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E N G L I S H L E X I C O LO G Y Nguyen Thanh Loan, MA

AN OVERVIEW ED – HANU
[email protected]

COURSE ROADMAP
Tentative schedule:

­ W1: An overview

­ W2: Word formation

­ W3: Word meaning Textbook used:

Từ vựng học tiếng Anh –
­ W4: Synonymy & Antonymy
English lexicology
­ W5: Homonymy, other lexical relations & (by Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng)
Euphemism

­ W6: Phraseology

­ W7: Midterm assessment

­ W8: Revision

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ASSESSMENT TASKS

Attendance and participation: 10%

Midterm assessment: 30%

Final test: 60%

THE HANDOUTS

Definitions or Key points will always be presented in blue color.

Examples will be presented in italics.
Suggested answers will be in purple color.
Notes will be in red color.

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KEY POINTS
Lexicology: What is it? Why study it?
Words
Morphemes
The origins of English words
Borrowing (type of words)

DEFINITIONS
Definitions varied across authors.
“...the part of linguistics dealing with the vocabulary of a language and the
properties of words as the main units of language.” (Bejan and Asandei,
1981: 110)
“A branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning and use of words.”
(Longman Dictionary of the English Language 1991)
“... an area of language study concerned with the nature, meaning, history
and use of words and word elements and often also with the critical
description of lexicography” (McArthur (ed), 1992)
“...the study of lexis, understood as the stock of words in a given language,
i.e. its vocabulary or lexicon” (Jackson and Amvela, 2022)
And many more...

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WHAT IS LEXICOLOGY?

“Lexi-” - from Greek lexis, “word”, “-logy” - from Greek logos, “learning,
science, discipline”.

à Lexicology is the study of LEXIS – the stock of words in a given

language.

Lexis is also known as LEXICON or VOCABULARY.

Words are central in the study of lexicology. Lexicology deals not only with
SIMPLE WORDS in all their aspects, but also with COMPLEX WORDS and
COMPOUND WORDS, the meaningful units of language.

Lexicology relies heavily on information derived from other linguistic

branches, mainly:

• Phonology (the study of how sounds are organized in a language)

• Morphology (the study of the forms of words & their components)

• Semantics (the study of meaning)

• Etymology (the study of word history)

Compared with other linguistic branches, lexicology began quite late

(Halliday et al., 2007) .

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WHY STUDY LEXICOLOGY?

Through lexicology, learners can:
• know about the origin and evolutions of words, and language use over time.
• language users more aware of our word choice
• develop a systematic way to learn vocabulary.
• gain an in-depth understanding of English words in particular, and the English
language as a whole.
• know the relationships between various words
• the exploration of word groups and their relationships.
• etc.
What are your comments about these?
dog vs. Golden Retriever, corgi
being fat vs. being horizontally challenged à Euphemism
subscribe, transcribe, prescribe, describe, etc. à they all mean something related
to “writing (down)” (hence the -scribe
root)

THE MORPHEME

Consider the word forms of WALK: {walk, walks, walked, walking}

• walk -∅ *

• walk –s

• walk –ed

• walk –ing

Each of the components that makes up a word is called a MORPHEME.

à walk, –s, –ed, –ing, -∅ are all morphemes.

(*) ∅ is a NULL MORPHEME (or ZERO MORPHEME)

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THE MORPHEME
Morpheme: the smallest unit that has meaning (e.g.: re- “again”) or serves a
grammatical function (e.g.: -ed, “past”) in a language.

The study of morphemes and their arrangements in forming words is called

MORPHOLOGY.

morpheme ≠ word

Words are made up of one or more morpheme(s), e.g.:

ice (1 morpheme); musician (2 morphemes); dehydration (3 morphemes)

How many morphemes are there in intercontinental?

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Morphemes fall into two broad categories: Free & bound morpheme.

Free morphemes are morphemes that can occur alone as individual words.

Bound morphemes are those that can only occur with another morpheme,
indicated by the hyphen (-).

uncomfortably

uncomfortably un- comfort -able -ly

bound free bound bound

How about ungentlemanliness?

un- gentle man -li -ness

bound free free bound bound

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alumni
truthfulness
anti-corruption

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A LOOK AT WORDS

How many words are there in the followings?

