英语词汇学复习题重点

英语词汇学

1. Word--- A word is a minimal free form of a language that has a gi ven sound and meaning and syntactic function.

2.Vocabulary --- Vocabulary is most commonly used to refer to the tot al sum of the words of a language. It can also refer to all the word s of a given dialect, a given book, a given subject and all the words possessed by an individual person as well as all the words current i n a particular period of time in history.

The general estimate of the present day English vocabulary is over 1 million words.

3.argot – words used by sub-cultured groups, specialized vocabulary used by criminals

can-opener, dip, persuader

cant, jargon , argot are associated with, or most available to, speci fic groups of the population.

4.Content word (notional word) – denote clear notions and thus are k nown as notional words. They include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverb s and numerals.

5.Borrowed words (loan words, borrowings) – words taken over from fo reign language are known as borrowed words or loan words or borrowing s in simple terms.

6.Semantic loans – are not borrowed with reference to the form, but their meaning are borrowed from another language. In other words, Eng lish has borrowed a new meaning for an existing word in language. e.

g. stupid old dump

7.what is the importance of basic word stock?

The basic word stock is the foundation of the vocabulary accumulated over centuries and forms the common core of the language. five charac teristics: all national character, stability , productivity, polysemy , collocability

8.

9.What are neologisms? Give one example to illustrate it.

Neologisms are newly-created words or expressions, or words that have taken on new meanings. Here is one example: E-mail: electronic mail,

chapter 2

Three modes of vocabulary development

1. Creation – the formation of new words by using the existing mater ials, namely roots, affixes and other elements. (This is the most imp ortant way of vocabulary expansion.)

2. Semantic change - an old form which take on a new meaning to meet the new need.

3. Borrowing – to take in words from other languages.(particularly i n earlier time)

4.Old English(450-1150)

The 1st people known to inhabit England were Celts, the language was Celtic.

The second language was the Latin of the Roman Legions. after the Rom ans

After the Romans,The Germanic tribes called angles, Saxons and Jutes and their language, Anglo-Saxon dominated and blotted out the Celtic. Now people refer to Anglo-Saxon as old English. Old English has a vo cabulary of about 50,000 to 60,000words. It was a highly inflected la nguage just like modern German.

6.Norman Conquest : the Normans invaded England from France in 1066. the Norman Conquest started a continual flow of French words into Eng lish. Norman French became the polite speech. 75% of them are still in use today. The situation of 3 languages (French,English,Latin) exi sting simultaneously continued for over a century..

7.Renaissance: In the early period of modern English, Europe saw a ne w upsurge of learning ancient Greek and Roman classics. This is known in history as the Renaissance. Latin and Greek were recognized as th e language of the Western world's great literary heritage and of grea t scholarship.

reviving archaic words: words or forms that were once in common use but are now restricted only to specialized or limited use. They are

found mainly in older poems, legal document and religious writing or speech.

8. .Why do we say" English is a heavy borrower?" Please justily it. English is a heavy borrower and has adopted words from all other majo r languages of the world. It is estimated that English borrowings con stitute 80% of the modern English vocabulary. As is stated in Encyclo pedia Americana ,"The English language has vast debts. In any diction ary some 80% of the entries are borrowed".eg. kowtou from China, long time no see from haojiubujian (China), the word "dream" originally m eant "joy" and "music" ,its modern meaning was borrowed later from th

e Norse.

9.Modern English(1150-1500): Modern English began with the establishm ent of printing in English. word endings were mostly lost with just a few exceptions. Modern English is considered to be an analytic langu age.

11

12.In the middle English period, what made French a dominant languag

e in England?

In 1066, in the history of England, there was Norman Conquest. The Fr ench-speaking Normans were the ruling class. French was used for all state affairs and for most social and cultural matters. Therefore, th ose who were in power spoke French, those who were literate read and wrote in French; and any young man who sought to earn his living ascr ibe learned Latin or French because there was no market for such serv ices in English. The Norman Conquest started a continual flow of Fren ch words into English.

13.What happened in the mid-seventeenth century in England?

England experienced the Bourgeoisie Revolution followed by the Indust rial Revolution and rose to be a great economic power.

14.What are the three main sources of new English words?

