1 What is lexicology Lexicology may be defined as the study of lexis understood as the stock of the words in a given language.

The notion of words is central in the study of lexicology. Lexicology deals not only with simple words in all their aspects but also with complex and compound words. Morphology Is the study of morphemes and their arrangements in forming words. Morphemes are the smallest meaningful unit which may constitute words or parts of words. They cannot be broken down further on the basis of meaning. For ex. Cat cannot be analysed further into meaningful units but sleeping can sleep ing. Cat and ing are morphemes but cat is a simple word while ing is only part of the word. Morphemes that can occur as individual words are free morphemes and those who cannot are called bound morphemes. Any concrete realization in a given utterance is called a morph. There is difference between morphs and syllables. Morphs are manifestations of morphemes and represent a specific meaning; syllables are parts of words which are isolated only on the basis of pronunciation. Complex words are formed are formed from the simpler words by adding affixes or some other kind of morphological modification: spoonful Compound words are form are formed by combining two or more words: cheeseburger

Semantics Study of meaning

According to Jackson we should identify these kinds of semantics: Pragmatic s. Studies the meaning of utterances in context Sentence s. Handles the meaning of sentences and meaning relations between sentences Lexical s. Deals with the meaning of words Sem. Is considered as part of the lexicology but also phonology, syntax, pragmatics.

There is a difference between acceptability and meaningfulness for example. That woman is a man. Can be considered meaningless but with a bit of imagination in some context it can be acceptable for example in a play.

Etymology Study of the whole history of words not just their origin Some words are not etymologically related to ancient words so it is difficult to establish their origins It is difficult to say what was the original meaning of the words since human language stretches too far back in history 1

Lexicography Special technique, the writing and compilation dictionaries

Lexicology and phonology In many cases the difference between otherwise identical items can be reduced to a difference at the level of phonology: sheep vs. Ship differ only on one sound unit, sometimes only the stress cause the phonological difference Also compounds words can show good example for example blackboard and black board

Lexicology and syntax We use term syntax to refer to the particular knowledge which enables us to assemble words when we construct sentences, we can know all the words in the dictionary and still be not able to speak English we have to acquire a set of rules how to form sentences. Sentences can be built according to the rules of syntax but be unacceptable on lexical grounds: Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. The essential difference between syntax and lexicology is that the former deals with the general facts of the language and the latter with special aspects

The word and its associative field According to this approach every word is involved in a network of associations which connect it with other terms in the language. Some of these association are based on similarity of meaning others are formal while others involve both form and meaning Lecturer lectured, lecturing connects it based on common stem lecture Lecturer teacher, tutor etc semantic similarity Lecturer clever, quicker etc accidental similarity in their ending Lecturer- gardener, labourer etc suffix - er Any word chosen form a given context will suggest other words to us Paradigmatic and synatagmatic rel

Syntagmatic ( sequence ) rovn p The first question was difficult. 2

a radigmatic dol

Third Last Etc.

problem word Etc.

easy funny Etc.

Lexical fields Defines a semantic or lexical field as a named area of meaning in which lexemes interrelate and define each other in specific ways. For example KINSHIP comprises lexemes father, mother, son, daughter, cousin etc. According to lexical field theory the vocabulary of a language is a dynamic and wellintegrated system of lexemes structured by relationship of meaning. The system is changing continuously by the interaction of various forces such as the disappearance of previously existing items, narrowing or broadening of some lexemes. Some words may be signed to more fields for example orange can be assigned to that of colour or to that of fruit.

Word families Words are group into families on the basis of their morphology both their inflections and derivations. A family consists of a base form , its possible inflectional forms and words derived from it by prefixation and suffixation skill, skills infl, skilful, skilfully derivations

Word classes The notion of word class may also be used to account for the structure of the vocabulary as a whole. Quirk distinguish the following: Closed classes: preposition, pronoun, determiner, conjunction, auxiliary verb Open classes: noun, adjective, verb, adverb Lesser cat. : numeral, interjection A small number of words of unique function: the particle not and the infinitive marker to. All words that function in the same way are deemed to belong to the same word class for example: The book was on/in/under the cupboard. The words on, in and under have the same function and express some kind of locational relationship.

