Lecture5WordFormation英语词汇学教案

Lecture 5

讲授题目：Word Formation Ⅰ

所属章节：《现代英语词汇学概论》之第3章 计划学时：4 periods

教学方法：传统讲授法

参考资料：《英语词汇学教程》、《英语词汇学》 教学目的和要求：通过本单元的学习，学生对英语的构词法有初步了解，尤其是产出新词最多的三种主要构词法：词缀法、复合法、转类法。

教学重点：1) Affixation;

2) Compounding;

3) Conversion.

教学难点：The above-mentioned word-formations.

The expansion of vocabulary in modern English depends chiefly on word-formation. There is a variety of means being at work now. The most productive are affixation, compounding and conversion.

According to Pyles and Algeo (1982), words produced through affixation constitute 30% to 40% of the total number of new words; compounding yields 28% to 30% of all the new words; conversion gives us 26% of the new vocabulary. The rest of new words come form shortening including clipping and

acronymy, amounting to 8% to 10%, together with 1% to 5% of words born out of blending and other means.

Talking about word-forming patterns means dealing with rules. But a rule of word-formation usually differs from a syntactic rule. Not all the words that are produced by applying the rule are acceptable. For example, the existence of the actual English words unclean, unwise, unfair does not ensure the acceptance of unsad, unexcellent.

Therefore, rules themselves are not fixed but undergo changes to a certain extent. For example, the Old English –th which is found in warmth, length, depth, width, derived from adjectives warm, long, deep, wide,but broad is no longer used to form new word broadth (※coolth)---(Quirk, et al 1985).

By word-formation processes, we concentrate on productive or marginally productive rules. While applying the rules, we should remember that there are always exceptions.

(在构词过程中，我们要注意到活跃性和边缘性问题。必须记住，规则都有例外。)

1. Affixation (词缀法)

Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding word-form or derivational affixes to stems. This process is also known as derivation, for new words created in this way are derived from old forms.

The words formed in this way are called derivatives. According to the positions which affixes occupy in words, affixation falls into two subclasses: prefixation and suffixation.

1) Prefixation (前缀法)

※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, present-day English finds an increasing number of class-changing prefixes, for example:

asleep, alike, alive (a- + v. →adj.) a- ( in, to, at, on)

encourage, entrain, endanger (en- + n. →v.) en- (to put or get into)