词汇学u1-2.doc

A Course in English LexicologyIntroductionWhat is lexicology?What is a word?What does it mean to know a word?How many words are there in English?How many of these words do I know?What is lexicology ?*Lexicology is a branch of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of a language and the properties of words as the main units of language. It has five sub-branches: Semantic, Etymology, History lexicology, Phraseology, Lexicography.(语义学、词源学、历史词汇学、选词学、词典学语义学、词源学、历史词汇学、选词学、词典学)* Lexicology deals with : words and word-forming morphemes* Lexicology relying: (1) on information about their form and their meaning;(2) on information derived from morphology, the study of the forms of words and their components, and semantics, the study of their meanings; (3) on information about etymology, the study of the origins of words. Chapter 1 Basic Concepts of Words and Vocabularye.g.*die *expire *pass away *bite the dust *kick the bucket *give up the ghost1.1 WHAT IS A WORD ? *A word is a speech sound or combination of sounds having meaning and used as a basic unit of language and human communication. (Longman Modern English Dictionary: LMED)* A word is a sound or combination of sounds forming a unit of the grammar or vocabulary of a language.( Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English :OALDCE)*A word is one or more sounds which can be spoken (together) to represent an idea, object, action. (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English LDCE)* A word is a sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing or printing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or of a combination of morphemes.( The American Heritage Dictionary: AHD) ① sound [m æ n]② meaning [+human +adult +male]e.g. [1] man ③ free form④ syntactic function[2] He run up the hill.[3] understand: get the meaning of A word is a minimal free form of a language that has a given sound and meaning and syntactic function. i.e. a word is the smallest unit only when it is free, it can stand alone, because all the complex words can be further divided.1.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF WORD*The word is an uninterruptible unit . e.g. understand: get the meaning of under: to a place/position lower than stand: be on one ’s leg2) The word may consist of one or more morphemes .3) The word occurs typically in the structure of phrases.4) The word should belong to a specific word class or part of speech .1.3 VOCABULARY1.3.1 Size of the English vocabulary* a wide range: from 400,000 to 600,000 words (Claiborne, 1983, p. 5) * a half million to over 2 million (Crystal, 1988. p. 32)* about I million (Nurnberg French ;English2.1 The Indo-European Language FamilyA language family refers to a group of languages that have developed from a single ancestor.based on: phonological, morphological, andlexical correspondences that stem from the protolanguage. Protolanguage(原始母语原始母语)is a term indicates an early stage of a language or language family that is not historically attested but rather reconstructed through the comparative methods.about six thousand different languages in the world (Barber,C. The English Language: A Historical Introduction.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p53, 1993. ).about 300 language families (语系)on the basis of similarities in their basic word stock and grammars The Indo-European is made up of most of the languages of Europe，the Near East，and India. The surviving languages can be grouped intoan Eastern set：Balto－Slavic, Indo-lranian，Armenian and Albanian；a Western set：Celtic，Italic，Hellenic，Germanic.2.2 Three Phases of the Historical Development2.2.2 Old EnglishEnglish / Old English was on the basis of the Anglo-Saxon dialect, blotted out the Celtic .England : the land of Angles The Germanic invaders referred to the native Celts as Wealas (‘foreigners’). The Celts called the invaders Sassenachs ‘Saxons’.2.2.3 Middle English the Norman Conquest: In 1066 French-speaking Norman led by William conquered the Anglo-Saxon England . The power of Harold died at the battle of Hastings .England was conquered. Language: French Results: A. It brought to an insular nation a new and larger continental culture.B. It forced on England ‘the national idea’, a concept against which the Saxsons had long struggled .C. Over ten thousand French words were introduced into England: government, the church, the army, the navy, law, fashion, social life, art, medicine, and other branches of learning. D. The situation of the simultaneous existence of three language (English, Latin, and French) continued for over a century. French: people in power spokeLatin :earning living young people learned, the church’sEnglish :the language of an oppressed, poor and ignorant people2.2.4 Modern EnglishDates: from the Caxton and the establishment of printing in England William Caxton : born in the Weald of Kent, 1422; died at Westminster, 1491, the first English printer, the introducer of the art of p。