Книга "Лексикология английского языка", Антрушина Г.Б. Афанасьева О.В.

Краткое описание/вступление:

age group or geographical lo-
cation. These are words without which no human communication 
would be possible as they denote objects and phenomena of everyday 
importance (e. g. house, bread, summer, winter, child, mother, green, 
difficult, to go, to stand, etc.).
   The basic vocabulary is the central group of the vocabulary, its 
historical foundation and living core. That is why words of this stra-
tum show a considerably greater stability in comparison with words 
of the other strata, especially informal.
   Basic vocabulary words can be recognised not only by their sty-
listic neutrality but, also, by entire lack of other connotations (i. e. 
attendant meanings). Their meanings are broad, general and directly 
convey the concept, without supplying any additional information.
   For instance, the verb to walk means merely "to move from place 
to place on foot" whereas in the meanings of its synonyms to stride, 
to stroll, to trot, to stagger and others, some additional information is 
encoded as they each describe a different manner of walking, a dif-
ferent gait, tempo, purposefulness or lack of purpose and even length 
of paces (see Ch. 10). Thus, to walk, with its direct broad meaning, is 
a typical basic vocabulary word, and its synonyms, with their elabo-
rate additional information encoded in their meanings, belong to the 
periphery of the vocabulary.
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   The basic vocabulary and the stylistically marked strata of the vo-
cabulary do not exist independently but are closely interrelated. Most 
stylistically marked words have their neutral counterparts in the basic 
vocabulary. (Terms are an exception in this respect.) On the other 
hand, colloquialisms may have their counterparts among learned 
words, most slang has counterparts both among colloquialisms and 
learned words. Archaisms, naturally, have their modern equivalents at 
least in some of the other groups.
   The table gives some examples of such synonyms belongi