Лекции по лексикологии английского языка. Гусева Г.В. - 15 стр.

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II. Meaning of Word-Combinations

Meaning of WCs is anlysed into lexical and grammatical (structural

components).

Lexical meaning of the WC is the combined lexical meanings of its component

words: red flower – red + flower. But in most cases the meaning of the whole

combination predominates over the lexical meaning of its constituents, e.g. the

meaning of the monosemantic adjective atomic is different in atomic weight and

atomic bomb.

Polysemantic words are used in WCs in one of their meanings: blind man

(horse, cat) – blind type (print, handwriting). Only one meaning of the adjective

blind (unable to see) is combined with the lexical meaning of the noun man

(human being) and only one meaning of man is realized in combination with blind.

The meaning of the same adjective in blind type is different.

Structural meaning of the WC is conveyed by the pattern of arrangement of

the component words, e.g. the WCs school grammar and grammar school consist

of identical words but are semantically different because their patterns are

different. The structural pattern is the carrier of a certain meaning quality-

substance that does not depend on the lexical meanings of the words school and

grammar.

III. Interdependence of Structure and Meaning in Word-Combinations

The pattern of the WC is the syntactic structure in which a given word is

used as its head: to build + N (to build a house); to rely + on + N (to rely on sb).

The pattern and meaning of head-words are interdependent. The same head-word

is semantically different in different patterns, cf.: get+N (get a letter); get+to+N

(get to Moscow); get+N+inf (get sb to come).

In these patterns notional words are represented in conventional symbols

whereas form-words are given in their usual graphic form. The reason is that