英文专业词汇学考试复习资料

Chapter 1 The Basic Concepts of Words and Vocabulary

1、The Definition of a Word

Lexicology focuses on the study of meanings and origins of words.

According to semanticists（语义学家）, a word is a unit of meaning.

A word is a minimal（最小的）free form of a language that has a given sound, meaning

and syntactic function（句法功能）.

2、 Vocabulary

All the words in a language make up what is generally known as its vocabulary.

3、 Sound and Meaning

The relationship between sound and meaning is no logic

4、 Sound and Form

There was more agreement between sound and form in Old English than in Modern English.

With the development of the language, more and more differences arose between sound and form.

（1）、What is the relationship between sound and meaning? Give examples to illustrate it.

The relationship between sound and meaning is arbitrary and conventional. In different

languages, the same concept can be shown by different sounds. “Woman”, for example,

becomes “Frau” in German, “Femme” in French and “fu nv” in Chinese. On the other

hand, the same sound [mi:t] is used to mean “meet, meat, mete”, denoting different

things.

（2）、What are the four major reasons for the differences between sound and form?

The first reason (he internal reason) is that there are more phonemes （音素）than letters

in English. Another reason is that the pronunciation has changed more rapidly than

spelling over the years. The third reasons that some of the differences more created by

the early scribes. The fourth reason is the borrowing.

（3）、How are words classified in the course book?

Words can be classified by different criteria and for different purposes. Words may fall

into: the basic word stock and nonbasic vocabulary by use frequency; content words and

functional words by notion; native words and borrowed words by origin; simple words,

compounds and derived words by morphology.

（4）、What is the difference between denizens and aliens?

Denizens are words borrowed early in the past and now are well assimilated（完全同化）into the English language. But aliens are borrowed words which have retained their original pronunciation and spelling. These words are immediately recognizable as foreign in origin.

Chapter 2 The Development of the English Vocabulary

1、The Indo-European Language Family

The prehistoric Indo-European parent language, thought to be a highly inflected （内部曲折语）language.

The first peoples who inhabited the land were Celts.

The second language known in English was Latin of the Roman Legions.

（1）、Old English（450-1150）

In the 9th century England was invaded by Norwegian and Danish Vikings.

（2）、Middle English（1150-1500）

The French influence on English vocabulary was one of the significant points of the

Middle English period.

The most important fact of the Middle English period was the steady erosion of the

inflectional systems of Old English.

（3）、Modern English（1500-present）

In the early period of Modern English, Europe saw a new upsurge of learning ancient

Greek and Roman classics.

It is estimated that about one fourth of modern English vocabulary has come from French.

3、 Foreign Elements in the English Vocabulary

In earlier stages of English, Latin, Greek, French and Scandinavian were the four major contributors.

The simultaneous existence of French, Latin and English lasted for a century.

4、 Modes of Vocabulary Development

Modern English vocabulary develops through three channels: creation, semantic change（旧词新义）and borrowing.

Creation is the most important way of vocabulary expansion.

5、简答

What are the characteristics of Old English?

Old English also known as the Anglo-Saxon, has a vocabulary of about 50000 to 60000 words, which are almost monogeneous and entirely Germanic with only a few borrowings from Latin and Scandinavian. Old English was a highly inflected language.It was a synthetic language（综合性语言）.（Modern English is an analytic language）