expressions that are less graphic or precise in the
social context; to be vague, indirect, evasive; to sidestep the truth; to sound humorous, light-hearted
or tongue-in-cheek. Some spheres of life give rise to more euphemisms than others: death, physical
and mental disability, bodily functions, sexual intercourse, racism, sexism etc. This has to do with
the fact that discussing these subjects explicitly is often embarrassing, unpleasant or inappropriate
in a number of social contexts. For instance, the concepts “die” and “dead”, as well as other death-
related terms, have generated a great number of euphemisms, e.g. passed away, departed, demised,
ceased to be, expired, no more, resting in peace, gone, bereft of life, crossed the River Styx,
wandering the Elysian Fields, no longer with us, perished, in repose, gone to meet their maker and
many others.
With time, however, many euphemisms evolve into taboo words themselves. An explanation for
this is that, over a period of time, euphemisms themselves develop the negative connotations that
they were intended to avoid. For example, the term concentration camp, which originally meant
“compound for noncombatants in a war zone”, arose as an inoffensive way to describe camps used
for prisoners during the Second Boer War 27 (1899-1902). However, because of the atrocious
treatment of prisoners in these camps and the ominous connotations of extermination camps – with
which the term concentration camp came to be used synonymously – the compound has been
replaced by more recent euphemistic terms such as internment camp, resettlement camp, detention
facility, or, as in the case of the Chechen war in Russia, filtration camp (referring to the
phenomenon of filtering out terrorists). This continuous process of pejoration has been dubbed by
Steven Pinker the “euphemism treadmill” (For more on euphemism treadmill, see Chapter 6 on
Semantic Change).

TASK 8
Identify the meaning of euphemistic words and expressions below:
1) correctional facility;
2) differently-abled;
3) fell off the back of a truck;
4) ethnic cleansing;
5) collateral damage;
6) pregnancy termination;
7) negative patient outcome;
8) industrial action;
9) enhanced interrogation;
10) revenue augmentation.

27
The war that was fought from October 11, 1899 until May 31, 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-
speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State.
More on Euphemism see Chapter 6 on Semantic Change.

Slang and jargon

"Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work."
(Carl Sandburg)
Slang is normally defined as informal nonstandard vocabulary that is typically composed of
picturesque, metaphoric short-lived coinages and figures of speech that are used to signal
irreverence, group solidarity, humorous and playful disposition. Jonathon Lighter, the compiler of
the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (1994-2004), defines slang as
‘informal, nonstandard and non-technical vocabulary composed chiefly of novel-sounding
synonyms for standard words and phrases’ (Lighter 1994: XI).
The most salient characteristics of slang are generally believed to be the following:
1) Slang is considered to be alternative vocabulary, i.e. slang items usually refer to objects,
people, phenomena etc. in the real world that already have designations in neutral
vocabulary;
2) Slang primarily involves vocabulary; syntax, or sentence structure, on the other hand, is not
important in defining slang;
3) Connotation is far more important in defining slang items than denotation, cf. Don’t worry
about it vs. Don’t sweat it; man vs. dude (the dude that owns a fancy car); With his
qualifications, he had little chance of getting the job vs. He stood a snowflake’s chance in
hell of getting the job.
4) Slang is prone to over-lexicalization of some spheres of activity. What this essentially means
is that slang is particularly “hospitable” to certain spheres of life, but not others. For
instance, drinking and alcohol, sex, bodily functions, social relations, violence and crime are
just some of the areas that are most often ‘targeted’ by slang users. By way of illustration,
people taking drugs have been variously called (depending on the type of drug they use)
junkies, druggies, dope heads, dopers, druggies, pill poppers, pot heads, dope heads, coke
heads, smack heads, meth heads, tweakers, crackpots, crack heads, space cadets, burnouts,
stoners, loner stoners, skanky skanks, to name just a few. Spheres of activity such as foreign
policy, banking, law, research and the like, on the other hand, do not generate so much (if
any) slang vocabulary.
5) Since irreverence and defiance often accompany slang, it is primarily generated and used by
the young (teenagers’ speech, as argued earlier, is noted for abundance of slang). Although
some slang finds its way also into the speech of people in their 30s and 40s, older people
generally do not account for much slang use).
6) Ephemerality is often considered a particular attribute of slang. By this we mean that a large
bulk of slang vocabulary has a very brief life span: slang items come and go, sometimes on a
daily basis. If we consider slang terms designating “excellent; very good” that have been in
use since the early 20th century, we find that there has been a string of various words over
the years beginning with bees’ knees, cat’s pajamas (whiskers, meow) in the 1920s, through
aces, swell, keen, snazzy in the 30s, hot, fly, funky, out of this world, keen in the 40s and 50s,
far out, bitchin’, hip, groovy in the 60s, neat, fab, bangin’, gravy, in the 70s, wicked and
then radical, tubular and bitchin’ in the 80s, the bomb, phat, pimpin’, nice! in the 90s to a
wide range of words in current use, just a few of them being tight, fresh, sick apart from
cool, awesome and many others). Although most of slang terms do not have staying power,
some of them eventually pass into the general vocabulary, others disappear for good and still
others are forgotten only to reappear some time later. Yet another scenario is that some
items grow so common that they eventually become the dominant, and sometimes the only,
way of saying something, at which point they are usually regarded as mainstream usage (e.g.
bluff). Slang terms that become part of the mainstream, or conventional, vocabulary often
bear little or no association with their earlier lives as slang, e.g. rascal, flimsy, jeopardy,
 crestfallen etc. Note should be taken, however, that in the case of taboo words, there is
rarely an expression which ever reaches acceptable usage. 
Yet for all the fleeting character of most slang vocabulary, the historical evidence suggests
that not all slang is ephemeral: some items are remarkably sturdy and enduring. The word
“booze” meaning liquor, for instance, has existed in one form or another since at least the
mid-1500s, and yet it somehow maintains its slangy appeal nearly five centuries later. Bones
as slang for “dice”, for example, was used by Chaucer in the fourteenth century and is still
part of the slang vocabulary. The same is true of slang words like bitch (“to complain”), bull
(“to talk insincerely”), and many others.
7) The primary function of slang is to establish group relations and identity; to separate one
group of people from another; to differentiate the in-group28 from the out-group; to share the
insider-knowledge with the listeners and to show the speaker’s attitude;
8) Use of slang by especially young people and more marginalized or less statusful groups is
often believed to have something to do with the fact that these groups are known to rebel
against established institutions and, therefore, the language they speak. So slang is often the
result of defiance against standard language through the use of terms that are not defined in
standard language.
9) Above we talked about euphemism, which is intended to soften the crudeness suggested by
the referent. In slang, one frequently encounters the opposite phenomenon, called
dysphemism, where a relatively neutral word is replaced with a harsher, more offensive
equivalent, e.g. calling a cemetery a boneyard, a doctor a quack, an intellectual an egghead
or a brainiac, and referring to “electrocution” as frying (a prisoner).
10) Slang, as language that is primarily spoken, is less conservative than standard language,
which, by definition, is used in writing. The transitory aspect of slang, which was discussed
above, results in a slang term developing polysemy and being used in different meanings at
the same time. This is particularly true of short and clipped lexemes. For example, the word
pro, which has two major meanings: a) someone who is skilled at s/th, very often sports, as
in That guy is a real pro when it comes to baseball and b) short for prostitute. But the
lexeme has now developed a broader meaning, that of “impressive; amazing; cool”: That
videogame is so pro I want to buy it.

