are called euphemisms. These are words used to substitute some unpleasant

or offensive words, e.g «the late» instead of «dead», «to perspire» instead

of «to sweat» etc.

There are also phraseological synonyms, these words are identical in

their meanings and styles but different in their combining with other words

in the sentence, e.g. «to be late for a lecture» but «to miss the train»,

«to visit museums» but «to attend lectures» etc.

In each group of synonyms there is a word with the most general meaning,

which can substitute any word in the group, e.g. «piece» is the synonymic

dominant in the group «slice», «lump», «morsel». The verb « to look at» is

the synonymic dominant in the group «to stare», «to glance», «to peep». The

adjective «red’ is the synonymic dominant in the group «purple», «scarlet»,

«crimson».

When speaking about the sources of synonyms, besides desynonymization and

abbreviation, we can also mention the formation of phrasal verbs, e.g. «to

give up» - «to abandon», «to cut down» - «to diminish».

ANTONYMS

Antonyms are words belonging to the same part of speech, identical in

style, expressing contrary or contradictory notions.

V.N. Comissarov in his dictionary of antonyms classified them into two

groups : absolute or root antonyms /»late» - «early»/ and derivational

antonyms / «to please’ - «to displease»/ . Absolute antonyms have

different roots and derivational antonyms have the same roots but

different affixes. In most cases negative prefixes form antonyms / un-, dis-

, non-/. Sometimes they are formed by means of suffixes -ful and -less.

The number of antonyms with the suffixes ful- and -less is not very

large, and sometimes even if we have a word with one of these suffixes its

antonym is formed not by substituting -ful by less-, e.g. «successful»

-»unsuccessful», «selfless» - «selfish». The same is true about antonyms

with negative prefixes, e.g. «to man» is not an antonym of the word «to

unman», «to disappoint» is not an antonym of the word «to appoint».

The difference between derivational and root antonyms is not only in

their structure, but in semantics as well. Derivational antonyms express

contradictory notions, one of them excludes the other, e.g. «active»-

«inactive». Absolute antonyms express contrary notions. If some notions

can be arranged in a group of more than two members, the most distant

members of the group will be absolute antonyms, e.g. «ugly» , «plain»,

«good-looking», «pretty», «beautiful», the antonyms are «ugly» and

«beautiful».

Leonard Lipka in the book «Outline of English Lexicology» describes

different types of oppositeness, and subdivides them into three types:

a) complementary, e.g. male -female, married -single,

b) antonyms, e.g. good -bad,

c) converseness, e.g. to buy - to sell.

In his classification he describes complimentarity in the following way:

the denial of the one implies the assertion of the other, and vice versa.

«John is not married» implies that «John is single». The type of

oppositeness is based on yes/no decision. Incompatibility only concerns

pairs of lexical units.

Antonymy is the second class of oppositeness. It is distinguished from

complimentarity by being based on different logical relationships. For

pairs of antonyms like good/bad, big/small only the second one of the above

mentioned relations of implication holds. The assertion containing one

member implies the negation of the other, but not vice versa. «John is

good» implies that «John is not bad», but «John is not good» does not imply

that «John is bad». The negation of one term does not necessarily implies

the assertion of the other.

An important linguistic difference from complementaries is that antonyms

are always fully gradable, e.g. hot, warm, tepid, cold.

Converseness is mirror-image relations or functions, e.g. husband/wife,

pupil/teacher, preceed/follow, above/below, before/after etc.

«John bought the car from Bill» implies that «Bill sold the car to John».

Mirror-image sentences are in many ways similar to the relations between

active and passive sentences. Also in the comparative form: »Y is smaller

than X, then X is larger than Y».

L. Lipka also gives the type which he calls directional opposition

up/down, consiquence opposition learn/know, antipodal opposition

North/South, East/West, ( it is based on contrary motion, in opposite

directions.) The pairs come/go, arrive/depart involve motion in different

directions. In the case up/down we have movement from a point P. In the

case come/go we have movement from or to the speaker.

