CAP. 1 Lexicology
Lexicology is the study of LEXIS, understood as the STOCK OF WORDS IN A GIVEN LANGUAGE, like
its vocabulary or lexicon.
Word: used sequence of letters bounded by spaces.
- Vocabulary, lexicon and lexis: refer to the total word stock of the language
- Dictionary: selective recording of that word stock at a given point in time.
Lexicology relies on:
1. MORPHOLOGY: the study of the forms of words and their components
2. SEMANTICS: the study of their meaning
3. ETYMOLOGY: the study of the origins of words.
1. MORPHOLOGY:
Is the study of the morphemes and their arrangements in forming words (internal structure of words).
Morphemes are the SMALLEST MEANINGFUL UNITS which may constitute words or part of words.
Smallest= they cannot be broken down further on the basis of meaning.
Meaningful= we can specify the kind of relationship they have with the non-linguistic world.
FREE MORPHEMES: they occur alone as individual words.
BOUND MORPHEMES: they occur only with another morpheme. Indicated by the hyphen (-).
MORPH= concrete realization of a morpheme in a given utterance (morphs are manifestations of
morphemes and represent a specific meaning; on the contrary, syllables are parts of the words which are
isolated only on the basis of pronunciation).
ALLOMORPHS= morphs which are different representations of the same morpheme.
Distribution: the total set of distinct linguistic contexts in which a given form occurs, sometimes under
different morphological shapes.
Complex (or derived) words are formed from simpler words by the addition of AFFIXES or some other kind
of morphological modification.
The limit case is that of ZERO MODIFICATION: words that can be nouns, verbs or adjectives either;
without the addition of further sounds/ letters.
COMPOUND WORDS: formed by combining 2 or more words (free morphemes) with or without
morphological modification.
2. SEMANTICS: (Jackson)
● PRAGMATIC: studies the meaning of utterances
● SENTENCE: studies the meaning of sentences and the relation between them
● LEXICAL: studies the meaning of words and the meaning relations that are internal to the
vocabulary of language.
3. ETYMOLOGY:
Study of the whole history of the words, not just of the origins. It’s often difficult to identify the origin of
words.
Cognates (parole imparentate in altre lingue)
LEXICOGRAPHY:
Writing and compilation of dictionaries.
Lexicology is only one level of language analysis, others being phonology, morphology, syntax and
semantics (sono tutti collegati).
The structure of English vocabulary:
Every word is involved in a network of associations which connect it with other terms in the language. De
Saussure represents these associations with a diagram: the line has no limit and that an infinite number of
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