Glossary of basic lexicological notions and terms

GLOSSARY OF BASIC LEXICOLOGICAL NOTIONS AND TERMS

1. 
   General overview of Lexicology as a science.
   

Lexicology is a branch of Linguistics which studies the vocabulary of the language. The term Lexicology is composed of two Greek morphemes: ‘lexis’ meaning ‘word, phrase’ and ‘logos’ which denotes ‘learning, science’. Thus, the literal meaning of the term Lexicology is ‘the science of the word’. Lexicology deals with words, word-forming morphemes (derivational affixes) and word-groups or phrases.

The word is the basic unit of language system used for the purpose of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity. The word is the largest on the morphologic and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis. The word as well as any linguistic sign is a two-facet unit possessing both form and content or, to be more exact, sound-form and meaning. Neither can exist without the other.

Types of Lexicology:

General Lexicology is part of General Linguistics; it is concerned with the study of vocabulary irrespective of the specific features of any particular language.

Special Lexicology is the Lexicology of a particular language (e.g. English, Russian, etc.), i.e. the study and description of its vocabulary and vocabulary units, primarily words as the main units of the language.

Desсriptive Lexicology deals with the vocabulary and vocabulary units of a particular language at a certain time.

Historical Lexicology deals with evolution of the vocabulary units of a language as time goes by.

Contrastive and Comparative Lexicology deal with the study of the correlation between the vocabularies of two or more languages, finding out the correspondences and differences between the vocabulary units of the languages under comparison.

Morphology is the branch of Lexicology studying the structure of a word, types of morphemes

and stems.

Semasiology is the branch of Lexicology that is devoted to the study of meaning of lexical

units.
Phraseology is the branch of Lexicology specializing in the phraseological subsystem of

language and is concerned with all types of set expressions.
Lexicography is the science of dictionary-compiling dealing with the problems of the presentation of the number, forms, meaning, usage and origin of vocabulary units.
Etymology is the science studying the origin of the words, native and borrowed lexical units, ways of the assimilation of borrowed words, external replenishment of the vocabulary.

2. 
   Morphological structure of the word
   

Morpheme is the smallest two-facet unit (it has sound form and meaning) to be found within the word which is studied on the morphological level of analysis.

All morphemes are subdivided into two large classes: root (free) morphemes and non-root (bound) morphemes. Bound morphemes are represented by grammatical (inflections) and derivational (affixes) morphemes. Affixes include suffixes, prefixes, infixes and semi-affixes.

Semantic features – root morphemes (have individual lexical meaning) and non-root morphemes (have generalized meaning).

Root-morphemes are the semantic centre of the words and the basic constituent part without which the word is inconceivable.

Non-root morphemes include grammatical morphemes (inflections) and derivational morphemes (affixes).

Inflections carry only grammatical meaning reflecting grammatical categories (tense, number, person, degree, etc.).

Affixes are relevant for building various types of stems – the part of a word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm. Lexicology is concerned only with affixational morphemes, but not with inflectional ones, unless they are important for word building.

Affixes are classified into prefixes and suffixes: a prefix precedes the root-morpheme, a suffix follows it. Besides, we also distinguish infixes (a few) and semi-affixes.

A free morpheme coincides with the stem or a word-form. A great many root-morphemes are free morphemes, for example, the root-morpheme friend of the noun friendship is naturally qualified as a free morpheme because it coincides with the noun friend.

A bound morpheme occurs only as a constituent part of a word. Affixes are, naturally, bound morphemes, for they always make a part of a word, e.g. the suffixes -ness, -ship, -ise (-ize), etc., the prefixes un-, dis-, de-, etc. (e.g. readiness, comradeship, to activise; unnatural, to displease) and can not be used separately.

Semi-bound (semi-free) morphemes are morphemes that can function in a morphemic sequence both as an affix and as a free morpheme (a word). For example, the morpheme well and half, on the one hand, occur as free morphemes that coincide with the stem and the word-form in utterances like sleep well, half an hour, on the other hand, they occur as bound morphemes in words like well-known, half-eaten, half-done.

The procedure generally employed for the purposes of segmenting words into the constituent morphemes is the method of Immediate and Ultimate Constituents. During breaking a word into its constituents at each stage of the procedure we segment the word into immediately broken morphemes, and they are termed as the Immediate Constituents (ICs). We finish the process of segmentation when we arrive at constituents which cannot be further broken, and these indivisible morphemes are referred to as the Ultimate Constituents (UCs).

