Introduction, Lexicology as a science

Neologism is any word which is formed according to the productive structural patterns or borrowed from another lan­guage and felt by the speakers as something new. So neolo­gisms are newly coined words or phrase or a new meaning for an existing word or a word borrowed from another lan­guage. As a result of the development of science and indus­try many new words are appeared in the language. Ex. iso­tope, tape-recorder, supermarket, V-day (Victory day). The research of cosmic space by the scientists gave birth to new words: sputnik, lunik, space-rocket, space-ship. Neologisms are mainly formed by; 1) wordformation (mainly productive type).
Ex. -gen, -ogen: carinogen (biological term)
-ics: psycholinguistics, electronics sputnik—to sputnik (conversion)
—nik: filmnik, folknik.
2) semantic extension: heel — a tractor (old meaning: heel—the back part of foot); to screen—to classify, to se­lect methodically (old meaning was — to separate coal into different sizes);
3) borrowing: telecast, telestar (Greek), sputnik, lunnik, udarnik (Russian).
Words may drop out as a result of the disappearance oi the actual objects they denote. These words are called obso­lete words.
The disappearance of words may be caused as a result of influence of borrowings.
Ex. the Scandinavian «take» and «die» ousted 0. E. ni-man and sweldan.
The French «army» and «place» replaced the 0. E. here and steps. Words which are not used generally are called archaisms. Archaisms are used in poetic vocabulary.
Ex. steed (horse), slay (kill), welkin (sky)
Archaisms should be distinguished from historical terms or historisms which denote historical reality and commonly used in modern English.
Ex. cannon- ball, chain mail, lance, archer, baldric (belt for a sword).
Speech also expresses the speakers attitude to what he is talking about. The speaker may wish to warn, to influence people, to express his approval or disapproval. Words expres­sing emotion are called emotionally coloured words. Demi-nutive and derogatory affixes play an important role in form­ing emotionally coloured words.