What do we mean by external structure of the word

The
modern approach to word studies is based on distinguishing between
the external
and
the
internal structures
of the word.

By
external
structure of the word we
mean its morphological
structure.
For example, in the word post-impressionists
the
following morphemes can be distinguished: the prefixes post-,
im-, the
root press,
the
noun-forming suffixes —ion,
—ist,
and the grammatical suffix of plurality -s.
All these morphemes constitute the external structure of the word
post-impressionists.

The
internal
structure of the word, or
its meaning,
is
commonly referred to as the word’s semantic
structure. This
is the word’s main aspect. Words can serve the purposes of human
communication solely due to their meanings.

The
area of lexicology specializing in the semantic studies of the word
is called semantics.

Another
structural aspect of the word is its unity.
The word possesses both external (or formal) unity and semantic
unity. Formal unity of the word is sometimes interpreted as
indivisibility. The example of post-impressionists
has
already shown that the word is not indivisible. Yet, its component
morphemes are permanently linked together in opposition to
word-groups, both free and with fixed contexts, whose components
possess a certain structural freedom, e.g. bright
light, to take for granted.

The
formal unity of the word can best be illustrated by comparing a word
and a word-group comprising identical constituents. The difference
between a
blackbird and
a black bird is
explained by their relationship with the grammatical system of the
language. The word blackbird,
which
is characterized by unity, possesses a single grammatical framing:
blackbird/s.
The
first constituent black
is
not subject to any grammatical changes. In the word-group a black
bird each
constituent can acquire grammatical forms of its own: the
blackest birds I’ve ever seen. Other
words can be inserted between the components: a
black night bird.

The
same example may be used to illustrate what we mean by semantic
unity.

In
the word-group a black
bird each
of the meaningful words conveys a separate concept: bird
– a
kind of living creature; black
– a
colour.

The
word blackbird
conveys
only one concept: the type of bird. This is one of the main features
of any word: it always conveys one concept, no matter how many
component morphemes it may have in its external structure.

A
further structural feature of the word is its susceptibility
to
grammatical employment. In speech most words can be used in different
grammatical forms in which their interrelations are realized.

All
that we have said about the word can be summed up as follows.

The
word
is
a speech unit used for the purposes of human communication,
materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning,
susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and
semantic unity.

1. The main problems of lexicology

Two
of these have been already underlined. The
problem of word-building is
associated with prevailing morphological word-structures and with
processes of making new words. Semantics
is
the study of meaning. Modern approaches to this problem are
characterized by two different levels of study: syntagmatic
and
paradigmatic.

On
the syntagmatic
level, the
semantic structure of the word is analysed in its linear
relationships with neighbouring words in connected speech. In other
words, the semantic characteristics of the word are observed,
described and studied on the basis of its typical contexts.

On
the paradigmatic
level, the
word is studied in its relationships with other words in the
vocabulary system. So, a word may be studied in comparison with other
words of similar meaning. E.g. work
n – labour
n.
Work работа,
труд; 1
the
job that a person does especially in order to earn money. This word
has many meanings (in
Oxford Dictionary – 14),
many synonyms and idioms [`idiemz]: creative
work творческая
деятельность; public
work общественные
работы;
his life`s work дело
его жизни; dirty
work (difficult,
unpleasant) 1
чёрная работа; 2
грязное
дело, подлость.
Nice
work! Отлично!
Здорово!
Saying (поговорка):
All
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy (мешай
дело с бездельем, проживёшь век с
весельем)
–
it is not healthy to spend all your time working; you need to relax
too.

Labour:
“work”
и “labour” не взаимозаменимы; labour
– 1 work,
especially physical work: manual
labour,
a
labour camp
– исправительно-трудовой
лагерь; 2
people
who work: a
shortage of labour; cheap labour; skilled labour –
квалифицированные
рабочие, Labour
Party; labour relations; a labour of
Sisyphus;
Sisyphean
labour [,sisi‘fi:en]
сизифов труд; тяжёлый и бесплодный труд
– of a task impossible to complete. From the Greek myth in which
Sisyphus was punished for the bad things he had done in his life with
the never-ending task of rolling a large stone to the top of a hill,
from which it always rolled down again.

