英语词汇学笔记.doc

English Lexicology(英语词汇学)Lexicology: is a branch of linguistics, inquiring into the origins and meanings of words.The Nature and Scope of English lexicology：English lexicology aims at investigating and studying the morphological structures of English words and word equivalents, their semantic structures, relations, historical development, formation and usages.The subjects that English Lexicology correlated with and extent to：English Lexicology is correlated with such linguistic disciplines as morphology(形态学), semantics(语义学), etymology(词源学),stylistics（文体论） and lexicography(词典学)The reason for a student to study English lexicology：According to the textbook, English Lexicology will definitely be beneficial for students of English.A good knowledge of morphological structures of English words and rules of word-formation will help learners develop their personal vocabulary and consciously increase their word power. The information of the historical development and the principles of classification will give them a deeper understanding of word-meaning and enable them to organize, classify and store words more effectively. The understanding and their sense relations will gradually raise their awareness of meaning and usage, and enable them use words more accurately and appropriately. A working knowledge of dictionaries will improve their skills of using reference books and raise their problem-solving ability and efficiency of individual study.Chapter 1-Basic concepts of words and vocabularyWord: A word is a minimal free form of a language that has a given sound and meaning and syntactic function. (1)a minimal free form of a language (2)a sound unity (3)a unit of meaning (4)a form that can function alone in a sentencesound and meaning: almost arbitrary, “no logical relationship between the sound which stands for a thing or an idea and the actual thing and idea itself”sound and form: the sound should be similar to the formVocabulary: all the words in a language make up its vocabularyThe 3 Stages of Development of E Vocabulary: Old English vocabulary, Middle EV, Modern EVClassification of English Words According to Different CriteriaThe basic word stock: is the foundation of the vocabulary accumulated over centuries and forms the common core of the language. Though it constitute a small percentage of the EV, it is the most important part of vocabulary.The Fundamental Features of the Basic Word Stock:1)All-National character（全民通用性most important） 2)Stability（相对稳定性） 3)Productivity（多产性） 4)Polysemy（多义性） 5)Collocability（可搭配性）words:(1)Terminology(术语) (2)Jargon（行话） (3)slang（俚语） (4)Argot（暗语） （5）Dialectal words(方言) (6) Archaisms（古语） (7) Neologisms（新词语）:Neologisms means newly-created words or expressions, or words that have taken on new meanings.(email)Content words (cloud, run walk, never, five, frequently) and functional words (on, of, and, be, but)Native Words and Loan WordsNative words: known as Anglo-Saxon words (50,000-60,000), are words brought to Britain in the 5th century by the Germanic tribes. (mainstream of the basic word-stocks)Loan words: words taken over from foreign languages.(80% of modern EV)4 Types of loan words: 1) denizens(同化词) (shirt from skyrta(ON)2) aliens（外来词）:are borrowed words which have retained their original pronunciation and spelling (kowtow (CH)磕头)3) translation loans(译借词):按其他语言方式组成英语 long time no see from China4) semantic loans（借义词）：their meanings are borrowedChapter 2 the development of the English VocabularyThe Indo-European Language Family The Eight Groups in Indo-European Family of LanguagesThe Balto-slavic Group（波罗的-斯拉夫语族）：Latvian,Russian,Bugarian,Polish,Czech etc.The Indo-Iranian Group（印度-伊朗语族）：Sanskrit,Hindi,Urdu,Bengali,Persian etc.The Armenian Group（亚美尼亚语族）：Armenian.The Albanian Group（阿尔巴尼亚语族）：Albanian.The Hellenic Group（古希腊语族）：Greek.The Italian Group（意大利语族）：Latin,Romance languages(French,Italian,Spanish, portuguess,Romanian) etc.The Celtic Group（凯尔特语族）：Gaelic,Welsh,Breton etc.The Germanic Group（日耳曼语族）：Englsih,German,Dutch,Scandinavian(Norweigian, Swedish,Danish,Icelandic) etc.The Three Stages of Development of the English Vocabulary1 Old English Period or The Anglo-Saxon Period (450-1100) (vocabulary 50,000 to 60,000)2 Middle English Period (1150-1500)3 Modern English Period (1500-now): in fact more than 25% of modern E words come almost directly from classical languages. In Modern E, words endings were mostly lostModes of V Development(Modern E): 1)creation 2)semantic change 3) borrowingChapter 3 Word Formation IMorpheme(语素):the minimal meaningful unit(the smallest functioning unit in the composition of words)Allomorph(语素变体): is a different variant form of a morpheme，differ in phonological and spelling form, but at the same in function and meaningType of MorphemeFree Morpheme: A free morpheme is one that can stand by itself. (independent)Bound Morpheme(粘着语素): A bound morpheme is one that cannot stand by itself.Bound Morpheme includes two types: (1) bound root (2)Affix(词缀)1)Inflectional affixes (屈折词缀)(inflectional morphemes):affixes attached to the end of words to indicate grammatical relationships are inflectional2)Derivational affixes(派生词缀) A) prefix: A prefix comes before words. B)suffixAn adjective suffix（形容词后缀） that is added to the stem, whatever classis belongs to , the result will be an adjective.free=free root（自由词根）Morpheme(词素) Bound root prefix bound derivational affix suffix inflectionalRoot and stem（词根和词干）1) Root 2) StemThe differences between root and stem:A root is the basic form of a word which cannot be further analyzed without total loss of identity. A stem is the surplus part after the cutting of inflectional morpheme in a word with inflectional morphemes,can be further analyzed, it sometimes could be a root.Individualistic UndesirablesIndividualist (stem) undesirable (stem)Individual (stem) desirable (stem)dividual (stem) desire (root, stem)divide(root, stem)Chapter 4 Word-Formation IIAffixation词缀法（Derivation派生法）：adding word-formation or derivational affixes to stem.Prefixation前缀：Its the formation of new words by adding a prefixes to stems.1)表示否定nagative prefixes: un-,non,in-,dis,a- etc.2)reversative or privative prefixes: un-,de-dis etc.3)表示贬义pejorative prefixes: mis-, mal-, pseudo- etc.4)表示程度degree or size prefixes: arch-, super-,out-,sub-,over-,under-,hyper-,ultra-,mini- etc.5)表示方向、态度orientation & attitude prefixes:counter-,contra-,anti-,pro- etc.6)locative prefixes:super-,sub-,inter-,trans- etc.7)表示时间、次序time and order prefixes:fore-,pre-,post-,ex-,re- etc.8)表示数量number prefixes:uni-/mono-,bi-/di-,tri-,multi-/poly- etc.9)混杂miscellaneous prefixes：auto-, neo-, pan-, vice-Suffixation后缀: Its the formation of a new word by adding suffixes to stems. 1)noun suffixes 2)adjective suffixes 3)Adverb suffixes 4)verb suffixesCompounding复合法 （also called composition）Compounding: is the formation of new words by joining two or more stems Compounds are written in three ways: solid(airmail) hyphenated(air-conditioning) open(air force, air raid)Formation of compoundsnoun compounds e.g. : air + plane = airplane,flower + pot = flower potadjective compounds e.g. acid + head = acid-headverb compounds e.g. house + keep = housekeepConversion转类法Conversion: is the formation of new words by converting words of one class to another class.Blending混成法Blending is the formation of new words by combining parts of two words or a word plus a part of another word e.g: motor + hotel = motel, smoke + fog = smog, formula + translation = FORTRANClipping截缩法Clipping: to shorten a longer word by cutting a part off the original and using what remains instead. e.g. plane from airplane, phone from telephone. 1).Front clippings (phone from telephone) 2).Back clippings (dorm from dormitory)3).Front and back clippings (flu from influenza) 4).Phrase clippings (pop from popular music) Acronymy首字母缩写法Acronymy:is the process of forming new words by joining the initial letters of names of social and political organizations or special noun phrases and technical terms.Initialism首字母缩写词法: initialisms are pronounced letter by letter. e.g.: BBC(for British Broadcasting corporation)Acronym首字母拼读词法:Acronyms are words formed from initial letters but pronounced as a normal word.Back-formation（逆生法，逆构词）Back-formation is considered to be the opposite process of suffixation.(greed from greedy)Words From Proper Name专有名词转成法Names of people, places, book, and trade names (e.g.: sir watt siemens(人名) - watt（瓦特，电功率单位）Chapter 5 Word Meaning The meanings of “Meaning” Reference(所指):It is the relationship between language and the word. It is the arbitrary and conventional. It is a kind of abstraction, yet with the help of context, it can refer to something specific.Concept（概念）:It is beyond language is the result of human cognition(认识),reflecting the objective world in the human mind. Sense（意义）:It denotes the relationship inside the language. The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expressions in the language.Motivation(理据)：It accounts for the connection between the linguistic symbol and its meaning.1) Onomatopoeic motivation（拟声理据） 2)Morphological motivation （形态理据）3)Semantic motivation（词义理据） 4)Etymological motivation （词源理据）Types of meaningGrammatical Meaning（语法意义）:indicate the grammatical concept(become important only in actual context)Lexical Meaning （词汇意义）Lexical meaning and grammatical meaning make up the word-meaningLexical meaning has 2 components: Conceptual meaning(概念意义) and associative meaning(关联意义)Conceptual meaning(概念意义): also known as denotative meaning(外延意义)Associative meaning(关联意义):connotative隐含意义,Stylistic风格意义,Affective感情意义, Collocative搭配意义Chapter 6 -Sense relation and semantic field （语义关系和语义场）Polysemy（多义关系）Two approached to polysemy: diachronic approach(历时方法) synchronic approach (共时方法)Two processed of development: radiation （辐射型）and concatenation （连锁型）Homonymy（同形/同音异义关系）It refers words different in meaning but either identical both in sound and spelling or identical only in sound or spelling. Types of homonyms1）Perfect homonyms（完全同音同形异义词）2）Homophones（同音异义词）3)Homographs（同形异义词）Origins of homonyms 1）change in sound and spelling 2）borrowing 3）Shortening(缩略)The differences between polysemes（多义词） and homonyms（同音同形异义词） ).1)Homonymy refer to different words which happen to share the same form and polysemy are the one and same word which has sevral distinguishable meaning.2)Homonymy are from different sources. Polysemy are from the same source.3)The various meanings of polysemy are correlated and connected to one central meaning.Meanings of different homonymy have nothing to do with one another.values: Polysemic and homonymous word are stlyistically useful to achieve humour or irony（反话，讽刺）,or to heighten（提高） dramatic effect.Synonymy (同义关系):one of two or more words in the English language which have the same or very nearly the same essential meaning : absolute synonyms and relative synonymsSources of synonyms(同义词) are : 1)Borrowing 2)Dialects and regional English 3)Figurative and euphemistic use of words 4)Coincidence with idiomatic expressionsAntonymy (反义关系) It is concerned with semantic opposition. Antonyms can be defined as words which are opposite in meaning.1)contradictory terms (矛盾反义词):these antonyms truly represent oppositeness of meaning, such antonyms are non-gradable. They cannot be used in comparative degrees. (single/married)2)contrary terms （对立反义词）:antonyms of this type are best viewed in terms of a scale running between two poles or extremes.(old/young)3)relative terms（关系反义词）：（parent/child）sell/buySome of the characteristics of antonyms反义关系的特点1)antonyms are classified on the basis of semantic opposition2)a word which has more than one meaning can have more than one antonym3)antonyms differ in semantic inclusion4)contrary terms are gradable antonymsThe uses of antonymsTo express economically the opposite of a particular thought for the sake of contrast.(idiom:now and never)To form anithesis(对比法) to achieve emphasis by putting contrasting idea together.(proverbs and sayings:easy come , easy go)Hyponymy(上下义关系)Hyponymy deals with the relationship of semantic inclusion. The meaning of a more specific word is included in that of another more general word. For example, a cat is hyponym of animalSuperordinate and Subordinate (118)Semantic Field(词义场)Viewing the total meaning in this way is the basis of field theorye.g.(apple, pear, peach,date,mango,orange,lemon, etc. make up the semantic field of fruits)The semantic field of the same concept may not have the same members in different language.e.g.(aunt in English, may means “父亲的姐姐， 妈妈的姐姐，父亲哥哥的妻子” in Chinese.