自考本科《英语词汇学》复习资料

自考本科《英语词汇学》复习资料
这是自考英语本科《英语词汇学这一课》的复习资料，希望对大家的自考都有帮助。

第一章
1. Word —— A word is a minimal free form of a language that has a given sound and meaning and syntactic function.
2. There is no logical relationship between sound and meaning as the symbolic connection between them is arbitrary and conventional. E.g. “woman” means ’Frau’ in German，’Femme’ in French and ’Funv ’in Chinese. On the other hand，the same sound /rait/ can mean right，rite and write，though denoting different things，yet have the same sound.
3. The difference between sound and form result from 4 major factors.
（At least 80%of the English words fit consistent spelling patterns）
a）. the internal reason is English alphabet does not have a separate letter to represent each sound in the language.
b）. Pronunciation has changed more rapidly than spelling
c）. Influence of the work of scribes/printing freezes the spelling of words in 1500
d）. Borrowing of foreign language
4. Vocabulary ——Vocabulary is most commonly used to refer to the sum total of all the words of a language. It can also refer to all the words of a given dialect， a given book， a given subject and all the words possessed by an individual person as well as all the words current in a particular period of time in history.
The general estimate of the present day English vocabulary is over 1 million words.
5.Classification of Words—by use frequency，by notion，by origin
1）. Basic word stock – the foundation of the vocabulary.
1. all national character （most important）–natural phenomena
most common things and phenomena of the human body and relations
world around us names of plants and animals
action， size， domain， state
numerals， pronouns， prep. ，conj.
2. stability – they donate the commonest thing necessary to life， they are like to remain unchanged. Only relative， some are undergoing some changes. But the change is slow.
e.g. arrow， bow， chariot， knight – past
electricity， machine， car， plane —— now
3. productivity – they are mostly root words or monosyllabic words， they can form new words with other roots and affixes.
e.g. foot – football， footage， footpath， footer
4. polysemy –often possess more than one meaning. Become polysemous.
e.g. take to move or carry from one place to another
to remove
5. collocability –quite a number of set expressions，idiomatic usages， proverbial saying and others
e.g. heart – a change of heart， a heart of gold
Non-basic vocabulary ——
1. terminology – technical terms
photoscanning， hepatitis， indigestion， penic
illin， algebra， trigonometry， calculus
2. jargon – specialized vocabulary in certain professions.
Bottom line， ballpark figures， bargaining chips， hold him back， hold him in， paranoid
3. slang ——substandard words often used in informal occasions
dough and bread， grass and pot， beaver， smoky， bear，catch， holler， Roger， X-rays，
Certain words are labeled slang because of their usage.
4. argot – words used by sub-cultured groups
can-opener， dip， persuader
cant，jargon ，argot are associated with，or most available to， specific groups of the population.
5. dialectal words – only by speakers of the dialect
beauty，chook，cocky，station，auld，build，coo，hame， lough， bog
6. archaisms – words no longer in common use or restricted
in use. In older poems， legal document and religious writing or speech.
7. neologism – newly created words with new meaning e.g. microelectronics， futurology， AIDS， internet， E-mail
old meaning acquired new meaning e.g. mouse， monitor
2）. Content word （notional word）– denote clear notions.
Functional word （empty word， form word）– do not have notions of their own，express the relation between notions，words and sentences.
a. Content words constitute the main body of the English vocabulary are numerous.
Functional words are in a small number.
b. Content words are growing.
Functional words remain stable.
c. Functional words do far more work of expression than content words.
3）. Native words – are words brought to Britain in the 15 century by the German tribes. Ango-Saxon Words， 50，000-60，000
What is true of the basic word stock is also true of native
world. More are
1. neutral in style （not stylistical specific ）
2. 2.frequent in use （in academic fields and science French，Latin or Greek are used）（usage 70-90%）
Borrowed words （loan words， borrowing）– words taken over from foreign language. 80%
According to the degree of assimilation and manner of borrowing， we can bring the loan words under 4 classes.
