A Dictionary of English Affixes

Their function and meaning

Gabriele Stein
University of Heidelberg

A student’s dictionary of English confronts the learner with more than 50 000 words – an intimidating prospect. The present book shows that a few hundred word elements occur over and over again (affixes for instance like -ation, bio-, de-, -ize, -less, un-). Learning these – their individual meaning and how they combine – is a gigantic step towards understanding the many thousands of complex words of which they form a part. So a lexical item like bidirectionally will easily be analysed and processed as a combination of bi-direct-ion-al-ly, ‘in two directions’. The inclusion and clear differentiation of affix synonyms and antonyms completes this new and systematic lexical treatment. A Dictionary of English Affixes thus constitutes a unique linguistic tool for vocabulary expansion as well as text comprehension and analysis.

But in addition, the book will have a quite distinct and separate application in automated language processing.

Gabriele Stein is professor of English language and linguistics at the university of Heidelberg. Her recent books include two studies on lexical description and vocabulary acquisition: Better Words and Developing Your English Vocabulary.

ISBN 9783895863875 (Hardbound). LINCOM Studies in English Linguistics 12. 190pp. 2007.

English Medical Vocabulary in Ophthalmology

a Historical Review

María José Esteve Ramos
Universidad de La Rioja

The study of scientific language and literature has been a major trend within the wider field of English studies, and a lot of research has focused on the study of its lexicon in each period from a synchronic perspective.

However, a diachronic review of a specific field of science had only been undertaken in specific periods of the language, and not much attention had been paid to the evolution of a subspecialty from its early origin to our present day use. This work attempts a study of the lexicon referred to anatomy and disease terms from a morphological and etymological point of view. Results suggest that the presence of the native lexicon may be higher than expected, and that the language of ophthalmology presents its own characteristics since as early as Old English, defining the specialised area with a terminology of its own, a version of what is nowadays called ESP.

Seven texts, each of them belonging to the main periods of the language, have been selected in order to extract the data. Interesting conclusions regarding the composition of medical vocabulary proof that the historical perspective enhances and implements the modern idea of the Latinate predominance in this area.

ISBN 9783895860232. LINCOM Studies in English Linguistics 13. 306pp. 2008.

Estudio de las estructuras verbo-nombre en un corpus de textos literarios

Las colocaciones en Inglés Moderno Tardío

Inés Lareo Martín
Universidade da Coruña

Este estudio se centra en el controvertido tema de la combinatoria léxica en Inglés Moderno Tardío (1800-1930), más concretamente, en las colocaciones inglesas formadas por un verbo y un nombre (colocación V+N) en las que, como verbo, se utilicen take, have, make o do.

La selección de estos cuatro verbos, que se encuentran entre los más utilizados en las colocaciones, permite estudiar también los posibles cambios experimentados por las parejas have-take y make-do, observando un descenso más o menos acusado en el uso de estos verbos en su función de colocativos en el siglo XX.

El trabajo se ha realizado utilizando un corpus de textos literarios de cerca de 900.000 palabras. El corpus ha sido compilado teniendo en cuenta una serie de variables sociolingüísticas tales como período, sexo, origen geográfico o edad, que fueron aplicadas al análisis final. Los resultados obtenidos con las tres primeras variables invitan a seguir esta línea de investigación utilizando otros géneros o tipos de texto para poder comprobar si podemos hablar de un comportamiento de las colocaciones en general o si, por el contrario, el tipo de texto es decisivo en este tema.



ÍNDICE

1. INTRODUCCIÓN

2. LA NOCIÓN DE “COLOCACIÓN”

3. APROXIMACIÓN A LAS COLOCACIONES

4. TAXONOMÍA DE LAS COLOCACIONES V+N

5. CONCEPTO DE COLOCACIÓN DE NUESTRO ESTUDIO Y MARCO TEÓRICO EN EL QUE SE ENCUADRA

6. COMPILACIÓN DEL CORPUS Y METODOLOGÍA

7. ANÁLISIS DE LAS COLOCACIONES INGLESAS V+N

8. CONCLUSIONEs - APÉNDICES

9. REFERENCIAS

ISBN 9783895864346. LINCOM Studies in English Linguistics 14. 343pp. 2008.

