TESL 2200 Lecture 3

1. TESL 2200 Lecture 3 Sources of the lexicon 2009-2010 Semester 2

2. Content 1. Native Vocabulary 2. Foreign borrowings 3. Lexical structure 4. Unusual structures 5. Neologisms

3. 1. Native Vocabulary Many English words arrived with the Germanic invaders, and have never fallen out of use. The anglo-saxon words continues to dominate everyday conversation, whether it be grammatical words( in, on, be, that) lexical words (father, love, name), or affixes (mis-,un-,-ness-,less).

4. In the million-word Brown University corpus of written American English, the 100 most frequently used items are almost all Anglo Saxon. The fact that most of these words are short and concrete has often been noted as a major stylistic feature of the Anglo-Saxon lexicon

6. The Common Core Part of the body: hand,foot,arm, eye, heart, chin, bone Natural Landscape: land, field, meadow,hedge, hill, wood, oak Domestic life: house, home, stool, door, floor, weave, knit

7. Calendar: sun, moon, day, month,year. Animal: horse, cow, sleep, dog, hen, goat, swine,fish. Common adjectives: black, white, wide, long, good, dark. Common verbs: fly, drink, swim, help, come, see, eat, sit, send, sell, think, love, say, be, do, do, go, shove, kiss, have, live.

8. Old English                French                Latin guts                          courage clothes                        attire climb                                                    ascent

9. Old English           French      Latin sweat                        perspire happiness                                             felicity house                       mansion

10. Old English           French      Latin wish                        desire weariness                                      lassitude

11. Old English     French           Latin rise              mount          ascend ask               question     interrogate fast              firm secure

12. Old English     French           Latin kingly             royal           regal holy               sacred     consecrate fire               flame       conflagration

13. 2. Foreign Borrowings When one language takes words from another, the new items are usually called loan words or borrowings. English is an insatiable borrower. Some languages take pains to refuse foreign words, but English seems always to have welcomed them. English has borrowed from a total of 120 languages all over the world.

14. Attitudes toward foreign borrowing • I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happenth to them all.

15. Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must inevitably be taken into account.

16. Bad writers, and especially scientific, political and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin and Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon opposite numbers…(George Orwell 1946)

17. 3. Lexical Structure Most English vocabulary arises by making new words out of old ones—either by adding an affix to previously existing forms, altering their word class, or combining them to produce compounds. Almost any word, whether Anglo-Saxon or foreign, can be given an affix, change its word class, or help make a compound. Alongside the Anglo-Saxon root in kingly, for example, we have the French root in royally and the Latin root in regally.

18. 3.1 Affixation • Three types of affixes: prefixes,suffixes and infixes. • English has only about 50 common prefixes, somewhat fewer common suffixes, and no clear instances of infixes. • These limited resources are used in a complex and productive way. e.g. antidiseastablishmentarianism

19. English prefixes • Negation • A- theist,-moral • Dis- -obey,-believe • In- -complete,-decisive • Non- -smoke,-medical • Un- -wise,-helpful

20. 2. Reversal • De- -frost, -fraud • Dis- -connect, -infect • Un- -do, -mask

21. 3. Disparaging • Mal- -treat, -function • Mis- -hear, -lead • Pseudo- -intellectual

22. 4. Size or degree • Arch- -duke, -enemy • Co- -habit, -pilot • Hyper- -market, -card • Mega- -loan, -merger • Mini- -skirt, -bus • Out- - class, -run • Over- -worked, -flow

23. 5. Size and degree (continued) • Sub- -normal,-conscious, • Super- -market, -man • Sur- -tax, -charge • Ultra- -modern,-sound • Under- -charge,-play • Vice- -chair, -president

24. 6. Orientation • Anti- -clockwise, -social • Auto- -suggestion, -biography • Contra- -indicate, -flow • Counter- -clockwise, -act • Pro- -socialist,-consul

25. 7. Location and distance • Extra- -terrestrial, -mural • Fore- -shore, -leg • Inter- -marry, -play • Intra- -venous,-national • Pan- -African, -American • Super- -script, -structure • Tele- -scope, -phone • Trans- -plant, -atlantic

26. 8. Time and order • Ex- -husband, -president • Fore- -warn, -shadow • Neo- -Gothic,-classical • Paleo –lithic, -botany • Post- -war, -modern • Pre- -school, -marital • Proto- -type, -european • Re- -cyle, -new

27. 9. Number Bi- -cycle, -lingual Demi- -god, -taste Di- -oxide, -graph Mono- -rail, -plane Multi- -racial, -purpose Poly- -technic, -gamy Semi- -circle, -detached Tri- -maran, -pod Uni- -sex, -cycle

28. 10. Grammatical conversion Verb to adjective A- -stride, -board Noun to verb Be- -friend, -witch En- -flame, -danger

29. A sampling of suffixes Commonly occurring English suffixes -tion, -ship,-ness, -able,-ery, -ese, -ling, -like, -let, -esque, ette, -ess, -ism, -ite, -ish Some have a meaning which is fairly easy to state: -ess, for example, means ‘the female of’(lioness).

