词汇学lecture I.pptVIP

 Lecture I: Basic Concepts of English words Lexicology: a branch of linguistics which studies the origins and meanings of words English lexicology: It studies the morphological structures of English words, their formation, usages, relations, semantic structure and historical development. two methods of word study synchronic（共时的） way and diachronic（历时的） way Synchronically, words are studied at a point of time, without considering the changes of the words. Diachronically, words are studied in terms of their origin and changes in form and meaning. Basic concepts of words definition of a word: a word is a minimal free form of a language that has a given sound and meaning and syntactic function. Meaning of a word the relationship between sound and meaning Two schools: They are naturalists and conventionalists. The naturalists believe that there is an intrinsic / a natural connection / correspondence between sound and meaning. the conventionalists believe that the relation between sound and meaning is conventional and arbitrary. language facts have proved that the conventionalists’ argument is valid. (1)Words that convey the same meaning have different phonological / sound forms in different languages. (2)And the same phonological forms may convey different meanings, concept and meaning A concept is the base of the meaning of a word. It is an abstraction from things of the same kind. A word acts as the symbol for a concept. 3. classification of words 3.1 criteria of classification 1.use frequency: basic word non-basic word 2.notion: content word functional word 3.origin: native word borrowed word Characteristics of basic words 1. all national character 2. stability 3.productivity 4. polysemy 5. collocability native words and borrowed words Native words / Anglo-Saxon words brought to Britain in the 5th century by the Germanic tribes: the Angles, the Saxons,