2) The problem of word. Types of morphemes

The term morpheme is derived from Greek morphe “form ”+ -eme. The Greek suffix -eme has been adopted by linguistic to denote the smallest unit or the minimum distinctive feature. The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of form. A form in these cases a recurring discrete unit of speech. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of single morpheme. Even a cursory examination of the morphemic structure of English words reveals that they are composed of morphemes of different types: root-morphemes and affixational morphemes. Words that consist of a root and an affix are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word building known as affixation (or derivation). The root-morpheme is the lexical nucleus of the word; it has a very general and abstract lexical meaning common to a set of semantically related words constituting one word-cluster, e.g. (to) teach, teacher, teaching. Besides the lexical meaning root-morphemes possess all other types of meaning proper to morphemes except the part-of-speech meaning which is not found in roots. Affixational morphemes include inflectional affixes or inflections and derivational affixes. Inflections carry only grammatical meaning and are thus relevant only for the formation of word-forms. Derivational affixes are relevant for building various types of words. They are lexically always dependent on the root which they modify. They possess the same types of meaning as found in roots, but unlike root-morphemes most of them have the part-of-speech meaning which makes them structurally the important part of the word as they condition the lexico-grammatical class the word belongs to. Due to this component of their meaning the derivational affixes are classified into affixes building different parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs.   Free morphemes coincide with word-forms of independently functioning words. It is obvious that free morphemes can be found only among roots, so the morpheme boy- in the word boy is a free morpheme; in the word undesirablethere is only one free morpheme desire-; the word pen-holder has two free morphemes pen- and hold-. It follows that bound morphemes are those that do not coincide with separate word- forms, consequently all derivational morphemes, such as -ness, -able, -er are bound. Root-morphemes may be both free and bound. The morphemestheor- in the words theory, theoretical, or horr- in the words horror, horrible, horrify; Angl- in Anglo-Saxon; Afr- in Afro-Asian are all bound roots as there are no identical word-forms. Allomorph is defined as a positional variant of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment and so characterized by complementary description.

The word. - is the smallest significant unit of speech (Aristotle) Different approaches to the problem of the word. 1) materialistic approach: - words are no mere sounds, but names of matter (by the English philosopher T. Hobbes) - word is a universal signal that can substitute any other signal from the environment in evoking a response in a human organism (Pavlov) 2) grammatical approach (Henry Smith): the word is the minimum of the sentence 3) phonological approach (Фортунатов): word is any speech sound having meaning 4) psycholinguistic (Выготский, Chronasser): word is a microcosm of human consciousness (Выготский); word is a symbol representing a psychic event which can be the psychological image of the object (Chronasser) 5) syntactic approach (Bloomfield): word is a minimum free form 6) semiotic approach (Saussure): word is a sign to express notions or opinions 7) linguocultural approach: language is a key to the manner of living of a certain nation and so words represent collective memory of language bearers, a mirror of the life of a certain nation.  The word is the basic unit of the vocabulary, the highest unit of the morphology as it consists of morphemes and the lowest level of syntax as it serves building material for collocations (устойчивые сочетания), phrases, clauses (части предложения) and sentences.

