Реферат на тему Analysis of semantic classification of vocabulary items (Анализ семантической классификации слов)

Содержание:

Introduction 3
1. Substance of the concept of word-formation 4
2. The semantic structure of the word 11
3. Some peculiarities of word-formation 14
Conclusion 17
References 18

Введение:

The developing of a language is closely related to the history of the Society. Social processes have an impact on the changing of the external level of languages and a structure of a national language in the ratio as forms of its existence and social strata. The consolidation all sciences of a human (sociology, psychology, physiology, ethnography) was observed with the resource of linguistics to a speech. The emergence of new sciences (psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics and etc.) was based on it. It became apparent that it is impossible to study a speech without a speaker: as a representative of definite culture; of a definite social collective; and as an individual who have own subjective characteristics. A language is constantly inseparable from a human and there is no human without own subjective perceptions and subjective assessment.
Language is a social phenomenon, and each language has its own grammar. New words in the language are formed according to certain rules, models, schemes — on certain patterns that form a certain language mechanism, which is called word formation. The relevance of the study is caused by a number of reasons: the desire to improve the teaching and learning of foreign languages; necessity to build a methodology for teaching a non-native language, taking into account the characteristic features of the native language; optimization of teaching foreign languages in the whole.
Such scientists as I.V. Arnold, B. Illish, M. Deutschbein, G.A. Сurme, O. Esperson and many others have investigated the problem of semantic classification of words.
The problem of the study is a necessity to consider English words as vocabulary items; the aim is to consider semantic classification of vocabulary item. According to this aim, the following tasks are set in the study:
− to consider a substance of the concept of word-formation in English;
− to investigate the semantic structure of the word;
− to consider semantic-grammatical peculiarities of word-formation.

Заключение:

Thus, the word is the main structural-semantic unit of the language, which serves to name objects and their properties, phenomena, relations of reality, possessing a set of semantic, phonetic and grammatical features specific to each language. The following structures are distinguished in the word: phonetic (organized set of sound phenomena forming the sound envelope of the word), morphological (set of morphemes), semantic (set of word meanings).
Thus, in English word formation is a means of enriching speech. However, English grammar does not have a system that is decisive in the process of learning the language. A language has grammatical number according to the quantity they express, in case that its nouns are separated into morphological classes. Every noun belongs to number partitions nouns into disjoint classes or a single number class. The noun as a part of speech plays an important role. The noun is that part of the speech that designates the object. It has gender, number, case, it can be animate or inanimate. In this case, the meaning of objectivity is a grammatical abstract meaning that is inherent in all nouns. There are several types of word formation: rhyming compound words, affixation, merger, reduction, abbreviations, creating new words and a creative change in the spelling of a word.
Thus, the aim set in the course work is achieved, the tasks are fulfilled: was considered a substance of the concept of word-formation in English; was investigated the semantic structure of the word and semantic-grammatical peculiarities of word-formation.

Фрагмент текста работы:

