Chapter 1 Lexicology and WordsWhat is lexicology?Lexicology = study of words / the lexiconIt is closely related to morphology, semantics, etymology and lexicography.Morphology: the study of the forms of words and their components.Semantics: the study of meaning.Etymology: the study of the whole history of words.Lexicography: the writing and compilation of dictionariesWhat is a word?A Word is an uninterruptible unit of structure consisting of one or more morphemes; a unit of sound and meaning.The total stock of English words is structured and organized in a systematic way.→word class; semantic field.⏹Word class: closed class (grammatical or function words):preposition, pronoun,determiner（限定词: the, every..）, conjunction, auxiliary verb(助动词)；open class(lexical words): noun, adjective, verb, adverb.⏹Lexical words and grammatical words⏹Semantic (or lexical) field: semantic field of color terms, kinship terms, military ranksand vehicles; semantic field analysis used in the descriptions of vocabulary in dictionaries like Roget‟s Thesaurus& Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English(McArthur) & Longman dictionary of Scientific Usage & Longman Language Activator . Componential analysis: a method for establishing semantic field(e.g. the meaning of woman: [+human],[+adult],[+female]Chapter 2—Some basic concepts and Word MeaningsMorpheme: the smallest meaningful unit in a language;(e.g. moralizers is composed of 4 morphemes: moral+lize+er+s.)A morpheme may be: A complete word; a word form such as an affix(e–able); a combining form(bio-, geo-)⏹Free morpheme:lexical morpheme: ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs, the words which carry the “content”of messages we convey, e.g. boy, house, tiger, sad, long, sincere, open, look, follow, bread.functional morpheme: consists largely of the functional words in the language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns, e.g. and, but, when, because, on, near, in, the, that, it.⏹Bound morpheme(prefix or suffix):Derivational morpheme: used to make new words in the language. e.g. (-ness, -ly, -ish, ment, re-, pre-, ex-, pre-, dis-, co-, un-); good—goodness, fool—foolish, bad—badly, pay—payment Inflectional morpheme: indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word. e.g. –ed, -s, -ing, -er, -est, -‟s. In English, all inflectional morphemes are suffixes.Morph/allomorphLexeme(lexical item): The base form of a word;A unit of lexical meaning (Crystal, 1995); An abstract vocabulary item;The headwords in a dictionary;May consist of one word or more than one word;Stem: the word to which inflectional affixes are added and which carries the basic meaning of the resulting complex word; e.g. work, worker.A stem may consist of one or more morphemes; Root: A stem consisting of a single morpheme is labeled as root; e.g. work.⏹Roots which are capable of standing independently are called free morphemes/roots;⏹Roots which are incapable of occurring independently are called boundmorphemes/roots.7 types of Word Meaning⏹Conceptual meaning概念义(or denotative meaning, cognitive meaning) [meanings indictionaries]⏹Connotative meaning隐含义: the communicative value of an expression by virtue ofwhat is refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content.Politician&statesman, colors, kitty&cat.⏹Social meaning: Information about the speaker, such as their background or theirrelationship to the hearer.E.g., if Jo says wee instead of little, it may communicate to you that she’s Scottish; AmE /BrE differences and other dialectal or accent differences; terms of address etc; Mummy, dogie—child.⏹Affective meaning: Information about the speaker’s attitude toward the subject that’scommunicated by the words s/he’s chosen or the way s/he says theme.g. strong-willed vs. pig-headed; slim vs. skinny; Bob vs. Bobby⏹Reflective meaning: the meaning which arises in cases of multiple conceptual meaning,when one sense of a word forms part of our response to another sense.E.g. words which have a taboo meaning(intercourse)⏹Collocative meaning: consists of the associations a word acquires on account of themeanings of words which tend to occur in its environment.Pretty+woman, flower, garden, village vs handsome+man, car, vessel, overcoat, typewriter; cow+wander vs man+stroll; tremble with fear vs quiver with excitement;highly: important, intelligent, profitable, recommended, sensitive;a bit, a little: drunk, jealous, unkind;wide awake, fully awake, sound asleep, far apart⏹Thematic meaning: mainly a matter of choice btw alternative grammatical constructionsMrs Bessie Smith donated the first prize.The first prize was donated by Mrs Bessie Smith.Polysemy一词多义: One lexical item that has more than one sense. Bank, eat, court, watch, dart, stuff.Homonymy同形异义: More than one lexical item that just coincidentally sound/look the same.⏹Complete homonymy (bat, pupil, , firm, bear, grave, stick, jam, steep, fleet, pad, stem)⏹Homophone = same sound(to/ two, right/rite/write, root/route, knows/nose )⏹Homograph = same spelling (wind, lead,)◆How to distinguish polysemy and homonymy?Whether the senses are related;Whether they come from the same source;Whether under one headword in a dictionary;Ambiguity & VaguenessChapter 3 The origin of English WordsEnglish belongs to West Germanic branch of Indo-European family.Historical development of English vocabulary and characteristics of each period.⏹The Old English period (450 -1066)✧OE: the speech of the earliest Germanic inhabitants of Britain;The first OE manuscripts (around 700): glossaries of Latin words translated into OE, and a few early inscriptions and poems;Most important literary work: the heroic poem Beowulf (written around 1000);✧ 1.A frequent use of coinages known as ‗kennings‘[古英语中的隐喻语] (vivid figurativedescriptions often involving compounds);2. Preference for expressions that are synonymous;3. The absence of a wide-ranging vocabulary of loanwords force people to rely more onword-formation process based on native elements4. The introduction of a number of ‗loan translation‘;5. Grammatical relationships in OE were expressed mainly by the use of inflectionalendings;6. OE is believed to contain about 24,000 different lexical items.⏹The Middle English period (1066 -1500)✧Norman Conquest;✧Extensive changes:In grammar, Eng. changed from a highly inflected language to an analytical one.In vocabulary, Eng. was characterized by the loss of a large part of the OE word-stock and the addition of thousands of words from French and Latin.⏹The Early Modern English period (1500 -1800)✧Transitional period from Middle Eng. to Modern English;✧Printing revolution marked its beginning;✧Eng. vocabulary grew very fast through extensive borrowing and expansion ofword-formation patterns;✧ A great many semantic changes, as old words acquire new meanings.◆Two most important influencesWilliam Shakespeare; James Bible of 1611◆Two dictionariesDictionary of Hard Words (1604), Dictionary of the English Language (1775)⏹The Modern English period (1800-present)✧The unprecedented growth of scientific vocabulary;The assertion of American Eng. as a dominant variety of the lang.;The emergence of other varieties known as ‗New Englishes‘.Types of meaning change(7)⏹Metaphor隐喻: using a word to refer to sthng it doesn‘t literally denote, but that hassome kind of similarity to the literal meaningHead-- …body part above the neck‟ > …a person in charge‟baby --…infant‟ > …loved one‟⏹Metonymy转喻: using a word to refer to something that is associated with its literaldenotation.Downing Street ‗place where the PM lives‘ > ‗the PM‘crown ‗an item of headwear worn by a monarch‘ > ‗the monarch‘, ‗the sovereignty of the monarch‘⏹Synecdoche提喻: using a part to refer to the whole (or vice versa):All hands on deck! - ‗man, sailor‘I got a new motor - ‗car‘⏹Broadening (/generalisation)扩大: a word refers to a more inclusive category:manage ‗to handle a horse‘ > ‗to handle anything‘bullish ‗causing or associated with a rise in prices‘ > ‗optimistic‘⏹Narrowing (/specialisation)缩小: a word refers to a less inclusive category:accident ‗an event‘ > ‗unintended/injurious event‘undertaker ‗someone who undertakes‘ > ‗mortician‘⏹Amelioration (/elevation)升格: the mng of a word becomes more positivenice ‗ignorant, stupid‘ > ‗pleasant‘fond ‗foolish‘ > ‗appreciative‘⏹Pejoration (/degradation)降格: the mng of a word becomes more negativesinister < ‗left(-handed)‘mistress < ‗a woman in a position of power‘--an adulterous womanChapter 4 Word Formation✧Inflection and derivationInflection refers to a general grammatical process which combines words and affixes toproduce alternative grammatical forms of words.new word by means of the addition of an affix to a stem. lexical process.✧Inflectional affixes and derivational affixes p58Inflectional affixes: (only suffixes: plural marker –s, possessive marker ‗s, comparative and superlative markers –er and –est, tense markers –s and –ed, present participle –ing…) (regular and irregular)Derivational affixes: (class-changing slow-ly and class-maintaining child-hood)prefix: re-, de-, in-, im-, un-, pre-, dis-suffix: -ish, -ous, -ary, -ful, -er, -ence, -y, -ly, -ate, -able, -ation, -ure, -dom, -ful, -ment, -en,I doesn‘t change the word class and grammatical category while d changes.Prefixes and suffixesTypes of Word Formation (6)⏹Derivation派生法: using derivational affixes:final+ize, teach+er, sex+ism, eco+tourism, trans+atlantic⏹Compounding复合法: putting existing wds together:couch+potato, lap+topCompounds: stems consisting of more than one rootOrthographic treatment of compounds: bedside, black market, car-wash✧Three features of compound:●Phonological feature: (nominal compounds) A single primary stress; lack of juncture;e.g. ‗blackbird vs black bird;hardcover vs hard cover;greenhouse vs green house;redcoat vs red coatstonewall vs stone wall●Syntactic feature: Single lexical unit, specific syntactic features●Semantic feature: specialized meaningse.g. blackboard, dustbin, redcoat, stonewall, cathouse, turncoat, mother wit, Indian paper,dog days✧4 types of compound:An endocentric compound: consists of a head and its modifier (doghouse);A exocentric compound: does not have a head (white-collar, must-have)A copulative compound: two semantic heads(bittersweet, sleepwalk)An appositional compound: two attributes which classify the compound.(actor-director, maidservant)⏹Conversion（词类）转化法: a change in word class without the addition of an affix.✧ A change within the same class; e.g. some beer/sugar/tea→two beers/sugars/teas; vi →vt✧ A change from one class to another: n→v; v→n; adj.→n; adj.→v p67⏹Blending拼缀法: combining parts of two words to form a third word which containssome of the meaning of each part.smog (smoke + fog), motel (motor + hotel),Eurovision (European + television)brunch, chunnel, dawk, slanguage, bit, psywar, paratroops, guestimate●Four types [69]⏹Back formation逆生法:removal of perceived affixes (related to notion of folketymology):to edit < editor (cf. to accelerate > accelerat-or)；to automate < automation；to beg < beggar；to lase < laser (n.)；to drowse < drowsy (adj.)；to housekeep < housekeeper⏹Shortening缩略法✧Clipping截短–the process by which a word is shortened without a change in meaningor function. lab (laboratory); plane (aeroplane); flu (influenza)Three major types of clippings: fore clipping, hind clipping, midclipping[71]✧Initialisms:●Alphabetism首字母缩略词/abbreviations- spelt out as letters :o OTT < over the topo DIY < do it yourself●Acronyms首字母拼音词– using initial letters of a phrase to form a word, pronounced aswords:o scuba < Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatuso NATO < North Atlantic Treaty OrganisationChapter 5 Sense RelationsSynonymy同义关系：sameness⏹Strict (or absolute) synonymy: gorse=furze⏹Loose synonymy (Distinguishing synonyms): E.g. mislay ≈lose; foggy ≈misty; mob ≈crowd, find/discover; forest/woods.Antonymy反义关系：oppositeness⏹Complementary antonyms (also called contradictory antonyms, binary antonyms)互补词: In an either/or relation of oppositenessE.g. asleep/awake; dead/alive (of e.g. animal); remember/forget; win/lose; open/shut;hit/miss (a target); pass/fail (a test)⏹Gradable antonyms可分级反义词: a more/less relation, 多为形容词E.g. cheap/expensive, rich/poor, fast/slow, sweet/sour, young/old, beautiful/ugly,tall/short, wide/narrow, clever/stupid, near/far, interesting/boring, love/hate⏹Converse antonyms (also called reciprocal antonyms, relational opposites) 对立词：two-way contrasts that are interdependente.g. precede/follow, buy/sell, lend/borrow, give/receive, speak/listen, rent/let,employer /employee, husband/wife, parent/child, debtor/creditor, teacher/pupil, above/below, before/afterHyponymy下义关系：subtype relation⏹Hyponym（下义词）= ‗type of’Robin is a hyponym of bird.