Lexicology, the branch of linguistics

Lexicology, the branch of linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure (grammar) and the study of meaning (semantics and pragmatics). Grammar encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the rules that determine how words combine into phrases and sentences) and phonology (the study of sound systems and abstract sound units). Phonetics is a related branch of linguistics concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones), non-speech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived. Other sub-disciplines of linguistics include the following: evolutionary linguistics, which considers the origins of language; historical linguistics, which explores language change; sociolinguistics, which looks at the relation between linguistic variation and social structures; psycholinguistics, which explores the representation and functioning of language in the mind; neurolinguistics, which looks at the representation of language in the brain; language acquisition, which considers how children acquire their first language and how children and adults acquire and learn their second and subsequent languages; and discourse analysis, which is concerned with the structure of texts and conversations, and pragmatics with how meaning is transmitted based on a combination of linguistic competence, non-linguistic knowledge, and the context of the speech act.

Lexicology (from lexiko-, in the Late Greek lexikon) 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.

Lexicology deals not only with simple words in all their aspects but also with complex and compound words, the meaningful units of language. Since these units must be analysed in respect of both their form and their meaning, lexicology relies on information derived from morphology, the study of the forms of words and their components, and semantics, the study of their meanings. A third field of particular interest in lexicological studies is etymology, the study of the origins of words. However, lexicology must not be confused with lexicography, the writing or compilation of dictionaries, which is a special technique rather than a level of language

The essential difference between syntax and lexicology is that the former deals with the general facts of language and the latter with special aspects. Syntax is general because it deals with rules and regularities that apply to classes of words as a whole, whereas lexicology is particular because it is concerned with the way individual words operate and affect other words in the same context. Although borderline cases do exist in both lexicology and syntax, e.g., in the case of 'grammatical' or 'function' words, the distinction between the two levels is fairly clear.

A word is the smallest free form (an item that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content) in a language, in contrast to a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning. A word may consist of only one morpheme (e.g. cat), but a single morpheme may not be able to exist as a free form (e.g. the English plural morpheme -s).

Typically, a word will consist of a root or stem, and zero or more affixes. Words can be combined to create other units of language, such as phrases, clauses, and/or sentences. A word consisting of two or more stems joined together form a compound.

The root is the primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Content words in nearly all languages contain, and may consist only of, root morphemes. However, sometimes the term 'root' is also used to describe the word minus its inflectional endings, but with its lexical endings in place. For example, chatters has the inflectional root or lemma chatter, but the lexical root chat. Inflectional roots are often called stems, and a root in the stricter sense may be thought of as a monomorphemic stem. The traditional definition allows roots to be either free morphemes or bound morphemes. Root morphemes are essential for affixation and compounds. However, in polysynthetic languages with very high levels of inflectional morphology, the term 'root' is generally synonymous with 'free morpheme'. Many such languages have a very restricted number of morphemes that can stand alone as a word: Yup'ik, for instance, has no more than two thousand.

The root of a word is a unit of meaning (morpheme) and, as such, it is an abstraction, though it can usually be represented in writing as a word would be. For example, it can be said that the root of the English verb form running is run, or the root of the Spanish superlative adjective amplsimo is ampl-, since those words are clearly derived from the root forms by simple suffixes that do not alter the roots in any way. In particular, English has very little inflection, and hence a tendency to have words that are identical to their roots. But more complicated inflection, as well as other processes, can obscure the root; for example, the root of mice is mouse (still a valid word), and the root of interrupt is, arguably, rupt, which is not a word in English and only appears in derivational forms (such as disrupt, corrupt, rupture, etc.). The root rupt is written as if it were a word, but it's not.

In linguistics, a stem (sometimes also theme) is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings. In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached. Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new stem friendship, to which the inflectional suffix -s is attached. In a variant of this usage, the root of the word (in the example, friend) is not counted as a stem.

In a slightly different usage, which is adopted in the remainder of this article, a word has a single stem, namely the part of the word that is common to all its inflected variants.Thus, in this usage, all derivational affixes are part of the stem. For example, the stem of friendships is friendship, to which the inflectional suffix -s is attached.

