The sound of English

The pronunciation of English is regarded by many learners as the hardest aspect

to master. This is due to the complex nature of the phonological system of
English, but it is also due to structural differences between the sound system of
English and Italian.
What we have is a variety of accents used throughout the English-speaking
world. There are two types of English accents: native accents and non-native
accents. Native accents include all those accents that are found in regions such
as the united states, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Great Britain. Included
in this category, are also regional accents that we find in Scotland, Wales, and
Northern Ireland. Non-native accents include the accents of people speaking
English who live in regions like India, Nigeria, Hong Kong, and many other areas.
Now the largest variety of regional accents is found in the countries that form the
UK. So, we find the largest variety of regional accents in the British Isles.
Variation is less marked in countries like the United States or Australia, Canada,
and NZ, in NZ because are linguistically younger, they were colonies.
In countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Kenya or Nigeria, they used English as a
second language and they are found in those part of the world where English was
first introduced as a colonial language and was then retained for communication
in official contexts for example it is used by the government, by administration,
higher education and also local media.
Finally, we have another group of accents, which can be referred to as foreign
accents. These include the pronunciation of English of EFL speakers, meaning
“English as a foreign language”; so those countries where English was not
introduced as a colonial language, but is a language that is adopted as the
language of international communication. This is the case with European
countries where English is studied at school. English is used as the language of
communication in International Lingua Franca. These include countries such as
the Scandinavian countries, where English is spoken at a very advanced level.
One of the problems in dealing with English pronunciation is that it is one of the
most variable aspects of the language. The best described varieties are the
British and the American variety.
There are two related pronunciation standards, so each variety has its own
pronunciation standard. In the case of British English, the pronunciation standard
is called Received Pronunciation (RP). This pronunciation standard is also called
BBC English or the Queen’s English. Received pronunciation is described as an
accent of spoken English, which unlike other UK accents, it’s not identified with a
particular region, but it is associated with a particular social group, although it has
connections with the accents of southern England.
The other pronunciation standard which is related to American English is called
General American, which is also known as “standard American English” (SAE).
The American accent is most often heard on international radio and television
networks, also called Network English.
Phonetics and phonology
Phonetics is the science that studies the physical characteristics of speech
sounds, it is the branch of linguistics which studies how speech sounds are
produced and received. Whereas phonology is the science that studies the sound
system of a particular human language. So, it focuses on the sounds that have a
functional and distinctive role in a language, which we call phonemes, and it also
studies the way sounds may combine.
A phoneme is described as a distinctive sound in a language capable of creating
a distinction in meaning between two words.
Dog and log are referred to as a minimal pair because they are made up of the
same phonemes, except one. In this case, the first consonant changes.
A grapheme is a letter of the alphabet. In many cases, graphemes and
phonemes share the same symbol, and this is one of the reasons why English
spelling and English pronunciation sometimes overlap. E.g. <t> and /t/.
In many other cases, there is no one to one correspondence between graphemes
and phonemes. E.g. the graphemes <c> represents the phonemes /k/ in “cut”, the
phonemes /s/ in “nice”, and the phoneme /ʃ/ in “ocean”.
The silent graphemes are not pronounced in certain words. This happens for
example in the word “castle”, where the <t> is not audible and it is not
represented in the phonetic transcription. Also “knife”, “half”, “write” and “bomb”.
In “write” we do not pronounce the <w>.
The several conventions that are used in representing words and the way they
are pronounced.
Phoneme symbols are enclosed by slant brackets (/ /). While phonetic
transcriptions are enclosed in square brackets ([ ]). Graphemes are enclosed in
angle brackets (< >).
In order to represent sounds, we use the IPA, which is the international phonetic
alphabets. The IPA is a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken
language. It provides one letter for each distinctive sound or phoneme.
The IPA symbols include not only consonant and vowel, but also diacritics,
which are used to indicate the different pronunciation of the same phoneme in
different contexts.
Suprasegmentals are those symbols that are used to indicate length, stress,
intonation and tone.
Allophones are the different realizations of the same phoneme in different
contexts. Special symbols are used to represent the different realization in
different pronunciations of this phoneme depending on the sound that follows the
letter.
In “set”, “top”, “train” the /t/ is pronounced in different ways.
The /l/ can be clear or dark, depending on the sound that follows it.
F.g. “lip” is clear because it is accompanied by front resonance. So /l/ is
followed by a front vowel.
We have a dark /l/ if it is accompanied by back resonance. F.g. “hill” or “milk”.
Allophonic variation is responsible for differences in accents.

Vowels, diphthongs, and consonants

In English there are 43 phonemes, 11 vowels, 8 diphthongs and 24 consonants.
English consonants can be oral, when the air escapes through the mouth, or
nasal, when the air escapes through the nose.
English consonants can be voiceless or voiced. They are voiceless when there is
no vibration of the vocal cords; they are voiced when the vocal cords vibrate.
Consonants can be described according to three parameters:
The place of articulation, which refers to the part of the oral cavity where the
sound is produced.
The manner of articulation, which refers to how the speech organs are involved in
making a sound make contact.
The voicing has to do with the vibration of the vocal folds of the larynx and we
distinguish voiced and voiceless consonants, depending on where there is a
vibration.
Difference between English and Italian
In English /t/ and /d/ are plosive alveolar, whereas they are plosive dental in
Italian
Plosives consonants
Plosives are consonants that are produced by stopping the air flow. It is a large
group which includes the group of bilabial consonants, which are produced by
both lips.
It includes the sound /p/ as in “pub” and the sound /b/ as in “book”; they can be
voiceless as in pub or voiced as in book.
Then we have the group of alveolar consonants, which are consonants
articulated with the tip of the tongue placed near the alveolar ridge, which is the
area behind teeth. We have /t/ as in “table” and /d/ as in “dog”.
Finally, we have the group of velar consonants which are articulated by the
tongue touching the velum. We have the sound /k/ as in “car” or “kick” and the
voiced velar /g/ as in “go”.
Among the consonants, we have a small group of nasals. In nasal, the air
escapes through the nose. The nasal consonants include /m/ as in “make”, /n/ as
in “name” or “know”, /ᶯ/ as is “bring” or “going”.
There are differences between English and Italian in the way consonance are
articulated.
There are differences in terms of place of articulation: /t/ and /d/ are dental in
Italian because the tongue is pressed against the teeth, whereas they are
alveolar in English because the tongue is pressed against the alveolar ridge.
These two sounds are also subject to different realisation: in English voiceless
plosives are aspirated when they occur in initial position as in “put”, “ten” and
“cat”. In Italian this is never the case.
The group of fricatives are sounds produced by obstructing the airstream so that
it is forced through a small passage resulting in friction.
Fricatives can be subdivided into different subgroups:
Labiodental consonants include the sound /v/ as in “love” or “vehicle”, and /f/ as
in “for” “cough” and “photograph”. In labiodental the teeth get into contact with the
lips in producing these sounds.
Alveolar consonants include the sound /s/ as in “rice” or “house” and the sound
/z/ as in “zoo” or “houses”.
Post-alveolar include the sound /ʃ/ as in “shop” or “sugar”. We have difference
graphemes producing the same sound. There is also the sound /ʒ/ as in
“pleasure”, “usual” or “vision”.
Interdental fricatives include the sound /θ/ as in “thick” or “path”, and the sound
/ð/ as in “mother” or “this”.
Glottal fricatives include the sound /h/ as in “hear” or “hotel”.
Italian and English fricatives
There are differences in terms of place of articulation: English produces 4
fricatives unknown to Italian, such as the sound /ʒ/, the glottal /h/ and the two
dental /θ/ and /ð/.
Then we have differences in terms of phonetic realisation: in Italian the sound /s/
is realised as voiceless before vowels (sala) and voiceless consonants (storia),
but it is realised as voiced before voiced consonants (sbaglio) and between
vowels (rosa).
In English, /s/ is always realised as voiceless, even before voiced consonants, as
in “snake” and “sleep”.
Affricates
Affricates are single independent phonemes composed of a plosive + a fricative
produced with the same articulators.
Affricates can be voiced or voiceless.
The voiceless affricates is the sound /tf/ as in “catch” or “church”, the voiced
consonants is /d3/ as in “age” or “lounge”.
Then we have a group of approximants or semivowels, which are the sound /w/
as is “wear” or “ what” as well as the sound /j/ as in the words “yet”, “use” or
“beauty”.
Finally we have two liquid sounds, the sound /l/ as in “look” or “while” and the
sound /r/ as in “right” or “garage”.
Rhotic vs non-rothic varieties
English can be divided into rothic and non rothic varieties. In rothic varieties /r/ is
pronounced in all contexts. This is the case with General American, Canadia
English, Irish, Scottish and English spoken in the West Country of England.
In non-rothic varieties /r/ is pronounced only before a vowel.
We find non-rothic varieties in most England and Wales, Australia, New Zealand,
South Africa and Eastern states of the Usa.
In non-rothic varieties, /r/ is generally pronounced across word boundaries.
In “matter” the /r/ is silent, but when it is followed by a word which begins with a
vowel, the /r/ is pronounced, as in “matter of fact.
This type of liaison in termed linking r.
Rhoticity
Until the Early Modern English period (around 1800), English was a rothic
language, where the /r/ was pronounced.
This is still reflected in the present day spelling of English words like “star” or
“barman”.
This rothic accent was spoken by the settlers in the early colonies, for example in
Northern America.
It was during the 18th century, that standard English evolved into a non rothic
accent on the British isle; as a consequence, many of settlers of later colonies
such as Australia, Singapore and Nigeria spoke non rothic English. This explains
why English spoken in Australia in much more similar to British English.
The loss of rhoticity in English can be traced back to eighteen-century London
English. Originally, this loss of /r/ was considered to be a vulgarism. Throughout
most of the nineteenth century, non-rhotic pronunciation continued to be
condemned, but by the beginning of the 20th century, non-rhotic pronunciations
had become characteristic of RP (received pronunciation?). Non rhotic
pronunciation became popular among the upper classes by the beginning of the
20th century.
In many varieties of Non-American English, the rhotic accents of Britain and
Ireland the pronunciation of /r/ has been retained everywhere.
RP = Received Pronunciation
GA= General American
Vowels
Vowels are always voiced and, unlike consonants, produced without obstructing
the airstream. Vowel sounds are described considering:
a) Height of the tongue (high/low)
b) Frontness or backness of the tongue
c) Shape of the lips (spread or rounded)
Symbols and sounds of vowel
/i:/ as in “sleep”, “me”, “heat”. The sound is long, /i:/ is a long vowel.
/i/ as in “happy”, “recipe”. The sound is in final position.
/ɪ/ as in “pin” or “women”. The sound is short.
/ʊ/ as in “foot”, “could” or “pull”
/u:/ as in “do” or “shoe”. It is a long vowel.
/ʌ/ as in “sun”, “enough”, “wonder”
/e/ as in “red”, “head” or “said”. It is a short sound.
/æ/ as in “cat”, “black” or “have”. It in an open vowel.

/ə:/ as in “work”, “turn” or “bird”. It is a long sound.

/ə/ is the “schwa”. It is a distinct vowel that is found in unstressed syllable, as in
“arrive”, “father”, “colour”, “above”, “oven” or “support”.
/ɔ:/ as in “sort”, “thought” or “walk”. It is a long vowel sound.
/ɒ:/ as in “got”, “watch” or “sock”. It is a short vowel sound.
/ɑ:/ as in “part”, “heart” or “laugh”

