Chapter II. POLYSEMY AS A LINGUISTIC PHENOMENON
THE NOTION OF POLYSEMY
The term p a r o n y m comes from the Greek para “beside” and onoma “name”; it enters the lexicological terminology very conveniently alongside such terms as synonyms, antonyms, homonyms and allonyms.34
The phenomenon of polysemy exists in many languages of the world. We can judge of it from the great amount of works (Вишнякова, 1987; Веракша, 2000; Федорчук, 2001; Русинов и Васильева-Радославова, 1984; Кузнецова, 1991; Федотова, 1994; Яркова, 1979; А.Н. Гвоздева, Н.П. Колесникова, О.В. Вишняковой, Ю.А. Бельчикова и М.С. Панюшевой; Ишкильдина, 2003; Гелястанова, 2004 and others) which devoted to the problems of polysemy in Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Bulgarian), Roman (French, Spanish), Germanic (English, German) and Turkic languages.
Polysemy represent a particular group in the lexical vocabulary of the language. They should not be combined with any antonyms, homonyms or with, synonyms, as and intralingual polysemy - an independent linguistic phenomenon. Linguists were interested in polysemy as an object of Russian lexicology later than with synonyms, antonyms and homonyms.
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Before that polysemy were noticed as literal deflection in any kinds of dictionaries of speech difficulties and incorrectnesses. The first polysemy were interlingual, and they were known as “false friends of translator”. In 1966 in Prague was published the book of I. Vlcheka (И.Влчека) “U’skali ruske slovni Z’asoby” which was devoted to the phenomenon of Russian- Czech polysemy and homonymy. In 1969 V.V. Akulenko(В.В. Акуленко) published his “English- Russian and Russian-English dictionary of false friends of translator”. And only in 1971 was published “Dictionary of Russian polysemy . But there are various
blendings of foreign words with similar Russian words. That kind of dictionaries were very useful for translators.
In the dictionary of Russian language of N. Kolesnikova were presented paronymous words - just over 3000 lexical items. This dictionary is aimed primarily at studying Russian as a foreign language and is mainly didactic, for reference. But already in the works of M. Fomina35 polysemy defined as "the words different in meaning and similar in pronunciation, lexical and grammatical supplies and tend to the roots of kinship." And in the book, O.V. Vishnyakova36 "Polysemy in the Russian language" already appears classification polysemy , and was investigated the problems polysemy .
In the course of my work has been found yet another new Dictionary "Polysemy the Russian language," created under the editorship of Krassnih V.I., published by “Astrel” at the end of 2003. This dictionary is better than other dictionaries of polysemy . His vocabulary is comparable with all the lexical array of Russian language and contains over 2600 paronym.
35 Фомина М.И. Современный русский язык. Лексикология-Москва 1978 стр. 82
Вишнякова О.В. Паронимы в русском языке. М., 1974. стр. 103
Большой толковый словарь русского языка. 1 е изд-е: СПб.: Норинт. С. А.Кузнецова
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Different authors suggest various definitions. Some of them define polysemy as words of the same root, others as words having the same sound form, thus equalising them with word-families or homonyms. Any definition, however, is valuable only insofar as it serves to reflect the particular conception or theory of the subject one studies and proves usage for the practical aims of its study. Let’s see some of them:
Paronym - a, m [from Greek. para beside, and near onoma name, title] Word, it is very close in sound to another word.
E. g: кров и кровь, прорвать и прервать37
Paronym -a, m, ling. The word, which is close to another word in form and meaning .
E. g: представить и предоставить, экономный и экономичный38
Paronym – (Polysemy ) partial words which sound similar in their semantic differences (full or partial). Also, the term polysemy called such a phenomenon in the speech, when the two words, to some extent similar-sounding, but...3
Polysemy is words different in meaning, but similar-sounding words («база» и
«базис») similarity of polysemy can lead to errors in speech («представился» instead of «преставился» Polysemy used frequently in the pun.40
Polysemy (gr. para - beside + onima - name) - it is paronymous words, similar in sounding, but not identical in meaning: подпись - роспись, одеть - надеть, главный - заглавный. Polysemy usually refer to one part of speech and perform a similar sentence, syntactic function.41
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Polysemy called different in meaning of the word similar in pronunciation, lexico- grammatical and accessories, as a rule, kinship roots:
адресат - адресант, вдох - вздох, земельный - земляной many others.
