lexicology on Monday

1. Where does the word “lexicology come from”?

2. Give the definition of lexicology.

3. What are the main objects of lexicological studies?

4. What two approaches can we apply to studying of linguistic phenomena?

- referential

- functional

5. Why isn’t it correct to study words only from synchronic point of view?

6. What is vocabulary?

7. What are lexical layers?

8. Why is lexicology closely connected with sociolinguistics?

9. What are language universals? What type of lexicology studies them?

10. What is the difference between descriptive and special lexicology?

11. What is another name for historical lexicology?

12. What is semasiology?

the branch of lexicology which deals with the meaning

13. What type of meaning does semasiology deal with?

it is not the study of lexicon, but also of morphology, syntax and sentential semantics

14. Is semasiology the same notion as semantics or semiotics?

semiotics = semiology (study about signs and sign systems)

semasiology = semantics (study about meaning)

15. What does semiotics study?

the science of processes, signs and symbols both individually and grouped into sign systems

16. What are the three branches of semiotics?

- pragmatics studies relation of signs to their impacts on those who use them

- syntactics studies relation of signs to each other in formal structures (word groups and sentences)

- semantics studies the relation between signs and the things they refer to

17. What two approaches to meaning do we know?

- referential (the relation between signifier and signified is important)

- functional (how word works and developes in the language)

18. What are the two main types of meaning?

- lexical is the component of meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit (recurenting all the forms of this word)

red flower is a combined meaning from words red and flower

words with other words have different meaning

- grammatical (component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words

found

19. What are the two main components of the lexical meaning?

- denotational makes communication possible

- connotational:

* the emotive charge

famous - notorious ('+' - '-')

clever - self-confident

* the stylistic value of the word

to eat - to pig out (neutral - colloquial)

to love - to adore

20. What school of approach to meaning do Saussure’s disciples represent?

21. What is meaning according to them?

22. What is semantic triangle?

a model of how linguistic symbols are related to the object they represent

23. Which scholars introduced this notion?

Charles Ogden and Arvor Richards

24. What is the key innovation of the book “Meaning of meaning”?

the differentiation between the three separate domains:

- the conceptual domain folts in our minds

- symbolical represents words and symbols which communicate with each other

- the real world

25. What is the Bloomfieldian approach to meaning?

the situation in which the word is said or uttered

we understand meaning as an inner-faced of the word inseparable from its outer-faced which is indespensable to the existance of meaning and to intercommunication

26. Give a definition of the morpheme?

the smallest meaningful further indivisiable two-faced language unit

27. How do morphemes and words differ?

- unlike a word a morpheme is not antonomous unit and can exist only in speech

- a morpheme does not possess grammatical meaning

- morphemes have 3 additional types of meaning:

* differential is the semantic component that serves to distinguish one word from all others containing identical morphemes

* functional is the semantic component that serves primarily to refer the word to a certain part of speech

* distributional is the meaning of the order and arragement of morphemes which make up the word

28. In which way are they similar?

- like a word a morpheme is a two-faced language unit

- morphemes possess lexical meaning with its denotational and connotational meaning

29. Do morpheme possess grammatical meaning?

a morpheme does not possess grammatical meaning

30. Do they possess lexical meaning?

morphemes possess lexical meaning with its denotational and connotational meaning

31. Give an example of connotational meaning of a morpheme?

32. Which morphemes possess denotational meaning?

33. What other specific types of meaning do morpheme possess?

- morphemes have 3 additional types of meaning:

* differential is the semantic component that serves to distinguish one word from all others containing identical morphemes

book

* functional is the semantic component that serves primarily to refer the word to a certain part of speech

nouns: -er

adverbs: -ly

* distributional is the meaning of the order and arragement of morphemes which make up the word

singer = sing-('to make musical sounds') + - er ('doer of the action')

34. Who does the most complete classification of the meaning change belong to? In what book is it presented?

the most complete classification of semantic change was suggested by a German scientist Herman Paul in his work 'PrinzipaiesSprachgeschichte'. He distinguishes the main ways where the semantic changes are:

- gradual (specialization and generalization)

- momentary concious semantic changes (metaphor and metonymy)

changes: denotational (widening-metaphor-narrowing-metonymy); connotational (pejoration (worsening)-amelioration (bettering))