English vowel system

We can distinguish short vowels and long vowels. In the IPA the long vowel is
indicated by colons (:).
English phonemes
In English there are 43 phonemes, 11 of which are vowels + /ə/.
/ə/ is not classified as a proper vowel, because/ə/ is not classified as a proper
vowel, because it doesn’t have a proper phonemic status as it occurs only in
unstressed syllables.
We have 8 diphthongs and 24 consonants.
English vowel system
English has a richer and more complex vowel system than Italian. In English
there are 12 vowels, in Italian 7. Differently from Italian, English exploits length,
which means that it produces five long vowels, which are absent in Italian.
Depending on which part of the tongue is raised, we can identify front vowels,
central vowels and back vowels.
The vowel can be also classified depending on the distance between the tongue
and the palate; we have open vowels, half open vowels and close vowels.
Finally, depending on the duration of the vowel, we distinguish long vowels from
short vowels.
Long and short vowels
For speakers of some languages it can be difficult to tell the difference between
long and short vowel sound.
Cheap/chip
Feet/fit
He’s/his
Sheep/ship
Peach/ pitch
Non-phonemic symbols
There is a small group of symbols that are non-phonemic. This is the case of
symbols [i] and [u] which may be used to represent the long phonemes /i:/ and/u:/
when they occur in unstressed position, most typically in a weak form.
Central vowels
/ə/ called “schwa” as in “above”, “oven”, “support”. It is the sound that we find in
unstressed syllables, as in words in connected speech. “Let’s go to the shops”
/ʌ/ called “wedge” as in “butt”, “blood”, “dove”, “tough”.
Diphthongs
They are a complex speech sound that begins with one vowel and gradually
changes to another vowel within the same syllable.
In English there are 3 types of diphthongs:
• Ending with /ə/ as in “fear”, “fair” or “tour”. This kind of diphthong is found
in words ending in -r in Received Pronunciation.
• Ending with /ɪ/ as in “say”, “sigh” or “boy”
• Ending with /ʊ/ as in “house” or “boat”
This last two are said “closing diphthongs” because the second element is a
close vowel.
The ending with a schwa are called “centring diphthongs” because the second
element is the central unstressed sound /ə/.
Minimal pairs
They are words where a single change of consonant or vowel makes a difference
to the meaning.
Pot and tot; cot and hot; big, dig and gig. Me and knee; leisure and letter. In this
cases, what changes is a consonant.
Bay, buy and boy. In this case, what changes is a vowel.
Italian and English in contrast
There are many important differences which may lead to characteristics
pronunciation errors.
There are 11 vowels in enforcing and 7 vowels in Italian.
Where English has two vowels, Italian has one.
“I want to leave” —> /li:v/
“I want to live” —> /liv/
We find another difference in lock of aspiration of the voiceless consonants /p, t,
k/, as in “pot”, “tea” and “kind”, which are pronounced without an aspiration in
Italian, whereas they are pronounced with a slight aspiration in English.
Another difference lays in the pronunciation of dental fricatives, as in “both”,
“think” and “this”, “mother”.
Another critical area is represented by fricatives /s/ and /z/: in syllable initial
position the grapheme <s> always has a voiceless pronunciation [s] in English,
even in combination with consonants, as in “small”, “snail” or “swim”. In Italian we
pronounce the sound [s] as voiced.
Another problem of Italian speakers is that they may fail to aspirate /h/
represented by the graphemes <h> at the beginning of stressed syllables. For
example, “heart” may be confused with “art”.
The pronunciation of American English
The most important differences are in the open and back area of vowels /ɒ/, /ɒ:/,
/ɔ:/.
In English the open short vowel corresponds to the open long vowel in American.
Clock [klɒk] becomes Clack [klɒ:k]
As regards the long vowel /ɔ:/, we have a common pronunciation in “north” and a
divergent pronunciation in “small”
Some consonants are always pronounced differently in English and American. /r/
is always pronounced in American and /l/ is always dark.
Yod dropping
Omission of the sound /j/ after word-initial sound /t, d, n/, called alveolar stops,
followed by the phoneme /u:/
New Br [nju:] Am [nu:]
T-tapping
In General American, intervocalic /t/ becomes voiced and indistinguishable from
/d/.
Latter = ladder
Pronunciation variants
Dynasty Br [dinasti] Am [dainasti]
Stress placement
Other difference regards the position of stress within words.
Address Br [addrès] Am [àddres]
The syllable
A syllable is a phonological unit which is made up of one or more phonemes. A
minimum syllable is made up of 1 vowel only: “are” and “or” are made up of just
one vowel, at least in British English pronunciation, where the /r/ is not
pronounced.
We have different types of syllables because we have different combinations of
consonants and vowels.
C+V represents the group of syllables that have a consonantal onset (that begins
with a consonant) which is followed by a vowel, for example in words “tea” and
“zoo”. This type of syllables is called open syllables because they end in a
vowel.
V+C represents the group of syllables that have a vowel nucleus followed by a
consonantal coda, for example in the word “all” and “arm”. This are closed
syllables because they end in a consonant.
Example
Creep has one syllable
Constrain has two syllables (con-strain)
Existent has 3 syllables (ex-ist-ent)
Disintegrate has 4 syllables (dis-in-te-grate)
The syllables in English and Italian
The most common type of syllable in English is the closed syllable CVC, as in
“did”, “bag” or “look”. Differently, the most common type of syllable in Italian is the
open syllable CV or V, as in “casa” or “veloce”
Another difference lays in the fact that in English there are around 60% of closed
syllables and 40% of open syllables, whereas in Italian we have 70% of open
syllables, 17% closed syllables and 6% having the vowel consonant structure.
In English the initial and final elements of the syllable may be consonant cluster,
that is a group of consonants, for example in the word “strength”, “next” or
“prompts”.
Consonant cluster
They are the combination of consonants which may begin or end a syllable.
Unlike many other languages, English rather freely allows for consonants
clustering.
English allows up to three consonants in an initial cluster and up to four
consonants in a final cluster position:
• Initial consonant cluster as in “glow”, “spruce”
• Final consonant cluster as in “bird”, “ends”, “worlds”
Initial consonant cluster
In English we find that initial consonant cluster are much more restricted that final
consonant clusters.
For example, there is only one possible combination of three consonants
occurring initially: “strong”, “split”, “spry”, “sclerosis”.
On the contrary, in final position consonant clusters are more complex and the
combination is freer, containing up to four consonants, as in “worlds”, thousands”,
“sixths”, “texts”.
Word stress
Stress is the relative prominence that is given to a particular syllable.
English has free stress, which means it does not occur regularly in the same
place of the word, but there is a preference for stress not to be placed on the first
syllable of multi syllabic words.
Word stress in multisyllabic words
In multisyllabic words almost any positioning of the main stress is apparently
possible.
We have multisyllabic words that contain 2 syllables, where stress may fall on the
first or the second syllable, as in “hopeful”, where the stress is placed on first
syllable, or “persuade”, where the stress is placed on the second.
In 3 syllabic words we find different combinations; for example, in “culpable” the
stress is placed on the first syllable, in “fantastic” on the second syllable, in
“undermine” on the third.
In 4 syllabic words we have “territory” (first syllable), “enormity” (second) and
“superstition” (third).
Germanic words
Stress also depends on the origins of the word.
Germanic words are always stressed on the first syllable, as in “apple”, “father” or
“hunger”.
Except for prefixed verbs, which are stressed on the syllable immediately
following the prefix, as in “forget”, “believe”, “withdraw”.
Words of Latin origin
Words borrowed from the Romance languages have different stress principle:
• Stress falls on the penultimate syllable, as in “admonish”
• Unless there are two consonants at the end, as in “adapt” and “exist”
The result is that the stress system of Modern English is now very complex, and
stress is not entirely predictable.
Word stress in IPA
In IPA, two symbols are used to indicate stress.
Primary stress is indicated by a high vertical line before the syllable, as in the
word “apple”.
Secondary stress, which is found in multisyllabic words, is indicated by a low
vertical line before the syllable. For example, in “inexpressive’, we have two
symbols indicating stress: one is the secondary stress on the first syllable, the
other is the primary stress which falls on the third syllable [ɪnɪkˈsprɛsɪv].
Word stress and meaning
Words having the same phonology except for stress pattern.
We can distinguish words that have very similar sounds, but different stress
patterns. For example, “below” /bɪˈləʊ/ and “billow” /‘bɪləʊ/.
In some noun-verb pairs stress is what jndicates the word class: “contrast” noun
/ˈkɒntrɑːst/ and “contrast” verb /kɒn’trɑːst/.
A change is taking place in words such as “address”: /‘ ædres/ noun and /ə’dres/
verb.
Suffixes and stress
Suffixes that are stressed:
➢ Ageous (outrageous)
➢ Agious (contagious)
➢ Ation (innovation)
➢ Ee (attendee)
➢ Ician (physician)
Suffixes that are unstressed:
➢ Able (understandable)
➢ Ful (resentful)
➢ Less (careless)
➢ Ness (emptiness)
➢ Ment (management)
Finally we have a group of sufficient that assign stress to the penultimate syllable:
➢ Ion (innovation)
➢ Ic (economic)
➢ Ics (metaphysics)
Words in context
Schwa
It is an unstressed vowel which is typically found in grammatical words, for
example in the sound “a” or “the”.
Schwa also occurs in unstressed syllables in multisyllabic words, for example in
“afford”, “collapse”, “perhaps”, “photograph”, “preface”.
In many words spoken carefully, the vowel receives stress, however, when words
occur in casual speech, the vowel may no longer receive any stress and reduce
to schwa. For example “can” in “I can go” or “and” in “You and me”.
Strong and weak form
Some words can be pronounced in two distinct ways. This happens with
grammatical words, which perform a grammatical function, as in determiners,
pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions and other particles. In all
such cases, we may find strong forms, which are used when a word is said in
isolation or is being emphasised, and weak forms in normal connected speech.
Weak forms
Weak forms are present in words which are necessary to construct a phrase but
do not communicate a large quantity of information, so they are not content
words. We find weak forms in the case of grammatical words.
Most of unstressed words are pronounced with the schwa: prepositions such as
“to” and “for, articles “a” and “the”, the conjunction “and”. Included in the list, there
are also auxiliary verbs which frequently have weak forms.
Connected speech
In the written language words are conventionally separated from one another by
spaces. In the spoken language the transition from one sound segment to the
next is smooth. This occurs because on the phonetic level a number of
articulatory accommodations occur.
The second element to be considered is that most of our talk is very fast and
spontaneous. Because of it, the articulators have to move from one sound to the
next without stopping. As a result, we produce one sound almost at the same
time as the next in a process called co-articulation. It is responsible for sound
change in connected speech.
Linking
• r-linking if a word ending with silent /r/ is followed by another word
beginning with a vowel, the /r/ is pronounced to link the two words.
In British English [r] functions as a bridge between two words. For
example, in “the car is parked in the street” we pronounce the /r/ in car.
• Linking sounds [w] and [j] added to obtain a smooth transition across word
boundaries. For example in “how about” and “Friday evening”.
Assimilation
Assimilation involves the replacement of a sound with another, due to the
influence of the sound that is nearby. We have assimilation when a speech sound
changes and becomes more like another sound which follows it or precedes it.
There are two types of assimilation, the anticipatory and the retrospective. In
anticipatory assimilation, the sound becomes more like the one that follows it
(“good night”). In retrospective assimilation, the sound becomes more like the
preceding one (“in that case”).
Assimilation is found in the plural of nouns and in the pronunciation of third-
person present tense of verbs and possessive suffix -s.
The pronunciation of -s depends on the preceding consonant (retrospective).
If the preceding consonant is voiced, the suffix indicating the plural of nouns will
be pronounced as a voiced, for example in “dogs” /z/.
If the preceding sound is voiceless, the suffix -s in the plural noun will be
pronounced as voiceless, as in “cats” /s/.
If the preceding consonant is sibilants, the pronunciation will be a sound /iz/ as in
“horses” or “kisses”.

Elision
Elision involves the dropping of a sound which once existed (historical elision) or
a sound which would be articulated in a careful pronunciation (contextual elision).

Historical elision

It is responsible for the loss of sounds that are still present in spelling (silent
graphemes).
We find silent graphemes in “castle”, “know”, “walk”, “write” or “debt”.
In “walk” the /l/ is present in the spelling.

Contextual elision

It is determined by economy of articulatory effort.

We tent to drop the <h> in the weak form of grammatical forms like “he”, “him” or
“his”.
For example in “tell him” the <h> is silent.

Contextual elision is also responsible for the loss of [t] and [d] in certain syllable
final clusters like <st, ft, nd, ld, n’t>.
For example in “first class” or “left behind”.

Elision

Elision affects vowels, for example when we pronounce words in casual speech
such as “interest”, “similar”, “library”, “different” or “tonight”.
It also affects consonants. The most frequently elided consonants in English are
/t/ and /d/, particularly when they occur between other consonants, such as in
“Christmas” or “sandwich”.

Consonant clusters above word level

They may be subjected to assimilation, for example in “I have to go”, or to elision,

for example in “you and me” pronounced in casual speech.

Assimilation in connected speech

When a speech sound changes and becomes more like another sound which
follows it or precedes it, for example in “good times”, “good night” or “give me”.

Vowel reduction
It consists in the reduction of strong, longer vowels and diphthongs to a weak
vowel (either /ə/ or /i/, /ɪ/, /ʊ/, /u:/) when they occur in unstressed position.
Irony [ˈʌɪrəni] and ironic [ʌɪˈrɒnɪk]
The same syllables are weak or strong depending on weather they are unstressed or
stressed.

Vowel reduction in responsible for remarkable differences between the

pronunciation of words in isolation and of the same words in connected speech.
Some words are pronounced differently when they occur in isolation and when
they occur in connected speech.

Stressed and unstressed positions

In stressed position we find all vowel except schwa. So, a syllable containing a
schwa is never stressed.
In unstressed position, schwa is the dominant sound, although other sounds (/i/,
/ɪ/, /ʊ/) can be found.
In general, unstressed positions can support fewer vowels that stressed ones.
Other vowels can be found in unstressed position, although the number of such
words is quite small:
• Syntax [ˈsɪntaks]
• Kudos [ˈkjuːdɒs]
• Contents [kənˈtɛnt]
• Ballet [ˈbaleɪ]
• Phoneme [ˈfəʊniːm]

Weak forms

Some words assume different forms when they appear in stressed or unstressed
position. This group of words includes a category of word called grammatical
words, which consist of prepositions (to, of, at), articles (a, the), pronouns (them,
he), conjunctions (and, but), some adverbs (there) and auxiliary verbs (are, does,
do).
When unstressed in connected speech, these words lose some of their
consonants and the vocalic possibilities are reduced to [ɪ, ʊ, ə].
Assimilation
It involves the replacement of a sound with another owing of an adjacent one.
Assimilation may concern voice. In “she was sent” the voiced sound becomes
voiceless in a process called devoicing.
We may have assimilation in tongue position. In “this year” there is a change of
tongue position, from alveolar to palato-alveolar.
Coalescence is the combination of two sounds into another one. In “did u” the
consonant cluster becomes an affricate.
Assimilation and elision combined
“I am going to buy some” → “I’m gonna buy some”
“What do you want to do?” → “Whatcha wanna do?”
Rhythm

It is produced by the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Italian is a language that has syllables-timed rhythm; it means that all syllables,
whether stressed or unstressed, take about some length of time to be
pronounced.
English has a stress-timed rhythm, stressed syllables tend to occur at regular
intervals.
The sense of rhythm in English is created out of feeling of alternation between
strong and weak beats.
In order to keep the time between the stressed syllables constant, English
speakers tend to reduce the duration of unstressed syllables. As a result, vowels
in unstressed syllables are reduced to schwa. The time interval between one
strong beat and the next is said to be isochronous, which means that each
chunk is given an approximately equal amount of time.

Intonation

It refers to an overall pattern of stresses and pitches with which we pronounce an

utterance.
Intonation is the way in pitch rises and falls in speech (high and low pitch)
Intonation helps the listener to understand what the speaker says together with
other verbal and non-verbal signals such as gestures and facial expressions.

Basic intonation patterns

• Level tone (without any noticeable change in pitch) → Sarah has won a
gold medal for swimming.
• Falling tone
• Rising tone

Intonation patterns

The term tone refers to the way pitch in modulated in language.

Rising tones are indicated by diagonal arrow rising left-to-right. ↗
Falling tones are indicated by one falling left-to-right. ↘

Rising tone
Rising tone is felt to convey a sense of non -finality and is generally associated
with questions or incomplete clauses.
“I phoned her several ↗ times, but she was never ↘ there”

Falling tone

A falling tone is felt to convey a sense of finality and is generally associated with
statements.
“Our English friends are coming round to ↘ dinner”.

