Noun and Its Grammatical Categories

1. Noun and its grammatical categories

The problems as definition of nouns, main features of English nouns, their grammatical categories. Semantical characteristics of nouns and the category of number of english nouns. The lexicon-grammatical meaning of a class or of a subclass of words.

Contents

Introduction

1. What is Noun?

2. Semantical Characteristics of English Nouns

3. The Category of Case

4. The Category of Number of English Nouns

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The theme of my course paper sounds as following: «English Nouns and Their Grammatical Categories». Before beginning of investigation in our theme, I would like to say some words dealt with the theme of my course paper.

The noun is a word expressing substance in the widest sense of the word. In the concept of substance we include not only names of living beings (e.g. boy, girl, bird) and lifeless things (e.g. table, chair, book), but also names of abstract notions, i.e. qualities, slates, actions (kindness, strength, sleep, fear, conversation, fight), abstracted from their bearers. In speech these types of nouns are treated in different ways, so one, who does not know ways of treatment, can make mistakes in his speech.

Standing on such ground, I would like to point out tasks and aims of my work

1. The first task of my work is to give definition to term «Noun».

2. Second task is to describe main features of English nouns.

3. And the last task is to describe grammatical categories that nouns possesses.

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In our opinion the practical significance of our work is hard to be overvalued. This work reflects modern trends in linguistics and we hope it would serve as a good manual for those who wants to master modern English language.

The present work might find a good way of implying in the following spheres:

1. In High Schools and scientific circles of linguistic kind it can be successfully used by teachers and philologists as modern material for writing research works dealing with English nouns.

2. It can be used by teachers of schools, lyceums and colleges by teachers of English as a practical manual for teaching English grammar.

3. It can be useful for everyone who wants to enlarge his/her knowledge in English.

The present course paper consists of four parts: introduction, the main part, conclusion and bibliography. Within the introduction part, which includes two items we gave the brief description of our qualification work (the first item) and gave general notion of the word «noun». The main part of our qualification work includes several items. There we discussed such problems as definition of nouns, main features of English nouns, their grammatical categories. In the conclusion to our qualification work we tried to draw some results from the scientific investigations made within the main part of our qualification work. In bibliography part we mentioned more than 20 sources of which were used while compiling the present work. It includes linguistic books and articles dealing with the theme, a number of used dictionaries and encyclopedias and also some internet sources.

1. What is Noun?

The word «noun» comes from the Latin nomen meaning «name». Word classes like nouns were first described by Sanskrit grammarian Panini and ancient Greeks like Dionysius Thorax, and defined in terms of their morphological properties. For example, in Ancient Greece, nouns can be inflected for grammatical case, such as dative or accusative. Verbs, on the other hand, can be inflected for tenses, such as past, present or future, while nouns cannot. Aristotle also had a notion of onomata (nouns) and rhemata (verbs) which, however, does not exactly correspond our notions of verbs and nouns. In her dissertation, Vinokurova has a more detailed discussion of the historical origin of the notion of a noun.

Expressions of natural language will have properties at different levels. They have formal properties, like what kinds of morphological prefixes or suffixes they can take, and what kinds of other expressions they can combine with. but they also have semantic properties,

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i.e. properties pertaining to their meaning. The definition of nouns on the top of this page is thus a formal definition. That definition is uncontroversial, and has the advantage that it allows us to effectively distinguish nouns from non-nouns. However, it has the disadvandage that it does not apply to nouns in all languages. For example in Russian, there are no definite articles, so one cannot define nouns by means of those. There are also several attempts of defining nouns in terms of their semantic properties. Many of these are controversial, but some are discussed below.

In traditional school grammars, one often encounters the definition of nouns that they are all and only those expressions that refer to a person, place, thing, event, substance, quality, or idea, etc. This is a semantic definition. It has been criticized by contemporary linguists as being quite uninformative. Part of the problem is that the definition makes use of relatively general nouns («thing», «phenomenon», «event») to define what nouns are. The existence of such general nouns shows us that nouns are organized in taxonomic hierarchies. But other kinds of expressions are also organized in hierarchies. For example all of the verbs «stroll», «saunter,» «stride,» and «tread» are more specific words than the more general «walk.» The latter is more specific than the verb «move»/ But it is unlikely that such hierarchies can be used to define nouns and verbs. Furthermore, an influential theory has it that verbs like «kill» or «die» refer to events, and so they fall under the definition. Similarly, adjectives like «yellow» or «difficult» might be thought to refer to qualities, and adverbs like «outside» or «upstairs» seem to refer to places. Worse still, a trip into the woods can be referred to by the verbs «stroll» or «walk»/ But verbs, adjectives and adverbs are not nouns, and nouns aren't verbs. So the definition is not particularly helpful in distinguishing nouns from other parts of speech.

Another semantic definition of nouns is that they are prototypically referential. That definition is also not very helpful in distinguishing actual nouns from verbs. But it may still correctly identify a core property of nounhood. For example, we will tend to use nouns like «fool» and «car» when we wish to refer to fools and cars, respectively. The notion that this is prototypical reflects the fact that such nouns can be used, even though nothing with the corresponding property is referred to:

John is no fool.

If I had a car, I'd go to Marrakech.

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The first sentence above doesn't refer to any fools, nor does the second one refer to any particular car.

In most cases in treating English nouns we shall keep to the conception of scientists that we refer to post-structural tendency It's because they combine the ideas of traditional and structural grammarians. The noun is classified into a separate word - group because:

1. they all have the same lexical - grammatical meaning:

substance / thing

2. according to their form - they've two grammatical categories:

number and case

3. they all have typical stem-building elements:

- er, - ist, - ship, - ment, - hood….

4. typical combinability with other words:

most often left-hand combinability.

5. function - the most characteristic feature of nouns is - they can be observed in all syntactic functions but predicate.

From the grammatical point of view most important is the division of nouns into countable and un-countable with regard to the category of number and into declinable and indeclinable with regard to the category of case В.Л. Каушанская и др. Грамматика английского языка (на английском языке). 1973 стр.22.

2. Semantical Characteristics of English Nouns

Nouns fall under two classes: (A) proper nouns; (B) common nouns The word proper is from Lat. proprius 'one's own'. Hence a proper name means one's own individual name, as distinct from a common name, that can be given to a class of individuals. The name common is from Lat. communes and means that winch is shared by several things or individuals possessing some common characteristic.

a) Proper nouns are individual, names given to separate persons or things. As regards their meaning proper nouns may be personal names (Mary, Peter, Shakespeare), geographical names (Moscow, London, the Caucasus), the names of the months and of the days of the week (February, Monday), names of ships, hotels, clubs, etc.

A large number of nouns now proper were originally common nouns (Brown, Smith, Mason).

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Proper nouns may change their meaning and become common nouns:

«George went over to the table and took a sandwich and a glass of champagne. (Aldington)

b) Common nouns are names that can be applied to any individual of ad ass of persons or things (e.g. man, dog, book), collections of similar individuals or things regarded as a single unit (e. g. peasantry, family), materials (e. g. snow, iron, cotton) or abstract notions (e.g. kindness, development).

Thus there are different groups of common nouns: class nouns, collective nouns, nouns of material and abstract nouns.

1. Class nouns denote persons or things belonging to a class. They are countable and have two. numbers: singular and plural. They are generally used with an article.

«Well, sir», said Mrs. Parker, «I wasn't in the shop above a great deal.» (Mansfield)

He goes to the part of the town where the shops are. (Lessing)

2. Collective nouns denote a number or collection of similar individuals or things as a single unit.

Collective nouns fall under the following groups:

(a) nouns used only in the singular and denoting-a number of things collected together and regarded as a single object: foliage, machinery.

It was not restful, that green foliage. (London)

Machinery new to the industry in Australia was introduced for preparing land. (Agricultural Gazette)

(b) nouns which are singular in form though plural in meaning:

police, poultry, cattle, people, gentry They are usually called nouns of multitude. When the subject of the sentence is a noun of multitude the verb used as predicate is in the plural:

I had no idea the police were so devilishly prudent. (Shaw)

Unless cattle are in good condition in calving, milk production will never reach a high level. (Agricultural Gazette)

The weather was warm and the people were sitting at their doors. (Dickens)

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(c) nouns that may be both singular and plural: family, crowd, fleet, nation. We can think of a number of crowds, fleets or different nations as well as of a single crowd, fleet, etc.

A small crowd is lined up to see the guests arrive. (Shaw)

Accordingly they were soon afoot, and walking in the direction of the scene of action, towards which crowds of people were already pouring from a variety of quarters. (Dickens)

3. Nouns of material denote material: iron, gold, paper, tea, water. They are uncountable and are generally used without any article.

There was a scent of honey from the lime-trees in flower. (Galsworthy)

There was coffee still in the urn. (Wells)

Nouns of material are used in the plural to denote different sorts of a given material.

… that his senior counted upon him in this enterprise, and had consigned a quantity of select wines to him… (Thackeray)

Nouns of material may turn into class nouns (thus becoming countable) when they come to express an individual object of definite shape.

Compare:

- To the left were clean panes of glass. (Ch. Bronte)

«He came in here,» said the waiter looking at the light through the tumbler, «ordered a glass of this ale.» (Dickens)

But the person in the glass made a face at her, and Miss Moss went out. (Mansfield).

4. Abstract nouns denote some quality, state, action or idea: kindness, sadness, fight. They are usually uncountable, though some of them may be countable.

Therefore when the youngsters saw that mother looked neither frightened nor offended, they gathered new courage. (Dodge)

Accustomed to John Reed's abuse - I never had an idea of plying it. (Ch. Bronte)

It's these people with fixed ideas. (Galsworthy)

Abstract nouns may change their meaning and become class nouns. This change is marked by the use of the article and of the plural number:

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beauty a beauty beauties

sight a sight sights

He was responsive to beauty and here was cause to respond. (London)

She was a beauty. (Dickens)

… but she isn't one of those horrid regular beauties. (Aldington)

3. The Category of Case

The category of case of nouns is the system of opposites (such as girl-girl's in English, дом - дома - дому - дом - домом - (о) доме in Russian) showing the relations of the noun to other words in speech. Case relations reflect the relations of the substances the nouns name to other substances, actions, states, etc. in the world of reality See В. В. Виноградов, op. cit., p. 167.. In the sentence Ì took John's hat by mistake' the case of the noun `John's' shows its relation to the noun hat, which is some reflection of the relations between John and his hat in reality.

Case is one of those categories which show the close connection:

(a) between language and speech,

(b) between morphology and syntax.

(a) A case opposite is, like any other opposite, a unit of the language system, but the essential difference between the members of a case opposite is in their combinability in speech. This is particularly clear in a language like Russian with a developed case system. Compare, for instance, the combinability of the nominative case and that of the oblique cases. See also the difference in the combinability of each oblique case: одобрять поступок, не одобрять поступка, удивляться поступку, восхищаться поступком, etc.

We can see here that the difference between the cases is not so much a matter of meaning as a matter of combinability. It can be said that поступок - поступка - поступку, etc. are united paradigmatically in the Russian language on the basis of their syntagmatic differences in speech. Similarly, the members of the case opposite John - John's are united paradigmatically on the basis of their syntagmatic differences.

Naturally, both members of an English noun case opposite have the features of English nouns, including their combinability. Thus, they may be preceded by an article, an adjective, a numeral, a pronoun, etc.

a student…. a student's…

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the student…, the student's…

a good student…, a good student's…

his brother…, his brother's…

the two brothers…, the two brothers'…

Yet, the common case grammemes are used in a variety of combinations where the possessive case grammemes do not, as a rule, occur. In the following examples, for instance, John's or boys' can hardly be substituted for John or boys: John saw the boys, The boys were seen by John, It was owing to the boys that…, The boys and he…, etc.

(b) Though case is a morphological category it has a distinct syntactical significance. The common case grammemes fulfil a number of syntactical functions not typical of possessive case grammemes, among them the functions of subject and object. The possessive case noun is for the most part employed as an attribute.

All case opposites are identical in content: they contain two particular meanings, of 'common' case and 'possessive' case, united by the general meaning of the category, that of 'case'. There is not much variety in the form of case opposites either, which distinguishes English from Russian.

An English noun lexeme may contain two case opposites at most (man - man's, men - men's). Some lexemes have but one opposite (England - England's, cattle - cattle's). Many lexemes have no case opposites at all (book, news, foliage),

In the opposite dog - dog's, men - men's, the 'common' case is not marked, i.e. dog and men have zero morphemes of 'common case'. The 'possessive' case is marked by the suffix -'s /-s, - z, - iz/. In the opposite dogs - dogs.' the difference between the opposites is marked only in writing. Otherwise the two opposites do not differ in form. So with regard to each other they are-not marked.

Thus, -'s is the only positive case morpheme of English nouns. It would be no exaggeration to say that the whole category' depends on this morpheme.

As already mentioned, with regard to the category of case English nouns fall under two lexicon-grammatical subclasses: declinable, having case opposites, and indeclinable, having no case opposites.

The subclass of declinable is comparatively limited, including mostly nouns denoting living beings, also time and distance See M. Ganshina and N. Vasilevskaya. English Grammar. M., 1953, p. 31--32..

Indeclinable like book, iron, care have, as a norm, only the potential (or oblique, or lexicon-grammatical) meaning of the common case. But it is sometimes actualized when

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a case opposite of these words is formed in speech, as in `The book's philosophy is old-fashioned'. (The Tribune, Canada).

As usual, variants of one lexeme may belong to different subclasses. Youth meaning 'the state of being young' belongs to the indeclinable. Its variant youth meaning 'a young man' has a case opposite (The youth's candid smile disarmed her. Black and belongs to the declinable.

Since both cases and prepositions show 'relations of substances', some linguists speak of analytical cases in Modern English. To the student is said to be an analytical dative case (equivalent, for instance, to the Russian студенту), of the student is understood as an analytical genitive case (equivalent to студента), by the student as an analytical instrumental case (cf. студентом), etc.

The theory of analytical cases seems to be unconvincing for a number of reasons.

1. In order to treat the combinations of the student, to the student, by the student as analytical words (like shall come or has come) we must regard of, to, with as grammatical word-morphemes B.S. Khaimovich, B.I. Rogovskaya. A Course in English Grammar. 1966 p. 14. But then they are to be devoid of lexical meaning, which they are not. Like most words a preposition is usually polysynaptic and each meaning is singled out in speech, in a sentence or a word-combination. Cf. to speak of the student, the speech of the student, news of the student, it was kind of the student, what became of the student, etc.

In each case of shows one of its lexical meanings. Therefore it cannot be regarded as a grammatical word-morpheme and the combination of the student cannot be treated as an analytical word.

2. A grammatical category, as known, is represented in opposites comprising a definite number of members. Combinations with different prepositions are too numerous to be interpreted as opposites representing the category of case See Г. Н. Воронцова. Очерки по грамматике английского языка. М., 1960, р. 180..

The number of cases in English becomes practically unlimited.

3. Analytical words usually form opposites with synthetic ones B.S. Khaimovich, B.I. Rogovskaya. A Course in English Grammar. 1966 p. 49 (comes - came - will come). With prepositional constructions it is different. They are often synonymous with synthetic words.

E. g. the son of my friend = my friend's son; the wall of the garden = the. garden wall.

On the other hand, prepositional constructions can be used side by side with synthetic cases, as in that doll of Mary's, a friend of John's. If we accepted the theory of analytical cases, we should see in of John's a double-case word "Double-genitive", in the

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terminology of Kruisinga., which would be some rarity in English, there being *'no double-tense words nor double-aspect words and the like See А. И. Смирницкий, op. cit, p. 9..

4. There is much subjectivity in the choice of prepositions supposed to form analytical cases This among other reasons, accounts for the divergence of views concerning the number of cases in English.. Grammarians usually point out those prepositions whose meanings approximate to the meanings of some cases in other languages or in Old English. But the analogy with other languages or with an older stage of the same language does not prove the existence of a given category in a modern language.

Therefore we think it unjustified to speak of units like to the student, of the student, etc. as of analytical cases. They are combinations of nouns in the common case with prepositions.

The morpheme -'s, on which the category of case of English nouns depends (§ 83), differs in some respects from other grammatical morphemes of the English language and from the case morphemes of other languages.

As emphasized by B.A. Ilyish Б. Л. Ильиш, op. cit., p. 99--100, -'s is no longer a case inflexion in the classical sense of the word. Unlike such classical inflexions, -'s may be attached

a) to adverbs (of substantial origin), as in yesterday's events,

b) to word-groups, as in Mary and John's apartment, our professor of literature's unexpected departure,

c) even to whole clauses, as in the well-worn example the man I saw yesterday's son.

В. A. Ilyish comes to-the conclusion that the -'s morpheme gradually develops into a «form-word» What we call a semi-notional word, a kind of particle serving to convey the meaning of belonging, possession Б. А. Ильиш, op. cit., p. 100..

G.N. Vorontsova does not recognize -`s as a case morpheme at all Г. Н. Воронцова. Об именном форманте -'s в современном английском языке. («Иностранные языки в школе», 1948, № 3, 4); Г. Н. Воронцова. Очерки по грамматике английского языка. М., 1960, pp. 181 -- 183.. The reasons she puts forward to substantiate her point of view are as follows:

1) The use of -'s is optional (her brother's, of her brother).

2) It is used with a limited group of nouns outside which it occurs very seldom.

3) -'s is used both in the singular and in the plural (child's, children's), which is not incident - to case morphemes (cf. мальчик_а, мальчик-ов).

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4) It occurs in very few plurals, only those with the irregular formation of the plural member (oxen's but cows').

5) -'s does not make an inseparable part of the structure of the word. It may be placed at some distance from the head-noun of an attributive group.

«Been reading that fellow what's his name's attacks in the 'Sunday Times'?» (Bennett).

Proceeding from these facts G.N. Vorontsova treats -'s as a 'postposition', a 'purely syntactical form-word resembling a preposition', used as a sign of syntactical dependence We find a similar interpretation of -'s in Л. С. Бархударов, Д. Д. Штелинг, op. cit., p. 42..

In keeping with this interpretation of the -'s morpheme the author denies the existence of cases in Modern English.

At present, however, this extreme point of view can hardly be accepted А. И. Смирницкий, op. cit., § 60. The following arguments tend to show that -'s does function as a case morpheme.

1. The -'s morpheme is mostly attached to individual nouns e, not noun groups. According to our statistics this is observed in 96 per cent of examples with this morpheme. Instances like The man I saw yesterday's son are very rare and may be interpreted in more ways than one. As already mentioned, the demarcation line between words and combinations of words is very vague in English. A word-combination can easily be made to function as one word.

Cf. a hats-cleaned-by-electricity-while-you-wait establishment (O. Henry), the eighty-year-olds (D.W.).

In the last example the plural morpheme - s is in fact attached to an adjective word-combination, turning it into a noun. It can be maintained that the same morpheme -`s likewise substantives the group of words to which it is attached, and we get something like the man_1_saw-yesterday's son.

2. Its general meaning - «the relation of a noun to an other word» - is a typical case meaning.

3. The fact that -'s occurs, as a rule, with a more or less limited group of words bears testimony to its not being a «preposition-like form word». The use of the preposition is determined, chiefly, by the meaning of the preposition itself and not by the meaning of the noun it introduces (Cf. оn the table, in the table, under the table, over the table etc.)

4. The fact that the possessive case is expressed in oxen - oxen's by -'s and in cows - cows' by zero cannot serve as an argument against the existence of cases in English nouns because -'s and zero are here forms of the same morpheme

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a) Their meanings are identical.

b) Their distribution is complementary.

5. As a minor argument against the view that -'s is «a preposition-like word», it is pointed out А. И. Смирницкий, op. cit., § 60. that -'s differs phonetically from all English prepositions in not having a vowel, a circumstance limiting its independence.

Yet, it cannot be denied that the peculiarities of the -'s morpheme are such as to admit no doubt of its being essentially different from the case morphemes of other languages. It is evident that the case system of Modern English is undergoing serious changes.

4. The Category of Number of English Nouns

The category of number of English nouns is the system of opposites (such as girl - girls, foot - feet, etc.) showing whether the noun stands for one object or more than one, in other words, whether its grammatical meaning is 'oneness' or 'more-than-oneness' of objects.

The connection of the category with the world of material reality, though indirect, is quite transparent. Its meanings reflect the existence of individual objects and groups of objects in the material world.

All number opposites are identical in content: they contain two particular meanings of 'singular' and 'plural' united by the general meaning of the category, that of 'number'. But there is a considerable variety of form in number opposites, though it is not so great as in the Russian language.

An English noun lexeme can contain two number opposites at most (toy - boys, boy's - boys'). Many lexemes have but one oppose me (table - tables) and many others have no opposites at all (ink, news).

In the opposite boy - boys 'singularity' is expressed by a zero morpheme and 'plurality' is marked by the positive morpheme /-z/, in spelling - .s. In other words, the 'singular' member of the opposite is not marked, and the 'plural' member is marked.

In the opposite boy's - boys' both members have positive morphemes -`s, - s', but these morphemes can be distinguished only in writing. In the spoken language their forms do not differ, so with regard to each other they are unmarked. They can be distinguished only by their combinability (cf. a boy's head, boys' heads).

In a few noun lexemes of foreign origin both members of a number opposite are marked, e.g. symposium - symposia, genus - genera, phenomenon-phenomena, etc. But in the process of assimilation this peculiarity of foreign nouns gets gradually lost, and instead of medium - media a new opposite develops, medium - mediums; instead of formula - formulae, the usual form now is formula - formulas. In this process, as we see, the foreign

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grammatical morphemes are neglected as such. The `plural' morpheme is dropped altogether. The 'singular' morpheme becomes part of the stem. Finally, the regular - s ending is added to form the 'plural' opposite. As a result the 'singular' becomes unmarked, as typical of English, and the 'plural' gets its usual mark, the suffix - s.

Since the 'singular' member of a number opposite is not marked, the form of the opposite is, as a rule, determined by the form of the 'plural' morpheme, which, in its turn, depends upon the stem of the lexeme.

In the overwhelming majority of cases the form of the 'plural' morpheme is /-s/, /-z/, or /-z/, in spelling - (e) s, e. g, books, boys, matches.

With the stem ox - the form of the 'plural' morpheme is - en /-n/.

In the opposite man-men the form of the 'plural' morpheme is the vowel change /? > e/. In woman - women ii is /u > i/, in foot - feet it is /u - i:/, etc.

In child - children the form of the 'plural' morpheme is complicated. It consists of the vowel change /ai > i/ and the suffix - ren.

In sheep - sheep the 'plural' is not marked, thus coinciding in form with the 'singular'. They can be distinguished only by their combinability: òne sheep', `five sheep', à sheep was…', `sheep were…', `this sheep', `these sheep'. The 'plural' coincides in form with the 'singular' also in `deer, fish, carp, perch, trout, cod, salmon', etc. G.O. Curme. Syntax. Bost., N.Y., Lnd., Heat., 1931, p. 542;

O. Jespersen. Essentials of English Grammar. N.Y., 1938, p. 201

All the 'plural' forms enumerated here are forms of the same morpheme. This can be proved, as we know, by the identity of the 'plural' meaning, and the complementary distribution of these forms, i.e. the fact that different forms are used with different stems.

As already mentioned B.S. Khaimovich, B.I. Rogovskaya. A Course in English Grammar. 1966 p. 48, with regard to the category of number English nouns fall into two subclasses: countable and uncountable. The former have number opposites, the latter have not. Uncountable nouns are again subdivided into those having no plural opposites and those having no singular opposites.

Nouns like milk, geometry, self-possession having no plural opposites are usually called by a Latin name - singularia tantum. Nouns like outskirts, clothes, goods having no singular opposites are known as pluralia tantum.

As a matter of fact, those nouns which have no number opposites are outside the grammatical category of number. But on the analogy of the bulk of English nouns they acquire oblique (or lexicon-grammatical) meanings of number. Therefore singularia tantum are often treated as singulars and pluralia tantum as plurals.

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This is justified both by their forms and by their combinability.

Cf. This (table, book, milk, love) is…

These (tables, books, clothes, goods) are…

When combinability and form contradict each other, combinability is decisive, which accounts for the fact that `police' or `cattle' are regarded as plurals, and `measles', `mathematics as singulars.

The lexicon-grammatical meaning of a class (or of a subclass) of words is, as we know, an abstraction from the lexical meanings of the words of the class, and depends to a certain extent on those lexical meanings. Therefore singularia tantum usually include nouns of certain lexical meanings. They are mostly material, abstract and collective nouns, such as sugar, gold, butter, brilliance, constancy, selfishness, humanity, soldiery, peasantry.

Yet it is not every material, abstract or collective noun that belongs to the group of singularia tantum (e. g. a plastic, a feeling, a crowd) and, what is more important, not in all of its meanings does a noun belong to this group.

As we have already seen B.S. Khaimovich, B.I. Rogovskaya. A Course in English Grammar. 1966 p. 49, variants of the same lexeme may belong to different subclasses of a part of speech. In most of their meanings the words joy and sorrow as abstract nouns are singularia tantum.

E.g. He has been a good friend both in joy and in sоrгоw. (Horney).

But when concrete manifestations are meant, these nouns are countable and have plural opposites, e. g. the joys and sorrows of life.

Likewise, the words copper, tin, hair as material nouns are usually singularia tantum, but when they denote concrete objects, they become countable and get plural opposites: a copper - coppers, a tin - tins, a hair - hairs.

Similarly, when the nouns wine, steel, salt denote some sort or variety of the substance, they become countable.

E.g. an expensive wine - expensive wines.

All such cases are not a peculiarity of the English language alone. They are found in other languages as well. Cf. дерево - деревья and дерево.is a material noun, платье - платья and платье as a collective noun.

`Joy' and à joy', `beauty' and à beauty', `copper' and à copper', `hair' and à hair' and many other pairs of this kind are not homonyms, as suggested by some grammarians Л.С.

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Бархударов, Д.А. Штелинг. Грамматика английского языка. М., 1960, р. 35, but variants of lexemes related by internal conversion.

If all such cases were regarded as homonyms, the number of homonyms in the English language would be practically limitless. If only some of them were treated as homonyms, that would give rise to uncontrolled subjectivity.

The group of pluralia tantum is mostly composed of nouns denoting objects consisting of two or more parts, complex phenomena or ceremonies, e. g. tongs, pincers, trousers, nuptials, obsequies. Here also belong some nouns with a distinct collective or material meaning, e.g. clothes, eaves, sweets.

Since in these words the - s suffix does not function as a grammatical morpheme, it gets lexicalized and develops into an inseparable part of the stem Л. С. Бархударов, Д. А. Штелинг, ор. cit., р. 36.. This, probably, underlies the fact that such nouns as mathematics, optics, linguistics, mumps, measles are treated as singularia tantum.

Nouns like police, militia, cattle, poultry are pluralia tantum, judging by their combinability, though not by form О. Jespersen. Essentials of English Grammar. Lnd., 1943, p. 208..

People in the meaning of «народ» is a countable noun. In the meaning of «люди» it belongs to the pluralia tantum. Family in the sense of «a group of people who are related» is a countable noun. In the meaning of «individual members of this group» it belongs to the pluralia tantum. Thus, the lexeme family has two variants:

Sg. PL

1) family families

2) - family

E. g. Almost every family in the village has sent a man to the army. (Horney).

Those were the oldest families in Jorkshire. (Black).

Her family were of a delicate constitution. (Bronte).

Similar variants are observed in the lexemes committee, government, board, crew, etc.

Colour in the meaning «red, green, blue, etc». is a countable noun. In the meaning «appearance of reality or truth» (e. g. His torn clothes gave colour to his story that lie had been attacked by robbers. A. Horney.) it has no plural opposite and belongs to the singularia tantum. Colours in the sense of «materials used by painters and artists» has no singular opposite and belongs to the pluralia tantum.

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Thus, the lexeme has three variants:

Sg. Pl.

1) colour colours

2) colour -

3) - colours.

When grammarians write that the lexical meanings of some plurals differ from those of their singular opposites B. Н. Жигадло, И. П. Иванова, Л. Л. Иофик, ор. cit., р. 30., they simply compare different variants of a lexeme.

Sometimes variants of a lexeme may belong to the same lexico-grammatical subclass and yet have different forms of number opposemes.

Cf. brother (son of same parents) - brothers

brother (fellow member) - brethren

fish - fish (e.g. I caught five fish yesterday.)

fish - fishes ('different species', e. g. ocean fishes).

A collective noun is a word that designates a group of objects or beings regarded as a whole, such as «flock», «team», or «corporation». Although many languages treat collective nouns as singular, in others they may be interpreted as plural. In British English, phrases such as the committee are meeting are common (the so-called agreement in sensu «in meaning», that is, with the meaning of a noun, rather than with its form). The use of this type of construction varies with dialect and level of formality.

All languages are able to specify the quantity of referents. They may do so by lexical means with words such as English a few, some, one, two, five hundred. However, not every language has a grammatical category of number. Grammatical number is expressed by morphological and/or syntactic means. That is, it is indicated by certain grammatical elements, such as through affixes or number words. Grammatical number may be thought of as the indication of semantic number through grammar.

Languages that express quantity only by lexical means lack a grammatical category of number. For instance, in Khmer, neither nouns nor verbs carry any grammatical information concerning number: such information can only be conveyed by lexical items such as khlah 'some', pii-bey 'a few', and so on.

Most languages of the world have formal means to express differences of number. The most widespread distinction, as found in English and many other languages, involves a

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simple two-way number contrast between singular and plural (car / cars; child / children, etc.). Other more elaborate systems of number are described below.

Conclusion

In the conclusion of my work, I would like to say some words according the done investigation.

The main part of my work consists of following items:

· «What is Noun»?, as it is seen from the title in this part I gave the definition to the term noun.

· «Semantical Characteristics of Nouns» In this chapter I characterized English nouns from due their semantical meaning.

· «Category of Case» in this paragraph I described the category of case of English nouns

· «Category of Number». In this part I gave the definition to the category of number of English nouns, described different types of numbers of nouns in English

Standing on such ground I will add that investigation in the questions dealt with English adjectives is not finished yet, so we will continue it while writing our qualification work.

I hope that my course paper will arise the sincere interest of students and teachers to the problem of adjectives in contemporary English.

Bibliography

1. B. Ilyish, The Structure of Modern English.

2. V.N. Zhigadlo, I.P. Ivanova, L.L. Iofik.» Modern English language» (Theoretical course grammar) Moscow, 1956 y.

3. Gordon E.M. The Use of adjectives in modern English.

4. М.М. Галииская. «Иностранные языки в высшей школе», вып. 3, М., 1964.

5. Г.Н. Воронцова. Очерки по грамматике английского языка. М., 1960

6. O. Jespersen. Essentials of English Grammar. N.Y., 1938

7. Иванова И.П., Бурлакова В.В., Почепцов Г.Г. Теоретическая грамматика современного английского языка. - М., 1981. - 285 c.

8. Ch. Barber. Linguistic change in Present-Day English. Edinburgh, 1964

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9. The Structure of American English. New York, 1958.

10. World Book Encyclopedia Vol.1 NY. 1993 pp.298-299

11. Internet http://madrasati2010.bravehost.com/adj.htm

12. Internet http://www.vestnik.vsu.ru

13. Internet:http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/adjectives/theory.htm

14. Inbternet:http://www.englishlanguage.ru/main/definitearticle.htm

2. Word stress in English

The nature of English word stress - the key to excellent pronunciation and understanding of English. English speakers use word stress to communicate rapidly and accurately, even in difficult conditions. Word stress tendencies and functions, variation.

Introduction

I. The nature of English Word Stress

II. Types of English Word Stress

III. Word Stress tendencies

IV. Word Stress functions

V. Variation in word stress

VI. English Word Stress - Does It Really Matter?

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Word stress is not used in all languages. Some languages, Japanese or French for example, pronounce each syllable with eq-ual em-pha-sis. Other languages, English for example, use word stress.

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Word stress is your magic key to understanding spoken English. Native speakers of English use word stress naturally. Word stress is so natural for them that they don't even know they use it. Non-native speakers who speak English to native speakers without using word stress, encounter two problems:

1. They find it difficult to understand native speakers, especially those speaking fast.

2. The native speakers may find it difficult to understand them.

So, in this report we will focus our attention on the accentual patterns of English words. The sequence of syllables in the word is not pronounced identically. The syllable or syllables which are uttered with more prominence than the other syllables of the word are said to be stressed or accented. The correlation of varying prominences of syllables in a word is understood as the accentual structure of the word or its stress pattern.

I. The nature of English Word Stress

Any word spoken in isolation has at least one prominent syllable. We perceive it as stressed. Stress in the isolated word is termed ws, stress in connected speech is termed sentence stress. Stress indicated by placing a stress mark before the stressed syllable: Stress is defined differently by different authors. B. A. Bogortsky, for instance, defined stress as an increase of energy, accompan by an increase of expiratory and articulatory activity. D. Jones fined stress as the degree of force, which is accompanied by a stress force of exhalation and gives an impression of loudness. H. Sweet stated that stress is connected with the force of breath. Later, however P. Jones wrote, that “stress or prominence is effected by inherent sonority, vowel and consonant length and by intonation.”' A. C. Gison also admits that a more prominent syllable is accompanied pitch changes in the voice, quality and quantity of the accented sounds.[2;179]

In disyllabic and polysyllabic words different syllables possess different degrees of special prominence in different positions in relation to the beginning, middle and end of words.

Word stress (WS) can be defined as the singling out of one or more syllables in a word, which is accompanied by the change of the force of utterance, pitch of the voice, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the sound which is usually a vowel. The analysis of WS can be carried out according to the following parameters:

(i) the nature of English word-stress;

(ii) its degree and syllabic location;

(iii) its functions;

(iv) basic stress patterns of the English words.[3;171]

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If we compare stressed and unstressed syllables in the two contract, we may note that in the stressed syllable:

(a) the force of utterance is greater, which is connected with more energetic articulation;

(b) the pitch of the voice is higher, which is connected with stronger tenseness of the vocal cords and the walls of the resonance chamber

(c) the quantity of the vowel is greater, a vowel becomes longer;

(d) the quality of the vowel !& in the stressed syllable is different from the quality of this vowel in the unstressed position, in why it is more narrow than.

On the auditory level a stressed syllable is the part of the word which has a special prominence. It is produced by a greater loud and length, modifications in the pitch and quality. Their physic correlates are: intensity, duration, frequency and the formant structure. All these features can be analyzed on the acoustic level.

Word stress can be defined as the singling out of one or more s tables in a word, which is accompanied by the change of the force utterance, pitch of the voice, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the sound, which is usually a vowel.

In different languages one of the factors constituting word stress is usually more significant than the others. According to the mo important feature different types of word stress are distinguished different languages.

If special prominence in a stressed syllable or syllables achieved mainly through the intensity of articulation, such type stress is called dynamic, or force stress.[2;179]

Stress can be studied from the point of view of production and of perception. While producing stressed syllables, speakers use more muscular energy than they do for unstressed syllables. From the perceptual point of view, stressed syllables are recognized as stressed because they are more prominent than unstressed syllables. Phoneticians claim that at least four different factors are important in making a syllable prominent:

1) listeners seem to feel stressed syllables louder than unstressed; thus loudness is a component of WS (Peter Roach explains that if one syllable in a sequence of identical syllables, e.g. ba:ba:ba:ba:, is made louder than the others, it will be heard as stressed);

2) 2) if one of the syllables in the above-given “nonsense” word is made longer, that syllable is heard stressed, so the length of the syllables is another important factor in making prominence;

3) every syllable is said on some pitch (related to the frequency of vibration of the vocal cords which is an essential perceptual characteristic of speech) . If one syllable is said with high pitch as compared to the others then it will be heard as stressed;

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4) a syllable can be heard prominent if it contains a vowel that is different in quality from neighbouring vowels. If one of the vowels in the “nonsense word” is changed, the “odd” syllable: will be heard as stressed.

