CHAPTER IV: LEXEMES

Chapter IV focuses on lexemes and the lexical components

which serve as Tertium Comparationis for linguistic comparison.

Definition: Lexeme (lexical item) is the smallest unit in the meaning system of a
language. And like a word, it can be separated from other units in utterances. It has
meaning and takes place in both spoken and written forms. (a unit of meaning in
a language, consisting of a word or group of words). Lexeme and word
difference is that lexeme is (linguistics) roughly (ước lệ), the set of inflected
forms taken by a single word, such as the lexeme run including as members
"run" (lemma/lexical entry- dạng từ điển), "running" (inflected form), or
"ran", and excluding "runner" (derived term- ngữ phái sinh) while word is
the fact or action of speaking, as opposed (tương phản/đối lập) to writing or
to action. LEXEME IS: A WORD+ITS FORMS; THE DIFFERENCES
BETWEEN WORD AND LEXEME: WORD INDECATING FACT OR
ACION; LEXEME IS THE INFLECTED FORMS.
1.
- Meaning of a lexeme is studied in many ways: semantic roles,
semantic properties, semantic fields, semantic primaries, cognitive
concepts.
- Fundamental lexical semantic topics for Vietnamese learners of
English are general meaning of word class, lexeme, semantic fields,
cognitive concepts.
- The contents can be investigated from the perspective of structural,
generative, functional or cognitive structures. The main pespectives
are generative and cognitive structures.
- Meaning of each lexeme is comprised from some semantic primaries
(original meaning). One of the semantic primaries is the meaning of
word class (parts of speech) which is common grammatical categories
for languages. Each part shares some general contents and common
morphological categories (expressions-forms).
- Morphological categories refer to synthetic languages (inflectional
languages, such as English, French, and Russian). Words in synthetic
 languages are formed by affixing a given number of dependent
morphemes to a root morpheme. For example: work > works,working,
worked; book > books; > The word changes it’s form by adding
affixations.
- Morphological categories (Expression) in analytic languages
(monosyllabic languages such as Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese)
hides in word collocation (kết hợp từ). For example: đang làm việc,
nhiều cuốn sách… (cuốn, quyển, cái, chiếc…(từ chỉ loại/classifier)
2. Parts of speech
According to the linguistic expressions and their general contents, words
are classified under the following parts
Name of class Common morphological Semantic properties
expression
Noun Number, gender, case, person of Express persons, places,
possessor John’s attitudes, ideas, things,
qualities, or conditions.

Verb Tense, aspect, Express an action, an

person/number/gender of occurrence, a condition, or a
arguments, negation (phủ định), state of being.
mood (dạng thức)

Adjective Comparative; superlative; number, Identify a characteristic or a

gender, or case of modified noun quality of a noun or a
pronoun.

Adverb Absence of morphological Modify verbs, adjectives, or

inflection other adverbs.

Quantifiers Sometimes have common nominal

morphology, such as case-marking

Numerals Ordinal versus cardinal

Demonstratives Distinguish at least proximal (this) Distinguish at least proximal

from distal (that); may inflect for (this) from distal (that) and
various properties of the noun, inflect for various properties
 such as number (this ~ these) of the noun.

Articles a, an, the Indicate that the noun they

refer to has not been
identified previously.

Conjunctions Usually particles, so do not vary in Connect words or groups of

form words.

Pronouns Distinguish person, and often Refer to a noun that has

distinguish number, case, and already been mentioned.
other morphological categories of
nouns

Each part of speech has its general meaning (content) and its form
(morphological expression). English lexemes share both synthetic and analytic
characteristics.

In English, lexical categories are usually demonstrated throughout

morphological expressions - suffixes. For example, the general meaning of verb is
usually expressed by (suffixes) -ate, -en, -fy, -ize, -ise; the general meaning of noun
– by suffixes as -ance, -ence, -eer, -er, -ion, -ity, -ment, -ness, -or, -sion, -ship; the
general meaning of adjective – by suffixes -able, -ible, -al, -ant, -ful, -ic, -ious,
-ous, -ive, -less, -y; and adverb - by -ly, -ward, -wise.

