Lexicology

Language – system of symbols

Signs – belong to outside word, they’re extralingual, universal, you don’t need language to
understand it
Extra lingual reality – outside word that doesn’t need the language

Lexicology – is a specialty in linguistics dealing with the study of the lexicon, the term first
appeared in the 1820’s, though there were lexicologists before
- is the systematic historical (diachronic) and contemporary (synchronic) study of the lexicon
and vocabulary of a language
- lexicologists study semantics on a mass scale
Lexicography – is the art and science of dictionary making, also has history

Lexicology is a study of lexis or stock of words/word stock/vocabulary/lexis/lexicon(more

technical version of lexis)
- the definitions suggest that we should be concerned about:
- morphology ( structure, form)
- etymology and history
- semantics (meaning)
- lexicography
- pragmatic use(partly stylistics)

Lexicologists
Samuel Johnson modern – Howard Jackson
Noah Webster Laurie Bauer
Ray Jackendoff
Geoffrey Leech

- to make communication solid – phonetics, morphology, lexicology, syntax, stylistics,

context
- pragmatic communicative approach has pervaded linguistics
- each of its disciplines is focused on teaching us to communicate effectively
There is a slight problem with the placement of lexicology - it has no definite place within:
Theoretical linguistics (phon, morph, synt, sem, styl, prag)
Applied linguistics (education, esl, efl, methodology)

Types of lexicology
Lexicology: general theory of lexicology applied to any language.
Lexicology: lexicology of a giver language (Slovak lexicology etc.)

Lexicology and other disciplines

1. Lexicology and Phonology

They seem not to be related; however, sound changes in words like pill bill, meat meal, affect
the meaning. These sound changes may occur anywhere in the word.
Suprasegmental units affecting meaning (export, export). Stress (blackboard, black board)
2. Lexicology and Syntax
Syntax gives us general rules for word-classes to behave. Lexicology is more specific
because it studies the meaning of words used. Syntactical rules are arbitrary from
lexicological rules and meaning. (Colorless green ideas sleep furiously –Chomsky)

3. Lexicology and Morphology

Construction of words and parts of words and distinction between different parts of words are
ail based on morphological analysis. Morphology is relevant in word formation. From this
perspective, we use morphemes to form words. Morphemes are the smallest meaningful
units.

4. Lexicology and Semantics

Lexicology is preoccupied with meaning.
(1) Pragmatic semantics (meaning of utterances in context),
(2) sentence semantics (meaning of sentences and relations between sentences) [John jumped
out of the third floor...],
(3) lexical semantics (meaning of words, internal relations within the word-stock).
Concepts of acceptability and meaningfulness introduced into semantics.
Meaningless but acceptable: That walking stick is a gun!
Meaningful but unacceptable: John's behavior pleased the bananas.

History of English

Etymology
Origin of words usually studied separately, it has certain grounds in lexicology
Etymology is the study of the history of words - when they entered a language, from what
source, and how their form and meaning have changed
The word etymology itself comes from the Greek etymon-true meaning, from 'etymos'-true
and logos -word.

Protolanguage
Indo-European Protolanguage: eat = tobe, sit (setzen, sitte, sentir se, sadnut si), lie (legen,
ľahnut), stand (stehen, stat), cross (kríz, kreutz, cruz), new (novy, neu, Nuevo, ny), brother
(brat, bruder, bror), sister (sor, schwester, sestra), guest (host, gast), swine (svina, schwein)

Indo-European family
Indo-European family (east, west).
Roman/Latin/Italic (Romance) branch,
Germanic North (swe,dan,nor,ice), East [ghotic], West [German, Dutch, Frisian and English,
Yiddish, Afrikaans].
Celtic (Welch, Scottish, Irish)
Baltic (Latvian Lithuanian)
Slavic east (rus, bielrus, ukr), west (cz,sk,pot) south
(srb,cro, slovi, bulg, mac)
Eastern: afghan, armen, Hindu, Indian, Kurdish

History of England
Celts, Romans
Celts invited Romans (Angels, Saxons, Frisians), who conquered them. From that time on –
Anglo-Saxons.
The term English:
- end of 6th century. Angli started to be used, the king of Kent was ‘res anglorum’
- 7th century – Latin name for the country was Anglia, Englaland and England in 10th
century

Old English (5-11)

Inflectional endings in OE, word order in
Middle English, this fundamental change took place in 11-12 cent, it was difficult to hear the
endings because words became stressed, took primary stress, the end of the word was
suddenly unrecognizable (faren, faron, faran).

