What word means the study of words

Lexicology
is a branch of linguistics, which
deals with the vocabulary of a language and the properties of words
as the main units of language. The term lexicology is composed of two
Greek morphemes ‘lexis’ – word, phrase and ‘logos’ –
learning, i.e. the science of the word. However the literal meaning
gives only the general motion of the aims and the subject matter of
this brunch of linguistics, since all the other brunches also study
words in one way or another. Ex: phonetics is connected with the
study of the outer sound-form of the word. Grammar – with the study
of the grammatical structure of language. Lexicology as a branch of
linguistics has its own aims and methods of scientific research. Its
basic task is a study and systematic description of vocabulary, in
respect to its origin, development and current use. Lexicology is
concerned with words, variable word-groups, phraseological units and
morphemes which make up words. The general study of words and
vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular
language is known as general lexicology. Special lexicology is the
lexicology of a particular language. Within lexicology we distinguish
various brunches: semaseology studies
meaning; phraseology studies
word groups functionally and semantically inseparable, i.e.
phraseological units; word-formation –
the study of various types and ways of forming words; etymology –
the study of the origin and history of words, causes of their
appearance, their volume; lexicography is
considered by some linguists to be a separate branch of linguistics,
connected with lexicology. Still others think it to be a brunch of
lexicology. Lexicography is a science of dictionary compiling. It
deals with the same problems as lexicology – the form, meaning,
usage and origin of vocabulary units.

2. What is a word

We
do know that the 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 the internal structures of the word.

¹
By the vocabulary
of
a language is understood the total sum of its words. Another term for
the same is the stock
of words

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 characterised by formal and
semantic unity.

The
external structure of words, and also typical word-formation
patterns, are studied in the section on word-building (see Ch. 5, 6).

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 of
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 to condemn
as irrelevant anything that eludes mathematical analysis. And this is
exactly what meaning, with its subtle variations and shifts, is apt
to do.

The
area of lexicology specialising 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 inaccurately interpreted as indivisibility. The
example of post-impressionists
has
already shown that the word is not, strictly speaking, 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.

3
Informal Style

Informal
vocabulary is used in one’s immediate circle: family, relatives or
friends. One uses informal words when at home or when feeling at
home.

Informal
style is relaxed, free-and-easy, familiar and unpretentious. But it
should be pointed out that the informal talk of well-educated people
considerably differs from that of the illiterate or the
semi-educated; the choice of words with adults is different from the
vocabulary of teenagers; people living in the provinces use certain
regional words and expressions. Consequently, the choice of words is
determined in each particular case not only by an informal (or
formal) situation, but also by the speaker’s educational and cultural
background, age group, and his occupational and regional
characteristics.

Informal
words and word-groups are traditionally divided into three types:
colloquial,
slang and
dialect
words and word-groups.

4
Colloquial Words

Among
other informal words, colloquialisms
are
the least exclusive: they are used by everybody, and their sphere of
communication is comparatively wide, at least of literary
colloquial words. These
are informal words that are used in everyday conversational speech
both by cultivated and uneducated people of all age groups. The
sphere of communication of literary colloquial words also includes
the printed page, which shows that the term «colloquial» is
somewhat inaccurate.

Vast
use of informal words is one of the prominent features of 20th
century English and American literature. It is quite natural that
informal
words appear in dialogues in which they realistically reflect the
speech of modern people.

Here
are some more examples of literary colloquial words. Pal
and
chum
are
colloquial equivalents of friend;
girl, when
used colloquially, denotes a woman of any age; bite
and
snack
stand
for meal;
hi, hello are
informal greetings, and so long
a
form of parting; start,
go on, finish and
be
through are
also literary colloquialisms; to
have a crush on somebody is
a colloquial equivalent of to
be in love. A bit (of) and
a
lot (of) also
belong to this group.

Literary
colloquial words should not only be included in the students’
functional and recognition vocabularies, but also presented and
drilled in suitable contexts and situations, mainly in dialogues. It
is important that students should be trained to associate these words
with informal, relaxed situations.

5
The informal element in the vocabulary. Slang.
Slang words are expressive mostly ironical words serving to create
fresh names for some things that are frequent topics of discourse.
The etimology of word “slang” had not been established so far. In
different dictionaries different words are refered to the layer of
slang. Slang is substantive colloquial speech of general currency
which is emotionally coloured and synonyms to neutral words. there
are various slang words for money:
beans, brass, dough, poof. The slang synonym for the word head—
attic, brain-pan, hat peg, nut, upper storey. Slang exist on 2
levels:1) highly colloquial words(general slang): buck, bob, to tuck
in; 2)words of different jargons [‘ʤɑːgən](medical, students,
theatrical)- special slang:big boy-крупнокалиберная пушка,
to cut a lesson-сбежать c
yрока.
There are cases when words originating as professional slang later on
become terms. A great deal of slang come from the USA:cute, teenager,
snob, trip, hitch-hiker.

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Lexicology is a science that focuses onin the vocabulary of a particular language. It has its own laws and categories. What does lexicology study? This science deals with various aspects of words, as well as their functions and development.

The concept of

Lexicology is a science that studies the vocabulary of a language and its features. The subject of this section of linguistics is the following:

• Functions of lexical units.
• The problem of the word as the basic constituent of the language.
• Types and types of lexical units.
• The structure of the vocabulary of the language.

This is not yet a complete list of what is being studiedlexicology. This science deals with issues of replenishment and expansion of vocabulary, and also considers the links and contradictions between lexical units.

Object of study

The word and its meaning are the basis for many sciences. Morphology deals with these questions, as well as various directions of word formation. However, if in these sciences words are a means of studying grammatical structures or studying various models for different variants of word formation, then what is learned by lexicology is used directly for understanding the specifics of the words themselves. Lexical units are viewed not simply as a collection of letters and sounds, but are an integral system that has its connections, functions, categories and concepts. This is the object of the study of lexicology. She does not consider individual words, but the whole vocabulary as something whole and inseparable.

This approach has its own peculiarities. This allows us to refer to the category of lexical units not only words, but also stable word combinations that have a certain analytical role.

