Lexicology of the English language

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LEXICOLOGY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

O. Muminov

TASHKENT 2006

PREFACE

This book is compiled to meet the needs of students taking a course in Modern English Lexicology which forms a part of the curricula of Foreign Language Institutes, Teachers' Training Collages and Philological and Translation Departments of Universities. It is also intends for post graduates and all those who are interested in the English language and its vocabulary. The implication is that it is possible to show that the vocabulary of every particular language is a system constituted by interdependent elements related in certain specific ways. The present book makes no pretention to deal with the whole vast field of English Lexicology.

In this book we have attempted as far as possible to present some theoretical materials which are our to opinion very urgent and important. We have used standard definitions and accepted terminology, though it was not always easy because there are various conventions and assumptions adopted in the existing literature. The book is based on course of lecture in English Lexicology delivered by the author for a number of years at Uzbek State World Languages University.

This edition follows the theoretical concepts of the previous book «Practical course in English Lexicology». In this edition much attention has been paid to the theoretical basis of lexicological problems and the latest achievements in Lexicology made in our country and abroad. The subject matter corresponds to the programme on English Lexicology issued by the Ministry of Higher education of Uzbekistan. Lexicology is a science in the making its intense growth and makes the task of a text-book extremely difficult as many problems are still unsetlled and many achievements are the things of the future. The author will be grateful for all criticism. The author is especially grateful to the colleges of the Translation Institute in Brussels (Haute Ecole de Bruxelles) and European commission Educatin Tempus program who made many helpful suggestion in the preparation of this book.

CHAPTER 1. LEXICOLOGY AND ITS OBJECT

1. Subject matter of Lexicology

The term «Lexicology» is of Greek origin from «lexis» - «word» and «logos» - «science». Lexicology is the part of linguistics which deals with the vocabulary and characteristic features of words and word-groups. The term «vocabulary» is used to denote the system of words and word-groups that the language possesses.

The term «word» denotes the main lexical unit of a language resulting from the association of a group of sounds with a meaning. This unit is used in grammatical functions. It is the smallest unit of a language which can stand alone as a complete utterance. The term «word-group» denotes a group of words which exists in the language as a ready-made unit, has the unity of meaning, the unity of syntactical function, For example. the word-group «as loose as a goose» means «clumsy» and is used in a sentence as a predicative. He is as loose as a goose. Lexicology can study the development of the vocabulary, the origin of words and word-groups, their semantic relations and the development of their semantic structure, change of meaning.

Thus, the literal meaning of the term "Lexicology" is "the science of the word". Lexicology as a branch of linguistics has its own aims and methods of scientific research. Its basic task - is a study and systematic description of vocabulary in respect to its origin, development and its current use. Lexicology is concerned with words, variable word-groups, phraseological units and morphemes which make up words.

Uriel Weinreich 1. Uriel Weinreich. Lexicology. Current Trends in Linguistics. ed. by Thomas. A. Sebeok, The Hague, 1963. gave on idea on the subject of Lexicology and wrote that

«To an American observer, the strangest thing about Lexicology is that it exists. No corresponding discipline is officially distinguished in Western European or American linguistics: in such American textbooks as H. A. Gleason's «Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics or C. F. Hocket's «Course in Modern Linguistics New York. 1958 there is no mention of «Lexicology» and what there books have to say about the study of vocabulary bears the marks of hall-hearted improvisation. By contrast, textbooks assign to Lexicology a prominence comparable to that enjoyed by phonology and grammar. A sizable literature of articles, dissertations, book- length monographes, specialized collections and a lively stream of conferences on various lexicological subjects, reflect the relative importance of Lexicology

2. Types of Lexicology and its links with other branches of linguistics

There are 5 types of Lexicology: 1) general; 2) special; 3) descriptive; 4) historical; 5) comparative.

General Lexicology is a part of General linguistics which studies the general properties of words, the specific features of words of any particular language. It studies the pecularities of words common to all the languages. General Lexicology attempts to find out the universals of vocabulary development and patterns. Linguistic phenomena and properties common to all languages are generally called language universals.

Special Lexicology deals with the words of a definite language. Ex.: English Lexicology 1.R.Z Ginzburg, S.S. Khidekel, G.Y. Knyazeva, A.A Sankin. A Course in Modern English Lexicology -Moscow ,1973

2.Н.М Шанский. Лексиколгия современного русского языка // изд. «Просвещениe» -Москва, 1964

3. Ўзбек тили лексикологияси // Фан нашриёти, Тошкент, 1981

4.В.Г Гак Сопоставительная лексикология - М., 1977, Russian Lexicology², Uzbek Lexicology³ and so on.

Descriptive Lexicology studies the words at a synchronic aspect. It is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as they exist at the present time.

Historical or diachronic Lexicology deals with the development of the vocabulary and the changes it has undergone. For example. In descriptive Lexicology the words «to take», «to adopt» are considered as being English not differing from such native words as «child», «foot», «stone» etc. But in historical Lexicology they are treated as borrowed words.

