SENSE RELATIONS BETWEEN WORDS

SYNONYMY

Synonyms are words belonging to the same morphological class which have
the same core meaning, though they may differ in shades of meaning,
connotation, distribution, collocation and idiomatic use.
Synonyms may be arranged in synonymic series containing two or more
elements. In such series, one of the terms acquires a dominant position,
being the most general among the others and the most frequently used in
the language = synonymic dominant (the head in dictionaries):

to leave to depart to clear out to retire

Simple words may establish correlative synonymic relationships with

collocations, phrases or idioms as in the pairs to win to gain the upper

hand, to decide to make up ones mind, to hesitate to be in two minds,

to swing the lead to exaggerate, neck and crop entirely, to laugh to
give a laugh, to prefer to show preference, to go after to follow, to go
on to continue, to give in to surrender
correlative synonymic relations are also met in the case of some special
stylistic synonyms, in which the name of a writer, inventor, etc. is replaced
by a descriptive phrase, as in Chaucer the father of English literature or

Shakespeare the sweet swan of Avon

Correlative synonymic relations may also be recognized in certain

phrases that are made up of two synonyms linked by the
copulative conjunction and: with might and main, lord and

master, stress and strain, each and every, liberty and freedom,
really and truly, last will and testament, exiled and banished.

A synonym is employed as an explanation or clarification of the

meaning of another word. The relationship between the two words
is frequently signaled by something like that is to say, or a
particular variety of or : He was cashiered, that is to say,

dismissed.; This is an ounce, or snow leopard.

Polysemantic words have different synonymic series for each of

their senses. For example, ill in the sense of not in full physical or
mental health is synonymous with ailing, indisposed, sick, unwell.
If it means bad, possible synonyms for it are evil, wicked, wrong.

TYPES OF SYNONYMS

a) strict/perfect/absolute synonyms. Two lexical units would be perfect

synonyms (i.e. would have identical meanings) if and only if all their contextual
relations were identical

Absolute synonymy is practically impossible, since no two words are perfectly

interchangeable in all their contexts of use. In the same context, one word sounds
more normalthan its presupposed perfect synonym:
Tell Mummy when Playschool begins and shell watch it with you. (+)
Tell Mummy when Playschool commences and shell watch it with you. (-)
Arthur is always chewing gum. (+)
Arthur is always munching gum. (-)
I dont just hate him, I loathe him. (+)
I dont just loathe him, I hate him. (-)

That is a scandalous waste of money. (+)

That is an outrageous waste of money. (-)

the economy of language would not tolerate (except,

perhaps, for a very limited period of time) the existence of
two lexical items with exactly the same meaning.
historical argument against perfect synonymy - if absolute
synonyms do occur at a certain moment in the development
of a language, usually, one of the items falls into
obsolescence and is, ultimately, no longer used, it remains
to be used in particular dialects or stylistic varieties only or
it begins to be employed in contexts from which the other is
excluded.
Conclusion: When we speak of synonymy, we mean
varying degrees of loose synonymy, where we identify not
only a significant overlap in meaning between two words,
but also some contexts at least where they cannot substitute
for each other.

Loose synonymy is illustrated by at least two types of synonyms, ideographic and stylistic.
b) ideographic synonyms. This class comprises synonyms which share the core meaning
but differ in shades of meaning in that certain notes characteristic of the notion,
phenomenon, object denoted by these words are accented. They may also differ in
connotation, collocation patterns and idiomatic use. In the pair of synonyms to love to
adore, to love is rather neutral, while to adore bears connotations of worship or passion.
Crowd refers to a disorganized group of people, while its synonym, mob refers to the
same group, but connotes the idea of riotous intentions as well.
c) stylistic synonyms. The category of stylistic synonyms includes words having the same
notional components of meaning, but differing in their stylistic reference or degree of
formality.

Formal vs. informal: archer toxophilite, argument disputation, beauty

pulchritude, cross traverse, die decease, give up renounce, letter missive,

praise eulogy, warning caveat, western occidental.
Standard vs. slang: astonished gobsmacked, crash prang, destroy zap, drunk,
sloshed, face phizog, heart ticker, insane, barmy, money rhino, spondulix, prison
clink, steal nick.
Technical vs. non-technical: incision cut, lesion wound
Neutral vs. poetic: happiness bliss, merry jocund,
Speech vs. writing: youre you are

A particular stylistic synonymic relationship is established between a taboo word

and its corresponding euphemistic words or expressions. A euphemism is a mild,
indirect or less offensive word or expression substituted when the
speaker/writer fears that more direct wording might be harsh, unpleasantly
direct or offensive (when resorted to by officials such as members of the
Parliament, officers, lawyers, etc., the use of euphemisms is known as
doublespeak):

to die - to breathe ones last (breath, gasp), to depart this life, to pay ones debt to
nature, to go to ones last home, to go the way of all flesh, to kick the bucket, to hop
the twig, to join the majority, to be no more, to buy a pine condo, to cross the river to
reach the eternal reward, to go to the other side
a stupid person - has a couple of eggs shy of a dozen, a few beers short of a sixpack, a few clowns short of a circus, a few bricks short of a wall, a kangaroo loose in
the paddock, s/he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, not the brightest light in the
harbour/on the Christmas tree, not tied too tight to the pier, knitting with only one
needle, not firing on all cylinders, s/he is as useful as a wooden frying pan, as a screen
door on a submarine or as tits on a bull, s/he is a person whose elevator stuck
between floors, who got into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasnt watching, who
fell out of the family tree or who goes fishing in Nebraska

Dysphemisms = coarser and more direct words

and phrases that are used to replace both more
refined and quite common lexical items, for
humorous or deliberately offensive purposes. The
relationship between the euphemism and the
common word designating its referent may be
considered stylistic synonymy as well.

bean counter = accountant, grease monkey = mechanic,

sawbones = surgeon, quack = doctor, brain bucket =
motorcycle helmet, Jesus juice = wine, muffin top = flesh
that erupts over the sides of low-rider tight jeans, dead
tree edition = the paper edition of an online magazine

SOURCES OF SYNONYMY

The rich synonymy in English is due to the fact that it has borrowed an
impressive number of words from other languages.

