board, n. — an official group of persons who direct or supervise some activity, e. g. a board of directors
spring, n. — the act of springing, a leap spring, n. — a place where a stream of water comes up out of the earth (R. родник, источник) spring, n. — a season of the year.
It is generally known that most words convey several concepts and thus possess the corresponding number of meanings. A word having several meanings is called polysemantic, and the ability of words to have more than one meaning is described by the term polysemy.
Most English words are polysemantic. It should be noted that the wealth of expressive resources of a language largely depends on the degree to which polysemy has developed in the language.
The number of sound combinations that human speech organs can produce is limited. Therefore, at a certain stage of language development the production of new words by morphological means becomes limited, and polysemy becomes increasingly important in providing the means for enriching the vocabulary.
The semantic structure of a polysemantic word is treated as a system of meanings. For example, the main meanings of the noun bar (any kind of barrier to prevent people from passing\the profession of barrister\in a public hose or hotel a counter or room where drinks are served).
When analyzing the semantic structure of a polysemantic word, it is necessary to distinguish between two levels of analysis. On the first level, the semantic structure of a word is treated as a system of meanings. For example, the semantic structure of a noun fire could be presented by the following most frequent meanings (flame\an instance of destructive burning\burning material in a stove\fire place, etc). The first meaning presents the center of the semantic structure of the word holding it together is called the main meaning of the word. Others are secondary meanings.
The scheme of the semantic structure of the polysemantic word shows that it is not a mere system of meanings, for each separate meaning is subject to further subdivision and possesses an inner structure of its own.
It is very important to distinguish between the lexical meaning of a word in speech and its semantic structure in language. The meaning in speech is contextual.
Polysemy does not interfere with the communicative function of the language because in every case the situation and context cancel all the unnecessary meanings and make speech unambiguous.
Types of meaning of a polysemantic word according to V.V. Vinogradov
1. nominative
2. nominative-derivative
3. colligationally conditioned
4. collocationally conditioned
5. phraseologically bound
The nominative meaning denotes the objects of extralinguistic reality in direct and straightforward way, reflecting their actual relations. Thus, for example: to carry whose nominative meaning is “to support the weight of and move from place to place” normally combines with nouns like a box, a chair, a heavy stone, a baby, etc. The nominative meaning is the basic of all the other meanings of the word. It is said to be “free”. The word may have several “free” meanings but they all depend on the nominative one: that is why they are called “nominative-derivative”, for example: sweet in the nominative-derivative meaning of “pleasant, attractive” goes with face, voice, singer, little boy, temper, etc.
Side by side with the “free” meanings of the word there are linguistically conditioned (or “bound”) meanings which can be of two kinds: colligationally conditioned and collocationally conditioned.
The former can be illustrated by the uses of the verb to keep. When used with nouns like hens, bees, pigs, etc. the verb means “own or manage especially for profit”. The verb to keep has altogether different meaning, namely “continue doing something” when it is used with a gerund, for example: Keep smiling!
The colligationally conditioned meaning is determined by the morphosyntactic combinability of the word, while the collocationally conditioned meaning depends on its lexical-phraseological ties, e.g. the verb to love in the expression I’d love to meet them.
The first of confusion is hyponymy, or inclusion. The synonymic dominant should not be confused with a generic term or a hyperonym. A generic term is relative. It serves as the name for the notion of the genus as distinguished from the names of the species — hyponyms. For instance, animal is a generic term as compared to the specific names wolf, dog, or mouse (which are called equonyms). Dog, in its turn, may serve a s a generic term for different breeds such as bull-dog, collie, poodle, etc. This type of paradigmatic relation is called hyponymy, or inclusion. Synonymy differs from hyponymy in being a symmetrical relation: if A is a synonym of B, then B is a synonym of A. Hyponymy is asymmetrical: if A is a hyponym of B, then B is the hyperonym of A.
Another case of confusion is lexical variation. Lexical variants, for instance, are examples of free variation in language, in so far as they are not conditioned by contextual environment but are optional with the individual speaker. E. g. northward / norward; whoever / whosoever. The variation can concern morphological or phonological features, or it may be limited to spelling. Compare weazen/weazened ‘shrivelled and dried in appearance’, an adjective used about a person’s face and looks; directly which may be pronounced [di'rektli] or [dai'rektli] and whisky with its spelling variant whiskey. Lexical variants are different from synonyms, because they are characterized by similarity in phonetical or spelling form and identity of both meaning and distribution.
Paronyms may also be confused with synonyms. Paronyms are words with similar pronunciations but different spellings and meanings. For example: accept – verb – ‘to take or receive that which is offered’ - except – preposition – ‘excluding’.
And one more case of confusion with synonymy is malapropism, or the use of an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound, resulting in a nonsensical, often humorous utterance. Example: Unfortunately, my affluence over my niece is very small. (‘affluence’ instead of ‘influence’)
The term antonym was introduced by L. P. Smith in 1867. Antonyms are defined as words that have opposite meaning, e.g. hot-cold, light-dark, to accept-to reject, up-down.
