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The lexicographic concept here is very different from the prescriptive tradition of Dr S. Johnson: the lexicographer is the objective recorder of the language. The purpose of OED, as stated by its editors, has nothing to do with prescription or proscription of any kind.

The conception of this new type of dictionary was born in a discussion at the English Philological Society. It was suggested by Frederick Furnivall, later its second titular editor, to Richard Trench, the author of the first book on lexicology of the English language. Richard Trench read before the society his paper “On Some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries", and that was how the big enterprise was started. At once the Philological Society set to work to gather the material, volunteers offered to help by collecting quotations. Dictionary-making became a sort of national enterprise. A special committee prepared a list of books to be read and assigned them to the volunteers, sending them also special standard slips for quotations. By 1881 the number of readers was 800, and they sent in many thousands of slips. The tremendous amount of work done by these volunteers testifies to the keen interest the English take in their language.

The first part of the Dictionary appeared in 1884 and the last in 1928. Later it was issued in twelve volumes and in order to accommodate new words a three volume Supplement was issued in 1933. These volumes were revised in the seventies. Nearly all the material of the original Supplement was retained and a large body of the most recent accessions to the English language added.

The principles, structure and scope of “The Oxford English Dictionary", its merits and demerits are discussed in the most comprehensive treaty by L.V. Malakhovsky. Its prestige is enormous. It is considered superior to corresponding major dictionaries for other languages. The Oxford University Press published different abridged versions. “ The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles” formerly appeared in two volumes, now printed on thinner paper it is bound in one volume of 2,538 pages. It differs from the complete edition in that it contains a smaller number of quotations. It keeps to all the main principles of historical presentation and covers not only the current literary and colloquial English but also its previous stages. Words are defined and illustrated with key quotations.

“The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English” was first published in 1911, i.e. before the work on the main version was completed. It is not a historical dictionary but one of current usage. A still shorter form is “The Pocket Oxford Dictionary”.

Another big dictionary, also created by joined effort of enthusiasts, is Joseph Wright’s “English Dialect Dictionary”. Befor e this dictionary could be started upon, a thorough study of English dialects had to be completed. With this aim in view W.W. Skeat, famous for his “E tymological English Dictionary” founded the English Dialect Society as far back as 1873. Dialects are of great importance for the historical study of the language. In the 19th century they were very pronounced though now they are almost disappearing. The Society existed t i l l 1896 and issued 80 publications, mostly monographs.

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Curiously enough, the first American dictionary of the English language was compiled by a man whose name was also Samuel Johnson. Samuel Johnson Jr., a Connecticut schoolmaster, published in 1798 a small book entitled “A School Dictionary”. This book was follo wed in 1800 by another dictionary by the same author, which showed already some signs of Americanisation. It included, for instance, words like tomahawk and wampum, borrowed into English from the Indian languages. It was Noah Webster, universally considered to be the father of American lexicography, who emphatically broke away from English idiom, and embodied in his book the specifically American usage of his time. His great work, “The American Dictionary of the English Language", appeared in two volumes in 1828 and later sustained numerous revised and enlarged editions. In many respects N. Webster follows the lead of Dr S. Johnson (the British lexicographer). But he has also improved and corrected many of S. Johnson’s etymologies and his definitions are often more exact. N. Webster attempted to simplify the spelling and pronunciation that were current in the USA of the period. He devoted many years to the collection of words and the preparation of more accurate definitions.

N. Webster realised the importance of language for the development of a nation, and devoted his energy to giving the American English the status of an independent language, distinct from British English. At that time the idea was progressive as it helped the unification of separate states into one federation. The tendency became reactionary later on, when some modern linguists like H. Mencken shaped it into the theory of a separate American language, not only different from British English, but surpassing it in efficiency and therefore deserving to dominate and supersede all the languages of the world. Even if we keep within purely linguistic or purely lexical concepts, we shall readily see that the difference is not so great as to warrant American English the rank of a separate language, not a variant of English (see p. 265).

The set of morphemes is the same. Some words have acquired a new meaning on American soil and this meaning has or has not penetrated into British English. Other words kept their earlier meanings that are obsolete and not used in Great Britain. As civilisation progressed different names were given to new inventions on either side of the Atlantic. Words were borrowed from different Indian languages and from Spanish. All these had to be recorded in a dictionary and so accounted for the existence of specific American lexicography. The world of today with its ever-growing efficiency and intensity of communication and personal contacts, with its press, radio and television creates conditions which tend to foster not an isolation of dialects and variants but, on the contrary, their mutual penetration and integration.

Later on, the title “International Dictionary of th e English Language” was adopted, and in the latest edition not Americanisms but words not used in America (Britishisms) are marked off.

