Dictionary Word and Text Word
Another factor which influences the amount and nature of information in the entry is the size of the dictionary: the smaller the dictionary the more primitive the structure of the entry. Thus, for example, the entry for cap in the Pocket English‑Russian dictionary edited by G.V.Chernov (eight thousand entries) treats the word in question as monosemantic and contains its two Russian equivalents. In Akhmanova’s shorter English‑Russian dictionary (twenty thousand entries) the entry distinguishes two meanings of the same word and adds the idiom if (или where) the cap fits, wear it.The medium‑sized English‑Russian dictionary compiled by V.K.Mьller (seventy thousand entries) treats the word as having eight meanings and in the entry there are six idioms. In the entry for the same word in the New English‑Russian dictionary edited by Y.D.Apr’es’an (about 150,000 entries) there are sixteen meanings some of which are technical and fourteen idioms. Compilers provide the user with a number of examples which could not be included in the entry of dictionaries of a smaller size.
Whatever the size of the dictionary the user often fails to find an equivalent which would fit into the context of a text he has to translate, and gets irritated. The thing is that L2 equivalents should never be mistaken as thetranslation of an L1 item. Instead the user is to take them as a very concrete piece of advice about how and in which direction to look for possibly more appropriate L2 equivalents. As has been shown above it is next to impossible to equate words belonging to different lexical systems.
It is worth reminding the reader that translation is creative work, ‘variation on the theme’, whereas dictionaries are based on consistent confrontation of lexical systems. To prove that Olga Achmanova and Dmitrij Melenchuk made the following experiment (Akhmanova, O., Melenchuk, D. The Principles of Linguistic Confrontation. M., 1977, p. 12–21). The original English text and its Russian translation were confronted against the background of the back translation of the latter into English. Thus, the opening lines of «Vanity Fair» by W.M.Thackeray can be presented in the following way:
The original text
While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss Pinkerton’s academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three‑cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour.
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Russian translation
Однажды, ясным июньским утром, когда нынешний век был зеленым юнцом, к большим чугунным воротам пансиона для молодых девиц под началом мисс Пинкертон, расположенного на Чизийской аллее, подкатила со скоростью четырех миль в час вместительная семейная карета, запряженная парой откормленных лошадей в блестящей сбруе, с откормленным кучером в треуголке.
Back translation into English
Once, on a serene June morning, when the present century was still a green youth, to the big cast‑iron gate of the boarding school for young girls under the guidance of Miss Pinkerton, situated on Chiswick Avenue, drove up at a speed of four miles an hour a capacious family coach, harnessed with a pair of fattened horses in glittering harness, with a well‑fed coachman in a cocked hat and wig.
As the authors quite justly write the translation gives the reader an idea of the story «what it actually says does not make the effort needed to try and render the functional perspective, the general structure, the cadence, the syntax, the words, the assonance, etc.»
It is not our purpose to criticize the translation of the above passage. It should be mentioned, however, that if we look up the words fat, academy, largeetc. in a bilingual dictionary we shall find a few Russian equivalents, none of which was used by the translator of the English text. The translator looked for synonymous words or expressions which, in his opinion, best suited the Russian version of the text.
It follows from what has been said above that the L2 equivalent in a bilingual dictionary gives a very general idea about the sense of the L1 item, and it is for the user to decide whether the «dictionary word» or one of its synonyms fits into the context in question.
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Chapter 4.
Dictionary Use
Dictionaries are today being thrown onto the market at a rate that is unsurpassed in human history. The advances in learning theory, and more specifically the theories about how people learn second or foreign languages have influenced EFL lexicography which in its turn has stimulated expanded research in the fields of dictionary criticism and dictionary use.
Up to fairly recently there has existed what can be described as a ‘vicious triangle’ – 1) learner of a foreign language, 2) lexicographer, 3) teacher – each ‘angle’ of which is dissatisfied by the other two: learners find dictionaries less than attractive objects because they fail to extract relevant information. Lexicographers believe that insufficient use of the dictionary may be attributed to inadequate instruction by teachers. Teachers regard many dictionaries too sophisticated for their students.
True, in some cases there is a gap between the sophistication of some features of dictionary design and the user’s often rudimentary dictionary reference skills. This is why lexicographers welcome feed‑back from dictionary‑users, analyse their attitudes and expectations, investigate the user’s profile. Obtained data help to match the dictionary structure and the user’s language needs.
The most comprehensive research aimed at the assessment of the effectiveness of dictionaries was conducted under the auspices of EURALEX (Atkins, Beril, T., Knowles, Frank, E. Interim Report on the EURALEX/AILA Research Project Into Dictionary Use. In: T.Magay and J.Zigбny (eds.). BudaLEX’88 Proceedings. Papers from the EURALEX Third International Congress. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 1990). Over 1000 of students of EFL, native speakers of French, German, Italian and Spanish took part in this investigation. The researchers set out to look at what foreign learners of English actually do when they use a dictionary, that is how effective dictionaries are in helping students to carry out various operations (comprehension of L2, self‑expression in L2). They wanted to find out whether bilingual and monolingual dictionaries are equally effective aids; what attitude students have to these two types of dictionaries; and how much instruction is being given in use of dictionaries.
