Порівняльна лексикологія

Lecture 1
Lexicology as the science about the word.
Definition of the word as the basic unit of English lexical system.
Types of lexical units. Basic tasks of lexicology

Lexicology as the science about the word

Lexicology, a branch of linguistics, is the study of words.

Essential aspects of the nature of the word which still escape us:
 We do not fully understand the phenomenon called “language”, of which the
word is a fundamental unit;
 We know little about either the mechanism by which a speaker’s mental process
is converted into sound groups called “words” or about the reverse process;
 We know very little about the nature of relations between the word and the
referent (i.e. object, phenomenon, quality, action, etc. denoted by the word).
Things we do know about the nature of the word:
 we do know that the word is a unit of speech, which, as such, serves the
purposes of human communication. Thus, the word can be defined as a unit of
communication;
 the word can be perceived as the total of the sounds, which comprise it;
 the word, viewed structurally, possesses several characteristics.

Modern approach to word studies departs from distinguishing between external

and internal structures of the word.

External structure of the word – its morphological structure, post-impressionists

- the prefixes post-, im-,
- the root press,
- the noun-forming suffixes -ion, -ist,
- the grammatical suffix of plurality -s.
All these morphemes constitute the external structure of the word post-
impressionists.

Internal structure of the word – or its meaning = semantic structure.

Words can serve the purposes of human communication solely due to their
meanings.
The area of lexicology focused on the semantic studies of the word is called
semantics.

The word unity:

- The word possesses both external (or formal) unity and semantic unity.
- Formal unity of the word is sometimes inaccurately interpreted as indivisibility.
The example of post-impressionists has already revealed the ambiguity of the
word indivisibility. Yet, its component morphemes are permanently linked
together in opposition to word-groups, both free: bright light and those with
fixed contexts, whose components are structurally free: to take for granted.

 The formal unity of the word:

- blackbird
possesses a single grammatical framing: blackbird\s. The first constituent
black is not subject to any grammatical changes
- black bird
each constituent can acquire grammatical forms of its own: the blackest
birds I've ever seen.
Other words can be put between the components which is impossible so
far as the word is concerned as it would violate its unity: a black night
bird

 The semantic unity of the word:

- In the word-group a black bird each of the meaningful words renders a
separate concept: bird — a kind of living creature; black — a colour.
- The word blackbird renders only one concept: the species of birds.
- This is one of the main features of any word: it always implements one
concept, no matter how many component morphemes it may have in its
external structure.

Definition of the word

The word is a speech unit used for the purposes of human communication,
materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, usually subject to
grammatical changes and characterized by morphological and semantic unity.
Units
The term ‘unit’ means one of the elements into which a whole may be divided or
analyzed and which possesses the basic properties of this whole.

Types of lexical units:

 The units of a vocabulary or lexical units are two-facet elements possessing
form and meaning.
 The basic unit forming the bulk of the vocabulary is the word.
 Other units are
• morphemes that is parts of words, into which words may be analyzed;
• set expressions or groups of words into which words may be
combined.
 1) Words – basic unit:
- the central elements of language system,
- face both ways: they are the biggest units of morphology and the smallest of
syntax,
- embody the main structural properties and functions of language,
- can be separated in an utterance by other such units and can be used in
isolation,
- are thought of as representing integer concept, feeling or action or as having a
single referent.

2) Set expressions:
- word groups consisting of two or more words whose combination is integrated.
Consist of the units with a special meaning of the whole that cannot be
considered as a simple sum total of the meanings of the elements: a bean pole.

3) Orthographic words:
- written as a sequence of letters bounded by spaces on a page: none the less, and
complex prepositions: along with, as far as, in spite of, except for, due to, by
means of, for the sake of, etc.
- equivalents:
phrasal verbs, so numerous in English: bring up 'to educate', call on 'to visit',
make up 'to apply cosmetics', 'to reconcile after a disagreement' and some other
meanings, put off 'to postpone'.
They function like words and they are integrated semantically so that their
meaning cannot be inferred from their constituent elements.
The same is true about phrasal verbs consisting of the verbs give, make, take
and some others used with a noun instead of its homonymous verb alone: give a
smile, make a promise, take a walk (c.f. to smile, to promise, to walk).

Types of the units

Tasks of lexicology:
o The first is the issue of studying the external structure of the word or word-
building. It focuses on the study of prevailing morphological word-structures
and in the processes of making new words.
o The second, semantics, is the study of the internal structure of the word (or the
other lexical unit) structure, its meaning. Modern approaches to this problem
are characterized by two different levels of study: syntagmatic and
paradigmatic.

The syntagmatic level:

 the semantic structure of the word is analysed in terms of its linear relationships
with neighbouring words in speech.
 In other words, the semantic characteristics of the word are observed, described
and studied on the basis of its typical contexts: e.g. the word smart is studied in
terms of its relationship with the following nouns. e.g. answer, Alec, preceding
verb: e.g. to get, etc.

The paradigmatic level:

 the word is studied in its relationships with other words in the vocabulary
system: a word may be studied in comparison with other words
- of similar meaning (e. g. work, n. — labour, n.; to refuse, v. — to reject, v. —
to decline, v.),
- of opposite meaning (e. g. busy, adj. — idle, adj.; to accept, v. — to reject, v.),
- of different stylistic characteristics (e. g. man, n. — chap, n. — bloke, n. —
guy, n.).
Consequently, the issues of paradigmatic studies are synonymy, antonymy and
functional styles.

Synchrony vs. diachrony

 the study of the vocabulary as a system.
 The vocabulary can be studied synchronically, that is at one given stage of its
development, or diachronically, that is, in its development by comparing its two
or more different stages of development.
 The latter is especially important since the vocabulary, as well as the word,
which is its fundamental unit, is not only what it is now, at this particular stage
of language development, but, also, what it was centuries ago and has been
throughout its history.

Dialectology – the regional variants of English (British, American, etc.), since

vocabulary makes the basic differences among them, reflecting specific vision of
the world by different nations using, at the first sight, the same language.

Lexicography – deals with the ways of making dictionaries of different types.

Lecture 2
Semantics as a science. Polysemy. Semantic structure of the word.
 Types of semantic components

Facts about the Meaning of the Word:

- the internal structure of the word is its meaning or semantics;
- the very function of the word as a unit of communication is made possible by
its possessing a meaning;
- among various characteristics of the word, meaning is the most important.

The essence of the Meaning – a component of the word through which a concept
is communicated, in this way endowing the word with the ability of denoting real
objects, qualities, actions and abstract notions.

