1. Essential and distinctive features of a word. Types of words.

Galina Borisovna Antrushina: Lexicology is the part of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of the language and the properties of words as the main units of language.

Lexicology studies various lexical units: morphemes, words, variable word-groups and phraseological units. It is significant that many scholars have attempted to define the word as a linguistic phenomenon. Yet none of the definitions can be considered totally satisfactory in all aspects.

Words are the central elements of language system, they face both ways: they are the biggest units of morphology and the smallest of syntax. Words can be separated in an utterance by other such units and can be used in isolation. Unlike words, morphemes cannot be divided into smaller meaningful units and are functioning in speech only as constituent parts of words. Words are thought of as representing integer concept, feeling or action or as having a single referent. The meaning of morphemes is more abstract and more general than that of words.

The word may be described as the basic unit of language. Uniting meaning and form, it is composed of one or more morphemes, each consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation. Morphemes are also meaningful units but they cannot be used independently, they are always parts of words whereas words can be used as a complete utterance (e. g. Listen!).

The modern approach to word studies is based on distinguishing between the external and the internal structures of the word.

By external structure of the word we mean its morphological structure.

For example, in the word post-impressionists the following morphemes can be distinguished: the prefixes post-, im-, the root press, the noun-forming suffixes -ion, -ist, and the grammatical suffix of plurality -s. All these morphemes constitute the external structure of the word post-impressionists.

The internal structure of the word, or its meaning, is nowadays commonly referred to as the word's semantic structure. This is certainly the word's main aspect.

Another structural aspect of the word is its unity. The word possesses both external (or formal) unity and semantic unity.

The formal unity of the word can best be illustrated by comparing a word and a word-group comprising identical constituents. The difference between a blackbird and a black bird is best explained by their relationship with the grammatical system of the language. The word blackbird, which is characterised by unity, pos-sesses a single grammatical framing: blackbird/s. The first constituent black is not subject to any grammatical changes. In the word-group a black bird each constitu-ent can acquire grammatical forms of its own: the blackest birds I've ever seen. Other words can be inserted between the components which is impossible so far as the word is concerned as it would violate its unity: a black night bird.

The same example may be used to illustrate what we mean by semantic unity. In the word-group a black bird each of the meaningful words conveys a sepa-rate concept: bird — a kind of living creature; black — a colour. The word blackbird conveys only one concept: the type of bird. This is one of the main features of any word: it always conveys one concept, no matter how many component morphemes it may have in its external structure.

To sum up, words are:

• are the biggest units of morphology and the smallest of syntax

• embody the main structural properties and functions of the language (nominative, significative, communicative and pragmatic)

• can be used in isolation

• are thought of as having a single referent or represent a concept, a feeling, an action

• are the smallest units of written discourse: they are marked off by solid spelling

• segmentation of a sentence into words is easily done by an illiterate speaker, but that of a word into morphemes presents sometimes difficulties even for trained linguists

• are written as a sequence of letters bounded by spaces on a page (with exceptions)

Types of words

Eight Kinds of Words by Tom McArthur:

1. The orthographic word (a visual sign with space around: colour vs. color)

2. The phonological word (a spoken signal: a notion vs. an ocean)

3. The morphological word (a unity behind variants of form dog, dogs, doggy)

4. The lexical word (lexeme, full word as related to a thing, action or state in the world dog vs. dogs)

5. The grammatical word (form word, a closed set of conj-s, determiners, particles, pronouns, etc. dog vs. dog catcher)

6. The onomastic word (words with unique reference: Napoleon)

7. The lexicographical word (a word as an entry in the dictionary did is the past of do)

8. The statistical word (each letter or group of letters from space to space)

Types of words as regards their structure, semantics and function (E.M. Mednicova):

MORPHOLOGICALLY:

Monomorphemic: root-words (table)

Polymorphemic: derivatives (electric - electricity), compounds (doghouse), compound-derivatives (long-legged), derivational compounds (brainstruster)

SEMANTICALLY:

Monosemantic: words having only one lexical meaning and denoting, accordingly, one concept (lexeme)

Polysemantic: words having several meanings, thus denoting a whole set of related concepts grouped according to the national peculiarities of a given language (hand)

SYNTACTICALLY:

Categorematic: notional words (school, brave, to go)

Syncategorematic: form-words (the, to, in)

STYLISTICALLY:

Neutral (girl)

Elevated (bookish) (maiden)

Colloquial (chick)

Substandard words (vulgarisms, taboo, jargon argot, slang hen), etc (there are various other stylistic groupings).

ETYMOLOGICALLY:

Native girl

Borrowed fiance

Hybrid television (from Greek and Latin)

International words (Internet, computer)

Word function: (nominative, significative, communicative and pragmatic)