Вопросы по лексикологии ГАК 5 курс
Заочное отделение
Доцент Иванова Т.В.
1. Word as an Element of the Lexical System.
2. Types of nomination and motivation of lexical units.
3. The Notion of Lexeme. Variants of Words.
4. Referential and functional approaches to meaning.
5. Types of Meaning.
6. Causes, types and results of semantic change.
7. Synonymy.
8. Antonymy.
9. Homonymy.
LITERARY SOURCES
1. Arnold I. The English Word. – M., 1973.
2. Ginzburg R.S, Khidekel S.S. Knyazeva G.Y., Sankin A.A. A Course in Modern English Lexicology. – M., 1979.
INTERNET SOURCES
https://www.krugosvet.ru
https://en.wikipedia.org
https://www.linguistlist.org
https://www.englspace.com/dl/details/lexicology
https://moscowuniversity.narod.ru/Folia_2_97.htlm
https://www.idioms.ru
https://www.refportal.ru
https://www.cityref.ru
https://www. 5ballov.ru
Word as an Element of the Lexical System
Lexical units: morphemes, words, phraseological units are elements of the lexico-semantic system of a language. But the word is considered to be the basic and fundamental unit of the language. One cannot imagine any language without words. As professor A.I.Smirnitsky pointed out “all other language units (for instance morphemes, phraseological units, grammar patterns) are conditioned by words and presuppose such a unit as the word” [Смирницкий 1956: 20]. F.de Saussure also emphasized the central role the word plays in the language system [Соссюр 1977: 142].
The word is represented on all the levels of linguistic analysis: phonetic, morphological, lexical, syntactical levels, on the discourse (text) level. It may coincide with a phoneme, with a morpheme, a lexeme, a sentence and text, for example the pronoun I. The word is a linking element of the language system. It is the basic unit of the language system, the largest on the morphological and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis.
Words are used to give names to things, objects, phenomena, therefore the main function of the word is nominating. Being a language unit the word is also a speech unit which serves the purposes of human communication. Thus, the word has also a communicative function. These are the most significant functions of words, though they have other linguistic functions, such as the function of expression as words are used to express ideas, the cognitive function as they are used to cognize (study, investigate) the world, the emotive function to express emotions and some others.
How things get their names or how the word performs its nominating function is the question which has not yet received a definite answer. What’s in a name? Is there any direct correlation between a word and the object it represents? It is evident in case of the so-called sound imitation, e.g. a cuckoo, splash, bang, etc. but in the overwhelming majority of cases it is impossible to trace any correspondence between the object (the referent) and the word.
Modern linguists claim that language is a system of signs, and the word being its element, is a linguistic sign, as it signifies, or means something. Sign is a material, sensually perceived object (phenomenon, action, process), which represents or substitutes another object (phenomenon, action, process) in the processes of people’s cognition and communication [Степанов 1985: 9]. As a linguistic sign, the word represents an object (phenomenon, action, process), i.e. its referent.
The word is a two-facet unit possessing both form and content. It has its outer facet – its sound or graphic form and its inner facet – its meaning. In other words, it has its external structure (also its plane of expression) and the internal structure (the plane of content). To external structure belong sound and graphic forms of the word. Word also possesses its morphological structure which is considered to be its external structure [Antrushina 1999: 8] but the morphological structure of the word has certain relevance to word meaning, as morphemes are meaningful units. For example, in the word extra-linguistic the following morphemes can be distinguished: extra- the prefixal morpheme, ling- the root and suffixes -ist and - ic. The internal structure of the word, or its meaning, is nowadays commonly referred to as the word’s semantic structure.
Words possess some structural and functional properties that help us differentiate them either from morphemes or word-groups (word combinations). An important structural feature of the word is its susceptibility to grammatical employment. Unlike morphemes, in speech words can be used in different grammatical forms. A leading functional feature of the word is its paradigm. The morphological paradigm of the word is the word in all its forms (e.g. boy, boy’s, boys, boys’ is the paradigm of the noun ‘boy’; take, takes, took, taking is the paradigm of the verb ‘to take’).
The word is characterized by both external (or formal) and semantic unity or integrity. Professor A.I.Smirnitsky, who put forward this idea, referred to it as ‘ цельнооформленность’ as his book is written in Russian [Смирницкий 1956: 39]. This is the criterion to distinguish the word from the word-group, e.g. the word a blackbird (чёрный дрозд) which possesses structural and semantic integrity from the word-group (phrase, word combination) a black bird (чёрная птица) which is characterized by structural separateness. Comparing the paradigms of the word a blackbird and the word-group a black bird we discover that a blackbird possesses a single grammatical framing, the inflections are added to the word base: blackbird s. The first component black- cannot be subjected to any changes. In the word-group a black bird each constituent can acquire grammatical forms of its own: the black est bird s I have ever seen. Structural separateness also manifests itself in the possibility to insert other words between the components of a word-group: a black night bird which is impossible in case of the word a blackbird [Антрушина 1999: 9].