• I put the flower-pot on the washing-machine.

• I put the flowerpot on the washing machine.

• I put the flower pot on the washing machine.

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WHAT IS A WORD?

Words can be an indicator of a language’s expressiveness. In everyday

language, word is a central unit of language.
Several definitions of words have been proposed, but there exist some
disagreements among them.
Word is an uninterruptible unit of structure consisting of one or more
morphemes and which typically occurs in the structure of phrases.
In linguistics, words may refer to:
1. WORD-FORM
2. LEXEME (lexical item)

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LEXEME & WORD-FORMS

I holler. He hollers. You hollered. She is hollering.

• Are holler, hollers, hollered and hollering different words?

àThey are just different variants (forms) of the same word holler.

à-s, -ed, -ing are (INFLECTIONAL) ENDINGS that help create different
grammatical forms of the word holler.

à holler is called a lexeme.

Lexeme is a unit of lexical meaning, which exists regardless of any inflectional

endings it may have or the number of words it may contain.

Lexeme is the lexical vocabulary item in the dictionary.

A lexeme includes all the word-forms of a word.

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lexeme
Word-forms are the physical
(concrete) forms which realize
or represent a word in speech or
writing.

Word-forms are different ways a

word can exist in the context of word forms
a language.

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The set of word-forms of a given lexeme is called a PARADIGM.

lexeme paradigm

HOLLER: {holler, hollers, hollered, hollering}

Examples:
SEARCH (v): {search, searches, searching, searched}

CUT (v): {cut, cuts, cutting, cut, cut}

RABBIT (n): {rabbit, rabbits, rabbit’s, rabbits’ }

FULL (adj): {full, fuller, fullest}

SOON (adv): {soon, sooner, soonest}

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SAME OR DIFFERENT LEXEME?

(1) You should keep a written record just in case.

(2) They were asked to record everything they did in a day.
Are the words record in (1) and (2) the same?

à No, record (1) is a noun, record (2) is a verb. Each of them has different
paradigm.
RECORD (n) {record, records, record’s, records’}
RECORD (v) {record, records, recorded, recording}

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THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

English is a Germanic
language

It relates closely to
modern Dutch and
German, less closely to
Danish, Norwegian,
Swedish and Icelandic.

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ETYMOLOGY
Etymology: The study of the
history of words, their origins,
and how their form and meaning
have changed over time.
Based on their similarities,
languages have been
traditionally grouped into
language families.
Within a family, languages can
be “parents” of other languages,
“siblings” of one another, and so
forth.
English belongs to the Indo-
European language family.

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COGNATES
Consider these statements: Cognates are words in related
• Das ist eine gute Präsentation. (Ger.) languages that developed from

• Det er en god præsentation. (Dan.) the same ancestral root.

• C'est une bonne présentation. (Fr.)

Präsentation, præsentation,
• Esa es una buena presentación. (Spa.)

• Questa è una buona presentazione.(Ita.) présentation, presentación,

• Se on hyvä esitys (Fin.) presentazione originated from

What is the English equivalent?? Latin praesentationem.

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Other examples of cognates

English French Spanish Portuguese Italian German Latin

-ty -té -dad -dade -tà -tät -tatem

mother mère madre madre madre Mütter mater
horn corne cuerno corno corno Horn Cornu
-tion -tion -ción -ção -zione -tion --ionem,
-io

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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Mid-5 millennium BCE: The Celtic people first inhabited the land that was
later known as England.

AD 43 – 410: Roman Empire occupied most of Britain. When they

withdrew, they left many settlements built around installations of military
government, such as Doncaster, Gloucester, Lancaster, Worcester.
Roman troops withdrawal invited the invasion of the Picts and Scots – two
tribes from northern Britain.

The Celts appealed to Germanic warriors (Angles, Saxons, Jutes and

Frisians) across the North sea to help defend their land.

à Soon the new allies became the invaders.

