- •Lexicology as a linguistic discipline.
- •Lexicology as a brunch of linguistics. Types of Lexicology.
- •The connection of lexicology with other linguistic disciplines. Methods of lexicological research.
- •General problems of the theory of the Word.
- •1.Lexicology as a brunch of linguistics. Types of Lexicology.
- •The notion of the linguistic sign.
- •2.The connection of lexicology with other linguistic disciplines. Methods of lexicological research.
- •The Transformational Analysis
- •3. General problems of the theory of the word.
- •Lecture 2 Etymological characteristics of Modern English vocabulary
- •1. Native words in English.
- •2. Borrowings in English vocabulary. Classification of borrowings.
- •Classification of borrowings according to the language from which they were borrowed
- •French borrowings
- •Italian borrowings.
- •German borrowings.
- •Holland borrowings.
- •Russian borrowings.
- •3. Etymological doublets
- •Lecture 3 Morphological structure of English words. Wordbuilding
- •1. Morphological structure of English words.
- •2. Different ways of wordbuilding in English.
- •3. Productive ways of word-building in English.
- •Lecture 4 Semantic structure of English words. Semantic processes.
- •1. Semasiology. Word-meaning. Lexical and grammatical meaning.
- •2. Polysemy in Modern English, its role and sources. Homonymy, Synonymy. Antonyms in me.
- •3. Semantic processes. Change of meaning.
- •Lecture 5 homonymy and synonymy in modern english
- •1. Homonymy in English. The sources of homonymy
- •Sources of Homonymy
- •2. Classification of Homonyms
- •4. Classification of synonyms
- •Ideographic (which he defined as words conveying the same notion but differing in shades of meaning),
- •Lecture 6 english phraseology
- •1. Phraseological units in English.
- •2. Ways of forming phraseological units.
- •1. Phraseological units in English.
- •2. Ways of forming phraseological units. Their classification.
- •Lecture 7
- •1. The words of informal stylistic layer.
- •Informal Style
- •Colloquial Words
- •Dialect words
- •2. The formal layer of the English vocabulary.
- •Learned Words
- •3. Professionalisms.
- •4. Stylistically neutral layer of the English vocabulary.
- •5. Neologisms in English.
- •Lecture 8 English as the world language. Varieties of English.
- •1. Historical and economic background of widespreading English.
- •2. Some of the distinctive characteristics of american english
- •3. The language of Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
- •4. Some other varieties of English (English of India and Pakistan, African English)
- •2. Historical development of British and American Lexicography.
- •3. Classification of dictionaries
2. Historical development of British and American Lexicography.
English lexicography
The first unilingual dictionary explaining difficult words appeared in 1604, the author was Robert Cawdry, a schoolmaster. He compiled his dictionary for schoolchildren. In 1721 an English scientist and writer Nathan Bailey published the first etymological dictionary which explained the origin of English words. It was the first scientific dictionary, it was compiled for philologists.
In 1775 an English scientist compiled a famous explanatory dictionary. Its author was Samuel Johnson. Every word in his dictionary was illustrated by examples from English literature, the meanings of words were clear from the contexts in which they were used. The dictionary was a great success and it influenced the development of lexicography in all countries.
In 1858 one of the members of the English philological society Dr. Trench raised the question of compiling a dictionary including all the words existing in the language. The philological society adopted the decision to compile the dictionary and the work started. More than a thousand people took part in collecting examples, and 26 years later in 1884 the first volume was published. It contained words beginning with «A» and «B». The last volume was published in 1928 that is 70 years after the decision to compile it was adopted. The dictionary was called NED and contained 12 volumes.
In 1933 the dictionary was republished under the title «The Oxford English Dictionary», because the work on the dictionary was conducted in Oxford. This dictionary contained 13 volumes. As the dictionary was very large and terribly expensive scientists continued their work and compiled shorter editions of the dictionary: «A Shorter Oxford Dictionary» consisting of two volumes. It had the same number of entries, but far less examples from literature. They also compiled «A Concise Oxford Dictionary» consisting of one volume and including only modern words and no examples from literature.
The American lexicography began to develop much later, at the end of the 18-th century. The most famous American English dictionary was compiled by Noah Webster. He was an active statesman and public man and he published his first dictionary in 1806. He went on with his work on the dictionary and in 1828 he published a two-volume dictionary. He tried to simplify the English spelling and transcription. He introduced the alphabetical system of transcription where he used letters and combinations of letters instead of transcription signs. He denoted vowels in closed syllables by the corresponding vowels, e.g. / a/, /e/, / i/, / o/, /u/. He denoted vowels in the open syllable by the same letters, but with a dash above them,e.g. / a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/. He denoted vowels in the position before /r/ as the same letters with two dots above them, e.g. / a/, /o/ and by the l etter «e» with two dots above it for the combinations «er», «ir», «ur» because they are pronounced identically. The same tendency is preserved for other sounds : /u:/ is denoted by /oo/, /y/ is used for the sound /j/ etc.