English Lexicology

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.

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