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Chapter 2
Basic Concepts of Words
and Vocabulary
What is lexicology?
 Lexicology
is a branch of linguistics
concerned with the study of the vocabulary of
a given language. It deals with words, their
origin, development, structure, formation,
meaning and usage. In short, it is the study of
the signification and application of words.
What Is a Word?
A word is a minimal free form of a
language that has a given sound, meaning
and syntactic function.
词是具有一定的声音、意义和语法功能，能
独立运用的最小的语言单位。
What is vocabulary?
The total number of the words in a
language.
 All the words used in a particular historical
period.
 All the words of a given dialect, a given
book, a given discipline and the words
possessed by an individual person.

Vocabulary Size

Speaking vocabulary----active vocabulary

writing vocabulary------active vocabulary

reading vocabulary------passive vocabulary

guess vocabulary--------passive vocabulary

Language can be defined as “an arbitrary
vocal
system
used
for
human
communication”. By system we mean that
the elements in a language are arranged
according to certain rules, but not at
random. Elements at a lower level are
combined according to certain rules to
form elements at a higher level.

Specially, Language presents itself as a
hierarchy in different aspects. As is shown
in the following hierarchical rank scale,
language rises form morpheme at the
bottom up to the sentence at the top in
terms of lexicography. (词典编纂)
2.1 Morpheme

1.What is a morpheme(词素)?
The morpheme is the smallest
functioning unit in the composition of
words, not divisible or analyzable into
smaller forms.


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
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What is usually considered a single word in
English may be composed of one or more
morphemes:
One morpheme---nation
Two morphemes---nation-al
Three morphemes---nation-al-ize
Four morphemes---de-nation-al-ize（使…非国有
化）

More than four morphemes---de-nation-al-ization

So we can define morpheme in this way:
the smallest unit in terms of relationship between
expression and content, a unit which can not be
divided without destroying or drastically altering
the meaning, whether it is lexical or grammatical.
■A morpheme is a two-facet language unit in that
it possesses both sound and meaning.
A morpheme vs. A word
Morphemes occur in speech only as
constituent parts of words. They can not be
used independently, although a word may
consist of a single morpheme. Nor are
morphemes divisible into smaller meaningful
units. That is why the morpheme may be
defined as the minimum meaningful language
unit.
2. Allomorph (形位变体，词[语]素变体）

Sometimes a morpheme may have two or more different
morphological forms or phonetic forms, depending on
the context in which it occurs.

For example, the prefix sub can be realized as sub as in
subway, sup as in support and suppress, suc as in
succeed, and sus as in sustain. That is, when sub occurs
before a root beginning with the sound /p/ it is realized
as sup and when it is added a root with a beginning
sound /k/ and a beginning letter c it is realized as suc.

These different morphological or phonetic forms of a
morpheme are allomorphs of the morpheme.
Allomorphs（词素变体）:
 An
allomorph is any of the variant
forms
of
a
morpheme
as
conditioned
by
position
or
adjoining sounds. For example
 ion/-tion/-sion/-ation
are the positional variants of the
same suffix.
 Verbs ending with the sound /t/ usually take –ion (as
in invent, invention);
 verds ending with consonants other than /t/ take –tion
(as in describe, description);
 verbs ending in –ify and –ize take –ation (as in justify,
justification; modernize, modernization);
 verbs ending in –d, -de, or –mit, take –sion (as in
expansion, decision, omission); there are exceptions:
attend, attention; convert, conversion, etc.
Allomorphs also occur among prefixes. Their form
then depends on the first letter of the verb to which
they will be added.
e.g.
im- before p,b, or m, imperfect, imbalance, immobile;
ir- before r, irresponsible, irregular;
il- before l, illegal, illogical;
in- before all other consonants and vowels, inflexible,
inexcusable;
im-,ir-, and il- are thus allomorphs of the morpheme,
in-.
2.2 Classification of Morpheme
1.Free morphemes and bound morphemes
Free morphemes(自由词素）： Morphemes which
are independent of other morphemes are
considered to be free. Free morphemes have
complete meanings in themselves and can be used
as free grammatical units in sentences. A free
morpheme is one that may constitute a word (free
form) by itself, in the traditional sense.
e.g. man, faith, read, write, red
Bound morphemes(粘附词素): morphemes that can
not occur as separate words. It can not stand by
itself as a complete utterance; it must appear
with at least one other morpheme, free or bound.
Unlike free morphemes, they do not have
independent semantic meaning; instead, they
have attached meaning or grammatical meaning.
e .g. -ly , re- , -ed, -s
Bound morpheme can change the meaning or word class
of a word,
e.g. fit and unfit, broad and braoden;
It can also have grammatical function, e.g. book and books.
2. Root and affix