2. Where do English words come from?

5000 languages = 300 language families: one of them, Indo-European has branches : 3

- Italic (Latin) - Germanic = North G. + East G. + West G. (modern Scandianvian l.) (modern German, Dutch, English)

1st inhabitants - Celts (5,000 BC) Romans (43 410 AD) Latin words castra (Gloucester, Lancaster), strata (street Picts and Scots from the north Germanic tribes Angles, Saxons, Jutes, frisians = Anglo-saxon society the end of 6th century influence of Latin, the country was called Angli/Anglia, in Old English Engle, the language was called Englisc (sc spelling for sh sound)

Old English period (450 1066)

1st OE manuscripts were written in the runic alphabet brought by Anglo-Saxons (5, 6th cent.) the literary age began after arrival of Roamn missionaries (597) OE manuscripts from 7thcent. Are glossaries of Latin words translated into OE Beowulf the most important literary work (around 1000) King Alfred (9th cent.) had many latin works translated

Features of OE

OE alphabet was similar to the modern one no capital letters some letters had differetn shapes some letters were missing (j, v, f, q, x, z) numbers were written in Roman symbols some letters were used in combination for a single sound (th truth, ea meat) the same word could be spelled differently on the same page lots of variations difference between words in prose and poetry (prose words are similar to modern E, poetic words are different) frequent use of coinages (kennings) = referring to vivid figurative descripitons often involving compounds (hronrad = whale-road = sea, banhus = bone-house = persons body). Kennings are 4

sometimes hard to interpret because of the use of synonyms = in Beowulf there 20 words for a man.

Kennings were used to achieve alliteration in a line

Differences between OE and modern E.

OE uses more synonyms use of word-formation processes in OE based on native elements loan translations (calques) = lexical items translated part-by-part into another language use of inflectional endings to express grammatical relationships (rather than word order as it is today, the change came in 11 and 12th cent.) OE corpus had 24,000 lexical items, 85% are not in use today. 3% of the OE words are loanwords comapred to 70% in ME

Middle-English period (1066 1500)

increase in the number of private and public documents, mainly in Latin and French material in English - 13th cent. 14th cent. - a lot of translating from Latin and French into English poetry influenced by French, Geoffrey Cahucer, John Wycliff

Features of Middle English

great diversity in spelling (naure, noeure, ner, neure = neuer, never. As the period progressed, the spelling changed and was more similar to ME intensive borrowing from other languages (French) in early stages of Middle E. over 90% of lexicon was of native English (Anglo-Saxon) origin by the end of Middle E. Period it was 75% loanwords were the only way in which the vocabulary of Middle E. Increased word-formation, such as compounding was used as it was in OE

Early Modern English (1500 1800)

1476 William caxton set up his press in Westminster = the beginnig point of Early ME

printing played a major role in fostering the norms of spelling and pronunciation, provided more opportunities for people to write, and enabled published works to circulate. This meant that more books were published. In 16th cent. Scholars began to talk seriously about their language, making observations on grammar, vocabulary, the writing systm and style. This period covers Renaissance = interest in the clasical languages and literature, scientific discoveries, exploration of America, Africa and Asia = imapct on English language, especially vocabulary. borrowing from Latin and Greek, especially in medicine and theology Example of the development in the language is Shakespeares work (King Jmaes Bible) fast lexical growth also semantic changes, old words got new meanings 1755 Samuel Johnson published Dictionary of English Language the aim was to register the language, not to form it

Modern English period (1800 present) 3 main fetaures of ME:

growth of scientific vocabulary, in terms of pronunciation and grammar, but more at the lexical level (consequence of Industrial revolution, rise in education) assertion of American English as a dominant variety of the language (leading economic power). Nowadays the differences are getting smaller because of mass media, openness to American culture ... emergence of other varieties known as New Englishes (Indian E., Philippine E. African Es) associated with a geographical area

NATIVE ENGLISH VOCABULARY Anglo-Saxon words

words which are still used in ME (grammatical words: be, that, in, while, lexical words: father, love, name) they are now common words of the language the words are generally short and concrete (parts of the body: arm, bone, chest, the natural landscape: field, hedge, hill, the calendar: day, month,moon, animals: cow, dog, fish, common adjectives: black, good, wide, common verbs: kiss, live, think)

Influence of Celtic on English

not very big, only few words can be found in ME (ususally in regional dialect use: crag = deep valley, carr = rock, luh = loch, lough) some Celtic words derive from Latin (place names: Avon, Thames, York, Kent) Irish Gaelic in 17th cent. (shamrock) Scottish Gaelic ( loch, whisky)

THE PROCESS OF BORROWING

the term for a process by which a word from one language is takne over into another language, usually to fill a lexical gap, e. g. faux pas, or to name a new phenomenon or concept, e. g. karaoke. The borrowed word is called a loanword or borrowing.