Comparative Lexicology⁴ deals with the properties of the vocabulary of two or more languages. In comparative Lexicology the main characteristic features of the words of two or more languages are compared. For example. Russian-- English Lexicology, English--French Lexicology and etc.

Lexicology is closely connected with other aspects of the language: Grammar, Phonetics, the history of the language and Stylistics.

Lexicology is connected with grammar because the word seldom occurs in isolation. Words alone do not form communication. It is only when words are connected and joined by the grammar rules of a language communication becomes possible. On the other hand grammatical form and function of the word affect its lexical meaning. For example. When the verb «go» in the continuous tenses is followed by «to» and an infinitive, it expresses a future action. For example. He is not going to read this book. Participle II of the verb «go» following the link verb «be» denotes the negative meaning. For example. The house is gone.

So the lexical meanings of the words are grammatically conditioned.

Lexicology is linked with phonetics because the order and the * arrangement of phonemes are related to its meaning. For example. The words «tip» and «pit» consist of the same phonemes and it is the arrangement of phonemes alone which determines the meaning of the words. The arrangement of phonemes in the words «increase» and «increase» is the same. Only stress determines the difference in meaning.

Lexicology is also closely linked with the History of the language. In examining the word information in terms of its historical development we establish its French origin and study the changes in its semantic and morphological structures. If we don't know the history of the language it will be very difficult to establish different changes in the meaning and form of the words which have undergone in the course of the historical development of the language.

There is also a close relationship between Lexicology and Stylistics. The words «to begin and «to commence mean one and the same meaning but they can never be used interchangeably because they have different stylistic references.

3. Relationships, approaches and subbranches in Lexicology

The relationship existing between words may be either syntagmatic or paradigmatic.

The syntagmatic relationship is found in the context. The context is the minimum stretch of speech which is necessary to bring out the meaning of a word. For example. take tea (чой ичмо?-- пить чай), take tram (трамвайда юрмо? -- exать на трамвае).

The paradigmatic relationship is the relations between words within the vocabulary: polysemy, synonymy, antonymy of words etc.

There are two approaches to the study of the vocabulary of a language -- diachronic and synchronic.

Synchronic approach deals with the vocabulary as it exists at a given time, at the present time. The diachronic approach studies the changes and the development of vocabulary in the course of time, For example. Synchronically the words «help», «accept», «work», «produce» are all of them English words. But diachronically they came from different languages. Such words as «childhood», «kingdom», «friendship», «freedom» were at one time compound words because the suffixes-dom, -hood,-ship were independent words but synchronically they are derived words because «dom» and «hood» and «ship» became suffixes.

In the 19thcentury and at the beginning of the 20 th century Lexicology was mainly based on historical principles. At the present time the cognative and conceptual analysis of the vocabulary are developing the following method of linguistic research are widely used by lexicologists: distributional, transformational, analysis into immediate constituents, statistical, com-ponential, comparative etc. The choice of the method in each case depends on what method will yield the most reliable results in each particular case.

Lexicology has some subdivisions such as:

1) Semasiology (deals with the meaning of the word);

2) Wordformation (studies all possible ways of the formation of new words in English);

3) Etymology (studies the origin of words);

4) Phraseology (studies the set-expressions, phraseological units);

5) Lexicography (studies compiling dictionaries).

4. Word and word studies

What Is a Word? What is Lexicology? What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

(W. Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Sc. 2) These famous lines reflect one of the fundamental problems of linguistic research: what is in a name, in a word? Is there any direct connection between a word and the object it represents? Could a rose have been called by "any other name" as Juliet says? These and similar questions are answered by lexicological research.

For some people studying words may seem uninteresting. But if studied properly, it may well prove just as exciting and novel as unearthing the mysteries of Outer Space.

It is significant that many scholars have attempted to define the word as a linguistic phenomenon. Yet none of the definitions can be considered totally satisfactory in all aspects. It is equally surprising that, despite all the achievements of modern science, certain essential aspects of the nature of the word still escape us. Nor do we fully understand the phenomenon called "language", of which the word is a fundamental unit.

We do not know much about the origin of language and, consequently, of the origin of words. It is true that there are several hypotheses, some of them no less fantastic than the theory of the divine origin of language. We know nothing -- or almost nothing -- about the mechanism by which a speaker's mental process is converted into sound groups called "words", nor about the reverse process whereby a listener's brain converts the acoustic phenomena into concepts and ideas, thus establishing a two-way process of communication. 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). If we assume that there is a direct relation between the word and the referent -- which seems logical -- it gives rise to another question: how should we explain the fact that the same referent is designated by quite different sound groups in different languages. We do know by now -- though with vague uncertainty -- that there is nothing accidental about the vocabulary of the language; that each word is a small unit within a vast, efficient and perfectly balanced system. But we do not know why it possesses these qualities, nor do we know much about the processes by which it has acquired them.

The list of unknowns could be extended, but it is probably high time to look at the brighter side and register some of the 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. Then, the word can be perceived as the total of the sounds which comprise it and the word, viewed structurally, possesses several characteristics.

