What Does it Mean to Know a Word? PDF

What does it mean to know a word? An Introduction to Lexicon R ationale For many people, words are the center of language. This comes as no surprise if we consider that the most obvious, concrete, and recognizable parts of any language are its words or its lexicon. A primary...

What does it mean to know a word? An Introduction to Lexicon R ationale For many people, words are the center of language. This comes as no surprise if we consider that the most obvious, concrete, and recognizable parts of any language are its words or its lexicon. A primary concern of grammarians is the classification of words into groups or categories. In traditional grammar, there already exists the parts of speech as a way to employ terminology. The Form and form classes are composed of the major parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and Structure adverbs. These are the words that carry content or meaning of a sentence. the The structure classes are composed of the minor parts of speech: prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, quantifiers, and other subsets. These structure words generally accompany specific form classes. Determiners, or articles, such as the or a/an, typically occur before  6. Form or subsequen tly Structure? 1. the 2. beautiful 7. at 3. Nike 8. Miss 4. however Daniel 5. talking 9. daily 10. 8 Discovery Activity 1 : I ntroduction to Parts of Speech (Word Classes) 1.Look at the following words 2. Create four columns. Label these columns Group A, Group B, Group C, and Group D. 3. Without using a dictionary or other reference tool, try to place the words that you think belong together in the different columns. The first four words have already been done for you as an example. 4. After you have categorized as many words together as you can, explain why you grouped them as you did. 5. Now make two new columns, Group A and Group B. Using the new list of words below, try to place the different words that you think belong together. As you group this new list of words, consider whether any of the words can belong to more than one group. Try to explain why or What does your first grouping look like? What does your second Penny for your  In English, the group or class to which a word belongs is not always obvious without context  The form of a word in English does not necessarily determine its function.  The ff: sentences illustrate the She made a wish on a star. importance of context in assigning Theywish to learn more function and/or class: practices. Discovery Activity2: News 1. Look at these newspaper Headlines Underline the words you headlines. find ambiguous, that is, words that have more than one meaning. 2. Explain what these different meanings are. a) Students Cook and Serve Grandparents b) Kidnapped Child Found by Tree  Discovery Activity 3: Cdoesothencontext tex tthe function and meaning 1. Look at the following groups of sentences. How alter of the words in each group? Group 1 a) I practice my talk every morning. b) I talk every morning before the practice. Group 2 c) I present many speeches. d) I gave her a nice present. e) The students are all present.  What’s your Generation? Greatest GenerationSilent Generation Baby Boomers born 1901-1924 born 1925-1945 born 1946-1964 What’s your Generation? Gen Millennials Gen X Z born 1965-1979 born 1980-1994 born 1995-2012 What’s your Generation? Gen Alpha born 2013-2025 GEN Z? LET’S SEE! bussin another term for traffic something is really good  cap to surrender without lie or falsehood trying  RIZZ One’s ability to attract a A kind of special juice romantic partner served during parties simpin the ability to inflict pain to someone who shows excessive sympathy and attention toward others another person unintentionally istg IYKYK ngl xoxo  More LexicalCategories: Open Word vs Closed Word Classes  Ri How do zz new words enter the English language?  Often new words enter via informal language (slang or jargon) and, with increased use, become accepted into Standard American English. The girls dissed Ashley during lunch. Technology and social media are especially rich sources of new words. Speakers are endlessly creating new English words. Therefore, the major word or form classes are called open word classes because  word formation processes (open word classes) Derivation -the commonest method of creating a new word is to add a prefix or suffix to an existing one. Hence realisation (1610s), preteen (1926), hyperlink (1987) and Examples: -Prefix: MISlead, UNhappy, REwrite, DISlike - Suffix: foolishNESS, beautiFUL, developMENT -Infix: SingaBLOODYpore!, HalleBLOODYlujah!, Back formation The inverse of the above, the creation of a new root