⏹Hypernym / superordinate（上义词）= refers to the larger categoryBird is the hypernym of robin, penguin, and pigeon.Meronymy局部—整体关系：part/whole relation⏹Meronym = ‗part of‘：Arm is a meronym of chair.⏹Holonym = ‘whole of’：Chair is a holonym of arm, back, and seat.Collocation搭配关系components are not freely interchangeable; certain restrictions; (differ from free combinations); e.g. decide on a boat⏹Grammatical collocation: e.g. rely of, afraid of, good at, angry with, approve of, adhereto, admiration for, allegiance to, amazement at…⏹Lexical collocation: e.g. run a business/ a company/ a school/ a gym, make a decision,put forward a strong argument…Major relations: synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, meronymy—paradigmatic ‘sense relations’[纵聚合关系的]Collocation—syntagmatic meaning relation[横组合关系的]Chapter 6 Idioms, Multiword Verbs and ProverbsIdiom: a group of words with a meaning of its own that is different from the meanings of each separate word put together.Characteristics of English idioms⏹Semantic featuresMany idioms have dual meanings: literal and idiomatic meaning; Some literal meanings go against the logic of thinking and life; A great number of idiomatic meanings come from figurativeness. (simile and metaphor)let the cat out of the bag/spill the beans说漏了嘴，泄漏秘密; under the weather身体不适; take in欺骗; have an axe to grind另有企图；know the ropes 懂行；了解情况；as blindas a bat;⏹Structural features: structural stability / syntactic frozenness;to smell a rat觉得可疑; to see red突然大怒; to kick the bucketClassification of English idioms⏹Idioms verbal in nature: v. + particleface the music; spill the beans; beat about the bush; bark up the wrong tree攻击错了目标; burn the candle at both ends过分地耗费精力; have a head on one‟s shoulder有见识; poke one‟s nose into; get wind of风闻; go easy从容不迫; come clean全盘招出; sit pretty 处于极为有利的条件；过舒服的生活；成功⏹Idioms nominal in natureblue chip优值股票; narrow escape九死一生; white elephant无用而累赘apple of的东西; an discord争端，祸根; a snake in the grass; the lion’s share; Achilles’heel致使弱点; Penelope’s web永远完不成的任务; wear and tear磨损; flesh and blood; brain trust智囊团; sheet anchor最后的/主要的靠山;⏹Idioms adjectival in naturehigh and mighty趾高气扬; cut and dried呆板的; on edge; on the go忙个不停; up in the air十分激动；气愤; wet behind the ears缺乏经验的; as cool as a cucumber; as slippery as an eel;⏹Idioms adverbial in natureheart and soul; tooth and nail竭尽全力地; in a breeze轻而易举地; behind the scenes秘密地; between the devil and the deep blue sea进退维谷; through thick and thin不顾艰难险阻Multiword verb：Units in which the main verb occurs with one or two particles(not, to, up, out…);⏹Classification of multiword verbs;✧Prepositional verbs介词动词: v.+prep+(n). Call for, look for, ask for, refer to, gointo, come by, attend to, burn for, bump into, depend on, enter upon, work under.✧Phrasal verbs短语动词: v.+adv. Bring up, look up, give in, sit down, blow up, boilover, drop in, end up, play around, stand up, take off…✧Phrasal-prepositional verbs短语介词动词: v.+adv.+prep. Check up on, get awaywith, stand up for, walk away with, put up with, keep out of, look down on, look up to…Proverb: short well-known statements that give practical advice about life; they capture the shared beliefs or collective wisdom of a society.Chapter 7 English DictionariesPrescriptive dictionary and descriptive dictionary; historical dictionary;⏹Prescriptive = s aying how the lg ‗should‘ be used.⏹Descriptive = recording the language exactly as it is used. E.g. W3Three important dictionaries⏹The Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson; (prescriptivism)⏹OED; (historical principle)The greatest of all unabridged Eng. Ds.;The only Eng. D compiled totally from its own citation files;⏹Webster‟s New International Dictionary; (descriptive principle)English corpora;CollinsGeneral-purpose dictionary and specialized dictionary; learner‘s dictionary⏹General-purpose dictionary✧Desk size(=college Ds in the USA),e.g. Collins English Dictionary, LongmanDictionary of the English Language, the New Oxford Dictionary of English;[中型词典，案头词典]✧Concise size, e.g. the Concise Oxford Dictionary, Collins Concise English Dictionary,Longman Concise English Dictionary; [简明词典]✧Pocket size, e.g. the Pocket Oxford Dictionary, etc. [袖珍词典]⏹specialized dictionary: restricted to one variety(e.g. a dialect, technical jargon, slang) ortype of entry word(e.g. verbs, adjectives…)Etymological Dictionary of English Language; Webster‟s Dictionary of Synonyms;Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English; An English Pronouncing Dictionary (Daniel Jones); A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English (John S. Kenyon) Roget‟s International Thesaurus; A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Henry Watson Fowler);⏹Learner‘s Dictionaries✧Learner‘s Ds for native speakers, e.g. Chamber‟s Student‟s Dictionary; CollinsCOBUILD Learner‟s Dictionary;✧Learner‘s Ds for ESL students, e.g.Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary of Current English (1st edn. 1948; 3rd edn. 1974;7th edn. 2005) Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1978, 1987, 1995, 2003, 2009) Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary; Collins COBUILD English Learner‟s Dictionary; Cambridge International Dictionary of English ; Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners.Monolingual dictionary and bilingual dictionary;⏹Monolingual dictionary: the language of description is the same as the language beingdescribed.⏹bilingual dictionary: give information about equivalences between two languages.Chapter 8 Words in ContextDialect: Dialect: a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language‘s speakers; e.g. regional dialect, social dialect.⏹regional dialect✧Same word, different meaningpants, cupboard, public school, cracker, faculty;✧Same object, different wordspost-graduate [graduate]; staff [faculty]; lorry [truck]; bonnet [hood]; petrol [gas]; sweets [candy]; tin [can];✧Words only used in Br. or Am. EngBr. duke, marquis, count, viscount, baron, knight;Am. canyon, everglades, gopher, sagebrush;⏹Social dialect: Varieties of language used by groups defined according to class,education, age, sex, and a number of other social parameters.E.g. old people talk about it “icebox and wireless”; but don‟t know what is “totallystoked”; women tend to “use sort of, kind of, isn‟t it? don‟t you?”Register:a form of language appropriate to a specific situation; a variety of language distinguished according to context, which consists of the field of discourse, the relations between participants, and the mode of discourse.Word choice is a feature among registers.e.g. Tone refers to ―the interval between the first two degrees of a major scale‖ in music,to ―a musical pitch of the voice that serves to change the meaning of a word‖in linguistics, to ―the color of a photograph‖ in photography, and to ― the state of the body with respect to the health and vigor of it s functions‖ in physiology.Style: (formal, informal and colloquial)Slang: used by a specific social group;E.g. spaced out飘飘然的, right on好极了，你说得对, hang-up大难题, rip-off偷窃，索要高价, cool, hot, rave, ecstasy, crib, posse支持者, grass, pot, rap, cool, dig, stoned, bread, split, suck, gork, dis;underworld slang, e.g. crack, payola, C-note, G-man, sawbuck; con, brek, burn, screw;particularly rich in certain domain, such as violence, crime, drugs, sex;Taboo：a strong social prohibition against words, objects, actions, or discussions that are considered undesirable or offensive by a group or community.Euphemism：a mild, comforting, or evasive expression that takes the place of one that is taboo, negative, offensive, or too direct. P122E.g. Gosh God,terminate kill, pass water/relieve oneself/urinate Piss, pass away, departed his life die, chest and limb breast and leg, heavens hell, bless it damn it, developing backward/underdeveloped countries, visually impaired blind.Jargon: the language peculiar to a trade, profession, or other group; functions as a technical or specialized language; allow its users to talk precisely about technical issues in a given field;Linguistic jargon, e.g. lexeme, morpheme, case, lexicon;Jargon of ‗computerese‘, e.g. modem, bit, byte; ROM, RAM, CPU;‗Green‘ jargon, e.g. lead-free, meat-free, zero-emission vehicle, eco-friendly, eco-tourism;Sports jargonReligious language。