As to jargon, it is the term that most commonly overlaps with slang. As a result, the two
notions are often conflated.  The term, however, should be taken to mean specifically “the technical
terms peculiar to specific occupations and professions… Standard English that is unfamiliar beyond
the limits of those specialized fields for which it provides the recognized standard vocabulary”
(Lighter 1994: xvi).  Any technical term that designates something only for the people who are
involved with it is jargon, not slang. Jargon sounds meaningless to people outside its normal context
of use. The main difference between the two, according to Jonathon Lighter, is that a jargonism
indicates a referent, while slang “characterizes and often makes light of what it is referred to”
(Lighter 1994: xvi).  Examples of technical language that is separate from slang is medical jargon
such as PET or CAT scans, agonal referring to a major negative change in a patient’s condition,
diastolic (pressure during the relaxing of the heart) etc.  While different technical vocabularies do
contain a fair share of slang words, like gomer for doctors and bridge snake for construction
workers, their specific technical vocabulary is not slang.  

TASK 9

By using various online dictionaries of slang, identify slang items in the sentences
below and interpret their meaning:
1) They pulled a convenience store job and then got outta town.
2) He was also scowling and monosyllabic, a nasty piece of work in the ring

28
a group of people sharing similar interests and attitudes, producing feelings of solidarity, community, and
exclusivity. Out-group, respectively, is the opposite of in-group.
 and worse out of it (Newsweek).
3) When it became apparent to the assassin that release was not imminent, he
began to sing about foreign connections he had refused to identify at his
trial’ (New York Times).
4) Ed did so many drugs in the sixties that he's a real space cadet now.
5) Kate Moss has made a career out of looking wasted (Newsweek).
6) Governor Cuomo's a weenie on crime and works overtime raising your
taxes (Newsweek).
7) He was busted for dope but copped a plea and walked.
8) Louis' lunch place is a hamburger joint, but it feels a lot like home
(Esquire).
9) Last time I heard someone spout that many statistics, he was selling me a
used car back in West Texas. It was a lemon (Newsweek).

Language-use, or stylistic, variation

Just as life itself, communicative situations are extremely diverse. Different contexts call for
different forms of linguistic expression. Situations in which requests expressed through Lend us a
hand, would you? sound perfectly natural are hardly adequate for more formal requests, e.g. Would
you be so kind as to help me? It is commonly taken for granted that the right choice of words
depends not only on their meanings, but also, to a great extent, on their semantic and
communicative appropriateness in a given context. What this essentially means is that when we
speak or write, we invariably adjust our style to the parameters of the social situation in which we
find ourselves. These parameters range from the participants of the communication, through the
topic, setting and immediate context to the function of the communicative event. Thus, the message
a mother emails to friends relating her kids’ latest fun experience (Hello everyone! Thought I’d send
out a picture of my little monsters. They had a great Halloween yesterday and made out like
bandits!) is not in the same style as an academic paper on sociolinguistics, e.g. Sometimes, however,
a more sophisticated concept is needed to describe the functional distribution of different varieties
in a community. The discussion of the baseball game in a bar or café is characterized by features
different from those of a committee meeting. It is obvious from the above examples that part of the
distinctiveness of a style is due to the choice of vocabulary. The more formal a communicative
situation is, the more formal vocabulary is needed to accommodate it. Conversely, an informal
context calls for more colloquial lexis and sometimes even slang. The informal email above, apart
from making extensive use of grammatical and contextual shortcuts (e.g. incomplete sentences) and
contractions, is built on colloquial words (great, send out) and idioms (make out like a bandit), as
well as an informal paraphrase (little monsters for ‘children’). Some particularly informal contexts
may even allow the use of ‘taboo’ vocabulary. It will thus be safe to say that lexical means of
linguistic expressions are extremely sensitive to the communicative context of the utterance and are,
in fact, bound by it.
An important point to be made here is that the formality-informality opposition does not mean that
there exist discrete formal and informal categories. Rather, we deal with a continuum from the most
formal to the most informal communicative situations, with an infinite number of intermediate cases
in between. Therefore, as with many other linguistic categories, the formality-informality
categorization is a matter of degree.
Some features of language are traditionally associated with formal rather than informal situations,
and vice versa. Such is the case, for instance, with multiword lexical items, which are likely to
appear in informal speech whereas their single-word equivalents are found in more formal contexts,
as in the following examples:

A third of the adult population in the country has The child went down with a fever.
contracted AIDS.
The house was demolished to make way for the My old school was pulled down.
new road.
 It was a long time before the police realized what He isn't catching on as quickly as some of
he was doing. the other children.

Different structural types of the lexicon provide various options in constructing speech. Speakers
should be aware of the idea of variety and scope of lexical items and should make their choice of
the appropriate word with regard to the situation and the communicative effect they strive for.

