BAN
TỪ VỰNG – NGỮ NGHĨA HỌC
TIẾNG ANH
(LECTURE NOTES)
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PART 1 - LEXICOLOGY
UNIT 1 – WHAT IS LEXICOLOGY?
1. What is Lexicology?
- The term “lexicology” is composed of two elements of Greek origin:
+ Logy (Greek: logos): science, learning
+ lexis: word, phrase
=> Lexicology is “the science or the study of the word”.
2. Essential branches of Lexicology
i) Morphology is concerned with the structure of words and how words are formed
ii) Semasiology (Semantics) deals with the meaning of words (including types of
meaning, change and development of meaning, etc.)
iii) Phraseology mainly focuses on set/fixed expressions, namely word
combinations, idioms, proverbs (used in speech as ready-made language units)
iv) Etymology is the study of origins of words (native or borrowed words)
v) Lexicography focuses on issues concerning dictionary compiling (types of
dictionary, selection of words for each type, arrangement of words, etc.)
3. Purpose of Our Study of English Lexicology
As language changes all the time and new words appear to describe new things/
concepts, our study of English Lexicology can:
 help students understand more about and be able to explain fundamental
issues concerning English lexis
 provide learners with opportunities to acquire valuable information
concerning English word-stock, regulations governing formation, usage of
English words/word-groups
4. Significance of Lexicology
- Theoretically, Lexicology is valuable as it forms the study of one of the three
dimensions of language which are Phonology, Grammar and Lexis.
- Practically, Lexicology is useful in foreign language teaching, as it:
 stimulates a systematic approach to facts concerning vocabulary of a
language.
 helps build up students’ vocabulary
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 helps students distinguish between different styles of speech (spoken and
written language), thus making them more confident in contact with
foreigners
5. Relationships between Lexicology and Phonology/ Grammar/ Stylistics
Why are these relationships considered?
 All elements of a language system are interdependent and closely related
 It is impossible to investigate one part of a language without referring to all
other parts
 One branch of linguistics can only be well treated in combination with others
 All dimensions of a language (lexis, phonology, grammar, styles) are closely
interconnected; they overlap one another.
5.1. Relationship between Phonetics and Lexicology
 Phonetics is a science that studies speech sounds.
 part of speech and meaning of a word can be recognized via its pronunciation
(/pri’zent/ and /’prezent/; /’rek‫כ‬:d/ and /ri’k‫כ‬:d/; /ri’fju:z/ and /’refju:z/)
 stress can helps us distinguish between free word groups and compound
words (‘dancing ‘girl and ‘dancing girl; ‘girl ‘friend and ‘girlfriend)
5.2. Relationship between Grammar and Lexicology
 Words rarely occur in isolation but are produced in certain patterns
E.g. run short, go wrong, get angry/tired, turn red (predicate adjectives with verbs of
motion/perception convey the meaning of “become”)
 grammatical form and function of a word affects its lexical meaning
E.g. I’ve got a house vs. I’ve been housed
 a form of originally grammatical meaning can be used as the basis for
creating lexical meaning
E.g. suffix –s in spectacles, customs, fruits, colours (flags of a ship)
5.3. Relationship between Stylistics and Lexicology
 Stylistics is a science that studies how words are used in different situations.
 Same words when used in different styles may result in different meanings
E.g.
I’m going to have my blood tested
It is bloody cold today (vulgar)
Have you seen the “Hell’s Angles”?
What the hell are you doing here?
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UNIT 2 – ENGLISH WORDS
1. What is a word?
The term ‘word’ is defined in a number of related ways in different contexts.
In writing: a word is often regarded as an item bounded by spaces.
Example: ‘You can’t tie a bow with the rope in the bow of a boat.’ (are ‘a’ before
bow and ‘a’ before boat to be regarded as two instances of the ‘same’ word and
therefore only counted once? Or are they two words?)
In traditional grammar: words were the basic units of analysis and classified
according to their parts of speech
From communication perspective: word can be defined as a unit of
communication, a dialectical unit of form and content, a speech unit used for the
purposes of human communication, independent unit capable of forming a sentence
by itself.
Therefore, different types of words are identified:
- Orthographic words which are distinguished from each other by spelling
- Phonological words are distinguished from each other by their pronunciation
- Word-forms are grammatical variants
- Lexemes are words defined as ‘items of meaning’, headwords of dictionary
entries
Notes:
- In many cases the item is the same for all four kinds of word; e.g. same (it is spelt
and pronounced in the same way, has no grammatical variants, and is a single
lexeme)
2. Word forms
Word forms are inflectional variants of a lexeme. They are different
orthographic and phonological words as they have a distinct spelling and
pronunciation. Grammatically, they are different words; they occur in different
grammatical contexts. However, as far as the essential meaning is concerned, they
can be regarded as different forms of the same word.
 words have variant spellings:
medieval – mediaeval
aesthetic – esthetic
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judgment – judgement
gaol – jail
spelled – spelt
analyse – analyze
Catherine – Katherine – Kathyryn
 words have variant pronunciations:
either
garage
economics
 variation of word-forms: different manifestations of the same lexeme
girl
girl’s
girls
girls’
(inflectional forms of the noun – the singular common form, singular possessive
form, plural common form, plural possessive form)
tiny
tinier tiniest
(inflectional forms of the adjective – the base form, comparative form, superlative
form)
sew
sews
sewing
sewed
sewn
(inflectional forms of the verb – the base/present tense form, third person singular
present tense form, present participle form, past tense form, past participle form)
3. Lexemes and Multi-word lexemes
 Words that are identified as ‘items of meaning’ are lexemes.
 Lexemes are headwords of dictionary entries.
As far as the essential meaning is concerned ‘work, works, worked, working’ are
different forms of a lexical unit- a lexeme.
 A lexeme can consist of one or more than one word-form such as look after,
brother-in-law, turn on, turn over, lady-killer…etc.
 Three main types of multi-word lexemes are identified: compounds, phrasal
lexemes and idioms
Examples:
Compounds:
green house, lady-killer, blackmail, tallboy…
Phrasal lexemes:
skeleton in the cupboard, cash on delivery, saint’s day,
ploughman’s lunch, bells and whistles, pins and needles,
bring about, look after, give in……….
Idioms:
no pains, no gains
ill - gotten, ill - spent
To carry coals to Newcastle
4. Written and spoken words (confusion between speech and writing)
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 confusion of how to write compounds (as a single word, two words which
are hyphenated, or two separate words).
 confusion of different pronunciations for the same spelling (homographs)
sow /sau/ a female pig, /s∋u/ the activity of putting seeds into the ground
bow /bau/ front end of a boat, /b∋u / the result of tying string or a ribbon in a
particular way
refuse /’rifju:z/v. the action of declining or resisting, /’refju:s/n. rubbish
 confusion of different spellings for the same pronunciation (homophones)
feet
feat
fete
fate
lesson
lessen
practice
practice
 confusion of different meanings for the same spelling and pronunciation
(homonyms – words with different meanings sharing the same form)
bank 1 – financial institution
bank 2 – side of river or stream
bank 3 – a row of keys on a keyboard
 confusion of different meanings of the same word (polysemy – one word
having a number of senses or variants of a single meaning)
Example: ‘grow’ has more than one ‘meaning’, distinguishable in the following
sentences. These senses all relate to the meaning of ‘development’ or ‘production’
(1) They grow a lot of paddy rice in this part of the country.
(2) He’s growing a beard.
(3) Don’t children feet grow quickly?
5. Characteristics of the English words
English words have at least the following essential characteristics:
(i) The word is an indivisible unit.
E. Sapir points out that indivisibility is a very important characteristic of the
word. The essence of indivisibility will be clear from a comparison of the article a
and the prefix a- in a lion and alive. A lion is a word group because we can separate
its elements and insert other words between them: a living lion, a dead lion. Alive is
a word, it is indivisible, i.e. nothing can be inserted between its elements. The
morpheme a- is not free, it is not a word.
(ii) The word can be positionally mobile.
That means a word may have different positions in the structure of a sentence.
E.g.
(4) The boy walked slowly up the hill
(5) Slowly the boy walked up the hill
(6) Up the hill slowly walked the boy
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(iii) The word is an uninterruptible unit.
When elements are added to a word to modify its meaning, they are never
included within that word. In sentences (4), (5), or (6), there is no possibility of the
sequence s – the – boy, ly – slow, ed – walk...
According to Lyon John (1969), “One of the characteristics of the word is that it
tends to be internally stable (in terms of order of component morphemes), but
positionally mobile (permutable with other words in the same sentence)”
(iv) The word consist of at least one morpheme
It is a simple word when it consists of only one morpheme, which is a free
root.
When the word consists of more than one morpheme, it can be a compound, a
complex or a complex compound word.
A compound word consists of at least two root morphemes.
A complex word has one root and one or more bound forms.
A complex compound consists of at least two root morphemes with
derivational morphemes.
(v) The word occurs typically in the structure of phrases.
That is morphemes are used to build words, words to build phrases, phrases to
build clauses and clauses to build sentences.
(vi) The word belongs to a specific word class or part of speech.
Traditional grammars of English distinguish eight parts of speech: noun,
pronoun, adjective, verb, adverbs, preposition, conjunction, and interjection.
Modern grammars use the term word classes. Quirk et al (1985:67) distinguish the
following:
closed classes: preposition, pronoun, determiner, conjunction, auxiliary verb
open classes: noun, adjective, verb, adverb
lesser categories: numeral, interjection
a small number of words of unique function: the particle not and the
infinitive marker to
III. SOURCES OF ENGLISH WORDS
1. The origin of the English language
 English belongs to West Germanic branch, one of branches of the IndoEuropean family.
 The first people to inhabit England around the middle of the fifth millennium
BC were Celts. \
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 The word ‘English’ comes from the name of one of the three main Germanic
tribes which invaded settled in the British Isles during the fifth and the sixth
centuries: the Angles, the Jutes and the Saxons. The three tribes probably
spoke mutually intelligible dialects, and the language of the country as a
whole seems to have been known as ‘Englisc’ from this period. Thus we
often refer to this early form of English as ‘Anglo-Saxon' or 'Old English'
 The Latin name of the country was ‘Angli’ or ‘Anglia’ (name of the King of
Angles) by the end of the sixth and during the seventh century. This name
was called ‘Engle’ in Old English and the name of the language was
‘Englisc’. At the beginning of the tenth century, the word ‘Englaland’ and
later ‘England’ was used.
III.2. Characteristics of modern English vocabulary
Modern English vocabulary is made up by O.E and loan words
III.2.1. O.E words (native English or Anglo-Saxon) are short and concrete, the
most frequent in English and ‘friendlier’ than words of foreign origin.
 They constitute no less than 80% of the 500 most frequent words
 Native English words are more colloquial and preferred in everyday speech
because they are vague and convey many shades of meaning.
 Native English words are more human and emotional.
Examples of Anglo-Saxon words
terms of kinship
Father, mother, son, daughter, brother
parts of human body
Arm, hand, finger, head, ear, eye, foot, nose, lip,
heart, chest, bone, etc.
words
naming
most Sun, moon, star, wind, water, wood, hill, land,
important
objects
and meadow, stone, tree, field
phenomena of nature
names of animals
Bull, cow, cat, dog, crow, goose, wolf, goat, hen,
and birds
sheep
domestic life
Door, floor, home, house
Calendar
Day, night, month, year
Numerals
From one (1) to a hundred (100)
common adjs
Black, dark, good, long, white, wide
common verbs
Become, do, eat, drink, fly, go, help, kiss, live, love,
say, see, hear, speak, tell, say, answer, make, give,
sell, send, think
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III.2.2. Loan words (borrowed words)
 English vocabulary has borrowed words from many other languages.
 Borrowed words in English vocabulary are estimated at 65-70%.
This high percentage of borrowed words can be explained by the country’s eventful
history and its many international contact
 They are more formal, cold, precise and restricted in use.
(i) Latin words in English
 Latin: first major contributor of loanwords to English.
 One of most important sources for the coinage of new English word.
 Loans from Latin as a result of contacts between Anglo-Saxons and Roman
enemies, contacts between the Germanic people and the Romans.
 Borrowings concerned with literature, science, military and legal institutions,
commerce, religion, agriculture, words relating to clothing, buildings and
settlements, professional and technical terms.
 Many of them have survived into modern English.
 Typical endings: um (quorum, referendum, symposium), -us (campus,
chorus, fungus), -a (diploma, drama, formula), and -ex/-ix (index, appendix,
matrix).
Examples
Persons, objects associated: Mediator, redeemer, monk, priest, nun, bishop,
monastery, candle
Legal terms: Client, conviction, subpoena
Scholastic activities: Library, scribe, simile
Scientific words: Dissolve, equal, essence, medicine, mercury, quadrant
Verbs: Admit, commit, discuss, seclude
Adjectives: Complete, imaginary, instant, legitimate, populous
Settlements: Tile, wall, city, road
Clothing: Belt, shirt, shoemaker
(ii) Scandinavian loanwords in English
 Second major influence on English lexis.
 As a result of the Viking raids on Britain, began in AD 787 and continued at
intervals for some 200 years.
 A large number of settlements with Danish names (placenames ending in –by
meaning ‘farm’ or ‘town’: Derby, Grimsby, Rugby, Naseby; thorpe meaning
‘village’: Althorpe, Astonthorpe, Linthorpe); -thwaite meaning ‘clearing’:
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Braithwaite,
Applethwaite,
Sorthwaite;
-toft
meaning
‘homestead’:
Lowestoft, Eastoft, Sandtoft.
 A marked increase in personal names of Scandinavian origin (names end in –
son: Davidson, Jackson, Henderson)
 Many general words: words with sc-/sk- (scorch, score, scowl, scrape, scud,
ski, skill, skin, skirt, sky); other words: call, take, cast, die, nouns law,
husband, window, adjs. ill, loose, low, weak.
(iii) Greek loanwords in English
 Greek provided English with a considerable number of technical terms.
 Some Greek loanwords borrowed via Latin and French, some derived from
Greek and Latin elements, others taken directly from Greek.
 Many considered learned, others passed into the stock of everyday
vocabulary.
 Typical endings: -is (analysis, crisis, synopsis), -on (automaton, neutron,
phenomenon)
Examples
Greek words coming into English via Latin: Allegory, anaesthesia, chaos, dilemma,
drama, enthusiasm, history, metaphor, paradox, phenomenon, rhythm, theory, zone
Greek words coming into English via French: Centre, character, chronicle,
democracy, ecstasy, harmony, machine, pause, tyrant
Greek words coming into English directly from Greek: Acronym, autocracy,
idiosyncracy, pathos, telegram, xylophone
Greek words in English derived from Greek and Latin elements: Lexis, lexeme,
lexical, lexicographer, dictionary, vocabulary
(iv) French loanwords in English
 Influence of French vocabulary on English: noticeable
 Words from fields such as law and administration, medicine, arts, fashion,
everyday life.
 Many nouns of abstract terms constructed using French affixes: con-, trans-,
pre-, -ance, -tion, -ment.
 Some loan translations: marriage of convenience (marriage de convenance),
that goes without saying (cela va sans dire), reason of state (raison d’état)
 Borrowing from French occurred ever since the Middle Ages, due to close
contacts between English and French cultures following the exile to
Normandy of Edward the Confessor, the son of Ethelred II and Emma
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 French words borrowed since 17th century: less naturalized than older loans
(amateur, boulevard, crochet, detour, ensemble, liaison, nuance, rapport,
vignette
 Typical endings: ity ( felicity, equity ),- our ( favour, labour ), -ant ( infant )
,-que (boutique, discotheque
Examples of French borrowings
+ law and spiritual administration: Government, state, administration,
attorney, chancellor, court, crime, judge, justice, jury, prison
+ religious sphere: abbot, clergy preach, sacrament
+ titles of nobility: prince, duke, marquess, viscount, baron, and their female
equivalents
+ military: army, war, battle, enemy, captain, corporal, lieutenant, sergeant,
soldier, officer
+ names of best-known precious stones: amethyst, diamond, emerald, garnet,
pearl, ruby, sapphire, topaz, turquoise
+ educational terms: Pupil, lesson, library, science, pen, pencil
+ everyday life: Table, plate, saucer, dinner, supper, river, autumn, uncle,
etc,
+ words borrowed during the Middle English period: Wage, warrant, gage,
guarantee, chapter, chattel, cattle, carriage, courage, people, beautiful, place,
chamber, champion, chance, village
+ words borrowed during the Modern English period: Chauffer, chevron,
chiffon, prestige, balloon, mademoiselle, gown, luxury, romance, tragedy, engineer,
physician,
(v) German and Dutch loans
 As a result of commercial relationships between Flemish/Dutch and Englishspeaking peoples (from the Middle Ages on)
 Many nautical terms from Dutch: bowline, bowsprit, buoy, commodore,
cruise, deck, skipper, smuggle, yacht (bec. of the Dutch’s eminence in
seafaring activities)
 Words related to cloth making: cambric, jacket, nap, spool
 Some commercial terms from Dutch: dollar, groat, guilder, mart
 Some words from Low German dialects: broke, luck, skate, snap, wagon
 Some words in specialist fields such as geology and mineralogy from High
German: cobalt, feldspar, nickel, gneiss, quartz, seltzer, zinc
(vi) Romance loans other than from French
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 In addition to Latin and French, English has borrowed from other languages
such as Spanish, Italian (from the 16th century onwards) and Portuguese
(during the modern period)
 There are loans borrowed directly from Spanish and Portuguese and words
from the colonies via these 2 languages
 Italian has had a particular significance for musical vocabulary and other arts
Examples
- Loans from Spanish: Bonanza, canyon, lasso, mustang, patio, ranch, siesta,
sierra, stampede
- Loans from Portuguese: Albino, copra, flamingo, madeira, mango, marmalade,
molasses, palaver, teak
- Loans from languages of colonies: Alligator, avocado, barracuda, canoe,
chocolate, cigar, cockroach, domino, embargo, mosquito, potato, peccadillo,
tomato, sombrero, tobacco, tornado, tortilla, vanilla
- Musical vocabulary from Italian: Violin, opera, piano, presto, solo, sonata,
concerto, trombone, viola, etc.