The nature, type and arrangement of the ICs of the word is known as its derivative structure.

According to the derivative structure all words fall into such classes: simplexes (simple), non-derived words and complexes (derivatives).

Simple words are words which derivationally cannot be segmented into ICs, e.g. hand, come, blue, etc.

Derivatives are words which are made up of two ICs, i.e. binary units, e.g. friendly+ness, un+wifely, school-master+ish, etc. All derivatives are marked by the fixed order of their ICs.

Stem is the part of a word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm. Structurally the stems may be: a) simple, which consist of only one, semantically non-motivated constituent. It is phonetically and graphically identical with the root-morpheme and the word-form that habitually represents the word as a whole; b) derived, which are the results of the application of word-formation rules; c) compound, which are always binary, but unlike the derived stems both ICs of compound stems are stems themselves. The derivative structure and morphemic composition of each IC may be of different degree of complexity, for example, the compound stem of the noun match-box consists of two simple stems, the stem of the noun letter-writer — of one simple and one derived stem, and the stem aircraft-carrier — of a compound and derived stem.

Paradigm is a system of forms of one word it reveals the differences and relationships between them; in abstraction from concrete words it is treated as a pattern on which every word of one part of speech models its forms, thus serving to distinguish one part of speech from another. Cf. the noun paradigm – boy (_), boy (-s), boy (-‘s), boy (-s’) as distinct from that of the regular verb – to work (_), work (-s), work (-ed), work (-ing), etc.

3. 
   Word formation and its types and patterns
   

Word formation is the branch of Lexicology which studies the derivative structure of the words and the structural and semantic formulas and patterns after which the new words are created in a language.

Productive ways of forming words are such types of word-formation which are frequently used to create new words.

Those types of word-formation which cannot or seldom produce new words are commonly termed non-productive or unproductive.

Productivity of word-building ways is their ability of making new words (neologisms) which all who speak English find no difficulty in understanding.

Neologism is a word that is formed according to productive word formation pattern or borrowed from another language in recent times and felt as new. Terms ‘occasionalism’ , ‘nonce-word’ and ‘ad hoc word’ are used to describe words made for special occasion and not necessarily entering the dictionary

Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to different types of bases. Affixation is subdivided into suffixation and prefixation.

Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes.

Suffixation is the formation of words with the help of suffixes.

In terms of productivity distinction is usually made between dead and living affixes. Dead affixes are described as those which are no longer felt in Modern English as component parts of words (as in health, admit, etc). Living affixes may be easily singled out from a word, e.g. the noun-forming suffixes -ness, -dom, -hood, -age, -ance, as in darkness, freedom, childhood, marriage, assistance, etc. or the adjective-forming suffixes -en, -ous, -ive, -ful, -y as in wooden, poisonous, active, hopeful, stony, etc.

Compounding or word-composition is one of the productive types of word-formation in Modern English which creates new words by means of joining two derivational bases (stems). Compounds may be subordinative (second element is semantic nucleus) or coordinative (both components semantically relevant). Reduplicative compounds are based on onomatopoeic repetition: hush-hush, blah-blah.

Conversion is a highly productive way of word-formation by means of transferring one part of speech to another by changing its paradigm, but without altering its initial form (neither phonetic nor graphical changes within the paradigm), e.g. cf. my work— I work; (the) dog’s bark — he dogs his girlfriend, etc.

Shortening is the process of word-formation by means of dropping some part of the words. It includes abbreviation and clipping.

(Letter) abbreviation is the process of replacement of longer phrases (names of well-known organisations, agencies and institutions, political parties, famous people, official offices) to the initial letters the whole group stands for. They are normally pronounced letter by letter, e.g. JFK = John Fitzgerald Kennedy; CBW = chemical and biological warfare, DOD = Department of Defence (of the USA), SST = supersonic transport, etc.

Acronyms are the vocabulary units spoken as words and made by means of abbreviation, e.g. NATO ['neitou] = North Atlantic Treaty Organisation; laser ['leizə] = light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation; radar ['reidə] = radio detection and ranging; Interpol = international police.

Clipping refers to the creation of new words by shortening a word of two or more syllables (usually nouns and adjectives) without changing its class membership.