The modern approach to word studies is based on distinguishing between the external and the internal structures of the word. By the vocabulary of a language is understood the total sum of its words. Another term for the same is the stock of words.

The external structure of the word is its morphological structure. For example. in the word post-impressionists the following morphemes can be distinguished: the prefixes post-, im-, the root press, the noun-forming suffixes -ion, -ist, and the grammatical suffix of plurality -s. These morphemes constitute the external structure of the word post-impressionists. The external structure of words, and also typical word-formation patterns, are studied in the section on word-formation.

The internal structure of the word, or its meaning, is nowadays commonly referred to as the word's semantic structure. This is certainly the word's main aspect. Words can serve the purposes of human communication due to their meanings, and it is most unfortunate when this fact is ignored by some contemporary scholars. The area of Lexicology specialising in the semantic studies of the word is called semantics.

Another structural aspect of the word is its 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 shown that the word is not, strictly speaking, indivisible. Yet, its component morphemes are permanently linked together in opposition to word-groups, both free and with fixed contexts, whose components possess a certain structural freedom, For example. bright light, to take for granted.

The formal unity of the word can best be illustrated by comparing a word and a word-group comprising identical constituents. The difference between a blackbird and a black bird is best explained by their relationship with the grammatical system of the language. The word blackbird, which is characterised by unity, possesses a single grammatical framing: blackbirds. The first constituent black is not subject to any graminatical changes. In the word-group a black bird each constituent can acquire grammatical forms of its own: the blackest birds I've ever seen. Other words can be inserted between the components which is impossible so far as the word is concerned as it would violate its unity: a black night bird.

The same example may be used to illustrate what we mean by semantic unity. In the word-group a black bird each of the meaningful words conveys a separate concept: bird-- a kind of living creature; black -- a colour. The word blackbird conveys only one concept: the type of bird. This is one of the main features of any word: it always conveys one concept, no matter how many component morphemes it may have in its external structure.

A further structural feature of the word is its susceptibility to grammatical employment. In speech most words can be used in different grammatical forms in which their interrelations are realised. So far we have only underlined the word's major peculiarities, to convey the general idea of the difficulties and questions faced by the scholar attempting to give a detailed definition of the word. The difficulty does not merely consist in the considerable number of aspects that are to be taken into account, but, also, in the essential unanswered questions of word theory which concern the nature of its meaning.

All that we have said about the word can be summed up as follows. The word is a speech unit used for the purposes of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical employment and characterised by formal and semantic unity.

5. Comparative study of the English and Uzbek languages

Comparative study of different pecularities of English words with words of other languages shows that there are various symptoms of this contrast between English and other languages.

The wordformation, the semantic structure of correlated words and their usage in speech are different in different languages. Every language has its own lexical system. Not all the meanings which the English word has may be found in its corresponding word in Uzbek. For example. Compare the meanings of the word «hand» and its corresponding word “?ўл”.

«?ўл»

1) одамнинг бармо? учларидан елкагача бўлган ?исми, аъзоси (рука); 2) ?айвонларнинг олдинги оё?лари (лапа); 3) бармо? (палец); 4) ?ар кимнинг ёзув усули (почерк); 5) имзо (подпись);

6) иш усули (прийм работы); 7)ихтиёр, изм (воля); 8) имконият (условия)

«hand»

1) ?ўл (pyкa); 2) ?айвонларнинг олдинги оё?лари (лапа) 3) тараф (сторона, положения)

4) бош?ариш (контроль, положения) 5) розилик, ваъда (согласия, обешание); 6) ёрдам (помошь) 7) бир ўйинчи ?ўлидаги карта ( карты, исходящиеся на руках у одного игрока); 8) ишчи (рабочий); 9) денгизчи (матрос); 10) бажарувчи шахс (исполнитель, автор); 11) бир тўда одам (компания, группа); 12) уста (мастер); 13) эпчиллик (ловкость); 14) ёзув, хат (почерк); 16) ?арсаклар (аплодисменты); 17) манба (источник); 18) соат стрелкаси (стрелка); 19) ?анот (крыло); 20) бо?лам, даста (пучок); 21) кафт (ладонь) 22) сон гўшти (окорок); 23) жилов (повод).

As can be seen from the above only some meanings may be described as identical but others are different. The correlated words «hand» and «?ўл» may be the components of different phraseological units:

«hand»«?ўл»

the hand of god -- xyдо рози (божья воля) ?ўли ишга бормайди

at the hand -- ёнида, я?инида (близко, (рука не поднимается)

рядом) ?ўлни ?ўлга бериб

to live from hand to mouth-- зўр?а кун кўрмо? (рука об руку)

(пребываться) ?ўлингга эрк берма

at any hand -- ?ар э?тимолга ?арши (рукам воли не давай)

(во всяком случае) ?ўлидан келмайди

to have clean hands -- ?а?и?атгўй бўлмо? (руки кoроткие)

(быть честным) ?ўли тегмайди

(руки не доходят )

Besides that the correlated words in English and in Uzbek may coin different derivatives.For example. «hand» (handful, handless, handy, handily, handiness,hand_v), «?ўл» (?ўл, ?ўлла, ?ўлсиз, ?ўлли). The verb «to take» does not coincide in the number of meanings with its corresponding word « олмо? ».