Double and triple scales of synonymy

Native

swine

ox

calf

body

ghost

friendship

help

ship

world

room

end

ask

answer

buy

French
pork
beef
veal
corpse
spirit
amity
aid
vessel
universe
chamber
finish
request
reply
purchase

Native
player
wire
bodily
heartly
brotherly
learned
happy
hard

Native

French

Latin

strength
time
forerunner
bond
outstanding
end
ask

power
age
herald
bail
glorious
finish
question

energy
epoch
precursor
security
splendid
conclude
interrogate

Latin/Greek
actor
telegram
corporeal
cordial
fraternal
erudite
fortunate
solid

Besides borrowings, another source of synonymy in English, seen from a diachronic

perspective, is represented by archaisms. Many of these are at present used only in
dialectal speech, having been replaced in the common language by various synonyms. kingstool has been substituted for throne, book-hoard for library, leechcraft and leechdom for
medicine, seamer for tailor, to betake for to deliver for to occupy.
Geographical and stylistic varieties of English are a rich source of synonymy. Thus, charm,
chest and church in standard British English may be paired with glamour, kist and
kirk in Scottish English, to add to the examples of ideographic synonyms already given.
The British words autumn, tin, lorry, insect, sweet and maize as synonyms of the
American words fall, can, truck, bug, candy and corn respectively may enlarge
the same category as may Cockney words and phrases such as trap, chap or ill speed
together with their standard English synonyms sailor, friend and bad luck.
Euphemisms are another important source of synonymy as in the pairs of words: illiterate
uneducated, chaotic unformed, sterile unfruitful, short vertically challenged,
etc.
The belonging of words to various styles in the language may lead to synonymy as well. For
instance, lazy is the standard neutral word for which the colloquial lazybones may be
substituted, trousers is neutral, while its synonym pants is colloquial, evening,
morning, valley and sorrowful are neutral, while their synonyms eve, morn, vale
and doleful are poetic, heart attack and headache belong to the everyday language,
while their synonyms myocardial infarct and cephalalgia are medical technical terms.

ANTONYMY

Antonymy is the sense relation holding between words belonging to the same
morphological class and having opposite meanings.
Characteristics of antonyms

Antonymy is possible only if the words entering this semantic relationship share a
common component of their senses. Thus, old and young share the component
age, long and short share the component length, while deep and shallow
both refer to depth.

Antonyms are found in certain typical configurations in English:

A and B: Young and old were present at the meeting, a matter of life and death, the long and
the short of it;
A or B: wanted dead or alive, Well see if she was right or wrong, Good or bad, Ill take it;
neither A nor B: neither friend nor foe,
A not B: He was alive, not dead as they thought,
X is A and Y is B: Youth is wild and age is tame (Shakespeare)

Another context in which antonyms are typically employed is when reference is made to a
change of state as in The exhibition opens at nine and closes at noon or The poet was
born in 1924 and died in 1991.

Polysemantic words have different antonyms, for each of their senses. Thus, if
even refers to numbers and means devisible by two, its antonym is odd; if
it refers to character or mood and means calm, its antonym is agitated; for
its meaning dull, it enters an antonymic relationship with interesting, while
sharp may be considered its antonym when it means unable to cut. On the
other hand, ploysemantic words may have a number of antonyms for some of
their meanings and none for others. Thus, criticism in the meaning of blame
has the antonyms praise, approval, while in the meaning of writing critical
essays it has no opposite meaning correspondent.
Antonyms appear in a great number of idioms (to make neither head nor tail of
something, to see something in black and white) and proverbs (What
soberness conceals, drunkness reveals, What is done cannot be undone, A
small leak will sink a great ship, You cant teach an old dog new tricks, One
mans loss is another mans gain), as well as in several figures of speech
extensively used in literature (oxymoron, irony, antithesis, etc.): Youth, which is

forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing; age, which forgives itself everything,
is forgiven nothing.

TYPES OF ANTONYMS

If we refer to the type of oppositeness of meaning, we may speak about three

major classes of antonyms: gradable antonyms, ungradable or contradictory
antonyms and converses.

A) gradable antonyms: beautiful ugly, small big, rich poor, wide

narrow, fast slow, increase decrease. As their name suggests, the semantic
relationship between gradable antonyms is not of the either or type, but rather of
the more less type. They represent the end-points of a continuum or a scale. The
more less relationship is made obvious by a number of characteristic features of
gradable antonyms. They allow comparison: My dress is longer than yours, The tree
is less tall than the building. Gradable antonymic adjectives may be modified by
intensifying adverbs: very good, extremely bad, extraordinarily beautiful.
In a pair of gradable antonyms, one of the terms is unmarked, while the other one is
marked. The unmarked member is the one that is normally expected as in How old
are you? or How long is the way to the museum?. When this is used, the
speaker/writer does not prejudge anything whereas, when the marked member is
used, certain presuppositions hold. If the two previous questions had been How
young are you? and How short is the way to the museum?, the implications had
been that the person asked about his/her age was young and the way to the museum
was short.

B) ungradable or contradictory antonyms: asleep awake, dead alive, on

off, permit forbid, remember forget, win lose, shut open, true
false. Unlike in the case of gradable antonyms, the semantic relationship between the
two members of an ungradable antonymic pair is of the either or type, i.e. the
assertion of one member always implies the negation of the other, with no options in
between (in the case of adjectives, this is proven by the fact that they do not allow
degrees of comparison). Thus, an animate being may be described as either dead or
alive, but not as some degree of these or as being more one than the other. If
certain behaviour is permitted, then it is not forbidden; if one lost a contest, then
one has not won it; if a switch is off, then it is not on.
C) converse antonyms: above below, before after, behind in front of,
buy sell, give receive, husband wife, parent child, speak listen. The
meanings of the two antonyms are like the two sides of the same coin, one member of
the pair expresses the converse meaning of the other. Buy and sell describe the
same transaction, the difference lying in the vantage point from which it is viewed. If
the transaction is seen from the point of view of the person who gives up the goods in
exchange for money, we speak about selling, if it is seen from the point of view of
the person who receives the goods upon paying a sum of money for them, we speak
about buying.

