英语词汇学考试重点整理

Explain the following terms一1) free morpheme/ A free morpheme is one that can be uttered发出，表达alone with meaning. It can exist on its own without a bound morpheme. In the traditional sense, a free morpheme is a word. 例如hand ,eat, get2) bound form/never used as sentences.– ess in countess, lioness and duchess –ish in boyish, childish and greenish –s in hats, books and cups 3) function words/ function words are often short words, they do not have much lexical meaning and some of them have no lexical meaning of their own; They are often short words such as determiners限定词, conjunctions连词, prepositions介词, auxiliaries辅助物, and so forth. 如to, the , of , by4) content words实词/ They are used to name objects, qualities, actions, processes or states, and have independent lexical meaning. They are the nouns, main verbs, adjectives形容词and adverbs副词of a language.二1) synthetic综合的language / inflectional grammatical markers, French, German and Russian.2) analytic language/word order, prepositions or auxiliary verbs , English and Chinese3) Indo-European family of languages/ Europe and parts of Southern Asia Eight groups三1) morphemes /The morpheme is the smallest meaningful linguistic unit of language, not divisible可分的or analyzable into smaller forms.2) allomorphs/variants变体of the same morphem如im-, ir-, il- : allomorphs of the morpheme in-3) root / is the basic unchangeable part of a word, and it conveys the main lexical meaning of theword. work able, work er, work ed, and work ing4) stem /A stem is of concern only when dealing with inflectional morphology. Inflectional (butnot derivational) affixes are added to it. It is the part of word-form which remains when all inflectional affixes have been removed. 如undesirables, undesirable; desired, desire 5) base / A base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added.Desirable, desire - base and root, not stem; undesirable, desirable-base, not root and stem 6) inflectional affixes/A inflectional affix serves to express such meanings as plurality复数,tense, and the comparative比较的or superlative 最高的degree. 如-s, -ed, -er, -est7) derivational affixes / When they are added to another morpheme, they derive a new word.re+write, mini+car, super+market, modern+ize, work+er8) compounding 复合法/Compounding is a word-formation process consisting of combiningtwo or more bases to form a compound word9) derivation 派生法/Derivation or affixation is generally defined as a word-formation process by which new words are created by adding a prefix or a suffix or both to the base10) conversion 转化法/Conversion is a word-formation process in which a word of a certainword-class is shifted into a word of another word-class without the addition of an affix.11) initialism/It is a type of shortening, using the first letters of words to form a proper name,a technical term, or a phrase.12) acronym首字母缩略词/Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of the name ofan organization or a scientific term, etc. Acronyms differ from initialisms in that theyare pronounced as words rather than as sequences of letters.13) blending拼缀/Blending is a process of word-formation in which a new word is formed bycombining the meanings and sounds of two words, one of which is not in its full form or both of which are not in their full forms.14) clipping截短词/The process of clipping involves the deletion of one or more syllablesfrom a word (usually a noun), which is also available in its full form.15) back-formation逆生法/Back-formation is a term used to refer to a type of word-formationby which a shorter word is coined by the deletion of a supposed affix from a longerform already present in the language.四meaning /is the thing or idea that it refers to or represents and which can be explained using other words. conventionality/most words are conventional, arbitrary symbols; consequently, there is no intrinsic relation between the sound-symbol and its sense.motivation 理据/The connection between word symbol and its sense.grammatical meaning / Grammatical meaning consists of word-class and inflectional paradigm.World-class: it describes the word’s lexical meaning and also gives what is traditionally known as thepart of speech of the word, which modern linguists.lexical meaning /Lexical meaning is dominant in content words, whereas grammatical meaning is dominant in function words, but in neither is grammatical meaning absent.denotative meaning指示意义/is sometimes called the conceptual meaning. It is the central factor in linguistic communication. One of the functions of words is to designate or describesomething, such as an object, a property, a process or a state of affairs. Users of alanguage cannot talk about their knowledge of a physical object or a naturalphenomenon, unless this knowledge is express in words which have the same meaningfor all speakers of a given community.connotative meaning内涵意义/ refers to the emotional association which a word or a phrase suggests in one’s mind；it is the supplementary value which is added to the purelydenotative meaning of a word.stylistic meaning 社会意义/ What a word conveys about the social circumstances of its use affective meaning/ It is concerned with the expression of feelings and attitudes of thespeaker or writer.