Lecture 2 English Lexical Units Their Characteristics

Lecture 2 English Lexical Units, Their Characteristics

Plan: 1. The morpheme as the smallest meaningful language unit. Classification of morphemes. 2. The word as the basic unit of the language system. Characteristics of words. Structural types of words. Wordgroups. The notion of a lexeme. 3. Types of naming (designation).

List of Terms: Ø Ø Ø a word a lexical unit a two-facet unit a morpheme allomorphs (morpheme variants) free lexical morphemes free grammatical morphemes bound lexical morphemes bound grammatical morphemes orthographic definition of a word morphological definition of a word conceptual definition of a word Ø Ø Ø Ø external structure of the word internal structure of the word semantics simple words affixed words compound-affixed words a word-group a lexeme designation (naming ) lexical naming propositional naming discursive naming primary naming secondary naming

1. The morpheme as the smallest meaningful language unit. Classification of morphemes.

Lexical Units: constituent units of lexicon (morphemes, words, phraseological units and variable word-groups)

Features of Lexical Units: Øtwo-facet (having meaning and form); Øready-made (registered in a dictionary and reproducible in speech).

The Morpheme: the smallest meaningful indivisible two-facet language unit

- flower-pot: morphemes flower -, -pot; - teacher: teach-, -er

The Morpheme and The Word: Ø Like a word a morpheme is a two-facet language unit, an association of a certain meaning with a certain sound-pattern. Ø Unlike a word a morpheme is not an autonomous unit and can occur in speech only as a constituent part of the word.

“lace” – ‘a string or cord put through small holes in shoes’ and the constituent phonemes [l], [eı], [s] which are entirely without meaning

Allomorphs or Morpheme Variants: all the representations of the given morpheme that manifest alteration

In the word-cluster please, pleasing, pleasure, pleasant the rootmorpheme is represented by phonetic shapes: Ø [plı: z] in please, pleasing Ø [pleʒ] in pleasure Ø [plez] in pleasant

Classification of Morphemes: Ø lexical: free bound Ø grammatical (functional): free bound

Ø Free lexical morphemes are roots of words which express the lexical meaning of the word; they coincide with the stem of simple words (table, small). Ø Free grammatical morphemes are function words: articles, conjunctions and prepositions (the, with, and). Bound lexical morphemes are affixes: prefixes (dis-), suffixes (-ish), completives (combining forms) (poly – clinic) and also blocked (unique) root morphemes (Fri-day, cran-berry). Ø Bound grammatical morphemes are inflections (endings), e. g. -s for the plural nouns, -ing for the Present Participle, -er for comparative degree of adjectives. Ø

2. The word as the basic unit of the language system. Characteristics of words. Structural types of words. Word-groups. The notion of a lexeme.

Why is the word the basic and fundamental language and lexical unit? Ø Morphemes are meaningful, but they cannot function separately (except roots). Ø Word combinations are structurally divisible into words.

Extra-linguistically the word is also the basic unit due to its functions: 1) the main unit for naming objects, actions, qualities, etc. ; 2) the basic material to make up phrases in the process of communication.

Definitions of Words: Ø Orthographic definition: a word is any sequence of letters between spaces. But: in many non-alphabetical languages, like Chinese, the letters give no clue as to where a word starts and ends

Ø Morphological definition: a word is a minimal free morpheme. Ø But: it is not always clear what a morpheme is and which morpheme should be called free

Ø Conceptual definition: a word is a linguistic counterpart of a single concept. Ø But: one concept may be expressed by one or two words (eg. toothpaste, tooth-paste and tooth paste). Or one word may express different concepts when it is polysemantic.

Characteristics of Words: 1. distinguishing between the internal and the external structures of the word; 2. unity of the word (formal and semantic); 3. susceptibility to grammatical employment (in speech words can be used in different grammatical forms in which their interrelations are realized).

Ø The external structure of the word – its morphological structure. ( post-impressionists: the prefixes post-, im -, the root press, the suffixes -ion, -ist, and the grammatical suffix of plurality -s). Ø The internal structure of the word, or its meaning, – the word’s semantic structure. This is the word’s main aspect.

Semantics: the area of Linguistics specialising in the semantic studies of the word

Ø Formal unity: the components of words are permanently linked together (e. g. postimpressionists) in opposition to word-groups whose components possess a certain structural freedom (e. g. bright light, to take for granted). Ø Semantic unity: any word always conveys one concept, no matter how many component morphemes it may have in its external structure. While in a word-group each of the meaningful words conveys a separate concept (e. g. blackbird – the type of bird; a black (colour) bird – a kind of a living creature).

The Word: a speech unit used for the purposes of human communication, materially representing a group of sounds, possessing a meaning, susceptible to grammatical employment and characterized by formal and semantic unity.

Structural Types of Words: Simple words consist of one root morpheme and an inflexion (in many cases the inflexion is zero), e. g. seldom, chairs, longer, asked. Ø Affixed words consist of one root morpheme, one or several affixes and an inflexion, e. g. Ø derestricted, unemployed. Ø Compound words consist of two or more root morphemes and an inflexion, e. g. lady-birds, waitand-see (policy). Ø Compound-affixed words consist of two or more root morphemes, one or more affixes and an inflexion, e. g. job-hopper, autotimer.

The Word-group: is the largest two-facet lexical unit comprising more than one word

Word-groups Ø functionally and semantically inseparable: set-phrases or phraseological units (at least, point of view, by means of, take place, etc. ) Ø possess greater semantic and structural independence: free or variable word-groups (a week ago, take lessons, etc. )

boy, boys, boy’s, boys’

A Lexeme: all the lexical meanings of the word inherent in a morpheme which unite this word with other words into one group.

3. Types of naming (designation).

Designation: the process of naming this or that object, phenomenon

According to Language Forms (words, word phrases, sentences): 1. Lexical – designation through a word and a word-phrase (object: items, quality, process, relations, any real or imaginary item) 2. Propositional – through a sentence (object: microsituation – an event, a fact which connects some elements and represents complex units) 3. Discursive – through a text (object: a more complicated chain of situations )

According to the Function: Ø Primary designation means the use of language forms in their first purpose, according to the aims of their creation. Ø Secondary designation means that one and the same element is used for naming other objects.

Ø Hand – 1) рука (primary) 2) передняя лапа 3) власть 4) ловкость 5) работник and so on… Ø Keyhole – key + hole

Motivation: the relationship existing between the morphemic or phonemic pattern of the word, on the one hand, and its meaning, on the other

Types of Motivation: Ø phonetic (when there's a certain similarity between the sounds which make up the word and those referred to by the sense) e. g. bang, buzz, giggle Ø morphological (found in all morphologically derived words whose meaning can be expressed by a word combination with a motivating word) e. g. driver – a person who drives Ø semantic (based on co-existence of direct and figurative meaning) e. g. mouth of a river, chicken (meat of a chicken)

A word is non-motivated when the connection between the phonetic and morphological structures of the word and its meaning is conventional, and there's no perceptible reason for the word having this sound form and morphological composition

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