《英语词汇学》串讲笔记1

重点知识锦集：
1. According to semanticists（意义学家）, a word is a unit of meaning.
2. This symbolic connection is almost always arbitrary, and there is ‘no logical relationships
between the sound which stands for a thing or an idea and the actual thing and idea itself’.
3. Words may fall into the basic word stock and nonbasic vocabulary by use frequency.
4. Words may fall into content words and functional words by notion.
5. Words may fall into native words and borrowed words by origin.
6. The basic word stock is the foundation of the vocabulary accumulated over centuries and
forms the common core of the language.
7. ‘all national character’（全民性）is the most important of all features that may differentiate
words of common use from all others.
8. Content words denote clear notions and thus are known as notional words. They include
nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and numerals.
9. Functional words do not have notions of their own. Therefore, they are also called empty
words.
9. The English language is noted for the remarkable complexity and heterogeneity of its
vocabulary because of its extensive borrowings.
10. According to the degree of assimilation and manner of borrowing, we can bring the
loan-words under four classes: Denizens, Aliens, Translation-loans, Semantic-loans.
11. The differences between sound and form are due to innovations made by linguists.
12. Of all the five characteristics listed for the basic word stock, the most important is all
national character.（全民性）
13. Content words are changing all the time whereas functional words are stable.
14. In Old English there was more agreement between sound and form.
15. A word is a symbol that represents something else in the world.
16. Some words in the basic words stock are said to be stable because they refer to the
commonest things in life.
17. In different language, the same concept can be represented by different sounds and the
same sound can show different meanings.
18. The internal reason for the difference between sound and form is the fact of more
phonemes than letters in English.
19. Native words are neutral in style and frequent in use.
20. The expression of “long time no see”is translation-loan among the four classes of
borrowings.
名词解释：
1. word(词): A word is a minimal free form of a Language that has a given sound and meaning
and syntactic function.
2. vocabulary（词汇）: The term ‘vocabulary’is used in different senses. Not only can it refer
to the total number of the words in a language, but it can stand for all the words used in a
particular historical period. We also use it to refer to all the words of a given dialect, a given book,
a given disicipline and the words possessed by an individual person.
3. Jargon（专

门术语）: It refers to the specialized vocabularies by which members of particular
arts, sciences, trades, and professions, communicate among themselves.
4.Archaisms（古语词）: Archaisms are words or forms that were once in common use but are now restricted only to specialized or limited use.
5. Neologisms（新词语）: Neologisms are newly created words or expressions, or words that
have taken on new meanings.
6. borrowed words（外来词）: Words taken over from foreign languages are known as
borrowed words or loan words or borrowings in simple terms.
7. Deizens（同化词）: Deizens are words borrowed early in the past and now are all assimilated
into the English Language.
8. Aliens（非同化词）: Aliens are borrowed words which have retained their original
pronunciation and spelling. These words are immediately recognisable as foreign in origin.
9. Translation-loans（译借词）: Translation-loans are words and expressions formed from the
existing material in the English language but modelled on the patterns taken from another
language.
10.Semantic-loans（借义词）: Words of this category are not borrowed with reference to the
form. But their meanings are borrowed. In other words, English has borrowed a new meaning for
an existing word in the language
11. argot（黑话）: It generally refers to the jargon of criminals.
12. content words（实词）: Content words denote clear notions including nouns, verbs,
adjectives, adverbs and numerals.
13. terminology(术语): Terminology consists of technical terms used in particular disciplines
and academic areas.
14. native words（本族语）: Native words, also known as Anglo-Saxon words, are words
brought to Britain in the 5th century by the German tribes.
论述问答题：
1. With the development of the Language, why do more and more differences occur between
the Sound and Form?
答：It is generally agreed that the written form of a natural Language is the written record of
the oral form. But with the development of the Language, more and more differences occur
between them, the reasons are as follows:
①. The internal reason for this is that the English alphabet was adopted from the Romans,
which does not have a separate letter to represent each sound in the Language so that some letters
must do double duty or work together in combination.
②. Another reason is that the pronunciation has changed more rapidly than spelling over the
years, and in some cases the two have drawn far apart.
③. A third reason is that some of the differences were created by the early scribes.
④. Finally comes the borrowing, which is an important channel of enriching the English
vocabulary. When English borrowed words from other Languages , it borrowed spelling as well.
2. What are the obvious characteristics of the word