For example. to take an exam -- имти?он топширмо? (сдавать экзамен); to take tea - чой ичмо? (пить чай); to take off --ечинмо? (раздеваться);

имти?он олмо? ( принимать экзамен) -- to give an examination; дам олмо? (отдыхать) -- to have a rest; paсм олмо? (фотографировать)- to photograph.

In the semantic structure of the Uzbek word there may be a definite figurative meaning which its corresponding English word doesn't possess. For example. Бу во?еа менга катта мактаб бўлди (Это событие было для меня уроком) This event was a good lesson to me (not «this event was a good school to me»).

The norm of lexical valancy of a word in English is not the same as in Uzbek. For example. In Uzbek the verb «кўтармо?» (поднимать) may be combined with the nouns «?ўл» (pyкa) and «стул» (cтул). However, its corresponding English verb «to raise» can be combined with the noun «hand» («to raise hands but not «to raise chair» (to lift chair).

The number of English synonymic sets may be substituted by one word in Uzbek. For example. The verbs «accept», «admit», «adopt», «take», «receive» correspond to the meanings of the Uzbek word «?абул ?илмо?»(nринимать). In English to the Uzbek word «paccoм» (xyдожник) correspond three words. They are: painter, artist, drawer. In Uzbek 6 words are used to express the notion «blow» (ypиш, зарба, зарб, ypилиш, та?иллатиш, тепиш). In English more than 20 words denote this notion. They are: blow, smack, slap, whack, poke, dig, rap, knock, stroke etc. The correlated words «to make» and «?илмо?» have different lexical valancies. to make soup -- шўрва ?илмо? (пиширмо?) (готовить суп), to make tea -- чой дамламо? (заварить чай), to make a table -- стол ясамо? (сделать стол), дapс ?илмо? (готовить урок) -- to do lessons, телефон ?илмо? (позвонить) -- to ring up, - ният ?илмо? (желать доброе) -- to wish, ?аракат ?илмо? (стараться) -- to try etc.

Some languages are remarkably rich in words with specific meanings, while others utilize general terms and neglect unnecessary details. French is usually regarded as a highly abstract language, whereas German is fond of concrete, particular terms. German has three or four specific verbs corresponding to one generic term in French: French will often use a derivative where German and English have a more specific compound: cendrier -- ashtray, aschenbecher; theriere -- teapot ...

Answer the following questions.

1. What is the subject-matter of Lexicology? What types of Lexicology do you know? 3. What is the difference between general and special lexicologies? 4. What is the difference between descriptive and historical lexicologies? 5. What is the difference between comparative and noncomparative lexicologies? 6. What can you say about the connection of Lexicology with other aspects of the language? 7. How is Lexicology connected with grammar (phonetics, stylistics, his-tory of the language)? 8. What are the main relationships between the words? 9. What is the difference between the paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships in words?

10. What do you know about diachronic and synchronic approaches to the study of the vocabulary of the language? 11. What are the methods of linguistic analysis used in Modern Lexicology? 12. What are the main subdivisions of Lexicology? 13. What is the word study?

CHAPTER 2. THE STRUCTURE OF THE WORD

1. Morphemes. Types of morphemes

There are two levels of approach to the study of word- structure: the level of morphemic analysis and the level of derivational or word-formation analysis.

Word is the principal and basic unit of the language system, the largest on the morphologic and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis.

It has been universally acknowledged that a great many words have a composite nature and are made up of morphemes, the basic units on the morphemic level, which are defined as the smallest indivisible two-facet language units.

The term morpheme is derived from Greek morpheme "form ". The Greek suffix -eme has been adopted by linguistic to denote the smallest unit or the minimum distinctive feature.

The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of form. A form in these cases a recurring discrete unit of speech. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of single morpheme. Even a cursory examination of the morphemic structure of English words reveals that they are composed of morphemes of different types: root-morphemes and affixational morphemes. Words that consist of a root and an affix are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word building known as affixation (or derivation).

The root-morpheme is the lexical nucleus of the word; it has a very general and abstract lexical meaning common to a set of semantically related words constituting one word-cluster, For example. (to) teach, teacher, teaching. Besides the lexical meaning root-morphemes possess all other types of meaning proper to morphemes except the part-of-speech meaning which is not found in roots.

Affixational morphemes include inflectional affixes or inflections and derivational affixes. Inflections carry only grammatical meaning and are thus relevant only for the formation of word-forms. Derivational affixes are relevant for building various types of words. They are lexically always dependent on the root which they modify. They possess the same types of meaning as found in roots, but unlike root-morphemes most of them have the part-of-speech meaning which makes them structurally the important part of the word as they condition the lexico-grammatical class the word belongs to. Due to this component of their meaning the derivational affixes are classified into affixes building different parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs.