Word problem

Lexicology of the modern Russian languagefocuses on the object and subject of its study. Since the word is regarded as a unit that has connections between its form and content, it is considered in three main aspects:

• Structural. The form of the word, its structure and components are studied.
• Semantic. The meaning of lexical units is considered.
• Functional. The role of words in speech and in the general structure of language is investigated.

If we talk about the first aspect, then lexicology -is a science that establishes specific criteria for determining the difference and identity of individual words. To do this, lexical units are matched with word combinations, and an analytical structure is developed that allows you to establish word invariants.

As for the semantic aspect, thisis engaged in a separate science — semasiology. She studies the relationship between a word and a certain object. This is important for lexicology. She studies the word and its meaning, as well as its separate categories and types, which makes it possible to identify concepts such as monosemy (uniqueness) and polysimy (polysemy). Lexicology also studies the causes that lead to the appearance or loss of a word of its meaning.

Functional aspect considers lexicalunit as an object that communicates with other similar elements and builds a whole system of language. The role of the interaction of vocabulary and grammar is important here, which, on the one hand, support, and on the other — limit each other.

Definition of vocabulary

Lexicology regards words as a system,which consists of several subsystems. Lexical units form groups that are different in volume, form and content. This is part of what is learned by lexicology. At the same time, the vocabulary is explored in two aspects: as a group relationship between individual units and their proper location in relation to each other. Thanks to this vocabulary can be divided into separate categories. For example, homonyms, paronyms, synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, etc.

In addition, almost any sectionlinguistics, including Russian or English lexicology, is studying more voluminous groupings of words, which are called fields. Usually it is built on the basis of the field core, for example, a certain number of keywords, and the boundaries themselves, which are a variety of paradigmatic, semantic, grammatical or other types of relationships with given lexical units.

Sections of lexicology

Like any other science, lexicology has its own system of disciplines that are responsible for certain aspects of its object and subject of study:

• Semasiology. Engaged in the meaning of words and phrases.
• Onomasiology. He studies the procedure for naming objects and phenomena.
• Etymology. Explores the origin of words.
• Onomastics. Engaged in proper names. This applies to both people’s names and geographical names.
• Stylistics. Studying the meaning of words and expressions of a connotative nature.
• Lexicography. Engaged in ways to organize and compile dictionaries.
• Phraseology. Explores phraseological units and persistent expressions.

Sections of lexicology have their owncategory, as well as the object and subject of study. In addition, there are some types of this science. In particular, we are talking about general, private, historical, comparative and applied lexicology. The first type is responsible for the general patterns of vocabulary, including its structure, stages of development, functions, etc. Private lexicology deals with the study of a specific language. The historical type is responsible for the development of words in connection with the history of names of objects and phenomena. Comparative lexicology examines words in order to identify the relationship between different languages. The latter type is responsible for such processes as the culture of speech, features of translation, linguistic pedagogy and lexicography.

Categories of lexical units

The vocabulary of any language is differentdiversity and heterogeneity. Accordingly, distinguish categories that have their own distinctive features and characteristics. Russian lexicology foresees the following subspecies:

• In the field of application: common words and lexical units that are used in special situations (science, poetry, old talk, dialects, etc.).
• On the emotional load: neutral and emotionally colored units.
• On historical development: neologisms and archaisms.
• By its origin and development: internationalism, borrowing, etc.
• By functionality — active and passive lexical units, as well as occasionalisms.

Given the continuous development of the language, the boundaries between words are fuzzy, and they can move from one group to another.

Problems

Like any other science, lexicology deals with certain problems. Modern specialists distinguish the following:

• Frequency of words in the text.
• The difference between lexical units in writing and in oral speech.
• The possibilities of words that allow you to create new names for objects and phenomena.
• Change the meaning of vocabulary.

Science also studies variants of the compatibility of words at different levels: semantic and lexical.

Ways to replenish the vocabulary

Lexicology is exploring optionsnominations. This means different ways and methods of expanding the vocabulary. For this, both the internal resources of a particular language can be used, as well as the use of lexical units from other languages. There are the following ways of replenishing the vocabulary:

• Word formation is the creation of new words.
• Construction of new values ​​for already existing words: polysemy, transfer of values, etc.
• Formation of persistent phrases.
• Borrowing.

These methods are typical for any language, but in each case have their own characteristics and distinctive features.

Methods

For its needs, lexicology uses general linguistic research methods. These include:

• Distribution. Responsible for defining the scope of a lexical unit, for the number of values, etc.
• Substitution. He studies the phenomena of synonymy and variations of words.
• Component method. Responsible for the splitting of lexical units into separate components, and also deals with their general structure.
• Transformation. Used in the process of word formation in order to determine the main component of the word.
• Statistical method. Used to determine the frequency of using lexical units, as well as to calculate their semantic, paradigmatic and other types of links.

The information obtained with the help of these methods is also used in other sciences, including psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and a number of social disciplines.

• Lexicology is the study of lexis (or lexical items).
• Lexicon is a collection of words, a bit like a dictionary.
• Lexicalisation is the process of adding or changing words in a lexicon.
• A lexeme is a basic unit of word meaning, or the “root word”. For example, eats, ate, eaten, and eating come from one lexeme, eat.

• She’s always got the latest clothes.
• She is such a snazzy dresser.
• She’s got them garms on, like!

Levels of formality can be divided into several groups:

Informal language:

Lexis in informal English Language can be divided into two ways:

Slang: The language of everyday conversation that usually fades away over time. The ‘slang definition’ is often different from the original definition of a word. For example:

• Money: cash, dough, green.
• Drunk: canned, smashed, sloshed.
• Food: grub, chop, chow.

Colloquialism: the language of everyday conversation, common within a specific language, time, and location. For example:

• Reckon: ‘She’ll live a long life.’ ‘You reckon?’ vs. ‘You think?’.
• Fetch: Can you fetch the post? vs. Can you bring me the post?
• Dodgy: This business proposal looks dodgy vs. This business proposal looks suspicious.

Lexis in formal English language is more common in writing than in speaking. However, this also depends on the audience. Whether you write to your friends or potential employer will influence your word choices and affect the grammar you use.

• Formal: He has finished packing.
• Informal: He’s finished packing.

