Worksheet 11 Lexical Relations

WORKSHEET 11 – LEXICAL RELATIONS

Collocations 1. Here are some examples of sentences written by learners of English. Put in bold any odd or unacceptable collocations and suggest alternatives:

1. His books commanded criticism from many people.

2. There was a high difference between the two teams.

3. I am doing this exam because I want to achieve a step in my career.

4. He had been found guilty of some slight crimes.

5. She won many competitions, forming fame in the process.

6. I was very grateful, because he had rescued my life.

2. In the text below, pick out typical (unmarked) collocations from the context of

‘phone’, and unusual (marked) collocations that the writer is using creatively.

‘He went into a cafe and asked if he could use the phone. He dialled Sandra’s number and waited. Any second now, two hundred miles away, in Sandra’s flat, her phone, perched on its mahogany table, would ring with, he hoped, a tone of urgency reflecting his panic. But would she answer it? Or, worse still, had she disconnected it, as she sometimes did when she was working? After what seemed like an eternity it purred into life and began its regulated chirping.’

Gradable antonyms An example of a scale: Huge / very big / BIG / quite big / medium-sized / quite small / SMALL / tiny core average core

BIG is the unmarked form. (ex. We say How big is your house?, not How small is your house?) Add the rest of the scale to each of the following gradable antonyms following the example above. Identify the unmarked form.

Hot / cold (water)

Interesting / boring (a film)

Polysemy

Complete the following examples of polysemy in English, and note the degree to which they correspond with Czech.

Example: Heavy - food, meals, supper - rain, storm (does not exist in Czech) - drinker, eater, smoker head mouth branch hand top

Hyponymy

Construct hyponymy trees of these words, adding a more general superordinate term, co- hyponyms, and more specific hyponyms.

Example: Chair: furniture (superordinate of chair) – chair, table, wardrobe (co-hyponyms of chair) – armchair, stool, wheelchair (hyponyms of chair)

Skiing