CHAPTER 4 || The Lexicon Flashcards
LEXICON
The vocabulary of a person, language or branch of knowledge.
The internalized dictionary.
Instead of the every day term dictionary, linguists use the technical term lexicon.
The full lexicon of a language will contain not just words but also idioms.
Ex. The lexicon of soccer includes such terms as linesman, friendly match, yellow card, penalty shootout, pitch, result and draw.
Ex. The lexicon of a stock trader includes terms such as delayed quotes, futures contracts, limit order, margin account, short selling, stop order, trend line and watch list.
The lexicon of a language is not fixed and changes quite rapidly.
IDIOMS
An expression whose meaning is not predictable from the meaning of its component parts.
Ex. Kick the bucket for dying.
Ex. A blessing in disguise for something which seems like a problem, which has an unexpected beneficial effect or becomes an asset to you.
PARTS-OF-SPEECH
Or word classes.
The idea that the words in the lexicon of a language can be put into different classes:
- nouns
- adjectives
- pronouns
- verbs
- auxiliaries
- adverbs
- prepositions
- postposition
- conjunctions
- interjections
NOUNS
Words that typically specify things of entities (people, animals, objects, places, abstact ideas).
ADJECTIVES
Describes a noun.
Indicates qualities or properties of things, such as age, color, size, speed and shape.
PRONOUNS
Words like I, me, you and they that are used instead of nouns to refer to persons and things, especially known and identifiable ones.
VERBS
Any member of a class of words that function as the main elements of predicates, that typically express action, state, or a relation between two things, and that may be inflected for tense, aspect, voice, mood, and to show agreement with their subject or object.
AUXILIARIES
Verbs that express grammatical rather than lexical information and are used along with lexical verbs that represent events. The most used auxiliaries in English are to do, to be, and to have.
Sometimes called helping verbs because they are needed to form many of the tenses.
Ex. Do you like German food?
Ex. Does your cousin speak English?
Ex. How long have you been in the United States?
Ex. Have you done your homework?
Ex. I was reading when you called!
Ex. By this time, I will have been learning French for 5 years!
ADVERBS
Indicate qualities and properties of events or indicate intensity of a quality.
Ex. I really don’t care.
Ex. He literally wrecked his car.
Ex. I am certain of the facts, for sure.
Ex. You simply don’t understand.
Ex. I so want to go to the concert.
Ex. She completely rejected his proposal.
Ex. I heartily endorsed the new restaurant.
Ex. I so want that new car.
Ex. He completely understands me.
Ex. I absolutely refuse to stay here any longer.
PREPOSITIONS
Grammatical words like at, in, to, by and from that go with nouns to specify how they are related to the rest of the sentence.
POSTPOSITIONS
Words that do the same as prepositions but follow the noun rather than precede it.
CONJUNCTIONS
Grammatical words like and, or, but, and if, that join words or groups of words together.
INTERJECTIONS
Words like hey!, yuck!, eek!, and ugh!, which mostly expresses the speaker’s emotional attitude or call for attention.
CLIPPING
The shortening of an existing word of more than one syllable generally to a single syllable.
Ex. Public house into pub.
Ex. Facsimile into fax.
Ex. Advertisement into ad.
Ex. Condominium into condo.
Ex. Influenza into flu.
In English, names are often clipped as well: Mike, Sue, Liz, Ron, Rob.
HYPOCORISM
A type of clipping that is common in Australian English.
Hypocorism involves clipping a word down to a closed monosyllable and attaching the suffix –y ~ –ie to the clipped form.
Ex. Australian into Aussie.
Ex. Breakfast into brekky.
Ex. Biscuit into bickie.
Ex. Barbecue into barbie.
Ex. Television into telly.
