11

Prof. S.A. Zhabotynska

General Linguistics

(5Th year)

Workshop 2:

LEXICOLOGY

LEXICOLOGY

Lexeme

Studies of word-stock Studies of groups of words Studies of individual words

Word-stock formation Onomastics Etymology

Word-stock stratification Terminology Historical lexicology

Word-stock organization Phraseology

• Lexicology is the study of words, word groups and word-stock as a whole. A word considered in lexicology is called a lexeme. A lexeme, or lexical item, is an abstract notion, subsuming a range of grammatical forms of one and the same word (each of which is called ‘a word’ in grammar; e.g. Ukr. стіл, слола, столу, столи, і т.п.; Engl. speak, speaks, spoke, etc.). A lexeme is conventionally associated with the initial word form (e.g. Ukr. стіл; Engl. [to] speak). A lexeme is a set of various meanings of one and the same word; the latter are called lexical semantic variants (LSV), or senses, e.g. Engl. school: (1) ‘learning institution, building’; (2) ‘lessons, instruction’; (3) ‘pupils or/and teaching stuff’; (4) ‘university students or/and faculty’; (5) ‘group of scholars sharing opinion’; (6) ‘group of artists sharing style’; (7) ‘group of fish’. A lexeme has its own lexical meaning and a complete sound form, which makes it an independent unit.

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STUDIES OF WORD-STOCK

Word-Stock Formation

• Morphological word formation (derivational morphology) is the formation of new words via combining morphemes. Types of morphological word-formation:

1. Affixation is adding a suffix or/and prefix to the word stem. Suffixation is adding a suffix at the end of the word stem, e.g. Engl. manhood, duckling, wonderful, wonderfully, criticize; Ukr. товариство, спільнота, шкільний, фотогрфафувати. Prefixation is adding a prefix at the beginning of the word stem, e.g. Engl. illegal, re-read, overdone, underdone, ex-president; Ukr. нелегальний, надзвичайний, переробити, вибрати, зробити; Russ. подавать преподавать. Suffixation-and-prefixation is a simultaneous adding of a suffix and prefix to the word stem, e.g. Russ. подснежник, подоконник, подстрочник.

2. Back formation, or backderivation, is deriving a new word from a more complex form, e. g. E.g. beggar  to beg, burglar  to burgle, intuition  to intuite, television  to televise, stage-manager  to stage-manage; Russ. тишина  тишь, синева  синь.

3. Abbreviation, or clipping, is deriving a new word via cutting off a part of the initial word. Clipping usually results in altering the form of a word without changing its meaning. Omission of the last part of a word is called apocope / pouk pi/, e.g. Engl. captain  cap, laboratory  lab, doctor  doc, television telly, dormitory  dorm. Omission of the beginning of the word is called aphaeresis / fi resis/, e.g. Engl. telephone  phone, refrigerator  fridge, amid  mid.

4. Compounding is deriving a new word that consists of a combination of stems, e.g. Engl. week-end, office-manager, aircraft-carrier, washing machine, fancy-dress-maker, age-long, oil-rich; Ukr. пароплав, жовто-зелений, художньо-публіцистичний. Along with compound words proper, there are compound-derived words, where the suffix is added to a compound stem, e.g. Engl. long-legged: (long + leg) + -ed, two-storied (two + story) + -ed. There are also abbreviated compounds where one, two or three stems are abbreviated, e.g. Russ. мультфильм госдепартамент, нардеп, совнархоз. A specific type of abbreviated compounds are acronyms, words composed of the first letters of a series of words, e.g. Engl. USA, NATO, UNESCO; Ukr. ЧДУ, УБОЗ, НДПУ(о); вуз, США, ООН. In some approaches, the term is restricted to only those items which have to be pronounced as whole words; items which have to be spelled out as a sequence of letters are then given a separate classification as initialisms.

