Morfosintassi Inglese Piotti PDF

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Morfosintassi Inglese Piotti (PDF)
Lingua Inglese 2 (Lingua, Morfosint.E Lessico)(A) (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)
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Scaricato da Max Bergia

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MORFOSINTASSI INGLESE (PIOTTI, 2^ anno)
What does it mean to know a word?
• Pronunciation and spelling: how to pronounce and spell a word

• Functions of words
TYPES OF MEANING(S)Ex. of words with different meanings:

- GREASY: something covered with grease oil
- GREASY car engine: neutral
- GREASY chips: negative meaning, not neutral
- GREASY hair/fingers (dirty hair/fingers): negative meaning
- GREASY person (person who tries to be friendly but he actually isn’t)
SEMANTICS → is the study of linguistic meaning. We can study meaning on a number of different levels:
-lexical semantics = study of the meaning properties of individual words (lexical items) in isolation. -
sentence semantics= study of the meaning properties of a sentence, of the semantic relationships among
the parts of sentence.
-discourse (utterance) semantics= study of the meaning of extended discourse (written or spoken) of
the semantic relationship among utterances used in context.
TRADITIONAL SEMANTICS → The meaning of a phrase or a sentence consists of a sum of the meaning of
its parts; therefore, if we don’t know what a sequence of words means, we assume that we simply have to
look the words up in a dictionary. The traditional view of semantics also ignores many aspects of meaning
apart from the meanings of words, such as the function of meaningful phonological features (stress and
intonation), the meaning of the grammatical structure of the utterance, and the significance of the
communicative context (PRAGMATICS). A second assumption of traditional semantics is that the
correspondence between a word and a thing is simple and direct. In fact, the relation between a word and
the world may be quite complex.
Ex: “apple core” (or the image we associate with this meaning) → depends upon our knowledge of the way
in which apples are typically eaten in our society. Another assumption is that words name things or objects
in the real world, that meaning is always in reference to phenomena outside language. In fact, many
words do not name things at all, such as words denoting abstractions or nonentities, or function words.
Linguists believe that a clear distinction must be made between:
- The extension of a word: the set of entities that a word denotes in the world (its referents) – if
it denotes any entity at all.
- The intension of a word: the set of properties shared by all the referents of a word, their
defining characteristics.
This distinction is important because the extension may be the same while the intension differs.
Another assumption of traditional semantics is that it is possible to treat the meaning of individual words
separately. However, words refer to things in the real word not directly, but by means of concepts existing
in the mind, or meanings internal to language (linguistic meaning) – what is known as the sense of a word
– and words enter into various sense relationships with other words in the language.
BASIC SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS

As speakers of the language, we all have an implicit understanding of a number of semantic relationships
that hold between either words or sentences in the language.

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-Paraphrase: an utterance (enunciato) is a paraphrase of another when it has the same meaning as
another (like synonymy).
Ex: Philip purchased an automobile is a paraphrase of Philip bought a car (we will look at synonymy –
sameness of meaning between words).
-Entailment or Implication: one utterance entails another when the second is a logically necessary
consequence of the first.
Ex: Alan lives in Toronto = Alan lives in Canada.
-Inclusion: one utterance encompasses another (e.g. I like fruits includes I like apple). This relationship is
unidirectional because I like apples does not include I like (all) fruit.
-Contradiction: a statement or sequence of utterances is logically contradictory; that is, if one is true, the
other must be false.
-Anomaly: an utterance has no meaning in the everyday world because it violates semantic rules. -Lexical
ambiguity: a word or phrase allows more than one meaning in context. Lexical ambiguity differs from
structural ambiguity, where no single word in a sentence is ambiguous, but the structure permits more
than one interpretation.
DENOTATIVE VS CONNOTATIVE MEANING→ words have literal or referential meanings (DENOTATION) but
also evoke feelings, attitudes or opinions (CONNOTATIONS).
EG. FOX
- Denotative meaning: an animal
Connotative meaning: being smart/clever as a fox (meaning which is beyond the literal one)
Meaning(s) changes: POLYSEMY (It is an effect in which a word has multiple meanings which are related to
each other). In this case, the meanings are related (either literally or figuratively) though the connection
between different meanings may sometimes be difficult to perceive.
EG. TWITTER
1) The type of sound of a bird
2) The social network -
Other types of change:
1) To friend it has become a verb thanks to social media (from a noun to a verb)
2) To Google a verb derived from a noun
3) Brexit a totally new word derived from Britain exit
Change is a function of time: it takes time to spread around

• Recent changes:
- (de)friend; google; twitter; white helmets; Brexit; etc. (changes date back to 10 years ago) •
Old changes:
1) Fox: “animal” (early IX century)
2) Fox: allusions to “its cunning” (astuzia, 1200 a.C.)
• Old English Middle English Early Modern English Late Modern English
PDE The parts a word can be composed of:
The network of meaning relations with other words

The network of syntactic relations with other words
Ex: TAKE: verb that supports a lot of expressions and collocations

1) Notes 5) A taxi

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2) A photograph 6) Someone prisoner

3) A break 7) A pill
4) An airplane 8) Power
Where a word is used (VARIETY): words more popular in one variety:
- Put/set the cat among the pigeons (British & Australian): make somebody feel angry.
 Ex:“Tell them all they’ve got to work on Saturday. That should set the cat among the pigeons.”
• When a word is used (context; formality; new vs old-fashioned):
- Be somebody’s pigeons (British& Australian old-fashioned)
 Ex:“Finance isn’t my pigeon. Ask Brian about that.”
• How often a word is used (frequency – core – vocabulary)
• By whom a word is used (slang; jargon; euphemisms; PC (politically correct) language)
CHANGE ACROSS SOCIAL GROUPS:

• Social varieties: RP/ Slang/ Urban varieties: UKCockney, Estuary English etc./ US Inner
City English etc.
• Ethnic varieties: UKBritish Black English, etc. / USAfrican American Vernacular
English, Spanglish, etc.
• New Englishes: Spanglish, Chinglish, Japlish
etc. CHANGE ACROSS PLACE:
• Diatopic varieties: National (BrE; AmE; AusE)/ Regional  UK: West/East Midlands, East
Anglia, Northern English
CHANGE ACROSS CONTEXTS:
• Professional contexts: Jargon
• Formality
• “Delicate avoidance”: PC language
Ex 1: “Last night was flop. I was supposed to go to a party with my friends, but they flopped on me. They
are all such floppers.” [juvenile slang]: a type of language consisting of words and phrases that are
regarded as very informal, more common in speech than writing. They are typically restricted to a
particular context or group of people.
Ex 2: “In August 2008, 19 individuals brought a putative class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for
the Northern District of California against Facebook.” [jargon]: professional, specialized and technical
language spoken by members of a particular community. It is a type of language that can’t be understood
sometimes (here it is an expression used by lawyers).
Ex 3: To sack, fire (to dismiss something) / Downsize (to reduce down the size of something, for example
the number of employees in a factory): there is a difference regarding the register: “sack” is informal,
“downsize” is formal (it is a way of saying something unpleasant in a more pleasant way, so as to
convince the hearer of it. [Euphemism]: substitution of a mild, indirect or vague expression for one thought
to be offensive or blunt. (Chairman/chairperson is politically correct)
WHY study these features? There are two types of rules (grammars):
-Rules of grammar: grammar is an unconscious rule we follow when we speak our language. This type of
grammar is something that native speakers don’t need to learn.
-Rules of usage/manner: We know for example where a hat must be put on, but people can ask us when to
use it (usage).

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WORD KNOWLEDGE
Why learn lexis?
• Lexical knowledge is central to communicative competence and to the acquisition of a
second language.
• Vocabulary and lexical units are at the core of learning and communication. No amount of
grammatical or other type of linguistic knowledge can be employed in communication or
discourse without the mediation of vocabulary.
• Written discourse.
• Oral interaction.
• Reading comprehensionImprovement in reading comprehension can be attributed to an
increase in vocabulary knowledge.
How many English words do learners need to know?

• The same number of words as a large dictionary? (about 54,000-word families)
That’s impossible.Dictionaries are important tool, but they are not all alike, they
vary.
In order to be able to answer the questions, two different issues have to be considered:
1. Which words people use more frequently.
2. If the person is a native or non-native speaker of a language.
3. If the speaker is competent or not.
There is an important thing to remember: KACHRU’S MODEL:

The kind and number of words we know also depends on the type of speaker we are.
Kachru has created a model which is divided into different types of English speakers and varieties.
These are subdivided into 3 different groups/circles:
1) Inner circle: The inner group includes USA, UK, New Zealand, Canada and Australia. It represents
the countries where the English language finds its origins.
2) Outer circle: it includes India, Bangladesh, Kenya, Ghana, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines,
Singapore and Sri Lanka. It represents countries which were colonised, and English is what
remains of this colonisation. English has an official role and it is the most spoken language, even
if it is not the only one (diglossia e talvolta anche triglossia).
3) Expanding circle: it includes China, Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Korea, Nepal, Saudi Arabia,
Taiwan and Zimbabwe. In these countries English is just the language used to speak with people
who have a different first language and it has not an official role.
CORE VOCABULARY
There is a certain amount of words, including grammar and lexical words.
• Core vocabulary consists in essential words. These words include articles, auxiliaries, for
example. These are the most common words used by native and non-native speakers.
• They are also highly frequent and shared by adult speakers of a language.
• Linguists have subdivided words in frequency bands: there are different bands and each of them
consists of a 1000 words (All together these bands amount to thousands of words). The effort you
put to learn the first 1000 words provides a very high return as an investment in time and energy.
When you make your way down the second frequency bands (1000 words), the return is not as
high as the first, it progressively decreases and becomes even more difficult.
Which words first for learners of English?

• Non-native speakers of the language know from2.000 to 3.000 words;
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• These words have to be added in terms in one’s field of specialisation;

• Words one wants to learn;
• Words which trigger strategies for learning new words.
RECEPTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE LEXICAL COMPETENCE

Receptive / passive lexical competence is broader than productive / active. We have to consider also that:
Different types of word knowledge develop at different times

Different types of word knowledge overlap (ex. frequency and formality): there is a close relation
between frequency and formality. Between the most frequent words we can find less formal words and
those which are in some way neutral words.
Vocabulary acquisition: incremental
WORDHOOD (to be a word): what qualifies as a word in English.
How English words differ from words in other languages!?What counts as a word in English?
Divide the following passage into words:
“I like looking for bits and pieces like old second-hand record players and doing them up to look like new.”
9) I 17) Second-hand
10) Like 18) Record players
11) Looking for 19) And
12) Bits 20) Doing up
13) And 21) Them
14) Pieces 22) To
15) Like 23) Look like
16) Old 24) New
Which criteria do you use to distinguish those words? 5 criteria:

- Orthographic (a word is what occurs between spaces in writing).
1. Semantic (a word has semantic coherence, it expresses a unified semantic concept).
2. Phonological (potential pause in which a word occurs in speaking→ though in normal speech we
generally do not pause. We may potentially pause between words but not in the middle of words;
stress between spaces in writing, so a word spoken in isolation has one and only one primary
stress)
3. Morphological (any unit has an internal cohesion; indivisible by other units; a word can be
modified only externally by suffixes and prefixes).
4. Grammatical (a word falls into particular classes).
5. Syntactic (a word has external distribution or mobility, it is moved as a single unit not in parts).
[Supermarket / travel agency / forget-me-not / Runner-up / Jack-of-all-trades]

From the syntactic point of view, they are a unit, you cannot split them into a
sentence. In English we can distinguish words in 3 groups:
1- Hyphenated words, 2- Single words, 3- MWUs (Multi-word units):
• Orthographically: -
Single word units
- MWUs (a.k.a. Phrases= phrases in grammar and syntax): multiple word units, lexical units consist
of a large number of words
• Semantically: equally unified

- MWUs can be replaced by single units
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1) Try out = test

2) Pins and needles = pain
3) Bits and pieces= collection
(Semantic is the only reliable criteria. It is always consistent.)
• Syntactically: each can be moved as a single unit
• Morphologically: idiosyncrasies
- Forget-me-nots / Forget-me-not’s (SU)
- Runners up (MWU) vs runner-up’s (SU)
- Jack-of-all-trades (MWU) / Jack-of-all-trades’ (SU)
- Try out the car / try the car out / tried out the car / tried the car out (MWU)
THE TERM WORD

