Jelisaveta Milojevic

ESSENTIALS OF ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY

EXPOSITION OF CONCEPTS AND WORKBOOK APPLICA TION

CONTENTS

Foreword ............................................................................

1. Basic concepts ..............................................................

Language and linguistics. - Language : system and structure. - Language strata. - Language structure. - Morphology. -Grammar. - Contrastiveness. - Syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis. - Lexical morphology. - Inflectional morphology.

2. Morphological structure of English words..................

Word. - Lexemes, word-forms. - Morphemes, morphs, allomorphs. - Identification and classification of morphemes. -Affixes, prefixes, suffixes. - Derivational and inflectional affixes. - Markedness. - Roots, stems, bases. -

Valency of affixes and stems. - Derivational and inflectional paradigms. - Aims and principles of morphemic analysis.

3. Productivity..................................................................

Word formation. - Transfer of meaning. - Metaphor and metonymy. - Lexical rules. - Types of lexical rules. -Properties of lexical rules. - Limited productivity. -Acceptability. - Diversity. - Semantic open-endedness. -Recursiveness. - Bidirectionality. - Lexicalization. - Types of lexicalization. - Phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic lexicalization. - Productivity as a cline. - Language creativity. - Lexical innovation. - Neologisms. - Nonce-formations. - Obsolete and archaic words. - Stunt words. -Nonsense. - Phonetic motivation. - Jargonization. - Analogy in word-formation.

7. Morphological processes.

127

4. Origin of English words

Native words. - Loan words. - Source of borrowing. - Origin of borrowing. - Etymology. - Doublets. - Cognates. - False cognates. - Assimilation of loan words. - Fully assimilated

loan words. - Partially assimilated loan words. - Not completely assimilated semantically. - Not completely assimilated grammatically. - Not completely assimilated phonetically. - Unassimilated loan words. - Folk etymology. -

49

Anglicisms. - Pseudoanglicisms. - International words.

5. Lexical semantics............................

Word meaning. - Referential approach to meaning. - Types of meaning. - Conceptual meaning. - Associative meaning. -Connotative meaning. - Collocative

meaning. - Reflected meaning. - Thematic meaning. - Social meaning. - Affective meaning. - Functional approach to meaning. - Distributional meaning. - Grammatical meaning. - Differential meaning. -Part-of-speech meaning. - Hyperbole. - Litotes. -

Change of meaning. - Nature of semantic change. - Metaphor. -Metonymy. - Other types of semantic change. - Lexical meaning relations. - Semantic equivalence and synonymy. -Criteria of synonymy. - Interchangeability and substitution. -Euphemisms.

- Dysphemisms. - Pejorative / derogatory words. - Ethnic slurs. - Political correctness. -Polysemy and homonymy. - Classification of homonyms. - Graphic and sound-form of homonyms. - Homophony. - Puns. - Word play. - Bloopers. - Hyponimic (hierarchical) structures. -Taxonomy. -

Meronymy. - Semantic contrasts and antonymy. - Compatibility. - Incompatibility.

6. Methods and procedures of morphological

analysis.............................................

Immediate constituent analysis. - Distributional

analysis and co-occurrence. - Transformational analysis. - Componential analysis. - Contrastive analysis

Affixation. - Prefixal and suffixal derivatives. - Prefixation. -Classification of prefixes. - Suffixation. - Classification of suffixes. - Inflectional suffixes. - Grammatical

categories. -Concord / government / agreement. - Conversion. - Typical semantic relations. - Partial conversion. - Compounding. -Structural meaning of the pattern. - Meaning of compounds: motivation. - Classification. - Derivational compounds. -Miscellanea of composition. - Neo-classical

compounds.-Minor morphological processes. - Shortening. - Initial, final, both-ends clipping. - Shortening of spoken words. - Graphical abbreviations. - Acronyms. -Reduplication. - Blending. -Back-formation.

8.

Phraseology ................................................................... 169

Set expressions. - Cliche. - Fixed similes. - Verbal collocations. - Idioms. - Proverbs, sayings, and familiar quotations.

9. Stylistic varieties of English vocabulary

179

Registers. - Thematic groups. -Stylistically

marked and stylistically neutral words. - Functional styles. - Poetic diction. - Colloquial words and expressions. - Slang. - Netspeak.

10. Regional varieties of English vocabulary

189

Standard English variants and dialects. -

American English. -Irish English. - Scottish English. - Indian English. - Australian English. - Canadian English.

11.

Lexicography 205

Types of dictionaries. - Main problems in lexicography.

Selected bibliography..............................Selected dictionaries...............................Selected electron

213 225 228 229

ic dictionaries

Subject index ...................................................

FOREWORD

Essentials of English Morphology: Exposition of Concepts and Workbook Application is meant to be complementary to my previous book: Word and Words of English: English Morphology A - Z (Belgrade: Papirus, 2000) in the sense that it concentrates on the application side of theoretical enunciations presented in the dictionary of English morphology terms: English Morphology A - Z. On the other hand, it as an off-shoot of the previous book: it builds upon the intellectual capital and the theory presented in it, and it is equally crowded with facts, expertise, and curiosities.

The book Essentials of English Morphology has two principal interests: firstly, to focus on a word

per se, and its relation to other words in syntagmatic context as well as in the paradigm, and secondly, to concentrate on workbook application coupled with theoretical exposition of concepts. The book gathers around the following topics: 1. Basic concepts; 2. Morphological structure of English words; 3. Productivity; 4. Origin of English words; 5. Lexical semantics; 6. Methods and procedures of morphological analysis; 7. Morphological processes; 8. Phraseology; 9. Stylistic varieties of English vocabulary; 10. Regional varieties of English vocabulary. 11. Lexicography. It is based on over 130 selected references (books and articles published in: the English, Russian, French, German, and the Serbian language) presented in Bibliography section. The examples come from different sources: from over 30 major English language dictionaries, from poetry and fiction

books in English, from British, American, Australian and Canadian newspapers, from the Inter Net, British radio and television, and, needless to say, some of the examples I acquired

through personal communication with friends and colleagues with whom I share fascination with words.

My task has been eased by the help of

Professor Thomas F. Magner (of the Pennsylvania State University) - a wonderful scholar and a friend whose expertise, devotion, and patience I have trusted for over

twenty years. This time my gratitude goes to him for his answers to my questions on: word play, puns, gender, and language style (the title of the book in particular), and also for some most wonderful examples with which he generously supplied me. It would be a relief

to think that half of the joy I feel at the moment goes back to him. I also wish to acknowledge my debt to two scholars who initiated me into the study of words: Professor John McH. Sinclair (of the University of Birmingham) and Professor Draginja Pervaz (of the University of

Novi Sad) - I hope this book comes up to their expectations. I express my thanks to the reviewer, Professor Vesna Polovina (of the University of Belgrade) and the language-editor, Mrs. Grainne Orlic for their scrutiny of the manuscript. My thanks also go to Professor

Marica Presic (of the University of Belgrade), a mathematician and artist, for her stunning gift cover-design. I shall be more than happy to share the credit for all that is good about the book Essentials of English Morphology with all the people I have mentioned so far, and,

needless to say, to keep to myself all the responsibility for anything that may have gone wrong.

Jelisaveta Milojevic

1. BASIC CONCEPTS

• Here is a quotation from Otto Jespersen's book Essentials of English Grammar (London, George Allen & Unwin, reprinted 1979, p. 16) where he enunciates his idea

about what language is:

'Language is nothing but a set of human habits, the purpose of which is to give expression to thoughts and feelings, and especially to impart them to others. As with other habits it is not to be expected that they should be perfectly

consistent. No one can speak exactly as everybody else or speak exactly in the same way under all circumstances and at all moments, hence a good deal of vacillation here and there. The divergencies would certainly be greater if it were not for the fact that the chief purpose of

language is to make oneself understood by other members of the same community; this presupposes and brings about a more or less complete agreement on all essential points.'

Comment on Jespersen's definition of language. Pay special attention

to the italicized words and phrases (they are not italicized in the original text). How does Jespersen's idea about what language is correlate with what you learn from the following dictionary definitions of language:

'Language is a body of words

and systems for their use common to a people of the same community or nation [...]; it is communication by voice, using arbitrary symbols in conventional ways with conventional meanings; [...] any set or system of such symbols as used in a more

or less uniform fashion by a number of people who are thus enabled to communicate intelligibly with one another' (The Random House Dictionary of the English Language).

'A language is a system of communication which consists of a set of

sounds and written symbols which are used by the people of a particular country or region for talking or writing in; if you talk about the language, you mean all the words which are used in a particular language at a particular time; the study of the words and grammar of a

particular language' (Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary).

'Language is human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, feelings, and desires by means of a system of sound symbols' (OUP

Dictionary of Current English)

What do these dictionary definitions have in common? Which of the definitions is the most simplistic?

• Linguistics is the science of language. In what way then are language and

linguistics related?

• Language can be looked at from the structural point of view implying the notions of system and structure. It can be seen as a system of sub-systems operating on the inventory

of particular structural units. Name language strata. Name structural units characteristic of each language stratum.

• What is morphology? Look the term up in the dictionaries

of linguistic terms and compare these definitions to the textbook definition given in: Word and Words of English (Belgrade: Papirus, 2000).

• What is grammar? Give different linguistic

dictionary and grammar book definitions of grammar and comment on them.

• How do you understand the definition of grammar saying that it is the system of rules and procedures formulated

as algorithms operating on the inventory of language units?

• What is the grammar of words (see: J. Milojevic: Word and Words of English, Belgrade: Papirus, 2000)? How does the system of

rules in the domain of lexis relate to the system of rules operating in the domain of syntax?

• Morphology is traditionally divided into inflectional morphology and word-formation. What is

inflectional morphology? What is word-formation? What principles of language organization do you think are behind such a division?

• What are demarcation problems concerning the

distinction between inflectional morphology and word-formation? Provide examples. How about hybrid forms, such as participles and gerunds?

• Take a close look at any six grammar books that

you can find in your Departmental library and say how much space is devoted to inflectional morphology, and how much space is given to word-formation. Comment on this.

• What is meant by

language system?

• Explain the concepts of system and structure referring to language.

• What is contrastiveness? Illustrate contrastiveness in morphology.

• Explain the importance

of the principle of contrastiveness in morphology and in the domain of lexis in particular. Illustrate.

• What is a minimal pair? Provide illustrations of minimal pairs in morphology.

• What is a syntagmatic chain? Provide illustrations of syntagmatic chains in phonology, morphology, and syntax.

• Having in mind the following definition of the paradigm:

paradigm is a set of

language forms which are possible alternatives at every point of a selectional axis of language structure provide possible alternatives at every point of the following syntagmatic strings (e.g. The book is

on the table: a book is on the table; the candle is on the table; the mouse is on the table; the wallet is on the table; the book lies on the table; the book is under the table; the book is on the shelf; the book is on the desk, etc.):

Television encourages passive enjoyment; the tobacco industry spends vast sums of money on advertising; when women prove their abilities, men refuse to acknowledge them; every day television consumes vast quantities of creative work;

camping is the ideal way of spending a holiday; ready-made clothes are hard to obtain.

• What is the minimal number of members which constitute a paradigm?

• Give four examples of two-

member paradigms (either lexical or inflectional).

• Give four examples of multimember paradigms (either lexical or inflectional).

• What is an inflectional paradigm? Give four examples of

inflectional paradigms.

• Give examples of inflectional paradigms which share the following grammatical meaning: number, person, case.

• What is a lexical paradigm? Give four

examples of lexical paradigms.

• Give four sets of words (i.e. lexical paradigms) which share the same root morpheme.

• Give lexical paradigms which include the words which

share the following root morphemes: sleep, house, man, tooth, make, happy.

• Give lexical paradigms which include the words which share the following prefixes: pre-, re-, de-, over-, under-., -dis.

• Give lexical paradigms which include the words which share the following suffixes: -ery, -er, -ly, -y, -ful, -less, -able, -like, - scape, -oholic.

• Add as many examples as you can to the following

lexical paradigms.

1. user-friendly, media-friendly, PR-friendly ...2. postman, milkman, weather man...3. unhappy, unusual,

unsportsmanlike...4. irregular, irresponsible, irreversible...5. nationalize, monopolize, humanize...6. glorify, beautify, notify...

2. MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH WORDS

• What is a word? What would be a rule-of-thumb definition of a word?

• Give an orthographic definition of a word. Comment on it. Provide examples to show that such a definition is problematic (instances of compounds, of words involving polysemy and homonymy, instances of idioms and contracted forms). What are the implications for automatic speech recognition and machine translation?

• How many orthographic words are there in the following examples:

1. Old people are always saying that the young are not what they were.

2. Can anything be right with the rat-race?

3. Haven't the old lost touch with all that is important in life?4. There's no doubt that the motor-car often

brings out a man's very worst qualities. People who are normally quiet and pleasant may become unrecognizable when they are behind the wheel. They swear, they are ill-mannered and aggressive, willful as two-year-olds and utterly selfish.

Comment on the problem of 'stops' in a definition of a word which relies on the

pronunciation criterion. What are the implications relevant for automatic speech

recognition and machine translation?

Is a word a language universal? Are there languages where there are no words?

Name other principles upon which a word can be defined.

Words are elements which

have positional mobility,i.e. they can change their position within a syntagmatic chain (e.g. / do not know this. - This I do not know; However, this may not be true. - This, however, may not be true.) without producing ungrammatical output. All words do not have an equal mobility potential. Provide examples to

support this statement.

The morphemes as word constituents appear in a rigidly fixed sequential order, i.e. they cannot change their position freely without producing ungrammatical output (cf. dictatorship - * shipdictator;

uneducated *educatedun, *ededucateun, *eduneducate). Give more examples to prove this.

Words are the elements of structure which resist interruption by the insertion of other language material (e.g. blessing cannot be interrupted by the insertion of, say, -er, so

*blessering is impossible). Other language material, however, can be inserted at word boundaries (cf. Go home and count your blessings - Go home immediately and count your blessings - Go straight home and count your blessings). Give more examples to show the

impossibility of insertion at morpheme-boundaries and the possibility of insertion at word-boundaries.• Having in

mind all criteria upon which a word can be defined, identify the words in the following text.

Charlie cut the pizza into tiny

squares and put each square on a toothpick. Charlie and Susanna went off to their room. Charlie was in bed. He sat up and saw that Raymond was watching TV and eating pizza. Susanna looked at Charlie with an angry expression on her face. 'Go and talk to him!' she said. 'What

for?' Charlie asked. 'Because he's frightened,' Susanna said. 'He's never been away from Wallbrook before. You've upset him!' Charlie looked away from her and bit his lip. 7 took Raymond,' he said quietly, 'and I'm keeping him until I get my money.' Susanna's eyes widened. 'What money?' she

asked. 'Dad left Ray some money. A lot of money.' (Leonore Fleischer: Rain Man)

• Having in mind all criteria upon which a word can be defined, identify the words in the following text. Say how many

words there are in every sentence. Identify the morphemes.

1. She tried to keep an open mind and an open heart on such subjects: she was open-minded and open-hearted. 2. I'd rung up beforehand to book a table. 3. The table of contents and several papers

with different charts and tables were scrolled and left on the table. 4. Let sleeping dogs lie and don't trouble trouble till trouble troubles you have almost the same meaning. 5. / loved the colour of her hair: she was amberlievable. 6. Some people say that soaps

are written by the half-educated for the half-witted.

• How does the definition of a word work with reference to phrasal verbs and idioms?

Compare the following: put up in the examples: put up your hand and to put a person up for the night or to put up

with something; fall out in the examples: the baby fell out of the push-chair and to fall out with someone; stand on in: don't stand on the chair and don't stand on ceremony.

• Idioms, traditionally described as expressions whose meaning

cannot be inferred from the meanings of their parts, have to fulfil two requirements: first, that they be lexically complex, and second, that they should be a single minimal semantic constituent. All idioms are elementary lexical units

and they exhibit internal cohesion characteristic of single words; they also resist interruption and the re-ordering of parts. In the example: They are selling their films at the festival's market but they are

doing it under the table the words: they, sell, their, film, at, the, festival, market, but, do, it are semantically regular components; under the table, however, is an idiom which is lexically complex but semantically simplex (its

meaning is 'secretly'). Use the following idioms in sentences of your own. Test the words for their regularity, position mobility. Apply a substitution test to show that the idioms are

semantically simplex.

blow your top, carry the torch, blow the whistle on someone, the whys and wherefores, in the wind, not born yesterday, dead wood, a wet blanket, scratch your head, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, on the carpet

• What is word-based morphology? Discuss.

• Define word-and-paradigm approach to morphology.

• What are lexical words (full words or content words)? What are empty words (functional

words or functors)?

• Say whether the following examples represent lexical or functional words:

go, concentrate, drip-dry, mass-production, Ruth, glasshouse, if, and, or, beautifully, extravagantly, clergy person, lest, pretty, the, a,

there, their, he, up, down.

• Lexical words are open class and grammatical words constitute a closed class. The number of grammatical words is finite and that of lexical words is potentially

unlimited. Comment on this.

• Words can be mono-morphemic (in which case they are referred to as simple) or polymorphemic (in which case they are referred to as complex). Say whether the following words can be

classified as simple or complex. State the number of morphemes of which the words consist.

Elisabeth, tenth, wealth, inseparable, impolite, go-between, sister-in-law, untreatable, Viking, refer, recount,

reconsider, rephrase, substitutability, trouble-shooting, train-spotting, bird-watcher, blue-eyed, flat-bottomed, cone-shaped, self-assertiveness, scissors, microscopic, nanotechnology, fighter-bomber, plentiful, beautiful, pocketful

• What is a

lexeme?

Comment on the

definition.

• What does

'arbitrary' mean

in reference to a

lexeme?

• In what form

does a lexeme

appear in a

dictionary?

• What is a citation form?

• Give citation forms of the following paradigms: live, lives, living, lived, live and breathe, live

(adj.), lives (pi. of life), you live and learn, live and let live, live it up; cook, cooks, cooking, cooked, cook (п.), too many cooks, too many cooks spoil the broth, cook the books; blow, blows, blowing, blew, blown,

blow (п.), come to blows, soften the blow, cushion the blow, blow off; bottom, bottoms, at bottom, bottoms up, bet one's bottom dollar, tame, tamer, tamest, tamed, taming, tamely, tameness, tamer.

• What does the word transparent mean in reference to a lexeme? Illustrate.

® What does the word opaque mean in reference to a lexeme? Illustrate.

• In the following

examples say whether we are dealing with transparent or opaque lexemes.

leakage, drainage, carriage, coverage, coinage; pocketful, bagful, mouthful, beautiful, plentiful, teaspoonful; ladylike, childlike, businesslike,

warlike; bakery, eatery, refinery, brewery, jewellery, trickery, weaponry, gadgetry; sophisticated, complicated, duplicated; bitter, bizarre, bilateral; blackberry, strawberry, bilberry, gooseberry.

• By which word do we

refer to phonological or orthographic shape of a language unit?

• What is a word form?

• What is a morpheme? In what way can we say that it is a language unit that correlates

form and meaning?

• Divide the words overlordship and unsportsmanlike into morphemes.

• Does a syllable have linguistic relevance?• What is the

difference between a

morpheme and a syllable?

• Can morphemes and syllables coincide?

• Consider the following examples taken from What's in a Word. A Dictionary of Daffy Definitions by Rosalie

Moscovitch, Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston, 1985. Comment on the humour that you find in the explanations (see: word play, pun).

p. 9 Caesar: Grab that woman!p. 11 Champagne:

artificial window glass (compare: sham pane)p. 12 Condescending: The prisoner is going down stairs.p. 31 Maximum: a very fat motherp. 37 Perverse: poetry by a very contented catp. 51 Zulu: bathroom at the London animal park

• What are the terms by

which we refer to the realization of a morpheme in speech or writing?

• What do morphs and allomorphs have in common?

• What are allomorphs or morph variants? Illustrate.

• Give two paradigms illustrating allomorphs which are grammatically conditioned.

• Give two paradigms illustrating allomorphs which are lexically conditioned.

• Consider the following

examples. Identify the morphemes, morphs and allomorphs. Say which allomorphs have been phonologically and which grammatically conditioned.

books, members, benches, paths,

bathe, bathed, wanted, stopped, hopped, stronger, longer, longest, poorer, poorest, love's a fan club with only two fans

« Consider the following examples. Identify the morphemes and classify them according to their meaning, function, and distribution

(e.g. worker = {work}, {er}; {work}: free morpheme, base; {er}: bound morpheme, derivational suffix; tables = {table}, {s}; {table}: free morpheme, base; {s}: bound morpheme, inflectional suffix).

crash-landing, semi-productive, semi-skilled, merry-go-round, stage-manager, oversimplified, underestimated, sophisticated, three-cornered, black-eyed, well-meaning, overwhelmed, overwhelmingly, criss-cross, zig-zag, down-hiller, go-go, lemon-squeezer, salt-shaker, mind-reading, fighter-

bomber, high-jumper, long-jumper, passer-by, brimful, handfuls, tea-spoonful, kidney-shaped, house-warming, trouble-shooting, blotting-paper, half-starved, coldblooded, open-hearted, breast-stroker, good-looking, better-looking, whole-heartedly, lookers-on, self-assertiveness,

self-opinionated, extra-mural, father-in-law, in-laws, travel-sick, travel sickness

• How many morphs are there in the word-form /pa:5z/? What lexeme is realized in the word-form /pa:3z/? Which morphemes are realized in

the word-form /pa:Sz/? How many allomorphs does {path} have? What are they? What kind of a morph is /pa:5/? What conditions the choice of the allomorph?

• How many morphs are there in the word-form /hauziz/? What lexeme is realized in the word-form /hauziz/? Which morphemes are realized in the word-form /hauziz/? How many allomorphs

does {house} have?

What are they? What kind of a morph is /hauz/? What conditions the choice of the allomorph?

• How many allomorphs of the morpheme {possessive}

are shown in the data? Say whether they are phonetically, grammatically or lexically conditioned?

wuma^n - wum^nz; meibl - meiblz; lu:si - lu:siz;filip - filips; maik - maiks; pit - pits;

liz - liziz; dsiis - dorisiz; bla:ntf - bla:ntfiz.

• Compare the words in the following groups of examples. Identify the morphemes. In each case say whether we are dealing with the same or different

morpheme. In which cases are we dealing with different realizations

of one and the same morpheme?

impossible - irregular - illiterate - inexpensive; deeper -longer - cheaper - wider, stopped - hopped; unwanted -undelivered; worker - maker -

baker, worker - deeper, cheese-slicer - egg-beater, doorstopper - day-tripper, hairdresser - window-dressing; inseparable - impolite -illegitimate - irrational

• What is ablaut? Give four inflectional paradigms to

illustrate ablaut (e.g. ring, rang,

rung; seek, sought, etc.).

• What is a replacive morph? Illustrate.

• Identify replacive morphs in the following examples: foot - feet, tooth - teeth, man - men, woman - women, breed

- bred, strike - struck - stricken, shrink - shrank - shrunk, sink - sank - sunk.

• Give four examples to show that root morphemes donot have

grammatical meaning and therefore are not grammatical

ly marked (e.g. man in ten-man expedition is not marked for plural number).

• Derivational morphemes with the same denotative meaning may differ in connotation only. Illustrate.

• What is suppletion? What are

suppletive forms?

• Provide the suppletive form or forms of: good, bad, little, ox, child, louse, mouse, tooth, brother.

• What is a portmanteau morph? What does the word

portmanteau mean? Identify portmanteaus in the following examples. (E.g. -s in sleeps signals three morphemes simultaneously: {third person}, {singular number}, {present tense}. Pay attention to

the instances of grammatical homonymy (e.g. {ed} in wanted can mean {past tense}, {indicative}, or {past tense} {subjunctive}, or {ed} in has wanted {aspect}, {past participle}).

watches, smashes, reduced, her, him, whom, woman, this, president's, presidents', will be captured, shut the box

• What is a

discontinuous

morph? Illustrate.

• What is a zero

morph?

• What is

exponence?

• State whether the following is true or false: the morphs are the exponents of the properties.

• Illustrate the following: a single morphologic

al property realized by several morphs; a number of different morphological properties realized in a single morph.

What is markedness? Explain and illustrate the distinction that is made between marked and unmarked.

What is a marker? What is an overt marker? What is an exponent? Illustrate.

Explain and illustrate the following: grammatical markers, semantic markers, stylistic markers,

What is the meaning of {'}

and {'s} in the examples: parents', generals', women's, children's. Which grammatical categories do they represent?

Are there any overt indicators of {past} in the words: shot, put, beat, bet, burst, hit, let, reset, recast, set, shed, shut, slit, split, thrust?

Compare these four pairs of paradigms: tiger - tigers : swine - swine; beetle - beetles : fish - fish or fishes; castle - castles: deer- deer; sheep - sheep : reindeer-reindeer. Which members of the paradigms are marked for plural number and which are not?

What is syncretism? Illustrate.

Two members of a grammatical paradigm can be realized by homonymous word-forms (e.g. played as a form of a regular verb represents two different morphological concepts: 'past simple' and 'past participle'). Give

more examples to support this. Give some examples of irregular verbs which exhibit no syncretism.

Two members of a lexical paradigm can be realized by homonymous word-forms (e.g. mop as a noun and mop as a verb; also change as a noun meaning

'difference', and change as a noun meaning 'the money you receive when you pay for something with more money than it costs'). Discuss the following examples:

Your small change makes big change. He mopped the floor.

You can find the mop in the corner. Remote corners of the Earth. He was cornered and could not escape. I bottled him, that's what I did! Bottled in Scotland. Not many banks are on the banks of the river which flows through our town. Don't trouble trouble

till trouble troubles you.

• What is an empty morph? Among the following examples there are those which contain surplus word-building elements which do not realize any morpheme. Identify these

examples and these elements (e.g. in the word factual и is a surplus element which does not realize any morpheme whereas in personal there is no such element).

medicinal, tribal, sensual,

comical, conceptual, residential, componential, clerical, facial, influential, emotional, formal, sensational, clinical

• A unique morph is one which only occurs in a single combination of morphemes (e.g. cran in cranberry, bil

in bilberry; monger in fishmonger or monger in warmonger). Add some more examples to the cranberry and fishmonger paradigms.

• What is a base in reference to word-formation? Illustrate. Identify bases in

the following words:

oversimplified, underestimate, superman, extra-sensory, extraordinary, externalize, ill-equipped, illegitimate, ill-tempered, inconsolable, joyriding, sleeplessness, maladjustment, malnourished, open-necked, v-necked, open-

mindedness, palatable, reinforcing, redistributed, summing-up, looker-on, top-drawer.

• What is root in reference to word-formation? Illustrate.

• In words which are composite there can be two or more

roots. Illustrate.

• Sometimes the root can be an obligatorily bound morph (e.g. tele in telephone) or there can be two bound morphs as roots (e.g. microscope). Provide more examples.

• Identify roots in the following examples:

neo-classical, untouchables, overdo, nationalize, unimaginable, oversimplified, biosphere, technophobe, Egyptologist, megazoo, neuroscience, neologism, unsupervised, unmanned,

extraterrestrial, terracotta, outmanoeuvring, outdistanced, thimbleful, typify, unaccountable, unbelieving, unequaled, unemotional, unearthly, unilateral, vaporizing, verbalized, vice-chancellors, walkabouts, weariest.

• The root has both

synchronic and diachronic relevance. Here are some examples of some common Latin roots and the examples containing these roots:

sped, meaning: 'see, look' in: respect, suspect,

prospect, introspection, introspective, inspect

press, meaning: 'press, push' in: pressure, impress, impression, suppress, depress, express, oppressive, oppressor

vert, meaning: 'turn' in: divert, introvert, convert, revert

Think of other words based on each of the three roots listed above.

« Work out the meaning of the following words: support, oppose, eradicate, inspect, revert, divert, postpone, reduce, deduce. Pair these words with the

following: uproot, look into, put off, stand by, go against, follow from, cut down, turn aside or from, go back to.

• The following words, which seem unrelated, derive from the same Latin root and involve the idea of

seizing: prison, prize, pry, apprehend, comprehend, comprise, enterprise, surprise. The words: quietus, quiet, acquit, quiescent, acquiesce are all descendants of the same common root. Find out which.

• What is stem in reference to word-formation? Illustrate. Identify stems in the following examples:

workers, dishwashers, woman's, children's, prettier, simplest, washing, parading, untouchables, disambiguates, disambiguated,

lawn-mowers, lawn-sprinklers, lookers-on, passers-by, blah-blahing.

• What is a word family? Illustrate. Identify the root-morphemes. What is a word cluster?

• Give a list of words

constituting word families gathered around the following root-morphemes: bag, gun, farm, help, kind, head, sleep, wash, house, man, love, make, body, keep, climb, break, dance, cut, shop, drink, fight, find, hunt, play, run, sea, sell,

spy, stop, sweep, swim, walk, work, write, house, room, stone, water, paper, day, shoe, door.

• Define lexical valency (or collocability). Demonstrate how aptly the following words are combined

with other words to give collocations (e.g. make: make money, make love, make a telephone call, make your day, make it, make friends, make a line, make a circle, make a group, make an offer, make an arrangement, make rules, make laws,

make a loan, make a grant, make a donation, make a day of it, make a night of it, make the best of something, make a name for yourself, etc.)

question, take, do, give, real, realize, kill, good, god,

going, green, dog, money, month, moon, side, near, old, hand, on, at, by, one

• Define grammatical valency. Demonstrate the aptness of the following words to appear in specific syntactic patterns (e.g. make: make a point (V + O);

make clear (V + Adj.); make you do something (V + О + Inf.); make yourself understood (V + О refl. + Past Participle), etc.)

take, do, have, meet, come, turn, act, kick, catch, bring, change, laugh,

put, fly, more, bad, good.

• Demonstrate the aptness of the following affixes to appear in new words (e.g. un : unable, unacceptable, unalive, unalterable, unaware, uncomfortable, ungentlemanly, unhappy,

unacceptability, unacceptably, uncertainly, uncomfortably, unnaturally, unofficially, unpleasantness, unwillingly, unwillingness, unaltered, unbeaten, unbuilt, undisturbed, uninviting,

unloved, unrehearsed, unwritten, untrusting, etc.):

-ability, -able, after-, -age, all-, -ary, counter-, cross-, de-, dis-, double-, -ed, -ее, -er, -ery, extra-, fore-, -ful, full, half-, -ing, -ify, -ism, -ize, -let, -less, -ly, -ness, -scape, self-.

3. PRODUCTIVITY

•What is

• What is transfer? relevance for language productivity and word-formation?

• Would you say that there is meaning transfer in the following example: (from Russian) having the meaning of (1) 'a group of three persons, nations, etc. united in power or acting in unison', and (2) 'a Russian vehicle drawn by three horses harnessed side-by-side'?

•What is a Illustrate.

• What are metaphors? Comment on the

examples such as: kneed, hard-fisted, open-hearted, red-handed, blackmail, gray economy, etc.

• A mechanism which triggers Give some examples to illustrate this (e.g. acocaine).

• Illustrate the use of metaphor language (e.g. Victor is a pig; my eye).

• Give some examples of weather clear the air, feel under the weather, to save for a rainy day, metaphors (e.g. oneself, fat cat, foxy, rat

race, etc.), colour metaphors (e.g. green fingers, red herring, to be in the red, white lies, etc.)

• Here are some metallic words used as metaphors.Leaden adj. 1.

made of lead (literal meaning); 2. heavy; 3. lifeless, inert,

lacking energy; 4. dull, gray in colour; leaden v. 1. to make dull or sluggish. Brassy adj. 1. made of or resembling brass (literal meaning); 2. resembling the sound of brass instruments; 3. brazen, bold, impudent; 4.

showy, pretentious. Find out the meaning of the following: silver bullet, silver lining, gold brick, gold rush, golden handcuffs, golden handshake, golden parachute, nerves of steel, iron curtain, iron will, the Iron

Chancellor (Bismarck), the Iron Lady (Dame Margaret Thatcher). According to the examples given what does yellow metal symbolize? The gray metal is used as a metaphor for what?

• How do you understand these three idiomatic expressions: born with a silver spoon in your mouth; every cloud has a silver lining; and every silver lining has a cloud.

• Here is another metallic word used as metaphor.

Read the passage (The New York Times; 26 Jan 2003) and work out the meaning of tin ear.