5. Blending is a special type of compounding which occurs when two elements that do not normally co-occur are combined into a single word with a particular meaning. Such words are also called ‘telescopic’, e.g. Engl. smog (smoke + fog), brunch (breakfast + lunch), workaholic (work + alcoholic), screenager (screen + teenager).

• Semantic word-formation is the formation of new meanings of a lexeme. Semantic word-formation includes the cases of modification and conversion.

In case of modification, a new meaning develops within one and the same part of speech. Modification results from metonymy, metaphor, generalization (broadening) or specification (narrowing) of the initial meaning. Metonymy relates the initial and derived meanings through contiguity (i.e. this relation is natural); e.g. Engl. hand: ‘part of the body’  ‘farm-worker’. Metaphor relates the initial and derived meanings through likeness (i.e. this relation is imaginary); e.g.; memory: ‘human memory’  ‘computer memory’; Ukr. ручка: ‘a small hand’  ‘a handle’. A new meaning may results from generalizing or specifying the earlier meaning. Generalization (broadening) of meaning is extending the previous meaning and making it more abstract. E.g. dog: Middle English ‘dog of a particular breed’  Contemporary English ‘any dog’; picture: ‘something painted’  ‘any visual image’; box ‘a small receptance furnished with lid and intended to contain drugs, ointments, jewels and money’  ‘any box’; manuscript: ‘something hand-written’  ‘any author’s copy whether written by hand or typed’. Russ. путь: ‘a bad, messy road’  ‘any road’; Greek tetradium ‘a copy book consisting of four pages’  Russ. тетрадь: ‘a copy book that has any number of pages’. Specification (narrowing) of meaning occurs when a word of wide meaning acquires a narrower sense, in which it is applicable only to some of the entities which it previously denoted. E.g. meat: Old English ‘food’  Contemporary English ‘edible flesh’; hound: Old English ‘any dog’  Contemporary English ‘a hunting dog of a particular breed’; wife: Old English ‘a woman’  Contemporary English ‘a married woman’; cattle: ‘livestock in general’  ‘bovine animals’; Greek apoteka: ‘a warehouse, the place where goods are kept’  Russ. аптека: ‘the place for keeping medications’; Russ. пиво: ‘any beverage’  ‘specific beverage made from malt’.

Conversion is a process of word-formation in which an item comes to belong to a new word class without the addition of an affix. As a result, the word changes both its part-of-speech meaning and the formal grammatical features. E.g. Engl. N  V: a hand, to hand; a head, to head; a bottle, to bottle; salt, to salt; A  V: yellow, to yellow; V  N: to work, a work; A  N: private, a private; native, a native; Num  N: five, the five (a basketball team); Russ. A  N: столовая; раненый. Conversion may be accompanied by the change in accentuation, e.g. Engl. N  V: an object, to object; a combine, to combine.

• Borrowing is the introduction of a word from one language (the source language) into another (the target language). Borrowed words include:

1. Borrowings proper, the words whose forms are completely or partially assimilated by the target language, e.g. Lat. student > Engl. student; Engl. football > Ukr. футбол; Engl. service > Ukr. сервіс; Fr. café > Ukr. кафе.

2. Translation loans, the words or expressions which are morpheme-for-morpheme or word-for-word translations from the source language, e.g. Engl. sky-scraper > Ukr. хмарочос; Lat. importare, exportare > Rus. ввозить, вывозить; Lat. Tertium non datur > Ukr . Третього не дано; Lat. Veni, vidi, vici > Russ. Пришел, увидел, победил.

3. Semantic loans, the new senses borrowed from the source language and added to the meanings of words in the target language. This process is particularly reflected in international words, e.g. Russ. > Engl. pioneer ‘a member of the youth organization in the USSR’ (added to the meaning ‘the first explorer’).

4. Barbarisms, the words and expressions which are not assimilated by the target language; they retain the form which they have in the source language, e.g. Lat. p.m., a.m., i.e., etc., tabula rasa, persona non grata, de facto, de jure, Manus manum lavat, Alea jacta est; French rendez-vous, au-revoir; Japanese hara-kiri, sushi.