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The Origins of English In the English dictionary, there are many words that are similar to words of romances languages (like Spanish or French): but when did they arrive?
In 1066 with the Norman invasion of England French invaders brought with them their speech adding to the English vocabulary words from French and Latin.
When Christian missionaries arrived and the Christianity spread, English started borrowing words from Latin (martyr. Bishop). Roman period goes from 43 (under Emperor Claudius) to 410 during the roman invasions, when romans brought urban terminology ( street strata) and toponyms ending like - chester castra.
Ancient English comes from German, brought between the V and VI century by Angles, Saxons and Jutes: the Germanic dialect they spoke became known as Anglo-Saxons, whose lexis was pretty simple composed by daily useful words (house, loaf, woman..).
The Celtic inhabitants were assimilated or forced to move westwards and northwards and their language became confined to those areas (Wales and Scotland). We still find traces of Celtic languages in English:
Towns (London, Leeds)
Rivers (Avon) Counties (Kent, Devon)
Viking invasions between VIII and XI century added other borrowed words from Norse vocabulary (take,).
How can we tell where words of modern English come from?
the sound /p/ in German switched to /pf/ in the Vi century, while in English they kept the p
/sk/ words in Swedish developed a /sh/ sound in English o there are still words in English with the /sk/ sound such as skull or skirt , but they are borrowed from old Norse that came after the /sk/ / /sh/ shift
the sound /t/ at the beginning of some English words stands for the sound /f/ in words that English borrowed from Latin
English, German, Swedish and Norse all descend from the same language called Proto-Germanic , spoken in 500 b.c.: this language was never written down, so we can just reconstruct it comparing its descendants.
Almost all the languages ever spoke in Europe descend from the proto-Indo-European
English has further relatives too, like Hindi, Persian or Celtic, even the proto indo European derives from an ancient Persian.
It’s incredible how 3 billion people around the worlds that cannot understand each other speak languages with the same ancient relatives.
Old English and Modern English
A dramatic change occurred between the old English era and the modern English one:
Old English
highly inflected language
completely Germanic lexis
Modern English
a language that has very few inflections
lexical material comes from the most diverse sources
The English language belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages (which include German, Dutch, Frisian, and English). Today English has a core of words of Anglo-Saxon origin and, on the other hand, contains an important lexical component from classical and Romance languages.
Germanic languages are divided in 3 branches:
western: English Dutch German northern: Swedish Norwegian Icelandic Danish
eastern: gothic
English came into contact with the northern branch and borrowed some words – variety of sources
Historical development of the English vocabulary
English language history has 4 main periods:
1 Old English period, 450 - 1066.
Historical context:
With the Christianization, the Latin alphabet replaced the runic alphabet. At that time King Alfred was the king, head of west Saxon reign: his reign was an important political, religious and cultural center in Europe – west-Saxon dialect was used as the standard written language Arrival and occupation of England by Scandinavian populations lead by William the Conqueror from the VIII century: they were speakers of Old Norse (northern Germanic language). King Alfred defended well his kingdom, but with the battle of Hastings, the Norman conquered England thanks to William the conqueror
Inflections
Almost completely Germanic lexis Most prepositions and pronouns (from, for, in, he, him, his)
Some words were similar in form but had a different meaning than today ( wife meant any woman and not a married one)
2 Middle English period, 1066 - 1500
The consequences of the Norman Conquest: Normans were speaker of Anglo-Norman (northern dialect of old French) – Anglo- Norman replaced West Saxon. A new dominant French-speaking nobility replaced the Anglo-Saxon court and Anglo-Norman replaced old English as the standard language of England: many French words entered the English language. French was the language of power, autocracy and, partly, literature. Latin was also used at the time as the language of learning, education and the Church. English was the language of the majority of the population
3 Early modern English period, 1500 - 1800
One of the most important event is the introduction of the printing press by William Caxton in 1476 (norms of spelling and pronunciation were established). We can set the origins of Standard English around this period; it was the variety of English that was spoken in the London area in the XV century. This period was characterized by an interest in classical languages, we usually refer to this period as renaissance (1450-1650): during this time, many words were borrowed from European languages, Latin and Greek (especially medicine and theology terms). This is the age of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), King James Bible (1611) and Samuel Johnson’s dictionary of the English language (1755):
Shakespeare’s writings had a huge influence on the English language: once his plays became popular, they helped contribute to the standardization of the English language. Many Shakespearean words and phrases are still part of the English language
No other book seems to have influenced the English language as much as the King James Bible: it is an English translation of the bible commissioned by King James I, representation of the Anglican Church. It influenced the English language especially in its phrases, metaphors and idiomatic expressions (David crystal counted 257 phrases still used in contemporary English)
4 Modern English period, 1800 - present
English became the language of those domains where Latin and French were previously used (Literature, religion, education, government and law).
