《英语词汇学》笔记1-10章

Chapter 1 Basic Concepts of Words and Vocabulary重点知识锦集：1. According to semanticists（意义学家）, a word is a unit of meaning.2. This symbolic connection is almost always arbitrary, and there is ‘no logical relationships between the sound which stands for a thing or an idea and the actual thing and idea itself’.3. Words may fall into the basic word stock and nonbasic vocabulary by use frequency.4. Words may fall into content words and functional words by notion.5. Words may fall into native words and borrowed words by origin.6. The basic word stock is the foundation of the vocabulary accumulated over centuries and forms the common core of the language.7. ‘all national character’（全民性）is the most important of all features that may differentiate words of common use from all others.8. Content words denote clear notions and thus are known as notional words. They include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and numerals.9. Functional words do not have notions of their own. Therefore, they are also called empty words.9. The English language is noted for the remarkable complexity and heterogeneity of its vocabulary because of its extensive borrowings.10. According to the degree of assimilation and manner of borrowing, we can bring the loan-words under four classes: Denizens, Aliens, Translation-loans, Semantic-loans.11. The differences between sound and form are due to innovations made by linguists.12. Of all the five characteristics listed for the basic word stock, the most important is all national character.（全民性）13. Content words are changing all the time whereas functional words are stable.14. In Old English there was more agreement between sound and form.15. A word is a symbol that represents something else in the world.16. Some words in the basic words stock are said to be stable because they refer to the commonest things in life.17. In different language, the same concept can be represented by different sounds and the same sound can show different meanings.18. The internal reason for the difference between sound and form is the fact of more phonemes than letters in English.19. Native words are neutral in style and frequent in use.20. The expression of “long time no see”is translation-loan among the four classes of borrowings.名词解释：1. word(词): A word is a minimal free form of a Language that has a given sound and meaning and syntactic function.2. vocabulary（词汇）: The term ‘vocabulary’is used in different senses. Not only can it refer to the total number of the words in a language, but it can stand for all the words used in a particular historical period. We also use it to refer to all the words of a given dialect, a given book,a given disicipline and the words possessed by an individual person.3. Jargon（专门术语）: It refers to the specialized vocabularies by which members of particulararts, sciences, trades, and professions, communicate among themselves.4.Archaisms（古语词）: Archaisms are words or forms that were once in common use but are now restricted only to specialized or limited use.5. Neologisms（新词语）: Neologisms are newly created words or expressions, or words that have taken on new meanings.6. borrowed words（外来词）: Words taken over from foreign languages are known as borrowed words or loan words or borrowings in simple terms.7. Deizens（同化词）: Deizens are words borrowed early in the past and now are all assimilated into the English Language.8. Aliens（非同化词）: Aliens are borrowed words which have retained their original pronunciation and spelling. These words are immediately recognisable as foreign in origin.9. Translation-loans（译借词）: Translation-loans are words and expressions formed from the existing material in the English language but modelled on the patterns taken from another language.10.Semantic-loans（借义词）: Words of this category are not borrowed with reference to the form. But their meanings are borrowed. In other words, English has borrowed a new meaning for an existing word in the language11. argot（黑话）: It generally refers to the jargon of criminals.12. content words（实词）: Content words denote clear notions including nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and numerals.13. terminology(术语): Terminology consists of technical terms used in particular disciplines and academic areas.14. native words（本族语）: Native words, also known as Anglo-Saxon words, are words brought to Britain in the 5th century by the German tribes.论述问答题：1. With the development of the Language, why do more and more differences occur between the Sound and Form?答：It is generally agreed that the written form of a natural Language is the written record of the oral form. But with the development of the Language, more and more differences occur between them, the reasons are as follows:①. The internal reason for this is that the English alphabet was adopted from the Romans, which does not have a separate letter to represent each sound in the Language so that some letters must do double duty or work together in combination.②. Another reason is that the pronunciation has changed more rapidly than spelling over the years, and in some cases the two have drawn far apart.③. A third reason is that some of the differences were created by the early scribes.④. Finally comes the borrowing, which is an important channel of enriching the English vocabulary. When English borrowed words from other Languages , it borrowed spelling as well.2. What are the obvious characteristics of the words of the basic word stock（基本词汇）?