SAMPLE QUESTIONS FOR FINAL EXAMINATION ON SUBJECT
LEXICOLOGY
2025-2026 ACADEMIC YEAR
(7-SEMESTER)
INTRODUCTION TO LEXICOLOGY: ENGLISH LEXICOLOGY AS THE SUBJECT
OF VOCABULARY STUDIES
1. What is the subject matter of Lexicology?
2. What types of Lexicology do you know?
3. What aspects of the language is Lexicology connected with?
4. What are the main features of the lexical unit?
5. What subdivisions of Lexicology do you know?
6. Name the branch of Lexicology which studies the following aspects of the
vocabulary:
LEXICOGRAPHY AS A TOOL AND THE RESULT OF
LEXICOLOGICAL STUDIES
1. What is the subject matter of Lexicography?
2. How can dictionaries be classified?
3. What is the difference between encyclopedic and linguistic dictionaries?
4. What problems can we face if we decide to compile a dictionary?
5. To what type does the English-Russian dictionary by [Link] belong?
6. Why is it important to develop a ‘dictionary habit’ in language learners?
ETYMOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY
1. What classes of words do we distinguish from the etymological point of view?
2. What are the major characteristics of the native (Anglo-Saxon) vocabulary units?
3. What criteria can we use to distinguish borrowings in English?
4. What types of assimilation can we observe in borrowings?
[Link] is the influence of borrowings on the language development?
6. What features of English brought to its becoming a global language?
LEXICAL SEMANTICS AND SEMANTIC STRUCTURE OF WORDS
1. What branch of Lexicology studies the meaning?
2. What is the difference between the notions ‘grammatical meaning’ and ‘lexical
meaning’?
3. What types of lexical meanings can you name?
4. What is the difference between the referential and functional approaches to the
meaning?
5. How can we trace the motivation of the words?
6. What is the term designating the smallest unit of meaning?
7. What is ‘a lexico-semantuc variant’ of a word?
SEMANTIC CHANGE AND THE ROLE OF METAPHOR AND
METONYMY
1. What is “semantic change”?
2. What are the causes for a semantic change?
3. What can the nature of semantic change be?
4. What is ‘specialisation of meaning’?
5. What is understood by the ‘generalisation’ of meaning?
6. What do you understand as a ‘seme’?
7. What is understood as “ semantic derivation’?
8. What is the role of context in semantic change?
SEMANTIC CLASSIFICATION AND LEXICAL FIELDS
1. What do you understand as semantic classification?
2. What criteria can be used for semantic classification of the vocabulary?
3. What semantic classes in your native language can you name?
4. What stylistic synonyms do you know?
5. What antonyms do we call ‘derivational’?
6. Which word in a synonymic group is considered to be the dominant synonym?
What are its characteristic features?
[Link] the dominant synonym be substituted for certain other members of a group
of synonyms? Is the criterion of interchangeabitity applicable in this case?
THE STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH WORDS AND TYPES OF
MORPHEMES
1. What is the basic structural unit of the word?
2. What are the reasons for the changeability of the word structure?
3. What is the procedure of morphemic analysis?
4. What types of morphemes do you know?
5. What words do we call polymorphemic? Give examples.
6. What types of stems can we find in the English language?
WORD FORMATION PROCESSES AND THE ISSUE OF
PRODUCTIVITY
1. What is word formation as a language subsystem?
2. What ways of forming words do we observe in Modern English?
3. What is the importance of the synchronic and diachronic approaches to the study
of word formation?
4. What is productivity of WF means in English?
5. What is frequency of WF means?
AFFIXATION AND COMPOUNDING AS HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE WAYS
OF FORMING WORDS
1. What is the subject matter of Lexicology?
2. What types of Lexicology do you know?
3. What aspects of the language is Lexicology connected with?
4. What are the main features of the lexical unit?
5. What subdivisions of Lexicology do you know?
6. Name the branch of Lexicology which studies the following aspects of the
vocabulary:
CONVERSION AND SHORTENING AS WORD FORMATION TYPES
1. What are the historical reasons for the development of conversion?
2. What is understood as ‘semantic relations” between converted pairs?
3. What types of shortening can you name?
4. What is clipping? That types of clipping can we find in English?
5. What types of abbreviation can we distinguish?
6. What examples of mixed forms of shortening with other types of word formation
can you present?
NON-PRODUCTIVE TYPES OF WORD FORMATION AND THEIR
PRAGMATIC FEATURES
1. What is affixation?
2. What criteria for classification of affixes do we know?
3. What morphemes are called prefixes?
4. What morphemes are called suffixes?
5. What semantic features can affixes possess?
6. What language elements do we call ‘semi-affixes’?
PHRASEOLOGY AS A SUBSYSTEM OF THE LANGUAGE
VOCABULARY
1. What is the subject matter of Phraseology?
2. Waht do you understand as lexical and grammatical valency?
3. Waht are the basic criteria for defining a phraseological unit?
4. What is [Link]’s classification of the phraseological units?
5. Why can we include phrasal verbs and proverbs and sayings into Phraseology?
6. What is the role of context in understanding phraseological units?