- •1.Lexicology as a branch of linguistics. Aims and the object of Lexicology. Two approaches to language studies.
- •2. Links of Lexicology with other branches of Linguistics. The course of modern English Lexicology, its theoretical and practical significance.
- •3. The etymological composition of the English lexicon. Words of native origin.
- •4. Borrowings: their causes and criteria.
- •5. Assimilation of borrowings.
- •6. Classifications of borrowings: according to the borrowed aspect, according to the language from which they were borrowed.
- •8. The morpheme as the smallest meaningful language unit. Classifications of morphemes.
- •9. The word as the basic unit of the language system. Characteristics of words. Structural types of words. Word-groups. The notion of a lexeme.
- •10. Types of designation (nomination).
- •12. Types of word-meaning.
- •13. Polysemy: its nature, the main causes and sources. Meaning and context.
- •14. Polysemy. Semantic structure of words.
- •15. Change of word-meaning: the causes, nature and results.
- •16. Homonymy. Sources of homonyms.
- •17. Classifications of homonyms.
- •18. Polysemy and homonymy: etymological, semantic, distribution and spelling criteria.
- •24. Groups of words based on several types of semantic relations: conceptual (semantic or lexical) fields, lexical-semantic groups
- •25. Word-structure and morphemes. Morphemic types of words.
- •26. Segmentation of words into morphemes. Types of word segmentability. The procedure of morphemic analysis.
- •27. Derivative structure of words. The basic derivational units.
- •28. Affixation as a way of word formation. Prefixation. Classifications of prefixes.
- •29. Suffixation. Productivity of suffixes. Classifications of suffixes.
- •30.Conversion as a way of word formation. Typical semantic relations. Productivity of conversion.
- •31. Word-composition as a type of word formation. Features of compound-words. Classifications of compound-words.
- •32. Secondary types of word-formation: lexicalization, sound-imitation, reduplication, back-formation (reversion), sound and stress interchange.
- •33. Secondary types of word-formation: shortening (contraction), abbreviation, acronyms, blends, clippings.
- •34. Ways and means of enriching the vocabulary.
- •35. Neologisms: semantic groups, ways of forming.
- •36.Phraseological units and their properties. Criteria of phraseology.
- •37. Classifications of phraseological units.
- •38.Phraseological units: ways of formation. The sources of phraseology.
- •39. Historical development of British and American lexicography.
- •40. Encyclopedic dictionaries. Linguistic dictionaries: their basic features and criteria of classification.
- •41. Types of linguistic dictionaries.
- •42. Basic problems of dictionary-compiling: selection of lexical units, arrangement of entries, selection and arrangement of meanings, definition of meanings.
- •43. Basic problems of dictionary-compiling: illustrative examples, choice of adequate equivalents, setting of the entry, structure of the dictionary.
- •45. Variant vs. Dialect. General characteristics of the English language in different parts of the English-speaking world.
- •48. Methods of lexicological analysis (contrastive analysis, statistical analysis, immediate constituents analysis, distributional analysis, transformational analysis, componential analysis).
5. Assimilation of borrowings.
There are translation and semantic loans.
Translation loans are words and expressions formed from the material already existing in English but according to patterns of another language, by way of literal, morpheme-for-morpheme translation
Semantic loan denotes the development in an English word a new meaning due to the influence of a related foreign word.
Lexicology aims to study not loans as such but the material and the results of assimilation. Assimilation of a borrowed word is its partial or total conformation to the phonetic, graphical, morphological standards and semantic system of the receiving language.
The degree of assimilation depends on:
the time of borrowing (the older the borrowing, the more thoroughly it tends to follow the rules of the language);
its communicational value (the extent to which the word is used in the language) (words rarely used in everyday speech retain their foreign peculiarities);
the way of borrowing (words borrowed orally are assimilated more readily than words adopted through writing).
According to the degree of assimilation borrowings are subdivided into:
completely assimilated
partly assimilated
non-assimilated (barbarisms)
6. Classifications of borrowings: according to the borrowed aspect, according to the language from which they were borrowed.