Semantic Triangle:
• The link between the referent and the word is dashed
since it is not immediate
• The mediator is the concept (the idea of a phenomenon in
our mind)

This conventionality in the end explains the difference in

naming one and the same phenomenon by different words in different languages
though the concept (its notion) may be almost the same.

Basics of Semantics:
- The branch of linguistics, which deals with the study of meaning is semantics;
- the inner form of the word (i.e. its meaning) is a semantic structure of the word;
- semantic structure of the word is not an indissoluble unity, which does not
necessarily stand for one concept.

Polysemy
 Most words implement several concepts and thus have the corresponding
number of meanings;
 a word with several meanings is polysemantic;
 ability of words to have more than one meaning is polysemy.

FAQs about Polysemy:

? Is polysemy an anomaly or a general rule in English vocabulary?
? Is polysemy an advantage or a disadvantage so far as the process of
communication is concerned?

Polysemy is not an Anomaly:

o most English words are polysemantic;
o range of expressive resources of language largely depends on the degree to
which polysemy is developed.

Polysemy is a Great Advantage:

 the number of sound combinations that human speech organs can produce is
limited;
 at a certain stage of language development, the production of new words by
morphological means becomes impossible;
 the engines of process of enriching vocabulary are not only quantitative (adding
new words), but, also qualitative (continuous development of polysemy).

Tendencies in Developing Polysemantic Meanings in English:

1. develop gradually;
2. two-way process: emerging new meanings and losing old ones;
3. currently -- towards increasing the total number of meanings of a word

Stages of Analysing the Meaning (Semantic Analysis)

I
The First Stage of Semantic Analysis

o main meaning
o secondary meanings

meanings II and III are not linked logically,

whereas each one is associated with meaning
I

II
The Second Stage of Semantic Analysis
The transformed scheme of the semantic structure of dull features the centre. It
holds together the complex semantic structure of this word. It is not one of the
meanings but a certain component that can be easily singled out within each
separate meaning.

Each separate meaning is subject to structural analysis as a

set of semantic components.

Principles of component (semantic)

analysis:
• the meaning of a word is defined as a set of elements of meaning (semes) which
are not part of the vocabulary;
• the basic quality of the seme is its ability to combine in various ways with other
similar elements (semes) in the meaning of different words.

Types of Semantic Components

Types of Semantic Components:
 Denotative Component (Denotation):
- is the conceptual value of the word;
- tags a certain named phenomenon as one of a certain class of objects

 Connotative Component (Connotation):

- pragmatic / communicative value the word that renders the speakers’
attitudes to the whole situation or a phenomenon, e.g. where, when, how,
by whom, for what purpose and in what context it is or may be used.
 Types of Connotations:
o stylistic (poetic, learned, vulgar, etc.): stupid, fool, bonehead, retarded;
o emotional or affective: aggravate – spoil, kill;
o evaluative: active – lively – aggressive;
o ideological: patriot – nationalist.

Meaning and Context

One of the most explicit “drawbacks” of polysemantic words is that there is
sometimes danger of misunderstanding when the word is used in one meaning but
comprehended by the listener or reader differently.
 Contextual Analysis
Context is a powerful preventative against any confusion of meanings: a dull
pupil, a dull play, a dull razor-blade, dull weather;
Contextual Analysis focuses on determining the minimal speech fragment and the
conditions necessary and sufficient to pinpoint the meaning the word in question is
used.

Lecture 3
English vocabulary as a system. Types of semantic groups
English vocabulary as a system

Lexicology and Systematization:

Though the vocabulary of language, in contrast to grammar, seems to be chaotic,
lexicology tends to study it as patterns of semantic relationships, and of any
formal phonological, morphological and contextual means by which they may be
rendered.
So, lexicology also aims at systematisation.

- The term system as used in present-day lexicology denotes not merely the sum
total of English words
- It describes the set of elements associated and functioning together according to
certain laws.
- It is a coherent homogeneous whole, constituent of interdependent elements of
the same order and related in certain specific ways.

Types of semantic groups in the lexical system:

 Grouping: singling out the sets of vocabulary units united according to a certain
criterion.
 Types of semantic grouping:
• morphological (proper, word-family, affix)
• lexico-grammatical
• thematic
• ideographic

Morphological Grouping:
1. Root or morpheme words. Their stem contains one free morpheme, e. g. dog,
hand.
2. Derivatives contain no less than two morphemes of which at least one is bound,
e.g. dogged, doggedly, handy, handful; sometimes both are bound: terrier.
3. Compound words consist of no less than two free morphemes, the presence of
bound morphemes is possible but not necessary, e. g. dog-cheap 'very cheap';
dog-days 'hottest part of the year'; handball, handbook.
4. Compound derivatives consist of no less than two free morphemes and one
bound morpheme referring to the whole combination. The pattern is (stem +
stem) + suffix, e. g. dog-legged 'crooked or bent like a dog's hind leg', left-
handed.

Word-Family Grouping:
The number of groups is equal to the number of root morphemes: dog, doggish,
doglike, doggy/doggie, to dog, dogged, doggedly, doggedness, dog-wolf, dog-days,
dog-biscuit, dog-cart, etc.;
hand, handy, handicraft, handbag, handball, handful, handmade etc.

Affix Grouping:
- groupings according to a common suffix or prefix.
- The greater the combining power of the affix, the more numerous the group is.
- Groups with such suffixes as -er, -ing, -ish, -less, -ness constitute infinite (open)
sets, i.e. are almost unlimited, because new combinations are constantly
created.
- When the suffix is no longer productive the group may have a diminishing
number of elements, as with the adjective-forming suffix -some: gladsome,
gruesome, handsome, lonesome, tiresome, troublesome, wholesome, etc.

Lexico-Grammatical Grouping (I):

- consists in classifying words not in isolation but taking them within actual
utterances:
• notional words
• form or functional words.

Notional Words –
- the definition of the word as a minimum free form holds good for notional
words only.
- It is only notional words that can stand alone and yet have meaning and form
a complete utterance: Snow…Silence…
- They can name different objects of reality, the qualities of these objects and
actions or the process in which they take part
- In sentences they function syntactically as some primary or secondary
members: Grey abandoned streets seem dead animals.

Form (Functional) Word –

- Lexical units which are called words, although they do not conform to the
definition of the word, because they are used only in combination with
notional words or in reference to them.
- This group comprises auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions and relative
adverbs: are, have, at, since, when, why
 - Primarily they express grammatical relationships between words. This does
not, however, imply that they have no lexical meaning of their own.

