词汇学考试历年习题及答案(选集)

A B（）1．Ultr- A. backformation（）2．burgle B. initialism（）3．pop C. transfer of sensation（）4．clear-sounding D. before（）5．VOA E. brim (water’s edge—the top edge of a cup) （）6．fore- F. mistress（）7．degradation G. succeed（）8．kick the bucket H. clipping（）9．extension I. die（）10．make it J. extreme1~5:JAHCB 6~10:DFIEGA B11.Scandinavian（） A. mill（place where things are made）12.Germanic（） B. grammatical13.extension（） C. double meaning14.narrowing（） D. Swedish15.linguistic（） E. comprehend/understand16.ambiguity（） F. Dutch17.participants（） G. determined18.difference in denotation（） H.pigheaded19.appreciative（） I.non-linguistic20.pejorative（） J.iron（a device for smoothing clothes）11~15:DFAJB 16~20:CIEGHStudy the following words or expressions and identify 1) historical stage of English vocabulary; 2) origins of homonyms; 3) types of meanings; 4) sources of synonyms;5) causes of ambiguity and 6) types of motivations.1．ball, ball (Old English, old French(origins of homonyms)）2．a hard businessman （Polysemy）3．friend or foe （Old English）4．miniskirt （Morphologically motivated）5．an attractive ball （Homonymy）6．lie –distort the fact（Figurative and euphemistic use of words (source of synonyms)）7．occupation-walk of life（Figurative and euphemistic use of words (source of synonyms)）8．coffee （Modern English）9．mother (love, care) （Connotation）10．enrich (Middle English）Study the following words or expressions and identify 1）types of boundmorphemes underlined, and 2）types of word formation or prefixes.1.predict（bound root ）2.motel（ (head+tail)blinding）3.potatoes（ inflectional affix/morpheme）4.blueprint（ adjective+noun）5.preliminaries（ full conversion）6.Southward（ suffix）7.demilitarize（ reversative prefix）8.hypersensityve（prefix of degree ）9.retell（prefix ）10.multi-purposes（number prefix ）Define the following terms1.loan words2.specialized dictionary3.conversion4.lexical context5. amelioration6. semantic change (referring to modes of vocabulary development)7. compounding8. synonyms9. grammatical context10. phrasal verbs1.Words taken over from foreign languages are known as borrowed words or loan or simply borrowing.2.It is a dictionary that covers a relatively restricted set of phenomena.It concentrates exclusively on a particular area of language or knowledge, treating such diverse topics as etymology, synonyms, idioms, pronunciation, usages in language, and special subjects like architecture, engineering, gardening and literature.3.It is the formation of new words by converting words of one class to another class.4.It refers to the lexical items that co-occur with the word in question.The meaning of the word is often sffected and defined by the neighboring words.5.It refers to the process by which words rise from humble beginnings to positions of importance.6.It means an old form which takes on a new meaning to meet the new need.7.It is the formation of new words by joining two or more bases.8.One of two or more words in the English language which have the same or very nearly the same essential meaning.9.In some cases, the meanings of a polysemant may be influenced by the syntactic structure in which it occurs.10.A phrasal verb is a combination of a verb and an adverb or preposition, for example ’shut up’ or ’look after’, which together have a particular meaning 1．What are bound morphemes? Illustrate your point.2．Why is context very important for the understanding of word-meaning?3. What is the difference between associative meaning and conceptual meaning?4. Give the definition of a stem and point out the stem(s) in the word “internationalist”.5. Explain the difference between initialisms and acronyms with the examplewords VOA, AIDS, N-bomb, UFO, CORE, ID.6. Arrange each of the following groups of synonyms according to their degree ofintensity, from the weakest to the strongest.1) astonish, amaze, surprise2) pardon, forgive, excuse3) genius, ability, talent4) sadness, grief, sorrow5) pleasure, rapture, delight7. What are the three major functions of context?1.Bound morphemes cannot occur as separate words. They are bound to other morpheme or morphemes to from words.Bound morphemes include two types: bound root and affix.2.Because most words have more than one meaning, it is often impossible to tell the meaning of a word before it is used in a given context.3.Conceptual meaning is the meaning given in the dictionary and forms the core of word meaning.It is usually constant and relatively stable.Associative meaning is the secondary meaning supplemented to the conceptual meaning.It is open-ended and indeterminate.4.A stem is a part of the word-form which remains when all inflectional affixes have been removed.Stems: nation, national, international.5.Initialisms are words pronounced letter by letter, hence the name. For example VOA,UFO,ID.Acronyms are words formed from initial letters but pronounced as a normal word, for example AIDS, CORE,N-bomb.6. 