The phonetic manifestation of stress varies from language to language. Indifferent languages one of the factors constituting word stress is usually more significant than the others. According to the most salient feature the following types of word stress are distinguished in different languages:

1) dynamic or force stress if special prominence in a stressed syllable(syllables) is achieved mainly through the intensity of articulation;

2) musical or tonic stress if special prominence is achieved mainly through the change of pitch, or musical tone.

3) quantitative stress if special prominence is achieved through the changes in the quantity of the vowels, which are longer in the stressed syllables than in the unstressed ones.

4) qualitative stress if special prominence is achieved through the changes in the quality of the vowel under stress. Vowel reduction is often used as a manipulation of quality in unstressed syllables.

II. Types of English Word Stress

Types of English word stress according to its degree. One of the ways of reinitiating the prominence of syllables is manipulating the degree of stress. There is controversy about degrees of WS in English and their terminology. Strictly speaking, polysyllabic word has as many degrees of stress as there are syllables in it. Designating strongest syllable by 1, the second strongest by 2, etc., we may represent the distribution Jesses in the following examples:

examination indivisibility

igzeminein indivizibiloti

32415 2536174

But from a linguistic point, i.e. for the purposes of differentiating words from each

and identifying them, the fourth, the fifth and other degrees of lexical stress are redundant English, while the distinctive and recognitive relevance of the third degree of stress is a objective point. The majority of British phoneticians (D. Jones, Kingdon, A. C. Gimson among them) and Russian phoneticians (V. A. Vassilyev, Shakhbagova) consider that there are three degrees of word-stress in English:

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* primary -- the strongest

* secondary -- the second strongest, partial, and

* weak -- all the other degrees.

The syllables bearing either primary or secondary stress are termed stressed, while syllables with weak stress are called, somewhat inaccurately, unstressed. American linguists stingiest four degrees of word stress, adding the so-called tertiary stress . Contrary stress differs from tertiary that it usually occurs on the third or fourth pre-tonic syllable, and tertiary is always post-tonic, e.g. administrative, dictionary. category.[3;173]

English language not only through the increase of intensity, but also through the changes in the vowel quantity, consonant and vowel quality and pitch of the voice. Russian word stress is not only dynamic but mostly quantitative and qualitative. The length of the Russian vowels always depends on the position in a word. The quality of unaccented vowels in Russian may differ greatly from the quality of the same vowels under stress. Stress difficulties peculiar to the accentual structure of the English language are connected with the vowel special and inherent prominence. In identical positions the intensity of English vowels is different. The highest in intensity is /a/, then u:, u, e, u,

The quantity of long vowels and diphthongs can be preserved (a) pretonic and (b) post-tonic position. All English vowels may occur in accented syllables, the only exception is /, which is never stressed. English vowels /i, u, u/ tend to occur in unstressed syllables. Syllables with the syllabic m, n/ are never stressed.

Unstressed diphthongs may partially lose their glide quality. In stressed syllables English stops have complete closure, fricatives have full friction, features of forties/lenis distinction are clearly defined.

Stress can be characterized as fixed and free. In languages with fixed type of stress the place of stress is always the same.

In English and Russian word-stress is free, that is it may fall any syllable in a word:

a) idea sarcastic archaic

b) placard railway

Stress in English and in Russian is not only free but also shifting. In both languages the place of stress may shift, which helps t0 differentiate different parts of speech, e.g. linsult--to inlsult, import--to imiport.

When the shifting of word-stress serves to perform distinctive function, V. Vassil.

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Stress performs not only distinctive function, it helps to constitute and recognize words and their forms (constitutive and recognitive functions).

Strictly speaking, a polysyllabic word has as many degrees of stress as there are syllables in it. American and English phoneticians give the following pattern of stress distribution in the word examination. They mark the strongest syllable with primary accent with the numeral 1, then goes 2, 3, etc.[2;180]

English word-stress is traditionally defined as dynamic, but in fact,

the special prominence of the stressed syllables is manifested in the English language not only through the increase of intensity, but also through the

changes in the vowel quantity, consonant and vowel quality and pitch of the voice.

`Most words of more than four syllables have 2 stresses: primary (nuprefixes and entry. The primary stress falls either on the third or the second syllable from the end and the secondary stress falls on the syllable separated from the nuclear syllable by one unstressed syllable: pro-ition, recog ition, etc.

The place of word-stress in English compound words principally de“rewrite” on the semantic factor, i. e. the element which determines the mean-of the whole compound has a primary stress. But most of the compound possess the nuclear stress on the l element: `bookcase, `diligence etc, whereas compound adjectives have, as a rule, primary stress on element of the compound `well- ?oiown, ibsent-- jinded, etc.[1;34]

III. Word Stress tendencies

In spite of the fact that word stress in English is free, there are certain factors that determine the location and different degree of it. Prof. V. A. Vassilyev describes them as follows:

* the recessive tendency;

* the rhythmic tendency;

* the retentive tendency and

* the semantic factor

The first and the oldest of the English lexical stress tendencies (characteristic of all Germanic languages) known as the recessive tendency originally consisted in placing lexical stress on the initial syllable of nouns, adjectives and verbs derived from them and on the root syllable of words which belonged to other parts of speech and had a prefix. In most cases prefixes lost their referential meaning since then, with the result that recessive stress in present-day English of two subtypes:

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1) unrestricted: when stress falls on the initial syllable, provided it is not a prefix which has no referential meaning. A great majority of native English words of Germanic origin are stressed this way: father mother husband, `wonder

2) restricted: when stress falls on the root of the native English words with a prefix which has no referential meaning now: a'mong, be'come, before,fo,'get, etc.

It is this tendency that determined the incidence of stress in a huge number of disyllabic and trisyllabic French words which had been borrowed into English until the 1 5th century (during and after the Norman Conquest).

The presence in English of a great number of short (disyllabic and trisyllabic) words defamed the development of the so-called rhythmic tendency which results in alternating stressed and unstressed syllables. Borrowed polysyllabic words developed a secondary stress on the syllable separated from the word-final primary stress by one unstressed syllable. These words began to be pronounced, in isolation, on the model of short phrases in which a stressed syllable alternates with an unstressed one: pronunciation.

The retentive tendency consists in the retention of the primary stress on the parent word: person -- personal, or more commonly the retention of the secondary stress on the parent word: `personal -- 1perso'nalily. The difference between constant accent and ` retentive stress consists in that the former remains on the same syllable in all the g forms of a word or in all the derivatives from one and the same root, whereas retinal, stress in a derivative falls on the same syllable on which it falls in the parent word, while i other derivatives from the same root it may be shifted e.g.: personal .

There are certain categories of English words stressing of which is determined the semantic factor, e.g. compound words and words with the so-called separable prefix The majority of such words have two equally strong stresses, both stressed parts considered to be of equal semantic importance, with the semantic factor thus canceling rhythmic tendency in word stressing, e.g.

* compound adjectives: hard-working, blue-eyed,

* verbs with post positions sit down, take off

* numerals from 13 to 19:fourteen, sixteen.

It should be noted that the rhythmic tendency becomes operative when such work occur in sentences and the first stress of a double-stressed English word disappears in an immediately or closely preceding word requires stress: a `very good-looking `girl.[3;175]

IV. English Word Stress functions

In discussingaccentual structure of English words we should turn now to the functional aspect of word stress. Word stress in a language performs three functions.

24

I. Word stress constitutes. a word, it organizes the syllables of a word Into a language unit having a definite accentual structure, that is a pattern of relationship among the syllables; a wok4 does not exist without the word stress. Thus the word stress forms the constitutive function. Sound continuum become phrase when it is divided into units organized by word stress into words.

II. Word stress enables a person to identify a succession òf syllables as a definite accentual pattern of a word. This function of word stress is known as identificatory (or recognitive). Correct accentuation helps the listener to make the process of communication easier, whereas the distorted accentual pattern of words, misplaced word stresses prevent normal understanding.

Ill. Word stress alone is capable of differentiating the meaning of words or their forms, thus performing its distinctive function. The accentual patterns of words or the degrees of word stress and their positions form oppositions, e.g. ìmport -- im'port, `billow -- below.

Word stress in a language performs the following functions:

1. The CONSTITUTIVE function: it organizes the syllables of a word into language unit having a defmite accentual structure, i.e. a pattern of relationship among th syllables. The word does not exist as a lexica' unit without word stress.

J. Layer holds the view that lexical stress shows a culminative function: being characteristic property of the word, it is thought to help the listener to judge how many individual words the speaker has produced in a given utterance.

2. The IDENTIFICATORY function: correct lexical stress enables the listener to decode the information in verbal conimuriication adequately, while misplaced word stresses prevent understanding.

3. The DISTINCTI YE/CONTRAST WE function: word stress alone is capable of differentiating the meanings of words or their forms. It should be mentioned though that most words in most languages that use word stress linguistically do not possess minimal pairs based on stress. But still there are about 135 pairs of words of identical orthography in English which could occur either as nouns (with stress on the penultimate syllable) or as verbs (with stress on the final syllable), with a very small number of cases the location of lexical stress alone being the differentiating factor: import (noun) -- import (verb), ìnsult (noun) -- in'sult (verb).[4;130]

V. Variation in word stress

The stress patterns of some English words are liable to variations of different kinds. There is free variation of stress location due to some rhythmic and analogical pressures, both of which entail in addition considerable changes of sound pattern in words[3;182], e.g.

25

1) in some words of three syllables, there is variation between'---and-`--patterns: deficit, integral (adj), exquisite.

2) similarly, in words of four syllables, there is variation between first and secon syllable stressing: hospitable, formidable, despicable.

Pronunciation patterns of such words due to the variation in stress placement have the status of alternative pronunciation forms which occur in educated usage.

Cases of variable stress placement caused by the context is known as `stressshift'. When a word of several syllables has a stress near the end of thc word, and is followed by another word with stress near its beginning, there is a tendency for the stress in the first word to move nearer the beginning if it contains a syllable that is capable of receiving stress, e.g. the word academic in isolation usually has the stress or the penultimate syllable /-dem-/. However, when the word year follows, the stress often found to move to the first syllable /k-/; the whole phrase àcademic year' will have the primary stress on the word year, so the resulting stress pattern will be àcademic `year. In isolation, we say fundamental and Japanese with primary stress on -ment and -nese, in connected speech these words may have a different pattern: greater stress on fund- and Jap-.

VI. English Word Stress - Does It Really Matter?

Yes and No.

Yes, if you are a non-native speaker speaking to a native English speaker.

No, if you are a non-native English speaker speaking to another non-native speaker.

English language teaching theory has traditionally been based on native English forms, more specifically British and American English varieties. In today's international community however, where more than 1 billion non-native English speakers use English as a lingua franca, teaching theory is changing to focus on English as an International Language (EIL).

According to linguist Jennifer Jenkins' research on the English language, there are certain factors in English pronunciation that can influence the degree of intelligibility between a speaker and listener. Word stress is one of these factors if you are speaking with a native English speaker, but Jenkins has found that when two non-native speakers interact in EIL, word stress has little influence on intelligibility.

So why are native speakers so stressed about word stress?

Stress indicates identity

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Anyone who has ever zapped between BBC and CNN has probably noticed the differences between standard British and standard American word stress. It has caused quite a CONtroversy (US), or should I say, "conTROVersy" (UK).

To a native English speaker, a certain word stress is considered appropriate or inappropriate depending on where the person is from. "Inappropriate" word stress can really rub listeners the wrong way because it deviates from their norm and indicates that the speaker is an "other" - an outsider. This can be quite FRUStrating (US)/frusTRATing (UK) for the non-native speaker who is just trying to get his point across.

After hours spent in a language LABoratory (US), or laBORatory (UK) if you prefer, non-native English speakers are still at a loss when it comes to speaking to native speakers internationally.

"So which variety is correct?" This is the most common question. Answer: "It depends who you ask!" Stress indicates different meanings of identical words

In one case however, word stress can cause problems whether you are a native speaker or non-native speaker of English: words which are spelled the same, but have different meanings (and different word stress).

Word stress can also differentiate a word's part of speech - more specifically whether the word is a noun or a verb. There are many examples of words which in their noun form take their stress on the first syllable, but in the verb form are stressed on the second syllable. Say the following words out loud: PROgress - proGRESS, OBject - obJECT, REcord - reCORD.

We would never say, "She wants to REcord a REcord one day," but rather, "reCORD a REcord." Unfortunately this isn't a blanket rule, and there are plenty of English words which sound the same both as verbs and as nouns: travel, picture, promise and visit are a few examples.

So what is the non-native English speaker to do? Sticking to the form you are most comfortable with.

Communication is a two-way street with compromise and understanding at both ends. If you meet people who can't accept the way you speak, then they're probably not worth speaking with anyway!

Conclusion

Stressed words are the key to excellent pronunciation and understanding of English. Word stress is not an optional extra that you can add to the English language if you want. It is part of the language! English speakers use word stress to communicate rapidly and accurately, even in difficult conditions. If, for example, you do not hear a word clearly, you can still understand the word because of the position of the stress.

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References

1.Левицький А.Е.,Гарощук Л.А. Поглиблений курс теоретичної фонетики англійської мови.- Вінниця:ППФоліант,2005.-71с.

2.Леонтьева С. Ф. Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учеб. для студентов вечер.и заоч. отд. педвузов.2-е изд.,испр.и доп.-М.:Высш.школа,1988-271с.

3.В. Ю. Паращук Теоретична фонетика англійської мови:навчальний посібник для студентів факультетів іноземних мов. --Вінниця. НОВА КНИГА, 2009.-- 232 с.

4. Теоретическая фонетика английского языка: Учебник для студ. ин-тов и

иностр. яз./М. А. Соколова, К. П. Гiнтовт, И. С. Тихонова, Р. М. Тихонова. -- Гуманит. изд. центр ВЛАДОС, 1996. -- С. 247--256.

______________________________________________________________________________

3. Adjective, it's types and categories

The standard role of adjectives in language. The definition to term "adjective", the role of adjectives in our speech, adjectives from grammatical point of view. The problems in English adjectives, the role and their grammatical characteristics.

Contents

Introduction

1. Definition of the term adjectives

2. How do adjectives make speech more expressive?

3. Grammatical overview of english adjectives

4. Degrees of comparison of adjectives

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

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The theme of my course paper sounds as following: «Adjective, its types and categories». Before beginning of investigation in our theme, I would like to say some words dealt with the theme of my course paper.

Without referring to the traditional definition of adjectives you can find in any dictionary, Let's make our way into talking about the standard role of adjectives in language. In English the adjective is multifunctional. It is used essentially to describe an object but, in general, it is meant to enrich and clarify ideas and lead the interlocutors to communicate eloquently.


1. The first task of my work is to give definition to term «adjective».

2. The second task is to describe the role of adjectives in our speech.

3. The last task of my work is to characterize adjectives from grammatical point of view.

In our opinion the practical significance of our work is hard to be overvalued. This work reflects modern trends in linguistics and we hope it would serve as a good manual for those who wants to master modern English language. Also this work can be used by teachers of English language for teaching English grammar.


1. In High Schools and scientific circles of linguistic kind it can be successfully used by teachers and philologists as modern material for writing research works dealing with English adjectives.



After having proved the actuality of our work, I would like to describe the composition of it:

My work consists of four parts: introduction, the main part, conclusion and bibliography. Within the introduction part we gave the brief description of our course paper. The main part of the work includes several items. There we discussed such problems as main features of English adjectives, described their role in English language, and gave grammatical characteristics of them. In the conclusion to our work we tried to draw some results from the scientific investigations made within the present course paper. In bibliography part we mentioned some sources which were used while compiling the present work. It includes linguistic books and articles dealing with the theme, a number of used dictionaries and encyclopedias and also some internet sources.

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1. Definition of the Term Adjectives

An adjective is a word which acts to modify a noun in a sentence. While adjectives play a large role in many languages - such as English - many other languages have no adjectives at all. In English the set of adjectives is fairly well understood, though some people include other parts of speech - such as articles like the - in the class of adjectives.

There are two main roles an adjective may take in a sentence, and with a few exceptions each adjective is able to take either role just as easily. The first role is to act as a predicative adjective, in which the adjective modifies a preceding noun as a predicate, linked by a verb. An example of a predicative adjective can be found in the sentence: A zebra is striped. in which the adjective striped is linked the subject of the sentence, zebra, by use of the copula verb to be in the is form.

The second role an adjective may take is as an attributive adjective, in which it modifies a noun by being linked directly to the noun as part of the noun phrase. An example of an attributive adjective may be seen in the sentence: `The striped zebra pranced.' in which the adjective striped is directly connected to the subject of the sentence, zebra. In English, most attributive adjectives precede the noun they are going to modify, while in many Romance languages the adjective comes after the noun. So while in English we might say `The beautiful woman.' in French we would say `Le femme jolie.' which may be literally translated as `The woman beautiful.'

While most adjectives in English are able to be used just as easily either in an attributive or a predicative sense, there are some which are restricted to one role or the other. For example, the adjective sole can be used grammatically only as an attributive adjective, as can be seen in the sentence: This is the sole survivor. On the other hand, trying to use the adjective sole in the predicative role would result in the ungrammatical sentence: This survivor is sole. Other English adjectives, such as alone, may be used only as a predicative adjective, while attempts to use them attributively result in ungrammatical sentences.

Adjectives may be modified by adverbs or adverbial clauses, but not by other adjectives. Many adjectives, however, can easily translate into corresponding adverbs simply by adding the ending to them. This can be seen in pairs such as quick/quickly and happy/happily.

In English and many other languages, adjectives also have a correct and incorrect order, depending on the type of adjectives used. Most native speakers learn this order instinctively, and related mistakes are one of the most obvious signs of a non-native speaker. For example, using the adjectives red, little, and two with the noun books, most native English speakers would intuitively order the adjectives to form the sentence `The two little red books.' To non-native speakers, however, it might seem just as intuitive to say `The two red little books.' or even `The red two little books.' both of which are immediately obvious as incorrect to a native English speaker.

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As mentioned earlier, not all languages use adjectives; some use other parts of speech instead to fill this role. Many Native American languages, for example, use verbs to fill the role that adjectives play in English, so that rather than `The woman is short.' we are faced with something like `The woman is shorting.' Languages that use nouns as adjectives are often more comprehensible to speakers of English, since our sentence formations can easily allow for metaphoric description using only nouns, with a verb perhaps to flavor it, such as `The sun was a blazing inferno.' instead of `The sun was hot.' English also uses abstract nouns, for example to turn Àn important statement.' into À statement of import.'

2. How Do Adjectives Make Speech More Expressive?

A message void of adjectives is the least expressive one. Therefore adjectives are somehow the backbone of any expression we want to make accurate and clear in encoding the message. Adjectives help us respect real and straight communication rules. So, do you «adjective» your messages so well that people can understand you well?The material is taken from: http://madrasati2010.bravehost.com/adj.htm

Without the use of adjectives, actually, we lose a lot; and we may be short in expressing our emotions, opinions, and the impressions we have about a given subject. We are going to see to what extent the use of adjectives (esp. adjectives of quality) is helpful in our interactive contact with the others?! See this example: Yesterday, I bought a car.

This sentence seems stiff and dull. It may make you respond to it indifferently because the speaker is giving a vague idea about the car he had bought. His sentence doesn't really carry a complete well-spoken idea. What the speaker needs to make his sentence expressive, attractive and provoking, is by relying on adjectives to colour it and present it in a beautiful structure. Now compare the first sentence with the following: Yesterday, I bought a red car.

The image is getting a little clearer with the adjective «red». Now we know something new about the car. It is not yellow or black, it is rather red. However, actually, it is not yet fully clear enough for us to form a complete image about the car so as to estimate or underestimate it. Therefore, one sentence can bear as many adjectives as you like, provided that they don't raise misunderstanding or confuse the listener. Yet, the speaker should normally respect the appropriate organization of adjectives in a sentence.

Is this order of adjectives in sentence compulsory? Is it based on rules? Let's tackle and illustrate this issue through investigating the impact of the use of adjectives on our «stiff» sentence. What is the most appropriate word-order we should respect to reach a complete multi-adjectival statement? Suppose the speaker wants to tell us about the size of the car; and he chooses to depict his car as «small». Where shall he place the new word in the sentence? Before or after the previous adjective, namely: «red»? Look at it this way: Yesterday, I bought a small red car.

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The sentence in its new structure gives more information about the car. We, lucky as we are, have the opportunity to know that the car in question is not a big one. Thanks to this adjective we become able to make our image of the car a little bit clearer though some more details are still in need. These details cannot be provided, so to speak, unless other adjectives come to complete the image in our minds. The structural issue, on the other hand, is to justify the placement of the adjective «small» before the adjective «red». Why couldn't we say instead: [Yesterday, I bought a red small car]? This form is inaccurate. The word ordering, in a sentence, is not moody at all. The accuracy of the sentence here is controlled by the respect of this order, notably: «shape = small» then «colour = red» but not vice versa. Now suppose the speaker intends to praise his car and decides that the adjective 'beautiful' is the most suitable to give his opinion about it, what shall he do? Where shall he place it among the previously stated adjectives? Look at how the sentence should be structured: Yesterday, I bought a beautiful, small, red car.

All these details are boring but unavoidable to make the structure more formal and accurate. The 'beautiful' adjective, on the other hand, is quite interesting in the making of the image. It is not a piece of evidence but it is simply an opinion that could differ from any one else's. The rule says that the opinion is always initial when a range of adjectives are used that's why the speaker places his 'beautiful' opinion adjective first. The adjective describes it as beautiful and this opinion is essentially contributing in depicting an almost complete picture. And that's not all. Our sentence is able to bear as more adjectives as we wish but under the very specific conditions we are trying to clarify here. Now let's go on imagining this famous car as being made in Japan. How can the speaker introduce this new important information?

Yesterday, I bought a beautiful, small, red, Japanese car.

The beautiful small car is made in Japan, which we didn't know before the use of the adjective «Japanese». It improves the picture of the car in our minds and also in the way we conceive the object. The car hasn't got an American or European origin. It is simply Japanese. The newly introduced adjective has to be placed at the end of the list of adjectives already stated. However, it is not the last in the order. Another adjective, notably the one which gives us information about the material with which the car was constructed, is the last ring of the chain. That's amazing, isn't it? Let's go on with it and see the way we are placing the new adjective, Yesterday, I bought a beautiful, small, red, Japanese, plastic car.

We've finally reached a quite complete image of this famous car. In English it is not, normally, allowed to go beyond these five adjectives in a sentence. Their variety is supposed to be enough to make any described object lavishly clear. Therefore, any more adjectives of quality in one single sentence generally lead to ambiguity or distortion of the image. That's greatly enough like this. The construction of a syntactically correct structure of a sentence, in which the adjectives are the basis of transmitting a complete clear message, implies the use of the specific number of adjectives; each of which has to refer you to a piece of information complete in itself but a brick completing the others. It means that no adjectives of the same category should be used more than once. Once these

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rules are respected, not only will adjectives make your sentences correct and clear, but they also will decorate them and make them look formal and adept. With this order in mind, you can make as many sentences as you wish. You will successfully express yourself formally if you follow the correct order of the adjectives in the sentence. This classification system is not negotiable, however. You cannot break it unless you speak or write to someone who doesn't know exactly what a FORMAL sentence looks like.

Examples:

*/ There is a lovely, large, multicolour, Moroccan, woollen carpet in my room.

*/ She was wearing an attractive, long, auburn, Indian, silky dress.

As you can see in these sentences, as well as in the former ones, each pair of adjectives is separated by a comma (,). When there are more than one adjective before the noun in a sentence, we usually use commas except for adjectives of colour which we separate by «and» instead. e.g.:

A black and white Djellaba

A blue, white and red flag.

Adjectives are used to carry the specific meaning we intend to convey in many different ways. I mean that the same adjective can have more than one meaning depending on the context. It is not the same in all situations. The adjectives of quality have the ability as to «metamorphose» in their implications once their context has been changed. I mean that they can go from the proper meaning to the figurative one and the same adjective can mean two different things in two different contexts. For example the adjective «pretty» means «attractive» but in another context, it means «fine or good». The adjective «rich», also, has got this quality. It can be used for more than one meaning. Here is a usual example:

1. That's a rich man. (He is wealthy; he's got a lot of money).

2. That's a rich book. (There are a lot of interesting ideas and insights in it).

Sometimes the adjectives turn to be rigid and one adjective is used only for specific purpose and cannot be used for others though they share the same quality. Look at this example:

-/ My uncle is the tall man in the middle.

A man is «tall»; but what about a building or a mountain? Can we attribute the adjective «tall» to them, too? No, another adjective is quite more suitable because it is more expressive and accurate in this situation, it is «high»:

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-/ A high building / mountain.

3. Grammatical overview of English Adjectives

There is not much to be said about the English adjective from the grammatical point of view. As is well know, it has neither number, nor case, nor gender distinctions. Some adjectives have, however, degrees of соmparisоn, which make part of the morphological system of a language. Thus, the English adjective differs materially not only from such highly inflected languages as Russian. Latin, and German, where the adjectives have a rather complicated sуstem оf fоrms, but even fгоm Modern French, which h as preserved number and gender distinсtiоns to the present day (сf. masculine singular grand, masculine plural grands, feminine singular grande, feminine plural grandes 'large').

By what signs do we then, recognize an adjective as such in Modern Eng1ish? In most cases this сan be dоne оn1у bу taking into account semantic and sуntасtiсal phenomena. But in some cases, that is for certain adjeсtives, derivative suffixes are significant, too. Among these are the suffix - less (as in useless), the suffix - like (as in ghostlike), and a few others. Occasionally, however, though a suffix often appears in adjectives, it cannot be taken as a certain proof of the word being an adjective, because the suffix may also make part of a word belonging to another part of speech. Thus, the suffix - full would seem to be typically adjectival, as is its antonym - less. In faсt we find the suffix - full in adjectives often enough, as in beautiful, useful, purposeful, meaningful, etc. But alongside of these we also find spoonful. mouthful, handfu1, etc., which are nouns.

Оn the whole, the numbeг оf adjectives which сan be recognized, as such by their suffix seems to be insignificant as compared with the mass of English adjectives. B. Ilyish, The Structure of Modern English, p.58 All the adjectives are traditionally divided into two large subclasses: qualitative and relative.

Relative adjectives express such properties of a substance as are determined by the direct relation of the substance to some other substance.

E.g.: wood - a wooden hut; mathematics - mathematical precision; history - a historical event;

table - tabular presentation; colors - colored postcards;

surgery - surgical treatment; the Middle Ages - mediaeval rites.

The nature of this «relationship» in adjectives is best revealed by definitional correlations. Cf.: a wooden hut - a hut made of wood; a historical event - an event referring to a certain period of history; surgical treatment - treatment consisting in the implementation of surgery; etc.

Qualitative adjectives, as different from relative ones, denote various qualities of substances which admit of a quantitative estimation, i.e. of establishing their correlative

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quantitative measure. The measure of a quality can be estimated as high or low, adequate or inadequate, sufficient or insufficient, optimal or excessive. Cf.: an awkward situation - a very awkward situation; a difficult task - too difficult a task; an enthusiastic reception - rather an enthusiastic reception; a hearty welcome - not a very hearty welcome; etc.

In this connection, the ability of an adjective to form degrees of comparison is usually taken as a formal sign of its qualitative character, in opposition to a relative adjective which is understood as incapable of forming degrees of comparison by definition. Cf.: a pretty girl - a prettier girl; a quick look - a quicker look; a hearty welcome - the heartiest of welcomes; a bombastic speech - the most bombastic speech.

However, in actual speech the described principle of distinction is not at all strictly observed, which is noted in the very grammar treatises putting it forward. Two typical cases of contradiction should be pointed out here.

In the first place, substances can possess such qualities as are incompatible with the idea of degrees of comparison. Accordingly, adjectives denoting these qualities, while belonging to the qualitative subclass, are in the ordinary use incapable of forming degrees of comparison. Here refer adjectives like extinct, immobile, deaf, final, fixed, etc.

In the second place, many adjectives considered under the heading of relative still can form degrees of comparison, thereby, as it were, transforming the denoted relative property of a substance into such as can be graded quantitatively. Cf.: a mediaeval approach-rather a mediaeval approach - a far more mediaeval approach; of a military design - of a less military design - of a more military design;

a grammatical topic ~ a purely grammatical topic - the most grammatical of the suggested topics.

In order to overcome the demonstrated lack of rigour in the definitions in question, we may introduce an additional linguistic distinction which is more adaptable to the chances of usage. The suggested distinction is based on the evaluative function of adjectives. According as they actually give some qualitative evaluation to the substance referent or only point out its corresponding native property, all the adjective functions may be grammatically divided into «evaluative» and «specificative». In particular, one and the same adjective, irrespective of its being basically (i.e. in the sense of the fundamental semantic property of its root constituent) «relative» or «qualitative», can be used either in the evaluative function or in the specificative function.

For instance, the adjective good is basically qualitative. On the other hand, when employed as a grading term in teaching, i.e. a term forming part of the marking scale together with the grading terms bad, satisfactory, excellent, it acquires the said specificative value; in other words, it becomes a specificative, not an evaluative unit in the grammatical sense (though, dialectically, it does signify in this case a lexical evaluation of the pupil's progress). Conversely, the adjective wooden is basically relative, but when used in the broader meaning «expressionless» or «awkward» it acquires an

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evaluative force and, consequently, can presuppose a greater or lesser degree («amount») of the denoted properly in the corresponding referent. E.g.:

Bundle found herself looking into the expressionless, wooden face of Superintendent Battle (A. Christie). The superintendent was sitting behind a table and looking more wooden than ever.

The degrees of comparison are essentially evaluative formulas, therefore any adjective used in a higher comparison degree (comparative, superlative) is thereby made into an evaluative adjective, if only for the nonce (see the examples above).

Thus, the introduced distinction between the evaluative and specificative uses of adjectives, in the long run, emphasizes the fact that the morphological category of comparison (comparison degrees) is potentially represented in the whole class of adjectives and is constitutive for it.

Among the words signifying properties of a neural referent there is a lexemic set which claims to be recognized as a separate part of speech, i.e. as a class of words different from the adjectives in its class-forming features. These are words built up by the prefix a - and denoting different states, mostly of temporary duration. Here belong lexemes like afraid, agog, adrift, ablaze. In traditional grammar these words were generally considered under the heading of «predicative adjectives» (some of them also under the heading of adverbs), since their most typical position in the sentence is that of a predicative and they are but occasionally used as pre-positional attributes to nouns.

The only morphological problem concerning adjectives is, then, that of degrees of comparison. The first question which arises here is, how many degrees of comparison has the English adjective (and, for that matter, the adjective in other languages, such as Russian. Latin, or German)? If we take, for example, the three fоrms of an English adjective: large, larger, (the) largest, shall we say that they are all three of them, degrees of comparison? In that case we ought to term them positive, comparative, and superlative. Or shall we sау that only the latter two are degrees of comparison (comparative, and superlative), whereas the first (large) does not express any idea of comparison and is therefore not a degree of comparison at all? Both views have found their advocates in grammatical theоry. Now, if we define a degree оf соmparisоn as а form expressing соmparisоn of one object or objects with another in respect of a certain property, it would seem that the first of the three forms (large) shоuld not be inс1uded, as it does nоt express any соmparisоn. Then we should have only twо degrees of comparisоn larger, (the) largest, and a form standing apart, coinciding with the stem from which the degrees of comparison are formed, and which may be described as the basic form. B. Ilyish, The Structure of Modern English, p.59

4. Degrees of Comparison of Adjectives

The category is constituted by the opposition of the three forms known under the heading of degrees of comparison: the basic form (positive degree), having no features of

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comparison; the comparative degree form, having the feature of restricted superiority (which limits the comparison to two elements only); the superlative degree form, having the feature of unrestricted superiority.

It should be noted that the meaning of unrestricted superiority is in-built in the superlative degree as such, though in practice this form is used in collocations imposing certain restrictions on the effected comparison; thus, the form in question may be used to signify restricted superiority, namely, in cases where a limited number of referents are compared. Cf.: Johnny was the strongest boy in the company.

As is evident from the example, superiority restriction is shown here not by the native meaning of the superlative, but by the particular contextual construction of comparison where the physical strength of one boy is estimated in relation to that of his companions.

Some linguists approach the number of the degrees of comparison as problematic on the grounds that the basic form of the adjective does not express any comparison by itself and therefore should be excluded from the category. This exclusion would reduce the category to two members only, i.e. the comparative and superlative degrees.

However, the oppositional interpretation of grammatical categories underlying our considerations does not admit of such an exclusion; on the contrary, the non-expression of superiority by the basic form is understood in the oppositional presentation of comparison as a pre-requisite for the expression of the category as such. In this expression of the category the basic form is the unmarked member, not distinguished by any comparison suffix or comparison auxiliary, while the superiority forms (i.e. the comparative and superlative) are the marked members, distinguished by the comparison suffixes or comparison auxiliaries.

That the basic form as the positive degree of comparison does express this categorical idea, being included in one and the same allegorical series with the superiority degrees, is clearly shown by its actual uses in comparative syntactic constructions of equality, as well as comparative syntactic constructions of negated equality. Cf.: The remark was as bitter as could be. The Rockies are not so high as the Caucasus.

These constructions are directly correlative with comparative constructions of inequality built around the comparative and superlative degree forms. Cf.: That was the bitterest remark I have ever heard from the man. The Caucasus is higher than the Rockies.

Thus, both formally and semantically, the oppositional basis of the category of comparison displays a binary nature. In terms of the three degrees of comparison, on the upper level of presentation the superiority degrees as the marked member of the opposition are contrasted against the positive degree as its unmarked member. The superiority degrees, in their turn, form the opposition of the lower level of presentation, where the comparative degree features the functionally weak member, and the superlative degree, respectively, the strong member. The whole of the double oppositional unity, considered from the semantic angle, constitutes a gradual ternary opposition.

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The synthetical forms of comparison in - er and - (e) st coexist with the analytical forms of comparison effected by the auxiliaries more and most. The analytical forms of comparison perform a double function. On the one hand, they are used with the evaluative adjectives that, due to their phonemic structure (two-syllable words with the stress on the first syllable ending in other grapho-phonemic complexes than - er, - y, - le, - ow or words of more than two-syllable composition) cannot normally take the synthetical forms of comparison. In this respect, the analytical comparison forms are in categorial complementary distribution with the synthetical comparison forms. On the other hand, the analytical forms of comparison, as different from the synthetical forms, are used to express emphasis, thus complementing the synthetical forms in the sphere of this important stylistic connotation. Cf.: The audience became more and more noisy, and soon the speaker's words were drowned in the general hum of voices.

The structure of the analytical degrees of comparison is meaningfully overt; these forms are devoid of the feature of «semantic idiomatism» characteristic of some other categorial analytical forms, such as, for instance, the forms of the verbal perfect. For this reason the analytical degrees of comparison invite some linguists to call in question their claim to a categorial status in English grammar.

In particular, scholars point out the following two factors in support of the view that the combinations of more/most with the basic form of the adjective are not the analytical expressions of the morphological category of comparison, but free syntactic constructions: first, the more/most-combinations are semantically analogous to combinations of less/least with the adjective which, in the general opinion, are syntactic combinations of notional words; second, the most-combination, unlike the synthetic superlative, can take the indefinite article, expressing not the superlative, but the elative meaning (i.e. a high, not the highest degree of the respective quality).

The reasons advanced, though claiming to be based on an analysis of actual lingual data, can hardly be called convincing as regards their immediate negative purpose.

Let us first consider the use of the most-compilation with the indefinite article.

This combination is a common means of expressing elative evaluations of substance properties. The function of the elative most-construction in distinction to the function of the superlative most-'construction will be seen from the following examples:

The speaker launched a most significant personal attack on the Prime Minister. The most significant of the arguments in a dispute is not necessarily the most spectacular one.

