Lexicography and lexicology of the English language

Unit 1
1.1. LEXICOLOGY AND LEXICOGRAPHY: DEFINITION AND DIFFERENCES

Lexicology

• Branch of linguistics that deal with the…

• Phonetics /phonology, morphology / semantics, pragmatics, etymology aspects of a given lexical item…
• Theoretical (scientific) basis of lexicography

Lexicography

• Dictionary making
• Selection of lexical unit for inclusion
• Arrangement of lexical units
• Selection and arrangement of word-meanings
• Definitions
• Illustrative material
• Other supplementary material

1.2. RELATIONSHIP OF LEXICOLOGY AND LEXICOGRAPHY WITH OTHER DISCIPLINES

Lexicology is only one possible level of language analysis. Other include: phonology, morphology, syntax and
semantics.

All these different levels of analysis interact with another. When we use language, we call on all simultaneously
and unconsciously.

1.2.1. Lexicology and phonology

In many cases, the difference between two otherwise identical lexical items can de reduces to a difference at
the level of phonology. For instance, pill and bill, sheep and ship, meat and meal.

The difference may occur anywhere in the structure of the word. For example, at the initial, medial or final
position.

Sometimes even stress is enough to differentiate otherwise identical items: ex’port (verb) vs ‘export (noun).

1.2.2. Lexicology and syntax

Syntax is the particular knowledge that enables us to assemble words when constructing sentences. Syntax is
concerned with the relationships between words in constructions and the way these words are put together to
form sentences.

A given sentence may be syntactic but unacceptable from the lexical point of view → “Colorless green ideas
sleep furiously”, Chomsky (1957). This sentence is built according to the rules of English syntax but it is
unacceptable on lexical grounds. This is an indication that the rules of syntax are different from those of
lexicology.

Syntax is general because it deals with rules and regularities that apply to classes of words as a whole, whereas
lexicology is particular because it is concerned with the way individual words operate and affect other words
in the same context.

1.2.3. Lexicology and morphology

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Morphology refers to the inner structure of words. For example, in gothic building, the -ing codes that it is a
noun; and in crumbling walls the -ing marks that it is an adjective.

1.2.4. Lexicology and semantics

Semantics study words and their meaning or meanings. We see that a same lexical item as gown may have
several meanings in a different language as vestido, toga, traje.

1.2.5. Lexicology and Pragmatics/discourse analysis

What kind of text is it? Who wrote and for whom? What purpose is it designed to serve? Whose reality does it
represent? What kind of social attitudes, beliefs, and values does it reflect? Interpretation. Personal meaning
(meaning to someone).

Another field that both subjects deal with is cohesion to the text. For example…

• The history of Oxford is not a thing of the past. (realza la ciudad )

• Here, times seems to hang as if judged guilty. In Oxford, people still ride bikes. (se ajustan)

1.2.6. Lexicology and etymology

Etymology is the study of the whole history of words, not just their origin. The term ‘etymology’ was coined by
the Stoics, since they were convinced that language could be regularly related to its content, they undertook to
discover the original forms called the ‘etyma’ (roots) in order to establish the regular correspondence between
language and reality.

There are, however, some difficulties faced by etymological studies:

1. Some words are not etymologically related to ancient forms.

2. It is not possible to date the disappearance of some words.
3. There can be no true original meaning. For example, nice in a “nice distinction”. “Silly” (latin ‘nescius’,
ignorant) previously related to ‘ne’ (not) and ‘ses’ (cut).

No matter how far back one goes in history, one cannot expect to reach the beginning of time.

The main concerns of etymology:

• The origin of words.

• Cognates (words that are related in form)
• Source language and date of borrowing in the case of borrowed words.
• Any information about the previous history of words. for example, before cognate the word “cog” cam
efromblababañetc.

The amount of detail provided in etymologies varies from one dictionary to another. And in spite of its
potentially wide range of coverage, etymological information that is generally scanty is most monolingual
dictionaries and is totally absent from both bilingual and learners’ dictionaries. Jackson (1988:175) says
“knowledge of etymology may help some learners to understand and retain new vocabulary items”.