There are following groups: phonetic bor-gs (borrowed with their spelling, pronunciation and meaning) translation loans(word-for-word of morpheme-for morpheme translations of some foreign words expressions) semantic bor-gs ( such units when a new meaning of the unit existing in the lang is borrowed). , morphemic bor-gs( bor-gs of affixes which occur in the lang when many words with identical affixes are borrowed from one lang into another, Latin borrowings. Among words of Romanic origin borrowed from Latin during the period when the British Isles were a part of the Roman Empire, there are such words as: street, port, wall etc. Many Latin and Greek words came into English during the Adoption of Christianity in the 6-th century. At this time the Latin alphabet was borrowed which ousted the Runic alphabet. These borrowings are usually called classical borrowings. Here belong Latin words: alter, cross, dean, and Greek words: church, angel, devil, anthem. Latin and Greek borrowings appeared in English during the Middle English period due to the Great Revival of Learning.
French borrowings. The influence of French on the English spelling. The largest group of borrowings are French borrowings. Most of them came into English during the Norman conquest. French influenced not only the vocabulary of English but also its spelling, because documents were written by French scribes as the local population was mainly illiterate, and the ruling class was French. Borrowing of French words. There are the following semantic groups of French borrowings: a) words relating to government : administer, empire, state, government; b) words relating to military affairs: army, war, banner, soldier, battle; c) words relating to jury: advocate, petition, inquest, sentence, barrister; d) words relating to fashion: luxury, coat, collar, lace, pleat, embroidery; e) words relating to jewelry: topaz, emerald, ruby, pearl ; f) words relating to food and cooking: lunch, dinner, appetite, to roast, to stew. Words were borrowed from French into English after 1650, mainly through French literature, but they were not as numerous and many of them are not completely assimilated. There are the following semantic groups of these borrowings: a) words relating to literature and music: belle-lettres, conservatorie, brochure, nuance, piruette, vaudeville; b) words relating to military affairs: corps, echelon, fuselage, manouvre; c) words relating to buildings and furniture: entresol, chateau, bureau; d) words relating to food and cooking: ragout, cuisine.
Italian borrowings. Cultural and trade relations between Italy and England brought many Italian words into English. Italian money-lenders and money-changers sat in the streets on benches. When they suffered losses they turned over their benches, it was called «banco rotta» from which the English word «bankrupt» originated. In the 17-th century some geological terms were borrowed : volcano, granite, bronze, lava. At the same time some political terms were borrowed: manifesto, bulletin. But mostly Italian is famous by its influence in music and in all Indo-European languages musical terms were borrowed from Italian : alto, baritone, basso, tenor, falsetto, solo, Among the 20-th century Italian borrowings we can mention : gazette, incognitto, Spanish borrowings. Spanish borrowings came into English mainly through its American variant. There are the following semantic groups of them: a) trade terms: cargo, b) names of dances and musical instruments: tango, rumba, 7. International words and etymological doublets.
Speaking about the process of borrowing one cannot but mention international words and etymological doublets.
It is often the case that a word is borrowed by several languages, and not just by one. Such words usually convey notions which are significant in the field of communication.
Words of identical origin that occur in several languages as a result of simultaneous or successive borrowing from one ultimate source are called international words.
Many of them are of Latin and Greek origin. They denote sciences (philosophy, mathematics, physics), art (music, theatre, drama, tragedy, comedy).
Among international groups of borrowings one can find:
political terms: politics, policy, revolution, progress, democracy;
scientific and technological words: atomic, antibiotic, radio, television;
sport terms: football, volleyball, baseball, hockey, cricket, etc.
Sometimes a word is borrowed twice from the same language. As a result, we have two different words with different spellings and meanings but historically they come back to one and the same word.
Words originating from the same etymological source, but differing in phonemic shape and in meaning are called etymological doublets.
The major source for etymological doublets in English is words of Latin origin which came into English in two ways: