Lecture 3. ENGLISH VOCABULARY AS A SYSTEM

each sign has only one meaning, and each meaning is

associated with only one sign. This one-to-one relationship is not realised in natural languages.
When several related meanings are associated with the same group of sounds within one part of speech, the word is called polysemantic, when two or more unrelated meanings are associated with the same form — the words are homonyms, when two or more different forms are associated with the same or nearly the same denotative meanings — the words are synonyms.

match (матч)
Homophones
sale – sail
Homographs
lead – lead (свинец)
and homoforms
found (the

Past Indefinite of find) – to found
patterned homonymy
silence – to silence

(печать)
lexico-grammatical
rose (поднялся) – rose (роза);
Grammatical
boys – boy’s – boys’

(реки, озера)).
Partial homonyms (this type of homonymy is characteristic of

words belonging to different lexico-grammatical classes)
a seal (an animal) – to seal (to close tightly)

– sound (sonus)
split of polysemy / divergent sense development –

(распад полисемии)
board (доска) – board (питание, стол) – board (комиссия)
borrowing words
rite (ритуал) (Lat) – write, right (Native)
Conversion and shortening
to drive – a drive; rep (repertory) – rep (representative)

(cf. spring (season; a twisted piece of metal, a place

where water comes up from the ground)
their derivation capacity (cf. deep-voiced, voicing against the candidate, the Active voice of the verb)
the range of collocability

of equivalence:
full (absolute): semasiology – semantics, scarlet fever –

scarlatina
partial (relative)

to glitter (with anger) - to sparkle (with joy)
different

in meaning considerably
journey – voyage – trip
2. The degree of the quality expressed
want, desire, long for
3. Evaluative connotations
loving, devoted – doting (безумно любящий; слепо обожающий)

Stylistic colouring + difference in emotional colouring and evaluation: visage

– face – phiz – snout (морда, рыло животного) – mug.
Contextual synonyms: buy – get (I’ll go to a shop and get some bread)

something unpleasant by using milder words and phrases so that

a formerly unoffensive word receives a disagreeable meaning
more or less ‘pleasant or at least inoffensive connotation becomes synonymous to one that is harsh, obscene, indelicate or otherwise unpleasant
mad, graveyard, water-closet → insane, cemetery, lavatory → God's Acre, lady’s/men’s room/restroom, etc.

are different in meaning and usage.
affect – effect, cause

– course, ingenious [i] (находчивый, изобретательный, умелый) – ingenuous [e] (бесхитростный).

(of a blade) – sharp, dull (of a pain) –

acute
Iron - ?

happy – unhappy.
phraseological antonyms
big fish – small fry.
Semantically:
1) contrary

(контрарные) cold (cool and warm) hot
2) contradictory (контрадикторные) not alive – dead
3) conversive (конверсивные) buy – sell, give – receive
4) antonyms of opposite direction (векторно-разнонаправленные) East-West, know-forget, left-right

neologisms proper: cyberpunk
2) transnominations : edutainment (education+entertainment)
3) semantic innovations (переосмысление)

: switched-on (well-informed, efficient)

neatnik (чистюля), foodie
composition: trouble-shooter job-hopper
Shortening: urb ← urban, TOEFL
Conversion: to

garage a card
Blending: vegelate (vegetable+chocolate), vegeburger).

karoshi – (in Japan) death caused by overwork Etymology: from

Japanese ka “excess” + ro “labour” + shi “death”

re-fusenik (человек, которому отказали в получении визы)
multiple attributive structures (поликомпонентные

атрибутивные цепочки): breakfast-in-the-bedder
There is a sort of Oh-what-a-wicked-world-this-ls-and-how-I-wish-i-could-do-something-to-make-it-better-and nobler expression about Mont-morency.  (Jerome K- Jerome)