Академия управления при Президенте Республики Беларусь
______________________________________________________________
Л.М. ЛЕЩЁВА
English Vocabulary
and
a Guide to Its Learning
Курс лекций
Рекомендовано редакционно-издательским советом
Академии управления при Президенте Республики Беларусь
Минск
2009
УДК 811.111(076.6)
ББК 81.2 Англ
Л54
Рецензенты:
заведующий кафедрой делового английского языка
факультета международных бизнес-коммуникаций БГЭУ,
кандидат филологических наук, доцент В. С. Слепович
заместитель заведующего кафедрой иностранных языков
факультета инновационной подготовки Института управленческих кадров
Академии управления при Президенте Республики Беларусь,
кандидат педагогических наук, доцент С. М. Володько
Лещева, Л.М.
Л54
English Vocabulary and a Guide to Its Learning: курс лекций. – Мн.:
Акад. упр. при Президенте Респ. Беларусь, 2009. – 99 с.
ISBN 978-985-457-960-3
Тематика курса лекций направлена на описание важнейших характеристик
английского слова (фонетических, этимологических, семантических, морфологических,
словообразовательных, частотных, системных, комбинаторных и др.) и способов
овладения ими. Курс лекций призван способствовать более осознанной и эффективной
работе в процессе изучения словарного состава английского языка в целом и лексической
подсистемы «государственное управление» в частности.
Предназначен для студентов 2 курса Института управленческих кадров Академии
управления при Президенте Республики Беларусь, а также для всех интересующихся
вопросами изучения английского языка.
УДК 811.111(076.6)
ББК 81.2 Англ
ISBN 978-985-457-960-3
© Академия управления при
Президенте Республики Беларусь, 2009
CONTENTS
Lecture 1. FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING THEORIES ……..
1. Language Acquisition …………………………………….
2. Second Language vs. Foreign Language Learning ………
3. Child Language Acquisition vs. Adult Foreign Language
Learning ……………………………………………...
4. A Historical Overview of Foreign Language Learning
Methodology …………………………………………
5. The Concept of Foreign Language Learning at the
Academy of Public Administration under the Aegis of
the President of the Republic of Belarus ……………
6. The Aims of the Course of Lectures “English Vocabulary
and a Guide to Its Learning” …………………………
Suggestions for Additional Reading ………………………...
Questions and Exercises …………………………………...
Lecture 2. LEXICON EMERGENCE ………………………………...
1. Lexicon Emergence ………………………………………
a) Categorization and Naming ………………………….
b) Universal Ways of Naming ………………………….
2. Motivation and Demotivation of Names …………………
3. Cross-Language Vocabulary Differences as Results of
Categorization and Naming Divergences …………….
Suggestions for Additional Reading ………………………...
Questions and Exercises …………………………………….
Lecture 3. BORROWING IN ENGLISH ……………………………..
1. Etymological Survey of the English Vocabulary ………...
2. Native Words in English ………………………………….
a)
Anglo-Saxon
Words
………………………………….
b)
Early
Insular
Borrowings
……………………………
3. Later Borrowings in English ……………………………...
4. Loans and Native Words Relation ………………………..
a) Assimilation of Borrowings ………………………….
b) Etymological Doublets ………………………………
c) Belligerence of Borrowings ………………………….
5. Learning Native and Loan English Words ……………….
Suggestions for Additional Reading ………………………...
Questions and Exercises …………………………………….
Lecture 4. WORD FORMATION IN ENGLISH …………………….
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1. Major Ways of Word Formation …………………………
1) Compounding ………………………………………..
2) Affixation ………….………………………...………
a) Prefixation ………………………………………
b) Suffixation ……………………………………...
3) Conversion ………..…………………………...……..
2. Minor Ways of Word Formation …………………………
Suggestions for Additional Reading ………………………...
Questions and Exercises …………………………………….
Lecture 5. LEXICALIZED WORD GROUPS AND POLYSEMY AS
MEANS OF VOCABULARY GROWTH IN ENGLISH
1. Word Groups as Naming Units in English ……………….
1)
Word
Groups
in
Taxonomies
………………………..
2)
Word Groups as Collocations and Phraseological
Units
2. Lexical-Semantic Variant of a Word as a Naming Unit in
English ………………………………………………..
1) The Use of Lexical-Semantic Naming in English …...
2) Polysemy as the Result of Lexical-Semantic Naming
3) Regularities in Polysemy …………………………….
4) Semantic Structures of Correlated Words in Different
Languages ……………………………………………
3. Homonymy ……………………………………………….
Suggestions for Additional Reading ………………………...
Questions and Exercises …………………………………….
Lecture 6. BUILDING A BETTER VOCABULARY ………………..
1. What’s in a Name? ……………………………………….
2. English Lexicon as a Structure and a System …………….
3. Building a Better Individual Vocabulary …………………
4. A Case Study ……………………………………………..
Suggestions for Additional Reading ………………………...
Questions and Exercises …………………………………….
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Lecture 1.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING THEORIES
Plan
1. Language Acquisition
2. Second Language vs. Foreign Language Learning
3. Child Language Acquisition vs. Adult Foreign Language Learning
4. A Historical Overview of Foreign Language Learning Methodology
5. The Concept of Foreign Language Learning at the Academy of Public
Administration under the Aegis of the President of the Republic of
Belarus
6. The Aims of the Course of Lectures “English Vocabulary and a Guide
to its Learning”
1.
Language Acquisition
We acquire our native, mother tongue, or first language (FL) very easily. The
first language competence is developed by stages (babbling, first words, the
two-word stage, telegraphic speech, adult-like utterances), each successive
stage being closer to the adult language. Before the age of 4-5 young children
are already linguistically and communicatively competent in their mother
tongue, that is, they know the complex rules of grammar and the appropriate
social use of language.
But the most amazing thing is that nobody teaches a child complex language
rules. A child figures out them from very ‘noisy’ outside data by itself.
How does a child accomplish this task?
Many theories have been proposed to explain this unique phenomenon: the
imitation theory, the reinforcement theory, the use of analogy theory, the
constructivist theory, etc. But none of these so far can fully explain the ease and
rapidity of mother tongue acquisition by a young child despite impoverished
input of language data available to him or her.
Nowadays, there seems to be little doubt that the human brain is specially
equipped for acquisition of a human language. The major reasons for young
6
children’s effortless mother language acquisition are believed to be biological
and cognitive.
According to the innateness hypothesis of language acquisition, these days
associated mainly with the name of N. Chomsky though it has a very long
history, children come into the world with a considerable amount of innate
knowledge encoded in our genes that makes language acquisition possible, with
certain expectations about what is a possible language, and with a strong innate
motivation to speak like any human being.
This ability, however, is weakened with age. According to the Critical Age
Hypothesis there is a critical age for language acquisition without special
teaching and learning. After this period, acquisition of the grammar, for
example, is difficult and, for some individuals, never fully acquired. Eric
Lenneberg (1967) first proposed that the ability to learn a native language
develops within a fixed period, from birth to puberty. Abandoned and isolated
(‘feral’ or wild) children who grow up without the normal conditions for
language learning up till the age of 11-12 remain without language.
2.
Second Language vs. Foreign Language Learning
We are living in the world now where almost every young person who wants to
succeed in life, to make a good career, to expand his or her own horizons, and to
improve professional skills is eager to become a bilingual to be able to express
himself or herself quite freely in two languages.
The most effective and enjoyable way to become bilingual and to be good at
understanding and speaking two languages is to acquire a second language
(LII) at an early age in the country of the target language. To acquire good
English as a second language, for example, one should start living in one of the
English-speaking countries at the age somewhere under 4-5.
A person may become bilingual via one of the parents or nurses. The history
knows many examples of people who managed to acquire a second language
being exposed to it and its culture only through a parent or a nurse. They say, the
Russian tsar Alexander I, for example, spoke French even better than the French
Emperor Napoleon due to the good native-born teachers of French invited to
Russia to teach him.
7
But the absolute majority of people who try to become bilingual are not so lucky
and do not acquire a second language in an early childhood in a natural
environment or via personally invited highly qualified teachers. Most of them
learn another language not as a second language but as a foreign language (FL)
at school or university in artificial foreign language environment and at the age
older than 4-5 or even 12. (The word foreign comes from Old French forain,
from Vulgar Latin forānus ‘situated on the outside’.)
3. Child Language Acquisition vs. Adult Foreign Language Learning
There are many strong points that adults have but young children lack in foreign
language learning. The following factors, for example, should have made adults
more successful learners than young children:
• adults have already experience of learning a language, some
knowledge about language structure, some metalinguistic knowledge
that enables them to talk about language;
• they have acquired certain skills in memorizing, imitating, reading and
writing, using dictionaries, asking proper questions;
• they are more creative in the process of learning, etc.
All this should provide a good and reliable basis for their success in foreign
language learning. And yet, it does not seem to be enough, because too many
adult foreign language learners happen to be failures despite their hard work
over a foreign language for years.
Robert Bley-Vroman /Bley-Vroman, 1989/ and other adherents of the
Fundamental Difference Hypothesis point out to some fundamental
characteristics of adult foreign language learning that differ from language
acquisition by a child:
A very important difference of FLL by adults is that they have
already a language, and it radically reduces their motivation and causes
additional difficulties in overcoming mistakes made by transfer, or the
interference of their mother tongue. For a long time, if not forever, an adult is
within the confines of his/her mother tongue. Learning a foreign language means
to adults struggling the confines of their mother tongue, learning a new culture,
1.
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a new way of thinking, feeling, and acting, in addition to one they have already
acquired, and all this makes them less successful learners.
Adults learn a foreign language in a totally different way. They learn it
consciously, observing similarities and differences in language structure,
expecting their teachers to give all necessary explanations on time and most
efficiently. Formal instruction is necessary for adults while children do not
require special organized formal lessons to learn their first language. Thus, their
mere exposure to native-speaker input is not equally effective: it is enough for
the children to be just exposed to the language and to be part of the language
community; first and second language before four years old is naturally
acquired, picked up by children without special professional training. In
contrast to mother tongue or second language acquisition in early childhood,
foreign language is not acquired but learned by adults and it is a totally
different process.
2.
According to the motor theory account (Kuhl, 2004) we do not learn new
languages as easily at 20 as at 3 or 4 because adults are already neurally
committed to the link between the words of the first language and the elements
in their conceptual store. A second or foreign language being acquired by an
adult is in direct competition for neural space with the network structures
established for the first language.
Many neurophysiologic traits for easy and spontaneous language acquisition
are lost or weakened after ‘a critical period’ which is roughly connected with the
period of 11 years old, or puberty period, and this tells dramatically on the
process of a foreign language learning by an adolescent or adult.
The role of affect for adult foreign language learners is absolutely
evident while success in child language development seems unaffected by
personality, motivation, attitude, or the like. There are many factors that
influence the process of FLL by adults, for example, a student’s aptitude for it,
his/her motivation, a regular exposure to native users of the foreign language,
character features as well as teaching objectives and methods. Adults are
emotionally different from children: they are more self-conscious about FLL,
more reluctant to make mistakes, typically avoid occasions to use their foreign
language, and are less able to assimilate cultural differences.
3.
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Adults are taught a foreign language by their teachers in artificial
environment with limited or no exposure to native speakers, their culture and
behavioural patterns. So, adult FL learners have less time and opportunity to
accumulate LII experience than young children learning their mother tongue.
Some estimates suggest that it takes well over a year for an adult foreign
language learner to accumulate the language experience that a young child gets
in a month learning his/her mother tongue.
4.
The concept of success in adult foreign language learning is never
absolute but relative :
5.
a) There is no guarantied success of adult foreign language learning even
after many years of schooling and training no matter what methods are
used and how qualified the teachers are, while child success in first
language acquisition is universal unless there is some pathology.
b) Among adults, there is substantial variation in degree of success and
strategies of learning, even when age, instruction, and other important
factors are held constant.
c) Complete success in adult foreign language learning is almost
impossible. Only few people usually achieve fluency in a foreign
language solely within the confines of the classroom. Generally adult
learners have obvious difficulties in second and especially in foreign
language learning. Even adults who benefited from continued good
teaching, had relevant practice and acquired fluent command of a foreign
language – they still make persistent uncorrectable lexical and grammar
errors, not to mention their notable foreign accent.
Successful foreign language adult learners (older than 12 years old) are
quite rare. As an example a famous Polish-British novelist Joseph
Conrad (1857-1924) may be mentioned. He knew only a few English
words when he arrived in London at the age of 20 but later he wrote over
a dozen English novels. In England, however, he always spoke English
though with a prominent Polish accent.
d) Adults have different interests and aims in foreign language structure
learning. Some pay more attention to phonetics and have good
pronunciation but primitive grammar; others seem concerned about
10
grammatical correctness while their fluency may suffer. Some develop
just enough foreign language competence as it is necessary to pass an
English exam; others are working hard on passing for a native speaker.
e) And when their goal is achieved, adult foreign language learners usually
reach a certain stage of learning where they stabilize and their further
foreign language development cease.
So, there is a lot of evidence for biological and cognitive factors that determine
successful mother tongue acquisition by a young child and difficulties for
foreign language learning by an adolescence or adult. A child language
acquisition and adult foreign language learning are radically different, and the
process of teaching and learning a foreign language by an adult should be
addressed in a different way.
Before we discuss in a more detail the modern views on foreign language
methodology in the field of vocabulary learning, it is reasonable to make a short
historical overview of foreign language teaching/learning methods (these terms
will be used interchangeably because they are interconnected and interrelated) in
order to be aware about the recent achievements in this field and to be able to
opt for the most effective ways of individual learning a foreign language.
4. A Historical Overview of Foreign Language Learning Methodology
It is rather difficult to establish what real history of teaching foreign languages
is, and one reason for that is that this domain is heavily influenced by adjacent
fields – linguistics, philosophy, psychology, technology, as well as by
investments, and market demands. But its rough sketch may be presented in the
following way.
Up till the 19th century in the Western world at schools and universities the
phrase “foreign language learning” was synonymous to the learning of Latin and
Ancient Greek.
The aim of learning these languages was not communication (they are dead
languages and nobody speaks them now). These languages were thought to
promote intellectuality. Students were taught to be “scholarly”, i.e. to read and
appreciate ancient literature and to train memory through “mental gymnastics”.
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These classical languages were taught by means of Grammar/Translation
Method: by learning grammar, memorizing declensions and conjugations,
translation of pieces of texts, doing written exercises. Long elaborate
explanations of grammar were given. The only drills were exercises in
translation. Much vocabulary was taught in the form of lists of isolated words.
Classes were taught in the mother tongue. Reading of classical texts was offered
from the very beginning of learning.
However, the aim of learning a modern foreign language is totally different
from learning a dead classical language: people learn it to speak to mainly native
speakers and to understand them. So, modern languages should be taught
differently.
It should be admitted that methodology of teaching modern foreign languages in
a classroom is quite new but it is very diverse and rapidly developing.
The Series Method
Modern Foreign language methodology is believed to start with the French
teacher of Latin and Ancient Greek Francois Gouin who wrote the first book on
teaching/learning modern foreign languages – “The Art of Learning and
Studying Foreign Languages” (1880).
Having decided in his midlife to learn German, he took up residency in
Hamburg for one year. To master German he started memorizing a German
Grammar book and a table of 248 irregular German verbs. He did it in two days
and hurried to the Academy (University) to test his knowledge. But, alas, he
could not understand a single word and the professors did not understand him!
He returned to the isolation of his room, this time to memorize more rules and
more irregular verbs, but the result was the same. In the course of the year
Gouin memorized several Grammar books, 30,000 words in German from the
dictionary and translated Goethe and Schiller, but still he could not understand
German at all. After a year he returned back home a failure.
Upon returning home Gouin discovered that his 3-year-old nephew became a
chatter-box in French. After that Gouin spent a lot of time observing children
speech to discover the secret of their successful language learning. He came to
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the conclusion that language is the means of representing the world to oneself,
the means of translation perception into conception.
He worked out the Series Method which taught learners directly, without
translation or any rules and explanations. This method was based on teaching a
series of 15 connected sentences that are easy to perceive.
The first lesson in a foreign language would thus teach a set of 15 sentences
I walk to the door. I stop at the door. I stretch out my arm. I take hold of the
handle. I turn the handle. I open the door. The door moves. I open the door
wide, etc.
His sentences were easy to understand and to recall. Yet still there were too
many problems, and the method didn’t work very well.
But his ideas were implemented later at the turn of the century in the form of the
Direct Method.
The Direct Method
The basic idea of the Direct Method is that FLL should be more like the first
language learning: lots of active interaction, spontaneous use of the language,
no translation, little or no analysis of grammar rules. Both speech and listening
comprehension were taught. New teaching points were introduced orally.
Correct pronunciation and grammar were emphasized. Grammar was taught
inductively. Oral skills were taught in the form of question-and answer
exchanges between teachers and students in small classes. Only everyday
vocabulary was taught. Concrete vocabulary was taught through
demonstration. Abstract vocabulary was taught by association of ideas.
The Direct Method was very popular at private schools with small classes where
native teachers worked. The results depended too much on the general skills and
personality of a teacher. But this method did not work well at public schools
with big classes where it was not possible to give individual attention to pupils.
And it practically did not work at all with adult learners.
So, the economically difficult 30-ies of the 20th century saw a decline of the
Direct Method and the return to the Grammar/Translation Method where again
the reading approach and learning grammar rules were emphasized.
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The Audio-Lingual Method
During the WWII there was a bad need for interpreters, and military schools
provided the Army Method which was focused on developing oral skills. Later
in the 50-ies and 60-ies this method became known later as the Audio-Lingual
Method.
This method was based on behaviouristic learning theory. It claimed that human
behaviour, including speech activity, can be predicted and controlled. Language
was seen as a structure where certain verbal stimuli necessarily led to certain
reactions.
The Audio-Lingual method provided a lot of oral activities, pattern drills, and
conversations – with virtually no Grammar. This method is also characterized by
the following: little use was made of the mother tongue; tapes, language labs and
visual aids were widely used; structural patterns were taught and memorized by
using repetitive drills; new material was presented in the form of a dialogue;
neither grammar nor vocabulary was specially taught.
So, this method was based mainly on learning structural patterns by rote. But
though quite a lot language structures may be predicted, language is not a finite
list of separate structures, people use the language very creatively. This method
was not able to teach this creativity, and the learners too often failed to
understand and use the foreign language properly.
The Suggestopaedic Method
In psychiatry ‘suggestion’ means influence exercised over subconscious mind of
a person. Through suggestopedia we learn to believe in the great power of the
human brain to memorize information, including foreign language words and
sentences. This method is also based on learning by rote. As a matter of fact this
is not a totally new method, but a set of the newest memorizing techniques based
on psychological findings.
Learners are encouraged to be relaxed and as childlike as possible. They
perform amusing roles of native speakers. Music is in the background. Chairs
are soft and comfortable. First reading of the parts is to the music. The students
follow the text. Each lesson is translated. Then they close their books and just
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listen to the teacher’s reading. The students silently leave the room. No
homework, just reading of the parts before going to bed.
As in the case with the audio-lingual method, it does not teach long-term
communicative proficiency. The skills are easily forgotten if not needed in the
short time after the intensive course of training. And then, foreign language
learning is a far more complicated enterprise than memorizing sentences,
dialogues, and texts. Though such students were able to utter many foreign
language units in a short period of training, their speaking and comprehensive
skills were too far from being decent. And then, only people with special
psychological traits were chosen for the foreign language training courses based
on suggestopaedia.
The Communicative Method
One of the most characteristic features of this method is that it aims at
developing communicative competence. For this aim they teach the main
communicative functions of the language. Some scholars (Alexander, 1975)
speak about 70 important communicative functions. The most common
everyday speech acts that require language knowledge may be reduced to 30 or
even to 15, like the following: greetings; invitations; introduction; apologies;
requests; agreeing; complaining; sympathizing; questioning, farewells, etc.
The forms of language used to accomplish these functions unconsciously
become part of the total linguistic repertoire of the foreign language learner.