While the phrase «a most significant (personal) attack» in the first of the two examples gives the idea of rather a high degree of the quality expressed irrespective of any directly introduced or implied comparison with other attacks on the Prime Minister, the phrase «the most significant of the arguments» expresses exactly the superlative degree of the quality in relation to the immediately introduced comparison with all the rest of the arguments in a dispute; the same holds true of the phrase «the most spectacular one». It is

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this exclusion of the outwardly superlative adjective from a comparison that makes it into a simple elative, with its most-constituent turned from the superlative auxiliary into a kind of a lexical intensifier.

The definite article with the elative most-construction is also possible, if leaving the elative function less distinctly recognizable (in oral speech the elative most is commonly left unstressed, the absence of stress serving as a negative mark of the elative).

Cf.: I found myself in the most awkward situation, for I couldn't give a satisfactory answer to any question asked by the visitors.

Now, the synthetically superlative degree, as is known, can be used in the elative function as well, the distinguishing feature of the latter being its exclusion from a comparison.

Cf.: Unfortunately, our cooperation with Danny proved the worst experience for both of us. No doubt Mr. Snider will show you his collection of minerals with the greatest pleasure.

And this fact gives us a clue for understanding the expressive nature of the elative superlative as such - the nature that provides it with a permanent grammatico-stylistic status in the language. Indeed, the expressive peculiarity of the form consists exactly in the immediate combination of the two features which outwardly contradict each other: The categorial form of the superlative on the one hand, and the absence of a comparison on the other.

That the categorical form of the superlative (i.e. the superlative with its general functional specification) is essential also for the expression of the elative semantics can, however paradoxical it might appear, be very well illustrated by the elative use of the comparative degree. Indeed, the comparative combination featuring the dative comparative degree is constructed in such a way as to place it in the functional position of unrestricted superiority, i.e. in the position specifically characteristic of the superlative.

E.g.: Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to greet you as our guest of honors. There is nothing more refreshing than a good swim.

The parallelism of functions between the two forms of comparison (the comparative degree and the superlative degree) in such and like examples is unquestionable.

As we see, the elative superlative, though it is not the regular superlative in the grammatical sense, is still a kind of a specific, grammatically featured construction. This grammatical specification distinguishes it from common elative constructions which may be generally defined as syntactic combinations of an intensely high estimation.

E.g.: an extremely important amendment; a matter of exceeding urgency; quite an unparalleled beauty; etc.

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Thus, from a grammatical point of view, the elative superlative, though semantically it is «elevated», is nothing else but a degraded superlative, and its distinct featuring mark with the analytical superlative degree is the indefinite article: the two forms of the superlative of different functional purposes receive the two different marks (if not quite rigorously separated in actual uses) by the article determination treatment.

It follows from the above that the possibility of the most-combination to be used with the indefinite article cannot in any way be demonstrative of its non-grammatical character, since the functions of the two superlative combinations in question, the elative superlative and the genuine superlative, are different.

Moreover, the use of the indefinite article with the synthetical superlative in the degraded, dative function is not altogether impossible, though somehow such a possibility is bluntly denied by certain grammatical manuals.

Cf.: He made a last lame effort to delay the experiment; but Basil was impervious to suggestion.

But there is one more possibility to formally differentiate the direct and dative functions of the synthetical superlative, namely, by using the zero article with the superlative. This latter possibility is noted in some grammar books. Cf.: Suddenly I was seized with a sensation of deepest regret.

However, the general tendency of expressing the superlative dative meaning is by using the analytical form. Incidentally, in the Russian language the tendency of usage is reverse: it is the synthetical form of the Russian superlative that is preferred in rendering the dative function. Cf.: слушали с живейшим интересом; повторялась скучнейшая история; попал в глупейшее положение и т.д.

Let us examine now the combinations of less/least with the basic form of the adjective.

As is well known, the general view of these combinations definitely excludes them from any connection with categorial analytical forms. Strangely enough, this rejectionist view of the «negative degrees of comparison» is even taken to support, not to reject the morphological interpretation of the more/most-combinations.

The corresponding argument in favour of the rejectionist interpretation consists in pointing out the functional parallelism existing between the synthetical degrees of comparison and the more/most-combinations accompanied by their complementary distribution, if not rigorously pronounced (the different choice of the forms by different syllabo-phonetical forms of adjectives). The less/least-combinations, according to this view, are absolutely incompatible with the synthetical degrees of comparison, since they express not only different, but opposite meanings.

Now, it does not require a profound analysis to see that, from the grammatical point of view, the formula «opposite meaning» amounts to ascertaining the categorial equality of

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the forms compared. Indeed, if two forms express the opposite meanings, then they can only belong to units of the same general order. And we cannot but agree with B.A. Ilyish's thesis that «there seems to be no sufficient reason for treating the two sets of phrases in different ways, saying that 'more difficult' is an analytical form, while 'less difficult' is not». True, the cited author takes this fact rather as demonstration that both types of constructions should equally be excluded from the domain of analytical forms, but the problem of the categorial status of the more/most-combinations has been analyzed above.

Thus, the less/least-combinations, similar to the more/most-combinations, constitute specific forms of comparison, which may be called forms of «reverse comparison». The two types of forms cannot be syntagmatically combined in one and the same form of the word, which shows the unity of the category of comparison. The whole category includes not three, but five different forms, making up the two series - respectively, direct and reverse. Of these, the reverse series of comparison (the reverse superiority degrees) is of far lesser importance than the direct one, which evidently can be explained by semantic reasons. As a matter of fact, it is more natural to follow the direct model of comparison based on the principle of addition of qualitative quantities than on the reverse model of comparison based on the principle of subtraction of qualitative quantities, since subtraction in general is a far more abstract process of mental activity than addition. And, probably, exactly for the same reason the reverse comparatives and superlatives are rivaled in speech by the corresponding negative syntactic constructions.

Having considered the characteristics of the category of comparison, we can see more clearly the relation to this category of some usually non-comparable evaluative adjectives.

Outside the immediate comparative grammatical change of the adjective stand such evaluative adjectives as contain certain comparative Semitic elements in their semantic structures. In particular, as we have mentioned above, here belong adjectives that are themselves grading marks of evaluation. Another group of evaluative non-comparables is formed by adjectives of indefinitely moderated quality, or, tentatively, «moderating qualifiers», such as whitish, tepid, half-ironical, semi-detached, etc. But the most peculiar lexemic group of non-comparables is made up by adjectives expressing the highest degree of a respective quality, which words can tentatively be called «adjectives of extreme quality», or «extreme qualifiers», or simply «extremals».

The inherent superlative semantics of extremals is emphasized by the definite article normally introducing their neural combinations, exactly similar to the definite article used with regular collocations of the superlative degree. Cf.: The ultimate outcome of the talks was encouraging. The final decision has not yet been made public.

On the other hand, due to the tendency of colloquial speech to contrastive variation, such extreme qualifiers can sometimes be modified by intensifying elements. Thus, «the final decision» becomes «a very final decision»; «the ultimate rejection» turns into «rather an ultimate rejection»; «the crucial role» is made into «quite a crucial role», etc.

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As a result of this kind of modification, the highest grade evaluative force of these words is not strengthened, but, on the contrary, weakened; the outwardly extreme qualifiers become degraded extreme qualifiers, even in this status similar to the regular categorial superlatives degraded in their relative use.

Conclusion

In the conclusion of my work, I would like to say some words according the done investigation.


· «Definition of the Term Adjectives», as it is seen from the title in this part I gave the definition to the term adjective.

· «How Do Adjectives Make Speech More Expressive?» in this paragraph I described the role of adjectives in English language

· Grammatical overview of English Adjectives. This part contains description of adjectives from the grammatical point of view, and classification of adjectives from the same point.

· In the last paragraph «Degrees of Comparison of Adjectives» I described the only grammatical category of English adjectives.

Standing on such ground I will add that investigation in the questions dealt with English adjectives is not finished yet, so we will continue it while writing our qualification work.


Bibliography


2. V.N. Zhigadlo, I.P. Ivanova, L.L. Iofik» Modern English language» (Theoretical course grammar) Moscow, 1956 y.





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13. Internet:http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/adjectives/theory.htm

14. Inbternet:http://www.englishlanguage.ru/main/definitearticle.htm

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4. The category of Mood

Mood as the grammatical category of the verb, problems as the number of moods, their classification. The analysis of the grammatical categories of the indicative mood system. The difference between the lexical and the grammatical expression of time.

Contents

Introduction

1. The Category of Mood

2. The Indicative Mood

3. The Subjunctive Mood

4. The Imperative Mood

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

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The theme of my course paper sounds as following: «Category of Mood». Before beginning of investigation in our theme, I would like to say some words dealt with the theme of my course paper.

Mood is the grammatical category of the verb reflecting the relation of the action denoted by the verb to reality from the speaker's point of view. In the sentences He listens attentively; Listen attentively; You would have listened attentively if you had been interested, we deal with the same action of listening, but in the first sentence the speaker presents the action as taking place in reality, whereas in the second sentence the speaker urges the listener to perform the action, and in the third sentence the speaker presents the action as imaginary. These different relations of the action to reality are expressed by different mood-forms of the verb: listens, listen, would have listened.


1. The first task of my work is to give definition to term «mood».

2. The second task is to give the classification of moods in English.

3. The last task of my work is to characterize each mood from grammatical point of view.

In our opinion the practical significance of our work is hard to be overvalued. This work reflects modern trends in linguistics and we hope it would serve as a good manual for those who wants to master modern English language. Also this work can be used by teachers of English language for teaching English grammar.


1. In High Schools and scientific circles of linguistic kind it can be successfully used by teachers and philologists as modern material for writing research works dealing with English verbs.



After having proved the actuality of our work, I would like to describe the composition of it:

My work consists of four parts: introduction, the main part, conclusion and bibliography. Within the introduction part we gave the brief description of our course paper. The main part of the work includes several items. There we discussed such problems as the number of moods in English, their classification, and etc. In the conclusion to our work we tried to draw some results from the scientific investigations made within the present course paper. In bibliography part we mentioned some sources which were used while compiling

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the present work. It includes linguistic books and articles dealing with the theme, a number of used dictionaries and encyclopedias and also some internet sources.

1. The Category of Mood

Mood is the grammatical category of the verb reflecting the relation of the action denoted by the verb to reality from the speaker's point of view.

In the sentences He listens attentively; Listen attentively; You would have listened attentively if you had been interested, we deal with the same action of listening, but in the first sentence the speaker presents the action as taking place in reality, whereas in the second sentence the speaker urges the listener to perform the action,; and in the third sentence the speaker presents the action as imaginary.

These different relations of the action to reality are expressed by different mood-forms of the verb: listens, listen, would have listened.

There is no unity of opinion concerning the category of mood in English. Thus A.I. Smirnitsky, O.S. Akhmanova, M. Ganshina and N. Vasilevskaya find six moods in Modern English ('indicative', 'imperative', 'subjunctive I', 'subjunctive IF, 'conditional' and 'suppositional'), B.A. Ilyish, L.P. Vinokurova, V.N. Zhigadlo, I.P. Iva-nova, L.L. Iofik find only three moods - 'indicative', 'imperative' and 'subjunctive'. The latter, according to B.A. Ilyish appears in two forms - the conditional and the subjunctive. L.S. Barkhudarov and D.A. Shteling distinguish only the 'indicative' and the 'subjunctive' mood. The latter is subdivided into 'subjunctive I' and 'subjunctive IF. The 'imperative' and the 'conjunctive' are treated as forms outside the category of mood.

G.N. Vorontsova distinguishes four moods in English: 1) 'indicative', 2) 'optative', represented in three varieties ('imperative', 'desiderative', 'subjunctive'), 3) 'speculative', found in two varieties ('dubitative' and 'irrealis') and 4) 'presumptive'.

In general the number of English moods in different theories varies from two to seventeen.

In this work the indicative, imperative and subjunctive moods are considered.

The difficulty of distinguishing other moods from the indicative in English is connected with the fact that, barring be, they do not contain a single form which is not used in the indicative mood. At the same time the indicative mood contains many forms not used in other moods. The subjunctive mood is richer in forms than the imperative mood.

So the meaning of the three moods are distinguished in the language structure not so much by the opposition of individual forms (as is the case in the opposemes of other categories), as by the opposition of the systems of forms each mood possesses. By way of illustration let us compare the synthetic forms of the lexeme have in the three moods.

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Indicative Subjunctive Imperativehave, has, had have, had have

This is why it is difficult to represent the category of mood in opposemes, like other categories.

In speech, the meanings of the three moods are distinguished not so much by the forms of the verbs, as by their distribution.

Cf. When I need a thing, I go and buy it. We insist that he go and buy it. Go and buy it.

One of the most important differences between the indicative and the other moods is that the meaning of 'tense' does not go with the meanings of subjunctive mood and imperative mood. 'Tense' reflects the real time of a real action. The imperative and subjunctive moods represent the action not as real, but as desired or imagined, and the notions of real time are discarded 1.

The meaning of 'perfect order' does not go with the meaning of imperative mood because one cannot require of anyone to fulfill an action preceding the request. But it is easy to imagine a preceding action. Therefore the system of the subjunctive mood includes opposites of order.

Aspect and voice opossums are characteristic of the systems of all moods, but the 'passive' and 'continuous' members of the opossums are very rarely used in the imperative mood. There are person opossums (though not systematically used) of only one type in the subjunctive mood system (should go - would go) and none in the imperative mood. The number oppose me was - were is sometimes realized in the subjunctive mood (colloquial). Opposites of the category of posteriority (shall go - should go; will go - would go) are typical only of the indicative mood.

2. The Indicative Mood

The indicative mood is the basic mood of the verb. Morphologically it is the most developed system including all the categories of the verb.

Semantically it is a fact mood. It serves to present an action as a fact of reality. It is the «most objective» or the «least subjective» of all the moods. It conveys minimum personal attitude to the fact. This becomes particularly manifest in such sentences as Water consists of oxygen and hydrogen where consists denotes an actual fact, and the speaker's attitude is neutral.

We shall now proceed to the analysis of the grammatical categories of the indicative mood system.

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The category of tense is a system of three-member opposemes such as writes - wrote - will write, is writing - was writing - will be writing showing the relation of the time of the action denoted by the verb to the moment of speech.

The time of an action or event can be expressed lexically with the help of such words and combinations of words as yesterday, next week, now, a year ago, at half past seven, on the fifth of March, in 1957, etc. It can also be shown grammatically by means of the category of tense.

The difference between the lexical and the grammatical expression of time is somewhat similar to the difference between the lexical and the grammatical expression of number.

a) Lexically it is possible to name any definite moment or period of time: a century, a year, a day, a minute. The grammatical meaning of 'tense' is an abstraction from» only three particular tenses: the 'present', the 'past' and the I future*.

b) Lexically a period of time is named directly (e. g. on Sunday). The grammatical indication of time is indirect: it is not time that a verb like asked names, but an action that took place before the moment of speech.

c) As usual, the grammatical meaning of 'tense' is relative. Writes denotes a 'present' action because it is contrasted with wrote denoting a 'past' action and with will write naming a 'future' action. Writing does not indicate the time of the action because it has not tense opposites. Can has only a 'past tense' opposite, so it cannot refer to the past, but it may refer to the present and future (can do it yesterday is impossible, but can do it today, tomorrow is normal).

N o t e. By analogy with can, must has acquired the oblique meaning of 'present-future' tense, but sometimes it refers to the past.

It is usual to express the notions of time graphically by means of notions of space. Let us then imagine the limitless stretch of time - a very long railway along which we are moving in a train.

Let us further suppose that the train is now at station C. This is, so to say, the present. Stations A, B and all other stations passed by the train are the past, and stations D, E and all other stations the train is going to reach are in the future.

It would seem that the present is very insignificant, a mere point in comparison with the limitless past and future. But this point is of tremendous importance to the people in the train, because they are always in the present. When the train reaches station D, it ceases to be the future and becomes the present, while station C joins the past.

In reality, and accordingly in speech, the relation between the present, the past and the future is much more complicated. The present is reflected in speech not only as a mere point, the moment of speaking or thinking, but as a more or less long period of time

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including this moment. Compare, for instance, the meanings of the word now in the following sentences:

1. A minute ago he was crying, and n o w he is laughing.

2. A century ago people did not even dream of the radio, and now we cannot imagine our life without it.

The period of time covered by the second now is much longer, without, definite limits, but it includes the moment of speaking.

In the sentence The Earth rotates round the Sun we also deal with the present. But the present in this case not only includes the present moment, but it covers an immense period of time stretching: in both directions from the present moment.

Thus the 'present' is a variable period of time including the present moment or the moment of speech.

The 'past' is the time preceding the present moment, and the 'future' is the time following the present moment. Neither of them includes the present moment.

The correlation of time and tense is connected with the problem of the absolute and relative use of tense grammemes.

We say that some tense is absolute if it shows the time of the action in relation to the present moment (the moment of speech).

This is the case in the Russian sentences:

Он работает на заводе.

Он работал на заводе.

Он будет работать на заводе.

The same in English:

He works at a factory.

He worked at a factory.

He will work at a factory.

But very often tense reflects the time of an action not with regard to the moment of speech but to some other moment in the past or in the future, indicated by the tense of another verb.

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E.g.

он работает на заводе

Он сказал, что он работал на заводе

он будет работать на заводе

он работает на заводе

Он скажет, что он работал на заводе

он будет работать на заводе

Here the tenses of the principal clauses сказал and скажет are used absolutely, while all the tenses of the subordinate clauses are used relatively. The present tense does not refer to the present time but to the time of the action сказал in the first case and скажет in the second. The future tense он будет работать does not indicate the time following the present moment, but the time following the moment of the action сказал in the first case and скажет in the second. The same holds true with regard to the past tense.

In English such relative use of tenses is also possible with regard to some future moment.

he works at a factory

He will say that he worked at a factory.

he will work at a factory.

But as a rule, this is impossible with regard to a moment in the past, as in

he works at a factory.

He said that he worked at a factory.

he will work at a factory.

Instead of that an Englishman uses:

he worked at a factory.

He said that he had worked at a factory.

he would work at a factory.

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Why is the first version impossible, or at least uncommon? Because the tenses of works, worked, will work cannot be used relatively with regard to the past moment indicated by the verb said (as it would be in Russian, for instance). In English they are, as a rule, used absolutely, i.e. with regard to the moment of speech.

Therefore a 'present tense' verb may be used here only if the time of the action it expresses includes the moment of speech, which occurs, for instance, in clauses expressing general statements (He said that water boils at 100o C), in clauses of comparison (Last year he spoke much worse than he does now), and in some other cases.

Similarly, a 'future tense' verb may be used here if the action it expresses refers to some time following the moment of speech.

E. g. Yesterday I heard some remarks about the plan we shall discuss tomorrow.

The past tense of worked in the sentence He said that he worked at a factory also shows the past time not with regard to the time of the action of saying (as would be the case in the Russian sentence он сказал, что работает на заводе), but with regard to the moment of speech.

Since English has special forms of the verb to express 'precedence' or 'priority' - the perfect forms - the past perfect is used to indicate that an action preceded some other action (or event) in the past. He said that he ha d worked at a factory. But both in the principal and in the subordinate clause the tense of the verb is the same - the past tense used absolutely.

Summing up, we» may say that a 'past tense' verb is used in an English subordinate clause not because there is a 'past tense' verb in the principal clause, i.e. as a result of the so-called sequence of tenses, but simply in accordance with its meaning of 'past tense'.

The category of posteriority is the system of two-member opposemes, like shall come - should come, will be writing - would be writing, showing whether an action is posterior with regard to the moment of speech or to some moment in the past.

As we know, a 'past tense' verb denotes an action prior to the moment of speech and a 'future tense' verb names a posterior action with regard to the moment of speech. When priority or posteriority is expressed in relation to the moment of speech, we call it absolute. But there may be relative priority or posteriority, with regard to some other moment. A form like had written, for instance, expresses an action prior to some moment in the past, i.e. it expresses relative priority. The form should enter expresses posteriority with regard to so Tie past moment, i.e. relative posteriority.

The first, member of the opposeme shall enter - should enter has, the meaning of 'absolute posteriority', and the second member possesses the meaning of 'relative posteriority'.

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These two meanings are the particular manifestations of the general meaning of the - category, that of 'posteriority'.

The grammemes represented by should come, would come are traditionally called the future in the past, a name which reflects their meaning of 'relative posteriority'. But there is no agreement as to the place these grammemes occupy in the system of the English verb.

Some linguists 1 regard them as isolated grammemes, outside the system of morphological categories. Others 3 treat them as some kind of 'dependent future tense' and classify them with those 'finite verb forms' which depend on the nature of the sentence. A.I. Smirnitsky tries to prove that they are not 'tense forms' but 'mood forms', since they are homonymous with the so-called 'conditional mood forms'.

Cf. I thought it would rain. I think it would rain if it were not so windy.

In our opinion none of these theories are convincing.

1. The grammemes discussed are not isolated. As shown above they belong to the morphological category of posteriority.

2. They are not «tense forms». In the sentences

I know she will come.

I knew she would come.

I had Mown she would come.

neither will come - would come, nor knew - had known is a tense opposeme, because the difference between the members of the opposemes is not that of tense. The members of the first opposeme share the meaning of 'future' tense, those of the second opposeme - the meaning of 'past tense'. The only meanings the members of the first opposeme distinguish are those of 'absolute' and 'relative' posteriority. The members of the second opposeme distinguish only the meanings of 'perfect.' - 'non-perfect' order.

3. The grammemes in question are not 'mood forms'. As we know all the grammemes of the subjunctive mood (with the exception of be) are homonymous with those of the indicative mood. So the fact that would rain is used in both moods proves nothing.

The examples produced by A.I. Smirnitsky clearly show the difference between would rain in the sentence I thought it would rain and in the sentence I think it would rain, if it were not so windy. The first would rain is opposed to will rain (I think it will rain) and denotes a real action following some other action in the past (I thought…). In other words, it possesses the meanings of 'indicative' mood and 'relative' posteriority. The second would rain cannot be opposed to will rain. It denotes an imaginary action

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simultaneous with or following the moment of speech (I think…). Hence, it has the meanings of 'non-perfect' order and 'subjunctive mood'.

The category of person in the Indo-European languages serves to present an action as associated by the speaking person with himself (or a group of persons including the speaker), the person or persons addressed, and the person or thing (persons or things) not participating in the process of speech. (Cf. with the meanings of the personal pronouns.) Thus in Russian it is represented in sets of three-member opposemes such as

читаю - читаешь - читает

читаем - читаете - читают

Likewise in Modern German we have

gehe - gehst - geht

gehen - geht - gehen

In Modern English the category of person has certain peculiarities.

1. The second member of the opposemes

speak - speakest - speaks

am - art - is

is not used colloquially. It occurs in Modern English only in poetry, in solemn or pathetic prose with a distinct archaic flavour, e.g.:

Kind nature, thou art

to all a bountiful mother. (Carlyle).

The category of person is practically represented by two-member opposemes: speak - speaks, am - is.

2. Person opposemes are neutralized when associated with the 'plural' meaning.

A.I. Smirnitsky thinks that owing to the presence of the plural personal pronouns (we, you, they) person distinctions are felt in the plural of the verb as well.

E. g. we know - you know - they know.

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This idea is open to criticism. If the verb itself (in the plural) does not show any person distinctions we are bound to admit that in Modern English the verb in the plural has no person.

Thus if we overlook the archaic writest or speakest, we should say that in all verbs (but the defective verbs having no person distinctions at all: he can, she may) the person opposerne is found only in the singular, and it consists of two members (speak - speaks), the third person with a positive morpheme being opposed to the first person with a zero morpheme.

3. Person distinctions do not go with the meaning of the 'past tense' in the English verb, e. g. I (he) asked… (cf. the Russian Я (он/ты) спросил).

4. As regards all those groups of grammemes where the word-morphemes shall and should are opposed to the word-morphemes will, would, one has to speak of the first person expressed by forms with shall (should) as opposed to the non-first person expressed by the forms with will (would): The person distinctions in such opposemes (shall come - will come) are not connected-with number meanings.

These distinctions, however, are being gradually obliterated through the spreading of -'ll and the extensive use of will and would for shall and should.

The category of number shows whether the action is associated with one doer or with more than one. Accordingly it denotes something fundamentally different from what is indicated by the number of nouns. We see here not the 'oneness' or 'more-than-oneness' of actions, but the connection with the singular or plural doer. As M. Bryant puts it, «He eats three times a day» does not indicate a single eating but a single eater.

The category is represented in its purity in the opposeme was - were and accordingly in all analytical forms containing was - were (was writing - were writing', was written - were written).

In am - are, is - are or am, is - are it is blended with person. Likewise in speaks - speak we actually have the 'third person singular' opposed to the non-'third-person-singular'.

Accordingly the category of number is but scantily represented in Modern English.

Some verbs do not distinguish number at all because of their peculiar historical development: / (we) can…, he (they) must…, others are but rarely used in the singular because the meaning of 'oneness' is hardly compatible with their lexical meanings, e. g. to crowd, to conspire, etc.

It is natural, therefore, that in Modern English the verb is most closely connected with its subject, which may be left out only when the. doer of the action is quite clear from the context.

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3. The Subjunctive Mood

Probably the only thing linguists are unanimous about with regard to the subjunctive mood is that It represents an action as a 'non-fact', as something imaginary, desirable, problematic, contrary to reality. In all other respects opinions differ.

To account for this difference of opinion it is necessary to take into consideration at least two circumstances:

1) The system of the subjunctive mood in Modern English has been and still is in a state of development. There are many elements in it which are rapidly falling into disuse and there are new elements coming into use.

2) The authors describing the subjunctive mood often make no distinction between language and speech, system and usage. The opposition of the three moods as systems is mixed up with detailed descriptions of the various shades of meaning certain forms express in different environments.

The development of the modal verbs and that of the subjunctive mood - the lexical and morphological ways of expressing modality - have much in common.

The original 'present tense' forms of the modal verbs were ousted by the 'past tense' forms (may, can). New 'past tense' forms were created (could, might, must, ought). The new 'past tense' forms must and ought have again superseded their 'present tense' opposites and are now the only forms of these verbs.

The forms be, have, write, go, etc., which were originally forms of the 'present tense', 'subjunctive mood' grammemes, have suffered a similar process and are now scarcely used in colloquial English. They have become archaic and are found as survivals in poetry, high prose, official documents and certain set expressions like Long live…, suffice it to say…, etc. The former 'past tense subjunctive' has lost its 'past' meaning, and its forms are mostly used to denote an action not preceding the moment of speech.

The new analytical forms with should have replaced the former present subjunctive in popular speech. Compare the archaic Take heed, lest thou fall (Maxwell) and the usual

Take heed, lest you should fall.

In American English where many archaic features are better preserved (Cf. gotten for got) the former present tense forms are more common.

E. g. She demanded furiously that the old man. be left alone. (Dreiser).

Some new elements have come and are still coming into the system of the subjunctive mood. In Old English the subjunctive mood system did not contain any 'person'

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opposemes. They were introduced later together with should and would, but these distinctions are observed only in a few types of sentences.

With the loss of the - en suffix of the plural the subjunctive mood system lost all number opposemes in Middle English. At present such opposemes are being introduced together with the word was as opposed to were.

E. g. You'd be glad if I w a s dead. (Bennett).

Barring the archaic 'present tense' forms, the' subjunctive mood system of Modern English makes use of those forms which express a 'past tense' meaning in the indicative mood system. Since they are not opposed to the 'present tense' and 'future tense' grammemes, they have no 'tense' meaning. What unites them is the meaning of 'irreality' as opposed to the meaning of 'reality' common to all the indicative mood grammemes.

Having no 'tense' opposemes the subjunctive mood system makes extensive use of 'order' opposemes. The 'perfect' forms are used to express an action imagined as prior to some other action or event.

E. g. The Married Woman's Property Act would so have interfered with him if he hadn't mercifully married before it was passed. (Galsworthy).

The 'perfect' forms, naturally, express actions imagined as prior to the event of speaking, i. e. actions imagined in the past.

E.g. If I had known that, I s ho u I d have acted differently. It is strange t/iat he s h o u I d have spoken so.

The non-perfect forms do not express priority. The action they denote may be thought of as simultaneous with some event or even following it. The order of the action in such cases is expressed not by the form of the verb but by the whole situation or lexically.

Cf. I wish he were here now. I wish he were here tomorrow. Even if he c a m e to-morrow that will be too Me. (Ruck).

The 'passive voice' and 'continuous aspect' meanings are expressed much in the same way as in the indicative mood system.

E. g. In a moment he would have been drowned. (Braddon).

She sat not reading, wondering if he were coming in… (Galsworthy).

The various shades of meaning subjunctive mood grammemes may acquire in certain environments, and the types of sentences and clauses they are used in, are not part of the morphological system of moods and need not be treated here. Still an, exception can be made.

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Some linguists l think that would help in the sentence If he were here he would help us represents a separate mood called 'conditional'.

The arguments are as follows:

1. The form would help expresses 'dependent unreality': the realization of the action depends on the condition expressed in the subordinate clause (If-clause).

2. It is 'mainly used in the principal clause of a complex sentence with a subordinate clause of unreal condition'.

3. Should is used for the first person and would for the other persons.

Let us analyze these arguments.

1. If the meaning of 'dependent unreality' is to be treated as the meaning of a separate mood, then the meaning of 'dependent reality' in a similar sentence If he is here, he will help us must likewise be regarded as the meaning of a separate mood which is to be distinguished from the indicative mood. The meaning of tell in the sentence If you see her tell her to come can also be defined as 'dependent urging' and be regarded as the meaning of a separate mood distinct from the imperative mood.

2. The second argument deals with speech environment and is of little value since the same authors produce examples of the 'conditional mood' in different types of sentences.

Would you mind my opening the window?

I should like to speak to you, etc.

3. The third argument is justly rejected by G.N. Vorontsova who produces many literary examples to show that ' would-Forms' are used with the first person as often as 'should-forms'.

E. g. If I had held another pistol in my hand /would have shot him. I would love to think that you took an interest in teaching me… I wish I had a lot of money, I wouldn't live another day in London. (Galsworthy).

Besides, the popular use of forms with - `d instead of should and would shows the oblitaration of 'person' distinctions.

4. The name conditional hardly fits, seeing that the forms with should-would are as a rule not used in conditional clauses. They are mostly used in principal clauses or simple sentences, which distinguishes their distribution from that of forms without should - would used almost exclusively in subordinate clauses.

E. g. After all, if he lost it would not be he who paid. (Galsworthy).

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Under normal conditions Winifred would merely have locked the door. (lb).

The difference between the two sets of opposemes

had written (order)

wrote were written (voice)

were writing (aspect)

should have written (order)

should write should be written (voice)

should be writing (aspect)

would write (person, irregular)

Is thus a matter of usage. That does not exclude, of course, «the possibility of a language category with speech significance (cf. the categories of case, voice). Hence the necessity of further investigation.

What unites all the grammemes above and distinguishes them from the homonymous grammemes of the indicative mood as a system is

1) the meaning of «non-fact», the presentation of the action as something imaginary,

2) the system of opposemes, as contrasted with that of the indicative mood.

4. The Imperative Mood

The imperative mood represents an action as a command, urging, request, exhortation addressed to one's interlocutor^). It is a direct expression of one's will. Therefore it is much more 'subjective' than the indicative mood. Its modal meaning is very strong and distinct.

The imperative mood is morphologically the least developed of all moods. In fact, the grammeme write, know, warn, search, do, etc. is the only one regularly met in speech (as to don't write, do write). The 'continuous' and 'passive' opposites of this grammeme (be writing, be searching, etc; be known, be warned, etc.) are very rare.

E.g. B e always searching for new sensations. (Wilde). Be warned in time, mend your manner. (Shaw).

Though the system of the 'imperative' mood does not contain 'person' opposemes, it cannot be said that there is no meaning of 'person' in the imperative mood grammemes.

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On the contrary, all of them are united by the meaning of 'second person' because it is always to his interlocutor (the second person) that the speaker addresses his order or request expressed with the help of - imperative mood forms. Thus the meaning of «second person» is a lexico-grammatical meaning common to all the imperative mood grammemes. This meaning makes it unnecessary to use the subject you with predicate verbs in the imperative mood. But sometimes you is used for emphasis, as in Don't you do it!

Some linguists are of the opinion that Modern English possesses analytical forms of the imperative mood for the first and the third person built up with the help of the semantically weakened unstressed let, as in Let him come, Let us g o, etc.

G.N. Vorontsova gives a detailed analysis of these constructions to prove that they are analytical forms of the imperative:

1) Sentences like Let's let newspaper reporters take a crack at her (Gardner) prove that unlike the second let which is a notional verb the first let is devoid of lexical meaning.

2) It is quite possible to treat the objective case pronouns in the sentences Let me be frank, Let him look out, Let them both see, as the subjects.

3) An order can be addressed not only to the second person but to the third person as well.

Compare: Someone make an offer - and quick! (Barr).

Let someone make an offer.

4) The recognition of the let-constructions as the analytical forms of the imperative would make the imperative a developed morphological system.

All these considerations are serious enough. Still there are some objections to these constructions being regarded as analytical forms of the imperative.

1. There is some difference in meaning between Go! and Let him go. In the second case no direct urging is expressed as it is typical of the imperative mood.

2. Cases like Do not let us ever allude to those times, with the word-morpheme do, alongside of such sentences as Let it not be doubted that they were nice, well-behaved girls (Bennett), without the word-morpheme do, show that let has not yet established itself as a word-morpheme of the imperative mood.

To be on the safe side, we shall assume that the if-constructions are analytical words in the making.

Conclusion

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In the conclusion of my work, I would like to say some words according the done investigation. The main research was written in the main part of my course paper. So here I'll give content of it with the description of question discussed in each paragraph.


· «The Category of Mood» Here I gave the definition to the term MOOD, described views of well-known linguists on this problem (number of moods in modern English)

· «The Indicative Mood»

«The Imperative Mood» In these three paragraphs I determined three types of mood of English verb, which are accepted by all linguists, also I described when these moods can be used and how can be translated into Russian (examples are given in the text).

Standing on such ground I will add that investigation in the questions dealt with English verbs and their category of mood is not finished yet, so we will continue it while writing our qualification work.


Bibliography


2. V.N. Zhigadlo, I.P. Ivanova, L.L. Iofik» Modern English language» (Theoretical course grammar) Moscow, 1956 y.









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13. Internet:http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/verbs/theory.htm

14. Inbternet:http://www.englishlanguage.ru/main/verbs_mood.htm

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5. Grammatical categories in modern English

Problems of part of speech classification in modern English. Notional parts of speech in English. Grammatical categories denoting time and character of the action. Main notions of grammar. Grammatical meaning, form. Theoretical grammar and its subject.

Problems of part of speech classification in modern English

Identification of parts of speech. The words of l-ge, depending on various formal & semantic features, are divided into grammatically relevant sets or classes. Traditionally they are called parts of speech (“lexico-gram.” series of words or categories). Today they are discriminated ac. to 3 criteria: semantic, formal & functional. Semantic (meaning): presupposes the evaluation of the generalized meaning, characteristic of all words of a given part of speech. The meaning is understood as “categorical meaning of the p.of sp.”. Formal (form): provides for the exposition of the specific inflexional & derivational (word-building) features of all the lexemic subsets of a part of speech. Functional (function): concerns the syntactic role of words in the s-ce typical of a part of speech.

