词汇学 大作业, 全英文

词汇学大作业

A Discussion of Word Formation

2012年6月8日

Abstract

V ocabulary is very important in English study. However many student are tired of remembering English words.Now we can use a good tool called word formation to remember new words.English word formation can help us recognize English words, understand them correctly, and enlarge our vocabulary quickly. It is an efficient way and powerful weapon for English study. Among them，affixation is the strongest one to form a great range of vocabulary, and it is claimed to be one of the best ways of learning English. Besides, compounding, conversion, abbereviation, clipping, acronyms, back-formation are also efficient ways of learning English. In the paper the ways and characteristics of word formation is analyzed form these aspects: affixation, compounding, conversion, blending.

Key words: English, lexicology, word formation, affixation

摘要

词汇在英语的学习过程中非常重要。但是许多学生厌倦了背单词，现在我们有一个很好的工具去记忆单词，它就是构词法。英语构词法能够帮助我们很好的辨别并正确理解英语，同时也可以在短时间内增加我们的词汇量，英语构词法是学习英语的有效途径和强有力的“武器”。在所有的英语构词法中，词缀法能够生成的新单词是最多的也是最广泛，它被认为英语学习的最佳途径之一。除了词缀法以外，复合法、转化法、缩略法、截短法、首字母拼音法、逆生法也都是英语学习的有效途径

关键字:英语、词汇学，构词法，词缀法

Contents

A Discussion of Word Formation (1)

1. Introduction (1)

2. The Function of English Word Formation (1)

3. Affixation (2)

4. Compounding (3)

5. Conversion (4)

6. Blending (4)

7. Conclusion (5)

Work Cited (6)

A Discussion of Word Formation

1. Introduction

The expansion of vocabulary in modern English depends chiefly on word formation. There is a variety of means being at work now. The most productive are affixation, compounding and conversion. Talking about word formation patterns means dealing with rules. But not all words which are produced by applying the rule are acceptable. The acceptability is gained only when the word have gained an institutional currency in the language. Therefore rules only provide a constant set of models from which new word are created from day to day. Rules themselves are not fixed but undergo changes to a certain extent. For instance, affixes and compounding processes may become productive at one time or lose their productivity. By word formation processes, we concentrate on productive or on productive rules. While applying the rules, we should keep in mind that there are always exceptions. In my opinion, the most important principle for all these rules of word formation is economy.

2. The Function of English Word Formation

Nowadays, more and more people have taken notice of learning English. The number of the people who begin to learn English has increased at a high speed. How can we improve our English effectively is undoubtedly the focus of our attention. Generally speaking, vocabulary and grammatical rules are keys to learning English well. Among the two aspects, vocabulary apparently plays a more important role. V ocabulary is the foundation of language. If a language learner doesn?t have enough vocabulary to express his or her opinions and understand other people, even if his or her grammatical rules and pronunciations are excellent, but he can not communicate with others well, he shouldn?t be a good language learner.

When we are reading a new article, we often encounter with some new words that we have never seen before. In this case, most of us will leave out the new word and go on with the following sections. However, this is not a good habit. If we want to improve our English, we have to take every new word seriously either look them up in the dictionary or search for the internet. But don?t you think that these methods are inefficient? If we know something about English word formation, maybe the article would not be so difficult for us to understand. In this way, we can guess the meaning of the new word according to what we have learned about English word formation. It has been proved that our guess is correct in most cases. So we say word formation can help us have a better comprehension of a new article.

3. Affixation

Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding word-forming or derivational affixes to bases. This process is also known as derivation, by which new words derived from old or base forms. The words that are created in this way are called derivatives. According to the position affixes occupy in words, affixation falls into three subcategories: pre-fixation, in-fixation and suffixation.