Newton wrote his treatise Opticks in English.
This was the period of industrial revolution and scientific discoveries (Darwin), events that led to the growth of the scientific lexis
The Composition of the English Lexicon
Core Vocabulary
Core vocabulary represents the most used English everyday words that constitute around the 40% of the English
lexicon.
It is mainly composed by Anglo-Saxon words (words arrived with the Germanic invaders), which are the most
common words of the language, both grammatical and lexical words.
The principal semantic fields that compose the core vocabulary are:
Domestic life, house home door floor weave knit…
Parts of the body, hands, foot, amr, eye, heart…
Animals, horse cow sheep dog hen goat…
Natural landscape, land field hill wood oak…
Calendar, sun moon day month year …
It is also composed by:
Common verbs fly drink swim help come see eat sit…
Common adjectives, black white wide long good dark…
They are all monosyllabic words and they refer to concepts and objects of everyday life.
The Process of Borrowing
It's when a foreign word is taken over and adapted in sound and grammar. To denote the borrowed word we use
" loanword " or " borrowing ". English is a lexically mixed language: foreign words constitute an important component
of the English vocabulary. There are many foreign words that have been assimilated to the pronunciation and
spelling of English and they are no longer recognized as foreign words.
Scandinavian loan words
Old Norse (North-Germanic branch) was the language spoken by the Viking who invaded England in the 8th century.
This population brought with them words that can be easily recognized since they include:
place names (suffixes - by as in Derby ),
personal names (names ending in - son as Jackson );
common English words (verbs as get , give , take , hit)
personal pronouns ( they , them , their ).
group of words which contains the sound sc-/sk - ( score, scrub, skin, skirt )
Duplicate words are words that have different origin but very similar meaning (at least in its origin), Old Norse: sick /
skill → Old English: ill / craft
Words of classical and Romance origin
There are many words which derives from Greek , Latin , French , Italian and Spanish. They represents a very
important component of English lexis, as they constitute almost 60% of the lexicon.
These words entered at different times in history. One of the main features of words of classical and romance origin
in English is that they are usually polysyllabic ( parliament, government, contemporary, biography ). They are less
frequent in spoken language but most frequent in specialized and formal contexts.
Relative frequency of Anglo-Saxon and loanwords
Frequency varies according to the type of text and the stylistic level. Foreign loans are more frequent in formal style
and specialized language than in everyday conversation because they are more precise and restricted.
Anglo-Saxon words are preferred in everyday speech because they are vague and convey many shades of meaning.
a. Latin
It has been a major contributor of loanwords. It's one of the most important sources. It was particularly influential in
the Modern English period , when new words that belong to technical domains were coined.
We find words of Latin origin in the field of religion , law , literature , science. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish
Latin words from French words.
b. Greek
Church , chaos , character , machine. Greek also created technical terms in all branches of human knowledge, such as
lexis , dictionary , vocabulary. Also telegram , thermometer , anonymous.
c. Neo-classical words
The morphemes that had been used to create new words that did not exist in Latin or Greek
( mega, multi, mini, hyper ). It is the language of science and technology.
d. French loans
The most important event that changed the history of the English language is related to the invasion of England by
William the Conqueror (Norman) in 1066.
French loans entered the English language in different times. We distinguish early borrowings (by 1300) and later
borrowings.
In early borrowings , we find words that belong to the domain of law ( judge , jury ), war ( tower , war ), and
administration ( Parliament ).
in later borrowing we find words have to do with fashion ( dress , fashion ), lifestyle ( court , luxury ), art
( chapter , page , story ), science ( engineer , college , surgery ) and gastronomic ( menu , restaurant , champagne )
French loans are usually adapted to the sounds of English ( baron , madame ). However, later loans tent to keep their
original phonetic and international features, ( balloon , chef , mademoiselle ) and there are words that received 2
pronunciations ( garage ).
e. Italian loans
Italian loans represent the domain of music ( opera , solo , piano , adagio ), literature ( sonnet , stanza , canto ) and food
( lasagna , pizza , pasta ).
