Valery Mykhaylenko, D.Sc., Benjamin Shiman, B.A.

Chernivtsi, Ukraine

VERBALIZING THE CONCEPT OF “BUDGET”

Abstract: The concept budget is represented by the dominant lexeme budget which definition is undergone a linguistic analysis. Its constituents are verified in the text fragments of the discourse from the National variant Corpus. The samples illustrate the scientific and naïve world views.

Key words: nomination, lexeme, concept, corpus, national variant, conceptual system,

LSP, definitional analysis.

There are three main approaches to the language: (1) the formal approach focuses on the overt structural patterns exhibited by linguistic forms, the approaches including the study of syntactic, morphological, and morphemic structure; (2) the psychological approach regards language from the perspective of general cognitive systems (such as perception, memory, attention, and reasoning). Leonrd Talmy stresses that “understanding how the mind works entails understanding the principles of organization that characterize it overall and that characterize its various systems” [18, 253-268]; (3) the conceptual approach of cognitive linguistics is concerned with the patterns in which and processes by which conceptual content is organized in language (see the wworks: Yu. Apresian, 1997; N. Arutiunova, 1999; E. Kubriakova, 1997; A. Kravchenko, 1996 et al.) . It has thus addressed the linguistic structuring of such basic conceptual categories as space and time, scenes and events, entities and processes, motion and location, and force and causation.. The conceptual analysis based upon the combinability of language units (A. Wierzbicka, 1988), allows to search for semantic domains representing the concept. Of course, the definituaional analysis of the lexemes under study must come first identifying specific words as such [see pro et contra attitudes towards the conceptual analysis: 18, 253-268; 14, 267-291].

The objective of the present paper is to give a definitional analysis of the lexeme budget which represents the concept budget in the scientific world view and in the naïve world view to further reveal common and differential features in the English language. The fact is that the dictionary structure of the word definitions form the word meaning constituted by other word meanings. This is the way of generating the semantic structure of the word, expressing its content – qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the word meaning [1, 50-1].

The semantic structure of the word meaning presented in the dictionary registers the development of every individual word meaning and accordingly the language semantic structure. Historically, the lexeme budget comes from: early 15c., "leather pouch," from Middle French bougette, diminutive of Old French bouge "leather bag, wallet, pouch," from Latin bulga "leather bag," of Gaulish origin (cf. Old Irish bolg "bag," Breton bolc'h "flax pod"), from PIE *bhelgh- (see: belly). Modern financial meaning (1733) is from the notion of a treasury minister keeping his fiscal plans in a wallet. Another 18c. transferred sense was to "a bundle of news," hence the use of the word as the title of some newspapers [6].

We shall not go into the debate on the status of the definitional analysis: it equals to the componential one; it is an instrument of the componential analysis [See: 3, 8-13]. We believe that the dictionary word definition is reliable and trustworthy, because a lexicographer assiduously registers the components, introduces new components and illustrates them with the necessary data. The componential analysis has its own aim and method which can be based on the results of the definitional analysis.

Let’s start with the definitional analysis of the lexeme budget given in the Oxford Dictionary: it is termed as the estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time [15]. In the following definition the component money is stressed, see: budget is the money available to an organization or person, or a plan of how it will be spent; or an official statement that a government makes about how much it intends to spend and what taxes will be necessary, see the Longman dictionary [12].

The MacMillan Dictionary underlines two nuclear components in the semantic structure of the lexeme budget “money” (the amount of money a person or organization has to spend on something) and the “statement” (about the financial position of the UK, given in a speech to Parliament every year and including details about future changes to taxes and public spending )[13].

I American English budget is a plan for the coordination of resources and expenditures [19].

2. Budget is the amount of money that is available for, required for, or assigned to a particular purpose [19].

3. Budget is an itemized summary of expected income and expenditure of a country, company, etc, over a specified period, usually a financial year [5].

4. Budget is an estimate of income and a plan for domestic expenditure of an individual or a family, often over a short period, such as a month or a week [5].

5. Budget – the total amount of money allocated for a specific purpose during a specified period [5].

6. Budget is an amount of money available for spending that is based on a plan for how it will be spent [11].

7. Budget is an official statement from a government about how much it plans to spend during a particular period of time and how it will pay for the expenses [11].

In the ELSP “Economics” the term budget realizes the component “an estimation of the revenue and expenses over a specified future period of time”.

A budget can be made for a person, family, group of people, business, government, country, multinational organization or just about anything else that makes and spends money. A budget is a microeconomic concept that shows the tradeoff made when one good is exchanged for another [8].

