WORD, SENTENCES AND DICTIONARIES
Word is a single unit
of language that can be written and spoken and also has a meaning.
Sentence is a group of
words or set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a
subject and predicate.
Dictionary is a book
that lists the words of a language in alphabetical order and gives their
meaning, or that gives the equivalent words in different language.
Words
as Meaningful Building-Blocks of Language
We think of words as
the basic units of language. When a baby begins to speak, the way the excited
mother reports what has happened is: ‘Sally (or Tommy) has said her (or his)
first word!’ We would be surprised at a mother who described little Tommy’s or
Sally’s first utterance as a sentence. Sentences come later, we are inclined to
feel, when words are strung together meaningfully. That is not to say that a
sentence must always consist of more than one word. One-word commands such as ‘Go!’
or ‘Sit!’, although they crop up relatively seldom in everyday conversation or
reading, are not in any way odd or un-English. Nevertheless, learning to talk
in early childhood seems to be a matter of putting words together, not of
taking sentences apart.
Words as meaningful
building-blocks of language means that a word can be describe a sentence that
has varieties meaning. We can say only one word but the meaning of that word
can describe a sentence. We often think that a sentence must always consist of
more than word. We think of words as the basic units of language, but in fact
that is not to say that a sentence must always consist of more than one word. There
is a clear sense, then, in which words seem to be the building blocks of
language. Even as adults, there are quite a few circumstances in which we use
single words outside the context of any actual or reconstruct able sentence. One
word commands such as “Go”, or “sit”,
although they crop relatively seldom in everyday conversation However, it is
the fact that we sometime use a word to express warning shout, conversational
commands item on shopping list.
Example
·
warning shouts, such as ‘Fire!’
·
conventional commands, such as
‘Lights!’, Camera!’, ‘Action!’
·
items on shopping lists, such as
‘carrots’, ‘cheese’, ‘eggs’.
It is clear also that
words on their own, outside sentences, can be sorted and classified in various
ways. But the kind of conventional classification that we are likely to refer
to most often is a dictionary, in which words are listed according to their spelling
in alphabetical order. Given that English spelling is so erratic, a common
reason for looking up a word in an English dictionary is to check how to spell
it. But another very common reason is to check what it means. Here, for
example, is a specimen dictionary entry for the word month, based on the entry
given in the
Concise Oxford
Dictionary (6th edition): month noun. Any of twelve portions into which the
year is divided. It seems, then, that a word is not just a building-block of
sentences: it is a building-block with a meaning that is unpredictable, or at
least sufficiently unpredictable that learners of English, and even sometimes native
speakers, may need to consult a dictionary in order to discover it.We may be
tempted to think that this constitutes everything that needs to be said about
words: they are units of language which are basic in two senses, both
1. in that they have
meanings that are unpredictable and so must be listed in dictionaries and
2. in that they are the
building-blocks out of which phrases and sentences are formed.
Word are known as the
basic units of meaningful building blocks of language, possessing to 2
characteristics :
1.
Unpredictable meaning : in that they
have meanings that are unpredictable and so must be listed in dictionaries.
2.
Building block (in phrases/sentences ) :
in that they are the building blocks out of which phrases and sentences are
formed.
Words
as types and word as tokens
Token having a
reference of individual occurrence of type of the words. Token is a number of
word or single type, if you want to know how many token in one sentence, you
must count all word although there are the same word in one sentence. For
example “I love you more than I love him” in here there are 8 words so the
tokens are 8.
Type is a number of
word also but not all word is a type, when there are more than one the same
word we only count one. For example “I love you more than I love him”, in this
sentences there are 2 “I”, we only count it one, well in this sentence there
are 7 type.
The other example:
Space time space time time time
The question may be
asked, how many words are in that line? The answer will either be six, if one
is referring to individual words, or tokens, or two if one is referring to
types of word. Specifically, there are two types of word in that sentence
“Space”, “Time”, there are two tokens of the types “space” and four tokens of
the types “time”.
