EnglishEnglish Chapter 1. LexicologyLexicology What is lexicology? Beijing Forestry University 2006

LEXICOLOGY [1820s: from Greek 1.1 Nature and scope lexicós of words, -logía study]. An area of language study concerned with the ‡ The study of the form, nature, meaning, history, and use of words and history, and meaning of word elements and often also with the critical description of lexicography. Although formerly words a branch of philology, lexicology is increasingly treated as a branch of linguistics, associated with such terms as lexeme, lexical field, lexical item, lexicon, lexis, on the premiss that they offer (or could offer, if tightly defined and widely adopted) a more precise and useful basis for the study of language than imprecise terms such as word and vocabulary.

Lexicology Mainly in the French and Russian Word study in the Anglo-American Tradition Tradition

‡ development and changes of English words ‡ Morphology studies the form of the word, ‡ morphology ‡ etymology studies the history of the word, ‡ word-formation ‡ semantics studies the meaning of the word, ‡ lexical meaning and ‡ semantic changes and semantic relationships ‡ lexicography studies the making of ‡ collocation and combinations dictionaries. ‡ idioms ‡ British and American English ‡ English dictionaries

1 1.2 Definitions of the ‘Word’ ‡ a unit of language, consisting of ‡ a speech sound or series one or more spoken sounds or of speech sounds that their written representation, that symbolizes and functions as a principal carrier communicates a meaning of meaning, is typically seen as without being divisible the smallest such unit capable of into smaller units capable independent use, is separated of independent use. from other such units by spaces in writing, and is often distinguished phonologically, as by accent or pause.

(a) a speech sound, or series of them, ‡ a sound or combination serving to communicate of sounds forming a meaning and consisting of at least one base morpheme with or meaningful element of without prefixes or suffixes; unit speech, usu. shown with of language between the a space on either side of morpheme and the sentence. it when written or printed, (b) a letter or group of letters used as part (or representing such a unit of language, written or printed sometimes as the whole) usually in solid or hyphenated of a sentence. form.

Greenbaum’s Criteria in OEG ‡ the smallest unit of language that can be used independently; such ‡ uh-insertion a unit represented in writing or ‡ response utterance printing, usu separated off by ‡ internal stability spaces. ‡ movement ‡ a meaningful unit of speech which is normally uninterruptable, ‡ end inflection and which when written or printed has spaces on either side.

2 Pause and uh-insertion Response utterance

‡ In speech we can pause between words, ‡ A word can occur in isolation as a response perhaps inserting vocal pauses such as uh: utterance. ‡ Your—uh—dog—uh—is—uh—trampling— ‡ A: Who needs more of these uh—on—uh—my—uh—flower-bed. ‡ B: Potatoes ‡ This is an exaggerated though possible ‡ A: Would she be free to do it today < , > instance of interruption by pauses. However, it would be odd to pause between parts of a ‡ B: No word: between trampl-and -ing or between ‡ A: I just loved him dearly flower-and -bed. ‡ B: Really

Internal stability

‡ Not all words can function as utterances. ‡ A word has internal stability in that another Conspicuous exceptions are the articles a word cannot be inserted within it. and the. They can serve as utterances in ‡ Occasionally, an expletive (swear word) is metalinguistic contexts only, when exceptionally inserted within a polysyllabic questions are being asked about the word, for example, language: ‡ bloody in abso-bloody-lutely. ‡ A: What is the definite article in English? ‡ B: The.

Movement End inflection

‡ A word can be separated from words before ‡ Inflections are attached to the end of a word. and after it by being moved elsewhere in ‡ In the expression find out, the inflections are the sentence. Find out (‘discover’) is attached to find : finds, finding. semantically a unit, but the two words are ‡ A few compound nouns, however, may take separable: the plural inflection on the first segment, ‡ I just don’t find out anything until it’s either only (notaries public) or as an happened or all signed and sealed alternative (mothers-in-law/mother-in-laws). ‡ I just don’t find anything out until it’s happened.

3 Problem areas

‡ Compound vs. phrases ‡ A compound is a word composed of other words, but there is not a sharp distinction between compounds and freely formed enclitics phrases. ‡ Clitics ‡ In writing, compounds may appear as two proclitics orthographic words (hay fever, lager lout) or vary in their orthography (ice cream/ice- cream, for ever/forever).

‡ We make useful distinctions between all ‡ Other arbitrary orthographic practices are ready and already, between all ways and highlighted in the pairs no one/nobody, any always, and between all together and time/sometime, in fact/indeed. altogether; ‡ It is not surprising that some of these ‡ but all right has to serve also as a compound orthographically separate words are in formal writing, since alright (‘ok’) has not acquired full respectability: Your answers mistakenly run together, as are expressions were all right is ambiguous between ‘All such as a lot and of course. your answers were correct’ and ‘Your answers were satisfactory’.

