Lecture VI.

Being an adaptive system the vocabulary is constantly adjusting itself to the

changing requirements and conditions of human communication and cultural and
other needs. This process of self-regulation of the lexical system is a result of
overcoming contradictions between the state of the system and the demands it has to
meet. The speaker chooses from the existing stock of words such words that in his
opinion can adequately express his thought and feeling. Failing to find the expression
he needs, he coins a new one. It is important to stress that the development is not
confined to coining new words on the existing patterns but in adapting the very
structure of the system to its changingfunctions.

The concept of adaptive system permits us to study language as a constantly

developing but systematic whole. The adaptive system approach gives a more
adequate account of the systematic phenomena of a vocabulary by explaining more
facts about the functioning of words and providing more relevant generalisations,
because we can take into account the influence of extra-linguistic reality. The study of
the vocabulary as an adaptive system reveals the pragmatic essence of the
communication process, i.e. the way language is used to influence the addressee.

The adaptive system approach to vocabulary is still in its infancy, but it is

already possible to give an estimate of its significance. The process may be observed
by its results, that is by studying new words or neologisms. New notions constantly
come into being, requiring new words to name them. New words and expressions or
neologisms are created for new things irrespective of their scale of importance. They
may be all important and concern some social relationships such as a new form of
state (People's Republic), or the thing may be quite insignificant and shortlived, like
fashions in dancing, clothing, hairdo or footwear (rollneck). In every case either the
old words are appropriately changed in meaning or new words are borrowed, or more
often coined out of the existing language material either according to the patterns and
ways already productive in the language at a given stage of its development or
creating newones.
 Thus, a neologism is a newly coined word or phrase or a new meaning for an
existing word, or a word borrowed from another language. The intense development
of science and industry has called forth the invention and introduction of an immense
number of new words and changed the meaning of old ones, e.g. aerobics, black hole,
computer, hardware, software, isotope, feedback, penicillin, pulsar, super-market and
soon.

For a reliable mass of evidence on the new English vocabulary the reader is
referred to lexicographic sources. New additions to the English vocabulary are
collected in addenda to explanatory dictionaries and in special dictionaries of new
words. One should consult the supplementary volume of the English-Russian
Dictionary edited by I.R.Galperin, the three supplementary volumes of The Oxford
English Dictionary, The Longman Dictionary of New Words and the dictionaries of
New English which are usually referred to as Barnhart Dictionaries. The first volume
covers words and word equivalents that have come into the vocabulary of the English-
speaking world during the period 1963-1972 and the second-those of the 70s.

There is a considerable difference of opinion as to the type of system involved,

although the majority of linguists nowadays agree that the vocabulary should be
studied as a system. Our present state of knowledge is however, insufficient to present
the whole of the vocabulary as one articulated system, so we deal with it as if it were
a set of interrelatedsystems.

By a lexico-grammatical group we understand a class of words which have a

common lexico-grammatical meaning, common paradigm, the same substituting
elements and possible characteristic set of suffixes rendering the lexico-grammatical
meaning. These groups are subsets of the parts of speech, several lexico-grammatical
groups constitute one part of speech. Thus English nouns are subdivided
approximately into the following lexico-grammatical groups: personal names, animal
names, collective names (for people), collective names (for animals), abstract nouns,
material nouns, object nouns, proper names for people, toponymic names.
 Another traditional lexicological grouping is known as word-families in which
the words are grouped according to the root-morpheme, for example: dog, doggish,
doglike, dogg), to dog, dogged, doggedly, doggedness, dog-days, dog-biscuit,
dogcart,etc.

Antonymsаrе words belonging to the same part of speech different in sound,

and characterised by semantic polarity of their denotational meaning. According to
the character of semantic opposition antonyms are subdivided into antonyms proper,
complete and conversitives. The semantic polarity in antonyms proper is relative, the
opposition is gradual, it may embrace several elements characterised by different
degrees of the same property. They always imply comparison. Large and little or
small denote polar degrees of the same notion, i.e.size.

Complementaries are words characterised only by a binary opposition which

may have only two members; the denial of one member of the opposition implies the
assertion of the other e.g. not male means female.

Conversives are words which denote one and the same referent as viewed from
different points of view, that of the subject and that of the object, e.g. buy-sell, give-
receive.

Morphologically antonyms are subdivided into root (absolute) antonyms (good

- bad) and derivational antonyms (apper - disapper).
 Semantic field is a closely knit sector of vocabulary characterised by a
common concept (e.g. in the semantic field of space we find nouns (expanse,
extent, surface); verbs (extend, spread, span); adjectives (spacious, roomy, vast,
broad)). The members of the semantic fields are not synonymous but all of them
are joined together by some common semantic component. This semantic
component common to all the members of the field is sometimes described as the
common denominator of meaning, like the concept of kinship, concept of colour,
parts of the human body and so on. The basis of grouping in this case is not only
linguistic but also extra-linguistic: the words are associated, because the things
they name occur together and are closely connected in reality.

Thematic (or ideographic) groups are groups of words joined together by

common contextual associations within the framework of the sentence and
reflect the interlinking of things and events in objective reality. Contextual
association are formed as a result of regular co-occurrence of words in similar
repeatedly used contexts. Thematic or ideographic groups are independent of
classification into parts of speech. Words and expression are here classed not
according to their lexico- grammatical meaning but strictly according to their
signification, i.e. to the system of logical notions (e.g. tree - -grow - green;
journey - train, taxi, bus - ticket; sunshine - brightly - blue - sky).

Hyponomy is the semantic relationship of inclusion existing between

elements of various levels. Thus, e.g. vehicle includes car, bus, taxi; oak implies
tree, horse implies animal; table implies furniture. The hyponymic relationship
is the relationship between the meaning of the general and the individualterms.

A hyperonym is a generic term which serves as the name of the general as

distinguished from the names of the species-hyponyms. In other words the more
specific term is called the hyponym. For instance, animal is a generic term as
compared to the specific names wolf, dog or mouse (these are called equonyms)
Dog, in its turn, may serve as a generic term for different breeds such as bull-
dog, collie, poodle, etc.