词汇学的总结

名词解释

1 T he definition of a word(词的定义）

In brief, a word may be defined as a fundamental unit of speech and minimum free form; with a unity of sound and meaning (both lexical and grammatical meaning), capable of performing a given syntactic function.

The definition of a word

To sum up, the definition of a word comprises the following points

A minimal free form of a language

A sound unity

A unit of meaning

A form that can function alone in a sentence

2 Vocabulary（词汇的含义）

Broadly speaking, all the words in a language together constitute what is known as vocabulary. The term vocabulary usually refers to a complete inventory of the words in a language. But it may also refer to the words and phrases used in the variants of a language, such as dialect, register, terminology, etc. There is a total English vocabulary of more than 1 million.

3 What is lexicology?（什么是词汇学）

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the study of the vocabulary of a given language. It deals with words, their origin, development, structure, formation, meaning and usage.

4 The definition of a morpheme（词素的含义）

The morpheme(词素) is the smallest meaningful linguistic unit of language, not divisible or analyzable into smaller forms. A word is the smallest unit of a language that stands alone to communicate meaning. Structurally, however, a word is not the smallest unit because many words can be separated into smaller meaningful units. Words are composed of morphemes. What is usually considered a single word in English may be composed of one or more morphemes:

Major process:

The definition of prefixation（前缀法的定义）

Prefixation is the formation of new words by adding prefixes to stems. Prefixes do not generally change the word-class of the stem but only modify its meaning. However, there is an insignificant number of class-changing prefixes

Non-class-changing prefixes: natural-unnatural, like-dislike, fair-unfair

Class-changing prefixes: force-enforce, danger-endanger, form-deform, little-belittle, war-postwar, college-intercollege

The definition of suffixation（后缀法的定义）

Suffixation is the formation of new words by adding suffixes to stems. Unlike prefixes which primarily change the meaning of the stem, suffixes have only a small semantic role, their primary function being to change the grammatical function of stems. In other words, they mainly change the word class. However, they may also add attached meaning to the stem.

The classification of suffixes（后缀的分类）

Since suffixes mainly change the word class, we shall group suffixes on a grammatical basis into

1) noun suffixes

2) adjective suffixes

3) adverb suffixes

4) verb suffixes

The definition of conversion（转换法的定义）

Conversion is a word-formation whereby a word of a certain word-class is shifted into a word of another without the addition of an affix. It is also called zero derivation(零位派生).

Major types of conversion（转换法的主要类型）

Noun-verb conversion

Verb-noun conversion

Adjective-noun conversion

The definition of compounding（复合法的定义）

Composition or compounding is a word-formation process consisting of joining two or more bases to form a new unit, a compound word. It is a common device which has been productive at every period of the English language. Today the largest number of new words are formed by compounding.

Forms of compounds（复合法的形式）

Solid: bedtime, honeymoon

Hyphenated: above-mentioned, town-planning

Open: reading material, hot line

Types of compounds（复合法的类别）

Noun compounds

Adjective compounds

Verb compounds

Minor process:

The definition of blending（拼缀法）

Blending（拼缀法）is a process of word-formation in which a new word is formed by combining parts of two words. The result of such a process is called a blend or telescopic word or portmanteau word. Blending is thus a process of both compounding and abbreviation. Structurally blends may be divided into four types (see page 45-46).

Examples

newscast (news＋broadcast)

brunch (breakfast＋lunch)

smog (smoke＋fog)

talkathon (talk＋marathon)

slimnastics (slim＋gymnastics)

videophone ( video ＋telephone)

The definition of backformation（逆生法）

Back-formation（逆成法）is a process of word-formation by which a word is created by the deletion of a supposed suffix. It is also known as a reverse derivation. Examples

edit from editor

automate from automation

enthuse from enthusiasm

gloom from gloomy

donate from donation

brainwash from brainwashing

sleep-walk from sleep-walking

Motivation（理据）

Motivation deals with the connection between name (word-symbol) and its sense (meaning). It is the relationship between the word structure and its meaning. Types of motivation

Onomatopoeic motivation/phonetic motivation(拟声理据）

Morphological motivation（形态理据）

Semantic motivation（语义理据）

Etymological motivation

Onomatopoeic motivation（拟声理据）means defining the principle of motivation by sound. Words motivated phonetically are called onomatopoeic words, whose pronunciation suggests the meaning. They show a close connection between sound and sense.