Althought other languages try to protect from accepting foreign words, English is fromed from about 120 languages.

Latin words in English

the major influence on English early words were connected with military, agriculture Germanic people acquired words relating to clothing (belt, cemes = shirt), buildings and settlements (weal = wall), words from branches in which Romans excelled (ancor = anchor, piper = pepper) in the Middle English period it was professional and technical terms, law, literature. At the same time words from French were borrowed, together with Latin expressions, = highly distinctive feature of modern E. Vocabulary

Scandinavian loanwords in English

as a result of Viking raids on Britain (8-10th cent.) settlements - in Yorkshire, ending -by, Sc. word for farm or town: Derby, Rugby) personal names in thenorth and east, ending -son: Jackson, Henderson. general words: they, them, their. Personal singular ending in present tense: -s. sc-, sk-: score, skill, skirt, sky.

Greek loanwords

technical terms in all branches of human knowledge 7

some greek words wre borrowed from Latin (allegory, drama, metaphor )and French (centre, character, harmony) , some were derived from Greek and Latin elements (lexis, lexeme, lexical), while others were taken directly from Greek (acronym, autocracy, telegram). The influence was most noticeable in 15th cent.

French loanwords

After William the Conqueror became the King of England in 1066, Norman French became the language of government, the courts and the new upper social classes. Afixes (con- , trans- , pre- , -ance, -tion, - ment) some French words: government, prince, duke, beef, mutton, clergyarmy.... even Modern Englishborrowed words from French: gentle, champion, carriage, village, prestige later borrowings from French also reflect french dominance in the spheres of fashion, arts, sciences (gown, luxury, tragedy)

German and Dutch loans

due to commercial relationships from Middle Ages on (dollar, guilder) seafaring activities (deck, cruise, skipper) many loanwords came into English through contact between Americans and Dutch settlers, especially in NY area (cookie, cranberry, waffle, Santa Claus) German impact on English was low, only in speacialists fields (geology: cobalt)

Romance loans other than from French

Spanish, Portuguese, from the 16th cent. (alligator, canoe, chocolate, potato) = words from the New World Italian music (violin, opera, piano), food: (pasta, lasagne)

Loans from the East

Arabic words (admiral, saffron, zenith, assassin) Hebrew words (amen, hallelujah, rabbi) Indian words (avatar, karma, jungle)

Loanwords from other sources

west African languages (banana, safari, gorilla) 8

Slavic languages (polka from Czech, glasnost, vodka from Russian,goulash from Hungarian) native American languages (moccassin, tomahawk, skunk)

English still borrows words from other languages, but considerably less. French is the largest supplier of words to English nowadays in UK, in the USA it is from Spanish.

CREATING NEW ENGLISH WORDS Root creation

refers to the building of a word that has no relationship whatsoever with any previous existing word.

e. g. Kodak purely arbitrary combination of letters, not derived from any existing word (1888) vasseline (wasser+oil), kleenex (clean+curtx)

Echoic words

echoic / onomatopoeic words find their origin in the specific sound that they are meant to represent, e. g. bang, cuckoo, splash, tinkle two types: imitative and symbolic imitative intends to imitate the sound that it represents (meow, moo, vroom) symbolic has a less direct association with the sound (bump, flick) - often come in sets which either rhyme (bump, lump, hump) or alliterate (flick, flash, flip, flop)

both imitative and symbolic words may be the subject to doubling, sometimes with a little variation (bow-wow, choo-choo, peewee)

Ejaculations

words that attempt to imiate instinctive vocal responses to emotional situations (ha-ha, phew)

Word formation

uses existing language material words and morphesmes to create new lexical items major process are compounding and affixation 9

compounding: birthday, craftsman, newborn, banana-flavoured, download, afterwards) affixation (use of prefixes, suffixes):celebration, forgetful, napkin, pre-figure

CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN ENGLISH VOCABULARY The size

750,000 entries in Oxford English Dictionary and Websters Third International together, each of them concentrating eithet on British or American dialect terms

no New Englishes areincluded in these dictionaries Crystal concludes it is about 1,000,000 lexemes.