Roots and derivational affixes are generally easily distinguished and the difference between them is clearly felt as, for example, in the words helpless, handy, blackness, Londoner, refill, etc.: the root-morphemes help-, hand-, black-, London-, fill-, are understood as the lexical centers of the words, and -less, -y, -ness, -er, re- are felt as morphemes dependent on these roots.

Distinction is also made of free and bound morphemes.

Free morphemes coincide with word-forms of independently functioning words. It is obvious that free morphemes can be found only among roots, so the morpheme boy- in the word boy is a free morpheme; in the word undesirable there is only one free morpheme desire-; the word pen-holder has two free morphemes pen- and hold-. It follows that bound morphemes are those that do not coincide with separate word- forms, consequently all derivational morphemes, such as -ness, -able, -er are bound. Root-morphemes may be both free and bound. The morphemes theor- in the words theory, theoretical, or horr- in the words horror, horrible, horrify; Angl- in Anglo-Saxon; Afr- in Afro-Asian are all bound roots as there are no identical word-forms.

It should also be noted that morphemes may have different phonemic shapes. In the word-cluster please , pleasing , pleasure , pleasant the phonemic shapes of the word stand in complementary distribution or in alternation with each other. All the representations of the given morpheme, that manifest alternation are called allomorphs or morphemic variants of that morpheme.

The combining form allo- from Greek allos "other" is used in linguistic terminology to denote elements of a group whose members together consistute a structural unit of the language (allophones, allomorphs).

Thus, for example, -ion - tion -sion -ation are the positional variants of the same suffix, they do not differ in meaning or function but show a slight difference in sound form depending on the final phoneme of the preceding stem. They are considered as variants of one and the same morpheme and called its allomorphs.

Allomorph is defined as a positional variant of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment and so characterized by complementary description.

Complementary distribution is said to take place, when two linguistic variants cannot appear in the same environment. Different morphemes are characterized by contrastive distribution, i.e. if they occur in the same environment they signal different meanings. The suffixes -able and -ed, for instance, are different morphemes, not allomorphs, because adjectives in -able mean " capable of beings".

Allomorphs will also occur among prefixes. Their form then depends on the initials of the stem with which they will assimilate.

Two or more sound forms of a stem existing under conditions of complementary distribution may also be regarded as allomorphs, as, for instance, in long a: length n.

The morphological analysis of word- structure on the morphemic level aims at splitting the word into its constituent morphemes - the basic units at this level of analysis - and at determining their number and types.

According to the number of morphemes words can be classified into monomorphic and polymorphic. Monomorphic or root-words consist of only one root-morpheme, For example, small, dog, make, give, etc. All polymorphic word fall into two subgroups: derived words and compound words - according to the number of root-morphemes they have. Derived words are composed of one root-morpheme and one or more derivational morphemes, For example, acceptable, outdo, disagreeable, etc. Compound words are those which contain at least two root-morphemes, the number of derivational morphemes being insignificant. There can be both root- and derivational morphemes in compounds as in pen-holder, light-mindedness, or only root-morphemes as in lamp-shade, eye-ball, etc.

These structural types are not of equal importance. The clue to the correct understanding of their comparative value lies in a careful consideration of: l)the importance of each type in the existing wordstock, and 2) their frequency value in actual speech.

Frequency is by far the most important factor. According to the available word counts made in different parts of speech, we find that derived words numerically constitute the largest class of words in the existing wordstock; derived nouns comprise approximately 67% of the total number, adjectives about 86%, whereas compound nouns make about 15%. Root words come to 18% in nouns, i.e. a trifle more than the number of compound words; adjectives root words come to approximately 12%.

But we cannot fail to perceive that root-words occupy a predominant place. In English, according to the recent frequency counts, about 60% of the total number of nouns and 62% of the total number of adjectives in current use are root-words. Of the total number of adjectives and nouns, derived words comprise about 38% and 37% respectively while compound words comprise an insignificant 2% in nouns and 0.2% in adjectives.

Thus, it is the root-words that constitute the foundation and the backbone of the vocabulary and that are of paramount importance in speech. It should also be mentioned that root words are characterized by a high degree of collocability and a complex variety of meanings in contrast with words of other structural types whose semantic structures are much poorer. Root- words also serve as parent forms for all types of derived and compound words.

So, if we divide morphemes into phonemes, phonemes unlike morphemes have no meaning, (For example, teach/ er -- teacher). Phonemes are used to make up morphemes. So the difference between morphemes and phonemes is that morphemes have meanings but phonemes have not. A morpheme differs from a word too. Unlike a word a morpheme does not occur separately in speech. It occurs in speech as a constituent part of a word.

