Words, Meaning, Vocabualry Vypisky

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1 What is lexicology

Lexicology may be defined as the study of lexis understood as the stock of the words in a given

language. The notion of words is central in the study of lexicology. Lexicology deals not only with

simple words in all their aspects but also with complex and compound words.

Morphology

- Is the study of morphemes and their arrangements in forming words. Morphemes are the

smallest meaningful unit which may constitute words or parts of words. They cannot be

broken down further on the basis of meaning. For ex. Cat cannot be analysed further into

meaningful units but sleeping can sleep ing. Cat and ing are morphemes but cat is a simple

word while ing is only part of the word.

- Morphemes that can occur as individual words are free morphemes and those who cannot are

called bound morphemes. Any concrete realization in a given utterance is called a morph.

There is difference between morphs and syllables. Morphs are manifestations of morphemes

and represent a specific meaning; syllables are parts of words which are isolated only on thebasis of pronunciation.

Complex words are formed are formed from the simpler words by adding affixes or some

other kind of morphological modification: spoonful

Compound words are form are formed by combining two or more words: cheeseburger

Semantics

- Study of meaning

According to Jackson we should identify these kinds of semantics:

Pragmatic s. Studies the meaning of utterances in context

Sentence s. Handles the meaning of sentences and meaning relations between sentences

Lexical s. Deals with the meaning of words

- Sem. Is considered as part of the lexicology but also phonology, syntax, pragmatics.

There is a difference between acceptability and meaningfulness for example. That woman is a man.

Can be considered meaningless but with a bit of imagination in some context it can be acceptable for

example in a play.

Etymology

- Study of the whole history of words not just their origin

- Some words are not etymologically related to ancient words so it is difficult to establish their

origins

- It is difficult to say what was the original meaning of the words since human language

stretches too far back in history

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Lexicography

- Special technique, the writing and compilation dictionaries

Lexicology and phonology

- In many cases the difference between otherwise identical items can be reduced to a difference

at the level of phonology: sheep vs. Ship differ only on one sound unit, sometimes only the

stress cause the phonological difference

- Also compounds words can show good example for example blackboard and black board

Lexicology and syntax

We use term syntax to refer to the particular knowledge which enables us to assemble words when weconstruct sentences, we can know all the words in the dictionary and still be not able to speak English

we have to acquire a set of rules how to form sentences. Sentences can be built according to the rules

of syntax but be unacceptable on lexical grounds: Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

- The essential difference between syntax and lexicology is that the former deals with the

general facts of the language and the latter with special aspects

The word and its associative field

- According to this approach every word is involved in a network of associations which connect

it with other terms in the language. Some of these association are based on similarity of

meaning others are formal while others involve both form and meaning

Lecturer lectured, lecturing connects it based on common stem lecture

Lecturer teacher, tutor etc semantic similarity

Lecturer clever, quicker etc accidental similarity in their ending

Lecturer- gardener, labourer etc suffix - er

Any word chosen form a given context will suggest other words to us

Paradigmatic and synatagmatic rel

Syntagmatic ( sequence ) rovn

p The first question was difficult.

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a Third problem easy

radigmatic Last word funny

dol Etc. Etc. Etc.

Lexical fields

- Defines a semantic or lexical field as a named area of meaning in which lexemes interrelate

and define each other in specific ways. For example KINSHIP comprises lexemes father,

mother, son, daughter, cousin etc.

- According to lexical field theory the vocabulary of a language is a dynamic and well-

integrated system of lexemes structured by relationship of meaning. The system is changing

continuously by the interaction of various forces such as the disappearance of previously

existing items, narrowing or broadening of some lexemes. Some words may be signed to

more fields for example orange can be assigned to that of colour or to that of fruit.

Word families

Words are group into families on the basis of their morphology both their inflections and

derivations. A family consists of a base form , its possible inflectional forms and words derived

from it by prefixation and suffixation skill, skills infl, skilful, skilfully derivations

Word classes

- The notion of word class may also be used to account for the structure of the vocabulary as a

whole. Quirk distinguish the following:

Closed classes: preposition, pronoun, determiner, conjunction, auxiliary verb

Open classes: noun, adjective, verb, adverb

Lesser cat. : numeral, interjection

A small number of words of unique function: the particle not and the infinitive marker to.

- All words that function in the same way are deemed to belong to the same word class for

example: The book was on/in/under the cupboard. The words on, in and under have the same

function and express some kind of locational relationship.

