co de limba engleza - dima gabriela

8/9/2019 CO de Limba Engleza - Dima Gabriela

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Universitatea Dunrea de Josdin Galai

Facultatea de Litere

Specializarea:Limba i literatura romn Limba i literatura englez

Curs opional de

limba englezConf. dr. Gabriela Dima

Anul al II-lea, semestrul I

D.I.D.F.R.


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UDJG

Faculty of Letters

Words. Context. Contextualization

(An elective course in English languagefor 2nd year students)

Course tutor:

Associate Professor Gabriela Dima, PhD

Galati

2013


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Words. Context. Contextualization 3

Contents

Chapter 1. Word Definitions 5

1.1. The Phonological Word 5

1.2. The Orthographic Word 6

1.3. The Grammatical Word 6

1.4. The Lexical Word 7

1.5. Exercises 8

Chapter 2. Word Classifications 10

2.1. Content / vs/ Function Words. Lexical Density 10

2.2. Core Words /vs/ Non-Core Words. Core Vocabulary 10

2.3. Dictionaries as Repositories of Words 12

2.4. Lexical Words and Computer Corpora 16

2.5. Exercises 18

Chapter 3. Context and Contextualization 20

3.1. Acceptations of the Terms Contextand Contextualization 20

3.2. Text Typology 22

3.3. Lexical Profiles. A Corpus Illustration 22

3.4. Exercises 27

Final Test 30

References 34


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CHAPTER 1. Word Definitions



The term wordhas been given numerous definitions corresponding to the area

of research and the linguistic objectives envisaged. A good synthesis has beenprovided by Crystal (1995: 379):

a. A unit of expression which has universal intuitive recognition by native speakers,

in both spoken and written language.

b. The physically definable unit which one encounters in a stretch of writing

(bounded by spaces) or speech. The word in this sense is often referred to as theorthographic word or the phonological word.

c. A unit of meaning incorporating all the grammatical variations or forms in which it

is liable to occur, i.e. a lexeme, defined in its turn as the minimal distinctive unit in

the semantics of a language.

d. A linguistic unit that combines to form phrases, clauses and sentences and is

otherwise distinguished as the smallest possible sentence unit.

The present course will illustrate the way these definitions work along two

coordinates by firstly considering words in isolation and secondly in various

contexts, underlining the function of words as the most complex means of verbal

communication: What can you talk of? hed ask. Go on pick a subject. Talk. Use

language. Do you know what language is? Well, Id never thought before- have

you- its automatic to you isnt it, like walking? Well, language is words, hed say, as

though he were telling me a secret. Its bridges, so that you get safely from one

place to another. And the more bridges you know about the more places you can

see ( Arnold Wesker,Roots)

1.1. The Phonological Word

The word identified in a stretch of speech is called a phonological word. It is

studied within the phonological system of each and every language under the domain

ofphonology. It can be represented by a range of sounds varying between different

dialects, contexts and individual speakers.

The English phonological system is made up of 12 vowels, 8 diphthongs and 24

consonants (Dima 2009). The twelveEnglish vowels are: / i:, i, e, , , :, o, :,,u:,:, / ( Dima 2009). They have been established by applying the commutation andsubstitution methods. It is important to realize that simple English vowels may

contrast with one another in several different ways. The most relevant contrastivefactors are tongue-position, length and lip-rounding. The eight English diphthongs

are: /ai/, /ei/,/ i/, /a/, //, /i/, / , //. They have been defined as sequences oftwo (vocalic/consonantal) sounds and treated as being made up of a vowel nucleus

followed by one of the glides /i/,//,// . The twenty-fourEnglish consonants are: /p,

t, k, b, d, g, t , d, f, , s, , v, z, , , h, m, n, , l, r, j, w/. They have also beenestablished by applying the commutation and substitution methods. In order to get an

overall view of the whole range of consonantal sounds, we can arrange them in a

number of groups, each group having in common a certain mechanism of

articulation. The standard pronunciation of the English sounds is changed when

registers, levels of formality and dialects are taken into account. Such a treatment has

been the subject of various debates among both linguists and sociologists.


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Words. Context. Contextualization6

1.2. The Orthographic Word

The word identified in a stretch of writing is called an orthographic word. It

is studied under the domain oforthography which specifies the correct way of using

a corresponding writing system to write a certain language. The word orthography is

derived from the Greek words orths (correct) and grphein (to write).

The spelling of concrete words is based upon one or another of the graphicalrules that exist in a language. In all European languages spelling systems are based

upon the use of the alphabet. The English orthography is chiefly based on the

historical principle, the majority of words preserving their Old English or Middle

English spelling, sometimes without modifications. The English language spelling

system is highly irregular, but still regular to some degree, its mastery only requiring

knowledge of the 26 letters of the alphabet.

Thephonetic principle (one letter for one sound) is not expected to play any

role at all in the English spelling. No letter represents one sound only; most letters

are used to represent several sounds each and many combinations of letters are

sometimes used to denote the same sounds.

The morphological principle can be traced by and large on the basis of thefollowing morphemes indicating: the plural of nouns; the 3

rdperson singular of the

simple present tense; the past tense; the comparative and superlative degrees of short

adjectives. Except for these rules, the English orthographic word varies with

typography and script. Variation is seen not only at the grammatical level, but at the

lexical level, too.

1.3. The Grammatical Word

Grammatical words are traditionally referred to as items which have the

capacity to fit particular types of linguistic environment according to some patterns

and to the kind of meaning associated with a particular class of word. The canonicalclasses defined for the English language as parts of speech are: nouns, pronouns,

adjectives, articles, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, interjections. In what

follows we consider it helpful to have a quick review of these, as they are at the core

of obtaining contextualization at the local and sentential levels.

a. Noun. A word or word group that names a person, a place, a thing, an attitude, an

idea, a quality, a condition, an event, a process, a phenomenon etc. Examples: girl,

garden, chair, boldness, truth, clairvoyance, solitude, oxidation, photosynthesis etc.

The noun is at the core of nominality, a characteristic of the English written

language.

b. Pronoun. A word that functions as a substitute for a noun. Examples: it, he, she,

we, they, us, ourselves, you, this, them. The English language naturally bears upon

the obligatory occurrence of pronouns with a significant referential capacity, whereas

Romanian is a PRO-drop language, suppressing the noun in subject position or as a

marker of possession (e.g. the possessor and the possessed: Give me your hand / Da-

mi mana).

c. Verb. A word or word group that expresses an activity, condition or state of being.

The verb syntactic function is referred to as predication and the main verb in a

sentence is therefore called predicate. Examples: run, sleep, be, feel, believe,promise, write. A verb phrase (a group of words acting like a single part of speech)

will usually consist of a main verb plus an auxiliary verb like have or be: has been


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going, is moving. A special subclass of auxiliary verbs is provided by modals: can,

may, must, ought, shall, will.

d. Adjective. A word or word group that modifies (limits, defines, characterizes, or

describes ) a noun. Examples: nice, young, stubborn, cozy, perfect, impressive,

sublime, undeniable, annoying.

e. Adverb. A word or word group that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another

adverb.Examples: run fast, sleep deeply, very rarely, extremely delicate, run

extraordinarily fast.

f. Preposition. A word or word group that signals relationships of space, time,

direction, or association between its object (the object of a preposition is always a

noun) and some other word or word group. Examples: in the courtyard, after 7:00

P.M., to the lighthouse, with a vote.

g. Conjunction. A word or word group that connects two or more sentence

components. There are three major subtypes: coordinating conjunctions (examples:and, but, for, yet, so); subordinating conjunctions (examples: although, because, if,

whether); and correlative conjunctions (examples: either or, neither... nor, both

and, not only but also).

h. Interjection. Any part of the sentence that is syntactically dependent on the rest of

the sentence and expresses the speakers attitude towards various elements of thecontext of situation. Examples: Well! Oh! For Gods sake!