Students are encouraged to deal with unrehearsed real communicative
situations. From the point of view of this communicative approach, the sentence
‘She has gone to Moscow’ is meaningless unless it is put into some of context,
like explanation ‘Why can’t Lena help you? – She has gone to Moscow’, or
giving information, in exclamations, etc. Fluency within this method is more
important than accuracy.
So, the proponents of this newest method also believe that a learner should learn
first how to do conversation, then how to interact verbally, and later out of this
interaction necessary syntactic structures characteristic of a foreign language are
developed.
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Numerous textbooks aimed at developing communicative skills with role-plays
and simulation games involving speaking, listening, reading, and writing, often
accompanied by tapes of native speakers were worked out and published that
made foreign language classes both interesting and enjoyable.
However, there are many questions concerning this method, too:
-
no matter how many communicatively important characteristics the
teacher tries to add to simulated situations, they still remain artificial: the
topic is decided by a teacher, or a textbook, a tape, etc., not by speakers
themselves; learners speak because they need to practise speaking, not
because there is a social or personal reason to speak;
-
a teacher gives a mark for learners’ speech activity while in real
communication in native language we just get what we want as a result of
communication;
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language from a teacher or a tape is adapted to learners’ level while
native speakers’ output is usually not adjusted, etc.;
-
the number of classes is limited, and it is very difficult to choose the
proper material for learning, describing the language specific
communicative strategies in, for example, starting or ending the
communication, etc.;
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this method is easier to teach for a native speaker than a non-native
speaker who is not proficient in the language enough to teach properly
different communicative strategies. And it is absolutely artificial to ask
learners to speak in the foreign language if teachers do not do so
themselves!
It is possible to state that the communicative method is the best one to express
the goals of foreign language teaching, to provide classrooms with textbooks
and other teaching materials that ensure that only foreign language is spoken
during communication practice, to pay attention to numerous psychological
factors accompanying foreign language learning.
Nevertheless, the biggest enigma remains – how to make an adult speak a
foreign language appropriately.
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5. The Concept of Foreign Language Learning at the Academy of Public
Administration under the Aegis of the President of the Republic of
Belarus
Unlike the mother tongue acquisition, everything matters in teaching adults a
foreign language like in teaching them any other subject, information system, or
skills. A modern theory on bilingualism and foreign language learning takes into
account many possible aspects of this process.
So, what should be taken into account while learning/teaching a foreign
language to achieve a success?
The famous poem by Richard Kipling runs:
I have six honest serving men,
They taught me all I knew.
Their names are What, and Why, and When,
And How, and Where, and Who.
Asking and answering these questions helps us to get to know the world better.
Asking such questions about the FLL process and discussing them with adult FL
learners will stimulate their learning and make this process more meaningful:
What? What is that the FL learner should learn and the teacher should teach?
Why? Why do learners attempt to learn the foreign language?
When? When, at what age and at what time does the foreign language learning
take place? It is impossible to acquire a native-like language competence having
a couple of classes a week. So, what is the amount of time spent in the activity
of learning the foreign language?
How? How does the learning take place? What strategies does a learner use?
How does it match the learner’s affective, emotional, personal, or intellectual
reasons for learning a foreign language and his or her natural abilities and styles
of learning?
Where? Where does the learner learn the language, does the artificial
environment of a classroom have a potential for the proper linguistic and
cultural context?
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Who? Who does the teaching? What is the teacher’s native language, experience
and training, knowledge of the foreign language and its culture, philosophy of
education, personality characteristics? How do the teachers and students interact
with each other as human beings engaged in linguistic communication?
The question ‘who does the learning?’ is equally important because teaching and
learning foreign language is a mutually dependable process. Where do learners
come from? What are their socioeconomic and education levels? Who are their
parents? What are their intellectual capacities? What sort of personality do they
have?
Usually students and their parents worry only about the who question, and
namely, who will teach. They are right; it is a very important question because
the success of FLL depends to a great extent on a teacher. And yet, the most
crucial questions are what and how questions because students mostly learn
what and how they are taught.
So, what is the concept of FLL at the Academy and what is that you are taught
at your classes of English at the Academy?
Taking into account the necessity of adults for formal instruction and conscious
approach, as well as the big role of their mother tongue in FLL, limited
exposure to the foreign language and culture, and their impressive metalinguistic
knowledge about their mother tongue that they already have, it is reasonable to
teach an adult the whole system of a foreign language to be better oriented in
foreign language details.
So, adult foreign language learners may benefit a lot from being taught some
linguistics. General information about the structure, origin and functioning of
the foreign language they learn would help them to become better and more
sophisticated learners. The teacher should be able to explain the language
phenomenon and the learner should be able to understand the linguistic
explanation and to be able to communicate about it.
This information about the foreign language system is necessary for developing
practical foreign language competence skills: speaking, reading, listening, and
writing, including taking lecture notes, to able to carry out different tasks in the
spheres of everyday, business, and professional communication.
18
And then, successful communication is not possible unless adult learners know
the adequate socio-cultural environment of communication and the subject of
talking that should also be taught.
Putting it in other words, the contents of FLL at the Academy presuppose the
following three types of learning:
learning about the foreign language (doing some linguistics:
learning foreign language grammar, phonetics, words analysis, and
foreign language learning theory);
a)
learning the foreign language itself (learning its language
elements, patterns, and skills in speaking, listening, reading, and
writing);
b)
learning through the foreign language (for example, learning
history and culture of the English-speaking countries, and learning new
professional information about public administration, law, economics,
and information technologies).
c)
And now, the other crucial question is how you should learn foreign languages
here.
It is a very important question and finding the correct answer to it may lead the
whole enterprise of FLL to success or failure, but this question is easier to ask
than to answer.
First of all, the theory of FLL is so far not sufficiently enough developed, we still
know too little about this exclusively complex cognitive process on the part of
both learners and teachers that includes an infinite number of variables, and the
fact that learning a foreign language in a classroom is not always successful is
partially due to the insufficiently developed FLL theory.
Secondly, there is no universal method of teaching and learning that fits all
people and all needs. Development of skills of sending messages in a foreign
language successfully and receiving them adequately demands total
commitment, involvement, a great physical, intellectual, and emotional work on
the part of the learner and the teacher.
19
Yet, the most important principles of FLL methodology that we adhere to are
the following:
 We try to teach and hope you will learn a foreign language consciously,
on the basis of rules and explanations. Too much rote activity could
stifle the learning process. Yet, some imitation and learning by rote in
unavoidable because much of the everyday speech is patterned.
 The adult teaching/learning should be systemic. You cannot learn the
elements of a foreign language system separately, as a list of
inventory. You should learn the language elements as you learn people
– you should the their form, their meaning, the information about
their origin and relations to other language units, and the way they
function in speech, in some kind of utterances and texts, which should
be carefully chosen to answer many requirements.
 And then, since adults learn a foreign language in a different way than
children acquire their mother tongue, all their cognitive, affective and
biological peculiarities should be most intensively activated in FLL.
The adult teaching/learning should be meaningful, informative,
interesting, and adjusted to their future needs.
5. The Aims of the Course of Lectures “English Vocabulary and a Guide to
Its Learning”
While in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century it was grammar that was
central to foreign language teaching and learning, now it is vocabulary, or
lexicon that received the greatest interest of scholars and teachers.
Vocabulary is the most numerous and complex component of the language
structure. We are learning it through all our life and our ability to learn it is not
slowed down by age, as in the case with other components of the language –
grammar and phonetics.
The lexical approach to foreign language learning is based on the idea that the
most important part of communication in a foreign language is the ability to
comprehend and to produce words and word-like ready-made lexical units –
morphemes and phrases.
20
So, foreign language instruction should be focused, first of all, on learning
vocabulary, in addition to the general knowledge of grammar and phonetics
peculiarities of that language.
But learning vocabulary in a classroom is usually neglected, and it still presents
a great challenge to learners. Some general theory about it will be of great use.
This theory about word-stock, called Lexicology (a branch of linguistics), is part
of instruction of foreign language teachers, and it serves them well because it
gives general information about the subject they learn.
We strongly believe that any learner of a foreign language, and namely English,
should know basic characteristics of the whole English lexicon system, should
learn some English Lexicology, as he/she learns some theory about English
Grammar, traditionally taught in the classroom.
Since an adult learns English consciously, it will be of great use to him/her to
get to know about the essence of the word, origin of English words, their
specific morphological and meaning structure, the most important wordbuilding means and major ways of replenishing the English vocabulary, their
relation and combination with one another in speech. A learner of English
should also be aware of major standard variants of the English vocabulary, and
of the most reliable and well-known British and American dictionaries.
This general information about words in a human language and about the
English vocabulary system will serve as a guide for a learner to build an
extensive individual vocabulary and to use it adequately in communication.
So, accordingly, the aim of this course of lectures is threefold:
1) to teach the students some major issues about peculiarities of the English
words and the English lexicon, some of English words, as well as some
principles of successful English vocabulary learning in order to make
them independent and sophisticated learners;
2) to broaden students’ horizons and provide them with information on
human language in general, that can be later used in learning other foreign
languages or in their future work with people as public administrators;
21
3) to expose the students to intensive listening to the lecture in English and
to give them a chance to develop listening skills and skills in taking notes,
which is a part of the English curriculum here.
SUGGESTIONS FOR ADDITIONAL READING:
1. Bley-Vroman, Robert (1989). What is the Logical Problem of Foreign
Language Learning? // Linguistic Perspectives on Second Language
Acquisition. Ed. by Susan M.Gass and Jacquelyn Schlachter. – Cambridge,
New York, Port Chester, Melbourne, Sydney: Cambridge University Press. –
pp. 41-68.
2. Holme, Randal (2009). Cognitive Linguistics and Language Teaching. –
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England: Macmillan Publishers
Limited.
3. Kuhl, P. (2004). Early Language Acquisition: Cracking the Speech Code //
Nature 5. – pp. 831-843.
4. Moudraia, Olga. Lexical Approach to Second Language Teaching. – ERIC
(Educational Resources Information Center). June, 2001. ED-FL-01-02. –
http//www.cal.org/ericcll/digest/0102lexical.html
Questions and Exercises
Check if you know the following terms used in this Lecture:
• bilingual
• first language (LI), or mother/ native tongue
• second language (LII)
• foreign language (FL)
• language acquisition vs. language learning
• lexicon (vocabulary)
Questions:
1. What are the major differences between foreign and second language
learning (FLL and LII)?
22
2.
3.
4.
5.
What are the cognitive, affective and biological differences between first
language acquisition and foreign language learning by adults?
What are the most well-known methods of foreign language teaching?
What is the concept for FLL at the Academy? What are the contents and
methods of foreign language that have been used in your teaching? What
are the aims of this course of lectures?
How is new vocabulary presented to you by your teacher of English?
23
Lecture 2.
LEXICON EMERGENCE
Plan
Lexicon Emergence:
a) Categorization and Naming
b) Universal Ways of Naming
2. Motivation and Demotivation of Names
3. Cross-Language Vocabulary Differences as Results of Categorization
and Naming
1.
Before we procede to the major issue of our lectures – describing specific
characteristics of the Modern English vocabulary and working out guidelenes
for learning the English lexical system – let us see how we, human beings,
create names, no matter what languages we speak. We shall also discuss the
vocabulary distinctions between different languages caused by distinctions in
number and kind of items people of different language communities put in one
conceptual category or/and because of differences in used naming techniques.
1. Lexicon Emergence:
a) Categorization and Naming
We, human beings, and all living beings on the earth are classifying animals.
We classify, or categorize, the information we get into classes, or categories.
Categorization is matching new sense data and other information with the
stored in our mind conceptual prototypes – the most typical representatives of
the category. My dog may categorize a new comer on the basis of some samples
in his mind as a friend or an enemy, and will act accordingly. When in a store,
we categorize an unusual item as a cup or a bowl, and will use it accordingly,
etc. Without categorization survival of an organism is not possible.
But human beings go still further. We name categories to operate with them
more effectively, to store them into memory and retreat from it while thinking or
speaking. So, naming conceptual categories or concepts is a purely human
activity. Only people give names to concepts of people, objects, events, and
qualities. Danger calls in animals are not names yet: these calls are used ‘on-
24
line’ only, they are not used by animals to communicate about the past or future,
and they are too closely connected with emotions and desires. Some animals,
like chimps, can but do not want to name things /Aitchison 1996:96-97/, and
this makes them different from even small human children.
We name concepts, or lexicalize them with words (girl, nice) or their naming
equivalents: word groups (e.g., in fact, Civil Service) and lexical-semantic
variants (e.g., discipline 1) training mind and body to produce self-control and
habits of obedience (school ~) 2) the result of such training, order kept (there
was no ~ in the school) 3) subject of instruction (You are not good at history,
you’d better choose another ~), and store these names as ready-made units to
retreat them from our memory when they are needed.
However, not each conceptual category gets a name, or is lexicalized.
Lexicalization, or the process of naming, takes place only when the concepts
are especially important to people for sharing ideas about them and
communication. For many concepts there are no names in a language, or at
least they are not known to a layman. For example, we have different joints of a
finger but only one joint – a knuckle – is named and thus well known to English
speaking people.
The most important conceptual categories may have more than one name. For
example, there are hundreds synonyms in English for ‘drunk’ (boozy,
intoxicated, foxed, jolly, tight, D and D –‘drunk and disorderly’, balmy, loaded,
etc.), for ‘money’ (bucks, bread, bread and honey, beans, dough, cash, change,
gravy, jack, paper, scratch, etc.).
b) Universal Ways of Naming
There are four major naming strategies, or ways of naming that can be found
in all human languages. They are:
1.
borrowing a name from another language;
2.
lexical-semantic naming, or secondary use of the existing name for a
totally different concept;
3.
new word formation (derivation) on the basis of means available in a
language, and
25
4.
lexicalization of a free word group, i.e. transforming a word combination
it into one lexical unit that becomes ready-made.
Let us consider them more closely.
1. Borrowings (a term is not quite adequate: it implies the borrowed thing to be
returned back, but the borrowed name is not!) enter the lexical system of a
different language under certain linguistic and extralinguistic conditions.
One of the reasons for borrowing is the novelty of a concept for the language
community for each, however, there is a name in another language (cf.:
borrowings from English into Russian of интернет, PR-менеджер,
протекторат).
Another reason is a lexical gap in a language or absence of an economic and
easy-to-use name for some concept (сf. a Russian borrowing from Greek
харизма used instead of the native name ‘внутреннее обаяние’ or саммит
for ‘встреча или совещание глав правительств, встреча на высшем уровне’
or бестселлер for ‘наиболее ходовой товар, пользующаяся особенно
высокой популярностью среди читателей книга, наиболее раскупаемый
фильм, музыкальный диск, компьютерная игра и т. п.).
The reason for borrowing may also be just a high social prestige of a source
language (cf. the recent borrowing from English into Russian: коучинг for
‘репетиторство, работа с личным тренером’ or баннер for ‘флаг,
транспарант’).
The process of borrowing is facilitated when other words with similar phonetic
structure have already been borrowed. Thus, on analogy with the earlier
borrowed into Russian word митинг nowadays there are plenty –ing words in
Russian such as пирсинг, скрининг, дайвинг, роуминг.
There is also a special type of borrowing called calque, or loan translation. It
stands for a direct translation of the elements that a term consists of in the source
language into the target language. For example, the English word worldview is
thought to be a calque of the German Weltanschauung, antibody calques
German Antikörper. Yet this kind of borrowing is perceived rather as word
formation than borrowing.
26
2. The most economic way of creating a new name is lexical-semantic naming
– the use of an existing word or its equivalent to name a new somehow
associated category. Thus, extension ‘the act of extending’ is also used to denote
‘additional telephone set connected to the same telephone line’, ‘a room or
rooms added to an existing building’, or ‘top-level domain name, under which
domains are sold such as .co. or .org.’
3. But no matter how important borrowings or lexical-semantic naming may be
in the lexicon most of the names in any language are words formed of
linguistic means available there.
The most common, or major types of word formation, or word-derivation, in
all European languages are composition, or compounding words of two or
more free forms, and affixation (especially prefixing and suffixing).
There are also other ways for constructing new words connected with changing
some morphological characteristics of their predecessors, e.g., clipping,
blending, acronyms, abbreviations, back derivation, lexicalization, and some
others, usually referred to as minor ways of word formation.
4. The function of a new name may also be performed by a multiword
expression that becomes fixed and which acquires a meaning different from the
meanings of its constituent units. This type of naming may be called
lexicalization of a word group.
These four ways of naming take place, practically, in any human language but
their role and kinds may be different in different languages. Their roles in
English will be discussed in a more detail in later in other lectures.
2. Motivation and Demotivation of Names
New names like organisms are not created out of nothing, they are created out of
other means available in the language and are related to them in form and
meaning – thus, at the moment of creation the words are motivated (cf.: motif ‘a
recurring form or shape in a design or pattern’].
Buzz, for example, is ‘a vibrating sound like that of a prolonged z, like a bee in
flight’, so this word is motivated by the sound Z; a teacher is a person who
TEACHERS; the name fox in She is a fox has the meaning ‘a person who is
cunning and sly like FOX’ and this is motivated by the name of this animal.
27
Even such difficult for understanding new name as google ‘a search engine on
the Internet’ has its predecessor: The Oxford English Dictionary lists an older
verb google meaning ‘to bowl a googly in the game of cricket’.
So, motivation here means the relation between some prototypical feature of a
concept and its name that relates it to another concept with the same or similar
name sound-form.
There are 3 types of motivation:
– morphological motivation which is observed in all morphologically
derived words (a computer – ‘a device for computing’; a sunflower – ‘a plant
with a flower looking like the sun’, etc);
– phonetic motivation that is the basis for imitation, or onomatopoeic
words: buzz, clatter, crash, click, giggle, hum, titter, boom, sputter, gargle,
chirp, clap, bang, gulp, whine, growl, mutter, mumble, an owl (a bird that
howls), a cuckoo, etc;
– semantic motivation relates derived senses of polysemantic words
(fox –‘a cunning person {like a fox}’; chicken – ‘meat of a chicken’, etc.).
Motivation fixes in the language system a feature or features believed at the
moment of naming to be the most distinguishing for the name-giver (wagtail,
redbreast, cupboard, blackboard), and it saves for many generations the reason
for the concept to be called in a particular way.
Motivation is a kind of lexical categorization, it unites in our memory and in the
lexical system the names similar in form and meaning and the relative concepts,
and thus helps our memory to operate the names and concepts more efficiently
and effectively.
Due to motivation of a name a learner gets a better idea of the relative concept:
when you happen to read or hear an unknown word, for example, tensometer
you may guess that it stands for a device measuring tension though you may still
not know what this device is.
In the course of time an object having a certain motivated name or knowledge
about it may change. Motivated word in this case may happen to be misleading.
28
Thus, blackboard in the classroom is not black any more, atom turned out to be
divisible and discrete which is counter to its etymological meaning [from Gk
atomos ‘nondivisable’]. The Canary Islands, or the Canaries, are called not
after canaries – small yellow birds noted for their singing, but vice versa, the
birds got their name after the original place of their habitation. The name of the
Canary Islands is derived from Latin Insularia Canaria, meaning ‘Island of the
Dogs’. The connection of the Islands’ name to dogs is retained in their depiction
on the islands’ coat-of-arms. (It is not sure, however, if the animals that stuck
the imagination of the ancient Romans were really a breed of local dogs, or they
were a kind of seals now extinct.)
The changes of word meaning may be followed by changes in the phonetic or
orthographic structures of the word, and finally the connection between the form
of the word and its meaning becomes opaque, and the word becomes partially
or completely demotivated. For example, breakfast originally was a fully
motivated name and meant ‘break the fast’; cranberry was a compound word of
‘crane’ + ‘berry’; garlic is an Anglo-Saxon name that meant ‘spear leek’; a
cupboard is not any more exclusively a board for cups and it is pronounced now
as ['kΛbəd]; a blackboard is usually called nowadays just a board.
