Questions:

1. What is a unit? What language units do you know?

2. What units are studied by lexicology?

3. What feature do all lexicological units possess?

4. What is the basic unit of lexicology?

5. Prove that morphemes, words and set expressions are two-facet units.

6. What distinguishes morphemes from words and set expressions?

7. What distinguishes set expressions from words?

8. How should we treat boundary cases, such as phrasal verbs?

9. What other boundary cases do you know?

10. What are the two approaches to word paradigm?

11. What are variants of words? How are they classified?

Types of Lexicology. Approaches to Language Study

I.V. Arnold, The English Word, §1.1. The Object of Lexicology [pp. 9-12]

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General and special lexicology

he general study of words and vocabulary, irrespective of the specific features of any particular language, is known as general lexicology. Linguistic phenomena and properties common to all languages are generally referred to as language universals. Special lexicology devotes its attention to the description of the characteristic peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language. […]

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Connection between general and special lexicology

t goes without saying that every special lexicology is based on the principles of general lexicology, and the latter forms a part of general linguistics. Much material that holds good for any language is therefore also included, especially with reference to principles, concepts and terms. The illustrative examples are everywhere drawn from the English language as spoken in Great Britain.

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Contrastive lexicology

great deal has been written in recent years to provide a theoretical basis on which the vocabularies of different languages can be compared and described. This relatively new branch of study is called contrastive lexicology. Most obviously, we shall be particularly concerned with comparing English and Russian words.

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Historical lexicology

he evolution of any vocabulary, as well as of its single elements, forms the object of historical lexicology or etymology. This branch of linguistics discusses the origin of various words, their change and development, and investigates the linguistic and extralinguistic forces modifying their structure, meaning and usage. In the past historical treatment was always combined with the comparative method. Historical lexicology has been criticized for its atomistic approach, i.e. for treating every word as an individual and isolated unit. This drawback is, however, not intrinsic to the science itself. Historical study of words is not necessarily atomistic. In the light of recent investigations it becomes clear that there is no reason why historical lexicology cannot survey the evolution of a vocabulary as an adaptive system, showing its change and development in the course of time.

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Descriptive lexicology

escriptive lexicology deals with the vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of its development. It studies the functions of words and their specific structure as a characteristic inherent in the system. The descriptive lexicology of the English language deals with the English word in its morphological and semantical structures, investigating the interdependence between these two aspects. These structures are identified and distinguished by contrasting the nature and arrangement of their elements.

It will, for instance, contrast the word boy with its derivatives: boyhood, boyish, boyishly, etc. It will describe its semantic structure comprising alongside with its most frequent meaning, such variants as 'a son of any age', 'a male servant', and observe its syntactic functioning and combining possibilities. This word, for instance, can be also used vocatively in such combinations as old boy, my dear boy, and attributively, meaning 'male', as in boy-friend.

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Semantic groupings, semantics

exicology also studies all kinds of semantic grouping and semantic relations: synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, semantic fields, etc.

Meaning relations as a whole are dealt with in semantics — the study of meaning which is relevant both for lexicology and grammar.

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Diachronic and synchronic approach

he distinction between the two basically different ways in which language may be viewed, the historical or diachronic (Gr dia 'through' and chronos 'time') and the descriptive or synchronic (Gr syn 'together', 'with'), is a methodological distinction, a difference of approach, artificially separating for the purpose of study what in real language is inseparable, because actually every linguistic structure and system exists in a state of constant development. The distinction between a synchronic and a diachronic approach is due to the Swiss philologist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). Indebted as we are to him for this important dichotomy, we cannot accept either his axiom that synchronic linguistics is concerned with systems and diachronic linguistics with single units or the rigorous separation between the two. Subsequent investigations have shown the possibility and the necessity of introducing the historical point of view into systematic studies of languages.