Frequency of occurence an use of Anglo-Saxon words

words from Anglo-Saxon are the most frequent in the language the most frequent 200 words consist of one syllable

native English words tend to be preferred in everyday speech, they are considered more human and emotional (when choosing between nourishment, nutrition, food, the last is chosen)

English vocabulary

out of 617,000 words in Oxford English dictionary, there most foerign words on the other hand, in writing and speech, the most common are native English words many foreign words have assimilated, have English pronunciation and spelling and are no longer foreign words grammatical structures have remained almost the same throughout the centuries

3 The Word
Difficulties in the definition of the word

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The term word is used to designate an intermediate structure smaller than a whole phrase and larger than a single sound segment. Word may be defined differently depending on whether we focus on thought which it expresses or purely formal criteria or on its representation. The word as represented in writing represents a thought unit or psychological unit; this is the most common case. Names of the objects: table, house. Abstractions: faith, intelligence. Adjectives: tall, short. Verbs: eat, sleep The word forms one block but includes two units of thought: farmer, spoonful. The psychological unit spreads over several words, the word is only element of the real unity: all of the sudden. According to Bloomfield a minimal form is morpheme, its meaning a semen. A form which occur alone is free and which may not is bound. Lexis which consists of an infinite number of elements excludes relational words or grammatical morphemes. A further difficulty in the use of formal criteria is that word may be defined from the phonological, lexical, grammatical points. The word defined Word is uninterruptible unit of structure consisting of one or more morphemes and typically occurs in the structure or phrases. Words speak, speaks, spoke etc. Are separate grammatically . Lexical words are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs can be meaningful even in isolation while for example with, a, the are not. Characteristic of words 1)word is an uninterruptible unit 2) word may consists of more than one morpheme, when it consists of one morpheme only it cannot be broken down into smaller units 3) word occurs typically in the structure or phrases 4) each word should belong to a specific word classr part of speech. The same form appears in more than one class for example smoke verb or noun Ambiguity in the notion of word Word can be regarded as generic when it has abstract reference i.e. is more schematic, poorere than particular word in its ability to distinguish specific features. Generic terms apply to a wide range of items but tell us a little about them. The word mammal is more generic and more abstract than cow in the same way animal is more abstract than mammal. The words usually denote not single items but classes of things or events bound together by some common element. The words we use never completely homogenous in their meaning all of them have number of aspects depending on the context and situation in which they are used. Word table: table in a restaurant, table of contents in a book.

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Word meaning Denotation and reference We need the concept of lexeme to clarify the distinction between denotation and reference this concept which was coined by Lyons is considered an abstract linguistic unit. Thus the relation of denotation holds between a lexeme and a whole class of extra linguistic objects. As opposed to denotation, the relationship of reference holds between an expression and what the expression stands for on particular occasions of its utterance. Lyons further points out that reference depends on concrete utterances, not on abstract sentences. Denotation and sense Lyons defined the sense of a word as its place in a system of relationship which it contracts with other words in the vocabulary. A comparison between denotation and sense shows that the two relations are dependent on each other. According to Lyons some words may have no specific denotation and still have sense. There is no such animal as a unicorn. vs There is no such book as a unicorn. While the first is perfectly acceptable the second is semantically odd. Words are not normally used in isolation, but combined with other words to form larger units expressing various relationships. Polysemy Refers to the situation where the same word has two or more different meanings. In most cases only one of the meanings of a polysemous word will fit into a given context, but occasionally ambiguity may also arise: Look at that bat under the tree.

It is not easy to say whether two meanings are the same or different. Consequently, we cannot determine exactly how many meanings polysemous word has. Homonymy Refers to a situation where we have two or more words with the same shape but they yare considered distinct lexemes, mainly because they have unrelated meanings and different etymologies.