①. All national character.（全民性）②. Stability（稳定性）③. Productivity（多产性）④. Polysemy（多义性）⑤. Collocability（搭配性）Of course, not all the words of the basic word stock have these characteristics. Pronouns and numerals enjoy nation-wide use and stability, but are semantically monosemous and have limited productivity and collocability. Therefore, ‘all national character’is the most important of all features that may differentiate words of common use from all others.3. Apart from the characteristics mentioned of the basic word stock, in contrast to borrowed words, native words have two other features, what are they?答：①. Neutral in style（文体上中性）. Since native words denote the commonest things in human society, they are used by all people, in all places, on all occasions, and at all times. Therefore, they are not stylistically specific.②. Frequent in use（使用频繁）. Native words are most frequently used in everyday speech and writing. The proportion of its use in relation to borrowings is perhaps just the opposite of its number.4. Illustrate the relationship between sound and meaning with examples.答：A word is phonetic symbol that stands for something in the world. This symbolic connection is almost always arbitrary, and there is ‘no logical relationships between the sound which stands for a things or an idea and the actual thing and idea itself’. For example, woman is represented by the sound Frau in German, femme in French, and funv in Chinese.5. Explain neologisms（新词语）with examples.答：Neologisms are newly created words or expressions, or words that have taken on new meanings. For example, “emil”(electronic mail, the sending of messages via computer systems) is a word newly coined against the background of rapid development in information technology. The word “mouse” might examplify the words taking on new meanings : now a mouse is indispensable for computer users.6. How are English words generally classified? Elaborate on it.答：V ocabulary can be classified by different criteria into different types.①By use frequency（使用频率）, words may fall into the basic word stock（基本词汇）and nonbasic vocabulary（非基本词汇）. Basic vocabulary is small in number but forms the core of the language and enjoys the high frequency of use. Nonbasic vocabulary contains such words as terminology, jargon, which have a relatively limited use；②By notion（实义）, words can be divided into content words（实义词）and functional words （功能词即虚词）, content words have clear notions such as nouns, verbs. Functional words cover prepositions, articles, conjunctions, etc, whose major functions are to help make sentences；③By origin（起源）, words can be grouped into native words（本族语词）and borrowed words （外来语词）. Native words refer to the words of Anglo-Saxon origin, which are small in number but form the main stream of basic word stock. Borrowed words are words taken over from other languages and make up 80%of the whole English vocabulary. These three criteria are the most widespread and popular. There are other ways too, for example, by morphological structure, formality, emotionality, and so on.Chapter 2 The Development of the English Vocabulary重点知识锦集：1. Indo-European Language is made up of most of the Languages of Europe, the Near East, and India.2. The Germanic family consists of the four Northern European Languages：Norwegian, Icelandic, Danish and Swedish, which are generally known as Scandinavian Languages.3. In the Western set, Greek is the modern language derived from Hellenic.4. The surviving Languages show various of degrees of similarity to one another. The similarity bears a more or less direct relationship to their geographical distribution.5. Now people generally refer to Anglo-Saxon as Old English（古英语）.6. The introduction of Christianity（基督教）at the end of the 6th century had a great impact on the English vocabulary.7. Old English （古英语）has a vocabulary of about 50,000 to 60,000 words. It was a highly inflected language just like modren German.8. Until 1066, although there were borrowings from Latin, the influence on English was mainly Germanic.9. The Norman Conquest started a continual flow of French words into English.10. During the Middle English period, Britain had trade relations with the low countries, especially Holland.11. Middle English retained much fewer inflections. If we say that Old English was a language of full endings, Middle English was one of leveled endings.12. As a result, Celtic made only a small contribution to the English vocabulary with such words as crag and bin and a number of place names like Avon, Kent, London, and Thames.13. After the invading Germanic tribes settled down in Britain, their Language almost totally blotted out Celtic .14. Old English is considered to be a highly-inflected Language.15. During the Middle English period three languages—English, French and Latin（英语，法语和拉丁语）---- existed simultaneously for over a century.16. Modern English（当代英语）began with the establishment of printing（印刷术）in England.17. Since the beginning of this century, word-formation has become even more important for the expansion of English vocabulary.18. Early Modern English refers to the language spoken from 1500 to 1700 .19. The major factors that promote the growth of modern English are the growth of science and technology, economic and political changes, the influence of other cultures and Languages .20. The four major foreign contributors to the English vocabulary in earlier times were French, Latin, Greek and Scandinavian .21. Though still at work today , borrowing can hardly compare with what it was in the past.22. It can be concluded that English has evolved from a synthetic Language(Old English) to the present analytic Language.23. Modern English vocabulary develops through three channels: creation, semantic change, borrowing.24. The word of “recollection” is formed by creation.25. The first people known to inhabit the British isles were Celts. Their languages were Celtic.26. Besides French words, English also absorbed as many as 2,500 words of Dutch origin in theMiddle English period.