English Vocabulary Elements

337 Pages·2007·4.59 MB·English

by  the late Keith Denning

ENGLISH VOCABULARY ELEMENTS
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ENGLISH VOCABULARY ELEMENTS
Keith Denning
Brett Kessler
William R. Leben
Second edition
1
2007
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Denning, Keith M.
English vocabulary elements / Keith Denning, Brett Kessler, William R. Leben.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13 978-0-19-516802-0; 978-0-19-516803-7 (pbk.)
ISBN 0-19-516802-X; 0-19-516803-8 (pbk.)
1. Vocabulary. 2. English language—Grammar. I. Kessler, Brett, 1956– II. Leben,
William Ronald, 1943– III. Title.
PE1449.D424 2006
428.1—dc22 2006049863
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Preface
Intended Audience for This Book
This book is intended for use in college-level courses dealing with English word
structure. It also aims to provide an introduction of how units of a language—
sounds, word elements, words—function together and how a language functions
in society over time. Part or all of the text may also be used to good effect in
English for Foreign Students and English as a Second Language (ESL) courses. It
is also recommended for those interested in preparing for educational aptitude
tests and other postsecondary admissions tests (including the PSAT, SAT, ACT,
GRE, LSAT, MCAT, and MAT) that test vocabulary skills. If this list seems broad,
it is because nearly every field of study or work requires a facility for comprehen-
sion or expression in the English language. The list is, of course, not meant to
exclude those who are merely afflicted with the kind of curiosity about language
that has motivated many an amateur and professional linguist in the course of
a lifetime of joyful pursuit.
The book’s first goal is to expand vocabulary skills by teaching the basic
units of learned, specialized, and scientific English vocabulary, but its reach
extends far beyond this. To make sense of current English word structure and
to build word analysis skills that will continue to prove useful, the book pres-
ents basic principles of word formation and word use and shows how these
have affected English since its beginnings. This in turn leads to further topics
including phonetics and the relationship of English to other Indo-European
languages. As a result, the book provides an introduction to some of the most
important concepts of modern linguistics by showing their role in the devel-
opment of English vocabulary.
vi PREFACE
Using This Book
Key concepts are shown in boldface when introduced (e.g., gloss and doublet).
Learning definitions of these terms is important, but a bigger goal is to gain an
idea of the role of these concepts in the overall system of language.
Lists of word elements to be memorized accompany most chapters. Following
them are a variety of exercises to choose from. Some help build familiarity with
word elements by putting them to use in words. Others apply principles from the
chapters to new cases. We hope these will encourage you to master the material
as it is encountered instead of saving memorization until the end.
Vocabulary-building Techniques
Students may find flashcards useful for memorizing word elements. Thanks to
Suzanne Kemmer, an excellent set is available on the Web at http://dacnet.rice
.edu/projects/ling215/FlashCards/.
A more low-tech method is to cover one side of the list of elements and glosses
and, going from top to bottom and then from bottom to top, to try to recall the
element for each gloss and then the gloss for each element. Other approaches
to the task of self-drilling for memorization include repeating word elements
and glosses to yourself until you cannot internally hear one without the other,
or finding a rhyme or mental picture that helps to associate elements with their
glosses (e.g., “aster reminds me of the flower having the same name, which looks
like a star,” or “viv reminds me of my friend Vivian, who is very lively”).
Using a Dictionary
As a companion to this text, we strongly recommend a bound dictionary de-
signed for the collegiate level or above (i.e., one containing 150,000 or more
entries), such as The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language1 or
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.2 You may also find it useful to consult
1. Fourth ed. (Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 2000). Also accessible through http://bartleby.com/.
2. Eleventh ed. (Springfi eld, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2003). Also accessible at http://www.m-w.com/.
PREFACE vii
a larger dictionary like the Oxford English Dictionary (OED)3 or Webster’s Third
New International Dictionary, Unabridged4 or such specialized dictionaries as
Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary5 or Stedman’s Medical Dictionary.6
Using a dictionary effectively is a skill that must be learned. It is important
to become familiar with the basic layout of any dictionary you use. Most good
dictionaries make this task easier by presenting explanations of entries, lists
of abbreviations, and so forth, in the introductory pages. We recommend that
students take the time to read this material before trying to use a new dictionary,
thereby avoiding frustration later on.
Most dictionaries are also accessible online or in CD or DVD formats. These
are invaluable for many kinds of searches (e.g., finding all words that end in
-archy, or words whose definition contains the word government). We recom-
mend these not as a substitute but as a supplement to a print version, if only
because printed pages permit a level of browsing that can’t yet be duplicated on
computer screens.
One of the best ways to attack the bewildering variety of English vocabulary
is to refer to a collegiate-level dictionary when you confront unfamiliar, difficult,
or interesting words. When you come across an unfamiliar word or element, it
is a good idea either to make a note of it for later reference or to take a moment
to look it up. Learning to look for and recognize the elements and words you
learn in the course (as well as those you acquire on your own) will eventually
minimize the time you will spend with a dictionary—unless, of course, you enjoy
reading dictionaries, in which case you may find yourself spending more time
on other words than on the one you originally meant to look up!
Moving beyond the Final Chapter
This book doesn’t contain one percent of what the authors find interesting about
English vocabulary. We will judge the text as successful if the groundwork laid
3. Second ed. (20 vols.; Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 1989; micrographic 1-vol. ed., 1991).
Three supplementary volumes have been published as well (1993–1997). All are incorporated in
the CD-ROM and in the online version at http://www.oed.com/.
4. Springfi eld, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1961. See also http://www.m-w.com/.
5. Thirtieth ed. (Philadelphia: Saunders, 2003).
6. Twenty-eighth ed. (Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2005). Also accessible at http://
www.stedmans.com/.
viii PREFACE
here motivates readers to explore further and provides enough skills to undertake
such explorations.
More comprehensive lists of Latin and Greek word elements than those pro-
vided in the glossary can be found in the works listed at the end of this book.
These works list elements according to different principles, but the student can,
with a little searching, use them to find and identify many less frequently used
word elements not found in our glossary.
The World Wide Web is a rich source of lists of words and word elements.
One constantly growing resource we recommend is Professor Suzanne Kemmer’s
Rice University Neologisms Database, which contained some 5,500 entries at the
time this book was published: http://esa4.rice.edu/~ling215/.
We owe profound thanks to our students and teaching assistants over the years
for many helpful and insightful suggestions. The course that led to this book owes
its development to the textbook Structure of English Words, by Clarence Sloat
and Sharon Taylor,7 and to course materials prepared by Robert Stockwell, and
we are indebted to these sources for first showing the way. We are also grateful
to many colleagues for generous and helpful comments and corrections: to John
J. Ohala, J. David Placek, Robert Vago, and the late R. M. R. Hall, who offered
extensive suggestions for the first edition. Special thanks to Suzanne Kemmer,
Joan Maling, Joe Meyers, Nasreen Sarwar, and many students over the past eleven
years for corrections to the first edition. Thanks also to Daniel Leben-Wolf for
doing the art.
Tragically, Keith Denning, coauthor of the first edition, passed away suddenly
in 1998. We dedicate the second edition to his memory.
7. Fourth ed. (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1996).
Contents
Symbols and Abbreviations xi
ONE The Wealth of English 3
TWO The History of English and Sources
of English Vocabulary 19
THREE Morphology: Analyzing Complex Words 41
FOUR Allomorphy 75
FIVE Phonetics 95
SIX Regular Allomorphy; Numeric Elements 113
SEVEN Polysemy and Semantic Change 137
EIGHT Usage and Variation 157
NINE Latin and Greek Morphology 173
TEN The Prehistory of English and the Other
Indo-European Languages 189
ELEVEN Later Changes: From Latin to French
to English 207
APPENDIX ONE Elements to Glosses 221
APPENDIX TWO Glosses to Elements 249
Glossary 277
Further Reading and Research Tools 299
Index 305