1

1. Lexicology, its aims and significance

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics which deals with a systematic description and study of the vocabulary of the
language as regards its origin, development, meaning and current use. The term is composed of 2 words of Greek origin:
lexis + logos. A word about words, or the science of a word. It also concerns with morphemes, which make up words and
the study of a word implies reference to variable and fixed groups because words are components of such groups.
Semantic properties of such words define general rules of their joining together. The general study of the vocabulary
irrespective of the specific features of a particular language is known as general lexicology. Therefore, English lexicology
is called special lexicology because English lexicology represents the study into the peculiarities of the present-day
English vocabulary.
Lexicology is inseparable from: phonetics, grammar, and linguostylistics b-cause phonetics also investigates vocabulary
units but from the point of view of their sounds. Grammar- grammatical peculiarities and grammatical relations between
words. Linguostylistics studies the nature, functioning and structure of stylistic devices and the styles of a language.
Language is a means of communication. Thus, the social essence is inherent in the language itself. The branch of
linguistics which deals with relations between the language functions on the one hand and the facts of social life on the
other hand is termed sociolinguistics.
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, replenishment3 of the vocabulary; 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! Namely, lexicography - a science and art of compiling dictionaries. It is also
important for foreign language teaching and literary criticism.
2. Referential approach to meaning
SEMASIOLOGY
There are different approaches to meaning and types of meaning
Meaning is the object of semasiological study -> semasiology is a branch of lexicology which is concerned with the
study of the semantic structure of vocabulary units. The study of meaning is the basis of all linguistic investigations.
Russian linguists have also pointed to the complexity of the phenomenon of meaning (, , ,
.)
There are 3 main types of definition of meaning:
(a) Analytical or referential definition
(b) Functional or contextual approach
(c) Operational or information-oriented definition of meaning
REFERENTIAL APPROACH
Within the referential approach linguists attempt at establishing interdependence between words and objects of
phenomena they denote. The idea is illustrated by the so-called basic triangle:
Concept

Sound form_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Referent

[kt]
(concrete object)
The diagram illustrates the correlation between the sound form of a word, the concrete object it denotes and the
underlying concept. The dotted line suggests that there is no immediate relation between sound form and referent + we
can say that its connection is conventional (human cognition).
However the diagram fails to show what meaning really is. The concept, the referent, or the relationship between the
main and the concept.
The merits: it links the notion of meaning to the process of namegiving to objects, process of phenomena. The
drawbacks: it cannot be applied to sentences and additional meanings that arise in the conversation. It fails to account
for polysemy and synonymy and it operates with subjective and intangible mental process as neither reference nor
concept belong to linguistic data.
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1. Functional approach to meaning
SEMASIOLOGY
There are different approaches to meaning and types of meaning
Meaning is the object of semasiological study -> semasiology is a branch of lexicology which is concerned with the
study of the semantic structure of vocabulary units. The study of meaning is the basis of all linguistic investigations.
Russian linguists have also pointed to the complexity of the phenomenon of meaning (, , ,
.)
There are 3 main types of definition of meaning:
(a) Analytical or referential definition
(b) Functional or contextual approach
(c) Operational or information-oriented definition of meaning
FUNCTIONAL (CONTEXTUAL) APPROACH
The supporters of this approach define meaning as the use of word in a language. They believe that meaning should be
studied through contexts. If the distribution (position of a linguistic unit to other linguictic units) of two words is different
we can conclude that heir meanings are different too (Ex. He looked at me in surprise; He's been looking for him for a

half an hour.)
However, it is hardly possible to collect all contexts for reliable conclusion. In practice a scholar is guided by his
experience and intuition. On the whole, this approach may be called complimentary to the referential definition and is
applied mainly in structural linguistics.
2. Classification of morphemes
A morpheme is the smallest indivisible two-facet language unit which implies an association of a certain meaning with
a certain sound form. Unlike words, morphemes cannot function independently (they occur in speech only as parts of
words).
Classification of Morphemes
Within the English word stock maybe distinguished morphologically segment-able and non-segment-able words
(soundless, rewrite segmentable; book, car - non-segmentable).
Morphemic segmentability may be of three types:
a) Complete segmentability is characteristic of words with transparent morphemic structure (morphemes can be easily
isolated, e.g. heratless).
b) Conditional segmentability characterizes words segmentation of which into constituent morphemes is doubtful for
semantic reasons (retain, detain, contain). Pseudo-morphemes
c) Defective morphemic segmentability is the property of words whose component morphemes seldom or never occur in
other words. Such morphemes are called unique morphemes (cran cranberry (), let- hamlet ()).

Semantically morphemes may be classified into: 1) root morphemes radicals (remake, glassful, disorder make, glass, order- are understood as the lexical centres of the words) and 2) non-root morphemes include
inflectional (carry only grammatical meaning and relevant only for the formation of word-forms) and affixational
morphemes (relevant for building different types of stems).

Structurally, morphemes fall into: free morphemes (coincides with the stem or a word-form. E.g.
friend- of the noun friendship is qualified as a free morpheme), bound morphemes (occurs only as a
constituent part of a word. Affixes are bound for they always make part of a word. E.g. the suffixes ness, -ship,
-ize in the words darkness, friendship, to activize; the prefixes im-, dis-, de- in the words impolite, to disregard,
to demobilize) and semi-free or semi-bound morphemes (can function both as affixes and free morphemes.
E.g. well and half on the one hand coincide with the stem to sleep well, half an hour, and on the other in the
words well-known, half-done).

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1. Types of meaning
The word "meaning" is not homogeneous. Its components are described as "types of meaning". The two main types of
meaning are grammatical and lexical meaning.
The grammatical meaning is the component of meaning, recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of words (e.g.
reads, draws, writes 3d person, singular; books, boys plurality; boys, fathers possessive case).
The lexical meaning is the meaning proper to the linguistic unit in all its forms and distribution (e.g. boy, boys, boys,
boys grammatical meaning and case are different but in all of them we find the semantic component "male child").
Both grammatical meaning and lexical meaning make up the word meaning and neither of them can exist without the
other.
Theres also the 3d type: lexico-grammatical (part of speech) meaning. Third type of meaning is called lexicogrammatical meaning (or part-of-speech meaning). It is a common denominator of all the meanings of words belonging
to a lexical-grammatical class (nouns, verbs, adjectives etc. all nouns have common meaning o thingness, while all
verbs express process or state).
Denotational meaning component of the lexical meaning which makes communication possible. The second
component of the lexical meaning is the connotational component the emotive charge and the stylistic value of the
word.
2. Syntactic structure and pattern of word-groups
The meaning of word groups can be defined as the combined lexical meaning of the component words but it is not a
mere additive result of all the lexical meanings of components. The meaning of the word group itself dominates the
meaning of the component members (Ex. an easy rule, an easy person).
The meaning of the word group is further complicated by the pattern of arrangement of its constituents (Ex. school
grammar- grammar school).
That's why we should bear in mind the existence of lexical and structural components of meaning in word groups, since
these components are independent and inseparable. The syntactic structure (formula) implies the description of the
order and arrangement of member-words as parts of speech ("to write novels" - verb + noun; "clever at mathematics"adjective + preposition + noun).
As a rule, the difference in the meaning of the head word is presupposed by the difference in the pattern of
the word group in which the word is used (to get + noun = to get letters / presents; to get + to + noun = to get to
town). If there are different patterns, there are different meanings. BUT: identity of patterns doesn't imply identity of
meanings.
Semanticallv. English word groups are analyzed into motivated word groups and non-motivated word groups. Word
groups are lexically motivated if their meanings are deducible from the meanings of components. The degree of
motivation may be different.
A blind man - completely motivated
A blind print - the degree of motivation is lower
A blind alley (= the deadlock) - the degree of motivation is still less.
Non-motivated word-groups are usually described as phraseological units.

 4
1. Classification of phraseological units
The term "phraseological unit" was introduced by Soviet linguist () and it's generally accepted in this
country. It is aimed at avoiding ambiguity with other terms, which are generated by different approaches, are partially
motivated and non-motivated.
The first classification of phraseological units was advanced for the Russian language by a famous Russian linguist
. According to the degree of idiomaticity phraseological units can be classified into three big groups:
phraseological collocations (), phraseological unities () and phraseological fusions ().
Phraseological collocations are not motivated but contain one component used in its direct meaning, while the other
is used metaphorically (e.g. to break the news, to attain success).
Phraseological unities are completely motivated as their meaning is transparent though it is transferred (e.g. to shoe
ones teeth, the last drop, to bend the knee).
Phraseological fusions are completely non-motivated and stable (e.g. a mares nest (, ;
nonsense), tit-for-tat revenge, white elephant expensive but useless).
But this classification doesnt take into account the structural characteristic, besides it is rather subjective.
Prof. treats phraseological units as words equivalents and groups them into: (a) one-summit units =>
they have one meaningful component (to be tied, to make out); (b) multi-summit units => have two or more meaningful
components (black art, to fish in troubled waters).
Within each of these groups he classifies phraseological units according to the part of speech of the summit constituent.
He also distinguishes proper phraseological units or units with non-figurative meaning and idioms that have transferred
meaning based on metaphor (e.g. to fall in love; to wash ones dirty linen in public).
This classification was criticized as inconsistent, because it contradicts the principle of idiomaticity advanced by the
linguist himself. The inclusion of phrasal verbs into phraseology wasn't supported by any convincing argument.
Prof. worked out the so-called contextual approach. She believes that if 3 word groups make up a variable
context. Phraseological units make up the so-called fixed context and they are subdivided into phrases and idioms.
2. Procedure of morphemic analysis
Morphemic analysis deals with segmentable words. Its procedure flows to split a word into its constituent morphemes,
and helps to determine their number and type. It's called the method of immediate and ultimate constituents. This
method is based on the binary principle which allows to break morphemic structure of a word into 2 components at
each stage. The analysis is completed when we arrive at constituents unable of any further division. E.g. Louis Bloomfield
- classical example:
ungentlemanly
un-(IC/UC) +gentlemanly (IC) (uncertain, unhappy)
gentleman (IC) + -ly (IC/UC)
(happily, certainly)
III.
gentle (IC) +man (IC/UC)
(sportsman, seaman)
IV.
gent (IC/UC) + le (IC/UC)
(gentile, genteel)
The aim of the analysis is to define the number and the type of morphemes.
As we break the word we obtain at any level only 2 immediate constituents, one of which is the stem of the given word.
The morphemic analysis may be based either on the identification of affixational morphemes within a set of words, or
root morphemes.
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1. Causes, nature and results of semantic change
The set of meanings the word possesses isn't fixed. If approached diachronically, the polysemy reflects sources and
types of semantic changes. The causes of such changes may be either extra-linguistic including historical and social
factors, foreign influence and the need for a new name, or linguistic, which are due to the associations that words
acquire in speech (e.g. "atom" has a Greek origin, now is used in physics; "to engage" in the meaning "to invite"
appeared in English due to French influence = > to engage for a dance). To unleash war but
originally to unleash dogs)
The nature of semantic changes may be of two main types: 1) Similarity of meaning (metaphor). It implies a hidden
comparison (bitter style likeness of meaning or metonymy). It is the process of associating two references, one of
which is part of the other, or is closely connected with it. In other words, it is nearest in type, space or function (e.g.
"table" in the meaning of food or furniture [metonymy]).
The semantic change may bring about following results: 1. narrowing of meaning (e.g. success was used to
denote any kind of result, but today it is onle good results); 2. widening of meaning (e.g. ready in Old English was
derived from ridan which went to ride ready for a ride; but today there are lots of meanings), 3. degeneration of
meaning - acquisition by a word of some derogatory or negative emotive charge (e.g. "villain" was borrowed from
French farm servant; but today it means a wicked person). 4. amelioration of meaning - acquisition by a word of
some positive emotive charge (e.g. "kwen" in Old English meant "a woman" but in Modern English it is "queen").
It is obvious that 3, 4 result illustrate the change in both denotational and connotational meaning. 1, 2 change in the
denotational.
The change of meaning can also be expressed through a change in the number and arrangement of word meanings
without any other changes in the semantic structure of a word.
2. Productivity of word-formation means
According to , word-formation is the system of derivative types of words and the process of creating new
words from the material available in the language. Words are formed after certain structural and semantic patterns. The
main two types of word-formation are: word-derivation and word-composition (compounding).
The degree of productivity of word-formation and factors that favor it make an important aspect of synchronic
description of every derivational pattern within the two types of word-formation. The two general restrictions imposed on
the derivational patterns are: 1. the part of speech in which the pattern functions; 2. the meaning which is attached to it.
Three degrees of productivity are distinguished for derivational patterns and individual derivational affixes: highly