Polysemy called similar-sounding same root word, related to one part of speech and one semantic field, but having, as a rule, different values. The stress is placed at the same time is unimportant.
29
38 Толковый словарь иностранных слов Л. П. Крысина. М: Русский язык, 1998
39 Wikipedia.ru
40 Modern Dictionary ed. "Great Soviet Encyclopedia" (online version) classes.ru
41 Максимов М.Ю. Русский язык и культура речи; Учебное пособие. Под.ред. М.Ю. Максимова - М. 2001.- 198с.
The likeness may be accidental as in the verbs affect and effect. The first means ‘influence’, the second — ‘to produce’. These come from different Latin verbs. The similarity may be also due to a common source.42
The relationship between two or more words partly identical in form and/or meaning, which may cause confusion in reception or production. In the narrow sense the term polysemy refers to “soundalikes” (cognate near homophones such as affect/effect or feminine/feminist), but in the wider sense it covers any “soundalikes” or “meanalike” confusing words.”43
Aristotle introduces polysemy as a relation among words which share the same root and correspond to different aspects of approximately the same thing in the world. 44“When things are called after something in accordance with its name, but different in ending, they are said to be polysemy . Thus, for example, the grammarian gets his name from grammar, the brave one…gets from bravery…”
(Aristotle, Categories)
“Gene Derwood’s Shelter has the lines…
While people hunt for what can satisfy their wants There is a watching and a sharp recording.
Both seekers and watchers are the palpitants And much is said with no deep ferny wording.
“Palpitants” is a paronym for “palpite” used here metaphorically to convey anxiousness and “wording” a paronym for “word” used metaphorically for meaning”.45
30
42 Ginzburg R. S. A Course in Modern English Lexicology, M.: Vyssaja skola, 1966. стр. 164 43 R.R.K. Hartmann and Gregory James, Dictionary of lexicography. Rouledge,1998 , стр. 124 44 Ackrill's translation of Aristotle
45 James F. Ross, Portraying Analogy. Cambridge Univ. Press,1981, стр. 148
“I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards.” (Abraham Lincoln)
Two words are polysemy when their phonemic representations are similar but not identical. Two words are homographs when their graphemic representation is identical (i.e. they are spelled the same). Two words are homophones when their
phonemic representation is identical (they are pronounced the same). Homographs and homophones are subclasses of homonyms.
There are many cases of similarity between words easily confused with synonymy also but in fact essentially different from it. Lexical variants, for instance, are examples of free variation in language, in so far as they are not conditioned by contextual environment but are optional with the individual speaker.
E.g. Northward - norward; whoever - whosoever.
The variation can concern morphological or phonological features or it may be limited to spelling. Compare weazen/weazened ‘shrivelled and dried in appearance, an adjective used about a person’s face and looks; directly which may be pronounced [di'rektli] or [dai'rektli] and whisky with its spelling variant whiskey.
Lexical variants are different from synonyms, because they are characterised by similarity in phonetical or spelling form and identity of both meaning and distribution.