Middle English (1066-1500)

Much richer documented, heavy French influence in poetiy and style, mainly after the
Norman conquest 1066.
Great differences in spelling, a lot of spelling variations even within one page,
Extensive borrowing from other languages,
French English bilingualism. At the beginning of ME period, 90% was Germanic, at the
end only 75%.
Word formation, compounding and affixation perdured from the previous period.

Early modern English (1500-1800)

An important transition period, new thinking, William Caxton introduced printing in 1476,
books, circulation, spelling,
Scholars began to seriously talk about language, grammar, vocabulary, spelling and style.
Renaissance period until 1650, interest in classical art and literature, protestant reformation,
scientific discoveries, Africa. Asia, Americas - huge impact on language. American and
Asian vocabulary, thousands of Greek and Latin words because translators could not find
equivalents in English.
Influx of foreign vocabulary raised criticism from purists They tried to dig out the
vocabulary.
Shakespeare's works and the King James Bible
Language was being enriched, critics called it "unruly", “corrupt', "unrefined" and
“barbarous". Necessity to stabilize and standardize the language occurred.
Academy solutions in France and Italy, but not in England and America, only in South Africa

Modem English (1800 - )

- unprecedented growth of scientific and professional vocabulary
- dominance of American English
- emergence of new Englishes
- industrial revolution, increase in educational level, scientific theories made for the public,
academic journals
- American English, leading economic power. It is interesting that the two biggest versions of
English (American and British) are becoming still more aid more alike: mass media, UK
open to influences, American "culture". Number of speakers 250 000 000 vs 60 000 000.
 What is a word?

The concept of a word is central to lexicology

Words are usually used to designate something smaller than a whole phrase but larger than a
single sound segment
Do all languages have words? Our intuitions suggest that a word is a unit which is much
smaller than a sentence, and that a sentence typically consists of a sequence of words. But
this account does not hold straightforwardly for all languages. In some languages, it can be
difficult to draw a distinction between sentences and words.
Such languages are known as polysynthetic languages. Here is a typical sentence from
Yup’ik, an Eskimo language or Alaska:
Kafpiallrulllnluk. The two of them were apparently really hungry

1. Orthographic definition
A word is a sequence of letters bound by a space or punctuation mark. Used with word
count methods. Relies on writing traditions, sequence of letters or characters separated by
spaces or punctuation marks.
Has drawbacks:
Postbox or post box. Orthography relates only to written form of language, cannot be applied
to spoken form, we don't speak with pauses.
Dictionary listing drawback: should open. opens, opened be listed as a single word?
Orthographic definition cares only about the form, not about meaning or grammatical
function.
Separations do not always correspond to functional realities.
A new waste paper basket- the first two spaces are not the same as the last two. The last two
create a semantic unit the first two do not.
Of course, this freedom to choose where to put white spaces is far from absolute. In most
cases, the rules of our orthography dictate where the white spaces should go, and failure to
conform produces manifest illiteracy.

2. Phonological definition
A phonological word is a piece of speech which behaves as a unit of pronunciation
according to phonological criteria which vary from language to language. In English, the
most useful criterion is this one: a phonological word contains only one main stress
“The rest of the books’ll have to go there.”
- There are five main stresses here, falling on the words rest, books, have, qo and here. This
sentence therefore contains five phonological words. One obvious way of breaking up the
utterance into phonological words is as follows:
[the rest] [of the books’ll] [have to] [go] [here]
You can see that not all of these units correspond to units that we might want to recognize
for other purposes: for example, of the books’ll is certainly not a unit of grammatical
structure but we nevertheless pronounce it as a single phonological word.

