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Some General Problems of the Theory of the Word





МОДУЛЬ 1

Лексикология как наука о словарном составе языка. Цели и задачи курса. Слово как основная единица лексической системы. Основные способы номинации в языке.

Комплексная цель: охарактеризовать предмет изучения лексикологии, ее теоретическое и практическое значение, взаимосвязь с другими дисциплинами, ознакомить с такими понятиями, как синхрония и диахрония в лексикологии, парадигматический и синтагматический подходы, представить теоретические основы изучения словарного состава языка, изложить основные проблемы курса лексикологии современного английского языка. Рассмотреть основные проблемы теории слова: 1) определение слова; 2) мотивированность слова; 3) отличия слова от морфемы и от словосочетания; 4) связь между словами и объектами реальной действительности.

Краткое содержание

The term “lexicology”is composed of two Greek morphemes: lexis denoting 'word' and logos denoting “learning”. Thus the literal meaning of the term “lexicology” is “the science of the word”. In modern linguistics lexicologyis one of the branches of science dealing with different properties of words and the vocabulary of a language.

Modern English Lexicology investigates the problems of word-structure and word-formation in Modern English, the semantic structure of English words, the main principles underlying the classification of vocabulary units into various groupings, the laws governing the replenishment of the vocabulary with new vocabulary units.



Modern English Lexicology studies the relations between various layers of the English vocabulary and the specific laws and regulations that govern its development at the present time. The course of Modern English Lexicology is of great practical importance as the language learner will obtain much valuable information concerning the English word-stock and the laws and regulations governing the formation and usage of English words and word-groups.

The term “word”denotes the basic unit of a language resulting from the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment. The word is a structural and semantic entity within the language system.

The term “vocabulary”is used to denote the system formed by the total sum of all the words that the language possesses.

Distinction is naturally made between General Lexicology and Special Lexicology.

The general study of words and vocabulary, irrespective of the specific features of any particular language, is known as General Lexicology.

Special Lexicologyis the lexicology of a particular language (e.g. English, Russian, etc.), i.e. the study and description of its words and vocabulary. Special Lexicology may be historical and descriptive.

Historical Lexicologyis the branch of linguistics which deals with the origin of various words, their change and development, and investigates the linguistic and extra-linguistic forces modifying their structure, meaning and usage.

The investigation of any linguistic problem cannot be successful if the work is carried out without a cor­rect theoretical basis. Dialectical materialism, the the­ory of reflection form the theoretical basis of our lin­guistics. Dialectical materialism explains the nature of language as a social phenomenon, its relation to thought and the fundamental laws of language devel­opment.



Reflection is a specific product of the interaction between two material systems: objective reality and the language system representing a more or less adequate reproduction of some peculiarities of the original sys­tem.

The abstraction as a reflection in general gives a rather exact description of the physical forms of reflec­tion. It creates a necessary basis for the analysis of some more developed concrete forms of reflection in animate nature and society.

The theory of reflection teaches that objective reality is approximately but correctly reflected in the human mind. The notions reflected in the meanings of words are generalized reflections of real objects and phenomena. In this light it is easy to understand how things that are connected in reality come to be con­nected in language too (because words name notions).

The reflection of objective reality is selective. That is, human thought and language select, reflect and nominate what is relevant to human activity. Lexico­logy studies the recurrent patterns of semantic relation­ship and of any formal phonological, morphological or contextual means by which they may be rendered.

Consciousness is the highest form of reflection of objective reality. The philosophy of dialectical mate­rialism treats consciousness as a function of the human brain whose essence consists in reflecting reality. Re­lated to objective reality consciousness represents an ideal image of objects constituting this reality.

Two Approaches to Language Study

There are two principal approaches in linguistic science to the study of language material, namely the synchronic (or descriptive) and the diachronic (or historical) approach. The distinction between a synchronic and a diachronic approach is due to the Swiss philologist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 — 1913) who separated the two approaches stating that synchronic linguistics is concerned with systems and diachronic linguistics — with single units. Subsequent investigations, however, have shown the possibility and the necessity of introducing the historical point of view into systematic studies even in lexicology.

The term “synchronic”is composed of two Greek morphemes syn meaning “together, with” and chronos which denotes “time”. Thus, with regard to special lexicology the synchronic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a given period of time, e.g. at the present time.

The term “diachronic”is composed of the Greek morphemes dia meaning “through” and chronos meaning “time”. Thus, the diachronic approach in terms of special lexicology deals with the changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time.



The two approaches in lexicology (synchronic and diachronic) should not be contrasted or set one against the other; in fact, they are interconnected and interdependent: every linguistic structure and system exists in a state of a constant development so that the synchronic state of a language system is a result of a long process of linguistic evolution, the result of the historical development of the language.

Thus, the synchronic approach studies language at a theoretical point in time. It refers to Descriptive Lexicology as this branch of Linguistics deals with the vocabulary and vocabulary units of language at a certain time. The diachronic approach refers to Historical Lexicology that studies the development of language or languages over time.

Some General Problems of the Theory of the Word

The term worddenotes the basic unit of a given language. It is simultaneously a semantic, grammatical and phonological unit. In linguistic literature we find many different definitions of a word. The main scien­tific problems of lexicology are connected with the characteristic features and peculiarities of words and phraseological units as they exist in the vocabulary of present-day English.

