The properties of the words as the basic units of the language

14.The theory of a semantic field.
The ideographic subgroups are independent of classification into parts
of speech. Words and expressions are here classed not according to their
lexico-grammatical meaning but strictly according to their signification, i.e.
to the system of logical notions. These subgroups may comprise nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs together, provided they refer to the same notion. Thus, V.I. Agamdzhanova unites into one group such words as light n,
bright a, shine v and other words connected with the notion of light as
something permitting living beings to see the surrounding objects.
The approach resembles the much discussed theory of semantic fields
but is more precise than some of them, because this author gives purely linguistic criteria according to which words belonging to the group may be determined. The equivalence of words in this case is reflected in their
valency.
The theory of semantic fields continues to engage the attention of linguists. A great number of articles and full-length monographs have been
written on this topic, and the discussion is far from being closed
15Reference theory
.Reference structure
As explained in the corresponding section, the relational character of most lexical information
is part of its essence. It is therefore appropriate that a dictionary contain large quantities of
cross-references and of references that lead out of it, and that it be extensively referred to by
other components of the language description. References may be classified as follows:
1. inside the article: e.g. reference from one sense to another sense of the same entry;
2. between articles: e.g. reference from an entry to the antonym of the lemma;
3. to one of the main sections: e.g. reference from the ‘morphological category’ field of an
entry to the grammar section of the dictionary;
4. out of the dictionary: e.g. reference from the dictionary to the grammar. References of type #2 are treated in the section on the microstructure. References of types #3
and #4 are treated in the section of the place of the dictionary in a comprehensive language
description.Words differ not only in their emotive charge but
also in their stylistic reference. Stylistically words
can be roughly subdivided into literary, neutral and colloquial layers.1
The greater part of the l i t e r а r у l a y e r of Modern English vocabulary are words of general use, possessing no specific stylistic reference and known as n e u t r a l w o r d s . Against the background of
neutral words we can distinguish two major subgroups — st a n d a r d
c o l l o q u i a l words and l i t e r a r y or b o o k i s h words.
This may be best illustrated by comparing words almost identical in their
denotational meaning, e. g., ‘parent — father — dad’. In comparison
with the word father which is stylistically neutral, dad stands out as colloquial and parent is felt as bookish. The stylistic reference of standard
colloquial words is clearly observed when we compare them with their
neutral synonyms, e.g. chum — friend, rot — nonsense, etc. This is also
true of literary or bookish words, such as, e.g., to presume (cf. to suppose), to anticipate (cf. to expect) and others