The word may also become demotivated when the motivating word becomes
obsolete and disappears from the language system as ham ‘village’ in hamlet ‘a
small village’ [from Old French hamelet, diminutive of hamel, from ham, of
Germanic origin; compare Old English hamm ‘plot of pasture’, Low German
hamm ‘enclosed land’; see also HOME]. (The element ham though is retained in
some proper names like Nottingham, Birmingham).
Yet, the original meaning of the word in this or another may affect the usage of
the word, its semantic or derivational structure, and this will be discussed in
Lecture 6.
3. Cross-Language Vocabulary Differences as Results of Categorization
and Naming Divergences
The psychological processes of categorizing and linguistic sources for naming a
concept are universal but their results are not the same in different languages
due to relative deliberateness of choosing:
• a candidate category for naming;
29
•
a prototype for a category and defining category boundaries;
• a leading trait of the category the name of which will become the
basis for the category’s name; and
•
a technique for creating a name.
As a result we observe cross-language lexical differences when not only the
forms but also the meanings of correspondent names in different languages do
not coincide, and it inevitably leads to lexical mistakes in speech and difficulties
in retrieving the proper foreign name from memory.
Let us look at the results of these processes closer.
1. Some conceptual categories may not be chosen for naming in some language
community for some reasons. For people from a different language
community it may cause a problem for speaking and translating into this
language because they meet with a lexical gap.
For example, the American English word caboose ‘a small carriage at the back
of a goods train for people who work on the train’ does not have a lexical
equivalent in Russian and may be rendered into it only descriptively as ‘амер.
ж.-д. служебный вагон в товарном поезде’ /Большой англо-русский
словарь, 1987/.
And vice versa, Belarusian people classify mushrooms into tens of categories
and give each of them a special name while in English there are usually no
equivalent names for them.
Another example may be given with the help of adjectives. The work in English
may be rewarding, challenging or demanding; and each of these adjectives are
not easy to translate into Russian. It is difficult to find adequate words for them,
though the concepts are common and familiar.
2. Boundaries of conceptual categories chosen for naming in different
language communities are usually arbitrary and do not coincide.
The often cited example is with the word рука in Russian which is wider in
meaning and equivalent to two English words: hand and arm. One conceptual
30
category named пальцы in Russian is also wide and is related to two, or even
three conceptual categories lexicalized in English as fingers, toes, and thumbs.
It is important for the English language learner to be aware of these differences
and to choose the right English word in communication. Thus, Взять ребенка
на руки should be rendered as to take the child into arms, (not *hands!), and
Он немного прихрамывал, поскольку ударил палец о камень is to be
translated as He limped a bit as he stubbed his toe on a stone (not *finger!).
One more good example is the English word moth ‘any of numerous insects of
the order Lepidoptera that typically have stout bodies with antennae of various
shapes (but not clubbed), including large brightly coloured species, such as
hawk moths, and small inconspicuous types, such as the clothes moths’. The
definition of its meaning points to wide conceptual boundaries of this category
and its equivalence to two Russian words 1) ночная бабочка and 2) моль.
Ignoring the difference in conceptual boundaries of correlated words in different
languages may also lead to misunderstanding. It is a well known fact, for
example, that semantic boundaries of blue in English is are wide and include
both синий и голубой in Russian, or the English word red is wide in meaning
and includes the space of красный и рыжий in Russian. And yet Russians may
be confused by the phrase ‘She dyed her hair red’ – ‘Она выкрасила волосы в
рыжий цвет’ bearing in mind only the prototype of this colour category
usually translated as ‘красный’.
The boundaries of a conceptual category are determined to a great extent by the
chosen prototypes – the most typical representatives of the categories.
Prototypes are quite often different in different language communities and it
may lead to misunderstanding and lexical mistakes.
A typical English house, for example, is one- or two-storied building used as a
home. For Russian speakers the number of stories for the conceptual category
that they name by the word дом does not matter; moreover, any building, not
necessarily used for dwelling may be called дом. (Cf.: И вот по площади идем
и входим, наконец, в большой красивый красный дом, похожий на дворец –
about the Historical Museum which is on the Red Square.)
Thus, the category named by the Russian word has wider boundaries. As the
result of this differences in conceptual boundaries of related categories,
31
Russians when speaking English usually overextend the English word house and
apply it to the whole category of buildings as the Russian word дом – and make
gross lexical mistakes like “*The house I live in has 12 stories”.
3. Besides lexical differences due to deliberately chosen prototypes and
category boundaries as well as categories chosen for naming discussed
above, the third major reason for cross-language vocabulary differences is
in the chosen naming technique, or the way of naming.
In different languages different ways of naming may be chosen for the target
category. Thus, borrowed Russian names колибри and беркут, for example,
correlate with the English morphologically derived names humming-bird and
golden eagle. Morphologically created Russian words беседка and
беспокойство correlate with the English borrowed words pergola (Am.E.
gazebo) and concern, anxiety. The Russian syntactically created name ночная
бабочка correlates with the English simple name moth, the Russian lexicalsemantic name язык correlates with the English borrowing language along with
a lexical-semantic name tongue, etc.
4. Still another factor for lexical differences between languages and hence the
source for difficulties and lexical mistakes, is different character and degree
of name motivation.
In different language communities people may choose different features of a
concept as the basis for correlated motivated names (cf.: Ferris wheel and
колесо обозрения; lightning-rod and громоотвод; thunder-storm and гроза;
цветная бумага (для уроков труда) and construction paper; первый взнос
(за квартиру) and payment down; nobleman and дворянин; bird-house and
скворечник; hand and стрелка часов, bed-room and спальня, etc.).
Then, a motivated word in one language may correlate with a non-motivated
word in the other, thus adding to differences in naming strategies, for example, a
fully motivated Russian коренной зуб correlates with a demotivated English
word molar [fr. Lat molere ‘to grind’].
Differences in the motivating feature and degree of motivation of correlated
words in different languages, as well as differences in the prototype and
semantic boundaries of the named categories usually give a foreign language
32
learner the feeling of discovery and satisfaction that stimulates memorizing the
name (eureka!).
At the same time when not adequately learnt they may cause inconvenience and
difficulties in memorizing and retrieving the proper names and the learner
should take it into account.
SUGGESTIONS FOR ADDITIONAL READING:
1. Aitchison, Jean (1996). The Seeds of Speech: Language Origin and
Evolution. – Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Leshchova, L.M. (2002). Words in English: English Lexicology. – Minsk:
Academy of Public Administration under the Aegis of the President of the
Republic of Belarus.
Questions and Exercisesу
1. Check if you know the following terms used in this Lecture:
• categorization
• naming
• borrowing
• lexical-semantic naming
• word formation
• lexicalization of a free word-combination
• motivation
• demotivation
2. Questions:
1. What are the four major universal ways of naming?
2. What is motivation? What types of motivation do you know?
3. What is demotivation?
4. What factors in categorization and naming lead to cross-language
differences?
33
3. Exercises:
1. Which of the following words are motivated, non-motivated, partially
motivated? Compare motivation in the correlated Russian word:
leader, student, effect, ladder, executive, employee, loyalty, emperor, legal,
satisfactory, initiative, complaint, site (on the Internet), impoverish, computer,
administration, jeopardy, entrepreneur, satisfactory, overwhelm, red tape, abuse,
scrutinize, judicial, underling, bureaucracy
2. What is (are) the motivating feature(s) in the following words? Translate
them into Russian:
Ferris wheel, nobleman, fruit drink, payment down, bird-house, leadership,
decision-maker, hostage, evaluation, invalid, undergraduate, probation,
dismissal, terminator, initiator, computer, Internet, assistant, excellent,
impoverish, adaptation, diversification, stagnation, discourage
3. Translate into English the following words. Explain the difficulties (if any) of
retrieving from memory the necessary word/words:
решение, православие, трудолюбие, преданность, соответствие (согласие с
чем-либо), доверие (вера, убежденность), руководство, смешивать
(путать), негодовать (возмущаться)
4. Translate into Russian the following sentences. Explain the difficulties (if
any) of retrieving from memory the necessary word:
I was amused to see him playing up to the boss.
He was very discreet about his love affairs.
Please, act at your own full discretion.
5. Proof for common errors made by adult Russians speaking English in the
following sentences and explain their character. Make use of an explanatory
dictionary:
*He said me no.
*I feel a strange smell.
*He entered into the room and smiled to me.
34
*My foot is paining.
*Write it with ink.
*This is medicine from your headache.
*I live in a nine-storied house.
6. Translate into English the following Russian lexical units and explain the
reasons for difficulties in translation if any:
коренной зуб, красить (волосы), государственное телевидение, cвекор,
будильник, арахис, большой палец (руки), палец (ноги), баранина,
курятина, громоотвод, таблица Менделеева, цветная бумага (для уроков
труда), дворянин, рыжий, светофор, инвалидная коляска, блины
7. Compare dictionary entries of the following English and Russian words in
translation dictionaries and point to differences in their meaning:
state – государство; house – дом; flask – фляга; pan-cake – блин; butter –
масло; finger – палец; belief – вера; leader – руководитель; nurse –
медсестра; table – стол; excel – отличаться, выделяться
8.
Look up explanatory dictionaries and describe a typical example (prototype)
of a category named by the Russian words хлеб, дом, птица, алкоголь,
машина, баня.
Does it coincide with a prototype for correlated English words bread, a
house, a bird, alcohol, a car, a sauna?
9. Look up Russian explanatory dictionaries for the definitions of the following
motivated Russian word:
общежитие, беседка, чертополох, оборотень, волкодав, пожать руки
10. Look up English explanatory dictionaries for the definitions of their
equivalents; spot and explain the differences if any:
hostel, gazebo, thistle, were-wolf, wolf-hound, shake hands
35
Lecture 3.
BORROWING IN ENGLISH
Plan
1. Etymological Survey of the English vocabulary
2. Native Words in English
3. Later Borrowings in English
4. Loans and Native Words relation
a) Assimilation of Borrowings
b) Etymological Doublets
c) Belligerence of Borrowings
5. Learning Native and Loan English Words
1. Etymological Survey of the English Vocabulary
In the previous lecture it was pointed out that one of the universal ways of
building up a word-stock in a language is borrowing. So, borrowings, or
loanwords take place in any human language.
But in English borrowing has been so active throughout centuries that its
vocabulary has become of a mixed character because now up to 70% of
Modern English vocabulary is made up of loans from more than 80 languages
all over the world.
Nowadays borrowings are mainly the result of close socio-economic relations
but historically, and it especially concerns Britain, their abundance has often
been caused by of invasions and conquests.
Let us make a short historical survey of the English language.
Originally English is a Germanic language, the language of Western Germanic
tribes of the Jutes, the Angles, and the Saxons who in the 5 th century migrated
across the English Channel and gradually by about 700 A.D. occupied most of
what is called England nowadays.
Their first groups of Western Germanic tribes were the Jutes who arrived at the
request of the Celtic leader Vortigern. Vortigern appealed to them for help from
attacks of the Picts and Scots – the first, or rather previous to the British Celts,
36
inhabitants of the British Isles who lived at that moment mainly in the
mountains of Scotland and Ireland.
He needed help because the Roman army after 400 years of presence on the
British Isles was called back home from England to defend Rome from attacks
of barbarians and left the Celts, who were in the past good warriors, without
protection.
The Jutes came, defeated the Picts and Scots but then killed Vortigern and set up
their own rule. Later other Germanic tribes came from across the Channel, the
Saxons and Angles. Gradually the Angles became the dominant tribe and
somewhere by the year 700, the island was called Angleland. The Anglo-Saxon
language by that time became known as Englisck (later, by the year 1,000 it was
already known as Anglish).
All the words that were in use by the 7th century in Englisck, or Old English are
called native words.
2. Native Words in English
a) Anglo-Saxon Words
The words of Anglo-Saxon origin which are still found in Modern English
include most auxiliary and modal verbs (can, may, must, shall, will, etc),
pronouns (I, you, he, my, his, etc.), prepositions (in, out, on, under, etc.),
numerals (one, two, three, four, hundred, etc.) and conjunctions (and, but, till,
etc.), many important notional words denoting parts of the body (head, hand,
arm, back, foot, heart, etc.), animals (cow, fish, goat, hen, horse, sheep, swine,
etc.), domestic life (door, floor, home, house), natural phenomena (storm,
summer, winter, etc.), qualities (old, young, black, white, light, dark, silly,
nice, etc.), actions (come, see, hear, eat, buy, sell, meet, think, love, etc.), etc.
Within these native words, however, there are several groups.
1. Many of these Anglo-Saxon words can be traced further to common
Indo-European roots (father, mother, brother, son, daughter, birch, cat, cold,
one two, three, etc.).
2. Quite a lot of Anglo-Saxon words represent Common Germanic roots
(arm, bear, boat, finger, hand, head, say, see, white, winter, etc.)
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3. In the language of Angles and Saxons there were also borrowings, and
first of all continental Latin borrowings that the Teutonic acquired from the
contacts with a higher civilization when the tribes of Jutes, Angles and Saxons
still lived on the continent (cup, cheese, butter, mill, line, ounce, pipe, pound,
wine, etc.).
b) Early Insular Borrowings
In the Englisck language by the 7th century there were also some borrowings
from the Celtic language and Latin, or early insular borrowings (only about
3%).
The first insular borrowings into the Anglo-Saxon language, or Old English,
were the words from the local Celtic people who came to England from central
Europe about five hundred years B.C.
Though the Celts, were not all killed or driven out of their lands by AngloSaxons, they were defeated people and their language had no prestige. From this
non-prestigious and non-influential language only some words came into Old
English that survived till today: bog, glen, whiskey, bug, kick, creak, basket,
dagger, lad, etc.
But many Celtic names for geographical places are still there, like Celtic names
of rivers (the Avon, the Esk, the Usk, the Thames, the Severn, etc.) or
mountains and hills (Ben Nevis (from pen ‘a hill’). Celtic names are preserved
also as the first elements in many city names (Winchester, Cirenchester,
Clouchester, Salisbury, Lichfield, Ikley, etc.) or the second elements in many
villages (-cumb meaning ‘deep valley’ still survives in Duncombe or
Winchcombe).
The other group of insular borrowings in this period of Old English was from
Latin. Though the barbaric invaders – tribes of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes –
tried to annihilate all the remnants of Roman culture, yet they borrowed into
their language via Celtic about 450 Latin words that were already in a wide use
in England at that time due to 400 years of its occupation by Roman legions
(port, street, mile, the element chester or caster, retained in many names of
towns [from L castra ‘camp’], etc.).
38
Borrowing as a way of naming has become especially active in English later,
after 7th century, and these borrowings changed the English vocabulary radically.
3. Later Borrowings in English
After the 7th century a number of historic events happened in the history of
England that were followed by five waves of extensive borrowings into the
native layer which dramatically changed the vocabulary of Englisck.
1. The conversion of the English to Christianity began in about the year 600
and was completed in the 7th century. As its result such Latin and Greek words
appeared later in English as altar, bishop, creed, devil, school, church, priest,
disciple, psalm, temple, nun, etc.). It is interesting to mention that native pagan
Anglo-Saxon words like God, godspell, hlaford, synn showed a strong
resistance to loan words, though they were not initially related to Christianity.
2. The Danish invasion from the end of the 8th to the middle of the 11th century
by ruthless invaders of the Swedes, Norwegians and Danes, usually referred to
by the Anglo-Saxons as the Danes, speaking a related Germanic language Old
Norse and called Vikings that meant ‘pirates’.
They came as warriors, but their second generation became craftsmen and
farmers and intermarried with the Angelcynns. Examples of the well known
words in Modern English contributed by Scandinavians are: both, call, die,
egg, fellow, flat, fog, gap, get, give, happy, happen, husband, ill, knife, law,
leg, loan, low, odd, reindeer, take, they, their, them, tidings, ugly, want, weak,
window, wrong, sale, etc. Some of them are still easy to recognize as they begin
with sk-: ski, skin, sky, skill, skirt, scrub, etc. At least 1,400 localities in
England have Scandinavian names (names with Scandinavian elements -beck
‘brook’, -by ‘village’, toft ‘a site for a dwelling and additional land’ are found in
Askby, Selby, Westby, Brimtoft, Nortoft, etc.).
Despite these two waves of borrowings the vocabulary of English at its early
period of development (Old English) still proves to be a typically Germanic
language.
Here is an example of prose of around 890 AD Old English, that describes the
adventures of a Viking whose name was Ohthere and who travelled to England:
39
Ōhthere sǣde his hlāforde, Ælfrēde cyninge, ðæt hē ealra Norðmonna
norþmest būde. Hē cwæð þæt hē būde on þǣm lande norþweardum wiþ
þā Westsǣ.
This may be translated into English as:
Ohthere said to his lord, King Alfred, that he of all Norsemen lived northmost. He quoth that he lived in the land northward along the North Sea.
3. It was the Norman Conquest that radically changed the nature of the English
language and caused so many borrowings in English.
The Norman Conquest started with the lost of battle near Hastings (not far from
London) in 1066 and lasted for two hundred years. The battle was fought
between Normandy and England. (The rulers of Normandy had originally been
Scandinavian Vikings who occupied the parts of the northern France. But by the
middle of the 11th century, however, they lost their Scandinavian speech and
spoke French.) The Norman ruler who engaged in the battle was William the
Conqueror and the English king was King Harold II. King Harold II was killed,
England lost that battle and Normandy took over rule.
After the conquest the native aristocracy was largely destroyed and replaced by
the Norman barons, the former soldiers of William the Conqueror. French
became the language of the upper class.
Thousands of French words entered the language. By 1400 about 10, 000 new
French words had come into English. Mostly they were words that lower class
naturally acquired from the nobility, they were oral borrowings and were
quickly assimilated (baron, noble, servant, messenger, feast, story, etc.).
Hundreds of words from French related to government, social and military
order, arts, fashion also entered the English vocabulary: market, demand,
enemy, arrest, army, soldier, navy, spy, battle, peace, royal, state, court, false,
judge, justice, verdict, prison, parliament, government, art, painting, poet,
chamber, labour, mansion, diamond, salon, mirror, scent, jewel, robe, coat,
collar, curtain, beef, etc. Cooking terms are largely French: sauce, boil, fry,
roast, toast, pastry, soup, jelly, etc. Then, inner parts of the body like vein,
nerve, stomach, artery, and tendon reflect the foreign influence. But the
outward parts of the body (with an exception of face), and most of the better
40
known inner organs were untouched by the Normans (arm, hand, finger, nose,
eye, skin, heart, brain, lung, kidney, liver, bone).
4. The Renaissance period (1500-1650) was marked by significant
developments in science, art and culture, by a revival of interest in the ancient
civilization. A lot of texts were translated from Latin, Greek, Italian and lots of
words from these languages were introduced in English (allegro, anachronism,
capacity, catastrophe, celebrate, chronology, confidence, contract, criterion,
dogma, epic, expend, fertile, granite, laconic, museum, native, opera, piano,
portico, soprano, sarcasm, system, etc.).
5. The more recent extensive cultural contacts between Great Britain and
other English speaking countries and the major European and other states
contribute a lot to borrowings, though the frequency of borrowings into English
considerably reduced. Many words are borrowed from French: flambeau,
marmot, parquet; from German: waltz, rucksack, kindergarten, Nazi,
wolfram, nickel; from Spanish (especially from American Spanish via
American English): Hidalgo, parade, domino, buffalo, veranda; from Danish:
deck, skipper, dock, yacht; from Hungarian: goulash; from Russian: kopeck,
intelligentsia, pogrom, tsar, samovar, sable, steppe, glasnost, perestroika; and
other countries (from Chinese: tea, tycoon, fan tan; from Japanese: sushi,
karaoke, origami, ikebana; from West Indies: barbeque, hurricane, cannibal;
from Eskimos: anorak, etc.).
Some borrowings in English of the Renaissance and recent periods are
international words – the result of simultaneous or successive borrowings in
many languages of different language groups and families (sputnik, perestroika,
communism, aria, opera, etc.).
