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2010
年词汇学复习材料
Chapter One Word
1. What is
a word?
(1) A unit of expression that
has universal intuitive recognition by native-
speakers,
(2) a unit of
language that symbolizes or communicates a
meaning, consisting of one or more
morphemes,
(3) and
a combination of form (phonological)
and meaning (lexical and grammatical).
2. There are two aspects to the meaning
of a word: denotation and connotation. The process
by
which
the
word
refers
to
the
referent
is
called
“denotation”.
Connotation
refers
to
the
emotional
aspect of a word.
3.
What is the difference in the viewpoint
of the origin of language between the Naturalists
and
the Conventionalists?
The
naturalists
have
argued
that
the
origin
of
language
lies
in
onomatopoeia,
that
people
began talking by
creating iconic
（
an icon is a
sign, as a word or graphic symbol, whose form
suggests its
meaning
）
signs to imitate the
sounds heard around them in nature. They maintain
that there is a natural connection
between sound and meaning.
The conventionalists hold that the
relations between sound and meaning are
conventional
and
arbitrary.
Facts
that
they
have
provided
their
idea
are:
1)
words
that
convey
the
same
meaning
have different phonological forms in different
languages; 2) the same phonological
forms may convey different meanings.
4.
What is the
relationship between meaning and concept and a
word?
Meaning (signified)
is closely related to a concept, which acts as the
base of the meaning of
a word
(signifier).
A word is used to label a
concept and acts as the symbol for it. The concept
is abstracted from the person, thing,
relationship, idea, event, and so on that we are
thinking
about. We call this the
referent; so the word labels the concept, which is
abstracted from the
referent; the word
denotes the referent, but does not label it. That
is to say, the word refers to
the
referent
through
a
concept.
So
the
understanding
of
a
thing
depends
on
our
conceptualization of it, that is, the
abstraction of a referent.
5. What are
the two aspects of the meaning of a word?
There are two aspects to
the meaning of a word: denotation and connotation.
The process by
which the word refers to
the referent is called “denotation”. Connotation
refers to the emotional
aspect of a
word.
6. What is the
definition of vocabulary?
It usually
refers to a complete inventory of the words in a
language.
But it may also refer to
the words and phrases used in the
variants of a language, such as dialect, register,
terminology,
etc.
The
vocabulary
as
acquired
by
the
learner
of
a
language
can
be
divided
into
active
vocabulary and
passive vocabulary.
7.
Where do English words come
from?
The term vocabulary usually
refers to a complete inventory of the words in a
language.
The English vocabulary is
characterized by a mixture of native words and
borrowed words.
Borrowed
word,
usually
known
as
loan-
words,
refers
to
linguistic
forms
taken
over
by
one
language
or
dialect
from
another.
The
English
language
has
replenished
itself
by
continually
taking over
words over the centuries from other languages all
over the world, of which the Latin
and
the French language play the most important role
in making the English language what it is
today.
Chapter
Two Morphemes and Word-formation
8.
Distinguish between content
morphemes
and grammatical
morphemes
A
morpheme
is
the
minimal
significant
element.
And
it
is
also
the
smallest
unit
of
grammatical analysis.
Content
morphemes
known
as
free
morphemes
are
those
that
may
constitute
words
by
themselves, such as
cat, walk, kind, teach
.
Grammatical morphemes known as bound morphemes
are those that must appear with at
least one other morpheme, either bound or free,
such as
cat + s,
walk + ing,
un +kind, teach + er
.
derivational affixes vs.
inflextional affixes
9. Distinguish between
opaque and transparent words
Opaque
words vs. transparent words: Opaque words are
formed by one content morpheme only
and
cannot
be
analyzed
into
parts:
axe,
glove
.
Transparent
words
consist
of
more
than
one
morpheme
and can be segmented into parts:
workable (work + able), doorman (door +
man).
10. The variants of the same
morpheme are called
allomorphs
.
11. Methods of word-formation:
1) Affixation
2) Conversion
3)
Compounding (composition)
4) Back-
formation
5) Abbreviation (shortening)
6) Blending
11. Analyze the
difference between the noun attribute and the
adjective attribute of the same origin
in the following groups of words:
Bankruptcy
lawyer/ bankrupt businessman
Economy
measure/ economic measure
Efficiency
expert/ efficient worker
Obesity
specialist/ obese specialist
Riot
police/ riotous police
Capacity
audience/ capacious room
12.
Distinguish between the free phrase and compounds:
1)
a
single
stress
(a
`greenhouse)
vs.
a
two-stress
pattern
of
a
normal
syntactic
group
(a
`green
`house).
2) an inseparable semantic
unit (a
greenhouse
means “a b
uilding made of
glass, in which the
temperature and
humidity can be regulated for the cultivation of
delicate or out-
of season plants”)
vs. individual meanings put together.
3) No modification of the first element
vs. modification allowed (a very green house).
4) first element not to be
turned into an adjective in the comparative degree
vs. comparison
allowed (a greener
house).
13. Analyze the
formation of the following
blends
:
smog (
smoke+
fog)
,
brunch
(
breakfast+ lunch)
,
twirl (
twist+
whirl)
,
smaze
(
smoke +haze)
,
chortle (
chuckle + snort)
14. Give the full of the
following abbreviations:
acronymy (initialism/acronym)
1. Clipped words
(1) front clipping
phone,
versity, chute, copter
(2) back
clipping
ad, deb (debut), mod, pro,
demo, expo, memo, hypo (hypodermic), disco,
phycho, exec,
narc (narcotics agent),
frag
(3) clipping on both ends
flu, tec (detective), fridge
(4) syncope
Curtsy (courtesy) , fo’c’s’le
(forecastle), Glouster (Gloucester)
Chapter Three Motivation
15. Match the following animals with
the sounds they each make.
