Contrastive Lexicology: Analyzing Language, Structure, and Evolution

Lexicology and linguistics. Contrastive lexicology, object, aim, and tasks. The history of contrastive lexicology, main units and terms. Ukrainian scientists, manuals, observing. Language and vocabulary. The branches of Contrastive Lexicology. Structural aspects of a word: External and Internal structure. Scientific methods to leant English and Ukrainian words in Comparison. The semantic unity of a word. Polysemy: types of semantic component. Sema, Semema, semantic field. The main scientific aspects: syntagmatics and paradigmatics in Contrastive lexicology. Contrastive lexicology and Lexicography.

Structure of the vocabulary of modern English and Ukrainian.

The main groups of words. Colloquial words, the main stock of English and Ukrainian Vocabulary. Morphemic structure of a word. Morpheme. Allomorph. Morph. English and Ukrainian principles to analyze word structure. Productive and unproductive morphemes. Neologisms, Historicisms and archaisms, their place in English and Ukrainian vocabulary. Etymology as a branch of Lexicology, objective and tasks. Etymological structure of English and Ukrainian vocabulary in comparison. Indo-European element. Word-building in english and ukrainian.

Affixation

Semantics as a branch of lexicology, its goals and tasks.

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Etymological structure of English and Ukrainian vocabulary; borrowed and native elements; loan words, Etymological doublets and triplets. Etymology: peculiar features of international words. International words in translation. Denotative and connotative meaning of a word. Bilingual dictionaries in translating and interpreting. Printed and electronic dictionaries. 18. Word-formation: productive ways to derive words in English and Ukrainian: Composition. Word-formation: reduplication, back-formation.

General ways to enrich English and Ukrainian vocabulary. Nonce-words, Euphemisms, word-groups with transferred meanings. Semantics: Types of semantic component; the processes of Development and Change of Meaning in English and Ukrainian. Semantics: Kinds of transference (based on resemblance and based on contiguity); broadening and narrowing of Meaning. Synonyms in English and Ukrainian vocabulary; Hypheronyms and Hyponyms. The Dominant Synonyms. Isomophism and allomorphism in contrastive lexicology as basic principles. Branches of Contrastive Lexicology. English and Ukrainian idioms, phraseologisms, usage, way of interpreting.

Lexicology and linguistics. Contrastive lexicology, object, aim, and tasks. Lexicology is that part of linguistics which studies words, their nature and meaning, words' elements, relations between words (semantical relations), words groups and the whole lexicon. LG is a branch of linguistics and has its own aims and methods of scientific research. Its basic task is to study and descript systematically the vocabulary in respect to its origin, development and current use. Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics is narrowly defined as the scientific approach to the study of language, but language can be approached from a variety of directions, and a number of other intellectual disciplines are relevant to it and influence its study.

The Contrastive and Comparative LG - their aims are to study the correlation between the vocabularies of 2 or more languages and find out the correspondences between the vocabulary units. The task of Contrastive lexicology is “to compare linguistic accounts stated, within the same lexicological framework, of the lexical competence necessarily possessed by speakers of the two languages concerned”. Aim: To conduct a comparative-synchronic comparison of lexical items and events, to highlight common features in the lexicon of two languages. Explore lexical linguistic phenomenon (trends words) and discover the peculiarities of the national outlook. Object: lexical units of the two languages. Subject: different aspects (origin of word morphemic structure, lexical change trend values), phenomena or processes (common features).

The history of contrastive lexicology, main units and terms. Ukrainian scientists, manuals, observing. The term “Lexicology” first was introduced in the French D. Diderot and d'Alembert’s encyclopedia in 1765. However, as a separate part of Linguistics, Lexicology appeared relatively recently. At the beginning of 20 century, an American linguist Leonard Bloomfield thought that linguistics in general should not engage in semantics. Ukrainian scientists presented the Kiev and Kharkov school: Жлобтенко, Голубовський, Жайворонок, Корунець, Бублейник, Кононенко. The second half of 19 century. Stylistics, grammar, lexicology are contrastive .

Language and vocabulary. The branches of Contrastive Lexicology. Lexicography is the science and art of compiling dictionary. The first book published under the English title Dictionary was Latin-English Dictionary by Sir Thomas Elyot (1538). For a medieval scholar a dictionary was a collection of diction or phrases put together for the use of pupils studying Latin. One of the purposes of dictionary in medieval times was glossing texts and employing synonyms for them. Dictionaries are prepared to serve different practical needs of the people. A reader looks at the dictionary mainly from the following points of view: (1) as a reference book for different types of information on words e.g. pronunciation, etymology, usage etc. this may be called the store house function of the dictionary. (2) as a reference point for distinguishing the good or proper usage from the bad or wrong usage. This is the legislative or the court house function of the dictionary.

