Программные требования к раскрытию содержания представленных теоретических вопросов

Английская лексикология

 

I. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics, its connection with other branches of linguistics.

Lexicology as a branch of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of the language. The word as the subject-matter of Lexicology and the basic unit of the language. General Lexicology, Special Lexicology, Historical Lexicology, Descriptive Lexicology, Comparative and Contrastive Lexicology. The theoretical and practical value of Lexicology. Lexicograghy or applied Lexicology.

The aim and tasks of Lexicology. The connection of Lexicology with other branches of Linguistics: Phonetics, Grammar, Stylistics, History of the English Language.

 

II. Characteristic features of the modern English vocabulary.

The volume of the English vocabulary and its use, the total vocabulary of Modern English and the individual vocabulary. The changes in the vocabulary and their causes. The role of borrowing, polysemy and homonymy in English. The systematic character of the English vocabulary, different groupings of English words.

 

III. Etymological characteristics of the English vocabulary.

Etymology as a branch of Linguistics. The etymological background of the English vocabulary. Native words in English. Borrowings in the English vocabulary; main groups of loan words in English: Latin, French, Scandinavian and Celtic borrowings. Translation loans and semantic borrowings. Assimilation of borrowings, types of assimilation, degree of assimilation. Folk or false etymology. International words and etymological doublets in English.

 

IV. The morphological structure of English words.

The morpheme. Types of morphemes in English: roots and affixes: prefixes and suffixes.

Grammatical and derivational affixes. Free and bound morphemes. Semi-affixes. Combining forms. Allomorphs as positional variants of morphemes. The morphological analysis of words. Levels of the morphological analysis: morphemic and derivational. The aim of the morphemic analysis. The method of immediate and ultimate constituents. Morphemic segmentability of English words. The derivational analyses, its aim. The derivative structure of the word, derivational bases, derivational affixes, derivational patterns.

The main structural types of English words.

 

V. Word building in English.

Word building as the process of creating new words in a language with the help of its inner sources. Major, most productive means of word-building in English: affixation, conversion, composition. Shortening in English: clipping and abbreviation. Minor, less productive means of word-building in English: back-formation or reversion, blending or telescoping, reduplication, sound imitation. Mixed or synthetic word-building in Modern English.

 

VI. The semantic structure of the word. Types of lexical meaning.

Semasiology as a branch of Lexicology studying the meaning of the word and its development. The main approaches to the study of word meaning: refential, or denotational, functional, or contextual. Types of word meaning: grammatical, lexico-grammatical, lexical. The main components of lexical meaning. The denotational/denotative meaning. The connotational/connotative meaning. Main types of connotations: stylistic, emotional, evaluative, intensifying (emphatic or expressive). Polysemy in English and its causes. The semantic structure of a polysemantic word. The semantic analysis of the word: lexico-semantic, componential, contextual.

 

VII. The development and change of the semantic structure of English words.

Extralinguistic and linguistic causes of the semantic change. The main semantic processes of the development and change of word meaning: specialization, or narrowing of meaning, generalization, or widening of meaning, elevation, or amelioration of meaning, degradation or pejoration of meaning, metaphoric and metonymic transfers.

 

VIII. Homonymy in English. The problem of homonymy and polysemy.

Definition of homonyms. Causes of homonymy and sources of homonyms in English: convergent sound development and divergent sense development. Classifications of homonyms: 1) perfect homonyms, homophones and homographs; 2) full and partial homonyms; 3) lexical, lexico-grammatical and grammatical homonyms; 4) simple and complex homonyms.

The problem of homonymy and polysemy in English. The criteria applied to solve the problem: etymological, phonetic, the criterion of spelling, the semantic criterion of related and unrelated meanings, the criterion of distribution.

 

IX. Synonyms and antonyms in English.

Synonyms and synonymic sets, the synonymic dominant. Criteria of synonymy. Definition of synonyms. Functions of synonyms in speech.