NATIVE LEXICAL UNITS
1. Anglo-Saxon words:
a) Indo-Europ. element
b)Common-Germanic element
c) continental borrowings
2. Celtic borrowings (5-6th c. A.D.)
3. Latin borrowings via Celtic (due to
BORROWED LEXICAL UNITS
1. from Latin and Greek
a) 7th c. A.D. due to Christianity;
b) during the Renaissance (15-17th c.)
2. from Old Norse due to the Danish
Invasion (8-11th c.)
3. from French
a) due to the Norman conquest (11-
41
the Roman Invasion
– the 5th century)
(55-56 B.C.
13th c.)
b) in the Renaissance (15-17th c.)
4. English proper element not traced 4. from other modern languages due to
to any other language (not earlier
cultural and economic contacts
th
than 5 c. A.D)
5. Words created in English later on 5. Words created in English later on the
the basis of native elements
basis of borrowed elements
4. Loans and Native Words Relation
a)
Assimilation of Borrowings
The life of immigrant words in English was not easy. They were always
recognized as alien unless they were borrowings from a kindred language, like
Old Scandinavian.
The borrowings have always kept the company of other borrowed units. For
example, borrowed suffixes and prefixes have preferably joined the borrowed
bases (il+legal, a/im+moral) while native affixes preferred native bases
(un+friendly, mis+understand).
Gradually, however, in order to survive, not to be ousted by native words and to
be useful in the system, borrowings are going through a very long process of
assimilation, i.e. they change a lot to conform to the pronunciation patterns,
grammar forms of the borrowing language and sometimes even meaning.
Thus, the Russian borrowing sputnik lost its former grammatical paradigm and
acquired the regular English plural form sputniks and has in English only one
meaning ‘artificial satellite’.
The accent of the French words has been mainly transferred to the first syllable
as in honour. Though changes here are still taking place and some words have
double stresses though the tendency is to be moved from the second syllable to
the first (`adult, `garage, `alloy).
Some unconventional sounds and sound combinations are replaced by new ones,
more characteristic of English (cf.: Bach [ba:k] in English and [bah] in
42
German; psyche [`saiki] and [psuchē] in Greek, psalm [sa:m] in English and
[psalmos] in Greek), devil in English and diabolos in Latin, bishop in English
and episcopos in Latin, etc.).
Gradually the borderline between loans and native words becomes less visible.
Some lexemes, completely or partially assimilated, are able to form hybrids –
words of foreign origin but with a native affix (art+less, false+hood,
un+interesting, etc.) or vice versa, words of native origin but with a borrowed
affix (dis+like, eat+able, love+able).
Besides the process of assimilation that makes the borrowed words phonetically
and morphologically look like native words, borrowings inevitably go through
the process of demotivation and their original, or etymological meaning
becomes obscure like in many native words: adult [from Latin adultus, from
adolēscere ‘to grow up’], garage [from French garer ‘to dock (a ship’], alloy
[from Old French aloi ‘a mixture’, from aloier ‘to combine’, from Latin
alligāre, from ligāre ‘to bind’], belligerence [from Latin belliger, from bellum
‘war’ + gerere ‘to wage’].
However, making a research into etymological meaning of a word, especially a
borrowed one, helps to understand its use in speech.
Thus, English speaking people use the verb enter without a preposition: to
enter_the room because etymologically the word meant ‘to go in’ [from Old
French entrer, from Latin intrāre ‘to go in’, from intrā ‘within’].
Another example of importance of word etymology awareness is the English
verb to arrive which demands the use of prepositions at or in after it: to arrive
IN a city/ country but to arrive AT a station/small place of destination. The use
of different prepositions depending on the size of the destination place is
accounted for the verb etymology: originally they spoke about arriving of a
ship/boat AT a shore but its arriving IN a harbor [Old French ariver, from
Vulgar Latin arrīpāre ‘to land, reach the bank’, from Latin ad ‘to’ + rīpa ‘river
bank’].
So, words seldom take off completely their original meanings, and learning
them helps to understand their modern meaning and use.
b)
Etymological Doublets
43
There are pairs of words in English (etymological doublets) that have a specific
history of assimilation. They have the same origin but have gone through the
process of assimilation differently and that is why they have similar and yet
different phonemic structure and meaning.
The major source for etymological doublets in English is Latin because words of
Latin origin came into English in two ways: directly from Latin and via French
which changed their form and meaning.
Thus, both the English words fragile ‘1) able to be broken easily 2) in a
weakened physical state 3) delicate; light a fragile touch 4) slight; tenuous a
fragile link with the past’ and frail ‘1) a physically weak and delicate 2) fragile
a frail craft 3) easily corrupted or tempted’ are of Latin origin. But they now
have different forms and meanings because fragile came directly from Latin but
frail came into English via French [from Old French frele, from Latin fragilis,
FRAGILE].
The etymological doublets discreet and discrete both originated from Latin, but
the first one came into English from French while the other was borrowed
directly from Latin. They are very often confused. Discreet, the more common
of the two, means ‘cautious, especially in speech’: She made some discreet
enquiries concerning his background. Discrete is a rarer, more technical word,
and means ‘unconnected, distinct’. Their meanings, however, are a kind of fused
in the related derivative discretion that means 1) the quality of behaving or
speaking in such a way as to avoid social embarrassment or distress, and 2)
freedom or authority to make judgments and to act as one sees fit (esp. in the
phrases at one's own discretion, at the discretion of). It combines the feature
‘tactfulness’ of the word discreet and ‘separateness, autonomy’ of the word
discrete.
Other examples of etymological doublets of this kind are major [L]) – mayor
[Fr fr. L], canal [L] – channel [Fr fr. L], cavalry [L] – chivalry [Fr fr. L]),
grammar [L] – glamour [Fr fr. L], liquor [L] – liqueur [Fr fr. L], senior [L] –
sir [Fr fr. L], etc.
Words may also be of the same origin and be borrowed into English from the
same source but at different periods as is the case with the etymological
doublets disk [from Latin discus, 18 C] and dish [Old English disc, from Latin
discus]), cycle [L fr Gk] – circle [L fr Gk].
44
Sometimes a number of different factors contribute to etymological doublets and
even triplets – origin of the words, the language and time of their borrowing.
Thus, hostel, hospital and hospice are of the same Latin origin [from hospitāle
‘hospice’, from Latin hospitālis ‘relating to a guest’, from hospes, hospit ‘guest’,
HOST] but hostel appeared in English in the 13th century from Old French,
hospital was also borrowed in the 13th century but from Medieval Latin, and
hospice came into English in the 19th century from French, and each of them
acquired a different meaning and form.
The Scandinavian influence is also responsible for many doublets in English,
like no [OE] – nay [Sc], rear [OE] – raise [Sc], from [OE] – fro [Sc], shatter
[OE] – scatter [Sc], shirt [OE] – skirt [Sc], shift [OE] – skip [Sc], whole [OE] –
hale [Sc], etc.
Because of the intensive borrowing in English during several centuries there are
many (about 500) etymological doublets, and many of them cause difficulties
both for foreign learners of English and even native speakers due to their
similarity in form and in meaning.
c)
Belligerence of Borrowings
Through centuries of borrowing words from other languages, English has
acquired a large and varied vocabulary. Scholars estimate that in Modern
English there are about one million of words and they are very diverse in their
origin.
Due to borrowings in English its expressive potential has become very rich.
Borrowings tremendously enlarged groups of synonyms: now the native word
love (of Anglo-Saxon origin) is at the head of a synonymic row of its borrowed
partners: like (Old Norse), the French loan adore originated in Latin and Latin
borrowing admire. Usually each of these has its own etymological and stylistic
antonym: love – hate; like – dislike; adore – condemn; admire – despise. (Cf.:
also the native word ask, the French word question, and Latin interrogate; the
native word hard-working and the borrowings from Old French diligent and
Latin assiduous, etc).
45
Borrowings, especially borrowings from Latin and Greek, are an inexhaustible
source for terminology, a great part of which has become international: tyrant
‘тиран’, abacterial ‘безбактериальный’, tranquillizer ‘транквилизатор’.
So, borrowings extended the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary tremendously. Yet they
also caused tremendous losses.
Borrowings pushed many native words into oblivion. About two thirds or 85%
of the original Anglo-Saxon words died out and are no longer in use. For
example, the Anglo-Saxon words denoting such important concepts as uncle,
nephew, face, vegetables, fruit, money, number, war, touch, or furniture
disappeared and were replaced by foreign words which are still used in English.
First disappeared and were replaced by borrowed words many compounds and
derived words that were so characteristic of Old English (witanagemot ‘councilmeeting’, wergild ‘man-money’ – the financial penalty for killing a man; a verb
settan came into Modern English as the verb to set, but in OE it was used with
many suffixes and prefixes: asettan ‘to place’, forsettan ‘obstruct’, foresettan
‘to place before’, gesettan ‘to populate’, tosettan ‘to dispose’, unsettan ‘to put
down’). Only some Old English derived words survived (friendship, kingdom,
childhood, etc.).
Many French borrowings, being spoken mainly by upper echelons of the
society, shifted many native words or their meanings to a lower stylistic
register, to the layer of words spoken mainly by common people (cf.: veal and
calf, beef and cow, pork and pig).
Only 30% of the Modern English vocabulary words are native, going back to its
Anglo-Saxon age.
5. Learning Native and Loan English Words
Despite their relatively small number native words make up the core of the
English vocabulary. The native words are:
• communicatively important ,
• frequently used,
• monosyllabic in character,
• highly polysemantic.
46
They also:
• have a great word-building potential,
• enter a great number of set-expressions, proverbs and sayings.
Except some archaic words that are still used in as legal documents and may be
used in poetry, most native words are used in everyday speech. The so-called
Basic English is made up mainly of them. Without native words modern English
cannot function.
The forms and major meanings of most native words in Modern English are
usually easy to learn for foreign language learners because of their simple form
and their reference to the most important things for a human being.
Those native words that go back to Indo-European roots (three, two, three, six,
seven, heart, nose, brow, birch, milk, cat, swine, father, mother, sister,
brother, son, cold, etc.) are especially easy to remember and to recollect for
people speaking European languages.
Though widely spoken and written, native words make up only a portion of
Modern English vocabulary. In order to speak good English, to understand and
to be understood it is necessary to expand this core vocabulary and to use the
words of the second echelon which is mostly made of borrowings.
Scholarly texts are highly saturated with borrowings. This is, for example, an
extract from a text on public administration:
An important task in the management of any enterprise, private or
public, is the recruiting, selecting, promoting, and terminating of personnel and
employee training.
Under Jackson and his successors, frequent rotation on office was
encouraged; no particular prior training or experience was necessary for most
jobs. Merit systems were designed for the most part to keep out the grossly
incompetent, not to attract the highly qualified.
But even now limitless are the public servants who are indolent and
insolent and governors whose innate servility prevents their actual governing.
In bold italic face here native words are presented, and they are mainly
functional words; practically all notional words are borrowings, and mostly from
French.
47
Borrowings, however, are quite tricky for a foreign language learner.
Some of them that came into English via oral form after the Norman Conquest
have become assimilated (prison, govern, servant, feast, message, noble,
gentle), they look and sound pretty much like native words and their forms are
easily learned.
Those borrowings that came from French late via written form may retain their
original characteristic spelling (fruit, juice, jeopardy, discourage, guide,
bureaucracy, excel) that requires more efforts on the part of the learner to
remember them.
The borrowings of the Renaissance period and the recent borrowings still retain
their foreign pronunciation, as well as written and, quite often, even grammatical
form (phenomenon, charisma, coup d’etate, paparazzo, etc.).
It is their meanings, however, that often become for a learner a stumbling block.
The problem is that many of these words were borrowed into other languages,
too, namely into Russian. But one should remember that words are never
borrowed with all their meanings. The borrowed word comes into another
language only in one, very often even not in its main meaning. Other meanings
remain in the shade for a learner who recognizes the form of the word and
ascribes to it the meaning which is familiar to him/her from the native language,
and makes a mistake.
The words having a similar written and/or sound form in English and Russian
but completely or partially different meaning are known as ‘translator’s false
friends’.
Thus, sympathy in English is not only симпатия, but is mainly сочувствие. .
The central meaning of the noun magazine is not only магазин, as the form of
the word may prompt for a Russian speaking person but mainly
‘периодический журнал, обычно с иллюстрациями’. The adjective
Caucasian means not only ‘кавказский’ but ‘относящийся к белой расе’.
The meaning of the English word romance is not only романс but also
рыцарский роман (обычно в стихах) б) роман (героического,
приключенческого
жанра)
в)
романтическая
литература;
48
романтическая повесть г) романтическая, необыкновенная история;
романтика) роман, любовные отношения.
Tender besides the familiar to the Russian speaker word тендер may also be
translated as предложение, официальное предложение (уплатить долг
или выплатить обязательство), платёжное средство, as well as
охранник, сторож, сиделка, оператор; любящий, мягкий, нежный etc.
So, borrowings require special attention not to be misled by their form.
SUGGESTIONS FOR ADDITIONAL READING:
1. Brown, K. (Editor) (2005). Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. 2nd
Edition. Oxford: Elsevier.
2. Crystal, D. (2005). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language.
2nd edition. Cambridge: CUP.
Questions and Exercises
1. Check if you know the following terms used in this Lecture:
• etymology
• native words
• borrowings (loan-words)
• origin of a word
• source of borrowing
• assimilation of borrowing
• etymological doublets
• hybrids
• ‘translator’s false friends’
2. Questions:
1. What are native words in English?
2. What are the major waves of English borrowings?
3. In what way did borrowings change the English lexicon?
4. What English words are more important functionally: native or
borrowed?
49
5. Are borrowed words in English easily recognizable?
3. Exercises:
1. Look up the etymology of the following English words (you may use Collins
English Dictionary in its electronic version in ABBYY Lingvo 12) and identify
their origin and the source of borrowing:
furnish
chamber
whiskey
penguin
raccoon
hickory
siesta
skates
winter
corral
ranch
cigar
criminal
slogan
poncho
potato
declare
plaid
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
2. For each native English word (1-5) provide and English word of Latin
origin with the same or approximate meaning, and for each word of Latin
origin (6-10) provide a native English word with the same or approximate
meaning:
ask
6. dismiss (from job)
give up
7. discreet
talk
8. abduct
see
9. purchase
tell
10. reply
3. Define the meaning of the following words and explain their etymology:
effective, efficient, jeopardy, courage, manipulate, collaborate, monarch,
emperor, manager, president, recruit, stagnate, abuse
4. Translate the following words into Russian. Beware of the ‘translator’s
false friends’:
accurate, accord, affiar, agitatot, athlete, babushka, baptism, beacon, cabin,
cabinet, chief, clay, cottage, crest, discreet, fabric, gallant,
integral,marmalade, lily of the valley, lyrics, firm, office
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Lecture 4.
WORD FORMATION IN ENGLISH
Plan
1. Major Ways of Word Formation
1) Compounding
2) Affixation
a) Prefixation
b) Suffixation
3) Conversion
2. Minor Ways of Word Formation
1. Major Ways of Word Formation
Though the number of loan names in English is really great, borrowing has
never been the major way of naming and replenishing the English vocabulary.
In English, like in many other languages, it is word formation that is the major
way of naming. Words are formed, or derived, by means of combining the
existing morphemes, the smallest meaningful parts of words, after certain
regular patterns.
The major ways of word formation in English are compounding, affixation,
and conversion.
1) Compounding
Compounding is a process in which two different word bases are joined
together in one name according some common patterns to denote one thing:
water-melon, oil-rich, fool-proof.
Compounding is a universal way of deriving new words. It has been one of the
most ancient, productive and active type of word formation in English, and it is
very active and productive in Modern English, too: about one-third of all
derived words in Modern English are compounds.
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But there are some morphological, semantic, phonetic, and graphical specific
features, or rules about compounding in English that an English foreign
language learner should be aware of.
Formation Rules
In contrast to Russian compounds, English words are usually composed without
linking elements by merely placing one base after another. Such compounds are
subdivided into:
a) s y n t a c t i c compounds that do not violate syntax laws of word
combining in English: house-dog, day-time, a red-breast, a baby-sitter; and
b) a s y n t a c t i c compounds in which the order of constituents violates
syntax laws in English: oil-rich, power-driven, early-riser.
Some words are composed with a linking element o (mostly in scientific terms:
Anglo-Saxon, sociolinguistics), i or s (not productive in Modern English:
handicraft, sportsman).
In modern English word composition is mainly characteristic of nouns
(sunbeam, Sunday, sunshine). The most common patterns for noun compounds
are: n+n→N (ice-cream) and adj+n→N (blackboard, software).
Compounding in modern English is widespread among adjectives, too. The
most common type of compound adjectives is the combination of two
derivational bases: nominal and adjectival (n+adj→Adj): airtight, life-long,
stone-deaf, foolproof, and sugar-free.
There are also many other different patterns according to which compound
adjectives may be derived: composition of two adjectival bases (adj+adj→Adj)
as in deaf-mute, bitter-sweet, of nominal and participial bases
(n+Ving/ed→Adj) as in peace-loving, man-made, of adjectival and participial
(adj+Ving/ed→Adj) as in hard-working, double-ended, or even adverbial and
participial bases (adv+Ving/ed→Adj) as in well-read, over-qualified.
Verb compounding does not occur in modern English, though it was quite
common in the past: outgrow, offset, inlay. Such verbs in Modern English are
viewed as prefixational derivatives.
A special type of compounds such as telegram, telephone, astronaut is called
neoclassical. In these compounds different elements from classical languages
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Latin or Greek acting as roots and derivational bases combine with each other
forming new words.
Meaning of Compounds
In many cases, lexical meaning of a compound may be derived from the
combined lexical meaning of its components and the structural meaning of its
distributional pattern. Yet the types of semantic relations between the compound
components are not formally expressed and they have to be deduced from the
context and individually interpreted. Their most frequent types are:
‘in/on’ (water-house, garden-party, summer-house, oil-rich);
‘for’ (gun-powder, tooth-brush, baby-sitter, space-craft);
‘of’ (house-keeper, leather-boots);
‘resemblance’ (bell-flower, egg-head, snow-white, golf-fish);
‘be’ (oak-tree, black-board, she-cat);
‘do’ (rattle-snake, skyscraper, cry-baby).
There are also relations between the components that may be expressed by the
words have (sand-beach,), cause (hay-fever), use (hand-writing), and some
others, and they still do not exhaust all possible relations of the compound
constituents.
Variations of their interpretations are diverse, and interpretation of compounds
requires knowledge of their constituents’ lexical meaning, of their structural
pattern and, what is most important, general world knowledge. Water-bailiff, for
example, has the meaning ‘a construction to prevent poaching on preserved
stretch of river’, but water-battery ‘series of voltaic cells immersed in water’,
water-colour ‘artist’s colour ground with water’, water-closet ‘sanitary
convenience flushed by water’, water-fall ‘fall of water of a river’.
Usually the second derivational base is more important and it determines
lexical, grammatical and part-of-speech meanings of the whole compound: hallmark is a noun meaning ‘an official mark stamped on gold and silver articles in
England’, half-baked is an adjective meaning ‘imperfectly baked, underdone’.
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Compounds that have the same elements but differ in their distribution are
different in lexical meaning, too (cf.: ring finger ‘the third finger on the left
hand (or in some parts of the world, the right hand) and finger-ring ‘a ring to
wear on a finger’; piano-player ‘a person who plays the piano’ and player piano
‘a piano containing a mechanical instrument’, see also teacher-student and
student-teacher, armchair and chair-arm).
In many cases the meaning of a compound is hardly predictable from the
meanings of their constituents and its derivational pattern: green dragon, for
example, is ‘an American arum with digitate leaves’; greenroom is ‘a room in a
theater or concert hall where actors or musicians relax before, between or after
appearances’; green-heart is a ‘tropical South American evergreen tree with a
hard somewhat greenish wood’.
The safest way in such cases is to look up a dictionary for their meaning.
Compounds and Free Word Groups
Structurally and semantically many English compounds (girl-friend, dish cloth)
look like free word groups. Yet compounds are more ‘word-like’ than free
syntactic phrases. They are vocabulary units and, unlike free syntactic phrases,
they should be specially learned and presented in a dictionary as a special entry
or sub-entry.
