Lexical Studies

Lexical Study

Study of words or vocabulary of a language is called lexical study.

Lexical Word

Lexical words are those words who have some independent meaning according to dictionary

know as lexical word. For example, Rat, Red light, Get out (Phrasal verb) etc.

Lexicography

The process of writing, editing, or compiling a dictionary called lexicography.

Lexicographer

An author or an editor of a dictionary is called lexicographer. A lexicographer collects the word

and build a stock of words. It is too difficult task.

E-lexicography

The process involved in the complication and performance of digital dictionary is known as

e-lexicography.

Words vs Lexeme

Word

The smallest meaningful unit in the language which can be used independently is called word. A

word is the unit that unifies the sound, sense and grammar. A word remain word if it’s class and

form is changed. Word does not have a proper meaning. Word consist of a single morpheme or

combination of morpheme. For example, ‘Cooking’, ‘Walking', ‘run' are words.

Parts of Words

• Morphology

• Pronunciation

• Phonology

Morphology

The branch of linguistics that studies word structure is called morphology. ‘Replacement' is

made up of ‘-re’ , ‘place’ , ‘ment-‘.

Inflectional Morphology:

The study of modification of words to fit into a grammatical paragraph called inflectional

Morphology. It creates only new forms of the same words and does not change meaning. For

example, word >skip< has many forms, Skipping, Skipped etc.

Derivational Morphology

The study of formation of new words by adding affixes that differ in meaning from their bases is

called derivational morphology. It totally creates new words.

For example; word “merge” change into “merger” (noun) by replacing ‘e' with ‘-er’.

Beauty+ful= Beautiful

The sound uttered of words of a language is called pronunciation.

Morpheme

The smallest unit of language is called morpheme. In the word “Unbreakable” ‘un-’ ‘break’ ‘-

able’ are morphemes.

Types:

Free Morpheme (Base, root, stem) it can be uttered alone. E.g hunt, kill, play etc
Bound Morpheme (Prefix, Suffix, infix) it can not be uttered alone. E.g “-s” in dogs & “-

ness” in happiness etc.

Phonology

Study of Relation of speech sound and the way they come together to form a speech or a word is

called phonology. For example, ‘Pop-up' comparison of the sounds of the two "p" sounds in

"pop-up."

Lexical Sementic

The branch of linguistics that studies word meaning is called lexical sementic.

Lexeme

In linguistics, Lexeme is fundamental unit of a lexicon (stock of words) of a language. It also

known as lexical unit, lexical item and lexical word. It commonly referred to a Lemmas. A

Lexeme is often called an individual word. A single (individual) dictionary word may have a

number of inflectional forms or grammatical variants.

Multi-Word Lexeme

A multi word Lexeme is a lexeme made up of more than one orthographic word, such as a

phrasal verb, an open Compound, or an idiom. e.g ‘give up the ghost’. The head word in a

dictionary are all Lexeme.

Invariable Lexeme

A branch of lexeme that have only one form of a word is called invariable Lexeme. For

example, “the” and “and”.

Variable Lexeme
The branch of lexeme that have two or more forms of a word is called variable Lexeme. For

example, word 'Hard’ has ‘harder’ ‘hardest’ etc.

Lexical Item

In linguistics, a lexical item is a single word, a part of a word or chain of a word that forms

the basic elements of a language’s Lexicon (stock of words).

Lexis

The study of vocabulary of a language and words. Lexis contain origin of words. It is Greek

word which means “word” or “speech”. Its adjective ‫ اسم صفت‬is Lexical.

Lexicon

The arrangement of words in a dictionary of a language is called Lexicon. It is also a stock of

words.

Lexicology

Branch of linguistics that studies the stock of the words in a given language is called Lexicology.

Its adjective is Lexicological. Word Lexicology derived from Greek words -lexico and -ology.

Lexicalization

The process of adding word and word pattern to the Lexicon of a language is called

Lexicalization.

Syntax

The arrangement of words and phrases to create a well-formed sentence in a language is called

syntax. It is also study of formation of sentence. E.g The boy jumped happily.

Lemma
A lemma is form of a word which is registered (added) in a dictionary. For example, form of

“run” are ‘run’ ‘ran’, ‘run’. So in these forms, ‘run’ ‘run’ are lemmas.

Lexicogrammar

Lexicogrammar is a level of linguistics structure where Lexis, vocabulary, grammar and syntax

combine into one. At this stage word and grammatical structure are not seen as independent.

Micheal Holiday studied Lexicogrammar.

Etymology Of Words

The study of Origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout

history called Etymology of words. An etymology tells us where a word came from and for

what purpose it is used. The word ‘etymology’ derived from the Greek word ‘etymon’ which

means “the true sense of a word”.

Borrowing

Borrowing is just taking a word from another language. The borrowed words are

called loan words or calque. A loan word directly taken into one language from

another language with little or no translation. English has taken loan words from

about 300 languages around the world.

 taken from German language

 Jacket taken from Turkish language

Clipping or Shortening
The process of reduction or Shortening of a word is called clipping. For example, “exam” from

examination and “flu” from influenza.

Types of Clipping

Back Clipping

Back clipping is the most common type in which the beginning of the word is retained. For

example, Advertisement to -ad and Doctor to -doc.