Stems may be roots, e.g. run, or they may be morphologically complex, as in compound words (cf. the compound nouns meat ball or bottle opener) or words with derivational morphemes (cf. the derived verbs black-en or standard-ize). Thus, the stem of the complex English noun photographer is photographer, but not photo. For another example, the root of the English verb form destabilized is stabil-, a form of stable that does not occur alone; the stem is destabilize, which includes the derivational affixes de- and -ize, but not the inflectional past tense suffix -(e)d. That is, a stem is that part of a word that inflectional affixes attach to.

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes. Affixation is, thus, the linguistic process speakers use to form new words (neologisms) by adding sounds (affixes) at the beginning (prefixation), the middle (infixation) or the end (suffixation) of words.

Lexicology and lexicography

Both lexicology and lexicography are derived from the Greek work lexiko (adjective from lexis meaning 'speech', or 'way of speaking' or 'word'). The common concern of both of them is 'word' or the lexical unit of a language. Lexicology is derived from lexico 'word' plus logos 'learning or science' i.e. the science of words. Lexicography is lexico 'word' plus graph 'writing' i.e. the writing of words. The etymological meaning of these words speaks for itself the scope of these branches of linguistics. Lexicology is the science of the study of word whereas lexicography is the writing of the word in some concrete form i.e. in the form of dictionary. Lexicology and lexicography are very closely related, rather the latter is directly dependent on the former and may be called applied lexicology.

As already noted, both lexicology and lexicography have a common subject 'word'. The sum total of all the words of a language forms the vocabulary or lexical system of a language. The words of a language are like constellations of stars in the firmament. Every word although having its own independent entity is related to others both paradigmatically and syntagmatically. The paradigmatic relations are based on the interdependence of words within the lexical system. The syntagmatic relations show the relation of words in the patterns of arrangement. In other words the vocabulary of a language is not a chaos of diversified phenomena but consists of elements which, though independent, are related in some way. A word has a particular meaning, it has a particular group of sounds, and a particular grammatical function. As such it is a semantic, phonological and grammatical unit. Lexicology studies a word in all these aspects i.e. the patterns of semantic relationship of words as also their phonological, morphological and contextual behaviour. Words undergo constant change in their form and meaning and lexicology studies the vocabulary of a language in terms of its origin, development and current use. The study of the interrelationship of lexical units is done in terms of the contrasts and similarities existing between them. As a word does not occur in isolation, lexicology studies it with its combinative possibilities. And thus the scope of lexicology includes the study of phraseological units, set combinations etc.

Like general linguistics, of which lexicology is a branch, lexicology can be both historical and descriptive, the former dealing with the origin and development of the form and meaning of the lexical units in a particular languages across time and the latter studying the vocabulary of a language as a system at a particular point of time. But there are many areas in lexicology, where one cannot be studied in isolation, without regard to the other. They are, thus, interdependent.

The lexicological studies can be of two types, viz., general and special. General lexicology is concerned with the general features of words common to all languages. It deals with something like universals in language. Special lexicology on the other hand studies the words with reference to one particular language. Lexicological studies can be, further, of comparative and contrastive type wherein the lexical systems of two languages are studies from a contrastive point of view. Lexicology fulfills the needs of different branches of applied linguistics, viz., lexicography, stylistics, language teaching, etc.

As the vocabulary or the lexical system of a language forms a system of the language as other systems, its study in lexicology should not be separated from the other constituents of the system. So lexicology is closely related to phonetics and grammar.

The relation between phonetics and lexicology is very important. Words consist of phonemes, which, although not having meaning of their own, serve in formation of morphemes, the level where meaning is expressed. So they serve to distinguish between meanings. Moreover, meaning itself is indispensable for phonemic analysis. The difference of meaning in /pIt/ and /pUt/ helps in the fixation of the phonemes /I/ and /U/. Historical phonetics helps in the study of polysemy, homonymy and synonymy.

The link between lexicology and grammar is also very close. Each word has a relation in the grammatical system of a language and belongs to some parts of speech. Lexicology studies this relationship in terms of the grammatical meanings as also their relationship with the lexical meaning. In the field of word formation, lexicology is still more closely related to grammar. Both study the patterns of word formation.

Language is a social phenomenon. The study of language cannot be divorced from the study of the social system and the development in society. The development and progress in the social, political and technological system is manifest in the vocabulary of a language. New words are introduced and old words die out. New meanings are added to words and old meanings are dropped out. Lexicology studies the vocabulary of a language from the sociological points also.

