SIMILARITY AND DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SET EXPRESSION AND A WORD

There is a pressing need for criteria distinguishing set expressions not only from free phrases but from compound words as well. One of these criteria is the formal integrity of words which had been repeatedly mentioned and may be best illustrated by an example with the word breakfast borrowed from W.L. Graff. His approach combines contextual analysis and diachronic observations. He is interested in gradation from free construction through the formula to compound and then simple word. In showing the borderline between a word and a formular expression, W.L. Graff speaks about the word breakfast derived from the set expression to break fast, where break was a verb with a specific meaning inherent to it only in combination with fast which means ?keeping from food?. Hence it was possible to say: And knight and squire had broke their fast (W.Scott). The fact that it was a phrase and not a word is clearly indicated by the conjugation treatment of the verb and syntactical treatment of the noun. With an analytical language like English this conjugation test is, unfortunately, not always applicable.

It would also be misleading to be guided in distinguishing between set expressions and compound words by semantic considerations, there being no rigorous criteria for differentiating between one complex notion and a combination of two or more notions. The references of component words are lost within the whole of a set expression, no less than within a compound word. What is, for instance, the difference in this respect between the set expression point of view and the compound viewpoint? And if there is any, what are the formal criteria which can help to estimate it?

Alongside with semantic unity many authors mention the unity of syntactic function. This unity of syntactic function is obvious in the predicate of the main clause in the following quotation from J. Wain, which is a simple predicate, though rendered by a set expression: ...the government we had in those days, when we (Great Britain) were the world?s richest country, didn?t give a damn whether the kids grew up with rickets or not ...

This syntactic unity, however, is not specific for all set expressions.

Two types of substitution tests can be useful in showing us the points of similarity and difference between the words and set expressions. In the first procedure a whole set expression is replaced within context by a synonymous word in such a way that the meaning of the utterance remains unchanged, e. g. he was in a brown study → he mas gloomy. In the second type of substitution test only an element of the set expression is replaced, e. g. (as) white as chalk → (as) white as milk → (as) white as snow; or it gives me the blues → it gives him the blues → it gives one the blues. In this second type it is the set expression that is retained, although its composition or referential meaning may change.

When applying the first type of procedure one obtains a criterion for the degree of equivalence between a set expression and a word. One more example will help to make the point clear. The set expression dead beat can be substituted by a single word exhausted. E. g.: Dispatches, sir. Delivered by a corporal of the 33rd. Dead beat with hard riding, sir (Shaw). The last sentence may be changed into Exhausted with hard riding, sir. The lines will keep their meaning and remain grammatically correct. The possibility of this substitution permits us to regard this set expression as a word equivalent.

On the other hand, there are cases when substitution is not possible. The set expression red tape has a one word equivalent in Russian ???????????, but in English it can be substituted only by a free phrase. Thus, in the enumeration of political evils in the example below red tape, although syntactically equivalent to derivative nouns used as homogeneous members, can be substituted only by some free phrase, such as rigid formality of official routine. Cf. the following example:

BURGOYNE: And will you wipe out our enemies in London, too? SWINDON: In London! What enemies?

BURGOYNE (forcible): Jobbery and snobbery, incompetence and Red Tape ... (Shaw).

The unity of syntactic function is present in this case also, but the criterion of equivalence to a single word cannot be applied, because substitution by a single word is impossible. Such equivalence is therefore only relative, it is not universally applicable and cannot be accepted as a general criterion for defining these units. The equivalence of words and set expressions should not be taken too literally but treated as a useful abstraction, only in the sense we have stated.

The main point of difference between a word and a set expression is the divisibility of the latter into separately structured elements which is contrasted to the structural integrity of words. Although equivalent to words in being introduced into speech ready-made, a set expression is different from them, because it can be resolved into words, whereas words are resolved into morphemes. In compound words the process of integration is more advanced. The methods and criteria serving to identify compounds and distinguish them from phrases or groups of words, no matter how often used together, have been pointed out in the chapter on compounds.

Morphological divisibility is evident when one of the elements (but not the last one as in a compound word) is subjected to morphological change. This problem has been investigated by N.N. Amosova, A.V. Koonin and others.] N.N. Amosova gives the following examples:

He played second fiddle to her in his father?s heart (Galsworthy). ... She disliked playing second fiddle (Christie). To play second fiddle ?to occupy a secondary, subordinate position?.

It must be rather fun having a skeleton in the cupboard (Milne). I hate skeletons in the cupboard (Ibid.) A skeleton in the cupboard ?a family secret?.

