大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

2012词汇学复习资料

The development of the English Vocabulary

1. Indo-European Language Family

The Indo-European Language Family is considered as one of the most important language families. It includes most languages of Europe, the Near East, and India. Those languages, which are believed to have originated from this language family and developed alone different lines, show various degrees of similarity to one another. They fall into eight principal groups, which can be grouped into an Eastern Set东部诸语族: Balto-Slavic波罗的-斯拉夫语, Indo-Iranian印度伊朗语族, Armenian 亚美尼亚语族and Albanian阿尔巴尼亚语族; a Western Set: 西部诸语族 Celtic凯尔特语族, Italic 意大利语族, Hellenic希腊语族, Germanic日尔曼语族. All the languages in both sets shed some influence on English to a greater or lesser extent because each has lent words into the English vocabulary.

Prussian普鲁士语

Lithuanian立陶宛语

Polish波兰语

Balto-Slavic波罗的-斯拉夫语 Czech捷克斯洛伐克语 Bulgarian保加利亚语

Slovenian斯洛文尼亚语 Russian

Albanian阿尔巴尼亚

Persian波斯语

Hindi北印度语

Indo-Iranian印度伊朗语系 Bengali孟加拉语

Romany，吉卜赛语

Armenian亚美尼亚语

Portuguese

Spanish

Italic意大利语族 Italian

Roumanian罗马尼亚语

French

Indo-European

Language Family

Irish

Celtic凯尔特语 Breton

Scottish

Norwegian挪威语

Icelandic，冰岛语

Danish丹麦语

Germanic Swedish瑞典语

日尔曼语言 English

Dutch

Flemish

German

Hellenic，古希腊语 - Greek

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

Chapter 1

A General Survey of A Word

The Definition of Word

A word is

(1) A minimal free form of a language;

(2) a sound unity;

(3) a unity of meaning;

(4) a form that can function alone in a sentence.

A word is a minimal free form that has a given sound and meaning and syntactic function.

A word is a smallest unit of a language.

1. The development of English vocabulary

The history of English language can be divided into 3 periods:

a/ Old English period (449—1100)

The former inhabitants, the Celtic, the Germanic tribes called Angles, Saxons and Jutes Anglo-Saxon

as Old English, Old English contains 50-60 thousand words, which consists of the basic word stock.

b/ Middle English period (1100-1500)

characterized by the strong influence of French following the Norman Conquest in 1066.The French

loan words were found in law and governmental administration (judge, justice)

c/ Modern English period (1500--)

the early stage of this period ( including the years between 1500-1700), the Renaissance brought great

changes to the vocabulary. borrowing from Latin, Latin were now mostly connected with science and

abstract ideas. Greek borrowings were mostly literary, technical and scientific words

2.Classification of English Words According to Different Criteria

A. By Origin: native words and loan (borrowed ) words

In English language, most native words in Modern English are monosyllabic. They form the great

majority of the basic word stock of English language.

The fundamental features of the basic word stock are:

1. National character; 2. Stability; 3. Word-forming ability; 4. Ability to form collocations

Since the great majority of the basic word stock are native words, they are naturally the ones used most

frequently in everyday speech and writing.

B. By level of usage

1. Common words ( P11 words connected with ordinary things or activities necessary to everyday life: ―The repeated telephone calls only annoyed me but made my sister very angry.‖)

2. Literary words (P12 words are chiefly used in writing, formal speeches, e.g. Feeling fatigued, Tom

retired early.): a. Archaic words; b. Poetical words See P13

3. Colloquial words: Words used mainly in spoken English, in conversation among friends and

colleagues,e.g. ―John was fired for petty thieving‖

4. Slang words

C. By notion: function words and content ( P 17)

function words are short words such as determiners, conjunctions, prepositions, auxiliaries, and

so on, they serve grammatical meaning

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

Content words have lexical meaning, such as nouns, main verbs, adj and adv.e.g. The passerby

was hit by the truck.

Chapter 2

Word-Structure and Word-Formation(1)

1. The definition of morpheme

1.1 What is the smallest meaningful linguistic unit of language?- morpheme

What are words composed of? - Words are formed by morphemes. A word is the smallest unit that

stands alone to communicate meaning.

1.2 What are the Chinese equivalents of morpheme? 语素 词素 -形位

2.1 Morphemes may be classified into free and bound.

Free morphemes, also called content morphemes, may constitute words by themselves. These

morphemes have complete meanings in themselves and can be used as free grammatical units in sentences.

So we may say that free morphemes are free roots.

Bound morphemes = Bound root + affixes, known as grammatical morphemes, must appear with at least

one other morpheme, either free or bound. Bound morphemes are chiefly found in derived words, e.g.

recollection, idealistic, ex-prisoner

2.2 Morphemes may also be classified into roots (or root morphemes) and affixes (or affixational

morphemes).

Task:

(1) Read the following words and find the root in each word.

heart, hearten, dishearten, heartless, hearty, heartiness,

sweetheart, heartbroken, kind-hearted, whole-heartedly.

(2) What is your definition of root?

A root is the part of the word-form which remains when all the affixes have been removed.

(3) Is a root necessarily a free morpheme? Why?

2.2.1 Two types of roots

- Free root

In English, many roots are free morphemes, such as black in black, blackboard, blacksmith.

- Bound root

However, there are quite a number of roots which cannot exist on their own and thus belong to the class

of bound morphemes. For example, ceive in receive, conceive, perceive, deceive; mit in permit, commit,

submit; tain in retain, contain, maintain; cur in recur, occur, incur, etc.

these roots cannot be used to form new words.

2.2.2 Two types of affixes

Affix is a collective term for the type of formative (构词成分) that can be used only when added to

another morpheme.

- Inflectional affixes (or inflectional morphemes) serve to express

the following meanings:

(1) plurality: e.g. -s in chairs, pens; -es in boxes, tomatoes;

en in oxen.

(2) the genitive case: e.g. ‘s in boy‘s, children‘s.

(3) the verbal endings: for example,

a. -(e)s in words like eats, teaches shows the third person

singular present tense.

b. -ing in words like eating, teaching shows the present

participle or gerund.

c. -(e)d in words like worked, saved shows the past tense or past

participle.