Fall-rise and rise-fall tones

They are a combination of falling and rising tones.

A fall-rise tone is felt to convey uncertainty and doubt.
“Are you sure you won’t ↘↗ mind?”
A rise-fall tone is felt to convey surprise and admiration, or strong feelings
(contempt or disgust).
“That was a marvellous ↗↘ idea” or “What a ↗↘ terrible thing to say”.

Functions of intonation

• Attitudinal function
• Grammatical function
• Accentual function
• Discourse function

Attitudinal function

The function of conveying different attitudes and feeling.

Attitude is expressed by:
• Prosodic features such as high/low pitch, loudness, speed
• Paralinguistic features such as voice quality, face and body expressions

Grammatical function

It is related to the segmentation of speech into meaningful units. Intonation can

change the syntactic structure of utterances.

Accentual function

Intonation indicates the information focus in sentences.

The accentual function involves the placement of stress on the element
representing information focus.
Discourse function

In English, stress is normally placed at the end of an intonation phrase; this

happens because speakers tend to place new information at the end of
utterances (end-focus)
“The terrorist was finally ar↘rested”
Many utterances do not follow this standard pattern and for reasons of contrast
the nucleus is placed elsewhere in the sentence (foregrounding).
“Air traffic controllers are on ↘ strike, also ↘ pilots are on strike” → the word pilot
represents new information.

Pronunciation and spelling

Silent H

Voiceless glottal fricative /h/ is pronounced in “heat”, “hat”, “help”

Initial silent h in words as “honour”, “heir” “hour” and their derivates

Spelling

The spelling of English is based on phonemic principles, however there is an

imperfect degree of correspondence between sound and sign due to several
factors
There are numerous factors that influence spelling:
1. Historical spellings that have been retained, especially in Anglo Saxon
words, such as “cough [kɒf], “plough” [plaʊ], “knight” [nʌɪt] and “write”
[rʌɪt], where some of the graphemes are in fact pronounced in different
ways
2. Etymological spellings, which are words borrowed from Latin, such as in
“subtle” [sʌt(ə)l] and “doubt” [daʊt] where we find the grapheme <b>
despite the lack of /b/ in the pronunciation

The spelling of consonants

In English, in most cases there is a fixed correspondence between one letter and
a sound:
<k> = /k/
<b> = /b/
But there are exceptions:
<kn-> = /n/ (know, knife)
<-mb> = /m/ (comb, lamb)
Dental fricative <th>

Dental fricative is represented by the combination of the grapheme <th>, which is

for both voiceless /θ/ and voiced /ð/.
 • Thin, think, threshold, smooth (voiceless)
• This, thorough, there, with (voiced)

Initial <th>

• When it occurs in initial position, <th> is pronounced /ð/ in grammatical

and functional words, such as they, them, this, that, then, there, thus, the.
• In initial position, it is pronounced /θ/ in all other lexical words, such as
thing, think, thunder, thin.
• It is pronounced /t/ in a few exceptional cases, such as in Thomas,
Thames, Thailand, thyme

<th> in the middle of a word

• It is voiced if it is followed by <e>/<er>, as in leather, weather, feather,

father, brother, either, breathe, except for aesthetic, anthem, ether.
• It is voiceless if it is not followed by <e>, as in gothic, lethal, method,
author, breath, length, athlete, worth but worthy is voiced.

Word initial <ch>

• /tʃ/ in words that were present in Old English, such as cherry, cheese,
church, cheap
• /ʃ/ in words deriving from French, such as chalet, champagne, Chicago
and chic
• /k/ in learned words from Latin and Greek, such as chaos, character,
chemistry, chorus and choir.

Types of language change

There are different types of language change:

• Phonological change has to do with any mutation within the sound system
of a language
• Morpho-syntactic change is a change in both the morpho-phonematic and
syntactic systems of a language.
• Semantic change is a change in meaning over time

Phonological change

It refers to any mutation within the sound system of a language. It can be

sporadic, when it affects only one particular word or few words, without any
apparent regularity. It is described as regular, when it applies mechanically
whenever its conditions are met.
For example, there was a change in English by which /w/ was lost after /s/ and
before “o”: hence “sword” has lost its /w/ in speech, even if it is contained in the
original spelling.

Conditioned and unconditioned change

Conditioned change is a sound change which is conditioned by a specific

phonetic environment; the types of sound that precede or follow a specific sound
that changes.
For example, wife → wives; loaf → loaves; cloth→ clothes.

Unconditioned change is a sound change regardless of the phonetic context in

which it happens. For example, “the Great Vowel Shift”.

Great vowel shift

It started in the 15th century. It is a change that affected long vowels and it
caused a major reorganization of the vowel system of English.
One of the consequences of the great vowel shift was the mutation of the long
sound /i:/ into the diphthong /ai/.
[bi:te] → [baɪt] = bite
[mʒ:te] → [mi:t] = meet
[na:me] → [neim] = name
[fo:de] → [fu:d] = food

Morpho-syntactic change

It is any change in both the morpho-phonematic and syntactic systems of a

language.
Morphological levelling can be illustrated by refence to the levelling of the noun
ending system.
Dative plural -um, genitive plural -a and dative singular -e become /ə/ = null. It is
reduced to zero.

Semantic change

It refers to any mutation in the meaning of individual words.

Pre-1970s the word “gay” had the primary meaning of “happy” or “carefree”;
today its primary meaning is “homosexual”.
In Middle English, the word “girl” was referred to young people in general; in
Modern English it is restricted to female sex.
Kind of semantic change

There are four types of semantic change:

1. Widening
2. Narrowing
 3. Amelioration
4. Pejoration

Widening and narrowing are changes in the denotative meaning of the words;
pejoration and amelioration are changes in the connotative meaning.

Narrowing

It refers to the specification of meaning.

For example, the word “wife” originally meant “woman” in general sense, then it
came to denote “a woman of humble rank or employment”; now it came to denote
a “married woman”.

Widening

We have widening when a lexeme widens its meaning. The meaning of a word is
amplified.
“Scenario” originally applied to the plot of an opera, film etc. it is now used to
mean “a likely sequence of events” (e.g. “the possible scenarios for the U.S. in
Libya”).

Amelioration

We have amelioration when a word develops a positive sense of approval; when

positive connotations are attached to a word.
The word “revolutionary” was originally associated with undesired overthrowing of
the status quo; now it is used by advertisers as signal of desirable novelty.

Deterioration or pejoration

Deterioration occurs when a word begins to attract negative connotations.

The word “mental” originally refers to something related to the mind, it was
neutral; now it can mean “insane” (e.g. “he’s gone completely mental”).

The origins of English

English is the result of a dramatic change. The roots of the English language are
in Old English, which was a highly inflected language which was characterised by
a completely Germanic lexis.
Old English is different from Modern English in many aspects. Modern English
has very few inflections and it derives most of its lexical material from variety of
sources.

The English language

It belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages
(German, Dutch, Frisian, English). It has a core of words of Anglo-Saxon origin
and it contains an important lexical component which derives from classical and
Romance languages.
English belongs to the Western branch of Germanic languages together with
Dutch, German and Frisian.
The Northern branch comprises Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Danish; the
Eastern branch is represented by a dead language, such as Gothic.
English has a core of words of Anglo-Saxon origin and it contains an important
lexical component from classical and Romance languages.

How English came to England

England was originally a Celtic-speaking area; it was invaded in AD 43 by

Romans under emperor Claudius.
The Roman influence was evident for 100 years before this (Caesar invaded
England in 55 and 54 BC).
The Roman period is set from 43 to 410 AD. In this period Latin became an
important component. For example, the Latin influence can be found in urban
terminology (street < Lat. Strata) or toponyms ending in -chester (lat. Castra).
It is around mid-5th century that Anglo-Saxons migrated. Germanic tribes from
across the North Sea moved to the island and speakers of Germanic dialects
settled on the island.
The Celtic inhabitants were assimilated or forced to move westwards and
northwards, to Wales and Scotland, and their language became confined to those
areas.
Place- names of Celtic origins:
• Towns: London, Leeds
• Rivers: Avon
• Counties: Kent, Devon

The name of the language

It derives from an Old English word which derives from Latin (< Lat. Anglia)

Historical development of the English vocabulary

The history is divided into four stages. The first one is called Old English period (it
goes from 450 to 1066); the Middle English period (1066-1500); the Early Modern
English period (1500-1800); the Modern English period (1800-present).

Old English

It was a Germanic language and it was characterised by inflections. The lexis

was almost completely Germanic and most prepositions and pronouns were
already part of the language (from, for, in, he, him, his). Some words were similar
in form but different in meaning: for example, the word “wif” indicated any woman.

The Old English period (450-1066)

It was characterised by important historical events:

• Christianization of the Island had an enormous impact on the alphabet.
Runic alphabet was gradually abandoned by the Anglo-Saxons and it was
replaced by the Latin alphabet as a result of Christianization.
• King Alfred was the king of West-Saxon reign (871-899); it was a very
important political, religious and cultural centre in Europe. West Saxons
dialect was established as the first standard written language.
• Another important historical event was the arrival and occupation of
England by Scandinavian populations from 8th century onward. They were
speakers of Old Norse.
• King Alfred defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest.
• The old English period ended with the Norman conquest by William the
Conqueror in 1066 (battle of Hastings).

The Middle English period (1066-1500)

• The consequences of the Norman conquest (1066) were enormous.

Normans were speakers of Anglo-Norman, which was a northem dialect of
Old French. West-Saxon was replaced by Anglo-Norman.
• It is a period of radical changes in English language, due to the influence
of the language related to French (Neo-Latin origins).
• A new dominant French- speaking nobility replaced Anglo-Saxon court,
noblemen and bishops; Anglo-Norman became the language of power
• Anglo-Norman replaced Old English as the standard language of England.
• French words entered the English language.
• The situation was that more languages were spoken: French was the
language of power, bureaucracy and partly literature; Latin was the
language of learning, education and the Church; English was the language
of the majority of the population.

Early Modern English period (1500-1800)

• Introduction of printing press by William Caxton in 1476 had an enormous

impact on the establishment of norms of spelling and pronunciation, which
were codified at this time.
• The variety of English spoken in the London area in the 15th was chosen
as the standard language.
 • New interest in classical languages characterised the Renaissance (1450-
1650). It caused a borrowing from other European languages and from
Latin and Greek (medicine and theology)
• It was the age of Shakespeare (1564-1616) and the age when King James
Bible was established (1611)
• The period closed with the publication of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of
the English Language (1755)
• Shakespeare’s writings influenced the entire English language. When his
plays became popular in following century, the contributed to the
standardization of the English language. Around this time, many
Shakespearean words and phrases became embedded in the English
language.
• No other book seems to have influenced the English language as much as
the King James Bible. The linguist David Crystal has counted 257 phrases
which derive from the book which still belong to contemporary English.
• Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755) is one of the
most famous dictionaries in history. The dictionary took over eight years
to compile and listed 40.000 words

Modern English period

The Modern English period is a time when english gradually became the
language oh those domains where Latin and French were previously used.
During the early Modern English period english came to be used in literature,
religion, education, government and law.
English started to be used as the language of intellectual communication
(Newton wrote his treatise Opticks in English rather than in Latin)
Industrial revolution on the one hand and scientific exploration and
discoveries on the other, brought to an increase of scientific and technical.

International trade and colonial power

During the 16th and 17th century, international trade expanded immediately. By
the 18 century, Britain possessed colonies worldwide and rose to a dominant
position among European trading empires. English trading companies were
established in India and south America. Britain played a major role in Atlantic
slave trade. Loan words were absorbed from the languages of many other
countries around the world.
Fragmentation of the standard

Institutionalisation of English within colonies. English started to be used as a

second language and became the official language of government, bureaucracy,
education and religion in the colonies.

English or Englishes?
When we talk about Englishes, we talk about the varieties of English used in
diverse sociolinguistic contexts globally.

Diaspora of English-first phase

The first phase concerns the expansion of English within the British Isles
(Scotland, Wales, Ireland). This type of expansion started in 5th century. One of
the consequences was the gradual subjugation of the Gaelic-speaking population
(population who spoke Celtic language.)
This explains why Gaelic and Scots are languages still spoken by a large number
of people as minority languages.

The second phase is mainly focused on the establishment of the British colonies
in different part of the world, starting with the Americas and Canada and then
New Zealand and South Africa.
It's during the second phase that there was a development of Pidgin Englishes
and Creoles
as a result of contact between English and other languages.
During this phase colonial standard were created.
New Englishes are non native varieties of English spoken in former colonies of
England, mainly in
South Asia, South-Est Asia, West Africa and East Africa. Today they are
recognized as autonomous
varieties of English.
They include Indian English, African English.

Third phase

The third phase is related to the diffusion and use of English as a Second
language.
This phase was influenced by American imperialism during the 15th and 20th
century.
It was during this time that American English emerged as a dominant variety.
As a result of America's leading role on the economic and political scene.
American English became very influential during the last decade and after WW2.

The three circles of English (Braj Kachru)

Inner circle, outer circle and expanding circle.

The inner circle is the one which comprises countries where English is used as
a native language.
The outer circle comprises social-cultural contest where English has a status as
a Second language.
India or Nigeria, English is used as a means of communication, specially in
situation of multilingualism
It's the language of communication and government, religion and education,
media.
The expanding circle is where English is used as foreign language, in
international domains such as
diplomacy, scientific research, business negotiations, the European Union. It
happens in countries like Japan, China or Italy.

English as a lingua Franca IELF)

It's English as used in situation of international contact, where people for whom
English is not
a native language, use English as a language of communication.
ELF is not recognized as a variety of English, but as a communicative practice .

The composition of the English lexicon

Core vocabulary and borrowing

Core vocabulary mainly refers to Anglo-Saxon words.

They are words arrived with the Germanic invaders (The Angles, The Saxons).
This words are the most common words of the language, this is why we call them
"core vocabulary”. They include both grammatical (be, that, in) and lexical words
(father, love,
name).
• Words denoting parts of the body: hands, foot, arm, eye, heart.
• Animals: horse, cow, sheep, dog, hen, goat
• Natural landscapes: land, field, hill, wood. Oak.
• Domestic life: house, home, door, floor, weave, knit.
• Common verbs: fly, drink, swim, help, come, see, eat, sit.
• Calendar: sun, moon, day, month, year.
• Common adsectives: black, white, wide, long, good, dark.
They are all monosyllabic words, they are concrete, they refer to events,
concepts and objects of everyday life; they are most frequent in the language.
They tent to be favoured by native speakers in everyday usage.
They constitute around 40% of the English lexicon.

Anglo-Saxon words are short

The most frequent 200 words in English, mostly consist of 1 syllable , a few are
two-syllable
words, tri syllabic words are rare. There is 1 four-syllable word in AmE:
'American'.
Anglo-Saxon words are frequent
The 100 most frequently used words in English are Anglo-Saxon.
There are some exceptions: a few Scandinavian loans (prestiti) such as 'they'
and 'are’.
2 words borrowed from Romance languages ( 'just’ and 'people').
The process of borrowing

It's when a foreign word is taken over and adapted in sound and grammar.
To denote the borrowed word we use "loanword" or "borrowing".

Cosmopolitan nature of English vocabulary

English is a lexically mixed language, the most common words in both writing and
speech are Anglo-Saxon words. Foreign words constitute an important
component of the English vocabulary.
There are many foreign words that have been assimilated to the pronunciation
and spelling of
English. They are no longer recognised as foreign words.

Scandinavian loan words

Old Norse (North-Germanic branch) was the language spoken by the Viking who
invaded England in the 8th century. This population brought with them a numbers
of words that can be easily recognized since they include place names (suffixes
-by as in Derby), personal names (names ending in -son as Jackson); common
English words (verbs as get, give, take, hit and personal pronouns as (they,
them, their.)
There are a group of words which contains the sound "sc-/sk-." such as 'score',
'scrub', 'skin', 'skirt’.
Duplicate words have different origin but very similar meaning at least in its
origin
Old Norse : stick and skill → Old English: ill and craft

Words of classical and Romance origin

There are many words which derives from Greek, Latin, French, Italian and
Spanish.
They represents a very important component of English lexis as they constitute
almost 60% of the lexicon. This words entered at different times in history.
One of the main features of words of classical and romance origin in English is
that they are usually polysyllabic (parliament, goverment, contemporary,
biography).
They are less frequent in spoken language but most frequent in specialised
and
formal contexts.

Relative frequency of Anglo-Saxon and loanwords

Frequency varies according to the type of text and the stylistic level.
Foreign loans are more frequent in formal style and specialized language
(Medicine language)
than in everyday conversation because they are more precise and restricted.
Anglo-Saxon words are preferred in everyday speech because they are vague
and convey many shades of meaning.

Words and situation

3 synonym: initiate / commence / start. We use 'start’, an Anglo-Saxon word.

Words choice depends on the communicative situation.

Latin

It has been a major contributor of loanwords. It's one of the most important
sources.
It was particularly influential in the Modern English period, when new words that
belong to
technical domains were coined.
We find words of Latin origin in the field of religion, law, literature, science (
'library').

Latin words

Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish Latin words from French words.

Set of 3 synonymous items (triplets): OE (colloquial)/IF (literary)/L (learned)
Kingly/ royal/ regal
Ask/ question/ interrogate
The existence of triplets or pairs of synonymous words is a distinctive feature of
Modern
English vocabulary.

Greek words

Church, chaos, character, machine. Greek also created technical terms in all
branches of
human knowledge, such as lexis, dictionary, vocabulary. Also telegram,
thermometer, anonymous.

Neo-classical words

Words where morphemes had been used to create new words that did not exist
in Latin or Greek
(mega, multi, mini, hyper).
The language of science and technology.
French loans

Most important event that changed the history of the English language is related
to the invasion
of England by William the Conquerer in 1066.
French loans entered the English language in different times. We distinguish
early borrowings
(by 1300) and later borrowings.
In early borrowings we find words that belong to the domain of law (judge, jury),
war (tower, war), administration (Parliament).
Words in later borrowing have to do with fashion (dress, fashion), lifestyle
(court, luxury),
the arts (chapter, page, story), the Sciences (engineer, college, surgery) and
gastronomic
items (menu, restaurant, champagne)
French loans are usually adapted to the sounds of English. F. g. 'baron',
"madame 'mutton’.
However, later loans tent to keep their original phonetic and international
features, f. g.
'ballon,' 'chef', ‘mademoiselle’.
There are words that received 2 pronunciations, f. g. 'garage’.

Italian loans

Italian loans represent the domain of music (opera, solo, piano, adagio).
Italian is the language of literature (sonnet, stanza, canto) and food (lasagne,
pizza, pasta).
Other fields represent by word such as balcony, carnival, ghetto, miniature,
stiletto, studio, umbrella , volcano.

Spanish loans

Spanish words were borrowed mostly from 16th century onwards.

We distinguish words that derive directly from Spanish. They include words as
'breeze', 'embargo' 'vanilla’. We also have words that were coined in the New
World
such as 'potato',' tomato', 'tobacco’.

Other languages

From russian: 'soviet' and 'vodka’

From arabic: alcohol , cotton, mattress
From African: Safari, Voodoo, zebra
From Indian: cashmere, shampoo
Words and meaning
Lexical ambiguity, homophones and homographs

We have lexical ambiguity when it is not possible to decide on the intended

meaning of a word.
Right = exactly / on the right
"Time flies like an arrow": the wordplay is based on the distinct meanings of
two occurrences of the word flies (the verb 'travel through the air' and the noun
for 'certain insects’) and of the word like (the preposition 'similar to' and the verb
'enjoy’).
This type of ambiguity is tipically exploited in jokes.
"I still miss my ex-husband. But my aim is improving". It's a joke about the
word 'miss': 'feel sad about somebody’ or 'to fail to hit or catch'.
Aim: 'purpose' or 'someone's ability to hit what they're aiming at when they throw
or shoot something.’

'Let us remove your shorts' is a sign on an electrician’s van.

Shorts: 'short trousers' or 'short circuit'.
The relationship between individual words and meaning is a complex one:
different words can have similar or identical meanings, the same word can
change its meaning depending on its context. All of this can lead to ambiguity.

Homophony

Two words are homophones when they have the same sound, different spelling
and different, unrelated meaning.
"to/two/too" "meet/meat" "flour/flower" "knows/nose" "rite/write "route/root".

Phonological puns

It is a play upon two different words which sound the same.

"Why did Dracula go to the doctor? Because of the coughin’/coffin.
"It's bean soup. But what is it now?" "bean/been".

Homographs

They are written word that may be pronounced in more than one way. They are
words that are spelt in the same way but pronounced differently. We refer to
homographs when we indicate a spelling which has two pronunciations with
different meanings represents two different words.
'row': /raʊ/ = serious disagreement. /rəʊ/ = a line of seats in a cinema.
'lead': /led / (n). / Ii:d / (v) = show the way. Diffent meaning and pronunciation.
'tear': /teə:/ (v) and (n) damage something by pulling it into pieces. /tIə:/

Homographes diffent in stress:

'desert': /dɪˈzəːt / (v) = diserzione. /ˈdɛzə:t/ = deserto
'refuse': /rɪˈfjuːz/ (v) = rifiutare. /ˈrefjuːs/ = rifiuti

Homonymy and polysemy

'Seal': a large mammal or something fixed around the edge of an opening. This
two words are unrelated in meaning, they are polynomials.
'Turkey': the animal or the Nation.
'Mole' : mole on skin or mole as "small animals".
Homonyms are words with the same form (spelling) that are unrelated in
meaning. They have different etymology.
'Stick': piece of wood (n) or ‘to adhere’. This two words derive from Old English.
Homonymy as a source of humour.
Polysemy is when one word has several closely related senses.
Native speakers have clear intuition that the different senses are related to each
other.
Polysemy is relatedness in meaning which is usually connected to metaphorical
extension.
A word is polysemous when it has several related senses.
'to fly' (v): to move through the air or to move very quickly.
Polysemy: when we encounter two or more words with the same form and
related meanings.
Metaphorical extension: mouth of an animal or mouth of a river.
Relatedness has to do with the opening from the interior of some solid mass to
the outside, and a place of issue at the end of some long narrow channel.
'Neck': part of the body joining the head to the shoulders or a connecting part
(the neck of a bottle).
How to distinguish between homonyms and polysemous?
'Bank': financial institution or bank of a river.
'Bank' is a case of homonyms because the two types of bank are unrelated in
meaning. They have two separate histories and meanings, but have accidentally
have the same spelling.
Homonymy refers to words with different meanings sharing the same form and
pronunciation.
Polysemy refers to one word having a number of senses or variants of a single
meaning.

What is the vocabulary of a language?

It refers to the words of the language.

Lexicon: is a word of Greek origin, it derives from Greek lexis 'word". The
lexicon of a language is the total stock of meaningful units in a language . It
includes not only the words and idioms, but also the parts of words which express
meaning, such as prefixes and suffixes.
Studying the lexicon of English means to study all aspects of the vocabulary of
the language: how words are formed, how they developed over time, how they
are used nowadays, how they relate in meaning to each other, how they are
handled in dictionaries and other word books.

What is a word?

There are different possible definitions of words.

An intuitive definition: words are clearly visible units in a written text.
"Down to earth" is composed of three words, but in the dictionary it is
considered as
"one word" (sensible and practicable).
An orthographic definition: a word is any sequence of letters bounded either
side by a space or a punctuation mark.
An orthographic word is a linguistic unit which in its written form is preceded
by a space and followed by a space or a punctuation mark.
Unit is a sequence of uninterrupted letters.
Counting words in a sentence is not easy because of irregularities in writing (will
not/ cannot; postbox/post box/ post-box)
Word space is not an infallible guide when it comes to counting words in a
sentence. Matters get complicated with hyphens.
"Bride-to-be" is one or three words?
A word can be defined in terms of meaning.
A word is a linguistic unit that expresses a single concept.
"Brother-in-law”
"High" is an adjective which changes meaning depending on the word it
accompanies.
"High tea": a meal of cold food eaten in the early evening.
"High priest": someone who is famous for being the best.

Idioms: "take the mickey " means "make fun of”.

The orthographic definition "a word is any sequence of letters bounded on either
side by a space or a punctuation mark" is successful only if we consider the
written medium.
This definition is not allowed for spoken language. When we speak, we don't
separate words.
We use stress and pauses for reasons other than to differentiate one single word
unit from another.
The divisibility of a word in spoken language is less obvious.
Ortographic definition of words does not take into account distinctions of
meaning and grammatical function.
Grammar: words embrace different grammatical categories.
Words that differ in form but not in meaning (bring, brings, brought).
Word-forms: it is the grammatical variants of the same word.
"Sew, sews, sewing, sewed, sewn" are different both in spelling and
pronunciation, they are different orthographic and phonological words.
They are also different from the grammatical point of view, but they convey the
same meaning. They are word-forms.
From the point of view of meaning, they can be regarded as the same word.
We distinguish phonological words and ortographic words.
Phonological words are any sequence of sounds whic is identified as a unit on
the basis of how it is pronounced.
Ortographic words are any sequence of letters bounded on either side by a
space or a punctuation mark.
"To, two" have the same pronunciation.
An ortographic definition of words is to be considered incomplete.
A meaning definition: a word is the minium meaningful unit of language.
But, there are single units of meaning which are conveyed by more than one
word (bus conductor, school teacher).
Compound words: words that form a unit made up of two or more single words.
Meaning exists in units of language larger than the traditional definition of 'word'
allows for.
Phonological criteria: a word is the linguistic unit surrounded by pauses
and having only one main stress.
"Ice cream" has one main stress.
Function words such as articles and prepositions, which tend to be unstressed,
could not be considered as words.
Internal integrity: a word is an indivisble unit which cannot be interrupted
by inserting other material in it.
"Brother-in law "→ "Brothers-in law" not "in-laws”
The ortographic definition of a word makes sense, but there are many words
that do not fit into these categories.
Words are units of meaning but the definition of a word having a clear-cut
meaning creates exceptions (as in the case of word that have some form and
spelling but different meaning, e. g. "bear").
Words have different forms but the different forms do not necessarily count as
a different words (e. g. verbs).
Words can have the same forms but also different and, in some cases,
completely unrelated meanings (homonyms).

Idioms complicate matters even more, because we have multiple words which
represent a unit of meaning.
Word: a linguistic unit, orthographically preceded and followed by spaces or
punctuation marks, phonologically preceded and followed by pauses, having only
one main stress and internal integrity, and expressing a single meaning.
Orthographic word: a linguistic unit which in the written form is preceded by a
space and followed by a space or a punctuation mark (unit is a sequence of
uninterrupted letters).
Lexeme: a unit of lexical meaning, which exists regardless of any inflectional
endings it may have or the number of words it may contain.
A group of related forms which share the same meaning and belong to the same
world class.
Word-form: the physical realisation of a Iexeme, its concrete expression in
speech and writing.
SMALL = lexeme
small, smaller = word-forms.

Lexeme: a group of related forms which share the same meaning and belong to
the same word class.
DOG = Iexeme Teach, teaching, fought = word-forms
Dogs, dog = word-form TEACH: Iexeme
A Iexeme is a set of inflected word-forms that differ only in their inflectional
properties.
Lexicography: entry, headword, lemma.
Entry: an independent lexical unit which is listed in a dictionary in alphabetical
order. It consists of the headword + information.
Headword: the citation form of a word, i. e. the word-form which is conventionally
chosen to represent the Iexeme in a dictionary (also called LEMMA).
For nouns, the citation form is the singular.
For verbs, it is the base form of the verb.
"Shall we go for a walk?"
"It takes me an hour to walk to work.”
One word-form but different lexemes (noun / verb).