What does word mean exactly?
-It may refers to Word form: the physical unit or concrete realisation, either the orthographical word or the
phonological word (the uttered or transcribed form) :
Sister, sisters, sister’s, sisters’, house, houses, etc.only 2 words!!
(4different orthographic and phonetic realisation of the same word: sister)
-The idea that lies behind each word is LEXEME: like a dictionary entry, it includes all word forms of a
word. It is a kind of abstraction or class of forms indicated by small capitals:
WALK – walk, walks, walked,
walking RUN – run, runs, an, running
SING – sing, sings, sang, sung, singing
SISTER – sister, sisters, sister’s, sisters’
HIGH – higher, highest
Note that the lexeme is an abstraction, it is conventional to choose one of the inflected forms to represent
it. The same word form may in fact represents different lexemes:
-HOMONYM: (single orthographic and phonological word standing for two lexemes). Homonyms
represent different entries in a dictionary, while the different meaning of a polysemous word are listed
under a single entry. However, without consulting a dictionary it is often difficult to distinguish between
polysemy and homonymy, that is, when one is dealing with 2 meanings for a single word or 2 different
words. e.g. bear is used for the noun and the verb
-HOMOGRAPH: (single orthographic word but separate phonological words standing for 2 lexemes)
e.g. lead can be the noun and the verb depending on the pronunciation -HOMOPHONE: (single
phonological word but separate orthographical words) e.g. /mit/ is either the noun meat or the
verb meet
Finally, word may also refer to a morphosyntactic/grammatical word.
Grammatical word A LEXEME + associated grammatical meaning:

I take the garbage out every week. (TAKE + present tense)
I took the garbage out yesterday. (TAKE + past tense)
I have taken the garbage out already. (TAKE + present perfect)
Different grammatical words represented by different word forms (take, took, taken)

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I put the garbage out every week. (PUT + present

tense) I put the garbage out yesterday. (PUT + past
tense)
I have put the garbage out already. (PUT + past participle)
Different morphosyntactic words represented by the same word form (put)as for hit, cut
Words can fall into one of 2 quite different categories:
-CONTENT WORDS → carry the primary communicative force of an utterance, are open or productive
classes, are variable in form and fall into the major parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, adverbs,
adjectives...
-FUNCTION WORDS→ carry less of the communicative force of an utterance, express grammatical
meaning, express the terms of grammatical categories, are closed or unproductive classes, are generally
invariable in form (except demonstratives, modals and some pronouns), they fall into the minor parts of
speech including prepositions, conjunctions, particles, auxiliaries.
LEXICAL INNOVATIONS IN ENGLISH

Twofie Helfie Drelfie Welfie What
are these?
The word that is behind these is “selfie”Self + ie(ex. Welfie: a selfie with a lot of people in it)
Oxford Dictionaries has editorial staff based in the UK and in the US. Over the years, each dictionary team
has often chosen different Words of the Year. Why? Because each country’s vocabulary develops in
different ways, according to what is happening culturally and in the news.
THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY = LANGUAGE CHANGES How

and why does language change?
1. Language changes because it has to adapt to new needs.
2. Due to influence of another language – language contacts.
• Socio-historical context
• Cultural context: contacts with another culture and there is an exchange
• Language contact (borrowing)
• Social differentiation (slang; jargon)
• Emotional response (euphemisms; slang): emotional reaction to something. It always conveys
the speaker’s attitudes.
• Language learning
• Cognitive processes (metaphor; metonymy)
• Natural processes in usage (speech)
Even some common words in English are not English like: city (from French), skirt (from Scandinavia). Very
ordinary words are not English, but come from other languages. Language changes for different needs.
LANGUAGE CHANGE (vocabulary):
1) LEXICAL CHANGE
1A) New forms for new meanings.  Different types of changes (word formations):
• Derivation: includes prefix and suffix
• Zero-derivation: derivation in morphosyntaxes zero
• Compounding (composition)
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• Blending (ex. Brexit, phablet, vlogger, etc.) – (amalgamare)

• Shortening (initialism (sigla), acronym, etc.)
• Back formation
(All these processes represent word formation)
• Coinages (ex. Teflon, Google): often in trademarks or advertising, but very rare
• Jargon (ex. WMD, global warming)
• Borrowing (ex. Pasta, Pizza, Vuvuzela in PDE)1
1B) New forms but no new meanings.

• Borrowing (ex. Lexical doublets/ triplets: beef vs cow etc.)
• Slang (ex. Bozo)
(To climb to mount --> to accend – the second one comes from French while the last one comes from Latin
and the first one is typical English)
2) SEMANTIC CHANGE/ SHIFT: Componential analysis is an attempt to give a semantic analysis of words in
terms of semantic features or components. It consists in determining the basic components constituting
the semantic content, or sense, of a word. These components, sometimes called semantic primitives, are
assumed to be the most basic notions expressed by linguistic meaning, the “givens” of the semantic
system which cannot be broken down further by semantic analysis. Furthermore, they are thought to be
universal, not language specific, part of the cognitive and perceptual system of the human mind.
Every word in the language consists of a unique bundle of semantic features. Semantic features combine in
different ways in different languages; that is they are lexicalized differently, resulting in the varied
vocabularies of different languages. Semantic features are usually presented as a matter of opposition,
paired positive and negative features, denoting the presence or absence of the particular feature in the
meaning of the word. Semantic features are theoretical elements, not part of the vocabulary of the
language.
Old form for new meaning.  Use of words which are already in the vocabulary but with a new meaning:
2A)Metonymy (ex. Brussels, Westminster, asking hand instead of marrying (parte per il tutto; non
chiediamo di sposarci, ma chiediamo la mano di una persona)
2B) Metaphor (ex. Inflation, off-shore, zap, move quickly, power country, dog and pig referred to human
beings for example. Saying somebody is a fox)
2C) Euphemisms (taboos; socially sensitive issues, ex. Ladies, Gents)
2D) Slang (ex. Pig person)
WORD FORMATION PROCESSES

Major WF: compounding, derivation, zero-derivation (ex. Bookshelf, dogfie, to google)
Minor WF: acronyms, abbreviations, blends, back-formation, combining forms
Ex. Footsie(FTSE) (Financial Times Stock Exchange)
Quango (quasi non-governmental organization)
Humvee (high mobility multi-purpose wheeled vehicle)
BOGOF (buy one, get one free)
GMO (genetically modified)
Frenemy (friend + enemy)
Offshoring > to offshore (back-formation)
Hyper-, mega-, cyber-, euro-, e-/E- (extremely productive)

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WORD ASSOCIATIONS (3 TYPES)
GREEN, SALT, REFLECT: Which words can be associated to those words?

Answers → Salt and pepper, Sea salt/ Green economy, Greengrocery/ Reflect/mind, Reflect/mirror The
same association task administered to:
• Native speakers
• Less competent users of English
• Users with a low competence /children Some
results: Salt water, Salt and pepper, Salt – pepper
Green economy, Green–black/red/white, etc
Reflect - effect
1. Paradigmatic
Green – black/red/white,
etc. Salt – pepper
2. Syntagmatic Salt water/ sea
salt Salt and pepper
Green energy/economy/greengrocery
3. Based on
sound Reflect –
effect
Do you think this associations are personal choices or are they predictable?
RELATIONS BETWEEN WORDS (Each association between words falls into 1 of these categories)
There is a great deal of consistency in the associations produced by a group, suggesting that members have
similar kinds of mental connections between words:
• Paradigmatic > native speakers – competent users
• Syntagmatic > non-native speakers – less
competent users They are predictable.
• Based on sound > users with low competence – children
1) PARADIGMATIC RELATIONS/ASSOCIATION = RELATION OF EXCLUSION

Synonymy, hyponymy, antonymy and other type of relations are extremely valuable and can provide a
useful framework for the learner to understand semantic boundaries; to see where meaning overlaps and
learn the limits of use of an item. Relation which holds between words that belong to the same lexical
field.
Implications for language learning?

-MENTAL LEXICON! ( Words are related between themselves)
-TEXT COHESION! : avoid using the same words (avoid repetition) picking up a synonymy for example, or any
paradigmatic element. Grammatical and content cohesion.
The usefulness of paradigmatic relations in terms of organisation clearly extends beyond the classroom; as a
coherent record for the students they are very effective.
-ENCODING/DECODING OF DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS! (Used in dictionary to explain a term)
1A) HYPONYMY (relation of inclusion or entailment)

The most frequent word association used by adult and competent native speakers and represented with a
dash line.
Ex: “Where are the knives and forks?” vs “Where is the cutlery?” “Do you have any brothers or
sisters/siblings”?

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Hierarchical relationship that relates a general (hypernym) to a more specific term (hyponym) within the
same domain
• X is a kind/type of Y
• X is a hyponym of Y, which is the hyponym
• Ex: limited, company, multinational, blue-chip etc.
If something is a hyponym, it is also a superordinate

(Ex: a multinational a company, but a company a multinational?)
Hyponims define a lexical/semantic field and a superordinate is not an
hyponym.
Each successive sub-level in such a hyponymy simply adds a further semantic specification (or component)
to the previous one
Animal (Hypernym/Superordinate)
Mosquito co-hyponym Horse Elephant
Mare (adult female) Stallion (adult male) Foal (young, female?male?)
Filly
Colt
Hyponyms define a lexical/semantic field (ex: blue, red, white, black) All
mutually exclusive in denotation
1B) MERONYMY (a word denotes part of a whole)

The second most frequent paradigmatic relationship used by adult and competent native speakers. We
are talking about the relationship that holds between the general element and a particular part of it.
When quizzed about basic level objects, people frequently list their component parts. They note that a
body has a heat, legs and arms. And the parts themselves have parts, so a leg has a thigh, a knee, a shin
and a foot; and a foot has toes. So the specific term is the meronym of the general part.
MERONYMY a part-whole relationship

The parts can be organized in different
ways:
1) The biggest first, the smallest last (linear shape)
Tree Trunk Branches Twigs Leaves
2) More like a hierarchical relationship

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Church
Aisle Transept Chapel Steeple
Government
Cabinet Opposition
1C) OPPOSITENESS
Definition: The third most frequent type of paradigmatic relation used by adult and competent native
speakers. Of all the relations of sense that semanticists propose, that of oppositeness is probably the most
readily apprehended by ordinary speakers.
3 DIFFERENT TYPES OF OPPOSITENESS
A- COMPLEMENTARITY (relation of contradiction, in which the denial of one term is the assertion of
its complementary term)
• What you’re saying is true.
• What you’re saying is false.
True logically implies  not
false Not false true
True False, False True
Complementarity (complementary adjectives/antonyms):

- Mutually exclusive sense either true or false
- Absolute contrast
- No third possibility
- Not gradable
B-A NTONYMY (it is referred to gradable concepts, which may be explicitly or implicitly compared)
• The water is hot
• The water is cold
The water is cold The water is not hot
The water is not hot The water is cold?Hot Cold, Cold Hot?
Hot Warm Tiepid Cool Cold
ANTONYMS (contrary adjectives)

- No mutually exclusive senses
- No absolute contrast
- Always fully gradable (very good/bad/colder)
- Always a third possibility
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• Ex: good/bad, big/small, high/low, rich/poor, young/old, hot/cold etc.

Gheza same word- form can be antonymous with more than one other word-form: 
Old/new (car)
Old/young (man)
Note that the prefixes un- and in- may denote antonymy as well as complementarity. Such sets of
adjectives are called scalar adjectives. In the use of these adjectives, there is always an implicit
comparison to a norm. With scalar pairs, one is “unmarked” (positive, unbiased) and one is “marked”
(negative, biased). Moreover, the markedness can be context- dependent.
C-CONVERSENESS (it denotes a kind of reversal)

• John bought the car from Bill Bill sold the car to John
• John is Mary’s husband Mary is John’s wife
CONVERSES
- The terms Imply each other mutually (reciprocity)
- No contrast
Pairs of sentences containing such converse lexemes like husband/wife, doctor/patient, teacher/pupilor ,
precede/follow, sell/buy, learn/teach, imply each other mutually. A special kind of converseness is called
symmetry as for example married. Ex: Helen is married to David and David is married to Helen, but it is
also possible to say Helen and David are married. Other examples of symmetry are be (Synonymous with,
identical to, different from, adjacent to, related to, neighbours with, the same size as).
1D) SYNONYMY
The least frequent paradigmatic relationship used by adult and competent native speakers.
Two (or more) lexical items are synonymous if the sentences which result from the substitution of one for
the other have the same meaning. Relationship between lexemes that have identical or near identical
meanings but different spelling.
SUBSTITUTION: interchangeable. Totally interchangeable?

