Lexicology and other branches of linguistics

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  The term «lexicology» is of Greek origin / from «lexis» - «word» and «logos» - «science». Lexicology is the part of linguistics, which deals with the vocabulary and characteristic features of words and word-groups. The term «vocabulary» is used to denote the system of words and word-groups that the language possesses. The term «word» denotes the main lexical unit of a language resulting from the association of a group of sounds with a meaning. This unit is used in grammatical functions characteristic of it. It is the smallest unit of a language, which can stand alone as a complete utterance. The term «word-group» denotes a group of words which exists in the language as a ready-made unit, has the unity of meaning, the unity of syntactical function, e.g. the word-group «as loose as a goose» means «clumsy» and is used in a sentence as a predicative / He is as loose as a goose/. Lexicology can study the development of the vocabulary, the origin of words and word-groups, their semantic relations and the development of their sound form and meaning. In this case it is called historical lexicology. Another branch of lexicology is called descriptive and studies the vocabulary at a definite stage of its development. Lexicology is a branch of linguistics – the science of language. The literal meaning of the term “lexicology” is “the science of the word”. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics has its own aims & methods of scientific research. Its basic task – being a study & systematic description of vocabulary in respect to its origin, development & its current use. Lexicology is concerned with words, variable word-groups, phraseological units & morphemes, which make up words. Distinction is made between GENERAL LEXICOLOGY & SPECIAL LEXICOLOGY. General lexicology is a part of General linguistics. It is concerned with the study of vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language. Special lexicology is the lexicology of a particular language (Russian, German, French, etc.). Lexicology is closely connected with other branches of linguistics: phonetics, for example, investigates the phonetic structure of language & is concerned with the study of the outer sound-form of the word. Grammar is the study of the grammatical structure of language. It is concerned with the various means of expressing grammatical relations between words as well as with patterns after which words are combined into word-groups & sentences. There is also a close relationship between lexicology & stylistics, which is concerned with a study of a nature, functions & styles of languages. Lexicology – 'science of the word', a branch of linguistics, which basic task is a study and systematic description of vocabulary in respect to its origin, development and current use.
  1. general lexicology – part of general linguistics, is concerned with the study of vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language;
  2. special lexicology – the lexicology of a particular language, i.e. the study and description of its vocabulary and vocabulary units, primarily words as the main units of language.; special lexicology is based on the principles worked out and laid down by general lexicology, a general theory of vocabulary. Special lexicology employs synchronic (q.v.) and diachronic (q.v.) approaches: - 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.
Lexicology presents a wide area of knowledge.
  1. Historical lexicology deals with the historic change of words in the course of lang. development.
  2. Comparative lexicology studies closely relative languages from the point of view of their identity and differentiation.
  3. Contrastive- both relative and unrelative languages establishes differences and similarity.
  4. Applied lexicology - translation, lexicography, pragmatics of speech.
Lexicology investigates various meaning relations existing in the lang., how the lexicon words to provide and support meaningful communication. Each word is a part of entire system language vocabulary. Every item of a language stands closely with 2 other items.
  • the sintagmatic level
  • the paradygmatic level.
On the sintagmatic level the semantic structure of a word is analyzed in it’s linear relationships with neighbouring words. On the paradigmatic level - relationship with other words in the vocabulary system: synonyms, polysemantic words, antonyms.

 

43) Principle Ways of the Word-Formation

Word-formation is the brunch of lexicology which studies the derivative structure of existing words and the patterns on which a language builds new words. Word-building is one of the main ways of enriching vocabulary. Word-formation is the system of derivative types of words and the process of creating new words from the material available in the language after certain structural and semantic formulae and patterns.

There are fourmain ways of word-building in modern English: affixation, composition, conversion, abbreviation.

There are also secondary ways of word-building: sound interchange, stress interchange, sound imitation, blends, and back formation

The main ways

Affixation is one of the most productive ways of word-building throughout the history of English. It consists in adding an affix to the stem of a definite part of speech. Affixation is divided into suffixation and prefixation.

