Word as a central nominative unit

CONTENTS 

Introduction...................................................................................................................3

CHAPTER I. THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF RESEARCHING PROBLEM............5

         1.1 The object of lexicology.........................................................................5

         1.2 Classification of the main lexical units...................................................8

CHAPTER II. WORD AS A CENTRAL NOMINATIVE UNIT OF LANGUAGE...12

         2.1 The definition of the word.....................................................................12

         2.2 Semantic triangle...................................................................................17

         2.3 Types of meaning according to Vinogradov..........................................19

Conclusion....................................................................................................................22

Literature sources..........................................................................................................23

 

INTRODUCTION 

   Nowadays in the time of quick changes in all the spheres of our lives we must be ready for getting to know everything new and quickly add new information to our previous knowledge.

   The constant development of industry, agriculture, trade and transport bring into being new objects and new notions. Words to name them are either borrowed or created from material already existing in the language and it often happens that new meanings are thus acquired by old words.

   The history of a language is traced through recorded variations in the forms and meanings of its words, and languages are proved to be related by reason of their possession of worlds bearing formal and semantic correspondences to each other such as cannot be attributed to mere chance or to recent borrowing. If sound change were not regular, if word-forms were subject to random, inexplicable, and unmotivated variation in the course of time, such arguments would lose their validity and linguistic relations could only be established historically by extralinguistic evidence. To use different word correctly is to understand the variety of meaning and notions of this word, to understand at which level of the language it is mostly used alongside with other units.

   The meaning of a given word or set of words is best understood as the contribution that word or phrase can make to the meaning or function of the whole sentence or linguistic utterance where that word or phrase occurs. The meaning of a given word is governed not only by the external object or idea that particular word is supposed to refer to, but also by the use of that particular word or phrase in a particular way, in a particular context, and to a particular effect.

   Thus, the theme of our work is obviously up-to-date and we hope that all mentioned above proved it.

   For our research we chose the following topic: “Word as a cental nominative unit”.

   The aim of this work is to analyze the background information and the word as a basic nominative unit of the language at sphere of modern lexicology.

   The object is the definition of the word, its types of meaning and the relation of words to the world of things, events and relations outside of language.

   For completing the topic we are to decide upon the following problems that will depict the contents of the work:

• learn some terms in lexicology concerning our topic;
• give classification of the main lexical units;
• describe diffrent characteristics of the word;
• show word connection with its referent.

   The investigation is based mostly on the work with different dictionaries: monolingual, encyclopedias, etymological, and specialised literature in lexicology.

   The relationship between the linguistic lexical meaning and the logical notion deserves special attention not only because they are apt to be confused but also because in comparing and contrasting them it is possible to achieve a better insight into the essence of both.

 

CHAPTER I. THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF RESEARCHING PROBLEM

1.1 The object of lexicology 

   Lexicology is part of linguistics which studies words, their nature and meaning, words' elements, semantical relations between words words groups and the whole lexicon and deals with the lexical components of language [8; 9].

   “Lexicology is the part of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of the language and the properties of words as the main units of language” [2, 9].

   The term lexicology is composed of two Greek morphemes: lexis meaning ‘word, phrase’ (hence lexicos ‘having to do with words’) and logos which denotes ‘learning, a department of knowledge’. Thus, the literal meaning of the term lexicology is ‘the science of the word’. The literal meaning, however, gives only a general notion of the aims and the subject-matter of this branch of linguistic science, since all its other branches also take account of words in one way or another approaching them from different angles. Phonetics, for instance, investigating the phonetic structure of language, i.e. its system of phonemes and intonation patterns, is concerned with the study of the outer sound form of the word. Grammar, which is inseparably bound up with Lexicology, is the study of the grammatical structure of language. It is concerned with the various means of expressing grammatical relations between words and with the patterns after which words are combined into word-groups and sentences.

   Lexicology as a branch of linguistics has its own aims and methods of scientific research, its basic task being a study and systematic description of vocabulary in respect to its origin, development and current use. Lexicology is concerned with words, variable word-groups, phraseological units, and with morphemes which make up words [3, 7].

   The general study of words and vocabulary, irrespective of the specific features of any particular language, is known as general lexicology. Linguistic phenomena and properties common to all languages are generally referred to as language universals. Special lexicology devotes its attention to the description of the characteristic peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language.

   It goes without saying that every special lexicology is based on the principles of general lexicology, and the latter forms a part of general linguistics. Much material that holds good for any language is therefore also included, especially with reference to principles, concepts and terms. The illustrative examples are everywhere drawn from the English language as spoken in Great Britain.

   A great deal has been written in recent years to provide a theoretical basis on which the vocabularies of different languages can be compared and described. This relatively new branch of study is called contrastive lexicology [2, 9].