Ex: Holiday and Vacation 1) HOLIDAY:
- 2003: a time, often one or two weeks, when someone does not go to work or to school but is free
to do what they want
- 2010: (NameE vacation) a period of time when you are not at work or school 2) VACATION:
- 2003: (holiday) a holiday, especially when you are traveling away from home for pleasure
- 2010: in Britain, one of the periods of time when universities or courts of law are closed; in the
US, one of the periods of time when schools, universities or courts of law are closed.
Ex: LEAVE and FURLOUGH
- Sailor go on leave (on sick leave/ maternity leave/ compassionate leave)
- Soldiers (military service), prisoners and people who work abroad go on furlough
Ex: JAIL and PRISON

Legal language vs ordinary language
Legal language
- Jail: incarceration is less than one year
- Prison: incarceration is for more than one year
Ordinary language
Does under/over one year matter?
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Jail or prison?
• A person who has spent a lot of time in prison
A jail/prison bird? A jail bird (prison bird) (not technical)
• A person responsible for the supervision, safety, and security of prisoners in a prison
A jail/prison officer? A prison officer (jail officer) (technical)
- Technical: differentiates by their meaning in some parts of the USA
- Ordinary language: not differentiated by their meaning
- Technical and ordinary: differentiated by the company they keep: COLLOCATION
Ex: CROOK and CRIMINAL

CROOK
- 2003: a dishonest person (syn criminal)
- 2010: a very dishonest person
• Crook: non-technical ordinary language but informal
• Criminal: technical legal language, also ordinary but formal
• Differentiated by formality
CONCLUSION: Holiday/vacation, Leave/furlough, Jail/prison, Cook/criminal are near synonyms. It

is simply a fact of English language usage.
SYNONYMY
There is no obvious motivation for the existence of absolute synonyms in a language, and one would fall
into obsolescence, or that a difference in semantic function would develop. Two words may have the same
meaning in a particular context but not necessarily in all contexts. Synonymy ignores the connotations of
words and recognizes only their denotations. Synonymy is context-dependent.
Ex: Beef-Cow, Veal-Calf, Mutton-Sheep

 Beef, Veal, Mutton: borrowed from French; originally, synonyms of cow, calf, sheep animals;
subsequently specialized to refer to the edible flesh of these animals:
- Beef: edible flesh of a cow (COW: animal)
- Veal: edible flesh of a calf (CALF: animal)
- Mutton: edible flesh of a sheep (SHEEP: animal)
A pattern is observed widely in European languages: a loan-word synonym of an indigenous expression
typically develops some semantic difference from the native word.
CONCLUSION: English has many pairs of near synonyms consisting of a native (Germanic) form and later
Latin/French one, as begin-commerce and end-terminate.
2) SYNTAGMATIC RELATIONS: MWUS (multi word units) = RELATION OF CONCORRENCY Relation

that holds between words which can co-occur in a given context.
2A) COLLOCATIONS AND IDIOMS
When you talk about syntagmatic relationships it is about multi word units. Collocations and idioms are
generally multi word units.
• Bed and breakfast/Surge of anger
• Freedom fighters
• Strong ideas
• Completely satisfied
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• Commit suicide/shrug one’s head

• Freedom of/from
• Interested in
• To burst into tears
Some of the most common types of collocations in English are:
• Noun + preposition + noun: bed and breakfast/ a surge of anger
• Noun + noun: freedom fighters
• Adverb + adjective: completely satisfied
• Adjective + noun: strong ideas
• Verb + noun: commit suicide/shrug one’s head
• Adjective + preposition: interested in
• Verb + preposition + noun: burst into tears
According to Sinclair, there are 2 collocational principles at work in language:

❖ The open choice principle
❖ The idiom principle
These two have to do with the way speakers chose the words and fill the slots.
❖ OPEN CHOICE PRINCIPLE

Sentences are empty slots (S, V, O, C, A).
The speaker can select how to fill any slot. The only constraint is grammar, not meaning.
The speaker’s choice of words in each slot is completely open (each choice is a separate one).
Since that the only constraint is grammar, I could say for example “Green idea sleep furiously”, even if it
doesn’t make sense.
Traditional view of language, taught in many pedagogical grammars.
❖ IDIOM PRINCIPLE (Sinclair 1991)

Much of language occurs systematically. There are regularities in how words occur (e.g. Of course).
Words do not occur at random in texts. Many words are not chosen individually, but tend to occur in
groups or set of two or more than two. It occurs for both grammar and semantic meaning. A large number
of semi- preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices to fill in slots.
Semi-preconstructed phrases represent units of meaning, even though they might appear to be
analysable into segments.
MULTI-WORD UNITS
Sets of 2 and 3, 4 or more items
• Sets of 2:
- Collocations/collocates • Sets of 3, 4 or more items: - Clusters
- Lexical bundles
- N-grams
- Sequences of words
- Phrasal units
COLLOCATION
Words keep company with other words (J. R. Firth)
Groups of words tend to be used together in a given context. Collocations are an example of the fact that
words do not only relate through the network paradigmatic sense (Any set of multiple units. Defined as an
habitual/regular combination of 2 or more words that go together).
Definition: habitual, regular combination of two (or more) words that go together.
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The two elements have a different status: the choice of one of them (collocate) depends on or is
determined by the other (mode/base).
Ex: ATTENTION (node)

- Pay attention/close attention/attention to/play close attention to
Ex: MONEY
- Spend money/waste money/save money/pocket
money Ex: LOVE
- Be in love/Be in love with Fall in love/Fall in love
with Ex: BAKED
- Freshly baked
- Freshly baked bread/cakes
Collocations just sound “right” to native speakers, who use them all the time.
Other combinations may be unnatural and just sound “wrong”. They are not governed by grammar rules.
It is simply a question of English usage. Each lexeme in the combination makes an independent
contribution to the meaning of the whole collocation.
Which combinations sound natural?

• Quick vs fast basically are synonyms (they mean the opposite of “slow”). But there are
differences in terms of words which are used together with those words.
- Train fast (it’s a question of English usage. Native speakers for example say fast train)
- Showerquick
- Food fast
- Mealquick
• Strong /hard vs soft /weak
- Liquor hard
- Coffee strong
• End vs. finish - (re)solve vs. settle
- A conflict (re)solve/ end (Native speakers do not say “to finish a conflict”!)
When it comes to collocation, from a syntactical point of view we have a variety of collocations.
A VARIETY OF COLLOCATIONS IN ENGLISH

When it comes to collocations we distinguish 3 major types of collocations:
-Unrestricted clusters/collocations: (free to be linked to any type of word)

• Most common lexical items (e.g. fat, bright, large, woman, house) are in this category.
• Lexical items which co-occur FREELY (are open to partnerships) with a wide range of items.
-Semi-fixed/semi-restricted expressions: (variable)
Some internal variation in word-order and/or lexical insertion/substitution is possible.
Ex: To set fire to something (appiccare il fuoco) vs. to set something on fire. You cannot replace “set” with
another verb. However, you can change the order of the elements and also the prepositions. Both
sentences mean the same thing. The choice of one of them depends on/is determined by the other. They
tend to cooccur with a limited number of words.
Ex: In some cases vs. in some instances. You can replace cases with instances and vice-versa.
• WO: To set fire to something (appiccare il fuoco) vs. to set something on fire.
• SUBSTITUTION: In some cases vs. in some instances.
• INSERTION: vested interest vs. vested financial/political interest.
• MEANING: fully predictable from the component words.
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-Frozen/ fixed/ restricted collocations:

Collocations which are TOTALLY RESTRICTED in their combinability (Just one
collocations). Ex: Getting on like a house on fire get on can’t combine with another
preposition!
Frozen collocations are a typical example of phrasal verbs (also known as idioms). To get on is a phrasal
verb for example. They are said to be frozen because you cannot change the order, you cannot insert any
lexical items. They are fixed because they do not allow any internal variation. - Black and white, Salt and
pepper, Cash and carry
• WO: Fixed
• MEANING: full predictable from the component words
• STRUCTURE: Some degree of predictability of one word given another they normally
collocate with a limited number of other lexical items.
• INSERTION: very black and very white etc…
• OTHER CHANGES: in words/in lexical units
From a morphological perspective these are known as binomials because they are set of two words linked
by the conjunction “and”. These cannot be modified.
IDIOMS (more or less fixed expressions.)

Idiom is a sequence of words which functions as a single unit; it is syntactically fixed and semantically
conventionalized. Meanings are not predictable from the component words or grammar and from the
meaning of the individual words. (This is called “non compositionality”)
• Some idioms are fixed/frozen
Ex: Don’t come the raw prawn with me= don’t try putting that behaviour over me
- Come to raw prawn with me
- He didn’t come the raw prawn with me
- Cooked prawn, raw meat, raw lobster
• Most idioms are not so fixed and allow at least some grammatical
modifications Ex: Give (someone) a piece of one’s mind
- She gave me a piece of her mind
- A piece of mine is what I intend to give her
- She was given a piece of your mind (non idiomatic)
• IDIOMS ARE CULTURALLY BOUND! They are frequently quite colloquial and their meaning is
often thought to be metaphorical or proverbial.
3) BASED ON SOUND ASSOCIATION

Relation represented by words whose relation has the same SOUND
EFFECT. LEXICAL CHANGE: LANGUAGE CONTACT and BORROWING
Language contact=Foreign influence

- External clause of lexical Innovation
- Similarities: sound, vocabulary, syntax
Foreign influence shows in:

- Loan words (Italian “prestiti”)
- Loan translations/shifts/calques (Italian “calchi strutturali”)
They have entered the English language. English has adopted these words to the
morphological/phonological and grammatical system.
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Loan words: introduction of new forms and meanings from foreign languages (source languages) Ex.City,
Take, Alcohol, Pizza, Datum/data, Data/datas, Maquiladora, Vuvuzela
Adoption from source language = borrowings have been integrated in the language.
Adaptation to target language = phonology, morphology, grammar, syntax, orthography .
Loan translation/shifts/calques (CALCHI STRUTTURALI) = Translation of foreign expressions, word for word,
reproduction of foreign expression using existing lexical items.
- Flea market French Marché aux puces

- Masterpiece German Meisterstück
- Forgive Latin Perdonare
- Holy Spirit Latin Spiritus Santus
- Week end  Fine settimana
- Skycraper  Grattacielo
BORROWINGS
• Probably not the best notion to use in terms of words.
• A very imperfect metaphor in the linguistic context.
• To borrow a library book.
• To borrow a word: to rip and copy a DVD .
General remarks
- Over 120 languages all over the world are recorded as sources of the vocabulary of Present
Day English (PDE: target language).
- They involve the whole history of the language.
• The kinship terms are all of French or Latin origin:
- Aunt aunte, Uncle unkl, Niece nece, nice, niece Latin neptia • The
basic kinship termsare all of Anglo-Saxon origin:
- father, mother, son, daughter, sister, brother, husband, wife.
• Hybrid formations are all of Old English + foreign language:
- Grandmother/father.
The interplay between Anglo-Saxon, French and Latin/Greek is particularly evident also in lexical doublets
and triplets, so in groups of 2/3 words:
- Having different phonological form
- Having different etymological roots
- Have entered the language though different routes
- (more or less) same meaning
Anglo-Saxon: low register vs. French/Latin: high
register The Anglo-Saxon CORE
• Many English lexemes have always been there – in the sense that they arrived with the
Germanic invaders (Angles, Frisians, Saxons and Jutes), and have never fallen out of use: they
represent the ANGLO-SAXON CORE.
• The Anglo-Saxon core continues to dominate everyday conversation: e.g. grammatical words (in,
on, be, that), lexical words (father, love, name), or affixes (mis-, un-, -ness, -less).
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• Anglo-Saxon lexemes comprise only a relatively small part of the total modern lexicon; yet
they provide almost all the most frequently used words in English.
Latin loans
• The borrowing from Latin began soon after the Germanic invaders arrived in the British Isles
(5th century).
• In Old English (5th century up to 1067): the influence of Latin is strong, especially after the arrival
of Christianity (bishop, church, priest etc.)
Scandinavian (Old Norse) loans
• In the 8th century the Vikings invaded the British Isles. In this period about 2000 Scandinavian
words came into English. Most of them replaced Old English words:
- Dirt, egg, skirt, take, leg, skin, sky, window.
French loans
• The Norman Conquest (1066): the most significant change of direction in the history of English
vocabulary. By 1400 about 10,000 new lexemes had come into the language from French and
several thousand more had entered from Latin. By the end of the MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD (1066
up to the late 15th century), the surviving Old English lexicon was already in the minority.
• French loans were originally part of the class dialect of the new rulers but they have, in the
meantime, lost their connotations of prestige, social superiority and have become part of the
central core of English lex.
• French loans contributed a great many terms from the realm of power, art, architecture, fashion,
war and politics, but they are especially prominent in food (pork, beef, chef, boil, fry, grill),
cooking and names of tradesmen (barber, tailor, butcher, carpenter).
The Renaissance
• By the end of the Renaissance (a.k.a. EARLY MODERN ENGLISH), the growth in classically
derived vocabulary, especially from Latin, had doubled the size of the lexicon again
• These periods represent the peaks of the borrowing activity in the history of English; yet, there
was no reduction in the underlying trend during later centuries.
• Classical loans have provided English with countless technical terms in all branches of human
knowledge, a need that was strongly felt by English humanists of the 16th century, who wanted
English to become a medium of expressing the most refined thoughts, on a par with Latin and
Greek (Lexis, lexeme, lexical, lexicographer, dictionary and vocabulary are all derived from Latin
and Greek elements, while only the rarer items word, book and word stock are Germanic in origin).
Present Day English

