THE NOTION OF LEXICAL SYSTEM

The term system as used in present-day lexicology denotes not merely the sum total of English words, it denotes a set of elements associated and functioning together according to certain laws. It is a coherent homogeneous whole, constituted by interdependent elements of the same order related in certain specific ways. The vocabulary of a language is moreover an adaptive system constantly adjusting itself to the changing requirements and conditions of human communications and cultural surroundings. It is continually developing by overcoming contradictions between its state and the new tasks and demands it has to meet.

A set is described in the abstract set theory as a collection of definite distinct objects to be conceived as a whole. A set is said to be a collection of distinct elements, because a certain object may be distinguished from the other elements in a set, but there is no possibility of its repeated appearance. A set is called structured when the number of its elements is greater than the number of rules according to which these elements may be constructed. A set is given either by indicating, i.e. listing, all its elements, or by stating the characteristic property of its elements. For example the closed set of English articles may be defined as comprising the elements: the, a/an and zero. The set of English compounds on the other hand is an infinite (open) set containing all the words consisting of at least two stems which occur in the language as free forms.

The lexical system of every epoch contains productive elements typical of this particular period, others that are obsolete and dropping out of usage, and, finally, some new phenomena, significant marks of new trends for the epochs to come. The present status of a system is an abstraction, a sort of scientific fiction which in some points can facilitate linguistic study, but the actual system of the language is in a state of constant change.

Lexicology studies this whole by determining the properties of its elements and the different relationships of contrast and similarity existing between them within a language, as well as the ways in which they are influenced by extra-linguistic reality.

The extra-linguistic relationships refer to the connections of words with the elements of objective reality they serve to denote, and their dependence on the social, mental and cultural development of the language community.

Even though its elements are concrete and can be observed as such, a system is always abstract, and so is the vocabulary system or, as Academician V.V. Vinogradov has called it, the lexico-semantic system. The interdependence in this system results from a complex interaction of words in their lexical meanings and the grammatical features of the language.

V.V. Vinogradov includes in this term both the sum total of words and expressions and the derivational and functional patterns of word forms and word-groups, semantic groupings and relationships between words. The interaction of various levels in the language system may be illustrated in English by the following: the widespread development of homonymy and polysemy, the loss of motivation, the great number of generic words and the very limited autonomy of English words as compared with Russian words are all closely connected with the mono-morphemic analytical character of the English language and the scarcity of morphological means. All these in their turn result, partly at least, from levelling and loss of endings, processes undoubtedly connected with the reduction of vowels in unstressed syllables.

The term sуstem as applied to vocabulary should not be understood to mean a well-defined or rigid system. As it has been stated above it is an adaptive system and cannot be completely and exactly characterised 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 not simply a probabilistic system but a set of interrelated adaptive subsystems.

All elements of the system have certain types of relationships between them. They are: syntagmatic, paradigmatic.

A word enters into syntagmatic (linear) combinatorial relationships with other lexical units that can form its context, serving to identify and distinguish its meaning. Lexical units are known to be context-dependent. E. g. in the hat on her head the noun head means ‘part of the body’, whereas in the head of the department Head means ‘chief. A word enters into contrastive paradigmatic relations with all other words, e. g. head, chief, director, etc. that can occur in the same context and be contrasted to it.

Syntagmatic relationships being based on the linear character of speech are studied by means of contextual, valency, distributional, transformational and some other types of analysis.

Paradigmatic linguistic relationships determining the vocabulary system are based on the interdependence of words within the vocabulary (synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, etc.).

So, the course of English L. may be subdivided into two main parts: the treatment of the English word as a structure, the treatment of the Engl. vocabulary as a system.

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