Lexicology is a science that focuses on the vocabulary of a particular language. It has its own laws and categories. What does lexicology study? This science deals with various aspects of words, as well as their functions and development.
Concept
Lexicology is a science that studies the vocabulary of a language and its features. The subject of this section of linguistics is the following:
- Functions of lexical units.
- The problem of the word as a basic constituent element of the language.
- Types and kinds of lexical units.
- The structure of the vocabulary of the language.
This is not a complete list of what lexicology studies. This science deals with the replenishment and expansion of the vocabulary, and also considers the connections and contradictions between lexical units.
Object of study
The word and its meaning is the basis for many sciences. Morphology deals with these issues, as well as various areas of word formation. However, if in these sciences words are a means of studying grammatical structures or studying various patternsfor different variants of word formation, what lexicology studies is used directly for knowing the specifics of the words themselves. Lexical units are considered not just as a set of letters and sounds, but are an integral system that has its own connections, functions, categories and concepts. This is the object of study of lexicology. She considers not individual words, but the entire vocabulary as something whole and inseparable.
This approach has its own characteristics. This allows us to classify not only words, but also set phrases that have a certain analytical role as lexical units.
Word problem
The lexicology of the modern Russian language focuses on the object and subject of its study. Since the word is considered as a certain unit that has connections between its form and content, it is considered in three main aspects:
- Structural. The form of the word, its structure and constituent components are studied.
- Semantic. The meaning of lexical units is considered.
- Functional. The role of words in speech and in the general structure of the language is investigated.
If we talk about the first aspect, then lexicology is a science that establishes specific criteria for determining the difference and identity of individual words. To do this, lexical units are compared with phrases, and an analytical structure is developed that allows you to establish word invariants.
Regarding semanticaspect, then a separate science is engaged in this - semasiology. It studies the relationship between a word and a particular object. This is important for lexicology. It studies the word and its meaning, as well as its individual categories and types, which allows us to distinguish such concepts as monosimy (uniqueness) and polysimy (polysemy). Lexicology also deals with the study of the causes that lead to the appearance or loss of a word of its meaning.
The functional aspect considers a lexical unit as an object that is associated with other similar elements and builds a whole language system. Here the role of the interaction of vocabulary and grammar is important, which, on the one hand, support, and on the other hand, limit each other.
Vocabulary concept
Lexicology considers words as a system that consists of several subsystems. Lexical units form groups that are different in volume, form and content. This is part of what lexicology studies. Vocabulary is studied simultaneously in two aspects: as a group relationship between individual units and their correct arrangement in relation to each other. Thanks to this, vocabulary can be divided into separate categories. For example, homonyms, paronyms, synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, etc.
Additionally, almost any section of linguistics, including Russian or English lexicology, studies more voluminous groupings of words, which are called fields. This is usually built around the core of the field, for example, a certain number of keywords, and the boundaries themselves, which are various paradigmatic, semantic, grammatical or other types of relations with these lexical units.
Sections of lexicology
Like any other science, lexicology has its own system of disciplines that are responsible for certain aspects of its object and subject of study:
- Semasiology. Deals with the meanings of words and phrases.
- Onomasiology. Studying the procedure for naming objects and phenomena.
- Etymology. Explores the origin of words.
- Onomastics. Deals with proper names. This applies to both people's names and place names.
- Style. Learns the meaning of words and expressions of a connotative nature.
- Lexicography. Engaged in ways of organizing and compiling dictionaries.
- Phraseology. Explores phraseological units and persistent expressions.
Sections of lexicology have their own categories, as well as the object and subject of study. In addition, some types of this science are distinguished. In particular, we are talking about general, particular, historical, comparative and applied lexicology. The first type is responsible for the general laws of vocabulary, including its structure, stages of development, functions, etc. Private lexicology deals with the study of a particular language. The historical type is responsible for the development of words in connection with the history of the names of objects and phenomena. Comparative lexicology examines words in order to identify kinship between different languages. The last type is responsible for suchprocesses such as speech culture, translation features, linguistic pedagogy and lexicography.
Categories of lexical items
The vocabulary of any language is diverse and heterogeneous. Accordingly, there are categories that have their own distinctive features and characteristics. Russian lexicology foresees the following subtypes:
- By scope: commonly used words and lexical units that are used in special situations (science, poetry, vernacular, dialects, etc.).
- By emotional load: neutral and emotional units.
- On historical development: neologisms and archaisms.
- By origin and development: internationalisms, borrowings, etc.
- By functionality - active and passive lexical units, as well as occasionalisms.
Given the constant development of the language, the boundaries between words are fuzzy, and they can move from one group to another.
Problems
Like any other science, lexicology deals with certain problems. Modern experts distinguish the following:
- Frequency of words in the text.
- The difference between lexical units in writing and in speech.
- Possibilities of words that allow you to create new names for objects and phenomena.
- Changing vocabulary values.
Science also studies word compatibility options at different levels: semantic andlexical.
Ways to increase vocabulary
Lexicology deals with the study of variants of nominations. This is understood as various ways and methods of expanding the vocabulary. For this, both the internal resources of a particular language and the attraction of lexical units from other languages can be used. There are the following ways to replenish the vocabulary:
- Word formation is the creation of new words.
- Construction of new meanings for existing words: polysemy, meaning transfer, etc.
- Formation of persistent phrases.
- Borrowing.
These methods are typical for any language, but in each case they have their own characteristics and distinctive features.
Methods
For its needs, lexicology uses general linguistic research methods. These include:
- Distribution. Responsible for determining the scope of a lexical unit, for the number of values, etc.
- Substitution. He studies the phenomena of synonymy and variation of words.
- Component method. Responsible for splitting lexical units into separate components, and also deals with their general structure.
- Transformation. Used in the process of word formation to determine the main component of the word.
- Statistical method. Used to determine the frequency of use of lexical units, as well as to calculate their semantic, paradigmatic and other types of relationships.
Information,obtained using these methods is also used in other sciences, including psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, as well as a number of disciplines of a social nature.
