Lecture One
A General Survey of English vocabulary
1.The definition of a word
A fundamental unit of speech and a minimum free form; with a unity of sound and meaning (both lexical and grammatical meaning), capable of performing a given syntactic function
2. Classification of English Words
?(1). By origin: native words and loan words
Native words: Anglo-Saxon origin/old English
e.g. sun, rain, moon/head, hand, foot/night, morning, here, there/horse, dog, tree, flower/big, small, red, white, etc.
?Loan/borrowed words: words borrowed from other languages
e.g. fault-French; aikido-Japanese; individual-Latin tofu/litchi/chaa/chinchin-Chinese, etc.
?(2). By level of usage: common words, literary words, colloquial words, slang words, technical words
(3). By notion: function words and content words
?Function/grammatical words: not have much (some of them have no) lexical meaning of their own; and just serve grammatically
? e.g. The (article) friend of (preposition)mine will(auxiliary) come to my house to (infinitive) take his book.
?Content/lexical words: have lexical meanings; refers to substance, quality, action, such as ns, vs, advs, advs
Lecture Two
Morphological Structure of English Words
? 2.1 Morphemes
? 2.2 Types of Morphemes
? 2.3 Allomorphs
? 2.1. Morpheme(词素,形位)
(1) The definition of a morpheme
A morpheme(词素) is the smallest meaningful linguistic unit of language, not
divisible or analyzable into smaller forms.
?Examples
?One morpheme: nation
?Two morphemes: nation-al
?Three morphemes: nation-al-ize
?Four morphemes: de-nation-al-ize
2.2 Types of Morphemes
? 1. Free & bound Morphemes
2. Roots and affixes
?(1)Free morphemes
?Morphemes which are independent of other morphemes are considered to be free. They have complete meanings in themselves and can be used as free grammatical units in
sentences.
?Eg: man, faith, read, write, red
?(2)Bound morphemes
?Morphemes which cannot occur as separate words are bound. They are so named because they are bound to other morphemes to form words. Unlike free morphemes, they do not have independent semantic meaning; instead, they have attached meaning (un-kind, hope-ful) or grammatical meaning (cat-s, slow-ly, walk-ing, call-ed). They are also called grammatical morphemes. Most of them are derived from Latin or Greek
2. Roots and affixes
?(1) Roots (root morphemes): a root is the basic unchangeable part of a word, and it conveys the main lexical meaning of the word.
?Take for example, the following set of semantically related words: (to) work, workable, worker, worked,and working: in each word the root is work, which is the basic unchangeable part, carrying the main lexical meaning.
?Roots are either free or bound:
? A. free roots:
?In English, many roots are free morphemes, such as boy, moon, walk, black. (i.e. they can stand alone as words). A word consisting of one free root (or one morpheme) is a simple word.
? B. bound roots
Quite a number of roots derived from foreign sources, especially from Greek and Latin, belong to the class of bound morphemes.
e.g. tain in contain/ detain/sustain/retain,
ceive in conceive/deceive/receive.
in Latin: tain-to hold; ceive-to take .
Yet in Modern English, they are not words, and so are not free morphemes; they cannot exist on their own.
? A root, whether it is free or bound, generally carries the main component of meaning in
a word. Notice what the following words have in common:
?(2) Affixes
?Affixes(词缀): Affixes are forms that are attached to words or word elements to modify meaning or function.
? e.g.: workable, worker, and working
work-root
-able, -er, -ing---affixes
According to the functions of affixes, we can put them into two groups: inflectional and derivational affixes.
A. Inflectional affixes/ morphemes
?Inflectional ~:affixes attached to the end of words to indicate grammatical relationship .
? e.g. the regular plural suffix –s (-es), books,horses;
?the form –’s indicates the possessive case of nouns; Tom’s, Mary’s;
?suffixes –er, -est show comparative or superlative degrees of adj. or adv. Slower, slowest;
?past tense, walked; -ing form, walking, etc
? B. Derivational affixes/morphemes
Derivational affixes are affixes added to other morphemes to create new words. They can be further divided into prefixes and suffixes.