- Other loans from Italian: Balcony, carnival, malaria, studio, umbrella, volcano;
cartoon, corridor, porcelain, (via French); macaroni, pizza, scampi, confetti, etc.
(vii) Loans from the East
 A number of words of Arabic origin, mostly to do with science and
commerce, some via French, Italian or Latin: admiral, amber, camphor,





cotton, mattress, orange, assassin, carat, giraffe, lemon, magazine, etc.
A few words from Persian (Iranian): caravan, shah, musk, paradise, scarlet,
tiger
A few words from the Indian subcontinent: yoga, curry, bangle, dungaree,
jungle, pajamas, shampoo
A few words from Chinese via Japanese: judo, tycoon, kamikaze, kowtow
A few words directly from Japanese: kimono, samurai, soy(a), karaoke
A few words from Australia: kangaroo, boomerang
(viii) Borrowings from other sources
 From West African languages, mostly via Portuguese and Spanish: banana,
jam, gorilla, chimpanzee, zebra, gnu, okro, safari
 From Russian: mammoth, vodka, tundra, babushka, cosmonaut
 From Slavic via French: sable
 From Hungarian: coach (via French), goulash, paprika
 From Native American languages: moccasin, toboggan, tomahawk, skunk
 Loans from Turkish: sherbet, yoghurt
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 New Zealand language: kiwi
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
I. QUESTIONS
1. What is a word? Give examples to illustrate your answer.
2. What are main characteristics of English words?
3. What is a lexeme? a multi-word lexeme? Give examples.
4. Where did the word "English" come from?
5. List main characteristics of Anglo-Saxon words and borrowed words?
II. EXERCISES
1 List the word-forms of the following lexemes:
child
run
little
fly
basic
turn
2. How many different lexemes, word-forms and orthographical words are there in
the following sentence?
At the second drum roll, they have to roll out the flag and have it up the mast in
fifteen seconds.
3. Which of the following would you regard as multi-word lexemes?
take care of look into
browse among
story book
garden fence
send off for
over the moon
training
fierce tiger
look up
weekend
4. Which of the following words would you judge to have been borrowed from
French?
freedom, liberty, amity, friendship, royal, kingly, strange, odd, lie, perjury,
malice, ill-will, dignity, worth, glass, mirror, sheep, mutton, gentle, kind.
5. Which of the following words do you think have been borrowed from Greek and
from Latin?
Chromatic, criterion, dithyramb, egregious, enthusiasm, homologous, immediate,
lethal, memorandum, monotone, orchestra, promiscuous, scalpel, transmit,
vacuum.
6. Which six words from the following list do you think originate from AngloSaxon?
let letter lettuce lever lewd liar libel library lick lid life ligament
7. Which eight words from the following list do you think were borrowed from
French?
Pedal pedometer peg peignoir pellet pencil penny pension pepper
perform perfume pin
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8. Which of the following list do you think were borrowed directly from Latin?
Subdivide subsidy suburb
suggest sun superb
such
suck
suction
suede
suffix
sugar
9. Read the following extract. Which of the italicized loanwords came from Latin
and which from French?
Connoisseurs of the song will be familiar with the name of Anna Quentin,
distinguished blues singer and versatile vocalist. Miss Quentin’s admirers, who
have been regretting her recent retirement from the limelight, will hear with mixed
feelings the report that she is bound to Hollywood. Miss Quentin, leaving for a
short stay in Paris, refused either to confirm or to deny a rumour that she had signed
a long-term contract for work in America.
10. Explain the etymology of the following words:
sputnik, kindergarten, opera, piano, potato, tomato, czar, coffee, komsomol,
banana, balalaika, blitzrieg, steppe.
UNIT 3 – ENGLISH WORDS IN USE
I. Lexical and grammatical words.
- When discussing the notion of ‘word’ it is also useful to make a distinction
between lexical and grammatical words.
- What are lexical and grammatical words?
- Consider the sentence: [*] I’m coming tomorrow on the train at six o’clock.
- Can you rewrite it as if it were a telegraph?
- The telegraph equivalent would be something like: Coming tomorrow six
o’clock train.
- The omitted words are I, am, on, the, at. They are short words and not essential
to the basic interpretation of the sentence.
► What is the function of the omitted words and that of the telegram words
(different from each other)?
- the telegram words bear the main burden of referential meaning
- the omitted words make the sentence grammatically complete and provide
relations to other sentences within a text (if, say, sentence [*] were part of a letter)
►The omitted words and the telegram words may be regarded as the bricks
and mortar of the sentence
- the bricks are often called lexical words
- the mortar words are often called grammatical words, or ‘function’ words
1. Lexical words
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- Belonging to relatively large and open classes/subclasses of words, viz. nouns,
most verbs, adjectives, many adverbs.
- lexical classes are open: stable membership; new items continually being coined,
some become obsolete and fall out of use.
- Having fairly independent meanings, meaningful even in isolation
- some subclasses of verb (e.g. am) and adverb (e.g. now, then) are more like
grammatical than lexical words
2. Grammatical words
- Including pronouns, determiners (words that accompany nouns and ‘determine’
their contextual status, e.g. the, a, this, my), prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary
verbs, some adverbs.
- a relatively small and stable membership.
- constitute closed classes and closed sets
Notes
- No clear-cut dividing line between lexical and grammatical words
Ex: “The book is on the table” has quite a different meaning when on replaced by
under, near
(though prepositions classified as grammatical words, they are not
completely empty of semantic content)
- A continuum ranging from words with semantic content to words devoid of
semantic content
II. Formal and informal words
- Social context in which communication is taking place determines both the mode
of dress and the mode of speech
- Circumstances/situations can roughly be classified into 2 types: formal (a lecture,
a speech in court, an official letter, professional communication) and informal (an
informal talk, an intimate letter)
- When placed in different situations, people choose different kinds of words and
structures to express their thoughts
- The suitability and unsuitability of a word for each particular situation depends on
its stylistic characteristics/functional style: formal or informal
1. Informal style
- relaxed, free-and-easy, familiar and unpretentious
- Informal words: used among family, relatives, friends; at home or feeling a
t home
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- Informal words: traditionally divided into 3 types
i. Colloquial words: used by everyone in everyday conversational speech,
comparatively wide sphere of communication
ii. Slang: slang words: current words whose meanings metaphorically shifted; most
slang words: metaphors and jocular (rooted in a joke, often with a coarse, mocking,
cynical colouring); favoured mostly by the young and uneducated
iii. Dialect words/word-groups: “a variety of a language which prevails in a
district, with local peculiarities of vocabulary, pronunciation and phrase”; regional
forms; dialectal peculiarities: constantly incorporated into everyday colloquial
speech or slang, and transferred into common stock (car, trolley, tram began as
dialects words)
iv. Vulgarisms: coarse, rough words used by some uneducated people and are not
generally used in public.
Examples of informal words
Colloquial
words
Literary colloquial words: some sort of, chap, not good enough
at, cope with, stuff, ups and downs, pal/chum (friend), snack
(meal), hello, so long, start, go on, finish, a bit of, a lot of, exam,
fridge, flu, movie; familiar colloquial (words used mostly by the
young and semi-educated, closely verges on slang and has smth.
of its coarse flavour): doc (doctor), hi (how do you do), ta-ta
(good bye), shut up (keep silent);
Slang
Mug (face), saucers/blinkers (eyes), trap (mouth), dogs (feet)
Dialects
Yorkshire dialect: tha/thee (objective case of you), brass
(money), to lake (to play), nivver (never), summat (something),
nowt (nothing), baccy (tobacco), mich (much), mun (must), thisen/thy-self (yourself), aye (yes)
Vulgarisms
hell, damn it, bloody...............
2. Formal style
- restricted to formal situations
- Formal words fall into 3 main groups
i. Learned/scholarly words: mainly associated with printed page (poetry and
fiction); many used in conversational speech
16
ii. Archaic and Obsolete words: stands close to learned words but only restricted
to printed page; partly or fully out of circulation; rejected by living language;
retained in some dialects
iii. Professional Terminology: specialized vocabulary words belonging to special
scientific, professional or trade terminological systems; used mostly by
representatives of the professions; not used by people outside the particular
specialty
Examples of learned words
- Words used in scientific prose with dry, matter-of-fact flavour (Comprise,
compile, experimental, conclusive, heterogeneous);
- “officialese” words of official, bureaucratic language (assist-help, endeavour-try,
proceed-go, approximately-about, sufficient-enough, attired-dressed, inquire-ask)
- Words in descriptive fiction (literary): mostly polysyllabic words drawn from the
Romance languages: solitude, sentiment, fascination, fastidiousness, facetiousness,
delusion, meditation, felicity, elusive, cordial, illusionary
- Words of poetic diction with a lofty, highly-flown, sometimes archaic, colouring:
Alas!, realms, constancy, doth, etc.
Examples of other formal words
Archaic and Obsolete Thou, thy, thee, aye (yes), nay (no), bounteous (generous),
morn (morning), eve (evening), moon (month), damsel
words
(girl), errant (wandering)
Professional
Technology
Linguistic terms: lexicology, semantics, pragmatics,
phonetics, etc.;
Terms in teaching and learning EFL: CLT, audio-lingual;
3. Basic vocabulary
- central group of the vocabulary
- stylistically neutral words
- their meanings: broad, general, directly convey the notion with no other
connotations (E.g. walk-stride, stroll, trot, stagger)
- possible to use in all kinds of situations, both formal and informal, in verbal and
written communication
- used every day, everywhere by everybody
17
Ex: Words denoting objects and phenomena of everyday importance: house, bread,
summer, winter, child, mother, green, difficult, to go, to eat, etc.
Stylistic strata of English vocabulary
Stylisticallyneutral words
Stylistically-marked
words: informal
Basic vocabulary
1. Colloquial words: 1. Learned words: literary, words
literary, familiar, low
of scientific prose, officialese,
2. Slang words
modes of poetic diction
2. Dialect words
Stylistically-marked
formal
words:
2. Archaic and obsolete words
3. Professional terminology
III. British English and American English
- British English/Standard English: official lang. of Great Britain taught at schools
and universities, used by the press/radio/television and spoken by educated people
- American English: variety of English spoken in the USA, not a dialect bec. it has a
literary normalized form (Standard American/American National Standard)
- American English differs from British English in pronunciation, some minor
features of grammar and chiefly vocabulary
British English and American English: Differences in pronunciation
Category
British English
American English
Consonants -w and wh pronounced in same
way (which and witch, whether
and weather)
- [j] pronounced before the
vowel in new, student, Tuesday
- s pronounced [z] (vase,
raspberry)
-w
and
wh
pronounced
differently: [w] and [hw]
-rounded vowel in words as not,
block, rod
- broad [a:] in words as pass,
laugh, plant, half
- [a:] for; words with ‘er’ as
clerk, Derby
- stress of words (enquiry,
address, primarily, magazine)
-unrounded vowel in words as
not, block, rod
- [æ] in words as pass, laugh,
plant, half
- [] for words with ‘er’
Vowels
18
-[j] often absent
- s pronounced
raspberry)
[s]
(vase,
- stress of words (inquiry,
address, primarily, magazine)
British English and American English: Differences in spelling variants
British English:
American English
an innings
aesthetic
an inning
esthetic
aluminium
analyse, practise
aluminum
analyze, practice
center/theatre
gaol
center/theater
jail
medieval
colour/labour
mediaeval
color/labor
defence/offence
defense/offense
British English and American English: Differences in grammar (grammatical
system of both varieties is actually the same, with very few exceptions)
Category
British English
American English
Use of auxiliary shall in first person singular will in first person singular and
and plural of Future Indefinite plural of Future Indefinite
verb
Tense
Tense
Tense
Present Perfect
I’ve seen this film
Tendency to substitute Past
Simple for Present Perfect, esp.
in oral com. I saw this film
Verb forms
-dive - dived
- get - got
-dive – dove
- get – gotten/got
British English and American English: Differences in vocabulary (use of
different words)
British English
American English
British English
American
English
-Cinema
-Lift
-Beer
-Flat
-Sweets
-Seaside
-Movie
-Elevator
-Ale
-Apartment
-Candy
-Beach
-Lorry
-Maize
-Railway
-Tin
-Typist
-Angry
-Truck
-Corn
-Railroad
-Can
-Typewriter
-Mad
19
-Luggage
-Motor car
-Baggage
-Automobile
-Homely
-Underground
-Ugly
-Subway
-Petrol
-Tart
-Wireless
-Gas(oline)
-Pie
-Radio
-Autumn
-Biscuit
-Post
-Fall
-Cookie
-Mail
-Minerals
-Chemist
-Soft drinks
-Druggist
-Shop
-Think
-Store
-Guess
-goods
-freight
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
I. QUESTIONS
1. What are lexical and grammatical words?
2. How are words classified in terms of style? Give examples.
3. What are the differences between British English and American English? Give
examples.
EXERCISES
1. Identify the lexical and grammatical words in the following sentences:
a. My aunt has given up going there frequently, because the food is so bad.
b. When I am grown to man’s estate
I shall be very proud and great,
And tell the other girls and boys
Not to meddle with my toys.
2. Put the words in the following sets into three categories: basic vocabulary,
informal, and formal
- Begin, start, commence, get started
- Proceed, go on, get on, continue
- Finish, end, be through, terminate, be over
- Kid, brat, bearn (dial.), child, baby, infant, babe (poet.)
3. State whether the following words are informal or formal.
kip
a pal
a chap
cheerio
swot
ta
brainy
4. Make this conversation more informal by changing some of the words.
Jim:
Annie, can you lend me five pounds?
Annie:
What for?
Jim:
Well, I have to go to visit my mother and father, and my bicycle is not
working, so I'll have to take a taxi.
Annie:
Can't you telephone them and say you can't come.
20
Jim:
Well, I could, except I want to go because they always have lots of
Annie:
food, and the refrigerator at our flat is empty as usual.
Can't you go by underground?
Jim:
Annie:
Erm....
Anyway, the answer's no.
5. Say whether the following remarks/ sentences are okay, formal or too formal
for each situation described. If the remarks or sentences are unsuitable,
suggest the better ones.
a. (Teenage boy to a teenage girl at disco): D' you fancy an appointment one night
next week?
b. (Parent to another parent at a school parents meeting): How many offspring do
you have at school?
c. (Dinner guest to host/hostess): No, thanks, I never consume alcoholic beverage
when I 'm driving.
d. (Student to University professor): Will there be lab demonstration next week?
e. (Business letter to a newspaper office): Dear Sir/ Madam,
I should like to enquire about the current charges for ads in your paper. My
company is considering.................
6. Give the British equivalents for the following American English words:
apartment, store, baggage, truck, elevator, candy, corn, guess, ugly
7. If you saw words spelt in the following way would you expect the writer in
each case to be British or American?
labor centre
hospitalized
movie
theater
favor thru
8. State which of the following words are used in the USA and which in
Britain:
mail-car, mail van, mail man, post man, mail-box, special delivery, express
post, domestic mail, inland post, foreign mail, overseas mail, telegraph form
9. Read the following passage and draw up a list of terms denoting the
University teaching staff in Britain and in the USA:
- But speaking of universities, we’ve also got a different set of labels for the
teaching staff, haven’t we?
- Yes, in the United States, for example, our full time faculty, which we call
staff incidentally – is arranged in a series of steps which goes from instructor
through ranks of assistant professor, associate professor to that of professor. But I
wish you’d straighten me out on the English system. Don for example, is a
21
completely mysterious word and I’m never sure of the difference, say, between a
lecturer and a reader.
- Well, readers say that lecturers should lecture and readers should read! But
seriously, I think there’s more similarity here than one would imagine. Let me say,
first of all, that this word don is a very informal word and that it is common really
only in Oxford and Cambridge. But corresponding to your instructor we’ve got the
rank of assistant lecturer, usually a beginner’s post. The assistant lecturer who is
successful is promoted, like your instructor and he becomes a lecturer and this
lecturer grade is the main teaching grade throughout the university world. Above a
lecturer a man may be promoted to senior lecturer or reader, and both of these –
there’s little difference between them – correspond closely to your associate
professor. And then finally he may get a chair, as we say – that is a professorship, or
as you would say, a full professorship. It’s pretty much a difference of labels rather
than of organization, it seems to me.