1.4. The Lexical Word

Lexical words are units of lexical meaning; i.e. of non-grammatical meaningwhich contribute to organizing our world experience into a wide range of categories.

This classificatory capacity is illustrated by dividing the lexicon/vocabulary of a

certain language into lexical sets or fields: The diversity of approaches to thelexicon of a natural language emerges from its dynamics manifested both at the

synchronic level in form of variation and at the diachronic level in form of change.

The most complex way of analyzing these coordinates is the ordering of the lexicon

in lexical fields considered as useful tools for the exploration of lexical meaning,

providing information about the form, meaning, usage, categorization and

relationships of words and phrases ( Dima 2011:)Lexical fields are organized along a common dimension of meaning which

allow the occurrence of lexical relationships among words such as: antonymy,

synonymy, hyponymy, polysemy, homonym. As examples of lexical fields we can

mention:

a. Board games: chess, draughts, go, Monopoly etc.

b. Parts of the body: arm, leg, head, fingeretc

c. Cakes and pastries: almond cake, clair, muffin, pie, tartetc

d. Chairs: stool, bench, pew, sedan chairetc

e. Sea mammals: dugong, sea lion, elephant seal etc

Lexical fields are studied within the domains of lexicology and semantics, as

branches of theoretical linguistics.


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1.5. Exercises

1. Practice the following sentences containing words with the contrastive sounds

/ i, e, / and then provide your own examples

a. Bill has seven children.

b. When did Dan tell him?c. Has Ed been pretty busy?

d. The women met last Saturday.

2. Practice the following sentences containing words with the contrastive sounds

/ ai, ei, oi / and then provide your own examples:

a. John is my baby boy.

b. I like boiled rice and soy sauce.

c. What kind of a noise annoys the oyster.

d. We eat steak each day.

3. Read aloud the following sentences with words containing the contrastive

sounds / / and / /.

a. This is the third toothbrush Ive lost this month.b. They have to think this thing through.

c. The babys teething, so her mouth is rather sore.


sounds / / and /

/.

a. Its a pleasure to see you, Mr. Shaw.b. She wore a beige suit and red shoes.

c. Shall we wash our clothes, or brush them?


sounds /t / and / d

/.

a. George bought that chair last July.

b. Which subject does Mr. Jackson teach?

c. Did Charles and Joe enjoy the lecture?

6. Write the following nouns in the plural. Specify the rule you haveapplied:

a. wharf chief strife leaf calf

roof sheaf self shelf wife

wolf safe proof hoof half

b. volcano tomato potato photo piano

solo hero allegro cargo echo

mosquito octavo halo negro radio

c. monkey supply cry reply

turkey chimney day donkey

baby body glory joy


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folly dormitory victory sympathy

7. Add the endings, keeping -y or changing it toi:

alloy-s/es fly-s/es betray-ed heavy-er

employ-ed berry-s/es dizzy- er canary- s/es

pay- ing empty-ed delay- ed guy-s/esray-s/es marry-s/es verify-ing busy-est

8. Add the endings for the comparative of the following short adjectives and

mind the changes in spelling.

narrow long

busy old

happy funny

free rich

9. Make up lexical fields using the words listed below:

bathroom, house, apple, chair, bill, banknote, money, pear, purse, grapes, stream,

waistcoat, cardigan, pullover, train, bird, sparrow, seagull, wood, oak-tree, birch,

canvas, painter, brush, ink, pen, spatula, satellite, star, planet, chess, tennis, skirt,

wheel, kitchen, path, window, cardinal, knight, queen, blackbird, swallow, path, lark,

cracker, biscuit, chocolate cake, pie, teacher, politician.

10. Complete the sets you have delineated in exercise 9 by adding other words

up to obtaining 10 members for each field.


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CHAPTER 2. Word Classifications



It has become almost a truism to state that words in texts are distributed very

unevenly: a few words are very frequent, some are fairly frequent, and most are very

rare. These facts are due to the two distinctions which provide ways of talking about

the vocabulary of a certain natural language and the distribution of the lexis in texts:

the first distinction refers to content/vs/function words, and the second goes to core

/vs/ non- core words.

2.1. Content / vs/ Function Words. Lexical Density

Content words specify what a text is about, while function words relate

content words to each other. Content words are also referred to as major, full or

lexical words. They carry most of the lexical content in being able to make reference

outside language. Function words are also referred to as minor, empty, form,structural and grammatical words. They are essential to the grammatical structure of

sentences. The above mentioned categories divide the traditional parts of speech into

two broad sets: content words: nouns, adjectives, adverbs, main verbs; function

words: auxiliary verbs, modal verbs, pronouns, prepositions, determiners,

conjunctions.

There is a fuzzy boundary between the two word classes. For example, modal

verbs (must, can, should, will etc.) which express an array of modalities such as

obligation, permission, ability, volition, willingness etc., therefore convey content,

have the syntactic function of auxiliary verbs. Pronouns can have extra-linguistic

reference, and play a distinct role as a noun substituter. Therefore, besides a rough

semantic distinction, content and function words can have strikingly different formalcharacteristics. Accordingly, content word-classes have many members (e.g. tens of

thousands of nouns, but only a couple of dozen pronouns) and are open to hosting

new words coming from childrens vocabulary, literary language etc. But it is veryrare for new pronouns to enter the language. And only content words take inflections

(such as plural inflections on nouns, person endings on verbs).

This distinction is relevant when analyzing text structure, because different

types of texts have predictably different proportions of content and function words.

On average, written texts have a higher proportion of content words than spoken

texts, because written texts can be more tightly packed with information.The

proportion of lexical words expressed as a percentage represents the lexical density

of a text. IfNis the number of running word-forms in the text, andL is the number oflexical word forms, then lexical density = 100 x L/N. This might be very helpful in

comparing texts from both similar and different registers of a natural language.

2.2. Core Words /vs/ Non-Core Words. Core Vocabulary

Texts can be also compared by calculating what percentage of words from the

core vocabulary they contain: By definition, the core vocabulary is known to allnative speakers of the language. It is that portion of the vocabulary which speakers

could simply not do without (Stubbs 2001:41). In approximate synonymic seriessuch as : happiness, beatitude, blessedness, bliss, felicity, gladness; compete,

contend, oppose, rival, vie; great, eminent , illustrious , notable, noteworthy there

would be widespread agreement that one word in each list is somehow more basic

than the others: happiness, compete, great. Such assertions are partly based on


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frequency, but also on functional criteria: which words would be most easily

understood by children or non-native speakers; which words would be most useful to

introduce in the early stages of teaching English as a foreign language; which general

words are more inclined to be used in different registers.

As a conclusion, core vocabulary will certainly contain the most frequent

words in the language (as marked for example in dictionaries such as Longman

Dictionary of Contemporary English Language, Macmillan Dictionary). The 100most frequent word-forms from a large general corpus will be mainly function words

such as: the, of, and, to plus a few content words such as think, know, time, people,

two, see, way, first, new, say, man, good, little. And the 2,000 or 3,000 most frequent

word-forms will include words which are indispensable for the discussion of a wide

range of topics.

The main defining criterion of core vocabulary is that ofmaximum usefulness

which can be operationalized both by distribution in texts and semantic usefulness.

Thus, we can discover which words are widely and relatively evenly distributed in

texts of different kinds, and which words can be used for defining other words. For

example, doctor will occur in texts of many kinds, both everyday and specialist,

whereas occulist may be common in a few texts, but only on restricted specialistsubjects. Still, core vocabulary is not restricted to specialist field or genres: for

example children (versus offspring or progeny), brothers and sisters (versus

siblings), and stomach (versus abdomen). And core vocabulary is neutral

stylistically, neither markedly casual nor formal: for example, child (versus kidor

kiddy), drunk( versuspissedor inebriated), and give (versus awardor donate).Core

words such as laugh and softly can be used to define non-core chuckle while clumsy

and walkcan be used in defining waddle. Sometimes, the two criteria coincide: for

example, occulist is a hyponym ofdoctor, and awardand donate are hyponyms of

give.