Notional parts of speech in English. Acc.to these criteria words on the upper level are div.into notional (the noun, adj., numeral, pronoun, verb, adverb), words of complete nominative mean.characterized by self-dependent f-tions, & functional (the article, prepos., conj., particle, modal verb, interjection). Noun: 1) meaning-substance (thinfness), 2) the changeable forms of number & case; specific suff.forms of derivation, 3) the substantive f-tions in the s-ce (subj., obj., substantival predicate); prepositional connections; modiication by an adj. Adjective: 1) the categorical mean. of property (qualitative & relative), 2) forms of degrees of comparison (for qualitative adj.), spec.suff.forms of deriv., 3) adj.f-tions (attribute to a noun, adjectival predicate). Numeral: 1) number (cardinal-порядк. & ordinal-колич.), 2) narrow set of simple numerals, sp.forms of composition for compound num., sp.forms of deriv.for ordinal num., 3)f-tions of numerical attr. & numer. substantive. Pronoun: 1)indication (deixis), 2)narrow sets of various status with the corresponding formal properties of categ.changeability & w-building, 3)the subst. & adjectival f-tions for dif.sets. Verb: 1)process (finite process & non-finite pr.), 2)of verbal categories of person, number, tense, aspect, voice, mood; opposition of finite & non-finite forms, 3)f-tion of the finite predicate for the finite verb; mixed verbal-other than verbal f-tions for the non-f.verb.

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Adverb: 1) secondary property (i.e. of process or another property), 2)of degrees of comparison for qualitative adverbs; sp.suffixal forms of derivation; 3) f-tions of various adv. modifiers. Functional parts of speech.-Words of incomplete nominative meaning & non-self-dependent, mediary f-tions in the s-ce. Their number is limited. Article: expresses the specific limitation of the substantive f-tions. Preposition: expr.the dependencies and interdependencies of substantive referents. Conjunction: expr. connections of phenomena. Particle: unites the funct.words of specifying&limiting meaning. Modal verbs: expr.the attitude of the sp.to the situation. Here belong words of probability (probably, perhaps), of qualitative evaluation (un/fortunately, luckily), of affirm. & negation. Interjection: is a signal of emotions.

Grammatical categories denoting time & character of the action. (Tense, prospect, aspect, order)

Cat. of Tense.

The cat. of tense is considered to be an immanent gr. Cat. which means that the finite V form alw expresses time distinctions. The cat. of tense finds diff. interpretations with diff. scholars. Thus, in trad. linguistics gr. time is often repres.ed as a 3-form cat. consisting of the "linear" past, pres., & future forms. The future-in-the-past does not find its place in the scheme based on the linear principle, hence, this system is considered to be deficient, not covering all lingual data. At the same time linguists build up new systems of tenses in order to find a suitable place in them for future-in-the past. Nevertheless, many of such schemes are open to criticism for their inconsistency which finds its expression in the fact that some of them deny the independent status of future tenses while others exclude from the analysis future-in-the-past forms. The said inconsistency can be overcome if we accept the idea that in Eng there exist 2 tense cat..

The 1st cat. - the cat. of primary time - expresses a direct retrospective evaluation of the time of the process denoted, due to which the process receives an absolutive time characteristic. This cat. is based upon the opp. of "the past tense" & "the pres. tense", the past tense being its strong member. The 2nd tense cat. is the cat. of "prospective time", it is based upon the opp. of "after-action" & "non-after-action", the marked member being the future tense. The cat. of prospect is relat. by nature which means that it characterizes the action from the point of view of its correlation with some other action. As the future Val form may be relat. either to the pres. time, or to the past time incl.d in non-future, the Eng V acquires 2 diff. future forms: the future of the pres. & the future of the past. It means that the future of the past is doubly strong expressing the strong members of the cat. of primary time & the cat. of prospect. The cat. of primary time is subjected to neutralization & transposition, transposition being more typical. The vivid cases of transposition are the "historical pres." & the "Preterite of Modesty". As for the cat. of prospect, it is often neutralized; neutralization can be of 2 types: syntactically optional & syntactically obligatory. Cat. of Aspect. Gr. aspective meanings form a variable gr. cat. which is trad.ly associated with the opp. of continuous & non-continuous forms of the V. Yet, 1 can find a great divergence of opinions on the probl. of the Eng aspect. The main difference lies in the interpretation of the categorial semantics of the opp.al members -

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continuous & indefinite forms: the categorial meaning of the continuous form is usually defined as the meaning of duration, while the interpretation of the categorial semantics of the Indefinite form causes controversy (the indefinite form may be interpreted as having no aspective meaning (I.P. Ivanova), as a form having a vague content (G.N. Vorontsova), as a form stressing the fact of the performance of the action (A.I. Smirnitsky). In Modern Linguistics A.I. Smirnitsky's interpretation of the categorial semantics of the indefinite form is widely accepted. In theoretical gr-ar the interpretation of perf. / non-perf. V-forms also refers to disputable ?s. Some linguists interpret the opp. of perf. / non-perf. forms as aspective (O. Jespersen, I.P. Ivanova, G.N. Vorontsova), others - as the opp. of tense forms (H. Sweet, G.O. Curme, A. Korsakov). A.I. Smirnitsky was the 1st to prove that perf. & non-perf. make up a special, self-sufficient, cat. which he called the "cat. of time correlation"; this viewpoint is shared now by a vast majority of linguists.

Developing A.I. Smirnitsky's views on the categorial semantics of perf. / non-perf. forms, we can come to the conclusion that in Eng there exist 2 aspective cat.: the cat. of development (based on the opp. of continuous & non-continuous forms) & the cat. of retrospective coordination (based on the opp. of perf. & non-perf. forms).

The perf. form has a mixed categorial meaning: it expresses both retrospective time coordination of the process & the connexion of the prior action with a time-limit reflected in a subsequent event. The recognition of the 2 aspect cat. also enables 1 to give a sound interpretation to the perf. continuous forms: they must be treated as forms having marks in both the aspect cat..

The opp. of continuous & non-continuous forms can be neutralized & transponized. Besides, in the cat. of development Vs which are usually not used in continuous forms can be subjected to the process of reverse transposition, e.g.: Were you wanting my help?

As for the opp. of perf. & non-perf. forms, it can undergo only the process of neutralization, transposition being alien to it.

Main notions of grammar. Grammatical meaning, form. Grammatical category

1. Theoretical grammar and its subject

Man is not well defined as "Homo sapiens" ("man with wisdom"). For what do we mean by wisdom? ft has no been proved so far that animals do not possess it. Those of you who have pets can easily prove the contrary Most recently anthropologists have started defining human beings as "man the toolmaker". However apes can also make primitive tools. What sets man apart from the rest of animal kingdom is his ability to speak; he "can easily object by saying that animals can also speak Homo loquens" "man the speaking animal again, you, naturally, in their own way. But their sounds are meaningless, and there is no link between sound and meaning (or if there is, it is of a very primitive kind) and the link for man is grammar. Only with the help of grammar we can

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combine words to form sentences and texts. Man is not merely Homo loquens. he is Homo Grammaticus.

The term "'grammar" goes back to a Greek word that may be translated as the "art of writing". But later this word acquired a much wider sense and came to embrace the whole study of language. Now it is often use as the synonym of linguistics. A question comes immediately to mind: what does this study involve.'

Grammar may be practical and theoretical, fhe aim of practical grammar is the description of grammar rules that are necessary to understand and formulate sentences. The aim of theoretical grammar is to offer explanation for these rules. Generally speaking, theoretical grammar deals with the language as a functional system.

2. General principles of grammatical analysis.

According to the Bible: "In the beginning was the Word4. In fact, the word is considered to be the central (but not the only) linguistic unit of language. Linguistic units (or in other words signs) can go into three types of relations:

a) The relation between a unit and an object in the world around us (objective reality). E.g. the word "table" refers to a definite piece of furniture. It may be not only an object but a process, state, quality, etc.

This type of meaning is called referential meaning of a unit. It is semantics that studies the referential meaning of units.

b) The relation between a unit and other units (inner relations between units). No unit can be used independently: it serves as an element in the system of other units. This kind of meaning is called syntactic Formal relation of units to one another is studied by syntactics (or syntax).

c) The relation between a unit and a person who uses it. As we know too well, when we arc saying something, we usually have some purpose in mind. We use the language as an instrument for our purpose (e.g.). One and the same word or sentence may acquire different meanings in communication. This type of meaning is called pragmatic. The study of the relationship between linguistic units and the users of those units is done by pragmatics.

thus there are three models of linguistic description: semantic, syntactic and pragmatic. To illustrate the difference between these different ways of linguistic analysis, let us consider the following sentence: Students are students.

The first part of the XXth century can be characterized by a formal approach to the language study. Only inner (syntactic) relations between linguistic units served the basis for linguistic analysis while the reference of words.

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The structure of gram. Cat.

It's a gr. concept proper. Gr. Cat. Is a whole system of gr. Forms expressing a generalized gr. Func..

Gr.cat.: 1. gr. Feture - гр. признак (ex. suffix). 2. gr. Form. 3. Gr. Paradigm. 4. Gr. Opp.

Synthetiacal, analytical - the feat.s expressing the form are gr. Morphemes. Synth. Form is one-single word including the gr. Feat.. Ex. Tables. Analyt. Form consists of 2 parts (word expressing the material meaning & word exp. The feat.). Ex. Will go. 3 types of synth.forms:

1. built up by the change of root morpheme, vowel-interchange (man-men) inner inflexion.

2. outer inflexion - table - tables.

3. suppletivity - I am, you are, bad-worse

Syntactic relations of words. Phrases (word groups)

The phrase is the object of minor syntax. The phrase is usually understood as a combination of 2 or more words which is a gr. unit but is not an analytical form of a word. Nominal phrase - a compound signemic unit made up of words & denoting a complex phenomenon of reality analyzable into its component elements together with various relations btw them. The trad. class-tion of phrases is based on the part of spee4 status of the phrase constituents. In accordance with this criterion, the following types of phrases can be identified: "noun + noun", "adjective + noun", "V + noun", "V + adV", "adV + adjective", "adV + adV", etc. Phrases are made up not only by notional words but also by func.al words, e.g.: "in accordance with", "due to", "apart from", "as soon as" - such phrases perform in a sent. preposition-like & conjunction-like func.s. Syntactic relations of the phrase constituents are divided into 2 main types: agreement & government. Agreement takes place when the subord. word assumes a form similar to that of the word to which it is subord.. In English agreement is typical only of the category of number in demonstrative pronouns. Government takes place when the subord. word is used in a certain form required by its head word, the form of the subord. word not coinciding with the form of the head word. The expression of government is the use of the objective case of personal pronouns & of the pronoun "who" when they are used in a Val phrase or follow a preposition. Phrases can also be classified according to the nominative value of their constituents. As a result three major types of phrases are identified: notional (consisting of grammatically connected notional words), formative (made up by notional & func.al words), & func.al (consisting of func.al words alone). Notional phrases are subdivided into 2 groups on the principle of the constituent rank: equipotent phrases (the phrase constituents are of an equal rank) & dominational phrases (the syntactic ranks of the constituents are not equal as they refer to one another as the modifier & the modified). Further subdivision of equipotent notional word groupings into

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coordinative & cumulative is carried out on the principle of the character of nomination realized by the phrase constituents: coordinative phrases are based on the logically consecutive connexions, cumulative phrases are characterized by the constituent inequality in the character of nomination realized & the presence of a coordinative conjunction. In their turn, dominational notional phrases are subdivided into consecutive & cumulative: the class-tion principle of the character of nomination realized by the phrase constituents remains valid. Dominational consecutive phrases fall into minor groupings according to the specific features of dominational connexion.

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Syntactically bound morphological categories of the verb

1 .General characteristics

Grammatically the verb is the most complex part of speech, first of all it performs the central role in realizing predication - connection between situation in the utterance and reality. That is why the verb is of primary informative significance in an utterance. Besides, the verb possesses quite a lot of grammatical categories, furthermore, within the class of verb various subclass divisions based on different principles i i classification can be found.

Semantic features of the verb. The verb possesses the grammatical meaning of verbiality the ability ю denote a process developing in time. This meaning is inherent not only in the verbs denoting processes, but also in those denoting slates, forms of existence, evaluations, etc.

Morphological features of the verb. The verb possesses the following grammatical categories: tense, aspect, voice, mood, person, number, finitude and phase. The common categories for finite and non- finite forms are voice, aspect, phase and finitude. The grammatical categories of the English verb find their expression m synthetical and analytical forms. The formative elements expressing these categories are grammatical affixes inner inflexion and function words. Some categories have,only synthetical forms (person, number), other;; only analytical (voice). There are also categories expressed by both synthetical and analytical forms (mood, tense, aspect.

Syntactic features. The most universal syntactic feature of verbs is their ability to be modified by adverbs. The second important syntactic criterion is the ability of the verb to perform the syntactic function of the predicate. However, this criterion is not absolute because only finite forms can perform this function while non

Relations of actions

The category of voice

The category of voice is realized through the opposition Active voice::Passive voice. The realization of the vоice category is restricted because of the implicit grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity. In

accordance with this meaning, all English verbs should fall into transitive and intransitive. However, the classification turns out to be more complex and comprises 6 groups:

1. Verbs used only transitively: to mark, to raise:

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2.Verbs with the main transitive meaning: to see, to make, to build;

3. Verbs of intransitive meaning and secondary transitive meaning. Л lot of intransitive verbs may develop a secondary transitive meaning: They laughed me into agreement; He danced the girl out of the room;

4. Verbs of a double nature, neither of the meanings are the leading one, the verbs can be used both transitively and intransitively: to drive home - to drive a car;

5. Verbs that are never used in the Passive Voice: to seem, to become;

6. Verbs that realize their passive meaning only in special contexts: to live, to sleep, to sit, to walk to jump.

Some scholars admit the existence of Middle, Reflexive and Reciprocal voices. "Middle Voice" - the verbs primarily transitive may develop an intransitive middle meaning: That adds a lot; The door opened; The book sells easily; The dress washes well. "Reflexive Voice": He dressed; He washed - the subject is both the agent and the recipient of the action at the same time. It is always possible to use a reflexive pronoun in this case: He washed himself. "Reciprocal voice": They met; They kissed - it is always possible to use a reciprocal pronoun here: They kissed each other

We cannot, however, speak of different voices, because all these meanings are not expressed morphologically The category of tense

The category of tense is a verbal category that reflects the objective category of time. The essential characteristic of the category of tense is that it relates the time of the action, event or state of affairs referred to in the sentence to the time of the utterance (the time of the utterance being 'now ' or the present moment). The tense category is realized through the oppositions. The binary principle of oppositions remains the basic one in the correlation of the forms that represent the grammatical category of tense. The present moment is the main temporal plane of verbal actions. Therefore, the temporal dichotomy may be illustrated by the following graphic representation (the arrows show the binary opposition): Present Past Future Future II

Generally speaking, the major tense-distinction in English is undoubtedly that which is traditionally described as an opposition of past::present. But this is best regarded as a contrast of past:: non-past Quite a loi of scholars do not recognize the existence of future tenses, because what is described as the 'future' tense in English is realized by means of auxiliary verbs will and shall. Although it is undeniable that will and shall occur in many sentences that refer to the future, they also occur in sentences that do not. And they do not necessarily occur in sentences with a future time reference. That is why future tenses are often treated as partly modal.

5. The Category of Aspect

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The category of aspect is a linguistic representation of the objective category of Manner of Action. It is realized through the opposition Continuous::Non-Continuous (Progressive::Non-Progressive)..

Sentence as the main unit of Syntax. Predicativity. Classes of sentences

The sent. as a syntactic unit.

The sent. is the immediate integral unit of spee4 built up of words acc. to a definite syntactic pattern & distinguished by contextually relevant comm-tive purpose. Any coherent connexion of words having an informative destination is effected within the frame work of sent.. Therefore the sent. idis the main object of syntax. The sent., being composed of word, may in certain cases include one word of various lexico-gram. st&ings. Ex. Congratulations! The actual existence of one-word sent.s does not contradict the general idea of a sent. as a special syntactic combination of words. The sent. is a predicative utterance unit. It means that the sent. not only names some referents with the help of its word-constituents, but also, 1st presents these referents as making up a certain situation (a situational event) & 2nd reflects the connexion btw the nominal denotation of the event & objective reality showing the time of the event, its being real or unreal, desirable or undes., etc. There is a diff. btw the sent. & the word. Unlike the word, the sent. does not exist in the system of the lang. as a ready-made unit. It is created by the speaker in the course of commun-tion. Trad. gr. has never regarded the sent. as part of the system of means of expression; It has alw interpreted the sent. not as an implement for constructing spee4, but as spee4 itself. Being a unit of spee4, the sent is intonationally delimited. Intonation separates one sent. from another in the continual flow of uttered segments. The sent. is characterized by its specific category of predication which establishes the relation of the named phenomena to actual life. As for predication proper, it embodies syntactic modality as the fundamental feature of the sent. It is the feature of predication that identifies the sent. as opposed to any other combination of words having a situational referent. The centre of predication in a sent. of Val type is a finite V. The finite V expresses essential predicative meanings by its categorical forms. The sent as a lingual unit performs 2 essential signemic (meaningful) func.s: 1st substance-naming (nomin-ve func.), 2nd - reality-evaluating (predicative func.).

Grammatical characteristics of the noun

The noun is the central lexical unit of language. It is the main nominative unit of speech. As any other part of speech, the noun can be characterised by three criteria: semantic (the meaning), morphological (the form and grammatical categories) and syntactical (functions, distribution).

Semantic features of the noun. The noun possesses the grammatical meaning of thingness, substantial it According to different principles of classification nouns fall into several subclasses: 1. According to the type of nomination they may be proper and common;

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According to the form of existence they may be animate and inanimate. Animate nouns in their turn-fall into human and non-human. 3. According to their quantitative structure nouns can be countable and uncountable. This set of subclasses cannot be put together into one table because of the different principles of classification

Morphological features of the noun. In accordance with the morphological structure of the stems all nouns can be classified into: simple, derived ( stem + affix, affix + stem - thingness): compound ( stem stem armchair ) and composite ( the Hague ). The noun has morphological categories of number and case Some scholars admit the existence of the category of gender.

Syntactic features of the noun. The noun can be used un the sentence in all syntactic functions but predicate Speaking about noun combinability, we can say that it can go into right-hand and left-hand connections wit practically all parts of speech. That is why practically all parts of speech but the verb can act as noun

2. There are no cases at all. the form 's is optional because the same relations may be expressed by the 'of phrase': the doctor's arrival the arrival of the doctor,

3. There are three eases: the Nominative, the (lenitive, the Objective due to the existence о Г objective pronouns me, him, whom;

4. Case Grammar. Ch.Fillmore introduced syntactic-semantic classification of cases. They show relations in the so-called deep structure of the sentence. According to him. verbs may stand to different relations to nouns. There are 6 cases:

1) Agentive Case (A) John opened the door;

2) Instrumental case (I) The key opened the door; John used the key to open the door;

3) Dative Case (D) John believed that he would win (the case of the animate being affected by the state of action identified by the verb);

4) Factitive Case (F) The key was damaged ( the resull of the action or state identified by the verb):

5) Locative Case (L) Chicago is windy;

6) Objective case (O) John stole the book.

4. The Problem of Gender in English

Gender plays a relatively minor part in the grammar of English by comparison with its role in many other languages. There is no gender concord, and the reference of the pronouns he, she. it is very largely determined by what is sometimes referred to as "natural" gender for English, it depends upon the classification of persons and objects as

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male, female or inanimate. Thus, the recognition of gender as a grammatical category is logically independent of any particular semantic association.

According to some language analysts (B.llyish, F.Palmer, and E.Morokhovskaya), nouns have no category of gender in Modern English. Prof.Ilyish states that not a single word in Modern English shows any peculiarities in its morphology due to its denoting male or female being. Thus, the words husband and wife do not show any difference in their forms due to peculiarities of their lexical meaning. The difference between such nouns actor and actress is a purely lexical one. in other words, the category of sex should not be confused with the category of sex, because sex is an objective biological category. It correlates with gender only when sex differences of living beings arc manifested in the language grammatically (e.g. tiger tigress). Still, other scholars (M.lilokh. John Lyons) admit the existence of the category of gender. Prof.Blokh states that the existence of the category of gender in Modern English can be proved by the correlation of nouns with personal pronouns of the third person (he, she, it). Accordingly, there are three genders in English: the neuter (non-person) gender, the masculine gender, the feminine gender.

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Idioms: differences and Usage in American English and British English

English is a language particularly rich in idioms - those modes of expression peculiar to a language (or dialect) which frequently defy logical and grammatical rules. Without idioms English would lose much of its variety, humor both in speech an writing.

IDIOMS:

Differences and Usage in American English and British English

If you look up the word idiom in Webster, you will be given the following definition: Idiom is an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent element as kick the bucket, hang one's head etc., or from the general grammatical rules of language, as the table round for the round table, and which is not a constituent of a larger expression of like characteristics. This definition seems a bit dry and doesn't really tell anything about the function of idioms in English language.

English is a language particularly rich in idioms - those modes of expression peculiar to a language (or dialect) which frequently defy logical and grammatical rules. Without idioms English would lose much of its variety and humor both in speech an writing.

The background and etymological origins of most idioms is at best obscure. This is the reason why a study of differences between the idioms of American and British English is somewhat difficult. But it also makes the cases, where background, etymology and history are known, even more interesting. Some idioms of the "worldwide English" have

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first been seen in the works of writers like Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Lewis Carroll or even in the paperbacks of contemporary novelists. An example of Shakespearian quotation can be found in the following sentence:"As a social worker, you certainly see the seamy side of life." Biblical references are also the source of many idioms. Sports terms, technical terms, legal terms, military slang and even nautical expressions have found their way to the everyday use of English language. Following are some examples of these, some used in either American or British English and some used in both:

"Having won the first two Tests, Australia is now almost certain to retain the Ashes." (Ashes is a British English idiom that is nowadays a well-established cricket term.)

"In his case the exception proves the rule." (A legal maxim -- in full:"the exception proves the rule in cases not excepted". Widely used in both AmE and BrE.)

"To have the edge on/over someone." (This is originally American English idiom, now established in almost every other form of English, including BrE.)

"A happy hunting ground." (Place where one often goes to obtain something or to make money. Originally American English idiom from the Red Indians' Paradise.)

In the old days English idioms rarely originated from any other form of English than British English. (French was also a popular source of idioms.) Nowadays American English is in this position. It is hard to find an AmE idiom that has not established itself in "worldwide English" (usually BrE). This is not the case with British English idioms which are not as widespread. It has to be remembered that it is hard to say which idioms are actively used in English and which are dying out or have already died. Idioms are constantly dying and new-ones are born.

Some idioms may have gone through radical changes in meaning. The phrase - There is no love lost between them - nowadays means that some people dislike one another. Originally, when there was only the British English form, it meant exactly the opposite. The shift in meaning is yet unexplained. All dialects of English have different sets of idioms and situations where a given idiom can be used. American English and British English may not, in this respect, be the best possible pair to compare because they both have been developing into the same direction, at least where written language is concerned, since the Second World War. The reason that there is so much American influence in British English is the result of the following:

Magnitude of publishing industry in the U.S.

Magnitude of mass media influence on a worldwide scale

Appeal of American popular culture on language and habits worldwide

International political and economic position of the U.S.

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All these facts lead to the conclusion that new idioms usually originate in the U.S. and then become popular in so-called "worldwide English". This new situation is completely different from the birth of American English as a "variant" of British English. When America was still under the rule of the Crown, most idioms originated from British English sources. Of course there were American English expressions and idioms too, before American English could be defined as dialect of English. Some examples of these early American English idioms follow:

"To bark up the wrong tree." (Originally from raccoon-hunting in which dogs were used to locate raccoons up in trees.)

"Paddle one's own canoe." (This is an American English idiom of the late 18th Century and early 19th Century.)

Some of these early American idioms and expressions were derived from the speech of the American natives like the phrase that "someone speaks with a forked tongue" and the "happy hunting ground" above. These idioms have filtered to British English through centuries through books, newspapers and most recently through powerful mediums like radio, TV and movies.

Where was the turning point? When did American culture take the leading role and start shaping the English language and especially idiomatic expressions? There is a lot of argument on this subject. Most claim that the real turning point was the Second World War. This could be the case. During the War English-speaking nations were united against a common enemy and the U.S. took the leading role. In these few years and a decade after the War American popular culture first established itself in British English. Again new idioms were created and old ones faded away. The Second World War was the turning point in many areas in life. This may also be the case in the development of the English language.

In the old days the written language (novels, poems, plays and the Bible) was the source from which idioms were extracted. This was the case up until WWII. After the war new mediums had established themselves in English-speaking society, there was a channel for the American way of life and the popular culture of the U.S. TV, movies and nowadays the interactive medium have changed the English language more to the American English direction. Some people in the Europe speak the Mid-Atlantic English, halfway from the British English to American English.

The influence of American English can even be seen in other European languages. In Finland, we are adopting and translating AmE proverbs, idioms and expressions. It can be said that the spoken language has taken the leading role over the written and the only reason for this is TV and radio. Most proverbs and idioms that have been adopted to British English from American English are of spoken origin. This is a definite shift from the days before WWII. What will this development do to the English language? Will it decrease its value? This could be argued, but the answer would still be no. Languages develop and change. So is the case with English language and idioms.

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How then does American English differ from British English in the use of idioms? There are no radical differences in actual use. The main differences are in the situations where idiomatic expressions are used. There have been many studies recently on this subject. American English adopts and creates new idioms at a much faster rate compared to British English. Also the idioms of AmE origin tend to spread faster and further. After it has first been established in the U.S., an American idiom may soon be found in other "variants" and dialects of English. Nowadays new British idioms tend to stay on the British Isles and are rarely encountered in the U.S. British idioms are actually more familiar to other Europeans or to the people of the British Commonwealth than to Americans, even though the language is same. The reason for all these facts is that Britain is not the world power it used to be and it must be said that the U.S. has taken the role of the leading nation in the development of language, media and popular culture. Britain just doesn't have the magnitude of media influence that the United States controls.

The future of idiomatic expressions in the English language seems certain. They are more and more based on American English. This development will continue through new mediums like the Internet and interactive mediums. It is hard to say what this will do to idioms and what kind of new idioms are created. This will be an interesting development to follow, and by no means does it lessen the humor, variety and color of English language.

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Homonyms in English and their specific features

An analysis of homonyms is in Modern English. Lexical, grammatical and lexico-grammatical, distinctions of homonyms in a language. Modern methods of research of homonyms. Practical approach is in the study of homonyms. Prospects of work of qualification.

MINISTRY OF HIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIAL EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN

GULISTAN STATE UNIVERSITY

The English and Literature department

Abdukarimov Doniyor's qualification work on speciality 5220100, English philology on theme:

“Homonyms in English and their specific features”

Supervisor: Ibragimov. O.O.

Gulistan-2006

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CONTENTS

I. Introduction.

1.1. The tasks and purposes of the work

2.1. The main items of the work

II. Main Part

1.2. Chapter1 Common analysis of homonyms in Modern English

1.1.2. Phonetic coincidence and semantic differentiation of homonyms

2.1.2. Classification of homonyms

3.1.2. Diachronically approach of homonyms

4.1.2. Synchronically approach in studying homonymy

5.1.2. Lexical, grammatical and lexico-grammatical distinctions of homonyms

2.2. Chapter2. The interrelations between homonymy and polysemantic words.

1.2.2. Etymological and semantic criteria in polysemy and homonymy

2.2.2. Comparative typological analysis of two linguistic phenomena in English, Uzbek and Russian

3.2.2. Modern methods of investigating homonyms

4.2.2. Practical approach in studying homonyms

5.2.2.Polysemy and Homonymy: Etymological and Semantic Criteria

6.2.2. Typological analysis of homonymy and polysemy in three languages.

III. Conclusion.

1.3. Common review of the essence of the work

2.3. Perspectives of the qualification work

IV. Bibliography.

Introduction

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1.1 The tasks and purposes of the work

The theme of my qualification work sounds as following: “Homonyms in English and their Specific Features”. This qualification work can be characterized by the following:

The actuality of this work caused by several important points. We seem to say that the appearance of new, homonymic meanings is one of the main trends in development of Modern English, especially in its colloquial layer, which, in its turn at high degree is supported by development of modern informational technologies and simplification of alive speech. So the significance of our work can be proved by the following reasons:

a) Studying of homonyms of words is one of the developing branches of lexicology nowadays.

b) Homonyms reflect the general trend of simplification of a language.

c) Homonymic meanings of words are closely connected with the development of modern informational technologies.

d) Being a developing branch of linguistics it requires a special attention of teachers to be adequated to their specialization in English.

e) The investigation of homonyms and their differentiation with polysemantic words is not being still investigated in the sufficient degree and this problem is still waiting for its investigator. Our qualification work is one another attempt to investigate this problem.

Having based upon the actuality of the theme we are able to formulate the general goals of our qualification work.

a) To study, analyze, and sum up all the possible changes happened in the studied branch of linguistics for the past fifty years.

b) To teach the problem of homonyms to young English learners.

c) To demonstrate the significance of the problem for those who want to brush up their English.

d) To mention all the major linguists' opinions concerning the subject studied.

If we say about the new information used within our work we may note that the work studies the problem from the modern positions and analyzes the modern trends appeared in this subject for the last ten years. In particular, the new meanings of the old habitual words were mentioned in our qualification work.

The practical significance of the work can be concluded in the following items:

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a) The work could serve as a good source of learning English by young teachers at schools and colleges.

b) The lexicologists could find a lot of interesting information for themselves.

c) Those who would like to communicate with the English-speaking people through the Internet will find new causing homonymic terms in our qualification work.

Having said about the linguists studied the material before we can mention that our qualification work was based upon the investigations made by a number of well known English, Russian and Uzbek lexicologists as A.I.Smirnitsky, B.A. Ilyish, N.Buranov, V.V. Vinogradov, O.Jespersen and some others.

If we say about the methods of scientific approaches used in our work we can mention that the method of typological analyses was used.

The newality of the work is concluded in including the new homonymic meanings of words appeared during for the last ten years by means of development and applying of the internet technologies.

The general structure of our qualification work looks as follows:

The work is composed onto three major parts: introduction, main part and conclusion. Each part has its subdivision onto the specific thematically items. There are two points in the introductory part: the first item tells about the general content of the work while the other gives us the general explanation of the lexicological phenomenon of homonymy in a language. The main part bears two chapters itself which, in their turn, are subdivided onto several specific items. The first chapter it explains the common analysis of homonyms in Modern English. Here we analyzed phonetic coincidence and semantic differentiation of homonyms in Modern English (the first item), accepted classification of the homonymic units of a language (the second item), diachronic and synchronic research to the problem studied (third and fourth items subsequently). The second chapter shows the interrelations between homonyms and polysemantic words. In the first item we made the etymological and semantic criteria of distinguishing of homonyms and polysemantic words in the English language. The second item of the work shows the typological analysis of the two linguistic phenomena in the three languages compared: English, Russian and Uzbek. The third and the fourth items summarize the ideas concerning the modern methods and practical approaches in investigating the linguistic phenomenon of homonyms and polysemantic words.

The conclusion of the qualification work sums up the ideas discussed in the main part (the first item) and shows the ways of implying of the qualification work (in the second item).

2.1. The main items of the work.

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Words identical in sound-form but different in meaning are traditionally termed homonymous.

Modern English is exceptionally rich in homonymous words and word-forms. It is held that languages where short words abound have more homonyms than those where longer words are prevalent. Therefore it is sometimes suggested that abundance of homonyms in Modern English is to be accounted for by the monosyllabic structure of the commonly used English words.1

Not only words but other linguistic units may be homonymous. Here, however, we are concerned with the homonymy of words and word-forms only, so we shall not touch upon the problem of homonymous affixes or homonymous phrases. When analyzing different cases of homonymy we find that some words arehomonymous in all their forms, i.e. homonymy of the paradigms of two or more different words as, e.g., in seal!--'a sea animal' and seal2--'a design printed on paper by means of a stamp'. The paradigm "seal, seal's, seals, seals'" is identical for both of them and gives no indica-tion of whether it is sea or seal that we are analyzing. In other cases, e.g. seal--'a sea animal' and (to) seal--'to close tightly', we see that although some individual word-forms are homonymous, the whole of the paradigm is not identical. Compare, for instance, the paradigms:

seal (to)seal3

seal sealseal's sealsseals sealedseals' sealing, etc

It is easily observed that only some of the word-forms (e.g. seal, seals, etc.) are homonymous, whereas others (e.g. sealed, sealing) are not. In such cases we cannot speak of homonymous words but only of homonymy of individual word-forms or of partial homonymy. This is true of a number of other cases, e.g. compare find [famdj, found [faund], found [faund] and found [faundj, founded ['faundidj, founded [faundid]; know [nou], knows Jnouz], knew [nju:], and no [nou]; nose [nouz], noses [nouzizj; new [nju:J in which partial homonymy is observed. Consequently all cases of homonymy may be classified into full and partial homonymy, homonymy of words and homonymy of individual word-forms.

1) Professor 0. Jespersen calculated that there are roughly four times as many monosyllabic as polysyllabic homonyms. 0. Jespersen. Linguistics. Copenhagen-London, J933, p. 398.

MAIN PART

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1.1.2 Words identical in sound-form but different in meaning are traditionally termed homonymous

Modern English is exceptionally rich in homonymous words and word-forms. It is held that languages where short words abound have more homonyms than those where longer words are prevalent. Therefore it is sometimes suggested that abundance of homonyms in Modern English is to be accounted for by the monosyllabic structure of the commonly used English words.

Not only words but other linguistic units may be homonymous. Here, however, we are concerned with the homonymy of words and word-forms only, so we shall not touch upon the problem of homonymous affixes or homonymous phrases When analyzing different cases of homonymy we find that some words are homonymous in all their forms, i.e. we observe full homonymy of the paradigms of two or more different words as, e.g., in seal a sea animal and seal--a design printed on paper by means of a stamp'. The paradigm "seal, seal's, seals, seals'" is identical for both of them and gives no indication of whether it is seal (1) or seal (2) that we are analyzing. In other cases, e.g. seal--a sea animal' and (to) seal (3)--'to close tightly, we see that although some individual word-forms are homonymous, the whole of the paradigm is not identical. Compare, for instance, the-paradigms:

1. (to)seal-seal-seal's-seals-seals'

2. seal-seals-sealed-sealing, etc.

1 Professor O. Jespersen1) calculated that there are roughly four times as many monosyllabic as polysyllabic homonyms. It is easily observed that only some of the word-forms (e.g. seal, seals, etc.) are homonymous, whereas others (e.g. sealed, sealing) are not. In such cases we cannot speak of homonymous words but only of homonymy of individual word-forms or of partial homonymy. This is true of a number of other cases, e.g. compare find [faind], found [faund], found [faund] and found [faund], founded ['faundidj, founded [faundid]; know [nou], knows [nouz], knew [nju:], and no [nou]; nose [nouz], noses [nouziz]; new [nju:] in which partial homonymy is observed.

From the examples of homonymy discussed above it follows that the bulk of full homonyms are to be found within the same parts of speech (e.g. seal(1) n--seal(2) n), partial homonymy as a rule is observed in word-forms belonging to different parts of speech (e.g. seal n--seal v). This is not to say that partial homonymy is impossible within one part of speech. For instance in the case of the two verbs Me [lai]--'to be in a horizontal or resting position'--lies [laiz]--lay [lei]--lain [lein] and lie [lai]--'to make an untrue statement'--lies [laiz]--lied [laid]--lied [laid] we also find partial homonymy as only two word-forms [lai], [laiz] are homonymous, all other forms of the two verbs are different. Cases of full homonymy may be found in different parts of speech as, e.g., for [for]--preposition, for [fo:]--conjunction and four [fo:] --numeral, as these parts of speech have no other word-forms.