10. Translate the following into B.E
a. I had a bow-out
b. Pass me the cookies.
c. it's in the closet.
d. Open the drapes.
e. We've run out of gas
f. It's in the trunk.
g. One-way or round trip?
h. He left the faucet on.
i. We're leaving in the fall.
j. I hate waiting in line.
11. Can you avoid some of the most common confusion arising between British
and American speakers? Try the following quiz.
a. Where would you take
(i) an American visitor
(ii) a British visitor who said they wanted to wash up- the kitchen or the
bathroom?
b. You have just come into an unknown office block. If
(i) an American
(ii) a British says that the office you need is on the second floor. How many
flights of stairs do you need to climb?
c. If (i) an American (ii) a Brit asks for a bill, is he or she more likely to be in a
bank or a café?
22
UNIT 4 - MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH WORDS
1. Morphemes
Many words are made up of various other elements, e.g. sportive = sport + -ive,
happily = happy + -ly,
Example: Consider the word untouchables.
- How many constituent elements into which can it be segmented?
- What is the phonological form, the meaning and the distribution of each element?
+ un- has a fixed phonological form, a meaning of negation, recurs in words like
unavailable, unbelievable
+ touch has a fixed phonological form and a fixed meaning, recurs in word-forms
like touched, touches, touching
+ -able has 2 phonological forms /eib(∂)l/ and /ib(∂)l/, a fixed meaning, recurs in
words like advisable, dislikeable
Each of these elements has its own form/set of forms, meaning, distribution and
cannot be divided any further into meaningful parts. Each of these elements
represents a morpheme.
23
Morphemes are the smallest meaningful language units that constitute words or
parts of words
2. Morphs
Morphemes are abstract elements of analysis. What actually occurs is a phonetic or
an orthographic form which realizes the morpheme.
- When the phonetic or orthographic strings which realize morphemes are
segmented into portions, these portions are called morphs.
=> A morph is the phonetic (or orthographic) form of a segment of a word-form
which represents a particular morpheme.
Examples:
- In the word untouchables the four segmented portions (un.touch.able.s ) are
morphs, each of which represents a morpheme
- Cats consistudents of two morphs cat and -s, realizing a lexical morpheme and an
inflectional (grammatical) morpheme, respectively.
- A single morph might represent more than one morpheme. E.g. the word-form was
represents the morphemes {BE}, {preterite}, and {singular}.
3. Allomorphs
(i). How is the plural morpheme realized phonologically?
/iz/after sibilant consonants: horses, churches, /s/ after any voiceless obstruent:
books, deaths, /z/ as in bags, bones, boys
Three different phonological realizations -three different morphs – of the plural
morpheme. Which form depends on the phonetic environment. => it is phonetically
conditioned.
(ii). What is the plural of the lexeme OX?
OX is the only lexeme which makes its plural by adding –en. This variant of the
plural morpheme is conditioned by the lexeme. => It is lexically conditioned.
(iii). Different variants of the morpheme in- (prefix used to form adjs., advs., nouns)
meaning not are: in- (indirect, inability), im- (impossible), ir- (irregular), il- (illegal)
Different realizations of in- depending on the initial bilabials of the word with
which it will assimilate. => It is phonetically conditioned.
(iv). Personal nouns derived from act: actress or actor. The personal suffix is either
–ess or –or, depending on a grammatical feature of the noun, i.e. whether it denotes
a female or male. => It is grammatically conditioned.
=> An allomorph is a phonetically, lexically or grammatically conditioned
member of a set of morphs representing a particular morpheme.
24
(v). Different realizations or different morphs of a morpheme are allomorphs
E.g. 's' in boys, 'es' in boxes, 'Ø' in sheep and 'en' in oxen are allomorps of the
morpheme 'plural' in English
4. Roots
- A root is the morpheme that conveys the basic meaning of a word-form and
always presents in a lexeme.
- A root remains when all inflectional and derivational affixes removed
E.g.
un.touch.able
wheel.chair.s)
- Roots are very numerous and most of them in English are free but some are bound.
E.g. boy, girl, house...............: free roots
‘ceive ‘ in ‘receive, perceive, deceive’ is a bound root ; ‘logy’ in ‘ lexicology,
phonology, methodology.............: bound roots.
- There may be some roots in a word
E.g. black/bird, boy/friend, methodo/logy,....................
The following are some common roots and their meanings in English
Root
Belli
Bio
Cycl
Dict
meaning
war
life
circle
word
example
rebellion
biology
cyclone
dictate
root
biblio
cosm
dic
duc
meaning
book
order
two
carry, lead
example
bibliography
microcosm
dichotomy
conducive
Duct
Fact
Form
Geo
Graph
Log
carry, lead
do, make
shape
earth
write
speech, study
of
hand
mother,
home
middle
send
name
father
father
carry
conduct
manufacture
uniform
geography
autograph
dialog
fac
fect
fort
gram
homo
logy
do, make
do, make
strong
write
same
speech, study of
facsimile
perfect
fortify
telegram
homophone
analogy
manage
maternity
manu
matri
hand
mother, home
manual
matriarch
mediocre
submit
nominate
paternal
patriarch
transport
miss
multi
nym
pathy
ped
scend
send
many
name
feeling, suffering
foot
climb
dismiss
multiply
synonym
sympathy
pedal
ascend
Man
Mater
Medi
Mit
Nom
Pater
Patri
Port
25
Scrib
Secut
write
follow
scibble
consecutive
scirpt
sent
written language
feel
Postscript
Consent
Sequ
Tempo
r
follow
time
subsequently
contemporary
tact
tract
touch
pull, draw out
Contact
Attractive
Vene
convene
vent
come, go
Advent
Vers
assembl,
meet, come
turn
reverse
vert
turn
Convert
Volu
Voc
turn, roll
voice, call
evolution
vocal
volve
vok
turn, roll
voice, call
Involve
Revoke
5. Stems
- A stem is a form to which inflectional affixes are added.
E.g. friendships (friend: base, friendship: stem, s: inflectional suffix)
ungrammatically ( grammat: root, grammatical: base, ly& un: derivational
affixes).
- A stem is a part of a word-form that remains when all inflectional affixes removed
6. Bases:
- A base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added
- Any root or stem can be termed a base but not vice versa
E.g. touchable acts as a base for prefixation to give untouchable, but in this process
touchable is not a root because it is analyzable in terms of derivational morphology,
nor is it a stem since it is not dealing with the adding of inflectional affixes.
7. Affixes
- Affixes are bound morphemes occurring before or behind the root and somewhat
modify the basic meaning of the root
- Affixes can be prefixes, suffixes, infixes, interfixes.
(i) Prefixes are bound morphemes preceding the roots.
(ii) Suffixes are bound morphemes following the roots.
(iii) Infixes are added in the middle of a word.
E.g.: abso(bleeding)lutely, fan(fucking)tastic.............
(iv) Interfix is an affix to conjoin two roots .
E.g. salesman, speedometter, methodology, ................
II. Classification of morphemes
26
1. Lexical vs. grammatical morphemes
• Lexical morphemes (semantic or content morphemes) are the morphemes forming
units of vocabulary (i.e. they have semantic content)
E.g. boy, man, girl, book, un-, -ness.........
Lexical morphemes comprise of:
derivational affixes (as they are used to form new lexical entities)
free morphemes which carry lexical meaning such as nouns, many verbs, adjectives,
some adverbs
• Grammatical morphemes (functional or formal morphemes) are the morphemes
that only determine the grammatical function of words.
E.g. d, ed, ing, the,...............
Grammatical morphemes consist of:
inflectional affixes (because they are used to show syntactic relations)
free morphemes which serve grammatical functions (preps., articles, relative
pronouns)
2. Free vs. bound morphemes
Free morphemes
Bound morphemes
- those which can stand by themselves
as single words (open, tour, man, good,
as)
- lexical morphemes: open class of
words such as nouns, many verbs,
adjectives, some adverbs (look, follow,
man, tiger, sad, yellow, hard, etc.)
- functional morphemes: conjunctions,
preps., articles, pronouns (and, but,
when, because, on, near, above, the,
that, it, etc.)
- those which cannot normally stand
alone but are typically attached to
another form (re-, im-, un-, -ist, -ed, -s)
- derivational morphemes: used to
make new (gram. or lexical) words
(misuse, unhappy, goodness, foolish)
- inflectional morphemes: not used to
make new words, but to indicate
aspects of grammatical function of a
word
3. Derivational vs. inflectional morphemes
• An inflectional morpheme is a bound morpheme added to a stem and gives extra
grammatical information about the word's already existing meaning.
E.g. walks, walked, walking.
• There are 8 inflectional morphemes in English: 3rd person present, past tense,
progressive, past participle, plural, possessive, comparative, superlative.
27
• A complete set of forms of a word in an inflectional pattern is called “inflectional
paradigm"
E.g. girl, girls, girl’s, girls’.
pick, picks, picked, picking.
fine, finer, finest.
• A derivational morpheme is a bound morpheme added to a base or a stem and
makes it change the meaning or/ and the part of speech.
E.g.
‘ness’ in ‘happiness, kindness, goodness..............’
‘er’ in ‘teacher, worker, learner..................’
The following table shows some differences between inflectional and
derivational morphemes.
Derivational morphemes
Inflectional morphemes
1- change meaning or part of speech 1- never change meaning or part of
of a word (teach–teacher, beauty–
beautiful–beautifully–beautify,
possible-impossible)
2- typically indicate semantic relations
within a word (in dislike dis- is related
to like)
speech of a word (old–older, teachteaches, certificate-certificates)
2- typically indicate syntactic or
semantic relations between dif. words in
a sentence (Jim likes bananas)
3- very productive, typically occur with
3- usually not very productive, all members of a class of morphemes
typically occur with only some (E.g. the plural morpheme -s occurs
members of a class of morphemes (- with almost all nouns)
hood occurs with a few nouns brother,
neighbor, not with most others friend, 4- typically occur at margins of words,
daughter, etc.)
after any derivational morphemes
4- typically occur before any (ration.al.iz.ation.s)
inflectional suffixes are added
5- carry only grammatical meaning
5- carry both lexical and grammatical 6- all are suffixes in English
meaning
6- may be prefixes or suffixes
The following diagram can be used to illustrate types of English morphemes:
English morphemes
free
bound
28
lexical
content
grammatical
function
major parts
minor parts
of speech
lexical
content
derivational
grammatical
function
inflectional
of speech
III. Word types according to Their Morphological Structure
1. Simple words
- words only consisting of a root morpheme and cannot be broken into smaller
meaningful elements
- also called root word
- widely represented by a great number of words belonging to the original stock
(house, hand, pale, find, room, book, work, etc.)
2. Complex words
2.1. Word-forms
- words consisting of one root and one or more inflectional morpheme
Example:
simpler, simplest, child, children, children’s, studying, studied
2.2. Derived words
- words consisting of a root and one or more derivational morphemes
- extremely numerous in English vocabulary
- a derivative resulted from the addition of one/more derivational prefixes/suffixes
to a lexeme
- the lexeme may be a single morpheme, a compound, or a derivative (careful,
leader; landscaper, first-footer, blackmailer; nationality, incomprehensibility)
2.3. Compound words
■ formed by joining two or more root morphemes into a single lexeme; occurring as
free forms (e.g. fingerprint, sunburn, wastepaper basket,……….)
■ created by joining a single root and a derived word (single root + a derivational
affix) into a single lexeme (tin-opener, mill-owner, day laborer, proof-reader, safebreaker, housekeeper, etc.)
■ special type formed by blending one or two roots:
breakfast + lunch = brunch
smoke + fog = smog
transfer + resistor = transistor
motor + hotel = motel
29
cheese + hamburger = cheeseburger
■ Non-idiomatic (transparent) compounds: meaning of the compound can be
inferred from meaning of the parts (e.g. night flight, spaceship, passers-by, air mail)
■ Idiomatic compounds: meaning of the compound can not be deduced from
meaning of the parts (e.g. blackboard, blackmail, dog fight)
■ Lexical relationships behind compounds
- There are different lexical relationships behind compounds.
Examples:
+ cause:
sleeping pill
+ have:
+ make:
picture book/dictionary
rainwater, daisy chain, brick wall
+ contain:
chocolate cake, ice water, cherry pie
+ use:
+ be:
+ in:
+ for:
+ from:
+ about:
waterwheel, steam iron
whitecap, target site
house cat, country club, hillbilly
ashtray, fish pond
fingerprint, sea breeze
tax/investment law, book review
2.4. Compound-derivatives
■ words in which the structural integrity of the two free roots is ensured by a suffix
referring to the combination as a whole, not to one of its elements (kind-hearted,
teenager)
Compare mill-owner and honeymooner
mill-owner = mill (simple root) + owner (derived word) =>mill-owner is coined by
compounding
honeymooner = honeymoon +-er (but not honey + mooner) => honeymooner is
coined by derivation from the compound honeymoon
■ interesting cases of words formed by a combination of two roots and a
derivational suffix -ed added to that combination to form adjs.: open-ended, warmhearted, curly-haired, left-handed, ill-mannered, etc.
Note:
- minded: having the kind of mind specified,
- hearted: having feelings as specified,
- haired: with hair of the specified kind,
- handed: having hands as specified,
-mannered: having manners of the specified kind
30
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
I. QUESTIONS
1. Define a morpheme and give examples?
2. What can you understand by the term ‘a morph’, ‘an allomorph’? Give examples.
3. Can you distinguish between a stem, a base and a root? Give examples.
4. Can a root be a word? Why/ Why not?
5. What can you understand by the term lexical morphemes and grammatical
morphemes? Give examples.
6. Can you define the terms derivational morphemes and inflectional morphemes?
7. Can you count the number of derivational morphemes and inflectional
morphemes in English? Why/ Why not? (If yes? How many?)
8. What are simple words, derivatives and compound words?
II. EXERCISES
1. How many morphemes are there in the following sentences?
- “Cowards die many times before their deaths.”
- “I’ve asked my boyfriend if he was unmarried and he said he’d been
unmarried even twice.”
2. How many morphs are there in the following words? What kind of morphs are
they?
unmistakable
inaccessible
greenhouse effect
unmentionable
keyboard
Distinguishable
superstructure
ex-directory number
hand-bags
differences
exclusiveness
Proceedings
3. Identify root, stem, and base in the words listed in Exercise 2.
4. List the bound morphemes found in these words:
misleads
shortened
unhappier
fearlessly
5. In which of the following examples should the “a” be treated as a bound
morpheme:
a boy
apple
atypical
AWOL?
6. Divide the following words into morphemes and identify each morpheme as free
or bound, derivational or inflectional, lexical or grammatical.
toothbrush
debug
between
impish
daylight
repetition
closely
receive
over
said
31
7. State the following morphemes and write them under root, prefix and suffix as
appropriate.
international
machinery
beheaded
capsize
republican
ownership
kitchenette
immoral
maltreat
befriends
antedate
phonemic
teenagers
discolour
insane
8. Identify the functional morphemes in this sentence: The old man sat on the chair
and told them tales of woe.
9. What are the inflectional morphemes in the following phrases?
- the singer’s songs
it’s raining
- the newest style
- the cow jumped over the moo
10. Underline the roots in these words
womanly
famous
misconduct
endear
befriend
foretell
failure
enlighten
engineer
unlikely
friendship
Chinese
11. Identify the following words as compounds, derivatives or compoundderivatives:
narrow-minded
open-minded
dark-haired
stage-manager
bottle bank
proof-reader
subcontractor
blue-eyed
unexpected
bottle-party
bilateral
safe-breaker
day laborer
encircle
illiteracy
open-minded
big-handed
hand-luggage
three-coloured
news-reader
newspaper
heart-shaped
overnight
housekeeper
whole-heartedness
fresh-cut
schoolboyish
misunderstandable
blackmailer
freshman
12. Find examples of simple words, word-forms, compounds, derivatives and
compound-derivatives in the following extract:
“As he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new
girl in the garden – a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow hair into two long
tails, white summer frock, and embroidered pantalettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell
without firing a shot. A certain Army Lawrence vanished out of his heart and left
not even a memory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to distraction, he
had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a poor little
evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her; she had confessed hardly a
week ago; he had been the happiest and the proudest boy in the world only seven
32
short days, and here in one instant of time she had gone out of his heart like a casual
stranger whose visit is done.”
(From The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain)
UNIT 5 – WORD-FORMATION PROCESSES IN ENGLISH
► Why study word-formation processes?
 helps us to enrich the stock of English vocabulary
 help us to understand how English words are formed
 enable us to make many different new words from the elements already
existing in the language according to the certain structural or semantic
patterns by different ways such as derivation, inflection, compounding,
conversion, abbreviation, back-formation...
