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The Subject-Matter of the Contrastive Lexicology of English and Ukrainian

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Chapter 1.
The subject-matter of the contrastive lexicology of English and Ukrainian
1. Fundamentals 1.1. Object of lexicology. 1.2. Subdivisions of lexicology.
2. Tasks of contrastive lexicology. Its theoretical and practical value.

The gift of language is the single human trait that marks us all genetically from the rest of life . Lewis Thomas. The Lives of a Cell.

Language is many things - a system of communication, a medium for thought, a vehicle for literary expression, a social institution, a catalyst for nation building. All human beings normally speak at least one language and …show more content…

The evolution of any vocabulary, as well as of its single elements, forms the object of historical lexicology. This branch of linguistics discusses the origin of various words, their change and development, and investigates the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors modifying their form, meaning and usage. Thus historical lexicology is closely connected with etymology (έτυμολογία - primary meaning of the word, the root word from which others are derived) which deals with the origin of a word by pointing out the root or primitive upon which it is based. I.K.Bilodid considers etymology a part of historical lexicology [Суч. укр. лiт. мова, Київ,1973]. In a wider sense lexicology is intimately related to culture the latter defined as the socially inherited customs of a society that are shared and accepted by people. Speech experience of the people is simultaneously their cultural experience, i.e. “those structures, spheres and means of activity into which speakers are included. It is the whole range of things that influences the understanding and the use of words” [ Кісь, с.32]. Only initial investigation of evolutionary driving forces and formative evolutionary regularities for a typical word (which are predominantly cognitive) may provide a clue to studying evolutionary regularities of the entire lexical system of language. Moreover, cognition of the developmental regularities

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