AL-FARABI KAZAKH NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Faculty of Philology

Lexicology of the first foreign

language

Nessipbay G.B.
Lecturer
Lexicology of the first foreign
language

Lecture 1
English Lexicology
 Lecture plan:

– Lexicology as a linguistic discipline

– Branches of linguistics
– Lexical units
 The purpose of the lecture:

To learn:

– The aims of Lexicology;

– Distinction of Lexicology:
– Structure of the word;
– Branches of linguistics;
– Word. Stem. Morpheme.
 Lexicology as a linguistic
discipline

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics – the science of a

language.
It is composed of 2 Greek morphemes
“lexic”- word, phrase and
“logos” - learning, a department of knowledge.
 Lexicology as a linguistic
discipline

Lexicon is a term used in Linguistics to

indicate the archive of lexemes.
Lexemes are abstract, minimal units that link
related forms of a word together.
Fly-flight-flew-flying (morphologic variations
of the lexeme fly)
 Lexicology as a linguistic
discipline
 Lexicology investigates different lexical units: words,
variable word-groups, phraseological units and
morphemes which make up words and dealing with
the vocabulary of a language.
 Vocabulary is the system formed by the sum total of
all the words and word equivalents that language
possesses.
 The task of Lexicology:

The basic task of Lexicology is the study and

systematic description of the vocabulary in respect to
its origin, development and current use.
 Lexicology

General lexicology Special lexicology

It is concerned with the
general study of words and
vocabulary irrespective of
the specific features of any
particular language.
devotes its attention to the
description of the
characteristic peculiarities in
the vocabulary of a
particular language.
 Two principal approaches

• Synchronic (Greek “syn” – together, with and “chronos”

-time) implies the study of vocabulary as it exists at a
given time (e.g., at the present moment), is employed in
Descriptive Lexicology

• Diachronic (Greek “dia” – through, with and “chronos” -

time) deals with the changes and the development of
vocabulary in the course of time, is employed in
Historical Lexicology
 What are the basic approaches to the
study of the vocabulary units?

• Synchronically “beg – beggar” are related as a

simple and a derived word (compare: teach - teacher,
sing singer, etc.)
• Diachronically “beggar” was borrowed from Old
French; no conjugate words existed in English until
the word “beg” was coined by dropping the final
morpheme (-er), i.e. by means of back-formation
 Branches of Linguistics

Modern Lexicology is closely connected with other

branches of linguistics:
 General linguistics
 Phonetics
 Grammar
 The history of the English language
 Stylistics
 Sociolinguistics
 Lexicology and Linguistic Disciplines.

Phonetics. It studies the sounding of the language,

which is inevitably connected with the lexical
meaning: meaning changes if you change the
sounding of a word: smell, small, smile; thick, sick,
kick, lick, pick; 'export –ex'port.
 Lexicology and Linguistic Disciplines.

Stylistics. It studies vocabulary, but from a different point of view:

farewell (poet.), good-bye (neutral), bye-bye (coll.), so long (coll.),
ta-ta (low coll.).
All these words are synonyms, but they are stylistic synonyms
and stylistics analyses their stylistic peculiarities: we see that the
object of studies in lexicology and stylistics is the same, but the
investigation takes place from a different point of view.
 Lexicology and Linguistic Disciplines.

Grammar. As words possess grammatical meaning side by side with lexical

meaning, we conclude that grammar and lexicology are inevitably closely
connected. Sometimes a form that originally expressed some grammatical
meaning (e.g. plural of nouns) becomes the basis of a new lexical meaning:
arms – weapon, colours – banner, works – factory, looks – appearance,
customs – import duties or the department that collects import duties, taxes
on imported goods.
In addition, new grammatical forms and new words are sometimes formed on
the basis of the same ways of word-building or changing grammatical forms
of words: foot –feet (plural); food – to feed (new word, new part of speech);
teacher, singer (noun suffixes); shorter, longer (the inflexion showing the
comparative degree of adjectives).
 Lexicology and Linguistic Disciplines.

Sociolinguistics. The vocabulary of the language is never stable or

static, but is constantly changing, growing and decaying
The changes in the vocabulary are due to linguistic and extralinguistic
causes (or a combination of both)
The extralinguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the
language: the word- stock of a language directly and immediately
reacts to changes in social life
 Lexicology and Linguistic Disciplines.

Sociolinguistics. The intense development of science and

technology, business and politics, leisure and lifestyles gives birth to
numerous new words:
• Crush - someone you're attracted to, someone whose personality you like
a lot.
• Reels - short-form Instagram videos that can be up to 90 seconds long.
• Gaslighting – form of psychological manipulation that hinges on creating
self-doubt.
• Cringe - a feeling of embarrassment, disgust mostly caused by a person
or something someone says.
 Lexicology and Linguistic Disciplines.

Terminology. It studies different sides of terms and

lexicology gives methods and the scientific apparatus
for that. In fact terminology now is a part of
lexicology, just like lexicography.
 Lexicology and Linguistic Disciplines.

