Pavlk2017EnglishLexicologyI-1

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2 What is a word?

2.1 Types of words

The definition of a word is a very difficult task, because it can be approached from a number of perspectives. For example, one word in one language may be two or more words in another, e.g. compare the Slovak word bežal with its English counterpart he was running. Furthermore, should we consider the words run, runs, running, ran as four separate words, or as one word? Or should we treat the word bank with its different meanings (banka, breh) as one word or more words? To solve this problem, linguists usually distinguish between the following types of words:

Orthographic words

These are words with different spelling, e.g. scary and scarey.

Phonological words

Words with different phonological structure e.g. economic / ek n m k/ and / i k n m k/ are considered to be different phonological words.

Lexical words (Lexemes)

Lexical words are abstractions consisting of a group of variant forms (wordforms) with the same basic meaning, e.g.

shoot, shoots, shooting, shot = lexeme ‘shoot’(v.), is, am, was, were, etc. = lexeme ‘be’,

hard, harder, hardest = lexeme ‘hard’.

On the other hand, the noun shoot and the verb to shoot are normally considered to be two different lexemes.

Grammatical words

All forms with different grammatical categories and meanings are different grammatical words, e.g. shoot, shoots, shooting, and shot. However, note that one word-form can have several grammatical meanings. For instance, the wordform shot can be either a past tense or a past participle (i.e. two different grammatical words). Similarly, the word-form shooting can function as a noun

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or a verb. On the other hand, two different words-forms, e.g. dreamed and dreamt, can have the same grammatical meaning – they count as one grammatical word.

Semantic words (Sememes)

One word-form can have different (related or unrelated) meanings, e.g. the word-form shoot means (1) to fire a gun, (2) to kill/injure, (3) to kick a ball, (4) to film, etc.

EXERCISES

1 What is the other possible spelling of these words?

2 Give at least two possible pronunciations of the following words (in BrE).

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3 Read this text. How many lexemes can you find?

Kate Connolly, The Guardian, October 2016

“In Britain we use our history in order to comfort us to make us feel stronger, to remind ourselves that we were always, always deep down, good people,” he said. “Maybe we mention a little bit of slave trade here and there, a few wars here and there, but the chapters we insist on are the sunny ones,” he said.

4 Give all word-forms of the following lexemes.

be:

see:

do:

antenna:

break:

5 Are the underlined words grammatically the same or not?

(a)a house built of stone – David built us a shed – She’s built a new career

(b)He had proved his point – They proved him innocent

(c)The tall building has spoiled the view – The incident has spoilt the positive atmosphere between the opposing parties

(d)My feet are aching – We came on foot – Who will foot the bill?

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6 Fill in the appropriate noun. Use the words hand, head, and eye. How many different meanings of these words can you identify?



(a)You dealt me an appalling hand in that game!

(b)I can’t get that tune out of my _______.

(c)She took the child by the _______ and led her away.

(d)He nodded his _______ in agreement.

(e)He has no sight in his left _______.

(f)Let me give you a _______ with those bags.

(g)The picture quality, to my _______, is excellent.

(h)They own a hundred _______ of cattle.

(i)I suspect John had a _______ in this.

(j)She sat at the _______ of the table.

(k)Mary will keep an _______ on the kids this afternoon.

(l)You should discuss the matter with your _______ of department.

(m)Go through the list with a critical _______.

(n)The letter was written in a neat _______.

(o)Teachers were turning a blind _______ to smoking in school.

(p)You must be off your _______ if you think that.

(q)The _______ of a storm is a circular area at the centre of tropical cyclones.

(OALD, CALD, LDCE)

2.2 Main features of lexemes

Lexemes, being the result of mental analysis and categorization of the extralingual reality, have the following main features:

Arbitrariness

This property describes the fact that a lexeme (a linguistic form) usually lacks any physical correspondence with the objects, states, processes, etc. of the reality to which it refers. For example, the word book does not tell us anything

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about the shape, colour, function, etc. of the object to which it refers. The relationship between the sound form /bʊk/ and the concept of the book is arbitrary. This is why we can have completely different linguistic forms in different languages referring to the same concept (e.g. tree, strom, Baum, дерево, etc.). Sometimes, however, the relation between the sound form and the concept is not arbitrary (e.g. splash, ding-dong, miaow, etc.), and such words are considered to be phonetically motivated.

Conventionality

Traditionally, the arbitrariness of words is also called conventionality. However, conventionality can be thought of as a separate property of lexemes, and it will be used here to refer to the fact that lexemes are a matter of agreement and convention accepted by the members of a given community. For example, the relationship between the sound form and the concept can be in some cases nonarbitrary (e.g. woof-woof, miaow, etc.), but these non-arbitrary sound forms are nonetheless conventional (established), because they represent particular forms agreed upon by the members of a society. Put differently, individual English speakers cannot form their own words referring to the sounds that dogs or cats make (e.g. boof-boof or niaow) – such forms would not be conventional. Most lexemes in languages are conventional, but there may be exceptions. These are, for instance, newly coined words which are only used on one particular occasion or by one particular person. When they are accepted and used by other members of the society, they become conventional.

