Transcript WORDS

WORDS
The term word is much more difficult to define in a technical sense,
and like many other linguistic terms, there are often arguments
about what exactly it is. It has been suggested, though, that a word
is a unit of linguistic analysis which has the following three
characteristics:
1. Isolability
This means that boundaries between words corresponds to places
with the strongest potential for pause in speech. Words can also be
pronounced in isolation from other words, which is not usually the
case for units smaller than the word.
WORDS (Cont’d)
2. Mobility
This means that words are items that can be moved around within a
sentence to form new sentence. For example the word happy can
be placed in a variety of location in an English sentence.
- She is a happy girl
- That girl looks very happy, etc.
Word cannot be placed within other words, but only between them.
We can say It is very unlikely but we cannot say It is unverylikely.
3. Phonological independence
Words generally correspond to the minimal units of phonological
analysis. Typically this means that stress assignment rules apply in
terms of the number of syllables away from the beginning or the end
of a word.
INFORMATION ENCODED IN A WORD
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Phonetic/Phonological information
For every word we know, we have learned a pronunciation.
Lexical structure information
For every word we have learned, we intuitively know something about its
internal structure.
Syntactic information
For every word we learn, we learn how it fits into the overall structure of
sentences in which it can be used.
Semantic information
For every word we know, we have learned meaning/several meanings.
Pragmatic information
For every word we learn, we know not only its meaning (s) but also how to
use it in the context of discourse or conversation.
WORD CLASSES
In English grammar, these different kinds of words such as noun,
verbs, adjective, prepositions etc. were called Parts of speech. But
here we use the same idea, but we will refer to different kinds of
words belonging to different Word Classes.
In classifying these word classes, they are three ways:
1. Semantic definition
That is, they are based on the meaning of the words which belong to
each class. For example: a noun is the name of any person, place,
animal or thing, a verb is a doing word or word which refers to an
action.
2. Formal definition
Words are classified based on their behaviour. For example: Noun
are words that can be added by the suffix – s to show plural or that
can occur immediately after the, and a, or an. Verbs are the words
that can be added the suffix –ed or –ing, and they can occur after
will or should.
Word Classes ( cont’d)
3. Functional definitions
These criteria are often close to those that are traditionally taught in
schools. That is words are classified based on their function in a
sentence. For example: words which function as describers of nouns
and answer the question “which?”, “what kind of?”, or “how many”
are included into adjectives, such as good, red, blue, big, etc. A
different class consisting of words which function to describe verbs
or adjective are called adverbs.
Word Classes (cont’d)
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Who bought these drinks?
What’s the score?
I want a horse for Christmas.
They threw stones at the police
car.
• You need a good wash.
• That wall needs re-painting.
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His father drinks too much.
Who scored that last goal.
I want to horse around!
They stoned the police car.
• Can you wash the dishes?
• They wall up the entrance.
OPEN AND CLOSED CLASSES
Open Class: A class of word that
contains an unlimited – or at
least a very large – number of
members, and new words can
always be created and added
to this class. They are noun,
verb, adjective, and adverb.
Open class of words is also
called content words.
Closed class (sometimes
referred to as closed set): A
word class which consists of
relatively few words, and one
to which it is rare (though not
impossible) few new words to
be added. They are pronouns,
articles, prepositions, and
conjunction.
Closed class of words is also
called function words.