Types of synonyms. Sources of synonyms in English. Euphemisms. Antonyms in English. Definition and classification of antonyms: 1) contradictory and contrary antonyms; 2) root and derivational antonyms.

 

X. The stylistic differentiation of the English vocabulary. Literary-bookish words.

The system of the stylistic differentiation of the English vocabulary and functional styles. Stylistically unmarked, or stylistically neutral words and stylistically marked, or stylistically coloured words. Two main strata of stylistically marked words: formal, or literary-bookish words and informal, or colloquial words. The subdivision of the literary-bookish vocabulary into general literary-bookish words and functional literary-bookish words. General literary-bookish words as a heterogeneous layer including words of scientific prose, “officialese”, literary, refined words. Functional (special) literary-bookish words: terms, poetic words, neologisms, archaic words and historical words, foreign word and barbarisms.

 

XI. Colloquial words in English. The problem of slang.

Colloquialisms as words of the minimal degree of stylistic degradation. Literary-colloquial and familiar colloquial words.

Substandard colloquial vocabulary: vernacular, or low colloquial words, dialect words, or dialectics, vulgarisms, slang. The term “slang”. Different definitions of slang. General slang and special slang: jargonisms, professionalisms, argo or cant. Word-building in slang. Neologisms of the colloquial character.

 

XII. Standard English, dialects and variants.

English as a global language. English as a mother tongue and the national language. English as the official language of the state. English as a foreign language. 

English as a microsystem of its national variants: British English, American English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English, etc.

Standard English (The British standard),. Variants and dialects as regional varieties of the English language.

Dialects in Great Britain, cockney. Main territorial variants of English outside Britain. American English. Vocabulary differences in the language variants.

 

 

Теоретическая грамматика

 

XIII. The theory of parts of speech and their interaction.

The position of parts of speech in the system of the language. The criteria of classifying the lexicon into parts of speech. The cognitive-discursive approach to parts of speech. The system of parts of speech in English. Notional and functional words. The borderline between notional and functional words. The field (prototypical) structure of parts of speech. Interaction between parts of speech. Syntactic transposition as a means of parts-of-speech interaction in English. The functions of transposition.

 

XIV. The English noun and its grammatical categories.

The general characteristic of the noun and its position in the system of parts of speech. Gender distinctions in the English nouns. The grammatical category of number in the English noun. The grammatical category of case in the English noun.

 

XV. The English verb. Subclasses of verb in English.

The position of the verb in the system of parts of speech. The verb as the semantic and the syntactic centre of the sentence. The three criteria for the classification of verbs into subclasses: formal, functional and semantic. The classification of verbs on the bases of the these criteria.

 

XVI. The grammatical category of tense.

The debatable points in the study of this category. The problem of the future tense in English. The analyses of the opposition: present :: past :: future. The semantic potential of the tense-forms in English.

 

XVII. The grammatical category of aspect.

The definition of the category of aspect. The semantic basis of the category of aspect in English. The analysis of the opposition ‘Common :: Continuous’ aspects. Cases of neutralization and transposition. The text-forming function of the Continuous Aspect in the text.

 

XVIII. The grammatical category of time-correlation.

The arguments in favour of treating the opposition ‘Perfect :: Non-Perfect’ as a separate grammatical category. The paradigmatic and syntagmatic meanings of the perfect forms. Cases of neutralization and transposition in the sphere of time-correlation category. The functions of perfect forms in the text.

 

XIX. The grammatical category of mood.

The main problems which arise in the study of the category of mood in English. Mood and modality. The system of moods in English.

 

 

XX. The grammatical category of voice.

The specificity of the category of voice as compared to the other verbal categories. The analyses of the opposition ‘Active :: Passive’. The scope of the passive constructions in English as compared to Russian. The factors that determine the use of passive constructions in English.

