Конспект лекций Лекция № 1. Предмет и объект лексикологии

The Object of Lexicology

Lexicology (of Greek origin: lexis “word” + logos “learning”) is a branch of linguistics concerned with words. It is a study of words. All the words of a language make up its vocabulary or lexicon. In lexicology we study such aspects of the vocabulary of language; how words are formed, how they have development, how they are used, how they relate in meaning to each other, and how they are handled in dictionaries.

Lexical study involves such diverse areas as the sense relationships between words, the use of abbreviations, puns and euphemisms, the compilation [i] of dictionaries and many others. Thus, lexicology deals with the vocabulary and characteristic features of words and word-groups.

The word is the basic unit of the lexical system of any language. It is the smallest language unit that can stand alone as a complete utterance. From the lexical aspect the word may express one or several notions being in different relations among themselves.

The term word-group denotes a group of words that exists in the language as a ready-made [trite] unit, has the unity of meaning and of syntactical function.

[Научная дисциплина, изучающая правила сочетания слов и строения предложений.]

Modern approaches to the word are characterized by two different levels of study: syntagmatic and paradigmatic. On the syntagmatic level, the word is analyzed in its linear relationship with neighboring words in connected speech. In other words, the semantic characteristics of the word are observed on the basis of its typical contexts. On the paradigmatic level, the word is studied in its relationship with other words in the vocabulary system (a word in comparison with words of similar meaning, [work-labor], [refuse-reject-decline], of opposite meaning [busy-idle, accept-reject], of different stylistic characteristics [man-chap-bloke-guy]. The main problems of paradigmatic studies are synonymy, antonymy and functional styles.

Another important objectives of lexicology studies is the study of the vocabulary as a system. Here we can use two approaches: descriptive or synchronic (from Greek ‘syn’ – ‘together with’ and ‘chronos’ – ‘time’) and historical or diachronic (‘dia’ – ‘through’). I.e. the synchronic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language at the given stage of its development. The diachronic approach deals with the changes and the development of vocabulary in course of time.

The constituent parts of lexicology are its sub-branches: etymology, word-formation, semantics, phraseology, lexicography, etc. each of which has its own aim of study, its own object of investigation, its own methods of linguistic research.

Thus, there is a specific branch of lexicology – etymology, the goal of which is the discovery of earlier, ‘true’, meanings of words and their origin.

Лекция № 2. Словарный состав английского языка

Word Stock of the English Language

There is an important balance between the stock of native words and borrowings into English. In a thousand most frequently used words in English only 62 % have English origin. The rest are French (31%), Latin (3%), Scandinavian (2 %) and German and Dutch (0.5 %).

Thus, there is a specific branch of lexicology – etymology, which aims at discovering the earlier meanings of words and their origin.

asparagus	Arabic
physics	Greek
cup	Latin
kimono	Japanese
rucksack	German
cuisine	French
giraffe	Arabic
cigar	Spanish
tea	Chinese
frankfurter	German
elite	French
vice versa	Latin
orange	Arabic
phenomenon	Greek
karate	Japanese
siesta	Spanish
rice	Arabic
seminar	German
fork	Latin
mandarin	Chinese
chemistry	Greek

Word formation plays a crucial part in English vocabulary growth. A word can consist of a prefix, a base, and a suffix. A prefix is one or more syllables added to the front of a word or base, while a suffix is added to the end. Their function is to change the meaning of the word. Many prefixes and suffixes come from Latin and Greek. For example, the word LINGUISTIC has a base LINGU (‘tong’, ‘language’) and 2 suffixes IST (noun suffix) and IC (adj. suffix).

Thus, the study of the morphology (строение слова) of the word, or the parts of a word, and the patterns on which a language builds new words is the subject matter of word-formation.

Of all the world’s languages which now number some 2,700, English is the richest in its vocabulary.

The compendious (concise) Oxford ED lists about 500,000 words. (+ a half million technical and scientific terms remain uncatalogued).

German has 185,000 words. French fewer than 100,000.

An essential part of investigations in lexicology is reflected in dictionary making – lexicography. Dictionaries are descriptions of the distribution of language units in terms of linguistics and cultural contexts. Such language units are usually called words but in a serious study of the lexicon the term lexeme is used. It denotes a unit of lexical meaning, which exists regardless of any endings it may have or the number of words it may contain. Thus, the headwords in a dictionary are all lexemes.

Lexicology deals with words, their meanings and vocabulary structure. Here are the number of problems of the study of lexicology:

• the definition of the words,

• the meaning of the word,

• the processes of semantic change,

• word groups,

• combinability,

• idioms,

• the structure of the lexicon,

• etc.