1. Substance of the concept of word-formation
The twentieth century is very important in the history of linguistics. This is because many linguistic theories came to the lime-light and many linguists initiated many theories in different fields of linguistics, which are morphology, syntax, semantics and phonology. For instance, it was at this period that in morphology the different approaches to identify morphemes and the relationship between morphemes and words were made manifest. In English, as in others, word formation is a means of enriching speech. However, English grammar does not have a system that is decisive in the process of learning the language. The rules understood by the speakers represent specific models or regularities in the way words are formed from smaller units. The vocabulary, or lexicon, of the English language, like any other, is in a state of continuous change. One of the laws of the development of the vocabulary of the language is its replenishment with new words. Replenishment is through the formation of new words — word formation. In this process, the relationship between word formation and grammar is manifested, in particular, with morphology. New words are written in accordance with the grammar of the English language, according to the pattern of already existing words in the language and refer to a certain part of the speech. In this way, morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies patterns of word-formation within and across languages, and formulates rules that model the knowledge of the speakers of those languages.
Traditionally, are distinguished three periods in the history of the development of the English word-formation: [1, p.172]
1) The Ancient Period is from V-VII century to the middle of the XI century. The ancestors of the English — the Germanic tribes of Angles, Saxons and Utes, moved to the British Isles in the middle of the 5th century. In this era their language was similar to the Low German and Frisian (the western group of Germanic languages), but later its development it is slightly moved away from the other Germanic languages. During the Old English period, the language varied little, not deviating from the line of development of the Germanic languages, but there was the expansion of the dictionary.
2) The average period during XI-XV centuries. It is characterized as the period of trilingualism. The basis of the English language remained German, but it included a large number of old French words.
3) New period from the XVI century — up to the present. With the development of book printing and the mass distribution of books, the normative book language is fixed; phonetics and the spoken language continue to change, gradually moving away from the vocabulary norms.
Old English had cases, but in contemporary English language, one can notice cases and declension mostly in personal pronouns. The question about category of case in English for nowadays has discussion character. It depends on approach which author uses in this problem; to English language were given different numbers of cases. M. Deibchain assumed understanding of case as combination of preposition with noun in initial form; he supposed that there are four cases in English language: nominative, genitive (possessive), dative and accusative. Nevertheless, fundamentally, this version of the problem of case was represented in wrong way, so far as case is word form, which has corresponding to case morpheme, as –’s in English.
It is interesting to note, in conclusion, that there is a change going on in present-day English which runs counter to the general trend towards loss of inflections, that is the spreading of ‘s-genitive at the expense of the of-genitive. The ‘s-genitive was used in certain expressions of time and distance (an hour’s time), and could be used with many nouns replaceable in the singular by it or they (the Government’s decision); as is well known, there was also a number of commonly used phrases where the ‘s-genitive was used even though the noun was one which could be replaced in the singular only by it (New Year’s Day, the water’s edge). In recent years, however, the ‘s-genitive has come into common use with nouns which are replaceable in the singular only by it. Here are a few examples taken from reputable sources: resorts’ weather → the weather of seaside towns; human nature’s diversity → the diversity of human nature; the game’s laws → the laws of the game. Many more examples will be found in books and in newspapers. We cannot fail to see that this tendency for ‘s to replace of is a development from the analytic to the synthetic: the of-phrase is replaced by the ‘s-inflection.
All English words can be divided into three classes — simple, derivative and complex. [3, p. 21] Simple are words consisting of one root. Derived words are formed by attaching to the initial word prefixes and suffixes, which together are called affixes. Knowledge of the derivational affixes of English nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs allows not only to easily form one or another part of speech from an already familiar word, but also to determine the meaning of a word without using a dictionary.
A compound word is a word obtained as a result of the addition of two or more words or their bases in one word.
Word formation in Germanic languages, and in particular in German, is very well developed. A large number of parts of words allow one to collect different words, sometimes very significantly changing the meaning of the word-parent.
New words are formed in accordance with the laws of the grammatical structure of the English language, they are created on the basis of already existing words in the language, and are always formulated as a specific part of speech (noun, adjective, verb, adverb, etc.) with all the signs of this part of speech. In English, there are several ways of word formation, including affixation (prefixation and suffixation), conversion, change of stress, alternation of sounds, composing, abbreviation, etc.
It is natural, as English and German are close relatives, both the languages belonging to the same West Germanic subgroup of the Germanic group of the Indo-European family of languages. It is worth to investigate more circumstantially the category of number of Nouns in English and in German in order to search more about the differences and similarities of both.
In this process, direct changes are reflected in the constant changes in the vocabulary of the language, caused by significant changes in the life of our society. The process of word formation, associated with vocabulary, and with grammar. The connection with vocabulary is expressed in the completion of the vocabulary of the language of new words, the need for which is born of life itself.
The connection with the grammar is manifested in the fact that new words are usually formed according to existing models, located according to the grammatical categories that are inherent in the language. The double contact of word formation with vocabulary and grammar finds its expression in the variety of ways of forming words.
The subject of word formation is the word. It is studied, firstly, from the point of view of the morpheme composition and, secondly, based on the word-formation methods of the word. Word formation with a special syntax. Thus, complex and complex words are formed on the basis of word combinations.
