Other classifications of words.

No.1. Words can be classified semantically: monosemantic – words with one meaning, polysemantic – words with more than one meaning. There are words that develop meanings easily, f.e. adjectives of colour.

Systemic semantic classifications:

a) synonyms, antonyms

b) hyperonyms and hyponyms (гиперонимы и гипонимы). All words of the language are in hyper-hyponymic relations with each other (гипергипонимические / родовидовые отношения). Hyperonym is a generic term (родовое понятие). Hyponym is a specific term (видовое понятие).

Furniture - hyperonym: table, chair, sofa – hyponyms for furniture and co-hyponyms for each other.

Co-hyponyms = equonyms.

Lacunae / linguistic gaps.

No.2. Morphologically: monomorphemic words and polymorphemic.

No.3. Syntactically: full and form words.

No.4 Stylistically: neutral, bookish and colloquial. F.e.: clever, intelligent and brainy.

No.5. Etymologically: native, borrowed and hybrids. Hybrids are words which consist of several elements of different origin.

Different approaches to the problem of the word.

1) materialistic approach:

- words are no mere sounds, but names of matter (by the English philosopher T. Hobbes)

- word is a universal signal that can substitute any other signal from the environment in evoking a response in a human organism (Pavlov)

2) grammatical approach (Henry Smith): the word is the minimum of the sentence

3) phonological approach (Фортунатов): word is any speech sound having meaning

4) psycholinguistic (Выготский, Chronasser): word is a microcosm of human consciousness (Выготский); word is a symbol representing a psychic event which can be the psychological image of the object (Chronasser)

5) syntactic approach (Bloomfield): word is a minimum free form

6) semiotic approach (Saussure): word is a sign to express notions or opinions

7) linguocultural approach: language is a key to the manner of living of a certain nation and so words represent collective memory of language bearers, a mirror of the life of a certain nation.

Lexical elaboration

8) complex approaches:

8.1 phonological + semantic (Saussure): word is a stretch of sounds which, when cut from what precedes and what follows it, renders the meaning of a certain notion

8.2 semantic + phonological + grammatical (Meillet): word is the basic unit of a language resulting from the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment

The word is the basic unit of the vocabulary, the highest unit of the morphology as it consists of morphemes and the lowest level of syntax as it serves building material for collocations (устойчивые сочетания), phrases, clauses (части предложения) and sentences.

Features of the word.

1) reproducibility (воспроизводимость) means that we can reproduce one and the same word as many times as we need

2) isoability (выделимость) – a word is a logically complete stretch of speech which can be reproduced in isolation

3) positional mobility (позиционная самостоятельность) – a word can take any position within a sentence

4) indivisibility (неделимость) – the word cannot be cut into smaller units without a disturbance of meaning

F.e. marry-go-round, ladybird.

5) wholeformedness (цельнооформленность) – the word is dressed in a morphological form only once. Here lies the difference between a word and a word combination because a word combination is not characterize by v and each element of a word combination has its own morphological form. F.e. blue bottle as «синяя бутылка» blue bottle as «василёк».

6) semantic integrity (семантическая целостность) – the word expresses only one concept; polysemantic words have many meanings but they all united by the common idea.