4) Lexicology its Domain and links with other branches The word lexicology is Greek. It consists of two morphemes: lexis (“word”) + logos (“science”). Lexicology is the science of the word. Another definition: lexicology is the part of linguistics which studies the vocabulary and characteristic features of words. It investigates various meaning relations existing in the language and how words provide and support meaningful communication. The basic task of lexicology is the study and systematic description of the vocabulary in respect to its origin, development and current use. Different branches of lexicology: General lexicology is a part of linguistics (общее языкознание). It studies the vocabulary in general irrespective of (безотносительно) the specific features of any particular language. Special lexicology is the lexicology of a particular language (частная лексикология). Historical lexicology studies the historic changes of words in the course of language development. It studies the development of the vocabulary, the origin of words, their semantic relations in the course of time and the development of their meaning. The word “diachronic” consists of two morphemes: dia (“through”) and chronos (“time”), i.e. in the course of time. Descriptive lexicology studies the vocabulary of a particular language at a definite stage of its development. The word “Synchronic” consists of two morphemes: syn (“together with”) and chronos (“time”). The first person who spoke about the distinction of synchronic and diachronic was Saussure. Today these two approaches are closely interconnected because the synchronic state of a language is the result of the historical development. One more subdivision of the lexicology. Lexicology can be comparative and contrastive. Comparative lexicology studies closely related languages from the point of view of their similarities and differences. Contrastive lexicology studies both related and nonrelated languages and establishes its differences and similarities. Applied lexicology (прикладная) studies how the knowledge of lexicological problems can be applied to such spheres as translation, lexicography and so on. Lexicography is the science of dictionary making. The links of lexicology with other branches of linguistics. 1) Lexicology is closely connected with phonetics because they have the same object of studies, they both studies the word, but phonetics studies the outer form and lexicology studies the inner form of the word. 2) Lexicology is connected with grammar because lexicology studies words and grammar studies the grammatical relations between words and how words are combined into phrases and sentences. Meaningful communication is not possible without knowing the grammar rules. 3) Lexicology is connected with the history of language because the history of language studies the changes and the development of the vocabulary in the course of time. 4) Lexicology is connected with stylistics because stylistics studies the differentiation of the vocabulary according to the sphere of communication. 5) Lexicology is connected with the sociolinguistics because sociolinguistics studies the extra linguistic and social causes of the changes in the vocabulary of a language.

5 ) polysemy and context

A word having several meanings is called polysemantic, and the ability of words to have more than one meaning is described by the term polysemy.

Polysemy is certainly not an anomaly. Most English words are poly-semantic. It should be noted that the wealth of expressive resources of a language largely depends on the degree to which polysemy has developed in the language. Sometimes people who are not very well informed in linguistic matters claim that a language is lack-ing in words if the need arises for the same word to be applied to sev-eral different phenomena. In actual fact, it is exactly the opposite: if each word is found to be capable of conveying, let us say, at least two concepts instead of one, the expressive potential of the whole vocabulary increases twofold. Hence, a well-developed polysemy is not a drawback but a great advantage in a language. On the other hand, it should be pointed out that the number of sound combinations that human speech organs can produce is limited. Therefore at a certain stage of language development the production of new words by morphological means becomes limited, and polysemy becomes increasingly important in providing the means for enriching the vocabulary. From this, it should be clear that the process of enriching the vocabulary does not consist merely in adding new words to it, but, also, in the constant development of polysemy.

context is a powerful preventative against any misunderstanding of meanings. For instance, the adjective dull, if used out of context, would mean different things to different people or nothing at all. It is only in combination with other words that it reveals its actual meaning: a dull pupil, a dull play, a dull razor-blade, dull weather, etc. Sometimes, however, such a minimum context fails to reveal the meaning of the word, and it may be correctly interpreted only through what Professor N. Amosova termed a second-degree context [1], as in the following example: The man was large, but his wife was even fatter. The word fatter here serves as a kind of indicator pointing that large describes a stout man and not a big one.

Current research in semantics is largely based on the assumption that one of the more promising methods of investigating the semantic structure of a word is by studying the word's linear relationships with other words in typical contexts, i. e. its combinability or collocability.

Scholars have established that the semantics of words character-ised by common occurrences (i. e. words which regularly appear in common contexts) are correlated and, therefore, one of the words within such a pair can be studied through the other.

Thus, if one intends to investigate the semantic structure of an adjective, one would best consider the adjective in its most typical syntactical patterns A + N -adjective + noun) and N + l + A (noun + link verb +kick. n. -- 1 thrill, pleasurable excitement (inform.); 2. a blow with the foot

adjective) and make a thorough study of the meanings of nouns with which the adjective is frequently used. For instance, a study of typical contexts of the adjective bright in the first pattern will give us the following sets: a) bright colour (flower, dress, silk, etc.). b) bright metal (gold, jewels, armour, etc.), c) bright student (pupil, boy, fellow, etc.), d) bright face (smile, eyes, etc.) and some others. These sets will lead us to singling out the meanings of the adjective related to each set of combinations: a) intensive in color, b) shining, c) capable, d) gay, etc.