The word-formation object is the derived word. However, derivative words are also studied in other sections of linguistics. In word formation, derivative words are studied not in themselves, not as separate units, but in their relationship with the producing base, in their relation to other derived words, in particular, with the same type in their structure, i.e. analogous to the word-formation method, according to some model of structure or similar word-formation to semantics. Thus. As the language units studied in word formation, certain groups of words should be considered: associations, categories of words) that share common formal and semantic features.
Words as a unit of language are characterized by a unity of form and content, i.e. unity of material expression and meaning, therefore, the task of word formation involves studying the derivative of vocabulary, not only in terms of expression, but also of content, i.e. in the aspect of word-building semantics. The derived word can be distinguished by lexical and derivational meanings, ex: run — start running — the beginning of the action. One can find this derivational meaning in other words.
The set of derivatives, the same and the same production chain and place on one level of word-production is called the word-formation paradigm. The use of this term is analogous to the use of the term «morphological paradigm». Its introduction helps to establish an isomorphism between word formation and morphology. Just as the word forms of deviation and the morphological paradigms, the totality of the derivatives from the same word forms its derivational paradigm. The concept of the word-forming paradigm is young in the theory of synchronous word-formation. Its origin is connected with the search for isomorphism between the structure of different systems of language, the desire to reveal paradigmatic relations between units of word formation. Like morphological paradigms, the word-formation paradigms have a constant term (a base which is producing) and variable terms (derivational affixes). Unlike the morphological paradigms that unite the word forms of one word, the word-formation paradigms unite different words, including the words of different parts of speech, and do not close the word serving as the generating for the members of the paradigm.
According to the definition of the concept of word-formation it is possible to say some word about word-formation in English. As is known, the category of a noun has its morphological and semantic features. The word «noun» comes from the Latin name, meaning «name». Classes of words, such as nouns, were first described by the Sanskrit grammar Panini and the ancient Greeks, such as Dionysius the Tracts, and were determined from the point of view of their morphological properties. For example, in Ancient Greek the nouns can be distorted for a grammatical case, for example, of a dative or accusative character. On the other hand, verbs can be distorted for times such as past, present or future, while nouns cannot.
In the prevailing modern English terminology, the terms «noun» and «basic» are used synonymously. According to an earlier opinion, the term «noun» is understood as encompassing all nominal parts of speech, including nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numbers, which corresponds to the Russian term «name».
It should be noted, that in traditional school grammars there are often definitions of nouns that they are all and only those expressions that refer to a person, place, object, event, essence, quality or idea, etc. This is a semantic definition. He was criticized by modern linguists as very uninformative. Part of the problem is that the definition uses relatively common nouns («thing», «phenomenon», «event») to determine what nouns are. The existence of such common nouns shows us that nouns are organized in taxonomic hierarchies.
It is possible to distinguish the following classification of nouns in English: [10, p. 14]
1. Proper nouns and common nouns
Proper nouns (or proper names) are the names of unique entities. Such as, “Kate”, “Pluto” and “Russia” are proper nouns. Proper nouns are usually capitalized in the most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, including in English itself and this is one easy way to recognize them. In German nouns of all types are capitalized, though. The convention of capitalizing all nouns was previously used in English, but has long fallen into disuse.
All other nouns are called common nouns. Thus, “woman”, “planet”, and “continent” are common nouns. It should be noticed that sometimes the same word can function as both a common noun and a proper noun, where one such entity is special. [6, p. 42]
The general meaning of the word or words composing a proper noun may be unrelated to the object to which the proper noun refers. Thus, someone might be named “See Salt” spite of being neither a See nor a salt. With this purpose, although they may be transliterated between languages, proper nouns are usually not translated. For example, the German surname Knödel, instead of being translated like the literal “Dumpling”, becomes Knodel or Knoedel in English.
2. Countable nouns and uncountable nouns
Countable nouns (or count nouns) are such nouns that may take a plural, may take an indefinite article («a» or «an») and may combine with quantifiers or numerals («two», «every», «several», «most»). Examples of countable nouns are “label”, “ear”, and “occasion”. Uncountable nouns (or mass nouns) differ from countable nouns in precisely that respect: they can’t neither combine with number words nor take quantifiers plural or. English examples include “joker”, “cutlery” and «furniture». For example, it is not possible to refer to “a cutlery” or “three cutlures”.
Names of names are countable and uncountable. Countable Nouns (countable names) can be counted and put in a plural form — three guns, eight cats, one hundred cookies. That is, they have noun numbers in English. Names without numbers have one single form — single or multiple. Take for example trousers. We do not say «One rod» — it would be absurd. Similarly, there are «two Communisms» (Two Communism), since communism is always one. To neizisilevaemim also include the name of the materials (Iron, Wood).
Collective common names always have the form of a singular, but mean a group of persons or things. However, not all so unambiguously. In some cases, the same words can be both countable and not countable.
3. Collective Nouns
This noun, which in one word means a group (people, animals or birds) can be called collective one. Collective nouns in the singular can be consistent with verbs in the plural or singular. This is understandable, because these words unite individual units into one unit. Therefore, the collective noun itself can be viewed from two positions: as one whole or as many components (which enter into this whole). The most commonly used is the plural.
Among the basic types of word formation should be noted affixation and prefixation. Affixation is in attaching to the roots or the basics of suffixes and prefixes (prefixes). The prefixes are appended at the beginning of the word, and the suffixes are appended at the end.
New words are formed by attaching attachments to the roots and basics and do not move to another part of the speech. Prefixes perform mainly the semantic function. [11, p. 84]
There exist also concrete nouns are considered to stress those objects in which are used at least one of your senses. Thus, “woman”, “planet” “continent” or «Kate». Abstract nouns on the other hand refer to ideas or concepts, such as “justice” or “hate”. Although this diversity is sometimes useful, the border between the two of them is not always clear. In English, many abstract nouns are formed by adding such noun-forming suffixes, as “-ity”, “-ness”, “-tion” to verbs or adjectives.

