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Федеральное агентство по образованию Государственное образовательное учреждение высшего профессионального образования Тульский государственный университет Кафедра лингвистики и перевода

Лекции по лексикологии английского языка

для студентов, обучающихся по направлению 031100 – лингвистика и перевод

по специальности 031202 – перевод и переводоведение

Автор: кандидат филологических наук, доцент Гусева Галина Владимировна

Тула 2007

Lecture 1

What is Lexicology?

I.The Subject of Lexicology

The term lexicology is of Greek origin (from lexis – word and logos - science). Lexicology is the part of linguistics which deals with the vocabulary and characteristic features of words and word-groups.

The term word denotes the main lexical unit of a language resulting from the association of a group of sounds with a meaning. This unit is used in grammatical functions characteristic of it. It is the smallest unit of a language which can stand alone as a complete utterance.

The term word-group denotes a group of words which exists in the language as a ready-made unit, has the unity of meaning, the unity of syntactical function, e.g. the word-group as loose as a goose means clumsy and is used in a sentence as a predicative (He is as loose as a goose).

Lexicology can be general and special. General lexicology is the lexicology of any language, part of General Linguistics. It is aimed at establishing language universals – linguistic phenomena and propeties common to all languages.

Special lexicology is the lexicology of a particular language (English, German, Russian, etc.).

Lexicology can study the development of the vocabulary, the origin of words and word-groups, their semantic relations and the development of their sound form and meaning. In this case it is called historical lexicology.

Another branch of lexicology is called descriptive and studies the vocabulary at a definite stage of its development.

II.What is a Word?

First, the word is a unit of speech which, as such, serves the purposesof human communication. Thus, the word can be defined as a unit of communication.

Secondly, the word can be perceived as the total of the sounds which comprise it.

Third, the word, viewed structurally, possesses several characteristics.

The modern approach to word studies is based on distinguishing between the external and the internal structures of the word.

By external structure of the word we mean its morphological structure. For example, in the word post-impressionists the following morphemes can be distinguished: the prefixes post-, im-, the root press, the noun-forming suffixes – ion, -ist, and the grammatical suffix of plurality –s.

The external structure of the word, and also typical word-formation patterns, are studied in the framework of word-building.

The internal structure of the word, or its meaning, is nowadays commonly referred to as the word‘s semantic structure. This is the word‘s main aspect.

The area of lexicology specialising in the semantic studies of the word is called semantics.

One of the main structural features of the word that it possesses both external (formal) unity and semantic unity.

A further structural feature of the word is its susceptibility to grammatical employment. In speech most words can be used in different grammatical forms in which their interrelations are realized.

Thus, the word is a speech unit used for the purposes of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity.

III.The Problem of Word-Boundaries

The difference between words and other two-facet units is not always clear. There are:

1.Form words. On the one hand, they fuse with notional words phonetically and do not function as sentence-members. On the other hand, they are positionally mobile, e.g. a, to, and.

2.Loose compounds, e.g. speech sound, stone wall. On the one hand, theya are built in speech. On the other hand, they have one lexical stress.

3.Phrasal words: his I-love-you‘s. On the one hand, they are built in speech and

are not reproducible. On the other, they have one lexical stress.

The difference between variants of the same word and different words is also not always clear. Within the language system the word is a lexeme – an abstract unit which unites all its variant:

a)lexico-semantic variants – different meanings of the same polysemantic word: to give a pen, to give a smile, to give an answer;

b)phonetic variants – different pronouncation of the same word: neither, either, often;

c)orthographic variants – different spelling of the same word: jail – gaol;

d)morphological variants – different morphemic structure of the same word: learned – learnt, geographic – geographical.

IV. Lexicology and its Connection with Other Linguistc Disciplines

Lexicology is closely connected with other branches of linguistcs:

1.It is connected with Phonetics because the word‘s sound form is a fixed sequence of phonemes united by a lexical stress.

2.Lexicology is connected with Morphology and Word-Formation as the word‘s structure is a fixed sequence of morphemes.

