英语词汇学复习题重点

英语词汇学1. Word--- A word is a minimal free form of a language that has a gi ven sound and meaning and syntactic function.2.Vocabulary --- Vocabulary is most commonly used to refer to the tot al sum of the words of a language. It can also refer to all the word s 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 i n a particular period of time in history.The general estimate of the present day English vocabulary is over 1 million words.3.argot – words used by sub-cultured groups, specialized vocabulary used by criminalscan-opener, dip, persuadercant, jargon , argot are associated with, or most available to, speci fic groups of the population.4.Content word (notional word) – denote clear notions and thus are k nown as notional words. They include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverb s and numerals.5.Borrowed words (loan words, borrowings) – words taken over from fo reign language are known as borrowed words or loan words or borrowing s in simple terms.6.Semantic loans – are not borrowed with reference to the form, but their meaning are borrowed from another language. In other words, Eng lish has borrowed a new meaning for an existing word in language. e.g. stupid old dump7.what is the importance of basic word stock?The basic word stock is the foundation of the vocabulary accumulated over centuries and forms the common core of the language. five charac teristics: all national character, stability , productivity, polysemy , collocability8.9.What are neologisms? Give one example to illustrate it.Neologisms are newly-created words or expressions, or words that have taken on new meanings. Here is one example: E-mail: electronic mail,chapter 2Three modes of vocabulary development1. Creation – the formation of new words by using the existing mater ials, namely roots, affixes and other elements. (This is the most imp ortant 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 i n earlier time)4.Old English(450-1150)The 1st people known to inhabit England were Celts, the language was Celtic.The second language was the Latin of the Roman Legions. after the Rom ansAfter the Romans,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. Old English has a vo cabulary of about 50,000 to 60,000words. It was a highly inflected la nguage just like modern German.6.Norman Conquest : the Normans invaded England from France in 1066. the Norman Conquest started a continual flow of French words into Eng lish. Norman French became the polite speech. 75% of them are still in use today. The situation of 3 languages (French,English,Latin) exi sting simultaneously continued for over a century..7.Renaissance: In the early period of modern English, Europe saw a ne w upsurge of learning ancient Greek and Roman classics. This is known in history as the Renaissance. Latin and Greek were recognized as th e language of the Western world's great literary heritage and of grea t scholarship.reviving archaic words: words or forms that were once in common use but are now restricted only to specialized or limited use. They arefound mainly in older poems, legal document and religious writing or speech.8. .Why do we say" English is a heavy borrower?" Please justily it. English is a heavy borrower and has adopted words from all other majo r languages of the world. It is estimated that English borrowings con stitute 80% of the modern English vocabulary. As is stated in Encyclo pedia Americana ,"The English language has vast debts. In any diction ary some 80% of the entries are borrowed".eg. kowtou from China, long time no see from haojiubujian (China), the word "dream" originally m eant "joy" and "music" ,its modern meaning was borrowed later from the Norse.9.Modern English(1150-1500): Modern English began with the establishm ent of printing in English. word endings were mostly lost with just a few exceptions. Modern English is considered to be an analytic langu age.1112.In the middle English period, what made French a dominant language in England?In 1066, in the history of England, there was Norman Conquest. The Fr ench-speaking Normans were the ruling class. French was used for all state affairs and for most social and cultural matters. Therefore, th ose who were in power spoke French, those who were literate read and wrote in French; and any young man who sought to earn his living ascr ibe learned Latin or French because there was no market for such serv ices in English. The Norman Conquest started a continual flow of Fren ch words into English.13.What happened in the mid-seventeenth century in England?England experienced the Bourgeoisie Revolution followed by the Indust rial Revolution and rose to be a great economic power.14.What are the three main sources of new English words?Three main sources of new words.The rapid development of modern science and technologySocial, economic and political changes.The influence of other cultures and languageschapter three1. Morpheme --- A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a langu age. (The smallest functional unit in the composition of words.)2.Morph--- A morpheme must be realized by discrete units. These actua l 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 acco rding to their position. Such alternative morphs are allomorphemes. E.g. the morpheme of plurality (-s) has a number of allomorphemes in di fferent 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 can be used as free grammatical units in sentences, e.g. cat, w alk. They are identical with root words. morphemes which are independ ent 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 mo rphemes. (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 word s. 