The concept of coreness is thus discussed starting from the notion of core

vocabulary. The claim is that some words are more tightly integrated than others intothe language system, and some are more discoursally neutral (unmarked and

unexpressive) than others: [] it is more accurate to speak of clines and gradientsand of degrees of coreness in words (Carter, 1987:43). The greater the degree ofcoreness a word has, the more neutral the word is with respect to field (i.e. the field

is not easily identifiable), and tenor (i.e. it will emerge as neutral in a formality test,

or fall at the mid point of formality-informality cline).

Core words, according to Carter, are words of high frequency with an

evenness of range and coverage of text: [] they will have to be measured as beingevenly distributed over a range of different spoken and written texts(idem:45).Based on Carters reasoning, core words appear most frequently in the centralregions while non-core words occur at the two poles of the cline of register. It is the

degree of formality that determines their place on the cline of coreness. Hence, it is

to be expected that the more formal spoken registers and the less formal written

registers employ core words most frequently (i.e. registers in the middle regions of

the cline) (see Figure 1).

LEXIS

informal --------------------------------------- formal

------------------------- core words --------------------

Figure 1: Cline of Coreness


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Non-core words which occur towards the literate pole tend to be technical

and specific to the register. The registers representing the latter part of the

developmental processes involve a reclassification of knowledge. In the discussion of

technical lexis, Martin asserts that the move from describing to classifying is amove from the everyday to the technical. He investigates what the functions oftechnicality in the text are. (1985:26): Through technicality a discipline establishes

the inventory of what it can talk about, and the terms in which it can talk aboutthem. That is, the function is field creating (Martin1985:58). He disputes the

belief that for any technical term there exists already a perfectly adequate commonor garden term word which could be used in its place. In other words, he isarguing that technical words are simply core words in jargon form.

The reverse process is pointed out by Viel with reference to the use of high

frequency technical terms in common English: [] as soon as an invention or anew device leaves the closed circle of scientists and technicians, gains popularity and

is used in everyday life, the corresponding word passes from the category of general

scientific and technological words to that of general English ( http://espworld.7p.com/Articles_1/vocabulary.html).

2.3. Dictionaries as Repositories of Words

Before finding out the place where words can be deposited, we must mention

that they are studied within the following theoretical domains:

a. Lexicology, a branch of theoretical linguistics which analyses the phonological,

morphological and contextual (semantic) behavior of general words, the change in

their form and meaning, their origin, development and current use

b. Terminology, which deals with the study of special-language words or terms

associated with particular areas of specialist knowledge. Terminology is concept-

based, reflecting the fact that the terms which they contain map out an area of

specialist knowledge in which encyclopaedic information plays a central roleThe practical counterparts of lexicology and terminology are lexicography

and terminography. Lexicography is one of the most dynamic branch of applied

linguistics which deals with the compilation of dictionaries in order to facilitate

peoples understanding of the meaning of general words.Terminography isconcerned exclusively with compiling collections of the vocabulary of special

languages.

Dictionaries are referential works which have communication-orientated

functions named after the use situation, as briefly presented below, following

Bergenholtz and Nielsen (2006: 287):

a) to assist the users in solving problems related to text reception/ production of texts

in the native language

b) to assist the users in solving problems related to text reception/ production of texts

in a foreign language

c) to assist the users in solving problems related to translation of texts from the native

/a foreign language into a foreign /the native language

The most frequently mentioned criteria in classifying dictionaries are:

- scope of coverage (e.g. the general or special dictionary, the monolingual or

bilingual dictionary);

- shape /size or content (e.g. the pocket , unabridged or desk dictionary);

- manner of financing (e.g. the commercial dictionary or scholarly dictionary);

- the complexity of the headword (e.g. the dictionary of idioms or collocations,dictionary of phrasal verbs);


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- the type of target user (e.g. the learners dictionary or dictionary for nativespeakers; specialized dictionaries: legal, accounting, medicine, mechanical

engineering etc.);

- the nature of the dictionary seen as a product under various formats : paper

dictionaries , recorded dictionaries on CDs, internet dictionaries and online

dictionaries, computer corpora ( BNC, MICASE, LOB, FROWN, etc.);

- other criteria refer to age ( childrens dictionaries); learners language level(dictionaries for advanced learners) the number of entries etc.Dictionaries can be defined through the elements they contain. A look at any

type will reveal a rather general, acknowledged structure, including the entry,

alphabetization, lexical and linguistic information (phonology/pronunciation,

spelling, morphology, syntax, semantics, context/register, etymology, usage),

illustrations, front and back matter. The absence of one or more of these elements is a

matter of choice among the authors.

The entry represents the alphabetized headword by which the word or

expression being defined is identified. Most headwords are canonical forms making

up a paradigm and being representative of a certain natural language in its standard.

The standard here refers primarily to spelling and pronunciation. Not all words countas entries.

In what follows I shall briefly comment both upon the nature and number of

the entries as contained in the dictionaries in general and in certain dictionaries in

particular by having a look at what might be called ways of counting the contents of a

dictionary. Here I mention the criterion ofmultiple (vs) single entry.

When a word belongs to more than one word-class there are two possibilities:

to use as many entries as the word-class the word belongs to or to use only one entry

for all the word-classes the word belongs to. For example, heavy may be used as an

adjective, adverb or noun: the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995)

contains three headwords heavy in the specified order:

e.g. heavy1/ hevi/adj. heavier , heaviest1. weighing a lot: I cant lift this case- its too heavy. / The baby

seemed to be getting heavier and heavier in her arms how heavy? (= how much

does it weigh)

How heavy is the parcel?opposite LIGHT3 (4)heavy

2adv time hangs/lies heavy on your hands if time hangs or lies heavy on

your hands, it seems to pass slowly because you are bored or have nothing to do.

heavy3

n [C] 1 informal [ usually plural] a large strong man who is paid to

protect someone or to threaten other people 2 a serious male character in a play or

film, especially by a bad character; VILLAIN (1) 3 the heavies BrE large, serious

newspapers. (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 1995: 664)

The Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (1997) includes the adjective,

the adverb and the noun under a single entry.

e.g. heavy , hevi adj. weighty: ponderous; laden: abounding.- adv. heavily

- n. the villain on stage or screen

When a word has several/various meanings or senses, they are separated

under the same entry either by numbers, in the case of different meanings or by

letters, in the case of closely-related meanings, both methods being in the practice of

most dictionaries nowadays.

e.g. dip2/ dip/n 1 [C] an act of dipping. 2[C] (infml) a quick BATHE(3) in the sea:

have/take/go for a dip. 3 [U] a liquid for dipping sheep in to protect them frominfection or insects. 4 [C,U] a thick mixture into which biscuits or pieces of raw

vegetables are dipped before being eaten, eg at parties: a/some cheese dip. 5 [C] a


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downward slope: a dip in the road o a dip among the hills. See also LUCKY DIP

(OXFORD: 325)

e.g. ridge1 / ri d/ n1 [C] a long area of high land, especially at the top of a

mountain: a windswept ridgesee picture on page 835. 2 a) a line of something thatrises above a surface: a ridge of boulders/ a sandy ridge b) a long narrow raised part

of a surface: The ridges on the soles give the shoes a better grip 3 a ridge of high

pressure technical a long area of high ATMOSPHERIC pressure. ( Longman: 1220).The method of counting by references has been designed by Landau as a

system used to maximize the number of entries in American dictionaries. The

following items are considered references by Landau (1989: 84-85):

1. The main entry, or headword

2. Any additional word class a word belongs to/ part of speech of the headword, i.e.

as a verb/noun/adjective. Some dictionaries allot separate headword status to each

part of speech, others do not .

3. Any inflected forms given such as optional presence of identical past tense and

past participle forms in -ed and -ing forms.

4. Run- on derivatives without definitions

5. Run - in idioms or other fixed expressions included within an entry6. Variant spellings.

7. Words given in lists and derived by prefixation with common prefixes, such as in,-

non,- re,-un.

