Lexicology

Lexicology (from Gr lexis “word” and

logos “learning”) is the part of linguistics dealing with the

vocabulary of the language and the properties of words as the main units of language.

Lexicology as a branch of linguistics has its own aims and methods of scientific research, its basic task being a study and systematic description of vocabulary in respect to its origin, development and current use.

Lexicology is concerned with words, variable word-groups, phraseological units, and with morphemes which make up words.

2 types of lexicology

General Lexicology is concerned with the general study of words and vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language.

Special Lexicology is concerned the study and description of vocabulary and vocabulary units of a given language.

special descriptive lexicology (synchronic

lexicology) – deals with the vocabulary

and vocabulary units of a particular

language at a certain time

special historical lexicology (diachronic

lexicology) – deals with the changes

and the development of

vocabulary in the course of time.

The subject matter of lexicology

is separate words, their morphological and semantic structure, and the vocabulary of the language, which includes words, word combinations, their origin, development and current use.

Lexicology has lots of connections with other

branches which also have word as a central unit.

If lexicology studies the meaning of the word, Grammar studies grammatical problems. Both study roots, morphemes, affixes. But, unlike grammar, lexicological function is to name objects. Word is the smallest part of the sentence, and the sentence in its turn is the smallest communicative unit.

Also lexicology has connections with Phonetics. If we change the stress, we change the meaning of the word and even part of the speech: rEcord – recOrd, cOment – comEnt; blackboard – black board, blackbird – black bird.

Also it has some links with Stylistics. One of the problems of lexicology is

stylistic characteristics. Stylistics studies different stylistic styles. The reflection of the style is in the text. E.g. bookish style we often can find in classical fiction or textbooks; collocations – in speech.

And the last connection is with Social Linguistics (Cultural Studies):

language is a part of the culture, it’s a reflection of the mentality of people.

There are some specific word combinations and associations in every language. E.g. professions: kindness is

associated with social workers.

Word meaningSemasiology (semantics). Types of meaning. Change of meaning. Meaning and

polysemy.

Semasiology(Gr. “Sema” = “sign”, “Semantikos” = “significant”, “Logos” = “learning”) is a

brunch of linguistics which deals with the meaning of words and word equivalents.

Word is made up of many components and they are usually described as

types of meaning. Among the word’s various characteristics, meaning is

certainly the most important.

Types of word meaning.

Conceptual Meaning

Associative Meaning

Stylistic meaning

Collocative meaning

Affective meaning

Connotative meaning

Grammatical Meaning

Lexical Meaning

Grammatical meaning is an expression in speech of relationships between words based on contrasting features of arrangement in which they occur. The grammatical meaning is more abstract and more generalized than the lexical one. It unites words into big groups such as parts of speech or lexico-grammatical classes. Such word form as ‘girls’, ‘tables’ denote completely different objects but have the common element, the grammatical meaning of plurality.

Lexical meaning is the realization of concept or emotion by means of a definite language system. This type of meaning is identical in all the forms of the word. The lexical meaning of every word depends upon the part of speech to which the word belongs. (ex: drive – drives – drove – driven possess different grammatical meaning of tense, person, etc. but each form has the same semantical component denoting the process of movement).

Lexical meaning has two components: conceptual and

associative. Conceptual meaning (also known as denotative

meaning) is the meaning given in the dictionary and forms the core of word meaning. Conceptual meaning forms the basis for communication as the same word has the same conceptual meaning to all the speakers of the same language.

Associate meaning is the secondary meaning supplemented to the conceptual meaning. It differs from the conceptual meaning in that it is liable to the influence of such factors as culture, experience, religion, geographical region, class background, education, etc.

Associative meaning comprises four types:

Connotative meaning.In contrast to denotative meaning, connotative meaning refers to the overtones or associations which a word suggests or implies. Stylistic meaning.Words may have stylistic features, which make them appropriate for different contexts. This stylistic difference is especially true of synonyms. It is observed that there are few words which have both the same conceptual meaning and stylistic meaning. Affective meaning. Affective meaning indicates the speaker’s attitude towards the person or thing in question. Collocative meaning.Collocative meaning consists of the associations a word acquires in its collocation. In other words, it is that part of the word meaning suggested by the words before or after the word in discussion.

Semantics.

Sense relations

Homonymy. Synonymy. Antonymy.

Semantics is the study of meanings of words, phrases and

sentences. Semantics is a subfield of

linguistics that is traditionally defined as the study of meaning

of (parts of) words, phrases, sentences, and texts.

SynonymySynonyms are two or more forms with very closely related

meanings, which are often, but not always, intersubstitutable in sentences.

For example: broad=wide, almost=nearly

Synonyms may differ:- in emotional colouring: alone – lonely (sad, longing for

company) - in valency: win (a victory, a war) – gain (a victory, not a war!) - in style: begin (neutral) – commence (literary)

There are words that are similar in meaning only under some specific conditions – contextual synonyms. E.g. buy and get in a sentence: “I’ll go to the shop and get/buy some bread.”

Antonymy Antonyms are two (rarely more) words of the

same language belonging to the same part of speech with contradictory meaning (alive – dead, love –hate, useful - useless).

Unlike synonyms, antonyms do not differ in style, emotional coloring or distribution.

The same word may have different antonyms when used with different words: single ticket – return ticket,

she is single – she is married.

Homonyms Homomymy is recognized as a language

universal. It creates lexical ambiguity in that a single form has two or more different meanings.

Homonyms – the words of one and the same language which are identical phonetically or graphically in all or several grammar forms (and in all or several phonetic and graphic variants) but which have essential difference in lexical or grammatical meanings.