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Among other interesting and revealing statistical data the following set of figures is of particular significance for the present discussion. In spite of a generally recognized principle of foreign language teaching methodology that at some point between beginning a foreign language and (say) talking a University degree in it, dictionaries will have to be introduced as an aid to learning, of all the informants 60,4% had never been taught how to use a dictionary; 26,7% had had some instruction, but not precise nor systematic, and only 12,9% had had precise and systematic instruction in dictionary skills. It follows that one of the reasons for insufficient use of the dictionary is lack of instruction by teachers.
Another reason is that most of the time language learners are not aware of the range of dictionaries available and their purposes. In order to improve the situation teachers and lexicographers should act hand in hand and develop dictionary pedagogy and learner’s lexicography
(Морковкин, В.В., Кочнева, Е.М. Ориентация на пользователя как доминанта учебной лексикографии. In: Hannu Tommola, Krista Varantola, Tarja Salmi‑Tolonen, Jurgen Schopp (eds.). EURALEX’92 Proceedings. Volume 1. Tampere, 1992, p. 81–88.).
According to D.Heath who formulated the principles of dictionary pedagogy learners fail to use a dictionary to the best advantage because (1) they have a vague idea of what information can be retrieved from the dictionary; (2) they know next to nothing about lexicographic ways of presenting this information; (3) they believe that what they have produced is correct. This is why the dictionary pedagogy should comprise: 1) the ‘what’(informing learners about the services provided by the dictionary), 2) the ‘how’(consultation techniques), 3) the ‘when’(helping learners to develop a sense of the limits of their own competence in the foreign language) (Heath, D., Herbst, T., Kuchrek, R. Dictionary Techniques. Praktische Worterbucharbeit mit dem DCE. Workbook. Munchen: Langenscheidt‑Longman GmbH., 1989).
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Dictionary pedagogy puts forward the following key requirements: 1) learners should be introduced to dictionary use, and 2) they should constantly practice consultation techniques relating to different speech skills, that is text interpretation and text production. The introductory stage has three aspects: 1) a gradual introduction to the structure of the dictionary entry, 2) ‘rules’ generalizing important features of consultation technique, and 3) exercises which help the learner to master the above rules.
What has been said above underlies various dictionary workbooks that is manuals and user guides which aim at instructing learners in dictionary use. A detailed analysis of 40 such activity books has made it possible to create a checklist of dictionary skills (Stark, M.P. Dictionary Workbooks. A Critical Evaluation of Dictionary Workbooks for the Foreign Language Learner. Exeter Linguistics Studies. Volume 16, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1990, p. 197):
1. Establishing which lexical item poses a problem;
2. Finding a lexical item in the dictionary macrostructure:
a) Mastering the alphabetical ordering of headwords;
b) Finding a lexical item in an entry with a different headword;
c) Finding a multi‑word lexical item;
d) Choosing among homonyms, grammatical or semantic information;
e) Choosing among different senses in a polysemous entry;
f) Using more than one list in the microstructure of a dictionary;
3. Finding a piece of information in the microstructure:
a) Finding information about the spelling of words;
b) Finding information about the pronunciation of words;
c) Finding information about the usage;
d) Finding information about grammar of words;
e) Finding information about the meaning of words;
f) Finding related words;
g) Finding information about the history of words;
h) Using the equivalents proposed by the bilingual dictionary;
4. Choosing the appropriate dictionary according to the type of lexical item and to the type of information needed;
5. Knowing what to expect and what not to expect from dictionaries in general and from each dictionary in particular.
In a more general and schematic way the procedure of the dictionary use in the process of, for example, reading a text can be presented in the following way. (Hartmann, Reinhard, R.K. Learner’s references: from the monolingual to the bilingual dictionary. In: Hannu Tommola and Krista Varantola, Tarja Salmi‑Tolonen and Jurgen Schopp (eds.). EURALEX’92 Proceedings.Volume 1, Tampere, 1992, p. 67):
In
Stage one – select appropriate reference work
Stage two – determine problem word
Stage three – determine its canonical form
Stage four – search for appropriate headword
Stage five – determine appropriate sub‑entry
Stage six – extract relevant information
Stage seven – relate to original context
Stage eight – success:
Yes – out No – stage one
In conclusion it should be stressed that international students studying EFL will undoubtedly benefit from the use of learner’s dictionaries. But to make the process of dictionary use more effective they should develop dictionary reference skills. The earlier it is done the better.
Part 3.
Tasks and Exercises
Chapter 1.
Lexicology
1. The Size‑of‑Unit Problem
Exercise 1.Read the passage given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
Lying on the floor of the flat‑car with the guns beside me under the canvas I was wet, cold, and very hungry. Finally I rolled over and lay flat on my stomach with my head on my arms. My knee was stiff, but it had been very satisfactory. Valentini had done a fine job. I had done half of the retreat on foot and swum part of the Tagliamento with his knee. It was his knee all right. The other knee was mine. Doctors did things to you and then it was not your body any more. The head was mine, and the inside of the belly. It was very hungry in there. I could feel it turn over on itself, the head was mine, but not to use, not to think with, only to remember and not too much remember.
