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Lexico-semantic groups are word-groups which may also be analysed from the point of view of their motivation. Word-groups may be described as lexically motivated if the combined lexical meaning of the groups is deducible from the meaning of their components. The nominal groups, e.g. red flower, heavy weight and the verbal group, e.g. take lessons, are from this point of view motivated, whereas structurally identical word-groups red tape — ‘official bureaucratic methods’, heavy father — ’serious or soleman part in a theatrical play’, and take place — ‘occur’ are lexically non - motivated . In these groups the constituents do not possess, at least synchronically, the denotational meaning found in the same words outside these groups or, to be more exact, do not possess any individual lexical meaning of their own, as the wordgroups under discussion seem to represent single indivisible semantic entities.
Word-groups are said to be structurally motivated if the meaning of the pattern is deducible from the order and arrangement of the member-words of the group. Red flower, e.g., is motivated as the meaning of the pattern quality – substance can be deduced from the order and arrangement of the words red and flower, whereas the seemingly identical pattern red tape cannot be interpreted as quality – substance.
The degree of motivation may be different. Between the extremes of complete motivation and lack of motivation there are innumerable intermediate cases. For example, the degree of lexical motivation in the nominal group black market is higher than in black death, “but lower than in black dress, though none of the groups can be considered as completely non-motivated. This is also true of other word-groups, e.g. old man and old boy both of which may be regarded as lexically and structurally motivated though the degree of motivation in old man is noticeably higher. It is of interest to note that completely motivated word-groups are, as a rule, correlated with certain structural types of compound words. Verbal groups having the structure V+N, e.g. to read books, to love music, etc., are habitually correlated with the compounds of the pattern N+(V+er) (bookreader,
music-lover); adjectival groups such as A + +prp+N (e.g. rich in oil, shy before girls) are correlated with the compounds of the pattern N+A, e.g. oil-rich, girl-shy.
It should also be noted that seemingly identical word-groups are sometimes found to be motivated or non-motivated depending on their semantic interpretation. Thus apple sauce, e.g., is lexically and structurally motivated when it means ‘a sauce made of apples’ but when used to denote ‘nonsense’ it is clearly non-motivated. In such cases we may even speak of homonymy of word-groups and not of polysemy.
It follows from the above discussion that word-groups may be also classified into motivated and non-motivated units. Non-motivated word groups are habitually described as phraseological units or idioms.
On different occasions and situations the speaker uses different words, chooses different words in different spheres of communication. There are some words which are used in lecture, in a poem or when speaking to a child, an official person etc. They are very highly frequent words. These words are called stylistically neutral words. In the vocabulary of every language, we can identify stylistically marked and stylistically neutral lexical units. For example, evening, man, girl, table, horse, read, write, speak, beautiful, nice, etc. are neutral words, But we have a lot of words which cannot be used in any situation or, we speak to any person. They are called stylistically marked words. For example. the English nouns «horse», «steed», «gee-gee» have the same meaning, they all refer to the same animal but they are stylistically different. «Horse» is stylistically neutral and may be used in any situation. «Steed» belongs to poetic vocabulary. It has a lofty meaning. «Gee-gee» — is a nursery word neutral in a child's speech. And it is not used in adult conversation. So stylistically coloured words are suitable only on certain definite occasions in specific conditions of communication. Each stylistically coloured word has a neutral synonym: For example. steed — horse, ire — anger, sustain— suffer, obtain— get, accommodation — room, woe — sorrow, etc.
Among the stylistically coloured words we can find slang words. They are expressive, mostly ironical words. They serve to create fresh names for some things. They sound somewhat vulgar, harsh, mockingly, contemptuously. For example. The word «money» has the following slang synonyms: beans, brass, dibs, dough, chink, oof, wads,etc. The slang synonyms for word «head» are: attic, brain, pan, hat, peg, nut, upper storey. The slang synonyms for the adjective «drunk» are: boozy, cock-eyed, high, soaked, tight.
Speech also expresses the speaker’s attitude to what he is talking about. The speaker may wish to warn, to influence people, to express his approval or disapproval. Words expressing emotion are called emotionally coloured words.
Deminutive and derogatory affixes play an important role in forming
emotionally coloured words. For example. daddy, kiddykins, babykins, oldie, blackie; in Uzbek: дадажон, сингилгинам, қизалоқ, бўталоқ, Interjections also express emotion without naming them: Ah!, Hush!, Hell!, Nonsense!, Pooh; in Uzbek: вой, айланай, эҳ, etc. The derogatory suffixes may form emotionally coloured words, For example. bastard—внебрачный ребёнок, weakling — слабое существо, drunkard — пьяница, hibster — хиппи, dullard —тупица; in Uzbek: ойимча, ойимтилла, ўргилибгина кетай, etc.
It is very interesting that many personal nouns formed by the composition from complete sentences or phrases in most cases are derogatory: For example. also-run —ну и скакун, непосредственность, never-say-die — несдающийся, непреклонный, stick-in-the mud —отсталый человек, растяпа die-hard —крайний консерватор, живучий.
There are some words which indicate the special importance of the thing expressed. They are called intensifiers. For example. even, ever, all, so, awfully,
tremendously, wonderfully, terribly. awfully glad, terribly important; in Uzbek: oҳ, фиғон, афғон, фарёд are used as intensifiers.
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