If we take into consideration the form of the

antonyms, we may speak about root and affixal
antonyms.

A) root or radical antonyms are different lexical units

with opposite meanings: warm cold, kind cruel,
open shut.
B) affixal antonyms are words having the same root, the
relation of oppositeness of meaning between them being
established by means of negative (and positive) affixes
which are added to the common root: careful careless,
important unimportant, to believe to disbelieve, to
entangle to disentangle.

HYPONYMY AND MERONYMY

Hyponymy and meronymy are based on hierarchical

relationships (they are the consequence of the fact that some
words have a more general meaning than others).
Hyponymy = a relationship of inclusion of the kind of type:

dog spaniel, cocker, German shepard, puddel, etc; vehicle

car, truck, lorry, bus, bike, motorbike, etc.

The more general term = the superordinate;

The subordinate terms = the hyponyms.

Meronymy = a relationship of inclusion of the part of type:

plant leaf, bud, petal, stem, root; day dawn, morning, noon,
afternoon, evening, etc.

The more general term = the superordinate;

The subordinate terms = the meronyms.

HOMONYMY

Homonymy = a relation of lexical ambiguity between words having

different meanings; it is a situation where one orthographic or spoken
form represents more than one vocabulary item.
Types of homonyms
If their pronunciation and spelling are taken into consideration,
homonyms may be one of the following:

a) perfect homonyms or homonyms proper. These are words identical

in both spelling and pronunciation: light (adjective) light (noun).
b) homophones. These are words that have the same pronunciation, but
differ in spelling: air heir, I eye, buy bye - by
c) homographs. These are words that have the same spelling, but differ
in pronunciation: wound [wu:nd] wound [waund], bow [bu] bow
[bau], lead [led] lead [li:d].

Homonyms are a rich source of humour. They are as well a

source of confusion for users of English who do not master the
language and, sometimes, even for proficient speakers of it:

Why did the teacher wear sunglasses? Her students were too
bright.

Waiter, will the pancakes be long? No, sir, round.

A family of three tomatoes was walking downtown one day when

the little baby tomato started lagging behind. The big father
tomato walks back to the baby tomato, stomps on her, squashing
her into a red paste, and says Ketchup!
Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case

According to the type of meaning that helps to differentiate words that

have the same sound and/or form, homonyms may be grouped in
three categories:

a) lexical homonyms are homonyms which belong to the same

grammatical class and have different lexical meanings: the noun seal
meaning a kind of sea animal and the noun seal meaning the special mark
put on documents to prove that they are authentic.
b) lexical-grammatical homonyms are homonyms which belong to
different grammatical classes and have different lexical meanings: the noun
bear referring to a particular kind of large wild animal with thick fur and
the verb bear meaning inability to accept or to do something.
c) grammatical homonyms are homonyms which differ in grammatical
meaning only: that as a demonstrative noun and that as a
demonstrative adjective, played as the past tense of the verb to play
and played as the past participle of the same verb.

SEMANTIC CHANGE

Causes of semantic change

A) Extra-linguistic causes of semantic change are determined by the close connection between
language and the evolution of human society. Being the most dynamic and flexible part of a language,
vocabulary reacts to almost every change in the outer reality it helps to picture. Thus, torch was used in
Middle English (ME) to designate a piece of cloth damped in oil, lit and held in hand in order to make
light. With the advance of technology, the word has come to also refer to the small electric lamp that
runs on batteries and serves the same purpose in modern times. The noun mill was initially used for a
building with machinery for grinding corn. Industrial developments influenced its meaning and extended
the reference of the word to factory - any kind of building with equipment for manufacturing processes
(we now have saw / cotton / silk / paper mills).
The evolution of culture and society - when academy was borrowed in the 15th century, it was used as the
name of a garden near Athens, where Plato used to teach. Two centuries later, it referred to the school
system of Plato, while, beginning with the end of the 17th century, it has been used to designate an
institution for the promotion of art or science.
Social causes such as the need for specialized terms in each branch of science that deals with specific
phenomena and concepts. The word cell, whose general meaning is compartment, has come to mean
the space between the ribs of a vaulted roof in architecture, the space between the nerves of the wings
of insects in entomology and a vessel containing one pair of plates immersed in fluid to form a battery
in electricity.
The need of expressiveness, taboo and euphemisms in language - one way of achieving expressive effects
in everyday language is through the use of slang words. In slang, everyday words and phrases acquire
new meanings. Thus, baby is used for girl or sweetheart, the bread basket is the stomach, to lamp
means to hit, a bag is an ugly woman or an objectionable unpleasant person, to rabbit is used for to
talk unceasingly, gear refers to illicit drugs and choice is used as an adjective meaning best, excellent.

B) Linguistic causes of semantic change

Ellipsis consists of the omission of one part of a phrase. Quite frequently, the remaining
part takes on the meaning of the whole: sale, obtained by ellipsis from cut-price sale, has
come to be used with the meaning of the initial phrase an event or period of time during
which a shop reduces the prices of some of its goods.
Analogy occurs when one member of a synonymic series acquires a new meaning and this
new meaning is extended to the other elements in the series as well. In the synonymic
series to catch to grasp to get, the first verb acquired the meaning to understand,
which was later transferred to the verbs to grasp and to get.
The discrimination of synonyms is the result of the evolution of the meanings of certain
synonyms. In OE, land meant both solid part of the earths surface and territory of a
nation. Later on, in ME, the word country was borrowed from French and it became a
synonym of land. In short time, however, country restricted its meaning to territory of a
nation, while land remained to be used in everyday language for solid part of the earths
surface (when land is used to refer to an area with recognized political borders, it bears
connotations of mystery, emotion or obsolescence).
Borrowings from other languages may also lead to semantic changes. Deer used to mean
animal up to ME, when, under the pressure of the borrowed words beast, creature,
animal, it restricted its meaning to a large brown wild animal with long thin legs.