 An understanding of word formation processes is one way of studying the
different types of word that exist in English.
 enable us to use words more properly
I. Affixation
- the addition of affixes to a lexeme to produce new words/word-forms
- the addition of inflectional affixes is involved in the process of inflection
- the addition of derivational affixes derivational affixes is involved in the process
of derivation
► Inflection
- a morphological process in which inflectional affixes (morphemes) are added to a
stem (a given lexeme) to make all the word-forms of that lexeme
►Derivation
- a morphological process in which derivational affixes (morphemes) are added to a
base (a given lexeme) to produce new but derived words that are related to that
lexeme
1. Prefixation
- The lexical process of attaching prefixes to the beginning of a base word/root
word to produce a new word
- Prefixes do not normally change part of speech of the lexeme to which they are
added
33
1.1. Prefixes
ante- before: anterior
en/em- make/put into: enlarge, empower/
dis- no, not: disregard, dislike
endanger, encircle
anti - against, not in favour of: mono- one: monotone, monotonous,
monopoly, monocle
antisocial
non- not: nonsense,non-existent,non-party
ex - out, from: exclude, export
auto- self: autonomous
ex – former: ex-president
trans- into another place/state: transform,
transplant, transfusion
post- after: postgraduate, post-war,
bi- two: bisect
im, in, il, ir- no, not: improper, postscript
incorrect, illegal, irresponsible
tri- three: triple, triangular, tricolour,
circum - circle, around: circumvent, triangle
circumference
pre- before: preconception, pre-school,
inter- between, among: interact,
interchange
co- with, together: cooperate, coauthor
micro- small, tiny: microscope,
microwave, micro-organism
con, com - with, together: condense,
compress, compatible
prearrange
ultra- excessive, extremely: ultrasonic,
ultraviolet
prime- first: primary, primitive
uni- one: unique, unilateral
pro- for, in favor of: pro-Russian, proAmerican
fore- before, in advance of: foresee,
mis- wrong, bad, not: mistake, misuse,
misunderstand, miscall
de- down, reverse: decline, defrost,
derailment
super- above, over: superficial,
supermarket, supernatural
trans- across, over: transform,
transatlantic, transparent
forehead, forecast
re- again: recover, return
over- excessive, too much: oversleep,
overeat, overtime
sub- under: subcontinent
over- above, outside, across: overview,
overcoat, overall, overhead
1.2. Classification of prefixes
In terms of meaning, prefixes can be mainly divided into different groups:
- Negative prefixes: un-, non-, in-, dis-, a-,......
- Reversative prefixes: un-, de-, dis-,
- Pejorative prefixes: mis-, mal-, pseudo,
- Prefixes of degree or size: arch-, super-, out-, sur-, sub-, over-,under, hyper, ultra-, mini-,
34
- Prefixes of attitude: co-, counter-, anti-, pro-,
- Locative prefixes: super-, inter-, sub-, trans-,
- Prefixes of time and order: fore-, pre-, post-, ex-, re-,
- Prefixes of number: uni-, mono, bi-, di-, tri-, multi-, poly-, du-, cent-, milli-,
dec(i)-, sex- Conversion prefixes: be-, en-, a-,
2. Suffixation
- can be the lexical process of attaching derivational suffixes to the end of a base
word/root lexeme to produce a new lexeme.
- can be the grammatical process of attaching inflectional suffixes to the end of a
lexeme to produce a new form of that lexeme.
- Derivational suffixes are numerous, but there are only 8 inflectional suffixes in
English.
- Derivational suffixes usually change the meaning and part of speech of the base
lexeme
- More than one derivational suffix may be added to a root (friend-li-ness, beautiful-ly, industri-al-ize)
i) Adjective suffixes
-able: capable of – affordable
-ant: tendency to – dominant
-ary: concerned with, of – reactionary,
planetary, budgetary
-ative: tendency to – innovative,
talkative,
-ed: having characteristics of, affected
by – talented, interested, bigoted
-en: made of – woolen, wooden
-ent: tendency to – persistent, dependent
-ese: of the specified nationality –
Vietnamese, Chinese
-etic: relating to – sympathetic
-ful: full of – harmful, delightful
-ible: capable – discernible
-y: quality of being – windy, rocky,
watery, sugary
-ic/ical: relating to – poetic, identical
-ing: having characteristic of – amusing,
interesting
-ish: of the specified nationality –
Danish, Irish
-ish: resembling – childish, bookish
-ish: somewhat, approximately – reddish,
twentyish
-ive: having a tendency to – explosive,
descriptive, active
-less: without – harmless, childless,
useless
-like: similar to, resembling – childlike,
lifelike, snake-like
-ly: having characteristic of – manly,
weekly, cowardly
-ous: full of – famous, poisonous, jealous
-some: tendency to – bothersome
ii) Noun suffixes
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-age: action,
marriage
process
–
package, -ing: activity – meeting, wedding
-ist: one who does – geologist, dentist
-ance/ ence: act, state – assistance, -ity: state of being – purity, oddity
-ment: state of being – agreement,
acceptance, existence
ary: concerned with - commentary
contentment, improvement
dom: state of being, domain of - wisdom, ness: state of being - happiness, sadness
boredom, freedom, kingdom
ry: occupation - dentistry, chemistry
er/or/ee: person/thing that does - sailor, ship: state of being - citizenship
opener, cooker, trainee
hood: state of
neighborhood
being
-
tion/ sion: action, state,
manhood, population, citation, decision
result
-
iii) Verb suffixes
-ate: to make – accentuate, evaluate, facilitate
-en: to make/become – broaden, widen, blacken
-fy/ify: make/form – signify, purify, classify, speechify
-ise/ize: to become/make like – emphasize, hospitalize, immunize, equalize
iv) Adverb suffixes
-ly: in the way/manner - carefully, nicely, consistently, slowly
-ward(s): in the direction - southward, onwards
-ways: in the specified direction - sideways, lengthways
-wise: in the manner - otherwise, clockwise
►According to word class, suffixes can be classified into four groups:
(i) nominalizers (noun derivational suffixes)
(ii) verbalizers (verb derivational suffixes)
(iii) adjectivizers (adjective derivational suffixes)
(iv) adverbializers (adverb derivational suffixes)
Nominalizers in English typically has the following patterns:
Verb
+
suffix
=
noun
Or
Adjective
+
suffix
=
noun
● Some common suffixes that are added to verbs to form nouns are: -age, -ment,-al,
-ation, -ce, -ance, -ee, -ure, -ant, -er, -y, -art, -ion.
● Some which are added to adjectives to form nouns are: -y, -ist, -ity, -dom, -ness, th, -ite.
Verbalizers have the structures:
Noun
+
suffix
Or
Adjective
+
suffix
=
=
36
verb
verb
● Common suffixes are: -en, -ize, -fy (added to noun), -en, -ify, ize (added to
adjective)
Adjectivizers have the structures:
Noun
+
suffix
=
adjective
Or
Verb
+
suffix
=
adjective
● Common suffixes added to nouns to form adjectives are: -al, -ed, -less, -an, -en, like, -ful, -ly, -ary, -ous, -ate, -ish, -y.
● Common suffixes added to verbs to form adjectives are: -able, -ive, -ent, -ory, some.
Adverbializers have the patterns:
Adjective
+
suffix
=
Adverb
Or
Noun
+
suffix
=
Adverb
● Common suffixes are: -ly (added to adjectives), -ward, -wards, -wise, -ashore
(added to nouns)
► Formation of derivatives in English
1. Nouns ending in ‘ion, ation, ic(s), ure’ change to adjectives with the addition of
‘al’ and adverbs with ‘ally’
2. ‘ce, cy’ are added to adjectives ending in ‘ant, ent’ to make nouns.
3. ‘ation’ is added to the form ending in ‘ize’ to make nouns.
4. Words showing real objects, natural phenomena, names of common substance
change to adjectives with the addition of ‘y.’
5. Nouns showing family relationship, time change to adjectives with the addition
of ‘ly’.
6. Add ‘ish’ to names of nations in or near Europe to form adjectives.
7. Add ‘an/ian’ to names of nations with Latin-type name to form adjectives.
8. Add ‘ese’ to names of nations in Eastern Asia to form adjectives.
II. Compounding/Composition
1. Definition
- the building of a new word by combining two or more words
- one of the three most productive ways of producing new words in English
(affixation and conversion are the other two)
2. Words used as Initial component of compounds
- nouns denoting parts of human body: arm (armchair, armpit), heart (heartsearching, heartsick, heart-to-heart), foot (footnote, footwear), hair (haircut,
hairpin)
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- nouns denoting essential things in daily life: house, book, door, shoe (shoeshine,
shoe-lace), table (table-knife, table-mat)
- basic objects and phenomena of nature: sun, moon (moon-face, moonbeam), rain,
star (stardom, starfish)
- names of birds and domestic animals: cow (cowboy), cat (cat burglar, cat’s paw),
dog (dogfight)
- common verbs denoting essential activities of daily life: break (break-out,
breakup), come (come-back, come-down), play (playground, playfellow)
- common adjs.: big (bigwig, big-head), black (blackleg, black box), hot (hothead,
hot-water bottle)
- advs./preps.: after (afterlife, aftershave), down (down-to-earth), in (input, inservice), out (outdoor, output)
Note: Some prefixes and adverbs/prepositions coincide
fore (forehead), over (overcoat, oversea, overestimate, overcharge), off (off-shore,
off-stage, off-day) , in (imprint, inflame), out (outgrow, outnumber; but output,
outcome, outlaw), under (undergraduate, underdeveloped, underestimate; but
undergo, underline), up (upgrade, upland; but uphill, upbringing), down
(downgrade; but downhill, downward, downfall)
3. Characteristics of English compounds
- words consisting of at least two free words, occurring in the language as free
lexical units which convey single ideas
- comprising of at least two root morphemes
- one of the constituent words (usually the second one) expresses a general
meaning. This is the basic part of the compound, thus called the “determinatum”;
the other(s) the “determinant(s)”.
- The “determinatum” is the grammatically most important element that undergoes
inflection (E.g. schoolboys, sunbeams, brothers-in-law, passers-by, handwashes,
bedrooms, etc.)
- components of a compound may be either a simple word (blackboard) or a derived
word (bottle-opener) or a compound (wastepaper basket, money-back guarantee)
4. Criteria of compounds
- Phonological criterion: combinations of words with a heavy stress put on the first
element/the determinant (free word groups have even stresses)
- Inseparability criterion: combinations of words which allow no insertion of other
words between elements (blackmarket, hothead)
- Semantic criterion: combinations of words which express a single idea
38
- Graphic criterion: combinations of words which are spelt/written with a hyphen or
no separation
5. Classification of compounds
Different ways based on different bases:
- their meaning as basis: non-idiomatic and idiomatic compounds
- their componental relationship as basis: coordinative and subordinative
compounds
- compositional types (thể loại cấu trúc)
- their part of speech as basis: compound nouns, compound adjs, compound verbs,
compound adverbs, compound prepositions
- Reduplicative compounds
5.1 Non-idiomatic and idiomatic compounds
i) Non-idiomatic compounds:
- their meaning is not only related to the meanings of the parts but can be inferred
from it
- can easily be transformed into free phrases (seaman, aircraft, man-made, goodlooking, bottle-opener)
ii) Idiomatic compounds
- their meaning is very different from the corresponding free phrase
- their meaning is not simply a sum of the meanings of the components (blackmail,
cat burglar, cat’s-paw, cat’s whiskers, money-bags, money spider, willy-nilly)
Note: There do exist compounds which are of partially idiomatic nature such as
newspaper, mother-in-law, fifty-fifty, handwash, break-down, drop-out, listener-in,
etc.
5.2 Coordinative and subordinative compounds
i) coordinative compounds: their components are structurally and semantically
independent (willy-nilly, fifty-fifty, Anglo-Saxon, harum-scarum, hoity-toity, ticktack,)
ii) subordinative compounds: one component is dominant over the other(s)
(bottlefeed, book-keepers, stage-manager )
5.3. Compounds formed by different compositional types
► by justaposition (without connecting elements): headache, heart-beat, first-foot,
reading lamp, keyboard, notebook, money pig, chairman, etc.
►by morphological means (use of a consonant/vowel as linking elements) (p.tiện
từ pháp): spokesman, speedometer, statesman, handicraft
39
►by syntactical means (use of prep./ conjunction as linking element (p.tiện cú
pháp): up-to-date, parents-in-law, door-to-door, matter-of-fact (emotionless or
unemaginative), pepper-and-salt, out-of-date
Note:
- There are compounds which are groups of words condensed into one word) devilmay-care (reckless, risky), happy-go-lucky (carefree and cheerful), forget-me-not
- Compounds such as long-legged, kind-heartedly, teenager, first-footer,
blackmailer, etc. are treated as compound-derivatives (words derived from
compound bases)
5.4. Compounds according to part of speech
i) Compound nouns
+ noun+noun: largest group girlfriend, manservant, woman doctor, door-handle,
lady-killer,bath tower, death blow, goods train, sea bird, ash-tray, egg-gatherer
+ gerund+noun: sleeping pill, fishing rod, reading lamp, shooting match, wrapping
paper, dancing girl
+ verb+noun : pickpocket, cut-throat
+ noun+ adj.+noun: criterion to distinguish this type of compound nouns and a
noun phrase is tress (verb: not productive pattern nosebleed, nosedive, sunshine
+ when adj. is stressed -> a compound) ‘deep structure, hard-cover, white-collar
+ adv.+noun: after-thought, in-crowd
+ verb+adv.: drawback, breakfast, drop-out, fallout (radioactive waste), teach-in,
blast-off (launching a spacecraff)
ii) Compound adjectives
+ noun+adj.: threadbare (bare to the thread), airtight, blood-thirsty, carefree,
noteworthy, seasick, leadfree, snow-white, dog-tired, stone-deaf, blood-red, nationwide, life-long
+ Adj.+adj.: metallic-green, bitter-sweet, deaf-mute, dark-green
+ Adv.+adj.: not common off-white, uptight
+ noun+present participle: breath-taking, freedom-loving, sea-going, bird-watching,
peace-loving
+ adj.+participle: hard-working, far-reaching, sweet-smelling, good-looking
+ particle+noun: before-tax (profits), in depth (study, analysis)
5.4.3 Compound verbs
+ noun+verb: baby-sit, colour-code, sky-dive, shipwreck
+ verb+verb: exceedingly rare drop-kick, dive-bomb, typewrite
+ adj.+verb: dry-clean, white-wash, safeguard, mass-produce
+ adv.+verb: down-grade, outline
40
iii) Compound adverbs
+ adv.+adv.: into, onto, throughout
5.5 Reduplicative compounds
i) Reduplicative compounds proper (one form is repeated exactly the same): hushhush (secret), murmur, pooh-pooh (to express content), blah-blah (nonsense, idle
talk), pretty-pretty,
ii) Ablaut combinations (twin forms consisting of one basic morpheme): chit-chat
(gossip), knick-knack (small articles of ornament), riff-raff (the mob), shilly-shally
(hesitate), ping-pong (table tennis), singsong (monotonous voice), tiptop (first-rate)
iii) Rhyme combinations (twin forms consisting two elements joined by rhyme):
harum-scarum (disorganized), helter-skelter (in disordered haste), hurry-scurry
(great hurry), hurdy-gurdy (a small organ), lovey-dovey (darling), namby-pamby
(weakly sentimental)
6. Formation of compound nouns
Two single words can be combined into a new compound in the following cases:
● The second noun belongs to or is part of the first
E.g. church bell, shop window, picture frame, garden gate, college library............
● The first noun can indicate the place of the second
E.g. city street, corner shop, country lane, street market........
● The first noun can indicate the time of the second
E.g. summer holiday, spring flowers, Sunday paper, dawn chorus, November
fogs....
● The first noun can state the material of which the second is made
E.g. steel door, stone wall, rope ladder, silk shirt, gold medal..........( but woolen,
wooden )
● The first noun can also state the power or fuel used to operate the second
E.g. gas-fire, petrol engine, oil stove.............
● The first word can indicate the purpose of the second
E.g. coffee cup, reading lamp, gold club, skating ring, notice board, chess board,
tin opener, football ground..........
● Work area, such as factory, farm, mine, company........., can be preceded by the
name of the product/ item produced
E.g. fish farm, oil rig, gold mine.........
● The second word indicates the particular name of the occupations, sports,
hobbies
E.g. sheep farming, wind surfing, sheep farmer, pop singer, disc jockey, water
skier...
41
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
A. QUESTIONS
1. What is inflection? What are characteristics of inflectional affixes?
2. What is derivation? What are characteristics of derivational affixes?
3. What are the main features of prefixes?
4. How are prefixes classified in terms of meaning and origin?
5. What are the main features of derivational suffixes?
6. How are derivational suffixes classified in terms of origin and parts of speech?
7. How are new words formed by suffixation?
8. How is a compound word formed?
9. What are the main features of English compounds?
10. How is a compound word distinguished from a word group?
11. How are compound words classified in terms of meaning?
12. What are sub-groups of compounds according to syntactic relationship?
13. How are compounds classified according to part of speech?
14. What are main features of compound nouns? compound verbs and compound
adjectives?
15. What is a reduplicative? Types of reduplicatves.
16. How can an English compound noun be formed in terms of meaning?
B. EXERCISES
I. Use prefixes to replace the underlined words as the example.
E.g. He’s in favour of American approach. → He’s pro- American.
a. The BBC tries to avoid pronouncing foreign words incorrectly.
b. Most people say they have to work too hard but are paid too little.
c. He dated his check with a date that was later than the real date.
d. She’s still on good terms with the man who used to be her husband.
e. He made so many mistakes in the letter that he had to write it again.