1.3. THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY

The terms vocabulary, lexis and lexicon are synonymous in this subject, or the total stock of words in language.
There are three main attempts: 1) individual words and their associations 2) lexical or semantic fields 3) word
families

1.3.1. The word and its associative field

Every word is involved in a network of associations which connect it with other terms in the language.

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Difficulty of the notion of paradigmatic relations: every other word in the language either resembles or fails to
resemble in form or meaning any given word. But it has been useful in language teaching and in the
arrangement of words in a thesaurus or to establish cross-references in the definitions of words in dictionaries.
This important notion was first introduced by Saussure under the label ‘associative relations’. But the term
‘paradigmatic’ has been substituted at the suggestion of the Danish linguist Hjelmslev (1963)

1.3.2. Lexical fields

A lexical field is a “named area of meaning in which lexemes interrelate and define each other in specific ways”
(Ccrystal,1995). The origins of this theory date back to the 1920s and 1930s by German and Swiss scholars. They
started investigating this fields, because they noticed that Vocabulary on a language is a dynamic and well-
integrated system of lexemes structures by relationships of meaning. The system is changing continuously by
the interaction of various forces such as the disappearance of previously existing lexemes, or the broadening or
narrowing of the meaning of some lexemes.

The system is generally characterized by the general-particular and part-whole relationships among words.

However, the English vocabulary is not made up of a number of discrete lexical fields in which each lexeme
finds it appropriate place and that is why there are some difficulties in trying to assign all the words in English
to lexical fields.

◦ Example: the lexical field of kinship terms: father, mother, son, daughter, cousin, nephew, uncle, aunt,
grandfather, grandmother, etc.

1.3.3. Word families

Word families are groupings of words into families on the basis of their morphology (inflections and
derivations). The structure of a family is:

• A base form + its posible inflectional forms + the words derived from it by prefixation and suffixation

Examples:
o (1) state (verb)
▪ states, stated, stating
▪ statement; misstate, restate, understate
o (2) skill (noun)
▪ skills, skill’s, skills’
▪ skilful, skilfully, skilfulness, skilless

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In 1993, Bauer and Nation proposed a series of levels into which word families are divided and the criteria is
ordered in order of importance:

a) Frequency, which is the number of words in which and affix occurs.

b) Productivity, which is the extent to which an affix continues to be used to form new words.
c) Predictability of the meaning of the affix.
d) Regularity of spelling and pronunciation (of base and affix) and regularity of the function of an affix in
terms of the word class of the base to which it attaches.

Bauer and Nation’s (1993) 7 levels of family relationship:

1) No family
2) Words with a common base and variant inflectional suffixes:
i. Noun: road, roads, road’s, roads’
ii. Verb: fly, flies, flew, flying, flown
iii. Adjective: great, greater, greatest
3) Added words formed by the addition of the most frequent and regular derivational affixes (-able, -er, -ish, -
less, -ly, -ness, -th, -y, non-, un-).
4) Added forms with frequent, orthographically regular affixes: -al, -ation, -ess, -ful, -ism, -ist, -ity, -ize, -ment,
-ous, in-.
5) Forms derived with some fifty regular but infrequent affixes: -ary, -let, anti-, sub-.
6) Forms derived by frequent but irregular affixes: -ee, -ic, -ify, -ion, -ist, -ition, -ive, pre-, re-.
7) Words formed using classical roots and affixes (e.g. bibliography, astronaut) and the common prefixes ab-,
ad-, com-, de-, dis-, ex-, sub-.
Example of the verb develop:
◦ Level 1: develop
◦ Level 2: develops, developed, developing
◦ Level 3: developable, undevelopable, developer(s), undeveloped
◦ Level 4: development(s), developmental, developmentally
◦ Level 5: semideveloped, antidevelopment
◦ Level 6: redevelop, predevelopment
Benefits of analysis of vocabulary in terms of word families:

• In language teaching
• In lexicography
EXERCISE

For each of the following sets of words, say what the principle is that groups them into a set. Is the principle
one of a common meaning, related forms of a lexeme, or something else (please specify)?