   The evolution of any vocabulary, as well as of its single elements, forms the object of historical lexicology or etymology. This branch of linguistics discusses the origin of various words, their change and development, and investigates the linguistic and extra-linguistic forces modifying their structure, meaning and usage. In the past historical treatment was always combined with the comparative method.

   Descriptive lexicology deals with the vocabulary of a given language at a given stage of its development. It studies the functions of words and their specific structure as a characteristic inherent in the system. The descriptive lexicology of the English language deals with the English word in its morphological and semantical structures, investigating the interdependence between these two aspects. These structures are identified and distinguished by contrasting the nature and arrangement of their elements [2, 10].

   It will, for instance, contrast the word boy with its derivatives: boyhood, boyish, boyishly, etc. It will describe its semantic structure comprising alongside with its most frequent meaning, such variants as ‘a son of any age’, ‘a male servant’, and observe its syntactic functioning and combining possibilities. This word, for instance, can be also used vocatively in such combinations as old boy, my dear boy, and attributively, meaning ‘male’, as in boy-friend.

   Lexicology also studies all kinds of semantic grouping and semantic relations: synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, semantic fields, etc. Meaning relations as a whole are dealt with in semantics — the study of meaning which is relevant both for lexicology and grammar [2, 10].

   It is a matter of common knowledge that the vocabulary of any language is never stable, never static, but is constantly changing, growing and decaying. The changes in the vocabulary of a language are due both to linguistic and extralinguistic causes or to a combination of both. The extralinguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the language. In this respect there is a tremendous difference between Lexicology, on the one hand, and Phonology, Morphology and Syntax, on the other. Words, to a far greater degree than sounds, grammatical forms, or syntactical arrangements, are subject to change, for the word-stock of a language directly and immediately reacts to changes in social life, to whatever happens in the life of the speech community in question.

   The factor of the social need also manifests itself in the mechanism of word-formation. Among the adjectives with the suffix -y derived from noun stems denoting fabrics (cf. silky, velvety, woolly, etc.) the adjective tweedy stands out as meaning not merely resembling or like tweed but rather ‘of sports style’. It is used to describe the type of appearance (or style of clothes) which is characteristic of a definite social group, namely people going in for country sports. Thus, the adjective tweedy in this meaning defines a notion which is specific for the speech community in question and is, therefore, sociolinguistically conditioned [3, 8-9].

   From the above-adduced examples it follows that in contrast with Phonology, Morphology and Syntax, Lexicology is essentially a sociolinguistic science. The lexicologist should always take into account correlations between purely linguistic facts and the underlying social facts which brought them into existence, his research should be based on establishing scientifically grounded interrelation and points of contact which have come into existence between the language and the social life of the speech community in question. 

   1.2 Classification of the main lexical units 

   It was pointed out before that Lexicology studies various lexical units: morphemes, words, variable word-groups and phraseological units. We proceed from the assumption that the word is the basic unit of language system, the largest on the morphologic and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis. The word is a structural and semantic entity within the language system [3, 9].

   It is significant that many scholars have attempted to define the word as a linguistic phenomenon. Yet none of the definitions can be considered totally satisfactory in all aspects. It is equally surprising that, despite all the achievements of modern science, certain essential aspects of the nature of the word still escape us. Nor do we fully understand the phenomenon called "language", of which the word is a fundamental unit [1, 6].

   The term unit means one of the elements into which a whole may be divided or analysed and which possesses the basic properties of this whole. The units of a vocabulary or lexical units are two-facet elements possessing form and meaning. The basic unit forming the bulk of the vocabulary is the word. Other units are morphemes and set expressions or groups of words into which words may be combined [2, 18].

   A word, however, can be divided into smaller sense units - morphemes. The morpheme is the smallest meaningful language unit. The morpheme consists of a class of variants, allomorphs, which are either phonologically or morphologically conditioned, e.g. please, pleasant, pleasure [6].

   Words are the central elements of language system, they face both ways: they are the biggest units of morphology and the smallest of syntax, and what is more, they embody the main structural properties and functions of the language. Words can be separated in an utterance by other such units and can be used in isolation. Unlike words, morphemes cannot be divided into smaller meaningful units and are functioning in speech only as constituent parts of words. Words are thought of as representing integer concept, feeling or action or as having a single referent. The meaning of morphemes is more abstract and more general than that of words and at the same time they are less autonomous [2, 19].

   It should be pointed out that there is another approach to the concept of the basic language unit. The criticism of this viewpoint cannot be discussed within the framework of the present study. Suffice it to say that here we consistently proceed from the concept of the word as the basic unit in all the branches of Lexicology. Both words and set expression are names for things, namely the names of actions, objects, qualities, etc. Unlike words proper, however, set expressions are word-groups consisting of two or more words whose combination is integrated as a unit with a specialised meaning of the whole. To illustrate, the lexical or to be more exact the vocabulary units tattle, wall, taxi are words denoting various objects of the outer world; the vocabulary units black frost, red tape, a skeleton in the cupboard are set expressions: each is a word-group with a specialised meaning of the whole, namely black frost is ‘frost without snow or rime’, red tape denotes bureaucratic methods, a skeleton in the cupboard refers to a fact of which a family is ashamed and which it tries to hide [3, 9-10].