8. Anything in a bold typeface is counted as reference

These references may overlap with the following headwords contained inmodern dictionaries: a. abbreviations; b. prefixes; combining forms; e. open

compounds; f. encyclopedic entries, neither in the specified order or with the

obligatory presence of all of them. The main entry form in a dictionary serves a

number of different purposes according to Landau (1989: 87); it indicates the

referred spelling, the usual printed form of the lexical unit and syllabication.

When speaking about dictionaries, the usual question of how many wordsthey contain will surely arise, but the answer depends, not surprisingly, upon the

authors choice to save space: Every decision a biographer makes affects theproportion of space his dictionary will allot to each component. It is perfectly fair for

critics to question his judgment, but they must realize that the length of a dictionary

is finite, and as large as it may appear to them, it is never large enough for the

lexicographer(Landau 1987: 87).Alphabetization in dictionaries concerns primarily the headwords, thus

enabling the user to quickly find the word that he is looking up. There are two ways

of alphabetizing: letter by letterand word by word.

Letter by letterarrangement is by far the most general method, having the

great advantage that users need not bother about knowing whether a compound is

spelled as one word, a hyphenated one, or as two words, e.g. power, powerful, power

of attorney.

Word by wordarrangement seems rather complicated for the average user but

it might be of great use for specialists, e.g.power of attorney comes beforepowerful.

It is important to notice that few dictionaries operate with a strict alphabetical order

of the lexical items. This is because all dictionaries use some degree of nesting where

a lexical item may be included within the entry of another lexical item which has

headword status.

This nesting policy or running-on refers to the arrangement of the following

categories of words: words derived by suffixation and prefixation ; fixed phrases;idioms; compound words.In general, some dictionaries accord headword status only


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to those derivatives whose meaning has diverged significantly from the root, others

ordinarily give headword status to any derivative that merits separate definition.

In the case ofsuffixation, run-ons do not need separate definitions, since the

user is assumed to be capable of deducing the meaning from the headword and the

suffix, e.g. cello - cellist.

A more strict selection is operated in the case of words derived byprefixation

which are always allotted separate headword status, because a user would nototherwise be able to find them in the alphabetical listing, e.g.

believable/unbelievable . Fixed phrases and idioms are nested under the headword of

the first main word in the phrase (even if this is not always very clear) so, by and

large, no form of alphabetization can be fully successful since there is not always

clear whether the idiom should be placed under the first word or under the most

important word and eventually decide upon which word is more important. As a

conclusion, most dictionaries prefer to list idioms under the first word, but there are

also exceptions, e.g. that one could cut with a knife could be entered either under

knife or under cutheadwords.

In the case of compound words nesting depends primarily upon spelling,

since such category of words can be spelt either as solid, e.g. landmark, hyphenated,e.g. land-law or open, e.g. land mass.

Some dictionaries (usually those which nest all suffixed derivatives) nest all

compounds. At the other extreme, there is the practice of according headword status

to all compounds, without nesting: Intermediate between these two extremes is thepolicy that accords headword status to solid compounds but nests hyphenated and

open compounds or that nests only open compounds, treating them like phrases,

while giving headword status to solid and hyphenated compounds. (Landau 1987:165).

Since dictionaries are printed, alphabetically ordered reference works,

spelling is a given. Deciding upon spelling is of a paramount importance for the

dictionary maker, The first task of the editor of a dictionary is to decide on thespelling of his word-entry. Usually on a modern dictionary this affords no difficulty

as usage has fixed a single spelling (Hulbert 1992).In English, the standard (which here refers primarily to spelling and

pronunciation) which emerged during the fifteenth century, was that of the East

Midland district that included London, but it was not until Baileys dictionaries ofthe 1730s and more particularly Johnsons Dictionary of 1755 that the spellings ofmany words became fixed.

There are two particular kinds of information about spelling that dictionaries

usually provide. The first concerns the spelling changes in the root of a word when

adding a suffix. As illustrations we can quote both irregular and regular inflections

for nouns, adjectives, verbs, e.g. country-countries, bad-worse, reply-replied, sin-

sinning.

The second refers to alternative spellings: British and American English e.g.

travelling-traveling, centre-center, colour-color; alternatives in British English only:

systematic, e.g. the er/ - or alternation in adviser or ie/ - y alternation in

words like auntie/y; idiosyncratic, e.g. baloney/boloney, both/bodge. The desire for

uniformity is so great that popular variants are not welcomed: The graphic dress ofthe language is now so sacrosanct that dictionaries are used as authoritarian, stylemanuals in matters of spelling, hyphenation and syllabification(Zgusta: ).

Besides spelling dictionaries provide lexical and linguistic information about:

the pronunciation, morphology, syntax, semantics, context/register, etymology of thewords.


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2.4. Lexical Words and Computer Corpora

Words can be studied from various points by means of computer corpora

within the domain of corpus linguistics. Corpus Linguistics (CL) provides a new

point of view for researching language by means of computer-assisted methods and it

has been proclaimed as a discipline by various linguists with the first occurrence of

the term dating back to 1984 ( Aarts & Meijs1984). Despite the objections whichhave been formulated against it by the transformational grammar supporters, corpus

linguistics has been continuously gaining ground by making it possible to collect

new types of data and study patterns of language use: Many of the patterns areconsistent and found in independent corpora: they are reproduced by speakers ,

though speakers are often unaware of them, and they are observable only across the

language use of many speakers in a discourse community(Stubbs 2001: 220).As the nomenclature indicates, one of the key concepts with which CL

operates is that ofcorpus (the Latin for body) meaning any collection of more thanone text .When used in the context of modern linguistics, the term frequently tends to

have some more specific connotations than this simple definition. Its up-to-date

profile would include the following characteristics:

a. Sampling and Representativeness

CL specialists are interested in creating a corpus which should be maximally

representative of the variety under examination e.g. spoken academic American

English, Cockney dialect, economy jargon etc.: What we are looking for is a broadrange of authors and genres which, when taken together, may be considered to

average out and provide a reasonably accurate picture of the entire languagepopulation in which we are interested (Mc Enery& Wilson 1996:88)

b. Finite Size.

A corpus should consist of a finite number of words which, usually, is determined atthe beginning of a corpus-building project. For example, the Brown Corpus

contained 1,000, 000 running words of text. See also Longman Dictionary of

Contemporary English Language on CD.

c. Machine-Readable Form.

Modern corpusnearly always implies the additional feature machine-readable, i.e.computer readable data.

d. A Standard Reference.

A corpus constitutes a standard reference for the language variety that it represents.

This presupposes that it will be widely available to other researchers, which is indeed

the case with many corpora. A standard corpus also means that a continuous base of

data is being used.

e. Concordance. KWIC

A concordance is the main tool of corpus linguistics. The computer is programmed

to search for all examples of a node word in a corpus and to print them out in the

centre of the page or screen within a given context of a few words to left and right

(Stubbs 2001). The node word could be any of the word-forms that a LEXEME

(LEMMA) might take (e.g. SEE =lemma, seeing, sees, saw, seen are word-forms)

while the words either to the left or right of the node are called collocates. Frequencyof occurrence of the node words and their collocates are accessed by the computer


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using the acronym KWIC (Key Word in Context). A Concordancer has the following

functions:

- contribute to understanding how a word is used in a variety of contexts (meaning,

grammar, style, register)

- produces a list of occurrences for any search of a word, phrase or any string of

letters

- gives information on the overall frequency of occurrence of words- indicates how core a word is in vocabulary (general or specialized)

f. Other CL tools.

The use of corpora brings back into linguistics the textas a record of an actual

event which can be printed, picked up and examined. In what follows we shall

introduce some of the most common computer devices used to analyze and interpret

the text and its component elements.