2. Where do English words come from?

5000 languages = 300 language families: one of them, Indo-European has branches :

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- Italic (Latin)

- Germanic = North G. + East G. + West G.

(modern (modern German,

Scandianvian l.) Dutch, English)

1st inhabitants - Celts (5,000 BC)

Romans (43 410 AD) Latin words castra (Gloucester, Lancaster), strata (street

Picts and Scots from the north

Germanic tribes Angles, Saxons, Jutes, frisians = Anglo-saxon society

the end of 6th century influence of Latin, the country was called Angli/Anglia, in Old English

Engle, the language was called Englisc (sc spelling forsh sound)

Old English period (450 1066)

1st OE manuscripts were written in the runic alphabet brought by Anglo-Saxons (5, 6 th cent.)

the literary age began after arrival of Roamn missionaries (597)

OE manuscripts from 7thcent. Are glossaries of Latin words translated into OE

Beowulf the most important literary work (around 1000)

King Alfred (9th cent.) had many latin works translated

Features of OE

OE alphabet was similar to the modern one

no capital letters

some letters had differetn shapes

some letters were missing (j, v, f, q, x, z)

numbers were written in Roman symbols

some letters were used in combination for a single sound (th truth, ea meat)

the same word could be spelled differently on the same page lots of variations

difference between words in prose and poetry (prose words are similar to modern E, poetic words

are different)

frequent use of coinages (kennings) = referring to vivid figurative descripitons often involving

compounds (hronrad = whale-road = sea, banhus = bone-house = persons body). Kennings are

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sometimes hard to interpret because of the use of synonyms = in Beowulf there 20 words for a

man.

Kennings were used to achieve alliteration in a line

Differences between OE and modern E.

OE uses more synonyms

use of word-formation processes in OE based on native elements

loan translations (calques) = lexical items translated part-by-part into another language

use of inflectional endings to express grammatical relationships (rather than word order as it is

today, the change came in 11 and 12th cent.)

OE corpus had 24,000 lexical items, 85% are not in use today. 3% of the OE words are loanwordscomapred to 70% in ME

Middle-English period (1066 1500)

increase in the number of private and public documents, mainly in Latin and French

material in English - 13th cent.

14th cent. - a lot of translating from Latin and French into English

poetry influenced by French,

Geoffrey Cahucer, John Wycliff

Features of Middle English

great diversity in spelling (naure, noeure, ner, neure = neuer, never.

As the period progressed, the spelling changed and was more similar to ME

intensive borrowing from other languages (French)

in early stages of Middle E. over 90% of lexicon was of native English (Anglo-Saxon) origin

by the end of Middle E. Period it was 75%

loanwords were the only way in which the vocabulary of Middle E. Increased

word-formation, such as compounding was used as it was in OE

Early Modern English (1500 1800)

1476 William caxton set up his press in Westminster = the beginnig point of Early ME

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printing played a major role in fostering the norms of spelling and pronunciation, provided more

opportunities for people to write, and enabled published works to circulate. This meant that more

books were published.

In 16th cent. Scholars began to talk seriously about their language, making observations on

grammar, vocabulary, the writing systm and style.

This period covers Renaissance = interest in the clasical languages and literature, scientific

discoveries, exploration of America, Africa and Asia = imapct on English language, especially

vocabulary.

borrowing from Latin and Greek, especially in medicine and theology

Example of the development in the language is Shakespeares work (King Jmaes Bible)

fast lexical growth

also semantic changes, old words got new meanings

1755 Samuel Johnson publishedDictionary of English Language the aim was to register the

language, not to form it

Modern English period (1800 present)

3 main fetaures of ME:

growth of scientific vocabulary, in terms of pronunciation and grammar, but more at the lexical

level (consequence of Industrial revolution, rise in education)

assertion of American English as a dominant variety of the language (leading economic power).

Nowadays the differences are getting smaller because of mass media, openness to American

culture ...

emergence of other varieties known as New Englishes (Indian E., Philippine E. African Es)

associated with a geographical area

NATIVE ENGLISH VOCABULARY

Anglo-Saxon words

words which are still used in ME (grammatical words: be, that, in, while, lexical words: father,

love, name) they are now common words of the language

the words are generally short and concrete (parts of the body: arm, bone, chest, thenatural

landscape: field, hedge, hill, the calendar: day, month,moon, animals: cow, dog, fish, common

adjectives: black, good, wide, common verbs: kiss, live, think)

Influence of Celtic on English

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not very big, only few words can be found in ME (ususally in regional dialect use: crag = deep

valley, carr = rock, luh = loch, lough)

some Celtic words derive from Latin (place names:Avon, Thames, York, Kent)

Irish Gaelic in 17th cent. (shamrock)

Scottish Gaelic ( loch, whisky)

THE PROCESS OF BORROWING

the term for a process by which a word from one language is takne over into another

language, usually to fill a lexical gap, e. g. faux pas, or to name a new phenomenon or concept, e.

g. karaoke. The borrowed word is called a loanword orborrowing.

