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The equipollent oppositions are distinguished in the situations
where both members are marked. Here,
the word
formula
has two
possible plural forms in English:
formulae
and
formulas
. The oppositions
formula – formulae
and
formula – formulas
are binary (privative),
whereas the opposition
formulae
–
formulas
is equipollent. In lexicology
this
kind of oppositions is found, for example, when a word develops
both a metaphoric and a metonymic meaning.
The gradual oppositions, forming a scale, are as well distinguished
in grammar (
strong – stronger – the strongest
). One can here remember
a scale of tenses (tense-aspect forms) or a scale of modal verbs. A gradual
opposition of lexical meanings is a basis
for the stylistic device of
gradation:
They looked at hundreds of houses
;
they climbed thousands
of stairs
;
they inspected innumerable kitchens
(Maugham).
The d i s t r i b u t i v e and v a l e n c y
a n a l y s e s aim at
finding some invariant formula, or a model for combining one unit of
language to others. Here refer the well-known models “make smb. do
smth.” or “let smb. do smth.”, widely used in teaching practice. When
finding out the valency of a certain linguistic unit, however, we count its
combinability with all the possible elements at the same level of language.
Verb valency, for example, is counted according to its obligatory partners
(which make the sentence completed). Therefore, one can find:
– zero-valent (avalent, impersonal) verbs with “technical” subjects
it
,
there
in English and no subject at all in Russian:
Достарыңызбен бөлісу: