Pavlk2017EnglishLexicologyI-1
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Example:
A:When are you going to marry me?
B:When hell freezes over.
A:You really are an arrogant S.O.B.
B:You can say that again.
A:
B:
A:
B:
6 Determine whether the following words and phrases have a positive or a negative emotive charge. Translate them into Slovak.
(a) honey |
(i) bite the dust |
(b) off one’s rocker |
(j) sugarplum |
(c) sicko |
(k) teeny-tiny |
(d) knee-high to a grasshopper |
(l) sloshed |
(e) tipsy |
(m) with flying colours |
(f) numbskull |
(n) scumbag |
(g) fop |
(o) sweetheart |
(h) pass away |
(p) exotic dancer |
7 Determine the meaning of the following words within particular collocations. Translate them into Slovak.
GREAT |
NIGHT |
of great importance |
last night |
the great majority |
Saturday night |
a great artist |
the first night |
great problems |
the other night |
a great idea |
good night |
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KEEP
keep a shop keep pigs
keep one’s word keep a diary keep good time keep quiet
keep trying keep sb waiting
POINT
make a point go to the point at one point
the freezing point what’s the point to score a point
a sharp point
a TV antenna point
7.3 Sentence and utterance meaning
We have learned so far that word meaning is a conglomerate of various types of meaning: grammatical, denotational, connotative, social, etc. Words, however, normally do not occur in isolation – they are combined together to form sentences. In order for a sentence to convey meaning, we usually rely on the meaning of the words it contains. Nevertheless, the meaning of a sentence is often not a mere sum of the meanings of the individual words. For example, the components of the following sentences are identical, but their meanings are not:
John saw Susan. |
Susan saw John. |
It is obvious that the way words are ordered in the sentence is often important to the interpretation of sentence meaning. Furthermore, some sentences may have no meaning not because they are grammatically ill-formed, but because the semantic scopes of the words are violated. Consider the following examples:
Peter likes beer. |
Beer likes Peter. |
The second sentence is nonsensical (but grammatically well-formed), because beer is an inanimate object and cannot show emotions, such as hate, love, etc. In other words, actions expressed by animate entities (loving, hating, feeling, reading, running, etc.) are not in the semantic scope (semantic selection) of the word beer. Sentence meaning can therefore be defined in terms of the combination of at least 3 components:
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(a)the (literal) meaning of the individual words,
(b)the order of the words,
(c)the semantic scope of these words.
Nevertheless, deciphering the meaning of individual sentences is usually not enough to be able to communicate effectively. That is, the meaning of a sentence is often concretized only in context. The meaning that sentences have on a particular occasion and in a particular context is called utterance meaning. For example the following sentences have several different meanings, and only their use in context will disambiguate them.
He’s a conductor.
John was looking for the glasses.
I saw her dress.
Pull your socks up!
The sentences above are ambiguous in their meaning – the first two sentences are ambiguous due to the homonymy of the words conductor and glass, the third sentence has two possible syntactic interpretations, and the last example can be interpreted either literally or metaphorically.
EXERCISES
1 Study the following sentence. How many different utterance meanings can you detect?
I saw a man on the hill with a telescope.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(The Internet)
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2 Look at the phrases in the box. Use them in the sentences below. Comment on utterance meaning.
what the hell |
take care |
not at all |
that’s it |
take off |
pick up |
|
|
(a)I picked up a virus while I was in America.
(b)"Thanks for helping." "____________."
(c)Carlos just ____________ for Venezuela for three weeks.
(d)Bye! ____________!
(e)‘Would you mind helping me with my suitcase?’ ‘____________.’
(f)Don’t worry about me, I can ____________ of myself.
(g)He ____________ the letter and read it.
(h)I felt quite excited as the plane ____________ from Heathrow.
(i)The dogs ____________ the scent and raced off.
(j)If you can see to the drinks for the party, I’ll ____________ of the food.
(k)I’m afraid ____________ – we’ve lost.
(l)It means I’ll be late for work but ____________!
(m)____________ your room before you go to bed.
(n)She was told to go to the washroom and ____________her lipstick.
(o)Slowly ... slowly. Yeah, ____________.
(p)____________ that you don’t fall.
(q)____________. I give up.
(r)____________ is going on here?
(s)She’s ____________ happy about the situation.
(t)I’ll ______ you ____ at the station.
(OALD, CALD, LDCE)
3 Analyse these real but ambiguous newspaper headlines. Determine the intended meaning and also the other, more amusing, interpretation.
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(a)Kids make nutritious snacks
(b)Milk drinkers are turning to powder
(c)Prostitutes appeal to Pope
(d)Eye drops off shelf
(e)Queen Mary having bottom scraped
(f)Drunk gets nine months in violin case
(g)Panda mating fails; Veterinarian takes over
(h)Police begin campaign to run down jaywalkers
(i)Safety experts say school bus passengers should be belted
(j)Astronaut takes blame for gas in spacecraft
(k)Quarter of a million Chinese live on water
(l)Include your children when baking cookies
(m)Two Soviet ships collide, one dies
(n)Lack of brains hinders research
(o)Red tape holds up new bridge
(p)Reagan wins on budget, but more lies ahead
(q)Miners refuse to work after death
(r)End to free school looms
(www.fun-with-words.com; www.alta.asn.au)
7.4 Semantic changes
The lexical meaning of words is prone to various changes or semantic shifts. This means that a particular word either loses some of its components of meaning or acquires new components of meaning. When a word has acquired a new meaning and this meaning is related to (derived from) the original meaning, we speak of polysemy. Such words are therefore referred to as polysemous. There are several types of semantically motivated changes.