Primary onomatopoeia

Primary onomatopoeia means the imitation of sound by sound. Here the sound is truly an “echo to the sense”.

Morphological motivation

Derivational words are morphologically motivated. If one knows the meaning of the affix and the base, then one can immediately tell the meaning of the word. Compounds words may be morphologically motivated too. The meanings of words

like good-looking, spaceman, moonscape, daydream and many others derive from the combined meaning of the component parts.

One thing worth pointing out is that the morphemes, the component parts of these words are themselves conventional.

S emantic motivation

Semantic motivation （语义理据）refers to the mental association suggested by the conceptual meaning of a word. It explains the connection between the literal sense and figurative sense of the word. Here it is the figurative usage that provides the semantic motivation.

Etymological motivation(词源理据）

Logical motivation（逻辑理据）deals with the problem of defining a concept by means of logic. It means, first, identify the concept of a genus（种概念）, second, to identify the attributes distinguishing one species（属差）from other similar species in the same genus.

The definition of polysemy

Polysemy is a term used in semantic analysis to refer to a lexical term which has a range of different meanings.

简答题：

Sources of synonyms（同义词的来源）

1）Borrowing

Native Borrowed

room chamber

foe enemy

help aid

leave depart

bodily corporal

2）Dialects and regional English

lift elevator

tube subway

petrol gasoline

call box telephone booth

charm glamour (ScotE)

3）Figurative and euphemistic of words

occupation walk of life

dreamer s tar-gazer

drunk elevated

lie distort the fact

4）Coincidence with idiomatic expressions

pick up choose

give up abandon

go on with continue

put off postpone

win gain the upper hand

hesitate be in two minds

Types of word meaning(意义的类型）

Grammatical Meaning

Grammatical meaning(语法意义)refers to that part of meaning of the word which indicates grammatical concept or relationships such as the word class, singular and plural forms of nouns, tense meaning of verbs and their inflectional forms (forget, forgets, forgot, forgotten, forgetting).

Lexical meaning

Lexical meaning(词汇意义) is the meaning of an isolated word in a dictionary. This component of meaning is identical in all the forms of the word.

E.g. ‘go, goes, went, gone, going’possess different grammatical meaning. But they have the same lexical meaning expressing the process of movement.

Lexical meaning itself has two components: conceptual meaning and associative meaning.

Conceptual meaning

Conceptual meaning(概念意义) (also known as denotative meaning) is the meaning given in the dictionary and forms the core of word meaning. Conceptual meaning forms the basis for communication as the same word has the same

conceptual meaning to all the speakers of the same language.

Sun: a heavenly body which gives off light, heat,and energy

Mother: a female parent

Associative meaning

Associate meaning(关联意义) is the secondary meaning supplemented to the conceptual meaning. It differs from the conceptual meaning in that it is liable to the influence of such factors as culture, experience, religion, geographical region, class background, education,etc.

Associative meaning comprises four types: connotative meaning, stylistic meaning, affective meaning, and collocative meaning.

Connotative meaning (内涵意义)

In contrast to denotative meaning, connotative meaning refers to the overtones or associations which a word suggests or implies.

Mother (a female parent) is often associated with ‘love’, ‘care’, ‘tenderness’, ‘forgiving’, etc.

Home (a dwelling place) may suggest ‘family, warmth, safety, love, convenience’, etc. ‘East or west, home is best’.

Statesman implies ‘loyalty, devotion to public welfare’; politician implies ‘deceit, power-drunk, bragging, villainy’.

Stylistic meaning(文体意义)

Words may have stylistic features, which make them appropriate for different contexts.