L. Lipka also points out non-binary contrast or many-member lexical sets.

Here he points out serially ordered sets, such as scales / hot, warm,

tepid, cool, cold/ ; colour words / black, grey, white/ ; ranks /marshal,

general, colonel, major, captain etc./ There are gradable examination

marks / excellent, good, average, fair, poor/. In such sets of words we

can have outer and inner pairs of antonyms. He also points out cycles, such

as units of time /spring, summer, autumn, winter/ . In this case there are

no «outermost» members.

Not every word in a language can have antonyms. This type of opposition

can be met in qualitative adjectives and their derivatives, e.g. beautiful-

ugly, to beautify - to uglify, beauty - ugliness. It can be also met in

words denoting feelings and states, e.g. respect - scorn, to respect - to

scorn, respectful - scornful, to live - to die, alive - dead, life - death.

It can be also met among words denoting direction in space and time, e.g.

here - there, up - down , now - never, before - after, day - night, early -

late etc.

If a word is polysemantic it can have several antonyms, e.g. the word

«bright» has the antonyms «dim», «dull», «sad».

LOCAL VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

ON THE BRITISH ISLES

On the British Isles there are some local varieties of English which

developed from Old English local dialects. There are six groups of them:

Lowland /Scottish/ , Northern, Western, Midland, Eastern, Southern. These

varieties are used in oral speech by the local population. Only the

Scottish dialect has its own literature /R. Berns/.

One of the best known dialects of British English is the dialect of

London - Cockney. Some peculiarities of this dialect can be seen in the

first act of «Pigmalion» by B. Shaw, such as : interchange of /v/ and /w/

e.g. wery vell; interchange of /f/ and /0/ , /v/ and / /, e. g/ fing

/thing/ and fa:ve / father/; interchange of /h/ and /-/ , e.g. «’eart» for

«heart» and «hart» for «art; substituting the diphthong /ai/ by /ei/ e.g.

«day» is pronounced /dai/; substituting /au/ by /a:/ , e.g. «house» is

pronounced /ha:s/,«now« /na:/ ; substituting /ou/ by /o:/ e.g. «don’t» is

pronounced /do:nt/ or substituting it by / / in unstressed positions, e.g.

«window» is pronounced /wind /.

Another feature of Cockney is rhyming slang: «hat» is «tit for tat»,

«wife» is «trouble and strife», «head» is «loaf of bread» etc. There are

also such words as «tanner» /sixpence/, «peckish»/hungry/.

Peter Wain in the «Education Guardian» writes about accents spoken by

University teachers: «It is a variety of Southern English RP which is

different from Daniel Jones’s description. The English, public school

leavers speak, is called «marked RP», it has some characteristic features :

the vowels are more central than in English taught abroad, e.g. «bleck

het»/for «black hat»/, some diphthongs are also different, e.g. «house» is

pronounced /hais/. There is less aspiration in /p/, /b/, /t/ /d/.

The American English is practically uniform all over the country, because

of the constant transfer of people from one part of the country to the

other. However, some peculiarities in New York dialect can be pointed out,

such as: there is no distinction between / / and /a: / in words: «ask»,

«dance» «sand» «bad», both phonemes are possible. The combination «ir» in

the words: «bird», «girl» «ear» in the word «learn» is pronoinced as /oi/

e.g. /boid/, /goil/, /loin/.In the words «duty’, «tune» /j/ is not

pronounced /du:ti/, /tu:n/.

BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH

British and American English are two main variants of English. Besides

them there are : Canadian, Australian, Indian, New Zealand and other

variants. They have some peculiarities in pronunciation, grammar and

vocabulary, but they are easily used for communication between people

living in these countries. As far as the American English is concerned,

some scientists /H.N. Menken, for example/ tried to prove that there is a

separate American language. In 1919 H.N. Menken published a book called

«The American Language». But most scientists, American ones including,

criticized his point of view because differences between the two variants

are not systematic.

American English begins its history at the beginning of the 17-th century

when first English-speaking settlers began to settle on the Atlantic coast

of the American continent. The language which they brought from England

was the language spoken in England during the reign of Elizabeth the First.