Word
with predictable meanings
Sometimes,
word has meaning that is predictable. That is meanings that can be worked out
on the basic of the sound and make them up. It is true there are some words
whose sound seem to reflect their meaning fairly directly. These include
so-called onomatopoeic words, Onomatopoeic word are some word whose sound seems to reflect their meaning fairly
directly, Onomatopoeic words are not the same in all
languages; for example, a cock-crow in German is such as words for animals
cries bow-bow, kikeriki, and a dog’s bark in French is ouah ouah (pronounced
roughly ‘wah wah’). miaow,cheep, the ticking of clock, in English “tick tock”.
There
are also sets of words in which some similarity in sound o reflect a similarity
in meaning. Sound symbolism is the idea that vocal sound or phonemes carry
meaning in and of themselves. Example Gl-words: glow, gleam, glory, glitter,
glance and glimpse, all that word has same first two letter make them has the
same meaning. The other example is smoothness or wetness or both, in the set of
words slip, slop, slurp, slide, slither, sleek, slick, slaver, slug. A
technical term for this situation is sound symbolism. But in sound symbolism,
quite apart from the role of convention, the sound–meaning relationship is even
less direct than in onomatopoeia. The fact that a word begins with sl- does not
guarantee that it has anything to do with smoothness or wetness (consider
slave, slit, slow), and conversely there are many words that relate to
smoothness and wetness but do not begin with sl-.
What kinds of word do have predictable
meanings, then? The answer is: any words that are composed of independently
identifiable parts, where the meaning of the parts is sufficient to determine
the meaning of the whole word. Here is an example. Most readers of this book
have probably never encountered the word dioecious (also spelled diecious), a botanical
term meaning ‘having male and female flowers on separate plants’. (It contrasts
with monoecious, meaning ‘having male and female flowers, or unisexual flowers,
on the same plant’.) If you had been asked the meaning of the word dioecious
before today, you would probably have had to look it up in the dictionary.
Non-words
with unpredictable meaning
Non – word with
unpredictable meaning is that is, something that is clearly larger than a word
(being composed of two or more words) may nevertheless have a meaning that is
not entirely predictable from the meanings of the words that compose it. It is
possible for a linguistic item to be a basic building block of syntax. The item
is clearly not itself a sentence or phrase and yet to have a meaning that is
predictable. (syntax is the study of the
description of the classes of word)
Example :
1. People
who do not finish a job really make me angry.
2. People
who do not finish the job really make me see red.
So, although “see red”
consists of two words, it functions as a single unit semantically and its
meaning is not predictable from that of these two words individually. In
technical terms, “see red” is a idiom. Even though it is not a word, it will
appear in any dictionary that take seriously the task listing semantic
idiosyncrasies, probably under the headword “red”.
Idioms are enormously
various in length, structure and function. “See red” behaves rather like an
adjective. Many idioms behave more like nouns. For example:
(3) Vaccinations are an
unavoidable matter if you want to travel.
(4) Vaccinations are a
necessary evil if you want to travel.
“necessary evil” in
sentence (4) means something you do not like but which you accept. Therefore,
(3) and (4) are the same.
In most of the idioms
that we have looked at so far, all the individual words (red, necessary, evil)
have a literal or non-idiomatic meaning in other contexts. However, there are
also words that never occur except in an idiomatic context.
For example :
-
I like everything about summer – the
light, the warmth, the clothes-the whole caboodle.
The word “caboodle” (everything) and it is the whole
phrase which deserves to be lexically listed, as an idioms.
Akin to idioms, but distinguishable from them , are
phrase in which individual words have collocationally restricted meanings. For
example:
-
Blue baby : a baby born with slightly
blue skin, usually because it has something wrong with its heart.
-
Blue – blooded : describes someone who
has been born into a family which belongs to the highest social class.
-
Blue – collar : describes people who do
work needing strength or physical skill rather than office work.
= These phrase may count as
idiomatic because the meaning that “blue” has in them not its usual meaning.
If a typical idiom is a phrase, than a word with a collocationally
restricted meaning is smaller than a typical idiom. That provokes the question
whether there are linguistic items with unpredictable meanings that are larger
than phrase – specifically, that constitute whole sentences. The answer is yes
: many proverbs fall into this category. A proverb is a traditional saying,
syntactically a sentence, whose conventional interpretation differs from what
is suggested by the literal meaning of the words it contains.