1. dawdle, saunter, meander, wander, swan, tootle → verbs for motion

2. speak, speaks, spoke, speaking, spoken → different forms of a verb

3. telephone, dial, number, answer, ring, engaged → words and action related toa phone call

4. rich, wealthy, well-off, loaded, affluent, well-heeled, oofy → words describing wealth
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1.4. The notion of WORD: DEFINITION, CHARACTERISTICS, and the NOTIONS of LEXEME and
MORPHEME

What exactly do we mean by the term ‘‘word’’ in lexicology?

1.4.1. Difficulties involved in the definition of the term ‘word’

Tentative preliminary definition of the term ‘word’: intermediate structure smaller than a whole phrase and
larger than a single sound segment.

Different definitions of ‘Word’ depending on focus.

1. Focus on its representation (Writing traditions)

2. Focus on the thought which it expresses

3. Focus on purely formal criteria.

1- DEFINITON BASED ON WRITING TRADITIONS

Word= separate unit by spaces/sequences of letters or characters

Problem: these separations do not always correspond to functional realities. Ex.: ‘a new waste paper basket’.

The first two spaces do not have the same value as the last two because the group ‘waste paper basket’, although
represented by three words, constitutes a semantic unit, while such a unit does not exist for the group ‘a new
waste’.

a definition based on writing traditions alone cannot be entirely satisfactory

2- DEFINITONS BASED ON UNITS OD THOUGHT

The problem of “delimitation”:

A) The word as represented in writing represents a thought unit or a psychological unit. Exs.: names of
objects (table, house), abstractions (courage, faith, childhood), adjectives (tall, big, small), verbs (eat,
buy, go).

B) Word – one block including two units of thought. Exs.: farmer, rethink, unhappy, etc.

C) Psychological unit spreading over several elements. Exs.: all of a sudden, as usual, etc.

3- DEFINITONS BASED ON FORMAL CRITERIA (Bloomfield)

He contrasted the word with morpheme (minimal meaningful unit/form, its meaning is the sememe) and the
syntagme.

Kinds of morphemes:

◦ Free morphemes (book, man) and bound morphemes (-er, -ing, in teacher and going).

◦ According to the number of morphemes: Monomorphemic (tree, go) or Polymorphemic (trees,

going).
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Another distinction:

◦ Grammatical or inflectional morphemes: plural ending –s, gerund suffix –ing, comparative and
superlative suffixes (-er and –est – longer, longest) or function words like the, a, but, up, down,
he, she.

◦ Lexical or derivational morphemes: independent roots like tree and go or inseparable roots like
un- (unaffected), dis- (dislike), -er (listener), etc.

Some morphemes have different allomorphs

◦ Allomorphs of the third person singular verb ending or plural noun ending -(e)s: [-s], [-z], and
[-iz] in tips, pigs, and benches.

Definition of Word: a form which can occur in isolation (a free form) and have meaning but which
cannot be analysed into elements which can all occur alone and also have meaning

Problems:

A) Exclusion of both relational words and grammatical morphemes. Both free forms (and, by) – and bound
forms (-ing as in eating, -est in smallest, etc.).

B) the Word may be defined from the phonological, lexical, and grammatical points of view. Ex.: finds.

Additional problems when we try to define the term ‘word’:

• Words can be spoken and written.

• When we say that we do not understand a word, what do we mean?
• Impossibility of finding a definition of word that suits all languages.
The Spanish expression ‘contigo’ (English 'with you')
Should we write 'all right' or 'alright’? or in Spanish ‘en seguida’ o ‘enseguida’.

1.4.2. The Word defined

We shall consider the word as an uninterruptible unit of structure consisting of one or more morphemes and
which typically occurs in the structure of phrases. The morphemes are the ultimate grammatical constituents,
the minimal meaningful units of language.

