英语词汇学教程课件第1章English-Lexicology-1.ppt

1、Lecture OneWhat is Lexicology?The notion of word is central in the study of lexicology.However,word is used traditionally to refer to a sequence of letters bounded by spaces.Apart from word,people use the words vocabulary,lexis,and lexicon,but these items may be considered“more or less synonymous”.W

2、hat is Lexicology?Lexicology is the study of the vocabulary or lexicon of a given language.It deals not only with simple words in all their aspects,but also with complex and compound words.Word is a complex phenomenon in our daily life.If we want to study words,we shall have to look at words from di

3、fferent perspectives.Morphology Lexicology is closely related to morphology,semantics and etymology,because these fields also deal with words.Morphology is the study of the forms of words and their components.In morphology,morpheme is a basic concept.The major purpose of study in morphology is to lo

4、ok at morphemes and their arrangements in word formation.Morphemes are considered as the smallest meaningful units which may constitute words or parts of words.From morphemes,we can specify the kind of relationship they have with the non-linguistic world.Notice the following items:bug,boy,through,bu

5、ilder,dipsticks,reading.bug,boy and through cannot be divided further into meaningful units.builder,dipsticks and reading can be analysed as build+er,dip+stick+s,and read+ing.Bug,boy,through,build,-er,dip,stick,-s,read and-ing are all morphemes.Bug,boy,through,build,dip,stick and read are simple wor

6、ds while er,-s and-ing are only parts of words.SemanticsSemantics studies meaning.It is usually approached from one of two perspectives:philosophical or linguistic.Philosophical semantics is concerned with the logical properties of language,the nature of formal theories,and the language of logic.Lin

7、guistic semantics involves all aspects of meaning in natural languages,from the meaning of complex utterances in specific context to that of individual sounds in syllables.As semantics covers all aspects of human language,meaning should be studied by detailed analyses of the way words and sentences

8、are used in specific context.In fact,a number of factors are involved in the use of words.We should approach meaning in relation not only to lexicology,but also to phonology,syntax,pragmatics,sociolinguistics,psycolinguistics,cognitive linguistics and text analysis.Etymology is the study of the whol

9、e history of words.Etymological studies face several difficulties.First,some words are not etymologically related to ancient forms.It is therefore difficult to establish and indicate their origins.Consequently,the forms from which such words are said to derive can only be produced by analogy.Second,

10、while it is possible to specify the exact time when some terms entered the language,it is clearly impossible to say exactly when a form was dropped,since words can disappear from use for various reasons.Third,there can be no true or original meaning,since human language stretches too far back in his

11、tory.When speakers cannot analyze an obscure form,they use folk etymology to replace it with a different form which is morphologically transparent.Example of folk etymology:For the verb depart,its initial use was restricted to wedding ceremonies to mean separate in the expression till death do us de

12、part.Later,the verb became obsolete and was analyzed as do and part,hence the corresponding Modern English expression till death do us part.Lexicography involves the writing and compilation of dictionaries,especially dealing with the principles that underlie the process of compiling and editing dict

13、ionaries.Lexicographical compilation is derived from lexicological theory.Dictionaries are compiled now mainly by lexicographers with linguistic knowledge.People consider lexicography as applied lexicology.What Is a Word?Most fluent speakers of English seem to know what a word is.However,word is use

14、d traditionally to refer to a sequence of letters bounded by spaces.Apart from word,people use the terms vocabulary,lexis,and lexicon,but these terms may be considered“more or less synonymous”.Definition of WordMany people tend to think of the word in visual terms,that is,as a meaningful group of le

15、tters printed or written horizontally across a piece of paper.Linguists have traditionally depended on the written word as primary source material for defining the essential meanings of words.Some linguists insist that the study of spoken word is more important than the study of the written.There ar

16、e three types of definitions.The first type of definition relies mainly on writing traditions that separate by spaces sequences of letters or characters.a new waste paper basketThe second type of definition considers the word as a thought unit or a psychological unit.FarmerRethinkSpoonfulall of a su

17、ddenas usual.The third type of definition relies only on purely formal criteria.A word is viewed as a minimal free form which can occur in isolation.Major Features of Words1.A word is a sound or combination of sounds which we make voluntarily with our vocal equipment.2.A word is symbolic and is used

18、 to stands for something else.3.The word is an uninterruptible unit.4.A word has to do with its function.5.A word may consist of one or more morphemes.6.Words are part of the large communication system we call language.7.A word occurs typically in the structure of phrases.Words in Linguistic Analysi

19、sWords can be an object of linguistic analysis.It can not be studied without reference to phonology,lexicology,morphology,syntax,semantics,sociolinguistics,pragmatics,psycolinguistics,corpus linguistics,and discourse analysis.For instance,in many cases,the difference between two identical lexical it

20、ems can be reduced to a difference at the level of phonology.Compare the pair of words pit and bit.They differ only in one sound unit but the difference has a serious effect at the level of lexicology.The sounds responsible for the difference may occur anywhere in the structure of the word;i.e.at th