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The cases of identity of stems, a similarity of form, and meaning combined with a difference in distribution should be classed as synonyms and not as lexical variants. They are discussed in many books dedicated to correct English usage. These are words belonging to the same part of speech, containing identical stems and synonymic affixes, and yet not permitting free variation, not optional. They seem to provoke mistakes even with native speakers. A few examples will suffice to illustrate the point. The adjectives luxurious and luxuriant are synonymous when meaning ‘characterised by luxury’. Otherwise, luxuriant is restricted to the expression of abundance (used about hair, leaves, flowers). Luxurious is the adjective expressing human luxury and indulgence (used about tastes, habits, food, mansions). Economic and economical are interchangeable under certain conditions, more often, however, economic is a technical term associated with
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economic agreement). The second word, i.e. economical, is an everyday word associated with economy;
E. g. economical stove, economical method, be economical of one’s money. In the works of different linguists, this phenomenon is observed under different names, such as: kvaznomonimiya, geterofemiya, paronomasia, etc., which indicates that, of course, there is no single approach to the definition of the phenomenon. In linguistics, has developed two basic approaches to determining polysemy - narrow and wide. Under the narrow approach polysemy limited to the area one-root consonant words with different meanings, belonging to the same lexical-grammatical category. Supporters of a broad approach belongs to the same root and paronymous words. In our case, we will talk about words related to polysemy , according to a narrow definition, and call them intralingual polysemy . This choice is dictated by the fact that the misuse of language polysemy due to ignorance of the values of polysemy , low culture of speech, i.e., the objective factors, such as in the case of c historic / historical event. Usage of speech polysemy caused mainly by subjective factors, such as: the desire to pun, drunk, and other similar states, as well as implement specific stylistic goals, if it is a work of art. Objectively difficult to decide which noun to use in a particular context: советник или советчик (language polysemy ) rather than советник/советчик, или скворечник (speech polysemy ) for example.
Language polysemy often encountered in various fields of language learning
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Business English and ESP, where students often do not know, or even knowing, often make mistakes when you use or transfer of such words.
E.g. in teaching ESP law students, frequent errors in such words as:
а) inhuman/inhumane prison conditions;
judicial – 1. of or by a court of justice-судебный ( e. g. judicial branch) showing or using judgment in thinking about something (e. g. "He is rather talented"-replied Sarah judicially) и judicious – showing or having good sense - разумный, рассудительный (e. g. You put your case most judiciously);
Credible – that can be believed-заслуживающий доверие (e. g. a credible witness)
Credulous – ready to believe things-доверчивый (e. g. credulous consumers).
Politic – acting or judging wisely, prudent. Политичный, расчетливый.
Political – of the state, of government, of politics. Политический
Polysemy as one of the linguistic phenomena have long been used by speakers, writers, poets, publicists. It underlies creation of a special kind of stylistic figures - the so-called paronomasia, the essence of which is deliberately confusing or deliberate collision polysemy :
E.g. не туп, а дуб; и глух и глуп. 46
Usage of similar-sounding words is the basis of puns and that gives speech humorous tone, and thanks to a completely unexpected play on words in familiar and stable expressions that acquire at this new imagery and expressiveness; 47
In the practice of translation and lexicographical works, as well as the teaching of foreign languages it is especially difficult to cross-language homonyms and polysemy .
34
At first glance it might seem that "false friends of translator" can enter, only to mislead people who start learning a language and bad owning them. In reality the situation is the opposite: the majority of "false friends" is dangerous precisely for individuals, confident and almost satisfactorily using language, and thus admitting the false identification of individual elements of foreign and native languages.
Here are examples of some words from English into Russian:
eng. stipend doesn’t mean стипендия. It is зарплата (“fixed regular income”), and in Britain – жалованье для священников. Students usually get scholarship, grant (студенты), fellowship (аспиранты).
conductor — чаще дирижер, чем кондуктор,
—logistically — скорее всего не «логистически», а по техническим причинам,
Dutch — не датчанин, а голландец (flying Dutchman — летучий голландец),
Caucasian — как правило, не «кавказец», а вообще белый человек,
Preservative — консервант.
In the studying polysemy naturally arises question about their attitudes to other lexical categories - homonyms, synonyms and antonyms. So, some scholars consider polysemy as some kind homonymy, and polysemy , therefore, as "pseudo- homonyms, indicating their formal similarity. Polysemy differ from homonyms following signs. First, polysemy have a different spelling,
35
46 Фомина М.И. Современный русский язык. Лексикология - Москва 1978г. Стр. 202
47 Ibid., Стр. 124
E.g.: диктат- диктант (Polysemy ),
дача1 - portion, given in one go,
дача2 - country house, usually for the summer holidays,
дача3 - a piece of land (homonyms).