? e.g. Prefixes: dis-(disable, disagree); in-(inability, incomplete);non-(nonsmoker);
post-(postwar); over- ( overwork, overjoyed, overweight).
?Suffixes: -er(teacher); -age(postage,baggage); -dom (freedom,wisdom)
The Relationship Between the Two Classifications of Morphemes见书.
3. The major processes of word formation
? 3.1 compounding
? 1. definition : also called composition, is the process of word formation by joining two or more stems/separated words to produce a new one. Word formed in this way are called compounds /compound words. They can be written in three ways:
?solid ( bedroom, greenhouse);
?hyphenated ( reading-room, word-formation);
?open ( reading material; dining room)
?Flowerpot /flower-pot/flower pot
? 3.2 Derivation
? 1 definition: Derivation or affixation is a process of forming new words by adding derivational affixes to stems. The words formed in this way are called derivatives.
?According to the positions which affixes occupy in words, affixes fall into 2 subclasses: prefixation and suffixation.
? A. prefixation: Prefixation is the formation of new words by adding a prefix or combining form to the base.
B. Suffixation
definition: Suffixation is the formation of a new word by adding a suffix or a combining form to the base, and usually changing the word-class of the base. e.g. boy---boyish.But there are exceptions: e.g. boy---boyhood.
? 3.3 conversion:
?definition: Conversion is the formation of new word by converting word of one class to another class. It is also called ‘functional shift or transmutation’ or ‘d erivation by zero suffix’（零位后缀派生法）, ‘zero-derivation’.
? e.g. He was knocked out in the first round. (n.)
?Round the number off to the nearest tenth. (v.)
?The neighbors gathered round our barbecue. (prep.)
?The moon was right and round. (adj.)
?People came from all over the country round. (adv.)
Lecture Four
Words Meaning and Semantic Features
? 1. The Relationship between Meaning and the Object
?According to the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure the
linguistic sign consists of a signifier and a signified, that is,
a sound image and a concept. This is called the sign theory
of de Saussure.
?According to Ogden & Richards the symbol is the
linguistic element, that is, the word, and the referent is the object,
etc, in the world of experience, while thought or reference is
concept. This is called the semiotic triangle.
Thought or Reference (Concept)
意义（概念）
形式，符号Symbol --- - - - - - - - - - - - - - Referent (Object)
(Word) 所指对象
Sense : 1. ‘sense’denotes the relationships inside the language. ‘The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expressions in the language.’
2. Since the sense of an expression is not a thing, it is often difficult to say what sort of identity it is. It is also an abstraction.
*3. Every word that has meaning has sense (not every word has reference)
?Reference means what a linguistic form refers to in the real world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience.
? E.g. the dog is barking, we must talk about a certain dog know to both speaker and hear.
?Concept, which is beyond language, is the result of human cognition, reflecting the objective world in the human mind .
3. Concept is universal to all men alike regardless of culture, race, language and so on. 2．Motivation
?Motivation refers to the connection between the linguistic symbol and its meaning. Most words are non-motivated.
? 2.1．Phonetic motivation
? 2.2 Morphological motivation
? 2.3 Semantic motivation
? 2.4 Etymological motivation
3. Main Types of Words Meaning
? 2. Classification of Lexical Meaning
?Lexical meaning is composed of conceptual meaning and associative meaning.
? A. Conceptual/denotative meaning
?Conceptual meaning is often described as dictionary meaning or literal meaning of a word. It is the core of the meaning of a word. It is relatively constant and stable, because it is the meaning agreed upon by all the members of the same speech community.
? e.g. computer: an electronic machine that stores information and uses programs to help
you find, organize, or change the information
? B. Associative meaning
?Associative meaning is that part of meaning which has been supplemented to the conceptual meaning. It is the meaning which arises of the associations a word acquires. It is open-ended, unstable and in’determinate, because it varies with culture, time, place, class, individual experiences, etc. Associative meaning includes connotative, stylistic, affective and collocative meanings
?1).Connotative meaning
?~ refers to the emotional association which a word suggests in one’s mind. It is the supplementary value which is added to the purely denotative meaning of a word.
