Productive Types of Compound Adjectives 10 страница
In addition, words may have different meanings in the national language and in the local dialects, e.g. in the Scottish dialect the word to call is used in the meaning of ‘to drive’, to set — ‘to suit’, short — ‘rude’, silly — ‘weak’, etc.
Dialectal lexical differences also embrace word-building patterns. For instance, some Irish words contain the diminutive suffixes -an, -een, -can, as in bohaun — ‘cabin’ (from Irish both — ‘cabin’); bohereen — ‘narrow road’ (from Irish bothar — ‘road’); mearacaun — ‘thimble’ (from Irish mear — ‘finger’); etc. Some of these suffixes may even be added to English bases, as in girleen, dogeen, squireen (squirrel), etc. Some specifically dialectal derivatives are formed from standard English stems with the help of standard English affixes, e.g. Scot. flesher — ‘butcher’, suddenty — ’suddenness’.
A great number of words specifically dialectal appeared as a result of intense borrowing from other languages, others are words that have disappeared from the national literary language or become archaic, poetical, such as gang — ‘go’, OE заnзаn; bairn — ‘child’, OE bearn, etc. Thus, the lexical differences between the English national language and its dialects are due to the difference in the spheres of application, different tempoes of development, different contacts with other peoples, and deliberate elaboration of literary norms.
| § 5. The Relationship Between the English National Language and British Local Dialects |
The local dialects in Britain are sharply declining in importance at the present time; they are being obliterated by the literary language. This process is twofold. On the one hand, lexical units of the literary language enter local dialects, ousting some of their words and expressions. On the other hand, dialectal words penetrate into the
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national literary language. Many frequent words of common use are dialectal in origin, such as girl, one, raid, glamour, etc. Some words from dialects are used as technical terms or professionalisms in the literary language, e.g. the Scotch cuddy — ‘ass’ is used in the meaning of jack-screw and lug — ‘ear’ in the meaning of handle.
Dialect peculiarities (phonetical, grammatical, but mainly lexical) modify in varying degrees the language spoken in different parts of Britain. These speech-forms are called regional variants of the national language and they are gradually replacing the old local dialects. It should be noted that the word dialect is used in two meanings nowadays: to denote the old dialects which are now dying away, and to denote the regional variants, i.e. a literary standard with some features from local dialects.
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The most marked difference between dialects and regional variants in the field of phonetics lies in the fact that dialects possess phonemic distinctions, while regional variants are characterised by phonetic distinctions. In matters of vocabulary and grammar the difference is in the greater number and greater diversity of local peculiarities in the dialects as compared with the regional variants.
| § 6. Local Dialects in the USA |
The English language in the United States is characterised by relative uniformity throughout the country. One can travel three thousand miles without encountering any but the slightest dialect differences. Nevertheless, regional variations in speech undoubtedly exist and they have been observed and recorded by a number of investigators.
The following three major belts of dialects have so far been identified, each with its own characteristic features: Northern, Midland and Southern, Midland being in turn divided into North Midland and South Midland.
The differences in pronunciation between American dialects are most apparent, but they seldom interfere with understanding. Distinctions in grammar are scarce. The differences in vocabulary are rather numerous, but they are easy to pick up. Cf., e.g., Eastern New England sour-milk cheese, Inland Northern Dutch cheese, New York City pot cheese for Standard American cottage cheese (творог).
The American linguist O. F. Emerson maintains that American English had not had time to break up into widely diverse dialects and he believes that in the course of time the American dialects might finally become nearly as distinct as the dialects in Britain. He is certainly greatly mistaken. In modern times „dialect divergence cannot increase. On the contrary, in the United States, as elsewhere, the national language is tending to wipe out the dialect distinctions and to become still more uniform.
Comparison of the dialect differences in the British Isles and in the USA reveals that not only are they less numerous and far less marked in the USA, but that the very nature of the local distinctions is different. What is usually known as American dialects is closer in nature to regional variants of the literary language. The problem of discriminating between literary and dialect speech patterns in the USA is much more
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complicated than in Britain. Many American linguists point out that American English differs from British English in having no one locality whose speech patterns have come to be recognised as the model for the rest of the country.
| § 7. Summary and Conclusions |
1. English is the national language of England proper, the USA, Australia and some provinces of Canada. It was also at different times imposed on the inhabitants of the former and present British colonies and protectorates as well as other Britain- and US-dominated territories, where the population has always stuck to its own mother tongue.
2. British English, American English and Australian English are variants of the same language, because they serve all spheres of verbal communication. Their structural peculiarities, especially morphology, syntax and word-formation, as well as their word-stock and phonetic system are essentially the same. American and Australian standards are slight modifications of the norms accepted in the British Isles. The status of Canadian English has not yet been established.
3. The main lexical differences between the variants are caused by the lack of equivalent lexical units in one of them, divergences in the semantic structures of polysemantic words and peculiarities of usage of some words on different territories.
