What does lexicology study? Section of science that studies vocabulary

Lexicology is a science that focuses on the vocabulary of a particular language. It has its own laws and categories. What does lexicology study? This science deals with various aspects of words, as well as their functions and development.

The concept of

Lexicology is a science that studies the vocabulary of a language and its features. The subject of this section of linguistics is the following:

• Functions of lexical units.
• The problem of the word as the basic constituent of the language.
• Types and types of lexical units.
• The structure of the vocabulary of the language.

This is not a complete list of what is being studied by lexicology. This science deals with the issues of replenishment and expansion of vocabulary, and also examines the links and contradictions between lexical units.

Object of study

The word and its meaning are the basis for many sciences. Morphology deals with these questions, as well as various directions of word formation. However, if in these sciences words are a means of studying grammatical structures or studying various models for different variants of word formation, then what is learned by lexicology is used directly for understanding the specifics of the words themselves. Lexical units are viewed not simply as a collection of letters and sounds, but are an integral system that has its own connections, functions, categories and concepts. This is the object of the study of lexicology. She does not consider individual words, but the whole vocabulary as something whole and indivisible.

This approach has its own peculiarities. This allows us to refer to the category of lexical units not only words, but also stable phrases that have a certain analytical role.

Word problem

The lexicology of the modern Russian language focuses on the object and subject of its study. Since the word is considered as a unit that has connections between its form and content, it is considered in three main aspects:

• Structural. The form of a word, its structure and components are studied.
• Semantic. The meaning of lexical units is considered.
• Functional. The role of words in speech and in the general structure of language is investigated.

Speaking of the first aspect, lexicology is a science that establishes specific criteria for determining the difference and identity of individual words. To do this, lexical units are compared with word combinations, and an analytical structure is developed that allows to establish invariants of the word.

As for the semantic aspect, then this is a separate science - semasiology. She studies the relationship between a word and a specific object. This is important for lexicology. She studies the word and its meaning, as well as its separate categories and types, which allows us to distinguish such concepts as monosemy (uniqueness) and polysimy (polysemy). Lexicology also studies the causes that lead to the appearance or loss of a word of its meaning.

The functional aspect considers a lexical unit as an object that communicates with other similar elements and builds a whole system of language. Here the role of the interaction of vocabulary and grammar is important, which, on the one hand, supports, and on the other hand - limits each other.

Definition of vocabulary

Lexicology regards words as a system that consists of several subsystems. Lexical units form groups that are different in volume, form and content. This is part of what is learned by lexicology. At the same time, the vocabulary is explored in two aspects: as a group relationship between individual units and their proper location in relation to each other. Thanks to this vocabulary can be divided into separate categories. For example, homonyms, paronyms, synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, etc.

In addition, almost any section of linguistics, including Russian or English lexicology, studies more extensive groupings of words, which are called fields. Usually it is built on the basis of the field core, for example, a certain number of keywords, and the boundaries themselves, which are a variety of paradigmatic, semantic, grammatical or other types of relationships with given lexical units.

Sections of lexicology

Like any other science, lexicology has its own system of disciplines, which are responsible for certain aspects of its object and subject of study:

• Semasiology. Engaged in the meanings of words and phrases.
• Onomasiology. He studies the procedure for naming objects and phenomena.
• Etymology. Explores the origin of words.
• Onomastics. Engaged in proper names. This applies to both people's names and geographical names.
• Stylistics. Studying the meaning of words and expressions of connotative nature.
• Lexicography. Engaged in ways to organize and compile dictionaries.
• Phraseology. Explores phraseological units and persistent expressions.

The sections of lexicology have their own categories, as well as the object and subject of study. In addition, there are some types of this science. In particular, we are talking about general, private, historical, comparative and applied lexicology. The first type is responsible for the general patterns of vocabulary, including its structure, stages of development, functions, etc. Private lexicology deals with the study of a specific language. The historical type is responsible for the development of words in connection with the history of names of objects and phenomena. Comparative lexicology examines words in order to identify the relationship between different languages. The latter type is responsible for such processes as the culture of speech, features of translation, linguistic pedagogy and lexicography.

Categories of lexical units

The vocabulary of any language is diverse and heterogeneous. Accordingly, distinguish categories that have their own distinctive features and characteristics. Russian lexicology foresees the following subspecies:

• In the field of application: common words and lexical units that are used in special situations (science, poetry, old talk, dialects, etc.).
• On the emotional load: neutral and emotionally colored units.
• On historical development: neologisms and archaisms.
• By its origin and development: internationalism, borrowing, etc.
• By functionality - active and passive lexical units, as well as occasionalisms.

Given the continuous development of the language, the boundaries between words are fuzzy, and they can move from one group to another.

Problems

Like any other science, lexicology deals with certain problems. Modern specialists distinguish the following:

• Frequency of words in the text.
• The difference between lexical units in writing and in oral speech.
• The possibilities of words that allow you to create new names for objects and phenomena.
• Change the values of vocabulary.

Science also studies variants of word compatibility at different levels: semantic and lexical.

Ways to replenish the vocabulary

Lexicology is engaged in research of variants of nominations. This means different ways and methods of expanding the vocabulary. For this, both the internal resources of a specific language can be used, and the use of lexical units from other languages can be used. There are the following ways of replenishing the vocabulary:

• Word formation is the creation of new words.
• Constructing new values for already existing words: polysemy, transfer of values, etc.
• Formation of persistent phrases.
• Borrowing.

These methods are typical for any language, but in each case have their own characteristics and distinctive features.

Methods

For its needs, lexicology uses general linguistic research methods. These include:

• Distribution. Responsible for defining the scope of a lexical unit, for the number of values, etc.
• Substitution. He studies the phenomena of synonymy and the variation of words.
• Component method. Responsible for the splitting of lexical units into separate components, and also deals with their general structure.
• Transformation. Used in the process of word formation in order to determine the main component of the word.
• Statistical method. Used to determine the frequency of use of lexical units, as well as to calculate their semantic, paradigmatic and other types of connections.

The information obtained with the help of these methods is used in other sciences, including psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and a number of social disciplines.