英语词汇学教程课件第2章English-Lexicology-2上.ppt

1、Lecture TwoMorphemeWords are not the most fundamental sound-meaning units.The most elemental grammatical units in a language are morphemes.Morphemes are the ultimate grammatical constituents,the smallest meaningful units of language.A morpheme is the minimal linguistic sign,a grammatical unit,which

2、is an arbitrary union of a sound and a meaning and cannot be further analyzed.For example,moralizers is an English word composed of four morphemes:moral+lize+er+s.A morpheme may be a complete word.For example,the,fierce,desk,eat,boot,at,fee,mosquito cannot be divided up into smaller units that are m

3、eaningful themselves.A morpheme may also be a word form such as an affix(e.g.-able,in-,-hood);or it may be a combining form(e.g.bio-,geo-,pre-).A word may be composed of one or more morphemes.One morpheme:boy,desire,sayTwo morphemes:boy+ish,desire+ableThree morphemes:boy+ish+ness,desire+able+ityFour

4、 morphemes:gentle+man+li+ness,un+desire+able+ityMore than four morphemes:un+gentle+man+li+nessPhonemes,which are the smallest working units of sound per se,build up into morphemes.A morpheme is composed of one or more phonemes.However,it is not always obvious whether or not a given sound sequence sh

5、ould be considered a morpheme.For instance,we have to consider whether window and woman can be said to consist of wind+ow;and wo+man respectively.This would allow us to isolate wind and man as identifiable morphemes,but leave-ow and wo-,which are no longer morphemes in English.The morpheme may have

6、ceased to be recognizable because of linguistic change,as in the case of ow in window(related to eye)or the-fer in refer(from Latin ferre,carry).In these cases,we shall say that unless a word can be completely analyzed into morphemes,it should be regarded as unanalysable.It must also be noted that a

7、 sound sequence that is a morpheme in some words does not necessarily constitute a morpheme in all its occurrences.For example,the suffix er is a morpheme in gardener and speaker,but it is not a morpheme in never or consider.Simple words such as door,knob,wild,animal are morphologically unanalysable

8、.Complex(or derived)words such as spoonful,wildish,reanimate,mentally,farmer are formed from simpler words by the addition of affixes or some other kind of morphological modification.The limiting case for complex words is that of zero modification or conversion as in answer,call and question,which m

9、ay be either nouns or verbs.Compound words are formed by combining two or more words with or without morphological modification,e.g.door-knob,cheeseburger,pound saver,wild-animal-tamer.LexemeA lexeme or lexical item is a unit of lexical meaning,which exists regardless of any inflectional endings it

10、may have or the number of words it may contain.Lexeme is an abstract vocabulary item.The headwords in a dictionary are lexemes.A lexeme may consist of one word,such as big,boy,break down,quick but it may also contain more than one word,e.g.away from,cut down on,hurry up,in front of,switch on,steam i

11、ron.For some words,such as adverbs or prepositions,which have no grammatical variants,the headword in the dictionary consists of only one form.But in most cases,the headword is considered as the base form of the word,from which all the other related word forms may be derived.For example,speak is the

12、 lexeme,the base form;while speaks,spoke,speaking and spoken are all derived forms.The forms speaking,speak,speaks,spoke and spoken are different realizations of the lexeme speak.They all share a core meaning although they are spelled and pronounced differently.Thus,lexeme is considered an abstract

13、linguistic unit with different variants(e.g.sing as against sang,sung).MorphAny concrete realization of a morpheme in a given utterance is called a morph.It is a physical form representing some morphemes in a language.Hence,the forms cat,chair,farm,-ing,-s and er are all morphs.Two or more morphs ma

14、y vary slightly and still have the same meaning.For example,the indefinite article may be realized either as a or as an,depending on the sound(not the letter)at the beginning of the following word.Morphs which are different representations of the same morpheme are referred to as allomorphs of that m