I could remember Catherine but I knew I would get crazy if I thought about her when I was not sure yet I would see her, so I would not think about her, only about her a little, only about her with the car going slowly clickingly, and some light through the canvas, and by lying with Catherine on the floor of the car. Hard as the floor of the car to lie not thinkingonly feeling, having been away too long, the clothes wet and the floor moving only a little each time and lonesome inside and alone with wet clothing and hard floor for a wife.
You did not love the floor of a flat‑car nor guns with canvas jackets and the small of vaselined metal or a canvas that rain leaked through, although it is very fine under a canvas and pleasant with guns; but you loved someone else whom now you knew was not even to be pretended there; you seeing now very clearly and coldly – not so coldly as clearly and emptily. You saw emptily, lying on your stomach, having been present when one army moved back and another came forward. You had lost your cars and your men as a floorwalker loses the stock of his department in a fire. There was, however, no insurance. You were out of if now. You had no more obligations. If they shot floorwalkers after a fire in the department store because they spoke with an accent they had always had, then certainly the floorwalkers would not be expected to return when the store opened again for business. They might seek other employment; if there was any other employment and the police did not get them.
E. Hemingway
1. Apply the criterion of grammatical whole‑formedness to the analysis of the opening sentence and show that the word is separable in the flow of speech.
2. Apply the criterion of residual separability to the analysis of any sentence and show the difference between morphemes and syncate‑gorematic words.
3. Comment on the difference between the noun floorand the stem floor– using examples, taken from the text. Find other examples illustrating the difference between words and morphemes.
4. What is the difference between a riot‑car and a fine job in terms of lexical articulation? Discuss their accentual patterns.
Exercise 2. Read the passage given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
As the last car drove away the doctor and his daughters and Paul and Grimes walked up the drive together towards the Castle.
«Frankly the day has been rather a disappointment to me,» said the Doctor. «Nothing seemed to go quite right in spite of all our preparations.»
«And expense,» said Dingy.
«I am sorry, too, that Mr. Prendergast should have had that unfortunate disagreement with Mrs. Beste‑Chetwynde’s coloured friend. In all the ten years during which we have worked together I have never known Mr. Prendergast so self‑assertive. It was not becoming of him. Nor was it Philbrick’s place to join in. I was seriously alarmed. They seemed so angry, and all about some minor point at ecclesiastical architecture.»
«Mr. Cholmondicy was very sensitive,» said Flossie.
«Yes, he seemed to think that Mr. Prendergast’s insistence on the late development of the rood‑screen was in some way connected with colour prejudice. I wonder why that was? To mymind it showed a very confused line of thought. Still it would have been more seemly if Mr. Prendergast had let the matter drop, and what could Philbrick know of the matter?»
«Philbrick is not an ordinary butler,» said Dingy. «No, indeed not,» said the Doctor, «I heartily deplore his jewelry.»
«I didn’t like Lady Circumference’s speech,» said Flossie. «Did you?»
«I did not,» said the Doctor; «nor, I think, did Mrs. Clatterbuck. I thought her reference to the Five Furlong race positively brutal. I was glad Clatterbuck had done so well in the jumping yesterday.»
«She rather wanders from the point, doesn’t she?» said Dingy. «All that about hunting, I mean.»
«I don’t think Lady Circumference is conscious of any definite divisions in the various branches of sport. I have often observed in women of her type a tendency to regard all athletics as inferior forms of fox hunting. It is not logical. Besides, she was nettled at some remark of Mr. Cholmondicy’s about cruelty to animals. As you say, it was irrelevant and rather unfortunate. I also resented the references to the Liberal Party. Mr. Clutterbuck has stood three times, you know. Taken as a whole, it was not a happy speech. I was quite glad when I saw her drive away.»
«What a pretty car Mrs. Beste‑Chetwynde has got!» said Flossie, «But how ostentatious of her to bring a footman.»
«I can forgive the footman,» said Dingy, «But I can’t forgive Mr. Cholmondicy. He asked me whether I had ever heard of a writer called Thomas Hardy.»
«He asked me to go to Reigate with him for the week‑end,» said Flossie, «in a rather sweet way, too!»
«Florence, I trust you refused?»
«Oh, yes,» said Flossie sadly. «I refused.»
They went up the drive in silence. Presently Dingy asked.
«What are we going to do about those fireworks you insisted on buying? Everyone has gone away.»
«I don’t feel in a mood for fireworks,» said the Doctor. «Perhaps another time, but not now.»
Evelyn Waugh
1. Read the sentence «I don’t think Lady Circumference is conscious of any definite division in the various branches of sport» and show the difference between segmentation of the flow of speech in the written and oral forms by means of traditional orthography and broad transcription.
2. Write out sentences in which words are brought out by means of logical stress and read them.
3. What words in the text under analysis are singled out by emphatic prosodic contour?
4. Comment on the prosodic arrangement of intensifiers which occur in the text.
Exercise 3. Read the passage given below. Answer the questions and fulfil the tasks which follow it.
«The first race will be a mile. Prendy, will you look after them? I want to see if Philbrick and I can fix up anything for the jumping?»
«But what am I to do?» said Mr. Prendergast.
