Topic 1 The English Vocabulary as the Object of Research

Key words: lexicon (vocabulary, word-stock, lexis), dictionary, lexicology, word, lexeme, morpheme, sentence, production/reproduction, arbitrariness, motivation, naming (verbalization, lexicalization).

Look up these terms in the glossary or in the sources indicated in the bibliography to the glossary. Compare the definitions given in English and in Russian.

Problems for Discussion

1. Lexicology: a myth or reality. The object and the subject matter of lexicology.

2. Lexical units: their properties and specific features.

3. The description of the lexicon in generative grammar.

4. The function of lexical units. Naming (verbalization, lexicalization) processes: causes, ways, types and results.

5. Motivated versus non-motivated lexical units.

6. The word as a necessary condition of language.

Questions and Tasks

1. Compare all the linguistic elements and say whether they possess any features in common. Classify the following units of the English language on the basis of their common properties into lexical and non-lexical ones: [t], pen-man-ship, take up the glove, feather, [a:], They talked for a while as darkness fell on the forest, -ion, cloud,- ment, Dark Continent, [au], (there are) no flies on him. Find your own examples of lexical and non-lexical units.

2. Comment on two-facet and productive/reproductive character of phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, sentences and their speech correlatives.

3. Name causes that bring about the need for a new name and find examples of new words and word combinations that have come into the English lexicon since the 70-ies.

4. Analyze the following lexical units: moolah n (sl.) ‘money’, movie ‘moving picture’, schnapps, loo, sound-film, spik ‘Spanish American, esp. Mexican’, Planck (Planck’s constant) ‘fundamental constant proportionality between energy and frequency of quota of electromagnetic radiation’, powercrat and discuss the factors that have caused their appearance in the English language and the way they have been coined.

5. Define the type of naming realized in the following lexical units: foot, football, moonlight, race ‘class of persons, etc. with some common feature’, request, thick ‘of great or specified depth (between opposite surface)’, broad ‘stupid, dull (of voice) muffled, indistinct’, through thick and thin.

6. Define the way of naming used and the type of motivation in the following lexical units: whisper ‘speak without vibration of vocal chords’, glass ‘glass utensils ornaments, windows, green house(s); glass vessel esp. for drinking’, happiness ‘state of being happy’, twitter ‘utter light tremulous sounds’, recording ‘process of recording, sound, etc. for later reproduction’, horn ‘thing made of horn; drinking vessel, powder-flask, made of horn’, hiccup ‘make involuntary spasms of respiratory organs…’, hidalgo ‘Spanish gentleman’, Labour Day ‘celebrated in honour of workers, esp. 1 May or first Monday in September’, Kremlin ‘ citadel within Russian town, esp. that of Moscow’, the Kremlin ‘the Russian Government’.

6. Say whether there is any correlation between the naming technique used in the process of verbalization and the type of motivation in lexical units. Compare the examples given above with their Byelorussian (Russian, French, German, etc.) equivalents and say whether you can observe in them the same naming technique and type of motivation. Try to find an explanation of the differences observed.

8. Compare the following English words summer n, hand v, hot a, luckily adv with their Byelorussian, Russian, French, German, etc. equivalents and define their phonological, morphological, syntactic and other similarities and differences.