A.V. Koonin shows the possibility of morphological changes in adjectives forming part of phraseological units: He?s deader than a doornail; It made the night blacker than pitch; The Cantervilles have blue blood, for instance, the bluest in England.

It goes without saying that the possibility of a morphological change cannot regularly serve as a distinctive feature, because it may take place only in a limited number of set expressions (verbal or nominal).

The question of syntactic ties within a set expression is even more controversial. All the authors agree that set expressions (for the most part) represent one member of the sentence, but opinions differ as to whether this means that there are no syntactical ties within set expressions themselves. Actually the number of words in a sentence is not necessarily equal to the number of its members.

The existence of syntactical relations within a set expression can be proved by the possibility of syntactical transformations (however limited) or inversion of elements and the substitution of the variable member, all this without destroying the set expression as such. By a variable element we mean the element of the set expression which is structurally necessary but free to vary lexically. It is usually indicated in dictionaries by indefinite pronouns, often inserted in round brackets: make (somebody?s) hair stand on end ?to give the greatest astonishment or fright to another person?; sow (one?s) wild oats ?to indulge in dissipation while young?. The word in brackets can be freely substituted: make (my, your, her, the reader?s) hair stand on end.

The sequence of constant elements may be broken and some additional words inserted, which, splitting the set expression, do not destroy it, but establish syntactical ties with its regular elements. The examples are chiefly limited to verbal expressions, e.g. The chairman broke the ice → Ice was broken by the chairman; Has burnt his boats and ... → Having burnt his boats he ... Pronominal substitution is illustrated by the following example: ?Hold your tongue, Lady L.? ?Hold yours, my good fool.? (N. Marsh, quoted by N.N. Amosova)

All these facts are convincing manifestations of syntactical ties within the units in question. Containing the same elements these units can change their morphological form and syntactical structure, they may be called changeable set expressions, as contrasted to stereotyped or unchangeable set expressions, admitting no change either morphological or syntactical. The examples discussed in the previous paragraph mostly belong to this second type, indivisible and unchangeable; they are nearer to a word than their more flexible counterparts. This opposition is definitely correlated with structural properties.

All these examples proving the divisibility and variability of set expressions throw light on the difference between them and words.

36. CLASSIFICATION OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS

Taking into account mainly the degree of idiomaticity phraseological units may be classified into three big groups: phraseological fusions, phraseological unities and phraseological collocations.

Phraseological fusions are completely non-motivated word-groups, such as red tape ? ?bureaucratic methods?; heavy father ? ?serious or solemn part in a theatrical play?; kick the bucket ? ?die?; and the like. The meaning of the components has no connections whatsoever, at least synchronically, with the meaning of the whole group. Idiomaticity is, as a rule, combined with complete stability of the lexical components and the grammatical structure of the fusion.

Phraseological unities are partially non-motivated as their meaning can usually be perceived through the metaphoric meaning of the whole phraseological unit. For example, to show one?s teeth, to wash one?s dirty linen in public if interpreted as semantically motivated through the combined lexical meaning of the component words would naturally lead one to understand these in their literal meaning. The metaphoric meaning of the whole unit, however, readily suggests ?take a threatening tone? or ?show an intention to injure? for show one?s teeth and ?discuss or make public one?s quarrels? for wash one?s dirty linen in public. Phraseological unities are as a rule marked by a comparatively high degree of stability of the lexical components.

Phraseological collocations are motivated but they are made up of words possessing specific lexical valency which accounts for a certain degree of stability in such word-groups. In phraseological collocations variability of member-words is strictly limited. For instance, bear a grudge may be changed into bear malice, but not into bear a fancy or liking. We can say take a liking (fancy) but not take hatred (disgust). These habitual collocations tend to become kind of clichés1 where the meaning of member-words is to some extent dominated by the meaning of the whole group. Due to this phraseological collocations are felt as possessing a certain degree of semantic inseparability.

37. STANDARD ENGLISH VARIANTS AND DIALECTS

Standard English ? the official language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities, used by the press, the radio and the television and spoken by educated people may be defined as that form of English which is current and literary, substantially uniform and recognised as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood. Its vocabulary is contrasted to dialect words or dialecticisms. Local diale?ts are varieties of the English language peculiar to some districts and having no normalised literary form. Regional varieties possessing a literary form are called variants. In Great Britain there are two variants, Scottish English and Irish English, and five main groups of dialects: Northern, Midland, Eastern, Western and Southern. Every group contains several (up to ten) dialects.

