TEST IN ENGLISH LEXICOLOGY October 2009

1. What is lexicology in comparison to lexicography?

LEXICOGRAPHY: is the writing or compiling of dictionaries. Lexicology and lexicography have the same
object of study- the vocabulary of a language. Lexicography is concerned with formal, functional, and
semantic description of the words which constitute the explicit lexicon of a particular language.
LEXICOLOGY- is a branch of linguistics which studies words, word-forming morphemes and word-groups.
2. Say if the following words are simple or complex. State the number of morphemes of which the
words consist: rejoice, relational, reject, rewarding
Simple rejoice, reject
Complex relational, rewarding
2 morphemes relational, rewarding,
1 morpheme rejoice, reject

3. Divide the words intimate (v.), and irrevocable into syllables and morphemes.
Syllables in-tim-ate; ir-rev-oc-ab-le
Morphemes intimate, ir-revoc-able

4. What do we mean by motivation in word-formation?

Newly created words are motivated by other productive words the new word was created from. Such
words are transparent and it is easy to make out what the motive words were. If a word is demotivated, its
meaning is not related to the words it was made from. Such words are opaque.

5. State the word-formation pattern of the nonce word now-ish (adj.)

It is a nonce word it was coined for a particular purpose, but it also expresses a non-creativity pattern,
since it follows the pattern of other -ish adjectives (whitish, girlish)

6. Give four examples of euphemisms belonging to English medical jargon

they're no longer with us
the deceased
defecate
urinate

7. Give two sets of words identical in their conceptual meaning and different in style4
Smart intelligent,
dead - deceased
a bad luck - misfortune
commence - start
terminate - end
endeavour - try

8. Identify semantic marker shared by the following words: landscape gardener, manager, producerdirector, managing director
profession

9. Analyze Serbian nonce word cooltura from the point of view of word formation and assimilation of
anglicisms.

word-formation - derivation: English adjective cool (semantically, morphologically, phonologically

unassimilated) + Serbian suffix -tura = cooltura unassimilated on all three levels - morphological, semantic
and phonetical

10. The word submarine (a type of a sandwich, a long bread roll split open along its length and filled with
various types of food) illustrates the use of metaphor_ as a figure of speech, in word formation.

11. The emoticon :P (meaning a kiss) illustrates the use of metonymy ______________ as a figure of
speech in word formation.

12. Apply immediate constituent analysis to the following examples: misunderstanding, deep-rooted
Misunderstanding:
Immediate: mis-, understanding, understand, -ing
Ultimate: mis-, understand, -ing

Deep-rooted
Immediate: deep, rooted, root, -ed
Ultimate: deep, root, -ed

13. The words pushpin and drawing pin mean the same but they belong to different regional varieties of
English. Say which.
Pushpin ame
Drawing pin bre

14. Provide four examples of clich similes in English

As Hot as hell
as Cold as ice
as Snug as a bug in a rug
as Cute as a button
as Tall like a tree
As blind as a bat
As alike as two peas in a pod
As deaf as a post
As good as gold

15. Provide two examples of English words produced by syncope.

Maths, maam, flowed, levelld

16. What do we mean by nonsense in morphology? Illustrate

Nonsense refers to words, speech or written that do not mean anything and do not make sense; apart from meaning
'meaningless' it also means 'something foolish and stupid'. Nonsense also means 'poetry or writing that is specially
written to be amusing without meaning anything or making sense'.

Gimble, gyre, mimsy, mome, rath

17. The word guesstimate is the output word of the word formation process of _blending_________. State
the input speech material. Guess + estimate

18. Provide a list of four paratactic compounds.

carrier-pigeon, fighter-bomber, boy-friend, Anglo-Saxon.
producer-director, bed-sitter (bedroom+ sitting room), Afro-Asian.

19. Language variants that are geographical region-dependant are referred to as _regional
dialects_________.

20. The English language has borrowed many Scots words over the years. Name one common English
word which is Scot (other than slogan).
Blackmail, bonspiel, firth, glamour, laddie, scone
21. Explain and illustrate the principle of language economy in word formation
People tend to use shorter forms instead of the longer ones because they want to express as much as they can in
short period of time. That is the reason for forming new words via process of blending or clipping.
simulcast (simultaneous + broadcast) smog (smoke + fog) ginormous (giant + enormous) sport (spoon + fork) internet
(international + network) because (by + cause) emoticon (emotion + icon) spanglish (spanish + english) smassy
(smart + sassy) cyborg (cybernetic + organism) malware (malicious + software) pixel (picture + element)
net - internet bot - robot
maths - mathematcs

22. Illustrate the use of ellipsis in word formation.

ELLIPSIS- is defined as the omission of a word or words considered essential for grammatical completeness. Ellipsis
is morphology is the omission of a part of a word or parts of words or phrases. Ellipsis may result in a change of
lexical and grammatical meaning and the new word belongs to a different part of speech (daily paper-daily;
daljinskiupravljac- daljinski; mobilnitelefon-mobilni Various other processes are often interwoven with ellipsis.
Regulars regular customers, roast roast beef,

23. The three stages in the development of the English language are: Old English, spoken from _the
Germanic invasions______ to ____the end of the 11th century_____, Middle English spoken from ___c
1150___ to __c 1475_____, and Modern English from __15 th century___ up to the present.

24. List four books on English word-formation

Bauer, L. (1983) English Word-Formation, Cambridge: Cambridge university Press
Adams, V. (1973) An Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation, London: Longman

Arnold, I. V. (1973) The English Word, Moskva: Visaja skola

Marchand H. (1969) Categories and Types of Present-Day English Word-Formation, Munchen: C.H. Beck'sche
Verlagsbuchhandlung

25. Analyze the following dictionary definition in terms of category features, property features, and
function features: scaremonger n. a person who spreads stories deliberately to make people frightened or
nervous

Category a person
Property deliberately
Function spreads stories to make people frightened or nervous