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2.1.2 Classification of homonyms

Modern English has a very extensive vocabulary; the number of words according to the dictionary data is no less than 400, 000.A question naturally arises whether this enormous word-stock is composed of separate independent lexical units, or may it perhaps be regarded as a certain structured system made up of numerous interdependent and interrelated sub-systems or groups of words. This problem may be viewed in terms of the possible ways of classifying vocabulary items. Words can be classified in various ways. Here, however, we are concerned only with the semantic classification of words which gives us a better insight into some aspects of the Modern English word-stock. Attempts to study the inner structure of the vocabulary revealed that in spite of its heterogeneity the English word-stock may be analyzed into numerous sub-systems the members of which have some features in common, thus distinguishing them from the members of other lexical sub-systems. Classification into monosynaptic and polysemantic words is based on the number of meanings the word possesses. More detailed semantic classifications are generally based on the semantic similarity (or polarity) of words or their component morphemes. Below we give a brief survey of some of these lexical groups of current use both in theoretical investigation and practical class-room teaching.

3.1.2 Diachronically approach of homonyms

Now let us analyze the semantic similarity of morphemes. Lexical groups composed of words with semantically and phonemically identical root-morphemes are usually described as word-families or word-clusters. The term itself implies close links between the members of the group. Such are word-families of the type: lead, leader, leadership; dark, darken, darkness; form, formal, formality, and others. It should be noted that members of a word-family as a rule belong to different parts of speech and are joined together only by the identity of root-morphemes. In the word-families discussed above the root-morphemes are identical not only in meaning but also in sound-form Ginzburg R.S. et al. A Course in Modern English Lexicology. M., 1979 pp.72-82. There are cases, however, when the sound-form of root-morphemes may be different, as for example in sun, sunny, solar; mouth, oral, orally; brother, brotherly, fraternal, etc.; their semantic similarity however, makes it possible to include them in a word-family. In such cases it is usual to speak of lexical supplementation, i.e. formation of related words of a word-family from phonemically different roots. As a rule in the word-families of this type we are likely to encounter etymologically different words, e.g. the words brother and mouth are of Germanic origin, whereas fraternal and oral can be easily traced back to Latin. We frequently find synonymic pairs of the type fatherly -- paternal, brotherly--fraternal. Semantic and phonemic identity of affixation morphemes can be observed in the lexical groups of the type darkness, cleverness, calmness, etc.; teacher, reader, writer, etc. In such word-groups as, e.g. teacher, doctor, musician, etc., only semantic similarity of derivational affixes is observed. As derivational affixes impart to the words a certain generalized meaning, we may single out lexical groups denoting the agent, the doer of the action (Nomina Agenti)--teacher, reader, doctor, etc. or lexical groups denoting actions [Nomina

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Acti] -- movement, transformation, and others.

Now we shall study the semantic similarities and polarities of words. Semantic similarity or polarity of words may be observed in the similarity of their denotational or connotation meaning. Similarity or polarity of the denotational component of lexical meaning is to be found in lexical groups of synonyms and antonyms. Similarity or polarity of the connotation components serves as the basis for stylistic stratification of vocabulary units. Stylistic features of words and problems of stylistic stratification in general were discussed in connection with different types of meaning. So here let us confine ourselves mainly to the discussion of the problems of the main word phenomena containing the English word stock: i.e. we mean synonyms and antonyms.

4.1.2 Synchronically approach in studying homonyms

Synonymy, polysemy and homonymy in the language hierarchy are usually felt to be correlative notions: firstly because the criterion of synonymy is semantic similarity which is in exact opposition to the criterion of antonym--semantic polarity. Secondly, because synonyms and polysemantic words seem to overlap in a number of cases. For instance, when we speak of the words “daddy” and “parent” as synonyms, we do so because of the similarity of their denotational meaning and polarity of their stylistic reference (cf. daddy--colloquial, parent--bookish).

The problem of synonymy is treated similarity differently by different linguists. The most debatable problem is the definition of synonyms. Synonyms are traditionally described as words different in sound-form but identical or similar in meaning. This definition has been severely criticized on many points. Firstly it seems impossible to speak of identical or similar meaning of words as such, as this part of the definition cannot be applied to polysemantic words. It is inconceivable that polysemantic words could be synonymous in all their meanings. The verb “look”, for instance, is usually treated as a synonym of the following words:”see”, “watch”, “observe”, etc., but in another of its meanings it is not synonymous with this group of words but rather with the verbs seems, appear (cf. to look at smb. and to look pale). The number of synonymic sets of a polysemantism word tends as a rule to be equal to the number of individual meanings the word possesses.

5.1.2. Lexical, grammatical and lexico-grammatical

In the discussion of polysemy and context we have seen that one of the ways of discriminating between different meanings of a word is the interpretation of these meanings in terms of their synonyms, e.g. the two meanings of the adjective handsome are synonymously interpreted as handsome--'beautiful' (usually about men) and handsome--'considerable, ample' (about sums, sizes, etc.).

Secondly it seems impossible to" speak of identity or similarity of lexical meaning as a whole as it is only the denotation component that may be described as identical or similar. If we analyses words that are usually considered synonymous, e.g. to die, to pass away; to begin, to commence, etc., we find that the connotation component or, to be more

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exact, the stylistic reference of these words is entirely different and it is only the similarity of the denotation meaning that makes them synonymous. The words, e.g. to die, to walk, to smile, etc., may be considered identical as to their stylistic reference or emotive charge, but as there is no similarity of denotation meaning they are never felt as synonymous words.

Thirdly it does not seem possible to speak of identity of meaning as a criterion of synonymy as identity of meaning is very rare even among monosynaptic words. In fact, cases of complete synonymy are very few and are, as a rule, confined to technical nomenclatures where we can find monosynaptic terms completely identical in meanings as, for example, spirant and fricative in phonetics. Words in synonymic sets are in general differentiated because of some element of opposition in each member of the set. The word handsome, e.g., is distinguished from its synonym beautiful mainly because the former implies the beauty of a male person or broadly speaking only of human beings, whereas beautiful is opposed to it as having no such restrictions in its semantic structure O. Jespersen. Linguistics. London, 1983, pp. 395-412.Thus it seems necessary to modify the traditional definition and to word it as follows: synonyms are words different in sound-form but similar in their denotational meaning or meanings. Synonymous relationship is observed only between similar denotational meanings of phonemically different words.Differentiation of synonyms may be observed in different semantic components--denotational or connotation.

It should be noted, however, that the difference in denotation meaning cannot exceed certain limits and is found only as a variation of some common denotational component. The verbs look, seem, appear, e.g., are viewed as members of one synonymic set as all three of them possess a common denotational semantic component "to be in one's view”. Semantic similarity of affixation morphemes is treated in more detail in the chapter about Word-Formation in Prof. Ginsburg's textbook on lexicology, judgment, but not necessarily in fact" and come into comparison in this meaning (cf. he seems (looks) (appears) tired). A more detailed analysis shows that there is a certain difference in the meaning of each verb: seem suggests a personal opinion based on evidence (e.g. nothing seems right when one is out of sorts); look implies that opinion is based on a visual impression (e.g. the city looks its worst in March), appear sometimes suggests a distorted impression (e.g. the setting sun made the spires appear ablaze). Thus similarity of denotational meaning of all members of the synonymic series is combined with a certain difference in the meaning of each member..Smirnitsky A.I. Homonyms in English M.1977 pp.57-59,89-90

It follows that relationship of synonymy implies certain differences in the denotational meaning of synonyms. In this connection a few words should be said about the traditional classification of vocabulary units into ideographic and stylistic synonyms. This classification proceeds from the assumption that synonyms may differ either in the denotational meaning (ideographic synonyms) or the connotation meaning, i.e. stylistic reference (stylistic synonyms). This assumption cannot be accepted as synonymous words always differ in the denotational component irrespective of the identity or difference of stylistic reference. The stylistic reference in the synonymous verbs seem,

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appear, look may be regarded as identical though we observe some difference in their denotational component. Difference in the denotational semantic component is also found in synonymous words possessing different connotational components. The verbs see and behold, e.g., are usually treated as stylistic synonyms; see is stylistically neutral and behold is described as bookish or poetic. It can be readily observed, however, that the difference between the two verbs is not confined solely to stylistic reference. Though they have a common denotational component 'to take cognizance of something by physical (or mental) vision', there is a marked difference in their comparable meanings. The verb behold suggests only 'looking at that which is seen', e.g. "behold them sitting in their glory" (Shelley), The verb see denotes 'have or use power of sight' (e.g. the blind cannot see), 'understand' (e.g. don't you see my meaning?), have knowledge or experience of (e.g. he has seen a good deal in his long life) and others.

Consequently, the interrelation of the denotational and the connotational meaning of synonyms is rather complex. Difference or rather variation of the denotational component does not imply difference in either the stylistic reference or the emotive charge of members of synonymic series. Difference of the connotational semantic component is invariably accompanied by some variation of the denotational meaning of synonyms. Therefore it would be more consistent to subdivide synonymous words into purely ideographic (denotational) and ideographic-stylistic synonyms. It should be pointed out that neither criterion the traditional definition of synonyms modified version suggested here provide for any objective criterion of similarity of meaning. Judgment as to semantic similarity is based solely on the linguistic intuition of the analyst. Dubenets E.M. Modern English Lexicology (Course of Lectures) M., Moscow State Teacher Training University Publishers 2004 pp.17-31

It is sometimes argued that the meaning of two words is identical if they can denote the same referent, in other words, if an object or a certain class of objects can always be denoted by either of the two words. For example in the sentence "Washington is the capital of the United States"--"Washington" and "the capital of the United States" have obviously the same referent, but there is no linguistic relationship of synonymy between the two lexical units.

Recently attempts have been made to introduce into the definition of synonymy the criterion of interchangeability in linguistic contexts. It is argued that for the linguistic similarity of meaning implies that the words are synonymous if either of them can occur in the same context. In this case the relationship of synonymy is defined as follows: "If A and B have almost identical environment except chiefly for sentences which contain both, we say they are synonyms" (cf. eye-doctor, oculist).

Another well-known definition also proceeding from the contextual approach is the definition of synonyms as words which can replace each other in any given context without the slightest alteration either in the denotational or connotational meaning.

The contextual approach also invites criticism as words interchangeable in any given context are rarely found. This fact may be explained as follows: firstly, words

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synonymous in some lexical contexts may display no synonymity in others. As one of the English scholars aptly remarks, the comparison of the sentences "the rainfall in April was abnormal" and "the rainfall in April was exceptional" may give us grounds for assuming that exceptional and abnormal are synonymous. The same adjectives in a different context are by no means synonymous, as we may see by comparing "my son is exceptional" and "my son is abnormal". Canon G. Historical Changes and English Wordformation: New Vocabulary items. N.Y., 1986. p.284

Secondly, it is evident that interchangeability alone cannot serve as a criterion of synonymity. Werner safely assumes that synonyms are words interchangeable in some contexts. But the reverse is certainly not true as semantically different words of the same part of speech are, as a rule, interchangeable in quite a number of contexts. For example, in the sentence "I saw a little girl playing in the garden" the adjective little may be formally replaced by a number of semantically different adjectives, e.g. pretty, tall, English, etc.

Thus a more acceptable definition of synonyms seems to be the following:

synonyms are words different in their sound-form, but similar in their denotational meaning or meanings and interchangeable at least in some contexts.

Theoretically, the degree of synonymity of words may be calculated by the number of contexts in which these words are interchangeable. The simplest technique of such semantic analysis is substitution in various contexts. It is argued that two synonymous adjectives, e.g. deep and profound, could be analyzed in relation to each other by ascertaining how far they are interchangeable in different contexts, say, in combination with water, voice, remark, relief; what changes of denotational meaning and emotive charge occur when they are interchanged (cf. deep relief--profound relief); what is their proper antonym in each of these combinations (shallow, high, superficial); in how many of the possible contexts they are interchangeable without any considerable alteration of the denotational meaning, etc.

The English word-stock is extremely rich. Synonymic accounted for by abundant borrowing. '" English Quite a number of words in a synonymic set are usually of Latin or French origin. For instance, out of thirteen words making up the set see, behold, descry, espy, view, survey, contemplate, observe, notice, remark, note, discern, perceive only see and behold can be traced back to Old English (OE. seen and beheading), all others are either French or Latin borrowings Howard Ph. New words for Old. Lnd., 1980. p.311.

Thus, a characteristic pattern of English synonymic sets is the pattern including the native and the borrowed words. Among the best investigated are the so called double-scale patterns: native versus Latin (e.g. bodily--corporal, brotherly-- fraternal); native versus Greek or French (e.g. answer-- reply, fiddle--violin). In most cases the synonyms differ in their stylistic reference, too. The native word is usually colloquial (e.g. bodily, brotherly), whereas the borrowed word may as a rule be described as bookish or highly literary (e.g. corporal, fraternal).

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Side by side with this pattern there exists in English a subsidiary one based on a triple-scale of synonyms: native-- French and Latin or Greek [e.g. begin (start)--commence (Fr.)--initiate (/.); rise--mount (Fr.)--ascend (/,)]. In most of these sets the native synonym is felt as more colloquial, the Latin or Greek one is characterized by bookish stylistic reference, whereas the French stands between the two extremes.

There are some minor points of interest that should be discussed in connection with the problem of synonymy. It has often been found that subjects prominent in the interests of a community tend to attract a large number of synonyms. It is common knowledge that in Beowulf there are 37 synonyms for hero or prince and at least a dozen for battle and fight. The same epic contains 17 expressions for sea to which 13 more may be added from other English poems of that period. In Modern American English there are at least twenty words used to denote money: beans, bucks, the chips, do-re-mi, the needful, wherewithal, etc. This linguistic phenomenon is usually described as the law of synonymic attraction,

It has also been observed that when a particular word is given a transferred meaning its synonyms tend to develop along parallel lines. We know that in early New English the verb overlook was employed in the meaning of 'look with an evil eye upon, cast a spell over' from which there developed the meaning 'deceive' first recorded in 1596. Exactly half a century later we find oversee a synonym of overlook employed in the meaning of 'deceive'.1 This form of analogy active in the semantic development of synonyms is referred to as "radiation of synonyms".

1.2.2 Etymological and semantic criteria in polysemy and homonymy

As it was mentioned before, two or more words identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning, distribution and (in many cases) origin are called homonyms. The term is derived from Greek (homos 'similar' and onoma 'name') and thus expresses very well the sameness of name combined with the difference in meaning.

There is an obvious difference between the meanings of the symbol fast in such combinations as run fast 'quickly' and stand fast 'firmly'. The difference is even more pronounced if we observe cases where fast is a noun or a verb as in the following proverbs: A clean fast is better than a dirty breakfast; Who feasts till he is sick, must fast till he is well.

Fast as an isolated word, therefore, may be regarded as a variable that can assume several different values depending on the conditions of usage, or, in other words, distribution. All the possible values of each linguistic sign are listed in dictionaries. It is the duty of lexicographers to define the boundaries of each word, i.e. to differentiate homonyms and to unite variants deciding in each case whether the different meanings belong to the same polysemantic word or whether there are grounds to treat them as two or more separate words identical in form. In speech, however, only one °f all the possible values is determined by the context, so that no ambiguity may normally arise. There is no danger, for instance that the listener would wish to substitute the meaning 'quick' into the

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sentence: It is absurd to have hard and fast rules about anything or think that fast rules here are 'rules of diet'. Combinations when two or more meanings are possible are either deliberate puns, or result from carelessness. Both meanings of liver, i.e. 'a living person' and 'the organ that secretes bile' are, for instance, intentionally present in the following play upon words: "7s life worth living?" "It depends upon the liver.''

Very seldom can ambiguity of this kind interfere with understanding. The following example quoted from lies, 1 sound somewhat artificial, but may him also a deliberate joke and not carelessness: The girls will be playing cricket in white stockings. We hope they won't get too many runs. Runs in this context may mean either 'ladders in stockings' or 'the units of scoring, made by running once over a certain course' (a cricket term).

Homonymy exists in many languages, but in English it is particularly frequent, especially among monosyllabic words. In the list of 2540 homonyms given in the Oxford English Dictionary 89% are monosyllabic words and only 9,1% are words of two syllables. From the viewpoint of their morphological structure, they are mostly one-morpheme words. Many words, especially those characterized by a high frequency rating, are not connected with meaning by a one-to-one relationship. On the contrary, one symbol as a rule serves to render several different meanings. The phenomenon may be said to be the reverse of synonymy where several symbols correspond to one meaning.

2.2.2 Comparative typological analysis of two linguistic phenomena in English, Russian and Uzbek

The most widely accepted classification is that recognizing homonyms proper, homophones and homographs. Homonyms proper are words identical in pronunciation and spelling, like/as if and liver above or like scale 'one of the thin plates that form the outer covering of most fishes and reptiles' and scale, 'a basis for a system of measuring'. Homophones are words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning: air :: heir; arms :: alms; buy :: bye : by; him :: hymn; knight :: night; not :: knot; or :: ore :: oar; piece ; peace; rain :: reign; scent :: cent :: sent; steel :: steal; storey ;: story write :: right :: rite and many others.

For example, in the sentence “The millwright on my right thinks it right that some conventional rite should symbolize the right of every man to write as he pleases.” the sound complex [rait] is noun, adjective, adverb and verb, has four different spellings and six different meanings Halliday M.A.K. Language as Social Semiotics. Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. Lnd., 1979.p.53,112.

The difference may be confined to the use of a capital letter as in bill and Bill, in the following example: "How much is my milk bill?" "Excuse me, Madam, but my name is John." Homographs are words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling: bow [bou] :: bow IbauJ; lead [li:d] :: lead [led]; row [rouj :: row [rau]; sewer I'soua] :: sewer [sjual; tear [tea] :: tear [tia]; wind [wind] :: wind [wand] and many more.

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It has been often argued that homographs constitute a phenomenon that should

be kept apart from homonymy as the object of linguistics is sound language. This viewpoint cans hardly be accepted. Because of the effects of education and culture written English is a generalized national form of expression. An average speaker does not separate the written and oral form. On the contrary he is more likely to analyze the words in Terries of letters than in terms of phonemes with which he is less familiar. That is why a linguist must take into consideration both the spelling and the pronunciation of words when analyzing cases of identity of form and diversity of content. Maurer D.W. , High F.C. New Words - Where do they come from and where do they go. American Speech., 1982.p.171

Various types of classification for homonyms proper have been suggested. The one most often used in present-day Annalistic in Russia it is that suggested by Prof. A. I. Smirnitsky1). It has been criticized for failing to bring out the main characteristic features of homonyms.

A more comprehensive system may be worked out on the same basis if we are guided by the theory of oppositions and in classifying the homonyms take into consideration the difference or sameness in their lexical and grammatical meaning, paradigm and basic form. The distinctive features shown in the table on lexical meaning (different denoted by A, or nearly same denoted by A l) grammatical meaning (different denoted by B, or same denoted by B), paradigm (different denoted by C or same denoted by C), and basic form (different D and same D).

The term "nearly same lexical meaning" must not he taken too literally. It means only that the corresponding members of the opposition have some important invariant components in common. "Same grammatical meaning" implies that both members belong to the same part of speech.

Same paradigm comprises also cases when there is only one word form, i.e. when the words are unchangeable. Inconsistent combinations of features are crossed out in the table. It is, for instance, impossible for two words to be identical in all word forms and different in basic forms, or for two homonyms to show no difference either in lexical or grammatical meaning, because in this case they are

not homonyms. That leaves seven possible classes.

ABCD, Members of the opposition “light” (noun) - “light” (adjective) are different in lexical and grammatical meaning, have different paradigms but the same basic form. The class is very numerous. A further subdivision might take into consideration the parts of speech to which the members belong, namely the oppositions of noun vs. verb, adjective vs. verb, noun vs. adjective, etc.

ABCD. Same as above, only not both members are in their basic form. The noun (here might) is in its basic form, the singular, but the verb will coincide with it only in the Past

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Tense. This lack of coincidence between basic forms is not frequent, so only few examples are possible.

Cf. also “bit” (noun) - 'a small piece' and “bit” - Past Tense and Participle II of “bite”.

ABCD, Represents pairs different in lexical and grammatical meaning but not in paradigm, as these are not changeable words. For example, “for” (preposition) contrasted to “for” - conjunction.

ABCD. Patterned homonymy.1 Differs from the previous (i.e. ABGD) in the presence of some common component in the lexical meaning of the members, some lexical invariant:

For example, the word “before” has the following lexical invalidations: “before” (prep.), “before” (adv), “before” (conj.), though they all express some priority in succession. This type of opposition is regular among form words.

ABCD. Contains all the cases due to conversion:

For example, “eye” (noun) vs. “eye” (verb). These members differ in grammatical meaning and paradigm. It should be borne in mind that they also belong to patterned homonymy. Examples of such noun-to-verb or verb-to-noun homonymy can be augmented almost indefinitely The meaning of the second can always be guessed if the first is known.

ABCD. Different lexical meaning, same grammatical meaning; and different paradigm:

e.g. lie ~ lay ~ lain and lie - lied - lied in many cases belong to this group. We should also underline the configuration of cases of double plural

cf.: “genius” - “geniuses” and “genius” - “genii”.

ABCD. The most typical case of homonymy accepted by everybody and exemplified in every textbook. Different lexical meanings but the homonyms belong to the same part of speech: For example, the word “spring” can be understood as a leap, “spring” as a source and “spring” as the season in which vegetation begins.

It goes without saying that this is a model that gives a general scheme. Actually, a group of homonyms may contain members belonging to different groups in this classification.

3.2.2 Modern methods of investigating homonyms

The intense development of homonymy in the English language is obviously due not to one single factor but to several interrelated causes, such as the monosyllabic character of English and its analytic structure. Inflections have almost disappeared in present-day English and have been superseded by separate words of abstract character (prepositions, auxiliaries, etc.) stating the relations that once expressed by terminations. Canon G.

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Historical Changes and English Word formation: New Vocabulary items. N.Y., 1986. p.284

The abundance of homonyms is also closely connected with a characteristic feature of the English language as the phonetic unity of word and stem or, in other words, the predominance of forms among the most frequent roots. It is very obvious that the frequency of words stands in some inverse relationship to length, the monosyllabic words will be the most frequent moreover, as the most frequent words are also highly polysemantic, It is only natural that they develop meanings which in the course of time may deviate very far from the central one. When the inter-mediate links fall out, some of these new meanings lose all with the rest of the structure and start a separate existence. Phenomenon is known as disintegration or split of polysemy, Different causes by which homonymy may be brought about subdivided into two main groups:

1) Homonymy through convergent sound development, when or three words of different origin accidentally coincide in sound;

2) Homonymy developed from polysemy through divergent development. Both may be combined with loss of endings and 0tJier morphological processes.

In Old English the words “gesund”- 'healthy' and “sund”- 'swimming' were separate words both in form and in meaning. In the course of time they have changed their meaning and phonetic form, and for latter accidentally coincided: OE “sund” in ME “sound” 'strait'. The group was joined also accidentally by the noun sound 'what is or may be heard' with the corresponding verb that developed from French and ultimately the Latin word “sonus”, and the verb sound 'to measure the depth' of dubious etymology. The coincidence is purely accidental.

Two different Latin verbs: “cadere”-'to fair and “capere”- 'to hold' are the respective sources of the homonyms In case1 'instance of thing's occurring' and case a box. Homonymy of this type is universally recognized. The other type is open to discussion.

Unlike the homonyms case and sound all the homonyms of the box group due to disintegration or split of polysemy are etymologically connected. The sameness of form is not accidental but based on genetic relationship. They are all derived from one another and are all ultimately traced to the Latin “buxus”. The Concise Oxford Dictionary1) has five separate entries for box: 1.box n. - 'a kind of small evergreen shrub';

2. box n. 'receptacle made of wood, cardboard, metal, etc. and usually provided with a lid';

3. box v. 'to put into a box';

4. box n. 'slap with the hand on the ear';

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5. boxt v. à sport term meaning 'to fight with fists in padded gloves'. Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English. Longman. 1981pp.23

Such homonyms may be partly derived from one another but their common point of origin lies beyond the limits of the English language. In these with the appearance of a new meaning, very different from the previous one, the semantic structure of the parent word splits. The new meaning receives a separate existence and starts a new semantic structure of its own. Hence the term disintegration or split of polysemy. It must be noted, however, that though the number of examples in which a process of this sort could be observed is considerable, it is difficult to establish exact criteria by which disintegration of polysemy could be detected. The whole concept is based on stating whether there is any connection between the meanings or not, and is very subjective. Whereas in the examples dealing with phonetic convergence, i.e. when we said that “case1” and “case2” are different words because they differ in origin, we had definite linguistic criteria to go by, in the case of disintegration of polysemy there are none to guide us; we can only rely on intuition and individual linguistic experience. For a trained linguist the number of unrelated homonyms will be much smaller than for an uneducated person. The knowledge of etymology and cognate languages will always help to supply the missing links. It is easier, for instance, to see the connection between beam 'a ray of light' and beam 'the metallic structural part of a building' if one knows the original meaning of the word, i.e. 'tree' (OE beam, Germ Baum), and is used to observe similar metaphoric transfers in other words. The connection is also more obvious if one is able to notice the same element in such compound names of trees as hornbeam, white beam, etc.

The conclusion, therefore, is that in diachronistic treatment the only rigorous criterion is that of etymology observed in explanatory dictionaries of the English language where words are separated according to their origin,

For example, in the words match1 'a piece of inflammable material you strike fire with' (from OFr “mesche”, Fr “meche”) and match2 (from OE “gemcecca” 'fellow').

It is interesting to note that out of 2540 homonyms listed in a dictionary1) only 7% are due to disintegration of polysemy, all the others are etymologically different. One must, however, keep in mind that patterned homonymy is here practically disregarded. This underestimation of regular patterned homonymy tends to produce a false impression. Actually the homonymy of nouns and verbs due to the processes of loss of endings on the one hand and conversion on the other is one of the most prominent features of present-day English. . It may be combined with semantic changes as in the pair “long” (adj.) - “long” (verb). The explanation is that when it seems long before something comes to you, you long for it (long (adj.) comes from OE “lang”, whereas “long” (v.)comes from OE “langian”, so that the expression “Me longs” means 'it seems long to me'.

The opposite process of morphemic addition can also result in homonymy. This process is chiefly due to independent word-formation with the same affix or to the homonymy of derivational and functional affixes. The suffix -er forms several words with the same stem: trail -- trailer 'a creeping plant' vs. trailer 'a caravan', i.e. 'a vehicle drawn along by

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another vehicle'. The suffix -s added to the homonymous stems -arm- gives “arms” (n.) 'Weapon' and “arms” (v.) 'Supplies with weapons'. In summing up this dichromatic analysis of homonymy it should be emphasized that there are two ways by which homonyms come into being, namely convergent development of sound form and divergent development of meaning (see table below). The first may consist in

(a) phonetic change only,

(b) phonetic change combined with loss of affixes,

(e) independent formation

from homonymous bases by means of homonymous morphemes. The second, that is divergent development of meaning may be

(a) limited within one lexico-grammatical class of words,

(b) combined with difference in lexico-grammatical class and therefore difference in grammatical functions and distribution,

(c) based on independent formation from the same base by homonymous morphemes.

The process can sometimes be more complicated. At present there are at least two homonyms: “stick”(noun1) - 'insert pointed things into', a highly polysemantic word, and the no less polysemantic “stick” (noun) 'a rod'.

In the course of time the number of homonyms on the whole increases, although occasionally the conflict of homonyms ends in word loss.

4.2. 2 Practical approach in studying homonyms

The synchronic treatment of English homonyms brings to the forefront a set of problems of paramount importance for different branches of applied linguistics: lexicography, foreign language teaching and machine translation. These problems are: the criteria distinguishing homonymy from polysemy, the formulation of rules for recognizing different meanings of the same homonym in terms of distribution, and the description of difference between patterned and irregular homonymy. It is necessary to emphasize that all these problems are connected with difficulties created by homonymy in understanding the message by the reader or listener, not with formulating one's thoughts; they exist for the speaker only in so far as he must construct his speech in a way that would prevent all possible misunderstanding.

All three problems are so closely interwoven that it is difficult to separate them. So we shall discuss them as they appear for various practical purposes. For a lexicographer it is a problem of establishing word boundaries. It is easy enough to see that match, as in safety matches, is a separate word from the verb match 'to suit'. But he must know

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whether he is justified in taking into one entry match, as in football match, and match in meet one's match 'one's equal'. Can the English verb bear in bear a burden, bear troubles, bear fruit, bear offspring be viewed as a single word or as a set of two or perhaps even more homonyms? Similarly, charge, in charge the gun, charge the man with theft, charge somebody a stiff price can be viewed in several ways.

On the synchronic level, when the difference in etymology is irrelevant, the problem of establishing the criterion for the distinction between different words identical in sound form, and different meanings of the same word becomes hard to solve. The semantic criterion which ultimately is reduced to distinguishing between words that "have nothing in common semantically" and those that "have something in common" and therefore must be taken as one lexical unit, is very vague and hopelessly subjective. Nevertheless the problem cannot be dropped altogether as upon an efficient arrangement of dictionary entries depends the amount of time spent by the readers in looking up a word: a lexicographer will either save or waste his readers' time and effort.

Actual solutions differ. It is a widely spread practice in English lexicography to combine in one entry words of identical phonetic form showing similarity of lexical meaning or, in other words, revealing a lexical invariant, even if they belong to different parts of speech. In post-war lexicography in our country a different trend has settled. The Anglo-Russian dictionary edited by V. D. Arakin makes nine separate entries with the word “right” against four items given in the dictionary edited by Hornby.

The truth is that there exists no universal criterion for the distinction between polysemy and homonymy, unless one accepts the solution offered by V. I. Abayev and follows the data of etymology, separating as homonyms only those words that have different sources and only accidentally coincided phonetically. The necessary restriction is that different sources must be traced within the history of the language. Words that coincided phonetically before they penetrated into the English vocabulary are not taken into account. The etymological criterion, however, may very often lead to distortion of the present-day situation. The English vocabulary of to-day is not a replica of the Old English vocabulary with some additions from borrowing. It is in many respects a different system, and this system will not be revealed if the lexicographer is guided by etymological criteria only. A more or less simple, if not very rigorous, procedure based on purely synchronic data may be prompted by transformational analysis. It may be called explanatory transformation. It is based on the assumption that if different senses rendered by the same phonetic complex can be defined with the help of an identical kernel word-group, they may be considered sufficiently near to be regarded as variants of the same word; if not, they are homonyms.

Consider the following set of examples:

1. A child's voice is heard. 2. His voice ... was ... annoyingly well-bred.

3. The voice-voicelessness distinction ... sets up some English consonants in opposed pairs...

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4. In the voice contrast of active and passive ... the active is the unmarked form.

The first variant (voice1 may be defined as 'sounds uttered in speaking or singing as characteristic of a particular person', voice2 as 'mode of uttering sounds in speaking or singing', voice3 as 'the vibration of the vocal chords in sounds uttered'. So far all the definitions contain one and the same kernel element rendering the invariant common basis of their meaning. It is, however, impossible to use the same kernel element for the meaning present in the fourth example. The corresponding definition is: "Voice -- that forms of the verb that expresses the relation of the subject to the action". This failure to satisfy the same explanation formula sets the fourth meaning apart. It may then be considered a homonym to the polysemantic word embracing the first three variants.

The procedure described may remain helpful when the items considered belong to different parts of speech; the verb voice may mean, for example, 'to utter a sound by the aid of the vocal chords'.

This brings us to the problem of patterned homonymy, i. e. of the invariant lexical meaning present in homonyms that have developed from one common source and belong to various parts of speech.

Is a lexicographer justified in placing the verb to voice with the above meaning into the same entry with the first three variants of the noun? The same question arises with respect to after or before -- preposition, conjunction and adverb.

The elder generation of English linguists thought it quite possible for one and the same word to function as different parts of speech.1 Such pairs as act n -- act v, back n -- back v, drive n -- drive v, the above mentioned after and before and the like, were all treated as one word functioning as different parts of speech. Later on this point of view was severely criticized. It was argued that one and the same word could not belong to different parts of speech simultaneously because this would contradict the definition of the word as a system of forms. This viewpoint is not faultless either: if one follows it consistently one should regard as separate words all cases when words are countable nouns in one meaning and uncountable in another, when verbs can be used transitively and intransitively, etc.

In this case hair 'all the hair that grows on a person's head7 will be one word, an uncountable noun; whereas a single thread of hair will be denoted by another word (hair2) which, being countable, and thus different in paradigm, cannot be considered the same word. It would be tedious to enumerate all the absurdities that will result from choosing this path. A dictionary arranged on these lines would require very much space in printing and could occasion much wasted time in use. The conclusion therefore is that efficiency in lexicographic work is secured by a rigorous application of etymological criteria combined with formalized procedures of establishing a lexical invariant suggested by synchronic linguistic methods.

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As to those concerned with teaching of English as a foreign language, they are also keenly interested in patterned homonymy. The most frequently used words constitute the greatest amount of difficulty, as may be summed up by the following example: I think that this "that" is a conjunction but that «that" man that used was a pronoun.

A correct understanding of this peculiarity of contemporary English should be instilled in the pupils from the very beginning, and they should be taught to find their way in sentences where several words have their homonyms in other parts of speech, as in Jespersen's1) example: Will change of air cure-love? l To show the scope of the problem for the elementary stage a list of homonyms that should be classified as patterned is given below:

“Above” - prep., adv., adj.; “act”- n., v.; “after” - prep., adv., conj.; “age” - n., v.; “back” - n., adv., v.; “ball” - n., v.; “bank”

We may give the other examples: by, can, case, close, country, course, cross, direct, draw, drive, even, faint, flat, fly, for, game, general, hard, hide, hold, home, just, kind, last, leave, left, lie, light, like, little, lot, major, march, match, may, mean, might, mind, miss, part, plain, plane, plate, right, round, sharp, sound, spare, spell, spring, square, stage, stamp, try, type, volume, watch, well, will, etc.

For the most part all these words are cases of patterned lexico-grammatical homonymy taken from the minimum vocabulary of the elementary stage: the above homonyms mostly differ within each group grammatically but possess some lexical invariant. That is to say, act v follows the standard four-part system of forms with a base form act, an s-form (act-s), a Past Tense form (acted) and an -ing- form (acting) and takes up all syntactic functions of verbs, whereas act n can have two forms, act (singular.) and acts (plural). Semantically both contain the most generalized component rendering the notion of doing something.

Recent investigations have shown that it is quite possible to establish and to formalize the differences in environment, syntactical or lexical, serving to signal which of the several inherent values is to be ascribed to the variable in a given context.

An example of distributional analysis will help to make this point clear. The distribution of a lexico-semantic variant of a word may be represented as a list of structural patterns in which it occurs and the data on its combining power. Some of the most typical structural patterns for a verb are: N + V -f- N, N + V -f- Prep.; V- N, N-f-V-f-Adj., N + V + Adv., N + V + t o -f- V and some others. Patterns for nouns are far less studied, but for the present case one very typical example will suffice. This is the structure article for A + N. In the following extract from "A Taste of Honey" by Sheath

Delaney the morpheme “laugh” occurs three times:

1.I can't stand people who laugh at other people.

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2. They'd get a bigger laugh, if they laughed at themselves.

We recognize laugh used first and last here as a verb because the formula is N + laugh + prep + N and so the pattern is in both cases \ -[-V H-prep -- N. In the beginning of the second sentence laugh is a noun and the pattern is article -f- A -J- N.