Althought other languages try to protect from accepting foreign words, English is fromed fromabout 120 languages.

Latin words in English

the major influence on English

early words were connected with military, agriculture

Germanic people acquired words relating to clothing (belt, cemes = shirt),buildings and

settlements (weal = wall),

words from branches in which Romans excelled (ancor = anchor, piper = pepper)

in the Middle English period it was professional and technical terms, law, literature.

At the same time words from French were borrowed, together with Latin expressions, = highly

distinctive feature of modern E. Vocabulary

Scandinavian loanwords in English

as a result of Viking raids on Britain (8-10 th cent.)

settlements - in Yorkshire, ending -by, Sc. word for farm or town: Derby, Rugby)

personal names in thenorth and east, ending -son: Jackson, Henderson.

general words: they, them, their. Personal singular ending in present tense: -s.

sc-, sk-: score, skill, skirt, sky.

Greek loanwords

technical terms in all branches of human knowledge

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some greek words wre borrowed from Latin (allegory, drama, metaphor )and French (centre,

character, harmony) , some were derived from Greek and Latin elements (lexis, lexeme, lexical),

while others were taken directly from Greek (acronym, autocracy, telegram).

The influence was most noticeable in 15th cent.

French loanwords

After William the Conqueror became the King of England in 1066, Norman French became the

language of government, the courts and the new upper social classes.

Afixes (con- , trans- , pre- , -ance, -tion, - ment)

some French words: government, prince, duke, beef, mutton, clergyarmy....

even Modern Englishborrowed words from French:gentle, champion, carriage, village, prestige

later borrowings from French also reflect french dominance in the spheres of fashion, arts,

sciences (gown, luxury, tragedy)

German and Dutch loans

due to commercial relationships from Middle Ages on (dollar, guilder)

seafaring activities (deck, cruise, skipper)

many loanwords came into English through contact between Americans and Dutch settlers,especially in NY area (cookie, cranberry, waffle, Santa Claus)

German impact on English was low, only in speacialists fields (geology: cobalt)

Romance loans other than from French

Spanish, Portuguese, from the 16th cent. (alligator, canoe, chocolate, potato) = words from the

New World

Italian music (violin, opera, piano), food: (pasta, lasagne)

Loans from the East

Arabic words (admiral, saffron, zenith, assassin)

Hebrew words (amen, hallelujah, rabbi)

Indian words (avatar, karma, jungle)

Loanwords from other sources

west African languages (banana, safari, gorilla)

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Slavic languages (polka from Czech,glasnost, vodka from Russian,goulash from Hungarian)

native American languages (moccassin, tomahawk, skunk)

English still borrows words from other languages, but considerably less. French is the largest supplierof words to English nowadays in UK, in the USA it is from Spanish.

CREATING NEW ENGLISH WORDS

Root creation

refers to the building of a word that has no relationship whatsoever with any previous

existing word.

e. g.Kodak purely arbitrary combination of letters, not derived from any existing word (1888)

vasseline (wasser+oil), kleenex (clean+curtx)

Echoic words

echoic / onomatopoeic words find their origin in the specific sound that they are meant to

represent, e. g. bang, cuckoo, splash, tinkle

two types: imitative and symbolic

imitative intends to imitate the sound that it represents (meow, moo, vroom)

symbolic has a less direct association with the sound (bump, flick)

- often come in sets which either rhyme (bump, lump, hump)

or alliterate (flick, flash, flip, flop)

both imitative and symbolic words may be the subject to doubling, sometimes with a little

variation (bow-wow, choo-choo, peewee)

Ejaculations

words that attempt to imiate instinctive vocal responses to emotional situations (ha-ha,

phew)

Word formation

uses existing language material words and morphesmes to create new lexical items

major process are compounding and affixation

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compounding: birthday, craftsman, newborn, banana-flavoured, download, afterwards)

affixation (use of prefixes, suffixes):celebration, forgetful, napkin, pre-figure

CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN ENGLISH VOCABULARY

The size

750,000 entries in Oxford English Dictionary and Websters Third International together,

each of them concentrating eithet on British or American dialect terms

no New Englishes areincluded in these dictionaries

Crystal concludes it is about 1,000,000 lexemes.

