Classification of words
By use frequency: basic word stock and non-basic vocabulary
By notion: content words and functional words
By origin: native words and borrowed words
Basic word stock: the foundation of the vocabulary accumulated over centuries and forms the common core of the language. It constitutes a small percentage of the English vocabulary but it is the most important part of it. The characteristics:
1. all national character (the most important feature);
2. stability;
3. productivity;
4. polysemy;
5 collocability.
Non-basic word-stock includes: 1. Terminology ; 2. Jargon ; 3. Slang; 4. Argot; 5. Dialectal words; 6. Archaisms; 7. Neologisms etc.
Content words (notional words) denote clear notions, including: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverb and numerals, which denote objects, phenomena, action, quality, state, degree, quantity. They constitute the main body of the English vocabulary and are numerous. Functional words (empty words or form words): do not have notions of their own. Their chief function is to express the relation between notions, the relation between words and between sentences. They include prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliaries and articles. Functional words make up a very small number of the vocabulary, remain stable. Functional words do far more work of expression in English on average than content words.
Native words (Anglo-Saxon words) were brought to Britain in the fifth century by the German tribes: the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. They are small in number, about 50,000 to 60,000, but they form the mainstream of the basic word stock and stand at the core of the language. They have other two features: neutral in style and frequent in use. The percentage of native words in use runs usually as high as 70 to 90 percent. Borrowed words (loan words or borrowings) are taken over from foreign languages. English is a heavy borrower. Loans constitute approximately 80 percent of the Modern English vocabulary.
There are more criteria for words classification.
Vocabulary as a system
The vocabulary of a language is not chaotic but systematic. Groupings can be distinguished according to several principles: synchronic, diachronic; semantic; formal (structural) etc.
|
aspect
|
dimension taken into consideration |
groupings (popular terms) |
example of scales and illustrations | |
|
alphabetical aspect |
sound |
A B C D E etc |
A, ab, aba, abac, abaca, aback, abactinal etc. | |
|
rhyming aspect |
ness, deaness, librarianess, titaness, sultaness, drabnes,glibness, dubness… | |||
|
word length |
number of letters or syllables |
monosyllables, polysyllables |
man, nice, interesting | |
|
word frequency |
frequency of usage |
basic/core |
be, have, a, the, of | |
|
non-basic/periphery |
slang, argot, terminology, dialectal words, neologisms | |||
|
morphological aspect |
number and type of morphemes |
root/morpheme words (one free morpheme only) |
hand | |
|
derivatives (min 2 morphemes, at least one is bound) |
handed, handedness, handful | |||
|
compounds (min 2 free morphemes, bound morphemes are possible) |
hand-made, handclasp, hand-up, hand-to-scale | |||
|
compound derivatives (min 2 free morphemes, and 1 bound morpheme referring to the whole) |
hander-up hand-tooled, hand-to-mouth | |||
|
common morpheme |
root (word-family) |
hand, handclasp, handed, handedness, hand-up, hander-up, handful, hand-made, hand-pick, hand-picked, hand-to-mouth, hand-tooled, hand-to-scale, | ||
|
affix (word-family) |
handful, hopeful, fruitful, beautiful; overdo, overeat, oversleep, overestimate | |||
|
origin |
source (+degree of assimilation, + borrowed aspect) |
native
|
father, nose, cow, tree, red, be, to stand, to sit to see, to hear, fox, grass, fur, head, old, good bird, boy, lady, girl, lord, woman, daisy, always | |
|
borrowing/loan-word |
face, husband, table rajah, restaurant, cliché, datum, avocado, chao, lambada, pipe of peace, by heart, fair sex, superman | |||
|
semantic, functional aspects |
notion |
content words (denoting clear notions) |
nouns, verbs, adjectives, numerals, adverbs | |
|
functional/empty/clear/form words (expressing the relations between notions, words, sentences) |
conjunctions, auxiliaries, articles, prepositions | |||
|
lexico-grammatical aspect (several groupings constitute a part of speech) |
common lexico-grammatical meaning, paradigm, substituting elements and possibly a characteristic set of affixes |
English nouns , etc. |
personal names, animal names, collective names, abstract nouns, material nouns, object nouns, toponymic proper nouns, etc | |
|
linguistic and extra-linguistic aspect
|
the things which the words refer to are closely connected and occur together in reality; common part of speech and lexico-grammatical group |
thematic groups |
terms of kinship (father, mother, sister, son etc); colours (white, black, green, grey etc); | |
|
the things which the words refer to are closely connected and occur together in reality; signification, the system of logical notions, grammatical meaning is not considered |
ideographic groups |
verbs, nouns , adjectives together (light n, to shine v, bright adj.) | ||
|
semantic aspect |
similarity of meaning |
synonyms
euphemisms
lexical variants |
nice-fine-beautiful, wonderful-cool-rad, motherland-fatherland; to die-to pass away-to go to Philadelphia; whoever-whosoever, whisky-whiskey; | |
|
difference in meaning |
antonyms paronyms malapropisms |
up-down, hopeful-hopeless; economic-economical; ‘dance a flamingo’ (instead of flamenco), reprehend-instead of comprehend | ||
|
relations of inclusion |
hyperonyms/ hyponyms |
animal (cat, dog, pig) | ||
|
semantic structure |
monosemic word |
radar, biochemistry | ||
|
polysemic word |
face, hand, to go, heavy | |||
|
semantic diffusion |
thing | |||
|
semantic unity, structural stability, figurativeness |
phraseological units |
to show the white feather, to buy smth for a song, a snake in the grass, to bear a grudge | ||
|
phraseological expressions |
The devil is not as black as it’s painted | |||
|
free phrases |
to come home | |||
|
stylistic aspect |
register |
neutral |
|
to speak, man, often |
|
literary-bookish/ formal words |
learned words
terms |
solitude, cordial, miscellaneous, knee-joint, still life | ||
|
colloquial
|
standard/literary colloquialisms |
granny, let-down, baby-sit, touchy | ||
|
substandard/ non-literary colloquialisms |
whatchamacallit, whodunit, absobludylutely | |||
|
pragmatic aspect |
emotionality (attitude) |
appreciative neutral derogatory expletive words |
high-elevated/poetic words, profanity, obscenity, blasphemy; oath or swear words | |
|
quantitative change; time axis |
currency (period) |
neologism |
Nick (“newly-industrializing company), teledish (“aerial”) | |
|
archaic words |
obsolete word, historism |
ere(“before”); diligence | ||
|
frequential aspect |
frequency of occurrence |
basic (frequent) nonce-words |
He ha-ha’d (“laughed). | |
|
motivation of structure |
structural pattern |
motivated |
mouth of the river, buzz, giggle, self-made, | |
|
non-motivated words with faded motivation |
to earn, table | |||
|
sociolinguistic aspect |
function and regionality |
standard varieties, dialect, pidgin, creole etc |
British English, American English, Canadian English; Caribbean English; Manx English; Aboriginal English; Chinook jargon etc | |