Since the 1950s, the emergence of English as a world language has promoted regular contact with
an unprecedented number of languages and cultures, and the borrowings have shown an immediate
and dramatic upturn. New fauna and flora, political groups and institutions, landscape features,
industrial products, etc. have all generated thousands of new lexemes, and continue to do so.
It is still classified as a Germanic tongue because its grammar and basic vocabulary are Germanic, but it is
actually a mixture that contains words from nearly every major language of the world. Many of these
words we don't even think of as borrowed: mosquito (Portuguese or Spanish); pajamas (Hindi); bungalo
(Bengali); tulip, turban (Turkish); taboo (Tahitian); okay (Chocktaw); So long (Malay).
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As a result of this propensity to borrow, and due to mixing with Old Norse and Norman French, English has
changed more radically over the past 1500 years than any other European Language.
ALTERNATIVE WORDS: THE OLD ENGLISH WAY
The past > the

forgonehood The future >
the tocome Return
>backgive Geography
>eartwrit Astronomy
>starnaming Astrology
>starlore
Science >knowcraft
Linguistics >speechlore
MORPHOLOGY=the branch of linguistics devoted to the study of internal structure of words. It aims to
make it explicit. There are different languages types according to principles of morphology and syntax: -
analytic language: few inflections, a fairy fixed word order, many grammatical words, gender is lexical (
boy-girl).
-synthetic language: many inflections, many with more than one function and more than one form, word
order is free, gender is grammatical.
The internal structure of lexemes and word-forms: MORPHS

Is a word the smallest unit of morphological structure?
DOG, EYEWITNESS, UNDESERVEDLY, BOYS
SIMPLE LEXEMES VS COMPLEX LEXEMES

When we talk about simple words (simple lexemes), we talk about words like dog for example: you cannot
break them down any further.
While when we talk about complex words (complex lexemes), we talk about words like boys or eyewitness:
you can break them down into their constituent elements (boy-s, eye-witness).
Each constituent element into which complex lexemes can be segmented is a morph. Complex
words have at least 2 morphs (real-ly, un-deserved-ly)
A MORPHEME IS REALIZED AS A MORPH.

MORPH: Is the smallest unit in morphological structure. It is the concrete realization of a morpheme or the
actual segment of a word as it is spoken or pronounced. They are represented by phonetic forms.
We can have different types of morphs according to:

1) Distributional possibilities (where they occur in the word and whether or not they can stand alone).
We talk about two types: free and bound morphs (English).
2) Type of meaning and function (each morph has a function and a meaning). We talk about two
types: lexical morphs and grammatical ones. (All the languages).
1a) FREE MORPHS= it is always a root (because it carries the principal lexical or grammatical meaning) →
unavoidably, overgrown, altruistic, decoration. Roots are occasionally bound morphs or roots. Bound roots
are often foreign borrowings that were free in the source languages, but not free in English. (e.g. –
vert,mit,- ceive,-fer).
≠ a root is different from a base (a root plus associated derivational affixes, to which derivational affixes are
added).

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They can stand alone as independent words/lexemes. All nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions and
articles are free morphs.
- Ex: Content words: dog, write, deserve, childish etc.
- Ex: Function words: for, at, in etc.
1b) BOUND MORPHS

They cannot stand alone. They occur in combination only with free morphs.
- Ex: bound roots: dent- in dental, dentist, dentistry; -ceive in perceive, deceive, receive.
- Ex: derivational affixes (prefixes, suffixes): –ish; un-; -ly; re- etc. - Ex: endings
(inflectional suffixes): ing; -ed; -s; -er; -est; - Ex: clitics: ‘s; ‘m; ‘re; ‘ve.
2a) LEXICAL MORPHS (dictionary meaning)

They convey the major, lexical content: things, qualities, events, etc. They form a large, open set. They can
be free (ex. content words: dog; child; deserve; ear; love; boy; etc.), to which bound morphs can be added.
They can also be bound (ex.derivational affixes: –ish; re-; -ly; –able; dis-; and bound roots: -ceive in
perceive, receive, deceive).
2b) GRAMMATICAL MORPHS (grammatical meaning)

They can only provide grammatical information. (Ex. number; case; tense; aspect; person; etc.). They are
motivated by the grammar/syntax.
They represent a closed set.
They can be free (ex. function words: and, but, by, in, the, it, me, etc.).
They can also be bound (ex. inflectional affixes or endings: –s; - ‘s (possession); - ‘ve; etc.ex. –s; and clitics:
they’ve; ‘s; the king’s crown; etc.)
Sometimes although we know that a morpheme exists, it has NO concrete realization (it is silent and has
no spoken or written form, no phonetic or overt realization) → ZERO MORPH e.g. the plural of fish and the
past tense of let.
MORPHEMES (meaningful unit).

It is the smallest meaningful unit in a language, it is not necessarily equivalent to a word, but may be a
smaller unit. Some of these morphemes may stand alone as independent words (head, phone, ring) or they
must be attached to some other morphemes ( -er, -s).
A morpheme has these characteristics:
- It is internally indivisible; it cannot be further subdivided or analysed into smaller meaningful units.
- It has internal stability since nothing can be interposed in a morpheme.
- It is externally transportable.
- It has positional mobility or free distribution, occurring in various contexts.
- It is represented in curly brackets {}.
LEXICAL MORPHEMES: express lexical or dictionary meaning. This category includes “content words” like
noun, verb, adjective or adverb. They constitute open categories to which new members can be added.
They are independent words (free roots) or parts of words (derivational affixes and bound roots).
GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES= they do not constitute open categories, they express a limited number of
very common meanings or express relations within the sentence. (preposition, article, demonstrative,
conjuction, auxiliaries...)
Lexical and/or grammatical information morphs realize MORPHEMES:
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• abstract elements (cfr. lexemes, phonemes) -are realized as morphs.

• can convey lexical meaning.
• can convey grammatical meaning (i.e. grammatical category; tense, aspect, number,
person, etc.) She is taller than me
She caught a taxi to the station yesterday
Yesterday I cut my finger
These sheep are eating grass
Ex: Taller: two morphs [tall+er], two morphemes (TALL+ comp.)
Morphemes are realized by 1 of 4 morphological rules:
I. AGGLUTINATIVE RULE
Two morphemes are realized by morphs which remain distinct and are simply “glued” together.
- Ex: Caught: 1 morph, 4 morphemes (catch+past tense+person: 3rd+number: sing.)
II. FUSIONAL RULE

Morphs do not remain distinct because they are fused together. Where have the morphs realizing (past,
person, number) gone? See also personal pronouns:
- We: 1 morph, 3 morphemes (person: 1st, number: plural, case: nominative)
- Him: 1 morph, 4 morphemes (person: 3rd, number: sing., gender: masc., case: object)
- Its: 2 morphs, 4 morphemes (person: 3rd, number: sing, gender: masc., case:
possessive) Ex: Cut: 1 morph, 4 morphemes (cut+ pasta tense+ person: 1st + number: sing.)
If we change tense, person, number (Ex: Yesterday she cut her/his finger or They’ve just cut), the morph is
always the same: CUT
III. ZERO RULE

Grammatical information: no overt phonetic/orthographic realisation .A morpheme is realized as a zero
morph in particular members of a word class.
Each morpheme is realized as a zero morph.
IV. NULL REALISATION RULE

A morpheme is never realized as a morph/ never has concrete realization in English.
- Ex. {sg} on nouns
- Ex. {pos} on adjectives
ALLOMORPHS
A morpheme can have different phonetic or orthographic forms: ALLOMORPHS. Allomorphs are semantically
similar and in complementary distribution. They are “predicted” or “conditioned” in one of three ways:
- The appearance of a particular allomorph is predictable from the phonetic environment,
hence phonologically conditioned.
- The appearance is unpredictable phonologically but is determined by the grammar of the
language, hence grammatically conditioned.
- The allomorphs are used interchangeably in all environments, hence in free variation.
In general it is the phonetic environment of the noun which determines the choice of the allomorph.
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TYPES OF ALLOMORPHS
- Phonetically conditioned allomorphs (allophones)
- Lexically conditioned allomorphs
- Suppletive allomorphs (suppletives)
PHONETICALLY CONDITIONED ALLOMORPHS

- Books, forks, stops /s/
- Churches, horses, choses /iz/ • Bags, bones, boys,
sees/z/ English: pl.in its regular form -s/-
es It is realized as:
- /s/ after /p/, /t/, /k/, /g/ + /s/ (i.e. books, forks, etc.)
- /iz/ after /s/, /z/, /Ʒ/, /ʃ/, /tʃ/,/dƷ/+ /s/ (i.e. horses, churches, etc.)
- /z/ everywhere else (i.e. bags, bones, boys, etc.)
LEXICALLY CONDITIONED ALLOMORPHS

- Cowcows, Ox oxen, Child children, Woman women, Shelf shelves, Mouse mice
- Regular morphs for {plural} on nouns in English: -s; -es
- Irregular morphs for {plural} on English nouns (lexically conditioned allomorphs):
-en(e.g. ox-oxen)
-ren(e.g. child-children) + internal vowel shortening
-vowel mutation: Umlaut/apophony (e.g. goose-geese; mouse-mice;
etc.) - zero morph (e.g. sheep-sheep) -a(e.g. data)/-i (e.g. alumni),
etc.
- Irregular morphs for {plural} on English nouns:
-ves(e.g. shelf-shelves; knife-knives, etc.) BUT Proof-proofs
WATCH OUT! Many irregularities can be better explained diachronically

- Work Worked, Open Opened, Cut Cut, Sing Sang, Bind Bound, Keep kept, Sleep Slept
- Regular morphs for {past tense} in English: -d; -ed
- Irregular morphs for {past tense} in English (lexically conditioned allomorphs): -
Vowel mutation: Umlaut/apophony (e.g. sing- sang; bind-bound. (cfr. OE)
- Vowel mutation: shortening (e.g. keep-kept; sleep- slept; weep-wept. (cfr. OE)
-  zero morph (e.g. cut-cut)
SUPPLETIVE ALLOMORPHS
- HOT HOTTER HOTTEST but NOT GOOD *GOODER *GOODEST GOOD BETTER BEST
- WORK WORKED WORKED but NOT GO *GOED *GOED GO WENT GONE
good ~ bet-~ be-; go ~ went ~gone: suppletive allomorph
Suppletion: Occurs in all European languages with more or less the same concepts/meanings
See also:
Fr. Aller ~ il va; etre ~ suis ~ est ~ sommes ~ etait
Germ. Sein ~ bin ~ bist ~ ist ~ war
It. Andare - io vado, noi andiamo
WORD FORMATION: DERIVATION (derivation converts one part to the speech to another or it can
change the meaning of the root and it is an addition of a word-forming affix; it is a part of the lexicon)
Unlike
a root, an affix does not carry the core meaning. It occupies a position where there is limited
potencial for substitution. English has 2 kinds of AFFIXES:

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1) PREFIXATION: prefix + free morph

bound lexical morph before a free morph (root/base)
Ex. complete (adj)in-complete (adj), to friend (vb) de-friend, smoker (n)non-smoker(n)
English prefixes
- Class maintaining
• but: enlarge, ensure; befriend; betoken; abroad - Do not
affect orthography
- Do not produce phonological change
- Affect meaning
• Many subcategories
A semantic taxonomy of English prefixes
• Pejorative: maltreat, miscalculate, pseudo(-)scientific, etc.

• Degree or size: overconfident, mini-skirt, supernatural, hypercritical, etc.
• Attitude: pro-Obama, antiwar, counter-revolution, etc.
• Spatial relations (both concrete and abstract): international, transatlantic, subnormal, etc.
• Time and order: postmodern, ex-president, etc.
• Numerical value: bilingual, multipurpose, multitasking, etc.
• Size: micro-mini.
• Negation: unafraid, unsafe.
• Privation: amoral, apolitical.
2) SUFFIXATION: free morph + suffix

bound lexical morph after a free morph (root/base)
Ex. beauty (n)beauty-(i)fy (vb), happy (adj) happy(i)-ness (n)
English suffixes
- Class changing (e.g. –ful; -ly; -ify, -al, etc.)
- Class maintaining (e.g. -ess; -let; -hood, -kind, -ship, -ism, etc.)
- Affect meaning
- Affect orthography
• Deny /denial
- Produce a phonological change in the root (including word stress)
• Reduce /reduction
• Clear /clarity • electric / electricity
• Etc.
A semantic taxonomy of English suffixes

• Diminutives: -ling, -let, -y, -ie(as in princeling, piglet, daddy, hoodie)
• feminine suffixes :-ess,-ette,-rix,-ine(as in actress, usherette, aviatrix, heroine)
• abstract suffixes: -ship, -hood, -ism(as in friendship, neighborhood, hoodlumism)
• suffixes denoting people: -(i)an, -ist, -er(as in Texan, Canadian, Marxist, Londoner)
• meaning ‘nearly, not exactly’ as in greenish, fortyish, coldish
• expressing ‘resemblance’ as in goodly, sickly, lonely; childish
A GRAMMATICAL TAXONOMY OF ENGLISH SUFFIXES:

Suffixes came into existence in English in 2 ways:
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-they could be formed as an independent word.