Absence of whom:

• Formal: The guy whom you met yesterday was my lecturer.
• Informal: The guy you met yesterday was my lecturer

Ellipsis:

• Formal: I left some food for dinner. You don’t have to wait up. I will be home late today.
• Informal: Left some food for dinner. Don’t wait up. Will be home late.

Occupational register/jargon: the technical language that is related to certain professions. For example:

• Medical jargon: tracheostomy, vaccine.
• Military jargon: AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave) and sandbox (desert area).
• Technical jargon: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and traffic (total amount of users who visit a website).

Sociolect: a language style associated with a particular social group, commonly affiliated with age, gender, ethnicity, and education, among other factors. For example, the pronunciation of ‘n’ vs. ‘ng’ sound at the end of words, such as in working, planning, going and doing. Some studies argue that across the UK:

Dialect: a language style associated with a particular geographical region. Some examples of British regional dialects are:

• Cockney: thin — / θɪn / is pronounced as [fɪn]
• Geordie: reading — / ˈriːdɪŋ / is pronounced as [ˈɹiːdən]
• Yorkshire: owt and nowt can mean ‘anything’ and ‘nothing’
• Scottish: ‘-ie’ noun ending is used to indicate smallness, eg. laddie and lassie refer to a young boy and young girl, respectively.

Semantics is the study of meaning at the levels of words, phrases, sentences, and discourse. This term is used in linguistics, and also in other disciplines, such as philosophy and computer science.

What is an example of a semantic field?

Types of semantics

Scholars divide semantics into two groups: structural semantics and cognitive semantics.

Structural semantics is the study of relationships between words in a sentence. Basically, we look at how meaning can be composed of smaller units.

Cognitive semantics is the study of linguistic meaning.

Both structural and cognitive semantics have their subtypes. You can see the classification in the table below. This is not the full list.

Denotative and Connotative meaning

Denotative meaning describes the literal meaning of a word. There is no additional value attached to the word. The word is as it is presented. This is also known as the dictionary definition.

• Eg, The name of the new student is Erik.

• Eg, ‘The glitz and glam of Hollywood’.

This means the place, Hollywood, but it also means the American film industry, which is about glamour, superficiality, and fame.

Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic relations

Paradigmatic relation has to do with the vertical relationship between words that can be substituted by words of the same word class. There are some methods for substituting words, such as synonymy (similar meaning), antonymy (opposite meaning), and hyponymy (a kind of meaning).

Syntagmatic relation describes the horizontal relationship between words that co-occur in the same sentence. The linear relation between words can also explain collocation (frequently occurring word combinations) and idioms (fixed expressions).

For example, The handsome man ate some chicken.

Lexical ambiguity occurs when the multiple meanings of a word cause more than one interpretation. This can happen when the speaker/author doesn’t have the same background information as the listener/reader.

Fig. 3 — ‘Bat’ can refer to an animal.Fig. 4 — ‘Bat’ can refer to a baseball bat.

Semantic change

Lexis and the English language are constantly changing. Semantic meaning is no different. A good example of semantic change is you and thou. In the 13th century, people began using one singular pronoun ‘you’ instead of distinguishing between thou (for second person singular) and you (for second person plural). The two variations of ‘you’ have now merged into one, and convey equal politeness and formality nowadays.

The transformation can take several forms, and some are listed below:

• Eg, Old English cniht means ‘young man’ → Modern English knight means ‘special honour title (UK)’.

Neologism

A language can create new words in a variety of ways. Neologism refers to words or expressions that are created from an existing word. You can combine and/or shorten two or more words, or change the morphology (word construction) of words.

Here are some of the ways new words can be created:

• Blending: put together two or more words in order to have one with a specific meaning. Eg, smoke + fog = smog, breakfast + lunch = brunch, documentary + drama = docudrama.
• Clipping: parts of words are deleted without a change in meaning. Eg, bicycle → bike, examination → exam, refrigerator → fridge.
• Acronym: shortened form retaining the initial letters of compounds or other fixed sequences of words; pronounced as words. Eg, NATO, laser, AIDS.
• Initialism: shortened form retaining the initial letters of compounds or other fixed sequences of words; pronounced as sequences of letters. Eg, CNN, OED, USA.
• Eponymous: giving a name after a particular person or group. Eg, America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, Fahrenheit is named after Gabriel Fahrenheit.
• Derivation: forming new words by adding prefixes or suffixes. Eg, in- + correct = incorrect, dis- + agree = disagree, beauty + -ful = beautiful, agree + -ment = agreement.
• Zero-derivation: changing a word class without adding prefixes or suffixes. Eg, clean (adjective) — to clean (verb), to cook (verb) — a cook (noun).

Lexis and semantics: cognitive semantics examples

Cognitive semantics defines how human cognition perceives and processes lexical items. It challenges the idea that word meaning always corresponds to plain meaning. Cognitive semantics argues that lexical meaning is conceptual and that individual experience can affect meaning.

• Eg, ‘life is a race’ and ‘she is a night owl’.

Hyperbole exaggerates to make a point.

1. Lexicology is the part of linguistics which studies words, their nature(?) and meaning, words’ elements(?), relations between words (semantical relations), word groups and the whole lexicon.

The word «lexicology» derives from the Greek «λεξικόν» (lexicon), neut. of «λεξικός» (lexikos), «of or for words»,[1] from «λέξις» (lexis), «speech», «word»,[2] (in turn from «λέγω» lego «to say», «to speak»[3]) + «-λογία», (-logia), «the study of», a suffix derived from «λόγος» (logos), amongst others meaning «speech, oration, discourse, quote, study, calculation, reason»,[4] it turn also from «λέγω».

The term first appeared in the 1820s, though there were lexicologists in essence before the term was coined.

1. General — the general study of words, irrespective of the specific features of any particular language

Special — the description of the vocabulary of a given language

Historical — the study of the evolution of a vocabulary as well as of its elements. This branch discusses the origin of words, their change and development.

Descriptive — deals with the description of the vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of its development.

1. English vocabulary as a system

   Modern English Lexicology aims at giving a systematic description of the word-stock of Modern English. It treats the following basic problems:

  — Basic problems

  — Semasiology;

  — Word-Structure;

  — Word-Formation;

  — Etymology of the English Word-Stock;

  — Word-Groups and Phraseological Units;

  — Variants, dialects of the E. Language;

  — English Lexicography.

