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1、 构词法分析及其在英语教学中的应用THE ANALYSIS OF WORD FORMATION AND ITS APPLICATION IN ENGLISH TEACHING AND LEARNINGAbstract As for English learners, especially Chinese students, learning English is an extremely important task with the economic globalization and the rapid communication with the world. However, lear
2、ning English is difficult for us in some aspects, such as history, culture, grammar, especially lexicon. The study of word building is clearly in the area of vocabulary development. Although the enlargement of vocabulary depends on many aspects such as historical, cultural, and social factors, one o
3、f the best ways to enlarge our vocabulary is to analyze and understand how words are formed. That is to say, the more effective way to facilitate the development of English vocabulary is word formation. This paper quotes a number of examples, and demonstrates the use of prefixes and suffixes and for
4、mation of compound words. It also discusses some of the problems the students have encountered in their study of English word building and offers some possible solutions, and proves the great influence of word formation on English teaching and learning. Key Words: word formation, word, morpheme, aff
5、ix摘要 随着经济全球化，世界交流日益频繁，对于英语学习者来说，特别是中国学习者，英语学习已经成为一件非常重要的任务。然而在很多方面英语学习都很困难，比方说在历史方面，文化方面，语法方面，特别是在词汇方面。对英语词汇的研究在很大程度上可以帮助词汇量的提高。尽管词汇量的提高依赖于历史、文化、社会等很多因素，但最有效的扩大词汇量的方法是构词法。通过学习和分析词是如何构成的，对词的学习很有帮助。也就是说，构词法是促进词汇扩大的一个更有效的方法。本文列出了很多例子，来说明如何用前缀和后缀的方法来构词，以及复合词的构词法。讨论了学习者在英语词汇学习中遇到的困难及可能的解决方法，并证明了构词法在英语教学中
6、具有深刻的影响。关键词：构词法，词，语素，词缀Table of Contents 1. Introduction12.1 The main definitions of words22.2 The main classification of words33. Morphemes in word formation43.1 The influential factors in word formation43.2 The definition of morpheme43.3 The classification of morpheme43.3.1 Free morphemes43.3.2 Bo
7、und morphemes53.3.3 Root, stem, and affix53.3.3.1 Root53.3.3.2 Stem63.3.3.3 Affix63.3.3.4 Inflectional affixes and derivational affixes63.3.3.4.1 Prefixes73.3.3.4.2 Suffixes93.3.3.4.3 The identification of inflection and derivation114.1 Definition of compounds124.2 Word formation of compounds124.3 T
8、he written way of compounds134.4 Points of compounds135.1 Invention155.2 Blending155.3 Abbreviation165.4 Acronym175.5 The other methods of word formation176. The influence of phonetics of word formation187. The application of word formation in English teaching and learning218. Conclusion25Bibliograp
9、hy26Acknowledgements271. Introduction A great number of people are learning English recent years. However, learning English is not an easy work. During the process of learning English, people face many problems. The traditional culture is different from that of English-speaking countries. In English
10、 there are a lot of slangs and idioms which are the obstacles to learning English. The other big block is the vocabulary. As we all know, there are some rules in forming Chinese characters. For instance, some characters we dont know them before, but when we see it we can guess the pronunciation and
11、the meaning, because Chinese character is formed by several parts except some simple characters which can not be further divided into smaller components. Each part has its own meaning and pronunciation, so we can guess the whole meaning of the character from each part of it. Above all, there are man
12、y rules in studying Chinese characters, which help us remember more characters. It is also true in studying English, especially in learning English vocabulary? Words play an essential role in learning English. Words like the fundation of a house. Only if we study words well can we learn English well
13、. Many professors and researchers devoted themselves to the word formation and left many useful methods for learning words. This can help English learners learn words in a more effective way. Though we human beings have showed interest in word formation for thousands of years, there still remain man
14、y open issues “in this most secret area of language study” (Bauer 1983: 293). Recent years, more and more researchers are studying how to study English in an effective way. Some research the influence of culture. Some research the difference of grammar between Chinese and English. Some others would
15、like to study the influence of word formation in the process of English learning. This paper centers on the study of word formation. At present, the main branches of word formation studied include inflection, derivation, compounds, invention, blending, abbreviation, acronym, back-formation, analogic
16、al creation, and borrowing and phonetic was also found influence the formation of words.2. The definition and classification of words2.1 The main definitions of words When we learn words, we must know what is word, the main classification of words, and how words are formed. What is word? This questi