The Borderline between NW and FW

• The borderline between notional and functional words is not always very
clear and does not correspond to that between various parts of speech.
• Prop-words (one, those, etc.),
• Pronouns
o Personal, demonstrative and interrogative pronouns, as their
syntactical functions testify, are notional words;
o reflexive pronouns are form words building up such analytical verb
forms as warmed myself

Lexico-Grammatical Grouping (II):

- subdivisions of parts of speech. These groups are subsets of the parts of speech,
several lexico-grammatical groups constitute one part of speech.
- By lexico-grammatical group we understand a class of words, which have 1) a
common lexico-grammatical meaning, 2) a common paradigm, 3) the same
substituting elements 4) a characteristic set of suffixes rendering the lexico-
grammatical meaning.

English nouns are subdivided approximately into the following lexico-grammatical

groups:
o personal names (singer, judge),
o animal names (fox, ostrich),
o collective names (for people: police, audience),
o collective names (for animals: shoal, school, flock, herd, swarm),
o abstract nouns (courage, lordship)
o material nouns (ink, wood),
o object nouns (chair, ball),
o proper names for people (Huggins, Brown),
o toponymic proper nouns (the Hague, the Appalachians)

Personal Names:
• two number forms, the singular and the plural;
• two case forms;
• animate;
• substituted in the singular by he or she;
• common, i.e. denoting a notion and not one particular object (as proper
names do);
 • able to combine regularly with the indefinite article,
• some of them have such suffixes as -er, -or, -ist, -ee, -eer and the semi-affix
-man,
• agent, baker, artist, volunteer, visitor, workman.

LG Difference within a Category of the Part of Speech:

 audience: a collective noun, has two forms, singular and plural, substituted by
they
 honesty: an abstract noun, has one form, singular, substituted by it

Thematic Grouping:
- terms of kinship, names of parts of the human body, colour terms, military
ranks and so on.
- The basis of grouping this time is not only linguistic but also extra-linguistic:
the words are associated, because the things they name occur together and are
closely connected in reality.
- It has been found that these words constitute quite definitely articulated spheres
held together by differences, oppositions and distinctive values.

Subsystems in Thematic Groups:

- The basic colour name system comprises four words: blue,
green, yellow, red; they cover the whole spectrum.
- All the other words denoting colours bring details into this
scheme and form subsystems of the first and second order,
which may be considered as synonymic series with
corresponding basic terms as their dominants. Red

Red Group:
 red is taken as a dominant
 for the subsystem of the first degree (level): scarlet, orange, scarlet, orange, crimson

crimson,
 and the subsystem of the second (third) level is: vermilion, wine
red, cherry, coral, copper-red, etc. vermilion, wine red,
cherry, coral, copper-red

Words at the Levels in the Thematic Groups

Words belonging to the basic system differ from words belonging to subsystems
not only semantically but in some other features as well.
 (1) frequency of use;
 (2) motivation;
 (3) simple or compound character;
 (4) stylistic colouring;
 (5) combining power.
- The basic terms, for instance, are frequent words, their motivation is lost in
present-day English.
- They are all native words of long standing.
- The motivation of colour terms in the subsystem is very clear: they are derived
from the names of fruit (orange), flowers (rose), colouring stuffs (indigo).
- Basic system words and most of the first degree (level) terms are root words,
the second (third) level terms are derivatives or compounds: copper-red, sky-
coloured.
- Stylistically the basic terms are definitely neutral, the second (third) degree
terms are either special or poetic.

Ideographic Grouping:
- independent of classification into parts of speech.
- Words and expressions are here classified not according to their lexico-
grammatical meaning but strictly according to their signification, i.e. to the
associations of logical notions.
- These groups may comprise nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs together,
provided they refer to the same notion.
- Thus, such words as light n, bright a, shine v and other words connected with
the notion of light as something permitting living beings to see the surrounding
objects are united into the ideographic group.

Lexical Fields – theory of intellectual terms, which form a lexical sphere where
the significance of each unit is determined by its neighbours.
(Ch. Fillmore)

The Lexical Field Structure CORE

SEMI-
PERYPHERY
 Core: the most typical components: hour, week, day, month
PERYPHERY

 Semi-peryphery: frequent, quick

 Figurative components: once in a blue moon, a one-pipe case

Non-Semantic Grouping:
Is performed according to the words:
- alphabetical organization
- rhyming
- length
- frequency

Alphabetical Organization of Written Words –

• represented in most dictionaries.
 • It is of great practical value as the simplest and the most universal way of
facilitating the search for the necessary word.
• The theoretical value of alphabetical grouping is almost null, because no
other property of the word can be predicted from the letter or letters the
word begins with. We cannot infer anything about the word if the only thing
we know is that it begins with a p.
• Only in exceptional cases some additional information can be obtained at a
different, e.g. the etymological, level. For instance, words beginning with a
w are mostly native, and those beginning with a ph borrowed from Greek.
But such cases are few.

Grouping by Rhyming:
- The rhyming, i.e. inverse, dictionary presents a similar non-semantic grouping
of isolated written words differing from the first in that the sound is also taken
into consideration and in that the grouping is done the other way round and the
words are arranged according to the similarity of their ends.

- The practical value of this type is very limited. These dictionaries are intended
for poets. They may be also used, if but rarely, by teachers, when making up
lists of words with similar suffixes.

Grouping by Length:
- based on the length, i.e. the number of letters the words contain.
- This type, worked out with some additional details, may prove useful for
communication engineering, for automatic reading of messages and correction
of mistakes. It may prove useful for linguistic theory as well, although chiefly
in its modified form, with length measured not in the number of letters but in
the number of syllables.

- Important statistical correlations have been found to exist between the number
of syllables, the frequency, the number of meanings and the stylistic
characteristics a word possesses. The shorter words occur more frequently and
accumulate a greater number of meanings.

Grouping by Frequency:
- based on a statistical analysis of the words frequency.
- Frequency counts carried out for practical purposes of lexicography, language
teaching and shorthand enable the lexicographer to attach to each word a
number showing its importance and range of occurrence.
- The most frequent words are usually polysemantic and stylistically neutral.

Lecture 4
Homonyms. Synonyms. Antonyms
Homonyms – words identical in sound and spelling or, at least, in one of these
aspects, but different in their meaning:
bank, n. — a shore
bank, n. — an institution for receiving, lending, exchanging, and
safeguarding money
графік, n.—a schedule
графік, n.— an artist who draws pictures

Origin and Function:

 homonyms are accidental and, therefore, purposeless. In the process of
communication, they are more of an encumbrance, resulting in confusion or
misunderstanding.
 Yet, they underpin popular humour (pun).

Pun – a joke based on the play on words of the similar form but different meaning
(i. e. on homonyms) as in the following.

Types of Homonyms:
1. Homonyms Proper
2. Homophones
3. Homographs
Homonyms proper – words identical in sound and spelling
- деркач – a bird
- деркач – a used sweeper
- crane (лелека – машина кран)
- pine
- well (добре – колодец)

Homophones – words identical in sound but different in spelling:

- night, n.—knight, n.;
- piece, n. —peace, n.;
- scent, n.— cent, n.—sent, v. (past indef., past part, of to send);
- rite, n.— to write, v.—right, adj.;
- sea, n.—to see, v.—C [si:] (the name of a letter).
- мене (from I) – мине (future from the verb минати)
 - Claus – claws – clause
- board – bored

Homographs – words identical in spelling but different in sound:

- to bow [bau], v.— to incline the head or body in salutation
- bow [bou], n. — a flexible strip of wood for propelling arrows
- to lead [li:d], v. — to conduct on the way, go before to show the way
- lead [led], n. — a heavy, rather soft metal
- тѐрен (plant) – терѐн (простір)

Sources of homonyms:
o Phonetic changes – in the course of their historical development, two or more
words formerly pronounced differently may develop identical sound forms and
thus become homonyms:
Night and knight were not homonyms in Old English as the initial k in the
second word was pronounced, and not dropped as it is in its modern sound
form: O. E. kniht (cf. O. E. niht).
A more complicated change of form brought together another pair of
homonyms: to knead (O. E. cnedan) and to need (O. E. neodian).
In Old English the verb to write had the form writan, and the adjective right had
the forms reht, riht.

o Borrowings – a borrowed word may, in the final stage of its phonetic

adaptation, duplicate in form either a native word or another borrowing: in the
group of homonyms rite, n. — to write, v. — right, adj. the second and third
words are of native origin whereas rite is a Latin borrowing (< Lat. ritus).
o Word-building:
- Conversion – the most important type in these terms. Such pairs of words as
comb, n.— to comb, v., pale, adj.— to pale, v., to make, v. — make, n. are
numerous in the vocabulary.
Homonyms of this type, which are the same in sound and spelling but
amount to different categories of parts of speech, are lexico-grammatical
homonyms.
- Shortening – type of word-building which adds the number of homonyms.
fan, n. in the sense of "an enthusiastic admirer of some kind of sport or of an
actor, singer, etc." is a shortening produced from fanatic.
Its homonym fan, n. is a Latin borrowing which denotes a device for waving
lightly to produce a cool current of air.
- Sound-imitation (onomatopoeia) – forms pairs of homonyms with other
words: e. g. bang, n. ("a loud, sudden, explosive noise") — bang, n. ("a
fringe of hair combed over the forehead").
 Common features of the sources of homonymy:
 In onomatopoeia and shortening, the pairs or triples of words homonyms
have purely incidental similarity.
 Conversion, however, is an exception, for, one word of the pair is produced
from the other:
• a find < to find.

o Split polysemy – two or more homonyms can originate from different

meanings of the same word when, for some reason, the semantic structure of
the word breaks into several parts. (board – n.)
• board, n.—a long and thin piece of timber
• board, n.—daily meals, esp. as provided for pay, e. g. room and board
• board, n.—an official group of persons who direct or supervise some
activity, e. g. a board of directors
Nowadays, however, the item of furniture, on which meals are served and round
which boards of directors meet, is no longer denoted by the word board but by the
French Norman borrowing table, and board in this meaning, though still registered
by some dictionaries, can very well be marked as archaic as it is no longer used in
common speech. Consequently, the semantic structure of board was split into three
units.

Reasons of the Split Polysemy:

 the semantic structure of a polysemantic word is a system, within which all
its constituent meanings are held together by logical associations.
 In most cases, the semantic unity of all meanings is conditioned by one of
the meanings (e.g. the meaning "flame" in the noun fire).
 If this meaning drops out from the word semantic structure, associations
between the rest of the meanings may no longer hold, the semantic structure
loses its unity and falls into two or more parts that then are viewed as
independent lexical units.

Lexico-Grammatical Typology of Homonyms:

homonyms may amount to both the same and different parts of speech.
 Obviously, the classification of homonyms is underpinned by this distinctive
feature.
 Also, the paradigm of each word should be considered, since the paradigms of
some homonyms coincide completely, and that of others only partially.

Types of Homonyms
 Full Lexical Homonyms – Words of the same part of speech with an identical
paradigm:
• match, n. — a game, a contest;
• match, n.—a short piece of wood used for producing fire
 Partial Lexical Homonyms – words of the same part of speech identical only in
their corresponding forms:
• to lie (lay, lain), v. to lie (lied, lied), v.
• to hang (hung, hung), v. to hang (hanged, hanged), v.
• to can (canned, canned) (I) can (could)
 Simple Lexico-Grammatical Partial Homonyms – words of the same part of
speech. Their paradigms have one identical form, but it is never the same form:
• (to), found, v. — found, v. (past indef., past part, of to find)
• to lay, v. — lay, v. (past indef. of to lie)
• to bound, v. — bound, v. (past indef., past part. of to bind)
 Complex Lexico-Grammatical Partial Homonyms – words of different parts of
speech with one identical form in their paradigms.
• rose, n. — rose, v. (past indef. of to rise)
• maid, n. — made, v. (past indef., past part. of to make)
• left, adj. — left, v. (past indef., past part, of to leave)
SYNONYMS: ARE THEIR MEANINGS THE SAME OR DIFFERENT?
“I have always liked you very much, I admire your talent, but, forgive me, — I
could never love you as a wife should love her husband.”
(From The Shivering Sands by V. Halt)
Though they all render more or less the same feeling of liking, each of the three
verbs describes it in its own way: "I like you, i. e. I have certain warm feelings
towards you, but they are not strong enough for me to describe them as "love" —
so that like and love are in a way opposed to each other.
 In terms of component analysis, synonyms may be defined as words with the
same denotation, or the same denotative component, but differing in
connotations, or in connotative components.
 A group of synonyms may be studied via their dictionary definitions
(definitional analysis), like in the following:
look, stare, gaze, glare, glance, peer.

Semantic Typology of Synonyms:

 Idiographic synonyms – words that render the same notion but differ in the
shades of meaning:
assemble - amass, collect, convene, summon, mobilize
table – bar, bench, board, buffet, bareau, console, dresser, slab
веселий – життєрадісний, сонцелюбний, сонцеликий, просвітлий,
втішний
 Stylistic synonyms – words that differ in terms of their usage in functional
styles:
assemble – convene, gather; bunch, flock, huddle; gang up, hang around;
good – favourable, acceptable, reputable; delux, first-class, super; bully,
bad, crack, rad, sick.
дурень - бовдур, неінтелектуальний, відсталий за розвитком
 Absolute synonyms – identical in their shades of meaning and in all their
stylistic features:
articulation, pronunciation, verbalization
However, absolute synonyms are rare in vocabulary and, at the diachronic level,
the phenomenon of absolute synonymy is anomalous and consequently
temporary: the vocabulary system invariably tends to eliminate it either via
abolishing one of the absolute synonyms or by developing semantic or
contextual differentiation in one or both (or all) of them.

Antonyms
Antonyms – words of the same part of speech with contrasting meanings: hot —
cold, light — dark, happiness — sorrow, to accept — to reject, up — down, верх —
низ.
 If synonyms form whole, often numerous, groups, antonyms are usually
believed to appear in the counterpart pairs. For instance, the adjective cold has
warm for its antonym, and sorrow may be contrasted with gaiety.
 On the other hand, a polysemantic word may have an antonym (or several
antonyms) for each of its meanings. So, the adjective dull has the antonyms
 for its meaning “deficient in interest”: interesting, amusing,
entertaining,
 for its meaning “deficient in intellect”: clever, bright, capable
 for its meaning “deficient in activity”: active etc.

Antonyms and Parts of Speech

 Most antonyms are adjectives which is natural because qualitative features are
easily compared and contrasted: high — low, wide — narrow, strong — weak,
old — young, friendly — hostile, веселий — сумний.
 Verbs take second place. Yet, verbal pairs of antonyms are fewer in number: to
lose — to find, to live — to die, to open — to close, to weep — to laugh,
любити - ненавидіти
 Nouns do not feature the plethora of antonyms, however, there are some: friend
— enemy, joy — grief, good — evil, heaven — earth, love — hatred.
 Antonymic adverbs split in two groups:
a) adverbs derived from adjectives: warmly — coldly, merrily—sadly,
loudly — softly;
b) adverbs proper: now — then, here — there, ever — never, up — down, in
— out

Lecture 5
Motivation of words.
Linguistic and extralinguistic reasons of semantic shifts
Motivation – the relationship existing between the phonemic or morphemic
composition and structural pattern of the word, on the one hand, and its meaning,
on the other.

Motivation:
o Phonetic;
o Morphological;
o Semantic.

Phonetic motivation – a certain similarity between the sounds that make up the
word and those referred to by the sense.
bang, buzz, cuckoo, giggle, gurgle, hiss, purr, whistle
• the sounds of a word are imitative of sounds in nature because what is referred
to is a sound or at least, produces a characteristic sound (cuckoo);
• not perfect replica of any acoustic structure but only a rough approximation;
• determined by the phonological system of each language as shown by the
difference of echo-words for the same concept in different languages
• this accounts for the variability of echo-words within one language and between
different languages: cuckoo (Engl.) = Kuckuck (Germ)

Words denoting animal sounds – motivated only phonetically so that nouns and
verbs are exactly the same: bleat, purr (of a cat), moo (of a cow), crow (of a cock),
bark (of a dog), neigh (of a horse)

Morphological motivation – a similarity between the structure of the word and the
meaning it renders:
the prefix, ex- means 'former' when added to human nouns: ex-filmstar, ex-
president, ex-wife;
There is also a more general use of ex-: in borrowed words it is unstressed and
motivation is faded (expect, export, etc.).

Combination of Phonetic and Morphological Motivation – sound imitative,

meaning 'quick, foolish, indistinct talk': babble, chatter, gabble, prattle
echoic creations combine phonetic and morphological motivation because they
contain verbal affix -le and -er forming frequentative verbs.

Ways of Determining Morphological Motivation:

- Rethink is motivated inasmuch as its morphological structure suggests the idea
of thinking again.
- Re- is one of the most common prefixes of the English language, it means
'again' and 'back' and is added to verbal stems or abstract deverbal noun stems,
as in rebuild, reclaim, resell, resettlement.
- Here again these newer formations should be compared with older borrowings
from Latin and French where re- is now unstressed, and the motivation faded.
Compare re-cover 'cover again' and recover 'get better'.
- Morphological motivation is especially obvious in newly coined words, or at
least words created in the present century: detainee, manoeuvrable,
prefabricated, racialist, self-propelling, vitaminize, etc. In older words, root
words and morphemes motivation is established etymologically, if at all.

Exceptions in Morphological Motivation Analysis:

- Similarity in sound form does not always correspond to similarity in
morphological pattern:
 Agential suffix -er is affixable to any verb, so that V+-er means 'one who V-s'
or 'something that V-s': writer, receiver, bomber, rocker, knocker. Yet, although
the verb numb exists in English, number is not 'one who numbs' but is derived
from OFr nombre borrowed into English and completely assimilated.
- The cases of regular morphological motivation outnumber irregularities, and yet
one must remember the principle of "fuzzy sets" in coming across the word
smoker with its variants: 'one who smokes tobacco' and 'a railway car in which
passengers may smoke'.

Semantic motivation – based on the co-existence of direct and figurative meanings

of the same word within the same synchronous system.
• Mouth continues to denote a part of the human face, and at the same time it
can metaphorically apply to any opening or outlet: the mouth of a river, of a
cave, of a furnace.
• Jacket is a short coat and also a protective cover for a book or an electric
wire.
• In their direct meaning neither mouth nor jacket are motivated.

Determining the Type of Motivation of Different Forms (Compounds):

- Their motivation is morphological if the meaning of the whole is based on the
direct meaning of the components: eyewash 'a lotion for the eyes' or headache
'pain in the head', or watchdog 'a dog kept for watching property’.
- Their motivation is semantic if the combination of components is used
figuratively: eyewash 'something said or done to deceive a person so that he
thinks that what he sees is good, though in fact it is not', headache 'anything or
anyone very annoying' and watchdog 'a watchful human guardian’.

Complex Morpho-Semantic Motivation in Diachrony:

o teenager 'a person in his or her teens'.
o The motivation may be historically traced as follows:
- the inflected form of the numeral ten produced the suffix -teen.
- The suffix later produces a stem with a metonymical meaning (semantic
motivation), receives the plural ending -s, and then produces a new noun
teens 'the years of a person's life of which the numbers end in -teen,
namely from 13 to 19'.
- In combination with age or aged the adjectives teen-age and teen-aged
are coined, as in teen-age boy, teen-age fashions.
 - A morphologically motivated noun teenager is then formed with the help
of the suffix -er which is often added to compounds or noun phrases
producing personal names according to the pattern 'one connected
with...'.

Not all words with a similar morphemic composition will have the same
derivational history and denote human beings:
first-nighter and honeymooner are personal nouns, but two-seater is 'a car or
an aeroplane seating two persons', back-hander is 'a back-hand stroke in tennis' and
three-decker 'a sandwich made of three pieces of bread with two layers of filling'.

Stages of Motivation:
 When the connection between the meaning of the word and its form is
conventional that is there is no perceptible reason for the word having this
particular phonemic and morphemic composition, the word is said to be non-
motivated for the present stage of language development.
 When some people recognize the motivation, whereas others do not, motivation
is said to be faded.

Reason of Lost Motivation:

 Words that seem non-motivated at present may have lost their motivation. The
verb earn does not suggest at present any necessary connection with
agriculture. The connection of form and meaning seems purely conventional.
Historical analysis shows that it is derived from OE (ge)-earnian 'to harvest'.
 In Modern English this connection no longer exists and earn is now a non-
motivated word.

Folk Etymology – an attempt to find motivation for a borrowed word the speakers
change its form so as to give it a connection with some well-known word:
A nightmare is not 'a she-horse that appears at night' but 'a terrifying dream
personified in folklore as a female monster'. (OE mara 'an evil spirit'.)
The international radiotelephone signal may-day corresponding to the
telegraphic SOS used by aeroplanes and ship in distress has nothing to do with
the First of May but is a phonetic rendering of French m'aidez 'help me'.

Sound Symbolism – as the same combinations of sounds are used in many

semantically similar words, they become more closely associated with the
meaning: flap, flip, flop, flitter, flicker, flutter, flash, flush, flare; glare, glitter,
glow, gloat, glimmer; sleet, slime, slush,
fl – is associated with quick movement,
gl – with light and fire,
sl – with mud.
 Objections to Sound Symbolism:
 There are many English words, containing the initial fl- but not associated with
quick or any other movement: flat, floor, flour, flower.
 There is nothing muddy in the referents of sleep or slender.

Semantic Shifts (Changes) – considered in semasiology, the historical and

psychological study of the shifts (changes) in the signification of words or forms
viewed as factors in linguistic development.

Reasons of Semantic Shifts:

o Linguistic:
- differentiation of synonyms
- fixed context
- ellipsis
- ambiguity
o Extralinguistic
Differentiation of synonyms – a gradual change observed in the course of
language history, sometimes, but not necessarily, involving the semantic
assimilation of loan words:
e.g. tima vs. tid => time vs. tide
- In Old English the general word for animal was deer
- The word beast was borrowed from French into Middle English. The word deer
became narrowed to its present meaning 'a hoofed animal of which the males
have antlers'.
- Somewhat later the Latin word animal was also borrowed, then the word beast
was restricted, and its meaning served to separate the four-footed kind from all
the other members of the animal kingdom.
deer => beast => animal

Differentiation of Synonyms and Fixed Context:

o The noun token originally had the broad meaning of 'sign'. When brought into
competition with the loan word sign, it became restricted in use to a number of
set expressions such as love token, token of respect and so became specialized
in meaning.

Ellipsis:
• The qualifying words of a frequent phrase may be omitted: sale comes to be
used for cut-price sale, propose for propose marriage, be expecting for be
expecting a baby, media for mass media.
• Or vice versa the core word of the phrase may seem redundant: minerals for
mineral waters, summit for summit meeting.
Ambiguity – regular coincidences of different aspects, alongside with cause and
result, subjective and objective, active and passive aspects especially frequent in
adjectives.
e.g. hateful means 'exciting hatred' and 'full of hatred'; curious—'strange' and
'inquisitive';
pitiful — 'exciting compassion' and 'compassionate'.
One can be doubtful about a doubtful question, in a healthy climate children are
healthy.
To refer to these cases linguists employ the term conversives.

Extralinguistic Causes of Semantic Change:

o development of the notion expressed and the thing named;
o appearance of new notions and things

- The word being a linguistic realization of notion, it changes with the progress of
human consciousness.
- This process is reflected in the development of lexical meaning.
- As the human mind achieves an ever more exact understanding of the world of
reality and the objective relationships that characterize it, the notions become
more and more exact reflections of real things.

Development of the notion expressed and the thing named:

 OE eorde meant 'the ground under people's feet', 'the soil' and 'the world of
man' as opposed to heaven that was supposed to be inhabited first by Gods and
later on, with the spread of Christianity, by God, his angels, saints and the souls
of the dead.
 With the progress of science earth came to mean the third planet from the sun
and the knowledge is constantly enriched.
 With the development of electrical engineering earth n means 'a connection of a
wire conductor with the earth', either accidental (with the result of leakage of
current) or intentional (as for the purpose of providing a return path). There is
also a corresponding verb earth. E.g.: With earthed appliances the continuity of
the earth wire ought to be checked.

Technical Imagery:
I. Chain Reaction
II. Live wire

Euphemisms or Politically Correct Language:

- Gr. euphemismos < eu 'good' and pheme 'voice')
- Lexis of the peoples of developed culture dictated by social usage, etiquette,
advertising, tact, diplomatic considerations and political reasons
- meanings with unpleasant connotations appear in words formerly neutral as a
result of their repeated use instead of words that are for some reason
unmentionable, cf. deceased 'dead', deranged 'mad', intellectually challenged
‘stupid’, pupils with special needs ‘retarded’

Politically Correct Language:

 In terms of politics, it is decidedly less emotional to call countries with a low
standard of living underdeveloped, but it seemed more tactful to call them
developing. The latest term is Third World countries.
 Lots of euphemisms appeared because of the vast migration processes in the
world and growth of people’s self-respect. Thus e.g. negro, gipsy, etc. are
considered taboo, giving way to Afro-American, Roman or Rom.

Lecture 6-7
Functional stylistic, Temporal and Regional division
of English vocabulary
Scientific approach to the bulk of English and Ukrainian vocabulary is not
exhausted by thematic, lexicogrammatical, ideographic and other principles.
There are still more principles of the vocabulary division.

Functional styles. Informal vs. Formal styles.

Professionalisms

Other Principles of English Vocabulary Division

Division of Vocabulary:
 Stylistic
 Temporal
 Regional

Stylistic division – is based on the supposition that one and the same notion may be
named variously depending on the situation of communication, which is actualized
in the form of different functional styles.
 These are mainly formal, colloquial, and professional, which in their turn
diverge into substyles.
Functional Styles:
The term functional style is generally accepted in modern linguistics. It is a system
of expressive means specific for a certain sphere of communication.
By the sphere of communication, we mean the circumstances attending the process
of speech in each particular case: professional communication, a lecture, an
informal talk, a formal letter, an intimate letter, a speech in court, etc.

English Vocabulary:
 Informal:
o Colloquial
o Slang
o Dialect words and word-groups
 Formal
 Professional

Informal vocabulary is used in one's immediate circle: family, relatives or friends.

One uses informal words when at home or when feeling at home.
- Informal style is relaxed, free-and-easy, familiar and unpretentious. But it
should be pointed out that the informal talk of well-educated people
considerably differs from that of the illiterate or the semi-educated; the choice
of words with adults is different from the vocabulary of teenagers; people living
in the provinces use certain regional words and expressions.
- Consequently, the choice of words is determined in each particular case not
only by an informal (or formal) situation, but also by the speaker's educational
and cultural background, age group, and his occupational and regional
characteristics.
Colloquial Vocabulary:
 Informal words that are used in everyday conversational speech both cultivated
and uneducated people of all age groups.
 The sphere of literary colloquial words also includes the printed page, which
shows that the term “colloquial” is somewhat inaccurate.

Example:
You're at some sort of technical college?" she said to Leo, not looking at him...
"Yes. I hate it though. I'm not good enough at maths. There's a chap there just
down from Cambridge who puts us through it. I can't keep up. Were you good at
maths?"
(From the Time of the Angels by I. Murdoch)

 A considerable number of shortenings are found among words of this type. E. g.

pram, exam, fridge, flu, prop, zip, movie.
 Verbs with post-positional adverbs are also numerous among colloquialisms:
put up, put over, make up, make out, do away, turn up, turn in, etc.
Slang – current words whose meanings have been metaphorically shifted. Each
slang metaphor is rooted in a joke, but not in a kind of amusing joke.
- This is the criterion for distinguishing slang form colloquialisms: slang words
are metaphors and jocular, often with a coarse mocking, cynical colouring.
- As some authors state, the world of slang is inhabited by odd creatures: NOT
BY MEN, BUT BY GUYS AND BLIGHTERS OR ROTTERS WITH NUTS
FOR HEADS, MUGS FOR FACES, FLIPPERS FOR HANDS.

Internet Slang

Dialects – regional forms of English.

- Dialectal features, especially those of vocabulary, are constantly being
incorporated into everyday colloquial speech or slang.
- From these levels they can be transferred into the common stock. Car, trolley,
tram began as dialect words.
Formal or Learned words – are mainly associated with the printed page. It is in
this vocabulary stratum that poetry and fiction find their main resources. We find
here numerous words that are used in scientific prose and can be identified by their
dry, matter-of-fact flavour (e. g. comprise, compile, experimental, heterogeneous,
homogeneous, conclusive, divergent, etc.).
 To this group also belongs so-called "officialese" (cf. канцелярізми):
assist (for help), endeavour (for try), proceed (for go), approximately (for
about), sufficient (for enough), attired (for dressed), inquire (for ask).
 Eliza Doolittle engages in traditional English small talk answering the question
"Will it rain; do you think?" in the following way: "The shallow depression in the
west of these islands is likely to move slowly in an easterly direction. There are no
indications of any great change in the barometrical situation."
Professional or Trade terms:
 Every field of modern activity has its specialised vocabulary. There is a special
medical vocabulary, and similarly special terminologies for psychology,
botany, music, linguistics, teaching methods and many others.
 Term, as traditionally understood, is a word or a word-group which is
specifically employed by a particular branch of science, technology, trade or the
arts to convey a concept peculiar to this particular activity.
So, e.g. bilingual, interdental, labialization, palatalization, glottal stop,
descending scale are terms of theoretical phonetics.
Neologisms, Archaisms and Historisms
Temporal Principle of the Vocabulary Division – Provides the basis for
considering NEOLOGISMS (as comparatively newly
coined units), ARCHAISMS (the words no longer used in
the language) and HISTORISMS (that naming the items
and phenomena, which are rare or no longer in modern
world).
 Neologism – a newly coined word or phrase or a new
meaning for an existing word, or a word borrowed from
another language.
The laws of efficient communication demand maximum
signal in minimum time. To meet these requirements, the
adaptive lexical system is not only adding new units but readjusts the ways and
means of word formation and the word-building means.
Ways of coining neologisms:
o derivation (resit, unfunny)
o compounding (self-, super- and mini-)
o semantic shifts in existing words (boost)
 o combining conversion and shortening (vape)
o following the adopted pattern in derivation (workaholic)
o combining conversion and compounding from verbs with postpositives (holdup
'armed robbery’)
o envolving semi-affixes (-person, instead of -man) (policeperson)
o portmanteau words (blog, wi-fi)
Portmanteau words – the words created by way of clipping and blending the stems
when it is no longer possible to single them (the stems) out
 to blog came from web logging, with the stem of the second component
back-formed and then morphological compounding followed by conversion
 Wi-Fi standing for wireless systems for Internet
 Wikipeadia (Wiki Encylopaedia)

 Archaisms – are words that were once common but are now replaced by
synonyms.
- When these new synonymous words, introduce nothing conceptually new, the
stylistic value of older words tends to be changed;
- on becoming rare they acquire a lofty poetic tinge due to their ancient flavour,
and then they are associated with poetic diction:
aught n 'anything, whatever', betwixt prp 'between', billow n 'wave', chide v
'scold', damsel n 'a noble girl', ere prp 'before', even n 'evening', forbears n
'ancestors', hapless a 'unlucky', hark v 'listen', lone a 'lonely', morn n 'morning',
perchance adv 'perhaps', save prp, cj 'except', woe n 'sorrow',
- when the thing named is no longer used, its name becomes a historism.
- Historisms are very numerous as names for social relations, institutions and
objects of material culture of the past.
- The names of ancient transport means, such as types of boats or types of
carriages, ancient clothes, weapons, musical instruments, etc. can offer many
examples.
Transport Historisms:
- brougham, berlin, calash, diligence, fly, gig, hansom, landeau, phaeton
- caravel, galleon
Costume Historisms:
- a tabard of the 15th century was a short coat open at the sides and with
short sleeves, worn by a knight over his armoury and emblazoned on the
front, back and sides with his armorial bearings
- a doublet is a close-fitting jacket with or without sleeves worn by men in
the 15th-17th centuries
Weapon Historisms:
- battering ram 'an ancient machine for breaking walls'
- breastplate 'a piece of metal armoury worn by knights over the chest to
protect it in battle'
British vs. American English
Area of Difference:
The American variant of the English language differs from British English in:
 pronunciation
 some minor features of grammar
 but chiefly in vocabulary

Cases of the Variant Contradictions:

- Cases where there are no equivalents in British English: drive-in ‘a cinema
where you can see the film without getting out of your car’;
- Cases where different words are used for the same denotation (see above);
- Cases where the semantic structure of a partially equivalent word is different.
The word pavement in England means ‘the footway at the side of the road’. The
Americans use the noun sidewalk for this, while pavement with them means
‘the roadway’.
- Cases where otherwise equivalent words are different in distribution. The verb
ride in Standard English is combined with a horse, a bicycle, more seldom they
say ride on a bus. In American English combinations like a ride on the train,
ride in a boat are quite usual.
- Difference in emotional and stylistic colouring. Nasty, a much milder
expression in England than in the States.

Lecture 8
Lexicography as a Science
Lexicography – is the theory and practice of compiling dictionaries, is an
important branch of applied linguistics.

Lexicography and Lexicology:

 have a common object of study with lexicology, both describe the vocabulary
of the language.
 The essential difference between the two is in the degree of systematization
and completeness each of them is able to achieve.

Lexicology aims at systematization revealing characteristic features of words. It

cannot, however, claim any completeness as regards the units themselves, because
the number of these units being very great, systematization and completeness could
not be achieved simultaneously.

The province of lexicography, on the other hand, is semantic, formal, and

functional description of all individual words.

Dictionaries aim at a more or less complete description, but in so doing cannot

attain systematic treatment, so that every dictionary entry presents, as it were, an
independent problem.

Lexicologists sort and present their material in a sequence depending upon their
views concerning the vocabulary system, whereas lexicographers have to arrange
it most often according to a purely external characteristic, e.g. alphabetically.

Their relationship (lexicography and lexicology) being essentially that of theory

and practice dealing with the same objects of reality.

Types of Dictionaries
The term dictionary is used to denote a book (a site) listing words of a language
with their meanings and often with data that concerns pronunciation, usage, origin
etc.

There are also dictionaries that concentrate their attention upon only one of these
aspects: pronouncing (phonetic) dictionaries and etymological dictionaries.

Criteria of classifying dictionaries:

 Number of languages
 Time span
  Range of knowledge

Number of languages:
- For dictionaries, in which the words and their definitions belong to the same
language, the term unilingual or explanatory is used.
- Bilingual or translation dictionaries explain words by providing their
equivalents in another language.
- Multilingual or polyglot dictionaries are not numerous, they serve chiefly the
purpose of comparing synonyms and terminology in various languages.

Time Span Principle:

Unilingual Dictionaries:
- Synchronic
- Diachronic
- Diachronic dictionaries reflect the development of the English vocabulary by
recording the history of form and meaning for every word registered.
- Synchronic or descriptive dictionaries of current English concentrate on
present-day meaning and usage of words.
The boundary between the two is indefinite: few dictionaries are consistently
synchronic, so that in many cases two principles are combined.
Some synchronic dictionaries are at the same time historical when they represent
the state of vocabulary at some past stage of its development.
Range of Knowledge Principle:
Unilingual\bilingual Dictionaries:
- General
- Special
 General dictionaries present the vocabulary as a whole with a degree of
completeness depending upon the scope and bulk of the book in question. Some
general dictionaries may have very specific aims and still be considered general
due to their coverage.
Types of General dictionaries:
 Unilingual:
• Explanatory dictionaries (besides the pronunciation and basic
paradigm, provide definitions of the words)
• Etymological dictionaries (Provide information about the origin of
words)
• Frequency dictionaries (provide the data concerning the words
frequency in different functional styles, their position and dispersion
throughout the corpus)
• Phonetic dictionaries (present the words as sound combinations)
 • Rhyming dictionaries (provide rhyming words in one, two or more
syllables)
• Thesaurus (a dictionary, in which words with the same or similar
meanings are grouped together)
 Bilingual:
• English-Ukrainian, Ukrainian-English, etc. and multilingual
dictionaries
 Special dictionaries. Their stated aim is to cover only a certain specific part of
the vocabulary.
Principles of their building:
1. sphere of human activity in which they are used (technical dictionaries),
2. the type of the units that make its register (e. g. phraseological dictionaries)
3. the relationships between the units (e. g. dictionaries of synonyms).
1) By sphere of human activity:
• embraces highly specialized dictionaries of limited scope, which may
address a particular kind of reader.
• They register and explain technical terms for various branches of
knowledge, art and trade: linguistic, medical, technical, economic terms, etc.
• Unilingual dictionaries with a limited number of terms defined are
glossaries. They are often compiled by boards or commissions specially
appointed for the task of improving technical terminology.

2) By types of units – deal with specific language units, i.e. with phraseology,
abbreviations, neologisms, borrowings, surnames, toponyms, proverbs and
sayings, etc.

3) By the relationships of its units:

• a range of synonymic, antonymic, homonymic dictionaries.
• Dictionaries that register the complete vocabulary of some author are
concordances
• In terms of territorial considerations, they differ dialect dictionaries and
dictionaries of, e.g. Americanisms.

Non-Linguistic Dictionaries – dictionaries that provide information on all

branches of knowledge, the encyclopaedias. They do not deal with words, but with
facts and concepts. The best known encyclopaedias of the English-speaking world
are "The Encyclopaedia Britannica" and "The Encyclopaedia Americana". There
exist also biographical dictionaries and many minor encyclopaedias.
On-line Dictionaries – Nowadays a lot of referential materials may be used on-
line, from the Internet, which makes them much more comfortable and accessible.
For example, all big British publishing houses on the sites have on-line
dictionaries: Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Pearson
Educations (Longman), McMillan Heinemann, etc.
Evolution of the Dictionary:
What each of the dates of evolution stands for in the development of the English
Dictionary?
- 1755
- 1880
- 1935
- 1990
- 2009
- 2013