Though differentiation between compounds and free word groups is mainly a
lexicographical problem, recognition a difference between them is also a serious
problem for a foreign language learner because it determines their correct
understanding and translation. Here are some hints that point to a compound and
the necessity to look up a dictionary for its meaning.
Compounds may have specific graphical, morphological, phonetic, and
semantic characteristics that make them different from free word-combinations.
Graphically a compound is usually one word and may be spelled with a hyphen
between its parts (grass-green, dog-biscuit, dog-collar) or solidly (Sunday,
handbook, penman, schoolmaster).
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Yet spelling does not provide an accurate guide to differentiation between
compounds and word groups because there are few rules concerning spelling
compound words in English. As a result, many compounds are written like word
combinations with a space: bus stop, post office, freezing point. Compound
words similar in meaning may be spelled differently in the same dictionary, as in
tooth-paste but tooth powder, baby carriage but baby-sitter [LDCE]. Different
authors may use different spellings of the same words (for example, word
formation and word formation). Different dictionaries may present one and the
same word in a different way: grapefruit [LLCE] – grape-fruit [OALDCE],
[WNCD] – grape-fruit, grapefruit [LDCE].
It should be noted that solid orthography of compounds is especially
characteristic of American English.
Compounds may have particular stress pattern, and thus phonetically they
may be different from motivating words. Their first component in a compound
may have a high stress (a `hot-house, a `key-hole, a `doorway, ` ice-cream,
`common-wealth, `common-place, a `common-room) or a double stress with a
primary stress on the first syllable (a `washing-maֽ
chine; a `dancing-ֽ
girl).
But this criterion is not very reliable, either. Some compounds may have two
level stresses (´icy-´cold; ´grass-´green, in ´apple-´pie order) which may be
observed in word combinations (cf.: ´common ´knowledge, ´common ´sense) or
they may have a high stress on the last component (ֽ
grass-`roots, ֽ
grass-`widow)
which is more characteristic of free word groups.
Morphologically compounds usually make up one inseparable unit with a strict
order of components and a new or single paradigm (cf.: rich – richer – the
richest and oil-rich – more oil-rich, the most oil-rich; a week-end – weekends). Elements within the compound cannot be reordered, for additional items
cannot be inserted between them.
But this criterion won’t work to differentiate N-N compounds as in paper-basket
and structures with attributive noun use as in stone wall. In both the cases the
order of components is strict and the first noun component in the singular form
does not display its usual paradigmatic forms (e.g., in both constructions it may
not be used in plural).
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Semantically compounds differ from nominal phrases like peace years or stone
wall because they usually carry additional idiomatic semantic components
which are not found in the meaning of the constituents of a compound (a player
piano ‘a piano that is played by machinery; laughing-gas ‘gas which may cause
laughter when breathed in, used for producing unconsciousness, esp. during
short operations for removing teeth’, fiddle-sticks (interj) ‘Nonsense!’).
These compounds are partially motivated as in laughing-gas or handcuffs and
completely demotivated as in fiddle-sticks or wet-blanket.
But when this additional idiomatic component is minimal as in girl-friend or
icy-cold, the compound may be regarded as fully motivated; its meaning may
be deduced from the meaning of its constituent parts and their arrangement.
Such compounds are most closely related to free word combinations.
So, there is not a single and universal criterion that will distinguish compounds
and word groups in English. But when the phonological, syntactic and semantic
features of compounds work simultaneously, they make compounds quite
distinct from phrases.
However, in practice even context is not always useful in determining the
meaning of a compound, and the best strategy for a learner is to look up for its
meaning in a dictionary.
2) Affixation
Affixation [fr. L a-+ fix ‘to attach’ = ‘to attach to’] is the most obvious
formation (or derivation) process of new words in English. It is achieved by
adding derivational affixes (prefixes or suffixes) to derivational bases (re- +
READ; HAND + -ful).
Some affixes are not derivational in modern English: they are not used in
Modern English to form new words. Some of them were borrowed (mostly from
Latin) together with the root form and now just help to distinguish other words
with the same root (introduce, reduce, induce, etc.). Other non-derivational
affixes are not active in present-day English word formation (wedlock, truth,
length, height, flight). They are dead and belong to historical studies.
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Meaning of many derived words can be figured out from the meaning of its
constituents and the derivational pattern as in a teacher ‘a person who teachers’.
But it is not always the case.
As in many compounds, the best strategy for a learner is to look up the meaning
of a derived word in a dictionary. For example, only general meaning can be
predicted at the first sight in a new word consumerization but lexicographic
sources give a more detailed meaning: ‘it describes the trend for technology
companies to bring new technology to the consumer market ahead of business
markets’.
a) Prefixation
The number of prefixes [from L pre- ‘before’ + fix = to attach before] in modern
English is estimated to be from 50 to 80. (The number is approximate because
the status of some prefixes, like over-, under-, hyper-, mini- is still not clear,
some scholars regard them as prefixes, and some view them as free roots).
Functionally prefixes can be classified into noun-forming (ex-+husband, co+pilot), adjective-forming (inter-+national, co-+educational) or verb-forming
(re-+consider, de-+mobilize).
Prefixation has always been mostly used in English to create new verbs. The
most productive prefixes used in the verbal system are: be- (be-+head), en- (en+able), dis- (dis-+courage), over- (over-+do), out- (out-+grow), re- (re-+write),
un- (un-+cover), and under- (under-+estimate).
However, only some of these prefixes (en-, be-, un-, etc., all in all, only 5% of
all verb-forming prefixes) are exclusively verb-forming, the rest being used to
create words of other grammatical classes (cf.: co-operate and co-pilot).
So, the chief feature of English prefixes is their mixed character – the same
prefix can be attached to derivational bases with different part-of-speech
meaning (pref+v/adj/n: disagree, disloyal, disadvantage).
Etymologically, prefixes are classified into native and borrowed prefixes.
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Originally all prefixes in any language were free words, usually adverbs or
prepositions. Many native prefixes in English are still easily traced back to free
roots because they are the former prepositions or adverbs (under-+cook, over+cook).
But most of the more than 50 native prefixes have dropped out of the system and
were replaced by borrowed prefixes throughout the whole history of the
English language. Mostly they were borrowed from French and Latin (like the
prefix ante- ‘before, preceding’ as in anteroom, antenatal which came from
Latin). Only about a quarter of prefixes in Modern English are native.
Now the majority of all English prefixes are loans and do not have direct
connection to free roots in Modern English.
Semantically all prefixes are classified into the following groups according to
the seven types of meaning they add to the derivational base:
•
negation, reversal, contrary (unemployment, incorrect, disloyal,
amoral, non-scientific,
undress,
antifreeze,
decentralize,
disconnect);
•
sequence and order in time (pre-war, post-war, foresee, expresident, co-exist);
•
different space location (inter-continental, trans-Atlantic, subway,
superstructure);
•
repetition (rewrite, anabaptize ‘to baptize again’);
•
quantity and intensity (unisex, bilingual, polytechnic, multilevel);
•
pejoration (‘unfavourable connotations’) (abnormal, miscalculate,
maltreat, pseudo-morpheme);
•
amelioration (‘improvement’) (supermarket, ultramodern).
Formally, prefixes are classified into unchangeable and changeable.
Unchangeable prefixes (they are in majority) remain the same in all contexts.
They are: be- (behead); de- (decentralize); ex- (ex-president); non- (noninterference); mis- (misunderstand); out- (outcome); over- (overflow); poly(polylingual), etc.
Changeable prefixes exhibit their spelling variations in different contexts. They
reflect regular phonemic variations in the language of borrowing:
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ad-/ac-/af-/ag-/al-/ap-/as-/at- ‘to, toward’ (administer, accustom, appear,
agglutinate);
co-/com-, cor- ‘with’ (coequal, compassion, correspondence);
dis-/dif- ‘reverse’ (disarm, difference);
ir-/il-/im- ‘non’ (irregular, illegal, impure);
sub-/sup- ‘under’ (subordinate, suppress);
syn-/sym ‘with’ (synchronical, symmetrical), etc.
A special group of prefixes that should be considered carefully is made up of
forms that are alike in spelling and/or pronunciation but have different
meanings:
ante- ‘before’ (antedate) – anti- ‘against’ (antifreeze);
for- ‘away, off’ (forsake) – fore- ‘ahead, before’ (foresee)
en- ‘to cover or surround with’ (encircle, endanger) – in- ‘in, toward’
(inject, income) – in- ‘not, without’ (illegal, immodest);
inter- ‘between’ (international) – intra-‘inside’ (intravenous) – intro- ‘in,
into’ (introvert, introduce);
hyper- ‘over’ (hyperactive) – hypo- ‘under, less’ (hypoactive);
pre- ‘before’ (preschool) – pro- ‘forward, in place of’ (pronoun).
b) Suffixation
Suffixation – is formation of words with the help of suffixes [from L.
sub-‘under’ + fix ‘to attach’].
Again, as in the case of prefixes, different numbers of suffixes are given by
different scholars (from 130 to 64) because different approaches are used to
what should be called an affix in modern English. For example, the
diachronically relevant suffix –le observed in such words as nettle, knuckle, and
angle is not relevant synchronically: it is a non-active, or dead suffix.
There are different classifications of derivational suffixes.
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Etymologically English suffixes may be native (-ed, -fast, -fold, -er, -ful, -less,
-like) or borrowed (–able/-ible, -ist, -ism, and -ant/-ent).
Native suffixes usually appeared out of full words and retain their motivation.
Borrowed suffixes are non-motivated in English.
Suffixation (in contrast to prefixation) usually transfers the word into another
part of speech, and functionally suffixes may be classified into noun-forming
(teach+-er, employ-+ee), adjective-forming (beauty+-ful, care+-less), and
verb-forming (simple+-fy, wide-+-en).
In modern English suffixation is most characteristic of nouns and adjectives.
English is quite poverty stricken in verb-forming suffixes, and new verbs are
formed mainly by means of either prefixation or conversion.
Semantically suffixes are very diverse, more diverse than prefixes. They are
used in creating names for different groups of concepts. Major lexical-semantic
groups that include words with suffixes are:
In the system of nouns:
– agent or instrument: -er, -ant, -ee, -ian, and -ist (worker, revolver, assistant,
employee, communist);
– the one who has a quality (with derogation): -ard (drunkard), -ster
(youngster, gangster), -ton (simpleton);
– feminine agent: -ess, -ine, -ette (baroness, heroine, cosmonette);
– diminution and endearment: -ie, -let, -y, -ling, -ette (booklet, horsy, duckling,
kitchenette).
– abstract quality: -ness, -ancy/-ency (darkness, fluency);
– result of an action: -ion (creation), -ing (building);
– relatedness to a proper name: -an, -ese (Indian, Japanese).
In the system of adjectives:
– permission, ability or favour for a certain action: -able/ible, -ary, -ent, -ive
(readable, permissive);
– possession/deprivation of something: -ed, -less (tired, brainless);
– ampleness, abundance of something: -ful (wonderful);
– similarity: -ish, -ic, -like, -some (bluish, Byronic, troublesome).
In the system of verbs:
– to initiate something: -ate (originate);
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– to act with a certain (abstract) object: -fy (glorify);
– to act towards a certain quality: -en (shorten), -ize (equalize).
3) Conversion
The term conversion refers to numerous cases of phonetic identity of two words
(primarily in their initial forms) belonging to different parts of speech (round
adj, n, v, adv; back n, adj, adv, v; idle adj, v; water n,v; eye n,v; up prep, v.).
While affixation has always been a productive means of word formation in
English, conversion became active only in the Middle English period, and it is
widely used in modern English.
The major reasons for the wide use of conversion in modern English are:
a) the loss of inflections in Middle English when many of these words
became lexical-grammatical homonyms (cf.: love n– love v in present-day
English and their inflected equivalents lufu n and lufian v in Old English), and
b) the limited number of morphemes in English that would signal the part
of speech the word belongs to: knife n, v; knife n, v; eye n, v.
The clearest cases of conversion are observed between verbs and nouns, and
this term is now mostly used in this narrow sense.
For other cases of conversion (substantivation of adjectives: the blind, the
unemployed, adjectivalization of nouns: home affairs, a love poem, or
verbalization of adjectives: dirty → to dirty, empty → to empty) modern
linguistics usually apply the term transposition.
Conversion is very active both:
– in nouns for verb formation (n → v) (age → to age, doctor → to
doctor, shop → to shop), and
– in verbs to form nouns (v → n) (to catch → a catch, to smile → a
smile, to offer → an offer).
However, the most active type of conversion in English is n → v, that is,
conversion is more characteristic of English nouns. One can practically convert
any noun into a verb if one has to communicate a particular message (to knife,
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to eye, to fire-bomb). You may, for example, even lamp the room – to install
lamps in the room, though dictionaries do not register such a word.
But most often nouns as the source for converted verbs (n → v) denote
instruments (iron → to iron), parts of body that are viewed as instruments (eye
→ to eye), and substances (water → to water).
Nouns are converted into verbs (denominal verbs) (n → v) to denote:
a) action characteristic of the object (to monkey, to father, to fool);
b) action with the object (to whip, to water, to knife);
c) acquisition of the object (to fish, to milk, to mud);
d) deprivation of the object (to dust, to skin).
Conversion of verbs into nouns (v → n) is less common in English because very
often derivation of nouns from verbs there happens by means of suffixation: to
arrive → arrival, to open → opening, to begin → beginning, to collect →
collection.
Verbs used as the source for converted nouns typically denote: movement (to
jump → a jump) and speech activity (to talk → a talk).
Verbs are converted into nouns (deverbal nouns) to denote:
a) instance of the action (a jump, a smile, a try);
b) agent of the action (a help; a hand but mostly derogatory: a cheat; a
bore; a scold);
c) place of the action (a race, a run);
d) object or result of the action (a peel, help).
Stress-interchange
In English there has been a process of word formation similar to conversion, it is
stress-interchange. It has taken place in some pairs of disyllabic nouns and
verbs of Romance origin (΄compact – com΄pact, ΄transport – trans΄port,
΄import – im΄port, ΄object – ob΄ject, ΄insult – in΄sult, ΄record – re΄cord, ΄project
– pro΄ject, ΄protest –pro΄test, ΄progress – pro΄gress) as well as adjectives and
verbs (΄frequent – fre΄quent, ΄moderate – mode΄rate, ΄abstract – abs΄tract).
These pairs of words have a distinctive stress pattern, but otherwise they are
homographic and look like conversion pairs. In modern English this pattern of
word formation is not active.
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The verbs in these pairs just retained in English their stress on the last syllable as
it was in the source of borrowing [French] while the nouns and adjectives were
fully assimilated and did not retain the stress. Such verbs were not assimilated
because in English many disyllabic verbs of native origin had also a stress on the
last syllable as in for΄bid, for΄give, be΄come, and be΄lieve.
2. Minor Ways of Word Formation
Besides the major ways of word formation in English (affixation, composition,
and conversion) there are some other ways, which are non-patterned and less
important for replenishment of the vocabulary. In addition, many of them do not
deal with derivational morphemes but random word segments. These various,
rather unpredictable ways of word-formation are called minor.
Minor ways of word formation are especially often used for creation occasional
nonce-words to meet some situational pragmatic needs in fiction, newspapers,
and advertisements (e.g., Velcom), and as a rule, are not listed in dictionaries.
Meaning of such words is very often opaque, and it is very practical to know the
major patterns of creating them.
Here are some of these ways.
Shortening
Lexical shortening that leads to new words may be of different types:
a) Clipping
Creation of new words by shortening a word of two or more its syllables or
segments is called clipping.
Clipping may be initial: bus (short for ‘omniBUS’, phone (short for
‘telePHONE’); final: pop (short for ‘POPular), exam (short for
‘EXAMination’); both initial and final: flue (short for ‘inFLUEnza’, fridge
(short for ‘reFRIDGErator); middle: maths (short for MATHematicS).
b) Acronymy
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Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of a fixed phrase or title.
Established acronyms are UNO for ‘United Nations Organization, IBM for
‘International Business Machines’, VIP for ‘Very Important Person’, jeep for
‘General Purpose vehicle’, laser for ‘Light Amplification by Stimulated
Emission of Radiation’, V-day for ‘Victory day’, hi-fi (short for ‘HIgh
Fidelity’), etc. The name of the Asian country, Pakistan, is an acronym, too. It
was derived in 1933 by letter abbreviation of the constituent provinces (Punjab,
Afghan Border States, Kashmir, Sind and the end of the name of BaluchisTAN).
To aid memorization some acronyms are created to look like regular words
existing in the language. Thus they become their homonyms (WASP for White
Anglo-Saxon Protestant, ARISTOTLE for Annual Review and Information
Symposium on the Technology of Training, Learning and Education). Examples
of more recent acronyms are oink (One Income No Kids), dinky (Dual Income
No Kids), quango (Quasi-Autonomous Non-Government Organization), misty
(More Ideologically Sound Than You).
c) Blending
Many words in English are the result of a process of blending, where initial and
terminal segments of two words are joined together to create a new word smog
for ‘Smoke + fOG’.
Blending became most active in the second half of the 20 th century (bit for
BInary + digiT, IMAX for Image + MAXimum, brunch for ‘BReakfast and
lUNCH’, cinematress for ‘CINEMa + ACTRESS’, fantabulous for FANTAstic +
faBULOUS, electrocute for ‘to exeCUTE by ELECTRicity’, laundromat for
‘LAUNDRy autOMAT’, squash for ‘SQUeeze and crASH’. Its role is especially
remarkable in the vocabulary of sports, entertainment, and politics.
Backformation
Backformation is very close to shortening as it occurs when a suffix (or a
morph perceived as a suffix) is removed from a word (to edit from an editor, to
beg from a beggar, homesick from homesickness). Words derived by means of
back-formation look morphologically simpler (edit, beg) than the words they
have originated from (editor, beggar). Nowadays back-formation is mainly
characteristic of verbs derived of compound nouns (to baby-sit from baby-sitter,
to stage-manage from stage-manager, to house-keep from house-keeper).
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The extension of proper names
The names of people, firms and places are often generalized to name the
products or things they are somehow connected with.
Thus, the often used nowadays computing slang spam ‘unsolicited electronic
mail sent simultaneously to a number of newsgroups on the internet’ appeared in
English from the repeated use of the word Spam (blending from [SPiced hAM]
– trademark a kind of rather cheap tinned luncheon meat) in a popular sketch
from the British television show.
Then, champagne stands for ‘white sparkling wine made in the old province of
Champagne’; the well-known word nicotine comes from the name of French
diplomat and scholar Jean Nicot (1530-1600), who introduced tobacco in
France; shrubs and trees with large showy flowers magnolia got their names
after French botanist Pierre Magnol (1638-1715); kleenex for ‘paper tissue
used instead of a handkerchief originally produced by Kleenex’ [trade mark],
coffee comes from Arabic qahwa which in its turn is derived from the name of
the Ethiopian province of Kaffa, and copper is an early continental borrowing
from Latin Cyprium that literally meant ‘Cyprian metal’.
Echoic words, or onomatopoeia
Creation of echoic, or onomatopoeic words, sounding like the thing they
represent, for example, tick-tock for ‘the sound of a clock’, is believed to be
originally the first means of word formation in language.
English is not as rich in onomatopoeic words as, for example, Japanese or
Chinese. Nevertheless, in English there are many sets of onomatopoeic words
whose constituent segments have a specific meaning. Examples of such sets are:
glace, glade, glamour, glance, glare, glass, gleam, glimmer, glimpse, glister,
gloss, and glow – nouns or verbs involving something ‘eye-catching’ because of
emission, reflection, or passage of light;
flack, flag, flame, flap, flare, flash, flee, flick. fluent, flood, flourish, flow,
flush, and fly – mostly verbs that denote a sudden or violent movement;
bumble, grumble, humble, mumble, rumble, stumble, tumble – mostly verbs
signifying ‘dull, heavy, untidy action’.
