The Functional Style

Contents

1. “A Cradle song”. The poem for the analysis……………………………………………3
2. The Functional Style…………………………………………………………………….4
3. Polysemy…………………………………………………………………………………5
4. Synonyms…………………………………………………………………………………7
5. Antonyms………………………………………………………………………………….8
6. Homonyms………………………………………………………………………………...9
7. Hypero-hyponimic relations……………………………………………………………..10
8. Word formation analysis…………………………………………………………………11
9. Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………..12

A Cradle Song

Sweet dreams form a shade,
O'er my lovely infants head.
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams,
By happy silent moony beams

Sweet sleep with soft down.
Weave thy brows an infant crown.
Sweet sleep Angel mild,
Hover o'er my happy child.

Sweet smiles in the night,
Hover over my delight.
Sweet smiles Mothers smiles,
All the livelong night beguiles.

Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thy eyes,
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
All the dovelike moans beguiles.

Sleep sleep happy child,
All creation slept and smil'd.
Sleep sleep, happy sleep.
While o'er thee thy mother weep

Sweet babe in thy face,
Holy image I can trace.
Sweet babe once like thee.
Thy maker lay and wept for me

Wept for me for thee for all,
When he was an infant small.
Thou his image ever see.
Heavenly face that smiles on thee,

Smiles on thee on me on all,
Who became an infant small,
Infant smiles are His own smiles,
Heaven & earth to peace beguiles.

William Blake

The Functional Style

The Functional Style of language is a system of interrelated language means which serves to define an aim of communication.. A functional style should be regarded as the product of a certain concrete task set by the sender of the message. Functional styles appear mainly in the literary standard of the language. These represent varieties of the abstract invariant and can deviate from the invariant, even breaking away with it.

Every functional style of language is marked by a specific use of language means, thus establishing its own norms which, however, are subordinated to the norm-invariant and which do not violate the general notion of the literary norm. The writers of the given period in the development of the literary language contribute greatly to establishing the system of norms of their period.

The language of poetry is characterized by its orderly form, which is based mainly on the rhythmic and phonetic arrangement of the utterances. The rhythmic aspect calls forth syntactic and semantic peculiarities. There are certain restrictions which result in brevity of expression, epigram-like utterances and fresh, unexpected imagery. Syntactically this brevity is shown in elliptical sentences, in detached constructions, in inversion, etc.

The Functional Style of “A Cradle Song”: “A Cradle Song” has a language that is a little bit different from the contemporary English language. Because of the fact that William Blake lived in 18-19 century there are some old forms of the words (thee). There are also words which are typical to poetry (O'er).

Polysemy

- The association of one word with two or more distinct meanings.

Head

1. top of body (He turned his head and looked at me.)

2. mind (Use your head to work out the answer.)

3. calm/sensible (We need a candidate who can keep his or her head even when clients get aggressive.)

4. person in charge (You should discuss the matter with your head of department.)

5. leading position (Jenny marched proudly at the head of the procession.)

…

Radial polysemy (or radiation) is the type of polysemy in which the primary meaning stands in the centre and the secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays. Each secondary meaning can be traced to the pri­mary meaning.

Chain polysemy (or concatenation) is the type of polysemy in which the secondary meanings of a word develop like a chain. In such cases it may be difficult to trace some meanings to the primary one.

Dream

1. a series of thoughts, images, and feelings that you experience when you are asleep (In my dream I flew to a forest of enormous trees.)

2. a wish to do, be, or have something - used especially when this seems unlikely. (Her dream is to make a movie.)

3. something that seems perfect (I've finally found my dream house.)

Synonyms

Many scholars defined synonyms as words conveying the same notion but differing either in shades of meaning or in stylistic characteristics. In "Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms" its authors used the semantic criterion along with the criterion of interchangeability, which we may see from the definition.

A synonym is one of two or more words which have the same or nearly the same essential (denotational) meaning. It is not a matter of mere likeness in meaning, but a likeness in denotation which may be expressed in its definition. The definition must indicate[1] the part of speech and the relations of the ideas involved in a term's meaning.

The Russian philologist A.I. Smirnitsky suggested the classification of synonyms into 3 types:

1. Ideographic synonyms - words conveying the same notion but differing in shades of meaning: “Sweet” (looking pretty and attractive) – “dovelike” (cute, gentle)

2. Stylistic - words differing only in stylistic characteristics: “infant” – “babe” – “child” (more common and neutral).

3. Absolute (perfect, complete) - words coinciding in all their shades of meaning and in all their stylistic characteristics. Absolute synonyms are rare in a language.

Antonyms

Antonyms – a class of words grouped together on the basis of the semantic relations of opposition.

CLASSIFICATION OF ANTONYMS

Structurally, antonyms can be divided into antonyms of the same root, e.g. “pleasant” – unpleasant

1. Contradictories represent the type of semantic relations that exist between pairs like, e.g. “small” – big

2. Contraries (gradable antonyms) are antonyms that can be arranged into a series according to the increasing difference in one of their qualities: “silent” – calm

3. Incompatibles - antonyms which are characterized by the relations of exclusion: “Angel” – Demon

Homonyms

Homonyms are words different in meaning but identical in sound or spelling, or both in sound and spelling. Homonyms can appear in the language not only as the result of the split of polysemy, but also as the result of levelling of grammar inflexions, when different parts of speech become identical in their outer aspect. Classifications of homonyms.

Walter Skeat classified homonyms according to their spelling and sound forms and he pointed out three groups: perfect homonyms that is words identical in sound and spelling; homographs, that is words with the same spelling but pronounced differently; homophones that is words pronounced identically but spelled differently.

A more detailed classification was given by I.V. Arnold. She classified only perfect homonyms and suggested four criteria of their classification: lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, basic forms and paradigms.

According to these criteria I.V. Arnold pointed out the following groups: a) homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings, basic forms and paradigms and different in their lexical meanings; b) homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings and basic forms, different in their lexical meanings and paradigms; c) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammatical meanings, paradigms, but coinciding in their basic forms; d) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammatical meanings, in their basic forms and paradigms, but coinciding in one of the forms of their paradigms.

For example, “eye” (ocular organ) – aye(naval affirmative)

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