3.It is connected with Morphology because the word‘s content plane is a unity of lexical and grammatical meanings.

4.The word functions as part of the sentence and performs a certain syntactical function that is why it is also connected with Syntax.

5.The word functions in different situations and spheres of life therefore it is connected with Stylistics, Socioand Psycholinguistics.

But there is also a great difference between lexicology and other linguistc disciplines. Grammatical and phonological systems are relatively stable. Therefore they are mostly studied within the framework of intralinguistics.

Lexical system is never stable. It is directly connected with extralinguistic systems. It is constantly growing and decaying. It is immediately reacts to changes in social life, e.g. the intense development of science and technology in the 20th century gave birth to such words as computer, sputnik, spaceship. Therefore lexicology is a sociolinguistic discipline. It studies each particular word, both its intraand extralingiustic relations.

Lexicology is subdivided into a number of autonomous but interdependent disciplines:

1.Lexicological Phonetics. It studies the expression plane of lexical units in isolation and in the flow of speech.

2.Semasiology. It deals with the meaning of words and other linguistic units: morphemes, word-formation types, morphological word classes and morphological categories.

3.Onomasiology or Nomination Theory. It deals with the process of nomination: what name this or that object has and why.

4.Etymology. It studies the origin, the original meaning and form of words.

5.Praseology. It deals with phraseological units.

6.Lexicography. It is a practical science. It describes the vocabulary and each lexical unit in the form of dictionaries.

7.Lexical Morphology. It deals with the morphological stricture of the word.

8. Word-formation. It deals with the patterns which are used in coining new words.

Lecture II

Meaning. Concept

I.Approaches to Lexical Meaning

There are two main approaches to lexical meaning: referential and functional. The referential approach studies the connection between words and thins or concepts they denote. Functional approach studies relations between words.

The referential model of meaning is the so-called basic semantic triangle. it consists of:

1.The sound-form (Sign) of the word: [bз:d].

2.The referent (Denotatum) – the object which the word names: the actual bird.

3.The concept (Designatum) – The essential properties of this object which are reflected in human mind: “a feathered anial with wings“.

Meaning is closely connected with all parts of the semantic triangle but cannot be equated with any of them. Generally speaking, meaning can be described as a component of the word through which a concept is communicated, in this way endowing the word with the ability of denoting real objects, qualities, actions and absract notions.

The functional approach assumes that the meaning of a linguistic unit can be studied only through its relation to other linguistic units and not through its relation to concept or referent, e.g. we know that the meaning of “bird n“ and “bird v“ is different because they function in speech differently. Analysing various contexts in which these words are used we can observe that they have different distribution. As the distribution of the two words is different, their meanings are different too.

The same is true of a polysemantic word: Look at me – You look tired. Consequently, semantic investigation is confined to the analysis of the difference or sameness of meaning. the functional approach is a valuable complement to the referential theory.

II.Lexical Meaning and Concept

Meaning and concept are very closely associated but not identical. Meaning is a linguistic category. Concept is a logical and psychological category, a unit of thinking.

Meaning and concept coincide only in scientific terms that have no general meanings (morpheme, phoneme, amoeba) and in terminilogical meanings of polysemantic words, e.g. legal, medical or grammatical usages of the word case. In other aspects meaning and concept do not coincide:

1.Concept is emotionally and stylistically neutral. Meaning may include non-conceptual parts: kid, gorgeous, birdie.

2.One and the same concept can be expressed differently: die – pass away, kick the bucket.

3.The number of concepts does not correspond to the number of words and meanings. One concept may be expressed by several synonymous words: child, kid – infant. One polysemantic word may express several concepts: draw – “move by pulling“ (draw a boat out of the water), “obtain from a source“ (draw water from a well), “make with a pen, pencil or chalk“ (draw a straight line). Some words do not express concepts at all: well, must, perhaps.

4.Concepts are mostly international. Meanings are nationally specific. Words expressing identical concepts may have different meanings and different semantic structures in different languages: house – дом; blue -

синий, голубой.

