Comparative Lexicology

I believe that the reason that these word meanings have changed over the years because of the numerous interpretations of the words that have transpired over the years by people. Within the many cultures and classes of people, there are words that are used that are the same in spelling, but are very different in their meaning.

There are words that the entire discourse community knows. For example they all know that recess means go out to play. But as Mrs. H. Walker informed me in teaching the lexis may be similar but it varies from classroom to classroom. For example her class knows that “Station Time ” means they can go to different stations to play but the same concept in another class could be called “Free Play”. I learned that some lexis sticks around forever and never changes like “ Story time”, “Homework”, and “Timeout”. “Language is important is important because it’s how I communicate with my students” says Mrs. H.

Mental lexicon holds information about words relationship, meaning, and part of the language. Words can be related by synonyms and antonyms. Words have meaning if when you perceive a word a mental picture comes to mind related to that word. The part of the language of any words deals with its conjugation; whether the word is a verb, noun or adjective.

For example, Whan and When look similar except for the short vowel /a/ and /e/. The months April and March are spelled the same as modern spellings, so the reader may infer the sounds are the same. Therefore, the modern short vowel rule applies to Middle English as well. Droghte and drought are spelled similarly except for the vowels. The Etymology Dictionary defines droghte as dryness. So droghte and drought are synonyms. (Harper). Perced is also easy for the modern reader to decode. It is spelled nearly the same as pierce except the vowel /i/ is excluded from the Middle English spelling. However, there are passages that aren’t as easily understood.

6) Homophone (homonym)- Each of two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins,

of a word. Also, the Yerkes (2011) text defines Lexicology as a study focusing on the meaning of words. Thus, we see a lexicon as an area in the human brain which stores the meaning, and all aspects, associated with a word. However, to reach the point where a lexicon may be used language must be acquired. To acquire such a skill, one must master the four levels associated with language.

The first concept I am going to talk about is language borrowing. Language borrowing is basically when you loan a word that is imported into a certain language called loan form. These forms now function in the grammatical processes, with nouns taking plural or possessive forms of the new language receiving native morphemes. An example would be the English word alligator. Alligator came from the Spanish which is el largato. El largato in Spanish means lizard. Loanshift another process that occurs also known as calque is when adapting native words to the new meanings. "The verb bad mouth . . . is a calque or loan translation: it seems to come from Vai day ngatmay (a curse; literally, 'a bad mouth ').

b) with forms and the structure of words (morphology) and with their customary arrangement in phrases and sentences (syntax )

Diction: the denotative and connotative meanings of words! What specific words did the author choose? Consider her word choice compared to another. Why did the author choose that particular word? What are the connotations of that word choice? • different words for the same thing often suggest different attitudes (happy vs. content vs. ecstatic) • denotative vs. connotative (dead vs. passed away) • concrete vs. abstract (able to perceive with 5 senses, tangible, vs. an idea or concept that exists in one’s mind, intangible) • monosyllabic vs. polysyllabic (Cats eat meat; felines are carnivorous animals.) • simple vs. ornate • positive vs. negative (slender vs. skinny, determined vs. stubborn) • colloquial / informal / formal / technical • cacophonous vs. euphonious (e.g., harsh sounding, raucous, croak or pleasant sounding, languid, murmur)

The first, A list of 10 monosyllabic words which are phonologically similar but not semantically related (A list) was adapted from (LS) “white, height, night, light tight, write, might, quiet, bite, fight” (p 30). The second list comprised of 10 words which are semantically related (B list), similar in length, word class and frequency with the phonologically related words, dear, sugar, savory, sweet, tasty, flavor, honey, dessert, candy, treat . The level of frequency of the words were determined with the use of corpus (COCA and BNC). There are slight variations in the level of frequency of the B list words. Nevertheless, The lists were presented orally and

Key features of language include its words and their sub structures such as morphemes, graphemes and syllables at the writing level as well as reading or speaking, words, their meanings and contexts in which the words get spoken or read. Language has to be interpreted as a whole, and not just as the specific word. There must be an explicit pattern or structure. In order for language to be understood correctly, the meaning of words must be arranged in a given context. This is what constructs language; even though words are arbitrary themselves, in order to integrate as a language, they must be used in the appropriate context. This pre-established cultural context is what will enable effective communication. (Daniel Willingham, 2007, p. 1).

Native and borrowed words are common in every language and especially in English language they have a great role in the dictionary of every language. English language vocabulary does not seem to have ever been or to be a homogenous vocabulary since it consists both native words and borrowed words which are quite a lot. The native words have a wider range of lexical and grammatical valence. Anglo- Saxons are the ones who brought the native words to English language. Borrowing means taking words from other languages and the whole process of choosing and adopting these words in a specific language being able to see the results given of the borrowed word, thus these taken words are

Among the most important concepts to emerge are those relating to dialects and language standards. Sociolinguists have documented the presence of dialects in every language. These dialects, all of which are legitimate, are associated with educational, economic, social and historical conditions. Hence, even if an individual scrupulously studies all the possible dictionaries of a random language, he would still be somewhat of a stranger to that language since he is unaware of all the dialectal changes.

The conflict between the Ukraine and Russia is the Ukraine's most long-standing and deadly crisis; since its post-Soviet independence began as a protest against the government dropping plans to forge closer trade ties with the European Union. The conflict between Russia and the Ukraine stems from more than twenty years of weak governance, the government’s inability to promote a coherent executive branch policy, an economy dominated by oligarchs and rife with corruption, heavy reliance on Russia, and distinct differences between Ukraine's population from both Eastern and Western regions in terms of linguistics, religion and ethnicity (Lucas 2009).

It has been noted that while considering changing word meanings is vital to the diachronic study of language, the notion and practice of studying them has been historically belittled as an intellectual pursuit. Semantic change is often irregular and arbitrary as a concept, as its causes are wide-ranging and multi-faceted. However, critics such as Willem B. Hollmann now give weight and notoriety to studying semantics synchronically . By considering individual cases, one can explain some word changes and apply common rules. These often occur intra-linguistically or through common social or political changes, especially surrounding class conflict. However, although we can catalogue the semantic change of similar or groups of words, word