Lexicology 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. The subject of lexicology and its aim; The main problems of lexicology; Modern approaches to the study; Morphemes; Stem and root – what’s the difference? Functions of affixes; Productive ways and non-productive ways of word-building.
The subject of lexicology and its aim. • 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 wordgroups. 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. The word is a speech unit used for the purposes of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity.
The main problems of lexicology. • The problem of word building is associated with prevailing • • • morphological word-structures and with process of making new words. Semantics is the study of meaning; The vocabulary can be studied synchronically, that is, at a given stage of its development, or diachronically, that is, in the context of the processes through which it grew, developed and acquired its modern form; Phraseology is the branch of lexicology specializing in word-groups. Those are characterized by stability of structure and transferred meaning; The internal structure of the word or its meaning, nowadays commonly referred to as the word’s semantic structure. This is certainly the word’s main aspect. The area of lexicology specializing in the semantic studies of the word is called semantics.
Modern approaches to study. • There are two principal approaches in linguistic science to the study of • • language material, namely the synchronic (Gr. syn — ‘together, with’ and chronos — ‘time’) and the diachronic (Gr. dia — ‘through’) approach. With regard to Special Lexicology the synchronic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a given time, for instance, at the present time. It is special Desсriptive Lexicology that deals with the vocabulary and vocabulary units of a particular language at a certain time. A Course in Modern English Lexicology is therefore a course in Special Descriptive Lexicology, its object of study being the English vocabulary as it exists at the present time. The diachronic approach in terms of Special Lexicology deals with the changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time. It is special Historical Lexicology that deals with the evolution of the vocabulary units of a language as time goes by. An English Historical Lexicology would be concerned, therefore, with the origin of English vocabulary units, their change and development, the linguistic and extralinguistic factors modifying their structure, meaning and usage within the history of the English language
Modern approaches to study. • There are two different approaches to the study of the semantic • • structure: On the syntagmatic level, the semantic structure of the word is analysed in its linear relationships with neighbouring words in connected speech. In other words, the semantic characteristics of the word are observed, described and studied on the basis of its typical contexts. On the paradigmatic level, the word is studied in its relationships with other words in the vocabulary system. So, a word may be studied in comparison with other words of similar meaning (e. g. work, n. — labour, n. ; to refuse, v. — to reject v. — to decline, v. ), of opposite meaning (e. g. busy, adj. — idle, adj. ; to accept, v, — to reject, v. ), of different stylistic characteristics (e. g. man, n. — chap, n. — bloke, n. — guy, n. ). Consequently, the main problems of paradigmatic studies are synonymy, antonymy, functional styles.
Morphemes. • The morpheme is the smallest meaningful language unit. The morpheme consists of a • • • class of variants, allomorphs, which are either phonologically or morphologically conditioned, e. g. please, pleasant, pleasure. There are 5 types of morphemes: Free morphemes like town, and dog can appear with other lexemes (as in town hall or dog house) or they can stand alone, i. e. "free". E. g. , house, mouse, dog, bag, etc. Bound morphemes like "un-" appear only together with other morphemes to form a lexeme. Bound morphemes in general tend to be prefixes and suffixes. Unproductive, non-affix morphemes that exist only in bound form are known as "cranberry" morphemes, from the "cran" in that very word. E. g. , un-, re-, dis-, etc. Derivational morphemes can be added to a word to create (derive) another word: the addition of "-ness" to "happy, " for example, to give "happiness. " They carry semantic information. E. g. , -able, -less, -ly, etc. Inflectional morphemes modify a word's tense, number, aspect, and so on, without deriving a new word or a word in a new grammatical category (as in the "dog" morpheme if written with the plural marker morpheme "-s" becomes "dogs"). They carry grammatical information. E. g. , -s, -es Allomorphs are variants of a morpheme, e. g. the plural marker in English is sometimes realized as /-z/, /-s/ or /-ɨz/.
Stem and root. • The root is the primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. E. g. , RUNning, WRITten, under. STANDing, etc. • Stem (sometimes also theme) is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings. E. g. , UNDERSTANDing, MISTAKen, etc. Differences: 1. Stem carry the lexical meaning of the word and includes root and affixes. 2. A word can be consists of 2 or more roots, but the stem can be only the one;
Functions of affixes. • 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. 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. The main function of prefixes in English is to change the lexical meaning of the same part of speech. Inflexion is the way language modifies word forms to handle grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice, aspect (conjugation only), person, number (conjugation and declension), gender, case (declension only). The main function of inflexion is to show the relationship of words in the sentence.
Ways of word-building. • • Productive Affixation is one of the most productive ways of word-building throughout the history of English, which consists in adding an affix to the stem of a definite part of speech and is divided into suffixation and prefixation. E. g. , happy+ness=happyness, teach+er=teacher, care+full+ness=carefulness, etc. Composition is the way of word-building when a word is formed by joining two or more stems to form one word. E. g. , blackbird, bedroom, music-lover, newcomer, freshman, etc. Conversion consists of making a new word from some existing word by changing the category of a part of speech, the morphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged. E. g. , a nurse – to nurse, love to love, a face – to face, etc. Abbreviation of words consists in clipping a part of a word. As a result we get a new lexical unit where either the lexical meaning or the style is different form the full form of the word. In such cases as » fantasy» and «fancy» , «fence» and «defence» we have different lexical meanings. In such cases as «laboratory» and «lab» , we have different • • • Non-productive Sound interchange is the way of wordbuilding when some sounds are changed to form a new word. E. g. bath - to bathe, life to live, breath - to breathe etc. Stress interchange can be mostly met in verbs and nouns of Romanic origin : nouns have the stress on the first syllable and verbs on the last syllable, e. g. `accent - to ac`cent, dis`count - `discount, etc. Sound imitaion is the way of word-building when a word is formed by imitating different sounds. E. g. to moo, to bark, etc. Blends are words formed from a word-group or two synonyms. E. g. , slanguange, to hustle, gasohol etc. Back formation is the way of word-building when a word is formed by dropping the final morpheme to form a new word. E. g. , to accreditate (from accreditation), to bach (from bachelor), to collocate (from collocation), to enthuse (from enthusiasm), to compute (from computer), to emote (from emotion) to reminisce ( from reminiscence) , to televise (from television) etc.