Bears/ growl
Eagles/ scream
Pigs/ grunt
Bees/ hum
Elephants trumpet
Sheep/ bleat
Bulls/ bellow
Frogs/ croak
Snake/ hiss
Cats/ meow
Horses/ neigh
Sparrow/ chirp
Cocks/ crow
Lions/ roar
Swallows/ titter
Cows/ moo, low
Magpies/
chatter
Turkeys/ gobble
Dogs/ bark
Mice/ squeak
Wolves/
howl
Doves/ coo
Nightingales/ warble
Ducks/
quack
Owls/ hoot, screech, wail
16. Analyze the semantic motivation of
the underlined word in each sentence.
1) metaphor
2) metonymy
3) synecdoche
4) analogy
For example, the word “crown” is used
for the queen through the device of
metonymy.
17. Words that
epitomize cultural history are called culturally-
bound words or allusive words.
1) “
Quixotic
” is
an epitome of a great book by Cervantes. The
word
derived from Don Quixote,
the hero of the satirical romance, has
come to mean “extravagantly chivalrous or
romantically
idealistic; visionary;
impractical or impracticable”.
2) The
Faustian
spirit
: that heaven-storming,
adventurous thirst for the infinite which led
Faust to
sell his soul to the devil in
return for universal knowledge and experience.
3) Ishmael: In the Old Testament, the
son of Abraham who was cast out after the birth of
Isaac. He
is traditionally considered
to be the forebear of the Arabs.
4)
Babbitt: A member of the middle class whose
attachment to its business and social ideals is
such as to make that person a model of
narrow-mindedness and self-satisfaction.
18.
Analogy is a process
whereby words are created in imitation of other
words.
black
list to white list, gray list,
blue-collar, white collar, gray collar
Second-strike capacity, first-strike
capacity
earthquake, starquake
environmental pollution, visual or eye
pollution, noise or sound pollution
moonlight, daylight,
hot line, cold line
Chapter Five Semantic Change
19. Polysemy
means that the same word may have two
or more different meanings.
20.
The shrinking of meaning can be termed
by the Latin word “specialization.”
When the meaning of a word narrows
toward an unfavorable meaning it is called
degeneration
or pejorative change.
21. State what type of semantic change
has undergone the underlined words.
1)
Generalization or Extension:
thing,
picture
2) Specialization:
pill, fowl
3) Elevation or
Amelioration:
naughty, praise
wife queen
升格或者缩小
4) Degeneration: villain, stink
5) The use of the abstract for the
concrete or vice versa (distinguish between the
two processes)
6) Common words from
proper names:
solon, watt
7)
Transference of meaning
Chapter Six Classification of Words
22. The
semantic field
theory
is an approach that views the
vocabulary of a language as can be
organized
into
areas
or
fields,
the
members
of
which
are
joined
together
by
some
common
semantic component,
such as the concept of color or kinship.
Give the superordinate of each of the
following groups of words.
For example:
color, kinship, furniture, flower, etc.
23. Synonymy refers to the sense
relation between lexical items that have the same
meaning but
differ in morphemic
structure, phonological form and usage.
The linguistic phenomenon that features
the identity of form and diversity of meaning is
referred
to as homonymy.
The
term
“antonymy”
is used for “oppositeness of
meaning”.
24. Fill in the
blanks with synonyms
(10%):
Anglo-Saxon
Kingly
Time
Rise
French
Royal
Age
Mount
Latin
regal
epoch
ascend
Fast
Ask
Firm
Question
secure
interrogate
25. Synonymous sentences
1)
Penalties for
overdue books will be strictly enforced (written)
You have got to pay fines for overdue
books. (spoken)
2)
“I apprehended the alleged
perpetrator.”
I collared this creep.
26. Analyze the quote from Charles
Dickens, point out what makes it so forceful.
foolishness; it was the
epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity;
it was the season of Light,
it was the
season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it
was the winter of despair; we had
everything before us, we had nothing
before us; we were all going directly to Heaven,
we were all
going the other
way.
27
. State the difference
between “statesman” and “politician” in stylistic
coloring.
28. Pick out the
homonyms in the following tongue twist.
Once upon a barren moor
There dwelt a bear, also a boar.
The bear could not bear the boar.
The boar thought the bear a bore.
At last the bear could bear no more
Of that boar that bored him on the
moor,
And so one morn he bored the
boar--
That boar will bore the bear no
more.
Chapter Eight Idioms
29. An English idiom is characterized
by
semantic unity and structural
stability.
Idiomatic phrases
(idioms) differ from free phrases in
that the meaning of the latter can be deduced from
the literal
meaning of the constituent
parts. For example, a red tape /red tape. The
former is a free phrase
referring to
“a red strip of material used for tying
up parcels, etc.”
and the latter is an
idiomatic
phrase meaning
“excessive official
formality.”
30.
Complete the following idioms with an animal
word
(10%)
1. _____ in the
manger
2. _____’s share
3. shed _____’s tears
4. a _____ in the sheep’s
skin
5. let the __ out of
the bag
6. like ___ to water
7. as poor as a church _____
8. as stubborn as a ________
9. an eager _______
10.
_______’s nest
An Overview