This elementary example can give a very general idea of the procedure which can be used for solving more complicated

99Distributional analysis of this type is of great practical importance both in foreign language teaching and in machine translation. In order to translate a sentence the machine must analyze it, i.e. determine the types of elementary configurations that constitute it. Practically speaking, the pupil even if taught by patterns, must do the same. Elementary configurations are not mere word-groups but combinations of word classes. Therefore in the process of identification of the symbols given, it is necessary to establish to what classes they belong. As homonymy prevents this, the first step to be taken in machine translation aims at getting rid of homonymy. The system of formal rules aimed at revealing and eliminating lexico-grammatical homonymy in machine translation has been described by T. Moloshnaya. l These rules begin with morphological criteria: if the word form considered has an ending typical of one class and impossible in all others, its class is thus determined. Laughed is obviously a verb, as the noun does not take the ending -ed. Of the two homonyms complete v and complete adj. only the verb can have such endings as -ed, -ing. When the morphological data are exhausted, syntactical combinations are analyzed.

Without attempting to give a more detailed analysis of these operations since they belong rather to grammar than to lexicology, we may sum up our discussion by pointing out that whereas distinction between polysemy and homonymy is relevant and important for lexicography it is not relevant for the practice of either human or machine translation. The reason for this is that different variants of a polysemantic word are not less conditioned by context than lexical homonyms. In both cases the identification of the necessary meaning is based on the corresponding .distribution that can signal it and must be present in the memory either of the pupil or the machine. The distinction between patterned and non-patterned homonymy, greatly underrated until now, is of far greater importance. In non-patterned homonymy every unit is to be learned separately both from the lexical and grammatical points of view. In patterned homonymy when one knows the lexical meaning of a given word in one part of speech, one can accurately predict the meaning when the same sound complex occurs in some other part of speech, provided, of course, that there is sufficient context to guide one.

5.2.2 Homonyms may be also classified by the type of meaning into lexical, lexico-grammatical and grammatical homonyms

In seal n and seal n, e.g., the part-of-speech meaning of the word and the grammatical meanings of all its forms are identical. (cf. seal [si:l] Common Case Singular, seal's [si:lz] Possessive Case Singular for both seal* and sea!2). The difference is confined to lexical

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meaning only or, to be more exact, to the denotational component: seal denotes 'a sea animal', 'the fur of this animal', etc., seaI2--'a design printed on paper, the stamp by which the design is made', etc. So we can say that seal 2 and seal are lexical homonyms as they differ in lexical meaning.

If we compare seal --'a sea animal' and (to) seal 3--'to close tightly', we shall observe not only a difference in the lexical meaning of their homonymous word-forms, but a difference in their grammatical meanings as well. Identical sound-forms, i.e. seals [si:lz] (Common Case Plural of the noun) and (he) seals [si:lz] (third person Singular of the (verb) possess each of them different grammatical meanings. As both grammatical and lexical meanings differ we describe these homonymous word-forms as lexico-grammatical homonymy.

Lexico-grammatical homonymy generally implies that the homonyms in question belong to different parts of speech as the part-of-speech meaning is a blend of the lexical and grammatical semantic components. There may be cases however when lexico-grammatical homonymy is observed within the same part of speech as, e.g., in the verbs (to) find [faind] and (to) found [faund], where homonymic word-forms: found [faund]--Past Tense of (to) find and found [faund]--Present Tense of (to) found differ both grammatically and lexically. Modern English abounds in homonymic word-forms differing in grammatical meaning only. In the paradigms of the majority of verbs the form of the Past Tense is homonymous with the form of Participle II, e.g. asked [a:sktl--asked [a:skt]; in the paradigm of nouns we usually find homonymous forms of the Possessive Case Singular and the Common Case Plural, e.g. : brother's . It may be easily observed that grammatical homonymy is the homonymy of different word-forms of one and the same word. The two classifications: full and partial homonymy and lexical, lexico-grammatical and grammatical homonymy are not mutually exclusive. All homonyms may be described on the basis of the two criteria--homonymy of all forms of the word or only some of the word-forms and the type of meaning in which homonymous words or word-forms differ. So we speak of full lexical homonymy of seen and seal 2 n, of partial lexical homonymy of live and leave, and of partial lexico-grammatical homonymy of seen and seal 3 It should be pointed out that in the some classification discussed above one of Peculiarities the groups, namely lexico-grammatical of Lexico-Grammatical homonymy, is not homogeneous. This can be seen by analyzing the relationship between two pairs of lexico-grammatical homonyms, e.g.

1. seal a sea animal'--seal 3 v--'to close tightly as with a seal;

2. seal 2 n--'a piece of wax, lead'--seal 3 f--'to close tightly as with a seal'.

We can see that seal n and seal 3 v actually differ in both grammatical and lexical meanings. We cannot establish any semantic connection between the meaning «a sea animal" and "to close tightly". The lexical meanings of seal 2 n and seal3u are apprehended by speakers as closely related for both the noun and the verb denote something connected with "a piece of wax, lead, etc., a stamp by means of which a design is printed on paper and paper envelopes are tightly closed". Consequently the pair

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seal 3 n--seal 3 v does not answer the description of homonyms as words or word-forms that sound alike but differ in lexical meaning. This is true of a number of other cases of lexico-grammatical homonymy, e.g. work n--(to) work o; paper /i--(to) paper v; love n--(to) love v and so on. As a matter of fact all homonyms arising from conversion have related meanings.

It is sometimes argued that as a rule the whole of the semantic structure of such words is not identical. The noun paper, e.g., has at least five meanings (1. material in the form of sheets, 2. a newspaper, 3. a document, 4. an essay, 5. a set of printed examination questions) whereas the verb paper possesses but one meaning "to cover with wall-paper". It follows that the whole of the semantic structure of the two words is essentially different, though individual meanings are related.

Considering this peculiarity of lexico-grammatical homonyms we may subdivide them into two groups: A. identical in sound-form but different in their grammatical and lexical meanings (sea n--seal3 v), and B. identical in sound-form but different in their grammatical meanings and partly different in their lexical meaning, i.e. partly different in their semantic structure (seal2 v; paper n--(to) paper v). Thus the definition of homonyms as words possessing identical sound-form but different semantic structure seems to be more exact as it allows of a better understanding of complex cases of homonymy, e.g. seah n--seah n--sealx v --seal3 u which can be analyzed into homonymic pairs, e.g. seal n--seal n--lexical homonyms; seal n--seal 3 v--lexico-grammatical homonyms, subgroup A; seals n--seal3y-- lexico-grammatical homonyms, subgroup B; etc.

In the discussion of the problem of graphic homonymy we proceeded from the as possessing both sound-form and meaning, and we deliberately disregarded their graphic form. Some linguists, however, argue that the graphic form of words in Modern English is just as important as their sound-form and should be taken into consideration in the analysis and classification of homonyms. Consequently they proceed from the definition of homonyms as words identical in sound-form or spelling but different in meaning. It follows that in their classification of homonyms all the three aspects: sound-form, graphic-form and meaning are taken into account. Accordingly they classify homonyms into homographs, homophones and perfect homonyms.

Homographs are words identical in spelling, but different both in their sound-form and meaning, e.g. bow n [bouj-- 'a piece of wood curved by a string and used for shooting arrows' and bow n (bail--'the bending of the head or body'; tear n [tiaj--'a drop of water that comes from the eye' and tear v [tesj--'to pull apart by force'.

Homophones are words identical in sound-form but different both in spelling and in meaning, e.g. sea n and see v; son n and sun n.

Perfect homonyms are words identical both in spelling and in sound-form but different in meaning, e.g. case in something that has happened' and case n--'a box, a container'. It may be readily observed that in this approach no distinction is made between homonymous words and homonymous word-forms or between full and partial

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homonymy. The description of various types of Sources homonyms in Modern English would of Homonymy incomplete if we did flat give flat brief outline of the diachronic processes that account for their appearance.

6.2.2 The two main sources of homonymy are:

1) diverging meaning development of one polysemantic word, and 2) converging sound development of two or more different words. The process of diverging meaning development can be observed when different meanings of the same word move so far away from each other that they come to be regarded as two separate units. This happened, for example, in the case of Modern English flower and flour which originally were one word meaning 'the flower' and 'the finest part of wheat'. The difference in spelling underlines the fact that from the synchronic point of view they are two distinct words even though historically they have a common origin.

Convergent sound development is the most potent factor in the creation of homonyms. The great majority of homonyms arise as a result of converging sound development which leads to the coincidence of two or more words which were phonetically distinct at an earlier date.

For example: OE. Icand OE cage have become identical in pronunciation (MnE. I [ai] and eye [ai], A number of lexico-grammatical homonyms appeared as a result of convergent sound development of the verb and the noun (cf. MnE. love--(to) love and OE. lufu--lufian).

5.2.2 Polysemy and Homonymy: Etymological and Semantic Criteria

Words borrowed from other languages may through phonetic convergence become homonymous. Old Norse has and French race are homonymous in Modern English (cf. race1 [reis]--'running' and race2 [reis] 'a distinct ethnical stock'). There are four homonymic words in Modern English: sound --'healthy' was already in Old English homonymous with sound--'a narrow passage of water', though etymologically they are unrelated. Then two more homonymous words appeared in the English language, one comes from Old French son (L. sonus) and denotes 'that which is or may be heard' and the other from the French sunder the surgeon's probe. One of the most debatable problems in semasiology is the demarcation line between homonymy and polysemy, i.e. between different meanings of one word and the meanings of two homonymous words.

If homonymy is viewed diachronically then all cases of sound convergence of two or, more words may be safely regarded as cases of homonymy as, e.g., sound i, sound2, sound-e, and sound4 which can be traced back to four etymologically different words. /fie cases of semantic divergence, however, are more doubtful. The transition from polysemy to homonymy is a gradual process, so it is hardly possible to point out the precise stage at which divergent semantic development tears asunder all ties of etymological kinship and results in the appearance of two separate words/ In the case of flower, flour,1 e.g., it is mainly the resultant divergence of graphic forms that gives us

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grounds to assert that the two meanings which originally made up the semantic structure of one word are now apprehended as belonging to two different words.

Synchronically the differentiation between homonymy and polysemy is wholly based on the semantic criterion. It is usually held that if a connection between the various meanings is apprehended by the speaker, these are to be considered as making up the semantic structure of a polysemantic word, otherwise it is a case of homonymy, not polysemy.

Thus the semantic criterion implies that the difference between polysemy and homonymy is actually reduced to the differentiation between related and unrelated meanings. This traditional semantic criterion does not seem to be reliable, firstly, because various meanings of the same word and the meanings of two or more different words may be equally apprehended by the speaker as synchronically unrelated/ For instance, the meaning 'a change in the form of a noun or pronoun' which is usually listed in dictionaries as one of the meanings of case!--'something that has happened', 'a question decided in a court of law' seems to be just as unrelated to the meanings of this word as to the meaning of case2 --'a box, a container', etc

Secondly in the discussion of lexico-grammatical homonymy it was pointed out that some of the mean of homonyms arising from conversion (e.g. seal in--seal 3 v; paper n--paper v) are related, so this criterion cannot be applied to a large group of homonymous word-forms in Modern English. This criterion proves insufficient in the synchronic analysis of a number of other borderline cases, e.g. brother--brothers-- 'sons of the same parent' and brethren--'fellow members of a religious society'. The meanings may be apprehended as related and then we can speak of polysemy pointing out that the difference in the morphological structure of the plural form reflects the difference of meaning. Otherwise we may regard this as a case of partial lexical homonymy. The same is true of such cases as hang--hung--hung--'to support or be supported from above' and hang--hanged--hanged--'to put a person to death by hanging' all of which are traditionally regarded as different meanings of one polysemantic word.

It is sometimes argued that the difference between related and unrelated meanings may be observed in the manner in which the meanings of polysemantic words are as a rule relatable. It is observed that different meanings of one word have certain stable relationships which are not to be found between the meanings of two homonymous words. A clearly perceptible connection, e.g., can be seen in all metaphoric or metonymic meanings of one word (cf., e.g., foot of the man-- foot of the mountain, loud voice--loud colors, etc.,1 cf. also deep well and deep knowledge, etc.).

Such semantic relationships are commonly found in the meanings of one word and are considered to be indicative' of polysemy. It is also suggested that the semantic connection may be described in terms of such features as, e.g., form and function (cf. horn of an animal and horn as an instrument), process and result (to run--'move with quick steps' and a run--act of running).

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Similar relationships, however, are observed between the meanings of two homonymic words, e.g. to run and a run in the stocking.

Moreover in the synchronic analysis of polysemantic words we often find meanings that cannot be related in any way, as, e.g., the meanings of the word case discussed above. Thus the semantic criterion proves not only untenable in theory but also rather vague and because of this impossible in practice as it cannot be used in discriminating between several meanings of one word and the meanings of two different words.

A more objective criterion of distribution suggested by some linguists is criteria: undoubtedly helpful, but mainly increase-distribution of lexico - grammatical and grammatical homonymy. When homonymic words of Context, belong to different parts of speech they differ not only in their semantic structure, but also in their syntactic function and consequently in their distribution. In the homonymic pair paper n--(to) paper v the noun may be preceded by the article and followed by a verb; (to) paper can never be found in identical distribution. This formal criterion can be used to discriminate not only lexico-grammatical but also grammatical homonyms, but it often fails the linguists in cases of lexical homonymy, not differentiated by means of spelling.

Homonyms differing in graphic form, e.g. such lexical homonyms as knight--night or flower--flour, are easily perceived to be two different lexical units as any formal difference of words is felt as indicative of the existence of two separate lexical units. Conversely lexical homonyms identical both in pronunciation and spelling are often apprehended as different meanings of one word. It is often argued that the context in which the words are used suffices to perceive the borderline between homonymous words, e.g. the meaning of case in several cases of robbery can be easily differentiated from the meaning of case2 in a jewel case, a glass case. This however is true of different meanings of the same word as recorded in dictionaries, e.g. of case as can be seen by comparing the case will be tried in the law-court and the possessive case of the noun. Thus, the context serves to differentiate meanings but is of little help in distinguishing between homonymy and polysemy. Consequently we have to admit that no formal means have as yet been found to differentiate between several meanings of one word and the meanings of its homonyms. We must take into consideration the note that in the discussion of the problems of polysemy and homonymy we proceeded from the assumption that the word is the basic unit of language.1 It should be pointed out that there is another approach to the concept of the basic language unit which makes the problem of differentiation between polysemy and homonymy irrelevant.

Some linguists hold that the basic and elementary units at the semantic level of language are the lexico-semantic variants of the word, i.e. individual word-meanings. In that case, naturally, we can speak only of homonymy of individual lexico-semantic variants, as polysemy is by definition, at least on the synchronic plane, the co-existence of several meanings in the semantic structure of the word. The criticism of this viewpoint cannot be discussed within the framework different semantic structure. The problem of homonymy is mainly the problem of differentiation between two different semantic structures of identically sounding words.

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2. Homonymy of words and homonymy of individual word-forms may be regarded as full and partial homonymy. Cases of full homonymy are generally observed in words belonging to the same part of speech. Partial homonymy is usually to be found in word-forms of different parts of speech.

3. Homonymous words and word-forms may be classified by the type of meaning that serves to differentiate between identical sound-forms. Lexical homonyms differ in lexical meaning, lexico-grammatical in both lexical and grammatical meaning, whereas grammatical homonyms are those that differ in grammatical meaning only.

4. Lexico-grammatical homonyms are not homogeneous. Homonyms arising from conversion have some related lexical meanings in their semantic structure. Though some individual meanings may be related the whole of the semantic structure of homonyms is essentially different.

5. If the graphic form of homonyms is taken into account, they are classified on the basis of the three aspects -- sound-form, graphic form and meaning -- into three big groups: homographs (identical graphic form), homophones (identical sound-form) and perfect homonyms (identical sound- and graphic form).

6. The two main sources of homonymy are:

1) diverging meaning development of one polysemantic word, and

2) convergent sound development of two or more different words. The latter is the most potent factor in the creation of homonyms.

7. The most debatable problem of homonymy is the demarcation line between homonymy and polysemy, i.e. between different meanings of one word and the meanings of two or more phonemically different words.

8. The criteria used in the synchronic analysis of homonymy are:

1) the semantic criterion of related or unrelated meanings;

2) the criterion of spelling;

3) the criterion of distribution, and

4) the criterion of context.

In grammatical and lexico-grammatical homonymy the reliable criterion is the criterion of distribution. In lexical homonymy there are cases when none of the criteria enumerated above is of any avail. In such cases the demarcation line between polysemy and homonymy is rather fluid.'

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9. The problem of discriminating between polysemy and homonymy in theoretical linguistics is closely connected with the problem of the basic unit at the semantic level of analysis.

In applied linguistics this problem is of the greatest importance in lexicography and also in machine translation.

During several scores of years the problem of distinction of polysemy and homonymy in a language was constantly arising the interest of lexicologists is in many countries. The English language as well as Russian and Uzbek ones could not escape this arguable question too. In my work I should like to sum up the experience concerning this field of study and make a comparative analysis of it on the basis of three languages.

2.3.2 As it was mentioned above the lexical categories of homonyms and polysemantic words exist in all three languages, so we must, firstly, know what it

meant by homonymy and polysemy

Homonyms are words different in meaning but identical in sound or spelling, or both in sound and spelling. Homonyms can appear in the language not only as the result of the split of polysemy, but also as the result of leveling of grammar inflexions, when different parts of speech become identical in their outer aspect, e.g. «care» from «care» and «care» from «careen». They can be also formed by means of conversion, e.g. «to slim» from «slim», «to water» from «water». They can be formed with the help of the same suffix from the same stem, e.g. «reader» - a person who reads and a book for reading.

Homonyms can also appear in the language accidentally, when two words coincide in their development, e.g. two native words can coincide in their outer aspects: «to bear» from «beran» /to carry/ and «bear» from «bera» /an animal/. A native word and a borrowing can coincide in their outer aspects, e.g. «fair» from Latin «feria» and «fair « from native “fagen” /blond/. Two borrowings can coincide e.g. «base» from the French «base» /Latin basis/ and «base» /low/ from the Latin «bas» /Italian «basso»/.

Homonyms can develop through shortening of different words, e.g. «cab» from «cabriolet», «cabbage», «cabin».

Classifications of homonyms:

Let us give us the classification of homonyms according to the point of view of famous British lexicologist Walter Skeat1).

So Walter Skeet classified homonyms according to their spelling and sound forms and he pointed out three groups: perfect homonyms that is words identical in sound and spelling, such as : «school» - «косяк рыбы» and «школа» ; homographs, that is words with the same spelling but pronounced differently, e.g. «bow» -/bau/ -«noклон» and /bou/ - «лук»; homophones that is words pronounced identically but spelled differently, e.g. «night» - «ночь» and «knight» -«pыцарь».

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Another classification was suggested by A.I Smirnitsky 2). He added to Skeat's classification one more criterion: grammatical meaning. He subdivided the group of perfect homonyms in Skeat's classification into two types of homonyms: perfect which are identical in their spelling, pronunciation and their grammar form, such as «spring» in the meanings: the season of the year, a leap, a source, and homo-forms which coincide in their spelling and pronunciation but have different grammatical meaning, e.g. «reading» - Present Participle, Gerund, Verbal noun., to lobby - lobby.

A more detailed classification was given by I.V. Arnold1). He classified only perfect homonyms and suggested four criteria of their classification: lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, basic forms and paradigms.

ccording to these criteria I.V. Arnold pointed out the following groups:

a) homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings, basic forms and paradigms and different in their lexical meanings, e.g. «board» in the meanings «a council» and «a piece of wood sawn thin»;

b) homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings and basic forms, different in their lexical meanings and paradigms, e.g. to lie - lied - lied, and to lie - lay - lain;

c) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammatical meanings, paradigms, but coinciding in their basic forms,

e.g. «light» / «lights»/, «light» / «lighter», «lightest»/;

d) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammatical meanings, in their basic forms and paradigms, but coinciding in one of the forms of their paradigms, e.g. «a bit» and «bit» (from «to bite»).

In I. V. Arnold's classification there are also patterned homonyms, which, differing from other homonyms, have a common component in their lexical meanings. These are homonyms formed either by means of conversion, or by leveling of grammar inflexions. These homonyms are different in their grammar meanings, in their paradigms, identical in their basic forms, e.g. «warm» - «to warm». Here we can also have unchangeable patterned homonyms which have identical basic forms, different grammatical meanings, a common component in their lexical meanings, e.g. «before» an adverb, a conjunction, a preposition. There are also homonyms among unchangeable words which are different in their lexical and grammatical meanings, identical in their basic forms, e.g. «for» - «для» and «for» - «и6o».

The word «polysemy» means «plurality of meanings» it exists only in the language, not in speech. A word which has more than one meaning is called polysemy.

Different meanings of a polysemantic word may come together due to the proximity of notions which they express.

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E.g. The word «blanket» has the following meanings: a woolen covering used on beds, a covering for keeping a horse warm, a covering of any kind /a blanket of snow/, covering all or most cases /used attributively/, e.g. we can say «a blanket insurance policy».There are some words in the language which are monosynaptic, such as most terms, /synonym, molecule, bronchitis, some pronouns /this, my, both/, numerals, and so like.

There are two processes of the semantic development of a word: radiation and concatenation. In cases of radiation the primary meaning stands in the centre and the secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays. Each secondary meaning can be traced to the primary meaning. E.g. in the word «face» the primary meaning denotes «the front part of the human head» Connected with the front position the meanings: the front part of a watch, the front part of a building, the front part of a playing card was formed. Connected with the word «face» itself the meanings: expression of the face, outward appearance is formed.

In cases of concatenation secondary meanings of a word develop like a chain. In such cases it is difficult to trace some meanings to the primary one. E.g. in the word «crust» the primary meaning «hard outer part of bread» developed a secondary meaning «hard part of anything /a pie, a cake/», then the meaning »harder layer over soft snow» was developed, then «a sullen gloomy person», then «impudence» were developed. Here the last meanings have nothing to do with the primary ones. In such cases homonyms appear in the language. It is called the split of polysemy.

In most cases in the semantic development of a word both ways of semantic development are combined.

Nowadays methods of distinction of homonymy and polysemy were worked out. This helps us to differ the meaning of the same word and homonymy which formed in a result of the complete gap of polysemy. Below let us study the methods of studying of synonymy and homonymy.

1. The lexical method of distinction of homonymy and polysemy. This method is concluded in revealing the synonymic connection of polysemy and homonymy. If consonant units are get in one synonymic row when different meanings of words remain still the semantic intimacy and, there fore, it is early to say that polysemy is transferred in to homonymy. If the consonant words are not get in one synonymic row that words are homonymy.

Homonymy and polysemy are different categories in polysemy we deal with the different meanings of the same word. In homonymy we have different words which have their own meanings. For example, the word "man" has ten meanings in Modern English:

1 - человек; 2 - мужчина; 3 - адвокат; 4 - мужественный человек;5-человечество; 6 - слуга; 7 - рабочий; 8 - муж; 9 - вассал; 10 - пешка.

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As the all meanings are connected with the major meaning "чeлoвeк". But homonyms are different words which have nothing in common иуецуут themselves.

For example "bark1” - "лай собаки" and "bark2" - "плывущий корабль". In this example we can see that homonymy words coincide only in pronunciation and writing.

2. Some scientists say that the substitution of different meanings of words by the synonyms may help to differ the homonyms from polysemantic words. This way of distinction of polysemy and homonymy gets its name in literature as “etiological criterion”.For example "voice1 - "sounds uttered in speaking" (sound); "voice2" - "mode of uttering sounds in speaking" (sound); "voice3" - “the vibration of the vocal cords in sounds uttered” (sound); "voice4" - "the form of the verb that express the relation of the subject to the action". "Voice1" - "voice2" - "voice3" are not homonymic in their character although they have different meanings because of the reason that they can be substituted by the synonymic word "sound". As far as "voice4" is concerned as homonymic to the previous three meanings because the fourth meaning of the word “sound” can not be substituted by the word common to the previous three meanings of the word “voice” (i.e. the analyzed meaning of the word "sound").

V. Abaev1) gave etymological criterion of distinguishing homonymic and polysemantic words. He says that homonyms are words which have different sources and only coincided phonetically.

3. We also use the semantic method of distinction of these occurrences. The meaning of homonyms always mutually excepts each other and the meaning of polysemantic words airs formed by one sensible structure keeping the semantic intimacy: one of the meanings assumes, while the other is non-irresistible limit.

The semantic criterion implies that the difference between polysemy and homonymy is actually reduced to the differentiation between related and unrelated meanings. This semantic criterion does not seen to be reliable, firstly, because various meanings of same word and the meanings of two or more different words may be equally apprehended by speaker.

It is some times argued that the difference between related and unrelated polysemantic words is, as a rule, relatable. It is observed that different meanings have certain stable relationships which are not to be found between the meanings of homonymous words. A clearly perceptible connection of such semantic relationships is commonly found in the meanings of one word and is considered to be indicative to polysemy. It is also suggested that the semantic connection may be described in terms of such features.

For example, we may give the following word

"face1" - 'the front part of human's head".

"face2" - “playing card, building, watches”.

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In this example we can find that meanings form one sensible structure. Another example shares the same idea:

E.g. The word "fair1" which means "a person with light hairs" and "fair2" which means "just, honest". In this example the meanings except to each other and do not keep the semantic intimacy.

4. There is a fourth method of distinction of polysemy and homonymy. It is morphological method. It means that polysemy and homonymy are characterized by the various word -building. So some words which have a few meanings the new word is formed with the same suffix.

For example, for the word "park1" - "place of rest" we form a new word by ending “-ed-“: "parked" while in the word "park2'' - "a place of keeping automobiles" the new word is formed by “-ing-“ ending : "parking".

6.2.2 Typological analysis of homonymy and polysemy in three languages

Below we would like to compare the English differences between homonymy and polysemy with Russian and Uzbek equivalents. Buranov, Muminov Readings on Modern English Lexicology

T. O'qituvchi 1985 pp. 34-47

As it was noticed above we have polysemy and homonymy in both Russian and Uzbek. As in English, in Russian and Uzbek homonyms are words identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning.

For example, "завод1” - "an industrial undertaking" and "завод2" - "a device which brings an action of a mechanism".

"o't1" - "firewood", "o't2" - "grass" and "o't" - "the verb which means movement".

1) In this chapter we partially used the materials of the investigations of Prof. Buranov

As in English, in Russian and Uzbek we correspond to polysemantic words the words which have several connected meanings.

For example, "кольцо" - "one of the jewelry things" and "кольцо" - "a shape

of something, e.g. smoke". Another example is "ko'z1" - "a part of human's body" and "ko'z2" - "a sing on wood".

As in, English there is the lexical method of distinction of polysemy and homonymy is used in Russian and Uzbek in the same degree.

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For example, in Russian the word "коренной1” - used in the meaning of "коренной житель” is referred to its synonym “исконный, основной” and the word "коренной2" in еру meaning of “коренной вопрос” corresponds to the synonym “главный”. The words “основной” “главный” used in this sense are synonymic in their character, so we may conclude, therefore, that in this example we have two meanings of one word.

The word "худой1" -used in the meaning of “не упитанный” is formed in the synonymic row with the adjectives “тощий, щуплый, сухой” while the word “худой2” forms its meaning with the adjectives “плохой”, “скверный”, “дурной”. So we can draw a conclusion that the words “тощий”, “щуплый” are not synonyms with the words “плохой”, “скверный” So in this case the words “худой1” and “худой2” are homonyms.

In Uzbek we have the same phenomenon: For example, the word “dum1” - "a part of animal's body" and “dum2” "a partial comet".

It means that these two meanings we can be substitutive with synonymy "the end of the body". It means that these words are polysemantic in their lexical meaning.

If we take another pair of words, e.g. "yoz1" - "summer" and "yoz2" - 'the form of the verb which expresses the order".

2. Ethimological method can be shown in the following:

For example, the word “голос1” used in the meaning of "sounds which are created when we speak", and the word “голос2” in the meaning of "sounds which appear in the course of vibration of humans' vocal cords" and “голос3” in the meaning of "to give your vote on election". The words “голос1”and “голос2” can be substituted by the synonym common for both these words -"sound", while the third meaning of this word has nothing in common with the mentioned synonym. So we are able to draw the following conclusion: the first mentioned two meanings of the word “голос” are synonymic to each other, while the third mentioned meaning is homonymic to the previous twos.

Such kind of examples we can find in the Uzbek language as well. For instance, the words “ovoz1” we can substitute into the synonym "sound" while the word “ovoz2” in the meaning of “opinion a group of people” is homonymic to the first one, e.g. “yoshlar ovozi”.

3. The semantic criterion can also be compared in all three languages.

For example, in Russian the word “шляпка1” used in the meaning of "one of the things of woman's clothes and the word “шляпка2”used in the meaning of "the top beginning of a mushroom or a nail" can be compared as following: these two meanings mean “something round and located on the top”. So these two meanings are synonymic between each other.

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The same example we can find in Uzbek. For instance, the word “bosh1”used in the meaning of "the beginning of human's body" and the word “bosh2” used in the meaning of “the main person in a work, e.g.”ishning boshi”. These two meanings are alike because they do the same function, so they are not homonymic, they are synonyms.

4. Morphological method of distinction of polysemy and homonymy can also be demonstrated in all the languages compared.

For example, in Russian, the noun “хлеб1” used in the meaning of “хлебный злак” and “хлеб2” used in the meaning of “пищевой продукт, выпекаемый из муки” form the adjective with the help of the suffix “-н“.

Cf.: “Хлебные всходы” and “Хлебный запах”.

In Uzbek the word “oy1” - e.g. “Yilda un ikkita oylar bor” and “oy2” - e.g. “oy - yerning yo'ldoshi” form the new word with the help of the suffix “lik”:

Cf.: “Oylik maoshi” and “Bir oylik 14 kundan iborat”.

So having analysed the phenomenona of homonymy and polyseny in the three languages we can draw the following conclusion to this chapter: there are no so big differences in these languages in respect to the linguistic phenomena analysed.

However, the following conclusion can also be drawn: the problem of distinction of homonymy and polysemy in all the languages compared has not been investigated thoroughly yet and there is still much opportunities to discover new fields of approaches and this problem is still waiting its salvation.

Conclusion

1.3 Common review of the essence of the work

Having analyzed the problem of homonyms in Modern English we could do the following conclusions:

a) The problem of homonyms in Modern English is very actual nowadays.

b) There are several problematic questions in the field of homonymy the major of which is the problem of distinguishing of homonyms and polysemantic words..

c) A number of famous linguists dealt with the problem of homonyms in Modern English. In particular, Profs. A. Buranov and J.Muminov were the first who dealt with this problem in our Republic, .Moloshnaya, V.I. Abaev etc.

d) The problem of homonymy is still waiting for its detail investigation.

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2.3 Perspectives of the qualification works

Having said about the perspectives of the work we hope that this work will find its worthy way of applying at schools, lyceums and colleges of high education by both teachers and students of English. We also express our hopes to take this work its worthy place among the lexicological works dedicated to the types of shortening.

Bibliography

1. Ginzburg R.S. et al. A Course in Modern English Lexicology. M., 1979 pp.72-82

2.Buranov, Muminov Readings on Modern English Lexicology T. O'qituvchi 1985 pp. 34-47

3. Arnold I.V. The English Word M. High School 1986 pp. 143-149

4. O. Jespersen. Linguistics. London, 1983, pp. 395-412

5. Jespersen ,Otto. Growth and Structure of the English Language. Oxford, 1982 pp.246-249

5. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English. Oxford 1964., pp.147, 167, 171-172

6.V.D. Arakin English Russian Dictionary M.Russky Yazyk 1978 pp. 23-24, 117-119, 133-134

7.Abayev V.I. Homonyms T. O'qituvchi 1981 pp. 4-5, 8, 26-29

8.Smirnitsky A.I. Homonyms in English M.1977 pp.57-59,89-90

9. Dubenets E.M. Modern English Lexicology (Course of Lectures) M., Moscow State Teacher Training University Publishers 2004 pp.17-31

10. Akhmanova O.S. Lexicology: Theory and Method. M. 1972 pp. 59-66

12. Burchfield R.W. The English Language. Lnd. ,1985 pp45-47

13. Canon G. Historical Changes and English Wordformation: New Vocabulary items. N.Y., 1986. p.284

14. Howard Ph. New words for Old. Lnd., 1980. p.311

15. Halliday M.A.K. Language as Social Semiotics. Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. Lnd., 1979.p.53,112

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16. Potter S. Modern Linguistics. Lnd., 1957 pp.37-54

17. Schlauch, Margaret. The English Language in Modern Times. Warszava, 1965. p.342

18. Sheard, John. The Words we Use. N.Y..,1954.p.3

19. Maurer D.W. , High F.C. New Words - Where do they come from and where do they go. American Speech., 1982.p.171

20. Aпресян Ю.Д.Лексическая семантика. Омонимические средства языка. М.1974. стр.46

21. Беляева Т.М., Потапова И.А. Английский язык за пределами Англии. Л. Изд-во ЛГУ 1971Стр. 150-151

22. Арнольд И.В. Лексикология современного английского языка.М. Высшая школа 1959. стр.212-224

23. . Виноградов В. В. Лексикология и лексикография. Избранные труды. М. 1977 стр 119-122

24. Bloomsbury Dictionary of New Words. M. 1996 стр.276-278

25. Hornby The Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English. Lnd. 1974 стр.92-93, 111

26 . Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English. Longman. 1981pp.23-25

27. Трофимова З.C. Dictionary of New Words and New Meanings. Изд. 'Павлин' ,1993. стрю48 28. World Book Encyclopedia NY Vol 8 1993 p.321

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Homonymy in English

Determination of Homonymy. Classifications of Homonyms. The standard way of classification (given by I.V. Arnold). Homonyms proper. Homophones. Homographs. Classification given by A.I. Smirnitsky.

Contents

Introduction

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1. Determination of Homonymy

2. Classifications of Homonyms

A. The standard way of classification (given by I.V. Arnold)

a) Homonyms proper

b) Homophones

c) Homographs

B. Classification given by A.I. Smirnitsky

a) Full homonyms

b) Partial homonyms

C. Other aspects of classification

3. Sources of Homonyms

4. Problems of Homonymy

a) Distinguishing homonymy from polysemy

b) Different meanings of the same homonym in terms of distribution

c) Difference between patterned and non-patterned homonymy

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

Language processing considerations have often been used to explain aspects of language structure and evolution. According to Bates and MacWhinney, this view "is a kind of linguistic Darwinism, an argument that languages look the way they do for functional or adaptive reasons". However, as in adaptationist accounts of biological structures and evolution, this approach can lead to the creation of "just so" stories. In order to avoid these problems, case-by-case analyses must be replaced by statistical investigations of linguistic corpora. In addition, independent evidence for the relative "adaptiveness" of certain linguistic structures must be obtained. We will use this approach to study a linguistic phenomenon - homonymy. That seems to be maladaptive both intuitively and empirically and has been frequently subjected to informal adaptationist arguments. A

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statistical analysis of English homonyms then uncovered a reliable bias against the usage of homonyms from the same grammatical class. A subsequent experiment provided independent evidence that such homonyms are in fact more confusing than those from different grammatical classes.

In a simple code each sign has only one meaning, and each meaning is associated with only one sign. This one-to-one relationship is not realized in natural languages. When several related meanings are associated with the same group of sounds within one part of speech, the word is called polysemantic, when two or more unrelated meanings are associated with the same form - the words are homonyms.

The intense development of homonymy in the English language is obviously due not to one single factor but to several interrelated causes, such as the monosyllabic character of English and its analytic structure.

The abundance of homonyms is also closely connected with such a characteristic feature of the English language as the phonetic identity of word and stem or, in other words, the predominance of free forms among the most frequent roots. It is quite obvious that if the frequency of words stands in some inverse relationship to their length, the monosyllabic words will be the most frequent. Moreover, as the most frequent words are also highly polysemantic, it is only natural that they develop meanings, which in the coarse of time may deviate very far from the central one.