III. Types of Lexical Meaning

The content plane of words includes denotative and connotative meanings. Denotative or referential meaning, the basic type of lexical meaning, is the

word‘s reference to the object. This reference may be individual (The dog is trained) or general (It‘s not a dog). That is why denotative meaning is subdivided into demonstrative and significative.

The type of denotative meaning varies in different groups of words.

The meaning of situational words is relative – it depends on the situation and context: here, son, my, this, now.

Pronominal words do not name the referent, they only point to it: he, she, they. Their meaning in isolation is very general: he – any male. but in speech their reference is always individual: he – this particular male.

The referent of proper names is always an individual object or person. They refer to each member of a particular class: London, Paris (cities), John, Bob (men).

Specific and generic terms differ in the size of the referent group: rose – flower; flower – plant. General terms have a wider meaning and can substitute for any specific term: dog – English bulldog, French poodle, cocker spaniel.

The referent of abstract words can be perceived by the mind and not by the senses: miracle, polite, to manage.

Connotative meaning includes various additional meanings: emotional, evaluative intensifying and expressive, e.g. hillock, to devour. As a rule, connotation co-exists with denotation. However, sometimes it comes to the fore and weakens the word‘s denotative meaning.

Words also may have a certain stylistic value. It means that they refer to this or that situation or functional style: science, everyday life, business: get – obtain – procure; child – kid – infant.

IV. Lexical and Grammatical Meaning

The word is a lexical-grammatical unity. Its content plane includes two types of meaning: lexical and grammatical.

Lexical meaning is individual, unique. It does not belong to any other word in the same language: bicycle – a vehicle with two wheels, handle-bars to guide it with, a seat, and two pedals to make it go. Grammatical meaning is general, standard. It belongs to a whole class of words and word-forms: bicycle – a noun in the common case, singular.

At the same time lexical and grammatical meanings co-exist in the word and are interdependent:

1.Lexical meaning affects grammatical meaning: abstract or mass nouns have no plural form (joy, sugar), relative adjectives have no degrees of comparison (watery), statal verbs are not used in progressive tenses (see, understand).

2.Grammatical meaning affects lexical meaning. Different meanings of the polysemantic word go have their own grammatical peculiarities: He has gone to China – moved (go + adverb of place); They are going to get married soon – are planning (be going + to-infinitive); The children went wild with eycitement – became (go + adjective).

3.Combinability of the word depends both on its lexical and grammatical (part-of-speech) meaning, e.g. the noun tea combines with strong but not with strongly.

4.Grammatical form may be isolated from the paradigm and become lexicalized: works – factory.

5.Lexical meaning may be grammaticalized, e.g. some notional verbs may be used as link-verbs: give a smile, turn red.

Lecture III

Semantic Changes

I.The Causes of Semantic Changes

The meaning of a word can change in the course of time. Transfer of the meaning is called lexico-semantic word-building. In such cases the outer aspect of a word does not change.

The causes of semantic changes can be extra-linguistic and linguistic: the change of the lexical meaning of the noun pen was due to extra-longuistic causes. Primarily pen comes back to the latin word penna (a feather of a bird). As people wrote with goose pens the name was transferred to steel pens which were later on used for writing. Still later any instrument for writing was called a pen.

On the other hand, causes may be linguistic, e.g. the conflict of synonyms when a perfect synonym of a native word is borrowed from some other language one of them may specialize in its meaning. The noun tide in Old English was polysemantic and denoted time, season, hour. When the French words time, season, hour were borrowed into English they ousted the word tide in these meanings. It was specialized and now means regular rise and fall of the sea caused by attraction of the moon. The meaning of a word can also change due to ellipsis: the word-group a train of carriages had the meaning of a row of carriages, later on of carriages was dropped and the noun train changed its meaning, it is used now in the function and with the meaning of the whole word-group.

Semantic changes have been classified by different scientists. The most complete classification was suggested by a German scientist Herman Paul. It is based on the logical principle. He distinguishes two main ways where the semantic change is gradual (specialization and generalization), two momentary conscious