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The Celts were referred to as Wealas (“foreigners”) by the Germanic

invaders.
6th century: the Germanic invaders were called Angli “Angles” by the Celts.
7th century: the country was named Angli or Anglia, then Engle in Old
English. The name of the language was Englisc.
10th century: The country name Englaland (“land of the Angles”) emerged,
later changed to England.

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HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF
ENGLISH
English is thought to have had its origins around AD 400, when the Romans
ended their occupation of England & three Germanic tribes took over England.
ØOld English period (450 – c. 1066)

ØMiddle English (c. 1150 – c. 1500)

ØModern English (c. 1500 – now)

ØEarly Modern English (c. 1500 – c. 1750)

ØLate Modern English (1800 – now) – aka. PRESENT-DAY ENGLISH (PDE)

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Beowulf

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OLD ENGLISH PERIOD - ÆNGLISC

(450 – 1066)
Old English used to be called Anglo-Saxon, and was primarily a spoken language.

First Old English (OE) texts were written in alphabet brought in by the Anglo-Saxons. Not
many texts survived to modern day.

OE words had different spellings and pronunciations, mostly unintelligible to modern

English users. Most of the words in prose are very close to Modern English, but words in
poetic texts are different.

Compounding was heavily used in the era due to the lack of loanwords (3% of the total
lexicon), and a scarcity of prepositions.

8-10th century: The Viking invasions - had a significant impact on the English vocabulary
development.

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OLD ENGLISH VOCABULARY

5th century: Many of the most basic and common words in use in English today
have their roots in Old English (Anglo-Saxon)

- words: butter (bûter), cheese (tsiis), sea (see), boat (boat), storm (stoarm), rain
(rein), snow (snee), blue (blau), three (trije), four (fjour)

- endings like -ford (e.g. Ashford, Bradford, Watford); -ham (e.g. Nottingham,
Birmingham, Grantham), -ton, -ing, -wich, -by

6 – 8th century: some Latin religious terms entered English through the
missionaries, e.g., angel, lily, minister, candle, church, nun, priest, school

8 – 10th century: influence from Old Norse (spoken by the Vikings), e.g.: bank,
give, law, leg, skin, skirt, sky, egg, dirt, -son ending in names, the pronouns they,
them and their, the third person singular -s suffix, and the weekdays Tíw’s day or
Thor’s day.

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“The Canterbury tales” by Chaucer

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MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD (1100-

1500)
William the Conqueror from Normandy (France) assumed the throne as
King of Britain, following his victory of the famous Battle of Hastings.

Norman French became the official language of Britain until 14th century:
the lower classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French à
linguistic class division.

Unlike OE, MidE is characterized by intensive and extensive borrowing from

other languages (esp. French).

Diverse spellings, even in the same texts, e.g. naure, noeure, ner, neure, all
standing for neuer, “never”.

Word formation processes, such as affixation and compounding continued

to be active and were extended in various ways.

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MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD

INFLUENCES OF FRENCH TO
ENGLISH
Suffixes -age, -ance/-ence, -ant/-ent, -ment, -ity and -tion; prefixes con-, de-, ex-,
trans- and pre-.

• Words related to crown and nobility (e.g. crown, castle, prince); of government and
administration (e.g. parliament, government, city); of court and law (e.g. court, justice,
prison); of war and combat (e.g. army, soldier, guard, courage, peace, enemy); of
fashion, cuisine and high living (e.g. diamond, boot, beauty, mirror, jewel, appetite,
banquet, herb, beef, spice, sauce, roast, biscuit); of art and literature (e.g. art, color,
language, literature, poet, chapter, question).

• Words like quit, question, quarter, etc, were pronounced with the familiar “kw” sound
in Anglo-Norman; "hw" changed to "wh" to be consistent with "ch" and "th”.

• à hwaer became where, hwaenne became when and hwil became while.

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MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD (1500

– NOW)

Early Modern English (EME): The Renaissance helped renew interest in

languages, literature, and brought in major developments in sciences and arts;
new words & phrases entering English, esp. from Latin and Greek.

English shifted from an oral to a print culture, with the introduction of printing
technique (by Caxton in 1476).

Dictionaries and grammars were published, starting with is Robert Cawdrey’s

“Table Alphabeticall” (1604).