Frequency of occurence an use of Anglo-Saxon words

words from Anglo-Saxon are the most frequent in the language

the most frequent 200 words consist of one syllable

native English words tend to be preferred in everyday speech, they are considered more human

and emotional (when choosing between nourishment, nutrition, food, the last is chosen)

English vocabulary

out of 617,000 words in Oxford English dictionary, there most foerign words

on the other hand, in writing and speech, the most common are native English words

many foreign words have assimilated, have English pronunciation and spelling and are no longer

foreign words

grammatical structures have remained almost the same throughout the centuries

3 The Word

Difficulties in the definition of the word

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The term word is used to designate an intermediate structure smaller than a whole phrase and larger

than a single sound segment. Word may be defined differently depending on whether we focus on

thought which it expresses or purely formal criteria or on its representation.

The word as represented in writing represents a thought unit or psychological unit; this is the most

common case. Names of the objects: table, house. Abstractions: faith, intelligence. Adjectives: tall,

short. Verbs: eat, sleep

The word forms one block but includes two units of thought: farmer, spoonful.

The psychological unit spreads over several words, the word is only element of the real unity: all of

the sudden.

According to Bloomfield a minimal form is morpheme, its meaning a semen. A form which occur

alone is free and which may not is bound. Lexis which consists of an infinite number of elements

excludes relational words or grammatical morphemes.

A further difficulty in the use of formal criteria is that word may be defined from the phonological,lexical, grammatical points.

The word defined

Word is uninterruptible unit of structure consisting of one or more morphemes and typically occurs in

the structure or phrases. Words speak, speaks, spoke etc. Are separate grammatically .

Lexical words are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs can be meaningful even in isolation while for

example with, a, the are not.

Characteristic of words

1)word is an uninterruptible unit

2) word may consists of more than one morpheme, when it consists of one morpheme only it cannot

be broken down into smaller units

3) word occurs typically in the structure or phrases

4) each word should belong to a specific word classr part of speech. The same form appears in more

than one class for example smoke verb or noun

Ambiguity in the notion of word

Word can be regarded as generic when it has abstract reference i.e. is more schematic, poorere than

particular word in its ability to distinguish specific features. Generic terms apply to a wide range of

items but tell us a little about them. The word mammal is more generic and more abstract than cow in

the same way animal is more abstract than mammal. The words usually denote not single items but

classes of things or events bound together by some common element.

The words we use never completely homogenous in their meaning all of them have number of aspects

depending on the context and situation in which they are used. Word table: table in a restaurant, table

of contents in a book.

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Word meaning

Denotation and reference

We need the concept of lexeme to clarify the distinction between denotation and reference this concept

which was coined by Lyons is considered an abstract linguistic unit. Thus the relation of denotation

holds between a lexeme and a whole class of extra linguistic objects.

As opposed to denotation, the relationship of reference holds between an expression and what the

expression stands for on particular occasions of its utterance. Lyons further points out that reference

depends on concrete utterances, not on abstract sentences.

Denotation and sense

Lyons defined the sense of a word as its place in a system of relationship which it contracts with other

words in the vocabulary.

A comparison between denotation and sense shows that the two relations are dependent on each other.

According to Lyons some words may have no specific denotation and still have sense.

There is no such animal as a unicorn. vs There is no such book as a unicorn. While the first is perfectly

acceptable the second is semantically odd.

Words are not normally used in isolation, but combined with other words to form larger units

expressing various relationships.

Polysemy

- Refers to the situation where the same word has two or more different meanings. In most cases

only one of the meanings of a polysemous word will fit into a given context, but occasionallyambiguity may also arise: Look at that bat under the tree.

It is not easy to say whether two meanings are the same or different. Consequently, we cannot

determine exactly how many meanings polysemous word has.

Homonymy

- Refers to a situation where we have two or more words with the same shape but they yare

considered distinct lexemes, mainly because they have unrelated meanings and different

etymologies.