(4) the comparative and superlative degrees:

e.g. -er in words like smaller, harder; -est in words like smallest,

hardest.

- Derivational affixes (or derivational morphemes) can be further divided into prefixes and suffixes.

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

(1) Prefixes are affixes before the root, e.g: unjust, rewrite. As a rule, most prefixes modify the meaning of roots, but not their parts of speech.

task: list some prefixes that can modify the parts of speech.

- en-(em-) as in words like embody, enrich

- be- as in words like befriend, belittle

- a- as in words like asleep, aside (2) Suffixes are affixes after the root, e.g.: darkness, worker. By the addition of the suffix,

the word is usually changed from one part of

speech into another, e.g. liberation, modernize.

2.3 Relationship between the two classifications of morphemes

Morpheme

It is the minimal meaningful unit of language. Or it is the smallest functioning unit in the composition

of words.

a) Bound morphemes are morphemes which alone can be used as words.

What is an allomorph?

An allomorph is one of the variants of the same morpheme.

语素/形位变体是同一个语素的不同形式。

A morpheme may take various shapes or forms.

3.5 Morpheme and Word-formation

在构词法中, 语素被分为词根、词干、词基和词缀。

Two types of affixes:

Inflectional affixes and Derivational affixes屈折词缀和派生词缀

Inflectional affixes function as grammatical markers. 表示词的语法意义的是屈折词缀。

-s ,-es ,ing,-er ,or -(e)d,est

Derivational affixes or derivational morphemes

(1) Prefixes are affixes before the root.

e.g.， unjust, rewrite.

As a rule, most prefixes modify (2) Suffixes are affixes after the root

By the addition of the suffix, the word is usually changed from one part of speech into another, e.g.

liberation, modernize.

Root, stem, base 词根、词干、词基

A root is that part of a word form that remains when all inflectional and derivational affixes have

been removed. 词根是所有屈折词缀和派生词缀被去掉后所剩余的那部分。

A stem is that part of the word-form which remains when all inflectional affixes have been

removed. 词干是所有屈折词缀被去掉后所剩余的那部分。

A base refers to a form to which affixes of any kind (both derivational and inflectional) can

be added. It can be a root or a stem.

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

词基是任何一种词缀都可加在上面的形式。

词根是所有屈折词缀和派生词缀被去掉后所剩余的那部分。

词干是所有屈折词缀被去掉后所剩余的那部分。

词基是任何一种词缀都可加在上面的形式。

它与词根有区别，因为它是可以从派生角度进行分析的形式，在上面可以加上派生词缀。但是词

根则不容许做进一步的分析。词基与词干也是不同的，因为派生词缀和屈折词缀都可以加在词基上，

而只有屈折词缀可以加在词干上。

Task: Analyse the word in terms of root, stem and base.

undesirable (n.): 不是词根（可再分解）；是词干（可以加屈折词缀，如名词复数 -s），也是词基。

(自由形位)

bound root (粘附词根)

(形位) （粘附形 inflectional affix（屈折词缀）

affix prefix （前缀）

（词缀） derivational affix （派生词缀） suffix （后缀）

1. Affixation (derivation) 词缀法

Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding word-forming or derivational affixes

to stems. This process is also known as derivation, for new words created in this way are derived from old

forms. According to the positions that affixes occupy in words, affixation falls into two subclasses;

prefixation and suffixation.

Prefixation: Prefix do not generally change the word-class of the stem but only modify its meaning.

However, present-day English finds an increasing number of class-changing prefixes. e. g. asleep a (a- + v),

encourage V (en- + n), unearth V (un- + n), de-oil V (de- + n), postwar a (post- + n), intercollege a (inter- +

n) and others. These make up only an insignificant number in the huge contemporary vocabulary The

majority of prefixes are characterized by their non-class-changing nature. Their chief function is to

change the meaning of the stems.

Suffixation: Suffixes have only a small semantic role; their primary function is to change the grammatical

function of stems. They mainly change the word class. Therefore, we shall group suffixes on a grammatical

basis into four groups.

2. compounding

Compounding, also called composition, is the formation of new words by joining two or more stems.

Words formed in this way are called compounds. So a compound is a 'lexical unit consisting of more than

one stem and functioning both grammatically and semantically as a single word' (Quirk et al 1985).

Silkworm蚕 and hone-ybee 蜜蜂are compounds; so are tear gas催泪 and easy chair安乐椅. These

examples show that compounds can be written solid (silkworm), hyphenated(honey-bee) and open (tear gas

and easy chair) As open compounds are the same in form as free phrases, what is the dividing line

between them?

2.1 Characteristics of Compounds

Compounds differ from free phrases in the following three aspects.

1. Phonetic features In compounds the word stress usually occurs on the first element whereas in

noun phrases the second element is generally stressed if there is only one stress In cases of two stresses,

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

the compound has the primary stress on the first element and the secondary stress, if any, on the second

whereas the opposite is true of free phrases, e.g.

Compound Free phrase

a 'hot1house温房, 暖房,干燥室 a hot 'house

a 'black horse a black 'horse

a 'green room a green 'room

But these stress patterns of compounds are not absolute. Sometimes, the primary stress may also fall on the

second element as in ash-'blonde 灰银and , bottle- 'green 深绿色的as well as in combining-form

compounds, socio-lin 'guistic, psycho-a 'nalysis. Therefore, this is not always reliable.

2. Semantic features Compounds are different from free phrases in semantic unity. Every compound

should express a single idea just as one word. For instance, a green hand is an 'inexperienced person', not a

hand that is green in colour; red meat refers to 'beef' or 'lamb' rather than any meat that is red in colour; hot

dog is by no means a dog that is hot, but a typical American sausage in between two pieces of bread. The

meanings of such examples cannot be easily inferred from the two components of the compounds.

Nevertheless, a lot of compounds are transparent, that is the meaning can be inferred from the separate

elements of compounds. Consider the following random examples: disaster- related, flower pot, washing

machine, dumb show哑剧, scarlet fever 猩红热and many others. But the two elements are inseparable and

the change of the element would result in the loss of the original identity.

