Lexicology Midterm

what is lexicology?

branch of linguistics that studies stock of words and their properties

what does lexicology even do?

studies and systematically describes vocab, studies separate words and their morphological and semantic structure + word combinations.

branches associated w/ lexicology

morphology, semantics, phonology, lexicography, psycholonguistics, syntax, historical linguistics

types of lexicology

general, special, synchronic, diachronic, contrastive

general lexicology

general study of words and vocab (not bound to a specific language)

special lexicology

study of vocab and words in a specific language

synchronic lexicology

vocab of a certain language at a certain point in time

diachronic lexicology

how vocab of a langauge changes over time

contrastive lexicology

similarities between vocabs in two diff languages

3 language levels

level of sound (phonetical), grammar (grammatical) and vocabulary (lexical)

how is meaning of words signaled?

through grammatical context (she took a book vs. she took to a life of crime)

how does level of sound influence lexicology?

lengths of vowels, stress placement and pitch. (sheep x ship)

what is stylistics?

study of particular styles and expressive devices in discourse

what is sociolinguistics?

language in relation to social factors (religion, class, ocupation, dialect…)

lexicon synonyms

lexis, word stock, vocabulary, word bank

words in ACTIVE personal lexicon

5000 (we use these frequently)

words in PASSIVE personal lexicon

25000-60000 (depends on occupation, education, reading etc.)

what is a lexeme?

the fundamental unit in a lexicon, a word realized by several morphological words

lexeme example

do = lexeme AND a word, does/did/done/doing = words

what is a sememe?

smallest, indivisible unit of meaning (of the lexeme)

sememe example

move = to move, but also conveys meanings for roll, jump, turn, duck

describe the morphological process

dimensions of lexemes (horss)

historical (development), structural (has a structure), regional (where it’s used), social (who is using the word), occupational (what it means in specific technical or professional contexts) HORSS

loaded lexeme? what even is that?

a lexeme that has a whole lotta connotations (regime = literally a system of doing things, but connotations are an oppressive, undemocratic, illegitimate, or authoritarian ruling group.

what is a word?

a sound or combination of sounds or its repersentation in writing that symbolizes a meaning. (a spoken segment - word - can be used in isolation)

what are three levels of a word?

langue (the invisible rules and system), parole (physical act of speaking or writing), context (circumstances where the word is that helps determine meaning)

what units are words recognized as?

visual (not as auditory)

orthographical words

any sequence of letters separated by spaces in written text (color x colour)

phonological words

a unit of spoken language defined by sound patterns (at all x a tall)

why is segmentation and pausing used?

the words need spaces in between them to be understandable

two types of words

simple (one morpheme: red, give) and complex (more morphemes: blackbird, disembark)

types of word meaning

grammatical vs. lexical

grammatical meaning

divides words into big groups (parts of speech, classes etc.), word order, inflectional suffixes, more abstract than the lexical meaning

lexical meaning

conceptual, associative, stylistic, expressive, collocative

conceptual lexical meaning

the denotative one, what’s in the vocab

associative lexical meaning

the connotations the word suggests or implies (white = pure, clean, cold, neutral vs. red = confident, assertive, aggressive, threatening)

stylistic lexical meaning

meanings when its used in various stylistic strata of lang

expressive stylistic meaning

the emotions the author conveys to the listener/reader

collocative stylistic meaning

a part of the word’s meaning is suggested by the word before and after it in text or speech.

what to know in order to know what the word means? (bruh…)

denotation, connotation, inner structure, collability (the word occurs with other words in context), paradigmatic relation (synonymy + antonymy), taxonomy (classification fo the word), distribution and frequency (how often and in what context the word appears)

semantic fields

an area of meaning (temperature = warm, cold, freezing, hot, boiling)

how do new words happen huh? (fuck me)

word formation, borrowing, change of meaning, change in subsystems

vocab as a system (define it bro)

a set of interconnected phenomena that influence each other

centre vs periphery

centre = stability, the core words everybody knows… peripehery = words limited in frequency (freakbob)

what happpents when umm… subsystems of two languages

red hair (nabarvene chlupy? ewww) x cervene vlasy (proste vlasy)

what the FUCK. is extralinguistic reality?

everything that isn’t langauge… real world things, experiences, events that the words refer to. (no, toyota camry isn’t a bird)

fuck you toyota camry. your bluetooth radio sucks.

what is czech knedlik in english

dumpling, but that umm… really it’s more like a czech nok

why does extralinguistic reality happen?

we OBVIOUSLY don’t have names for things we don’t fucking have here. Mochi is mochi because it’s japanese and we don’t have a czech moči equivalent cuz that’d be piss…

what are content words?

major full lexical words (noun, verb, adjective, adverb)

what are function words?

minor, empty words for grammar purposes (conjunctions, articles, prepositions, determiners, modal verbs, idgaaafffffff)

what extralinguistic bullshit is specific to English?