s of the basic word stock（基本词汇）?
①. All national character.（全民性）
②. Stability（稳定性）
③. Productivity（多产性）
④. Polysemy（多义性）
⑤. Collocability（搭配性）
Of course, not all the words of the basic word stock have these characteristics. Pronouns and
numerals enjoy nation-wide use and stability, but are semantically monosemous and have limited productivity and collocability. Therefore, ‘all national character’is the most important of all
features that may differentiate words of common use from all others.
3. Apart from the characteristics mentioned of the basic word stock, in contrast to borrowed
words, native words have two other features, what are they?
答：①. Neutral in style（文体上中性）. Since native words denote the commonest things in
human society, they are used by all people, in all places, on all occasions, and at all times.
Therefore, they are not stylistically specific.
②. Frequent in use（使用频繁）. Native words are most frequently used in everyday
speech and writing. The proportion of its use in relation to borrowings is perhaps just the opposite
of its number.
4. Illustrate the relationship between sound and meaning with examples.
答：A word is phonetic symbol that stands for something in the world. This symbolic
connection is almost always arbitrary, and there is ‘no logical relationships between the sound
which stands for a things or an idea and the actual thing and idea itself’. For example, woman is
represented by the sound Frau in German, femme in French, and funv in Chinese.
5. Explain neologisms（新词语） with examples.
答：Neologisms are newly created words or expressions, or words that have taken on new
meanings. For example, “emil”(electronic mail, the sending of messages via computer systems)
is a word newly coined against the background of rapid development in information technology.
The word “mouse” might examplify the words taking on new meanings : now a mouse is
indispensable for computer users.
6. How are English words generally classified? Elaborate on it.
答：Vocabulary can be classified by different criteria into different types.
① By use frequency（使用频率）, words may fall into the basic word stock（基本词汇） and
nonbasic vocabulary（非基本词汇）. Basic vocabulary is small in number but forms the core of the
language and enjoys the high frequency of use. Nonbasic vocabulary contains such words as
terminology, jargon, which have a relatively limited use；
② By notion（实义）, words can be divided into content words（实义词） and functional words
（功能词即虚词）, content words have clear notions such as nouns, verbs. Functional words
cover prepositions, articles, conjunctions, etc, whose major functions are to help make sentences；

③ By origin（起源）, words can be grouped into native words（本族语词） and borrowed words
（外来语词）. Native words refer to the words of Anglo-Saxon origin, which are small in number
but form the main stream of basic word stock. Borrowed words are words taken over from other
languages and make up 80%of the whole English vocabulary. These three criteria are the most
widespread and popular. There are other ways too, for example, by morphological structure,
formality, emotionality, and so on.
Chapter 2
The Development of the English Vocabulary
1. Indo-European Language is made up of most of the Languages of Europe, the Near East, and
India.
2. The Germanic family consists of the four Northern European Languages：Norwegian, Icelandic,
Danish and Swedish, which are generally known as Scandinavian Languages.
3. In the Western set, Greek is the modern language derived from Hellenic.
4. The surviving Languages show various of degrees of similarity to one another. The similarity bears a more or less direct relationship to their geographical distribution.
5. Now people generally refer to Anglo-Saxon as Old English（古英语）.
6. The introduction of Christianity（基督教）at the end of the 6th century had a great impact on
the English vocabulary.
7. Old English （古英语）has a vocabulary of about 50,000 to 60,000 words. It was a highly
inflected language just like modren German.
8. Until 1066, although there were borrowings from Latin, the influence on English was mainly
Germanic.
9. The Norman Conquest started a continual flow of French words into English.
10. During the Middle English period, Britain had trade relations with the low countries,
especially Holland.
11. Middle English retained much fewer inflections. If we say that Old English was a language of
full endings, Middle English was one of leveled endings.
12. As a result, Celtic made only a small contribution to the English vocabulary with such words
as crag and bin and a number of place names like Avon, Kent, London, and Thames.
13. After the invading Germanic tribes settled down in Britain, their Language almost totally
blotted out Celtic .
14. Old English is considered to be a highly-inflected Language.
15. During the Middle English period three languages—English, French and Latin（英语，法语和
拉丁语）---- existed simultaneously for over a century.
16. Modern English（当代英语） began with the establishment of printing（印刷术） in England.
17. Since the beginning of this century, word-formation has become even more important for the
expansion of English vocabulary.
18. Early Modern English refers to the language spoken from 1500 to 1700 .
19. The major factors that promote the growth of modern English are the growth of science and
technology, economic and political changes, the influence of other cultures and La

