Introduction to Lexicology Quiz

Lexicology and its Connection to Grammar, Stylistics, and Phonetics

• Lexicology is the branch of Linguistics that studies the vocabulary of a language and the characteristic features of lexical units.
• The word is the minimal meaningful unit of language, a two-plane linguistic sign with both form (expression) and meaning (content).

Words and their Motivation

• Phonetical motivation: based on similarity between sounds in a word and the sounds they denote (e.g., boom, splash, whistle).
• Morphological motivation: based on the connection between morphological structure and meaning (e.g., poetess, overestimate, regain).
• Semantic motivation: based on co-existence of direct and figurative meaning (e.g., foot of a page, eye of a needle).

Branches of Lexicology

• General Lexicology: studies words and vocabulary, regardless of specific language features.
• Special Lexicology: studies the vocabulary of a particular language.
• Etymology: studies the origin of words and historical changes in meanings.
• Semasiology: deals with semantic structure and development of meanings.
• Word-building: studies the process of creating new words and their structural and semantic patterns.
• Phraseology: studies word-groups with specialized meanings.
• Borrowing: deals with adopting and assimilating words from other languages.

Connection with Grammar, Stylistics, and Phonetics

• Grammatical forms can affect the lexical meaning of a word (e.g., glass, glasses).
• Lexical meaning can affect grammatical forms and syntactical functions (e.g., come true, turn red).
• Differentiation of vocabulary according to functional styles of language connects Lexicology to Stylistics.
• Phonetics influences the signification of words on the acoustic level, distinguishing between meanings (e.g., bat, hat).
• Lexicology connects with Grammar, Stylistics, and Phonetics in studying the characteristics of words.