Homograph has the same spelling: lead

Homophone has the same sound: right, write

Because of the sameness of shape there is a danger of homonymous conflict in the sense that two

homonyms with totally different meanings may both make sense in the same utterance: The route was

very long. Or The root was very long

4 WORD FORMATION

By word formation processes we mean the different devices which are used in English to built new

words from existing ones. Each word formation process will result in the production of a specific type

of word.

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Inflection and derivation

Inflection is a general grammatical process which combines words and affixes to produce alternative

grammatical forms of words. For example the plural morpheme is an inflectional morpheme.

Derivation is a lexical process which actually forms a new word out of an existing one by adding a

derivational affix for example ation---resign----resignation

Distinction between inflection and derivation is mainly morphological.

Inflectional affixes may be described as a relational markers, once the inflection is added to a stem

that stem does not change classes but its distribution is then limited in the syntactic structure. When

the plural inflection is added to dog----dogs both are nouns and plural inflection does not change the

class of the word.

Inflectional suffixes tend to lend themselves to paradigms which apply to the language as a whole.

The paradigm of a major word class consists of a single stem of that class with the inflectional suffixes

which the stem may take. However to belong to a class a word need not take every inflectional suffixin the paradigm.

Nouns and inflectional contrast: boy- boys-boys boys

Adjectives: cold colder coldest

Verbs: eat eats ate eaten eating , etc.

Derivational affixes

English has over sixty common derivational affixes. Derivations tend not to be paradigms which apply

to set of words as a whole. Distinction between two types of affixes is not always clear for examplepast participle suffix ed is used to form adjectives of the red-haired type. Der. af. Can change the word

class of the item. If derivation and inflection co occur then derivations are inner, closer to the stem and

inflections are outer. Frightened fright ---en is derivation and ed is inflection.

Der. af. Do not always change the word class: reconsider consider both are verbs. Sometimes a shift

in class is not always signalled by overt marker: star or to star. Sometimes words with two or more

syllables may undergo a change of class by a change in stress pattern: noun - contract, verb con

tract.

Derivational affixes are class changing and class maintaining. Class changing change the word class

resign---resignation. Class maintaining change the meaning of the derivative: child hood giveschildhood still noun but rather abstract than a concrete noun.

Noun derivational af. Called nominalizers: leak leakage, argue argument

Verb der.af. called verbalizers: fright e- frighten, glory-fy-gloryfy

Adjectives der.af. adjectivizers: season al- seasonal

Adverbs der.aff adverbializers: slow-ly-slowly

Class changing derivations are mainly suffiexes but class maintaining derivations are mainly prefixes.

Noun patterns: malaria-antimalaria, priest expriest

Verb patterns: join-adjoin

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Adjectives patterns: social-antisocial

Compounds - may be defined as stems consisting of more than one root: bedside, car-wash etc. Some

are written as one word while others are written as two or more words.

In English compounds may be distinguished from phrases on phonological, syntactic, and semantic

grounds. Compounds are often recognised by stress pattern and lack of juncture. In English words arecharacterized by single primary stress. For example black board vs. black-board. All compounds are

non-interruptible. For example the compound dare-devil cannot be used as dare the devil which is a

phrase. Compounds may be modified by other words for example air-sick John was seriously air sick.

Seriously modifies the whole compound.

Classification of compounds

Noun compounds: any root plus noun, the second root must be a noun while the first root may be

noun, verb, adj,adv.

Verb compounds: any root plus verb, second root verb, first root is noun, adj, verb, adv.Adjectives compounds: first root may be adj., adverb, noun

Adverb compounds: adverb plus adverb

Special noun compounds: verb plus adverb is noun compound.

Endocentric: one or both roots is the head of the compound

Exocentric: neither root is the head

Conversion process of changing grammatical class of a word without changing its form; common in

English, each noun can be verbed;

o to Google, to Skype, to butter, to paper the walls, to dirty, a printout

Blending putting the beginning of one word and ending of another together

- netiquette, brunch, motel, smog, guesstimate

Clipping cutting off the ending or beginning of a word

o back-clipping = bra (brassiere), gym (gymnasium)

o front-clipping = copter (helicopter)

Backformation removing affix to create a new, more obvious word which, however, does not existyet

o editor => edit; babysitter => babysit; donation =>donate, swindler => swindle,

barbecue => Barbie

5 Mening relations

Discussion often begins by drawing a distinction between the reference of a word and the sense of a

word. Reference is an external meaning relation; it is the relationship between a word and the entitythat it refers to.