Lexical words: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

• They have fairly independent meanings and may be meaningful even in isolation or in a series.
• They form open classes: English vocabulary has thousands of nouns, and new items can always be added
to the list.

Grammatical words: prepositions, articles, conjunctions, forms indicating number or tense, and so on.

• They constitute closed classes or closed sets: few members and the addition of new members is rather
rare.

There is no clear-cut dividing line between the two types of words.

1.4.3. Characteristics of English words

There are 4 characteristics considered essential in the definition of the word in English.

1) The Word is an uninterruptible unit: when elements are added to a word to modify its meaning, they respect
the internal stability of the word and are added either at the beginning as prefixes of the word or at the end as
suffixes. The word to which affixes are added and which carries the basic meaning of the resulting complex

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word is known as the ‘stem’, which may consist of one or more morphemes. The label ‘root’ is used to refer to
a stem consisting of a single morpheme.

2) The word may consist of one or more morphemes

• Simple words (cat, house, in, go) – minimal free forms.

• Complex or compound words:

◦ b1) Complex words (dog-s, happi-ly, quick-er, work-ing).

◦ b2) Compounds (birth + day, black + bird).

Problem: window – wind + ow?, woman – wo + man?

3) The word occurs typically in the structure of phrases: morphemes build words, words build phrases, phrases
build clauses, and clauses build sentences.

4) Each word belongs to a specific word class or part of speech. Where the same form appears in more than
one class, we regard the various occurrences as separate words. E.g. smoke (verb) smoke (noun)

1.4.4. Ambiguity in the notion of word

Following Ullmann (1962), the most important sources of ambiguity are:

a)the generic character of the Word: mammal (++generic), cow (+), animal +++generic)

b) the multiplicity of aspects in every Word: the significance of a Word varies according to the context in which
it occurs (e.g. table for two, table of contents, multiplication table, carpenter, waiter…)

c) the lack of clear-cut boundaries in the nonlinguistic world: lack of boundaries when we consider abstract
phenomena (colour continuum, equality): distinctions are largely imposed because they have no concrete
existence without the linguistic form used to refer to them. The precise definition and limitation of abstract
words can lead to endless and often heated discussions in philosophical works, in law courts and in conferences.

d) the lack of familiarity with the referent of the words: no matter how learned, cannot be a specialist in all
fields (i.e. mechanical tools for a university professor)

THE TYPE-TOKEN DISTINCTION

It measures the lexical density or the richness of vocabulary in a text (Crystal 1992).

◦ Type: the number of different words in the text.

◦ Token: the running words of the text, e.g. the word count produced by a word processor

▪ the number of types is always smaller than the number of tokens,

▪ The Type/Token Ratio is expressed as less than 1

▪ the higher this figure is, i.e. the closer to 1, the greater the lexical density

Are tokens of the same type necessarily forms of the same expression?

▪ They have found it impossible to found hospitals or charitable institutions of any kind without
breaking the law.

▪ The third and seventh word-tokens

▪ found verb ( FIND )

▪ past simple and past participle of ‘find’

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 ▪ find verb ( DISCOVER )

▪ /faɪnd/ v (found, found)

▪ • [T] to discover, especially where a thing or person is, either unexpectedly or by searching, or
to discover where to get or how to achieve something

▪ found verb ( BUILD )

▪ • [T usually + adverb or preposition] specialized to build a support in the ground for a large structure
such as a building or road

▪ • [T + adverb or preposition] to base a belief, claim, idea, etc. on something

Homonymy

When we have two or more words with the same shape but unrelated meanings and different etymologies (i.e.
they are distinct lexemes)

- ‘homograph’ (same spelling)

- ‘homophone’ (same sound)

I eat twice a day, Jane eats four times a day, and the baby eats eight times a day.

Types/tokens → 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Expressions/forms → 1 2 3 4 5 6 - 7 8 - - 9 10 11 - 12 - - -

Expressions = lexemes

Type or token = character sequences

Last night party did not last long

Types/ tokens → 1 2 3 4 5 - 7

Expressions / forms → 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1.5. DIMENSIONS OF VARIATION

Words in use: vocabularies

Can we say that the word that we find let’s say in dictionaries are in one bag? All of a type?