Other
words of similar meaning (e.g. to
refuse v – to reject v),
of
opposite meaning (e.g. busy
adj – idle adj; to accept v – to reject v),
of
different stylistic characteristics (e.g. man
n – chap n – bloke n – guy n).
Man
–
chap
(coll.)
–
парень, малый; a
good chap
–
славный малый; old
chap – старина;
chap
– BrE,
informal,
becoming old-fashioned – used to talk about a man in a friendly
way: He
isn`t such a bad chap really. Bloke
(coll.)
тип,
парень: He
seemed like a nice bloke.
Guy
– coll.
US – малый;
tough
guy железный
малый; wise
guy умник;
guys
(informal,
especially US) a
group of people of either sex: Come
on, you guys!

Consequently,
the main problems of paradigmatic studies are synonymy,
antonymy, functional styles.

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Лексикология английского языка

Тема 1. Types of
language Units

1. Lexicology

2. Language Units.

3. Structural Types of words.

4. Word combination

1.  
Lexicology

A word  can be
divided into smaller sense units — morphemes. The morpheme is the smallest
meaningful language unit. The morpheme consists of a class of variants,
allomorphs, which are either phonologically or morphologically conditioned,
e.g. please, pleasant, pleasure.
Morphemes are divided into two large groups: lexical morphemes and grammatical
(functional) morphemes. Both lexical and grammatical morphemes can be free and
bound. Free lexical morphemes are roots of words which express the lexical
meaning of the word, they coincide with the stem of simple words. Free
grammatical morphemes are function words: articles, conjunctions and
prepositions ( the, with, and).
Bound lexical morphemes are affixes: prefixes (dis-), suffixes (-ish) and also
blocked (unique) root morphemes (e.g. Fri-day, cran-berry). Bound grammatical
morphemes are inflexions (endings), e.g. -s for the Plural of nouns, -ed for
the Past Indefinite of regular verbs, -ing for the Present Participle, -er for
the Comparative degree of adjectives.
In the second half of the twentieth century the English word building system
was enriched by creating so called splinters which scientists include in the
affixation stock of the Modern English wordbuilding system. Splinters are the
result of clipping the end or the beginning of a word and producing a number of
new words on the analogy with the primary word-group. For example, there are
many words formed with the help of the splinter mini- (apocopе (апокопа, отпадение последнего слога или звука в слове) produced by clipping the word «miniature»), such as
«miniplane», «minijet», «minicycle», «minicar», «miniradio» and many others.
All of these words denote objects of smaller than normal dimensions.
   On the analogy with «mini-» there
appeared the splinter «maxi»- (apocopе produced
by clipping the word «maximum»), such words as «maxi-series», «maxi-sculpture»,
«maxi-taxi» and many others appeared in the language.
   There are also splinters which are
formed by means of apheresis, that is clipping the beginning of a word.

In the seventieths of the twentieth century there was
a political scandal in the hotel «Watergate» where the Democratic Party of the
USA had its pre-election headquarters. Republicans managed to install bugs
there and when they were discovered there was a scandal and the ruling American
government had to resign. The name «Watergate» acquired the meaning «a
political scandal», «corruption». On the analogy with this word quite a number
of other words were formed by using the splinter «gate» (apheresis of the word
«Watergate»), such as: «Irangate», »Westlandgate», »shuttlegate», »milliongate»
etc. The splinter «gate» is added mainly to Proper names: names of people with
whom the scandal is connected or a geographical name denoting the place where
the scandal occurred.
The splinter «mobile» was formed by clipping the beginning of the word
«automobile» and is used to denote special types of automobiles, such as:
«artmobile», «bookmobile», «snowmobile», «tourmobile» etc.

     3.    According to
the nature and the number of morphemes constituting a word there are different
structural types of words in English: simple, derived, compound,
compound-derived. 
Simple words consist of one root morpheme and an inflexion (in many cases the
inflexion is zero), e.g. «seldom», «chairs», «longer», «asked».
Derived words consist of one root morpheme, one or several affixes and an
infection, e.g. «deristricted (снимать ограничения)», «unemployed».
Compound words consist of two or more root morphemes and an inflexion, e.g.
«baby-moons»(искусств.спутник земли), «wait-and-see (policy) выжидательная политика».
Compound-derived words consist of two or more root morphemes, one or more
affixes and an inflexion, e.g. «middle-of-the-roaders» человек занимающий половинчатую позицию, «job-hopper»летун, человек часто меняющий работу.
   