3. 'No more than one stressed syllable' definition

pen, flag, rag, ambiguous are words.
Has drawbacks:
some words normally do not receive stress (and)
some two-element compounds {bus driver) do not fall in because both of them receive stress
- level stress
4. 'Minimum meaningful unit' definition
- 2 different meanings – plane crash – 2 words or 1 word?
-We already care about meaning behind words. This is a huge step forward because we
already deal with and differentiate meanings.
Has drawbacks:
- Single units of meaning expressed with e.g. two words (plane crash).
- Boundary between compounds (police Investigation) and free collocations (a good car) is
unclear. Is it a specific investigation performed by the police (one lexeme) or is it just a
collocation of two words having two separate meanings (two lexemes)?
- Meaning is hardly conveyed with grammar words (prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary
verbs etc.)

5. 'Minimum free form' definition

a word can stand by itself on its own as a reply to a question, as a statement or
exclamation
Question or statement test: Taxi! If ever.
Writing and thought are unimportant, purely formal criteria are considered. Bloomfield
contrasted the word to other units of analysis, the morpheme (minimum meaningful unit),
syntagm (more words together). A word is a minimum free form. It can occur in isolation
and still has meaning but cannot be analyzed into elements which could also occur alone
and have meaning.
Has drawbacks: some words just do not fall in {my, the, a, of, and)

6. 'Unit of thought’ definition

Indivisible unit of thought is the criterion, delimiting it is a bit difficult:
- the word used in writing represents a thought unit or a psychological unit. Table, house,
courage, Faith.
- the word has one block but includes two units of thought: rethink, spoonful.
- the psychological unit exceeds the limit of the graphological unit and spreads over several
words. The word is only an element in a more complex unit: all of a sudden, as a matter of
fact, as usual.

Word defined
It is easy to ask what a word is, native speakers may say they are listed in dictionaries,
separated in writing and by pauses... but it is difficult to make a definition that would apply
to all types of words in English.
A working definition: an uninterruptible unit of structure which consists of one or more
morphemes and typically occurs in structure of phrases.

Typical characteristics of words

1. A word is uninterruptible
When elements are added to modify its meaning, they are never added into the word, they
respect its internal stability. People assume the internal stability of
words.
A tip to poets: play with internal stability of words. E.g. Infixes sensebloodytivity

2. A word consists of one or more morphemes

When it consists of one morpheme only, it cannot be broken down to lower meaningful units
(tree, man, sun). These words are called simple. They are 'minimum free'.
When it consists of more than one morpheme, it is either complex (one free form and one
bound form, quick-er, sinq-ing) or compound (two or more free forms, birth-day, black-bird)
Combinations are possible: gentle-man-ly.

3. A word typically occurs in a structure of phrases, morphemes -> words -> phrases
>clauses -> sentences.

Lexeme
It is reasonably difficult to define a word. That's why another notion had to be introduced to
eliminate the drawbacks with word definitions • a lexeme.
A lexical item is an abstract unit, and it must be represented in speech or writing by one of
the possibly several forms it can assume for grammatical purposes. For example, if we want
to mention canine animals, we must use either the singular form [dog] or the plural form
[dogs]. But these two grammatical forms both represent the same single abstract unit, the
same lexical item. We can conveniently represent that lexical item as DOG. Then dog and
dogs are the two possible forms of the lexical item DOG.

A lexeme is an abstract semantic unit that encompasses/covers all the above problems:
- grammatical variants and word forms paradigms {open, opens). We deal here with units
of meaning, basic contrasting units of meaning in language. Dictionary lists lexemes, not
words.
- multielement words (jack of all trades), phrasals {get off)
- polysemy issues (line in drawing, fishing, railway) polysemantic words appear as separate
lexemes.

Grammar words and lexical words

Grammar words form a small and defined group (pronouns, articles, aux. verbs, prepositions,
conjunctions), they are a close system. Their meaning is always dependent; we cannot form
sets and think that these sets will suggest any identifiable meaning.
Lexical words/content words/full words are nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and form an
indefinite group. They carry the meaning and are syntactically geared by grammar words.
Unlimited number of lexical words (closed class vs, open class).
One to one match between a grammar word and its lexeme. BY = by
Multimatch between word forms of lexical words and their lexemes. OPEN = open, opens ..
The dividing line between lexical and grammatical words is not as clear as it may seem. E.g.
prepositions are considered to be grammar words, but a change of a preposition in a sentence
The book is on the table has a huge effect on meaning.

