The Lexicon

1
The Lexicon

• Words How We Make Them and Use Them

2
Innovation

• New words must fill a lexical gap
• Can be filled by new word formation processes,
  borrowing, or calques
• New word processes
• Systematic and predictable processes

3
Combining Processes

• Use existing morphological resources to make new
  words
• Compoundingbinding of free morphemes
• Common in Germanic and other Indo-European
  languages
• Served poetic purposes in Old English (Beowulf)
• Compounds can also be relic forms cranberryor
  apparently single forms can develop from
  compounds
• Prefixingattaching a bound prefix to the front
  of a free form many are borrowed
• Suffixingattaching to the rear

4
Shortening Processes

• Create new words from existing word stock, often
  with an accompanied change in meaning
• Alphabetism- words formed from abbreviations, but
  still pronounced in letter form
• IOU, OK, URL, ATM
• Acronymyshortened phrases where the letters are
  pronounced as words (radar, sonar, scuba)

5
Shortening Processes, cont

• Clippingshortening, often at primary morpheme
  boundary (although not necessarily retaining the
  main morpheme)
• Foreclipped (beginning clipped off) busgtomnibus
• Hindclipped (end clipped off) cellgtcellular
• Innovative clippings disregard morphemic
  boundaries and clip instead at syllabic
  boundaries
• Backformationnew words created by removing an
  apparent or reanalyzed suffix burglegtburglar
  conversategtconversation

6
Other New Word Processes

• Blending attachment of a clipped morpheme to a
  free morpheme smog, motel (also called
  portmanteau words)
• Shifting functional shifts allow for words to
  change functional categories n. email gt v.
  email n. Facebook gt v. Facebook
• Taboo Deformation reversal of sounds at morpheme
  initial points to avoid taboos doggone gt goddamn

7
Borrowing

• English is a porous language
• Borrowings reflect linguistic history
• gt 500 AD borrowings from Latin, a few from Celtic
  (street, town)
• 500-1000 AD Latin, Scandinavian Languages
• 1000-1400 AD French, Scandinavian Languages
• 1400-1600 French, Italian, Dutch, Greek
• 1600-2000 All that and moreNative American,
  Russian, Aboriginal Austronesian, W. African

8
Word Categories and How We Use Them

• Lexical Categories (parts of speech) are the
  building blocks of syntax
• Open Lexical Classes Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs,
  Adverbs
• All can be described semantically (according to
  their frames of meaning), morphologically
  (according to their patterns of combination with
  other morphemes), and syntactically (how they
  appear in utterances)
• All open categories appear as the main component
  of a phrase named after them (Noun Phrase,
  Adjective Phrase, Verb Phrase, Adverbial Phrase)