五1) Polysemy一词多义/Polysemy refers to a lexical term which has a range of different meanings.2) Homonymy同形异义/Pairs or groups of words, which, though different in meaning, arepronounced alike, or spelled alike, or both六restriction of meaning词义的缩小/A word of wide meaning acquires a narrower, specialized sense which is applicable合适的to only one of the objects it had previously以前denoted表示. extension of meaning词义的扩大/- the opposite of restriction- the widening of a word’s sense until it covers much more than what it originally conveyed. degeneration of meaning词义的降格/the meaning of a word narrows toward an unfavorable meaning elevation of meaning词义的升格/- A word meaning takes a turn for the better in the course of time, and has either risen from a “snarl”word to a “purr”word, or from a slang term toa common word.七linguistic context 语言语境/In a narrow sense, it refers to the words, clauses, sentences in which a word appears. This is known as linguistic context which may cover a paragraph, a whole chapter and even the entire book.extra-linguistic context非语言语境/In a broad sense, it includes the physical situation. This iscalled extra-linguistic or non-linguistic context, which embraces包含the people, time, place, and even the whole cultural background.the actual speech situation and the entire cultural background八complete synonyms/ Complete synonyms are the words which are fully identical in meaning and interchangeable in any context without the slightest alteration in connotative, affective and stylistic meanings.Scientific terms: delimited and neutral in affective情感的and stylistic meaning.relative synonyms /- the same denotative外延的meanings, but different connotative内涵的, affective and stylistic meaningscontrary/gradable antonyms / They display a type of semantic contrast. They don’t represent an either/or relation but rather a more/less relation.cheap and expensive; fast and slow; sweet and sourcomplementary antonyms / They represent a type of binary semantic opposition. They are in an either/or relation of oppositeness. alive and dead; asleep and awake; shut and open converse antonyms /They are also called relational opposites. One expresses the converse meaning of the other. lend and borrow; buy and sell; husband and wife; parent and child; hyponym 下义词/Hyponymy deals with the relationship of semantic inclusion. That is, the meaning of a more specific word is included in that of another more general word.semantic field/The vocabulary of a language is not an unstructured collection of words. Instead, the vocabulary can be organized into a number of semantic fields.field of colours：pink, orange, scarlet, crimson, violet九Allusive words /words that are closely related to cultural history.Allusions : references参照to characters or events from history, legend, literature, religion.十idiom 习语/Idioms are usually metaphorical比喻性的rather than literal文字的.Structural criteria: phrase idioms; clause idioms; sentence idiomscollocation / Collocation is the way in which words are used together regularlyCollocation is often language-specific (e.g. “blue blood”）and not determined by universal semantic constrains (e.g. “green grass”).Answer the following questions一1) What are the fundamental features of the basic word stock of the English vocabulary?a. National characterb. Stability- sun, earth, rain, snow , on, of, can, will- arrow and bow ; telephone, computer, bus, car,radio, electricityc. Word-forming abilityheadache, headless不在意的；无头脑的；无领导者的, headline大标题；内容提要, headman首领, headmaster d. Ability to form collocations搭配hand over fist; hand in glove互相勾结、关系密切; to come hat in hand;2) How can we classify English vocabulary according to its origin, level of usage and notion ？二1) How do linguists divide the history of the English language for analysis? What are the characteristics of the English vocabulary as a result of its historical development?Three periods in the development of English language (vocabulary)1) Old English or Anglo-Saxon period (449-1100) 1 Much of the old English vocabulary was borrowed from Latin 如bargain, cheap, inch, pound; cup, dish, wall, wine, etc2- Old English was a highly inflected language. It has a complete system of declensions of words 2) Middle English period ( 1100-1500 ) 1- French influence Norman Conquest in 1066 Law and government administration: 、Military affairs: 、Religion: 、Art。