Lexicology

What is lexicology ?

Lexico    : from Greek “speech” or “word”
Logos    : “learning” or “science

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Lexicology study word Formation,semasiology, etymological characteristicsof words, phraseological units,lexicography and so on.

General and Special Lexicology

The general study of words and vocabulary, irrespective of the spe­cific features of any particular language, is known as general lexicology. 

Special lexiсоlоgу devotes its attention to the des­cription of the characteristic peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language.

Lexicology deals with the vocabulary and characteristic features of words and word-groups ;

♥The term “vocabulary” is used to denote the system of

words and word-groups that the language possesses.

♥The term “word” denotes the main lexical unit of a

language resulting from the association of a group ofsounds with a meaning.

♥The term ‘word group” denotes a group of words

which exists in the language as a ready-made unit, has

the unity of meaning, the unity of syntactical function.

According to the theorotical basis of the vocabularies of different languages there are three types of them:

1.      Historical lexicology

 deals with the historic change of words in the course of language development.

2.      Descriptive lexicology

deals with the vocabulary of a given language at a period of time.

3.      Contrastive lexicology

 studies languages from the point of view of their identity and differentation.

Word-Formation and Word-Classes in Lexicology

Word formation these can be summarised as follows:

Suffixation: man+ly = manly

Preffixation : un+true = untrue

Affixation : dis+taste+ful =distasteful

The importance of English lexicology is based not on the size of its vocabulary, however big it is, but on the fact that at present it is the world’s most widely used language.

So, lexicology as a branch of linguistics has its own aims and methods of scientific research, its basic task being the study and systematic description of the vocabulary of some particular language in respect to its origin, development and current use. Hence lexicology investigates words, word-groups, word-equivalents and morphemes which make up words.