Clippings are traditionally classified according to the part of the word that is clipped:

1) Apocope – when words have been shortened at the end, e.g. ad (from advertisement), lab (from laboratory), mike (from microphone), etc.

2) Aphaeresis – when words have been shortened at the beginning, e.g. car (from motor-car), phone (from telephone), copter (from helicopter), etc.

3) Syncope – when some syllables or sounds have been omitted from the middle, e.g. maths (from mathematics), pants (from pantaloons), specs (from spectacles), etc.

4) Combined clipping also occur –words that have been clipped both at the beginning and at the end, e.g. flu (from ‘influenza’), tec (from ‘detective’), fridge (from ‘refrigerator’).

Blending is the process of creating words by means of merging irregular fragments of several words together, e.g. medicare (from ‘medical care’), polutician (from ‘pollute’ and ‘politician’), brunch (from ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’), smog (from ‘smoke’ and ‘fog’), etc.

Blending (or fusion, or portmanteau) is a specific type of shortenings, which implies “packing” of two meanings into one word. The process is also called telescoping because the words slide into one another like sections of a telescope.

Sound- interchange is a non-productive type of word formation when two words usually connected semantically and etymologically have different sounds (vowels or consonants or both) in their phonetic structure, like speak-speech, blood-bleed, food-feed, etc.

Stress- interchange is one of the ways of word-building, based on a shift of stress, e.g. ‘object – to ob’ject; ‘present – to pre’sent, etc.

Lexicalisation is the process of the vocabulary replenishment when the plural form of nouns (grammatical inflection) loses its grammatical meaning and becomes isolated from the paradigm, as e.g. arm+s = arms= ‘weapons’, custom+s= customs=‘institution controllong import duties’.

Adjectivisation is the process of the vocabulary replenishment by means of the process of transition of nouns and participles into adjectives.

Substantivisation (or lexical ellipsis) consists in dropping of the final nominal member of a frequently used attributive word-group, the remaining adjective takes on the meaning and all the syntactic functions of the noun and thus develops into a new word changing its class membership and becoming homonymous to the existing adjective. e.g. ‘documentary (adj.)’ – ‘a documentary film’ – ‘a documentary (n.)’; ‘final (adj.)’ – ‘a final examination’ – ‘a final (n.)’. Substantivisation is often accompanied by productive suffixation: e.g., ‘one-wing (adj.)’ – ‘a one-wing plane’ – ‘a one-winger’; ‘two-deck (adj.)’ – ‘two-deck bus or ship’ – ‘a two-decker’. Substantivisation may be accompanied by clipping and productive suffixation: e.g. flickers (coll.) from ‘flicking pictures’, ‘a smoker’ from ‘smoking carriage’, etc. Also, some adjectives can be substantivised, e.g. the poor, the black, a patient.

4. 
   Semasiology and its basic notions.
   

Semasiology is a branch of Lexicology which studies the meaning and the semantic structure of lexical units, primarily of the word.

Seme is an elementary semantic feature, a minimal unit of meaning recoverable through componential analysis of the semantic structure of the word.

Sememe is a set of semes recognizable in in the semantic structure of the given word.

Two main types of word meaning are the grammatical and the lexical meanings can be distinguished in words and word-forms.

The grammatical meaning is the formal meaning of the word and may be defined as the component of meaning recurrent in identical sets of individual forms of different words, as, e.g., the tense meaning in the word-forms of verbs (asked, thought, walked, etc.) or the case meaning in the word-forms of various nouns (girl’s, boy’s, night’s, etc.).

The lexical meaning of the word may be described as the component of meaning proper to the word as a linguistic unit, i.e. recurrent in all the forms of this word and reflecting features and characteristics of objects and phenomena.

The lexical meaning is a complex phenomenon and may be analysed as including denotational and connotational components.

The denotational meaning is the component of the lexical meaning which makes communication possible because the knowledge people have about things is ultimately embodied in words which have essentially the same meaning for all speakers of that language.

The connotational meaning reflects the stylistic reference and the emotive and/or evaluative charge proper to the word.

Emotive charge is one of the objective semantic features proper to words as linguistic units and forms part of the connotational component of lexical meaning, cf. large, big, tremendous.

Stylistic reference is the belonging of any word to a particular functional style. Stylistically words can be roughly subdivided into literary, neutral and colloquial layers, but not only.

Pragmatc meaning is a component of connotational meaning bound to the circumstances of the communication and reflecting the choice of the word depending on the conditions and participants of the intercourse.