«You make each group run to the Castle and back and take the names of the first two in each heat. It’s quite simple.»
«I’ll try,» he said sadly.
Paul and Philbrick went into the pavilion together.
«Me, a butler,» said Philbrick, «made to put up tents like a blinking Arab!»
«Well, it’s a change,» said Paul.
«It’s a change for me to be a butler», said Philbrick. «I wasn’t made to be anyone’s servant.»
«No, I suppose not.»
«I expect you wonder how it is that I come to be here?» said Philbrick.
«No,» said Paul firmly, «nothing of the kind. I don’t in the least want to know anything about you, d’you hear?»
«I’ll tell you,» said Philbrick, «it was like this.»
«I don’t want to hear your loathsome confessions; can’t you understand?»
«It isn’t a loathsome confession,» said Philbrick. «It’s a story of love. I think it is without exception the most beautiful story I know. I daresay you have heard of Sir Solomon Philbrick?»
«No,» said Paul.
«What, never heard of old Solly Philbrick?»
«No, why?»
«Because that’s me. And I can tell you this. It’s a pretty well‑known name across the river.You’ve only to say Solly Philbrick, of the „Lamb and Flag“, anywhere south of Waterloo Bridge to see what fame is. Try it.»
«I will one day.»
«Mind you, when I say Sir Solomon Philbrick, that’s only a bit of fun, see? That’s what the boys call me. Plain Mr. Solomon Philbrick I am, really, just like you or him», with a jerk of the thumb towards the playing‑fields, from which Mr. Prendergast’s voice could be heard crying weakly: «Oh, do get into line, you beastly boys,» but Sir Solomon’s what they call me. Out of respect, see?»
«When I say, ‘Are you ready? Go!’ I want you to go,» Mr. Prendergast could be heard saying. «Are you ready? Go! Oh, why don’t you go?» And his voice became drowned in shrill cries of protest.
«Mind you,» went on Philbrick, «I haven’t always been in the position that I am now. I was brought up rough, damned rough. Ever heard speak of «Chick» Philbrick?»
«No, I’m afraid not.»
«No, I suppose he was before your time. Useful little boxer, though. Not first‑class, on account of his drinking so much and being short in the arm. Still, he used to earn five pound a night at the Lambeth Stadium. Always popular with the boys, he was even when he was so full, he couldn’t hardly fight. He was my dad, a good‑hearted sort of fellow but rough, as I was telling you; he used to knock my poor mother about something awful. Got jugged for it twice, but my! he took it out of her when he got out. There aren’t many left like him nowadays what with education and whisky the price it is.»
Evelyn Waugh
1. Write out sentences from the above passage containing italicized words and discuss their prosody.
2. Adduce examples of prosodically marked words determined by their inherent connotation.
3. What is the difference between a blinking Arab and a loathsome confession in terms of the correlation of connotation and prosody?
4. The word butler occurs twice in the text. In the first sentence it is brought out in the flow of speech while in the second – it is said neutrally. Why?
Test Questions
1. What is meant by ‘separability’ and ‘separateness’ of a word?
2. What criteria are applied to single out categorematic and syncategorematic words?
3. Can we speak of isomorphism between written and oral forms of speech in so far as lexical articulation is concerned?
4. When and how is the word brought out in the flow of oral speech?
2. The Identity‑of‑Unit Problem
Exercise 1. Read the passage given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
In civilian clothes I felt a masquerader. I had been in uniform a long time and I missed the feeling of being held by your clothes. The trousers felt very floppy, I had bought a ticket at Milan for Stresa. I had also bought a new hat. I could not wear Sim’s hat but his clothes were fine. They smelled of tobacco and as I sat in the compartment and looked out of the window the new hat felt very new and the clothes very old. I myself felt as sad as the wet lombard country that was outside through the window. There were some aviators in the compartment who did not think much of me. They avoided looking at me and were very scornful of a civilian of my age. I did not feel insulted. In the old days I would have been insulted them and picked a fight. They got off at Jallarate and I was glad to be alone. I had the paper but I did not read it because I did not want to read about the war. I was going to forget the war. I had made a separate peace. I felt damned lonely and was glad when the train got to Stresa.
At the station I had expected to see the porters from the hotel but there was no one. The season had been over a long time and no one met the train. I got down from the train with my bag. It was Sim’s bag, and very light to carry, being empty except for two shirts, and stood under the roof of the station in the rain while the train went on. I found a man in the station and asked him if he knew what hotels were open. The Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees was open and several small hotels that stayed open all the year. I started in the rain for the Iles Borromees carrying my bag. I saw a carriage coming down the street and signalled to the driver. It was better to arrive in a carriage. We drove up to the carriage entrance of the big hotel and the concierge came out with an umbrella and was very polite.
I took a good room. It was very big and light and looked out on the lake. The clouds were down over the lake but it would be beautiful with the sunlight. I was expecting my wife, I said. There was a big double‑bed, a letto matrimoniale, with a satin coverlet. The hotel was very luxurious.
E. Hemingway
1. Look up the words masquerader, aviator, separate, except, to expect, concierge, luxuriousin an English pronouncing dictionary, transcribe them and comment on the phonetic variants of these words.
