What is the internal structure of the word

1. Ефименко А.З. Цены и ценовая политика. // Экономика строительства. — 2000. — №1. — С.54-61.

2. Цены и ценообразование: Учебник для вузов / Под ред. И.К. Салимжанова. — М.: ЗАО «Финстатинформ», 2003.

3. Дерябин А.А. Система ценообразования и финансов, пути совершенствования. М., Экономика, 2001

4. Певший Ф.М. Мировой рынок, конъюнктура, цены и маркетинг. М., МО, 2003

5. Ценообразование и рынок под ред. Салижманова И.K. М., Финстатинформ, колл. авторов, М., Прогресс, 2002

The Object of Lexicology

Antrushina G.B. English Lexicology

(pp. 6 – 11)

1. What is lexicology?

2. The structure of the word.

3. The main problems of lexicology.

4. Phraseology.

5. Vocabulary as a system.

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet…

(W. Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet)

Что в имени твоём? То, что зовём мы розой, —

И под другим названьем сохраняло б

Свой сладкий запах!

(перевод Щепкиной-Куперник)

1. What is lexicology?

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 a 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.

“Lexicology (from Gr lexis ‘word’ and logos ‘learning’) is the part of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of a language and the properties of words as the main units of language. The term vocabulary is used to denote the system formed by the sum total of all the words that the language possesses.

The term word denotes the basic unit of a given language resulting from the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment. A word therefore is simultaneously a semantic, grammatical and phonological unit.”

(I. Arnold, Lexicology, p.9)

We do not know much about the origin of language and, consequently, of the origin of words. We know 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 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 that there is nothing accidental about the vocabulary of the language (the total sum of its words);that each word is a small unit within a vast, efficient and perfectly balanced system.

What do we know about the nature of the word?

First, we know that the word is a unit of speech which 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 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.

The term lexicology is of Greek origin (from lexis –
word and logos —

science). Lexicology is the part of linguistics which deals
with the vocabulary and

characteristic features of words and word-groups.

      The term
word denotes the main lexical unit of a language resulting from the

association of a group of sounds with a meaning. This
unit is used in grammatical

functions characteristic of it. It is the smallest
unit of a language which can stand

alone as a complete utterance.

      The term
word-group denotes a group of words which exists in the language

as a ready-made unit, has the unity of meaning, the
unity of syntactical function,

e.g. the word-group as loose as a goose means clumsy (неуклюжий) and is used in a sentence as a predicative (именная часть составного сказуемого) (He is as loose as a goose).

      Lexicology
can be general and special. General lexicology is the lexicology

of any language, part of General Linguistics. It is
aimed at establishing language

universals – linguistic phenomena and properties
common to all languages.

      Special
lexicology is the lexicology of a particular language (English,

German, Russian, etc.).

      
Lexicology can study the development of the vocabulary, the origin of

words and word-groups, their semantic relations and
the development of their

sound form and meaning. In this case it is called
historical lexicology.

      Another
branch of lexicology is called descriptive and studies the

vocabulary at a definite stage of its development.

Lexicology and its Connection
with Other Linguistc Disciplines

Lexicology is closely connected with other branches of
linguistcs:

1. It is connected with Phonetics because the word‘s
sound form is a fixed

sequence of phonemes united by a lexical stress.

2. Lexicology is connected with Morphology and
Word-Formation as the

word‘s structure is a fixed sequence of morphemes.

3. It is connected with Morphology because the word‘s
content plane is a

unity of lexical and grammatical meanings.

4. The word functions as part of the sentence and
performs a certain

syntactical function that is why it is also connected
with Syntax.

5. The word functions in different situations and
spheres of life therefore it

is connected with Stylistics, Socio- and
Psycholinguistics.

            But
there is also a great difference between lexicology and other linguistc

disciplines. Grammatical and phonological systems are
relatively stable. Therefore

they are mostly studied within the framework of
intralinguistics.

Lexical system is never stable. It is directly
connected with extralinguistic

systems. It is constantly growing and decaying (распадаться). It is immediately reacts to changes in social
life, e.g. the intense development of science and technology in the 20^th
century gave birth to such words as computer, sputnik, spaceship. Therefore
lexicology is a sociolinguistic discipline. It studies each particular word,
both its intra- and extralingiustic relations.

Lexicology is subdivided into a number of autonomous
but interdependent

disciplines:

1. Lexicological Phonetics. It studies the expression
plane of lexical units in

isolation and in the flow of speech.

2. Semasiology. It deals with the meaning of words and
other linguistic

units: morphemes, word-formation types, morphological
word classes and

morphological categories.

3. Onomasiology or Nomination Theory. It deals with
the process of

nomination: what name this or that object has and why.

4. Etymology. It studies the origin, the original
meaning and form of words.

5. Praseology. It deals with phraseological units.

6. Lexicography. It is a practical science. It
describes the vocabulary and

each lexical unit in the form of dictionaries.

7. Lexical Morphology. It deals with the morphological
structure of the word.

8. Word-formation. It deals with the patterns which
are used in coining new

words.

Modern
English lexicology investigates the problems of word structure and word
formation; it also investigates the word structure of English, the classification
of vocabulary units; the relations between different lexical layers4 of the
English vocabulary and some other. Lexicology came into being to meet the
demands of different branches of applied linguistic!

  2.
 Language units

The main unit of the lexical system of a language
resulting from the association of a group of sounds with a meaning is a word. This unit is used in
grammatical functions characteristic of it. It is the smallest language unit
which can stand alone as a complete utterance.        

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.

         The
external structure of the word, and also typical word-formation patterns,

are studied in the framework of word-building.