productive, productive or semi-productive and non-productive.

Productivity of derivational patterns and affixes shouldn't be identified with frequency of occurrence in speech (e.g. -er worker, -ful beautiful are active suffixes because they are very frequently used. But if -er is productive, it is actively
used to form new words, while -ful is non-productive since no new words are built).
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1. Morphological, phonetical and semantic motivation
A new meaning of a word is always motivated. Motivation - is the connection between the form of the word (i.e. its
phonetic, morphological composition and structural pattern) and its meaning. Therefore a word may be motivated
phonetically, morphologically and semantically.
Phonetically motivated words are not numerous. They imitate the sounds (e.g. crash, buzz, ring). Or sometimes they
imitate quick movement (e.g. rain, swing).
Morphological motivation is expressed through the relationship of morphemes => all one-morpheme words aren't
motivated. The words like "matter" are called non-motivated or idiomatic while the words like "cranberry" are partially
motivated because structurally they are transparent, but "cran" is devoid of lexical meaning; "berry" has its lexical
meaning.
Semantic motivation is the relationship between the direct meaning of the word and other co-existing meanings or
lexico-semantic variants within the semantic structure of a polysemantic word (e.g. "root" "roots of evil" - motivated by
its direct meaning, "the fruits of peace" - is the result).
Motivation is a historical category and it may fade or completely disappear in the course of years.
2. Classification of compounds
The meaning of a compound word is made up of two components: structural meaning of a compound and lexical
meaning of its constituents.
Compound words can be classified according to different principles.
1. According to the relations between the ICs compound words fall into two classes: 1) coordinative compounds and 2)
subordinative compounds.
In coordinative compounds the two ICs are semantically equally important. The coordinative compounds fall into
three groups:
a) reduplicative compounds which are made up by the repetition of the same base, e.g. pooh-pooh
(), fifty-fifty;
b) compounds formed by joining the phonically variated rhythmic twin forms, e.g. chit-chat, zig-zag (with the
same initial consonants but different vowels); walkie-talkie (), clap-trap () (with different initial consonants
but the same vowels);
c) additive compounds which are built on stems of the independently functioning words of the same part of
speech, e.g. actor-manager, queen-bee.
In subordinative compounds the components are neither structurally nor semantically equal in importance but are
based on the domination of the head-member which is, as a rule, the second I, e.g. stone-deaf, age-long. The second
I preconditions the part-of-speech meaning of the whole compound.
2. According to the part of speech compounds represent they fall into:
1) compound nouns, e.g. sunbeam, maidservant;
2) compound adjectives, e.g. heart-free, far-reaching;
3) compound pronouns, e.g. somebody, nothing;
4) compound adverbs, e.g. nowhere, inside;
5) compound verbs, e.g. to offset, to bypass, to mass-produce.
From the diachronic point of view many compound verbs of the present-day language are treated not as compound
verbs proper but as polymorphic verbs of secondary derivation. They are termed pseudo-compounds and are represented
by two groups: a) verbs formed by means of conversion from the stems of compound nouns, e.g. to spotlight (from
spotlight); b) verbs formed by back-derivation from the stems of compound nouns, e.g. to babysit (from baby-sitter).
However synchronically compound verbs correspond to the definition of a compound as a word consisting of two free
stems and functioning in the sentence as a separate lexical unit. Thus, it seems logical to consider such words as
compounds by right of their structure.
3. According to the means of composition compound words are classified into:
1) compounds composed without connecting elements, e.g. heartache, dog-house;
2 ) compounds composed with the help of a vowel or a consonant as a linking element, e.g. handicraft,
speedometer, statesman;
3) compounds composed with the help of linking elements represented by preposition or conjunction stems, e.g. sonin-law, pepper-and-salt.
4. According to the type of bases that form compounds the following classes can be singled out:
1) compounds proper that are formed by joining together bases built on the stems or on the word-forms with or
without a linking element, e.g. door-step, street-fighting;
2) derivational compounds that are formed by joining affixes to the bases built on the word-groups or by
converting the bases built on the word-groups into other parts of speech, e.g. long-legged > (long legs) + -ed; a
turnkey > (to turn key) + conversion. Thus, derivational compounds fall into two groups: a) derivational compounds
mainly formed with the help of the suffixes -ed and -er applied to bases built, as a rule, on attributive phrases, e.g.

narrow-minded, doll-faced, lefthander; b) derivational compounds formed by conversion applied to bases built, as a rule,
on three types of phrases verbal-adverbial phrases ( a breakdown), verbal-nominal phrases ( a kill-joy) and
attributive phrases ( a sweet-tooth).
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1. Diachronic and synchronic approaches to polysemy
Diachronically, polysemy is understood as the growth and development of the semantic structure of the word.
Historically we differentiate between the primary and secondary meanings of words.
The relation between these meanings isn't only the one of order of appearance but it is also the relation of dependence
= > we can say that secondary meaning is always the derived meaning (e.g. dog 1. animal, 2. despicable person)
Synchronically it is possible to distinguish between major meaning of the word and its minor meanings. However it
is often hard to grade individual meaning of the word in order of their comparative value (e.g. to get the letter ; to get to London - - minor).
The only more or less objective criterion in this case is the frequency of occurrence in speech (e.g. table 1. furniture, 2.
food). The semantic structure is never static and the primary meaning of a word may become synchronically one of the
minor meanings and vice versa. Stylistic factors should always be taken into consideration
Polysemy of words: "yellow"- sensational (Am., sl.)
The meaning which has the highest frequency is the one representative of the whole semantic structure of the word.
The Russian equivalent of "a table" which first comes to your mind and when you hear this word is 'c " in the meaning
"a piece of furniture". And words that correspond in their major meanings in two different languages are referred to as
correlated words though their semantic structures may be different.
Primary meaning - historically first.
Major meaning - the most frequently used meaning of the word synchronically.
2. Typical semantic relations between words in conversion pairs
We can single out the following typical semantic relation in conversion pairs:
1) Verbs converted from nouns (denominal verbs):
a) Actions characteristic of the subject (e.g. ape to ape imitate in a foolish way);
b) Instrumental use of the object (e.g. whip - to whip strike with a whip);
c) Acquisition or addition of the objects (e.g. fish - to fish - to catch fish);
d) Deprivation of the object (e.g. dust - to dust remove dust).
2) Nouns converted from verbs (deverbal nouns):
a) Instance of the action (e.g. to move - a move = change of position);
b) Agent of an action (e.g. to cheat - a cheat a person who cheats);
c) Place of the action (e.g. to walk-a walk a place for walking);
d) Object or result of the action (e.g. to find- a find something found).
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1. Classification of homonyms
Homonyms are words that are identical in their sound-form or spelling but different in meaning and distribution.
1) Homonyms proper are words similar in their sound-form and graphic but different in meaning (e.g. "a ball"- a
round object for playing; "a ball"- a meeting for dances).
2) Homophones are words similar in their sound-form but different in spelling and meaning (e.g. "peace" - "piece",
"sight"- "site").
3) Homographs are words which have similar spelling but different sound-form and meaning (e.g. "a row" [rau]- "a
quarrel"; "a row" [ru] - "a number of persons or things in a more or less straight line")
There is another classification by . According to the type of meaning in which homonyms differ, homonyms
proper can be classified into:
I. Lexical homonyms - different in lexical meaning (e.g. "ball");
II. Lexical-grammatical homonyms which differ in lexical-grammatical meanings (e.g. "a seal" - , "to seal" ).
III. Grammatical homonyms which differ in grammatical meaning only (e.g. "used" - Past Indefinite, "used"- Past
Participle; "pupils"- the meaning of plurality, "pupil's"- the meaning of possessive case).
All cases of homonymy may be subdivided into full and partial homonymy. If words are identical in all their forms,
they are full homonyms (e.g. "ball"-"ball"). But: "a seal" - "to seal" have only two homonymous forms, hence, they are
partial homonyms.
2. Classification of prefixes
Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes. There are about 51 prefixes in the system of modern
English word-formation.
1. According to the type they are distinguished into: a) prefixes that are correlated with independent words (un-, dis-),
and b) prefixes that are correlated with functional words (e.g. out, over. under).
There are about 25 convertive prefixes which can transfer words to a different part of speech (E.g. embronze59).
Prefixes may be classified on different principles. Diachronically they may be divided into native and foreign origin,
synchronically:
1. According to the class they preferably form: verbs (im, un), adjectives (un-, in-, il-, ir-) and nouns (non-, sub-,
ex-).
2. According to the lexical-grammatical type of the base they are added to:
a). Deverbal - rewrite, overdo;
b). Denominal - unbutton, detrain, ex-president,
c). Deadjectival - uneasy, biannual.
It is of interest to note that the most productive prefixal pattern for adjectives is the one made up of the prefix un- and
the base built either on adjectival stems or present and past participle, e.g. unknown, unsmiling, unseen etc.
3. According to their semantic structure prefixes may fall into monosemantic and polysemantic.
4. According to the generic-denotational meaning they are divided into different groups:

