Lexical Change in English
Abstract: As the time goes by, changes of English strike our eyes quickly and easily. Especially, the changes in lexical items are comparatively more obvious and noticeable. Therefore，a description and explanation of this change is necessary for any comprehensive diachronic theory. And a study of lexical change supports and suggests modifications for the theories of language change of Weinreich, Labov, and Herzog and Samuels. We can e the rarest neologisms are nonce words and words created from scratch (zero-derivatives). Somewhat more common are words consisting of new or uncommon morphs combined with more ordinary ones. Least rare are new combinations of old morphs, borrowings from other languages, cultures or specialized or non-elite dialects, words created by analogy, and words modified to fit new syntactic slots. Words may simply have their mantic range altered or existing words may fossilize in phras acting as single mantic units. Lexical change usually involves material already prent in the langu
age system or in that of a contact system. It occurs in all idiolects and registers in respon to definable linguistic forces, in various degrees of consciousness and its diffusion, while not necessarily predictable, can be mapped according to a number of specific linguistic, social and psychological variables. Particular attention is paid to the neutralization of x references where they are not contextually relevant. Then, the following passage is mainly focud on illustrating the lexical changes of English.
Key words: lexical change English language words
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白菜鸡蛋I. Introduction 父亲写的散文诗李健
Lexical change is probably the most frequent type of language change and certainly the easiest to obrve. Generally speaking, there are mainly two possible ways of lexical changes: the addition and loss of words, which often reflects the introduction of new objects and notions in social practices. For the addition of new words, there are a number of ways such as coinage, clipped words, blending, acronyms, back-formation, functional shift, and borrowing. Meanwhile, new words may come into a language, and some words
can disappear in u over time, which can be en obviously from reading any Shakespeare’s works. Intriguingly, in the ca of wireless, the word has experienced something of a revival. If you hear the word wireless ud by a younger speaker, they are almost certainly using it as an adjective rather than a noun and referring to wireless technology, from WAP phones to blackberries and laptops. This exemplifies perfectly how words can virtually disappear or gradually shift in meaning and usage.
II. Demonstration
2.1 Addition of new words
2.1.1 Coinage
A new word can be coined outright to fit some purpo, mostly for new things and objects. The following is some examples:
Kodak Xerox Taikonaut
memory stick digital camera mou potato 施工协议书
2.1.2 Clipped words
Clipping also called abbreviations is one way in which we change words. A great number of English words have undergone the process of abbreviation in their etymological history. A new word can be created by cutting the final part or cutting the initial part or cutting both the initial and final parts. Thus, we may shorten dormitory to dorm and thereby create a new word, or we may change condominium to condo. We u the longer term if the situation is more formal and the shorter term if the situation is more informal. However, the new term may entirely replace the longer original word. For example, the word “flu” is created by cutting both the initial and final parts “influenza”.
Clipping is a common feature of in-group talk and of slang. For instance, English speakers in Japan have clipped befriended to friended to mark times when they assume the language teacher’s role outside the classroom, as in “I was friended on the train today” when the speaker was surrounded by students who wanted to practice their English. Additionally, it is obrved English speakers tend to u abbreviations for each o
怎样连接蓝牙耳机thers' names, such as Bob for Robert, Ed for Edward, Liz for Elizabeth, Mike for Michael. Abbreviation is also popular in educational domain, such as chem for chemistry, gym for gymnasium, lab for laboratory, math for mathematics.
2.1.3 Blending
Blending is a relatively complex form of compounding, in which two words are blended by joining the initial part of the first word and the final part of the cond word, or by joining the initial parts of the two words. They can be exemplified by the following two ts of examples respectively.
Smog—smoke+fog
灯光标志Motel—motor+hotel
Brunch—breakfast+lunch
Also, product advertising, the entertainment industry, bureaucracies, and technical fields
工程装修合同em to produce the largest number of blends. Eurail, Medicare, camcorder, and sitcom have come into the language in this way. Product names are often blends. Velveeta is a blend of velvet, eat, and chee.
2.1.4 Acronym
Acronym is made up from the first letters of the name of an organization, which has a heavily modified headword. This process is also widely ud in shortening extremely long words of word groups in science, technology and other special fields. Take CEO for an example，its full name is “chief executive officer”and IT is “information technology”，CPI is “consumer price index.”
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2.1.5 Back-formation
Back-information refers to an abnormal type of word-forma-non where a shorter word is derived by deleting an imagined affix from a longer form already in the language. Take televi for an example, the word television predated the occurrence of the word televi.
The first part of the word television was pulled out and analyzed as a root, even though no such root occurs elwhere in the English language. Many back-formations in English come from words which end in –er or –or, such as peddler, swindler and stoker. From the words come peddle, swindle and stoke respectively.
