Билет № 1
The Germanic languages in the Indo-European family of languages.
Germanic languages, branch of the Indo-European language family. Scholars often divide the Germanic languages into three groups: West Germanic, including English, German, and Netherlandic (Dutch); North Germanic, including Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Faroese; and East Germanic, now extinct, comprising only Gothic and the languages of the Vandals, Burgundians, and a few other tribes. In numbers of native speakers, English, with 450 million, clearly ranks 4th among the languages of the world (after Mandarin, Hindi, and Spanish); German, with some 98 million, probably ranks 10th (after Bengali, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, and Japanese). To these figures may be added those for persons with another native language who have learned one of the Germanic languages for commercial, scientific, literary, or other purposes. English is unquestionably the world’s most widely used second language.
The earliest historical evidence for Germanic is provided by isolated words and names recorded by Latin authors beginning in the 1st century bce. From approximately 200 ce there are inscriptions carved in the 24-letter runic alphabet. The earliest extensive Germanic text is the (incomplete) Gothic Bible, translated about 350 ce by the Visigothic bishop Ulfilas (Wulfila) and written in a 27-letter alphabet of the translator’s own design. Later versions of the runic alphabet were used sparingly in England and Germany but more widely in Scandinavia—in the latter area down to early modern times. All extensive later Germanic texts, however, use adaptations of the Latin alphabet.
Lexicology and its links with other branches of Linguistics. Aims and significance.
The word lexicology is Greek. It consists of two morphemes: lexis (“word”) + logos (“science”). Lexicology is the science of the word.
Another definition: lexicology is the part of linguistics which studies the vocabulary and characteristic features of words. It investigates various meaning relations existing in the language and how words provide and support meaningful communication.
The basic task of lexicology is the study and systematic description of the vocabulary in respect to its origin, development and current use.
Different branches of lexicology:
| General lexicology |
| Special lexicology |
| Historical / diachronic lexicology |
| Descriptive / synchronic lexicology |
General lexicology is a part of linguistics (общее языкознание). It studies the vocabulary in general irrespective of (безотносительно) the specific features of any particular language.
Special lexicology is the lexicology of a particular language (частная лексикология).
Historical lexicology studies the historic changes of words in the course of language development. It studies the development of the vocabulary, the origin of words, their semantic relations in the course of time and the development of their meaning. The word “diachronic” consists of two morphemes: dia (“through”) and chronos (“time”), i.e. in the course of time.
Descriptive lexicology studies the vocabulary of a particular language at a definite stage of its development. The word “Synchronic” consists of two morphemes: syn (“together with”) and chronos (“time”).
The links of lexicology with other branches of linguistics.
1) Lexicology is closely connected with phonetics because they have the same object of studies, they both studies the word, but phonetics studies the outer form and lexicology studies the inner form of the word.
2) Lexicology is connected with grammar because lexicology studies words and grammar studies the grammatical relations between words and how words are combined into phrases and sentences. Meaningful communication is not possible without knowing the grammar rules.
3) Lexicology is connected with the history of language because the history of language studies the changes and the development of the vocabulary in the course of time.
4) Lexicology is connected with stylistics because stylistics studies the differentiation of the vocabulary according to the sphere of communication.
5) Lexicology is connected with the sociolinguistics because sociolinguistics studies the extra linguistic and social causes of the changes in the vocabulary of a language.