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Sense relations

It is an internal meaning relation, hold between words within the vocabulary. The two most obvious

sense rel. are those of oppositeness and sameness called synonymy and antonymy. Other sense rel.

show ( hyponym, meronymy) how words with general meaning includes the meaning of other words

with more specific meanings.

Collocation

Sense rel are pragmatic. They are about the choice between words, the substitution of one word for

another in a particular contextual slot in a sentence.

Semantic field

The vocabulary is organised into a number of partially overlapping semantic fields. A semantic filed

contains words that belong to a defined area of meaning.

Synonymy

Synonymy is the relation of sameness of meaning. One or more words may share one or more

features of meanings.

Strict synonyms two words have to be interchangeable in all their possible context of their

use. Strict synonyms create unnecessary redundancy in language.

Loose synonymy in some context they cannot substitute for each other. For example find and

discover both can be in sentence Linda discovered/find the ball behind the garden shed but not

in Marie Curie discovered radium in 1898.

Some synonym pairs differ in that they belong to different dialects of English: pavement

sidewalk. A second general way in which synonyms may be distinguished relates to the style of

formality. One of a pair of synonyms may be used in a more formal context than the other, or

one of the pair may belong to slang or colloquial English, while other is in more general use:

die decease.

English language is rich in pairs of synonyms the primary reason is the borrowing from other

languages. Words from Old English are generally shorter than French or Latin synonyms.

Antonymy

is based on oppositeness of meaning. Only words belonging to one and the same wordclass/grammatical category can be antonyms. Antonyms occur together either within the same

sentence or in the adjacent sentence.

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There are different types of incompatibility relations: a) the meanings of the words are

opposites and within the relevant domain of meaning it has to be either one or the other, e.g. up

and down (complementary antonyms); b) the meanings of the words are opposites and within

the relevant domain of meaning there is an indefinitely large number of gradations between one

pole and the other, e.g. hotand cold(gradable antonyms); c) the meanings of the words are in

converse relationship with one another and the relation is symmetrical, e.g. buy andsell(relational antonyms), or the words form a mutually exclusive set like red, blue, green

Hyponymy and meronymy

Sense relations that relate words hierarchically. Some words have a more generally meaning while

others have a more specific meaning while referring to the same entity. Tree and oak may be used to

refer the same object but oak is more specific.

Hyponymy the kind of relations

is the paradigmatic relation in the system of vocabulary based on inclusion of a specificmeaning in a more general meaning. The lexical unit which due to its general meaning is on a

higher level than some other lexical units is called hyperonym. The lexical units which share the

same level of generality and have the same superordinate unit are called co-hyponyms.

The term plant can be at the top of hierarchy and it is superordinate those immediately below it:

lichen, shrub etc are hyponyms. Tree is hyponym to plant but it is in turn superordinate to its

hyponyms conifer.

animal (hyperonym)

mammal bird fish insect (co-hyponyms)

cat dog robin eagle cod trout ant butterfly

All the members of a hyponym tree should belong to the same word-class. Thus some

hyponyms do not have a hyperonym for instance: colours (colouredexcludes black and

white), professions: craftsman includes carpenter, shoemaker, but excludes doctor, flute

player, clergymanel Dalmatian Alsatian

Meronymy the part of relation

is the paradigmatic relation in the system of vocabulary based on the relation part whole. For

instance:

HOUSE : bedroom; kitchen; bathroom; dining room

Analysing meaning

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Some lexicologists suggested that that meaning of words can be analysed into a finite number

of features or components which are universal to all languages, and from which are universal to

all languages, and from which meanings of all wods can be composed by new unique

combinations. Such as approach is called componential analyses.

Componential analysis of the meaning of vixen +mammal, +animate, +animal, -male

The meanings of many lexemes, even in English, cannot be exhaustively described by means of

semantic components. And it is unlikely that very many components will turn out to be

universal. Perhaps componential analysis has limited but powerful application to certain area of

semantic description

Semantic fields

In semantic fields analysis the words are grouped together into fields on the basis of an element

of shared meaning. Such as field might comprise words referring to verbs of communication

(speak, order, warn, promise)

6. Words in use

Core and specialist vocabulary

The vocabulary of English according to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary): the centre is occupied

by the common words in which literary and colloquial usage meet. Scientific and foreign words enter

the common language mainly through literature, slang words ascend through colloquial use thetechnical terms and the dialect words blend with the common language.

Dimension of variation

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- The ways in which language varies according to context and how this leads to development of

specialist vocabulary

One dimension is historical one charting the birth and death of words.

