词汇学的总结

名词解释

1 T he definition of a word(词的定义）

In brief, a word may be defined as a fundamental unit of speech and minimum free form; with a unity of sound and meaning (both lexical and grammatical meaning), capable of performing a given syntactic function.

The definition of a word

To sum up, the definition of a word comprises the following points

A minimal free form of a language

A sound unity

A unit of meaning

A form that can function alone in a sentence

2 Vocabulary（词汇的含义）

Broadly speaking, all the words in a language together constitute what is known as vocabulary. The term vocabulary usually refers to a complete inventory of the words in a language. But it may also refer to the words and phrases used in the variants of a language, such as dialect, register, terminology, etc. There is a total English vocabulary of more than 1 million.

3 What is lexicology?（什么是词汇学）

Lexicology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the study of the vocabulary of a given language. It deals with words, their origin, development, structure, formation, meaning and usage.

4 The definition of a morpheme（词素的含义）

The morpheme(词素) is the smallest meaningful linguistic unit of language, not divisible or analyzable into smaller forms. A word is the smallest unit of a language that stands alone to communicate meaning. Structurally, however, a word is not the smallest unit because many words can be separated into smaller meaningful units. Words are composed of morphemes. What is usually considered a single word in English may be composed of one or more morphemes:

Major process:

The definition of prefixation（前缀法的定义）

Prefixation is the formation of new words by adding prefixes to stems. Prefixes do not generally change the word-class of the stem but only modify its meaning. However, there is an insignificant number of class-changing prefixes

Non-class-changing prefixes: natural-unnatural, like-dislike, fair-unfair

Class-changing prefixes: force-enforce, danger-endanger, form-deform, little-belittle, war-postwar, college-intercollege

The definition of suffixation（后缀法的定义）

Suffixation is the formation of new words by adding suffixes to stems. Unlike prefixes which primarily change the meaning of the stem, 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. However, they may also add attached meaning to the stem.

The classification of suffixes（后缀的分类）

Since suffixes mainly change the word class, we shall group suffixes on a grammatical basis into

1) noun suffixes

2) adjective suffixes

3) adverb suffixes

4) verb suffixes

The definition of conversion（转换法的定义）