2. What phonetic variants has the noun hotel? Can you adduce simi‑lar examples of phonetic variation?
3. What phonetic variants has the conjunction and? Comment on its variation in the text under analysis.
4. Write out other cases of automatic phonetic variation.
Exercise 2. Read the passage given below, answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
In front of the house where we lived the mountain went down steeply to the little plain along the lake and we sat on the porch of the house in the sun and saw the winding of the road down the mountain side and the terraced vineyards on the side of the lower mountain, the vines all dead now for the winter and the fields divided by stone walls, and below the vineyards the houses of the town on the narrow plain along the lake shore. There was an island with two trees on the lake and the trees looked like the double sails of a fishing boat. The mountains were sharp and steep on the other side of the lake and down at the end of the lake was the plain of the Rhone Valley flat between the two ranges of mountains; and up the valley where the mountains cut it off was the Dent du Midi. It was a high snowy mountain and it dominated the valley but it was so far away that it did not make a shadow.
When the sun was bright we ate lunch on the porch but the rest of the time we ate upstairs in a small room with plain wooden walls and a big stove in the corner. We brought books and magazines in the town and a copy of Hoyleand learned many two‑handed card games. The small room with the stove was our living‑room. There were two comfortable chairs and a table for books and magazines, and we played cards on the dining‑table when it was cleared away. Mr. and Mrs. Juttingen lived downstairs and we would hear them talking sometimes in the evening and they were very happy together too. He had been a head waiter and she had worked as maid in the same hotel and they had saved their money to buy this place. They had a son who was studying to be a head waiter. He was at a hotel in Zurich. Downstairs there was a parlour where they sold wine and beer, and sometimes in the evening we would hear carts stop outside on the road and men come up the steps to go in the parlour to drink wine.
E. Hemingway
1. Speak on the automatic phonetic variation adducing examples from the text under analysis.
2. The word two‑handed has two accentual variants. Which variant is used in the text? Adduce analagous examples of your own.
3. Look up the verb to learn in a dictionary and discuss it in terms of grammatical variation. What other cases of the same kind do you know?
4. Are there any examples of prosodic variation of the word in the text under analysis?
5. Comment on the accentual variation of the word downstairsin the text under analysis.
Exercise 3.Read the passage given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
Nothing more was said about Mr. Golspie, but on her way home Miss Matfield could not help thinking about him. She always had a book with her for the journey on the 13 bus to and from the office, but the jogging and the crowding, and the changing lights did not make reading easy, especially on the return journey to West Hampstead, and frequently she spent more time with her own thoughts than she did with those of her author. On this particular evening
Mr. Golspie claimed her attention, almost to the exclusion of anybody or anything else. She could not make up her mind about him, had no label or pigeonhole ready for him, and this annoyed her, for she liked to know exactly what she felt and thought about people; to be able to dismiss them in a phrase. The fact that Mr. Golspie spoke to her everyday, if only for a few minutes, gave her work to do, was sufficient to make her anxious to determine her attitude towards him. Men, with their thick skins and yawning indifference, might be able to work with people for years and not know or care anything about them as persons, but this drab stuff about «governors» and «colleagues» could find no place to stay in Miss Matfield’s mind. In the talk among the girls in the Club, all the men who dictated letters to them became immense characters, comic, grotesquely villainous, or heroic and adorable. Their femininity, frozen for a few hours every day at the keyboard of their machines, thawed and gushed out in these perfervid personalities. Behind their lowered eyes, their demure expressions, as they sat with their notebooks on hard little office chairs, these comic and romantic legends buzzed and sang, to be released later in the dining‑room, the lounge, the tiny bedrooms of the Club. Thus, something had to be done about Mr. Golspie, who would have appeared to most of the girls, as Miss Matfield knew only too well, a gigantic find, a mine of glittering material. So far he had merely passed as «weird», but that would not do. It had not sufficed in Miss Matfield’s private thoughts since the first two days.
J.B. Priestley
1. Write out even‑stressed words and discuss their accentual variation in different contexts.
2. Find examples of phonetic variation proper. Consult an English pronouncing dictionary by Daniel Jones.
3. All the words in – icin the text have forms in – ical. Are these units separate words or lexical morphological variants?
4. What words in the text can be discussed in terms of semantic variation? Which of them have prosodic variants?
Test Questions
1. What kinds of lexical variation do you know?
2. What is the difference between automatic, accentual, and emic kinds of phonetic variation?
3. Are morphemes in morphological variants unilateral or bilateral units?
4. What is the correlation between semantic and prosodic variants?
5. When do lexical variants become different words?
Item and Arrangement
Exercise 1. Read the passage given below and complete the tasks which follow it.