One of the best known Southern dialects is Cockney, the regional dialect of London. According to E. Partridge and H.C. Wylde, this dialect exists on two levels. As spoken by the educated lower middle classes it is a regional dialect marked by some deviations in pronunciation but few in vocabulary and syntax. As spoken by the uneducated, Cockney differs from Standard English not only in pronunciation but also in vocabulary, morphology and syntax. G.B. Shaw?s play ?Pygmalion? clearly renders this level of Cockney as spoken at the time when the play was written and reveals the handicap Cockney obviously presents in competition with speakers of standard English. Professor Henry Higgins, the main character of the play, speaking about Eliza Doolittie, the flower girl, says: You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass this girl off as a duchess ... even get her a place as lady?s maid or shop assistant which requires better English.

?The Encyclopaedia Britannica? treats Cockney as an accent, not acknowledging it the status of dialect.

Cockney has attracted much literary attention, and so we can judge of its past and present on the evidence of literature. As recorded by Ch. Dickens over a century ago, Cockney was phonetically characterised by the interchange of the labial and labio-dental consonants [w] and [v]: wery for very and vell for well. This trait was lost by the end of the 19th century. The voiceless and voiced dental spirants [θ] and [∂] are still replaced ? though not very consistently ? by [f] and [v] respectively: fing for thing and farver for father (inserting the letter r indicates vowel length). This variation is not exclusively characteristic of Cockney and may be found in several dialects. Another trait not limited to Cockney is the interchange of the aspirated and non-aspirated initial vowels: hart for art and ?eart for heart. The most marked feature in vowel sounds is the substitution of the diphthong [ai] for standard [ei] in such words as day, face, rain, way pronounced: [dai], [fais], [rain], [wai].

There are some specifically Cockney words and set expressions such as up the pole ?drunk?, you?ll get yourself disliked (a remonstrance to a person behaving very badly).

Cockney is lively and witty and its vocabulary imaginative and colourful. Its specific feature not occurring anywhere else is the so-called rhyming slang, in which some words are substituted by other words rhyming with them. Boots, for instance, are called daisy roots, hat is tit for tat, head is sarcastically called loaf of bread, and wife ? trouble and strife. It has set expressions of its own. Here is an example of a rather crude euphemistic phrase for being dead: ?She may have pulled me through me operation,? said Mrs Fisher, ?but ?streuth I?m not sure I wouldn?t be better off pushing up the daisies, after all.? (M. Dickens)

The study of dialects has been made on the basis of information obtained with the help of special techniques: interviews, questionnaires, recording by phonograph and tape-recorder, etc. Data collected in this way show the territorial distribution of certain key words and pronunciations which vary from region to region.

Dialects are now chiefly preserved in rural communities, in the speech of elderly people. Their boundaries have become less stable than they used to be; the distinctive features are tending to disappear with the shifting of population due to the migration of working-class families in search of employment and the growing influence of urban life over the countryside. Dialects are said to undergo rapid changes under the pressure of Standard English taught at schools and the speech habits cultivated by radio, television and cinema.

For the most part dialect in literature has been limited to speech characterisation of personages in books otherwise composed in Standard English. There are Yorkshire passages in ?Wuthering Heights? by Emily Brontë, and Lancashire passages in ?Mary Barton? by E. Gaskell. A Southern dialect (that of Dorset) is sometimes introduced by Th. Hardy, A. Tennyson used Lancashire dialect in two of his poems reproducing peasant speech ("Northern Farmer: Old Style? and ?Northern Farmer: New Style").

?The Northern Farmer: Old Style? is the monologue of a dying old man. He knows that his death is near and is resigned to it: ?If I must die I must die.? He wants his nurse to bring him ale, although doctor has forbidden it. The last stanza runs as follows: ?What atta stannin? theer for, an? doesn bring ma the yaäle? Doctor?s a ?tattier, lass, an a?s hallus V the owd taäle; I weänt break rules for Doctor, a knows now moor nora floy, Git ma my yaäle I tell tha, an gin I ??? doy I ??? doy.? (Tennyson)

The dialect vocabulary is remarkable for its conservatism: many words that have become obsolete in standard English are still kept in dialects, e. g. to and ?envy? < OE andian; barge ?pig? < OE berg; bysen ?blind? < OE bisene and others.

