Morphemic structure of words
All words can be classified as monomorphic or polymorphic according to the number of their morphemes.
Polymorphic words can be subdivided into monoradical and polyradical.
Monoradical words can be monoradical suffixal (teacher, student); monoradical prefixal (overteach, overstudy) and prefixal-radical suffixal (superteacher, superstudent)
Polyradical words can also be subdivided into polyradical proper (blackboard); polyradical suffixal (head-teacher); polyradical prefixal (super-headmaster) and polyradical prefixal-suffixal (super-headteacher, super-light-mindedness).
There are cases when me can observe a direct connection between the structural pattern of the word and its meaning. This relationship between morphemic structure of the word and meaning is termed morphological motivation; its main criterion is the relationship between morphemes. When we observe a direct connection between the structural pattern of the word and its meaning, we say that this word is motivated. (singer, rewrite – are motivated words).
If the connection between the structure of the lexical unit and its meaning is completely arbitrary and conventional, we speak of non-motivated or idiomatic words (matter, repeat).
It should be noted that morphological motivation is “relative”. Thus, the degree of motivation can be different. Between complete motivation and lack of motivation there exist various grades of partial motivation.
Some linguists argue that words can be motivated in more than one way and suggest another type of motivation - a direct connection between the phonetic structure of the word and its meaning. This can be observed in the phonemic structure of some newly coined words. For example, the small transmitter specialized in high frequencies is called “a tweeter”; the transmitter for low frequencies - “a woofer”.
Another type of phonetic motivation is represented by such words as swish, sizzle, boom, splash. They are phonetically motivated because the sound-clusters [sizl, bum] are a direct imitation of the sounds these words denote.
The sounds themselves may be emotionally expressive which accounts for the phonetical motivation in certain words. The sound-cluster [in] is imitative of sound or swift movement (ring, sing, swing).
There is also a type of motivation called semantic motivation – implies a direct connection between the central and marginal meanings of the word. This connection may be regarded as metaphoric extention of the central meaning based on the similarity of different classes of referents denoted by the word.
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The fundamental features of word meaning
Word is connected with other words in terms of paradigm ~ paradigmatic relations.
A paradigm is a system of relations between words in a language. It may be in grammar ( to go-going-gone).
Semantic paradigm:
дерево – tree
деревянный стол - a table made of wood.
b) a human eye can see 7 million colours, but we can’t name them all, even painters can’t do it. We can only feel the difference. But still there are different names for colours in different languages.
рука - arm
- hand
d) sibling = братья и сестры
grandparents = бабушка и дедушка
swimming
floating
sail a horizontal movement on the surface of the water:
drifting
navigating
a man, dog = swim
a ship = pour
a boat = sail
smth dead\ passive = drift
smth not sinkable (wood) = float
to lay a course (быть штурманом) = to navigate
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