EXERCISES

1 Find the words which do not completely lack physical correspondence with the objects, states, etc. of the extra-lingual reality.

(a)He was wearing a faded pair of blue jeans and an old T-shirt.

(b)I heard the pitter-patter of tiny feet.

(c)He made a quick U-turn and sped away.

(d)Someone was screaming for help.

(e)Get the V-shaped body you always wanted!

(f)The water made a gurgling noise as it ran down the drain.

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2 Place the underlined words into the following 4 categories:

(a)arbitrary + conventional:

(b)non-arbitrary + conventional:

(c)arbitrary + non-conventional:

(d)non-arbitrary + non-conventional:

My little dog doesn’t go woof-woof, it goes chiff-chiff.

Some learners of English use the word importancy instead of importance. Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

The tendency towards universality and abstraction

Every object, action, state etc. of extra-lingual reality cannot have its own lexeme associated with it, i.e. the individual lamps, windows, pencils, etc. cannot have their own names. We must therefore always apply abstractions when we name units of extra-lingual reality. According to their needs, language users may coin words which represent different degrees of abstraction, e.g. an animal > a vertebrate > a mammal > a carnivore > a dog > a setter, etc. Such processes of abstraction may produce different results in different languages. For example, in Hawaii they have no general word for weather (although they supposedly have around 150 rain words), in some African languages they have separate words for the left hand and the right hand, but no word for hand in general, etc.

Furthermore, different languages may select different aspects of reality to name the same/similar concepts. For example, the words table and stôl refer to the same concept in both English and Slovak, but they are focused on different aspects of the same reality: table = a square board, stôl = something that stands.

EXERCISES

3 Arrange these words into groups and rank them according to the degree of their abstraction:

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square, colour, move, quadrilateral, father, mammal, red, armchair, polygon, scarlet, go, furniture, come, parent, arrive, human, chair, primate, shape, John

shape > polygon >

4 Which word of the pair is more abstract?

5 Translate these words into Slovak. What is the difference between English and Slovak in terms of the degree of their abstraction?

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6 Translate these English words and phrases into Slovak. What aspects of reality do they focus on in English and in Slovak?

(a)sitting room –

(b)headphones –

(c)half past four –

(d)tax return –

(e)upside down –

(f)bedside table –

(g)timetable –

(h)soup plate –

(i)coniferous tree –

(j)deciduous tree –

Motivation

Words in a language are often not formed as brand new semantic and structural units. Many words are coined as a result of some kind of motivation, i.e. the creation of a new word is motivated by (based on) some piece of reality. Such motivation can be phonetic, morphological, or semantic.

(a)Phonetic motivation: the word imitates a sound existing in the extra-lingual reality – buzz, boom, woof-woof.

(b)Morphological motivation: the new word is based on the morphemes already existing in a language – rethink (based on re+think), writer (based on write+er), bedroom (based on bed+room), photo (shortened from photograph), etc.

(c)Semantic motivation: the new word (its meaning) is based on an already existing word, and the new meaning is derived from the original one – a hand (a human hand → a hand of a clock), to see (to perceive with eyes → to understand), black (of dark colour → bad/illegal), etc.

EXERCISES

7 Match the sound with the correct animal.

8 Find the correct verb and sound that these animals make.

cock (BrE)/rooster (AmE) dog

cat cow pig donkey sheep goat frog pigeon

9 Underline words which are motivated. Determine the type of motivation.

Has the secret of eternal youth been found? Researchers pinpoint chemical they say ‘has the potential to postpone aging’

Cheyenne Macdonald, Daily Mail, October 2016

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Researchers have identified a key factor in the aging process they say could one day lead to longer lives. In a new study on mice and roundworms, researchers found that adding a chemical known as coenzyme NAD+ postponed physical aging and extended the subjects’ lives.

‘Our new study shows an age-dependent decrease in the level of NAD+, and this decrease is far greater for organisms with early aging and a lack of DNA repairs,’ says Professor Vilhelm Bohr, from the Center for Healthy Aging and the National Institute of Health.

The effects have not yet been investigated in humans, but researchers say similar results are expected to be seen. This is based on the universal nature of the cell repair mechanisms, which are found in all living organisms. The findings uncover a major player in the aging process, which in many ways remains a mystery.

According to the researchers, this new understanding could be a step toward the goal of life extension and the postponing of physical aging, with potential to one day prevent neurodegenerative diseases in humans.

 Chapter 2 – Further reading:

Bauer 1983: chapters 2.2 and 2.4 Cruse 2000: chapters 1.2.1, 1.2.2, 5.1.1

Ginzburg et al. 1979: chapters 2.17 – 2.19

Hladký and Růžička 1996: chapter 6

Huddleton and Pullum 2002: chapter 19.1.1 Jackson 1988: chapters 1 and 10

Jackson and Zé Amvela 2007: chapter 3.1

Kvetko 2009: chapter 2.1

Lančarič 2016: chapter 2.1.2

Plag 2003: chapter 1.1 Singleton 2000: chapter 1.3 Vachek 1990: part II (1)