 

XXI. The simple sentence and its essential features.

The problem of the sentence definition and its level belonging. The main categories of the sentence: a) predicativity: its role in the sentence; types of predication: primary vs. secondary; explicit vs. implicit predication; b) modality: its heterogeneous nature; the two types of modality; the culture- and gender-sensitive character of modality; c) negation and its types: complete vs. partial; grammatical vs. lexical; explicit vs. implicit; direct vs. transferred negation; negation and the communicative type of the sentence; the specific features of negation in English.

 

XXII. The structural aspect of the sentence.

Classification of sentences according to their structure. The notions of valency, structural minimum and the elementary sentence. The syntactic processes of extending and compressing the elementary sentence.

 

XXIII. The semantic aspect of the sentence.

The notion of the semantic, or the deep structure of the sentence. The problem of semantic modelling in syntax. The semantic types of sentences. The relations between the formal (surface) and the semantic (deep) structures of the sentence.

 

XXIV. The communicative aspect of the sentence and its actual division.

Classification of sentences according to the purpose of communication The problem of exclamatory sentences. Transposition on the level of communicative types of sentences. The actual division of the sentence. The central notions of the actual division: the theme and the rheme. Dirhemic and monorhemic utterances. Means of expressing the components of actual division. The peculiarities of actual division in different communicative types of sentences. The text forming function of actual division.

 

Теоретическая фонетика

 

XXV. Phonetics as a branch of linguistics. The phoneme theory.

Phonetics as a branch of linguistics, its own branches. The connection of Phonetics with Grammar, Lexicology and Stylistics. The sound matter of the language and its components. Method of direct observation and commutation. The functional aspect of the sound. The definition of the phoneme. The material, the abstractional, the generalized and the functional aspects of the phoneme – three functions of the phoneme. The principle and the subsidiary variants of the phoneme. The conception of the phoneme. The 1-st and the 2-d groups of phonological conceptions. The status of the sound in the neutral position. Patterns of phonemic distribution and discovery of phonemes. The use of Phonetics in different spheres of human activity.

 

XXVI. The classification of English vowels.

The articulatory mechanisms of speech production. The organs of speech and their functions. The classification of speech sounds. The acoustic and the auditory aspect of speech sounds. The auditory aspect of speech sounds. The classification of English vowels – 5 types. Rules of reading vowels in English. Accomodation. Modification of vowels in connected speech. Moot points in vowels – the problem of diphthongs, the problem of the neutral sound, the problem of the vowel length.

 

XXVII. The classification of English consonants.

The articulatory mechanisms of speech production. The organs of speech and their functions. The classification of speech sounds. The acoustic and the auditory aspect of speech sounds. The classification of English consonants – 4 types. Rules of reading consonants in English. Assimilation. Different features of consonants affected by assimilation. Degrees of assimilation Directions of assimilation. Moot points in consonants – the problem of [ W ] sound. The number of affricates in English.

 

XXVIII. English intonation.

The definition of intonation. Intonation and its components. The role of intonation in speech. Intonation – group division. Parts of intonation pattern. The Descending, the Ascending and the Level types of Pre- Nuclear. Types of Nuclear. Methods of indicating intonation on the staves and in the line of text. Sentence – stress. Stressed and unstressed words in sentence – stress. The distinctive function of sentence-stress. Mistakes of Russian learners in sentence-stress. Rhythm. Tempo. Intonation of statements, special questions, general questions, imperatives, exclamations, direct address, parentheses, author’s words, disjunctive questions, compound and complex sentences. O’Connor’s system of English intonation. Tone Groups 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.

 

XXIX. Phonostylistics.

Stylistic use of intonation. Intonation of scientific style. Reciting a piece of scientific text. Intonation of declamatory style. Reciting a piece of fiction. Intonation of publicistic style. Reciting a piece of political speech. Intonation of formal style. Reciting a piece of TV announcer’s speech. Intonation of conversational style. Reciting a piece of any dialogue. Intonation of a fairy-tale. Reciting a piece of a fairy tale and presenting examples of its phonostylistical analyses. Stylistic modifications of sounds.

