English Words: Structure, History, Usage

by Katamba; Francis

• ISBN13: 9780415298933
• ISBN10: 0415298938
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2004-12-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

How do we find the right word for the job? Where does that word come from? Why do we spell it like that? And how do we know what it means? Words are all around us - we use them every day to communicate our joys, fears, hopes, opinions, wishes and demands - but we don't often think about them too deeply. In this highly accessible introduction to English words, the reader will discover what the study of words can tell them about the extraordinary richness and complexity of our daily vocabulary and about the nature of language in general. Assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, the book covers a wide range of topics, including the structure of words, the meaning of words, how their spelling relates to pronunciation, how new words are manufactured or imported from other languages, and how the meaning of words changes with the passage of time. It also investigates how the mind deals with words by highlighting the amazing intellectual feat performed routinely when the right word is retrieved from themental dictionary. This revised and expanded second edition brings the study of words right up to date with coverage of text messaging and email and includes new material on psycholinguistics and word meaning. With lively examples from a range of sources - encompassing poetry, jokes, journalism, advertising and clichés - and including practical exercises and a fully comprehensive glossary, English Words is an entertaining introduction to the study of words and will be of interest to anyone who uses them.

Table of Contents

Preface to the first edition

Preface to the second edition

Abbreviations

Key to symbols used

The nature and internal structure of words

Introduction

Why study words?

Overview of coming chapters

What is a word?

Introduction

Words are like liquorice allsorts

Word-forms

Words as vocabulary items

Grammatical words

Summary Exercises

Close encounters of a morphemic kind

The quest for verbal atoms

Close morphological encounters: zooming in on morphemes

Morphemes and their disguises

Allomorphs: morph families

Contrast

The right mask

Phonologically conditioned allomorphs

Phonology in the back seat: lexical and grammatical conditioning

Madness without method: suppletion

Freedom and bondage

Sound symbolism: phonaesthemes and onomatopoeia

Summary Exercises

Building words

Words and jigsaws

Know the pieces of the jigsaw

Roots are the core

Affixes are for appending

The main types of word-building: inflection and derivation

Derivation: fabricating words

Affixation: prefixes and suffixes

Conversion

Compound parade

Wishy-washy and razzle-dazzle words

Listing and institutionalisation

Keeping tabs on idioms

Clitics Exercises

Words in a wider context

A lexicon with layers

The nature of the lexicon

Morphological information in the lexicon

Syntactic information in the lexicon

Does it ring true? (phonological information)

Rendezvous with lexical phonology and morphology

Neutral and non-neutral affixes

The lexicon is like a layered cake

Productivity, the time-warp and cranberries

Peeping beyond the lexicon

Base driven stratification

Summary Exercises

Word meaning

Introducing meaning

Word-meaning

Sense and componential analysis

Semantic relations

Hyponymy

Synonymy

Antonymy

Homophones and homonyms

Polysemy

Semantic fields

Semantic prototypes : the birdiness rankings

Beyond the lexicon

Summary Exercises

A changing expanding lexicon

A lexical mosaic: sources of English vocabulary

The nature of borrowing

Direct and indirect borrowing

Loanwords and loanshifts

Likely loans

Why borrow?

The grass is ever greener on the other side

Nativisation of loanwords

Effects of borrowing

Scandinavian loanwords

The French influence

The Norman French legacy

French words in modern English

Words from other modern European languages

Loanwords from non-European languages

The Germanic inheritance

Summary Exercises

Words galore: innovation and change

A verbal bonanza

Jargon

Slang

Rhyming slang

Cliches and catch-phrases

A rose by any other name

Semantic widening

Semantic narrowing

Going up and down in the world

Loss account

Lexical revivals

Clipping

Fads and copycat formations

Back-formation

Blends

Geek-speak: internet slang and jargon

Euphemism

Summary Exercises

Should English be spelt as she is spoke?

Writing systems

Is the English orthography mad?

The apparent madness in the English spelling system

There is a method in the madness: spelling rules and pronunciation

Is a for apple? Why vowel letters pinch like ill-fitting shoes

Morphological signposts in the spelling

Lexical signposting in the spelling

Spelling reform

Is speech degenerate writing?

Email and text messaging: imo email & txt r gr8

Summary Exercises

Modelling the mental lexicon

Speech recognition

A mind full of words

Types of lexical information

The organisation of th

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.