3. Grammatical features A compound tends to play a single grammatical role in a sentence, for

example, a verb, a noun, or an adjective. Bad-mouth used as a verb can take the third person singular -s and

the past tense marker -ed, e. g. 'He bad-mouthed me. 苛刻批评' (Bolinger and Sears 1981) Compound

nouns show their plural forms by taking inflectional -s at the end, e.g. new-borns, three-year-olds, will-o '

-the-wisps, major generals. 少将 Of course, there are exceptions such as brothers-in-law, lookers-on . In

spite of this their single grammatical role is apparent.

In adjective-noun compounds, the adjective element cannot take inflectional suffixes, for example:

Compound Free phrase

fine art美术 finer art美艺术

red tape官样文章 reddest tape最红带子

hot line hotter line线路, 航线

3. Conversion

Conversion is the formation of new words by converting words of one class to another class. This is a

method of turning words of one part of speech to those of a different part of speech. These words are new

only in a grammatical sense. Since the words do not change in morphological structure but in function, this

process is also known as functional shift. Look at the word round in the following sentences:

[4a] He was knocked out in the first round.

[ 4b] Round the number off to the nearest tenth.

[4c] The neighbours gathered round our barbecue.

[4d] The moon was bright and round.

[4e] People came from all the country round.

(from Lodwig & Barrett 1973)

4. Blending拼缀法

4.1 What is blending?

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

Blending is a process of word-formation in which a new word is formed from two words, one of

which is not in its full form or both of which are not in their full forms. The result of such a process is

called a blend, which combines the sounds and the meaning of two others.

The majority of blends are nouns, very few are verbs and adjectives are even fewer. According to

structure, blends fall into four major groups.

4.2 Classification of blending

Structurally, blends can be subdivided into the following five groups:

(1) The first part of the first word + the last part of the second one: head + tail

Chinglish, smog

(2) First part of the first word + first part of the second word: head + head

sci-fi, telecon

(3) Whole form of the first word + last part of the second one: word + tail

newscast, workfare

(4) First part of the first word + whole form of the second one: head + word

heliport, telediagnosis

(5) Whole form of the first word + first part of the second one: word+ head

skylab

Many blends have only a very short life and are very informal. They are particularly

common in commercial and journalistic language.

5. Clipping

Another common way of making a word is to shorten a longer word by cutting a part of the original and

using what remains instead. In modern times, people tend to be economical in writing and speech to keep

up with the tempo of new life style. To save time one is likely to clip words that are frequently used. There

are four common types of clipping:

(5) Front Clipping截前留后

Quake(earthquake) copter (helicopter) scope (telescope)

phone (telephone) gym (gymnastics)

(6) Back clipping截后留前

Dorm(dormitory) memo(memorandum) stereo (stereophonic)

disco(discotheque)

(7) Front and back clipping截前后留中间

Flu(influenza) fridge ()refrigerator

(8) Phrase clipping截词组

Pub (public house) zoo(zoological garden) pop(popular music) perm(permanent waves)

6. Acronymy首字母拼音法

Acronymy is the process of forming new words by joining the initial letters of names of social and political

organizations or special noun phrases and technical terms.Depending on the pronunciation, words formed

in this way are called initialisms词首字母缩略词or acronyms首字母拼音词

1) Letters represent full words: VOA, BBC, c/o= care of 由...转交, p.c.= post card

2) Letters represent constituents in a compound or just parts of a word: TV. ID=identity card, GHQ=

General Headquarters

.Acronyms A word formed from the initial letters but pronounced as a normal word, such as radar for ra dio d etecting a nd r anging.

NATO, AIDS BASIC,TEFL

N-bomb, D-day, V-day

7. Back-formation逆构法

Words created through this way are mostly verbs. Stylistically, back-formed words are largely informal.

What is back-formation?

Back-formation is a process of word formation by which a word is created by the deletion of the

supposed affix. For instance, the verb edit was formed from editor by dropping the suffix –or. The verb

aggress was formed from the noun aggression by removing the suffix –ion.

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

7.1 Types of back-formation

(1) Verbs backformed from nouns ending in

-er, -or, -ar:

cobbler修鞋匠--- to cobbleTo make or mend (boots or shoes).修：制造或修理（长统靴或鞋） rover- wanderer.流浪汉；漫游者--- to rove

bulldozer推土机--- to bulldozeTo clear, dig up, or move with a bulldozer.

用推土机整地：用推土机消除、削平或挖出

sculptor雕塑家--- to sculptTo shape, mold, or fashion especially with artistry or precision:

雕塑diāosù

orator演说者, 演讲者--- to orate

liar--- to lie

beggar--- to beg

(2) Verbs backformed from nouns ending

in -tion, -sion:

automation--- to automate to control or operate by automation.通过自动化控制或操作

destruction--- to destruct

negation--- to negate

donation--- to donate

television--- to televise

(3) Verbs backformed from abstract nouns:

diagnosis--- to diagnose

enthusiasm--- to enthuse

(4) Verbs backformed from adjectives:

drowsy- --to drowse

gloomy--- to gloom

lazy--- to laze

(5) Verbs backformed from compound words:

baby sitter---to baby-sit

house sitter--- to house sit

(6) Nouns backformed from adjectives:

gloomy--- gloom

greedy--- greed

(7) Adjectives backformed from noun/adverb/adjective:

difficulty--- difficult

utterly--- utter

unflappable不易惊慌的；镇定的--- flappable=Easily excited or upset. 易激动或不安的

Lecture 6 Word Meaning

1. The meanings of ―meaning‖

(1) Reference所指

Reference is the relationship between language and the world ―By means of reference, a speaker indicates

which things in the world (including persons) are being talked about. ‖Words have meaning only when they

have acquired reference. In other words, only when a connection has been established between the

linguistic sign and a referent, i.e. an object, a phenomenon, a person, etc. does the sign become

meaningful.The reference of a word to a thing outside the language is arbitrary and conventional. This

connection is the result of generalization and abstraction, but with the help of context, it can refer to

something specific.The word cat refers to a whole set of animal of the same species without the distinction

of size, colour, region, owner and other factor.It is the extension of all cats in the universe., but it can refers

to a particular cat in Jean forgot to feed her cat yesterday.‘ Therefore , meaning can be pinned down by the

user, time, place, etc.The cat can be referred to animal, my dear, Jassay, this, she and so on.