'Ward's credibility is now under siege. Previously, he had drawn criticism for failing to disclose that he was a member of Augusta National

Golf Club, which prohibits women from becoming members, a policy in direct contradiction with the Olympic movement. While Olympic committee volunteers have shown poor management skills, management types have had a tin ear for effectively

running a sports union.'• Here are some numeric terms used as metaphors:

1. 404 meaning 'someone or something missing'; it comes from the Internet jargon and alludes to the error code given by the Web server when a page

you are looking for is not found; the word could be metaphorically extended so that it can be used in some completely unrelated contexts. Compare the following sentences: He went to look for her in her office but got a 404,

and By the time I came back to my desk my computer 404-ed.

2. 24/7 comes from the business world and it indicates complete availability (e.g. He needs 24/7 attention); literally 24/7 refers to the

number of hours in a day and the number of days in a week.

3. 780 degrees turn comes from geometry and when used as metaphor it means 'complete refusal' (e.g. The government went 180

degrees on their strategy).

Use: 404, 24/7, and 180 degrees as metaphors. Use them in different contexts.

• Having in mind the concept of semantic transfer explain the potentially paradoxical

sentence: Red Square was white. In what way would you resolve the paradox?

• What is metonymy?

• Metonymy triggers the formation of many new words. Give some examples to illustrate this.

• In what way can metonyms be classified? Illustrate.

• Here is a list of some metonyms. Identify the category to which they belong (e.g. words derived from the names

of people, things named after their place of origin, the names of

measures, etc.):

Tesla, kelvin, oxford, champagne, decibel, joule, newton, lawrencium, boycott, cardigan, daltonism, macadam, mackintosh, reglan, sandwich, rugby, bikini, astrakhan, medusa,

platonic, volcano, malapropism.

• What are eponyms?

• Give some examples of the words derived from a person's surname (e.g. boycott, mackintosh, sandwich, etc.)

• There are a number of stereotyped and cliche phrases containing eponyms (e.g. Achilles' heel, Adam's apple, Oedipus complex, etc.) Give more examples.

• The word tantalize, v. tr. meaning

'to torment by showing something desirable but keeping it out of reach' derives from Tantalus in Greek mythology. Tantalus, a king of Lydia, was condemned to stand in Hades chin deep in water and under fruits that

receded whenever he tried to drink water or eat the fruit. Find out where the following eponyms derive from.

Abraham's bosom, Achilles' heel, Aladdin's cave, America, Amazon, Bloody Mary, Christmas, Cyrillic, Davis Cup, Quixotic.

• There are a few sentences with explanations of some eponyms. Fill in the blanks using appropriate eponyms.

1 • A______is a man who tries to seduce many women. Thename is based

on the legendary fourteenth-

centurySpanish aristocrat and womaniser,__________________________

2. A doubting __________someone who is sceptical,particularly

someone who refuses to believe until he has seen proof of something. The expression alludes to one

of Jesus's apostles, ________________

who refused to believe in

Christ's resurrection.

3. The wordderives from

Eros, the Greek god oflove.4.______, the conventional expression said as two peoplepart, was

originally a contraction of the phrase 'God be

with you'. The word__________________substituted for the name

God by analogy with the expressions good day and good night.

5. The wandering people known as____________________________________one time to have

come from Egypt, and so were calledEgyptians. In time, this came to be

shortened toGyptians, from which came the present word_______________

6._______ is a trademark used to describe a type ofvacuum cleaner.7. The phrase_________ and_________________is used to describe aperson who has

two separate personalities, one good and the other evil.

8. A_______is an instance of the unintentional confusion ofwords that

produces a ridiculous effect. The word comes from the name of the character Mrs Malaprop (the French mal a propos).

9. Something may be

described as being_____________________is trivial or trite.

The expression derives from the name of

the simple-minded cartoon character__________________________

by the American film producer Walt Disney.

10. An_______is a long quest or wandering that is full of

adventures. The word comes from the _____________________________________

ancient Greek epic poem by Homer.

11. Л ________ box is a source of great troubles; if it isopened, then

difficulties that were previously unknown or under control are unleashed.

12. Someone who is carried away by the impracticai pursuitof romantic ideals and who has extravagant notions ofchivalry is sometimes referred to as__________________________

• Toponyms are place names (e.g. Oxford,

Cambridge) or words derived from names of places (e.g. ghetto, chartreuse, Samaritan). Ghetto, meaning 'a situation or environment characterized by isolation, inferior status, bias, restriction' is a typical example of

meaning transfer, of how a word may come to mean something entirely different as it travels through time: first, it meant 'a foundry for artillery', then it was the name of the Venetian island, then when Jews were forced

to live there it came to mean 'isolated area, isolated people'. Chartreuse means: 1. 'light, yellowish green', and 2. 'liqueur, usually yellow or green' named after La Grande Chartreuse mountain where this

liqueur was first made. What is the story behind Samaritan and Good Samaritan? What is the story behind Jericho (meaning: 'a place out of the way; a place of concealment') often used in the phrase go to Jericho?

• In what way are the rules which account for the creative aspect of the lexicon referred to?

• What are the types of lexical rules which explain lexical productivity?

• Classify the following examples according to

the type of lexical rule (a rule of morphological derivation (involving: addition, subtraction or composition), a rule of conversion, a rule of semantic transfer) which explains the way in which they have been created

(e.g. divorce + ее > divorcee, a rule of morphological derivation; soldier (n.) > soldier (v.), a rule of conversion; palm meaning 'the inside of your hand' > palm meaning 'a tree with long pointed leaves resembling

an outstretched hand', a rule of semantic transfer):

visionary, greenery, predetermine, drip-dry, dry-clean, oversimplify, overgeneralize, Burmese, Nepalese, accessible, digestible, linguistic, genetics, foolish,

go-between, consumerism, vandalism, ladylike, vice-like, frequently, cradle-snatcher (meaning 'someone who marries somebody much younger than himself), crane (meaning 'machine for lifting'), multi-layered, weatherman, well-adjusted, stage-manage,

mass-produce, bikini, window-shopping, partying, honeymooner, mackintosh, cardigan.

• Explain the properties of lexical rules, such as: limited productivity, diversity, semantic open-endedness, recursivenes

s, bidirectionality, and petrification.

• A process (word-forming or inflectional) is said to be productive if it can produce new words and word-forms. Different processes are productive to

a different degree: some are fully productive (like some inflectional processes), some are semi-productive (like word-forming processes), and some are no longer productive. Name some processes

which are fully productive. Give some examples of semi-productive processes. Name some suffixes which have stopped being productive and which have no synchronic relevance.

• There are certain restrictions on productivity (non-linguistic and linguistic). Illustrate.

• Limitations on productivity can be purely linguistic, such as phonological or

morphological. Illustrate.

• Explain and illustrate actual acceptability of lexical entries.

• What is potential acceptability? Illustrate.

• Say whether the following examples are: actually acceptable,

potentially acceptable or unacceptable.

deepen, moisten, blacken, whiten, auburnen, beigen, off-whiten, coalen, bronzen, ashen, earthen, golden, leaden, oaken, silken, wooden, aluminiumen, waxen, woollen.

• The morphological component of language generates many words some of which are actual words (which make up the explicit lexicon) and which are part of the implicit lexicon together with the words

which have been filtered out since they have never been used by the speech community. Compare the following lists of words and mark those which are potentially possible but yet non-existent in the English language. Can you

provide any explanation for those gaps in the paradigms?

permitpermissionpermissivenesspermissiblepermissabilitypermissionerpermitmentpermitalpermitterpermittable

• A great number of different rules can be applied to the same lexical entry to generate new words (e.g. different rules applied to the entry sleep generate: sleepy, sleepiness, sleepless, sleeplessness, sleeper, oversleep, etc.). Apply

different rules to the following entries to generate other words: man, play, drive, home, harm, pain, white, black, keep, house, major, worm, wine, happy, make, conserve, business.

• What is open-

endedness? Consider the following examples and read into them any information that you need to understand them.

paper man, discman, walkman, gingerbread man, toy man, weatherman, barman, delivery man, coalman,

cameraman, camel-man, countryman, front-man, yes-man, handyman

•

Recursiveness as a property of lexical rules refers to the successive application of different word-generating rules so that

the output of one lexical rule can be the input to another lexical rule (e.g. prohibit + ion > prohibition; prohibition + ist > prohibitionist). Say which rules have been applied successively to generate the following words.

Identify both input and output forms.

air-conditioning, air-conditioner, egg-beater, back-street abortionist, better-looking, gold-laced, snow-covered, kidney-shaped, hard-liner, ill-treated, immunization, incorruptible, indefatigable, knock-kneed,

memorized, power-sharing, old-age-pensioners, one-liner, one-parent families, operational, organizational, business-oriented, penny-pinching, personalization, smooth-talking, snowcapped, soft-pedalling, soft-soaping, top-ranking, unscheduled, unrewarding,

unrivalled, unsophisticated

• The ability of one morphological process to potentiate another by creating a base suitable for that other process to apply to is referred to as potentiation. Illustrate.

•

Recursiveness can also be observed in semantic transfer. Consider the following example:

Ciceronian, adj. meaning: 1. of or relating to Cicero; 2. in the style of Cicero, marked by ornate language, forcefulness of expression, etc. The word is a metonym (an

eponym more precisely) derived from the name of Cicero, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, orator, and writer (106-43 ВСЕ). Analyze the italicized words in the following text from the point of view of recursiveness in semantic transfer.

'Oxford University mooted the idea of establishing a business school, prompting 500 black-gowned dons to storm into the 17th

century Sheldonian Theatre in protest. Harvard's business school dates from 1908. Cambridge succumbed in 1990. But

outraged Oxonians unleashed volleys of Ciceronian oratory, arguing that the groves of academy should be out of bounds to commerce.' (Тага Pepper, Oxford's Business Blues, Newsweek (New York), September 2, 2002)

• Lexical derivation is a two-directional process: themorphemes can

be either added or subtracted. Illustrate.

• State whether the following words have been generated by the process of addition or subtraction.

by-pass, passer-by, happy-go-lucky, hang-glider, hang-glide, mass-produce, stage-manage, stage-management, brain-washing, lip-read, break-neck, tongue-twister, mind-reading, edit, head-hunt, aircondition, dryclean, hand-wash, baby-sit, house-keeper,

tape-recorder, sky-dive, impossibility, bakery, conservationist, extremism, faceless, falsified, falling-off, fictionalized, flat-footed, go-between, spin-dry, tumble-dry, investigatory.• What is

lexicalization? Consider the following examples. Tell the

difference between possible meanings of the words and their lexicalized meanings.

paper man, top-drawer, hit, spring-board, conservationist, egg-beater, killjoy, bottom-feeder, cradle-snatcher, easy-chair, wheel-chair, push-chair,

jailbreak, heartbreak, daybreak, left-overs, turn-overs, day-tripper, twigloo, telephone box, toy box, keepsakes, White House, greenhouse, glasshouse

• Words can be semantically, phonologically, morphologica

lly, and syntactically lexicalized. Provide examples for each type of lexicalization.

• Classify the following words according to the type of lexicalization:

strength, width, forgiveness,

whiteness, foolishness, gift, neighbourhood, motherhood, brotherhood, widowerhood, mess, redskin, red herring, song, department, basement, derailment, cutpurse, killjoy, spoilsport.

• Compare the following pairs of affixes as to

their degree of productivity:

-er, -ist; quasi-, de-; re-, pre-; -ment, -ery; -ion, -hood; -ness, -ity; -y, -ful.

• Compare the following pairs of word-formation processes as to their degree of productivity:

composition in verbs and derivation in verbs; composition in nouns and composition in adverbs;

derivation in verbs and back-formation in verbs; shortening and blending; blending and back-formation.

• • Comment on the following nonce formations:

• What is creativity or lexical innovation? Which forms may this method take?

• What is a neologism? Illustrate.

• Here are some new words and expressions that have come into English since

1980: taxable, junk mail, snowboarding, monoboarding, snowsurfing, eco-friendly, cardboard city, Leonardomania, mouse potato, karaoke, dark-green, clergyperson, chairperson. What do they mean?

• Explain the following neologisms from the point of view of word-formation:

abortuary; been there, done that; Blairism; Clintonite; Clintonomics; body-piercing; bodice-ripper; break-dancing; Britpop; cable-ready; cable-readyness; canyoning;

orienteering; carjacking; CD; CD-ROM; DVD; twig loo; car bra; drop-dead; e-mail; e-mailer; decaf; clergyperson; IFOR; Internet; mouse potato; no-fly zone; no-go area; prenup; rollerblade; stage-diving; sky-diving; techie; tree hugger; chain-smoker; chain-drinker; magicienne;

KODAK; nouvelle cuisine; perestroika; guestworker; teleprompter; chocoholic; jokethon; fishburger; teleshopping; F-word; jet set; wait state; disco; gyro; soap; bargain-hunter; script-write; smaze, media-friendly, PR-friendly.

• What are nonce words? What is the difference between neologisms and nonce words?

blah-blahing, hah-hahed, wiskify, how-do-you-doers, did-not-finishers, have-nots, art-for-arter, hopefuls, hope-nots, tickler and tickle-ee.

• Obsolete words are the words that have dropped out of the language (e.g. baldric). Old words may stay in the language but they acquire a new stylistic meaning (e.g. damsel). When a word is no longer in general

use but it is still in the language we call it an archaism. Here are some examples of obsolete words (the first word in the pair): yeoman - farmer or farm tenant; cordwainer -shoemaker, ostler - a person that

looks after horses. Here are some obsolete words and their modern counterparts juggled. Match the words in column A with those in column B.

ADOAFFINITYAFOREAFRESHAGUE

ABASEABHORACQUITEREDAMSEL

• What are stunt words?

• Here are some examples of stunt words. Explanation of their meaning is also given. Analyze the words and find out what

is 'stunt' about them.

BFE, adj. 'very far away: beyond f...ing Egypt'; acronym; Egypt was chosen somewhat arbitrarily as a country on the opposite side of the world. Context and source: 'My car is parked BFE!' (Conversation)

cometised, adj. Used to describe Netscape when it freezes or jams; based on the observation of a 'shooting star' or a comet that appears on the Netscape button, in the upper right corner of a Netscape browser. Context and source: 'Oh geez, Netscape is cometised.' (Internet Newsgroup).

disconfect, v. 'to sterilize the piece of candy you dropped on the floor by blowing on it, somehow assuming this will remove all the germs'. (Conversation).

disorient express, n. 'a state of confusion'. Context and source: 'I felt like I was on the disorient Express for good this

time.' Newsweek, 11/14/96

eaters death, n. 'the acute form of eaters coma; characterized by difficulty in standing up and walking after an extremely large meal'; Context and source: 'I've got eaters death and I don't think I can get up from this chair'. (Conversation).

elecelleration, n. 'the mistaken notion that the more you press an elevator button the faster it will arrive'. (Conversation).

• Comment on Easter Eggstravaganza from the point of view of word-formation.

• Here are some examples

and extracts taken from Hair magazine (1997, 1998). Analyze the words in bold type.

ringlets; anklet; wristlet; chop-o-holics; dyeing forchange; you are amberlievable; looking glam; celeb style; are head scarves this season's must-

haves; best dos and don'ts; twenty-four hopefuls taken to the catwalk; sunsational.

• What is nonsense?

• Having in mind the notion of nonsense, analyze the following poems and extracts from

poems {After Some Thought, A Poem by S. Turner, taken from N. Dimitrijevic ed. Poetry with Pleasure, Smederevska Palanka: Invest Export, 1996, p. 23; The Dolmphious Duck by Edward Lear, taken from Lady

Strachey, ed., The Complete Nonsense Book By Edward Lear, New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1912, p 349; There was a Young Person of Crete by Edward Lear, op. cit, p. 109; The Pelican Chorus and

The Quangle Wangle's Hat by Edward Lear, taken from Nonsense Songs by Edward Lear, London and New York: Frederick Warne &Co. Ltd., s. a., no page number; "E e, "G g, "L I from A Learical Lexicon (from the works of

Edward Lear compiled by Mura Cohn Livingston, New York: Atheneum, 1985, no pagination, pages indicated by letters of alphabet). We italicized the words that are nonsensical.

AFTER SOME THOUGHT, A POEM

If I grow a moustach

e for you

will you grow

a ffectionate

for me?S.

Tu

rne rThe Dolomphious Duck,who caught Spotted Frogs for her dinnerwith a Runcible Spoon.

E. Lear

There was a Young

Person of Crete,Whose toilette was far from complete:She dressed in a sack spickle-speckled with black,That ombliferous Person of Crete.

E. Lear

PELICAN CHORUS

KING and Queen of the Pelicans we; No oth

er Birds so grand we

see! None but we have feet like fins! With lovely leathery

throats and chins! P

loffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jilll We think so then, and we thought so

still

E. Lear

THE QUANGLE WANGLE'S HAT

ION the top of the Crumpetty Tree

The Quangle Wangle sat,But his face you could not see.On account of this Beaver Hat.For his Hat was a hundred and two feet wide,With ribbons and bibbons on every side,And bells, and buttons, and loops, and lace, So

that nobody ever could see the vace Of the Quangle Wangle Quee.

II

The Quangle Wangle saidTo himself on the

Crumpetty Tree,"Jam; and jelly; and bread;Are the best of food for me!But the longer I live on this Crumpetty tree,The plainer than ever it seems to meThat very few people come this way,

And that life on the whole is far from gay!"Said the Quangle Wangle Quee.

Ill

But there came to the Crumpetty Tree,

Mr. and Mrs. Canary;And they said, "Did ever you seeAny spot so charmingly airy?May we build a nest on your lovely Hat?Mr. Quangle Wangle, grant us that!О please let us come and build a nest

Of whatever material suits you best,Mr. Quangle Wangle Queel"

IV

And besides, to the Crumpetty TreeCame the Stork, the

duck, and the Owl;The Snail and the Bumble-Bee,The Frog and the Fimble Fowl;(The Fimble Fowl, with a Corkscrew leg);And all of them said,

"We humbly beg,We may build our homes on your lovely Hat,

Mr. Quangle Wangle, grant us that! Mr. Quangle

"Gg

Answer the following questions concerning nonsensical words in the texts quoted:

1. Are these words registered in any English dictionary?2. On the basis of their phono-morphological shape would you

say that these words can be said to belong to the English language?

3. Assign word-class (i.e. part-of-speech) meaning on the basis of their distribution (i.e. their position in the syntactic string).

4. What meanings can be read into these words?5. Analyze these words from the point of view of word formation.6. Find the examples of ablaut.7. Find the examples of alliteration.8. Find the examples of rhyme words.9. Comment on Lear's intent to mix up the tenses in the last line

of PELICAN CHORUS.10. In what way do you see word play and nonsense related?11. Choose one of the poems and translate it into Serbian.

• Define analogy in reference to word-formation?

• An analogical formation is a new formation clearly modelled on one already existing lexeme. Here are

V

And the Golden Grouse came there,And the Pohble who has no toes,And the small Olympian bear,And the Dong with a luminous nose,And the Blue Baboon, who played the flute,And the Orient Calf from the Land of Tute,

And the Attery Squash, and the Bisky Bat,All came and built on the lovely HatOf the Quangle Wangle Quee.

VI

And the Quangle Wangle saidTo himself on the Crumpetty Tree,

"When all these creatures moveWhat a wonderful noise there'll be!"And at night by the light of the Mulberry moonThey danced to the Flute of the Blue Baboon,On the broad green leaves of the Crumpetty Tree,And all were as happy as happy could be,

With the Quangle Wangle Quee.

"Ее

The winter seems all gone for the present - though the Equal-noxious gales will doubtless come in disgustableforce..."Its Coast scenery may truly be called

pomskizillious and gromphibberous, being as no words can describe its magnificence."

"L I. . . a wonderfully lovely view over the river Temms & the surroundiant landskip." some examples of analogical formations in English. Find out

the word or expression upon which they were modelled (e.g. tab/escape is based on landscape; Monicagate is based on Watergate, etc.):

lakescape, seascape, roofscape, skyscape, stage diving, orienteering, gyrocopter, oceanarium,

ceiling-ward, chocoholic, cashaholic, chop-o-holic, roller-blades, fishburger, shrimpburger, washeteria, mouse potato, discman.

• Some forms are coined because of chance phonetic resemblance (e.g. ambisextrous

is based on ambidextrous). Match the following examples with the words on which they are based:

wargasm, catisfaction, purrfect, amberlievable, sunsational, furrious, eelionaire, chatterday, guesstimate.

• What does phonetic motivation refer to?

• What are onomatopoeic, imitative or echoic words?

• Here are some words related to the sounds made by mouth and nose. From these words choose the correct one

to fill in the blanks.

puff, pant, gasp, sob, snore, cough, splutter, stutter, mutter, stammer, sniff, sniffle, burr, burp, hiccup

1. If someone_____a cigarette or pipe, they suck smoke into

their mouth and blow it out again.

2. She looked calm and relaxed,___________________cigarette.3. If you are_____you

are breathing loudly and

quickly withyour mouth open because you are tired, or out of breath after a lot of physical effort.

4. The train

slowly through

the tunnel.

5. Don't hurry,

don't_________________

slowly.

6. When

someone ________________

cry in a noisy

way,

breathing in

short

breaths.

7. She began to

weep in__________________

sobs...

8. If you ______

you breathe very

noisily when you

aresleeping.

9. If something _____it makes a series of short spitting

sounds, usually caused by small amounts of

liquid being forced out.

10. If someone has a__________________difficult to say the first

sound of a word, and so they often hesitate or repeat it two or three times.

11. She has a slight_________________only notice it when she's

tired or upset.

12. If you _____, you speak very quietly so that you cannot

easily be heard, often because you are complaining about something or because you are speaking to yourself.

13. Youwhen your

throat is irritated or sometimes when

you are embarrassed or want to attract someone's attention.

14. You sometimes get______________you have been eating or

drinking too quickly.

15. If you____a baby you pat it

on the back and cause it______

after it has had a drink.

16. If someone has a ____________________speak English with a

regional accent in which 'r' sounds are pronounced more noticeably than in the standard

way of speaking.

17. If you , you draw in

air through your nose hard

enough to make a sound, especially when you have a cold or are trying not to cry.

18. If you______, you sniff

repeatedly, as you do when you

have got a cold or when you are crying.

• From the following list of words for different sorts of sound choose the right one to complete the following sentences and phrases:

squeak, hiss, thud, tinkle, peal, hum, rustle, roar, slam, rattle, clatter, squeal, crack, crackle, creak, crash, tick, rumble, ting, ting-a-ling, rat-a-tat, bang, bong, boo, sizzle, plop, thump.

1. The_____of the masculine voices in the smoky room.2. A menacing______of distant thunder...

3. They eyed each other, the silence broken only by the of the clock on the mantelpiece.

4. The barrel exploded with a thunderous______________________________5. The bell

once.6. When you

want to describe in a childish way the sound a small bell

makes, you say it goes_________________

7. If something_______, it makes a sound like a small bell

ringing or like thin glass breaking and falling to the ground.

8. There was a______of brakes.9. A door

open nearby.10. Bursting into

of laughter.

11. She went outthe door

behind her.12. If, when you are speaking or singing, your voice_____________________________________________

makes high-pitched noises which you cannot control because you are feeling a strong emotion.

13. A bonfire_____in one of the gardens.

14. If youyou make a

sound like a long's'.15. Air conditioners are costly and tend to .16. The continual_____________of machine-gun fire.17. A____is a wooden instrument that you shake to make a

loud tattling sound, for

example at a football match.

18. Rotten, uneven floorboards_______________________19. A_____is a dull sound, such as a heavy object makes

when it falls onto a carpet.

20. When your heart ___________________strongly and rather

quickly, for example because you

are very frightened or happy.

21. He____his papers.22. The_____of dishes being washed.23. A_____is a continuous series of short, loud sounds that

are made by hard things hitting each other.

24. Applause began to crash all round me.

25. The boys used to________________doors with sticks.26. A______is a long, deep sound such as the sound made

by a big bell.27. If you

someone who is giving a performance or a

speech, you shout '________________make other loud sounds to

indicate that you do not like them or their performance.

28. If something , it makes a

hissing sound like the

sound made by frying food.

29. A_____is a soft gentle sound, like the sound made by

something light

dropping into water without a splash.

30. If yousomeone or

something, you hit them hard,

usually with your fist.

• Here are some onomatopoeic verbs which denote the cries of several animals. Match these

verbs with the names of the animals (which are also listed), e.g. bees hum, birds twitter, cats purr, etc.

The verbs: howl, gobble, roar, cry, hiss, bleat, grunt, coo, gibber, hum, twitter, grunt purr, crow, bow-wow, scream, buzz, neigh, mew,

quack, howl, trumpet, croak, squeak

The animals: apes, birds, cats, cocks, cows, dogs, doves, ducks, eagles, elephants, flies, frogs, geese, goats, horses, lambs, lions, mice, monkeys, pigeons, pigs, sheep, snakes, swans, turkeys, wolves

• Define and illustrate the mechanism of meaning transfer. What is the role of meaning transfer (or semantic shift) in word-formation?

• Analyze the language of the following poem. Focus on the word-formation

processes which have been activated to achieve this unique idiosyncratic effect ofthe language used in the poem.

ONE SUMMER

One summer you aeroplaned away,

too much money away from me, and stayed there for quite a few missed embraces.

Before

leaving, you smiled me that you'd return all of a mystery moment and would airletter meevery few breakfasts

in the meantime.Thisyou did, and I thank you most kissingly.Iwish however, that I could hijackerplane to

the Ignated States of Neon where I'd crashland perfectly in the deserted airport of your heart.

S. Turner

(Dimitrijevic, N., (ed.) (1996). Poetry with Pleasure, p. 42)

4. ORIGIN OF ENGLISH WORDS

• A native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period. The native words are subdivided into those of the Indo-European

stock (e.g. brother, mother, son, sun, moon, wind, water) and those of Common Germanic origin (summer, winter, storm, rain, ice, ground, house, room). Find the examples of native words in the following text.

Text(1)

'Did you ever hear of such a pitiable case in all your lives? Here was the richest breakfast that could be set before a king, and its very richness made it good for nothing. The poorest labourer, sitting down to his crust of bread and cup of water, was far better off than King Midas, whose fine food was really worth its weight in gold. (...) How many days could he live on this rich food? (...) But this was only a passing thought. So pleased was Midas with the shining of the yellow metal, that he would still have refused to give up the Golden

Touch for so small a matter as a breakfast. Just imagine what a price for one meal! It would have been the same as paying millions of money for some fried fish, an egg, a potato, a hot cake, and a cup of coffee! 'It would be quite too dear,' thought Midas. Still, so great was his hunger, and the difficulty of his situation, that he again cried aloud, and very sadly too. Our pretty Marygold could bear it

no longer. She sat a moment looking at her father, and trying, with all the might of her little wits, to find out

what was the matter with him. Then, with a sweet and sorrowful wish to comfort him, she started from her

chair, and running to Midas, threw her arms lovingly about his knees. He bent down and kissed her. He felt that his little daughter's love was worth a thousand times more than he had gained by the Golden Touch. 'My precious, precious Marygoldi' cried he. But she

made no answer.' (Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Wonder Book, Longmans, 1967, pp. 50 - 51 )

• Pinpoint the native words and the words of foreign origin in the following text.

Text (2)

'The machine translation project SUSY was derived from a Russian-German prototype system that had been developed in the 1970's. It attempts to generalize that system by adding multilingual capabilities (German, Russian, French, English, and Esperanto), but

the main goal of SUSY is MT research rather than development of an operational system. The basic MT methodology of SUSY is transfer. The analysis stage of the system has eight subprocesses: 1) word identification, 2) morphological analysis, 3) homograph

disambiguation, 4) clause-level parsing, 5) noun group analysis, 6) verb group analysis, 7) combining noun and verb groups, and 8) semantic disambiguation. The homograph disambiguation subprocess uses a weighted heuristic to estimate the likelihood of word class, based on the word classes

of surrounding words in the sentence. The semantic disambiguation subprocess uses semantic dictionaries, which allow assigning features to nouns and transformations on syntactic structures'. (Sergei Nirenburg, ed., Machine Translation,

1987, Cambridge University Press, p. 36)• What is the

approximate proportion of native to foreign words in text (1) and text (2)? Compare these proportions and see if you can come up with any explanation of the difference

between them?

• What are loan words?

• What do we mean by source of borrowing in comparison to origin of borrowing (by which we mean the language to which the word may be ultimately

traced)? Here are four dictionary entries taken from The Random House Dictionary of the English Language. Illustrate the difference between source of borrowing and origin of borrowing.

1. trampoline n. a sheet, usually of canvas, attached by resilient cords or springs to a horizontal frame, used as a springboard in tumbling (var. of trampolin < Sp < It trampolino springboard < Gmc: see trample + ino)

2. liberty n. a freedom from despotic government or rule (ME liberie < MF < L liberias)

3. orange n. a reddish yellow, bitter or sweet, edible citrus fruit (ME < OF , c. Sp naranja < Ar naranj < Pers. narang

< Skt naranga)

4. zodiak n. an imaginary belt of heavens; divided into 12 constellations and signs of the zodiak; a diagram representing this belt (< L zodiak(us) < Gk zoidiakos)

Key: < descended from; derived from, from; Sp - Spanish; IT - Italian; Gmc - Germanic; ME - Middle English; MF -Middle French; L - Latin; OF - Old French; Ar - Arabic; Pers - Persian; Skt - Sanskrit; Gk - Greek• In the

following text two words have been

taken over from Japanese. Which are they?

'Believe it or not, you can buy a $6000 shower curtain for your home. But why would you? Former tycoon Dennis Kozlowski did. He also spent $2200 on a wastebasket, nearly $3000 on

coat hangers and nearly $6000 on sheets... The prices are not out of line, but they're off the scale when it comes to priorities', says Bilhuber, whose client list includes ex-AOL Time Warner honcho Robert Pittman, Michael Douglas, David Bowie and his model wife, Iman, and designer Hubert

Givenchy.' (Maria Puente: USA Today, Sep 27, 2002).

• Take the Oxford Dictionary of New Words and search it for more words coming from Japanese.

• Taboo is a word borrowed from Tongan.

As an adjective it means 'forbidden or banned'; as a verb it means 'to avoid or prohibit something as taboo'. Explain the use of the word taboo in the following example.

'This is, after all, the age of air bags, bicycle

helmets, and drunk-driving taboos, of warning labels, coroner inquiries and consumer product testing'. (Leonard Stern, How Safe is Safe Enough?, The Vancouver Sun, Oct 8, 2001)

Give your own examples to illustrate the use of taboo in English.

• Smorgasbord is a word taken over from Swedish (smorgas meaning 'bread and butter' and bord meaning 'table'). This word has two meanings: 1. 'a buffet featuring various dishes, such as hors d'oeuvres, salads, fish,

etc., and 2. 'a medley or miscellany' (in e.g. 'annual smorgasbord of music and cabaret'). Look this word up in your dictionary and see what examples are provided to illustrate its usage.

• In the following text there is one word which comes from Persian. Guess which.

A certain favoritism, even in the absence of baksheesh-pocketing headwaiters, is indispensable to restaurants that expect to maintain a steady clientele -

especially in New York, where every other big shot seems to demand the best table and, instead of something fabulous to eat, a custom-baked potato' (Thomas McNamee, The Joy of Cooking, The New York Times Book Review, Jun 23, 2002).

• Many of the everyday English words such as bagel, klutz, and kibitz are terms from Yiddish. Look these words up in your dictionary and say what they mean.

• Here are some words for clothes with Indian

origin: bandanna, cashmere, chintz, dungarees, jodhpurs, khakis, pajamas. Fill in the blanks in the following sentences using these words.

1. ________is a square of silk material with red or yellow

spots, usually worn round the neck.

2. __________ is kind of cotton cloth with printed designs

used for curtains, covers, furniture.

3. Ashawl is the

one made of the fine soft wool

of Cashmere goats.

4. ______________

are overalls of coarse cotton material.5. The name for

loose-fitting jacket and trousers for sleeping is__________

6. The name for riding breeches is .7. Pants made of khaki are called

• The word erg (n.) meaning 'the

unit of work or energy in the

centimeter-gram-second system'

comes from Greek

ergon ('work') and it derives from the Indo-European root werg-. Would you say that the following words share the same root: ergonomic, work, energy, metallurgy,

surgery, wright, orgy?

• While many borrowed words which linguists call loan words become naturalized (i.e. partly or completely assimilated; e.g. cheese, street, wall, wine, husband, and fellow have become fully

assimilated) others retain their foreign character in spelling, pronunciation, meaning, their morphological make-up and grammar (e.g. puree, purdah, cloche, pince-nez, kitsch, kamikaze, kebab, cadenza, kibbutz).