RESULTS OF SEMANTIC
CHANGE

A) Extension or widening of meaning is the process by which the

sense(s) of a word is / are enlarged or enriched.
The word journal originally meant, a daily record of transactions or
events. Through extension of meaning, at present, it means both a
daily newspaper and any periodical publication containing news in
any particular sphere. The early meaning of butler, a male servant in
charge of the wine cellar was later extended to a male servant in
charge of the household.
Extension of meaning may sometimes involve the evolution of a word
from concrete to abstract. Branch, for example, was used with the
meaning a portion or limb of a tree or other plant. From this initial
meaning, several abstract meanings have evolved and are recognized
today: one of the portions into which a family or race is divided, a
component portion of an organization or system, a part of a
particular area of study or knowledge.

B) Narrowing or restriction of meaning is the process opposite to

extension. By it, a word with a wider meaning acquires a narrower
meaning that comes to be applied to some of its previous referents
only. Very frequently, narrowing goes hand in hand with specialization
of meaning.
Mare, for example, meant horse up the moment in the evolution of
English when its meaning was restricted to the female horse only.
Likewise, any kind of dog was considered a hound. Nowadays, hound
is used as such only poetically or archaically, its specialized meaning in
the common language being dog used by hunters for chasing the
game. Fowl is another example of narrowing of meaning. It was used
to refer to any kind of bird, while now, it is only the domestic birds that
are called fowls.
Specialization of meaning, accompanying narrowing, is very clear in the
case of trade names that originated in common nouns: Sunbeam,
Thunderbird, Caterpillar.

C) Degradation of meaning or pejorative development is the process by which a

neutral word either loses its original meaning completely and acquires a new, derogatory
one, or it preserves it and develops a new pejorative meaning in addition.
The former case may be illustrated by means of the word quarrel, which meant complaint.
By a first semantic change, as Hulban (1975: 120) indicates, it came to mean a ground or
occasion of complaint against a person, leading to hostile feelings. The meaning of the
word degraded even further from this and reached the point of a violent contention or
altercation between persons, a rapture of friendly relations. Knave underwent the same
process. It initially meant boy and later lost this meaning in favour of dishonest man.
The word suburban is illustrative of the latter case. From the initial meaning, of or
belonging to the suburbs of the town, a new derogatory one evolved, the former still being
preserved. Today, suburban is used not only for what is not in the city, but also for
typical of the attitudes and way of life of people who live in the suburbs, which some
people consider rather boring, conservative, involving inferior manners and narrower
views.
Analogy plays an important role in the process of degradation of meaning. This is very
obvious in the following examples of zoosemy, metaphors that implicitly compare humans
with animals. Thus, besides the animal itself, a sheep is a poor-spirited, stupid or timid
person. A fox is a cunning person, a monkey or an ape is one that plays the ape, an
imitator, a mimic.

D) Elevation of meaning is the reverse of

degradation, implying the process by which a newly
evolved meaning of a word acquires a higher status
as compared to the initial one. Fame, for example,
originally meant rumour, but later on, it became
celebrity, good reputation. Bard was initially a term
of contempt, designating a ministrel-poet. Later,
when ministrels started to be idealized, the word
referring to them suffered an elevation of meaning,
quite obvious in Shakespeare himself having been
called The Bard.

TRANSFER OF MEANING

Many of the cases of extension and narrowing of meaning

mentioned in the previous sections are based on transfer of
meaning. There are two main types of such transfer, according
to the kind of association that they presuppose. Associations
based on similarity lead to metaphor, while those based on
contiguity, i.e., on the condition of being in contact, in
proximity, in a broad sense, lead to metonymy. Unlike
extension, narrowing, elevation and degradation, transfer of
meaning is not a gradual process, but rather the result of a
sudden change from one field to another, on a particular
occasion of use (both metaphors and metonymies may be onetime only creations in language).

METAPHOR

The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of things in terms of another (Lakoff,
Johnson 1980: 5). In other words, metaphor involves an implicit comparison of two entities, based on an alleged
resemblance between them. This implicit comparison is contained in the meaning of a word or phrase that has come
to be different from its original meaning.
Types of metaphor:
A) live metaphors - conscious creations used by writers as stylistic devices
B) linguistic metaphors

standardized lexical metaphors in whose case the idea of similarity is lost. They are usually considered dead
metaphors and include examples such as daisy, whose origin is the OE daeges aege (the days eye) and
wind, coming from the OE windes aege (the winds eye).

degrading or fading metaphors in whose case the idea of similarity is still evident. Such metaphors
may rely on:
similarity of shape: the head of the pin, the mouth of the river, the foot of the hill, ball-point-pen;
similarity of position: head-word, headstone;
similarity of colour: red-admiral, blue-bell, blue-wing;
similarity of destination or purpose: blood bank, data bank;
space and duration in time: long run, long-lived, shortcircuit, shortcoming, short-dated;
physical sensations: cold war, warm congratulations, sweet dreams, bitter remark;
Ulmann (1970) offers another classification of degrading linguistic metaphors. According to him, they may be
grouped into:
anthropomorphic metaphors, involving the transfer of meaning from the human body and its parts to inanimate
objects: the mouth of the river, the lungs of the town, the heart of the matter;
animal metaphors: dogs tail (a plant), cat-o-the-nine-tails. People can also be called foxes, lions, doves, donkeys,
etc;
metaphors that translate abstract experiences into concrete terms: to throw light on, to enlighten, brilliant idea;
synaesthetic metaphors, involving the transposition from one sense to another: cold voice, loud colours, piercing
sounds.

