This document discusses key aspects of words and vocabulary in linguistic study, including: 1. It defines words and phrases, with words being minimum free forms and phrases consisting of two or more lesser free forms. 2. It examines the three aspects of words: their form, meaning, and distribution. Meanings can vary across cultures and contexts. 3. It discusses ease and difficulty in acquiring vocabulary based on similarities and differences to one's native language in form, meaning, and distribution. Cognates are easier while deceptive cognates and words with different meanings are more difficult.

2. “ The linguistic student should never make the mistake of
identifying a language with its dictionary.”

3. • The word has been defined for scientific linguistic study.
• “ A free form which consists entirely of two or more lesser
free forms, as, for instance, poor John or John ran away or yes, sir,
is a PHRASE.
A free form which is not a phrase, is a WORD.
A word, then, is free form which does not consist entirely of two
or lesser free forms; in brief, a word is a MINIMUM FREE FORM.

4. A word is a combination of sounds acting as a stimulus to bring into an
attention the experience to which it has become attached by use…
Example: head
“a head of the cabbage” It is the shape which is the dominant aspect of the
experience that has made a connection with the material unit.
“the head of a department” It is the head as the chief
“table” as a piece of furniture “table of contents”
The “meanings” of words are ,therefore, more fluid than we realize.
For the foreign speaker of a language who learns this new language as an adult,
The words as stimuli probably never function with anything like the same fullness
And freedom as they do for a native.

5. Three aspects of words:
(1)Their form
(2) their meaning
(3) their distribution

6. • sound segment, stress, and tone languages.
• pitch
Example:
Is a sequence of 4 significant sound segments
jugo (phonemes) /xúgo/ and stress
yugo
yugó

7. • Meanings into which we classify our experience are culturally determined or
Modified and they vary considerably from culture to culture.
• some meaning found in one culture may not be exist in one another.
Example: the word “pasma” “horse”
“rikon” “potato”
• even when the reality is available to the culture, the meanings will differ
Example: eskimos have many distinctions correlating with different types of
snow
kanin, bahaw, bigas, tutong
• meanings that attach to words as words are LEXICAL meanings
Example: building > house
• meanings that attach to the bound form –s [s] can be called MORPHOLOGICAL
meaning.
• Is he a farmer? Is a SYNTACTIC meaning. But the meaning “question” attached
To the word form question is a lexical.

8. • is important because the history of a language carry with them
the habits of the restrictions.
Water > noun > Glass of water
Water the garden > verb
Water meter > noun adjunct Agua > noun
Watery substance
• dialect area
• social-class levels
• many words found in poetry will not be found in ordinary
conversation

9. Fries: (1) function words
(2) substitute words
(3) grammatically distributed words
(4) content words
Common core vocabulary and specialized vocabulary
Common core vocabulary
• known to all members of a language community
specialized vocabulary
• known only to special groups
• have to be learned by native and nonnative speakers

10. Vocabulary for production and vocabulary for recognition
• As a rule, our recognition vocabulary is much larger than our
production vocabulary.
Basic English uses approximately
1000 for the student to
communicate.

11. Ease and difficulty
Machete, suppuration and calumniator
Machete, supuracion and calumniador
Fire and man will probably more difficult.
Ex. Fire the furnace, man the gun
open fire > start shooting ~ fuego
table, table of contents
mesa

12. Difficulty Patterns
• Similarity to and difference from the native language in form,
Meaning, and distribution will result in ease or difficulty in
acquiring the vocabulary of a language.
*in comparing NL to FL:
1. Similar in form and meaning
2. Similar in form but different in meaning
3. Similar in meaning but different in form
4. Different in form and in meaning
5. Different in their type of construction
6. Similar in primary meaning but different in connotation
7. Similar in meaning but with restrictions in geographical
8. distribution.

13. Cognates
~ words that are similar in form and in meaning
Hotel, Hospital, calendar
Deceptive Cognates
~ words that are similar in form but mean different things.
Ex. “milk” – “miruku”
ifferent forms
~ words that are the “same” in a particular meaning
but different in form
~ difficulty level:normal
Ex. Tree > arbol = same in 4 out of 20 meanings and uses.
“The leaves of that tree are falling”
Pennicillin~ considered equivalent in all their meaning

14. ~ words that are different in form and represent meanings that
Are “strange” to speakers of a particular native language,that is,
Meanings that represent a different grasp of reality.
~ difficult
Ex. First floor is different in form from primer piso

Number one above the ground level
~ words that are different in their morphological construction.
~ difficult
Ex. Call up > to telephone call on > to visit
run out of > to exhaust the supply of

15. ~ words that have widely different connotations in 2 languages.
~ difficult
~ harmless in NL but offensive/taboo in FL
Ex. 馬鹿 and baka
~ words that are restricted to certain geographic areas within the
area of the FL.
~ difficult>because the restrictions must be learned also
Ex. Petrol and gasoline
dragonfly > darning needle > snake feeder
nanay = ima, inda

16. A limited vocabulary
~ we can limit the size of the vocabulary to something less than
the entire vocabulary range of a language
~ Fries:”in the matter of vocabulary items this stage of learning
must include the chief items of the first three kinds:
1. function words
2. substitute words
3. neg & affirmative distribution
~ what is your purpose? Speaking vocabulary:
1. 2,000 words or less
2.decide what meanings of these words
will include within that vocabulary.
3. decide what contextual areas is your
concern

17. 4. Decide what grammatical patterns will be included within
the range of our sample.
5. Decide what age groups our vocabulary is intended
Specific suggestions on comparing vocabularies
~ compare form, meaning, distribution and connotation with the NL.
~ it can be done with the following steps:
1st step: comparison of form
~ reading aloud each word
~deciding quickly whether it resembles a NL word or not.

18. 2nd step: comparing meaning
~ check the similarity in form against the similar words in NL.
~ take the words that are not similar in form to words in the NL
3rd step: comparing distribution and connotation
~ find words that show wide differences in distribution and/or
connotation
~ words that may not be used as verbs in the FL will constitute
Problems if it is used in NL
~ words that are restricted in geographic distribution in the FL will
Be listed as problems.
~ words that show wide differences in connotation will constitute
problem