Word as a basic unit of language and types of words.

The theory of oppositions.

Course of English lexicology falls into 2 main parts:the treatment of the English words as a structure and as a system.Lexical opposition is the basis of lexical research and description.Trubetskoy’s theory oppositions,first used in phonology, the theory proved fruitful for other branches of linguistics as well.A lexical opposition is defined as a semantically relevant relationship of partial difference between two partially similar words.We use the term lexical distinctive feature for features capable of distinguishing a word in porphological form or meaning from an otherwise similar word or variant.We deal with lexical distinctive features and lexical oppositions.In the oppositions doubt-doubtful the distinctive features are morphological(doubt is a root word abd a noun, doubtful is a derived adjective). The features that the two contrasted words possess in common form the basis of a lexical opposition.The basis on the opposition doubt-doubtful is the common root –doubt-.Without a basis of similarity no comparison and no opposition are possible.

Word as a basic unit of language and types of words.

The term unit means one of the elements into which a whole may be divided or analysed and which possesses the basic properties of this word. 1)The word as a unit of communication

2) The word can be defined as the total of the sounds, which comprises i. 3) The word possesses several charecteristics. The modern approach to word studies is based on distinguishing between the external(morphological structure) and the internal(meaning(semantic structure)) structures of the word.Another structural aspect of the word is its unity.The word possesses both external (formal)unity and semantic unity.Formal unity of the word is sometimes interpreted as indivisibility.A further structural feature of the word is its susceptibility to grammatical employment. Other units are morphemes that is a part of the words, into which words may be analysed, and set expressions or groups of words into which words may be combined.A word can be divided into smaller sense units- morphemes.The morpheme is the smallest meaningful language unit. Morphemes are divided into 2 groups:lexical and grammatical.They can be free and bound.Free lexical morphemes are roots of words, which express lexical meaning of the word.Free grammatical morphemes are function words:articles,conjunctions,prepositions. Bound lexical morp-mes are affixes(prefixes- dis, suffixes- -ish, blocked root morp=mes).Bound grammatical morphemes are inflexions(endings)(-s for plural nouns, -ed for the Past Simple)

Set expressions are word groups consisting of two or more words whose combination is intergral so that they are introduced into speech as ready-made units with a specialized meaning of the whole. A word is the smallest significant unit of a given language, capable of functioning alone and characterized by:1.positional mobility within the sentence;2.morphological uninterruptability; 3.semantic intergrity. Types of words:s emantically:mono-, polysemantic; stylistically: stylistically marked,neutral; syntactically: notional,functional; etymologically:native, borrowed, international;emotionally:colored,neutral.According to the nature and the number of morphemes constituting a word there are different structural types of words in English simple(one root morpheme), derived(one root morpheme+affix+inflextion), compound(two\more root morphemes+inflextion), compound-derived(two\more root morphemes+one\more affixes+inflextion).Also should mentioned sterms(remains unchanged throughout the paradigm of the word)

6. Language as a system. Neologism, archaisms. Language is human speech which is basically spoken arrangement of sounds to represent and convey information. All spoken languages have three common components of language that make up the language. These are sound pattern, words and grammatical structure. Sound pattern are the different types of sounds that are used in a language. In English language the basic component of the sound pattern is the syllable, which are represented by a one or more letters of alphabet.Words are combination of sounds that have a meaning, and grammatical structure are the rules or patterns that govern the ways of combining different words to represent more complex information. In addition to these components of spoken languages the written form of languages also have a fourth component. This the the symbols used to represent sounds in the speech. Archaisms are words which are no longer used in everyday speech, which have been ousted by their synonyms. Archaisms remain in the language, but they are used as stylistic devices to express solemnity. Most of these words are lexical archaisms and they are stylistic synonyms of words which ousted them from the neutral style. Some of them are: steed (horse), slay (kill), behold (see), perchance (perhaps), woe (sorrow) etc. An archaism can be a word, a phrase, or the use of spelling, letters, or syntax that have passed out of use. Because they are both uncommon and dated, archaisms draw attention to themselves when used in general communication.

Archaisms are most frequently encountered in poetry, law, and ritual writing and speech. Their deliberate use can be subdivided into literary archaisms, which seeks to evoke the style of older speech and writing; and lexical archaisms, the use of words no longer in common use. Archaisms are kept alive by these ritual and literary uses and by the study of older literature. Should they remain recognized, they can be revived, as the word anent was in the past century.

