大学英语词汇学期末考试-重点复习资料整理-权威版-后附试题

2012词汇学复习资料

The development of the English Vocabulary

1.Indo-European Language Family

The Indo-European Language Family is considered as one of the most important language families. It includes most languages of Europe, the Near East, and India. Those languages, which are believed to have originated from this language family and developed alone different lines, show various degrees of similarity to one another. They fall into eight principal groups, which can be grouped into an Eastern Set东部诸语族: Balto-Slavic波罗的-斯拉夫语, Indo-Iranian印度伊朗语族, Armenian 亚美尼亚语族and Albanian阿尔巴尼亚语族; a Western Set: 西部诸语族Celtic凯尔特语族, Italic 意大利语族, Hellenic希腊语族, Germanic日尔曼语族. All the languages in both sets shed some influence on English to a greater or lesser extent because each has lent words into the English vocabulary.

Prussian普鲁士语

Lithuanian立陶宛语

Polish波兰语

Balto-Slavic波罗的-斯拉夫语Czech捷克斯洛伐克语

Bulgarian保加利亚语

Slovenian斯洛文尼亚语

Russian

Albanian阿尔巴尼亚

Persian波斯语

Hindi北印度语

Indo-Iranian印度伊朗语系Bengali孟加拉语

Romany，吉卜赛语

Armenian亚美尼亚语

Portuguese

Spanish

Italic意大利语族Italian

Roumanian罗马尼亚语

French

Indo-European

Language Family

Irish

Celtic凯尔特语Breton

Scottish

Norwegian挪威语

Icelandic，冰岛语

Danish丹麦语

Germanic Swedish瑞典语

日尔曼语言English

Dutch

Flemish

German

Hellenic，古希腊语- Greek

Chapter 1

A General Survey of A Word

The Definition of Word

• A word is

(1) A minimal free form of a language;

(2) a sound unity;

(3) a unity of meaning;

(4) a form that can function alone in a sentence.

A word is a minimal free form that has a given sound and meaning and syntactic function.

A word is a smallest unit of a language.

1. The development of English vocabulary

The history of English language can be divided into 3 periods:

a/ Old English period (449—1100)

The former inhabitants, the Celtic, the Germanic tribes called Angles, Saxons and Jutes Anglo-Saxon as Old English, Old English contains 50-60 thousand words, which consists of the basic word stock.

b/ Middle English period (1100-1500)

characterized by the strong influence of French following the Norman Conquest in 1066.The French loan words were found in law and governmental administration (judge, justice)

c/ Modern English period (1500--)

the early stage of this period ( including the years between 1500-1700), the Renaissance brought great changes to the vocabulary. borrowing from Latin, Latin were now mostly connected with science and abstract ideas. Greek borrowings were mostly literary, technical and scientific words

2.Classification of English Words According to Different Criteria

A. By Origin: native words and loan (borrowed ) words

In English language, most native words in Modern English are monosyllabic. They form the great majority of the basic word stock of English language.

The fundamental features of the basic word stock are:

1. National character;

2. Stability;

3. Word-forming ability;

4. Ability to form collocations

Since the great majority of the basic word stock are native words, they are naturally the ones used most frequently in everyday speech and writing.

B. By level of usage

1. Common words ( P11 words connected with ordinary things or activities necessary to everyday life: “The repeated telephone calls only annoyed me but made my sister very angry.”)

2. Literary words (P12 words are chiefly used in writing, formal speeches, e.g. Feeling fatigued, Tom retired early.): a. Archaic words; b. Poetical words See P13

3. Colloquial words: Words used mainly in spoken English, in conversation among friends and colleagues,e.g. “John was fired for petty thieving”

4. Slang words

C. By notion: function words and content ( P 17)

function words are short words such as determiners, conjunctions, prepositions, auxiliaries, and so on, they serve grammatical meaning