• For example, the word protocol may have a very common meaning, but have another rsense that is
restricted to the world of computing.

There is a distinction between core and specialist vocabulary. Some words are restricted in its use.

This notion links with what dimensions of variation is:

The ways in which language changes according to context and how this leads to the development of specialist
vocabulary.

• The historical dimension: obsolete (those words that people don’t use anymore, but you can find in
ancient literature or other written material) vs archaic forms (word that are not that used anymore).

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• The geographical variation: regional dialects of a single country and national varieties. International
English is the part of the language that is common to the different national variants (British and
American). Word as book, opposed to faucet vs tap…
• Occupation (also leisure activities): jargon
• Language associated with identifiable social and cultural groups in society, some overlap with the
occupational dimension.
• The formality of the context, the stylistic dimension
• The medium of communication which is related to the stylistic variation.

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Unit 2

2.2. WORD FORMATION

Objectives:

To define morphemes. To provide different classifications of morphemes. To distinguish between stemm root
and base. To pay particular attention to the distinction

2.2.1. Some basic notions

Morpheme: definition and classification

According to the number of morphemes

- Monomorphemic: tree, go

- Polymorphemic: trees, going

Kinds of morphemes

- Free morphemes

- Bound morphemes

Another distinction…

Grammatical or inflectional morphemes: plural ending -s, gerund suffix -ing, comparative and superlative
suffixes (-er and -est, longer, longest) or function words like the, a, but, up, down, he, she.

Lexical or derivational morphemes: independent roots like tree and go or inseparable roots like un-
(unaffected), dis- (dislike), -er (listener)…

Allomorphs of the third person singular

• Stem and root or base

BASE, ROOT: carries the basic meaning of the word and is not further analyzable.

Untouchable → touch is the base

STEM: it is of concern when dealing with inflectional morphology, because it is what is left once we have
removed the inflectional suffixes.

Untouchables → untouchable is the stem

2.2.2. Inflectional and derivational morphemes similarities and differences

Inflection and forms of words

In the case of inflection, the word class never changes. There are paradigms that apply to the language as a
whole. The distinction between regular and irregular inflections is…

Regular inflections: -s for the plural of nouns, -ed for the past tense and past participle of verbs, -er for
comparative degree of adjectives…
Irregular inflections: child → children, man → men, woman → women, begin → began and begun,
write → wrote and written…
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 Declension: One type of inflection.
Conjugation: second type of inflection.

Derivation and the formation of new words (-ation and -ure, resgin-ation and depart-ure)

Derivation is a grammatical process which creates a new word out of an existing one and the addition of a
derivational affix.

Cold – colder - coldest

2.2.3. English word formation

2.2.3.1. Derivation

Derivation is limited to a few combinations with particular stems. The derivational suffixes are closer to the
stem with respect to inflections. Whenever we attach an inflectional suffix to a noun, the word class does not
change. But what happens in the case of derivational affixes? Sometimes it changes and sometimes it does not
change. For example, in the case of resign (which is a verb) we get resignation (that is a noun). But there is also
the case of child and childhood, where both are nouns.

2.2.3.2. Compounds

Compounds are stems consisting in more than one root. The most common compounds are those that consist
on two roots. The orthographic treatment of compound is not consistent. Sometimes we have a space, others
a hyphen and others both words are written together. That is why there are no rules to define this. And some
other times there is a modification of one of these roots, as in driving-license.

The more usual compounds consist on two roots. There is however a very interesting group of compounds: the
neoclassical compounds, which are very weird in some ways. They come from Latin and Greek roots but they
did not exist in those languages as compounds. These neoclassical compounds are also special because they are
these combination of those roots … they are also called “learned” vocabulary. These are different from other
compounds because, in the case of others, the morphemes compounding them are free. But in this case, they
are bound morphemes, which is not typical. However, they are called compounds because these Latin and
Greek elements do not seem to be affixes at all, but instead they are roots.