Homograph has the same spelling: lead Homophone has the same sound: right, write Because of the sameness of shape there is a danger of homonymous conflict in the sense that two homonyms with totally different meanings may both make sense in the same utterance: The route was very long. Or The root was very long

4 WORD FORMATION
By word formation processes we mean the different devices which are used in English to built new words from existing ones. Each word formation process will result in the production of a specific type of word. 12

Inflection and derivation Inflection is a general grammatical process which combines words and affixes to produce alternative grammatical forms of words. For example the plural morpheme is an inflectional morpheme. Derivation is a lexical process which actually forms a new word out of an existing one by adding a derivational affix for example ation---resign----resignation Distinction between inflection and derivation is mainly morphological. Inflectional affixes may be described as a relational markers, once the inflection is added to a stem that stem does not change classes but its distribution is then limited in the syntactic structure. When the plural inflection is added to dog----dogs both are nouns and plural inflection does not change the class of the word. Inflectional suffixes tend to lend themselves to paradigms which apply to the language as a whole. The paradigm of a major word class consists of a single stem of that class with the inflectional suffixes which the stem may take. However to belong to a class a word need not take every inflectional suffix in the paradigm. Nouns and inflectional contrast: boy- boys-boys boys Adjectives: cold colder coldest Verbs: eat eats ate eaten eating , etc. Derivational affixes English has over sixty common derivational affixes. Derivations tend not to be paradigms which apply to set of words as a whole. Distinction between two types of affixes is not always clear for example past participle suffix ed is used to form adjectives of the red-haired type. Der. af. Can change the word class of the item. If derivation and inflection co occur then derivations are inner, closer to the stem and inflections are outer. Frightened fright ---en is derivation and ed is inflection. Der. af. Do not always change the word class: reconsider consider both are verbs. Sometimes a shift in class is not always signalled by overt marker: star or to star. Sometimes words with two or more syllables may undergo a change of class by a change in stress pattern: noun - contract, verb con tract. Derivational affixes are class changing and class maintaining. Class changing change the word class resign---resignation. Class maintaining change the meaning of the derivative: child hood gives childhood still noun but rather abstract than a concrete noun. Noun derivational af. Called nominalizers: leak leakage, argue argument Verb der.af. called verbalizers: fright e- frighten, glory-fy-gloryfy Adjectives der.af. adjectivizers: season al- seasonal Adverbs der.aff adverbializers: slow-ly-slowly Class changing derivations are mainly suffiexes but class maintaining derivations are mainly prefixes. Noun patterns: malaria-antimalaria, priest expriest Verb patterns: join-adjoin 13

Adjectives patterns: social-antisocial Compounds - may be defined as stems consisting of more than one root: bedside, car-wash etc. Some are written as one word while others are written as two or more words. In English compounds may be distinguished from phrases on phonological, syntactic, and semantic grounds. Compounds are often recognised by stress pattern and lack of juncture. In English words are characterized by single primary stress. For example black board vs. black-board. All compounds are non-interruptible. For example the compound dare-devil cannot be used as dare the devil which is a phrase. Compounds may be modified by other words for example air-sick John was seriously air sick. Seriously modifies the whole compound. Classification of compounds Noun compounds: any root plus noun, the second root must be a noun while the first root may be noun, verb, adj,adv. Verb compounds: any root plus verb, second root verb, first root is noun, adj, verb, adv. Adjectives compounds: first root may be adj., adverb, noun Adverb compounds: adverb plus adverb Special noun compounds: verb plus adverb is noun compound. Endocentric: one or both roots is the head of the compound Exocentric: neither root is the head Conversion process of changing grammatical class of a word without changing its form; common in English, each noun can be verbed; o to Google, to Skype, to butter, to paper the walls, to dirty, a printout

Blending putting the beginning of one word and ending of another together netiquette, brunch, motel, smog, guesstimate

Clipping cutting off the ending or beginning of a word o o back-clipping = bra (brassiere), gym (gymnasium) front-clipping = copter (helicopter)

Backformation removing affix to create a new, more obvious word which, however, does not exist yet o editor => edit; babysitter => babysit; donation =>donate, swindler => swindle, barbecue => Barbie

5 Mening relations Discussion often begins by drawing a distinction between the reference of a word and the sense of a word. Reference is an external meaning relation; it is the relationship between a word and the entity that it refers to.

