Краткий курс лекций по лексикологии английского языка для студентов неязыковых вузов. Москалёва Е.В. - 17 стр.

                                     Lecture 2
                    General Characteristics of English Vocabulary.

                Plan
                I. Lexico-Symantic system.
                II. The volume of the vocabulary. The basic word-stock.
                III. Archaisms.
                IV. Neologisms.

                   I. Lexicology studies the recurrent patterns of semantic
            relationships, and of any formal phonological, morphological or
            contextual means by which they may be rendered. It aims at
            systematization.
                   It has been claimed by different authors that, in contrast to
            grammar, the vocabulary of a language is not systematic but
            chaotic. In the light of recent investigations in linguistic theory,
            however, we are now in a position to bring some order into the
            “chaos”. We call vocabulary systematic because the sum total of
            all words in it may be considered as a structured set of
            interdependent and interrelated elements.
                   The term “system” as applied to vocabulary should not be
            taken rigidly. The vocabulary system cannot be completely and
            exactly characterized by deterministic functions; that is for the
            present state of science it is not possible to specify the system’s
            entire future by its status at some one instant of its operation. In
            other words, the vocabulary is a probabilistic system, or rather a
            set of interrelated probabilistic systems. An approximation is
            always made possible by leaving some things out of account. But
            we have to remember that the rules of language are mostly
            analogies. Where different analogies are in conflict, one may
            appear as a constraint on the working of another. The following
            simple example illustrates this point: the regular, that is
            statistically predominant, pattern for adjective stems is to form
            abstract nouns by means of the suffix –ness: shortness,
            narrowness, shallowness. All the antonyms of the above-
            mentioned words, however, follow a different pattern: they have a

                                                                              17


PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com