Example :
-
“Two wrongs don’t make a right” : When
someone has done something bad to you, trying to get revenge will only make
things worse.
-
The pen is mightier than the sword :
Trying to convince people with ideas and words is more effective than trying to
force people to do what you want.
-
“No man is an island” : You can’t live
completely independently. Everyone needs help from other people.
Conclusion
: Words versus lexical items
A lexical item (or
lexical unit/ LU, lexical entry) is a single word, a part of a word, or a chain
of words (= catena) that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon (≈
vocabulary). Examples are cat, traffic light, take care of, by the way, and
it's raining cats and dogs. Lexical items can be generally understood to convey
a single meaning, much as a lexeme, but are not limited to single words.
Lexical items are like semes in that they are "natural units"
translating between languages, or in learning a new language. In this last
sense, it is sometimes said that language consists of grammaticalized lexis, and
not lexicalized grammar
Word have 2 characteristics :
1. They
have meaning that are unpredictable and so must be listed in dictionaries
(lexical item)
2. They
are building-blocks for and word phrases.
Although this may be
broadly true, the two characteristic do not always go together. Many words have
meanings that are predictable, there is nevertheless a tendency for these
meaning to lose motivation overtime. Many of the lexical items that are phrases
or sentences have meanings which can be seen as metaphorical extensions of
literal meaning, so do that extant interpretation remains motivated. But the
two characteristics do not always go together. It will be helpful to have
district terms for items with each of the two characteristic.
1. Lexical
item for items with characteristic1.
-
Words have unpredictable meaning
2. Word
for items with characteristic 2.
-
They are the building-blocks for words
and phrases.
QUESTIONS
1. What
is word as meaningful building-block of language?
2. Give
an example word as meaningful building-block and explain it!
3. What
is word as a token?
4. What
is word as a type ?
5. How
many token and type in this sentence “I go to school when my father go to my
sister’s school”?
6. What
is word as predictable meaning? Please explain!
7. What
is onomatopoeic words?
8. Gives
example of onomatopoeic words!
9. What
is non-word as unpredictable meaning?
10. What
the meaning of lexical item?
ANSWERS
1. Words
as meaningful building-blocks of language means that a word can be describe a
sentence that has varieties meaning. We can say only one word but the meaning
of that word can describe a sentence. We often think that a sentence must
always consist of more than word. We think of words as the basic units of
language, but in fact that is not to say that a sentence must always consist of
more than one word. There is a clear sense, then, in which words seem to be the
building blocks of language.
2. for
example “action” in the term of making movie it must be the actor and actress
can start their acting activities or next scene.
3. Token
is a number of word or single type, if you want to know how many token in one
sentence, you must count all word although there are the same word in one
sentence. For example “I love you more than I love him” in here there are 8
words so the tokens are 8.
4. Type
is a number of word also but not all word is a type, when there are more than
one the same word we only count one. For example “I love you more than I love
him”, in this sentences there are 2 “I”, we only count it one, well in this
sentence there are 7 type.
5. The
tokens are 12, and the type are 9.
6. Sometimes,
word has meaning that is predictable. That is meanings that can be worked out
on the basic of the sound and make them up, that we usually call it
onomatopoeic word.
7. Onomatopoeic
word are some word whose sound seems to
reflect their meaning fairly directly.
8. For
example : words for animal cries; “miaow”, cheep, or the ticking of clock ;
“tick tock“
9.
something that
is clearly larger than a word (being composed of two or more words) may
nevertheless have a meaning that is not entirely predictable from the meanings
of the words that compose it.
10. A lexical item (or
lexical unit/ LU, lexical entry) is a single word, a part of a word, or a chain
of words (= catena) that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon (≈
vocabulary). Examples are cat, traffic light, take care of, by the way, and
it's raining cats and dogs. Lexical items can be generally understood to convey
a single meaning, much as a lexeme, but are not limited to single words
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