Introduction to Linguistics 3 The Lexical System Prof. Jo Lewkowicz

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Review of week 2

1.

What is the difference between phonetics and phonology?

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How do we make speech sounds? What is the process of speech production?

What is meant by the statement that the sound system is rule governed? What are minimal pairs? How do they differ from allophones?

Make a list of 5 minimal pairs 7.

8.

9.

How do we describe consonants? Why do we describe vowels in a different way? What are diphthongs?

What does IPA stand for? Why is it an important tool for those studying language?

What is segmental phonology? What is suprasegmental phonology?

How many tones are used in spoken English? What function does intonation play in spoken English? 10. English is a stressed-timed language. What do we mean by this?

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The Word

• • How many words are in the following utterances? How many different words are in each utterance?

– Go home!

– We need some more butter.

– We’re going home soon.

– They’re living on a shoe-string – They are having problems with cash flow – He who laughs last, laughs loudest Why is it difficult to explain what a word is?

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One or more than one word?

• • • • Should the words underlined be counted as one word or two?

– I will act this part while he acts the part of King Lear.

– – Please take a seat. / Please be seated?

He went to the bank to cash some money. / He went to the river bank.

A word (lexical unit) is the smallest unit of speech that has meaning and can stand alone.

A word family is made up of the root word plus all the other words that can be made from it, e.g. store, storing, stored A lemma consists of a key word plus its add-ons or inflexions that are the same part of speech, as in act, acting & acted. But actor forms another lemma as it is a different part of speech (noun) from act (verb).

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Word tests

• • • The potential pause test – Can you pause where there is white space on the page?

– Does not work for contractions and multi-syllable words such as nationhood The indivisibility test – Can you add additional words in the spaces?

– Interpolation points will mark word boundaries The stand-alone test – Can the word stand alone as a complete utterance?

– Does not work for all words e.g. articles 5

Types of words

• • Content words – Carry meaning – Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs – Open set, new words are constantly being added and old ones disappear – Examples of new words: blog, Iraqnophobia Function words – Tie content words together showing how nouns and verbs relate to one another – Articles (a, an, the), prepositions (on, in, of), pronouns (he, she, them) & conjunctions (and, but, although, nor) – Closed set 6

Word class

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Group the following words according to their word class:

table green honesty old quickly bring eat and an therefore bright smoothly them from so book fast his onto remember 7

The structure of words

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Morphology

– The study of the internal structure of words

Words can be broken down into morphemes

– Free morphemes: words that can stand alone and that carry meaning, e.g. happy, good, read – Bound morphemes: attachments to words that extend the meaning of a word. They cannot stand alone in a sentence, e.g. ‘ed’ (past tense), ‘ly’ adverb – walk-ed; shy-ly 8

Types of morphemes

• • Free morphemes – Open set – Root of the word Bound morphemes – Can be described by their position to the root of the word • Prefixes – appear in front of free morphemes, e.g. il –logical; dis approve; anit-establishment – ‘re’ can also be a prefix as in relive; redeliver but it is not always a prefix as in relate which does not mean late again or revive as there is no word vive • Suffixes – appear after the free morpheme, e.g. walk-ed; late-ly; late-ness – Affixes refer to either prefixes of suffixes 9

Inflectional morphemes

• in English a small set of bound morphemes, all suffixes that change the word, but not its grammatical class -s plural morpheme dogs -s 3 rd person sing. present lives -ing -ed -ed progressive living past tense lived past participle had lived -er -est comparative taller superlative -’s, -s’ possessive tallest Adrian’s, the Jones’ 10

Derivational morphemes

• • – Large set of bound morphemes, including prefixes (which do not change the grammatical class of the root, e.g. disregard, multinational) and suffixes (which usually do change the grammatical category, e.g. movement, government, happiness) Common derivational morphemes include: -ize, -able, -tion, -sion, -cion, -ate, -ness, -ity, -er, -ent, -ive, -tial, -ed, -ic, -ly, dis-, un-, il-, in-, pre-, bi-, post Can add more than one derivational morpheme on to a word as long as it remains comprehensible, e.g. nation, nationalist, nationalists 11

Breaking down words into morphemes

• • • How many different words can you make from the root ‘appear’? Here are a few: – – disappear appearance – appears Identify the bound morphemes, their type and their function Break down the word antidisestablishmentarianism into its constituent parts 12

Dimensions of a word

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Spelling Pronunciation Morphology Syntax Meaning Pragmatics

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Additional features of words

• • • • Need to recognise that the same word may have a number of different meanings, e.g. bank (homonym), or different nuances but the same underlying meaning, e.g. neutral (polysemous word) A word does not always have the same phonological form e.g. go – went When classifying words we need to think of them in terms of word families There is often a close relationship between the sound system and the lexical system, e.g. in the pronunciation of the ‘ed’ past form of words such as drip (voiceless), sob (voiced) & elect, end (root ends in /t/ or /d/) 14

Pronunciation of past tense and plurals

• • How would you pronounce the underlined sounds?

– booked, praised, booted, bonded, branched, laughed, ended, rated, failed, lingered.

– What rule can you derive from the pronunciation?

How would you pronounce the underlined sounds?

– books, praises, boots, bonds, branches, laughs, ends, rates, fails, lingers, leases, bushes.

– What rule can you derive from the pronunciation?

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Creation of new words

• Numerous ways in which new words are created including: – compounding, i.e. putting two existing words together: compact disk, tree-hugger, songwriter – affixation, i.e. adding a prefix or suffix to a word: anit-Bush, SMSing, pro-choice – conversion, i.e. transforming one part of speech into another: to out-outing; to green-greening – clipping , i.e. using a short form of the word: flu, roo, barbie – generification, i.e. using the proper name for the product to refer to it: biro, Kleenex – acronomy, i.e. when the acronym becomes the word by which the thing is known: scuba=self contained underwater breathing appatatus; radar=Radio detection and ranging 16

Cataloguing words

• • Dictionaries – 1 st English dictionary drawn up by Samuel Johnson working with a team, took 10 years, completed in 1746 with over 400,000 words plus definitions – Currently dictionaries drawn up by committees which determine which words to include and which to leave out – Even with the technical resources today, no dictionary can be fully comprehensive Corpora – Computers have allowed us to record data on real language as it is written or spoken – Corpora allow us to study not only the word but also the context in which it appears 17

Examples 1 from a written corpus

001. n their rise to military prominence, Custer was a 002. s concerning the nature of religion were, Adams

BELIEVE

r in blood and guts warfare. During the Ci

BELIEVE

d, some of the major keys to the understa 003. let the experience shape itself. Midi Garth also

BELIEVE

s in subjective continuity that begins with 004. Commons, on February 27, 1945, he had always

BELIEVE

d to be "just and right", but he did not wa 005. nic of grief she accepted Jonathan's dictum, and 006. amen, I say to you, he who hears my word, and

BELIEVE BELIEVE

d in her desperation that she had been c s him who sent me, has life everlasting, a 007. Westminster) was an outstanding Handler and 008. man as one of mere potentiality or capacity and

BELIEVE

d a Junior should have an opportunity to

BELIEVE

s that Adam and Eve were created as chi 009. tic switch i the budget during this recovery and 010. y the last 10 per cent are genuine Christians and

BELIEVE

s it "even more unlikely that the Federal

BELIEVE

rs in democracy. But these Western count 18

The grammar system

• • •

Grammar = the specification of how words are formed and combined to enable the communication of meaning Formation of words = morphology Ordering and combination of words = syntax

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