Formal words

Many life situations are, by their very nature, formal. It makes sense that the language in such
situations should be formal as well. Such is the case, for example, with legal language, particularly
written. If we consider a sufficient amount of vocabulary used in legal texts, we will find that a
significant number of words central to legal discourse are marked in dictionaries as formal. You
don’t have to go far – just look at the adverbs often encountered in legal texts – in fact, many of
them owe their very survival in English to legal discourse: herewith, hereupon, forthwith, therein,
hereinafter, wherein and many others. Even non-native speakers of English can sense the archaic
ring to them. These and other words like these are marked in dictionaries as ‘formal’.
Many formal words seem to be the precise technical designations for ordinary language words.
This, however, should not be taken to mean that we can randomly substitute one for the other:
peruse vs. read, verify vs. confirm, pulchritude vs. beauty, veracity vs. truth etc. Each of them has
their own niche in the stylistic fabric of language. Their appearance in discourse evokes certain –
and very specific – contexts of use. For example, the choice of Refuse should be deposited in the
receptacle provided over Put your garbage in the trash (AmE) or Put your rubbish in the bin (BrE),
is strictly governed by convention, i.e. expectations of certain linguistic features that speakers of the
language use in a given communicative situation. The first sentence, which is extremely formal, can
be ordinarily encountered in writing, usually in the form of a notice or sign in a public place. It uses
a passive grammatical structure should be deposited, which avoids any mention of the people
involved. By contrast, the informal utterances make use of an imperative verb form put. Besides,
they tend to be more direct by specifying whose rubbish is the focus of the directive. The lexical
items refuse, deposit and receptacle are all more formal and less frequent words than put, garbage,
trash, rubbish and bin. Although all three utterances convey the same message and perform the
same function – they give a directive – the formal and informal utterances are not interchangeable.
If a friend, on seeing you drop a piece of paper on the floor, said something along the lines of
Refuse should be deposited in the receptacle provided, you would find it extremely odd. Unless, of
course, you assumed he or she were being sarcastic or humorous, which is to say using such
phrasing for stylistic effect, but you would be unlikely to consider such wording a normal way of
speaking to someone s/he knew well.
Formal lexis is, by and large, derived from classical languages: Occident and Orient are the formal
words for ‘west’ and ‘east’; canine and feline mean ‘dog’ and ‘cat’ (or any other member of the cat
family) respectively; carnivore and herbivore are formal designations for ‘meat-eater’ and ‘plant-
eater’. Just because formal words originate primarily from Greek and Latin, they are usually more
complex and consist of more than one syllable: verisimilitude, protuberance, cuneiform,
ornithologist etc.
As has been mentioned before, multiword verbs make for greater informality and, therefore, tend to
be avoided in formal writing. Most guidebooks on style will recommend saying The company
insisted on investigating their accountants rather than The company insisted on checking up on their
accountants; The team compensated for their sluggish performance with renewed enthusiasm in
place of The team made up for their sluggish performance with renewed enthusiasm. However,
there are many situations – even in quite formal texts – when a phrasal verb may be the most
natural-sounding way of expressing an idea. For instance, put s/th on is much more natural than the
formal, single-word lexeme don and can be used even in many formal contexts. To illustrate this
further, the phrasal verb lay down in some of its senses is rather formal in style: The Law Lords
concluded that a peer could not lay down his title (Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs 1990: 192)
 TASK 10
Increase the level of formality in the sentences below by replacing the multiword verb
with its more formal monolexemic counterpart:

1. Food industry makes up the major part of income this year.

2. They broke off talking as soon as we entered the room.
3. You can be easily taken in by his fair words and refined manners.
4. We were allowed to pick up any item of his collection.
5. What was the epidemic brought about by?
6. They were each asked to kick in 5 dollars toward the cost.
7. Thousands of employees have been laid off by the car companies.

Words that have arisen as a result of abbreviation may have their unabbreviated counterpart as a
formal equivalent: perambulator for pram, refrigerator for fridge, influenza for flu, poliomyelitis
for polio and others.
Jackson and Zé Amvela note that a formal word may be a form of speaking appropriately about
matters that are not normally mentioned in public (e.g. bodily functions) (Jackson, Zé Amvela
2007: 161). Opting for a formal equivalent is believed to have a distancing or euphemistic effect
and mitigate the impact of the indelicate subject on the listener, such as demise for ‘death’, feces or
excrement for ‘solid waste from the bowels’ or ‘crap’, urinate for ‘piss’ or copulate for ‘have sex’.

TASK 11
Compare excerpts from speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama below in terms of the
levels of formality (informality) and identify features that enhance the formality /informality of
the language that was used:

Abraham Lincoln (1865): Barack Obama (2009):

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most
those offenses which, in the providence of God, must prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no
needs come, but which, having continued through His less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are
appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed
gives to both North and South this terrible war as the than they were last week or last month or last year. Our
woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing
discern therein any departure from those divine pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off
attributes which the believers in a living God always unpleasant decisions – that time has surely passed.
ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves
pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily off, and begin again the work of remaking America.
pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The
the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and state of our economy calls for action: bold and swift. And
fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until we will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new
every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid foundation for growth.
by another drawn with the sword, as was said three We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and
thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous We will restore science to its rightful place and wield
altogether." technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and
lower its costs.
We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel
our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our
schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands
of a new age.
All this we can do. All this we will do.

