1-18 Flashcards
What is lexicology?
Linguistic discipline concerned with the nature of language, its structure, origin, relations, and the use of words.
The study of lexicology includes the following disciplines:
a) onomasiology
b) semasiology
c) word-formation
d) etymology
e) phraseology
f) lexicography
What is the difference between onomasiology and semasiology?
Onomasiology:
Is the study of naming the objects of extra-lingual reality - starts from a concept (e.g. an object) and tries to name it
Semasiology:
Is the study of meaning - starts with a word and asks about its meaning
What types of words can we distinguish?
a) Ortographic
-> words with different spelling (words with different spelling and different meaning; words with different spelling but the same meaning)
b) Phonological
-> words with different phonological structures are considered different phonological words
c) Lexical
-> abstractions consisting of a group of variant forms with the same basic meaning
d) Grammatical
-> all forms with different grammatical categories and meanings are different grammatical words
e) Semantic
-> one word-form can have different meanings
Define the term lexeme:
Abstraction consisting of a group of variant forms with the same basic meaning
e.g: is, am, was, were = lexeme ‘be’
Why does the process of naming the units of extra-lingual reality lead to different results in different language communities?
Because of arbitrariness and abstraction = lexeme usually lacks any physical correspondence with the objects, states, processes… of the reality to which it refers. For example the word book doesnt give us any information about the shape or colour of the object it is naming, thus different languages name different objects differently because of arbitrariness.
What are the main features of lexemes (naming units)?
a) arbitrariness
b) conventionality
c) tendency towards universality and abstraction
d) motivation
What is the difference between conventionality and arbitrariness?
Arbitrariness:
Lexeme lacks physical correspondence with the objects of the reality to which it refers (the sound form buk and the concept of the book is arbitrary*
- onomatopoeic words (words motivated by sound) are exceptions (woof woof)
Conventionality
Lexemes are a matter of agreement and convention accepted by the members of a given community.
- the relationship between the sound form and the concept can be, in some cases, non-arbitrary (woof woof) but the non-arbitrary sound forms are still conventional, because they represent particular forms agreed upon by the members of a society
Name the 3 main types of motivation:
a) phonetic motivation
- the word imitates a sound existing in the extra-lingual reality (woof woof)
b) morphological motivation
- new word is based on the morphemes already existing in a language (rewrite = re+write)
c) semantic motivation
- the new word (its meaning) is based on an already existing word, and the new meaning is derived from the original one ( a hand = human hand -> a hand of a clock)
Give 2 examples of a different degree of universality (abstraction) in English and Slovak.
English:
Universal: Animal
Less universal: a mammal
Universal: Vehicle
Less universal: a car
Slovak:
Universal: Ovocie
Less universal: Jablko
Universal: Budova
Less universal: Dom
Define the term morpheme.
Words consist of morphemes - the smalles meaningful units into which words can be divided, words can be monomorphemic (hand) or polymorphemic (likely)
What is the difference between a morpheme and an allomorph
Morpheme:
- A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language. It can be a word or a part of a word that carries meaning.
Allomorph:
- An allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme. It means that a morpheme can have different phonological or morphological realizations in different contexts, but it carries the same meaning. For example, the plural morpheme in English can be realized as “-s” (e.g., cats), “-es” (e.g., boxes), or “-ies” (e.g., babies). Each of these variants represents the plural morpheme but is pronounced differently depending on the phonological context of the word.
Give some kinds/types of morphemes.
a) free morphemes
- units which can occur as separate words (rock)
b) bound morphemes
- cannot occur as separate words (re-write)
c) root morphemes
- is the base form a word which remains when all affixes are removed (heading)
d) affixational morphemes
- non-autonomous units which are added to roots to create new words and word-forms (nearly)
e) inflectional morphemes
- only signal grammatical relationships and do nor change the word-class of the roots to which they are attached (signs)
f) derivational morphemes
- always change the lexical meaning of a word and usually also its word-class (teacher)
What is the difference between inflectional and derivational morphemes?
Inflectional morphemes
only signal grammatical relationships and do nor change the word-class of the roots to which they are attached (signs)
Derivational morphemes
always change the lexical meaning of a word and usually also its word-class (teacher)
Name the 2 main units/parts of the wordformative process.
a) the base
b) the word-formative element
