Lexical Meaning as a Linguistic Category
Exercise 1.Read the passage given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
«Paul, dear,» she said one day as hand in hand, after a rather fearful encounter with a swan, they reached the shelter of the lake house. «I can’t bear to think of you going back to that awful school. Do, please, write and tell Dr. Fagan that you won’t.»
The lake house was an eighteenth‑century pavilion, built on a little mound above the water, they stood there for a full minute still hand in hand on the crumbling steps.
«I don’t quite see what else I could do,» said Paul. «Darling, I could find you a job.»
«What sort of job, Margot?» Paul’s eyes followed the swan gliding serenely across the lake; he did not dare to look at her.
«Well, Paul, you might stay and protect me from swans, mightn’t you?» Margot paused and then, releazing her hand, took a cigarette‑case from her pocket. Paul struck a match. «My dear, what an unsteady hand. I’m afraid you’re drinking too many of Peter’s cocktails. That child has a lot to learn, yet about the use of vodka. But seriously I’m sure I can find you a better job. It’s absurd your going back to Wales. I still manage a great deal of my father’s business, yon know, or perhaps you didn’t. It was mostly in South America in – in places of entertainment, cabarets and hotels and theatres, you know, and things like that. I’m sure I could find you a job helping in that, if you think you’d like it.»
Paul thought of this gravely.
«Oughtn’t I to know Spanish?» he said. It seemed quite a sensible question, but Margot threw away her cigarette with a little laugh and said:
«It’s time to go and change. You are being difficult this evening, aren’t you?»
Paul thought about this conversation as he lay in his bath – a sunk bath of malachite – and all the time while he dressed and as he tied his tie he trembled from head to foot like one of the wire toys which street vendors dangle from trays.
Evelyn Waugh
1. Write out words which demonstrate different degrees of complexity of the correlation of meaning and form.
2. Discuss the words in the text which can be referred to a certain piece of extralinguistic reality. Compare them with their Russian counterparts.
3. What words in the text under analysis have no Russian equivalents?
4. Fearfuland awfulare translated into Russian as ужасный. Is there any difference between them?
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5. Does the word jobcoincide with the word работа? Adduce examples illustrating their use in speech. Consult dictionaries.
Exercise 2.Read the passage given below. Answer the questions and fulfil the tasks which follow it.
Bewildered, Mr. Smeeth laid down the receiver and walked over to his desk. He had hardly time to collect his thoughts and to begin to wonder whether he ought to say something to the others, when the door flew open, almost like a vertical trap‑door, to shoot into the middle of the office, where it suddenly stopped dead, the figure of a man. It was Goath. His ancient overcoat was still hanging from his shoulders as if it hardly belonged to him, but, on the other hand, his bowler‑hat, instead of being at the back of his head, was now tilted forward, giving him an unusual and almost sinister look. His face was purpler than ever; his eyes were glaring; and his mouth was opening and shutting, as if he were an indignant fish. To say of Goath that he had been drinking was to say nothing, for he was obviously always drinking, but this time he had plainly had more than usual or had been mixing his liquors. And his appearance, his manner, everything about him, was so extraordinary that everybody in the office stopped work at once to look at him.
J.B. Priestley
1. Look through the text word by word and say which of them are monosemantic.
2. What words express monolexemically those notions which in Russian are expressed polylexemically? Compare the lexical meanings of 1) headand голова; 2) faceand лицо; 3) mouthand рот; 4) fishand рыба.
3. What type of the correlation of meaning and form is exemplified by to wonder, sinister, indignant and extraordinary?
Exercise 3. Discuss the following groups of words from the point of view of the correlation of content and expression in English and Russian.
1. treble clef (скрипичный ключ); bass clef (басовый ключ); sharp (диез), flat (бемоль); natural (бекар);
2. wood, forest, timber;
3. to see, to understand.
Exercise 4. Discuss the meaning of the words in bold type in terms of the problem ‘concept – meaning’.
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1. a) She put her hat on the table.
b) They were at tablewhen we called.
c) His jokes amused the whole table.
d) He keeps a good table.
2. a) She wore a greendress.
b) Greenwood does not burn well.
c) I’m afraid he is still greenat his job.
d) He lived to a greenold age.
Test Questions
1. What is the difference between meaning and purport?
2. Why is meaning a fact of language?
3. What is the difference between lexical meaning and grammatical meaning?
4. What is the difference betwee meaning and concept?
5. What types of relationship between the content and form of the word do you know?
Polysemy
Exercise1. Read the text given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
At ten o’clock on his wedding morning Paul returned to the Ritz. It was raining hard, and he felt tired, unshaven generally woebegone. A number of newspaper reporters were waiting for him outside his suite, but he told them that he could see no one. Inside he found Peter Beste‑Chetwynde, incredibly smart in his first morning‑coat.