Alternatively, morphemes may be divided
into roots (or root morphemes) and affixes
(or affixational morphemes).
1).
Root (or root morphemes) :
the basic
unchangeable part of a word, and covers the main lexical
meaning of the word. That is to say, it is the part of the
word left, whether free or bound, when all the affixes are
removed. It carries the main component of meaning in a
word.
e.g. work, workable, worker, worked, working
-- semantically related words
Roots are, therefore,
the cores of English words.
Historically, the root is the earliest form of a word. Roots
are either free or bound:

a. Free root: In English many roots are free morphemes,
such as boy, moon, walk, black ( i.e. they can stand
alone as words).


A word consisting of one free root (or one morpheme)
is a simple words. Free roots, just like simple words,
belong to the basic word-stock, and have the
fundamental features of the basic word-stock . Free
roots provide the English language with basis for the
formation of new words.
b. Bound roots: Quite a number of roots derived
from foreign sources, esp. from Greek and Latin,
belong to the class of bound morphemes.
A bound root is that part of the word that
carries the fundamental meaning just like a
free root. Unlike a free root, it is a bound
form and has to combine with other
morphemes to make words.
A root, whether it is free or bound, generally carries
the main component of meaning in a word.
Notice what the following words have in common:
e.g. -tain contain, detain retain
-viv/vit revive
vivid
vitamin
vital
vivacious
基本
第一种
第二种
例词
意义单位 符号(词) 符号（词根）
 人
man
anthro
anthropology, philanthropy（慈善事业）
 花
flower
anth(o)
Anthesis， chrysanthemum菊花
chronic, synchronic
 时
time
chron
 色
colour
chrom
chromatic, bichrome
 水
water
hydr(o)
Hydrate, hydroelectric
Aerolith陨石, neolith新石器, paleolith旧石器
 石
stone
lite(o)
 牙
tooth
dent(i)
dentist, dentiform,齿状的
Cephalalgia头痛, cephalitis脑炎
 头
head
cephal
 脚
foot
ped
Uniped单脚的, pediform脚型的
 音
sound
phon
phonetics, microphone
 日
sun
sol
solar, insolation暴晒
 月
moon
lun
lunar， lunatic疯狂的
 星
star
astro(er)
Astrology占星术, astronomy天文学
 世界
world
cosm(o)
cosmic, cosmopolis国际都市
 生命
life
bi(o)
biotic, antibiotic抗生素
 中心
center
center
central eccentric古怪的
 Affixes(词缀): Affixes
are forms that are
attached to words or word elements to modify
meaning or function. According to the
functions of affixes, we can put them into two
groups: inflectional and derivational affixes.

Inflectional affixes (inflectional morphemes):
Affix attached to the end of words to indicate
grammatical relationships are inflectional, thus
known
as
inflectional
morphemes.
The
inflectional affix does not form a new word with a
new lexical meaning when it is added to another
word. Nor does it change the word-class of the
word to which it is affixed. It just adds some
grammatical information to the word.
It serves to express such meanings as plurality,
tense, and the comparative or superlative
degree.
Plural markers: -s, -es, -en, feet, sheep
Genitive case: -’s
Verbal endings: -ing, -(e)d, irregular verbs,
Comparative and superlative degrees: -er, -est
The number of inflectional affixes are small and
fixed; no new ones have bee added since 1500.
Derivational affixes (derivational morphemes): They
are so called because when they are added to another
morpheme, they "derive" a new word. If a morpheme
can change the meaning or the word class, or both the
meaning and word class of a word, it is a derivational
morpheme.
e.g. re+write,mini+car, super+market,
modern+ize,
mean+ness, work+er.
 Many derivational affixes have a specific lexical
meaning, for instance: -ism means “doctrine or
point of view” as in socialism.
Quite a number of other derivational affixes
have more than one meaning.
 e.g. de1. to undo what has been done, to
reverse the action of decentralize, decode