Informal vocabulary

A term contrasting in most senses with formal is informal, which is used to refer to language or use
of language that is common, unofficial, familiar and casual. ‘Informal’ is seen as an all-
encompassing label, a kind of umbrella term for vocabulary ranging from harmless colloquial words
and expressions to coarse language including slang, profanity, expletives and even vulgar and taboo
words, all of which are part of non-standard vocabulary. So informal vocabulary is heterogeneous in
the extreme, since it includes both standard and non-standard lexis.
Lexicographers are divided as to the labels that they use to mark different categories within the
broad ‘informal’ category. Some tend to sweepingly apply ‘informal’ to the entire range of usages
described above, others use it to mark simply colloquial vocabulary which is not suited to polite
and/or formal conversation and writing. For instance, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary
English (LDCE) (2003) uses the broad label ‘informal’, which covers all sorts of usages. The
Concise Oxford Dictionary (1996) and The Oxford Reference English Dictionary (1996), on the
other hand, differentiate between ‘colloquial’ and ‘slang’. The difference appears simply one of
informality, with ‘slang’ items likely to be used in more informal contexts, although the motivation
behind the lexicographers’ dividing line is often not entirely clear. The distinction between
‘colloquial’ and ‘slang’ has also been the policy of many American dictionaries, among them being
Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary (1996) and The Random House Dictionary of the
English Language (1993). Besides, most dictionaries make further distinction between ‘colloquial’,
‘slang’ and ‘coarse slang’ (ORED) or between ‘informal’, ‘non-standard’, ‘slang’ and ‘vulgar’, as is
found in WNUUD. In addition, the overwhelming majority of dictionaries find it necessary to
include explanatory labels, such as ‘not polite’ (LDCE), ‘offensive’ and ‘derogatory’ (ORED) or
‘offensive’ and ‘disparaging’, as is the case with WNUUD. Such labels are intended to help
dictionary users to make useful judgments about the setting in which a term might be appropriate,
the kind of speaker who might use it, the kind of communication intended and the effect on the
listener or reader.
There is even less consensus among dictionary-makers as to how to categorize individual
vocabulary items. For example, LDCE, WNUUD and Macmillan Dictionary Online mark jock in
the sense of ‘an athlete; a student who plays a lot of sport’ as ‘informal’, whereas it is marked as
‘slang’ in ORED. Similarly, chicken out, meaning ‘to refrain from something because of fear or
cowardice’ is labeled ‘informal’ in LDCE, ‘colloquial’ in ORED and ‘slang’ in WNUUD.
Sometimes such discrepancies are even more pronounced. The word hustler, meaning
‘unscrupulous individual; swindler’, is given the status of ‘slang’ by WNUUD, while the lexeme
receives no style (or register) labeling at all in ORED or LDCE. What all of this suggests is that
boundaries between slang and colloquialisms, and, indeed, within the broad ‘informal’ category are
by no means easy to draw.
The ‘informal’ category includes words that are abbreviated for informal effect: demo
(‘demonstration’), celeb (‘celebrity’), fab (‘fabulous’), brolly (‘umbrella’), telly (‘television’), vet
(‘veterinarian’ or ‘veteran’), bod (‘body’), brill (‘brilliant’), comfy (‘comfortable’), nuke (‘nuclear’),
doc (‘doctor’), obit (‘obituary’), zine (‘magazine’), legit (‘legitimate’), champ (‘champion’) etc.
Here, one also finds items that involve abbreviation, e.g. OD (‘overdose’), AWOL (‘absent without
leave’), as in the sentence A couple of soldiers had gone AWOL the night before, BO (‘body odor’)
and others. Some abbreviations, especially acronyms, have become so ‘naturalized’ in mainstream
English that they are no longer capitalized. For example, not all speakers of English are aware that
snafu, which means ‘a situation in which a plan does not happen in the way it should’ is the result
of abbreviating ‘situation normal all fouled-up’: Another snafu like that and you are out of here.
With the growing role of the Internet and online communication, and hence the need for
communicative shortcuts, abbreviations have been springing up with a vengeance. They are an easy
and faster way to express something, especially the emotional part of the content of the message:
LOL (‘Laughing Out Loud’), IMHO – ‘In My Humble Opinion’), BTW (‘By the Way’), FAQs
(‘Frequently Asked Questions’).
The informal group also includes items that have emerged through reduplication: dilly-dally
(‘dawdle’), artsy-fartsy (‘pretentiously artistic’), nitty-gritty (‘the basic and most important part of
an activity’), itsy-bitsy or teeny weeny (‘very small’) and many others. A great number of nouns
ending in –y/–ie are part of this group: savvy, softie, smoothie, oldie, boonies, techie, druggie, cutie
etc.
Other colloquial words have no obvious motivation for their informality, other than that they are
conventionally restricted to informal contexts (Jackson, Zé Amvela 2007: 161): bigwig (‘important
person’), flip out (‘suddenly become very angry’), crank (‘eccentric / bad-tempered person’).
As has been noted earlier, unlike in formal writing, writers and speakers of informal English prefer
to use phrasal verbs, rather than longer, single-word verbs: come up with instead of devise or go
down with instead of contract.

TASK 12
Increase the level of informality in the sentences below by replacing the single-
word verb with its more informal multi-lexemic counterpart:
1. The children understood very quickly.
2. The student compensated for his absence with hard work.
3. I have no idea how he contracted malaria.
4. I wouldn’t tolerate such neighbors as easily as he does.
5. Your complaint is being investigated now.
6. It’s about time you went to bed.
7. Such a threat would deter most people.

Registers

Apart from language variation analyzed along a scale of formality, language varies according to a
particular type of linguistic situation known as the ‘register’. A register is described as the form
that talk takes in any given context or, in other words, a speech variety used in a specific social
situation (Contemporary Linguistics 1993: 452; 594). Such language variation reflects changes in
situational factors, such as addressee, setting, topic and purpose or function of communication.
Other linguists use the term ‘register’ more narrowly to describe the specific vocabulary associated
with different occupational groups. The distinction is not always clear, but we will use ‘register’
here to refer both to the language of particular (occupational) groups and, more generally, to
specific situations of use. Every field, every profession, every culture, and every subculture has a
language that is its own. In fact, it is language that constitutes and makes possible the work and the
identity of each group. The language of Wall Street bankers and financiers, journalese, legalese, the
language of airline pilots, politicians, sports commentators, drug traffickers, on the one hand, and,
on the other, baby-talk, the language of intimate conversations or the language we use when we talk
on the phone could all be considered examples of different registers. Registers vary as to the degree
of formality or informality they allow. More formal registers warrant the use of particular formal
vocabulary, greater adherence to the norms of Standard English, restrictions on linguistic
variability, contractions and the like. Conversely, a more informal register will be marked by less
formal vocabulary, less rigid syntax, elliptical sentences and so on.
When the participants of a conversation are two good friends, discussing a matter that is well
known to both of them, they usually do not need to make every detail of their conversation clear.
They can easily assume that the other speaker knows what the conversation is about. This
assumption can result in the wide use of pronouns, contractions and elliptical sentences, which are
more implicit than nouns, full forms or sentences. The conversation is supported by background
knowledge shared by both speakers. The same shared knowledge in an ongoing situation can be
observed at a football match, when one of the spectators says: “Oh, yes! He blew it!” and is easily
understood by another, because they are both watching the same scene. On the other hand, a
university teacher (or a textbook) requires a more formal and explicit register, because new and
unfamiliar concepts are being introduced and, therefore, few shortcuts are allowed.
We will now consider a few examples of spoken and written registers to illustrate the kind of
linguistic features, especially vocabulary, which may distinguish different registers.
1) Ok. I’m… I’ll come over this afternoon and look at the other one.
The utterance, which is part of a telephone conversation, is entirely context bound (and maximally
implicit) in its meaning. It contains the expressions I, this afternoon, and come, which are only
properly interpretable because the hearer knows the setting in which they appear. Also, the
expression the other one, which seems to be very vague, is in fact sufficiently specific in this
situation, given the shared knowledge of the interlocutors of what has been said before. (The
speaker who was calling from out of town has just been told by the estate agent that one of the
houses that she wanted to view has just been withdrawn from the market). Note, that false starts,
syntactically incomplete sentences, and restarts like that found at the beginning of the utterance, are
common in spontaneous speech.
2) Time to go bye-bye, sweetie.
This is an example of the type of speech that might be directed by a mother (a father, a nurse, and
the like) to a child. The register is quite simplified, the lexicon is limited, and the structures are
very basic. This is baby talk – a register that is universally used across all speech communities in
the world. It is similar to a register we use to speak to a pet or a lover and is thus both non-
threatening and nurturing.
“Mother’s speech to one- and two-year-olds consists of simple, grammatically correct, short
sentences that refer to concrete objects and events. There are few references to the past and almost
none to the future. Sentence intonation and stress are greatly exaggerated, and clear pauses appear
between sentences. Furthermore, as many as 30 percent of the utterances are repetitions, partial or
complete, of one of the earlier sentences of the mother to the child. . . . Other features of speech to
children, such as the use of a higher-pitched voice and special baby-talk words containing
simplified speech sounds, reflect the adult’s conception of the way children talk. The adult assumes
that the young child finds certain sounds and words easier to pronounce than others” (Matychuk
2005: 330).
3) Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband…
This is a sample of a formal and ritualized register. The utterance features a number of lexical,
morphological, and syntactic archaisms. Syntactically, it may be an open ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question, but
under the norms of this register – a wedding ceremony – only a ‘yes’ answer is expected.
4) The first 24 hours of life are critical in determining how well a newborn will adjust to the
world outside the womb. Obstetricians routinely perform a series of tests to minimize the
possibility of any serious problems. In some cases, a doctor’s prompt decision based on test
results can prevent complications that, if untreated, could result in irreversible defects. The
obstetrician is responsible for the newborn’s immediate care. As the infant’s breathing is
checked and her umbilical cord clamped, usually within the first minute of life, the newborn
is then given her first important test, the Apgar, which rates the strength of her vital
functions.
This extract comes from a medical book that deals with obstetrics. It is an example of a formal
written register. The sentences are fully formed, highly explicit and abound in passive
constructions. However, what immediately identifies this extract as one coming from a medical
register is an extensive use of medical vocabulary, or medical jargon, as it is often called: newborn,
obstetrician, umbilical cord, clamped, Apgar etc.
5) In economic terms, monopoly simply means the control of supply by a single source.
If knowledge is viewed as a commodity, as something that can be possessed and
distributed, then it too can be monopolized: the sources of knowledge, skill, or expertise
can be reduced to one. Obviously, for monopolies of knowledge to grow, some division
of labor must be present, for as with other commodities, monopolies can grow only when
people are dependent upon an external source of supply.
The extract above constitutes a sample of academic register, or a register of academic writing.
Academic language, by its nature, is very formal. Its main characteristics are the absence of
conversational features and the use of an appropriate academic vocabulary. Normally, written
academic English avoids contractions (e.g., won’t, can’t), interjections and hesitation fillers (e.g.,
um, well, you know), phrasal verbs (e.g., look into, find out instead of investigate, discover), and
short forms of the words or slang (e.g., exam, wanna, guy). An important feature of academic
English is a cautious, non-categoric manner of writing or speaking, which involves the avoidance of
too definite statements or conclusions. The writer achieves that by making use of modal verbs,
statements conveying shared knowledge, assumptions and beliefs, and by otherwise using phrases
that distance the writer from the claims that he or she makes (These tend to disappear; it may be
construed as; it would appear that; this can be presumably argued) . The purpose of such a
strategy is to be accurate and to allow for other opinions or points of view. Another distinctive
feature of academic English is a tendency to use a more formal alternative when choosing words
(e.g., it is more appropriate to select numerous instead of a lot of when writing an academic text). In
most academic fields, special terminology is widely used (Yakhontova 2003 : 28-30).
These extracts provide only a few samples from the wide variety of registers available to English
speakers. All competent speakers of the language are able to produce at least a few registers,
making their speech appropriate for a particular speech situation.

