- •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.
Inflections
encode grammatical meaning;
are syntactically relevant;
occur outside all derivation;
do not change part of speech;
are rarely semantically opaque;
are fully productive;
are always suffixational (in English).
A lexicalised grammatical affix is an inflection which developed into a derivational suffix.
For example:
–s in customs ‘import duties’, colours ‘a flag / flags of a ship’ does not express plurality;
‘s in at the dentist’s, at my friend’s no longer indicates possession.
13. The derivative structure of English words. The distinction between morphological stem and derivational base. Morphemic analysis vs derivational analysis.
A morpheme (Gr. morphé ‘form, shape’) is one of the fundamental units of a language, a minimum sign that is an association of a given meaning with a given form (sound and graphic), e.g. old, un+happy, grow+th, blue+colour+ed.
Depending on the number of morphemes, words are divided into:
monomorphic are root-words consisting of only one root-morpheme, i.e. simple words, e.g. to grow, a book, white, fast etc.
polymorphic are words consisting of at least one root-morpheme and a number of derivational affixes, i.e. derivatives, compounds, e.g. good-looking, employee, blue-eyed etc.
According to their functions and meaning, affixes fall into:
derivational, e.g. suffixes: abstract-noun-makers
14. General description of word-formation in Modern English. Productive and nonproductive means.
Word-formation (word-building) is the creation of new words from the material available in the language on certain formulas and patterns.
Functions of word-formation:
nominative function;
communicative function.
Word-formation results in:
development of the vocabulary (92,5% of neologisms in Modern English result from word-formation);
re-categorisation (derivatives belong to different word classes).
Word-family is a set of words that all share a common root, e.g. graceful, ungraceful, gracefulness, to disgrace, disgracefully, disgraceful, disgrace, disgracefulness, gracelessly, graceless etc.
Productivity is the ability to form new words after existing patterns which are readily understood by speakers of a language.
Productive means:
Affixation
Word-composition
conversion
shortening
Non-productive means:
back-formation
onomatopoeia
sound and stress interchange
sentence condensation
15. Affixation. Classifications of affixes. Productive and non-productive affixes, dead and living affixes.
Affixation (progressive derivation) is the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to stems.
Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes; does not change part of speech; is more typical of verb-formation (42%), e.g. a pretest, to coexist, to undo, impossible, asleep, to rewrite etc.
Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes; can change part of speech; is characteristic of noun-, adjective- and adverb-formation, e.g. an employee, childish, quietly, to specify etc.
Synchronic vs diachronic differentiation of affixes:
living affixes are easily separated from the stem, e.g. re-, -ful, -ly, un-, -ion, de- etc.;
dead affixes have become fully merged with the stem and can be singled out by a diachronic analysis of the development of the word, e.g. admit < Lat. ad+mittere;
Productive vs non-productive affixes:
productive affixes take part in word-formation in modern English, e.g. -er, -ing, -ness, -ism, -ance, un-, re-, dis-, -y, -ish, -able, -ise, -ate;
non-productive affixes are not active in word-formation in modern English, e.g. –th, -hood, -some, -en;
non-productive affix == dead affix