1) Subject of lexicology. Interconnection between lexicology and other branches of linguistic science

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics, dealing with the vocabulary of a language and the properties of words as the main unit of language, id est it’s the study and analysis of words. The term ‘lexicology’ is composed of 2 Greek morphemes- lexic (which means word or phrase) and logos (which means a department of knowledge). The literal meaning of the term is the science (study of the word). Basic task is a systematic description of the vocabulary of some particular language in respect to its origin, development and current use. It’s significant that many scholars have attempted to define the word as a linguistic phenomenon, id est non of the definitions can be considered totally satisfactory, because we don’t know almost nothing about the origin of words and the mechanism by which speaker’s mental process is converted into sound groups, called words, nor about the reverse process, then a listener’s brain converts the acoustic phenomena into concepts and ideas. The definition of the word is the most difficult problem in linguistics, because the word has different aspects. Every word has – its morphological structure, its sound form, its different meanings. When studied by linguists, the word can be defined syntactically, semantically, phonologically and by combining various approaches. 1)Syntactically it was defined by Henry Sweet and Leonard Bloomfield. Sweet called it a minimum sentence – ‘the smallest possible sentence and Bloomfield called it a minimum free form, a form, which can be used independently, id est without combining with any other forms. 2) Scholars of the semantic approach underline that all words are meaningful. Some other scholars combine the syntactic and the semantic approaches and define the word as one of the smallest completely satisfying bit of isolated meaning, into which the sentence resolve itself and which can’t be cut into without a disturbance of meaning. 3) Gardener combines the semantic and phonological approaches – a word is an articulate sound, symbol in its aspect of denoting something, which is spoken about. A French scholar Milay points out that a word is defined by the association of a given sound form with a given grammatical employment, so he combines that semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria in defining a word. Pr. Arnold suggests adding to this definition that the word is the smallest significant unit of a given language, capable of functioning alone. This addition creates a basis for the opposition between the word and the morpheme. The common feature of the words, morphemes and phonemes is that they are units of the language, the difference between them lies in the fact that the phoneme isn’t significant as it only participates in signification and the morpheme, unlike a word, can’t be used as a complete utterance. So the word should be treated as a dialectical unity of form and content where the form is the spoken or written expression which calls up a specific meaning and the content is the meaning, rendering the emotion or concept in the mind of the speaker. So the word can be defined as – a unit of communication, it serves the purposes of human communication, the total of sound which comprise it, a possessor of the external and internal structure. By external structure of the word we mean its morphological structure. For example, the word ‘post-impressionists’ can be divided into the following morphemes – ‘post’, and ‘im’ are prefixes, ‘press’ is root, ‘ion’, ‘ist’ are suffixes, ‘s’ is the grammatical suffix of plurality. All these morphemes constitute the external structure of this word. The internal structure or its meaning is the word’s semantic structure. This is the word’s main aspects as words can serve the purposes of human communication, solely due to their meaning. Words call up images and ideas in our mind, thus giving us the key to outer world. Words convey meanings and messages. Language speakers are not just passive understanders, for them it’s important to produce the right word in the right place, as a word can hurt, excite, decide a case (solve a problem). The wrong word may lead to problems or even conflicts. So we see that the structural aspects of the word is monefested in the unity of its morphology and semantics. In the word ‘post-impressionists’ all component morphemes are permanently linked together in opposition to groups, both free and with fixed context, whose components possesses a certain structural freedom. For example, a blackbird (дрозд) and a black bird (черная птица). The word ‘black bird’ is a single word. It is characterized by unity of its components and possesses a single grammatical framing (singular form is a blackbird, plural form is blackbirds). Only its second part can be changed and not the first. Semantically it conveys only the concepts – the type of bird. A black bird is a group of words. Here each constituent can acquire grammatical forms of its own – the blackest bird. Other words can be inserted between their components – a black night bird. Each of the meaningful words conveys a concept – bird is a king of living creature, black denotes color. Conclusion: a word always conveys one concept, no matter how many component morphemes it mat have in its external structure. Thus, 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. In speech most words can be used in different grammatical forms and characterized by formal and semantic unity. But at the same time it should be noted that the term ‘word’ is not a well-established element in British tradition. To prove it, let’s turn to D/ Crystal’s dictionary of linguistics and phonetics which says that intuitively all speakers know what is meant by a word, they can single words out in utterances, id est recognize them, but as a term it remains extremely vague. Traditionally words are defined on the basis of notional criteria as they express certain ideas, but idea is also unextremely vague. Therefore D. Crystal suggests that the term ‘word’ should be replaced by such terms as lexical item, lexical unit or lexeme.

Lexicology presents a wide idea of knowledge. Within its scope are included historical lexicology, which deals with a historic change of words in the course of language development throughout centuries. Comparative lexicology studying closely related languages from the point of view of their typological identity or differentiation. Contrastive lexicology studying similarities and differences between both related and unrelated languages. Applied lexicology covering terminology lexicography which is a systematic description of a lexis of a given language as registered in dictionaries, id est the art and science of dictionary making. Among the different branches of lexicology the functional approach stands out as it describes the ways in which words are used to provide and support meaningful communication. At the same time lexicology is connected with other branches of linguistics, such as phonetics, grammar, stylistic, social linguistics and so on. On the acoustic level words consists of phonemes and phonemes having no meaning of their own, participate in signification. So as we see lexicology and phonetics are connected. The connection of grammar and lexicology is a debatable problem as some foreign scholars, such as Henry Sweet and Otto Jesperson think that grammar deals with general fact of language and lexicology – with special fact but language always functions, using abstractions. Even isolated words possess a definite relation to the grammar system of the language, because they belong to some part of speech. So lexicology investigates the following problems – the problem of the morphological structure of the word, the problem of the semantic structure of the word, the principals of classification of words, the problem of word-building and word–formation, the problem of borrowings, the problem of the growth of the vocabulary. In general there are 2 principal approaches to language studies – the synchronic and diachronic. The term synchronic comes from 2 Greek words ‘syn’ (which means together, with) and ‘chrons’ (which means time). So the synchronic ( or descriptive) approach studies the vocabulary of a language at a given time. The Greek word ‘dia’ means ‘through’. So diachronic (or historical ) approach studies the changes in the development of the vocabulary in the course of time. At the same time morphological and semantic structure of the word can be studied on 2 levels – syntagmatic and paradigmatic. On the syntagmatic level the semantic structure of the word is analyzed in its linear relationships with neighboring words in connected speech. In other words their semantic characteristics of the words 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 (for example, to offer = to suggest), of opposite meaning (for example – cheap - expensive), of different stylistic characteristics (a maiden – a girl). So paradigmatic studies senonymy, antonymy and functional styles. Phraseology as a branch of lexicology, specializing in word groups, which are characterized by stability of structure and transferred meaning (for example – to take the bull by the horns mean – взять быка за рога, to beat about the bush - ходить вокруг до около )