Secondly, paronymous words will never have a full match in pronunciation, for example: and,
E.g. homonymous шпилька 1 - a device for slaughtering hair
шпилька 2 - thin heel.48
Besides semantic proximity polysemy explained etymologically:
-Originally they had a common root. A similarity of words-homonyms is purely external, accidental (for the exception cases where homonymy develops as a result of the collapse of values of polysemantic word).
Mixture of different words with similar pronunciation is generally observed, in speech, as in the linguistic system, most of these words quite clearly differentiated from each other, although in some cases similar sounding same root words are very similar each other and the difficulty of their separation is not always easy to overcome.
E.g., лиричный - лирический, комичный - комический, малинный -малиновый
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48 Дунаев А.И., Дымарский М.Я. Кожевников А.Ю. Русский язык и культура речи; учебник для вузов; Под.ред. В.Д, Черняк.- М. высшая школа; С-ПБ.издательство РГПУши А.И.Герцина, 2002.-509с.
Modern researchers call them polysemy incomplete. Words of this type of approach the same root as synonyms, although there are clear distinguishing features:
Paronymous words include, or only to the age-old Russian words (бродяжий - бродячий, остатки - останки, оплатить - уплатить, пометы - пометки),
Or just borrowed (абонент-абонемент, существо - сущность, факт -
фактор).And synonymous with a number can be combined and the other.
E.g. ярмо - ярем, рабство, кабала,
where the first two are native Russian, third is Old Slavic borrowing, the fourth - Turk.
Synonyms of this type should not be confused with p a r o n y m s , i.e. words that are kindred in origin, sound form and meaning and therefore liable to be mixed but in fact different in meaning and usage and therefore only mistakenly interchanged.
With polysemy closely adjoin homonyms. The main difference polysemy and homonyms concluded in their phonetic design. If homonyms in his sound completely identical, polysemy have only partial sound like.
In division of polysemy and related phenomenon it is important for us to be guided not only by an analysis of values of meanings of the affixes, but also a sign of parallelism polysemy : "The assignment of feature parallel to the polysemy logical from the standpoint of common principles approach to the characterization of differences in the relation of form and content of lexical items: the value of polysemy not the same (do not cross as a synonym), not the opposite of (as antonyms), and their appearance is not the same (as with homonyms) - polysemy exist side by side, parallel to one another. "
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TYPES OF POLYSEMY
As we know, polysemy may be words of the same root, others as words having the same sound form, thus equalising them with word-families or homonyms.
Polysemy can be classified as the following types:
Literal polysemy differ in few letters, so they are within easy distance in the space of letter strings.
Literal polysemy are:
-the same part of speech;
-concern to the same grammeme type, e.g. both is participles;
-have the same gender in singular or are both plural;
Sound polysemy differ in so they are within easy distance in space of phonological records of speech.
Morphemic polysemy , known in Russian as lexicography as polysemy proper49, have the same radix, pertain to the same part of speech (POS), and differ only in prefixes and/or suffixes.
E.g. sens-ible - sens-itive; re-volu-tion – in-volu-tion;
Zero-derived polysemy are those with no affix or other overt sigh of category change 50(stress pattern, for instance), like
Comb (n.)- comb (v.)
Hammer (n.)- hammer (v.)
Saw (n.)- saw (v.)
They are important for poorly educated native speakers and for foreigners.51 It is argued that correction of some semantic errors (namely, malamorpism) is possible by the use of polysemy , i.e. of words similar to each other in letters, sounds or morphs. It is proposed to compile polysemy dictionaries of 3 types beforehand.
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49 Бульчиков &Панюшева Словарь паронимов современного русского языка. - М.; Рус.яз.,1994,стр. 455
50 D.A. Cruse. Lexical semantics . Cambridge Univ.1986, стр. 129 51 International journal “Information Theories and Applications” Vol.10 (internet version)
Literal polysemy essentially cut the search of correction candidates. Morphemic polysemy permit to correct quickly errors not studied so far and specific for foreigners.
We know that such phenomenon as polysemy exists not only in English, but also in other languages. Let’s see the classification of polysemy in Russian language. There are lexical, phraseological and syntactic polysemy .52
Lexical polysemy the words which have the same root with lexical-semantic closeness and belonging to the same semantic field (восход – всход; советник – советчик).
