All auxiliary verbs are cases of generalization of their lexical meaning
because they developed a grammatical meaning : «have», «be», «do», «shall»
, «will» when used as auxiliary verbs are devoid of their lexical meaning
which they have when used as notional verbs or modal verbs, e.g. cf. «I
have several books by this writer» and «I have read some books by this
author». In the first sentence the verb «have» has the meaning «possess»,
in the second sentence it has no lexical meaning, its grammatical meaning
is to form Present Perfect.
METAPHOR
It is a transfer of the meaning on the basis of comparison. Herman Paul
points out that metaphor can be based on different types of similarity:
a) similarity of shape, e.g. head (of a cabbage), bottleneck, teeth (of a
saw, a comb);
b) similarity of position, e.g. foot (of a page, of a mountain), head (of
a procession);
c) similarity of function, behaviour e.g. a whip (an official in the
British Parliament whose duty is to see that members were present at the
voting);
d) similarity of colour, e.g. orange, hazel, chestnut etc.
In some cases we have a complex similarity, e.g. the leg of a table has a
similarity to a human leg in its shape, position and function.
Many metaphors are based on parts of a human body, e.g. an eye of a
needle, arms and mouth of a river, head of an army.
A special type of metaphor is when Proper names become common nouns, e.g.
philistine - a mercenary person, vandals - destructive people, a Don Juan -
a lover of many women etc.
METONYMY
It is a transfer of the meaning on the basis of contiguity. There are
different types of metonymy:
a) the material of which an object is made may become the name of the
object , e.g. a glass, boards, iron etc;
b) the name of the place may become the name of the people or of an
object placed there, e.g. the House - members of Parliament, Fleet Street
- bourgeois press, the White House - the Administration of the USA etc;
c) names of musical instruments may become names of musicians, e.g. the
violin, the saxophone;
d) the name of some person may becom a common noun, e.g. «boycott» was
originally the name of an Irish family who were so much disliked by their
neighbours that they did not mix with them, «sandwich» was named after Lord
Sandwich who was a gambler. He did not want to interrupt his game and had
his food brought to him while he was playing cards between two slices of
bread not to soil his fingers.
e) names of inventors very often become terms to denote things they
invented, e.g. «watt» , «om», «rentgen» etc
f) some geographical names can also become common nouns through metonymy,
e.g. holland (linen fabrics), Brussels (a special kind of carpets) , china
(porcelain) , astrachan ( a sheep fur) etc.
ELEVATION
It is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes better in the course of
time, e.g. «knight» originally meant «a boy», then «a young servant», then
«a military servant», then «a noble man». Now it is a title of nobility
given to outstanding people; «marshal» originally meant «a horse man» now
it is the highest military rank etc.
DEGRADATION
It is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes worse in the course of
time. It is usually connected with nouns denoting common people, e.g.
«villain» originally meant «working on a villa» now it means «a scoundrel».
HYPERBOLE
It is a transfer of the meaning when the speaker uses exaggeration,
e.g. «to hate»(doing something), (not to see somebody) «for ages».
Hyperbole is often used to form phraseological units, e.g. «to make a
mountain out of a molehill», «to split hairs» etc.
LITOTE
It is a transfer of the meaning when the speaker expresses affirmative
with the negative or vica versa, e.g. not bad, no coward etc.
PHRASEOLOGY
The vocabulary of a language is enriched not only by words but also by
phraseological units. Phraseological units are word-groups that cannot be
made in the process of speech, they exist in the language as ready-made
units. They are compiled in special dictionaries. The same as words
phraseological units express a single notion and are used in a sentence as
one part of it. American and British lexicographers call such units
«idioms». We can mention such dictionaries as: L.Smith «Words and Idioms»,
V.Collins «A Book of English Idioms» etc. In these dictionaries we can find
words, peculiar in their semantics (idiomatic), side by side with word-
groups and sentences. In these dictionaries they are arranged, as a rule,
into different semantic groups.
Phraseological units can be classified according to the ways they are
formed, according to the degree of the motivation of their meaning,
according to their structure and according to their part-of-speech meaning.
