-
1.
What is polysemy?
Having multiple meanings that are
related.
2.
What
are the two different ways of organising
polysemous words? Explain them
1)
The diachronic
approach begins with the primary meaning and then
arrange
the other meanings (derived
meanings) in the order in which they
developed.
2)
The synchronic approach begins with the
most popular meaning (central
meaning)
and then arrange the other meanings (marginal
meanings) in
order of popularity.
3.
What are the
two different ways in which polysemy develops?
Explain them
1)
Radiation. Secondary meanings are
independent from one another and are
derived directly from the primary
meaning.
2)
Concatenation. Secondary meanings are
connected and derive from primary
meaning through successive shifts of
meaning from one secondary meaning
to
another.
4.
What is homonymy?
Homonyms
are works different in meaning but either
identical both in sound or
spelling or
identical only in sound or spelling.
5.
Give an
example of a perfect homonym, a homophone and a
homograph
1)
perfect homonym
同音同形
date
< br>日期
/date
红枣
2)
homophone
同音异形
Knew/new,
meet/meat
3)
homograph
异音同形
record(v.)/record(n.)
6.
Give an
example of the rhetorical use of homonymy
Hi Jack
（你好杰克）
–
hijack
（打劫）
7.
What is the
difference between polysemy and homonymy? Give an
example to
illustrate the difference
1)
Polysemy is
about connection of meanings. Book can mean a book
as in
“I
read a
book
”
, and
“I
book a hotel
room
”
. The second meaning is
related to
the first one because in the
past hotel staff will write the
customers
’
information on a book when reserving a
room.
2)
homonymy
is about form. Lie can mean not being honest or
being in a
horizontal position. These
two meanings have the same form but no
connection.
8.
Classify the following pairs of
antonyms into complementaries (binaries),
contraries (gradable) or converses
(relational). Explain why
1)
Good/bad, contraries
2)
odd/even,
complementaries
3)
above/below, converses
4)
clean/dirty,
contraries
5)
remember/forget, complementaries?
6)
old/young, contraries
7)
before/after,
converses
9.
What
is hyponymy? Give an example
The meaning of a more specific word is
included in that of a more general word.
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例
Flower is the superordinate
term, rose is the subordinate term.
10.
What is
synonymy?
Synonyms are words different
in sound and spelling but nearly or exactly alike
in
essential meaning.
11.
What is the
difference between absolute and near (relative)
synonyms?
1)
Absolute synonyms
–
interchangeable in every
way
2)
Near
synonyms
–
similar in
denotation but have different shades of meaning
or different degrees of a given
quality.
12.
What
are some of the reasons why synonyms exist?
1)
Borrowing from
other languages
2)
Dialects and regional English
3)
Figurative and
euphemistic use of words
4)
Coincidence with idiomatic expressions
13.
What are some
of the factors that discriminate between relative
synonyms? Use
examples
1)
Range of
meaning.
“
timid
”<
/p>
is more extensive because it can be
used to
describe the state of mind at a
time and the disposition, but
“
< br>timorous
”
only
describe the disposition.
2)
Degree of
intensity.
A
“
wealthy
”
person has
much more money than a
“
rich
”
person.
3)
Differences in stylistic features.
“
ask
”
is used commonly and tend to be
colloquial.
“
ques
tion
”
is more formal.
14.
(The
development of English) What was the language
spoken in the British Isles
before
English? How was English introduced?
Celtic. Germanic tribe invaded and
settled after Roman. They brought their own
culture. It was called Anglo-saxon (the
name of two tribes) and also called old
English.
15.
What are the three phases of the
English language and what were their time
periods? What events marked the
transition of one phase to another?
a)
Old
English
(450
-
1150)
——
Norman
conquest
from
France
in
1066,
but
the real development of
middle English started in the
12
th
century because
the ruling class spoke Anglo French and
the peasants spoke Anglo-Saxon so
it
took quite a long time for them to intermix.
b)
Middle
English
(1150
-
1500)
—
—
during
Renaissance
there
was
an
explosion
of information and knowledge about Ancient Greece
and Roman.
People
stated
to
read
so
ideas
spread.
Greek
and
Latin
words
started
entering
English.
Besides,
printing
was
invented,
more
can
read
and
write
books.
c)
Modern English
(1500
–
present)
16.
Over its
history, English has evolved from a highly
inflected language to a nearly
non-
inflected language. What is the difference? Give
an example of inflection in
English
Inflection means to modify a word to
indicate grammatical relations.
A lot of
words in a highly
inflected language have ending or form changes in
order to
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show its
grammatical function. But a weakly inflected
language has fewer
changes. As English
developed, it has changed from a highly infected
language to
a weekly one.
17.
What are the
most important languages that English has borrowed
from? Why?
1)
French
–
Norman
conquest
2)
Latin
–
Renaissance, a lot of
Latin book were translated into English
3)
Scandinavia
–
Vikings (9 century)
influenced old English
18.
What is the difference between a
Content Word and a Functional word? Give an
example of each.
?
Content words
are those are about something.
例
nation, earth.
?
Functional
words are those used to express relations.
例
the, and.
19.
Explain two
properties of Basic words and give examples
1)
Productivity. Basic words are very
productive because thet are mostly root
words or monosyllabic words. They can
be used alone and are often used to
form now words with other roots and
affixes.
例
foot-football-
footprint
2)
Many basic words take part in a number
of set expressions.
例
heart-
by
heart
–from the bottom of
one’s heart
- lose heart
20.
What is a
denizen word? Give an example
Denizens
are words that were
borrowed a long time ago, they look and sound
like a native word.
例
‘pork’ from the
French ‘porc’
21.
What is an alien word? Give an example
Aliens
are borrowed words
which have kept their original pronunciation and
spelling.
例
café , fiancée
22.
What is a
translation loan? Give an example
Translation loans
are words
and expressions formed from existing material in
the English language but tranlate the
meaning or the sound from another
language.
例
‘black humour’ from the French ‘humour
noir’
例
‘tea’ from the Chinese
23.
What is a semantic loan? Give an
example
Semantic loans
are
where a word already exists in native English but
borrows a
new meaning from another
language.
例
‘dumb’ has come to mean ‘stupid’
because of the German word ‘dumm’
24.
(The structure of Words) What is a
morpheme?
A morpheme is the minimal
meaningful unit of language.
25.
What is the
difference between a morpheme and a morph?
?
Morpheme is
about meaning.
?
Morph is about shape and sound.
Morphemes are abstract, and
are realized in speech by morphs.
26.
What is the
difference between a bound morpheme and a free
morpheme? Give
an example of each kind
of morpheme
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