Lexicology Final exam

1. How many ways of forming words are there in English?

-There are 2 main ways of forming words: word-derivation and word-composition.

The basic ways of forming words in word-derivation are affixation and

conversion. Affixation is the formation of a new word with the help of affixes,
e.g. heartless (from heart). Conversion is the formation of a new word by bringing a stem of
this word into a different formal paradigm, e.g. a fall (from to fall), to slave (from a slave).
The basic form of the original and the basic form of the derived words in case of conversion
are homonymous.

Word-composition is the formation of a new word by combining two or more stems

which occur in the language as free forms, as door-handle, house-keeper.

Apart from principal there are some minor types of modern word-formation. They are:
shortening, blending, acronomy, sound- interchange, sound imitation, distinctive stress, and
back-formation.

2. Word composition is...

-Compounding or word-composition is one of the productive types of word-formation

in Modern English. Word-composition is the formation of a new word by combining
two or more stems which occur in the language as free forms, as door-handle, house-
keeper.

3. The lexical meaning of a compound word is derived from...

The meaning of compound words is derived from the combined lexical meanings of the
components and the meaning of the derivational pattern.

4. What is conversion?

- Conversion is the formation of a new word by bringing a stem of this word into a different
formal paradigm, e.g. a fall (from to fall), to slave (from a slave). The basic form of the
original and the basic form of the derived words in case of conversion are homonymous.

5. Phraseological units are habitually defined as:

-non-motivated word groups

 Phraseological word-groups are:

-ready-made units

6. Classification of phraseological units.

Phraseological units may be classified into three big groups:

phraseological fusions, phraseological unities and phraseological collocations.

7. "To show one's teeth"-to which phraseological group does it belong?

-It belongs to a phraseological unities, it is a metaphor.

8. What is the difference between word-groups and phraseological units?

Word-groups may be described through the order and arrangement of the component
members. The word-group can be classified as a verbal — nominal group, as verbal —
prepositional — nominal, etc. All word-groups according to the criterion of distribution are
divided into two big classes. If the word-group has the same linguistic distribution as one of
its members, it is described as endocentric, i.e. having one central member functionally
equivalent to the whole word-group and all other members of the group are subordinated.
Phraseological units are defined as non-motivated word-groups that cannot be freely made
up in speech but are reproduced as ready-made units. They are always reproduced as single
unchangeable collocations. Essential features of phraseological units are stability of the
lexical components and lack of motivation.

9. Procedure of morphemic analysis:

Analyse the word "Unfriendliness"

- un(prefix), friend (root) li (suffix) ness(suffix)

10. The term "native" is conventionally used to denote words of Anglo-saxon origin.

11."Memorandum"- is the word of Latin origin.

12. Monoradical and poliredical

-According to the number of root-morphemes all polymorphic words are divided into
two groups: monoradical or one-root words and polyradical words which consist of two
or more roots.

According to the type of affixes monoradical words fall into three subtypes: radical-suffixal, radical-
prefixal and prefixo-radical-suffixal words.
Polyradical words fall into two types: (1) polyradical words of two or more roots with no affixal
morphemes and (2) polyradical words containing at least two roots and one or more affixal
morphemes.

13. Types of morphemes

-Morphemes may be classified:

a) from the semantic point of view,

b) from the structural point of view.

a) Semantically morphemes fall into two classes: root-morphemes and non-root or affixational
morphemes. Roots and affixes make two distinct classes of morphemes due to the different
roles they play in word-structure.

b) Structurally morphemes fall into three types: free morphemes, bound morphemes, semi-
free (semi- bound) morphemes.

14. What is the difference between phrasemes and idioms?

-Idioms are distinguished from phrasemes by the idiomaticity of the whole word-
group (e.g. red tape — ‘bureaucratic methods’) and the impossibility of attaching
meaning to the members of the group taken in isolation.