ISSN:
2181-3906
2024
International scientific journal
«MODERN SCIENCE АND RESEARCH»
VOLUME 3 / ISSUE 10 / UIF:8.2 / MODERNSCIENCE.UZ
400
THE DEVELOPMENT PROCCESS OF AMERICAN LEXICOGRAPHY
B. Alishova
2-nd year MA course student.
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13935171
First steps of colonization of Northern America, was reaccept in XVI c. But they not lead
to origin of constant settlement. In the South part of North America (modern state of Virginia0
was created the colony of Jamestown in 1606. This colony used the patronage of English crown
and her support; in 1619 the ship of Holland brought their slaves – African Negroes. It was the
beginning of slave trade in America. The colony of Virginia was the first place in New World
where was firmly established the English language; but it did not take place in the process of its
establishing [1].
The Mayflower ship moved away from the coast of England in 1620, where were going
Englishmen, women and children – who belong to religious direction of puritan; puritans who
struggled against abuse and vices of sacred-attendant who called to severity of custom; and it was
discussed in persecution by governors of churches. Puritans who moved with Mayflower, was the
first detachment of emigrants; in the future emigration of New World became developing and
accepted especially large extent after breaking bourgeois revolution in England in the middle of
XVII c.
Englishmen: who arrived on Mayflower, stopped on the coast of Eastern-Northern-
American continent where they created the colony “New England”. New England was situated in
northern part of Virginia and consisted of 6 states on the coast of Atlantic Ocean. The population
of the colony become to enlarge; in America were immigrated not only Englishmen, and
representatives of other countries and nationalities, particularly Holland and Germans. Many
colonists of the ground searched new soil and pointed at the West, fights with time – honored
settlers - Indian tribes accompanied this advancement. The chances were unequal, so the colonists
had the firearms. Long standing Advancement to the West finished when American colonists
occupied whole the territory of Modern United States. The USA declared itself as an independent
State; the fighting for the independent was finished with defeating of England. From the end of
XVIII to the middle of XIX c. continued the second World wave of immigration; in the structure
of immigrants were the main Ireland and Germany; Again at the end of XIX c. came alive
immigration of Englishmen and German. At the beginning of XX c. among immigrants were many
of Italian and the representatives of West Slovene nationality.
These different waves of immigration left clear track in heterogeneous structure of lecture
of American variant.
In XIX c. appeared the work of the language of USA. In 1816 published the dictionary of
John Pickering under the title “A Vocabulary, or Collection of Words and Phrases which have
been supposed to be Peculiar to the United States of America” [2, 14].
This was the first work in which were collected Americanism. At the same time the position
of J. Pickering was about Briticism; J. Pickering tried withdrawing the treatment from the
circulation which coincided with British norm. Against Pickering came Noah Webster who
protected the rights of Americans in his own scientific work.
ISSN:
2181-3906
2024
International scientific journal
«MODERN SCIENCE АND RESEARCH»
VOLUME 3 / ISSUE 10 / UIF:8.2 / MODERNSCIENCE.UZ
401
In 1828 Webster published his famous dictionary “An American Dictionary of the English
language”. This dictionary was compiled fully in vocabulary, forms and pronunciation, the
characteristic to the English language of USA, and had a large meaning for the establishment of
the American written norm. It often reprinted with correcting and changes and the last edition was
in 1901. It was one of the biggest modern dictionaries of the English Language. Webster was a
supporter making easier the orthography, in such position it had a big place in the future
correctness of several written types, which were accepted in USA. It was the cause of a lot of
wranglers and question, is the language of USA considered as an independent language and we
may say about the being of American language. It’s known that the English language of the USA
did not disperse so, that each of them speaking Englishmen could not understand themselves;
knowing one of these variants easily read any text, which was written in the other hand. These
facts say that negatives about noticing the language of the USA as a special “American Language”
[3, 129].
On the other hand, the language of the USA is the state’s language of independent country,
the language of American nation; therefore it presents perfectly unfounded existing till recent time
and the conservative view of the English circle to the language of USA as “broken” dialect of the
English language.
In this question took place highly extreme position H.L. Menken. In his book “the
American Language” which was published in 1938. That this author had required the language of
USA is especial English language. Having nothing common with English, just the origin. Menken
tries to make a principle in the norm using the simples of form (I seen him) and etc. the other
modern linguists, writing about the language of USA, takes place large position.