         The
internal structure of the word, or its meaning, is nowadays commonly

referred to as the word‘s semantic structure. This is
the word‘s main aspect.

         The
area of lexicology specialising in the semantic studies of the word is

called semantics.

         One of
the main structural features of the word that it possesses both

external (formal) unity and semantic unity.

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

4.  Word-Combination

What is a Word-Combination?

The word-combination (WC) is the largest two-facet
lexical unit observed

on the syntagmatic level of analysis. By the degree of
their structural and semantic

cohesion(kouhizhn связь)

         
Lexical combinability (collocation) is the aptness of a word to appear
in

certain lexical contexts, e.g. the word question
combines with certain adjectives:

delicate, vital, important.

          Each
word has a certain norm of collocation. Any departure from this norm

is felt as a stylistic device: to shove a question.

          The collocations
of correlated words in different languages are not identical,

e.g. both the English flower and its Russian
counterpart цветок
can be combined

with a number of words denoting the place where the
flowers are grown: garden-

flowers, hot-house flowers; садовые цветы, оранжерейные цветы. But the

English word cannot enter into combination with the
word room to denote flowers

growing in the rooms, cf.: комнатные цветы – pot flowers.

         
Grammatical combinability (colligation) is the aptness of a word to
appear

in certain grammatical contexts, e.g. the adjective
heavy can be followed by a noun

(heavy storm), by an infinitive (heavy to lift). Each
grammatical unit has a certain

norm of colligation: nouns combine with pre-positional
adjectives (a new dress),

relative adjectives combine with pre-positional
adverbs of degree (dreadfully

tired).

          The
departure from the norm of colligation is usually impossible:

mathematics at clever is a meaningless string of words
because English nouns do

not allow of the structure N + at + A.

Categories of
Word-Combinations

 The study of
WCs is based on the following set of oppositions each

constituting a separate category:

      1. Neutral
and stylistically marked WCs: old coat – old boy;

      2.
Variable and stable WCs: take a pen – take place;

      3.
Non-idiomatic and idiomatic WCs: to speak plainly – to call a spade a

          spade;

         4.
Usual and occasional WCs: blue sky – angry sky;

         5.
Conceptually determined and conceptually non-determined WCs: clean

           
dress – clean dirt;

         6.
Sociolinguistically determined and sociolinguistically non-determined

            WCs:
cold war – cold soup.

                     
II.   Meaning of Word-Combinations

      Meaning of
WCs is anlysed into lexical and grammatical (structural

components).

Lexical meaning of the WC is the combined lexical
meanings of its component

words: red flower – red + flower. But in most cases
the meaning of the whole

combination predominates over the lexical meaning of
its constituents, e.g. the

meaning of the monosemantic adjective atomic is
different in atomic weight and

atomic bomb.

     
Polysemantic words are used in WCs in one of their meanings: blind man

(horse, cat) – blind type (print, handwriting). Only
one meaning of the adjective

blind (unable to see) is combined with the lexical
meaning of the noun man

(human being) and only one meaning of man is realized
in combination with blind.

The meaning of the same adjective in blind type is
different.

      Structural
meaning of the WC is conveyed by the pattern of arrangement of

the component words, e.g. the WCs school grammar and
grammar school consist

of identical words but are semantically different
because their patterns are

different. The structural pattern is the carrier of a
certain meaning quality-

substance that does not depend on the lexical meanings
of the words school and

grammar.

     III.   Interdependence of Structure and Meaning in
Word-Combinations

      The
pattern of the WC is the syntactic structure in which a given word is

used as its head: to build + N (to build a house); to
rely + on + N (to rely on sb).

The pattern and meaning of head-words are
interdependent. The same head-word

is semantically different in different patterns, cf.:
get+N (get a letter); get+to+N

(get to Moscow); get+N+inf (get sb to come).

      In these
patterns notional words are represented in conventional symbols

whereas form-words are given in their usual graphic
form. The reason is that

individual form-words may change the meaning of the
word with which it is

combined: anxious+for+N (anxious for news),
anxious+about+N (anxious about

his health).

     
Structurally simple patterns are usually polysemantic: the pattern
take+N

represents several meanings of the polysemantic
head-word: take tea (coffee), take

neasures (precautions). Structurally complex patterns
are usually monosemantic:

the pattern take+to+N represents only one meaning of
take – take to sports (to sb).

                       
IV.   Motivation in
Word-Combinations

      Motivation
in WCs may be lexical or grammatical (structural). The WC is

motivated if its meaning is deducible from the
meaning, order and arrangement of

its components: red flower – red+flower –
quality+substance – A+N. Non-

motivated WCs are indivisible lexically and
structurally. They are called

phraseological units.

      The WC is
lexially non-motivated if its combined lexical meaning is not

deducible from the meaning of its components: red tape
–bureaucratic methods.

The WC represents a single indivisible semantic
entity.

      The WC is
structurally non-motivated if the meaning of its pattern is not

deducible from the order and arrangement of its
components: red tape – substance

– N. The WC represents a single indivisible structural
entity.

                       
V.    Categories of
Word-Combinations

      The study
of WCs is based on the following set of oppositions each

constituting a separate category:

      1. Neutral
and stylistically marked WCs: old coat – old boy;

      2.
Variable and stable WCs: take a pen – take place;

      3.
Non-idiomatic and idiomatic WCs: to speak plainly – to call a spade a

          spade;

         4.
Usual and occasional WCs: blue sky – angry sky;

         5.
Conceptually determined and conceptually non-determined WCs: clean

           
dress – clean dirt;

         6.
Sociolinguistically determined and sociolinguistically non-determined

            WCs:
cold war – cold soup.