Branches: The General LG – the general study of words and vocabulary. Linguistic phenomena and properties common to all languages are generally referred as language universals. The Special LG – is the LG of a particular language. That’s the study of and description of its vocabulary and vocabulary units. The Historical LG – the evolution of any vocabulary. It discusses the origin of various words, their change and development, investigates linguistics and extra linguistics forces. The object - its single elements, modifying their structure, meaning and usage. The Contrastive and Comparative LG - their aims are to study the correlation between the vocabularies of 2 or more languages and find out the correspondences between the vocabulary units. The descriptive LG – deals with the vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of its development. LG also studies all kinds of semantic grouping and semantic relations such as synonymy, antonymy, homonymy, semantic fields. Meaning relations as a whole are dealed within semantics – the Study of meaning.

Structural aspects of a word: External and Internal structure. Scientific methods to leant English and Ukrainian words in Comparison. The word can be seen in terms of its internal and external structures. The external structure of the word – its its morphemic composition. It is considered in terms of free and bound morphemes. The Units of external structure are the structure of prefixes, suffixes, roots, foundations, and their combination of lexical items in two languages. The external structure of the word – is a study of Word Formation. Word Formation in English and Ukrainian language has much in common, and words often have similar structure. Considerable Amount of prefixes and suffixes are unique in two languages (writer; student; teacher - письменник; студент; вчитель), part of Ukrainian suffixes (suffix system and the Ukrainian language is much more developed and richer than English) has not derivational analogy in English (сонце і сонечко, хвилина і хвилинка).

Internal structure of words – its its meaning, views and values of its shades, are seing in part of lexicology called semasiology. Some words has quite clear phonetic motivation: buzz, splash, snore and дзижчати, хлюпати, хропіти - and the imitation of sounds of two languages (similar in nature) may be different Ukrainian people hear in snoring хр(прим.ред. то не іск пі, а укр літери хр), and British people hear s..r. Distributive analysis - a method of language-based learning environments of all possible linguistic units, the words in the text (excluding notional side words).(e.g. man - Adj+N(boring man), work – V+Adv(to work slowly).) Analysis of the direct components - a unit of linguistic analysis by its representation as a nested hierarchy of elements from each other, forming a structure.

Thus, in the case of non-governmental words we first distinguish two components - non /-governmental, as it is formed from the word non-government, then government / al, and finally govern / ment. Component analysis - a method of linguistic analysis of lexical units, lexical expansion and the value of the minimal semantic components and representation of lexical meaning (e.g. a nose – denotative - нос, to nose connotative - принюхиватся). Transform analysis – is to change language unit into a unit with another structure without changing the content(e.g. to give help - to help; to play visit – to come). In the Ukrainian language you can determine the status characteristic phrases надавати допомогу - допомагати (активний стан), а отримувати допомогу (пасивний) there is no one-word expression.

The semantic unity of a word. Polysemy: types of semantic component. Sema, Semema, semantic field. The semantic unity of a compound word is often very strong. In such cases we have idiomatic compounds where the meaning of the whole is not a sum of meanings of its components, e.g. to ghostwrite, skinhead, brain-drain etc. In nonidiomatic compounds semantic unity is not strong, e. g., airbus, to bloodtransfuse, astrodynamics etc. Polysemy is the capacity for a sign (e.g., a word, phrase, etc.) or signs to have multiple meanings (sememes), i.e., a large semantic field. Types of Semantic Components: The leading semantic component in the semantic structure of a word is usually termed denotative component.

The denotative component expresses the conceptual content of a word.(e.g. lonely, adj. - alone, without company , to glance, v.- to look). It is quite obvious that the definitions only partially and incompletely describe the meanings of their corresponding words. They do not give a more or less full picture of the meaning of a word. To do it, it is necessary to include in the scheme of analysis additional semantic components which are termed connotations or connotative components.

Grammatical meaning is a meaning which comes to the fore in the words with different lexical meaning, and brings them into one row: apples, tables, books, birds - grammatical meaning of plurality; was, went, ate, did, slept, knew – grammatical meaning of past tense. Lexical meaning – is a meaning which combines different grammatical forms of a word into one paradigm: to be, was, were, been, is, are; apple, apples, apple’s. Seme - an elementary semantic feature, a minimal unit of meaning. Sememe - a set of semes recognizable in a given word. A semantic field is a technical term in the discipline of linguistics to describe a set of words grouped in a certain way.

The main scientific aspects: syntagmatics and paradigmatics in Contrastive lexicology. Syntagmatics – linear (simultaneous) relationship of words in speech as distinct from associative (non-simultaneous) relationship of words in language. Paradigmatics – 1) associative (non-simultaneous) relationship of words in language as distinct from linear (simultaneous) relationship of words in speech (syntagmatics); relation of units in absentia (e.g. synonymic, antonymic relationships); 2) an approach to language when the elements of its system are regarded as associated units joined by oppositional relationship.Word-meaning in syntagmatics and paradigmatics Intralinguistic relations of words are basically of 2 types: syntagmatic and paradigmatic. Syntagmatic relations define the meaning the word possesses when it is used in combination with other words in the flow of speech. Paradigmatic relations are those that exist between individual lexical items which make up one of the subgroups of vocabulary items (sets of synonyms, lexico-semantic groups, etc.). Syntagmatic relations Paradigmatic relations He got a letter. I received a note. She obtained an epistle.