4. The so-called local dialects in the British Isles and in the USA are used only by the rural population and only for the purposes of oral communication. In both variants local distinctions are more marked in pronunciation, less conspicuous in vocabulary and insignificant in grammar.
5. The British local dialects can be traced back to Old English dialects. Numerous and distinct, they are characterised by phonemic and structural peculiarities. The local dialects are being gradually replaced by regional variants of the literary language, i. e. by a literary standard with a proportion of local dialect features.
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6. Local variations in the USA are relatively small. What is called by tradition American dialects is closer in nature to regional variants of the national literary language.
IX. Fundamentals of English Lexicography
Lexicography, the science, of dictionary-compiling, is closely connected with lexicology, both dealing with the same problems — the form, meaning, usage and origin of vocabulary units — and making use of each other’s achievements.
On the one hand, the enormous raw material collected in dictionaries is widely used by linguists in their research. On the other hand, the principles of dictionary-making are always based on linguistic fundamentals, and each individual entry is made up in accordance with the current knowledge and findings of scholars in the various fields of language study. The compiler’s approach to various lexicological problems (such as homonymy, phraseological units, etc.) always finds reflection in the selection and arrangement of the material.
MAIN TYPES OF ENGLISH DICTIONARIES
| § 1. Encyclopaedic and Linguistic Dictionaries |
There are many different types of English dictionaries. First of all they may all be roughly divided into two groups — encyclopaedic and linguistic.
The two groups of reference books differ essentially in the choice of items included and in the sort of information given about them. Linguistic dictionaries are wоrd-books, their subject’ matter is lexical units and their linguistic properties such as pronunciation, meaning, peculiarities of use, etc. The encyclopaedic dictionaries, the biggest of which are sometimes called simply encyclopaedias are thing-books, that give information about the extra-linguistic world, they deal with concepts (objects and phenomena), their relations to other objects and phenomena, etc.
It follows that the encyclopaedic dictionaries will never enter items like father, go, that, be, if, black, but only those of designative character, such as names for substances, diseases, plants and animals, institutions, terms of science, some important events in history and also geographical and biographical entries.
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Although some of the items included in encyclopaedic and linguistic dictionaries coincide, such as the names of some diseases, the information presented in them is altogether different. The former give much more extensive information on these subjects. For example, the entry influenza in a linguistic dictionary presents the word’s spelling and pronunciation, grammar characteristics, synonyms, etc. In an encyclopaedia the entry influenza discloses the causes, symptoms, characteristics and varieties of this disease, various treatments of and remedies for it, ways of infection, etc.
Though, strictly speaking, it is with linguistic dictionaries that lexicology is closely connected and in our further consideration we
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shall be concerned with this type of reference books only, it may be useful for students of English to know that the most well-known encyclopaedias in English are The Encyclopaedia Britannica (in 24 volumes) and The Encyclopedia Americana (in 30 volumes). Very popular in Great Britain and the USA are also Collier’s Encyclopedia (in 24 vols) intended for students and school teachers, Chamber’s Encyclopaedia (in 15 vols) which is a family type reference book, and Everyman’s Encyclopaedia (in 12 vols) designed for all-round use.
Besides the general encyclopaedic dictionaries there are reference books that are confined to definite fields of knowledge, such as The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Oxford Companion to Theatre, Cassell's Encyclopaedia of World Literature, etc.
There are also numerous ‘dictionaries presenting information about notable persons (scientists, writers, kings, presidents, etc.) often called Who’s Who dictionaries.
As concept and word-meaning are closely bound up the encyclopaedic and linguistic dictionaries often overlap. Encyclopaedias sometimes indicate the origin of the word, which belongs to the domain of linguistics. On the other hand, there are elements of encyclopaedic character in many linguistic dictionaries. Some of these are unavoidable. With terms, for instance, a lexicographic definition of meaning will not differ greatly from a short logical definition of the respective concept in encyclopaedic dictionaries. Some dictionary-compilers include in their word-lists such elements of purely encyclopaedic nature as names of famous people together with their birth and death dates or the names of major cities and towns, giving not only their correct spelling and pronunciation, but also a brief description of their population, location, etc.
For practical purposes it is important to know that American dictionaries are characterised by encyclopaedic inclusion of scientific, technical, geographical and bibliographical items whereas it is common practice with British lexicographers to exclude from their dictionaries information of this kind to devote maximum space to the linguistic properties of words.
| § 2. Classification of Linguistic Dictionaries |
Thus a linguistic dictionary is a book of words in a language, usually listed alphabetically, with definitions, pronunciations, etymologies and other linguistic information or with their equivalents in another language (or other languages).