Archaisms are frequently misunderstood, leading to changes in usage. New words and expressions or neologisms are created for new things irrespective of their scale of importance. They may be all-important and concern some social relationships, such as a new form of state, e. g. People's Republic, or something threatening the very existence of humanity, like nuclear war. Or again they may be quite insignificant and short-lived, like fashions in dancing, clothing, hair-do or footwear, as the already outdated jitterbug and pony-tail. In every case either the old words are appropriately changed in meaning or new words are borrowed, or more often coined out of the existing language material according to the patterns and ways productive in the language at a given stage of its development.

7.Lexicography. Historical development of British Lexicology. That is the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries, is an important branch of applied linguistics. It has a common object of study with lexicology as both describe the vocabulary of a language. The evolution of the English dictionary is rooted in the general evolution of the English language. In this development the chief pressures were exerted by the steady increase in the word stock of English. Such an overall increase as this made the dictionary necessary. The pressure of vocabulary, however, has always been influenced and reinforced by intellectual climate of each successive period of the language.

The next stage of development, attained in England around 1400, was the collection of the isolated glosses into what is called a glossarium, a kind of very early Latin-English dictionary.

The first onset of’ the Renaissance worked against rather than in favor of the native English dictionary. The breakdown of Latin as an international language and the rapid development of international trade led to an immediate demand for foreign-language dictionaries.

It is significant that the first English word book to use the name dictionary, Cokeram's The English ''Dictionary (1623), is subtitled An Interpreter-of Hard Words. If the 16^th was the century of the foreign-language dictionary, the 17th was the century of the dictionary of hard words. Between 1708 and 1721, hard-word dictionaries began to be replaced by word books giving ever-increasing- attention to literary usage.

Johnson's Dictionary (1.755) enormously extends the techniques developed by Bailey. Johnson was able to revise Bailey’s crude etymologies, to make a systematic use of illustrative quotations, to fix the spelling of many disputed words, to develop a really discriminating system' of definition. The dictionaries of the second half, of the 18thcentury extended this notion particularly to the field of pronunciation. Various pronunciation experts edited a series of pronunciation dictionaries. Of these, the 'most important are Thomas Sheridan's General Dictionary of the English Language (1780), and John Walker's Criti cal Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language (1791).

8. Lexicography.. Historical development of American Lexicology. That is the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries, is an important branch of applied linguistics. It has a common object of study with lexicology as both describe the first important date in American lexicography is 1828. The work that makes it important is Noah Webster's An. American Dictionary of the English Language in two volumes. Webster's book has many deficiencies — etymologies quite untouched by the linguistic science of the time, a rudimentary pronunciation system actually inferior to that used by Walker in 1791, etc. — but in its insistence upon American spellings, in definitions keyed to the American scene, and in its illustrative quotations from- the Founding Fathers of the Republic, it provided the country with the first native dictionary comparable in scope with.

The first American lexicographer to hit upon the particular pattern that distinguishes the American dictionary was Webster's lifelong rival, Joseph E. Worcester. His Comprehensive Pronouncing, and Explanation Dictionary of the English Language (1830), actually a thoroughly revised abridgment of Webster's two-volume work of 1828, was characterized by the additions of new words,-a more conservative spelling, brief, well-phrased definitions, full indication of pronunciation by means of' diacritics, use ~of stress marks to divide syllables, and lists of synonyms Because it was compact and low priced, it immediately became popular — far more popular, in fact, than any of Webster's own dictionaries in his own lifetime.

9.Types of dictionaries. The theory and practice of compiling dictionaries is called lexicography. The term 'dictionary' is used to denote a book that lists the words of a language in a certain order (usually alphabetical) and gives their meanings, or that gives the equivalent words in a different language. All dictionaries are divided into linguistic and encyclopaedic dictionaries. Encyclopaedic dictionaries describe different objects, phenomena, people and give some data about them, they deal with facts and concepts. Linguistic dictionaries describe vocabulary units, their semantic structure, origin, usage, pronunciation, meaning, peculiarities of use, and other linguistic information. Words are usually given in the alphabetical order. 1) According to the scope of their word-list linguistic dictionaries are divided into general ( represent the vocabulary as a whole ) and restricted (cover only a certain specific part of the vocabulary ). 2) According to the information they provide all linguistic dictionaries fall into two groups: explanatory ( present a wide range of data ) and specialized ( deal with lexical units only in relation to some of their characteristics ). Specialized dictionaries include dictionaries of synonyms, antonyms, collocations, word-frequency, neologisms, slang, pronouncing, etymological, phraseological and others. 3) According to the language of explanations, i.e. whether the information about the items entered given in the same language or in another language, all dictionaries are divided into: monolingual (the words and the information about them are given in the same language) and bilingual (explain words by giving their equivalents in another language). 4) Dictionaries also fall into diachronic (reflect the development of the English vocabulary by recording the history of form and meaning for every word registered)and synchronic ( concerned with the present-day meaning and usage of words ) with regard to time.