There are many different ways to approach the problems of meaning, since meaning is
related to many different functions of language. The meanings of words in a language are
interrelated and they are defined in part by their relations with other words in the language.
Analyzed in the same semantic domain, words can be classified according to shared and
differentiating features. Breaking down the sense of a word into its minimal distinctive features,
componential analysis of meaning can be a useful approach in the study of meaning, particularly
in determining the meaning of a lexeme. Although componential analysis has some difficulties
and limitations in its application, it is still used in modern linguistics.
Finegan [4] distinguishes three types of meaning, i.e. linguistic, social, and affective
meaning. Linguistic meaning encompasses both sense and reference. One way of defining meaning
is to say that the meaning of a word or sentence is the actual person, object, abstract notion, event,
or state to which the word or sentence makes reference. Referential meaning may be the easiest
kind to recognize, but it is not sufficient to explain how some expressions mean what they mean.
For one thing, not all expressions have referents. Social meaning is what we rely on when
we identify certain social characteristics of speakers and situations from the character of the
language used. Affective meaning is the emotional connotation that is attached to words and
utterances.
A word or lexeme presents a complex semantic structure. A lexeme is built up of smaller
components of meaning which are combined differently to form a different lexeme. The meaning
of a lexeme is a complicated structure where elements of meaning have definite interrelation [5].
ISSN:
2181-3906
2024
International scientific journal
«MODERN SCIENCE АND RESEARCH»
VOLUME 3 / ISSUE 10 / UIF:8.2 / MODERNSCIENCE.UZ
402
All semantic elements in a word are not equally important. One (or some) of them is the
dominant semantic element and it organizes around itself all the other ones, which may be more
or less important for the meaning of a lexeme [3].
A lexeme can be analyzed and described in terms of its semantic components, which help
to define different lexical relations, grammatical and syntactic processes. The semantic structure
of a lexeme is treated as a system of meanings. To some extent we can define a lexeme by telling
what set it belongs to and how it differs from other members of the same set. Some abvious sets
of this sort are sports (
tennis, badminton, soccer, golf, basketball,
…), colors (
red, blue, yellow,
green, pink
, …) and creative writing (
novel, poem, short story, essay, biography
,…). It is not
difficult to say what the members of each set have in common.
According to Semantic field (or semantic domain) theory, lexemes can be classified
according to shared and differentiating features. Here are more examples. Wasp, hornet, bee and
other items denote ‘flying, stinging insects’; moth and housefly, among others, denote insects that
fly but do not sting; ant and termite are names of insects neither fly nor sting. The semantic features
explain how the members of the set are related to one another and can be used to differentiate them
from one another. The determination of such features has been called componential analysis [6].
This writing treats only the componential analysis of referential meaning.
Palmer [7] says that the total meaning of a word can be seen in terms of a number of distinct
elements or components of meaning. Components have a distinguishing function and serve to
distinguish the meaning of a lexeme from that of semantically related lexemes, or more accurately
they serve to distinguish among the meanings of lexemes in the same semantic domain. To
determine the meaning of any form contrast must be found, for there is no meaning apart from
significant differences. Nida states “If all the universe were blue, there would be no blueness, since
there would be nothing to contrast with blue. The same is true for the meanings of words. They
have meaning only in terms of systematic contrasts with other words which share certain features
with them but contrast with them in respect to other features”. Jackson in “Words and their
meaning” and Nida in “Componential Analysis of Meaning” [8] categorize the types of
components into two main types, i.e. common component and diagnostic or distinctive component.
REFERENCES
1.
Смирницкий А. И Лексикология английского языка. М 2005.
2.
Аракин В. Д. История английского языка. М. 2001.
3.
Sled J. H. Ebbitt W. R. Dictionary and that Dictionary. Chicago 1962.
4.
Leonard G. Dean and others. The Play of Language. A Revision on Essays on language
and Usage. London. 1971.
5.
Ginzburg R.S and others. A Course in Modern English lexicology. – M, 1978.
6.
Hulbert J. B. Dictionaries of British and American. London 1995.
7.
Warfell H. R. Noah Webster. Schoolmaster to America. New York 1996.
8.
Whittaker K. Dictonaries. Sydney. 1996.