35. How are the changes classified from the point of view of time and duration?

36. What are the main types of change in denotational meaning?

- specialization/narrowing of meaning involves an increase of infomation conveyed, since a changed word is applicable to fewer situations but tells us more about the referent

fowl: any bird-a domestic hen or cock

stool: a chair-a chair without a back

sell: to give-to deliver the money

- generalization/widening of meaning increases the number of contexts in which a word can be used, although reducing the amount of information conveyed about the referent

also by this term one can describe such cases when a word (or a word in one of its meanings) passes from the specialized vocabulary into common use

woman: a wife-a fully grown female

fellow: a partner or shareholder of any kind-a man or boy

occasion: an accident or a grave event-a time when something happens

to arrive: to come to shore, to land-to come

37. What are the main types of change in connotational meaning?

- elevation/amelioration of meaning

knight: a boy, youth-a noble, courageous man

fond: foolish, silly-loving, affectionate

pretty: tricky, sly, wily-pleasing to look at, charming and attractive

- degradation/degeneration/pejoration of meaning

demon: an angel-an evil spirit

notorious: famous-famous for something bad

knave: a boy, a male servant-a swindler, scoundrel, rogue, a tricky deceitful person

38. What kind of change is metaphor based on?

it is the transference of name based on the association of similarity between two referents

in the 'head of the cabbage' , metaphor is based on the association of similarity of the shape

in the 'bookworm' - similarity of behaviour

in the 'leg of the table' - the similarity to a human leg has a complex character because of shape, position and function

39. What kind of change is metonymy based on?

it is the transference of name based on the association of contiguity; the semantiс process of associating two referents, one of which makes art of the other or its connected with it in some other way

glass-a glass (material-object)

chair-the chair (place-people occupying it)

Watt-watt (inventor-invented object)

40. What kind of similarity do we single out concerning metaphors?

similarity of thing:

- similarity of shape

- similarity of position

- similarity of function

- similarity of colour

41. What kind of contiguity is metonymy based on?

on contiguity in space or time or relation between part and whole

- material of which an object is made may become the name of the object

- the name of the place may become the name of people or of an object placed there

- names of musical instruments may become names of musicians

- the name of some person may become a common noun

- names of inventors very often become terms to denote things they invented

- some geographical names

42. What is elevation of meaning? (other terms)

it involves an improvement in assigned value, the acquisition by a word of some positive emotive charge (amelioration, bettering)

43. What is degeneration of meaning? (other terms)

it is a downward move in evaluative attitude, the acquisition by a word of some derogatory emotive charge (worsening, pejoration)

44. Give examples of pejoration of meaning?

demon: an angel-an evil spirit

notorious: famous-famous for something bad

knave: a boy, a male servant-a swindler, scoundrel, rogue, a tricky deceitful person

45. Give examples of amelioration of meaning?

knight: a boy, youth-a noble, courageous man

fond: foolish, silly-loving, affectionate

pretty: tricky, sly, wily-pleasing to look at, charming and attractive

46. What are monosemantic words?

words which posess only one meaning, they are comparatively few in English (terms, pronouns, numerals)

47. What does the word “polysemy” mean?

'plurality of meaning'; exists only in the language, but not in the speech

diachronically it is understood as the growth and development or change in the semantic structure of the word

syncronically it is the co-existance of various meanings of the same word at a certain historical period of the development of the English language

48. What problem is of primary importance for studying polysemy?

interrelation and interdependence of the various meanings in the semantic structure of one and the same word

49. What kind of meaning do polysemantic words possess?

- primarily

- secondary

50. What are the processes of the semantic development of a word? What is the main

difference between them?

- radiation; in this case the primarly meaning stands in a center and secondary proceed out of it like rase

- concatination; in this case secondary meanings of a word develop like a chain

homonyms appear in th language

51. Give the definition of homonyms.

words which are identical in sound and spelling, or at least one of these aspects, but different in their meaning

52. Why is the English language rich in homonyms?

the English language is rich in homonyms due to its monosyllabic character

53. How is the identical form of homonyms explained?

54. What is the difference between full and partial homonyms?

if words belong to the same part of speech and have the paradigm they are called full homonyms

55. How can homonyms be classified according to the type of meaning?

- lexical homonyms are differ in lexical meaning

catch

box

- as both grammatical and lexical meanings differ we describe these homonymous word-forms as lexico-grammatical

sink - to sink

- grammatical is the homonymy of different word-forms of one and tre same word

brother's - brothers

found

56. Give the classification of homonyms according to Smirnitskiy.

- homographs are words identical in spelling, but different both in their sound-form and meaning

tear [tia] - 'a drop of water that comes from the eye' - tear [tea] - 'to pull apart by force'

