Chapter 3
Lexicon

1．Define the following terms.

morpheme：the smallest unit of language in terms of the relationship between expression and content，a unit that cannot be divided into further smaller units without destroying or drastically altering the meaning，whether it is lexical or grammatical．For example，the word tourists contains three morphemes．There is one minimal unit of meaning，tour，another minimal unit of meaning -ist（meaning“person who does something”），and a minimal unit of grammatical function -s（indicating plural）．Meanwhile，from the above example，we can further classify morphemes into different types on different dimensions：（a）free morphemes，which can stand by themselves as single words，e.g．tour in tourist，and bound morphemes，which cannot normally stand alone，but which are typically attached to another form，e.g．-ist，-s．（b）lexical morphemes and functional morphemes．Both of these two types of morphemes fall into the“free”category．The first category is that set of ordinary nouns，adjectives and verbs that carry the“content”of message we convey，e.g．house，long and follow．The second category consists largely of the functional words in the language such as conjunctions，prepositions，articles and pronouns，e.g．but，above，the and it．（c）derivational morphemes and inflectional morphemes．These two types of morphemes fall into the“bound”category．The derivational morphemes are used to make new words in the language and are often employed to produce words of a different grammatical category from the stem．For example，the addition of the derivational morpheme ness changes the adjective good to the noun goodness．In contrast，inflectional morphemes never change the grammatical category of a word，but indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word．For example，both old and older are adjectives．The -er inflection simply creates a different version of the adjective，indicating a comparative degree．As a useful way to remember the different categories of morphemes，the following chart can be used：

It should be pointed out，morphemes may also be divided into roots and affixes，the root being that part of a word structure which is left when all the affixes have been removed．Root morphemes may be bound or free，and are potentially unlimited in number in a language；Affixes are bound morphemes and limited in number．For instance，in try，tries，trying，tried，the root is try，and -s，-ing，-ed are affixes.

compound：refers to the words that consist of more than one lexical morpheme or the way to join two separate words to produce a single form，such as classroom，mailbox，fingerprint，sunburn．In terms of the word class of compounds，there are Noun compounds（e.g．daybreak），Verb compounds（e.g．brainwash），Adjective compounds（e.g．dutyfree）and Preposition compounds（e.g．throughout）．Meanwhile compounds can be further divided into endocentric compound and exocentric compound in terms of its structural organization．The head of a nominal or adjectival endocentric compound is derived from a Verb，and it is usually the case that the first member is a participant of the process verb．Consider the following two examples：self-control and virus-sensitive．The exocentric nominal compounds are formed by V+N，V+A，and V+P，whereas the exocentric adjectives come from V+N and V+A．Here are some examples：

inflection：is the manifestation of grammatical relationship through the addition of inflectional affixes such as number，person，finiteness，aspect and cases to which they are attached.

affix：the collective term for the type of formative that can be used when added to another morpheme．Affixes in a language are limited in number，and are generally classified into three subtypes，namely，prefix，suffix，and infix，depending on their position around the root or stem of a word．Prefixes are these affixes that have been added to the beginning of a word（e.g．un- in unhappy）；suffixes are those added to the end of a word（e.g．-ish in foolish）；infixes，as a third type of affix，is not normally found in English but fairly common in some other languages．As the term suggests，it is an affix that is incorporated inside another word．It is possible to see the general principle at work in certain expressions，occasionally used in fortuitous or aggravating circumstances by emotionally aroused English speakers：Absogoddamlutely！And Unfuckingbelievable！In fact，all affixes are bound morphemes.

derivation：is the most common word-formation process to be found in the production of new English words．It is accomplished by means of a large number of affixes of English language，and shows the relationship between roots and affixes．For example：mis+represent →misrepresent，joy+ful →joyful，sad+ness →sadness．In contrast to inflection，derivation can make the word class of the original word either changed or unchanged，e.g．dis+card →discard（changed）and dis+obey →disobey（unchanged）．It is worth mentioning that word forms that come from derivation are relatively large and potentially open．Take the prefix pre- for example．One can easily list hundreds of words from any dictionary，such as preamble，pre-arrange，precaution，precede，precedent，precept，precinct，precognition，precondition，precursor，among many others.