30. Some have several meanings: -ette can mean ‘the female of (usherette), ‘small version of’(kitchenette), or ‘substitute for’ (leatherette). • Some have a highly abstract meaning, difficult to define precisely: one of the meaning of -ery is ‘the quality or state of having a particular trait’ (snobbery)

31. Suffixes also change the grammatical status, for example, the –ify ending turns the noun beauty into the verb beautify, and the –ing ending turns the concrete noun farm into the abstract one farming.

32. Will it burn? There are several words beginning with in- where the prefix has a locative or intensifying meaning, such as inflate and ingredient. Because in- also has a negative meaning, however, as with infrequent and ingratitude, ambiguity is sometimes possible. The famous case is inflammable vs nonflammmable.

33. 3.2 Conversion • Words can be made to change their word class without adding an affix—process known as conversion. • The items chiefly produced this way are nouns, adjective, and verbs—especially the verbs which come from nouns(e.g. to bottle) and the nouns which come from verbs(e.g. a doubt).

34. The converted Verb to noun A swim/hit/cheat/bore/show-off/drive-in Noun to verb To bottle/catalogue/oil/brake/referee/bicycle

35. Adjective to verb To dirty/empty/dry/calm down/sober up Noun to adjective It’s cotton/brick/reproduction

36. Grammatical word to noun Too many ifs and buts That’s a must The how and why Affix to noun ologies and isms

37. Phrase to noun a has-been. Free-for-all/also-ran/ down-and out Grammatical word to verb to down tools/to up and do it

38. 3.3 Compounds • A compound is a unit of vocabulary which consists of more than one lexical stem. • Compounds are functioning as a single item, which has its own meaning and grammar. • So flower-pot does not refer to a flower and a pot, but to a single object. For example, its plural form is flowerpots and not flowers-pots.

39. Compounds can be classified into types based on the kind of grammatical meaning they represent. Earthquake, for example, can be paraphrased as ‘the earth quakes’, and the relation of earth to quake is that of subject to verb. Similarly, a crybaby is also subject +verb (‘the baby cries’), despite its back-to- front appearance. Some involve slightly trickier grammatical relations, such as playgoer, windmill, goldfish, and homesick.

40. 4.Unusual structures • Back-formations • Blends (Portmanteau) • Reduplicative

41. Back-formations • A shorter word is derived from a longer one by deleting an imagined affix. • For example, editor then edit; television then televise; double-glazing then double-glaze; and baby-sitter then baby-sit.

42. Blends (Portmanteau) • It takes two words which overlap in form, and welds them together to make one. • Motor+hotel=motel; • breakfast+lunch=brunch; • helicopter+airport=heliport; • smoke+fog=smog;

43. advertisement+editorial=advertorial; • Channel+tunnel=Chunnel; • Oxford+cambridge=Oxbridge; • Yale+harvard=Yarvard • slang+language=slanguage;

44. guess+estimate=guesstimate; • information+commerical=infomerical.

45. Reduplicative • An interesting type of word is one which contains two identical or very similar parts: a reduplicative. • Items with identical spoken parts, such as goody-goody (a good man) and din-din (dinner), are rare. • What is normal is for a single vowel or consonant to change between the first constituent and the second, such as see-saw and walkie-talkie.

46. Some imitate sounds e.g. ding-dong,bow-vow, Some suggest alternative movement: flip-flop,ping-pong. Some are disparaging: dilly-dally; wishy-washy. And some intensify meaning: teeny-weeny, tip-top.

47. Neologism • Definition • How are neologisms created • Sources of neologism: Science • Science fiction • Politics • Corporate branding

48. Neologism: definition A neologism (from Greek, neo 'new' + logos 'word') is a newly coined word that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms tend to occur more often in cultures that are changing rapidly and also in situations where there is easy and fast propagation of information. According to OED the term neologism was first used in print in 1772.

49. How are neologisms created Neologisms can be created by combining existing words (e.g. facebook). Words combined also can be shortened or lengthened, such as "smoke" and "fog" becoming smog (1905). Words coined in such a way are called portmanteaus. Neologisms can also be created by giving words new and unique suffixes or prefixes (e.g. cyberspace).

50. Neologisms also can be created through abbreviation or acronym (e.g., laser), They also can be created by intentionally rhyming with existing words or simply through playing with sounds (e.g. bebop).