«They’ve let me come up from Llanabba for the day,» he said. «To tell the truth, I’d rather pleased with myself in these clothes. I bought you a buttonhole in case you’d forgotten. I say, Paul, you’re looking tired.»
«I am, rather. Turn on the bath for me like an angel.»
When he had had his bath and shaved he felt better. Peter had ordered a bottle of champagne and was a little tipsy. He walked round the room, glass in hand, talking gaily, and every now and then pausing to look at himself in the mirror.
«Pretty smart,» he said, «particularly the tie; don’t you think so, Paul? I think I shall go back to the school like this. That would make them see what a superior person I am. I hope you notice that I gave you the grander button‑hole? I can’t tell you what Llanabba is like this term, Paul. Do try and persuade Mamma to take me away. Cluterbuck has left, and Tangent is dead, and the three new masters are quite awful. One is like your friend Potts, only he stutters, and Brolly says he’s got a glass eye. He’s called Mr. Makepeace. Then there’s another one with red hair who keeps beating everyone all the time, and the other’s rather sweet, really, only he has fits. I don’t think the doctor cares for any of then much. Flossie’s been looking rather discouraged all the time. I wonder if Mamma could get her a job in South America? I’m glad you’re wearing a waistcoat like that. I nearly did, but I thought perhaps I was a bit young. What do you think? We had a reporter down at the school the other day waiting to know particulars about you. Brolly told a splendid story about how you used to go out swimming in the evenings and swim for hours and hours in the dark composing elegiac verses, and then he spoilt it by saying you had webbed feet and a prehensile tail, which made the chap think he was having his leg pulled. I say, am I terribly in the way?»
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Evelyn Waugh
1. Write out the words which are used in their nominative‑derivative meaning. Comment on their prosody.
2. Look up the words case, to care, leg, way in a dictionary and discuss their use in the text under analysis.
3. The verb to see is used twice in the text. Is it used in the nominative meaning or not?
4. Write out the words which being used in their nominative meaning are prosodically marked. What determines the use of the marked prosodic variant in this case?
Exercise 2. Read the text given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
After a while I got up and started along the bank. I knew there was no bridge across the river until Latisana. I thought I might be opposite San Vito. I began to think out what I should do. Ahead there was a ditch running into the river. I went toward it. So far I had seen no one and I sat down by some bushes along the bank of the ditch and took off my shoes and emptied them of water. I took off my coat, took my wallet with my papers and my money all wet in it out of the inside pocket and then wrung the coat out, I took off my trousers and wrung them too, then my shirt and underclothing. I slapped and rubbed myself and then dressed again. I had lost my cap.
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Before I put on my coat I cut the cloth stars off my sleeves and put them in the inside pocket with my money. My money was wet but was all right. I counted it. There were three thousand and some lire. My clothes felt wet and clammy and I slapped my arms to keep the circulation going. I had woolen underwear and I did not think I would catch cold if I kept moving. They had taken my pistol at the road and I put the holster under my coat. I had no cape and it was cold in the rain. I started up the bank of the canal. It was daylight and the country was wet, low and dismal‑looking. The fields were bare and wet, a long way away I could see a campanile rising out of the plain. I came up on to a road. Ahead I saw some troops coming down the road. I limped along the side of the road and they passed me and paid no attention to me. They were a machine‑gun detachment going up toward the river. I went on down the road.
E. Hemingway
1. Write out from the above passage polysemantic words and comment on those which are used in their nominative meaning.
2. Discuss the semantic structure of the adjective coldand the noun cold. Comment on their use in the text.
3. Look up the verbs to put, to start and to pay in a dictionary and comment on their semantic structure. In what meaning are these verbs used in the text under analysis?
4. Are there any words in the text which are used in their nominative‑derivative meaning?
Exercise 3. Read the text given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
Their seats were down at the front – Turgis had never sat in such seats before – and it would all have been perfect if it had not been for two little incidents. The first occurred when Lena, during the second turn, a silent juggling affair, announced that she would like some chocolates.
«Can you get hold of that girl there,» she said. «She always has some nice boxes.»
«Nice boxes! How much are they?» he asked miserably.
«Well, you are a mean pig! How much are they? I like that, and after I’ve paid for the seats, too!»
«I’m sorry,» he stammered, «but – you see – I’ve only got one and sixpence.» He had paid tuppence on the bus, getting there.
«One and six!» Lena laughed. It was not an unfriendly laugh, but it was not a very sympathetic one either. «That’s worse than I was, before you brought that money, yesterday. It doesn’t matter, though. I don’t know that I do want any chocolate. But would you spend your wonderful one and six if I asked you to?»