Other fields represent by word such as balcony , carnival , ghetto , miniature , stiletto , studio , umbrella , volcano.
f. Spanish loans
Phonetics and Phonology
Phonetics is the science that studies the physical characteristics of speech sounds and how speech sounds are produced and received. Phonology is the science that studies the sound system of a particular human language, it focuses on the sounds that have a functional and distinctive role in a language, which we call phonemes, and it also studies the way sounds may combine
A phoneme is a distinctive sound in a language capable of creating a distinction in meaning between two words. Dog and log are a minimal pair because they are made up of the same phonemes, except one.
A grapheme is a letter of the alphabet. In many cases, graphemes and phonemes share the same symbol (ex. and /t/). In many other cases, there is no one to one correspondence between graphemes and phonemes (ex. the graphemes represents the phonemes /k/ in cut , the phonemes /s/ in nice , and the phoneme /ʃ/ in ocean ).
The silent graphemes are not pronounced in certain words (ex. in castle the grapheme is not audible and it is not represented in the phonetic transcription).
In order to represent sounds, we use the IPA, the international phonetic alphabets. The IPA is a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language. It provides one letter for each distinctive sound or phoneme. Suprasegmentals are those symbols that are used to indicate length, stress, intonation and tone.
In English there are 43 phonemes:
11 vowels + ə a. i:, ɪ, e, æ, ʌ, ɛ:, u:, ʊ, ɔː, a:, ɒ b. ə is a sound which does not have a proper phonemic status because it appears only in unstressed syllables
8 diphthongs a. ɪə, ɛə, ʊə, eɪ, aɪ, ɔɪ, aʊ, əʊ
24 consonants
Consonants
Consonants can be:
Oral, when the air escapes through the mouth
Nasal, when the air escapes through the nose
They can also be
Voiceless, when there’s no vibration of the vocal cords
Voiced, when the vocal cords vibrate
Consonants can be described in the IPA chart according to three parameters:
Place of articulation: part of the oral cavity where the sound is produced o Bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, palato-alveolar, palatal, velar, glottal Manner of articulation: how the speech organs make contact
o Plosive, nasal, lateral, vibrant, fricative, affricate, approximant Voicing: if the vocal cords vibrate or not o Voice, voiceless
Bilabial both lips
Labio- dental lower lip and upper teeth
Dental tongue against upper teeth
Alveolar tongue against alveolar ridge
Palato- alveolar tip of the tongue
Palatal tongue against palate
Velar back of the tongue against palate
Glottal obstructing the glottis
Plosive stopping the flow of air
p b
pub book
t d
table dog
k g
car go
Nasal air escapes through the nose
m
make
n
name
ŋ
bring
Lateral airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue
l
look
Vibrant
Fricative airstream forced through a small passage
f v
cough love
θ ð
thick this
s z
rice zoo
ʃ ʒ
shop usual
h
home
Affricate a plosive + a fricative
chin age
Approximant phonetically similar to the vowels but phonologically they behave like consonants
w
wear
r
right
j
yet
Until the early modern English period, English was a rhotic language: this rhotic accent was spoken by the settlers in the early colonies (e.g. in Northern America). During 18th^ century, Standard English on the British Isles evolved into a non-rhotic accent because many of the settlers of later colonies (Australia, Singapore and Nigeria) spoke non-rhotic English. Historically, the loss of rhoticity in English can be traced back to eighteenth century London English: originally, the non-rhotic English was considered a vulgarism, but by the beginning of the 20yh century, non-rhotic pronunciations had become a characteristic of RP (Received Pronunciation) and became popular among the upper classes in the south of England.