The classification of compounds

The morphosyntactic classification goes according to the word class and the syntactic relationship between
the roots.

The semantic classification is more interesting for us. It consists on the classification of endocentric and
exocentric compounds.

- Endocentric compounds are those in which the head of the compound is inside the compound itself.
In fact, one or even the two roots of the compound can be the head of the compound.
Co-ordinate endocentric compounds: both roots are the heads. For example: Comedy - thiller
Subordinate endocentric compounds: one is subordinate to the other. For example: armchair (a chair
with arms)
- Exocentric compounds are those in which the head is outside the compound. It seems weird, but it
is not. It is very common in English. For example, Pick . pocket: a person (the head) who picks pockets.

2.2.3.3. Conversion or zero derivation

Conversion or zero derivation is a process by means of which a word belonging to a given grammatical class is
transferred to another grammatical class without any change in form, neither pronunciation or spelling.

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It is also called ‘functional shift’ by Pyles and Algeo. Sometimes they can also imply a change within the same
word class (uncountable – countable noun, or intransitive – transitive.

Some features of this are:

- It could happen with adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections and even affixes. For example:
to up prices, the hereafter.
- Conversion into more than one other word class.
- It can happen with whole phrases. For example, a not-to-be-missed opportunity.

Partial conversion is a double process in which, first, a verb become a noun and then, they are combined with
verbs such as have, get, take and a few more.

Marginal cases of conversion are not that usual. They imply a change on the place of stress once they have been
converted.

2.2.3.4. Blends

Blends are similar to compounds but in compounds there is no clipping, omission or removal of ay part of the
words compounding that formed word.

Wheelchair (compound) no part has been omitted Brunch (breakfast + lunch) there is omission of some part.

A blend is defined as a new lexeme built at the basis or parts of two or more words and the constituent parts
are usually identifiable.

2.2.3.5. Shortenings

There are different kinds…

• Clipping involves the shortening of a polysyllabic word by deleting one or more syllables.
We have final clipping (ad, advert → advertisement), lab → laboratory)
Initial clipping (chute → parachute, phone → telephone)
The middle is retained (Liz → Elizabeth, flu → influenza)
The middle is deleted (maths → mathematics)

• Backformation is creative reduction due to wrong morphological analysis or witticism. It involves the
subtraction of part of a word that is wrongly analyzed as a suffix.
Editor → edit (it was wrongly analyzed as words like teacher, and then the verb edit was created)
Television (people wrongly analyzed it as if it were televise + ion, and then the verb was created like
that)
Alcoholic (the right morphological analysis is alcohol+ic, but people purposefully analyzed it as
alcoh+olic and now word like shopaholic exist).

• Initialisms are extreme cases of clipping in which only the initial letter or initial syllables of some
words are put together are used as words. Why do we use initialism rather the whole word? Sometimes
it is due to catchiness, euphemisms, shorteness. There are different kinds of this:
Alphabetism/ abbreviation: when we read them with the letters from the alphabeth.
Acronyms: when we read them as if they were normal words. UNESCO, NATO

• Alphetic forms are the omission of an unstressed initial syllable. For example: ‘cause → because
• Some special cases… e-mail, 2-nite, 4 you, par-T

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2.2.3.6. Reduplication

Reduplication is the repetition of words and parts of words, and we have two kinds, one that is rhyming
(Humpty Dumpty, walkie-talkie, willy-nilly), exact (wee-wee, blah-blah, bye-bye)

2.2.3.7. Onomatopoeias

Onomatopoeias are words created to sound like the thing they name.

For example, miaow, cock-a-dooddle-doo

2.2.3.8. Eponyms

Eponyms involve a person after whom and invention, a discovery or a place is names.

Examples:

- Nobel (Alfred Nobel)

- Braille (Louis Braille)

2.2.3.9. Toponyms

Toponyms are place names, especially those involving topographical features.

Examples:

- Rocky mountains
- Chicago (Smelly Onions in the language of the first inhabitants).

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