Linguistic engineering. As for the present, lexicology is connected

with developing linguistic engineering, and provides material for
computer programmes and machines, taking part not only in
lexicological investigation but also in gathering linguistic material for
electronic and traditional dictionaries.
So, lexicology does not exist in a vacuum and it is closely connected
with many other sciences as its object and its problems are studied in
different ways by other sciences.
 Lexical Units

 Word – the main unit of the lexical system of a

language resulting from the association of a group of
sounds with a meaning.
 Every word has its external and internal structure.
 Lexical Units

 The external structure of the word is its

morphological structure (uncomfortable).
 The internal structure of the word, or its meaning, is
commonly referred to the word’s semantic structure.
 Types of words

 Simple words – one root morpheme and an inflexion (or

zero inflexion), e.g. seldom, chairs, longer, dog, card.
 Derived words – one root morpheme, one or several
affixes and an inflexion, e.g. acceptable, unemployed,
disagreeable.
 Compound words- two or more root morphemes and an
inflexion, e.g. username, book-stores, to baby-sit.
 Compound-derived words – two or more root
morphemes, one or more affixes and an inflexion e.g.
baby-sitters, middle-of-the-roaders.
 Root
• A root is a form which is not further analysable, either in terms of
derivational or inflectional morphology.
• It is that part of word-form that remains when all inflectional and
derivational affixes have been removed.
• In the form ‘untouchables’ the root is ‘touch’, to which first the
suffix ‘-able’, then the prefix ‘un-‘ and finally the suffix ‘-s’ have
been added.
 Derivational Affix
A derivational affix is an affix by means of which one word is formed
(derived) from another. The derived word is often of a different word class
from the original.

In contrast to an inflectional affix, a derivational affix:

• is not part of an obligatory set of affixes
• generally occurs closer to the root
• generally is more meaningful, and
• is more likely to result in a form that has a somewhat idiosyncratic
meaning.
 Inflectional Affix
An inflectional affix is an affix that:

• expresses a grammatical contrast that is obligatory for its stem's word

class in some given grammatical context
• does not change the word class of its stem
• is typically located farther from its root than a derivational affix
• produces a predictable, nonidiosyncratic change of meaning.

In other words, inflectional morphemes are grammatical markers,

representing grammatical phenomena as number, gender, case, and
tense.
 Lexical Units

 The stem is the part of the word which remains

unchanged throughout the paradigm of the word,
e.g. the stem hop can be found in words: hop, hops,
hopped, hopping.
 Stem
• A stem is of concern only when dealing with
inflectional morphology.

• In the form ‘untouchables’ the stem is ‘untouchable’,

in the form ‘wheelchairs’ the stem is ‘wheelchair’,
even though the stem contains two roots.
 Lexical Units

 Morpheme – is the smallest meaningful language unit.

Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts
of words but not independently.

The morpheme
consists of a class
of variants and
allomorphs.
 Allomorph
• In linguistics, an allomorph is a variant phonetic form
of a morpheme, or, a unit of meaning that varies in
sound and spelling without changing the meaning.
 Lexical Units

Morphemes are divided into 2 large groups:

 Lexical or root morphemes;
 Grammatical (functional) morphemes.
Both lexical and grammatical morphemes can be free
and bound.
 Types of lexical morphemes

 Free lexical morphemes are roots of words which express the

lexical meaning, e.g. dog, book, room.
 Bound lexical morphemes are affixes: prefixes (dis-) disabled, (un-
) unnatural, suffixes (-ish) girlish, (-ship) friendship and blocked
(unique) root morphemes, e.g. Fri-day, cran-berry.
 Semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes can function both as an affix
and as a free morpheme. For example, well and half (separately-
sleep well, half an hour, bound – well-known, half-done)
 Types of grammatical morphemes

 Free grammatical morphemes are function words:

articles, conjunctions and prepositions, e.g. (a, an,
the, but, and, under, on , in).
 Bound grammatical morphemes are inflexions
(endings),
 e.g. (-s) teachers for the Plural of nouns,
 (-ed) added for the Past Indefinite of regular verbs,
 (-ing) reading for the Present Participle,
 (-er) hotter for the Comparative degree of adjectives.
 Seminar Tasks:
1. Analyze the following lexical units according to their structure. Point
out the function of morphemes. Speak about bound, semi-bound and free
morphemes. Point out allomorphs in analyzed words.
Accompanied, computerize, expressionless, reservation, girl, quickly
management, engaging, agreement, lengthen, clannish, pleasure, pleasant,
beautify, workaholic, reconstruction, counterproductive, specialize, rearrange
three-cornered, table, flower-pot, half-eaten, well-done, breadwinner.

2. Make up the new words from the root morphemes system and impress
by adding affixes and explain their structure.
For example, prove - improve - improvement - improving - improvident.

3. Give your own 5 examples of words with the same root morphemes and
different affixes.
 Bibliography:

• Dzharasova T.T. English Lexicology and Lexicography. An

Educational Manual. Theory and Practice.
• Davletbayeva D.N. Lectures on English Lexicology. For
students of foreign language faculties.
• Girunyan G. English Lexicology. Theoretical course