Vowels
Are always voiced and produced without obstructing the airstream
In the IPA a long vowel is indicated with colons (:). Symbols:
/i:/ sleep, me, heat (usually with two vowels, unlike to /ɪ/)
/i/ happy, recipe /ɪ/ pin, women
/ʊ/ foot, could, pull
/u:/ do, shoe, trough /ʌ/ sun, enough, wonder
/e/ red, head, said
/æ/ cat, black, have /ɜ:/ work, turn, bird
/ə/ arrive, father, colour, above, oven, support
/ɔ:/ sort, thought walk /ɒ/ got, watch, sock
/a:/ part, heart, laugh
English vowels are more complex than Italian vowels: that is because English exploits lengths and this produces five long vowels that do not exist in Italian. They’re classified depending on:
Height of the tongue (high or low)
Frontness or backness of the tongue (part of the tongue involved) Shape of the lips (spread or rounded)
Their pronunciation is classified:
Depending on which part of the tongue is raised o Front part – front vowels – i:, ɪ, e, æ o Central part – central vowels -- ə, ʌ, ɜ: o Back part – back vowel – u:, ʊ, ɔ:, a:, ɒ Depending on the distance between tongue and palate
o Open vowels – æ, ʌ, a:, ɒ o Half open vowels – e, ɜ:, ɔ: o Close vowels – i:, ɪ, u:, ʊ
Depending on the duration
- Short vowels -- æ, ʌ, ɒ, e, ɪ, ʊ
- Long vowels -- a:, ɜ:, ɔ:, i:, u:,
For ex., the word cheap and the word chip are pronounced the same, but cheap has a long vowel [ʧiːp] and chip has a short vowel [ʧɪp]
Non-phonemic symbols
[i] and [u] may be used to represent the long phonemes /i:/ and /u:/ when they occur in unstressed position (weak form). For ex., you strong /ju:/ weak /ju, jə/. Many words (especially grammatical words) change their pronounce if they’re unstressed. For ex., in the sentence What do you want to do? The first do is unstressed and is pronounced with a schwa ə, while the second one is stressed and is pronounced duː.
Diphthongs
A diphthong is a complex speech sound that begins with a vowel and gradually changes to another vowel within the same syllable.
There are 3 groups of diphthongs
- Diphthongs ending with /ə/
fear /fɪə/ fair /feə/ tour /tʊə/
*when a diphthong is followed by [r] it’s always pronounced as a ə
- Diphthong ending with /ɪ/
say /seɪ/ sigh /saɪ/ boy /bɔɪ/
- Diphthongs ending with /ʊ/
house /haʊs/ boat /bəʊt/
1 are considered centering diphthongs because the second element is the central unstressed sound /ə/ while is the first sound that is stressed; 2 and 3 are considered closing diphthongs because the second element is a close vowel.
Italian and English in contrast
There are many important differences that generally lead to pronunciation errors:
a. where English has two vowels, Italian has one ex. live and leave b. lack of aspiration of the voiceless consonants /p, t, k/ ex. pot , tea , kind c. in syllable initial position the grapheme [s] always has a voiceless pronunciation, even in combination with consonants ex. small , snail , swim d. pronunciation of dental fricatives ex. /θ/ both , think /ð/ this, mother e. failing to aspirate /h/ at the beginning of stressed syllables ex. heart /hɑːt/ may be confused with art /ɑːt/
The Syllable
A syllable is a phonological unit made up of one or more phonemes.
A minimum syllable is made up of one vowel only. For ex., are is made by one syllable that is made up of 1 vowel [a:] (in American English there also a consonants (r) )
There are different patterns of combination of vowels and consonants that are represented with capital letters C and V. The most common patterns:
CV, syllables with a consonantal onset followed by a vowel, tea [ti:] VC, syllables with a vowel nucleus followed by a consonantal coda, arm [a:m]
CVC, dog [d
Open syllables are syllables that end with a vowel, closed syllables end with a consonant.
English has many monosyllabic words, such as creep [kri:p]. There are also:
constrain ha 2 syllables con-strain
existent has three syllables ex-ist-ent disintegrate has four syllables dis-in-te-grate
The syllables: English vs Italian
The most common type of syllable in English is CVC ( did, bag , look )
In Italian the most common syllable is CV ( ca di casa ) or V ( a di ape ) In English the 60% of the syllables are closed and the 40% are open
In Italian the 70% of the syllables are open and the 30% are closed In English the initial or the final elements may be consonants clusters, that are groups of consonants (ex. strength , next , prompts ) English freely allows consonants clusters: allows up to 3 consonants in an initial cluster and up to 4 in a final cluster ( strength ). Initial clusters are by the way much more restricted than final cluster, as an initial three consonants cluster can only begin with an S ( strong, spry …); final consonants clusters are freer ( worlds, twelfths, texts …)
In Italian they’re much less frequent
Word stress
Stress is the relative prominence that is given to a syllable. English has free stress as it does not occur regularly in the same place in the word; but there is a preference for stress no to be placed on the first syllable of multisyllabic words.
In multisyllabic words, almost any positioning of the main stress is apparently possible. For ex., hopeful and persuade (2 syllables); culpable , fantastic, undermine (3 syllables).