名词解释：1. creation（创造新词）: Creation refers to the formation of new words by using the existing materials, namely roots, affixes and other elements. In Modern times, creation is the most important way of vocabulary expansion.2. semantic change（旧词新意）: Semantic change means an old form which takes on a new meaning to meet the new need.3. borrowing（借用外来词语）: Borrowing has played a vital role in the development of vocabulary, particularly in earlier times.4. Old English（古英语）: It refers to the Language used from 450 to 1150.5. Middle English（中世纪英语）: It refers to the Language used from 1150 to 1500.6. Modern English（现代英语）: It refers to the Language used from 1500 up to the present.论述问答题：1. What are eight principal language in the Indo-European Language family（印欧语系）?答：They are Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Albanian, Celtic, Italic, Hellenic and Germanic.2. What are the causes of more new words appearing today?答：the rapid development of modern science and technology.；Social, economic and political changes.；The influences of other cultures and languages.；3. What are three main modes of vocabulary developments?答：Creation creates new words by using existing materials.Semantic change. An old form takes on a new meaning to meet the new need.Borrow words from other Languages.Chapter 3 Word Formation I重点知识锦集：1. It seems to be generally agreed that a word is the smallest unit of a Language that stands alone to communicate meaning.2. In other words, the morpheme is ‘the smallest functioning unit in the composition of words’.3. Morphemes are abstract units, which are realized in speech by discrete units known as morphs.4. The morpheme to the morph what a phoneme is to a phone.5. Allomorphs as such do not occur at random, but are phonetically conditioned and thus predictable.6. Morphemes can be divided into free morphemes and bound morphemes.7. Bound morphemes are chiefly found in derived words.8. Bound morphemes include two types: bound root and affix.9. According to the functions of affixes, we can put them into two groups: inflectional affixes and derivational affixes.（内部曲折词缀和派生词缀）10. A monomorphemic word is a word that consists of a single free morpheme.11. Chiefly found in derived words, bound morphemes(黏着语素) include bound roots, inflectional affixes, derivational affixes.12. The plural morpheme ‘s’ is realized by /s/ after the sounds /t, p, k/ and by /z/ after /d, b, g, l/13. In the Eastern Set, Albanian and Armenian are each the only modern language respectively.名词解释：1. morpheme（语素）: the minimal meaningful units are known as morphemes.2. allomorphs（语素变体）: some morphemes, however, are realized by more than one morph according to their position in a word. Such alternative morphs are known as allomorphs.3. free morphemes（自由语素）: Morphemes which are independent of other morphemes are considered to be free. These morphemes have complete meanings in themselves and can be used as free grammatical units in sentences.4. bound morphemes（黏着语素）: morphemes which can not occur as separate words are bound. They are so named because they are bound to other morphemes to form words.5. bound root（黏着词根）: a bound root is that part of the word that carries the fundamental meaning just like a free root. It’s a bound form and has to combine with other morphemes to make words.6. affixes（词缀）: Affixes are forms that are attached to words or words elements to modify meaning or function.7. inflectional affixes（曲折词缀）: Affixes attached to the end of words to indicate grammatical relationships are inflectional, thus known as inflectional morphemes.8. derivational affixes（派生词缀）: As the term indicates, derivational affixes are affixes added to other morphemes to creat new words. Derivational affixes can be further divided into prefixes and suffixes.9. root（词根）: A root is the basic form of a word which can not be further analysed without total loss of identity. It is that part of a word form that remains when all inflectional and derivational affixes have been removed.10. stem（词干）: A stem can be defined as a form to which affixes of any kind can be added.论述问答题：1. What are the differences between root and stem?答：①A root is the basic form of a word which can not be further analysed without total loss of identity. The root whether free or bound generally carries the main component of meaning in a word.②A stem may consist of a single root morpheme as in “iron”or of two root morphemes as ina compound like “handcuff”. It can be a root morpheme plus one or more affixational morphemes as in “mouthful”. Therefore, a stem can be defined as a form to which affixes of any kind cab be added.2. Analyze the morphological structure of the following words in terms of free morpheme and bound morpheme, then explain the differences between the two kinds of morphemes.UnhappilyIdealistic答:①Each of two words consists of three morphemes:unhappily(un+happy+ly), idealistic(ideal+ist+ic).②“happy”and “ideal”are free morphemes; un-, -ly, -ist and –ic are bound morphemes.