2024年1月6日发(作者：)

★1. Lexicology is the study of the structures, origins, meanings and usages of words.

★2. A word is a minimal free form of a language that has a given sound and meaning and

syntactic function.

★3. Vocabulary

refers to the total number of the words in a language. It also stands for all

the words used in a particular historical period, of a given dialect or discipline, or possessed by a

person.

4. Classification of Words:

（1）by use frequency :A .Basic Word Stock(基本词汇)

B. Nonbasic Vocabulary（非基本词汇）:Terminology 术语/ Jargon

行话/ slang 俚语 / argot黑话/ Dialectal words 方言词 /

Archaism 古语词 / Neologism 新词

（2）by notion: Content words and functional words 实义词与功能词

（3）by origin: Native words and borrowed words 本族词与外来词

5.

Indo-European Language Family(印欧语系):

Language and Language Families

语言和语系

• Number of languages in the world:

3000-5000

• Number of language families in the world:

300

• Basis for language family grouping:

Similarities in the basic word stock and grammar of the languages

The Indo-European, one of these, is made up of most languages of Europe, the Near East, and

India. (English belongs to Germanic , a Western set )

1）Eastern Set（ 东部诸语族）：Albanian （阿尔巴尼亚语族）、Balto-Slavic （波罗的海-斯拉夫语族）、Amenian （亚美尼亚语族）、Indu-Iranian （印度-伊朗语族）

2）Western Set （西部诸语族）：Germanic （日耳曼语族）、Celtic （凯尔特语族）、Hellenic

（古希腊语族）、Italic （意大利语族）

6. Three periods of the English language:

1) Old English (450AD—1150AD) when the first Germanic tribes began to settle in

England.

a. Anglo-Saxon—the Germanic tribes

b. Latin –introduction of Christianity at the end of the 6th century.

c. Scandinavian –Norwegian and Danish vikings

d. 5000-6000 words; highly inflected

2) Middle English (1150—1500) during the Norman Conquest.

3)

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a. French influence Norman Conquest 1066

b. 9000 French words continually flowed into English

c. Dutch words entered English with the trade relation.

d. English regained position of importance

–Wycliff translation of the Bible (威克利夫)

–Writings of Chaucer and Langland (乔叟、朗兰)

–English gradually came back to schools

Midland is the chief ancestor of Modern English.

Modern English (1500— ):

Early Modern English (1500-1700) 早期现代英语

The Renaissance 文艺复兴—a new upsurge of learning ancient Greek and Roman

classics

1500-1700– over 10,000 new words entered English.

The Bourgeois Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, colonization– absorb words from

all major languages in the world

Late Modern English (1700-up to now) 后期现代英语

World wars

Advances in science and technology

Thousands and thousands of new words have been created through borrowing and

word-formation

• New words in all walks of life: politics, economy, commerce, culture, entertainment,

education, sports, transportation, mass media

• From synthetic language to analytic language

7. Modes of Vocabulary Development 词汇的发展方式

• Creation 创词– formation of new words by using existing materials such as roots,

affixes and other elements.

• Semantic changes 旧词新义– an old form which takes on a new meaning to meet

the new need.

• Borrowing借词—absorbing words from foreign languages

★me (词素)

1) The minimal meaningful units of language are known as morphemes. 语言的最小意义单位称为词素。

2) The morpheme is “the smallest functioning unit in the composition of words.” (D.

Crystal 1985) 词素是 ―构词中最小的功能单位。

3)Free morphemes 自由词素:⊙Free morphemes have complete meanings in themselves and can be used as free

grammatical units in sentences.

⊙They are identical with root words.

⊙Examples: man, earth, wind, car, anger.

4)Bound morphemes 粘着词素:bound root + affixes

Bound morphemes cannot occur as separate words but have to combine with other

morphemes to form words.

5)Derivational and Inflectional Affixes 派生词缀和屈折词缀

⊙Derivational affixes—they are conjoined to other morphemes new words.

⊙Inflectional morphemes— they are attached to the end of words to indicate

grammatical relationship.(P.47)

⊙Modern English is an analytic language, which has only a few inflectional affixes.

Morphemes：1) free---free root

2) bound--- bound root

affixes---derivation (prefix suffix), inflectional

, stem 词根、词干

1) A root is the basic form of a word which cannot be further analyzed without total loss

of identity.

2) A stem is a form to which an inflectional morpheme can be added.

10.

word formation

1）Affixation（词缀法）is generally defined as the formation of words by adding

word-forming or derivational affixes to stems.

① Prefixation 前缀法 ：The formation of words by adding prefixes to stems.

types of prefixes---a. Negative prefixes 否定前缀(a, dis, in, non, un)

b. Pejorative prefixes 表示贬义的前缀 (mal, mis, pseudo)

c. class-changing prefixes 改变词性的前缀 （a, en, un, be）

② suffixation(后缀法) is the formation of new words by adding suffixes to stems

The primary function of suffixes is to change the grammatical function of stems.

Types of suffixes: Adjective suffixes 形容词后缀、 Adverb suffixes 副词后缀、Verb suffixes 动词后缀、 noun suffixes 名词后缀

2)Compounding（复合法）：

Compounding refers to the formation of new words by joining two or more bases.

复合法指由两个或更多的词基相结合而构成新词。

Formation of compounds:

1. Noun compounds 名词复合词

2. Adjective compounds 形容词复合词

3. Verb compounds 动词复合词

4. Preposition compounds

5. Conjunction compounds

6. Pronoun compounds

Characteristics of Compounds (复合词的特点):

⒈Phonetic features: stress usually occurs on the first element.

⒉Semantic features: express a single idea. Meanings of some compounds

cannot be easily inferred from the components; the meanings can be inferred

from the separate elements of compounds, but the elements are inseparable.

⒊Grammatical features: a compound tends to play a single grammatical role

in a sentence. A verb compound can take 3rd person singular or past tense

mark; in adjective-noun compounds, the adjective element cannot take

inflectional suffixes

3)Conversion（转类法）: refers to the formation of new words by converting words of

one class to another class. (zero-derivation 零派生,

functional shift 功能转换)

Conversion is a method of turning words of one part of speech to those of a different part

of speech.

Types :

1. Conversion to nouns

al: nouns converted from verbs

-adjectival (adjective to noun):Partial conversion (部分转换)

Full Conversion（完全转换）

laneous Conversion

2. Conversion to verbs

2.1 Noun to verb: denominal

2.2 Adjective to verb: de-adjectival

2.3 Miscellaneous conversion

3. Conversion to adjectives

4)Commonization of Proper nouns（专有名词）

5)Blending（拼缀法）:The method of forming a word by combining parts of other words

Four structural types of Blending: head+tail

head+head

head+word

word+tail

Blends are mostly used in: Slang or make-shift words

Words for science and technology

Words used in mass media

6)Clipping （截短法）

7)Backformation（逆构法）

8)Archonymy (initialism) （首字母拼写法）

tion (词的理据)

★Motivation accounts for the connection between linguistic symbol and its meaning.

The meanings of “meaning”:

• Reference 指称义: relationship between language and the world.

• Concept 概念(the result in human cognition, reflecting the objective world in the human

mind)

• Sense 涵义: 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.‖

★4 types: 1) Onomatopoeic motivation 拟声理据

The sounds of some words suggest the meanings, for these words were created by

imitating natural sounds.

2)Morphological motivation 形态理据

Morphological motivation concerns the words whose structures, that is,

composing elements, suggest their meaning.

3)Semantic motivation 语义理据 (figurative sense)

【Metaphor、Synecdoche 提喻、Metonymy 借代、Analogy 类比 、Color analogy

色彩类比、Number analogy数字类比、Space analogy 地点空间类比、反义类比、Analogy 近似类比】

Semantic motivation refers to the mental associations suggested by the conceptual

meaning of a word. It explains the connection between the literal sense and

figurative sense of the word.

4)Etymological motivation 词源理据

By etymological motivation, we mean that the meaning of a particular word is

related to its origin.

12. Sense relations:

1）Polysemy (一词多义)：is a common feature peculiar to all natural languages.

Two Approaches to Polysemy （多义关系的两种研究方法）：

• Diachronic approach 历时方法

– From the diachronic point of view, polysemy is assumed to be the result of

growth and development of the semantic structure of one and same word.

• Synchronic approach 共时方法

– Synchronically, polysemy is viewed as the coexistence of various meanings of

the same word in the same historic period of time.

Two Processes of Development （词义发展的两种模式）：

①Radiation（词义的辐射）： Radiation is a semantic process in which the primary

meaning stands at the center and the secondary

meanings proceed out of it in every direction like

rays

②Concatenation（连锁联接）：A semantic process where each of the later meaning is

related to the proceeding one like chains.

2）Homonymy(同形异义关系)

3）Synonymy(同义关系)

4）Antonymy (反义关系)

5）Hyponymy(上下义关系)

★13. Changes of word meaning

1）Widening(extension) 词义的扩大: refers to the process by which a word originally had a

specialized meaning has now become generalized.

2）Narrowing 词义的缩小：is a process by which a word of wide meaning acquires a narrower or

specialized sense.

3）Elevation 词义的升格：refers to the process by which words rise from humble beginnings to

positions of importance.

4）Degradation 词义的降格：is a process whereby words of good origin fall into ill reputation or

non-affective words come to be used in derogatory sense

5）Transfer 词义的转移：Words which were used to designate one thing later changed to mean

something else.

★14. context:

refers to the words, clauses, sentences in which a word appears, and in a

broad sense, it includes the physical situation as well.

1) Linguistic Context (语言语境):refers to the words, clauses and sentences in which a word

appears. It may cover a paragraph, a whole chapter and even the entire book.

a. Lexical Context (词汇语境)

b. Grammatical Context（语法语境/结构语境）

2)Extra-linguistic Context (非语言语境):refers to the physical situation in which a word appears,

including people, time, place, even the whole cultural background.

of context(语境的作用):

• Elimination of ambiguity

– 消除歧义

• Indication of referents

– 限定所指

• Provision of clues for inferring word-meaning

– 提供线索以推测词义