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 “ spea k 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 e lements to modify meaning or function. Almost affixes are bound morph emes.9. Prefixes --- Prefixes are affixes that come before the word, such as, pre+war, sub+sea10.Suffixes--- suffixes are affixes that come after the word, for in stance, blood+y.11.Inflectional morphemes or Inflectional affixes--- Affixes attach es to the end of words to indicate grammatical relationships are infl ectional, thus known as inflectional morphemes. The number of inflect ional affixes is small and stable.12. Derivational morphemes or Derivational affixes --- Derivational affixes are affixes added to other morphemes to create new words. 13. Root --- A root is the basic form of a word, which cannot be furt her analyzed without total loss of identity. (What remains of a word after the removal of all affixes.) .e.g. “internationalists” removi ng 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 af fix.a stem can be a root or a form bigger than a root.15.What are the differences between inflectional and derivational af fixes? or How do you distinguish inflectional affixes and derivation al affixes?Affixes attaches to the end of words to indicate grammatical relation ships are inflectional, thus known as inflectional morphemes. Modern English is an analytic language. Most endings are lost, leaving only a few inflectional affixes, such as plural forms of nouns-s(-es), and the comparative and superlative degree forms of adjectives: -er, -est. Derivational affixes are affixes added to other morphemes to cr eate new words. Derivational affixes can be further divided into pref ixes and suffixes.16. What are the differences between root and stem? Explain with exa mples.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 rem oval of all affixes.) .e.g. “internationalists” removing inter-, -a l-, -ist, -s, leaves the root nation.A stem is a form to which affixes of any kind can be added. E.g. “i nternationalists”, nation is a root and a s tem as well.a stem may consist of a single root or two roots and a root plus a af fix.a stem can be a root or a form bigger than a root.chapter 41.Affixation (Derivation) -- the formation of words by adding word fo rming or derivational affixes to stems. (derivative派生词) According to their position, affixation falls into: prefixation and s uffixation.1). Prefixation -- the formation of new words by adding prefixes to s tems. It does not change the word-class of the stem but change its me aning2). 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.2.Blending—is the formation of new words by combining parts of two w ords or a word plus a part of another word.3.Conversion (zero-derivation, functional shift) --Conversion is the formation of new words by converting words of one class to another cl ass. These words are new only in a grammatical sense. The most produc tive is between nouns and verbs. It is a change of grammatical functi on5.Clipping– shorten a longer word by cutting a part of the origin a nd using what remains instead. People tend to be economical in writing and speech to keep up the tempo of new life style.7.Acronymy–is the process of forming new words by joining the init ial 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. --Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of word and pron ounced as words. . It’s one of the word formations of acronymy.8.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 t he opposite process of suffixation.Compounding （Composition）--Compounding is a process of word-format ion by joining two or more stems.9. How do you distinguish compounds from free phrases?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 gener ally stressed if there is only one stress.2) Semantic features. Compounds are different from free phrases in se mantic unity. Every compound should express a single idea just as one word.3) Grammatical features. A compound tends to play a single grammatica l role in a sentence.10.How do you explain the difference between backformation and suff ixation? Give example to illustrate your point.Back-formation is a process of word-formation by which a word is crea ted by the deletion of a supposed affix. It is considered to be the o pposite process of suffixation. As we know, Suffixation is the format ion of new words by adding suffixes to stems, and back-formation is t herefore the method of creating words by removing the supposed suffix es. For example, -er is a noun suffix, it is added to noun base engin e to produce a new word--engineer. however, people can make verbs by dropping the endings such as -or in editor, and -er in bolter. This i s how we derive edit and bolt. The removed suffixes are not true suff ixes but inseparable parts of the words.chapter 51.Reference– the relationship between language and the world. By mea ns of reference, a speaker indicates which things in the world (inclu ding 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.2.Concept– which beyond language is the result of human cognition re flecting 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.3.Sense-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 relat ionships with other expressions in the language.4.Motivation--accounts for the connection between the linguistic symb ol and its meaning.1）Onomatopoeic Motivation – the words whose sounds suggest their me aning. (Indicate the relationship between sound and meaning). Knowing the sounds of the words means understanding the meaning. These word s were created by imitating the natural sounds or noise. For example, bang, ping-pang, crow by cocks, etc.2）Morphological Motivation--Compounds and derived words are multi-m orphemic 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 instance, airmail means3）Semantic Motivation--refers to the mental associations suggested b y the conceptual meaning of a word. It explained the connection betwe en literal sense and figurative sense of a word).4）Etymological Motivation--The history of the word explains the mean ing of the word. (Indicate the relationship between word meaning and its origin).5。