Branches of linguistics. Synchronic vs diachronic approaches to the language study. Lexicology – ‘the science of the word’

1. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics, its aims and significance. Links with other branches of linguistics. Synchronic vs diachronic approaches to the language study.

Lexicology – ‘the science of the word’

1765 - D. Diderot

Universal Encyclopaedia of Arts and Sciences

O. O. Potebnia

members of the Prague Linguistic Circle

L. Weisberger

Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.):

-full entries for 171,476 words in current use + 47,156 obsolete words + 9,500 derivatives (in subentries);

-nouns - over half, adjectives - about a quarter, verbs -about a seventh; the rest is made up of interjections, conjunctions, prepositions, etc.

Lexicon (syn. vocabulary, word-stock, lexis; Ukr.словниковий склад мови) is the total number of words that make up a language.

Studies of Lexicon

lexicon formation

lexicon stratification

lexicon organisation (studied by Lexicography)

Studies of Word-Groups

proper names (studied by Onomastics)

terms (studied by Terminology)

phraseological units (studied by Phraseology)

Studies relevant to words, word-groups, and lexicon

-functions of lexical units in speech (studied by Functional Lexicology)

-the meaning of lexical units (studied by Lexical Semantics)
2. Methods of lexicological analysis: componential analysis, IC – UC analysis, contrastive analysis etc.

General observations

Statistical analysis

Contrastive analysis

-Charles Bally (Geneva School of Linguistics), Vilém Mathesius (the Prague Linguistic Circle), Robert Lado (Ann Arbor School of Ethnolinguistics) Linguistics Across Cultures: Applied Linguistics for Language Teacher

-a synchronic, comparative study of two or more languages or language varieties; it can be carried out at three linguistic levels: phology, grammar, and lexis;

-generally, both similarities and differences are studied although the emphasis is usually placed on differences thought to lead to interference (i.e. negative transfer, the faulty application of structures from one’s native language to the second language);

-in the focus of the study are: problem pairs (i.e. the words that denote two entities in one language and correspond to two different words in another language, e.g. BrE. clock, watch – Ukr. годинник); polysemantic words, e.g. BrE. a head of a person / bed / coin – Ukr. голова людини / узголов’я ліжка/ сторона монети; synonymic sets; difference in the collocability, e.g.тонка книга – a thin book, тонка ирония – subtle irony, тонка талія – slim / slender waist, тонкий смак – refined taste,тонкий голос – thin voice

Componential analysis

-Louis Hjelmslev (the Copenhagen School of Linguistics), Ward Goodenough Componential Analysis and the Study of Meaning (1956), Floyd Lounsbury A Semantic Analysis of Pawnee Kinship Usage Language (1956), Yuriy Apresian, Yuriy Karaulov (Moscow School of Linguistics)

-description of the meaning of lexemes as well as the inner structure of the lexicon through (structured) set of semantic features;

Immediate constituents analysis

-originally, a model of sentence analysis first explicitly introduced by Leonard Bloomfield (American Structuralism) in his book Language (1933); the most basic syntactic organisational principle of transformational grammar;

-the goal and consequence of IC analysis is to analyse a linguistic expression into a hierarchically defined series of constituents;

Sample analysis

1) un + gentlemanly - IC

2) un + {gentleman + ly} - IC

3) un + { [gentle + man] + ly} - IC

Transformational analysis

Method of semantic differential
3. Words of native origin and their distinctive features.

the native stock of words (25-30%) – words known from the earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period; high frequency value – 80% of the 500 most frequent words;

monosyllabic structure: eye, red, head, sun, door, help etc;

a wide range of lexical and grammatical valency: to raise / bend / bow / shake / bury one’s head; clear / cool / level head; above one’s head; in one’s head etc.

developed polysemy: head, n. 1) the part of the body; 2) the mind or brain; 3) ability; 4) a leader; 5) side of the coin etc.

great word-building power: headed, heading, headache, header, headline, to behead etc;

enter a number of set expressions: heads or tails; head over heels, to keep one’s head above water, from head to toe etc.

Words of Indo-European stock have cognates in the vocabularies of different Indo-European languages:

-terms of kinship: mother, father, son, brother, daughter etc.;

Words of Common Germanic stock have cognates only in other Germanic languages, e.g. Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic, etc. Their areal distribution reflects the contacts between the Germanic tribes at the beginning of their migration:

-common nouns: hand, sand, earth, sheep, fox, bath, child, winter, rain, ice, house, life, bridge, rest etc.;

-common verbs: make, starve, sing, come, send, learn, can, buy, drive, burn, bake, keep, meet etc.;

-common adjectives: green, brown, cold, dead, deaf, deep, damp, thick, high, old, small etc.;

-adverbs: behind, much, still, well, yet etc.;
4. The borrowed element in the English vocabulary. The distinction between the terms origin of borrowing and source of borrowing. Translation loans. Semantic loans.

the borrowed stock of words (70-75%) – words taken over from other languages and modified in phonetic shape, spelling, paradigm or / and meaning according to the standards of the English language.