Temporal variation

That language is always in a state of flux is obvious to anyone. As was made clear in Chapter 6,
what this translates into is permanent variation and change. Some vocabulary enters into use, other
words are pushed to the margins of the language and then fall into disuse altogether. There is
always variation in ways of expressing one and the same concept, which means that there are
various lexemes that mean roughly the same circulating side by side. These lexemes, however, may
be at different stages of their ‘life cycle’. By temporal variation we mean variation found among
words in terms of their ‘age’, relevance in language and time- and function-influenced status as
neologisms, obsolescent words, obsolete words, archaic words and historisms.
At every stage of language development, one can find words that will show more or less apparent
changes in their meaning or usage, from 1) the emergence of a word followed by cautious and
infrequent use, through 2) extensive use, then 3) waning or occasional use, to, finally, 4) death, i.e.
complete disappearance of the unit from the language. These are, in fact, the four stages that are
sometimes distinguished in the ‘life cycle’ of words.

Neologisms

Neologisms are lexemes – words and expressions – which are new in language. The general term
for a newly created lexeme is a coinage. Coinage is understood as “the creation, usually deliberate,
occasionally accidental, of a new, artificial word which had no previous membership in the
language”, and a neologism – as “a newly coined word or expression; a use of an old word in a new
sense”. For Crystal, however, the two terms amount to the same thing. According to him, a
neologism is “the creation of a new word out of existing elements; also called a coinage” (Crystal
2001: 7).

In technical usage a distinction is sometimes drawn between nonce words and neologisms. A nonce
word (from the 16th-century phrase for the nonce, meaning ‘for the once’) is a lexeme created for
temporary use, to solve an immediate problem of communication. Although nonce words would not
generally be found in a dictionary, they are instantly comprehensible. A number of nonce words
have been invented in literature, and one of the prominent literary figures known for his talent to
make up ‘one-off’ words was Lewis Carroll. In his non-sense poem Jabberwocky that appeared in
his novel Through the Looking-Glass, the playfully unintelligible language is made up mostly of
nonce words: vorpal, mimsy, slithy ('lithe and slimy'), uffish, outgrabe etc. Some of the words that
Carroll created such as chortled and galumphing, as well as Jabberwocky itself, have entered the
English language and are listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as well as other dictionaries. 

English, as a global language, is extremely susceptible to any changes in social, economic,