Suffixation. The main function of suffixes in Modern English is to form one part of speech from another, the secondary function is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. ( e.g. «educate» is a verb, «educatee» is a noun, and « music» is a noun, «musicdom» is also a noun) . Prefixation is the formation of words by means of adding a prefix to the stem. In English it is characteristic for forming verbs. Prefixes can be classified according to the nature of words in which they are used: prefixes used in notional words and prefixes used in functional words Prefixes used in notional words are proper prefixes which are bound morphemes, e.g. un- (unhappy). Prefixes used in functional words are semi-bound morphemes because they are met in the language as words, e.g. over- (overhead) ( cf over the table ). The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. But the recent research showed that about twenty-five prefixes in Modern English form one part of speech from another (bebutton, interfamily, postcollege etc)

 

-- Compasition - is a very productive word building means in modern English. The aim of this process is to combine two stems to produce one word.

 

f.e. bedroom; blackboard

Composition is the way of wordbuilding when a word is formed by joining two or more stems to form one word. The structural unity of a compound word depends upon : a) the unity of stress, b) solid or hyphonated spelling, c) semantic unity, d) unity of morphological and syntactical functioning. These are charachteristic features of compound words in all languages.

 

CONVERSION

Conversion is a characteristic feature of the English word-building system. It is also called affixless derivation or zero-suffixation. The term "conversion" first appeared in the book by Henry Sweet "New English Grammar" in 1891. Conversion is treated differently by different scientists, e.g. prof. A.I. Smirntitsky treats conversion as a morphological way of forming words when one part of speech is formed from another part of speech by changing its paradigm, e.g. to form the verb "to dial" from the noun "dial" we change the paradigm of the noun (a dial,dials) for the paradigm of a regular verb (I dial, he dials, dialed, dialing).

 

ABBREVIATION
In the process of communication words and word-groups can be shortened. The causes of shortening can be linguistic and extra-linguistic. By extra-linguistic causes changes in the life of people are meant. In Modern English many new abbreviations, acronyms , initials, blends are formed because the tempo of life is increasing and it becomes necessary to give more and more information in the shortest possible time. There are also linguistic causes of abbreviating words and word-groups, such as the demand of rhythm, which is satisfied in English by monosyllabic words. When borrowings from other languages are assimilated in English they are shortened. Here we have modification of form on the basis of analogy, e.g. the Latin borrowing "fanaticus" is shortened to "fan" on the analogy with native words: man, pan, tan etc. for example (Latin exampli gratia), a.m. - in the morning (ante meridiem), No - number (numero), p.a. - a year (per annum), d - penny (dinarius), lb - pound (libra), i. e. - that is (id est) etc. There are two main types of shortenings : graphical and lexical.

 

The SECONDARY WAYS

SOUND INTERCHANGE

is the way of word-building when some sounds are changed to form a new word. It is non-productive in Modern English, it was productive in Old English and can be met in other Indo-European languages. The causes of sound interchange can be different. It can be the result of Ancient Ablaut which cannot be explained by the phonetic laws during the period of the language development known to scientists., e.g. to strike - stroke, to sing - song etc. It can be also the result of Ancient Umlaut or vowel mutation which is the result of palatalizing the root vowel because of the front vowel in the syllable coming after the root ( regressive assimilation), e.g. hot - to heat (hotian), blood - to bleed (blodian) etc. In many cases we have vowel and consonant interchange.

 

SOUND IMITATION It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by imitating different sounds. There are some semantic groups of words formed by means of sound imitation a) sounds produced by human beings, such as : to whisper, to giggle, to mumble, to sneeze, to whistle etc. b) sounds produced by animals, birds, insects, such as : to hiss, to buzz, to bark, to moo, to twitter etc. c) sounds produced by nature and objects, such as : to splash, to rustle, to clatter, to bubble, to ding-dong, to tinkle etc. The corresponding nouns are formed by means of conversion, e.g. clang (of a bell), chatter (of children) etc.

BLENDS Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms. In blends two ways of word-building are combined : abbreviation and composition. To form a blend we clip the end of the first component (apocope) and the beginning of the second component (apheresis) . As a result we have a compound- shortened word. One of the first blends in English was the word "smog" from two synonyms : smoke and fog which means smoke mixed with fog. From the first component the beginning is taken, from the second one the end, "o" is common for both of them.

BACK FORMATION It is the way of word-building when a word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new word. It is opposite to suffixation, that is why it is called back formation. At first it appeared in the languauge as a result of misunderstanding the structure of a borrowed word . Prof. Yartseva explains this mistake by the influence of the whole system of the language on separate words. E.g. it is typical of English to form nouns denoting the agent of the action by adding the suffix -er to a verb stem (speak- speaker). So when the French word "beggar" was borrowed into English the final syllable "ar" was pronounced in the same way as the English -er and Englishmen formed the verb "to beg" by dropping the end of the noun.

