英语语言学Chapter3lexicon.pptVIP

Chapter Three Lexicon 1. What is word? A unit of expression that has universal intuitive recognition by native speakers, whether it is expressed in spoken or written form. – A vague definition. Three senses are involved in defining “word”, none of which is satisfactory to cope with all the situations. 1.1 Three senses of “word” A physical unit: a cluster of sound segments or letters between two pauses or blanks, eg Phonological: Orthographic: It is wonderful. Three words are recognized. Thecatsatonthemat. However, in casual speech or writing, it often becomes: Phonological: Orthographic: It’s wonderful. Are they two words or three? There is an A and a N in the word “an”.------How many words? Seaside is written as a single word, sea level is conventionally written with a space between two component elements. How many words are there? I usually have dinner at 6 but yesterday I had it at seven. How many times did the word “have” occur? A set of forms: walk, walks, walking, walked lexeme: the common factor underlying a set of forms A lexical item or a lexeme A lexical item is an entry in a dictionary. A lexeme WRITE includes all of its grammatical forms: write, writes, writing, wrote, written A grammatical unit: sentence clause phrase word morpheme 1.2 Identification of words Stability: stable linguistic units. chairman, but not *manchair Relative uninterruptibility: though we recognize three components in the word disappointment, we cannot pause and add another component in between, as in *disinterestappointment. But we can add another word between words: Paul, (John) and Mary ... A minimum free form: the smallest unit that can constitute a complete utterance by itself, eg —Is Jane coming tonight? —Possibly. Hi. Wonderful. What Is a Word? The definition of a word Therefore, we can say that a word is a minimal free form of a language that has a given sound and meaning and syntactic function. 词是具有一定的声音、意义和语法功能，能独立运用的最小的语言单位。 E.g. “The young man left