Changes of lexical meaning occur in the course of the historical development of language.

Semantic structure is the arranged set of all the meanings of a word, represented by lexico-semantic variants.

There are two kinds of association involved in semantic changes, namely: a) similarity of meanings, and b) contiguity of meanings.

Similarity of meanings or metaphor may be described as a semantic process of associating two referents, one of which in some way resembles the other, e.g. hand of a clock, warm voice, soft look.

Contiguity of meanings or metonymy may be described as the semantic process of associating two referents one of which makes part of the other or is closely connected with it, e.g. hand of a master (рабочий), the audience (spectators, students, etc.), to eat the late of a soup.

Restriction of meaning is the process of change of meaning when a word which before represented broader meaning, now has more restricted one, e.g. hound (OE. hund) which used to denote ‘a dog of any breed’ now denotes only ‘a dog used in the chase’; fowl (OE. fuzol, fuzel) which in old English denoted ‘any bird’, in Modern English denotes ‘a domestic hen or cock’.

Specialisation of meaning is the process of change of meaning when the word with the new meaning comes to be used in the specialised vocabulary of some limited group. For example, we can observe restriction and specialisation of meaning in the case of the verb to glide (OE. glidan) which had the meaning ‘to move gently and smoothly’ and has now acquired a restricted and specialised meaning ‘to fly with no engine’ (cf. a glider).

Extension of meaning is the process of change of meaning when the word is applied to a wider variety of referents, e.g. ‘target” which originally meant ‘a small round shield’ (a diminutive of targe, сf. ON. targa) but now means ‘anything that is fired at’ and also figuratively ‘any result aimed at’.

Generalisation of meaning is the process of change of meaning when the word with the extended meaning passes from the specialised vocabulary into common use, e.g. ‘camp’ originally was used only as a military term and meant ‘the place where troops are lodged in tents’ (cf. L. campus — ‘exercising ground for the army’) extended and generalised its meaning and now denotes ‘temporary quarters’ (of travellers, nomads, etc.).

Pejorative development of the meaning is the acquisition by the word of some derogatory emotive charge, e.g. ‘boor’ originally denoted ‘a villager, a peasant’ and then acquired a derogatory, contemptuous meaning ‘a clumsy or ill-bred fellow’.

Ameliorative development of the meaning is the improvement of the connotational component of meaning, e.g. ‘minister’ originally denoted ‘a servant, an attendant’, but now – ‘a civil servant of higher rank, a person administering a department of state’.

Polysemy is the linguistic phenomenon when a word has more than one meaning, resulting in semantic structure consisting of a number of lexico-semantic variants.

Lexico-semantic variant of the word is every meaning of a polysemantic word with reference to what it denotes in the extra-linguistic world (referential meaning) and with respect to the other meanings with which it is contrasted in the semantic structure (differential meaning).

Homonyms are words identical in sound-form or spelling but different in meaning.

Cases of full homonymy are generally observed in words belonging to the same part of speech, where we observe the coincidences in their paradigms, e .g. ‘a seal¹ (n.)’ and ‘a seal² (n.)’.

Partial homonymy is usually to be found in word-forms of different parts of speech, e.g. ‘a seal¹ (n.)’ and ‘to seal (v.)’

Homographs are words identical in spelling, but different both in their sound-form and meaning, e.g. bow (n) [bou] — ‘a piece of wood curved by a string and used for shooting arrows’ and bow (n) [bau] — ‘the bending of the head or body’; tear (n) [tia] — ‘a drop of water that comes from the eye’ and tear (v) [tea] — ‘to pull apart by force’.

Homophones are words identical in sound-form but different both in spelling and in meaning, e.g. sea (n) and see (v); son (n) and sun (n).

Perfect homonyms are words identical both in spelling and in sound-form but different in meaning, e.g. case¹ (n) — ’something that has happened’ and case² (n) — ‘a box, a container’.

Hyponymy is a semantic relationship of inclusion. Thus, e.g. vehicle includes car, bus, taxi and so on; oak implies tree; horse entails animal; table entails furniture. The more general term is called the hyperonym or the classifier, the more specific term is called the hyponym of the more general term.

Synonymy is the semantic phenomenon of closeness in the meanings and the same part-of-speech reference of two or more lexical units.