«Yes, I would. Of course I would. If I’d» he added, as the curtains swept down on the smiling jugglers, «if I’d hundreds and hundreds of pounds, I’d spend them all if you asked me to. I would, honestly.»
«Oh, it’s easy to say that,» said Lena, not displeased, however, at his fervent tone. She gave him a brilliant glance, and no doubt remarked that his face was flushed and his eyes were at once hot and moist, as if he stared through a steam of embarrassed adoration.
Unfortunately, not all her brilliant glances were reserved for him, and that fact formed the basis of the second disturbing incident. There was a young man, a rather tall handsome chap with wavy hair, who was sitting with a girl in the row in front of them and a little to their right. Turgis had noticed that this fellow was turning round a good deal whenever the lights went up and that every time he did so his glance always came to rest finally on Lena. After this had happened several times he noticed that she was returning his glance. At last, during the interval, he caught her smiling, yes, actually smiling at the chap, instantly, he felt miserable, then angry, then miserable again. He could stand it no longer. «Do you know that chap there?» he asked, trying to appear light and easy.
«Which one? What are you talking about?»
«Well, you keep smiling at him– I mean, that one there, the chap who’s just had a permanent wave, by the look of hint.»
«Oh, the one who keeps looking around. He seems to think he knows me, doesn’t he? He’s rather attractive, as a matter of fact.»
«Well, I suppose as long as you think so, it’s all right, isn’t it?» said Turgis bitterly. He could feel a pain, a real pain, as bad as toothache, somewhere inside him.
«He doesn’t attract me,» he mumbled. «If you ask me, he looks a rotten twister – bit of a crook or something.» But in his heart he knew that the chap was taller and stronger and better‑looking and better‑dressed and altogether more important than he was, and he could have killed him for it.
«He doesn’t at all,» said Lena. Then she laughed and made a face at him. «You’re jealous, that’s all. And you oughtn’t to be jealous, it isn’t nice. I’ll smile at him again now. I think he’s lovely.»
When she said that and looked so determinedly in that fellow’s direction, Turgis was filled with a desire to take hold of her there and then dig his nails into her soft flesh, and hurt her until she screamed. He was suddenly shaken with the force of this desire, which was like nothing he had known before. But at that moment this little game of glancing and smiling came to an end, and the person who put a stop to it was the girl with the other man. She turned round too – and good luck to her, thought Turgis – then frowned and said something to her companion, and after that there was no more turning round and Lena divided her attention between the stage and Turgis, who was left in a queer state of mind and body.
J.B. Priestley
1. What words are used in their phraseologically‑bound meaning?
2. Look up the verbs to stand and to keep in a dictionary and define the type of their meaning in the text under analysis. Describe their prosody.
3. Write out all the evaluative adjectives and discuss them in terms of expressive‑synonymic meaning. What prosodic variant is used in this case?
4. What other words in the text can be discussed in terms of expressive‑synonymic meaning?
Exercise 4.Describe the semantic structures of the following words in terms of V.V.Vinogradov’s theory. Consult a dictionary.
head (n), chair (n); know (v), establish (v), fantastic (a), precious (a)
Exercise 5. Establish the types of meaning realized in the following sentences.
1. It was warm, but not hot yesterday. Come and get warmby the fire. She always gave me a warmwelcome.
2. Please, keepthe children quiet. If your hands are cold, keepthem in your pockets. Please, keepthe fire burning. She was tired but keptdancing. She can keepnothing back from her friends.
3. My cat has caught two birdstoday. He’s a queer bird.
Test Questions
1. What is polysemy?
2. What are the main types of lexical meaning?
3. What is meant by prosodic invariant?
Enantiosemy and Homonymy
Exercise 1. Read the text given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
Occasional little pains, however, were nothing compared with the relief of seeing the firm busy again. There had been times when he had almost hated going to the bank, or he had felt that even the cashiers were telling one another that Twigg & Dersingham were looking pretty rocky, but now it was a pleasure again. «Just going round to the bank, Turgis,» he would say, trying not to sound too important. (Not that it mattered with Turgis, who really thought Mr. Smeeth was important. But once or twice, when he had said something like this, he had caught a certain look, a kind of gleam, in Miss Matfield’s eye. With that young madam you never knew.) Then he would button up his old brown overcoat, which had lasted very well but would have to be replaced as soon as he got a rise, put on his hat, fill his pipe as he went down the steps, stop and light it outside, the Kwik‑Work Razor Blade place, and then march cozily with it down the chilled and smoky length of Angel Pavement. Everywhere there would be a bustle and a jostling, with the roadway a bedlam of hooting and clanging and grinding gears, but he had his place in it all, his work to do, his position to occupy, and so he did not mind but turned on it a friendly eye and indulgent ear. The bank, secure in its marble and mahogany, would shut out the raw day and the raw sounds, and he would quietly, comfortably wait his turn, sending an occasional jet of fragrant T.Beneden towards the ornamental grill.