According to O. Jespersen, however, dialect study suffered from too much attention being concentrated on the ?archaic? traits. ?Every survival of an old form, every trace of old sounds that have been dropped in standard speech, was greeted with enthusiasm, and the significance of these old characteristics greatly exaggerated, the general impression being that popular dialects were always much more conservative than the speech of educated people. It was reserved for a much later time to prove that this view is completely erroneous, and that popular dialects in spite of many archaic details are on the whole further developed than the various standard languages with their stronger tradition and literary reminiscences."1

The standard work of reference in dialect study is Joseph Wright's ?English Dialect Dictionary?.

After this brief review of dialects we shall now proceed to the discussion of variants.

The Scottish Tongue and the Irish English have a special linguistic status as compared with dialects because of the literature composed in them. The name of Robert Burns, the great national poet of Scotland, is known all over the world. There is a whole group of modern poets including Hugh MacDiarmid writing in this variant of the English language.

A few lines from R. Burns?s poem dedicated to his friend James Smith will illustrate the general character of Scottish:

To James Smith

Dear Smith, the slee?st, pawkie thief

That e?er attempted stealth or rief!

Ye surely hae some warlock-brief

Owre human hearts;

For ne'er a bosom yet was prief

Against your arts.

For me, I swear by sun and moon,

And every star that blinks aboon,

Ye?ve cost me twenty pair o?shoon

Just gaun to see you;

And ev?ry ither pair that?s done

Mair taen I?m wi? you...

Here slee?st meant 'slyest?, pawkie ?cunning?, ?sly?, rief ?robbery?, warlock-brief ?wizard?s contract? (with the devil), prief ?proof?, aboon

1 Jespersen O. Language, Its Nature, Development and Origin. London, 1949. P. 68.

above?, shoon ?shoes?. The other dialect words differing only in pronunciation from their English counterparts (owre : : over; mair : : more) are readily understood.

The poetic features of Anglo-Irish may be seen in the plays by J.M. Synge and Sean ?Casey. The latter?s name is worth an explanation in this connection. O? is Gaelic and means ?of the clan of?. Cf. Mac ? the Gaelic for ?son? found in both Scottish and Irish names.1 Sean, also spelled Shawn and pronounced [So:n], is the Irish for John.

Some traits of Anglo-Irish may be observed in the following lines from ?The Playboy of the Western World? by J.M. Synge: I?ve told my story no place till this night, Pegeen Mike, and it?s foolish I was here, maybe, to be talking free, but you?re decent people, I'm thinking, and yourself a kindly woman, the way I was not fearing you at all.

Pegeen exemplifies the diminutive suffix found in Standard English only in loan-words. The emphatic personal pronoun yourself appears in a non-appositional construction. Cf. also It was yourself started it (O?Casey). The main peculiarities concern syntax, and they are reflected in some form words. The concrete connective word the way substitutes the abstract conjunction so that. Cf. also the time that, the while for when, and all times for always. E.g.: I?d hear himself snoring out ? a loud, lonesome snore he?d be making all times, the while he was sleeping?, and he a man?d be raging all times the while he was waking (Synge). The Anglo-Irish of J.M. Synge, however, should not be taken as a faithful reproduction of real speech, as it is imbued with many romantic poetic archaisms.

Words from dialects and variants may penetrate into Standard English. The Irish English gave, for instance, blarney n ?flattery?, bog n ?a spongy, usually peaty ground of marsh?. This word in its turn gave rise to many derivatives and compounds, among them bog-trotter, the ironical nickname for Irishman. Shamrock (a trifoliate plant, the national emblem of Ireland) is a word used quite often, and so is the noun whiskey.

The contribution of the Scottish dialect is very considerable. Some of the most frequently used Scotticisms are: bairn ?child?, billy ?chum?, bonny ?handsome?, brogue ?a stout shoe?, glamour ?charm?, laddie, lassie, kilt, raid, slogan, tartan, wee, etc.

A great deal in this process is due to Robert Burns who wrote his poems in Scottish English, and to Walter Scott who introduced many Scottish words into his novel

38. AMERICAN ENGLISH AND OTHER VARIANTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The variety of English spoken in the USA has received the name of American English. The term variant or variety appears most appropriate for several reasons. American English cannot be called a dialect although it is a regional variety, because it has a literary normalised form called Standard American (or American National Standard), whereas by definition given above a dialect has no literary form. Neither is it a separate language, as some American authors, like H.L. Mencken, claimed, because it has neither grammar nor vocabulary of its own. From the lexical point of view we shall have to deal only with a heterogeneous set of Americanisms.

An Americanism may be defined as a word or a set expression peculiar to the English language as spoken in the USA. E. g. cookie ?a biscuit?; frame-up ?a staged or preconcerted law case?; guess ?think?; mail ?post?; store ?shop?.

