The term L. was introduced in the French encyclopedia by Denis Diderot & Alembert in 1765. The term L. is composed of 2 Greek morphemes: ‘lexis’- word & ‘logos’- learning, the department of knowledge.

Thus, the term L. liberally means ‘the science of words’.

So, L. is a brunch of linguistics studying words or the vocabulary of the language.

According to Arnold, L. is a part of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of the language and the properties of words as the main unit of language.

The subject matter of the L. is the word. Word is a simultaneously phonological, semantical, grammatical unit of language. All words in the language make up the vocabulary of the language.

The basic task of L. is the study and systematic description of vocabulary in respect to its origin, development & current use.

Distinction is usually made b/w general L. & special L.

General L. is a part of general linguistics. It studies the words and the vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language. It studies features common to all languages.

Special L. is a L. of a particular language. It studies the vocabulary of the particular language. Special L. may be divided into historical L. & descriptive L.

Historical L., or Etymology studies the vocabulary in its evolution. It describes the origin of words, their change & development in the course of time. It employs the diachronic approach of study. It is composed of 2 morphemes ‘dia’- through & ‘cronos’- time.

Descriptive L. studies the vocabulary at a given stage of its development. It employs the synchronic approach of study – ‘syn’- together & ‘cronos’- time.

These 2 approaches shouldn’t be contrasted, in fact they are interconnected. They consider one and the same phenomenon from different angles.

Besides there are 2 more types: comparative L. & contrastive L.

Comparative L. studies the vocabulary of closely related languages, from the point of view of their typological identity or differentiation.

Contrastive L. is a new type of study. It studies similarities & differences b/w the vocabulary of both related & unrelated languages.

The word as the basic unit of language & the subject matter of Lexicology

The word is the basic unit of the language. The definition of the word is one of the most difficult problems in linguistics. Many scholars have tried to define word as a linguistic phenomenon. It is difficult to do, because any word has many different aspects.

The word is simultaneously phonological, semantical, grammatical unit of language.

So, word is a sort of focus for the problems of phonology, L., syntax, morphology, philosophy, psychology and other branches of knowledge. All attempts to define the word are usually considered one-sized by the representatives of other branches of science and are criticized for incompleteness.

One of the definitions combining the semantic, phonological & grammatical criteria was given by Antoni Meillet – French linguist. According to him: “Word is defined by the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment”.

This definition doesn’t permit us to distinguish words from word combinations. This definition was further developed and modified by Arnold: “Word is the smallest significant unit of a language capable of functioning alone and characterized by positional mobility within a sentence, morphological uninterruptability and semantic integrity”.

As any language unit, a word is a 2-face unit, because of its sound (outer) form and meaning (inner form). Words are not created in speech but are ready-made. A word is characterized by:

• Independence (separateness);

• Identity of all its forms and variants

The identity of the word manifests itself in the ability of the word to have grammatical forms and variants: lexico-semantic variants, phonetic variants, morphological and graphic variants. The system showing word in all its grammatical forms is called its paradigm.

E.g.(1) to give-gave-given-giving (the lex. meaning is the same, but gr. is different)

E.g.(2) worker-worker’s (different gr. variants)

Besides, words possess variants, which are called variants of words. A polysemantic word in one of its meanings is lexico-semantic variant.

E.g. bright colors, bright student

Words also have phonetic variants, graphic variants (birdy/ birdie), morphological variants (geologic/ geological).

Thus, within the language system the word exists as a system and unity of all its forms and variants. The term ‘lexeme’ may serve to express the idea of a word as a system of its forms and variants.

1. Characteristic features of the modern English vocabulary.

The volume of the English vocabulary and its use, the total vocabulary of Modern English and the individual vocabulary. The changes in the vocabulary and their causes.

The total vocabulary of modern English is immense. It contains more than half a million words & set expressions. The latest edition of the dictionary contains 615.000 words (Oxford English Dictionary). But that is only part of the total. No one knows the entire vocabulary. 4/5^th of the vocabulary of English has a highly restricted character. The individual vocabulary of educated people comprises about 40.000 words. Of these, not all the words of equally importance. An average member of speech community uses 4 or 5.000 frequently accruing words. The number depends on person’s education, occupation, age, region and social background.

The exact number of words in modern English cannot be stayed with certainty for a number of reasons:

• The English vocabulary comprises not only words, but phraseological units (fall ill, give up)

• Words formed by means of conversion (e-mail, to e-mail)

• Besides, in English there are a lot of polysemantic words and homonyms (smart clothes, a smart answer, smart wine)

• Word variants, abbreviations (doc, exam, BBC)

• Besides, there are a lot of archaic words. They are dropped out the general use, but they are found in poetry, literature.