«Morning, Mr. Smeeth,» they would say. «A bit nippy, this morning. How are things with you?» And then, if there was time for it, one of them might have a little story to tell, about one of those queer things that happen in the City. Then back again in the office, at his desk, and very cozy it was after the streets. The very sight of the blue ink, the red ink, the pencils and pens, the rubber, the paper fasteners, the pad and rubber stamps, all the paraphernalia of his desk, all there in their places, at his service, gave him a feeling of deep satisfaction. He felt dimly too that this was a satisfaction that none of the others there, Turgis, the girls, young Stanley, would ever know, simply because they never came to work in the right spirit. His own two children were just the same. They were all alike now. Earn a bit, grab it, rush out and spend it, that was their lives.
J.B. Priestley
1. What words in the text have
a) homonyms (lexical and lexical‑grammatical);
b) homophones.
2. Write out etymological homonyms and comment on the history of their development.
3. Apply the method of synchronic analysis to show that bank 1 – берег and bank 2 – банк are homonyms.
4. Read the text and discuss the prosodic arrangement of those words which have homonyms.
Exercise 2. Read the text given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
I rowed all night. Finally my hands were so sore I could hardly close them over the oars. We were nearly smashed up on the shore several times. I kept fairly close to the shore because I was afraid of getting lost on the lake and losing them. Sometimes we were so close we could see a row of trees and the road along the shore with the mountains behind. The rain stopped and the wind drove the clouds so that the moon shone through and looking back I could see the long dark point of Castagnola and the lake with white caps and beyond, the moon on the high snow mountains. Then the clouds came over the moon again and the mountains and the lake were gone, but it was much lighter than it had been before and we could see the shore. I could see it too clearly and pulled out where they would not see the boat if there were custom guards along the Pallanza road. When the moon came out again we could see white villas on the shores of the slopes of the mountains and the white road where it showed through the trees. All the time I was rowing. The lake widened and across it on the shore at the foot of the mountain on the other side we saw a few lights that should be Luino. I saw a wedge‑like gap between the mountains on the other shore and I thought that must be Luino. If it was we were making good time. I pulled in the oars and lay back on the seat. I was very, very tired of rowing. My arms and my shoulders and back ached and my hands were sore.
«I could hold the umbrella,» Catherine said. «We could sail with that with the wind.» «Can yon steer?»
«I think so.»
«You take this oar and hold it under your arm close to the side of the board and steer and I’ll hold the umbrella.»
I went back to the Stern and showed her how to hold the oar. I took the big umbrella the porter had given me and sat facing the bow and opened it. It opened with a clap. I held it on both sides, sitting astride the handle hooked over the seat. The wind was full in it and I felt the boat suck forward while I held as hard as I could to the two edges. It pulled hard. The boat was moving fast.
E. Hemingway
1. What types of homonymy (lexical, lexical‑grammatical, grammatical) can be observed in the text under analysis?
2. Show that the verb to row and the noun roware etymological homonyms. Consult an etymological dictionary.
3. What other examples of etymological homonymy can be observed in the text?
4. Dictionaries register bow 1‘piece of wood curved by a tight string, used for shooting arrows’ and bow 2 ‘front or forward of a ship or boat from where it begins to curve’. What kinds of homonymy do they illustrate? Quote examples of your own.
Exercise 3. Read the text given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
When I came back to the front we still lived in the town. There were many more guns in the country around and the spring had come. The fields were green and there were small shoots on the vines, the trees along the road had small leaves and a breeze came from the sea. I saw the town with the hill and the old castle above in a cap in the hills with the mountains beyond, brown mountains with a little green on their slopes. In the town there were guns, there were some new hospitals, you met British men and sometimes women, on the street, and a few more houses had been hit by shell‑fire. It was warm and like the spring and I walked down the alleyway of trees, warmed from the sun on the wall, and found we still lived in the same house and that it all looked the same as when I had left it. The door was open, there was a soldier sitting on a bench outside in the sun, an ambulance was waiting by the side door and inside the door, as I went in, there was the smell of marble floors and hospital. It was all as I had left it except that now it was spring. I looked in the door of the big room and saw the major sitting at his desk, the window open and the sunlight coming into the room. He did not see me and I did not know whether to go in and report or go upstairs first and clean up. I decided to go on upstairs.