   System is a set of competing possibilities in language, together with the rules for choosing them.

   Structuralism recognized that a language is best viewed as a system of elements, with each element being chiefly defined by its place within the system, by the way it is related to other elements.

   Language systems:

  — speech

  — syntactic

  — lexical

  — morphological

  — phonetical

   Modern approaches to the problem of study of a language system are characterised by two different levels of study: syntagmatic and paradigmatic. 

   Paradigmatic relations are the relation between set of linguistic items, which in some sense, constitute choices, so that only one of them may be present at a time in a given position. 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.; to refuse, v. — to reject v. — to decline, 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.).

   Consequently, the main problems of paradigmatic studies of vocabulary are:

  — synonymy

  — hyponymy

  — antonymy

  — functional styles

   Syntagmatic relations 

   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, in speech:

  — phrases

  — collocations

   Some collocations are totally predictable, such as spick with span, others are much less so: letter collocates with a wide range of lexemes, such as alphabet and spelling, and (in another sense) box, post, and write.

   Collocations differ greatly between languages, and provide a major difficulty in mastering foreign languages. In English, we ‘face’ problems and ‘interpret’ dreams; but in modern Hebrew, we have to ‘stand in front of problems and ‘solve’ dreams.

   The more fixed a collocation is, the more we think of it as an ‘idiom’ — a pattern to be learned as a whole, and not as the ‘sum of its parts’.

   Combination of paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations in lexical system determines vocabulary as a system. 

1. One of the earliest and most obvious non-semantic grouping is the alphabetical organization of the word-stock, which is represented in most dictionaries. It is of great practical value in the search for the necessary word, but its theoretical value is almost null, because no other property of the word can be predicted from the letter or letters the word begins with.

Morphological groupings.

On the morphological level words are divided into four groups according to their morphological structure:

1)   root or morpheme words (dog, hand);

2)   derivatives, which contain no less than two morphemes (dogged (ynpямый), doggedly; handy, handful);

3)   compound words consisting of not less than two free morphemes (dog-cheap-«very cheap», dog-days — «hottest part of the year»; handbook, handball)

4)   compound derivatives (dog-legged — «crooked or bent like a dog’s hind leg», left-handed).

This grouping is considered to be the basis for lexicology.

Another type of traditional lexicological grouping as known as word-families such as: hand, handy, handicraft, handbag, handball, handful, hand-made,handsome, etc.

A very important type of non-semantic grouping for isolated lexical units is based on a statistical analysis of their frequency. Frequency counts carried out for practical purposes of lexicology, language teaching and shorthand show important correlations between quantative and qualitative characteristics of lexical units, the most frequent words being polysemantic and stylistically neutral. The frequency analysis singles out two classes:

1) notional words;

2) form (or functional) words.

Notional words constitute the bulk of the existing word-stock, according to the recent counts given for the first 1000 most frequently occurring words they make up 93% of the total number.

All notional lexical units are traditionally subdivided into parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. Nouns numerically make the largest class — about 39% of all notional words; verbs come second — 25% of words; they are followed by adjectives — 17% and adverbs — 12%.

Form or functional words — the remaining 7% of the total vocabulary — are prepositions, articles, conjunctions, which primarily denote various relations between notional words. Their grammatical meaning dominates over their lexical meaning. They make a specific group of about 150 units.

Lexico-grammatical grouping.

By a lexico-grammatical group we understand a class of words which have a common lexico-grammatical meaning, a common paradigm, the same substituting elements and possibly a characteristic set of suffixes rendering the lexico-grammatical meaning.

Lexico-grammatical groups should not be confused with parts of speech. For instance, audience and honesty belong to the same part of speech but to different lexico-grammatical groups because their lexico-grammatical meaning is different.

Common Denominator of Meaning, Semantic Fields.

Words may also be classified according to the concepts underlying their meaning. This classification is closely connected with the theory of semantic fields. By the term «semantic fields» we understand closely knit sectors of vocabulary each characterized by a common concept. The words blue, red, yellow, black, etc. may be described as making up the semantic field of colours, the words mother, father, sister, cousin, etc. — as members of the semantic field of kinship terms, the words joy, happiness, gaiety, enjoyment, etc. as belonging to the field of pleasurable emotions, and so on.

The members of the semantic fields are not synonymous but all of them are joined together by some common semantic component — the concept of colours or the concept of kinship, etc. This semantic component common to all members of the field is sometimes described as the common denominator of meaning. All members of the field are semantically interdependent as each member helps to delimit and determine the meaning of its neighbours and is semantically delimited and determined by them. It follows that the word meaning is to a great extent determined by the place it occupies in its semantic field.

It is argued that we cannot possibly know the exact meaning of the word if we do not know the structure of the semantic field to which the word belongs, the number of the members and the concepts covered by them, etc. The meaning of the word captain, e.g. cannot be properly understood until we know the semantic field in which this term operates — the army, the navy, or the merchant service. It follows that the meaning of the word captain is determined by the place it occupies among the terms of the relevant rank system. In other words we know what captain means only if we know whether his subordinate is called mate or first officer (merchant service), commander (navy) or lieutenant (army).

Semantic dependence of the word on the structure of me field may be also illustrated by comparing members of analogous conceptual fields in different languages. Comparing, e.g. kinship terms in Russian and in English we observe that the meaning of the English term mother-in-law is different from either the Russian тёща or свекровь, as the English term covers the whole area which in Russian is divided between the two words. The same is true of the members of the semantic field of colours (cf. blue — синий, голубой), of human body (cf. hand, arm — рука) and others.

The theory of semantic field is severely criticized by Soviet linguists mainly on philosophical grounds as some of the proponents of the semantic-field theory hold the idealistic view that language is a kind of self-contained entity standing between man and the world of reality (Zwischenwelt). The followers of this theory argue that semantic fields reveal the fact that human experience is analysed and elaborated in a unique way, differing from one language to another. Broadly speaking they assert that people speaking different languages actually have different concepts, as it is through language that we see the real world around us. In short, they deny the primacy of matter forgetting that our concepts are formed not only through linguistic experience, but primarily through our actual contact with the real world. We know what hot means not only because we know the word hot, but also because we burn our fingers when we touch something very hot. A detailed critical analysis of the theory of semantic fields is the subject-matter of general linguists. Here we are concerned with the theory only as a means of semantic classification of vocabulary items.