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The importance of social history

anguage is the reality of thought, and thought develops together with the development of society, therefore language and its vocabulary must be studied In the light of social history. Every new phenomenon in human society and in human activity in general, which is of any importance for communication, finds a reflection in vocabulary. A word, through its meaning rendering some notion, is a generalized reflection of reality; it is therefore impossible to understand its development if one is ignorant of the changes in social, political or everyday life, production or science, manners or culture it serves to reflect. These extralinguistic forces influencing the development of words are considered in historical lexicology. The point may be illustrated by the following example:

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Examples

ost comes into English through French and Italian from Latin. Low Latin posta — posita fem. p.p. of Latin ponere, posit, v. 'place'. In the beginning of the 16th century it meant 'one of a number of men stationed with horses along roads at intervals, their duty being to ride forward with the King's "packet" or other letters, from stage to stage'. This meaning is now obsolete, because this type of communication is obsolete. The word, however, has become international and denotes the present-day system of carrying and delivering letters and parcels. Its synonym mail, mostly used in America, is an ellipsis from a mail of letters, i.e. 'a bag of letters'. It comes from Old French male (modern malle) 'bag', a word of Germanic origin. Thus, the etymological meaning of mail is 'a bag or a packet of letters or dispatches for conveyance by post'. Another synonym of bag is sackwhich shows a different meaning development. Sack is a large bag of coarse cloth, the verb to sack 'dismiss from service' comes from the expression to get the sack, which probably rose from the habit of craftsmen of old times, who on getting a job took their own tools to the works; when they left or were dismissed they were given a sack to carry away the tools.

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Social nature of language

n this connection it should be emphasized that the social nature of language and its vocabulary is not limited to the social essence of extralinguistic factors influencing their development from without. Language being a means of communication the social essence is intrinsic to the language itself. Whole groups of speakers, for example, must coincide in a deviation, if it is to result in linguistic change.

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Sociolinguistics

he branch of linguistics, dealing with causal relations between the way the language works and develops, on the one hand, and the facts of social life, on the other, is termed sociolinguistics. Some scholars use this term in a narrower sense, and maintain that it is the analysis of speech behaviour in small social groups that is the focal point of sociolinguistic analysis. A. D. Schweitzer has proved that such microsociological approach alone cannot give a complete pic­ture of the sociology of language. It should be combined with the study of such macrosociological factors as the effect of mass media, the system of education, language planning, etc. An analysis of the social stratifi­cation of languages takes into account the stratification of society as a whole.

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Interdependence of synchronic and diachronic approaches

lthough the important distinction between a diachronic and a synchronic, a linguistic and an extralinguistic approach must always be borne in mind, yet it is of paramount importance for the student to take into consideration that in language reality all the aspects are interdependent and cannot be understood one without the other. Every linguistic investigation must strike a reasonable balance between them.

The lexicology of present-day English, therefore, although having aims of its own, different from those of its historical counterpart, cannot be divorced from the latter. In what follows not only the present status of the English vocabulary is discussed: the description would have been sadly incomplete if we did not pay attention to the historical aspect of the problem — the ways and tendencies of vocabulary development.

R.S. Ginzburg, A Course In Modern English Lexicology, §1. Definition. Links with Other Branches of Linguistics, §2. Two Approaches to Language Study, §3. Lexicology and Sociolinguistics [pp. 7-9]

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General and Special Lexicology

istinction is naturally made between General Lexicology and Special Lexicology. General Lexicology is part of General Linguistics; it is concerned with the study of vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language. Special Lexicology is the Lexicology of a particular language (e.g. English, Russian, etc.), i.e. the study and description of its vocabulary and vocabulary units, primarily words as the main units of language. Needless to say that every Special Lexicology is based on the principles worked out and laid down by General Lexicology, a general theory of vocabulary.