- they came from an hybrid derivation, combination of native-non native items.
• Noun suffixes (largest category)

– (a)tion, -dom, -ee, -ess, -ette, -hood, -ism, -ity, -let, -ness, -ment, -ship
• Adj suffixes
– i/-able, al/ial, -ar, -ary, -ed, -esque, -ful, -ic, -ish, -less, -like, -ly, -ous, -some, -y
• Verb suffixes
– ate, -en, -ify, -ise/ize
• Adverb suffixes
– ly, -wise
Manage management / Change*changement / Slow slowly / Good *goodly

* word-formation rules are not fully predictable
DERIVATIONAL SUFFIXES IN ENGLISH

• Nominalizer V ˃N -ment, -er,- ( c ) ation, -al, -ance ( Arrangement, judgement,
advancement, worker, helper, leader, legalization, simplification, taxation
A ˃N –dom,-ness,-ity (Freedom, officialdom, happiness, cleverness)
• Verbalizer A/N ˃V –ify,-ize,-ate,-en ( Pacify, simplify, purify, publicize, centralize,

hyphenate, orchestrate, lighten, soften)
• Adjectivalizer N˃ A -y,-ous,-ful (Flowery, bloody, famous, glamourous)
V ˃A –ive,-able,-ful (Supportive, generative, hopeful, thankful, useful, absorbent,

repellent)
• Adverbializer A/N ˃ Adv –ward,-ly,-way ( Homeward, eastward, quickly, terribly, sideway

,anyway)
Reduplication: is a process similar to derivation in which the initial syllable or the entire word is doubled,
exactly or with a slight phonological change. It is not a common or regular process of word formation in
English. It is often used in children’s language. Reduplication has many different functions, for example it
can express disparagement, intensification (super-duper), diminution (teeny-weeny), onomatopoeia,
alternation (ping-pong).
PRODUCTIVITY
Their productivity may range from very limited to quite extensive, depending upon whether they are
preserved in just a few words and no longer used to create new words.
Productive suffixes: -able, -er, –ist, -ism, -ize, -ic, -y Unproductive

suffixes: - th: warmth, length, etc.
-dom: wisdom, kingdom, etc.
Limited productivity: -ship, -hood
Recently the following suffixes have appeared:
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-(el)fie(selfie; spoken and informal): e.g. nailfie, dogfie, twofie, etc.

-(a)holic(alcoholic; spoken and written): e.g. workaholic
-ish(esp. in brand names and websites): e.g. Chairish, Bookish, the Ish Watch
DEGRAMMATICALIZATION
-scape(landscape): e.g. cityscape
-gate(Watergate; esp. in newspapers): e.g. Cartergate, Camillagate, etc. quite productive
THE ORIGINS OF ENGLISH AFFIXES

• English affixes:
- Native (Old English): un-, mis-, for(e)-, etc.; -hood, -ship, -ful, -ly, -less, etc.
- Foreign (borrowed along with a word from a foreign language): dis-, en-/in-, anti-, etc.; -ment, -ess,
-ous, etc.
1- Foreign base/root + native affix: Latin

bases: priest-hood, clear-ness;
French bases: un-button, faith-ful, faith-less 2-
Foreign affix + native base/root:
{-ess} (shepherd-ess, godd-ess); {-ment} (enlighten-ment, bewilder-ment); {-age} (short-age,
wrappage, shrink-age etc.); {-ance} (hindr-ance); {-ous} (murder-ous, thunder-ous);
{-(e)ry} (fish-ery, bake-ry, etc.);{-(i)ty} (odd-ity); {-(i)fy} (scar-ify)
Two ways in which suffixes came into existence3 in English:

• The suffix was once an independent word (A few suffixes of Anglo-Saxon origin only).
Old English PDE

Dom “potere, dominio” -dom (no longer productive)
Had “stato, condizione”” -hood (hardly productive)
Scipe “stato, condizione” -ship (hardly productive)
Leas “vuoto” -less (low productive)
Lic “corpo” -ly
• The suffix has originated as such:

- Suffixes of Anglo-Saxon origin
- Suffixes of foreign origin (Latin, Greek, Norse, French, etc.) as a result of LANGUAGE CONTACT.
[ess], [-ment], [–age], etc.= HYBRID DERIVATION, combination of native-non native items.
COMBINING FORMS
Short forms of longer and more complex words isolated and used as prefixes/suffixes; they have no
AngloSaxon origin.
Examples: bio-chemistry, tele-conference, ethno-linguist, e-postcard, eco-activist, Euro-group, etc.
- Neo-classical affixes
• Can be added to free morphs: ex. e- (for electronic) e-mail
• Can be added to another combining form (combine with each other)Euro-phile
• Can be added to another affix (bound morph) cephal-ic
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What’s the difference between neo-classical affixes and the other affixes? Morphosyntactic
perspective &Semantic perspective.
SEMANTIC PERSPECTIVE
AFFIXES
They can be only suffixes, they want to indicate grammatical meaning and they can be attached to all
members of a word class.
They do not derive from something in particular. They have a modifier without a corresponding base word:
e.g. un-happy: -un is not the short form of a base word; it is a negative prefix meaning “the reverse of”.
NEO-CLASSICAL AFFIXES
They have a longer form from which it comes and derives its meaning
e.g. electro:electric(ity) e: electronic euro: European
MORPHOSYNTACTIC PERSPECTIVE
AFFIXES NEO-CLASSICAL AFFIXES

Can combine with a neo-classical Can combine with another affix (bound morph):
affix: Cephal-ic Cephal-ic
Cannot combine with each other:*re-less; Can combine with each other:Euro-
phile AFFIX:
- Can be added to a free morph

- Can be added to a combining form
- Can NOT be added to another affix (bound
morph) COMBINING FORMS:
- Can be added to a free morph

- Can be added to a combining form Comb. Forms are MORE FLEXIBLE than affixes. - Can
be added to an affix
DERIVATION: ENGLISH VS. ITALIAN
• Both languages: an extensive derivational morphology by affixation (i.e. prefixation and suffixation)
• Each language: its own set of affixes establishing
a) the word-class of the root/base

b) the category of the new lexeme
E.g. It. V + –bile > adjs (leggere-leggibile)

Eng. Adj + –ness > nouns (bright-brightness)
Look at the following similarities:
• Both languages:
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- more than one derivational suffix (Eng. industri-al-ise / It. leggi-ibil-ità)

- inflectional endings must follow any derivational suffix (Eng. play-er-s / It. gioca-tor-i)
- prefixes: typically class-maintaining obey (vb)dis-obey (vb) / morale (adj)a-morale (adj)
- most suffixes: class-changing nation (n)nation-al (adj) / bello (adj)bell-ezza (n)
Look at the following differences:
• Eng. Derivational affixes: - prefixes (write rewrite) -

suffixes (free freedom).
• It. Derivational affixes:
- prefixes (attentodisattento)
- suffixes (cortese cortesemente)
- (more rarely) infixes (parlare parlottare);
INFLECTION = is the only responsible of new words. It does not produce new lexemes. It is only responsible
for the production of word-forms of a single lexeme.
ZERO-DERIVATION
It’s a process in which a word has a new grammatical function. A new grammatical structure without
changing anything in the word. (Ex: VerbNoun)
TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES

Moving –noun-verb- movie (ex. “Let’s movie!”)
Beauty –noun--verb- beauty (ex. “Let’s beauty!”)
Los Angeles L.A. (ex. “A new way to L.A.”)
Family –noun--verb (ex.“How we family”)
In morphology, there are different levels of the same phenomenon: Verbing/ verbification(a process where
a noun is turned into a VERB) is one subcategory of:
Zero-derivation= Conversion= Functional shift
SOME FURTHER SUBCATEGORIES

Wet (adj) / to wet (v)verbing
Leg (n)/ to leg (v)verbing
Hoover (n)/ to hoover
(v)verbing
To doubt (v)/ doubt(n)the opposite of verbing
Friend (n) / to friend (v) (Facebook since 2005)verbing
ZERO-DERIVATION: Derivation by means of a zero-morphs:

A process to form new words (lexemes) by assigning and existing word (lexeme) to a new class/syntactic
category/part of speech without changing its form in any way.
Thanks to its association with other lexemes having the same derivate relationship expressed by an overt
morph.
DERIVATION ZERO-DERIVATION
Legal (adj) > to legal-ize (v) – “to make legal” Clean (adj) > to clean (v) – “to make clean” Atom (noun)
> to atom-ize (v) – “to do sth using Skype (n) >to ype (v) – “to do sth using skype” atoms”
sk To bake (v) > bake-r (persona chesvolgel’azione) – To cook (v) > cook (persona checucina) – “Somebody
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“Somebody who bakes sth” who cooks sth”
The change has taken place but it is not

Realised. The passage from the adjective
to a form is realized by a zero-form.
In each group of examples, same syntactic and semantic pattern:

• Adjverb (ex. Legalto legalize)
• Nounverb (ex. Atomto atomize)
• Verbnoun (ex. To cookcooker)
Zero derivation:
- Thanks to its association with other lexemes having the same derivative relationship expressed by
an overt morph
- Typical of English (very few examples in Italian)
- A result of loss of inflectional endings in Middle English (1100-1500)
- Recently has become very productive (in the social media and marketing, advertising) It is NOT
a new phenomenon. In fact, there are a lot of examples that support it:
TO SUM UP
• Zero-derivation/conversion/functional shift
- Old words keep evolving
• 3 main syntactic groups:

- VBN: e.g. to doubta doubt
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- N (Successful trade name) N/VB (generic use):e.g. Hooverto hoover; Skypeto Skype
- NVB: e.g. a bottle to bottle; friendto friend (Facebook, 2005-)
• It is a highly productive process

• History has always favoured zero-derivation
PROBLEM WITH DIRECTIONALITY: how do we know that the passage is from the verb to the adjective or the
contrary?
- History of the language.
- Semantic issue (According to the word that was recorded earlier in written language).
ZERO-DERIVATION AND SECONDARY SHIFTS
Secondary shifts: word forms moving from one subclass to another within the same word class Examples:
1. mass nounscount nouns
- the American press/meet the press (mass noun)
- How many press (=journalists) were there? (count noun)
2. Transitive verbsintransitive verbs with a passive meaning

- She sells second-hand cars (trans.)
- This book sells well (intr.)
- the novel has sold a million copies (= a million copies of the novel have been sold; intr.)
REDUPLICATION
It is a process similar to derivation in which the initial syllable or the entire word is doubled, exactly with a
slight phonological change. It is not a common or regular process of word formation in English and it is
often used in children’s language.
e.g. - reduplication (papa, mama, goody-goody)
- ablaut reduplication (criss-cross ; flip-flop ; mish-mash )
- rhyme duplication ( hogde- podge ; fuddy- duddy ; boogie- woogie )
This process can express disparagement, intensification, diminution, onomatopoeia, alternation..
≠ between conversion and functional shift → functional shift involves the conversion of one part of speech to
another without the addition of a suffix. The only concrete change that can occur is a change in stress. e.g
Phone (n) vs. To phone (V)
A special kind of functional shift is called COMMONIZATION: a proper noun is converted into a common
word. A proper noun, naming a real or fictional person or place, tribe or group may undergo
commonization to a noun, verb or adjective often with no phonological change.
e.g. cashmere, china, sandwich, spa
COMPOUNDING
Compounds: combinations of two or more free roots (plus associated affixes) -
Examples: bedroom, blood-test, scarecrow, school sweet-heart, etc.
Classification/description of compounds:
a) syntactic/grammatical
b) semantic
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Compounds in grammatical terms
SINGULAR PLURAL
Bedroom *bedsroom; *bedsrooms; bedrooms
Bloodtest *bloodstest; *bloodstests; bloodtests
*it underlines that the form is not right
It is difficult to distinguish a compound form a syntactic phrase. A better means of differentiation is

internal coherence since compounds are externally modified (at the single word boundary) whereas
phrases may be internally modified (at any of the word boundaries). An example is the plural form.
Another good means is the external mobility of compounds because they move in a sentence as a whole
and not in parts. However, stress seems to offer the most reliable means: as a single word, a compound
will carry only one primary stress whereas a phrase will carry more than one primary stress.
Bloodtest: A (blood) + B (test)