N. Webster’s dictionary enjoyed great popularity from its first editions. This popularity was due not only to the accuracy and clarity of definitions but also to the richness of additional information of encyclopaedic

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character, which had become a tradition in American lexicography. As a dictionary N. Webster’s book aims to treat the entire vocabulary of the language providing definitions, pronunciation and etymology. As an encyclopaedia it gives explanations about things named, including scientific and technical subjects. It does so more concisely than a full-scale encyclopaedia, but it is worthy of note that the definitions are as a rule up-to-date and rigorous scientifically.

Soon after N. Webster’s death two printers and booksellers of Massachusetts, George and Charles Merriam, secured the rights of his dictionary from his family and started the publication of revised single volume editions under the name “Merriam-Webster”. The staff w orking for the modern editions is a big institution numbering hundreds of specialists in different branches of human activity.

It is important to note that the name “Webster” may be attached for publicity’s sake by anyone to any dictionary. Many publishers concerned with their profits have taken this opportunity to issue dictionaries called “Webster’s”. Some of the books so named are cheaply -made reprints of old editions, others are said to be entirely new works. The practice of advertising by coupling N. Webster’s name to a dictionary which has no connection with him, continues up to the present day.

A complete revision of N. Webster’s dictionary is achieved with a certain degree of regularity. The recent “Webster’s Th ird New International Dictionary of the English Language” has called fort h much comment, both favourable and unfavourable. It has been greatly changed as compared with the previous edition, in word selection as well as in other matters. The emphasis is on the present-day state of the language. The number of illustrative quotations is increased. To accommodate the great number of new words and meanings without increasing the bulk of the volume, the editors excluded much encyclopaedic material.

The other great American dictionaries are the “Cent ury Dictionary", first completed in 1891; “Funk and Wagnalls New Sta ndard Dictionary", first completed in 1895; the “Random House Dictiona ry of the English Language", completed in 1967; “The Heritage Illustr ated Dictionary of the English Language", first published in 1969, and C.L. Barnhart’s et al. “The World Book Dictionary” presenting a synchronic revi ew of the language in the 20th century. The first three continue to appear in variously named subsequent editions including abridged versions. Many small handy popular dictionaries for office, school and home use are prepared to meet the demand in reference books on spelling, pronunciation, meaning and usage.

An adequate idea of the dictionaries cannot be formed from a mere description and it is no substitute for actually using them. To conclude we would like to mention that for a specialist in linguistics and a teacher of foreign languages systematic work with a good dictionary in conjunction with his reading is an absolute necessity.

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CONCLUSION

The present book has treated the specific features of the English word as a structure, both on the morphemic and semantic levels, and dealt with the English vocabulary as an adaptive system of contrasting and interrelated elements. The presentation of these is conceived on the basis of the theory of oppositions as initiated by N.S. Trubetzkoy and is described, partly at least, in set-theoretical terms.

The classical book on the theory of oppositions is the posthumous treatise by N.S. Trubetzkoy “Grundzuge der Phonologie”. The full significance and value of this work are now being realised and appreciated both in Soviet linguistics and abroad. Nevertheless, application of the theory of oppositions to linguistic analysis on levels other than that of phonology is far from being complete. One need hardly say that the present volume does not attempt to be definitive in its treatment of oppositions for lexicological description: quite considerable amount of research has already been done in some directions and very l i t t l e in many others. Many points remain to be elucidated by future patient study and by collecting reliable factual evidence on which more general conclusions may then be built.

The special interest of contemporary science in methods of linguistic research extends over a period of about thirty years. The present status of principles and techniques in lexicology, although still far from satisfactory, shows considerable progress and an intense development.

The main procedures in use have been described in connection with the subject-matter they serve to investigate. They are the componential analysis, the contextological and valency analysis, analysis into immediate constituents, explanatory transformations based on dictionary definitions and different types of semantic oppositions helping to describe the vocabulary system.

Each of these techniques viewed separately has its limitations but taken together they complete one another, so that each successive procedure may prove helpful where the previous one has failed. We have considered these devices time and again in discussing separate aspects of the vocabulary system. All these are formalised methods in the sense that they replace the original words in the linguistic material sampled for analysis by symbols that can be discussed without reference to the particular elements they stand for, and then state precise rules for the combination and transformation of formulas thus obtained.

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It must be emphatically stressed that although the synchronic and diachronic treatments are set apart, and the focal point of interest is the present state of the English vocabulary, these two aspects are not divorced, and the constant development of the whole system is always kept in mind. It must be fully realised that the separation of the two aspects is only an abstraction necessary for heuristic purposes. Secondly, structural methods demand a rigorous separation of levels and a study of language as an autonomous system. This dogmatic thesis placed a burden upon research. In present-day Soviet linguistics the interrelation between different levels as well as between language and extralinguistic reality is taken as all-important.