2. to remove: to debone

3. to reduce: devalue

4. (esp. in grammar) coming from sth.
else: a deverbal noun

Derivational affixes do not only have independent lexical
meaning but also affective meaning.
e.g. prefixes: mis-, mal-, pseudo- -- pejorative
suffix: -ling -- derogatory : hireling, weakling
-ish, -- "of the nature of," -- derogatory: bookish
uppish.
derivational affixes which can be attached to words of
different words-classes:
e.g. -able -- verbs -- washable
-- nouns -- marriageable;
The number of derivational affixes, although limited, is
much larger than that of inflectional affixes. New ones
are coined from time to time.
e.g. Russian: sputnik (1957),
-nik beatnik, peacenik computernik
Derivational morphemes or derivational affixes are commonly
subdivided into prefixes and suffixes. Affixes before the word
are called prefixes (as in supermarket) those after are called
suffixes ( as in friendship).
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Both prefixes and suffixes may be grouped according to:
(1) Their linguistic origin:
OE affixes: un-, mis-, be-, out-, over-, -ness, -dom, -hood, -ly, and
-er.
Foreign affixes: ab-(L), bi- (L), dis-(L), re-(L), kilo(GK),
poly(GK), mal-(F),-able(F), -ism(GK), -ic(GK).
(2) Their productivity:
Affixes (such as re-, un-, -able, -ize) are called productive or
living when they can be used to form new words. Those that are
no longer used to form new words are termed dead or
unproductive.
e.g. for- forgets, forgive, forbid
-with withdraw, withhold, withstand
free = free root
morpheme
bound root
bound
inflectional affixes (suffix)
affixes
prefixes
derivational affixes
suffixes
Root, stem, base
As defined by Bauer:
" A root (词根) is a form which is not further
analyzable, either in terms of derivational or
inflectional morphology. It is that part of a wordfrom that remains when all the inflectional and
derivational affixes have been removed. A root is
the basic part always present in a lexeme." (Bauer
1983:20)
e.g. un touch
able s
greenhouse-- green house
Bauer defines "stem" as follows:
" A stem （词干） is of concern only when
dealing with inflectional morphology. ... Only
Inflectional (but not derivational) affixes are
added to it: it is the part of the word-form which
remains when all the inflectional affixes have
been removed,“ A stem is any morpheme or
combination of morphemes to which an
inflectional affix can be added.
e.g. friends, friendships, greenhouses
A base （词基） is any form to which affixes of any kind can be
added; it may also be defined as "a form to which a rule of word
formation is applied."
root (or base) (derivational) suffix
desire
Derivational prefix
un
stem (or base)
undesirable
root, stem, or base
desire
able
analyzable base
desirable
inflectional suffix
s
inflectional suffix
d

From the definitions of the three terms, we can
see that any root or stem can be termed a base.
But a base is different from the root in that the
former is (sometimes) derivationally analyzable
while the later is derivationally unanalyzable. A
base is also different from a stem in that both
derivational and inflectional affixes can be
attached to a base but only inflectional affixes
can be attached to a stem.

e.g. disagreements, disagreement, disagree
3. Lexeme, word form, lexical entry, word

1) Lexeme:

Lexeme an abstract vocabulary item with a common
core of meaning. It can be realized by different word
forms. Put it in another way, lexeme is a set of linguistic
signs which share the same lexical meanings but
different in their grammatical, meanings. Fro example,
dies,died, dying, die belong to the same lexeme DIE.
Man and men are varying forms of the same lexeme
MAN.

Some set expressions such as bury the hatchet, give up
and ups and downs would be each considered a single
lexeme.

2) Word form （词形）：

Word
form
is
the
realization
(representation or manifestation) of the
lexeme. Equivalently, it is the inflected
forms of a lexeme.
An illustration of the relationship between lexeme
and word form:
 word-forms
lexeme
 See, seeing, saw, seen
SEE
 Sleeps, sleeping, slept
SLEEP
 Catch, catches, catching, caught
CATCH
 Jump, jumps, jumped, jumping
JUMP
 Tall, taller, tallest
TALL
 Boy, boys
BOY
 Woman, women
WOMAN
3） Lexical entry(词条)：

Lexical entry is the specification of the
information of a lexeme in dictionary or the
representation of the idiosyncratic
information of a lexeme, including (i) its
pronunciation, (ii) syntactic properties and
(iii) meaning. For example, the lexical
entry swim:
PHONOLOGY
/swim/
 SYNTAX
intransitive verb
 SEMANTICS
[SWIM]
 MORPHOLOGY Past swam
Past Participle

swum
4）Word
How to define a word?
 A word can be defined the smallest
meaningful linguistic unit that can be used
independently. Knowing a word means
knowing its pronunciation (sound) and
meaning, whose relationship is arbitrary. A
word can be defined from the following
aspects:
1) Orthographically speaking, a word is a
unit which, in print, is bounded by spaces
on both sides. It is a physically definable
unit. But there is a problem with this
definition: should we count it as two words
or one word when two words are
contracted as one orthographic unit.
 a. I am a good cook.
 b. I’ve been a good cook.



