英语词汇学讲稿

词汇学

Introduction 部分：

Lexicology 这门课算哪一种学科的分支:

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics.

Lexicology和那些重要的学科建立了联系:

1)Morphology 2) Semantics 3) Stylistics 4) Etymology 5) Lexicography 研究lexicology 的两大方法:

1) Diachronic approach : 历时语言学

2) Synchronic approach : 共时语言学

e.g. wife

纵观历时语言学的方法论，woman 词义的变化算是词义变化的哪一种模式？Woman 的词义的变化算Narrowing or specialization

第一章部分：

What is word ?

词具有哪些特点？

词的特点也就是对词的名词解释。

1) A word is a minimal free form of a language;

2) A sound unity or a given sound ;

3) a unit of meaning;

4) a form that can function alone in a sentence.

以上词的四个特点也就是词的名词解释

词的分类（classification of a word）

词根据发音可以分为哪两种词？或者说词根据拼写可以分为哪两类词？

1) simple words 2) complex words

单音节词例子：

e.g. Man and fine are simple

多音节词例子：

e.g. Management, misfortune, blackmail

management 可以次划分为manage 和 -ment

misfortune 可以次划分为mis- 和 fortune

blackmail 次划分为black 和 mail

What is the relationship between sound and meaning?

1)There is ‘no logical relationship between the sound and actual thing.

e.g. dog. cat

2)The relationship between them is conventional.

3) In different languages the same concept can be represented by different sounds.

What is relationship between sound and form?

1)The written form of a natural language is the written record of

the oral form. Naturally the written form should agree with the oral form, such as English language.

2)This is fairly true of English in its earliest stage i.e. Old English

3)With the development of the language, more and more differences occur between the two.

What are the great changes that causes illogical relationship or irregularity between sound and form?

1) The internal reason for this is that the English alphabet was adopted from the Romans, which does not have a separate letter to

represent each sound in the language so that some letters must do double duty or work together in combination.

2) Another reason is that the pronunciation has changed more rapidly than spelling over the years, and in some cases the two have drawn far apart.

3) A third reason is that some of the differences were created by the early scribes.

4) Finally comes the borrowing, which is an important channel of enriching the English vocabulary.

要记住以上四句话中的关键词：

1) influenced by Romans

2) Pronunciation changed

3) early scribes

4) borrowing

你能不能举出外来语对英语发音,拼写造成不一致的例子有哪些？

e.g. stimulus (L) ,fiesta (Sp) ,eureka (Gr), kimono (Jap)

外来语对英语造成的最大的影响就是‘sound and form ’不一致。

What is vocabulary?

Vocabulary refers to the total number of the words in a language, but it can stand for all the words used in a particular historical period. Vocabulary also refers to all the words of a given dialect, given book, a given discipline and the words possessed by an individual person. Classification of Words (本课的一个重点, 年年考试都考)

What is the classification of words? How to classify words in

linguistics?

Three criteria :

1) By use of frequency

2) By notion

3) By origin

By use of frequency 可划分为：

1) The basic word stock

2) Nonbasic word vocabulary

By notion 可划分为：

1) Content word

2) Functional word

Content words are also known as notional words . (Content words 的别称) Functional words are also known as empty words, or form words. ( Functional words 的别称)

Functional words possesses a characteristic of basic word stock, i.e.

stability

According to Stuart Robertson ,et al (1957),* (年年考试必考) the nine functional words , namely ,and , be , have , it , of , the , to , will ,you

What are the characteristics of basic word stock?

1) All national character

2) Stability

3) Productivity

4) Polysemy

5) Collocability

要把握住‘All national character’的词,就是和我们日常生活息息相关的，最普通的词

稳定性是基本词的一个很大特点，请你举例说明？

e.g. man, woman , fire, water …

e.g. machine, video, telephone …

e.g. bow, chariot , knight

Stability is relative, not absolute.

根据词的use frequency 划分出的基本词之外，还有一类词叫作None basic

vocabulary, 非基本词有几大特点？或者是几大分类？

1) Terminology

e.g. sonata, algebra

2) Jargon

e.g. Bottom line ( Jargon )

3) Slang

e.g. smoky, bear ( Slang )

4) Argot

e.g. persuader

5) Dialectal words

e.g. station ( AusE = ranch )

bluid ( ScotE= blood)

6) Archaisms

e.g. wilt (will)

7) Neologisms

e.g. email ( Neologisms )

beaver 是girl 的slang 表达方式，但是二者之间存在着Stylistic difference

Which constitutes the larger number among English vocabulary, content

words or functional words ?

Answer : Content words

What is native words?

Answer : (1) By origin, English words can be classified into native

words and borrowed words.

(2) Native words are words brought to Britain in the fifth century by

the German tribes: the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes, thus know as

Anglo-Saxon words.