When speaking about the structure of words stems also
should be mentioned. The stem is the part of the word which remains unchanged
throughout the paradigm of the word, e.g. the stem «hop» can be found in the
words: «hop», «hops», «hopped», «hopping». The stem «hippie» can be found in
the words: «hippie», «hippies», «hippie’s», «hippies’». The stem «job-hop» can
be found in the words : «job-hop», «job-hops», «job-hopped», «job-hopping». 
So stems, the same as words, can be simple, derived, compound and
compound-derived. Stems have not only the lexical meaning but also grammatical
(part-of-speech) meaning, they can be noun stems («girl» in the adjective
«girlish»), adjective stems («girlish» in the noun «girlishness»), verb stems
(«expell» in the noun «expellee») etc. They differ from words by the absence of
inflexions in their structure, they can be used only in the structure of words.
Sometimes it is rather difficult to distinguish between simple and derived
words, especially in the cases of phonetic borrowings from other languages and
of native words with blocked (unique) root morphemes, e.g. «perestroika»,
«cranberry», «absence» etc.

In the English language of the second half of the twentieth century there
developed so called block compounds, that is compound words which have a
uniting stress but a split spelling, such as «chat show», «pinguin suit» etc.
Such compound words can be easily mixed up with word-groups of the type «stone
wall», so called nominative binomials

два названия. Such linguistic units serve to denote a notion which
is more specific than the notion expressed by the second component and consists
of two nouns, the first of which is an attribute to the second one. If we
compare a nominative binomial with a compound noun with the structure N+N we
shall see that a nominative binomial has no unity of stress. The change of the
order of its components will change its lexical meaning, e.g. «vid kid» is «a
kid who is a video fan» while «kid vid» means «a video-film for kids» or else
«lamp oil» means «oil for lamps» and «oil lamp» means «a lamp which uses oil
for burning».
Thus, we can draw the conclusion that in Modern English the following language
units can be mentioned: morphemes, splinters, words, nominative binomials,
non-idiomatic and idiomatic word-combinations, sentences.

Denote main characteristics of words.

The modern approach to word studies is based on distinguishing between the external and the internal structures of the word.

When we consider the “external structure” of the word, we mean its morphological structure. For instance, in the word post-impressionists the following morphemes can be distinguished: the prefix: post-, im-, the root press, the noun-forming suffixes -ion, -ist, and the grammatical suffix of plurality -s. All these morphemes constitute the external structure of the word post-impressionists

We will study the external structure of words, and also typical word-formation patterns in the session on word-building.

The internal structure of word, or its meaning, is nowadays commonly referred to as the word’s semantic structure.

This is certainly the word’s major aspect. Word can serve the purposes of human communication solely due to their meanings, and it is the most unfortunate when this fact is ignored by some contemporary scholars who, in their obsession with the fetish of structure, tend to condemn as irrelevant anything that eludes mathematical analysis. And this is exactly what meaning, with its subtle variation and shifts, is apt to do.

The area of lexicology specializing in the semantic studies of the word is called semantics. Another structural aspect of the word is sometimes inaccurately interpreted as indivisibility. The example of post-impressionists has already shown that the word is not, strictly speaking, indivisible.

Its component morphemes are permanently linked together in opposition to word-groups, both free and with fixed contexts, whose components possess a certain structural freedom, example bright light, to take for granted .

A further structural feature of the word is its susceptibility to grammatical employment. In speech most words can be used in different grammatical forms in which their interrelations are realized.

So far we have only underlined the word main peculiarities, but this suffices to convey the general idea of the difficulties and questions faced  by the scholars attempting to give a detail definition of the word.

The difficulty does not merely consist in the considerable number of aspects that are to be taken into account, but, also in the essential unanswered questions of word theory which concern the nature of its meaning.