It can be further illustrated: a surplus budget means profits are anticipated, while a balanced budget means that revenues are expected to equal expenses. A deficit budget means that expenses will exceed revenues. Budgets are usually compiled and re-evaluated on a periodic basis. Adjustments are made to budgets based on the goals of the budgeting organization. In some cases, budget makers are happy to operate at a deficit, while in other cases, operating at a deficit is seen as financially irresponsible [8].

The frequency of the lexeme budget is 8300 in The British National Corpus constituted by 100 ml word forms. “Corpus linguistics as a (sub-) discipline in its own right has lead to a new focus on qualitative analysis together with a concern of discourse in Foucauldian sense, i.e. as a concrete socio-historical formation characterised by particular ways of using language [9, 15-56].

1. It is a document in which the government sets out the Budget, the short-term economic forecast and the medium-term financial strategy, which provides financial framework for economic policy.BNC.

2. Comparing actual financial results with the legally adopted budget. BNC.

3. The budget is divided into planning periods to suit the nature of the company's business and each period is represented by three columns. BNC.

4. Work out a day-to-day budget and stick to it. BNC.

5. The budget, of course, also has a major bearing on the level of next year's Poll Tax bills. BNC.

6. The responsibility for a particular budget should be clearly defined. BNC.

7. The manager knows that the normal level of spending would leave the budget underspent and that this underspending will have to be forfeited with a possible consequent reduction in next year's budget. BNC.

8. During the budget debate many deputies argued for heavier spending on public works projects to cut unemployment, rather than the introduction of measures to reduce the budget deficit. BNC.

9. Budget surpluses are now the norm and the emphasis is on repaying government debt rather than borrowing. BNC.

10. Work out your basic budget — for food, to pay the rent or mortgage and any essential bills BNC. [4].

The dominant component estimation (of the revenue and expenses over a specified future period of time) is common to all the ten cases from British English. Let’s compare the illustrations functioning in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (the volume – 450 ml words), where the lexeme budget has its frequency - 43299 :

11. The Pentagon budget will shrink slightly next year for the first time since 1998, the Obama administration.

NPßN+ budget

12. Most states had very difficult budget years in 2009, 2010, and 2011.

NPßN + budget

13. In the battles over the 2011-2012 state budget appropriations, for instance, some states.

14. They call for a fiscal union in which those countries with budget surpluses would transfer funds each year to the countries running budget deficit.

NP ß budget +N

15. This last point leads us to consider the cost side of the college budget.

NPßN+ budget

16. Since force building is a lengthy process, appropriate decisions on force structure and budget allocations are required as soon as possible. NP ß budget +N

17. In times when budget constraints require judicious use of monies.

NP ß budget +N

18. Even if the eurozone countries reduced their large budget deficits and thereby alleviated the threat to the commercial banks.

19. Greece's budget deficit of nine percent of GDP is too large.

NPßN+ budget

20. Budget decisions are primarily made based on objective outcomes

NPßN+ budget.

Nelya. R. Koteyko emphasizes the importance of data driven research within the that possible in the field that investigates the interrelations between the linguistic and the social” aspect that is possible due to the corpus available.” [9] Besides, the lexical grammatical combinability of the lexeme is revealed due to the discourse register analysis:

(2) Adnv + Ved + Budget

(4,6) Adj + Budget

(7) Adj + N’s + Budget

(8, 9) Budget (Adj) + N

(10) I(pr) + Adj + Budget.

The conceptual system budget is represented by The Lexical Semantic Domain “budget”: estimates, estimated expenses, allocations, allowance, budgetary figures, accounts, financial statement, financial plan, cost of operation, cost of living, funds, resources, means, spending plan, planned disbursement. M.Pêcheux maintains that words do not have their own "word" meanings. As he writes, "a word, expression or proposition does not have a meaning of its own, a meaning attached to its literality." Pêcheux emphasizes that meaning, "does not exist anywhere except in the metaphorical relationships (realized in substitution effects, paraphrases, synonym formations) which happen to be more or less provisionally located in a given discursive formation: words, expressions, and propositions get their meanings from the discursive formation to which they belong" [16, 188].The concept can be represented by a conceptual system common for the both National Variants of English - British and American:

BUDGETàBALANCEàPLANàPROGRAMMEàFUNDàMONETARY FUNDàCALCULATIONàLIST.

In conclusion we must say that the definition registered in the dictionary and verified in the Language Corpus is more reliable than a deductive semantic taxonomies designed by linguist’s imagination. The constituents of the conceptual system “budget” have found their verbalization in the discourse. The choice of the constituent depends primarily on the author’s intention and the on the unit combinability and the discourse register.

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