(2) Sense语义

Sense denotes the relationship inside the language. It is an abstraction. Every word that has meaning has

sense.(not every word has reference). For example, probable, nearly, and, if, but, yes, none of which

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

refers to anything in the word, all have some sense. Just as one can talk of the same concept in different

in different language, one can talk of expressions in different dialects of one language as having the

same sense: pavement in British English and sidewalk in American English have the same sense.

1． Four types of motivation

Motivation refers to the connection between word-symbol and its meaning. 语言符号,

In case of motivation, the great majority of English words are not motivated没有根据的, since they are

conventional, arbitrary symbols. Nevertheless, English does have words whose meaning can be explained

to a certain extent.

Motivation can arise in four major ways:

a) Onomatopoetic Motivation拟声理据

All the word based on the sounds made be birds, animals, insects and so on belong to this category. But

such echoic words are largely conventional, or the sounds we say in English may not be the same in other

language; baa-baa does not mean咩咩

- Primary Onomatopoeia基本理据

It means the imitation of sound by sound. Here the sound is truly an ― echo to the meaning‖.

e.g. cats -- mew; miaow

dogs-- bow-wow; woof-woof

sheep-- baa-baa pigeons-- coo

cow -- moo ducks -- quark

- Secondary Onomatopoeia次要理据

It means that certain sounds and sound-sequences are associated with certain senses in an

expressive relationship.

e.g. ding-dong

tick-tock

giggle-gaggle

b) Morphological Motivation形态理据

Compounds and derived words are multimorphemic words and the meanings of many are the sum total of

the morphemes combined. So if one knows the meaning of each morpheme, namely affix or stem, one can

figure out the meaning of the word.e.g. anticancer ( anti + cancer), readable ( read + able): something

that can be read, toothache ( tooth + ache )

In a word, most of the compound words are morphologically motivated, some are not. e.g. egghead (书呆

子）is a compound that we can not guess the meaning from the two free morphemes. It is not motivated

morphologically..

c) Semantic Motivation语义理据

Semantic Motivation refers to the mental association suggested by the conceptual meaning of a

word. It explains the connection between the literal sense and figurative sense of the word. 文字

意义和比喻意义

A. metaphor

Metaphor is a figure of speech containing an implied comparison, in which a word or phrase ordinarily

and primarily is used of one thing, now is applied to another.

e.g. The curtain of night has fallen.

All the world is a stage.

The leg of the table is broken.

B. metonymy (借代）

Metonymy is the device in which we name something by one of its attributes (特征, as crown for

king).

e.g. He succeeded to the crown.

The kettle boils. ( kettle for water)

C. synecdoche (提喻）

It means using a part for a whole, an individual for a class, a material for a thing or the reverse of these.

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

e.g. bread for food; Beijing for China

Washington for the US

D. analogy ( 类比）

Analogy is a process whereby words are created in imitation of other words.

e.g. marathon[体]马拉松赛跑 – telethon长期连续电视节目, talkathon冗长的讨论, 冗长的演说

More examples are : black list– white list白名单(如守法人士, 合法机构, 可雇佣人员, 可上映的

电影、节目、可照顾的企业、工会满意的机构等等的名单, 为 blacklist 黑名单之对), gray list(灰

名单，指非明文查禁但仍属不合法的人和物

From white-collar or blue-collar workers we have gray- collar workers (服务行业的职工).

数字类比:ther examples are: First Mother to First Family, then to First Lady;

the First world—the second world – the third world – the Fourth World;

the three P‘s ( peace, petroleum, Palestine) and the three I‘s ( inflation, interest rate, impeachment 弹

劾) are from the three R‘s（reading, writing, arithmetic算）

地点空间类比:arscape火星 and moonscape are from landscape

earthrise is from sunrise

d) Etymological Motivation

The history of the word explains the meaning of the word. All the words commonized from the

proper nouns can be interpreted in terms of their origins.The word Laconic meaning brief‘ or

short‘ is derived from Lacons, a tribe of people who were known for their brevity of speech‘ and

for their habit of never using more words than necessary.

2． Types of meaning

Word meaning is made up of various components which are interrelated and interdependent. These

components are commonly described as types of meaning.

1) Grammatical meaning语法意义

Grammatical meaning refers to that part of the meaning of the word that indicates grammatical

concept or relationships. They become important only when they are used in actual context.

Grammatical meaning consists of word-class词类and inflectional paradigm(词形变换表).

a) word-class:

In the dictionary, words are often described by heir lexical meanings and also by what is traditionally

known as the part of speech, which modern linguists call the word-class. e.g.: realize will be marked

as a verb and realization as a noun. When we use a word, we have to consider two essential factors:

its lexical meaning and its part of speech. Lexical meaning is dominant in content words,

whereas grammatical meaning is dominant in function words. We can never use words correctly

without knowing their word-classes.

b.) Inflectional paradigm:词形变换

The set of grammatical forms of a word( mainly nouns and verbs) is called inflectional paradigm

paradigm.

e.g. : to work, works, worked, working; to write, wrote, written, etc. here are two sets of inflectional

paradigm changes. Nouns are declined(词尾变化), verbs are conjugated(词形变化), and gradable

adjectives have degrees of comparison. The lexical meaning of a word is the same throughout the

paradigm; that is to say, all the word-forms of one and the same word have the same lexical meaning,

yet the grammatical meaning varies from one word-form to another, e.g.: cat is grammatically singular

in meaning while cats is plural; works denotes third person, singular, present tense, whereas worked

denotes past tense.

2) Lexical meaning词汇意义

Grammatical meaning surfaces only in use, but lexical meaning is constant in all the content

words within or without context as it is related to the notion that the word conveys. lexical

meaning has two components: Conceptual meaning概念意义 & Associative meaning关联意义

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

A Conceptual meaning, is the meaning given in the dictionary and forms the core of word

meaning. Being constant and relatively stable, forms the basis for communication as the same

word has the same conceptual meaning to all the speakers of the same language. For example,‘The

sun rises in the east‘ The word sun here means a heavenly body which gives of light, heat, and

energy.

