Lexicology as a science 1 The object of

Lexicology as a science 1. The object of lexicology. 2. Lexical units. Main lexicological problems. 3. Lexicology and other sciences. 4. Types of naming.

Recommended literature: • Антрушина, Г. Б. , Афанасьева, О. В. , Морозова, Н. Н. Лексикология английского языка: Учеб. пособие для студентов. – 3 -е изд. , стереотип. – M. : Дрофа, 2001. - С. 6 -11. • Arnold I. V. The English word. – M. : Высш. школа, 1986. - С. 9 -18. • Харитончик З. А. Лексикология английского языка: Учеб. пособие. –Мн. : Выш. шк. , 1992. – С. 5 -11. • Дубенец Э. М. Лексикология современного английского языка: лекции и семинары. Пособие для студентов гуманитарных вузов. – М. : «Глосса. Пресс» , 2002. – С. 4 -5.

1. 3 main aspects of language: The study of language embodies • the sound system, grammar and vocabulary. Correspondingly they are studied by phonetics, grammar (both morphology and syntax) and lexicology they operate such terms denoting language units as a phoneme, morpheme, lexeme and sentence.

Lexicological studies: General lexicology is the general study of words and vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language; • Special lexicology is the description of the characteristic peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language; • Contrastive lexicology provides a theoretical basis on which the vocabularies of different languages can be compared and described; •

• Synchronic or descriptive lexicology (Greek ‘syn’‘together, with’, ‘chronos’ ‘time’) deals with the vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of its development; • Historic or diachronic lexicology (Greek ‘dia’- ‘through’, ‘chronos’ – ‘time’) or etymology is concerned with the evolution of any vocabulary, discusses the origin of various words, their change and development, investigates the linguistic and extra-linguistic forces modifying their structure, meaning and usage.

2. The units of vocabulary / lexical units • words, the basic units forming the bulk of the vocabulary, then some refer to • morphemes as units into which words can be analysed, and • set – expressions – groups of words stable by character into which words may combine.

The word has been defined • by S. Ullman as ‘a meaningful unit’ (a purely semantic definition of words); • By H. Sweet as ‘the minimum sentence’ (the syntactic definition), • by L. Bloomfield ‘a minimum free form’ (free forms being understood as ‘forms which occur as sentence’); • by A. Gardiner: “A word is an articulate soundsymbol in its aspect of denoting something which is spoken about” (the semantic – phonological approach ).

• A. Meillet combined the semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria: “A word is defined by the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment”. • a formal definition was created for computers: “A word is a sequence of graphemes which can occur between spaces, or the presentation of such a sequence on morphemic level”.

The characteristics of a word: • it is a unit used in communication; • it is perceived as the totality of sounds which comprise it; • it has external and internal structures. (The external structure is its morphological structure. The inner structure of a word is its semantic structure made up by all lexico-semantic variants of a word). • Another structural feature of a word is its unity, both external (formal) and semantic. Though a word can be divided into morphemes they are permanently linked together, having no structural freedom of their arrangement.

4. Types of nomination • lexical nomination - nomination by means of words, • Primary, or direct nomination is the use of language units in their primary meaning (when a word denotes a separate object, e. i. each object has its own name) • Secondary nomination is the use of language units in their transferred meaning (when the same word is used to denote another object, on the basis of various associations ) • • propositive nomination - nomination by means of a sentence, discoursive nomination - nomination by means of a text.

• 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.

Properties of a linguistic sign: • a two-facet nature (a sign is an inseparable unity of • • the material facet, perceived by senses, sound or/and graphic – the plane of expression, and ideal – kept in mind information associated with the form – the plane of content); the systematic nature (a linguistic sign can exist only as a unit of a sign system in relations of interdependence and opposition with other units); the ready-made character (a linguistic sign is not created anew every time but is reproduced in a fixed form); the ability to generalize (a linguistic sign can denote not only an individual object but also a class of similar objects); combinability (a linguistic sign can combine with other linguistic signs).

Types of lexicological problems connected with the study of the word: • the problem of word-building: morphological word structures and word building patterns and processes of making new words; • the problem of the study of meaning, i. e. semantic studies , at 2 levels of study: syntagmatic and paradigmatic. • the problem of study of word – groups characterized by stability of structure and transferred meaning, i. e. phraseological units: to feel blue, white lie, to pull one’s leg.

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