English started to be standardized.

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Late Modern English (LME): Britain became a superpower; the colonization

of America; the Industrial evolution.

• Marked the start of the spread of English all round the world through trade
and conquest. English language was transplanted from England into a new
geographical and social context.

• Marked the development of many new “Englishes”.

• English has been the first choice as a LINGUA FRANCA in international

communication worldwide.

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CAN YOU READ THIS?

Fyrste take awaye all the legges and the heades, and then take all the fysh
out of the shelle, and make the shell as cleane as ye canne, and putte the
meate into a dysche, and butter it uppon a chafyng dysche of coles and putte
therto synamon and suger and a lytle vyneger, and when ye haue chafed it
and seasoned it, then putte the meate in the shelle agayne and bruse the
heades, and set them upon the dysche syde and serue it.

(from “The proper Newe Booke of Cokerye”, c.1545. Unknown author)

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BORROWING

By definition, when speakers imitate a word from a foreign language and, at

least partly, adapt it in sound or grammar to their native language, the process
is called borrowing, and the word thus borrowed is called a LOANWORD or
borrowing.

Etymologically speaking, the vocabulary of any language consists of two groups

– the NATIVE WORDS and LOANWORDS.

The native words are estimated to represent only 25-35% of the English
vocabulary, but they include the most frequently used lexical items (auxiliaries,
modal verbs, some pronouns, numerals, prepositions, conjunctions, content
words.

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Borrowing has been the major source of new words in English.

English has an extensive borrowing inventory.

Words borrowed tend to be new concepts, inventions or religions (e.g.

paparazzi, Hinduism, tsunami, safari)

Sources of borrowing?
• Latin, French, Old Norse, Old Germanic languages,
• Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc.

Why borrow?
• provide a word from the source language variety when there is no suitable
existing word in the target language.
• one language is more dominant than others.

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BORROWING
DIRECT VS. INDIRECT
“Loanwords have, as it were, a life of their own that cuts across the boundaries between languages.”
(Crystal)

If a language takes a word directly from another language à Direct

borrowing.

e.g.: omelette (Fr.), sushi (Jp.), paparazzi (It.), ao dai (Vi)

A word may be passed indirectly from one language to the other à Indirect
borrowing.

e.g.:
• qahwah (Arab.) à kahveh (Turk.) à koffie (Dut.) à coffee (En.)

• ahuakatl (Aztecan) à aguacate (Spa.) à avocado (En.)

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TYPES OF BORROWING
1. International words (Internationalisms): loanword that occurs in several
languages with the same or at least similar meaning and etymology.

e.g.:
• philosophy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, taxi, pizza, karaoke, banh mi, coffee,
chocolate
• philosophy (En.) – filosofía (Spa.) – philosophie (Fr.) – Philosophie (Ger.) – filozofia
(Pol.) – filosofija (Lith.)

2. Etymological doublets (twins): One of a pair of (or several) words more or less
similar in meaning and phonation, appearing in language as the result of borrowing
from the same source at different times.

e.g.:
• channel (14th c) – canal /kəˈnæl/ (15th c) (from Fr. chanel);
• gentle (13th c), genteel and jaunty (17th c) are all from French gentil.

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3. Loan translations (calques): words and expressions formed from the material already
existing in the language but according to patterns taken from another language, by way of
literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation, e.g.:

• rainforest, from German Regenwald (Regen “rain” + Wald “forest”);

• Superman from German Übermensch (über “super” + mensh “man”)

• virtual reality from Fr. réalité virtuelle;

Vietnamese “báo tường” from wall newspaper, “vườn trẻ” from German kindergarten.

English gets most of its loan translations from French.

4. Hybrids: words whose different elements are of etymologically different origin, e.g:

• television (Gr. tele “far” + Latin visio “seeing”)

• aquaphobia (Lat. aqua “water” + Gr. phobos “fear”)

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NATIVE VS. BORROWED

motherly – maternal
cat – feline
lady - mademoiselle
help – aid
friendship - amity

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QUIZ

https://app.wizer.me/learn/2TSK4M

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LINK TO
THE
FOLDER

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Next week:
Word formation

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