Theoretical questions Flashcards
What is lexicology?
A linguistic discipline concerned with the nature of language, its structure, origin, relations, and the use of words.
The study of lexicology includes the following disciplines:
Onomasiology, semasiology, word-formation, etymology, phraseology, lexicography [6]
What is the difference between onomasiology and semasiology?
Onomasiology – study of naming the units of extra-lingual reality. Main question: What do you call this?
Semasiology – study of meaning of a word. Main question: What does this mean?
What types of words can we distinguish?
Orthographic, phonological, lexical (lexemes), grammatical, semantic [5]
Why does the process of naming the units of extra-lingual reality lead to different results in different language communities?
Arbitrariness – No direct link between a word-form and an object of the extra-lingual reality (Excluding onomatopoeia) and conventionality – one language community has agreed on establishing a certain word form to name a certain object, but because of the lack of a direct link (arbitrariness), other language communities have established other word-forms.
What are the main features of lexemes (naming units)?
Arbitrariness, Conventionality, Tendency towards universality, level of abstraction [4]
What is the difference between conventionality and arbitrariness?
Arbitrariness – no direct link between the word-form and the object of the extra-lingual reality
Conventionality – Word-forms have to be agreed on by the language community
A word-form might be non-arbitrary (woof-woof), but it is still conventional
Likewise, an arbitrary word might be meaningless, since it is not accepted by the language community – japadoo (a random, arbitrary, unconventional word)
Name the 3 main types of motivation:
phonological, morphological, semantic
Give 2 examples of a different degree of universality (abstraction) in English and Slovak.
hand – ruka
teacher – učiteľ, učiteľka
Define the term morpheme.
Morphemes are the smallest meaningful unit into which words can be divided. Words can be mono-morphemic (run) or poly-morphemic (fam-ous).
What is the difference between a morpheme and an allomorph?
Allomorphs are morphemes with different realizations in words: /fame/ - fam/ous
Define the term lexeme:
Abstractions consisting of a group of variant forms (word-forms) with the same basic meaning: shoot, shoots, shot, shooting = lexeme shoot
Moreover, different word-forms in different parts of speech are different lexemes: shoot (N), to shoot (V)
Give some kinds/types of morphemes.
free - bound
root - affixational
inflectional - derivational
What is the difference between inflectional and derivational morphemes?
Inflectional morphemes do not change the word-class of a word, whereas derivational morphemes do
Name the 2 main units/parts of the word formative process.
Word-formative base, word-formative element