21、e initial,medial,or final position.In some cases,the phonological difference does not involve discrete sound units but suprasegmental features such as stress.For example,export(verb),vs.export(noun).We can also understand the relevance of phonology in lexicology from compounds.The process of compoun

22、ding is often viewed as a simple combination of two words.Thus,green and house may be put together to form greenhouse,glass house for growing plants.For greenhouse,the primary stress falls on the first word.Yet,the same items can be put together in the same order to produce green house,a house that

23、is green.In this case,both words receive stress,with the primary stress on the second word.The major difference between the two is a matter of stress,which is a phonological feature.This feature is enough to distinguish compounds from noun phrases containing the same words.Greenhouse is a compound,w

24、hile green house is a phrase.This illustrates clearly the interdependence of phonology,lexicology and syntax.Every word is involved in a network of associations which connect it with other terms in the language.Lecture lectured,lecturing teacher,tutor gardener,laborer clever,harderWord ClassesThe no

25、tion of word class is generally used to account for the structure of the vocabulary as a whole.In traditional grammar,eight parts of speech are distinguished in English:noun,pronoun,adjective,verb,adverb,preposition,conjunction,and interjection.Quirk et al.(1985)distinguish the following:(a)closed c

26、lasses:preposition,pronoun,determiner,conjunction,auxiliary verb;(b)open classes:noun,adjective,verb,adverb;(c)lesser categories:numeral,interjection;(d)a small number of words of unique function:the particle not and the infinitive marker to.Word classes have central and peripheral members and may s

27、ometimes overlap.The boundaries between classes are therefore fuzzy.A word may belong to more than one word class,e.g.round is an adjective in a round stone,a preposition in round the comer,an adverb in they all gathered round,a noun in You can buy the next round,and a verb in when we round the next

28、 bend.Lexical and Grammatical WordsWords can also be classified into lexical words and grammatical words.In most general terms,lexical words are nouns,verbs,adjectives,and adverbs.Classes of lexical words contain hundreds or even thousands of members,and they form open classes.New items can always b

29、e added to the list.Grammatical words are elements like prepositions,demonstrative,pronouns,articles,conjunctions,forms indicating number or tense,and so on.Grammatical words mainly(but not exclusively)signal grammatical information or logical relations in a sentence.Such classes contain relatively

30、few members and the addition of new members is rather rare.Words such as a,with,the,and,to do not automatically suggest any identifiable meaning.They constitute closed classes or closed sets.Distinguishing between lexical and grammatical word is useful.There is no clear-cut dividing line between the

31、 two types of word.For example,a conjunction like though signals a logical relationship and at the same time seems to have descriptive semantic content.Although prepositions may be classed as grammatical words,they are not completely empty of semantic content.The sentence The book is on the table ha

32、s quite a different meaning when on is replaced by under,near,off,etc.Similarly,the coordinators and,or,and but are not mutually interchangeable,because they are not synonymous.Words and Semantic FieldsThe vocabulary of a language is not an unstructured collection of words.A semantic field contains

33、words that belong to a defined area of meaning.Crystal(1995)defines a semantic field as a named area of meaning in which lexemes interrelate and define each other in specific ways.Some attempts have been made to study the structure of some semantic fields,such as the hierarchy of military ranks,nume

34、rals,color and kinship terms.For example,the semantic field of color terms comprises the words:black,white,red,green,yellow,blue,orange,etc.Yet,it is not easy to assign all the words in English to semantic fields.Crystal(1995)classifies the difficulties into three kinds.First,some words tend to belo

35、ng to fields that are vague or difficult to define.For instance,it is not obvious to which field the words cute or difficult should be assigned.Secondly,some may validly be assigned to more than one field,e.g.orange,either to the field of fruit or to that of color.Lastly,it is difficult to find the

36、best way to define a semantic field in relation to the other fields and its constituent words.For example,it is hard to decide whether tractor belongs to the field of agricultural vehicles,land vehicles,or just vehicles.Some lexicologists use componential analysis as a method for establishing semant

37、ic fields.This method suggests that the words in a field share a common semantic component.For instance,the meaning of mare could be said to be composed of the semantic components+equine,+adult,+female.Semantic field analysis has been used to the descriptions of vocabulary in dictionaries.Several at

38、tempts have been made.The first is Rogets Thesaurus.It has a hierarchical organization,and entries are arranged in two columns on the page.Roger divides the vocabulary into several broad classes.Each of these classes is then subdivided into sections.The second is McArthurs Longman Lexicon of Contemp

39、orary English.Words that share the same semantic space are brought together by the semantic field arrangement.McArthur has taken around 15,000 words from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English(1978)and arranged them into fourteen semantic fields.These sub-divisions are further decomposed int

40、o smaller groups of related words.Another attempt is Longman Dictionary of Scientific Usage(1979).It arranges some 10,000 terms from the vocabulary of science into 125 sets according to subject matter(e.g.Crystal Structure,Plant Tissue,Chromatography,Metabolism,Magnetism).A semantic field arrangement can also be found in the Longman Language Activator(1993),a dictionary to enable learners of English to find an appropriate word for a given context.It is arranged around some 1000 Key Words,which represent labels for semantic fields,such as clothes,give,nervous,typical.