- •Воронежский государственный архитектурно-строительный университет
- •Введение
- •Lecture 1 lexicology as a branch of linguistics
- •1. General characteristics of Lexicology
- •2. Branches of Lexicology
- •3. The connection of Lexicology with other branches of Linguistics
- •4. Synchronic and Diachronic Lexicology
- •Lecture 2 word structure and word meaning
- •1. Lexical units. The word as a fundamental unit of the language
- •2. Components of the word meaning
- •3. Word-Meaning and Motivation
- •4. Types of Meaning
- •Lecture 3 semantic structure of the word
- •1. Types of context
- •2. Word-meaning in syntagmatics and paradigmatics
- •3. Polysemy and ways of its development
- •4. Types of lexical meaning
- •5. Types of polysemy
- •6. Types of semantic changes
- •Lecture 4 semantic relations of words
- •1. Homonymy. Classifications of homonyms, their sources
- •2. Sources of homonymy
- •3. Synonyms. Classification of synonyms. Euphemisms
- •4. Antonyms. Their classification
- •Lecture 5 general characteristics of english vocabulary
- •1. The volume of the vocabulary
- •2. Archaisms
- •3. Neologisms
- •4. Professional terminology
- •5. Standard English. Slang
- •Lecture 6 word-groups and phraseological units
- •1. Types of word combinations. Classifications of word-groups
- •2. Free word groups
- •3. Phraseology as a subsystem of language
- •4. A phraseological unit
- •5. Distinction between free word-groups and phraseological units
- •6. Classification of phraseological units
- •7. Sources of phraseological units
- •Lecture 7 word structure and word-formation
- •1. Morphological structure of the English word
- •2. Word-formation
- •3. Affixation. Prefixation
- •4. Suffixation. Classifications of suffixes
- •5. Conversion
- •6. Other types of word-formation
- •Lecture 8
- •Variants of the english language
- •1. British English and American English as the main variants of the English language
- •2. Morphological peculiarities of American words
- •3. Grammar peculiarities of American words
- •4. Lexical peculiarities of the two variants
- •5. The future of the English language
- •Lecture 9 english lexicography
- •1. Lexicography as a branch of linguistics, its aims and significance
- •2. The history of dictionary making
- •4. Classification of dictionaries
- •4. Main types of linguistic dictionaries of the English language
- •Modern Russian-English English-Russian Dictionaries
- •Modern English and American Dictionaries
- •Вопросы к зачету по курсу «Лексикология английского языка»
- •Final test English Lexicology
- •Заключение
- •Список литературы
- •Table of contents
- •394006 Воронеж, ул.20-летия Октября, 84
3. The connection of Lexicology with other branches of Linguistics
Lexicology is closely connected with other branches of Linguistics. Phonetics investigates the phonetic structure of language and is concerned with the study of the outer sound-form of the word. If we change some sounds in the word, we receive the word with the different meaning (sheep – ship; cow – bow).
Grammar is the study of the grammatical structure of the language. The grammatical form of the word is changed and the meaning is changed as well (book – books; work – works; arm – arms). The part of speech can be changed as well: pocket – to pocket; name – to name.
There is also a close relationship between lexicology and Stylistics which is concerned with a study of functions and styles of languages.
Lexicology connects with the History of Language. For example, in old English the word “stool” meant any kind of seats. Later on the French borrowing – the word “chair” came and the word “stool” changed its meaning. Now “stool” means the seat without back.
4. Synchronic and Diachronic Lexicology
The vocabulary can be studied by means of two approaches: descriptive and historical. Historical Lexicology deals with the development of the vocabulary, the origin of words and word-groups, and the changes of their sound form and meaning in course of time. Descriptive Lexicology is concerned with the vocabulary of a language at the given stage of its development. The two approaches should not be set one against the other. In fact, they are interconnected and interrelated because every linguistic structure and system exists in a state of constant development. The synchronic state of a language system is a result of a long process of linguistic evaluation.
Lexicology presents a wide area of knowledge.
Contrastive and Comparative Lexicology study the correlation between vocabularies of two or more languages and find out the correspondences between the vocabulary units of the languages under comparison.
Comparative Lexicology studies closely relative languages from the point of view of their identity and differentiation.
Contrastive Lexicology attempts to find out similarities and differences in both related and non-related languages. Its task is a detailed comparison of the structure of a native and a target language. Every language classifies reality in its own way by means of vocabulary units. In English, for example, there is no equivalent for word “сутки”. In English two words “arm and hand” are used to denote the word “рука”.
In contrastive analysis the smallest units of meaning are sememes and semes. For example, in the lexical unit “woman” several semes may be singled out, such as human, female, adult. The analysis of the word “girl” will show the following semes: human, female, young. The last component of the two words differentiates them and makes impossible to mix up the words.
A word has not only one meaning. The words “to like, to love, to adore” denote positive feelings. But each of them gives additional information on the so-called strength of feeling. This is the connotational aspect which shows semantic differential.
Applied lexicology deals with translation, lexicography, pragmatics of speech.
SEMINAR 1
KEY TERMS
lexicology lexeme
language diachrony
vocabulary synchrony
word word-formation
word-group seme
etymology contrastive lexicology
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION AND EXERCISES
Lexicology as a branch of linguistics. Its aims and tasks. Its practical and theoretical value.
The connection of Lexicology with other branches of linguistics.
Lexical units. The word as a fundamental unit of the language.
Borrowings in English.
The diachronic and the synchronic approaches to the study of the vocabulary.
Branches of lexicology. The main problems of lexicology.
1. Translate the following into Russian. State from what languages they are borrowed:
kindergarten, tête-à-tête, Blitzkrieg, persona grata, leitmotiv, primadonna, Nazi, sputnik, ballet, football.
2. The words below are Latin words in their origin, list as many other words as you can with that word part.
recollection generation preservationist construction confluence quantifiable
Test
The term “lexicology” is of
Greek origin
Latin origin
French origin
German origin
The central problem of lexicology is
word
sentence
sound
meaning
The two main approaches in studying language are
special and descriptive
historical and comparative
diachronic and synchronic
contrastive and general
The word-group “as loose as a goose” means
kind
stupid
greedy
clumsy
In contrastive analysis the smallest unit of meaning is
seme
lexeme
word
word-group
6. English is
a) a Germanic language
b) a Scandinavian language
c) a Romanic-Germanic language
d) a Romanic language
7. Seme is:
a) the biggest element of the lexical meaning
b) the grammatical characteristics
c) a suffix of some nouns
d) the smallest element of lexical meaning