Here is a list of words which have come into English from other languages. Say whether they have been fully assimilated (in the sense that they are indistinguishable from native words) or only partly assimilated: not

assimilated semantically, not assimilated grammatically, not completely assimilated phonetically, not assimilated graphically; there are examples of words which show incomplete assimilation in several

respects simultaneously:

sport, start, boss, face, figure, finish, matter, sari, sombrero, caftan, sheik, shah, bacilli, crises, phenomena, espionage, melange, cloche, atelier, neglige, macaroni, mezzo soprano, ballet, buffet, expose, preecis, creche,

nota bene, kibbutz, karate, karma, chevapcici, nyet, troika, toque, trampoline.

• Here are three more words from the major source languages of English.

1. betise (from French betise 'stupidity,

nonsense', ultimately from Latin bestia 'beast') in English has two meanings: 1. 'stupidity', and 2. 'foolish remark or action';

2. agita (Americanism, from Italian agitare ('to

agitate') means: 1. 'heartburn', and 2. 'anxiety'.

3. katzenjammer (from German Katzen (plural of Katze, 'cat') + Jammer (distress) has the following meanings: 1. 'hangover', 2. 'distress',

and 3. 'confussion'.

Here are these three words in their respective contexts:

1. 'Public accountability of ministers and senior civil servants has, to put it mildly, been relaxed. If something goes badly wrong, the minister in

whose orbit the betise has occurred rarely makes a public apology, let alone resigns' (Europe: What's Wrong With Nepotism, Anyway? The Economist (London, Mar 20, 1999);

2. 'Ms. Falco and Mr. Tucci bring a more

earthy, New York agita to the roles. After growing up in the New York suburbs - she on Long Island, he in Westchester County - the two have made careers playing incomplete, angular characters' (John Leland, Layers Of Clothing Fall

Away. The New York Times, Aug 4, 2002);

3. 'Peebles compared the intense activity in cosmology over the last few years to 'a really good party'. But he also listed open questions that, he said, left him with

an 'uneasy feeling' - a kind of cosmic katzenjammer -about whether the concordance will survive new and more precise tests' (James Glanz, Cosmology: Does Science Know the Vital Statistics of the Cosmos?

Science (Washington, DC), Nov 13, 1998.

Discuss these three words in terms of the degree of assimilation. Find out in what respects they have or have not been assimilated.

• Here are two words in English which come from

German. Discuss these two words in terms of assimilation (kind of assimilation and degree of assimilation).ergon ('work') and it derives from the Indo-European root werg-. Would you say that the following

words share the same root: ergonomic, work, energy, metallurgy, surgery, wright, orgy?

• While many borrowed words which linguists call loan words become naturalized (i.e. partly or completely assimilated;

e.g. cheese, street, wall, wine, husband, and fellow have become fully assimilated) others retain their foreign character in spelling, pronunciation, meaning, their morphological make-up and grammar (e.g. puree, purdah,

cloche, pince-nez, kitsch, kamikaze, kebab, cadenza, kibbutz). Here is a list of words which have come into English from other languages. Say whether they have been fully assimilated (in the sense that they are

indistinguishable from native words) or only partly assimilated: not assimilated semantically, not assimilated grammatically, not completely assimilated phonetically, not assimilated graphically; there are

examples of words which show incomplete assimilation in several respects simultaneously:

sport, start, boss, face, figure, finish, matter, sari, sombrero, caftan, sheik, shah, bacilli, crises, phenomena, espionage,

melange, cloche, atelier, neglige, macaroni, mezzo soprano, ballet, buffet, expose, preecis, creche, nota bene, kibbutz, karate, karma, chevapcici, nyet, troika, toque, trampoline.

• Here are three more words from the major source

languages of English.

1. betise (from French betise 'stupidity, nonsense', ultimately from Latin bestia 'beast') in English has two meanings: 1. 'stupidity', and 2. 'foolish

remark or action';

2. agita (Americanism, from Italian agitare ('to agitate') means: 1. 'heartburn', and 2. 'anxiety'.

3. katzenjammer (from German Katzen (plural of Katze, 'cat')

+ Jammer (distress) has the following meanings: 1. 'hangover', 2. 'distress', and 3. 'confussion'.

Here are these three words in their respective contexts:

1. 'Public accountability of ministers and senior civil servants

has, to put it mildly, been relaxed. If something goes badly wrong, the minister in whose orbit the betise has occurred rarely makes a public apology, let alone resigns' (Europe: What's Wrong With Nepotism, Anyway? The

Economist (London, Mar 20, 1999);

2. 'Ms. Falco and Mr. Tucci bring a more earthy, New York agita to the roles. After growing up in the New York suburbs - she on Long Island, he in Westchester County - the two have made careers

playing incomplete, angular characters' (John Leland, Layers Of Clothing Fall Away. The New York Times, Aug 4, 2002);

3. 'Peebles compared the intense activity in cosmology over the last few years to

'a really good party'. But he also listed open questions that, he said, left him with an 'uneasy feeling' - a kind of cosmic katzenjammer -about whether the concordance will survive new and more precise tests' (James

Glanz, Cosmology: Does Science Know the Vital Statistics of the Cosmos? Science (Washington, DC), Nov 13, 1998.

Discuss these three words in terms of the degree of assimilation. Find out in what respects they

have or have not been assimilated.

« Here are two words in English which come from German. Discuss these two words in terms of assimilation (kind of assimilation and degree of assimilation).

(1) kumel n. is 1. a colourless

liqueur flavored with cumin, caraway seeds, etc. and 2. Caraway seed;

(2) krieg spiel (from German Khegsspiel, lit.: war's game) n. is 1. a game using small figures and counters that represent

troops, ships, etc. played on a map or miniature battlefield, developed for teaching military tactics to officers

• The word trousseau n. sg. (trousseaux, n. pi. or trousseaus, n. pi.) came into English

from French. The meaning of the word is: 'the clothes, linen, and other possessions that a bride collects for her marriage'. This word is considered to be rather old-fashioned. Comment on the degree of grammatical assimilation of the word

having in mind its two plurals. How about other examples of the words with double plurals (e.g. acquarium, n. sg. -acquaria, n. pi.; acquariums, n. pi.)?

• Loan words not assimilated in any respect and which

exist alongside their English counterparts are called barbarisms, e.g. addio (Italian) - good-bye (English); pot-au-feu (French) - clear soup (English). Here are some examples of barbarisms. Find their

English counterparts.

ergo, ad libitum, autochthon, au jus, au contraire, au courant, faux pas, culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

• International words are words of identical origin that occur in several languages as

a result of simultaneous or successive borrowings from one source, e.g. super, interview, weekend, cocktail, paradox). Find more examples of internationalisms.

In English there are borrowings from many languages, e.g.

from Japanese: tycoon, karate, judo, harakiri, bonsai, karaoke, kimono, origami; from Arabic: sultan, harem, cipher, algebra, mufti, coffee; from Turkish: yoghurt, kiosk, caftan, fez; from Eskimo: kayak, igloo, anorak; from Russian: bistro, sputnik, cosmonaut, perestroika, tundra, tsar,

kulak, nyet, balalaika, mammoth, kasha, kvass; from Italian: ghetto, soprano, tenor, confetti, ballerina, fiasco, spaghetti, lasagna, bandit, casino; from German: kitsch, hamburger, frankfurter, delicatessen, blitz, waltz, poodle; from French: automobile,

chauffeur, boutique, elite, avant garde, etui, etude, vis a vis; from Spanish: embargo, siesta, guerilla, macho, mosquito, bonanza, lasso; from Portuguese: marmalade, cobra; from Norwegian: fiord, ski, slalom; from Dutch: yacht, cruise; from Finnish: sauna, from Greek: drama, prologue,

theatre, theory, pseudonym; from Persian: caravan, sherbet, bazaar. Are any of the words that are listed used in your own language? Would you say that the words listed have become international words?

What is etymology?

Name two etymological dictionaries of the English language.

Etymology is an account of the history of a word. Here is an interesting etymology of the word glamour according to Professor Thomas Magner (personal communication). The English word

glamour derives from the Scottish version of grammar. As grammar was associated with learned people the ordinary folk regarded it with awe. The Scottish version that was then accepted in the standard language in its meaning of 'attractive', 'exotic'. The standard

language also maintained the original grammar. Look up the word broker in an etymological dictionary (The American Heritage Dictionary for example) and find out about its original usage and the history of its change in usage. How about crocodile tears? What is the history of

crocodile tears? What is the history of the words: marshal, steward, and miser?

• Words which have developed different meanings despite deriving from the same word are known to etymologists as doublets.

Thus, screed is a doublet of shred. Here is the story. Despite its etymology, the word screed in its modern usage seems to be leaning toward a meaning of 'a tongue-lashing'; this current usage strays far from the word's

original meaning defined in modern dictionaries as 'a long piece of writing'; its earlier meaning, 'a long list', dates from the 18th

century; its even earlier meaning was 'a long strip of paper or cloth'; the

'long strip' meaning survives in the construction industry where a screed is a long piece of wood used for smoothing plaster. The word screed entered standard English as a variant of the Old English word screade

which was pronounced much like the modern English word shred and it had exactly that meaning, 'a piece cut or torn off, especially in a narrow strip'. Find out the story behind the following doublet: drag and draw.

• Cognates are words which are 'related by birth' or 'of the same parentage', e.g. English cold is a cognate of German kalt; one more example: a man raising capital and the one raising cattle are not doing something very different,

etymologically speaking: the words capital and cattle are cognates, derived from Latin caput. Look up the word chattel in an etymological dictionary and say if it is related to the word cattle. Would you say that cattle and chattel

are cognates?

• False cognates, also known as false friends, are words that appear to be related but are not, they have completely different origins. Take the following example: the word impregnable,

meaning 'strong enough to resist or withstand attack' as in an impregnable fortress comes from Middle English, from Middle French imprenable and it looks to be a cousin of impregnable

(semantically related to impregnate); however, this latter impregnable is an adjective which means 'susceptible of impregnation, as an egg' and is related to Late Latin impraegnatus 'made pregnant'. The words

impregnable 1 and impregnable 2 have separate ancestries, they are etymologically different, they are false cognates or false friends. Look up the following words in an etymological dictionary and say if they are

related: scission and scissors.

• False cognates or false friends work across languages as well: the English words eventually and actual are not in any way related to the Serbian words

eventualno and aktuelan; they are in no way related to aktuell or eventuelt in Norwegian either. The following words: embarazada, tasten, and stanza come from: Spanish, German, and Italian respectively. With which

English words do you think they can be associated? Try to figure out their meaning. Look the words up in their respective dictionaries.

• Here are three pairs of words: 1. insensitive - unfeeling; 2.

incurable - unbeatable; 3. eradicate - uproot. Find out if the words that make a pair mean the same.

• Here are some examples of false friends working across different languages - English and

Serbian in particular. Think of your own examples.

sensible (English) - senzibilan (Serbian) eventually (English) - eventualno (Serbian)emission (English) - emisija (e.g. in televizijska emisiija)(Serbian)

diet (English) - di

jeta (Serbian) publ

ic (English) - publ

ika (Serbian)

• Folk etymology is change in the form of a word or

phrase based on a mistaken assumption about its composition or meaning, as in shamefaced for shamfast ('bound by shame'), cutlet from French cotelette (double diminutive for 'rib', so 'little rib'), woodchuck ('

a marmot') for the American Indian word wuchak (the name for a marmot found in America). The most amusing are mishearings such as the one which made cockroach of Spanish cucaracha and Bob Ruly (the name of the town in

Lousiana, U. S. A.) of French bois brule. Find out the story behind the word cellar in salt cellar.

• Humble pie meaning 'humiliation in the form of apology' as often used in the phrase to eat humble pie derives from the

phrase an umble pie changed by folk etymology by resemblance to the word humble. The phrase an umble pie itself was made by false splitting from a numble pie (numbles are edible animal entrails).

English words apron and orange were also made by false splitting. Find out in what way.

• Words or meanings are changed to match an incorrect origin for different reasons. The name for Welsh rabbit, meaning 'a

dish consisting of melted cheese, usually mixed with ale or beer, milk, and spices, served over toast' is also Welsh rarebit derived by folk etymology. Which reasons do you think are behind this change (e.g.

jocular reasons or perhaps the attempt to make the name of the dish less insulting to the Welsh)?

• Here are some Sebian words and expressions derived through folk etymology: kompaktibilan, ekspres kafa,

ekspreso, femirati se, sentimentacija, kvarijes, poluklinika, svirena, buldozder. Find the words and phrases they are related to. In case of kinezi-terapija (wrongly interpreted as: 'therapy practiced by the Chinese') and moralno

(wrongly interpreted as: 'something that must be done, associated with morati) we are dealing with the type of folk etymology derivation which is different from the one illustrated by the examples

such as: svirena and kvarijes. Can you see which criteria for the division we have in mind? Give your own examples if possible.

• Anglicism is a word, idiom, or characteristic feature of the English

language occurring in or borrowed by another language, e.g. weekend or star in French, vikend or klub in Serbian. Give some more examples of anglicisms across the languages that are familiar to you.

• Here are some examples of anglicisms in the Serbian language. Add your own examples to the list.

Disketa, kaseta, sajt, haker, atacment, vokmen, diskmen, brifing, lizing, marketing, menadzment, diler, establisment,

monitor, printer, skrinsejver, laser, stajling, stilista, foto-sesn, dajdzest, plejbek, rimejk, remiks, kambek, frontmen, fri lens, bestseler, bajpas, pejsmejker, hamburger, dzingl, desk, spot, rok, pop, erkondisn, marker...

• Anglicisms can be

analysed on three levels: phonological, morphological and semantic. Analyze the following anglicisms in the Serbian language: lizing, marketing, supermarket, diet set, intervju, vestern, triler, klub, bar.

Three degrees of morphological adaptation can bedistinguished in Serbian: zero degree of adaptation (e.g. dolar); second degree adaptation involves phonological adaptation of the affix (e.g. lider); third degree adaptation means full integration into the

morphological system of the Serbian language (e.g. komercijalna banka). Analyze the following words in terms of degrees of morphological adaptation: foto-sesn, bilbord, konvertibilan, menadzer, testirati, nokautirati, minic, rasista, barmen, sejker,

surfovanje Internetom.

Compare revolving credit in business English and its equivalents in the Serbian language: (1) revolving akreditiv, and (2) revolvirajuci akreditiv. Comment on the degree of morphological adaptation.

There are three levels of semantic adaptation: zero level of adaptation means that the imported word keeps its original meaning (e.g. triler); the meaning of the English word can be narrowed or widened (e.g. compare: tandem in English and Serbian and bar in English and

Serbian). Analyze the following words from the point of view of semantic adaptation: ploter, frontmen, stilista, lider, dijeta.

Here are the meanings of the word sponsor (n.) according to the Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary: 1. a

person or organization that pays some or all of the expenses connected with something such as an event, a theatrical production, or an athletics meeting; 2. a person who agrees to give a certain sum of money to someone who does something special for charity; 3. an important person

or organization that supports the actions and beliefs of another person or organization in order to make them more popular, more powerful, or better known. What are the meanings of the word sponzor (n.) in Serbian? Note the following meaning in the Serbian word: 'a

man who patronizes a young woman in return for sexual favours' (the word for such a young woman is sponzorusa). Analyze the word sponzor in terms of semantic adaptation. Has the meaning of the English word been widened?

Some English words have been taken over but

they have been assigned meanings which they do not have in English (e.g. cips and insert in Serbian). Can you think of some more examples of English words which have a different meaning in Serbian due to wrong interpretation? Analyze the word dragstor in Serbian.

What are pseudoangliscisms? Provide illustrations.

Caique is a name for a translation loan. It is a result of literal translation from another language (e.g. the word gospel comes from an Old English compound, roughly: good + spell, which is a

direct translation of the elements of the Latin ev-angel: 'good message'). The English expression: marriage of convenience is a literal translation from French: mariage de convenance. Here are two German caiques: Fernsprecher for English telephone and Fernsehen for

television. Find more examples of English caiques of foreign words and expressions. Find some examples of Serbian words and expressions which are literal translations of an English word or phrase (e.g. panel diskusija in Serbian is an example of caique i.e. translation loan;

compare: panel discussion in English).

The English concrete poetry is a literal translation from either the Portuguese poesia concreta or the German konkrete Dichtung. It means: 'poetry that uses the physical arrangement of words or letters

R. McGough, Poetry with Pleasure (N. Dimitrijevic, ed., p. 27)

on a page for visual effect to add to the meaning of the poem'. Here is

an example of concrete poetry for your enjoyment.

5. LEXICAL SEMANTICS

• What is the name for the branch of morphology that studies meaning?

• Which elements of structure is lexical semantics

concerned with? Do smaller elements of structure such as prefixes and suffixes lend themselves to the study of meaning?

• The relationship between one word and another belonging to a different part of speech and produced from the first by some process of derivation is called paronymy (e.g. the relationship between: white and whiten, write and writer). The derivationally primitive word is the base and the derived form the paronym. It is assumed that the derived form is semantically more complex. What are the paronyms which correspond to the following words: do, make, entail, conclude, organize, simple, complex, mature, woman, train.

• Paronymous relations apply also to zero-derived paronyms, i.e. those with a zero affix (e.g. mop n. -mop v.; honeymoon n. - honeymoon v.). Provide your own examples of zero-derived paronyms.

• What are the key-points of the referential theory of meaning? What is the referential approach to meaning? What does referential meaning refer to?

• Would you say that denotative, cognitive or conceptual meaning can

be alternatively used for referential meaning?

• There is the difference between meaning and concept and meaning and the thing denoted. Find examples to support this statement.

• Denotation tends to be described as the

definitional, literal, obvious or commonsense meaning of a sign. The term connotation is used to refer to the socio-cultural and personal associations of the sign. These associations: cultural, ideological, emotional,

etc. are typically related to the speaker's social position, age, sex, and so on. In the case of words the denotative meaning is what dictionaries aim to provide. Here are two words and their

definitions taken from two different dictionaries. Analyze these definitions in terms of denotative and connotative meaning. Compare the definitions on these grounds.

1. handsome, adj. 1. having

an attractive, well-proportioned, and imposing appearance suggestive of health and strength; good-looking: a handsome man; a handsome woman. 2. having pleasing proportions, relationships, or arrangement

s, as of shapes, forms, colors, etc. attractive: a handsome house. 3. considerable, ample, or liberal in amount: a handsome fortune. 4. gracious; generous: a handsome compliment. 5. dexterous; graceful: a

handsome speech. {The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Random House, New York)

2. handsome 1. A man who is handsome has anattractive face

with regular features, He

was a tall, dark,

and undeniably handsome man.......................................................driver with a

handsome face. 2. A woman who is handsome has an attractive, smart appearance, especially with features that are large and regular rather than

small and delicate and that are considered to show strength of character, e.g. ...a strikingly handsome woman. 3. A building, garden, etc. that is handsome is large and well made with an attractive

appearance, e.g. ...handsome big

apartment buildings...........................rather handsome rug... It is a

handsome place with green lawns and tall trees. 4. A handsome sum of money is a large or generous amount that

is often more than you expected, e.g. The rate of return on these farmers' outlay was a handsome 57 per cent. 5. A handsome situation, event, action, etc. is pleasing to you because of particular good

qualities that it has, e.g. He had a handsome dinner given in his honour. {Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary, Collins, London and Glasgow).

3. nebulous, adj. 1. hazy, vague, indistinct, or

confused. 2. cloudy or cloudlike. 3. of or resembling a nebula or nebulae; nebular. {Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Random House, New York)

4. nebulous An idea that is

nebulous is vague and difficult to talk about, either because you do not have enough information about it or because it is not properly organized, e.g. / still had a nebulous notion of an

afterlife............... a nebulous concept.

{Collins COBUILD

English Language Dictionary, Collins, London and Glasgow)

• While theorists find it useful to distinguish connotation from denotation, in practice this distinction cannot be made in an

easy, neat, and unquestionable way. Most semanticists argue that no sign is purely denotative so that no strict division between denotation and connotation can be made (See 2, definition 2 in the previous exercise).

Connotations can develop into new denotations. See 3, definition 1. How does it compare to definitions 3.2 and 3.3?

• Collocative meaning is what is communicated through association with words which tend to

co-occur with another word in a syntagmatic chain. Connotation is not only a paradigmatic 'associative' dimension -syntagmatic associations are also a key factor in generating connotations. Compare definitions 2.1, 2.2, 2.3,

2.4, and 2.5 in the previous exercise and analyze them in terms of their collocative meaning.

© Both connotations and denotations are socially and culturally variable and they change over time.

Generally speaking, woman, for example, had more negative denotations and more negative connotations in the past than it does now. But note the use of woman in the following situation: There's a woman at the

door! It has a negative connotation and, instead, the proper way of saying this would be: There's a lady at the door!. On the other hand, however, it is normal to say: There's a man at the door! and not There's a gentleman at

the door!. However, feminists would feel very much against the use of lady in this situation by ordinary, non-PC English speakers - can you tell why? Find some other examples which show that connotations

are socially variable.

• Changing the form of the signifier and keeping its denotation intact can generate different connotations. Changes of style or intonation may suggest different connotations, such as

when using different typefaces for exactly the same text, or pronouncing the same word using different intonation patterns. Say hello in three different ways using three different intonation patterns and state which

connotations are implied in each case.

Tropes such as metaphor generate connotations.Illustrate.

Words are more 'polysemic', and more semantically open in their connotations than in their denotations. They are also said to be more

stable in their denotative meaning and more variable in what they connote. Having this in mind interpret the following statement: denotation can be regarded as a digital code and connotation as an analogue code.

Some linguists provide

examples to prove that semantics is conceptual and not perceptual (cf. evening star- morning star). Comment on this.

Members of a category must contain all the propertiesdefining the category. What about penguins and ostriches? They do not fly

so are they still birds? What about a sparrow that has lost both wings? Is it still a bird?

The concepts can be said to be clear but the borders demarcating these concepts are not crisp-clear but fuzzy. Where is the line separating a bird and a non-bird? Is turkey a bird?

Is bat a bird? What is an animal? Are fish animals? Peaches are said to belong to the category of fruit but plant biologists say they are roses. Who is right? What is the difference between nouns and verbs? What about hybrids like gerunds and participles?

Categorial properties are not simply present or absent. Instead, it would be more appropriate to say that a member of a category may have varying degrees of a given property (e.g. a sparrow is a prototypical bird; what is a goose?; what is a penguin?; what is a bat?; what is

a platypus?). Provide more examples to illustrate this graded membership situation.

• Social meaning has to do with social circumstances communicated by means of a word or some other piece of

language. The following dimensions of socio-stylistic variation can be recognized: variation according to dialect (geographical or social), variation according to time (the language of the 16th

century,

contemporary English), variation according to province (legal English, business English, Net Speak), variation according to status (formal English, educated, colloquial, slang), variation

according to modality (classroom English, the language of cartoons, the language of jokes), variation according to singularity (the style of Shakespeare, of T. S. Eliot).

1. Say whether the following idioms

belong to British English or American English: small beer, have another bite at the cherry, off the boil, slip through the net, ring someone's bell, blow smoke in someone's face.

2. Word geography is concerned with the regional distribution of words for various notions (e.g. cow-house and cow-shed are widespread mostly in the Midlands and south while various local expressions also occur,

e.g. cow-stable in north-east Nottinghamshire and east Lincolnshire, beast-house in Monmouthshire, south Herefordshire. Here are some words for 'donkey': cuddy, fussock, pronkus, dicky, nirrup, moke, neddy,

ass. What is their local regional distribution?

3. The word appreciate can be pronounced a'priijieit and a'priisieit. What does the pronunciation s'priisieit tell you about

the status of the speaker?

4. Here are seven sets of words identical in their conceptual meaning and different in their social meaning. Classify the words according to the criterion of status. Take each

and every word and say if it is: poetic, general, slang, baby-language, very formal, formal, literary, slang, colloquial, vulgar, offensive. Set (1) steed, horse, nag, gee-gee; set (2) domicile, residence, abode,

home; set (3) cast, throw, chuck; set (4) diminutive, tiny, wee; set (5) blow smoke up someone's ass, insincere; set (6) Negro, nigger, (7) bracelets, handcuffs.

5. Consider the following sets of words from the point of

view of their social meaning and classify them according to the criterion of province: (1) linguistics, LAD (Language Acquisition Device), morpheme, phoneme, allophone, lexis, locution, pragmatics; (2) securities,

invoice, quota, shareholder, payee, debit; (3) webzine, mailbombing, hypertext, 4 U, FAQ (frequently asked question).

6. Here are some law words: en banc, voir dire, distrain, minor, innuendo,

injunction. State their meanings in general everyday English (e.g. parol - 'spoken statement'; depone - 'to declare under oath').

• Language reflects the personal feelings of the speaker, his attitude to

the listener, or his attitude to what he is talking about (e.g. a speaker can be: polite, ironic, sarcastic, rude, offensive, etc.). This kind of meaning is called affective meaning. It largely relies upon other

types of meaning: denotative, connotative, or stylistic. There are, however, elements of language, chiefly interjections, like Hurrah, Aha, Gee, Yippee, whose main function is to express emotion. The attitude can

be expressed overtly by the choice of words (e.g. You idiotl), or in less direct ways, e.g. by scaling our remarks according to politeness (e.g. Sit down!, Sit down, please!, Will you be so kind as to sit downl). Give some

examples to illustrate affective meaning.

• Reflected meaning refers to the situation when one sense of a word is part of the speaker's response to another sense. This happens in cases of multiple

conceptual meaning of words. Some people's reaction to a compound when used by a linguist may be conditioned by the everyday meanings of compound, e.g. compound in the sense: (1) an area of land

surrounded by walls or fences as in military compound; (2) compound interest meaning interest that is calculated not only on the original amount of money that has been invested but also on the interest that

is earned, or (3) two chemical elements forming a compound. Dear can mean: (1) 'expensive', but also (2) 'beloved' so that one can use the meaning of 'expensive' and allude to the meaning of 'beloved'. The meaning

that is more frequent or more familiar has dominant suggestive power. How about words such as: cock, erect, and intercourse? Having in mind what you know about reflected meaning explain why it is that the

farmyard sense of the word cock has been replaced by rooster, and why it is difficult to use erect and intercourse in their usual innocent senses?

• Messages can be organized so that they

differ in terms of ordering, focus and emphasis. The meaning associated with this kind of situation is referred to as thematic meaning. Thematic meaning is a matter of choice between alternative grammatical constructions

, words, stress, and intonation. The following sentences can be said to have the same cognitive meaning -however, their thematic meaning is different:

1. I do not know this. - This I do not know.

2. John has a kite-shop. - The kite-shop belongs to John.3. What I hate

most is insincerity. - Insincerity is what I hate most.

4. They made him learn the commandments by heart. - He was made to learn the commandments by heart.

Provide your own examples to illustrate thematic meaning.

• Functional approach to meaning maintains that the meaning of a linguistic unit should be studied only through its relation (syntagmatic and

paradigmatic) to other linguistic units and not through its relation to either concept or referent. Compare the meanings of sugar in: to sugar your drink, to sugar the pill, sugar beet, sugar cane, sugar-coated, sugar daddy;

also the meaning of red in: red hair, red wine, red meat, red carpet, Red Cross, as red as a beetroot, to be in the red, red-handed, red herring. Compare the meanings of extra- in: extra-large, extra-long, extrasensory,

extraterrestrial, extramarital, extracurricular, and the meanings o f -e r i n : doer, worker, maker, window-washer, sandwich-maker, egg-beater, cheese-slicer. State different meanings of the words

and morphemes in their respective contexts.

• Two key concepts of the functional approach to meaning are context and distribution. Context is the minimal stretch of speech determining

each individual meaning of the word. Use the following words in different contexts and show how their meaning changes depending on the surrounding words: put, take, kiss, mad. Distribution

refers to the position of a word in relation to another word; it also refers to the order and arrangement of the morphemes in a word. Find pairs of words, such as: ring finger - finger ring; fruit market -market fruit; blue sky - sky

blue; child problem - problem child, family problem - problem family, garden rock -rock garden, etc. to show that the order and arrangement of words or morphemes in a sequence is significant in the sense

that it brings out the difference in meaning (referred to as distributional meaning).

Violation of distribution rules of the morphemes within a word can produce ungrammatical forms, e.g. dislocate -*locatedis; hopeful -

*fulhope. Give more examples of the unacceptable words due to the violation of order rules.

• The semantic component that serves to distinguish one word from all others containing identical

morphemes is referred to as differential meaning. To see this kind of meaning find six examples of minimal pairs and state the distinguishing meaning component in question.

о Grammatical meaning is

the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words, e.g. the case meaning in nouns (child's, woman's; parents', soldiers'). Give a set of word forms with the

grammatical meaning of tense. Give two paradigms illustrating the grammatical meaning of number.

• Lexical meaning is the component of meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit,

e.g. the word forms: elephant, elephant's, elephants, elephants' have one and the same core meaning component denoting: 'a giant, four-legged animal with a trunk'. State the lexical meaning recurrent in each of the

following sets: go, goes, going, went, gone; sneeze, sneezes, sneezing, sneezed; man, man's, men, men's; child, child's, children, children's.

• What is part-of-speech meaning?

• Having in mind the definition of part-of-speechmeaning (i.e.

the meaning a word has by virtue of its form class), comment on the following:

'God, to me, it seems, is a verb, not a noun, proper or improper'. (R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer,

designer, and architect, 1895-1983).

• Assign word-class (i.e. part-of-speech) meaning to thewords in the

following poem.

'Twas bril

lig, and the slithy

toves Did gyre and

gimble in the wabe

; All mimsy were th

e borogoves, And th

e mome raths outgra

be'.

(Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking-Glass, 1871)

• Identify metaphor in the following sentences:

1. I'm all tied up.2. I was climbing the wall

when the idea suddenly hit me.3. Her husband is his right hand.4. The left hand does not know what the right one is doing.5. He is an absolute pig (snake, rat, fox).

• Hyperbole is a figure of speech which is an exaggeration. It is often confused

with a simile or a metaphor. The difference is that a hyperbole is an exaggeration. E.g. his feet were as big as a barge looks like a simile but it is actually an exaggeration - barges can be 700 feet long. People

use expressions such as: / nearly died laughing, I almost jumped out of my skin, that made my toes curl, a tempest in a teapot, a storm in a teacup, like a ton of bricks, split one's sides with laughter, I was hopping

mad, I tried a thousand times. These statements are not literally true, but people make them to sound impressive or to emphasize something. Re-word the phrases in the examples given using ordinary words and not

hyperbole, e.g. like a ton of bricks - something happening very suddenly as in: he fell for her like a ton of bricks.

• Find examples of hyperbole in everyday language.

• Find examples of

hyperbole in poetry.

• Litotes is a deliberate understatement which is generated by denying the opposite or contrary of the word which otherwise would be used (e.g. not many meaning a few, not a

bad singer meaning a good singer, not unhappy meaning happy). Here are some more examples:

1. Although a mish-mash the dish was not at all disagreeable to the palate.

2. After he has learnt the truth he will

not long remain ignorant of his feelings toward her.

3. Hitting that pole obviously did not do your head any good.

Find the examples of litotes in the following text:

A figure lean or corpulent, tall or

short, though deviating from beauty, may still have a certain union of the various parts, which may contribute to make them on the whole not unpleasing.

• Depending on the context and intonation litotes can either have the effect of

understatement, or it can become an intensifying expression. Having this in mind explain the difference between these statements:

1. Avalanches are common in the Swiss Alps in winter.2. Avalanches are not rare in

the Swiss Alps in winter.• Litotes can

be used to make a modest assertion, e.g. using not improperly rather than correctly or best in the following example: This genre can be termed not improperly the

melodrama of romance. Find an example of your own.

• Litotes can be a means of expressing modesty (downplaying one's accomplishments) in order to gain the audience's favour as in the examples:

1. Running a marathon in under two hours is no small accomplishment.

2. She has a doctorate and three children, which is no small achievement.

Illustrate further this use of litotes.

• New words are formed, old ones wither, and existing words change. A few hundred years ago a gale was a gentle breeze, and nice was not a compliment, it meant foolish or stupid. The word decimate,

from Latin decimatus (past participle) and decimus (meaning 'tenth') used to mean 'to kill one out of every ten soldiers' and decimation was a method of punishing mutinous legions in the ancient Roman army.

