Key to chapter 3

Chapter 3 Lexicon

1. Define the following terms:

Morpheme: the smallest unit of language in terms of relationship between expression and content, a unit that cannot be divided into further small units without destroying or drastically altering the meaning, whether it is lexical or grammatical.

Compound: It refers to those words that consist of more than one lexical morpheme, or the way to join two separate words to produce s single form.

Inflection: Inflection is the manifestation of grammatical relationships through the addition of inflectional affixes, such as number, person, finiteness, aspect and case.

Affix: the collective term for the type of formative that can be used only when added to another morpheme( the root or stem).】

Derivation：Different from compounds, derivation shows the relation between roots and affixes. Root: the base form of a word that cannot further be analyzed without total loss of identity. All words contain a root morpheme.

Allomorph: any of the different form of a morpheme.

Stem: any morpheme or combination of morphemes to which an inflectional affix can be added. Bound morpheme: Those which must appear with at least another morpheme, are bound morphemes.

Free morpheme: Those which may occur alone, that is, those which may constitute words by themselves, are free morphemes.

Lexeme: A separate unit of meaning, usually in the form of a word (e.g. “dog in the manger”) Grammatical word (also function words): express grammatical meanings and serve to link its different parts together.

Lexical words(also content words): have lexical meanings, refer to substance, action and quality and carry the main content of a language.

Lexicon: a list of all the words in a language assigned to various lexical categories and provided with semantic interpretation.

Closed-class words: those whose membership is fixed or limited.

Open-class words: those whose membership is in principle infinite or unlimited.

Blending: A relatively complex form of compounding, in which two words are blended by joining the initial part of the first word and the final part of the second word, or by joining the initial parts of the two words.

Loanwords: The borrowing of loanwords is a process in which both form and meaning are borrowed with only a slight adaptation, in some cases, to the phonological system of the new language that they enter.

Loanshift：is a process in which that meaning is borrowed, but the form is native.

Acronym: acronym: is made up form the first letters of the name of an organization,which has a heavily modified headword.

Loss: The loss of sound: refer to the disappearance of the very sound as a phoneme in the phonological system. It may also occur in utterances at the expense of some unstressed vowels. Back-formation: refers to an abnormal type of word-formation where a shorter word is derived by deleting an imagined affix form a longer form already in the language. It also allows us to take a word of a given category and form a new homophonous word of a different category.

Assimilation: refers to the change of a sound as a result of the influence of an adjacent sound,

which is more specifically called “contact” or “contiguous” assimilation.

Dissimilation: the influence exercised. By one sound segment upon the articulation of another, so that the sounds become less alike, or different.

Folk etymology: refers to a change in form of a word or phrase, resulting from an incorrect popular notion of the origin or meaning of the term or from the influence of more familiar terms mistakenly taken to be analogous.

2. Complete the words with suitable negative prefixes.

a) irremovable b) informal c) impracticable d) insensible e) intangible f) illogical g) irregular h) disproportionate i) ineffective j) inelastic k) inductive l) irrational m) dissyllabic n) abnormal o)unworkable p) unwritten q) unusual r) unthinkable s) inhuman t) irrelevant u) uneditable v) immobile w) illegal x) indiscreet

3. MORPHEME is defined as the smallest unit in terms of relationship between expression and content. Then is morpheme a grammatical concept or a semantic one? What is its relation to phoneme? Can a morpheme and a phoneme form an organic whole?

As a matter of fact, morpheme is both a grammatical concept and a semantic one. For instance, we recognize that English word-forms such as talks, talker, talked and talking must consist of one element talk, and a number of other elements such as –s, -er, -ed, -ing. All these elements are described as morphemes. The definition of morpheme is “the smallest unit of language in terms of the relationship between expression and content”. We would say that the word reopened in the sentence The police reopened the investigation consists of three morphemes. One minimal unit of meaning is open, another minimal unit of meaning is re-(meaning again), and a minimal unit of grammatical function is –ed(indicating the past tense). Therefore, we are in a position to conclude that those which can stand by themselves as single words, e.g. open, are semantic concepts, and those which cannot normally stand alone, but which are typically attached to another form, e.g. re-, -ist, -ed, -s, are grammatical concepts.

As we know, each one of the meaning-distinguishing sounds in a language is decribed as a phoneme. An essential property of a phoneme is that it functions contrastively. If we substitute one sound for another in a word and there is a change of meaning, then the two sounds represent different phonemes.

The relation between morpheme and phoneme is also of twofold feature, viz. one-to-one, one-to-more. As with the former type, one-to-one, re- is the kind of morpheme that always consists of two phonemes /ri:/; as for the latter type, one-to-more relation, a typical example would be the plural morpheme that follows a noun or a verb. ｛s｝after a noun can be pronounced in three ways, viz. /s/, /z/, and /iz/, as in locks, bags, and watches; ｛z｝after a verb can also be pronounced in three ways, viz. /s/, /z/, and /iz/, as in stops, drags, and catches.

Seen from an integrative perspective, a morpheme and phoneme, indeed, can form an organic whole, as the number of the sound of each morpheme cannot be unlimited.

4. Read the following paragraph and list all the function words you can find. (Include all forms of be as function words.) Give the percentage of function words in this paragraph. She was a small woman, old and wrinkled. When she started washing for us, she was already past seventy. Most Jewish women of her age were sickly, weak, broken in body. But this

washwoman, small and thin as she was, possessed a strength that came from generations of peasant ancestors. Mother would count out to her a bag of laundry that had accumulated over several weeks. She would lift the heavy bag, load it on her narrow shoulders, and carry it the long way home.