The Parser:

- connects form and meaning

- helps in decoding the meaning of the text by replacing a string of

characters with category labels- interprets the grammatical meaning of new texts

The Tagger:

- assigns word class tags to the word-forms in a text

- extracts information from text

- provides statistical information for the classification of texts

The Collocator:

- determines the collocations of a word-form ( left-node word-right)

- the study of collocation brings out the notion of a lexical set

The Compounder:

- identifies compound lexical units

The Lemmatiser:- conflates inflections into lemmas

The Disambiguator:

- is the mark of collocational consistency i.e. intercollocation of

collocates

-helps in disambiguating meaning, when one word may have several

meanings (collocations can be used to disambiguate)

The lexical tools mentioned (collocator, compounder, disambiguator) operate on

texts in order to discover information about the organization of the language as a

whole, according to the scheme in Figure 1:

collocator --------- lexical parser = > bring out the collocations in a text

instance and relate them to the

meaning of the words involved

compounder -------phrase finder = > bring out the mutually conditioned

choices and assess which may be

proposed as separate lexical items

disambiguator ---- exemplifier => evaluate the instances and assign them

to meanings

Figure 1

The output from the phrase findercan be used to improve the lexical parser, and

clear the ground for the exemplifier

g. Types of Corpora


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A rough classification of corpora divides them into the following classes:

- General reference corpus (language as a whole)

- Special purpose corpus (particular aspect of a language)

- Written corpus ( written texts)

- Spoken corpus ( transcripts of spoken material)

- Monolingual corpus ( texts in a single language)

-Multilingual corpus (texts in two or more languages )-Parallel corpora ( texts in language A alongside their

translations into language B, C etc)

-Comparable corpora (texts originally written in language A, B, C,

etc., but they are all on the same subject and type of text, same time

etc. e.g. instruction manual, technical report etc

- Synchronic corpus (limited time frame)

- Diachronic corpus (long period of time)

- Open corpus ( is constantly being expanded)

- Closed corpus ( no longer expanded)

2.5. Exercises

1. Write down three sentences containing the word umbrella.

a. Ask your classmate to do the same. Compare your sentences with those of your

classmate. Did you both think of exactly the same sentences?

b. Use BNC and lextutor and compare your sentences to those shown in the

concordance lines.

c. Compare the concordance against the entry taken from the Oxford Paperback

Dictionary (1988 edition):

umbrella n. 1. a portable protection against rain, consisting of a circular piece offabric mounted on a foldable frame of spokes attached to a central stick that serves

as a handle 2. any kind of general protecting force or influence.

d. What information do you learn from the corpus that was not present in the

dictionary and vice versa? These two types of resource may offer complementary

information.

2. Consider the words procrastinate and shoddy. Use BNC and Web Corp to

search for the distribution of the items. Evaluate the usefulness of the resources

in becoming familiar with their usage and meaning.

3. Read the following text and, without consulting any reference material, try to

rewrite the text in such a way that it conforms to the original. Once you have

finished, look on the Internet for some recipes. Compare your version to the

recipes that you find. What have you got? Are the terms, collocations and style

that you used in line with those of the recipes that you found?

To make this recipe for a creamy potato casserole, you will need a package of frozen

hash brown potatoes (a 2 pound bag), some green onions, cheddar cheese, cream

of potato soup (a 10oz can), butter, sourcream and salt and pepper. First turn on your

oven. Set it to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (or 175degrees Celsius if it is a metric oven).Get a pan and put it on the stove on a setting thats not too high, then pour in thesoup as well as a quarter of a cup of butter and two cups of sour cream. Now chop up


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one third of a cup of green onions and grate two cups of cheddar cheese. Get a bowl

(not too small!) and put in the package of frozen potatoes along with the green

onions and one cup of cheddar cheese. Put the soup/butter/sour cream from the pan

into the bowl with the potatoes/green onion/cheddar cheese. You can also put in

enough salt and pepper so that it will be to your liking. Now pour everything into a

casserole dish that measures nine inches by thirteen inches. Put the rest of the grated

cheddar cheese on the top. Now it all goes into the oven for about thirty to forty-fiveminutes. Eat it before it gets cold!


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CHAPTER 3. Context and Contextualization


CHAPTER 3: Context and Contextualization

3.1. Acceptations of the TermsContext andContextualization

In linguistics a word is a bundle of information related to phonology,

morphology, lexicology, semantics, syntax, morpho-syntax, text, grammar,

etymology, metaphor, discourse, pragmatics and the world knowledge (Pinker

1995:344). It is not easy to capture all the information provided by a word just by

looking at its surface form or orthography. A versatile system along with our native

language intuition are required to decipher all the possible explicit and implicit

meanings of a word.

Words acquire value only when used in a context. Similarly, the value of a

word is given by its meaning in that context. When asking What does the word lovemean? we consider the word love in isolation. It is used correctly but quitedifferently in I love my child, Love makes the world go round, The score is love-

fifteen. Therefore we cannot say what the meaning of a word is until it is put into an

adequate context. But we should not think that the meaning resides in the word itself:

it is rather spread both over the word and the neighbouring words, since only the

latter identifies the semantic field, the group of relevant associations ( cfSaussure), where we find contrasting words by which to measure the one used: Theoccurrence of a unit (e.g. a sound, word) is partly or wholly determined by its

context, which is specified in terms of the units relations, i.e. the other features withwhich it combines as a sequence (Crystal 1995: 78).

The term context has various acceptations. In linguistics it refers to the

specific parts of an utterance or text adjacent to the word which is focused upon.

Providing a context to a word means in fact put that word in context in order toclarify its meaning, this process being called contextualization.

Other acceptations of the term are given by collocating it with specialized

terms. Reference is often made to:

a. In the field of generative grammar we can distinguish between context-free /vs/

context-sensitive grammar[] where forms can be classified in terms of whetherthey occur only in specific context (context-sensitive/restricted/dependent rules) orare independent of context ( context-free rules)(Crystal 1995:79).

b. Variants of units (sound, morpheme, etc.) which are dependent on context for theiroccurrence are called contextual variants, e.g. allophone, allomorph, etc. An analysis

performed in these terms is called a contextual analysis.

c. Situational context is the term used to refer to the relationships holding between

the extra-linguistic features against which the linguistic units are used so as to

specify what is immediately observable in the co-occurring or immediate situation.

d. Context of situation is the term first used in linguistics by Firth 1951 in order to

draw attention to the context-dependent nature of meaning and as a refinement of the

term context in interdependence with the general, cultural conditions where

language is used. This widening of contexts, linguistic and non-linguistic, hasinfluenced the study of meaning relating on the one hand to external-world features


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and on the other hand to different levels of linguistic analysis such as phonetics,

grammar, lexicology and semantics.

e. Context of utterance refers to all the factors that determine the form and meaning

of utterances.

With reference to word meaning we shall also consider the classification

proposed by Dash 2008 and which we have adapted to our purpose here:

a. Local contextrefers to the immediately linguistic environment (i.e.neighbouring

words) in which a word appears. It provides us necessary information regarding: the

nature of the relation with the word neighbours (e.g. if it is idiomatic) and the

understanding of the lexical collocation of words used in a lexical block. Hence, if

co-occurrence of any two words is caused by choice (to evoke an intended sense) or

by chance (having no special significance) word meaning variation is due to its

relation with the neighboring words.

b. Sentential contextrefers to the information retrieved within the sentence where the

word occurs; more particularly it supplies information about the respective wordsexplicit or implicit syntactic relations with the other words making up the sentence. It

allows us to explore if there is any variation of meaning of the word analyzed due to

its relation with the other words located far away in the sentence.

c. Topical contextrefers to the whole topic of discussion and focuses on the content

of a piece of text when looking for the actual meaning of the word in question.

Variation of topic or content brings about meaning variation of the word in question:

Taken together, the sentences display a network of meanings, which is notobtainable from individual sentences. Here, special meaning is possible to extract

only when we refer to the topic and interpret the sentences with close reference to thetopic of the text. (Dash, 2008: 28).

d. Global contexthelps in acquiring information from the extralinguistic world for

deciphering the contextual meaning of the word when other contexts cannot fulfill

this purpose. The meaning of a word is not only related to the meanings of other

words occurring within the local, sentential and topical context, but also to

extralinguistic reality surrounding the linguistic acts undertaken by language users.