Three main sources of new words

.The rapid development of modern science and technology

Social, economic and political changes

.The influence of other cultures and languages

chapter three

1. Morpheme --- A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a langu age. (The smallest functional unit in the composition of words.)

2.Morph--- A morpheme must be realized by discrete units. These actua l spoken minimal carriers of meaning are morphs.

3.Monomorphenic words – morphemes are realized by single morphs.

4.Allomorph---Some morphemes are realized by more than one morph acco rding to their position. Such alternative morphs are allomorphemes. E.

g. the morpheme of plurality (-s) has a number of allomorphemes in di fferent sound context, e.g. in cats/s/, in bags/z/, in matches/iz/.

5. Free morphemes or Free root --- The morphemes have complete meanin

g and can be used as free grammatical units in sentences, e.g. cat, w alk. They are identical with root words. morphemes which are independ ent of other morphemes are considered to be free.

6. Bound Morphemes --- The morphemes cannot occur as separate words. They are bound to other morphemes to form words, e.g. recollection (re+collect+ion) collect – free morpheme re-and –ion are bound mo rphemes. (include bound root and affix) Bound morphemes are found in derived words.

7. Bound root --- A bound root is that part of the word that carries the fundamental meaning just like a free root. Unlike a free root, it is a bound form and has to combine with other morphemes to make word s. Take -dict- for example: it conveys the meaning of "say or speak" as a Latin root, but not as a word. With the prefix pre-(=before) we obtain the verb predict meaning "tell beforehand". Contradict “ spea k against”. Bound roots are either Latin or Greek.

Although they are limited in number, their productive power is amazin

g.

8. Affixes --- Affixes are forms that are attached to words or word e lements to modify meaning or function. Almost affixes are bound morph emes.

9. Prefixes --- Prefixes are affixes that come before the word, such as, pre+war, sub+sea

10.Suffixes--- suffixes are affixes that come after the word, for in stance, blood+y.

11.Inflectional morphemes or Inflectional affixes--- Affixes attach es to the end of words to indicate grammatical relationships are infl ectional, thus known as inflectional morphemes. The number of inflect ional affixes is small and stable.

12. Derivational morphemes or Derivational affixes --- Derivational affixes are affixes added to other morphemes to create new words. 13. Root --- A root is the basic form of a word, which cannot be furt her analyzed without total loss of identity. (What remains of a word after the removal of all affixes.) .e.g. “internationalists” removi ng inter-, -al-, -ist, -s, leaves the root nation.

14. Stem --- a form to which affixes of any kind can be added. E.g. “internationalists”, nation is a root and a stem as well.

a stem may consist of a single root or two roots and a root plus a af fix.

a stem can be a root or a form bigger than a root.

15.What are the differences between inflectional and derivational af fixes? or How do you distinguish inflectional affixes and derivation al affixes?

Affixes attaches to the end of words to indicate grammatical relation ships are inflectional, thus known as inflectional morphemes. Modern English is an analytic language. Most endings are lost, leaving only a few inflectional affixes, such as plural forms of nouns-s(-es), and the comparative and superlative degree forms of adjectives: -er, -est. Derivational affixes are affixes added to other morphemes to cr eate new words. Derivational affixes can be further divided into pref ixes and suffixes.

16. What are the differences between root and stem? Explain with exa mples.

A root is the basic form of a word, which cannot be further analyzed without total loss of identity.(What remains of a word after the rem oval of all affixes.) .e.g. “internationalists” removing inter-, -a l-, -ist, -s, leaves the root nation.

A stem is a form to which affixes of any kind can be added. E.g. “i nternationalists”, nation is a root and a s tem as well.

a stem may consist of a single root or two roots and a root plus a af fix.

a stem can be a root or a form bigger than a root.

chapter 4

1.Affixation (Derivation) -- the formation of words by adding word fo rming or derivational affixes to stems. (derivative派生词) According to their position, affixation falls into: prefixation and s uffixation.

1). Prefixation -- the formation of new words by adding prefixes to s tems. It does not change the word-class of the stem but change its me aning

2). Suffixation --Suffixation is the formation of new words by adding suffixes to stems. Change the grammatical function of stems (the wor

d class). Suffixes can b

e grouped on a grammatical basis.

