词汇学之构词法

Lexicology (Lecture Four)

2011.9.22

The structure of a word

Word is not an unanalysible unit, it can be analyzed. e.g. …M an‟can not be broken down into any smaller unit, but …manly‟ can. Word is the minimum free form (最小的自由使用单位).

1. 词素morpheme

Morpheme: the minimum meaningful unit. 最小的意义单位. There are two types of morphemes:

Free morpheme: the morphemes that can occur alone可以独立使用, e.g. dog, nation, close

Bound morpheme：the morphemes that cannot occur independently尽管能表达意

义，但不能独立使用，至少要与另外的一个形位结合才能

使用, e.g. the word distempered has three morphemes,

namely, dis-, temper- and -ed, of which temper is a free

morpheme, dis- and -ed are two bound morphemes. Allomorph: 词素有变体，如自由词素take的变体为took和taken；粘着词素in-的变体为il-, im-, ir等。

2. Root and affix

A root is the base form of word that can not further be analysed without total loss of identity. That is to say, it is the part of the word left when all the affixes are removed.

Affix：affixes add meaning to the root

roots may be bound or free but affixes are always bound.

Inflectional and derivational affix

Inflectional affix: They only carry relevant grammatical information. An inflectional affix serves to express such meanings as plurality, tense, and the comparative or superlative degree. e.g. plural. Thus,book and books are both nouns referring to the same kind of entity.

Derivational affix: They are so called because when they are added to another morpheme, they “derive” a new word either by changing the meaning of the base to which they are attached or by changing the grammatical category (part of speech) of the base. The derivational affixes may be further classified as prefix and suffix.

Example: The word "unbreakable" has three morphemes: "un-", a bound morpheme; "break", a free morpheme; and "-able", a free morpheme. "un-" is also a prefix, "-able" is a suffix. Both "un-" and "-able" are affixes.

Summary:

1.Words are composed of morphemes.

2. Morphemes may be classified as free or bound.

3. Morphemes can also be classified into roots and affixes.

4 Affixes are classified into inflectional and derivational affixes. Derivational affixes are subdivided into prefixes and suffixes,

Major types of word-building

1. Affixation:

a process in which a free morpheme is combined with a bound morpheme, a prefix or a suffix.

Prefix: generally do not change part of speech of the word 不改变词的词性Suffix: change part of speech of the word

2. Conversion

Conversion is also referred to as Zero Derivation.

It is a process that can transfer a word belonging to one word class to another word class without any change of form, either in pronunciation or spelling.

3. Compounding 复合法

A word made in process which consists joining two or even more words to form a