15、orpheme.For example:a context vs.an index,a battle vs.an apple This shows that where the allomorph an occurs,its counterpart a cannot occur and vice versa.The use of the indefinite article described above may be defined as:a before consonant sounds(e.g.a battle)and an before vowel sounds(e.g.an appl

16、e).A morpheme can be regarded as a sound-meaning unit.It can be represented by a single sound,such as the morpheme a-in atypical.It can also be represented by a syllable,such as cat,or by more than one syllable,such as water,crocodile.Moreover,two different morphemes may have the same phonological r

17、epresentation,such as er in singer and er in bigger.A morpheme may have different pronunciations in different contexts.An example of a morpheme in English with different phonetic forms is the plural morpheme.cab,love,call,can,boy,spacap,cat,cuff,faithbuss,buzz,badge,garage,matchNouns ending in voice

18、d nonsibilant sounds are added with the voiced z to form the plural.The voiceless s is added to words ending in voiceless nonsibilant sounds.Words ending in both voiced and voiceless sibilants form their plurals with insertion of a schwa followed by z.Types of MorphemesMorphemes can be divided into

19、bound morphemes and free morphemes.Bound morphemes must be joined to other morphemes.They are always parts of words and can occur only with another morpheme.Free morphemes need not be attached to other morphemes and can occur by themselves as individual words.Cat,chair,farm and bug are free morpheme

20、s.Bound morphemes may be prefixes or suffixes.The suffix dom,as in freedom,kingdom,serfdom and boredom,is a bound morpheme.Morphemes may also be classified into derivational and inflectional morphemes.Derivational rules are lexical rules of word formation.Inflectional morphemes are closely related t

21、o the rules of syntax.Unlike derivational morphemes,they are added only to complete words and never change they syntactic category of the word.When words consist of more than one morpheme,they may be either complex or compound.Complex words may be broken down into one free form and one or more bound

22、 forms:e.g.dog-s,happi-ly,quick-er,work-ing whereas compound words consist of more than one free form:e.g.birth+day,black+bird,candle+stich coat+hanger.We also need to mention cases which incorporate the characteristics of both complex and compound words:e.g.gentle-man-ly consists of the compound wo

23、rd gentle+man and the suffix-ly;wind+shield+wip-er consists of the compound word wind+shield and the complex word wip-er.Denotation and ReferenceThe relation of denotation holds between a lexeme and a whole class of extra-linguistic objects.Lyons(1977)defines the denotation of a lexeme as the relati

24、onship that holds between that lexeme and persons,things,places,properties,processes and activities external to the language system.As opposed to denotation,the relationship of reference holds between an expression and what that expression stands for on particular occasions of its utterance.Referenc

25、e depends on concrete utterances,not on abstract sentences.It is a property only of expressions.It cannot relate single lexemes to extra-linguistic objects,since it is an utterance-dependent notion.Reference is not generally applicable to single word forms and it is never applicable to single lexeme

26、s.Expressions such as the computer,Johns computer,or the two portable computers on the table may be used to establish a relationship of reference with specific items as referents.In this case,the reference of these expressions containing computer is partly determined by the denotation of the lexeme

27、computer in the overall system of the English language.Denotation and SenseSense is a relationship between the words or expressions of a single language,independently of the relationship,if any,which holds between those words or expressions and their referents.Both individual lexemes and larger expr

28、essions have sense.However,the sense of an expression is a function of the sense of the lexemes it contains and their occurrences in a particular grammatical construction.The sense of the word table will vary in the following sentences:Dont put your feet on the table!and It was finalized under the t

29、able.A comparison between denotation and sense shows that the two relations are dependent on each other.Some words may have no specific denotation and still have sense.There is no such animal as a unicorn.There is no such book as a unicorn.While the first sentence is acceptable,the second is semantically odd.The lexemes book and unicorn are incompatible,animal and unicorn are somehow related in sense.The important point here is that a word may have sense but have no denotation.