Geographical dimension encompasses regional dialects of a single country and the varieties of English

as spoken and written in the USA, Canada and so on.

Dimension of occupation which develops its own specialized vocabulary such as legal, scientific etc.

Dimension of social and cultural groups vocabulary peculiar to youth culture or the criminal

underworld

Dimension related to the formality of the context

National and regional vocabularies

British and American E

The British and American varieties of Engish account for around 70 percent of mother-tongue English

speakers, with Americans outnumbering British by four to one. Some words are specific to either the

American or the British variety and not used in World English.

Crossover potential of equivalent words between the AmE and BrE varieties

No crossover potential from either side

Candy sweets

Freeway motorway

Zip code post code

Crossover potential from AmE to BrE but not from BrE to AmE so the AmE word is in World English

Can tin

Crepe pancake

French fries chips

Crossover potential from BrE to AmE but not from AmE to BrE sdo the BrE word is in World English

Ash can dustbin

Bathtubbath

Fall autumn

Crossover potential both from AmE to BrE and form BrE to AmE so both words are in World English

Mail post

Sweater jumper

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The vocabulary of Canadian English is not the same as that of American English because Canada has

experienced a continuous flow of immigration from Britain and bilingual influence of French in

Quebec and contact with the Native American languages.

Antipodean English

Australian English ahs some ten thousand distinctive words, drawn from a variety of sources.

In New Zealand words are borrowed from native Maori dialects and other comes from the adaptation

of BrE words.

African English

South African English is a distinct regional variety with a distinctive vocabulary drawn in part form

African vocabulary and BrE vocabulary.

Indian English

A sizeable number of words has been borrowed into Indian English from local languages as well as

from Portuguese. Some compounds are composed of English origin and one element from a local

language policewella policeman.

Jargon

is terminology, much like slang, that relates to a specific activity, profession, or group. It

develops as a kind of shorthand, to express ideas that are frequently discussed between members

of a group, and also to distinguish those belonging to a group from those who are not.

Occupational jargons

Medicine and allied professions have created a jargon that is based on Latin and Greek.

Sports jargon, Religious language, Green jargon ecology,

Sub cultures

Within a society or culture, people who regularly associated with each other because they have some

characteristic or interest in common may form a sub-culture that gives rise to its own vocabulary. Such

a subculture may be found among young people.

Underworld slang special vocabulary used by the criminal sub-culture

Rastafarian culture are group among the African Caribbean community

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CB talk CB is an abbreviation for Citizen Band Radio used initially by truckers to communicate with

each other to inform each other of potential difficulties on the road

Formal words

A large number of words that we associate with legal texts are marked in dictionaries as formal. A

formal word may be a means of speaking appropriately about bodily functions and other matters that

are not normally mentioned in public.

Taboo words

Words that would be extremely offensive if spoken in most contexts.

Political correctness

This term reflects the sensitiveness that has developed in the use of words that refer to women, people

from minority ethnic communities, disabled people and so on.

Restricted languages

Texts which require some knowledge in order to understand them can be found in recipes, knitting etc.

7 Investigating vocabulary

Lexicologists are interested in chat the extent of current vocabulary is or what constituted the

vocabulary of the language at the same point in the past. They may be interested in the new words and

or at the expression that are being coined.

Three sources of linguistic data: introspection, elicitation and corpora.

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Introspection when lexicologists use their own knowledge of a language as the data for describing

words.

Elicitation when linguists have quite specific data to collect about some aspect of language

Corpora is a body of material from which linguists can extract the data they require. It consists of

dictionary or more likely the collection of dictionaries

Electronic resources

Electronic dictionaries and computer corpora

Electronic dictionaries

A number of monolingual or bilingual dictionaries are available in the CD ROOM format. One of the

advantages is that it allows more sophisticated searching.

Text corpora

Source of data for the lexicologists. The first corpus was recognised in 1960s at Brown University in

the USA

Corpora contains one million words of text.

COBUILD project, an advanced learners dictionary based entirely on evidence from text corpus

Tools analysis

Concordance is the essential tool for the lexicological investigation in the form of computer program.

Lexicologists type the word and see them with the sentences using this word and it helps them to

understand how the word is used.

MRDs, LDBs, LKBs

The electronic medium opens up a number of possibilities not only for exploring vocabulary, but also

for arranging the descriptions of vocabulary.