II. Deduce the meanings of the following derivatives from the meaning of their
constituents. Explain your deduction. What are the meanings of the affixes
under examination?
reddish
retype
ladylike
overdress
sandy
overwrite
old-womanish
disorganize
disinfection
breakable
42
irregular
disrespectable
renew
handful
underfed
illegal
inexpensive
eatable
tallish
III. In the following words, determine which derived words (derivatives) are
formed from verbs (deverbatives) and which are formed from nouns or
adjectives (denominatives). Which suffixes are nominalizers and which are
verbalizers?
1. driver
2. useful
3. cowardly
4. sanity
5. drainage
9. sadden
6. childless
10. criminal
7. disinfectant
11. youngish
8. actor
12. crabwise
13. dismissal
17. happiness
14. employee
18. flannelette
15. inhabitant
19. organization
16. violinist
20. amazement
21. daily
22. readable
23. backwards
24.attractive
25. idealism
29. spillage
26. Darwinian
30. popularize
27.building
28.balconied
IV Indicate the functions (meanings) of the suffixes in the following nouns.
1. gangster
2. booklet
3. democracy
4. engineer
5. waitress
6. Londoner
7. daddy
8. usherette
9. teenager
13. mouthful
10. boyhood
14. auntie
11. friendship
15. slavery
12. paneling
16. princeling
V. Distribute the following three groups separately into two subgroups, each
using the functions of their prefixes as criteria
Group1:
unfair
insane
disconnect
decode
non-smoker
defrost
immoral
unhorse
untie
disloyal
asymmetrical
discolour
Group 2:
misinform
superman
malodorous
infrared
maltreat
subhuman
pseudonym
underdo
pseudoscience
overdress
misconduct
archduke
Group 3:
superfix
international
ex-wife
subrosa
foretell
interpose
pre-marital
undercut
subway
post-classical
transcity
pre-war
VI. Paraphrase the following sentences using affixes:
1. The flowers are rather blue.
………………………………………………………………………………..
2. There are no languages that have no grammar.
………………………………………………………………………………..
3. He’s far from being polite while his wife is too polite.
43
………………………………………………………………………………..
4. Mr. Hornby tried to make his dictionary modern.
………………………………………………………………………………..
5. He behaves just like a schoolboy.
………………………………………………………………………………..
6. They are working on a textbook of science
………………………………………………………………………………..
7. He lacks competence in solving problems.
………………………………………………………………………………..
8. They did not take responsibility for their customers’ safety.
………………………………………………………………………………..
9. Several people in my office have retired recently.
………………………………………………………………………………..
10. That disease can not be cured.
………………………………………………………………………………..
11. That food is not fit to be eaten.
………………………………………………………………………………..
12. He is not legitimate by birth.
………………………………………………………………………………..
VII. What are the adjectives derived from the lexeme “imagine”? Explain the
meaning of the affixes in those adjectives.
VIII. Explain the difference in meaning of the italicized words formed from the
same root:
1. Salie is the most amusing person in the world./Ann was wary, but amused.
2. He had a charming smile, almost womanish in sweetness./ I have kept up with
you through Mary but she gave me no intimation that you had developed womanly
sweetness.
3. Julie is bored at everything; she never makes the slightest effort to be pleasant./
How pleased your mother will be if you got good results in your study.
IX. Arrange the italicized compounds in the following extracts into idiomatic
or non-idiomatic compounds.
1. We’ve some plain, blunt things to say and we expect the same kind of answers,
not a lot of double-talk.
2. Picture the dining room of the John Grier Home with its oil-cloth- covered
tables, and wooden-handed knives and forks.
3. Being a matchmaker is one thing; a match breaker is something other.
44
4. She could imagine the polite, disinterested tone, the closed-down, non-giving
thin expression on the thin, handsome lady-killer face, still tan with mountain sun.
5. Crane’s brother had played fullback on the football team, but the brothers had
rarely been seen together, and the fact that the huge, grateful athlete and the
scarecrow bookworm were numbers of the same family seemed like a freak of
eugenics to the students who knew them both.
6. On a giant poster above the entrance, a gigantic girl in a nightgown pointed a
pistol the size of a cannon at a thirty-foot-tall man in a dinner jacket.
7. So the fellow took Barmy out, and there was the girl sitting in a two-seater. The
girl stared at him, dropping a slice of bread-and-butter in her emotion.
X. Identify the compounds in the word-groups below. Say as much as you can
about their structure and semantics.
Emily, our late maid-of-all-work
a heavy snowfall
an automobile salesman
corn-coloured chiffon
vehicle search-lights
little tidbit in the Afro-American
German A.A. fire (anti-aircraft fire)
a
born
troubleshooter
to disembark a stowaway
an old school mate
a cagelike crate
a slightly stoop-shouldered man
a somewhat matter- of- fact manner
a fur-lined boot
to pick forget-me-nots and lilies- of- the –valley
a small T-shirt
a sportscar agency
XI. Say whether the following
Give your explanation.
railway platform
traffic light
film star
medical man
distant star
evening dress
roughhouse
medical student
U-shape trap
lexical units are word-groups or compounds.
snowman
railway station
white man
landing plane
small house
top student
booby trap
hot dog
blackshirt
light dress
landing field
hungry dog
top hat
green light
bluecoat
black skirt
blue dress
XII. Create as many compounds as you can with these words. You can consult
a dictionary.
head, hand, house, storm, sun, light, dog, cat, black.
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III. Conversion
1. Definition
- the derivational process whereby an item changes its word-class without the
addition of an affix.
- can be complete conversion or approximate conversion.
E.g.
empty (a) → empty (v)
rich (a) → the rich (n)
walk (v) → walk(n)
bottle (n) → bottle (v)
2. Classification:
► According to morphological structure
● Complete conversion is the process of making a new word by changing its wordclass but
maintaining the pronunciation and spelling.
● Approximate conversion undergoes a slight change of pronunciation or spelling.
Two important kinds of alternation are:
+ voicing of final consonants (noun →verb)
E.g. advice → advise
thief → thieve
bath → bathe
house → house ( change the pronunciation)
+ shift of stress (verb →noun; verbs of 2 syllables when converted into
nouns, the stress is shifted from the second to the first)
►According to frequency of occurrence
● Traditional conversion: the type of conversion which is commonly and
traditionally used by the public. Words built by this type are recorded in
dictionaries
● Occasional conversion: the individual use of conversion in special situations to
express one’s idea vividly and humourously. Words built by this type are not
found in dictionaries
● Partial conversion: the process of some verbs converted into nouns which are
not used independently but with verbs like have, take, make, give
Example: have a look/talk/smoke/drink
give a ring/kick/blow
make a call
3. Different types of complete conversion
►Verb →noun
 Nouns expressing state from stative verbs: love, doubt
 Nouns expressing event/ activity from dynamic verbs: laugh, walk
 Nouns showing the Object of Verb: answer, catch
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 Nouns showing the Subject of Verb: bore, cheat
 Nouns showing the Instrument of Verb: cover, wrap
 Nouns expressing the manner of Verb: throw, walk
 Nouns showing the place of Verb: retreat, return
►Adjective → noun
E.g. rich → the rich
black → the black
►Noun → verb
 Verbs mean ‘put in/on’: bottle, corner
 Verbs mean ‘give N/ provide with N’: coat, mask
 Verbs mean ‘deprive of N’: peel, skin
 Verbs mean ‘to…..with noun as instrument’: brake, knife
 Verbs mean ‘to be/ act as N with respect to….’: nurse, referee
 Verbs mean ‘to make/change…..into N’: cash,
 Verbs mean ‘to send/go by N’: mail, ship, bicycle, motor
►Adjective → verb
 Transitive verbs mean ‘to make (more) Adj’: calm, dirty
 Intransitive verbs mean ‘to become Adj’: dry, empty
Note: No big difference between this way and Affixation by adding ‘en’
►Minor categories of conversion
 Conversion from closed-system to nouns:
E.g. This book is a must for the students of aerodynamics

E.g.

E.g.

E.g.
Conversion from phrases to nouns:
Whenever I gamble, my horse is one of the also-ran.
Conversion from phrases to adjectives:
I feel very under- the- weather.
Conversion from affixes to nouns:
Patriotism and any other isms you like to name.
►Change of secondary word class: Nouns
 Non-count → count
- a unit of N: two coffees (cups of coffee)
- a kind of N: Some paints are more lasting than others ( kinds of paint)
- an instance of N (with abstract nouns): a difficulty
 Count → non-count
Noun is considered in terms of measurable extent: a few square feet of floor
 Proper → common
- a member of the class typified by N: a Jeremiah ( ‘a gloomy prophet’)
- a person, place… called N: There are several Cambridges in the world.
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- a product of N, or a sample or collection of N’s work: a Roll Royce
- something associated with N: Wellington, a sandwich
►Change of secondary word class: Verbs
 Intransitive → transitive
‘Cause to V’: run the water
 Transitive → intransitive:
- ‘can be V-ed’ (often followed by well or badly): This book reads well
- ‘to V oneself’: Have you washed yet? (wash yourself)
- ‘to V someone/something/…’: We have eaten already
- ‘to be V-ed’: The door opened
 Intransitive → intensive:
- current meaning: He lay flat
- resulting meaning: He fell flat
 Intensive → intransitive:
The milk turned (i.e. ‘turned sour’)
 Monotransitive → complex transitive:
- current meaning: We catch them young
- resulting meaning: I wiped it clean
►Change of secondary word class: adjective
 non-gradable → gradable: I have very legal turn of mind
 stative → dynamic:
He’s being friendly (acting in a friendly manner)
IV. Shortening
1. Definition: the process of creating a new form from a word or a phrase by
leaving out a part or some parts without the change of meaning or word class of the
word.
E.g.
phone = telephone
exam= examination
math = mathematics
memo= memorandum
2. Types of abbreviations:
i) Initialisms (alphabetisms ): items which are spoken as individual letters
E.g.
PhD, EEC, BBC, USA, GHQ, TV...............
● Some initialisms present full words:
UN (the United Nations)
EEC (European Economic Community)
VOA (Voice of America)
● Some present elements in a compound or just parts of a word:
TV (television)
GHQ (General Headquarter)
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ID (identification card)
ii) Acronyms: initialisms which are pronouns as single words:
E.g. NATO, laser, UNESCO, AIDS (acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome),
PIN, ROM...
iii) Clippings: formed by subtracting one or more syllable from a word.
Clippings are mainly limited to spoken language and belong to the areas of slang,
colloquialism and jargon.
Initial clippings: (tele)phone, (aero)plane, (neibour)’hood, (motor)car, ......
Medial clippings: comm(unication)s, math(ematic)s, V(ictory)-day.
Final clippings: exam(ination), lab(oratory), prof(essor), ad(vertisement)....
Initio-final clippings: (in)flu(enza), (re)fridg(erator), (de)tec(tive)...........
Elliptico-conversional clippings: pub(lic house), pop(ular music), co-ed(ucational
school).....
● A particular type of clipping, favour in Australian and British English is that first
a longer word is reduced to a single syllable, then ‘y’ or ‘ie’ is added to the end.
E.g. movie (moving picture)
telly (television)
Aussie ( Australian)
barbie (barbecue)
bookie (bookmaker)
brekky (breakfast)
handkie (handkerchief)
iv) Blends: A blend is a word which is made out of the shorten forms of two other
words.
E.g. motel ( motor hotel), telecast( television broadcast).....
● Meaning of the blend is derived from the meanings of its parts.
● Blends are common in commercial and politic language.
These are some common blends:
transito ( transfer resistor)
interpol (international police)
travelogue ( travel catalogue)
pedway ( pedestrian way)
vidkid (video kid)
beefalo ( beef buffalo)
dramedy ( drama comedy)
floatel ( floating hotel)
kidult ( kid adult)
monopoem ( monologue poem)
paratroop ( parachut troop)
newscast ( news broadcast)
heliport (helicopter airport)
satcom ( satellite communication),
toytoon ( toy cartoon)
Amerasian (American Asian)
chatcom (chat comedy)
advertorial (advertisement editorial)
glocal (global local)
modem ( modulator demodulator)
geep ( goat sheep)
skort ( skirt short)...........
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IV. Back-formation ( Reversion)
● This process involves the shortening of a longer word by the subtraction of a
suffix (normally the suffix ‘er/or’, ing)
E.g.
butler (n) → butle (v)
editor (n) → edit (v)
typewriter (n) → typewrite (v)
television (n) → televise (v)
laser (n) → lase (v)
donation (n) → donate (v)
● One regular source of back-formed verbs in English is based on the pattern:
DOER − ER = DO
Therefore, if there is a noun ending in ‘-er/or/ar’, we can create a verb for what that
noun does.
E.g.
burglar (n) → burgle
editor (n) → edit (v)
dweller (n) → dwell (v)
● The most productive type of back-formation in present-day English is derivation
of verbs from compounds that have either ‘er’ or ‘ing’ as their last element.
E.g. baby sitter (n) → baby-sit (v)
finger printing (n) → finger print (v)
house keeper/ house keeping (n) → house keep (v)
v. Sound imitation (Onomatopoeia)
- the process of creating new words by imitating sounds made by things, animals or
people.
- Onomatopoeic words do not reflect the real sound directly, because the same
sound may be presented differently in different languages.
- Onomatopoeic words are typically present in poems.
► Particular combinations of letters have particular sounds associations in
English
- gr- at the beginning of a word suggests something unpleasant or miserable:
groan, grumble, grunt, growl….
- cl- at the beginning of a word suggests something sharp and/or metallic: click,
clang, clank, clink, clip-clop…
- sp- at the beginning of a word can have an association with water or other liquids
or powders: splash, spit, splutter, spray, sprinkle, spurt…
- ash- at the end of a word suggests something fast and violent: smash, crash, bash,
gash…
- wh- at the beginning of a word suggests the movement of air: whistle, whirr, whiz,
wheeze, whip…
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- ckle, - ggle, zzle at the end of a word suggests something light and repeated:
trickle, crackle, tinkle, giggle, sizzle, drizzle…
►Types
● Showing animals: crow, cuckoo, whippoorwill…
● Showing sounds made by animals: buzz, purr, cackle, quack, moo, mew…
● Showing sounds of water, noise of metallic things:
E.g. bubble, splash, clink, tinkle, bang, crash…
● Showing sounds produced by people: giggle, murmur, whisper….
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
A. QUESTIONS
1. What is shortening? Types of shortening.
2. Describe features of specific types of shortening.
3. Why is back-formation treated as shortening?
4. What is conversion?
5. What is sound imitation? State main features of sound imitation.
B. EXERCISES
I. Find shortenings in the jokes and extracts given below and specify the
method of formation.
1. A- But, Doc, I got bad eyes!
B- Don’t worry. We’ll put you up front. You won’t miss a thing.
2. ─ How was your guard duty yesterday, Tom?
─ O.K. I was remarkably vigilant.
─ Were you?
─ Oh, yes. I was so vigilant that I heard at once the relief sergeant approaching
my post though I was fast asleep.
3. ─ Excuse me, but I’m in a hurry! We’ve had that phone 20 minutes and not said a
word!
─ Sir, I’m talking to my wife.
4. Any pro will tell you that the worst thing possible is to over-rehearse.
5. Hendy cut a giant birthday cake and kissed six GIs whose birthday it was.
6. A few minutes later the adjutant, the O.D, and a disagreeable master sergeant
were in a jeep tearing down the highway in pursuit of the coloured convoy.
II. Which kind of word building by which the italicized words in the following
extracts were made?
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1. If they’d anything to say to each other, they could hob-nob over beef-tea in a
perfectly casual and natural manner.
2. No sooner had he departed than we were surrounded by cats, six of them, all
meowing piteously at once.
3. A man who has permitted himself to be made a thorough fool of is not anxious to
broadcast the fact.
4. ‘He must be very handsome fellow,’ said Sir Eustate, ‘Some young whippersnapper in Durban.’
5. All about him black metal pots were boiling and bubbling on huge stoves, and
kettles were hissing, and pans were sizzling, and strange iron machines were
clanking and spluttering.
6. I’d worked for him, slave for him, steal for him, even beg or borrow for him.
7. Twenty years of butling had trained him to wear a mask.
III. Define the particular type of word-building process by which the following
words were made and say as much as you can about them.
a mike
to baby-sit
to buzz
a torchlight
homelike
theatrical
old-fashioned
to book
unreasonable
SALT (strategic armament limitation talks)
Anglo-American
to murmur
a pub
to dilly-dally
okay
eatable
a make
a greenhorn
boyish
H-bag
a go
earthquake
a dress coat
B.B.C
to quack
fatalism
to bang
thinnish
M.P
a find
merry-go-round
to blood-transfuse
to thunder
IV. Indicate the direction of conversion for each of the following items
doubt
V→ N
bottle
N
V
daily
N
A
laugh
N
V
cheat
N
V
comic
A
N
throw
V
N
love
V
N
calm
A
V
peel
V
N
V. Explain the cases of conversion and semantic change of the italicized word
in the following sentences:
1. “If anyone oranges me again tonight, I’ll knock his face off.”
