3.Classification of language units according to the period of time they live in the language

With the flow of time some new words may be formed in the language while other words begin to be used less often, move to the periphery of the lexical system or even become obsolete (устаревшие). According to the period of their life in the language words are divided into archaisms and neologisms. Archaisms are words which are no longer used in everyday speech, which have been ousted by their synonyms. Archaisms remain in the language, but they are used as stylistic devices to express solemnity.

Most of these words are lexical archaisms and they are stylistic synonyms of words which ousted them from the neutral style: steed (horse), slay (kill), perchance (perhaps), betwixt (between). These lexical archaisms belong to the poetic style.

Whe the causes of the word‘s disappearance are extra-linguistic, e.g. when the thing is no longer used, its name becomes a historism. Historisms are very numerous as names for social relations, institutions, objects of material culture of the past (brougham, berlin, fly, gig; also such vehicles as prairie schooner, also such boats as caravel, galleon, and such weapons as breastplate, crossbow, arrow, vizor.)

At the present moment English is developing very swiftly and there is so called neology blowup. The two greatest influences on the formation, adaptation and use of English words over the last forty years have been the United States of America and the progress of different branches of science and means of communication: television, cinema and printed material. Neologisms can develop in three main ways. a lexical unit existing in the language can change its meaning to denote a new object or phenomenon. In such cases we have semantic neologisms, e.g. the word umbrella developed the meanings авиационное прикрытие, политическое прикрытие. A new lexical unit can develop in the language to denote an object or pfenomenon which already has some lexical unit to denote it. In such cases we have transnomination, e.g. the word slum was first substituted by the word ghetto, then by the word-group inner town. A new lexical unit can be introduced to denote a new object or phenomenon. In this case we have a proper neologism, many of them are cases of new terminology.

5. Основы лексикографии

Lexicography

The theory and practice of compiling dictionaries is called lexicography. It is closely connected with lexicology, both dealing with the same problems — the form, meaning, usage and origin of vocabulary units.

Classification of Dictionaries

1) All dictionaries are divided into linguistic and encyclopaedic dictionaries. Encyclopaedic dictionaries describe different objects, phenomena, people and give some information about them. Linguistic dictionaries describe vocabulary units, their semantic structure , their origin, their usage.

2) Linguistic dictionaries are divided into general and specialized dictionaries. General dictionaries include explanatory and translation dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include dictionaries of synonyms, antonyms, collocations, word-frequency, neologisms, slang, pronouncing, etymological, phraseological and others.

3) All types of dictionaries can be monolingual if the explanation is given in the same language, bilingual if the explanation is given in another language and also they can be polylingual. There are a lot of explanatory dictionaries: NED (New English Dictionary), SOD (Shorter Oxford Dictionary), COD (Concise Oxford Dictionary). In explanatory dictionaries the entry consists of the spelling, transcription, grammatical forms, meanings, examples, phraseology.

4) They are synchronic in their presentation of words as distinct from diachronic, those concerned with the development of words occurring within the written history of the language. Diachronic dictionary are, for instance, the New English Dictionary on Historical Principles commonly abbreviated in NED and its abridgement The Shorter Oxford Dictionary on Historical Principles (SOD) coyer the history of the English vocabulary from the days of King Alfred down to the present time; they are diachronic.

5) Translation dictionaries give words and their equivalents in the other language. There are English-Russian dictionaries by I.R. Galperin (БАРС - Большой Англо-русский Словарь), by Y. Apresyan (three volumes) and others. Specialized dictionaries of synonyms are also widely used. Phraseological dictionaries describe idioms and colloquial phrases, proverbs. The most famous bilingual dictionary of phraseology was compiled by A.V. Koonin. Etymological dictionaries trace present-day words to the oldest forms of these words and forms of these words in other languages. One of the best etymological dictionaries was compiled by W. Skeat. Pronouncing dictionaries record only pronunciation. Dictionaries of neologisms.

6) The entries of a dictionary are usually arranged in alphabetical order. Derivatives and compounds are given under the same head-word. It’s not the same in ideographic dictionaries, where the main body is arranged according to a logical classification of notions expressed. Such dictionaries are also referred to by the name THESAURUS.

Recent years have seen the appearance of various electronic dictionaries, including online dictionaries. These can be of much help in linguistic studies as they facilitate the search thus making the linguist’s work more efficient and its results precise. Another important type of resource that can be used both as instrument and source of material for linguistic research is a language corpus.