METONYMY

Metonymy consists of the use of the name of one thing for that of something else, with which it is usually
associated. This association is not a mental process that links two independent entities, like in the case of
metaphor, but one that brings together entities which are in a certain proximity or contact.
According to the type of relationship established between the two elements in a metonymy, the following
types of associations are possible:

the use of the symbol for the thing symbolized: From the cradle to the grave, one has always something new to learn,
The Crown visited the soldiers on the battle field;
the use of the material an object is made of for the object itself: iron, glass;
the use of the holder for the thing held: The gallery applauded, He is fond of the bottle, You should save your pocket if
you want to buy a new computer;
the use of the makers name for the object made: I like the Rembrand on that wall, Put that Dickens away and listen to
me, I hate reading Heidegger, He bought a Ford;
the use of the place name where the object is or was originally made for the object itself: At dinner, they served the soup
in their best china;
the use of the instrument for the agent: They answered the door / phone, The sax has the flu today, The gun he hired
wanted 50 grants;
the use of the concrete for the abstract and of the abstract for the concrete: They dedicated their pens to a just cause,
He is of noble blood; The leadership took action against thefts;
the use of the name of an organization or an institution for the people who make a decision or work there: Exxon has
raised its prices again, The Senate thinks abortion is immoral;
the use of the place name where an event was recorded for the event itself: Do you remember the Alamo?, Pearl
Harbour still has an effect on Americas foreign policy;
the use of a place name where an institution is located for the institution itself: The White House voted against entering
war, Wall Street has been in panic these days;
the reference to the behaviour of a person experiencing a particular emotion for the emotion itself: She gave him a
tongue-lashing, I really chewed him out good;
the use of the part for the whole (also called synecdoche) and of the whole for the part: They hired ten new hands, We
dont accept longhairs here, She is wearing a fine fox.

LEXICAL STRATA

Lexical strata may be approached from two perspectives:

Diachronic
Synchronic

Diachronic lexical strata

Archaisms = words and phrases, their senses or grammatical forms that were current at one time, but that have
passed out of use completely or are very rarely employed at present.
Archaisms are of two kinds:

Absolute archaisms = words that have disappeared completely from the language. Eg: alegar ale or beer which has
passed through the acetous fermentation and was used as a cheap substitute for vinegar, ballop the old name for the flap
in the forepart of the breeches which is buttoned up, buzznack an old organ, out of order and playing badly, upknocking

the employment of the knocker-up who went house to house in the early morning hours to awaken his working-class clients,
dawkin a fool, a sinpleton, gubbertushed having projected teeth, kidcote common jail, rax stretch oneself after
sleep;
Relative archaisms = words that are still used, but quite infrequently. They occur in a variety of contexts, for a multitude of
purposes and reasons. Thus, film makers and writers of historical novels use them to render the past times they focus on as
accurately as possible: druid, tournament, archer, thane (knight), gleeman (wondering minstrel), witan (kings council),
oracle, etc. A similar desire to evoke a former age justifies the use of relative archaisms in circumstances where doing so has
political or emotional connotations, or when the official new name of a country, city or province is not generally accepted (such
as Persia instead of Iran, Bombay rather than Mumbai, and Madras as the older variant of Chennai). So, a restaurant seeking
to conjure up historic associations might prefer to call itself Old Bombay or refer to Persian cuisine, avoiding the employment of
the newer place names. A notable contemporary example is the name of the airline Cathay Pacific, which uses the archaic
Cathay for China. In science and technology, fields of continuous and dynamic development, some specialized words or
meanings may follow the trend and fall into disuse quite quickly. However, the emotional associations that some of these
presuppose have kept them in use, even if within very narrow limits this is, according to the explanations in Wikipedia, the
case of the meaning radio that the generation of Brits that lived through the Second World War still associate with the word
wireless. Phrases associated with religion, rituals and traditions, though not considered common if they occur in general speech
or writing, continue to be used in the circumstances in which they appeared long in the past. For example, thou shalt and
thou shalt not are considered archaic in general use, but being part of the common English translation of the Ten
Commandments, they continue to be repeated and used in that context without calling attention to themselves
(http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-archaisms.htm). Similarly, the archaic I thee wed is perfectly consonant with a present
day wedding ceremony.

Neologisms = generally accepted definition - new words or

expressions, or existing words used with new meanings; a different
point of view - not necessarily brand new lexical items or
meanings, but rather words, phrases and senses that, at the
moment when they occurred in a language, had a considerable
impact on its users. British dictionaries of neologisms contain items
such as acid rain, dating since 1850, greenhouse effect, born in
1920, misfortuned, first documented in 1881 and the three
century-old condom. Such words and phrases are living their
second youth now, at times when environmental protection and
health care are issues on everybodys lips. Similarly, the Romanian
senat, camere parlamentare, interpelare, jandermerie, used initially
during the two World Wars, have been brought back into usage
recently and may, therefore, be considered neologisms.
Neologisms appear in a language as the result of the evolution of
the historical, political, social and cultural context.

The linguistic phenomena mainly associated with the creation of neologisms are borrowing and
word formation by various techniques.

Borrowing: from French: aestheticienne beautician, aromatherapy - a type of health treatment in which
nicely smelling oils are rubbed into somebodys skin to make the person feel relexaed, ballotin small
pacakage, bustier a piece of clothing for women that does fits close to the body and does not cover the
shoulders and the arms, diamantaire diamond seller); from Spanish (aficionado supporter, huaquero
robber of ancient thombs in Chile, Peru and Bolivia, morcilla a special type of sausages that contain pig
blood, mucho much); from Russian (Afghantsi former Soviet soldier in Afghanistan, khozraschrot
economic liability, demokratizatsiya process of democratization of society and its institutions, perestroika
ample process of social, political and economic reform initiated in 1987 by M. Gorbaciov in the USSR); from
German (bedienung mention on a bill that the final amount indicated contains the waiters tip, kletten prinzip
means of supervising hooligans in a crowd so as to prevent their riotous intentions); from Japanese (basho
traditional Japanese fight championship, karaoke the singing by amateurs of the lyrics of songs against
recorded tunes, mawashi the competition attire of sumo fighters, Nikkei index of the relative prices of
stocks at the Tokyo Stock Exchange); from Czech (eyelyser optical apparatus for measuring the level of
alcohol in ones blood, colourization process of colouring a film initially made in black and white); from Italian
(libero the last player at the back of the football field, mascarpone Italian cottage cheese), etc.
Word formation: Affixation: biodegradable which decomposes naturally, without harming the environment,
biofuel fuel obtained from organic matters, depowerment the loss by the masses of their capacity to decide
upon their own fate, derecognize to retrieve the official recognition of an organization, institution, etc,
deselect to reject, to eliminate, to exclude, ecopolicy the strategy of an environmental movement,
ecorefugee person who has left an area in which pollution made living almost impossible, proactive s/he
who takes the initiative the first, pro-choice in favour of a womans right to opt for abortion, supercollider
big and powerful particle accelerator, supersite double-sized advertising hoard, unplugged (about musical
instruments) acoustic, without electronic components, unscoopy without sensational news, boring, unwaged
- unemployed, etc. Compounding: airhead beautiful, but stupid woman, alcohol-abuse excessive
consumption of alcoholic drinks, fuzzword word with an ambiguous sense, used to impress the interlocutor,
hack-and-slash about games, which promotes violence, lockdown period of time when the inmates in a jail
are isolated, middlemarket of average quality, meant for middle class consumers, shoutline text printed in
italics at the beginning of an advertisement, etc.

