Words, meaning and vocabulary : an introduction to modern English lexicology

This textbook is a systematic and accessible introduction to the lexicology of modern English. Lexicology is the branch of linguistics that studies all aspects of the vocabulary of a particular language. The book provides an account of the sources of modern English words and studies the development of vocabulary over time. It examines: What are words? Where do English words come from? How are words made up? How do words 'mean'? How are words used? How can words be investigated? This new edition of the best-selling textbook has been revised and updated throughout. A new chapter has been added, and chapters on dictionaries and corpus linguistics have been updated. Lists of exercises and figures, summaries of content at the beginning of each chapter, a revised list of suggestions for further reading, and a new glossary have been added. Words, Meaning and Vocabulary is an essential introduction to lexicology for undergraduate students.

Author Notes

Howard Jackson is Professor of English Language and Linguistics in the School of English at the University of Central England in Birmingham
Etienne Ze Amvela is Vice-Rector in charge of Inspection at the University of Yaounde I and Head of the Department of English and Foreign Languages at the University of Douala, Cameroon

List of figures	p. vii
List of exercises	p. viii
Dedication	p. x
Preface	p. xi
Preface to the second edition	p. xii
1 What is lexicology?	p. 1
1.1 Lexicology defined	p. 2
1.2 Lexicology as a level of language analysis	p. 10
1.3 The structure of English vocabulary	p. 14
1.4 Summary	p. 23
2 Where do English words come from?	p. 24
2.1 The origin of English	p. 25
2.2 Historical development of English vocabulary	p. 27
2.3 Native English vocabulary	p. 37
2.4 The process of borrowing	p. 38
2.5 Creating new English words	p. 51
2.6 Characteristics of modern English vocabulary	p. 52
2.7 Summary	p. 55
3 The word	p. 56
3.1 The notion of word	p. 57
3.2 Word meaning	p. 65
3.3 Polysemy	p. 68
3.4 Homonymy	p. 72
3.5 Multiword lexemes	p. 74
3.6 Summary	p. 79
4 Word formation	p. 80
4.1 Why study word-formation processes?	p. 81
4.2 Inflection and derivation	p. 82
4.3 Inflectional affixes	p. 83
4.4 Derivational affixes	p. 86
4.5 Compounds	p. 92
4.6 Other word-formation processes	p. 99
4.7 Summary	p. 104
5 Meaning relations	p. 105
5.1 What are 'meaning relations'?	p. 106
5.2 Synonymy	p. 107
5.3 Antonymy	p. 113
5.4 Hyponymy and meronymy	p. 117
5.5 Analysing meaning	p. 123
5.6 Collocation	p. 131
5.7 Summary	p. 134
6 Words in use	p. 136
6.1 Vocabularies	p. 137
6.2 National and regional vocabularies	p. 141
6.3 Jargon	p. 149
6.4 Sub-cultures	p. 155
6.5 Style	p. 160
6.6 Restricted languages	p. 164
6.7 Summary	p. 166
7 Investigating vocabulary	p. 167
7.1 What might we want to find out?	p. 168
7.2 How do we find out?	p. 169
7.3 Electronic resources	p. 171
7.4 Tools of analysis	p. 176
7.5 MRDs, LDBs and LKBs	p. 182
7.6 WWW	p. 184
7.7 Summary	p. 186
8 Words in dictionaries	p. 187
8.1 Repositories of words	p. 188
8.2 Information about words	p. 193
8.3 How do dictionaries decide?	p. 203
8.4 Meaning	p. 210
8.5 Dictionaries and vocabulary	p. 213
8.6 Lexicology and lexicography	p. 215
8.7 Summary	p. 216
Key to exercises	p. 217
References	p. 235
Glossary	p. 241
Index	p. 247

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