The Word As The Basic Unit Of The Language

purposes of human communication.
The word can be perceived as

the total of the sounds which comprise it.
The word, viewed structurally, possesses several characteristics.

of meaning by establishing the interdependence between words and the

things or concepts they denote
the functional approach, which studies the functions of a word in speech and is less concerned with what meaning is than with how it works

the meaning of the word.

English dove, Russian голубь

Seal – “a

piece of wax, lead”
Seal – “a sea animal”

O.E. lufian, Mn.E. love

thought of the object that singles out its essential features.

Our concepts abstract and reflect the most common and typical features of the different objects and phenomena of the world. Being the result of abstraction and generalisation all concepts are almost the same for the whole of humanity in one and the same period of its historical development.

press
noun-forming suffixes -ion, -ist
grammatical suffix of plurality –s
Internal structure (semantic)
The

word’s meaning

caseus)
cherry (Lat. Cerasum)
pear (Lat. Pirum)
pepper (Lat. Piper)
plant (Lat. Planta)
cup

(Lat. cuppa)
kitchen (Lat. coquina)
port (Lat. portus)
wine (Lat. vinum)

druid, bard, cradle
Avon, Exe, Esk, Usk, Ux
Celtic Llyn

+ dun
Street (Lat. strata via)
Wall (Lat. Vallum)

monk (Lat. monachus)
nun (Lat. nonna)
candle (Lat. candela)
school (Lat. schola, of

Greek origin)
magister (Lat. magister)

borrowings: call, take, cast, die, law
husband, (< Sc. hus +

bondi, i. e. "inhabitant of the house"), window (< Sc. vindauga, i. e. "the eye of the wind")
ill, loose, low, weak
sky, skill, skin, ski, skirt
О. Е. dream (“joy”) – Scandinavian draumr (Germ. Traum "dream“, R. дрёма)

court, judge, justice, crime, prison
Military terms: army, war, soldier, officer,

battle, enemy
Educational terms: pupil, lesson, library, science, pen, pencil
table, plate, saucer, dinner, supper, river, autumn, uncle

to elect, to create)
scientific and artistic terms (status, phenomenon, philosophy,

method, music)
Greek Renaissance borrowings (atom, cycle, ethics, esthete)
Parisian borrowings (regime, routine, police, machine, ballet, scene, technique)
Italian (piano, violin, opera, alarm, colonel)

Germanic element
English Proper element (no earlier than 5th c. A.

D.)

The borrowed element
Celtic (5th - 6th c. A. D.)
Latin (1st group: 1st с. В. С. 2nd group: 7th c. A. D. 3rd group: the Renaissance period)
Scandinavian (8th - 11th c. A. D.)
French (1. Norman borrowings: 11th — 13th c. A. D. 2. Parisian borrowings (Renaissance))
Greek (Renaissance)
Italian, Spanish (Renaissance and later)
German, Indian, Russian and some other groups

languages of the Indo-European group.
I. Family relations: father, mother,

brother, son, daughter.
II. Parts of the human body: foot, nose, lip, heart.
III. Animals: cow, swine, goose.
IV. Plants: tree, birch, corn
V. Time of day: day, night.
VI. Heavenly bodies: sun, moon, star.
VII. Numerous adjectives: red (cf. Ukr. рудий, R. рыжий), new, glad, sad.
VIII. The numerals from one to a hundred.
IX. Pronouns — personal (except they which is a Scandinavian borrowing); demonstrative.
X. Numerous verbs: be, stand, sit, eat, know.

most Germanic languages.
I. Parts of the human body: head,

hand, arm, finger, bone.
II. Animals: bear, fox, calf.
III.Plants: oak, fir, grass.
IV.Natural phenomena: rain, frost.
V. Seasons of the year: winter, spring, summer.
VI. Landscape features: sea, land.
VII. Human dwellings and furniture: house, room, bench.
VIII. Sea-going vessels: boat, ship.
IX. Adjectives: green, blue, grey, white, small, thick, high, old, good.
X. Verbs: see, hear, speak, tell, say, answer, make, give, drink.

Lat. satis, R. сыт, Snscr. sd-.
Stand: Germ. stehen, Lat. stare,

R. стоять, Snscr. stha-.

English proper words: bird, boy, girl, lord, lady, woman, daisy, always

found in the English language:
Root words are words that have

only one root morpheme in their structure, e.g., boy, girl, pen, pencil, etc.
Derived words/ derivatives are words that have one root morpheme and one of several affixes in their structure, e.g. manhood, rewrite, unlike, etc.
Compound words are words that have 2 or more root morphemes in their structure starfish (+compound derivatives/ derivational compounds – built by composition in which one stem is derived, e.g., blue-eyed, old-timer, teenager, kind-hearted, etc.)
Shortenings/ contracted words are words formed by contracting certain elements of an existing word or word group, e.g., TV, exam, bus (omnibus), etc.