‡ There are also instances where two words ‡ Occasionally they are proclitics: d’you (do are combined without forming a compound you), ’tis (it is). in the usual sense. The negative word not ‡ The combination of both types of clitics and a relatively small number of frequently appears in ’tisn’t. Although they are not occurring words (mostly verbs) can be isolated orthographically or in other respects, contracted and attached to other words. we can regard these clitics as reduced forms ‡ Usually they are attached at the end as of words. enclitics: she’s (for she is or she has), don’t (do not).

4 1.3 The structure of words

‡ A different analytic problem arises with the ‡ Simple group genitive: ‡ Composite ‡ the Queen of England’s grandchildren ‡ Tom and Paula’s wedding ‡ Some of the most frequent words in English are simple: ‡ they cannot be divided into smaller meaningful segments: and, the, if, on.

‡ Most words, however, are composite in that ‡ Unhappy consists of the word happy to they have a recognizable internal structure. which the affix un- has been attached. ‡ We know that the adjective unhappy ‡ If the affix comes at the beginning (like un- consists of un- plus happy because happy in unhappy) it is a prefix; occurs as a word by itself and un- is found with the same negative meaning in other ‡ if it comes at the end (like -ly in happily) it is words (untidy, unwell, unkind). a suffix. ‡ A different un-, reversative in meaning, ‡ Unhappily therefore has both a prefix and a appears in the verbs uncover, undress, suffix. unlock, untie.

‡ The segment to which an affix is attached ‡ More precisely, we attach affixes to the base need not occur as a word itself: (or stem) of a word, which is not necessarily ‡ capture = capt + ure identical with its root. ‡ We find capt in other words—captive, captor, ‡ The word recapture has the structure re- captivate, recapture—each of them with plus capture; the prefix re- is attached not to affixes that appear elsewhere. Capt is the the root capt but to the base or stem capture. root of these words, but unlike happy it does not exist as a word. The root is what remains when we strip all the affixes from a word.

5 ‡ The word undoubtedly can therefore be ‡ In a further complication, some words are analysed as: compounds, consisting of more than one base: ‡ The root doubt is the base or stem for backache, dry-clean, mother-in-law. doubted, which is the base or stem for ‡ The bases of compounds may have their own undoubted, so undoubted is the base or affixes: printmaker, non-profit-making. stem for undoubtedly.

‡ In some instances, the affix applies to the ‡ It is often unclear what the root of a word is, compound as a whole rather than to one of particularly for many borrowings from Greek the bases: kindhearted, as-a-matter-of-factly; and Latin, since their etymology is not ‡ we know -ed is attached to kindheart- and - known to most speakers of English, or for ly to as-a-matter-of-fact- because we do not words that in the course of centuries have have hearted and factly. changed their form or meaning.

1.4 The meaning of words

‡ Does handsome consist of the root hand (perhaps related to the word hand) and the ‡ Sense suffix -some (which is a suffix in toothsome, ‡ Denotation awesome, troublesome) or should we rather say that it is an unanalysable whole for ‡ Connotation present-day speakers? ‡ Reference ‡ Is there a shared root in exceed, proceed, succeed or in accept, except, precept? ‡ Answers will depend on how much weight is given to etymology and how much to the contemporary meanings.

6 ‡ The sense of a word is its cognitive meaning ‡ Football is definable as a ball game with as determined by its place within the certain characteristics, in contrast with other semantic system of the language. words for ball games, such as basketball and ‡ The word mother has the sense ‘parent and netball. female’, in contrast to father ‘parent and male’, ‡ Come is a verb of movement in contrast with both of the words contrasting with child, son, go. and daughter in a set of related kinship terms.

‡ Sad is an adjective of emotion, a synonym of ‡ Words may have more than one sense. unhappy and an antonym of happy. ‡ In one sense, brother is a kinship term, in ‡ Down and up are contrasting pairs of prepositions of directions. another it is a religious term. ‡ And and or are contrasting co-ordinating conjunctions, the first indicating merely a link between two items and the second a disjunction.

‡ The denotation of a word is the relationship ‡ The word unicorn denotes a mythical animal, between the word and the set of entities, a being in an imaginary world. Even if we do situations, and attributes that exist outside not believe in fairies or demons, the words the language. fairy or demon have denotations for us. ‡ In its most common use the word cat denotes (or refers to) a class of small four- legged domesticated animals; the adjective round denotes a particular shape; talk denotes a type of activity.