- The relations between lexical categories in English verb, noun, adjective

and adverb.

depend dependence dependent independently

correspond correspondence correspondent correspondingly
realize realization realizable really
Verb Noun Adjective Adverb
action things characteristics manner, degree, place,
time or cause of a verb, an
adjective, another adverb
 The English morphological categories differ from Vietnamese. And the
difference is what makes the Vietnamese difficult in English communication,
especially in forming interrogative or negative sentences.

However, in English there are many lexemes that share the same forms, but
differ in parts of speech, i.e. differ in some aspect of meaning, for example: answer
can be a noun, a verb

- Analyse an English sentence and its Vietnamese equivalent.

+ Each team must have five people.

+ Mỗi đội phải có năm người.
They are equivalent in semantics. English sentence is comprised of six words
in basic forms. There are two syntactical parts (constituents) in each sentence – a
predicate and a subject. The subjects are noun phrases including head nouns and
quantifiers. The predicates are verb phrases with head verbs and sub-verb phrases.
The process of specifying parts of speech (or the similarities in syntactic positions
of word classes) is described.

The process of specifying word classes.

Each team must have five people

Mỗi đội phải có năm người

1 Subject Predicate
2 Noun phrase Verb phrase
3 Quantifier Noun Verb Verb phrase 2
4 Verb Number phrase
5 Number Noun
It is easy to realize nominal and verbal expressions. In the third stage, team
and đội are recognised as nouns; must and phải are verbs. In the fourth stage have
and có – verbs. And in the fifth – people and người – nouns. The mentioned lexical
categories are determined by the relationship between syntactical constituents of
"Each team must have five people" and "Mỗi đội phải có năm người".

3. Subtypes of word classes

Each part of speech is divided into subtypes according to their general
meanings and their morphological expressions.
Example: Noun (part, class, or group of words) includes proper and common
nouns. In turn, common nouns are divided into concrete, abstract, count and mass
nouns. Verbs (class, or group of words) comprise transitive, intransitive,
ditransitive and auxiliary verbs.
 Subtypes of word class can work for objects of contrastive studies.

4. Contrastive lexeme analysis

Each lexeme is comprised of its meaning (content) and expression (form).
Meaning is usually serves as Tertium Comparationis for contrastive studies.
Contrastive studies on lexemes can be conducted in the perspective of
structural, generative, or functional approaches.
- Similarities and differences in lexemes in the perspective of language
variants

There are many words that are similar or relate to each other in meaning or in
sound: hyponyms, synonyms, homonyms, and antonyms.

- Hyponyms (từ thuộc quan hệ bao nghĩa) are a term a which is more
specific than some other term, and which therefore has a narrower
denotation; thus, “table” is a hyponym of “furniture”, and “apple” is a
hyponym of “fruit”.

- Homonyms are lexemes or expressions that share the same form (in
spelling, in pronunciation) but have different senses. For example, “hear /hiǝ/” and
“here /hiǝ/”, “bow /bau/= bend at the waist” and “bow /bǝu/ = weapon.

- Synonym are two or more lexemes or other expressions with the same
meaning: lover-sweetheart-boyfriend-girlfriend,…
 - Antonyms are two or more lexemes or other expressions with opposite
meanings: short-tall, beautiful-ugly,…

> All of hyponyms, synonyms, homonyms, and antonyms are objectives of

intralingual and interlingual contrastive studies.

- Similarities and differences in lexemes in different languages

A word in language A has its equivalent in language B. They share nearly the
same meaning, differ in writing. For example, the English word table has the
following equivalents in Vietnamese: 1. cái bàn; 2. thức ăn dọn trên bàn; 3. bảng
số; 4. bảng; 5. liệt kê sự kiện; 6. mặt phẳng; 7. bảng gỗ, đá; 8. chữ ghi trên bảng.

In contrast, Vietnamese word bàn has the following meanings:

Bàn. Đồ dùng thường bằng gỗ có mặt phẳng và chân đứng, để bày đồ đạc,
thức ăn, để làm việc, v.v. Bàn viết. Khăn bàn.

bàn. Lần tính được, thua trong trận đấu bóng. Ghi một bàn thắng. Làm bàn
(tạo ra bàn thắng).

bàn. Trao đổi ý kiến về việc gì hoặc vấn đề gì. Bàn công tác. Bàn về cách
làm.