17、on has been discussed for ages and numerous definitions have been suggested, but there is not a very clear and perfect definition of the words. However, when we talk about a word we can recognize it from the following aspects: Firstly, we can see it from the visual terms. In this line a word can be
18、defined as a meaningful group of letters printed or written horizontally across a piece of paper. Secondly, we can recognize a word from the terms of spoken language, a word is viewed as a sound or combination of sounds which are made voluntarily with human vocal equipment. Human vocal organs can he
19、lp us make sounds, and sounds can form words. Thirdly, according to semanticists, a word is a unit of meaning. At last we can recognize it on the grammatical level, that is a word should be a free form that can function in a sentence. To sum up, the definition of a word comprises the following point
20、s: A minimal free form of a language; A sound unit A unit of meaning A form that can function alone in a sentence According to Linguistics A Course Book (Hu, 2006), “a word is a unit of expression that native speakers may recognize by intuition, whether it is expressed in spoken or written form”. Th
21、is definition is perhaps a bit unclear, because different criteria may identify and define different phenomena. Therefore, it is hard for us to define “word” scientifically. However, it is agreed that there are three ways of defining word, even though these three definition cannot cover everything.
22、Firstly, word is a physically definable unit, that means word may be seen as a set of sound segments or writing letters between two pauses or blanks. Secondly, Word both as a general term and as a specific term. At last, word is a grammatical unit. The following three methods can help us identify a
23、word: One is that words are the most stable of all linguistic unit, in respect of their internal structure. That means it is hard for us to rearrange the internal structure of a complex word into a different order. Next is words are relative uninterruptibility. We mean that a new element can not be
24、inserted into a word, even when there are several parts of the word. The last is word is a minimum free form. This was first suggested by Bloomfield (1993). He advocated that sentence should be treated as the maximum free form, and word is the minimum free form. Above all, it is difficult to define
25、word, but we can easily identify a word by many methods as the above.2.2 The main classification of words Words include closed-class words and open-class words. Closed-class words refer to whose membership is fixed or limited (Hu, 2006). To take examples as follows: Preposition (like in on under beh
26、ind at of after between off with as by over below about without etc.), Pronouns (like you I he she me us him her my his her they them their that these those it etc.),Conjunctions (like and but while so unless etc.), Articles (like a an the etc.), Auxiliaries and numbers are the closed-class words as
27、 well as. These words can also be understood as that they are finite and difficult to be changed. However, the open-class words are one whose membership is principle infinite or unlimited (Hu, 2006:59). Such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and many adverbs are all open-class items. When new ideas, inven
28、tions or discoveries emerge, the new parts may be added to the lexicon, and the old parts of the words may disappear to make a new word. Above all, after learning the classification of words we know that some words in English are invariable and the number of them is stable, so we can learn such word
29、s by rote to remember them. Because there are no obvious rules for closed-class words in word formation, but we can remember these words with sentences. The number of these words is small and stable, so it is easy for us to learn them. However, as for the open-class words, we should find some method
30、s to learn them. Words can be simple and complex. There are simple words as book, form, place, even A etc. There are also many complex words which may be formed by several parts, such as indifferent, misfortune, uninterruptibility, and chairman etc. We can resort to word-formation to analyse these c
31、omplex words.3.Morphemes in word formation3.1 The influential factors in word formation Word formation in its restricted sense, refers to the process of how words are formed. The expansion of vocabulary in modern English depends chiefly on word-formation. English evolved from the old English (450-11
32、50) to the middle English (1150-1500) to now the modern English (1500-up to now) (Zhang, 1997). It has undergone more than one thousand years. Today modern English originated from many aspects, among which word formation plays an essential role in forming words, and morpheme takes a decisive positio