1.Denizens –words borrowed early and now are well assimilated into English language.
e.g. port from portus（L） shift， change， shirt， pork
cup from cuppa（L）
2.Aliens – retained their original pronunciation and spelling
e.g. décor（F） blitzkreeg（G） emir， intermez， rowtow，bazaar， rajar， status quo
3.translation loans – formed from the existing material in the English language but modeled on the patterns taken from another language.
1）. Word translated according to the meaning
e.g. mother tough from lingua maternal（L）
black humor from humor n
oir
long time no see， surplus value， master piece
2）. Words translated according to the sound
e.g. kulak from kyrak（Russ）
lama from lama（Tib）
ketchup
tea
4. Semantic loans –their meaning are borrowed from another language
e.g. stupid old dump
new sassy
dream old joy and peace
pioneer old explorer/person doing pioneering work
new a member of the young pioneer
fresh old impertinent， sassy， cheeky
第二章
Indo-European language family （Europe， the Near East，India）
Balto –Slavic Indo-Iranian Italic Germanic
Prussian Persian Portuguese Norwegian
Lithuanian Hindi Spanish Icelandie
Polish Italian Danish
Bulgarian Roumanian Swedish
Slovenian French English
Russian German
Albanian Armenian Celtic Hellenic
Irish Greek
Breton
Scottish
2. History （时间，历史事件，特征）
1）Old English （450-1150）totally 50，000-60，000 words
The 1st people known to inhabit England were Celts， the language was Celtic.
The second language was the Latin of the Roman Legions.
The Germanic tribes called angles，Saxons and Jutes and their language，Anglo-Saxon dominated and blotted out the Celtic. Now people refer to Anglo-Saxon as old English.
At the end of 6th century， the introduction of Christianity has a great impact on the English vocabulary.
The common practice was to create new words by combining two native words.
In the 9th century，many Scandinavian words came into English. At least 900 words of Scandinavian are in modern English，our daily life and speech.
特点： highly inflected language
complex endings or vowel changes （full ending）
2） Middle English （1150-1500） English， Latin， French
Until 1066，although there were borrowings from Latin，the influence on English was mainly Germanic. But the Norman Conquest started a continual flow of French words into English.
By the end of the 13th century，English gradually come back into public areas.
Between 1250 and 150 about 9000 words of French origin come into English. 75% of them are till in use today.
As many as 2500 words of Dutch origin come into English.
特点： fewer inflections
leveled ending
3）Modern English （1500-up to now）early modern English （1500-1700）
late modern English（1700-up to now）
The Renaissance， Latin and Greek were recognized as the languages of the We stern world’s great literary heritage.
The Industrial Revolution was in the mid-17 century. With the growth of colonization， British tentacles began a stretching out of to every corner of the globe， thus enabling English to absorb words from all major languages of the world.
After World War II， many new words have been created to express new ideas， inventions and scientific achievements.
More words are created by means of word-formation.
thousands and thousands of new words have been entered to express new ideas inventions， and scientific achievements.
more words are created by means of word-formation.
in modern English， word endings were mostly lost with just a few exceptions English has evolved from a synthetic language to the present analytic language.
science and technology terms make up about 45% of new words. words associated with life-style constitute of 24% and social and economic terms amount to over 10% .
mention should be made of an opposite process of development i.e. old words falling out if use.
特点： ending are almost lost.
3. Three main sources new words
1.The rapid development of modern science and technology
2.Social， economic and political changes
3.The influence of other cultures and languages
4. Three modes of vocabulary development
1. Creation –the formation of new words by using the existing materials， namely roots， affixes and other elements. （This is the most important way of vocabulary expansion.）
2. Semantic change - an old form which take on a new meaning to meet the new need.
3. Borrowing –to take in words from other languages.（particularly in earlier time）
4. （Reviving archaic or obsolete）
French 30%， Latin 8%， Japanese Italian 7%， Spanish 6%，German Greek 5%， Russian Yiddish 4%
第三章
1. Morpheme —— A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language. （The smallest functional unit in the composition of words.）
2.Morph—— A morpheme must be realized by discrete units. These actual spoken minimal carriers of meaning are morphs.
3.Monomorphenic words –morphemes are realized by single morphs.
4.Allomorph——Some morphemes are realized by more than one morph according to their position. Such alternative morphs are allomorphemes. E.g. the morpheme of plurality （-s）has a number if allomorphemes in different sound context， e.g. in cats/s/， in bags/z/， in matches/iz/.
5. Free morphemes or Free root —— The morphemes have complete meaning and van be used as free grammatical units in sentences， e.g. cat， walk. They are identical with root words. morphemes which are independent of other morphemes are considered to be free.
6. Bound Morphemes —— The morphemes cannot occur as separate words. They are bound to other morphemes to form words， e.g. recollection （re+collect+ion）collect –free morpheme re-and –ion are bound morphemes. （include bound root and affix） Bound morphemes are found in derived words.
7. Bound root —— A
bound root is that part of the word that carries the fundamental meaning just like a free root. Unlike a free root， it is a bound form and has to combine with other morphemes to make words. Take -dict- for example： it conveys the meaning of “say or speak” as a Latin root， but not as a word. With the prefix pre-（=before）we obtain the verb predict meaning “tell beforehand”。

Contradict “ speak against”。

Bound roots are either Latin or Greek.
Although they are limited in number，their productive
power is amazing.
8. Affixes —— Affixes are forms that are attached to words or word elements to modify meaning or function. Almost affixes are bound morphemes.
9. Inflectional morphemes or Inflectional affixes —— Affixes attaches to the end of words to indicate grammatical relationships are inflectional，thus known as inflectional morphemes. The number of inflectional affixes is small and stable.
a. There is the regular plural suffix -s（-es） which is added to nouns such as machines， desks.
b. Simple present for the third person singular. –s（-es）
c. The possessive case of nouns. ’s
d. –er and –est to show comparative and superlative degree
e. The past tense marker –ed
f. –ing to form present participles or gerunds.
10. Derivational morphemes or Derivational affixes ——Derivational affixes are affixes added to other morphemes to create new words.
11. Prefixes ——Prefixes are affixes that come before the word， such as， pre+war， sub+sea
12. Suffixes —— suffixes are affixes that come after the word，for instance， blood+y.
13. Root ——A root is the basic form of a word，which cannot be further analyzed without total loss of identity. （What remains of a word after the removal of all affixes.）.e.g. “internationalists” removing inter-，-al-，-ist，-s，leaves the root nation.
14. Stem ——a form to which affixes of any kind can be added. E.g. “internationalists”， nation is a root and a stem as well.
a stem may consist of a single root or two roots and a root plus a affix.
a stem can be a root or a form bigger than a root.
第四章
The expansion of vocabulary in modern English depends chiefly on word-formation.
Not all the words that are produced by applying the rules are acceptable.
Rules only provide a constant set of models from which new words are created from day to day.
Rules themselves are not fixed but undergo changes.
affixation 30%-40% compounding 28%-30% conversion 26% shortening 8%-10% （clipping and acronymy）blending and others 1%-5%
1. Affixation （Derivation）—— the formation of words by adding word forming or derivational affixes to stems. （derivative 派生词）
According to their position， affixation falls into
： prefixation and suffixation.
1）. Prefixation —— the formation of new words by adding prefixes to stems. It does not change the word-class of the stem but change its meaning.
1. Negative prefixes – a- （abnormal）， dis- （disobey），in- （il-， ir-， im-）（injustice）， non- （non-smoker）， un- （unwilling）un- are the most productive and can usually replace in- or dis- with adj.