Germanic words are always stressed on the first syllable ( apple, father, hunger ) except for prefixed verbs that are stressed on the syllable that follows the prefix ( forget, believe, withdraw )
Words borrowed by the Romance languages have a different stress principle: stress falls on the penultimate syllable ( admonish ), unless there are two consonants at the end ( exist, adapt )
The result is that the stress system of modern English, which has different linguistic origins, is very complex and not completely predictable.
Word stress in IPA
In the phonetic transcription appear 2 different types of stress:
primary stress, that is indicated by a high vertical line before the syllable (/ˈæpəl/)
secondary stress, that is indicated by a low vertical line before the syllable (/ˌɪnɪksˈprɛsɪv/)
Word stress and meaning
Exist words that have the same phonology except for their stress pattern.
ex. below /bɪˈləʊ/ billow /’bɪləʊ/
In some noun-verb pairs stress is what indicates the word class.
ex. the noun contrast / ˈkɒntrɑːst/ the verb /kɒn’trɑːst/
The stress pattern can change between British and American English.
ex. address /əˈdrɛs/ /ˈæˌdrɛs/
Suffixes and Stress
Suffixes that are stressed: - ageous ( outrageous ), - agious ( contagious ), - atio ( innovation ), - ee ( employee ), - ician (politician)
Suffixes that are not stressed: - able ( understandable ), - ful ( colorful ), - less ( careless ), - ness ( emptiness ), - ment ( management )
Suffixes that assign the stress to the penultimate syllable (preceding syllable): - ion ( innovation ), - ic ( economic ), - ics ( metaphysics )
ex. how about /haʊ/ /əˈbaʊt/ → /hawəˈbaʊt/ Friday evening /ˈfraɪdeɪ/ /ˈiːvnɪŋ/ → /ˈfraɪdejˈiːvnɪŋ/
Assimilation
Assimilation involves the replacement of a sound with another, owing to the influence of a nearby sound: this happens when a sound changes and becomes more like another sound that follows it or precedes it.
There are two types of assimilation:
anticipatory assimilation : a sound becomes more like the subsequent one
ex. good night /gʊd/ /naɪt/ → /gənnaɪt/ (the alveolar plosive [d] is assimilated by the following one becoming an alveolar nasal)
retrospective assimilation: a sound becomes more like the preceding one
ex. in that case /ɪn/ /ðət/ /keɪs/ → /ɪnnəkkeɪs/ (the dental fricative [t] is assimilated by the preceding one becoming an alveolar nasal)
Assimilation is also observed in case of plural nouns, third-person present tense of verbs and possessive suffix – s
the pronunciation of the suffix – s depends on the preceding consonant (retrospective)
Preceding Consonant Plural Nouns Third person singular present tense
Possessive
Voiced Dogs /z/ Plays /z/ John’s /z/
Voiceless Cats /s/ Fights /s/ Kate’s /s/ Sibilants Horses /ɪz/ Kisses /ɪz/ James’s /ɪz/
Assimilation occurs in connected speech too, when a speech sound changes and becomes more like another sound, which follows it or precedes it.
ex. give me /gɪvmi/ → /ˈgɪmiː/ ; goodnight / ˈgʊdnaɪt / → / ˈgʊnnaɪt /
Elision
Elision involves the dropping of a sound that either existed in the past (called historical elision) or would be articulated in a careful pronunciation (called contextual elision).
Historical elision is responsible for the loss of sounds that are still present in spelling called silent graphemes
ex. castle [t], know [k], walk [l], debt [b], write [w]
Contextual elision is determined by economy in articulatory effort
There are different cases of contextual elision:
o the dropping of the glottal fricative [h] in the weak form of grammatical forms like he , him , his
ex. tell him /tel hɪm/ → /tel ɪm/
o the loss of [t] and [d] in certain syllable final cluster like – st , - ft , - nd , ld , n’t ecc..
ex. first class /fɜːst/ /klɑːs/ → /fɜːsklɑːs/
left behind /lɛft/ /bɪˈhaɪnd/ → /lɛfbɪˈhaɪnd/
o the dropping of certain vowels
ex. int(e)rest, sim(i)lar, libr(a)ry, diff(e)rent, t(o)night
o the dropping of certain consonants. The most frequently elided consonants in English are [t] and [d], especially when they occur between other consonants
ex. Chris(t)mas , san(d)wich
Examples of consonant clusters in coarticulation
assimilation: I have to go /ɪhaftəgə/
elision: you and me /jʊənmiː/ friendship /ˈfrɛnʃɪp/ What do you want to do? → Whatcha wanna do? /ˈwɒʧəˈ wɒnə duː/
Vocabulary and Lexicon
What is the vocabulary of a language?