Each lexeme (or word) expresses certain content (experience) in language

user's mind. Accordingly, each language community encompasses their own
concept of a thing. For example, concept expressed by wood in English shares the
meaning with other linguistic items described as in Table 4.4.

Table 4.4. Mismatches between content and the linguistic expression in

different languages

English French Russian Vietnamese

tree arbre cây
wood дерево thân (cây)
gỗ
 bois gỗ
timber лес rú
forêt rừng cây
forest rừng

The property of similarity and differences between linguistic units leads to

two types of contrastive study: intralingual and interlingual.

- Intralingual contrast
Learners compare words and phrases in particular contexts.
Example 1: Circle the correct answer.
I hope to go on a trip round the world / earth one day.
Common platform for the contrast is the meaning of lexeme (either world or
earth) which is appropriate to the meaning of “the thing that one can go on a trip
round”. Comparison is between the meanings of world and earth.
Intralingual contrast takes place between not only two linguistic units but
also more units.
- Interlingual contrast
Each lexeme has a certain meaning that can be interpreted from one language
to another. However, it (a unit of lexical meaning) reflects language user's
perception and experience, a lexeme in language A is not absolutely equivalent to
its translation in language B. Specifying the differences between lexemes in
different languages helps understanding sociocultural linguistic characteristics and
improving communicative language competence.
Tertium comparationis for interlinguistic contrastive studies on lexemes,
frequently is their translation equivalent, especially between synthetic and analytic
languages. English shares both synthetic and analytic characteristics. But it is
mostly analytic. Form of an English word (typically the affixes) to express a
grammatical function or attribute such as tense, mood, person, number, case, and
gender is changed; but its grammar is dominated by its syntax. Vietnamese is
analytic; form of a word is not changed. Therefore, contrastive studies on English
and Vietnamese lexeme are usually based on translation equivalent.

- Contrastive concept analysis

Contrastive studies on lexemes also can be conducted in the perspective of
cognitive theory.

Linguistic cognitive approach studies how people comprehend and represent

the world around them through language. The theory emphasizes on individual’s
active construction of understanding. Therefore, linguistic meaning is a property of
the utterance, lexical representations consist of the mental abstractions, which we
infer to must be stored as part of the language user's knowledge of language:
symbolic units, together with the range of cognitive models, the semantic potential,
to which a lexical concept affords access 1. Words are only as contextual expressions
embedded in utterance, and its meaning is variable across language use. Lexical
concept forms a representational unit which is provided a label.

From the theoretical approach, lexical conceptual unit, lexical profile and
lexical representation serve as common platforms for contrastive studies.

Lexical concept is a bundle of various types of schematic knowledge

conventionally associated with a unique phonological vehicle in a
symbolic unit. Lexical concepts are stored in the linguistic system and
can facilitate access to conceptual structure.

Lexical conceptual unit is an integrated unit of linguistic content which is

the result of lexical concept integration.

Lexical profile is the selection tendencies which form part of the

linguistic content encoded by a lexical concept, and which is unique to
any given lexical concept.

1
 Lexical representation is the primary substrate in linguistically mediated
meaning construction. Lexical representation is made up of symbolic unit
and cognitive model.

Many cognitive researchers suggest their terms, but they are equivalents.

In contrastive studies, lexical concept refers content (or idea), and lexical
representation refers to linguistic expression.

- Prototype (tiền mẫu/kiểumẫu xác định đối tượng mới)

The typical conceptual units are called prototypes which are the “best
example” of a conceptual category. The less typical units are seen as its peripheral
(ngoại vi) members.

For example, a prototype of a bird would be more like a parrot, a sparrow,

or a dove, a penguin, or a kiwi…

Example: Circle the correct word.

Adelia have a very good connection / relationship with her mother.

The typical conceptual units of the choosing word are connection between
people in the family, so the word referring the acts which relate the speaker to his or
her mother in a unit must be relationship.