2.Blending—is the formation of new words by combining parts of two w ords or a word plus a part of another word.

3.Conversion (zero-derivation, functional shift) --Conversion is the formation of new words by converting words of one class to another cl ass. These words are new only in a grammatical sense. The most produc tive is between nouns and verbs. It is a change of grammatical functi on

5.Clipping– shorten a longer word by cutting a part of the origin a nd using what remains instead. People tend to be economical in writin

g and speech to keep up the tempo of new life style.

7.Acronymy–is the process of forming new words by joining the init ial letters of names of social and political organizations or special phrases and technical terms

--Initialisms are words formed from the initial letters of words and pronounced as letters. It’s one of the word formations of acronymy. --Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of word and pron ounced as words. . It’s one of the word formations of acronymy.

8.Back-formation-- is a process of word-formation by which a word is created by the deletion of a supposed affix. It is considered to be t he opposite process of suffixation.

Compounding （Composition）--Compounding is a process of word-format ion by joining two or more stems.

9. How do you distinguish compounds from free phrases?

Compounds differ from free phrases in the following three aspects. 1) Phonetic features. In compounds the word stress usually occurs on the first element whereas in noun phrases the second element is gener ally stressed if there is only one stress.

2) Semantic features. Compounds are different from free phrases in se mantic unity. Every compound should express a single idea just as one word.

3) Grammatical features. A compound tends to play a single grammatica l role in a sentence.

10.How do you explain the difference between backformation and suff ixation? Give example to illustrate your point.

Back-formation is a process of word-formation by which a word is crea ted by the deletion of a supposed affix. It is considered to be the o pposite process of suffixation. As we know, Suffixation is the format ion of new words by adding suffixes to stems, and back-formation is t herefore the method of creating words by removing the supposed suffix es. For example, -er is a noun suffix, it is added to noun base engin e to produce a new word--engineer. however, people can make verbs by dropping the endings such as -or in editor, and -er in bolter. This i s how we derive edit and bolt. The removed suffixes are not true suff ixes but inseparable parts of the words.

chapter 5

1.Reference– the relationship between language and the world. By mea ns of reference, a speaker indicates which things in the world (inclu ding persons) are being talked about.

The reference of a word to a thing outside the language is arbitrary and conventional. This connection is the result of generalization and abstraction.

Although reference is abstract, yet with the help of context, it can refer to something specific.

2.Concept– which beyond language is the result of human cognition re flecting the objective world in the human mind. It isn’t affected by language. Meaning and concept are closely connected but not identical. Meaning belongs to language, so is restricted to language use.

A concept can have as many referring expressions as there are languag

e in the world.

3.Sense-denotes the relationship inside the language. Every word that has meaning has sense.

The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relat ionships with other expressions in the language.

4.Motivation--accounts for the connection between the linguistic symb ol and its meaning.

1）Onomatopoeic Motivation – the words whose sounds suggest their me aning. (Indicate the relationship between sound and meaning). Knowing the sounds of the words means understanding the meaning. These word s were created by imitating the natural sounds or noise. For example, bang, ping-pang, crow by cocks, etc.

2）Morphological Motivation--Compounds and derived words are multi-m orphemic words and the meaning of many words are the sum total of the morphemes combined. (Indicate the relationship between word meaning and each morpheme meaning). For instance, airmail means

3）Semantic Motivation--refers to the mental associations suggested b y the conceptual meaning of a word. It explained the connection betwe en literal sense and figurative sense of a word).

4）Etymological Motivation--The history of the word explains the mean ing of the word. (Indicate the relationship between word meaning and its origin).

5。Grammatical meaning– refer to that part of the meaning of the wo rd which indicates grammatical concept or relationships, such as part

of speech of words, singular and plural meanings of nouns, tense mea ning of verbs and their inflectional forms.

Grammatical meaning becomes important only used in actual context.

6.Lexical meaning-- is constant in all the words within or without c ontext related to the notion that the word conveys.

It has two components conceptual meaning and associative meaning. 7.Conceptual meaning (denotative meaning) – the meaning given in the dictionary and forms the core of word-meaning. It is constant and re lative stable. Conceptual meaning forms the basis for communication.