E. Hemingway
1. Find in the text the following words and slovoforms, consult a dictionary and describe the types of homonymy they represent: spring, leaves, new, sun, found, left, sea, floors, see, side.
2. Show that spring 1 – весна and spring 2 – прыжок are homonyms. Apply the method of synchronic analysis.
3. Can homonymy be regarded as a defect of language development? Does it hamper communication? Quote examples from the text.
Test Questions
1. What is enantiosemy?
2. What is the difference between enantiosemy and homonymy?
3. What is the defference between etymological homonymy and homonymy as the ‘limit of polysemy’?
4. What is the difference between homonyms, homophones and homographs?
5. What does the synchronic analysis of homonyms consist in?
8. Paronymy*
Exercise 1. Read the following passages and comment on the expression plane of the word‑combinations in bold type. Which examples illustrate the paronymic attraction based on the repetition of a) a separate phoneme; b) a morpheme; c) a phonestheme?
The painter came gliding and glowingin. His hair slipping back, his eyes sliding off.
John Galsworthy
There are things he feels – there are things here which – well, which are things. Something unreasoning, unreasonableis upon him; when he tries to define it with the precision of a practical man, it eludes him, slips away.
John Galsworthy
Out of oneself! Out into soundless, touchless, sightless space! The very idea was ghastly, futile!
A touching there the bedrock of reality, the bottom of his Forsyte spirit, Soames rested for a moment.
When one ceased, all ceased…
John Galsworthy
A shattering peal of thunder blundered overhead; and down came the rain, slashing and sluicing.
John Galsworthy
Gumbril, Theodore Junior … speculated in his rapid and rambling way about the existence and the nature of God.
A. Huxley
Exercise 2.Read the following passages and comment on the stylistic functions fulfilled by the paronymic attraction.
Only good master, while we do aware
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let’s be no stoics nor no
Stocks, I play; –
W. Shakespeare
Styleis certainly a familiar word to many of us; but unfortunate‑ly to say that stylistics simply studies style does not clarify matters greatly.
David Crystal & Dereck Davy
He remembered, too, some cautious and cautionary allusions by ‘old Forsyte’.
John Galsworthy
The rich were out of her reach and the poor were beneath her contempt.
I. Shaw
«Money isn’t no object whatever to me,» said the lady, «so much as living in a state of retirement and obtrusion (seclusion)».
Ch. Dickens
Exercise 3. Describe the prosodic arrangement of paronymic attraction in the following passages. Comment on the interaction of segmental and suprasegmental phenomena in these cases.
|| \Bene 7 factors! || Well, 0 what \benefactors / are they? || 0 Are
slowly
they 0 not \male 7 factors? ||
W. Shakespeare
|| You would be sur 0 prised how · many · titled 7 gentlemen are looking for a \fortune to line their un\fortunate pockets.
slowly
H. Tucker
|| It was enough to stop him for a month. His pen, as he told me, was like the ugly orange feet. The people had contracted for a 7 swan, | and he was going to deliver a«4 swine. ||
slowly
R. Crichton
Test Questions
1. Why is paronymy considered to be a violation of the ‘law of the sign’?
2. What is meant by paronymic attraction?
3. What stylistic function does paronymic attraction perform in the fiction?
4. What segmental peculiarities of paronymic attraction do you know?
5. Why is the prosodic analysis of paronymic attraction so important?
Synonymy
Exercise 1. Read the text given below. Answer the questions and fulfil the tasks which follow it.
During the subsequent interval, Mrs. Dersingham had not the heart to return to the dining‑room, though she did just look in, put her face round the door and smile apologetically at everybody and say that it was too absurd and annoying and that the two of them, she and Mrs. Pearson, would be back in a few minutes. She spent the rest of the time superintending the salvage work outside the dining‑room door and helping to find enough fresh plates to warm. She felt hot, dishevelled and miserable. She could have cried. Indeed, that was why she did not slip upstairs to her bedroom to look at herself and powder her nose, for once there, really alone with herself, she was sure she would have cried. Oh, it was all too hateful for words!
«There!» And Mrs. Pearson stood before her, breathless, flushed and happy, and whipped off the lid of a silver dish.
«Oh,» cried Mrs. Dersingham in the very reek of the omelette, a fine large specimen, «You angel! It’s absolutely perfect.»
«I remembered we had some eggs, and then remembered we had a bottle of mushrooms tucked away somewhere, so I rushed upstairs and made this mushroom omelette. It ought to be nice. I used to be good with omelettes.»
