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WORD-GROUPS
I. VALENCY OF WORDS
 Words put together to form lexical units
make phrases or word-groups.
 The largest two-facet lexical unit
comprising more than one word is the
word-group observed on the syntagmatic
level of analysis. Words are joined together
to make up single self-contained lexical
units.
 The two main linguistic factors are the
lexical and the syntactic valancy of
words.
1.1. LEXICAL VALENCY
 Words are used in certain lexical contexts, i.e. in
combination with other words.
 The noun question is often combined with such
adjectives as vital, pressing, urgent, disputable,
delicate, etc.
 This noun is a component of a number of other wordgroups, e.g. to raise a question, a question of great
importance, a question of the agenda, of the day, and
many others.
 Lexical valency is the possibility of lexico-semantic
connections of a word with other words.
 Lexical collocability is the realisation in speech of
the potential connections of a word with other words.
 Lexical valency acquires special importance
in case of polysemy as through the lexical
valency different meanings of a polysemantic
word can be distinguished, e.g.
 heavy weight (book, table, etc.),
 heavy snow (storm, rain, etc.),
 heavy drinker (eater, etc.),
 heavy sleep (disappointment, sorrow, etc.),
 heavy industry (tanks, etc.), and so on.
 These word-groups are called collocations
or such combinations of words which
condition the realization of a certain meaning
 The range of the lexical valency of words is
linguistically restricted by the inner structure
of the English word-stock.
 Though the verbs lift and raise are treated as
synonyms, only raise is collocated with the
noun question.
 The verb take may be interpreted as ‘grasp’,
’seize’, ‘catch’, etc. but only take is found in
collocations with the nouns examination,
measures, precautions, etc., only catch in
catch smb. napping and grasp in grasp the
truth.
 The restrictions of lexical valency of
words may manifest themselves in the
lexical meanings of the polysemantic
members of word-groups.
 The adjective heavy, e.g., is combined
with the words food, meals, supper, etc.
in the meaning ‘rich and difficult to
digest’.
 But not all the words with the same
component of meaning can be
combined with this adjective *heavy
cheese or *heave sausage.
1.2. SYNTACTIC VALENCY
 Syntactic valency is the aptness of a word to
appear in different syntactic structures.
 The minimal syntactic context in which words
are used when brought together to form wordgroups is described as the pattern of the wordgroups.
 E.g., the verb to offer can be followed by the
infinitive (to offer to do smth) and the noun (to
offer a cup of tea).
 The verb to suggest can be followed by the
gerund (to suggest doing smth) and the noun
(to suggest an idea). The syntactic valency of
these verbs is different.
 The adjectives clever and intelligent are
seen to possess different syntactic valency
as clever can be used in word-groups
having the pattern:
 Adjective-Preposition at+Noun: clever at
mathematics, whereas intelligent can never
be found in exactly the same word-group
pattern.
 The syntactic valency of correlated words in
different languages is not identical, cf.: in
English to influence a person, a decision, a
choice (verb +noun) - in Russian влиять
на человека, на решение, на выбор
(verb+ preposition+noun).
II. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE OF
WORD-GROUPS
 Syntactic structure (formula) is the
description of the order and arrangement
of member-words in word-groups as
parts of speech.
 E.g., the syntactic structure of the wordgroup an old woman, a blue dress is an
adjective and a noun, i.e. A+N;
 of the word-groups to wash a car, to
read books – as a verb and a noun, i.e.
V+N.
 The structure of word-groups may also be
described in relation to the head-word.
 In this case it is usual to speak of the
pattern but not of formulas.
 E.g., the patterns of the verbal groups to
read a book, to wash a car are to read +
N, to wash + N.
 Syntactic pattern implies the description
of the structure of the word-group in which
a given word is used as its head.
 Syntactic patterns are classified into:
1. predicative word-groups have a syntactic
structure similar to that of a sentence, they
comprise the subject and the predicate,
e.g. he went, John works.
2. non-predicative word-groups do not
comprise the subject and the predicate
and may be subdivided into
a) subordinative (e.g. red flower, a man
of wisdom);
b) coordinative (e.g. women and children,
do or die).
III.CLASSIFICATION OF WORD-GROUPS
1.
ENDOCENTRIC WORD-GROUPS
have one central member functionally
equivalent to the whole word-group.
In the word-group blue dress, kind to people,
the head-words are the noun dress and the
adjective kind correspondingly.
According to their central members
word-groups may be classified into:
a) nominal groups or phrases (blue dress),
b) adjectival groups (kind to people),
c) verbal groups (to sing well), etc.
2. EXOCENTRIC WORD-GROUPS
have no central component and the
distribution of the whole word-group is
different from either of its members.
For instance, the distribution of the wordgroups side by side, at first, grow smaller
is not identical with the distribution of their
component-members, i.e. the componentmembers are not syntactically
substitutable for the whole word-group.
IV. TYPES OF MEANING OF WORD-GROUPS
4.1. The lexical meaning
 of the word-group may be defined as the combined
lexical meaning of the component words, e.g. blind
man may be described denotationally as the combined
meaning of the words blind and man.