- Lexical concept
Lexical concepts are cognitive entities that are based on perceptual
experience, which means that they are embodied.
Humans have a common conceptualizing capacity and knowledge of
expressing what they conceive. They can have linguistic units such as phonemes,
morphemes, lexis and syntax to describe their ideas. The concept that Australian
express by farm, Vietnamese expression is trang trại. Their concepts have some
prototypical equivalents. Concepts of time in English, Russian, Vietnamese, etc. are
common in meaning, but it is expressed in different ways. In English, there are
Present Simple Tense, Present Perfect, Past Continuous, etc., and they are expressed
in different forms, but Vietnamese does not have such fine distinction of tenses and
aspects as in English.

People are born with a conceptualizing capacity. However, different

communities may have unalike conceptual systems due to their different
experiences. For instance, the spatial concepts of “trên” and “dưới” and the
corresponding verbs “lên” and “xuống” in Vietnamese belong to the basic
conceptual systems as they can be projected to social relationships. When someone
is promoted, he is said to be “lên chức”. If he is downgraded, he is “xuống chức”.
Such examples can be extensively found in Vietnamese. Rice is very familiar to
Vietnamese, hence the different categories “lúa”, “gạo”, “cơm, thóc”. Nonetheless,
it is not native to English speakers, and thus it has only one word “rice” to represent
the 4 concepts as conceptualized by Vietnamese.

- Semantic primes (nghĩa gốc)

The authors of “natural semantic metalanguage” approach suggest the

universal semantic primes for many languages (including Russian, Polish, French,
Spanish, Danish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Malay, Mbula/Mangaaba-Mbula,
Koromu, PNG, Tok Pisin, Amharic, Arabic, East Cree, Finnish, and many others) a

Semantic primes (English exponents), grouped into related categories

I ~ ME, YOU, SOMEONE, SOMETHING ~ substantives

THING, PEOPLE, BODY
KIND, PART relational substantives
THIS, THE SAME, OTHER ~ ELSE determiners
ONE, TWO, SOME, ALL, MUCH ~ quantifiers
MANY, LITTLE ~ FEW
GOOD, BAD evaluator
BIG, SMALL descriptors
THINK, KNOW, WANT, DON’T WANT, mental predicates
FEEL, SEE, HEAR
 SAY, WORDS, TRUE speech
DO, HAPPEN, MOVE, TOUCH actions, events,
movement, contact
BE (SOMEWHERE), THERE IS, BE location, existence,
(SOMEONE)'S, BE possession,
(SOMEONE/SOMETHING) specification
LIVE, DIE life and death
WHEN ~ TIME, NOW, BEFORE, AFTER, time

A LONG TIME, A SHORT TIME, FOR

SOME TIME, MOMENT
WHERE ~ PLACE, HERE, ABOVE, space
BELOW, FAR, NEAR, SIDE, INSIDE
NOT, MAYBE, CAN, BECAUSE, IF logical concepts
VERY, MORE intensifier, augmentor
LIKE ~ WAY ~ AS similarity

- Lexical cognitive concept

Concepts are based on perceptual experience. It means, they are grounded in
our daily experience.

- Conceptual metaphors

Language users usually describe one domain in term of another domain like
what they experience. The domain that they try to represent is called the target
domain, and the domain that they use for this purpose is the source domain. The
source domain is more physical and concrete than the target domain. And source
domains are used to understand target domains. So, conceptual metaphor is a set of
correspondences between a more physical source domain and a more abstract target
domain2. Conceptual metaphors are grounded in our physical and cultural
experience.

2
 Metaphors are characterized by the formula A IS B, in which a target domain
A is understood in terms of a source domain B.

The most common source domains suggested by Kovecsces (2010, p. 28)

include: (1) The Human Body, (2) Health and Illness, (3) Animals, (4) Plants, (5)
Buildings and Construction, (6) Machines and Tools, (7) Games and Sport, (8)
Money and Economic Transactions (Business), (9) Cooking and Food, (10) Heat
and Cold, (11) Light and Darkness, (12) Forces, and (13) Movement and Direction.

The common target domains are (1) Emotion, (2) Desire, (3) Morality, (4)
Thought, (5) Society / Nation, (6) Politics, (7) Economy, (8) Human Relationships,
(9) Communication, (10) Time, (11) Life and Death, (12) Religion, and (13) Events
and Actions.

