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Question 1

What is lexicology?

Answer 1

Linguistic discipline concerned with the nature of language, its structure, origin, relations, and the use of words.

Question 2

The study of lexicology includes the following disciplines:

Answer 2

a) onomasiology
b) semasiology
c) word-formation
d) etymology
e) phraseology
f) lexicography

Question 3

What is the difference between onomasiology and semasiology?

Answer 3

Onomasiology:
Is the study of naming the objects of extra-lingual reality - starts from a concept (e.g. an object) and tries to name it
Semasiology:
Is the study of meaning - starts with a word and asks about its meaning

Question 4

What types of words can we distinguish?

Answer 4

a) Ortographic
-> words with different spelling (words with different spelling and different meaning; words with different spelling but the same meaning)
b) Phonological
-> words with different phonological structures are considered different phonological words
c) Lexical
-> abstractions consisting of a group of variant forms with the same basic meaning
d) Grammatical
-> all forms with different grammatical categories and meanings are different grammatical words
e) Semantic
-> one word-form can have different meanings

Question 5

Define the term lexeme:

Answer 5

Abstraction consisting of a group of variant forms with the same basic meaning
e.g: is, am, was, were = lexeme ‘be’

Question 6

Why does the process of naming the units of extra-lingual reality lead to different results in different language communities?

Answer 6

Because of arbitrariness and abstraction = lexeme usually lacks any physical correspondence with the objects, states, processes… of the reality to which it refers. For example the word book doesnt give us any information about the shape or colour of the object it is naming, thus different languages name different objects differently because of arbitrariness.

Question 7

What are the main features of lexemes (naming units)?

Answer 7

a) arbitrariness
b) conventionality
c) tendency towards universality and abstraction
d) motivation

Question 8

What is the difference between conventionality and arbitrariness?

Answer 8

Arbitrariness:
Lexeme lacks physical correspondence with the objects of the reality to which it refers (the sound form buk and the concept of the book is arbitrary*
- onomatopoeic words (words motivated by sound) are exceptions (woof woof)
Conventionality
Lexemes are a matter of agreement and convention accepted by the members of a given community.
- the relationship between the sound form and the concept can be, in some cases, non-arbitrary (woof woof) but the non-arbitrary sound forms are still conventional, because they represent particular forms agreed upon by the members of a society

Question 9

Name the 3 main types of motivation:

Answer 9

a) phonetic motivation
- the word imitates a sound existing in the extra-lingual reality (woof woof)
b) morphological motivation
- new word is based on the morphemes already existing in a language (rewrite = re+write)
c) semantic motivation
- the new word (its meaning) is based on an already existing word, and the new meaning is derived from the original one ( a hand = human hand -> a hand of a clock)

Question 10

Give 2 examples of a different degree of universality (abstraction) in English and Slovak.

Answer 10

English:
Universal: Animal
Less universal: a mammal

Universal: Vehicle
Less universal: a car

Slovak:
Universal: Ovocie
Less universal: Jablko

Universal: Budova
Less universal: Dom

Question 11

Define the term morpheme.

Answer 11

Words consist of morphemes - the smalles meaningful units into which words can be divided, words can be monomorphemic (hand) or polymorphemic (likely)

Question 12

What is the difference between a morpheme and an allomorph

Answer 12

Morpheme:
- A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language. It can be a word or a part of a word that carries meaning.
Allomorph:
- An allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme. It means that a morpheme can have different phonological or morphological realizations in different contexts, but it carries the same meaning. For example, the plural morpheme in English can be realized as “-s” (e.g., cats), “-es” (e.g., boxes), or “-ies” (e.g., babies). Each of these variants represents the plural morpheme but is pronounced differently depending on the phonological context of the word.

Question 13

Give some kinds/types of morphemes.

Answer 13

a) free morphemes
- units which can occur as separate words (rock)
b) bound morphemes
- cannot occur as separate words (re-write)
c) root morphemes
- is the base form a word which remains when all affixes are removed (heading)
d) affixational morphemes
- non-autonomous units which are added to roots to create new words and word-forms (nearly)
e) inflectional morphemes
- only signal grammatical relationships and do nor change the word-class of the roots to which they are attached (signs)
f) derivational morphemes
- always change the lexical meaning of a word and usually also its word-class (teacher)

Question 14

What is the difference between inflectional and derivational morphemes?

Answer 14

Inflectional morphemes
only signal grammatical relationships and do nor change the word-class of the roots to which they are attached (signs)
Derivational morphemes
always change the lexical meaning of a word and usually also its word-class (teacher)

Question 15

Name the 2 main units/parts of the wordformative process.

Answer 15

a) the base
b) the word-formative element

Question 16

What is the difference between wordformative and morphological analysis of words?

Answer 16

Word-formative analysis:
writers = write+er(s)
Morphological analysis:
writers = write+er+s

Question 17

Word-formation processes can be divided into 3 main types:

Answer 17

a) primary
b) secondary
c) marginal

Question 18

Name the primary word-formation processes.

Answer 18

a) affixation
- new lexemes are produced by adding derivational affixes to at least one root lexeme (prefixation, suffixation)
b) compounding
- new words are created by combining at least two root lexemes (household)
c) conversion
- a word is converted into a different word-class without adding any suffix - it is identical to the original word in terms of spelling and pronounciation - (orange = noun; orange = adjective)