英语词汇学习题集（Chapter 1—Chapter 3）
Chapter 1 The Basic Concepts of Words and
Vocabulary
1. Decide whether the following are true or false.
( ) a. A word can be defined in different ways from different points of view. ( ) b. Under no circumstances can sound and meaning be logically related.
( ) c. The introduction of printing press resulted in a lot more differences between sound and form.
( ) d. The words a person can use in speaking and writing form his active vocabulary.
( ) e. The principles by which to classify words are usage, notion and origin. ( ) f. Native words are more popular than foreign words.
( ) g. Native words enjoy the same features as the basic word stock and more.
2. Give a term for each of the following definitions.
a. sub-standard words often used on informal occasions ( ) b. specialized vocabulary common in certain professions ( )
c. words used by sup-cultural groups particularly by underground society ( ) d. words that have clear notions ( ) e. words of Anglo-Saxon origin( )
f. words borrowed by way of translation ( ) g. old words with new meanings( ) Key:
1. a.(T) b.(F) c.(T) d.(T) e.(F) f.(F) g.(T)
2. a. slang b. jargon c. argot d. content words e. native words f. translation loans g. neologisms
Chapter 3 Morphological Structure of English Words
1. Explain the following terms:
1) morpheme 2) allomorph 3) bound morpheme 4) free morpheme 5) affix 6) inflectional affix 7) derivational affix 8) root 9) stem
2.Complete the following sentences with proper words according to the text.
1) Structurally, a word is not the_________ unit because many words are analyzable or segmentable.
2) The morpheme is the smallest functioning unit in the composition of ___________. 3) Morphemes fall into different classes by different criteria of classification. Now people tent to group morphemes into groups:_________ and _________.
4) According to the functions of affixes, we can put them into groups:______ and_____.
5) The number of inflectional affixes is ________and ________, which makes English one of the easiest languages to learn.
6) Derivational affixes can be further divided into __________and ________.
7) A_________, whether free or bound, generally carries the main component of meaning in a word.
8) A________ can be defined as a form to which affixes of any kind can be added. Key:
1. 1) a minimum meaningful unit of a language 2) one of the variants that realize a morpheme
3) a morpheme that occurs with at least one other morpheme 4) a morpheme that can stand alone
5) a morpheme attached to a stem or a root
6) an affix that indicates grammatical relationships 7) an affix that forms new words with a stem or a root 8) what remains of a word after the removal of all affixes 9) a form to which affixes of any kind can be added
2. 1) smallest 2) words
3) free morphemes, bound morphemes 4) inflectional (affixes), derivational (affixes)
5) small, stable 6) prefixes, suffixes 7) root 8) stem
Chapter 4 Word Formation
1. Decide whether the following statements are true or false. Put F and T in the brackets.
( ) a. The most productive ways of word-formation are affixation, compounding and conversion.
( ) b. Shortening includes clipping and blending.
( ) c. Prefixation and suffixation are two subbranches of affixation.
( ) d. Suffixation is the formation of new words by adding prefixes to stems.
( ) e. Compounding is the formation of new words by joining two or more stems. ( ) f. The limited number of verb compounds are created either through conversion or back-formation.
( ) g. Verb compounds in the way of back-formation are formed mainly by dropping prefixes.
( ) h. Conversion is the formation of new words by converting words of one class to another class. These words are new only in a grammatical sense.
( ) i. Blending is the formation of new words by combining part of two words or a word plus a part of another word.
( ) j. Clipping, a way of making a word is to shorten a longer word by cutting a part off the original and adding a new part to the original .
( ) k. Words formed through acronymy are called initialisms or acronyms, depending on the spelling of the words.
( ) l. Back-formation is the method of creating words by removing the supposed suffixes.
2. Study the following words and decide how each word was formed. Put your answer in the bracket.
Example: disobey (affixation or prefixation) disloyal ( ) harden ( ) mass-produce ( ) motel ( ) downfall ( ) dorm ( ) incapable ( ) VOA ( ) glorify ( ) radar ( ) edit ( ) sandwich ( ) familiars ( ) gas ( ) water-proof ( ) quixotic ( )
Affixation
1. What is affixation?
2. What is the difference between prefixation and suffixation?
3. What is the fundamental difference between prefixes and suffixes? 4. Match the prefixes in column A with the words in column B.
A B dis- capable
il- willingness im- legal in- agreement non- officially un- convenient smoker
5. Match the suffixes in Column A with the words in column B.
A B -er book -let friend -ship wait -tion china -ese lady -like protect -able natural
-ly wash -en dark -fy beauty
Compounding
1. Express the following in one compound word:
a. someone who writes songs b. someone who cleans windows c. the race for arms
d. the train in the morning e. a mine for gold f. bathe in the sun g. as cheap as dirt h. tanned by the sun
2. The compounds in each of the following pairs are similar in structure. Please indicate the different relations of the elements of the two compounds in each pair by syntactic paraphrases.
Example: duty-free: free from duties raindrop flowerbed air-tight sea-green
a well-meant remark a well-behaved person war-ruined houses country-bred boys a computer-designer a sun-bather steam engine fire engine silk worm gaslight handwriting faultfinding
an ocean-going ship peace-loving people language teacher baby-sitter
3. Translate the following into Chinese:
a. knee-deep f. pitch dark / black b. life-like g. carefree c. snow-white h. soundproof d. nation-wide i. fireproof e. shoulder-high j. lifelong
4. According to the definitions given below, write the other part of the noun compounds, the first part already given.
a. a stretch of land, round a town, where building is not al-lowed, so that the
fields, woods, etc., remain: green___________
b. a booklet giving all the most important information about a subject:
hand_______
c. an idea that comes later: after_______
d. a pill which helps a person to sleep: sleeping_________
e. a headline repeated on consecutive pages (as of a book): running_________ f. a cloth that is used for washing one’s face and body: wash__________ g. strong sunlight as when there are no clouds: sun________
h. the action of forcing a way through the enemy: break__________ i. a public show of anger: out __________
j. a division into smaller parts: break_________
5. Turn the phrasal verbs below into compounds:
break through fall down break out take in slide down cry out run away hang over
Conversion
1. Choose the best answer to complete each statement. ( ) a. Conversion is a method_________.
A. of turning words of one part of speech to those of a dif-ferent part of speech B. of converting words of one meaning into different meaning C. of deriving words through grammatical means D. of changing words in morphological structure
( ) b. Words involved in conversion are mainly_____________. A nouns, verbs and adverbs B nouns, adjectives and verbs C nouns, prepositions and verbs D adjectives, adverbs and verbs
( ) c. In a derivational process, an item is converted to a new word class without the addition of an affix. The name is______.
A full conversion B partial conversion C functional shift D zero-derivation
( ) d. Almost all monomorphemic _______ can be conversed into nouns, which are semantically related to the original verbs in various ways. A verbs B adjectives C adverbs D prepositions
( ) e. Nouns converted from adjectives nave all the characteristics of nouns and achieve a full noun status, thus known as ____________. A partial conversion B full conversion C functional shift D grammatical shift
( ) f. Nouns partially converted from adjectives do not possess all the qualities a noun does. They must be used together with ____________. A plural forms B single forms C adjectives D definite articles
( ) g. The conversion of two-syllable nouns into verbs involves a change of ________.