MRD machine readable dictionaries, problem is that some information about words are missing

completely or not entered in a structured and consistent manner.

LBD lexical database, since for computational purposes, the lexical description needs to be more

explicit, systematic and structured with appropriate links marked between words the construction ofLBDs has been proposed.

LKB term lexical knowledge base has been used to refer to the computational capture of the

knowledge about the meaning of lexical items, their interrelationship, and their interpretation in

context.

8 Words in dictionaries

No dictionary is totally comprehensive, in the sense that it contains all the words in the language. Each

new edition of a dictionary has to make a selection from the words of current English and decide

which to include and which to leave out.

The number of words in the dictionaries will depend on its size and purpose. Three major categories of

English dictionaries according to purpose:

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1 general purpose dictionaries

2 childrens dictionaries

3 learners dictionaries

General purpose dictionaries

1 desk size

2 concise size

3 pocket size

Difference in size is reflected partly in difference of format and page size, but more importantly from a

lexical perspective, difference of vocabulary selection and information about words.

The headwords may include the following in modern dictionaries: abbreviations (MP), prefixes,

suffixes, and combining forms, open compounds, and encyclopaedic entries i.e. names of places and

people. Dictionaries differ in their policy on multiple entries where a word belongs to more than one

word class for example middle may be used as an adjective, a noun , a verb and some dictionaries

e.g LDEL have three headwords, whereas others e.g. New Oxford Dictionary of English include all

three word classes under a single headword.

We associate dictionaries with an alphabetical arrangement of words. Dictionaries vary in nesting

policies. Most dictionaries will nest words derived from a headword by suffixation, where the derivedword does not need separate definition. Most dictionaries will nest fixed phrases and idioms usually

under the headword of the first main word in the phrase.

The alternative to an alphabetical dictionary is one arranged thematically or by lexical field

Kinds of information that dictionaries provide about words:

Phonology a general purpose dictionaries give a transcription of the pronunciation of words, as

spoken in isolation, and including an accentual pattern of polysyllabic items.

Morphology inflectional and derivational, inflections of words are mostly regular and thus derivable

from general rules of grammar, they need not to be stated in the dictionary. Dictionary has to state

inflections which are irregular.

Derivational relates to the morphemic composition whether the word is a simple root or derived or a

compound

Syntax general rules of sentence structure, the most basic item od syntactic information is the word

class or part of speech to which a lexeme belongs.

Semantics this is what we think dictionaries are primarily about: giving us the meaning of words, by

providing definitions. First of all lexicographers have to decide how many word has, which they

usually do on the evidence of examples of the word in use. The most common type of definition is theanalytical definition, based on classical schema of genus and differentiae. The genus word in the

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definition assigns the word to a class of items, and the differentiae distinguish the meaning of this

particular word from those of others in the class.

Context

Some words are restricted as to the types of text or discourse in which they may occur or as to the

appropriate social context and occasions in which they may be used. Contextual information issystematically recorded in dictionaries. Such information includes both the level of formality for

words that are marked as either formal or informal, colloquial or slang and specialist subject domains

that words may be restricted to.

Spelling

A dictionary is inevitably based on spelling, so that information about spelling is a given. Adding a

suffix to a root may change spelling and number of words in English has alternative spelling.

Etymology

- history and origin of the words. Dictionaries vary in the amount of detail that provide for

etymologies. All give the immediate origin of each word some trace the origin of the word

further back.

Selection of vocabulary

Dictionaries are selective but dictionaries are also comprehensive in the sense that they aim to include

words from across the range of different types of vocabulary.

Homographs

Dictionary could decide to base its arrangement on a single-entry for each different orthographic wordi.e. one entry per spelling. More usual is the decision to have an entry for each spelling that can be

shown to have a unique etymology.

Polysemy

Some dictionaries have a tendency to overdifferentiate senses. Dictionaries order senses either on the

basis of supposed frequency or commonness of use, or historically from the earliest to the latest.

Definition

A definition usually consists of a single phrase, which is substitutable for the word being defined in a

given context. This mean that if the word to be defined is a noun the definition will be a noun phrase

with the as the head central element. Some definitions especially of natural phenomena e.g. flora and

fauna, go beyond a simple explanation and tend towards the encyclopaedic. Definitions are an attempt

to characterize the meaning of a lexeme or sense of a lexeme and to distinguish the meaning of the

lexeme concerned from the meanings of other lexemes in the same semantic field.

Documents

Words, Meaning, Vocabualry Vypisky