Practical Importance

Problems of Lexicology

Modern English Lexicology studies the problems of:

1. Words structure and words formation of Modern English.

2. Semantic structure of English words

3. The main principles underlining the classification vocabulary units

4. The laws of replenishing the vocabulary with vocabulary units

5. Investigates the relations between

6. Laws and regulations that garn the development of vocabulary at present time

7. Sources and ??? of English vocabulary

8. Changes the vocabulary has undergone in it’s history

9. MAIN PROBLEM of Lexicology in general? Is the problem of the word: definition of the word.

The practical importance of the course of Lexicology: it will allow us to understand the language better, which will, in it’s own turn, allow us to teach well and understand each other better. Everyone precepts the world in a different way (Psycholinguistics)

Lexical units. Words as the basic lexical units

It is a platitude that the word is considered to be the central part (unit) of any language. This is so

Units of language: phonemes, morphemes, words, word groups, sentences. Functions:

Phonemes – distinguish words.

Morphemes – build up words.

Word groups and sentences – they consist of words.

Lexical units: morphemes, words, word combinations (free groups and set phrases (phraseological units). Their common feature is meaningfulness (they are meaningful units of language).

The word is the basic unit of language system, the largest on morphological level and the smallest of the syntactic level of the language system. Linguistically, the central place of the word in the language is conditioned by the fact that all other units are viewed in the relation to the word.

Extralinguistically, the central position of the word in the system of language is determined by the fact that of the one hand it is the basic unit for naming objects, phenomena and relationships of the objective reality. The word is the linking element between any human being and objective reality. On the other hand the word is the basic material for making utterances, and utterances make communication possible; therefore words make communication possible.

It is possible give different definitions of a word (form different of view): morphologically, structurally, semantically, pragmatically, phonologically.

Antoine Meillet combined semantically, phonological and grammatical criteria and gave the following definition of a word: “A word is defined as the association of a particular meaning of a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment.

Arnold Irina Vladimirovna (modern RF scientist) suggested adding: “A word is characterised by positional mobility within the sentence and the word is the smallest significant unit of a given language capable of functioning alone.

In the most general terms the word is a nominative unit, a sequence of human sounds, which form a autonomous unity and convey a certain autonomous meaning.

Types of Motivation

The word is as a sign is not obituary, but motivated by the whole process of development of language. When a word first comes it is already build out of elements already existing in the language and they build out according to the existing patterns.

The term motivation in Lexicology is used to denote the relation existing between the morphemic and phonemic composition and structural pattern of the word on the one hand; and it’s meaning – on the other (interrelation between structural pattern and meaning). Mainly there are 3 types of motivation:

1.Phonetical motivation (Coo-coo! Splash! Hiss!) is the direct connection between the phonetic structure of the word and it’s meaning. So the word is motivated by a certain similarity of sounds forming the word and the referent (the object of sound we are speaking about; what the word refers to). There is a so-called triangle: imagine the triangle – sound form, referent, concept (the idea). In different language such words sound different, they imitate the same sound, by they are limited by the phonetic structure of the language.

2. Morphological motivation means there is a direct connection between the meaning of the morpheme and the meaning of the word. Teacher, builder, painter, writer – if we hear the word “jumper” = job+’er’ = profession. Morphological motivation may be different. In the word ‘teacher’ it is complete morphological motivation – this is because we know both parts. ‘Monday’, ‘strawberry’ – incomplete motivation, as only one part is known (to get the original meaning we need to know the history of the word). Some words were historically morphologically motivated, but at present have lost their meaning entirely (example – hlavorde – bread keeper; evolved into the word ‘lord’).

3. Semantic motivation – when we use a word in transferred meaning; metaphorically.

Слово – это единица наименования, характеризующаяся цельнооформленостью (грамматической и фонетической) и идиоматической (с) Шмелёв

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