Anthony Burgess writes that « оbviously not, for syllables are «mechantcal» and «metricab», mere equal ticks of a click or beats in a bar. If we divide the word «metrical» into «met -- ri--cal», I have learned nothing new about the word: these three syllables are not functional as neutrons, protons, electrons are functional. But if I divide the word as metr-ic-al, I have done something rather different. I have indicated that is made of the root «metr» which refers to measurement and is found in «metronome» and in a different phonetic disguise in «metre», «kilometre» and the rest -ic which is an adjectival ending found also in «toxic», «psychic» etc; -al, which is an unambiguous adjectival ending, as" in «festate, «vernal» «partial». 1 have split «metrical» into three contributory forms which (remembering that Greek «morph» -- means «form») 1 can call morphemes (Anthony Burgess).

But Charles Hockett thinks that «An idiomatic composite form like any single morpheme has to be learned as a whole. The raw materials from which we build utterance are idioms. It is difficult to decide whether it is one morpheme or more than one. For example. English has many words of the type «remote», «demote», «promote», «reduce», «deduce», «produce» each apparently built of two smaller parts, a prefix re-, de-, pro-, or the like and a second part -mote», «duce», or the like. But the relationships of meaning are tenuous. Grammarians are not in agreement. Some brush aside the semantic difficulties and take each word as two morphemes, following the phonemic shapes; others - regard the parallelisms of phonemic shape as unconvincing and take each word as a single morpheme.

Similar problems appear in the analysis of almost every language. An obvious practical step is to set the morphemic problem aside, recognizing that each form is an idiom whether it is one or more morphemes. (Charles Hockett)

I.A. Sheard points out that «We may perhaps start with an attempt to define components of our words, separating them into free forms, which may occur in isolation and bound forms, which never occur alone. For example «blackberry» consists of two free forms compounded, as both «black» and «berry» are found in isolation. If we examine «raspberry» we may at first think it is the same type for we undoubtedly do have a word «rasp» but although the forms are identical phonetically they are not identical in meaning and «rasp» in the sense in which it is used in raspberry is not found in isolation, except in the shortened form of «raspberry», for «rasp» is often used colloquially for both the bush and the fruit. In the case of «bilberry» we are on even safer ground, for the element «bil» -- is not found in isolation in English and is therefore quite definitely a bound form». (l.A.Sheard. «The word we use».)

The comparative study of the structure of words in English and Uzbek shows that the number of simple, derived and compound words almost coincide. But when we translate the English words into Uzbek we see some differences. In English the simple words are used more frequently than the derived and compound words. The Uzbek language is rich in derived and compound words and they are more oftenly used in speech than in English. The majority of simple words in English is explained by a lot of converted pairs. We illustrate some correspondents in English and in Uzbek.

I. English: simple word--Uzbek: derived word

caprice -- инжи?лик (from инжи?)

control -- текшириш (from текшир)

estimate- ба?олаш (from ба?о)

2. English simple word -- Uzbek word group.

every -- ?ар бар, хар ?айси

essay -- катта бўлмаган адабий асар

envy -- paш? ?илмо?

3. English derived word -- Uzbek word group.

compensation -- компенсация (товон) тўлаш

comparable -- та??ослаб (?иёслаб) бўладиган

compel -- мажбур ?илмо?

4. English: compound word -- Uzbek: simple word.

cross-country --кpocc

dressing-gown -- халат

downpour -- сел, жала

5. English derived word -- Uzbek simple word.

courageous -- жасур, тетик

grievous -- о?ир мусибат

hosiery -- трикотаж

6. English; compound word -- Uzbek derived word.

cow-boy -- подачи (from «пода»)

hugger-mugger -- яширинча (from «яширин»)

open-minded -- зе?нли (from «зе?н»)

In Uzbek the root morphemes coincide with the stem and a wordform. They take affixal morphemes and the sound form of the root - morpheme is not changed.

For example. 6oш -- a root-morpheme and the stem of the word -- бошланмо? [(6oш + ла + н + мо?) темир --a root morpheme and the stem is «темир», темирчилик (темир + чи + лик).

In English the root morpheme also coincides with the stem in its sound form.

For example. «friend» -- the root morpheme is identical with the stem. The suffix «ship» is added to the stem friend + ship» -- friendships. Like that read --reader (read+er). In English there are some morphemes the isolation of which from other morphemes makes it meaningless. For example. pocket (pock), hamlet (ham). The morphemes «pock», «ham» are unique morphemes, because they have no meaning.

2. Principles of morphemic analysis

In most cases the morphemic structure of words is transparent enough and individual morphemes clearly stand out within the word. The segmentation of words is generally carried out according to the method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents. This method is based on the binary principle, i.e. each stage of the procedure involves two components the word immediately breaks into. At each stage these two components are referred to as the Immediate Constituents. Each Immediate Constituent at the next stage of analysis is in turn broken into smaller meaningful elements. The analysis is completed when we arrive at constituents incapable of further division, i.e. morphemes. These are referred to Ultimate Constituents.

A synchronic morphological analysis is most effectively accomplished by the procedure known as the analysis into Immediate Constituents (IC). ICs are the two meaningful parts forming a large linguistic unity.