33、n on word formation Every word is formed by morphemes; morpheme is the basic part of a word. If we are going to study word formation, we must know clearly about morphemes, including its definition and classification.3.2 The definition of morpheme When talk about words, we should refer to morpheme. I
34、t seems to be generally agreed that a word is the smallest unit which can stand alone to communicate. However, word is not the smallest unit in the structure, because many words can be further divided into more than two parts, antidisestablishmentarianism for an example. This word can be divided int
35、o anti-, -dis-, -establish-, -ment-, -arian-, -ism-, each of them having its own meaning, and these fragments cannot be further divided, otherwise they would make nonsense. These fragments are morphemes. Morpheme is the smallest unit of language in terms of the relationship between expression and co
36、ntent, a unit that cannot be divided into further smaller units without destroying or drastically altering the meaning, whether it is lexical or grammatical (Hu, 2006:61). In other words, the morpheme is the smallest functional unit in the composition of words. Morphemes can form new words with othe
37、r words. 3.3 The classification of morpheme Before studying word formation we should know the types of morphemes. There are different ways of classifying morphemes. 3.3.1 Free morphemes The well known method is to group them into free morphemes and bound morphemes: Free morphemes are those that may
38、occur alone, and can make up words by themselves, which are independent of other morphemes. These morphemes have complete meanings in themselves and can be used as free grammatical units in sentences. For example, apple, people, food and so on. Such words are also called mono-morphemic words. All mo
39、no-morphemic words are free morphemes. There are also poly-morphemes which are also called compounds. These words consist wholly of free morphemes, such as chairman，and so on. 3.3.2 Bound morphemes Morphemes which can not occur as separate words are bound (Zhang, 1997). They are so named because the
40、y are bound to other morphemes to form words. Bound morphemes are chiefly found in derived words. They must appear with at least another morpheme, such as ly, a-, ir-, re-, -al, -ed. In the word friendly, -ly is a bound morpheme and it can not exist alone. Words consist wholly of free morphemes are
41、poly-morphemic. 3.3.3 Root, stem, and affix Poly-morphemic includes the morphemic which may be divided into roots and affixes and compounds. As illustrated by the example of impossible, which can be broken down into im- and possible, among them im- is the prefix which means negative and denial. Poss
42、ible is the stem of impossible.3.3.3.1 Root Improving your English vocabulary skills by working out vocabulary is based on root forms of various words. Root is a basic form of a word which cannot be further analysed without total loss of identity (Crystal, 1985). Root has two types of free root and
43、bound root. Free root morphemes are those that can stand by themselves and are the base forms of words, such as black in blackbird, blackboard, blacksmith. Bound root has to be combined with other morphemes to make words, take -dict- for an example. It is not a word in its own right, but it can form
44、 quite a number words. For example, with the prefix contra- and pre- we can obtain words contradict and predict; with suffix,-ion, we form contradiction; with the suffix -or, we form contradictor. Apart from these dictum, dictate, dictation, dictator, diction, dictionary are all derived from the roo
45、t -dict-. In English bound roots is either Latin or Greek. Although they are limited in number, their productive power is amazing. They give birth to thousands of derived words in modern English. 3.3.3.2 Stem Stem is any morphemes or combination of morphemes to which an inflectional affix can be add
46、ed. For example, develop- in the word development, sing- in the word singing, -sleep in the word asleep is the stems. There is a long word counterdisestablishmentarian. In this word, the stems can be -establish-, -disestablish-, -counterdiseatablish-, - establishment-, -disestablishment-, establishm
47、entarian-. That is to say, root is the only one part of the word, but stem can be more than one part of the word.3.3.3.3 Affix Affix is a collective term for type of morpheme that can be used only when added to another morpheme, so affix is naturally bound (Hu, 2006). Affix includes prefix, infix an
48、d suffix depending on the position around the root or stem of a word. It is very similar to compound are formations where one of the elements is a whole word and the other is not, as in agriculture, biotechnology, Eurodollar, technophobia, and workaholic. Most formations of this kind involve additional elements called affixes, which in English are of two types: prefixes, occurring before the stem of a word, and suffixes, occurring after. English does not have affixes in