Cameroon English Morphology and Syntax

Current Trends in Action

Paul N. Mbangwana & Bonaventure M. Sala
University of Yaoundé I

The aim in this book is to do three things: compare, describe and explicate variants in the CamE word and sentence. As concerns comparison, the authors identify and categorize morphological and syntactic variants in CamE vis-à-vis the BrE-norm. As for description, Mbangwana & Bonaventure make an attempt to understand the structure of variants and assess their significance in morpho-syntactic structure in the New Englishes. Finally, the authors account for the variants by bringing out some of the factors, linguistic and non-linguistic, involved in the processes postulated.

The book answers one question: How has English been given a Cameroonian touch both at the morphological and the sentential levels? In answering this question, some of the processes and strategies are explored that underlie what can be called morphological and syntactic Cameroon-ianisms. The typical strategy as far as morphology is concerned is that of remorphemisation and demorphemisation of BrE words. As for syntactic variations, they can be grouped under overt variation (including the super ordinate clause deletion for echo-questions, that-adverbials, indirect yes/no questions, ostensive modificators and modifier relative operators), covert variation (including the special uses of verbs of perception like the verb smell and abuse-verbs, when clauses, until clauses and the conjunction but) and variation engendered by the difficulty of handling BrE transformational rules (including the tendency to avoid movement transformations in questioning and passivisation, the avoidance of self-embedding transformations in favour of right-branching transformations, the conjunctive use of subordinators, post-movement P-deletion and the avoidance of empty categories).

Cameroon, like most ex-British colonies, uses English as a second language by making it a medium of interpersonal communication, useful in expressing their typical meanings and thought patterns. English in such an environment adapts itself to the users’ experiences and ways of life, so as to increase and enrich its level of usability. Mbangwana & Bonaventure demonstrate that the structures christened morpho-syntactic Cameroon-ianisms are structures that were not taught, at least overtly, in class but have emerged naturally and steadily as a generating norm for the Cameroonian community. This explains why certain structures that do not figure in official textbooks, still manage to creep into Cameroonian English. These are strategies introduced to combat the complex grammatical rule system of BrE or to create logic where none existed before in BrE. This means that CamE is acquired (not learnt) in Cameroon. Mbangwana & Bonaventure put forward the Grafting-over-Transfer Hypothesis (GTH) to account for such a phenomenon.

ISBN 9783895865220. LINCOM Studies in English Linguistics 15. 200pp. 2009.

The Pronunciation of English around the World

Geo-social Applications of the Natural Phonetics & Tonetics Method

Luciano Canepari
Venice University

The first part (249 pages with 90 clear & accurate articulatory & intonation illustrations) gives the ‘International’ accent of English. This is not meant to be a simplified version for foreigners speaking to other foreigners, so often falsely presented as the solution for intercultural communication. The International accent of English, on the contrary (both in its current and native-like versions), is the sublimation of the American and British neutral (or ‘standard’) accents. This avoids the peculiarities of both these accents, while privileging their common and most general features, reducing thus their differences and real or seeming exceptions with respect to its current and highly unsatisfactory spelling.

The neutral American and British accents are always given along, for comparisons and useful information, as well: Vowels, Consonants (including ‘The ‘whole truth’ on English r’), Stress and Intonation (including Paralinguistics). There follow a few chapters with phonotonetic transcriptions: Conversations, Literary texts, and the IPA sample text. The ‘mediatic’ American (or ‘General American’) and British (or ‘Estuary English’) accents are fully treated in separate chapters.

The second part (407 pages) describes more than 200 accents: 120 native (up to 145 with variants), 61 bilingual, and 20 foreign accents. They are so distributed: North America: Canada & USA (73 accents, including 13 Native-American ones). British Isles: England (34 accents) and Wales, Scotland & Ireland (23 accents). Other accents: Australia, New Zealand & South Africa (28 accents). Second language: Caribbean, Far East, India, Africa, Malta & Gibraltar (28 accents). Foreign (20 accents). With 32 linguistic maps and 292 clear (though rigorous and extensive) illustrations for vowels, consonants and intonation.

