Semantics and word formation

Конспекты лекций

A
Course in Modern English Lexicology. The English Word.

1.
The object of lexicology.

2.
The notion of the lexical system.

3.
Some problems of the theory of words. Types of motivation.

Lexicology
is a branch of linguistics which studies words and their usage.
Lexicology studies the meaning of a word, its structure,
combinability, its formation. It investigates different types of word
groups. General
lexicology
studies linguistic laws, rules, processes in general, characteristic
of various languages. Special
lexicology either deals with a certain language. Or it studies the
language from other aspects (historical, applied, descriptive, etc.).

Lexicology
is connected with Grammar, Phonetics, Stylistics, History of this or
that language and other linguistic disciplines.

Any
language is also a system. For example, the significance of the word
hand
depends
on its relationship with the word arm.
Secondly,
it’s a lexical system because it’s a system of words.

Within
the system of the English language lexical units form some principal
types of relationships: syntagmatic and paradigmatic (e.g. within
such groups as synonyms, antonyms).

The
basic unit of the lexicology is the word. To give definition to the
word is a very difficult task as the word has many different aspects:
it has its own sound form and some grammar forms. Also words are
units of speech, they serve the purposes of human communication.

The
modern approach to word studies distinguishes the external
and the internal
structures of the word. By the external
structure of the word we mean its morphological structure: prefixes,
suffixes, roots, etc. The internal
structure of the word is its meaning or its semantic structure. The
area of lexicology specializing in the semantic studies of the word
is called semantics.

Another
structural aspect of the word is its unity
(единство).
There are about 500 thousand words in the English language.

The
question of motivation is connected with the meaning of a word. The
majority of words do not show any motivation. However if it exists,
it is of three types: 1) phonetic; 2) morphological (structural); 3)
semantic.

Very
often we meet words with mixed
motivation.

The
Origin of English Words

1)The
etymological diversity of the English vocabulary.

2)Words
of native origin.

3)General
features of borrowings.

4)The
assimilation of borrowings.

5)Interrelation
between native words and borrowings.

6)International
words.

The
English vocabulary contains a huge number of words of foreign origin.
Modern scholars suppose that borrowed words in the English language
make about 65-70%. Mostly they come from Latin, French. About 650
words were borrowed from Scandinavian languages.

The
character of borrowings depends on the period of British history
when they were borrowed.

There
can be an original (primary) language and a transmitting one.

E.g.
table
→ Latin (original – tabula)
→ French (trans.) → English.

There
can be two ways of borrowing words: 1)while talking/ communicating;
2)in an indirect way (through literature).

Native
words make the backbone of the English language, though they are few
in number. Sometimes native words are called Old-English or
Anglo-Saxon. They form 2
groups:
of common Indo-European origin; of common Germanic origin.

Sometimes
scientists distinguish words of the English proper element – words
that don’t have similar representatives in other Indo-European or
Germanic languages (their roots or other elements are different).
Native words in general are the
most active part of the vocabulary.
Among the 500 most frequently used English words more than 80% are of
native origin. They are often used in word-building (word-formation).

Borrowings
can be identified by their structural, phonetical, grammatical
features. Foe example, you can recognize words of Latin and French
origin by certain suffixes, prefixes or endings.

Borrowings
undergo a process of adaptation being adjusted to the rules of the
receiving language.

Grammatical
adaptation
consists in a complete change of the former paradigm (the system of
the grammatical forms) of the borrowed word.

Lexical
(semantic)
assimilation deals with changes in the semantic structure of a word,
in its meaning.

Phonetical
assimilation
is reflected in changes of the sound-form and stress.

Some
words were adopted by the language through folk etymology (ironical
misunderstanding of the meaning of a word).

There
can be distinguished: -completely-assimilated borrowings (denizens);
-late borrowings (aliens); -barbarisms (not quite assimilated, with a
distinct stylistic colour).

Borrowed
words caused some important changes in the make-up of the English
vocabulary. Some borrowings became so popular that completely
replaced native words. Borrowed words also influenced specialization
of synonyms.
Borrowed words are higher in style, they sound bookish. They are
learned words or terms.

The
difference can be seen if we compare French and Scandinavian loans
(borrowed words). Words of Scandinavian origin are democratic in
character, that is, homely expressions of everyday importance.

If
we look at other relations between native and borrowed words, we will
come across etymological
doublets.
These are words originating from the same etymological source, but
differing in phonemic shape and in meaning.

There
can be even etymological triplets (groups of three words of common
root).

Very
often a word is borrowed by several languages. Such words are called
international. Many of them are of Latin and Greek origin.

Among
international words we should distinguish translator’s
false friends and
translation-loans.

The
Structure and Formation of English Words

1)Types
of morphemes.

2)Word-structure
and its development. The root, the stem and patterns of
word-structure.

3)Peculiarities
and types of word-formation.

A
lot of (English) words have a composite structure; they consist of
elements called morphemes.

Morphemes
–
the smallest meaningful units in a language (which consist of a word
or part of a word that cannot be divided without losing its meaning)
(Longman);

e.g. gun + fight + er – 3
morphemes.

All
morphemes are subdivided into 2 large classes: root
morphemes
and affixational
morphemes.
Affixational morphemes include suffixes and prefixes.

Some
words consist only of one root morpheme. They are called root
words.
There are a lot of root words in the English language thanks to the
type of word-building called conversion.

Naturally
root morphemes make words, but affixational morphemes can’t make
words as a rule. The root
morpheme
is the lexical nucleus of the word. They contain
the main lexical
meaning
of the word.

Affixational
morphemes include derivational
affixes (such as –er, -or, -ness and so on), inflexional
affixes
(which carry the grammatical meaning of the word – looked,
the girl’s
smile).

Also
morphemes can be free
and bound.
Free morphemes can function independently, as independent words.
Usually they are root morphemes, though there can be exceptions.

There
can be morphemes which have different phonemic shapes. Such elements
are called allomorphs.

Speaking
about the structure of words, it depends on different morphemes which
they include. According to their structure (English) words are
classified into:

1)root
words (cat);

2)derived
words (built with the help of some derivational affixes –
beautiful);

3)compound
words (consist of at least 2 root morphemes – football);

4)compound
derivatives (include not only root morphemes, but also derivational
ones – pig-headed).

The
largest class of the 4 above will be derived words.

Apart
from some certain structure, each word has a paradigm
–
the system of all its forms (mostly grammatical).

There
are also variants
of words.
These variants form 2 groups:

1)lexico-semantic
variants of polysemantic words;

2)
phonetic and morphological variants.

The
structure of a word undergoes changes, it can be developed.
Some
morphemes can be fused (joined) or lost in the course of time.

As
for the notion of the root of the word, it’s clear. We need another
notion to speak about patterns of word-structure. The stem
is
that part of the word that remains unchanged throughout the paradigm.
In the English language the root and the stem of a word often
coincide (can be the same).

The
stem structure may be represented in several ways. It may be
generalized with the help of symbols: n – for nouns, v – for
verbs, adj – for adjectives, adv – for adverbs and so on.

All
living languages are characterized by the creation of new words. This
process is called word-building or word-formation – the process of
creating new words from elements existing in the language with the
help of some patterns. That is, if the pattern V + able
exists
in English we can create words according to it.

New
words can appear because of some semantic changes of the word
(changes in the lexical meaning).

Derivation,
conversion, semantic development are quite productive. As for
non-productive ways of word-formation (not really spread), they are:
sound-interchange (blood – to bleed); back-formation (baby-sitter –
to baby-sit).

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