1.The subject-matter of lexicology and its main problems

Lexicology as a science has both theoretical and practical value. As a theoretical science modern English Lexicology investigates:

-the problems of word structure and word formation in modern English,

-the semantic structure of English words,

-the main principles of classification of the vocabulary units into various grouping

-the development of the vocabulary

-etymology of English words

-the laws that govern the development of English in present

The theoretical value of Lexicology becomes obvious if we realize that it forms the study of one of the three main aspects of language: its vocabulary, grammar and sound system. Lexicology came into being to meet the demands of many different branches of linguistics, namely lexicography, literary criticism and especially of foreign language teaching.

As for the practical value, it stimulates the systematic approach to the facts of vocabulary and organized comparison of the foreign and native languages. It helps the students to master the literary standards of word usage, to acquire the necessary skills of usage different kinds of vocabularies; it prepares students for further independent work on improving and enriching their vocabulary.

Lexicology and Phonetics

Phonemes have no meanings of their own but they serve to distinguish between meanings, e.g. dog- dig. Their function is building up morphemes. It is exactly on the level of morphemes that the form-meaning unity is introduced into language. Discrimination between the words may be based upon the stress, e.g. import to Import. Stress also helps us to distinguish compounds from homonymous word groups, e.g. blackbird- black bird.

Lexicology and Stylistics

It studies many problems treated in Lexicology but from different point of view. These are the

problems of:

-meaning

-connotations

-synonyms

-functional differentiation of the vocabulary according to the sphere of communication

Lexicology and Grammar

The difference and interconnection between Grammar and Lexicology is 1 of the most important controversial problems in Linguistics, e.g. the verbs say, talk, think is possible only for animate human subjects, it is obvious that not all animate nouns are human.

2.English vocabulary as a system

— words

1. the biggest units of morphology and the smallest of syntax

2. they embody the main structural properties and functions of the language

3.can form the utterance in combination with other such units

4.may be used in isolation

— parts of words (morphemes)

1.cannot be divided into smaller meaningful units

2.function in speech only as constituent parts of words

3.more abstract and more general that of words

4.less autonomous

— word-groups

1.set expressions - ready-made units with a specialized meaning of the whole

2.orthographic words - sequence of letters bounded by spaces on a page

The word is the basic unit of language system, the largest on the morphologic and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis. The word is a structural and semantic entity within the language system.

Lexicology(general or special)

Ways of enriching the voc:

1)voc extension

2)semantic extension

voc extension

a)productive word-formation

-affixation-rewrite

-conversion-colour-to colour

-composition-heart-broken

-back-derivation-to beg

b)non-patterned ways of word-creation

-lexicalization-arms-arm

-adjectivization

-shortening-st.for street

c)borrowing

semantic extension

a)polysemy(a word has more than one meaning)

b)homonymy(identical words in sound and spelling but different in meaning)