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HUNGARIAN-ENGLISH LEXICAL CONTRASTS 7.5.4.4 Abbreviation of compounds and word combinations In English, there is a tendency to abbreviate compounds and word combinations to a single element, especially when they occur repeatedly. Ihe result is polysemy of the remaining element: gnome may mean gnome (“an ageless and often deformed dwarf of folklore who lives in the earth and usually guards treasure”; Merriam-Webster) or garden gnome (“lawn ornament figurines of small humanoid creatures”; Wikipedia). The phrase remote control is abbreviated to remote. The effect of this difference is similar to those described above. In general, we may say that most of the differences between the lexical systems of English and Hungarian are to a large extent related to motivational differences. For example, in using words in a new meaning, Hungarian tends to add a suffix or create a compound, while English may continue to use the same word without any formal change. In other words, transfer of meaning in Hungarian receives overt marking much earlier than in English, which tends to use the same form with multiple meanings. Consider the examples in Table 13: Table 13. Transfer of meaning in English and Hungarian words Basic spatial sense Transferred sense hosszú long hosszadalmas long, longish, lengthy széles wide széleskörű wide(spread) szűk narrow szűkös narrow; meggre, inadeguate magas high magasságos high mély deep mélységes deep sekély shallow sekélyes shallow könnyű light könnyelmű light 7.5.4.5 False cognates There are many cognate words in English and Hungarian, i.e., words that are formally similar and have the same origin. If their meanings are the same, we may rely on positive transfer, and they will be easy to learn: doktor — doctor, forma — form, motivdcié — motivation, absztrakt — abstract etc. False cognates are cognates whose meaning is different in L1 and L2, or which, in addition to the same meaning, have meanings not shared by both the L1 and the L2 word. Having the same form, they appear to be transferable, but in many cases they mislead learners. Table 14 contains a list of English-Hungarian and Hungarian—English false cognates. * 115 +