B Associative meaning is the secondary meaning supplemented to the conceptual meaning. It is

open-ended and indeterminate 不确定的and liable to the influence. It is liable to the influence of

such factors as culture, experience, religion, geographical region, class background, education, etc.Associative meaning comprises four types

A. Connotative meaning

Connotative meaning(内涵意义): Connotative meaning refers to the emotional association which

a word or a phrase suggests in one‘s mind. e.g. the denotative meaning of the word mother is

― female parent‖, but it generally connotes love, care, tenderness., forgiving The word January

denotes ― the first month of the year‖, but it connotes cold weather, a biting north wind, snow,

central heating, skating or even the New Year. home‘ , the conceptional meaning is a dwelling

place different people may make out more sense than that. It may remind them of their family,

friends, warmth, safety, love, convenience. These connotations are implied in the well-known

saying East or west, home is best.‘ Connotative meaning is unstable, varying considerably

according to culture, historical period, and the experience of individual. Suppose a child is

prejudiced against, often jeered at , beaten or scolded at home, then home to him is nothing but a

hell‘

B. Stylistic meaning

Social or stylistic meaning( 文体意义): words used in different contexts or situations

according to their social or stylistic meanings. According to the social or stylistic meaning, words

may be grouped into 3 levels:

e.g.: male parent father daddy

ally friend buddy

What‘s the stylistic distinction in the following two sentence?

1. They chucked a stone at the cops, and then did a bunk with the loot.

2. After casting a stone at the police, they absconded with money. Sentence 1 could be said by two

criminals, talking casually about the crime afterwards, so all the words used in italics are slangy,

whereas sentence 2 might be said by the chief inspector in making his official report, and thus the

words used are literary (cast, abscond) or neutral (police, money)

C. Affective meaning(情感意义): meaning concerning with the expression of feelings and

attitudes of the speaker or writer. Affective meaning of words may fall into two categories:

appreciative or pejorative

a) appreciative

(褒义词): words are used to express the speaker‘s appreciation or approval of the person or thing

such as famous, determined, slender. black

b) pejorative

(贬义词): words used to show disapproval or contempt on the part of the speaker. such as

notorious, pigheaded固执的, 顽固的, skinny, nigger, etc.

A B

appreciatory words derogatory words

slender skinny

statesman politician

confidence complacency

bachelor girl old maid

Note:

Affective meaning varies from individual to individual, from culture to culture, from

generation to generation, from society to society.

In most Western countries, dog is associated with loyalty‘, faithfulness‘, a close companion

whereas to Chinese, dog at its best is useful animal, it generally generates negative association. If

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

a person is compared to a dog, the speaker‘s attitude towards the person is no more than

contemptuous‘

D. Collocative meaning 搭配意义

it is the part of the word-meaning suggested by the words before or after the word in discussion.

Collocative meaning overlaps with stylistic meaning and affective meaning because in a sense

both stylistic and affective meanings are revealed by means of collocations. e.g. pretty and

handsome share the conceptual meaning of ‘good-looking‘but are distinguished by the range of

nouns they collocate with.A pretty woman stresses the attractiveness of facial features while a

handsome woman may not be facially beautiful yet is attractive in other respects: a slender figure,

posture, behaviour.

Lecture 7 Sense Relations and Semantic Field语义关系和语义场

1． Polysemy多义关系

Polysemy means that one single word has two or more senses at the same time. The bulk of English

words are polysemantic; one –meaning words are rare and are mainly scientific terms such as

hydrogen, molecule, and so on.

Two processes of development词汇发展的两种模式

Radiation辐射型：Each of the derived meanings is directly connected to the primary meaning.

Take head for example:

the head of the school, six pence per head, a head of cabbage.一棵卷心菜 the head of a page, to

come to a head到了紧要关头; (事情)成熟; 达到顶点; 疮疖化脓, to lose one‘s head被砍头, 不知所

措, six head of cattle. Though these senses have little in common, they all derive from special application

of the central idea of head as a part of the body.

Concatenation (连锁型): It describes a process where each of the later meaning is related only to

the preceding one like chains.

Take board for example:

notice board, chessboard棋盘, cardboard纸板, sideboard餐具柜, on board, board and lodging提

供食宿, board of directors董事会

As can be seen, there is no connection between the sense that is finally developed and the

primary meaning.

Generally radiation precedes concatenation. In many cases, the two processes work together,

complementing each other.

Polysemy and context：Polysemy dose not create much confusion in daily use because the

context generally reveals which meaning out of all its possible meanings is to be attached to the

word, for example:

(1) He tipped the chessboard撞倒棋盘, dumping the men to the floor. 棋子

(2) The visitor sent his man for the luggage. 男仆

(3) Man the language lab. 给 配备人员

2． Homonymy：同形同音异义Homonyms are words which have the same phonological

or spelling form but differ in meaning.

Types of Homonymy: Perfect Homonyms homographs, homophones (which constitute the largest

number and most common)

perfect homonyms

Words identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning, e. g:

bark n / v To utter the harsh, abrupt sound of a dog. 树皮, 吠声

date n . a kind of fruit/ a boy or girl friend

Homograph同形异义词words that have the same spelling but differ in origin, meaning, and

sound.

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

Bow/bau/ n. bending the head as a greeting

Bow/bou/ n.the device used for shooting arrows

Sow/sou/ v. to scatter seeds

sow [sau]大母猪

homophone 同音异义词：words are identical only in sound but different in spelling and

meaning:

Dear n. a love person

Deer n. a kind of animal

Right a. correct

Write v. put down on paper with a pen

Rite n. a ceremonial procedure

Origins of homonyms: change in sound and spelling, borrowing,

Criteria to distinguish homonyms and polysemants: the fundamental difference lies in the fact

that the former refers to different words which happen to share the same form and the latter is the

one same word which has several distinguishable meanings. One important criterion is to see their

etymology. The second one is semantic relatedness. Meanings of different homonyms have

nothing to do with one another.

