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124ФИЛОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ
WORD IS THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF LEXICOLOGY
Urakova Z.A.
Urakova Zilola Abdusalomovna - Candidate of Philological Sciences, Assistant Professor, DEPARMENT OF LINGUISTICS, INSTITUTE OF TRAINING AND RETRAINING, KARSHI, REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Abstract: the article deals with the problems of the vocabulary of a language words being the main units of the language. The definition of the branches of lexicology is given and word is analyzed as a fundamental unit of a language. Also, basic kinds of words are defined in the article as well.
Keywords: lexicology, linguistics, vocabulary, language, word, semantic, system, association, sound, grammatical, phonological, subject-matter, structure.
Lexicology is a part of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of a language and the properties of words as the main units of the language. It also studies all kinds of semantic grouping and semantic relations: synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, semantic fields, etc.
In this connection, the term vocabulary is used to denote a system formed by the sum total of all the words and word equivalents that the language possesses. The term word denotes the basic unit of a given language resulting from the association of a particular meaning with a particular group of sounds capable of a particular grammatical employment. A word therefore is at the same time a semantic, grammatical and phonological unit. So, the subject-matter of lexicology is the word, its morphemic structure, history and meaning.
There are several branches of lexicology. The general study of words and vocabulary, irrespective of the specific features of any particular language, is known as general lexicology. Linguistic phenomena and properties common to all languages are referred to as language universals. Special lexicology focuses on the
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description of the peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language. A branch of study called contrastive lexicology provides a theoretical foundation on which the vocabularies of different languages can be compared and described, the correlation between the vocabularies of two or more languages being the scientific priority.
Descriptive lexicology deals with the vocabulary of a language at a given stage of its evolution. It studies the functions of words and their specific structure as a characteristic inherent in the system. In the English language the above science is oriented towards the English word and its morphological and semantic both structures, researching the interdependence between these two aspects. These structures are identified and distinguished by contrasting the nature and arrangement of their elements.
As every word is a unity of semantic, phonetic and grammatical elements, the word is studied not only in lexicology, but in other branches of linguistics, too, lexicology being closely connected with general linguistics, the history of the language, phonetics, stylistics, and grammar.
According to S. Ullmann, lexicology forms next to phonology, the second basic division of linguistic science (the third is syntax) [2]. Consequently, the interaction between vocabulary and grammar is evident in morphology and syntax. Grammar reflects the specific lexical meaning and the capacity of words to be combined in human actual speech. The lexical meaning of the word, in its turn, is frequently signaled by the grammatical context in which it occurs. Thus, morphological indicators help to differentiate the variant meanings of the word (e.g., plural forms that serve to create special lexical meaning: colours, customs, etc.; two kinds of pluralization: brother ^ brethren - brothers; cloth ^ cloths - clothes).
A word is a fundamental unit of a language. The real nature of a word and the term itself has always been one of the most ambiguous issues in almost every branch of linguistics. To use it as a term in the description of language, we must be sure what we mean by it. Being a central element of any language system, the word is a focus for the problems of phonology, lexicology,
syntax, morphology, stylistics and also for a number of other language and speech sciences.
To sum it up, a word is the smallest naming unit of a language with a more or less free distribution used for the purposes of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity.
There are 4 basic kinds of words: 1) orthographic words -words distinguished from each other by their spelling; 2) phonological words - distinguished from each other by their pronunciation; 3) word-forms which are grammatical variants; 4) words as items of meaning, the headwords of dictionary entries, called lexemes. A lexeme is a group of words united by the common lexical meaning, but having different grammatical forms. The base forms of such words, represented either by one orthographic word or a sequence of words called multi-word lexemes which have to be considered as single lexemes (e.g. phrasal verbs, some compounds) may be termed citation forms of lexemes (sing, talk, head etc), from which other word forms are considered to be derived.
References
1. Adams V. An introduction to Modern English word formation. Longman, 1976. 398 p.
2. Ullmann Helen S. Grammatical Theory and Universal Grammar University Press, 1986. 780 p.
3. Katamba Francis. English Words. Routledge: London and New York.
4. Lyons J. Introduction to theoretical linguistic. London, 1972. 723 p.
5. Matthews P.H. Morphology: an Introduction to the Theory of Word Structure, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979. 698 p.
6. Potter S. Our Language, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1977.
