1-variant 1The subject matters of Lexicology

2.Differential, functional, distributional meaning of words

Besides the lexical and grammatical meanings we can observe differential, functional and distributional meanings of a word. Differential meaning is the semantic component that serves to distinguish one word from other in words containing the same (dentical) morphemes. Ex. “note-book”. The morpheme “note” serves to distinguish the word from other words: exercise-book, copy-book or: bookshelf, bookcase. The functional meaning may be seen in derivational morphemes. If we see the words with the suffixes -ment, -er, -ity, -or, we say that they are nouns. Eg. establishment, plurality, teacher, translator, sailor.

If -ful, -less, -able, -al etc. are present in words we say adjectives. Ex. helpful, handless, guiltless, readable, national, writable, operational, openable, proposal.

The distributional meaning is found in all words having more than one morpheme. It is found in the arrangement and order of morphemes making up the word.