political and cultural life. Crystal maintains that the lexicon is a “particularly sensitive index of a
historical, social and technological change” (Crystal 2001: 5). Social change leads to creating new
words which either name absolutely new objects or ideas, or just serve as additional
synonyms to the words which already exist. However, as with many other notions in linguistics,
there is no watertight definition for the term “neologism” and one finds competing interpretations of
it in different areas of linguistics and even beyond:
(1) Although this word has been a common label in dictionaries for a long time, the first serious
attempt at a definition of a neologism was given in 1975 by Alain Rey (Rey 1995). The scholar
offered a discussion of what it means for a word to be ‘new’, the types of neologisms one can
distinguish (formal, semantic and pragmatic), and suggested criteria for defining a neologism.
Given the vagueness of the term, Rey argued against the use of the word “neologism” in
dictionaries, stating that it is something of a pseudo-concept . Rey’s basic argument is that
there is no temporal stability in language and if so, the notion of neologism bears no meaning:
it is not the abstract, timeless word that is ‘new’, but a word that is new in a given language at
a given moment in time. And only with respect to that time can a word count as a neologism.
His interpretation is sometimes described as psychological and his definition reads as
follows:
A neologism is a word that is perceived as new by the language community.
Rey goes on to say that “new” is a relative notion, – some new words may be older
than others, but there is no demarcated period for being new. And secondly, there is no well-
defined, stable lexicon of a language against which the “newness” can be tested – a language
cannot be stably defined within “its limits in the chronological, spatial, and social
dimensions” (Rey 1995: 6).
(2) Another definition of a neologism is based on a lexicographic approach. Dictionaries
claim to be stable, synchronic projections of the lexicon of a language. In view of this,
novelty of a word can simply be defined in terms of its absence in lexicographic sources:
Any word that has not yet appeared in the dictionary is considered a neologism.
The advantage of the lexicographic definition is that it is relatively distinct, since a
dictionary provides a fixed number of non-neologisms. On the other hand, some scholars
argue that words cannot be properly categorized as new, as lexemes may be lacking from a
dictionary for other reasons: they may be rare, too specialized, too old, obsolete, taboo, or
simply might have been accidentally overlooked by the lexicographers. It has to be kept in
mind that a dictionary is not an objective repository of all words. “The apparent objectivity of
dictionaries rests on an extensive series of subjective editorial decisions” (Cursan 2000: 96).
Another serious problem of the lexicographic definition is the fact that it is not properly a
definition of a neologism. Being included into a dictionary might be considered a necessary
condition for a neologism, but it is hardly a sufficient condition for it. There might be some
erroneous and false candidates, for example typographical errors or proper names, transparent
compounds and the like.
(3) A more reliable method that is applied to detect neologisms is a corpus approach, based
on the diachronic criterion:
Any word-form, which appears in a recent general language text, and does not appear
in an established reference corpus of that language, is a neologism.
If we consider dictionaries to be correct, but incomplete repositories of the words of a
language, then the diachronic criterion will be helpful in verifying the lexicographic
definition. Corpus neologism candidates should be thoroughly verified: not only should the
neologism candidate have enough frequency of occurrence, but it should occur in the corpus
as a correct word. That is it should not be a citation, a foreign word, a proper name, etc.

It is important to point out that not only new words, but even new affixes and combining forms
can qualify as neologisms. Here are a few morphemes which have either emerged or become
popular in English in the last fifty years: the noun-forming suffixes -nik that was borrowed from
Yiddish in the 60s: beatnik, peacenik, nudnik, filmnik; -teria: bookateria, washateria; -gate, which
found its way into the language in the wake of a political scandal now known under the name
Watergate: Clintongate, Contragate, Camillagate, Koreagate, Monicagate, Cablegate, among
many others.
Another example is the prefix ‘cyber-’, which appears with astounding frequency on the Internet
in ever-new combinations. The Oxford Dictionary of New Words gives it the following definition:
“The first element of a wide variety of terms relating to computer-mediated electronic
communications, particularly those which came to general prominence in the 80s and 90s, such as
electronic mail and the Internet” (Oxford Dictionary of New Words 1997: 79). Here are just a few
of the many derivatives that have been formed with it: cyberage, cyberchondriac, cybercitizen,
cyberclinics, cybercommerce, cybercrash, cyberize, cyberjournalism, cyberkids, cybermall,
cyberpatrol, cyberpunk, cybershopping, cybersurf, cyberventing etc. At the beginning of the
present century, it became clear that the number of innovations with this prefix was quickly
proliferating. The British linguist Michael Quinion calls the outburst of such neologisms a
“cyberplague”. Alongside with its main meaning related to computer-mediated electronic
communication, it is often used in the narrow meaning of ‘virtual, not real, existing only in the
context of the Internet’ (cybercash, cyberinvesting, cybersurf) (Zatsnyi 2002: 166).
Internet communication has brought to life countless new words formed by means of affixation.
A range of new affixes in English are due to this particular sphere. Such affixes as cyber-, hyper-,
e-, i-, dot-, giga-, net-, info-, web- are commonly found as parts of neologisms relating to the
Internet. In particular, the prefix e- has spawned a seemingly endless supply of new words such as
e-mail, e-commerce, e-solution, e-money, e-newsletter, e-book, e-publishing, e-ticket and countless
others. The pervasiveness of the phenomenon of e-anything is undeniable: one can prefix the letter
E to the name of just about any activity. The resulting word is a designation of an activity
performed over the Internet: e-life, e-banking, e-business, e-cash, e-commerce, e-gold, e-
recruitment, e-sales, e-shopping, e-speak, e-surfer, e-therapy, e-trading.
Some affixes have acquired new meanings. For example, at the beginning of the 21 st
century, the prefix euro- was used for concepts relating to the common European currency (euro-
land, euro-block, euro-membership, euro-class), rather than to the EU countries. Now this prefix is
used extensively to refer to anything relating to the EU member-states: euro-dissident, euro-
manager, euro-summit (Zatsnyi 2007: 176).
Another affix, the suffix –ism is currently widely used in its modified meaning to form nouns
denoting some kind of discrimination (fattyism, lookism, sexism, smokeism, sizeism). The same is
true of the suffix –ist, which has acquired the meaning of “someone who treats others unfairly
because of something” and is used to form corresponding nouns and adjectives designating the
kind of discrimination: ageist, disableist, sexist, weightist, voicist (Zatsnyi 2007: 177).
In view of what has been said so far, neologism can be defined as a word that expresses a novel
concept through coining a new vocabulary item, adding a new element or attaching a new meaning
to an already existing one.

It cannot be denied that English is currently developing at a very fast pace. So much so, in fact,
that many linguists even talk about an explosion of neologisms as growing numbers of words are
needed to explain new realms of experience previously unseen in the English language. Robert
Burchfield, the editor of the four-volume “Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary” published
from 1972 to 1986, said that, on average, 800 neologisms appear every year in English today.
English has also become the biggest vocabulary donor, especially with the development of
computerization. Due to mass communication, new words are disseminated very quickly. No one
can say how fast the lexicon, that is the total stock of meaningful units in a language, is growing
because lexicographers cannot keep pace with it. “Words appear suddenly and fall into disuse when
they have served their momentary purpose” (Jespersen 1982). Only a few of the many new words
coined and created every year will be recorded in glossaries of neologisms or general dictionaries,
but many will not. Most will not survive to become part of the lexicon. Many of them will have
served their purpose and fall into disuse. Today, due to sophisticated technologies, we have written
evidence of their existence available to us. Whether a new term will be conventionalized or not
depends on many factors, most of which are of social rather than of linguistic nature. Even if they
do not become widely accepted or institutionalized, they cannot be ignored, particularly from the
linguistic perspective, as they reflect certain trends in a language, in our case English.

