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{{short description|Linguistic discipline studying words}}
{{Distinguish|Lexicography}}
{{Hatnote|Compare [[philology]].}}
{{semantics}}
'''Lexicology''' is the branch of [[linguistics]] that analyzes the [[lexicon]] of a specific [[language]]. A word is the smallest meaningful unit of a [[language]] that can stand on its own, and is made up of small components called [[morpheme]]s. Lexicology examines every feature of a word – including [[Morphology (linguistics)|formation]], [[spelling]], [[Etymology|origin]], [[Pragmatics|usage]], and [[Semantics|definition]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Babich|first=Galina Nikolaevna|title=Lexicology : a current guide = Lexicologia angliskogo yazyka|publisher=Flinta|year=2016|isbn=978-5-9765-0249-9|edition=8|location=Moscow|pages=1|oclc=934368509}}</ref>

Lexicology also considers the relationships that exist between words. In linguistics, the [[lexicon]] of a language is composed of [[lexeme]]s, which are abstract units of meaning that correspond to a set of related forms of a word. Lexicology looks at how words can be broken down as well as identifies common patterns they follow.<ref name=":22">{{Cite book|last=Dzharasova|first=T. T.|title=English lexicology and lexicography : theory and practice|publisher=Al-Farabi Kazakh National University|year=2020|isbn=978-601-04-0595-0|edition=2|location=Almaty|pages=4–5}}</ref>

Lexicology is associated with [[lexicography]], which is the practice of compiling [[Dictionary|dictionaries]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Babich|first=Galina Nikolaevna|title=Lexicology : a current guide = Lexicologia angliskogo yazyka|publisher=Flinta|year=2016|isbn=978-5-9765-0249-9|edition=8|location=Moscow|pages=133|oclc=934368509}}</ref>

==Etymology==
{{Main|Etymology}}

The term ''lexicology'' derives from the [[Greek language|Greek]] word λεξικόν ''lexicon'' (neuter of λεξικός ''lexikos'', "of or for words",<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dlecikos λεξικός], Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek–English Lexicon'', on Perseus Digital Library</ref> from λέξις ''lexis'', "speech" or "word"<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dle%2Fcis λέξις], Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek–English Lexicon'', on Perseus Digital Library</ref>) and -λογία ''-logia'', "the study of" (a [[suffix]] derived from λόγος ''[[logos]]'', amongst others meaning "learning, reasoning, explanation, subject-matter").<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dlo%2Fgos λόγος], Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek–English Lexicon'', on Perseus Digital Library</ref>

Etymology as a science is actually a focus of lexicology. Since lexicology studies the meaning of words and their semantic relations, it often explores the history and development of a word. Etymologists analyze related languages using the [[comparative method]], which is a set of techniques that allow linguists to recover the ancestral phonological, morphological, syntactic, etc., components of modern languages by comparing their [[cognate]] material.<ref name=":1">{{Citation|title=The Handbook of Historical Linguistics|date=2003|url=|pages=183|editor-last=Joseph|editor-first=Brian D.|place=Oxford, UK|publisher=Blackwell Publishing Ltd|isbn=9780631195719|access-date=|editor2-last=Janda|editor2-first=Richard D.}}</ref> This means many [[Root (linguistics)|word roots]] from different branches of the Indo-European [[language family]] can be traced back to single words from the [[Proto Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European language]]. The [[English language]], for instance, contains more [[Loanword|borrowed words]] (or loan words) in its [[vocabulary]] than native words.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Babich|first=Galina Nikolaevna|title=Lexicology : a current guide = Lexicologia angliskogo yazyka|publisher=Flinta|year=2016|isbn=978-5-9765-0249-9|edition=8|location=Moscow|pages=20–23|oclc=934368509}}</ref> Examples include ''parkour'' from [[French language|French]], ''karaoke'' from [[Japanese language|Japanese]], ''coconut'' from [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], ''mango'' from [[Hindi]], etc. A lot of [[Glossary of music terminology|music terminology]], like ''piano'', ''solo'', and ''opera'', is borrowed from [[Italian language|Italian]]. These words can be further classified according to the linguistic element that is borrowed: phonemes, morphemes, and semantics.<ref name=":1" />

== Approach ==
{{See also|Diachrony and synchrony}}'''General lexicology''' is the broad study of words regardless of a language's specific properties. It is concerned with linguistic features that are common among all languages, such as phonemes and morphemes. '''Special lexicology''', on the other hand, looks at what a particular language contributes to its vocabulary, such as [[grammar]]s.<ref name=":22" /> Altogether lexicological studies can be approached two ways:

# '''Diachronic or historical''' lexicology is devoted to the evolution of words and [[Word formation|word-formation]] over time. It investigates the origins of a word and the ways in which its structure, meaning, and usage have since changed.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last=Popescu|first=Floriana|title=A paradigm of comparative lexicology|date=2019|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|isbn=978-1-5275-1808-7|location=Newcastle|pages=19–20|oclc=1063709395}}</ref>
# '''Synchronic or descriptive''' lexicology examines the words of a language within a certain time frame. This could be a period during the language's early stages of development, its current state, or any given interval in between.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|last=Halliday|first=M. A. K.|title=Lexicology : a short introduction|date=2007|publisher=Continuum|others=Colin Yallop|isbn=978-1-4411-5054-7|location=London|pages=56–57|oclc=741690096}}</ref>