44) Main principles of classification of Affixation: Suffixation and Prefixation.

Suffixes

Suffixes have been classified according to their origin, parts of speech they served to form, productivity and other characteristics. Within the parts of speech suffixes have been classified semantically according to lexico-grammatical groups and semantic fields, and last but not least, according to the types of stems they are added to. In conformity with our primarily synchronic approach it seems convenient to begin with the classification according to the part of speech in which the most frequent suffixes of present-day English occur. 1 Noun-forming suffixes: -age (bondage, breakage, mileage, vicarage); -ance/-ence2 (assistance, reference); -ant/-ent (disinfectant, student); -dom (kingdom, freedom, officialdom); -ее (employee); -eer (profiteer); -er (writer, type-writer); -ess (actress, lioness); -hood (manhood); -ing (building, meaning, washing); -ion/-sion/-tion/-ation (rebellion, tension, creation, explanation); -ism/-icism (heroism, criticism); -ist (novelist, communist); -ment (government, nourishment); -ness (tenderness); -ship (friendship); -(i)ty (sonority). Adjective-forming suffixes: -able/-ible/-uble (unbearable, audible, soluble); -al (formal); -ic (poetic); -ical (ethical); -ant/-ent (repentant, dependent); -ary (revolutionary); -ate/-ete (accurate, complete); -ed/-d (wooded); -ful (delightful); -an/-ian (African, Australian); -ish (Irish, reddish, childish); -ive (active); -less (useless); -like (lifelike); -ly (manly); -ous/-ious (tremendous, curious); -some (tiresome); -y (cloudy, dressy). Numeral-forming suffixes: -fold (twofold); -teen (fourteen); -th (seventh); -ty (sixty). Verb-forming suffixes: -ate (facilitate); -er (glimmer); -en (shorten); -fy/-ify (terrify, speechify, solidify); -ise/-ize (equalise); -ish (establish). Adverb-forming suffixes: -ly (coldly); -ward/-wards (upward, northwards); -wise (likewise). 2) Suffixes may be added to the stem of different parts of speech. According to this point of view they may be: 1) those added to verbs: – er, – ing, – ment, – able; 2) those added to nouns: – less, – ish, – ful, – ist, some etc; 3) those added to adjectives: – en, – ly, – ish, – ness etc. Suffixes are also classified according to their stylistic reference: 1) suffixes, which characterize neutral stylistic reference: – able, – er, – ing (ex. dancer, understandable (helping); 2) suffixes which characterize a certain stylistic reference: – oid, – form, – tron etc (astroid, rhomboid, cruciform, cyclotron etc).   3) the suffixes are also classified according to their meaning: A classification of suffixes may also be based on the criterion of sense expressed by a set of suffixes. Proceeding from this principle suffixes are classified into various groups within the bounds of a certain part of speech. 1) the agent suffixes: – er, – or, – ist, – ee etc. (baker, sailor, typist, employee); 2) appurtenance: – an, – ian, – ese (Arabian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese); 3) collectivity: – age, – dom, – hood, – ery (peasantry, marriage, kingdom, childhood); 4) dimi-nutiveness: – let, – ock, – ie etc (birdie, cloudlet, hillock); 5) quan-titativeness1: – ful, – ous, – y, – ive, – ly, – some.   Suffixes are also classified as to the degree of their productivity.   4. Productivity. Here we can point out the following groups: a) productive, such as : -er, -ize, --ly, -ness. b) semi-productive, such as : -eer, -ette, -ward. c) non-productive , such as : -ard (drunkard), -th (length).     5. Origin of suffixes. Here we can point out the following groups: a) native (Germanic), such as -er,-ful, -less, -ly. b) Romanic, such as : -tion, -ment, -able, -eer. c) Greek, such as : -ist, -ism, -ize. d) Russian, such as -nik.   Prefixes According to their meaning Prefixes may be classified according to their meaning. 1) Prefixes of negative meaning such as: de-, non-, un-, in-, ir-, il-, im-, dis-, and so on. Ex: debeat; decentralize; disappear; impossible; discomfort. 2) Prefixes denoting space and time relations: after-, under-, for-, pre-, post, over-, super-; Ex: prehistory; postposition; superstructure; overspread; afternoon; forfather. 3) Prefixes denoting relation of an action such as: re-. Ex: reread, remark, redo.   