2. The leaves yellowed.
3. I was to room with another girl called Jessie.
4. Please hand me that book.
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5. This is the queerest do I’ve ever come across.
6. He has still plenty of go at his age.
7. Charlie went on wolfing the chocolate.
8. I pity any detective who would have to dog him through those ten months.
9. He had always aped the gentleman in his clothes and manners.
VI. Work out the semantic association of the following groups of words
1. hammer, nail, pin, brush, comb, pencil – to hammer, to nail, to pin, to brush, to
comb, to pencil
2. dog, wolf, monkey, ape, fox – to dog, to wolf, to monkey, to ape, to fox
3. fish, rat, whale – to fish, to rat, to whale
4. hand, leg, eye, elbow, shoulder, nose, mouth – to hand, to leg, to eye, to elbow,
to shoulder, to nose, to mouth
5. nurse, cook, maid, groom – to nurse, to cook, to maid, to groom
6. room, house, place, table, cage – to room, to house, to place, to table, to cage
7. can, bottle, pocket – to can, to bottle, to pocket
8. lunch, supper – to lunch, to supper
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PART 2 – SEMANTICS
UNIT 1: WHAT IS SEMANTICS?
1. What is Semantics?
- Semantics is the study of meaning in language.
+ Meaning of word
+ Meaning of sentence
+ Meaning of utterance
- A sentence is a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a
language.
- An utterance is any stretch of talk, by one person, before and after which silence
on the part of that person.
- An utterance may consist of a single word, a single phrase or a single sentence. It
may also be composed of a sequence of several sentences.
(Hello/ Not much/ Sorry, Teacher. May I come in? I’ve got stuck in the traffic jam.)
2. What is meant by the notion “Meaning”?
There are a number of meanings associated with the notion “Meaning”:
- An intrinsic property
- The other words annexed to a word in a dictionary
- The connotation of a word
- The place of anything in a system
- That to which the user of a symbol actually refers
- That to which the user of a symbol ought to be referring
- That to which the user of a symbol believes himself to be referring
- That to which the interpreter of a symbol



refers
believes himself to be referring
believes the user to be referring
3. “Meaning” in language
Consider this example:
- “that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get
un-birthday presents.”
- “Certainly,” said Alice.
- “And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!”
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- “I don’t know what you mean by ’glory,’ ” Alice said.
- Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t – till I tell you. I
meant ‘there’s a nice knockdown argument for you.’ ”
- “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knockdown argument,’ ” Alice objected.
- “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means
just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
- “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many
different things.”
- “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.”
What message does the author want to pass on to us?
- On one hand, language in use bares the conventional meaning of the words which
are used.
- On the other hand, the meanings carried by words may be affected by a speaker’s
will.
4. The meanings of the verb ‘mean’
Consider the following sentences:
- Smith means well.
- That skull-and-cross-bones means danger.
- Smoke means fire.
- Mary means business.
- She didn’t really mean what she said.
5. Word meaning, sentence meaning and speaker meaning
1. Do these two sentences mean (approximately) the same thing?
I’ll be back later and I will return after some time
2. In asking “What did John mean when he said he’d be back later?” is the
questioner primarily asking:
(a) what the SENTENCE I’ll be back later means, or
(b) what JOHN meant in saying it?
5.1 WORD MEANING is what a word/sentence means, i.e. what the word(s) used
are conventionally held to mean.
5.2 SPEAKER MEANING is what a speaker means, i.e. what she/he intends to
convey via the word(s) used.
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1. What is the sentence meaning and the speaker meaning in the following
examples?
- Tired traveller: “This suitcase is killing me.”
- During a business meeting: “It’s a dog-eat-dog situation.”
- Ann to Mary: “He’s a lady-killer”.
- Daughter to mother : “Can you pass me the salt?”
- Nam to Mai: “Have you got any plan for Saturday evening?”
- He tried to buy some rice.
- Why don’t you take a break?
2. Compare the meaning carried by words & that intended by the speaker in
the underlined utterances in the following conversations
Conversation 1
Conversation 2etween husband wife
A: “Nice day”
A: “When I go away next week, I’m
taking the car”
B: “Yes, a bit warmer than yesterday,
isn’t it?”
A: “That’s right – one day fine, the next
cooler”
B: “I expect it might get cooler again
tomorrow”
B: “Oh. Are you? I need the car here to
take the kids to school”
A: “I’m sorry, but I must have it. You’ll
have to send them on the bus”
B: “No. Have you been on holiday?”
B: “That’ll be nice for the family. Up at
the crack of dawn, (ironically) and not
home till mid-evening! Sometimes
you’re very inconsiderate”
A: “Yes, we went to Spain”
A: “Nice day!”
A: Maybe – you never know what to
expect, do you?
B: “Did you? We’re going to France
next month”
A: “Oh. Are you? That’ll be nice for the
family ”
3. Comment on the meanings of the verb “mean” in the following cases.
1. Her promises mean nothing to me.
2. Your friendship means a great deal to me.
3. 100,000 VND means a lot to a poor person.
4. Do you have any idea what it means to be poor?
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5. He father meant him to be a politician.
6. The warm weather means that spring is coming.
7. This city is meant to be the most beautiful in the southern hemisphere.
8. He meant well.
9. I mean well by her.
10. What do you mean by that?
11. What does he mean by doing so?
12. I mean you no harm./ He means no harm to anyone.
13. Going out too much may mean a bad result in your next exams.
14. What does this sentence mean?
15. High position means nothing to her.
16. I meant what I said.
17. You’re meant to finish the work before going home.
18. I never meant to be a teacher.
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UNIT 2 – WORD MEANING
I. Word meaning
● What a word means,
●"what counts as the equivalent in the language concerned" ( Hurford and
Heasley,1984:3)
● Every word-lexeme combines lexical & grammatical meanings
II. Types of word meaning
1. Lexical meaning:
● Realization of concept/ emotion.
● individual meaning each word has in system of language
● includes denotation & connotation
E.g. mum, dad, cop, pass away
● Can be direct or indirect
Example:
root ( of a tree)
root (of a problem)
2. Grammatical meaning: relationships between words based on contrastive
features of arrangements in which they occur
Example:
He is a clever student
(clever: adj, modifier)
(student: noun, complement)
● The same lexical meaning is shared by different grammatical forms of one word:
warm – warmer – warmest; create – creates – created
● The same grammatical meaning may be shared by different words: development,
progress, industrialization, modernization; book, pen, knife; enjoy, admire, detest
3. Denotative meaning:
● what a word denotes/ refers to in our world.
● “type of meaning described in terms of a set of semantic properties which severs
to identify a particular concept associated with the word in question”
(Fromkin et al: 1990, 205)
E.g. father: human, male, parent
● “the relationship that holds between lexemes and persons, things, places,
prosperities, processes and activities external to the language system” (Lyon 1977)
Example:
‘dog’ : set of all dogs
‘red’ : set of all red things
4. Connotative meaning:
● how things/ concepts are denoted
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● pragmatic communicative value of the word in a particular situation (where,
when, how, and by whom, for what purpose and in what context it is or may be
used).
● unstable and varies (according culture, historical period, social class & real
experience of the speaker, speaker’s personality, relationship between speakers,
settings.....)
Example:
dog
- In Arabic culture: negative connotation of dirt and inferiority
- In British culture: positive connotation of friendship and loyalty
gay
- In the past: positive connotation: merry/ happy
- At present: negative connotation: homosexual
● 1 word may have both denotation and connotation
new: Denotation: recent, origin
Connotation: better, improved
excuse: Denotation: explanation
Connotation: weak reason
● 2 or more words may have the same denotation but different connotations
E.g.
+ house & home: same denotation (living accommodation); different connotation
(material vs. spiritual)
+ skinny & slender : same denotation (thin); different connotation (negative vs.
positive)
II. Semantic properties are the semantic features a word has
● We identify the meaning of a word by its semantic features.
E.g. father: human, male, parent
mother: human, female, parent
● same semantic property (ies) may be part of meaning of different words:
E.g. hen, mare, tigress,, actress, girl, maiden, widow, woman: →female
man, bachelor, father: → human, adult, male
● specific semantic properties, apart from general ones, of a word determines its
particular meaning.
bachelor, father: → human, adult, male
Bachelor: unmarried
Father: married
● Same semantic property may occur in words of different categories.
E.g. mother, breast-feed, pregnant →
female
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III. Dimensions of Word meaning
1. Denotation & Reference
1.1. Denotation:
- The dictionary meaning of a word
- The literal meaning of a word
Ex: home, house, residence and dwelling all have the same denotation (Where a
person lives at any given time)
- “the relationship that holds between that lexeme and persons, things, places,
prosperities, processes and activities external to the language system” (Lyon 1977)
E.g.
‘dog’ denotes the set of all dogs in the world
‘red’ ~ the set of all red things in the world
1.2. Reference
- relationship between a word/ expression and what that word/ expression refers to.
Eg. - The morning star refers to the planet Venus
- The Irony lady refers to Margaret Thatcher
- there might be different referring expressions for one referent
+ the Morning Star and the Evening Star: both refer to the Venus
+ the Iron Lady, the British Prime Minister of the 1980s, the Leader of Conservative
Party of Britain, the Occupant of No 10 Downing Street: all refer to Margaret
Thatcher
- one referring expression can be used to refer to different things
Ex: 'This page '
- might refers to a page I am dealing with in my book
- a piece of document you are reading
- proper names and names of unique natural objects have constant reference
+ the moon
+ The Socialist Republic of Vietnam
+ Halley’s Comet
1.3. Denotation vs. Reference
Denotation
Reference
relationships between language and the world
identifying a class of things in general indicating to a particular thing (concrete or
abstract thing that is called a referent)
Denotation: invariable, utterance-independent
Reference: variable, utterance-dependent
- Any word has its denotation but not necessarily reference
E.g.:
60
+ I saw a car in the corner.
+ I want my son to be an engineer.
2. Sense and Reference
2.1. The sense:
- the "cognitive significance" or "mode of presentation" of the referent.
- semantic relations that hold between a lexeme /an expression and other
expressions of the same language.
- The sense of an expression is its place in a system of semantic relationships with
other expressions in the language.
E.g.:
+ I almost/nearly fell over.
+ Your gatepost doesn’t seem to be quite vertical/upright.
- Every expression that has meaning has sense, but not every expression has
reference
almost, probable, and, if do not refer to things in the world but they all have
some sense
- Linguistic Expressions with the same reference may have different senses.
Eg. The morning star and the evening star: same reference; different senses
2.2. Reference vs. Sense
Reference
Sense
- relationship between language and - internal relationship within a language
the world
- the referent of an expression is often - the sense of an expression is not a thing
a thing/person in the world
at all
- the referent of an expression is real
- the sense of an expression is abstract
3. Denotation & Connotation
3.1 Denotation:
- the ability of a word to identify a wide range of things which share certain
characteristic features
- invariable
E.g. denotation of 'home, house, residence and dwelling': Where a person lives at
any given time.
3.2 Connotation:
- how things/ concepts are denoted
- certain affective or evaluative associations (the values resulted when the word is
associated with certain characteristics of the item to which it refers)
- variable
61
E.g.
'home, house, residence and dwelling': same denotation
Denotation: Where a person lives at any given time.
Connotation:
Home:
House:
the
cozy,
actual
loving,
building
Residence:
cold,
Dwelling: primitive or basic surroundings
or
no
comfortable
structure
feeling
3.2.1 Stylistic connotation:
Stylistic connotation of one word is acquired when the affective or evaluative
association is concerned with the situation in which it is uttered:
- social circumstances (formal, familiar, colloquial, slang)
- social relationships between participants involved (polite, casual)
- types of purpose of communication (conversational, literary, poetic, official)
3.2.2 Emotional/affective connotation:
It is acquired by the word as a result of its frequent use in emotional situations or
because the referent is associated with emotions
E.g.:
- They are on their honeymoon.
- Mummy! I’m hungry!
- The prisoner tried to beseech the judge for mercy.
- I insist on your taking immediate action to put this right.
3.2.3 Evaluative connotation:
It is associated with attitudes and expresses approval or disapproval.
E.g.:
- It’s all done by magic/witchcraft/sorcery.
- That’s an incorrect/erroneous conclusion.
- You were wrong to take the book without permission.
3.2.4 Intensifying connotation:
It has expressive and emphatic values.
E.g.:
- I’m terribly sorry for the delay!
- The film is extremely interesting.
- That’s a magnificent Renaissance palace.
- We’ve had a gorgeous meal.
IV. CHANGE OF MEANING
1. Changes in denotational meaning:
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Narrowing:
The denotational meaning of a word has restricted from a wide range into a
narrower one, or from general to specific
E.g.:
- deer: any four-footed animal => a certain kind of animal
- queen: wife => wife of the king
- girl: a small child of either sex => a small child of the female sex
- meat: any food => food that is animal flesh
- starve: die => die of hunger
- corn: cereals => maize
Broadening:
The denotational meaning of a word has extended from a narrow range to a wider
range
E.g.:
- camp: a place where troops are lodged in tents => any temporary tent
- boot-legger: illegal dealer in liquor => any illegal dealer
- lady: mistress of the house/ married woman => the wife /daughter of a baronet =>
any woman
- run: move faster than walk => take part in a race; sail/steer in the specified
direction; flow; manage (a company/hotel); own & use (a vehicle)
- place: town square => any location
- to arrive: to come to shore => to come to any place
- pipe: a musical wind instrument => any hollow cylindrical body
2 Changes in connotational meaning:
a. Degradation/deterioration:
The meaning of a word has become “worse, less nice”, lower in status
E.g.:
- knave: boy => swindler, rogue, scoundrel (kẻ lừa đảo, quân xỏ lá)
- pedant: teacher => person who likes to display his knowledge
- villain: labourer/farm-servant => rascal; naughty young person
- gossip: god parent => the one who talks scandal/ tells slanderous stories about
other people
- silly: happy => foolish
Note:
- It is inaccurate, however, to use the term “degradation” to refer to the word itself.
- In those examples, the second meaning of each word has developed a negative
evaluative connotation which was absent in the first.
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b. Elevation
The meaning of a word has become “better, nicer”, higher in status.
E.g.:
- fond: foolish => loving; very affectionate
- naughty: wicked => playful; disobedient; bad
- minister: a servant/ an attendant => head of a state department
- nice: foolish/ ignorant => delightful, fine, good
- knight: manservant => noble/courageous man
- lord: master of the house/ head of the family => baronet
Note:
- Like in the case of “degradation”,it is imprecise to use the term “elevation” to
refer to the word itself.
- It would be more credible to state that some cases of transference result in loss of
evaluative connotation.
V. TRANSFERENCE OF MEANING
1. Metaphor
a. What is metaphor?
-Metaphor is the transference of word meaning from one thing to another based on
the similarity between these two things.
- A new meaning appears as a result of associating two
objects/phenomena/qualities, etc. due to their outward similarity.
E.g.
- neck (part of human body) => the neck of a bottle
- branch (subdivision of a tree or bush) => a branch of linguistics (a special field of
science/art)
- drop (a small particle of water/other liquid) => 1. diamond drops (ear-rings shaped
as drops of water); 2. mint drops (candy of the same shape)
b. Types of metaphors
A metaphor may be:
+ Living metaphor: a word used in unusual meaning & metaphoric sense is
obviously felt (He’s a rabbit)
+ Faded metaphor: metaphoric sense is vaguely felt (They fell in love at first sight)
+ Dead metaphor: metaphoric sense is not felt (I’m pondering how to respond)
c. Metaphoric transference of meaning can be based on the similarity of:
- shape: head of a cabbage, teeth of a saw, crane bulb, needle’s eye, tongues of a
flame
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- size: elephantine (as big as an elephant), midget (extremely small as a midget)
- position: foot of a bed/mountain, tail of procession, arms of an arm-chair
- movement: to worm, caterpillar of a tank
- function: finger of instrument, key to success, leg of a bed/table/chair, hand of a
clock/watch, head of a company
- colour: orange hat/light/agent, rose clouds at dawn
- quality/characteristics: lion, fox, bee, snake, filmstar, crocodile’s tears, an angle,
an Othello, a Cicero
2. Metonymy
- Metonymy is the substitution of one word for another with which it is associated.
Types of relation as basis:
- container-contents relation:
E.g.: bottle-coke; bottle-wine; can-juice
- whole-part relation:
E.g.: car-wheel; house-roof;
- representative-symbol relationship:
E.g.: king-crown; the President-the government; the old-the grey hair; the US
Department of Defence-the Pentagon
- place-inhabitants relationship:
E.g.: the town/city/country-people living there
- inventor-invention relationship:
E.g.: pullman, volt, ampere, ohm, watt, wellington,
- author-works relationship:
E.g.: Dickens, Shakespeare
Metaphor vs. Metonymy
Metaphor
Metonymy
one thing is called by name of another as
these two things have some features in one thing is called by name of another as
common
these two things are associated
meaning of word extended on the basis meaning of word extended on the basis
of resemblance between two things
of relatedness/ links between two things
PRACTICE
I. For each pair of words and a phrase list the one that is positive in the '
Positive connotation' category, the one that is negative in the 'Negative
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connotation' category and the phrase that is more neutral for both words in '
Denotation' column.
