6. Word-building 17. Modern English phraseology 3

Structure of word-groups

The word-groups may be classified:

1. 
   according to their head-words:
   

nominal group (red flower), adjective group (kind to people), verbal group (to speak well).

2. 
   according to their syntactical pattern:
   
   • 
     predicative (such word-groups as “he went” that have a syntactic structure similar to that of a sentence),
     
   • 
     non-predicative (all others).
     

Non-predicative word-groups depending on the type of syntactic relations between the components are divided into:

• 
  Subordinative (“a red flower”, “red” is dependent word)
  
• 
  Coordinative (“day and night”, “do and die”)
  

Meaning of word-groups

The lexical meaning of the word-group may be defined as the combined lexical meaning of the component members. But the term combined lexical meaning doesn’t imply that the meaning of a word-group is always a simple additive result of all the lexical meanings of the component words. As a rule, the meanings of the component words are mutually dependent and the meaning of the word-group naturally predominance of the lexical meaning of the components. The interdependence is well-seen in word-groups made up of polysemantic words. In the phrases “the blind man” and “the blind type” the words blind have different meanings.

Motivation in word-groups

Word-groups may be called lexically motivated if the combined lexical meaning of the group is deducible from the meaning of the components. All types of phrases are completely motivated. Non-motivated word-groups are called phraseological units, or idioms.
Criteria of stability and lack of motivation (idiomaticity).
Phraseological units are defined as non-motivated word-groups that can not be freely made up in speech but are reproduced as ready-made units. The other essential feature of phraseological units is stability of the lexical components and grammatical structure.