Two more points should be discussed in this connection. Firstly, semantic groups may be very extensive and may cover big conceptual areas, e.g. man-universe, etc. There may be, however, comparatively small lexical groups of words linked by a common denominator of meaning. The words bread, cheese, milk, meat, etc. make up the semantic field with the concept of food as the common denominator of meaning. Such smaller lexical groups seem to play a very important role in determining individual meanings of polysemantic words in lexical contexts. Analysing polysemantic verbs we see that the verb take, e.g. in combination with the lexical group denoting means of transportation is synonymous with the verb go (take the tram, the bus, etc.). When combined with members of another lexical group possessing another semantic denominator, the same verb is synonymous with to drink (to take tea, coffee, etc.). Such word-groups are often used not only in scientific lexicological analysis, but also in practical class-room teaching. In a number of textbooks we find words with some common denominator of meaning listed under the headings Flower, Fruit, Domestic Animals, and so on.

In other words lexical or semantic field is the organization of related words and expressions into a system which shows their relationship to one another.

For example, kinship terms such as father, mother, sister, brother, uncle, aunt belong to a lexical field whose relevant features include generation, sex, membership of the father’s or mother’s side of the family, etc.

The absence of a word in a particular place in a lexical field of a language is called a lexical gap.

For example, in English there is no singular noun that covers both cow and bull as hoarse covers stallion and mare.

Common Contextual Associations. Thematic Groups.

Another type of classification almost universally used in practical class-room teaching is known as thematic grouping. Classification of vocabulary items into thematic groups is based on the co-occurrence of words in certain repeatedly used contexts.

In linguistic contexts co-occurrence may be observed on different levels. On the level of word-groups the word question, e.g., is often found in collocation with the verbs raise, put forward, discuss, etc., with the adjectives urgent, vital, disputable and so on. The verb accept occurs in numerous contexts together with the nouns proposal, invitation, plan and others.

As a rule, thematic groups deal with contexts on the level of the sentence (or utterance). Words in thematic groups are joined together by common contextual associations within the framework of the sentence and reflect the interlinking words, e.g. tree-grow-green; journey-train-taxi-bags-ticket or sun-shine-brightly-blue-sky, is due to the regular co-occurrence of these words in similar sentences. Unlike members of synonymic sets or semantic fields, words making up a thematic group belong to different parts of speech and do not possess any common denominator of meaning.

Contextual associations formed by the speaker of a language are usually conditioned by the context of situation which necessitates the use of certain words. When watching a play, e.g., we naturally speak of the actors who act the main parts, of good (or bad) staging of the play, of the wonderful scenery and so on. When we go shopping it is usual to speak of the prices, of the goods we buy, of the shops, etc. (In practical language learning thematic groups are often listed under various headings, e.g. At the Theatre, At School, Shopping, and are often found in text-books and courses of conversational English).

Thematic and ideographic organization of a vocabulary.

It is a further subdivision within the lexico-grammatical grouping. The basis of grouping is not only linguistic but also extra-linguistic. The words are associated because the things they name occur together and are closely connected in reality, e.g., terms of kinship. Names of parts of the human body, colour terms, etc.

The ideographic groupings are independent of classification into parts of speech, as grammatical meaning is not taken into consideration. Words and expressions are here classed not according to their lexico-grammatical meaning but strictly according to their signification, i.e. to their system of logical notions. These subgroups may compare nouns, verbs adjectives and adverbs together, provided they refer to the same notion. Under alphabetical order the words which in the human mind go close together (father, brother, uncle, etc.) are placed in various parts of a dictionary. So, some lexicographers place such groups of lexical units in the company they usually keep in every day life, in our minds. These dictionaries are called ideographical or ideological.

Synonymic grouping is a special case of lexico-grammatical grouping based on semantic proximity of words belonging to the same part of speech. Taking up similarity of meaning and contrasts of phonetic shape we observe that every language in its vocabulary has a variety of words kindred (родственный) or similar in meaning but distinct in morphemic composition, phonetic shape and usage. These words express the most delicate shades of thought, feelings and are explained in the dictionaries of synonyms.

Antonyms have been traditionally defined as words of opposite meaning. Their distinction from synonyms is semantic polarity. The English language is rich in synonyms and antonyms, their study reveals the systematic character of the English vocabulary.

Special terminology.

Sharply defined extensive semantic fields are found in terminological systems. Terminology constitutes the greatest part of every language vocabulary. A term is a word or word-group used to name a notion characteristic of some special field of knowledge, e.g., linguistics, cybernetics, industry, culture, informatics. Almost every system of terms is nowadays fixed and analyzed in numerous special dictionaries of the English language. ?

Hyponymy (включение).

Another type of paradigmatic relation is hyponymy. The notion of hyponymy is traditional enough; it has been long recognized as one of the main-principles in the organization of the vocabulary off all languages. For instance, animal is a generic term as compared to the specific names: wolf, dog, mouse. Dog, in its tern, may serve as a generic term for different breeds such as bull-dog, collie, poodle.

In other words, this type of relationship means the «inclusion» of a more specific term in a more general term, which has been established by some scientists in terms of logic of classes*. For example, the meaning of tulips is said to be included in the meaning of «flower», and so on.

So, the word-stock is not only a sum total of all the words of a language, but a very complicated set of various relationships between different groupings, layers, between the vocabulary as a whole and isolated individual lexical units.

