Chapter: lexicology and its object subject matter of Lexicology

6. The Immediate constituents analysis.
The Immediate Constituents ( I. C.) Analysis attepts to determine the ways in which the units are related to one another. This method is based on a binary principle. In each stage of the prosedu-re we have two components. At each stage these two components are broken into two smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is ended when we arrive at the constituents which are not divided further. These constituents are called «the ultimate constituents)).
The aim of the I. C. analysis is to segment a set of lexical units into two independent constituents. The meaning of the sentence, word group and the I. C. segmentation are interdependent.
For example A fat teacher's wife may mean that either the teach" er is fat or his wife is fat.
A fat teacher's/ wife — means that the teacher is fat. A fat/ teacher's wife — means that his wife is fat. A beautiful/ woman doctor —means that the doctor is a beautiful woman. A beautiful woman/ doctor means that the doctor who treats woman is beautiful. This analysis is widely used in lexicological investigations and in the study of derivational structure of words and morphemic analysis of words. For example, denationalize (not to give a national right) may be first segmented into.
de /nationalize because the morpheme «de—» can be found in a number of other words: such as: deform, denature, denominate
The remaining part «nationalize» can be broken into national/ ize because —«ize» can be found in such words as «organize», «humanize», «recognize», «standardize». National — into nation/ al as — «al» occurs in a number of words: occupational, musical, critical.
So we have found de /nation/ al /ize — 4 ultimate constituents «friendliness» is divided into friendly/ ness (friendly — looking) because «ness» can be found in such words as happiness, kindness, darkness, beautifulness etc. «friendly» is divided into friend /ly because «friend» may occur in «friendship)), «unfriendly» on the one hand «ly» can be seen in «wifely», «brotherly» on the other hand.
So we have found friend —ly—ness—3 ultimate constituents. We draw schemes of the morphemic analysis according to the I. C. method.

unreasonable		denationalize				griendliness
un	reasonable	de	nationalize			friendiy	ness
	reason	able	national	ize
			nation		al

This is the morphemic analysis according to the I. C. method. It should be pointed out that this method is very useful to find out the derivational structure of words too.
For example, denationalize has both a prefix "de — „ and the suffix " — ize,,.
In order to know whether this word is a prefixal or a suffixal derivative we use the I. C. analysis. We cannot divide this word into denational /ize because there is no the word «denational» or «denation». The only possible way of devision is de /nationalize because there is the word nationalize)). Therefore we may say that this word is a prefixal derivative. I. C, is also useful to define the compound words and derivational compound words.
For example, snow — covered can't be divided into snow + cover + ed but snow+ covered. So it is a compound word because there is no «snow — cover» in the dictionary.
«blue + eyed may be divided into (blue + eye)+ed because there is the word «blue+eye» therefore it is a derivational compound word.
The theory of Immediate Constituents was originally elaborated as an attempt to determine the ways in which lexical units are relevantly related to one another . It was discovered that combinations of units are usually structured into hierarchial sets of binary constructions .
For example. In the word-group " a black dress in severe style " we do not relate the indefinite article "a" to adjective "black" , "black" to "dress", "dress" to "in", "in" to "severe" , "severe" to "style" .We set up a structure which may be represented as "a black dress " and "in severe style ".
Thus , the fundamental aim of immediate constituents analysis is to segment a set of lexical units into two maximally independent sequences and these maximally independent sequences are called immediate constituents . The further segmentation of immediate constituents results in ultimate constituents.