3． Synonymy

Synonyms are words different in sound and spelling but nearly alike or exactly the same in

meaning.

synonymous patterns

1）The double scale patterns

In English, there are countless pairs of synonyms in which a native term coexists with the

one borrowed from French, Latin or Greek.

2）the triple scale pattern

3）BrE. and AmE. Pattern In this pattern, the British words and American words co-exist.

In this pattern, native, French, and Latin or Greek words co-exist.

Types of Synonyms: relative ones and absolute ones

Absolute synonyms are words whose meaning is fully identical in any context so that one can always be

substituted for the other without the slightest change in meaning. This kind of synonyms are rare and may

be found in special terminology such as compounding and composition in lexicology, malnutrition and

undernourishment in medicine.

Relative synonyms

Synonyms which denote different shades of meaning or different degrees of a given quality are called

relative synonyms.

Take change/alter/vary for example.To changea thing is to put another thing in its place; to alter a thing is to

make it different from which it was before;to vary a thing is to alter it in different manner and at different

times,e.g. A man changes his habits, alters his conduct, and varies his manner of speaking.‘

Sources of synonyms: borrowing, dialects and regional English, figurative and euphemistic

Discrimination of synonyms: Synonyms may differ in the range and intensity of meaning. Some words

have a wider range of meaning than others.

1)difference in denotation For example, extend, increase, expand share a general sense but have different

implications.. Each of the three terms expresses a different kind of enlargement

This can be illustrated by the following graphs

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

[1] The company has decided to increase its sales by ten per cent next year.

[2]The owner of the restaurant is going to extend the kitchen by ten feet this year.

[3]The mental will expand if heated.[4]a rich man and a wealthy lady are both rich, but the wealthy lady is felt to possess more money

and property than a rich man

2)Difference in connotation, By connotation we mean the stylistics and emotive colouring of

words. Some words share the same denotation but differ in their stylistic appropriateness.

a. Borrowed words are generally more formal than native words: answer/respond,

homely/domestic. The group of policemen, constable, bobby, cop serves as another example.

Policeman and constable are stylistically neutral, yet the former is used in British English an

American English while the latter is only British Bobby is colloquial, used only in British English

and cop is slangy

b)archaic , poetic and standard

Ire/anger, bliss/happiness The second is standard in usage whereas the first is old-fashioned and

archaic, only found in poetry, earlier writings.

3) Clear affective values e.g. Result is neutral while consequence always has a negative

implication. Compare the italicized words:

[1] Look at that lovely little boy.

[2 ] Look at that small boy.

[3] Look at that tiny boy.

The three adjectives all describe the smallness of the boy. But little suggests attractiveness and

pleasantness‘, tiny implies the abnormal growth of the child and small simply conveys the idea of

being not big. Therefore,little is appreciative, small is neutral and tiny is derogatory.

4)difference in application Many words are synonymous in meaning but different in usage in

simple terms. They form different collocations We can say The word has two senses/meanings‘

He is a man of sense‘ is acceptable, but He is a man of meaning‘ is not acceptable, Empty

vacant are synonyms but their collocations are not the same. Empty(box, street, room, vacant (seat,

chair, apartment Empty implies that there is no one or nothing inside while vacant suggests that

something or some place is not occupied.

4． Antonym：opposite in meaning are generally called antonyms.

Types of antonyms:

1）Contradictory terms互相矛盾反义词These antonyms truly represent oppositeness of

meaning. They are in such a relationship that the assertion of one of the items implies the denial

of the other, e.g., alive and dead, single and married. Contradictory terms are nongradabe and

thus one cannot say ―He is very alive/dead.‖

2.）Contrary terms相对的

Contraries display a type of semantic contrast, illustrated by such pairs as rich and poor; good

and bad. They are gradable adjectives, i.e. they can be modified by adverbs which convey the

degree of the intensity of the adjective, for example: very/so/extremely rich/poor

A middle ground belong to neither to one pole nor to the other as beautiful, good-looking,

plain, ugly

3）Relative terms

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

This third type consists of relational opposites such as parent and child, lend and borrow,

husband and wife ,employer and employee

Relative terms are different from contradictory terms. There is an absolute opposition

between contradictory terms. IF the adult is not a man, then the adult must be a woman.

Characteristics of antonyms

1） They are classified on the basis of semantic opposition.Words denoting nature, quality or

state of things have many antonyms. Many words, though having synonyms, do not find their

semantic opposites, hit, book, house.

2）A word may have more than one antonym. Different antonyms in different contexts. For

instance, when the word ―fast‖ is used in the sense of ―fixed firmly‖, then the antonym will be

―loose‖ or ―insecure‖. But when it means ―rapid‖, its antonym will be ―slow‖.

3）. Antonyms differ in semantic inclusion.反义词在语义的包容上不同

In many pairs we can find that one member is more specific than the other and the meaning of the

specific is included in that of the general. e.g. man/woman, tall/short, old/young

There has been no man in the island. Man signifies human being‘ naturally including woman

How tall is his brother?

How short is his brother?

4.） Contrary terms are gradable antonyms, differing in degree of intensity.

For example, hot and warm are synonyms. Their difference lies in intensity. The opposite of hot is

cold and that of warm is cool.

5. Hyponymy

Superordinate and subordinate terms

From the above diagram, we can see the word food is a general term, linguistically called a

superordinate term, i.e., it includes all the other terms listed underneath it. Meat, vegetable, and

fruit are specific terms and they are all hyponyms/subordinate terms of food. The relationship

between specific words and general words are called hyponymy.

Lecture 8 Meaning and Context

1. Types of Context

1.1Extra-linguistic context/ Context of situation(语言之外的环境)

The extra-linguistic context may extend to embrace the entire cultural background., which may also affect

the meaning of words.

1. The actual speech situation in which a word occurs

There are cases in which the meaning of a word is determined not by linguistic factors, but by the

speech situation in which a word is used. e.g. ― Father’s coming‖.

In everyday life, word meaning is more often dependent on the actual situation in which a word is used

rather than on verbal context.