a). Negative prefixes: un-, dis-, non-, in-, a- (e.g. unemployment, non-scientific, incorrect, disloyal, amoral,
asymmetry).
b). Reversative or privative60 prefixes: un-, de-, dis- (e.g. untie, unleash, decentralize, disconnect).
c). Pejorative prefixes: mis-, mal-, pseudo- (e.g. miscalculate, misinform, maltreat, pseudo-classicism).
d). Prefixes of time and order: fore-, pre-, post-, ex- (e.g. foretell, pre-war, post-war, ex-president).
e). Prefix of repetition re- (e.g. rebuild, rewrite).
f). Locative prefixes: super-, sub-, inter-, trans- (e.g. superstructure, subway, inter-continental, transatlantic).
5. According to their stylistic reference:
a). Neutral: un-, out-, over-, re-, under- (e.g. outnumber, unknown, unnatural, oversee, underestimate).
b). Stylistically marked: pseudo-, super-, ultra-, uni-, bi- (e.g. pseudo-classical, superstructure, ultra-violet,
unilateral) they are bookish.
6. According to the degree of productivity: a). highly productive, b). productive, c). non-productive.
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1. Types of linguistic contexts
The term context denotes the minimal stretch of speech determining each individual meaning of the word. Contexts
may be of two types: linguistic (verbal) and extra-linguistic (non-verbal).
Linguistic contexts may be subdivided into lexical and grammatical.
In lexical contexts of primary importance are the groups of lexical items combined with polysemantic word under
consideration (e.g. adj. heavy is used with the words load, table means of great weight ; but with natural
phenomena rain, storm, snow, wind it is understood as abundant, striking, falling with force; and if with industry,
artillery, arms the larger kind of smth). The meaning at the level of lexical contexts is sometimes described as
meaning by collocation.
In grammatical meaning it is the grammatical (syntactic) structure of the context that serves to determine various
individual meanings of a polysemantic word (e.g. the meaning of the verb to make to force, to induce is found only
in the syntactic structure to make + prn. +verb; another meaning to become to make + adj. + noun (to make a
good teacher, wife)). Such meanings are sometimes described as grammatically bound meanings.
2. Classification of suffixes
Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes. Suffixes usually modify the lexical meaning of the base
and transfer words to a different part of speech. There are suffixes, however, which do not shift words from one part of
speech into another; a suffix of this kind usually transfers a word into a different semantic group, e.g. a concrete noun
becomes an abstract one, as in the case with child - childhood, friend- friendship etc. Suffixes may be classified:
1. According to the part of speech they form
a). Noun-suffixes: -er, -dom, -ness, -ation (e.g. teacher, freedom, brightness, justification).
b). Adjective-suffixes: -able, -less, -ful, -ic, -ous (e.g. agreeable, careless, doubtful, poetic, courageous).
c). Verb-suffixes: -en, -fy, -ize (e.g. darken, satisfy, harmonize).
d). Adverb-suffixes: -ly, -ward (e.g. quickly, eastward).
2. According to the lexico-grammatical character of the base the suffixes are usually added to:
a). Deverbal suffixes (those added to the verbal base):-er, -ing, -ment, -able (speaker, reading, agreement,
suitable).
b). Denominal suffixes (those added to the noun base):-less, -ish, -ful, -ist, -some (handless, childish, mouthful,
troublesome).
c). Deadjectival suffixes (those affixed to the adjective base):-en, -ly, -ish, -ness (blacken, slowly, reddish,
brightness).
3. According to the meaning expressed by suffixes:
a). The agent of an action: -er, -ant (e.g. baker, dancer, defendant), b). Appurtenance64: -an, -ian, -ese (e.g.
Arabian, Elizabethan, Russian, Chinese, Japanese).
c). Collectivity: -age, -dom, -ery (-ry) (e.g. freightage, officialdom, peasantry).
d). Diminutiveness: -ie, -let, -ling (birdie, girlie, cloudlet, booklet, darling).
4. According to the degree of productivity:
a). Highly productive
b). Productive
c). Non-productive
5. According to the stylistic value:
a). Stylistically neutral:-able, -er, -ing.
b). Stylistically marked:-oid, -i/form, -aceous, -tron (e.g. asteroid)
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1. Semantic equivalence and synonymy
The traditional initial category of words that can be singled out on the basis of proximity is synonyms. The degree of
proximity varies from semantic equivalence to partial semantic similarity. The classes of full synonyms are very rare and
limited mainly two terms.
The greatest degree of similarity is found in those words that are identical in their denotational aspect of meaning and
differ in connotational one (e.g. father- dad; imitate monkey). Such synonyms are called stylistic synonyms.
However, in the major of cases the change in the connotational aspect of meaning affects in some way the denotational
aspect. These synonyms of the kind are called ideographic synonyms (e.g. clever bright, smell odor). Differ in
their denotational aspect ideographic synonyms (kill-murder, power strength, etc.) these synonyms are most
common.
It is obvious that synonyms cannot be completely interchangeable in all contexts. Synonyms are words different in
their sound-form but similar in their denotational aspect of meaning and interchangeable at least in some contexts.
Each synonymic group comprises a dominant element. This synonymic dominant is general term which has no
additional connotation (e.g. famous, celebrated, distinguished; leave, depart, quit, retire, clear out).
Syntactic dominants have high frequency of usage, vast combinability and lack connotation.

2. Derivational types of words

The basic units of the derivative structure of words are: derivational basis, derivational affixes, and derivational
patterns.
The relations between words with a common root but of different derivative structure are known as derivative relations.
The derivational base is the part of the word which establishes connections with the lexical unit that motivates the
derivative and defines its lexical meaning. It's to this part of the word (derivational base) that the rule of word formation
is applied. Structurally, derivational bases fall into 3 classes: 1. Bases that coincide with morphological stems
(beautiful, beautifully); 2. Bases that coincide with word-forms (unknown- limited mainly to verbs); 3. Bases that
coincide with word groups. They are mainly active in the class of adjectives and nouns (blue-eyed, easy-going).
According to their derivational structure words fall into: simplexes (simple, non-derived words) and complexes
(derivatives). Complexes are grouped into: derivatives and compounds. Derivatives fall into: affixational (suffixal
and affixal) types and conversions. Complexes constitute the largest class of words. Both morphemic and derivational
structure of words is subject to various changes in the course of time.
11
1. Semantic contrasts and antonymy
The semantic relations of opposition are the basis for grouping antonyms. The term "antonym" is of Greek origin and
means opposite name. It is used to describe words different in some form and characterised by different types of
semantic contrast of denotational meaning and interchangeability at least in some contexts.
Structurally, all antonyms can be subdivided into absolute (having different roots) and derivational (of the same
root), (e.g. "right"- "wrong"; "to arrive"- "to leave" are absolute antonyms; but "to fit" - "to unfit" are derivational).
Semantically, all antonyms can be divided in at least 3 groups:
a) Contradictories. They express contradictory notions which are mutually opposed and deny each other. Their
relations can be described by the formula "A versus NOT A": alive vs. dead (not alive); patient vs. impatient (not
patient). Contradictories may be polar or relative (to hate- to love [not to love doesn't mean "hate"]).
b) Contraries are also mutually opposed, but they admit some possibility between themselves because they are
gradable (e.g. cold hot, warm; hot cold, cool). This group also includes words opposed by the presence of such
components of meaning as SEX and AGE (man -woman; man - boy etc.).
c) Incompatibles. The relations between them are not of contradiction but of exclusion. They exclude possibilities of
other words from the same semantic set (e.g. "red"- doesn't mean that it is opposed to white
it means all
other colors; the same is true to such words as "morning", "day", "night" etc.).
There is another type of opposition which is formed with reversive antonyms. They imply the denotation of the same
referent, but viewed from different points (e.g. to buy to sell, to give to receive, to cause to suffer)
A polysemantic word may have as many antonyms as it has meanings. But not all words and meanings have
antonyms!!! (e.g. "a table"- it's difficult to find an antonym, "a book").
Relations of antonymy are limited to a certain context + they serve to differentiate meanings of a polysemantic word
(e.g. slice of bread - "thick" vs. "thin" BUT: person - "fat" vs. "thin").
2. Types of word segmentability
Within the English word stock maybe distinguished morphologically segment-able and non-segmentable words
(soundless, rewrite - segmentable; book, car - non-segmentable).
Morphemic segmentability may be of three types: 1. complete, 2. conditional, 3. defective.
A). Complete segmentability is characteristic of words with transparent morphemic structure. Their morphemes can
be easily isolated which are called morphemes proper or full morphemes (e.g. senseless, endless, useless). The
transparent morphemic structure is conditioned by the fact that their constituent morphemes recur with the same
meaning in a number of other words.
B). Conditional segmentability characterizes words segmentation of which into constituent morphemes is doubtful
for semantic reasons (e.g. retain, detain, contain). The sound clusters "re-, de-, con-" seem to be easily isolated since
they recur in other words but they have nothing in common with the morphemes "re, de-, con-" which are found in the
words "rewrite", "decode", "condensation". The sound-clusters "re-, de-, con-" can possess neither lexical meaning nor
part of speech meaning, but they have differential and distributional meaning. The morphemes of the kind are called
pseudo-morphemes (quasi morphemes).
C). Defective morphemic segmentability is the property of words whose component morphemes seldom or never
recur in other words. Such morphemes are called unique morphemes. A unique morpheme can be isolated and
displays a more or less clear meaning which is upheld by the denotational meaning of the other morpheme of the word
(cranberry, strawberry, hamlet).
12
1. The main features of A.V.Koonins approach to phraseology
Phraseology is regarded as a self-contained branch of linguistics and not as a part of lexicology.
His classification is based on the combined structural-semantic principle and also considers the level of stability of
phraseological units.
subdivides set-expressions into: phraseological units or idioms (e.g. red tape, mare's nest, etc.), semiidioms and phraseomatic units(e.g. win a victory, launch a campaign, etc.).
Phraseological units are structurally separable language units with completely or partially transferred meanings (e.g.
to kill two birds with one stone, to be in a brown stubby to be in low spirits). Semi-idioms have both literal
and transferred meanings. The first meaning is usually terminological or professional and the second one is
transferred (e.g. to lay down ones arms). Phraseomatic units have literal or phraseomatically bound meanings (e.g. to
pay attention to smth; safe and sound).
assumes that all types of set expressions are characterized by the following aspects of stability: stability of usage
(not created in speech and are reproduced ready-made); lexical stability (components are irreplaceable (e.g. red tape,
mare's nest) or partly irreplaceable within the limits of lexical meaning, (e.g. to dance to smb tune/pipe; a skeleton in the

