English LexicologyA General Survey of English Vocabulary

Week 1

Instructor: LIU Hongyong

Definition of Lexicology

Lexicology, as a branch of linguistics, is concerned with the study of the vocabulary of a particular language.

word stockthe stock of words all the words

English lexicology: the study of the vocabulary of the English language.

Chinese lexicology: the study of the vocabulary of the Chinese language.

Russian lexicology: the study of the vocabulary of the Russian language.

Japanese lexicology : the study of the vocabulary of the Russian language.

…

English and English Vocabulary English has long been regarded as an

international language, a world language, a global language, a lingua franca, or a common language.

English is used as the official language in

Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and some Caribbean countries.

English and English Vocabulary The English vocabulary is one of the

largest and richest. The general estimate of the present-day English vocabulary is over one million words.

Vocabulary, Lexis, and Lexicon

The words ‘vocabulary’, ‘lexis’, and ‘lexicon’ are synonyms. Normally, they can be used interchangeably and refer to the same thing. They all refer to all the words (the stock of words) in a particular language.

The slight difference among them is that ‘vocabulary’ is a common and colloquial

word, ‘lexicon’ is an academic word. ‘lexis’ is an in-between.

Vocabulary, Lexis, and Lexicon

Vocabulary, Lexis, and Lexicon

They are in contrast to the word ‘dictionary’. A dictionary is simply a selective recording of the vocabulary (all the words) of a particular language at a specific point in time.

Discussion

How many words are there in each of the following sentences?

I’m a student, and he is an English teacher.

He is a Chinese music teacher.

He is a Chinese English teacher.

He is an English Chinese music teacher.

The morning star is the evening star.

What constitutes a word? The notion of ‘word’ is central in the study of lexicology.

What exactly do we mean by the term ‘word’ in lexicology? How many words do you think there are in the following couplet (The Tempest (V.i.88) by Shakespeare)?

Where the bee sucks, there suck IIn a cowslip’s bell I lie.

蜜蜂采蜜的地方有我，我躺在野樱草的钟形花冠中。

Question

Are “suck” and “sucks” the same word or they are two different words? Are “give”, “gives”, “gave”, and “given” the same word or they are different words?

We can solve this question by saying that suck and sucks are two different WORD FORMS representing just one LEXEME. Sucking and sucked are other word forms which also stand for the lexeme SUCK.

Lexeme and Word-form

Lexemes are vocabulary items that are listed in the dictionary. A lexeme may have several different realizations, which are called the word forms of the lexeme.

The word-forms are different realizations of the lexeme

tall, taller, tallest tallboy, boys boywomen, woman womansee, sees, seeing, saw, seen see

Lexeme

Apparently, ‘word’ is an ambiguous notion. It can refer to ‘lexeme’ and ‘word form’. ‘word’ is a colloquial and vague term. The more accurate and academic terms should be ‘lexeme’ and ‘word form’. In the study of English vocabulary, we are interested more in lexemes than in word forms.

The term lexeme also embraces lexical items such as phrasal verbs (give up) and idioms (kick the bucket). Here, KICK THE BUCKET is a lexeme and would appear as a single dictionary entry.

Question: how many words do we have in the following list?

give gives giving gave given

Lexeme

Do you know how many words Shakespeare knows?According to Bauer L. (1998), “the figures that are

usually cited for Shakespeare’s vocabulary, which credit him with knowing (or at least, having used – he probably knew a lot more, and seems to have invented a few!) about 30,000 different words, count word-forms rather than lexemes. If we counted lexemes, the result would be under 20,000.”

(30,000—word forms; 20,000—lexeme)

Orthographic Definition （按拼写定义）

According to the orthographic definition of a word, a word is a sequence of letters bounded on either side by a space or punctuation mark. This definition is based on such activities as counting the number of words in an essay, a telegram, a shopping list, etc.

However, not all languages mark word boundaries, the most prominent of these being Chinese. The orthographic definition cannot be applied to Chinese.

An orthographic definition is purely based on the written form of a word. It is not sensitive to distinctions of meaning (e.g. fair) or grammatical function.

Orthographic Definition （按拼写定义）

Definition

A word is defined by the association of a given sense with a given group of sounds capable of a given grammatical use. (Antoine Meillet)

Problem: We cannot differentiate a word from a phrase.

A word should be a minimum unit.

Definition

A word may be defined as a fundamental unit of speech and a minimum free form; with a unity of sound and meaning (both lexical and grammatical meaning), capable of performing a given syntactic function. (taken from our textbook)

Problem: Is a, if, not free or bound? “Free” in what sense?

Morphologically free, but syntactically bound.

The longest English word Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis　肺尘病Morphological analysis:形态切分

pneumono-ultra-micr-o-scop-ic-silic-o-volcano-coni-osis

pneumon (as in pneumonia), ultra ‘extremely’ (as in ultraconservative), microscopic　 (micr ‘small’, scop ‘view’, and -ic, which makes it an adjective.) silic (as in silicon), coni ( ‘dust’, as in coniology ‘study of the health effects of dust’), -osis (‘disease’ as in tuberculosis’).

Semantic analysis:语义分析pneumono-ultra- microscopic-silic-o-volcano-coni-osis‘lung-extremely-microscopic-silicon-volcanic-dust-disease’ ‘lung disease (caused by) microscopic volcanic silicon dust’

(Notice that the meaning ‘caused by’ is not carried by any particular elements in the word, but must be inferred from the other meanings)

Words have magic powers!

The most obvious example illustrating this statement is the social tradition associated with the use of those very special words, people’s names.

In Borneo, for example, the name of a sickly child is traditionally changed, so that the spirits tormenting it will be deceived and leave the child alone. The spirits, apparently, can recognize people only by their names, not through other characteristics.

Do you believe

?

Words have magic powers!

In Ancient China, it was a crime to use the name of a reigning emperor. If this occurred in an English-speaking country today where the emperor’s name was Bill, it would be illegal to talk about a bill from the electricity company, a bill before parliament or the bill of a bird.

That is absurd and ridiculous,

but it is our tradition!

Words have magic powers!

A Zulu woman is not allowed to utter the name of her husband or the names of his parents.

The Zulu are the largest South African ethnic group of an estimated 10-11 million people who live mainly in South Africa. Small numbers also live in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Mozambique. Their language, Zulu, is a Bantu language.

Do you believe?

Words have magic powers!

It used to be the case in China that a doctor who did not have the appropriate drug for his patient would write the name of the drug on a piece of paper, burn it, and ask the patient to eat the ashes. It was believed that the name of the drug would be just as efficient as the drug itself.

Do you believe?

How come the ancient Chinese people had such

unbelievable beliefs? Is it

just superstition?

One theory about the origin of these beliefs is that the magic of names is established as children learn language. As soon as small children learn the names for things, they can use those names and the item they name will appear – usually because some kind adult or older brother or sister fetches it.

Words have powers! Do you believe? Even new born babies

know this secret.

Words have powers!

The link between saying the word and the appearance of the thing is a very strong one. Knowing the word is equivalent to having power over the object.

Words have powers!

Example of my neighbor‘s little child, who is only one and a half years old. These days he no longer wets his pants. His mother told me that several days ago he was able to utter “Niao Niao” and “Bu Niao Niao”.