A further structural feature of the word is its positional mobility within a sentence. The word is the smallest significant unit of the language capable of functioning alone, unlike a phoneme or a morpheme. It can occupy any place in a sentence within its syntactic patterns, e.g. Dinner is usually at eight o’clock. Usually dinner is at eight o’clock. Dinner is at eight o’clock usually.
Each word as an element of the lexico-semantic system is characterized by its relations with other words (see chapter 3).
Thus, investigating major properties of the word we observe that it has many various aspects and peculiarities, all this testifies to complexity of the word as a linguistic unit. Though much has been done in elaboration of the theory of the word by scholars, certain essential aspects of the word escape us. Many questions remain unanswered, e.g. we know very little about mechanisms of nomination, about relations between the word and the referent, etc.
The Problem of Word Definition
Despite the central status of the word in the language system and the fact that speakers have no difficulty in identifying words in speech it is very difficult to give a satisfactory definition of the word. Many attempts have been made to this effect but still there is no satisfying and universally accepted word definition. This difficulty is conditioned by word’s complexity, as word is characterized by many aspects and properties, such as phonological, morphological, semantic, syntactic, pragmatic ones.
The attempts to define word proceeded either from one particular criterion or their combinations. Definitions proceeding from a phonological criterion were offered by Ch. Hocket [Hocket 1978: 166] and P.S. Kuznetsov [Кузнецов 1964: 7] who claimed that word is any segment of a sentence (Hocket) or a sequence of sounds (Kuznetsov) which can be separated by pauses of any length. Such definitions point out at the outer form of the word, the possibility to single it out between the pauses in actual speech, but do not disclose its inner faculties, the word’s content – its meaning.
Purely semantic criteriaof word definition cannot be considered sufficient as well. For instance St. Ullmann’s definition is based on a semantic criterion: “Words are meaningful segments of connected discourse”. [Ullmann 1959: 30]. Not only words are meaningful units but also morphemes and prosodic components of discourse: pauses, intonation, etc. Word cannot be defined as a unit of the language expressing a particular concept or notion, although word is related to concept which will be pointed out later (chapter 2). Besides, concepts are expressed not only by words but also word combinations, phrases and sentences. Concept is a category of cognition and it is impossible to establish a one-to-one correspondence between word and concept.
A.H.Gardiner based his definition on the semantic-phonological approach: “A word is an articulate sound-system in its aspect of denoting something which is spoken about” [quoted from Arnold 1973: 26]. The word has been syntactically defined as: “A word is the minimum sentence” by H.Sweet and much later by L.Bloomfield as “a minimum free form” [Bloomfield 1933: 187].
There were attempts to combine the semantic, phonological and grammatical criteria: The definitions by the Czech linguist B. Trnk “Word is a minimum unit of meaning realized by a definite sequence of phonemes and capable of mobility within a sentence” [1964: 201] and the eminent French linguist A.Meillet “A word is defined by the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment” [1926: 30] serve as examples. Despite the fact that the above definitions embrace various aspects of the word, they were objects of criticism because (1) not every word is capable of positional mobility, for instance, articles, prepositions, particles cannot move freely within a sentence; (2) the definitions do not distinguish between a word and a word combination. As I.V.Arnold puts it “not only child, but a pretty child as well are combinations of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment” [1973: 26].
The word definitions offered by Soviet/Russian linguists are based on the theory of signs and modern semantic approaches (see ch.2). For instance, the definition offered by O.S.Akhmanova runs as folliows: “Word is the smallest unit of the language functioning within the sentence, which directly corresponds to the object of thought (referent) and is a generalized reverberation of a certain ‘slice’, ‘piece’ of objective reality – and by immediately referring to it names the thing meant”.
In English and other analytical languages there exist the so-called analytical forms of certain parts of speech, such as verbs, e.g. have finished, didn’t go, is reading, etc., comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives: more interesting, most sincerely. Such words possess certain structural separateness.
Summing up our review of different definitions we come to the conclusion that they are bound to be strongly dependent upon the line of approach, the aim the scholar has in view. For a comprehensive word theory a description seems more appropriate than a definition.
All that was said about the word can be summed up as follows. The word is a linguistic sign. It represents a group of sounds possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity.