Lexicology as related to other linguistic sciences

Main branches of lexicology

Lexicology as related to other linguistic sciences

1. Definition of the subject

The term " lexicology" is formed of two Greek morphemes: " lexis", meaning a word (or rather " lexicos" – " having to do with words"), and " logos", which means " knowledge" or " learning". Therefore it stands for " the science of words". Indeed lexicology is a branch of linguistics that studies words as units of language, or the vocabulary of that language – both separate words and systematic relations between them. The other two main aspects of linguistics, phonetics and syntax, which also touch upon the study of the word, do it from a different angle. Phonetics, dealing with the sounds a language is made of, may touch upon the outer sound-form of word; syntax, on the other hand, is a study of the ways the words are put together.

Lexicology fills the gap between these two branches of linguistics. Its task is the study of the word stock (vocabulary) of any given language, the origin of words, their development and current use – in both aspects of form and meaning. Apart from words as such, lexicology also studies word-groups, word-equivalents and morphemes which make up words.

In studying words, different branches of lexicology make use of two different approaches. One of these concentrates upon the changes in the form and meaning of words as a language develops through the centuries. This is known as the historical or diachronic approach, and treats language as a dynamic process. The other deals with the vocabulary of a language as it is now, or was at some moment of its history. This is known as the descriptive or synchronic approach, and treats language as a static system.

The distinction between the synchronic and diachronic approaches to language is due to the Swiss philologist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913); recent investigations have shown, however, that there is a closer connection between historical and systematic studies of language than de Saussure thought possible.

The study of words, and vocabulary in general, which concentrates on their most typical or universal features (so-called " language universals ") while ignoring the specific features of any individual language, is known as general lexicology. In contrast, special lexicology deals with specific features in the vocabulary of any given language (English, Russian, German, etc.). Since we are going to deal with the vocabulary of present-day English, treating it both synchronically and diachronically, the present course is therefore a course in special lexicology.

Much attention has been paid in recent years to providing a theoretical basis on which the vocabularies of different languages could be compared and described. This is the task of comparative, or contrastive, lexicology. In the present course, we shall be particularly concerned with comparing English and Russian words, or English words to those of the related languages (German, etc.), tracing the possible ways they might have influenced one another.