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Linguo-stylistic

here is also a close relationship between Lexicology and Stylistics or, to be more exact, Linguo-Stylistics (Linguistic Stylistics). Linguo-Stylistics is concerned with the study of the nature, functions and structure of stylistic devices, on the one hand, and with the investigation of each style of language, on the other, i.e. with its aim, its structure, its characteristic features and the effect it produces as well as its interrelation with the other styles of language.

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Synchronic and diachronic approach

here are two principal approachesinlinguistic science to the study of language, namely the synchronic (Gr. syn – 'together, with' andchromos – 'time') and the diachronic (Gr.dia – 'through') approach. With regard to Special Lexicology the synchro­nic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a given time, for instance, at the present time. It is special Descriptive Lexicology that deals with the vocabulary and vocabulary units of a particular language at a certain time. A Course in Modern English Lexicology is therefore a course in Special Descriptive Lexicolo­gy, its object of study being the English vocabulary as it exists at the present time.

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Diachronic approach

he diachronic approach in terms of Special Lexicology deals with the changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time. It is special Historical Lexicology that deals with the evolution of the vocab­ulary units of a language as time goes by. An English Historical Lex­icology would be concerned, therefore, with the origin of English vocab­ulary units, their change and development, the linguistic and extralinguistic factors modifying their structure, meaning and usage within the history of the English language.

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Connection between synchronic and diachronic approaches

t should be emphatically stressed that the distinction between the synchronic and the diachronic study is merely a-difference of approach separating for the purposes of investigation what in real language is insep­arable. The two approaches should not be contrasted, or set one against the other; in fact, they are intrinsically interconnected and interde­pendent: every linguistic structure and system actually exists in a state of constant development so that the synchronic state of a language system is a result of a long process of linguistic evolution, of its historical develop­ment.

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Example of differences between the approaches

good example illustrating both the distinction between the two approaches and their interconnection is furnished by the wordsto begandbeggar.

Synchronically, the wordsto beg andbeggar are related as a simple and a derived word, the nounbeggar being the derived member of the pair, for the derivative correlation between the two is the same as in the case ofto sing—singer, to teach—teacher, etc. When we approach the problem diachronically, however, we learn that the nounbeggar was borrowed from Old French and only presumed to have been derived from a shorter word, namely the verbto beg, as in the English language agent nouns are commonly derived from verbs with the help of the agent suffix -er.

Closely connected with Historical Lexicology is Contrastive and Comparative Lexicology whose aims are to study the correlation be­tween the vocabularies of two or more languages, and find out the cor­respondences between the vocabulary units of the languages under com­parison. Needless to say, one can hardly overestimate the importance of Contrastive Lexicology as well as of Comparative Linguistics in general for the purpose of class-room teaching of foreign languages. Of primary importance in this respect is the comparison of the foreign language with the mother tongue.

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Changes in vocabulary

t is a matter of common knowledge that the vocabulary of any language is never stable, never static, but is constantly changing, growing and decaying. The changes in the vocabulary of a language are due both to linguistic and extralinguistic causes or to a combination of both. The extralinguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the language. In this respect there is a tremendous difference between Lexicology, on the one hand, and Phonology, Morphology and Syntax, on the other. Words, to a far greater degree than sounds, grammat­ical forms, or syntactical arrangements, are subject to change, for the word-stock of a language directly and immediately reacts to changes in social life, to whatever happens in the life of the speech community in question. To illustrate the immediate connection between the develop­ment of vocabulary and the extra-linguistic causes a few examples will suffice.

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New words

he intense development of science and technology has lately given birth to a great number of new words such ascomputer, cyclotron, radar, psycholinguistics, etc.; the conquest and research of outer space started by the Soviet people contributed words likesputnik, lunokhod, babymoon, moon-car, spaceship, etc. It is significant that the suffix-nik occurring in the nounsputnik is freely applied to new words of various kinds, e.g. flopnik, mousenik, woofnik, etc.