cupboard/closet; to be in deep water/waters)); semantic complexity (despite all occasional changes the meaning is
preserved); syntactic fixity.
Idioms and semi-idioms are much more complex in structure than phraseological units. They have a broad stylistic range
and they admit of more complex occasional changes.
An integral part of this approach is a method of phraseological identification which helps to single out set
expressions in Modern English.
2. Types and ways of forming words
According to word-formation is a system of derivative types of words and the process of creating
new words from the material available in the language after certain structural and semantic patterns. The main two
types are: word-derivation and word-composition (compounding).
The basic ways of forming words in word-derivation are affixation and conversion (the formation of a new word
by bringing a stem of this word into a different formal paradigm, e.g. a fall from to fall).
There exist other types: semantic word-building (homonymy, polysemy), sound and stress interchange
(e.g. blood bleed; increase), acronymy (e.g. NATO), blending (e.g. smog = smoke + fog) and shortening of
words (e.g. lab, maths). But they are different in principle from derivation and compound because they show the
result but not the process.
13
1. Origin of derivational affixes
From the point of view of their origin, derivational affixes are subdivided into native (e.g suf.- nas, ish, dom; pref.- be,
mis, un) and foreign (e.g. suf.- ation, ment, able; pref.- dis, ex, re).
Many original affixes historically were independent words, such as dom, hood and ship. Borrowed words brought with
them their derivatives, formed after word-building patterns of their languages. And in this way many suffixes and
prefixes of foreign origin have become the integral part of existing word-formation (e.g. suf.- age; pref.- dis, re, non).
The adoption of foreign words resulted into appearance of hybrid words in English vocabulary. Sometimes a foring stem
is combined with a native suffix (e.g. colourless) and vise versa (e.g. joyous).
Reinterpretation of verbs gave rise to suffix-formation source language (e.g. scape seascape, moonscape came
from landscape. And it is not a suffix.).
2. Correlation types of compounds
Motivation and regularity of semantic and structural correlation with free word-groups are the basic factors favouring a
high degree of productivity of composition and may be used to set rules guiding spontaneous, analogic formation of new
compound words.
The description of compound words through the correlation with variable word-groups makes it possible to classify
them into four major classes: 1) adjectival-nominal, 2) verbal-nominal, 3) nominal and 4) verbal-adverbial.
I. Adjectival-nominal comprise for subgroups of compound adjectives:
1) the polysemantic n+a pattern that gives rise to two types:
a) Compound adjectives based on semantic relations of resemblance: snow-white, skin-deep, age-long, etc.
Comparative type (asas).
b) Compound adjectives based on a variety of adverbial relations: colour-blind, road-weary, care-free, etc.
2) the monosemantic pattern n+ven based mainly on the instrumental, locative and temporal relations, e.g. stateowned, home-made. The type is highly productive. Correlative relations are established with word-groups of the Ven+
with/by + N type.
3) the monosemantic num + n pattern which gives rise to a small and peculiar group of adjectives, which are used
only attributively, e.g. (a) two-day (beard), (a) seven-day (week), etc. The quantative type of relations.
4) a highly productive monosemantic pattern of derivational compound adjectives based on semantic relations of
possession conveyed by the suffix -ed. The basic variant is [(a+n)+ -ed], e.g. long-legged. The pattern has two more
variants: [(num + n) + -ed), l(n+n)+ -ed], e.g. one-sided, bell-shaped, doll-faced. The type correlates accordingly
with phrases with (having) + A+N, with (having) + Num + N, with + N + N or with + N + of + N.
The three other types are classed as compound nouns. All the three types are productive.
II.
Verbal-nominal compounds may be described through one derivational structure n+nv, i.e. a combination of a
noun-base (in most cases simple) with a deverbal, suffixal noun-base. All the patterns correlate in the final analysis with
V+N and V+prp+N type which depends on the lexical nature of the verb:
1) [n+(v+-er)], e.g. bottle-opener, stage-manager, peace-fighter. The pattern is monosemantic and is based on
agentive relations that can be interpreted one/that/who does smth.
2) [n+(v+-ing)], e.g. stage-managing, rocket-flying. The pattern is monosemantic and may be interpreted as the
act of doing smth.
3) [n+(v+-tion/ment)], e.g. office-management, price-reduction.
4) [n+(v + conversion)], e.g. wage-cut, dog-bite, hand-shake, the pattern is based on semantic relations of
result, instance, agent, etc.
III. Nominal compounds are all nouns with the most polysemantic and highly-productive derivational pattern n+n;
both bases are generally simple stems, e.g. windmill, horse-race, pencil-case. The pattern conveys a variety of
semantic relations; the most frequent are the relations of purpose and location. The pattern correlates with nominal
word-groups of the N+prp+N type.
IV.
Verb-adverb compounds are all derivational nouns, highly productive and built with the help of conversion
according to the pattern [(v + adv) + conversion]. The pattern correlates with free phrases V + Adv and with all phrasal
verbs of different degree of stability. The pattern is polysemantic and reflects the manifold semantic relations of result.

 14
1. Hyponymic structures and lexico-semantic groups
The grouping out of English word stock based on the principle of proximity, may be graphically presented by means of
concentric circles.
lexico-semantic groups
lexical sets
synonyms
semantic field

The relations between layers are that of inclusion.

The most general term hyperonym, more special hyponym (member of the group).
Plant
The meaning of the
word plant includes the idea conveyed by flower, which in its turn include the notion of any
particular flower. Flower hyperonim to and plant hyponym to
Hyponymic relations are always hierarchic. If we imply substitution rules we shall see the hyponyms may be replaced
Grass
Trees
Bushes
Flowers
be hyperonims
but not vice
versa (e.g.
I bought roses yesterday. flower the sentence wont change its meaning).
Words describing different sides of one and the same general notion are united in a lexico-semantic group if: a) the
underlying notion is not too generalized and all-embracing, like the notions of time, life, process; b) the reference to
the underlying is notRoses
just an implication
the meaning
of lexical unit but forms an essential part in its semantics.
Tulips inDaises
Violets
Thus, it is possible to single out the lexico-semantic group of names of colours (e.g. pink, red, black, green, white);
lexico-semantic group of verbs denoting physical movement (e.g. to go, to turn, to run) or destruction (e.g. to ruin,
to destroy, to explode, to kill).
2. Causes and ways of borrowing
The great influx of borrowings from Latin, English and Scandinavian can be accounted by a number of historical causes.
Due to the great influence of the Roman civilisation Latin was for a long time used in England as the language of
learning and religion. Old Norse was the language of the conquerors who were on the same level of social and cultural
development and who merged rather easily with the local population in the 9th, 10th and the first half of the 11th
century. French (Norman dialect) was the language of the other conquerors who brought with them a lot of new notions
of a higher social system (developed feudalism), it was the language of upper classes, of official documents and school
instruction from the middle of the 11th century to the end of the 14th century.
In the study of the borrowed element in English the main emphasis is as a rule placed on the Middle English period.
Borrowings of later periods became the object of investigation only in recent years. These investigations have shown that
the flow of borrowings has been steady and uninterrupted. The greatest number has come from French. They refer to
various fields of social-political, scientific and cultural life. A large portion of borrowings is scientific and technical terms.
The number and character of borrowed words tell us of the relations between the peoples, the level of their culture,
etc.
Some borrowings, however, cannot be explained by the direct influence of certain historical conditions, they do not
come along with any new objects or ideas. Such were for instance the words air, place, brave, gay borrowed from
French.
Also we can say that the closer the languages, the deeper is the influence. Thus under the influence of the
Scandinavian languages, which were closely related to Old English, some classes of words were borrowed that could
not have been adopted from non-related or distantly related languages (the pronouns they, their, them); a number of
Scandinavian borrowings were felt as derived from native words (they were of the same root and the connection
between them was easily seen), e.g. drop (AS.) drip (Scand.), true (AS.)-tryst (Scand.); the Scandinavian
influence even accelerated to a certain degree the development of the grammatical structure of English.
Borrowings enter the language in two ways: through oral speech (early periods of history, usually short and they
undergo changes) and through written speech (recent times, preserve spelling and peculiarities of the sound form).
Borrowings may be direct or indirect (e.g., through Latin, French).
15
1. Types of English dictionaries
English dictionaries may all be roughly divided into two groups encyclopaedic and linguistic.
The encyclopaedic dictionaries, (The Encyclopaedia Britannica and The Encyclopedia Americana) are scientific
reference books dealing with every branch of knowledge, or with one particular branch, usually in alphabetical order.
They give information about the extra-linguistic world; they deal with facts and concepts. Linguistic dictionaries are
wrd-books the subject-matter of which is lexical units and their linguistic properties such as pronunciation, meaning,
peculiarities of use, etc.
Linguistic dictionaries may be divided into different categories by different criteria.
1. According to the nature of their word-list we may speak about general dictionaries (include frequency dictionary,
a rhyming dictionary, a Thesaurus) and restricted (belong terminological, phraseological, dialectal word-books,
dictionaries of new words, of foreign words, of abbreviations, etc).

