1.0 INTRODUCTION
The term ‘Beyond the sentence’ is borrowed from Aremo 1997 and it is meant to refer to units of language that are bigger in size and structure than the sentence. In most of the earlier units, we dealt with individual sentences in English. We have also dealt a little with formation and origin of some peculiar words in English. In this unit, we shall move ahead and talk about sentences and how they relate with one another, their well formedness in discourse (that is in continuous speech or writing) which involves more than a sentence. It is important to note that it is not only important for a sentence to be well formed; it should also flow with other sentences in the group. In other words, it should fit in with every other sentence in its environment. Go through the example below.
Mr James was a good business man. He gave gifts to children at the school end of the year party.
Goats love raw yams. Congratulations on your newly acquired Volvo 940.
If you look carefully at the sentences above, each of them is well formed but the sentences taken together do not make sense. They look disjointed. They cannot form a unified whole. They cannot form a unified whole the way they are except they are re-written. Go through the sentences below and see if there is a difference between the sentences in the paragraph above and that below.
Mr James was a good business man. He gave gifts to children at the school’s end of the year program. He loves rearing goats for sale but they always end up eating his yam stalks. His friends sent congratulatory messages to him on his newly acquired Volvo 940.
If you examine the set of sentences above, you will discover that they are coherent and intelligible in sequence. The sentences are interconnected in meaning and the events in one sentence seem connected with the next. The sentences refer to the same person- Mr James mentioned in sentence 1. Sentence 2 refers to part of his goodness by giving gifts to children at the end of the year party in his children’s school. Part of his business acumen is revealed in sentence 3 in that he loves rearing goats for sale. In sentence 4, he bought a new Volvo 940 for which he was congratulated.
Some of the lexical devices that will be discussed in this unit are- synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, repetition and collocations
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3.1 Synonymy
This term is used to describe the relationship of similar lexical items or lexemes. It can be referred to as a relation of sameness of meaning. Aremo (1997) notes that, for two or more items to be regarded as synonymous, they do not have to be interchangeable in every context. According to him, the following synonym pairs – profound and deep, finish and end, start and begin can be substituted for each other in:
They all listened with
* profound
Let’s start the course
begin
We shall finish the series next week.
They all swam across the deep river
Let’s start the engine
We shall finish the job next week
Synonymous items may even differ in their connotation, that is, in the emotional associations that are suggested by them. For example the words statesman and politician though interchangeable, still differ in their connotation in that some people think that a statesman is associated with greater freedom from deceit.
Palmer1966 notes five ways in which words can differ from one another:
1. Sets of synonyms which belong to different dialects of the language e.g. Fall (US) Autumn (Britain).
2. Different degrees of similar situation require words that are used in different styles e.g. a nasty smell, an obnoxious effluvium, a horrible stink Pass away/ die/ pass on/ pop off.
3. Some words may be said to differ only in their emotive or evaluative meaning e.g. politician/statesman hide/conceal liberty/ freedom midget /dwarf mountain/ hill.
4. some words are collocationally restricted - they occur in conjunction with other words e.g. rancid — goes with butter addled - goes along with eggs.
5. some words are close in meaning/ their meanings overlap e.g.-
mature, adult, ripe, perfect, due, govern, direct, control, determine, require, loose, inexact, free, relaxed, vague, lax, unbound.
As a writer, one has to choose the most appropriate synonym while writing. A sign in the San Diego zoo wild animal park states-
Please do not annoy, torment, pester, plague, molest, worry, badger, harry, harass, heckle, persecute, ink, bullyrag, vex, disquiet, grate, beset, bother, tease, nettle, tantalise, or ruffle the animals.
It has often been said that there are no perfect synonyms but the following pair of sentences have very similar meanings:
He is sitting on a sofa. / He is sitting on the couch.
The degree of semantic similarity between words depends to a great extent on the number of semantic properties they share. For example, sofa and couch refer to the same type of object and most of their semantic properties.
3.2 Antonyms
This is a relationship of oppositeness in meaning. Just like synonyms, antonyms do not need to be substitutable for each other in all contexts. The following pairs of words are antonyms and can be substituted in some cases while they can not be substituted in some other cases. Please note that these examples are from Aremo 1997. For more details see the reference at the end of this unit.
They can be substituted in -
It is a long pole.
We can start the course now.
The man is dead
They sell
They can not in
He is a *long
old newspapers.
man.
She tt*tegine now.
*alive
They *buy them the auction.
We become aware of these distinctions in language use through our exposure to the language. Just as we do not have perfect or absolute synonyms, there are no absolute antonyms as well. The linguistic context determines the usage and the appropriateness of a word. Antonyms are of different kinds- complementary, gradable and relational opposites.
3.2.1 Complementary pairs
Some opposite words are complementary to each other in English. They are complementary in the sense that not being this = that. e.g.
Alive/dead
Present/absent
Awake/asleep
This means that not alive =dead, not dead=alive.