Finally, what is especially important, language is a social phenomenon, the language of any society is an integral part of the culture and social life of this society, words recognised within the vocabulary of the language are that part of the language on which the influence of extra-linguistic factors tells in the first place. Much of the semantic incommensurability that exists between languages can be accounted for in terms of social and cultural differences.

Sociolinguistics which is now making great progress is concerned with linguistic differences and with the actual performances of individuals as members of specific speech communities. It concentrates on the correlation of linguistic features with values and attitudes in social life with the status of speakers and listeners in social network. It deals with coexistence in the same individual or the same group of speakers of several linguistic codes, resorted to according to language-use conventions of society, i.e. a more prestigious formal and conservative code is used for official purposes, the other for spontaneous informal conversation. As sociolinguistics is still in its infancy it was possible to include in the present book only a few glimpses of this new branch.

Recent years in” Soviet linguistics have undoubtedl y seen great progress in lexicology coming from various schools with various aims and methods. It is outside the scope of the present book to reflect them all, it is to be hoped, however, that the student will watch current literature and retrieve the necessary information on points that will interest him.

The modern methods of vocabulary study have emerged from practical concerns, especially those of foreign language teaching, dictionary-making, and recently, from the needs of machine translation and information retrieval. Improvements and expansion in foreign language teaching called forth a new co-operation between didactics and linguistics. In this connection it is well to remember that many eminent linguists devoted a great deal of attention to problems of teaching languages: L.V. Shcherba, L. Bloomfield, Ch. Fries, O. Jespersen, E. Nida wrote monographs on these problems.

There has been a considerable growth of activity in the field of mathematical linguistics. Much of this is connected with computer-aided linguistics. We have attempted to show the usefulness of set-theoretical concepts for the study of vocabulary. We must be on our guard, however, against the idea that an attachment of mathematical symbols and

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operations to linguistics material will by itself make the statements about it more scientific. The introduction of mathematical apparatus into linguistics is justified only when it is based on a thorough comprehension of linguistic problems involved. Otherwise an indiscriminate introduction of mathematical procedures will be purely ornamental and may even lead to the generation of meaningless results. Even more important and promising, perhaps, is the fact that the penetration of mathematical methods, whether from the theory of sets, adaptive system theory, symbolic logic or mathematical statistics, leads to a more rigorous general approach. We are now hopeful that with the help of cautious and responsible application of some developments in system theory a genuinely scientific lexicology can come into being that will be useful in different branches of applied linguistics.

A fresh departure in the study of language including its vocabulary is the communicative linguistics in which the pragmatic rather than structural approach is used. This new trend relates vocabulary characteristics not only to meanings but to uses and situations and the degree of their formality. Pragmatics concerned with the relations between signs and expressions and their users is steadily gathering momentum penetrating all branches of linguistics. At present, however, this promising trend has hardly begun to take shape.

In more than ten years that have passed since the second edition of this book went to press, the problems of English lexicology have been investigated in a tremendous number of publications. Bringing the bibliography up to date keeping the same degree of comprehensiveness without a great increase in bulk proved impossible. Our debt to numerous works of scholarship had been acknowledged in copious notes and references of the previous editions. Here a basically different approach was chosen: bibliographical footnotes were drastically reduced and the selective list gathered below includes books especially recommended as further reading. An attempt is made to take account of modern lexicological theory as developed in the last decade and also to show the survival of basic studies translated, updated and published many years after their first edition. (See, for instance, works by K. Baldinger, M. Bréal, O. Jespersen.)

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RECOMMENDED READING

Агамджанова В. И. Контекстуальная избыточность лексического значения слова. Рига,

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Азнаурова Э. С. Очерки по стилистике слова. Ташкент, 1973.

Акуленко В. В. Вопросы интернационализации словарного состава языка. Харьков, 1972. Амосова Н. Н. Этимологические основы словарного состава современного английского

языка. М., 1956.

Амосова Н. Н. Основы английской фразеологии. Л., 1963. Амосова Н. Н. Английская контекстология. Л., 1968. (На англ. яз.).

Апресян Ю. Д. Лексическая семантика. Синонимические средства языка. М. 1974. Арнольд И. В. Лексикология современного английского языка. М., 1959.

Арнольд И. В. Семантическая структура слова в современном английском языке и методы ее исследования. Л., 1966.

Арнольд И. В. Стилистика современного английского языка: Стилистика декодирования. 2-е изд., перераб. Л., 1981.

Аспекты семантических исследований: Сборник. М., 1980.

Беляева Т. М., Потапова И. А. Английский язык за пределами Англии. Л., 1971.

Беляева Т. М. Словообразовательная валентность глагольных основ в английском языке.

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Бенвенист Э. Общая лингвистика/Пер. с англ. М., 1977. Блумфилд Л. Язык/Пер. с англ. М., 1968.