③free morphemes have complete meanings in themselves and can be used as free grammatical units in sentences. Bound morphemes must be bound to other morphemes to form words.3. Analyze the morphological structures of the following words and point out types of the morphemes. recollection, nationalist, unearthly.答：recollection, nationalist, unearthly1) Each of the three words consists of three morphemes:recollection(re+collect+ion), nationalist(nation+al+ist), unearthly(un+earth+ly).2) Of the nine morphemes, only “collect” “nation” and “earth” are free morphemes as they can exist by themselves.3) All the rest are bound morphemes as none of them can stand alone as words.Chapter 4 Word Formation II重点知识锦集：1. The expansion of vocabulary in modern English depends chiefly on word-formation.2. According to the positions which affixes occupy in words, affixes falls into two subclasses:prefixation and suffixation.（前缀和后缀）3. Affixation is also known as derivation.4. Prefixes do not generally change the word-class of the stem but only modify its meaning.5. Suffixes have only a small semantic role, their primary function being to change the grammatical function of stems. In other words, they mainly change the word class.6. We shall group suffixes on a grammatical basis into noun suffixes, verb suffixes, adjective suffixes, etc.7. Compounds can be written solid, hyphenated and open.（连写的，加连字符号的，不连写的）8. Most compounds consist of only two stems but are formed on a rich variety of patterns and the internal grammatical relationships within the words are considerably complex.9. Conversion is also known as functional shift.（功能转换）10. Words produced by conversion are primarily nouns, adjectives, and verbs.11. The most productive, however, is the conversion that takes place between nouns and verbs.12. Unlike verbs, not all adjectives which are converted can achieve a full noun status. Some are completely converted, thus known as full conversion,（完全转换）others are only partially converted, hence partial conversion.（部分转换）13. Blending（拼缀法）is a very productive process and many coinages resulting from blending have become well-established.14. As far as the structure is concerned, blends fall into four major groups: head+tail, head+head, head+word, word+tail.15. The overwhelming majority of blends are nouns.16. Blends are mostly used in writing related to science and technology, and to newspapers and magazines.17. There are four common types of clipping: front clipping, back clipping, front and back clipping, phrase clipping.18. Both intialisms and acronyms have become very popular since the Second World War and thus extremely productive.19. Words created through back-formation are mostly verbs.20. Stylistically, back-formed words are largely informal and some of them have not gained public acceptance.21. Open compounds look like free phrases as the elements forming each word are written separately.22. As a rule, the stress of compounds falls on the first element.23. A compound functions as a single grammatical unit, so the internal structure can not be changed.24. Conversion（转换法）refers to the use of words of one class as that of a different class.25. Partial conversion and full conversion are concerned with adjectives when converted to nouns.名词解释：1. affixation（词缀法）: Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding word-forming or derivational affixes to stems.2. prefixation（前缀法）: Prefixation is the formation of new words by adding prefixes to stems.3. suffixation（后缀法）: Suffixation is the formation of new words by adding suffixes to stems.4. compounding（合成法）: Compounding, also called composition, is the formation of new words by joining two or more stems. Words formed in this way are called compounds.5. conversion（转换法）: Conversion is the formation of new words by converting words of one class to another class.6. blending（拼缀法）: Blending is the formation of new words by combining parts of two words or a word plus a part of another word. Words formed in this way are called blends or pormanteau words.7. clipping（截短法）: Another common way of making a word is to shorten a longer word by cutting a part off the original and using what remains instead. This is called clipping.8. acronymy（首字母拼音法）: 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.9. initialisms（首字母缩略词）: Initialisms are words pronounced letter by letter.10. acronyms（首字母拼音词）: Acronyms are words formed from initial letters but pronounced as a normal word.11. back-formation（逆生法）: Back-formation is considered to be the opposite process of suffixation. It’s therefore the method of creating words by removing the supposed suffixes.论述问答题：1. In what aspects do compounds differ from free phrases?答：Compounds differ from free phrases in the following three aspects:1). Phonetic features. In compounds the word stress usually occurs on the first element whereas in noun phrases the second element is generally stressed if there is only one stress.2). Semantic features. Compounds are different from free phrases in semantic unity. Every compound should express a single idea just as one word.3). Grammatical features. A compound tends to play a single grammatical role in a sentence, for example, a verb, a noun, or an adjective.2. What is the best way to classify prefixes? Why?