- homophones are words identical in sound-form but different both in spelling and in meaning

sea-see, son-sun

- perfect homonyms are words identical both in spelling and in sound-form but different in meaning

case - 'something that has happened' - case - 'a box, a container'

57. What are homographs? Provide examples.

- homographs are words identical in spelling, but different both in their sound-form and meaning

tear [tia] - 'a drop of water that comes from the eye' - tear [tea] - 'to pull apart by force'

58. What are homophones? Provide examples.

- homophones are words identical in sound-form but different both in spelling and in meaning

sea-see, son-sun

59. What are the sources of homonymy?

- diverging meaning development of a polysemantic word can be observed when different meanings of the same word move so far away from each other that they come to be regarded as two separate units

flower and flour were the one word 'the flower' and 'the finest part of wheat'

syncronically they are two distinct words even though historically they have a common origin

- converging sound development of two or more different words is the most potent factor in the creation of homonyms

OE ic and OE eaze (ME I [ai] and ME eye [ai]) have become identical in prononcuation

love (lufu) - to love (lufian) - lexico-grammatical homonyms

60. What is synonymy?

synonymy is often understood as semantic equivalence

61. Among which parts of speech can synonyms be found?

they can be found in different parts of speech

love, adore, like

62. Give the examples of synonyms with different denotational and connotational components.

look, seem and appear - denotational

start, commence and begin - connotational

63. What kind of synonyms do we differentiate between?

- ideographic ( no additional stylistic intensity)

- stylistic

64. What is antonymy?

Antonyms are lexical units are based on semantic contrast. The term 'antonymy' is to be applied to words different in sound-form charactirised by a different semantic contrast

65. What kind of antonyms do you know?

- controdictories (one includes another)

dead-alive, single-married; young-old, big-small

- contraries

cold-hot, cool-warm; man-woman, man-boy

- incompetable

morning, afternoon, evening, night

black, blue, red, white

66. What are allomorphs?

an allomorph is defined as a positional variant of a morpheme occuring in a specific environment and so characterised by complementary distribution (when two linguistic variants cannot appear in the same environment)

67. What two classes do English words fall into according to their structure?

68. Give a definition of morphemiс analysis?

morphemiс analysis is the analysis limited to stating the number and the types of morphemes that make up a word

69. What are the types of morphemic segmentability?

- prefix is derivational affix standing before the stem (root) and modifying its meaning

- root is the lexical nucleus of a word

- suffix is a derivational affix following the stem and forming a new derivative in a different part of speech or in a different word class within the same part of speech

- inflection is a functional affix

70. How do we classify morphemes from the structural point of view?

71. What are the classes of morphemes from the semantic point of view?

72. What is word-formation?

word-formation is the system of derivative types of words and the process of creating new words from the material available in the language after certain structural and semantic formulas and patterns

73. What are the two types of word-formation in English?

- word-derivation:

* affixation

* conversion

the term 'conversion' refers to the numerous cases of phonetic identity of word-forms, primarly the so-called initial forms, of two words, belonging to different parts of speech

- word-composition

74. Which parts of speech are formed with the help of suffixation? Prefixation?

nouns:

- ment (employ - employment)

- tion/-sion (ameliorate - amelioration; converse - convertion)

- er/ist (fly - flyer; science - scientist)

- ing (worse - worsening)

- ation (inform - information)

adjectives:

- ic (atom - atomic)

- able (change - changeable)

- ive (product - productive)

- ful (meaning - meaningful)

adverbs:

- ly (luck - luckly)

75. How can prefixes be classified?

1) according to the class of words they preferably form

2) as to the type of lexical-grammatical character of the base

3) semantic prefixes fall into mono- and polysemantic

4) as to the generic denotational meaning there are different groups that are distinguished in linguistic literature

- negative prefixes

- reversative or privative prefixes

- pejorative prefixes

- prefixes of time and order

- prefix of repetition

- locative prefixes

5) when viewed from the angle of their stylistic reference Enlish prefixes fall into those characterised by neutral stylistic reference and those possessing quite a definite stylistic value

6) prefixes may be also classifed as to the degree of productivity into highly-productive, productive and non-productive

76. What categories of prefixes can we define from the point of view of their meaning?

1) those not correlated with any independent word (either notional or functional)

