Lecture No 1 Word as a basic language unit. Different approaches to the definition of the word. Word meaning as a linguistic phenomenon

Word meaning as a linguistic phenomenon

One of the main features of the word is that it is studied in several branches of Linguistics, because Lexicology is closely connected with General Linguistics, the history of the language, phonetics, stylistics, grammar and such modern trends of Linguistics as Sociolinguistics, Paralinguistics, Pragmalinguistics and some others. So it has interdisciplinary character.

The importance of the connection between Lexicology and Phonetics is in the association of a given group of sounds with a given meaning, so that top is one word and tip is another. Phonemes have no meaning of their own, and they serve to distinguish between meanings.

Discrimination between the words may be based on stress: ‘present-pre’sent [V-N], ‘import-im’port [N-V]. Due to the position of stress parts of speech can be distinguished. Stress also distinguishes compounds from homonymous word groups: ‘blackbird- black ’bird.

Historical phonetics and historical phonology can be of great use in the diachronic study of synonyms, homonyms and polysemy.

Stylistics, although from a different angle, studies many problems treated in Lexicology. These are the problems of meaning, connotations, synonymy, functional differentiation of vocabulary according to the sphere of communication and so on.

A close connection of Lexicology and Grammar is seen in severable ties so as isolated words “as presented in a dictionary bear a definite relation to the language because they belong to some part of speech and conform to some lexico - grammatical characteristics of the word class they belong. Words seldom occur in isolation. They possess both lexical and grammatical meanings.