Lexicography also studies the lexicon as lexicology does but 'whereas lexicology concentrates more on general properties and features that can be viewed as systematic, lexicography typically has the so to say individuality of each lexical unit in the focus of its interest'. (Zgusta 1973, 14). Lexicography has been generally defined as the writing or compiling1 of a lexicon or dictionary, the art or practice of writing dictionaries or the science of methods of compiling dictionaries. The word was used as early as 1680. (Oxford English Dictionary/Lexicography).

In lexicology the word is studied as a part of the system. In lexicography it is studied as an individual unit in respect of its meaning and use from the practical point of its use by the reader of the dictionary for learning the language or comprehending texts in it or for any other purpose like checking correct spelling, pronunciation etc. A word may have different and varied characteristic, all of which may not be needed by a lexicographer. His work is guided more by the purpose of the dictionary and the type of the audience. He presents the words of the lexical system in a way so as to make it more practically useable in real life situation i.e. in actual speech. For example lexicology may give the theoretical basis for enumerating different meanings of a polysemous word, but how these meanings are worded and presented in the dictionary is governed by the practical problems of utility of the dictionary for different types of readers. The aim of lexicology is to study the vocabulary of a language as a system, so the treatment of individual units may not claim to be complete because the number of units is very larger. Its goal is systematization in the study as a whole but not completeness as regards individual units. So it cannot claim to be a perfectly systematic treatment. Here, every entry is treated as an independent problem. Lexicologists present their material in sequence according to their view of the study of vocabulary. The lexicographers are mostly guided by the principle of convenience in retrieval of the data and arrange words usually in alphabetical order.

Lexicology provides the theoretical basis of lexicography. The lexicographer although knowing all the semantic details of a lexical unit might, at times, have to take such decisions and include such features in the definition which might be his own observations. In lexicology the study of words is objective, governed by the theories of semantics and word formation. There is no scope for individual aberrations. In lexicography, in spite of all the best attempts on the part of the lexicographer, many a definition become subjective, i.e. they are not free from the bias of the dictionary maker. (cf. the meaning of oats in Johnson's Dictionary.)

General lexicology deals with the universal features of the words of languages. In this sense lexicology is not language specific, whereas lexicography is more or less language specific in spite of its universal theoretical background. Its theories have no other validation except for practical applicability in the compilation of a dictionary.

Whereas lexicology is more theory oriented, lexicography is more concerned with concrete application (i.e. results) of these theories. So 'in a certain sense lexicography may be considered a superior discipline to lexicology, for results are more important than intentions and the value of theoretical principles must be estimated according to results'. (Doroszewski 1973, 36).

Lexicon and Grammar: the relation between lexicon and grammar has been discussed differently. Bloomfield considers grammar and lexicon (dictionary) as two parts of linguistic description and remarks 'lexicon is really an appendix of the grammar, a list of basic irregularities'. (Bloomfield 1933, 274). His statement seems to be inspired by the fact that grammar takes care of all the regular and predictable forms of the language whereas dictionary gives all the irregular and unpredictable forms as also forms with irregular and unpredictable meanings. In other words, it deals with the individual idiosyncracies of a language. The dictionary gives irregular plurals, irregular forms of verbs and other unpredictable forms in the paradigm of the lexical unit. It does not enter regular inflected forms but gives derivational forms. It gives all the lexical units of a language because the relation between the form and the meaning is not predictable. It is arbitrary. It is in this sense that Bloomfield calls dictionary an appendix of grammar and a list of basic irregularities.  The basic difference between the lexicon and the grammar lies in respect of their being open-ended and close-ended. The grammatical rules of a language are internalized by an individual by the age of five or six years. Practically little is added to the grammatical structure afterwards. On the contrary, the acquisition of vocabulary is an ongoing and continuous process and lasts only at the time of death. Every day a new lexical item is added to the lexicon (the inbuilt dictionary - the lexical stock of a language an individual speaker of a language has in himself.) the lexicon is constantly changing. New words are added, some old words are dropped while some others are modified in their signification.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Howard Jackson and Etienne Ze Amvela Words, Meaning and Vocabulary: An Introduction to Modern English Lexicology, Continuum, 2007
2. Reference.com

ANGHEL MADALINA NINA

MASTER, ANUL I. LIMBA ENGLEZA. STUDII TEORETICE SI APLICATE