? e.g. woman: frail, prone to tears, emotional, sympathetic, lack of ration, timid, sensitive, diligent
?mother: love, care, tenderness, tolerant
?home: family, friends, warmth, cozy, comfortable, safety, love, free, convenience ?2). Stylistic meaning
?Many words have stylistic features, which make them appropriate for different contexts.
These distinctive features form the stylistic meanings of word.
? e.g. domicile (very formal, official) / residence (formal)
? 3. Affective meaning
?~ indicates the speaker’s attitude towards the person or thing. It can be appreciative and pejorative.
? e.g. famous, determined; notorious, pigheaded
?4) Collocative meaning(搭配意义):
?collocative meaning consists of associations a word gets from those words that are often used together with it.
?eg. *“pretty”vs. “handsome”: both meaning nice looking. But ‘pretty’is often used together with ‘girl’, ‘woman’, ‘flower’, ‘garden’, ‘color’, or ‘village’, etc., words that suggest feminity,
?while ‘handsome’frequently appears together with ‘boy’, ‘man’, ‘car’, ‘vessel’, ‘overcoat’, ‘airliner’ or ‘typewriter’ etc. words suggesting masculinity.
?*“handsome woman”and “beautiful man”are both acceptable, but they suggest different kinds of attractiveness because of the collocative association of these two adjective, and hence should be translated respectively into ‘端庄的女性’ and ‘了不起的男子’。
词汇学的基本知识 词汇学是研究词语的学问，它是传统语言学（语法、语音、词汇）的一个分支。词汇学的 主要研究的内容是：词的性质、词的构成、词义的本质及发展、词的各种关系（同音、同 义、反义等）。 一、什么是词 词是有意义的能够独立运用的造句的最小单位，它具有固定的语音形式。汉语词的划分有一 定的困难，因为在书写时词和词之间是不分开的。就“独立运用”而言，许多虚词和量词是 不能独立运用的。于是增加了一条补充，一句话中把能独立运用的词划分出去，剩写的也是词。如：“我把这本书包了个书皮。”这个句子中的“本”“个”和“把”也是词。汉语中词 和短语的界限也不很清楚。一般可以用扩展插入法来区分。能插入的是短语，不能插入的是 词（意义不能变）。比如：钢笔——钢的笔、白菜——白的菜、白布——白的布、吃饭——吃 了饭、鸡蛋——鸡的蛋、睡觉——睡不睡觉。“钢笔”不能插入词，“白菜”插入后意思变了，它们肯定是词。“白布”可以插入且意思不变，可以做为短语。“吃饭”可以插入，“鸡蛋”可 以插入，但“鸡蛋”的频度很高，可以把它做为词。睡觉可以插入，但两个语素的组合是固 定的，把这类词做为离合词（理发、洗澡、打仗等）。 一个语素（有意义的汉字）能独立运用就是词。（米、吃、红、个、从） 两个语素组合后，意义不是它们的简单相加，就是词。（钢笔、金鱼、） 两个语素组合后，不能扩展插入词，就是词。（钢笔，白菜） 两个语素组合后，虽能扩展插入词，但它们是不能用别的语素替换的，则是一种特殊的词 ——离合词。 两个语素组合后，虽能扩展插入词，但它们的使用频度很高，且大家约定俗成认为它是词。（“鸡蛋”是词、“鹰蛋”就有人认为是短语）。 综上所述，汉语的词与短语之间的界限是有模糊地带的。 人们对客观世界的认识形成了概念，词是反映概念的，但它们之间的关系不是一一对应的。 比如，“月亮”、“月球”对应的是一个概念，“人民”这个词可以对应不同的概念。 二、现代汉语词汇的构成 词汇由词和固定的短语——熟语、谚语等构成。 词可以从不同的角度分类： 1.语法分类——实词、虚词（词类） 2.结构分类——单纯词、合成词 3.音节分类——单音节词、多音节词 4.常用——常用词汇（基本词汇）、一般词汇 5.口语词汇——书面词汇 6.普通话词汇——方言词汇 7.汉语词汇——外来语词汇 8.古词语——新词语 熟语可以包括成语、谚语、歇后语等。成语表意凝炼、形象，在书面语中广泛运用。它来源 于古代的典故，有的选取原句中最能概括原句意思的成分（乘风破浪——愿乘长风，破万里浪），有的用四个字概括寓言、故事等（刻舟求剑、狐假虎威），有的增加个别字（短兵相接——车错毂兮短兵接）。成语的意思有的是语素义的简单相加（汗流浃背、无稽之谈、自圆其说）；多数成语的意思不是语素义的相加，有的意思是约定俗成的（高山流水——表示知己知音），有的是取字面的比喻义（水落石出——比喻真相毕露了）。
目录 1. 图式与图式理论.........................................................................................................................错误！未定义书签。 1.1 图式 (1) 1.2 图式理论的定义.................................................................................................................. 错误！未定义书签。 1.3 图式理论的起源与发展...................................................................................................... 错误！未定义书签。 2. 词汇 (2) 2.1 词汇的定义 (2) 2.2 词汇在英语教学中的重要性 (2) 3. 图式理论下的课堂词汇教学方法 (2) 3.1 当前初中英语课堂词汇教学现状 (3) 3.2 运用直观导入 (3) 3.3 设计brainstorming活动 (3) 3.4 创设真实情境 (4) 4. 结论 (4) 5. 参考文献 (4)
图式理论下的初中英语课堂词汇教学 摘要 词汇是英语这门语言的三要素（语音、词汇、语法）之一。美国著名教育家威尔金斯（Wilkins)在《语言学与语言教学》中提出: without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed. ”词汇对语言学习的重要性是显而易见的。语言离不开词汇，交流更离不开词汇。然而，现在的初中英语课堂词汇教学存在一些不容忽视的问题，例如：词汇教学太过于枯燥呆板，学生没有兴趣学习。本文就现在中学课堂词汇教学问题出发，利用图式理论，创造积极活跃的课堂气氛，使学生更容易，更牢固的掌握习得词汇。 关键词：词汇教学图式理论初中英语 Abstract V ocabulary is the one of three factors ( phonetics、vocabulary、grammar) of English. The famous American educationist Wilkins once have put forward in Linguistic and Language Teaching :“ without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed. ” W e can know the importance of vocabulary in language learning from this. Language learning can not separate with vocabulary, communication also can not. While there are some serious problem exist in the vocabulary teaching of medium school, such as: the vocabulary teaching is so bald, and there is not kinds of way to learn word, so students are not interested in learning vocabulary. This text is based on the problem, which exist in vocabulary teaching in medium school, using the Schema Theory to make a positive class and make students to learn vocabulary easier and more vicelike. Key words : vocabulary teaching Schema Theory junior English
哈尔滨商业大学2009-2010学年第二学期《词汇学》期末考试试卷 装 题 订 线 内 不 答 要 一、单项选择题（本大题共40小题，每小题1分，共40 I. Each of the statements below is followed by four alternative answers. Choose the one that would best complete the statement. 1. Argot generally refers to the jargon of _______. Its use is confined to the sub-cultural groups and outsiders can hardly understand it. A. workers B. criminals C. any person D. policeman 2.________ are words used only by speakers of the dialect in question. A. Argot B. Slang C. Jargon D. Dialectal words 3. Archaisms are words or forms that were once in _________use but are now restricted only to specialized or limited use. A. common B. little C. slight D. great 4. Neologisms are newly-created words or expressions, or words that have taken on ______meanings. A. new B. old C. bad D. good 5. Content words denote clear notions and thus are known as_________ words. They include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and numerals. A. functional B. notional C. empty D. formal 6. In the Indo-Iranian we have Persian , Bengali, Hindi, Romany, the last three of which are derived from the dead language,_______. A. Sanskrit B. Latin C. Roman D. Greek 7. Greek is the modern language derived from _______. A. Latin B. Hellenic C. Indian D . Germanic 8. The five Romance languages , namely, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian all belong to the Italic through an intermediate language called _______. A. Sanskrit B. Latin C. Celtic D. Anglo-Saxon 9. The ________family consists of the four Northern European Languages: Norwegian, Icelandic, Danish and Swedish, which are generally known as Scandinavian languages. A. Germanic B. Indo-European C. Albanian D. Hellenic 10. By the end of the _______century , virtually all of the people who held political or social power and many of those in powerful Church positions were of Norman French origin. A. 10th B.11th C.12th D. 13th 11. The prefixes in the words of ir resistible, non classical and a political are called _______. A. reversative prefixes B. negative prefixes C. pejorative prefixes D. locative prefixes 12. The prefixes contained in the following words are called ______: pseudo-friend, mal practice, mis trust. A. reversative prefixed B. negative prefixes C. pejorative prefixes D. locative prefixes 13. The prefixed contained in un wrap, de-compose and dis allow are _________. A. reversative prefixed B. negative prefixes C. pejorative prefixes D. locative prefixes 14. The prefixes in words extra-strong, overweight and arch bishop are _____ . A . negative prefixes B. prefixes of degree or size C. pejorative prefixes D. locative prefixes
成绩 Root and Affixation of Lexicology Abstract: It’s important and permanent to master the vocabulary in the English learning. Everyone who has ever set foot on English realizes that it’s somewhat incredible for us to reciting numerous and difficult words. Nevertheless, there are some skills we should acquire to make word-recitation easier and more effective. This paper mainly discusses the using of vocabulary root and affix. Only by having a good knowledge of the roots and affixes, can we prosper our English vocabulary and further our English study. Key words: root; affixation; detailed analysis; difficult words 1Introduction: Blindly reciting numerous and difficult words is a total waste of time and energy. Especially, situation becomes worse for the college students with little words storage and non-interest. However, most of the English words are comprised with roots and affixes, which are limited, stable and short. If we acquire them, it will be much simpler and rapider for us to recognize the unfamiliar and difficult