1. gaze, look steadily, stare
2. fragrance, odor, a smell sensed by the olfactory nerve.
3. brainwash, persuade, influence one way or another.
4. delayed, not on time, tardy.
5. somewhat interested, nosy, curious.
6. lazily, without haste, leisurely
7. ask of someone, demand, request
8. gathering, a large group, mob
9. slim, skinny, less than average build.
10. discuss with others, debate, argue
Positive connotation
Denotation
Negative connotation
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
II. What semantic properties shared by the words in (a) and (b) and what
semantic features distinguish between them?
E.g. (a) lobster, shrimp, crab, oyster, mussel
((b) trout, sole, herring, salmon. mackerel
The (a) and (b) words are [+ edible water animal]
The (a) words are [+shellfish]; the (b) words are [ +fish]
1. (a) widow, mother. sister, aunt, seamstress.
(b) widower, father, uncle, brother, tailor.
2. (a) bachelor, son, paperboy, pope, chief
(b) bull, rooster, drake, ram, stallion
3. (a) table, pencil, cup, house, ship, car
(b) milk, tea, wine, beer, water, soft drink
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4. (a) book, temple, mountain, road, tractor
(b) idea, love, charity, sincerity, bravery, fear
5. (a) rose, lily, tulip, daisy, sunflower, violet
(b) ash , oak, sycamore, willow, beech
(c) pine, cedar, spruce, cypress
6. (a) book. letter, encyclopaedia, novel, notebook, dictionary
(b) typewriter, pencil, ballpoint, crayon, quill, charcoal, chalk
7. (a) walk, run, skip, jump, hop, swim
(b) fly, skate, ski, ride, cycle, canoe, hang-glide
8. (a) ask, tell, say, converse
(b) shout, whisper, mutter, drawl, holler
9. (a) alive, asleep, awake, dead, half-dead, pregnant
(b) depressed, bored, excited, upset, amazed, surprised
III. Identify the semantic features in each of the following words
1. Child:
2. Aunt:
3. Hen
4. Oak:
5. Palm
6. Bachelor:
7. Computer
8. Honesty:
IV. Answer the following sentences
1. In a conversation about Britain in 1982 can The Prime Minister and the Leader
of the Conservative Party have the same reference?
2. If we are talking about a situation in which John is standing alone in the
corner, can John have the same referent as the person in the corner?
3. Do the following words refer to things in the world?
almost
probable
and
if
4. When you look up the meaning of a word in a dictionary, what do you find
there, its referent, or an expression with the same sense?
5. Is a dictionary full of words or things like a box or a sack?
6. Could a foreigner learn the meanings of his very first words of English by
having their typical referents pointed out to him?
7. Could a foreigner learn the meanings of his very first words of English by
looking them up in an English dictionary?
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8. Just as one can talk of the same sense in different languages, can one talk of
expressions in different dialects of one language as having the same sense?
9. When a speaker says, "A man was in here looking for you last night." Is ‘a
man’ being used to refer to a particular man?
10. So, in the above example, is a man referring expression?
11. When a speaker says, "The first sign of the monsoon is a cloud on the horizon
no bigger than a man's hand" is ‘a man’ being used to refer to a particular
man?
12. Is ‘a man’ in this example a referring expression?
13. Is ‘forty buses’, used in "Forty buses have been withdrawn from service by
Liverpool Corporation" a referring expression?
14. Is ‘forty buses’ in "This engine has power of forty buses" a referring
expression?
15. What is the referring expressions in the following utterance?
"Neil Armstrong was the first man on the Moon and became a hero"
16. Who does "I" refer to in the following utterance?
"I will never speak to you again"
V. What aspect of meaning is intended in the following examples, reference (R)
or sense (S)?
1. When Helen mentioned "the fruit cake", she meant that rock-hard object in the
middle of the table.
2. When Albert talks about "his former friend" he means me.
3. Daddy, what does ‘unique’ mean?
4. ‘Purchase’ has the same meaning as ‘buy’?
5. Look up the meaning of ‘apoplexy’ in your dictionary.
6. If you look out of the window now you'll see who I mean.
VI. Are the following referring expressions?
1. a Norwegian, used in "Nancy married a Norwegian"
2. a Norwegian, used in "Nancy wants to marry a Norwegian"
3. a car, used in "John is looking for a car"
4. a man with a limb, used in "Dick believes that a man with a limb killed Bo
Peep"
5. a man with a limb, used in "A man with a limb killed Bo Peep"
6. a swan, used in "Every evening at sunset a swan flew over the house"
VII. What are the reference and sense of the following expressions?
1. The Secretary General of the United Nations
2. The Chairman of Nghe An People’s Committee
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3. The author of War and Peace
4. The President of Russia
5. The Capital of Vietnam
VIII. Choose the most appropriate word(s) that can be inserted in the blank.
a. "You look lovely in that blue dress; it shows off your __________ figure."
thin / slender/ skinny
b. Everyone in the office respects Casey because of her kind but __________
attitude.
bossy/ assertive/ domineering
c. "Some people might have found my comments __________," the senator said
cautiously.
rude/ insulting/ inappropriate
d. "Well," said Curtis with an embarrassed smile, "I'm looking for __________
car."
a cut-rate/ a more economical/ a cheaper
e. "Here's a scholarship that you might qualify for," said Mike's advisor. "It's for
people who are __________."
poverty-stricken / underprivileged/ poor
f. William annoys his friends because he's so __________ when it comes to
money.
stingy / economical/thrifty
g. "Since your son is __________, I recommend holding him back a year,"
Charlie's teacher told his parents.
Slow / not the sharpest knife in the drawer/ a late bloomer
h. We're worried about Trish; she's lost so much weight that she looks
__________.
trim / skinny/ slender
i. Pamela is much admired for her __________ business decisions.
sneaky / scheming/ shrewd
j. "I'm afraid," said Luke's guidance counselor carefully, "that you might find
advanced calculus a little too __________
difficult / confusing/ challenging
IX. Identify and comment on the type of meaning transference in the following
sentences:
1. First we must roll up our sleeves.
2. Will the mature economies have the nerve to stay the course of the second
industrial revolution?
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3. Your goal of becoming a teacher is a worthy one. With all the crosscurrents in
society today that has not been easy.
4. That advice has been a big help to me when troubles have come – and they do
come.
5. Has there been a price for going back to work after you were born? Yes, and I
paid the price because I wanted to work.
6. But here I rely on the bond between us – our unconditional love.
7. The red-hot centre of official Washington was asking her to stay, and goldplated law
firms in New York City and Chicago were beckoning her to
come.
8. Both believe that education is the key to good life.
9. Mary is a lion.
10. Now they have overstepped the line.
X. Identify the instances of metonymy in the following sentences:
1. The dollar is rising against the Euro.
2. He opened his mouth.
3. The bench has decreed that the case be dismissed.
4. South Australia is sometimes referred to as the garden state of Australia.
5. Number 10 Downing Street was gripped in a crisis of confidence.
6. He has good ears for music.
7. Two heads are better than one.
8. Have you ever read Dickens?
9. Have you ever listened to Mozart?
10. The city is proud of its natural beauty.
11. We have always remained loyal to the crown.
12. The House was called to order," meaning the members in the House.
13. "The pen is mightier than the sword," meaning literary power is superior to
military force
14. The White House said the president will pay a visit to Asia.
15. England won the match.
16. Peter drank three bottles.
17. Mary played Bach.
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UNIT 3 – LEXICAL RELATIONS
I. What is a lexical relation?
- The meaning of a word is defined in its relations to other items in a language:
paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations
- A lexical relation is a pattern of association that exists between words in a
language.
- There are different types of lexical relations: Homonymy, Polysemy, Synonymy,
Antonymy, Hyponymy and Meronymy.
II. Homonymy
1. Definition
- Homonymy: the state or quality of a given word having the same spelling and the
same sound or pronunciation as another word, but with a different meaning.
- Homonyms: words identical in pronunciation or/ and spelling
2. Types of homonyms
John Lyon (1995): absolute homonyms and partial homonyms
HOMONYMS
Absolute
unrelated meaning
identical forms
(pronunciation & spelling)
grammatical equivalent
partial
one or two of the
conditions are satisfied
Examples of Absolute homonyms
match (n) – a game, a contest
match (n) − a short piece of wood used for producing fire
ball (n) − a sphere
ball (n) − a large dancing party
Examples of Partial homonyms
rose (n)
&
rose (v) (past form of ‘to rise’)
lead (v) /li:d/ &
lead (n) /led/
lie (v) [lay, lain]
&
lie (v) [lied, lied]
▶ Homonymy: sameness of forms
● Full homonyms: identical in both pronunciation & spelling
- bark (outer covering of a tree) – bark (noise made by a dog)
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- punch (a tool/machine for shaping/engraving) – punch (drink made from a mixture
of wine, fruit, sugar & spices) – punch (strike with a fist)
● Homophones: identical in pronunciation only
- air - heir
- son - sun
- fare - fair
- not - knot
- buy – by – bye
- night-knight
- write-right-rite
● Homographs: identical in spelling only
- wind/wind/-wind/waind/
- tear/ti∂/-tear/te∂/
- lead/li:d/-lead/led/
- bow/bou/- bow/bau/
III. Polysemy
- the ability of words to have more than one meaning
● first meaning: dominant, conveying concept in most general way, referred
to as the
main meaning.
● other meanings are secondary meanings, associated with special
circumstances, or aspects.
- A word is considered to be polysemantic if it has different but related meanings.
Example: raw
1. uncooked (raw meat, raw vegetables)
2. in the natural state/not yet processed or manufactured (raw silk, raw oil)
3. not yet analyzed or corrected (raw data, raw statistics)
4. (of wounds) unhealed/bloody (raw cut, raw blister)
How to differentiate homonyms & polysemantic words
1. Semantic criterion: relationship between different meanings of a polysemantic
word but no relationship between meanings of homonyms
Example:
a. stable (adj): firmly established/fixed; not likely to move or change (It’s a stable
job; The patient’s condition is stable)
b. stable (adj): (of a person or his character) not easily upset/disturbed; wellbalanced; reliable (Mentally she’s very stable)
c. stable (n): building in which horses/cows are kept and fed
2. Criterion of synonymy: two words are homonyms if they have their different
synonyms
Example:
a. bay (n) – syn.: gulf
b. bay (n) – syn.: (deep & prolonged) bark
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c. bay (n) – syn.: horse (of reddish-brown colour)
3. Criterion of syntax: two words are homonyms if they have different syntactic
paradigms
Example:
a. long (adj) – longer, longest
b. long (v):
- longed, longing, longed
3. Synonymy
3.1. Definition:
- SYNONYMY is the relationship between two words that have the same sense.
-Synonyms are words with same meaning
E.g.
big ~ large; huge ~ enormous; girl ~
birdie/ lassie; stop ~ give up
over the moon ~ delighted ~ happy
3.2 Types of synonyms
3.2.1 Absolute synonyms (perfect/full synonyms or synonyms proper): words that
have the same denotational and connotational meanings.
Examples: (Br E. - Am E.)
team – squad
luggage – baggage
autumn – fall;
lift – elevator
flat - apartment
3.2.2 Semantic synonyms: they are words which have the same denotation but
differ in shades of meaning
E.g.
- beautiful, pretty, good-looking, nice, lovely, fair
- to ask, to question, to interrogate
- to look, to glance
- to read, to skim, to scan
3.2.3 Stylistic synonyms: they are words which have the same denotation but
belong to different stylistic layers and differ in emotive values and expressiveness
E.g.
policeman – bobby – cop
father – dad – daddy
man – fellow – chap- lad
to start – to begin – to commence
3.2.4 Semantic-stylistic synonyms: they are words which have the same denotation
but differ in both shades of meaning and stylistics
E.g.
house – shack – slum – pad
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to dismiss – to sack – to fire – to expel – to kick out
to reduce – to axe - to cut back
3.2.5 Phraseological synonyms: they are words which have the same denotation
but differ in their collocations
E.g.
to do exercise/homework – to make tea/money
mother tongue – foreign language
artificial flower – false hair
3.2.6. Synonyms which are euphemisms: they are words/phrases which are
synonymous to those denoting unpleasant notions or processes
E.g.
to die – to pass away
to depart this life/world - be gone;
poor – underpriviledged;
WC – toilet, restroom
4. Antonymy
4.1. Antonymy is the relationship between two words that have opposite sense.
4.2. Antonymy : they are words of the same part of speech but opposite in meaning
- words denoting concrete objects have no antonyms
E.g.: chair, table, tape-recorder, etc.
- adjectives denoting qualities, verbs denoting actions/states, abstract nouns have
antonyms
E.g.: old – young, give – take, joy – sorrow, dull – bright, dull - interesting
4.3 Types of antonyms:
4.3.1 Antonyms proper: based on grades and represent contrary notions
E.g.: love – like – hate – detest, big – small, slow - fast
4.3.2 Complementary (binary) antonyms:
- words that come in pairs
- if one is applicable, then the other can not be, and vice versa
- the assertion of one is the negation of the other
E.g.: male – female, married – single, alive – dead, awake - asleep, lock - unlock
4.3.3 Relational opposites: words denoting one and the same situation/action/state
which is seen from different points of view with a reversal of the order of
aprticipants and their roles
E.g.: buy – sell, give – take/receive, left – right
4.3.4 Directional antonyms
- the relation between those antonyms is based on an opposition of motion toward
or away from a place
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E.g.: come – go, arrive – depart, up - down
5. Hyponymy
- Hyponymy is a sense relation between such words that the meaning of one word
is included in the meaning of the other.
- It is defined in terms of the inclusion of the sense of one item in the sense of
another.
Example:
Flower
Rose
tulip
daffodil
daisy
orchid
- Relationship between ‘flower’ and ‘rose, tulip...): hyponymy
- Flower: hypernym/ superordinate
- rose( or tulip/ daisy...): hyponym
- rose, tulip, daisy, and orchid...: co-hyponyms
Is SYNONYMY a special case of HYPONYMY?
If X is a hyponym of Y and if Y is also a hyponym of X, then X and Y are
synonymous.
E.g.:
- mercury & quicksilver
- bachelor & unmarried man
- spinster & unmarried woman
6. Meronymy/ Part-whole relation
car
wheel
engine
door
piston
valve
- wheel (engine, door...): meronym of car
- If X is a kind of Y → hyponymy
- If X is a part of Y
→ meronymy
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etc
window
etc
PRACTICE
A. Questions
1. What is a lexical relation? What are main types of lexical relations?
2. Comment on homonymy and polysemy.
3. Types of homonyms? Examples?
B. Exercises
I. Define the meaning of the italicized words in the following sentences. Say
how the meanings of the same word are associated one with another.
1. I walked into Hyde Park, fell flat upon the grass and almost immediately fell
asleep.
2. a. 'Hello', I said and thrust my hand through the bars, whereon the dog became
silent and licked me prodigiously.
b. At the end of the long bar, leaning against the counter was a slim pale
individual wearing a red bow tie.
3. a. I began to search the flat, looking in drawers and boxes to see if I could find a
key.
b. I tumbled with a sort of splash upon the keys of a ghostly piano.
4. a. Her mouth opened crookedly half an inch, and she shot a few words a tone like
pebbles.
b. Would you like me to come to the mouth of the river with you?
5. a. I sat down for a few minutes with my head in my hands, until I heard the
phone taken up inside and the butler's voice calling a taxi.
b. The minute hand of the electric clock jumped on to figure twelve, and,
simultaneously, the steeple of St. Mary's whose vicar always kept his clock by
the wireless began its feeble imitation of Big Ben.
II. Explain the different meanings and the different usages of the following
words. Use a dictionary if necessary.
1. smart (adj)
smart clothes, a smart answer, a smart house, a smart garden, a smart repartee, a
smart officer, a smart blow, a smart punishment.
2. stubborn (adj)
a stubborn child, a stubborn look, a stubborn horse, stubborn resistance, a
stubborn fighting, a stubborn cough, stubborn depression
3. root (n)
edible root, the root of the tooth, the root of the matter, the root of all evil,
square root, cube root.
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III. Explain the basis for the following jokes. Use the dictionary when in doubt.
1. Caller: I wonder if I can see your mother, little boy. Is she engaged?
Willie: Engaged! She is married.
2. Booking Clerk (at a small village station): You'll have to change twice before you
get to York.
Villager: (mused to travelling): Goodness! And I've only brought the
I'm wearing
clothes
3. Professor: You missed my class yesterday, didn't you?
Student: Not in the least, sir, not in the least.
IV. Find the homonyms in the following extracts. Classify them into full
homonyms, homographs and homophones.
1. a. My seat was in the middle of a row.
b. "I say, you haven't had a row with Corky, haven't you?"
2. a. Our institute football team got a challenge to a match from the University
team and we accepted it.
b. Somebody struck a match so that we could see each other.
3. a. It was nearly December but the California sun made a summer morning of the
season.
b. On the way home Crane no longer drove like a nervous old maid.
