Nonce-word – a word coined and used for a single occasion, e.g. Bunburyist (O. Wilde), dimple-making (Th. Hardy), library-grinding (S. Lewis), familyphysicianery(J.K. Jerome).

О

Obsolete words – words that drop from the language completely or remain in the language as elements performing purely historical descriptive functions. Names of obsolete occupations are often preserved as family names, e.g. Chandler – candle maker, Latimer (i.e. Latiner) – interpreter, Webster – weaver (with –ster the old feminine ending).

Occasionalism – a word or a word-combination created in each case anew, e.g. living metaphors whose predictability is not apparent, e.g. the ex-umbrella man, a horse-faced woman, a gazelle-eyed youth, cobra-headed anger, etc.

Onomatopoeia (syn. sound imitation, sound symbolism) – the formation of a word by imitating the natural sound associated with the object or action involved, e.g. buzz, cuckoo, tinkle, cock-a-doodle-do, etc.

Origin – the historic source of any linguistic unit or item.

P

Paradigm – the system of grammatical forms characteristic of a word, e.g. to write, wrote, written, writing, writes; girl, girl’s, girls, girl’', etc.

Paradigmatic relationships are based on the interdependence of words within the vocabulary.

Paronyms are words kindred in sound form and meaning and therefore liable to be mixed but in fact different in meaning and usage and therefore only mistakenly interchanged, e.g. to affect – to effect, allusion – illusion, ingenious – ingenuous, etc.

Pejoration– see degradation.

Phrase(syn. collocation, word-combination, word-group) – a lexical unit comprising more than one word, e.g. to go to school, a red apple etc. Kinds of phrases: adjectival, e.g. rich in gold, etc.; free, e.g. green leaves – yellow leaves – dry leaves, etc.; nominal, e.g. a blue sky, Jack of all trades, etc.; verbal, e.g. to go to school, to cry over spilt milk, etc.; motivated, e.g. fine weather, to play the piano,

etc.; non-motivated, e.g. red tape, by hook or by crook, etc.

Phraseological collocations (combinations) – motivated phraseological units made up of words possessing specific lexical valency which accounts for a certain degree of stability and strictly limited variability of member-words, e.g. to bear a grudge or to bear a malice, to win the race, to gain access, etc.

Phraseologicalfusions (idioms) – completely non-motivated invariable phraseological units whose meaning has no connection with the meaning of the components (i.e. it cannot be deduced from the knowledge of components), e.g. to pay through the nose (to pay a high price); red tape (bureaucratic methods), etc.

Phraseological units(syn. set expressions, fixed combinations, units of fixed context, idioms) – partially motivated or non motivated word-groups thatcannot be freely made up in speech but are reproduced as ready-made units.

Phraseological unities – partially non-motivated phraseological units whose meaning can usually be perceived through the metaphoric meaning of the whole unit, e.g. to know the way the wind blows, to show one’s teeth, to make a mountain out of a mole-hill, etc.

Phraseology – a branch of linguistics studying set-phrases –phraseological units ofall kinds.

Pidgin – a simplified form of speech developed as a medium of trade or through other contacts between groups of people who speak different languages.

Polymorphic– having two or more morphemes, e.g. inseparable, boyishness,impossibility, etc.

Polysemantic words – having more than one meaning, e.g. board, power, case, etc.

Polysemy – plurality of meanings, i.e. co-existence of the various meanings of the same word and the arrangement of these meanings in the semantic structure of the word, e.g. maid 1) a girl, 2) a woman servant.

Prefix – a derivational affix (morpheme) placed before the stem, e.g. un- (unkind), mis- (misuse), etc. Kinds of prefixes: borrowed, e.g. re-, ex-, sub-, ultra-, non-, etc.; native, e.g. un-, under-, after-, etc.; non-productive (unproductive), e.g. in- (il-, im-, ir-), etc.; productive, e.g. un-, de-, non-, etc.

Prefixation – the formation of words with the help of prefixes. It is productive in Modern English, especially so in verbs and adjective word-formation.

Productive affixes – affixes which participate in the formation of new words, in neologisms in particular, i.e. which are often used to form new words; opposite non-productive (unproductive).

Productivity – the ability of a given affix to form new words.

Proverb– a sentence expressing popular wisdom, a truth or a moral lesson in a concise and imaginative way, e.g. a friend in need is a friend indeed, while there is life there is hope, make hay while the sun shines, etc.

R

Reduplication – a method of forming compounds by the repetition of the same root, e.g. to pooh-pooh, goody-goody, etc.

Reduplicative compound – a compound formed with the help of reduplication, e.g. tick-tick, hush-hush, etc.

Referent (denotatum) – the part (aspect) of reality to which the linguistic sign refers (objects, actions, qualities), etc.

Referential approach to meaning – the school of thought which seeks to formulate the essence of meaning by establishing the interdependence between the word (sound-form), the concept (reference) underlying this form and the actual referent.

Referential meaning (denotational) meaning – denoting, or referring to something, either by naming it John, boy, red, arrive, with, if or by pointing it out be this so.

Root (morpheme) – the primary elements of the word conveying the fundamental lexical meaning (e.g. the lexical nucleus of the word) common to a set of semantically related words constituting one word family, e.g. speak, speaker, speech, spoken.

S

Semantic – relating to meaning, dealing with meaning in language.

Date: 2016-01-03; view: 960