Lexicology

Question 1

Lexicology

Answer 1

The study of the lexicon (inventory of words in language). In simple terms, vocabulary.

Question 2

Lexeme

Answer 2

A words or phrase with a specific meaning.
E.g. ‘blue’, ‘me too’, ‘down to earth’, ‘down’

Question 3

Word classes

Answer 3

nouns and pronouns
verbs (auxiliaries, modals, regular, irregular)
adjectives
adverbs
conjunctions
prepositions
determiners
interjections

Question 4

nouns definition

Answer 4

Word that give names to: people, places, things, qualities or actions.

Question 5

common nouns (concrete)
i. count
ii. non-count

Answer 5

i. Count: Can be counted/made plural (e.g. coin, book).
ii. Non-count: Cannot be counted/made plural (e.g. traffic, information).

Question 6

common nouns (abstract)

Answer 6

Nouns that cannot be touched e.g. ideas, concepts, emotions (e.g. truth, bravery, justice, friendship).

Question 7

proper nouns

Answer 7

Always capitalised and name specific things – usually places or people (e.g. Sydney, Yarra River, Bob, Highvale Secondary College)

Question 8

collective nouns

Answer 8

Collective name for groups of animals (swarm, murder), people (parliament, police, family, people) and things.

Question 9

adjectives definition

Answer 9

Define or modify nouns – essentially, they are providing additional information about nouns.

Question 10

adjectives characteristics

Answer 10

Qualities – red, round, shiny.
Size – small, huge.
Judgements – beautiful, wicked, kind.
Degree of comparison – faster, slow, cleverest.

Question 11

main verbs definition

Answer 11

Denote actions (to run), processes (to think) and states (to be).
Verbs have a complex morphological makeup – can vary in presentation according to person (who is ‘performing’ the verb), number (how many are ‘performing’ the verb) and tense (past, present, future etc.)

Question 12

verbs (regular)

Answer 12

REGULAR: All use the suffix –ed in their past tense (e.g. ‘dance’, ‘marry’, ‘search’)

Question 13

verbs (irregular)

Answer 13

IRREGULAR: Will form their past tense in a variety of ways that will change the stem of the word (e.g. ‘learn’, ‘run’, ‘swim’)

Question 14

verbs (auxiliary)

Answer 14

• Modify and change something about the main verb.
• indicate information such as tense, mood, voice and other grammatical aspects of the action.
• can come before a noun, verb, adjective or adverb.
  The primary auxiliary verbs are:
  ‘to be’ (e.g. I am, you were, he/she/they will)
  ‘to have’ (e.g. I have, you had)
  ‘to do’ (e.g. I did, you do)

Question 15

verbs (modal)

Answer 15

A type of verb that indicates the modality (an attitude towards certainty, possibility, willingness or necessity of a verb occurring).
There are only nine modal verbs: can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might and must.

Question 16

difference btwn aux and modal verbs

Answer 16

modal verbs are not subject to inflection whereas auxiliary verbs change according to tense, case, voice, aspect, person, and number.

Question 17

adverbs

Answer 17

Usually modify (give additional information about) verbs, but can also modify adjectives or even some adverbs.
Time: soon, later
Frequency: always, occasionally, never
Manner: unconvincingly, slowly, torrentially
Place: around, everywhere, here, there
Degree: completely, totally, very, somewhat

Question 18

determiners and examples

Answer 18

Determiners are used in front of noun phrases and work to modify something about the noun.

a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’ ‘my’, ‘your’, ‘our’, ‘their’, ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘each’, ‘every’, ‘all’, ‘some’.

Question 19

prepositions

Answer 19

• function words that show the relationship between nouns/pronouns (and sometimes other words) in a sentence.
• tell us where a noun is, when a noun is taking place, or describe the manner in which a verb is being performed.

Question 20

pronouns

Answer 20

• words that replace nouns in a sentence.
• help to reduce the density and repetitiveness of a text.
• Some pronouns are also determiners.
  E.g. I, we, they, you, she, he, it, me, us, them, you, her, him, mine, ours, theirs, yours, his, its, that, who, whoever, whom, which, this, that, these, those.

Question 21

interjections

Answer 21

Interjections are words/phrases that express a sudden or strong emotional or feeling.
They can stand alone or be placed before or after a sentence.
They are not grammatically related to the rest of the sentence.

Question 22

conjunctions

Answer 22

joins two words, ideas, phrases or clauses together in a sentence and shows how they are connected.

Question 23

coordinating conjunctions

Answer 23

• connect words, phrases and clauses.
• seven coordinating conjunctions. and, but, for, nor, or, so and yet (FANBOYS)

Question 24

Subordinating Conjunctions

Answer 24

• provides a necessary transition between the two ideas in the sentence
• reduces the importance of one clause so that a reader understands which of the two ideas is more important.
• many subordinating conjunctions, including because, since, if, then, unless, while, whereas.

Question 25

function words

Answer 25

• exist to explain or create grammatical or structural relationships into which thecontent wordsmay fit.
• refer tofunction wordsas a “closed” class.

Question 26

Content Words

Answer 26

Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs arecontent parts of speech
Open class.

Question 27

initialisms

Answer 27

• an abbreviation that consists of the first letter or letters of words in a phrase
• Unlike acronyms,initialismsare not spoken as words; they are spoken letter by letter.
  E.g. CSIRO + VCE

Question 28

Acronyms

Answer 28

Anacronymis a word or name formed as an abbreviation from the initial components of a phrase or a word, usually individual letters.
E.g. NASA + NATO.

Question 29

blends

Answer 29

*one of the many ways new words are made in English. *refers to joining the beginning of one word and the end of another
*to make a new word with a new meaning.

Question 30

Shortenings

Answer 30

• involves the shortening of a longer word, often reducing it to one syllable. Manyexamplesare very informal or slang.
• E.g. Maths, which is aclippedform of mathematics,

Question 31

Compounding

Answer 31

a lexeme that consists of more than one stem.

Question 32

Contractions

Answer 32

a word or phrase that’s been shortened bydroppingone or more letters.

eg. (that’s = that has)

Question 33

collocations

Answer 33

Words with phrases so closely associated with one another that when we hear one we almost automatically provide the other.
They can be clichés – i.e. ‘safe and sound’

Question 34

neologisms

Answer 34

A newly coined word, expression or usage.
The use of a new word or the use of an existing word but given a new meaning.

Question 35

borrowing

Answer 35

In linguistics,borrowing is the process by which a word from one language is adapted for use in another.

Question 36

commonisations

Answer 36

• development of common, everyday words from words that began life as proper nouns (names of people, places or brands)

Question 37

archaism

Answer 37

Words that are no longer used in everyday life. They may be preserved in special contexts but are no longer common.
E.g. “To thine own self be true” (Hamlet, by William Shakespeare)

Question 38

morphological over-generalisation

Answer 38

*occurs when we incorrectly apply patterns we already know to new words.,
*particularly common among young children and people learning English as a second language.