1. The importance of English lexicology is based not on the size of its vocabulary, however big it is, but on the fact that at present it is the world’s most widely used language. One of the most fundamental works on the English language of the present — «A Grammar of Contemporary English” by R. Quirk, S. Greenbaum, G. Leech and J. Svartvik (1978) — gives the following data: it is spoken as a native language by nearly three hundred million people in Britain, the United States, Ireland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and some other countries. The knowledge of English is widely spread geographically — it is in fact used in all continents. It is also spoken in many countries as a second language and used in official and business activities there. This is the case in India, Pakistan and many other former British colonies. English is also one of the working languages of the United Nations and the universal language of international aviation. More than a half world’s scientific literature is published in English and 60% of the world’s radio broadcasts are in English. For all these reasons it is widely studied all over the world as a foreign language. The theoretical value of lexicology becomes obvious if we realise that it forms the study of one of the three main aspects of language, i.e. its vocabulary, the other two being its grammar and sound system. The theory of meaning was originally developed within the limits of philosophical science. The relationship between the name and the thing named has in the course of history constituted one of the key questions in gnostic theories and therefore in the struggle of materialistic and idealistic trends. The idealistic point of view assumes that the earlier forms of words disclose their real correct meaning, and that originally language was created by some superior reason so that later changes of any kind are looked upon as distortions and corruption. The materialistic approach considers the origin, development and current use of words as depending upon the needs of social communication. The dialectics of its growth is determined by its interaction with the development of human practice and mind. In the light of V. I. Lenin’s theory of reflection we know that the meanings of words reflect objective reality. Words serve as names for things, actions, qualities, etc. and by their modification become better adapted to the needs of the speakers. This proves the fallacy of one of the characteristic trends in modern idealistic linguistics, the so-called Sapir-Whorf thesis according to which the linguistic system of one’s native language not only expresses one’s thoughts but also determines them. This view is incorrect, because our mind reflects the surrounding world not only through language but also directly. Lexicology came into being to meet the demands of many different branches of applied linguistics, namely of lexicography, standardisation of terminology, information retrieval, literary criticism and especially of foreign language teaching. Its importance in training a would-be teacher of languages is of a quite special character and cannot be overestimated as it helps to stimulate a systematic approach to the facts of vocabulary and an organised comparison of the foreign and native language. It is particularly useful in building up the learner’s vocabulary by an effective selection, grouping and analysis of new words. New words are better remembered if they are given not at random but organised in thematic groups, word-families, synonymic series, etc. A good knowledge of the system of word-formation furnishes a tool helping the student to guess and retain in his memory the meaning of new words on the basis of their motivation and by comparing and contrasting them with the previously learned elements and patterns. The knowledge, for instance, of the meaning of negative, reversative and pejorative prefixes and patterns of derivation may be helpful in understanding new words. For example such words as immovable a, deforestation n and miscalculate v will be readily understood as ‘that cannot be moved’, ‘clearing land from forests’ and ‘to calculate wrongly’. By drawing his pupils’ attention to the combining characteristics of words the teacher will prevent many mistakes.1 It will be word-groups falling into patterns, instead of lists of unrelated items, that will be presented in the classroom. A working knowledge and understanding of functional styles and stylistic synonyms is indispensable when literary texts are used as a basis for acquiring oral skills, for analytical reading, discussing fiction and translation. Lexicology not only gives a systematic description of the present make-up of the vocabulary, but also helps students to master the literary standards of word usage. The correct use of words is an important counterpart of expressive and effective speech. An exact knowledge of the vocabulary system is also necessary in connection with technical teaching means. Lexicology plays a prominent part in the general linguistic training of every philologist by summing up the knowledge acquired during all his years at the foreign language faculty. It also imparts the necessary skills of using different kinds of dictionaries and reference books, and prepares for future independent work on increasing and improving one’s vocabulary.

