Theory Flashcards
What is lexicology?
Linguistic discipline concerned with the nature of language, its structure, origin and the use of words
The study of lexicology includes the following disciplines
Onomasiology, Semasiology, Word-formation, Etymology, Phraseology, Lexicography
What is the difference between onomasiology and semasiology?
Onomasiology is the study of naming the units of extra-lingual reality.
Semasiology is the study of meaning and it represents an approach opposite to onomasiology.
What types of words can we distinguish?
Orthographic words – words with different spelling (same meaning or different)
Phonological words – Words with different phonological structure
Lexical words – variant forms of one word with the same basic meaning
Grammatical words – e.g shooting can be either verb or a noun
Semantic words – One word form can have different meaning e.g shoot – to fire a gun or to kill or to kick a ball or to film…
Define the term lexeme
Lexical words are abstractions consisting of group of variant forms with the same basic meaning
Why does the process of naming the units of extra-lingual reality lead to different results in different language communities?
Cause name of an objects lacks any physical correspondence with the objects of the reality which it refers to.
What are the main features of lexemes (naming units)?
Arbitrariness – lack of any physical correspondence with the object, states, processes etc. Exceptions are onomatopoeic words
Conventionality – the term conventionality refers to the fact that lexemes are a matter of agreement and convention accepted by the members of given community
What is the difference between conventionality and arbitrariness?
Conventionality is an agreement to name a word something while arbitrariness is a fact that the names does not have any physical connection to what they represent
Name the 3 main types of motivation:
Phonetic motivation – word imitates sound
Morphological motivation – new word is based on the morphemes already existing in a language
Semantic motivation – new word is based on an already existing word and the new meaning is derived from the original one
Give 2 examples of a different degree of universality (abstraction) in English and Slovak.
Cousin - bratranec a sesternica, greater abstraction in EN
Marry - vydať sa oženiť sa zobrať sa - greater abstraction in EN
Define the term morpheme
Smallest meaningful unit into which words can be divided
What is the difference between a morpheme and an allomorph?
Morpheme is a smallest meaningful unit into which words can be divided and allomorph is a different realization of morpheme like fame - famous
Give some kinds/types of morphemes
Free – can occur as separate words (rock, wait, pretty)
Bound morpheme – cannot occur as separate words (enlarge, rewrite)
Root – base form of a word which remains when all suffixes are removed
What is the difference between inflectional and derivational morphemes?
Inflectional morpheme – signal grammatical relationship and do not change the word class
Derivational morpheme – always change the lexical meaning of a word and usually also its word class
Name the 2 main units/parts of the wordformative process
word formative base
word formative element
