ONOMASIOLOGY
· Onomasiology is a branch of semantics which studies meaning in the direction from the concept (meaning) to the linguistic forms that evoke this concept. Onomasiological inquiries aim to describe the words which language has for designating a particular concept. In other words, оnomasiology tries to provide the account of ‘‘the word coverage for thoughts’’. As a rule, this ‘‘coverage’’ includes a number of various words organized in groups. Onomasiological studies of words explore the word groups grounded on meaning. Such groups demonstrate the relations of synonymy, antonymy, partonymy, and hyponymy.
· Synonyms are words whose meanings exhibit similarity: they signify one and the same concept which is more general than the concepts designated by each word. The analysis of synonyms aims to expose their interrelationships, to construe synonymous sequences headed by the dominant word. This word belongs to the neutral style, and its meaning is modified in the other words. E.g. Engl. EXCELLENCY: excellent, admirable, beautiful, brilliant, capital, cool, delightful, exquisite, fair, first-rate, glorious, gorgeous, grand, magnificent, marvelous, perfect, remarkable, splendid, superior, sublime, superb, surpassing, stunning, terrific, topping, wonderful. (See 1, p. 84-85). Types of synonyms: (1) Complete, or perfect, synonyms, which have identical meaning and which can be used interchangeably in one and the same style. Such synonyms are rare. E.g. Ukr. мовознавство, лінгвістика; семіотика, семіологія; Russ. синолог, китаевед. (2) Notional, or ideographic, synonyms are used in one and the same style, where their meanings exhibit variations, e.g. the degree of quality: beautiful, excellent, superb; the manner of action: to tremble, to quiver, to shake; the variations of container’s shape and content: cup, mug, glass, tumble. Cf. also Russ. мороз, стужа; бежать, нестись, мчаться. (3) Stylistic synonyms, whose meanings are the same, but the words belong to different functional styles, e.g. excellent (neutral), cool (coll.); head (neutral), boss (coll.); child (neutral), infant (bookish, elevated), kid (coll.); clothes (neutral), attire (bookish, elevated). Cf. also: Ukr. говорити, ректи, верзти; Russ. спать, почивать, дрыхнуть. Stylistic synonyms may differ in their emotional connotations, e.g. Engl. obstinate, pig-headed; Russ. глаза, зенки, моргала; голова, башка. (4) Ideographic-stylistic synonyms that differ in both meaning and the sphere of application, e.g. to see (neutral) ‘to have or use the powers of sight and understanding’; behold (bookish, archaic) ‘to look at that which is seen’. Cf. also Russ. лицо, рожа.
· Antonymy is semantic contrast. Antonyms are words opposite in their meanings, but these meanings remain within one and the same semantic category. E.g. Engl. EVALUATION: good – bad; AGE: young – old; child – adult. Antonyms are the poles of a semantic continuum, e.g. good – not bad – not good – bad; young – not old – not young – old. The elements of such a continuum may be synonymous: good – not bad (satisfactory); bad – not good (unsatisfactory). (See 1, p. 85). Types of antonyms: (1) Contrastive antonyms that denote polar entities, e.g. Engl. good – bad, young – old. (2) Contradictory antonyms grounded on negation or opposition, e.g. Engl. legal – illegal, possible – impossible, attack – counterattack. (3) Complementary antonyms that represent two interrelated entities, one of which does not exist without another, e.g. Engl. husband – wife, left – right, to sell – to buy; Ukr. лікар – пацієнт, учитель – учень; Russ. начальник – подчиненный. (4) One-word antonyms represented by the cases when one and the same word denotes contrastive entities, e.g. Lat. altus ‘high’ – ‘deep’; Engl. to dust ‘to cover with dust’ – ‘to remove dust’; Ukr. позичати ‘давати у борг’ – ‘брати у борг’; Russ. одалживать ‘давать в долг’ – ‘брать в долг’. · Partonymy demonstrates “part – whole” relations between word meanings. E.g. Engl. hand – finger, house – room, family – mother, flock – bird, school – fish. The word representing the whole is called a holonym, the word representing a part is called a partonym. · Hyponymy demonstrated hierarchical relations between word meanings: the meaning of one word is included into the meaning of another word. The word with a more general meaning is called hypernym /‘haip nim/, and the word with a specified meaning is called a hyponym /‘hip nim/. Hyponyms and hypernyms are organized in ‘‘tree’’ structures. The top node of the tree is the word with the most general meaning, the lower nodes are specified meanings:
sheep-dog terrier spaniel
Pertaining to the meaning manifested by an upper node, the meanings of the lower nodes are synonymous (animal, dog, sheep-dog, terrier, spaniel). Such non-hierarchical subordinate to a general concept are called equonyms / ekw nimz/. The meanings of the lower nodes immediately linked to different upper nodes are not synonyms (spaniel, Jersey cow, pony, Persian cat). However, all these words can be considered together with regard to the meaning animal. Such large word groups are called lexical semantic fields.
Lexical fields are large groups of words that have a common conceptual foundation.There are lexical semantic fields and lexical associative fields.Lexical fields are applied in compiling thesaurus dictionaries. (See 1, p. 86). A lexical semantic field includes words that belong to one and the same part of speech and name the entities that belong to some general conceptual category organized hyponymically (by kind-type relations); e.g. ANIMAL (see above). A conceptual category represented by a lexical field is organized prototypically (See 1, p. 81 – 84). A lexical associative field includes words that belong to different part of speech and name the entities that are linked by different kinds of relations in some conceptual domain (a coherent sphere of of our knowledge); e.g. DOG: dog, animal, bone, leash, master, yard, home; big, small, black, white, fluffy; to bark, to chase cats, to beg for food. Semantic field theory, or lexical field theory, is the view that the vocabulary of a language is a system of interrelated lexical networks, and not an inventory of interdependent items. · Prototypical categories (See 1, p. 86 – 88).
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