- •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).
8. The morpheme as the smallest meaningful language unit. Classifications of morphemes.
Lexical Units: constituent units of lexicon (morphemes, words, phraseological units and variable word-groups)
Features of Lexical Units: two-facet (having meaning and form); ready-made (registered in a dictionary and reproducible in speech).
The Morpheme: the smallest meaningful indivisible two-facet language unit ;(flower-pot: morphemes flower-, pot-; teacher: teach-, -er )
The Morpheme and The Word: Like a word a morpheme is a two-facet language unit, an association of a certain meaning with a certain sound-pattern. Unlike a word a morpheme is not an autonomous unit and can occur in speech only as a constituent part of the word. (“lace” – ‘a string or cord put through small holes in shoes’ and the constituent phonemes [l], [eı], [s] which are entirely without meaning
Allomorphs or Morpheme Variants: all the representations of the given morpheme that manifest alteration.
In the word-cluster please, pleasing, pleasure, pleasant the root-morpheme is represented by phonetic shapes: [plı:z] in please, pleasing; [pleg] in pleasure; [plez] in pleasant
Classification of Morphemes: lexical: free, bound; grammatical (functional): free, bound
Free lexical morphemes are roots of words which express the lexical meaning of the word; they coincide with the stem of simple words (table, small).
Free grammatical morphemes are function words: articles, conjunctions and prepositions (the, with, and).
Bound lexical morphemes are affixes: prefixes (dis-), suffixes (-ish), completives (combining forms) (poly – clinic) and also blocked (unique) root morphemes (Fri-day, cran-berry). Bound grammatical morphemes are inflections (endings)
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.
Morphemes are meaningful, but they cannot function separately (except roots). Word combinations are structurally divisible into words.
Extra-linguistically the word is also the basic unit due to its functions: 1) the main unit for naming objects, actions, qualities, etc.; 2) the basic material to make up phrases in the process of communication.
Definitions of Words: Orthographic definition: a word is any sequence of letters between spaces.
But: in many non-alphabetical languages, like Chinese, the letters give no clue as to where a word starts and ends
Morphological definition: a word is a minimal free morpheme.
But: it is not always clear what a morpheme is and which morpheme should be called free
Conceptual definition: a word is a linguistic counterpart of a single concept. But: one concept may be expressed by one or two words (eg. toothpaste, tooth-paste and tooth paste). Or one word may express different concepts when it is polysemantic.
Characteristics of Words: distinguishing between the internal and the external structures of the word; unity of the word (formal and semantic); susceptibility to grammatical employment (in speech words can be used in different grammatical forms in which their interrelations are realized). 1.The external structure of the word – its morphological structure. ( post-impressionists: the prefixes post-, im-, the root press, the suffixes -ion, -ist, and the grammatical suffix of plurality -s). The internal structure of the word, or its meaning, – the word’s semantic structure. This is the word’s main aspect. 2. Semantics: the area of Linguistics specialising in the semantic studies of the word .Formal unity: the components of words are permanently linked together (e.g. post-impressionists) in opposition to word-groups whose components possess a certain structural freedom (e.g. bright light, to take for granted).
Semantic unity: any word always conveys one concept, no matter how many component morphemes it may have in its external structure. While in a word-group each of the meaningful words conveys a separate concept (e.g. blackbird – the type of bird; a black (colour) bird – a kind of a living creature).
The Word: a speech unit used for the purposes of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity.
Structural Types of Words: Simple words consist of one root morpheme and an inflexion (in many cases the inflexion is zero), e.g. seldom, chairs, longer, asked.
Affixed words consist of one root morpheme, one or several affixes and an inflexion, e.g. derestricted, unemployed.
Compound words consist of two or more root morphemes and an inflexion, e.g. lady-birds, wait-and-see (policy).
Compound-affixed words consist of two or more root morphemes, one or more affixes and an inflexion, e.g. job-hopper, autotimer.
The Word-group: is the largest two-facet lexical unit comprising more than one word .Word-groups: functionally and semantically inseparable: set-phrases or phraseological units (at least, point of view, by means of, take place, etc.); possess greater semantic and structural independence: free or variable word-groups (a week ago, take lessons, etc.) boy, boys, boy’s, boys’ A Lexeme: all the lexical meanings of the word inherent in a morpheme which unite this word with other words into one group.