Denotation and connotation

Denotation is the dictionary meaning of a word. It refers to objective

relationship between a lexeme and its referent (the reality to which it
refers).
Denotation of spectacles: the object which balances on our nose in front
of our eyes.
Purple: a colour with a certain physical characteristics.
Denotation is the central aspect of lexical meaning about which everyone
would agree.
Connotation denotes the stylistic and emotional associations that a word
brings to mind. These associations can be positive or negative, personal
or shared and culturally significant.
The connotation of "bus" can be positive or negative. We can associate
"bus" to cheapness or convenience, but also to discomfort or inconvenience.
Connotations vary according to the experience of individuals, they are to some
degree
Unpredictable; they are shared by large groups of speakers.
Connotations might be different depending on one's political belief (fascism
/democracy).
They may depend on taste; grammatical words carry no connotation.
Words that are highly specialized/restricted to a particular area of meaning are
less loaded (photosynthesis/morphology).

General rules of connotation

Highly general words (hyperyms) are less likely to carry strong connotations
(veichle, fruit, animal, flower, tree)
Hyponyms (words with a more specific meaning) are more likely to
carry strong connotations (lion is a hiponym of "animal").
The language of science and law avoids highly connotative vocabulary,
because they are highly specialized.
The language of politics and religion is highly loaded (capitalism, radical,
pagan).

Sense relations

Words do not exist in isolation; their meanings are also identified

through a network of sense relations which each words establish
with other words within the language.
Types of sense relations: similarity (synonymy), opposition (antonymy),
hyperonymy.

Synonyms

They are words with very closely related meaning, which can be
be substituted for each other in some contexts.
Begin/ start , difficulty/problem.
Synonyms cannot always be substituted for one another:
• yes : neutral
• yeah: used informally and in the spoken mode
True synonymy does not exist.
English has a very large number of partial synonyms, which overlap
in some core parts of their meaning but differ in detail.
We have perfect synonymy when some Iexemes can substitute for
each other in all possible contexts.
However, there are hardly any lexemes that have exactly the
same meaning.
It is usually possible to find some nuance which separates synonyms
or a context in which one of the lexeme can appear but the
others cannot.

Differences may be observed in terms of dialect, style/register,

collocational range, connotation.

Dialect difference

Refuse: rubbish (UK) and garbage (Us).

Lift (UK) and elevator (Us).
Autumn (UK) and fall (Us).
Stylistic difference

Formal and informal element : insane / loony

Everyday / technical: salt 1 sodium chloride.
Drunk: formal synonyms (inebriated/intoxicated); colloquial synonyms (stoned,
pissed).
Die: pass away (euphemistic), kick the bucket (colloquial)
Word of Anglo-Saxon origin (the colloquial one) and word originally borrowed
from French or Latin (the formal one).
Go in → enter, western → occidental , begin → commence
Technical vocabulary: the lexemes that belong to specific
vocabularies, related to specific activities. Synonyms pairs may comprise words
that belong to technical vocabulary and words belong to common-language.
Cardiac → heart; cranium → skull, incision → cut.

Collocational difference

There are many occasion when a word is appropriate in a sentence, but

its synonym would not.
Kingly/royal/regal . Only royal collocates with mail in the UK.
“Keep/retain your ticket for further inspection” but “We keep the door locked”.
“I'm afraid he is busy/occupied but “this seat is occupied”.

Difference in connotation

Child: youngster, kid, small fry, minor.

The denotative meaning is "a young person", but their connotations
may be quite different depending, in part, on the context in which they
appear.
Little one : favorable connotations.
Brat: unfavorable connotations.
Child: neutral connotations.

Synonyms pairs may differ in terms of the connotations that are

attached to them.
"Politician" has a negative connotation compares to "statesman".
"Lodger" carries negative connotation as opposed to "paying-guest" (neutral)
"Plot" = "plan"
The reason why there are so many synonyms in English can be found in the
history of the language.
"Help" → "aid" (French)
"Teach" → "Instruct" (Latin)
"First" → "initial" (Latin)
"Heaven" → "sky" (Old Norse)
Synonym triplets

1. an Anglo-Saxon word
2. a medieval borrowing from French
3. a Renaissance borrowing from Latin
Last / Final / Ultimate
Think/ Ponder / Consider
Odd/ Strange / Peculiar

Antonymy

Antonyms are Iexemes that are opposite in meaning.

Types of antonyms:
1. Gradable antonyms
2. Contradictory or complementary antonyms
3. Converses
4. Directional

Gradable antonyms

Gradable antonyms are opposites such as large/small, happy/sad,

wet/dry. They are called gradable because they can be graded
(larger, very dry, quite wet). They are capable of comparison.
Beautiful/ugly, expensive / cheap, fast/slow.
How gradable antonyms are used in questions
"How big is your flat?" I am not presupposing that it's big.
Big is neutral for size.
"How small is your flat?" I presuppose that it's small.
Narrow/wide → how wide
Small/ large → how large
Long/short → how long

Complementaries

They express an 'either/for' relation of oppositeness: if one of the pair

applies, the other does not.
Asleep/awake, dead/alive, on/off, shut/open, true/false.
In complementaries, the assertion of one implies the denial of the other
member of the pair.
Alive = not dead
Female = not male
Off = not on

Converses

They are antonyms that represent two different perspectives of the

same situation.
Above / below , before/after, buy/sell , speaker / listener.
In converses, there is an interdependence of meaning, so that one
member of a pair presupposes the existence of the other member.
"We cannot buy something without something being sold.”

Directional or reversive opposition

It describes processes that reverse the effect of each other.

Dress / undress, enter/exit, marry/divorce, up/down

Synonyms vs antonyms

Synonyms exceed antonyms. They are more numerous than antonyms.

English is rich in synonyms because of its history.
The number of words that allow an opposite is limited.
In dictionaries, we find an extensive use of synonymy and a limited
use of antonymy.

Hyponymy (sense relation)

When the meaning of a Iexeme is included in the meaning of other (= kind of

relation).
Animal / dog, vegetable/carrots, flower/rose.

Meronimy (sense relation)

The semantic relation that holds between a part and the whole (part-whole
relationship).
Finger meronyms of hand , hand meronym of body.

Collocation

It is a regular combination of minimum two words , that frequently occur

together and are linked by a syntactic relation.
The notion of collocations is based on common language usage: linguists say
that words do not combine randomly but follow rules, principles and real-life
demands.

Example 1: a notice
“Meals will be served outside on the terrace, weather permitting / allowing” =
They will give us our meals outside if the weather is good enough.
Weather permitting is the common collocation, weather allowing is not.
"Weather allowing" sound odd to a native speaker of English.
In fact, weather and allowing do not belong together: they do not
collocate in this particular context.
The correct form of the sentence is "Meals will be served outside on the
terrace, weather permitting.
The way the words 'weather' and 'permitting' belong together is known
as collocation.

Example 2: thick and sense

We can say “thick smoke” and “dense smoke”, “thick forest” and “dense forest”.
However, we do not talk about a person having "dense hair".
This combination does not sound right, even though it would be easily
understood.
'Dense' does not collocate with ‘hair’: we can only talk about somebody
having ' 'thick hair".

Collocates

Collocates are words that are bound together by a collocation.

Words used for talking about quantity: 'amount', 'number’, 'quantity'.

When it comes to adjectives denoting size, such as ‘large’ and ‘great’,
these 3 words behave differently.
All the 3 words combine with large, so large is a collocate of all of them.
However, amount does not collocate with great , whereas number and quantity
do.

We use the term "collocation range" to refer to the set of collocates that
usually accompany a given word.
The collocation range of a given word is determined to a large extent
by the number of senses that a word conveys.
For example, the word 'spend': we can ' 'spend money" → "using money
to pay for things” . That means that 'spend' strongly collocates with 'money’.
We also associate the word 'spend' to 'time' → "do something for a
period of time". So ‘spend’ strongly collocates with 'time'.

Syntactic relation

The type of syntactic relation differs.

We can have a combination of a verb + noun (take a vacation)
Adjective + noun (light rain), adverb + verb (completely forget)
adverb + adjective (totally awesome), adjective +preposition (tired of).
In collocations there is no syntactic rigidity.
For example in "deliver a speech" there is no syntactic rigidity because
the sequence ‘deliver’ and ‘speech’ can be interrupted (President delivered a very
long speech) . Collocations are not fixed expressions (A great speech was
delivered by the President).
Collocations and synonymy

When we consider collocations, we can also consider how collocations relate

to the relationship of synonymy.
In the case of an adverb + adjective collocations, such as "completely
satisfied", we can't replace 'completely' with ''downright satisfied",
because it is not considered as a common collocation in English.
Adjective + noun : chronic pain (NOT chronic joy)
Noun + verb: lions roar (not lions shout)
Verb + noun: commit suicide (not undertake suicide)
Verb + preposition + noun: burst into tears (NOT blow up in tears).

Predictability

The lexemes involved in a collocation are always to some degree mutually

predictable.
For example, we can say "commit a crime" and not "commit a task", or
"monumental ignorance" and not "monumental brilliance".

Translation test

Commit a crime → commettere un crimine

Monumental ignorance → ignoranza colossale

General Rule

What is required of a sequence of words to be described as a collocation is for

one word to "call up" another in the mind of a native or fluent speaker.

Common language use vs actual quality of object

In "white coffee", 'white' can be not replaced by "bronze, amber, beige coffee”.
The word 'white' calls up the word 'coffee'.
The word 'false' calls up words such as 'eye, nose, beard, teeth, eyebrows,
eyelashes'. In all that cases, the word 'false' means 'artificial'.
'False' does not combine with 'arm, leg', we must use the word 'artificial'.

Collocation and meaning

The meaning of a word changes depending on the collocate.

When 'false' collocates with words such as 'expectation, impression, belief,
hope' , its meaning is that of 'mistaken'.
When it conveys with 'passport' , its meaning is 'forged'.
When it is collocates with 'smile', its meaning is 'insincere'.
To sum up, the meaning of a word is constituted by the regular lexical company
that it keeps.
The meaning of a word is partly determined by its collocates.

This is represented in dictionaries in different ways. For example, the word

'face': different meaning are activated depending on the words with which the
word 'face' combines. 'Face' means "to look forwards" when it combines with
words such as 'person, room, building.” It means "to confront" when it combines
with words such as 'challenge, crisis, fine, decision, attacker'.
The meaning of a word is as much a matter of how it combines with other words
in actual use as it is of the meaning it possesses in itself.
The meaning of a word is given not only by the idioms it possesses, but how it
combines with other words.

Common collocations

"Bitterly disappointed" is a common collocation. 'Bitterly' can't be replaced by a

synonym such as "sourly disappointed".

Meaning

The meaning of 'strong' changes depending on the collocates it combines with.

In "a strong woman" , it refers to physical straight
In ' 'strong tea" , it has to do with the intensity of the flavour.
In "strong personality", it has to do with moral strength.
This seems to suggest that different senses of strong emerge from the specific
collocations of strong.

Collocation and meaning

The word' hiss' is said of living creatures, especially snakes and cats.
“The snake hissed at him and opened its mouth”.
“Cats sometimes hiss at dogs".
Also people hiss, especially when they say something in a loud whisper.
"Get out, she hissed furiously".
Hiss combines with living creatures, with people, for example groups of people
(crowd, audience), with cooking utensils such as kettle, pressure cooker.

Creative collocations

In poetry, creative collocations are used to create specific effects. So, creative
collocations are created by breaking of collocation of conventions.

Unexpected or deviant lexical collocations

“All the sun long, all the moon long" rather than "all day long"
Predictability

Collocations are linguistically predictable sequences of words. They are

predictable in the mind of a native speaker. The predictability can be weak or
strong.

Weak predictability

When a lexical item collocates with quite a diverse range of items.

The word 'heavy' has weak predictability because it combines with a diverse
range of items , including 'loss, traffic, burden , defeat' . In all such cases it
carries different meanings. However, 'heavy' does not collocates with the word
'mistake'. It’s a “big mistake” rather than “heavy mistake”.

Strong predictability

On the other hand, we have strong predictability in those cases when word
collocation of range is much more restricted. It is the case of the word “rancid”. It
collocates with butter or ham, bacon (rancid butter snd rancid bacon). Therefore,
we can say it is characterised by strong predictability and the collocation of range
is strong predictable.

Restricted collocations

“Rancid butter” is an example of restricted collocations, because the word

“rancid” has an extremely restricted collocational range.

Collocations for the learner

NO: “to do war”, “to make justice”, “to do a question”.

YES: “to make war”, “to do justice”, “to put or ask a question”.

One of the problems of learners of English is the tendency of the mother tongue
to interfere with language production. Therefore, we may consider some
collocations of patterns as arbitrary, because they do not correspond to lexical
patterns that we are familiar with (collocational patterns which are natural to a
native speaker seem arbitrary to the learner). What we can do is to expose us to
the language and use the dictionary to find out common collocations.

Collocational knowledge: why is it important?

Learning to choose the most appropriate collocation will make you sound more
natural and you will be able to express yourself more correctly and effectively.

How to acquire collocational knowledge?

Using the dictionary.

Odd collocations: tall and high

NO: “tall mountains and high trees”, “a high man”, “a tall ceiling”.
YES: “high mountains and tall trees”, “a tall man”, “a high ceiling”.
A window: both tall or high.

Common collocations

“Get old and tired” but “ go bald or grey”.

“Get sick” but “fall ill”.
“Big house, a large house and a great house” but not “great man, big man, large
man”.
“Big mistake, great mistake” but not “large mistake”.
“A little sad” but not “ a little happy”.

Collocations in translation

Languages may have collocations that convey the same or similar meaning but a
different form.
English: “cancel a train”, “meet the needs”, “pass and exam”, “spend the time”.
Italian: “sopprimere un treno”, rispondere alle esigenze”, “superare un esame”,
trascorrere/passare il tempo”.

Often the same verb + noun collocation will involve different verbs in different
languages.
English: “pay attention”, “take a shower”, “give/deliver a lecture”, “make a
decision”, “brush one’s teeth”, “make sense”.
Italian: “lend attention”, “make a shower”, “hold/make a lecture”, “take a
decision”, “wash one’s teeth”, “have sense”.
English: “do/carry/perform a biopsy”, “step on to the winner’s podium”.
Italian: “eseguire/effettuare una biopsia”, “conquistare il gradino più alto del
podio”.

Translation problems

One of the problems is that they may be mismatch in form rather than meaning
and it is important to avoid peculiar collocations when translating.

