8 Compare denotational and connotational types of word-meaning.

The Denotational or denotative meaning means that component of the lexical meaning which makes communication possible. To denote is to serve as linguistic expression for a notion or as a name for an actually existing object referred to by a word (also referential or extentional meaning) The first or given meaning of the words. Denotation- the expression of the main meaning, meaning proper of a linguistic unit.

The connotational or connotative meaning means the emotive charge and the stylistic value of the word. It means the emotive charge and the stylistic value of the word. The emotional content of the word is its capacity to evoke or directly express emotion (also called emotive charge, intentional or affective connotations of words). The figurative, secondary meaning of the words. Connotation- supplementary, complementary meaning or stylistic shade which is added to the word’s main meaning and which serves to express all sorts of emotional, expressive, evaluative overtones.The emotional charge is one of the objective semantic features proper to words as linguistic units and forms part of the connotational component of meaning. But as for stylistic meaning of the word we mean their stylistic reference (about literary, neutral and colloquial layers).

9 Compare and contrast amelioration and pejoration of meanings.

Semantic changes depending on the social evaluation and emotional tone, are called amelioration and pejoration of meaning. Amelioration is a semantic shift undergone by words due to their referents coming up the social scale. In other words it is the elevation or improvement of meaning. For example, OE cwen “a woman” > ModE gueen, OE marshall “a house man” > ModE a highest military rang. The reverse process is pejoration; it involves a lowering in social scale connected with the appearance of a derogatory and scornful emotive tone reflecting the disdain of the upper classes towards the lower ones. A knave < OE cnafa meant at first “boy” then “servant” and finally became a term of abuse and scorn. From their names elevation and degradation it is clear that this two processes are opposite: amelioration – OE cniht “a young servant” > ModE knight; pejoration – OE gossip “a god parenrs” >ModE “chats, not truthful information.” Consequently, this two results of semantic changes are opposite to each other.

11 Contrast the major and minor types of word-classes.

Major type

Word-building or formation is the process of creating words from the material available in the language after certain structural and semantic patterns. There are productive (major or basic, principle) and non-productive (minor or secondary) ways of creating words in the English language. The main and productive types of word-building in English are affixation, word-compounding, conversion, shortening; the minor types of creating words are back-formation, reduplication, blending, sound-interchange, stress-interchange, sound-imitation.

Major types of word-formation.

Affixation and types of affixation.

All morphemes are subdivided into two large classes: roots (or radicals) and affixes. \Words which consist of a root and an affix are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word-building known as affixation or derivation. From the etymological point of view affixes are classified into the same two large groups as words: native and borrowed.

Affixes can also be classified into productive and non-productive types

Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation. The main function of suffixes is to form one part of speech from another, the secondary function is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. There are different classifications of suffixes:

1. part-of-speech classification.

2. semantic classification.

3. lexical-grammatical character of the stem.

4. origin of suffixes.

5. productivity.

Prefixation is the formation of words by means of adding a prefix to the stem. Prefixes are more independent than suffixes. Prefixes used in notional words are proper prefixes which are bound morphemes, e.g. un- (unhappy). Prefixes used in functional words are semi-bound morphemes because they are met in the language as words, e.g. over- (overhead, over the table).

The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech.

Conversion is a characteristic feature of the English word-building system. It is also called affixless derivation or zero-suffixation. e.g. to form the verb “to dial” from the noun “dial” we change the paradigm of the noun (a dial, dials) for the paradigm of a regular verb (I dial, he dials, dialed).

Compound words and their types.

Composition is the way of word-building when a word is formed by joining two or more stems to form one word. The structural unity of a compound word depends upon the unity of stress, solid or hyphenated spelling, semantic unity, unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. e.g. middle-of-the-road, off-the-record.

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

Shortenings are produced in two different ways. The first is to make a new word of syllable 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, ad from advertisement) or both the beginning and ending (as flu from influenza, fridge from refrigerator).

Minor type

Blending

The term blending is used to designate the method of merging parts of words into one new word; the result is a blend, also known as a portmanteau word. Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms. In blends two way of word-building are combined: abbreviation and composition. Cinemadict from cinema addict, chunnel from canal and channel, dramedy from drama and comedy, faction from fact fiction-fiction based on real facts, informecial from information commercial, medicare from medical care, slanguist from slang linguist

Back-formation

It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new word (reversion). Instead of a noun made from a verb by affixation, a verb was produced from a noun by substraction. F: to collocate from collocation, to compute from computer, to emote from emotion, to televise from television, painter from to paint, to baby sit from baby sitter.

Back-formation is derivation of new words by substracting a real or supposed affix from existing words through misinterpretation of their structure.

Reduplication

New words are made by doubling a stem either without any phonetic changes or with a varation of the root vowel or consonant as in ping-pong, chit-chat, bye-bye, stylistically speaking most words are made by reduplication represent informal groups colloquialisms and slang.There are two types of reduplication: partial which reduplicates only part of the morpheme and full in which the entire morpheme is reduplicated.

Sound-interchange

They may be defined as an opposition in which words or word forms are differentiated due to an alternation in the phonemic composition of the root. Some sounds are changed to form a new word. It is non-productive in Modern English, F: life-to live, blood-to bleed, hot-to heat, to sing-song.

Sound imitation

Words are made by imitating different kinds of sounds that may be produced by animals, birds, insects, human beings and inanimated objects. It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by imitating different sounds. a) sounds produced by human beings, to whisper, to giggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle; b) sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, to hiss, to buzz, to bark, to moo; c) sounds produced by nature and objects, to splash, to rustle, to clatter, to bubble, to tinkle.

Stress interchange

They can be mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romanic origin: nouns have the stress on the first syllable and verbs on the last syllable. F: ‘accent-to ac’cent, to con’flict –‘conflict, to ex’port- ‘export.