Lexical units.

Linguistics is not a science in the full sense of the word. However, many linguists aim to make it a science. Any branch of re search must define its basic units.

Lexicology is associated with such terms as lexical item or unit, then with the term lexeme.

Lexeme is an abstract unit.

1. Narrow interpretation — it is a notion word.

2. Broad interpretation — …+idioms, lexical phrases.

In English lexeme may be a single word, a group of words, compounds (blackboard), idioms or shortened forms (flu, UK).

Aristotle — word is the smallest significant part of speech.

Blumfield — word is a minimum free form.

Ullmann — word is the smallest unit of language capable of building an utterance.

Computer — word is a sequence of graphics which can occur between spaces.

It is obvious that the term word must be defined afresh within a system of every language. As a result the word as an element of speech is language specific, not language universal.

There are word variants:

1. Regional — colour/ color, centre/ center;

2. Phonetic variants;

3. Morphological.

3. Etymological survey of the English lexicon.

The etymological structure of the English vocabulary: its mixed character.

The term “etymology” comes from Greek and it means the study of the earliest forms of the word. Now etymology studies both: the form and the meaning of borrowed and native words. In every modern language there are native and borrowed words. It is quite natural and logical because contacts between people, and peoples are lead to the process of borrowing. As for English language many scientist consider the foreign influence to be the most important factor in the development of the Eng. language. There are more borrowed words in English than in any other European language. So we speak of the mixed character of the English vocabulary. It contains the native element and the borrowed elements. The native element includes Indo-European, Germanic element and English proper element: boy, girl, lord, lady – proper English word.

Words of native origin and the role they play in the English vocabulary.

By the native element we mean words which were not borrowed from other languages. The number of native words is rather small, about 25%-30%. About 70% of words are borrowed. This fact gave ground to the assumption that English is not a Germanic language, but a Romenic-Germanic language.

Today the accepted point of view is that Eng. is a Germanic language and the mixed character of its vocabulary is one of its main features. It can be proved by the fact that in speech the correlation between native and borrow words is different. It was found out that in the works of English classics about 80% of words are native. (prepositions, modal and auxiliary verbs, a great many irregular verbs, some nouns and adjectives denoting everyday notions). The native element include Indo-European, Germanic and English proper words. Indo-European words have cognates in other I-E languages. EG: English words of this group denote elementary concepts without which no human communication would be possible. day, night, mother, father, son, daughter.

Germanic words have cognates in modern Germanic languages. EG: They denote parts of human body: hand, head, arm, bone. Animals: fox, bear.

English proper words don’t have any cognates in other languages: lord, lady, boy, girl.