The method is based on the fact that a word characterized by morphological divisibility is involved in certain structural correlations. To sum up: as we break the word we obtain at any level only ICs one of which is the stem of the given word. All the time the analysis is based on the patterns characteristic of the English vocabulary. As a pattern showing the interdependence of all the constituents segregated at various stages, we obtain the following formula: un+ gentle + -man + -ly

Breaking a word into its Immediate Constituents we observe in each cut the structural order of the constituents.

A diagram presenting the three cuts described looks as follows:

1. un- / gentlemanly

2. un- / gentleman / - ly

3. un- / gentle / - man / - ly

A similar analysis on the word-formation level showing not only the morphemic constituents of the word but also the structural pattern on which it is built.

The analysis of word-structure at the morphemic level must proceed to the stage of Ultimate Constituents, For example. the noun “friendliness” is first segmented into the ICs: friend recurring in the adjectives friendly-looking and friendly and ness found in a countless number of nouns, such as unhappiness, blackness, sameness, etc. The 1C ness is at the same time an UC of the word, as it cannot be broken into any smaller elements possessing both sound-form and meaning. Any further division of -ness would give individual speech-sounds which denote nothing by themselves. The 1C friendly is next broken into the ICs friend and “ly” which are both UCs of the word.

Morphemic analysis under the method of Ultimate Constituents may be carried out on the basis of two principles: the so-called root-principle and affix principle.

According to the affix principle the splitting of the word into its constituent morphemes is based on the identification of the affix within a set of words, For example. the identification of the suffix -er leads to the segmentation of words singer, teacher, swimmer into the derivational morpheme - er and the roots teach- , sing-, drive-.

According to the root-principle, the segmentation of the word is based on the identification of the root-morpheme in a word-cluster, For example the identification of the root-morpheme agree- in the words agreeable, agreement, disagree.

As a rule, the application of these principles is sufficient for the morphemic segmentation of words.

However, the morphemic structure of words in a number of cases is not always so transparent and simple as in the cases mentioned above. Sometimes not only the segmentation of words into morphemes, but the recognition of certain sound-clusters as morphemes become doubtful which naturally affects the classification of words. In words like retain, detain, contain or receive, deceive, conceive, perceive the sound-clusters [re], [de] seem to be singled quite easily, on the other hand, they undoubtedly have nothing in common with the phonetically identical prefixes re-, de- as found in words re-write, reorganize, de-organize, de-code. Moreover, the [-tein] or [-si:v] possess any lexical or functional meaning of their own. Yet, these sound-clusters are felt as having a certain meaning because [re] distinguishes retain from detain and [-tain] distinguishes retain from receive.

It follows that all these sound-clusters have a differential and a certain distributional meaning as their order arrangement point to the afflxal status of re-, de-, con-, per- and makes one understand -tain and -ceive as roots. The differential and distributional meanings seem to give sufficient ground to recognize these sound-clusters as morphemes, but as they lack lexical meaning of their own, they are set apart from all other types of morphemes and are known in linguistic literature as pseudo- morphemes.

Thus, the comparison of the word with other words which have the same morphemes is very important for morphemic analysis. The word «denationalize» may be divided into «de» and «nationalize», because «de» can be found in the structure of such words as «deform», «denature», «denominate». The remaining part «nationalize» can be broken into «national» and «ize»: the reason is the same (organize, hcmanize, standardize etc). «National» -- into «nation» and «al» because «al» occurs in a number of words such as: occupational, musical, conditional etc). At each stage of the process we receive two constituents. The part of the word «denationalize» de,-nation,al-,ize-_r are ultimate constituents because they can not be divided further. They are morphemes.

In our example only «nation» can be said as a free morpheme, as it is like a wordform and can be used in isolation, de-.-al, -ize, are bound morphemes because they can't be used separately and do not coincide with wordforms.

3. Principles of Derivational analysis. Stems. Types of Stems

The morphemic analysis of words only defines the constituent morphemes, determining their types and their meaning but does not reveal the hierarchy of the morphemes comprising the word. Words are no mere sum totals of morpheme, the latter reveal a definite, sometimes very complex interrelation. Morphemes are arranged according to certain rules, the arrangement differing in various types of words and particular groups within the same types. The pattern of morpheme arrangement underlies the classification of words into different types and enables one to understand how new words appear in the language. These relations within the word and the interrelations between different types and classes of words are known as derivational or word- formation relations.

The analysis of derivative or derivational relations aims at establishing a correlation between different types and the structural patterns words are built on. The basic unit at the derivational level is the stem.

The stem is defined as that part of the word which remains unchanged throughout its paradigm, thus the stem which appears in the paradigm (to) ask, asks, asked, asking is ask-; the stem of the word singer, singer's, singers, singers' is singer-. It is the stem of the word that takes the inflections which change the word grammatically as one or another part of speech.

The structure of stems should be described in terms of IC's analysis, which at this level aims at establishing the patterns of typical derivational relations within the stem and the derivative correlation between stems of different types.

There are three types of stems: simple, derived and compound.