Synonyms are words different in sound-form but similar in their denotational meaning or meanings and interchangeable at least in some contexts. Synonyms are classified as stylistic, contextual, occasional, etc.

Synonymic dominant is the most frequently used neutral word within a synonymic group (as look in the row look, watch, gaze, stare, glance).

Antonyms are two words belonging to the same part of speech and their denotational meanings express contrary or contradictory notions (opposite meanings).

Contradictories are antonyms that represent the type of semantic relations that exist between pairs like ‘dead’ and ‘alive’, ‘single’ and ‘married’, ‘perfect’ and ‘imperfect’, etc. We can easily distinguish this group of antonyms from the other groups by means of using ‘not’ before one of the member of the pair to make them semantically equivalent to each other, e.g. cf. not dead = alive, not single = married. ‘

Contraries are antonyms which admit such possibilities. This may be observed in ‘cold — hot’, because we have ‘cool’ and ‘warm’ as intermediate members.

Obsolete words are words which drop out of the language due to disappearance of the objects of phenomena they denote, e.g. ‘yeoman’ – ‘a man holding and cultivating a small landed estate; a freeholder’.

Archaisms are words felt as out-dated and replaced by newer forms and lexemes.

Antroponymes - proper names of people: Ann, Mary, John Smith, the Browns.

Toponymes - proper names of places, e.g. countries, cities, rivers, seas, etc: England, New York, the Volga, the Atlantic ocean, the Elbrus.

5. 
   Set expressions, phraseological units and their classification
   

Set expressions, et-phrases, word-equivalents and phraseological units are functionally and semantically inseparable word groups, e.g. at least, point of view, by means of, to take place.

Lexical motivation is the relationship within the components of a word-group when the meaning of the whole group can be easily deduced from the meanings of its components.

Idiomaticity is the lack of motivation within the components of word-groups when the meaning of the whole cannot be deduced from the meaning of its components.

Motivation is an interrelationship between the form (or structure) of the lexical unit and its meaning. According to the degree of motivation, we distinguish:

Fully motivated word-groups – word-groups where the combined lexical meaning is deducible from the meaning of their components, e.g. red flower, heavy weight, take lessons.

Partially motivated word-groups – where the meaning of at least one component helps to distinguish the meaning of the whole, e.g. to shrug one’s shoulders, to fall in love.

Non-motivated word-groups – where the meaning of the whole cannot be guessed (drawn) from the meanings of their components, e.g. red tape – ‘official bureaucratic methods’, heavy father – ‘serious or solemn part in a theatrical play’, and take place — ‘occur’.

A phraseological unit is a stable word-group characterized by a completely or partially transferred meaning and structural and functional inseparability. They can not be freely made up in speech but are reproduced as ready-made units, characterized by stability of the lexical components and lack of motivation.

Phraseological fusions are completely non-motivated phraseological units, such as red tape – ‘bureaucratic methods’; heavy father – ‘serious or solemn part in a theatrical play’; kick the bucket – ‘die’; and the like. The meaning of the components has no connections whatsoever, at least synchronically, with the meaning of the whole group.

Idiom is a set expression which is fully non-motivated as its meaning can not be deduced from the meanings of the words which are its structural components.

Idiomaticity, or lack of motivation, is complete or partial inconsistence with the form or structure of a lexical unit and its meaning.

Phraseological unities are partially non-motivated as their meaning can usually be perceived through the metaphoric meaning of the whole phraseological unit. For example, to show one’s teeth, to wash one’s dirty linen in public.

Phraseological collocations are motivated word-groups with a certain degree of stability possessing a certain degree of semantic inseparability. In phraseological collocations variability of member-words is strictly limited. For instance, ‘bear a grudge’ may be changed into ‘bear malice’, but not into ‘bear a fancy’ or ‘liking’. We can say ‘take a liking’ (fancy) but not ‘take hatred’ (disgust).

6. 
   Etymology and its notions and terms
   

Native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock (Anglo-Saxon) as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the old English period.
Borrowed word is a word taken from another language and modified in phonemic shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of English.
Borrowing is the process of adopting words (or word-building affixes) from other languages and also the result of this process, the language material itself, e.g. -able, -ment, -ity, coup d'état, vis-á-vis.