A general and comprehensive description of the American variant is given in Professor A.D. Schweitzer?s monograph. An important aspect of his treatment is the distinction made between Americanisms belonging to the literary norm and those existing in low colloquial and slang. The difference between the American and British literary norm is not systematic.

The American variant of the English language differs from British English1 in pronunciation, some minor features of grammar, but chiefly in vocabulary, and this paragraph will deal with the latter. Our treatment will be mainly diachronic.

Speaking about the historic causes of these deviations it is necessary to mention that American English is based on the language imported to the new continent at the time of the first settlements, that is on the English of the 17th century. The first colonies were founded in 1607, so that the first colonisers were contemporaries of W. Shakespeare, E. Spenser and J. Milton. Words which have died out in Britain, or changed their meaning may survive in the USA. Thus, I guess, was used by G. Chaucer for I think. For more than three centuries the American vocabulary developed more or less independently of the British stock and was influenced by the new surroundings. The early Americans had to coin words for the unfamiliar fauna and flora. Hence bullfrog ?a large frog?, moose (the American elk), opossum, raccoon (an American animal related to the bears) for animals; and corn, hickory, etc. for plants.

The opposition of any two lexical systems among the variants described is of great linguistic and heuristic2 value, because it furnishes ample data for observing the influence of extra-linguistic factors upon vocabulary. American political vocabulary shows this point very definitely: absentee voting ?voting by mail?, dark horse ?a candidate nominated unexpectedly and not known to his voters?, gerrymander ?to arrange and falsify the electoral process to produce a favourable result in the interests of a particular party or candidate?, all-outer ?an adept of decisive measures?.

Both in the USA and Great Britain the meaning of leftist is ?an adherent of the left wing of a party?. In the USA it also means a left-handed person and lefty in the USA is only ?a left-handed person? while in Great Britain it is a colloquial variant of leftist and has a specific sense of a communist or socialist.

Many of the foreign elements borrowed into American English from the Indian languages or from Spanish penetrated very soon not only into British English but also into several other languages, Russian not excluded, and so became international due to the popularity of J.F. Cooper and H. Longfellow. They are: canoe, moccasin, squaw, tomahawk, wigwam, etc. and translation loans: pipe of peace, pale-face and the like, taken from Indian languages. The Spanish borrowings like cafeteria, mustang, ranch, sombrero, etc. are very familiar to the speakers of many European languages. It is only by force of habit that linguists still include these words among the specific features of American English.

As to the toponyms, for instance Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Utah (all names of Indian tribes), or other names of towns, rivers and states named by Indian words, it must be borne in mind that in all countries of the world towns, rivers and the like show in their names traces of the earlier inhabitants of the land in question.

Another big group of peculiarities as compared with the English of Great Britain is caused by some specific features of pronunciation, stress or spelling standards, such as [æ] for [a:] in ask, dance, path, etc., or [e] for [ei] in made, day and some other.

The American spelling is in some respects simpler than its British counterpart, in other respects just different. The suffix -our is spelled -or, so that armor and humor are the American variants of armour and humour. Altho stands for although and thru for through. The table below illustrates some of the other differences but it is by no means exhaustive. For a more complete treatment the reader is referred to the monograph by A.D. Schweitzer.

British spelling American spelling

cosy cozy

offence offense

practice practise

jewellery jewelry

travelling traveling

thraldom thralldom

encase incase

In the course of time with the development of the modern means of communication the lexical differences between the two variants show a tendency to decrease. Americanisms penetrate into Standard English and Britishisms come to be widely used in American speech. Americanisms mentioned as specific in manuals issued a few decades ago are now used on both sides of the Atlantic or substituted by terms formerly considered as specifically British. It was, for instance, customary to contrast the English word autumn with the American fall. In reality both words are used in both countries, only autumn is somewhat more elevated, while in England the word fall is now rare in literary use, though found in some dialects and surviving in set expressions: spring and fait, the fall of the year are still in fairly common use.

Cinema and TV are probably the most important channels for the passage of Americanisms into the language of Britain and other languages as well: the Germans adopted the word teenager and the French speak of l?automatisation. The influence of American advertising is also a vehicle of Americanisms. This is how the British term wireless is replaced by the Americanism radio.

The personal visits of British writers and scholars to the USA and all forms of other personal contacts bring back Americanisms.

The existing cases of difference between the two variants are conveniently classified into:

1) Cases where there are no equivalents in British English: drive-in ?a cinema where you can see the film without getting out of your car? or ?a shop where motorists buy things staying in the car?; dude ranch ?a sham ranch used as a summer residence for holiday-makers from the cities?.

