1.Lexicography: historical development,problems of dictionary making main types of dictionary.

Lexicography is the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries. The word “lexicography” is of the Greek origin λεξίκόs belonging to word and λόγοξ means learning, if we translate it into English it means “learning of words”

The first English word list created in 1604 by Robert Cawdrey, a schoolmaster. He complied his dictionary for schoolchildren and contained 2500 words. It was hard words to explain words which are difficult to understand, there was definitions and synonyms, and not always accurate. The dictionaries of 17^th century were all hard word dictionaries.

However shortly after 1700 a man named John Kersey took the step of including common words too. Business was making dictionaries, a professional lexicographer.

The great figure in lexicography in the 18^thc was Dr Samuel Johnson, he worked 7 years and in 1775 finished the Dictionary of the English Language influence on English writing. Made lexicographical innovations: separating and numbering word meanings. Words in his dictionary werw illustrated by examples from English literature. In the 18^th century synonyms were added to entires, ex: Webster’s Dictionary of synonyms.

Entry is written information in a reference book. An abbreviated designation of its “part of speech” – as n., v., prep., for noun verb, and preposition.

Types of dictionaries

Dictionaries may be unilingual, bilingual and multilingual or polyglot.

Bilingual and unilingual dictionaries can be general and special.

1) General dictionaries are: explanatory, etymological, learner’s, phonetical, frequency, rhyming and thesaurus type of dictionaries. General dictionaries represent vocabulary as a whole.

2) Special dictionaries represent a certain specific part of the vocabulary. They are dictionaries of synonyms, collocations, phraseological units, proverbs, toponyms, glossaries, concordances and so on.

• Concordance: an alphabetical index of the principal words in a book or the works of an author with their immediate contexts.

• Glossary: a list of explanations of words or terms at the end of a book.

• Thesaurus: a collection of words put in groups together according to likeness in their meaning rather than in an alphabetical list

• Ideographic dictionary – for English speaking writers, orators or translators seeking to express their ideas adequately with words grouped by the concept.

The main problems

1) the selection of words;

2) the selection of headwords;

3) the arrangement and contents of the vocabulary entry;

4) principles of definitions;

5) semantic and functional classification of words;

6) the question of separateness and sameness of words, that is which of the selected words must be given a separate entry and which of them are to be included under one common head word is of great importance.

2.Polysemy:word meaning.Types of meaning,narrowing(specialization), widening(generalization). POLYSEMANTIC WORDS. It is generally known that most words convey several concepts and thus possess the corresponding number of meanings. 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. Most English words are polysemantic. 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. The semantic structure of a polysemantic word is treated as a system of meanings. For example, the semantic structure of the noun fire could be roughly presented by this scheme(only the most frequent meanings are given). E.g. Fire, n. - I flame- II instance of destructive burning (e.g. a forest fire); - III burning materials in a stove, fire-place (e.g. There is a fire in the next room. A camp fire); - IV shooting of guns (e.g. to open/case fire); - V strong feeling, passion, enthusiasm (e.g. a speech lacking fire)

Word Old Meaning

affection "emotion"

deer "animal"

forest "countryside"

girl "a young person" starve- "to die"

Word Old Meaning

enthusiasm "abuse"

guts ("courage")"entrails"

pastor "shepherd"(пастух)

pluck ("spirit") "act of tugging"

queen "woman"

Word Old Meaning

crafty "strong"

cunning "knowing"

egregious(вопиющий) "distinguished, standing out from the herd"

harlot(проститутка) "a boy"

notorious "famous"

obsequious "flexible"

vulgar "popular"

Word meaning is studied by a special branch called “semantics”. The definition of “word meaning” can be given on the basis of the so-called referential approach to the meaning. Word meaning may be represented as a model. The three components of the model are: referent, concept and linguistic form. The linguistic form is connected with the concept. Through this concept with an object of reality which is the referent. That means there is no direct connection between the ling. form and referent. So, word meaning is the reverberation in the human mind object of reality which becomes a fact of language when a constant connection is established between this reverberation and a certain linguistic form. It is a specific form of reverberation, the one which is connected with linguistic expression (man). If we take this component away then we’ll be speaking in terms of any science, but not linguistic. Types of the meaning: Grammatical meaning (relationship between words based on contrastive features of arrangements), Part of speech meaning, Lexical meaning - may be denotational (making the communication possible) and connotational (the emotive charge and the stylistic value). Stylistic value is subdivided into neutral, bookish and colloquial. The last may be pointed out like slang, common colloquial, vulgarisms, dialectical words, professionalisms, jargonisms.

Meaning is the inner facet of the word, inseparable from its outer facet (sound form) which is indispensable to the existence of meaning and to intercommunication.

SEMANTIC CHANGES The meaning of a word can change in the course of time. Changes of lexical meanings can be proved by comparing contexts of different times. Transfer of the meaning is called lexico-semantic word-building. In such cases the outer aspect of a word does not change. The causes of semantic changes can be extra-linguistic and linguistic, e.g. the change of the lexical meaning of the noun "pen" was due to extra-linguistic causes. Primarily " pen" comes back to the Latin word "penna" (a feather of a bird). As people wrote with goose pens the name was transferred to steel pens which were later on used for writing. Still later any instrument for writing was called " a pen". On the other hand causes can be linguistic, e.g. the conflict of synonyms when a perfect synonym of a native word is borrowed from some other language one of them may specialize in its meaning, e.g. the noun "tide" in Old English was polysemantic and denoted "time", "season", "hour". When the French words "time", "season", "hour" were borrowed into English they ousted the word "tide" in these meanings. It was specialized and now means "regular rise and fall of the sea caused by attraction of the moon". Semantic changes have been classified by different scientists. The most complete classification was suggested by a German scientist Herman Paul. It is based on the logical principle. He distiguishes two main ways where the semantic change is gradual ( specialization and generalization), two momentary conscious semantic changes (metaphor and metonymy) and also secondary ways: gradual (elevation and degradation), momentary (hyperbole and litote).

SPECIALIZATION (Narrowing). It is a gradual process when a word passes from a general sphere to some special sphere of communication, e.g. "case" has a general meaning "circumstances in which a person or a thing is". It is specialized in its meaning when used in law (a law suit), in grammar (a form in the paradigm of a noun), in medicine (a patient, an illness). The difference between these meanings is revealed in the context. The meaning of a word can specialize when it remains in the general usage. GENERALIZATION (Widening). It is a process contrary to specializaton, in such cases the meaning of a word becomes more general in the course of time. The transfer from a concrete meaning to an abstract one is most frequent, e.g. "ready" (a derivative from the verb "ridan" - "ride") meant "prepared for a ride", now its meaning is "prepared for anything". "Journey" was borrowed from French with the meaning "one day trip", now it means "a trip of any duration". ELEVATION (amelioration). It is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes better in the course of time, e.g. "knight" originally meant "a boy", then "a young servant", then "a military servant", then "a noble man". Now it is a title of nobility given to outstanding people; "marshal" originally meant "a horse man" now it is the highest military rank etc. DEGRADATION. It is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes worse in the course of time. Amelioration or elevation is a semantic shift undergone by words due to their referents coming up the social scale. It is usually connected with nouns denoting common people, e.g. "villain" originally meant "working on a villa" now it means "a scoundrel"