The verb forms of a language, for instance, depend upon the NPs gravitating aroundit, rendering a scene of action indicating an agent, a patient, a place, and time. Thissignifies that in order to understand the meaning of a verb form under investigation

we need to consider all the elements in a cognitive interface to realize both itsdenotative and connotative meanings.

Generally, a huge chunk of information of the global context is available from the

external world that supplies vital cues of place, time, situation, interpretation,

pragmatics, discourse, demography, geography, society, culture, ethnology, and

various other things (Allan 2001: 20). Since the global context builds up a cognitive

interface between language and reality, it also becomes a valuable source of

information for meaning disambiguation of words, helping us to understand if the

word has any meaning variation, and if so, what it is.


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3.2. Text Typology

Contextualization can be better understood if we analyse the type of text we

deal about or the words we want to use in a context. Therefore we will briefly

consider only some of the most complex classifications.

Cognitive classifications e.g. Kinneavy (1980) and Werlich (1976),

concentrate on ways of conceptualizing, perceiving or portraying the world by:a. Narration, which stands for our viewing the continuum changes of reality in a

dynamic way, by providing the differentiation and interrelation of perceptions in

time, texts becoming narrative.

b. Description, which stands for our static view focused on individual experience, by

providing the differentiation and interrelation of perceptions in space- descriptive

texts.

c. Exposition, focusing on the comprehension of general concepts through

differentiation by analysis or synthesis- expository texts.

d. Argumentation, understood as evaluation of relations between concepts by

extracting similarities, contrasts and transformations- argumentative texts.

e. Instruction, meaning prospective attitudes, planning of future behaviour withoption and without option- instructive texts.

Textual specificity has been enlarged by De Beaugrande and Dresslersprocedural approach (1981) adding the categories ofscientific, didactic, literary and

poetic texts.

A more general classification has been made by Trosborg (1997) who

distinguishes texts by taking into account two criteria:

- purpose, based on communicative functions, suggesting that texts are intended to

inform, to express an attitude, to persuade and to create a debate

- mode of discourse, underlining rhetorical strategies, hence the grouping into

descriptive, narrative, expository, argumentative or instrumental texts.

A typological synthesis has been proposed by Reiss who classifies texts intoinformative, expressive and operative (in Fawcett 2003: 104).

3.3. Lexical Profiles. A Corpus Illustration

In order to analyze words at a certain linguistic level we can start either from

the system as a whole or from its ultimate constituents i.e. linguistic units. One

possible variant to the latter approach has been proposed by Stubbs (2001) who,

starting from the most frequent words and their use in recurrent patterns from various

English corpora, has designed semantic schemas which are in fact abstract, mental

models which constitute a central part of the individuals communicativecompetence: Semantic schemas are general and simple patterns which haveconsiderable lexical variation due to local context and choice (Stubbs, 2001: 97). Hedenominates such schemas models of extended lexico-semantic units which are

combinations of lexis, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Frequent word patterns

having strong, phraseological tendencies have also been referred to as multi-wordunits by Pawlay and Syder( 1983) constructions by Fillmore et al (1988),extended units of meaning or lexical items by Sinclair( 1996, 1998.)

The model of extended lexico-semantic units helps in building up lexical

profiles for the words which have frequent, typical and central uses in the everyday

vocabulary of English and may even constitute the basis for the norms characteristic

for the behaviour of a language community in any of its manifestations, i.e. registers,dialects, etc. The purpose of profiles (Crystal,1991) is to summarize the information

and present it under a coherent and systematic manner which should facilitate


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comparisons and contrasts and the discovery of significant and typical patterns by a

numerical dimension. It is frequency and collocation which state the order and

reestablish the facts.

By reformulating attested concepts in lexicology, semantics, syntax and

pragmatics, Stubbs (2001) reiterates the Saussurean principle of defining a linguistic

unit by specifying its constituents and the possible relations among them; the

constituents define the semantic content of the unit whereas the relations define itsstructure. There are seven relations together with their corresponding constituents

which Stubbs reunites under the banner ofa model of extended lexico-semantic unit

and which we represent in an adapted, schematic form in Table 1.

RELATION CONSTITUENT

COLLOCATION collocate: individual word-form or

lemma/ lexeme

COLLIGATION grammatical category

SEMANTIC PREFERENCE lexical set/ field: class of semanticallyrelated word-forms or lemmas

DISCOURSE PROSODY descriptor of speaker attitude and

discourse function

STRENGTH OF ATTRACTION percentage terms (statistics)

POSITION AND POSITIONAL

MOBILITY

directional/ vs/ non-directional patterns

DISTRIBUTION IN TEXT-TYPES descriptor of language variety or register

Table 1. A Model of Extended Lexico-Semantic Unit

(adapted from Stubbs, 2001: 87-88)

In the linguists point of view These semantic schemas can be modelled asclusters of lexis (node and collocates), grammar (colligation), semantic preferences

for words from particular lexical fields) and pragmatics (connotations or discourse

prosodies) (Stubbs 2001: 96) thus narrowing the gap between corpus linguisticssupporters and its opponents.

In what follows, we shall check out the appropriateness of Stubs model inbuilding up a lexico-syntactic profile for the verb see. The corpus analysed includes a

sample of Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English and contains 500

concordance lines out of 4172. The illustration furthers the analysis proposed in

Dima (2002) and is supported by self-evident opinions acknowledged in the literature

concerning the lexical, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic behaviour of physicalperception verbs.

Given that collocation means frequent co-occurrence and that collocates are

its basic constituents, we will consider that the verb see can be described

linguistically by a number of very interesting characteristics, starting from the node

word see occurring with its collocates, in a span of approximately 3:3, according to

the formula:

(1) collocates (N-3) see (N+3) collocatesspan

The verb see is basically the prototype of non-agentive verbs of seeing

(Dima 2002), the one which engages the Experiencer in a pure physical act,describing the direct relationship between the perceiver and the object of his/her


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perception, syntactically represented by the surface structure NP1

V

NP2, with the

Subject NP1 [+Human] and the Direct Object NP2 [+Human] / [Animate]. In our

corpus, this structure has got the highest percentage: 35.4%, meaning 133

occurrences of the node see and its collocates to the right side of the span of (N+2).

The NP2 standing for the DO has a complex structure given by a rich morphological

representation of the head and its determiners.

(i) The Head

a)Nouns at Head sum up 134 occurrences in concordance lines and are distinguished

by the following semantic features: 13 [+Human]; 24 [+Abstract]; 95 [+Concrete].

The greatest number of nouns belongs to the sphere of concreteness and is supported

by the fact that the majority of contexts pertain to real situations, developed within

specialized academic lectures and experiments in the domains of art (music, theatre)

science (physics, mathematics, chemistry, anatomy and medicine) and environment

(ecology, agriculture, geography). Accordingly, the semantic preference

characteristic for see within the corpus of Michigan Academic Spoken English

analysed is mainly directed to highly specialized words such as square, hexagon,

octagon, proof belonging to the lexical field of mathematics; particles, magnets,light, track belonging to the lexical field of physics; electrons, benzodiazepine,

blending, ambivalence belonging to the lexical field of chemistry; capillary space,

kidneys, inflammation, dose, therapeutic concentration belonging to the lexical field

of anatomy and medicine; forest, plantation, coconut, biodiversity preservation

belonging to the lexical field of ecology and environment, etc.

Nouns at Head having the feature [+Abstract] refer to results of

experimentation or theoretical argumentation: problem, pattern, similarity,

difference, etc.

Nouns at Head having the feature [+Human] stand for the listeners cf. the

students or for key topics e.g.Hume, Kelvin, the Chinese, etc.

b) Pronouns at Head are either personal, marked for Accusative, it having the

highest degree of occurrence (20 concordance lines) or indefinite: someone,

somebody, something but with a low rate of occurrence.