That is why we have to clarify some basic concepts pertaining to the problem of a word as a main unit of the language. They are: 1) the problem of defining the word; 2) the connection between words and objects of reality; 3) the motivation of a word since every object of reality possesses a lot of features, but only the most important and characte­ristic of them may become the representative of the ob­ject; 4) the problem of isolation of a word, for the bor­derline between various linguistic units is not always clear; words of different structural types are characte­rized by inseparability which finds its expression in graphic, morphological and semantic integrity; 5) the problem of identity of word as the word exists in the language in a system of its grammatical forms (mor­phological and syntactical).

Being the central element of any language system, the word is a sort of focus for the problems of phono­logy, lexicology, morphology, syntax and also for some other sciences that have to deal with language and speech, such as philosophy and psychology.

The precise definition of a word is a hard task. There were many attempts to define the word, but all of them are criticized for being incomplete. Any definition of the word is conditioned by the aims and interests of its au­thor.

Linguists have tried to define the word syntacti­cally, semantically, phonologically and by combining various approaches. H. Sweet defined the word as "the minimum sentence" (syntactic approach). E. Sapir takes into consideration the syntactic and semantic aspects. He defines the word as "one of the smallest completely satisfying bits of isolated 'meaning' into which the sen­tence resolves itself”.

E. Sapir pointed out one more very important characteristic feature of the word, its indivisibility.The indivisibility will be clear from the following examples. If we take a lion and alive. A lion is a word group and we can insert other words between the ar­ticle a and the word lion: a dead lion, a beautiful lion. Alive is a word, it is indivisible. Nothing can be in­serted between its elements.

The well-known French linguist A. Meillet com­bines the semantic, phonological and grammatical cri­teria and gives a definition which underlies many defi­nitions suggested both abroad and in our country. He writes: "A word is defined by association of a given meaning with a given group of sounds susceptible of a given grammatical employment".

The weak point of all the definitions of the word is that they do not show the relationship between lan­guage and thought. The word is a dialectical unity of form and contentin which the form is the spoken or written expression which calls up a specific meaning, whereas the content is the meaning rendering the con­cept or emotion in the mind of the speaker which he intends to convey to his listener. The system showing a word in all its word-forms is called its paradigm. Each part of speech is characterized by a paradigm of its own. The lexical meaning of a word is the same throughout the paradigm. The grammatical meaning varies from one form to another.

Intralinguistic relations of words are basically of two types: syntagmatic and paradigmatic.

Syntagmatic relationsare the relationships that a linguistic unit has with other units in the stretch of language in which it occurs. Syntagmatic relations define the meaning the word possesses when it is used in combination with other words. For example, the meanings of the verb to get can be understood from the following contexts: He got a letter ('to receive'); He got tired ('to become'); So syntagmatic relations are linear (simultaneous) relationships between words.

Paradigmatic relationsare the relationships that a linguistic unit has with units by which it may be replaced. Paradigmatic relations exist between words which make up one of the subgroups of vocabulary units, e.g. sets of synonyms, lexico-semantic groups. Paradigmatic relations define the meaning the word possesses through its interrelation with other members of the subgroup in question. For example, the meaning of the verb to get can be fully understood in comparison with other units of the synonymic set: to obtain, to receive, to gain, to acquire, etc. So paradigmatic relations are associative (non-simultaneous) relationships between words.

The term motivationis used to denote the rela­tionship existing between the morphemic or phonemic and structural pattern of the word on the one hand, and its meaning on the other. There are three main types of motivation:

a) phonetical motivation;

b)morphological motivation;

c) semantic motivation.

The phonetical motivationimplies a direct connection between the phonetic structure of the word and its meaning. For instance, the word cuckoo (cf. in Russian кукушка) denotes a bird whose call is like its name. Thus, there is a certain similarity between the sound-form of the word and the sounds the bird produces.

The morphological motivationimplies a direct connection between the lexical meaning of the component morphemes, the pattern of their arrangement and the meaning of the word. Thus, the main criterion in morphological motivation is the relationship between morphemes. For example, the derived word to rethink is motivated through its morphological structure which suggests the idea of “thinking again”.

The semantic motivationimplies a direct connection between the central and marginal meanings of the word. For example, the compound noun eyewash has two meanings: 1) a lotion for the eyes (примочка для глаз); 2) something said or done to deceive a person so that he thinks what he sees is good though in fact it is not (cf. in Russian очковтирательство). The first meaning is based on the literal meanings of the components, i.e. the meanings of the morphemes eye- and -wash. Thus, the motivation of the noun eyewash in its first meaning is morphological. The second meaning of the word eyewash is metaphoric or figurative. In this case the motivation is semantic. Semantic motivation is based on the coexistence of direct and figurative meanings within the semantic structure of the word.

Lexicology has close ties with other branches of linguistics as they also take into account words in one way or another approaching them from different angles.

There is a relationship between lexicology and phonetics since phonetics is also concerned with the study of the word, i.e. with the sound-form of the word. A close connection between lexicology and grammar is conditioned by the manifold ties between the objects of their study. Even isolated words as presented in a dictionary bear a definite relation to the grammatical system of the language because they belong to some part of speech and conform to some lexico-grammatical characteristics of the word class to which they belong. Lexicology is linked with the history of a language since the latter investigates the changes and the development of the vocabulary of a language. There is also a close relationship between lexicology and stylistics. Stylistics studies many problems treated in lexicology. These are the problems of meaning, synonymy, differentiation of vocabulary according to the sphere of communication and some other issues. Lexicology is bound up with sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics investigates the extra-linguistic or social causes of the changes in the vocabulary of a language. The word-stock of a language directly and immediately reacts to changes in social life.

МОДУЛЬ 2

 








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