 However, in most cases the lexical meanings of the
word-group predominates over the lexical meanings of
its components, e.g. blind alley, blind date.
 Polysemantic words are used in word-groups only in
one of their meanings. These meanings of the
component words in such word-groups are mutually
interdependent and inseparable. Semantic
inseparability of word-groups treats them as selfcontained lexical units.
4.2. The structural meaning
of the word-group is the meaning conveyed
mainly by the pattern of arrangement of its
components, e.g., such word-groups as
school grammar and grammar school are
semantically different because of the
difference in the pattern of arrangement of
the component words.
The structural meaning is the meaning
expressed by the pattern of the word-group.
4.3. Interrelation of lexical and structural
meaning in word-groups
The lexical and structural components of meaning in
word-groups are interdependent and inseparable. The
structural pattern in all the day long, all the night long,
all the week long in ordinary usage and the wordgroup all the sun long is identical. The generalised
meaning of the pattern ‘a unit of time’.
Replacing day, night, week by another noun the sun
structural meaning of the pattern does not change.
The group all the sun long functions semantically as a
unit of time. But the noun sun included in the group
continues to carry the semantic value or the lexical
meaning that it has in word-groups of other structural
patterns (cf. the sun rays, African sun, etc.).
 It follows that the meaning of the word-group is
derived from the combined lexical meanings of its
constituents and is inseparable from the meaning of
the pattern of their arrangement.
 Compare two nominal phrases a factory hand − ‘a
factory worker’ and a hand bag − ‘a bag carried in
the hand’. Though the word hand makes part of
both its lexical meaning and the role it plays in the
structure of word-groups is different which accounts
for the difference in the lexical and structural
meaning of the word-groups under discussion.
 Thus, the meaning of the word-group is derived
from the combined lexical meanings of its
constituents and is inseparable from the meaning of
the pattern of their arrangement.
V. MOTIVATION IN WORD-GROUPS
 A word-group is lexically-motivated if
the combined lexical meaning of the
group is deducible from the meaning of
its components, e.g. white snow, strong
tea, give a lesson.
 If the combined lexical meaning of a
word-group is not deducible from the
lexical meanings of its constituent
components, such a word-group is
lexically non-motivated, e.g. red tape
(official bureaucratic methods) take
place (occur).
 The degree of motivation can be
different. Between the extremes of
complete motivation and lack of
motivation there are innumerable
intermediate cases.
 E.g., the degree of lexical motivation in
the nominal group black market is higher
than in black death, but lower than in
black dress, though none of the groups
can be considered completely nonmotivated.
 It should be noted that seemingly
identical word-groups are sometimes
found to be motivated or non-motivated
depending on their semantic
interrelation. Thus, apple sauce is
lexically motivated when it means ‘a
sauce made of apples’ but when used to
denote ‘nonsense’ it is clearly nonmotivated.
 Completely non-motivated or partially
motivated word-groups are called
phraseological units or idioms.
Summary and Conclusions
1. Words put together to form lexical
units make up phrases or wordgroups. The main factors active in
bringing words together are lexical
and grammatical valency of the
components of word-groups.
2. Lexical valency is the aptness of a
word to appear in various
collocations. All the words of the
language possess a certain norm of
lexical valency. Restrictions of
lexical valency are to be accounted
for by the inner structure of the
vocabulary of the English language.
3. Lexical valency of polysemantic
words is observed in various
collocations in which these words are
used. Different meanings of a
polysemantic word may be described
through its lexical valency.
Lexical collocability is the
realisation in speech of the potential
connections of a word with other
words.
4. Syntactic valency is the aptness of a
word to appear in various syntactic
structures. All words possess a certain
norm of syntactic valency. Restrictions of
syntactic valency are to be accounted for
by the grammatical structure of the
language. The range of syntactic valency
of each individual word is essentially
delimited by the part of speech the word
belongs to and also by the specific norm
of syntactic valency peculiar to individual
words of Modern English.
5. The syntactic valency of a
polysemantic word may be
observed in the different structures
in which the word is used.
Individual meanings of a
polysemantic word may be
described through its syntactic
valency.
6. Structurally, word-groups may be
classified by the criterion of
distribution into endocentric and
exocentric.
7. Endocentric word-groups can be
classified according to the headword into nominal, adjectival,
verbal and adverbial groups or
phrases.
8. Semantically all word-groups may
be classified into motivated and
non-motivated. Non-motivated
word-groups are usually described
as phraseological units.
References
1.
2.
3.
1. Зыкова И.В. Практический курс
английской лексикологии. М.:
Академия, 2006. – С. 121-124.
Гинзбург Р.З. Лексикология
английского языка. М.: Высшая
школа, 1979. – С. 64-74.
Антрушина Г.Б., Афанасьева О.В.,
Морозова Н.Н. Лексикология
английского языка. М.: Дрофа, 2006.
– С. 225- 256.
WORD-GROUPS