2) those correlated with functional words (prepositions or prepositon like adverbs), which clssificated as semibound morphemes (stand midway between root and an affix):

- like any derivational affixes they have a more generalised meaning in comparison with the more concrete meanings of the correlated words; they are characterised by a unity of different denotational components distinguishing the given prefix within the set

- they are deprived of all grammatical features peculiar to the independent words they are correlated with

- they tend to develop a meaning not found in the correlated words

- they form regular sets of words of the same semantic type

77. What are the categories of prefixes from stylistic point of view?

- neutral stylistic reference (un-, out-, over-, re- under-)

- those having a certain stylistic value (-oid, -i/-form, -aceous, -tron):

* possessing quite a definite stylistic value (pseudo-, super-, ultra-, uni-, bi-) - bookish

78. Give the examples of productive and non-productive prefixes in English?

79. What suffixes are there from the point of view of the part of speech they form?

- noun-suffixes (those forming or occuring in nouns)

- adjective-suffixes (those forming or occuring in adjectives)

- verb-suffixes (those foming or occuring in verbs)

- adverb-suffixes (those foming or occuring in adverbs)

80. What are the suffixes from the point of view of the character of the lexico-grammatical base they are added to?

- deverbal suffixes (added to the verbal base): -er, -ing, -ment, -able

- denominal suffixes (added to the noun base): -less, -ish, -ful, -ist, -some

- de-adjectival suffixes (added to the adjective base): -en, -ish, -ness

81. Give the semantic classification of suffixes.

Suffixes changing the lexical meaning of the stem can be subdivided into groups, e.g. noun-forming suffixes can denote:

a) the agent of the action, e.g. -er (experimenter), -ist (taxist), -ent (student),

b) nationality, e.g. -ian (Russian), -ese (Japanese), -ish (English),

c) collectivity, e.g. -dom (moviedom), -ry (peasantry, -ship (readership), -ati ( literati),

d) diminutiveness, e.g. -ie (horsie), -let (booklet), -ling (gooseling), -ette (kitchenette),

e) quality, e.g. -ness (copelessness), -ity (answerability)

82. What is conversion? Definition.

the term 'conversion' refers to the numerous cases of phonetic identity of word-forms, primarly the so-called initial forms, of two words, belonging to different parts of speech

83. What are other terms for conversion?

It is also called affixless derivation or zero-suffixation

84. Whom was the term introduced?

in 1981 H. Sweet first used it in his 'New English grammar'

85. How does A.Marchand view conversion?

A. Marchand in his book «The Categories and Types of Present-day English» treats conversion as a morphological-syntactical word-building because we have not only the change of the paradigm, but also the change of the syntactic function

86. Does conversion occur only among simple words?

87. What semantic groups are singled out when verbs are converted from nouns?

a) verbs have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting parts of a human body e.g. to eye, to finger, to elbow, to shoulder etc. They have instrumental meaning if they are formed from nouns denoting tools, machines, instruments, weapons, e.g. to hammer, to machine-gun, to rifle, to nail,

b) verbs can denote an action characteristic of the living being denoted by the noun from which they have been converted, e.g. to crowd, to wolf, to ape,

c) verbs can denote acquisition, addition or deprivation if they are formed

from nouns denoting an object, e.g. to fish, to dust, to peel, to paper,

d) verbs can denote an action performed at the place denoted by the noun from

which they have been converted, e.g. to park, to garage, to bottle, to corner, to pocket,

e) verbs can denote an action performed at the time denoted by the noun from which they have been converted e.g. to winter, to week-end

Verbs can be also converted from adjectives, in such cases they denote the change of the state, e.g. to clean, to slim etc.

88. Nouns from verbs?

a) instant of an action e.g. a jump, a move,

b) process or state e.g. sleep, walk,

c) agent of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a help, a flirt, a scold ,

d) object or result of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a burn, a find, a purchase,

e) place of the action expressed by the verb from which the noun has been converted, e.g. a drive, a stop, a walk

89. In a converted pair how do we know which word is derived from which?

90. Which scholars studied this problem?

91. Is substantivization the case of conversion?

Some scientists refer substantivization of adjectives to conversion. But most scientists disagree with them because in cases of substantivization of adjectives we have quite different changes in the language. Substantivization is the result of ellipsis (syntactical shortening) when a word combination with a semantically strong attribute loses its semantically weak noun (man, person etc), e.g. «a grown-up person» is shortened to «a grown-up». In cases of perfect substantivization the attribute takes the paradigm of a countable noun , e.g. a criminal, criminals, a criminal’s (mistake) , criminals’ (mistakes). Such words are used in a sentence in the same function as nouns, e.g. I am fond of musicals. (musical comedies).

