Vocabulary is a science that studies the totality of words

The term in the title of this article has two meanings. The definition of vocabulary can only be two-sided: it is a linguistic phenomenon, and the science that studies it.

What is vocabulary

First, vocabulary is a certain combination of words of a certain language, a work (in this case they also speak of a thesaurus), of a person. In the latter case, it is often possible to meet the methodical term "vocabulary."

Secondly, lexicology is a science that studies words. You can explore them from many different angles: it's watching how the fund of units of a particular language changes, and how similar or different close adverbs are, and how each of the lexemes works. There are also some common questions. They touch the word at all.

The Science of the Word

The word can be studied from many different angles. Morphology considers its grammatical meaning, morphemic and word formation - its morphemic composition and model. Vocabulary is a science that studies the word as such: its meaning, history, relationships with other language units.

Words (or lexical units, lexemes) in the language represent an interesting, lively and in their own orderly system. Some of them are very similar to others in meaning and are often interchangeable (this is a synonymic system), while others, on the contrary, are opposite in meaning (they are antonyms and similar, similar phenomena). Some can co-exist in a single text, others are so contradictory that their use in one text looks strange or funny. In some cases it is appropriate to use one unit, in others their application is completely unacceptable (these are the issues of stylistics). Therefore, vocabulary as a science studies not just each word individually, but the system itself, its rules, laws, norms and potential.

Sections of vocabulary

As you can see, vocabulary is a science with a vast field of interests, therefore every angle of looking at a word or on a dictionary system is studying its special section. First of all, among them is onomasiology (the science of "naming", or about "nomination"), semantics and semasiology (within their framework the meaning, meaning, its structure is explored), phraseology (studies the same language phenomenon), onomastics (considers existing names ), Etymology (the science of the origin of words), stylistics (about it already mentioned) and lexicography (focuses on the description of vocabulary, compilation of dictionaries).

Some of these sections will be discussed in more detail in this article.

Phraseology

Vocabulary is a science that studies not only words, but also their combinations that are solid associations. These "unity" are so indivisible that they function in speech almost on par with words. Such combinations are called phraseological units.

Everyone is familiar with such expressions as "two boots of steam", "scrape along the siege", "nails in the house do not drive", etc. Each of the words in the composition of such combinations almost lost its own significance. Not knowing the meaning of phraseology, it is often impossible to "deduce" from the components of the "components" included in it (since these are not entirely lexicals, linguists speak specifically of the "components" of phraseology). Such formations often pose a deadlock for foreigners precisely because their meaning is not the sum of the meanings of words, but rather, either a folded story, or some artistic image. The history of the emergence of phraseological units is one of the most popular and interesting areas of research.

These strong combinations, existing along with lexemes, are also in close relationship and with each other, and with lexical units. Thus, to be precise, vocabulary is a science that studies words and phraseological units.

Etymology

Its history is not only in every phraseology, but also in each lexeme. Vocabulary is a science that studies both the present and the past of words. Etymology considers the origin of linguistic units. For specialists in this field, it is important why this or that phenomenon was sometimes called (called) this particular combination of sounds. Maybe this word was once borrowed from some language? From what? Perhaps over time, the lexeme has become so distorted, it began to sound so unlike its original version, that modern carriers have ceased to see its connection with the root words, they ceased to realize that it is based on the well-known root. Etymological meaning (the meaning that was embedded in the token at the time of appearance in the language) is often surprising and can shed light on the true meaning of the lexical unit; It often not only makes you think about the word, but also revises your attitude to the phenomenon that it means.

Any versions of the origin of a word should be based on a masterly knowledge of the history of the language. Unfortunately, recently, despite the development of linguistics and historical data accumulated, cases of arbitrary interpretation of the appearance of tokens are not uncommon. Often unprofessional etymologization serves as an instrument for ideologists who bring the "scientific basis" to their social and political concepts.

Semantics and Semasiology

Within the semantics of vocabulary - this is the science of the meaning of the word. "Semes" are some minimal elements of meaning. The value of each token is their unique combination. It is especially interesting to compare the structure of the meaning of analogous words from different languages. Mismatches in the structure and composition of these minimal elements of meaning not only vividly show how different are the words of different adverbs at first glance, but make it clear how dissimilar in mentality people could have invented them.

Of course, despite the "specialization", all these sections of science are closely related and study, in fact, one phenomenon, making accents on its different sides, and it is the combination of many approaches that makes vocabulary one of the most fascinating and rapidly developing areas of linguistics.