In general, homonymy is intentionally sought to provoke positive, negative or awkward connotations. Concerning the selection of initials, homonymy with shortened words serves the purpose of manipulation. The demotivated process of a shortened word hereby leads to re-motivation. The form is homonymously identical with an already lexicalized linguistic unit, which makes it easier to pronounce or recall, thus standing out from the majority of acronyms. This homonymous unit has a secondary semantic relation to the linguistic unit.

Homonymy of names functions as personified metaphor with the result that the homonymous name leads to abstraction. The resultant new word coincides in its phonological realization with an existing word in English. However, there is no logical connection between the meaning of the acronym and the meaning of the already existing word, which explains a great part of the humor it produces.

In the coarse of time the number of homonyms on the whole increases, although occasionally the conflict of homonyms ends in word loss.

1.Determination of Homonymy

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Two or more words identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning, distribution and in many cases origin are called homonyms. The term is derived from Greek “homonymous” (homos - “the same” and onoma - “name”) and thus expresses very well the sameness of name combined with the difference in meaning.1

There is an obvious difference between the meanings of the symbol fast in such combinations as run fast `quickly' and stand fast `firmly'. The difference is even more pronounced if we observe cases where fast is a noun or a verb as in the following proverbs:

“A clean fast is better than a dirty breakfast;

Who feasts till he is sick, must fast till he is well.”

Fast as an isolated word, therefore, may be regarded as a variable that can assume several different values depending on the conditions of usage, or, in other words distribution. All the possible values of each linguistic sign are listed in the dictionaries. It is the duty of lexicographers to define the boundaries of each word, i.e. to differentiate homonyms and to unite variants deciding in each case whether the different meanings belong to the same polysemantic word or whether there are grounds to treat them as two or more separate words identical in form. In speech, however, as a rule only one of all the possible values is determined by the context, so that no ambiguity may normally arise. There is no danger, for instance, that the listener would wish to substitute the meaning `quick' into the sentence: It is absurd to have hard and fast rules about anything2, or think that fast rules here are `rules of diet'. Combinations when two or more meanings are possible are either deliberate puns, or result from carelessness. Both meanings of liver, i.e. à living person' and `the organ that secretes bile' are, for instance, intentionally present in the following play upon words:

1. “Is life worth living?” ”It depends upon the liver.”

2. “What do you do with the fruit?” “We eat what we can, and what we can't eat we can”

Very seldom can ambiguity of this kind interfere with understanding. The following example is unambiguous, although the words back and part have

1. Arnold “The English Word”

2. Oscar Wild “Two Society Comedies”

several homonyms, and maid and heart are polysemantic:

“Maid of Athens, ere we part,

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Give, oh give me back my heart”1

Homonymy exists in many languages, but in English it is particularly frequent, especially among monosyllabic words. In the list of 2540 homonyms given in the “Oxford English Dictionary” 89% are monosyllabic words and only 9.1% are words of two syllables. From the viewpoint of their morphological structure, they are mostly one-morpheme words.

2. Classifications of Homonyms

A. The standard way of classification

(given by I.V. Arnold)

The most widely accepted classification is that recognizing homonyms proper, homophones and homographs.

PRONUNCIATION PRONUNCIATION

SPELLING SAME DIFFERENT

SAME A. Homonym proper C. Homograph (or heteronym)

DIFFERENT B. Homophone (or heteronym) D. Allonym

Most words differ from each other in both spelling and pronunciation - therefore they belong to the sell D in this table - I shall call them allonyms. Not so many linguists distinguish this category. But it must be admitted that Keith C. Ivey, in his discussion of homonyms, recognizes this fact and writes:

These familiar with combinatorics may have noticed that there is a fourth possible category based on spelling and pronunciation: words that differ in spelling and pronunciation as well as meaning and origin (alligator/true). These pairs are technically known as different words.

______________________________________________________________

1. G.G. Byron, Peter Washington “Poems of Lord Byron”

Unfortunately, this seemingly neat solution doesn't work because all heteronyms are different words as Ivey's examples show. He illustrates homophones with board/bored,

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clearly two different words though pronounced alike, and his example of homographs (the verb desert/the noun desert) again shows, by their pronunciation, that they are different words. Even his example of a homonym -- words having both the same sound and spelling, as illustrated by "to quail and a quail" -- clearly shows they are different words. Lexicographers underline this point by writing separate entries for different words, whether or not they have the same spelling and pronunciation.

One could stipulate a phrase, like uniquely different words to represent category D, but this expedient is cumbersome and not transparent. A simpler solution, I believe, can be found by means of a neologism. It is not difficult to think of a suitable term.

An allonym is a word that differs in spelling and pronunciation from all other words, whereas both homonyms and heteronyms identify words that are the same, in some ways, as other words.

No doubt in ordinary usage, we will have little need for this term, although it would simplify lexical explanation if one could start by making the claim that the most words in English are allonyms. The clear exceptions are other groups.

Different words that are spelled and pronounced the same way are classed in cell A and are correctly called homonyms proper - but some writers, confusingly, call them heteronyms.

When different words are spelled the same way but pronounced differently, they belong to category B. It is precise to call them homographs and they are sometimes misleadingly called heteronyms. By contrast, when different words are pronounced the same way but spelled differently, we may properly call them homophones - rarely, they have also been called heteronyms.

Homonyms proper

Homonyms proper are words, as I have already mentioned, identical in pronunciation and spelling, like fast and liver above. Other examples are: back n `part of the body' - back adv àway from the front' - back v `go back'; ball n à gathering of people for dancing' - ball n `round object used in games'; bark n `the noise made by dog' - bark v `to utter sharp explosive cries' - bark n `the skin of a tree' - bark n

à sailing ship'; base n `bottom' - base v `build or place upon' - base a `mean'; bay n `part of the sea or lake filling wide-mouth opening of land' - bay n `recess in a house or room' - bay v `bark' - bay n `the European laurel'.

The important point is that homonyms are distinct words: not different meanings within one word.

Homophones

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Homophones are words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning:

air - hair; arms - alms; buy - by; him - hymn; knight - night; not - knot; or - oar; piece - peace; rain - reign; scent - cent; steel - steal; storey - story; write - right and many others.

In the sentence The play-wright on my right thinks it right that some conventional rite should symbolize the right of every man to write as he pleases the sound complex [rait] is a noun, an adjective, an adverb and a verb, has four different spellings and six different meanings. The difference may be confined to the use of a capital letter as in bill and Bill, in the following example:

“How much is my milk bill?”

“Excuse me, Madam, but my name is John.”

On the other hand, whole sentences may be homophonic: The sons raise meat - The sun's rays meet. To understand these one needs a wider context. If you hear the second in the course of a lecture in optics, you will understand it without thinking of the possibility of the first.

Homographs

Homographs are words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling: bow [bou] - bow [bau]; lead [li:d] - lead [led]; row [rou] - row [rau]; sewer [`soue] - sewer [sjue]; tear [tie] - tear [te]; wind [wind] - wind [waind] and many more.

It has been often argued that homographs constitute a phenomenon that should be kept apart from homonymy, as the object of linguistics is sound language. This viewpoint can hardly be accepted. Because of the effects of education and culture written English is a generalized national form of expression. An average speaker does not separate the written and oral form. On the contrary he is more likely to analyze the words in terms of letters than in terms of phonemes with which he is less familiar. That is why a linguist must take into consideration both the spelling and the pronunciation of words when analyzing cases of identity of form and diversity of content.

B. Classification given by A.I. Smirnitsky

The classification, which I have mentioned above, is certainly not precise enough and does not reflect certain important features of these words, and, most important of all, their status as parts of speech. The examples given their show those homonyms may belong to both to the same and to different categories of parts of speech. Obviously, the classification of homonyms should reflect this distinctive feather. Also, the paradigm of each word should be considered, because it has been observed that the paradigms of some homonyms coincide completely, and of others only partially.

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Accordingly, Professor A.I. Smirnitsky classifieds homonyms into two large classes:

a) full homonyms

b) partial homonyms

Full homonyms

Full lexical homonyms are words, which represent the same category of parts of speech and have the same paradigm.

Match n - a game, a contest

Match n - a short piece of wood used for producing fire

Wren n - a member of the Women's Royal Naval Service

Wren n - a bird

Partial homonyms

Partial homonyms are subdivided into three subgroups:

A. Simple lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words, which belong to the same category of parts of speech. Their paradigms have only one identical form, but it is never the same form, as will be soon from the examples:

(to) found v

found v (past indef., past part. of to find)

(to) lay v

lay v (past indef. of to lie)

(to) bound v

bound v (past indef., past part. of to bind)

B. Complex lexico-grammatical partial homonyms are words of different categories of parts of speech, which have identical form in their paradigms.

Rose n

Rose v (past indef. of to rise)

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Maid n

Made v (past indef., past part. of to make)

Left adj

Left v (past indef., past part. of to leave)

Bean n

Been v (past part. of to be)

One num

Won v (past indef., past part. of to win)

C. Partial lexical homonyms are words of the same category of parts of speech which are identical only in their corresponding forms.

to lie (lay, lain) v

to lie (lied, lied) v

to hang (hung, hung) v

to hang (hanged, hanged) v

to can (canned, canned)

(I) can (could)

C. Other aspects of classification

Various types of classification for homonyms have been suggested.

A comprehensive system may be worked out if we are guided by the theory of oppositions and in classifying the homonyms take into consideration the difference or sameness in their lexical and grammatical meaning, paradigm and basic form.

As both form and meaning can be further subdivided, the combination of distinctive features by which two words are compared becomes more complicated - there are four features: the form may be phonetical and graphical, the meaning - lexical and grammatical, a word may also have a paradigm of grammatical forms different from the basic form.

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The distinctive features shown in the table below are lexical meaning (different denoted by A, or nearly the same denoted by A1), grammatical meaning (different denoted by B, or same by B1), paradigm (different denoted by C, or same denoted by C1), and basic form (different denoted by D, and same denoted by D1).

The term “nearly same lexical meaning” must not be taken too literally. It means only that the corresponding members of the opposition have some important invariant semantic components in common. “Same grammatical meaning” implies that both members belong to the same part of speech.

Same paradigm comprises also cases when there is only one word form, i.e. when the words are unchangeable. Inconsistent combinations of features are crossed out in the table. It is, for instance, impossible for two words to be identical in all word forms and different in basic forms, or for two homonyms to show no difference either in lexical or grammatical meaning, because in this case they are not homonyms. That leaves twelve possible cases.

Difference and Identity in

Words

A Different lexical meaning

A1 Nearly same lexical

meaning

B Different grammatical

meaning

Partial Homonymy

Patterned Homonymy

D1 Same basic forms

light, -s n

light,-er,-est a

flat, -s n

flat,-er,-est a

for prp

for cj

before prp

before adv

before cj

eye, -s n

eye, -s, -ed,

-ing v

might n

may-might v

thought n

thought v

(Past Indef. Tense of

think)

D Different

basic form

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B1 Same grammatical

meaning

axis, axes n

axe - axes n

but-butted v

butt-butted v

Synonyms D Different

basic form

lie-lay-lain v

lie-lied-lied v

Full Homonymy

spring,-s n

spring,-s n

spring,-s n

Polysemy

Variants of the same

polysemantic word

C Different paradigm

C1 Same paradigm or no changes

C Different paradigm

It goes without saying that this is a model that gives a general scheme. Actually a group of homonyms may contain members belonging to different groups in this classification. Take, for example, fell1 n ànimal's hide or skin with the hair'; fell2 n `hill' and also à stretch of North-English moorland'; fell3 a `fierce' (poet.); fell4 v `to cut down trees' and as a noun àmount of timber cut'; fell5 (the Past Indefinite Tense of the verb fall). This group may be broken into pairs, each of which will fit into one of the above describes divisions. Thus, fell1 - fell2 may be characterized as AB1C1D1, fell1 - fell4 as ABCD1 and fell4 - fell5 as A1BCD.

3. Sources of Homonyms

There are a lot of different sources of homonyms in English language, so let's talk about some of them, which are the most important ones, due to my point of view.

One source of homonyms is phonetic changes, which words undergo in the coarse of their historical development. As a result of such changes, two or more words, which were formally pronounced differently, may develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms.

Night and knight, for instance, were not homonyms in Old English as the initial k in the second word was pronounced, and not dropped as it is in its modern sound form: O.E. kniht (cf. O.E. niht). A more complicated change of form brought together another pair of homonyms: to knead (O.E. cneadan) and to need (O.E. neodian).

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In Old English the verb to write had the form writan, and the adjective right had the forms reht, riht. The noun sea descends from the Old English form sae, and the verb to see - from O.E. seon. The noun work and the verb to work also had different forms in Old English: wyrkean and weork respectively.

Borrowing is another source of homonyms. A borrowed word may, in the final stage of its phonetic adaptation, duplicate in form either a native word or another borrowing. So, in the group of homonyms rite, n - to write, v - right, adj the second and the third words are of native origin whereas rite is a Latin borrowing (<Lat. ritus). In the pair piece, n - peace, n, the first originates from Old French pais, and the second from O.F. (<Gaulish) pettia. Bank, n à shore' is a native word, and bank, n à financial institution' is an Italian borrowing. Fair, adj ( as in a fair deal, it's not fair) is native, and fair, n à gathering of buyers and sellers' is a French borrowing. Match, n à game; a contest of skill, strength' is native, and match, n à slender short piece of wood used for producing fire' is a French borrowing.

Word building also contributes significantly to the growth of homonymy, and the most important type in this respect is undoubtedly conversion. Such pairs of words as comb, n - to comb, v; pale, adj - to pale, v; to make, v - make, n are numerous in the vocabulary. Homonyms of this type, which are the same in sound and spelling but refer to different categories of parts of speech, are called lexico-grammatical homonyms.

Shortening is a further type of word building, which increases the number of homonyms. Fan, n in the sense of ènthusiastic admirer of some kind of sport or of an actor, singer, etc.' is a shortening produced from fanatic. Its homonym is a Latin borrowing fan, n which denotes an implement for waving lightly to produce a cool current of air. The noun rep, n denoting a kind of fabric (cf. with the Rus. penc) has three homonyms made by shortening: rep, n (< repertory), rep, n (< representative), rep, n (< reputation); all the three are informal words.

During World War II girls serving in the Women's Royal Naval Service (an auxiliary of the British Royal Navy) were jokingly nicknamed Wrens (informal). This neologistic formation made by shortening has the homonym wren, n à small bird with dark brown plumage barred with black' (Rus. крапивник).

Words made by sound-imitation can also form pairs of homonyms with other words: bang, n à loud, sudden, explosive noise' - bang, n à fringe of hair combed over the forehead'. Also: mew, n `the sound the cat makes' - mew, n à sea gull' - mew, n à pen in which poultry is fattened' - mews `small terraced houses in Central London'.

The above-described sources of homonyms have one important feature common. In all the mentioned cases the homonyms developed from two or more different words, and their similarity is purely accidental. (In this respect, conversion certainly presents an exception for in pairs of homonyms formed by conversion one word of the pair is produced from the other: a find < to find.)

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Now we come to a further source of homonyms, which differs essentially from all the above cases. Two or more homonyms can originate from different meanings of the same word when, for some reason, the semantic structure of the word breaks into several parts. This type of formation of homonyms is called disintegration or split of polysemy.

From what has been said above about polysemantic words, it should become clear that the semantic structure of a polysemantic word presents a system within which all its constituent meanings are held together by logical associations. In most cases, the function of the arrangement and the unity if determined by one of the meanings.

Fire, n:

II. Flame

III. An instance of destructive burning: a forest fire

IV. Burning material in a stove, fireplace: There is a fire in the next room. A camp fire.

V. The shooting of guns: to open (cease) fire.

VI. Strong feeling, passion, and enthusiasm: a speech lacking fire.

If this meaning happens to disappear from word's semantic structure, associations between the rest of the meanings may be severed, the semantic structure loses its unity and fails into two or more parts which then become accepted as independent lexical units.

Let us consider the history of three homonyms:

board, n - a long and thin piece of timber

board, n - daily meals, esp. as provided for pay, e.g. room and board

board, n - an official group of persons who direct or supervise some activity, e.g. a board of directors.

It is clear that the meanings of these three words are in no way associated with one another. Yet, most larger dictionaries still enter a meaning of board that once held together all these other meanings à table'. It developed from the meaning à piece of timber' by transference based on contiguity (association of an object and the material from which it is made). The meanings `meals' and àn official group of persons' developed from the meaning `table', also by transference based on contiguity: meals are easily associated with a table on which they are served; an official group of people in authority are also likely to discuss their business round a table.

Nowadays, however, the item of the furniture, on which meals are served and round which boards of directors meet, is no longer denoted by the word board but by the French

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Norman borrowing table, and board in this meaning, though still registered by some dictionaries, can very well be marked as archaic as it is no longer used in common speech. That is why, with the intrusion of the borrowed table, the word board actually lost its corresponding meaning. But it was just that meaning which served as a link to hold together the rest of the constituent parts of the word's semantic structure. With its diminished role as an element of communication, its role in the semantic structure was also weakened. The speakers almost forgot that board had ever been associated with any item of furniture, nor could they associate the notions of meals or of a responsible committee with a long thin piece of timber (which is the oldest meaning of board). Consequently, the semantic structure of board was split into three units.

The following scheme illustrates the process:

Board, n (development of meanings)

A long, thin piece of timber A piece of furniture Meals provided for pay

An official group of persons

Board I, II, III, n (split of the polysemy)

I. A long, thin piece of timber

A piece of furniture II. Meals provided for pay

Seldom used: ousted by French borrowing table

III. An official group of persons

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Historically all three nouns originate from the same verb with the meaning of `to jump, to leap' (O.E. springan), so that the meaning of the first homonym is the oldest. The meanings of the second and third homonyms were originally based on metaphor. At the head of a stream the water sometimes leaps up out of the earth, so that metaphorically such a place could well be described as a leap. On the other hand, the season of the year following winter could be poetically defined as a leap from the darkness and cold into sunlight and life. Such metaphors are typical enough of Old English and Middle English semantic transferences but not so characteristic of modern mental and linguistic processes. The poetic associations that lay in the basis of the semantic shifts described above have long since been forgotten, and an attempt to re-establish the lost links may well seem far-fetched. It is just the near-impossibility of establishing such links that seems to support the claim for homonymy and not for polysemy with these three words.

It should be stressed, however, that split of the polysemy as a source of homonyms is not accepted by all scholars. It is really difficult sometimes to decide whether a certain word has or has not been subject to the split of the semantic structure and whether we are dealing with different meanings of the same word or with homonyms, for the criteria are subjective and imprecise. The imprecision is recorded in the data of different dictionaries, which often contradict each other on this very issue, so that board is represented as two homonyms in Professor V.K. Muller's dictionary, as three homonyms in Professor V.D. Arakin's and as one and the same word in Hornby's dictionary.

Spring also receives different treatment. V.K. Muller's and Hornby's dictionaries acknowledge but two homonyms:

I. a season of the year;

II. a) the act of springing, a leap,

b)a place where a stream of water comes up out of the earth;

and some other meanings, whereas V.D.Arakin's dictionary presents the three homonyms as given above.

3. Problems of Homonymy.

The synchronic treatment of English homonyms brings to the forefront a set of problems of paramount importance for different branches of applied linguistics: lexicography, foreign language teaching and information retrieval. These problems are: the criteria distinguishing homonymy from polysemy, the formulation of rules for recognizing different meanings of the same homonym in terms of distribution, and the description of difference between patterned and non-patterned homonymy. It is necessary to emphasize that all these problems are connected with difficulties created by homonymy in understanding the message by the reader or listener, not with formulating one's thoughts;

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they exist for the speaker though in so far as he must construct his speech in a way that would prevent all possible misunderstanding.

All three problems are so closely interwoven that it is difficult to separate them. So we shall discuss them as they appear for various practical purposes. For a lexicographer it is a problem of establishing word boundaries. It is easy enough to see that match, as in safety matches, is a separate word from the verb match `to suit'. But he must know whether one is justified in taking into one entry match, as in football match, and match in meet one's match òne's equal'.

On the synchronic level, when the difference in etymology is irrelevant, the problem of establishing the criterion for the distinction between different words identical in sound form, and different meanings of the same word becomes hard to solve. Nevertheless the problem cannot be dropped altogether as upon an efficient arrangement of dictionary entries depends the amount of time spent by readers in looking up a word: a lexicographer will either save or waste his readers' time and effort.

Actual solutions differ. It is a wildly spread practice in English lexicography to combine in one entry words of identical phonetic form showing similarity of lexical meaning or, in other words, revealing a lexical invariant, even if they belong to different parts of speech. In our country a different trend has settled. The Anglo-Russian dictionary edited by V.D. Arakin makes nine separate entries with the word right against four items given in the dictionary edited by A.S. Hornby.

The truth is that there exists no universal criterion for distinction between polysemy and homonymy.

Polysemy characterizes words that have more than one meaning -- any dictionary search will reveal that most words are polysemes -- word itself has 12 significant senses, according to WordNet1. This means that the word, word, is used in texts scanned by lexicographers to represent twelve different concepts.

The point is that words are not meanings, although they can have many meanings.

Lexicographers make a clear distinction between different words by writing separate entries for each of them, whether or not they are spelled the same way. The dictionary of Fred W. Riggs has 5 entries for the form, bow -- this shows that lexicographers recognize this form (spelling) as a way of representing five different words. Three of them are pronounced bo and two bau, which identifies two homophones in this set of five homographs, each of which is a polyseme, capable of representing more than one concept. To summarize: bow is a word-form that stands for two different homophones and, as a homograph, represents five different words.

Moreover, the form bow is polysemic and can represent more than 20 concepts (its various meanings or senses). By gratuitously putting meaning in its definition of a homograph, WordNet can mislead readers who might think that a word is a homonym

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because it has several meanings -- but having one word represent more than one concept is normal -- just consider term as an example: it can not only refer to the designator of a concept, but also the duration of something, like the school year or a politician's hold on office, a legal stipulation, one's standing in a relationship (on good terms) and many other notions -- more than 17 are identified in the dictionary edited be Fred W. Riggs. By contrast, homonyms are different words and each of them (as a polyseme) can have multiple meanings.

To make their definitions precise, lexicographers need criteria to distinguish different words from each other even though they are spelled the same way. This usually hinges on etymology and, sometimes, parts of speech. One might, for example, think that that firm `steadfast' and firm `business unit' are two senses of one word (polyseme). Not so! Lexicographers class them as different words because the first evolved from a Latin stem meaning throne or chair, and the latter from a different root in Italian meaning signature.

Dictionaries are not uniform in their treatment of the different grammatical forms of a word. In some of them, the adjective firm (securely) is handled as a different word from the noun firm (to settle) even though they have the same etymology. Fred W. Riggs isn't persuaded such differences justify treating grammatical classes (adjectives, nouns, and verbs) of a word-form that belongs to a single lexeme as different words -- the precise meaning of lexeme is ________________________________________________________________1. WordNet is a Lexical Database for English prepared by the Cognitive Science Laboratory at Princeton University.

explained below. The relevant point here is that deciding whether or not a form identifies one or more than one lexeme does not hinge on meanings. There is agreement that a word-form represents different words when they evolved from separate roots, and some lexicographers treat each grammatical use of a lexeme (noun, verb, adjective) as though it were a different word.

The etymological criterion may lead to distortion of the present day situation. The English vocabulary of today is not a replica of the Old English vocabulary with some additions from borrowing. It is in many respects a different system, and this system will not be revealed if the lexicographers guided by etymological criteria only.

A more or less simple, if not very rigorous, procedure based on purely synchronic data may be prompted by analysis of dictionary definitions. It may be called explanatory transformation. It is based on the assumption that if different senses rendered by the same phonetic complex can be defined with the help of an identical kernel word-group, they may be considered sufficiently near to be regarded as variants of the same word; if not, they are homonyms.

Consider the following set of examples:

1. A child's voice is heard.1

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2. His voice…was…annoyingly well-bred.2

3. The voice-voicelessness distinction…sets up some English consonants in opposed pairs…

4. In the voice contrast of active and passive…the active is the unmarked form.

The first variant (voice1) may be defined as `sound uttered in speaking or singing as characteristic of a particular person', voice2 as `mode of uttering sounds in speaking or singing', voice3 as `the vibration of the vocal chords in sounds uttered'. So far all the definitions contain one and the same kernel element rendering the invariant common basis of their meaning. It is, however, impossible to use the same kernel element for the meaning present in the fourth example. The corresponding definition is: “Voice - that form of the verb that expresses the relation of the subject to the action”. This failure to satisfy the same explanation formula sets the fourth meaning apart. It may then be considered a homonym to the polysemantic word embracing the first three variants. The procedure described may remain helpful when the items considered belong to different parts of speech; the verb voice may mean, for example, `to utter a sound by the aid of the vocal chords'. ________________________________________________________________

1. Maugham W.S. “The Kite”

2. London J. “The Call of the Wild and White Fang”

This brings us to the problem of patterned homonymy, i.e. of the invariant lexical meaning present in homonyms that have developed from one common source and belong to various parts of speech.

Is a lexicographer justified in placing the verb voice with the above meaning into the same entry with the first three variants of the noun? The same question arises with respect to after or before - preposition, conjunction and adverb.

English lexicographers think it quite possible for one and the same word to function as different parts of speech. Such pairs as act n - act v; back n - back v; drive n - drive v; the above mentioned after and before and the like, are all treated as one word functioning as different parts of speech. This point of view was severely criticized. It was argued that one and the same word could not belong to different parts of speech simultaneously, because this would contradict the definition of the word as a system of forms.

This viewpoint is not faultless either; if one follows it consistently, one should regard as separate words all cases when words are countable nouns in one meaning and uncountable in another, when verbs can be used transitively and intransitively, etc. In this case hair1 àll the hair that grows on a person's head' will be one word, an uncountable noun; whereas à single thread of hair' will be

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denoted by another word (hair2) which, being countable, and thus different in paradigm, cannot be considered the same word. It would be tedious to enumerate all the absurdities that will result from choosing this path. A dictionary arranged on these lines would require very much space in printing and could occasion much wasted time in use. The conclusion therefore is that efficiency in lexicographic work is secured by a rigorous application of etymological criteria combined with formalized procedures of establishing a lexical invariant suggested by synchronic linguistic methods.

As to those concerned with teaching of English as a foreign language, they are also keenly interested in patterned homonymy. The most frequently used words constitute the greatest amount of difficulty, as may be summed up by the following jocular example: I think that this “that” is a conjunction but that that “that” that that man used as pronoun.

A correct understanding of this peculiarity of contemporary English should be instilled in the pupils from the very beginning, and they should be taught to find their way in sentences where several words have their homonyms in other parts of speech, as in Jespersen's example: Will change of air cure love? To show the scope of the problem for the elementary stage a list of homonyms that should be classified as patterned is given below:

Above, prp, adv, a; act, n, v; after, prp, adv, cj; age, n, v; back, n, adv, v; ball, n, v; bank, n, v; before, prp, adv, cj; besides, prp, adv; bill, n, v; bloom, n, v; box, n, v. The other examples are: by, can, close, country, course, cross, direct, draw, drive, even, faint, flat, fly, for, game, general, hard, hide, hold, home, just, kind, last, leave, left, lie, light, like, little, lot, major, march, may, mean, might, mind, miss, part, plain, plane, plate, right, round, sharp, sound, spare, spell, spring, square, stage, stamp, try, type, volume, watch, well, will.

For the most part all these words are cases of patterned lexico-grammatical homonymy taken from the minimum vocabulary of the elementary stage: the above homonyms mostly differ within each group grammatically but possess some lexical invariant. That is to say, act v follows the standard four-part system of forms with a base form act, an s-form (act-s), a Past Indefinite Tense form (acted) and an ing-form (acting) and takes up all syntactic functions of verbs, whereas act n can have two forms, act (sing.) and act (pl.). Semantically both contain the most generalized component rendering the notion of doing something.

Recent investigations have shown that it is quite possible to establish and to formalize the differences in environment, either syntactical or lexical, serving to signal which of the several inherent values is to be ascribed to the variable in a given context. An example of distributional analysis will help to make this point clear.

The distribution of a lexico-semantic variant of a word may be represented as a list of structural patterns in which it occurs and the data on its combining power. Some of the most typical structural patterns for a verb are: N + V + N; N + V + Prp + N; N + V + A; N + V + adv; N + V + to + V and some others. Patterns for nouns are far less studied, but

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for the present case one very typical example will suffice. This is the structure: article + A + N.

In the following extract from “A Taste of Honey” by Shelagh Delaney the morpheme laugh occurs three times: I can't stand people who laugh at other people. They'd get a bigger laugh, if they laughed at themselves.

We recognize laugh used first and last here as a verb, because the formula is N + laugh + prp + N and so the pattern is in both cases N + V + prp + N. In the beginning of the second sentence laugh is a noun and the pattern is article + A + N.

This elementary example can give a very general idea of the procedure which can be used for solving more complicated problems.

We may sum up our discussion by pointing out that whereas distinction between polysemy homonymy is relevant and important for lexicography it is not relevant for the practice of either human or machine translation. The reason for this is that different variants of a polysemantic word are not less conditioned by context then lexical homonyms. In both cases the identification of the necessary meaning is based on the corresponding distribution that can signal it and must be present in the memory either of the pupil or the machine. The distinction between patterned and non-patterned homonymy, greatly underrated until now, is of far greater importance. In non-patterned homonymy every unit is to be learned separately both from the lexical and grammatical points of view. In patterned homonymy when one knows the lexical meaning of a given word in one part of speech, one can accurately predict the meaning when the same sound complex occurs in some other part of speech, provided, of coarse, that there is sufficient context to guide one.

Conclusion

An important issue that needs to be discussed is the generalizability of the results from written to spoken language. Although we cannot offer definitive arguments on this point, we can cite some reasons why the results might underestimate the difference between same and different class homonyms in speech. First, the disambiguating information provided by orthography would be absent. Second, homonyms from different grammatical classes would tend to have acoustic differences that could aid in disambiguation. In particular, because of the basic clause structure of English, nouns are more likely than verbs to appear at the ends of phrases and clauses and so should tend to be longer because of durational lengthening concomitant with those boundaries. Indeed, Sorenson and Cooper found that the noun versions of words were longer in duration than their verb homonyms, and that these differences were due solely to their different distributions in sentences. The distributional differences between same class homonyms are likely to be smaller than those for different class homonyms, which should make them less easily distinguishable through contextually-driven acoustic modifications.

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We will conclude by mentioning one implication of this work for another aspect of language use, namely linguistic humor. Puns and other jokes often rely on homonyms for their effects. The aesthetic impact of puns, in particular, requires that the audience make a temporary, but perceptible, misinterpretation of a sentence. The research of some linguists indicates that likelihood of misinterpretation will be greater with same class homonyms, and so these homonyms should be used more than different class homonyms in puns. Furthermore, the rated quality of same class homonyms should be higher than that for different class homonyms. More generally, whereas prior studies have treated homonyms equivalently in analysis and experimentation, our understanding of these words and how they are processed could be enriched by studying homonym subclasses that might differ on various dimensions such as lexical organization, language evolution, and language play.

Literature

1. Арбекова Т.И. Лексикология английского языка, учеб. пособие для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз. - М.: «Высшая Школа». - 1977.

2. Мюллер В.К. Англо-русский словарь. - М. - 1960.

3. Смирницкий А.И. Лексикология английского языка. - М. - 1956.

4. Antrushina G.B., Afanasyeva O.V., Morozova N.N. English lexicology. -М.: «Высшая Школа». - 1985.

5. Arnold I.V. The English Word, учеб. пособие для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз. - М.: «Высшая Школа». - 1986.

6. Byron G.G., Washington P. Poems of Lord Byron.: Knopf Alfred A. - 1994.

7. Fred W. Riggs HOMONYMS, HETERONYMS AND ALLONYMS. - www.webdata.soc.hawaii.edu/fredr/welcome.htm, - 1999.

8. Ginzburg R.S., Khidekel S.S., Knyazeva G.Y., Sankin A.A. A Course in Modern English Lexicology. - M. - 1966.

9. Hornby A.S., Gatenby E.V., Wakefield H. The Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English. - Ldn. - 1967.

10. Koonin A. English Lexicology - M. - 1940.

11. London J. The Call of the Wild and White Fang. - Prague. - 1967.

12. Maugham W.S. The Kite. In: Stories by Modern English Authors. - M. - 1961.

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13. Pierre Frath Polysemy, homonymy and reference. - Universitй Marc Bloch, Dйpartement d'anglais. - www. umb.u-strasbg.fr

14. Wild Oscar Two Society Comedies Norton.: W.W.S Company, Inc. -1983.

Comparative Analysis of the Compound Words

Specific features of English, Uzbek and German compounds. The criteria of compounds. Inseparability of compound words. Motivation in compound words. Classification of compound words based on correlation. Distributional formulas of subordinative compounds.

MINISTRY OF HIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIAL EDUCATION

OF THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN

GULISTAN STATE UNIVERSITY

The English and Literature Department

Qualification work on speciality English philology

on the theme:

“Comparative Analysis of the Compound Words”

Supervisor: ___________

Gulistan 2008

I. Introduction

1.1 Theme actuality

After the Independence was proclaimed the Republic was faced with the necessity of creating new legislation corresponding with new realities, with the conditions of Independence and the Parliament coped with this task, there have been adopted new Laws and new Resolutions

For the first time in the history of our country, there adopted “The Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Education” and “The Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan on the National Programme of Personnel Training System”. The main objective of all reforms in the field of economic policy is the individual. Therefore the task of education, the task of rising up a new generation capable of national renaissance will remain the prerogative of the state

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and constitute a priority. At present great importance is attached to the study and teaching of foreign language. In our recent past, in most cases the Russian language but not the mother tongue served as mediator in the study of foreign languages. That is why in particular until the present, English-Uzbek and Uzbek-English Dictionaries had not been available.

That's why it is necessary to learn and compare English, German and Uzbek lexicology, grammar and phonetics.

2. The main goal of the work is to study, compare and analyze the compound words of Uzbek, English and German, to classify the compounds according to morphological and lexical point of view.

3. The scientific decision of set aims and purposes will maintain the easiest way for better learning and understanding Uzbek, English and German.

4. The scientific novelty of the work. As we know, there aren't enough manuals which compared the Uzbek and the English languages. The novelty of the work is that in the work one can find new approaches of comparing and classifying the compounds.

5. The practical value

Work can be useful for all who interested in English. At the university information which taken from the work can be used as a ready - materials at the lectures of Lexicology, Stylistics, Comparative Typology.

6. Literature overview

Basic information of the qualification work is given from the manuals, articles, researches of great scholars such as: by I.V. Arnold A Course in modern English Lexicology by R.S. Ginzburg, The English Word and others. The information which is taken from Internet sites, World Book Encyclopedia and many other dictionaries also served as a source of information.

7. The structure of the work

Work consists of Introduction, Main part, Conclusion and the list of used literatures.

Compound words are words consisting of at least two stems which occur in the language as free forms. In a compound word the immediate constituents obtain integrity and structural cohesion that make them function in a sentence as a separate lexical unit.

The structural cohesion and integrity of a compound may depend upon unity of stress, solid or hyphenated spelling, semantic unity, unity of morphological and syntactic functioning or, more often, upon the combined effect of several of these or similar phonetic, graphic, semantic, morphological or syntactic factors.

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The integrity of a compound is manifested in its indivisibility, i.e. the impossibility of inserting another word or word group between its elements. If, for example, speaking about a “sunbeam” (English) кўкйўтал we can insert some other word between the article and the article and the noun, e.g. a bright sunbeam, a bright and unexpected sunbeam, because the article a is a separate word, no such insertion is possible between the stems sun & beam ?ора & кўл, for they are not words but morphemes.

In describing the structure of a compound one should examine three types of relations, namely the relation of the members to each other the relation of the whole to its members, and correlation with equivalent free phrases.

