Thematic groups of words: examples

What is the unit of the Russian language? Certainly, a word. With his help, we communicate, we convey to each other thoughts and experiences. The article deals with thematic groups of words that allow you to classify the wealth of the Russian language, which in its literary dictionary includes more than 150 thousand nouns, verbs and adjectives.

Meanings of the word

Russian language does not study actions, not signs, but words that call them. They have two meanings:

• Grammatical (responsibility carries the end of the word).
• Lexical (for which the foundation is responsible).

To understand what are thematic groups of words, let us dwell on the second point. Lexical meaning is the content, or historically fixed in the consciousness of people, the correlation between the sounding shell and the phenomenon of reality, formalized according to the laws of grammar. A person is able to think with concepts, that is, abstractly from objects, while the word with its lexical meaning separates one concept from another.

Content and sound are not related by nature. A rare exception is onomatopoeic words and interjections, understandable in any language. For example, the sounds of nature: hryu-hryu, ha-ha, kap-kap.

Generic and specific concepts

When a person pronounces the word "desk", everyone represents the desk - a piece of furniture for sitting students during classes. Nobody represents a usual or a dining table, because in the word a set of distinctive features is laid-a certain generalization. But when the teacher offers the student to sit down at the desk, the actual meaning appears in the speech. Before the student is a specific object of a certain color, size, shape. This suggests that in the meaning of each word there is a denotation (generalization) and a referent (concretization).

Among the nouns we can identify more generalized concepts (generic) and more specific (species). An example can be seen in the picture above. Thematic groups of words - a set of species concepts, which are united in a more general - generic. For understanding, consider the scheme (shown below), where it is considered how the lexical meaning of the species concept is formed. It is explained through a generic concept with the addition of species differences. What are sneakers ? This is footwear (generic concept), designed for sports. What else can be attributed to shoes? Shoes, shoes, slates, sneakers, clogs, sandals, boots. All these words are united in a single thematic group - "shoes".

Thematic inclusions

To what notion can be attributed words: fishing rod, net, spinning, bait, bloodworm, mormyshka, fishing, sniping, biting ? Fishing . The example considered above is a sample of thematic inclusions. Game: "Find an extra word" is the best way to understand what the thematic groups of words are. Examples of the game are offered in the table below:

In each column it is necessary to find an extra word that is not part of the thematic group. Answer: a hare, a worm, a fox.

Synonyms

One thematic group, like inclusions, can include different parts of speech. The example of "Fishing" includes nouns and verbs. Synonyms are distinguished by the fact that they are one part of speech: film, motion picture, film, cinema; Run, rush, rush, pull; Funny, funny, funny, funny . Are they thematic groups of words? Examples show that synonyms coincide in their lexical meaning and are used by the author only to give the text or expression a certain expressiveness. Most linguists classify synonyms with thematic groups. On average, they consist of several words, but there are exceptions. So, the word "very" has 26 synonyms.

The unification takes place on the basis of a common characteristic. As an example, we can take the adjective "red". The group will include such synonyms as: ruby, coral, scarlet, cumaceous.

How to make thematic groups of words?

For this you need to know:

• Lexical meaning of the word.
• Have a certain vocabulary.
• Have a broad outlook.

What can help the student? Explanatory dictionary, which explains each word used in the Russian language. The most famous authors who collected all the wealth of Russian vocabulary are SI Ozhegov and DN Ushakov, although there are more modern publications that incorporate changes related to the use of English-language expressions. For example, TF Efremova collected 160 thousand articles.

Thematic groups of words are easy to compose for those who read a lot of fiction, actively uses synonyms and is able to allocate similar words in the text. As an example, you can take a fragment of a work of art to find synonyms. The following task will also help:

It is necessary to distinguish common (generic) concepts for the following words: mother, cow, ruler, calculator, sister, horse, eraser, pencil case, pig, brother, pen, grandfather, goat, grandmother, father, sharpener, sheep, dog.

The following thematic groups of words are distinguished: "Relatives", "Animals", "School accessories".

Examples on "The Seasons"

With what words can you describe such phenomena as the seasons? To better cope with the task, it is necessary to distinguish subgroups, for example: weather, nature, occupation, clothing. They can be expanded. The principle of isolation is the choice of generic concepts that underlie the differences between winter, autumn, summer, and spring. How to make thematic groups of words? The names of the seasons are presented in the table, comparing the subgroups.

In the example, only objects and phenomena are described, but by analogy it is quite easy to add actions and attributes of objects.