Origin of prefixes: a) native (Germanic), such as: un-, over-, under- etc. b) Romanic, such as : in-, de-, ex-, re- etc. c) Greek, such as : sym-, hyper- etc. When we analyze such words as : adverb, accompany where we can find the root of the word (verb, company) we may treat ad-, ac- as prefixes though they were never used as prefixes to form new words in English and were borrowed from Romanic languages together with words. In such cases we can treat them as derived words. But some scientists treat them as simple words. Another group of words with a disputable structure are such as : contain, retain, detain and conceive, receive, deceive where we can see that re-, de-, con- act as prefixes and -tain, -ceive can be understood as roots. But in English these combinations of sounds have no lexical meaning and are called pseudo-morphemes. Some scientists treat such words as simple words, others as derived ones. The nouns freedom, wisdom, etc. were originally compound words. The most important native suffixes are: -d, -dom, -ed, -en, -fold, -ful, -hood, -ing, -ish, -less, -let, -like, -lock, -ly, -ness, -oc, -red, -ship, -some, -teen, -th, -ward, -wise, -y. The suffixes of foreign origin are classified according to their source into Latin (-able/-ible, -ant/-ent), French (-age, -ance/-ence, -ancy/-ency, -ard, -ate, -sy), Greek (-ist, -ism, -ite), etc. The term borrowed affixes is not very exact as affixes are never borrowed as such, but only as parts of loan words. To enter the morphological system of the English language a borrowed affix has to satisfy certain conditions. The borrowing of the affixes is possible only if the number of words containing this affix is considerable, if its meaning and function are definite and clear enough, and also if its structural pattern corresponds to the structural patterns already existing in the language. If these conditions are fulfilled, the foreign affix may even become productive and combine with native stems or borrowed stems within the system of English vocabulary like -able < Lat -abilis in such words as laughable or unforgettable and unforgivable. The English words balustrade, brigade, cascade are borrowed from French.    
45) CLASSIFICATIONS OF COMPOUNDS words 1. According to the parts of speech compounds are subdivided into: a) nouns, such as : baby-moon, globe-trotter, b) adjectives, such as : free-for-all, power-happy, c) verbs, such as : to honey-moon, to baby-sit, to henpeck, d) adverbs, such as: downdeep, headfirst, e) prepositions, such as: into, within, f) numerals, such as : fifty-five. 2. According to the way components are joined together compounds are divided into: a) neutral, which are formed by joining together two stems without any joining morpheme, e.g. ball-point, to windowshop, b) morphological where components are joined by a linking element : vowels "o" or "i" or the consonant "s", e.g. {"astrospace", "handicraft", "sportsman"), c) syntactical where the components are joined by means of form-word stems, e.g. here-and-now, free-for-all., do-or-die . 3. According to their structure compounds are subdivided into: a) compound words proper which consist of two stems, e.g. to job-hunt, train-sick, go-go, tip-top , b) derivational compounds, where besides the stems we have affixes, e.g. ear-minded, hydro-skimmer, c) compound words consisting of three or more stems, e.g. cornflower-blue, eggshell-thin, singer-songwriter, d) compound-shortened words, e.g. boatel, tourmobile, VJ-day, motocross, intervision, Eurodollar, Camford. 4. According to the relations between the components compound words are subdivided into : a) subordinative compounds where one of the components is the semantic and the structural centre and the second component is subordinate; these subordinative relations can be different: with comparative relations, e.g. honey-sweet, eggshell-thin, with limiting relations, e.g. breast-high, knee-deep, with emphatic relations, e.g. dog-cheap, with objective relations, e.g. gold-rich, with cause relations, e.g. love-sick, with space relations, e.g. top-heavy, with time relations, e.g. spring-fresh, with subjective relations, e.g. foot-sore etc b) coordinative compounds where both components are semantically independent. Here belong such compounds when one person (object) has two functions, e.g. secretary-stenographer, woman-doctor, Oxbridge etc. Such compounds are called additive. This group includes also compounds formed by means of reduplication, e.g. fifty-fifty, no-no, and also compounds formed with the help of rhythmic stems (reduplication combined with sound interchange) e.g. criss-cross, walkie-talkie. 5. According to the order of the components compounds are divided into compounds with direct order, e.g. kill-joy, and compounds with indirect order, e.g. nuclear-free, rope-ripe .