Special meanings of words in collocations

There are special meanings of words that can be explored in collocations. For
example, “white snow/white paint”, but ‘white’ takes on a different meaning when
it combines with other words such as “white lie”, which is a harmless lie,
especially one told to avoid hurting someone’s feelings; “white night” or “white
horses”. ‘ White’ is not exactly ’white’, it does not refer to a specific quality of the
object when it combines with “wine, grapes, coffee”.

Word formation creating new words

What are new words?

“To de-friend” means delete a friend from a social media website. The verb is
composed of two parts, “de” and “friend”.
“An alcopop” is a noun and it denotes a sweet, sugary alcoholic drink.
“A slumdog” is a noun and it indicates a very poor and unprivileged person,
especially a child, who lives in a slum (a poor and crowded area of a city where
people live in very bad conditions).

Process of lexical innovation

The vocabulary of a language can form and develop through 3 different

processes of lexical innovation:
• Coinages: the creation of completely new words. They are very rare and
they occur when a new word is invented and they are often used in
trademarks or advertising (Google, Yahoo)
• Loanwords: they are words borrowed from mother languages.
• Word-formation processes: it is a category which includes various ways
of modifying already existing words to create new ones. Word-formation
processes are part of what we call derivational morphology.

Word formation processes

“Stay-at-home” is a single word in dictionary.

Morphemes

It is the smallest units of meaning in the language. They usually have an

identifiable meaning. For example, we can identify the meaning of “like” in words
such as “childlike, birdlike, cloudlike”. We can say “like” means “being similar to”.
Morphemes that are dependent on other for their existence are not always easy
to paraphrase. For example, the meaning of the morpheme “ing” indicates “the
length of time an action continues”.
The morpheme “-ly” can be be paraphrased as meaning “in the manner of”.
The prefix “de-” suggests “the undoing of an action”.

Free and bound morphemes

Free morphemes are words of the language with no additions, such as “sing,
bright, motive, ice, rink”.
Bound morphemes are affixes that are added to free morphemes which do not
exist independently from free morphemes, such as “-ing, -ly, de-, ation”.

Allomorphs

They are the different form that a morpheme can take. They are phonologically
determined, for example the distinction between voiced and voiceless sibilant (?)
in plurals. Therefore, we have a voiced plural morpheme in plural form such as
“planes, miles, pictures”. We have a voiceless plural morpheme such as
“rocks, steps, seats”.
Another example of allomorphs is that provided by the “past tense morpheme”,
which is realised differently depending on the preceding sound. Therefore, the
sound is pronounced as /id/ in words such as “parted”, as /t/ in “passed”, as /d/
in “seemed”. They all are allomorphs of the morpheme “ed”.

Process of word formation

• Derivation or affixation
• Compounding
• Shortening or clipping
• Blending
• Conversion

Word structure

Consider “examine, re-examine, examination, examined, examining”. These

words have a common core element, which is “examine” (called the root of the
word).
“Examine” is an independent word, but composed of a single root element, which
means that “examine” can not be broken down into other components.
On the contrary, the other elements in list cannot operate as independent words
(re-, ation, -ing). They are bound elements.
The characteristics of bound elements is that they can occur only as attachments
to a root; they are affixes, which means that they are attached to other elements.
Those elements that are attached to the left of a root are called prefixes (re-).
Those elements that are attached to the right of a root are called suffixes (-
ation).

To sum up

Morphemes are elements of a word that have a meaning or function.

Free morphemes function as independent word and have a clearly identifiable
meaning.
Bound morphemes can only occur as attachments to a root or free morphemes.
Derivation or affixation

It is a highly productive process by which new words are coined. It involves

adding an affix to an existing word (the word happy produce unhappy and
happiness).
Affixes are morphemes that are attached to a word. They can be distinguished
into prefixes, which occur before the root, and suffixes, which occur after the
root.

Prefixes

Prefixes do not usually change the class of the lexeme they are added to
(class-maintaining).
“Re-write” remains a verb if I added the prefix.
Prefixes are classified according to the different meanings they express.
There are 57 varieties of prefix in English and they can be grouped according to
their meaning. We have a group of prefixes which expresses negation:
• A- as in amoral and atheist
• Dis- as in disobey and disbelieve
• In- as in incomplete
• Non- as in nonsmoker
• Un- as in unwise and unhelpful

We have another group of prefixes that express the meaning of reversal (of an
action):
• De- as in defrost
• Dis- as in disconnect
• Un- as in undo

Meaning of pejorative:
• Mis- as in misled
• Pseudo- as in pseudoscience

Meaning of size or degree:

• Hyper- as in hypermarket
• Mega- as in megapixel
• Mini- as in miniskirt
• Over- as in overflow
• Sub- as in subnormal
• Ultra- as in ultramodern

Meaning of attitude:
• Anti- as in antisocial
• Auto- as in autosuggestion
 • Pro- as in prosocialist

Meaning of location/distance
• Extra- as in extraterrestrial
• Inter- as in interplay
• Super- as in superscript
• Trans- as in transplant

Meaning of time and order:

• Ex- as in exhusband
• Fore- as in foreshadow
• Neo- as in neoclassical
• Post- as in postmodern
• Re- as in recycle

Meaning of number:
• Bi- as in bicycle
• Multi- as in multiracial
• Uni- as in unisex

Potential ambiguity

Several words beginning with the prefix in- are potentially ambiguous.
In- has two possible meanings:
• A locative or intensifying meaning, as with “inflate or ingredient”.
• A negative meaning as with “ingratitude or infrequent”.

Suffixes: meaning

Sometimes the meaning of a suffixes is easy to state. For example,

“-ess” indicates the “female of” (lioness).
Some have several meanings. For example, “-ette” indicates the “female of”
(usherette), “small version of” (kitchenette), “substitute for” (leatherette =
similpelle).
Some have a highly abstract meaning. For example, “-ery” indicates “the
quality of having a particular state” (snobbery).

Suffixes: effects

When suffixes are attached to free morphemes, they tend to change the word’s
grammatical status (=the word class).
“-ify” turns the noun beauty in the verb beautify.
“-ing” turns the concrete noun farm into the abstract noun farming.
On the contrary, prefixes rarely cause word to change their class.

Derivation by suffixation: nouns from verbs

 • To swim —> swimming
• To admire —> admirer
• To amaze —> amazement
• To construct —> construction
• To realise —> realisation

Derivational morphemes do not attach to words in a very regular way. “-ist” is

added to the name of the instrument to produce the player of it:
• Violin —> violinist
• Cello —> cellist
• Trombone —> trombonist
• Trumpet —> trumpeter (eccezione)

Complex derivation

Complex derivation is a morphological process that consists in adding more than

one affix to the base of a word.
• Unhappiness from happy
• Nationalisation from nation
• Unproductively from product
• Dishonestly from honest
• Deactivate from active
• Familiarise from family
• Informal from form
• Unforgettable from forget

Neoclassical combining forms

Many prefixes and suffixes are of Greek or Latin origin. Therefore, they are
called neoclassical combining forms.
Prefixes such as bio, eco, mega, micro, multi, photo, neuro, tele, mega.
Suffixes such as crat, graphy, ology, phile, phobe.
They are very productive in forming nouns especially in the fields of science and
learning (biotechnology).

Neoclassical combining forms often combine with words of Anglo-Saxon origin

to create new words. For example, “photoshop or videotape” (shop and tale are
words of Anglo-Saxon origin).

Recent trends:
• Euro —> europhile, eurozone
• -scape —> cityscape, soundscape
• -gate —> sexgate, Russiagate
Neoclassical compounds

They refer to words formed from Greek and Latin roots but not generally
compounds in Latin or Greek, such as “astronaut, demography and autocracy”.
Each is former from a first part and a second part know as combining forms.

Compounds

Compounds are a vast group of words that can take on different shapes and
forms. Words such as “bedside” written as one word; the compound “black
market” written as two separate words; the compound “car-wash”; complex
compound word such as “waste paper basket” written in more than two words.
Compounds are words that are pronounced as a single word; they have one
main stress, which is usually on the first element; they are lexically single
words, independently on their spelling; they are considered single words also
grammatically, as they cannot be interrupted; as a whole, they belong to a
single word class (checklist is a noun, because the word class of a compound
is established by the head).

Orthographic treatment

Compounds may be written in different ways:

• As one word, as in milkshake or audiovisual
• As one word but hyphenated, as in car-wash or user-friendly
• As two or more distinct words, as in business class, video game, work
of art
• As complex structures, as in computer-aided design or sell-by date

The orthographic treatment of compounds is by no means consistent.

Stress and pronunciation

Another feature of compounds is that it is normally the first element that

received stress. For example, a ‘blackboard is different from a ‘black ‘board,
which is a noun phrase. Stress makes it possible to distinguish a compound from
a noun phrase.

Structure

As regards the structure of compounds, there is great variability. As regards

nouns, we may have noun + noun combination (motorway), adjective + noun
(sore throat), verb + noun (pick-pocket), adverb + noun (afterthought).
In the class of adjective, we may have noun + adjective (sea-sick), adjective +
adjective (blue-green).
In the class of verbs, we may have noun + verb (brain wash), verb + verb (dive-
bomb), adjective + verb (dry-clean), adverb + verb (downgrade).
Inflected forms

First element can be inflected in words such as bird’s-eye or driving-license.

We can also find forms in -er, as in book- keeper, coat-hanger, dish-washer,
house-keeper and left-winger.
Forms in -ed, as in left-handed, kind-hearted, red-haired and well-intentioned.

Compounds in dictionaries

Compounds are entered in dictionaries as either headwords (most frequently)

or derivatives.

Condensation and meaning

Compounds are interpreted as shortcuts for longer and more elaborate phrase
structures. It is not always easy to determine the meaning of a compound simply
by combining the meanings of the words involved in the compound.
• Ash-tray —> tray for ashes
• Armchair —> chair with arms
• Sea-shore —> shore of the sea
• Sun-light —> light from the sun
• Gas-mask —> mask against gases

We may postulate the existence of relational words like prepositions in the

structure.

Endocentric, exocentric and copulative compounds

• Fake news = endocentric compound, because the central meaning of

the compound is carried by the head
• Paperback = exocentric compound, because the semantic head is
“outside” the compound (highbrow)
• African-American = copulative compound, because it has more than
one semantic head.

Exocentric compounds

Adjective + noun compounds: Englishman, madman, long jump, wildlife. We

can analyse their meaning by analysing the elements they are composed of.
Noun that is an adjective. It is not possible for some compounds:
• A highbrow is not a “brow that is high” but ‘intellectual’
• A blackboard is not necessarily a “board that is black”
• A red-coat is a soldier of the British army
• A dumbbell is a piece of equipment used in weight training
Meaning

The meaning of s compound is not always derived from that of its constituents.
For example, a ‘dustbin’ is not restricted to the collocation of dust; a ‘blackboard’
may be green (lavagna).

Creating new words

New words are constantly created.

Compounds with ‘rage’:
• Road rage: aggressive or angry behaviour by a driver of an automobile or
other motor vehicle.
• Trolley rage at supermarket: common name for a heightened level of
anger and frustration while in a supermarket or shop of any kind.
• Cash machine rage, alarm rage (a reference to annoying car alarms),
golf rage, cycle rage, pavement rage, computer rage, wrap rage
(refers to packaging that is impossible to open).

Compound or derivation?

Sometimes it is difficult to decide whether a lexeme is a compound or a

derivation. For example, “householder” (household + er or house + holder?)

Conversion or zero derivation (word formation process)

We have conversion when a lexeme changes its word class without the
addition of an affix.
• Bottle —> to bottle
• Dirty —> to dirty
• Empty —> to empty
• Catalogue —> to catalogue
• To eat a —> eats
• To download —> download
• To update —> update (let’s have and update on the weather conditions)

Blending (word formation process)

When new words are created by the fusion of the forms and meaning of two
lexemes.
• Brexit —> Britain + exit
• Smog —> smoke + fog
• Glocal —> global + local
• Brunch —> breakfast + lunch
• Motel —> motor + hotel
• Fandom —> fan + kingdom
It is through process of blending that new words are created, especially in the
media:
• Netizen —> net + citizens
• Toytoons —> toy + cartoons (a kind of carton that generates a series of
shop toys)

Blending also existed in the past:

• Transistor —> transfer + resistor
• Moped —> motor + pedal

Blends are especially popular in advertising and commercial (sportsational,

swimsational, sexsational) and television (docufantasies, rockumentaries,
mockumentaries).
They are popular in the context of advertising because they are eye catching,
exciting. On the other hand, they are subject to extinction.

Clipping

In clipping, what happened is the shortening of a longer word, often reducing it

to one syllable.
• Situation comedy —> sitcom
• Examination —> exam
• Laboratory —> lab
• Refrigerator —> fridge
• Advertisement —> ad
• Perambulator —> pram
• Limousine —> limo
• Celebrity —> celeb

In clipping, you may cut the first part (aphaeresis)

• Omnibus —> bus

Or the last part, which is more frequent (apocope)

• Facsimile —> fax
• Public house—> pub
• Memorandum —> memo
• Fanatic —> fan
• Gasoline —> gas

You may also keep the central part

• Influenza —> flu

Many example are very informal or slang. Clipping is an effect of the preference
of English for shorter words and for words that have an informal flavour.
• Brother —> bro
 • Hyperactive —> hyper

Names can be clipped

• Alexander —> Al
• Thomas —> Tom
• Elizabeth —> Liz

Common nouns (math, gym, prof, lit)

Back formation

In back formation , a shorter word is derived from a longer one by deleting

an affix.
• To edit —> editor
• To babysit —> babysitter
• To televise —> television
• Therap —> therapy

Acronyms

They are composed of the initial letters of the words of a phrase and they are
pronounced as a single word (aids, laser, unesco, radar). Some acronyms
become familiar very quickly, such as Sars.

Initialisms

In the case of initialisms, the word Is spoken as individual letters (BBC, DJ, EU,
VIP, UFO).