Ferdinand de Saussure
Word discussed as a linguistic sign
De Saussure 1857-1913: Linguistic sign is a mental unit consisting of two faces which
cannot be separated: a concept and acoustic image.
A Sign can be applied to sentences, phrases, even morphemes, not only words.
• concept is the "signifié" or the thing meant
■ acoustic image is "signifiant"
Alteration in the acoustic image causes difference in concept and vice versa (This does not
apply to homonyms). Form and meaning of a linguistic sign.
Word is a linguistic sign, the discussion about the word meaning focuses at the relationship
between the two sides of the sign.
Arbitrariness - there is no natural reason why a particular sign should be attached to a
particular concept

Ivor Richards - the Semantic Triangle

Ivor Richards - Meaning relations are best understood with tne semantic triangle. Referring
items and referents. Most content words have a referent.

Referent is an object, entity, action or state in the outside world to which a particular lexical
item refers. Chair is an object. The link is not always unambiguous or simple, e.g. with the,
because, and homophones.

Semantic triangle:

WORD – designator direct meaning relation TERM – designee

formal representation inner reality
concepts, definitions

indirect denotative
relation direct cognitive
relation
THING – referent
outer reality object

Denotation – označenie
- relation between a lexeme and an extra linguistic object

Reference – odkaz
- relation between the expression and what the expression stands for
- it depends on concrete utterances, reference with specific items – computer,
John’s computer, computer on the table
Sense – zmysel
- a word and its place in a system of relationships which contrast with other words in
the vocabulary, e.g. bear – book – incompatible, bear – animal – somehow related in
sense, a word may have sense but it has no denotation
Connotation – associative meaning
- synonyms have the same denotation but different connotation
 How many meanings?

1. Monosemy
Some words have just one single meaning (terminology, scientific words, grammatical words
etc.). However, they are limited in number and focus.
2. Polysemy
One and the same word may have two or more meanings (poly-many, semeion-signs) E.g.
board. Close or related meanings, (set, line, window). The scale of meaning.
Problems with polysemy: problems with metaphors, words may have their literal and
transferred meanings. Hands and face of a clock, the foot of a mountain, leg of a chair,
tongue of a shoe, mat blanket is warm - is warm, keeps you warm
Advantages of polysemy: It is an essential condition for language efficiency. If we couldn't
attach several meanings to one word, it would be crushing on our memory to possess separate
terms for every conceivable object.
3. Homonymy (Unrelated meanings on the scale)
Only one of the meanings fits into certain context. But sentences like Look at that bat under
the tree may mean both things.
1. Homonyms - Words with the same phonetic and orthographic form but different meaning,
(race, bank, file, bat)
2. Homophones - Worth with the same phonetic form but different meaning (by/buy,
rode/rowed, tall/tale)
3. Homographs- Words with the same orthographic form but different meaning and
pronunciation (wind is blowing, wind that copper wire)

Meaning relations
Structural semantics: Words in Interaction
The basic principle is that words very seldom exist in isolation, their meaning is defined
through sense relations (sense meaning) they have with other words. The relations are these:
1. Synonymy
bilateral, parallel, symmetrical relation in which more than one lexical item have the same
or similar conceptual or referential meaning
Strict and loose synonymy
In the strict sense, two words that are synonyms would have to be interchangeable in all
their possible contexts of use. A free choice would exist for a speaker or writer of either one
or the other word in any given context. The choice would have no effect on the meaning,
style or connotation of what was being said or written.
Linguists argue that such strict synonymy does not exist, or that, if it does, it exists only as
semantic change is taking place. How about/what about, kind of/sort of
2. Antonymy
semantic opposition, contrast, unrelatedness. A counterpart lexeme.
While antonymy is typically found among adjectives, it is not restricted to this word class:
bring-take (verbs), death-life (nouns), noisily-quietly (adverbs), above-below (prepositions),
after-before (conjunctions or prepositions).
1. Complementary / contradictory antonyms
- presence of one component excludes the other (on/off, true/false, win/lose, remember/forget,
alive/dead, single/married, male/female) He is alive means he is not dead. If one of the pair
applies, the other does not apply.
Complementary antonyms are non-gradable (are you more pregnant).
Binary logic
2. Converseness - logical reciprocity,
interdependence of meaning, they depend on each other. One expresses the converse
(obrateny, obmeneny) meaning of the other. There cannot be a wife without a husband. We
cannot buy something unless something is sold (husband/wife, buy/sefl, give/receive,
speak/listen, parent/child). The same transaction is expressed form different perspectives.
3. Incompatibility
- relational contrasts among items in a certain semantic field (days of the week, colors), using
one item excludes all the others. If something is red, obviously it is not green.
4. Gradable 'Pure 'antonymy -
(good/bad, big/small). Do not refer to absolute qualities, are gradable and capable of
comparison.
3. Hyponymy
- asymmetrical synonymy, the meaning of a specific item is included in a more general class
term, hierarchical organization
► (vehicle - car - convertible).
Hypernyms on top
Hyponyms at the bottom
Hyponymy is usually ……relationship tree - oak
Meronymy is…..relationship tot - foot, plant – root, stalk
 Word formation