10. Problems of lexicography. The work at a dictionary consists of the following main stages: the collection of material, the selection of entries and their arrangement, the setting of each entry.

At different stages of his work the lexicographer is confronted with different problems. Some of these refer to any type of dictionary; others are specific of only some or even one type. The most important of the former are: 1) the selection of lexical units for inclusion, 2) their arrangement, 3) the setting of the entries 4) the selection and arrangement (grouping) of word-meanings, 5) the definition of meanings, 6) illustrative material, 7) supplementary material. //// 1) The questions to be decided upon are: a) The type of lexical units to be chosen for inclusion; b)The number of items to be recorded; c) What to select and what to leave out in the dictionary; d) Which form of the language, spoken or written, or both, is the dictionary to reflect; e) Should the dictionary contain obsolete and archaic units, technical terms, dialectisms, colloquialisms etc. 3) The entries can be given in a single alphabetical listing or arranged in nests, based on some principles (e.g. in descending order of their frequency, in synonymic sets etc). 4) The choice of meanings depends on: 1) What aim the compilers set themselves; 2) What decisions they make concerning the extent to which obsolete, archaic, dialectal or highly specialised meanings should be recorded, how the problem of polysemy and homonymy is solved etc. The meanings of words may be given through a group of synonyms, description or so-called metalanguage; 6) The purpose of these examples depends on the type of the dictionary & the aim the compilers set themselves. They can illustrate the first and the last known occurrences of the entry word with the successive changes in its graphic and phonemic forms as well as in its meaning, the typical patterns & collocations, the difference between synonymous words, they place words in a context to clarify their meaning & usage; 7) It can be a list of geographical names, standard abbreviations pertaining to the public, political, economic & industrial life, rules of pronunciation, brief outlines of grammar etc. The choice among the possible solutions depends upon the type to which the dictionary belongs, the aim the compilers pursue, the prospective user of the dictionary; the linguistic conceptions of the dictionary makers etc.

11. Functional styles. Neutral vocabulary. The English language as being divided into three main layers: the literary layer, the neutral layer, the colloquial layer.The literary vocabulary consists of the groups of words:common literary, terms and learned words,poetic words, archaic words, barbarisms and foreign words, literary coinages including nonce-words.The colloquial vocab-ry falls into:common ‘colloquial words’, slang, jargonisms, professional words, dialectical words, vulgar words, colloquial words.Neutral words are used in both literary and colloquial words,Neutral words are the main source of synonymy and polysemy.It is the neutral stock of words that is so prolific in the production of new meanings.Common literary words are chiefly used in writing and in polished speech.One can tell a literary word from a colloquial word.Both literary and colloquial words have their upper and lower ranges.The lower range of literary words approaches the neutral layer and has a markedly obvious tendency to pass into the layer.The same may be said of the upper range of the colloquial layer:it can very easily pass into the neutral layer. The lines of demarcation between common colloquial layer:it can very easily pass into the neutral layer. The lines of demarcation between common colloquial and neutral, and common literary and neutral, on the other hand, are blurred.

12.Special Literary Vocab-ry. A) TERMS. One of the most characteristic features of a term is its direct relevance to the system or set of terms used in a particular science,discipline or art.A term directs the mind to the essential quality of the thing, phenomenon or action.Therefore terms may be said that they belong to the style of language of science.They may also appear in other styles-in newspaper style, in publistic and practically in all other existing styles of language.B) Poetic and High Literary WORDS.Poetic words are archaic or very rarely used highly literary words which aim at producing an elevated effect.Poetic words and expressions are called upon to sustain the special elevated atmosphere of poetry.This may be said the main function of poetic words.(the old verb ‘clipian’-to call). C)ARCHAIC,Obsolescent and Obsolete Words.There are 3 stages in the aging process of words:The beginning of the aging process when the word becomes rarely used.(pronouns- thee,thy,thine;verbal endings- thou markest,thou wilt). The second group of archaic words are those that have already gone completely out of use but are still recognized by he English-speaking community(methinks- it seems to me). These words are called obsolete. The third group, which may be called archaic proper,are words which are no longer recognizable in modern English, words that were in use in Old English and which have either dropped out of the language entirely or have chamged their appearance so much that they have become unrecognizable(troth(faith).D)BARBARISMs and Foreignisms.Barbarisms are words of foreign origin which have not entirely been assimilated into the English language.There are some words which retain their foreign appearance to a greater or lesser degree.(chic= stylish).Barbarisms are words which have already become facts of the English language.Foreign words though used for certain stylistic purposes,don’t belong to the English vocabulary.Barbarisms are generally given in the body of the dictionary.There are foreign words which fulfil a terminological function.Words as SOVIET,KOLKHOZ and the like certain concepts which reflect an objective reality not familiar to Eng-speaking community.Words as SOLO,TENOR and the like should be distinguished from barbarisms.They are terms.Terminological borrowings have no synonyms,barbarism may have almost synonyms.E)LITERARY Coinages.There is a termNEOLOGISM,in dictionaries it is defined as a new word or a new meaning for an established word.If a word is fixed in a dictionary and provided that the dictionary is reliable,it cases to be a neologism.The 1^st type of newly coined words(those which designate newborn concepts), may be name terminalogical coinages.The 2^nd type, words coined because their creators seek expressive utterance may be named stylistic coinages.

