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sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical
employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity.

3. Lexicology, its interrelations with other sciences
According to S. Ullmann, lexicology forms next to
phonology, the second basic division of linguistic science (the
third is syntax). Consequently, the interaction between vocabulary
and grammar is evident in morphology and syntax. Grammar
reflects the specific lexical meaning and the capacity of words to
be combined in human actual speech. The lexical meaning of the
word, in its turn, is frequently signaled by the grammatical context
in which it occurs. Thus, morphological indicators help to
differentiate the variant meanings of the word (e.g., plural forms
that serve to create special lexical meaning: colors, customs, etc.;
two kinds of pluralization: brother → brethren - brothers; cloth →
cloths - clothes). There are numerous instances when the syntactic
position of the word changes both its function and lexical meaning
(e.g., an adjective and a noun element of the same group can
change places: library school - school library).
The interrelation between lexicology and phonetics becomes
obvious if we think of the fact that the word as the basis unit in
lexicological study cannot exist without its sound form, which is
the object of study in phonology. Words consist of phonemes that
are devoid of meaning of their own, but forming morphemes they
serve to distinguish between meanings. The meaning of the word
is determined by several phonological features:
a) qualitative and quantitative character of phonemes (e.g.
dog-dock, pot-port);
b) fixed sequence of phonemes (e.g. pot-top);
3) the position of stress (e.g. insult (verb) and insult (noun)).
Summarizing, lexicology is the branch of linguistics
concerned with the study of words as individual items and dealing
with both formal and semantic aspects of words; and although it is

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