Today the word decimate has evolved to mean 'large-scale damage, or to destroy a large number of a group', and some dictionaries (like Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary) quote just this latter

meaning. Here are two more words that have changed their meaning in time. The word officious (from Latin officiosus 'dutiful') used to mean 'ready to serve, obliging'; today the word officious means

'excessive eagerness in offering unwanted or unneeded help or advice'. The word feisty (from ME and OE fisting 'breaking wind') used to mean 'spirited, full of courage, or energy'; today it means 'irritable, or

ill-tempered'. Comment on

the meaning of the words:

г

decimate, officious, and feisty as they are used in the following sentences. How would you qualify the type of

change that has occurred?

1. 'Workers are collecting the few scraps of uniforms - in one case, a

nearly complete military hat - to be analyzed for parasites. DNA analysis may help resolve whether a strain of typhus borne by lice helped decimate the troops.' Michael Wines, Baltic Soil Yields

Evidence of a Bitter End to Napoleon's Army, The New York Times, Sep 14, 2002

2. 'Winter grain crops across the state have been decimated by the conditions, with little relief expected and hopes now

pinned on summer crops.' Mark Scala, Never Rains But it Sprinkles, The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia), Sep 7, 2002

3. 'The disputed territory - remote but fertile and said to contain gold - is not the real

issue. More important is the fact that Ethiopia, big, ancient and proud, has its main access to the outside world controlled by small, new, feisty Eritrea.' Africa: The New Princes Fall Out, The Economist (London), May 23, 1998

4 'Roxeline, it turns out, was a feisty character in a comic play that Haydn wrote some music for.' Greg Sandow, HI, I'm Wolfgang and I'll be your composer, The Wall Street Journal (New York), Aug 27, 2002

5. 'If (the petition) demands that the traffic officials of Grahamstown return to being polite public servants, working for the good and safety of the community, rather than the rude and officious

revenue officers they have become...' Cecile Greyling, Teacher Launches Petition Against Traffic Department Repression, East Cape News (Grahamstown, South Africa), June 13 2002

6. 'The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in

the orchard for her, the white mule.' Robert Browning,

My Last Duchess, 1842

• Historically, words can change their meaning through litotes as in astound, and also through hyperbole

as in kill. They can change their meaning through elevation as in marshal or degeneration as in knave. Word meanings change through metaphor or metonymy (as in crane and scepter respectively). Look up

these words in an etymological dictionary and see for yourself how the meaning has changed through time.

• Here is an example of a word that has changed its meaning through metonymy: Pharaoh (from Middle

English Pharao, from Old English Pharaon, from Latin, from Greek, from Hebrew par'oh, from Egyptian pr-'o 'great house'. First the designation was for the 'palace' but later the word was used to refer to the 'king'

(in the same way the White house and a US President can have the same referential meaning in modern English but mind the fact that in this case the change of meaning through metonymic transfer has

synchronic relevance). The word Pharaoh (n.) has the following meaning in Modern English: 'a title of an ancient Egyptian king'. It can also mean: 'a tyrant', but that meaning has been created through

metaphoric extension. Find out what is the story behind the word mandarin in English.

• There are different lexical sense relations, e.g.

synonymy, hyponymy, compatibility, incompatibility, etc. Synonymy means

sameness of meaning. A synonym is a word or expression which means the same as another word or expression, e.g. violin - fiddle, royal -regal. A more technical definition of synonyms is that synonyms are words

different in their pronunciation, similar in their denotative meaning and interchangeable at least in some contexts. Provide examples of cognitive synonyms (which are incapable of yielding sentences

with different truth conditions), for instance: He plays the fiddle entails He plays the violin.

• There are no real synonyms and there is always some difference of meaning between the words and expressions which are

said to be synonymous. The use of a member of a synonymous pair can be contextually restricted so that it is context-dependent, e.g. His Royal Highness but not *His Kingly Highness or *His Regal Highness.

Use the following pairs of hypothetical synonyms in different contexts and see if they are interchangeable or not: capacity - ability; lively - bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; recreation - leisure; reconsider -

review; recreate - restore; leave of absence - time off; dense - thick; dense - stupid; cheap - inexpensive;

• Some sets of synonyms belong to different dialects, e.g. to British English,

American English, etc. Here are some examples of dialectal synonyms: sweet shop Br. E. -candy store Am. E.; autumn Br. E. - fall Am. E.; slip through the net Br. E. - slip through the cracks or fall through the cracks

Am. E.; cradle-snatching Br. E. -robbing the cradle Am. E.; like a kid in a sweet shop Br. E.; like a kid in a candy store Am. E. Find more examples of dialectal synonyms.

• Some words and

expressions are used in different registers (language variants that are subject-dependant). Here are some words and expressions that come from legal English: de novo, de jure, defame, impeachment, henceforth,

disclame, equivocal, aggravate, defraud. Find their equivalents in colloquial English.

• Here are some words which are used in business English: pass the entries, parent company, surety contract, to

sustain injury / loss / damage, outstanding capital expenditures. Find out what these words and phrases mean. Re-phrase them using neutral, common-core English words.

• Some words and expressions

are used in different styles and registers; they are denotationally similar but they are favoured by a particular language variant to suit best the relations among speakers, subject matter and expressivene

ss. E.g. leave of absence and time off differ stylistically - one is formal the other is not; also: blow smoke up someone's ass is a very informal, even offensive expression for the neutral hypocritical

or insincere. Fill in the gaps in the table below with the words which belong to a particular language style. Leave some cells empty if necessary.

Colloquial Formaldeath fatality

mercy killing

iniquitousposteriorveterinary surgeon

stupidknow-all omniscient

• Words which have stylistically

negative connotation are

substituted by their

circumlocutionar

y synonyms which

are also called euphemisms. A euphemism is a way of referring to something unpleasant so as to make it appear less unpleasant (e.g. relieve oneself instead of urinate or to

put to sleep instead of kill). It is a figure of speech in which an unpleasant or coarse phrase is replaced by a softer or less offensive expression. A euphemism can have a metaphorical sense as in the substitution

of the phrase push up the daisies for die (cf. mirisati travu sa donje strane in the Serbian language). Give some more examples of euphemisms in the English language.

• Give six examples of

euphemisms in the Serbian language (e.g. skratiti za glavu, otici Води па istinu, zaobici istinu, etc.)

• Give two examples of euphemisms in English belonging to political jargon.

• Take any text (chosen at random) from a British newspaper and search it for euphemisms.

• Here are some English expressions about death: pass away; go the way of all flesh; to breathe one's last; to

be gathered to one's fathers; to join the great majority; to come to an untimely end. Give some examples of death euphemisms in the Serbian language.

• Consider the following sentences. What do the

following euphemisms refer to? Rephrase the sentences.

The rebel fighters were neutralized. The Prime Minister was economical with the truth. With all due respect, I think your figures are misleading. Could you please regularize your bank

account? We had a frank, open exchange of views. This is not a non-risk policy. The company is in a non-profit situation. Already half the economy is linked to under-performing, loss-making state companies. In the Yugoslav federation "tiny Montenegro figures as a

statistical afterthought with a share of no more than 2 to 6 per cent in anything". Both banks are for sale to strategic investors. The problem is that most enterprises are over-manned and under-capitalised after a lost decade of war and sanctions. When the mob laid hands on the

fugitive they did not stand on ceremony; they hanged him from the nearest lamp-post. Instead of pushing up daisies, he is still among the living, grey whiskers and all.

• Match the following euphemisms with the words and phrases they refer to.

Euphemisms, withdrawing our services, taking industrial action, pass away, low IQ, Ministry of Defence, companion animal, disadvantaged senior citizen, disabled, manly

man, under the weather, lower income brackets, have a dialogue, retirement pension, so-and-so, pushing up the daisies, love child

Words and phrases they refer to. to go on strike, stupid, die, Ministry of War, an old cripple, pet, old-age pension, sex maniac, depressed, poor,

objectionable person, talk, dead, someone whose parents have never been married to each other

• American English is awash in euphemisms and doublespeak. See if you can do the following quiz. Match the

euphemisms from 1 to 10 with the plain English versions from A to J (taken from: "It is Fundamentally True That the Terms Below Are in English", The New York Times, 26 May 1996).

1. sufferer from fictitious disorder syndrome

2. sub-optimal3. temporarily displaced inventory4. negative gain in test scores5. synthetic glass6. normal gratitude7. vegetarian leather8. thermal therapy kit9.

substantive ne

gative outcome

10.

reutilization marke

ting yard

A. stolen goods; B. junkyard; C. plastic; D. bag of ice cubes; E. bribe; F. death, G. liar, H. vinyl; I. failed; J.

lower test scores

Answers: 1. G; 2. I; 3. A; 4. J; 5. C; 6. E; 7. H; 8. D; 9. F; 10. B.

• Dysphemism (the opposite of a euphemism) is the substitution of a harsher, depricating, offensive, ugly or otherwise unpleasant

locution for one relatively neutral or more attractive in sound or meaning (e.g. fisheye soup for tapioca pudding, brat for child, bitch for woman, loony bin for mental hospital). Dysphemism is an

antonym of euphemism. Find more examples of dysphemisms in English.

• A Dysphemism is a statement which is intended to sound much worse than reality. Political campaigns make great

use of dysphemisms. Find some examples of dysphemisms belonging to political jargon.

• A Dysphemism and a euphemism are often two sides of the same coin (e.g. a guerrilla in neutral

language can be called freedom fighter by some and a terrorist by others). Find parallel examples in the Serbian language.

• A pejorative word or expression is one which is derogatory and shows disapproval

(e.g. junk food, kinglet, mannish). Find neutral words or expressions for the following dysphemisms: ruthlessly exploited;language police; grammar Nazis; evil empire; pencil pusher;

cradle-snatcher; grind your teeth; every Tom, Dick and Harry; raise hell; hell-raiser; kick ass; blow smoke up someone's ass; the villain of the place

• What is a pejorative word or expression?

• What does derogatory mean?

• Name two suffixes which often have derogatory force. Give some examples.

• Consider the following sentences and portions of text. Identify words and

expressions which are derogatory, and even offensive.

'If you go to pro-Yugoslav rallies they're all toothless illiterates. Go to pro-independence rallies and you find young people with children on their shoulders'.

• Here are some cliche phrases employing various nationalities. They reflect a certain malice and they denigrate some nations due to traditional hostilities between the English and the French or e.g. the

Dutch or the Irish. One should bear in mind, however, that ethnic slurs occur in every language and in English they are used in speech rather than in writing.

French leave ('to leave without permission'); Irish bull ('a

ludicrously incongruous statement', like, e.g. 'Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours'; Roman holiday ('an entertainment event where pleasure is derived from watching gore and barbarism'); Chinese wall ('a strong barrier; a rule prohibiting

exchange of confidential information between different departments of an organization, typically a financial one, to prevent its use in illegal gain'); Dutch courage ('that obtained by drinking spirits')

Fill in the gaps by using a noun, verb or an

adjective related to a nation:

1. Sale at which the price of something is set far beyond itsreal value and then reduced by the auctioneer until abuyer is found is___________________

2._______treat is a meal, entertainment,

etc. at which each

person pays for himself.

3. Go_____with somebody means to share expenses.4. To talk to somebody like a

uncle means to lecture

him severely.5. Take a_____ leave is to do something or to go away

without giving a notice.

6. 'If I could drop dead right now I would be the happiest man alive!' is an example of an_________________________

7. Tomeans to

'divide (a country, territory, etc.) into

small, quarrelsome, ineffectual states'. The noun related

to this verb is__________________

8. Anything very complicated or perplexing is called______________________________________________

puzzle.9. Anything

unintelligible, as a speech, handwriting, etc. isreferred to as_______e.g. It's all__________me.

10. The name of a dish consisting of melted

cheese, usuallymixed with ale or beer, milk, and spices, served overtoast is____________rabbit.

• Goth, n. means 'a rude or uncivilized person' (from Goth, one of a Germanic tribe who invaded the

Roman empire during the third, fourth and the fifth centuries). The word is an eponym and its meaning is derogatory. Use this word in a sentence.

• Here are two more ethnic slurs:

1. The Germans never make a small mistake.2. The Scots

pray on their knees on Sunday but on their neighbours the rest of the week.

Work out the meaning of the slurs. What is implied by the first example? Note the pun:

pray - prey in the second example.

• Political correctness with reference to language means rejection of discriminatory language and use of words and phrases which are considered socially appropriate,

e.g. the use of physically challenged for handicapped. Find more examples of politically correct words and phrases in English.

• As civilizations decline, they become increasingly concerned with form

over substance, particularly with respect to language. At the time of the First World War they called it shell shock: the term was simple, clear and descriptive. A generation later, it was called combat fatigue.

Today the two words have doubled in size, and there is even an acronym PTSD : post traumatic stress disorder, the term being more in tune with current effete sensibilities. Euphemisms and politically correct

language can be pretentious, ridiculous, and at their worst they can damage the causes they claim to benefit (cf. neutralize for kill). What is your personal response to politically correct language?

• What are politically correct terms and circumlocutions for the following: short, tall, stupid.

• Find the words to which the following PC words correspond: black, African-American, Hispanic,

Latino, ghetto, inner city.

• Here are some examples of phraseology to avoid, and alternative suggestions:

Persons with a disability or individuals with disabilities instead of disabled person; persons who are deaf or young

people with hearing impairments instead of deaf people; people who are blind or persons with a visual impairment instead of blind people; a student with dyslexia instead of a dyslexic student.

Comment on the PC phrases from a linguistic

point of view, e.g. why is the adjective - noun combination like dyslexic student considered to be undesirable and more offensive than the phrase: a student with dyslexia?

• There is a variety of euphemisms in referring to blindness or blind persons, e.g.

euphemisms such as hard of seeing, visually challenged, sightless, visually impaired, people with blindness, people who are blind. Some people feel that politically correct euphemisms are unacceptable

, even offensive, and deserving ridicule and that the words to be avoided are, on the contrary, straightforward, unobjectionable, harmless and respectable. How do you feel about these

euphemisms?

• Find the examples of PC words and expressions in the Serbian language (e.g. osobe sa invaliditetom)

• What is homonymy?

• What would be a rule of thumb definition of the difference between homonymy and polysemy?

• Look up the word pupil meaning 'a young person who studies in a school' and the word

pupil meaning 'the black part in your eye' in four dictionaries and see if they are treated as homonymous or polysemous; see whether they are treated within one and the same headword or not.

• Say whether in the following examples we are dealing with polysemy or homonymy:

1. deal meaning 'to treat, to handle' and deal meaning 'to take action';

2. deal meaning 'to distribute cards' and deal meaning 'to treat, to handle';

3. deal meaning 'to trade or do business' and deal meaning 'to behave in a specified manner';

4. deal meaning 'a business transaction' and deal meaning 'a board or plank'.

• State the difference between total and partial homonymy.

• Compare the following paradigms and say whether we are dealing with total or partial homonymy.

1. place, v.: place, places,

placing, placed - place, п.: place, places;

2. back, п.: back, backs - back, v.: back, backs, backing, backed - back, adv.;

3. table, n. (as in kitchen table): table, tables - table, n. (as in tables and graphs): table, tables;

4. pupil, n. (as in a pupil of a painter): pupil, pupils - pupil, n. (as in the pupil in your eye): pupil, pupils.

® Homonyms can be subdivided into homographs and homophones. Homographs are the words which

have the same spelling yet they have different meanings (e.g. desert, n. meaning 'barren land' and desert, v. meaning 'to abandon'). Homophones are the words pronounced in the same way but with different

meanings (e.g. flu and flew, its and it's). Find more examples of homographs and homophones in English.

• Consider the following examples and comment on the italicized words in terms of

homography and homophony.

1. 'According to the fairytale the gentleman in the te//coat and the bow tie took the bow.'

2. 'When he entered the living room he could see live coals and pieces of wood were

still gently burning.'

3. 'The young man who lives next door and I shall go to a pub with live music'

4. 'I won't tell a soul that you have a hole in the sole of your shoe.'

5. 'It was painM to her to learn that her son deliberately

broke a pane of glass in the neighbour's window.'

6. That son of his enjoys lying in the sun:7. 'You should

wind the rope around the tree to secure it against the wind:

8. 'You are not allowed to say that aloud:

• What follows is a list of homophones in phonetic transcription. Each sound-form represents at least two words different in spelling and meaning. Identify the words which correspond to the pronunciation forms given,

e.g. №:/ - key ('a piece of metal which you place in a lock and turn in order to open it'); quay ('a long platform beside the sea or a river where boats can be tied up and loaded or unloaded').

/aed/, /eid/, /basnd/, /Ы:/, /ЬЕЭ7, /ЬЗ:9/, (ЪэИ, /ЬЕП/, /bai/, /ka:st/, /brauz/, /tju:z/, /si:lirj/, /кз:пэ1/, /kxs/, /кэ:с1/, /кэ:пАаиэ7, /dig*/, /dju:/, /з:п/, /mainaV, /flu:/, /Ы, /шей/, /sait/, /Вгэип/, /wit//, /ЬэчЛ/,

/sti:l/, /кэ:/, /rig/, /medl/, /rein/.• English

spelling is not phonetic, so words can rhyme when their spelling is very different. Take the words given and think of other words that rhyme with them (e.g. weight - eight, late,

hate, date; site - sight, height, might, light, right, write, etc.):

me, dew, come, tell, field, pat, pet, time, break, bread, floor, win, pause, praise, sea, tide.

• Having in mind what you know about homophony explain the

following puns:

A man's home is

his castle, in a

manor of

speaking.

What do you ask

twin witches?

Which witch is

which?

Marriage is the

mourning after

the knot before.

Reading whilst

sunbathing

makes you well-

red.

When two

egotists meet,

it's an I for an I.

• What is

pun? Illustrate.

• Comment on the following definition of the pun (quotation from Webster's Third New International

Dictionary of the English Language, Editor in Chief: Philip Babcock Gove, Merriam-Webster Inc., Springfield, Maine, 1993):

'Pun - the humorous use of a word in such a way as to suggest different meanings or applications or of

words having the same or nearly the same sound but different meanings; a play on words.'

According to this definition is there a crisp-clear distinction between pun and word play. Give an example of a pun or word play Involving sound similarity (e.g.

'purrfect' pets for 'cats'), and an example of a pun or word play involving meaning similarity (e.g. tender for 'effeminate').

• Give some examples of homophoneous words used for the sake of word play.

• Consider the following pair of examples: postman - post woman. Why is it that there is no pair mailman - mail woman?

• Analyze the following examples of word play:

Civilization - that's when two monkeys beat up

another monkey because he has been monkeying around; posterior for posterity; cats are purrfect pets; the dog was furrious; my dog is a champion boxer; tender meaning 'effeminate'; justice meaning a

'whore'; drum meaning 'buttocks'. Say which examples illustrate puns or word play involving sound similarity and which of them illustrate puns or word play involving meaning similarity.

• Discuss the examples of word play in the following poems (the examples are italicized).

AFTER SOME THOUGHT, A POEM

If I g

row a moustache for

youwill you grow a

ffectionatefor me?

S. Turn

er

MURDER

They called him

a murderer but I th

ought he was simply

breath taking.

S. Tur

ner

(Poems taken from: Naum Dimitrijevic, ed. Poetry With Pleasure, 1996, p. 23).

Breath taking' is a form of word play but more particularly a pun. Does this example of pun involve sound similarity or meaning similarity? What

can you say about a ffectionate as a form of word play?

• The following example illustrates play on words.

Explain.

'You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late' (Ralph Waldo Emerson,

writer and philosopher, 1803 - 1882).

• Analyze the following text (Marie Claire, May 1997, p. 64) from the point of view of word play.

STAYING FAITHFULL

Marianne Faithful! met Mick Jagger at 17 and survived

their love affair. Thirty years later, is Marianne still mad about Mick? 7 was the love of his life and he of mine'. 'Now I have men in my life who really love me'.• Find the

examples of word play in the following text (Marie Claire, May 1997, p. 16):

STOP TEARING YOUR HEART OUT

Nothing is more damaging to your hair than yanking a comb through wet tangles. So we created Aussie slip detangler to rinse them away without added weight. So put an end to fraying and flyaways. Slip detangler clears the

tangles out of your morning.

• Here is some more word play from Keep 'Em Laughing. Jokes to Amuse and Annoy your Friends, by Louis Phillips, Viking: New York, 1996, p. 24. Base your comments on

what you know about ambiguity, homonymy, and homophony.

Poet: / put my wh

ole mind into that poem

. Editor: Blank verse, I s

uppose.

Passenger: Driver, will this bus take me to Broadway: Bus Driver: Upper or lower? Passenger: All of me, I hope.

Maryhelen: After Minnie Mouse

fell into the river, how did Mickey Mouse revive her? Caroline: How?Maryhelen: He used mouse-to-mouse resuscitation.

• Explain humour that you find in the following jokes. Base your explanation on what you know about

puns and word play.

Two vultures board an airplane, each carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at them and says: 'I'm sorry, gentlemen, only one carrion allowed per passenger!'(carrion - dead animals; carry-on - piece of luggage)

There was a man who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

(compare: no pun in ten did and no pun intended)

• Here are some more examples of

word play. (The examples are taken from the text entitled: Thought provoking ideas. "Some Old Some New, All Borrowed To Make You Blue" which appeared on the Inter Net. All the examples have been

approved of by native speakers.) Clever-read the examples carefully, and provide linguistic explanation based on what you know about homonymy, homography, homophony, ambiguity, and word-formation processes.

Bear in mind that some examples of pun cross word boundaries.

1. A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two-tired.2. A backward poet writes inverse.3. In democracy,

it's your vote that counts. In feudalism, it's

your count that votes.

4. With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.5. Show me a

piano falling down a mine shaft, and I'll show you A flat minor.

6. When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.7. He often

broke into song because

he couldn't find the key.

8. A lot of money is tainted. It taint yours and it taint mine.9. A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.10. He had a

photographic memory that was never developed.

11. A plateau is a high form of flattery.12. The short

fortuneteller

who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

13. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.14. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.15. Marathon

runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.

16. The poor guy fell into a glass-grinding machine and made a spectacle of himself.

• Find some examples of word play which appear in commercials and advertisements on TV and in

magazines (British and American).

• Find some examples of word play in cartoons (British and American).

• The fragments of texts listed below contain some examples of bloopers. Identify them and having in

mind what you know about: homonyms, homophones, homographs, word play, and pun analyze these bloopers providing some linguistic explanation. (A blooper is a slang word for a blunder,

a gross, stupid or careless mistake, especially one made in public; the bloopers quoted come from a collection of bloopers compiled by teachers throughout the United States and communicated to me by

Thomas F. Magner in the text entitled: The World According to Student Bloopers).

1. Without the Greeks, we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns - Corinthian, Doric and

Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in "The llliad", by Homer. Homer also

wrote the "Oddity" in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on this journey. Actually Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.

2. Then came the Middle Ages. King

Alfred conquered the Dames. King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery. King Harold mustarded his troops before the Battle ofHastings. Joan of Arc was cannonized by George Bernard Shaw, and

the victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally, the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.

3. In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The

greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verse and also wrote liter-ature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on

his son's head.

4. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing

tragedies, comedies and errors. In one of Shakespear's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. In another, Lady Macbeth tries to convince Mac-beth to kill the King by attacking

his manhood. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet.

5. Then the Spanish gorrilas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and

was very tense and unrestrained. He wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't bear him any children.

6. The sun never set on the British Empire

because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. Her reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplatory of a great

personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.

• Here are some more bloopers picked up from some signs in Africa (the source is Inter Net). Provide linguistic explanation (on the basis

of what you know about ambiguity, semantic clash, analogy, etc.) of the humour in the examples given.

1. On one of the buildings of a Sierra Leone Hospital: 'Mental Health Prevention Centre'

2. In a Namibian nightclub: 'Ladies are not allowed to have children in the bar'

3. In a Zimbabwean

restaurant: 'Customers who find our waitresses rude ought to see the manager.'

4. On a window of a Nigerian shop: 'Why go elsewhere to be cheated when you can come here!'

5. On the grounds of a private

school in South Africa: 'No trespassing without permission'

• An acrostic is a series of written lines or verses in which the first, last or other particular letters form a word, phrase, the alphabet, etc.

These letters spell out a hidden word or message. Acrostics can be said to be the most complete type of deletion since it is only a single letter per line that remains. Acrostics also have to do with word play. In William

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream the following passage, spoken by Titania, spells out her own name:

Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no,I am a spirit of no common rate,

The summer till doth tend upon my state;ANd I do love thee. Therefore go with me.I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee;And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep...

Here is the acrostic poem that concludes Through the Looking Glass written by Lewis

Carroll. Find out for whom specifically the author wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

A boat, be

neath a sunny sky,

Lingering onward dr

eamily, In an eveni

ng of July-

Childre

n three that nestle

near, Eager eye an

d willing ear, Plea

sed a simple tale t

o hear-

Long has pa

led that sunny sky:

Echoes fade and me

mories die: Autumn

frosts have slain J

uly.

Still she haun

ts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under

skies, Never seen

by waking eyes.

Chi

ldren yet, the tale

to hear, Eager eye

and willing ear, L

ovingly still nestl

e near.

It's a Wond

erland they lie, Dr

eaming as the days

go by, Dreaming as

the summers die:

Ev

er drifting down th

e stream -Lingering

in the golden glea

m -Life, what is it

but a dream?

• An anagram is the rearrangement of letters in a word,

phrase, or name to form another word, phrase, or name (e.g. when you rearrange the letters in new door you get one word). Explain the following example of word play based on rearrangement of letters.

A: When is enough

not enough? B: One

hug.

• The words: aboard, abode, and note, anagram into: abroad, adobe, and tone. Find the words and phrases into which the following words and

phrases anagram: dormitory, Statue of Liberty, television set.

Dirty room; Built to stay free; See? It's violent!

• Kangaroo words are marsupial words that carry smaller versions of themselves within their

spellings (e.g. respite has rest, splotch has spot). How about: instructor, curtail, feasted, rapscallion?

Tutor, cut, fed, ate, rascal

• Frangible is a three-generation kangaroo word: in its

pouch it has one word with the same meaning and that other word has yet another one in its pouch with a similar meaning. Identify the pouch words.

Fragile, frail

• Palindrome is a word that communicates the same message when the letters of which it is composed are read in reverse order (e.g. level - level, race car - race car). Palindromes make you say: Ah, ha!, Oh, ho!, Tut-

tut! Try to give some examples of your own!

• While a palindromic word (such as: civic, or madam) has the same meaning left to right and right to left, other words change their meaning and become new words when

spelled in reverse (e.g. doc - cod, or decaf -faced). Explain the following examples of word play:War is raw; When you are stressed you may reach for desserts.

• Pangram is a sentence that makes use of all the

letters of the alphabet (e.g. The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog is a sentence that employs every letter in the alphabet at least once). Here are some more examples:

Pa

ck my box with five

dozen liquor jugs.

Jackdaws love my b

ig sphinx of quartz

. How quickly daft

jumping zebras vex.

Can you come up with your own pangram examples?

• Solve the left side of the equation to create two four-letter words. Join them together to get the eight-letter word clued on the right side of the equal sign, e.g.

boyfriend + neckware = seductive looking woman -BEAU + TIES = BEAUTIES).

1. declare as

true + matured =

calculated

central tendency

2. soothing

substance +

spoken

examination =

Scottish cap

3. support + the

stuff of skeletons

= fortitude

4. buckle

+narrow road =

Spitfire or

Hurricane

5. thing you

think +

enumerate =

dreamer

6. written

reminder + move

upward = learn

by heart

Key: 1. AVER + AGED = AVERAGED; 2. BALM + ORAL = BALMORAL; 3. BACK + BONE = BACKBONE; 4. WARP + LANE = WARPLANE; 5. IDEA + LIST = IDEALIST; 6. MEMO + RISE = MEMORISE

• Hyponymy or inclusion refers to class membership, e.g. violet, rose, pansy, daisy, daffodil, tulip are included in flower. The words which are part of a given taxonomy are related to each other through the relationship

of generic hyponymy, e.g. a lexeme flower is representative of a number of more specific words: violet, rose, pansy, daisy, daffodil, etc. When talking about inclusion the upper term is the superordinate or

hypernym and the lower term the subordinate or hyponym. Give more examples of sets of words to illustrate hyponymy.

• What are co-hyponyms? Illustrate.

• Here are some words which designate

containers joined with some other members of the same word family. All sets are open so that you can add some of your own examples. State meaning relations holding between the members of

the word family.

box - matchbox, candy box, seed box, toolbox, musical box

bag - handbag, shoulder bag, paper bag, carrier bag

basket - bread basket, laundry basket, wastepaper basket, shopping

basket, picnic basket

case - suitcase,

pencil case,

bookcase, pillow

case

pot - flowerpot,

teapot, coffee

pot

bin - dustbin,

rubbish bin, litter

bin, pedal bin

• Find the lexemes (hypernyms, superordinates) which are representative of the words in the following four sets: 1. garlic, marjoram,

mint, basil, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, bay leaf, oregano, coriander, 2. black pepper, white pepper, Jamaica pepper, vanilla, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, pimento, chilli, curry-powder, 3. wheat,

maize, rye, barley, oats, rice; 4. box, bag, bowl, pan, basket, case, can, tank, pot, bin, jug.

• What follows is a set of words representing flowers. Some of the words listed are included in garden flowers,

others in wild flowers. Identify the words which are hyponyms (subordinates) of garden flowers and those which are hyponyms (subordinates) of wild flowers: iris, carnation, hyacinth, bluebell, daisy,

marigold, orchid, lily, dandelion, pansy, rose, narcissus, crocus, snowdrop, violet, daffodil, primrose, poppy, cacti, ivy, water lily, lily of the valley, Madonna lily, corn-flower, thistle, clover, sunflower.

• Hyponymy is the type of lexical relation which corresponds to the inclusion of one class in another, e.g. dog, goat, cow, sheep, horse are included in animals; cabbage, lettuce, spring onion, spinach are

included in vegetables. When talking about inclusion the upper term is the superordinate or hypernym and the lower term the subordinate or hyponym, e.g. monkey is hypernym of chimpanzee and

chimpanzee is hyponym of monkey.

1. Find hypernyms of the following words: camel, sparrow, doll, boy, slipper, egg-beater, cake, rosemary, mustard, mobile phone, mansion,

swiveling chair, coffee table, queen, kitty, knife, spoon, fork, plate, cup.

2. Find hyponyms of the following words: limb, plant, animal, herb, bird, chair, table, tense, cover, building, insect, flower, tea,

vehicle, monarch, cutlery, crockery.

• Hyponymy involves entailment ('follows from' relation), e.g. there are three chimpanzees entails there are three monkeys. A sentence containing a hyponym

entails a parallel sentence identical to it except that it contains a hypernym in place of the hyponym (e.g. Peter kicked Paul : Peter hit Paul). Say what is entailed by the following:

1. He PUNCHED me.

2. I like BURGUNDY colour.3. This car is SKY-BLUE.4. The president was ASSASINATED yesterday.5. This is an ELEPHANT.6. Elizabeth has a pair of SCARLET shoes.7. Do we have to live in this MAUSOLEUM?

8. These two languages are RELATED.9. She SNUBBED me.10. She put her TEDDY beside her.

• Taxonomy may be regarded as a sub-type of hyponymy so that the taxonyms of a lexical item are a sub-set

of its hyponyms. A useful test for taxonomy is: An X is a kind / type of Y (e.g. a daffodil is a type of flower, passion fruit is a kind of fruit). Apply the test proposed and provide your own examples to

illustrate taxonomy.

• A major type of branching lexical hierarchy is the part-whole type (e.g. arm, leg, and head are parts of the body and: palm and finger are parts of the hand). The semantic

relation between a lexical item denoting a part and that denoting the corresponding whole is termed meronymy. Take the words: car, ship, school and house and pair them with the words which indicate their parts.

• Antonymy means oppositeness of meaning. Words that are opposite are antonyms, e.g. handsome - ugly, clean - dirty. Antonymy is usually used as a cover term for: complementarity,

converseness, and incompatibility, but in the more restrictive sense of gradable opposites. It can be exemplified by such pairs as: easy - difficult, hot - cold. Add your own examples to the list of antonyms.

• Antonymy is the only meaning relation which can be signalled by a special morpheme (cf. lucky - unlucky; harmful - harmless). Turn the following words into their opposites by means of an affix: happy,

interesting, useful, accurate, possible, probable, use, agree, organize, behave, polite, discrimination, pro-war, attack, informed, successful, compose, satisfy, proper, lawful, legal, legitimate,

reversible, regular, hypertension, espionage, employer.