At this point, the question can be asked of those who, for one reason or the other, have become what we call vegetables. That is they are only seen to be breathing, they can not do any other thing. Some might even be in an unconscious state. Such people, even though they are not clinically dead, they are dead to their environment. If you are not present, you are absent. You can not do the two together physically.
3.2.2 Gradable antonyms
These kinds of words do not provide an absolute scale. With gradable antonyms, the negative of one word is not synonymous with the other. For example, someone who is not happy is not necessarily sad. Some adjectives fall into this category e.g.
Big /bigger /biggest
Hot/ warm /cool /cold
Big /small fast / slow happy / sad
Gradable antonyms are often found among sets of words that partition a continuum i.e.
Tiny-small-medium-large—huge- gargantuan
3.2.3 Relational opposites
These are words that are linguistically related in that they refer to a reversal of relationship between a pair of related items or kinship terms. The items in this category are mutually exclusive e.g.
father/mother, brother sister, buy/sell lend/borrow, give/receive, husband /wife, parent/child, doctor/patient, teacher/pupil
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
Give the synonyms of the following words:
1.
2.
3.
3.3
Expensive
Tradition
advantages
Hyponymy
4. Abandoned
5. Scolded
6. Commanded
This is a situation where there is a super-ordinate term. The general or super-ordinate term is the larger set that houses the other smaller ones. e.g.
Red, green, yellow, blue etc have their lexical representation as ‘colour’ which is a super-ordinate term.
Lion, tiger, leopard, lynx (animal of the cat family, with tufted ears and a short tail) have their lexical representation as Feline (catlike, of the cat family).While writing, you may find out that you need to use these words. So a good mastery of these kinds of lexical devices is important.
Sometimes, there is no single word in the language that encompasses a set of hyponyms. Thus, clarinet guitar, horn, marimba, piano, trumpet, violin are hyponyms because they are ‘musical instruments’ but there is no single word meaning ‘musical instrument’ that has these words as its hyponyms. The small elements are also referred to as co-hyponyms of the superordinate term. For example, tulip, rose, hibiscus are hyponyms of the term ‘flower’ .
3.4 Repetition
Repetitions are often for emphasise. Below is an example of an anonymous text with a lot of repetitions and antonyms.
As a rule, man is a fool
When it is hot, he wants it cool
When it is cool, he wants it hot
Always wanting what is not
Anonymous
The words wants wanting are repeated to emphasis part of human nature. ‘When it is----‘is also repeated to lay emphasis on the temporal aspect of man’s demands. From the text we also have examples of antonyms- i.e. hot/cool which are gradable antonyms.
Write five pairs of words with their relational opposites.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Lexical and grammatical connective devices are very important in English. As a student of English, you should know them and use them appropriately. And you can only achieve this through constant practice and use of them. This unit deals with the first part of these devices where we have been able to go through synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and repetition. Some other lexical connective devices and grammatical connective devices will be dealt with in the next unit. Please go through the next unit for the remaining part of the topic.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, you learnt that:
1. Lexical connective devices include lexemes or content words such as (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) whose sense relations shed light on a reading text
2. synonymy can be referred to as a relation of sameness of meaning
3. Antonyms are of different kinds- complementary, gradable and relational opposites.
4. gradable antonyms do not provide an absolute scale
5. relational opposites have items whose categories are mutually exclusive
6. in complementary pairs, what is present in one item is absent in the other
7. Gradable antonyms are often found among sets of words that partition a continuum
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
Indicate whether the pairs of words listed below are complementary, gradable or relational opposites.
. Good/bad
. Parent offspring
. Beautiful /ugly
. False/true
. Pass/ fail
. Poor/ rich
. Legal/ illegal
. Asleep/ awake
. Husband /wife
. Fast/slow
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
Adedeji, E.O. (2005). Grammatical ties in English Discourse in Moji Olateju & Lekan Oyeleye (Eds) Perspectives on Language and Literature. Ile-Ife, Nigeria: Obafemi Awolowo University. pp 157-166.
Aremo, B (2001). (ed.). Advanced English Compositions. Lagos, Nigeria: Scribo Educational Books.
Aremo, B. (1995). An Introduction to English Sentences (1). Ibadan, Nigeria: Caltop Publications Nigeria Ltd.
Aremo, B. (1997). An Introduction to English Sentences (2). Ibadan, Nigeria: Caltop Publications Nigeria Ltd.
Asiyanbola, A.A. (2005). Sentence Connective Devices as Linguistic Tools for English Reading Tasks in a Nigerian ESL in Moji Olateju & Lekan Oyeleye (eds.). Perspectives on Language and Literature. Ile-Ife, Nigeria: Obafemi Awolowo University. Pp. 187-184.
Babalola, E.T. (2005). The Grammar of Paragraphs and the Mechanics of Good Written English in Moji Olateju & Lekan Oyeleye (eds.). Perspectives on Language and Literature. Ile-Ife, Nigeria: Obafemi Awolowo University. pp 269-284.
Zandvoort, R.W. (1967). A Handbook of English Grammar. London: Longman Group Limited.
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