Summary and Conclusions

1. The comparative value and place of the word in the vocabulary system is conditioned by the interdependence of the structural, semantic, stylistic and etymological aspects of the words which is brought out most vividly in the frequency value attached to each word.

2. On the basis of the interrelation of lexical and grammatical types of meaning words fall into two classes: notional words and form words— a numerically small class of words with the highest frequency value.

¹ Some figures found in Pierre Guiraud's book Les caracteres sialisitques du vocabulai-re (Presses Universitatres de France, 1954) may be of interest to language learners The counts conducted by the author show that out of 20,000 words the first 100 most frequently occurring words make up 60% of any text, 1,000— 85%; 4,000—97,5%, all the rest (about 15,000)— 2,5%.

3. Words of high frequency value are mostly characterized by polysemy, structural simplicity, neutral stylistic reference and emotive Charge. They generally belong either to the native words or to the early borrowings which are already fully or almost fully assimilated.

4. Frequency also reflects the interdependence and comparative importance of individual meanings within the word. The basic meaning of the word is at the same time the meaning with the highest frequency value.

5. The development of vocabulary is largely due to the rapid flow of events, the progress of science and technology and emergence of new concepts in different fields of human activity.

6. Distinction should be made between the qualitative growth of the vocabulary as a result of semantic extension of the already available words and the numerical replenishing of vocabulary as a result of appearance of new vocabulary units.

7. There are three principal ways of the numerical growth of vocabulary: a) productive word-formation, b) various non-patterned ways of word creation, c) borrowings.

8. Productive word-formation is the most powerful source of the numerical growth of present-day English vocabulary.

There are various ways of non-patterned word creation. The two main types are lexicalization and shortening.

9. The two main types of shortening are: a) transformations of word-groups into words which involve substantivization, acronyms and blendings and b) clippings which consist in a change of the word-structure.

10. Borrowing as a source of vocabulary extension takes the shape of borrowing of morphemes, borrowing of actual words and loan-translations. Especially active nowadays is the formation of new words out of borrowed morphemes.

11. The exact number of vocabulary units in Modern English cannot be stated with any degree of certainty for a number of reasons:

a) Constant growth of Modern English word-stock.

b) Intrinsic heterogeneity of Modern English vocabulary.

c) Divergent views concerning the nature of basic vocabulary units connected with some crucial debatable problems of lexicology: homonymy, polysemy, phraseology, nonce-words.

d) The absence of a sharp and distinct border-line between English and foreign words and between modern and outdated English vocabulary units.

12. There is a considerable difference between the number of vocabulary units in Modern English word-stock and the number of vocabulary items in actual use.

The selection and number of vocabulary items for teaching purposes depends on the aims set before language learners.

Поиск по сайту: