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Words and their meaning
Chapter 1:
• What is a word? You have to interpret the term word in any particular
context.
A word is an ambiguous term that we use in many ways. It is regarded as an item bounded by spaces but in a sentence such as You can’t tie a bow with the rope in the bow of a boat Can’t is the union of can can and not. If we regard can’t as two words written together and abbreviated, the total of words (14) comes to 15. There are also words that occur more than once: a and the. There is also the repetition of bow: orthographically, the two occurrences of this sequence of letters constitute a single word but the orthographic perspective ignores the meaning of the words, and talking about meaning we can see that they are two different words.
There are: Orthographic words : words distinguished from each other by their spelling Phonological words: words distinguished from each other by their pronunciation Word-forms: grammatical variants Lexemes: items of meaning, the headwords of dictionary entries.
In the sentence there are 11 orthographic words, with two instances each of a, the and bow. There are 12 phonological words, 13 word-forms, since grammatically we count can and not ad distinct word-forms and there are 13 different lexemes.
Written and spoken Words: A language that haven’t a written form have a problem in deciding where the limits between words occur in speech
Orthography is not always a good reflection of grammar and meaning. Linguists use different criteria from different linguistic levels to decide on word boundaries in languages that they are reducing to writing.
In English the question of word boundaries in writing exists especially in how we write compound words, words that form a unit made up of two or more single words (time+keeper, time+lag, time+sharing).
In English there are some words that create confusion between writing and speech: Homographs: words that are spelt the same but have different pronunciation and meanings (es: bow) In a dictionary this kind of words are given with separate entries.
Homophones: words that are pronounced the same but have different spelling and meanings (es: feet/feat) In a dictionary this kind of words are separate headwords.
Homonyms: words which are spelt and pronounced the same but with different meanings (es: bank= bank 1 : financial institution, bank 2: side of river or stream; bank 3 : a row of keys on a keyboard)
Homonymy and polysemy are not always clear distinguishable We talk about polysemy to refer to one word having a number of senses or variants of a single meaning (grow) ; and about homonymy to refer to words with different meanings sharing the same form (bank).
Word-forms are grammatical variants.
They are not different words but they are different forms of the same word. Even if they have some letters and sounds in common, the spelling and the pronunciation are a reflection of what are grammatical differences, they occur in different grammatical contexts.
Concerning the meaning, they can be regarded as the same word but it is not a case of polysemy, in fact, the dictionary does not enter different senses for these items but it is a case of variant form, differing according to grammatical functions and context.
They are inflections for different classes of words. We have now to identify four kinds of ‘word’:
1. Orthographic words
2. Phonological words
3. Word-forms : grammatical variants
4. Lexemes : the headword of dictionaries entries
Lexemes: Lexemes are headwords of dictionary entries, the base forms of the words, from which other words forms are considered to be derived.
For verbs the base form is the present tense form or the infinitive form without to. For the verb ‘’be’’ there is a difference because ‘’ be’’ is not the present tense form. There is no difference between irregular and regular verbs.
- For nouns the base form is the singular common case form;
- for adjectives the base form is the absolute form;
- for other words such as adverbs and prepositions, where there are no grammatical variants, there is only one form that can be the headword.
The headwords of dictionary entries are called citation forms of lexemes. If the word-form has a regular derivations from the base form, the dictionary entry does not indicate them; if the word-forms are irregular in their formation and cannot be deduced from the general rules of grammar, dictionary entries usually indicate them. Only the Webster’s Third New International Dictionary gives the word-forms of all lexemes. The entry under a particular headword may contain any derived lexemes which have been formed from the headword by a process of lexical derivation (singer may be found under the headword sing). These must be regarded as separate lexemes but they belongs to a different word-class and so are used in different ways in the structure of sentences. The other main subdivisions in dictionary entries are for the different senses of polysemous lexemes, which are variant meanings of a lexeme.
Multi-word lexemes: A lexeme consists of no more than one orthographic word.
There are also sequences of words which have to be considered as single lexemes:
Such combinations are called phrasal verbs : a verb followed by an adverb particle that we understand them as single semantic unit. They have the same function in sentences as single-word verbs, except that the adverb particle may be detached from the verb word.
Than we have prepositional verbs: a verb which the accompanying particle is a preposition. Prepositional verbs can be considered as belonging not to the verb but to the following noun phrase. Es: Jane looked out of the window (it refers to the window)
Phrasal Verbs: The same argument cannot apply to phrasal verbs because some phrasal verbs do not take an object and because the adverb particle can be positioned after the object would suggest that it is independent of it.