13. Special Colloquial Vocab-ry. A) SLANG.It seems to mean everything that is below the standard of usage of present-day English.(ex. Bread-basket(the stomach), rot(nonsense)). The term ‘slang’ is ambiguous because to use a figurative expressions. B)JARGONISM. It is a recognized term for a group of words that exists in almost every language and whose aim is to preserve secrecy within one or another social group.(grease-‘money’, loaf –'head’).Jargonisms are social in character.In Britain and US any social group of people has its own jargon. (jargon of thieves known as cant.jargon of jazz people.)Jargonism also migrate into other social strata.(Matlo=a sailor.from FRENCH).C) PROFESSIONALISM. Are those words used in a definite trade, profrssion or calling by people connected by common interests both at work and at home.They commonly designate some working process or implement of labour.The main feature of a professionalism is its technicality.(tin-fish=submarine).Professionalism don’t aum at secrecy.They fulfil a socially useful function in communication.D) DIALECTAL words are those which in the process on intergration of the English national language remained beyond its literary boundaries and their use is generally confined to a definite locality.Some dialectical words have become so familiar in good colloquial or stasndard colloquial English that they are accepted as recognized units of the standard colloquial English.(lass=a girl).Most dialects words are Scottish.(hinny from honey).E) VULGAR words or vulgarism. Means a) words or names employed in ordinary speech b) common, familiar c) commonly current or prevalent,geberally or widely disseminated.Vulgarism are: 1) expletives and swear words which are of an abusive character(damn, bloody). 2) obscene.These are known as 4-letter words the use of which is banned in any form of inerrcourse as being indecent.Words are of Anglo-Saxons origin.F) COLLOquial coinages(words and meanings) are spontaneous and elusive.Not all of the colloquial nonce-words are fixed in dictionaries.Nonce-coinage appears in all spheres of life.Particularly interesting are the contextual meanings of words.They may be called nonce-meanings.They are frequently used in one context only and no traces of the meaning are to be found in dictionaries.(‘opening’ –This was an opening and I followed it. Is a contextual meaning which may or not in the long run become 1 of the dictionary meanings.)

14.Emotionally Coloured and Emotionally Neutral Vocabulary Language is used not only to make statements but also to convey or express emotions. In this case lexical meaning acquires additional colouring (connotation). There exist three types of emotional words: emotional proper, intensifyiing and evaluatory.

Emotional words proper help to release emotions and tension. They include interjections (Hell! Ah!), words with diminutive and derogatory affixes (duckling, daddy), phrasal or converted personal nouns (a bore, a die-hard). Some words are emotional only in their metaphorical meaning. cow, ass, devil, angel (as applied to

people).

Intensifying words are used to emphasize what is said: absolute, mere, ever, so, just. Their denotative meaning may be supressed by their emphatic function: awfully beautiful, terribly nice.

Evaluatory words express a value judgement and specify emotions as good or bad. Their denotative and evaluative meanings cxo-exist: scheme – a secret and dishonest plan.

Emotional words have some functional peculiarities. 1. They can be used in the emotional syntactic pattern a + (A) +N + of + a + N. - a mere button of a nose. 2. They can be used without any formal or logical connection with the context: There was a rumour in the office about some diamonds. – Diamonds, my eye, they’ll never find any diamonds. Here my eye has no denotational meaning and the syntactic function. 3. They can contradict the meaning of the words they formally modify.: awfully glad, damn good. 4. They can lend emotional colouring to the whole sentence and occupy an optional position in it.

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