- •1. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics, its aims and significance. Links with other branches of linguistics. Synchronic vs diachronic approaches to the language study.
- •2. Methods of lexicological analysis: componential analysis, ic – uc analysis, contrastive analysis etc.
- •Immediate constituents analysis
- •3. Words of native origin and their distinctive features.
- •4. The borrowed element in the English vocabulary. The distinction between the terms origin of borrowing and source of borrowing. Translation loans. Semantic loans.
- •5. Types of borrowed elements in the English vocabulary. Etymological doublets, hybrids, international words, and folk etymology.
- •6. Assimilation of borrowings. Types and degrees of assimilation.
- •7. Latin borrowings. Features of Latin borrowings. Periods of borrowings from Latin.
- •8. Celtic elements (5-6 c. Ad) in the English vocabulary.
- •9. Scandinavian loan-words(8-11 c.Ad) in Modern English.
- •10. French elements in the English vocabulary. Features of French borrowings. Periods of borrowings from French.
- •11. Greek borrowings. Features of Greek borrowings.
- •12. Morphology as a branch of linguistics. The morphemic structure of English words. Typology of morphemes. Structural and semantic classifications of morphemes.
- •Ivan Alexandrovich
- •Inflections
- •13. The derivative structure of English words. The distinction between morphological stem and derivational base. Morphemic analysis vs derivational analysis.
- •14. General description of word-formation in Modern English. Productive and nonproductive means.
- •15. Affixation. Classifications of affixes. Productive and non-productive affixes, dead and living affixes.
- •16. Word-composition. Types of compound words. Criteria for their classification.
- •17. Shortening. Types of shortening.
- •18. Conversion. Different views on conversion. Semantic relations within converted pairs.
- •19. Non-productive ways of word-formation in Modern English.
- •20. Semantics as a branch of linguistics, its aims and basic notions. Semasiological and onomasiological perspectives of the English lexicon.
- •21. Approaches to the definition of word meaning: functional, referential and others.
- •22. Types and aspects of word meaning.
- •23. The nature and causes of semantic change. Types of semantic change.
- •24. Transference of meaning.
- •25. Traditional lexicological groupings of words: thematic and ideographic groups, lexicosemantic groups, semantic fields.
- •26. Dynamics of the English vocabulary. Neologisms: their sources and formation.
- •Idiomatic Neologisms
- •27. Polysemy. Semantic structure of English words. Diachronic and synchronic approaches to polysemy. Types of polysemy.
- •28. Homonyms. Classifications and sources of homonyms.
- •29. Syntagmatic vs paradigmatic relations among English words.
- •In psycholinguistics these terms are used in a different sense.
- •30. Synonyms. The notion of a synonymic dominant. Types of synonyms. Sources of synonymy.
- •31. Antonyms. Definition. Morphological and semantic classifications of antonyms.
- •32. Grammatical and lexical valency. Grammatical and lexical context.
- •33. Lexical syntagmatics. Free word-groups vs phraseological units.
- •34. Free word-groups. Definition. Classifications.
- •35. Phraseological units: a variety of terms and the problem of definition. Characteristic features of phraseological units.
- •36. Approaches to the classifications of phraseological units in modern linguistics.
- •37. Polysemy, synonymy and stylistic features of phraseological units.
- •38. Origins and sources of phraseological units.
- •39. Dialectology as a branch of linguistics, its aim and basic notions. A dialect vs a variant.
- •40. Standard English: characteristic features and the problem of definition.
- •41. Local dialects in the British Isles. Scottish English. Irish English.
- •Variants
- •42. Characteristic features of the American English lexicon.
- •43. Lexicography as a branch of linguistics, its aim, basic notions and main problems.
- •43.The structure and contents of a dictionary entry depends on the type of the dictionary.
- •44. Typology of dictionaries.
- •45. Important milestones in the history of British and American lexicography.
33. Lexical syntagmatics. Free word-groups vs phraseological units.
A word-group is a combination of at least two meaningful words joined together according to the rules of a particular language.
Words in word-groups are not “free” because their syntagmatic relationships are governed, restricted and regulated, on the one hand, by requirements of logic and common sense and, on the other, by the rules of grammar and combinability.
Distribution is the range of positions in which a linguistic unit can occur, e.g. the noun issue can appear in various combinations:
Adj. + issue: burning, central, critical, crucial, key, vital; controversial, difficult, thorny; economic, moral, political, social, technical, theoretical;
V. + issue: raise; debate, discuss; decide, settle; address, consider, deal with, examine; clarify; focus on; highlight; avoid, evade.
Semantic combinability of words is based on the meanings of words. It is conditioned by the nature of the denotata of words, i.e. it reflects the connections, relations and associations between objects, properties or events in reality. Semantic links between the combining words serve as a basis for free word-groups.
Semantic agreement is the presence of common semantic features (semes) and the absence of contradictory semantic features in the combining words; it is the basic law of semantic combinability. Consider the example below:
*The yellow idea cut the tree.
*Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
Word-groups:
Constructed in speech
Substitution is possible
individual meanings of the components (motivated)
each notional word functions as a separate syntactic unit
unpredictable
Phraseological units:
ready-made
as a rule, no substitution
meaning is non-motivated (idiomatic)
the whole expression functions as a single syntactic unit
predictable
34. Free word-groups. Definition. Classifications.
A word-group is a combination of at least two meaningful words joined together according to the rules of a particular language.
According to the head-word:
Nominal, verbal, adjectival, statival, numerical, pronominal, adverbial
According to the type of connection:
Predicative
Non-predicative
-subordinate
-coordinate
According to the criterion of distribution, word-groups are classified into:
-exocentric, i.e. having the distribution different from either of its members, e.g. side by side, to grow smaller, kind to people etc.
-endocentric, i.e. having one central member functionally equivalent to the whole word-group, e.g. a red flower, bravery of all kinds etc.
Endocentric word-groups are further subdivided into:
-coordinative if they have the same distribution as two or more of its members, e.g. bread and butter; coffee, tea, and milk;
-subordinative if they have the same distribution as one of their members, e.g. fresh milk; very fresh.
This classification was elaborated by the American linguist Leonard Bloomfield in the book Language (1933).
35. Phraseological units: a variety of terms and the problem of definition. Characteristic features of phraseological units.
Origin of the term
Greek: phrásis ‘expression’ and lógos ‘study, department of knowledge’
Approaches to the definition
European tradition: a branch of linguistics that studies stable word-groups with partially or fully transferred meanings (Ye. D. Polivanov, V. V. Vinogradov, A. V. Kunin etc.)
Anglo-American tradition: a form of expression peculiar to a language including separate words and word-groups (R. Glaeser, G. Knappe etc.)
Charles Bally
F. de Saussure’s disciple, the Geneva School of Linguistics;
introduced the term phraséologie in his book Précis de stylistique (1905);
considered phraseology a branch of stylistics.
Yevgeniy Polivanov
one of the founders of the Society for the Study of Poetic Language (ОПОЯЗ);
defined phraseology as a separate linguistic discipline.
A phraseological unit is a non-motivated word-group that cannot be freely made up in speech but is reproduced as a ready-made unit
idiomaticity
reproducibility
stability
predictability
inseparability