2. The semantic structure of the word
The semantic structure of the word is an ordered set of interrelated elements, forming a generalized model in which the lexical-semantic variants are opposed to each other and are characterized relative to each other.
The lexical-semantic variant is a bilateral unit, the formal side of which is the sound form of the word, and the content side is one of the meanings of the given word. Words that have only one meaning are represented in the language by one lexical-semantic variant, multi- meaning words — by the number of lexical-semantic variants, corresponding to the number of its different meanings.
An analysis of the meaning of a word indicates that words usually have more than one meaning. There exist relatively few words that have one meaning − mono-semantic. These usually include scientific terms, for example: hydrogen, molecule. Most English words are multi-meaning words. The more often a word is used, the more meanings it has. For example, the word table has at least 9 meanings in modern English: 1) a piece of furniture; 2) the persons seated at the table; 3) sing. the food put on the table, meals; 4) a thin flat piece of stone, metal, wood, etc.; 5) pl. slabs of stone; 6) words cut into them or written on them (the ten tables); 7) an orderly arrangement of facts, figures, etc.; 8) part of a machine-tool on which the work is put to be operated on; 9) a level area, a plateau.
Words that have multiple meanings are called polysemantic. It follows that the concept of semantic structure is applicable only to multi meaning words, since the semantic structure, in essence, is the structure of lexical-semantic variant; and if the word has only one lexical-semantic variant, it cannot have lexical-semantic variant structures.
The semantic structure of the word includes a set of lexical-semantic variants, in a certain way organized and forming an ordered set, hierarchy. There are various classifications reflecting the difference in the approaches to the semantic structure of a word and to the hierarchical connections of its elements.
Applying a synchronous approach to the study of the semantic structure of a word, one can single out the following main types of meanings: [13, p. 152]
▪ the main meaning of the word, revealing the most paradigmatic tightness and relative independence from the context;
▪ partial (secondary, derived) meanings, which, on the contrary, show the highest syntagmatic tightness and are not due to a noticeable degree to paradigmatic relations;
▪ nominative meaning, which is directly aimed at objects, phenomena, actions and qualities of reality;
▪ nominative-derived meaning, which is secondary to it. For example, in the word hand, the meaning of ‘terminal part of human arm beyond the wrist’ (give me your hand) is nominative, and the meanings of ‘a thing like a hand’ (the hour hand, the minute hand), ‘an employee who works with his hands’ (the factory has taken on two hundred extra hands) are nominative derivatives;
▪ direct (proper) meaning, directly related to objects and phenomena of material reality, it can be revealed by familiarizing with the realities themselves, the latter acting in this regard as an indispensable condition and an objective criterion for determining the semantic volume of a word;
▪ figurative (metaphorical), which is acquired by a word as a result of its conscious use in speech to designate a subject that is not its usual or natural referent. Portable meanings are derived from direct meanings according to certain models of semantic derivation and are realized only in certain contextual conditions. They not only call the object or phenomenon, but also characterize it based on similarity with any other object or phenomenon. The semantic structure of the verb to die includes the following lexical-semantic variant: 1) cease to live, expire (direct meaning); 2) to lose vital force, become weak, faint (Hope / interest dies; the noise / the conversation died); 3) to be forgotten, lost (His fame will never die); 4) decay (flowers / plants die). It should be said that meanings 2, 3, 4 are figurative.
The meaning of ‘time’ of the word ‘sand’ is figurative: The sands are running out; also ‘win’ in the word ‘land’: She landed a rich husband; He landed the first prize.
In terms of naming and social purpose, meanings are divided into conceptual and stylistic. Conceptual are such lexical meanings, in which the subject-conceptual orientation is leading and decisive; stylistic (cultural-historical) are such meanings in which the function of naming and designating objects and concepts is combined with the function of characterizing the words themselves. [12, p. 117]
Among conceptual lexical meanings, abstract meanings are distinguished. For example, witness – 1) evidence, testimony; and specific ones, for example, witness – 2) a person who has first-hand knowledge of an event and is ready to describe it; 3) a person who gives evidence under oath in a law court; 4) a person who puts his signature to a document; nominal and proper nominative and nominative (pronominal meanings). Special meanings characteristic of terms and professionalism are highlighted.
Within analyzing the correlation of words in language and speech, the concepts of intensional meaning (word meaning as a unit of language) and extensional meaning (acquired by a word in this context of its verbal use) are used. To denote the meaning of the word «as such», in abstraction from the whole set of conceivable speech situations of its use, the term dictionary meaning is also often used.
On the other hand, “speech” meanings are subdivided into customary and occasional meanings. Customary meanings are adopted in language established meanings, in which a word is usually and naturally used, that is, reflecting syntagmatic connections characterizing the word’s own semantics. Occasional meanings are assigned to a given word in a given context of speech use and represent a departure from the usual and generally accepted, ie, meanings that, not being the result of a regular combination of words, are exclusively contextual. [7, p. 115] For example, the meaning of the verb to seat in the sentence «where shall I sit all these people?» is customary, in the sentence “She went into the living-room and sat on the edge of a chair so as not to seat her good grosgrain suit” the meaning is occasional.
Using the diachronic approach means classifying meanings according to their genetic characteristics and according to their increasing or decreasing role in the language and allows the selection of the following types of meanings:
▪ the original (initial) meanings and derivatives derived from them. For example, in the semantics of the word pipe the source meaning is ‘musical wind-instrument consisting of a single tube’, and derivatives — ‘tube of wood, metal, etc., especially for conveying water, gas, etc.’; ‘narrow tube of clay, wood, etc. with bowl at one end for drawing in smoke of tobacco’.
Moreover, with such a classification, it is often necessary to distinguish an intermediate meaning, which is diachronically one of the links in the semantic development of a word between the original and already established derived meanings.