words through the analysis on roots and affixes. If we can master and know how to use them properly, it will be a big step for the further study of this foreign language. A road of a thousand miles begins with each single step, so does the English words. Now we are going to learn the root and affixation respectively. Definition is the basic form of a word which cannot be further analyzed without total loss of identity and it carries the main component of meaning in a word. By learning the roots, we will find it not complicated for us to understand the long and difficult words which we often encounter in the tough reading test. However long and tough the word is, we can divide it into several parts, the fundamental part is the root and then we can understand what it means and fluently blurt it out without repeating it. Here are some detail analyses of the examples: Internationalist: nation is the root which means country or state, inter- is prefix meaning between or interactive, -al is the suffix and the –ist is the suffix meaning the person. So you will quite simply find its meaning. Invigorate: the root is vigor similar to power and energy, in- means making sth have the function of verb, here is make sth vigor, -ate is the verb suffix. So invigorate is to make sth vigorous. Antecedent: -ced- is the root referring to motion or going forward, ante- is before, and –ent means somebody. So antecedent is somebody who moves ahead of us, the same as forefather or ancestor. Protract: -tract is the root like pulling sth or extending sth make it wider or longer, pro- is the prefix meaning “ahead”. After analyzing this word, we know that “protract” is similar to prolong meaning make sth longer or longer to live. A lot of words contain this root, such as detract, extract, subtract, attract, tractable, intractable, etc. Arbitrariness: arbitrary is the root indicating to randomness or out of order, -ness is the noun suffix. The profound meaning of learning roots is that you will find it much easy to memorize words because there are so many word share the same root. No matter how long and hoe difficult the word is, the basic meaning of the word is stable and unchangeable. If we recite words according the
2012词汇学复习资料 The development of the English Vocabulary 1.Indo-European Language Family The Indo-European Language Family is considered as one of the most important language families. It includes most languages of Europe, the Near East, and India. Those languages, which are believed to have originated from this language family and developed alone different lines, show various degrees of similarity to one another. They fall into eight principal groups, which can be grouped into an Eastern Set东部诸语族: Balto-Slavic波罗的-斯拉夫语, Indo-Iranian印度伊朗语族, Armenian 亚美尼亚语族and Albanian阿尔巴尼亚语族; a Western Set: 西部诸语族Celtic凯尔特语族, Italic 意大利语族, Hellenic希腊语族, Germanic日尔曼语族. All the languages in both sets shed some influence on English to a greater or lesser extent because each has lent words into the English vocabulary. Prussian普鲁士语 Lithuanian立陶宛语 Polish波兰语 Balto-Slavic波罗的-斯拉夫语Czech捷克斯洛伐克语 Bulgarian保加利亚语 Slovenian斯洛文尼亚语 Russian Albanian阿尔巴尼亚 Persian波斯语 Hindi北印度语 Indo-Iranian印度伊朗语系Bengali孟加拉语 Romany，吉卜赛语 Armenian亚美尼亚语 Portuguese Spanish Italic意大利语族Italian Roumanian罗马尼亚语 French Indo-European Language Family Irish Celtic凯尔特语Breton Scottish Norwegian挪威语 Icelandic，冰岛语 Danish丹麦语 Germanic Swedish瑞典语 日尔曼语言English Dutch Flemish German Hellenic，古希腊语- Greek
