FREE WORD-GROUPS AND PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS
1. Some basic features of word-groups.
2. Structure of word-groups.
3. Meaning of word-groups.
4. Motivation in word-groups.
Some Basic Features of Word-Groups
Words put together to form lexical units make phrases or word-groups. One must recall that lexicology deals with words, word-forming morphemes and word-groups.
The degree of structural and semantic cohesion of word-groups may vary. Some word-groups, e.g. at least, point of view, by means, to take place, etc. seem to be functionally and semantically inseparable. They are usually described as set phrases, word-equivalents or phraseological units and are studied by the branch of lexicology which is known as phraseology. In other word-groups such as to take lessons, kind to people, a week ago, the component-members seem to possess greater semantic and structural independence. Word-groups of this type are defined as free word-groups or phrases and are studied in syntax.
Before discussing phraseology it is necessary to outline the features common to various word-groups irrespective of the degree of structural and semantic cohesion of the component-words.
There are two factors which are important in uniting words into word-groups:
- the lexical valency of words;
- the grammatical valency of words.
Lexical valency.
Words are used in certain lexical contexts, i.e. in combinations with other words. E.g. the noun question is often combined with such adjectives as vital, pressing, urgent, delicate, etc. This noun is a component in a number of other word-groups: to raise a question (not to lift), a question of the hour - актуальный вопрос, злободневный вопрос.
The aptness of a word to appear in various combinations is described as its lexical valency. The range of the lexical valency of words is delimited by the inner structure of the English words. Thus, to raise and to lift are synonyms, but only the former is collocated with the noun question. The verbs to take, to catch, to seize, to grasp are synonyms, but they are found in different collocations:
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to take - exams, measures, precautions, etc.;
to grasp - the truth, the meaning.
Words habitually collocated in speech tend to form a cliche.
The lexical valency of correlated words in different languages is not identical, because as it was said before, it depends on the inner structure of the vocabulary of the language. Both the English flower and the Russian цветок may be combined with a number of similar words, e.g. garden flowers, hot house flowers (cf. the Russian - садовые цветы, оранжерейные цветы), but in English flower cannot be combined with the word room, while in Russian we say комнатные цветы (in English we say pot-flowers).
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Grammatical valency.
Words are also used in grammatical contexts. The minimal grammatical context in which the words are used to form word-groups is usually described as the pattern of the word-group. E.g., the adjective heavy can be followed by a noun (A+N) - heavy food, heavy storm, heavy box, heavy eater. But we cannot say "heavy cheese " or "heavy to lift, to carry", etc.
The aptness of a word to appear in specific grammatical (or rather syntactical) structures is termed grammatical valency.
The grammatical valency of words may be different. The grammatical valency is delimited by the part of speech the word belongs to. E.g., no English adjective can be followed by the finite form of a verb.
Then, the grammatical valency is also delimited by the inner structure of the language. E.g., to suggest, to propose are synonyms. Both can be followed by a noun, but only to propose can be followed by the infinitive of a verb — to propose to do something.
Clever and intelligent have the same grammatical valency, but only clever can be used in word-groups having the pattern A+prep+N - clever at maths.
Structure of Word-Groups
Structurally word-groups can be considered in different ways. Word-groups may be described as for the order and arrangement of the component-members. E.g., the word-group to read a book can be classified as a verbal-nominal group, to look at smb.- as a verbal-prepositional-nominal group, etc.
By the criterion of distribution all word-groups may be divided into two big classes: according to their head-words and according to their syntactical patterns.
Word-groups may be classified according to their head-words into:
nominal groups - red flower;
adjective groups - kind to people;
verbal groups - to speak well.
The head is not necessarily the component that occurs first.
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Word-groups are classified according to their syntactical pattern into predicative and non-predicative groups. Such word-groups as he went, Bob walks that have a syntactic structure similar to that of a sentence are termed as predicative, all others are non-predicative ones.
Non-predicative word-groups are divided into subordinative and coordi-native depending on the type of syntactic relations between the components. E.g., a red flower, a man of freedom are subordinative non-predicative word-groups, red and freedom being dependent words, while day and night, do and die are coordinative non-predicative word-groups.
Meaning of Word-Groups
The lexical meaning of a word-group may be defined as the combined lexical meaning of the component members. But it should be pointed out, however, that the term «combined lexical meaning» does not imply that the meaning of the word-group is always a simple additive result of all the lexical meanings of the component words. As a rule, the meanings of the component words are mutually dependent and the meaning of the word-group naturally predominates over the lexical meaning of the components. The interdependence is well seen in word-groups made up of polysemantic words. E.g., in the phrases the blind man, the blind type the word blind has different meanings - unable to see and vague.
So we see that polysemantic words are used in word-groups only in one of their meanings.
Motivation in Word-Groups
Word-groups like words may be also analysed from the point of view of their motivation. Word-groups may be called as lexically motivated if the combined lexical meaning of the group is deducible from the meaning of the components. All free phrases are completely motivated.
It follows from the above discussion that word-groups may be also classified into motivated and non-motivated units. Non-motivated word-groups are habitually described as phraseological units or idioms.
Investigations of English phraseology began not long ago. English and American linguists as a rule are busy collecting different words, word-groups and sentences which are interesting from the point of view of their origin, style, usage or some other features. All these units are habitually described as «idioms», but no attempt has been made to describe these idioms as a separate class of linguistic units or a specific class of word-groups.
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In our country research in English phraseology has been constantly carried on for at least 60 years and has some results. The term «phraseological о С units» to denote a specific group of phrases was introduced by Soviet linguists and is generally accepted in our country.
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Great work in this field has been done by the outstanding Russian linguist A. Shakhmatov in his work «Syntax». This work was continued by Acad. V.V. Vinogradov. Great investigations of English phraseology were done by Prof. A. Cunin, I. Arnold and others.
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