Ex. to beg and beggar

Lexicology as a branch of linguistics. Its main aspects and links with other branches of linguistics.

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics, the science of language.

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’.

Lexiсolоgу is ‘the science of the word. L. studies words as a system.

L. is concerned with words, variable word-groups, phraseological units, and with morphemes which make up words.

The object of L. is the English language lexicon.

The aim of L. is to systematicallydescribe the English vocabulary in respect to its origin, development and current use.

Types of L.

1. Distinction is naturally made between General Lexicology and Special Lexicology.

General L. is part of General Linguistics; it is concerned with the study of vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language. (any language)

Special L. is the Lexicology of a particular language (e.g. English, Russian, etc.), i.e. the study and description of its vocabulary and vocabulary units, primarily words as the main units of language. Needless to say that every Special Lexicology is based on the principles worked out and laid down by General Lexicology, a general theory of vocabulary.

2. Synchronic (Gr. syn — ‘together, with’ and chronos — ‘time’) and diachronic (Gr. dia — ‘through’) approaches.

The synchronic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists at a given time, for instance, at the present time. (modal verbs 17 в.). It is special Desсriptive Lexicology that deals with the vocabulary and vocabulary units of a particular language at a certain time.

The diachronic deals with the changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time. It is special Historical Lexicology that deals with the evolution of the vocabulary units of a language as time goes by.

The two approaches should not be contrasted, or set one against the other; in fact, they are intrinsically interconnected and interdependent: every linguistic structure and system actually exists in a state of constant development so that the synchronic state of a language system is a result of a long process of linguistic evolution, of its historical development.

Ex. to beg and beggar

Synchronically, the words to beg and beggar are related as a simple and a derived word, the noun beggar being the derived member of the pair, for the derivative correlation between the two is the same as in the case of to sing — singer, to teach — teacher, etc. When we approach the problem diachronically, however, we learn that the noun beggar was borrowed from Old French and only presumed to have been derived from a shorter word, namely the verb to beg, as in the English language agent nouns are commonly derived from verbs with the help of the agent suffix - er.

Closely connected with Historical Lexicology is Contrastive and Comparative Lexicology whose aims are to study the correlation between the vocabularies of two or more languages, and find out the correspondences between the vocabulary units of the languages under comparison.

The word is in the centre of investigation.

Word is a central unit of speech, it is a smallest autonomous (it can move around in the sentence more or less) meaningful unit of L. It is a 2faced unit (form+meaning). A morpheme is also a 2facet, meaningful unit, but not autonomous.

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