Экзаменационные вопросы по лексикологии

1. Lexicology as a linguistic science: the object, aims, relations with other branches of linguistics.

2. Word as the basic unit of the language. The theory of nomination.

3. Methods of lexicological research: comparative, statistical, IC analyses.

4. Methods of lexicological research: distributional, transformational, componential analyses.

5. The problem of classification of the vocabulary.

6. The vocabulary as a complex adaptive system. Obsolete words. Neologisms.

7. The English word-stock from the point of view of its origin. The role of native words.

8. Classification of borrowings according to the borrowed aspect, degree of assimilation, source.

9. The influence of borrowings. Etymological doublets. International words. Hybrids.

10. The notion of the morpheme. Classification of morphemes.

11. Derivational structure of English words. Productive patterns.

12. Affixation. Classification of affixes.

13. Conversion, its features and types.

14. Compounding. Criteria of compounds. Types of compounds.

15. Shortening. Blending.

16. Back-formation. Onomatopoeia. Reduplication. Sound- and stress-interchange.

17. Territorial and social variation of the English language.

18. Functional styles and basic vocabulary.

19. Lexical peculiarities of formal and informal styles.

20. Semantic theories in Comparative historical and Structural paradigms.

21. Semantic theories in Generative and Cognitive paradigms.

22. Types of meaning. Lexical meaning as a structure.

23. Ways of meaning representation. Motivation and meaning.

24. Polysemy and context. Formal (logical) relations among the meanings.

25. Semantic change: its causes, nature and types.

26. Synonymy. Classification of synonyms.

27. Lexical variants. Paronyms. Euphemisms. Political correctness.

28. Antonymy. Classification of antonyms.

29. Homonymy, its sources and types.

30. Hyponymy, its features and types.

31. Phraseology, its methods and sources.

32. Phraseological units vs. free word groups. Proverbs, sayings, familiar quotations and clichés.

33. Different classifications of phraseological units (according to the degree of motivation, structural mobility, semantic, structural, part of speech).

34. Lexicography as a branch of linguistics. Main types of English dictionaries.

1. Lexicology as a linguistic science: the object, aims, relations with other branches of linguistics.

Lexicology (from Gr lexis ‘word’ and logos ‘learning’) is the part of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of the language and the properties of words as the main units of language.

One of the major tasks of L. is to reveal how lexicon is organized, structured, systematized and how it is used for the purposes of communication.

L. is associated with such terms as lexical item or unit, then with the term lexeme.

Lexical units of the lexicology are:

• morphemes – the smallest meaningful elements (units) of a ling. system to form names for the purpose of communication;

• words – ready-for-usage units to name objects and properties of reality, phenomena;

• word-equivalents – set-expressions functioning as names of a complex type (syntactically treated as a single words)

Morphemes, words and word-equivalents form the system of lexical units of a language (its vocabulary) – a building material for communicators.

Approaches to lexical studies:

General L.: general rules of L., irrespectively of other more specific problems.

Special L.: one specific language, description of its vocabulary, voc. units, the main units of the language. But every special L. is based on principles of general L., a general theory of vocabulary:

• historical L.: the dev. of the words (vocabulary) – diachronic approach;

• modern L. (descriptive): the words and their dev. at the given stage – synchronic approach.

Aims:

• structural and semantic analysis;

• replenishment and dev. of the voc.;

• relations b/w layers of the voc.;

• systemic description;

• lexicography (dictionary compiling).

Lexicology is closely connected with other branch of linguistics:

• the history of the language (source, origin);

• phonetics (investig. the phonetic structure and is concerned w/the study of out or sound-form of the word: pit-pot, tip-tap-top; phonemes have no meaning of their own, but serve to distinguish b/w meanings; stress also plays an important role: ‘import (n) and im’port (v));

• stylistics (the problem of meaning, synonymy, funct. diff. of voc. acc. to the sphere of communication);

• grammar (the various means of expressing gramm. relations b/w words as well as w/patterns ather which words are combined into word-groups and sentences);

• sociolinguistics (social reasons);

• psycholinguistics (motivation), etc.