8. What are the features of conceptual meaning?

the meaning given in the dictionary and forms the core of word-meanin g. It is constant and relatively stable. Conceptual meaning forms the basis for communication.

9.What are the characteristics of associative meaning?

Associative meaning is the secondary meaning supplemented to the conc eptual meaning.

It is open-ended and indeterminate. It is liable to the influence of such factors as culture, experience, religion, geographical region, c lass background, education, etc.

10.What is the difference between lexical meaning and grammati cal me aning?

Unlike lexical meaning, different lexical items, which have different lexical meanings, may have the same grammatical meaning. On the othe r hand, the same word may have different grammatical meanings. Functi onal words, though having little lexical meaning, possess strong gra mmatical meaning whereas content words have both meanings,lexical and grammatical. Lexical meaning and grammatical make up the word-meani ng. It is known that grammatical meaning surfaces only in use. But le xical meaning is constant in all the content words within or without context as it is related to the notion that the word conveys. chapter 6

1. Polysemy(多义) —polysemy is a common feature peculiar to all natu ral languages that one word may have two or more senses or different meanings.

Two approaches: Diachronic approach ,Synchronic approach.

2.Radiation(辐射semants in which the primary meaning stands at the c enter and the secondary meanings proceed out of it in every direction like rays.

3.Concatenation（连锁）–meaning “linking together”, is the semant ic process in which the meaning of a word moves gradually away from i ts first sense by successive shifts until, in many cases, there is no t a sign of connection between the sense that is finally developed an

d that which th

e tern had at the begining.

4.Homonyms（同形同音异义）--are generally defined as words different in meaning but either identical both in sound and spelling or identic al only in sound or spelling.

5.Perfect Homonyms--are words identical both in sound and spelling, b ut different in meaning. bank and bank

6.Homograph s--are words identical only in spelling but different in s ound and meaning. Sow/sow

7.Homophones(most common)--are words identical only in sound but dif ferent in spelling and meaning. e.g. Dear/dear Right/rite Son/sun 8.Synonyms（同义词）—are words different in sound and spelling but m ost nearly alike or exactly the same in meaning. Synonyms share a lik eness in denotation and in part of speech

Types of Synonyms

1)Absolute (Complete) Synonyms--are words, which are identical in mea ning in all its aspects, i.e. both in grammatical meaning and lexical meaning, including conceptual and associative meanings. Absolute (Co mplete) Synonyms are restricted to high-specialized vocabulary.

For instance, composition / compounding. They have the perfect same m eaning in Lexicology.

2).Relative (Near) synonyms--are similar or nearly the same in denota tion but embrace different shades of meaning or different degrees of

a given quality.

9.Antonyms(反义词）words which are opposite in meaning.

10.Hyponymy--deals with the relationship of semantic inclusion. That is, the meaning of a more specific word is included in that of anothe

r more general word. These specific words are known as hyponyms（下义词）. For instance, tulip and rose are hyponyms of flower. The genera l word flower is the superordinate term（上义词） and the specific on es tulip and rose are the subordinate terms（下义词）.

11.What is the difference between the process of radiation and conca tenation?

辐射定义，The meanings are independent of one other, but can all be t raced back to the central meaning.If we give a graphic description of the meanings of face,it would look very much like a wheel of the bic ycle.

连锁定义，In plain terms,the meaning reached by the first shift may b e shifted a second time,and so on until in the end the original meani ng is totally lost.

12.How to differentiate homonyms from polysemants?

The fundamental difference ies in the fact that the former refers to different words which happen to share the same form and the latter is the one and the same word which has several distinguishable meanings. One important criterion is to see its etymology,the second is semant ic relatedness.

13.What are the 3 types of antonyms? Illustrate with examples. Antonyms--are words which are opposite in meaning.

Types of Antonyms (according to the semantic opposition )

1) Contradictory terms – these antonyms are truly represent opposite ness of meaning. They are so opposed to each other that they are mutu ally exclusive and admit no possibility between them. They assertion of one is the denial of the other.

E.g. alive—dead, present--absent, male – female, boy – girl, true – false, same – different, imperfect – perfect

2) Contrary terms -- a scale running between two poles or extremes. T he two opposites are gradable and one exists in comparison with the o ther.