• Compatibility is the lexical relation which corresponds to overlap between classes. Lexical items related by compatibility are

compatibles. A pair of compatibles must have a common hypernym (e.g. cat and pet fall under the superordinate animal; husband and milkman belong to the category of human males). The sense relation

between classes with no members in common is incompatibility (e.g. leaf and key are incompatibles, also: flower and sky). Consider the following pairs of words and say if they are compatibles or

incompatibles:

animal : lizard; lizard : frog; yesterday : today; husband : wife; milk: book; novel - book; cycle - lie; wheel: blanket.

•

Complementaries are a basic type of lexical opposite.

A pair of complementa

ries divide some conceptual domain into two mutually exclusive parts (e.g. true -false; pass - fail). Consider the following pairs of words. Which of them are not complementaries?

tiger - tigress; man - woman; give - take; dead - alive; open - closed; open - shut; awake - asleep; night - day;husband - wife; boy - man; home - house; black - white; obey _ disobey; command - obey; stranger - local

6. METHOD

S AND PROCEDURES OF MORPH

OLOGICAL ANALYSIS

• Converseness refers to contrastive lexical relations involving logical reciprocity, e.g. purchase - sell, give -take. Here are some

more words which are reciprocal correlates: husband - wife, buy - sell, left - right, up -down. Add your own examples to the list.

• Minor types of antonyms are the antipodals and reversives. In a pair of antipodals one member of the pair is an extreme in one direction and the other represents the other extreme, e.g. east - west, top -bottom. In the case of

reversives one member of the pair represents movement in one direction and the other movement in the opposite direction, e.g. assent -descent, push - pull. Say whether the following pairs of words are antipodals or reversives:

north - south, head-foot, in - out, enter - exit, yes - no, hopeful - hopeless, overdone - underdone, rise - fall, ascend - descend, advance - retreat, enter - leave, heat - cool, improve -deteriorate, mount -

dismount, fill - empty.

• The relationship of reverse antonyms holds between prefixal derivatives and the bases they are derived from, e.g. lace - unlace, associate - disassociate. Add your

own examples to the list.

• Immediate constituent analysis has to do with the defining of the relevant relationships which hold between morphological

ly relevant structural units. Combinations of the units are usually binary and the aim of the immediate constituent analysis is to segment structurally complex lexical units into two independent sequences called

immediate constituents. Successive segmentation results in ultimate constituents which cannot be further analyzed. The word lawlessness, for example, is a binary construction which can be divided into: lawless + ness;

however, lawless itself is a morphologically complex binary unit which can be split into: law + less. Lawless, ness, law and less are said to be immediate constituents and: law, less, ness are said to be ultimate

constituents. The hierarchical structure of the word can be represented linearly by means of cuts (e.g. in lawlessness there are two cuts marked with a vertical slash: the first cut is between lawless and ness and the second

between law and less). The hierarchical structure of a complex word or word-form can also be graphically represented by a tree-diagram where branches indicate binary division of the complex structure and

leaves show morphemic structure of the morphologically complex unit. A tree-diagram of the word lawlessness would look like this:

COFFEE-GRINDER

GRIND -ER

LAWLESSNESS COFFEE-GRINDER

LAWLESS

LAW -LESS

■Immediate Constituents: cofTee, grinder, grind, -er Ultimate Constituents: coffee, grind, -er

First cut between coffee and grinder Second cut between grind and -er

Apply immediate constituent analysis to the following words (identify immediate and ultimate constituents; say how many cuts there are; indicate the position of cuts; use tree-diagrams to represent the hierarchical structure of words): overwhelmingly, re-creation, recreation, overgeneralization, dissatisfied, unilaterally, unambiguously, misrepresentation, unobjectionable, sleeplessness, sleepiness, uneducated, disapproval, maladjusted, hypersensitive, dislocated, unequaled, unidentifiable, unimaginable, theoretically, underprivileged, undernourished, undernourishment, undoubtedly, unhygienic,

irreconcilable, irregularity, irreproachable, environmentalist, conservationist, enslavement, enthronement, inaccurately, mismanagement, outrider, outermost, oversimplifying, deactivate, decomposition, devaluation, developmental, differentiation, encapsulate, teaspoonful, dishwasher-proof.

• In the case of grammatically marked words it is the

inflectional suffix that is cut off first (e.g. in handcuffs or teaspoonfuls the first cut is between handcuff and -s and between teaspoonful and -s respectively). Can you say why?

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COFFEE GRINDER

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• Here are some more words for you to analyze by means of immediate constituent analysis. Identify the constituents: immediate and ultimate. Say where the cuts are. Represent the hierarchical structure of the words using tree-diagrams. Here is an example:

The words to be analyzed: egg-beater, dishwasher, salad-spinner, window-shopping, window-dressing, shoulder-bag, wax-painting, water-skiing, swimming-pool, lead-poisoning, belly-landing, mind-reading, fox-hunting, daydreaming, air-conditioning, humming-bird, sitting-room, blotting-paper, walking-stick, skipping-rope, tongue-twister, weekender, honeymooner, midfielder, long-jumper, triple-jumper, heartbreaking, self-regulating, self-centered, shop-soiled, outgoing, incoming, well-meaning, passer-by, killer-whale.

• There is one particularly frequent pattern present in compound adjectives: the one which consists of adjective, noun or numeral plus noun plus the -ed suffix, e.g. old-fashioned,

pig-headed, four-cornered. There is another type of combination similar to this: an adverb plus derivative in -ed, e.g. well-mannered, well-behaved or yet another combination of two elements the second of which is a participle, e.g. heart-shaped, half-starved. The immediate constituent analysis of such words of the

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patterns mentioned above proceeds along different lines. Compare the following examples:

TWO-SIDED

STARVE -ED

Here are some more words for you to analyze: dark-haired, green-eyed, dog-eared, low-spirited, faint-hearted, open-hearted, open-minded, good-natured, hard-fisted, coldblooded, blue-blooded, one-sided, well-adjusted, kidney-shaped, silver-plated, half-cooked, double-glazed, full-blooded, full-throated, full-flavoured.

• Morphological analysis can take the form of distributional analysis. Distribution refers to the position of a lexical unit relative to other lexical units of the same level (e.g. dis- in disbelief takes the position of a prefix which means that it precedes the base; -let in piglet follows the base; push-chair is a compound noun of the type verb plus noun, and wheelchair is a compound noun of the type noun plus noun). Consider the following words and state their distributional patterns: unrealistic, undoubtedly, unwillingly, pre-delivery, pre-examination, pre-retirement, post-structuralism, resource-poor, dishwasher-proof, pro-

nationalist, double-breasted, double-glazed, sportsmanship, polish ing-paste, weighing-machine, belly-landing, ski-jumping, dress-maker, tongue-twister, producer-director, typewriter, high-jumper, ice-dance, onlooker, midfielder.

A word has a different lexical meaning depending on its distributional pattern (cf. bird-cage and cage-bird). Consider the following pairs of words. See how the change of the pattern changes the meaning of a word. Finger-ring - ring-finger, feeding-bottle - bottle-feeding; water-tap - tap-water, bottle-green - green bottle; fruit-market - market-fruit; brand-new - new brand; house-pet - pet-house; hunting-man - man-hunting; cutting diamond - diamond-cutting; riding-horse - horse-riding; takeover- overtake; boat life - lifeboat.

The identity of distributional pattern, however, does not necessarily mean that the words have the same meaning (cf. take in: take a book, take a look, take a chance, take a call). State the meaning of the word turn in the following constructions (of the type: turn plus direct object): turn gas, turn a knob, turn your attention, turn a page, turn your ankle, turn a cartwheel, turn a somersault.

Knowledge of the distributional patterns can be used productively, i.e. to form new words, e.g. -like combines with nouns to form adjectives which describe things that are similar to whatever the nouns refer to: childlike, prison-like, bird-like, claw-like. Form adjectives with this meaning using the following nouns: animal, baby, lady, cat, clock, clown, cow, dagger, daisy, desert, dog, doll, dream, flower, honey, hook, kidney, moon.© Form nouns of the type egg-beater (the pattern being:

noun in objective case plus the verb plus the -erwith the instrumental meaning) using the following elements:

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TWO SIDE

HALF-STARVED

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cheese, cut; egg, slice; car, make; lemon, squeeze; coffee, grind; pepper, grind; sandwich, make; salad, spin.

• Distributional patterns are part of language competence which enables decoding (i.e. understanding of the word on the basis of the familiarity of the constituent elements and distributional pattern). Interpret the meaning of the following sets of words: reallocate, reappear, rebuild, reconsider, re-educate, reconstruct, redefine, rediscover, re-examine, re freeze, remarry, rename, reopen, reprint, re-read, reunite, rewrite; citywide, continent-wide, EEC-wide, nationwide, planet-wide, state-wide, worldwide.

• If fibre-rich means 'having a high amount of fibre' and if energy-rich means 'containing a large amount of energy' what do the following words mean: carbon-rich, cash-rich, fat-rich, information-rich, sugar-rich, vitamin-rich?

• Violation of the rules of a distributional pattern can result in an ungrammatical word, e.g. embody - *bodyem; midfielder - *ermidfield, *fieldermid, *miderfield. Provide your own examples to illustrate this.

• Co-occurrence means aptness of a word to co-occur (i.e. to collocate) with other words with which it shares the same semantic component. A collocate of a particular word is another word which often occurs with that word, e.g. a collocate of do can be: something, census, (your) teeth, (your) hair, (the) room, a lot, much, a little, (the) cooking, (the) talking, (a) service, well, badly, etc. Co-occurrence and distribution can be seen as synonymous. What can be a collocate of: put, keep, front, at, by? What is the collocate of what in What is this all about? What is the collocate of who in Who did he do it for? What is the collocate of raining in: Is it raining hard? Cats and dogs.

• Transformational analysis is a kind of morphological analysis which has to do with the repatterning of word-structure so as to bring out the difference in meaning of the words which are structurally the same. Words: bottle-washer and bottle-washer are the same from the point of view of their structure and distributional pattern; however, they differ in meaning and this can be easily shown by resorting to transformational analysis: bottle-washer- 'person who does the washing of bottles' and bottle-washer - 'the machine used for bottle washing'. The following words are structurally the same. Apply transformational analysis to disambiguate them. Reveal the difference of the logical structure and meaning.

1. wine-taster- wine cooler2. walking part-walking-shoe3. mercy-killing - time-killing4. sword-dance - ice-dance5. doorstopper- door-keeper6. grinding-wheel - driving-wheel7. ice fall- windfall8. reading-book - reading-lamp9. prison-breaker - housebreaker10. playground - playtime11. writing-paper- blotting-paper12. wash-day - wash-house13. play-time - kill-time14. dancing-shoe - dancing-girl15. prize-fight - sea-fight16. sucking-bottle - sucking-pig17. sea-fight - bullfight18. heart-ache - heart-break19. feeding-time - feeding-bottle20. daydream - daybreak

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• Apply transformational analysis to the following sets of words and see if they embody the same logical pattern.

1. chair maker, coffee maker, holiday maker, match-maker, sandwich maker

2. carpet cleaner, house-cleaner, street-cleaner, vacuum-cleaner, window-cleaner, wool-cleaner

3. carpet-sweeper, chimney-sweeper, street-sweeper4. lawn-edger, lawn-mower, lawn-sprinkler, lemon-squeezer5. air-condensing, air-cooling, space-heating, water-cooling6. air-flow, cloudburst, dew fall, earthquake, sea-quake, snow

slide, snow slip, snow-drift, snow-fall7. apple-grower, bar-keeper, bookbinder, bookseller,

breadwinner, bullfighter, bus-driver, innkeeper, green-keeper, gold-finder

8. sword play, sword-dance, lead-poisoning9. blazing-star, stinkweed, glow-worm10. egg-slicer, egg-beater, game-keeper, chimney-sweeper,

fortune-teller11. bakery, brewery, cannery, gunnery, winery12. bakery, brewery, artillery, greenery, machinery13. over-anxious, over-cautious, over-confident, overdue14. overeat, overestimate, overpower, overrule15. armful, bagful, bottleful, roomful, teaspoonful16. jugful, boastful, graceful, shameful, hopeful

• Transformational analysis is instrumental in discovering meaning relations (synonymy, oppositeness, hyponymy, superordination) between the words. Apply transformational analysis to the following sets of words and say which meaning relations hold among them.

1. fabled, famous, legendary2. fictitious, invented, non-existent3. gather, congregate, assemble4. keep, share

5. keep, maintain6. justify, explain, demonstrate7. republic, state8. stingy, mean, generous9. unprofitable, useless10. easy, tranquil, quiet, difficult11. economy, extravagance12. effective, operative, powerful, competent, energetic

• Morphological analysis can take the shape of componential analysis which has to do with semantic decomposition of word-meaning which can be broken into two kinds of semantic components: semantic markers (semantic features shared with other words, e.g. 'profession' marker in: postman, milkman, barman, clergyman, weather man) and semantic distinguishers (semantic features which are distinctive, which individualize the word, e.g. ex-president has all the characteristics of a president except that it has the characteristic 'used to be the thing referred to by the noun').

1. Identify the semantic marker (i.e. the common semantic denominator) shared by the following words:

(a) daily, hourly, monthly, weekly, quarterly, yearly(b) animal-like, bird-like, childlike, doll-like, hook-like(c) airless, brainless, characterless, flawless, meaningless(d) inter-city, intercontinental, interplanetary, inter-territorial(e) ill-adapted, ill-chosen, ill-designed, ill-educated, ill-

informed, ill-suited, ill-timed(f) addressee, appointee, deportee, detainee, employee,

examinee, interviewee, trainee(g) belly-down, face-down, head-down, nose-down, top-

down(h) coverage, drainage, leakage, linkage, marriage, spillage

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(i) comfortable, fashionable, honourable, knowledgeable,pleasurable, valuable

(j) class-bound, culture-bound, home-bound, snowbound, wheelchair-bound

2. Identify the semantic distinguisher (word-specific distinctive feature) upon which the following minimal pairs are established:

(a) frog - froglet; isle - islet; owl - owlet; pig - piglet; star-starlet(b) economics - macroeconomics; objectives - macro-

objectives; structure - macro-structure(c) automatic - semiautomatic; conscious - semiconscious;

dark - semi-dark, divine - semi-divine; official - semiofficial; skilled - semi-skilled

(d) confidence - self-confidence; assurance - self-assurance; satisfaction - self-satisfaction

(e) carbon - carbon-rich; energy - energy-rich; mineral -mineral-rich; sugar- sugar-rich; protein - protein-rich

(f) activate - deactivate; centralize - decentralize; colonize - decolonize; materialize - dematerialize

(g) ceremony - post-ceremony; examination - post-examination; Freudian - post-Freudian; impressionism -post-impressionism; medieval - post-medieval

(h) agent - sub-agent; branch - sub-branch; class - sub-class; culture - subculture; editor - sub-editor; species -sub-species; type - subtype

(i) cab - mini-cab; camera - mini-camera; city - mini-city;expedition - mini-expedition; dress - mini-dress

G) judgement - misjudgement; calculation - miscalculation; representation - misrepresentation; management -mismanagement

• Consider the following sets of words. Each set consists of the words identical in morphological shape but different in meaning. The sets fall into two sub-sets according to the difference in meaning of their members. Identify semantic

markers and semantic distinguishers. Separate 'sheep from goats' (e.g. the set: foolery, knavery, snobbery, brewery, fishery, piggery can be divided into two sub-sets: foolery, knavery, snobbery and brewery, fishery, piggery on the basis of the fact that they have different common semantic denominators: 'behaviour' and 'places' being their respective semantic markers).

1. bribery, butchery, bravery, buffoonery, roguery, delivery, flattery, trickery

2. bakery, cannery, fishery, nunnery, crockery, greenery, jewellery, machinery

3. extra-bright, extra-fine, extra-hard, extra-hot, extra-European, extra-marital, extra-small, extra-terrestrial

4. ever-available, ever-changing, ever-decreasing, ever-briefer, ever-closer, ever-greater, ever-shorter

5. addressee, internee, absentee, cohabitee, devotee, payee, retiree, returnee, trustee

6. acceptable, admirable, comfortable, pleasurable, identifiable, profitable, enjoyable, valuable

7. ambassadorship, authorship, membership, comradeship, friendship, kinship, partnership, relationship

8. under-capacity, undergrowth, undersea, under-production, underarm, underclothes, underground, undersurface, understatement

• Words refer to things and concepts which belong to semantic categories (sometimes to more than one category). Categories, on their part, can be seen as a conglomerate of components. The meaning of a word can be seen as the sum of the semantic features it has and which are included in its semantic description, i.e. its definition. Category features assign the word to a semantic category, e.g. a fly belongs to the category [INSECT]. Function features assign a usual state or activity to the word, e.g. a fly flies [FLY]. Property features list the properties distinguishing the reference

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of the word, e.g. an insect which is black and has two wings [BLACK], [WINGS]. The semantic entry for the word for fly may be expressed as:

Fly: [INSECT], [FLY], [BLACK], [WINGS]

Consider the following dictionary definitions of words as they are presented in the Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary. Express the semantic entry for each word giving the sum of: category features, function features and property features.

1. lighthouse is a tower containing a powerful flashing lamp that is built on the coast or on a small island or rock in the sea; lighthouses are used to guide ships or to warn them of danger.

2. muse is an imaginary force which helps a person to do something, especially to paint or to write poetry or music, by giving them ideas and inspiration; a muse is often imagined to be a woman.

3. mussel is a shellfish that lives inside a dark-coloured shell which has two sides that fit tightly together; mussels are often gathered for food.

4. scrapbook is a book with blank pages into which you stick pictures, newspaper articles, etc. in order to make a collection.

5. shorthand is a way of writing which uses signs instead of letters or words and so makes it easier to write down what someone is saying at the same speed as they are talking

6. utensil is a tool or object that you use in order to help you to cook or to do other tasks in your home.

7. keg is a small barrel used for storing something such as beer or other alcoholic drinks.

8. kettle is a covered round container with a handle on the top and a spout on the side, that is used for boiling water.

9. notation is a set of written symbols that are used to represent a system of thought such as music, logic, or mathematics.

10. nose is the part of your face which sticks out above your mouth; it is used for smelling and breathing.

• The term componential analysis is a method of analysis which has to do with reducing the meaning of the word to its ultimate contrastive elements. The sense is broken down into its minimal components. One way to represent the senses is to write formulae in which the dimensions of meaning are expressed by feature symbols (e.g. woman: +human +adult -male; boy: +human -adult +male). These formulae are called componential definitions. Give componential definitions of the meaning of the following words: man, girl, people, goose, gander, dog, puppy, cow, bachelor, spinster, child, adult.

• It can be said that two meanings or two componential formulae are incompatible if one has at least one feature contrasting with a feature in the other (e.g. the meaning of man is incompatible with that of boy because of the clash between +adult and -adult). Provide componential formulae of the following words; compare them; isolate the contrasting features and demonstrate incompatibility: woman, man, plant, hammer.

• Meaning inclusion or hyponymy is the relationship which exists between two meanings if one componential

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formula has all the features present in the other formula (e.g. boy is hyponymous to youngster because the features making up the definition youngster +human and +young are both present in the definition boy). Check if the meaning relation of hyponymy holds between the members of the following pairs of words: woman -grown-up; woman - human being; woman - female; magpie - collector; mainland - land; clatter - noise; basket - container; ape - primate; gateau - cake.

• Using componential formulae we can show the synonymy of two words by assigning them both the same componential definition (e.g. both adult and grown-up have the same definition: +human +adult and therefore we say that they are synonymous; the difference in style (adult is formal and grown-up colloquial) has not been taken into account). Check if the members of the following pairs of words are synonymous: kidnap - abduction; haemorrhoid - pile; kill - murder, nullify - invalidate; petty - trivial; perspire -sweat; informal - casual; magnolia - tulip tree; provide -supply; deck chair- steamer chair.

Two principles are at the basis of all language organization: the principle of constituent structure and the principle of contrastiveness. The first principle is the one by which larger linguistic units can be broken into smaller units (e.g. words into morphemes); the second principle maintains that the language units are identifiable in terms of contrasts i.e. the conceptual meanings are organized largely in terms of contrastive

features. The notion of paradigm builds upon this assumption (cf. different notions of chair, deck chair, swivel chair, armchair, electric chair, folding chair). Why is it that the words: deck chair and steamer chair do not make a minimal pair? Why is it that the words: magnolia and tulip tree do not constitute a minimal pair? Why is it that the words: ice-breaker and ice-skater make a minimal pair (identify the main contrastive feature upon which the distinction is made)?

Morphological analysis can take the shape of contrastive analysis. At the level of lexis contrastive analysis aims at discovering the features of sameness and difference in the meaning structure of correlated words in a pair of languages which are contrasted or in a pair of language variants within one and the same language. Languages differ as to the way in which they classify reality by means of words, e.g. the Serbian word krevet is bed in English but the English word bed is: krevet in Serbian, but also: nocenje (as in: bed & breakfast), spavanje (as: in bed time), leja (as in flower bed), korito (as in: riverbed), podloga (as in: gravel bed), etc. On the other hand there are words with zero correspondents in another language (e.g. the Serbian word cevapcici has no correspondent in English and the English word efficient has zero correspondent in Serbian). Consider the following words in English: keep, beginning, beat, beam, base, balance, baby, teacher, professor. Find their Serbian equivalents. Demonstrate

the fact that polysemic words of different languages are not co-extensive (meaning that there is no one-to-one correspondence between the words constituting the pair) and the fact that there is the difference in contextual scope).

• Consider the following meanings of the word arm in English: 1. The upper limb of the human body; 2. The forelimb of any vertebrate; 3. Any armlike part or attachment as in: the arm of a record player, 4. A covering for the arm, esp. a sleeve of a garment: the arm of a coat; 5. An administrative branch of an organization as in: a special arm of the government; 6.

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An inlet or cove: an arm of the sea; 7. Power, might: the long arm of the law. Also consider the following phrases with the word arm: arm in arm, at arm's length, in the arms of Morpheus, with open arms. What are the corresponding Serbian words and phrases?

• English: with open arms and cordially correspond to the Serbian word srdacno. Find some other examples of English and Serbian words to show many-to-one correspondence between the members of the pair.

• Serbian: neizmenljiv is: unalterable and unchangeable in English. Find some more examples of Serbian and English words to show one-to-many correspondence between the members of the pair.

• English: director corresponds to the Serbian words: direktor, rukovodilac, reditelj. Find some other examples of English and Serbian words to show one-to-many correspondence between the members of the pair.

• Serbian otkriti can be: invent, discover, reveal in English but the English words cannot be used indiscriminately (e.g. Who invented the telephone?, Who ^discovered the telephone?, Who "'revealed the telephone?). Find appropriate contexts into which the words: invent, discover, and reveal will fit.

• Here are two pairs of English words: fortune - happiness and leather - skin translated into Serbian as sreca and kola respectively. Find appropriate contexts into which the words constituting the pairs will fit. Make comments based on what you know about contrastive analysis.

• Find English words which have zero correspondent inSerbian (e.g. birdwatcher).

• Find Serbian words which have zero correspondent in

English (e.g. opanak).

• Apply contrastive analysis to the following pairs of words to show the difference in stylistic meaning:sweat - perspire; you and me - you and I; father -daddy; saliva - spit; sagacious - wise; pong - stink; array - clothes; anon - presently; snow - cocaine.

• Here are some English complex words and their Serbian translation equivalents. The words are presented in pairs. Compare the words constituting a pair from the point of view of their motivation. Say in which cases we are dealing with the same word-formation patterns and in which not.

vacuum cleaner - usisivac; ice-breaker - ledolomac; stretcher - nosila; ring-finger - prstenjak; wedding ring -burma; dancing teacher - ucitelj plesa; postman - postar, pismonosa; playground - igraliste; beautician - kozmeticar; dressmaker - krojac, krojacica; lawn-mower - kosilica; housekeeper - kucepazitelj, pazikuca; doormat - otirac; glass house - staklena basta, staklenik; green house -staklena basta, staklenik; carrier-pigeon - golub pismonosa;cleaning lady - spremacica; teacher - ucitelj, uciteljica, nastavnik, nastavnica; blacksmith - kovac; waterproof -vodootporan; daydream - sanjariti; daybreak - zora; politician - politicar; spring board - odskocna daska; gymnast - gimnasticar; judoist, judo player - dzudista; producer- producent

• Contrastive analysis is important in translation.Compare the following pieces of text and assess them from the point of view of translation equivalence:

Clanom 92 Zakona о preduzecima utvrdena je zabrana da clanovi Upravnog odbora и dva preduzeca и konkurentskoj delatnosti budu ista Ilea. Ova zabrana utvrdena je kao imperativna, a ne kao ugovorna (u Ugovoru о osnivanju, Statutu

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Hi slicnom aktu), kao sto je и vecini drugih evropskih zemalja. Clanom 439 predvideno je novcano kaznjavanje za privredni prestup zbog krsenja klauzule konkurencije iz clana 92 Zakona о preduzecima.

Article 92 of the Company Law prohibits the possibility that the members of the Managing board in two companies in rival position are the same people. This prohibition is imperative i.e. obligatory and it is not contractual (as a part of the Foundation Contract, the Statute or a similar act), and such is the case in the most part of other European countries. According to Article 439 the breach of the clause concerning rivalry stated in the Article 92 of the Company Law will be penalized (money penalty for the breach of law by a business company).

We must begin again, modestly, patiently. From our historians we must expect a more exact analysis of the social conditions which have produced art in the past. From our psychologists we must expect a more exact analysis of the creative process in man, not merely in the individual artist, but as a process

occurring between man and man, for art is not only creation, but also communication. And from our educationists we must expect a remodelling of the educational system which will preserve and refine man's innate sensibility, to the end that the practical activities of life are no longer clumsy and inept, abortive or destructive; but by securing a perfect equilibrium of the sensuous and intellectual faculties, ensure the first requisite of a creative age.

Moramo poceti ispocetka, skromno, strpljivo. Od nasih istoricara moramo ocekivati precizniju analizu drustvenih uslova koji su dali umetnost и proslosti. Od nasih psihologa moramo ocekivati precizniju analizu stvaralackog procesa ljudi uopste a ne samo pojedinog umetnika, kao procesa koji se odigrava izmedu coveka i coveka jer umetnost nije samo stvaranje vec i opstenje. Od nasih pedagoga moramo ocekivati da obrazovnom sistemu daju takav oblik koji ce sacuvati i profiniti covekovu urodenu osecajnost sa ciljem da prakticno delovanje и zivotu ne bude vise nespretno i neadekvatno, da se napusta Hi da bude destruktivno, vec da obezbedi savrsenu ravnotezu culnih i intelektualnih sposobnosti, da osigura prvi uslov stvaralackog doba.

• Here is a passage from Herbert Read's The Philosophy of Modern Art (London, Faber & Faber, p. 69) and its Serbian translation. Apply contrastive analysis to assess the appropriateness of the translation.

• Here are some Serbian sentences translated into English. Apply contrastive analysis to explain the mistakes in the English translation due to wrong interpretation and false pairing. The words to be compared are italicized.

1. Palo je vece i senke su postale duze. - Evening fell and the shades grew longer.

2. Ova informacija potice iz pouzdanog izvora. - This information comes from a reliable well.

3. Hamlet pocinje da govori svoj cuveni monolog kad je sam na sceni. - Hamlet starts reciting his famous monologue when he is alone on the scene.

4. Nije primljen na fakultet. - He was not accepted to college.5. Dela govore snaznije od reci. - Actions say louder than

words.6. Pas je izgubio gazdu. - The dog lost its host.7. Sedeo je u hladu. - He was sitting in the shadow.8. Evo jednog inserta iz filma. - Here is an insert from the film.

• Contrastive analysis is important in methodology (language teaching, textbook-writing, testing). Take the following English words: eventually, actual, sensible, drugstore, public, sympathy, decorate. If you were an

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English teacher and if your students were Serbian what would be your typical-error prediction on the basis of the contrastive analysis?

• Why is it that the words: bring and fetch; wait for, hope, expect, look forward to; avoid and prevent; rob and steal; rather, fairly, and quite; under, underneath, below, beneath; between and among; are referred to as confusable words?

• Take the following English words: bar, calculator, and tandem. Compare them to the Serbian words (anglicisms; bar, kalkulator, tandem). Apply contrastive analysis to spot the difference in meaning.

7. MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSES

Give a definition of affixation.

What are derivational affixes? Name some.

What are grammatical (i.e. inflectional) affixes? Can a prefix have grammatical meaning? Give a list of grammatical (inflectional) suffixes in English. Illustrate.

Provide examples of derivatives representing what is called a first degree derivation (e.g. readiness -derived from ready by adding just one affix), and second degree derivation (e.g. unbelievable - derived from believe by means of two affixes).

The ability of one morphological process to potentiate another by creating a base suitable for that other

process to apply to is referred to as_______________. Onemorphological process potentiates another one in the way that its output provides the input to another. Illustrate.

What are prefixal derivatives? Illustrate. What are suffixal derivatives? Illustrate.

State the criterion upon which the distinction between prefixal and suffixal derivatives is made.

• Here are some examples of prefixal and suffixal derivatives. Say to which class every single example belongs.

recognizable, irreconcilable, irrelevant, invigorate, insensibility, humorous, humidify, humidity, unadvised, unadvisedly, unblushing, uncompromising, unprecedented, unpredictability, co-authorship, organization, oriental, frivolous, misbehave, misinterpretation, hurtful, tea-spoonful, table-spoonful, hypocritical, decentralize, show-offish, decomposition, democratize, headmastership, librarianship, ultra-sophisticated, ultra-powerful, bejewelled

• Prefixes which shift a word to another category are called class-changing prefixes, e.g. de- in de-ice {ice is a noun and de-ice is a verb); en- in enlarge {large is an adjective and enlarge is a verb). Prefixes which do not change the word-class of a word are called class-maintaining prefixes, e.g. ex- in ex-husband (both the base husband and the derivative ex-husband belong to the same word-class - they are nouns); also extra- in extra-marital is class-maintaining in that it does not change the word-class of the derivative (both the base and the derivative are adjectives). Here are some prefixes for you to classify as class-changing or class-maintaining. Provide your own examples to demonstrate the difference.

mis-, dis-, anti-, ante-, ultra-, be-, en-, ex-, extra-, un-, ill-, bi-

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• Semantically prefixes can be mono- and polysemous.Explain and illustrate.

• Diachronically, the distinction is made between prefixes of native and foreign origin (e.g. un- is native and super- is foreign). Here are three prefixes meaning 'half: semi-, half-, and demi-. Which are foreign and which are native? Are they interchangeable, i.e. can you say: halfwitted, semi-witted, demi-witted or semi-circle, half-circle, demi-circle? Give your own examples.

• Make the following words negative by adding un-, in-, im-, ir-, il- or dis-:

different, bearable, usable, reasonable, thinkable, probable, regular, literate, legible, desirable, readable, beatable, desirable, definable, accessible, comfortable, believe, appear, convenient, armament, agree, appoint, satisfied, able, believable, biased, certain, faithful, employed, emotional, gentlemanly, official, willing, usual, tidy, lucky, musical, civilized, prepared, written, uttered, penetrable, polite, possible, legal, lawful, replaceable, repressible, removable, responsible, limitable, limited, legitimate, logical, proof, place, possess, proportion, quiet, satisfy, assemble, credible, efficient, order, appropriate, applicable.

• The prefix mis- generally means that something has been incorrectly performed. The prefix dis-, however, means the exact opposite to what is stated in the base. Compare: misbelief ('believing, but something wrong'); disbelief ('not believing'). Add mis- or dis- to the following words:

behave, behaviour, agree, agreement, approve, calculate, direct, conduct, calculation, management, place, connect, embark, incline, infect, locate, print, quote, understand, understanding, use, organize, please, unite, prove, integrate

• The prefix de- combines with verbs to make new verbs to mean 'the opposite effect of, or reverses, whatever is specified in the base' (e.g. decompose - 'separate into its parts; opposite to compose). This prefix can also mean 'the removal of something' (e.g. de-ice - 'to remove ice from'). Add de- to the following words and say to which class they belong according to the meaning of the prefix.

debug, de-bone, de-feather, deactivate, decolonize, decouple, defrost, dehouse, descale, demistify, depoliticize

• The prefix re- is extremely productive in forming verbs and their related nouns. It means a repeated performance (e.g. rewrite - 'write again', rephrase -'phrase again'). There are, however, words which begin with the re sequence which cannot be treated as a prefix (e.g. reduce, release, reactor, research). Here are some words starting with re. Split them into two sets: (1) where re- is a prefix suggesting 'repetition', and (2) where re has changed or lost its original meaning.

re-allocate, reapear, rebuild, recollection, recommendation, reproduction, reservation, reconsider, reconstruct, redistribution, renaming, reopen, return, review, restore, regenerate, remarriage, remarry, repossess, reprint, reunite, restrain, retirement

• Adverb particles can be used as prefixes. Prefixes which are correlated with functional words, i.e. prepositions and preposition-like adverbs are sometimes termed semibound prefixes. Make verbs, nouns or adjectives by adding the particles: up, down, out, in, over, under, off or on as prefixes (e.g. estimate -underestimate; do - overdo; done - overdone, underdone; let out - outlet; fall - downfall; bring up -upbringing; put in - input; shoot off - offshoot; look on -onlooker).