2) Cases where different words are used for the same denotatum, such as can, candy, mailbox, movies, suspenders, truck in the USA and tin, sweets, pillar-box (or letter-box), pictures or flicks, braces and lorry in England.

3) Cases where the semantic structure of a partially equivalent word is different. The word pavement, for example, means in the first place ?covering of the street or the floor and the like made of asphalt, stones or some other material?. In England the derived meaning is ?the footway at the side of the road?. The Americans use the noun sidewalk for this, while pavement with them means ?the roadway?.

4) Cases where otherwise equivalent words are different in distribution. The verb ride in Standard English is mostly combined with such nouns as a horse, a bicycle, more seldom they say ride on a bus. In American English combinations like a ride on the train, ride in a boat are quite usual.

5) It sometimes happens that the same word is used in American English with some difference in emotional and stylistic colouring. Nasty, for example, is a much milder expression of disapproval in England than in the States, where it was even considered obscene in the 19th century. Politician in England means ?someone in polities?, and is derogatory in the USA. Professor A.D. Schweitzer pays special attention to phenomena differing in social norms of usage. For example balance in its lexico-semantic variant ?the remainder of anything? is substandard in British English and quite literary in America.

6) Last but not least, there may be a marked difference in frequency characteristics. Thus, time-table which occurs in American English very rarely, yielded its place to schedule.

This question of different frequency distribution is also of paramount importance if we wish to investigate the morphological peculiarities of the American variant.

Practically speaking the same patterns and means of word-formation are used in coining neologisms in both variants. Only the frequency observed in both cases may be different. Some of the suffixes more frequently used in American English are: -?? (draftee n ?a young man about to be enlisted?), -ette (tambour-majorette ?one of the girl drummers in front of a procession?), -dom and -ster, as in roadster ?motorcar for long journeys by road? or gangsterdom.

American slang uses alongside the traditional ones also a few specific models, such as verb stem+-er+adverb stem+-er, e. g. opener-upper ?the first item on the programme? and winder-upper ?the last item?. It also possesses some specific affixes and semi-affixes not used in literary colloquial: -o, -eroo, -aroo, -sie, -sy, as in coppo ?policeman?, fatso ?a fat man?, bossaroo ?boss?, chapsie ?fellow?.

The trend to shorten words and to use initial abbreviations in American English is even more pronounced than in the British variant. New coinages are incessantly introduced in advertisements, in the press, in everyday conversation; soon they fade out and are replaced by the newest creations. Ring Lardner, very popular in the 30s, makes one of his characters, a hospital nurse, repeatedly use two enigmatic abbreviations: G.F. and B.F.; at last the patient asks her to clear the mystery.

?What about Roy Stewart?? asked the man in bed.

?Oh, he?s the fella I was telling you about,? said Miss Lyons. ?He?s my G.F.?s B.F.?

?Maybe I?m a D.F. not to know, but would you tell me what a B.F. and G.F. are??

?Well, you are dumb, aren?t you!? said Miss Lyons. ?A G.F. that?s a girl friend, and a B.F. is a boy friend. I thought everybody knew that.?

The phrases boy friend and girl friend, now widely used everywhere, originated in the USA. So it is an Americanism in the wider meaning of the term, i.e. an Americanism ?by right of birth", whereas in the above definition we have defined Americanisms synchronically as lexical units peculiar to the English language as spoken in the USA.

Particularly common in American English are verbs with the hanging postpositive. They say that in Hollywood you never meet a man: you meet up with him, you do not study a subject but study up on it. In British English similar constructions serve to add a new meaning.

With words possessing several structural variants it may happen that some are more frequent in one country and the others in another. Thus, amid and toward, for example, are more often used in the United States and amidst and towards in Great Britain.

The lexical peculiarities of American English are an easy target for ironical outbursts on the part of some writers. John Updike is mildly humorous. His short poem ?Philological? runs as follows:

The British puss demurely mews;

His transatlantic kin meow,

The kine in Minnesota moo;

Not so the gentle Devon cows:

They low,

As every schoolchild ought to know.

A well-known humourist G. Mikes goes as far as to say: ?It was decided almost two hundred years ago that English should be the language spoken in the United States. It is not known, however, why this decision has not been carried out.? In his book ?How to Scrape Skies? he gives numerous examples to illustrate this proposition: ?You must be extremely careful concerning the names of certain articles. If you ask for suspenders in a man?s shop, you receive a pair of braces, if you ask for a pair of pants, you receive a pair of trousers, and should you ask for a pair of braces, you receive a queer look.