E.g. rich--(well-to-do)--poor; old – (middle-aged) -- young, open – (ajar)—close, beautiful – (good-looking) –(plain) – ugly,

3) Relative terms – consist of relational oppositeness. The pairs of words indicate such a social relationship that one of them can not b e used without suggesting the other, the type is also reverse terms. The two words of each pair interdependent.

E.g. parent--child; husband--wife; predecessor – successor, employer -- employee

chapter 7

1.Extension(generalization)--is a term referring to the widening of meaning. It is a process by which a word, which originally had a spec ialized meaning, has now become generalized.

2. Narrowing (specialization) --is a term referring to the shrinking of meaning. It is a process by which a word of wide meaning acquires

a narrower or specialized sense.

3.Elevation or amelioration--refers to the process by which words ris

e from humble beginnings to positions o

f importance.

4. Degradation or pejoration of meaning --It is a process whereby wor ds of good origin fall into ill reputation or non-affective words com

e to be used in derogatory sense

5.Transfer --- words which were used to designate on thing but later changed to mean something else.

6.What are the extra-linguistic factors that cause changes in meanin g?

historical reason, class reason, and psychological reason.

7.what are the linguistic factors that cause changes in meaning? internal factors within the language system, the influx of borrowing, analogy.

chapter 8

1.linguistic contex t: it refers to the words, clauses, sentences in w hich a word appears. Sometimes linguistic context may cover a paragra ph, a chapter and even the entire book.

2.extra-linguistic context: it refers to the physical situation , wh ich embrace the people, place, and even the whole culture background.

3.Lexical Context– refers to the words occur together with the word in question. The meaning of the word is often affected and defined b y the neighboring word.

4.Grammatical context– The meanings of a word may be inflected by t he structure in which it occurs.

5.Ambiguit y often arises due to polysemy and homonymy. When a word wi th multiple meanings used in inadequate context, it creates ambiguity

6.discuss the role of context in understanding word meaning.

Context is a vital clue in understanding word meaning. namely,it can eliminate ambiguity, indicate referents,and provide clues for inferr ing word meaning. First, a word or even a sentence without adequate c ontext can be quite ambiguous. So it is hard to determine the exact m eaning especially when the word is polysemous or the sentence structu re has a different interpretation. Secondly, some referents like pron ouns, nouns may refer to anything or anybody, as for a pronoun or a n oun, if we know what its exact meaning or referent is, we have to kno w it from its context. Third, context provides important clues in und erstanding unknown words, or inexact meanings, The clues can be : def inition, explanation, example, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, relevant details, word structure.

7.In what way can cultural background affect the meaning of words? The extra-linguistic context may extend to embrace the entire cultura l background, which also affect the meaning of words. Take the word l andlord for example, in Chinese cultural, landlord is usually underst ood as referring to someone who owned a lot of land and collected mon ey by renting land without working. It is used to be associated with "exploitation", naturally carrying a negative overtone. In contract, the term in western countries is denotatively different and affective ly neutral. The most commonly used meaning of the word is "someone wh o rents house for money."

chapter 9

1.what are the characteristics of English idioms?

semantic unity, structural stability, idioms are characterized by ter seness, expressiveness and vividness.

2.what are phrasal verbs and verb phrases?

phrasal verbs are idioms which are composed of a verb plus a prep and /or a particle. verb phrases are composed of verbs plus adverbs /pron +n/a+n/conj+n/n+v/n+inf,etc./n structure, phrasal verbs and verb phr ases are different from each other, but they share one thing: their m eaning are all fixed. Therefore they are idioms.

3.how to use English idioms appropriately?

In using English idioms exactly and rightly, we need to pay attentio n to the following points:

1) Stylistic features of idioms. Idioms are created by people in thei r different work, thus acquiring a lot of stylistic features. They ar e colloquialisms, slangs and literary expressions. That is to say, id ioms of different stylistic features are used on different occasions, You should not misuse or abuse them.

2)Rhetorical features of idioms. We use idioms to achieve vividness o

f description, for idioms can show alliteration, rhyme, reiteration , repetition and juxtaposition of antonyms. Besides, there are also si mile, metaphor, metonym, synecdoche, personification and euphemism in idioms.