The English proper element – words that don’t have similar representatives in other Indo-European or Germanic languages. E.g. bird, boy, lord, lady, woman, daisy, always.
Assimilation of borrowings is a partial or complete adaptation to the phonetic(al), grammatical, semantic, morphological and graphical systems of the receiving language. The degree of assimilation depends on the importance, frequency and length of use of borrowings.
Translation-loans (or loan-translations) are words and expressions formed after the patterns characteristic of the receiving language, but under the influence of the foreign words and expressions. E. g. mother tongue < L. lingua maternal; it goes without saying < Fr. Cela va sans dire; wall newspaper < Russ. стенгазета.

Semantic borrowing is the appearance of a new meaning due to the influence of a related word in another language (pioneer- member of the teenagers’ organization in USSR).

Source of borrowing is the language from which this or that particular word was taken into English.

Origin of the word is the language where the borrowed word was born.

Etymological doublets are words originating from the same etymological source, but differing in phonemic shape and in meaning (shade-shadow, cask-cask, etc.).

Etymological hybrids are words created from both native and borrowed elements, like ‘short-age’ – English adjective ‘short’ and French suffix ‘-age’.

7. 
   Stylistic differentiation of the English vocabulary
   

and Variants of English

Variants of English are regional varieties having normalized literary vocabulary and used as the language of mass media, education and communication.

Dialects are local varieties of a language used as a means of oral communication in small localities, they are set off (more or less sharply) from other varieties by some distinctive features of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary.

Americanism - a word or a word combination peculiar to the English language spoken in the USA. E.g. cookie, elevator, truck, apartment, etc.

Slang words are those which are often regarded as a violation of the norms of Standard English, e.g. ‘governor’ for ‘father’, ‘missus’ for ‘wife’, ‘a gag’ for ‘a joke’, ‘dotty’ for ‘insane’. They are made in different social circles and often enter the general vocabulary making it more colourful and expressive, though sometimes cynical and harsh.

Professionalisms are words used in narrow groups bound by the same occupation, such as lab for ‘laboratory’, hypo for ‘hypodermic syringe’, a buster for ‘a bomb’, etc.

Jargonisms are words marked by their use within a particular social group and bearing a secret and cryptic character, e.g. ‘a sucker’ — ‘a person who is easily deceived’.

Vulgarisms, i.e. coarse words that are not generally used in public, e.g. bloody, hell, damn, shut up, etc.

VIII. Lexicography as a science of dictionary compiling

Dictionary is a book listing words of a language with their meanings and often with data regarding pronunciation, usage and origin. They are divided into encyclopaedic (thing-books) and linguistic (word-books).

Dictionaries may be unilingual (explanatory), bilingual (translation) and multilingual (comparative).

Dictionaries may be general (describing the whole vocabulary) and special (specialised) describing a subsystem of the vocabulary (pronunciation, idioms, synonyms, proverbs, professional terms, etc.).

Glossary is an alphabetical list of terms or words found in or relating to a specific subject, text, or dialect, with explanations; a brief dictionary

The most important problems in dictionary compiling are as follows: 1) selection of lexical units; 2) their arrangement; 3) setting of the entries; 4) selection and arrangement of word -meanings; 5) definition of meanings; 6) illustrative material, etc.

IX. Some methods of lexicological research

Diachronic approach to the vocabulary study is based on the analysis of the changes a word undergoes from the moment of its appearance throughout its historical development.

Synchronic approach is based on the analysis of lexical units at a given period of time, usually coinciding with the period of the research.

Immediate constituents (IC) method is used to identify two meaningful parts forming a larger linguistic unity. The ICs of ‘bluish’ are ‘blue-‘ and ‘ –ish’.

Ultimate constituents method is applied to the analysis of the morphological structure of the word to identify the number and character of the morphemes in its structure. The UCs of the word ‘carefully’ are ‘care’, ‘-ful’ and ‘-ly’, while its ICs are ‘careful’ and ‘–ly’.

Statistical methods are used to provide quantitative data for justification of the research results to ensure that they are statistically reliable.

Componential analysis is applied to the study of the semantic structure of the word, resulting in distinguishing such semantic components as sememes, semes and their types.

Contextual analysis concentrates on determining the minimal stretch of speech and the conditions necessary to find out in which of its individual meanings the given word is used.

Contrastive (comparative) analysis is used to reveal the similarities and differences in linguistic features of two or more languages.

Transformational analysis is changing of a sentence, phrase or pattern according to a prescribed model and following certain rules in order that to discover differences in usage and meaning.