The function words in this passage include: she, was, a, and, when, she, for, she, was, past, of, her, were, in, but, this, and, as, she, a, that, from, of, would, to her, a, of, that, had, over, she, would, the, it, on, her, and, it, the. Altogether there are 85 words in this passage, and 40 of them are function words. Then the percentage of function words in this passage is 40/85≈47%.

5. “A free form which consists entirely of two or more lesser free forms...is a phrase. A free form which is not a phrase is a word. A word, then, ...is a minimum free form”(Bloomfield, 1935:178). Answer the following questions:

(a) The term “word” is ambiguous. What kind of words is Bloom-field's definition intended to cover?

(b) Are there any traditionally recognized words of English (in the appropriate sense of “word”) that fail to satisfy Bloomfield's definition?

(c) What other criteria have been involved in the definition of the word?

a) The “words” in Bloomfield’s sense, namely, the minimum free forms as conceptual units in general thinking are those smallest units that can stand by themselves and constitute, by themselves, complete utterances. Those that can function as complete utterances by themselves like hi, possibly, darling, etc. are “words”.

b) Yes, for example, those words that cannot stand only by themselves and constitute utterances by themselves in the usual sense like the articles a and the in English fail to satisfy Bloomfield’s criterion, though he himself does not acknowledge this.

c) In addition to the criterion of a minimum free form, stability and relative uninterruptibility are also involved in defining the word. Besides, the three senses of “word”, namely, a physically definable unit, the common factor underlying a set of forms and a grammatical unit can be conducive to identifying the word.

6. Find the sources of the following blends. In cases where the dictionary does not provide the answer, your own ingenuity will be your guide.

(a) bash (b) smash (c) glimmer (d) flimmer (e) clash (f) flare (g) brunch (h) motel (i) transistor (j) medicare (k) workaholic (l) spam (m) telethon (n) aerobicise (o) chunnel (p) chortle (q) bit (r) modem (s) guestimate (t) threepeat

a) bat and mash b)smack and mash c) gleam and shimmer d) flame and glimmer e) clap and crash f) flame and glare g) breakfast and lunch h) motor and hotel i) transfer and resistor j) medical and care k) work and alcoholic l) spiced and ham m ) telephone and marathon n) aerobics and exercise o) channel and tunnel p) chuckle and snort q) binary and digit r) modulator and demodulator s) guess and estimate t) three and repeat

7. Determine the historically accurate etymology of the words in the first column, and underline the correct one in the second or in the third column.

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 (a) hangnail aching nail hanging nail

(b) female a male's companion little woman (c) crayfish crawling fish crab

(d) shamefaced face reflecting shame bound by shame (e) Jordan almond imported almond garden almond (f) sparrowgrass a genus of herbs bird nesting in grass

(g) belfre bell tower bell

(h) bridegroom a woman is just or about to be married a man is just, or a bout to be married (i) muskrat(Algonquian: musquash)a large rat-like animal a large musk deer

(j) woodchuck(Algonquian: otchek)a north American goat a north Americanmarmot

a) hangnail (alter. Of agnail, angnail) aching nail b) female (ME: femel, femelle) a male’s companion c) crayfish (ME: crevis) crawling fish

d) shamefaced (alter. Of shamefast) bound by shame e) Jordan almond (ME: Jordan almande) garden almond f) sparrowgrass (alter. Of asparagus) a genus of herbs

g) belfre (ME: berfrey) bell tower

h) bridegroom (ME: bridegome) a man is just, or about to be married i) muskrat (Algonquian: musquash) a large rat-like animal j) woodchunk (Algonquian: otchek) a north American marmot

8. Determine the original term from which the following words were back-formed.(a) asset (b) burgle (c) enthuse (d) greed(e) hush (f) automate (g) donate (h) escalate(i) homesick (j) peddle (k) diagnose (l) tuit(m) amusing (n) loaf (o) self-destruct (p) attrit(q) hairdress (r) emote (s) drowse (t) frivol9

a) assets b) burglar c) enthusiasm d) greedy e) husht f) automation g)donation h) escalator i) homesickness j) peddler k) diagnosis l) intuition m) amuse n) loafer o) self-destruction p) attrition q) hairdresser r) emotion s) drowsy t) frivolous

9. Identify the immediate etymological source of the following words. (For example, the immediate source of “meaning” is French, although the more remote source is Latin.)(a) air (b) barbecue (c) bungalow (d) cola(e) gusto (f) babel (g) buffalo (h) cocoa(i) costume (j) ill (k) mule (l) decreed(m) revolution (n) benevolent (o) lie (p) topic(q) subject (r) theme (s) wind (t) datum

a) Middle English b) American English c) Hindi and Urdu d) African origin e) Spanish f) Hebrew (The Bible) g) Italian h) Spanish i) French j) Middle English k) Middle English m) Middle English n) Middle English o) Middle English p) Latin q) Middle English r) Middle English s) Middle English t) Latin

10. Classify the following words as loanwords (LW) , loan blends (LB) , loan shifts (LS) or loan translation (LT) :booby trap coconut loan-word monk firewater free verse war paint yankee LW: monk; loan-word LB: booby trap; coconut LS: Yankee LT: firewater; free verse; war paint

11. If there are two affixes -ly, one producing adjectives and the other attaching toadjectives to produce adverbs, can we find words with both of these affixes?

No. words with both of these affixes –ly are not allocated in English. See below for example: *friendlily (friend –friendly- friendlily); *oilily ; *chillily

12. Make a list of nouns from the following words that -s can attach to. Epiphany foot hat house kitchen ox phenomenon region sheep tomato

hat house kitchen region

13. Are there any affixes that attach (relatively) productively to verbs, contribute no or very specific meaning, and do not change category? –ing, He is walking home, of progressive aspect -ed, he walked home, of simple past tense -s, he walks home, of simple present tense

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