root：refers to the base form of a word that cannot be further analyzed without loss of identity．That is to say，it is that part of the word that is left when all the affixes are removed．In the word internationalism，after the removal of inter-，-al and -ism，the part left is the root nation．Apparently，all words contain a root morpheme．And roots can be further classified into free root morpheme and bound root morpheme．First，free root morphemes are those that can stand by themselves and are the base forms of words，such as black in black，blackbird，blackboard，blacksmith．A language may contain many morphemes of this type．Second，there are relatively a few bound root morphemes in English，such as -ceive in receive，perceive，and conceive；-mit in remit，permit，commit，and submit；-tain in retain，contain，and maintain；-cur in incur，recur，and occur，etc．Third，a few English roots may have both free and bound variants．For instance，sleep and child are free root morphemes，whereas slep- in the past tense form of sleep，i.e．slept and child- in the plural form of child，namely children，cannot exist by themselves，and are hence bound.

allomorph：A morpheme，like a phoneme，is a linguistic abstraction，which must be realized as certain phonetic forms or variants in different phonetic environments．Each of the phonetic forms or variants is a morph．A single morpheme may be phonetically realized as two or more morphs．The different morphs that represent or which are derived from one morpheme is called the allomorphs of that morpheme．In practice，some morphemes have a single form in all contexts，such as“dog”，“bark”etc．In other instances there may be considerable variation，that is to say，a morpheme may have alternate shapes or phonetic forms．For example，the plural in English can be represented by the voiceless /s/，the voiced /z/，the vowel-consonant structure /Iz/，the diphthong /aI/ found in the irregular form of /maIs/，the nasal sound /n/ in / ks n /，the long vowel /i：/ in /ti： / and the zero form /i：/ of /ʃi：p/ and others．Each would be said to be an ALLOMORPH of the plural morpheme.

stem：is any morpheme or combinations of morphemes to which an inflectional affix can be added．For example，friend- in friends，and friendship- in friendships are both stems．The former shows that a stem may be the same as a root，whereas the latter shows that a stem may contain a root and one，or more than one，derivational affix.

bound morpheme：refers to those which cannot occur alone and must appear with at least one other morpheme．For example，the word distempered has three morphemes，namely，dis-，temper，and -ed，of which temper is a free morpheme，dis- and -ed are two bound morphemes．There are two types of morphemes which fall into the“bound”category：derivational morphemes and inflectional morphemes．The derivational morphemes are used to make new words in the language and are often employed to produce words of a different grammatical category from the stem．For example，the addition of the derivational morpheme -ness changes the adjective good to the noun goodness．In contrast，inflectional morphemes never change the grammatical category of a word，but indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word．For example，both old and older are adjectives．The -er inflection simply creates a different version of the adjective，indicating a comparative degree.

free morpheme：refers to those which may occur alone or which may constitute words by themselves．In English cats，cat is free since cat is a word in its own right．Free morphemes therefore necessarily constitute mono-morphemic words．So all mono-morphemic words are free morphemes．Poly-morphemic words/compound words may consist wholly of free morphemes，e.g．English aircraft，godfather and housewife．As for its subtypes，free morphemes can be further divided into lexical morphemes and functional morphemes．The former is that set of ordinary nouns，adjectives and verbs that carry the“content”of message we convey，e.g．house，long and follow．The latter consists largely of the functional words in the language such as conjunctions，prepositions，articles and pronouns，e.g．but，above，the and it.

lexeme：in order to reduce the ambiguity of the term word，lexeme is postulated as the abstract unit underlying the smallest unit in the lexical system of a language which appears in different grammatical contexts．For example：“write”is the lexeme of the following set of words：write，writes，wrote，writing，written.

grammatical word：refers to those which mainly work for constructing group，phrase，clause，clause complex，or even text，such as，conjunctions，prepositions，articles，and pronouns．Grammatical words serve to link together different content parts．So they are also known as Function Words.

lexical word：refers to those which mainly work for referring to substance，action and quality，such as nouns，verbs，adjectives，and adverbs．Lexical words carry the main content of a language．So lexical words are also known as Content Words.

lexicon：refers to the whole vocabulary of a language as against grammar of a language.

closed-class：A word that belongs to the CLOSED-CLASS is one whose membership is fixed or limited，such as pronouns，prepositions，conjunctions，articles，and others．One cannot easily add or deduce a new member.

open-class：is one whose membership is in principle infinite or unlimited．When new ideas，inventions，or discoveries emerge，new members are continually and constantly being added to the lexicon．Nouns，verbs，adjectives and many adverbs are all open-class items.

