Лексикология английского языка. Учебник

-indivisibility - nothing can be inserted between its elements,

-positional mobility – it’s positionally mobile

-uninterruptability – it’s internally stable in terms of the order of the component morphemes.

Taking into account all these characteristics we may conclude that a word is the smallest significant unit of a given 1anguage capable of functioning alone and characterized by positional mobility within a sentence, morphological uninterruptability and semantic integrity.

2.

The first problem any science is to solve is that of its basic units. To solve this problem, we result from the purposes of language as a tool of communication. As language reflects notions the basic unit of lexicology must be capable of carrying content (information about reality).

The theory of a word was introduced in the mid-50s by Professor Smirnitsky. In it he argued the basic status of a word as the smallest vocabulary unit, pointing out the major properties of a word and its differences from the other types of vocabulary units.

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The essence of the issue is summed up in 2 problems:

-the size of unit problem,

-the identity of unit problem.

In vocalabury we find 3 types of units one of which to be recognized as basic should possess 2 obligatory purposes:

-name an object (nominative function),

-be able to take part in the construction of a sentence to make communication possible (communicative function).

Smirnitsky compared the 3 types of vocabulary units (a morpheme, word, phrase) to select the one to meet these two criteria: nominative and communicative functions. By comparison he isolated a word as the basic unit for the following reasons.

A morpheme is a carrier of only one type of language meaning either lexical or grammatical or word-building, it is the smallest meaningful unit but incapable of functioning in a sentence. A phrase is both meaningful and functional, but саn’t be accepted as the smallest one being a word combination. In such a way a word is the basic vocabulary unit. It's only a word

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that combines both types of meaning (lexical and grammatical) and is the smallest one for that matter. This solution was achieved within the framework of the first problem.

Examination of a word's behaviour shows that it's a variable unit whose both planes are subject to deviation. This objective fact was taken by Smirnitsky into consideration and studied within the framework of the second problem: what is the extent to which a word may vary in both planes to remain the same unit (to retain its identity). He produced a classification of types of variation of a word.

Types:

1. phonetic variants (slightly different in sound shape).

e.g. Compare the variants of pronunciation of the words: often, direct, nephew.

2.morphemic variants/ word-building:

Poetic – poetical,

Lyric – lyrical.

3. morphological variants (one and the same grammatical form can be expressed by different grammatical means):

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e.g., learnt – learned, spoilt – spoiled.

4. lexico-semantic variants (numerous related meanings making up a polysemantic word). LSV is a separate meaning of a polysemantic word related to its other meanings due to a common semantic component present in the meaning of all LSVs.

3.

A word consists of morphemes which can be defined as the smallest meaningful units which have a sound form and meaning, and which occur in speech only as a part of a word.

Morphemes are subdivided into root-morphemes and affixational morphemes. The root morpheme is the lexical centre of the word while the affixational morpheme is a structurally important element of a word. In many cases it adds the part of speech meaning.

e.g., dark - darkness, care - careful - careless.

According to their position affixational morphemes are divided into prefixes, suffixes and infixes.

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According to their ability to function alone morphemes are divided into free and bound. Free morphemes may occur in isolation and coincide with word forms:

e.g., blackberry.

Bound morphemes are not found in isolation:

e.g., manlyness.

There are groups of words in which it is by no means easy to single out morphemes because what looks like a root morpheme has no meaning of its own:

e.g., perceive, deceive, conceive, receive.

Such morphemes are called pseudo-morphemes.

Root morphemes (ill, monger, half) are on their way to becoming affixational morphemes:

e.g., fishmonger's, newsmonger’s, ill-tempered, ill-mannered ill-bread.

They are semi-affixes.

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The relationship between the two classifications of

morphemes discussed above can be graphically presented in the

following diagram:

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English Etymology

1.The problems of English etymology

2.The Native Component (NC)

3.The Borrowed Component (VC)

4.Problems of borrowings:

a)causes,

b)criteria,

c)types.

5.Assimilation as a result of the pressure of the Native Core.

1.

Etymology (etymol – true, logos - learning) reveals word origin and through it represents all language sources of the studied tongue, explains many peculiarities in the structure of vocabulary, ways of its development, etc.

Statistics shows that modern English vocabulary (EV) is paradoxically disproportioned: the NC runs to 30% whereas the BC comes to 70%. This gives the impression that borrowings have been playing a crucial role in the history of EV and determine the course of its evolution. But the NC which is

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numerically small thanks to its powerful properties serves as the nominating basis of vocabulary. Borrowings in their turn were adopted into English for the most part only as peripheral, additional units.

To answer the question about the major driving forces of vocabulary development it’s easy to guess which B or N unit is responsible for them. Since the NE is central and basic, its properties determine the course and ways of vocabulary evolution: patterns of polysemy developed within N words and word-building models.

Vocabulary like language as a whole is recognized as a peculiar type of a natural system. It’s a unique type of a selfadapting system which responds to the demands of outward and inward forces (e.g., nomination, communication, society, thinking).

In the course of development vocabulary endlessly keeps being enriched and changed by new meanings of old words, the appearance of secondary words. New meanings spring up not only in N words proper but also in assimilated B. Thus, the NC is not stable (as far as its amount is concerned), unchangeable and homogenious. On the contrary it keeps developing both in

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number of units (thanks to polysemy and word-building) as well

as number of meanings.

The Etymological Structure of English Vocabulary

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V Greek (Renaissance)

VI Italian (Renaissance and later)

VII Spanish (Renaissance and later)

VIII German

IX Indian

X Russian (and some other groups)

2.

By the NE we mean words which were not borrowed from other languages but represent the original stock of this particular language. It consists of 3 groups. The Indo-European and Germanic groups which together with the earliest Latin B made up the tribal languages of the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes by the time of their migration are so old that they cannot be dated.

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