five’ /`ha:f `pa:s`faiv/, «old man» /`oul `m n/.
LEXICOGRAPHY
The theory and practice of compiling dictionaries is called
lexicography. The history of compiling dictionaries for English comes as
far back as the Old English period, where we can find glosses of religious
books / interlinear translations from Latin into English/. Regular
bilingual dictionaries began to appear in
the 15-th century /Anglo-Latin, Anglo-French , Anglo-German/.
The first unilingual dictionary explaining difficult words appeared in
1604, the author was Robert Cawdry, a schoolmaster. He compiled his
dictionary for schoolchildren. In 1721 an English scientist and writer
Nathan Bailey published the first etymological dictionary which explained
the origin of English words. It was the first scientific dictionary, it was
compiled for philologists.
In 1775 an English scientist compiled a famous explanatory dictionary.
Its author was Samuel Johnson. Every word in his dictionary was illustrated
by examples from English literature, the meanings of words were clear from
the contexts in which they were used.. The dictionary was a great success
and it influenced the development of lexicography in all countries. The
dictionary influenced normalization of the English vocabulary. But at
the same time it helped to preserve the English spelling in its
conservative form.
In 1858 one of the members of the English philological society Dr.
Trench raised the question of compiling a dictionary including all the
words existing in the language. The
philological society adopted the decision to compile the dictionary
and the work started. More than a thousand people took part in collecting
examples, and 26 years later in 1884 the first volume was published. It
contained words beginning with «A» and «B». The last volume was published
in 1928 that is 70 years after the decision to compile it was adopted. The
dictionary was called NED and contained 12 volumes.
In 1933 the dictionary was republished under the title «The Oxford
English Dictionary», because the work on the dictionary was conducted in
Oxford. This dictionary contained 13 volumes. As the dictionary was very
large and terribly expensive scientists continued their work and compiled
shorter editions of the dictionary: «A Shorter Oxford Dictionary»
consisting of two volumes. It had the same number of entries, but far less
examples from literature. They also compiled «A Concise Oxford Dictionary»
consisting of one volume and including only modern words and no examples
from literature.
The American lexicography began to develop much later, at the end of the
18-th century. The most famous American English dictionary was compiled by
Noah Webster. He was an active stateman and public man and he published his
first dictionary in 1806. He went on with his work on the dictionary and in
1828 he published a two-volume dictionary. He tried to simplify the English
spelling and transcription. He introduced the alphabetical system of
transcription where he used letters and combinations of letters instead of
transcription signs. He denoted vowels in closed syllables by the
corresponding vowels, e.g. / a/, /e/, / i/, / o/, /u/. He denoted vowels
in the open syllable by the same letters, but with a dash above them,e.g.
/ a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/. He denoted vowels in the position before /r/ as
the same letters with two dots above them, e.g. / a/, /o/ and by the l
etter «e» with two dots above it for the combinations «er», «ir», «ur»
because they are pronounced identically. The same tendency is preserved
for other sounds : /u:/ is denoted by /oo/, /y/ is used for the sound /j/
etc.
Classification of dictionaries
All dictionaries are divided into linguistic and encyclopedic
dictionaries. Encyclopedic dictionaries describe different objects,
phenomena, people and give some data about them. Linguistic dictionaries
describe vocabulary units, their semantic structure, their origin, their
usage. Words are usually given in the alphabetical order.
Linguistic dictionaries are divided into general and specialized . To
general dictionries two most widely used dictionaries belong: explanatory
and translation dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include
dictionaries of synonyms, antonyms, collocations, word-frequency,
neologisms, slang, pronouncing, etymological, phraseological and others.
All types of dictionaries can be unilingual ( excepting translation ones)
if the explanation is given in the same language, bilingual if the
explanation is given in another language and also they can be polilingual.
There are a lot of explanatory dictionaries (NED, SOD, COD, NID, N.G.
Wyld’s «Universal Dictionary» and others). In explanatory dictionaries the
entry consists of the spelling, transcription, grammatical forms, meanings,
examples, phraseology. Pronunciation is given either by means of the
International Transcription System or in British Phonetic Notation which is
different in each large dictionary, e.g. /o:/ can be indicated as / aw/,
/or/, /oh/, /o/. etc.
Translation dictionaries give words and their equivalents in the other
language. There are English-Russian dictionaries by I.R. Galperin, by
Y.Apresyan and others. Among general dictionaries we can also mention
Learner’s dictionaries. They began to appear in the second half of the 20-
th century. The most famous is «The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary» by A.S.
Hornby. It is a unilingual dictionary based on COD, for advanced foreign
learners and language teachers. It gives data about grammatical and lexical
valency of words. Specialized dictionaries of synonyms are also widely
used, one of them is «A Dictionary of English Synonyms and Synonymous
Expressions» by R.Soule. Another famous one is «Webster’s Dictionary of
Synonyms». These are unilingual dictionaries. The best known bilingual
dictionary of synonyms is «English Synonyms» compiled by Y. Apresyan.
In 1981 «The Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English» was compiled, where
words are given in 14 semantic groups of everyday nature. Each word is
defined in detail, its usage is explained and illustrated, synonyms,
antonyms are presented also. It describes 15000 items, and can be referred
to dictionaries of synonyms and to explanatory dictionaries.
Phraseological dictionaries describe idioms and colloquial phrases,
proverbs. Some of them have examples from literature. Some lexicographers
include not only word-groups but also anomalies among words. In «The Oxford
Dicionary of English Proverbs» each proverb is illustrated by a lot of
examples, there are stylistic references as well. The dictionary by
Vizetelli gives definitions and illustrations, but different meanings of
polisemantic units are not given. The most famous bilingual dictionary of
phraseology was compiled by A.V. Koonin. It is one of the best
phraseological dictionaries.
Etymological dictionaries trace present-day words to the oldest forms of
these words and forms of these words in other languages. One of the best
etymological dictionaries was compiled by W. Skeat.
Pronouncing dictionaries record only pronunciation. The most famous is D.
Jones’ s «Pronouncing Dictionary».
Dictionaries of neologisms are : a four-volume «Supplement to NED» by
Burchfield, «The Longman Register of New Words»/1990/, «Bloomsury
Dictionary of New Words» /1996/.
SEMINARS
Seminar 1
Language units.
The smallest language unit.
The function of a root morpheme.
The main function of suffixes.
The secondary function of suffixes.
The main function of prefixes.
The secondary function of prefixes.
Splinters and their formation in English.
The difference between affixes and splinters.
Structural types of words in English.
The stem of a word and the difference beween a simple word, a stem and a
root.
The difference between a block compound and a nominal benomial.
The difference between a word and a phraseological unit.
The similarity between a word and a phraseological unit.
Analyze the following lexical units according to their structure. Point
out the function of morphemes. Speak about bound morphemes and free
morphemes. Point out allomorphs in analyzed words:
accompany unsystematic forget-me-not
computerise expressionless reservation
de-restrict superprivileged moisture
lengthen clannish pleasure
beautify workaholic reconstruction
beflower inwardly counterculture
specialise moneywise three-cornered
round table Green Berets to sandwich in
Seminar 2.
Affixation.
Classification of suffixes according to the part of speech they form.
Classification of suffixes according to the stem they are added to.
Classification of suffixes according to their meaning.
Classification of suffixes according to their productivity.
Classification of suffixes according to their origin.
Classification of prefixes according to their meaning.
Classification of prefixes according to their origin.
Classification of prefixes according to their productivity.
Analyze the following derived words, point out suffixes and prefixes and
classify them from different points of view:
to embed nourishment unsystematic
to encourage inwardly to accompany
translatorese dispensable clannishness
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