3. General characteristics of the English vocabulary.

The total word stock of language is called lexicon or vocabulary. There exists such a notion that is so called unabridged dictionary records all the words of the language but the lexicon of English open-ended. Its not even theoretically possible to record it as a closed system. Its impossible to say for sure the exact number of vocabulary units because of the constant growth of the Modern English word stock.

Any language is not static it undergoes various changes. Vocabulary like any other system of the language is subjected to different changes. These changes occur due to linguistic and nonlinguistic causes. The progress of science and technology, appearance of new concepts in different fields of human activity, different political, cultural events bring changes to the vocabulary. The development of the English vocabulary is especially rapid in the last 30 years due to advances of technology, science, communication media.

In the last 20 years there appeared specialized vocabulary of radio, tv, aviation, cosmonautics etc. (to belly land – приземлиться без шасси; sit-in – сидящая забастовка).

The development of the vocabulary includes not only the appearance of new words but the contrary process too. Words may drop out altogether as a result of disappearance of the actual object they denote.

Some English words drop out as a result of the influence of different foreign borrowings French “army” and “place” replaced the old English words “here, staps”. Sometimes words do not actually drop out but become obsolete. They are used in narrow specialized fields of human intercourse. They make a group of archaisms. Eg. slay – to kill; sterd – horse.

Other words are used as historical terms.

Yet the number of new words that appear is many times greater than that of dropping out or become obsolete. That is why the development of vocabulary is a process of neverending growth.

Compare the number of vocabulary units of Old English. It didn`t exceed 30-40 thousand words, while the vocabulary of modern English is 10 times larger.

The development of the vocabulary is studied by Historic Lexicology and we shall study the Modern English vocabulary.

Modern English vocabulary is not homogeneous it consists of various groups of words. Grouping of words is based upon different principles.

• if we take origin as the main distinctive feature we shall see the word stock may be divided into 2 main sets:

• native (lord, lady)

• borrowed (garage, boulevard)

The number of borrowed elements in Modern English is several times greater than that of native. It occurred due to historical reasons. Words of native and borrowed character have their on features.

- if we take structure as the main distinctive feature we`ll see that in the vocabulary monosyllabic words prevail in number. The characteristic feature of monosyllabic words is their ability to have many meanings they are polysemantic. (to set – has at least 10 meanings; to get -50).

In general very few words in English are monosemantic, they are as a rule terms. But the absolute majority of English words is polysemantic. Polysemy is the most characteristic feature of Modern English.

• Another typical feature of the English language vocabulary is a great number of homonyms (lead – lead [led]). According to the latest statistic data the number of homonyms in “Oxford English Dictionary” makes approximately 16-18% in the lest of 2540 homonyms 89% are monosyllable words and only 9,1% are words of two syllables.

Grouping of words may be based upon similarity or polarity of words:

- synonyms

- antonyms

Synonyms differ in style, in use, in the shade of meaning. English is exceeding by rich in synonyms.

• Words of the English vocabulary differ in the sphere they are used. Some words are good enough to be used in a lecture, in a poem, in a conversation. They are called stylistically neutral they constitute the greater part of the vocabulary. Stylistically neutral words are opposed to stylistically marked. Stylistically colored words are suitable in the specifical sphere.

• In addition to terms a text of some special problem usually contains a considerable proportion of so called learned words such as approximate, commence, exclude etc. The term colloquial is old enough. The term literary colloquial is used to denote the vocabulary used by educated people in the course of ordinary conversation or when writing letters to intimate friends.

Low colloquial is a term used for illiterate popular speech.

Other vocabulary layers below the level of standard educated speech are beside low colloquial the so-called slang, argot, professionalism, sarconism. Each layers is not separated from the others by boundaries because the word may shift from the part to another.

4. Synchronic and diachronic approaches to the study of languages.

There are 2 principle approaches to the study of language material in linguistic science, namely synchronic and diachronic. With regard to lexicology the synchronic approach is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as it exists of a given time, for example at the present time. The diachronic approach deals with the changes and the development of the vocabulary in the course of time. It should be stressed however that 2 approaches should not be contrasted in fact, they are interconnected and interdependent: the synchronic state of a language system is a result of a long process of historical development. Language is the reality of thought and thought develops together with the development of society, therefore language and its vocabulary must be studied in the light of social history. Every new phenomenon in human society and human activity in general which is of any importance for communication, finds a reflection in vocabulary.

Although the important distinction between diachronic and a synchronic, a linguistic and an extralinguistic approach must always be borne in mind, yet it is of paramount importance to take in consideration that in language reality all the aspects are independent and cannot be understood one without the other.

Methods of investigation.

As any science lexicology has its own object, terminology and methods of investigation. There are several stages of investigation:

• an early and basic stage is observation the center of what is called the inductive method of inquiry it must be based upon observation but not only on supposition.

• classification must meet the following requirements:

1. a single principle of classification

2. classification must reflect the main features the elements described

3. it must cover all the elements of the same order.

4. Must have objective criteria for singling out described elements.

• generalization – the data collected and classified must lead to the formation of a generalization or hypotheses. Such generalization must be helpful in making reliable prediction. In order to obtain correctness of all the 3 stages mentioned above it is important to use different lexicological investigations.

In most present day methods of lexicological analysis words are studied by placing them or rather considering them in larger units of context; a word is defined by its functioning within a phrase or a sentence. This functional approach is attempted in contextual analysis, semantic syntax and some other branches of linguistics. The contextual method of linguistic research holds its own alongside statistical, structural and other developments.

Componential analysis is an attempt to describe the meaning of words in terms of a universal inventory of semantic components and their possible combinations.

Structural analysis reveals patterns observed in other words of the same language morphemic analysis practically coincides with the structural word-formation analysis.

A synchronic morphological analysis is most effectively accomplished by the procedure known as the analysis into immediate constituents. Immediate constituents are any of the two meaningful parts forming a larger linguistic unity.

The method is based on the fact that a word characterized by morphological divisibility (analyzable into morphemes, is involved in certain structural correlations.

Transformational analysis reveals semantic similarity or difference of words by the possibility or impossibility of transforming them according to a prescribed model and following certain rules into a different form called their transform.

The contrasted analysis, statistical method, distributional analysis method of semantic differenciation are used in the investigations in lexicology.