   Set expressions are word groups consisting of two or more words whose combination is integrated so that they are introduced in speech, so to say, ready-made as units with a specialised meaning of the whole that is not understood as a mere sum total of the meanings of the elements.

   In the spelling system of the language words are the smallest units of written discourse: they are marked off by solid spelling. The ability of an average speaker to segment any utterance into words is sustained by literacy. Yet it is a capacity only reinforced by education: it is well known that every speaker of any language is always able to break any utterance into words. The famous American linguist E. Sapir testified that even illiterate American Indians were perfectly capable of dictating to him — when asked to do so — texts in their own language “word by word”. The segmentation of a word into morphemes, on the other hand, presents sometimes difficulties even for trained linguists.

   Many authors devoted a good deal of space to discussing which of the two: the word or the morpheme is to be regarded as the basic unit. Many American linguists (Ch. Hockett or Z. Harris, for instance) segmented an utterance into morphemes ignoring words. Soviet lexicologists proceed from the assumption that it is the word that is the basic unit, especially as all branches of linguistic knowledge and all levels of language have the word as their focal point. A convincing argumentation and an exhaustive review of literature is offered by A. A. Ufimtseva (1980).

   If, however, we look now a little more closely into this problem, we shall see that the boundaries separating these three sets of units are sometimes fluid. Every living vocabulary is constantly changing adapting itself to the functions of communication in the changing world of those who use it. In this process the vocabulary changes not only quantitatively by creating new words from the already available corpus of morphemes and according to existing patterns but also qualitatively. In these qualitative changes new morphemic material and new word-building patterns come into being, and new names sometimes adapt features characteristic of other sets, those of groups of words, for instance [2, 19].

   Orthographic words are written as a sequence of letters bounded by spaces on a page. Yet, there exist in the English vocabulary lexical units that are not identical with orthographic words but equivalent to them. Almost any part of speech contains units indivisible either syntactically or in terms of meaning, or both, but graphically divided. A good example is furnished by complex prepositions: along with, as far as, in spite of, except for, due to, by means of, for the sake of, etc.

   The same point may be illustrated by phrasal verbs, so numerous in English: bring up ‘to educate’, call on ‘to visit’, make up ‘to apply cosmetics’, ‘to reconcile after a disagreement’ and some other meanings, put off “to postpone’. The semantic unity of these verbs is manifest in the possibility to substitute them by orthographically single-word verbs. Though formally broken up, they function like words and they are integrated semantically so that their meaning cannot be inferred from their constituent elements. The same is true about phrasal verbs consisting of the verbs give, make, take and some others used with a noun instead of its homonymous verb alone: give a smile, make a promise, take a walk (cf. to smile, to promise, to walk).

   Some further examples are furnished by compound nouns. Sometimes they are not joined by solid spelling or hyphenation but written separately, although in all other respects they do not differ from similar one-word nominations. By way of example let us take some terms for military ranks. The terms lieutenant-commander and lieutenant-colonel are hyphenated, whereas wing commander and flight lieutenant are written separately. Compare also such inconsistencies as all right and altogether, never mind and nevertheless.

   All these are, if not words, then at least word equivalents because they are indivisible and fulfil the nominative, significative, communicative and pragmatic functions just as words do [2, 20].

   It is worth while dwelling for a moment on formulaic sentences which tend to be ready-made and are characterised by semantic unity and indivisibility: All right, Allow me, Nothing doing, Never mind, How do you do, Quite the contrary. They are learned as unanalysable wholes and can also be regarded as word equivalents.

   To sum up: the vocabulary of a language is not homogeneous. If we view it as a kind of field, we shall see that its bulk, its central part is formed by lexical units possessing all the distinctive features of words, i.e. semantic, orthographic and morphological integrity as well as the capacity of being used in speech in isolation. The marginal elements of this field reveal only some of these features, and yet belong to this set too. Thus, phrasal verbs, complex prepositions, some compounds, phraseological units, formulaic expressions, etc. are divided in spelling but are in all other respects equivalent to words. Morphemes, on the other hand, a much smaller subset of the vocabulary, cannot be used as separate utterances and are less autonomous in other respects but otherwise also function as lexical items [2, 20].

 

CHAPTER II. WORD AS A CENTRAL NOMINATIVE

UNIT OF LANGUAGE

   2.1 The definition of the word 

   Although the borderline between various linguistic units is not always sharp and clear, we shall try to define every new term on its first appearance at once simply and unambiguously, if not always very rigorously. The approximate definition of the term word has already been given.