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Sense relations It is an internal meaning relation, hold between words within the vocabulary. The two most obvious sense rel. are those of oppositeness and sameness called synonymy and antonymy. Other sense rel. show ( hyponym, meronymy) how words with general meaning includes the meaning of other words with more specific meanings. Collocation Sense rel are pragmatic. They are about the choice between words, the substitution of one word for another in a particular contextual slot in a sentence. Semantic field The vocabulary is organised into a number of partially overlapping semantic fields. A semantic filed contains words that belong to a defined area of meaning. Synonymy

Synonymy is the relation of sameness of meaning. One or more words may share one or more features of meanings. Strict synonyms two words have to be interchangeable in all their possible context of their use. Strict synonyms create unnecessary redundancy in language. Loose synonymy in some context they cannot substitute for each other. For example find and discover both can be in sentence Linda discovered/find the ball behind the garden shed but not in Marie Curie discovered radium in 1898. Some synonym pairs differ in that they belong to different dialects of English: pavement sidewalk. A second general way in which synonyms may be distinguished relates to the style of formality. One of a pair of synonyms may be used in a more formal context than the other, or one of the pair may belong to slang or colloquial English, while other is in more general use: die decease. English language is rich in pairs of synonyms the primary reason is the borrowing from other languages. Words from Old English are generally shorter than French or Latin synonyms.

Antonymy is based on oppositeness of meaning. Only words belonging to one and the same word class/grammatical category can be antonyms. Antonyms occur together either within the same sentence or in the adjacent sentence.
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There are different types of incompatibility relations: a) the meanings of the words are opposites and within the relevant domain of meaning it has to be either one or the other, e.g. up and down (complementary antonyms); b) the meanings of the words are opposites and within the relevant domain of meaning there is an indefinitely large number of gradations between one pole and the other, e.g. hot and cold (gradable antonyms); c) the meanings of the words are in converse relationship with one another and the relation is symmetrical, e.g. buy and sell (relational antonyms), or the words form a mutually exclusive set like red, blue, green
Hyponymy and meronymy Sense relations that relate words hierarchically. Some words have a more generally meaning while others have a more specific meaning while referring to the same entity. Tree and oak may be used to refer the same object but oak is more specific. Hyponymy the kind of relations

is the paradigmatic relation in the system of vocabulary based on inclusion of a specific meaning in a more general meaning. The lexical unit which due to its general meaning is on a higher level than some other lexical units is called hyperonym. The lexical units which share the same level of generality and have the same superordinate unit are called co-hyponyms. The term plant can be at the top of hierarchy and it is superordinate those immediately below it: lichen, shrub etc are hyponyms. Tree is hyponym to plant but it is in turn superordinate to its hyponyms conifer.
animal (hyperonym) mammal cat dog bird robin eagle cod fish trout ant insect butterfly (co-hyponyms)

All the members of a hyponym tree should belong to the same word-class. Thus some hyponyms do not have a hyperonym for instance: colours (coloured excludes black and white), professions: craftsman includes carpenter, shoemaker, but excludes doctor, flute player, clergymanel Dalmatian Alsatian

Meronymy the part of relation is the paradigmatic relation in the system of vocabulary based on the relation part whole. For instance:
HOUSE

: bedroom; kitchen; bathroom; dining room

Analysing meaning
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Some lexicologists suggested that that meaning of words can be analysed into a finite number of features or components which are universal to all languages, and from which are universal to all languages, and from which meanings of all wods can be composed by new unique combinations. Such as approach is called componential analyses. Componential analysis of the meaning of vixen +mammal, +animate, +animal, -male The meanings of many lexemes, even in English, cannot be exhaustively described by means of semantic components. And it is unlikely that very many components will turn out to be universal. Perhaps componential analysis has limited but powerful application to certain area of semantic description Semantic fields In semantic fields analysis the words are grouped together into fields on the basis of an element of shared meaning. Such as field might comprise words referring to verbs of communication (speak, order, warn, promise)

6. Words in use Core and specialist vocabulary The vocabulary of English according to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary): the centre is occupied by the common words in which literary and colloquial usage meet. Scientific and foreign words enter the common language mainly through literature, slang words ascend through colloquial use the technical terms and the dialect words blend with the common language. Dimension of variation 17

