Semantic structure of English words. Connotations.
The branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of words is called semasiology. The name comes from the Greek semasia 'signification' (sema 'sign', semantikos 'significant' and logos 'learning').
There are four most important types of semantic complexity of the word meaning:
1. Every word combines lexical and grammatical meanings: Father is a personal noun.
2. Many words not only refer to some object but have an aura of associations expressing the attitude of the speaker. They have not only denotational but connotational meaning a swell: Daddy is a colloquial term of endearment (нежность).
3. The denotational meaning is segmented into semantic components or semes: Father is a male parent.
4. A word may be polysemantic, that is it may have several meanings, all interconnected and forming its semantic structure: Father may mean: 'male parent', 'an ancestor', 'a founder or leader', 'a priest'.
Connotation - it is what the word conveys about the speaker's attitude to the social circumstances and the appropriate functional style or speaker's emotions (mummy vs mother), or the degree of intensity (adore vs love).
There are four main types of connotations: stylistic, emotional, evaluative and expressive.
An effective method of revealing connotations is the analysis of synonymic groups, where the identity of denotational meanings makes it possible to separate the connotational overtones. A classical example for showing stylistic connotations is the noun horse and its synonyms. The word horse is stylistically neutral, its synonym steed is poetic, nag is a word of slang and gee-gee is baby language.
An emotional or affective connotation is acquired by the word as a result of its frequent use in contexts corresponding to emotional situations. Foe example, the verbbeseechmeans 'to ask eagerly and also anxiously'.
Evaluative connotations express approval or disapproval.
Expressive connotations are those what are emphatic or colloquial: magnificent, gorgeous, splendid, superb or beastly weather are all used colloquially as terms of exaggeration.
Simile. Metonymy
Simile
The simile is a stylistic device expressing a likeness between different objects.
The formal element of the simile is the following conjunctions and adverbs: like, as, as like, etc.
The simile is based on the comparison of objects belonging to different spheres and involves an element of imagination.
Simile interprets the object by comparing it with some other objects of an entirely different nature, and produces the desired effect on the reader.
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The simile usually serves as a means to clearer meaning. By comparing the object or phenomenon the writer describes with a concrete and familiar thing, he makes his description clearer and more picturesque.
Besides making a narrative more concrete and definite, the simile helps the author to reveal certain feelings of his own as well.
Besides the original similes created by writers there are a great number of so-called traditional similes in the language which must be regarded as phraseological units.
In the author`s narrative traditional similes are most often used to stress the highest degree of quality.
e.g. “Funny how ideas come,” he said afterwards, “like a flash of lightning.”
Metonymy
A different type of interaction between logical and contextual logical meanings is called metonymy. It is based on definite relations between the object implied and the object named.
The interaction between the logical and the contextual meanings of the words is based on close relations objectively existing between the part and the body itself.
In metonymy relations between the object named and the object implied are various and numerous. Here are the most frequent types of relations:
1) The relations that exist between an instrument and the action it performs (or between an organ of the body and its function).
2) The relations that exist between an article of clothing and the person wearing it.
3) The relations that exist between the symbol and the phenomenon it symbolized.
Apart from this group of metonymies some other trite types of metonymies should be mentioned - that is metonymies based on very close, common relations between objects. They are:
a) The relations between the creator and his creation.
b) The relations between the material and the thing made of it.
c) The relations between the singular and the plural. This type of metonymy is called synecdochy.
The stylistic effect of trite metonymies is in most cases weak.
Metonymy as a genuine stylistic device is used to achieve concreteness of description. By giving a specific detail connected with the phenomenon, the author evokes a concrete and life-like image and reveals certain feelings of his own.
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By mentioning only one seemingly insignificant feature or detail connected with the phenomenon the author draws the reader's attention to it and makes him see the character he describes as he himself sees it.
e.g. Then a pause, as the bonnet and dress neared the top of the Square.
Repetition
Repetition as a stylistic device is a direct successor of repetition as an expressive language means, which serves to emphasize certain statements of the speaker, and so possesses considerable emotive force.
It is not only a single word that can be repeated but a word combination and a whole sentence too.
As to the position occupied by the repeated unit in the sentence or utterance, we shall mention four main types, most frequently occurring in English literature:
1) anaphora - the repetition of the first word of several succeeding sentences or clauses (a …, a …, a …);
2) epiphora - the repetition of the final word (… a, … a, … a);
3) anadiplosis or catch repetition - the repetition of the same unit (word or phrase) at the end of the preceding and at the beginning of the sentence (…a, a …);
The combination of several catch repetitions produces a chain repetition.
4) framing or ring repetition - the repetition of the same unit at the beginning and at the end of the same sentence (a …, … a).
Stylistic functions of repetition are various and many-sided. Besides emphasizing the most important part of the utterance, rendering the emotions of the speaker or showing his emotive attitude towards the object described, it may play a minor stylistic role, showing the durability of action, and to a lesser degree the emotions following it.
Repetition, deliberately used by the author to better emphasize his sentiments, should not be mixed with pleonasm - an excessive, uneconomic usage of unnecessary, extra words, which shows the inability of the writer to express his ideas in a precise and clear manner.
Morphological repetition, that is the repetition of a morpheme, is to be included into the stylistic means.
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e.g. I might as well face facts: good-bye, Susan, good-bye a big car, good-bye a big house, good-bye power, good-bye the silly handsome dreams.
Parallelism. Chiasmus
Parallel Constructions
Constructions formed by the same syntactical pattern, closely following one another present the stylistic device of parallelism. Parallelism strongly affects the rhythmical organization of the paragraph, so it is imminent in oratoric speech, in pathetic and emphatic extracts.
Parallelism can be complete when the construction of the second sentence fully copies that of the first one. Or parallelism can be partial, when only the beginning or the end of several sentences are structurally similar.
Reversed parallelism is called chiasmus. In chiasmus the central part of the sentence – the predicate remains the hinge around which occur syntactical changes – the subject of the first sentence becomes the object of the second and vice versa.
e.g. The coach was waiting, the horse were fresh, the roads were good, and the driver was willing.
Chiasmus
Chiasmus or Reversed Parallel Construction belongs to the group of stylistic devices based on the repetition of a syntactical pattern; but it has a cross order of words and phrases.
The jail might have been the infirmary, the infirmary might have been the jail.
Communicative functions. The device of repetition aims at emphasizing a certain component of the utterance. Being repeated, a language unit obtains additional stylistic information. Consecutive contact repetition is capable of rendering scores of modal meanings and human emotions.
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