Language Language is a system of symbol based on physiology, psychology, and physics. It’s a special social action and a carrier of information used for human communication in a society. The relationship between Language, Society, and Thought: 1. any language reflects the culture of the society in a particular period. Therefore language is the mirror reflecting the culture of a society. 2. Language is a product of society. Language is inseparable from human society. 3. Language is used as a means of communication in a society. Outside society there is no language. 4. Society depends upon language for its existence. For example, there are many words connected with carriage. Buggy, a light one-horse carriage with two wheels. Coach, a large closed four-wheel horse-drawn carriage. 5. moreover, man’s thought is indispensable to language just as language is indispensable from society. We know that language is used to express man’s thought. The process of thinking is closely connected with language. That is to say, without thinking, there would be no human language. 6. language serves society as a means of intercourse between people. Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The scope of linguistics include phonology, syntax, semantics, phonetics, philology, lexicology, stylistics, general linguistics, descriptive linguistics…… Lexicology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the study of the vocabulary of a given language. It deals with words, their origin, development, history, structure, meaning, and application. Aim of English Lexicology is to give a systematic description of the English vocabulary. It offers students an insight into the origin and development of the English vocabulary. The significance of English Lexicology: help the learners to enlarge their vocabulary and improve their ability to analyze and use the words. Two approaches to the study of English Lexicology: synchronic and diachronic. Synchronic means describing a language as it exists at one period of time. Diachronic means concerned with the historical development of a language. For example: January, February, march, synchronically, they are the words of the months of one year. Diachronically, they are all borrowed words. Synchronically, we consider words like eventful, talkative as derivatives. Diachronically, they are hybrids, that is, words that are made of two parts, each from a different language. Etymology is the study of the origin and history of words and their meanings. Significance: 1.to provides background information and knowledge about the history, origin and development of the English language. 2. To increase the learner’s enjoyment and real understanding of English words from their changes of forms including their spelling and pronunciation to that of meanings. English is classified as a Teutonic language, that is, a Germanic language. English belongs to the Low West Germanic branch of the Indo-European family. Division of the history of the English language: 1. the period from 450 to 1150 is known as the Old English or Anglo-Saxon period. It’s described as the period of full inflection. 2. The period from 1150 to 1500 is known as the Middle English period, also as the period of leveled inflections. 3. The period from 1500 to the present day is called the Modern English period, also as the period of lost inflection. There are two classes of language in the world: synthetic and analytic. A synthetic language is one which shows the relation of word in a sentence largely by means of inflection. An analytic language is one which indicates the relation of words in a sentence by means of word order, preposition or auxiliary verbs, rather than by inflection. Old English the a synthetic language, while Modern English is an analytic language. Modern English can be divided into two parts: the early Modern English period and the Late Modern English period. Dean Swift was a conservative and he opposed the tendency to shorten words, such as ad
题目: Semantic Change of English Words 学期2011/2012学年第一学期 科目英语词汇学 班级 学号 姓名