Conceptual metaphors are characterized by common models in almost

languages. They are common platform for contrastive studies.

- Contrastive analysis on concepts in English and Vietnamese

* Experiencing- feeling/emotion in English and Vietnamese

One of the exponents of FEEL in both of English and Vietnamese is to

experience one’s emotion. The concept is expressed by various linguistic forms. Let
us examine the idea of experiencing feeling/emotion demonstrated by words heart
in English and lòng in Vietnamese.

The tertium comparationis for the contrast is concept of experiencing

emotion.

 Experiencing emotion expressed by ‘heart’

Heart is the thing that controls one's emotion. The idea can be seen in
English proverbs

A blithe heart makes a blooming visage.

The joy of the heart makes the face fair.

 It is a poor heart that never rejoices.

Fear is the prison of the heart.

Heart in idioms and colloquial expressions with heart represent various

aspects of feeling/emotion: such as love, joy, hatred, fear and jealousy. They are
‘break someone’s heart” (làm tan nát tim ai), ‘eat your heart out’ (dằn vặt mình (vì
ghen tuông, ghen tị, hối hận, tiếc nuối...), ‘gladden the/(one’s) heart’ (làm cho ai vui
lòng), ‘heart break’ (buồn xé ruột), ‘heart skips a beat’ (thần kinh vững), ‘heavy
heart’ (trĩu lòng/ héo ruột), ‘melt (one’s) heart’ (châm tay bủn rủn/ hồn xiêu, phách
lạc/thót tim), ‘nearly gave (one) a heart attack’ (làm thót tim, làm người ta sợ hết
hồn/mất vía), ‘heart leaps’ (sướng rơn người).

As above illustration, in English, heart in different collocations can indicate

various states of emotion.

 Experiencing emotion expressed by ‘lòng’

Lòng in Vietnamese is a physical part of body including internal organs,

entrails. The expression can be used to describe various aspects of emotion: mát
lòng, đau lòng, phải lòng, yên lòng, lòng bồi hồi, lòng thương…

Lòng bồi hồi nao nao/ Con đường xưa còn đó/ Mà người xưa có còn không?

Lòng xao xuyến mỗi khi hoa phượng rơi.

Một năm mới đang về/ Thấy vui trong lòng, dáng xuân mơ mộng.

Lòng has its components such as tim, gan, mật, bụng, ruột… and they can be
used to represent emotion: ‘giận bầm gan, tím ruột’, ‘sợ vỡ mật’, ‘sợ thót tim’,
‘cười đau cả bụng’, ‘tức lộn ruột’, ‘sợ xanh mặt’…

* Similarities and differences between experiencing emotion expressed by

heart and lòng

(a) The similarities

 Both English heart and Vietnamese lòng (and its exponents) can be used as
mental entities to indicate various aspects of psychological status. These are the
cases that people conceive their mental state in term of containers.

(b) The differences

Experience of emotion is explained by different parts of human body in

English and Vietnamese. When a status of emotion is indicated in English by only
heart referring to a part of the body, it is interpreted in some Vietnamese
expressions that do not always refer to the heart, but to the other internal organs
such as liver, gallbladder, stomach, etc.

Some psychological aspects of emotion expressed by Vietnamese tim, lòng,

tim, gan, mật, bụng, dạ, ruột… are not always interpreted by English heart: lòng
thương – compression, lòng căm thù – hatred, lòng ghen tị - envy, vui lòng, hả dạ -
have stars in one's eyes, bầm gan tím ruột - black in the face (with rage), etc.

The above illustration is the evidence for Kovecses’s suggestion(2005, p.

35): emotions are commonly said to be private and heavily culturally dependent
experiences that are inaccessible to others. For this reason, the language and
underlying conceptualization of emotional experience are expected to be highly
culture-specific.

