Circumfix, bound, ambiposition, a-binding, blending

Білет 2. 1. The subject-matter and tasks of lexicology. Lexicology (from Greek words: lexis – word, lexikos – pertaining to word, and logos – learning, science) studies the vocabulary of a given language. The subject-matter of lexicology is the word, its morphemic structure, history, meaning and its stylistic value. So, lexicology is the study of words. The knowledge of lexicology provides us with a clear understanding of the laws of vocabulary development and helps to master the language. One can hardly acquire a perfect command of English without having knowledge of English lexicology.

The main tasks of lexicology are to determine:

1) the general characteristics of the English word-stock in its modern state;

2) the specific features and structural patterns of English words;

3) productive and non-productive types and means of word-building;

4) the complex nature of word-meaning and the modern methods of its research;

5) the stylistic peculiarities of the English vocabulary;

6) the changes that the English vocabulary underwent in its historical development;

7) the vocabulary resources of Modern English (synonyms, antonyms, etc.);

8) English phraseological units.

We can not acquire a perfect command of English without having knowledge of all the above-mentioned things.

2. Morphological word-building in the English language. The term „word-building” is of polysemantic nature. It is used to denote the branch of the science of language which studies the patterns on which a language forms lexical units. It is also used to denote the process of creating new words from the material available in the word-stock according to certain structural and semantic patterns specific for the given language.We have to distinguish morphological, syntactico-morphological and syntactical word-building in Modern English.Morphological word-building which is characterized by a change in morphological structure includes the following types:

affixation (e.g. lucky – unlucky; happy – unhappy);

morphological compounding (e.g. speedometer, hogshead – большая бочка);

shortening (e.g. fantasy – fancy, vacation – vac, MP, NIS);

sound-interchange (e.g. live– life, blood – bleed, sing – song);

stress-interchange (e.g.´ present – pre´sent, ´conduct – con´duct);

back-formation (e.g. baby-sitter > baby-sit)

reduplication (e.g. murmur, bye-bye, blah-blah);

blending (e.g. blue + green > bleen, crazy + drunk > crunk).

Circumposition, back-formation, infix, a-position, ap (adjective phrase).

Білет 3. 1. The structure of lexicology as a science. We should distinguish between general, special, historical, descriptive, contrastive, computational and applied lexicology.

The general study of words and vocabulary, irrespective of the specific features of any particular language, is known as general lexicology. The description of the characteristic peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language is the subject-matter of special lexicology. The latter is based on the fundamental principles of general lexicology, which forms a part of the general science of language. Historical lexicology makes a study of the vocabulary as a system, whereas descriptive lexicology describes the vocabulary in its modern state. Contrastive lexicology investigates the word-stock of different languages with the aim of revealing the genetic affinity of languages, their structural and semantic differences and similarities. Computational lexicology is that branch of computational linguistics which is concerned with the use of computers in the study of the vocabulary. Applied lexicology mainly embraces the following 4 spheres: lexicography, translation, linguistic pedagogy and speech culture.

The main branches of lexicology are semasiology, etymology, onomasiology, phraseology and onomastics. Semasiology studies word-meaning and the classification of changes in the signification of words and forms, viewed as normal and vital factors of linguistic development. Etymology studies the origin or derivation of a word as shown by its analysis into elements, by pointing out the root upon which it is based. Onomasiology is the study of the principles and regularities of the specification of things and notions by lexical and lexico-phraseological means of a given language. Phraseology is the branch of linguistics specializing in word-groups which are characterized by stability of structure and transferred meaning. Onomastics studies proper names and it is subdivided into anthroponymy (a science about people’s names), toponymy (a science about geographical names) and ethnonymy (a science about peoples’ names).

2. Germanic borrowings in the English vocabulary. English has borrowed many words from German. Some of those words have become a natural part of everyday English vocabulary (angst, kindergarten, sauerkraut), while others are primarily intellectual, literary, scientific (waldsterben, zeitgeist), or used in special areas, such as gestalt in psychology, or loess in geology. Some of these German words are used in English because there is no true English equivalent: gemütlich, schadenfreude. There are some 800 words borrowed from German into English. Some of them have classical roots, e.g. in some geological terms, such as: cobalt, bismuth, zink, quarts, gneiss, wolfram. There were also words denoting objects used in everyday life which were borrowed from German:  iceberg, lobby, rucksack etc. In the period of the Second World War the following words were borrowed: Luftwaffe, SS-man, Bundeswehr, gestapo, gas chamber and many others. Among the 20th century German loanwords we can mention: blitzkrieg, zeppelin, strafe, delicatessen, hamburger, frankfurter, wiener, hausfrau, kindergarten, Oktoberfest, wunderkind, spritz, strudel, Volkswagen etc.

German borrowings can be divided into three main groups, plus a separate group of German-related words borrowed into American English via Yiddish.

The three groups are:

1) Pennsylvania Dutch words, that were usually first recorded before the middle of the 19th century, and generally apply to food and way of life.

2) Mainstream German borrowings. They often relate to education and way of life. It is important to notice that they include interjections, verbs, and complete expressions.

3) The third group of German borrowings contains those terms from the two World Wars that are related to war and military strategy.

clipping, acceptability, case, heavy NP, comp (<compliment).

Білет 4. 1. The main methods of linguistic investigation used in lexicology. As a branch of linguistics lexicology has its own methods of scientific research of lexical units.

Methods of scientific investigation used in linguistic studies have always been closely connected with the general trends in the science of language. Thus, for instance, in the beginning of the XX-th century vocabulary studies were mainly concentrated on historical problems. So, the historical and comparative method became very popular in studying kindred languages. Later linguistics developed the typological study of languages, both kindred and non-kindred. Then B. de Courtenay (1845-1929) and F. Fortunatov (1848-1914) in Russia and F. de Saussure (1857-1913) in Switzerland developed the systematic approach to language.

The American school of descriptive linguistics developed the distributional analysis and the immediate constituents analysis (the IC-analysis).

The theory of transformational grammar, a new linguistic theory, appeared in the 50-s of the XX-th century. The theory has brought transformational analysis.

To sum it up in brief, the main methods of linguistic research widely applied by lexicology in recent times are the historical and comparative method, the typological study of language, the systematic approach to language, distributional analysis often accompanied by substitution tests, the IC-analysis, transformational analysis, contrastive method, componential analysis, statistical techniques, contextual analysis

2. Affixation or derivation Affixation is commonly defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to stems. Affixation includes prefixation, i.e. forming new words with the help of prefixes, and suffixation, i.e. forming new words with the help of suffixes. In the course of language development some affixes were replaced by others, some changed their meanings. Thus, e.g. mis- and un- replaced wan- (wantrust – mistrust, wantruth – untruth). Once affixes were independent words. What is now a suffix was at some period of time a separate word, for example the modern suffix -dom was in Old English a separate word meaning „state, condition, sphere of action”. Modern English possesses a large stock of affixes which make a material for coining new words. Affixes are derivational morphemes added directly to roots or to stems. The role of the affix in the process of affixation is very important and therefore it’s necessary to consider certain facts about the main types of affixes.