(3) Words of Anglo-Saxon origin are small in number ,amounting to

roughly 50,000 to 60,000, but they form the mainstream of the basic

word stock and stand at the core of the language

什么叫borrowed words?

Answer: (1) words taken over from foreign languages are know as

borrowed words or loan words or borrowings in simple terms.

(2) It is estimated that English borrowings constitute 80

percent of the modern English vocabulary

root, affix and stem 词根，词缀和词干

（1）root(词根): the base from of a word that cannot further be analyzed without total loss of identity. That is to say, it is that part of the word left when all the affixes are removed. (词根是词

的基本形式,不能再作进一步的分析而完全不损失同一性。也就是说，去掉所有的词缀后，

词所剩下的部分就是词根。

All words contain a root morpheme.所有的词都包含一个词根语素。

A root is often seen as part of a word; it can never stand by itself although it bears clear, definite

meaning ; it must be combined with another root or an affix to form a word.词根，粘着语素的一种，往往被看作是一个单词的一个部分。它本身有清楚，确定的意义，却不能被单独使用，而只能与另外一个词根结合在一起或与另外一个词缀结合在一起才能形成一个单词。

（2）affix(词缀): the collective term for the type of formative that can be used only when added to another morpheme (the root or stem).(词缀是一个构词成分的集合,它们只能附加于另一个语素词根或词干上.)

Affixes are limited in number in a language, and are generally classified into three subtypes, namely, prefix, suffix, and infix, depending on their position with reference to the root or stem of the word.语言中词缀的数量总是有限的，根据它们跟词根或词干的相对位置，一般可以把词缀分外三小类：前缀，后缀和中缀。

Prefix前缀----prefixes modify the meaning of the stem, but usually do not change the part of speech of the original word. dis-; un-; mis- para-; mini- ; 前缀通常改变原来单词的意义，但不改变其词性。

Exception: be-; en-; em-; Added to adjectives or nouns they turn the words into verbs.

For example: little----belittle; large---enlarge; rich---enrich; body---embody

Suffix后缀:-----suffixes are added to the end of stems; they modify the meaning of the orginal word and in many cases change its part of speech. -ly; -ness; -tion; -ise; 后缀加在词干后面，通常改变原来词的意义，并且大所数情况下改变词性。

Infix中缀: foot/feet; goose/geese ;–oo-; -ee- ;

some languages also have infixes, affix morphemes that are inserted into root or stem morphemes to divide them into two parts.

tatawa “a person who will laugh”

tumatawa “a person who is laughing”

ngitad “dark”

ngumitad “to be dark”

In this language, the infix –um- is inserted after the first consonant of a noun or adjective. (fikas- “strong”fumikas-- “to be strong”

（3）Stem(词干): any morpheme or combination of morphemes to which an inflectional affix can be added.(词干是指能加上屈折词缀的语素或语素的组合.)

a stem is the existing form to which a derivational affix can be added. A stem can be a bound root, a free morpheme, or a derived form itself. 派生词缀可加在已存在的形式词上形成的一个新词，原来存在的形式词被称为词干。词干可以是粘着词根，自由词素和一个派生词。

3. Inflectional affix and derivational affix 曲折词缀和派生词缀

Inflection/inflexion(屈折变化):------ the manifestation of grammatical relationship through the addition of inflectional affixes,such as number,person,finiteness,aspect and case,which do not change the grammatical class of the stems to which they are attached.(屈折变化是通过附加屈折词缀的语法关系的表现,如数,人称,有定性,体和格,屈折词缀不会改变所附加词语的语法类.) Inflectional morpheme: a kind of bound morphemes which manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as number, tense, degree and case.

E.g. wo rkers, children; walking, walked; biggest ; John’s

derivation(派生词):------the manifestion of relation between stems and affixes through the addition of derivational affixes. Different from compounds,derivation shows the relation between roots and affixes.(通过增加派生词素来表明词干与词缀关系的构词法。跟复合词不同,派生词则能表明词根和词缀之间的关系.)

Derivational morpheme: a kind of bound morphemes , added to existing forms to create new words. There are three kinds according to position in the new words, : prefix, suffix and infix.

2.3 morpheme and phoneme (p93-95)

2.3.1 allomorph

A morpheme is a linguistic abstraction; it is a concept. It needs to be represented in certain phonological and orthographic forms. Those forms are called morphs.

In morphemic transcription, morphemes in the abstract notion are put between braces like Allomorph: A morpheme may have alternate shapes or phonetic forms. The variant forms of the same morpheme are called its allomorphs.

allomorph(语素变体): any of the different form of a morpheme.For example,in English the plural mortheme is but it is pronounced differently in different environments as/s/in cats,as/z/ in dogs and as/iz/ in classes.So/s/,/z/,and /iz/ are all allomorphs of the plural morpheme.