It refers to the words of the language.
Lexicon is a word of Greek origin, it derives from Greek lexis 'word ". The lexicon of a language is the total stock of
meaningful units in a language. It includes not only the words and idioms, but also the parts of words, which express
meaning, such as prefixes and suffixes.
What is a word?
There are different possible definitions of words. :
Phonological definition : words are any sequence of sounds that is identified as a unit based on how it is
pronounced. A word is the linguistic unit surrounded by pauses and having only one main stress. Function
words, which tend to be unstressed, could not be considered as words
Orthographic definition : words are any sequence of letters bounded on either side by a space or a
punctuation mark. The orthographic definition of a word makes sense, but there are many words that do
not fit into these categories. The divisibility of a word in spoken language is less obvious.
Meaning definition : a word is the minimum meaningful unit of language. However, there are single units of
meaning which are conveyed by more than one word ( bus conductor, school teacher ). The definition of a
word having a clear-cut meaning creates exceptions (as in the case of homonymies).
In conclusion, we can define a word as:
A linguistic unit, orthographically preceded and followed by spaces or punctuation marks, phonologically preceded
and followed by pauses, having only one main stress and internal integrity, and expressing a single meaning.
Counting words in a sentence is not easy because of irregularities in writing (will not/ cannot; postbox/post box/
post-box). Word space is not an infallible guide when it comes to counting words in a sentence. Matters get
complicated with hyphens ( Bride - to - be is one or three words?)
Word-Forms
Words can differ in form but not in meaning ( bring , brings , brought ).
The grammatical variants of the same word are called word-forms : they are different both in spelling and in
pronunciation, they are different orthographic and phonological words. They are also different from the grammatical
point of view, but they convey the same meaning.
ex. sew , sews , sewing , sewed , sewn
The base form is called lexeme : a lexeme is a unit of lexical meaning, which exists regardless of any inflectional
endings it may have or the number of words it may contain.
ex. Teach = lexeme Teacher teaching, taught = word-forms
Compound Words
Compound words are words that form a unit made up of two or more single words.
Following the phonological criteria (a word is the linguistic unit surrounded by pauses and having only one main
stress), we can consider compound words as a single word.
ex. Ice cream has one main stress
Internal integrity: a word is an indivisible unit that cannot be interrupted by inserting other material in it.
ex. Brother-in law Brothers-in law not in-laws
Idioms
Idioms complicate matters even more, because we have multiple words which represent a unit of meaning, so
they’re considered as one single word.
Denotation and Connotation
Denotation is the dictionary meaning of a word. It refers to objective relationship between a lexeme and its
referent in the reality. Denotation is the central aspect of lexical meaning about which everyone would agree. It is
the same for every English speaker
ex. The denotation of bus is “a large motor vehicle carrying passengers by road, typically one serving the
public on a fixed route and for a fare”.
Connotation denotes the stylistic and emotional associations that a word brings to mind. These associations can be
positive or negative, personal or shared and culturally significant.
ex. The connotation of bus can be positive or negative. We can associate bus to cheapness or
convenience, but also to discomfort or inconvenience.
Grammatical words carry no connotation and words that are highly specialized are less loaded (photosynthesis,
morphology).
General rules of connotation:
a. highly general words (hyperonyms) are less likely to carry strong connotations
a. es. Vehicle, fruit, animal, flower
b. words with a more specific meaning (hyponyms) are more likely to carry strong connotations
a. Lion (def. an African wild animal; con. Strong, power, courage)
c. the language of science and law avoids highly connotative vocabulary
a. es. Abiotic, merdatitis, hemophilia, legislation, public liability
d. the language of politics and religion is highly loaded
a. es. Capitalism, radical federalism, heresy, pagan
Sense relations
Words do not exist in isolation; their meanings are also identified through a network of sense relations, which each
words establish with other words within the language.
Types of relations:
1. Similarity
Synonyms are words with very closely related meaning which can be substituted for each other in some contexts
o begin/start beer/ale difficulty/problem
Synonyms cannot always be substituted for one another: True synonymy does not exist. English has a very large
number of partial synonyms but there are hardly any lexemes that have exactly the same meaning, usually we find
some nuance which separates synonyms or a context in which one of the lexemes can appear but the others cannot.
Differences between synonyms can be observed in terms of:
Dialect
lift (UK) / elevator (US) autumn (UK) / fall (US)
Style, register