2. Reversative prefixes –de- （decentralize），dis- （disunite）， un- （unwrap）
3. Pejorative prefixes – mal- （maltreat）， mis- （mistrust），pseudo- （pseudo-science）
4. Prefixes of degree or size – arch- （archbishop）， extra-（extra-strong），hyper-（hyperactive），macro-
（macrocosm），micro- （microcomputer），mini- （mini-election），out- （outlive），over- （overweigh），sub- （subheading），super- （superfreeze），sur- （surtax），ultra- （ultra-conservative）， under-（underdeveloped）
5. Prefixes of orientation and attitude – anti- （anti-nuclear），contra- （contraflow）， counter-， pro-（pro-student）
6. Locative prefixes –extra- （extraordinary），fore- （forehead），inter- （inter-city），intra- （intra-party），tele-， trans-
7. Prefixes of time and order –ex- （ex-wife），fore- （foretell）， pre-， re- （reconsider）
8. Number Prefixes –bi-，multi- （poly-）（multi-purpose）， semi- （hemi-）， tri- （tricycle）， uni-（mono-）（uniform）
9. Miscellaneous prefixes –auto-，neo- （neo-Nazi），pan- （pan-European）， vice-
2）. Suffixation ——Suffixation is the formation of new words by adding suffixes to stems. Change the grammatical function of stems （the word class）. Suffixes can be grouped on a grammatical basis.
Noun suffixes
Denominal nouns （名词+suffix ——名词）
a. Concrete —— -eer （engineer）， -er （teenager）， -ess （hostess）， -ette （cigarette）， -let （booklet）
b. Abstract ——-age （wastage），-dom （处于…状态）（officialdom），-ery （slavery），-ery （-ry），-hood （childhood），-ing （farming），- ism（…主义）（terrorism）， -ship（状态）（sportsmanship）
Deverbal nouns （动词+suffix——名词）
a. Denoting people —— -ant （assistant）， -ee （trainee），-ent （respondent）， -er（-or）
b. Denoting action， result， process， state， ect. —— -age （linkage）， -al （dismissal）， -ance （attendance）， -ation （-ition，-tion，-sion，-ion），-ence （existence），-ing （savings）， -ment （statement）
De-adjective nouns （形容词+suffix——名词）——-ity （popularity）， -ness （happiness）
Nouns and adjectives su
ffixes —— -ese （Chinese）， -an （Australian）， -ist （主义）（socialist）
Adjective suffixes
Denominal suffixes ——-ed （wooded），-ful （successful），-ish （foolish），-less （priceless），-like
（lady-like）， -ly （friendly）， -y （smoky）
-al（-ial，-ical）（cultural，residential），-esque （picturesque），-ic （economic），-ous（-eous，-ious）（coutageous）
-ic and –ical can be affixed to the stem in some cases， but differ in meaning.
Historic （important in history） historical （of history）
Classic （great， memorable） classical （of Latin or Greek）
Comic （of comedy） comical （funny）
Economic （in the economy） economical （money-saving）Electric （powered by electricity） electrical （of electricity）
Deverbal suffixes —— -able （-ible）（washable）， -ive（-ative， -sive）（active， decisive）
Adverb suffixes ——-ly （calmly），-ward（s）（homewards）， -wise （clockwise）
Verb suffixes —— -ate（originate）， -en （darken）， -（i）fy （beautify）， -ize （ise）（modernize）
Nik most of them are considered slang.
2. Compounding （Composition）——Compounding is a
process of word-formation by joining two or more stems.
Compounds- a lexical unit consisting of more than one stem and functioning both grammatically and semantically as a single word.
三种形式solid， hyphenated， open
1）. Characteristics （differ from free phrases）
Phonetic features
Compound （not absolute） Free phrase
Stress on the first element Stress on the second element
Semantic features
Compounds are different from free phrases in semantic unity.
Every compound should express a single idea just as one word.
A lot of compounds are transparent and the meaning can be inferred from the separate elements of compounds.
Grammatical features
A compound plays a single grammatical role in a sentence.
In adjective-noun compounds，the adjective element cannot take inflectional suffixes.
Compound Free phrase
fine art finer art
Formation
Most compounds consist of 2 stems， but are formed on a rich variety of patterns and the internal grammatical relationship within the words is considered complex.
Noun compounds
Adjective compounds
Verb compounds （through conversion and back formation）
Back formed verb compounds are formed mainly by dropping the suffixes， -er， -ing，-ion， -etc.
3.Conversion （zero-derivation，functional shift）——Conversion is the formation of new words by converting words of one class to another class. These words are new only in a grammatical sense. The
most productive is between nouns and verbs.
A change of grammatical function
The different range of meaning
Conversion to noun
Verb to noun-almost all monomorphemic verbs can be used as nouns.
1. State （of mind or sensation）
2. Event or activity
3. Result of the action
4. Doer of the action
5. Tool or instrument
6. Place of the action
Adjective to noun （full conversion， partial conversion）
1. Words fully converted-a noun converted from an adjective has all the characteristics of nouns. It can take an identical article or –e（s）.
2. Words partially converted – do not possess all the qualities
a noun does. They must be used together with definite articles. They retain some of the adjective features. Words of this class generally refer to a group of the kind.
3. Miscellaneous conversion
Conversion to verbs
1. Noun to verb-verbs of this kind are all transitive.
2. Adjective to verb
3. Miscellaneous conversion
4.Blending—is the word formation by combining parts of two words or a word plus a part of another word.
Head + tail autocide / motel/ slurb / cremains / chunnel
Head + head comsat / telex / Amerind / sitcom / FORTRAM
Head + word medicare / Eurasia / telequiz / atuocamp
Word + tail lunarnaut / bookmobile / workfare / tourmobile
The overwhelming majority of blends are nouns， very few are verbs and adjectives are even fewer.
5.Clipping – shorten a longer word by cutting a part of the origin and using what remains instead. People tend to ve economical in writing and speech to keep up the tempo of new life style.
Front clipping
Quake （earthquake）/ Copter（helicopter）/ scope （telescope）/ phone （telephone）
Back clipping
Dorm（dormitory） / momo（）/stereo（）/gent（）/fan （）/disco（）
Front and back clipping
Phrase clipping
Pub（）/pop（）/zoo（）/perm（）
6.Acronymy – joining the initial letters of names of social and political organizations or special phrases and technical terms Initialisms
are words formed from the initial letters of words and pronounced as letters. It’s one of the word formations of acronymy.
E.g. IMF/ai em ef/=International Monetary Fund.
Acronyms
are words formed from the initial letters of word and pronounced as words. . It’s one of the word formations of acronymy.
E.g. NATO/'neito/=North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
7.Back-formation——is a process of word-formation by which a word is created by the deletion of a supposed affix. It is considered to be the opposite process of suffixation.
8.Words from proper names modern English has a large number of words which come from proper nouns. They include
1. Names of people
Words of this group are from names of scientists， investors，etc. these terms are used as measurements.
Some words are from characters in mythology.
Some are from historical figures.
Some words are from characters in literary books.
/doc/3e14267769.html,s of places
Many words denoting products， objects or materials come from the names of places where they were first produced.
/doc/3e14267769.html,s of books
4.Tradenames
When proper nouns are communized， many of them have lost their original identity. They can be converted to other classes. These words can also take suffixes.
Words that are communized from proper nouns have rich culture associations and thus stylistically vivid， impressive and though-provoking.
第五章
Reference （领会）– the relationship between language and the world. By means of reference，a speaker indicates which things in the world （including persons） are being talked about.
The reference of a word to a thing outside the language is arbitrary and conventional. This connection is the result of generalization and abstraction.
Although reference is abstract， yet with the help of context，it can refer to something specific.
Concept（领会）–which beyond language is the result of human cognition reflecting the objective world in the human mind. It isn’t affected by language. Meaning and concept are closely connected but not identical. Meaning belongs to language， so is restricted to language use.
A concept can have as many referring expressions as there
are language in the world.
Sense （领会）–denotes the relationship inside the language. Every word that has meaning has sense.
The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with other expressions in the language.
It is also abstraction.
Motivation——accounts for the connection between the linguistic symbol and its meaning.
English does have words whose meanings can be explained to a certain extent.
Most words are non-motivated. The connection of the sign and meaning dose not have a logical explanation.
Onomatopoeic Motivation –the words whose sounds suggest their meaning. （Indicate the relationship between sound and meaning）. Knowing the sounds of the words means understanding the meaning. These words were created by imitating the natural sounds or noises. For example，bang，ping-pang， crow by cocks， etc.
Such echoic words are also conventional for the sounds we say in English may not be the same in other language.
