of the Lexical System of a Language

The research methods used in Lexicology have been closely connected with the general trends in linguistics.

The principles of comparative linguistics have played an important role in the development of a scientific approach to historical word study. This comparative-historic method consisted in observation of speech, mostly written, collection and classification of data, hypotheses, and systematic statements.

The comparative-historic method also consisted in observing words and comparing them in time. Such scientists as H. Sweet, O. Jesperson, contributed a lot to the comparative-historic method. The greatest contribution of the followers of the comparative-historic method was the Oxford English Dicti onary. It reflects the development of the English vocabulary by recording the history of form and meaning for every word registered.

Thus at the beginning of the present century vocabulary study was still mainly concentrated on historical problems. Several lexicological monographs concentrated their attention on the etymological ties of vocabulary units. Many linguists still pursue this historical interest.

Above we spoke of diachronic or historical approach to the study of the lexical system of a language.

A different direction, however, has become increasingly important and widespread. The traditional methods have been severely criticized for a confusion of linguistics and history, linguistics and psychology. After Swiss scientist Ferdinand de Saussure an entirely new approach to language had been evolved, it came to be understood as a system of synchronous symbols deriving their meaning and significance from differences and oppositions within this system. The centre of interest has shifted to the synchronic level of the spoken utterance and structure. Lexicologists are now describing what the vocabulary of the language is like, rather than how it came to be that way.

The new trend has received the name of structural linguistics

(or descriptive). Its methodological principles can be summarized as follows:

1) Language is to be analyzed by specifically linguistic methods, according to specific linguistic criteria, not as a combination of psychological, physiological, logical and physical phenomena.

2) Descriptive linguistics cannot give simply a list of the elements, it must show how these elements are combined.

Structural linguistics has many varieties and schools. The main schools are those of Prague, the USA, Copenhagen and later, London and Moscow.

Czech linguists have produced the Prague school which has contributed to the development of Modern structural linguistics on a Word-wide level.

A major achievement of the Prague school is represented in

N.S. Trubetskoy’s classical work and means a particular approach to phonology. Trubetskoy’s theory of oppositions is of primary importance. First used in phonology the theory proved fruitful for other branches of linguistics as well. The principle of oppositions is of paramount importance because no unit has any significance by itself. Its significance can arise only out of its contrast with other units in the structural patterns that function as signals in a particular language system.

Examples of phonetic opposition: Сена-река

Сеня- name

p - b nib - nip

The typically American developments of linguistic theory resulted from practical tasks: the study of the American Indian languages, teaching foreign languages and recently, machine translation.

Books by Z. Bloomfield, B. Bloch, G. Z. Trager, Z. Harris and M. Chomsky mark stages in the development of structuralist theory in the USA. The main achievements of the American school as far as research procedures are concerned are the analysis into immediate constituents, substitution, distributional and transformational analysis.

Immediate constituents (usually symbolized by IC) are the two meaningful parts forming a larger linguistic unity. The IC of “bluish” are “blu” and “ish”.

Substitution is testing of similarity by placing into identical environment. (It is reddish. It is somewhat red.). Substitution is also useful in determining classes of words. Thus the words family, boy and house belong to different classes of nouns because they are differently substituted.

I like this family. - I like them.

I like this boy. - I like him.

I like this house. - I like it.

The term distribution is used to denote the possible variants of the immediate lexical, grammatical and phonetical environment of a linguistic unit. In other words distribution is the sum of all possible surroundings.

e.g. to try + Inf. (I tried to get there in time.)

to try + Gerund (I try reading it.)

N pr. + seem (s, ED) + Inf. (He seems to be a dreamer.)

As a classical example we can take the verb “make“. Patterns with “make”:

make + a + N = make a bow

make + the + N + V = make the machine go

make + A = make sure

In all these examples the meaning of “make” is different. It depends on the surrounding the verb is in.

Another modern method of investigation is called transformational analysis. We call transformation the changing of a sentence, or formula according to a prescribed model and following certain rules. You dealt with transformations, (changing Active into Passive, Singular into Plural, Grammar transformations).

Paraphrasing of a sentence in which some word is replaced by its semantic equivalent or definition is a lexical transformation. The lexical transformation keeps the meaning unchanged.

The application of statistical methods in Language study. The meaning of the word statistics is counting, computation.

Figures can tell us a lot if we can ask them properly. For a modern linguist it is not enough to know that this or that structure is allowable to appear, he is also interested in its frequency.

Every lexicological research is based on collecting examples. Mathematical linguistics supplies research workers with formulae showing the necessary scope of material.

There has been a considerable growth of interest and activity in statistical linguistics in the present decade. Statistical approach is most helpful in vocabulary study. It is growing with every year. One of the most prominent representatives of statistical linguistics Pierre Guirand has counted that the passive vocabulary of an average educated person comprises 200, 000 words. Only a small part of them is often used. If we take a text, we’ll see that the first 100 most frequently used words make up 60 % of any text; 1000 – 85%; 4000 – 97, 5%.

It follows that the rest of the words about 150,000 take only 2,5 percent and thus occur very rarely. The most frequent words are form-words, on the average they take about 33% of a text and sometimes even 50%. In writing (e.g.) the most frequent word is “the”, in telephone conversation - 1. Of course, figures depend on the type of speech analyzed.

Thus some linguists find that in colloquial speech it is only 50 most frequent words that account for about 60 percent of any conversation. What words are mostly used? According to the American scientist Zipf the majority of commonly used words are polysemantic monosyllables.

Statistical method is very helpful in compiling school-books and manuals. We must know what words we are to teach our pupils first. For this purpose in our country and abroad they issue frequency dictionaries.

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