Lexicology I

Katarína Veselá2008

Lexicology as a part of linguistics Lexicology is the part of linguistics, dealing with the

vocabulary of a language and the properties of words as the main units of language.

Vocabulary means the sum of all the words in the language.

Good knowledge of the description of the vocabulary, rules of word-formation, origin and history of words helps to guess and remember the meaning of new-learned words, to master the standards of their usage, and to

prevent mistakes.

Branches of Lexicology General - the general study of words, irrespective of

the specific features of any particular language

Special - the description of the vocabulary of a given language

Historical - the study of the evolution of a vocabulary as well as of its elements. This branch discusses the origin of words, their change and development.

Descriptive - deals with the description of the vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of its development.

Word structure

A word is an independent unit of a language

A morpheme is the minimum meaningful language unit. But unlike a word it is not independent. It occurs in speech just as a constituent part of words.

Morphemes

A root is a basic element of words. The root in English is very often homonymous with the word. It is one of the most typical features of the English language. Roots are called productive if they are capable of producing new words.

Affixes may be subdivided into prefixes, suffixes and infixes.A suffix is a morpheme following the root and forming a new word.A prefix is a morpheme standing before the root and modifying meaning.

Assignment 1 Which of the lexicology branches will this course deal

with, and why do you think so?

Give the morphematic division (root, prefix, suffix) of these words:

1. unpredictable, 2. cooperation, 3. multidimensional, 4. leadership, 5. impression.

The History of English language

1. The Oldest History 2. Roman Britain 3. Old English 4. Middle English 5. Modern English

The Oldest History

The Pre-Celtic civilisation (3000 and 2000 BC) The first people who left interesting prehistorical documents (Stonehenge is the best known) were Iberians – people from the Mediterranean countries, they did not influence the further development of language.

The Celtic civilisation (6th – 2nd cts BC)The Gaels and the Britons were the Celtic tribes, coming from North-western Germany, which settled on the British Isles. The main spheres where the traces of their language are left are the place names (Avon, Thames, London, Dover, etc.).

Roman Britain (1 / 5 cts AD)

Britain as a Roman colony. Roman occupation made a lasting impression on British society. They built cities (villas), public roads, theatres, public baths, public monuments. We can find a few words in Modern English which have their origin in Latin from the times of the Great Roman Empire (wall – vallum, street – via strata, chester – castra). Britain, as the most remote of the Roman provinces was among the earliest to fall away.

Old English (600 - 1100)

The history of the English language begins after the Germanic tribes - Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded and settled the most part of the Celtic islands of Britain. They spoke Low German dialects. The Old English speech was heterogeneous because of different Germanic tribes.

The first English literary language was based on the regional dialects used in West-Saxon territory in the 10th century. But the Modern English is not derived from that Old English literary language, because the Norman Conquest (1066, The Battle of Hastings) was the reason of the complete disappearance of this first standard English.

Middle English (1100 – 1500) The Battle of Hastings gave England a new ruling class.

The Normans spoke French, while the English speaking population preserved the language and tradition of the country.

Later the Normans in Britain began to speak English mixed with French words. So the vocabulary of English local dialects was in that period enriched by a great number of words of French origin. The period of Middle English may be characterised as a phase without standardization with the strong influence of French.

At the end of this period English was regaining its former role as an official language. Geoffrey Chaucer by his Canterbury Tales established the written London English as the base for a new national literary Standard English. So-called Chaucery English was used as the new official language.

Modern English

The Modern English period started with the centralisation of the state under the Tudors, and the strengthening of the political and economic unity of England. The beginning of the Modern English period is the beginning of the English language as is spoken nowadays.

Assignment 2 Fill in the table

Period Years Influence on English

Pre-Celtic Civilisation

Celtic Civilisation

Roman Britain

Old English

Middle English

Modern English

The Origin of English Words

Over the course of its development the English language has been influenced by the other languages. According to the measure of the influence we distinguish major and minor influences on the development of the English language.

Major Influences Celtic - the number of celticisms in English is small. Scandinavian - the years 750 - 1050 are known as

The Viking Age of England. Their influence upon the language was strong.

Norman and French - the Norman period lasted nearly 300 years.

Latin and Greek1) The first period of Latin influence was during the

Roman occupation.2) The second wave of the influence came with the

christianization.3) The third wave dated to the 14th, 15th, and 16th

centuries - the period of New Learning, when Greek and Latin were established as the main languages of learning, science, and culture.

Minor Influences Dutch

The contact with the Dutch language was mediated by the political, commercial, and cultural contacts; thus the main spheres were maritime terminology (dock, gin, commodore, etc.), and terminology of drawing and painting (sketch, landscape, etc.).

ItalianMain spheres are business (bank, risk, bankrupt, etc.), music, and architecture.

OthersSpanish, German, Russian, Czech, Indian, Japanese, Red Indian, etc.

Native and Borrowed Words A native word is a word which belongs to the original

English stock, as known from the Old English period. The native words are further subdivided into those of the Indo-European stock and those of Common Germanic origin.

Native words constitute about 80% of the 500 most frequent words in English. They may be characterised by a high lexical and grammatical valency (ability to combine with other words), high frequency and developed polysemy. They are often monosyllabic, have great wordbuilding power and enter a number of set expressions.

Borrowed Words

The number of loan words in English is very high. About 70% of the English vocabulary consists of loan words.

Borrowed words = loan words

Degree of Assimilation1) Completely assimilated words

E.g.: wine, window, chair.

1) Partially assimilated words a. Loan words not assimilated semantically

E.g.: sari, toreador.b. Loan words not assimilated grammatically

E.g.: bacillus, formula, index, phenomenon.c. Loan words not assimilated phonetically or graphically. E.g.: ballet, buffet, corps, tobacco, café.

2) Unassimilated E.g. chauffeur, haute couture. The words from other languages for which there are corresponding English equivalents are so-called barbarisms. E.g.: ciao.

Assignment 3 Name the major and minor influences (from 'other

minor influences' choose any three). For every influence find one example (other than the examples given in the text!)

How can the English words be divided according to their origin?

How can the native English words be characterised? What are borrowed words and how do we divide them

according to the degree of assimilation? Explain the three waves of Latin influence.