WAYS OF FORMING PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS
A.V. Koonin classified phraseological units according to the way they
are formed. He pointed out primary and secondary ways of forming
phraseological units.
Primary ways of forming phraseological units are those when a unit is
formed on the basis of a free word-group :
a) Most productive in Modern English is the formation of phraseological
units by means of transferring the meaning of terminological word-groups,
e.g. in cosmic technique we can point out the following phrases: «launching
pad» in its terminological meaning is «стартовая площадка» , in its
transferred meaning - «отправной пункт», «to link up» - «cтыковаться,
стыковать космические корабли» in its tranformed meaning it means
-«знакомиться»;
b) a large group of phraseological units was formed from free word groups
by transforming their meaning, e.g. «granny farm» - «пансионат для
престарелых», «Troyan horse» - «компьюторная программа, преднамеренно
составленная для повреждения компьютера»;
c) phraseological units can be formed by means of alliteration , e.g. «a
sad sack» - «несчастный случай», «culture vulture» - «человек,
интересующийся искусством», «fudge and nudge» - «уклончивость».
d) they can be formed by means of expressiveness, especially it is
characteristic for forming interjections, e.g. «My aunt!», « Hear, hear !»
etc
e) they can be formed by means of distorting a word group, e.g. «odds and
ends» was formed from «odd ends»,
f) they can be formed by using archaisms, e.g. «in brown study» means «in
gloomy meditation» where both components preserve their archaic meanings,
g) they can be formed by using a sentence in a different sphere of life,
e.g. «that cock won’t fight» can be used as a free word-group when it is
used in sports (cock fighting ), it becomes a phraseological unit when it
is used in everyday life, because it is used metaphorically,
h) they can be formed when we use some unreal image, e.g. «to have
butterflies in the stomach» - «испытывать волнение», «to have green
fingers» - »преуспевать как садовод-любитель» etc.
i) they can be formed by using expressions of writers or polititions in
everyday life, e.g. «corridors of power» (Snow), «American dream» (Alby)
«locust years» (Churchil) , «the winds of change» (Mc Millan).
Secondary ways of forming phraseological units are those when a
phraseological unit is formed on the basis of another phraseological unit;
they are:
a) conversion, e.g. «to vote with one’s feet» was converted into «vote
with one’s f eet»;
b) changing the grammar form, e.g. «Make hay while the sun shines» is
transferred into a verbal phrase - «to make hay while the sun shines»;
c) analogy, e.g. «Curiosity killed the cat» was transferred into «Care
killed the cat»;
d) contrast, e.g. «cold surgery» - «a planned before operation» was
formed by contrasting it with «acute surgery», «thin cat» - «a poor person»
was formed by contrasting it with «fat cat»;
e) shortening of proverbs or sayings e.g. from the proverb «You can’t
make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear» by means of clipping the middle of
it the phraseological unit «to make a sow’s ear» was formed with the
meaning «ошибаться».
f) borrowing phraseological units from other languages, either as
translation loans, e.g. « living space» (German), « to take the bull by the
horns» ( Latin) or by means of phonetic borrowings «meche blanche»
(French), «corpse d’elite» (French), «sotto voce» (Italian) etc.
Phonetic borrowings among phraseological units refer to the bookish style
and are not used very often.
SEMANTIC CLASSIFICATION OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS
Phraseological units can be classified according to the degree of
motivation of their meaning. This classification was suggested by acad.
V.V. Vinogradov for Russian phraseological units. He pointed out three
types of phraseological units:
a) fusions where the degree of motivation is very low, we cannot guess
the meaning of the whole from the meanings of its components, they are
highly idiomatic and cannot be translated word for word into other
languages, e.g. on Shank’s mare - (on foot), at sixes and sevens - (in a
mess) etc;
b) unities where the meaning of the whole can be guessed from the
meanings of its components, but it is transferred (metaphorical or
metonymical), e.g. to play the first fiddle ( to be a leader in
something), old salt (experienced sailor) etc;
c) collocations where words are combined in their original meaning but
their combinations are different in different languages, e.g. cash and
carry - (self-service shop), in a big way (in great degree) etc.
STRUCTURAL CLASSIFICATION OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS
Prof. A.I. Smirnitsky worked out structural classification of
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