In the earliest period the task of Englishmen was to find names for

places, animals, plants, customs which they came across on the American

continent. They took some of names from languages spoken by the local

population - Indians, such as :»chipmuck»/an American squirrel/, «igloo»

/Escimo dome-shaped hut/, «skunk» / a black and white striped animal with a

bushy tail/, «squaw» / an Indian woman/, »wigwam» /an American Indian tent

made of skins and bark/ etc.

Besides Englishmen, settlers from other countries came to America, and

English-speaking settlers mixed with them and borrowed some words from

their languages, e.g. from French the words «bureau»/a writing desk/,

«cache» /a hiding place for treasure, provision/, «depot’/ a store-house/,

«pumpkin»/a plant bearing large edible fruit/. From Spanish such words as:

»adobe» / unburnt sun-dried brick/, »bananza» /prosperity/, «cockroach» /a

beetle-like insect/, «lasso» / a noosed rope for catching cattle/ were

borrowed.

Present-day New York stems from the Dutch colony New Amsterdam, and

Dutch also influenced English. Such words as: «boss», «dope», «sleigh»

were borrowed .

The second period of American English history begins in the 19-th

century. Immigrants continued to come from Europe to America. When large

groups of immigrants from the same country came to America some of their

words were borrowed into English. Italians brought with them a style of

cooking which became widely spread and such words as: «pizza», «spaghetti»

came into English. From the great number of German-speaking settlers the

following words were borrowed into English: «delicatessen», «lager»,

«hamburger», «noodle», «schnitzel» and many others.

During the second period of American English history there appeared quite

a number of words and word-groups which were formed in the language due to

the new poitical system, liberation of America from the British

colonialism, its independence. The following lexical units appeared due to

these events: the United States of America , assembly, caucus, congress,

Senate, congressman, President, senator, precinct, Vice-President and many

others. Besides these political terms many other words were coined in

American English in the 19-th century: to antagonize, to demoralize,

influential, department store, telegram, telephone and many others.

There are some differences between British and American English in the

usage of prepositions, such as prepositions with dates, days of the week BE

requres «on» / I start my holiday on Friday/, in American English there is

no preposition / I start my vacation Friday/. In Be we use «by day», «by

night»/»at night», in AE the corresponding forms are «days» and «nights».

In BE we say «at home» , in AE - «home» is used. In BE we say «a quarter to

five», in AE «a quarter of five». In BE we say «in the street», in AE -

«on the street». In BE we say «to chat to somebody», in AE «to chat with

somebody». In BE we say «different to something», in AE - «different from

someting».

There are also units of vocabulary which are different while denoting the

same notions, e.g. BE - «trousers», AE -«pants»; in BE «pants» are «трусы»

which in AE is «shorts». While in BE «shorts» are outwear. This can lead to

misunderstanding. There are some differences in names of places:

BE AE BE AE

passage hall cross-roads intersection

pillar box mail-box the cinema the movies

studio, bed-sitter one-room appartment

flyover overpass zebra crossing Pxing

pavement sidewalk tube, uderground subway

tram streetcar flat apartment

surgery doctor’s office lift elevator

Some names of useful objects:

BE AE BE AE

biro ballpoint rubber eraser

tap faucet torch

flashlight

parcel package elastic rubber

band

carrier bag shopping bag reel of cotton spool of thread

Some words connected with food:

BE AE BE

AE

tin can sweets

candy

sweet biscuit cookie dry biscuit

crackers

sweet dessert chips

french fries

minced meat ground beef

Some words denoting personal items:

BE AE BE

AE

fringe bangs/of hair/ turn- ups

cuffs

tights pantyhose mackintosh raincoat

ladder run/in a stocking/ braces suspenders

poloneck turtleneck waistcoat

vest

Some words denoting people:

BE AE BE

AE

barrister, lawyer, staff /university/

faculty

post-graduate graduate chap, fellow guy

caretaker janitor constable

patrolman

shopassistant shopperson bobby cop

If we speak about cars there are also some differences:

BE AE BE

AE

boot trunk bumpers

fenders

a car, an auto, to hire a car to rent a

car

Differences in the organization of education lead to different terms. BE

«public school» is in fact a private school. It is a fee-paying school not

controlled by the local education authorities. AE «public school» is a

free local authority school. BE «elementary school» is AE «grade school» BE

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