(ii) Determiners are best represented by: articles with the found in 35 concordance

lines and a in 18; adjectives in 26 concordance lines and modifying nouns belonging

to the semantic fields specified above and referring to: size and measure (little, less,

quantitative), colour (black), qualities (new, dramatic, quaint, unusual, various, etc.)

and varia (natural, monocultural, elementary, regular, experimental, sanitary);

demonstratives which refer either to distance, e.g. that(9 occurrences) or proximity/nearness, e.g. this (6)these (5).The verb see can also be subcategorized for clausal DOs introduced by that

realizing the surface structure V

that

S and entering the semantic field of cognition.In our corpus this characteristic feature is represented and sustained by a percentage

of approximately 13.2% out of 100% corresponding to the 500 concordance lines

analysed, figure which describes see as a factive predicate which presupposes the

truth of its clausal complement, fact underlined by the contexts selected under (2):

(2) so I see that youre from Hartland Michigan (57)whuh! I can see thatyou have been thats (127)

chemists can see thatthis is a (187)renal distress and you can see thatthe mice that were (190)

you can see thatafter treatment there are (199)


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tile with the pieces to see thatthese things tile if (242)

you can see thatthese particles get accelerated (318)

stretches them to see thatthey too could be (438)

so its really nice to see thatits come back (456)on the continent youll see thatthe Andes Mountains run (500)

Cornilescu (1986, 2003) states that physical perception verbs may losefactivity in questions (cf. reported speech) and conditionals. This is well proved by

our corpus analysis where wh-complementizers introduce complement clauses in a

percentage of 6.8% (out of our basic 100% (500 concordance lines)) and if-

complementizers introduce complement clauses in a percentage of 4.8% (out of or

basic 100% (500 concordance lines)). Pragmatically and semantically interpreted in

terms of discourse prosody, these figures are descriptors which point to the manner

in which the feed-back of communication is achieved in terms of the speaker-listener

interplay: asking for attention, anticipating the topic under discussion, describing,

making or testing experiments, etc.

(3) a. do you see whatIm saying ? (3)and to see whatwould come from (31)

get to see how parallel the distractors are (47)

and see how I could combine them (52)

enable us to see where the contours are so (277)

lets see who was the third Hobbes (283)b. would be more fun to see ifyou could put it (53)

let me see if I can do something (87)

and see ifsomethings happening with (114)and will see ifthat description holds (148)

we want to see if this compound has the (196)Im gonna see ifI can find that (220)

See-complementation in the domain of physical perception can slightly be

mentioned in connection with our corpus analysis due to the occurrence ofsee in Acc

+ Inf constructions in only 10 concordance lines and Acc + Part constructions in only

18 concordance lines. The larger number of see-occurrences in Acc + Part

constructions emphasizes the orality descriptor and the fact that the majority of

messages refer to actions in full development at the moment of speaking

(experiments, demonstrations, illustrations, etc.).

(4.) a. and youll see people park their boat (146)I feel a lot of pleasure to see this event occur (440)

Im really sad to see them leave because (451)so incredibly rare usually youll see email come across the (452)

b. means of this drawing youll see an electron moving (350)positron, a pair and you see it happening all over the (356)

off and later on you see light coming off (372)

but I could see this picture filling up (391)

I see doctors trying to write (463)

A complete analysis of the complementation of see as a trigger of Acc + Inf / vs/

Nom + Inf and Acc + Part / vs/ Acc + Ing constructions is to be found in Cornilescu(2003).


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Moving to the left side of the concordance span, the findings confer a solid

pragmatic coordinate to the profile of see designed by its use in three canonical

contexts specific to the oral register.

(i) with the modal verbs can, couldmet in 80 concordance lines, meaning

a percentage of 16%.

(5) you can see the coconut trees (263)we can see that quote the obligations ( 289)

you can see the bending it (314)

he could see them in his telescope (458)

(ii) in the imperative with lets in 23 concordance lines, meaning 4.6%

(6) alright lets see (48)

well, lets see with German and Spanish (50)

uh, lets see, so Ive got one (241)(iii) in simple presentI see met in 33 concordance lines, meaning 6.6%.

(7) soI see (57)ohh nowI see (81)

okayI see (132)

In all these cases see acquires the function of a hedge performative, like

some glue, within the oral exchange (see Dima 2002).Still seen from the left, the lexico-syntactic profile of see would not be

complete if we didnt take into consideration the first member of the surface structurefrom where we started, i.e. NP1

V

NP2 (see 4.1). The NP1 standing for the

Subject can have both an agentive and a non-agentive role. The Agentive is

characteristic for the occurrence of see in complement clauses of the type and

contexts presented above, while the non-agentive role is characteristic for all the

contexts in which there is no change in the positive value of the feature [+physical

perception]. The private nature ofsee having as subject the I of the first personsingular standing for the all-powerful speaker, e.g. university professor, is

counterbalanced by the overwhelming figure of 98 concordance lines meaning 19.6%

in which see has as subject the you of the listener, e.g. student, who lets himselfcarefully guided by and delicately submitted to the speaker.

(8) a. and so you see a lot of sloppy staff (176)

b. in Beijing one night you see (181)

We should not overlook the complexity of the discourse prosody and the

strength of attraction provided by the use of see in its to-infinitive form (82

concordance lines, meaning almost 16.4%) after: nouns such as performance,

preference, pieces, class, Strauss, etc.; miscellaneous verbs such as: want, get, cause,

love, come, like; adjectives such as: excited, delighted, easy, hard, etc.

(9) a. her Chinese language class to see the play (139)

b. arent the regular performances to see nowadays (182)c. what they loved to see (162)

d. people who go to see (163)

e. its a little hard to see (237)f. most people are unable to see (290)


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The purpose of the ilustration has been twofold. Firstly, it has aimed at

making up a lexico-syntactic profile of the verb see by adapting Stubbs model ofextended lexico-semantic units and secondly, it has been designed as a resourceful

application of corpus linguistics methods and terminology in the study of words in

context.

3.4. Exercises

1. Explain in your own words the meaning of the words and phrases in italics:

a. He tossed her a few dollars. Here, he said, go buy yourself some finery.Youlook like the bottle of an old teakettle.

b. A young and impressionable moth once set his heart on a certain star. He told his

mother about this and she counseled him to set his heart on a bridge lamp instead.

c. There was a glint in his eye now. He was determined to get the thing into high on

his next attempt; we had come about half a mile in the lower gears.

d. News of his miracles got around by word of mouth among the poorer classes of

town.

e. But he would not let her interfere with his designs, so sheflew into a rage and left

him.

f. Then he came out for a breath of airbefore beginning work on a new design.

g. Since he did not possess a streamlined mind, he did not perceive that his little joke

had gone far enough.

h. The Browns had arrived in fairly good spirits to find themselves in a buzzing

group of young students.

2. Read and translate into Romanian. Use the dictionary.

At length the bear saw the error of his ways and began to reform. In the end he

became a famous teetotaler and a persistent temperance lecturer. He would tell

everybody that came to his house about the awful effects of drink, and he would

boast about how strong and well he had become since he gave up touching the stuff.

To demonstrate this, he would stand on his head and on his hands and he would turn

cartwheels in the house, kicking over the umbrella stand, knocking down the bridge

lamps, and ramming his elbows through the windows.

3. Read the following text and underline the nouns and the verbs.

a. Make an analysis of their capacity to express movement in the topical context.b. Analyse the local contexts for the verb look.

I was looking at the high waves. The breakers always are parallel to the coast and

shape themselves to it except where the curve is sharp however the wind blows. They

are rolled out by the shallowing shore just as a piece of putty between the palms

whatever its shape runs into a long roll. The slant rock or crease one sees in them

shows the way of the wind. The regularity of the barrels surprised and charmed the

eye; the edge behind the comb or crest was smooth and bright as glass. It may be

noticed to be green behind and silver white in front: the silver marks where the air

begins, the pure white is foam, the green solid water. Then looked at to the right or

left they are scrolled over like mould boards or feathers or jibsails seen by the edge.