«It’s marvellous. And I don’t know how to thank you, my dear.» And Mrs. Dersingham meant it. From that moment, Mrs. Pearson ceased to be a merely foolish if kindly neighbour and became a friend, worthy of the most secret confidences. In the steam of the omelette, rich as the smoke of burnt offerings, this friendship began, and Mrs. Dersingham never tasted a mushroom afterwards without being reminded of it.
«Don’t think of it, my dear,» said Mrs. Pearson happily, for her own life, after months of the dull routine of time‑killing had suddenly become crimson, rich and glorious. «Now have you got the plates ready? You must have this served at once, mustn’t you? Where’s that silly girl? Gone to bed? All right, then make the cook serve the rest of the dinner. She must have everything ready by this time. Call her, my dear. Tell her to bring up the plates.» And they returned at last to the dining‑room, two sisters out of burning Troy.
Alas, all was not well there. Something had happened during the interval of waiting. It was not the women, who were all sympathetic smiles and solicitude: Mrs. Trape even dropped the ventriloquial effect, actually disturbed the lower part of her face, in order to explain that she knew, no one better, what it was these days, when anything might be expected of that class; and Miss Verever, though retaining automatically some peculiarities of tone and grimace, contrived to say something reassuring. No, it was not the women, it was the men. Mr. Golspie looked like a man who had already said some brutal things and was fully prepared to say some more; Major Trape looked very stiff and uncompromising, as if he had just sentenced a couple of surveyors to be shot, Mr. Pearson gave the impression that he had been faintly tee‑teeing on both sides of a quarrel and was rather tired of it; and Mr. Dersingham looked uneasy, anxious, exasperated. There was no mistaking the atmosphere, in which distant thunder still rolled. The stupid men had to wait for the more substantial part of dinner, they had felt empty, then they had felt cross, and so they had argued, shouted, quarrelled, not all of them, perhaps, but certainly Mr. Golspie and Major Trape. Probably at any moment, they would begin arguing, shouting, quarrelling again. Mrs. Dersingham, very tired now and with a hundred little nerves screaming to be taken out of all this and put to bed, would have liked to bang their silly heads together.
J.B. Priestley
1. Write out cases of synonymic condensation and discuss their prosody.
2. Look up the words – components of synonymic condensation in a dictionary and comment on their semantics.
3. Analyse the segmental structure of synonymic condensation.
4. Discuss the rhythmical organization of synonymic condensation.
Exercise 2. Read the text given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
According to all the literary formulas, the wife of Mr. Smeeth should have been a grey and withered suburban drudge, a creature who had long forgotten to care for anything but a few household tasks, the welfare of her children, and the opinion of one or two chapel‑going neighbours, a mere husk of womanhood, in whom Mr. Smeeth could not recognize the girl he had once courted. But Nature, caring nothing for literary formulas, had gone to work in another fashion with Mrs. Smeeth. There was nothing grey and withered about her. She was only in her early forties, and did not look a day older than her age, by any standards. She was a good deal plumper than the girl Mr. Smeeth had married, twenty‑two years before, but she was no worse for that. She still had a great quantity of untidy brown hair, a bright blue eye, rosy cheeks, and a ripe moist lip. She came of robust country stock, and perhaps that is why she had been able to conjure any amount of bad food into healthy and jolly womanhood. By temperament, however, she was a real child of London, a daughter of Cockaigne. She adored oysters, fish and chips, an occasional bottle of stout or glass of port, cheerful gossip, hospitality, noise, jokes, sales, outings, comic songs, entertainments of any kind, in fact the whole rattling and roaring, laughing and crying, world of food and drink and bargaining and adventure and concupiscence. She liked to spend as much as she could, but apart from that would have been quite happy if the Smeeths had dropped to a lower social level. She never shared any of her husband’s worries and was indeed rather impatient of them, sometimes openly contemptuous, but she had no contempt, beyond that experienced by all deeply feminine natures for the male, for the man himself. He had been her sweetheart, he was her husband; he had given her innumerable pleasures, had looked after her, had been patient with her, had always been fond of her; and she loved him and was proud of what seemed to her his cleverness. She knew enough about life to realize that Smeeth was a really good husband and that this was something to be thankful for. (North London does not form any part of that small hot‑house world in which a good husband or wife regarded as a bore, perhaps as an obstacle in the pass of the partner’s self‑development.) Chasity for its own sake made no appeal to her, and she recognized with inward pleasure (though not with any outward sign) the glances that flirtatious and challenging males, in buses and shops and tea‑rooms, threw in her direction. If Mr. Smeeth had started any little games – as he frankly confessed – she would not have moaned and repined, but would have promptly «shown him» what she could do in that line. As it was, he did not require showing. He grumbled sometimes at her extravagance, her thoughtlessness, her other slapdash housekeeping, but in spite of all that, in spite too, of the fact that for two‑and twenty years they had been cooped up together in tiny houses, she still seemed to him an adorable person, at once incredible and delightful in the large, wilful, intriguing, mysterious mass of her femininity, the Woman among the almost indistinguishable crowd of mere women.