Her dreams that night were endless and uneasy; she rose heavy and unrested, and went at once to the study of Whitaker’s Almanac. A Forsyte is instinctively aware that facts are the real crux of any situation. She might conquer Jon’s prejudice, but without exact machinery to complete their desperate resolve, nothing would happen. From the invaluable tome she learned that they must each be twenty‑one; or someone’s consent would be necessary, which of course was unobtainable; then she became lost in directions concerning licenses, certificates, notices, districts, coming finally to the word «perjury». But that was nonsense! Who would really mind their giving wrong ages in order to be married for love. She ate hardly any breakfast, and went back to Whitaker. The more she studied the less cure she became; till, idly turning the pages, she came to Scotland. People could be married there without any of this nonsense. She had only to go and stay there twenty‑one days, then Jon could come, and in front of two people they could declare themselves married. And what was more – they would be! It was far the best way; and at once she ran over her schoolfellows. There was Mary Lambe who lived in Edinburgh and was «quite a sport!» She had a brother too. She could stay with Mary Lambe, who with her brother would serve for witnesses. She well knew that some girls would think all this unnecessary, and that all she and Jon need do was to go away together for a week‑end and then say to their people: «We are married by Nature, we must now be married by Law». But Fleur was Forsyte enough to feel such a proceeding dubious, and to dread her father’s face when he heard of it. Besides, she did not believe that Jon would do it; he had an opinion of her such as she could not bear to diminish. No! Mary Lambe was preferable, and it was just the time of year to go to Scotland. More at ease now, she packed, avoided her aunt, and took a bus to Chiswick. She was too early, and went on to Kew‑Gardens. She found no peace among its flower‑beds, labelled trees, and broad green spaces, and having lunched off anchovy paste sandwiches and coffee, returned to Chiswick and rang June’s bell. The Austrian admitted her to the «little meal‑room». Now that she knew what she and Jon were up against, her longing for him had increased tenfold, as if he were a toy with sharp edges or dangerous paint such as they had tried to take from her as a child. If she could not have her way, and get Jon for good and all, she felt like dying of privation. By hook or crook she must and would get him! A round, dim mirror of very old glass hung over the pink brick hearth. She stood looking at herself reflected in it, pale, and rather dark under the eyes; little shudders kept passing through her nerves. Then she heard the bell ring, and stealing to the window, saw him standing on the door‑step smoothing his hair and lips, as if he too were trying to subdue the fluttering of his nerves.
John Galsworthy
1. Comment on the difference between grammatical and lexical morphemes using examples taken from the text.
2. Discuss the peculiarities of ‘the one way’ and ‘the both ways’ relationship using examples from the text.
3. Discuss the words invaluable, unobtainableand preferablein terms of the dialectical unity of grammatical and lexical morphologies.
4. Find in the text the words which can serve as examples of gradation.
Exercise 2. Read the passage given below, fulfil the tasks which follow it.
Mr. Bodiham was sitting in his study at the Rectory. The nineteenth‑century Gothic windows, narrow and pointed, admitted the light grudgingly; in spite of the brilliant July weather, the room was sombre. Brown varnished book‑shelves lined the walls, tilled with row upon row of those thick, heavy theologicalworks which the second‑hand booksellersgenerally sell by weight. The mantelpiece, the overmantel, a towering structure of spindly pillars and little shelves, were brown and varnished. The writing desk was brown and varnished. So were the chairs, so was the door. A dark red‑brown carpet with patterns covered the floor. Everything was brown in the room, and there was a curious brownish smell.
In the midst of this brown gloom Mr. Bodiham sat at his desk. He was the man in the Iron Mask. A grey tallic face with iron cheekbones and narrow iron brow; iron folds, hard and unchanging, ran perpendicularlydown his cheeks; his nose was the iron beak of some thin, delicate bird of rapine. He had brown eyes, set in sockets rimmed with iron; round them the skin was dark, as though it had been charred. Dense wiry hair covered his skull; it had been black, it was turning grey. His ears were very small and fine. His jaws, his chin, his upper lip were dark, iron‑dark, where he had shaved. His voice, when he spokeand especially when he raised it in preaching, was harsh, like the grating of iron hinges when a seldom used door is opened.
It was nearly half past twelve. He had just come back from church, hoarse and weary with preaching. He preached with fury, with passion, an iron man beating with a flail upon the souls of his congregation. But the souls of the faithful at Crone were made of india‑rubber, solid rubber; the flail rebounded. They were used to Mr. Bodiham at Crone. The flail thumped on india‑rubber, and as often as not the rubber slept.
That morning he had preached, as he had often preached before, on the nature of God. He had tried to make them understand about God, what a fearful thing it is to fall into His hands. God – they thought of something soft, sad, merciful. They blinded themselves to facts; still more, they blinded themselves to the Bible. The passengers on the «Titanic» sang «Nearer my God to Thee» as the ship was going down. Did they realize what they were asking to be brought nearer to? A white fire of righteousness, an angry fire…
A. Huxley
1. Speak on the realization of the open juncture borrowing examples from the text.
2. Write out those cases where the internal juncture is realized to the full and discuss their prosody.
3. Discuss the word‑combination brownish smell in terms of the correlation of connotation and prosody and comment on its morphological articulation.
4. Subject the words in bold type to morphological analysis.
Exercise 3.Read the passage given below. Answer the questions and fulfil the tasks which follow it.
He packed his two bags, gathered up his paints, dismantled his easel and prepared to leave the Ruche, for it had become abundantly clear that he too had fallen victim to the quantitative theory, the slam‑bans method of painting first and thinking afterward. He would have to reflect the immensely beautiful but equally private world which he alone knew and he alone could transcribe to canvas.