4. a. She loved to dance and had every right to expect the boy she was seeing almost
every night in the week to take her dancing at least once on the weekend.
b. "That's right," she said.
5. a. Do you always forget to wind up your watch?
b. Crane had an old Ford without a top and it rattled so much that the wind made
so much noise.
6. a. In Brittany, there was once a knight called Elide.
b. She looked up through the window at the night.
7. a. She had a funny round face.
b. - How does your house face? - It faces the South
8. a. I saw that I was looking down into another cove similar to the one I had left.
b. He was growing progressively deafer in the left ear.
9. a. Iron and lead are base metals.
b. Where does the road lead?
10. a. So, he didn't shake his hand because he didn't shake cowards' hands, see, and
somebody else was elected captain.
b. Mel's plane had been shot down into the sea.
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V. On what linguistic phenomenon is the joke in the following extracts based?
What causes the misunderstanding?
1. A: "I got sick last night eating eggs."
B: "Too bad."
A: "No, only one."
2. A: "I spent last summer in a very pretty city in Switzerland."
B: "Berne?"
A: "No, I almost froze."
3. Officer (to a driver in a parked car): Don't you see that sign "Fine for parking"
Driver: Yes, officer, I see and I agree with it.
VI. Explain the homonyms which form the basis for the following jokes.
1. An observing man claims to have discovered the colour of the wind. He says he
went out and found it blew.
2. Advertisement: "Lion tamer wants tame a lion"
3. Father: Didn't I tell you not to pick any flowers without leave?
Child: Yes, daddy, but all these roses had leaves.
4. The difference between a cat and a comma is that a cat has its claws at the end of
its paws, and a comma has its pause at the end of a clause.
VII. Provide homonyms for the italicized words in the following jokes.
1.Teacher: Here is a map. Who can show us America?
(Nick goes to the map and finds America on it.)
Teacher: Now, tell me, boys, who found America?
Boys: Nick.
2. Father: I promised to buy you a car if you passed your examination, and you have
failed. What were you doing last term?
Son: I was learning to drive a car.
3. "What time do you get up in summer?"
"As soon as the first ray of the sun comes into my window."
"Isn't that rather early?"
"No, my room faces west."
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UNIT 4 – SENTENCE MEANING
1. Sentence and the meaning of the sentence revisited
- A sentence is a string of words put together by the grammatical rules of a language
- The meaning of a sentence is what that sentence means regardless of the context
or situation in which it may be used.
2. Truth condition and Proposition
2.1. Truth conditions are the conditions under which a sentence can be true or
false.
- The truth condition of a sentence depends on the truth conditions of its parts.
Ex: "Snow is white," depends for its truth on snow and the property of being white.
For it to be true, these things must be related in the right way; if they are not, then
the sentence is false.
This is often expressed in the following way:
"Snow is white" is true if and only if (or just in case) snow is white.
2.2. A proposition is that part of the meaning of a declarative sentence which
describes some state of affairs.
- Every declarative sentence contains a proposition, which states something true or
false.
Ex:
Go away, will you!
Go will go away
different sentences, same propositional content
I am an idiot.
Am I an idiot
different sentences, same propositional content
3. Grammaticality, acceptability & meaningfulness
- Grammatically correct sentences may not be meaningful or acceptable.
Ex:
+ The building has taken care of the children.
+ His honesty thinks it is time he thought of his future.
- Acceptability may be determined by grammaticality
Ex:
+ I want that he come on time.
+ He is considered as the best player of his time.
- Acceptability may be determined by meaningfulness.
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Ex:
+ The book goes out with the table.
+ Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
- Acceptability may be determined by rationality (whether the sentence makes
sense)
E.g.
+ He thought that it was possible because it was not impossible.
- Acceptability may be determined by taboo/social etiquette.
Ex:
+ I would like to express my congratulations to your family.
(unacceptable at a funeral)
+ You’re very sexy.
(unacceptable in Vietnamese culture)
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UNIT 5 – SENTENCE RELATIONS
1. Paraphrase is the relation between two sentences that are about the same
state of affair and are both true.
Paraphrase: A paraphrase of a sentence is a sentence which expresses the
same proposition as another sentence. (Hurford & Heasley. 1983:114)
A paraphrase of a sentence is another sentence that has virtually the same
meaning. (Peccei, 1999:3)
Sentences are paraphrases if they have the same meaning (except possibly for
minor differences in emphasis. (Fromkin & Rodman,
1993: 132)
Types of paraphrase
• Lexical:
Paraphrases
that
contains
synonyms
(same
structure, different words but synonyms)
Ex: I’m very happy to see you
I’m very glad to see you
The house was concealed by the trees
The house was hidden by the trees
• Structural: Two sentences of different structure but same
meaning. The difference in structure is not enough to
change the meaning.
Ex: The lion bit the hunter
The hunter was bitten by the lion
Paul opened the door with a key
Paul used a key to open the door
Paraphrases can be resulted from:
a. the use of synonyms
E.g.:
1a. She enjoys reading romantic novels.
1b. She is fond of reading romantic novels.
b. the use of different structures:
E.g.:
2a. He turned on the radio.
2b. He turned the radio on.
3a. She seems to be tired.
3b. It seems that she is tired.
c. the use of passive & active voice
E.g.:
4a. A dog bit the child.
4b. The child was bitten by a dog.
2. Contradiction is the relation between two sentences that contradict each
other.
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Two sentences are contradictory if it is impossible for them both to be true at
the same time and of the same circumstances. (Hurford & Heasley.
1983:119) In other words, they contradict / exclude each other.
Ex:
I am a bachelor
&
I am a father
This ant is alive
&
This ant is dead
John killed Bill
Mary is my sister
&
&
Bill is still alive
I am the only child in the family
3. Entailment
- The relation of inclusion between pairs of sentences.
- A sentence A entails a sentence B if the truth of B follows necessarily from the
truth of A. (Hurford & Heasley.1983:107)
- The truth of one sentence implies the truth of the other because of the meaning of
the words involved.
E.g.:
- John killed Bill
and
Bill died
- Jim has just married Mary
and
Mary is a married woman
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
A. QUESTIONS
1. What can you understand by the terms: proposition and truth condition?
2. What is meant by paraphrase, contradiction and entailment.
3. Ways of paraphrasing?
B. EXERCISES
I. Are the sentences in each pair have the same or different proposition?
1a. Peter took out the paper.
1b. Peter took the paper out.
2a. John gave Mary a book.
2b. Mary was given a book by John.
3a. Ann loves Jim.
3b. Jim loves Ann.
4a. George danced with Mary.
4b. George didn’t dance with Mary.
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5a. Dr. Smith killed Janet.
5b. Dr. Smith caused Janet to die.
II. Are the following paraphrases of each other? Indicate your answer by
circling P (paraphrase) or NP (not a paraphrase).
1. John is a parent of James.
James is the child of John
P/NP
2. John is a parent of James.
James is the parent of John
P/NP
3. My father owns this car
This car belongs to my father
P/NP
4. The fly was on the wall
P/NP
5.
6.
7.
8.
The wall was under the fly
Some countries have no coastline
Not all countries have a coastline
No one has led a perfect life
Someone has led a perfect life
We've just bought a dog
We've just bought something
The house was concealed by the trees.
The house was hidden by the trees.
9. I ran to the house
I went to the house
10. It is hard to lasso elephants
Elephants are hard to lasso.
P/NP
P/NP
P/NP
P/NP
P/NP
P/NP
III. Look at the following and circle the statements of entailment as correct (C)
or (I) incorrect
1. John cooked an egg entails John boiled an egg.
C/I
2. John boiled an egg entails John cooked an egg.
C/I
3. I saw a boy entails I saw a person.
C/I
4. John stole a car entails John took a car.
C/I
5. His speech disturbed me entails His speech deeply disturbed me.
C/I
6. Mary is devoted to Hans entails Han is devoted to Mary.
C/I
7. Mary is married to Hans entails Hans is married to Mary.
C/I
IV. The following sentences are ambiguous. For each one give two paraphrases
which are not paraphrases of each other.
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1. The chicken is ready to eat
2. Visiting relatives can be boring.
3. The thing that bothered Bill was crouching under the table.
4. The captain corrected the list.
5. They passed the port at midnight.
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UNIT 6 – COMPONENTS OF SENTENCE MEANING
1. Organizational meaning
1.1. Structural Meaning
- This is the kind of meaning that results from a particular arrangement of the parts
of the sentence.
Examples
1. The couch-grass grows rapidly in this type of soil.
2. He looks as solemn as a judge.
3. That playgirl has just ensnared a rich husband.
1.2. Textual Meaning
- This is the function of the sentence to create texts.
- When a sentence is used in a text, it helps to give that text coherence and cohesion.
Example:
George Bush and Tony Blair joined forces today to hail a "free, sovereign Iraq" - 48
hours ahead of schedule. The two men revealed they synchronised their watches to
acknowledge the surprise 10.26am handover of power, as they sat in talks at the
Nato summit in Istanbul this morning.
2. Representational Meaning
- The representational meaning of a sentence is a picture of part of the world
represented in the sentence.
- It is equivalent to proposition.
- Reality is considered to be made up of PROCESSES.
- A process consists, in principle, of three components:
+ the process itself
+ participants involved in the process
+ circumstances associated with the process
2.1 Processes
a. Material processes
- They are processes of ‘doing’ or ‘happening’
- They represent both concrete, physical events and abstract doings and happenings.
Participants involved in material processes:
- ACTOR (the Doer of the process)
- GOAL (the Thing affected by the process)
- RANGE (the Thing unaffected by the process)
- BENEFICIARY (the Recipient, the one who receives the outcome of the process
or Client the one for whom the process is done).
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She
felt
the iron
Actor
Material
Goal
Dyna
arrived
Actor
Material
Daniel
Actor
caught
Material
the ball
Goal
The cat
Goal
was being chased
Material
by the naughty boy
Actor
He
Actor
sent
Material
an email
Goal
to a friend
Beneficiary:
Recipient
I
built
a house
for my mother
Actor
Material
Goal
Beneficiary: Client
Bob
is climbing
the tree
Actor
Material
Range
b. Mental processes:
- They are processes of sensing
- Subdivided into:
1. perception (seeing, hearing, noticing, etc.)
2. affection (liking, fearing, hating, loving, etc.)
3. cognition (thinking, knowing, understanding, believing, etc.)
Participants involved in mental processes:
+ sensor /processor: the person who senses, feels, thinks, perceives ;
+ phenomenon realized by a nominal group or embedded clause which sums
up what is thought, wanted, perceived, or liked/disliked.
I
felt
that I was at a crossroad in my life
Senser
Mental: Perception
Projected clause
Jessica
likes
ice cream
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Senser
Mental: affection
Phenomenon
Anie
knows
Senser
Mental: cognition
Phenomenon
Austin
Senser
hears
Mental: Perception
the ice cream truck coming
Phenomenon
Henry
wants
an ice cream
Senser
Mental: affection
Phenomenon
the answer
‘Why am I tired?’
she
Projected clause
Senser
wondered
Mental: cognition
She
wondered
why she was tired
Senser
Mental
Projected clause
c. Relational processes:
- They are processes of being and having
- Subdivided into:
+ RELATIONAL ATTRIBUTIVE PROCESSES whose function is to
ascribe an attribute,
+ RELATIONAL IDENTIFYING PROCESSES whose function is to
identify.
- Participants involved in relational processes:
+ attributive processes: Carrier (participant carrying the attribute or
characteristics) & Attribute (the characteristic )
+ identifying processes: Identified (the participant providing identity) & Identifier
(the participant that identifies); TOKEN (the form) and VALUE (the function)
I
felt
tired
Carrier
Relational Attributing
Attribute
That bookcase
looks
very heavy
Carrier
Relational Attributing
Attribute
Your office
is
the room on the left
Identified
Relational Identifying
Identifier
John
is
a leader
Carrier
Relational Attributing
Attribute
John
is
the leader
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Token
Relational Identifying
The house
Carrier
was
Rel Att
My favorite place
Value
Value
on a hill
Attribute: Circumstantial
is
Rel Id
at the beach
Token:Circumstantial
Maya
Carrier: Possessor
has
Rel Att Possessive
a beautiful dog
Attribute: Possessed
The company
Value: Possessed
is owned
Rel Id Possessive
by Bob
Token: Possessor
d. Behavioral processes:
- Processes of physiological and psychological behaviour
E.g.:
- Are you crying?
- The child coughs a lot.
- Why are you watching me?
The participants:
- BEHAVER: the conscious being or personified thing.
- Behavioral process : is the doing version of mental and verbal process.
- It sometimes has a Range-like Participant of material process known as
BEHAVIOR and an Object-like Participant known as RANGE.
The old man
Behaver
laughed
Behavioral
My father
Behaver
watched
Behavioral
the film
Range
Betty
Behaver
cried
Behavioral
bitter tears
Behavior
The volcano
Behaver
slept
Behavioral
(personification)
The bird
Behaver
flies
Behavioral
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e. Verbal processes:
- They are processes of saying
- Paticipants involve:
+ SAYER (the Doer of the process),
+ a verbiage: what is said in the nominal group or embedded clause.
+ RECEIVER (addressee of the speech),
+ a target: (the participant which is the object of the talk
(Verbs that accept a Target: praise, insult, abuse, slander, flatter, criticize, accuse,
etc.)
She
Sayer
said
Verbal
She
said
what she had to say
Verbiage
‘I am tired’
Sayer
Verbal
Projected clause
She
said
that she was tired
Sayer
Verbal
Projected clause
Isabel
told
the secret
to her best friend
Sayer
Verbal
Verbiage
Receiver
She
praised
him
Sayer
Verbal
Target
f. Existential processes:
- These processes represent that something exists or happens.
- They lie between material & relational
- closely related verbs meaning ‘exist’ or ‘happen’: exist, remain, arise, occur, come
about, happen, take place, follow, sit, stand, lie, hang, rise, emerge, grow
. The only participant is EXISTENT.
There
’s
a strange smell
Existential
Existent
There
are
several difficulties
Existential
Existent
Circumstances
- Circumstance of time: at 2 p.m, on Monday, in the morning, etc.
- Circumstance of duration: for a minute, for 3 months, etc.
- Circumstance of frequency: twice, three times, every ten minutes, etc.
- Circumstance of place: in the living room, on the table, at the corner, etc.
- Circumstance of distance: (for) two kilometers, every ten miles, etc.
- Circumstance of manner: means (by train, by chance, with a stick), quality (nicely,
beautifully, too much), comparison (unlike you, like an earthquake)
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- Circumstance of cause: reason – why? how? (because, as a result of, thanks to),
purpose – for what? (for, for the sake of, in the hope of), behalf - for whom? (on
behalf of, for)
- Circumstance of condition: If, in case of, in the event of
- Circumstance of concession: in spite of, despite
- Circumstance of result: so … that, so
- Circumstance of accompaniment: and who? what else? but not who/what? (with,
without, besides, in stead of)
- Circumstance of matter: what about? (about, of, concerning, with reference to)
3. Interpersonal Meaning
- This component of sentence meaning corresponds to a traditional and more
common term ‘modality’.
- Modality expresses the attitude & opinion of the speaker toward the
representational content of the sentence.
- The interpersonal meaning has to do with the functions of speech.
- Modality is expressed by grammaticalization (mood) and lexicalization (lexical
items)
- two types of modality: epistemic and deontic
+ Epistemic ( possibility-based): indicates the degree of commitment by the
speaker to what he says.
Ex:
They might be late
(modal verb)
She must have left here. (modal verb)
I wish I had more time. (subjunctive mood)
He didn’t come last time (indicative mood)
+ Deontic (necessity-based): indicates the speaker's degree of requirement of,
desire for, or commitment to the realization of the proposition expressed by the
utterance.
Examples
- Do you know where he is?
(indicative mood) - request for
information
- Be quiet!
(imperative mood) - order
- You can do it
( lexical item)
- permission
QUESTIONS
1. Discuss the components of sentence meaning.
2. Discuss the types of processes with specific examples.
3. Discuss the types of participants with specific examples.
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4. Discuss the types of circumstances with specific examples.
5. Give an account of modality in English. Give examples.
6. How is modality expressed in English?
EXERCISES
I. Identify participants and circumstances in the following processes.
1. The moon was shining brightly last night.
2. The thief must have opened the gate with a crowbar.
3. He went to the cinema with some of his friends.
4. The letter to the editor was sent.
5. The Ford is the car I drove to New Orlean.
6. The bystander was cut by the flying glass.
7. The girl scribbled her address on the paper with a pencil.
8. He bought the flowers for his girlfriend.
9. Robert could clearly see Matthew sitting on the sofa.
10. My neighbour hunts deer in the fall.
II. State the type of modality (deontic or epistemic) in each of the following
sentences.
1. I don’t think that Japanese is easy to learn.
2. Don’t forget to turn off the oven before you leave the house.
3. Perhaps, it is the last thing I want.
4. You must be very tired.
5. You ought to give her some help.
6. Simon, let’s go to an amusement park.
7. I think people should stop destroying the environment.
8. People expect that the weather will change soon.
9. See if my coat needs cleaning.
10. Girls should sing hymns.
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