Unit 1

1.1 What is a word?
　　What is a word? This question has occupied the attention of linguists for ages. Although numerous definitions have been suggested, none of them seem to be perfect. Scholars still do not agree on the definition of the word.
　　When we talk about a word, we tend to think in visual terms. In this line a word can be defined as a meaningful group of letters printed or written horizontally across a piece of paper. As defined in terms of spoken language, a word is viewed as a sound or combination of sounds which are made voluntarily with human vocal equipment. According to semanticists , a word is a unit of meaning. Grammarians , however, insist that a word be a free form that can function in a sentence, etc. To sum up, the definition of a word comprises the following points:
　　　　(1) a minimal free form of a language;
　　　　(2) a sound unity;
　　　　(3) a unit of meaning;
　　　　(4) a form that can function alone in a sentence.
　　Therefore, we can say that 'a word is a minimal free form of a language that has a given sound and meaning and syntactic function.'
　　Words can be simple and complex, yet all must comply with these criteria. Man and fine are simple, but they each have sound, meaning and syntactic function, and each can be used alone in a sentence. Naturally they are words. There are words which are complex such as mis.for.tune and man.age.ment. Both are polysyllabic words and can function as 'subject', 'object' and 'predictive' in a sentence. Though misfortune can be further divided as mis- and fortune, the former cannot stand alone as a word. Similarly, management can be broken down as manage and -ment, the latter cannot be used freely, either. Blackmail can be separated into black and mail, and both can work as independent units in a sentence, the meaning of each, however, is by no means the combination of the two. Black is a colour, opposite to 'white', and mail denotes 'something sent by post', yet when they are put together, the combined form means 'compel, compulsion, to make payment or action for concealment of discreditable secrets etc.' Hence blackmail is a different word.

1.2 Sound and Meaning
　　A word is a symbol that stands for something else in the world. Each of the world's cultures has come to agree that certain sounds will represent certain persons, things, places, properties, processes and activities outside the language system. This symbolic connection is almost always arbitrary, and there is 'no logical relationship between the sound which stands for a thing or an idea and the actual thing and idea itself'. A dog is called a dog not because the sound and the three letters that make up the word just automatically suggest the animal in question. It is only symbolic. The relationship between them is conventional because people of the same speech community have agreed to refer to the animal with this cluster of sounds. In different languages the same concept can be represented by different sounds. Woman, for example, becomes Frau in German, femme in French and fùn? in Chinese. On the other hand, the same sound [mi:t] is used to mean meet, meat, mete. Knight and night, though denoting entirely different things, yet have the same sound.

1.3 Sound and Form
　　It is generally agreed that the written form of a natural language is the written record of the oral form. Naturally the written form should agree with the oral form. In other words, the sound should be similar to the form. This is fairly true of English in its earliest stage i.e. Old English. The speech of the time was represented very much more faithfully in writing than it is today. With the development of the language, more and more differences occur between the two. The internal reason for this is that the English alphabet was adopted from the Romans, which does not have a separate letter to represent each sound in the language so that some letters must do double duty or work together in combination.
　　Another reason is that the pronunciation has changed more rapidly than spelling over the years, and in some cases the two have drawn far apart. During the last five hundred years, though the sounds of speech have changed considerably, there have been no corresponding changes of spelling.
　　A third reason is that some of the differences were created by the early scribes. In the early days the spelling differences did not matter very much as people were not so used to seeing words in print, and the spelling was not fixed as it is today. As a result, no one was quite sure how some English words should be spelled. Sometimes, people deliberately changed spelling of words either to make a line even or for easier recognition. Before the printing press was brought to England, everything was written by hand. Those scribes, who made a living by writing for other people often worked in haste to meet the needs of the King, Church, and merchants. One problem was that several letters written with short vertical strokes such as i, u, v, m, w and n looked all alike. Consequently, their handwriting caused misunderstanding. To solve the problem in part, they changed the letter u to o when it came before m, n, or v. This is how sum, cum, wuman, wunder, munk came to be written as some, come, woman, wonder, monk. At some point, too, the scribes seem to have decided that no English word should end in u or v. Thus, in time, an e was added to such words as live, have, due, and true but not pronounced.
　　In the late 1500, printing became well established. It helped to freeze the spelling of words. The standardization makes spelling sacred. Dictionaries did their share in stopping spelling changes. Meanwhile, sounds continued to change as usual, thus bringing more differences.
Finally comes the borrowing, which is an important channel of enriching the English vocabulary. When English borrowed words from other languages, it borrowed spelling as well. The early borrowings were assimilated and the later ones, however, do not conform to the rules of English pronunciation and spelling, e.g. stimulus (L), dénouement (F), fiesta (Sp), eureka(Gr), and kimono(Jap).
　　The written form of English is, therefore, an imperfect representation of the spoken form. From time to time in history, some British and American scholars have made efforts to reform the English spelling, but with little success. In spite of the differences, at least eighty percent of the English words fit consistent spelling patterns. And even those spellings that appear to be irregular may have more regularity and usefulness than we realize. In such words as hymn, condemn, bomb, for example, the last letter of each is silent. But when these words are extended into longer ones, the silent letters become audible: hymnal, condemnation and bombard. This is a general rule.

1.4 Vocabulary
　　All the words in a language make up its vocabulary. The term 'vocabulary' is used in different senses. Not only can it refer to the total number of the words in a language, but it can stand for all the words used in a particular historical period, e.g. Old English vocabulary, Middle English vocabulary and Modern English vocabulary. We also use it to refer to all the words of a given dialect, a given book, a given discipline and the words possessed by an individual person. English is one of the world's highly developed languages. Naturally the vocabulary is one of the largest and richest. The general estimate of the present-day English vocabulary is over one million words.