Fore Clipping

Fore clipping retains the final part of the words. For example, Telephone to phone and

University to Varsity.

Middle Clipping

Middle clipping retains the middle part of the word. For example, flu from influenza .

Complex Clipping

In this clipped forms are used in compound most often remains intact. For example, “op art”

from optical art and “cablegram” from cable telegram.

Blending

The formation of new words by combining two or more existing words is called blending.

Television+broadcast= telecast

Smoke+fog= Smog

Conversion or functional shift

The process of formation of words by changing an existing word from one part of speech to

another.

For example, “I eared her language”.

Coinage

It is the invention of totally new words either deliberately or accidentally. This is a very rare

and uncommon method to create new words. For example, Xerox, Kodak, Google, nylon etc.

Root, Prefixes and Suffixes

Root

A root word is a basic word with no prefix or suffix added to it. For example, the root word

“astro” could have the suffix “-nomy” added to it to make the word “astronomy”.

 A root word is a part of a word that comes from another language. Such as Greek or

Latin.

Words Prefix Suffix Root

Decomposing de -ing Compose
Understandable Under -able Stand

Prefixes

We add prefixes before the base or stem of a word to make New words. E.g , monorail and

monolingual are examples of prefixes in words formation while ‘mono’ is itself prefix which

mean one.

Word Meaning Example

Un Not Undo
Dis Not Discharge
Re Again Return
En Cause to Encounter
In In Infield
 Sub Under Sub inspector
Mis Wrongly Misfire
Anti Against Antibiotics
Fore Before Forecast
Sub Under Subsoil
Super Above Superstar
Semi Half Semifinals
Il Not Illegal

Suffixes

We add suffixes after the base or stem of a word to change the meaning of a word. The main

purpose of a suffix is to show what class of word it is (e.g noun or adjective) for example

Terrosism and Simplify are words while -ism & -fy have been used as suffixes.

Words Meaning Example

-able Easy Reliable
-full Full of Beautiful
-ness Being Sweetness
-ly Like Quickly
-ize To make Realize
-less Without Careless
-ic Related to Magical, Critical
-ive Doing Administrative
Rules of Suffixes

Rule 1

When adding the suffixes –ness and –ly to a word, the spelling of the word does not change.

Examples:

• Dark + ness = darkness

• Scholar + ly = scholarly

Exceptions to Rule 1

When the word ends in y, change the y to I before adding –ness and –ly.
Examples:

• Ready + ly = readily

• Happy + ness = happiness

Rule 2

When the suffix begins with a vowel, drop the silent e in the root word.

Examples:

• Care + ing = caring

• Use + able = usable

Exceptions to Rule 2

When the word ends in ce or ge, keep the silent e if the suffix begins with a or o.

Examples:

• Replace + able = replaceable

• Courage + ous = courageous

Rule 3

When the suffix begins with a consonant, keep the silent e in the original word.

Examples:

• Care + ful = careful

• Care + less = careless

Exceptions to Rule 3

Examples:

• True + ly = truly

• Argue + ment = argument

 Rule 4

When the word ends in a consonant plus y, change the y to I before any suffix not beginning with

i.

Examples:

• Sunny + er = sunnier

• Hurry + ing = hurrying

Rule 5

When the suffix begins with a vowel, double the final consonant only if (1) the word has only

one syllable or is accented on the last syllable and (2) the word ends in a single vowel followed

by a single consonant.

Examples:

• Tan + ing = tanning (one syllable word)

• Regret + ing = regretting (The accent is on the last syllable; the word ends in a single

vowel followed by a single consonant.)

• Cancel + ed = canceled (The accent is not on the last syllable.)

• Prefer + ed = preferred

Derivation, Compounding, Blending, Clipping, Back formation

Derivation

“The formation of words by changing the form of the base or by adding affixes to it. For

example, from ‘hope’ to ‘hopeful’. It is major source of new words in a language. In historical

linguistics the derivation of words is its history or etymology.

Compounding
The process of combining two or more words (free morphemes) to create a new word

(commonly a noun, verb, or adjective) is called Compounding. For example,

Black+board= Blackboard

Blending

Blending is a word formed by joining parts of two words after clipping. When parts of two

separate words are combined to form a new word, it is blending. For example,

Telecast => Television+broadcast,

Brunch=> Breakfast+Lunch

Smog=> Smoke+fog

Clipping

The process of reduction or Shortening of a word is called clipping. For example, “exam” from

examination and “flu” from influenza.

Types of Clipping

Back Clipping

Back clipping is the most common type in which the beginning of the word is retained. For

example, Advertisement to -ad and Doctor to -doc.

Fore Clipping

Fore clipping retains the final part of the words. For example, Telephone to phone and

University to Varsity.

Middle Clipping

Middle clipping retains the middle part of the word. For example, flu from influenza .

Complex Clipping
 In this clipped forms are used in compound most often remains intact. For example, “op

art” from ‘optical art' and “cablegram” from ‘cable telegram’.

Back Formation

It refers to the process of creating a new lexeme by removing actual or supposed affixes. In

short, it is shortened words created from longer words. For example, Resurrection from Latin

and later on after hundred years it became resurrect after removing -ion suffix.