Reduplication
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Reduplication – repetition of roots or syllables in immediate succession – is one
of the oldest types of word formation (cf. in Russian шёл-шёл, жили-были).
Reduplication in English is not very widespread (boo-boo, bye-bye, gee-gee,
hush-hush, night-night), and the meaning of the words derived in such a way is
diverse and unpredictable, but usually reduplication is used to denote quantity,
intensity or priority.
There are also reduplicatives in modern English with slight changes in the
vowels or consonants. There are rhyme-motivated reduplicated compounds:
walkie-talkie, nitty-gritty, nitwit, and ablaut-motivated reduplicative
compounds: ping-pong, dilly-dally, wishy-washy, flip-flop.
Lexicalization
Transformation of a grammatical form of a word into a lexeme with its own
lexical meaning (the colours ‘the official flag of the country’, customs ‘a place
where traveller’s belongings are searched when leaving or entering a country’,
pictures ‘the cinema’, and arms ‘weapon’) is often referred to as lexicalization
(cf. interpretation of the term ‘lexicalization’ as ‘changing a complex language
unit into a lexeme, one lexical unit’ discussed in Lectures 1 and 5).
Analogical word formation
The process of analogical word formation takes place when a certain element
of a morphological structure of a word, like a root or pseudo-morpheme,
changes into a regular morpheme: hamburger – cheeseburger – fishburger;
England – Disneyland – acqualand; Watergate – Irangate – zippergate –
sexgate, or rice-a-rony, sport-a-rama, plant-o-rama, work-o-holic. This is
especially common in advertising and commerce.
Word-manufacturing
Usually words are not created out of thin air. Even the non-patterned coinage in
the 17th century of the word gas by Jan Baptista van Helmont may be traced to
Greek chaos. An example of the invention of a complete new morph is Kodak
by the inventor of this photocamera George Eastman, who felt that K is a
commanding sound. He also hoped that the name would sound similar in all the
languages.
66
In conclusion of the lecture it should be stressed again that a learner does not
need to remember each derived or compound word, many of them are derived
according to rules and their meaning is predictable, and this saves our memory
capacity.
But still it is better to consult a dictionary because the meaning of an English
word may happen to be much more specific than it may seem (e.g., contractor
‘a person or firm that contracts to supply materials or labour, esp for building’
–‘подрядчик’).
One should also be careful to create English words according to the existing
patterns. No matter how productive some ways of ford-formation are, there are
certain constraints on possibility to form a new word – lexical (*a stealer as
there is a word a thief), phonological (*sillily) or etymological (*a buildant),
and if there is a chance one should better check the created word in a dictionary.
SUGGESTIONS FOR ADDITIONAL READING:
Kessler, Brett; Denning, Keith and Leben, William R. (2007). English
Vocabulary Elements. – Oxford: OUP.
Pyles, Thomas and Algeo, John (1993). The Origins and Development of
the English Language. 4th edn. – Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich.
1.
2.
Questions and Exercises
1.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Check if you know the following terms used in this Lecture:
derivation (word formation)
derivative
affixation (prefixation, suffixation)
derivational/non-derivational affixes
compounding
compounds
conversion
minor ways of word formation
shortening
clipping
acronomy
67
•
•
•
•
•
2.
blending
lexicalization
proper names extension
reduplication
analogical word formation
Questions:
1. What are the major and minor ways to form new words in English?
2. What are the specific features of English compounding; affixation;
conversion; minor ways of word formation?
3. What part of speech prefixation, suffixation, conversion, and
compounding are mostly characteristic of?
3.
Exercises
Name the way of word formation these words are derived by. Point out to
their derivational bases. Translate the words into Russian:
1) unbelievable, discretionary, asynchronous, unhealthy, inadequate, macroadministration, employee, underling, assignment, accountability, judgment,
education, privatization, definition, protection, unmanly, legislature,
homelessness, do-gooder, transcontinental, prenatal, defrost, authoritative,
comparative, legislative, computer, procedure, gangster;
2) tallboy, body language, a student-teacher, a teacher-student, know-how,
lipstick, software, a buzzword, desktop, role-type, policy-making, streetlevel, guideline, paperwork, streamline, a red-breast, a wet-blanket; a
turnkey, a sweet-tooth;
3) to stamp, to shop-window, to chair (a meeting), to benefit, to result, to
effect, to profit, to site, to judge, to program, to service, to vacation, a
push, a drink, an assist, a release, a search, a reward, the blame, the lead, a
treat, a recruit, an act, a guide, a must;
4)subordinate (n), undergraduate (n);
5) SONY, briefs, comics, reds, workaholic, rice-o-rama, Pakistan, laser,
bluetooth, daffynition, Xerox, Spanglish, motel, smog, info, hertz, Celsius,
Fahrenheit, DVD, MP, GSM, MBA.
a)
b)
Classify the underlined words as one of acronyming, blending, clipping, or
transposition:
1) The results of the urinalysis were negative.
2) The economy experienced eight years of Reagonomics.
68
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
c)
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
Police arrested four coke dealers.
Some new DJs prefer to play old rock.
The local FM station may be heard at 90.5.
Let’s try to meld the two plots into a single story.
Send it to me on a floppy.
More funds are needed for AIDS research.
Explain the following examples of new word formation:
Don’t just sit there emoting.
We went to a Broadway show in Chicago.
These trees are trying to root on the hillside.
Carelessness in typing addresses results in a lot of oops-mail.
This new model is more user-friendly.
They called it a Koreagate.
White penned two novels.
Be sure to dry-clean this sweater.
On weekends I’m a sportsoholic.
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Lecture 5.
LEXICALIZED WORD GROUPS AND POLYSEMY AS MEANS OF
VOCABULARY GROWTH IN ENGLISH
Plan
1. Word Groups as Naming Units in English
Word Groups in Taxonomies
Word Groups as Collocations and Phraseological Units
2. Lexical-Semantic Variant of a Word as a Naming Unit in English
1)
The Use of Lexical-Semantic Naming in English
2)
3)
4)
3.
Polysemy as the Result of Lexical-Semantic Naming
Regularities in Polysemy
Semantic Structures of Correlated Words in Different
Languages
Homonymy
1.
Word Groups as Naming Units in English
So far we have discussed the ways of lexical naming in English by a borrowed
word and by a newly formed word.
A concept may also be named in more economic ways – by combining
according to the language rules two or more existing words into phrase and
lexicalizing it, i.e. making it a single, intergrated and stable lexical unit that
needs memorizing and requires a special entry in a dictionary.
1)
Word Groups in Taxonomies
We, people, widely use a set of names to single us out from other people with
similar names: Marilyn Smock : Marylin Olivia Smock; Elizabeth Smock :
Elizabeth Jane Smock.
The same strategy of naming by word groups is very a common practice in
other spheres, especially in terminology when one- or two- or even three-word
epithets are used to designate hyponyms, i.e., a subordinates, more specific
names, within one category like in black bear : black North American bear;
business administration : Roman Catholic Church Administration.
70
Naming by lexicalized word groups is similar to compounding but the cohesion
between components in word groups naming complexes is not so strong as in
compounds.
For this reason word group names are often underrepresented in British
explanatory dictionaries more oriented on linguistic information about words.
But in American explanatory dictionaries traditionally combining linguistic and
encyclopedic information, lexicalized word groups are usualy presented in a
separate entry, for example, parliamentary government n (1858) a system of
government having the real executive powervested in a cabinet composed of
members of the legislature who are individually and collectively responsible to
the legislature (Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary).
Word group names as hyponyms for a certain noun are widely presented in
WordNet Dictionary available now online. There, for example, you will find
definitions not only for government but also for bureaucarcy ~, royal court ~,
federal ~, state ~, local ~, military ~, puppet ~, etc.
2)
Word Groups as Collocations and Phraseological Units
Another type of word groups which requires a lot of difficulties for a foreign
language learner is related to their specific use in speech.
Traditionally free word groups as phrases and sentence structures (a nice girl; I
love you) is the subject matter of syntax. However, the so-called free word
groups are only relatively free. Each word has certain lexical valency -preferences and restrictions in making companies with other words in speech
usually because of arbitrariness in categorization, chosen for them naming
technique or just mere linguistic tradition.
For example, the phrase to DRINK tea is acceptable in English, especially in
American English, though it is preferable to combine the noun tea with the verb
to have and say to HAVE tea.
There is mutual expectancy between the English verb SHRUG and the noun
SHOULDERS. The adjective blond is mostly collocated with the noun HAIR but
such as a word combination as *a blond SWEATER is hardly possible.
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They may say an urgent, delicate, disputable QUESTION; there is no/ some
QUESTION as to his honesty; the point in QUESTION; out of the QUESTION;
to raise, to ask a QUESTION but *actual questions is not used, they say instead
CURRENT ISSUES.
Or, as one more example, they say high MOUNTAINS, high CEILINGS, high
BUILDINGS but tall PEOPLE, tall TREES, tall SHIPS.
Such sequences of at least two words demonstrating preferences and restrictions
in combinability with other words, regularly reproduced in speech by all adult
members of the language community are called collocations.
Collocations with correlated words in different languages are different due to
differences in their semantic boundaries. In Russian, for example, the word
украшать is used with the words стол, салат, торт while in English the
correlated word decorate meaning ‘to make more attractive by adding ornament,
colour, etc’ may be used with the word a cake but neither with a table (they
dress a table, they also dress the hair, the wound, trees and bushes, the land by
putting a finish on by combing, applying protective covering, trimming,
cultivating, etc) nor with salad (they garnish salads and other food in order to
improve its appearance and taste).
Differences in collocations of correlated words in different languages may also
be caused by differences in naming techniques used for the correlated words
(Russ украшать is motivated by красить ‘make something more beautiful’,
hence its wide collocation) or differences in secondary use of correlated words
(in English they use green for ‘young’ as in green years; heavy for ‘intensive’ as
heavy rain or ‘abnormal’ as heavy drinker while correlated Russian words
зеленый and тяжелый are not used for these categories).
The problem for a foreign language learner is that there are no collocation rules
that can be learned. The native speaker intuitively makes the correct collocation,
based on a lifetime’s experience of hearing and reading the words in set
combinations. A foreign language learner has a more limited experience and may
frequently collocate words as they are collocated in his mother tongue but it may
sound odd to the native speaker.
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Making a dictionary of collocations characteristic of a language is a matter of
urgent necessity though of extreme difficulty. One of the attempts in this field is
The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English by M. Benson, E. Benson and R.
Ilson (1986, 1990). Scholars are still, however, to work out a more consistent
approach to collocations to find out better criteria of their choice for inclusion in
a collocational dictionary and better ways of their presentation there.
Various collocations different in structure and habitually used in speech, e.g.
kind to people, commit a suicide, safe and sound, are often referred to as
clichés. Many of them are institutional phrases as ladies and gentlemen, or
Good morning! They may also be sentence builders as not only … but also … .
Most predictable collocations with most limited lexical and grammatical
combinability that allow little or no change at all, like on the one hand, hand in
hand, by the way, so far so good, are usually referred to as set expressions.
The best candidates for being used in set expressions are native words. Here are,
for example, some set expresions with the native word word: eat one's words;
for words; have no words for; in other words; in one word; in so many words;
of many words; to put into words, etc.
In English they also often use multi-word Latin and French set expressions:
alter ego ‘second self’; id est ‘that is’; vice versa ‘with the order changed’; Bon
appétit! ‘Enjoy your meal!’.
Most of them are used as abbreviations and their reading, however, may follow
different patterns.
Some of these abbreviations are read as letters of the English alphabet: a.m. –
stands for anter meridiem ‘before midday’; p.m. post meridiem ‘after midday’ or
A.D. anno Domini ‘in the year of the Lord’.
Some of them are read as full Latin expression. Thus, etc. means ‘and the
others’, ‘and other things’, ‘and the rest’ and is read as et cetera; sic ‘so’ or
‘thus’, it is read [sik] and comes from the expression ‘sic transit gloria mundi’ –
так проходит земная слава; when inserted in brackets in a written or printed
text (sic!) it indicates that an odd or questionable reading is what was actually
written or printed.
73
Some of these abbreviated expressions are pronounced as English words: e.g.
(exempli gratia) is usually read as ‘for example’, ‘for instance’; et al. (et alia) is
read as ‘and others’; R.I.P. (requiescat in pace) is read as ‘rest in peace’ – a
short prayer for a dead person.
Still another type of word groups may become lexicalized and reproduced in
speech as intergrated and ready-made lexemes for some other than taxonomic
reasons or reasons of habitual collocation in speech.
For some linguistic and extralinguistic reasons (rhyme, rhythm, allusion to the
well-known situations with a wide net of associations, etc.) some word groups or
even full utterances may acquire restricted variability and additional meaning
which is not found in the meaning of their constituents, and thus become special
type of lexical units naming complex concepts. They are usually called idioms.
In English, like in any other language, there is a great amount of idioms.
Thus, Hobson’s choice means ‘no choice at all; take what you are offered or
none at all’; in cold blood means ‘deliberately, without passion’, and an old bird
is not to be caught with chaff stands for ‘experienced people are not easily
fooled or deceived’. The additional semantic component that can hardly be
deduced from the meanings of constituent words is called idiomatic meaning. It
turns such word combinations and sentences (idioms) into non-motivated or
partially motivated ready-made units that become a part of the lexicon.
Idioms are very frequent in spoken English; they are less common in written
English or in formal situations. Due to their summarizing effect idioms are often
used to terminate one topic in conversation and to make transition to another one.
Idioms help to create a relaxed atmosphere. Someone whose English is very good
but who uses no idioms can sound formal, rather impersonal and even unfriendly.
That is why knowledge of idioms is important so that one’s business meeting
does not to sound “cold”. The idioms are also widely used nowadays by
politicians in their public speeches.
In the Russian linguistic tradition they often use the term ‘phraseological unit’
which is more comprehensive and includes both set expressions (to shrug
shoulders, as far as, side by side, at first sight and idiomatic expressions (to
74
break the ice; Speech is the picture of the mind; It is better to say nothing than
not enough. Teach your child to hold his tongue.
Professor A.V. Kunin, for example, worked out the most comprehensive
classification of phraseological units. He combined structural-semantic
principles of classification, quotient of stability of phraseological units and their
functions in communication.
From the point of view of the function that phraseological units perform in
speech, he subdivided them into the following four major classes:
1) nominative phraseological units which perform nominating function – they
are utterances below the level of a sentence that semantically are more like a
word: to breath one’s last ‘to die’; off colour ‘unwell’; a practical joke ‘a
prank’;
2) communicative phraseological units which like sentences convey the
thought; they include proverbs and sayings: It is as broad as it is long ‘it is the
same whichever way you view it’ A cheerful wife is the joy of life; A hungry
man is an angry man; A fool may make money but it takes a wise man to
spend it; Fingers were made before forks; He is the richest that has fewest
wants; and If a man deceived me once, shame on him; if twice, shame on me;
3) nominative-communicative phraseological units which normally perform a
nominating function but only slight transformations in grammar make them
perform a communicative function: to break the ice ‘to begin’ – the ice is
broken; to square the circle ‘to attempt something impossible’–the circle is
squared;
4) interjectional phraseological units which function like interjections and
mainly express emotions: Well, I’ll never! By George! It’s a pretty kettle of
fish!).
Phraseological units are highly specific for each language because they are the
result of the historical and cultural development of the language community.
Their understanding and translation cause special difficulties. But, certainly,
foreign language learners should learn them in order to understand and use them
correctly.
75
The best phraseological dictionary so far is Англо-русский
фразеологический словарь (English-Russian Phraseological Dictionary) is
by Prof. A.V. Kunin. The first edition of his dictionary was in 1955. The second
(1956), the third (1967), the fourth (1984) and the fifth (1998) editions are
improved in selection, systematic analysis and descriptive precision.
The most comprehensive Russian-English Dictionary of Idioms by Sophia
Lubensky, edited by Random House in 1995, presents some 13,000 traditional
Russian idioms and combines features of translation and learner’s dictionaries.
The first (and probably the best), large-scale, theoretically grounded English
explanatory phraseological dictionary compiled by native speakers is the Oxford
Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English (1975, 1983) by A.P. Cowie, R.
Mackin and I.R. McCaig.
Here are also many Internet resources that provide guidance for English idioms,
for example,
http://www.idiomeanings.com/idioms; http://www.thefreedictionary.com/idiom;
http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/idioms-body.htm and others.
2. Lexical-Semantic Variant of a Word as a Naming Unit in
English
The most economic way of naming, however, is lexical-semantic naming
which implies the secondary use of the word to denote a different though
somehow related conceptual category: She is a fox; He is a shark; This vehicle
is a caterpillar; The place where a stream enters a larger body of water is
called mouth.
The basis for lexical-semantic naming is the relatedness of some concepts that
cause psychological association of similarity (‘сходство’) and contiguity
(‘смежность’). These associations make possible the transference of a name of
one concept to name a different one. The transference of a name on associations
of similarity is usually called metaphor (face of a person and face of a clock;
neck of a body and neck of a bottle) or that of on the basis of contiguity is called
metonymy (the crown for ‘the monarch’; the bench for ‘judiciary’; the guitar
for ‘the guitar-player’).
76
The results of lexical-semantic naming are less visible than in the case of
naming ways discussed above. The reason is that the new naming units appeared
here are not new words or new word groups but their new lexical-semantic
variants – new senses having the same sound an written forms of a word as it
major meaning.
However, each of these derived lexical-semantic variants (LSV) has all
characteristics of an autonomous naming unit.
•
Each LSV has its own:
•
meaning;
•
collocation with other words (cf.: warm WATER and
warm RECEPTION; a tall BOY and a tall STORY);
•
morphological characteristics (cf.: the countable
original meaning, or LSV, of the word chicken ‘a young bird, esp. a
young hen’ and its uncountable derived meaning, or LSV, ‘its flesh as
food’;
•
set of word-derivatives and idioms as in head :
1)
the upper part of a human body or the front part of the body of
animals, contains the face and brains Derivatives:
BEHEADED; HEADACHE; from head to foot / heel;
2)
brain, psyche, responsible for thoughts and feelings Derivative:
HEADLESS (‘foolish’, ‘senseless’); to lose one’s head;
3)
a person in charge, chief Derivatives: HEADMASTER;
HEADLESS (‘without a leader’) crowd; - at the head of a
table;
4)
the top of smth Derivative: HEADPIECE;
5)
the heading of a section within an article Derivative:
HEADLINE;
6)
the most forward part of a thing; front: Derivative:
HEADWAY, etc.
synonyms and antonyms:
tall 1) of more than average height Syn.: HIGH;
2) informal exaggerated Syn.: INCREADIBLE.
1)
The Use of Lexical-Semantic Naming in English
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Any word may be used as the source for lexical-semantic naming, or metaphor
and metonymy. But names of most familiar and important concepts, like body
parts, animals, plants, instruments, clothes, movement, existence,
possession, colour, shape, size, and temperature are especially widely used for
this purpose.
Lexical-semantic naming is very often used to give figurative (usually
derogatory) names to a person (tail ‘one (as a detective) who follows or keeps
watch on someone’; monkey ‘(fig.) a person resembling a monkey; a ludicrous
figure; DUPE’; etc.).
This type of naming is also used for creating direct names. Thus, in the system
of nouns it is widely used for lexicalizing concepts of:
– instruments (hand ‘an indicator on a dial’; head ‘the striking part of a
weapon’, worm ‘the thread of a crew, a short revolving crew’; etc.),
– parts of any structure including body (leg ‘a pole or a bar serving as a
support’; foot ‘a piece of a sawing machine that presses the cloth’; lid
‘EYELID’; bag ‘UDDER’; etc.),
– geographical places and objects of the Universe (mouth ‘the place
where a stream enters a larger body of water’),
– actions, events and their results (bed ‘sleep; marital relationship’; chair
‘employment, a position of employment’; etc.),
– different abstract concepts (lid ‘RESTRAIN, CURB’; net ‘an
entrapping situation’; bone ‘ESSENCE’; etc.).
