IMT 107 - Lexicology PDF

WHAT IS A WORD? IMT 107 - Lexicology 1  THE CONNECTION BETWEEN WORD AND LANGUAGE Association between “word” and “speech” or “language” That traffic warden wants a word with you. When you are free for lunch just say the word. The Prime Minister’s words ha...

WHAT IS A WORD? IMT 107 - Lexicology 1  THE CONNECTION BETWEEN WORD AND LANGUAGE Association between “word” and “speech” or “language” That traffic warden wants a word with you. When you are free for lunch just say the word. The Prime Minister’s words have been misinterpreted by the media. Kelime- sözcük- söz- kelam- laf 2  WHAT IS A WORD? The orthographic approach (t+h+i+n+k+s) The phonetic approach (θ+ɪ+ŋ+k+s) The semantic approach (believe/consider) The grammatical approach (third person singular present form of a verb) 3  WHAT IS A WORD? A combination of vocal sounds, or one such sound, used in a language to express an idea (e.g. to denote a thing, attribute, or relation), and constituting an ultimate minimal element of speech having a meaning as such Linguistic sign= soundform+ meaning (form+content) 4  Problematic Cases «Minimal Units with Meaning» I’m mad at you / Why couldn’t you carry it more carefully? greenhouse, pickpocket etc. dogs, writing, manageable, gardener Jill took it all, kit and caboodle. Bill kicked the bucket last night. 5  PHONOLOGICAL WORD A sequence of sounds which is identified as a unit on the basis of how it is pronounced à can’t, bendable, dogs LISTEME Minimal meaningful unit, including affixes like –s, and –un, and idioms like kick the bucket – often equivalent of morphemes 6  Lexemes vs. Word Forms v LEXEME The word as a family of forms or as an abstract unit v WORD-FORM A lexeme’s concrete representatives or realizations (RUN à RUNS, RUNNING, RAN) - citation form In French- infinitive form (donner) In Modern Greek- first person sing. of present tense (κάνω) 7  Word Tokens vs. Word Types She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah; She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah; She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How many words? - going, going, gone! 8  The Word Content words (full words, lexical words): they have substantial Word meaning even out of context Function words Content Words Function Words (grammatical words, form words): little or no independent meaning Open vs. close classes  Morpheme Smallest unbreakable meaningful unit of a word How many morphemes? 1. Un- (Bound morpheme) 2. Break (Free morpheme) 3. -Able (Bound morpheme)  Morpheme Cats, singer, flying… How many morphemes? Word≠Morpheme But words may include more than one morpheme. Morphemes are the atoms with which the words are built. Do not confuse with syllables. Morphemes inject meaning to the word  Simple communication process Language à a secret decoder – an encryption device The encryption system has two basic parts: A set of symbols which stand for concepts The rules used to combine them DOG THE DOG IS BARKING BARK 12  Semiotics Saussure offered a 'dyadic' or two-part model of the sign. He defined a sign as being composed of: a 'signifier' (signifiant) - the form which the sign takes; and the 'signified' (signifié) - the concept it represents. Sign system: signifier+signified (language) 13 14  Semiotics If we take a linguistic example, the word 'Open' (when it is invested with meaning by someone who encounters it on a shop doorway) is a sign consisting of: a signifier: the word open; a signified concept: that the shop is open for business. The same signifier (the word 'open') could stand for a different signified (and thus be a different sign) if it were on a push-button inside a lift ('push to open door'). 15  muttak Varliksal A sign is not an absolute or ontological property of a thing, but rather it is a relational, situated and interpretive role that a thing can have only within a particular context of relationships. 16  Consequences Meanings are subjective (individual). Meanings are culture-based. Meanings make sense in context. Meanings are construed dynamically and undergo changes. 17  THREE SIGN TYPES IN SEMIOTIC THEORY 1. Iconic Signs These look like what they meant to represent 2. Symbolic/Arbitrary Signs These have meaning that must be culturally learned. They don’t look like what they are meant to represent 3. Indexical Signs These have a connection to what they represent & are suggestive rather than directly resembling what they are meant to represent/signify 18 Icon The signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified. A pictorial representation, a photograph, an architect’s model of a building, or a star chart are all icons because they imitate or copy aspects of their subject. 19  Symbol A symbol has an arbitrary relationship between the signifier and the signified. The interpreter understands the symbol through previous knowledge and experience—it must be learned and agreed upon. Spoken or written words are symbols. There is no reason that the word CAT should represent a cat instead of a tree. CAT 20 Index An index is a mode in which the signifier might not resemble its signified object. It is not arbitrarily assigned and is directly connected in some way to the object. Wet streets are a sign that it has rained recently. Smoke signifies fire. A nest image is an icon of a nest but also an index of a bird. 21 Iconic > Indexical > Symbolic 22 Ambiguity  Ambiguity in the notion of word Abstraction Most English words are generic to a lesser or greater extent. plant tree acacia  Ambiguity in the notion of word Non-Linguistic World Multiplicity of aspects (context- user) -table for two in a restaurant - the table of contents in a book - a multiplication table at school Lack of clear-cut boundaries in the non-linguistic world - colors are in a continuum and the distinction may not be clear- cut. - concepts that have no alternative in physical world - equality. For specialists, the difference between crime and offence, neurosis and psychosis, morpheme and allomorph matters.  Ambiguity in the notion of word Lack of familiarity spirit level straightener  MENTAL LEXICON A mental dictionary that contains information regarding a word's meaning, pronunciation, syntactic characteristics, and so on. Words must first be mentally represented and organized in a systematic, easily accessible way. The mental lexicon is a construct used in linguistics and psycholinguistics to refer to individual speakers’ lexical, or word, representations. The mental lexicon differs from the lexicon in that it is not just a general collection of words; instead, it deals with how those words are activated, stored, processed, and retrieved by each speaker. The Hierarchical Network Model The Semantic Feature Model  HOW CAN LEXIS BE ORGANIZED? Alphabetical listing (headwords- entries) Word classes (parts of speech) Frequency (observed in corpora) Associative fields (Saussure) Paradigmatic vs syntagmatic relations Lexical fields Word families 30  The word and its associative field- paradigmatic relations Lecturing Teacher Lectured Tutor (Common stem) (semantic similarity) Lecturer Gardener Clever Labourer Quicker (the suffix –er forming nouns from verbs) (accidental similarity) 31 32  Lexical fields Kinship terms, colour terms, vehicles etc. 33  Word families Words are grouped into families on the basis of their morphology, both their inflections and their derivations State (verb) States, stated, stating (inflections) Statement, restate, understate (derivations) 34