These complementary perspectives were proposed by [[Swiss people|Swiss]] linguist [[Ferdinand de Saussure]].<ref name=":4" /> Lexicology can have both comparative and contrastive methodologies. '''Comparative lexicology''' searches for similar features that are shared among two or more languages. '''Contrastive lexicology''' identifies the linguistic characteristics which distinguish between related and unrelated languages.<ref name=":3" />

== Semantics ==
{{Main|Semantics}}
The [[wikt:subfield|subfield]] of semantics that pertains especially to lexicological work is called [[lexical semantics]]. In brief, lexical semantics contemplates the significance of words and their meanings through several lenses, including [[synonym]]y, [[antonymy]], [[Hyponymy and hypernymy|hyponymy]], and [[polysemy]], among others. Semantic analysis of lexical material may involve both the [[Contextualization (sociolinguistics)|contextualization]] of the word(s) and [[syntactic ambiguity]]. [[Semasiology]] and [[onomasiology]] are relevant linguistic disciplines associated with lexical semantics.<ref name=":3" />

A word can have two kinds of meaning: grammatical and lexical. '''Grammatical meaning''' refers to a word's function in a language, such as [[Grammatical tense|tense]] or [[plural]]ity, which can be deduced from [[affix]]es. '''Lexical meaning''' is not limited to a single form of a word, but rather what the word denotes as a base word. For example, the [[verb]] ''to walk'' can become ''walks'', ''walked'', and ''walking –'' each word has a different grammatical meaning, but the same lexical meaning ("to move one's feet at a regular pace").<ref>{{Cite book|last=Dzharasova|first=T. T.|title=English lexicology and lexicography : theory and practice|publisher=Al-Farabi Kazakh National University|year=2020|isbn=978-601-04-0595-0|edition=2|location=Almaty|pages=41}}</ref>

== Phraseology ==
{{Main|Phraseology}}

Another focus of lexicology is [[phraseology]], which studies multi-word expressions, or [[idiom]]s, like 'raining cats and dogs.' The meaning of the phrase as a whole has a different meaning than each word does on its own and is often unpredictable when considering its components individually. Phraseology examines how and why such meanings exist, and analyzes the laws that govern these word combinations.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Halliday|first=M. A. K.|title=Lexicology : a short introduction|date=2007|publisher=Continuum|others=Colin Yallop|isbn=978-1-4411-5054-7|location=London|pages=12–13|oclc=741690096}}</ref>

Idioms and other phraseological units can be classified according to content and/ or meaning. They are difficult to translate word-for-word from one language to another.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Dzharasova|first=T. T.|title=English lexicology and lexicography : theory and practice|publisher=Al-Farabi Kazakh National University|year=2020|isbn=978-601-04-0595-0|edition=2|location=Almaty|pages=75–76}}</ref>

== Lexicography ==
{{Excerpt|Lexicography|paragraphs=1-2}}

== Lexicologists ==
* [[Dámaso Alonso]] (October 22, 1898 - January 25, 1990): Spanish poet, literary critic, and [[Philology|philologist]]
* [[Roland Barthes]] (November 12, 1915 - March 25, 1980): French writer, critic, and [[Semiotics|semiotician]]
* [[Ghil'ad Zuckermann]] (born June 1, 1971): Israeli linguist and [[Language revitalization|language revivalist]]

== See also ==
* [[Calque]]
*[[Computational lexicology]]
*[[Lexicostatistics]]
*[[Lexical semantics]]
*[[Lexical analysis]]
*[[English lexicology and lexicography]]
* [[List of lexicographers]]
* [[List of linguists]]
* [[Lexical Markup Framework]]

==References==
<references />

== External links ==
{{Wiktionary}}
{{Commons category}}

===Societies===
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20001109045100/http://www.atala.org/ Association for Automatic Language Processing (ATALA), Paris, France]
* [http://www.le.ac.uk/english/jmc21/ishll.html International Society for Historical Lexicography and Lexicology, University of Leicester]

===Theory===
* [http://www.ciil-ebooks.net/html/lexico/link4.htm Lexicology vs. lexicography – an explanation]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070707050350/http://coral.lili.uni-bielefeld.de/Classes/Winter99/GSdictionary/CompLex/node2.html Lexicography, lexicology, lexicon theory]

===Glossary===
* [https://glossary.sil.org/term/l 'L' entries (from lexeme to lexicon) at SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics)'s glossary of linguistic terms]

===Teaching material===
*[http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/SLF/EngluVglSW/OnOnMon1.pdf ''English and General Historical Lexicology'' (by Joachim Grzega and Marion Schöner]

===Journals===
*[http://lexis.univ-lyon3.fr/ ''Lexis, E-Journal in English Lexicology'' (by Denis Jamet)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160731095249/http://lexis.univ-lyon3.fr/ |date=2016-07-31 }}
{{Lexicology}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Lexicology| ]]
[[Category:Linguistics terminology|+]]