This stylistic difference is especially true of synonyms. It is observed that there are few words which have both the same conceptual meaning and stylistic meaning. Stylistic meaning

Degrees of formality

Formal

Neutral/Common

Informal/ Colloquial

Examples

male parent, father, daddy

residence, home, pad

Affective meaning(情感意义)

Affective meaning indicates the speaker’s attitude towards the person or thing in question.

Words that have emotive values may fall into two categories:

Appreciative or commendatory(褒义): words of positive overtones used to show

appreciation or approval.

Pejorative or derogatory(贬义): words of negative connotations imply disapproval, contempt or criticism.

Affective meaning

Appreciative

love, cherish, prize, treasure, admire, worship, charm, fascinate, attract Pejorative

hate, detest, loathe, abominate, vicious, good-for-nothing

Collocative meaning(搭配意义)

Collocative meaning consists of the associations a word acquires in its collocation. In other words, it is that part of the word meaning suggested by the words before or after the word in discussion.

Collocative meaning

wide awake, fully awake, sound asleep, far apart (‘Very’is inappropriate here) tremble with fear, quiver with excitement

Evolutional periods of the English Language

This history of the English Language is divided into three periods. The period from 450 to 1150 is known as old English. It is sometimes described as the period of full inflections, since during most of this period the case endings of the noun, the adjectives, and the verbs are preserved more or less unimpaired. From 1150 to 1500, the language is known as Middle English. During the period, the inflections, which had begun to break down toward the end of the Old English period, become greatly reduced, and it is consequently known as the period of leveled inflections. The language since 1500 is called Modern English. A large part of the original inflectional system has disappeared entirely and we therefore speak of it as the period of lost inflections. The progressive decay of inflections is only one of the developments that mark the evolution of English in its various stages.

Some characteristics of Old English

The pronunciation of old English words differs somewhat from that of Modern English words. Especially the long vowels have changed a great deal. Take the old English word stan for instance. The word stan is the same word as the Modern English word stone, but the vowel is different. The a sound has shifted to the sound of o in Modern English. Other vowels have also undergone changed. e.g.

Fot ( O. E) ----- foot ( Mod. E)

Cene ( O. E) ---- keen ( Mod. E)

Fyr ( O.E ) ----- fire ( Mod . E )

Hu ( O. E ) ----- how ( Mod. E )

Old English represented the sound of th by p and as in the word wip ( O. E ) ---- with ( Mod . E ), and the word a ( O. E ) --- then ( Mod. E ), the sound of sh by sc in sceap ( O. E ) --- sheep ( Mod. E ) or sceotan ( O. E ) ---- shoot ( Mod. E ), and the sound of k by c as in cynn ( O. E ) --- kin ( Mod. E ) or nacod ( O. E ) --- naked ( Mod. E).

The vocabulary of Old English consisted mainly of Anglo Saxon words. But when the Norman Conquest in 1066 brought French to England, much of the English vocabulary was replaced by words borrowed from French and Latin. During this period, much of the Old English was no longer in use, but the basic elements of the vocabulary have remained. They express fundamental concepts of human life, such as : mann ( man), wif ( wife), cild ( child ), hus ( house ), benc ( bench), mete ( meat, food), leaf ( leaf ), fugol ( fowl ), strang ( strong ), etan ( eat ), drincan ( drink ), libban ( live ), etc.

Old English is a synthetic合成的language which shows the relation of words in a sentence largely by means of inflections while Modern English is an analytic分解的language which indicates the relation of words in a sentence by means of order, prepositions or auxiliary verbs, rather than by inflections. For instance:

It's very important to notice right away that it is NOT the position of the word in the sentence that makes it take the form sé or tone; it's the role that the word is playing in the sentence. To make this clear, take a look at the following sentences:

Sé sunu lufode tone f?der.

Lufode sé sunu tone f?der.

Tone f?der lufode sé sunu.

Tone f?der sé sunu lufode.

Sé sunu tone f?der lufode.