I should like to mention that although a lift is called an elevator in the United States, when hitch-hiking, you do not ask for an elevator, you ask for a lift.

There is some confusion about the word flat. A flat in America is called an apartment; what they call a flat is a puncture in your tyre (or as they spell it, tire). Consequently the notice: FLATS FIXED does not indicate an estate agent where they are going to fix you up with a flat, but a garage where they are equipped to mend a puncture.?

Disputing the common statement that there is no such thing as the American nation, he says: ?They do indeed exist. They have produced the American constitution, the American way of life, the comic strips in their newspapers: they have their national game, baseball ? which is cricket played with a strong American accent ? and they have a national language, entirely their own, unlike any other language.?

This is of course an exaggeration, but a very significant one. It confirms the fact that there is a difference between the two variants to be reckoned with. Although not sufficiently great to warrant American English the status of an independent language, it is considerable enough to make a mixture of variants sound unnatural and be called Mid-Atlantic. Students of English should be warned against this danger.

? 14.3 CANADIAN, AUSTRALIAN AND INDIAN VARIANTS

It should of course be noted that American English is not the only existing variant. There are several other variants where difference from the British standard is normalised. Besides the Irish and Scottish variants that have been mentioned in the preceding paragraph, there are Australian English, Canadian English, Indian English. Each of these has developed a literature of its own, and is characterised by peculiarities in phonetics, spelling, grammar and vocabulary.

Canadian English is influenced both by British and American English but it also has some specific features of its own. Specifically Canadian words are called Canadianisms. They are not very frequent outside Canada, except shack ?a hut? and fathom out ?to explain?.

The vocabulary of all the variants is characterised by a high percentage of borrowings from the language of the people who inhabited the land before the English colonisers came. Many of them denote some specific realia of the new country: local animals, plants or weather conditions, new social relations, new trades and conditions of labour. The local words for new notions penetrate into the English language and later on may become international, if they are of sufficient interest and importance for people speaking other languages.

International words coming through the English of India are for instance: bungalow n, jute n, khaki a, mango n, nabob n, pyjamas, sahib, sari.

Similar examples, though perhaps fewer in number, such as boomerang, dingo, kangaroo, are all adopted into the English language through its Australian variant and became international. They denote the new phenomena found by English immigrants on the new continent. A high percentage of words borrowed from the native inhabitants of Australia will be noticed in the sonorous Australian place names. 1

It has been noticed by a number of linguists that the British attitude to this phenomenon is somewhat peculiar. When anyone other than an Englishman uses English, the natives of Great Britain, often half-consciously, perhaps, feel that they have a special right to criticise his usage because it is ?their? language. It is, however, unreasonable with respect to people in the United States, Canada, Australia and some other areas for whom English is their mother tongue. At present there is no single ?correct? English and the American, Canadian and Australian English have developed standards of their own. It would therefore have been impossible to attempt a lexicological description of all the variants simultaneously: the aim of this book was to describe mainly the vocabulary of British English, as it is the British variant that is received and studied in Soviet schools

40. English and American Lexicography. Types of Dictionaries.

Lexicography is the science of dictionary-compiling and it is closely connected with lexicology. It deals with the same problems ? the form, meaning, usage and the origin of vocabulary units.

There are a lot of different types of English dictionaries. They may be roughly divided into two groups: encyclopediac and linguistic. They differ in the choice of items and the sort of information they give.

Linguistic dictionaries are word-books. Their subject matter is lexical units and their linguistic properties (pronounciation, meaning, peculiarities of use).

Encyclopedic dictionaries are thing-books. They give information about extra-linguistic world, they deal with objects and phenomena. (The Encyclopedia Britannica, the Encyclopedia Americana, Collier?s Encyclopedia).

Besides great encyclopediac dictionaries there are reference books that are confines to definite fields of knowledge (literature, theatre...).

It is with linguistic dictionaries that lexicology is connected.

Linguistic dictionary is a book of words in a language, usually listed alphabetically, with definitions, pronounciations, etymologies and other linguistic information or with thier equivalents in another language.

Linguistic dictionaries can be divided:

1) According to the nature of their word-list :

• General dictionaries (contain lexical units in ordinary use)
• Restricted dictionaries (contain only a certain part of word-stock) (terminological, phraseological, dialectical, dictionaries of new words, of foreign words, of abbreviations).