3. Some peculiarities of word-formation
In general, word production is the creation of words by changing the root without adding any other roots. It often happens that a portion of the speech changes. Compositions are the formation of new words from two or more root morphemes. Such words are called complex words. In linguistics, compound words can be both native and borrowed.
Aboriginal English roots are usually free morphemes, which means that native compound words can consist of independent words that can be found separately. [10, p. 88] Thus it is:
1. Rhyming Compound Words (subtype of compound words). These words consist of two rhyming words. For example:
– lovey-dovey;
– chiller-killer.
2. Affixation (subtype of word formation). The most common type of word formation is the addition of one or more affixes to the root, as in the word derivation (wordproduction). This process is called affixation, a term denoting prefixation and suffixation.
3. Merger – is one of the most beloved word-formation processes in the English language. He becomes especially creative when the speaker takes two words and connects them together based on the sound composition. The result is what we call hybrid words.
4. Reduction – is a type of word formation, when a part of a shortened word means in essence the same as a full word. For example, the word rifle is the usual abbreviation of the earlier complex word rifle gun, which means a rifled gun (rifle). Another shortcut: the burger, formed from the word hamburger.
5. Abbreviations. They are formed from the initial letters of the phrase. Classical acronyms are pronounced as words. The word Scuba was formed from the phrase self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (breathing apparatus for swimming under water). Sometimes, not only letters but syllables are taken, for example:
– radar — RAdio Detection And Ranging;
– gestapo — GEheime STAatsPOlizei, «The Secret National Police».
These are unusual abbreviations.
Another special case of the formation of abbreviations, when the letters are pronounced as in the alphabet, and not in accordance with the rules of pronunciation in the English language. This applies to the names of many organizations. For example: NAACP; UN; IMF.
6. Creating new words. During creating new words, the speaker or writer does not resort to the use of other morphemes. The word is invented anew. Some examples of once invented, now traditional words: blimp, googol (math term), bling, and perhaps the word slang, which appeared 200 years ago, and the etymology is not traced. Some newly created words seem to carry a «sound attribute», which is related to their meaning.
7. A creative change in the spelling of a word. Thus, sometimes words are created by a simple change in writing. Such word creation can be observed in the name of goods and products, for example, Mr. Kleen.
In modern languages, there are two ways of word formation: morphemic and non-morphic.
The morphemic way of word formation is characterized in general by the fact that new words are created depending on which word-forming morpheme participates in creating a new word, distinguish such morphemic ways of word-formation: [14, p. 71]
1) The suffixal way of word-formation is the production of a new word by adding to the generating basis the word-forming suffix.
2) The prefixal way of word-formation is the formation of a new word by adding to the whole generating word the word-formative prefix (prefix). Unlike the suffix, the prefix forms new words within the same part of the speech.
3) The prefix-suffix method is the production of a new word by concurrently attaching a prefix and a suffix to the producing basis.
Feminine and neuter gender as the distinction of nouns into masculine may be expressed lexically by means of different words or word-compounds: father – mother; man – woman; boy – girl; gentleman – lady; husband – wife; cock – sparrow − hen – sparrow; boy – friend; man − servant – maid – servant.