Pre-fixation is the formation of new words by adding prefixes to bases, which do not generally change the word-class of the base. That is to say, prefixes do not change the part of speech of a word. Their chief function is to modify its meaning, although there are exceptions. In my opinion, prefixes can be divided into: negative prefixes, pejorative prefixes, prefixes of degree or size, prefixes of time and order, and so on.

Suffixation is the formation of new words by adding suffixes to bases. Their primary function is to change the grammatical function of the base, such as the change of the word class with a slight modification of meaning, though there are a few exceptions. Suffixes can be divided into noun suffixes, adjective suffixes, adverb suffixes, and verb suffixes. I can give you an example. The word “countless”, “-less”change the part of form and show the negative meaning of the stem.

Infixes are not so common and they usually show a kind attitude of the speaker and will not change the part of form and meaning of words.

4. Compounding

Compounding is the formation of new words by joining two or more bases. Words formed in this way are called compounds. So a compound is a …lexical unit consisting of more than one base and functioning both grammatically and semantically as a single word? (Quirk).Compounds can be written solid, hyphenated and open. Compounds have remarkable characteristics which are different from noun phrases. It comes down to three major ones:

1) Phonological features. In compounds the word stress usually occurs on the first constituent whereas in noun phrases the second element is generally accented if there is only one stress. In cases where there are two stresses, the compound has the primary stress on the first element and the second stress, if any, on the second, whereas the opposite is true of free phrase.

2) Semantic features. Compounds differ from free phrases semantically. Every compound should express a single idea just as one word. The meaning of a free phrase can not be inferred from the two components of itself. Nevertheless, a lot of compound are transparent, that is to say, the meaning can be obtained from the separate elements of compounds. But the two elements are inseparable and the change of the element would result in the loss of the original identity.

3) Grammatical features. Two elements of a compound each plays a separate grammatical role, which can be seen in the way the expressions are handled morphological. For example, compound nouns often show their plural forms by taking inflectional –s at the end. Though there are exceptions, their …one-wordness?identity is apparent.

5. Conversion

In English learning, students will often confused with words which have two or more part of form. Many of such conditions are caused by conversion. Conversion is the formation of mew words by converting words of one part of speech to those of another part of speech, without changes in morphological structures but in function. Words created in this way are new only in a grammatical sense. Words produced by conversion are primarily nouns, adjectives and verbs. The most productive, however, is the conversion that takes place between nouns and verbs. It deserves nothing that conversion is not only a change of grammatical function of the item involved but with it the different range of meaning is originally carried.

6. Blending

Blending is a very productive process and many coinages are resulting from blending have become well established. Moreover, they can sever as models for new formation. It is not the Combination of two words directly, but to combine parts of two words or a word plus a part of another word. This kind of word formation is called blending. This processes including:

The first part of the first word +the last part the second word.

The whole part of the first part +the last part the second word.

The first part of the first word +the first part the second word.

The whole part of the second word + the first part of the first word.

The overwhelming majority of blends are nouns; very few are verbs and adjectives are even fewer. Blends are mostly used in writing related to science and technology, and newspapers and magazines. Though many of them have already achieved currency in English, they are still considered by the serious-minded people to be slang and informal. However, it is advisable not to use such words too often, particularly in formal writing.

7. Conclusion

Language develops with the development of society and vocabulary is sensitive to the changes of society. Some old words are abandoned and some new ones are created. Most of the new words in English are created according to certain rules and conformed to certain methods. These rules and methods are closely related to English word formation. So it is essential, as well as important, for us to learn word formation, especially for the students of English major.

Work Cited

张维友(Zhang Weiyou)外语语言文学系列教程[M]. 外语教学与研究出版社,2009. 魏红(WeiHong)构词法是扩大英语词汇量的有效方法[J]. 英语教研,2009(02).

张莉(ZhangLi)浅谈英语构词法中的词缀法[J].浙江大学,2008(10).

卢春(Luchun)浅谈英语构词法[J]广州大学,2002(09).

王家卫(WangJiawei)英语构词的类别[M].广西外语出版社,2010.