SYLLABUS
SUBJECT: SEMANTICS AND LEXICOLOGY
TEACHER: DR DOROTA RUT-KLUZ
COURSE DESCRIPTION
1. Linguistic semantics and lexicology: their complementarity
2. Triangle of Signification; Denotation and Reference
3. Meaning; Concept
4. Commonsense Knowledge, Commonsense Concept/Notion. Naive picture of the
world; Expert Concept. Scientific Concept. General Vocabulary and Specialized
Vocabulary. Scientific picture of the world.
5. Ideational meaning (Descriptive, Referential) and Interpersonal meaning (Social and
Expressive/Emotive)
6. Units of the Lexicon:
7. Lexical items; one-word lexical items and multiple-word lexical items.
8. Ways of expanding the Lexicon: coinage, borrowing, loan-translation/claque,
compounding, blending, affixation
9. Ways of expanding the Lexicon: clipping, shortening, backformation, conversion,
abbreviation, acronyms
10. Methodology of Semantic Investigation: Introspection, Experiment in Linguistics,
Lexicographic Observation, Corpora Analysis, Concordance
11. Componential Analysis
12. The Scope of Semantic Description: lexical meaning; morphological meaning:
inflectional morphology, derivational morphology; syntactic meaning: thematic role
13. Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Relations in the lexicon
14. Lexical / Semantic Fields
15. Hyponymy, Hyponym, Hyperonym
16. Synonymy, Absolute Synonymy, Quasi-synonym
17. Opposites (Antonyms Proper, Complementaries, Conversness)
18. Part-Whole Relationship
19. Homonymy and Polysemy
20. Prototype Semantics
21. Frames. Scripts. Image-Schemas
22. Metaphor and Metonymy
23. Lexicology and Lexicography
LEARNING OUTCOMES
After completing the course the students should possess general knowledge regarding
semantics and lexicology, they should be able to operate freely and adequately the
terminology introduced as well as provide own examples illustrating the discussed issues.
GRADING POLICY
The grades are the results of one test and the participation of students during the classes.
TIMETABLE
2 hours per week
TEXTBOOK AND REQUIRED MATERIALS
Primary materials:
Burkhanov, I. 1998 Lexicography. A Dictionary of Basic Terminology.: Wydawnictwo
Wyższej Szkoły Pedagogicznej w Rzeszowie
Lyons, J. 1977 Semantics. Vol.1, 2 Cambridge: CUP
Secondary materials:
Lyons, J. 1996 Linguistic Semantics. An Introduction. Cambridge: CUP.
Cruse, D. A. 1991 Lexical Semantics. Cambridge: CUP.
PREREQUISITES:
Upper-intermediate level of English