Words, Meaning and Vocabulary: An Introduction to Modern English Lexicology Book

List of figures     vii
List of exercises     viii
Dedication     x
Preface     xi
Preface to the second edition     xii
What is lexicology?     1
Lexicology defined     2
Lexicology as a level of language analysis     10
The structure of English vocabulary     14
Summary     23
Where do English words come from?     24
The origin of English     25
Historical development of English vocabulary     27
Native English vocabulary     37
The process of borrowing     38
Creating new English words     51
Characteristics of modern English vocabulary     52
Summary     55
The word     56
The notion of word     57
Word meaning     65
Polysemy     68
Homonymy     72
Multiword lexemes     74
Summary     79
Word formation     80
Why study word-formation processes?     81
Inflection and derivation     82
Inflectional affixes     83
Derivational affixes     86
Compounds     92
Other word-formation processes     99
Summary     104
Meaning relations     105
What are 'meaning relations'?     106
Synonymy     107
Antonymy     113
Hyponymy and meronymy     117
Analysing meaning     123
Collocation     131
Summary     134
Words in use     136
Vocabularies     137
National and regional vocabularies     141
Jargon     149
Sub-cultures     155
Style     160
Restricted languages     164
Summary     166
Investigating vocabulary     167
What might we want to find out?     168
How do we find out?     169
Electronic resources     171
Tools of analysis     176
MRDs, LDBs and LKBs     182
WWW     184
Summary     186
Words in dictionaries     187
Repositories of words     188
Information about words     193
How do dictionaries decide?     203
Meaning     210
Dictionaries and vocabulary      213
Lexicology and lexicography     215
Summary     216
Key to exercises     217
References     235
Glossary     241
Index     247