Free word groups and phraseological units

4.1. Valency of words.

4.2. Lexical valency of words.

4.3.Grammatical valency of words.

Objectives: to present valency of words:

4.1. Valency of words.

A word-group is the largest two-facet lexical unit comprising more than one word but expressing one global concept.

The lexical meaning of the word groups is the combined lexical meaning of the component words. The meaning of the word groups is motivated by the meanings of the component members and is supported by the structural pattern. But it’s not a mere sum total of all these meanings! Polysemantic words are used in word groups only in 1 of their meanings. These meanings of the component words in such word groups are mutually interdependent and inseparable (blind man – «a human being unable to see», blind type – «the copy isn’t readable).

Word groups possess not only the lexical meaning, but also the meaning conveyed mainly by the pattern of arrangement of their constituents. The structural pattern of word groups is the carrier of a certain semantic component not necessarily dependent on the actual lexical meaning of its members (school grammar – «grammar which is taught in school», grammar school – «a type of school»). We have to distinguish between the structural meaning of a given type of word groups as such and the lexical meaning of its constituents.

It is often argued that the meaning of word groups is also dependent on some extra-linguistic factors – on the situation in which word groups are habitually used by native speakers.

Words put together to form lexical units make phrases or word-groups. One must recall that lexicology deals with words, word-forming morphemes and word-groups.

The degree of structural and semantic cohesion of word-groups may vary. Some word-groups, e.g. at least, point of view, by means, to take place, etc. seem to be functionally and semantically inseparable. They are usually described as set phrases, word-equivalents or phraseological units and are studied by the branch of lexicology which is known as phraseology. In other word-groups such as to take lessons, kind to people, a week ago, the component-members seem to possess greater semantic and structural independence. Word-groups of this type are defined as free word-groups or phrases and are studied in syntax.

Before discussing phraseology it is necessary to outline the features common to various word-groups irrespective of the degree of structural and semantic cohesion of the component-words.

The term ‘syntactic structure (formula)’ implies the description of the order and arrangement of member-words in word- groups as parts of speech. For instance, the syntactic structure of the word- groups a clever man, a red flowers may be described as made up of an adjective and a noun, I.e. A+N; of the word- groups to take books, to build houses – 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. For example, the patterns of the verbal groups

to take books, to build houses are to take + N, to build+ N. The term ‘ syntactic pattern ’ implies the description of the structure of the word- group in which a given word is used as its head.

According to the syntactic pattern word- groups may be classified into predicative and non-predicative. Predicative word- groups have a syntactic structure similar to that of sentence, e.g. he went, John works. All other word- groups are called non-predicative. Non- predicative word- groups may be subdivided into subordinative (e.g. red flowers, a man of wisdom) and coordinative (e.g. women and children, do or die).

Structurally, all word- groups can be classified by the criterion of distribution into two extensive classes: endocentric and exocentric.

Endocentric word- groups are those that have one central member functionally equivalent to the whole word- groups, i.e. the distribution of the whole word- groups and the distribution of its central member are identical. For instance, in the word- groups red flower, kind to people, the head-words are the noun flower and the adjective kind correspondingly. These word- groups are distributionally identical with their central components. According to their central members word- groups may be classified into: nominal groups or phrases (e.g. red flower), adjectival groups (e.g. kind to people), verbal groups (e.g. to speak well), etc.

Exocentric word- groups are those that 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 word- group side by side is not identical with the distribution of its component- members, i.e. the component- members are not syntactically substitutable for the whole word- group.

The meaning of word- groups can be divided into: 1) lexical and 2) structural (grammatical) components.

1) The lexical meaning of the word- group may be defined as the combined lexical meaning of the component words. Thus, the lexical meaning of the word-group red flower may be described denotationally as the combined meaning of the words red and flower. However, the term ‘combined lexical meaning’ is not to imply that the meaning of the word- group is a mere additive result of all the lexical meaning of the component members. The lexical meaning of the word- group predominates over the lexical meanings of its constituents.

2) The structural meaning of the word-group is the meaning conveyed mainly by the pattern of arrangement of its constituents. For example, such word-groups as school grammar (школьная грамматика) and grammar school (грамматическая школа) 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 but not either by the word school or the word grammar. It follows that it’s necessary to distinguish between the structural meaning of a given type of a word-group as such and the lexical meaning of its constituents.

The lexical and structural components of meaning in word-groups are interdependent and inseparable. For example, the structural pattern of the word-groups all day long, all night long, all week long in ordinary usage and the word-group all the sun long is identical. The generalized meaning of the pattern may be described as ‘a unit of time’ Replacing day, night, week by another noun – the sun the structural meaning of the pattern does not change. The group all the sun long function semantically as a unit of

time. But the noun sun included in the group, continues to carry the semantic value, i.e. the lexical meaning that it has in word-group of other structural patterns, e.g. the sun rays, African sun.

Thus, the meaning of the word-group is derived from the combined lexical meanings of its constituents and inseparable from the meaning of the pattern of their arrangement.

There are two factors which are important in uniting words into word-groups:

– the lexical valency of words;

– the grammatical valency of words.