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-hearted, -bringing, -pay, -paid, -ripe, -dressed, -fall, -keep, -right, -line, -roar, -root, -pour, -fed, -anxious, -confident, -cast, -duty, -set, -break, -cry, -burst, -come, -fit, -fond,-populated, -flow, -eager, -exposure, -wear, -line, -write, -spring, -print, -charge, -developed, -manned, -indulgence

• over- can mean (1) excess (e.g. over-anxious, overcook), and (2) power (e.g. overrule, overturn). Would you say that the following words belong to either class?

overall, overcoat, overseas, oversee, overlook, overtake, overtime, overhear

• Here are some words with off-. Say in which cases this off- means (1) position (e.g. off-stage, offshore), and in which cases it means (2) that something is not the case (e.g. off-balance, off-guard).

off-campus, off-line, off-peak, off-season, off-screen, off-field, off-track, off-key

• self- is very productive in forming nouns from nouns or adjectives from present and past participles (e.g. self-service, self-regulating, self-employed). It has two basic meanings: (1) something done to or by yourself (e.g. self-analysis), and (2) attitudes (e.g. self-important). Here are some words which belong to class (1) and you are asked to add your own examples: self-approval, self-awareness, self-restraint, self-inflicted, self-discipline... Here are some self- words meaning 'attitude' (class 2). Continue the paradigm: self-confident, self-assured, self-confidence, self-respect, self-satisfied...

• fore-, pre-, post-, ante-, ex- are prefixes of time and order. Give your own examples to show this meaning of the prefixes quoted.

• sub-, inter-, intra-, trans- all belong to the category of locative prefixes. Illustrate.

• Give a definition of a suffix.

• Suffixes can have lexical or grammatical meaning in which case they are called inflectional. Name inflectional suffixes in English.

• Suffixes which shift a word to another category are called class-changing suffixes (e.g. -ize in nationalize shifts an adjective to the verb category; -fy in beautify shifts a noun to the verb class). Suffixes which do not change the word-class of a word are called class-maintaining suffixes (e.g. -ish in yellowish does not change the word-class of the initial adjective and the derivative is also an adjective; also -let in froglet where both the base and the derivative belong to the same word-class - they are nouns). Give examples of your own to show the difference between those two classes of suffixes.

• As to their origin suffixes can be native (e.g. -ish, -dom) or foreign (e.g. -ation, -able). Give some more examples of native and foreign suffixes.

• Suffixes can be mono- and polysemous, Illustrate.

• Classify suffixes according to their part-of-speech meaning. Provide some examples.

• Here are three noun suffixes: -hood, -ship and -dom.These three suffixes are used to make abstract nouns from the names that refer to people; the names for members of a family have the suffix -hood; nouns ending in -hood refer to states, conditions, or the periods of time in which something is experienced; words ending in -er / -or usually have -ship; words ending in -man also have -ship; the suffix

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-dom in nouns has two meanings: a state or condition, and a realm or territory.Make new nouns from the words listed bellow using these suffixes.

lord, lady, duke, bore, child, girl, mother, father, king, free, gangster, star, champion, relation, parent, unlikely, apprentice, professor, knight, woman, man, martyr, leader, hard, chairman, editor, member, trainee, ambassador, fellow, craftsman, comrade, partner, lively, scholar

• The suffix -ness is highly productive in making new abstract words from adjectives. These newly formed nouns refer to the state or quality described by the adjective. Note that a final у is replaced by T before adding -ness. Make abstract nouns from the adjectives listed bellow using -ness.

aggressive, attractive, aware, bitter, bold, careless, drunken, empty, foolish, happy, ill, lonely, lovely, open, sad, sick, ugly, weak, white, black

• There are some examples of nouns ending in -ness. Four of the examples, however, have a different meaning from the one specified in the previous exercise ('state or quality described by the adjective'). Which are these words?

happiness, idleness, gentleness, weakness, business, youthfulness, forgiveness, blindness, likeness, kindness, consciousness, madness, witness

• Suffixation in -ness is so productive that many abstract words are formed in this way despite the fact that there are already existing words with the same meaning but different morphological shape (compare: humble -humbleness; humble - humility). Formations in -ness are sometimes not necessary at all. Give the correct abstract nouns which

correspond to the adjectives listed bellow. Say in which cases -ness formations are also possible.

beautiful, courageous, generous, certain, brave, high, new, difficult, dangerous, intelligent, proud

• Noun-forming suffixes -th and -t are no longer productive. Give the nouns which correspond to these words:

high, wide, strong, long, dead, wide, give, dry, deep, weigh, true, see, grow, warm, hot

• -er suffix can be tacked on to almost any base: simple or composite, substantive or verbal, to a numeral, and all kinds of phrases on the general meaning basis: 'he who or that which is connected with or characterized by his or its appurtenance to'. Most often the -er has agentive or instrumental meaning (e.g. baker, cheese-cutter); it can have a 'species' marker (e.g. wood-pecker). This suffix can also be added to a noun in which case it has several meanings (compare: commissioner - Londoner - snow-boarder). It can be added to a numeral (e.g. fiver). Nouns can be derived from a phrasal verb by means of the suffix -er (e.g. pass by - passer-by; wait on -waiter). The suffix -er can be added to compounds and syntactic phrases (e.g. four-wheeler, teen-ager, weekender, long-jumper, down-hiller). In its agentive meaning the suffix -er can take the form of -or, -ar (e.g. worker, liberator, beggar). Here are some words ending in -er. Analyze their structural pattern. Classify them according to their general meaning.

baker, cooker, diner, Londoner, West-Ender, commander, counter, computer, high-jumper, triple-jumper, potter, backhander, two-seater, all-rounder, hard-liner, skateboarder, wind-surfer, wood-pecker, highlander, islander,New Yorker, go-getter, bottom-feeder, salad-spinner, back-bencher, right-winger

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• Add the correct suffix (-er, -or, -ar) to the following words: sail, bake, make, liberate, sing, murder, govern, donate, lie, law, orate, narrate.

• Suffixes -ist and -an, -ian are also used to form nouns associated with people (e.g. abortionist, European, Algerian). Add the correct suffix to the following words (make appropriate adjustments).

judo, motor, botany, zoology, piano, violin, science, neurology, psychiatry, politics, economics, physics, cartoon, terror, Christ, art, Paris, Italy, Hungary, theology, history, diet, beauty, extreme, ideal, elite, race, novel, type, Africa, Syria, Austria, Australia

• Here are two more suffixes used for people: -eer (e.g. mountaineer), and -ее (e.g. divorcee). Add the ending -eer or -ее to these words:

address, appoint, engine, deport, detain, employ, examine, interview, trust, train, refer, refuge, profit, auction, absent

• -ess combines with nouns that refer to a woman or a female animal. When it is not possible to add this suffix to a noun, femininity is indicated by woman or lady put before the noun (e.g. baroness but woman-writer) or after the noun (e.g. policewoman, cleaning lady). French -ienne and -e are also possible indicators of femininity (e.g. comedienne, fiancee). Make the feminine form of these words:

author, count, god, heir, host, lion, manager, panther, priest, prince, steward, tiger, cook, teacher, singer, dentist, duke, speaker, mayor, actor, conductor, governor, waiter, murderer, violinist, chairman, postman, policeman, mailman, fiance, magician, Negro

• The noun suffix -ful can be added freely to many words to indicate the quantity held by what is expressed by the noun (e.g. handful - 'the quantity held by the hand'). Add -ful to the words listed bellow. Give your own examples of the words in -ful indicating 'the amount contained'.

pocket, mouth, spoon, teaspoon, tablespoon, house, dish, basket, saucer, cup, bucket, box, room, arm, bag, bottle, glass, pan, plate, sack

• -ful also combines with nouns in order to form adjectives which, in this case, describe someone or something as having the characteristic or quality mentioned to a very high degree (e.g. if something is powerful it is very strong, very effective or done with great force). Here is a list of words with this meaning. Add some examples of your own.

beautiful, boastful, cheerful, deceitful, delightful, forceful, graceful, harmful, joyful, merciful, painful, shameful

• Say whether -ful in the following words can be interpreted to mean (1) amounts and measurement or (2) characteristics and qualities.

awful, brimful, fateful, fruitful, grateful, lawful, wrongful

• -ion combines with verbs to form nouns which in this case refer to the state or process described by the verb (e.g. combination refers to the process of combining and exploitation is the process of exploiting). The most common variations of the spelling of -ion are: -ation,-ition, -sion, and -tion. Add your own examples to the following list:

action, division, contemplation, investigation, addition, simulation, prevention, explanation, codification, presentation, formation, contribution, creation, decision, completion,

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imagination, information, consumption, complication, realization, liberation, reduction, definition

• Can the following words be said to belong to the -ion group described in the preceding exercise?

affection, attention, disposition, mission

• -ism can be found in nouns referring to beliefs, or to behaviour related to such beliefs. Add your own examples to the following list.

Thatcherism, Marxism, feminism, alcoholism, Catholicism, consumerism, extremism, heroism, hooliganism, patriotism, nationalism, realism, symbolism, terrorism, vandalism

• The following are verb-forming suffixes: -en, -fy (-ify), -ate, and -ize. Make verbs from these words by adding appropriate endings. Make any changes in spelling if they are necessary.

strength, length, deep, sharp, thick, horror, just, clear, simple, hard, false, intense, stupid, regular, hospital, immune, sympathy, equal, active, familiar, commercial, plastic, solid, tranquil• Adjective suffixes -у and -ly have the general meaning of

'having the quality of or appearance of what is specified in the base. Form adjectives from the following words:

blood, bulk, bush, taste, love, heaven, kind, leisure, man, woman, saint, world, dirt, dust, fat, flower, grease, hair, itch, stone, sex, smoke, sun, worth, thirst, pink, yellow, green, brother, friend

• The adjective suffix -ish has different meanings. When it is added to the names of persons it means 'having the bad qualities of. In this case we say that it is derogatory. Compare the members of the following pairs of words and state the difference in meaning.

manly - mannish; womanly - womanish; childlike - childish; old maid - old-maidish

• There are some less common adjective suffixes: -like, -some, and -worthy, -like has the meaning of 'resembling or in the manner of (e.g. Godlike); -some is added to verbs and nouns to mean 'attributes and characteristics' (e.g. quarrelsome) or 'causing someone to feel a particular emotion' (e.g. fearsome); -worthy has the meaning of 'worthy of (e.g. praiseworthy). Make adjectives from these words using the appropriate suffix:

seaman, awe, life, respect, fear, dog, cat, war, business, lone, burden, noise, child, lady, trouble, blame, adventure, flavour, loath, venture, bother, mouse, trust

• The suffix -able (-ible) is extremely productive in modern English and it can be added to a very large number of nouns and almost any transitive verb to mean 'able to be' (e.g. washable - 'that can be washed'). The form -ible is found in French and Latin borrowings (e.g.possible, digestible), -able can also mean 'qualities' (e.g. something that is fashionable is in fashion). The following words fall into three classes according to the meaning of the suffix: (1) those with the meaning of 'possibility; (2) those with the meaning of 'having certain qualities', and (3) those where neither is the case. Classify the following words according to the meaning of the suffix. Note that there is no equal number of words in all three sets.

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acceptable, admirable, dependable, comfortable, honourable, knowledgeable, valuable, imaginable, profitable, preferable, machine-washable, tolerable, agreeable, amiable, considerable, miserable, sociable, capable

• Adjective suffixes -ful and -less can be said to have opposite meaning (e.g. meaningful - meaningless); -full makes adjectives with the meaning of 'having', and -less makes adjectives with opposite meaning of 'lacking something'. Here are some words for you to classify as to whether they can or cannot form the -ful : -less pair (e.g. faithful: faithless, but frightful: *frightless, *lifeful: lifeless).

pain, air, breath, life, character, child, harm, colour, purpose, need, play, sleep, heart, help, hope, name, power, speech, taste, rest, sense, beauty, thought, penny, time, fruit, care

• -ly suffix can form adverbs (e.g. badly, equally, quickly, naturally), but it can also form adjectives (e.g. lively, brotherly, lonely, costly). Here are some words ending in -ly for you to divide into two groups according to their part-of-speech meaning: cheaply, clearly, easily, deadly, fatherly, exactly, normally, properly, perfectly, rigidly, slowly, rapidly, heavenly, leisurely, northerly, finally, frequently, earthly, kindly

• Here are some recently coined English neologisms:consumeritis, telegenic, discothequenik, pamphleteer, Zippergate, fishburger, jokethon. Analyze their derivational pattern. Comment on the suffixes used. Give more examples to demonstrate the productive force of the suffixes used.

• From the point of view of stylistic reference suffixes can be: stylistically neutral (e.g. -er in worker) and stylistically marked (e.g. -ish in childish). Give some more

examples of stylistically neutral and stylistically marked suffixes.

• Say which English suffixes can be said to have derogatory force. Illustrate.

• Compare the following pairs of words. State the difference between the members of each pair from the point of view of their stylistic reference.

childlike - childish; womanlike - womanish; boastful - show-offish

• What does diminutive mean? Name some suffixes that are used to form diminutives in English. Provide examples.

• The following words all have diminutive endings.Explain their meaning:

booklet, bracelet, eaglet, froglet, starlet, droplet, cutlet, piggy, piggie, sweetie, deary, hanky, lambkin, catkin, seedling, duckling, nestling, suckling, baby, dolly, Tommy, Lizzie, hillock, bullock, kitchenette, maisonette

• Smallness can be expressed by the use of suffixes but it can also be implied, e.g. kid, cottage, hamlet, pocket, globule, molecule, particle, chicken, maiden, kitten, freckle. Give some more examples of words implying smallness.

• The following words indicate small quantities. Match the quantity to the substance (e.g. a crumb of bread, a drop of rain, etc.):

The quantity: a grain, a speck, a drop, a chip, a scrap, a lock, a crumb, a morsel, a blade, a breath, a puff, a fragment, a pinch

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The substance: of salt, of bread, of rain, of meat, of air, of paper, of hair, of grass, of wind, of pottery, of dirt, of wood, of snow, of blood, of information, of cloth, of a cigarette, of fossilized bone

• Suffixes in English can have lexical or grammatical meaning. Give a list of inflectional suffixes in English. How many inflectional suffixes are there in English?

• What is a declension and what is a conjugation?

• What are grammatical words? These words are also known as functional words, functors or empty words.

• What is grammaticalization?

• What is markedness? What are markers? Explain the dichotomy: marked - unmarked within a lexical and an inflectional paradigm.

• Inflectional suffixes, functional words and word order are markers of grammatical relations. Illustrate.

• In English grammatical categories are the following: person, number, degree, case, gender, definiteness, tense, modality, aspect and voice. Different grammatical categories operate within different word-classes. Say with which parts of speech these grammatical categories are associated.

• Name grammatical categories which are marked by inflectional suffixes. Name those which are marked by functional words. Which grammatical categories are marked by inflectional suffixes together with functional words?

• A single morph which simultaneously represents a bundle of several different grammatical elements is referred to as a____________________morph. Illustrate.

• Define the grammatical category of person. Say when the category of person is inherent and when it is overtly marked. Illustrate.

• Are there personal inflections in Modern English?

• What are the exponents of the grammatical morpheme meaning 'third person' in writing? Give the rules.

• How many allomorphs does the grammatical morpheme meaning 'third person' have? Name the allomorphs and state the rules. Illustrate.

• What is the term generic person used for? Illustrate.

• Define the grammatical category of number.Grammatical expressions of number can be found in most nouns, in some pronouns and in some verbs. Can they be found in adjectives or participles?

What are the exponents of plural number in nouns: in writing and in pronunciation?

State the rules governing the use of -s and -es in writing the grammatical morpheme meaning 'number'. Provide illustrations.

What are the rules that govern phonetic realization ofthe grammatical morpheme meaning 'number'? Illustrate?

Some plurals have meanings which are not found in singulars. Give some examples.

Give some examples of plural and sungular invariables (pluralia tantum and singularia tantum).

What does generic number mean? Illustrate.

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Give the rules regulating the writing and pronunciation of the 'number' suffix in verbs. Illustrate.

Do the modals encode the category of number?

In the preterit there is just one example which encodes 'number'. Which one is that?

The category of degree is represented by unmarked forms, comparatives and superlatives. What are the exponents of comparative degree? What are the exponents of superlative degree?

Say something about comparison by inflection.• in what way are the inflectional degree suffixes

realized in writing? State the rules. Illustrate.

• In what way are the inflectional degree suffixesrealized in speech? Are there any allomorphs? Illustrate.

• Define the grammatical category of case. To which word classes does the category of case relate?

• Case relations can be shown by case endings. Illustrate.

• From the point of view of morphological marking, English nouns have a two-case system. Give a few paradigms to support this statement.

• In what way is the genitive inflection written in English? State the rules. Illustrate.

• There are three allomorphs of the genitive morphemein English. Which are they? State the rules. Illustrate.

• As for pronouns in English they have either two or three cases. Give some examples.

• Give the definition of the grammatical category of gender.

• Gender in nouns is represented either by lexical oppositions of formally unrelated words (e.g. lord -lady) or by lexical oppositions of formally related words with overt morphological gender markers (e.g. poet -poetess). Give more examples.

• There are nouns with dual gender, e.g. artist, cook, writer. Give some more examples.

Gender distinctions in English are also expressed by pronouns and determiners. Personal, possessive, reflexive and emphatic pronouns and possessive determiners for third person singular show feminine -masculine - neuter gender oppositions. Find examples to support this statement.

What kind of gender is called referring gender?Illustrate.

Define the grammatical category of definiteness. What does it denote?

What are the exponents of definiteness?

What are the allomorphs which realize the definite and the indefinite article. Give the rules. Illustrate.

Some words in English are inherently marked for definiteness, e.g. him is definite, oneself is indefinite, her is definite, whoever is indefinite. Give some more examples.

What is tense as a grammatical category?

State the rules which regulate the realization of the -s-ending in the third person singular indicative of the present simple tense. State both writing and pronunciation rules. Illustrate.

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State both writing and pronunciation rules which regulate the realization of the past tense marker in regular verbs. Illustrate.• Here are some verb forms with the past tense marker.

Divide them into three groups corresponding to three allomorphs which realize the past tense marker.

divided, snubbed, hopped, brimmed, concluded, manipulated, overpowered, reduplicated, glided, compensated, predominated, surfaced, seemed, lulled, canned, coached, bridged, laughed, occurred, mailed, served, wiped, air-conditioned, smoothed, played, regarded, sabotaged, managed, banged, bequeathed, guided

• Define the grammatical category of modality.

• Two types of modality can be distinguished: epistemic and deontic. Explain and illustrate.

• Which modality features are traditionally referred to by the term mood?

• The English verb has three moods. Which are they?

• Define the grammatical category of aspect.

• Major distinction within the category of aspect is made between perfective and imperfective aspect. Give a few pairs of examples to illustrate this distinction.

• In English the progressive aspect is marked with the auxiliary verb be plus the main verb with the -ing inflection. By what term is the inflected form traditionally referred to?

• In what way is the {ing} realized in speech and writing?

• What are the changes that occur in writing when the stem and the inflectional suffix -ing are joined? Provide illustrations.

• Some verbs in English do not allow the use of the progressive. Pinpoint such verbs in the following group of examples. To what class of verbs do they belong?

hop, estimate, delete, pat, renovate, do, move, desire, hate, dislike, detest, like, horrify, terrify, prefer, know, understand, feel, reduce, hurt

• The rules governing the realizations of the {ed} inflection as part of the verb form called past participle areidentical to those governing the realizations of the inflectional suffix {ed} with the grammatical meaning of the 'past tense'. Formulate these rules and provide illustrations.

• What is voice as a grammatical category? What are the exponents of passive voice? Which class of verbs is associated with the use of passive voice? Provide examples to illustrate the opposition active - passive.

• What do we mean by agreement in grammar? What other two terms are related to it as its subordinates?

• What does government mean in reference to English grammar? Provide illustrations.

• Find the examples illustrating government in thefollowing sentences.

1. I talked to him.2. I had a message from her.3. He is a dear friend of mine.4. It was a serious blunder of yours.5. It was very considerate of you.6. From whom did you get it?

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• Concord refers to the situation when two or more lexemes are obligatorily marked for the same morphological categories (e.g. compare: a boy has and the boys have - the words in the first phrase are marked for singular number whereas the words in the latter phrase are marked for plural number). Of two forms showing concord the use of one necessitates the use of the other. Having in mind the definition of concord, analyze the following text from the point of view of concord, identifying the morphological categories for which the words which make the text are marked.

The demand for computer systems that can translate texts among various languages, or at least help human translators, is high and growing in our information-saturated world. Research and development activities directed at building such systems can be united under the headings 'machine translation' and 'machine-aided translation.' The state of the machine translation art in the mid-1980s is encouraging but not yet satisfactory. Speaking plainly, we don't have systems that can adequately translate texts devoted to a reasonably broad domain of discourse, even between two specific languages. At the same time, technological and especially conceptual advances are evident in this renascent field of study. (Sergei Nirenburg, ed. Machine Translation, CUP, 1987, p. xiii)

• In the text above find the examples of unilateral concord (when the relation of two elements is unilateral in the sense that one element can be combined with several other elements, e.g. can combines with: /, you, he, she, etc.); find the examples of bilateral concord (if one word necessitates the use of the other, e.g. / can be combined only with am and vice versa).

• The following text is in the Serbian language. Analyze it from the point of view of agreement.

Ima ljudi koji nisu imali nista drugo nego ugledne prijatelje, kojima je to za zivot bilo dovoljno. Veliki uslov prijateljstva, to je ne traziti blagodarnost za ucinjene usluge. Stoga su anticki pisci i istakli red: sve je zajednicko medu prijateljima. Jer blagodarnost bi bila smetnja zajednickoj sudbini medu prijateljima; и prirodi covekovoj lezi da blagodarnost ne odvodi и ljubav nego и potajnu mrznju. Blagodarnost je osecanje inferiornosti prema drugom. Mali dug pravi duznika, a veliki dug pravi neprijatelja, a svaki dug pravi nezadovoljnika. (Jovan Ducic: Blago cara Radovana, Prozaik, 1996, p. 197)

• The following text is in the French language. Analyze it from the point of view of agreement.

Le Frangais typique que Ton caricature si souvent coiffe d'un beret; un journal a la main et une baguette sous le bras, n'existe pas. En France, on achete moins d'un milion de berets par an et la consommation de pain n'est plus que de 120 grammes par jour. Ajoutons que le nombre de lecteurs de la presse quotidienne a baisse d'un quart entre 1980 et 1990. Pour illustrer la diversite de Tesprit frangais, je citerai le general de Gaulle qui disait de ces concitoyens: « Comment voulez-vous gouverner un pays ой Ton produit plus de 400 sortes de fromages ? » (Transcriptions, Mame Imprimeurs, 1998, p. 270)

• On the basis of the texts you have just analyzed (and which have been chosen at random for the sake of illustration) answer the following question: what is your general impression on the versatility of the agreement rules in English, Serbian and French?

• Conversion in morphology is the process which produces lexemes which change their word-class without the addition of an affix. Conversion is sometimes referred to as zero derivation (derivation by zero affix). Comment on this.

• What are other terms which refer to the process of conversion?

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• What is a technical term for a word which is the output of the process of conversion?

• Conversion is a deliberate shift into another word-class (e.g. soldier n. > soldiery, in he soldiered his way through the crowd). On the other hand there are words in English which have the same shape and which belong to more than one part of speech (e.g. there is love which is a noun and love which is a verb). Provide more examples to show the difference.

• Compounds, derivatives, back-derived words, blends, acronyms, clipped forms, simple and complex words can be input material to the process of conversion. Provide illustrations.

• All part-of-speech classes can be input material to the process of conversion. Provide illustrations.

• Even affixes can be used as bases for conversion.Illustrate.

• Conversion (or shifting) has to do with the shift of grammar (i.e. functional shift) and shift of meaning(specialization of meaning, generalization of meaning, metaphor, metonymy). Identify the type of shift in the following examples: mop n. > mop v.; skin n. > skin v.; veto n. > veto v.; honeymoon n. > honeymoon v.; frog n.

> frog n. (meaning 'a French person'); kiwi n. > kiwi n. (meaning 'a New Zealander'), walk v. intransitive > walk v. transitive; tea n. uncountable > tea n. countable (as in the teas of China).

Name major kinds of conversion. Provide illustrations.

Minor kinds of conversion are, for example: conversion from affixes to nouns, from verbs to adjectives, from phrases to adjectives, etc. Provide illustrations.

Directionality of conversion has to do with assigning priority to one word-class as the starting point in the process of conversion. The decision is based upon semantic criteria which are given priority. Transformational analysis can be used to decide on directionality of conversion (e.g. to honeymoon means 'spending your honeymoon somewhere', so the meaning of the noun honeymoon is incorporated into the meaning of the the verb to honeymoon and it is for that reason that the noun is considered to be more basic and therefore we are dealing with noun-to-verb conversion). Consider the following examples and apply transformational analysis to decide on the directionality of conversion: the whites, the deaf, a daily, doubt п., cheat п., drive п., limp п., fall-out п., French п., ups and downs, nobody п., go-between п., panic v., ship v., box v., cradle v., floor v., handcuff v., busy v., empty v., encore v.

Here are some examples of verb to noun conversionfor you to classify according to the following semantic and logic criteria: deverbal nouns meaning the instance of the action; converted nouns from stative verbs; deverbal nouns indicating the agent of the action; nouns denoting place of the action; nouns denoting object or result of the action; deverbal substantives indicating an instrument of the action: move, get-away, help, rebel, turn, catch, break-down, fall-out, cover, cure, permit, dump.

Adjectives denoting a quality common to a group of people may denote such people as a group, e.g. the deaf, the hopefuls. Provide more examples.

Superlatives can be used as nouns. Illustrate.

Uncountable nouns can become countable nouns (e.g. tea : teas (meaning 'different kinds of tea'). Provide more examples.

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Verbs converted from nouns may denote: action (e.g. to fish, to butcher), instrument (e.g. to whip, to fork), place (e.g. to can, to box), time (e.g. to vocation, to honeymoon), deprivation of the object (e.g. to bone, to dust). Classify the following converted verbs according to the semantic and logic criteria: ape, dog, crusade, parade, lust, nurse, tower, screw, telescope, nail, hammer, x-ray, cradle, land, belly-land, to yacht, weekend, winter, holiday, peel, scalp, side-step, referee, bomb, bicycle, motor, balloon, ski, stage, cradle, field, milk.

A number of compound verbs are formed by conversion, e.g. to spotlight, to stagemanage. Provide more examples.

Consider the following examples and identify the type of conversion involved: to bald, to dim, to idle, to better, to busy, to dirty, to empty, to still.

Explain the difference between complete and partial conversion. Provide examples.» Consider the following examples and say if they represent the

instances of complete or partial conversion: floor v., land v., box v., honeymoon v., ugly п., rich п., Belgrade adj. (as in Belgrade fair), off adj. (as in an off chance), then adj. (as in the then Miss of the World).

» What do we mean by approximate conversion?

» Illustrate the principle kinds of alteration in approximate conversion.

» When verbs are converted into nouns, the stress usually shifts from the second to the first syllable (e.g. con'duct v. - 'conduct п.; dfgest v. - 'digest п.). Provide more illustrations.

► Here are some examples of disyllabic noun-verb pairs. Say if they differ in stress. Balance - balance, censor -censor, dispute - dispute, release - release, support -support.

» Read the following nouns: abstract, conflict, export, extract, import, insult, refund, refill, remake, suspect, transport, break-down, press-up.

» Use the following verbs in context (e.g. cushion - He tried to cushion the fall). Autograph, panic, photograph, host, film, elbow, soldier, gray, chance.

> Verbs can change their subsidiary class due to conversion (e.g. walk v. intransitive can shift to the transitive class as in: He offered to walk me home). Here are two more examples for you to comment on.

1. He was hissed off the stage..2. If you snow someone you talk in a flattering and insincere

way in order to deceive them.

• Identify the type of conversion in the following examples:

1. He will repair it, the how you leave to him.2. It is the why of the crime that interests the police.

e Consider the following examples and identify the type of conversion: summit п., convertible п., commercial п., regular п., supersonic п., newly marrieds n.

• Having in mind what you know about conversion compare the following Serbian graffiti with its English translation equivalent focusing on the words in bold type:

Civilizacija - to je kad dva majmuna izlemaju treceg zato sto se majmunise.

Civilization - that's when two monkeys beat up another monkey because he has been monkeying around.

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• Rephrase the following so that you use a compound adjective (e.g. lit by the moon : moon-lit):

financed by the state, covered with earth, plated with silver, laced with gold, surrounded by the police, made by man, born in New York, controlled by the state, driven by the wind, stained with blood, soiled while in shop, written by hand, swept by the wind, made by a tailor, covered with snow, trained in college, lit by the candles, lined with trees, knitted by hand, drawn by a horse, covered with leather.• Rephrase the following so that you use a compound

adjective (e.g. a girl with blue eyes : a blue-eyed girl):

a girl with green eyes, a girl with gray eyes, a girl with dark eyes, a gentleman with gray hair, a lady with auburn hair, a lady with the blue blood, a commoner with the red blood, shoes with high heels, shoes with low heels, shoes with rubber soles, a girl with a round face, a boy with an oval face, a man with an open heart and open mind, a hat with a narrow brim, a man with big shoulders, a fellow with the heart of a chicken, murder committed in cold blood, a man with a quick wit, a fellow with bad manners, a jacket with a colour of coffee, a lady who is well dressed, a sofa which is covered with leather.

• Find another expression for the following so that you use a compound adjective (e.g. a book where the corners of the leaves have been turned down to mark particular pages : a dog-eared book):

a man whose mind wavers between two or more courses of action, a stingy man, a generous man, a timid fellow, jealousy, having no enthusiasm for the business in hand, a compliment of doubtful sincerity, a person clever in small thefts.

Key: a double-minded man, a close-fisted man, an open handed man, a chicken-hearted fellow, the green-eyed monster, half-hearted, a left-handed compliment, a light-fingered person

• Rephrase the following so that you use a compoundadjective (e.g. as clear as crystal: crystal-clear):

as black as coal, as bright as silver, as cold as stone, as cold as marble, as firm as a rock, as sharp as a razor, as white as snow, as smooth as glass, as green as moss, as blue as the sky, having the eyes like Argus, having eyes as keen as the lynx, famous all over the world.• Rephrase the following so that you use a compound

adjective (e.g. a report having two pages : a two-page report). Mind that the measuring word is always singular because it is the unit of measurement (e.g. an interval which lasts fifteen minutes: a fifteen-minute interval):

a hat having three corners, a walk of three miles, a job to be completed in a year, a performance lasting two hours, a delay of a quarter of an hour, a leave lasting three days, a banknote worth 100 dollars, a walk which takes half an hour, a journey of two thousand miles, a river which is six hundred miles long, piano music played by four hands, a building with a hundred storeys, a man who weighs twenty stones, a monastery built in the thirteenth century, a railway carriage of the first class, a pass which expires at the end of two weeks, a car with a rating of 20 horse-power.

