03Lexicon.ppt

Chapter 3 Lexicon lexicon, lexeme vocabulary lexicon In its most general sense, lexicon is synonymous with vocabulary. In its technical sense, it deals with the analysis and creation of words. vocabulary It usually refers to all the words or lexical items a person has acquired about technical or un-technical things. It is also used to mean word list or glossary. ? The Definition of Word A minimal free form of a language that has a given sound, meaning and syntactic function. Three senses of “word” Classification of word Variable and invariable words Grammatical words vs. lexical words Closed-class words vs. open-class words Morphology and Morpheme The morpheme is the smallest unit of language in terms of relationship between expression and content，a unit that cannot be divided into further smaller units without destroying or drastically altering the meaning, whether it is lexical or grammatical. Words are composed of morphemes. Words may consist of one morpheme or more morphemes 1-morpheme boy, desire 2-morpheme boy+ish, desir(e)+ble 3-morpheme boy+ish+ness, desir(e)+bl(e)+ity 4-morpheme gentle+man+li+ness, un+desir(e)+abl(e)+ity 5-morpheme un+gentle+man+li+ness 6-morpheme anti+establish+ment+ari+an +ism Morphology is the branch of grammar that studies the internal structure of words, and the rules by which words are formed. It is generally divided into two fields: inflectional morphology and derivational morphology. Free morpheme: those which may constitute words by themselves Bound morpheme: those which can not be used by themselves, but must be combined with other morphemes to form words Inflectional morpheme: manifest various grammatical relations or grammatical categories such as number, tense, degree and case. E.g. walks, walking, walked ; John’s; children; biggest Derivational morpheme: the morphemes which change the category, or grammatical class of wor