Tutor, airing cupboard, speaker

lexical density formula (why the fuck is there math)

N / L x 100 (L = all the words in the text, N = the content words)

what are core words?

basic common words used in every language (children, stomach)

what are non-core words?

more specific or less frequent in everyday use (abdomen, offsprings)

what is in core vocabulary?

days otw, months, seasons, numbers, colors, fam members, body parts, common professions

syntagmatic relation

with neighboring words, a collocative relation.

paradigmatic relation

words which can be used in the same position in the sentence, a substitution typa thing.

what paradigmatic relations do we have?

synonymy, antonymy, homonymy, hyper/hyponymy

what syntagmatic relations do we have?

collocations, idioms, phrases

types of synonyms by formality

formal x informal, standard x slang, emotive, borrowing, dialect, results of language change

variants in synonymy

spelling variants (colour x color), pronunciation, morphological, nominal vs. verbal (walk x take a walk), doublets (read x reading), paraphrases (female dog x bitch)

types of synonyms by meaning

absolute (the same shit), close (jump x leap), synonyms differing in intensity, degree and attitude (smash x break), stylistic (father x daddy)

collocations vs synonyms

collocations are habitual pairing of words, synonyms are about shit the same meaning as poop or dung or feces or manure or crap or dookie or excrement or stool or poo

sources of synonyms

borrowing, inter-borrowing, word formation, semantic changes

types of antonyms

gradable, complementary (nongradable), relational (hubby x wife), reverses (come x go, in x out)

antonyms according to word formation structure (RoDeM)

root antonyms (old x new), derivational antonyms (possible x impossible) and mixed antonyms (correct x incorrect x wrong)

what is polysemy bro tell me

words with multiple meanings (big = spacious, tall, adult, important, considerable)

Monosemy

words that have only one meaning WHAAAAAATTTTT??????????? (vowel, phoneme, picosecond)

what is homonymy?

two or more words that have the same spelling or pronunciation but mean sth different (row a boat x a row of ppl)

lexical ambiguity what? who is this?

ONE WORD MORE MEANINGS AGAAAIIINNNN (the student pointed at the mouth and the teached did too…. whose mouth???)

who is False Friends?

photograph x Fotograf (jiny jazyk, jina vec ale zni podobne)

Paronymy is….?

similar spelling or pronunciation but different meaning AGAIN??? bro… (cosmic x cosmetic)

hyponym x hypernym

you know this dude… come the fuck on

Meronymy

only a part of sth (finger x hand)

Holonymy

the thing is wHOLE (wholonymy, dumbass) (hand that has those fingers)

what is incompatibility?

the words in the same category can’t be true at the same time for the same thing (this car is blue x this car is red) (its Sunday x Monday)

Vocabulary growth

new words, word formations, giving a new meaning to an existing word, changing the meaning

why does stuff change meaning?

objective reasons or something FUUUCKKKEEEDD, like wars or cultural or economic shit (or subjective reasons like folk etymology) (or also social reasons cuz we need more fashionable expressions

example of denotation changes

blush (before: to look, now: to get red and shy awwwwwwww!)
pilot (on water before x on airplanes rn)

examples of narrowing meaning

deer (before: animal, today: buck/stag)
hound (dog before, only a certain dog breed rn)

examples of widening meaning

decimate (kill every tenth person → kill fucking everyone ANNIHILATE)

Amelioration (what is this wordddddddddddddd)

improving something GLOW UP TIMEEEE! (making sth more positive or respectable: nice meant foolish and now it means kind and pleasant)

examples of amelioration

nice (foolish x kind), knight (servant boy x noble solider), fascinate (to cast evil curses muhehe x to look aesthetically pleasing)

what is branching?

making shit have new meaning…
head originally meant.. well… the body part.

NOW??? mind, mental ability, a person, life, measure of length, the top part of sth…..

What is figurative language?

expressing facts figuratively (i bombed the test, why the long face?), so idioms i guess idk anymore

What is metaphor?

describing one thing by saying it is another unrelated thing (time is a thief)

types of metaphors

dead metaphor (normalized in everyday speech)
mixed metaphor (two different metaphors intertwined)
conceptual metaphor (expressing one conceptual domain in the concept of another, different one)

what is metonymy?

referring to something by describing it in terms of something else that is closely associated with it.

Patterns of metonymy

container for contained (the kettle is boiling)
possessor for possessed (Where are you parked?)
represented entity for representative (they will announce something later)
whole for part (there are too many mouths to feed)
place for institution (the white house denies the allegations)

what is synecdoche?

part of sth used to refer to the entire thing (not a foot stepped over the line)

what is oxymoron?

combining the contradictory (dark sun)

what is an understatement?

playing down something (tiger woods is an okay golfer)

what is irony?

derisive expression that means the opposite of its literal meaning

what is simile?

comaprison between two diff concepts (as tall as a tower)

what is personification?

describing inanimate objects as if they had human characteristics (the moon watched over me)

what is hyperbole?

exaggerating shit (he spent a BILLION dolla money on dat prada baggg!!)

what is synthesia?

describing a sensation by another sensation’s words (sweet smell, loud color)

what is litotes?

an understatement for rhethorical effect (a not inconsiderable amount of cash)

what is folk etymology?

people create a new meaning from a word they misinterpret. (Woodchuck is an animal that DOESN’T chuck wood… surprise. People just misheard wuchak, which is native american.)

what’s a neologism?

newly coined words, too new or unique to be considered acceptable in daily speech and writing → they gradually get used more and more (citizen journalist, nonliner etc.)