The ways in which language varies according to context and how this leads to development of specialist vocabulary

One dimension is historical one charting the birth and death of words. Geographical dimension encompasses regional dialects of a single country and the varieties of English as spoken and written in the USA, Canada and so on. Dimension of occupation which develops its own specialized vocabulary such as legal, scientific etc. Dimension of social and cultural groups vocabulary peculiar to youth culture or the criminal underworld Dimension related to the formality of the context National and regional vocabularies British and American E The British and American varieties of Engish account for around 70 percent of mother-tongue English speakers, with Americans outnumbering British by four to one. Some words are specific to either the American or the British variety and not used in World English. Crossover potential of equivalent words between the AmE and BrE varieties No crossover potential from either side Candy Freeway Zip code sweets motorway post code

Crossover potential from AmE to BrE but not from BrE to AmE so the AmE word is in World English Can tin

Crepe pancake French fries chips

Crossover potential from BrE to AmE but not from AmE to BrE sdo the BrE word is in World English Ash can Bathtubbath Fall autumn dustbin

Crossover potential both from AmE to BrE and form BrE to AmE so both words are in World English Mail Sweater post jumper

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The vocabulary of Canadian English is not the same as that of American English because Canada has experienced a continuous flow of immigration from Britain and bilingual influence of French in Quebec and contact with the Native American languages.

Antipodean English Australian English ahs some ten thousand distinctive words, drawn from a variety of sources. In New Zealand words are borrowed from native Maori dialects and other comes from the adaptation of BrE words.

African English South African English is a distinct regional variety with a distinctive vocabulary drawn in part form African vocabulary and BrE vocabulary.

Indian English A sizeable number of words has been borrowed into Indian English from local languages as well as from Portuguese. Some compounds are composed of English origin and one element from a local language policewella policeman.

Jargon is terminology, much like slang, that relates to a specific activity, profession, or group. It develops as a kind of shorthand, to express ideas that are frequently discussed between members of a group, and also to distinguish those belonging to a group from those who are not.

Occupational jargons Medicine and allied professions have created a jargon that is based on Latin and Greek. Sports jargon, Religious language, Green jargon ecology,

Sub cultures Within a society or culture, people who regularly associated with each other because they have some characteristic or interest in common may form a sub-culture that gives rise to its own vocabulary. Such a subculture may be found among young people. Underworld slang special vocabulary used by the criminal sub-culture Rastafarian culture are group among the African Caribbean community 19

CB talk CB is an abbreviation for Citizen Band Radio used initially by truckers to communicate with each other to inform each other of potential difficulties on the road

Formal words A large number of words that we associate with legal texts are marked in dictionaries as formal. A formal word may be a means of speaking appropriately about bodily functions and other matters that are not normally mentioned in public.

Taboo words Words that would be extremely offensive if spoken in most contexts.

Political correctness This term reflects the sensitiveness that has developed in the use of words that refer to women, people from minority ethnic communities, disabled people and so on.

Restricted languages Texts which require some knowledge in order to understand them can be found in recipes, knitting etc.

7 Investigating vocabulary
Lexicologists are interested in chat the extent of current vocabulary is or what constituted the vocabulary of the language at the same point in the past. They may be interested in the new words and or at the expression that are being coined. Three sources of linguistic data: introspection, elicitation and corpora.

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Introspection when lexicologists use their own knowledge of a language as the data for describing words. Elicitation when linguists have quite specific data to collect about some aspect of language Corpora is a body of material from which linguists can extract the data they require. It consists of dictionary or more likely the collection of dictionaries Electronic resources Electronic dictionaries and computer corpora Electronic dictionaries A number of monolingual or bilingual dictionaries are available in the CD ROOM format. One of the advantages is that it allows more sophisticated searching. Text corpora Source of data for the lexicologists. The first corpus was recognised in 1960s at Brown University in the USA Corpora contains one million words of text. COBUILD project, an advanced learners dictionary based entirely on evidence from text corpus Tools analysis Concordance is the essential tool for the lexicological investigation in the form of computer program. Lexicologists type the word and see them with the sentences using this word and it helps them to understand how the word is used. MRDs, LDBs, LKBs The electronic medium opens up a number of possibilities not only for exploring vocabulary, but also for arranging the descriptions of vocabulary. MRD machine readable dictionaries, problem is that some information about words are missing completely or not entered in a structured and consistent manner. LBD lexical database, since for computational purposes, the lexical description needs to be more explicit, systematic and structured with appropriate links marked between words the construction of LBDs has been proposed. LKB term lexical knowledge base has been used to refer to the computational capture of the knowledge about the meaning of lexical items, their interrelationship, and their interpretation in context.