Fixed expressions

They can be described as pre constructed phrases or multi word units,

because they are combinations of words that are perceived as units of meanings,
so they are treated as single lexemes.
Fixed expressions include a wide range of items:
• Idioms (beat about the bush)
• Pragmatic idioms (greetings, formulae: say when, how do you do?)
• Proverbs (birds of a feather flock together)
• Commonplaces (orders are orders, you only live one, it’s a small world)
• Binomials (kith and kin, bed and breakfast)
• Slogans
• Allusions/quotations

Idioms
Idioms can be a challenge. Very often there is no correspondence between an
idiom of a language and an idiom in another language. One of the main problems
when it comes to idioms is to unpack their meaning.
Idioms can be described as an expressions that are longer than a word and
shorter than a sentence. As regards meaning, they cannot be derived from the
sum of the meanings if its components. For example, the idiom “to spill the
beans” cannot be understood as the sum of the meanings of the words it is
composed of. The meaning is idiomatic and it means “telling other people’s
secret”.
“A storm in a teacup”: a situation where people get very worried about
something that is not important. This type of idioms describes un unreal
events/conditions.
“Food for thought”: ‘something for someone to think about. Food is used in
metaphorical manner.’
“To bite the dust”: it can be used in different ways. It means ‘to die, to end in
failure or to fail.’
“To bite the bullet”: he went ahead and confronted the situation.
The meanings of idioms are always metaphorical, not literal. They cannot be
guessed on the basis of the meaning of its components. Some idioms allow both
literal and non-literal interpretation.
“To put something on ice”: it can have two possible meanings. It can be
interpreted in literal sense as ‘to put something in a bucket of ice to get cold’. Non
literal way as ‘to delay doing anything about a plan or idea’. “I have put a couple
of bottles on ice” or “let’s put this project on ice till we find out how well it’s
financed”. The example suggests that the meaning of an idiom is often opaque,
which means that it cannot be easily guest.
The menace of an idiom in always metaphorical, that is non literal and cannot
be guessed on the basis of the meaning of its components.
This creates problems to non-native speakers.

What is the difference between “to pass the buck” and “to pass the salt”?

Buck has several meanings: US informal dollar or a male rabbit or deer. When
we pass the buck, we give the responsibility to someone else.
The meaning of phrase 2 is compositional, it can be inferred from the meaning
of its parts.
The meaning of phrase 1 is not compositional, it cannot be worked out on the
basis of the meaning of the words it contains.

Shared and culture-specific idioms

Shared idioms are those idiomatic expressions that are shared by different
languages and can be easily understood by foreign learners.
“To give the green light” means ‘to give someone permission to do something’.
It can be easily interpreted by Italian speakers.
Other idioms are cultural-specific and may prove to be opaque.
“To give someone a piece of one’s mind” means ‘to tell someone exactly what
you think, especially in an angry manner (dirne quattro a qualcuno).

Idioms in translation

When it comes to translate idioms, some problems may arrive. Idioms pose
problems in translation and they tend to pose problems to machine translation
(Google Translate).
Idioms are not susceptible to simple translation, they cannot be translated word
for word and their meaning must be learned as a unit. Their meaning is not
compositional.
Idioms function more like words than like phrases and therefore, they should be
treated as lexemes, as unit of meaning.

“Let the cat out of the bag” means ‘to give away a secret, to reveal a secret by
accident’.
“Mom let the cat out of the bag and told us Karen was engaged”.

“A leopard can’t change his spots” means ‘il lupo perde il pelo ma non il vizio’.
(it’s impossible for one to change their character, even if they will try very hard.
The expression, sometimes also used as “a leopard can't change its spots”, is
used to explain the idea that no one can change their innate nature)

To sum up, idioms are multiword units that have a fixed grammatical and lexical
content. They have to be regarded as syntactic units in that they function like
individual words and therefore they have to be regarded as single lexemes.

Proverbs and commonplaces

“Too many cooks spoil the broth” means ‘too many people involved in
managing an activity/problem and therefore they can ruin it’.
“The proof of the pudding is in the eating” means ‘the true value or quality of
something can only be judged when it’s put to use or tried’.
Proverbs are less popular today, but they are still used because they are well
established and traditional. They are folklore items, they are strictly linked to
the culture of the language and they contain common sense, experience,
wisdom and truth (= folk wisdom).

Form of proverbs

Sometimes they show an irregular syntax (‘like father, like son’ or ‘handsome is
as handsome does’).
They contain every-day English lexis, therefore the vocabulary they contain is
of Anglo-Saxon origin.
Very often, they can be divided into two parts, they are characterised by
alliteration, rhyme and lexical repetition.
Two part structures: “once bitten, twice shy; easy come, easy go”
Alliteration: “a friend in need is a friend indeed; all that glitters is not gold”

Fixed expressions such as proverbs are fixed but not completely frozen, which
means that various additions and transformations can be made by language
speakers, for example by using prefixes (“the proverbial pen is mightier than a
sword”); they can be alluded to by quoting a part of them (“this is a case of too
many cooks”).

To sum up, proverbs are equivalent to a sentence; they tend to express general
ideas that are shared by a community; they show non literal meaning
(metaphorical); they are not exactly fixed because they can be added to,
transformed and abbreviated; they are characterised by specific metrical features
(they have a rhythm) and by prosodic features.

Similes and binomials (fixed expressions)

A simile is a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another
thing of a different kind (‘as brave as a lion’).
It is a fixed expression composed of a part that is interpreted literally and a part
that is interpreted more or less non-literally.
“As happy as a lark” means “felice come una Pasqua” (lark is a bird).
“As sly” and “as a fox”: sly should be interpreted literally, whereas fox should
be interpreted non-literally. We use “sly, fox” to talk about people.

Similes as culture-specific items

Every culture conventionally attributes specific characteristics to non-animated

objects or animals, when then are used in comparison to human beings.
“Slyness/cunning” are associated with the fox, which is a characteristic that we
have culturally and conventionally imputed to foxes. Other cultures attribute the
same characteristics to other animals.

Similes with animals

• Blindness is associated with bat (Im as blind as a bat without my

glasses). In Italian we say “cieco come una talpa”.
• Being busy is typically associated to bees (I have been as busy as a bee
all morning).
• To be free is associated to bird (I felt as free as a bird)
• The characteristic of slippery are associated with eel (he is as slippery as
an eel)
• Feeling like a fish out of water
• Having eyes like a hawk
In the last two cases, the similarity between English and Italian in terms of the
images used in the conventionalised simile.

Implicit/explicit similes

Explicit: “As blind as a bat” or “As proud as a peacock”

Implicit: “Pitch black” means “as black as a pitch”. “Snow white” means “as white
as snow”.

Structure of comparison

The structure of comparison is also variable. In “as white as snow” parts are
connected via conjunction or a particle. This can be ‘as’ or ‘like’.

As… as similes

We may have ‘as’ as similes as in “as ugly as sin” or “as light as a feather” or
“as heavy as lead”.
‘As’ as similes has the function to make an adjective stronger/more intense. For
example, “as blind as a bat” means “very blind/with very poor sight indeed”.

Like similes

“Avoid something or someone like the plague” which means “to be

determined to avoid something completely” (I am not a fan of parties, in fact I
avoid them like the plague).

Binomials

They are patterns made up of 2 or more fixed elements. They are formed by 2
word forma that belong to the same word class and are linked by a grammatical
item (very often a conjunction). For example, “bed and breakfast” or “odds and
ends”, “to and fro”, “ups and downs”.
As regards their features, the two components can be identical (face to face).
The two elements can be different but belong to the same word class, for
example “pros and cons”, “sick and tired”, “fish and chips”.
Some of the features of binomials is that they tend to be completely transparent
(bed and breakfast, bacon and eggs). They can also be opaque or completely
idiomatic. For example, “high and dry”:
to leave somebody high and dry means to do something that is not at all
convenient for someone and put them in a very difficult situation without any help.

Pragmatic idioms

They are fixed or semi-fixed social formulae that are likely to be shared by
different languages.
“How do you do?” means “piacere, molto lieto/a”
“Bless you” means “Salute”
Pragmatic idioms are not necessarily shared by different languages.

Inflection

It is the process by which the main lexical word classes, which include nouns,
verbs, adjectives, adverbs, tend to acquire regular endings in order to form
particular grammatical structures.
The function of inflection is to convey more information about words.
Inflections make it possible to indicate number (singular/plural as regards nouns)
or to express and indicate tense (verbs).
Example: “Sarah needs to borrow some books from the library”. The word
‘books’ is composed of two morphemes (book + s).
The inflection suffix -s signals plural number.

Inflectional morphemes

They are all suffixes, which means that they are all bound morphemes that are
added to the end of the base form.
One of the features of inflectional morphemes is that they do not change the
class of the word, but they change the grammatical form.

Modern vs old English

Modern English has a more limited presence of inflection morphology

compared to Old English and compared to languages such as Italian, French and
Spanish.

Inflectional suffixes

Present-day English has inflectional suffixes and inflected forms. It has both
regular and irregular inflections.
Regular inflectionals suffixes include:
• -s which expresses the plural for nouns
• ‘s that indicates a possessive case
• -ed of past tense in regular verbs
• -er of comparative degree in adjectives
• -est of superlative degree in adjectives and adverbs

Number, case, gender

Inflections convey information that relates to number, case and gender.

English nouns have the category of both number and case, although case is
only partially represented.
Case occurs in English nouns and in some pronouns. The function of case is to
provide information on the syntactic function and semantic role within a
sentence of the word it applies to.
Unlike Italian nouns and adjectives, English nouns do not have the category of
gender.

Inflected forms: the noun class

Nouns are inflected in terms of number. They also distinguish countable and
uncountable nouns. We distinguish count nouns from mass nouns.
Count nouns are nouns that can be counted, whereas mass nouns are
uncountable nouns.
Count nouns have a plural form, which means that:
• they have a singular base form (= free morpheme) : ‘brother’
• they word ‘brother’ has s plural form ‘brothers’ (base form + plural
morphemes -s)
• they have a possessive form for the singular ( the possessive
morphemes is added to the singular form): ‘brother’s’
• they have a possessive form for the plural (the possessive morpheme is
added to the plural form): ‘ brothers’ ’.

Mass nouns have a more limited range of inflected forms:

• Singular form (= free morpheme): ‘water, sheep’
• Possessive form (the possessive morpheme is added to the singular
form): ‘water’s’
• Plural: when mass nouns have a plural form, for example ‘waters’ their
meaning is more idiomatic. When we talk about the waters, we don’t talk
about a plurality of waters, but we indicate something that is more specific.
In this case, we indicate the liquid that surrounds a baby inside a pregnant
woman’s womb.

The noun class: possessive forms

In English possession can be indicated by an inflectional suffix. This is

typically indicated by an apostrophe + ‘s’.
Both proper nouns and common nouns can have a possessive forms (Susan’s
brother was preparing the dog’s dinner).
When we talk about the possessive form or possessive inflection of a nouns we
are not referring strictly to the ownership of one person or thing by another
person or thing. In fact, the possessive inflection takes on different meanings.
Therefore, by saying “a hard day’s work”, we do not intended that the day
possesses the work, but that the work lasted a day.
We need to make a distinction between the possessive inflection and
possessive meaning.
In order to express the same meaning, sometimes we can use an of-
construction rather than a possessive inflection.
Example: “the journey’s end” or “the end of the journey”
There are cases where we wouldn’t use the possessive inflection at all (no
inflection): “the window of the kitchen” becomes “the kitchen window” and not
“*the kitchen’s window”.

Possessive forms: plural nouns

As regards plural nouns, very often the possessive forms is not discernible
from the non possessive form, because in its spoken form the pronunciation of
the possessive form of plural nouns is identical to the plural form. Whereas in
writing, we indicate a plural that has a possessive quality by adding an
apostrophe after the -s ending: “the dogs’ dinner”.

The possessive inflection can apply to a group of word rather than to an

individual noun. In this case, when we have two coordinated nouns (Chris and
Jonathan) it is the second noun that takes on the possessive inflection and
form (Chris and Jonathan’s mother).
Nouns with an irregular plural endings can take on the -s which indicates the
possessive form. Irregular plural can take overt possessive inflections, indicated
by an apostrophe followed by an -s (the children’s playground).

Inflected forms: the verb class

The uninflected form of the verb is known as the base form of the verb. It is also
referred to as infinitive. We distinguish to-infinitive from bare infinitive:
• to-infinitive are infinitive preceded by the preposition ‘to’ (to write)
• bare infinitive contain the base form only (write)

The base form of the verb can be varied by the addition of four regular
inflections.
Regular inflections are found only with lexical verbs (write, walk, talk), whereas
auxiliary verbs do not have regular inflections (have, must).

Verb inflections

The four regular inflected forms are obtained by adding inflectional suffixes.
• -s inflection marks the third person singular of the present tense (she
walks)
• -ing inflection is added to the base form of the verb to create the -ing
participle (or -ing form)
• -ed inflection is used to construct the past tense (sometimes realised in
pronunciation as /t/ or /d/ depending on the sound that precedes it)
• -ed participle inflection takes the same form as the past tense inflection
but has a different function.
Word classes

Lexical and grammatical words

Lexical words are the main carries of meaning in a text.

They can be divided into 4 main word classes:
• Nouns (man, cat)
• Lexical verbs (find, wish)
• Adjectives (large, beautiful)
• Adverbs (off, luckily)

The function of grammatical words is to signal relationships between different

words or linguistic units. They include a larger number of items:
• Pronouns (I, you, himself, somebody, who)
• Preposition (on, with, in front of)
• Determiners (my, this, the, a)
• Auxiliary verbs (must, could, shall, have/be)
• Conjunctions (and, but, because)

Lexical words are the most numerous and growing in number (open classes ),
also because they are ready to change (palmtop, flash drive, chav). This is the
area where lexical innovation occurs.
They generally received the stress in spoken language; they have a fairly
independent meaning.
Grammatical words are more limited in number and tend to have s fixed
membership (closed classes). They are very slow to change (thou, thee, thy,
thine). They are generally unstressed (vowels often reduced to a schwa); they do
not have an identifiable meaning, but rather indicate meaning relationships.