Modern research in the field of antonymy shows that in the semantic structure of all words which regularly occur in antonymic pairs, a special antonymic connotation can be singled out. We are used to coming across hot and cold together, in the same contexts, that even if we find hot alone, we cannot help thinking of it as not cold.
So, antonyms are two or rarely more words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech, identical in style and nearly identical in distribution, associated and used together so that their denotative meanings render contrary or contradictory notions.
I. Morphological or structural division
Another feature of antonyms is differential component(s) which implies negation of each other. The negation may be explicit, i.e. expressed by morphemes (married - not-married - unmarried), and implicit, i.e. not expressed morphologically, e.g. married - single.
According to the type of negation antonyms are divided into:
· Root/absolute - antonyms with implicit negation (love - hate, late - early)
· Derivational - antonyms with explicit negation; the affixes in them serve to deny the quality stated in the stem: logical - illogical, happiness - unhappiness.
The regular type of derivation antonyms contains negative prefixes: dis-, il-/im-/in-/ir- and un-. Other negative prefixes occur in this function occasionally.
Semantic division - the basis for this division is the type of logical notion.
The difference between absolute and derivational antonyms is not only morphological but semantic as well. To reveal its essence, it’s necessary to turn to logic. Here notions, when contrasted, are subdivided into contradictory and contrary notions.
Synonyms can be defined as two or more words of the same language, belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical or nearly identical denotational meanings, interchangeable, at least in some contexts, without any considerable alternation in denotational meaning, but different in morphemic composition, phonemic shape, shades of meaning, connotations, affective value, style, emotional coloring and valency.
This definition describes the notion "synonymy", gives some criteria of synonymy (identity of meaning, interchangeability), shows some difference in connotation, emotive coloring, style, etc. But this descriptive definition as well as many others has the main drawbacks - there are no objective criteria of "identity" or "similarity" or sameness of meaning. They all are based on the linguistic intuitions of the scholars.
Let’s take the following group of words: hope, expectation, anticipation. They are synonyms because they all three mean “having something in mind which is likely to happen”. But they have different shades of meaning. The stylistic difference is also quite marked. Moreover, they differ in idiomatic usage.
Each synonymic group comprises a dominant element. The synonymic dominant is the most general term containing the specific features rendered by all other members of the group. In a great number of cases the semantic difference between two or more synonyms is supported by the difference in valency.
The outstanding Russian philologist A.I. Smirnitsky suggested the classification of synonyms into 3 types:
1. Ideographic synonyms - words conveying the same notion but differing in shades of meaning: to understand - to realize
2. Stylistic - words differing only in stylistic characteristics: enemy - opponent - foe - adversary
3. Absolute - words coinciding in all their shades of meaning and in all their stylistic characteristics: pilot - airman — flyer – flyingman; screenwriter - scriptwriter – scripter, semasiology – semantics.
Borrowing. Synonymy has its characteristic patterns in each language. Its peculiar feature in English is the contrast between simple native words stylistically neutral, literary words borrowed from French and learned words of Greco-Latin origin (to ask - to question - to interrogate)
The second source that has made increasing contributions to the stock of English synonyms is dialects (radio (Am) – wireless (Br), gimmick (Am) – trick (Br), dues (Am) – subscription (Br).
Synonyms are also created by means of all word-forming processes productive in the language at a given by time of its history. New words may be formed by affixation or loss of affixes, conversation, compounding, shortening and so on. For example, effectivity – effectiveness (affixation), amongst – among, await – wait (loss of affixes), commandment – command (conversation), stewardess – airman (compounding), memorandum – memo, microphone – mike, popular (song) – pop (song) (shortening).
Another source of synonymy is euphemism, in which a word of more or less pleasant connotation substitutes one that is harsh or indelicate, e.g. drunkenness – intoxication, sweat – perspiration, poor – underprivileged, naked – in one’s birthday suit, pregnant – in the family way.
Contradictory antonyms are mutually opposed and inconsistent. They deny one another and admit no possibility between them: Dead - alive, married - single
Contrary antonyms are so opposed in meaning that the language admits possibilities between them and beyond them: Hot - warm - cold
Many antonyms are explained by means of the negative particle: clean - not dirty, shallow - not deep. Syntactic negation by means of this particle is weaker that the lexical antonymy, e.g.: Not happy - unhappy
Many linguists are inclined to consider conversives another group of antonyms, but this point of view can hardly be accepted. Conversives denote one and the same referent as viewed from different points of view, that of the subject and that of the object, e.g.: Buy - sell, give - receive, cause – suffer. Their interchangeability and contextual behavior are specific. The substitution of a conversive does not change the meaning of a sentence if it is combined with appropriate regular morphological and syntactical changes and selection of appropriate prepositions: He gave her flowers. - She received flowers from him.
Not only words, but set expressions as well, can be grouped into antonymic pairs. The phrase ‘by accident’ can be contrasted to the phrase ‘on purpose’.
Antonyms is the basis of antithesis.