Minutes make an hour

60 minutes make an hour.

60 people make a decision.

A phrase, all elements of which, including the head-word, are coded, is called a distributional pattern, for instance to make somebody laugh to V1 Np V2

Another example:

Get + N (receive) – get letter

Get + Adj (become) – get angry

Get + Vinf (start) – get to think

In Ukrainian:

йде дощ - іти + N явище природи rainfalls

йде поїзд - іти + N неістота train runs

йде чоловік -іти + N істота man goes (walks)

йде дим - іти + N неістота it smokes

йде зима - іти + N неістота winter approaches

or;

іде заміж marries

іде на пенсію retires

іде конем (у шахи) moves the knight

To conclude, distribution defined as the occurrence of a lexical unit relative to other lexical units can be interpreted as co-occurrence of lexical items and the two terms can be viewed as synonyms.

It follows that by the term distribution we understand the aptness of a word in one of its meanings to collocate or to co-occur with a certain group, or certain groups of words having some common semantic component.

I.5. Transformational Analysis

Transformational analysis in lexicological investigations may be defined as re-patterning of various distributional structures in order to discover difference or sameness of meaning of practically identical distributional patterns.

Word-groups of identical distributional structure when re-patterned also show that the semantic relationship between words and consequently the meaning of word-groups may be different. For example, in the word-groups consisting of a possessive pronoun followed by a noun, his car, his failure, his arrest, his goodness, etc., the relationship between his and the following nouns is in each instant different which can be demonstrated by means of transformational procedures.

·  his car (pen, table) may be re-patterned into he has a car (a pen, a table) or in a more generalised form may be represented as A possesses B.

·  his failure (mistake, attempt) may be represented as he failed (was mistaken, attempted) or A performs В which is impossible in the case of his car (pen, table).

·  his arrest (imprisonment, embarrassment) may be re-patterned into he was arrested (imprisoned and embarrassed) or A is the goal of the action B.

·  his goodness (kindness, modesty) may be represented as he is good (kind, modest) or В is the quality of A.

In Ukrainian:

Болільник - той, хто уболіває

Зрадник - той, хто зрадив

Чайник - те, що призначено (посуд) для заварювання чаю

Спільник - той, хто діє спільно з кимсь у незаконній справі

Здирник - той, хто здирає, вимагає шляхом примусу і погроз

Супутник - той, хто йде, їде разом

Могильник - сховище чогось шкідливого, непотрібного, відпрацьованого

Намордник - те, що надівають па морду

Полярник- той, хто досліджує полярні райони

Ливарник - той, хто відливає металеві вироби

Хабарник - той, хто бере хабарі

Types of transformation differ according to purposes for which trans­formations are used.

There are:

·  permutation

·  replacement

·  additiоn (or expansion)

·  deletion

Transformational procedures are also used as will be shown below in componental analysis of lexical units.

I.6. Componential Analysis

Componential analysis is thus an attempt to describe the meaning of words in terms of a universal inventory of semantic components and their possible combinations.

Componential approach to meaning has a long history in linguistics.

L. Hjelmslev's commutation deals with similar relationships and may be illustrated by proportions from which the distinctive features d1, d2, d3 are obtained by means of the following procedure:

d1 = 'boy' = 'man' = 'bull'

'girl' 'woman' 'cow'

hence

d2 = 'boy' = 'girl'

'man' 'woman'

d3 = 'boy' = 'girl'

'bull' 'cow'

As the first relationship is that of male to female, the second, of young to adult, and the third, human to animal, the meaning 'boy' may be characterized with respect to the distinctive features d1, d2, d3 as containing the semantic elements 'male', 'young' and 'human'. The existence of correlated oppositions proves that these elements are recog­nized by the vocabulary.

In criticizing this approach, the English linguist Prof. W. Haas argues that the commutation test looks very plausible if one has carefully selected examples from words entering into clear-cut semantic groups, such as terms of kinship or words denoting colours. It is less satisfactory in other cases, as there is no linguistic framework by which the semantic contrasts can be limited. The commutation test borrows its restrictions from philosophy.

A very close resemblance to componential analysis is the method of logical definition by dividing a genus into species and species into subspecies indispensable to dictionary definitions. It is therefore but natural that lexicographic definitions lend themselves as suitable material for the analysis of lexical groups in terms of a finite set of semantic com­ponents. Consider the following definitions given in Hornby's

dictionary:

Cow— a full grown female of any animal of the ox family.

Calf — the young of the cow.

The first definition contains all the elements we have previously ob­tained from proportional oppositions. The second is incomplete but we can substitute the missing elements from the previous definiton. It is possible to describe parts of the vocabulary by formalising these defini­tions and reducing them to some standard form according to a set of rules.

Componential analysis may be also arrived at through transformational procedures. It is assumed that sameness / difference of transforms is indicative of sameness / difference in the componental structure of the lexical unit. The example commonly analysed is the difference in the transforms of the structurally identical lexical units, puppydog, bulldog, lapdog. The difference in the semantic relationship between the stems of the compounds and hence the difference in the component of the word-meaning is demonstrated by the impossibility of the same type of transforms for all these words. Thus, a puppydog may be transformed into ‘a dog (which) is a puppy’, bull-dog, however, is not ‘a dog which is a bull’, neither is a lapdog ‘a dog which is a lap’. A bulldog may be transformed into ‘a bulllike dog’, or ‘a dog which looks like a bull’, but a lapdog is not ‘a dog like a lap’.