blending：is a relatively complex form of compounding，in which two words are blended by joining together the initial part of the first word and the final part of the second word，or by only joining the initial parts of the two words．For example，telephone+exchange→telex；transfer+resister→transistor.

loanword：The borrowing of a process in which both form and meaning are borrowed with only a slight change，in some cases，to the phonological system of the new language that they enter．For instance，English borrowed au pair，encore，coup d'etat and others from French，al fresco（in the open air）from Italian，tea from Chinese，sputnik from Russian and moccasin（a type of shoe）from an American Indian language.

loanblend：is a process in which part of the form is native and the rest has been borrowed，but the meaning is fully borrowed．For example，the first parts of the words coconut and China-town came from Spanish and Chinese respectively，but the second parts are of the English origin.

loanshift：is a process in which the meaning is borrowed，but the form is native．For example，the Italian ponte means“bridge”in the literal sense，when it refers to a type of card game，the meaning was borrowed from English.

acronym：is made up from the first letters of the name of an organization，which has a heavily modified headword．For example，WTO stands for World trade Organization．This process is also widely used in shortening extremely long words of word groups in science，technology and other special fields，e.g．Aids—acquired immune deficiency syndrome，COBOL—common business oriented language.

loss：the loss of sound refers to the disappearance of the very sound as a phoneme in the phonological system．Take the sound /x/ in O.E．（old English）again for example．Apart from having changed into /f/ or /k/ in some words as mentioned above，this velar fricative was simply lost between the times of Chaucer and Shakespeare．Sounds lost may also occur in utterances at the expense of some unstressed vowels．For example，temperature /'tempərətʃə/ → /'temprətʃə/.

backformation：refers to an abnormal type of word-formation where a shorter word is derived by deleting an imagined affix from a longer form already in the language．For example，the word television appeared before televise．The first part of the word television was pulled out and analyzed as a root，even though no such root occurs elsewhere in the English language.

assimilation：refers to the change of a sound by the influence of an adjacent sound，which is more specifically called“contact”or“contiguous”assimilation．The assimilation processes at work could be explained by the“theory of least effort”；that is，in speaking we tend to use as little effort as possible so that we do not want to vary too often the places of articulation in uttering a sequence of sounds．Assimilation takes place in quick speech very often．For instance，in expressions such as immobile，irrevocable，impolite，illegal，the negative prefixes im-，il-，or ir- should be in- etymologically．Sometimes assimilation may occur between two sounds that are not too far separated．For instance，discussing shortly（/s/ becomes /ʃ/）and confound it（/ə/ becomes /au/）．This is called“non-contiguous”or“distant”assimilation.

dissimilation：refers to the influence of one sound segment upon the articulation of another，so that the sounds become less alike，or different．For example：

g r ammar（O.E.）→ g l amor（M.E.）

pe r egrinus（Latin）→ pi l grim

marb r e（French）→ marb l e

In all these examples，one of the phonemes，/r/，dissimilates to /l/ in the course of time，which has changed the morpheme in question.

folk etymology：refers to the change of the form of a word or phrase，resulting from an incorrect popular notion of the origin or meaning of the term，or from the influence of more familiar terms mistakenly taken to be analogous．For example，the word sparrowgrass in English was derived from asparagus and the Spanish cucaracha was changed into English cockroach.

2．Complete the words with suitable negative prefixes.

3．MORPHEME is defined as the smallest unit in terms of relationship between expression and content．Then is morpheme a grammatical concept or a semantic one？What is its relation to phoneme？Can a morpheme and a phoneme form an organic whole？

As a matter of fact，morpheme is both a grammatical concept and a semantic one．For instance，we can recognize that English word-forms such as talks，talker，talked and talking must consist of one element talk，and a number of other elements such as -s，-er，-ed，-ing．All these elements are described as morphemes．The definition of morpheme is“the smallest unit of language in terms of the relationship between expression and content”．We would say that the word reopened in the sentence The police reopened the investigation consists of three morphemes．One minimal unit of meaning is open，another minimal unit of meaning is re-（meaning again），and a minimal unit of grammatical function is -ed（indicating past tense）．Therefore，we are in a position to conclude that those which can stand by themselves as single words，e.g．open，are semantic concepts，and those which cannot normally stand alone，but which are typically attached to another form，e.g．re-，-ist，-ed，-s，are grammatical concepts.