Synchronic lexical strata

Geographical varieties
The spread of English as a global language
may be described in terms of the wellestablished three concentric circles model
suggested by Kachru (1989): the inner
circle, the outer circle and the
expanding circle.

The inner circle includes the territories where

English is the first, official language, even if other
languages are also spoken here the British Isles,
USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The best represented inner circle variety is American

English, with a main distinction between Northern and
Southern dialects in terms of pronunciation, grammar and
vocabulary.
During the depression, said the cowboy to me, I used to
hop freights at least once a month. In those days, youd see
hundreds of men riding a flatcar or in a boxer, and they
werent just bums, they were all kinds of men out of work
and going from one place to another and some of them just
wandering. It was like that all over the West. Brakemen
never bothered you in those days

The outer circle groups together territories in Asia and Africa to which English
was first transported in colonial contexts and where it has since existed
alongside very different local languages. Many people use English as a second
language within these multilingual contexts and the language also has an
institutional and administrative importance (Davies 2005: 47).
The best represented outer circle variety of English, according to the number of
speakers that use it, is Indian English, characterized by a number of peculiar
phonetic, grammatical and lexical features. Words and phrases that are said to
be peculiar of Indian English include: shift (move from one apartment to
another), weatish complexion (light, creamy brown complexion), expire (to
die, especially in reference to ones family member), acting pricey (playing
hard to get), dearness allowance (payment given to employees to
compensate for the effects of inflation), chargesheet (to file charges against
someone in court), on the anvil (used frequently in the Indian press to mean
about to happen, to take place), out of station (out of town), etc. Local
words and expressions often intersperse with English ones. Dhobi-wallah
(laundryman), bandh (local strike), lakh (one hundred thousand), crore
(ten million), bheris (fish farms), etc.

The expanding circle includes territories in which English has

become or is becoming the most important foreign language
(Davies 2005: 46).
English-origin borrowings in Romanian

Reasons for extensive borrowing:

the temptation of the youngsters to sprinkle their vocabulary with words

belonging to the British-American super-civilization to which their parents had
been denied access. By doing this, they feel closer to the Western man (usually
American), perceived as a competent, enterprising, prosperous and reliable
person (Prlog 2004: 94);
Romanians nowadays are more frequently exposed to the English language - they
can read a large number of newspapers, magazines and books in English;
throughout the country, they can watch TV channels that broadcast in this
language; and they have numerous occasions of hearing and using English during
their travels abroad or as the language of communication in business settings;
Journalists and public people also contribute to English having a high status in
Romania, by using Anglicisms quite often, both in their spoken and in their
written materials.
English is the most widely taught foreign language in Romanian schools.

Words of English origin that have been borrowed into

English are:

non-assimilated - nouns without inflections, determiners or

modifiers or used as parts of verb collocations (software
pentru gestionarea muzicii software for managing music; te
duci cu gndul la shopping you think of shopping; s-a dat
click de peste nou milioane de ori they gave a click over
nine million times), adjectives used as attributes or as
predicatives, in the postive degree (tot felul de pedepse funny
all sorts of funny punishments; am rmas addicted I
remained addicted; trebuie s rmi fair you have to
remain fair) and adverbs used as attributes or as adverbials
(caracteristici de navigare outdoor characteristics of
outdoor navigation; comunitate online online community;
backstage se afl cel mai mare fan his greatest fan is
backstage), etc.

Assimilated directly or indirectly:

nouns that have been assigned Romanian gender by various means, such as the presence of a
Romanian indefinite or definite article or Romanian inflections for number, case, gender
(masculine: am fost nsoii de un bodyguard we were accompanied by a bodyguard;
designerii ne surpind constant designers constantly surprise us; feminine: sunt o fan
Liza Minelli I am a Lisa Minelli fan; fanele mai pot spera the fans can still hope; neuter:
completeaz cu un blush roz add a pink blush; target-ul l reprezint copiii the target
is represented by children);
nouns whose gender is assigned by the presence of a pronominal adjective or modifier marked
for gender (neuter: cum poi pstra acest look how you can preserve this look;
masculine: este noul superstar al rockului he is the new superstar of rock);
nouns obtained by derivation with Romanian suffixes, from English roots (diploma de cea mai
bine mbrcat coolgirli diploma for the best-dressed coolgirli; o fashionist precum
actria K.B. a fashionist like the actress K.B.; Eti cea mai dulce maroonic You are
the sweetest maroonic);
adjectives used in the Romanian comparative and superlative degrees (cea mai cool pereche
de balerini the coolest pair of shoes; foarte simplu i foarte cool very simple and very
cool);
verbs conjugated according to the Romanian pattern (poi uploada fotografii you can
upload photographs; nu tiu s managerieze problemele sufleteti they cannot manage
soul problems; pe unde am mixat, lumea s-a distrat people had fun wherever I mixed
music).

phrases that adopt both the meaning and the structure of

corresponding English phrases have occurred in Romanian: cod
de bare (bar code), a avea fluturai n stomac (to have
butterflies in ones stomach), a ine prima pagin (to keep the
front page);
The meaning of some Romanian words have enlarged under
the influence of English words they share at least one sense
with: chimie - the scientific study of substances and of the way
they react with other substances, got the extra meaning
affective relationship between people, under the influence of
the English chemistry; scndur flat piece of wood, has
come to also mean board with four wheels that one stands on
and rides, influenced by its English partial synonym skateboard.