word by the removal of a phantom affix. When it becomes established in language, it is easier to tell its back formation if we know the origin of the word. Compounding The combining of two existing words. It’s mostly nouns that are formed this way (fiddlestick, claptrap, carbon dating, bailout), but words from other classes can be smooshed together too: into (preposition), nobody (pronoun), Portmanteaus/Blending Compounding with a twist because it’s combination of two separate forms to produce a single new term Ex. gasohol (gasoline made from alcohol) smog (smoke and fog), telecast (broadcast in television), Repurposing A word formed by taking a word from one context and applying it to another context. crane- long-necked bird crane- lifting machine mouse-long-tailed animal mouse- a computer input device  Conversion - a change in function of a word, for example, a noun used as a verb (without reduction) Ex: : butter (n.), chair (n.) Butter (v.) the bread.  Eponyms Words named after a person or place. - word that comes from the proper name of a person or place; can be based on both real and fictional people and places ex: Boycott (Captain Charles Boycott), Fahrenheit (Gabriel Abbreviations An increasingly popular method. There are three main subtypes: clippings, acronyms and initialisms. Some words that you might not have known started out longer are pram (perambulator), taxi/cab (both from taximeter cabriolet), goodbye (God be with you), rifle (rifled pistol), curio (curiosity), van (caravan), sport (disport), laser (light amplification by stimulated Clipping (under abbreviation) -is cutting of beginning or the end of a word or both leaving a part to stand for the whole. Back-clipping - exam for examination, lab for laboratory Fore-clipping - plane from airplane, phone for telephone Middle-clipping - flu from influenza Acronyms (under abbreviation) -are words formed by the initial or succession of beginning segments of words. They are pronounced as single words. Interpol- International Criminal Police Organization Radar - radio detecting and Initialism (under abbreviation) -means building a word from the initial letters in a phrase or name. They are read as sequence of Loanwords/Borrowing- taking over words from other languages tycoon (Japanese) lilac (Persian) piano (Italian) tatoo (Tahitian) pretzel (German) sofa (Arabic) Calquing- loan translation, similar to borrowing but the borrowed word is translated from the original to another language that fits the characterictics of the new word. Ex. blue blood - sangre azul (Spanish) free verse- vers libre (French) pineapple- pinjappel (Dutch) scapegoat - ez ozel (Hebrew) wisdom tooth - dens sciepientiae (Latin) beer garden - Biergarten (German) Onomatopoeia The creation of a word by imitation of the sound it is supposed to make. Plop, ow, barf, cuckoo, bunch, bump and midge all originated this way. Reduplication The repetition, or near-repetition, of a word or sound. To this method we owe the likes of flip-flop, goody- goody, boo-boo, helter-skelter, picnic, claptrap, hanky-panky, hurly-burly, lovey-dovey, higgledy- piggledy, tom-tom, hip hop and cray-cray. (Willy-nilly, though, came Nonce words- words pulled out of thin air, bearing little relation to any existing form and it is created for a single occasion. Ex: few and far between, but include quark (Murray Gell- Mann), bling (unknown) and fleek (Vine celebrity Kayla Newman), Error Misspellings, mishearings, mispronunciations and mistranscriptions rarely produce new words in their own right, but often lead to new forms in conjunction with other mechanisms. Ex: Scramble from scrabble helpmate from helpmeet Coinage -invention of totally new terms Ex. aspirin, nylon, vaseline, zipper, granola, Closed word classes are among the most common and frequently used English words. These classes are considered “closed” because:  First, they consist of small numbers of words that change very little over long periods of time and that have been in the English language for centuries.  Second, words in the closed classes are fixed and invariant, meaning that they do Examples of Closed Word Classes in English:  Pronouns – replace nouns in sentences Examples: he, she, it, they, we, you, who, this, those  Determiners – introduce nouns and provide context Examples: the, a, an, this, that, some, many, each, every Examples of Closed Word Classes in English:  Auxiliary Verbs (Helping Verbs) – assist main verbs to form tense, mood, or voice Examples: is, am, are, was, were, has, have, had, do, does, did, can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must  Modals – express necessity, possibility, ability, or permission Examples: can, could, may, might, must, shall,