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Specialization and Generalization
Two common types of change are specialization and generalization. Specialization (narrowing) of meaning entails restricting the word’s range of reference. For example, the English word liquor used to refer to liquid of any kind. Today it is used only to refer to alcohol. Generalization (broadening), on the other hand, is a process in which a word’s meaning changes to encompass a broader group of referents, e.g. the word bird originally only referred to a young bird, while nowadays it is used in a general sense.
Metaphor
The term metaphor / metəfɔ:/ refers to using a word or a phrase in a way that is different from its normal, original (literal) use. The new meaning is derived from the older one on the basis of similarity or analogy, e.g. a hand of a clock (not a real human hand), a cold welcome (unfriendly welcome), etc. Metaphors often provide a means of understanding abstract non-material domains by relating them to better-known domains and experiences in the physical world. For instance, sadness and depression can be expressed as something occupying a low position on the vertical axis (to be cast down, down in the dumps, down in the mouth, low-spirited, heavy-hearted, down-hearted, etc.) while happiness and joy are situated at a high position on the vertical axis (high-spirited, flying high, on cloud nine, in seventh heaven, walking on air, have a high old time, etc.).
EXERCISES
1 Match the words in the box to their original meanings below. Determine whether the present meaning of a word has undergone specialization or generalization. Consult an etymological dictionary.
deer |
girl |
ready |
accident |
hound |
rubbish |
arrive |
junk |
starve |
disease |
meat |
thing |
|
|
|
|
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|
Word |
Original meaning |
Type of change |
deer |
beast, wild animal |
specialization |
|
dog (in general) |
|
|
prepared for a ride |
|
|
food |
|
|
broken stones |
|
|
to die |
|
|
come to the shore |
|
|
an (unforeseen) event |
|
|
old rope |
|
|
child, young person |
|
|
discomfort |
|
|
a meeting, an assembly |
|
2 Determine whether the specified words are used literally or metaphorically.
AIR (v)
Leave the window open to air the room.
Staff will get a chance to ask questions and air their views.
The program is due to air next month.
I’ve left my sweater outside to air.
COLOUR (n)
She felt she had not been given the job because of her colour. That walk has put some colour in your cheeks.
What’s your favourite colour?
Her acting added warmth and colour to the production.
There are people of different political colours on the committee.
WEAK (adj)
The party was left weak and divided.
He speaks quite fluently but he’s weak on grammar.
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There are some weak points in her argument.
She’s too weak to feed herself.
I can’t stand weak coffee.
(OALD, CALD, LDCE)
3 Identify all metaphorical words and phrases in the following comic strip. Explain their meaning in simple non-metaphorical English.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
(g)
(h)
(i)
(j)
(k)
(l)
Now work in pairs and form a similar short dialogue, using the phrases above.
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A:
B:
A:
B:
Metonymy
Metonymy /me tɒnəmɪ/ is a contiguity of meaning, where one piece of the extralingual reality is closely connected with another or forms part of it. There are several types of relationships where metonymy is used.
(a) Containment
One thing contains another: a dish (= the food in a dish), a bottle (= alcohol in the bottle), a barrel (= beer/oil in a barrel), etc.
(b) Synecdoche /sɪ nekdəkɪ/
A part of something is used for the whole or vice versa: a hand (= an assistant), the church (= congregation), a motor (= a car), fizz (= champagne)
(c) The material something is made of
glass (= a container for drinking), iron (a tool for pressing clothes), irons (= shackles), wood (= a golf club), etc.
(d) Eponymy
Names of people, places, countries, etc. are used to refer to some of their aspects or characteristics: Shakespeare (= a book by Shakespeare), Armani (an Armani suit), America (= people of America), Hollywood (= celebrities of Hollywood), Germany (= e.g. German football players), china (originally made in China), etc.
Personification
Personification /pə sɒnɪfɪ keɪʃn/ is a process of assigning human qualities to nonhuman entities. It is a discourse in which animals, plants, elements of nature, inanimate objects and abstract ideas are given human attributes, e.g. a kettle singing on the stove, a stupid mistake, etc.
EXERCISES
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4 Find metonyms in the following sentences and explain them.
(a)The pen is mightier than the sword.
(b)He’s always prepared to lend a sympathetic ear.
(c)Could you give me a hand with these suitcases?
(d)The Pentagon is aiming to cut US forces by over 25 percent in the next five years.
(e)The restaurant has been acting quite rude lately.
(f)Do you like my new wheels?
(g)The library has been very helpful to the students this morning.
(h)Hey, look. Freckles is here!
(i)It tasted very strange, at least to my untrained palate.
(j)The problem only exists inside his head.
(k)They’ve got three kids and her husband just lost his job – the last thing they need is another mouth to feed.
(l)The suits on Wall Street walked off with most of our savings.
(m)He was in every sense a man of the cloth.
(n)Gasoline rose more than a nickel a gallon.
(OALD, CALD, LDCE, The Internet)
5 Analyse this text. Find all instances of metonymy and personification.
Snow chaos: Massive drifts cause traffic hell as winter takes hold of Britain
Leda Reynolds, The Daily Express, November 2016