Ethnic varieties of English

Ethnicity, understood as the common ancestry, race
and distinctive culture of a group of people (whose
representatives live in smaller or larger communities
in a certain country), is reflected in the language
these people use. In the case of English, at least two
ethnic varieties are very well-established:

the African American Vernacular English (AAVE) spoken by about 90 percent of the black population of
African origin in the United States, the majority of which
comes from inner-city and working class backgrounds

It displays a number of phonological, grammatical (both

morphological and syntactic), lexical and discursive peculiarities

Chicano/Mexican-American English spoekn by people of Mexican,

Puerto Rican, Cuban and other Spanish-speaking backgrounds in the US.
According to Baugh and Cable (2002), in the 1990 US census, 60 percent of
the Hispanics reported their national origin to be Mexican and it has been
estimated that Mexican-American English, or Chicano English is now
spoken by around 30 million people in the US.

Just like AAVE, Chicano English has a number of characteristic features in terms
of its phonetics, grammar and vocabulary.

Ethnic varieties of English (and of any other language, for that matter) play
an important role in preserving the shared identity of a particular minority
group within a majority mass. It is because of this that members of an
ethnic minority will not give up using its characteristic vernacular (although,
on occasions, the standard language is used, especially by the upper
educated classes) and will fight, by cultural and political means, to ensure
its survival.

Social varieties of English

Standard English - the variety of English considered the

norm in an English-speaking country, usually associated with
users belonging to the upper well-educated social classes on
the one hand, and to the media and the official social,
scientific, political, cultural, etc. settings, on the other. SE is
also the variety taught to learners of English as a foreign
language. However, it should not be understood that it is
spoken by members of the upper social classes and in the
previously mentioned contexts only it is spread,
admittedly, in a non-uniform way, across the whole social
spectrum and it is encountered in less formal environments
as well.

What SE is not:

an accent - SE can be identified mainly by its vocabulary, grammar and

orthography, but not by its pronunciation. In Britain, there is a high status
and widely described accent known as Received Pronunciation (RP), also
known as Kings English, Queens English and BBC English also, which
is sociolinguistically unusual when seen from a global perspective in that it
is not associated with any geographical area, being instead a purely social
accent associated with speakers in all parts of the country, or at least in
England, from upper-class and upper-middle-class backgrounds (Trudgill
1999: 118). While users of RP also speak SE, not all speakers of SE speak it
with an RP - about 10% of the population in Britain speak SE with some
form of regional accent, even if this is not very distant from RP. Therefore,
it is justified to say that while RP is, in a sense, standardized, it is a
standardized accent of English and not Standard English itself. This point
becomes even clearer from an international perspective. Standard English
speakers can be found in all English-speaking countries, and it goes without
saying that they speak this variety with different non-RP accents, depending
on whether they came from Scotland or the USA or New Zealand or
wherever (Trudgill 1999: 118).

a style (a language variety that can be placed on a continuum, ranging from

very formal to very informal).

Standard non-standard is not the same as formal - informal.

Eg. The old man was bloody knackered after his long trip - SE, though couched in a
very informal style (Trudgill 1999: 120)
Father were very tired after his lengthy
journey - non-standard English (due to the grammatically incorrect agreement between
the subject and the verb), couched in a rather formal style (Trudgill 1999: 120).

even if SE tends to be used formally (a fact imposed by the contexts in which it

occurs), it is not impossible for it to be employed in an informal way, too. Stylistic
switching occurs within the variety in question and not between it and another
one.

a register (a variety of language connected to a particular topic, subject

matter or activity, such as mathematics, medicine, physics, law, etc.),
although it is most usual in English-speaking societies to employ SE when
one is using scientific registers

There was two eskers what we saw in them U-shaped valleys is a nonstandard

English sentence, couched in the technical register of physical geography

(Trudgill 1999: 121)
An informal discussion between scientists in their field of expertise might be SE,
even if not too many specialised terminology is used

What SE is:

a language variety, a social dialect which displays characteristics that

individualize it as pretty unusual among the other dialects of English.
SE is the dialect spoken as their native variety by about 12 to 15% of
Britains population, this segment being concentrated at the top of the
social scale. The further down this scale one gets, the more numerous nonstandard forms of language one comes across. From a historical point of
view, SE was selected (though not through a conscious process of decision
making by regulatory bodies such as academies, for instance) as the variety
to become the standard one precisely because it was the variety
associated with the social group with the highest degree of power, wealth
and prestige. Subsequent developments have reinforced its social character:
the fact that it has been employed as the dialect of an education to which
pupils, especially in earlier centuries, have had differential access depending
on their social class background (Trudgill 1999: 124).

the most obvious features that make SE differ from other non-standard English
dialects lie at the level of grammar. Some of these features are:

Standard English fails to distinguish between the forms of the auxiliary forms of the
verb do and its main verb forms. This is true both of present tense forms, where many
other dialects distinguish between auxiliary I do, he do and main verb I do, he does,
and the past tense, where most other dialects distinguish between auxiliary did and
main verb done, as in You done it, did you?;
Standard English has an unusual and irregular present tense verb morphology in that
only the third-person singular receives morphological marking: he goes versus I go.
Many other dialects use either zero for all persons or -s for all persons;
Standard English lacks multiple negation, so that no choice is available between I dont
want none, which is not possible, and I dont want any. Most nonstandard dialects of
English around the world permit multiple negation;
Standard English has an irregular formation of reflexive pronouns with some forms
based on the possessive pronouns e.g. myself, and others on the objective pronouns
e.g. himself. Most nonstandard dialects have a regular system employing possessive
forms throughout i.e. hisself, theirselves;

Standard English fails to distinguish between second person singular and second person plural
pronouns, having you in both cases. Many nonstandard dialects maintain the older English distinction
between thou and you, or have developed newer distinctions such as you versus youse;
Standard English has irregular forms of the verb to be both in the present tense (am, is, are) and in
the past (was, were). Many nonstandard dialects have the same form for all persons, such as I be,
you be, he be, we be, they be, and I were, you were, he were, we were, they were;
In the case of many irregular verbs, Standard English redundantly distinguishes between preterite
and perfect verb forms both by the use of the auxiliary have and by the use of distinct preterite and
past participle forms: I have seen versus I saw. Many other dialects have I have seen versus I seen;
Standard English has only a two-way contrast in its demonstrative system, with this (near to the
speaker) opposed to that (away from the speaker). Many other dialects have a three-way system
involving a further distinction between, for example, that (near to the listener) and yon (away from
both speaker and listener)

What is considered SE from a grammatical point of view should be regarded without losing
sight of the fact that language is continuously changing and that it might very well happen
that what is labeled non-standard at a certain moment should become the norm. The
reverse phenomenon is also possible what is today considered standard language might
enter the category of non-standard forms in the future.

