北科大语言学内部教学教案5考研必备.docx

1、北科大语言学内部教学教案5考研必备Lecture 5 MorphologySo far we have finished with the sounds of speech. In this week and next week, well be dealing with words in language. This is what is covered by Chapter 3 in your text book. In our lecture, well divide this chapter in two parts. Today well be dealing with the pa

2、rt called “morphology” and next week well be discussing “lexical change”, which deals with language variation. Then you may want to ask: What is morphology? How is it different from lexicon? Morphology (形态学，词法学), as we have already mentioned in our first meeting, is a branch of linguistics, which st

3、udies the formation of words. Lexicon means something similar to “vocabulary”. It is not actually a branch of linguistics, but a component of language. It refers to the collection of words in a language, including idioms and collocations. Our lecture today will focus on morphology. But since morphol

4、ogy is the study of the formation of words, well begin our discussion by talking about what is word. 5.1 What is word?As a native speaker of Chinese, everyone of us can recognize immediately whether a sound or a written symbol is a word or not in Chinese. And as learners of English, in most cases, w

5、e are also capable of recognizing English words either in written form or in spoken form. But it is not a easy job to define what a word is. 5.1.1 Different senses of “word”1) A physically definable unitI suppose, if I ask you what word is, youre most likely to tell me that it is a cluster of letter

6、s separated by blanks from others in writing, or it is a cluster of sounds separated by pauses from others in speaking. This is usually the definition given by laymen. It catches one sense of word word as a physically definable unit. But this definition has its problems: First, physically separated

7、units are not necessarily words. For example, in Chinese, the separated forms like 蟋 蟀 葡 萄，they are characters, but they cant be named “words” on their own. On the other hand, in English, there are compound words like waiting-room, baby-stroller, etc. Is “waiting-room” one word or two words?Second,

8、since there is the phenomenon of liaison (连读), the phonologically separations are not necessarily the same as orthographic separations. For example, youll agree that “at all” consists of two words, but in speaking its very likely to be produced as tl, without any pause between t and l.Third, in Engl

9、ish orthographic, there is there is the phenomenon of contracted form. If you say “it is” consists of two words, how about “its”?2) A general term the common factor underlying a set of formsLets look at the following words:boy, boys check, checks, checked, checkingfat, fatter, fattestIf I ask you ho

10、w many words there are in each line, youll tell me its two, four and three respectively. So altogether there are 9 words. But if you refer to a dictionary, boy and boys belong to the same country. And the four words in the second line also belong to the same entry. Therefore word can be used either

11、as a general term, referring to both boy and boys or as a specific term, in which sense boy and boys are two different words. To distinguish between the general sense and the specific sense, we introduce a term lexeme (词素) to refer to word in the general sense, that is, the abstract unit underlying

12、the smallest unit in the lexical system of a language. Thus, “boy” is the lexeme underlying the two words “boy” and “boys”, and “check” is the lexeme underlying the words “check, checks, checked and checking.”3）A grammatical unitThe grammar of a language contains a set of layers, and word is one of

13、them, as displayed in the following figure. Each of these is called a RANK; and all the ranks constitute a hierarchical scale. Notice that the Word rank is located between Morpheme and Word Group. A word, in this sense, is then a grammatical unit, just like morpheme or clause complex. 5.1.2 Identifi

14、cation of wordsWe have discussed the difficulty of defining what “word” is, but this doesnt mean it is as well difficult for us to identify a word. Everyone of us can say immediately whether a written symbol or a sound is a word or not, or its one or more words. Here we can depend on some internal c

15、riteria, that is, the internal structures of words for its identification. This will work better than the physical criterion. 1) Stability 稳定性Stability means that the internal structure of a word is stable. Its constituents cannot be rearranged. For example, word cannot be rearranged as dorw, chairp

16、erson cannot be arranged as personchair. In contrast, its possible to rearrange the constituents in sentences to a certain degree：Jim laughed at John.John laughed at Jim. 2) Uninterruptibility 不可中断性By saying the constituents of a word cannot be interrupted, we mean you cannot insert other elements i