2) According to the language:

• Monolingual
• Bilingual

Explanatory dictionaries. These dictionaries provide information on all aspects of the lexical units entered: graphical, phonetical, grammatical, semantic, stylistic, etymological.

Most of these dictionaries deal with the form, usage and meaning of lexical units. They are synchronic in their presentation of words (Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, Webster dictionaries).

Translation dictionaries. They are word-books containing vocabulary items in one language and their equivalents in another language (New English-Russian dictionary by Galperin, Muller, Smirnitsky).

Specialized dictionaries:

1) Phraseological dictionaries contain idiomatic or colloquial phrases, proverbs and other image-bearing word-groups. The choice of items is based on the intuition of a compiler. (An Aglo-Russian phraseological dictionary by Koonin)

2) The New Words Dictionaries reflect the growth of the English language. (The Barnhart Dictionary of New English)

3) Dictionaries of slang contain elements from areas of substandart speech such as vulgarism, jargonism, taboo words, curse-words, colloquialism.

(Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English by Patridge , Dictionary of American Slang by Berry and Bork)

4) Usage dictionaries cover usage problems of all kind. They explain what is right and what is wrong. They explain for example the difference betwen ?comedy-farce? ?formality-formalism?. (Dictionary odf Modern English Usage by Fowler).

5) Dictionaries of word-frequency inform the user about the frequency of occurence of lexical units in speech. (They were constructed to make up list of words suitable as a bases for teaching English as a foreign language, so-called basic vocabulary). (West?s General list).

6) A Reverse dictionary contains a list of words in which the entry words are arranged in alphabetical order starting with their final letters. The original aim of such dictionaries as to indicate words which contain rhymes. Now it is necessary for those, who study the frequency and productivity of word-forming elements.

7) Pronouncing dictionaries record contemporary pronounciation. They indicate variant pronounciations and pronounciation of different grammatical forms.

(English Pronouncing dictionary by Jones).

8) Etimological dictionaries trace present-day words to the oldest forms, establish their primary meanings and source of borrowing, its origin.

9) Ideographic dictionaries are designed for writers, orators, translators who seek to express their ideas adequately.

(Synonyms-books, reference-books, hard-words books are useful in learning English)

The term dictionary is used to denote a book listing words of a language with their meanings and often with data regarding pronunciation, usage and/or origin. There are also dictionaries that concentrate their attention upon only one of these aspects: pronouncing (phonetical) dictionaries (by Daniel Jones) and etymological dictionaries (by Walter Skeat, by Erik Partridge, The Oxford English Dictionary).

For dictionaries in which the words and their definitions belong to the same language the term unilingual or explanatoryis used, whereas bilingual or translation dictionaries are those that explain words by giving their equivalents in another language.

Unilingual dictionaries are further subdivided with regard to the time. Diachronic dictionaries, of which The Oxford English Dictionary is the main example, reflect the development of the English vocabulary by recording the history of formand meaning for every word registered. They may be contrasted to synchronic or descriptive dictionaries of current English concerned with present-da\ meaning and usage of words.

Both bilingual and unilingual dictionaries can be general and special. General dictionaries represent the vocabulary as a whole. The group includes the thirteen volumes of The Oxford English Dictionary alongside with any miniature pocket dictionary. Some general dictionaries may have very specific aims and still be considered general due to their coverage. They include, for instance, frequency dictionaries, i.e. lists of words, each of which is followed by a record of its frequency of occurrence in one or several sets of reading matter. A rhyming dictionary is also a general dictionary, though arranged in inverse order, and so is a thesaurus in spite of its unusual arrangement. General dictionaries are contrasted to special dictionaries whose stated aim is to cover only a certain specific part of the vocabulary.

Special dictionaries may be further subdivided depending on whether the words are chosen according to the sphere of human activity in which they are used (technical dictionaries), the type of the units themselves (e. g. phraseological dictionaries) or the relationships existing between them (e.g. dictionaries of synonyms).

The first subgroup embraces specialised dictionaries which register and explain technical terms for various branches of knowledge, art and trade: linguistic, medical, technical, economical terms, etc. Unilingual books of this type giving definitions of terms are called glossaries.

The second subgroup deals with specific language units, i.e. with phraseology, abbreviations, neologisms, borrowings, surnames, toponyms, proverbs and sayings, etc.

The third subgroup contains synonymic dictionaries. Dictionaries recording the complete vocabulary of some author are called poncordances. they should be distinguished from those that deal only with difficult words, i.e. glossaries. To this group are also referred dialect dictionaries and dictionaries of Americanisms. The main types of dictionaries are represented in the following table.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 1253