- there are more ways how new words appear – from existing words, old words, new
meanings form old meanings

4 major types of WF
1. compounding – 2 or more free forms
2. derivation – affixes
3. conversion – typical for English, a change in word class without any change in form
4. minor processes (marginal)

Inflection
- word meaning doesn’t change, just its grammar category
- endings –ing, -s,-ed
- plural, 3rd person singular, past tense…
- is a general grammatical process which combines words and affixes (always suffixes in
English) to produce alternative grammatical forms of words
- there are 2 types of inflection – declension – (ohybanie) nouns, adjectives
- conjugation – (casovanie) verbs

Derivation
- lexical process which change the meaning by adding prefixes, suffixes or infixes

print + able = printable

Morpheme – the smallest meaningful unit of morphological analysis

- can be grammatical – ed, - ing (bound) or lexical (free –can stand alone)
Prefix- at the beginning
Suffix –at the end
Infix – in the middle

morpheme analysis – segmenting a word into morphemes

morph – practical realisation of a morpheme, specific word form
allomorph – 2 or more different variations of the same morpheme

root – (or base) a single morpheme, it carries basic meaning of a word

- when we remove all the affixes and endings, the root is what remains
un - print – able - s → print is a root

stem – carries the basic meaning of the word

- it is related to inflectional morphology
- it remains when we remove inflectional endings
un – print – able – s → unprintable is a stem

- both root and stem can be bound or free, affixes are always bound
base – relates to derivational morphology
- we create words by adding prefixes and suffixes

Word formation processes:

1. Compounds
- stems with more than one root
- can be written together as one word, separately as two or more words or with hyphen
- orthographic treatment is not consistent
- we need context to understand compounds

4 main types:
1. endocentric – consists of a head and modifiers, “a kind of” relation
a doghouse = a house for a dog
2. exocentric – do not have a head, their meaning cannot be transparently guessed, their
meaning is metaphorical
redskin, lazybones, white-collar
3. appositional – refer to lexemes that have two attributes that classify the compound
- “a kind of” relation works on the both sides
Boyfriend – a kind of friend or a kind of boy
4. dvandva – or copulative compounds
- two heads, two elements with no relation, doesn’t matter which element is
first or second
Austro-Hungarian empire, parents-teacher meeting, Coca-Cola
2. Derivation
2 main types – compositional – meaning of the word is evident from its
components – unprintable
- non-compositional – we cannot determine the meaning
sitter - someone who is having their portrait painted
can sit or lay…
- a word change its word class – sit (verb), sitter(noun)
3. Conversion
- a word changes its class without any change in form
bottle – to bottle
call – to call

4. Clipping
- informal shortening of a word
Influenza – flu, advertisement – ad, grandmother – granny

5. Blending
- mixing, word merge into each other
brunch – breakfast + lunch

6. Abbreviating
- formed from initial letters of the words which make up a name
1. abbreviation – letters spelt - BBC
2. acronym – we read it as one word – wasp, radar, vat

7. Coinage
- modern word formation process, inventing of a new word in a language
robot, Kodak