17、nto a word, although there may be several parts of it. For example, disappointment is composed of dis + appoint + ment, but we cannot insert any letter between the different parts.However, this feature of word is only a relative notion, and there are words that can be interrupted. For example, passe

18、rby passersby; son-in-law sons-in-low. 3) A minimum free form 最小自由形式This notion was first proposed by Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949). According to Bloomfield, a word is the smallest unit that can be used on its own to make a complete utterance. He calls it “the minimum free form” and he advocates tr

19、eating sentences as “the maximum free form”. - Who is knocking at the door? - Me. Samuel Goldwyn: I could describe your proposal in just two words: im possible. 5.1.3 Classification of wordsWhat weve already discussed focus on the general features of different words, and what were going to talk next

20、 deals with differences of various words. 1) Variable and invariable words 可变类与不变类Before we talk about variable and invariable words, we first have to introduce two terms: inflection (屈折变化) and inflective endings (屈折结尾). Inflection is the manifestation of grammatical relationships by adding affixes.

21、 For example, English is an inflectional language. We have the affix s/-es to indicate the third person singular, -ing to indicate a progressive aspect, etc. The suffix that is added to a word to indicate some grammatical function is then called inflective ending. The distinction between variable an

22、d invariable words depends on whether a word has inflective forms. Those having inflective forms are variable words, those that have not are invariable. Therefore variable words include nouns number: worker, workers; case, cases verbs tense, number: work/works/worked/working adjectives degree: fat,

23、fatter, fattest adverbs degree: much, more, most; well, better, best pronoun case: you, your, yoursInvariable words include mostly conjunctions and prepositions like through, by, up, etc. 2) grammatical words and lexical words语法词与词汇词According to the content of words, words can be classified into GRA

24、MMATICAL WORDS and LEXICAL WORDS. Those expressing grammatical meanings mainly work for constructing group, phrase, clause, clause complex, or even text. They are termed grammatical words, such as, conjunctions, prepositions, articles, and pronouns. And those which have mainly work for referring to

25、substance, action and quality, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, are lexical words. Lexical words carry the main content of a language while grammatical ones serve to link together different content parts, so lexical words are also known as CONTENT WORDS (实义词) and grammatical ones as FU

26、NCTION WORDS (功能词）.3) Closed-class words and open-class words 封闭类和开放类According to whether the membership is limited, words can be classified as closed-class words and open-class words. Words like pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles belong to the category of close-class, as it is very diff

27、icult to add a new number to them. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and many adverbs are all open-class items. When there are new ideas, inventions, or discoveries, new members are continually and constantly added to the lexicon. So in principle, the number of words in the open-class is infinite or unlimite

28、d. However, the distinction between closed-class words and open-class words is not quite as clear-cut as it seems. Preposition, though a closed-class, is a relatively open one in English. Expressions such as regarding, throughout, out of, according to, with regard to, in spite of, by means of, and m

29、any others, are now recognized as prepositions or complex prepositions. In respect to open-class items, auxiliary verbs, which used to be treated as open-class words, are relatively closed in number.4) Word classes 词类Word classes were traditionally known as “part of speech”. This is a misleading tra

30、nslation from Greek. It has two major defects: 1) There is ambiguity when meaning and function are concerned. For example, red and stone are both nouns in meaning, as they refer to color and material respectively, but they usually function as an adjective, appearing in the position of a modifier, e.

31、g. a red house, a stone house. 2) About 8 or 9 parts of speech are established in traditional grammar, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, articles, etc. But there may be actually more part of speech than 8 or 9 in a language. The term word class def

32、ines categories of word in a more precise way, and it also covers a wider range of words. Some newly introduced word classes include:a. Particles 小品词This class includes the infinitive marker to as in going to do sth. the negative particle “not” as in I do not speak Italian. and verbal particles like get on, do up, break down, pass by b. Auxiliaries 助词Auxiliaries used to be called modal verbs, as a sub-category of verb. But the trend today is to regard these words as a separate type, as they behave differently from