Slang - the attribute of lower social classes chiefly. It may be contrasted with jargon
(technical language of occupational or other groups) and with argot or cant (secret
vocabulary of underworld groups), but the borderlines separating these categories
from slang are greatly blurred, and some writers use the terms cant, argot, and jargon
in a general way, to include all the foregoing meanings (Varanakov online: 4).
However, just like in the case of SE, this does not mean that slang is never used by
speakers not belonging to the upper classes of a society.

It is characterized by the use of very informal and generally short-lived non-standard words,
phrases and meanings
It originates in various subcultures or occupational groups in a society (police, medical
professionals, computer specialists, sports groups, religious denominations, drug addicts,
criminals, etc.). Within these, slang words and phrases are initially suggested by an individual,
usually, as a way of expressing hostility, ridicule or contempt (Varanakov online: 5) either
towards the members, values, attitudes or behaviour of her / his own group or of a different
group. However, only after these lexical elements are widely adopted by the group or
subculture within which they were created do they have chances of becoming real slang (a one
time usage does not guarantee their survival as part of the language variety under discussion).
Following this stage, if the group or subculture has an extensive enough contact with the
mainstream culture, these words and phrases may spread and become known to a greater
number of language users.

Other reasons for the birth of slang:

the exercising of ingenuity, wit and humour

the desire to be different, novel or picturesque (either positively or
as in thewish to avoid insipidity negatively)
to escape from clichs
to lend an air of solidity, concreteness, to the abstract, of earthiness to
the idealistic
to reduce, perhaps also to disperse the solemnity, the pomposity, the
excessive seriousness of a conversation (or of a piece of writing)
to soften the tragedy, to lighten or to prettify the inevitability of death
or madness, or to mask the ugliness or the pity of profound turpitude
(e.g. treachery, ingratitude)
to show that one belongs to a certain school, trade, or profession,
artistic or intellectual set, or social class, in brief, to be in the swim or
to establish contact and, hence, to show or prove that someone is not
in the swim
to be secret - not understood by those around one, etc.

Slang is not restricted either temporally or

geographically. All historical periods and all
geographical areas have had their own slang.
Professional in various fields have their own slang
Slang is frequently based on figures of speech,
mostly on metaphors and comparison; rhyming
slang is a category that has pretty numerous
representatives in English

Written and oral varieties of English

the previously well drawn separation line between the two has become quite blurred recently, under
the influence of the development and more and more extensive use of communication channels such
as the email, mobile phones and online chat rooms. Thus, new varieties of English, specific to
electronic communication, have evolved.
Spontaneous speech, one form of oral communication, occurs when people talk naturally and
informally, without having planned in advance what they are going to say. This is not to mean that
spontaneous talk is just small talk for the sake of talking, that the interlocutors have no conscious
aim in their talk whatsoever, but rather that linguistically, they have not already worked out what
form of the language they are going to use to express what they want to say. In their heads, they
may well have quite clear intentions, but they will actually express these intentions spontaneously, if
and when they get the chance to in the course of the conversation.
Although informal conversation does not seem to be closely controlled, a set of rules is still applied
by the speakers, even if unconsciously most of the times: the use of formulas to open or close a
dialogue, of greetings or pragmatic idioms (adjacency pairs of the kind Im George. / Nice to meet
you; Im sorry! / No problem.; Have some more cake! / No, thank you, Ive had enough, etc.), to
giving feedback (by using, for example, discourse markers such as yes, I know, exactly, sure, etc.),
asking and answering questions, making and responding to suggestions, signaling the intention to
keep or to yield the floor (in the former case, by, for instance, pausing at a moment when the
sentence is still incomplete and when, therefore, the interlocutor feels discouraged to take over; in
the latter, by pausing when an idea has been completely expressed, directly asking for the
interlocutors opinion or displaying suggestive body language looking more steadily to the person
to whom the speaker is willing to give the floor, nodding, etc).

Non-fluency features of spontaneous talk:

abandoned / incomplete words such as thi-this and abandoned

and / or reformulated sentence structure, such as I could

always get the tickets from theres a new box office down
you know, when you go through that new shopping archade

syntactic blends, where the structure of the sentence changes

in mid-stream, e.g. About two hundred years ago we had

ninety-five percent of people in this country were employed in

farming.
mispronunciations and slips of the tongue, e.g. par cark for car
park (syllable-onset consonants swopped); win a pin for with a
pin (where an anticipated consonant is articulated early).
fillers like er, erm.

repetition

(often

combined

with

hesitation),

itsitsnnot that I want to be critical but

such

as

rehearsed speech is, in some ways, prepared before it is

uttered for an audience:

speeches thought over and maybe even drafted before they are
delivered to the listeners
drama, in whose case lines are learned by heart by the actors and
then reproduced before the spectators.

Therefore, though the aim of the speaker in these cases is to

sound as spontaneous as possible, what s/he says does not
come out in the same way as it does in the case of fully
unprepared speech. Some non-fluency characteristics are
preserved (syntactic blends, fillers, hesitation markers, etc.)
though - intentionally in the case of theatre, possibly
uncontrolled in the case of public speakers.

Traditional written texts are characterized by

features that are the consequence of their being
produced in a more controlled manner than oral
discourse. The final version of a written text, one that
might have been arrived at after several revisions, is
a string of coherent sentences that reflect a logical
sequencing of ideas. These sentences tend to be
much longer and more elaborated than those in
spoken discourse, with no (intentional) grammatical
mistakes and with a higher level of vocabulary.

Electronic written texts (emails, text

messages) mixture of oral and written
features in various degrees, depending
on the level of formality of the text
Characteristics of emails: