Билеты.лексикология

II. The noun is the name of an animal,the verb denotes an action or aspect of behaviour considered typical of this animal: to dog, to wolf, to monkey, to ape, to fox, to rat. Yet, to fish does not mean "to behave like a fish" but "to try to catch fish". The same meaning of hunting activities is conveyed by the verb to whale and one of the meanings of to rat; the other is "to turn in former, squeal" (sl.).

III. The name of a part of the human body — an action performed by it: to hand, to leg (sl.), to eye, to elbow, to shoulder, to nose, to mouth. However, to face does not imply doing something by or even with one's face but turning it in a certain direction. To back means either "to move backwards" or, in the figurative sense, "to support somebody or something".

IV. The name of a profession or occupation—an activity typical of it: to nurse, to cook, to maid, to groom.

V. The name of a place — the process of occupying

the place or of putting smth./smb. in it (to room, to house, to place, to table, to cage).

VI. The name of a container—the act of putting smth.within the container (to can, to bottle, to pocket).

VII. The name of a meal — the process of taking it (to lunch, to supper).

12. Speak about the semantic and structural variety of compound words.

This type of word-building, in which new words are produced by combining two or more stems, is one of the three most productive types in Modern English, the other two are conversion and affixation.

There are at least three aspects of composition that present special interest. The first is the structural aspect. Compounds are not homogeneous in structure. Traditionally three types are distinguished: neutral, morphological and syntactic.

In neutral compounds the process of compounding is realised without any linking elements, by a mere juxtaposition[ˌʤʌkstəpə'zɪʃ(ə)n] (сложение) of two stems, as in blackbird(черный дрозд), shop-window, sunflower, bedroom, tallboy

['tɔːlbɔɪ]

(26)диал. бокал на высокой ножке2) высокий комод3) высокий колпак дымовой трубы4) шутл. важная персона, шишка)There are three

subtypes of neutral compounds depending on the structure of the constituent stems.

The examples above represent the subtype which may be described as simple neutral compounds: they consist of simple affixless stems.

Compounds which have affixes in their structure are called derived or derivational compounds. E. g. absent-mindedness, blue-eyed, goldenhaired, broad-shouldered, lady-killer, film-goer, music-lover, honey-mooner, first-nighter, late-comer, newcomer, early-riser, evildoer. The productivity of this type is confirmed by a considerable number of comparatively recent formations, such as teenager, babysitter, straphanger, fourseater ("car or boat with four seats"), doubledecker ("a ship or bus with two decks"). Numerous nonce-words are coined on this pattern which is another proof of its high productivity: e. g. luncher-out ("a person who habitually takes his lunch in restaurants and not at home"), goose-flesher ("murder story")

The third subtype of neutral compounds is called contracted compounds. These words have a shortened (contracted) stem in their structure: TV-set (- program, -show, -canal, etc.), V-day (Victory day), G-man (Government man "FBI agent"), H-bag (handbag), T-shirt.

Morphological compounds are few in number. This type is nonproductive. It is represented by words in which two compounding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant, e. g. AngloSaxon, Franko-Prussian, handiwork, handicraft, craftsmanship, spokesman, statesman.

In syntactic compounds (the term is arbitrary) we once more find a feature of specifically English word-structure. These words are formed from segments of speech, preserving in their structure numerous traces of syntagmatic relations typical of speech: articles, prepositions, adverbs, as in the nouns lily-of-the-valley, Jack-of-all-trades, good-for-nothing, mother-in- law, sit-at-home. Syntactical relations and grammatical patterns current in present-day English can be clearly traced in the structures of such compound nouns as pick-me- up, know-all, know-nothing, go-between, get-together, whodunit. The last word (meaning "a detective story") was obviously coined from the ungrammatical variant of the word-group who (has) done it.

The compounds whose meanings do not correspond to the separate meanings of their constituent parts are called idiomatic compounds, in contrast to the first group known as non-idiomatic compounds.

13) Speak about abbreviations,shortenings, blends. Show their main spheres of usage in contemporary English.

Shortening (Contraction)

This comparatively new way of word-building has achieved a high degree of productivity nowadays, especially in American English.

Shortenings (or contracted/curtailed words) are produced in two different ways. The first is to make a new word from a syllable (rarer, two) of the original word. The latter may lose its beginning (as in phone made from telephone, fence from defence), its ending (as in hols from holidays, vac from vacation, props from properties, ad from advertisement) or both the beginning and ending (as in flu from influenza, fridge from refrigerator).

The second way of shortening is to make a new word from the initial letters of a word group: U.N.O. ['ju:neu] from the United Nations Organisation, B.B.C. from the British Broadcasting Corporation, M.P. from Member of Parliament. This type is called initial shortenings. They are found not only among formal words, such as the ones above, but also among colloquialisms and slang. So, g. f. is a shortened word made from the compound girl-friend.

Both types of shortenings are characteristic of informal speech in general and of uncultivated speech particularly. The history of the American okay seems to be rather typical. Originally this initial shortening was spelt O.K. and was supposed to stand for all correct. The purely oral manner in which sounds were recorded for letters resulted in O.K. whereas it should have been AC. or aysee. Indeed, the ways of words are full of surprises.

Here are some more examples of informal shortenings. Movie (from movingpicture), gent (from gentleman), specs (from spectacles), circs (from circumstances, e. g. under the circs), I. O. Y. (a written acknowledgement of debt, made from I owe you), lib (from liberty, as in May I take the lib of saying something to you?), cert (from certainty, as in This enterprise is a cert if you have a bit of capital),metrop (from metropoly, e. g. Paris is a gay metrop), exhibish (from exhibition), posish (from position).

Undergraduates' informal speech abounds in words of the type: exam, lab, prof, vac, hol, co-ed (a girl student at a coeducational school or college).

14) Different approaches towards lexical meaning of the word.

Linguistic context:its role and function.