Branches of linguistics. Synchronic vs diachronic approaches to the language study. Lexicology – ‘the science of the word’ Lexicon

The Functional Classification

Prof. Alexander I. Smirnitskiy Лексикология английского языка (1956)

-the functional approach proceeds from the assumption that PhU may be defined as non-motivated word-groups functioning as word-equivalents;

-the functional approach seeks to establish formal criteria of idiomaticity by analysing the syntactic functions of PhU by analysing the syntactic function of PhU in speech;

-semantic inseparability and grammatical inseparability of PhU are viewed as the aspects of idiomaticity which enables to regard them semantically and grammatically equivalent to single words;

-PhUn are characterised by a single stylistic reference irrespective of the number and nature of the component words.