• Rephrase the following so that you use compound adjectives with present participle (e.g. a car which is moving fast: a fast-moving car). Note that there are also some institutionalized compounds expressing the same idea (e.g. a gadget for slicing eggs : an egg-slicing gadget: egg-slicer).

a job which consumes a lot of time, a bird which flies high, a machine for cutting grass, a machine for mowing grass, a gadget for cutting cheese, a gadget for slicing cheese, a machine for purifying water, a gadget for slicing eggs, a man who suffers a long time, a river which flows slowly

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• Fill the blank spaces with some common compound adjectives (e.g. he spoke in a matter-of ... voice - he spoke in a matter-of-fact voice):

the room is ...-proof; the watch is ...-proof; I shall always remember this never-to-be-... moment; he kept us all bored by his ...-drawn-out argument; I prefer made-to-...clothes to...-to-wear suits; she was praised for her ...-thought-out argument; she came in wearing a ...-fitting dress; a man with a ...-beaten face; an up-to-... version of a computer program; a drip-... dress; life in the country is simple and very down-to-...; he stole it: he was caught red-...; he graduated from a university: he is ...-educated man; he carried out an extensive research: he is ...-informed; some people speak in a round-... way but his speech was very .. .-the-point; he is an out-and-.. .Her, this problem should be solved on a day-to-... basis; the ...-school tie is the mark of a high social class; lively, healthy and energetic (a jocular comment on a person's general condition and spirits) : bright-... and ...-tailed; the case so strong that it cannot be challenged is referred to as a ...-iron case; a final desperate struggle is referred to as a ...-ditch effort; a situation with two options, both equally dangerous is referred to as a edged sword.

• Explain the difference in structure, meaning, and focus between the following pairs of constructions:

the duchess was devastated by the divorce : the divorce devastated duchess; the air-company charted the flight: the air-company charted flight; they knitted the pullover by hand: a hand knitted pullover, they washed the silk dress by hand: a hand washed silk dress

• State the importance of word order in composition.

What is differential meaning? Explain the difference in structure and meaning between the following pairs of constructions:

boat life : life boat; boat deck : deck boat; deck lounge : lounge deck; fruit market : market fruit; flower garden : garden flower, child problem : problem child; cage bird : bird cage; horse race : race horse; horse show: show horse; pet shop : shop pet; finger ring : ring finger, laboratory research: research laboratory.

• Find the examples of compound words in the following text. State their word-formation pattern and their part-of-speech meaning. Note the difference between nonce formations and institutionalized compounds.

1. The two schedules dovetailed together without friction. 2. We sell a lot of down-market books. 3. The soil from the river banks is washed downstream. 4. He had much more down-to-earth reasons. 5. There will be a similar downturn in manufacturing and industry. 6. This country has the most poverty-stricken and downtrodden population in the world. 7. His research took him among the down-and-outs in the city of Liverpool. 8. He stood still with his eyes downcast. 9. Don't be too downhearted. 10. A draining-board is the place on a sink unit where things such as cups, plates, cutlery, etc. are put to drain after the washing up. 11. A dragonfly is a brightly-coloured insect with a long thin body and two pairs of wings, which is often found near slow-moving or still water. 12. She had a drawstring bag and the trousers with a drawstring waist. 13. Already the landscape has a depopulated and dreamlike air. 14. This was a soul-destroying job. 15. Some of the food is very good, some of it's so-so, and some of it's plain ordinary. 16. She became quite sought-after as an after-dinner speaker. 17. After much soul-searching the union called off the strike. 18. Mrs. Pringle came to give me a

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hand with the spring-cleaning. 19. She couldn't get to the meeting so she sent me as her stand-in. 20. I'm trying to arrange a stand-in lecturer. 21. He was quite a show-offish and stand-offish person. 22. A starfish is a flat, star-shaped creature with five arms that lives in the sea. 23. You must toilet-train the child. 24. A tom-tom is a long narrow African or Asian drum that you play with your hands. 25. He offered some tongue-in-cheek advice about keeping out of the rain. 26. He became completely tongue-tied. 27. 'She sells seashells on the seashore' is an English tongue-twister. 28. A pick-me-up is a drink that you have in order to make you feel healthier and more energetic. 29. Eight police outriders escorted the minister's car. 30. The article then listed a series of nudge-nudge, wink-wink rumours that have appeared in broadsheet and tabloid newspapers over the last two years, insinuating the Prime Minister was having an affair. 31. While-U-wait service. 32. A fifteen day bus tour of Scotland with a plan-as-you-go itinerary. 33. The dialect of the area has a sing-song intonation. 34. Tom was ashamed seeing his grease-stained hands. 35. When somebody touch-types, they type without looking at the keys on the typewriter. 36. Inflation could be down to 8 per cent or thereabouts. 37. She wanted to be more than a hanger-on, a camp follower. 38. The bride wore a full-length ivory wedding gown with three-quarter length sleeves and a 20-foot train. 39. Tracy wears a silk sweetheart two-layered corset in pastel check and Catherine a wedding dress in lavender silk taffeta with a strapless boned bodice. 40. Daisy wears a backless cowl neck top with crystals. 41. Catherine and Molly model bridesmaid dresses - Catherine wears a powder-pink raw silk flower fairy dress with pale-pink tulle and an apple blossom headdress; and Molly wears a pale coffee raw silk dress with lace overlay. 42. / knew she would never get too big headed because she is so well grounded. 43. My uncle is quick witted like my grandfather. 44. Victoria wore an unusual one-sleeved

dress in a black and white animal-style print. 45. Hollywood star pictured with on-screen wifePenelope Cruz. 46. To be high-minded is to be of noble mind. 47. High-principled and high-toned have this meaning of high-minded; and high-spirited is similar, with the added idea of courage. 48. This artistically detailed tile topped jewelry box contains three multiple sized ring holders; beautifully crafted to hold all of your keepsakes. 49. Another great bag by what's-their-name!

• Illustrate the process of recursiveness in word formation in the following examples. To show the difference in meaning of the different types of examples resort to transformational analysis.

shock absorber, speed indicator, lie detector, video cassette recorder, tape recorder, hard-liner, hard-hitter, brain-twister, fire-eater, card player, lawn mower, trouble maker, housebreaker, all-rounder, hundred-percenter, down-hiller, snake-charmer, window-shopping, window-dressing, window-cleaning, spring cleaning, dressmaking, housetraining, house-warming, housebreaking, housekeeping, mercy-killing, time-killing, bullfighting, wrong-doing, blood poisoning, food poisoning; reading-room, skipping-rope, starting-point, washing-powder, wishing-well, frying pan, weeping-willow, writing-paper, blotting-paper, dancing bear, dancing-shoe, rocking chair, swivelling chair, humpbacked, sharp-eyed, dogeared, kidney-shaped, three-cornered, gold-plated, high-heeled, single-handed, light-hearted, cold-blooded, best-dressed, in-line skates, roller skates, roller blades

• Disambiguate the following. Juxtapose different interpretations to show the difference between them (e.g. primitive art exhibition : 1. primitive art / exhibition; 2. primitive / art exhibition): dirty work overalls, modern art exhibition, Saturday shopping guide, liberal party members,

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special delivery service, special night show, road safety centres, electrical garbage disposal equipment.

Translate into your mother tongue the following. Highlight the difficulties that may arise when doing the translation.

walking leather shoes, saddle leather riding boots, wind speed and direction, computer processing speed, a kitchen fitted with a stainless steel sink, he stood the red wine bottle on the bench beside him, crease resistant machine washable drip-dry fabrics, road safety centres, world hunger relief scheme, systemic connective tissue lung disease

Disambiguate the following examples of the V-ing + noun combinations resorting to transformational analysis (e.g. dancing bear: a bear who dances; dancing shoes : shoes for dancing). The examples listed fall into two distinctive groups, which groups:

climbing plant, climbing-boot, walking shoes, walking stick, folding machine, folding door, dancing girl, dancing partner, sleeping bag, sleeping partner, sleeping pill, sleeping-car, drinking-man, drinking water, drinking chocolate, drinking straw, gambling-man, gambling house, hunting-spider, hunting ground, hunting-party, hunting-dog, hunting-field, shooting star, shooting jacket, standing-bed, standing-ground, sucking-pig, sucking-bottle, washing-machine, washing-powder, washing-day, washing-house.

Divide the following examples into four sets according to the semantic markers: 'purpose', 'habitual', 'habitual and profession', and 'species', e.g. kill-time has a'purpose' marker, bird-watcher has a 'habitual' marker, bird-trainer has a 'habitual and profession' marker, and rove-beetle has a 'species' marker. Note that there are homonymous words like, e.g. dish-washer (having a 'purpose' marker) and dish-washer (having a 'habitual and profession' marker).

bottle-washer, bottle-washer, kill-time, kill-joy, window-washer, grave-digger, grave-digger, fly-catcher, flycatcher, bookbinder, cutpurse, mouthwash, air freshener, feeding-bottle, bake-house, ironing-board, drawbridge, answerphone, blotting-paper, catch-fly, mocking-bird, weeping-elm, dancing-girl, freedom-lover, sneeze-weed, stink-bird, grasshopper, humming-bird, pearl-diver, ski-runner, sandwich maker, cave-dweller, climbing-boot, night-worker, seed-feeder, tree-creeper, water-breather, prize-fighter, sleeping-suit, sleeping bag, wishing-well, honey-guide, living room, suck-egg, woodpecker, boxing-glove, carrycot, knitting-needle, tracing paper, tuning-fork, wrapping-paper, walking-shoe, hair-splitter, lady-killer, leg-puller, pleasure-seeker, turncoat, coal-digger, cotton-picker, green-keeper, glass-blower, bartender, innkeeper

• Combine the words in capital letters with each word from the list in brackets, putting it either before or after to make an attested compound word, Example:DOOR (keeper, swing) keeper -

door-keeper swing - swing-door

DOOR (scraper, stop, folding, revolving, mat)DAY (break, dream, dreamer, peep, work, worker,pay, washing)GLASS (blower, cutter, painter, painting, work, looking, magnifying, reading, spy)SHIP (battle, flag, merchant, sailing, builder)SHOE (dancing, jogging, running, polish, black,maker, making, shine, slip, walking)HORSE (tamer, taming, keeper, keeping, riding,rocking, work, man, shoe, race, show)HOUSE (bake, eating, gambling, builder, building,cleaner, cleaning, owner, owning, warming, breaker,breaking, holder, keeper, work, printing)WATER (drinking, breather, carrier, cooler, cooling,

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drinker, finder, flow, skiing, softener, fall, rat, sea,wheel)BED (standing, warmer, room, sitter, hospital, clothes, hotel)PAPER (blotting, drawing, cutter, fastener, feeder, folder, maker, clip, washing, printing, tracing, wrapping, writing, news, knife, money, bag) MAN (ginger bread, post, work, weather, power, mail, garbage, slaughter, spokes, police, milk, hang) BOOK (binder, bindery, collecting, keeper, seller, guide, reading, coffee table, case, account, stall, shop, store)

Here are some neo-classical compounds (formed from elements of the classical languages): Scientology, radioluminescence, radiometeorgraph, radioscopy, biophysics, serigraphy, nanotechnology, technophobe, technophile, neurolinguistics, otorhinolaryngology, hydropathy, diplopia. Add to the list some of your own examples.

Shortening means the reduction of a word where one part of the original word is subtracted. There seem to be no phonological or spelling reasons on the basis of which the subtracted part can be predicted. Shortening (or sometimes referred to as clipping) can take the shape of final clipping (where the end of the original word is clipped), initial clipping (where the beginning part is subtracted), syncope (where the middle part of the word is left out), both-ends clipping (where final and initial clipping are combined). Here are some clipped forms in English. Say to which category of shortening (i.e. clipping) they belong. Cinema, lab, pub, ad, coke, mike, vet, phone, bus, plane, ma'am, flu, fridge, fridge-freezer, specs, mailomat, cablegram, Pat, Nick, Ben, Liz, Aussie, Мех, co-op, mac, ref, gym.

The usage of the word obtained by clipping and of the original word is different: clipped words are generally considered to be less formal, and sometimes informal. Consider the following

examples of clipped forms and assign a language style marker to them (e.g. doc, informal): sis, prof, ref, prom, perm, Liz, fab, comfy, gents.

What are acronyms? Provide some examples.

Here are some clipped forms. Match them with their corresponding undipped forms (e.g. M. A. - Master of Arts). UNESCO, NATO, OPEC, PTO, RSVP, UN, M. P., PIN, а. т., p. т., ext., laser, radar, С. I. A., U. S. A., GB, CD, DVD, SARS, AIDS, Ltd., О. К., т., H. R. H., etc., i.e., cf.

Here are some abbreviations with 'ordinary' pronunciation (e.g. laser /leizaV) and some initial abbreviations with the alphabetical reading retained (e.g. Б. в. C. /bi:bi:si:/). Read the following: D. J., V. J., VCR, V. I. P., M. A., S. O. S., F. В. I., UNESCO, UN, NB, RSVP, PTO, OPEC, NATO, AIDS, SARS.

There are some abbreviations which appear in writing but which are pronounced as the full word (e.g. Mr. /■mistaV). Provide more illustrations.

Here are some abbreviations that you can see on anenvelope, in a letter or a fax: c/o, enc, PS. Say what these abbreviations mean.

Rx is a noun meaning: 1. a prescription, and 2. a solution to a problem. It is an abbreviation of Latin recipe meaning 'take'. Rx also has a few cousins, e.g. Dx 'diagnosis', and Hx 'history'. What are the codes for 'treatment' and 'symptoms'?

Young people in the States do not seem to be interested in reading books nowadays. How do you understand the following comment that appeared in an American newspaper: 'Can we ABC while we MTV?'

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Netspeak abounds in acronyms and clippings (e.g. www, CD). Find some more examples.

Initials and clipped elements can be combined with full-word elements (e.g. A-bomb, PR officer). Provide more examples to illustrate this way of word forming.

Ellipsis is defined as the omission of a word or words considered essential for grammatical completeness. Ellipsis in

morphology is the omission of a part of a word or parts of words or phrases. Ellipsis may result in a change of lexical and grammatical meaning and the new word belongs to a different part of speech, e.g. daily paper > daily (compare: daljinski upravljac > daljinski, and mobilni telefon > mobilni in the Serbian language). Various other processes are often interwoven with ellipsis. Consider the following pairs of examples and say which other process are combined with ellipsis: final exams > finals; preliminary examinations > prelims; permanent wave > perm; popular music > pop;

promenade concert > prom; taximeter-cab > taxi-cab > taxi; cooperative store > co-op.

• Abbreviations receive the plural and possessive case inflections (e.g. M. P.-s, M. P.'s). Give the verb paradigm of O.K.

• Acronyms can be used atributively (e.g. TV program, UN vote). Provide more illustrations.

• Blending is compounding by means of clipped forms. The result of blending is a blend or portmanteau word.There are two meanings packed up in a single word. Can you work out the meaning of the initial undipped forms entering the process of blending in the following examples: smog, brunch, sexpert, amberlievable, motel, foolosopher.

• Two types of blends can be distinguished: additive (e.g. guesstimate - guess and estimate) and restrictive (transformable as a head word and a modifier, e.g. spam - spiced ham). Consider the following examples and say to which type of blends they belong: actorexia, televangelist, cinerama, positron, mimsy, Benelux, Euroasia.

• Instead of ballute (balloon + parachute) combinations such as: paraloon or balachute are equally possible. However, it is only ballute that is attested. Can you say why?

• There are blends created of phonaesthemes, i.e. elements based on the principle of expressive symbolism (e.g. flimmer < flicker + shimmer). Provide your own illustrations.

There are blends created as suffixed words (e.g. washeteria, fishburger). Give more examples which belong to the 'teria' and 'burger* paradigm.

Here are two examples of compound blends.screenager < screen + teenager, celtuce < celery + lettuce. Provide examples of nominal compound blends, adjectival compound blends, and verbal compound blends.

Here is a word that appeared in an advertisment in Hair magazine: ansafaxacopyphone. What do you think it means? Think about the processes of shortening and blending.

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Cockney rhyming slang belongs to the general category of blending. Provide illustrations.

Blends seem to be on the rise in terminology and trade advertisments. Take some British and American magazines and search them for blends.

Back-formation is the word-forming process which involves deletion of actual or supposed affixes (e.g. stage-manager > stage-manage). It is also called reverse derivation or retrograde derivation. Analyze the following examples of back-formed words: blockbust, baby-sit, dry-clean, mass-produce, lip-read, stage-dive, burgle, sculpt, edit, typewrite, vacuum-clean.

Metanalysis means re-interpretation of a particular structure counter etymology. In what way are back-formation and metanalysis related?

The most productive type of back-formation isderivation of verbs, and composite verbs in particular, from compounds that end in either -er or -ing (e.g.

thought-reading > thought-read; housekeeper > housekeep). Provide more examples of this type of back-formation (e.g. house-warm, vacuum-clean, etc).

• Here are two pieces of text from the magazine Hair (Feb. - March 1998). Analyze the italicized words from the point of view of word-formation processes. When thinking about back-formation bear in mind that the process is heavily based on analogy.

Style: After applying strong-hold mousse, hair was diffuser-dried, then blow-dried smooth. To style, hair was gathered up, pleated, twisted and pinned into place. The ends were backcombed and spritzed with hairspray.

Style: After blow-drying the fringe smooth, rough-dry the remainder of the hair and work wax throughout, push-combing to create a sexy tousled effect.

• Reduplication is the word-forming process which produces reduplicative compounds that fall into three main groups: reduplicative compounds proper (e.g. blah-blah), ablaut combinations (e.g. chit-chat), rhyme combinations (e.g. boogie-woogie). Here are some examples of reduplicative compounds for you to classify: mumbo-jumbo, pow-wow, helter-skelter, hurdy-gurdy, hurly-burly, hocus-pocus, tiptop, mish-mash, lovey-dovey, ping-pong, sing-song, flip-flop, zigzag, hah-hah, murmur, teeny-weeny.

8. PHRASEOLOGY

• Phraseology is the study of word-groups the members of which are functionally and semantically inseparable. What is the term by which we refer to such word-groups?

• What is the difference between phraseological units and variable word-groups? Provide illustrations.

• Say if the italicized phrases are free and variable or fixed and invariable:

1. When you lose your purse or lose the game do not lose your temper]

2. Have a look at the reverse side of the tailcoat.

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3. The reverse side of the medal is that they will leave us in the cold.

4. We left the beaten track in order to see some more exciting sites.

5. The scientist left the beaten track and came up with a new theory.

• Phraseology is interested in cliche, idioms, proverbs, and familiar quotations. Provide illustrations.

• What is a cliche? Illustrate.

• How does a cliche compare to some other types of stereotypical formations? To what language style docliche words and phrases belong?

• Cliche formations fall into different categories. State which they are and provide examples (e.g. bottom feeder - individual word; creme de la creme - phrase; pie in the sky- rhyme based on assonance, etc.)

• Here are some examples of cliche. Divide the examples into five sets: individual words, phrases, proverbs and sayings, rhymes based on assonance, rhymes based on alliteration:

accidents will happen; add fuel to the flames; all things considered; it's all Greek to me; ants in your pants; the back of beyond; to beat about the bush; big-wig; I was not born yesterday; buzz word; not to be fit to hold a candle to someone; cliff-hanger; loose canon; every cloud has a silver lining; two's company- three's a crowd; off the cuff; don't let the grass grow under your feet; don't look a gift horse in the mouth; ugly duckling; fat cat; keep your fingers crossed; to make someone's hair stand on end; to make a mountain out of a molehill; name-dropping; namby-pamby; neither fish, flesh nor fowl; pie in the sky; when in Rome do as the Romans do.

• In English there are a number of stereotyped and cliche phrases containing eponyms (e.g. Achilles' heel, Adam's

apple). Finish the following cliche phrases by inserting the appropriate word:

1. cut the Gordian ...2. as ... as Methuselah3. Hercules' ...4. The ... of Damocles5. ...the Rubicon6. Judas' ...• Here are some commonplace comparisons. Insert the

word which is missing (e.g. as hungry as a ... - as hungry as a hunter)

As ... as coal, as ... as ink, as ... as a day, as busy as a as changeable as a as ... as a frog, as cold as as cool as a as ... as a fox, as ... as a door nail, as deaf as a as deep as a as ... as a bone, as ... as dust, as drunk as a as easy as as fat as a as ... as a pancake, as ... as a daisy, as ... as a king, as ... as a dove, as ... as a feather, as like as two as mute as a as ... as the hills, as ... as a ghost, as ... as church mouse, as ... as a peacock, as ... as lightning, as ... as a Jew, as ... as a razor, as ... as the grave, as ... as glass, as ... as honey, as ... as a wafer, as thin as a as ... as a toad, as ugly as a as ... as a drowned rat, to follow like a ...

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• According to the language style fixed similes are notneutral and they should be used with care. Would you say that they are informal and humorous?

• Here are some fixed similes with like: drink like a fish, sleep like a log, etc. Rephrase the following sentences which have the like construction so that you explain what they mean.

1. He never misses a thing: he has eyes like a hawk.2. The manager was like a bear today.3. I won't take her with me to a party again! Last time she was

like a bull in a china shop.4. Your criticism was like a red rag to a bull.

• Here are some two-word fixed expressions (the words are usually connected by and or or): here and there; now and then; hit and miss; give and take; odds and ends; part and parcel; rack and ruin; rough and ready; wine and dine; pick and choose; first and foremost; on and on;on and off; back and forth; up and down; through and through; in and out; over and over; sooner or later; all or nothing; sink or swim. Use these phrases in context.

• Everyday language is full of fixed expressions. Their meaning can be transparent, e.g. this is it; that's that. Which other expressions with this and that do you know?

• Here are some fixed expressions used as sentence modifiers: if the worst comes to the worst; if all else fails; as luck would have it; in other words; at any rate; at all events; in all likelihood; in all probability; in any case; on the other hand; on second thoughts; on the contrary; on the whole. Use these expressions in context.

• There are certain adjectives that often go in pairs.

Their order within the pair is fixed and the phrases should be memorized as such. Learn these adjective -adjective combinations by heart: for better for worse; cut and dried; dead and gone; drunk or sober; fair and square; free and easy; good or bad; great and small; high and dry; the long and short; more or less; past and present; rich and poor, rough and ready; short and sweet; slow and steady; slow but sure; through thick and thin.

• Sometimes two nouns go together making a fixed idiomatic collocation. Learn these idiomatic pairs byheart: Alpha and Omega; bag and baggage; through fire and water; flesh and blood; over head and ears; heart and soul; part and parcel; sheep and goats; skin and bone; sword and shield; tooth and nail. Use these phrases in context.

• Some common verbs combine with prepositions or particles to form verbs (often referred to as phrasal verbs) with new and often unpredictable meanings (e.g.put + off > put off meaning to cancel). Here are some phrasal verbs formed from: do, make, be, put, take, brake, come, turn, and bring. Add the correct particle in the following sentences:

1. Make ... your mind. You can't sit on the fence forever.2. She was heavily made ...3. He did ... with all his bad habits.4. He broke ... the house and made ... with the safe.5. He is capable of anything. I wonder what he is ... to now.6. His car broke ... unexpectedly.7. Please, do not smoke during take...8. He was taken ... by her story.9. I took ... him the moment I saw him.10. We applied for the scholarship but they turned us ...11. Put... the stove before leaving the kitchen.

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12. He was beautifully brought and so were all his brothers and sisters.

13. New regulations came ... two weeks ago.14. Keep ... the grass!

• Adverb particles can be found in imperatives and exclamations. Here are some cliche examples: Get out!, Look out!, Hands off!, Be off! Provide more illustrations.

• By idiom we understand peculiar uses of particular words and phrases which have become stereotyped. The order of the elements within the idiom is fixed and the meaning of it is not equal to the sum of the meanings of the parts. Consider the following examples that are ambiguous in the sense that two interpretations can be assigned to them: the literal and the idiomatic one. State these two different meanings in each case. Say in which context literal meaning would be appropriate. Say in which context only idiomatic meaning would be appropriate.

1. She has a tongue.2. He has the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head.3. All went down the drain.4. Keep your chin up!5. What have you got up your sleeve?6. She was skating on thin ice.7. They were left out in the cold.8. When one person sneezes, another catches cold.

• There are instances where literal meaning does not make sense (e.g. to have green fingers, storm in a tea cup). Give more examples to show inappropriateness of the literal interpretation of the idiom.

• Idioms are typically metaphorical: they are metaphorsthat have become petrified or fossilized (e.g. black sheep, slow coach). Provide more examples.

• Find out what the italicized idioms mean:

1. She hardly socializes at all: she's a bit of an odd-ball.2. When I look at models with all that over-the-top makeup, I

think, 'What happens when you take your face off, when they see you in the morning?'

3. Each design is very different in style. Some are subtle, some gloriously OTT.

4. Before I got involved in this I used to think that mountaineers were a little bit round the bend.

5. These are, for the most part, ordinary middle-of-the-road people who want the usual things out of life.

6. His political ideas are very much middle-of-the-road.

• Here are some idiomatic adjective and noun phrasesand their meaning: animal spirits 'natural cheerfulness', arch look 'a sly, significant look', bad blood 'vicious temper', blind alley 'a lane closed at one end'. Find out the meaning of the following idioms: black sheep, blue stocking, chicken-hearted man, cold feet (in to have cold feet), cold shoulder (in to give one the cold shoulder), cold war, crocodile tears, diamond wedding, double-minded man, French leave, Dutch courage, free lance, high flier, hush money, leap year, queer fish, quixotic project, red-letter day, small talk, sleeping partner, wet blanket, white lie, swan song.

• Identify the structural pattern of the following idiomatic phrases: an apple of discord, a bed of roses, a bed of thorns, birds of a feather, a fish out of water, a house of mourning, a Jack of all trades, the ins and outs of a thing, the ups and downs of life, the man in the street. What do these idiomatic phrases mean? Use these phrases in context.

• Match the following fish idioms with their meaning:

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1. A big fish 2. A big fish in a small pond 3. A small fish in a big pond 4. A cold fish 5. Drink like a fish 6. A fish out of water 7. Have other fish to fry 8. Have bigger fish to fry 9. Like shooting fish in a barrel 10. Neither fish nor fowl 11. There are plenty more fish in the sea.

1. Difficult to identify, classify, or understand 2.There are still many other people you can be happy with 3. The weaker side has no chance at all of winning 4. Feel awkward or ill at ease because you are in an unfamiliar situation 5. Not interested because you have more important, interesting, or profitable things to do 6. Not interested because you have something else to do 7. Drink a lot of alcohol 8. Unemotional, unfriendly and unsympathetic 9. Somebody not very important because they are part of a much larger organization 10. Somebody who is one of the most important and influential people in a small organization or social group 11. Somebody very important and powerful.

• Here are some eye idioms for you to say what they mean and to use them in context: before your eyes; can't take your eyes off someone; feast your eyes on something; have eyes in the back of your head; keep your eyes peeled; only have eyes for someone (for something); open someone's eyes; eye-opener; keep your eyes open; up to your eyes; with your eyes closed; with your eyes glued to something.

• Say what these sentences mean:

1. Kate thinks she is the bee's knees.2. When they showed her in everybody was in a state of

shock: she was dressed up like a dog's dinner.3. I hate to say it, but this paper of yours is a dog's breakfast.4. I was not impressed at all although it was meant to be a dog

and pony show.

5. His career was ruined and everything went to the dogs.6. In all honesty he will trick you, cheat you, use you, drop you,

throw you to the dogs.7. I think he has no feet on the ground and this idea of his is

only a pie in the sky.8. It was a horrific accident and they survived by the skin of

their teeth.9. I think you should challenge his opinion and not dance to his

tune just because he is your superior.10. The show was excellent: the music was great and the

costumes were out of this world.

• Translate these English idioms into Serbian: by the skin of your teeth; jump out of your skin; out of a clear blue sky; there's no smoke without fire; cover your tracks; get out of bed on the wrong side; have a bee in your bonnet;beat your chest; drop a brick; have a finger in every pie; laugh your head off; wet your whistle; a wolf in sheep's clothing; the bush telegraph.

• Translate these Serbian idioms into English: drveni advokat; sitni sati; radio Mileva; trla baba Ian da joj prode dan; bije да baksuz; hoce biti, nece biti; svako zlo ima svoje dobro; dva losa ubise Milosa; bacati biser pred svinje; dusa od coveka; koliko ti dusa hoce; ne lipsi magarce do zelene trave; и biti nekoga и pojam; podviti rep; igrati na jednu kartu; ne mrdnuti ni prstom; ni riba ni devojka; siroke ruke; deveta rupa na svirali; okrenuti curak naopako; кот obojci, кот opanci.

• Here are some English words and phrases whose meaning you can't work out on the basis of your knowledge of the meaning of their constituent parts and of your knowledge of the pattern used in the formation of a particular word or phrase. We say that such words and phrases are idiomatic.

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salad days, trim your sails, the salt of the earth, red herring, acid test, a fishing expedition, shoot yourself in the foot, play gooseberry, grapevine, lose your marbles, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys, learn the ropes, lovebirds, bullish, pig-headed, sheepish, clockwork, overcook, hothouse, glass-house, greenhouse, to have green fingers, tempestuous, a smart cookie, Dutch courage, French leave, push up the daisies

You can play the following game. Players write down the meaning of a word or phrase. You earn your bonus by the correct answer, by choosing the correct answer and by creating the believable fake answer! The game may include some other ways for players to have fun. A player may be allowed a minute to describe a phrase to another player without using any of the words in the phrase. Players may also use their acting or drawing skills.

• Here are some English proverbial sayings. Express their meaning in a non-idiomatic way. Find their equivalent sayings in the Serbian language.

1. What can't be cured must be endured.2. Prevention is better than cure.3. A rolling stone gathers no moss.4. Rome was not built in a day.5. Better late than never.6. Easy come, easy go.7. As you make your bed. So you must lie.8. Too many cooks spoil the broth.9. A stitch in time saves nine.10. All his geese are swans.11. Birds of a feather flock together.12. You shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket.

• Take a dictionary of quotations and find six examples of familiar quotations (e.g. to be or not to be; to err is

human, to forgive divine).

9. STYLISTIC VARIETIES OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY

• Register refers to the domain of communication (its subject matter) as reflected in language, especially in its vocabulary. A group of words joined together by the common subject-matter they are related to is referred to as a thematic group, e.g. hard disk, software, hardware, input, output, mouse, log in, log out, save, format, tools, reset, multitasking, chip, bit, byte are all joined by the subject-matter of computing. Give more examples to illustrate the following thematic groups: musical apparatus, camping, gardening, house work, capital punishment, banking, medicines.

• Look up the following words in a dictionary and say by which thematic group they are joined.

oniomania, duopoly, monopoly, oligopoly, monopsony, duopsony, oligopsony, nummary, emptor, pre-empt, premium, prompt, redeem

• To which thematic group do these words belong? purse,

wallet, safe, piggybank, bank

• From the point of view of the subject matter, language breaks into a variety of registers, and as for the social circumstances of speech process it breaks into a variety of

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functional styles. Words that fit equally well any register and any style are called stylistically neutral (or unmarked). Words that fit only certain social occasions are considered to be marked and they are labeled: formal, colloquial, informal, very informal, familiar, offensive, slang, non-standard, old-fashioned, poetical, etc. Take two English language dictionaries published by different publishers (e.g. Oxford University Press, Collins, or Longman, etc) and search them for the words which belong to the styles mentioned above.

• Vulgate (n.) (from Late Latin vulgata editio (popular edition), past participle of vulgare (to make public or common), from vulgus (the public)) means everyday, informal or substandard speech of a people. Provide examples.

• Taboo words are those which are proscribed by society as improper and unacceptable. Provide examples.

• What are euphemisms in comparison to taboo words?

• Comment on political correctness in relation to taboo words.

• Compare these two pairs of examples:

1. There is a man at the door. : There is a *woman at the door.2. There is a man at the door.: There is a lady at the door.

There is a kind of taboo on using the word woman {lady is more appropriate). Find more examples in which the word woman is inappropriate.

• Feminists do not like the use of the word Miss, preferring Ms. But when we are trying to get the attention of a waitress we say: Oh, Missl (and not: Oh, Msl). Comment

on this having in mind what you know about language usage, artificiality of language norm.

• Some words can be said to belong to poetic diction (e.g. ere, eve, damsel). Consider the words: tarry, collyrium, and nosegay as they are used in the following examples taken from the poetry of: Kahlil Gibran, V. K. Sethi, and Emily Dickinson respectively.

1. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children, as living arrows, are sent forth.

2. Kabir, in my eyes reddened by love How can collyrium be applied? Within them dwells my Beloved, Where is the place for anything else?

3. My nosegays are for captives; Dim, long-expectant eyes, Fingers denied the plucking, Patient till paradise.

Find non-poetic English equivalents for: tarry, collyrium, and nosegay.

• Read the following poem by Rabindranath Tagore {Gitananjali, 1912). There are two words which can be marked 'poetic'. Which are they? What are their non-poetic equivalents?

