36. Alteration in the sound system in Proto Germanic and phonetic peculiarities in Old English.
37. Phonetic and spelling changes in Middle English.
38. Phonetic and spelling changes in New English.
39. Development of the lexico – grammatical class of nouns.
40. Development of the lexico – grammatical class of verbs.
Программные требования к раскрытию содержания представленных теоретических вопросов
Английская лексикология
1. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics, its connection with other branches of linguistics.
Lexicology as a branch of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of the language. The word as the subject-matter of Lexicology and the basic unit of the language. General Lexicology, Special Lexicology, Historical Lexicology, Descriptive Lexicology, Comparative and Contrastive Lexicology. The theoretical and practical value of Lexicology. Lexicograghy or applied Lexicology.
The aim and tasks of Lexicology. The connection of Lexicology with other branches of Linguistics: Phonetics, Grammar, Stylistics, History of the English Language.
2. Characteristic features of the modern English vocabulary.
The volume of the English vocabulary and its use, the total vocabulary of Modern English and the individual vocabulary. The changes in the vocabulary and their causes. The role of borrowing, polysemy and homonymy in English. The systematic character of the English vocabulary, different groupings of English words.
3. Etymological characteristics of the English vocabulary.
Etymology as a branch of Linguistics. The etymological background of the English vocabulary. Native words in English. Borrowings in the English vocabulary; main groups of loan words in English: Latin, French, Scandinavian and Celtic borrowings. Translation loans and semantic borrowings. Assimilation of borrowings, types of assimilation, degree of assimilation. Folk or false etymology. International words and etymological doublets in English.
4. The morphological structure of English words.
The morpheme. Types of morphemes in English: roots and affixes: prefixes and suffixes. Grammatical and derivational affixes. Free and bound morphemes. Semi-affixes. Combining forms. Allomorphs as positional variants of morphemes. The morphological analysis of words. Levels of the morphological analysis: morphemic and derivational. The aim of the morphemic analysis. The method of immediate and ultimate constituents. Morphemic segmentability of English words. The derivational analyses, its aim. The derivative structure of the word, derivational bases, derivational affixes, derivational patterns. The main structural types of English words.
5. Word building in English.
Word building as the process of creating new words in a language with the help of its inner sources. Major, most productive means of word-building in English: affixation, conversion, composition. Shortening in English: clipping and abbreviation. Minor, less productive means of word-building in English: back-formation or reversion, blending or telescoping, reduplication, sound imitation. Mixed or synthetic word-building in Modern English.
6. The semantic structure of the word. Types of lexical meaning.
Semasiology as a branch of Lexicology studying the meaning of the word and its development. The main approaches to the study of word meaning: referential, or denotational, functional, or contextual. Types of word meaning: grammatical, lexico-grammatical, lexical. The main components of lexical meaning. The denotational/denotative meaning. The connotational/connotative meaning. Main types of connotations: stylistic, emotional, evaluative, intensifying (emphatic or expressive). Polysemy in English and its causes. The semantic structure of a polysemantic word. The semantic analysis of the word: lexico-semantic, componential, contextual.
7. The development and change of the semantic structure of English words.
Extralinguistic and linguistic causes of the semantic change. The main semantic processes of the development and change of word meaning: specialization, or narrowing of meaning, generalization, or widening of meaning, elevation, or amelioration of meaning, degradation or pejoration of meaning, metaphoric and metonymic transfers.
8. Homonymy in English. The problem of homonymy and polysemy.
Definition of homonyms. Causes of homonymy and sources of homonyms in English: convergent sound development and divergent sense development. Classifications of homonyms: 1) perfect homonyms, homophones and homographs; 2) full and partial homonyms; 3) lexical, lexico-grammatical and grammatical homonyms; 4) simple and complex homonyms.
The problem of homonymy and polysemy in English. The criteria applied to solve the problem: etymological, phonetic, the criterion of spelling, the semantic criterion of related and unrelated meanings, the criterion of distribution.
9. Synonyms and antonyms in English.
Synonyms and synonymic sets, the synonymic dominant. Criteria of synonymy. Definition of synonyms. Functions of synonyms in speech.
Types of synonyms. Sources of synonyms in English. Euphemisms. Antonyms in English. Definition and classification of antonyms: 1) contradictory and contrary antonyms; 2) root and derivational antonyms.
10. The stylistic differentiation of the English vocabulary. Literary-bookish words.
The system of the stylistic differentiation of the English vocabulary and functional styles. Stylistically unmarked, or stylistically neutral words and stylistically marked, or stylistically coloured words. Two main strata of stylistically marked words: formal, or literary-bookish words and informal, or colloquial words. The subdivision of the literary-bookish vocabulary into general literary-bookish words and functional literary-bookish words. General literary-bookish words as a heterogeneous layer including words of scientific prose, “officialese”, literary, refined words. Functional (special) literary-bookish words: terms, poetic words, neologisms, archaic words and historical words, foreign word and barbarisms.
11. Colloquial words in English. The problem of slang.
Colloquialisms as words of the minimal degree of stylistic degradation. Literary-colloquial and familiar colloquial words.
Substandard colloquial vocabulary: vernacular, or low colloquial words, dialect words, or dialectics, vulgarisms, slang. The term “slang”. Different definitions of slang. General slang and special slang: jargonisms, professionalisms, argot or cant. Word-building in slang. Neologisms of the colloquial character.
12. Standard English, dialects and variants.
English as a global language. English as a mother tongue and the national language. English as the official language of the state. English as a foreign language.
English as a microsystem of its national variants: British English, American English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English, etc.
Standard English (The British standard),. Variants and dialects as regional varieties of the English language.
Dialects in Great Britain, cockney. Main territorial variants of English outside Britain. American English. Vocabulary differences in the language variants.