These sentences all mean exactly the same thing. In other words, in this kind of simple sentence, tone tells us that the noun it's associated with is the object, sétells us that the noun it's associated with is the subject. Not all demonstrative pronouns change their form to indicate subject and object in this way. The "neuter nouns" are another common group of nouns, and very similar in many ways to masculine nouns, and these ones don't make any changes to either noun or demonstrative between subject and object.

Se f?der lufode t?t wíf," means, "the father loved the woman." "t?t wíf lufode tone f?der," means, "the woman loved the father." Whether it is subject or object, the phrase "t?t wíf" is the same.

Modern English depends upon word order to show the relations of words in a

sentence. Different word order may result in different meaning. The sentence “ The police arrested the thief” is completely opposite to the sentence “ the thief arrested the police”in meaning. So, in contrast with Modern English, Old English is a synthetic language.

Some characteristics of Middle English

The middle English period extends from 1150 to 1500. This period was marked by important changes in the English language. The Norman Conquest was the cause of this change. The change of this period had a great effect on both grammar and vocabulary. In grammar English has changed from a highly inflected language to an analytic language. In this period many old English were lost, and thousands upon thousands of borrowed from French and Latin appeared in the English vocabulary.

French influence on the English vocabulary is much more direct and observable. More than half of the English vocabulary is derived from Latin. Some of them have come directly, but a great many came through French. Borrowed words from French in this period are beef, pork, bacon, air, beauty, music, brown, painting, colour,etc which is further discussed in the latter sections.

Middle English represented the sound of c by ch as in the word child (M.E)---cild ( O.E), and the sound of cw by qu as in the word queen ( M.E) --- cwen ( O.E).

All in all, at the beginning of the period English is a language that must be learned like a foreign tongue, at the end it is Modern English.

Some characteristics of Modern English

The Modern English period extends from 1500 to the present day. We may divide this period into two parts: the early Modern English and the late Modern English period. The Early Modern English period extends from 1500 to 1700. The chief influence of this time was the great humanistic movement of the Renaissance. In this period the study of the Latin and Greek classics was stressed, so the influence of Latin and Greek on English was great. Some words as conspicuous, disability, disregard, emancipate, expectation exist, external came directly from Latin. Others, like chaos, crisis, emphasis, system are of Greek origin.

The Late Modern English period started after 1700. The eighteenth century in England was a time of stabilizing and purifying the English language. In the 18th century French greatly influenced English. The number of French words in the period from 1650 to 1800 increased rapidly. The following words are useful examples: ballet, cartoon, champagne, cohesion, dentist, patrol, publicity, routine, etc.

The territorial expansion of the English Empire in this period resulted in the expansion of the English vocabulary. Thus, there are American Indian words, caribou, hickory, moose, papoose, etc. There are also English Mexican words, such as, maize, potato, tobacco, hammock, etc. From Peru come puma, quinine, etc.

From Brazil come cayenne, jaguar, etc. From India , calico, coolie, mandarin, etc come into the English. From Africa come banana, gumbo, zebra, etc.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries are a period of rapid expansion for the English vocabulary in the history of English language.

In this period, many changes have taken place. Especially, the great development of science and technology is reflected in the English vocabulary, apart from which there are changes in industry, in political and social lives and other all which have contributed a great deal to the English vocabulary.

The following words may be clearly found in this period. The words cinema and moving picture date from 1899. The words radio meaning a receiving station and television date from 1923 and 1904 respectively. Some words came into the English vocabulary between 1914 and 1918, like air raid, antiaircraft gun高射炮, gas mask 防毒面具, etc.

Since the second world war the English vocabulary has been affected powerfully by social, political, economic, especially scientific and technical changes. Thousands of new words are added, such as hamster, coopetition, AIDS, hacker, e-mail, e-commerce, e-pal, google, Wag, Youtube, blog, crunk, dooce( fired for blog) Existing words acquire new meanings, and old words die out.

To sum up, rapid vocabulary expansion in this period is an important feature of Modern English.