Methods of lexicological research
LEXICOLOGY AS A BRANCH OF LINGUISTICS
1. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics. Object, main concepts, theoretical and practical value of lexicology.
2. Lexicology in its relations to other levels of linguistic structure and other branches of linguistics.
3. Some general problems of the theory of word.
3.1. The size-of-unit problem.
3.1.1. The word and the morpheme.
3.1.2. The word and the word combination.
3.2. The identity-of-unit problem.
3.2.1. Phonetic variation.
3.2.2. Morphological variation.
3.2.3. Semantic variation.
4. Vocabulary as a system.
5. Methods of lexicological research.
RECOMMENDED READING:
Arnold, Irina. The English Word. - Moscow: Vyshaja Shkola. 1966. – Chapter 1 “Introduction” P. 11 – 50.; Chapter 11 “English Vocabulary as a System” P. 249 – 274.
Антрушина Г.Б., Афанасьева О.В., Морозова Н.Н. Лексикология английского языка: Учебник для пед. вузов. – 3-е изд-е. - – М.: Дрофа, 2001. – C. 6 – 12.
Rayevskaya N.M. English Lexicology. – Kiev.: “Vysca Scola”, 1979. – P. 10 – 44.
MAIN CONCEPTS OF THE THEME:
applied lexicology,
basic unit
comparative lexicology,
context,
contrastive lexicology,
descriptive/synchronic lexicology,
dialectology,
etymology,
extra-linguistic sphere,
general lexicology,
historical/diachronic lexicology,
IC’s analysis
lexeme,
lexical system
lexicography
lexicology,
lexicon
motivation
onomasiology,
paradigmatics,
phraseology,
semasiology,
set expression,
special lexicology,
syntagmatics,
theoretical lexicology
vocabulary,
word equivalent,
word,
word-combination
word-group/word-grouping/word family,
wordstock/ stock of words
THEME IN A NUTSHELL
Lexicologyis a branch of linguistics, inquiring into the origins and meanings of words.
English lexicology aims at investigating and studying the morphological structures of English words and word equivalents, their semantic structures, relations, historical development, formation and usages. It’s a theoretically oriented course.
English lexicology is a subbranch of linguistics, but it embraces other academic disciplines, such as phonetics, morphology, semantics, etymology, stylistics, lexicography.
Branches of lexicology: onomasiology (naming and nominative processes), semasiology (theory of meaning), etymology (source of vocabulary and word origin), phraseology (theory of set expressions), lexicography (the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries), onomastics (the study of the history and origin of proper names, esp. personal names), terminology (the body of terms used with a particular technical application in a subject of study, theory, profession, etc.).
Two main approaches to the study of words: synchronic and diachronic.
Two main types of relations: paradigmatic and syntagmatic.
BASIC CONCEPTS: ‘WORD’ AND ‘VOCABULARY’
Word is a minimal free form of a language that has a given sound and meaning and syntactic function.
Four features:
1. a minimal free form of a language;
2. a sound unity;
3. a unity of meaning;
4. a form that can function alone in a sentence.
A word is a symbol that stands for something else in the world. Certain sounds will represent certain persons, things, places, properties, processes and activities outside the language system. This symbolic connection is almost always arbitrary, and there is no logical relationship between the sound which stands for a thing or an idea and the actual thing and idea itself.
Vocabulary: all the words in a language make up its vocabulary. It can not only refer to total number of the words in a language, but stand for all the words used in a particular historical period.
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 |
NON-SEMANTIC GROUPINGS
alphabetical grouping
The sound is taken into consideration. Outcome is almost null with few exceptions of etymological value. For instance, words beginning with w are mostly native. Many words beginning with ph [f] and ps [s] are Greek (philology, psychology). Those beginning with sk [sk] are of Scandinavian origin (sky, skate, ski) and not palatalized, but the ones with sh [⌠] are native and palatalized (shirt);
rhyming grouping
The sound is taken into consideration but the other way round (game, fame);
word length
The number of letters is taken into consideration. Important for lexicostatistics, communication engineering. The number of letters and esp. syllables correlates to the word frequency, the number of meanings and stylistic characteristics of the lexical item.
word frequency
This approach is very important for lexicography and language teaching. The most frequent words are polysemantic and stylistically neutral.
MOTIVATION
Motivation is the relationship between the morphemic or phonemic composition and structural pattern of the word on the one hand, and its meaning on the other hand.
3 types of motivation: phonetical (hiss, bang, buzz)
morphological (reader. overgrow, eye-wash - self explaining words);
semantic (head of army, head of procession, head of cabbage).
Non-motivated words (to earn).
METHODS OF LEXICOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Distributional analysis, method of oppositions, substitution, IC’s analysis, transformational analysis, componential analysis, semasiological analysis (reveals word meaning), onomasiological analysis of lexico-semantic groups (reveals peculiarities of the use of words in each language as well as the frequency value of words with different semantic components), onomasiological comparative (is intended to reveal the words which are used to denote one the same object).