Bedroom: A (bed) + B (room)
• A:
- Not marked for number
- Not marked for gender In English the SECOND ELEMENT is
the GRAMMATICAL HEAD (only this
can
• B: grammatical head: be modified)
- Determines word class

- Marked for number
- Marked for case (possessive)
- Marked for gender (when it is possible)
But in Italian
• Pescecane: pesce (A, head) + cane (B)
• Manoscritto: mano (A) + scritto (B,
head) Syntactic types of English compounds
NOUN COMPOUNDS ADJECTIVAL COMPOUNDS VERBAL COMPOUNDS

N+N: bedroom, birdcage, school A+A: good-looking, N+V: babysit, carbon-date,
day naturalsounding, bitter-sweet headhunt,skydive
V+N: pickpocket, checklist N+A: user-friendly A+V: free-associate, fine-tune
V+particle: takeaway, sit-in N+N: seaside,coffee-break Prep.+V: outdo,overcook,
underrate,overeducate
V-ing+V: washing machine, A+N: redneck, blue-collar, V+V: blow-dry, play-act,
fishing rod solidstate sleepwalk, tap-dance
A+N: green tea, blackboard V+Prep: tow-away, see-through A+N: strong-arm,
blacklist,mainstream
Prep+N: overdose
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English: compounds may be hyphenated or not depending on the extent to which they are perceived and
have lexicalized as whole lexical units or not.
COMPOUNDS IN SEMANTIC TERMS:

• Bedroom
• Paperback
• African-American
ENDOCENTRIC EXOCENTRIC COPULATIVE or APPOSITIONAL

A+B: a kind of B. A+B //A; A+B //B A+B: both A and B
A qualifies B
Armchair, bedroom, house party, Redskin, highbrow, redcoats, Girlfriend, boyfriend,
steamboat hunchback, paperback maidservant
Most common type Meaning is often idiomatic
B: grammatical head + semantic Usually denotes
head person/object possessing the
characters expressed by the
compound
Examples:
• *-smelling
• *-looking
- X-smelling
‘That smell(s) (like) X’ (always intransitive)
Compounds:
- Foul-smelling
- Sweet-smelling
There are different shades of transparency. There are intermediate steps.
E.g. Sweet-smelling (Flowers/herbs/perfume/smoke/fragrance, etc. )
does it make sense? It is a bit less transparent than foul-smelling.
‘That smell(s) sweet’? ‘That smell(s) like sugar’? ‘that smell(s) pleasant’
- X-looking (adjective + looking)

‘That looks X’ (always intr. But forward-looking?) Compound:
- Good-looking
E.g. Good-looking (people)
‘That looks good?’ ‘that looks attractive’
‘Nobody will ever know you paid a lot of/a little money for this’
Compounds are also used to modify nouns which are fakes of various
kinds Being transparent or opaque is a problem/difference in degree.
MULTI-WORD COMPOUNDS
• Mother-in-law
• Lead-free petrol
• Made in Italy
• State-of-the-art
• Over the top
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BLENDING
To blend = mixing things together (it is the name of the process).
A blend involves two processes of word formation, compounding and “clipping”. Two free words are
combined and blended, usually by clipping off the end of the first word and the beginning of the second
word, although sometimes one or the other morpheme is left intact.
Some examples of blends:

• Chunnelchannel + tunnel
• Brunchbreakfast + lunch
• Smogsmoke + fog
• Edutainmenteducation + entertainment
• Chillaxchill out + relax
• Frenemyfriend + enemy
Blending: blends, also known as portmanteau words:

- the fusion of both the forms and meanings of two lexemes.
- First lexeme usually loses something at the end, and the second something at the
beginning. The vast majority of blends are nouns and they are very popular in:
- Journalism
- Advertising
- Technical fields
Blends tend to belong to a more informal stylistic level. (To catch the attention of the reader.)
BACK FORMATION
A new lexeme is formed by leaving out what is mistakenly thought to be an affix or ending. Problem: which
came first?
Semantic inclusion (see also zero-derivation) to establish which word comes first I have to
consider the aspect of the history of English, so the word that comes first is the one which was
recorded earlier.
Examples:
- To editeditor (non è un suffisso perché la parola nasce come editor, ma poi la back formation
ci porta a “to edit”)
- Greedgreedy
- To televisetelevision
SHORTENING: to reduce something/to make it short. It includes several processes that have in common the
deletion of sound segments without respect to morphological boundaries. (part of words and not entire
morphemes are deleted).
2 TYPES:
1) INITIALISM: lexemes that consist of a number of first letters. Two groups:
A. Acronyms: NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome), PIN (Personal Identification Number), etc.Series of letters pronounced as words.
Also, laser and scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) are examples of acronyms.
An acronym can in turn be a base/root for a new lexeme: scuba-diving.
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B. Abbreviations: CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), DIY (Do It Yourself), DJ (Disk Jockey), BBC
(British Broadcasting Corporation), etc.Series of first letters pronounced as a series.
Abbreviations in different disciplines: EFL (English as a Foreign Language), FASB (financial
accounting Standard Board), IASB (International Accounting Standard Board).
But CD-ROM: half abbreviation and half acronym.
An abbreviation can in turn be a base/root for a new lexeme: EURO-NM (Combining form +
abbreviation= “A group of European stock markets that trade in the shares of companies which have a new
original ideas or products.”) Historically initiation represents the more recent group of shortening.
2)CLIPPING: phenomenon that includes the shortening of a lexeme by omitting a part of it (a bound
morph or a combining form).
Morphology is affected in clipping, but not the meaning and nor the syntax.
Highly productive in informal spoken English.
Two major types of clipping:
o Front clipping (micro)fiche; (tele)phone;
o Back clipping (the more frequent): glam(orous); limo(usine); memo(randum);
lab(oratory); ad(vertisement); exam(ination).
o Mixed clipping: (in)flu(enza); (re)fridge(rator). (Less common) The difference is only
in morphological terms and not in meanings.
SEMANTIC CHANGE
Journey = trip, travel, but also experience, adventure, story, series of events, process, etc.
Journey can also be used with its metaphorical meaning. It comes from French and meant “one day
travel” in the origin but today it used for longer travels too.
Journey is the most exploited metaphor in western culture. When we think about something with a long
process, we think about a journey.
Semantic change: METAPHORS (They are responsible of the creation of new meanings in our language).
They are referred to expressions which transfer a word from one conceptual domain to another.
Metaphors are:
- Conceptual operations (we conceptualize objects/events of our experience in terms of
other objects/events)
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used to identify unlike objects/concepts/ideas with each other for the purpose of emphasising
one or more aspects of resemblance between them.
Ex: When we say that two people have divorced we say that they have taken two different ways. We are
comparing marriage with walking down something.
When you love a book and read it very quickly we say “Ho divorato quel libro”. Colleghiamo un termine della
cucina con il leggere un libro.
- Not restricted to language production and comprehension (literary/linguistic device).
Metaphors have become such a part of ordinary life that we are not even aware of them.
Examples:
• To be up / to be down = happiness associated with movements. “Sono su/giù” nel senso che
sono felice o triste.
• To be a block of ice = when a person does not show his feelings.
As a conceptual operation, a metaphor consists of 3 elements:

• Tenor (or target): a conceptual entity
• Vehicle (or source): another conceptual entity which provides mental access to the tenor
• Ground: association between entities They combine together according to the
formula: X (tenor) is like Y (vehicle) in respect of Z (ground)
- In linguistic terms, a metaphor is represented as follows: X is Y

- Ground is missing, but is left to the addressee to recover
- Addressee can recover missing element (ground) on the basis of amount of shared knowledge
with sender
METAPHOR TARGET SOURCE GROUND

(X is) an amazing X (action) Journey Traveling: moving
journey forward/around,
obstacles
(X is) a block of ice X (person) Block of ice Coldness
Metaphors always express an evaluation of the target in terms of good or bad, praise or blame etc.
METAPHOR TARGET SOURCE GROUND EVALUATION

1-(X is) an amazing X (action) Journey Moving Good
journey around/
forward
2-(X is) a block of X (person) Block of ice Coldness Bad
ice
1- Travelling is a good action (target is evaluated very positively)

2- Physical cold of the ice= emotional coolness of person (negative
evaluation) Europeans conventionally associate emotions with warmth and lack of them
with cold.
Europeans also conventionally associate physical conditions and emotions with special movements, up and
down:
UP is associated with A)‘being happy’ ex: “He’s been

up since he met his new
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girlfriend
B)‘being healthy’ ex: “To be up
and about
DOWN is associated with A)’being unhappy’ ex: “He’s been

down since she left him
B)’being unhealthy’ ex:
“He’sdown with flu
METAPHORS AND CULTURE

Metaphors, especially body parts and animal metaphors, tend to be culture specific.
Examples:
- Pig: animal (literal meaning), person (figurative meaning as a result of metaphor)
ENGLISH FRENCH
Pig ‘greedy person’ (offensive ?
use; spoken) ex: “Greedy pig, you
ate all the candies!”
‘dirty /untidy’ ex: “How can you ?
live in this mess? You’re such a
pig!”
‘unpleasant / offensive ?
person’ (offensive use) ex:
“You’re a selfish pig!”
‘police officer’ (insulting) vache ‘stupid police officer’
TYPES OF METAPHORS:
• Several different types of metaphor; the most common and conventional are animal metaphors
and personification.
• Animal metaphors (pig): aspects of animals to human beings.
• Personification: aspects of human beings to non-human entities.
- Ex: Our biggest enemy is inflation, Life has cheated me, The disease attacked his brain.
WHAT ARE METAPHORS USED FOR:

• Confirming ideological positions (including politicians and those who report on the work
of politician).
• Revealing cultural values.
• A conscious form of humour in jokes and riddles.
• A source of creative word play in everyday language.
• A source of creative word play in newspapers (ex. Sport reporting).
• Entertainment and persuasive value in advertising.
• Metaphors reflect some of the ways in which political discourse operates and in which
people ordinarily conceive of politics.
• Two common sources of metaphor in politics: sport and war (they involve concepts of enemies
and opponents, winners and losers).
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A common source of metaphor in politics: sport

Ex: The gloves are off, to play ball, first-pass-the-post-system (=a tutto
campo) A common source of metaphor in politics: war
Ex: The president was bombarded with questions, to take flak (=dare battaglia)
Among sport metaphors:
- Boxing and cricket metaphors particularly common in the U.K. Ex: to keep your
eye on the ball, batting on a sticky wicket, to be stumped by Among sport metaphors:
- Baseball metaphors abound in US politics
Ex: a whole new ball game, to play ball, to be back at first base, a ball park figure
Increasingly used in British political discourse too.
SIMILES
In a language, metaphors generally do not mention the ground, which the reader or hearer is called upon
to supply: SIMILE an extended metaphor: all three elements are mentioned. Ex: His face (X or tenor) was
a white (Z or ground) as a sheet (Y or vehicle) Similes contain an overt expression of comparison:
Like, is like, acts like, looks like, as, as…as, resembles, reminds me of, in the same as, is similar to, the same
way, seems like, sounds like, is more like, gives the impression of/that.
Like metaphors, they evaluate and we can analyse them in a similar way.
Like metaphors, they have an evaluate of connotation switch.
- Similes are often used to allow the author to extend the analogy and develop the ground,
explaining why X is like Y: love has entered me like a disease, so stealthily I have not seen its
approach nor heard its footsteps.
- Similes in political language function in a similar way: The USA is like a very large ship, facing
the worst kind of storm.
SEMANTIC CHANGE: METONYMY
The major cause of semantic change. It occurs when some entity is alluded to by mention of “something
else” associated with or connected to it. Two entities connected to each other.
Types of metonymy:
1. Using “the part for the whole” (Synecdoche): There are some new faces in the crowd; to
ask somebody’s hand (face and hand “person”).
2. Using the “whole for the part” (Synecdoche): to fill up the car (car “fuel tank”).
3. Using the name of the “producer for the product”: She bought a Ferrari (to refer to the car), a
Van Gogh (to refer to the portrait painted by Van Gogh).
4. Using the name of “the object for the people who use it for their job”: The buses are on strike
today (buses “bus drivers”).
5. Using the name of the “institution for the people representing it”: The Times hasn’t arrived at
the conference yet. (The Times “the reporters from the Times).
6. Using “a material for the product made from it”: Wood (foresta, che allo stesso tempo vuol
dire legno), a cork (“piece of cork to close a bottle”, cork “a soft, light substance”).
7. Using “the receptacle for the content”: to drink a glass of wine (you do not drink the object but
its content).
METONYMY IN POLITCS/JOURNALISM/INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (IRS)
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Topological metonymy: the places where political events happen stand for the events themselves/the
institution the place houses. Topological means that has to do with places.
Ex: The White House stands for the US President and his advisors, Buckingham Palace stands for the English
monarchy, the British crown.
Ex: Number 10 stands for BCC reports on Number 10, The Watergate scandal stands for the building which
housed the Democratic party, Pearl Harbour stands for the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.
An important and productive type.
WATCH OUT
• Sometimes, the original meaning of metonymy has disappeared from the language.
French bureau
(originally) “a coarse woollen cloth for covering tables”
 (today) “the desk/table covered by the cloth” (metonymy)
• Sometimes, original and the extended meaning continue to exist alongside each
other. English tongue
(originally) “organ of speech”
 (today)
1. Organ of speech (original meaning)
2. Language (metonymy)
ELLIPSIS: a new lexeme is formed by leaving one of the 2 words in MWU’s. “I’m
going to the butcher’s (saxon genitive) - “I work in a non-profit”
An element necessary from a grammatical point of view is omitted. The missing part is required
by grammar and it can be easily recovered by the context.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
- Oxymoron (paradox): refers to expression which contain an explicit contradiction.