It is pretty to see the hollow of the barrels disappearing as the white comb on eachside runs along the wave gaining ground till the two meet at a pitch and crush and

overlap each other.


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(Breakers on the Shore by Gerard Manley Hopkins)

4. Read the text and analyse the sentential context around the verbs.

But what appealed most to my wonder was the way they all swam. A dozen

sprawling, lace-like shapes would suddenly gather themselves into streamlines and

shoot upwards, jet-propelled by the marvelous siphon in their heads, like a display offairy water-rockets. At the top of their flight, they seemed to explode; their tails of

trailed tentacles burst outwards into shimmering points around their tiny bodies, and

they sank like drifting gossamer stars back to the sea-floor again.

The female octopus anchors her eggs to stalks of weeds and coral under water. It

seems to be a moot point whether she broods in their neighbourhood or not, but I

once saw what I took to be a mother out of exercise with five babies. She had a body

about the size of a tennis ball and tentacles perhaps a foot long. The length of the

small ones, streamlined for swimming, was not more than five inches over all. They

were cruising around a coral pinnacle in four feet of water. The big one led, the

babies followed six inches behind, in what seemed to be an ordered formation: they

were grouped, as it were, around the base of a cone whereof she was the forward-pointing apex.

(Octopi on the Move fromA Pattern of Islands by Arthur Grimble)

5. Read the text and make comments upon the importance of the global context.

Use corpora to establish the scientific domain the text belongs to.

How fond nature is of spot-making! The wings of butterflies, the feathers of birds,

the surface of eggs, the leaves and petals of plants are constantly spotted; so, too,

fish, as trout. From the wings of the butterfly I looked involuntarily at the foxglove I

had just gathered; inside, the bells were thickly spotted dots and dustings that might

have been transferred to a butterflys wing. The spotted meadow-orchid; the browndots on the cowslips, brown, black, greenish, reddish dots and spots and dustings onthe eggs of the finches, the whitethroats and so many otherssome of the spots seemas if they had been splashed on and had run into short streaks, some mottled, some

gathered together at the end; all spots, dots, dustings of minute specks, mottling, and

irregular markings.

(The Open Airby Richard Jefferies)

6. Read the poem and explain the role played by onomatopoeic words in

rendering the sound of rain.

Rain-pour, pitter-pitter,

Rain-pour, splitter-splatter.

Spluttering on glass,

Splashing on slates,

Gushing down drains.

Liquid spears attacking flowers,

Swishing, swirling, silvery showers,

Dripping through leaves,

Dropping from branches,

Rattling on shutters.

Falling on rivers in resonant plops,

Dancing on puddles in translucent drops.Scudding, skimming, fizzing- all blending,

Till one more deluge comes to an ending.


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7. Read and translate into Romanian by using both monolingual and bilingual

dictionaries:

Always in our house one of lifes principal sensual pleasures has been to smell atfresh coffee. I would go to Sheffield with my mother, to Daveys provision store;there take a morning coffee at a low table, and then accompany her round the variouscounters for brawn, pressed-ham, crisp golden tubes of sugar fried in fat, and the

fresh-ground coffee which came in crackling green bags tied with thin string. When

we got home it was always my job to empty the coffee into our coffee tin, squeezing

the bag until not a grain was left. Then came the savouring as we passed the tin

around, sniffing carefully so as

not to inhale the powder.

(fromI Said the Sparrow by Paul West)


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Final Test


Final Test

Choose the correct answer:

1. The word is: 4p

a. a unit of expression

b. a unit of meaning

c. a linguistic unit

d. a lexeme

2. The phonological word is: 2p

a. a stretch of speech

b. a range of speech sounds

c. a cluster of sounds

d. a morpheme3. The orthographic word is: 1p

a. a stretch of writing

b. a stretch of speech

c. a morpheme

d. a vowel

4. English orthography is chiefly based on: 2p

a. the morphological principle

b. the phonetic principle

c. the historical principle

d. spelling and pronunciation

5. Corpus linguistics studies: 1pa. the corpus

b. language by means of computerassisted methodsc. speech production

d. the syntax of the word group

6. The modern corpus is characterized by: 1pa. well-formednessb. representativeness

c. non-finite size

d. liability

7. A collocation is: 2p

a. node-collocate pairb. a group of words

c. a free combination of words

d. a verb hierarchy

8. Pronouns are: 1p

a. function words

b. content words

c. particles

d. prepositional phrases

9. Content words have the function of: 1p

a. being optional in a sentence

b. specifying what a text is about

c. indicating the subject relation

d. determining bondage


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Final Test


10. Function words: 1p

a. relate content words to each other

b. are open class words

c. define the sentence

d. express modality

11. Content words are: 1p

a. less importantb. major, full or lexical words

c. old-fashioned

d. non-marked

12.Function words are: 1p

a. interested

b. minor, empty, form words

c. invigorating

d. sort of genitives

13. The lexical density of a text represents: 1p

a. a fraction

b. a noun- phrase with modifiers

c. the proportion of lexical words expressed as a percentage

d. a type of argument structure

14. The core vocabulary contains: 1p

a. the most frequent words in the language

b. only word-forms

c. synonyms

d. idioms

15. The most frequent word is (from a large general corpus): 1p

a. see

b. lookc. stare

d. gawk

16. A concordance is: 1p

a. a word/phrase and its surrounding context

b. a lemma

c. an attributive clause

d. a manifestation of diagrams

17. A lemma or lexeme is: 1p

a. a mathematical calculus

b. the set of different forms of a word, such as the inflected forms of a part of

speechc. a degree

d. a tagger

18. Concordancers 1p

a. give information on the overall frequency of occurrence of words.

b. describe qualities of text-types.

c. are simple verses.

d. provide logical equivalents.

19. Explode a myth is: 1pa. a collocation

b. a free word combination

c. an idiomd. a set-phrase


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Final Test


20. She was angry.us: 1pa. of

b. at

c. above

d. according

21. Which is correct ? 1p

a. spick and punb. spick and span

c. span and spick

d. spick and spin

22. Which is most frequent? 1p

a. arrive at an agreement

b. come to an agreement

c. deal an agreement

d. agree an agreement

23. Which is acceptable? 1p

a. white tea

b. strong tea

c. feeble tea

d. thin tea

24. Which is formal? 1p

a. a bunch of flowers

b. a gathering of flowers

c. a bouquet of flowers

d. a pack of flowers

25. Make a beeline for is 1pa. a free word combination

b. an idiomc. a set phrase

d. a collocation

26. The set speak, speaks, spoke, spoken, speaking is: 1pa. a lexical set

b. a word family

c. a lexeme

d. a semantic field

27. The adjective blind collocates with: 2pa. block

b. river

c. dated. alley

28. The noun garden collocates with: 2pa. grey

b. city

c. book

d. flat

29. The term context refers to: 1p

a. the specific parts of an utterance or a text which the word is focused upon

b. a units relations with the other features with which it combines to form asequence

c. contextualizationd. morphological processes

30. Contextual analysis is performed on the basis of: 1p


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Final Test


a. contextual variants

b. variants of sound, morpheme

c. context

d. syntax

31. Local context indicates: 1p

a. the immediately linguistic environment in which a word appears

b. context of situationc. the meaning of pronouns

d. passivization

32. Sentential context refers to: 1p

a. the neighbouring words

b. sentence variation

c. the implicit and explicit syntactic relation of a certain word with other

words far away in the sentence

d. pragmatic behaviour

33. Topical context refers to: 1p

a. words

b. quotations

c. the first sentence

d. the whole topic of the text

34. The global context helps in: 1p

a. building up sentences

b. acquiring information from the extralinguistic world

c. disambiguating word meanings

d. calculate lexical density

Grades:

0-15 5; 15-20 6; 20-257; 25-308; 30-35 9; 35-42 10


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References


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