Syntax polysemy are phrases semantically autonomous with a similar set of words (состояние невесомости – невесомое состояние).
Phraseological polysemy – have in tune with the various idioms images underlying (взяться за ум – схватится за ум). There are also phraseological variants but unlike polysemy is that phraseological variants - a unit with a variable composition of components at the same value and the same fusion, and phraseological polysemy are not kind to the same unit.
Polysemy have another classification in relation to each other.
Krassnih53 V.I. identifies the following groups:
The full polysemy (having different meanings);
E.g. факт –фактор, эффективный – эффектный, обделить – оделить.
Incomplete polysemy (which are synonymous in the individual values);
E.g. артистический –артистичный, полемический – полемичный, трагический – трагичный
Polysemy , is a synonym for all values.
E.g. специфический – специфичный, оптимистический – оптимистичный, идиоматический – идиоматичный.
Polysemy that relate to the first group, form the core of the lexical
39
52 O.В. Вишнякова “Паронимы в Русском языке”1966 стр.215
53 В.И.Красных 2003 stud24.ru
category under consideration, and polysemy from the second and third groups – it’s periphery.
Using given characteristics of word formation polysemy , we can distinguish following groups:
-Polysemy with differ prefixes (опечатки - отпечатки, уплатить –
оплатить);
-Polysemy with differ suffixes (безответный - безответственный, существо -
сущность; командированный – командировочный);
-Polysemy with differ nature of the stem: one is non-derivative basis, the other - a derivative.
In this case, the pair might be:
the words from nonderivative stem and prefixes: рост -возраст;
words with nonderivative stem and the words without suffixes or prefixes:
тормоз - торможение;
words with nonderivative stem and words with prefixes and suffixes: груз
- нагрузка.
In the semantic relationships among polysemy we can find two groups:
Polysemy differing in subtle shades of meaning: a long - characterized by subtle shades of meaning: длинный -длительный, желанный - желательный, гривастый - гривистый, жизненный -житейский, дипломатичный – дипломатический.
We can find polysemy in language dictionaries (monolingual, dictionaries of difficulties, dictionaries polysemy ).
Polysemy dramatically different in the sense of гнездо - гнездовье, дефектный- дефективный
A special group polysemy is that differ functional and stylistic tightness or stylistic color:
работать - сработать, жить - проживать54
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54 Розенталь Д.Э., Голуб И.Б., Теленкова М.А. "Современный русский язык" стр. 25
Distribution of polysemy parts of speech is very uneven. At the first place are adjectival polysemy combining both self adjectives and participles, which turned into adjectives the loss of verb signs (about 2500 units). Second place takes the number of substantive polysemy (1000 units). In third place are verbal polysemy (more than 400 Units).55
According to the structure we classify polysemy :
Prefixing (platformers) polysemy - polysemy having different prefixes.
E.g. вбежать – взбежать, обсудить – осудить, одеть – надеть .
Suffixed polysemy - polysemy , with different suffixes.
E.g. грозный – грозовой, белеть – белить, лирический – лиричный и т.д.
Final polysemy - polysemy , with different inflections (endings, final).
E.g. жар – жара, гарант - гарантия
Meaningfully:
Total (absolute) polysemy - polysemy with the accent on the same syllable, expressing different semantic concepts.
E.g. осуждение – обсуждение, восход – всход
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55 Красных В.В жизненный или житейский? Русская речь 2000 № 1.стр. 64
Incomplete polysemy - polysemy in which there is incomplete separation of values, which causes their convergence.
E.g. аристократический – аристократичный, комический – комичный.
Partial (approximate) polysemy (kvaziparonimy) - polysemy differing point of stress, characterized by common semantic concepts and the possible coincidence of matching.
E.g. водный напор – водяной напор, героический подвиг – геройский подвиг
In this chapter was described various types of polysemy in English and Russian languages. And it is very important to use them correctly to avoid ignorance and to be highly cultural person of our century.
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