Motivation for borrowing a word:

-to fill a gap in the vocabulary, e.g. butter (Latin), yogurt (Turkish), whisky (Scottish Gaelic), tomato (Nahuatl /’na: watl/ - the Aztec language), sauna ( /’so:nə/ Finnish) etc.;

-to represent the same concept in a new aspect, supplying a new shade of meaning or a different emotional colouring, e.g. cordial (Latin), a desire (French), to admire (Latin) etc.;

-prestige, e.g. picture, courage, army, treasure, language, female, face, fool, beef (Norman French

Translation loans (calques) are compound words or expressions formed from the elements existing in the English language according to the patterns of the source language; such loans came in handy when original words were hard to reproduce.

G Umgebung – E environment

Modern English names of the days of the week were also created on the pattern of Latin words as their literal translations and are the earliest examples of calques

5. Types of borrowed elements in the English vocabulary. Etymological doublets, hybrids, international words, and folk etymology.

Etymological doublets are pairs of words of the same language which share the same etymological basis but have entered the language through different routes; often diverge in currect meaning and usage. They may result from:

-shortening: defence – fence, appeal – peal; history – story;

-stressed and unstressed position of one and the same word: of – off, to – too;

-borrowing the word from the same language twice, but in different periods: jail (Par. Fr.) – goal (Norm. Fr.);

-development of the word in different dialects or languages that are historically descended from the same root: to chase (Northern Fr) – to catch (Central Fr); chart – card; channel (Fr) – canal (L); senior (L) – sir (Fr).

Hybrids are words made up of elements from two or more different languages.

Patterns of hybrids:

native affix (prefix or suffix) + borrowed stem: befool, besiege, beguile; graceful, falsehood, rapidly;

borrowed affix + native stem: drinkable, starvation, wordage; recall, embody, mishandle;

borrowed affix + borrowed stem + native affix: discovering;

native affix + native stem + borrowed affix: unbreakable.

6. Assimilation of borrowings. Types and degrees of assimilation.

The term assimilation of a loan word is used to denote a partial or total conformation to the phonetical, graphical, and morphological standards of the receiving language and its semantic system.

The term type of assimilation refers to the changes an adopted word may undergo:

phonetic assimilation;

graphical assimilation;

grammatical assimilation;

semantic assimilation.

The degree of assimilation depends upon the period of time during which the word has been used in the receiving language, its communicative importance and frequency:

7. Latin borrowings. Features of Latin borrowings. Periods of borrowings from Latin.

Periodisation:

-Early Latin loans, e.g. cup, kettle, dish, plum, butter, wall etc.;

-Later Latin loans (Christianity), e.g. lily, pearl, palm, choir, library, fiddle, peach, marble etc.;

-Latin loans in Middle English (the Norman conquest+the Renaissance), e.g. animal, legal, simile, gesture, spacious, interest etc.;

-The latest Latin influence, e.g. cf., i.e., ib., viz., etc.

Features of Latin loans:

-polysyllabic words with prefixes: commission, induction, accelerate;

-prefixes with final consonants: ad-, ab-, com-, dis-, ex-, in-, ob-: admix, abnormal, compare, disclose, inattention;

-reduplicated consonants: abbreviation, occasion, illumination, immobility, difference, opportunity, resurrection, assimilation;

-suffixes –ate, -ute in verbs: locate, irritate, abbreviate, execute;

8. Celtic elements (5-6 c. AD) in the English vocabulary.

-place-names: Kent ‘coastal district’ or ‘land of the hosts or armies’, London ‘hill surrounded with water’, Carlisle (caer ‘fortified place’), Dover ‘water’, York ‘Yew-Tree Estate’ (тисове дерево) etc.;

-river-names: Thames ‘the dark one’, Avon ‘river’ etc.;

-elements: -comb ‘deep valley’ as in Batcombe, -torr ‘high rock’ as in Torcross, -llan ‘church’ as in Llandaff;

-hybrids:

Celtic + Latin: Manchester, Glouchester, Lancaster etc.;

Celtic + Germanic: Yorkshire, Canterbury ‘the fortified town of Kentish people’, Salisbury, Cornwall ‘peninsula people’, in O.E. the name Wealhas (Mod.E. Wales, Welsh) was a common noun meaning ‘strangers’ given by the newcomers to the unfamiliar Celtic tribes.