Word class ambiguities

In English some word forms may belong to more than one class according to
the syntactic and grammatical context in which they are used.
Example: ‘all’:
• Determiner: “all the students”
• Pronoun: “this is all I’ve got”
• Adverb: “she got all wet”
‘Since’:
• Subordinating conjunction: “he’s played football since he was a child”
• Preposition: “she’s lived in London since last year”
• Adverb: “I haven’t heard from her since”

The most 20 most frequent words in the British National Corpus (BNC)
 1. The = determiner
2. Of = preposition
3. And = conjunction
4. A = determiner
5. In = preposition
6. To = infinitive
7. It = pronoun
8. Is = verb
9. To = preposition
10. Was = verb
11. I = pronoun
12. For = conjunction
13. That = conjunction
14. You = pronoun
15. He = pronoun
16. Be = verb
17. With = preposition
18. On = preposition
19. At = preposition
20. By = preposition

We can conclude that the most frequently used words are grammatical
words.

Use of lexical words and grammatical words

Different text types exhibit different amounts of lexical and grammatical words.
For example, in conversation we have a higher frequency of grammatical words
compared to written language.
In written text, for example a newspaper, there is a higher frequency of lexical
words to convey information.

Most frequent words in spoken and written English (BNC)

Spoken subcorpus Written subcorpus

1. the the
2. I of
3. you and
4. and in
5. it to (infinitive)
6. a is
7. ‘s (verb) to (preposition)
8. to (infinitive) was
9. of it
10. that for
(determiner)
11. n’t that (conjunction)
 12. in with
13. we he
14. is be
15. do on
16. they I
17. er by
18. was ‘s (genitive)
19. yeah at

‘The’ is the word that is the most frequent in both spoken and written
language.
The second and the third most frequent words are two pronouns, which is an
indication of the interactive nature of spoken language and conversation. We find
an higher frequency of contracted forms (not, yeah). All of these elements are
indicative of the interactive and more informal nature of spoken language as
opposed to written language.

Lexical words in newspapers headlines

Newspaper headlines can be difficult to decode, because the information tends to

be packed and compressed.
Lexical words are the words that remain when a simple sentence is compressed
in a newspaper headline.
Example:
• Forgotten Brother Appears = a forgotten brother has appeared
• Mayor to Open Shopping Mall = the mayor is going to open a new
shopping mall
• Man Killed in Accident = a man has been killed in an accident

Lexical word class of nouns

We divide nouns into two groups:

• Proper nouns: they have a unique reference and therefore are never
pluralised or preceded by a determiner (Gerard, New York, Ryanair).
However, there are cases where proper names can be pluralised (Where
are all the Johns and the Marys?)
• Common nouns are divided into countable and uncountable.
➢ Countable nouns are divided into concrete (bun, pig) and abstract
(difficulty, remark). They occur in combination with numbers and the
indefinite article (a, an). They can be pluralised by the addition of the
plural morpheme (cats, children).
➢ Uncountable nouns are also divided into concrete (butter, gold) and
abstract (music, laziness). They do not occur with numbers or the
indefinite article. They cannot be pluralised (air, water, information
sugar, furniture, advice —> some advice, some information, a piece of
furniture).
Morphological features

Countable nouns have four different forms (singular base form, plural form,
possessive singular and possessive plural)
Mass nouns (uncountable) only have two (singular and possessive)

Countable/countable

Many nouns can be both countable and uncountable, but with a different
meaning.
Example: ‘chicken’:
• Chicken indicated ‘meat’ is uncountable. “Mark likes chicken”, “Would you
like some chicken?”
• Chicken indicated animal is countable. “A chicken was standing on the
side of the road”

Many basically uncountable nouns have countable uses. Therefore, they can
be used in the plural but with a more specific meaning.
Example:
• Sugars —> “How many sugars?” means how many spoonfuls of sugar
• Coffees, teas —> “How many cups of coffee/tea?”
• Wines —> “Which types of wine?”
• Papers —> when we use papers in the plural, we refer to the newspapers,
rather than to paper.

There are a few plural uncountable nouns (clothes, trousers, scissors). They
have a plural ending, they go with plural determiners but are uncountable
because they have no singular form.

Plural forms

Regular plurals of countable nouns are formed by adding the inflectional affix -s
to the singular form of the lexeme.

The plural suffix -s can have different phonetic shapes (allomorphs) linked to
the previous sound.
• In “cups, mints” the -s is voiceless [s]
• In “hands days” the -s is voiced [z]
• In “beaches, judges” it is pronounced as [iz]

Not all nouns have plural form. Mass nouns (furniture, oil, equipment, evidence)
and proper nouns do not have a plural form.

Irregular plurals
Irregular plurals may include forms that present an irregular suffix: for example,
nouns that form the plural by adding the Old English suffix -en (child —>
children; ox —> oxen).
Foreign plurals are also irregular, especially nouns of Greek, Latin and French
derivation that which retain the original plural form (phenomenon —>
phenomena; formula —> formulae; stimulus —> stimuli; corpus —> corpora;
bureau —> bureaux).
There are nouns that form the plural by changing the vowel of the root (vowel
mutation). For example: tooth —> teeth; man —> men; woman —> women;
goose —> geese; mouse —> mice.

Irregular plurals are formed by voicing the final consonant. The last consonant
of the root changes from voiceless to voiced and the inflectional affix -s is
added (wife —> wives; scarf —> scarves; knife —> knives; leaf —> leaves).

There are a group of nouns that exhibit the zero inflection. The singular and
plural forms are identical (sheep, deer, fish, trout).
For example “thousands of young salmon and trout have been killed by the
pollution”.

Possessive case (genitive)

English nouns can express possession by adding the inflectional suffix ’s

(“John’s car is fast/ The students’ protest is still going on”).
The morpheme is considered an inflectional form of nouns as it express the
grammatical category of the genitive case.
English nouns only express the genitive case.
With regular plural nouns ending in -s, the genitive is marked by a final
apostrophe (girls’)
For singular names ending in -s, the regular genitive is usual -s (Davis’s,
Charles’s).
For irregular plurals not ending in -s, the genitive is –‘s as for singular forms
(women’s rights, men’s clothing).

Lexical word classes of verbs

Verbs are words that express actions, events, states and processes and show
the relationship between the participants in what is referred to by the verb.
We divide the word class of verbs into two main groups:
• lexical verbs, which is an open class and tends to grow since new items
are constantly added. Lexical verbs are called “lexical” because they are
lexical words.
• Auxiliary verbs, which are a close set, in that there is very little
innovation. Auxiliary verbs are grammatical words, which tend to remain
the same.
Regular/irregular verbs

Regular verbs comprise the vast majority of English verbs. They are called
“regular” because we can easily predict the forms they will take when we add an
affix. New verbs that are coined or borrowed from other languages adopt the
regular pattern (receive, commence).
Irregular verbs comprise common verbs that derive from Old English. Most of
them are irregular only in their past tense and past participle.

Regular verbs: inflection

In the case of regular verbs, inflections are added to the base form, which is
identical for the infinitive and the present tense (play).
Inflected forms are obtained by adding inflectional morphemes to the base
form. From this addition, we obtain the present-tense, third person singular
morphemes (-s), the regular past-tense morpheme (-ed), the
perfective/passive morpheme (-ed) and the progressive
-ing form.

Past tense

The morpheme that indicates the past tense in English is -ed.

This morphemes can be realised phonetically in different ways depending on
the sound that precedes it:
• Raised [d]
• Looked [t]
• Decided [id]

Irregular verbs

They are grouped into three different categories:

• Zero morph: the past tense and past participle forms have no inflectional
affix (hurt-hurt-hurt; put-put-put; let-let-let; cut-cut-cut; hit-hit-hit)
• Vowel mutation: this process entails the change of the base vowel
(swim-swam-swum; come-came-come; ring-rang-rung).
• Vowel mutation + irregular inflection-en for the past participle form:
speak-spoke-spoken; take-took-taken; give-gave-given.

There is a group of verbs that results to replacive morphs. In this case, the past
tense and past participle forms are identical and are formed irregularly
through the replacement of one or more phonemes with other phonemes
(lose-lost-lost; keep-kept-kept; make-made-made)
Another group of irregular verbs forms the past tense and past participle forms by
suppletion.
Suppletion indicates that the forms of the verbs are phonetically different and
seem unrelated (go-went-gone; be-was-been)
Finite/non-finite verb forms

Finite forms are those lexical verbs that do not need an auxiliary verbs in order
to function in main clauses (the forms play, went or take).
Non-finite forms are verbs that need auxiliary in order to function in a clause.
They include -ing forms (the progressive forms singing), -en forms (the perfective
forms sung) and i- forms (the infinitive forms sing).

Adjective

Adjective are lexical words that describe qualities and properties of people
and things, and states of affairs.
They are divided into gradable and non gradable:
• Gradable adjectives can be modified in terms of a scale (large, very
large, the largest, a bit large, extremely large, not large at all).
• Non gradable adjectives cannot be modified or graded (dead, alive,
married).

Adverbs

They are lexical words that can carry out several functions.
For example, they can comment on an adjective by expressing degree
(extremely lucky, totally wrong).
They can accompany another adverb (quite strangely).
There is a large group of adverbs that give information about the circumstances
of an action or an event. This group is called adjuncts (yesterday, tomorrow,
inside, there, then, well, carefully, soon)
Finally, we have a group of adverbs that express the speaker/writer’s attitude
towards what is being said (probably he’s already left). This group is called
stance adverbs.

Adjuncts

They provide us with information about how, where, when and to what extent.
• Adverbs of manner tell us how (the surgeon completed the operation
carefully)
• Adverbs of place convey information on the location/direction of an
action/event (put the parcel here; she turned the key clockwise).
• Adverbs of time tell us when, how long, how often (someone saved my
life tonight; the symphony lasted forever; he telephones her nightly)
• Adverbs of degree tell us something about the extent of what it is
expressed by the verb (she found her job particularly difficult; she loved
him, and he loved her too).

Adjective and adverbs inflected forms

Most adjectives and some adverbs can be graded.
Gradable adjectives and adverbs can be inflected to express comparative and
superlative degree.
In the case of short adjectives, the comparative degree is formed by adding
the suffix -er (smaller, happier, nicer, younger).
The superlative degree is formed by adding the suffix -est (smallest, happiest,
fastest, nicest).

Adjectives and adverbs periphrastic and irregular forms

Both adjectives and adverbs have irregular forms.

Adjectives with one syllable and those with 2 syllables (only if the second ends
with a vowel sound, e.g. happy —> happier) form the comparative and
superlative form by adding an inflectional suffix.
In the case of longer adjectives, which are made up of two or more syllables,
the comparative and superlative form is formed by using a periphrastic form
with more and most (more nervous, most nervous)
Some irregular forms are still found for both adjectives and adverbs. For
example, ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘much’, ‘little’ exhibit as irregular forms for the comparative
and superlative (good/better/best; bad/worse/worst; much/more/most;
little/less/least).

Grammatical word classes

Pronouns

They are grammatical words used to replace nouns when we want to refer to
something or someone that has already been mentioned before or when we
want to refer to something or someone whose referent can be deduced from
the context.
There are different types of pronouns:
• Personal pronouns (I, she, we)
• Possessive pronouns (mine, yours, ours)
• Demonstrative pronouns (that, this)
• Reflexive pronouns (himself, themselves)
• Reciprocal pronouns (each other, one other)
• Indefinite pronouns (someone, everything, all)
• Relative pronouns (who, which, that)

Personal pronouns

They express the grammatical category of number, gender, case.

Case: nominative (I), accusative (me), genitive (my and mine).

Determiners
Group that include grammatical words used before a noun to indicate the type
of reference the noun has.
They include definite article (the), indefinite article (a, an), demonstrative
determiners (this, that, these, those), possessive determiners (my, your, his,
her, their, our, its), quantifiers (some, many, enough, few, a little, all).

Definite and indefinite articles

Definite articles is used for referents that are very clearly part of the context
of the situation or those referents that have already been referred to earlier in
the next.
Indefinite article is used for singular countable nouns that have no clear
referents or whose identification is not clear from the context.

Demonstratives

We have two types of demonstratives/

• Proximal demonstratives ‘this’ and ‘these’. They refer to things that are
physically or emotionally close to the speaker (this dress has always
been my favourite).
• Distal demonstratives ‘that’ and ‘those’. They refer to thing that are
physically or emotionally distant from the speaker (that blouse looked
awful on her).

Auxiliary verbs

They are a small class of verbs which accompany a lexical verb and cannot
usually occur alone.
We have different types of auxiliary:
• Primary auxiliary can function both as auxiliaries and as main lexical
verbs (be, have, do). “His father was a journalist” or “his father was
learning Arabic”
• Modal auxiliary are used to express degrees of certainty and
necessity (can, could, might, will, would, shall, should, must).

Prepositions

They are grammatical words that links words or syntactic elements and
express relationships between them.
In terms of meaning, they show a relation in time, space or of another kind
between two events, people or things.
Example: “She arrived after dinner”; “I met Mark outside the cinema”; “He went
to the party with Mary”.
There are simple and complex prepositions:
 • Simple prepositions are composed of one word (in, at, for, with, to, after,
before, by, of, under)
• Complex prepositions are composed of two or more words (next to, in
front of, due to, because of, according to, thanks to).

Conjunctions

They are grammatical words which link linguistic items such as words,
phrases, clauses and sentences.
There are different types of conjunctions:
• Coordinating conjunctions join elements that have equal grammatical
status (and, or, but, nor, not)
• Subordinating conjunctions join clauses that are subordinated
(because, when, if, although, since, where).

Coordinating conjunctions

‘And’ joins elements that are sequential and equal in importance (“The barn was
up the road and by the river”).
‘But’ implies difference, contrast and exception (“Our car is old but reliable”)
‘Or’ implies that an alternative or option will follow (“I can’t decide if I want an
apple or a banana with my yogurt”)
“Nor” presents an alternative negative idea or thought (“Brian did not like
singing, nor did he like dancing”).

Subordinating conjunctions

They can be grouped into different categories depending on the meaning they
convey:
• Time ‘after, before, when, since, until, as soon as’
• Cause/effects ‘because, so, now that, in order to, as if’
• Condition ‘as long as, unless, provided that, so long as, if, while’
• Contrast ‘although, even though, though, whereas, even if’