We can safely say that the book provides the most accurate descriptions of English accents ever done, in 700 pages, thanks to very many clear figures and precise transcriptions, with no ambiguities, that overcome the too obvious limits of the official IPA conception and symbols, sadly designed just for phonemic intralinguistic purposes, not for more useful interlinguistic and diaphonemic purposes.

Appendices (44 pages): A concise international-pronunciation dictionary. Homophones. List of maps & paraphonic figures. The contoidal orograms & their canIPA symbols. Selected annotated bibliography. Official IPA chart.

The author, who was trained in the British phonetic tradition, teaches Natural Phonetics & Tonetics, i.e. articulatory, auditory and functional, at the University of Venice, Italy.

ISBN 978 3 929075 75 5 (Hardbound). LINCOM Studies in English Linguistics 16. 700pp. 2010.

Gradient acceptability at the grammar-pragmatics interface: a study of the constraints on middle formation in English

Casilda García de la Maza
University of the Basque Country

It is not always clear what counts as a good middle sentence in English. Whereas examples like This book reads well or Roald Dahl translates easily seem to be readily acceptable, the same cannot be said of others like This book reads or French acquires easily. This book offers a comprehensive account of the English middle construction and the restrictions on its formation. Based on a careful analysis of the semantic idiosyncrasy and the grammatical properties of the construction, the author investigates the manner in which middles are spreading and shows that not all new middles exhibit the same degree of acceptability. A number of constraints are identified as being responsible for this gradience. The extent to which each of them affects middle acceptability and the way in which they interact with one another is investigated, leading to an amendment of some of the existing proposals regarding the issue of what a middle sentence can or cannot be. The analysis relies on a substantial amount of data obtained by eliciting acceptability judgements from native speakers, on a theory of gradient acceptability, and on a consideration of aspects of language use and sentence-processing, and not of language-internal aspects only.

The author is a lecturer in English language and linguistics at the University of the Basque Country.

ISBN 9783862883073. LINCOM Studies in English Linguistics 17. 147pp. 2012.

Introduction to Live Grammar: A Grammar of English Centered on the Verb

Norma Corrales-Martin
Temple University

From Otto Jespersen to Case for Case, to Government and Binding Theory, to Semantic Grammar, the traditional study of grammar and syntax echoes the idea that the noun (the subject noun phrase) in a sentence governs the verb. Even though authors like C. Fillmore and R. Dixon assert that the verb is the central grammatical category, the analysis ends up being morphological with categories such as Noun Phrase, Verb Phrase, and Prepositional Phrase.

Live Grammar fundamentally argues that the verb, not the subject, is the center of the sentence (the main linguistic entity), and as such, should be the center of the linguistic analysis. The central thesis is that the grammatical category pertains to morphology; the verb pertains to syntax; and the sentence pertains to semantics. A theoretical framework is explained and exemplified using songs from The Beatles Lyrics (1992), then the first 25 songs are used to illustrate the notions expounded, and finally four Beatles’ songs and a short story are analyzed to show Live Grammar in action.

ISBN 9783862883493. LINCOM Studies in English Linguistics 18. 70pp. 2012.

The History of English Loanwords in Korean

Jieun Kiaer
University of Oxford

This book examines the history of Anglo-Korean words within a China-Japan-Korean context from Korea's late 19th century opening to the West. It is important to approach this issue in relation to Japan and China because as sino-spheral countries, they each had to meet the challenges of a rush towards modernisation at a similar time. This book also discusses the actual process and semantic field of Anglo-Korean words and their social impact.

Anglo-Korean words have been used in the past out of a pragmatic necessity to fill the lexical gap, but in contemporary Korean, most of these are fully nativised and used as native words. At the opening period, Koreans were mainly the recipient of English words, yet now they are becoming active participants in English word making.

This work could be of interest and timely to anyone who is interested in East Asian languages and history as well as those who are interested in the continuing development of the English language.

ISBN 9783862885763. LINCOM Studies in English Linguistics 19. 141pp. 2014.