Basic linguistic problems in lexicology.
Variants and dialects of modern English.
Semasiology and semantic classification of words.
Word groups and phraseological units.
Word structure and word formation.
Etymological survey of the English word-stock.
Interdependence and interaction of structural, semantico-stylistic and etymological features of words.
Replenishment of the modern English word-stock.
Fundamentals of English lexicography.
The definition of a word is one of the difficulties, because word has different aspects: a sound form, because it is a certain arrangement of phonemes, morphological structure, being always a certain arrangement of morphemes, used in actual speech, it may occur in different word forms and express various meanings.
Word – is one of the fundamental units of language. It is a dialectical unity of form and content. Its content is not identical to notion, but it may reflect human notions, and in this sense may be considered as the form of their existence. Notions, fixed in meanings of words, are formed as generalized and approximately correct reflections of reality, so words reflect reality in their content. The acoustic aspect of a word serves to name the objects of reality but not to reflect them. In this sense the word may be regarded as a sign. This sign, however, is not arbitrary but motivated by the whole process of its development. When a word first comes into existence, it is always built out of the elements already existing in the language and according to the existing patterns, otherwise it cannot be understood and will be useless in the process of communication.
In modern English there are 3 types of motivation of the word, which denote the relationship between the morphemic and phonetic composition, structure pattern \nd meaning:
phonetical motivation
morphological motivation
semantic motivation.
There are many problems in English lexicology, which arise before the linguists. Modern English lexicology aims at giving a systematic description of the word-stock of modern English.
Words, morphemes and various types of word groups known as phraseological units are subjected to structural and semantic analysis from the synchronic point of view. Modern English lexicology studies the problems of word structure and word formation, the semantic structure of words, main principles of classifying vocabulary units in groups, laws, governing the replenishment of the vocabulary.
It also studies relations between various layers of English vocabulary, specific laws and regulations that govern the development of vocabulary at present time.
English lexicography
Compiling dictionaries or lexicons containing an alphabetical arrangement of the words with a definition is called lexicography.
It has a common object of study with lexicology as both describe the vocabulary of a language.
The main problems of lexicography.
The most burning problems of lexicography are connected with the selection of head-words, the arrangement and content of the vocabulary entry, the principles of sense definitions and the semantic and functional classification of words.
There are 2 main problems.
Selection of words and the number of dictionary entries.
Structure and content of a dictionary entry (in different types of dictionaries).
A distinctly modern criterion in selection of entries is the frequency of the words to be included. When the problem of selection is settled, there is the question as to which of the selected units have the right to a separate entry and which are to be included under one common head-word.
The difference in number of entries for an equal bulk of vocabulary may also depend on different approach to the regularly formed derivatives.
The arrangement of vocabulary entry presents many problems, of which the most important are the differentiation and sequence of various meanings of a polysemantic word. A historical dictionary is primarily concerned with the development of the English vocabulary. A descriptive dictionary dealing with current usage has to face its own specific problems. It has to apply structural point of view and give preference to the most important meanings. A synchronic dictionary should also show the distribution of every word.
There are some other problems of dictionary compiling:
Place of phraseological units in the dictionary.
Place of homonyms in dictionary entries.