答：Prefixes do not usually change the word-class of the stem but only modify lts meaning.Although present-day English finds an increasing number of class-changing prefixes, they make up only an insignificant number in the huge contemporary vocabulary. It might be the best way to classify prefixes by their non-class-changing feature.3. In what way are compound verbs generally formed? Give examples to illustrate your point.答：Compound verbs are created either through conversion or back-formation. This could be illustrated by two words, nickname and chain-smoker. Nickname, which is originally a noun, can be used as a verb through conversion. Chain-smoker, which is originally a noun, can turn into a verb through back-formation.4. What is the difference between partial and full conversion? Explain them with examples. 答：When converted to nouns, not all adjectives can achieve a full noun status. Some are completely converted, thus known as full conversion, others are only partially converted, hence partial conversion. When a noun fully converted from an adjective has all the characteristics of a noun, it can take an indefinite article or-(e)s to indicate singular or plural number. For example, adjective “white”can be fully converted to a noun “white”, which can take indefinite article: a white. When a noun partially converted from adjectives do not possess all the qualities a noun does. They must be used together with the definite article, and they retain some of the adjective features. For example, the poor, the rich.5. Both back-formation（逆生法）and back-clipping（截后留前）are ways of making words by removing the endings of words. How do you account for the coexistence of the two? Can you explain the difference?答：Back-formation is the method of creating words by removing the supposed suffixes. It’s considered to be the opposite process of suffixation. For example, “loafer”may be assumed to derive from the verb “loaf”’on the analogy of known derivatives, such as “swimmer” from “swim” or “driver” from “drive”. By removing the supposed suffixes –er from “loafer”, a verb “loaf”’is coined. Majority of back-formed words are verbs. Back-clipping is different. The deletion occurs at the end of the word(usually a noun). Both the original long word and its short form remain in the same word class. In diffe rent context, one could be used in other’s place.6. After he comes back, he oiled machine.In above sentence, which word is the converted word? Explain the type of the conversion and the effect of the conversion.答：In this sentence, the word “oil”is the converted word. It is converted from a noun to a verb. When it was used as a noun, the meaning of it is that “油”. But in this sentence, it was used as a verb, the meaning is “给…加油”; As is often the case, a noun can be converted to a verb without any change. The use of the verb converted is both economical and vivid.Chapter 5 Word Meaning重点知识锦集：1. Reference(所指关系) is the relationship between Language and the world.2. The reference of a word to a thing outside the Language is arbitrary and conventional.（任意的和依照惯例的）3. Although reference is a kind of abstraction, yet with the help of context, it can refer tosomething specific.4. Every word that has meaning has sense(not every word has reference).5. Different lexical items, which have different lexical meanings, may have the same grammatical meaning.（语法意义）6. Functional words, though having little lexical meaning, possess strong grammatical meaning.7. Lexical meaning itself has two components: conceptual meaning and associative meaning.（概念意义和关联意义）8. Associative meaning（关联意义）comprises four types: connotative, stylistic, affective, collocative.9. Words that have emotive values may fall into two categories: appreciative or pejorative.（褒义词和贬义词）10. To a large extent the affective meaning of the word depends on the context where the word is used.11. Motivation（理据）explains why a particular form has a particular meaning.12. Unlike conceptual meaning, associative meaning is unstable and indeterminate.13. By etymological motivation, we mean that the meaning of a particular word is related to its origin.14. The relationship between the linguistic sign and a referent is conventional.15. Content words have both meanings, and Lexical meaning（词汇意义）in particular.16. The word “miniskirt”is morphologically motivated.17. The word “laconic”is etymologically motivated.18. In the phrase “the mouth of the river”, the word “mouth”is semantically motivated.名词解释：1. concept（概念）: Concept, which is beyond Language, is the result of human cognition, reflecting the objective world in the human mind. It’s universal to all men alike regardless of culture, race, Language and so on.2. sense（语义）: Sense 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.3. motivation（理据）: Motivation accounts for the connection between the linguistic symbol and its meaning.4. onomatopoeic motivation（拟声理据）: In modern English one may find some words whose sounds suggest their meanings, for these words were created by imitating the natural sounds or noises. For example, bang, miaow, ha ha and the like are onomatopoetically motivated words. Knowing the sounds of the words means understanding the meaning.5. morphological motivation（形态理据）: Compounds and derived words are multi-morphemic words and the meanings of many are the sum total of the morphemes combined. Quite often, if one knows the meaning of each morpheme, one can figure out the meaning of the word. For instance, “airmail” means to ‘mail by air’.6. semantic motivation（语义理据）: 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.7. etymological motivation（词源学理据）: The meanings of many words often relate directly。