PHRASEOLOGY. PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS

Phraseologyis a branch of linguistics which studies different types of set expressions, which like words name various objects and phenomena.

They exist in the language as ready-made units.

A Phraseological unit can be defined as a non-motivated word-group that cannot be freely made up in speech, but is reproduced as a ready-made unit.

It is a group of words whose meaning cannot be deduced by examining the meaning of the constituent lexemes.

The essential features are: 1) lack of motivation; 2) stability of the lexical components.

Free-word groups and Phraseological units.

The free word-groups are only relatively free as collocability of their member-words is fundamentally delimited by their lexical and syntactic valency. Phraseological units are comparatively stable and semantically inseparable.

Distinctive features of free-word groups and phraseological units

Free word-groups Phraseological units

1. are formed in the process of speech according to the standards of the language;

1. exist in the language side-by-side with separate words;

2. are constructed in the process of communication by joining together words into a phrase;

2. are reproduced in speech as ready-made units;


3. substitution is possible; 3. no substitution is possible;

4. each of its components preserves its denotational meaning;

4. the denotational meaning belongs to the word group as a single semantically inseparable unit;


5. less structural unity; 5. greater structural unity;

6. components may have any of the forms of their paradigm.

6. components often have just one form of all the forms of their paradigm.

SEMANTIC CLASSIFICATION OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS (V.V.

Vinogradov) is based on the motivation of the unit

Phraseological fusions are units whose meaning cannot be deduced from the

meanings of their component parts. The meaning of PFs is unmotivated at the

present stage of language development, e.g.

red tape (бюрократизм, волокита), a mare’s nest (иллюзия, нечто несуществующее)

2. Phrasological unities are expressions the meaning of which can be deduced from the meanings of their components; the meaning of the whole is based on the transferred meanings of the components, e.g. to show one’s teeth (to be unfriendly), to stand to one’s guns (to refuse to change one’s opinion), etc. They are motivated expressions.

3. Phraseological collocations are not only motivated but contain one component used in its direct meaning, while the other is used metaphorically, e.g. to meet requirements, to attain success.

In this group of PUs some substitutions are possible which do not destroy the meaning of the metaphoric element, e.g. to meet the needs, to meet the demand, to meet the necessity; to have success, to lose success.

The characteristic features of phraseological

units are:1. ready-made reproduction, 2. structural divisibility, 3. morphological stability, 4. permanence of lexical composition, 5. semantic unity, 6. syntactic fixity.

Word formation

Productive and Non-productive ways of word

building

Word formation is the creation of a new word

It is s a branch of science of the language, which studies the patterns on which a language forms new lexical items (new unities, new words)

It’s a process of forming words by combining root and affixal morphemes.

Different types of word formation:

There are 2 ways of word formation: productive and non-productive ways. Productive ways includes affixation, word

composition, conversion, abbreviation. Non-productive way includes sound

interchange, stress interchange, sound imitation, blending, back formation.

Productive way. Affixation.

It consists of adding an affix to the stem of a definite part of speech. The main function of suffixation is to form one part of speech from another.

The secondary function is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech.

Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation.

PrefixationA prefix is an affixation process that

includes adding a morpheme at the beginning of the word. There are different types: negative prefixes(unfair, non-stop), pejorative prefixes(to misbehave), prefixes of place (Locative prefixes)(midway, transatlantic), prefixes of size, degree and status(micro-, macro-, mini-, co-, vice-), prefixes of time and order(ex-wife, midnight, preview), prefixes of number (mono-, poly-, semi-, tri-) and others.

Suffixation It is a formation of new words by adding

suffixes to the stem. There are 5 groups of suffixation:

- Noun-forming –er, -dom, -ism- Adjective-forming –able, -less, -ous- Verb-forming -ize, -ify, -en- Adverb-forming –ly, -ward, -wise- Numeral-forming –teen, -ty, -fold

Compounding It refers to the joining of two separate

words to produce a single word. The two words don’t lose their individual sounds. Bookcase Fingerprint Sunburn Doorknob Basketball

Conversion

This is the change of the function of the word. For example when a noun comes to be used as a verb.Bag – to bagBack – to back Bottle – to bottle

Abbreviation Word groups can be shortened. Examples:

professor-prof. Fantasy-fancy.

Abbriviation can be graphical (a.m.- in the morning, i.e.- that is) and Initial (J.V.- joint venture, BBC, UK, UNESCO)

Abbreviation of words consists in clipping a part of a word.

Clipping

Clipping a synonym of reduction. In this process a word that has more than one syllable is reduced to a shorter form Brassiere (bra) Fanatic (fan) Situation Comedy (sitcom)

Non-productive way.

Blending.

New words are formed from a word group or two synonyms by clipping the end of the first component and the beginning of the second component

medical + care = medicareSpanish + English = Spanglish Modulator + demodulator = Modem

Backformationor Negative derivation.

A complex word exists first, the non-affixed form is derived later, e.g.

–baby-sitter to baby-sit –editor to edit

Sound imitation Other terms for sound imitation are

onomatopoeia and echoism.Words coined by this type of word

building are made by imitating different kinds of sounds that may be produced by animals, birds, human beings and inanimate objects.

Dogs – barkcocks – cock-a-doodle-doocats – mew (miaow, meow)cows – moo (low).

Stress interchange

is one of the ways of word building, based on a shift of stress

'conduct – to con'duct'present – to pre'sent 'frequent - to fre'quent

Lexicology

Education

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