Thematic word groups: examples

What is a unit of the Russian language? Definitely a word. With it, we communicate, pass on thoughts and experiences to each other. The article discusses thematic groups of words that allow classifying the richness of the Russian language, which has more than 150 thousand nouns, verbs and adjectives in its literary dictionary.

Meaning of the word

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

• Grammatical (responsibility is the end of the word).
• Lexical (the basis is responsible for it).

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

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

Generic and specific concepts

When a person pronounces the word “school desk”, each person represents precisely the school desk - a piece of furniture for students to sit during classes. No one represents an ordinary or dining table, because the word contains a set of distinctive features - a kind of generalization. But when the teacher invites the student to sit at the desk, the actual meaning appears in the speech. Before the student is a specific subject of a certain color, size, shape. This suggests that in the meaning of each word there is denotation (generalization) and referent (specification).

Among the nouns one can distinguish more generalized concepts (generic) and more specific (specific). An example can be seen in the picture above. Thematic groups of words are a set of specific concepts that are combined into a more general - generic. For understanding, consider the scheme (depicted below), where it is examined how the lexical meaning of the species concept is formed. It is explained through the generic concept with the addition of species differences. What are sneakers ? These are shoes (a generic term) designed for sports. What else can be attributed to shoes? Shoes, boots, slates, slippers, clogs, sandals, boots. All these words are combined into a single thematic group - “shoes”.

Thematic inclusion

What concept can be attributed to the words: fishing rod, net, spinning, bait, bloodworm, mormyshka, fishing, hooking, biting ? Fishing . The above example is a sample of thematic inclusions. The game: “Find an Extra Word” helps to understand what thematic groups of words are best. Examples of the game are offered in the table below:

In each column, you need to find an extra word that is not included in the thematic group. Answer: hare, worm, fox.

Synonyms

In one thematic group, as inclusions, various parts of speech can enter. The Fishing example includes nouns and verbs. Synonyms are distinguished by the fact that they are one part of speech: film, motion picture, film, cinema; run, rush, race, drape; funny, funny, hilarious, funny . Do they constitute 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 utterance a certain expressiveness. Most linguists attribute a synonymous series to thematic groups. On average, they consist of a few words, but there are exceptions. So, the word "very" has 26 synonyms.

Combining occurs on the basis of a common feature. As an example, take the adjective "red". The group will consist of such synonyms as: ruby, coral, scarlet, cumaceous.

How to make thematic groups of words?

To do this, you need to know:

• The lexical meaning of the word.
• Have a specific vocabulary.
• To have a broad outlook.

What can help the student? Explanatory dictionary, where an explanation is given for each word used in the Russian language. The most famous authors who have gathered all the wealth of Russian vocabulary are S. I. Ozhegov and D. N. Ushakov, although there are more modern publications that incorporate changes associated with the use of English expressions. For example, T.F. Efremova collected 160 thousand articles.

Thematic groups of words are easy to compose for those who read a lot of fiction, actively use synonyms and are able to highlight similar words in the text. You can take an excerpt of a work of art for synonyms as an example. Such a task will also help:

It is necessary to highlight general (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 Supplies”.

Seasons examples

With what words can phenomena such as the seasons be described? To easily cope with the task, it is necessary to distinguish subgroups, for example: weather, nature, activities, clothes. They can be expanded. The principle of selection 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.

Only objects and phenomena are described in the example, but by analogy it is quite easy to add actions and signs of objects.