Morphological Motivation ——Compounds and derived
words are multi-morphemic words and the meaning of many words are the sum total of the morphemes combined. （Indicate the relationship between word meaning and each morpheme meaning）. For instan
ce，airmail means to “mail by air”，miniskirt is “a small skirt”。

There are a lot of words whose structures are opaque， their meanings are not the combinations of the separate words.
Semantic Motivation——refers to the mental associations suggested by the conceptual meaning of a word. It explained the connection between literal sense and figurative sense of a word）.
E.g. When we say the mouth of a river， we associate the opening part of the river with the mouth of a human being or an animal.
Etymological Motivation——The history of the word explains the meaning of the word. （Indicate the relationship between word meaning and its origin）.
E.g. the word ’laconic’ meaning ’brief’ or ’short’ is derived from Laconic，a tribe of people who were known for their ’brevity of speech’ and for their habit of never using more words than necessary. Hence a laconic answer is a ’short answer’。

All the words communized from proper nouns can be interpreted in terms of their origins.
Types of meaning （领会，运用）
Word-formation is not monogamous but a composite consisting of different parts.
Grammatical meaning – refer to that part of the meaning of the word which indicates grammatical concept or relationships，such as part of speech of words， singular and plural meanings of nouns， tense meaning of verbs and their inflectional forms.
Grammatical meaning becomes important only used in actual context.
Different Lexical meaning may have different grammatical meaning.
The same word may have different grammatical meaning.
Functional words，though having little lexical meaning，posses strong grammatical meaning， content words have both meanings and lexical meaning in particular.
Lexical meaning —— is constant in all the words within or without context related to the notion that the word conveys.
It has two components conceptual meaning and associative meaning.
Lexical meaning and grammatical meaning make up the word-meaning.
Grammatical meaning surfaces only in use.
Conceptual meaning （denotative meaning）– the meaning given in the dictionary and forms the core of word-meaning.
It is constant and relative stable. Conceptual meaning forms the basis for communication.
e.g. The sun rises in the East. the “sun”
Associative meaning –the secondary meaning supplemented to the conceptual meaning.
It is open-ended and indeterminate
Connotative meaning （connotation）—— the overtones or association suggested by the conceptual meaning. It is not an essential part of the word- meaning，but associations that might occur in the mind of a particular use in the language.
e.g. Mother——a female parent ——love，care，tenderness， forgiving
Home —— a dwelling pla
ce —— family， friends， warmth， safety.
It is unstable varying considerably according to situations.
Stylistic meaning –stylistic features make the words appropriate for different contexts.
（informal，formal，literary，archaic. slang） e.g. pregnant， expecting， knock up， in the club，
The stylistic difference is true of synonyms.
There are few words have both the same Conceptual meaning and Stylistic meaning.
分析：
1. they chucked a stone at the cops， and then did a bunk with the loot.
2. after costing a stone at the police， they absconded with the money.
The stylistic feature of words are obvious.
Sentence 1 could be said by 2 criminals， all the words used in italics are slangy，sentence 2 might be said by the chief inspector in making his official report and the words used are literary （cast， abscond） or neutral （police， money）.
Affective meaning –the speaker’s attitude towards the person or thing in question. Interjections are affective words as they are expression of emotions.
Words that have emotive values may fall into two categories：appreciative and pejorative. Words of positive overtones are used show appreciation or the attitude of approval. Those of negative
connotations imply disapproval， contempt or criticism.
Affective meaning varies from individual to individual， from culture to culture …
e.g. revolution， democracy， imperialism，
dog loyalty， faithfulness， a close companion （western）
useful animal （Chinese）
Collocative meaning – the associations a word acquires in its collocation. It is that part of the word—meaning suggested by the word before or after the word in discussion.
There is some overlaps between the collcations of the two words.
e.g. pretty and handsome = goodlooking
pretty woman stress the attractiveness of facial feature.
handsome woman may not be facial beautiful，yet is attractive in other respects.
tremble/quiver = shake involuntary
tremble with fear/quiver with excitement
Function：Collocative meaning overlaps with stylistic and。