-common nouns survived in regional dialects:

bard (Gael.& Ir.) ‘poet, minstrel’, loch (Gael.& Ir.) ‘lake’, plaid (Gael.) ‘blanket’, corgi (Welsh cor ‘dwarf’ + gi/ci ‘dog’), whiskey  ‘water of life’, dunn ‘grey’, cross;

-via Romanic languages:

car < Norm.Fr. carre < L. carrum, carrus, orig. ‘two-wheeled Celtic war chariot’ < Gaulish *karros;

9. Scandinavian loan-words(8-11 c.AD) in Modern English.

-Total number – appr. 900 words; about 700 belong to Stand. E.

-Features:

/k/ and /g/ before e and i, e.g. give, kid, get, gift;

/sk/ in the initial position, e.g. sky, skill, score, skin, skirt;

-nouns: anger, bag, band, bank, bull, calf, cake, dirt, egg, fellow, fog, knife, leg, loan, law, neck, root, ransack, sister, wing, window;

-adjectives: awkward, flat, happy, ill, low, loose, odd, rotten, scant, sly, silver, tight, ugly, wrong;

-verbs: cast, call, clip, die, gasp, get, give, guess, raise, seem, scare, scowl, seem, smile, take, thrive, want;

-pronouns: they, their, them, themselves, though, both, same.

-Legal terms (together with military terms reflecting the relations during the Danish raids and Danish rule represent the earliest loan-words):husband – originally ‘a house holder’, one who owns a house; fellow – originally ‘one who lays down a fee, as a partner or shareholder’;

-Place-names:

-thorp ‘village’ as in Althorp;

-by ‘farm / town’ as in Derby, Rugby;

-toft ‘piece of land’ as in Sandtoft;

-ness ‘cape’ as in Inverness, Loch Ness;

-Forming elements:

are (pr. tense pl. to be), -s (pr. tense, 3rd p. sg)

10. French elements in the English vocabulary. Features of French borrowings. Periods of borrowings from French.

-Norman French (XI- XIII c.) – a northern dialect of French: calange, warrant, warden, reward, prisun, gaol

-Parisian French (XIII-XVI c.) – the prestige dialect:

challenge, guarantee, guardian, regard, prison, jail

Features of French loans:

-the accent on the last syllable: finance, finesse, supreme;

-ch /ʃ/, e.g. avalanche, chandelier, chauffeur, charlatan, chic;

-g before e and i /ʒ/, e.g. beige, bourgeois, camouflage, massage;

-ou /u:/: coup, rouge;

-eau /ou/ château;

-silent final consonant p, s, t: coup, debris, ragoût, trait, ballet, debut.

Semantic groups of French borrowings:

administration: crown, country, people, office, nation, government;

titles and ranks of nobility: baron, duke, duchess, prince, peer,

but lord, lady, king, queen, earl, knight – native;

jurisdiction: case, heir, poor, justice, marriage, jury, prove;

the Church and religion: abbey, altar, Bible, grace, pray, saint;

military terms: army, battle, escape, soldier, navy, aid;

entertainment: dance, chase, partner, sport, tournament, cards;

fashion: dress, lace, embroidery, garment, mitten, frock;

food and drink: dinner, supper, appetite, spice, taste, vinegar, fruit;

the domestic life: chair, blanket, lantern, chandelier, couch, towel;

11. Greek borrowings. Features of Greek borrowings.

Features of Greek loans:

ch [k]: chemistry, character;

ph [f]: phenomenon, physics, phonetics;

th [θ]: theme, theatre, myth;

ps [s]: pseudonym, psychic;

rh [r]: rhythm, rhetor;

y /i/ in interconsonantal and final positions: system, physics, comedy;

ae: encyclopaedia ‘training in a circle,’ i.e. the ‘circle’ of arts and sciences, the essentials of a liberal education; from enkyklios ‘circular,’ also ‘general’ (from en ‘in’ + kyklos ‘circle’) + paideia ‘education, child-rearing’;

12. Morphology as a branch of linguistics. The morphemic structure of English words. Typology of morphemes. Structural and semantic classifications of morphemes.

Morphology is a branch of linguistics which studies the form, inner structure, function, and patterns of occurrence of a morpheme as the smallest meaningful unit of language.

The term morphology (Gr. morphé ‘form, shape’ and lógos ‘study’) was borrowed from biology by the German writer J. W. von Goethe in the 19th century; it was taken up by linguistics to designate the study of form and structure of living organisms as a cover term for inflection and word formation.

Theoretical foundations of morphology were laid in Aristotle’s grammars and Stoics’ works, who were the first to define four parts of speech (the noun, the verb, the conjunction, and the link), introduced the notions of case, gender system of nouns, the system of verbal tenses.

The fundamental principles of modern European grammars were established by Aristotle’s disciple Dionysus from Fracia (II c. BC), who singled out eight parts of speech (the noun, the verb, the participle, the link, the pronoun, the preposition, the adverb, and the conjunction).