All that we have studied the word can be summed up as follows:

The word is a speech unit used for the purposes of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity.

К содержанию номера журнала: Вестник КАСУ №2 — 2007
Автор: Дудник А. А.

Speaking of the semantic
structure of the word, I’d like to point out that, the branch of the study of
language concerned with the meaning of words is called semasiology. The
name comes from the Greek semasia ‘signification’ (from sema ‘sign’
and semantikos ‘significant’). As semasiology deals not with every kind
of linguistic meaning but with lexical meaning only, it may be regarded as a
branch of lexicology.

This does not mean that the semasiologist
needn’t pay attention to grammatical meaning. On the contrary, grammatical
meaning must be taken into consideration in so far as it bears a specific
influence upon lexical meaning. This influence is manifold and will be
discussed at length later. At this stage it will suffice to point out that a
certain basic component of the word meaning is described when one identifies
the word morphologically, i. e. states to what grammatical word class it
belongs. If treated diachronically, semasiology studies the change in meaning,
which words undergo. Descriptive synchronic approach demands a study not of
individual words but of semantic structures typical of the language studied,
and of its general semantic system.

We will have noticed that two
terms, “semasiology” and “semantics”, have so far been used indiscriminately as
if synonymous (What’s in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other name
would smell as sweet… (W. Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Sc.2)).

In
fact, they are synonyms but not equally appropriate for our purpose. The first
term is preferable because it is less ambiguous. The term “semantics” on the
other hand, is used to cover several different meanings. It is also used to
denote the phenomena studied, i. e. the meaning of words and phrases. Had this
been all, it might have been tolerated, because the same double purpose is
served by the terms “phonetics” and “grammar”. In the case of “semantics”,
however, there are other meanings, not sufficiently divorced from linguistics and
apt to create confusion.

We
can much time ask a question: What is a word? What is Lexicology? We can
compare with such an expression as:

These famous lines reflect one
of the fundamental problems of linguistic research: what is in a name, in a
word? Is there any direct connection between a word and the object it
represents? Could rose have been called by “ any other name” as Juliet says?
These and similar questions are answered by lexicological research. Lexicology, a branch of linguistics, is the study of words. For some people studying words
may seem uninteresting. But if studied properly, it may well prove just as
exciting and novel as unearthing the mysteries of Outer Space.

It is significant that many
scholars have attempted to define the word as a linguistic phenomenon. Yet none
of the definitions can be considered totally satisfactory in all aspects. It is
equally surprising that, despite all the achievements of modern science,
certain essential aspects of the nature of the word still escape us. Nor do we
fully understand the phenomenon called “language”, of which the word is a
fundamental unit. We know nothing- or almost nothing – about the mechanism by
which a speaker’s mental process is converted into sound groups called “
words”, nor about the reverse process whereby a listener’s brain converts the
acoustic phenomena into concepts and ideas, thus establishing a two — way
process of communication. We know very little about the nature of relations
between the word and the referent (i.e. object, phenomenon, quality, action,
etc. denoted by the word). If we assume that there is a direct relation between
the word and the referent — which seems logical- it gives rise to another
question: how should we explain the fact that the same referent is designated
by quite different sound groups in different languages.

We do know by now —
though with vague uncertainty- that there is nothing accidental about the
vocabulary of the language; that each word is a small unit within a vast,
efficient and perfectly balanced system. But we do not know why it possesses
these qualities, nor do we know much about the processes by which it has
acquired them. The list of unknowns could be extended, but it is probably high
time to look at the brighter side and register some of the things we do know about the nature of the word.

First, we do know that a word is a
unit of speech, which, as such, serves the purposes of human communication.
Thus, the word can be defined as a unit of communication.

Secondly, the word can be perceived as
the total of the sounds, which comprise it.

Third, the word, viewed
structurally, possesses several characteristics.

The
modern approach to word studies is based on distinguishing between the external
and internal structures of the word.

By external structure of the
word we mean its morphological structure. For example, in the word post-impressionists the following morphemes can be distinguished: the prefixes post-, im-, the
root press, the noun- forming suffixes –ion, -ist, and the
grammatical suffix of plurality –s. All these morphemes constitute the
external structure of the word post-impressionists.

