Words, Sentences & Dictionaries

Meeting 2
Words as Meaningful Building-blocks of Language
» Words are the basic units of language.
» Sentences come later, we are inclined to feel, when words are
strung together meaningfully.
» Words seem to be the building blocks of language.
» There are quite a few circumstances in which we use single
words outside the context of any actual or reconstructable
sentence.
 warning shouts, such as ‘Fire!’
 conventional commands, such as ‘Lights!’, Camera!’,
‘Action!’
» Words on their own, outside sentences, can be sorted and
classified in various ways.
 Thesaurus: a comprehensive classification of English
words according to meaning.
 Dictionary: list of words according to their spelling in
alphabetical order.
» The reasons for looking up a word in an English dictionary:
 to check the spelling.
 to check the meaning.
» A dictionary entry basically consists of: an association of a word,
alphabetically listed, with a definition of what it means, and
perhaps also some information about grammar (the word class or
part of speech that the word belongs to) and its pronunciation.
month noun. Any of twelve portions into which the year is divided.
Concise Oxford Dictionary (6th edition)
» A word is not just a building-block of sentences.
» It is a building-block with a meaning that is unpredictable, or at
least sufficiently unpredictable that learners of English, and even
sometimes native speakers, may need to consult a dictionary in
order to discover it.
» Words are units of language which are basic in two senses:
1) They have meanings that are unpredictable and so must
be listed in dictionaries.
2) They are the building-blocks out of which phrases and
sentences are formed.
» There are units of language that have characteristic 1. but not
2., and vice versa.
Words as Types and Words as Tokens
» How many words are there in the following sentence?
Mary goes to Edinburgh next week, and she intends going to
Washington next month.
» 14 based on the English spelling convention of placing a space
between each word.
» 12 since two of them (the words to and next) are repeated ⇒ distinct
tokens of a single type).
» The type–token distinction is relevant to the notion ‘word’ in this way.
» Sentences (spoken or written) may be said to be composed of word-
tokens, but it is clearly not word-tokens that are listed in dictionaries.
» There are some words whose sound seems to reflect their
meaning fairly directly.
 onomatopoeic words;
 sound symbolism: sets of words in which some similarity
in sound seems to reflect a vague similarity in meaning;
» What kinds of word do have predictable meanings, then?
Any words that are composed of independently identifiable
parts, where the meaning of the parts is sufficient to
determine the meaning of the whole word.
 Ginkgo trees reproduce dioeciously.
  Vice-President Gore is likely to use deliberately un-
Clintonish electioneering tactics.
» It is virtually inevitable that words with predictable
meanings should exist, given that English vocabulary changes
over time.
» The vast majority, however, are words whose meanings, if not
strictly predictable, are at any rate motivated in the sense
that they can be reliably guessed by someone who
encounters them for the first time in an appropriate context.
» A word’s meaning may be motivated but nevertheless
idiosyncratic.
» A word’s original motivation is totally obscured by its
pronunciation but can still be glimpsed from its spelling, as
with cupboard and handkerchief.
» What matters is to be aware that not every word can be listed
in a dictionary, even in the fullest dictionary imaginable.
Non-words with Unpredictable Meanings
» Something that is clearly larger than a word (being composed
of two or more words) may nevertheless have a meaning that
is not entirely predictable from the meanings of the words
that compose it.
 Idiom. They are enormously various in length, structure
and function.
a) I keep notes on all my expenditure.
b) I keep tabs on all my expenditure.
 Collocation.
 white wine; white coffee; white noise; white man.
  Proverbs: a traditional saying, syntactically a sentence,
whose conventional interpretation differs from what is
suggested by the literal meaning of the words it contains.
a) Too many cooks spoil the broth.
b) A stitch in time saves nine.
c) It’s no use crying over spilt milk
» The relationship between the literal meaning and the
conventional interpretation of these proverbs is not totally
arbitrary, but rather it arises through metaphorical extension
of the literal meaning.
Conclusion: Words Versus Lexical Items
» Words have two characteristics:
 Lexical items: They have meanings that are unpredictable
and so must be listed in dictionaries;
 Words: They are the building-blocks for words and
phrases.
» There are some words that are not lexical items, and in
contrasts, there are some lexical items that are not words.
» Although many words have meanings that are predictable,
there is nevertheless a tendency for these meanings to lose
motivation over time.
» Thus a word which does not start out as a lexical item may in
due course become one.
» Conversely, many of the lexical items that are phrases or
sentences (idioms or proverbs) have meanings which can be
seen as metaphorical extensions of a literal meaning; so to that
extent their interpretation remains motivated.
» Which should dictionaries list, words or lexical items?
» The practice of most dictionaries reflects a compromise.
» Some are more generous than others in listing idioms; some
are more generous than others in listing words with entirely
predictable meanings.