1. The treatment of words in lexicology cannot be divorced from the study of all the other elements in the language system to which words belong. It should be always borne in mind that in reality, in the actual process of communication, all these elements are interdependent and stand in definite relations to one another. We separate them for convenience of study, and yet to separate them for analysis is pointless, unless we are afterwards able to put them back together to achieve a synthesis and see their interdependence and development in the language system as a whole. The word, as it has already been stated, is studied in several branches of linguistics and not in lexicology only, and the latter, in its turn, is closely connected with general linguistics, the history of the language, phonetics, stylistics, grammar and such new branches of our science as sociolinguistics, paralinguistics, pragmalinguistics and some others.1 The importance of the connection between lexicology and phonetics stands explained if we remember that a word is an association of a given group of sounds with a given meaning, so that top is one word, and tip is another. Phonemes have no meaning of their own but they serve to distinguish between meanings. Their function is building up morphemes, and it is on the level of morphemes that the form-meaning unity is introduced into language. We may say therefore that phonemes participate in signification. Word-unity is conditioned by a number of phonological features. Phonemes follow each other in a fixed sequence so that [pit] is different from [tip]. The importance of the phonemic make-up may be revealed by the substitution test which isolates the central phoneme of hope by setting it against hop, hoop, heap or hip. An accidental or jocular transposition of the initial sounds of two or more words, the so-called spoonerisms illustrate the same point. Cf. our queer old dean for our dear old queen, sin twister for twin sister, May I sew you to a sheet? for May I show you to a seat?, a half-warmed fish for a half-formed wish, etc.1 Discrimination between the words may be based upon stress: the word ‘import is recognised as a noun and distinguished from the verb im’port due to the position of stress. Stress also distinguishes compounds from otherwise homonymous word-groups: ‘blackbird : : ‘black ‘bird. Each language also possesses certain phonological features marking word-limits. Historical phonetics and historical phonology can be of great use in the diachronic study of synonyms, homonyms and polysemy. When sound changes loosen the ties between members of the same word-family, this is an important factor in facilitating semantic changes. The words whole, heal, hail, for instance, are etymologically related.2 The word whole originally meant ‘unharmed’, ;unwounded’. The early verb whole meant 4to make whole’, hence ‘heal’. Its sense of ‘healthy’ led to its use as a salutation, as in hail! Having in the course of historical development lost their phonetic similarity, these words cannot now exercise any restrictive influence upon one another’s semantic development. Thus, hail occurs now in the meaning of ‘call’, even with the purpose to stop and arrest (used by sentinels). Meaning in its turn is indispensable to phonemic analysis because to establish the phonemic difference between [ou] and [o] it is sufficient to know that [houp] means something different from [hop]. All these considerations are not meant to be in any way exhaustive, they can only give a general idea of the possible interdependence of the two branches of linguistics. Stylistics, although from a different angle, studies many problems treated in lexicology. These are the problems of meaning, connotations, synonymy, functional differentiation of vocabulary according to the sphere of communication and some other issues. For a reader without some awareness of the connotations and history of words, the images hidden in their root and their stylistic properties, a substantial part of the meaning of a literary text, whether prosaic or poetic, may be lost. Thus, for instance, the mood of despair in O. Wilde’s poem «Taedium Vitae” (Weariness of Life) is felt due to an accumulation of epithets expressed by words with negative, derogatory connotations, such as: desperate, paltry, gaudy, base, lackeyed, slanderous, lowliest, meanest. An awareness of all the characteristic features of words is not only rewarded because one can feel the effect of hidden connotations and imagery, but because without it one cannot grasp the whole essence of the message the poem has to convey. The difference and interconnection between grammar and lexicology is one of the important controversial issues in linguistics and as it is basic to the problems under discussion in this book, it is necessary to dwell upon it a little more than has been done for phonetics and stylistics. A close connection between lexicology and grammar is conditioned by the manifold and inseverable ties between the objects of their study. Even isolated words as presented in a dictionary bear a definite relation to the grammatical system of the language because they belong to some part of speech and conform to some lexico-grammatical characteristics of the word class to which they belong. Words seldom occur in isolation. They are arranged in certain patterns conveying the relations between the things for which they stand, therefore alongside with their lexical meaning they possess some grammatical meaning. Сf. head of the committee and to head a committee. The two kinds of meaning are often interdependent. That is to say, certain grammatical functions and meanings are possible only for the words whose lexical meaning makes them fit for these functions, and, on the other hand, some lexical meanings in some words occur only in definite grammatical functions and forms and in definite grammatical patterns. For example, the functions of a link verb with a predicative expressed by an adjective cannot be fulfilled by every intransitive verb but are often taken up by verbs of motion: come true, fall ill, go wrong, turn red, run dry and other similar combinations all render the meaning of ‘become sth’. The function is of long standing in English and can be illustrated by a line from A. Pope who, protesting against blank verse, wrote: It is not poetry, but prose run mad.1 On the other hand the grammatical form and function of the word affect its lexical meaning. A well-known example is the same verb go when in the continuous tenses, followed by to and an infinitive (except go and come), it serves to express an action in the near and immediate future, or an intention of future action: You’re not going to sit there saying nothing all the evening, both of you, are you? (Simpson) Participle II of the same verb following the link verb be denotes absence: The house is gone. In subordinate clauses after as the verb go implies comparison with the average: … how a novel that has now had a fairly long life, as novels go, has come to be written (Maugham). The subject of the verb go in this construction is as a rule an inanimate noun. The adjective hard followed by the infinitive of any verb means ‘difficult’: One of the hardest things to remember is that a man’s merit in one sphere is no guarantee of his merit in another. Lexical meanings in the above cases are said to be grammatically conditioned, and their indicating context is called syntactic or mixed. The point has attracted the attention of many authors.1 The number of words in each language being very great, any lexical meaning has a much lower probability of occurrence than grammatical meanings and therefore carries the greatest amount of information in any discourse determining what the sentence is about. W. Chafe, whose influence in the present-day semantic syntax is quite considerable, points out the many constraints which limit the co-occurrence of words. He considers the verb as of paramount importance in sentence semantic structure, and argues that it is the verb that dictates the presence and character of the noun as its subject or object. Thus, the verbs frighten, amuse and awaken can have only animate nouns as their objects. The constraint is even narrower if we take the verbs say, talk or think for which only animate human subjects are possible. It is obvious that not all animate nouns are human. This view is, however, if not mistaken, at least one-sided, because the opposite is also true: it may happen that the same verb changes its meaning, when used with personal (human) names and with names of objects. Compare: The new girl gave him a strange smile (she smiled at him) and The new teeth gave him a strange smile. These are by no means the only relations of vocabulary and grammar. We shall not attempt to enumerate all the possible problems. Let us turn now to another point of interest, namely the survival of two grammatically equivalent forms of the same word when they help to distinguish between its lexical meanings. Some nouns, for instance, have two separate plurals, one keeping the etymological plural form, and the other with the usual English ending -s. For example, the form brothers is used to express the family relationship, whereas the old form brethren survives in ecclesiastical usage or serves to indicate the members of some club or society; the scientific plural of index, is usually indices, in more general senses the plural is indexes. The plural of genius meaning a person of exceptional intellect is geniuses, genius in the sense of evil or good spirit has the plural form genii. It may also happen that a form that originally expressed grammatical meaning, for example, the plural of nouns, becomes a basis for a new grammatically conditioned lexical meaning. In this new meaning it is isolated from the paradigm, so that a new word comes into being. Arms, the plural of the noun arm, for instance, has come to mean ‘weapon’. E.g. to take arms against a sea of troubles (Shakespeare). The grammatical form is lexicalised; the new word shows itself capable of further development, a new grammatically conditioned meaning appears, namely, with the verb in the singular arms metonymically denotes the military profession. The abstract noun authority becomes a collective in the term authorities and denotes ‘a group of persons having the right to control and govern’. Compare also colours, customs, looks, manners, pictures, works which are the best known examples of this isolation, or, as it is also called, lexicalisation of a grammatical form. In all these words the suffix -s signals a new word with a new meaning. It is also worthy of note that grammar and vocabulary make use of the same technique, i.e. the formal distinctive features of some derivational oppositions between different words are the same as those of oppositions contrasting different grammatical forms (in affixation, juxtaposition of stems and sound interchange). Compare, for example, the oppositions occurring in the lexical system, such as work :: worker, power :: will-power, food :: feed with grammatical oppositions: work (Inf.) :: worked (Past Ind.), pour (Inf.) :: will pour (Put. Ind.), feed (Inf.) :: fed (Past Ind.). Not only are the methods and patterns similar, but the very morphemes are often homonymous. For example, alongside the derivational suffixes -en, one of which occurs in adjectives (wooden), and the other in verbs (strengthen), there are two functional suffixes, one for Participle II (written), the other for the archaic plural form (oxen). Furthermore, one and the same word may in some of its meanings function as a notional word, while in others it may be a form word, i.e. it may serve to indicate the relationships and functions of other words. Compare, for instance, the notional and the auxiliary do in the following: What you do’s nothing to do with me, it doesn’t interest me. Last but not least all grammatical meanings have a lexical counterpart that expresses the same concept. The concept of futurity may be lexically expressed in the words future, tomorrow, by and by, time to come, hereafter or grammatically in the verbal forms shall come and will come. Also plurality may be described by plural forms of various words: houses, boys, books or lexically by the words: crowd, party, company, group, set, etc. The ties between lexicology and grammar are particularly strong in the sphere of word-formation which before lexicology became a separate branch of linguistics had even been considered as part of grammar. The characteristic features of English word-building, the morphological structure of the English word are dependent upon the peculiarity of the English grammatical system. The analytical character of the language is largely responsible for the wide spread of conversion1 and for the remarkable flexibility of the vocabulary manifest in the ease with which many nonce-words2 are formed on the spur of the moment. This brief account of the interdependence between the two important parts of linguistics must suffice for the present. In future we shall have to return to the problem and treat some parts of it more extensively.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lexicology is the branch of linguistics that analyzes the lexicon of a specific language. A word is the smallest meaningful unit of a language that can stand on its own, and is made up of small components called morphemes and even smaller elements known as phonemes, or distinguishing sounds. Lexicology examines every feature of a word – including formation, spelling, origin, usage, and definition.^[1]