- Conceptual metaphors in English and Vietnamese

Let us describe a contrastive study on conceptual metaphor MARRIAGE IS
A UNITY OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS – a case in English and
Vietnamese proverbs and folk verses.
Marriage is one of the most pervasive topics “in our ordinary everyday way
of thinking, speaking, and acting” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 453), the metaphors
for marriage might regularly occur among conventional metaphors. Therefore,
tertium comparationis for the contrast in two languages is “marriage is a unity of
two complementary parts”.
 Developing additional structure in marriage that derives from love,
Kovecses3 suggests that marriage is a conceptualized as a particular kind: a physical
unity of two complementary parts, which yields the complex metaphor
MARRIAGE IS A PHYSICAL AND/OR BIOLOGICAL UNITY OF TWO
COMPLEMENTARY PARTS.
 MARRIAGE IS A UNITY OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS in
English
The details of the UNITY metaphor for marriage based on English data are
given by Kovecses as a set of mappings4:

1 the two physical parts → the married people

2 the physical joining of the parts → the union of the two people in
marriage

3 the physical/biological unity → the marriage union

4 the physical fit between the → the compatibility between the
parts married people

5 the physical functions of the → the roles the married people play
parts in the unity in the relationship

6 the complementariness of the → the complementariness of the roles

functions of the parts of the married people

7 the whole physical object → the marriage relationship

consisting of the parts

8 the function of the whole → the role or purpose of the marriage

object relationship

 MARRIAGE IS A UNITY OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS in

Vietnamese

3
4
 The data from Vietnamese proverbs and folk verses on marriage indicate that
unity of complementary parts in Vietnamese marriage data signifies all components
of the source domain in Kovecses’s marriage metaphor.

Vợ chồng như đũa có đôi - A couple is like a pair of chopsticks.

Đôi tay nâng lấy cơi trầu/ Miếng trầu không là vợ/ miếng cau là chồng - The
piece of betel leaf is symbol of wife, the piece of areca is husband.

Vợ chồng như khóa với chìa - A couple is a lock and the key.

Đôi ta như cúc với khuy/ Như kim với chỉ, bỏ đi sao đành – We are the unity
of a button and the buttonhole in a piece of clothing.

The above unities of complementary parts have the meaning of (1) the two
physical parts, (2) the physical joining of the parts, (3) the physical/biological unity,
(4) the physical fit between the parts, (5) the physical functions of the parts in the
unity, (6) the complementariness of the functions of the parts, (7) the whole
physical object consisting of the parts, and (8) the function of the whole object.
However, they refer to Vietnamese sociocultural details such as chopsticks, trầu
cau (betel and areca), the Moon and the Moon Man, ect.

MARRIAGE IS A UNITY OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS in

Vietnamese indicates particular characteristics connected with Three Powers and
Five Hanh’s: (a) the role of Nguyệt Lão (god of marriage and love), Nhân Duyên
(fate in marriage), dodder; (b) requirement of a unity of two complementary parts in
marriage.

 Similarities and differences between the metaphors in English and

Vietnamese

The concept of marriage can be expressed by the metaphor MARRIAGE IS

A UNITY OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS in English and Vietnamese.
However, it is reflected in different ways in two languages. The differences depend
on the particular parts in the source domain, i.e. the ways of mapping from the
source to the target domains.

Marriage in Vietnamese folk beliefs is a union of various gender who are

compatible with each other, sharing the belief in fate and affinity, perform different
but complementary roles in the relationship.

SUMMARY

Lexeme is a unit of syntactic and reflective meanings. Each lexeme belongs

to a particular grammatical category (word class) and subcategory (subtypes of
word class). Lexemes, word classes and their subtypes are universal units which
serve as Tertium Comparationis in comparison between languages including
interlanguage.
Lexemes in languages can be compared in the perspective of cognitive
theory which considers that human experience is embodied and language is
embodiment. Therefore, meaning is viewed in terms of conceptualization and
mental spaces, and concepts are considered to be common unit for languages.

Concepts integrate semantic primes from semantic-conceptual domains and

each integrated concept is a lexical conceptual unit (the result of lexical concept
integration). Lexical conceptual units consist of lexical profiles which select and
form part of the linguistic content encoded by a lexical concept. Lexical conceptual
units and profiles are continuous objects of intralingual comparison as well as
learning and teaching second language, and translation.

Conceptual metaphors are grounded in our physical and cultural experience.

They serve as contrastive units in specifying the similarities and differences in
sociocultural characteristics of language speakers' communities.