Boat : bateau : Kahn, Boot : bote : лодка, катер, корабль, подводная лодка

LECTURE 6

TYPOLOGY OF LEXICAL MEANING

1. The denotational meaning of the word.

2. The connotational meaning.

DENOTATIONAL MEANING.

Denotational meaning. Typologically denotational meaning suggests the distribution of general and special meanings (hyperonyms and hyponyms) in languages.

Generally speaking, it is more natural for ENG and French to use a hyperonym, while RUS typically favors a hyponym. See some more examples:

ENG FRENCH GERMAN SPANISH RUS

boat: bateau: Kahn, Boot: bote: лодка, катер, корабль, подводная лодка

Due to lexical oppositions it is possible to distinguish all the uses of a hyperonym, which may be used as extensively as a hyponym:

boat: ship (size): submarine (position in the water): launch (motor)

A hyperonym expresses one major concept embracing several minor concepts, while a polysemantic word expresses various concepts, and some of these may be hardly brought together

A hyperonym is relative, because it may correspond to a hyponym in another language due to difference in cross-linguistic strategies, while the structure of a polysemantic word is not relative, but relevant for a particular language. See the following examples:

HYPERONYMS HYPONYMS

ENG French RUS

arrive arriver прибыть “arrive”

приехать “arrive in a vehicle”

прийти “arrive on foot”

прилететь “arrive by air”

приплыть “arrive by water”

Although RUS has an exact correspondence for “arrive” = прибыть in actual speech one specifies not only the perfection of an action expressed by the prefix (при-), but also the way of movement expressed by the root. Thus a source motion verb translated from ENG (French) corresponds to a number of target words in RUS, which are prefixal derivatives with a common root.

Generally speaking, it is more natural for ENG and French to use a hyperonym, while RUS typically favors a hyponym. See some more examples:

ENG FRENCH RUS

boat: bateau: лодка, катер, корабль, подводная лодка

Due to lexical oppositions it is possible to distinguish all the uses of a hyperonym, which may be used as extensively as a hyponym:

boat: ship (size)

boat:submarine (position in the water)

boat:launch (motor)

ENG	FRENCH	RUS
box	boite	коробка коробочка шкатулка ящик ящичек
flask	flacon	фляга фляжка склянка пузырёк
pot	pot	горшок котелок банка кружка кринка

Naturally it is possible to find opposite examples, too, in which a RUS word is more general in meaning than its counterparts in ENG and French. Yet such cases are rare and are reduced to definite semantic fields. Here are some examples:

ENG	FRENCH	RUS
finger toe	doigt orteil	палец
hand arm	main bras	рука
watch clock	montre“watch” pendule“clock horloge“tower clock”	часы

The typical correlation between ENG and French hyperonymy on the one hand and RUS hyponymy on the other hand stands out especially clear in verbs. See the following examples:

HYPERONYMS	HYPONYMS
ENG	FRENCH	RUS
jump over	sauter pardessus	перепрыгнуть
jump off	sauter de	отпрыгнуть
jump on	sauter sur	вспрыгнуть

A synthetic language like RUS uses affixes, hence a lot of verbs to express shades of a verbal meaning. An analytical language like ENG and French uses postpositions to specify the meaning of the basic verb.

Depending on the context RUS uses a special prefixal derivative where ENG has a general word whose meaning becomes specified due to its combination with a noun:

ENG	RUS
to cut grass	срезать (косить) траву
to cut a finger	порезать палец
to cut one’s throat	зарезаться, перерезать себе горло
to cut a road	перерезать дорогу

Lexical valency in RUS plays by far a greater role than in ENG and French.

RUS: змея выползла из норы

ENG: the snake got out of the hole

RUS: лестница вела вверх (вниз)

ENG: there was a staircase

FRENCH: il y avait un escalier

In a number of object phrases in ENG with basic verb this verb is translated into RUS by special words:

ENG RUS

make snowballs лепить снежки

make doughnuts печь пирожки

make lines чертить

make tea заваривать чай

make the bed постелить постель

1.The RUS word generally has a more special meaning than its counterparts in ENG. The typical correlation is: a hyponym in RUS corresponds to a hyperonym in ENG.

2. To a great extent it is due to productive verbal affixation in RUS which tends to specialize word meaning.

3. In speech RUS normally combines the meaning of a verb with those of the subject and object, which is not typical of ENG. The meaning of an ENG word is more difficult to understand, as it depends on the context.

CONNOTATIONAL MEANING - the attitude of the speaker toward what is being spoken about. Connotation may or may not depend on lexical motivation.

Goebbels “When I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my pistol” (quoting Hanns Johst “Wenn ich Kultur höre entsichere ich meinen Browning”)

Churchill said that democracy was the worst form of rule except all others.

There are 2 types of connotation resulting from motivation: descriptive and evaluative.

Descriptive connotation in equivalent animal names referring to humans shows either cross-linguistic universality or variation.

UNIVERSALITY:

RUS ENG French

“shy, timid” овца sheep mouton

“cunning” лиса fox renard

“stupid, stubborn” осёл (jack-)ass âne

VARIATION alongside with UNIVERSALITY:

RUS ENG

“brave person” лев lion

сокол falcon

*ястреб hawk

“clumsy person” медведь *bear

*бык bull

слон elephant

“uncouth, uncivilized person” *медведь bear

свинья pig

Evaluative connotation, too, may show cross-linguistic variation and coincidence.

злой как собака (“as angry as a dog”)

умереть как собака (‘die like a dog”)

собачья жизнь (“dog’s life”)

ах, собака literally ‘oh dog” meaning “damn it”.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14