Lexicology also considers the relationships that exist between words. In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is composed of lexemes, which are abstract units of meaning that correspond to a set of related forms of a word. Lexicology looks at how words can be broken down as well as identifies common patterns they follow.^[2]

Lexicology is associated with lexicography, which is the practice of compiling dictionaries.^[3]

Etymology[edit]

The term lexicology derives from the Greek word λεξικόν lexicon (neuter of λεξικός lexikos, «of or for words»,^[4] from λέξις lexis, «speech» or «word»^[5]) and -λογία -logia, «the study of» (a suffix derived from λόγος logos, amongst others meaning «learning, reasoning, explanation, subject-matter»).^[6]
Etymology as a science is actually a focus of lexicology. Since lexicology studies the meaning of words and their semantic relations, it often explores the history and development of a word. Etymologists analyze related languages using the comparative method, which is a set of techniques that allow linguists to recover the ancestral phonological, morphological, syntactic, etc., components of modern languages by comparing their cognate material.^[7] This means many word roots from different branches of the Indo-European language family can be traced back to single words from the Proto-Indo-European language. The English language, for instance, contains more borrowed words (or loan words) in its vocabulary than native words.^[8] Examples include parkour from French, karaoke from Japanese, coconut from Portuguese, mango from Hindi, etc. A lot of music terminology, like piano, solo, and opera, is borrowed from Italian. These words can be further classified according to the linguistic element that is borrowed: phonemes, morphemes, and semantics.^[7]

Approach[edit]

General lexicology is the broad study of words regardless of a language’s specific properties. It is concerned with linguistic features that are common among all languages, such as phonemes and morphemes. Special lexicology, on the other hand, looks at what a particular language contributes to its vocabulary, such as grammars.^[2] Altogether lexicological studies can be approached two ways:

1. Diachronic or historical lexicology is devoted to the evolution of words and word-formation over time. It investigates the origins of a word and the ways in which its structure, meaning, and usage have since changed.^[9]
2. Synchronic or descriptive lexicology examines the words of a language within a certain time frame. This could be a period during the language’s early stages of development, its current state, or any given interval in between.^[10]

These complementary perspectives were proposed by Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure.^[10] Lexicology can have both comparative and contrastive methodologies. Comparative lexicology searches for similar features that are shared among two or more languages. Contrastive lexicology identifies the linguistic characteristics which distinguish between related and unrelated languages.^[9]

Semantics[edit]

The subfield of semantics that pertains especially to lexicological work is called lexical semantics. In brief, lexical semantics contemplates the significance of words and their meanings through several lenses, including synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, and polysemy, among others. Semantic analysis of lexical material may involve both the contextualization of the word(s) and syntactic ambiguity. Semasiology and onomasiology are relevant linguistic disciplines associated with lexical semantics.^[9]

A word can have two kinds of meaning: grammatical and lexical. Grammatical meaning refers to a word’s function in a language, such as tense or plurality, which can be deduced from affixes. Lexical meaning is not limited to a single form of a word, but rather what the word denotes as a base word. For example, the verb to walk can become walks, walked, and walking – each word has a different grammatical meaning, but the same lexical meaning («to move one’s feet at a regular pace»).^[11]

Phraseology[edit]

Another focus of lexicology is phraseology, which studies multi-word expressions, or idioms, like ‘raining cats and dogs.’ The meaning of the phrase as a whole has a different meaning than each word does on its own and is often unpredictable when considering its components individually. Phraseology examines how and why such meanings exist, and analyzes the laws that govern these word combinations.^[12]

Idioms and other phraseological units can be classified according to content and/ or meaning. They are difficult to translate word-for-word from one language to another.^[13]

Lexicography[edit]

Lexicologists[edit]

• Dámaso Alonso (October 22, 1898 — January 25, 1990): Spanish poet, literary critic, and philologist
• Roland Barthes (November 12, 1915 — March 25, 1980): French writer, critic, and semiotician
• Ghil’ad Zuckermann (born June 1, 1971): Israeli linguist and language revivalist

See also[edit]

• Calque
• Computational lexicology
• Lexicostatistics
• Lexical semantics
• Lexical analysis
• English lexicology and lexicography
• List of lexicographers
• List of linguists
• Lexical Markup Framework

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Societies[edit]

• Association for Automatic Language Processing (ATALA), Paris, France
• International Society for Historical Lexicography and Lexicology, University of Leicester

Theory[edit]

• Lexicology vs. lexicography – an explanation
• Lexicography, lexicology, lexicon theory

Glossary[edit]

• ‘L’ entries (from lexeme to lexicon) at SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics)’s glossary of linguistic terms

Teaching material[edit]

• English and General Historical Lexicology (by Joachim Grzega and Marion Schöner

Journals[edit]

• Lexis, E-Journal in English Lexicology (by Denis Jamet)