Transcript English Lexicology A General Survey of English Vocabulary

English Lexicology
A General Survey of English Vocabulary
Week 1
Instructor: LIU Hongyong
Definition of Lexicology

Lexicology, as a branch of linguistics, is concerned
with the study of the vocabulary of a particular
language.
the stock of words
word stock
all the words
English lexicology: the study of the
vocabulary of the English language.
 Chinese lexicology: the study of the
vocabulary of the Chinese language.
 Russian lexicology: the study of the
vocabulary of the Russian language.
 Japanese lexicology : the study of the
vocabulary of the Russian language.
 …

English and English Vocabulary
English has long been regarded as an
international language, a world language,
a global language, a lingua franca, or a
common language.
 English is used as the official language in
Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, South Africa, and some
Caribbean countries.

English and English Vocabulary

The English vocabulary is one of the
largest and richest. The general estimate
of the present-day English vocabulary is
over one million words.
Vocabulary, Lexis, and Lexicon

The words ‘vocabulary’, ‘lexis’, and
‘lexicon’ are synonyms. Normally, they
can be used interchangeably and refer to
the same thing. They all refer to all the
words (the stock of words) in a particular
language.
Vocabulary, Lexis, and Lexicon
The slight difference among them is that
 ‘vocabulary’ is a common and colloquial
word,
 ‘lexicon’ is an academic word.
 ‘lexis’ is an in-between.
Vocabulary, Lexis, and Lexicon
They are in contrast to the word
‘dictionary’. A dictionary is simply a
selective recording of the vocabulary (all
the words) of a particular language at a
specific point in time.
Discussion
How many words are there in each of the
following sentences?
I’m a student, and he is an English teacher.
He is a Chinese music teacher.
He is a Chinese English teacher.
He is an English Chinese music teacher.
The morning star is the evening star.
What constitutes a word?

The notion of ‘word’ is central in the study of lexicology.
What exactly do we mean by the term ‘word’ in
lexicology? How many words do you think there are in
the following couplet (The Tempest (V.i.88) by
Shakespeare)?
Where the bee sucks, there suck I
In a cowslip’s bell I lie.
蜜蜂采蜜的地方有我，
我躺在野樱草的钟形花冠中。
Question
Are “suck” and “sucks” the same word or
they are two different words? Are “give”,
“gives”, “gave”, and “given” the same
word or they are different words?
 We can solve this question by saying that
suck and sucks are two different WORD
FORMS representing just one LEXEME.
Sucking and sucked are other word forms
which also stand for the lexeme SUCK.

Lexeme and Word-form

Lexemes are vocabulary items that are listed in the
dictionary. A lexeme may have several different
realizations, which are called the word forms of the
lexeme.
The word-forms
are different realizations of
tall, taller, tallest
boy, boys
women, woman
see, sees, seeing, saw, seen
the lexeme
tall
boy
woman
see
Lexeme

Apparently, ‘word’ is an ambiguous notion.
It can refer to ‘lexeme’ and ‘word form’.
‘word’ is a colloquial and vague term. The
more accurate and academic terms should
be ‘lexeme’ and ‘word form’. In the study of
English vocabulary, we are interested more
in lexemes than in word forms.
Lexeme

The term lexeme also embraces lexical items such as
phrasal verbs (give up) and idioms (kick the bucket).
Here, KICK THE BUCKET is a lexeme and would
appear as a single dictionary entry.

Question: how many words do we have in the
following list?
give gives giving gave given
Do you know how many words
Shakespeare knows?
According to Bauer L. (1998), “the figures that are
usually cited for Shakespeare’s vocabulary, which
credit him with knowing (or at least, having used – he
probably knew a lot more, and seems to have
invented a few!) about 30,000 different words, count
word-forms rather than lexemes. If we counted
lexemes, the result would be under 20,000.”
(30,000—word forms; 20,000—lexeme)
Orthographic Definition （按拼写定义）
According to the orthographic definition of
a word, a word is a sequence of letters
bounded on either side by a space or
punctuation mark. This definition is
based on such activities as counting the
number of words in an essay, a telegram,
a shopping list, etc.
Orthographic Definition （按拼写定义）
However, not all languages mark word
boundaries, the most prominent of these
being Chinese. The orthographic
definition cannot be applied to Chinese.
 An orthographic definition is purely
based on the written form of a word. It is
not sensitive to distinctions of meaning
(e.g. fair) or grammatical function.