2. The entire cultural background against which a word is used

The extra-linguistic context may lead on to an even broader view of context embracing the entire

cultural background against which a word, or an utterance, or a speech event has been set. Because of

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

the cultural differences, the same lexical item may not mean the same thing to people of different

countries e.g.

― dragon‖ in Chinese and English

― landlord‖ in Chinese and English

― liberalism‖ in Chinese and English自由主义：一种政治理论，它以人性本善为基础，提倡个人自

治，强调公民和政治的自由，主张用被统治者所同意的方法进行统治，提倡保护个人使其免受专

断权威的迫害

2.Linguistic context

2.1 Lexical context(词汇语境):

This context refers to the words that occur together with the word in question.

The meaning of the word is often affected and defined by the neighboring. e.g. make, it also means the

following meanings:

My father made 5000 yuan a month. ( earned)

The train was making 140 kilometers an hour then. ( moving at a speed)

She made coffee for us. ( boiled)

The rules and regulations are made to protect everybody‘s right. ( enacted)

Paper has a number of meanings in the dictionary, yet in each of the following context, it conveys only one

sense.

(1)A sheet of paper (thin flat sheets of substance for writing, printing, decorating walls, etc. )

(2) A white paper (government document)

(3) A term paper (essay written at the end of the term)

(4) today‘s paper (newspaper)

(5) Examination paper (a set of questions used as examination)

2.2.Grammatical context:

The meanings of a word in this context may be influenced by the structure in which it occurs. Though

less common, it is by no means rare.

In grammatical context, the syntactic structure of the context determines various individual meanings of a

polysemous word. Take the verb get for example; its meaning varies in different syntactical structure:

get + n. means ― to receive‖ , as in ― I got a gift from Mary‖.

get + adj. means ― to become‖, as in ― Tom is getting taller and taller‖.

get + n. + adj. means ― to bring something to a certain condition; cause to be or become‖, as in

― She soon got herself ready for the party‖.

get + infinitive means ― to succeed in doing ―, as in ― If I get to graduate this summer, I will take

the job as an accountant in that company‖.

get + n. + infinitive means ― to cause somebody to do something‖, as in ― I will get the gardener

to water my plants when I am out‖.

2.The Role of Context

2.1 Eliminating ambiguities

Ambiguity refers to a word, phrase, sentence or group of sentences with more than one possible

interpretation or meaning. Lexical ambiguity often arises due to polysemy

a) He is a hard businessman

b) John ran the egg and spoon race. ―hardworking‖ ―difficult‖

―participated‖ ―organized‖

1. Role of Context

1.1 Elimination of ambiguity

Ambiguity often arises due to polysemy and homonymy. When a word with a multiple meanings is used

in inadequate context, it creates ambiguity.

Homonymy is another cause of ambiguity as two separate words share the same form.

Grammatical structure can also lead to ambiguity.

Ambiguity refers to a word, phrase, sentence or group of sentences with more than one possible

interpretation or meaning. Lexical ambiguity often arises due to polysemy

a) He is a hard businessman

b) John ran the egg and spoon race. ―hardworking‖ ―difficult‖

―participated‖ ―organized‖

Structural ambiguity arises from the grammatical analysis of a sentence or a phrase.

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

e.g. young men and women ( both the men and women are young; or young men and all women) I like my students more than Bill. ( This sentence can be understood as ― I like my students more than Bill does.‖ or ― I like my students more than I like Bill.‖)

1.2 Indication of referents限定所指

Without clear context, the reference can be very confusing.

In conversation, in order to avoid repetition, pronouns( like I, he, you, this, or that) are often used

instead of a noun or a noun phrase; do, can, might, or should can be used in place of a verb phrase, and

then, or there is used in place of an adverbial phrase of time or place. Context is of great importance in

understanding the referents of such word.

e.g. ― – Do you think he will?

-- I don‘t know. He might.

-- I suppose he ought to, but perhaps he feels he can‘t.

-- Well, his brothers have. They perhaps think he needn‘t.

-- Perhaps eventually he may. I think he should, and I very much hope he will.‖

3.3 Provision of clues for inferring word meaning. 提供线索推断词义

In many cases, when a new word appears for the first time, the author generally manages to give hints

that might help the readers to grasp the concept or understand the idea. Context clues vary a great deal but

can be summed up as follows:

A. Definition The author gives formal definition immediately after a new term.

E.g.Perhaps the most startling theory to come out of kinestics, the study of body movement,was

suggested by Professor Birdwhistell.

B. explanation

If the concept is complicated and must involved technical terms in the definition, the author might explain

the idea in simple words. E.g. It‘s just one more incredible result of the development of microprocessors - those tiny parts of computer commonly known as silicon chips.

C. Example cite an example to throw light on the meaning of the term.

E.g. Many United Nations employees are polyglots. Ms. Mary, for example, speaks five languages

D. Synonymy

Their greatest fear was of a conflagration大火, since fire would destroy their flimsy wooden settlement

before help could arrive.

E. Antonymy

As the fighting on all fronts reached its peak, the economy neared its nadir.

F. Hyponymy e.g. The village had most of the useful amenities: a pub, a library, a post office, a village hall,

a medical center, and a school.

G. Relevant details

e.g. In spite of the fact that the fishermen were wearing sou’westers, the storm was so heavy that they were

wet through.

H. Word structure e.g. Copernicus哥白尼believed in a heliocentric universe, rather than in geocentric

theory.

If we know the form geo- as in geology or geography as well as the fact that it is used in contrast to helio-,

we can guess the meaning，他提出地球及其它行星绕太阳运动的日心说，

4. Suggested ways for the correct comprehension of word meaning

A. the use of an up-to-date and adequate monolingual dictionary

B. A good knowledge of the culture of the English-speaking people

C. Development of the ability to determine the meaning of a word from its context

Question

Study this sentence. If you find anything wrong , please explain why and then improve it.

Flying plane is dangerous.

(1) It is ambiguous.

(2) Ambiguity caused by the grammatical structure

(3)This sentence can be understood as:

a. It is a dangerous to fly a plane.

b. A plane that is flying is dangerous.