1) surprise-amaze-astonish 2)pardon-excuse-forgive 3) ability-talent-genius 4) sadness-sorrow-grief 5)pleasure-delight-rapture7.Elimination of ambiguity; indication of referents; provision of clues for inference of word meaning.Analyze and comment on the following.1. Some people hold that Shakespeare is more difficult to read than contemporary writings. Do you agree or disagree to this comment? State your reason(s) with at least three examples.2．Use examples to illustrate the similarity and difference between absolute synonyms and relative synonyms.3. Comment on the following two sentences to illustrate the two sub-categories of affective meaning.A) Knowledge of inequality has stimulated envy, ambition and greed.B) One who is filled with ambition usually works hard.4. What characteristic of antonyms does the following pairs of sentences demonstrate?A) How tall is his brother?B) How short is his brother?1.I agree with this comment. Shakespeare is more difficult to understand than contemporary writings because many of his words were used in different senses from what they have now been used in daily life.For example jump means ’just’ ,vulgar means ’common’, and rival means ’partner’ in Hamlet.2.Absolute synonyms are words which are identical in meaning in all its aspects,i.e. both in grammatical meaning and lexical meaning including conceptual and associative meanings. Synonyms of this type are interchangeable in every way. Absolute synonyms are rare in natural languages and restricted to highly specialized vocabulary, such as word-building-word formation in lexicology. Relative synonyms are similar or nearly the same in denotation, but embrace different shades of meaning or different degrees of a given quality. Take change-alter-vary for example. To change a thing is to put another thing in its place; to alter a thing is to make it different from what it was before; to vary a thing is to alter it in different manner and at different times.3.Words that have emotive values may fall into two categories: appreciative or pejorative. The appreciative or pejorative meanings of the words are usually brought out in context.In sentence A, ambition conveys a pejorative meaning, along with the other two word s ’envy’ and ’greed’; while in sentence B, the word ambition is used in good sense, showing approval, along with the words ’works hard’.4.Antonyms differ in semantic inclusion. Some pairs of antonyms are seen as marked and unmarked terms respectively, on the grounds that one member is more specific than the other and the meaning of the marked term is found in that of the unmarked.So far as the meaning is concerned, sentence A is inclusive.The use of tall does not exclude the possibility of his brother being very short. But sentence B is much more restricted in meaning and is considered abnormal unless the speaker is particularly interested in the shortness of his brother or curious enough to find how short his brother is.Complete the following statements with proper words or expressions according to the course book.1. Newly-created words or expressions in English vocabulary, such as AIDS and E-mail are called neologisms.2. In modern times, borrowings brings less than ten percent of modern English vocabulary from other languages.3. In the words prewar, bloody, impossible, pre-, -y, im- are called derivational affixes.4. Compounds differ from phrases in three aspects: phonetic, semantic, and grammatical features.5. The sense of an expression is not a thing, so it is difficult to say what sort of identity it is. For example, and, if, yes don’t refer to anything in the world, but all have meaning.6. The problem of interrelation of the various meaning of the same word can be dealt with from two different angles: diachronic approach and synchronic approach.7. Words which were used to designate one thing but later changed to mean something else have experienced the process of semantic transfer.8. The extra-linguistic context may be extended to embrace the entire culture background, which may also affect the meaning of words.9. The main body of a dictionary is its definitions of words.10. All sentence idioms are complete sentences. They are mainly proverbs and sayings, including colloquialisms and catchphrases.11．The smallest functioning unit in the composition of words is the morpheme.12．Word-meaning changes by modes of extension, narrowing, degradation, elevation and transfer.13．In the word “post-war”, “post-” is a prefix of time.14．Functional words such as preparations, conjunctions, though having little lexical meaning, possess strong grammatical meaning.15．Relative synonyms also called near-synonyms are similar or nearly the same in denotation, but embrace different degrees of a given quality.16.Word-meaning changes by modes of extension, narrowing, degradation, elevation and transfer.17.The language used in England between 450 and 1150 is called old English.ELD is a monolingual dictionary.19.In the phrase "the mouth of the river", the word "mouth" is semantically motivated.20.Physical situation or environment relating to the use of words is extralinguistic context.。