- •1. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics. Lexical units.
- •2.General characteristics the English lexicon
- •3. Etymological survey of the English lexicon.
- •4. Types of word meaning. Word meaning and motivation.
- •5. Change of meaning in English.
- •6. Polysemy in English.
- •7. Homonymy in English. Polysemy vs homonymy
- •2 Types of himonymy:
- •8. Semantic and non-semantic classification of English words.
- •9. Stylistic classification of the English lexicon.
- •10. Word structure. Morphemic analysis of English words.
- •Structurally morphemes fall into three types:
- •12. Affixation
- •13. Conversion
- •14. Compounding
- •15. Abbreviation.
- •1. Sound Imitation (onomatopoeia - [onemaete'pie]).
- •16. Phraseological units
- •2 Criteria:
- •17. Regional varieties of the English language. AmE vs BrE: Lexical / phraseological differences.
- •18. Ways of enriching and expanding the English lexicon.
- •19. British and American lexicography. Main types of English dictionaries
- •20. Some basic problems of dictionary compiling.
1. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics. Lexical units.
Lexicology as a branch of linguistics.
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 as a branch of linguistics is concerned with meaning, history and use of words and also with lexicographic descriptions of lexical items in dictionaries. One of the major tasks of lexicology is to reveal how lexicon is organized, structured, systematized and how it is used for the purposes of communication.
Lexicology is distinguished in:
General and special
Contrastive and comparative
Descriptive (the synchronic approach) and historical (the diachronic approach).
The general study of words and vocabulary, irrespective of the specific features of any particular language, is known as general lexicology.
Special lexicology devotes its attention to the description of the characteristic peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language.
The importance of English lexicology is based on the fact that at present it is the world’s most widely used language. It is spoken as a native language by nearly three hundred million people in Britain, the United States, Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and some other countries. The knowledge of English is widely spread geographically — it is in fact used in all continents. It is also spoken in many countries as a second language and used in official and business activities there. This is the case in India, Pakistan and many other former British colonies.
Lexical units.
Lexicology is associated with such term as lexical item or unit. Lexical units are morphemes, words, word-groups, phraseological units.
2.General characteristics the English lexicon
Of all the language components lexicon is the most sensitive to man's social life, its development is influenced by different extralinguistic factors.
1) One of the specific characteristics of the lexicon in modem English is that it is very extensive. Though it is not possible to give the exact amount of lexical units. But dictionary makers estimate that in English there are somewhere from 450,000 to 3,000 000 words.
The English language vocabulary development is very dynamic. The characteristic feature is steady replenishment of the vocab.
2) There exists a great number of variants and dialects of English. The existing varieties are made by lexical differences, differences in phonetic and grammatical systems.
3) English has mixed etymological character. English borrowed up to 70% of its total vocabulary from more than 50 languages of the world. Examples: baguette [Fr], sushi [Jap]. Loan words radically changed the structure of the OE lexicon.
4) numerous word groups that semantically cannot be reduced to the meanings of their components and are characterized by functional integrity (to break the ice, in the long run, mare's nest, etc.). Such idiomatic word groups are part of the English lexicon.