1. Methods of lexicological studies. Contrastive analysis.
Immediate Constituance analysis, distributional analysis, transformational procedures, componental analysis, statistical methods. The theory of IC was originally elaborated as an attempt to determine the ways in where lexical units are related to each other (Leonard Bloomfield). Fundamental aim of IC is to segment a set of lexical units into 2 maximally independent sequences (immediate constituance). Ultimate constituance – further segmentation is impossible. Distributional analysis: distribution – occurrence of a lexical unit relative to other lexical units. Position which lexical unit occupies in speech. Certain component of word meaning is described when the word is identified distributionally. (The boy (verb) home.) Words have different lexical meanings in different distributional positions. Transformational analysis (Chomsky) may be defined as repatterning or reorganization of various distributional structures in order to discover difference or identity of meaning of practically the same distributional patterns. (his hut – he has a hut, his arrest – he is arrested). Permutation – repatterning of all conditions before basic subordinal relationships are changed (he works excellently). Replacement – substitution of a component of the distributional structure by a member of a certain strictly defined set of lexical units (replacement of notion verb by auxiliary (link) verb) (he will make a bad mistake). Addition (expansion) – application of addition to the classification of adjectives (inherent & non-inherent qualities) (John is happy; John is tall + in Lviv – non-inherent). Deletion shows whether one of the words semantically subordinated to the other may be deleted without making a sentence senseless (I like red flowers. I hate red tape). Componental analysis deals with semantics; attempt to describe the meaning in terms of universal inventory in case of semantic components & their combinations. (girl & woman – human, female; young & adult). Statistical methods collect evidence. Best known result is Zipf’s law (if words in a long text are ranked in order of decreasing frequency of occurrence in the text then the most frequent word has rank=1, then rank=2. Product (добуток) for any word in the text will be approximately the same constant C which depends on the text’s length. Other formula: number of meanings of any polysemantic word is proportional to the square root of the frequency) Contrastive analysis grew as a result of practical demands of language teaching methodology where it was empirically shown that errors which are made recurrently by foreign language students can be often traced back to the differences in the structure of the target language & the learner’s mother tongue. Contrastive analysis can be carried out in phonology, grammar & vocabulary.
2.Word as fundamental unit of language. Criteria & definition.
Any unit can be considered unit of the language on condition: a) it possesses external sound form & semantic content; b) it is not created in the speech but used as smth already existing, reproduced in speech. Sounds can not be unit of language; they are only structural units for making up units. Each linguistic unit has a constant & specific meaning. Leonard Bloomfield – American structuralist. Bestseller “Language”: ‘On an ideal plan linguistics would consist of 2 main fields: phonetics and semantics (form & meaning). Speech event without reference to meaning – phonetics. Relation of the event to the features of meaning – semantics.’ The connection between the linguistic forms & their meanings is called arbitrary (довільний). Each combination of signaling units is arbitrary assigned to some features of the practical world. Linguistic study has to stand with the unit. Each linguistic form has a constant & definite meaning. If forms are different, words are different. The definition of word should indicate the most essential characteristic features including those by which this notion is distinguished by other similar notions. The word is language reality and makes the principal functional-structural unit of the language. Criteria: 1 – syntactic criteria – Dionysius Frakijsky: word – the smallest part of the sentence; Sweet, Bloomfield: word – minimum free form; 2 – semantic-logical criteria – Gumbolt, Zivers: word – sign of a separate notion; 3 – psychological criteria – Вундт, Богородецький (звуковий символ уявлення чи поняття); 4 – semantic-phonological criteria – A.H.Gardiner (articulate sound symbol in its aspect of denoting smth which is spoken about); 5 – semantic – S.Allmen (connected discourse if analysed of semantic point of view will fall into certain number of meaningful segments); 6 – syntactic-semantic criteria – E.Sapir: word is one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated meaning into which the sentence resolves itself. A. Meillet combines semantic, phonological & grammatical criteria: a word is association of a particular meaning with the particular group of sound capable of the particular grammatical employment. Main points: 1-word-dialectical unity of form & content; 2-is internally stable in terms of the order of the component morphemes; 3-is minimum significant unit capable of functioning alone & characterized by a positional mobility.
3.Types of word formation in Eng & Ukr.
Word formation – branch of linguistic science, which studies the patterns on which a language forms new lexical units. Two principles or classification of the types of WF: 1) morphological structure of the initial word –a) derivation (word has only one semantic centre); b) compounding (word has at least two semantic centers); 2) the relationships of components to the new word: a) morphological word building – creating new words using morphemes & changing the structure of the existing words after linguistic patterns: -derivation (suffixation, prefixation, zero-derivation); -compounding (joining two or more stems); -shortening (abbreviation, blending, clipping); -sound interchange, stress interchange; -backformation; -reduplication; b) morphological syntactic word building – new words appear through transference from one part of speech to another – conversion – transference from one part of speech into another without addition smth (молода); c) lexico-syntactic word building – formation of new units by the process of isolation from free word combinations (forget-me-not, stay-at-home, If-I-don’t-look-at-the-monster-he-will-go-away attitude). Nonce formations – words created for unique situation once. Rules of WF usually differ in one aspect: they are of limited productivity. Not all words which result from the application of the rule are acceptable. Line between actual words, potential words & non-Eng words. Rules of WF are at the intersection of the historical & contemporary study. Backformation is of special interest. History provides examples, where a derived form has proceeded the word from which it seemed to be derived (editor – edit, to baby-sit – babysitter).
5.Types of varieties of language. Stylistic differentiation of Eng & Ukr vocabulary.