Бондарко А. В. Грамматические категории и контекст. Л., 1971. Бондарко А. В. Грамматическое значение и смысл. Л., 1978. Борисов В. В. Аббревиация и акронимы. М., 1972.

Виноградов В. В. Об основных типах фразеологических единиц в русском языке // Вино- градов В. В. Лексикология и лексикография: Избранные труды. М., 1977.

Виноградов В. В. Основные типы лексических значений слова // Виноградов В. В. Лексикология и лексикография: Избранные труды. М., 1977.

Вольф E. М. Грамматика и семантика прилагательного. М., 1978. Вольф E. М. Функциональная семантика оценки. М., 1985.

Гулыга E. В., Шендельс E. И. Грамматико-лексические поля в современном немецком языке. М., 1969.

Есперсен О. Философия грамматики/Пер. с англ. М., 1958. Звегинцев В. А. Семасиология. М., 1957.

Звегинцев В. А. История языкознания XIX—XX вв. в очерках и извлечениях. М., 1965. Иванова И. П., Бурлакова В. В., Почепцов Г. Г. Теоретическая грамматика современного

английского языка. М., 1981.

Ильиш Б. А. Строй современного английского языка. 3-е изд. Л., 1971. Караулов Ю. Н. Общая и русская идеография. М., 1976.

Караулов Ю. Н. Лингвистическое конструирование и тезаурус литературного языка. М.,

1981.

Касарес X. Введение в современную лексикографию/Пер. с исп. М., 1958. Кацнельсон С. Д. Типология языка и речевое мышление. Л., 1972.

Кащеева М. А., Потапова И. А., Тюрина Н. С. Практикум по английской лексикологии.

Л., 1974.

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Котелова Н. 3. Значение слова и его сочетаемость. Л., 1975. Кубрякова Е. С. Основы морфологического анализа. М., 1974.

Кубрякова Е. С. Типы языковых значений. Семантика производного слова. М., 1981. Кузнецова А. И. Понятие семантической системы языка и методы ее исследования. М., 1963. Кунин А. В. Английская лексикология. М., 1940. (На англ. яз.).

Кунин А. В. Английская фразеология. М., 1970.

Кунин А. В. Фразеология современного английского языка. М., 1972. Лайонз Дж. Введение в теоретическую лингвистику/Пер. с англ. М., 1978.

Лотте Д. С. Вопросы заимствования и упорядочения иноязычных терминов и терминоэле-

ментов. М., 1982.

Медникова Э. М. Значение слова и методы его описания. М., 1974.

Медникова Э. М. Практикум по лексикологии английского языка. М., 1978. (На англ. яз.). Мешков О. Д. Словообразование современного английского языка. М., 1976.

Никитин М. В. Лексическое значение слова. М., 1983. Новиков Л. А. Семантика русского языка. М., 1982. Пауль Г. Принципы истории языка/Пер. с нем. М., 1960. Потебня А. А. Эстетика и поэтика. М., 1977.

Пражский лингвистический кружок: Сб. статей/Сост., ред. и предисл. Н. А. Конд-

рашова. М., 1967.

Принципы и методы семантических исследований. Сборник. М., 1976. Резинкина Н. М. Развитие языка английской научной литературы. М., 1978. Рейман Е. А. Английские предлоги. Значения и функции. Л., 1982. Селиверстова О. Н. Компонентный анализ многозначных слов. М., 1975. Сепир Э. Язык/Пер. с англ. М.-Л., 1934.

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Степанов Ю. С. Методы и принципы современной лингвистики. М., 1975. Степанов Ю. С. Основы общего языкознания. М., 1975.

Степанов Ю. С. Имена. Предикаты. Предложения. М., 1981. Степанова М. Д. Методы синхронного анализа лексики. М., 1968. Степанова М. Д. Теория валентности и валентностный анализ. М., 1973.

Стернин И. А. Проблемы анализа структуры значения слова. Воронеж, 1979. Ступин Л. П. Словари современного английского языка. Л., 1973. Суперанская А. В. Общая теория имени собственного. М., 1973.

Трубецкой Н. С. Основы фонологии. М., 1960.

Уфимцева А. А. Слово в лексической системе языка. М., 1968. Уфимцева А. А. Типы словесных знаков. М., 1974. Уфимцева А. А. Лексическое значение. М., 1986.

Хидекель С. С. и др. Английская лексикология в выдержках и извлечениях. Л., 1969. (На англ. яз.).

Чейф У. Л. Значение и структура языка/Пер. с англ. М., 1975. Шаховский В. И. Эмотивный компонент значения и методы его описания. Волгоград, 1983.

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Jespersen, Otto. Growth and Structure of the English Language. Oxford, 1982. (First publ. in 1905.)

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Leech, Geoffrey N. Towards a Semantic Description of English. London, 1969. Leech, Geoffrey N. Meaning and the English Verb. London, 1971.

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