He glanced about the room with an amused nostalgia, remembering the excitement with which he had entered it the first time; if Wichita had been his infancy, the Beehive had been his irrepressible adolescence. His eyes swept the stacks of canvases against the wall. He had made a thousand errors, traversed fields where he did not belong, only to learn that none of the going techniques or theories were for him. He could not copy, join, absorb, fall in line. What he finally put on canvas would be pure John Noble, recognizable across a sea of buffalo grass. His would be a lonely art, not tied up with any age, school or theory; but how could it be otherwise: was he not a lonely man?
With a quick gesture he took his penknife from his pocket and set to work destroying the paintings, even as he had his hundreds of sketches for Cleopatra back in Wichita.
After considerable searching he found a studio which occupied the entire top floor at 7 Rue Belloni. It had had many users before him, but he managed to conceal most of the past with a quick coat of paint. There was a good‑sized skylight facing north, but this north light was both dark and cold. He thought, a north light like this can set a man back fifty years in painting.
He had told no one about his studio, not even Gerald Adams or Charbert, his closest friends at the Beehive. He was therefore all the more astonished when the door opened while he was painting the ceiling, and he heard a soft voice say:
«Tiens, tiens, what a big empty barn.»
He gazed down at Maud from the top rung of the ladder, his broad brush dripping paint onto the floor. She stared back at him boldly, then shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
«If you don’t want me to know where you live, you’ll have to go back to Wichita.»
«See here,» he exclaimed, «I want this kept absolutely quiet.»
She ignored his spluttering as unworthy of answer, then began looking about the studio and the small adjoining kitchen. He climbed down the ladder and followed her around hostilely.
Irving Stone
1. Write out the opening sentence of the passage and speak on the distinction between grammatical morphemes and lexical ones using examples from this sentence.
2. What is the difference between the morphological structure of the words painting and ceiling?
3. Find in the passage under analysis the cases of morphological gradation and comment on them.
4. What principle of morphological analysis can be applied to the word recognizable(«…recognizable across a sea of buffalo grass»)? Represent it graphically.
Test Questions
1. What is the difference between leaxical morphology and grammatical morphology?
2. What is meant by the ‘one way’ and ‘both ways’ principles of segmantation of words?
3. What is ‘internal juncture’?
4. When and under what circumstances is internal juncture realized in monolexemic words?
Item and Process
Exercise1. Find in the texts given below words ending in – erand complete the tasks.
«Their day is passing, and their type, not altogether for the advantage of the country. There were pedestrians, but they too were sound. I am the fourth Jolyon Forsyte – a poor holder of the name –»
«No, Dad,» said Jolly, and Holly squeezed his hand.
«Yes,» repeated Jolyon, «a poor specimen, representing, I’m afraid, nothing but the end of the country…»
John Galsworthy
Mr. Moon, with the air of a man who has remembered something which he had overlooked, shoved a sock in his guest’s mouth and resumed his packing. He was what might be called an impressionist packer. His aim appeared to
be speed rather than neatness. He bundled his belongings in, closed the bag with some difficulty, and, stepping to the window, opened it. Then he
climbed out on to the fire‑escape, dragged the suitcase after him and was gone.
P.G. Wodehouse
Much has been written on the subject of bed‑books. The general consensus of opinion is that a gentle, slow‑moving story makes the best opiate. If this be so, dear old Squiffy’s choice of literature had been rather injudicious. His book was «The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes», and the particular story which he selected for perusal was the one entitled «The Speckled Band». He was not a great reader, but when he read, he liked something with a bit of zip to it.
P.G. Wodehouse
From within, through the open transom, came the rhythmical snoring of a good man taking his rest after the labours of the day. Mr. Brewster was always a heavy sleeper.
P.G. Wodehouse
Still, you’re doing fine. You only need patience. Everything comes to him who waits. Archie sat up, electrified. «I say, by Jove, that’s rather good, what! Everything comes to him who waits, and you’re a waiter…»
P.G. Wodehouse
She remembered with sudden vividness how nice she herself had looked in those old days when her heart was set on Philip Bosinney, that dead lover, who had broken from her to destroy for ever Irene’s allegiance to this girl’s father. Did Fleur know of that, too?
John Galsworthy
Archie was not an abnormally rapid thinker, but he began at this point to get a clearly defined impression that this lad, if invited, would waive the formalities, and consent to join his meal.
P.G. Wodehouse
The Rev. Thomas was a man of extreme nervous temperament. He was, par excellence, a fusser, and when he fussed, his digestive apparatus collapsed and he suffered agonizing pains.
Agatha Christie
«I’ve made nothing that will live!» thought Jolyon.
«I’ve been an amateur – a mere lover, not a creator. Still, I shall leave John behind me when I go. What luck that the boy had not been caught by that ghastly war!»
John Galsworthy
1. Write out formations in – erwhich have homonymous words with lexicalized meaning and comment on their correlation.
2. Find passages in which words in – erfunction on the semantic level. Comment on them.
3. Comment on passages with metasemiotically marked words in – er.
4. What is the lexical category of simulation constituted by? Give examples of the marked member of the opposition from the passages given above.