7 ‡ Words are often fuzzy at the edges in their ‡ Trousers and skirts are prototypical for denotation. The set denoted by a word may clothes, but shoes and gloves seem peripheral have very typical members but there may to the set. also be items about which people are in ‡ When is it appropriate to refer to a person as doubt whether they belong to the set. being old? ‡ The word bird obviously denotes robins, ‡ Can we agree on which countries to call pigeons, and sparrows, but is a bat a bird? democracies? ‡ Where on a leg does a foot begin? ‡ Can we distinguish precisely between run and jog?

‡ Whereas every word has one or more senses, ‡ The connotation of a word is the emotive not every word has a denotation. associations that a word evokes. ‡ For example the articles a and the and the ‡ Contrast the typical connotations of mother, conjunctions and and because have senses stepmother, and mother-in-law. that can be defined for their use in English, ‡ There may, however, be individual but they do not denote anything outside the connotations, based on experience, that language. contradict the stereotypical connotations.

‡ Reference is what a word—more commonly ‡ The phrase your dog refers to a particular a phrase—refers to in a particular utterance. dog in the situation. If the sentences were ‡ Somebody may call out: Your dog is said in a different situation, your dog might jumping on me. Get the beast off me. refer to a different dog. We infer that the beast in the second sentence refers to the ‡ The phrase your dog refers to a particular dog in the situation. If the sentences were same dog as your dog does. The reference of said in a different situation, your dog might the two phrases is the same (they are co- refer to a different dog. referential) in the particular context, but the senses of the two phrases are different.

8 1.5 The size of English vocabulary

‡ The person might have used a pronoun (it, ‡ Webster’s Third: 470,000 him, her) instead of the beast, which would also be co-referential with your dog. We can interpret the sense of each word or phrase out of context and may also be able to infer which are co-referential without knowing ‡ OED: 500,000 what they refer to.

Core vocabulary

‡ ‡ The average number of words known by an Band 5: 680 (the, and, of, to, like, go, educated adult has been estimated as at paper, return etc.) least 50,000 and perhaps as high as 250,000. ‡ Band 4: 1040 (argue, bridge, danger, female, obvious, sea etc.) ‡ Band 3: 1580 (aggressive, medicine, tactic etc.) ‡ Band 2: 3200 (accuracy, duration, miserable, puzzle etc.) ‡ Band 1: 8100 (abundant, crossroads, fearless, missionary etc.)

Matters to be considered

‡ What counts as a word? Do we take ‡ Do we count the grammatical forms of a polysemous words to be one word or do we word as separate words? Is it sufficient for take each polyseme as a separate word? this purpose to list the verb dance, or should ‡ If we count polysemes, how many should we we regard dance, dances, danced, dancing assign to words such as have and give? as separate words? ‡ The bigger the dictionary, the more ‡ The same point applies to nouns (woman, definitions will be provided for such words. women, woman’s, women’s), adjectives (tall, taller, tallest), and pronouns (they, them, their).

9 ‡ Problems also arise in what to include as a ‡ When teachers and linguists discuss the compound. words people know, a distinction is ‡ Are we to count hot dog as a word as well as commonly made between an active or hot and dog? productive vocabulary (what one can use) and a passive or receptive vocabulary (what ‡ And are idiomatic phrasal verbs such as make up (‘invent’) to be listed separately? one can recognize).

‡ The passive vocabulary is larger than the ‡ The high estimates for words known by active, and the dividing line between the two educated adults refer to passive knowledge of is impossible to establish. vocabulary: words that are recognized or ‡ All such terms and statements founder on whose meaning is inferred from the word’s the rock of what is meant by ‘word’ and components. ‘vocabulary’. ‡ The number of words that any individual actually uses will be much smaller.

‡ A person who ‘knows’ 50,000 ‘words’, each ‡ Dictionaries do not include all the words with an average of five clear-cut senses, is that educated adults know. In the past, actively or passively acquainted with 250,000 taboo words were generally excluded, and nuggets of lexical information. even now many slang and dialect words may ‡ Such an estimate, however crude it may be, not be admitted. is decidedly impressive.

10 ‡ For instance, the 1991 edition of ‡ Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Collins English Dictionary (nearly (11th ed., 2003) does not include such 1,800 pages) has an entry for rental examples of American college slang as squid but not in the British teenage slang (though it has its synonyms dork and nerd) sense ‘parental’; and grinder (‘difficult course’). ‡ it does not note bizzies (‘police’), used by young Geordies, or the British market-trader’s bunce (‘profit’).

‡ General dictionaries do not include all ‡ The same points have to be taken into scientific and technical words, which are best catered for in specialized dictionaries. consideration if we attempt to estimate the number of words in the English language. ‡ In chemistry alone, it has been estimated that there are over six million named ‡ We also have to consider whether we are compounds, and more are continually being dealing with just one national variety or added. whether we include words in all national ‡ Even for the general vocabulary, since it varieties, even when the words do not have takes some time before new words are noted currency outside one country. and researched, dictionaries are always somewhat out of date.

