英语词汇学(张维友版)第二讲

• By use frequency: the basic words stock and non-basic vocabulary • By notion: content words and functional words • By origin: native words and borrowed words • By morphology(词法): compounds and derived words
• Vocabulary is used in different senses, not only can it refer to the total number of the words in a language, but it can stand for all the words used in a particular historical period, we can use it to refer to all the words of a given dialect, a given book, a given discipline and the words possessed by an individual person.
• (1) All national character • words of the basic word stock denote the most common things and phenomena of the world around us as natural phenomena (rain, snow, fire), human body and relations (head, foot, sister), names of plants and animals (oak, pine, horse), action, size, domain, state (come, eat, hot, black), numerals, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions (one, I, in, till)
Terms
• • • • • • • • 1. lexicology 2. word 3.Sound 4.meaning. 5.syntactic （句法的） 6.the conventionalist and the naturalist 7.arbitrary（任意的） 8.onomatopoeia （拟声）
• (3) Slang • Words of this group belong to the substandard language. • Homosexual person: gay, queer, outs • drunk: elevated, merry, jolly, comfortable. • Question: People say slang is colorful, blunt, expressive and impressive, Do you agree and why?
• Yet, not all the words of the basic word stock have these characteristics. Pronouns and numerals enjoy nationwide use and stability, but are semantically monosemous and fairly limited in the respect of productivity and collocability.
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1.5.1Basic word stock and non basic vocabulary
• The basic word stock is the foundation of the vocabulary accumulated over centuries and forms the common core of the language, it is the most important part in the English vocabulary though it constitutes a small percentage. • These words manifest some obvious characteristics.
• The naturalists have argued that the origin of language lies in onomatopoeia, they maintain that there is a natural connection between sound and meaning. Facts have proved that the conventionalist’s argument to be valid. Words that convey the same meaning have different phonological
• (4)Polysemy (一词多义) • Words belonging to the basic word stock often possess plurality of meanings because most of them have undergone transformations in semantic structure in the course of use and become polysemous. e.g. come, -have been in he has come to Wuhan, -produce, No harm will come to our class. –appear, The question comes on the page 11.-begin The new machine has come to use. • Can you list more examples as the words “take” “break”, “get” “turn”?
• • • • • • • •
9.iconic (图象) 10.phonological(语音逻辑) 11.orthographical(拼法) 12.Form 13.borrowing 14.Vocabulary 15.lexis 16.lexicon
• Homework: • 1. What is the definition of “word”? • 2.Illustrate the relationship between sound and meaning, sound and form. • 3.What is the difference between word and vocabulary?
1.5Classification of Words
• The English vocabulary, multifarious in nature, consists of words of all kinds. They can be classified by different criteria and for different purposes. • Question: How many kinds of words can you classify ?
• (5)Collocability(搭配) • Many words of the basic stock enter quite a number of set expressions , idiomatic usages, proverbial sayings and the like. e.g. • Life. Come to life/ depart this life/ for dear life( with all means )/ a dog’s life (poor life)/lay down one’s life (sacrifice)/lead a double life (lead a life with double identities), the life and soul of the party (the elite) • Can you list more examples?
In spite of the irregularities, (caused by the changing of pronunciation, spelling, alphabetic system and borrowing) at least eighty percent of our words fit consistent spelling patterns, so that we can say , in English, sound and form is generally consistent with each other.
Nonbasic vocabulary
• Words , void of the stated characteristics, do not belong to the common core of the language. They include: • (1) Terminology(术语)(technical terms used in particular disciplines) hepatitis, algebra, symphony • (2)Jargon(行话)(specialized vocabularies used by certain professions) cop, bottom line, persona (mannerism)
• (4)Argot(隐语，黑话) this is the jargon of the criminals, the use of argot is confined to the sub-cultural group. Can-opener (all purpose key ), dip (pick-pocket) • (5)Dialectal Words(方言)these are the words used only by speakers of the dialect in question. Beauty (AusE) ,hame(scot=home)
• (2)Stability Words of the basic word stock have been in use for centuries, those who denote the commonest things necessary to life are likely to remain unchanged. Just like the conventionalists mentioned, language is a convention, the things which have been named before will remain stable to some extent although some might experience little change with the time passing by. (man, fire, mountain)
• (3)Productivity • Words of the basic word stock are mostly root words or monosyllabic(单音节) words. They can each be used alone, and at the same time can form new words with other roots and affixes(词 缀),e.g. man, postman, milkman, walkman, freeman, workman, dog, dogcart, dog-ear, dog eats dog, lucky-dog, old-dog. • Can you give more examples?