Linguistic dictionaries may be divided into different categories by different criteria. According to the nature of their word-list we may speak about general diсtiоnaries, on the one hand, and restriсted, on the other. The terms general and restricted do not refer to the size of the dictionary or to the number of items listed. What is meant is that the former contain lexical units in ordinary use with this or that proportion of items from various spheres of life, while the latter make their choice only from a certain part of the word-stock, the restriction being based on any principle determined by the compiler. To restricted dictionaries belong
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terminological, phraseological, dialectal word-books, dictionaries of new words, of foreign words, of abbreviations, etc.
As to the information they provide all linguistic dictionaries fall into those presenting a wide range of data, especially with regard to the ’semantic aspect of the vocabulary items entered (they are called explanatory) and those dealing with lexical units only in relation to some of their characteristics, e.g. only in relation to their etymology or frequency or pronunciation. These are termed specialised dictionaries.
Dictionaries with the same nature of word-lists may differ widely in the kind of information they afford, and the other way round, dictionaries providing data of similar nature may have a different kind of word-list. For example, dictionaries of unrestricted word-lists may be quite different in the type of information they contain (explanatory, pronouncing, etymological, ideographic, etc.), terminological dictionaries can also be explanatory, parallel, ideographic, presenting the frequency value of the items entered, etc. On the other hand, translation dictionaries may be general in their word-list, or terminological, phraseological, etc. Frequency dictionaries may have general and terminological word-lists.
All types of dictionaries, save the translation ones, may be mоnolingualor bilingual, i.e. the information about the items entered may be given in the same language or in another one.
Care should be taken not to mix up the terms monolingual and explanatory, on the one hand, and bilingual and translation dictionaries on the other. The two pairs of terms reflect different dimensions of dictionaries. The terms monolingual and bilingual* pertain to the language in which the information about the words dealt with is couched. The terms explanatory and translation dictionaries characterise the kind of information itself.
Thus among dictionaries of th3 same type, say phraseological or terminological, we may find both monolingual and bilingual word-books. For example, Kluge’s Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache is bilingual, but it is not its purpose to supply translation of the items entered.
It is important to realise that no dictionary, even the most general one, can be a general-purpose word-book, each one pursues a certain aim, each is designed for a certain set of users. Therefore the selection of material and its presentation, the language in which it is couched depend very much upon the supposed users, i.e. whether the dictionary is planned to serve scholarly users or students or the general public.
Thus to characterise a dictionary one must qualify it at least from the four angles mentioned above: 1) the nature of the word-list, 2) the information supplied, 3) the language of the explanations, 4) the prospective user.
Below we shall give a brief survey of the most important types of English dictionaries, both published in English-speaking countries and at home. We shall first dwell on the dictionaries that are unrestriсt-ed in their word-lists and general in the information they contain, —
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on explanatory and translation dictionaries, — presented by the greatest number of word-books, then deal with word-books of restricted word-lists and with specialised dictionaries and after that with a special group of reference books, the so-called learner's dictionaries.
| § 3. Explanatory Dictionaries |
Out of the great abundance of linguistic dictionaries of the English language a large group is made up of the so-called explanatory dictionaries,1 big and small, compiled in English-speaking countries. These dictionaries provide information on all aspects of the lexical units entered: graphical, phonetical, grammatical, semantic, stylistic, etymological, etc.
Most of these dictionaries deal with the form, usage and meaning of lexical units in Modern English, regarding it as a stabilised system and taking no account of its past development. They are synchronic in their presentation of words as distinct from diachronic, those concerned with the development of words occurring within the written history of the language. For instance, the New English Dictionary on Historical Principles commonly abbreviated in NED and its abridgement The Shorter Oxford Dictionary on Historical Principles (SOD) coyer the history of the English vocabulary from the days of King Alfred down to the present time; they are diachronic, whereas another abridgement of the NED — the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (COD) as well as H. C. Wyld's Universal Dictionary of the English Language are synchronic. Other series of authoritative synchronic explanatory dictionaries are Webster dictionaries, the Funk and Wagnalls (or Standard) dictionaries and the Century dictionaries.
It should be noted that brief remarks of historical and etymological nature inserted in dictionaries like the COD do not make them diachronic. Moreover, dictionaries of a separate historical period, such as Anglo-Saxon Dictionary by J. Bosworth and T. N. Toller, Stratmann's Middle English Dictionary by H. Bradley, which are sometimes called historical, cannot be strictly speaking referred to diachronic wordbooks. They do not trace the evolution of the language, but study a synchronic cross-section, i.e. the words of a historical period are regarded from a synchronic angle.
| § 4. Translation Dictionaries |
Translation dictionaries (sometimes also called parallel) are wordbooks containing vocabulary items in one language and their equivalents in another language. Many English-Russian and Russian-English dictionaries have been made in our country to meet the demands of language students and those who use English in their work. The most representative translation dictionaries for English are the New English-Russian Dictionary edited by Prof. I. R. Galperin, the English-Russian Dictionary by Prof. V. K. Müller and The Russian-English Dictionary under prof. A. I. Smirnitsky's general direction.
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