词汇学总结

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the studyof the vocabulary of a given language. It deals with words,their origin, development, structure, formation, meaning andusage.

Generally speaking, linguistics can be defined as thescientific study of language. To be more exact, linguisticsstudies the general principles upon which languages areconstructed and operate as systems of human communication

Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for humancommunication.

the definition of a word comprises the following points:Aminimal free form of a language A sound unity A unit ofmeaning A form that can function alone in a sentence

A word is a minimal free form of a language that has a givensound, meaning and syntactic function

What is vocabulary ①The total number of the words in alanguage. ②All the words used in a particular historicalperiod③.All the words of a given dialect, a given book, agiven discipline and the words possessed by an individualperson.

①．5 basic features of the basic word stock All national character 全民性 Stability 稳定性 Productivity 能产性 Polysemy 多义性 Collocability 搭配能力强Non-basic vocabulary includes the following:Terminology 专业术语technical terms （formal）

Jargon 行话specialized vocabulary in certain professions

Slang 俚语substandard words often used in informal occasions(colloquial)

Argot 隐语words used by sub-cultured groups (informal)

Dialectal words 方言词only by speakers of the dialect(informal)

Archaisms 古语词words no longer in common use or restricted(formal)

Neologisms 新词语newly created words with new meaning (formal)②Content words/Notional words/full words/lexical words

Constitute the main body of the English vocabulary, numerousand the number is ever growing

Functional words/ Grammatical wordsConstitute a very smallnumber of the vocabulary; stable

③Native words / Angle-Saxon words Native words are notnative in fact but words brought to Britain in the fifthcentury by the German tribes: the Angles, the Saxons, and theJutes, thus known as Anglo-Saxon words.Native words are smallin number, but form the mainstream of the basic word stock.What is true of the basic word stock is also true of thenative words. Besides they are also (1) neutral in style, (2)frequent in use.

Borrowed words/ loan words / borrowings Denizens 同化词Aliens 非同化词

Translation-loans 译借词Semantic loans 语义借词

Ⅱ。/General Characteristics

1 Receptivity, adaptability and heterogeneity感受性 适应性异质性

2 Simplicity of inflection:简单变形Old English is asynthetic language人工语言

Modern English is an analytic language分析性语言3 Relatively fixed word-order相对固定的词序

Foreign Elements in the English Vocabulary The majorcontributors to English are Latin, Greek, French andScandinavian.

Growth of Contemporary English VocabularyMarked progress of science and technology

Socio-economic, political and cultural changesThe Influence of other cultures and languagesModes of Vocabulary Development

CreationThe formation of new words by using the existingmaterials.

Semantic changeAn old form takes on a new meaning

Borrowing:Borrowed words constitute six to seven percent ofall new words.

Ⅲ。The morpheme is the smallest meaningful linguistic unitof language, not divisible or analyzable into smaller forms.A word is the smallest unit of a language that stands alone tocommunicate meaning.

Words are composed of morphemes.

morphs the phonetic or orthographic strings or segments whichrealize morphemes

Morphs are actual spoken, minimal carriers of meaning.An allomorph is one of the variants of the same morpheme.Classifications of morphemes

1 Free vs. bound morphemes in terms of their capacity ofoccurring alone;

2 Derivational vs. inflectional morphemes applying tosuffixes only;

3 Content / lexical vs. grammatical morpheme

Morphemes which are independent of other morphemes are free.Free morphemes have complete meanings in themselves and canbe used as free grammatical units in sentences.

Morphemes which cannot occur as separate words are bound.They are bound to other morphemes to form words or to performa particular grammatical function.

Free morphemes are all roots /free roots, which are capableof being used as words or as word-building elements to formnew words.

A root is the basic unchangeable part of a word, and itconveys the main lexical meaning of the word.

Bound morphemes consist of either roots (bound roots) oraffixes.

Derivational morphemes are used to derive new words when theyare added to another morpheme. In English derivatives andcompounds are all formed by such morphemes.

派生语素附着于其它语素可派生出新词。英语中派生词和合成词都是由这样的语素构成的。

Inflectional morphemes indicate the syntactic relationshipsbetween words and function as grammatical markers.Inflectional morphemes are confined to suffixes.

屈折语素作为语法标记表示词的语法意义，屈折语素只限于词缀。

Inflectional affixes (or inflectional morphemes) serve toindicate the syntactic relationships between words andfunction as grammatical markers. 表示词的语法意义的是屈折词缀。(-s, -s, -’s, -est, -er, -ing, -ed)

Content morphemes are lexical morphemes which are used as wesee above to derive new words,so also known as derivationalmorphemes.

Grammatical morphemes function primarily as grammaticalmarkers.

How to identify morphemes?

They should be identifiable by their forms, meaning anddistribution.

In word-formation, morphemes are labeled root, stem, baseand affix.

Affixes are forms that are attached to words or word elementsto modify meaning or function. All affixes are boundmorphemes.

词缀都是粘着语素，依附在词根上构成新词或表示词的语法意义。

Derivational affixes can be further divided into prefixes andsuffixes.

A root is the basic form of a word which cannot be furtheranalysed without total loss of identity

A stem is that part of the word-form which remains when allinflectional affixes have been removed.词干是所有屈折词缀被去掉后所剩余的那部分。

A base refers to a form to which affixes of any kind (bothderivational and inflectional) can be added. It can be a rootor a stem.词基是任何一种词缀都可加在上面的形式。

Ⅳ。Affixation is generally defined as the formation of wordsby adding word-forming or derivational affixes to bases.

Prefixation is the formation of new words by adding prefixesto bases.

Suffixation is the formation of new words by adding suffixesto bases.

Classification of prefixes

1. Negative Prefixes否定前缀

2. Reversative or privative prefixes逆反前缀3. Pejorative prefixes贬义前缀

4. Prefixes of degree or size表范围和程度的前缀

5. Prefixes of orientation and attitude表方向和态度

的前缀

6. Locative prefixes方位前缀

7. Prefixes of time and order表时间和顺序的前缀8. Number prefixes数字前缀9. Conversion prefixes转化前缀

10. Miscellaneous prefixes其他类型的前缀

Types of suffixes

Ⅰ.Noun suffixes ①Denominal noun suffixes ②Deverbal nounsuffixes

③De-adjectival noun suffixes④Noun and adjective suffixes

Ⅱ.Adjective suffixes ①denominal suffixes ②deverbal suffixesⅢ.Verb suffixesⅣ.Adverbs suffixes

Characteristics of compounds

①Phonological features②Semantic features

③Grammatical features④Orthographical features

Compounding is the formation of new words by joing two ormore bases.

Solid /hyphenated /open

Formation of Compounds Noun compounds/Adjective compounds/Verbcompounds

Conversion change of word-class; functional shift

derivation process without the addition of an affix;“derivation by zero suffix.Types of Conversion

Conversion to Nouns De-verbal / De-adjectival / Miscellaneousconversion

Conversion to Verbs Denominal / De-adjectival / Miscellaneousconversion:

Conversion to Adjectives

Blending is the formation of new words by combining parts oftwo words or a word plus a part of another word.

Clipping It is the formation of new words by cutting a part

off the original and using what remains instead. Front / Back/ Front and back clipping / Phrase clipping

Acronymy is the process of forming new words by joining theinitial letters of composite names of social and politicalorganizations or phrases used as technical terms.

Two types of acronyms depending on the pronunciation of thewords

initialisms首字母缩略词 BBC acronyms 首字母拼音词UNESCO

3 kinds of acronyms:Pure acronyms 纯粹的首字母拼音词Hybridacronyms混合的首字母拼音词Syllabic acronyms,音节首字母拼音词Back-formation is considered to be the opposite process ofsuffixation

1) Abstract nouns抽象名词 2) Agential nouns代理人名词

3) Compound nouns and others复合名词和其他 babysit 4)Adjectives形容词 drowse, lazeSound reduplication

The formation of compound words by repeating the same elementwith little or no change.

Commonization of proper nouns 专用名词普通化Names of people人名Names of places地名Names of books书名Tradenames商品名称

Ⅴ。Different conceptions of meaning

The naming theory（命名说） is one of the oldest notions concerning meaning. According to this theory, the linguistic forms or symbols, in other words, the words used in a

language, are simply labels of the objects they stand for. Sowords are just names or labels for things.

Contextualism（语境论）holds the position that meaning should be studied in terms of situation, use, and context. According to this view, one can derive meaning from Contextualism（Situational context / Linguistic context）

Behaviorism meaning as speaker’s Stimulus and hearer’sResponse意义就是讲话人的刺激和听话人的反应。

According to the conceptualist view(概念论), there is nodirect link between a linguistic form [a word, a phrase or asentence] and what it refers to.

What is ‘word meaning’? ‘Meaning’ is what the form standsfor.

What is reference所指关系?

It is the relationship between language and the world.所指是语言与客观外界之间的相互关系。

By means of reference, a speaker indicates which things in theworld (including persons) are being talked about.通过这种相互关系，说话人指称外界的事物或人。

Concept is the result of human cognition, reflecting theobjective world in the human mind. Concept is beyond language.The meaning of meaning is perhaps what is termed sense.

The sense of an expression is its place in a system ofsemantic relationships with other expressions in the language.It is the meaning of “meaning”.

词语的意义是它在语义关系系统中同其它词语相对的位置。

What is motivation理据? It refers to the connection betweenthe linguistic symbol and its meaning.理据解释语言符号与意义之间的关系。

Types of motivation

Onomatopoeic motivation 象声动机Morphological motivation词素动机

Semantic motivation 语义动机 Etymological motivation词源动机

Types of meaning

Types ofMeaningGrammaticalMeaning语法意义

LexicalMeaning词汇意义Conceptual

Meaning概念意义AssociativeMeaning联想意义

ConnotativeMeaning内涵意义AffectiveMeaning情感意义CollocativeMeaning搭配意义StylisticMeaning文体意义

What is componential analysis?

The analysis of word meanings/componential analysis is oftenseen as a process of breaking down the sense of a word intoits minimal components, which are known as semantic features语义特征or sense components语义成分. Componential analysis is on the basis of semantic contrast.Ⅵ。

Polysemy 一词多义关系

Diachronic approach历时研究方法It is assumed to be theresult of growth and development of the semantic structureof one and same word.一词多义是同一个词的语义结构历史发展的结果。

Synchronically, polysemy is viewed as the coexistence ofvarious meanings of the same word in a historical period oftime. 从共时的角度看，在同一个历史时期，同一个词可以拥有许多不同的意义。

Two processes of development 1) Radiation辐射型2)Concatenation连锁型

Homonymy 同形同音异义关系

Perfect/absolute homonyms完全同形同音异义词Homographs同形异义词 Homophones同音异义词Synonymy 同义关系

Absolute synonyms绝对同义词Relative synonyms相对同义词Discrimination of synonyms同义词的区别

Difference in range and intensity of meaning语义范围与强度的不同

Difference in stylistic features Difference in emotivecolouring Difference in applicationAntonymy 反义关系

Complementaries 互补反义词Contraries 相对反义词Converses 逆反反义词

Hyponymy 上下义关系

Hyponymy is the sense relationship that relates words

hierarchically. The underlying observation is that some words have a more general meaning, while others have a more specific

meaning, while referring to the same entity.Semantic Field 语义场

is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as a systemof interrelated lexical networks.