FREE-WORD COMBINATIONS Lecture # 11

1. FREE-WORD COMBINATIONSLecture # 11 Grigoryeva M.

2. Word-groups • Definition of a word-group and its basic features • Structure of word-groups • Meaning of word-groups • Motivation in word-groups

3. Word-Group • the largest two-facet language unit • consists of more than one word • studied in the syntagmatic level of analysis

4. Word-Group • the degree of structural and semantic cohesion may vary at least, by means of, take place – semantically and structurally inseparable a week ago, kind to people – have greater semantic and structural independence

5. Free-Word Combination • word-groups that have a greater semantic and structural independence • freely composed by the speaker in his speech according to his purpose

6. Features of Word-groups • Lexical Valency • Grammatical Valency

7. Lexical Valency (Collocability) • The ability of a word to appear in various combinations with other words, or lexical contexts question – pressing / urgent/etc., question at issue, to raise a question, a question on the agenda

8. Lexical Valency (Collocability) • words habitually collocated in speech make a cliché to put forward a question

9. Lexical Valency (Collocability) • lexical valency of correlated words in different languages is different flowerцветок garden flowers садовые цветы hot-house flowers оранжерейные цветы pot flowers комнатные цветы

10. Lexical valency acquires special importance in case of polysemy as through the lexical valency different meanings of a polysemantic word can be distinguished heavy table, book heavy snow, rain heavy drinker, eater heavy sorrow, sleep heavy industry

11. The range of the lexical valency of words is linguistically restricted by the inner structure of the English word-stock Lift synonyms Raise Lift a question Raise a question

12. Grammatical Valency • The ability of a word to appear in specific grammatical structures, or grammatical contexts • the minimal grammatical context in which the words are used when brought together to form a word-group is called the pattern of the word-group

13. Grammatical Valency • restricted by the part of speech an adjective + noun, infinitive, prepositional group a kind man, kind to people, heavy to lift • limited by the inner structure of the language to propose a plan – to suggest a plan to propose to do smth -

14. Grammatical Valency • grammatical valency of correlated words in different languages is different Enter the room - войти в комнату To influence __a person- влиять на человека

15. Classifications of word-groups • according to the distribution • according to the head-word • according to the syntactic pattern

16. endocentric – central member functionally equivalent to the whole word-group red flower ( I saw a red flower – I saw a flower) exocentric – the distribution of the whole word-group is different from either of its components side by side, grow smaller, John runs Word-groups according to distribution

17. Word-groups according to the head word • nominal groups red flower • adjectival groups kind to people • verbal groups to speak well

18. predicative – have a syntactic structure similar to that of a sentence John went, he works non-predicative– do not have a structure similar to a sentence red flower, running John Word-groups according to the syntactic pattern

19. coordinative – elements of a word-group are coordinated with each other day and night, do or die subordinative – one member of a word-group is subordinated to the central element red flower, a man of wisdom Non-predicative and endocentric word-groups

20. Meaning of Word-Groups • lexical meaning • structural meaning

21. Lexical meaning • the combined lexical meaning of the component words • BUT the meaning of the word-group predominates over the lexical meanings of its components atomic weight, atomic warfare

22. Lexical meaning • polysemantic words are used only in one of their meanings man and wife, blind man • stylistic reference of a word-group may be different from that of its components old, boy, bags, fun – old boy (дружище), bags of fun

23. Structural meaning • meaning conveyed by the arrangement of components of a word-group school grammar – grammar school

24. Structural meaning • structural and lexical meanings are interdependent and inseparable all the sun long – all the night long, all the week long (a unit of time)

25. lexically motivated The meaning of the group is deducible from the meaning of its components red flower = “red+flower” Apple sauce = “a sauce made of apple” lexically non-motivated red tape – ‘official bureaucratic methods’ Apple sauce = nonsence Motivation in Word-groups

26. Motivation in Word-groups • Non-motivated word-groups are called phraseological unitsor idioms

27. Arrange word groups according to the degree of their motivation, starting with the highest Ex: Gay bird-beautiful bird, blackbird beautiful bird, blackbird, gay bird (весельчак) Cold wind, cold feet, cold war Light hand, light supper, light artillery Blue funk, blue skirt, blue fox Big cheese, Swiss cheese, white cheese Big boy, big money, big talk Angry tone, high tone, mental tone