J.B. Priestley
1. Write out word‑combinations with adjectives in pre‑preposition and discuss them in terms of the opposition of attributive word‑combinations and synonymic condensation.
2. Specify the expression plane of attributive word‑combinations as opposed to synonymic condensation.
3. Are there any examples of homogeneous parts of the sentence which do not create a synonymic condensation?
4. Discuss synonymic condensation and attributive word‑combinations as functioning in written and oral speech.
Exercise 3. Read the text given below. Answer the questions and complete the tasks which follow it.
«Come along, Dad!» cried Mrs. Smeeth, pouring out the Rich Ruby Port for the ladies. «Buck up. Join in the fun.» She had herself a rich ruby look, for what with eating and drinking and shouting and laughing and singing, her face was crimson and almost steaming. Unfortunately,
Mr. Mitty overheard her. «That’s right,» he roared, drowning every other voice in the room. «Come on, Pa. Take your turn. No shirking. Take your turn, Pa. Show us a conjuring trick.»
«Oh, shut up, Fred,» Mrs. Mitty screamed, pretending to chide him, as usual, and really drawing attention to his astonishing drollery. «You’ve gone far enough.»
Mr. Smeeth could not do any conjuring, but if he had been given unlimited powers, he knew one trick he would have liked to perform that instant, a trick that involved the immediate disappearance of Mr. Fred Mitty. It was Saturday night, the little party was in full swing, and they were all in the front room, all that is except the Mitty girl and Edna, who had gone out together for an hour or so, probably round to the pictures. In addition to the Mitty pair, there were Dalby and Mrs. Dalby (whose sister told fortunes with cards). Mr. Smeeth had seen the room when it had had more people in it, but he had never known it when it had seemed so full. He had always thought of Dalby, who lived at 11, Chaucer Road, was a bandy‑legged insurance agent, and fancied himself as a wag and a great hand at parties, as a noisy chap, but compared with Fred Mitty he was quiet and decent and merely another Smeeth. It had not taken Mr. Smeeth ten minutes to discover that he disliked Mitty intensely, and every thing that Mitty had done and said since (and for the last hour or so he had insisted on calling Mr. Smeeth ‘Pa’) had only increased that dislike, which did not stop short at Fred, but extended to Mrs. Mitty and the girl, Dot. He had never known three people he had disliked more.
Mrs. Smeeth’s cousin was a fellow in his early forties who had probably not been bad‑looking once in a cheep flashy style. He had curly fair hair, very small, light‑coloured greedy eyes, a broken nose, a large loose mouth that went all out to one side when he talked. He reminded Mr. Smeeth at once of those cheap auctioneer chaps who take an empty shop for a week or two and pretend they are giving everything away. Mr. Mitty’s complexion seemed to be permanently rich and ruby, and it had evidently cost somebody a good deal in its time, though – as Mr. Smeeth assured himself, vindictively – not necessarily Mr. Mitty himself, who clearly brought out visiting with him a colossal thirst and appetite. He was a funny man, a determined wag, and the noisiest Mr. Smeeth had ever known. He shouted all the time, just like one of those cheap auctioneers. His jokes gave you a pain in the stomach and his voice a headache. Moreover, he seemed to
Mr. Smeeth quite obviously a silly boaster, a liar, and a man not to be trusted a yard. Such men frequently ally themselves to quiet little women, but Fred Mitty – fortunately for some quiet little woman – had found a female of his own kind. Mrs. Mitty, who had a long blue nose and hair that was bright auburn at the ends and grey‑brown near the roots, was as brassy as her husband. Her scream accompanied his roar. If she said anything playful to you, she hit your nearest rib with her bony elbow; and if you said anything playful to her, she slapped you on the arm. Here she differed from Fred, who banged you on the back and poked you in the ribs, unless you were a woman and not too old, and then he bugged you or invited you to sit on his knee. Dot, the solitary offspring of this brassy pair, was all legs and golden curls and a hard blue stare. She talked of becoming a film actress. Mr. Smeeth, who did not know much about Hollywood, but nevertheless had a horror of the place, told her quite sincerely that he hoped she would get there, and added, with perfect truth, that she reminded him of those Broadway girls on the pictures. Edna of course – the silly child – had been fascinated at once by Dot; and as for Mrs. Smeeth, who really had no more sense about people at times than a baby, she seemed to be infatuated with all three of them.
J.B. Priestley
1. Find the examples of stylistic and ideographic synonymy in the text under analysis.
2. Read those sentences in which there are attributive word‑com‑binations with more than one attribute and describe their prosody.
3. What is the difference between a bandy‑legged insurance agent and a long blue nose in terms of prosody? Find other examples of the same kind.
4. Account for the comma in the word‑combination very small, light‑coloured greedy eyes.
5. Describe the prosody of the sentence «She had herself a rich ruby look…». What is the function of the conjunction andin this sentence?
Test Questions
1. Give the definition of synonymy.
2. What types of synonyms do you know?
3. What is meant by synonymic condensation?
4. What is the difference between the synonymic condensation and the attributive word‑combination?
5. What rhythmical regularities are peculiar to synonymic conden‑sation?
Phraseology
Exercise 1.Read the text given below. Answer the questions and do the tasks that follow it.
On the day of Paul’s arrival in London he rang up his old friend and arranged to dine with him at the Queen’s Restaurant in Sloane Square. It seemed quite natural that they should be seated at the table where they had discussed so many subjects ofpublic importance, budgets and birth control and Byzantine mosaics. For the first time since the disturbing evening of the Bollinger dinner he felt at ease. Llanabba Castle with its sham castellations and preposterous inhabitants, had sunk into the oblivion that waits upon even the most lurid nightmares. (…) For an evening at least the shadow that has flitted about this narrative under the name of Paul Pennyfeather materialized into the solid figureof an intelligent, well‑educated, well‑conducted young man. A man who could be trusted to use his vote at ageneral electionwith discretion and proper detachment, whose opinion on a ballet or a critical essaywas rather better than most people’s, who could order a dinner without embarrassment and in a creditable French accent, who could be trusted to see to luggage at foreign railway‑stations and might be expected to acquit himself with decision and decorum in all the emergencies of civilized life. This was the Paul Pennyfeather who had been developing in the placid years which preceded this story.
Evelyn Waugh
1. Find phraseological units in the above text and discuss them in terms of
a) A.I.Smirnitskij’s classification and
b) V.V.Vinogradov’s classification.
2. What is the difference between the expressions to sit at the table and to sink into the oblivion?
3. Apply the method of categorial analysis to the attributive word‑combinations in bold type.
4. Comment on the prosody of attributive word‑combinations in the utterance beginning with «Llanabba Castle with its sham castel‑lations….»
Exercise 2.Read the text given below. Answer the questions and do the tasks that follow it.
At dinner Margot talked about matters of daily interest, about some jewels she was having reset, and how they had come back all wrong; and how all the wiring of her London house was being overhauled because of the fear of fire; and how the man she had left in charge of her villa at Cannes had made a fortune at the Casino and given her notice, and she was afraid she might have to go out to arrange about it; and how the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings was demanding a guarantee that she would not demolish her castle in Ireland; and how her cook seemed to be going off her head that night, the dinner was so dull; and how Bobby Postmaster was trying to borrow money from her again, on the grounds that she had misled him when she bought his house and that if he had known she was going to pull it down he would have made her pay more.
Evelyn Waugh
1. What is the difference between to talk about and to go out in the above passage? Write out examples of phrasal verbs.
2. Discuss the expressions in bold type in terms of Smirnitskij’s classification of phraseological units.
3. Write out verbal word‑combinations of the V+ N type and apply to them the categorial method of analysis.
4. Are there any free word‑combinations in the passage under analysis?
Exercise 3.Comment on the use of idioms proper in the the following texts.
1. «I suppose you might say all’s well that ends well.»
«Very apt, sir.»
I mused again.
«All the same, your methods are a bit rough, Jeeves.»
«One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, sir.»
«Omelette! Do you think you could get me one?»
«Certainly, sir.»
P.G. Wodehouse
2. «For all I know, she may be coming on the next train.»
«No, she’s not. He headed her off.»
«You had that straight from the horses’s mouth?»
«Direct from her personal lips.»
I drew a deep breath. This certainly put a brighter aspect on the cloud wreck. In fact, it seemed to me that ‘Hallelujah’ about summed it up, and I mentioned it.
P.G. Wodehouse
3. «Is that really so? You are pulling my leg!»
«I am not pulling your leg, nothing can induce me to pull your beast‑ly leg.»
P.G. Wodehouse
Test Questions
1. What is meant by ‘phraseological unit’?
2. What does the categorial method of analysis consist in?
3. What results does the prosodic analysis of phraseological units and idioms proper yield?
4. What is ‘deformation of an idiom’?
5. What types of phraseology can be singled out in the dictionary?
Chapter 2.
Lexicography
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