2) Polysemy as the Result of Lexical-Semantic Naming
In the majority of cases the original lexeme, or lexical-semantic variant of a
word and the newly derived one in the course of lexical-semantic naming (they
are usually referred to as ‘senses’) happily coexists together creating a word
polysemy.
So, the word is polysemantic when it refers to two or more related conceptual
categories (cf.: warm water and warm reception), and thus has two or more
interrelated senses, or lexical-semantic variants.
78
The senses of a polysemantic word are believed to have a semantic structure
where each of them takes a certain place in the semantic space of a word and in
the dictionary entry as in the verb go 1. to move on a course: PROCEED –
compare STOP 2. to move out of or away from a place 3. to take place:
HAPPEN, etc.
The degree of polysemy of words in English is very higher, for example, than in
Russian: the usual number of meanings in an English word is from 3 to 8, while
in Russian it is from 2 to 5. The average number of meanings of the most
frequent English words is 25.
Within the major notional classes of words in English the most polysemantic
ones are verbs, and then go adjectives, and nouns. Ogden and Richards, for
example, compiled "Basic English" of 850 words with no more than 18 verbs
(send, say, do, come, get, give, go, keep, let, make, put, seem, take, see +
modal verbs -may, will-,auxiliary verbs - be, have) which have 12,425
meanings, or lexical-semantic variants /Carter 1987:23/.
One of the main reasons for high polysemy of English words is their high
frequency of usage in speech. According to the well known Zipf’s Law, the
number of meanings (m) is equal to square root of its frequency:
m=√F
The most frequently used words in English are native words because they are
short, simple in structure, have existed for a long time, and usually denote
concepts most important for communication.
3) Regularities in Polysemy
Semantic development of a word is to a great extent predictable though to a
lesser degree than its derivation potential. There are certain regularities in using
lexical-semantic naming as it is based on regular semantic relations of certain
types of concepts.
Thus, English words denoting an animal, for example, implies that such words
are regularly used (though not obligatorily) to denote:
•
some other animal (cat – ‘1. domesticated animal 2. a species of animals
including a tiger, a panther, a lion, a domesticated cat’), their flesh (to eat
chicken, goose, rabbit);
79
•
•
•
•
objects made of parts of their bodies (to wear fox ‘fur-coat made of fox’) ;
an instrument or appliance (cat ‘a strong tackle used to hoist an anchor to
the cathead of a ship’);
a sign in the Zodiac (Dog ‘either of the constellations Canis Major or
Canis Minor’), and
characteristics of a person (usually negative) (she is a cat ‘a malicious
woman’).
The total list of types of derived senses that words of the same semantic group
may possess makes up their model of polysemy.
Such models of polysemy provide efficient storing and retrieving lexicalsemantic names from mental lexicon, their easy recognition and efficient use in
speech.
One should also be aware that these models are not universal. In many African
languages names of animals, for example, are never used for negative qualities
of a person.
A model of polysemy is an abstraction even for one language, and its acquisition
needs a lot of memorizing.
One of the reasons for that is the fact that not all potential is realized in a
language, there are many lexical gaps in these models because many potential
conceptual candidates for lexical naming may happen to be named by other
naming techniques (cf.: the use of chicken for ‘animal’ and ‘its flesh’ while pig
and cow are used only for ‘animal’, to denote their flesh borrowed French names
pork and beef are used).
And then, a foreign language learner should learn what exactly qualities, events
or objects are named by semantic naming because in different languages they
may be different. For example, though in all the three languages, English,
Russian and Italian, the name of a bird of prey and nocturnal habits with a large
head and eyes, a short hooked bill (E: owl, Russ: сова, It: civetta) may be used
to characterize a person, this type of lexical-semantic variant different human
qualities in the three languages: in Russian it means ‘sleeping late in the
morning but not late at night’, in English – ‘clever’, and in Italian ‘a woman that
attracts attention of men’.
80
4) Semantic Structures of Correlated Words in Different Languages
We choose the way of naming (borrowing, morphological or syntactic naming)
to a great extent arbitrarily (произвольно).
The concept, for example, ‘the lower part of the mountain’ may be named
metaphorically in one language (foot), may be named by affixation in another
(подножие). Naturally, the semantic structure of the English word foot will not
coincide in this aspect with the semantic structure of the correlated Russian
word ‘нога’.
Even when they use the same type of naming, for example, lexical-semantic
one, people in different language communities may feel the relations of
similarity and contiguity between different concepts.
Accordingly, different words would be used as sources for lexical-semantic
naming of the same concept (cf.: heart murmurs (literal. ‘шeпот, бормотание,
шелест’ and шумы (literal. ‘noises’) в сердце; eye of a needle – ушко (‘ear’)
иголки; a kangaroo poach ‘a kind of a pocket’ and сумка кенгуру).
Or vice versa, as it was mentioned above, people in different language
communities may use correlated words as means for lexical-semantic naming of
different concepts (cf.: derived meanings of: E. cat ‘a woman who gossips
maliciously’ (now outdated) and Russ. кошка; E. goose informal: ‘a silly
person’ and Russ. гусь, гусыня; E. pigeon slang: ‘a victim or dupe’ and Russ.
голубь, голубка).
The use of different naming techniques and emergence of different associations
in people of different language communities lead to differences in the semantic
structures of correlated words.
3. Homonymy
Some of the meanings of a polysemantic name in the course of time may grow
away from the semantic structure and not be perceived as related to other
meanings of the word. In this case they speak about the divergence of polysemy
and appearance of homonyms – words pronounced or spelt the same way but
having different not related meanings.
81
Thus, palm ‘the inner part of the hand from the wrist to the base of the fingers’
and palm ‘any treelike plant of the tropical and subtropical’ both originated from
Latin palma and were lexical-semantic variants of the same word, the name of
the tree was derived on the basis of a metaphor from the likeness of its spreading
fronds to a hand. (See also pupil ‘a young student who is taught by a teacher’
and pupil ‘the dark circular aperture at the centre of the iris of the eye, through
which light enters’, flower and flour, etc.)
Yet the main source of homonymy in English is not divergence of polysemy but
lavish borrowings in English.
Race 1 ‘nation’ [Fr.] and race II ‘running’ [ON]; bank I ‘shore’ [Sc.] and
bank II ‘financial institution’ [It]; bay I ‘a deep howl or growl’ [from Old
French abaiier ‘to bark’, of imitative origin]; bay II ‘sweet bay a small
evergreen Mediterranean laurel, Laurus nobilis, with glossy aromatic leaves,
used for flavouring in cooking’ [from Old French baie ‘laurel berry’, from Latin
bāca ‘berry’] and bay III ‘1) a) a moderate reddish-brown colour 2) an animal
of this colour, esp. a horse’ – they are all independent lexemes with different
etymologies that only accidentally share the form of the word.
Classification of homonyms may be done according to the type of form
coincidence.
If coincidence is present only in the spoken form of semantically unrelated
words the homonyms are classified as homophones (tail and tale; buoy and
boy).
When coincidence takes place only in the written form of semantically unrelated
words we refer to such words as homographs (live [liv] and live [laiv], lead
[li:d] and lead [led], minute ['minit] and minute [mai'nju:t].
The case with the words bank 1 and bank 2 may be classified as an example of
perfect homonyms where words are identical both in sound form and spelling
but remain totally different in meaning.
According to the type of meaning that homonyms may differ in, we may
distinguish lexical homonyms which differ only in lexical type of meaning
(seal (n) ‘a sea animal’; seal (n) ‘design on a piece of paper, stamp’),
grammatical homonyms that differ only in grammatical meaning (seals – pl. of
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‘sea animal’ and seal’s – sing. Possessive Case of ‘sea animal’), and lexicalgrammatical homonyms that differ both in lexical, part-of-speech and
grammatical meaning but coincide in a sound and/or written form (seal (n) – ‘a
sea animal’, and seal (v) – ‘to close tightly’; court (n) and caught (v); sea (n)
and see (v), etc.).
There are many tongue twisters and nursery rhymes in English which make use
of homophones, for example:
Of all the saws I ever saw, I never saw a saw saw like that saw saws.
A canner exceedingly canny
One morning remarked to his granny:
“A canner can can
Any thing that he can
But a canner can’t can a can, can he?”
English is very rich in homonyms, and as well as unknown meanings of
polysemantic words they also may cause difficulties for a foreign language
learner especially while reading or listening English texts.
SUGGESTIONS FOR ADDITIONAL READING:
http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/
http://usefulenglish.ru/idioms/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonymy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polysemy
Questions and Exercises
1.
•
•
Check if you know the following terms used in this Lecture:
collocation, cliché, set-expression
idiom
•
phraseological units (nominative, communicative, interjectional)
• polysemy
• lexical-semantic variant (LSV)
• semantic structure
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•
•
•
•
primary (original) meaning
secondary (derived) meaning
main (central, basic) meaning
minor meaning
• homonymy, homograph, homophone, perfect homonym
Questions:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
Why are there idioms (phraseological units) in any language?
Why are they different in different languages?
What should be taken into account while learning idioms?
What is polysemy?
Why are there so many polysemantic words in English?
What are the reasons for the abundance of homonyms in English?
Exercises:
1.
Here are some questions to test your knowledge of collocations:
•
What is the difference between ‘a high window’ and ‘a tall window’?
•
Look at the following pairs of phrases and in each case choose the most
usual collocation:
strong tea / powerful tea; a strong car / a powerful car; a strong
computer / a powerful computer; a strong drug /a powerful drug
•
Now look at the following words and phrases and decide if we do them or
make them. For example, do we ‘do a mess’ or ‘make a mess’?
a mess, a mistake, the housework, the beds, a noise, a wish, a test, a
promise, a job, someone a favour, your best, a speech, the shopping,
damage, a telephone call, your hair (i.e. comb it or make it tidy)
Finally some odds and ends. See if you know the correct collocations in answer
to the following questions?
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•
The opposite of ‘strong tea’ is ‘weak tea’. What is the opposite of ‘strong
cigarettes’, ‘a strong wind’, ‘strong smell’?
What is the usual way of describing someone who smokes a lot:
•
a big smoker/ a strong smoker/ a hard smoker/ a heavy smoker?
•
What is the opposite of ‘sweet wine’? Why?
•
Which of the following are the usual collocations?
completely beautiful; incredibly beautiful; absolutely beautiful; extremely
beautiful; totally beautiful; utterly beautiful; thoroughly beautiful
•
The following collocations are incorrect. Can you sort them out?
to get in a building; to get on a car; to go in a ship
2. Translate the sentences with phraseological units into Russian:
1) He gives me a pain in the back.
2) Most of the professor’s lecture was completely over the students’
heads.
3) I must give him the cold shoulder, or he will be pestering me
eternally.
4) I went broke and had to start from scratch.
3. Compare the meaning and semantic structures of the following words, state
points of similarity and difference:
computer – компьютер; minister – министр; personnel – персонал;
conductor – кондуктор; sputnik – спутник; complexion – комплекция;
lunatic – лунатик
4. Give the Russian equivalents for the following word-combinations:
sweet wine, sweet milk, sweet butter, sweet voice, to smell sweet, you are so
sweet; heavy stone, heavy crop, heavy rain, heavy play, heavy debts
5. Think of homonyms to the following words and define their meaning:
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discrete (a), reign (n), draught (n), idle (a), key (n), plain (a), pupil (n).
6. Translate into Russian:
public administration, civil service, organization theory, paper-and-pencil
test, desktop manager, the eye of a needle, the head of a pin, the mouth of a
river; every head of cattle, to have a good head for figures.
7. Think of a keyword related to your future business and create English names
for your company:
Create a blend.
Create a compound.
Combine words.
Use the existing name in some figurative meaning.
Make a name adding affixes.
Model a name by adding vowels and/or consonants.
Mix the letters within a word.
Model a name to your own scheme.
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Lecture 6.
BUILDING A BETTER VOCABULARY
Plan
1. What’s in a Name?
2. English Lexicon as a Structure and a System
3. Building a Better Individual Vocabulary
4. A Case Study
1. What’s in a Name?
The choice of a certain naming technique (borrowing, word formation,
secondary use of an existing name, lexicalizing a word group) and of a certain
motivating feature for a new name is rather arbitrary and is influenced by
numerous linguistic and extralinguistic factors.
We, Russian speaking people, for example, call a timepiece that shows the time
of day часы, and час in Russian means ‘time’. The same device is called in
English either by the word clock when it refers to a timepiece, usually freestanding, hanging, or built into a tower (this word is borrowed from Middle
Dutch in the 14th century but is of Latin origin and means ‘bell’) or by the noun
watch if the timepiece is portable and worn strapped to the wrist (the word is
converted from verb to watch).
Yet whatever character a name may have, if it is accepted by the language
community it is used as a linguistic sign in its major referential function, and
people don’t think too much about its etymology, motivation, and structure,
when they use it in speech.
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet",
concludes Juliet in the famous play Romeo and Juliet by W. Shakespeare.
But there is a lot of important information in a name.
We shall omit here the hotly debated issue of relation of language and thought
because it is very complicated and controversial, we may offer just small
examples to get the flavour of the problem language-thought-behavour relation.
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The Russian word опенок related to and motivated by пень ‘stump’ signals to
the Russian language user that this mushroom grows predominantly on stumps
of the wood. We also know that опенок may be of two types: летний and
осенний (‘summer’ and ‘autumn’).
The English name of this mushroom honey agaric sends different information to
the English language user: that this mushroom belongs to the type of mushrooms
that has gills on the underside of the cap (agaric is ‘пластинчатый гриб’, cf.:
fly agaric ‘мухомор’) and that it has a sweet (honey) taste. This name correlates
only with the Russian осенний опенок – ‘autumn agaric’, the summer variation
of this mushroom летний опенок has a totally different name – a prickly cup.
The Russian word чертополох being motivated by the words ‘devil’ and
‘startle’, ‘alarm’ has very scare chances to become a flower-symbol of the
Russian speaking regions while its English demotivated equivalent thistle is the
national emblem of Scotland.
People speaking English and Russian use the hand contact gesture of greeting or
congratulations in a slightly different way in accordance to the meaning of
correlated lexical expressions: English speaking people shake hands but
Russian speaking people slightly press, tighten, squeeze each other’s hand as
the Russian expression пожать руки instructs them to do.
We shall leave now this exciting issue to scholars to discuss and emphasize here
on only the relation of a name and the lexical system that the name is in.
We shall argue that the character of a name plays a crucial role in the position
and functioning of the name in the lexicon and that name characteristics
determine to a great extent the system and structure of the lexicon itself.
1. The motivating feature of a new name determines the
boundaries of the lexicalized category.
The name of vehicle called a bicycle [from BI- ‘two’ + Late Latin cyclus, from
Greek kuklos ‘wheel’] may be applied only to the category of vehicles ‘with two
spoked wheels, one behind the other.’
The Russian correlative name велосипед [from Lat velos ‘quick’ + pedēs ‘feet’]
does not have the feature ‘two’, and that is why it can be applied to a similar
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vehicle with one or three wheels, thus becoming a wider lexical category than
its correlative word in English.
Even when the word loses its motivation, its etymological motivating feature is
still present in the word semantics and determines the category boundaries.
Thus, the borrowed word clock in the above example retains its original
meaning ‘bell’ and refers nowadays only to ‘a timepiece, usually free-standing,
hanging, or built into a tower’.
2. The motivating feature of a new name determines the name’s
collocations.
Thus, Russians may say одноколесный or трехколесный велосипед but it is
impossible to say in English *one- or *three-wheeled bicycle, they say
monocycle and tricycle instead.
Even when completely demotivated, etymological meaning of a word
determines to a great extent its usage in the language system.
Earlier in Lecture 3 the usage of the English borrowed verb to arrive with
preposition at and in was commented on. Here is one more example of influence
of the early meanings of a word on its keeping company with other words in
Modern English. This time we shall consider completely demotivated native
words.
Both the verbs drive and ride have the meaning ‘to control and guide the
movement of a vehicle’. And yet, they usually say:
he drives a CAR/ TRACTOR/ BUS/ TRACK
but
he rides a BICYCLE/ TRICYCLE/ MOTORCYCLE/ HORSE.
The explanation for the difference in collocation may be found in the history of
the words.
Originally drive meant ‘to herd (i.e., ‘to compel, to punch’) draught animal in a
particular direction’, then ‘to direct a vehicle powered by a horse’. Even now
this word retains this semantic feature, though in latent, not explicit form, of
acting on force towards something or somebody usually strong and powerful: to
drive a nail into the wall; she drives me mad.
The word ride, however, originally meant ‘to sit and travel on the back of
animal, usually while controlling its motion’. So, if you sit on a horse/ mule/
bicycle, or even motorcycle and travel usually controlling the movement, you
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are riding. Riding an animal, bicycle, and motorcycle is squatting, sitting, or
standing on it as it moves.
You may also take someone for a ride in your car to sit there and enjoy the ride
while you are driving. You may let you to be carried on a vehicle, and then you
may say, for example, I ride to work in a bus.
So, the word ride does not imply the idea of compelling something or somebody
go in some direction but the verb drive does. Riding implies less enforcement
on somebody or something, less work and more fun.
One more important detail: if you go to work by bus you may say you ride to
work but IN a bus. Yet, if you want to underline the coercion on the object you
ride, you may use the verb drive: Nevertheless, she likes to drive the young
mule, or He likes to drive his motorcycle.
And here is one more example of mutual relation of the character of a name and
its relations with other words in the language.
In English they say to be caught in/into a net but they say to work on the
Internet while in Russian we use the same preposition в ‘in’. The explanation
may be found in the origin of the word Internet which is a shortening from
INTERnational NETwork, and network in the computer jargon is used with the
preposition on to express the idea of being switched on to broadcast the
information: Normally, computers on the network listen to the packet
broadcasts and simply take the packets addressed to them. (Cf.: on the radio;
on television; on the network of television broadcasting stations.)
3. The option for a certain type of a word-formation in the name derivation
determines the relations of the new name with a certain group of words in
its derivational and morphological family.
Thus, the word bicycle composed of a Latin prefix and a Latin root has become
morphologically and derivationally related to the words mainly with the Latin
root cycle: unicycle, monocycle, tricycle, quadrocycle, motorcycle, to cycle, to
bicycle, to tricycle, to monocycle, to motorcycle, cycling, cyclic, cyclical,
cyclist, bicyclist, motorcyclist, etc.
The correlated Russian word велосипед is derivationally related to a different
set of its Russian derivatives: велосипедист(ка), велосипедный, велоспорт,
велотрек, велорикша, велопробег. Morphologically it is also related to the
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word педаль while the words bicycle and pedal in the system of the English
language are only semantically related as whole and a part, but they are not
derivationally or morphologically related.
A similar situation is observed in the Russian words велосипед and мотоцикл
which are semantically related as they are both kinds of VEHICLES but they are
not related formally, structurally or derivationally in contrast to the English
words bicycle and motorcycle.
4. The option for the secondary use of a word in the process of a namederivation leads to polysemy and close relation of the new name to other
names within the semantic structure of the word.
If the upper marked surface of a clock or watch is named face in English, this
name is closely related to all other names derived by secondary use of the word
face that as result became polysemantic: ‘the front of the head from the forehead
to the lower jaw’; ‘the expression of the countenance; look’; ‘the main side of
an object, building, etc.’
The correlated Russian name циферблат borrowed from German is in no
relations to these naming units of the word face.
So, emergence of a name in a language is like emergence of a nova, and its
character changes the whole lexical system and structure that it is in. The name
characteristics, such as origin, motivation, its morphological, derivational, and
even phonetic structures determine the name’s relations with other lexical and
naming units of the language.
And one more important thing: in different languages different in character
correlated names weave finally unique lexical canvases. Lexical systems of
different languages are different, and a foreign language learner should be
aware of that.
Let us consider some issues of the English vocabulary as a system and structure.
2.
English Lexicon as a Structure and a System
The word-stock of any language is very rich. It includes hundreds of thousands
of words of particular form and meaning that a foreign language learner needs to
be bilingual.
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Through centuries of word formation and borrowing words from other
languages, English has acquired a large and varied vocabulary.
