Theme 7 (self-study) Etymological Survey of the English Language

1.What is the most charachteristic feature of the English language?

2.How is the term native interpreted?

3.What does the term borrowing denote?

4.What is the difference between the terms source of borrowing and the origin of the word?

5.What are the main characteristics of the native (Anglo-Saxon) words?

6.What are the causes of borrowings?

7.What changes do the borrowed words undergo?

Theme 8

Variants and Dialects of the English Language. Territorial Variants. Local Varieties.

1.In what areas is English the national or the official language? How can this fact be accounted for?

2.What is the difference between territorial variants of a national language and local dialects?

3.What are the two main variants of the English language?

4.What are the differences between the main variants of the English language in the field of phonetics, in the field of grammar, in the field of vocabulary?

5.How can we prove that BE, AE, AuE are not different languages or local dialects?

6.What features are characteristic of the lexical distinctions between the territorial variants of English?

7.How are the words belonging to different territorial variants related within a pair they constitute?

8.In what semantic fields or lexico-semantic groups do we usually find territorial variants of words?

9.What factors determine the appearance of territorial variants of words?

10.What local dialects are there in the British Isles?

11.What is the essential feature of local dialects?

12.What is the essential feature of the dialect vocabulary?

13.For what spheres of life of a local community is the use of dialectal words a characteristic feature?

14.What is the status of local dialects in Britain today?

15.How can you characterise the English language of the United States in terms of uniformity vs variations?

Theme 9 Fundamentals of English Lexicography

1.What are the main types of English dictionaries?

2.What is the difference between encyclopaedic and linguistic dictionaries?

3.Name some well-known encyclopaedic dictionaries.

4.What types of linguistic dictionaries are there?

5.What factors underlie the selection of the material for a dictionary?

6.What are the main problems of dictionary-compiling?

7.How do you see the main aim of a learner's dictionary?

Examination Topics

1.Lexicology as a branch of linguistics. Links with other branches of linguistics. Two approaches to language study.

2.The subject-matter of semasiology. Two approaches to word-meaning. Types of word-meaning.

3.Word-meaning and motivation.

4.Causes of semantic change. Nature and results of semantic change.

5.Meaning in morphemes.

6.Polysemy. The diachronic and synchronic approaches to polysemy.

7.Homonymy. Full and partial homonymy. Homographs and homophones. Polysemy and homonymy.

8.Semantic classification of words. Conceptual (semantic) fields. Hyponymy.

9.Semantic classification of words. Synonymy.

10.Semantic classification of words. Antonymy. Word-Families.

11.Word-groups. Types of word-groups. Lexical Valency. Grammatical Valency.

12.The meaning of word-groups. Lexical and grammatical components of meaning.

13.Syntactic Structure and Pattern of word-groups.

14.Phraseological Units. Classification of Phraseological Units.

15.Causes of the appearance of Phraseological Units. The loss of motivation of free word-groups.

16.Word-Structure. Classification of morphemes.

17.Word-Formation in Modern English. Affixation.

18.Word-Formation in Modern English. Prefixation.

19.Word-Formation in Modern English. Suffixation.

20.Word-Formation in Modern English. Conversion.

21.Word-Formation in modern English. Word-Composition.

22.Variants and dialects of the English language. Lexical differences of territorial variants.

23.Variants and dialects of the English language. Local varieties in the British Isles and in the USA.

24.Lexicography. Main types of English dictionaries.

25.Lexicography. Classification of linguistic dictionaries.

26.Lexicography. Learner's dictionaries.