 

 

Cтилистика

 

XXX.  Functional styles.

 The definition, the features common for all styles. The general classification. Formal functional styles: scientific, business (official), publicistic, poetical. The aims, the general characterization, the linguistic features. Informal styles: the characteristic features, the specific language material. The peculiarities of literary :: familiar colloquial. Register, genres (subgenres), language varieties, discourse. The problem of belle-lettre style. The distinctive features of the language of literature.

 

XXXI. The main division of expressive means. Lexical means of expressiveness.

The difference between stylistic devices and expressive means. The ancient classification of expressive means. The functional classification. Modern classifications of expressive means. Lexical means of expressiveness and the classification of Tropes. Name the devices included into metaphoric and other groups.

 

XXXII. Metaphoric group. The structure and the semantics of an image.

The components of metaphoric group. Different approaches to the study of metaphor, definitions of it. Variations in metaphor. Genuine: trite metaphors. The structure of an image. A. Richards schemes. The semantics of an image. The functions of metaphor and simile.

 

XXXIII. The classification of syntactical expressive means. Syntactical structures with some change in their semantic function.

The definition of syntactical expressive means, their classification. The general classification of each group of syntactical expressive means, the devices comprising it. Syntactical structures with some change in their semantic function. The notion of stylistic transposition. Rhetorical questions: definition, spheres of usage, functions. Grammatical metaphors. Quasi-interrogative, quasi-negative, quasi-imperative sentences.

 

XXXIV. Syntactical expressive means based on the interplay of adjoining sentences and peculiarities of connection.

Parallelism: complete and partial. Two types of parallelism according to Y. Lotman. Jakobson’s view of parallelism. The functions of parallel construction.

Chiasmus: the definition, functions, lexical and syntactical chiasmus. Detachment and parcellation, the common features and the difference. Gap-sentence link. Coordination instead of subordination.

 

 

XXXV. Phonetical expressive means.

The functions of sound imagery. Euphony – the definition, means of creating. The patterns of sound repetition. Alliteration – definition, spheres of usage, functions. Assonance. Onomotopoeia – direct and indirect, the theory of sound symbolism. Rhythm: the definition, the vital features, the rhythm of poetry and the rhythm of prose.

 

История английского языка и введение в спецфилологию

 

XXXVI. Alterations in the Sound System in Proto Germanic and Phonetic peculiarities in Old English.

The essence and dates of the first Consonant Shift and its causes; Verner’s law; the Second Consonant Shift. Phonetic Structure in OE: positional alaphones of fricatives [f, θ, s]; positional variants of reading of the letter [W]. Phonetic changes in OE vowels: qualitative changes; quantitative changes. Phonetic changes in OE consonants.

 

XXXVII. Phonetic and spelling changes in Middle English.

Spelling changes in ME and their causes: disuse of OE letters; rising of new diagraphs; introduction of new letters. Phonetic changes in ME: changes in unstressed vowels; changes in stressed vowels; changes in consonants.

 

XXXVIII. Phonetic changes in New English.

Phonetic changes in vowels: the Great Vowel Shift; formation of new phonemes; shortenings of long vowels. Phonetic changes in consonants: loss of phonemes 1) accompanied by lengthening 2) accompanied by contraction; vocalization; growth of new sibilants and affricates; voicing of fricatives.

 

XXXIX. Development of the lexico-grammatical class of nouns.

The noun OE: gender, number, case, types of declension. The development of the nominal grammatical categories in ME and NE. The decay of noun declension, its causes and ways.

 

XL. Development of the lexico-grammatical class of verbs.

Grammatical categories of the Verb. Morphological classification of verbs: strong verbs, weak verbs, minor groups of verbs. Simplifying changes in the verb conjugation in ME and NE. Changes in morphological classes of verbs in ME and NE. Syntactical sources of analytical forms. Growth of new grammatical categories.