8 Words in dictionaries
No dictionary is totally comprehensive, in the sense that it contains all the words in the language. Each new edition of a dictionary has to make a selection from the words of current English and decide which to include and which to leave out. The number of words in the dictionaries will depend on its size and purpose. Three major categories of English dictionaries according to purpose: 21

1 general purpose dictionaries 2 childrens dictionaries 3 learners dictionaries

General purpose dictionaries 1 desk size 2 concise size 3 pocket size

Difference in size is reflected partly in difference of format and page size, but more importantly from a lexical perspective, difference of vocabulary selection and information about words. The headwords may include the following in modern dictionaries: abbreviations (MP), prefixes, suffixes, and combining forms, open compounds, and encyclopaedic entries i.e. names of places and people. Dictionaries differ in their policy on multiple entries where a word belongs to more than one word class for example middle may be used as an adjective, a noun , a verb and some dictionaries e.g LDEL have three headwords, whereas others e.g. New Oxford Dictionary of English include all three word classes under a single headword. We associate dictionaries with an alphabetical arrangement of words. Dictionaries vary in nesting policies. Most dictionaries will nest words derived from a headword by suffixation, where the derived word does not need separate definition. Most dictionaries will nest fixed phrases and idioms usually under the headword of the first main word in the phrase. The alternative to an alphabetical dictionary is one arranged thematically or by lexical field Kinds of information that dictionaries provide about words: Phonology a general purpose dictionaries give a transcription of the pronunciation of words, as spoken in isolation, and including an accentual pattern of polysyllabic items. Morphology inflectional and derivational, inflections of words are mostly regular and thus derivable from general rules of grammar, they need not to be stated in the dictionary. Dictionary has to state inflections which are irregular. Derivational relates to the morphemic composition whether the word is a simple root or derived or a compound Syntax general rules of sentence structure, the most basic item od syntactic information is the word class or part of speech to which a lexeme belongs. Semantics this is what we think dictionaries are primarily about: giving us the meaning of words, by providing definitions. First of all lexicographers have to decide how many word has, which they usually do on the evidence of examples of the word in use. The most common type of definition is the analytical definition, based on classical schema of genus and differentiae. The genus word in the

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definition assigns the word to a class of items, and the differentiae distinguish the meaning of this particular word from those of others in the class. Context Some words are restricted as to the types of text or discourse in which they may occur or as to the appropriate social context and occasions in which they may be used. Contextual information is systematically recorded in dictionaries. Such information includes both the level of formality for words that are marked as either formal or informal, colloquial or slang and specialist subject domains that words may be restricted to. Spelling A dictionary is inevitably based on spelling, so that information about spelling is a given. Adding a suffix to a root may change spelling and number of words in English has alternative spelling. Etymology history and origin of the words. Dictionaries vary in the amount of detail that provide for etymologies. All give the immediate origin of each word some trace the origin of the word further back.

Selection of vocabulary Dictionaries are selective but dictionaries are also comprehensive in the sense that they aim to include words from across the range of different types of vocabulary. Homographs Dictionary could decide to base its arrangement on a single-entry for each different orthographic word i.e. one entry per spelling. More usual is the decision to have an entry for each spelling that can be shown to have a unique etymology. Polysemy Some dictionaries have a tendency to overdifferentiate senses. Dictionaries order senses either on the basis of supposed frequency or commonness of use, or historically from the earliest to the latest. Definition A definition usually consists of a single phrase, which is substitutable for the word being defined in a given context. This mean that if the word to be defined is a noun the definition will be a noun phrase with the as the head central element. Some definitions especially of natural phenomena e.g. flora and fauna, go beyond a simple explanation and tend towards the encyclopaedic. Definitions are an attempt to characterize the meaning of a lexeme or sense of a lexeme and to distinguish the meaning of the lexeme concerned from the meanings of other lexemes in the same semantic field.

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