Practice 4

Consider your answers to the following.

1. What do we call homonyms and what is one of the most crucial problems of semasiology in connection with the phenomenon of homonymy? In what respect does split polysemy stand apart from other sources of homonyms?

2. What are the distinctive features of the classification of homonyms suggested by Professor A. I. Smirnitsky?

3. What are the main sources of homonyms? Illustrate your answer with examples.

4. Prove that the language units board ("a long and thin piece of timber") and board ("daily meals") are two different words (homonyms) and not two different meanings of one and the same word. Write down some other similar examples

5. Find the homonyms in the following extracts. Classify them into homonyms proper, homographs and homophones:

1. "Mine is a long and a sad tale!" said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. "It is a long tail, certainly," said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; "but why do you call it sad?" 2. a) My seat was in the middle of a row. b) "I say, you haven't had a row with Corky, have you?" 3. a) Our Institute football team got a challenge to a match from the University team and we accepted it. b) Somebody struck a match so that we could see each other. 4. a) It was nearly December but the California sun made a summer morning of the season, b) On the way home Crane no longer drove like a nervous old maid. 5. a) She loved to dance and had every right to expect the boy she was seeing almost every night in the week to take her dancing at least once on the weekend, b) "That's right," she said.

6. Classify the following italicized homonyms. Use Professor A. I. Smirnitsky's classification system.

5. 1. a) He should give the ball in your honor as the bride, b) The boy was playing with a ball. 2. a) He wished he could explain about his left ear. b) He left the sentence unfinished. 3) a) Crockett's voice rose for the first time, b) I'll send you roses, one rose for each year of your life. 4. a) He was bound to keep the peace for six months, b) You should bound your desires by reason. 5. a) The pain was almost more than he could bear, b) Catch the bear before you sell his skin.

7. Explain how the following italicized words became homonyms.

1. a) Eliduc's overlord was the king of Brittany, who was very fond of the knight, b) "I haven't slept a wink all night, my eyes just wouldn't shut." 2. a) The tiger did not spring, and so I am still alive, b) It was in a saloon in Savannah, on a hot night in spring. 3. a) She left her fan at home, b) John is a football fan. 4. a) The Thames in London is now only beautiful from certain viewpoints — from Waterloo Bridge at dawn and at night from Cardinal's Wharf on the South Bank. b) Perhaps the most wide-spread pleasure is the spectacle of the City itself, its people, the bank messengers in their pink frock coats and top hats. 5. a) Ads in America are ubiquitous. They fill the newspapers and cover the walls, they are on menu cards and in your daily post, b) "Is that enough?" asked Fortune. "Just a few more, add a few more," said the man.

8. Do the following italicized words represent homonyms or polysemantic words? Explain reasons for your answers.

1. 26 letters of the ABC; to receive letters regularly. 2. to propose a toast; an underdone toast. 3. a hand of the clock; to hold a pen in one's hand. 4. the capital of a country; to have a big capital (money). 5. to date back to year 1870; to have a date with somebody. 6. A waiter is a person who, instead of waiting on you at once, makes you wait for him, so that you become a waiter too.

9. Comment on the phenomenon of synonymy and synonymic dominant. In the following groups of synonyms find the synonymic dominant. Give your reasons for the choice.

a) Common, customary, frequent, habitual, ordinary, usual, vulgar.

b) Able, capable, clever, competent, fitted, powerful, qualified, skilful, vigorous.

c) Accept, admit, agree, approve, consent.

d) Dividend, division, part, portion, quantity, share.

e) Strange, quaint, odd, queer.

f) To saunter, to stroll, to wander, to walk, to roam.

10. Arrange the following ideographic synonyms according to the degree of intensity.

a) Affliction, despair, sadness; b) Excuse, forgive, pardon; c) Delight, happiness, pleasure; d) Decay, fade, wither; e) Annoy, irritate, vex; f) Desire, long, wish.

11. Give synonyms to the italicized words and characterize them.

1. On the staircase, there lingered a great number of people, who came there, some because their rooms were empty and lonesome. 2. They left this disconsolate apartment, and went upstairs. 3. Managing to obtain the addresses of two newspaper syndicates, he deluged them with storiettes. 4. That was a cordial greeting and a warmest smile. 5. His whole body was shaking and shivering dangerously.

12. From the following sentences pick out synonyms and antonyms and comment on them.

1. He threw open and shut the latticed windows with violence, as if alike impatient of the admission and exclusion of free air. 2. The general character of the conversation that evening, whether serious or sprightly, grave or gay, was as something untaught, unstudied, intuitive, fitful. 3. At this touch of warm feeing and cold iron, Mr. Dombey shivered all over. 4. Her heart melted, I suppose, at the notion that she should do anything unkind to any mortal, great or small. 5. But we are not mad. We are sane.

13. Comment on the following sentences in terms of antonyms. Define their types.

1. Flying instructors say that pilot trainees are divided into optimists and pessimists when reporting the amount of fuel during flights. Optimists report that their fuel tank is half full while pessimists say it's half empty. 2. The canvas homes, the caravans, the transportable timber frames – each had its light. Some moving, some still. 3. His words seemed to point out that sad, even, tragic things could never be gay. 4. It was warm in the sun but cool under the shady trees. 5. He is my best friend and he is my bitter enemy. 6. Every man has feminine qualities and every woman has masculine ones. 7. He hated to be exposed to strangers, to be accepted or rejected.

14. Give antonymous word-combinations and substantiate your choice.

A light-blue dress, a light box; an old woman, and old house; to lose a book, to lose a battle; fresh bread, fresh flowers; wild birds, wild behavior; a rough surface, a rough person; a hard task, a hard bed.

15. Comment on the ways of formation of the following groups of neologisms.

a) Acidhead, bad-mouth, low-life, microcomputer, pare-book, war-game, erotology, half-stuff, bioplasma, calendar-clock.

b) Z-car, V-agent.

c) Hot spot, air private, orbit line, dependency culture, food card, waterless cooker.

d) mouth-to-mouth, two-by-four.

e) accessorize, laseronic, sanforize, urbanologism, gadgeteer, vitaminize.

16. Analyze the word-formative means the following colloquial neologisms are made by. Give their Ukrainian equivalents.

Aggro, buddy-buddy, job-hop, too-too, sourpass, pushinesds, hand-in-glove, goodwillnik, kiss off, congraters! trannie, G, at-risk kids, alpha earner, diff-abled, elderweds, hasbian, maffluent, mouse wrist, time0leakage, twentysomething, yuppify, Webjack, boomeranger, dot-comer, N-Gen.

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