Definition
A word is defined by the association of a
given sense with a given group of sounds
capable of a given grammatical use.
(Antoine Meillet)
Problem: We cannot differentiate a word
from a phrase.
A word should be a minimum unit.

Definition
A word may be defined as a fundamental
unit of speech and a minimum free form;
with a unity of sound and meaning (both
lexical and grammatical meaning), capable
of performing a given syntactic function.
(taken from our textbook)
Problem: Is a, if, not free or bound? “Free” in
what sense?
Morphologically free, but syntactically bound.

The longest English word
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis 肺尘病
Morphological analysis:形态切分
pneumono-ultra-micr-o-scop-ic-silic-o-volcano-coni-osis
pneumon (as in pneumonia),
ultra ‘extremely’ (as in ultraconservative),
microscopic (micr ‘small’, scop ‘view’, and -ic, which makes it an adjective.)
silic (as in silicon),
coni ( ‘dust’, as in coniology ‘study of the health effects of dust’),
-osis (‘disease’ as in tuberculosis’).
Semantic analysis:语义分析
pneumono-ultra- microscopic-silic-o-volcano-coni-osis
‘lung-extremely-microscopic-silicon-volcanic-dust-disease’
‘lung disease (caused by) microscopic volcanic silicon dust’
(Notice that the meaning ‘caused by’ is not carried by any particular elements in the
word, but must be inferred from the other meanings)
Words have magic powers!


Do you
believe?
The most obvious example illustrating this
statement is the social tradition associated with
the use of those very special words, people’s
names.
In Borneo, for example, the name of a sickly
child is traditionally changed, so that the spirits
tormenting it will be deceived and leave the
child alone. The spirits, apparently, can
recognize people only by their names, not
through other characteristics.
Words have magic powers!

In Ancient China, it was a crime to use
the name of a reigning emperor. If this
occurred in an English-speaking country
today where the emperor’s name was Bill,
it would be illegal to talk about a bill
from the electricity company, a bill
before parliament or the bill of a bird.
That is absurd and
ridiculous, but it is our
tradition!
Words have magic powers!
Do you
believe?

A Zulu woman is not allowed to utter the
name of her husband or the names of his
parents.

The Zulu are the largest South African
ethnic group of an estimated 10-11 million
people who live mainly in South Africa.
Small numbers also live in Zimbabwe,
Zambia, and Mozambique. Their language,
Zulu, is a Bantu language.
Words have magic powers!

Do you
believe?
It used to be the case in China that a
doctor who did not have the appropriate
drug for his patient would write the name
of the drug on a piece of paper, burn it,
and ask the patient to eat the ashes. It was
believed that the name
of the
drug would
How come
the ancient
be just as efficient
as thepeople
drughad
itself.
Chinese
such
unbelievable beliefs? Is
it just superstition?
Words have powers!

Do you believe? Even
new born babies know
this secret.
One theory about the origin of these
beliefs is that the magic of names is
established as children learn language. As
soon as small children learn the names for
things, they can use those names and the
item they name will appear – usually
because some kind adult or older brother
or sister fetches it.
Words have powers!

The link between saying the word and the
appearance of the thing is a very strong
one. Knowing the word is equivalent to
having power over the object.
Words have powers!

Example of my neighbor‘s little child,
who is only one and a half years old.
These days he no longer wets his pants.
His mother told me that several days ago
he was able to utter “Niao Niao” and “Bu
Niao Niao”.