As we know，each one of the meaning-distinguishing sounds in a language is described as a phoneme．An essential property of a phoneme is that it functions contrastively．If we substitute one sound for another in a word and there is a change of meaning，then the two sounds represent different phonemes.

The relation between morpheme and phoneme is also of twofold feature，viz．one-to-one，one-to-more．As with the former type，one-to-one，re- is the kind of morpheme that always consists of two phonemes /ri：/；as for the latter type，one-to-more relation，a typical example would be the plural morpheme that follows a noun or a verb．{s} after a noun can be pronounced in three ways，viz．/s/，/z/，and /iz/，as in locks，bags，and watches；{z} after a verb can also be pronounced in three ways，viz．/s/，/z/，and /iz/，as in stops，drags，and catches.

Seen from an integrative perspective，a morpheme and a phoneme，indeed，can form an organic whole，as the number of the sound of each morpheme cannot be unlimited.

4．Read the following paragraph and list all the function words you can find．（Include all forms of be as function words.）Give the percentage of function words in this paragraph.

She was a small woman，old and wrinkled．When she started washing for us，she was already past seventy．Most Jewish women of her age were sickly，weak，broken in body．But this washwoman，small and thin as she was，possessed a strength that came from generations of peasant ancestors．Mother would count out to her a bag of laundry that had accumulated over several weeks．She would lift the heavy bag，load it on her narrow shoulders，and carry it the long way home.

The function words in this passage include：she，was，a，and，when，she，for，she，was，past，of，her，were，in，but，this，and，as，she，a，that，from，of，would，to，her，a，of，that，had，over，she，would，the，it，on，her，and，it，and the．Altogether there are 85 words in this passage，and 40 of them are function words．Then the percentage of function words in this passage is 40/85≈47％.

5．“A free form which consists entirely of two or more lesser free forms…is a phrase．A free form which is not a phrase is a word．A word，then，…is a minimum free form”（Bloomfield，1935：178）．Answer the following questions：

（a）The term“word”is ambiguous．What kind of words is Bloomfield's definition intended to cover？

（b）Are there any traditionally recognized words of English（in the appropriate sense of“word”）that fail to satisfy Bloomfield's definition？

（c）What other criteria have been involved in the definition of the word？

（a）The“words”in Bloomfield's sense，namely，the minimum free forms as conceptual units in general thinking are those smallest units that can stand by themselves and constitute，by themselves，complete utterances．Those that can function as complete utterances by themselves like hi，possibly，darling，etc．are“words”.

（b）Yes，for example，those words that cannot stand only by themselves and constitute utterances by themselves in the usual sense like the articles a and the in English fail to satisfy Bloomfield's criterion，though he himself does not acknowledge this.

（c）In addition to the criterion of a minimum free form，stability and relative uninterruptibility are also involved in defining the word．Besides，the three senses of“word”，namely，a physically definable unit，the common factor underlying a set of forms and a grammatical unit can be conducive to identifying the word.

6．Find the sources of the following blends．In cases where the dictionary does not provide the answer，your own ingenuity will be your guide.

7．Determine the historically accurate etymology of the words in the first column，and underline the correct one in the second or in the third column.

8．Determine the original term from which the following words were back-formed.

9．Identify the immediate etymological source of the following words．（For example，the immediate source of“meaning”is French，although the more remote source is Latin.）

10．Classify the following words as loanwords（LW），loanblends（LB），loanshifts（LS）or loan translation（LT）.

11．If there are two affixes -ly，one producing adjectives and the other attaching to adjectives to produce adverbs，can we find words with both of these affixes？

No．Words with both of these affixes -ly are not allocated in English．See below：

* friendlily（friend-friendly- friendlily* ）*oilily（oil-oily- oilily* ）

* chillily（chill-chilly- chillily* ）

12．Make a list of nouns from the following words that -s can attach to.

13．Are there any affixes that attach（relatively）productively to verbs，contribute no or very specific meaning，and do not change category？

-ing，He is walking home，of progressive aspect

-ed，He walked home，of simple past tense

-s，He walks home，of simple present tense AV9BVVDo39hzahrCQmqw2s4WeuhNdHLO8SD9+PbPpaxRO6whsO5k+8ACNNy75Xr5