Different types of non-semantic grouping

The simplest, most obvious non-semantic grouping, extensively used in all branches of applied linguistics is the alphabetical organiza­tion of written words, as represented in most dictionaries. It is of great practical value as the simplest and the most universal way of facilitat­ing the search for the necessary word. The theoretical value of alphabetical grouping is almost null, because no other property of the word can be predicted from the letter or letters the word begins with. We cannot infer anything about the word if the only thing we know is that it begins with a p. Only in exceptional cases some additional information can be obtained on a different, e.g. the etymological, level. For instance, words beginning with a w are mostly native, and those beginning with a ph borrowed from Greek. But such cases are few and far between.

The rhyming, i.e. inverse, dictionary presents a similar non-seman­tic grouping of isolated written words differing from the first in that the sound is also taken into consideration and in that the grouping is done the other way round and the words are arranged according to the similarity of their ends. The practical value of this type is very limited. These dictionaries are intended for poets. They may be also used, if but rarely, by teachers, when making up lists of words with similar suffixes.

The third type of non-semantic grouping of written words is based on their length, i.e. the number of letters they contain. This type, worked out with some additional details, may prove useful for communication engineering, for automatic reading of messages and correction of mistakes. It may prove useful for linguistic theory as well, although chiefly in its modified form, with length measured not in the number of letters but in the number of syllables. Important statistical correla­tions have been found to exist between the number of syllables, the fre­quency, the number of meanings and the stylistic characteristics a word possesses. The shorter words occur more frequently and accumu­late a greater number of meanings.

Finally, a very important type of non-semantic grouping for isolat­ed lexical units is based on a statistical analysis of their frequency. Fre­quency counts carried out for practical purposes of lexicography, lan­guage teaching and shorthand enable the lexicographer to attach to each word a number showing its importance and range of occurrence. The most frequent words are usually polysemantic and stylistically neutral.

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