• Borrowings (perestroika, dejavu)

• Neologisms & occasional words (goodwillnik, super-man)

• Terms, names of plants & animals (there are over a million of insects, each has its name, so…)

• Regional dialectisms, slang & vulgar words (pie-eyed, money-mad)

• Proper names (geographical names, names of people)

Language as a product of human society changes with the change of society, it is in constant state of evolution. The vocabulary of a language is most sensitive to changes and never remains stable. The changes in the vocabulary are due to linguistic or extralinguistic causes, or to a combination of both. The extralinguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the language. By extralinguistic causes we mean historical events and changes of the life of society (social, economic, political, cultural) which are inevitably reflected spoken by their society. By linguistic causes we mean different relations between the words in the vocabulary and rearrangement of these relations.

The main changes that take place in the English vocabulary under the influence of linguistic and extralinguistic causes are the following:

• new words may be formed in the language with the help of wordbuilding means, e.g. webcam, to text, to instant message, to channel-surf, sexism (discrimination), ageism etc.

• new words may be borrowed from other languages, e.g. perestroika, dejavu.

• some words may grow absolute and drop out of the language, they become archaic, as thou  you, sooth  truth, main  ocean/sea, troth  faith, twain  two.

• some other words become historical words because the notions they express are no longer related to the life of the people today, e.g. hoopskirt (кринолин), catapult, mail (кольчуга), vizor (забрало), halberd (алебарда).

• some words drop out of the language because they are ousted by synonyms which may be borrowed from other languages or created in the English languages, e.g. the old English word ‘niman’ was ousted by the Scandinavian borrowing ‘to take’.

• some words may develop their semantic structure and become polysemantic, e.g. the word ‘earth’ which has the meaning ‘land’ acquire the new meaning ‘planet’.

• the semantic structure of other words may split, as a result, more homonyms may appear in the language, e.g. the following homonyms originated from different meanings of the same word as a result of split polysemy, e.g.

board 1) a long and thin piece of timber;

2) daily meals, especially provided for you when you pay to stay somewhere (e.g. room and board);

3) a group of people who direct or supervise some activity, e.g. a board of directors, an examination board.

As it follows the English vocabulary system is dynamic, it is in the process of constant change and development.

The role of borrowing, polysemy and homonymy in English. The systematic character of the English vocabulary, different groupings of English words.

The English vocabulary, like a vocabulary of any other language is a system of words. There are 2 main types of relations b/w words: syntagmatic & paradigmatic.

Syntagmatic relations are linear relationships of words in connected speech. Syntagmatic relations are built b/w words.

Paradigmatic relations are the relations b/w words within the vocabulary as a system.

The systematic character of the English vocabulary can be proved by the possibility of classifying words in various ways:

1. Acc. to their meaning syntactical function & morphological characteristics, words are traditionally subdivided into lexico-gr. classes, which fall into: notional words & form words.

Notional words include: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.

Form words include: pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, link-verbs.

Notional words constitute the bulk of the vocabulary. They make up about 93% of the whole vocabulary. Form words make up about 7%, but the form words are the most frequent words in English.

The first 15 words in order of frequency are: the, be, of, and, a, in, to, have, it, for, I, that, you, he, on.

2. Words can be divided into native & borrowed words, acc. to their origin.

3. All words are divided into monosemantic & polysemantic, acc. to their ability to have more than 1 meaning.

4. Acc. to their morphological structure all words are divided into: root words (consist of only 1 morpheme – about 18%), derived words (consist of 1 root & some affixes – about 67%), compound words (consist of 2 or more roots & some affixes – about 15%).

5. Acc. to paradigmatic relations, most of words may be grouped of synonyms, antonyms, homonyms.

6. Words can form lexico-semantic groups are small groups of words belonging to the same part of speech & linked by common concept.

E.g. strong  mighty  powerful / weak  feeble  powerless (lexico-semantic groups of quality of strength & weakness).

7. Semantic fields consist of words which have some common semantic component in their meaning. This component may be called the common denominator of meaning. Semantic fields are clusters of related words. These words can belong to different parts of speech.

E.g. there may be the semantic field of space – surface  extend  spread  spacious  vast.

8. Besides, words form thematic groups. Thematic groups are words joined together by common associations. They refer to one sphere of reality. Thematic grouping is based on the co-occurrence of words in certain repeatedly used contexts. E.g. education/ medical care/ traveling, etc.