2. According to the information they provide all linguistic dictionaries fall into two groups: explanatory and
specialized.
Explanatory dictionaries present a wide range of data, especially with regard to the semantic aspect of the
vocabulary items entered (e.g. New Oxford Dictionary of English).
Specialized dictionaries deal with lexical units only in relation to some of their characteristics (e.g. etymology,
frequency, pronunciation, usage)
3. According to the language of explanations all dictionaries are divided into: monolingual and bilingual.
4. Dictionaries also fall into diachronic and synchronic with regard of time. Diachronic (historical) dictionaries
reflect the development of the English vocabulary by recording the history of form and meaning for every word
registered (e.g. Oxford English Dictionary). Synchronic (descriptive) dictionaries are concerned with the present-day
meaning and usage of words (e.g. Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English).
(Phraseological dictionaries, New Words dictionaries, Dictionaries of slang, Usage dictionaries, Dictionaries of wordfrequency, A Reverse dictionary, Pronouncing dictionaries, Etymological dictionaries, Ideographic dictionaries, synonymbooks, spelling reference books, hard-words dictionaries, etc.)
2. The role of native and borrowed elements in English
The number of borrowings in Old English was small. In the Middle English period there was an influx of loans. It is
often contended that since the Norman Conquest borrowing has been the chief factor in the enrichment of the English
vocabulary and as a result there was a sharp decline in the productivity of word-formation. Historical evidence, however,
testifies to the fact that throughout its entire history, even in the periods of the mightiest influxes of borrowings, other
processes, no less intense, were in operation word-formation and semantic development, which involved both native
and borrowed elements.
If the estimation of the role of borrowings is based on the study of words recorded in the dictionary, it is easy to
overestimate the effect of the loan words, as the number of native words is extremely small compared with the number
of borrowings recorded. The only true way to estimate the relation of the native to the borrowed element is to con sider
the two as actually used in speech. If one counts every word used, including repetitions, in some reading matter, the
proportion of native to borrowed words will be quite different. On such a count, every writer uses considerably more
native words than borrowings. Shakespeare, for example, has 90%, Milton 81%, Tennyson 88%. It shows how important
is the comparatively small nucleus of native words.
Different borrowings are marked by different frequency value. Those well established in the vocabulary may be as
frequent in speech as native words, whereas others occur very rarely.
16
1. The main variants of the English language
In Modern linguistics the distinction is made between Standard English and territorial variants and local dialects of the
English language.
Standard English may be defined as that form of English which is current and literary, substantially uniform and
recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood. Most widely accepted and understood either within
an English-speaking country or throughout the entire English-speaking world.
Variants of English are regional varieties possessing a literary norm. There are distinguished variants existing on the
territory of the United Kingdom (British English, Scottish English and Irish English), and variants existing outside the
British Isles (American English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English and
Indian English). British English is often referred to the Written Standard English and the pronunciation known as
Received Pronunciation (RP).
Local dialects are varieties of English peculiar to some districts, used as means of oral communication in small
localities; they possess no normalized literary form.
Variants of English in the United Kingdom
Scottish English and Irish English have a special linguistic status as compared with dialects because of the literature
composed in them.
Variants of English outside the British Isles
Outside the British Isles there are distinguished the following variants of the English language: American English,
Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English, Indian English and some others. Each
of these has developed a literature of its own, and is characterized by peculiarities in phonetics, spelling, grammar and
vocabulary.
2. Basic problems of dictionary-compiling
Lexicography, the science, of dictionary-compiling, is closely connected with lexicology, both dealing with the same
problems the form, meaning, usage and origin of vocabulary units and making use of each others achievements.
Some basic problems of dictionary-compiling:
1) the selection of lexical units for inclusion,
2) their arrangement,
3) the setting of the entries,
4) the selection and arrangement (grouping) of word-meanings,
5) the definition of meanings,
6) illustrative material,
7) supplementary material.
1) The selection of lexical units for inclusion.
It is necessary to decide: a) what types of lexical units will be chosen for inclusion; b) the number of items; c) what to
select and what to leave out in the dictionary; d) which form of the language, spoken or written or both, the dictionary is

to reflect; e) whether the dictionary should contain obsolete units, technical terms, dialectisms, colloquialisms, and so
forth.
The choice depends upon the type to which the dictionary will belong, the aim the compilers pursue, the prospective
user of the dictionary, its size, the linguistic conceptions of the dictionary-makers and some other considerations.
2) Arrangement of entries.
There are two modes of presentation of entries: the alphabetical order and the cluster-type (arranged in nests, based
on some principle words of the same root).
3) The setting of the entries.
Since different types of dictionaries differ in their aim, in the information they provide, in their size, etc., they of
necessity differ in the structure and content of the entry.
The most complicated type of entry is that found in general explanatory dictionaries of the synchronic type (the entry
usually presents the following data: accepted spelling and pronunciation; grammatical characteristics including the
indication of the part of speech of each entry word, whether nouns are countable or uncountable, the transitivity and
intransitivity of verbs and irregular grammatical forms; definitions of meanings; modern currency; illustrative examples;
derivatives; phraseology; etymology; sometimes also synonyms and antonyms.
4) The selection and arrangement (grouping) of word-meanings.
The number of meanings a word is given and their choice in this or that dictionary depend, mainly, on two factors: 1)
on what aim the compilers set themselves and 2) what decisions they make concerning the extent to which obsolete,
archaic, dialectal or highly specialised meanings should be recorded, how the problem of polysemy and homonymy is
solved, how cases of conversion are treated, how the segmentation of different meanings of a polysemantic word is
made, etc.
There are at least three different ways in which the word meanings are arranged: a) in the sequence of their historical
development (called historical order), b) in conformity with frequency of use that is with the most common meaning
first (empirical or actual order), c) in their logical connection (logical order).
5) The definition of meanings.
Meanings of words may be defined in different ways: 1) by means of linguistic definitions that are only concerned with
words as speech material, 2) by means of encyclopaedic definitions that are concerned with things for which the words
are names (nouns, proper nouns and terms), 3) be means of synonymous words and expressions (verbs, adjectives), 4)
by means of cross-references (derivatives, abbreviations, variant forms). The choice depends on the nature of the word
(the part of speech, the aim and size of the dictionary).
6) Illustrative material.
It depends on the type of the dictionary and on the aim the compliers set themselves.
17
1. Sources of compounds
The actual process of building compound words may take different forms: 1) Compound words as a rule are built
spontaneously according to productive distributional formulas of the given period. Formulas productive at one time may
lose their productivity at another period. Thus at one time the process of building verbs by compounding adverbial and
verbal stems was productive, and numerous compound verbs like, e.g. outgrow, offset, inlay (adv + v), were formed.
The structure ceased to be productive and today practically no verbs are built in this way.
3) Compounds may be the result of a gradual process of semantic isolation and structural fusion of free wordgroups. Such compounds as forget-me-not; bull's-eye'the centre of a target; a kind of hard, globular candy'; mainland'a continent' all go back to free phrases which became semantically and structurally isolated in
the course of time. The words that once made up these phrases have lost their integrity, within these particular
formations, the whole phrase has become isolated in form, "specialized in meaning and thus turned into an
inseparable unita word having acquired semantic and morphological unity. Most of the syntactic compound
nouns of the (a+n) structure, e.g. bluebell, blackboard, mad-doctor, are the result of such semantic and
structural isolation of free word-groups; to give but one more example, highway was once actually a high way
for it was raised above the surrounding countryside for better drainage and ease of travel. Now we use highway
without any idea of the original sense of the first element.
18
1. Methods and procedures of lexicological analysis
The process of scientific investigation may be subdivided into several stages:
1. Observation (statements of fact must be based on observation)
2. Classification (orderly arrangement of the data)
3. Generalization (formulation of a generalization or hypothesis, rule a law)
4. The verifying process. Here, various procedures of linguistic analysis are commonly applied:
1). Contrastive analysis attempts to find out similarities and differences in both philogenically related and nonrelated languages. In fact contrastive analysis grew as the result of the errors which are made recurrently by foreign
language students. They can be often traced back to the differences in structure between the target language and the
language of the learner, detailed comparison of these two languages has been named contrastive analysis.
Contrastive analysis brings to light the essence of what is usually described as idiomatic English, idiomatic Russian etc.,
i.e. the peculiar way in which every language combines and structures in lexical units various concepts to denote extralinguistic reality.
2). Statistical analysis is the quantitative study of a language phenomenon. Statistical linguistics is nowadays
generally recognised as one of the major branches of linguistics. (frequency room, collocability)
3). Immediate constituents analysis. The theory of Immediate Constituents (IC) was originally elaborated as an
attempt to determine the ways in which lexical units are relevantly related to one another. The fundamental aim of IC
analysis is to segment a set of lexical units into two maximally independent sequences or ICs thus revealing the
hierarchical structure of this set.