5. Comment on the sociolinguistic determination of the marked member of the category in question.
6. Give other illustrations of the category under consideration.
Exercise 2. Read the passages given below and complete the tasks which follow them.
She had been changing her frock, and was still imperfectly clothed; a striking figure before her glass. There was a certain magnificence about her arms, shoulders, hair, which had darkened since he first knew her, about the turn of her neck, the silkiness of her garments, her dark‑lashed, grey‑blue eyes – she was certainly as handsome at forty as she had ever been.
John Galsworthy
The last of the old Forsytes was on his feet, moving with the most impressive slowness, and an air of perfect concentration on his own affairs, backward and forward between the foot of his bed and the window, a distance of some twelve feet.
John Galsworthy
She was looking forward to her young half‑brother with a mother‑liness not exhausted by Val. A three‑day visit to Robin Hill, soon after their arrival home, had yielded no right of him – he was still at school; so that her recollection, like Val’s, was of a little sunny‑haired boy, stripped blue and yellow, down by the pond.
John Galsworthy
To Forsyte imagination that house was now a sort of Chinese pill‑box, a series of layers in the last of which was Timothy. One did not reach him, or so it was reported by members of the family who, out of old‑time habit or absent‑mindedness would drive up once in a blue moon and ask after their surviving uncle.
John Galsworthy
«I say, there seems to be something on your mind. What’s the trouble?»
«The waiter shrugged his shoulders, as if indicating an unwillingness to inflict his grievances on one of the tipping classes.»
P.G. Wodehouse
It amazed Archie through the whole of a long afternoon to reflect how swiftly and unexpectedly the blue and brilliant sky of life can cloud over and with what abruptness a man who fancies that his feet are on solid ground can find himself immersed in Fate’s gumbo.
P.G. Wodehouse
At the pianola, Henry Wimbish, smoking a long cigar through a tunnelled pillar of amber, trod out the shattering dance music with serene patience. Locked together, Gombault and Anne moved with a harmoniousness that made them seem a single creature, two‑headed and four‑legged.
A. Huxley
Mr. Bodiham touched lightly on Solomon’s temple. From thence he passed to temples and churches in general. What were the characteristics of these buildings dedicated to God? Obviously, the fact of their, from a human point of view, complete uselessness. They were unpractical buildings «carved with knops». Solomon might have built a library –indeed, what could be more to the taste of the world’s wisest man?
A. Huxley
Huddled in her grey fur against the sofa cushions, she had a strange resemblance to a captive owl, bunched in its soft feathers against the wires of a cage. The supple erectness of her figure was gone, as though she had been broken by cruel exercise; as though there were no longer any reason for being beautiful, and supple, and erect.
John Galsworthy
1. Write out the realizations of the lexical‑morphological category of quality from the passages given above and discuss the content and expression planes of these words.
2. What are the constituents of the category in question? Use examples from the texts given above.
3. Are there any constraints whatsoever imposed on the realization of the lexical‑morphological category of quality?
4. Comment on the substantival and adjectival realization of the lexical‑morphological category of quality using examples from the texts given above.
Exercise 3. Read the passages given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow them.
Irene uncovered her lips, and both her hands made a writhing gesture in front of her breast. Soames seized them.
«Don’t!» she said under her breath. But he stood holding on to them, trying to stare into her eyes which did not waver. Then she said quietly:
«I am alone here. You won’t behave again as you once behaved.»
«Dropping her hands as though they had been hot irons, he turned away. Was it possible that there could be such relentless unfor –
giveness!»
John Galsworthy
He sighed drowsily. The atmosphere of the auction room was close; you weren’t allowed to smoke; and altogether he was beginning to regret that he had come. The service continued. Objects of various unattractiveness came and went, eulogized by the officiating priest, but coldly received by the congregation.
P.G. Wodehouse
What she did not like in George was his essential Georgeness.
P.G. Wodehouse
From time to time he sang slightly, and wondered idly if Lucille would put the finishing touch upon all‑rightness of everything by coming to meet him and sharing his homeward walk.
P.G. Wodehouse
The young ladies were pretty, their manners winning, their dispositions unexceptionable; but there was a dignity in the air, a touch‑me‑not‑ish‑ness in the walk…
Ch. Dickens
I have already paid tribute above (Chapter 3) to the consistency and ‘openness’ of the ‘allo‑emic’ terminology, following the text of the preface to my dictionary.
Olga Akhmanova
Recognizing the meaninglessness of words, in isolation, he (M. Twain) argued that no one can tell what a word spells when he sees it off by itself.
C.M. Babcock
Detail is restrained – a textured stitch to point‑up a graceful collar, the setting of pockets or the placing of a button. Small things that add up to just‑rightness.
«Vogue»
1. Find new formations in – nessand comment on their prosody.
2. Write out cases where words in – nessare used for stylistic purposes and comment on them.
Test Questions
1. What is meant by ‘Item and Process’?
2. What is the definition of the ‘lexical‑morphological category’?
3. What is the difference between the concepts of ‘productivity’ and ‘lexical‑morphological category’?
4. What lexical‑morphological categories of the English language do you know?
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