Most neologisms are created anonymously. But there are cases when the origin of a neologism can
be traced to a certain author. “People do some creative, even bizarre things with the vocabulary,
from time to time, and it is a fascinating topic in lexicology to examine just what they get up to”
(Crystal 2003: 134). People create words from different strata of the lexicon, especially within a
creative language context, notably humor, mass media, and informal conversation. But, as Crystal
remarks, the most complex, intriguing, and exciting instances come from the language of literature
(Crystal 2003:134).
All textbooks on the history of English agree that the most important influence on the
development of the language during the final decades of the Renaissance are the works of William
Shakespeare. His impact on the language was chiefly in the area of the lexicon. His works,
however, also provide countless instances of the way English was developing at that time and
illustrations from his poems and plays are unavoidable in any discussion of contemporary
pronunciation, word-formation, syntax or language use.
According to Bryson, “Shakespeare used 17,677 words in his writings, of which at least one
tenth has never been used before. Consider the words that Shakespeare alone gave us:
accommodation, assassination, barefaced, countless, courtship, critical, dislocate, dwindle,
eventful, excellent, gust, hint, hurry, lonely, majestic, premeditated, obscene, summit, submerged,
and some 1,685 others. How would we manage without them?” (Bryson 2009: 70).
Numerous quotations from Shakespeare are widely used; some of them have become part of the
idiomatic expressions of the modern language, although sometimes with an altered meaning. These
are just some of them: a forgone conclusion, it’s Greek to me, to be or not to be, brevity is the soul
of wit, I must be cruel only to become kind, love is blind, with bated breath etc. Not all neologisms
from the works by Shakespeare have survived. About a third of all his Latinate neologisms are no
longer used, e.g. abruption, appertainments, cadent, exsufflicate, persistive, protractive, questrist,
soilure, tortive, ungenitured, unplausive, vastidity (Crystal 2009: 63).
Shakespeare was at the centre of this remarkable verbal outburst, but not alone in it. Ben
Jonson gave the English language damp, defunct, clumsy, and strenuous among other useful
lexemes. Isaac Newton coined centrifugal and centripetal. Sir Thomas More came up with
absurdity, acceptance, exact, explain, and exaggerate. The classical scholar Sir Thomas Elyot
(1490-1546) gave birth to the words animate, exhaust, and modesty (Bryson 2009: 70).
Another prominent figure who contributed greatly to the language was Lewis Carroll, whose
input as a creator of nonce words was briefly discussed earlier. Carroll was known for his talent to
create blends (as we know from Chapter 3, he called them portmanteau words – in fact, few people
are aware that the term owes its existence to Lewis Carroll). The term ‘portmanteau’ was first used
by him in the book Through the Looking Glass (1871), in which Humpty-Dumpty discusses
semantics and pragmatics with Alice. “You see it’s like a portmanteau – there are two meanings
packed up into one word” – he explains to Alice the coinage of the unusual words like snark, for
example, which is ‘snake’ and ‘shark’, or mimsy, which is a combination of ‘flimsy’ and
‘miserable’.
Charles Dickens, too, was quite inventive, and had his share of success as a creator of new words:
devil-may-care, sawbones (for a doctor), butter-fingers, boredom, rampage, flummox, tousled,
kibosh (as in “put the kibosh on s/th”), footlights, and dust-bin, which is still the usual British term
for a garbage can.
A range of neologisms were created by modern authors, James Joyce being one of them. His
extraordinary lexical coinages have their roots in everyday language. The style of Joycean
neologisms largely depends on the mechanisms involved in the simple pun. Take the title of his
collection of poems, Pomes Penyeach. The title is a play on "poems" and "pommes" (the French
word for apples) which are offered here at "a penny each". It is typical of Joyce’s coinages to
involve several layers of meaning, forming a complex set of allusions which relate to the characters,
events, and themes of his book. Some of the words that Joyce came up with were created by
melding two words into a new compound: "rosefrail", "moongrey" and "sindark", among others.
Some of the literary neologisms have undergone change in meaning, and are widely used in modern
discourse. For instance, the lexeme freelance was first used by Sir Walter Scott in his novel
Ivanhoe, written in 1819, in the meaning of ‘a medieval soldier selling his services to any state or
cause’. Nowadays it is used mostly as an adjective with a much broader semantics, in the meaning
‘working independently for several different companies or organizations rather than being directly
employed by one: a freelance journalist / translator / photographer, etc’.
 Obsolete, obsolescent and archaic words. Historisms

Language never stays the same. In the course of time, a lot of words have been replaced by new
ones; existing words have altered their meanings or had new meanings added to them. That is a
natural path of language development which accompanies the development of society and its
culture. Here is what Richard Bentley, a late 17th – early 18th century British classical scholar and
critic, had to say about it:
“Every living language, like the perspiring bodies of living creatures, is in perpetual motion and
alteration; some words go off, and become obsolete; others are taken in, and by degrees grow into common
use; or the same word is inverted to a new sense or notion, which in tract of time makes an observable change
in the air and features of a language, as age makes in the lines and mien of a face” (cited after D.Crystal,
2003).