92. What does the term “native” mean referring to the English word-stock?

the term “native” is used to denote words of Anglo-Saxon origin brought to the British Isles, from the continent in the 5th century by he Germanic tribes - The Ansles the Saxon send that Iufes

93. What is the proportion between native and borrowed words in English?

native - 30%

borrowings - 70%

94. What are the semantic groups native words belong to?

- modal verbs

- pronouns

-prepositions

- numerals

- conjunctions

95. Enumerate affixes of native origin?

suffixes: -ness, -ish, -dom

prefixes: be-, mis-, un-

96. Why are most of native words polysemantic?

most of the native words have undergone great changes in their semantic structure and as a result are nowadays polysemantic

97. What are the characteristic features of native words?

1) affixes and prefixes of native origin (-ness, -ish, -dom; be-, mis-, un-) make part of the patients widely used to build numerous new words

2) most of the native words have undergone great changes in their semantic structure and as a result are nowadays polysemantic

3) most native words possess a wide rage of lexical and grammatical valency (make)

4) many of them enter a number of phraseological units

5) they make very big word-formation nests (clusters)

98. What does the term “borrowing” imply?

the term “borrowing” is used to denote the process of adopting words from each other languages and also the result of this process, the language material itself

99. What languages gave the greatest amount of borrowings at an early stage of its

development?

the Roman invariant, the adoption of conquests of the British Isles, the development of British colonisation and trade and cultural relations served to increase immensely the Englush vocabulary

100. What are the extra linguistic factors which account for this great amount?

101. What do the nature and character of borrowings depend on?

- the historical conditions

- the nature and length of the contexts

- the degree of the genetic of the genetic and structural proximity

102. What are the two ways borrowings can enter the language?

- through the oral way (coloquial words) of adopting on another language, the other way is colloquial speech

words borrowed orally are usually short and they undergo considerable changes in the act of adoption (they undergo of the way of accimilation)

- through writing

such borrowings preserve their spelling obviously and some pecularities of their sound from their assimilation as a long and laborious process

103. What are the categories of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation?

- completely assimilated (they are not felt as foreign words)

- partly assimilated

* semantically non-assimilated (they denote notions from the other country)

* non-assimilated grammatically

* non-assimilated phonetically (except voice-loice)

- non-assimilated (barbarisms)

104. What are barbarisms?

105. What do you know about the pronunciation of the digraph: CH?

- [ш] (brochure, champagne, charade)

- [k] (diachronic, archaism, character)

- [тч] (chest, charge, chicken)

106. What are the distinctive features of Latin borrowings?

1) suffixes -ar, -or, -ator

2) -er (saunter)

3) Latin -us was replaced in English with the suffixes -ous and -al (barbarus - barbarous, botanicus - botanical)

107. What are the peculiarities of French borrowings?

1) the last stressed syllable

2) the long [e]

3) ch [tч] - a word is borrowed from OF (cherry)

4) reflexive pronoun s-

a) words relating to government : administer, empire, state, government;

b) words relating to military affairs: army, war, banner, soldier, battle;

c) words relating to jury: advocate, petition, inquest, sentence, barrister;

d) words relating to fashion: luxury, coat, collar, lace, pleat, embroidery;

e) words relating to jewelry: topaz, emerald, ruby, pearl ;

f) words relating to food and cooking: lunch, dinner, appetite, to roast, to stew.

108. What is another term for phonetic borrowings?

109. Give the example of translation loans?

110. What are hybrids?

words that are made up of elements derived from two or more different languages are called hybrids

readable has an English root and a suffix that is derived from the Latin -abilis and borrowed through French. Moreover, it is not an isolated case, but rather an established pattern that could be represented as English stem+-able. Cf. answerable, eatable, likable, usable. Its variant with the native negative prefix un- is also worthy of note: un-+English stem+-able.

The examples for this are: unanswerable, unbearable, unforeseeable, unsayable, unbelievable

111. What are etymological doublets?

Etymological doublets are pairs of words, which have one and the same original form, but which have acquired different forms and even different meanings during the course of linguistic development