Lexicology Final Exam Practice

A collection of vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and concepts in Lexicology, Lexicography, Word-Formation, and Semantics based on the provided exam transcript.

Lexicology

The part of linguistics that studies the vocabulary of a language, its internal structure, and its development.

Semasiology

The branch of lexicology that deals with the meaning of words and other linguistic units.

Lexicography

The branch of linguistics which deals with the selection of lexical units, arrangement, and setting of the entries in dictionaries.

Phraseology

The study of set expressions, fixed word-groups, and set phrases.

Etymology

The branch of linguistics that investigates the origin and historical development of words.

Morpheme

The smallest unit of a language that carries meaning.

Word

A two-faced unit with a nominative function that is the basic structural unit of language.

Sentence

The smallest unit of communication.

Root

The ultimate constituent element of a word that remains after the removal of all functional and derivational affixes.

Stem

The form to which an affix is added, representing the part of the word that carries the base meaning.

Affixation

The process of coining a new word by adding a derivational morpheme to a stem.

Prefix

A derivational morpheme that precedes the root-morpheme and modifies its meaning.

Suffix

A derivational morpheme that follows the root-morpheme.

Conversion

A word-building process that creates a new word from an existing one by changing the part of speech without changing its morphemic shape.

Word Composition (Compounding)

A word-building process in which words are built by combining two or more stems.

Backformation

The process of creating a new word by removing a real or supposed affix from another word.

Clipping (Shortening)

A type of word-building that consists in dropping part of a word to create a shorter form.

Blending

A word created from parts of two already existing items, usually the first part from one and the final part of the other.

Homonyms

Two or more words identical in sound-form but different in meaning, distribution, and origin.

Homophones

Words that are identical in sound-form but different in spelling and meaning.

Homographs

Words that are identical in spelling but different in sound-form and meaning.

Synonyms

Words that have different sound-forms but similar or identical meanings.

Synonymic Dominant

The central word in a synonymic group that possesses the most general meaning and lacks specific connotations.

Antonyms

Words that belong to the same part of speech but possess opposite meanings.

Euphemism

A word or phrase used as a substitute for another that is considered unpleasant, offensive, or taboo.

Metaphor

A transfer of name based on the similarity between two objects or concepts.

Metonymy

A transfer of name based on the contiguity or association between two objects or concepts.

Hyperbole

An intentional exaggeration for rhetorical effect.

Hyperonym (Generic term)

The superordinate term in a hierarchical classification that represents a general category.

Hyponym

A word that represents a specific member of a broader category or hyperonym.

Lexical Valency

The ability of a word to combine with other lexical items in the flow of speech.

Semantic Field

A closely knit sector of vocabulary whose members are joined by a common semantic component.

Lexico-semantic variant

One of the individual meanings of a polysemantic word.

Allomorph

A positional variant of a morpheme.

Paradigm

The system of the grammatical forms of a word.

Thesaurus

A dictionary in which words are arranged according to the concepts they represent, often grouping synonyms and related terms.

Glossary

A list of words or terms with accompanying explanations, usually specialized or found in a specific text.

Encyclopedic Dictionary

A dictionary containing information about things, people, places, and events rather than focusing solely on linguistic data.

Etymological Doublets

Two or more words in the same language that originated from the same source but through different routes of transmission.

Special Lexicology

The branch of lexicology that studies the specific features of the vocabulary of a particular language, such as English.