‡ Some of these considerations apply equally ‡ On the other hand, if Shakespeare’s when we look at the vocabulary of a vocabulary in his works is estimated at particular speech or piece of writing or the between 15,000 and 24,000 words (more in collected works of one author. some other counts) where Milton’s ‡ If a student’s paper is limited to 1,000 words vocabulary is said to be between 7,000 and or a novel is cut down to 50,000 words, the 8,000 words, the reference is to distinct reference is to the number of running words in the text: each occurrence of a word is words. counted separately.

11 1.6 The Core Vocabulary

‡ The distinct words are types and the ‡ Various attempts have been made on the instances of the types are tokens: for core vocabulary of English in the 20th example, there may be 85 tokens of the type century. There has been a recognition that you in a text. The higher the ratio of types to users of a language need to have recourse to tokens, the richer the vocabulary. processes of simplification in order to ‡ The relative frequency is expressed in the communicate in a basic and simple fashion type : token ratio. in specific contexts, such as in relating to children, foreigners, etc. ‡ In counting types and tokens, decisions have to be taken about polysemy and ‡ In the domain of vocabulary, core items are grammatical variants. generally seen to be the most basic or simple.

‡ It will not be surprising that language teachers ‡ Of course, such word lists are very basic. should have been among the first to attempt to Indeed they serve the needs only of the most define a basic core vocabulary for initial general expression and will be, according to language learning purposes. Quirk (1982: 43) inevitably ‘as culture-free as ‡ Such attempts range from C. K. Ogden and I. calculus, with no literary, aesthetic or A. Richards’s generally not widely used Basic emotional aspirations.’ English (1930) to Michael West’s influential controlled vocabulary lists (1953) and to more recent proposals for an international ‘nuclear English’ by Randolph Quirk (1982) and G. Stein (1979).

‡ Another instance of vocabulary ‡ In the first edition, it was not 100 per cent control is in writing dictionary written within the scope of the 2,000 words definitions for foreign learners. but it was improved in its subsequent editions (1987 and 1995) and only the 2,000 ‡ This was pioneered by Longman stipulated words and 30 affixes were used for Dictionary of Contemporary all the definitions of over 80,000 words and English in 1978, which used the phrases in the 1995 edition. Longman Defining Vocabulary ‡ Such vocabulary control is also of 2,000 words for the first time. applied to Cambridge International Dictionary of English (1995).

12 1.7 Classification of words

‡ The vocabulary is often categorized as ‡ Content/full/lexical words consisting of content words and ‡ Grammatical/function/form words grammatical words. Content (or full or lexical) words—most of the words in the ‡ Open classes language—are said to carry in the main the ‡ Closed classes semantic content of the vocabulary, whereas the grammatical (or function or form) words chiefly carry the grammatical relationships.

‡ ‡ Though linguists may vary over details, the This distinction correlates with the content words are usually said to comprise distinction between open classes and closed classes. words belonging to the major word classes: nouns, main verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. ‡ The major word classes are readily open to new words. The minor classes, however, do ‡ The grammatical words belong to the minor not easily admit new members. Witness the word classes: pronouns, determiners, difficulty of finding a neutral personal auxiliary verbs, prepositions, and pronoun to replace he and she. conjunctions. ‡ However, a few new members have been recently added to closed classes, for example plus as a conjunction.

‡ The grammatical words have important ‡ We are aware of the semantic contrasts grammatical functions in relation to content between the pronouns he and she, the words or units containing content words (for prepositions up and down, and the example, a and the introduce noun phrases, auxiliaries may and must. Perhaps the and and links phrases and clauses), but they clearest example of a purely grammatical generally also have semantic content. word is the infinitival to, as in to shoot.

13 Further readings

‡ Hatch, Evelyn & Cheryl Brown ‡ 林承璋 (2005)《英语词汇学引论》 (第三 (1995) Vocabulary, Semantics, 版)。武汉大学出版社。 and Language Education. ‡ 张韵斐 (2004)《现代英语词汇学概论》 (第三 Cambridge University Press. 版)。北京师范大学出版社。 Reprinted by Foreign Language ‡ 陆国强 (1999)《现代英语词汇学》 (新版)。上 Teaching and Research Press 海外语教育出版社。 2001. ‡ 张维友 (1997)《英语词汇学教程》。华中师 范大学出版社。

+ A good dictionary

‡ 汪榕培、卢晓娟 (1997)《英语词汇学教 程》。上海外语教育出版社。 ‡ 汪榕培 (1999)《英语词汇探胜》。上海外语 教育出版社。 ‡ 汪榕培 (2000)《英语词汇学研究》。上海外 语教育出版社。 ‡ 汪榕培主编 (2002)《英语词汇学高级教 程》。上海外语教育出版社。

Enjoy the course!

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