SEMINARS

LEXICOLOGY

N. NEDILENKO

2-3 courses

LUTSK-2010

SEMINAR № 1

Lexicology as a branch of linguistics. Etymological survey of the English word-stock.

1. Lexicology, The subject-matter of lexicology. Lexicology in its relation to other linguistic disciplines.

2. Methods and procedures of lexicological analysis.

3. Word as the basic unit of the vocabulary.

4. Words of native origin and their characteristic features:

1. words of Indo-European stock.

2. words of Common Germanic stock

5. Celtic elements in the English vocabulary.

Literature: [3, 5, 6, 10, 12, 28-30, 34, 36, 37, 46, 47, 52]

Exercises

Ex.1 How many (a) orthographic, (b) morphological, (c) lexical and (d) semantic words have we in each of the following lists?

1. make, makes, making, made, maiden

2. fire, fires, fir, firs, fur

3. take, taken, took, taking, takings

4. bass (fish), bass (singing voice), bass (tree bark)

5. royal, legal, kingly (in the context “royal/legal/kingly bearing”)

Ex2. Analyse the meaning of the following word combinations. How is it affected by the order of the elements:

business district – district business, boat deck – deck boat, deck lounge – lounge deck, laboratory research – research laboratory, flower garden – garden flower, child problem – problem child, horse race – race horse, life boat – boat life, pet shop – shop pet, water tap – tap water, cage bird – bird cage

Ex.3. Analyse the meaning of the following word combinations. Prove that the meaning of the first element is different in the two combinations:

operating table – operating surgeon, climbing equipment – climbing tourists, laughing eyes – laughing gas, sleeping children – sleeping pills, reading lamp – reading public, writing clerks – writing implements, dancing girl – dancing hall, walking shoes – walking man, swimming pool – swimming boy

Ex 4. Analyse the meanings of the following sentences. Transform the sentences to show the double meanings.

1. I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas. 2. Yoko Ono will talk about her husband John Lannon who was killed in an interview with Barbara Walters. 3. Two cars were reported stolen by the Groveton police yesterday.4. The license fee for altered dogs with a certificate will be $3 and for pets owned by senior citizens who have not been altered the fee will be $1.50. 5. We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container. 6. New Housing for Elderly Not Yet Dead. 7. 12 on Their Way to Cruise Among Dead in Plane Crash. 8. N.J. Judge to Rule on Nude Beach.

Ex.5 Using an etymological dictionary, classify the following words of native origin into a) Indo-European b) Germanic c) English proper

always, answer, bear, birch, bird, bone, boy, child, corn, cow, daisy, daughter, eat, fir, fox, girl, glad, good, goose, grey, hand, heart, hundred, know, lady, land, lip, lord, make, man, moon, night, nose, old, three, thousand, tree, red, room, sad, sea, see, spring, star, water, woman

Ex.6 Arrange the following borrowings into two groups: 1) old Celtic borrowings, 2) modern Celtic borrowings:

bannock, hard, bin, brock, broque, budget, career, clan, claymore, crag, down, dun, flannel, mackintosh, plaid, shamrock, tunnel, whiskey

Ex.7 Find native words in the extracts given below:

1. It was a glorious morning, late spring or early summer, as you care to take it, when the dainty sheen of glass and leaf is blushing to a deeper green; and the earth seems like a fair young maid, trembling with strange, wakening pulses on the brink of womanhood (J.K.Jerome)

2. The road of the pass was hard and smooth and not yet dusty in the early morning. Below were the hills with oak and chestnut trees, and far away below was the sea. On the other side were snowy mountains. (E.Hemingway)

3. Once upon a time two poor Woodcutters were asking their way home through great pine-forest. It was winter, and a night of bitter cold. The snow lay thick upon the ground, and upon the branches of the trees; the frost kept snapping the little twigs on either side of them, as they passed... So cold was it that even the animals and the birds didn’t know what to make of it (O.Wilde).