(v); dry (adj) - to dry (v); must (v) -

a must (n), go (v) - a go (n).

Composition/ Compounding
Holiday(holy+day),breakthrough(break+through), bedroom (bed+room)

Derivation
The compound word ‘unkindness’ ‘kind’ is the base, un- the prefix and -ness the suffix; or in “disjoined’, “join’ is the base, dis- the prefix and -ed the suffix.

and spelling, e.g. temple – 1) висок, 2) храм; seal

– 1) печать, 2) тюлень; ball – 1) мяч, 2) бал, bark – 1) кора, 2) лай, etc.
Homophones – words identical in sound-form but different both in spelling and in meaning, e.g. to know – no, not – knot, to meet – meat, piece – peace, write – right, sea – see, son – sun, bye – buy – by, etc.
Homographs – words identical in spelling but different both in their sound-form and meaning, e.g. bow /bəʊ/ лук – /baʊ/ поклон, row /rəʊ/ ряд – /raʊ/ ссора, lead(v) /liːd/ вести – /lɛd/ свинец, tear (v) /tɛː/ рвать – /tɪə/ слеза, etc.

gradual shift in the conventional meaning of words, as people

use them in new types of contexts and these usages become normal. The meaning of a word can change in the course of time. Transfer of the meaning is called lexico-semantic word-building. In such cases the outer aspect of a word does not change.

meaning) e.g., pretty < OE: prættig 'crafty, sly‘
Pejoration of

meaning (also degradation of meaning) e.g., spinster 'unmarried woman' < 'one who spins'
Broadening (extension, generalization or widening) of meaning e.g., dog =>specific powerful breed of dog => all breeds or races of dog
Semantic narrowing of meaning (or specialization) e.g., wife => OE 'woman' =>'woman of humble rank or low employment' => 'married woman, spouse‘
Bleaching e.g., awfully, terribly, horribly (awfully late, awfully big, awfully small) or pretty (pretty good, pretty bad . . .)
Metaphor e.g., "The rain came down in long knitting needles." (Enid Bagnold, National Velvet)

proverb)
Synecdoche / sɪˈnɛkdəki / e.g., hand 'hired hand, employed

worker‘

a) Indo-european, b) Germanic, c) English proper.

Daughter, woman, room, land,

cow, moon, sea, red, spring, three, lady, always, goose, bear, fox, lord, tree, nose, daisy, heart

to the study of meaning is called a) Etymology b) Dialectology c) Semantics d)

Phraseology

meaning by establishing the interdependence between words and the things or

concepts they denote b) studies the functions of a word in speech and is concerned with how meaning works.

___.
  pear
  pair
 
2. The bus ___ is one dollar.
fare
 

fair
 
 3. ___ house is near the lake.
 
  There
  Their

aloud
  allowed
 
 5. The book teaches how to spell  ___.
  write
 

right
 
 6. We took a ___ from work and went for a walk.
  break
  brake

hole
  whole
 8. It's time to ___ the seeds.
  sew
  sow
 9.

Mix some ___ with milk, eggs, and sugar and make cookies for the children.
  flower
  flour
 10. It was more than I could ___ .
  bare
  bear

shift that has occurred in each case. Choose either Metaphor

or Metonymy.
a. barbecue 'a rack for cooking meat over a fire' > barbecue 'a social event at which food is cooked over a fire' b. influence 'something which has flowed in' > influence 'something which affects someone without apparent effort' c. mouth 'the body opening through which an animal takes food' > mouth 'a person' (eg. "three mouths to feed") d. solve 'to loosen' > solve 'to clear up something puzzling' e. counter 'a device for counting' > counter 'a surface on which various devices can be placed' f. mouth 'the body opening through which an animal takes food' > mouth 'an opening into a cave or canyon' g. white shirt 'a shirt that is white in color' > white shirt 'a manager'

the result of the semantic shift is Narrowing, Degeneration, Widening,

or Amelioration. a. OE wif 'a woman' > Modern English wife 'a married woman' b. nuke 'to destroy with nuclear weapons' > nuke 'to destroy in any manner' (eg. Buffy nuked her Porsche last night.) c. ME marshall 'groom for horses (literally 'horse slave')' > Modern English marshall 'high ranking officer' d.OE steorfan 'to die (of any cause)' > Modern English starve 'to die from hunger' e. Middle English vilein 'feudal serf, farmer' > Modern English villain 'a wicked or evil person' f. OE bouchier 'one who slaughters goats' > Modern English butcher 'one who slaughters animals' g. Middle English girle 'child' > Modern English girl 'female child' h. lyric 'poem to be sun with a lyre' > lyric 'any poem to be sung' i. lewd 'of the laity (i.e. non-church)' > lewd 'indecent' j. OE mete 'any food' > Modern English meat 'animal flesh'