The “meaning-full” vocabulary of English and German
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Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer
Abstract
It is widely believed that only a small part of the English vocabulary is analyzable into constituents that are both formally and semantically related to the meaning of the complex word. De Saussure (1916) already described English as a langue lexicologique, a phenomenon that Leisi (1955) attributes to the large proportion of Romance words that have become part of the originally Germanic English language. Leisi concludes that, in contrast to German, many words of contemporary English are not integrated into any word family.This paper presents the results of a research project in which the motivatability of the 2,500 most frequent English and German words is investigated. The approach adopted here distinguishes the four categories of ‘fully motivatable’, ‘partially motivatable’, ‘unmotivatable but transparent’ and ‘fully unmotivatable’ words. The two most important findings of the study are: (i) the German vocabulary is in fact more motivatable than the English vocabulary – if only marginally so, and (ii) the non-native origin of a word has no negative effect on its motivatability.
Abstract
It is widely believed that only a small part of the English vocabulary is analyzable into constituents that are both formally and semantically related to the meaning of the complex word. De Saussure (1916) already described English as a langue lexicologique, a phenomenon that Leisi (1955) attributes to the large proportion of Romance words that have become part of the originally Germanic English language. Leisi concludes that, in contrast to German, many words of contemporary English are not integrated into any word family.This paper presents the results of a research project in which the motivatability of the 2,500 most frequent English and German words is investigated. The approach adopted here distinguishes the four categories of ‘fully motivatable’, ‘partially motivatable’, ‘unmotivatable but transparent’ and ‘fully unmotivatable’ words. The two most important findings of the study are: (i) the German vocabulary is in fact more motivatable than the English vocabulary – if only marginally so, and (ii) the non-native origin of a word has no negative effect on its motivatability.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction 1
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Part I. Motivation in grammar
- Semantic motivation of the English auxiliary 29
- The mind as ground 49
- Motivating the flexibility of oriented - ly adverbs 71
- The cognitive motivation for the use of dangling participles in English 89
- What motivates an inference? 107
- The conceptual motivation of aspect 133
- Metaphoric motivation in grammatical structure 149
- Motivation in English must and Hungarian kell 171
- The socio-cultural motivation of referent honorifics in Korean and Japanese 191
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Part II. Motivation in the Lexicon
- Conceptual motivation in adjectival semantics 215
- Metonymy, metaphor and the “weekend frame of mind” 233
- Intrinsic or extrinsic motivation? 251
- Motivational networks 269
- The “meaning-full” vocabulary of English and German 287
- Name index 299
- Subject index 303
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Motivation in grammar
- Semantic motivation of the English auxiliary 29
- The mind as ground 49
- Motivating the flexibility of oriented - ly adverbs 71
- The cognitive motivation for the use of dangling participles in English 89
- What motivates an inference? 107
- The conceptual motivation of aspect 133
- Metaphoric motivation in grammatical structure 149
- Motivation in English must and Hungarian kell 171
- The socio-cultural motivation of referent honorifics in Korean and Japanese 191
-
Part II. Motivation in the Lexicon
- Conceptual motivation in adjectival semantics 215
- Metonymy, metaphor and the “weekend frame of mind” 233
- Intrinsic or extrinsic motivation? 251
- Motivational networks 269
- The “meaning-full” vocabulary of English and German 287
- Name index 299
- Subject index 303