(122)Chapter 6 Changes in Word Meaning词义的演变Vocabulary is the most unstable element of a language as it is undergoing constant changes both in form and content. Comparatively the content is even more unstable than the form.Types of Changes 词义变化的种类（extension,narrowing,degradation,elevation and transfer）Extension or generalization词义的扩大:is the name given to the widening of meaning which some words panion (old)one who shares bread (ex)a companyNarrowing or specialization词义的缩小：is the opposite of widening meaning. When a common words is turned into a proper noun, the meaning is narrowed. meat (old)food (na)flesh of animalsElevation or amelioration of meaning词义的升华: the process by which words rise from humble（粗陋的） beginnings to positions of importance. knight (old)servant (el)rank below baronet从男爵Degeneration or pejoration词义的贬降:A process whereby words of good origin fall into ill reputation or no-affective words come to used in derogatory sense.silly (old)happy (de)foolish Transfer词义的转移:Words which were used to designate指明 one thing but later changed to mean something else have experienced the process of semantic transfer.（140）Causes of Semantic Change词义变化的原因Extra-linguistic factors 1411 Historical reason 2 Class reason (elevation or degradation) 3 Psychological reasonLinguistic factors：the change of meaning may be caused by internal factors with in the language system.Chapter 8 Meaning and Context 意义和语境Context in its traditional sense refers to the lexical items that precede or follow a given word. Modern linguists have broadened its scope to include both linguistic and extra-linguistic contexts.Two types of contextLinguistic context：It refers to the words,clauses,sentences in which a word appears. It may cover a paragraph,a whole chapter and even the entire book.1) Lexical context：It refers to the word that occurs together with the word in question.2) Grammatical context：It refers the situation when the meaning of a word may be influenced by the structure in which it occurs.Extra-linguistic context：In a broad sense,it includes the physical situaion as well.it embraces the people, time, place, and even the whole cultural background.The role of context语境的作用Elimination of ambiguity消除歧义1）Ambiguity due to polysemy or homonymy.2）Grammatical structure can also lead to ambiguityIndication of referents限定所指Provision of clues for inferring word meaning 提供线索以猜测词义Chapter 9 English Idioms 英语习语Idioms: are expressions that are not readily understandable from their literal meaning of individual elements. In a broad sense, idiom may include colloquialisms（俗语）, Catchphrases（标语）,slang expressions （俚语）,proverbs（谚语）,etc.They form an important part of the English vocabulary.Characteristics of IdiomsSemantic unity 语意的整体性 words in the idiom they have lost their individual identityStructural stability结构的稳定性: the constituents要素of idioms cannot be replaced, inverted or changed, deleted or added to, not even an article.The fixity of idiom depends on the idiomaticity.习语性表达习惯Classification of Idioms1 idioms nominal in nature 名词性习语 (white elephant累赘物)2 idioms adjectival in nature形容词性习语 （as poor as a church mouse）3 idioms verbal in nature 动词性习语 （look into）4 idioms adverbial in nature副词性习语 （tooth and nail 拼命）5 sentence idioms 句式习语 （never do things by halves）Use of idioms:习语的使用 （stylistic features, rhetoric features and their occasional variations）Stylistic features 文体色彩colloquialisms（俗语）, slang 俚语,literary expressionsThe same idiom may show stylistic differences when it is assigned（指派）different meaningRhetorical features 修辞色彩 (phonetic manipulation 语音处理，lexical manipulation and figures of speech)phonetic manipulation 语音处理 : alliteration头韵、 rhyme押韵lexical manipulation：reiteration（duplication of synonyms同义字重复） scream and shoutrepetition out and out、juxtaposition (of antonyms)反义词并列 here and therefigures of speech : Simile（明喻）、Metaphor（隐喻）、Metonymy（换喻）、synecdoche(提喻)、Personification（拟人法）、 Euphemism（委婉词）Variations of idioms习语的变异形式：addition,deletion,replacement,postion-shifting,dismembering(分解)179Chapter 10 English Dictionaries 英语字典Dictionary: presents in alphabetical order the words of English, with information as to their spelling ,pronunciation, meaning, usage , rules and grammar, and in some, their etymology（语源）Types of dictiona