2) Morph-syntactically speaking, word has four
characteristics: (i) syntactic independence, (ii)
positional mobility, (iii) uninterruptibility, (vi)
Internal stability.
Syntactic independence means that nothing
smaller than a word can normally form a
sentence on its own. That is to say, word is the
smallest independent unit in a language. It is the
smallest unit which can constitute, by itself, a
complete utterance.



Positional mobility means that the word-forms as a whole
can be moved relatively easily within the sentence, such
as “This we must see” and “Plums I love”.
Uninterruptability means that extraneous material cannot
be inserted into a word form even there are several parts
in a word, such as the contrast between nationalism vs.
*national-anti-lism.
Internal stability means that internal morpheme or letters
are fixed / stabilized, i.e., the ordering of items within the
word-form is usually fixed and non-contrastive, as
opposed to the ordering of word-forms within the
sentence, as is the case with * ly-sudden



Part of Speech / Word Class:
Part of Speech are the categories into which the words
of a language can be classified either according to their
syntactic functions or according to their morphological
structure.
There are traditionally nine word classes in English:
noun, verb (transitive and intransitive), adjective, adverb,
preposition, pronoun, article, conjunction, interjection.
There are still some new categories introduced recently
into linguistic analysis. They are particles, auxiliaries (助
动词) and pro-forms(代词形式).

Particles include the infinitive marker “to”,
the negative marker “not” and the
subordinate elements in phrasal verbs,
such as “up” in look up, break up and do
up, and “at” in look at and arrive at.
Pro-form is a collective term for the set of items
which can be used to substitute for other items
or construction. They are always neglected.
e.g.
 Do you need a lift? If so, I will drive you to the
destination.
 Do you think your little brother study hard
enough? Yes, he does.
 I know him more than I did.
 I would have never believed it. She has readily
accepted his proposal.
 The dog is hiding there, under the table.




Different ways of classifying words:
1) Open-class words and closed-class words
Open-class words include nouns, verbs,
adjective and adverbs. They are so called
because their membership is not fixed or limited.
With the emergency of new ideas and inventions,
new expressions are continually being added to
the lexicon. The other six word classes are
called closed-class words because their
membership is relatively fixed.

2) Grammatical (function) words and lexical
(content) words

Grammatical words are also called function
words, whose role is largely or wholly
grammatical. They include link verb “be”,
prepositions, conjunctions and determiners, ect.
Lexical words carry the semantic meaning.
Nouns, verbs, adjectives and most adverbs are
lexical words.
3) Variable words and invariable words
 Variable words are those that have
ordered and regular series of
grammatically different word forms.
Invariable words are those that remain
relatively constant.


Token(标记) and Type（类型）

In linguistics, a distinction is always made between
classes of linguistic items (e.g. phonemes, words,
utterances) and actual utterances in speech or writing of
examples of such classes. The class of linguistic units is
called a type and examples of individual members of the
class are called tokens.
In mathematic linguistics the total number of words in a
text may be referred to as the number of text tokens,
and the number of different words as the number of text
types. The ratio of different words in a text to the total
words in the text is known as the lexical density or TypeToken ratio for that text.


Paradigm

A paradigm is a list or pattern showing the forms
which a word can have in a grammatical system..
It typically shows a word’s inflections rather than
derivatives. It is the set of all the inflected forms
which an individual word assumes or the full set
of words realizing a particular lexeme.

For example: Boy, {boy, boys}

DO, {do, does, did, doing, done}



Summary:
1.Words are composed of morphemes. A morpheme, the
minimal meaningful unit of the English language,
possesses both sound and meaning. An allomorph is
any of variant forms of a morpheme.
2. Morphemes may be classified as free or bound. A free
morpheme is one that can stand by itself as a complete
utterance, while a bound morpheme cannot exist on its
own; it must appear with at least one other morpheme,
free or bound.

3. Morphemes can also be classified into roots
and affixes. A root carries the main component
of meaning in a word. Roots can be free or
bound morphemes. Free roots can stand alone
as words and provide the language with a basis
for the formation of new words. Bound roots
cannot appear as words in modern English,
although they were once words, nor can they be
used to form new words.

4. Affixes are bound morphemes, because they
are used only when added to other morphemes.
Affixes are classified into inflectional and
derivational affixes. The former are related to
grammar only. Derivational affixes are
subdivided into prefixes and suffixes, which are
related to the formation of new words. Roots,
prefixes and suffixes are the building blocks with
which words are formed.

5. On morphemic level, words can be
classified into simple, complex and
compound words, according to the number
and type of morphemes they are
composed of.

6. Morphemes are important in the wordbuilding process because the two most
central and productive word-formation
process, compounding and affixation,
are related to morphemes: the former is a
combination of free morphemes, the latter
is the addition of bound morphemes to
free ones.