Simple stems are semantically non-motivated and do not constitute a pattern on analogy with which new stems may be modeled. Simple stems are generally monomorphic and phonetically identical with the root morpheme. The derivational structure of stems does not always coincide with the result of morphemic analysis. Comparison proves that not all morphemes relevant at the morphemic level are relevant at the derivational level of analysis. It follows that bound morphemes and

all types of pseudo- morphemes are irrelevant to the derivational structure of stems as they do not meet requirements of double opposition and derivational interrelations. So the stem of such words as retain, receive, horrible, pocket, motion, etc. should be regarded as simple, non- motivated stems.

Derived stems are built on stems of various structures though which they are motivated, i.e. derived stems are understood on the basis of the derivative relations between their immediate constituents and the correlated stems. The derived stems are mostly polymorphic in which case the segmentation results only in one immediate constituents that is itself a stem, the other immediate constituent being necessarily a derivational affix.

Derived stems are not necessarily polymorphic. Compound stems are made up of two stems, both of which are themselves stems, for example. match-box, driving-suit, pen-holder, etc. It is built by joining of two stems, one of which is simple, the other derived.

Bound lexical morphemes are affixes: prefixes (dis-), suffixes (-ish) and also blocked (unique) root morphemes (for example. Friday, cranberry). Bound grammatical morphemes are inflexions (endings), for example. -s for the plural of nouns, -ed for the Past Indefinite of regular verbs, -ing for the Present Participle, -er for the comparative degree of adjectives.

In the word forms «talk, talks, talked, talking» we can receive the stem «talk». The stem which comes in the paradigm boy, boys, boy's, boys'is boy. In «teacher», «teacher's», «teac-hers», «teachers» the stem is «teacher».

Thus three are structural types of stems: simple, derived and compound. A simple stem is a part of the word which is identical with a root morpheme and to which the grammatical elements are added. for example. book, tram, teach, table, girl, boy. A derived stem is such a stem which can be divided into a root and an affix: girlish, agreement, acceptable, teacher. But derived stems are not always polymorphirnic. For example.The stem of the verb «to fish» though it has no an affix in its structure it should be considered to be a derived stem as it is felt by the native speaker as more complex and semantically dependant on the simple stem of the noun «fish». Compound stems are stems which consist of two or more stems For example. match-box, paint-box, play-boy, bookcase, doorhandle etc.

«It will be safe to assume that all know what is meant by the word «word». I may consider that my typing fingers know it, defining a word as what comes between two spaces. The Greeks saw the word as the minimal unit of speech to them, too, the atom was minimal unit of matter. Our own age has learnt to split the atom and also the word. If atoms are divisible into protons, electrons and neutrons, what are words divisible into?» (Anthony Burgess)

The stem «hop» can be found in the words: «hop», «hops», «hopped», «hopping». The stem «hippie» can be found in the words: «hippie», «hippies», «hippie's», «hippies'». The stem «job-hop» can be found in the words : «job-hop», «job-hops», «job-hopped», «job-hopping».

Stems have not only the lexical meaning but also grammatical (part-of-speech) meaning, they can be noun stems («girl») adjective stems («girlish»), verb stems («expell») etc. They differ from words by the absence of inflexions in their structure, they can be used only in the structure of words.

Sometimes it is rather difficult to distinguish between simple and derived words, especially in the cases of phonetic borrowings from other languages and of native words with blocked (unique) root morphemes, For example «cranberry», «absence» etc.

As far as words with splinters are concerned it is difficult to distinguish between derived words and compound-shortened words. If a splinter is treated as an affix (or a semi-affix) the word can be called derived , For example-, «telescreen», «maxi-taxi» , «shuttlegate», «cheeseburger». But if the splinter is treated as a lexical shortening of one of the stems , the word can be called compound-shortened word formed from a word combination where one of the components was shortened, For example «busnapper» was formed from « bus kidnapper», «minijet» from «miniaturejet».

In the English language of the second half of the twentieth century there developed so called block compounds that is compound words which have a uniting stress but a split spelling, such as «chat show», «pinguin suit» etc. Such compound words can be easily mixed up with word-groups of the type «stone wall», so called nominative binomials. Such linguistic units serve to denote a notion which is more specific than the notion expressed by the second component and consists of two nouns, the first of which is an attribute to the second one. If we compare a nominative binomial with a compound noun with the structure N+N we shall see that a nominative binomial has no unity of stress. The change of the order of its components will change its lexical meaning, For example «vid kid» is «a kid who is a video fan» while «kid vid» means «a video-film for kids» or else damp oil» means «oil for lamps» and «oil lamp» means «a lamp which uses oil for burning».

Answer the following questions.

1. What is a morpheme? 2. What is the word made up? 3. What is the difference between a morpheme and a phoneme? 4. What is the difference between a morpheme and a word? 5. What types of morphemes do you know? 6. What is the morphemic analysis? 7. How can we analyse the morphemic structure of words with the help of I.C. method? 8. What is the stem? 9. What types of stems do you know? 10. What are the synchronic and diachronic approaches to the analysis of the stem? 11. Can all the words which have in their structure an affix have derived stems? 12. What is the unit of the derivational level ?