4). Distributional analysis and co-occurrence. By the term distribution we understand the occurrence of a
lexical unit relative to other lexical units of the same level (the position which lexical units occupy or may occupy in the
text or in the flow of speech). Distributional analysis is mainly applied by the linguist to find out sameness or
difference of meaning.
5). Transformational analysis can be defined as repatterning of various distributional structures in order to discover
difference or sameness of meaning of practically identical distributional patterns. It may be also described as a kind of
translation (transference of a message by different means).
6). Componental analysis (1950s). In this analysis linguists proceed from the assumption that the smallest units of
meaning are sememes ( - ) or semes ( ( )) and
that sememes and lexemes (or lexical items) are usually not in one-to-one but in one-to-many correspondence (e.g. in
lexical item woman, semems are human, female, adult). This analysis deals with individual meanings.
7). Method of Semantic Differential (set up by American psycholinguists). The analysis is concerned with
measurement of differences of the connotational meaning, or the emotive charge, which is very hard to grasp.
2. Ways and means of enriching the vocabulary of English
Development of the vocabulary can be described a process of the never-ending growth. There are two ways of
enriching the vocabulary:
A. Vocabulary extension the appearance of new lexical items. New vocabulary units appear mainly as a result of:
1) productive or patterned ways of word-formation (affixation, conversion, composition); 2) non-patterned ways of
word-creation (lexicalization transformation of a word-form into a word, e.g. arms-arm, customs ()custom); shortening - transformation of a word-group into a word or a change of the word-structure resulting in a new
lexical item, e.g. RD for Road, St for Street; substantivization the finals to the final exams, acronyms (NATO) and letter
abbreviation (D.J. disk jokey), blendings (brunch breakfast and lunch), clipping shortening of a word of two or
more syllables (bicycle bike, pop (clipping plus substativization) popular music)); 3) borrowing from other
languages.
Borrowing as a means of replenishing the vocabulary of present-day English is of much lesser importance and is
active mainly in the field of scientific terminology. 1) Words made up of morphemes of Latin and Greek origin (e.g. tron:
mesotron; tele-: telelecture; -in: protein). 2) True borrowings which reflect the way of life, the peculiarities of
development of speech communities from which they come. (e.g. kolkhoz, sputnik). 3) Loan-translations also reflect the
peculiarities of life and easily become stable units of the vocabulary (e.g. fellow-traveler, self-criticism)
B. Semantic extension the appearance of new meanings of existing words which may result in homonyms. The
semantic development of words already available in the language is the main source of the qualitative growth of the
vocabulary but does not essentially change the vocabulary quantatively.
The most active ways of word creation are clippings and acronyms.
19
1. Means of composition
From the point of view of the means by which the components are joined together compound words may be classified
into:
1) Words formed by merely placing one constituent after another (e.g. house-dog, pot-pie) can be: asyntactic
(the order of bases runs counter to the order in which the words can be brought together under the rules of syntax of
the language, e.g. red-hot, pale-blue, oil-rich) and syntactic (the order of words arranged according to the rules of
syntax, e.g. mad-doctor, blacklist).
2) Compound words whose ICs are joined together with a special linking-element - linking vowels (o) and
consonants (s), e.g. speedometer, tragicomic, statesman.
The additive compound adjectives linked with the help of the vowel [ou] are limited to the names of nationalities and
represent a specific group with a bound root for the first component, e.g. Sino-Japanese, Afro-Asian, Anglo-Saxon.
2. Synchronic and diachronic approaches to conversion
Conversion is the formation of a new word through changes in its paradigm (category of a part of speech). As a
paradigm is a morphological category, conversion can be described as a morphological way of forming words
(). The term was introduced by Henry Sweet.
The causes that made conversion so widely spread are to be approached diachronically. Nouns and verbs have
become identical in form firstly as a result of the loss of endings. The similar phenomenon can be observed in words
borrowed from the French language. Thus, from the diachronic point of view distinctions should be made between
homonymous word-pairs, which appeared as a result of the loss of inflections (, ).
In the course of time the semantic structure of the base nay acquire a new meaning or several meanings under the
influence of the meanings of the converted word (reconversion).
Synchronically we deal with pairs of words related through conversion that coexist in contemporary English. A careful
examination of the relationship between the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme and the part-of-speech meaning of
the stem within a conversion pair reveals that in one of the two words the former does not correspond to the latter.
20
1. Denotational and connotational aspects of meaning
The lexical meaning comprises two main components: the denotational aspect of meaning and the connotational
aspect of meaning. The term "denotational aspect of meaning" is derived from "to denote" and it is through this
component of meaning that the main information is conveyed in the process of communication. Besides, it helps to
insure references to things common to all the speakers of the given language (e.g. "chemistry"- I'm not an expert in it,
but I know what it is about, "dentist", "spaceship").
The connotational aspect may be called "optional". It conveys additional information in the process of
communication. And it may denote the emotive charge and the stylistic value of the word. The emotive charge is the
emotive evaluation inherent in the connotational component of the lexical meaning (e.g. "notorious" => [widely known]
=> for criminal acts, bad behaviour, bad traits of character; "famous" => [widely known] => for special achievement

etc.).
Positive/Negative evaluation; emotive charge/stylistic value.
"to love" - neutral
"to adore" - to love greatly => the emotive charge is higher than in "to love"
"to shake" - neutral.
"to shiver" - is stronger => higher emotive charge.
Mind that the emotive charge is not a speech characteristic of the word. It's a language phenomenon => it remains
stable within the basical meaning of the word.
If associations with the lexical meaning concern the situation, the social circumstances (formal/informal), the social
relations between the interlocutors (polite/rough), the type or purpose of communication (poetic/official)the connotation
is stylistically coloured. It is termed as stylistic reference. The main stylistic layers of the vocabulary are:
Literary
"parent" "to pass into the next world" - bookish
Neutral
"father"
"to die"
Colloquial
"dad"
"to kick the bucket"
But the denotational meaning is the same.
2. Semantic fields
lexico-semantic groups
lexical sets
synonyms
semantic field
The broadest semantic group is usually referred to as the semantic field. It is a closely neat section of vocabulary
characterized by a common concept (e.g. emotions). The common semantic component of the field is called the
common dominator. All members of the field are semantically independent, as the meaning of each is determined by
the presence of others. Semantic field may be very impressive, covering big conceptual areas (emotions, movements,
space). Words comprising the field may belong to different parts of speech.
If the underlying notion is broad enough to include almost all-embracing sections of vocabulary we deal with semantic
fields (e.g. cosmonaut, spacious, to orbit belong to the semantic field of space).
21
1. Assimilation of borrowings
The term 'assimilation of borrowings' is used to denote a partial or total conformation to the phonetical, graphical
and morphological standards of the English language and its semantic system.
According to the degree of assimilation all borrowed words can be divided into three groups:
1)
completely assimilated borrowings;
2)
partially assimilated borrowings;
1)
unassimilated borrowings or barbarisms.
1. Completely assimilated borrowed words follow all morphological, phonetical and orthographic standards, take
an active part in word-formation. The morphological structure and motivation of completely assimilated borrowings
remain usually transparent, so that they are morphologically analyzable and therefore supply the English vocabulary not
only with free forms but also with bound forms, as affixes are easily perceived and separated in series of borrowed words
that contain them (e.g. the French suffixes -age, -ance and -ment).
They are found in all the layers of older borrowings, e. g. cheese (the first layer of Latin borrowings), husband
(Scand),face (Fr), animal (Latin, borrowed during the revival of learning).
A loan word never brings into the receiving language the whole of its semantic structure if it is polysemantic in the
original language (e.g., sport in Old French - pleasures, making merry and entertainments in general, now - outdoor
games and exercise).
2. Partially assimilated borrowed words may be subdivided depending on the aspect that remains unaltered into:
a)
borrowings not completely assimilated graphically (e.g., Fr. ballet, buffet; some may keep a diacritic mark: caf,
clich; retained digraphs (ch, qu, ou, etc.): bouquet, brioche);
b)
borrowings not completely assimilated phonetically (e.g., Fr. machine, cartoon, police (accent is on the final
syllable), [3] bourgeois, prestige, regime (stress + contain sounds or combinations of sounds that are not standard for
the English language));
c)
borrowings not assimilated grammatically (e.g., Latin or Greek borrowings retain original plural forms: crisis crises, phenomenon - phenomena;
d)
borrowings not assimilated semantically because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from
which they come (e. g. sari, sombrero, shah, rajah, toreador, rickshaw (Chinese), etc.
3. Unassimilated borrowings or barbarisms. This group includes words from other languages used by English
people in conversation or in writing but not assimilated in any way, and for which there are corresponding English
equivalents, e.g. the Italian addio, ciao 'good-bye'.
Etymological doublets are two or more words originating from the same etymological source, but differing in
phonetic shape and meaning (e.g. the words whole (originally meant healthy, free from disease) and hale both come
from OE hal: one by the normal development of OE a into o, the other from a northern dialect in which this
modification did not take place. Only the latter has servived in its original meaning).
2. Semi-affixes
There is a specific group of morphemes whose derivational function does not allow one to refer them
unhesitatingly either to the derivational affixes or bases. In words like half-done, half-broken, half-eaten and ill-fed, illhoused, ill-dressed the ICs half- and ill- are given in linguistic literature different interpretations: they are described
both as bases and as derivational prefixes. The comparison of these ICs with the phonetically identical stems in
independent words ill and half as used in such phrases as to speak ill of smb, half an hour ago makes it obvious that in

words like ill-fed, ill-mannered, half-done the ICs ill- and half- are losing both their semantic and structural identity
with the stems of the independent words. They are all marked by a different distributional meaning which is clearly
revealed through the difference of their collocability as compared with the collocability of the stems of the independently
functioning words. As to their lexical meaning they have become more indicative of a generalizing meaning of
incompleteness and poor quality than the individual meaning proper to the stems of independent words and thus they
function more as affixational morphemes similar to the prefixes out-, over-, under-, semi-, mis- regularly forming whole
classes of words.
Besides, the high frequency of these morphemes in the above-mentioned generalized meaning in combination with the
numerous bases built on past participles indicates their closer ties with derivational affixes than bases. Yet these
morphemes retain certain lexical ties with the root-morphemes in the stems of independent words and that is why are
felt as occupying an intermediate position, as morphemes that are changing their class membership regularly functioning
as derivational prefixes but still retaining certain features of root-morphemes. That is why they are sometimes referred
to as semi-affixes. To this group we should also refer well- and self- (well-fed, well-done, self-made), -man in words
like postman, cabman, chairman, -looking in words like foreign-looking, alive-looking, strange-looking, etc.
22
1. Degrees of assimilation of borrowings and factors determining it
Even a superficial examination of the English word-stock shows that there are words among them that are easily
recognized as foreign. And there are others that have become so firmly rooted in the language that it is sometimes
extremely difficult to distinguish them from words of Anglo-Saxon origin (e.g. pupil, master, city, river, etc.).
Unassimilated words differ from assimilated ones in their pronunciation, spelling, semantic structure, frequency and
sphere of application. There are also words that are assimilated in some respects and unassimilated in others partially
assimilated words (graphically, phonetically, grammatically, semantically).
The degree of assimilation depends on the first place upon the time of borrowing: the older the borrowing, the more
thoroughly it tends to follow normal English habits of accentuation, pronunciation and etc. (window, chair, dish, box).
Also those of recent date may be completely made over to conform to English patterns if they are widely and popularly
employed (French clinic, diplomat).
Another factor determining the process of assimilation is the way in which the borrowings were taken over into the
language. Words borrowed orally are assimilated more readily; they undergo greater changes, whereas with words
adopted through writing the process of assimilation is longer and more laborious.
2. Lexical, grammatical valency of words
There are two factors that influence the ability of words to form word-groups. They are lexical and grammatical
valency of words. The point is that compatibility of words is determined by restrictions imposed by the inner structure of
the English word stock (e.g. a bright idea = a good idea; but it is impossible to say "a bright performance", or "a bright
film"; "heavy metal" means difficult to digest, but it is impossible to say "heavy cheese"; to take [catch] a chance, but it
is possible to say only "to take precautions").
The range of syntactic structures or patterns in which words may appear is defined as their grammatical valency.
The grammatical valency depends on the grammatical structure of the language (e.g. to convince smb. of smth/that smb
do smth; to persuade smb to do smth).
Any departure from the norms of lexical or grammatical valency can either make a phrase unintelligible or be felt as a
stylistic device.
23
1. Classification of homonyms
Homonyms are words that are identical in their sound-form or spelling but different in meaning and distribution.
1) Homonyms proper are words similar in their sound-form and graphic but different in meaning (e.g. "a ball"- a
round object for playing; "a ball"- a meeting for dances).
2) Homophones are words similar in their sound-form but different in spelling and meaning (e.g. "peace" - "piece",
"sight"- "site").
3) Homographs are words which have similar spelling but different sound-form and meaning (e.g. "a row" [rau]- "a
quarrel"; "a row" [ru] - "a number of persons or things in a more or less straight line")
There is another classification by . According to the type of meaning in which homonyms differ, homonyms
proper can be classified into:
I. Lexical homonyms - different in lexical meaning (e.g. "ball");
II. Lexical-grammatical homonyms which differ in lexical-grammatical meanings (e.g. "a seal" - , "to seal" ).
III. Grammatical homonyms which differ in grammatical meaning only (e.g. "used" - Past Indefinite, "used"- Past
Participle; "pupils"- the meaning of plurality, "pupil's"- the meaning of possessive case).
All cases of homonymy may be subdivided into full and partial homonymy. If words are identical in all their forms,
they are full homonyms (e.g. "ball"-"ball"). But: "a seal" - "to seal" have only two homonymous forms, hence, they are
partial homonyms.
2. Lexical and grammatical meanings of word-groups
1. The lexical meaning of the word-group may be defined as the combined lexical meaning of the component words.
Thus, the lexical meaning of the word-group red flower may be described denotationally as the combined meaning of
the words red and flower. It should be pointed out, however, that the term combined lexical meaning is not to imply
that the meaning of the word-group is a mere additive result of all the lexical meanings of the component members. The
lexical meaning of the word-group predominates over the lexical meanings of its constituents.
2. The structural meaning of the word-group is the meaning conveyed mainly by the pattern of arrangement of its
constituents (e.g. school grammar and grammar school , are
semantically different because of the difference in the pattern of arrangement of the component words. The structural
meaning is the meaning expressed by the pattern of the word-group but not either by the word school or the word
grammar.