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Social factors

he factor of the social need also manifests itself in the mechanism of word-formation. Among the adjectives with the suffix-y derived from noun stems denoting fabrics (cf.silky, velvety, woolly, etc.) the adjective tweedy stands out as meaning not merely resembling or like tweed but rather 'of sports style'. It is used to describe the type of appearance (or style of clothes) which is characteristic of a definite social group, namely people going in for country sports. Thus, the adjectivetweedy in this meaning defines a notion which is specific for the speech community in question and is, therefore, sociolinguistically conditioned.

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Lexicology as a sociolinguistic discipline

rom the above-adduced examples it follows that in contrast with Phonology, Morphology and Syntax, Lexicology is essentially a sociolinguistic science. The lexicologist should always take into account correla­tions between purely linguistic facts and the underlying social facts which brought them into existence, his research should be based on establishing scientifically grounded interrelation and points of contact which have come into existence between the language and the social life of the speech community in question.

I.V. Zykova, A Practical Course in English Lexicology, 1. The Object of Lexicology. Links of Lexicology with Other Branches of Linguistics, 2. Two Approaches to Language Study [pp. 6-8]

Distinction is naturally made between General Lexicology and Special Lexicology.

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General and Special Lexicology

he general study of words and vocabulary, irrespective of the specific features of any particular language, is known as General Lexicology.

Special Lexicology is the lexicology of a particular language (e.g. English, Russian, etc.), i.e. the study and description of its words and vocabulary. Special Lexicology may be historical and descriptive.

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Historical Lexicology

he evolution of any vocabulary, as well as of its single elements, forms the object of Historical Lexicology. This branch of linguistics deals with the origin of various words, their change and development, and investigates the linguistic and extra-linguistic forces modifying their structure, meaning and usage. In the past historical treatment was always combined with the comparative method. Historical lexicology has been criticized for its atomistic approach, i.e. for treating every word as an individual and isolated unit. This drawback is, however, not intrinsic to the science itself.

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Descriptive Lexicology

escriptive Lexicology deals with the vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of its development. It studies the functions of words and their specific structure as a characteristic inherent in the system.

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Two approaches to language study

here are two principal approaches in linguistic science to the study of language material, namely the synchronic (or descriptive) and the diachronic (or historical) approach. The distinction between a synchronic and a diachronic approach is due to the Swiss philologist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 —1913) who separated the two approaches stating that synchronic linguistics is concerned with systems and diachronic linguistics — with single units. Subsequent investigations, however, have shown the possibility and the necessity of introducing the historical point of view into systematic studies even in lexicology.

The term 'synchronic' is composed of two Greek morphemes syn meaning 'together, with' and chronos which denotes 'time'. Thus, with regard to special lexicology the synchronic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a given period of time, e.g. at the present time.

The term 'diachronic' is composed of the Greek morphemes dia meaning 'through' and chronos meaning 'time'. Thus, the diachronic approach in terms of special lexicology deals with the changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time.

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Interdependence of the two approaches

he two approaches in lexicology (synchronic and diachronic) should not be contrasted or set one against the other; in fact, they are interconnected and interdependent: every linguistic structure and system exists in a state of a constant development so that the synchronic state of a language system is a result of a long process of linguistic evolution, the result of the historical development of the language.

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Relationship between Descriptive and Historical Linguistics and the two approaches

good example illustrating both the distinction between the two approaches and their interconnection is furnished by the words to beg and beggar. Synchronically, these words are related as a simple word {to beg) and a derived word (beggar). The noun beggar is derived from the verb to beg by means of the suffix -ar. Diachronically, however, we learn that the noun beggar was borrowed from Old French and the verb to beg appeared in the English language as a result of back derivation, i. e. it was derived from the noun beggar.

Thus, the synchronic approach studies language at a theoretical 'point' in time. It refers to Descriptive Lexicology as this branch of Linguistics deals with the vocabulary and vocabulary units of language at a certain time. The diachronic approach refers to Historical Lexicology that studies the development of language or languages over time.