nguages .
20. The four major foreign contributors to the English vocabulary in earlier times were French,
Latin, Greek and Scandinavian .
21. Though still at work today , borrowing can hardly compare with what it was in the past.
22. It can be concluded that English has evolved from a synthetic Language(Old English) to the
present analytic Language.
23. Modern English vocabulary develops through three channels: creation, semantic change,
borrowing.
24. The word of “recollection” is formed by creation.
25. The first people known to inhabit the British isles were Celts. Their languages were Celtic.
26. Besides French words, English also absorbed as many as 2,500 words of Dutch origin in the
Middle English period.
名词解释：
1. creation（创造新词）: Creation refers to the formation of new words by using the existing
materials, namely roots, affixes and other elements. In Modern times, creation is the most
important way of vocabulary expansion.
2. semantic change（旧词新意）: Semantic change means an old form which takes on a new
meaning to meet the new need.
3. borrowing（借用外来词语）: Borrowing has played a vital role in the development of vocabulary, particularly in earlier times.
4. Old English（古英语）: It refers to the Language used from 450 to 1150.
5. Middle English（中世纪英语）: It refers to the Language used from 1150 to 1500.
6. Modern English（现代英语）: It refers to the Language used from 1500 up to the present.
论述问答题：
1. What are eight principal language in the Indo-European Language family（印欧语系）?
答：They are Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Albanian, Celtic, Italic, Hellenic and
Germanic.
2. What are the causes of more new words appearing today?
答：the rapid development of modern science and technology.；
Social, economic and political changes.；
The influences of other cultures and languages.；
3. What are three main modes of vocabulary developments?
答：Creation creates new words by using existing materials.
Semantic change. An old form takes on a new meaning to meet the new need.
Borrow words from other Languages.
Chapter 3
Word Formation I
重点知识锦集：
1. It seems to be generally agreed that a word is the smallest unit of a Language that stands
alone to communicate meaning.
2. In other words, the morpheme is ‘the smallest functioning unit in the composition of words’.
3. Morphemes are abstract units, which are realized in speech by discrete units known as morphs.
4. The morpheme to the morph what a phoneme is to a phone.
5. Allomorphs as such do not occur at random, but are phonetically conditioned and thus
predictable.
6. Morphemes can be divided into free morphemes and bound morphemes.
7. Bound morphemes are chiefly found in derived words.
8. Bound morp

hemes include two types: bound root and affix.
9. According to the functions of affixes, we can put them into two groups: inflectional affixes and
derivational affixes.（内部曲折词缀和派生词缀）
10. A monomorphemic word is a word that consists of a single free morpheme.
11. Chiefly found in derived words, bound morphemes(黏着语素) include bound roots,
inflectional affixes, derivational affixes.
12. The plural morpheme ‘s’ is realized by /s/ after the sounds /t, p, k/ and by /z/ after /d, b, g, l/
13. In the Eastern Set, Albanian and Armenian are each the only modern language respectively.
名词解释：
1. morpheme（语素）: the minimal meaningful units are known as morphemes.
2. allomorphs（语素变体）: some morphemes, however, are realized by more than one morph
according to their position in a word. Such alternative morphs are known as allomorphs.
3. free morphemes（自由语素）: Morphemes which are independent of other morphemes are
considered to be free. These morphemes have complete meanings in themselves and can be used
as free grammatical units in sentences.
4. bound morphemes（黏着语素）: morphemes which can not occur as separate words are bound. They are so named because they are bound to other morphemes to form words.
5. bound root（黏着词根）: a bound root is that part of the word that carries the fundamental
meaning just like a free root. It’s a bound form and has to combine with other morphemes to
make words.
6. affixes（词缀）: Affixes are forms that are attached to words or words elements to modify
meaning or function.
7. inflectional affixes（曲折词缀）: Affixes attached to the end of words to indicate
grammatical relationships are inflectional, thus known as inflectional morphemes.
8. derivational affixes（派生词缀）: As the term indicates, derivational affixes are affixes added
to other morphemes to creat new words. Derivational affixes can be further divided into prefixes
and suffixes.
9. root（词根）: A root is the basic form of a word which can not be further analysed without
total loss of identity. It is that part of a word form that remains when all inflectional and
derivational affixes have been removed.
10. stem（词干）: A stem can be defined as a form to which affixes of any kind can be added.
论述问答题：
1. What are the differences between root and stem?
答：① A root is the basic form of a word which can not be further analysed without total loss of
identity. The root whether free or bound generally carries the main component of meaning in a
word.
② A stem may consist of a single root morpheme as in “iron”or of two root morphemes as in
a compound like “handcuff”. It can be a root morpheme plus one or more affixational morphemes
as in “mouthful”. Therefore, a stem can be de

fined as a form to which affixes of any kind cab be
added.
2. Analyze the morphological structure of the following words in terms of free morpheme and
bound morpheme, then explain the differences between the two kinds of morphemes.
Unhappily
Idealistic
答:①Each of two words consists of three morphemes:unhappily(un+happy+ly),
idealistic(ideal+ist+ic).
②“happy” and “ideal” are free morphemes; un-, -ly, -ist and –ic are bound morphemes.
③free morphemes have complete meanings in themselves and can be used as free
grammatical units in sentences. Bound morphemes must be bound to other morphemes to form
words.
3. Analyze the morphological structures of the following words and point out types of the
morphemes. recollection, nationalist, unearthly.
答：recollection, nationalist, unearthly
1) Each of the three words consists of three morphemes:recollection(re+collect+ion),
nationalist(nation+al+ist), unearthly(un+earth+ly).
2) Of the nine morphemes, only “collect” “nation” and “earth” are free morphemes as they can
exist by themselves.
3) All the rest are bound morphemes as none of them can stand alone as words.