The lexical and structural components of meaning in word-groups are interdependent and inseparable, e.g. the
structural pattern of the word-groups all day long, all night long, all week long in ordinary usage and the word-group all
the sun long is identical. Replacing day, night, week by another noun sun doesnt change the structural meaning of the
pattern. But the noun sun continues to carry the semantic value, the lexical meaning that it has in word-groups of other
structural patterns.
24
1. Derivational bases
The derivational bases is the part of the word which establishes connections with the lexical unit that motivates the
derivative and defines its lexical meaning. The rule of word formation is applied. Structurally, they fall into 3 classes: 1.
bases that coincide with morphological stems (e.g. beautiful (d.b.) - beautifully); 2. bases that coincide with wordforms (e.g. unknown - known); 3. bases that coincide with word groups; adjectives and nouns (e.g. blue-eyed
having blue eyes, easy-going).
2. Emotive charge and stylistic reference
The emotive charge is the emotive evaluation inherent in the connotational component of the lexical meaning (e.g.
"notorious" => [widely known] => for criminal acts, bad behaviour, bad traits of character; "famous" => [widely known]
=> for special achievement etc.).
Positive/Negative evaluation; emotive charge/stylistic value.
"to love" - neutral
"to adore" - to love greatly => the emotive charge is higher than in "to love"
"to shake" - neutral.
"to shiver" - is stronger => higher emotive charge.
Mind that the emotive charge is not a speech characteristic of the word. It's a language phenomenon => it remains
stable within the basical meaning of the word.
The emotive charge varies in different word-classes. In some of them, in interjections (), e.g., the
emotive element prevails, whereas in conjunctions the emotive charge is as a rule practically non-existent. The emotive
implication of the word is to a great extent subjective as it greatly depends of the personal experience of the speaker, the
mental imagery the word evokes in him. (hospital architect, invalid or the man living across the road)
If associations with the lexical meaning concern the situation, the social circumstances (formal/informal), the social
relations between the interlocutors (polite/rough), the type or purpose of communication (poetic/official)the connotation
is stylistically coloured. It is termed as stylistic reference. The main stylistic layers of the vocabulary are:
Literary
"parent" "to pass into the next world" - bookish
Neutral
"father"
"to die"
Colloquial
"dad"
"to kick the bucket"
In literary (bookish) words we can single out: 1) terms or scientific words (e.g. renaissance, genocide, teletype);
2) poetic words and archaisms (e.g. aught'anything', ere'before', nay'no'); 3) barbarisms and foreign words
(e.g. bouquet).
The colloquial words may be, subdivided into:
1)
Common colloquial words.
1)
Slang (e.g. governor for 'father', missus for 'wife', a gag for 'a joke', dotty for 'insane').
2)
Professionalisms - words used in narrow groups bound by the same occupation (e.g., lab for 'laboratory', a buster
for 'a bomb').
3)
Jargonisms - words marked by their use within a particular social group and bearing a secret and cryptic
character (e.g. a sucker - 'a person who is easily deceived').
4) Vulgarisms - coarse words that are not generally used in public (e.g. bloody, hell, damn, shut up)
5)
Dialectical words (e.g. lass , kirk - ).
6)
Colloquial coinages (e.g. newspaperdom, allrightnik)
Stylistic
reference
and
emotive
charge of words are closely connected and to a certain degree
interdependent. As a rule stylistically coloured words - words belonging to all stylistic layers except the neutral style are
observed to possess a considerable emotive charge (e.g. daddy, mammy are more emotional than the neutral father,
mother).
25
1. Historical changeability of word-structure
The derivational structure of a word is liable to various changes in the course of time. Certain morphemes may become
fused together or may be lost altogether (simplification). As a result of this process, radical changes in the word may
take place: root morphemes may turn into affixational and semi-affixational morphemes, compound words may be
transformed into derived or even simple words, polymorphic words may become monomorphic.
E.g. derived word wisdom goes back to the compound word wsdom in which dom was a root-morpheme and a stem
of independent word with the meaning decision, judgment. The whole compound word meant a wise decision. In the
course of time the meaning of the second component dom became more generalized and turned into the suffix forming
abstract nouns (e.g. freedom, boredom).
Sometimes the spelling, of some Modern English words as compared with their sound-form reflects the changes these
words have undergone (e.g. cupboard - ['kbd] is a monomorphic non-motivated simple word. But earlier it consisted
of two bases - [kp] and [bd] and signified a board to put cups on. Nowadays, it denotes neither cup nor board: a
boot cupboard, a clothes cupboard).
2. Criteria of synonymity
1. It is sometimes argued that the meaning of two words is identical if they can denote the same referent (if an object
or a certain class of objects can always be denoted by either of the two words.
This approach to synonymy does not seem acceptable because the same referent in different speech situations can
always be denoted by different words which cannot be considered synonyms (e.g. the same woman can be referred to as

my mother by her son and my wife by her husband both words denote the same referent but there is no semantic
relationship of synonymy between them).
2. Attempts have been made to introduce into the definition of synonymity the criterion of interchangeability in
linguistic contexts (they say: synonyms are words which can replace each other in any given context without the
slightest alteration in the denotational or connotational meaning). It is argued that for the linguist similarity of meaning
implies that the words are synonymous if either of then can occur in the same context. And words interchangeable in any
given context are very rare.
3. Modern linguists generally assume that there are no complete synonyms - if two words are phonemically different
then their meanings are also different (buy, purchase Purchasing Department). It follows that practically no words are
substitutable for one another in all contexts (e.g. the rain in April was abnormal/exceptional are synonymous; but My
son is exceptional/abnormal have different meaning).
Also interchangeability alone cannot serve as a criterion of synonymity. We may safely assume that synonyms are
words interchangeable in some contexts. But the reverse is certainly not true as semantically different words of the same
part of speech are interchangeable in quite a number of contexts (e.g. I saw a little girl playing in the garden the adj.
little may be replaced by a number of different adj. pretty, tall, English).
Thus a more acceptable definition of synonyms seems to be the following: synonyms are words different in their
sound-form, but similar in their denotational meaning or meanings and interchangeable at least in some contexts.
26
1. Immediate Constituents analysis
The theory of Immediate Constituents (IC) was originally elaborated as an attempt to determine the ways in which
lexical units are relevantly related to one another. The fundamental aim of IC analysis is to segment a set of lexical units
into two maximally independent sequences or ICs thus revealing the hierarchical structure of this set (e.g. the wordgroup a black dress in severe style is divided into a black dress / in severe style. Successive segmentation results in
Ultimate Constituents (UC) - two-facet units that cannot be segmented into smaller units having both sound-form and
meaning (e.g. a | black | dress | in | severe | style).
The meaning of the sentence, word-group, etc. and the IC binary segmentation are interdependent (e.g. fat majors
wife may mean that either the major is fat (fat majors | wife) or his wife is fat (fat | majors wife).
The Immediate Constituent analysis is mainly applied in lexicological investigation to find out the derivational structure
of lexical units (e.g. to denationalise => de | nationalise (its a prefixal derivative, because there is no such sound-forms
as *denation or *denational). There are also numerous cases when identical morphemic structure of different words is
insufficient proof of the identical pattern of their derivative structure which can be revealed only by IC analysis (e.g.
words which contain two root-morphemes and one derivational morpheme - snow-covered which is a compound
consisting of two stems snow + covered, but blue-eyed is a suffixal derivative (blue+eye)+-ed). It may be inferred from
the examples above that ICs represent the word-formation structure while the UCs show the morphemic structure of
polymorphic words.
2. Characteristic features of learners dictionaries
Traditionally the term learners dictionaries is confined to dictionaries specifically complied to meet the demands of
the learners for whom English is not their mother tongue. They nay be classified in accordance with different principles,
the main are: 1) the scope of the word-list, and 2) the nature of the information afforded. Depending on that, learners
dictionaries are usually divided into: a) elementary/basic/pre-intermediate; b) intermediate; c) upperintermediate/advanced learners dictionaries.
1. The scope of the word-list. Pre-intermediate as well as intermediate learners dictionaries contain only the most
essential and important key words of English, whereas upper-intermediate learners dictionaries contain lexical units
that the prospective user may need.
Purpose: to dive information on what is currently accepted in modern English. Excluded: archaic and dialectal words,
technical and scientific terms, substandard words and phrases. Included: colloquial and slang words, foreign words if
they are of sort to be met in reading or conversation. (frequency)
2. The nature of the information afforded. They may be divided into two groups: 1) learners dictionary proper
(those giving equal attention to the words semantic characteristics and the way it is used in speech); 2) those presenting
different aspects of the vocabulary: dictionaries of collocations, derivational dictionaries (word-structure),
dictionaries of synonyms and antonyms and some others.
Pre-intermediate and intermediate learners dictionaries differ from advanced sometimes greatly in the number of
meanings given and the language used for the description of these meanings.
Pictorial material is widely used. Pictures may define the meanings of different nouns as well as adjectives, verbs, and
adverbs. The order of arrangement of meaning is empiric (beginning with the main meaning to minor ones).
The supplementary material in learners dictionaries may include lists of irregular verbs, common abbreviations,
geographic names, special signs and symbols used in various branches of science, tables of weights and measures and
so on.
27
1. Links between lexicology and other branches of linguistics
Lexicology is a branch of linguistics dealing with a systematic description and study of the vocabulary of the language
as regards its origin, development, meaning and current use. The term is composed of 2 words of Greek origin: lexis word + logos words discourse. So lexicology is a word about words, or the science of a word. However, lexicology is
concerned not only with words because the study of the structure of words implies references to morphemes which make
up words.
On the other hand, the study of semantic properties of a word implies references to variable () or stable
(set) word groups, of which words are compounding parts. Because it is the semantic properties of words that define the
general rules of their joining together.
Comparative linguistics and Contrasted linguistics are of great importance in classroom teaching and translation.
Lexicology is inseparable from: phonetics, grammar, and linguostylistics because phonetics also investigates

