English Lexical Semantics 英语词汇语义学 组员：李海笑 顾珍宇 庄雅淇 张晶晶 吕萍萍 姜 燕

Introduction English Lexical Semantics is a branch of linguistics, inquiring into the origins and meanings of words.English Lexical Semantics aims at investigating and studying the morphological structures of English words, their semantic structures, relations, historical development, formation and usages.

Introduction English Lexical Semantics is a theoretically-oriented course. It is chiefly concerned with the basic theories of words in general and of English words in particular.

Definition of the word According to semanticists, a word is a unit of meaning. Grammarians , however, insist that a word be a free form that can function in a sentence, etc. To sum up, the definition of a word comprises the following points: (1) a minimal free form of a language; (2) a sound unity; (3) a unit of meaning; (4) a form that can function alone in a sentence.

Classification of Words The English vocabulary consists of words of all kinds. They can be classified by different criteria and for different purposes. Words may fall into the basic word stock and nonbasic vocabulary by use frequency, into content words and functional words by notion, and into native words and borrowed words by origin.

Content Words and Functional Words By notion, words can be grouped into content words and functional words. 1.Content words denote clear notions and thus are known as notional words. They include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and numerals, which denote objects, phenomena, action, quality, state, degree, quantity, etc. Earth, cloud, run, walk, bright, dark, never, frequently, five, December are all content words.

Content Words and Functional Words 2.Functional words do not have notions of their own. Therefore, they are also called empty words. As their chief function is to express the relation between notions, the relation between words as well as between sentences, they are known as form words. Prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliaries and articles belong to this category. Examples are on, of, upon, and, but, do (does, did), be (am, are, were, is), a, the and others.

Major Sense Relations Words are arbitrary symbols and are independent identities so far as their outer facet—spelling and pronunciation, is concerned. But semantically, all words are related in one way or another. A word which is related to other words is related to them in sense, hence sense relations. The subjects that have long held the interest and attention of semanticists are polysemy, homonymy, synonymy, antonymy ， hyponymy

Polysemy Polysemy is a common feature peculiar to all natural languages. This is particularly true of highly developed languages like English. In modern English, an overwhelming majority of words are polysemous. A casual glance of any pages of an English dictionary will justify the fact.

Two Processes of Development The development of word-meaning from monosemy to polysemy follows two courses, radiation and concatenation. 1.Radiation is a semantic process in which the primary meaning stands at the centre and the secondary meanings proceed out of it in every direction like rayes. 2.Concatenation, meaning 'linking together’, is the semantic process in which the meaning of a word moves gradually away from its first sense by successive shifts

Synonyms Synonymy is one of the characteristic features of the vocabulary of natural languages. English as a highly developed language is known for its copious stock of synonyms. Even as early as the Anglo-Saxon period, the use of synonyms to add to the variety of language was noticeable. Definition of Synonyms Synonyms can be defined as words different in sound and spelling but most nearly alike or exactly the same in meaning. Reasonable as it sounds, this definition is subject to disagreement. The focal point is what is meant by meaning.

Types of Synonyms 1. Absolute synonyms also known as complete synonyms are words which are identical in meaning in all its aspects, i. e . both in grammatical meaning and lexical meaning, including conceptual and associative meanings. 2. Relative synonyms also called near-synonyms are similar or nearly the same in denotation, but embrace different shades of meaning or different degrees of a given quality. Take change/alter/ vary for example.

Antonymy Antonymy is concerned with semantic opposition. Antonyms can be defined as words which are opposite in meaning. There are variety of ' oppositeness’. They can be classified into three major groups.

Types of Antonyms 1. Contradictory antonym(Complementaries or ungradable antonym ) 2. Contrary antonym(Contraries or gradable antonym ) 3. Relative antonym(converse antonym) (关系反义词/换位反义词)

Homonymy Homonyms are generally defined as words different in meaning but either identical both in sound and spelling or identical only in sound or spelling. Types of Homonyms Based on the degree of similarity, homonyms fall into four classes:perfect homonyms, homographs ,homophones and homoforms

Types of Homonyms 1.Perfect homonyms are words identical both in sound and spelling, but different in meaning 2.Homographs are words identical only in spelling but different in sound and meaning 3.Homophones are words identical only in sound but different in spelling and meanin 4.Homoforms: Words quite different in ‘meaning but identical in spelling or sound in some of their grammatical forms are called homoforms

Hyponymy Hyponymy deals with the relationship of semantic inclusion. That is, the meaning of a more specific word is included in that of another more general word (Lyons 1977, Jackson 1988). These specific words are known as hyponyms. For instance, tulip and rose are hyponyms of flower, and lion and elephant are hyponyms of animal.

Hyponymy Hyponymy can be described in terms of tree-like graphs, with higher-order superordinates above the lower subordinates. But their status either as superordinate or subordinate is relative to other terms. Hyponyms of the same superordinate are co-hyponyms to each other

The end,thank you!