Introduction to Linguistics 3The Lexical System

Prof. Jo Lewkowicz

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Review of week 21. What is the difference between phonetics and phonology?2. How do we make speech sounds? What is the process of speech

production?3. What is meant by the statement that the sound system is rule

governed? 4. What are minimal pairs? How do they differ from allophones?5. Make a list of 5 minimal pairs6. How do we describe consonants? Why do we describe vowels in a

different way? What are diphthongs?7. What does IPA stand for? Why is it an important tool for those studying

language?8. What is segmental phonology? What is suprasegmental phonology?9. 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

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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

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Word class

• Group the following words according to their word class:table eat them ontogreen and from

rememberhonesty an soold therefore bookquickly bright fastbring smoothly his

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The structure of words

• 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

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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

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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 3rd person sing. present lives

-ing progressive living -ed past tense lived -ed past participle had lived -er comparative taller

-est superlative tallest-’s, -s’ possessive Adrian’s, the Jones’

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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

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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

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Dimensions of a word

• 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/)

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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

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Cataloguing words• Dictionaries– 1st 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

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Examples 1 from a written corpus001. n their rise to military prominence, Custer was a BELIEVEr in blood and guts warfare. During the Ci002. s concerning the nature of religion were, Adams BELIEVE

d, some of the major keys to the understa003. let the experience shape itself. Midi Garth also BELIEVEs in subjective continuity that begins with004. Commons, on February 27, 1945, he had always BELIEVEd to be "just and right", but he did not wa005. nic of grief she accepted Jonathan's dictum, and BELIEVEd in her desperation that she had been c006. amen, I say to you, he who hears my word, and BELIEVEs him who sent me, has life everlasting, a007. Westminster) was an outstanding Handler and BELIEVEd a Junior should have an opportunity to 008. man as one of mere potentiality or capacity and BELIEVEs that Adam and Eve were created as chi009. tic switch i the budget during this recovery and BELIEVEs it "even more unlikely that the Federal 010. y the last 10 per cent are genuine Christians and BELIEVErs in democracy. But these Western coun

t

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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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