Types of varieties of language: 1- according to the region; 2- social; 3 – according to the field of discourse; 4-medium; 5-attitude. Types of varieties of any language are varieties in plan. First 2 types relate primarily to the language user, last 3 types – to the language use. People use region variety because they live in region. Similarly people use social variety. They are relatively permanent for the language user. We can switch from one variety to another. People select last 3 varieties according to the situation & purpose of communication. Field of discourse relates to the activity to which it disposes. Attitude expressed through language is conditioned by the relation of the participants of particular situation. Varieties according to the region: dialect, geographical dispersion, mostly demonstrated in phonology. Social variation (sociolect): according to education & socio-economic group; some differences correlate with age & sex; idiolect – variety of language unique to an individual (patterns of word selection or grammar that are unique to that individual); ecolect – specific to a household when household members adopt specific words & phrases (e.g. pet names). Important polarity between uneducated & educated speech. Uneducated speech – non-standard region dialogue. Educated speech cuts across regional boundaries. It gives additional prestige of professions, political parties, press, law, court. It is codified in dictionaries & grammars, taught at school system at all levels (standard Eng; літературна укр. мова). Discourse. Any speaker of a language has a repertoire of words according to field and switches to appropriate when it is demanded. It depends on profession, interest & training. Typically switch involves turning to the particular set of lexical items used for the field in question. Medium: conditioned by writing & speaking; as with varieties according to the field we are dealing with 2 varieties which are principal at a disposal of any user irrespective of a region, variety or education. Some field varieties are difficult to compose excepting writing & other varieties are restricted to speech. Attitude: available at will to any individual speaker of a language irrespective of the regional or national standard he may use. Often called stylistic. In lexicology we are concerned with choice of words that proceeds from our attitude to the hearer or reader, topic or purpose of our communication. We recognize the gradient between formal & informal. Formal is relatively stiff, cold, polite, impersonal; informal – relaxed, warm, rude, friendly. It’s useful to acknowledge unmarked variety of Eng & Ukr that bears no colouring – neutral. Very formal – formal – neutral – informal – very informal. All varieties are characterized in the first place by the choice of words. These types of words represent the stylistic differentiation of Eng & Ukr vocabulary. Galperin: 1- stylistically neutral words; 2-literary bookish words: technical, barbarisms, poetical, archaisms, literary neologisms; 3-colloqual words: literary & non-literary (slang, jargonisms, professionalisms, vulgarisms).
6.Phraseological units. Characteristic features & principles of classification.
Phraseology is branch of lexicology which studies word combinations or phrases. Opinions differ how word combinations should be defined or classified. Different meanings of phraseology in UK, USA & Ukraine. Ukr: to describe various structural & semantic traits characterized by different degree of stability (free word combinations & set expressions). Dividing word combinations we proceed from restrictions imposed upon the lexical feeling which are specific for every language. Restrictions depend on the ties existing in extra-linguistic reality. Description of different types of word combinations means in the first place the study of their semantic structure displayed in the interrelation of the semantic content of the components. Word combination – unity of at least 2 words do not present a structure of predication & come to life as the result of realization of compatible components of these words. Idiom (phraseological unit) – sequence of words which is semantically and often syntactically restricted so that it functions as a single unit. The meaning of the individual words can not be combined to produce the meaning of an idiom as a whole. Phraseological units function as various parts of sentence. Important features of phraseological units are semantic inseparability, functional grammatical unity and idiomatic meaning. Classification according to Vinogradov: 1-phraseological combinations – stable phrases in which one of the components has independent meaning which is concretized in permanent use with other words (to be shown the red card, брати участь), 2-phraseological units – semantically indivisible combinations but their semantic content is partially motivated by the meaning of words that make up this unit (to take the bull by the horns, тягти лямку), 3-phraseological fusions – stable individual word combinations the meaning of which can’t be divided from the meaning of the word which make up the combination (to pull one’s leg – to deceive, скакати в гречку).
7. Semantic group of words.
Synonyms are words belonging to the same part of speech differing in sound form and possessing one or more identical or near identical denotational meanings. There are 2 main types of s.:
ideographic s. which differ in shades of meaning (fast-rapid-quick)
stylistic s. which differ in stylistic characteristics (father-dad-parent)
Absolute s. are very rare (motherland-fatherland-homeland)
Homonyms are words identical in form but different in their meaning and distribution. There are such types of h. as:
absolute h. which are identical both in sound and spelling (ball – мяч, бал)
partial h. are subdivided into:
homographs which are identical in spelling but dif. in sound (bow [bou] лук, bow [bau] ніс корабля)
homophones which are identical in sound but dif in spelling (key-ключ, quay-набережна)
H. may be classified by the type of their meaning:
lexical h. which belong to the same part of speech (bear-нести, терпіти)
grammatical h. which belong to dif part of speech (row-гребти, ряд)
homoforms which are identical only in some of their paradigm constituents (scent[n]–sent[p.p. of send]).
4. The lexical meaning of the word and its semantic structure
Lexical meaning reflects the concept expressed by the given word. The interrelation between the structural pattern of the word and its lexical meaning is called motivation.
-Phonetical motivation – is observed in words whose sound-clusters imitate the sound they signify.
-Morphological – is apparent in derived words and nonidiomatic compounds due to their word-formation pattern (work-er)
-Semantic – is the relationship between the direct and the transferred meaning of the word (mother toung)
Lexical meaning:
-nominative – direct meaning of the word, immediately referring to objects in extralinguistic reality. Includes – denotational and connotational meaning
-syntactically conditioned meaning – manifests itself in different colligations
-phraseologicaly bound meaning – is idiomatic and manifests itself only in cerain phraseological units
Three main semantic structures:
1. monosemy – one word-one meaning
2. polysemy – one word-several connected meanings
3. semantic diffusion – word with very wide conceptual volume