Concepts and terminology for describing language: LEXIS

Question 1

Affix verb, affixation noun A

Answer 1

meaningful group of letters added to the beginning or end of a word to make a new word, which can be a different part of speech from the original word,

e.g. interview, interviewer.

Affixation is the process of adding a prefix or suffix to a word.

See prefix, suffix.

Question 2

Antonym

Answer 2

The opposite of another word, e.g. hot is an antonym of cold.

Question 3

Chunk

Answer 3

Any pair or group of words commonly found together or near one another, e.g. phrasal verbs, idioms, collocations, fixed expressions.

Question 4

Collocation Words

Answer 4

which are regularly used together. The relation between the words may be grammatical,

e.g when certain verbs collocate with particular prepositions,

-depend on,
-good at
or when a verb like make or do collocates with a noun,
e.g.
-do the shopping,
-make a plan

Collocations may also be lexical when two content words are regularly used together,

e.g. We went the wrong way NOT We went the incorrect way.

Question 5

Compound

Answer 5

Nouns, verbs, adjectives or prepositions that are made up of two or more words and have one unit of meaning,

e.g.
-assistant office manager,
-long-legged.

Question 6

False friend

Answer 6

A word in the target language which looks or sounds as if it has the same meaning as a similar word in the learners’ first language but does not,

e.g. In French ‘librairie’ is a place where people can buy books. In a library in English, you do not buy books but borrow them instead.

Question 7

Homonym

Answer 7

A word with the same spelling and pronunciation as another word, but which has a different meaning, e.g. bit (past tense of ‘bite’) and a bit (a little).

Question 8

Homophone

Answer 8

A word which sounds the same as another word, but has a different meaning or spelling,

e.g.

-I knew he had won;
- I bought a *new *book.

Question 9

Idiom-noun, idiomatic-adjective

Answer 9

A group of words that are used together, in which the meaning of the whole word group is different from the meaning of each individual word,

e.g. She felt under the weather means that she felt* ill. *

Question 10

Lexical set

Answer 10

A group of words or phrases that are about the same content topic or subject,

e.g. weather – storm, to rain, wind, cloudy.

Question 11

Lexis /vocabulary

Answer 11

Individual words or sets of words,

e.g. homework, study, whiteboard, get dressed, be on time.

Question 12

Part of speech

Answer 12

A way of categorizing words according to their grammatical function and meaning,

e.g. noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, adverb, preposition, conjunction.

Question 13

Phrasal verb, multi-word verb/unit

Answer 13

A verb/any part of speech which is made up of more than one word (e.g. a verb + adverb particle or preposition) which has a different meaning from each individual word,

e.g.* look after *Prefix – A mother looks after her children.

Question 14

Prefix

Answer 14

A prefix is a meaningful group of letters added to the beginning of a root/base word to make a new word which can be a different part of speech from the original word,

e.g. appear – disappear.

Question 15

Root word / base word

Answer 15

The basic word or part of a word from which other words can be made by adding a prefix or suffix,

e.g. photograph is the root or base word of photographer and photographic.

Question 16

Suffix

Answer 16

A suffix is a meaningful group of letters added to the end of a root or base word to make a new word which can be a different part of speech from the original word, e.g. care – care*ful . *

Question 17

Synonym

Answer 17

A word which has the same or nearly the same meaning as another word,

e.g. nice is a synonym of pleasant.

Question 18

Word family

Answer 18

A group of words that come from the same root or base word,

e.g. economy, economist, economic or by topic (see lexical set).