Contrastive lexicology and Lexicography.

Lexicology is that part of linguistics which studies words, their nature and meaning, words' elements, relations between words (semantical relations), words groups and the whole lexicon. The Contrastive LG – is a branch of lexicology. Its aim is to study the correlation between the vocabularies of 2 or more languages and find out the correspondences between the vocabulary units. Lexicography is an important branch of linguistics which covers the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries. Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines: Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries. Theoretical lexicography is the scholarly discipline of analyzing and describing the semantic, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships within the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language, developing theories of dictionary components and structures linking the data in dictionaries, the needs for information by users in specific types of situation, and how users may best access the data incorporated in printed and electronic dictionaries.

Structure of the vocabulary of modern English and Ukrainian. The main groups of words. Colloquial words, the main stock of English and Ukrainian Vocabulary. Compiling the dictionary included a conceptual framework of its own language (lexical, grammatical), and sociolinguistic aspects are closely interrelated. Most vocabulary words gives the collection of one or another language in alphabetical order. There are dictionaries in which words are represented nested system, it means that in a lexical article are all derived words derived from one root word. There are even inversion dictionaries - in the words given them by letter words end.The whole of the word-stock of the English language can be divided into three main layers: the literary layer, the neutral layer and the colloquial layer.

The literary and colloquial layers contain a number of subgroups each of which has a property it shares with all the subgroups within the layer. The aspect of the literary layer is its markedly bookish character. The aspect of the colloquial layer is its lively spoken character which makes the layer unstable. The aspect of the neutral layer is its universal character. That means it is unrestricted in its use. It can be used in all styles of the language. It is this feature that makes the layer the most stable of all. The subgroups of the special literary vocabulary are the following: terms, poetical words, foreignisms and barbarisms(non-assimilated words that are known to everyone(tet-a-tet, мерсі боку), archaic words(woe (sorrow), nigh (near)), nonce-words. The subgroups of the special colloquial layer are such: dialectical words, vulgarisms, slang, jargon, professionalisms, nonce-words.

Morphemic structure of a word. Morpheme. Allomorph. Morph. The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of form. A form in these cases a recurring discrete unit of speech. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of single morpheme. Words that consist of a root and an affix are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word building known as affixation (or derivation). The root-morpheme is the lexical nucleus of the word; it has a very general and abstract lexical meaning common to a set of semantically related words constituting one word-cluster, e.g. (to) teach, teacher, teaching.

Affixational morphemes include inflectional affixes or inflections and derivational affixes. Inflections carry only grammatical meaning and are thus relevant only for the formation of word-forms. Derivational affixes are relevant for building various types of words. They are lexically always dependent on the root which they modify. An allomorph is a linguistics term for a variant form of a morpheme. The concept occurs when a unit of meaning can vary in sound (phonologically) without changing meaning. It is used in linguistics to explain the comprehension of variations in sound for a specific morpheme. Allomorph is also defined as a positional variant of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment and so characterized by complementary description. Any concrete realization of a morpheme in a given utterance is called a morph.

English and Ukrainian principles to analyze word structure. Productive and unproductive morphemes. In most cases the morphemic structure of words is transparent enough and individual morphemes clearly stand out within the word. The segmentation of words is generally carried out according to the method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents. This method is based on the binary principle, i.e. each stage of the procedure involves two components the word immediately breaks into. At each stage these two components are referred to as the Immediate Constituents. Each Immediate Constituent at the next stage of analysis is in turn broken into smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is completed when we arrive at constituents incapable of further division, i.e. morphemes. These are referred to Ultimate Constituents. The analysis of word-structure at the morphemic level must proceed to the stage of Ultimate Constituents.

For example, the noun friendliness is first segmented into the ICs: [frendlı-] recurring in the adjectives friendly-looking and friendly and [-nıs] found in a countless number of nouns, such as unhappiness, blackness, sameness, etc. the IC [-nıs] is at the same time an UC of the word, as it cannot be broken into any smaller elements possessing both sound-form and meaning. Any further division of -ness would give individual speech-sounds which denote nothing by themselves. The IC(Immediate Constituents) [frendlı-] is next broken into the ICs [-lı] and [frend-] which are both UCs(Ultimate Constituents) of the word. Morphemic analysis under the method of Ultimate Constituents may be carried out on the basis of two principles: the so-called root-principle and affix principle.

According to the affix principle the splitting of the word into its constituent morphemes is based on the identification of the affix within a set of words, e.g. the identification of the suffix -er leads to the segmentation of words singer, teacher, swimmer into the derivational morpheme - er and the roots teach- , sing-, drive-. According to the root-principle, the segmentation of the word is based on the identification of the root-morpheme in a word-cluster, for example the identification of the root-morpheme agree- in the words agreeable, agreement, disagree.By productive affixes we mean the ones, which take part in deriving new words in this particular period of language development. The best way to identify productive affixes is to look for them among neologisms and so-called nonce-words, i. e. words coined and used only for this particular occasion. Unproductive, non-affix morphemes that exist only in bound form are known as "cranberry" morphemes, from the "cran" in that very word.