(Delicious torment, living death, sweet sorrow).
- Tautology: to expressions which are “true by definition” offering no new information.
- Synesthesia: refers to expressions which combine a word from one sensory domain with a word
from another sensory domain. A common type is the use of a colour terms (from the visual
domain) in conjunction with an emotional states.
- Synecdoche: refers to expressions which refer to a thing by naming a part of it. A typical kind is
the naming of something by naming the material of which it is composed.
- Metonymy: refers to expressions which denote a thing by naming something associated with it.
- Personification: refers to expressions which attribute human qualities to nonhuman or
inanimate objects.
PHRASAL STRUCTURE AND VERB COMPLEMENTATION (An introduction to generative grammar)

In the classical standard form of generative grammar it was argued that syntax consisted of 2 types of rules:
- Phrase structure rule → specify what is a constituent of what, it reveals the hierarchical
structures of sentences.
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- Transformations→ perform various syntactic operations on the output of the phrase structure
rules to produce surfaces structures. They may move, transpose, add and delete elements, but
they may not change meaning.
What gives generative grammar its name? it is the view that in order for a speaker to acquire a language,
the rules of the grammar must be finite in number.
SINTAX: studies the analysis of the constituent parts of a sentence: their form (types of elements, the
internal arrangement of elements and the relation among elements within the constituent); their external
positioning in respect to other constituents and their function.
Constituents: are the proper subparts of sentences. It is the context which determines whether a particular
sequence forms a constituent or not. There are 2 basic relationships possible between the members of a
constituent:
- One-way dependency or modifier head: one of the members of the constituent, the Modifier
(Mod), can be omitted, but the head cannot. The head is the essential center of the constituent
and is obligatory. The modifier depends upon the head and cannot occur without it. The modifier
expresses some quality or aspect of the head. (like the relation of adjective to noun)
Mutual dependency or governor-complement: neither member of the constituent can be omitted
and one cannot occur without the other; neither is more central. The first governs or controls the
presence of the second, and the second completes the first. Some relations are: a preposition and
its complement, an adjective ad its complement, a verb and its complement, a verb and its object.
SENTENCE ELEMENTS AND FUNCTIONS
THE HIERARCHY OF UNITS

• Word (e.g people)
• Phrase (e.g American people) – sintagma e non frase
• Clause (e.g when Trump is President…) – proposizione
• Sentence (e.g Donald Trump has been elected President of the USA) – frase
phrase is different from
clause WHAT IS A PHRASE?

A group of words that stand together as a single syntactic unit/piece of information (ex: subject, verb,
object etc.), typically as part of a clause or a sentence.
TYPES OF PHRASE:
• NOUN PHRASE (You, people, my boss; Donald Trump’s victory; etc.) – my boss are two words,
while Donald Trump’s victory is more complex and has three words. Una “noun phrase” è un
sintagma nominale. In “my boss” stiamo parlando di “boss” che è “the head of all phrase”. É
l’elemento responsabile del significato e della grammatica. In inglese la testa è sempre quella più
a destra.
• VERB PHRASE (Is having; will have; likes, etc.) – la parte sottolineata è la più importante perché
mi indica l’azione. Based on the type of complement a verb takes, a number of subcategories of
verbs can be identified:
1. Intransitive verbs: no complement is required or allowed. Intransitive verbs often sound more
natural when followed by adverbials, especially if the verb is in the simple present or past
tense.

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2. Transitive verbs: the complement of the verb here is a noun phrase functioning as a direct object.
While traditionally a direct object is defined as a person or thing affected by the action of the
verb, the direct object follows the verb directly.
3. Ditransitive verbs: an indirect object is the goal or benefactive of the action, it always
denotes something which is animate or is conceived of as animate.
4. Copulative verbs: the complement here serves the function of subject complement. A
subject complement characterizes the subject because it identifies, locates or describes the
subject. Examples →become, seem, appear, feel, be, grow, look.
5. Complex transitive verb: there are 2 subclasses of verbs → non locative (find, consider, make,
think, elect, call,hold, regard as, take for, devote) in which the first NP is a direct object and the
second is an object complement. The object complement characterizes the object in the same way
as the subject complement characterizes the subject ( it identifies, describes or locates the object).
It is not possible to delete the object complement without either radically changing the meaning
of the sentence. The second one is the locative (hang, put, place, lay, set, touch, shoot, pierce)
6. Prepositional verb: here the entire prepositional phrase serve as a complement of the verb.
7. Diprepositional verb
• ADJECTIVE PHRASE (Hot; big; very hot; etc.) – just “hot” is simple. “Very hot” is complex and “hot”
is the most important part. The category of Degree adverbs includes words which are traditionally
defined as adverbs since they modify both adjectives and adverbs. This kind of adverbs cannot be
modified by other adverbs. Degree words express a quality, intensity or degree of the following
adjective or adverb, so they function like determiners ( a specifier of the head).
• ADVERB(IAL) PHRASE (Very soon; soon; extremely; here; etc.)
• PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE (For America; the EU; in the garden; in two hours; etc.) – sintagmi
nominali preceduti dal sintagma preposizionale)
- A phrase does not contain a subject and verb and, consequently, cannot convey a complete thought.
- A phrase contrasts with a clause.
- A clause does contain a subject and verb, and it can convey a complete idea.
CLAUSE
A clause contains a subject and verb, and it can convey a complete idea.
Noun phrases can perform the function of object, adverb, noun.
Each phrase can perform more than a function.
PHRASES
Phrase type Examples Main word (HEAD)

NOUN PHRASE The young person sitting next to Noun PERSON
you
VERB PHRASE Has been reading Verb READING
ADJECTIVE PHRASE Very noisy Adj. NOISY
ADVERB(IAL) PHRASE Too quickly Adv. QUICKLY
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE (He arrived) soon after the match Prep. AFTER
NOUN PHRASES: SENTENCE FUNCTIONS (HEAD = NOUN)
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1. SUBJECT: I eat an apple. (It is variously defined as the topic, the actor or that which is spoken about)
2. SUBJECT COMPLEMENT: Grace is my niece. She seems a young girl.
3. DIRECT OBJECT: He bought a new car.
4. INDIRECT OBJECT: She told her husband the truth.
5. OBJECT COMPLEMENT: She called him an idiot.
6. ADJECTIVE OR ADVERBIAL: One day you will know what to do.
It can be expanded in different ways:

N → dogs
Det + N→ the dogs
Det+A+N →the large dogs
Det+AP+N→ the loudly barking dogs
Det+N+PP→ the dog in the yard
Pro →He
PN→ Goldy
ADJECTIVE PHRASES: FUNCTIONS (HEAD = ADJECTIVE)

A. SUBJECT COMPLEMENT: My father is quite ill; I was really lucky.
B. OBJECT COMPLEMENT: the air can keep our house cool; the new floor makes much brighter.
It can be expanded in different ways:
A→ happy
Deg+ A→ very happy
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Adv+ A→ blissfully happy
ADVERBIAL PHRASES (HEAD= ADVERB)

A. ADJUCT/ADVERBIAL: Suddenly the police broke into the room. Students will receive a
badge automatically.
FUNCTION OF PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES

1. ADJUCT (OR ADVERBIAL): I’ll see him on Monday. Before the war, he worked as a clerk. The
four common types of adjunct adverbials are manner, time, place and reason. Adverbials are
optional modifiers. They are better known as modifying the verb together with its
complements.
2. SUBJECT COMPLEMENT: Your hat is on the sofa. The book is for Adam.
3. OBJECT COMPLEMENT: Don’t keep me in suspense.
Ex: [David Cameron’s speech at the World Economic Forum (Davos 2014)]
“The key challenge for politicians and business leaders in Europe is how we make a success of globalisation.
Subject: the key challenge for politicians and business leaders in Europ....
VERB PHRASE
We can have intransitive verb like “ arrive, cry, laugh or swim” or transitive “ hit, kill or eat”.
HEAD
-MODIFIERS, i.e words that give extra information about the HEAD:
-PREMODIFIERS
NP: articles, demonstratives, possessives, quantifiers, numbers, ordinals, qualifying adjectives, adj phrases,
etc.; AdjP: intensifiers (or adverbs), etc.; AdvP: intensifiers; PreP: adverb (but rare)
-POSTMODIFIERS
NP: prep, relative (-ing/-ed) clauses, non-finite clauses, that-clauses, etc; AdjP: that-clauses (e.g happy that
you can come); non finite clauses (delighted to meet you); prepP (guilty of murder); AdvP: rare but indeed
and enough
PREMODIFICATION
THE NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION DIET – the diet of the new year’s resolution
THE FIRST-REAL-DATE-IN-TWO-YEARS DIET
THE WEDDING DAY DIET
THE HONEYMOON DIET
THE AFTER-THE-BABY DIET
A clear examples of a phenomenon not only in spoken English but also in written English used in specific
professional purposesphenomenon of PREMODIFICATION.
The premodifiers are either prepositional phrases.

Ex: THE-I-WISH-WAS-HER DIET – The diet
The premodifier is a clause. Premodifier because it has been moved in front of the noun “diet”.
EXAMPLE 1
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Stated baggage allowance (Air Canada Ticket)

It consists of 3 elements. There aren’t function words (prepositions, conjunctions, verbs, auxiliary
verbs, articles etc) it is a complex nominal group (sintagma nominale complesso). Transformation:
the baggage allowance rules stated herein.
EXAMPLE 2
Visit the best-preserved theatre(Greek itineraries)
A complex noun phrase. The head is “theatre”. The rest is premodifiers.
Transformation: Visit the theatre which is preserved in the best possible way.
EXAMPLE 3
An EU recommended tourism policy(Ryanair)
The head is “policy” and the rest are premodifiers.
Transformation: a policy which is recommended by the EU.
PREMODIFICATION
(It is possible because English tend to put the main things at the end of the phrase.)
A left-dislocation of terms with an adjectival function which modifies the qualities of the properties of the
head-noun.Nouns/phrases/clauses/sentences which should occur after the head noun are moved
before it (left-dislocation) and thus act as pre-modifiers.
This creates complex nominal groups whose modifiers are nouns/phrases/clauses/sentences which have
acquired an adjectival role.
• Sometimes this process combines with nominalization
• Verbs are transformed into nouns: ex. To exceedexcess; To be allowed (to)allowance
Depending the complexity of the noun-phrase, the pre-modifier can be modified by nouns or clauses. We
can find many examples of premodification in English.
1. Check-in time
2. Escorted all-inclusive tour
3. Fly-cruise package
4. Hub and spoke tour
5. Destination marketing organization
CLAUSE/ GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS

• Subject
• Verb/predicator
• Object
• Complement
• Adverbial
- Circumstantial (adjunct adverbials or adjuncts): provide info about circumstances of what is
said (time, place, manner);
- Stance (disjunct adverbials or disjuncts): express speaker’s attitudes or comments on what is
said (ex: frankly, honestly, technically speaking etc.);
- Linking (conjunct adverbials or conjunction): have a linking function (ex: however,
furthermore, nevertheless, etc.).
SUBJECT
My son went to university in Scotland
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Telling lies is wrong