(4)Improvement

a. John told me that he didn‘t want to be a pilot, because flying a plane is dangerous.

大学英语词汇学期末考试 重点复习资料整理 权威版 后附试题

b. A flying plane is dangerous.

Lecture 9 Changes in Word Meaning

Types of Changes

Changing in word meaning has never ceased since the language came into being and will continue in the

future. Yet no one has been able to systemize the ways in which changes occur. However, there are a few

patterns that changes follow.

1.3 Extension(generalization)词义的扩大

A large proportion of polysemic words of modern English have their meanings extended sometime in the

course of development.

Extension of meaning, the opposite of restriction, means the widening of a word’s sense until it covers

much more than what it originally conveyed. Take the word “manuscript” for example, it originally meant

something hand written, but now it refers to an author’s copy

whether written by hand or typed. Another example is ―fallout‖.

1.4 Narrowing词义缩小

It means that a word of wide meaning acquires a narrower, specialized sense which

is applicable to only one of the objects it had previously denoted. An example was the word ―meat‖

which originally meant ―food; especially solid food, as distinguished from drink.” In the course of

time, the range of meaning was narrowed to mean specifically “the flesh of animals used as food,

excluding fish and birds.” More examples:

disease（discomfort. 不安；烦恼；弊病；疾病,）

1.5 Elevation (amelioration)词义升格

Elevation of meaning is the opposite of degeneration. Words often rise from humble beginnings to

positions of greater importance. The word “knight爵士” for example, once meant “boy仆人”, came

to alter its use as a title of rank through military and feudal associations. More examples

marshal―马夫‖元帅/shrewd

1.6 Degradation

When the meaning of a word narrows toward an unfavorable meaning it is called degeneration or

pejorative change. A villain, for example, originally referring to a man who worked on a farm and

implying nothing unfavorable, came to be a term of reproach. Similarly, boor, which once meant a

farmer, now implies “a rough, ill mannered man”.

A peasant regarded as vile and brutish.

【废语】 乡巴佬，粗汉：被认为低鄙和粗野的农民A wicked or evil person; a scoundrel.

恶棍；流氓

2. Causes of Changes

2.1 Extra-linguistic factors词义演变的语言外部原因

Historical reason历史---it often happens that a word is retained for a name though the meaning has

changed because the referent has changed.

Class reason 阶级---language records the speech and attitude of different social classes. So different

social varieties of language have come into being. Churl农业工人,乡下人,粗野的人, 吝啬鬼, hussy、

放荡的女子, wench指农村女孩, 妓女嫖妓 villain as we already know were originally neutral in

color but have all down-graded as ill-mannered or bad people‘.

Psychological reason--- the associated transfer of meaning and euphemistic use of words are often due

to psychological factors. People change word meaning owing to various psychological motives. Many

low, humble and despised occupation often take more appealing names is all due to psychological

reasons. For example, in the Second World War, prevalent in the Australian forces were peasant for

soldier of ordinary rank‘, squeak for sergeant, comedian 喜剧演员for commando突击队员

(pejorative), stew keeper：炖制而成的菜 for cook‘ Besides, religious influence is another kind of

psychological need. Angel, martyr and paradise have their meanings elevated because of the influence

of Christianity

2.2 Linguistic reasons

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Shortening

One type of such change occurs when a phrase is shortened to one word which retains the meaning of

the whole, e.g. gold is used for‘gold medal‘ gas for cold gas‘

Borrowing

The influx of borrowings has caused some change in meaning. For instance, deer formerly meant

animal, and later animal from Latin and beast from French found their way into English. As three terms

were synonymous, animal retained the original meaning, the meaning of deer was narrowed.

Analogy

Fortuitous 偶然的, 幸运的formerly denoted ‘happening by chance’, ‘accidental’ and later took

on the meaning ‘fortunate’ probably by analogy because two words look similar.

Lecture 10 English Idioms

Objectives

This chapter discusses idioms, their major characteristics, the way of classification in terms of grammatical

functions and their variations in the actual use.

Teaching emphasis and difficulties

To understand idioms correctly in actual context and use them properly in production.

1. Sphere of idioms

The English language abounds in idioms like any other highly developed tongues. English idioms are

colourful, forcible and thought-provoking. Strictly speaking, idioms are expressions that are not readily

understandable from their literal meanings of individual elements. In a broad sense, idioms may include

colloquialisms俗语, catchphrases醒目的广告用语, (政治宣传中的)标语, slang expressions俚语,

proverbs谚语, etc.

2. Characteristics of idioms

2.1 Semantic unity语义的整体性

Idioms each consist of more than one word, but each is a semantic unity. Though the various words that

make up the idioms have their respective literal meanings, in the idiom, they have lost their individual

identity. The semantic unity of idioms is also reflected in the illogical relationship between the literal

meaning of each word and the meaning of the idiom. Many idioms are semantically inexplicable(无法说明

的). e.g. till the cows come home means ‘forever’ as a adverb; Rains cats and dogs means‘ rain heavily’

literally makes nonsense

2.2 Structural stability结构稳定性

The structure of an idiom is to a large extent unchangeable. Firstly, the constituents of idioms cannot be

replaced. Eg. Lip service *mouth service Secondly, the word order cannot be inverted or changed. by

twos and threes *by threes and twos Thirdly, the constituents of an idiom cannot be deleted or added to,

not even an article eg. out of the question.adv.不可能 Finally, many idioms are grammatically

unanalysable. It should be pointed out that the idiomaticity of idioms is gradable and may best be thought in

terms of a scale, with the true idioms established at the upper end and regular combinations at the bottom.

In between are the semi-idioms. The fixity of idioms depends on the idimaticity. The more idiomatic the

idioms, the more fixed the structure.习语性越强的习语，结构越固定 Many of the idioms of the lower

scale do allow some changes.;

Lecture 11 English Dictionaries

Objectives

This chapter attempts to introduce and expound four types of dictionaries, their contents, scope and

characteristics, and discusses how to choose and use dictionaries, and finally introduces three popular

dictionaries.

Teaching emphasis and difficulties

How to choose and use dictionaries.

Key Points:

1. Types of dictionaries

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