vocabulary units but from the point of view of their sounds. Grammar in its turn deals with various means of expressing
grammar peculiarities and grammar relations between words. Linguostylistics studies the nature, functioning and
structure of stylistic devices and the styles of a language.
Language is a means of communication, therefore the social essence of inherent in the language itself. The branch of
linguistics dealing with relations between the way the language function and develops on the one hand and develops the
social life on the other is called sociolinguistics.
2. Grammatical and lexical meanings of words
The word "meaning" is not homogeneous. Its components are described as "types of meaning". The two main types of
meaning are grammatical and lexical meaning.
The grammatical meaning is the component of meaning, recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of words (e.g.
reads, draws, writes 3d person, singular; books, boys plurality; boys, fathers possessive case).
The lexical meaning is the meaning proper to the linguistic unit in all its forms and distribution (e.g. boy, boys, boys,
boys grammatical meaning and case are different but in all of them we find the semantic component "male child").
Both grammatical meaning and lexical meaning make up the word meaning and neither of them can exist without the
other.
Theres also the 3d type: lexico-grammatical (part of speech) meaning. Third type of meaning is called lexicogrammatical meaning (or part-of-speech meaning). It is a common denominator of all the meanings of words belonging
to a lexical-grammatical class (nouns, verbs, adjectives etc. all nouns have common meaning o thingness, while all
verbs express process or state).
28
1. Types of word segmentability
Within the English word stock maybe distinguished morphologically segment-able and non-segmentable words
(soundless, rewrite - segmentable; book, car - non-segmentable).
Morphemic segmentability may be of three types: 1. complete, 2. conditional, 3. defective.
A). Complete segmentability is characteristic of words with transparent morphemic structure. Their morphemes can
be easily isolated which are called morphemes proper or full morphemes (e.g. senseless, endless, useless). The
transparent morphemic structure is conditioned by the fact that their constituent morphemes recur with the same
meaning in a number of other words.
B). Conditional segmentability characterizes words segmentation of which into constituent morphemes is doubtful
for semantic reasons (e.g. retain, detain, contain). The sound clusters "re-, de-, con-" seem to be easily isolated since
they recur in other words but they have nothing in common with the morphemes "re, de-, con-" which are found in the
words "rewrite", "decode", "condensation". The sound-clusters "re-, de-, con-" can possess neither lexical meaning nor
part of speech meaning, but they have differential and distributional meaning. The morphemes of the kind are called
pseudo-morphemes (quasi morphemes).
C). Defective morphemic segmentability is the property of words whose component morphemes seldom or never
recur in other words. Such morphemes are called unique morphemes. A unique morpheme can be isolated and
displays a more or less clear meaning which is upheld by the denotational meaning of the other morpheme of the word
(cranberry, strawberry, hamlet).
2. Basic criteria of semantic derivation within conversion pairs
There are different criteria if differentiating between the source and the derived word in a conversion pair.
1. The criterion of the non-correspondence between the lexical meaning of the root-morpheme and the part-of-the
speech meaning of the stem in one of the two words in a conversion pair. This criterion cannot be implied to abstract
nouns.
2. The synonymity criterion is based on the comparison of a conversion pair with analogous synonymous word-pairs
(e.g. comparing to chat chat with synonymous pair of words to converse conversation, it becomes obvious that the
noun chat is the derived member as their semantic relations are similar). This criterion can be applied only to deverbal
substantives.
3. The criterion of derivational relations. In the word-cluster hand to hand handful handy the derived words
of the first degree of derivation have suffixes added to the nominal base. Thus, the noun hand is the center of the wordcluster. This fact makes it possible to conclude that the verb to hand is the derived member.
4. The criterion of semantic derivation is based on semantic relations within the conversion pairs. If the semantic
relations are typical of denominal verbs verb is the derived member, but if they are typical of deverbal nouns noun is
the derived member (e.g. crowd to crowd are perceived as those of an object and an action characteristic of an object
the verb is the derived member).
5. According to the criterion of the frequency of occurrence a lower frequency value shows the derived character.
(e.g. to answer (63%) answer (35%) the noun answer is the derived member).
6. The transformational criterion is based on the transformation of the predicative syntagma into a nominal
syntagma (e.g. Mike visited his friends. Mikes visit to his friends. then it is the noun that is derived member, but if
we cant transform the sentence, noun cannot be regarded as a derived member Ann handed him a ball XXX).
29
1. Word-formation: definition, basic peculiarities
According to word-formation is a system of derivative types of words and the process of creating
new words from the material available in the language after certain structural and semantic patterns. The main two
types are: word-derivation and word-composition (compounding).
The basic ways of forming words in word-derivation are affixation and conversion (the formation of a new word
by bringing a stem of this word into a different formal paradigm, e.g. a fall from to fall).
There exist other types: semantic word-building (homonymy, polysemy), sound and stress interchange
(e.g. blood bleed; increase), acronymy (e.g. NATO), blending (e.g. smog = smoke + fog) and shortening of
words (e.g. lab, maths). But they are different in principle from derivation and compound because they show the
result but not the process.

2. Specialized dictionaries
Phraseological dictionaries have accumulated vast collections of idiomatic or colloquial phrases, proverbs and other,
usually image-bearing word-groups with profuse illustrations. (An Anglo-Russian Phraseological Dictionary by A. V.
Koonin)
New Words dictionaries have it as their aim adequate reflection of the continuous growth of the English language.
(Berg P. A Dictionary of New Words in English)
Dictionaries of slang contain vulgarisms, jargonisms, taboo words, curse-words, colloquialisms, etc. ( Dictionary of
Slang and Unconventional English by E. Partridge)
Usage dictionaries pass judgement on usage problems of all kinds, on what is right or wrong. Designed for native
speakers they supply much various information on such usage problems as, e.g., the difference in meaning between
words (like comedy, farce and burlesque; formality and formalism), the proper pronunciation of words, the plural forms
of the nouns (e.g. flamingo), the meaning of foreign and archaic words. (Dictionary of Modern English Usage by N. W.
Fowler.)
Dictionaries of word-frequency inform the user as to the frequency of occurrence of lexical units in speech (oral or
written). (M. Wests General Service List.)
A Reverse dictionary (back-to-front dictionaries) is a list of words in which the entry words are arranged in
alphabetical order starting with their final letters. (Rhyming Dictionary of the English Language).
Pronouncing dictionaries record contemporary pronunciation. They indicate variant pronunciations (which are
numerous in some cases), as well as the pronunciation of different grammatical forms. (English Pronouncing Dictionary
by Daniel Jones)
Etymological dictionaries trace present-day words to the oldest forms available, establish their primary meanings
and point out the immediate source of borrowing, its origin, and parallel forms in cognate languages. (Oxford Dictionary
of English Etymology edited by . . Onions.)
Ideographic dictionaries designed for English-speaking writers, orators or translators seeking to express their ideas
adequately contain words grouped by the concepts expressed. (Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases.)
Besides the most important and widely used types of English dictionaries discussed above there are some others, such
as synonym-books, spelling reference books, hard-words dictionaries, etc.
30
1. Meaning in morphemes
A morpheme is the smallest indivisible two-facet (form and meaning) language unit which implies an association of a
certain meaning and sound-form. Unlike words, morphemes cannot function independently (they occur in speech only as
parts of words).
Morphemes have certain semantic peculiarities that distinguish them from words.- the dont have grammatical
meaning. Concrete lexical meaning is found mainly in root-morphemes (e.g. friend friendship). Lexical meaning of
affixes is generalized (e.g. -er doer of an action; re- - repetition of some action).
Lexical meaning in morphemes may be analyzed into connotational and denotational components. The
connotational aspect of meaning may be found in root-morphemes and affixational morphemes (e.g. diminutive
meaning: booklet).
The part-of-speech meaning is characteristic only of affixal morphemes; moreover, some affixal morphemes are
devoid of any part of meaning but part-of-speech meaning (e.g. ment).
Morphemes possess specific meanings (of their own). There are: 1) deferential meaning and 2) distributional
meaning.
Differential meaning is the semantic component that serves to distinguish one word from others containing identical
morphemes (e.g. bookshelf, bookcase, bookhaunter).
Distributional meaning is the meaning of order and arrangement of morphemes that make up the word (e.g.
heartless X lessheart).
Identical morphemes may have different sound-form (e.g. divide, divisible, division the root morpheme is
represented phonetically in different ways. They are called allomorphs or morpheme variant of one and the same
morpheme.
2. Morphemic types of words
According to the number of morphemes words maybe classified into: monomorphic (root) words e.g. live, house)
and polymorphic words that consist of more than one morpheme (merciless).
Polymorphic words are subdivided into:
1. Monoradical (one-root) words may be of 3 subtypes: a) radical-suffixal words (e.g. helpless), b) radical-prefixal
words (e.g. mistrust), c) prefixo-radical-suffixal words (e.g. misunderstanding).
2. Polyradical (two or more roots) words fall into: a) root morphemes without affixes (e.g. bookcase) and b) root
morphemes with suffixes (e.g. straw-colored).