The beginning of the aging process is when the word becomes rarely used. Such words are called
obsolescent; they are at a point when they are gradually passing out of general use.
A lot of French borrowings which have been kept in the literary language as a means of
preserving the spirit of earlier periods belong to the category of obsolescent words. The examples
are as follows: gobemouche (‘a naive and credulous person’), pallet (‘a straw mattress’), palfrey (‘a
small horse’), garniture (‘furniture’), to plume (‘to adorn with feathers or plumes’). Some scholars
will also include words which are still recognized by most English-speaking communities: methinks
(‘it seems to me’), nay (‘no’), to enfree (‘to set free’), havior (‘behavior’).
The terms “archaic” and “obsolete” both apply to words and senses regarded as no longer
acceptable or relevant. The terms are even sometimes used interchangeably. It is, however, now
common to make a distinction between them and view archaic words and senses as ones that were
once common but are now rare and, on the other hand, regard obsolete items as words and senses
that have gone out of use altogether and have been replaced in their regular meaning by a more
recent arrival. For example, while the word russet is still current in English, its older sense, one that
was used by Shakespeare – that of “a round yellow-reddish citrus fruit that has a thick skin” – has
long disappeared and been replaced by the word orange. Obsolete vocabulary is usually no longer
recognizable in modern English: such words were in use in Old English and have either dropped out
of the language entirely or have changed in their appearance so much that they have become
unrecognizable, e. g. troth (‘faith’); losel (‘a worthless, lazy fellow’).
In identifying words and senses as either obsolete or archaic, it may be sensible to apply the
criterion used by some dictionaries, where words are categorized by the amount of time they have
or have not been used. Specifically, according to principles laid down by the American Heritage
Dictionary of the English Language, the label “archaic” is attached to entry words and senses for
which there is only sporadic evidence in print after 1755”. At the same time, the same dictionary
describes the obsolete label thus: “The label “obsolete” is used with entry words and senses no
longer in active use, except, for example, in literary quotations. Specifically, this label is attached to
entry words and senses for which there is little or no printed evidence since 1755” (AHDEL, 4 th ed.,
2004). While this may sound like a clear dividing line, making a distinction between concrete words
is sometimes very difficult.
Some obsolete words died very early in the history of the language, failing to make their way
from Old English to Middle English, and, while they had some sporadic use in occasional writings,
they did not really become established. One such word is wanhope – a native compound replaced
by the Old French borrowing despair. Obsolete words tend to pass out of use completely or remain
in the language as a resource for literary writing or as elements performing purely historical
descriptive functions.
In this regard, one should consider the morphosyntactic forms that characterized the earlier stages in
the development of the English language. They are the pronoun thou and its forms thee, thy, and
thine. It is apparent that Old and Middle English had more specialized forms for the modern you,
your and yours and made a distinction between the singular and plural forms (thou for singular and
you for plural). Here are the famous lines from a lyric poem by George Gordon Byron, Fare thee
well!, which uses some of them:
“Would that breast were bared before thee,
Where thy head so oft hath lain,
While that placid sleep came o'er thee
Which thou ne'er canst know again”
(George G. Byron, Fare thee well)
These forms have been retained in the older versions of religious texts and prayers, e.g. We praise
thy name, O Lord. As is apparent from these contexts, thee was used in Object case, while thy was a
determiner, meaning the same as today’s “your”. Tellingly, however, although present-day standard
English makes no distinction between singular and plural second person pronouns by using you for
both, some dialects of English, most notably Southern dialect in the USA, keep this distinction: Why
don’t you come along? (to refer to one person) vs. Why don’t y’all come too? (addressing more than
one).
Some other morphosyntactic forms that have long been considered anachronistic are: the -est
inflexion for the 2nd person singular, -th for the 3rd person singular, the plural form of brother
(brethren), tense forms like wilt, spake, builded. So are the corresponding verbal ending –est, the
verb-forms art, wilt (thou makest, thou wilt), the ending -(e)th in place of -(e)s (he maketh) and the
pronoun ye. Long obsolete are the participle forms ending in -en: drunken, gotten, washen. This is
not to say these words are no longer used. English has retained some of these forms, as adjectives,
for example: a drunken rage /stupor / party / sailor etc; stricken with terror, grief-stricken, panic-
stricken, drought-stricken; laden with food, debt-laden company, snow-laden trees etc. or as past
participles: taken, spoken, given etc. Interestingly, gotten has been preserved in British English only
as part of the adjective ill-gotten, which is commonly used in the construction ill-gotten gains,
meaning ‘money that was obtained in a dishonest way’. It has, however, been retained by American
English as a participle, as in He’s gotten a B on the test. The fact that these forms are currently used
in English does not mean that they continue to be productive: no new forms are built in this way
any more. A further illustration of the morphosyntactic changes in English is the preposition with,
which originally meant “against”, but now this meaning is retained only in some words, e.g.
withdraw, withhold, withstand and some others.
Many archaic words have been preserved in proverbs: Many a little makes a mickle, or There’s
many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, as well as in idiomatic expressions: tit for tat, hide your light
under a bushel (‘to not tell anyone you are good at s/th’), as in We all have a variety of gifts and
interests and experience; it’s just that we haven’t had the chance to demonstrate them. So don’t
hide your light under a bushel!
As the old occupations disappeared, the words denoting them went out of use as well. The
names of such jobs have been preserved in family names, such as Thatcher (‘someone whose job is
making roofs from dried straw, reeds and leaves’), Chandler (‘candle maker’), Webster (‘weaver’),
Wright (‘worker’) and even one of the most popular surnames in English – Smith (‘blacksmith’).
Apart from the categories above, there is a label which marks not words as such but the things they
denote as being no longer current – they are historical words or historisms. These words are used
to describe historic events, customs, traditions and everyday objects which are no longer current, e.
g.: barton – ‘a large area of land around the manor house’, firkin – ‘an old English unit of volume’,
hostler – ‘one who tends to horses at an inn’, Milord – ‘a form of address for a British gentleman’,
and the like.
These words disappeared from the language, since the things and the phenomena to
which they refer have gone out of use. But they are still used by many authors in historical fiction,
where they are introduced into the narration to conjure up the atmosphere of the by-gone periods in
the life of people. When writing a story set in the distant past, the writer cannot help using archaic
words that are no longer in a modern dictionary. On the one hand, period terminology can evoke a
sense of entering a different world, but on the other, such terms can act as a barrier: too many
unfamiliar words can create the impression that this world is too different and incomprehensible.
 In dictionaries, the variable time distinctions of words are marked by a number of competing
labels: dated, obsolete, archaic, rare, old-fashioned, historical, old use etc. These labels are defined
as follows:
dated – no longer used by the majority of English speakers, but still encountered,
especially among the older generation.
archaic – old-fashioned language, not in ordinary use today, but restricted to special
contexts, i.e. legal or religious use. It is also employed to give a deliberately old-fashioned
effect and is also encountered in the literature of the past.
historical – still used today, but in reference to some practice or artifact that is no longer
part of the modern world.
rare – not in normal use.
It should be noted that the borderlines between the groups are not distinct; in fact, they
interpenetrate. It may be especially difficult to distinguish between obsolete, archaic and
obsolescent words.
Sometimes present-day items that were once in widespread usage may have since
retracted to regional usage only. For example, the use of garret for ‘attic’, or yonder for ‘over
there’ in the rural dialects of American South are local retentions of older items which were
once in much wider use in the English language (Wolfram, Schilling-Estes 2006: 62).

TASK 13

The popularity of social networks and technologies has brought about a large
number of new words to accommodate the newly-emerged and quickly
developing field. Identify neologisms often found on social networking sites in
the sentences below and suggest Ukrainian translations for them:
(1) You don’t gain tweet cred if you’re boring and predictable, don’t
respond back to others and when you create tweets that sound like
you’re speaking from a podium.
(2) I was googling something on Youtube and found this really funny video.
(3) If this project is too big a task for you alone, you can try crowdsourcing
– get as many people involved in it as you can and together you will do
the job in no time.
(4) It was a reference to an email message Bill Gates had written in which
he described Internet Explorer as a killer app.
(5) This forum is flooded with angry trolling and I just skip past it.
(6) Some games and gaming forums are crawling with annoying noobs.
(7) She’s exactly the kind of person who might be ego surfing for hours on
end.
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