Belajar Bahasa Inggris: Knowing a Word (Memahami Kata)
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO KNOW A WORD?
To really know a word, one needs to know its:
·
spelling (orthography)
·
phonetic representation (pronunciation,
syllabification, and stress)
·
morphological irregularity
·
syntactic features and restrictions
(including part of speech)
·
common derivations and collocations
·
semantic features and restrictions
·
pragmatic features and restrictions
Consider, for example, the form of the word child.
1. The
spelling of child is c-h-i-l-d
2. Phonetic
representation
The
pronunciation of child is /čayld/
3. Morphological
irregularity
The
noun child has an irregular and
idiosyncratic plural, children.
4. Syntactic
features and restrictions (including part of speech)
The
word child is a noun and the fact
that child is a common countable
noun.
5. Common
derivatives of child include childlike, childish, and childhood.
Common
collocations (go together) of child
include child’s play, child labor, and child psychology.
6. Semantic
information also helps to distinguish among words with similar, but not
identical, meanings. To truly know a word means to know both how it differs
from and how it is similar to others. Child
is human and is neutral regarding gender distinction. The term child contrasts with similar term for
younger humans, such as infant and baby. The term child also contrasts with older humans, such as adolescent or adult.
7. Pragmatic
features
The
speaker would be able to contrast child
with other words with the same meaning—for example, an informal counterpart, kid. Its singular form, kid has a certain pejorative
connotation:
It’s a snow day today. My kids are home from school. (acceptable)
It’s a snow day today. My kid is
home from school. (questionable)
Many native speakers of English would prefer to use son or daughter.
THE FORM OF WORDS
MORPHOLOGICAL
AFFIXATION
English
morphemes can be divided into two basic categories: freestanding words and
morphemes that are bound to other words. Free morphemes can be subdivided
further into two types: those morphemes that have more lexical content and
those that are more grammatical in function. The free morphemes with lexical
content represent the major parts of speech:
nouns adjectives, and
verbs adverbs
The
free grammatical functional morphemes
include the minor parts of speech:
articles
prepositions, and
conjunctions
The
bound morphemes consist of two kinds of affixes:
derivational, and
inflectional
Derivational Morpheme
When
a morpheme added to a word results in either a different part of speech or the
same part of speech with a different lexical meaning, it is a derivational morpheme. Derivational
affixes can be prefixes: (e.g., unbend)
and suffixes (e.g., argument).
Inflectional morpheme:
changes
the form of a word without changing its basic part of speech. For instance: the
additional of –ing to the verb watch in I am watching television. Watch
remains a verb after the –ing has
been affixed, but the suffix adds a grammatical meaning, namely that the action
is an ongoing one.
There are eight inflectional affixes in English:
Verbs:
·
present participle -->
watching
·
present tense—third person singular -->
walks
·
past tense -->
jumped
·
past participle -->
eaten
Nouns:
·
possessive -->
John’s
·
plural --> books
Adjectives
and adverbs:
·
comparative -->
clearer, faster
·
superlative -->
clearest, fastest
The only inflectional affixes that are not suffixes involve the irregular forms:
internal voice change: mouse -->
mice (plural)
man -->
men child -->
children
ring -->
rang (past tense) -->
rung (past participle)
no
change: one deer --> several deer (zero plural)
hit -->
hit --> hit (zero past tense and past
participle)
suppletive
form: go -->
went; be --> was
(past tense)
good -->
better (comparative) -->
best (superlative)
bad --> worse (comparative) -->
worst (superlative)
PRODUCTIVE LEXICAL PROCESSES
The
lexicon also contains rules governing thee productive processes of English word
formation:
compounding,
derivational affixation, and
conversion.
Compounding
Compounding,
or putting together existing words to form a new lexical unit (rain + coat = raincoat). Take
the noun house, for instance. We have
household, housemate, house sitter,
houseboat, house arrest, housebound, housebreaking, housebroken, housefly,
housekeeper, houselights, housewarming, housewife, househusband, housework.
Many parts of speech can be combined in this way, sometimes ending up as one
word, sometimes as two or more.
Some of the most frequent English
compounding patterns are:
noun + noun: stone wall, baby blanket, rainbow
noun +verb: homemade, rainfall, lip-read
noun + verb-er: baby-sitter, can opener,
screwdriver
adj. + noun: blackbird, greenhouse, cold cream
adj. /adv. + noun + -en: quick-frozen,
nearsighted, dim-witted
prep. + noun: overlord, underdog, underworld
prep. + verb: underestimate, undercut, overstep
verb + particle: makeup, breakdown, stakeout
Derivational Affixation
Derivational
affixes can be prefixes, which change the meaning (expatriate, unrepentant),
or suffixes, which usually change the part of speech of the word stem (washable, childish). It is possible for a word stem to have both a
derivational prefix and suffix (unthinkable)
or more than one suffix (governmental).
The
most common and useful derivational prefixes: (e.g., anti-, bi-, inter-, pre-, un-) and suffixes (e.g., -able, -er, ism, -ist, -less, -ness).
The
common suffixes whose major function is to change one part of speech into
another: -ous, -ary, and –ful transform
nouns into adjectives such as famous,
customary, successful, and –ness and
–ity transform adjectives into nouns
such as happiness and serenity.
PREFIX
|
MEANING
|
EXAMPLE
|
anti-
bi-
inter-
pre-
un-
com, con, col
sui
|
against
two
between
before
not
together
self
|
antipathy
bicameral
interpose
premonition
unknown
commit, confound, collate
suicide
|
Conversion
The
other important productive lexical process in English is conversion. This
occurs when one part of speech is converted into another part of speech,
without any derivational affixation.
1. He
put butter on his bread. --> He buttered
his bread.
He
poured water on the plants. --> He watered
the plants.
2. Jo
removed dust from the desk. --> Jo dusted
the desk.
I
took the pits out of the dates. --> I pitted the dates.
3. He
cut the log with a saw. --> He sawed
the log.
Sue
gathered the leaves with a rake. --> She raked the leaves.
In
the following case, a prepositional meaning is incorporated into the verb:
Hal walked across the street. --> Hal crossed
the street.Follow my twitter: @baryzin
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