In the 19th c. interest in morphology was stimulated by the development of approaches to world languages classification resulting in the study of general laws of structure and significant elements such as prefixes and inflections.

In the 20th c. the field of morphology has been narrowed to the study of the internal structure of words.

The structure of English words:

A morpheme (Gr. morphé ‘form, shape’) is one of the fundamental units of a language, a minimum sign that is an association of a given meaning with a given form (sound and graphic), e.g. old, un+happy, grow+th, blue+colour+ed.

Depending on the number of morphemes, words are divided into:

monomorphic are root-words consisting of only one root-morpheme, i.e. simple words, e.g. to grow, a book, white, fast etc.

polymorphic are words consisting of at least one root-morpheme and a number of derivational affixes, i.e. derivatives, compounds, e.g. good-looking, employee, blue-eyed etc.

Baudouin de Courtenay

Ivan Alexandrovich

the Kazan school of linguistics;

was the first in world linguistics to investigate the morphological structure of the word;

introduced a number of linguistic terms, including a morpheme (in 1881), a phoneme, a lexeme, a syntagm etc. The Greek suffix –eme has been adopted to denote the smallest significant or distinctive unit.

Types of morphemes:

An allomorph (a morphemic variant) (Gr. állos ‘different’ and morphé ‘form, shape’) is a phonetically conditioned positional variant of the same derivational or functional morpheme identical in meaning and function and differing in sound only insomuch, as their complementary distribution produces various phonetic assimilation effects, e.g. please /pli:z/ pleasure /pleʒ/ pleasant /plez/.

Complementary distribution takes place when two linguistic variants cannot appear in the same environment, e.g. in-competent, il-logical, ir-responsible, im-possible; cat-s, box-es; organis-ation, corrup-tion.

Contastive distribution characterises different morphemes occurring in the same linguistic environment, but signaling different meanings, e.g. –able in measurable and –ed in measured.

A pseudo-morpheme (a quasi-morpheme) is a morpheme which has a differential meaning and a distributional meaning but does not possess any lexical or functional (part-of-speech) meaning, e.g. re- and -tain in retain, con- and –ceive in conceive etc.

A unique morpheme is an isolated pseudo-morpheme which does not occur in other words but is understood as meaningful because the constituent morphemes display a more or less clear denotational meaning, e.g. ham- in hamlet (cf. booklet, ringlet), cran- in cranberry (журавлина), mul- in mulberry (шовковиця), -et in pocket etc.

Structural classification of morphemes:

free morphemes are morphemes which coincide with a word-form of an independently functioning word; they can be found only among roots, e.g. hero- as in heroism, event- as in eventful;

bound morphemes are morphemes which do not coincide with a separate word-form; they include all affixes, e.g. de- as in decode, -less as in fearless, -s as in girls; some root-morphemes, e.g. docu- as in document, horr- as in horrible, theor- as in theory etc;

semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes are morphemes which stand midway between a root and an affix; they can function as an independent full-meaning word and an affix at the same time, e.g. to speak ill of sb – to be ill-dressed / ill-bred / ill-fed;

Semi-prefixes: half-, mini-, midi-, maxi-, self-, by- etc.;

Semi-suffixes: -man, -like, -proof, -friendly, -oriented, -ware etc

Semantic classification of morphemes:

According to the role they play in the structure of words, morphemes fall into:

root (radical) morphemes – the lexical nuclei of words which are characterised by individual lexical meaning shared by no other morpheme of the language; the root remains after the removal of all functional and derivational affixes and does not admit any further analysis, e.g teach- in to teach, teacher, teaching;

non-root morphemes represented by inflectional morphemes (inflections) and affixational morphemes (affixes).

According to the position in a word, affixational morphemes fall into:

prefixes – derivational affixes standing before the stem and modifying its meaning, e.g. ex-minister, in-sensitive, re-read etc.; about 51 in the system of Modern English;

suffixes – derivational affixes following the stem and forming a new derivative within the same part of speech (e.g. king-dom, book-let, child-hood etc.) or in a different word class (e.g. do-er, wash-able, sharp-en etc.);

infixes – affixational morphemes placed within a word, e.g –n– in stand.

According to their functions and meaning, affixes fall into:

derivational, e.g. suffixes: abstract-noun-makers (-age, -dom, -ery, -ing, -ism); concrete-noun-makers (-eer, -er, -ess, -let); adverb-makers (-ly, -ward(s), -wise); verb-makers (-ate, -en, -ify, -ize/-ise); adjective-/noun-makers (-ful, -ese, -(i)an, -ist), etc.; they are attached to a derivational base; they are the object of study of derivational morphology which investigates the way in which new items of vocabulary can be built up out of combinations of elements;