Classification of language units according to the period of time they live in the language

With the flow of time some new words may be formed in the language while other words begin to be used less often, move to the periphery of the lexical system or even become obsolete (устаревшие). According to the period of their life in the language words are divided into archaisms and neologisms. Archaisms are words which are no longer used in everyday speech, which have been ousted by their synonyms. Archaisms remain in the language, but they are used as stylistic devices to express solemnity.

Most of these words are lexical archaisms and they are stylistic synonyms of words which ousted them from the neutral style: steed (horse), slay (kill), perchance (perhaps), betwixt (between). These lexical archaisms belong to the poetic style.

Whe the causes of the word‘s disappearance are extra-linguistic, e.g. when the thing is no longer used, its name becomes a historism. Historisms are very numerous as names for social relations, institutions, objects of material culture of the past (brougham, berlin, fly, gig; also such vehicles as prairie schooner, also such boats as caravel, galleon, and such weapons as breastplate, crossbow, arrow, vizor.)

At the present moment English is developing very swiftly and there is so called neology blowup. The two greatest influences on the formation, adaptation and use of English words over the last forty years have been the United States of America and the progress of different branches of science and means of communication: television, cinema and printed material.

Neologisms can develop in three main ways. a lexical unit existing in the language can change its meaning to denote a new object or phenomenon. In such cases we have semantic neologisms, e.g. the word umbrella developed the meanings авиационное прикрытие, политическое прикрытие. A new lexical unit can develop in the language to denote an object or pfenomenon which already has some lexical unit to denote it. In such cases we have transnomination, e.g. the word slum was first substituted by the word ghetto, then by the word-group inner town. A new lexical unit can be introduced to denote a new object or phenomenon. In this case we have a proper neologism, many of them are cases of new terminology.

LECTURE 5. PHRASEOLOGY

The word-combination (WC) is the largest two-facet lexical unit observed on the syntagmatic level of analysis. By the degree of their structural and semantic cohesion WCs are classified into free word combinations and phraseological units.

Lexical combinability (collocation) is the aptness of a word to appear in certain lexical contexts. Each word has a certain norm of collocation. Any departure from this norm is felt as a stylistic device. The collocations of correlated words in different languages are not identical.

Grammatical combinability (colligation) is the aptness of a word to appear in certain grammatical contexts, e.g. the adjective heavy can be followed by a noun (heavy storm), by an infinitive (heavy to lift). Each grammatical unit has a certain norm of colligation, the departure from the norm of colligation is usually impossible.

Phraseological units are word-groups that cannot be made in the process of speech, they exist in the language as ready-made units. They are registered in special dictionaries. Like words, phraseological units express a single notion and are used in a sentence as one part of it. In other words, they are characterized by semantic and structural integrity. American and British lexicographers call such units idioms.

Phraseological units can be classified in different ways. According to the degree of motivation of their meaning acad. V.V. Vinogradov classified phraseological units into three types:

a) fusions (фразеологические сращения) where the degree of motivation is very low, we cannot guess the meaning of the whole from the meanings of its components, e.g. on Shank‘s mare (on foot); in Russian: бить баклуши;

b) unities (фразеологические единства) where the meaning of the whole can be guessed from the meanings of its components, but it is transferred (metaphorically or metonimically), e.g. to play the first fiddle (to be a leader in something), old salt (experienced sailor);

c) collocations (фразеологические сочетания) where words are combined in their original meaning but their combinations are different in different languages, e.g. cash and carry – self-service shop, in a big way (in great degree).

Phraseological units can be classified as parts of speech. This classification was suggested by I.V. Arnold. Here we have the following groups:

a) noun phraseological units denoting an object, a person, a living being, e.g. bullet train, a latchkey child;

b) verb phraseological units denoting an action, a state, a feeling, e.g. to to get on somebody‘s coattails, to be on the beam;

c) adjective phraseological units denoting a quality, e.g. dead as a doornail, dull as lead;

d) adverb phraseological units, e.g. with a bump, in the soup;

e) preposition phraseological units, e.g. in the course of, on the stroke of;

f) interjection phraseological units, e.g. Catch me! Well, I declare!

In I.V. Arnold classification there are also sentence equivalents: proverbs, sayings and quotations. A proverb is a short familiar epigrammatic saying expressing popular wisdom, a truth or a moral lesson in a concise and imaginative way. Proverbs are usually metaphorical, while sayings are, as a rule, non-metaphorical, e.g. Where there is a will there is a way – Кто хочет, тот добьется. Though the issue of whether proverbs should be included in phraseological stock of a language is arguable. Some scientists reason that phraseological units should be equivalent to words in their syntactical function, whereas proverbs function only as a whole sentence and cannot make up larger syntactical units. On the other hand, proverbs have much in common with set expressions, because their lexical components are also constant, their meaning is traditional and mostly figurative, and they are introduced into speech ready-made. That is why some scholars following V.V. Vinogradov think proverbs must be studied together with phraseological units. Moreover, there exist lively interrelation between set expressions on the one hand and proverbs and quotations, on the other hand. In many cases proverbs give rise to a word-equivalent idiom. Both set expressions and proverbs are sometimes split and changed for humorous purposes, as in the following quotation: It will be an age not perhaps of gold, but at least of glitter. As to familiar quotations, they are different from proverbs in their origin. They come from literature but by and by they become part and parcel of the language, so that many people using them do not even know that they are quoting. The main argument for considering these as a part of phraseological stock – or at least of its periphery – is that many phrases that are now considered as set expressions can be easily traced to literary works.

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