摘要 语言作为人类表达思想和交流的工具随着人类社会的发展不断变化，在语言诸多要素中，词汇的变化是最快、最显著，这表现在新词的产生和旧词的消亡、借用外来词和旧词添新义。 本文首先介绍了词义变化的定义，然后介绍词义变化的历史原因和社会原因，最后介绍了词义变化的方式，同时主要通过介绍委婉语的词义变化，通过列举具体事例更好的了解词义变化的方式，使英语学习者能在日后的学习中，更好的了解英语词汇的意思并且正确的使用英语词汇，使英语学习更上一层楼。 关键词：语言；词义变化；委婉语；英语学习 Introduction Languages are not confined in a fixed state, instead, they are not only constantly changing but also changes quickly. The most noticing change in the process of language development is the sematic change of words. Semantic change is a change in one of the meanings of a word. Every word has a variety of senses and connotations which can be added, removed, or altered over time, often to the extent that cognates across space and time have very different meanings. Why the meaning of a word changed? Changes of meaning can be brought about by many cause. There are three major causes. Historically,changes of lexical meaning can be illustrated by a diachronic development of words. Although objects, conceptions, ideals, etc. change at course of time, but the meaning changes, because the object which it describe has changed. Socially, it is natural that in the course of the development of society a number of new words are needed to describe new ideas. Scientific discoveries are a main kind of social cause. Psychologically, the speaker's state of mind may bring about semantic changes. (Feng shimei, P163-165) In fact, we can see clearly from the euphemism to types of semantic changes. Euphemism is substitution of a word of more pleasant connotation for one of unpleasant connotation or avoided taboos. It is an important social cause of semantic changes. It is also the reflection of semantic change. According to different semantic books, semantic change can be divided into many types. But types of semantic change generally can be divided into four types. 1.Generalization, for instance, alibi. A legal term signifying 'plea that the accused is not at the place when the crime is committed', has now come into common use, meaning any 'excuse'. 2.Specialization, for instance, barbarian was originally a vague designation for a 'foreigner of any kind', and later was specialized to mean an 'uncivilized person'. 3.Elevation, for instance, Chamberlain, now a 'high official of royal courts', was formerly a 'servant'. 4.Degeneration,for instance, cunning was originally 'knowing and skillful', and later was specialized to 'sly'.
Compounding in English Neologisms 学院：Xxx 专业：英语 学号：2013102030121 姓名：Xxx 【Abstract】Language is the carrier of society, reflecting the specific period of the social culture, language is always in constant development and change. With the development of science and technology, political and economic and social, has appeared in English so many new words reflect the specific period, enriched the English a global language. This article lists some new words, the paper analyzes the background of the new words and word formation in the reflection of new words 【Key Words】neologism; Sources; word-formation; Introduction Language is a tool for human communication ideas. Generally speaking, the thinking of people depends on language, and language expression. Word is meaningful in language, the smallest of units used to be independent. Reflect the objective things in the brain, feeling, perception, representation, then the brain to generalize and abstract, feeling, perception, and representation form concept. People use language form the concept of "fixed", to become a symbol for the people to communicate, this is the word has a certain meaning. British linguist partridge (Eric Partridge) said, "Words have no fancy; people have a fancy for th em”. Times are changing, in the development of science and technology, thinking in progress, as the reality of language nature also want to keep up with the pace of social evolution, adapt to the needs of social evolution, is the most sensitive part of the language vocabulary. English is the world common language, English vocabulary like any modern language vocabulary, continues to grow unceasingly. Shakespeare?s time recorded about one hundred and forty thousand words of English vocabulary, now even the English vocabulary with five hundred thousand words computing, there are more than two-thirds of words are created in nearly three hundred years. People experiencing new things, new experiences, develop new ideas, always have the words to describe them. Since the 20th century, especially for nearly 50 years, appeared in English new words, new meanings of many old words, English vocabulary is in the continuous