English origin and belongs to the register of informality, whereas the other member is a borrowed word and tends to be associated with more formal contexts. Examples: pluck – courage (French) : guts – determination ( Latin ) ; book – volume ( French )
Borrowed words The sources of borrowed words in English are basically historical. English speakers kept in contact with Islamic culture and Arabic language. Due to the Second War Word started a process of borrowing from German. But some borrowed words have been made into English.
We can distinguish borrowed that have resulted
- from incidental culture contact
- from political conquest or invasion
- from cultural invasions
Invaders like Danes and Norvegians, spoke dialects of what has been called Old Norse that it’s the parent language of the modern Scandinavian languages. It was a Germanic language of the North Germanic branch , and so was related to the Old English spoken by the Anglo- Saxons. Unlike the Normans who were to follow them, the Scandinavian invaders never achieved political and cultural dominance over the entire country. They ruled the north- eastern part of the country know as ‘’Danelaw’’. Consequently their linguistic influence of English was relatively small. A number of words beginning with ‘’SK’’ were borrowed from Old Norse at this time like Skill, Sky, Skirt. The Old English 3 rd^ person plural pronouns : hie, hiom, hiera were replaced with Scandinavian equivalents they, them, their. The most whispered relic of Old Norse is probably the ending –by in places like Whitby and Derby , meaning simple ‘village’. The second and linguistically far more significant political invasion was that of the Normans under William the Conqueror in 1066. William and his followers spoke the northern French dialect of Normandy but by that time Normandy was lost to French in 1204 the influence on England was increasing that of central French. The French formed a cultural, social and political influence in many different ambits. Borrowed words of French origin often represent equivalents for native English words in a more formal stylistic level Example : child = enfant ; happiness = felicity
More significant borrowed words from French are the ones that referring to law area like justice, jury, legacy, libel, perjury and many others. Similarly, words referring to the social and cultural pursuits of the nobility were also borrowed like grill, fry, boil, stew and roast. Also terms used in the hunt like chase, quarry, scent and track , or titles of the nobility like prince, duke, viscount and baron. Words derived from French are characterised by patterns of spelling: the –ity endings of felicity or equality : the –our ending of favour or the –ant of infant.
Latin had a great influence because of the Church, in fact the borrowed words are mostly ecclesiastic terms and theological terms. It became also, after the Renaissance, the more generally language of learning. In modern English , many technical words are formed from Latin and Greek, they are combining forms. They can be recognised from their typical endings : -um, -us, -ex, -ix, -on. The following words have been borrowed from Geek : chromatic, criterion, enthusiasm , homologus.
Making new Words Borrowing is not the only process to expand the dictionary.
One of the most productive way to coin new words is a process called compounding.
It involves combining two or more existing words in order to form a third, new word.
Most compounds are nouns but most word-classes may contain compounds
(overcharge = verb ; outside = adverb).
For example the noun double-glazing is composed by an adjective and the present
participle ( verbal noun ) glazing.
There is another kind of compounding in which the parts of compound are not
themselves independent words. These are compounds formed from the Latin and the
Geek loan-words. We define this kind of compound ‘’neo-classical’’.
Another process used for coined words is derivation. Derivation involves adding to an
existing word either a suffix (at the end).
Suffixes and prefixes can’t stand alone as a single word, they can just be combined
with words.
Examples: location = locate + ion ; dislocated = dis + located
Frequently as we see with location, the affix changes verbs to nouns.
Minor process of word formation are:
- blending: two words are together and retaining part of each (es:
telegenic is a blend of television)
- clipping or abbreviation: such as fridge from refrigerator
- back formation: which involves the removal of affixes (es babysitter
(noun) preced the verb babysitting
- acronyms: like UNESCO from United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organisation
Chapter 3 Dictionaries: the repositories of Words
If we consider more than one dictionary’s definition of words like cutaneous, javelin,
polytheism, vegan , we could see that some dictionaries are more wordly. We can also
see how often the same words occur in the definition of both dictionaries.
Examples: vegan : CED = ‘a person who practises strict vegetarianism’
LCED= ‘a strict vegetarian who avoids food or other products derived from animals’
In general Collins English Dictionary is more wordy than Longman Concise English
Dictionary.
Organisation and structure: We have to consider a medium-size dictionary that is
organised in three parts.
Main body of a dictionary: is composed by the alphabetical list of headwords with
their accompanying articles: the entries of dictionary.
We call headwords those items printed in bold ( grassetto ) which initiate the entries
in dictionary.
Headwords could be made by single-word lexemes, multi-word lexemes such as
phrasal or prepositional verbs or fixed expression or compounds written as separated
words.
Not in all dictionaries headwords have to be ‘words’ or even lexemes : some
dictionaries include prefixes, suffixes and combining forms for neo-classical
compounds (geo- , tele- -phile ) in the alphabetical list of headwords.
Also included among the headwords may be abbreviation, proper names and people.
Front matter: it preceded the main part, which the dictionary user is expected to
have read before consulting the dictionary. The main part of the dictionary may be
followed by a number of appendices, containing information that the dictionary
editors consider may be use to the intended users of the dictionary, though the
information may not itself be strictly ‘lexical’.
The front matter include a list of editorial staff responsible who contributes on
particular general varieties of English (American, Australian) or on technical varieties
( astronomy, aereonautics).
There may be a foreword or preface, perhaps explaining how the dictionary differs
modern linguistics and phonetics. In CED we find IPA. It’s sometimes argued because
the IPA introduces a number of new and unfamiliar symbols.
We also can find information about the grammatical class of the word (verb, noun and
so on) and sometimes inflection. Dictionaries usually indicate irregular inflections:
LCED indicates only irregular inflections while CED indicates all the inflectional
forms for a headword that has any irregular inflections.
We can find syntactic information too. The abbreviation tr. means ‘transitive’.
Dictionaries traditionally indicate whether verbs may be used transitively or
intransitively ( without an object ).
Entries in most dictionaries of size of CED contain illustrative examples. Not all
lexemes are provided with an example. The examples are intended to illustrate the
use of the sense of a lexeme and thus provide support for the definition. Editors think
that some definitions are in nedd of more support than others.
A further item of ancillary that CED contains are restrictions on usage. Restriction
on variety may relate to regional dialect varieties as well as national varieties.
Finally we must mention etymology. It is traditional in monolingual English
dictionaries to indicate something about the origins and historical relations of words.
Etymology includes both origins of the word and reference to cognates in other
languages. When we are talking about a word that was borrowed , it indicates the
century in which the process took place is given. Etymologies are traditionally
contained in square brakets.
Chapter 5 Words and Words
Another aspect of meaning and semantics is the meaning relations that hold within
the vocabulary of a language between words themselves (sense relations). The
meaning of any lexeme may be describe , then, both in terms of its reference or
denotation and in terms of its sense relation: both contribute to characterising a
lexeme’s meaning.
Two principal sense are synonymy and antonymy.
- Synonymy: two words are synonymy if they ‘have the same meaning’ so if they
can be used interchangeably in all sentence contexts. If they are
interchangeably in all sentence contexts, we are talking about strict synonymy
Examples: find and discover are synonymous in a sentence like ‘we found/
discovered the boy hiding in the shed’ but they aren’t synonymous in ‘Sir
Alexander discovered penicillin in 1928’
COPIA APPUNTI IPAD
Reasons: geographically (dialects), stylistically (informal vs. Formal ), in domain on
register (technical vs. Common ), attitudinally ( connotation) or in sensitivity
euphemism
- The third reason why synonyms are differentiated is technicality. We refer to
such lexemes as technical vocabulary or jargon. In many cases we use this
words when we’re talking about a specific activity. In many cases a technical
word has his common language synonym ( we can talk about medical terms for
example)
- A fourth way which by synonyms may be differentiated is connotation. One
member of a pair of synonyms may have connotations not shared by the other
member. For example love and adore could be synonyms but adore has
connotations of passion or worship which love doesn’t share: love is the more
neutral of the pair.
- A fifth reason for the existence of synonyms, or means which the may be
differentiated, is euphemism. Euphemistic synonyms have been coined to refer
more obliquely to society’s taboo like sex, death and some bodily function.
Interesting this topics usually have colloquial or slang synonyms too. For
example : die = pass away and it’s dysphemism is snuff or kick the bucket.
Antonymy: They aren’t differentiated for formally dialect or technicality: they occur
the same style, dialect or register. But there’re different kind of antonymy.
Chapter 12 Especially for learner
What is different about learners’ dictionaries?
We have to analyse three types of dictionary : the bilingual Collins/Klett English-
German Dictionary, the Longman Concise English Dictionary and the learner’s
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. They are all different (aim and
purpose).
The monolingual Learner’s dictionary is providing detailed information about usage
that is irrelevant to native speakers. Language learners, employ language in two
function: decoding (listening and reading) and encoding (speaking and writing)
1. Decoding: the learner needs a means of interpreting lexemes in a context: the learner’s dictionary
need to define clearly all the different senses of a lexeme and provide where appropriate register and
field labels.
2. Encoding: The learner needs different information: the choice of lexemes, the definition check that
the lexeme is appropriate to the context in which the learner wishes to use it, grammatical
information so that correct and natural sentences can be encoded.