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is freeWhere the world has not been broken up into fragmentsBy narrow domestic wallsWhere words come out from the depth of truthWhere tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

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Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its wayInto the dreary desert sand of dead habitWhere the mind is led forward by theeInto ever-widening thought and actionInto that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my countryawake.

• Take a close look at the following definitions of slangtaken from The Oxford English Dictionary, Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary, The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, CasselPs Dictionary of Slang. Compare the definitions and comment on them from the point of view of language norm and language purism. Say which definitions are overtly proscriptive and which are proscriptive by implication?

1. Slang is the special vocabulary used by any set of persons of low or disreputable character; language of a low or vulgar type...language of a highly colloquial type, considered as bellow the level of standard educated speech... (OED)

2. Slang n. words, phrases, meanings of words, etc., commonly used in talk but not suitable for good writing or formal occasions... (The Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English, OUP)

3. Slang consists of words, expressions and meanings that are informal and are used by people who know each other very well or who have the same job or the same interests. Slang is not considered suitable for formal social situations or serious writing (Collins COBUILD).

4. Slang n. 1. very informal usage in vocabulary and idiom that is characteristically more metaphorical, playful, elliptical, vivid, and ephemeral than ordinary language 2. Speech and writing characterized by the use of vulgar and socially taboo vocabulary (The Random House Dictionary).

5. Slang is the counter-language. The language of the rebel, the outlaw, the despised, the marginal, the young. Above

all it is the language of the city - the urgent, pointed, witty, cruel, capable of both including and excluding, of mocking and confirming (Cassel's Dictionary of Slang).

• What is another term (borrowed from French) which seems to be synonymous with slang?

• What is the difference between slang and argotaccording to The Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary?

• What is the difference between colloquial speech and slang according to The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang?

• How do you see the concepts of idiom and slangrelated?

Irony, humour and metaphor are characteristics of slang (consider the examples like: pre-stiff meaning 'someone close to death' or a prune meaning a 'dehydrated patient'). Look some slang dictionary up for some more examples which illustrate this point.

Slang does not spare anyone, it is most often cruel due to its pejorative attitude. Consider the following slang words for gifted pupils: brainiacs and cram artists. Can you think of some other examples?

All of the productive morphological processes that are in use in the English language are present in its slang as well (e.g. shortening or abbreviation as in fan(atic), derivation as in posey (an adjective from pose meaning 'pretentious'), blending grualt < grunge + alternative music. Explain the following slang words from the point of view of word-formation: talent meaning 'sexually attractive girl'; baa-lamb meaning 'tram'; jaw-breakers 'cheap, hard or sticky sweets'; cracksman 'housebreaker'.

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• There are some examples of slang and informal English. Match the examples with neutral equivalents.

Examples of slang and informal language: keep one's lip buttoned, mates, quid, money for old rope, blew the money, terrific, hit the jackpot, slashed, lifer, a grand, grassed on me, the coppers, the bottle, bent, stacks of dough, broke, Kiwi, old woman, so-and-so, lid, spit & polish, Tommy Tucker, turn one's toes up, wet behind the ears

Neutral equivalents: the police, lots of money, to tell nothing, hidden, wife, to die, have great success, spent the money recklessly, supper, money easily obtained, inexperienced, furbishing, a thousand pounds, pound, with no money, objectionable person, the courage, friends, a New Zealander, a hat, dishonest, informed the police, one sentenced for life, 'great'

• What do the following examples of slang or informal English mean?

What a rip-off!, Who's pinched my book?, What a drag?, He's got a lot of hang-ups., the loo, in-laws, jaw-breaker, jerk, make it, swelling, cool, mess about, much of a muchness, to monkey around, more-ish, pin-up girl, to pig oneself.

• The following words can be used in informal English to intensify the meaning of the adjective: fast, wide, solid, bone, stiff, boiling, brand, sick, stone (e.g. dead serious, brand new) Put one of these words into each gap to intensify the meaning of the adjective.

1. It is noon already and Peter is still in bed. He's_______idle.2. Careful with the milk! It's_____hot.3. I can't eat the ice-cream, it's frozen_______.4. If you want to feel_____awake, take a cold shower!

5. You have lovely shoes. Are they______new?6. I have been worried______about you!7. The performance was a total disaster. I was bored________

from beginning to end.8. This soup is _______ cold! You should complain to the

waiter!9. I'm scared _______ at the sight of him. This is

subconscious, he just frightens me.10. I didn't hear the bell. I must have been_______asleep.

• Bronx cheer n. is a toponym (after Bronx, NY) meaning 'a rude sound indicating disapproval made by sticking tongue partly out between the lips and blowing air out' has the synonym raspberry. How come? Raspberry tart was a code for fart and then the rhyming part was dropped. Other examples of rhyming slang are butchers for look (cf. butcher's hook); apples for stairs (cf. apples and pairs); china for mate (cf. china plate); Adam and Eve rhymes with believe, April fools rhymes with stools, bull and cow rhymes with cow, trouble and strife with wife, holy friar with liar, etc. Best-known rhyming slang was used by London Cockneys. Take a look at the following piece of text and consider it from the point of view of language style. Comment on the stylistic value of the italicized words.

Travis also notes in the Post that, contrary to UK reports, Tom Cruise will go to next week's Academy Awards with Penelope Cruz. 'I think it's very gutsy of him because the Oscars will be crawling with Aussies and they might giveTom the Oz equivalent of a Bronx cheer because he's a bit unpopular with them for dumping Australia's sainted Nicole,' the Kiwi-born columnist waxes. Sainted?' (Peter Holder, et al. Sydney confidential; The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia); 18 March 2002)

• Read the following two pieces of text taken from two American papers (The Los Angeles Times 19 Jun 1997 and

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The Seattle Times 13 October 2000). There is one slang word in each text for you to pinpoint. If a verb this word means: 1. To throw out; 2. To refuse to serve a customer. If an adjective it means 'sold-out'. If a noun it means 'an undesirable customer, one who is denied service'. To help you: it rhymes with nix.

'He says the show will go on next month, though scheduling conflicts may move it to another hotel and the band may be eighty-sixed.'

'David enlists the help of his friend Richard Lewis to buy a bracelet for his wife from a jewelry store that 86ed him.'

• All bloody interpolations are considered to belong to slang, e.g. abso-bloody-lutely; also every bloody as in e.g. Hello, everybloody! (bloody used as part of wordplay in Benny Hill Show). Think of some other interpolations that mark the words as informal and slang. Provide examples.

• A difference can be made between general slang and special slang (used only by some specific social or professional group). Search a slang dictionary for some examples of military slang.

• Back slang is created when a word is spelled backwards (e.g. top o' reeb > pot of beer, say > yes).

Here are two more back-slang words: tekram, emag. What are their 'normal' language counterparts?

Netspeak is usually classified as a dynamic jargon in and of itself, rather than slang. It is heavily based upon technological vocabulary used by computer programmers and actually all users of computer networks. It is the speech of people on the Internet and it is spreading rapidly into advertising and business. Linguistically, the most interesting feature of Netspeak is its morphology. It abounds in acronyms

and abbreviations (e.g. FAQ - 'frequently asked question', TIA - 'thanks in advance'), derivatives (e.g. Internet, hypertext), eponyms (e.g. Gabriel, Veronica - 'different protocols for searching the Internet'), functional shifts (e.g. flame (n.) - 'an angry answer'; flame (v.) - 'to respond angrily'). There are quite a few analogical formations in Netspeak (e.g. compare: e-mail - snail mail). Building words by metaphorical extension is ever so present in Netspeak and metaphor is a powerful mechanism which triggers neologisms (e.g. mailbomb (v.) and mailbombing - 'the act of sending massive amounts of e-mail to a single address in order to disrupt the system of the recipient'). Creativeness is also shown by special symbols (called emoticons) to express emotions, such as happiness or sarcasm (e.g. : ) or © ) or by all-caps to indicate shouting. It is interesting that Netspeak inspires grammatical and vocabulary changes in the process of assimilation (e.g. Serbian: surfovanje, rather than native: krstariti Internetom for surf the Internet and skrolovanje for scroll for which there is no translation equivalent in Serbian). Some Netspeak words have become international words (e.g. Internet and cybercafe) and there is an ever growing number of Netspeak words which have spilt over into our off-line lives. Here are some examples of Netspeak words which you are asked to analyze from the point of view of

word formation, identify word formation processes and comment on the grammatical aspects of the words given. Clues are given when necessary.

1. netiquette2. yahooligans3. webpaedia4. hactivist (hacker + activist)5. BTW (by the way)6. cyber, cyberish, cyberpunk, cyberspace, cybernaut,

cyberart, cyberartist, cyberculture, cybercafe, Cyberians, cybercrime, cyberlawyer, cyberlaw, cyberphobia

7. e-cash, e-commerce, e-mail

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8. emoticon9. smiley10. FWIW (for what it's worth)11. FYI (for your information)12. LOL (laughing out loud)13. modem mantra14. sysop (system + operator)15. telnet16. SoHo (small office, home office)17. MorF (mail or female)18. README file19. ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing)20. Trojan horse (an illegal computer program presented as

useful and funny but meant to be destructive when downloaded)

21. www22. webliography23. bug

• Provide your own examples of Netspeak words you have encountered while using the Internet. Analyze these examples.

10. REGIONAL VARIETIES OF ENGLISHVOCABULARY

• The two broadest national standards are British and American English. The two languages differ (sometimes considerably) in: spelling, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. Do the following exercises:

• American spelling is usually simpler. Provide American versions of the following British-English words: colour, vigour, centre, plough, catalogue, prologue.

• Say if the following words belong to American or British English on the basis of their spelling: nationalize, flavor, labour, whiskey, whisky, worshipping, worshiping, worshiper, worshipper, programme, program.

• Here are some common American words and their British counterparts: railroad, fall, can, candy, suspenders AmE - railway, autumn, tin, sweets, braces BrE. Match the words in A. (American English) with the ones in B. (British English):

A. American English: gasoline, baggage, blow-out, truck, mailbox, movies, sidewalk, line, vacation, trunk (of car), hood (of car), cab, round trip, railway car, engineer (on train), baby carriage, antenna, elevator, eraser, apartment, closet, drapes, Scotch tape, yard, cookie, garbage, garbage man

В. British English: dustman, rubbish, petrol, lorry, luggage, holiday, puncture, pavement, queue, boot, bonnet, taxi, return, pram, engine driver, railway carriage, lift, aerial, rubber, flat, wardrobe, taxi, lorry, letter-box, engine driver, curtains, Sellotape

• What is the spelling of the 'plural' morpheme in fiasco in American and British English?

• There is some tendency in American English to use the past informally in place of the perfective. Use the past in place of the perfective in the following examples: 1. I've already had too many 2. He's never seen the sea.

• Here are some words which belong to both American and British English. However, they mean different things for

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American and British speakers (e.g. when an American says purse he means what an Englishman calls a handbag but if an Englishman says purse he means what an American calls a wallet). Resolve the confusion which might arise between American and British English speakers when they use words such as: bill, the first floor, pants, subway, wash up.

• Moonshine is 1. Foolish thoughts, ideas, or talk that are not based on reality, and 2. Whisky that is made illegally. Look the word up in a dictionary and find out whether it is used mainly in American or British English.

• Say if the following idioms are used in British or American English. There is one idiom which is used mainly in Australian English: which one is that?

1. If someone is on the fiddle, they are getting money dishonestly. The expression is used in_________English.

2. 'Fall on your feet' is used only in_________English.

3. If you get your feet wet you experience something for thefirst time. The expression is used mainly in ______________English.

4. The expression 'an Englishman's home is his castle' is used in________English.

5. If you say that someone takes the high road, you mean that they follow the course of action that is the mostmoral or most correct. This expression is used in_________English.

6. If you say that one thing or person knocks spots off another, you mean that the first one is much better than the second. This expression is used in____________English.

7. If you say that someone has roos in their top paddock, you mean that they have peculiar ideas or are crazy. (Roos is short for kangaroos) This is an informal expression which is used mainly in_________________________English.

8. If you say that someone picks up their marbles and goes home, you mean that they leave a situation in which they are involved because they are dissatisfied with the waythings are going. This expression is used in _____________English.

• Here is a joke for you. An Englishman asked an American: 'What do you do with all this fish?' The American replied: 'We eat what we can and what we can't we can.' When the Englishman came back to England he told his English friend the joke and phrased it like this: 'We eat what we can and what we can't we put into tins.' Why didn't his friend find the joke funny? (Note the homophony of: can and can't in American English and homonymy of can 'be able to' and can 'tin').

• Here are some of the Top 20 2003 College SlangTerms in American English:

sick adj. 'excellent, great, cool', e.g. He was showing some sick snowboarding moves.

down adv. 'willing', e.g. / am down to drive to San Francisco tonight.

ride n. 'car, motorcycle', e.g. My ride is parked in the garage.

bounce v. 'to leave', e.g. Let's bounce. This party is boring.

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bling-bling n. & adj. 'jewelry, money, expensive items', e.g. Bill is showing off his bling-bling all over campus.

sweet adj. 'wonderful, great', e.g. No class! Sweet!

hot adj. 'good-looking, fashionable', e.g. Ann was looking so hot at the party last night!

ghetto adj. 'dirty, cheap, bad, low class, trashy', e.g. That girl in the skimpy dress looks so ghetto.

dog (dogg / dawg) n. 'a friend or buddy', e.g. Hey dawg, let's go shopping tomorrow!

chill / chill ou t v . 'to relax, rest, to hang out', e.g. Dude, chill out! You won't get in that much trouble.

What up / what's up / wassup / wazzup 'a greeting, hello', e.g. Wassup, Mike!

trip v. 'to become upset, angry, to go crazy', e.g. 'Ever since I got my "F", I've been trlppin'.

And the most popular:TIGHT adj. 'great, good, cool, likeable, attractive' (a generic positive), e.g. That concert was hella tight.

• A common way of forming slang words is by shortening or by using loosely pronounced forms of ordinary words. Hella is one of the examples. What are the other examples from the list of the American college slang words?

• What is the meaning of awful and terrific in British English slang? Compare the meaning of these two words to the meaning of tight, sick and dope in American college slang. How do these words compare to strasno and uzasno in the Serbian language, as in: strasno lepo, uzasno dobro? Note that the Serbian words are not restricted to college slang.

• Comment on the word bling-bling from the point of view of word-formation.

• Comment on the word ghetto from the point of view of word-formation and meaning transfer in particular. Find out other non-slang meanings of the word ghetto.

• What is the meaning of: kul adj., kulirati v., trip п., and tripovati v. in the Serbian language (these are slang words used by the young). Are these anglicisms in any way related to the English slang words cool and trip?

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• Here is some Irish slang:He's been on gur since Saturday

staying away from home, usually a child

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header Keep away from the header

mentally unstable person

holliers Two weeks holliers for me

holidays, vacation time

holy show You made a holy show of yourself

spectacle

horse's hoof That's a bit of a horse's hoofl think

exaggerated story

hacks I'm just off to the jacks

toilet, restroom

kibosh He put the kibosh on it

added the last straw; break

letting on 1 was just letting on pretendingmot Have you got a mot? girlfriendscarlet I'm scarlet for you blushingscratcher He's always in the

scratcherbed

slagging I'm only slagging you

making fun of someone, generally good-naturedly

sleeveen She's a bit of a sleeveen

sly person, calculating

stocious He was stocious this evening

drunk

• A common way of making slang words is by using short forms or loosely pronounced forms of words. Take a look at the words listed above and pinpoint those formed in this way.

• Compare the Irish eat the head off with the British English bite someone's head off and snap someone's head off and find out if they mean the same.

• Full shilling is an instance of metaphor in word-formation. How about holy show?

• In British English kibosh, in to put the kibosh on something, is an informal expression which means 'to completely ruin an event, a situation or someone's plans'. Is the meaning the same in Irish slang?

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• Let on is an informal expression in British English which means 'to tell something that was meant to be a secret', e.g. Don't let on we went to that dance! Can this meaning be compared to the meaning of let on in Irish slang? Do you think that confusion may arise between British and Irish speakers?

• Some words have a slang meaning which is different from their everyday meaning. Look up the verb give out in an English-English dictionary and see which meanings are given. Is there the meaning 'to scold' to be found?

• Jacks is an Irish slang word for 'toilet'. What are British-English slang words and expressions for 'lavatory'? How about British John and Irish jacks?

• Stocious is legless in Irish slang. Find out British-English slang words and expressions for 'drunk'.

• No language or dialect evolves in isolation; rather, a language or a dialect is a combination of the languages and dialects in contact. Scots is no exception. We present a choice of dialect words typical of Scottish English; examples of common English words which are, in fact, Scots, follow; then comes the list of some words and phrases that Scots speakers in Ireland use.

1. Here are some dialect words that are used in Scottish English: aye 'eye', ben 'mountain', brae 'river bank', drum 'whiskey', glen 'valley', kirk 'church', loch 'lake', bonny 'beautiful', janitor 'caretaker', lassie 'girl', wee 'small'. Add other words to the list.

2. The English language has borrowed many Scots words over the years. Here are some common English words which are Scots:

English word Original Scotsblackmail black maillskullduggery sculdudderyheckle hekillslogan slogorneflit flitweird weirdgolf gowfflat flatgift of the gab gift of the gobhunker down hunker doon

Here are the stories behind the words: blackmail, slogan, and flat:

a) maill is Scots for rent. 'Black mailf was rent money taken from a landowner as protection against possible damage to the landowner's property;

b) slogan comes from the Scots word slogorne which meant 'a battle-cry used by a clan to identify and locate other clan members'; it eventually came to mean any catchword or catchphrase;

с) flat was originally another term for 'landing'; by metonymic transfer it came to refer to the apartments whose doors opened out onto the 'flats'.

Find out the etymology of the other English words that are listed above.

3. There are a lot of words and phrases used in Northern Ireland which can be found in the Scots dictionary.

Some words and phrases used in Ireland by Ulster Scots:

Scots word Meaningwean childgreet to cry, to weep

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glar mudquare large, bigbachle a clumsy personkeech you don't want to know

We are sure that you know the meaning of bonny and lass. What do these two words mean?

• In India, English continues to be the official working language. There are 15 national languages recognized by the Indian constitution and these are spoken in over 1600 dialects. Indian English has improvised and innovated so much so that it is referred to as Hinglish, a kind of pidgin English that draws from Hindi and other local languages (e.g. the phrase "Fooding and lodging" a common sign in front of a 'hotel'; or rum - a generic term for any kind of liquor from bootleg to Scotch whisky). Indian English is considered to be more formal than British English and it has preserved some language characteristics which would be appropriately qualified as belonging to poetic diction (cf. chest Br. E. - bosom

Indian E.; bandit Br. E. - miscreant Indian E.) Here are some words which are more common in Indian English than British English. Find British English words which match the following Indian words: nab, Eve-teaser, the common man, fleetfoots, undertrials, wearunders.

• While bureaucrats still use archaic British phrases, most of the younger educated people are familiar and comfortable with the American usage (they get familiar with American English via MTV and CNN that have large viewership in India, and also the Internet). However, many Indians would prefer the more formal British tone and tenor. Here is an extract from an interview with an Indian, Ramananda Sengupta, international editor for Outlook Magazine; the interview appeared on the Internet. The passage is about the difference between

American and British Net English. Comment on the author's views.

'British English by contrast is very correct but distant in the sense that there is no effort to befriend the net user. American English has a back-slapping, devil-may-care quality while British has a distinct may-l-please, apologetic tone to it.'

• There are two views on Australian English: the first, that Australian English is an endangered species, and the second, that Australian English is a kind of substandard species and deserves extinction. The truth is that Australian English is interesting for its rich store of idiosyncratic words and expressions and for its unique ways of word-building (e.g. smoke > *smok; *smok + о > smoko meaning 'coffee break' or milk + о > milko 'a person who delivers milk' or beaut < beautiful 'great' or a blend ecorat < economic rationalism; optic (as in 'optic nerve') is rhyming slang for perv so that to have an optic is to ogle). Here are some core Australian words: bludger, brass, razoo, dobber, woop woop, wowser, yakka, and idioms and phrases: happy as a bastard on Fathers' Day, off like a bride's nightie, she'll be apples, he looks like a stunned mullet, miserable as a bandicoot, as useful as a sore arse to a boundary rider, down the gurgler. Find out what these words and idioms mean.

• Shark biscuits is an Australian neologism for 'novice surfer'. Comment on the word from the point of view of word-formation (meaning transfer, in particular). How about this example: little boys is the name for 'cocktail frankfurters for children'.

• Here are some more Australian words taken from the Internet The Lonely Planet Australian Phrase Book:

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1. Australian words for food: counter tea, chico roll, minimum chips, silverbeet, chocolate crackles, fairy bread, lollies

2. Australian drinking terms: the middy, pot, schooner, dead marine, tinnie, the leg opener

3. Australian terms for coffee: flat white, short black, long black, macchiato

Comment on the morphological make-up of the words listed. Find the examples which illustrate the use of metaphor in word creation.

• What do you think the italicized words mean in Australian English:

1. We got bitten by mozzies at yesterday's barbie.2. He is interested in farming bizzo.3. How about a party when the oldies have gone for the

weekend?4. Where did they take you when you were in Oz?

• Here are some Australian and New Zealand idiomsand their meaning:

a stitch in time saves nine acting now will save time in the long run

above board open to inspectionaccidentally on purpose to do something with the

purpose hiddenafters pudding or dessertalso ran a failure or someone who

achieves nothingargy-bargy to argue words

as sure as eggs definitelyat the end of the day in the endAussie Australianoffsider assistantoff your face exceedingly intoxicatedOcker a male who is very

Australianoldies parents

Find out if some of the words or phrases listed above do appear in British English with the same meaning (e.g. argy-bargy).

• Ocker gives two derivatives: ockerism and ockerdom. See the meaning of ocker in the table above and state the meaning of the derived words.

© English is different all over the world. Here are some characteristics of Canadian English:

First, some questions and answers concerning general rules for Canadian spelling:

1. Centre or center? The -re is preferred.2. Cigarette or cigaref? The long forms are preferred:

catalogue, cigarette, moustache, cauldron, omelette.3. Defence or defense? The -ce is preferred over -se as in

words such as: defence, practice, pretence but -se is used when these words are used as verbs.

4. Aesthetic or esthetic? The diphthong is preferred (but mind: medieval or mediaeval is undecided).

5. Organize or organise? Canadian editors reject the British -ise preferring -ize ending.

6. Enroll or enrol? The double / is preferred so: enroll, fulfill, install, marvelled, marvellous, signalled, skillful, woollen.

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7. -our is given precedence so: colour, glamour, favour, honour.

Find out which spelling is right in Canadian English: adviser or advisor, compleat or complete; co-ordinate or coordinate; gray or grey; sceptical or skeptical?

• Here is some Canadian vocabulary. The ways that Canadian English differs from American or British English are pointed out.

1. Bill vs. check: Canadians ask for the bill.2. Boot vs. trunk: trunk is used by the Canadians.3. Can vs. tin: Younger Canadians tend to eat out of cans,

while older Canadians eat out of tins.4. Canadian bacon: This is what Americans call back bacon.

The long strips that you eat for breakfast are called side bacon in both countries.

5. Attorney vs. barrister vs. lawyer vs. solicitor. In Canada the distinction does not mean much: use lawyer to be on the safe side.

6. Chemist vs. drugstore vs. pharmacy: Canadians don't go to chemists when they need an aspirin.

7. Chips vs. fries: Canadians use chips in spoken language but chips can also refer to what the British call crisps.

8. Click is a Canadian slang for kilometre.

9. College in Canada is halfway between school and university and most colleges grant only diplomas.

10. Dick when used by the Canadians means 'absolutely nothing', e.g. Last week I did dick all.

11. Eh? A famous Canadian way of ending sentences; it usually means 'don't you think'.

12. Elevator vs. lift: Canadians take elevators.13. Faucet vs. tap: Canadians turn on the tap.14. Railroads vs. railways: Canadians prefer railways.

Answer the following questions:

1. Do Canadians fill the tanks of their cars with gas or petrol?2. Do Canadians go on holiday or on vacations?3. What do you think homo milk means? To help you, this is

called whole milk in the States.4. What would you find beside your plate on the dinner table

in Canada: a table napkin or a serviette?5. What do Canadians prefer: running shoes (or runners) or

sneakers?6. How does the word college in Canadian English compare

to the word college as it is used in American English?

• Humidex is a word often used by Canadian weather announcers referring to the combined effect of heat and humidity or temperature. Comment on the word-formation pattern of the word.

Loonie or loony is a colloquialism for Canada's dollar coin. The nickname comes from the loon on the coin. Which word-forming process are we dealing with in this case?

AWOL is the Canadian term for absent without official leave. Which word-formation process triggered this word?

11. LEXICOGRAPHY

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• Lexicography is the writing and compiling of dictionaries. What is lexicology? In what relation does lexicography stand to lexicology?

• Comment on the following definition of a dictionary: 'A dictionary is a reference book of statements in words about words. Like other reference works it has no predestined tactical role - it is an auxiliary in the daily business of communication. That is a crucial point" (John Sinclair, The Dictionary of the Future, Collins English Dictionary Annual Lecture given at the University of Strathclyde, 6 May 1987, p. 6). Find some other textbook and dictionary definitions of a dictionary; compare them and comment on them.

• Dictionaries can be: monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual. What is the criterion behind such a distinction?

• Dictionaries which deal with contemporary vocabulary are called synchronic. What do we call those that deal with words in a historical perspective?

• Both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries can be general (if they present a comprehensive list of words of a given language) or special (if they cover only one particular segment of vocabulary). Say if the following dictionaries are general or special:

1. Collins COBUILD Dictionary of Idioms2. Collins COBUILD English language dictionary3. Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current Usage4. Dictionary of Rhyming Slang5. Enciklopedijski englesko-srpskohrvatski recnik

6. Fifty years Among the New Words: A Dictionary of Neologisms

7. New New Words Dictionary8. English Pronouncing Dictionary9. Random House Dictionary of the English Language

10. Oxford English Dictionary

• Would you say that the dictionaries of synonyms, homophones, eponyms, proverbs, cliche, phrasal verbs are general or special?

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• What are glossaries? If you find the following sentence in a foreword to a book: Glossaries are provided in English, German, and Russian, how would you understand it? How do you understand this: Glossary of the Bible?

• Here are a few lines taken from Concordance Extract from the Main Corpus for 'mind' (J. Sinclair, ed. Looking Up. An account of the COBUILD Project in lexical computing, London: Collins, 1987, p. 36).

GW0034 BR BR ay inhibit the formation of an original idea in a mind capable of original ideas. It may be better t GW0086 BR BR the first chance!" But Mr. Evans in his tormented mind cared nothing whether John liked the tower or Gwoo33 BR BR er bother with more? Why even mention love, never mind carry on about how love itself must evolve to GW0086 BR BR e the little urchin again." And then Tom Barter's mind ceased suddenly to think in definite words. T GW0086 BR BR as if they were perfectly meaningless sounds, his mind ceased to bed. He felt the pressure of her br GW0002 BR BR JACMA, in developing their plans, had to bear in mind certain considerations arising from the new с GW0052 BR BR ?' "suppose he left it in the safe.' "Would you mind checking up?' "I'll ask his secretary - oh, Г GW0081 BR BR who are impelled by their inner needs, often mind children when the job is really beyond their GW 071 AM BR lasses and she paid for her own meals. She didn't mind cigarette smoke any more. She had no lovers [...].

A series of letters and numbers preceding each concordance line are intended to convey information about its origin (G - general corpus; W - written; OOOn - text reference number; BR British cultural identity; AM -American cultural identity).

So what are concordances?

• The concordances are a huge source of information about a language. The raw text is called corpus and the linguistic observations form a database. The database relies on the corpus. If it is true that the whole structure of the database rests upon the examples would you say that the dictionary is ultimately little more than a commentary on the examples?

• One of the features of a dictionary is its selection of examples. Should the examples be real, drawn from the corpus or should they be made up by the lexicographer? There are dictionaries (e.g. Dr Johnson's Dictionary of 1755 and The Oxford English Dictionary begun by Murray in 1878, to mention the most famous ones) which use real citations. There are other authors who think that it is a serious mistake to make the examples less important than the commentary either by concocting them or editing them too heavily. Take a look at the contrast:

1. Creepy adj. as defined in The Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English: 'having or causing a creeping of the flesh', e.g. The ghost story made us all creepy.

2. Creepy adj. as defined in The Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary 'something that is creepy gives you a strange unpleasant feeling of fear', e.g. It was very creepy in the woods; We've found a creepy caravan where a witch lives.

The first definition is a commentary on a made-up example and the second is based on real English. Note the difference in meaning as specified in (1) and the one specified in (2). According to the definition (2) it is not the people who are creepy, but something which they experience. Having in

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mind what has been stated above comment on the following opinion:

7 now turn to a glimpse of the future, where the dictionary will be a device through which the user will observe the living language. Not the frozen fillets of the printed citations nor the stuffed dummies of the made-up examples, but the language as it is when it is being used. This is the language through the dictionary, which I think is the next target for progressive lexicography.' (John Sinclair, The Dictionary of the Future, Collins English Dictionary Annual Lecture given at the University of Strathclyde, 6 May 1987, p. 5)• Different dictionaries use different presentation styles.Some are notorious for the typographical eccentricities,

numerous uses of brackets, symbols and abbreviations together with different typeface. In comparison to the dictionaries characterized by this kind of professional mystique there are those whose presentation is simple and clear. Compare the following two pairs of dictionaries and comment on their presentation:

1. Enciklopedijski englesko-srpskohrvatski recnik (1974), S. Ristic et al., Beograd: Prosveta

2. Hrvatskoili srpsko-engleski eciklopedijski rjecnik (1983 i dalje), Z. Bujas, Graficki zavod Hrvatske

1. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, College Edition, New York; Random House, 1967

2. Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary, London: Collins, 1987

• One of the main problems in lexicography is the selection of head-words. This problem is related to the problem of syntagmatic and paradigmatic boundaries. Having in mind what you know about homonymy and polysemy comment on the dictionary treatment of the following pairs of words: bank n. 'river bank', and bank n.

'establishment for keeping money'; dot n. 'a small round mark', and dot n. 'woman's dowry'. Look these words up in different dictionaries (e.g. Oxford and COBUILD) and see if the words have been treated in the same way. Have the words been treated as polysemous, i.e. one word with two different meanings; or as homonymous, i.e. two words with different meanings and having the same shape?

• The problem of arrangement of lexical entries has todo with the problem of synonymy and sequencing. In a

synchronic dictionary various senses are presented in frequency-based order. Compare the entries for fuzz in the Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary and in The Random House Dictionary of the English Language and see if they are the same from the point of view of the order of meanings.

• Users of a language have a strong sense of the 'core' meaning of a word. However, this meaning is not necessarily the most frequent. For example, the most frequent meaning of the word bet v. is the one that appears in informal expressions such as 7 bet', I'm willing to bet', and 'my bet is', to say that what you are saying is true or will definitely happen. Look this word up in Co///A7s

COBUILD English Language Dictionary and see which meaning of bet is number (1).

• Dictionary definitions can be linguistic or encyclopaedic. The meaning of the word can be defined in terms of its synonyms or by context. Words refer to things and concepts which belong to semantic categories (sometimes to more than one category). The meaning of a word can be seen as the sum of the semantic features it has and which are included in its semantic description, i.e. its definition. Category features assign the word to a semantic category, e.g. a ladybird

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belongs to the category [INSECT]. Function features assign a usual state or activity to the word, e.g. a ladybird flies [FLY]. Property features list the properties distinguishing the reference of the word, e.g. 'an insect which is small, round, has black spots and can fly' [SMALL], [ROUND], [RED], [BLACK SPOTS], [WINGS]. The semantic entry for the word for ladybird may be expressed as:

Ladybird: [INSECT], [FLY], [SMALL], [ROUND], [RED], [BLACK SPOTS], [WINGS]Consider the following dictionary definitions of words as they are presented in the Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary. Express the semantic entry for each word giving the sum of: category features, function features and property features.

1. referee n. 1. a referee is a person whose job is to control a sports match or contest; 2. A referee is also a person who gives you a reference, for example when you are applying for a job

2. laboratory n. is a building or a room that contains special scientific equipment; scientists use laboratories to do experiments or to do research

3. key n. is a specially shaped piece of metal which you place in a lock and turn, in order to open a door, a suitcase, a cupboard, etc. or to close it so that it stays closed

4. pick-me-up n. is a drink that you have in order to make you feel healthier and more energetic

• Who are the most notable lexicographers of English?

• What are the best known publishing houses that specialize in English dictionaries?

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