In Ukrainian:

свекор - (фізичний об'єкт) (живий) (людина) (чоловік) (той, хто має одруженого сина) (по відношенню до дружини сина)

холостяк - (фізичний об'єкт) (живий) (людина) (чоловік) (дорослий) (той, що ніколи не одружувався)

рухатися (щодо живої істоти) (по землі) (пересуваючи ноги)

плентатися (щодо живої істоти) (по землі) (пересу­ваючи ноги) (повільно, через силу).

I.7. Method of Semantic Differential

All the methods of semantic analysis discussed above are aimed mainly or exclusively at the investigation of the denotational component of the lexical meaning.

The analysis of the differences of the connotational meaning is very hard since the nuances are often slight, difficult to grasp and do not yield themselves to objective investigation and verification.

An attempt to establish and display these differences was developed by a group of American psycholinguists. They set up a technique known as the semantic differential by means of which, as they claim, meaning can be measured. It is perfectly clear, however, that what semantic differential measures is not word-meaning in any of accepted senses of the term but the connotational component of meaning or to be more exact the emotive charge.

Their technique requires the subjects to judge a series of concepts with respect to a set of bipolar (antonymic) adjective scales. For example, a concept like horse is to be rated as to the degree to which it is good or bad, fast or slow, strong or weak, etc.

Horse

+

good………………………………………………..bad

_

fast………………………………………………………………slow

strong……………………………………………………………week

+

hard……………………………………………………………...soft

+

happy…………………………………………………………….sad

The meaning of the seven divisions is, taking as an example the first of the scales represented above, from left to right: extremely good, quite good, slightly good, neither good nor bad (or equally good and bad) slightly bad, quite bad, extremely bad.

In the diagram above horse is described as neither good nor bad, extremely fast, quite strong, slightly hard, equally happy and sad. The responses of the subjects produce a semantic profile representing the emotive charge of the word.

In Ukrainian:

Людина

+

добра..................................................................................................зла

_ +

молода...............................................................................................стара

+

гарна.................................................................................................погана

+

засмучена.........................................................................................щаслива

+

висока..............................................................................................низька

I.8. Contextual Analysis

Contextual analysis concentrates its attention on determining the minimal stretch of speech and the conditions necessary to reveal in which of its individual meanings the word in question is used. In studying this interaction of the polysemantic word with the syntactic configuration and lexical environment contextual analysis is more concerned with specific features of every particular language than with language universals.

Roughly, context may be subdivided into lexical, syntactical and mixed. Lexical context, for instance, determines the meaning of the word black in the following examples. Black denotes colour when used with a key-word naming some material or thing, black velvet, black gloves. When used with keywords denoting feeling or thought, it means 'sad', 'dismal': black thoughts, black despair. With nouns denoting time, the meaning is 'unhappy', 'full of hardships': black days, black period.

In Ukrainian: чорне діло; чорна справа - підступні вчинки, які викликають огиду, осуд, чорне слово - лайливий вираз із згадуванням чорта, чорний ворон - машина, в якій перевозять заарештованого. чорні дні - дуже важкий час, сповнений неприємних клопотів, страждань, нужди, чорна хмара (туча) - Дуже сумний, похмурий, невеселий, невдоволений.

If, on the other hand, the indicative power belongs to the syntactic pattern and not to the words which make it up, the context is called syntactic. Make means 'to cause' when followed by a complex object: I couldn't make him understand a word 1 said.

A purely syntactic context is rare. As a rule the indication comes from syntactic, lexical and sometimes morphological factors combined. Thus late, when ussd predicatively, means 'after the right, expected or-fixed time', as to be late for school. When used attributively with words denoting periods of time, it means 'towards the end of the period', in late summer. Used attributively with proper personal nouns and pre­ceded with a definite article, late means 'recently dead'.

To sum up, the study of details may be more exact with the contextual method.

CONCLUSION

Acquaintance with the currently used procedures of linguistic investigation shows that contrastive analysis and statistical analysis are widely used in the preparation of teaching material and are of primary importance for teachers of English.

The special interest of contemporary science in methods of linguistics research extends over a period of about twenty five years. The present status of principles and techniques in lexicology, although still far from satisfactory, shows considerable progress. The structural synchronic approach may be said to have grown into a whole system of procedures which can be used either successively or alternately.

The main procedures belonging to this system are the analysis into immediate constituents; distributional analysis with substitution test as part of it; transformational analysis; componential analysis, and statistical analysis.

Bach of these techniques viewed separately has its limitations but taken together they complete one another, so that each successive procedure may prove helpful where the previous one has failed. We have considered these devices time and again in discussing separate aspects of the vocabulary system. All these are formalized methods in the sense that they replace the original words in the linguistic material sampled, for analysis by symbols that can be discussed without reference to the particular elements they stand for, and then state precise rules for the combination and transformation of formulas thus obtained.

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