What he is looking for is a promotion
Usually consists of:
- Noun phrases
- Non-finite/finite clause It functions as:
- The topic of the sentence, and the ‘doer’ of any action expressed by a dynamic predicator
• Other:
- Normally comes before predicator (exception: Go away)
- Subjects are the next most obligatory element after predicators
PREDICATOR
My son went to university in Scotland
• Consists of:
- Verb phrase
It functions as:
- The centre of English sentences and clauses
- Ex: Actions hit, processes changed, decided and linking relation is, seemed • Other:
- Verbs are the most obligatory of English clause constituents
OBJECT
Mary likes New York; she likes my new flat; I know how he did it; He saw her coming
• Consists of:
- Noun phrase
- Finite/non-finite clause It functions as:
- The receiver of any action expressed by a dynamic predicator • Other:
- Normally comes immediately after predicator
- Object are obligatory with transitive predicators
- Direct and indirect objects (ex: She sent her boss a postcard)
COMPLEMENT
Sam became a doctor
Mick is very happy
My opinion is that things will improve
• Consists of:
- Noun phrase
- Adjective phrase
- Finite clause It functions as:
- The specification of some attribute or role of the subject (subject complement) of the sentence
(ex: Jane is ill; Home is where the heart is)
- The specification of some attribute or role of the object (object complement) of the sentence
(ex: Rachel made her mother very angry; You can tell me what you like)
• Other:
- Normally comes immediately after intensive verbs (be, seem, appear, become), verbs of change
(make, colour), verbs of perception (think, consider, believe) when they are subject complements
or object complements
ADVERBIAL
The train moved very slowly
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to come to your party
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See you in a minute

We cannot come to your wedding because we are on holiday
• Consists of:
- Adverbial phrase (very slowly)
- Adverb (Unfortunately, I won’t be able to come to your party)
- Prepositional phrase (See you in a minute)
- Clause (We cannot come to your wedding because we are on holiday) • Function:
- The specification of a condition related to the predicator (ex. answering when, where or how) •
Other:
- The most optional elements
- Can normally occur in more positions than the other elements, though the most normal position
for most adverbials is at the end of clauses
Review of phrase structure rules

We have identified the following grammatical functions:
-Subject (Su)
- Object of the Preposition (OP)
-Direct Object (dO)
-Prepositional Complement (pC)
-Indirect Object (iO)
-Modifier of Noun (Mod of N)
- Subject Complement (sC)
- Specifier of Noun (Spec of N)
-Specifier of Preposition (Spec of P)
-Object Complement (oC)
-Complement of Adjective (Comp of A)
The phrasal categories we have studied can serve the following functions:
-NP: Subject, Direct Object, Indirect Object, Subject Complement, Object Complement, Object of
Preposition
-AP: Modifier of Noun, Subject Complement, Object Complement
- PP: Modifier of Noun, Subject Complement, Object Complement, Indirect Object,
Prepositional Complement of Verb, of Preposition, or of Adjective
-AdvP: Modifier of Adjective
BASIC WORD ORDER IN ENGLISH DECLARATIVES
BASIC CLAUSE STRUCTURE AND WORD ORDER ON ENGLISH DECLARATIVES
SP/SV (e.g, The marks have disappeared)

SPO/SVO (e.g The team has achieved a great victory)
SPC/SVC (e.g The journey was a nightmare/horrendous)
SPA/SVA (e.g The children are playing in the garden)
SPOO/SVOO (e.g He gave me a present)
SPOC/SVOC (e.g We consider her our best student)
SPOA/SVOA (e.g The secretary will put a notice on the board)
Subject: normally occurs at the beginning
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Verb, Object, Complement, Adverbial: always after the subject. Also in end position, according to sentence
structure.
Information structure:
Subject: the topic, what a message/sentence is about. At the very beginning of the sentence.
V, O, C, A: what is said about the topic; new information about the topic.
SP/SV
SPO/SVO
SPC/SVC
SPA/SVA
SPOO/SVOO
SPOC/SVOC
SPOA/SVOA
Word order is said to be unmarked (normal, prototypical). The subject always occurs at the very
beginning of the sentence.
Unmarked word orderS V O C A (Subject Verb Object Complement Adverbial) The

subject is always in first position
Examples of adverbials:
SV/SP: Happily, the marks have disappeared.

SPC/SVC: On the whole, the journey was a nightmare/horrendous.
SPOO/SVOO: Every birthday he gave me a present.
SPOA/SVOA: At the end of the meeting the secretary will put a notice on the board.
This types of adverbials are known as adjust.
The new order isA S V O O/C

This is an example of marked word order.
UNMARKED WORD ORDER Commentary

A: Have you decided what colour to paint the
kitchen? SVO
B: We’ve already painted the kitchen. We’ve SVOA
decided on white for now. We still can’t decide on
the colour for the living room.
We bought that car at least five years ago. We SVOA

only bought the other one last year.
I’ll go around the house last thing at night, and SVAA

check all the doors and windows are locked.
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MARKED WORD ORDER Commentary

A: Have you decided what colour to paint the B: OSV
kitchen? Connection with a previous part of the
B: The kitchen we’ve already painted. text/discourse
(We have decided on white for now. We still can’t
decide on the colour for the living room.
That car we bought at least five years ago. The OSVA

other one we only bought last year. Contrast
Last thing at night, I’ll go around the house and ASVA

check all the doors and windows are locked. Emphasis on routine action
The kitchen, I’ve already painted it. – “it” refers to kitchen and it’s an example of left dislocation.
The kitchen I’ve already painted. – it’s an example of fronting.
In left dislocation is only the object that can be moved at the end of the sentence. In fronting the object is
only one of the element of the sentence that we can move.
What reasons for disrupting the unmarked order of elements in English

DECLARATIVES?
1- Sentences do not occur in isolation but as a part of an ongoing text/discourse
2- The initial element often makes a connection with the sentence(s) before
3- It announces the starting point or topic for the sentence
Ways to disrupt the typical word order:

• Fronting
• Clefting
Marked word order: FRONTING

• Fronting + inversion:
Ex: The garage was on the right of the house

On the right of the house was(V) the garage(S)
• Fronting – inversion:
Ex: My mother had planted roses around the sides of the lawn
Around the sides of the lawn my mother (S) has planted (V) roses
FRONTING:
- Moving an element other than the subject to the front of the sentence
- The element that is fronted: adverbial, object, complement
TYPES OF FRONTING
• Adverbial fronting
1. Adverbials of place and movement (adjunct fronting)
2. Adverbials of manner ( In this case, there is NO INVERSION)
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3. Negative adverbs of frequency
• Object fronting
- Wh- question words
• Complement fronting
- Usually in exclamations: Fool that I was!
ADVERBIALS OF PLACE AND MOVEMENT: RULES OF FRONTING Always

inversion S/V when:
➢ The main verb is be
➢ The main verb is a verb of place: sit, stand, live, lie, etc.
➢ The main verb is a verb of movement: go, walk, run, swim, fly, etc.
No inversion when:
➢ The verb is transitive.
➢ A verb of place/movement is followed by an adverb of manner (slowly, happily, etc.).
➢ With verbs other than those of place and movement.
➢ The subject is a pronoun.
➢ With continuous tenses.
Examples:
1- A cat sat in the middle of the bed in the middle of the bed sat a cat: inversion
2- An old man sat quietly in the corner in the corner, an old man sat quietly: no inversion
3- There’s a small store room next to the kitchennext to the kitchen is a small store room: inversion
+ omission of there
NEGATIVE ADVERBS OF FREQUENCY: RULES OF FRONTING •

Quite common
• Can express surprise, disapproval, etc.
• Requires inversion
Ex: I’ve never seen such careless workNever have I seen such careless work
the subject and verb change position. Inversion
OBJECT FRONTING: QUESTION-WORD CLAUSES

• Quite common
• Can express emphasis
• No inversion
Ex: We don’t know when he leftwhen he left we don’t know.

the subject and verb don’t change position
Ex: I can’t understand why she didn’t tell us – why she didn’t tell us I cannot understand. the
subject and the verb don’t change position
MARKED WORD ORDER: CLEF-SENTENCES
Emphasis structures: cleft sentences

• Cleft means “divided”.
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• Information is divided into two clauses.

• The normal sentence pattern is changed to emphasize a part of the sentence.
• Often used in writing to replace the role of intonation for purpose of focus.
• Frequently used in speech and writing.
TWO MAJOR TYPES OF CLEFT:
1) IT-CLEFTS
The awful weather drives him crazy. (L’informazione più importante è “driveshimcrazy”).
It is the awful weather that drives him crazy.
Form
It + be + noun/adjective/adverb/ prepositional phrase + defin. relative clause
(that/who/where/when/why) Emphasis is on the word/phrase/clause (subject/object/adverb) after it + be
and before relative clause. 1- Emphasis on the subject
Ex: It was Mike who/that took Sally to the party on
Saturday 2- Emphasis on the object
Ex: It was Sally that Mike took to the party on
Saturday 3- Emphasis on the time adverbial
Ex: It was on Saturday when Mike took Sally to the
party 4- Emphasis on the adverb of
movement
Ex: It was the party where Mike took Sally on Saturday
5- Emphasis on the adverb of movement (whole prepositional phrase) Ex: It was to the
party that Mike took Sally on Saturday
2) WH-CLEFTS
Ex: You should write a letter to the manager.

What you should do is write a letter to the manager.
Ex: I need a good sleep.
What I need is a good sleep.
Form
What-clause + be + verb/noun phrase/clause
- Emphasis is on the phrase/clause after what-clause + be (emphasis on the action)
Ex: They were arguing about which train to take

What they were doing was arguing about which train to take
Ex: I can call for a taxi
What I can do is call for a taxi
Ex: I can’t stand getting up early
What I can’t stand (doing) is getting up early
WH-CLEFTS with ALL instead of WHAT
Form
ALL-clause + be + verb/noun phrase/clause
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Ex: I touched the bedside light and it broke

All I did was to touch the bedside light and it broke (emphasis on the
action) Ex: I want a new coat for Christmas
All I want for Christmas is a new coat (emphasis on the object)
OTHER WH-CLEFTS
• The reason why + subject + verb

• The thing that + subject + verb
• The place where + subject + verb+ be + verb phrase/noun phrase/clause
• The day when + subject + verb
• The person/people who + subject + verb
• The normal sentence pattern is changed to emphasize a part of the sentence
• Often used in writing to replace the role of intonation for purpose of focus/emphasis
• Frequently used in speech and writing
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MORFOSINTASSI INGLESE (PIOTTI, 2^ anno)

What does it mean to know a word?

• Pronunciation and spelling: how to pronounce and spell a word

TYPES OF MEANING(S)Ex. of words with different meanings:

BASIC SEMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS

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Change is a function of time: it takes time to spread around

PDE The parts a word can be composed of:

The network of meaning relations with other words

Ex: TAKE: verb that supports a lot of expressions and collocations

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2) A photograph 6) Someone prisoner

Where a word is used (VARIETY): words more popular in one variety:

CHANGE ACROSS SOCIAL GROUPS:

Scaricato da Max Bergia

How many English words do learners need to know?

There is an important thing to remember: KACHRU’S MODEL:

Which words first for learners of English?

• These words have to be added in terms in one’s field of specialisation;

RECEPTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE LEXICAL COMPETENCE

Different types of word knowledge develop at different times

Which criteria do you use to distinguish those words? 5 criteria:

[Supermarket / travel agency / forget-me-not / Runner-up / Jack-of-all-trades]

• Semantically: equally unified

1) Try out = test

• Syntactically: each can be moved as a single unit

THE TERM WORD

Finally, word may also refer to a morphosyntactic/grammatical word.

Grammatical word A LEXEME + associated grammatical meaning:

Scaricato da Max Bergia

I put the garbage out every week. (PUT + present

Words can fall into one of 2 quite different categories:

LEXICAL INNOVATIONS IN ENGLISH

THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY = LANGUAGE CHANGES How

LANGUAGE CHANGE (vocabulary):

• Blending (ex. Brexit, phablet, vlogger, etc.) – (amalgamare)

1B) New forms but no new meanings.

WORD FORMATION PROCESSES

Scaricato da Max Bergia

WORD ASSOCIATIONS (3 TYPES)

GREEN, SALT, REFLECT: Which words can be associated to those words?

1) PARADIGMATIC RELATIONS/ASSOCIATION = RELATION OF EXCLUSION

Implications for language learning?

1A) HYPONYMY (relation of inclusion or entailment)

Scaricato da Max Bergia

Scaricato da Max Bergia

If something is a hyponym, it is also a superordinate

Mosquito co-hyponym Horse Elephant

Mare (adult female) Stallion (adult male) Foal (young, female?male?)

1B) MERONYMY (a word denotes part of a whole)

MERONYMY a part-whole relationship

1) The biggest first, the smallest last (linear shape)

Tree Trunk Branches Twigs Leaves

2) More like a hierarchical relationship

Scaricato da Max Bergia

Scaricato da Max Bergia

Aisle Transept Chapel Steeple

3 DIFFERENT TYPES OF OPPOSITENESS