Some compounds are made up of a determining and a determined part, which may be called the determinant and me determinate group. Thus, a blackboard, томор?а is very different from a blackboard, том ор?а (сида). Its essential feature is being a teaching aid > ховли атрофида экин экиладиган Майдон >: not every board of a black color is a blackboard.

A blackboard may be not a board at all but a piece of linoleum or some other suitable material. Its color is not necessarily black: it may be brown or something else. Thus, blackboard > a board which is black. A chatterbox - оташ?алб is not a box, it is a person who talks a great deal without saying anything important: the combination is used only figuratively. The same metaphorical character is observed in the compound slowcoach хомсемиз. It is also idiomatic as it does not name a vehicle but a person who acts and thinks slowly. A fuss - pot is a person easily excited and nervous about trifles. Thus for the original motivation of the idiomatic compound could be easily recreated. The following examples illustrate idiomatic compounds where it is not so obvious: “blackleg”, “strike breaker”, “blackmail” getting money or some other profit from a person by threats bluestocking “a woman affecting literary tastes and learning”

The analysis of the semantic relationship existing between the constituents of a compound presents many difficulties. Some authors have attempted a purely logical interpretation distinguishing copulative, existential, spatial and other connections. This scheme, however, failed to show the linguistic essence of compounds and was cumbersome and artificial.

A mistake common with many authors is treating semantic connections within compounds in terms of syntactic relations. Marchand, For instance, when analyzing the type house - keeping, backbiting, housewarming, book - keeping, sightseeing, etc. Writes: “In most cases the first word is the object. A subject/predicate relation underlies earth quaking, cock - crowing, cock - fighting, sun burning …. The first word is the predicate compliment in well - being and short - coming.”

N. G. Guterman very convincingly showed that such syntactic treatment should be avoided because syntactic ties are ties between words, whereas in dealing with compounds one studies relations within a word, the relations between the morphemes, its significant constituents. These two series of relations belong to different levels of

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abstraction and should not be mixed. In the compound spacecraft space - is not an attribute to - craft. It cannot possess syntactic functions, being not a word but a stem, So it is more convenient to consider it a determinant restricting the meaning of the determinate by expressing the purpose for which - craft - is designed or the medium in which it will travel. Surely, one could combine these two points of view using a more careful. Wording, and formulate it as follows: phrases correlated with compounds by means of transformational analysis may show objective, subject/predicate, attributive and adverbial relations. E.g. house - keeping: to keep house, well - being: to be well. In the majority of cases compounds manifest some restrictive relationship between the constituents; types of restrictions show great variety.

Some examples of determinative compound nouns with restrictive qualitative relations are given below.

The list is not meant to be exhaustive and serves only to illustrate the manifold possibilities.

Purpose of functional relations underlies such compounds as bathrobe, raincoat, ём?ирпўш, classroom - синфхона, notice - board, and suitcase.

Different place or local relations are expressed in dockland, garden - party, sea - front. Comparison is the basis of blockhead, butter - fingers, floodlight, and goldfish. The material or elements the thing is made of is pointed out silver wear, tin - hat, clay - pipe. Temporal relations underlie such compounds as night - club, night - duty, summer - house and day - train. Sex - denoting compounds are rather numerous: she - dog, he - goat.

II. Main part

Chapter I

2.1.1 Specific features of English, Uzbek and German Compounds

A compound is a word composed of more than one free morpheme. English compounds may be classified in several ways, such as the word classes or the semantic relationship of their components.

Examples by word class

Modifier Head Compoundnoun noun wall paperadjective noun black board verb noun break waterpreposition noun under world

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noun adjective snow whiteadjective adjective blue - green verb adjective tumbledownpreposition adjective over - ripe noun verb browbeatadjective verb highlightverb verb freeze - drypreposition verb undercutnoun preposition love - inadjective preposition forth withverb preposition take outpreposition preposition without

1) Since Uzbek is a mostly analytic language, unlike most other Germanic languages, it creates compounds by concatenating words without case markers. As in other Germanic languages, the compounds may be arbitrarily long. However, this is obscured by the fact that the written representation of long compounds always contains blanks.

For example in German there are a lot of long compounds with more than three words: die Bewu?tseinserziehung

- воспитание сознательность

achtzehnhundertzwolf - 1812

On the contrary Uzbek compounds are short compounds.

Ex: кўзойнак, атиргул, бўтакўз, то??айчи.

The way of forming Uzbek and English short compounds are the same, while German is not included to this group. There are three ways of forming short compounds

1. The solid or closed form in which two usually moderately short words appear together as one. Solid compounds most likely consists of short (monosyllabic) units that often have been established in the language for a long time. Examples are; housewife, lawsuit, and wallpaper.

Uzbek examples are: сувилон, то?олча, гултувак.

This rule is also relevant to German compounds.

These are examples: Kraftwerk, die Kinderbibliothek.

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2. The hyphenated form in which two or more words are connected by a hyphen. Compounds that contain affixes, such as house - builder and single - mind (ed) (ness) but if these words are written in Uzbek they will be written without hyphen: single - mindedness - ?урфикрлилик.

As well as adjective - adjective compounds and verb - verb compounds, such as blue - green and freeze - dry, are often hyphenated. Some Uzbek verb - verb compounds are also hyphenated: сотиб - олди, бориб - келди.

But in German there is no hyphenated compound.

In addition to it there are some verb - verb compounds in German: kennenlernen, bleibenstehe.

Compounds that contain particles, such as mother - of - pearl and salt - and - pepper, mother - in - law, merry - go - round, are also hyphenated. But in German such kinds of particles are written together: Vergissmichnicht - forget - me - not - не забудка.

3. The open or spaced form consisting of newer combinations of usually longer, such as: distance learning, player piano, lawn tennis.

In Uzbek there are also such kind of open compounds: стол тенниси, масофавий ў?итиш.

But German is far from this rule: All German compounds words are written together.

A compound word possesses a single semantic structure. The meaning of the compound is first of all derived from the combined lexical meanings of its components, which as a rule; retain their lexical meanings, although their semantic range becomes considerably narrowed. The lexical meanings of the components are closely fused together to create a new semantic unit with a new meaning that is not merely additive but dominates the individual meanings of the components. The semantic centre of the compound is found in the lexical meaning of the second component which is modified and restricted by the lexical meaning of the first, e.g. hand-bag is essentially 'a bag carried in the hand for money, papers, face-powder, etc.'; pencil-case is 'a case for pencils', etc.

The components are often stems of polysemantic words but there is no difficulty, as a rule, of defining which of the' multiple denotational meanings the stem retains in one or another compound word. Compound words with a common second component can serve as an illustration. Let us take words with a common second component, e.g. board-. Board- is the stem of a polysemantic word but it retains only one of its multiple denotational meanings in each compound word: in chess-board it retains the denotational meaning of 'a wooden slab', in pasteboard, cardboard it can be traced to the meaning of 'thick, stiff paper', in overboard to 'a ship's side', in notice-board, foot-board, key-board to 'a flat piece of wood square or oblong'; in school-board to 'an authorized body of men1, in side-board, above-board to the meaning of 'table'. The same can be observed

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in words with a common first component, e.g. foot-, in foot-high, foot-wide the stem foot- retains the lexical meaning of 'measure'; in foot-print, foot-pump, foot-hold--'the terminal part of the leg'; in foot-path, foot-race the meaning of 'the way of motion'; in foot-note, foot-lights, foot-stone--the meaning of 'the lower part, base'. It is obvious from these examples that the meanings of the sterns of compound words are interdependent and in each case the stems retain only one lexical meaning and that the choice of the particular lexical meaning of each component is delimited, as in free word-groups, by the nature of the other member of the word.1 Thus we may say that the combination of stems serves as a kind of minimal context distinguishing the particular individual lexical meaning of each component.

Both components, besides their denotational and co notational meanings possess distributional and differential types of meaning typical of morphemes2 the differential meaning, found in both components especially comes to the fore in a group of compound words containing identical stems. In compound nouns eye-tooth--'a canine tooth of the upper jaw', eye-lash--'the fringe of hair that edges the eyelid', eye-witness--'one who can bear witness from his own observation', eye-glasses--'a pair of lens used to assist defective sight', eye-sore--'an ugly or unpleasant thing to see', eye-strain--'weariness of the eye', etc, it is the differential meaning of the second components--tooth-, glasses-, witness-, etc. that brings forth -the different lexical meanings of the stem . eye- and serves as a distinguishing clue between these words. We observe a similar significance of the differential meaning for the choice of the lexical meaning of the other component in words with the identical second component. In compound words, e.g. wedding-ring, nose-ring, ear-ring, finger-ring, key-ring, circus-ring, prize-ring, etc., it is not only the denotational but mostly the differential meaning of nose-, ear-, finger-, etc. that distinguishes wedding-ring--'a ring worn constantly as a distinctive mark of a married woman' from ear-ring--'an ornament worn in the lobe of ear', key-ring -- 'a ring for keeping keys on', circus-ring--'an arena in a circus' and prize-ring--'an enclosed area for fighting'.

Structural Meaning of the Pattern.

The lexical meanings of the components alone, important as they are, do not make the meaning of the compound word. The meaning of the compound is derived not only from the combined lexical meanings of its components, but also from the meaning signaled by the pattern of the order and arrangement of the stems.

A mere change in the order of stems with the same lexical meanings brings about a radical change in the lexical meaning of the compound word. For illustration let us compare lifeboat-- 'a boat of special construction for saving lives front wrecks or along the coast' with boat-fife--'life on board the ship', a fruit-market -- 'market where fruit is sold' with market-fruit--'fruit designed for selling', etc. Thus the structural pattern or the distributional formula in compound words carries a certain meaning which is independent of the actual lexical meanings of their components. In other words the lexical meaning of a compound is derived from the combined lexical meanings of its components and the structural meaning of the distributional formula.

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The structural meaning of the distributional formulas of compounds may be abstracted and described through the interrelation of their components. In analyzing compound adjectives, e.g. duty-bound, wind-driven, tear-stained, we observe that the distributional formula they are built after, i.e. n+ved, conveys the generalized meaning of instrumental or agentive relations between the components which can be interpreted as 'done by' or 'with the help of something'; the denotational meanings of the stems supply the action itself and the actual doer of the action or objects with the help of which the action is done. Thus, duty-bound may be interpreted as 'bound by duty', wind-driven as 'driven by wind', smoke-filled as 'filled with smoke'. In this case the distributional formula is monosemantic, hence compound adjectives of this type would also be monosemantic and their lexical meanings would be derived from the structural meaning of the distributional formula and the combined meanings of the stems.

The distributional formula in compounds, however, is not always monosemantic; if we take compound adjectives like, e.g., age-long, world-wide, oil-rich, pleasure-tired, etc. built after n+a formula, we shall see that the generalized meaning of the structure itself may be interpreted in two ways: (a) through relations of comparison between the components as in world-wide--'wide as the world', snow-white, knee-high, etc. and (b) through various relations of adverbial type as in oil-rich that can be interpreted as 'rich in oil', pleasure-tired--'tired of pleasure', colour-blind--'blind to colors', etc. Compound nouns, consisting of two simple noun-stems (n+n) are most polysemantic in structure. The polisemy of the structure often leads to a certain freedom of interpretation of the semantic relations between the components. For example, it is equally correct to interpret the compound noun toy-man as 'a toy in the shape of a man' or 'a man who makes toys, a toy-maker'. The compound noun clock-tower may likewise be understood as 'a tower with a clock fitted in' or 'a tower that serves as a clock'. Other examples to illustrate the polisemy of the distributional formula and the variety of semantic relations that can be read into the same structure1 are pontoon-bridge which may be interpreted as 'a bridge supported by pontoons, a bridge made of pontoons, pontoons in the form of a bridge, bridge for pontoons'. Witch doctor may mean 'a doctor who is a witch', 'a person whose business it is to detect or smell out witches, a doctor who witches'. The illustrations may be easily multiplied, but the given examples are sufficient proof that the polisemy of compound words is the result of the polisemy of the structure and not the polysemantic character of individual components.

Chapter II

2.2.1 The Criteria of Compounds

What is the criterion of a compound? Many scholars have claimed that a compound is determined by the underlying concept, others have advocated stress, and some even seek the solution of the problem in spelling. H. Koziol holds that the criterion of a compound is a psychological unity of combination, adding that there “seems to be” a difference of intonation between a compound and a syntactic group which it is, however, difficult to describe.

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Stress also has been advocated as a criterion. “Wherever we hear lesser or least stress upon a word which would always show high stress in a phrase, we describe it as a compound member ice - cream àjs - krijm is a compound, but ice cream is a phrase, although there is no denotative difference of meaning. Uzbek “ош?озон” is a compound (the organ of body) but “ош ?озон” is a phrase which means “a pot for making a plov”. In German “hellgrun” is a compound which means “light - green”, but “hell grun” is a phrase with the meaning “light green” (ёру?лик яшил).

For a combination to be a compound there is one condition to be fulfilled: the compound must be morphologically isolated from a parallel syntactic group. Blackbird has the morpho - phonemic stress pattern of a compound, black market money by a post - office. These two stress patterns are the commonest among compound words and in many cases they acquire a contrasting force distinguishing compound words from word groups, especially when the arrangement and order of stems parallel the word - order and the distributional formula of the phrase, thus a `green - house' - "a glass - house for cultivating tender plants" is contrasted to a 'green 'house - "a house that is painted green", 'dancing - girl - "a dancer" to 'dancing 'girl - "a girl who is dancing", 'missing - lists - "lists of men and officers who are missing after a battle" to 'missing 'lists - "lists that are missing", 'mad - doctor - "a psychiatrist" to 'mad 'doctor - "a doctor who is mad".

3) It is not in frequent, however, for both components to have level stress as in, e.g. 'arm - 'chair, 'icy - 'cold, 'grass - 'green.

All substantial compounds show this pattern, with the exception of those first element is the pronouns all or self. such compounds have double stress (e.g. 'all 'soul, 'all - 'creator, 'self - 'respect, 'self - 'seeker) of adjectival compounds only two types have the stable stress pattern heave stress / middle stress: the type color - blind and heart - breaking.

All other adjectival types are basically double - stressed.

2.2.2 Inseparability of Compound Words

Structurally the inseparability of compounds manifests itself in the specific order and arrangement of stems which stand out most clearly in all asyntactic compounds. It is of interest to note that the difference between words and stems even when they coincide morphemically is especially evident in compound adjectives proper. Adjectives like long, wide, rich are characterized by grammatical forms of degrees of comparison longer, wider, richer. The corresponding stems lack grammatical independence and forms proper to the words and retain only the part - of - speech meaning, thus compound adjectives with adjective stems for their second components, e.g. age-long, oil-rich, do not form degrees of comparison the way words long, rich do. They conform to the general rule of polysyllabic adjectives having analytical forms of degrees of comparison. This difference between words and stems is not so noticeable in compound nouns with the noun stem for the second component, as the paradigm of the compound word coincides with the paradigm of the noun whose stem constitutes its structural centre.

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Graphically most compounds have two types of spelling they are spelt either solidly or with a hyphen. Both types of spelling when accompanied by structural or phonetic peculiarities serve as a sufficient indication of inseparability of compound words in contradistinction to phrases. It is true that hyphenated spelling when not accompanied by some other indications of inseparability may be sometimes misleading, as it may be used in word-groups to underline the phraseological character of combination as in, e.g. daughter-in-law, father-in-law, man-of-war, brother-in-arms, etc. which are neither structurally, nor phonetically marked by inseparability.

The two types of spelling typical of compounds, however, are not rigidly observed and there are numerous fluctuations between solid or hyphenated spelling on the one hand and spelling with a space between the components on the other, especially in nominal compounds built on the n+n formula. The spelling of these compounds varies from author to and author from dictionary to dictionary. For example, words--war-path, war-time, money-lender--are spelt both with a hyphen or solidly; blood-poisoning, money-order, wave - length, blood-vessel, war-ship--with a hyphen end with a break;1 underfoot, insofar, underhand--solidly and with a break. This inconsistency of spelling in compounds, very often accompanied by a level stress pattern (equally typical of word groups) makes the outer indications of inseparability stand out less clearly and gives rise to the problem of distinguishing between compound words and word-groups.

The numerous borderline cases between compounds and word-groups are connected with one of the most controversial problems in word-composition, known in linguistic literature as "the stonewall problem", in other words the problem whether complexes like stone wall, peace movement, summer days regularly spelt with a break should he regarded as compound words or word-groups. The solution of the problem centers on the nature of the first member of such formations. There are two approaches to this problem and linguists, consequently, give different appraisals of the graphic and phonetic integrity of such complexes.

Some linguists class such complexes as a specific group of compound words on the ground that the connection between the members of such complexes cannot be regarded as syntactic, as the usual means of connection between two nouns typical of Modern English syntax is either the possessive cafe or various prepositions:" They consequently conclude that the connection in formation of the "stone wall" type is asyntactic hence the members of these complexes are not words but grammatically unshaped elements, i.e. stems. As a junction of two noun-stems they are referred to compound words. The asyntactic structure is taken for a sufficient proof of their inseparability and lack of graphic integrity is disregarded. The proponents of this point of view go on to stale that these complexes may also be interpreted as combinations of an adjective with a noun, the adjective being formed from the noun-stem by means of conversion for the given occasion, in which case a compound word would remain primary and a word-group secondary. This brings the linguists to the conclusion that these complexes make a specific group of compound words, often termed neutral.1 they are characterized by structural instability due to which they can be easily disintegrated into free word-groups

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under the influence of parallel attributive combinations, level stress and spelling with a break between the components.

The above-cited treatment of these nominal complexes and the disregard of the outer, formal manifestations of inseparability is open to grave doubts. On the one hand, the productivity of conversion in formation of adjectives does not seem convincing because there are very few adjectives' of the type in independent use in Modern English; on the other hand it is argued that Modern English nouns in the Common case, singular are used in the attributive function and a purely syntactic nature of the combination of two; full-fledged nouns has been almost universally recognized in the last few decades. If we share the opinion, we shall come-to the obvious conclusion that there exists a nominal type of free phrases built on the formula N+N and a group of nominal compounds built on the n+n formula which stands in correlative relations to each other. The recognition of nominal free phrases deprives "neutral compounds" of theoretical validity. Nominal compounds remain a specific class of compounds but in this case the distributional formula even in the most indisputable cases has only a weakened distinguishing force and can by no means be taken for an overall criterion of their inseparability. It is evident that the hyphenated spelling or at least fluctuations between hyphenated spelling and spelling with a break become most significant in distinguishing nominal compound words from word-groups. Consequently nominal complexes which are regularly spelt with a space between the components and are characterized by level stress pattern can hardly be regarded as inseparable vocabulary units. It is noteworthy that occasional compounds of this type which have become-registered vocabulary units tend to solid or hyphenated spelling.

The component of Uzbek compounds are combined in this way: 1. phonetical changes in the 1st components of compound words. The consonants in the beginning of the 1st component may be changed into another component:

Ex: сич?ончўп - тиш?ончўп (the names of plant)

чилонжийда - жи лонжийда

созтупро? - со?тупро?

In some compounds suffixes may be omitted and may form variants of the compounds words.

Ex: тугмачагул - тугмагул (“ча” is omitted)

гадойтахлит - гадотахлит (“й” is omitted.)

айта олмаслbк - айтолмаслик11 Ўзбек тилининг имло лу?ати 1976 й.

бўла олмаслик - бўлолмаслик22 “Сўзнинг морфологик вариантлари” Р. Шукуров. 1990 й.

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In compound word is ended with “йо”, it must be written separately if it is ended with “ё” it must be written together as one word.

Ex: ?ишлай олмо? - ?ишлаёлмо?

ушлай олмо? - ушлаёлмо?

тў?ий олмо? - тў?иёлмо?

To form a compound verb with the verbs “емо?, демо?” which have “e” sound in the root, one must add “я (й + а)” after “e, дe” e. g.: де+я олмо? - деяолмо?, е+я олмо?, eя олмо?.

2. Phonetical changes in the 2nd components of compound words. Ex: итбурун - итмурун Туябўйин - Туямўйин.

“б” consonant in the beginning of the second component a changed into ”в”

Ex: ?орабой - ?оравой, ?ўзибой - ?ўзивой

амакибачча - амакивачча, то?абачча - то?авачча.

Some suffixes maybe added to the second element of compound word.

Ex: The most productive suffix for this group is”ли” e. g.

In the book of A.P. Khodjiev's “Compound and repeated word” ” ли” suffix is given in brackets.

Ex: Such kinds of compound words are given in this book.

2.2.3. Motivation in Compound words.

Compound words are motivated2 through the individual lexical meanings of their components and the meaning of the structure. In motivated compound words the native speaker can see a connection between the lexical meanings of the stems and the meaning of the order and arrangement of components of the word. Motivation in compound words varies in degree. There are compounds which are completely motivated, i.e. the lexical meaning of these words is transparent and is easily deduced from the lexical meanings of the stems and the meaning of their distributional formulas. Compound words like wind-driven, sky-blue, foot-step, foot-pump, door-handle, and bottle-opener may serve as examples of completely transparent or motivated compound words. Motivation in compound words may be partial, but again the degree will vary. Compound words like hand-bag, flowerbed, handcuff are all only partially motivated, but still the degree of transparency of their meanings is different: hand-bag, e.g., is essentially 'a bag designed to be carried in the hand', whereas handcuffs retain only a resemblance to cuffs and in

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fact are 'metal rings placed round the wrists of 3 prisoner'; a f lower-bed is not 'a mattress or piece of furniture' as the lexical meaning of the second component suggests; but 'a piece1 of ground where flowers grow'. Compound words with a smaller degree-of partial motivation may be illustrated" by the words: walkup--'a house without an elevator where one has to walk upstairs', cast-off--'discarded', castle-builder--'a day-dreamer, one who builds castle; in the air'.

There are compound words that lack motivation altogether, i.e. the native speaker does not see any obvious connection between the meaning of their structure and the individual meanings of the stems and consequently cannot deduce the lexical meaning of the word. Compound words like eye-wash -`something said or done to deceive a person', fiddlesticks - 'nonsense rubbish', wall-flower--'a woman who remains. by the wall as a spectator at a dance, because not chosen as a partner', eye-servant--'a servant who attends faithfully to his duty only when watched', night-cap--'a drink taken before going to bed at night', dog-eared--'having the corners of the leaves turned down' all lack motivation and their lexical meanings cannot be deduced from the meanings of their components and the meaning of their structure. Lack of motivation in compound words may be often connected with the transferred usage of the denotational meanings of the components or of the whole word as in slow-coach--'a person who acts slowly', sweet-tooth--'one who likes sweet food and drink', wall-flower; the words consequently acquire a new co notational meaning not proper to either of their components. Lack of motivation is of ten due to the specialized and unexpected semantic relations embedded in the compound word as in, e.g., eye-servant, dog-days--'the hottest part of July and August'.

Sometimes the motivated and non-motivated meanings of the same word are felt as two homonymous words, e.g. night-cap 1) a cap worn in bed at night and 2) a drink taken before going to bed at night; eye-wash 1) a liquid for washing the eyes and 2) something said or done to deceive a person; eye-opener 1) enlightening or surprising circumstance and 2) a drink of liquor.

Semantic Classifications

Semantically compound words may be classified (1) according to the degree of motivation, and (2) according to the structural meaning of various distributional formulas described through the interrelation of the components.

1) According to the degree of motivation compound words are subdivided into (a) motivated or non-idiomatic, i.e. words marked either by complete or partial motivation which makes the meaning of the word transparent; (b) non-motivated or idiomatic, i.e. "words the lexical meanings of which cannot be inferred from the individual meanings of their components and the meaning of the distributional formula they are built after.

2) According to the structural meaning or the type of semantic relations between the components compound words may be classified into various groups as words based on the relations of: (a) agent and action, e.g. sunrise, earthquake, (b) object and action, e.g. warship, handshake, (c) the part and the whole, e.g. plum-tree, shirt-collar, eye-ball, etc.,

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(d) the place end the action, or the doer, e.g. street-fighting, grass-hopper, garden-party, (e) the time and the action. e.g. day-flight, night-school, winter-sport, etc., (f) purpose, e.g. table-cloth, driving-suit, bird-cage, etc.

Chapter III Classification of Compounds

2.3 Types of Compounds according types of speech

Compound words may be classified

a) from the functional point of view;

b) from the point of view of the way the components of the compound are linked together and

c) from the point of view of different ways of composition.

a) Functionally compounds are viewed as words belonging to different parts of speech. The bulk of Modern English compound belong to nouns and adjectives: e.g. arm - chair, baby - sitter, boiling - point, knee - high, rain - driven, adverbs and connectives are represented by an insignificant number of words, e.g. indoors, within, outside and we may say that composition on the whole is not productive in adverbs and in connectives. It is of interest to note that composition in verbs in Modern English is not productive either. Verbs that are morphemically compound, such as to (goose flesh, (to) weekend; prove to be words of second derivation on the word - formation level.

b) from the point of view of the means by which the components are joined together compound words may be classified into: 1) words formed by mere placing one constituent after another in a definite order, e.g.: door - handle, rain - driven. This means of linking the components is typical of the greater part of Modern English compounds in all parts of speech.

2) compound words whose components are joined together with a linking element, as in speedometer Fro - Asian; compounds of this type are found both in nouns and in adjectives but present a small group of words considerable restricted by the nature of their components, The components of compound words of this type are mostly joined with the help of the linking vowel [ou] and occasionally the vowel. In both cases the first component often contains a bound root. E.g. Fro - Asian, Sino - Japanese, Anglo Saxon, tragicomic other examples of compound words of this type are electro - dynamic, handicraft, handiwork. This group is generally limited to the names of nationalities and scientific terms. The components of compound nouns may also be joined with the help of the linking consonant [slz] e.g. sportsman, tradesman, saleswoman, bridesmaid, statesman, landsman and etc. This is also a very small group of words restricted by the second component, which is, as a rule, one of the three stems man - , woman - , people - , and the commonest of them being man.

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c) Compounds are also classified according to different ways of compounding. There are two ways of composition and accordingly we distinguish two types of compounds: those formed exclusively after a composition pattern, the so called compounds and those formed by a simultaneous operation of two types of word - formation: composition and derivation, the so - called derivational compounds:

Compound words proper are formed by joining together stems of words already available in the language, with or without the help of special linking elements such as: door - step, age - long, baby - sitter, looking - glass, they constitute the bulk of English compounds in all parts of speech and include both productive and non - productive patterns.

In Uzbek the relationship between the components of compound words are different: They show:

1. Comparison: карнайгул, от?уло? туя?уш, шерюрак, ?ўйкўз.

2. Relevance, purposed for something: гултувак (vase for flower), мол?ўра, оловкурак, ток?айчи,?ийматахта. In English washing - machine, blood - vessel (a tube through which bloods flows in the body).

3. Connection to some places: сувилон (a snake which lives in water), то?олча, чўлялпиз, ?ў?онарава like in English zookeeper, postman, house keeper, head - dress, ear - ring. In German Hausfrau, Wesserballspiel, Unterseeboot.

4. The mark of something: аччи?тош, ола?ар?а, шўрданак, ?изилиштон, ?изилтепа. In English long - legged, bluebell, slow - coach. Here are some examples of German: Dampfheizung, Arbeitkleidung.

5. Relationship to quantity: бешбармо?, мингоё?, ?ир?о?айни, Бешари?. This rule is also relevant to English compounds such as: three - cornered, fifteen - fold, six - fold, five - sided polygon. In German there are examples of this kind: Funfjahreplan.

Uzbek compound words are classified:

a) from the point of view of the way the components of the compound are linked together: хомкалла, кўксултон, искабтопар.

b) from the point of view of agreeing:

тўйбоши, китобсевар, дунё?араш.

с) from the point of view of relationship between subject and predicate: first elements of such kind compound will be predicate: гўшткуйди, келинтушди.

There are 6 types of compound words in Uzbek:

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1. Compound nouns 4. Compound pronouns

2. Compound adjectives 5. Compound adverbs

3. Compound verbs 6. Compound number

Most frequently spread English compound words are:

1. Compound nouns

2. Compound adjectives

3. Compound adverbs

4. Compound verbs

German compound words are also divided into 4:

1. Compound nouns

2. Compound adjectives

3. Compound verbs

4. Compound numbers

a) Compound Nouns

2.3.1 Compound Nouns

Most English compound nouns are noun phrases that include a noun modified by adjectives or attribute nouns. Due to the English tendency towards conversion, the two classes are not always easily distinguished. Most English compound nouns that consist of more than two words can be constructed recursively by combining two words at a time. The compound science fiction writer, for example, can be constructed by combining the resulting compound with writer. Some compounds, such as salt and pepper or mother - of pearl, can be constructed in this way, however.

In general, the meaning of a compound is a specialization of the meaning of its head. The modifier limits the meaning of the head. This is most obvious in descriptive compounds, also known as Karmad haraya compounds, in which the modifier is used in an attributive or appositional manner. A blackboard is a particular kind of board which is generally black, for instance.

In determinative compounds, however, the relationship is not attributive. For example, a foot stool is not a particular type of stool that is like a foot. Rather, it is a stool for one's

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foot or feet. (It can be used for sitting on but that is not its primary purpose). In a similar manner, the office manager is the manager of an office, an armchair is a chair with arms, and a raincoat is a coat against the rain. These relationships, which are expressed by prepositions in English, would be expressed by grammatical case in other languages. Compounds of this type are also known as tatpurusha compounds.

But of the above types of compounds are called endo centric compounds because the semantic head is contained within the compound itself a blackboard is a type of board, for example, and a footstool is a type of stool.

However, in another common type of compound, the exocentric or ba huvrihi compound, the semantic head is not explicitly expressed. a red head, for example, is not a kind of head, but is a person with a red head, but a person with a head that is as hard and unreceptive as a block (i.e. stupid). And, outside of veterinary surgery, a lion - heart is not a type of heart, but a person with a heart like a lion (in its bravery, courage, fearlessness).

Exocentric compounds occur more often in adjectives than nouns. A barefoot girl, for example, is not a girl that is a bare foot, but a girl with a bare foot. Similarly, a V - 8 car is a car with a V - 8 engine rather than a car that is a V - 8, and a twenty - five - dollar car is a car with a worth of $ 25, not a car that is $ 25. The compounds shown here are bare, but more commonly, a suffixal morpheme is a added, esp. - ed. Hence, a two - legged person is a person with two legs and this is exocentric.

On the other hand, endocentric adjectives are also frequently formed, using the suffixal morphemes: - ing or -er/or. A car - carrier is a clear endocentric determinative compound: it is a thing that is a carrier of cars. The related adjective, car - carrying, is also endocentric: it refers to an object which is a carrying - thing.

These types account for most compound nouns, but there are other, rarer types as well. Coordinative, copulative or dvandva compounds combine elements with a similar meaning, and the compound meaning may be a generalization instead of specialization. Bosnia - Herzegovina, for example, is the combined area of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but a fighter - bomber is an aircraft that is both a fighter and a bomber. Iterative or amredita compounds repeat a single element, to express repetition or as an emphasis. Day - by - day and go -go - go are examples of this type of compound, which has more than one head.

Analyzability may be further limited by cranberry morphemes and semantic changes. For instance, the word butterfly, commonly thought top be a metathesis for flutter by, which the bugs do, is actually based on an old bubbe - maise that butterflies are petite witches that steal butter from window sills. Cranberry is a part translation from Low German, which is why we cannot recognize the element cran (from the Low German kraan or kroon, "crane"). The ladybird or ladybug was named after the Christian expression "our Lady, the Virgin Mary".

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In the case of verb + noun compounds, the noun may be either the subject or the object of the verb. In playboy, for example, the noun is the subject of the verb (the boy plays), whereas it is the object in call girl (someone calls the girl).

A black board is any board that is black, and equal prosodic stress can be found on both elements (or, according to psycholinguist Steven Pinker, the second one is accented more heavily.) A blackboard, compound, may have started out as any other black board, but now is a thing that is constructed in a particular way, of a particular material and serves a particular purpose; the word is clearly accented on the first syllable.

Sound patterns, such as stresses placed on particular syllables, may indicate whether the word group is a compound or whether it is an adjective - + - noun phrase. A compound usually has a falling intonation: "blackboard", the "White House", as opposed to the phrases "black board". (Note that this rule does not apply in all contexts. For example, the stress pattern "white house" would be expected for the compound, which happens to be a proper name, but it is also found in the emphatic negation "No, not the black house; the white house!").

Uzbek compound nouns.

Uzbek compound nouns are formed in the following ways:

1. Noun and noun: от?уло?, ?ўларра

2. Adjective + noun: кўксултон, хомток

3. Noun + adjectivesective: гулбеор, ошкўк

4. Number + noun: мингоё?, ?ир?о?айни, учбурчак

5. Noun + verb ўринбосар, бешиктерватар

6. Verb + verb искабтопар, олиб сотар

Following compound words are written without hyphen:

1) The nouns with one stress: гулкўрпа, ош?озон, ў?илон, тутмайиз.

2) Nouns + aр suffix: отбо?ар, из?увар

3) Geographical places: Сирдарё, О?тепа

German Compound nouns are formed in these ways:

1. Noun + noun: Infinitivform

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2. Verb + noun: Leitglied

3. Noun + adjective: Kleinkind, Reinmetall, Hochstufe

4. Number + noun: Erststellung, Drittdro?e, Tausendfuss

5. Pronoun + noun: Ichton, Erform, Ichbewu?tsein

6. Adverb + noun: Spatstellung

7. Praposition + noun: Mitschuler, Zwischenglied, Abart.

German Noun + verb nouns may express different relationships:

1. Object of action: Kindererziehung, Blaubersammlung

2. Subject of action: Mutterliebe

3. Material: Brotteig

4. Time: Sonntagsanzug

5. Place: Dorfteich, Waldrande

6. Purpose: Brotmesser, Roman Schreiber

2.3.2 Compound Adjectives

English compound adjectives are constructed in a very similar way to the compound noun. Black board jungle, gunmetal sheen and green monkey disease are only a few examples.

There are some similarities in forming English and German compound nouns: The components of some compound nouns may be joined with the help of linking consonant: English compound nouns statesman, sportsman nouns statesman, and sportsman are joined with the consonant "s".

German compound nouns are joined:

· with the help of linking element - "s" or "es"

die Arbeit + s + der Plan = der Arbeitsplan

das Land + es + die Grenze = die Landesgrenze

· with the help of " - in" or " - en".

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der Student + en + die Versammlung = die Studentenversammlung

· with the help of linking element "e"

halt(en) + e + das Signal = das Haltesignal.

· without a' linking element:

der Tausch + der Wert = der Tauschwert.

But in Uzbek all compound nouns are joined together without any linking element.

A compound adjective is a modifier of a noun. It consists of two or more morphemes of which the left - hand component limits or changes the modification of the right - hand one, as in "the dark - green dress": dark limits the green that modifies dress.

Solid compound adjectives

There are some well - established permanent compound adjectives that have become solid over a longer period, especially in American usage: earsplitting, eye catching. However, in British usage these, apart from downtown, are more likely written with a hyphen: ear - splitting.

Other solid compound adjectives are for example:

· Numbers that are spelled out and have the suffix - fold added: "fifteen `fold", "six fold".

· Points of the compass: "northwest", northwesterly, "northwestwards", but not North -West Frontier.

Hyphenated compound adjectives

A compound adjective is hyphenated if the hyphen helps the reader differentiate a compound adjective from two adjacent adjectives that each independently modifies the noun. Compare the following examples:

· "acetic acid solution": a bitter solution producing vinegar or acetic acid (acetic + acid + solution)

· "acetic - acid solution ": a solution of acetic acid.

The hyphen is unneeded when capitalization or italicization making grouping clear:

· "Old English scholar ": an old person who is English and a scholar, or and old scholar who studies English

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· "Old English scholar": is scholar of Old English

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Noun and Its Grammatical Categories