Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1
WHY STUDY WORDS?
Imagine a life without words! Trappist monks opt for it. But most
of us would not give up words for
Anything. Every day we utter thousands and thousands of words.
Communicating our joys, fears, opinions,
Fantasies, wishes, requests, demands, feelingsand the occasional
threat or insult -is a very important
Aspect of being human. The air is always thick with our verbal
emissions. There are so many things we
Want to tell the world. Some of them are important, some of them
are not. But we talk anyway-even when
We know that what we are saying is totally unimportant. We love
chitchat and find silent encounters
Awkward, or even oppressive. A life without words would be a
horrendous privation.
It is a cliché to say that words and language are probably
humankind’s most valuable single possession. It
Is language that sets us apart from our biologically close relatives,
the great primates. (I would imagine that
Many a chimp or gorilla would give an arm and a leg for a few
words but we will probably never know
Because they cannot tell us.) Yet, surprisingly, most of us take
words (and more generally language) for
Granted. We cannot discuss words with anything like the
competence with which we can discuss fashion,
Films or football.
We should not take words for granted. They are too important.
This book is intended to make explicit
Some of the things that we know subconsciously about words. It is
a linguistic introduction to the nature and
Structure of English words. It addresses the question ‘what sorts
of hings do people need to know about
English words in order to use them in speech?” It is intended to
increase the degree of sophistication with
Which you think about words. It is designed to give you a
theoretical grasp of English word-formation, the
Sources of English vocabulary and the way in which we store and
retrieve words from the mind.
I hope a desirable side effect of working through English Words
will be the enrichment of your
Vocabulary. This book will help to increase, ina very practical way.
Your awareness of the relationship between
Words. You will be equipped with the tools you need to work out
the meanings of unfamiliar words and to
See in a new light the underlying structural patterns in many
familiar words which you have not previously
Stopped to think about analytically.
For the student of language, words are a very rewarding object of
study. An understanding of the nature of
Words provides us with a key that opens the door to an
understanding of important aspects of the nature of
Language in general. Words give us a panoramic view of the
entire field of linguistics because they impinge
On every aspect of language structure. This book stresses the
ramifications of the fact that words are
Complex and multi-faceted entities whose structure and use
interacts with the other modules of the grammar