The internal structure of the
word, or its meaning, is nowadays commonly referred to as the word’s semantic
structure. This is certainly the word’s main aspect. Words can serve the
purposes the human communication solely due to their meanings, and it is most
unfortunate when this fact is ignored by some contemporary scholars who, in
their obsession with the fetish of structure tend eludes mathematical analysis.
And this is exactly what meaning, with its subtle variations and shifts is apt
to do.

The
question posed by the title of it is one of those questions, which are easier
to ask than to answer. The linguistic science at present is not able to put
forward a definition of meaning which is conclusive. However, there are certain
facts of which we can be reasonably sure, and one of them is that the very
function of the word as unit of communication is made possible by it possessing
a meaning. Therefore, among word’s various characteristics, meaning is
certainly the most important.

Generally
speaking, meaning can be more or less described as a component of the word
through which a concept is communicated, in this way endowing the word with the
ability of denoting real objects, qualities, actions and abstract notions. The
complex and somewhat mysterious relationships between referent (object,
etc. denoted by the word), concept and word are traditionally
represented by the following triangle:

By the “symbol” here is meant
the word; thought or reference is concept. The faltering line suggests that
there is no immediate relation between word and referent: it is established
only through the concept.

If speaking about components
of semantic structure of the word, we can say that, the leading semantic
component is usually termed denotative component (also, the term referential component may be used). The denotative component expresses the
conceptual component of a word.

The
following list presents denotative components of some adjectives and verbs:

Lonely, adj.
Alone, without

company

Notorious, adj.
Widely known

Celebrated,
adj.
Widely known

To glare, v.
to look

To glance, v.
to look

To shiver, v.
to tremble

To shudder,
v. to
tremble

It
is quite obvious that the definitions given in the right column only partially
and incompletely describe the meanings of their corresponding words. To give a
more or less full picture of the meaning of the word, it is necessary to
include in the scheme of analysis additional semantic components, which are
termed connotations, or connotative components.

Let us complete the semantic structures of the words given
above introducing connotative components into the schemes of their semantic
structures.

The
above show how by singling out denotative and connotative components one can
get a sufficiently clear picture of what the word really means. The schemes
presenting the semantic structures of glare, shiver, shudder also show
that a meaning can have two or more connotative components.

The
given examples do not exhaust all the types of connotations but present only a
few: emotive, evaluative connotations, and also connotations of duration.

So
the branch of linguistics, which specializes in the study of meaning, is called semantics. As with many terms, the term “semantics” is ambiguous for it can
stand, as well, for the expressive aspect of language in general and for the
meaning of one particular word in all its varied aspects and nuances (i.e. the
semantics of a word= the meaning(s) of a word). Meaning can be described as a
component of the word through which a concept is communicated, endowing the
word with the ability of denoting real objects, qualities, actions, and abstract
notions. The semantic structure of the word does not present an indissoluble
unity (that is actually, why it is referred to as “structure”), nor does it
necessarily stand for one concept. Most words convey several concepts and thus
possess the corresponding number of meanings. A word having several meanings is
called polysemantic, and the ability of the word to have more than one
meaning is described by the term polysemy. The vocabulary is the most
flexible part of the language and it is precisely its semantic aspect that
responds most readily to every change in the human activity in whatever sphere
it may happen to take place. Speaking about different types of semantic
structure they play their own role and affect in various aspect on the word and
its structure but so that to make any changes, elements of the word exist and
have an important part in changes of the word causes by different changes of
the epoch, and different races.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. The
English Word I.V. Arnold, Moscow 1973 (the second edition).

2. Лексикология
английского языка. Ворно Е.Ф., Кащеева М.А., Малишевская Е.В., Потапова И.А..Ленинград
1955

3. A Course
in Modern English Lexicology, R.S. Ginzburg, S.S. Khidekel, G.Y. Knyazeva, A.A.
Sankin. Moscow
1966

4. Лексикология
английского языка (практический курс) Т.И. Арбекова 1977

5. www. yahoo.com.

6. www. google.ru

К содержанию номера журнала: Вестник КАСУ №2 — 2007