It is impossible to say how many words are there because it is hard to decide
even what counts as a word – its form used in the text, its initial form as it is
usually presented in a dictionary, its major meaning or a set of meanings, etc.
It is even difficult to say what counts English: there are so many variants
(British English, American English, Canadian English, Australian English,
Indian English, Zimbabwe English, etc) and dialects of English, there are also
different stylistic registers like written English, colloquial English, technical,
scientific English, etc.
Yet, scholars estimate that in Modern English there are about one million words
(excluding many technical, scientific and dialectical words), each having a
number of meanings. According to some estimates there are even three million
words.
The Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language,
Unabridged (1961, commonly known as Webster's Third) contains more than
450,000 entries.
The most comprehensive Oxford English Dictionary (1989, 2-nd edition) with
detailed definitions and historically arranged senses was printed in 20 volumes.
It comprises 291,500 entries in 21,730 pages. If distinct senses were counted,
the total number of names would probably approach three quarters of a
million. (The longest entry in the OED2 was for the verb set, which required
60,000 words to describe some 430 senses.) There are also 157,000 bold-type
combinations and derivatives; 169,000 italicized-bold phrases and combinations.
According to the publishers, it would take a single person 120 years to type the
59 million words of the OED, 60 years to proofread it, and 540 megabytes to
store it electronically.
So, the lexicon seems to be too vast to be manageable. However, this totality of
naming units in a language is quite well organized along formal and semantic
lines.
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We may organize the words into blocks according to their first letter (A-letter
words, B-letter words, etc.), and this formal principle is usually used in
dictionaries.
We may also classify all the words from the point of view of their origin,
morphological, derivational, or phonetic structure, according to their part-ofspeech meaning, their frequency of usage, their last letter or sound, etc.
Logically all words and their senses can also be grouped thematically into six
main groups denoting the material world, space, the intellect, volition, emotion
and morality, and abstract relations, each of them being further subclassified
into 1,000 smaller semantic categories (thematic fields, lexical-semantic groups,
etc.), as it was done by P.Roget in the 19th century in his well known
lexicographic work called Thesaurus [18 c., from Latin, Greek: TREASURE].
He worked out a rather complete vocabulary structure based on certain types of
semantic relations between lexemes.
The most important of them that keeps this totality of words together is the type
of hierarchical relations which penetrate the entire lexicon (hypero-hyponymic
relations which are at the basis of dictionary definitions, e.g., cat (a hyponym) is
a kind of an animal (hyperonym); part-whole relations as in wheel and
vehicle, and some others).
Hierarchical relations are at the basis of lexical substructures referred to as
thematic fields and lexical-semantic groups (LSG) (e.g., LSG of names of
animals).
Other well-known types of sense relations are synonymity and antonymity which
are at the basis of the relative lexical groupings of synonyms and antonyms which
the English language is very rich in due to borrowings..
Another type of word structures (collocations) is based on the relations that words
display in speech, and these word groups were discussed in Lecture 5.
Vocabulary structures in different languages do not coincide. Words in large and
small correlative lexical groups, no matter what type of relations they are based on,
in different languages do not coincide in composition and quantity.
In Russian, for example, there is not a hyperonym for breakfast, dinner and supper
while in English there is, and it is meal [Old English mæl ‘measure , set time ,
meal’; related to Old High German māl ‘mealtime’].
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Thus, learning a name, it is absolutely necessary to know tthe relations that this
name keeps with other names in the lexical system. It helps to work out the socalled ‘language intuition’ and prevents of lexical mistakes.
3.
Building a Better Individual Vocabulary
One of the most common questions that a foreign language learner asks is “How
many words do I need to learn?”'
The answer is of course to learn as many as you can. It is impossible to learn all
the lexicon of a language. Any one of us can learn only a fraction of it. Some
people manage to communicate knowing only some hundreds words. But fair or
not, people judge us, our ideas and our intelectual abilities by the words we use.
It is estimated that an issue of a newspaper contains somewhere about 3, 000 of
different words that you should know to understand them. Shakespeare used
16,000 different words in his works, though other scholars give other
estimations of up to 25, 000 words.
But passive vocabulary is much wider. David Crystal carried out a research
project using random pages from a dictionary to estimate for native speakers
graduate vocabularies. He concludes that a better average for a college
graduate might be 60,000 active words and 75,000 passive ones. But this
method of assessing vocabulary counts dictionary headwords only; it would be
possible to multiply it several-fold to include different senses, inflected forms,
and compounds.
The individual lexicon of a foreign language learner is much narrower. Average
proficiency tests in English as a foreign language are usually based on
somewhere 3,000 words.
But learning even this number of words is a long and tedious process for a
language learner because there is too much to learn about each foreign word.
Thus, we should learn the English word’s:
 sound and written forms, very often unconventional (coup d’etat;
jeopardy); its possible variants in, at least, American and British English
(purse – handbag; neighbour – neighbor);
 motivating feature in Modern English (if any) (scooter = scoot (V)
‘бежать стремглав; удирать’ + -er) or its etymological meaning if the
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word has lost its motivation (trade [OE: ‘track’, hence, a regular business:
related to Old Saxon trada, Old High German trata ‘track’]) or was
borrowed (coup d’etate [fr. Fr coup ‘blow’, fr. L colaphus ‘blow with the
fist’ and d’etat Fr ‘of the state’];
 translation in Russian (coup d’etat – государственный переворот) and
be aware that some English or Russian words may have not lexical
uniword equivalents (cf.: English scrutiny and its descriptive definitions
English-Russian dictioonary: внимательный осмотр; исследование;
some words as, for example, the adjective street-level (administrator) are
not registered in English-Russian dictionaries on the whole);
 major meaning definition in explanatory dictionaries (trade ‘1) the act or
an instance of buying and selling goods and services either on the
domestic or on the international markets’) and its semantic boundary
difference from the correlated Russian word (cf.: стол and table, board,
desk);
 semantic structure (trade 1) торговля; коммерческая деятельность; 2)
занятие,
ремесло,
профессия
(cf. :
trade(s)
committee
‘профессиональный комитет, профсоюз’); 3)торговцы или
предприниматели; 4)клиентура, покупатели; 5)розничная торговля (в
противоположность оптовой - commerce); 6)сделка; обмен) and its
difference from the semantic structure of the correlated Russian word
(торговля 1.Отрасль народного хозяйства, реализующая товары
путем купли-продажи и обеспечивающая обращение товаров между
производителем и потребителем; 2.Деятельность по обороту, купле и
продаже товаров 3.Незаконная продажа чего-либо (дипломов,
лицензий и т.п.);
 morphological family (trade (n), (v), (adj); trader, tradable, trade-wise,
trade-union, etc);
 collocations (e.g., free trade; to lose trade; to restrain trade; to restrict
trade; home trade; export trade; foreign trade; overseas trade;
international trade; maritime trade; retail trade; wholesale trade; etc);
 stylistic register, sphere of usage, connotations and pragmatic value
(jeopardy law ‘danger of being convicted and punished for a criminal
offence’; trade slang ‘homosexual’);
 frequency of usage (the word the collective, for exam[ple, does exist in
the English language but is not frequently used).
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We see that the information that nonnative speakers of English living in their
home countries should master about the word in order to use it accurately,
meaningfully, and appropriately is extremely extensive.
Learning foreign language vocabulary needs a lot of work with dictionaries and
other reference materials, careful comparative analysis of the acquired data,
numerous language exercises and translation, intensive reading and listening in
the target language to activate the words.
We are lucky these days having at our disposal excellent, paper and electronic
dictionaries, and Internet resources which are helpful and enjoyable.
It is a very difficult, long, and tedious process but so far there is no other way to
build an adequte foreign language lexicon in our mind. Making this process
shorter would lead inevitably to gross lexical mistakes and failures in
communication.
The next most frequently asked question that a foreign language learner asks is
“How should I learn English vocabulary?” and this question is easier to ask
than to answer.
In Lecture 1 it was mentioned that up till now it was believed that any person
with normal intelligence can learn words in a foreign language without special
training or instruction.
He or she may learn words, for example, from context and guess their meaning.
But the context does not give a learner a chance to understand the word fully,
especially if it is an abstract word, and numerous mistakes in guessing the word
meaning are unavoidable. My little granddaughter, for example, calls her kitten
«Неспеша» because when they came to buy it at the market, her mother told her
«Мы будем покупать котенка не спеша», and the girl figured out from this
context that it was the kitten’s name.
A learner may also use translation dictionaries. But translation dictionaries do
not present semantic boundaries of the word and contribute to misconception of
the word meaning. If you look up, for example, the best Russian-English
Dictionary by O.S. Akhmanova for the English equivalent of the Russian word
сосиска you will find that it is ‘sausage’ but the entry does not tell you that
sausage in English is also ‘колбаса’.
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Sometimes a list of new words is presented in textbooks with their translation:
abet – подстрекать
perpetrator – нарушитель
accomplice – сообщник.
The authors intend to save the learners’ time and present only contextual
meaning of the words, but this technique helps to understand a given foreign text
but it does not help to get adequate information about the new English words.
These traditional methodologies of vocabulary learning do not enable a learner
to get adequate information about the words and to use them appropriately in
speech.
They also recommend on the Internet nowadays some other techniques to learn
and memorize words.
1.
Learning the most frequently used words (http://lextutor.ca/vp/bnl).
But learning and using only the most frequently used words will inevitably
prevent a learner from adequate comprehension natural English.
2.
Learning a recommended list of words with their definitions (without
a context of their usage) www.freevocabulary.com:
abdomen n. in mammals, the visceral cavity between the diaphragm and
the pelvic floor; the belly
abduction n. carrying away of a person against his will, or illegally
aberration n. deviation from a right, customary or prescribed course
However, reading dictionary definitions without example sentences does not
give a learner enough information about the new word and does not program the
brain to produce correct English sentences with new words. And then,
memorizing lists of semantically unconnected words is ineffective because it is
contrary to human cognitive mechanisms of vovabulary learning.
Learning
words
organized
in
morphological
families
(www.vocabulary.com/MVactivityMATCH4.html):
gender/
geneology/
generation/ generic/ generosity/ genius/ genuine/ indogenous/ regenerate.
4. Some textbooks recommend in addition special technologies for more
effective remembering words, like mnemotechniques. (abet – обет). Pitfalls in
mnemonics may be illustrated by this story.
3.
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A man used the method of association to fix in his memory the name of a new
acquaintance, Mr Lamb. Some time later he met Mr Lamb and addressed him:
« Mr Goat ».
Here is another humorous example of using mnemonic technique.
In order to remember some Russian phrases an Englishman wanted to imitate
what the Russians say when somebody sneezes and came to the conclusion they
say «Boots are off!». Then he understood that whenever a Russian wished to say
to a girl «I love you», he said a phrase that sounded in English like «yellow blue
bus».
None of these techniques, however, are adequate enough because none of them
present the sufficient information about the word to be learned.
4. A Case Study
Let us consider a possible way of leaning an English word fruit, for a example,
that we may meet in a sentence like:
Fruits are so diverse that it is difficult to mention them all.
The most common mistake is to ignore the lexical work with the word fruits. It
is easy for Russian speaking people to guess its meaning as they have the word
фрукт(ы) in their language. In this case they may believe that fruit = фрукт
which means in Russian ‘сочный съедобный плод какого-нибудь дерева’.
More diligent students may consult an English-Russian dictionary in order to
avoid a ‘false translator’s friend’. A translation dictionary is the shortest way to
catch the meaning of the word and its use. Yet it is often ineffective and
insufficient, and may even mislead the user.
In our case a student may find the following data in the most popular and
reliable English-Russian Dictionary by Prof. Muller: fruit n 1. плод; to bear ~
плодоносить 2. собир. фрукты; to grow ~ разводить плодовые деревья,
small ~ ягоды 3. (преим. pl.) плоды, результаты 4. attrib. фруктовый.
There is a very intensive signal that the boundaries of the English word fruit are
not equal to the boundaries of the Russian word фрукт: according to the
definition of the major sense fruit means first of all плод.
But what is плод in Russian? The Russian explanatory dictionary by S.I.
Ozhegov (Русский толковый словарь) runs that ‘плод – 1. часть растения,
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развивающаяся из завязи цветка и содержащая семена 2. зародыш
детеныша 3. перен. порождение, результат чего-н. Плоды размышлений’.
The meaning of the English word fruit still remains unclear. What items called
by the Russian word плод are fruit?
Diligent and smart learners will go further and use their linguistic knowledge as
well as a number of available lexicographic resources to get adequate
information about this word fruit according to the discussed above algorithm.
 Sound and spelling analysis. Learn the difference in spelling and
pronunciation of the English fruit and the Russian word фрукт.
 Etymological analysis. The word fruit is of Latin origin and it came into
English from Old French which is reflected in its spelling. It has been in
the English language system for quite a long time and we may expect this
word to have a relatively developed semantic structure and a great number
of morphologically related words. Moreover, in Latin the word frūctus
meant ‘enjoyment, profit, fruit’ from frūī to enjoy, and we have to be
careful, as we know that words seldom shake off their original meaning.
 Detailed semantic analysis of the word. Let us check the definition of
the first sense of this word in a well-known and reliable English
explanatory dictionary Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary which follows
historical principle of sense arrangement:
Fruit – 1 a : a product of plant growth (as grain, vegetables, or cotton)
(the ~s of the field) b (1) : the usu. edible reproductive body of a seed
plant; esp : one having a sweet pulp associated with the seed (the ~ of the
tree) (2) : a succulent plant used chiefly in a dessert or sweet course c : a
dish, quantity, or diet of fruits (please, pass the ~) d : a product of
fertilization in a plant with its modified envelopes or appendages : specif.
the ripened ovary of a seed plant and its contents e : the flavor or aroma of
fresh fruit in mature wine
So, according to this dictionary definition, fruit is anything, including grain,
vegetables, or cotton, that is the result of plant growth, esp. the edible succulent
sweet reproductive body of a seed plant used in a dessert or sweet course. This
dictionary definition gives a better idea of the semantic boundaries of the of the
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word which is not marked as botanical. It is close to its interpretation in the
translation dictionary (‘плод’).
But the semantic boundaries of the word fruit are not presented clear enough in
this dictionary definition.
However, according to the electronic dictionary WordNet hyponyms for fruit
are:
• what we Russians call фрукты : apples, plums, fruit, pineapple, and
melon, water-melon;
and in addition:
• different berries;
• different seeds (like sunflower seed) and
•
nuts;
•
coffee bean;
•
some nonedible fruit like acorn,
•
dried fruit like raisins, figs, prunes.
It is also mentioned there that some edible fruit may be eaten as a vegetable but
when fully ripe they are used as a dessert.
Tomato, eggplant, squash, pumpkin, green bean, cucumber and zucchini are
not mentioned here. They can be considered as fruit only in botanical sense.
So, according to the Webster’s Collogiate Dictionary, the semantic boundaries
of the English word fruit are much wider than those of the Russian word
фрукты.
We would better, however, make a double check and use a dictionary of Modern
English for foreign language learners, for example, Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Dictionary of Current English by A.S.Hornby which gives
detailed definitions, arranges senses in an entry according to their frequency of
usage, and states grammatical properties of the word (e.g., U stands for
uncountable noun and C for countable) and gives illustrative examples, both
verbal and pictorial, to get a better idea of the meaning. It gives the following
information:
Fruit – n 1. [U] that part of a plant or tree that contains the seeds and is
used as food, e.g. apples, bananas; [C] kind of ~ : People are eating more
~ than they used to. F ~ is expensive nowadays. Is a tomato a fruit? 2. [C]
(bot) that part of any plant in which the seed is formed. 3. the ~s of the
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earth, those plant or vegetable products that may be used for food,
including grain, etc.
In contrast to the English-Russian Dictionary and the Webster’s Collegiate
Dictionary, it states that fruit in the meaning of плод in Modern English is used
mainly as a botanical term and in the fixed expression presented above, but
semantic boundaries of all senses are less clearly defined that in Webster’s and
WordNet Dictionaries.
Now, let us check the semantic structure of the word fruit.
The English word fruit according to Webster’s Dictionary more oriented to
American English states that it may be used figuratively to denote ‘result,
product’ (the fruits of his labour). The Russian correlated word фрукты does
not have such a meaning. In this case a figurative meaning of the word плод/ы
is used.
Then, fruit is used to characterize people as the correlated Russian word does.
But in Russian the word фрукт is used just to speak derogatively of a person
(ну и фрукт!) while the English word fruit according to the Webster’s
dictionary has a figurative derogatory meaning ‘homosexual’. (Probably here its
etymological meaning somehow shows off.)
 Morphological and derivational analysis. The word fruit is monoradical
and derivationally simple, so it may have a good derivational potential
and be a source of names for other conceptual categories.
In contrast to the quite recently borrowed Russian word having a limited number
of derivatives, the English word fruit has a very extensive morphological
family:
fruitful – producing fruit or good results
fruitfully
fruitfullness
fruitless – without fruit or good results
fruitlessly
fruitlessness
fruity – 1) resembling fruit in taste or smell
2) full of rough humour
3) (colloq) rich (a fruity voice)
fruiter – fruit-bearing tree; fruit-carrying ship
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fruiterer – one who sells fruit
frutarian – one who lives almost only on fruit
to fruit – to produce fruit
fruit-machine (GB colloq.) – coin-operated gambling machine
fruit-sugar – a kind of glucose
fruit-grower – cf. Russ садовод
fruit-piece – still life painting with fruit
fruit-fly– Drosophila
fruit-bat – any large Old World bat occurring in tropical and subtropical
regions and feeding on fruit. Compare: insectivorous bat
fruit-cake– a rich cake containing dried currants, peel, etc.
etc.
 Collocations:
fresh fruit
fresh picked fruit
home-grown fruit
organic fruit
tropical fruit
we need fruit
run out of fruit.
 Synonyms for fruit
as ‘the produce harvested from the land’ may be
regarded the words crop, fruitage, harvest, yield.
Synonyms fruit as ‘result, something brought about by a cause’ may be
considered the words: consequence, aftermath, outcome, ramification, result,
effect, end product, harvest.
Synonyms for the noun fruit as ‘homosexual’ are homophile, gay, homo.
 Frequency. The WordNet runs that the word fruit is frequently used only
in its meaning ‘a succulent plant used chiefly in a dessert or sweet
course’.
This method of learning words in English is time-consuming, tiring but more
reliable. A student may also use Internet resources, for example,
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http://www.answers.com or http://www.yourdictionary.com to find linguistic
and extralinguistic information about the word he or she learns.
Stay longer with words, learn more about them, and make them your permanent
friends!
Learn the English vocabulary by exploring it and have fun!
learn v [OE, OHG ‘to learn’; L lira ‘ furrow, track (Cf. Russ ‘пахать’)]
1.
to get knowledge or understanding of or skill in by study, instruction, or
experience
explore v [L from outcry of hunters on sighting game]
1.
to search into; to examine minutely
fun n [ME fonne ‘fool’]
1.
light-hearted pleasure, amusement
SUGGESTIONS FOR ADDITIONAL READING:
1.
2.
Miller, George. A. (1991). The Science of Words. – New York: Scientific
American Library.
http://www.etymonline.com
Questions and Exercises
Check if you know the following terms used in this Lecture:
• explanatory dictionary
•
dictionary entry
•
hyperonym
•
hyponym
Questions:
1) What’s in a name?
2) What does your first name mean? Does it have derivatives?
3) What is to be learned in a foreign word?
4) What are the ways to learn it?
5)
Why translation dictionaries are not enough to learn new foreign words?
6)
What dictionaries will you use and what information will you look there for
for to learn more information about a new English word?
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Exersise:
Learn the following words by finding the necessary linguistic information about
them: student, pupil, academy, university, professor, book, state, government,
president, public, administration, rule, reign, lead
Учебное издание
Лещёва Людмила Модестовна
English Vocabulary
and a Guide to Its Learning
Курс лекций
В авторской редакции
Ответственный за выпуск Л. М. Лещёва
Художник обложки О. А. Стасевич
Технический редактор Т. В. Жибуль
Компьютерная верстка Л.М. Лещёвой
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