Kinds of Vocabulary Items

Word use here is how a word, phrase, or concept is used in a language. Word use involves grammar and thus be the subject of profound analysis. By knowing word use, the students can put vocabulary into a good sentence. What a word means can be changed, stretched or limited by how it is used and this is something students need to know about. Word meaning is frequently stretched through the use of metaphor and idiom . It is known the word „hiss‟, for example, describes the noise that snakes make. But stretching its meaning describes the way people talk to each other „”don‟t move or you are dead, “she hissed.‟ That is metaphorical use. At the same time it can be talked about treacherous people as snake s „He is a real snake in the grass‟. „snake in the grass‟ is a fixed phrase that has become an idiom like countless other phrases such as „raining cats and dogs‟, „putting the cat among the pigeons‟, „straight from the horse‟s mouth‟, etc. Word meaning is also governed by collocation that is which words go with each other. In order to know how to use the word „sprained‟ need to know that whereas it can be said „sprained ankle, „sprained wrist‟ and cannot be said „sprained tight‟ or sprained rib. It can be said a headache, stomachache or earache, but cannot be said a throat ache‟ or a leg ache. From the descriptions above, it shows that: Word use frequently is metaphor and idiom from word meaning. There is a collocation that is which words go with each other in word meaning. There are style and register words such as formal and informal words. So, it is better for us to recognize metaphorical language use, know how words collocate, and understand stylistic and topical contexts words and expressions. c. Word formation 17 Word formation here is the creation of a new word. Word formation sometimes contrasted with semantic change, which is a change in a single words meaning. The students need to know about the change of the words. 17 Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching New Edition, London: Longman,1991, p.157 Word can change their shape and their grammatical value, too. Students need to know facts about word formation and how to twist words to fit different grammatical contexts. Thus the verb „run‟ has the participle „running‟ and „run‟ the present participle „running‟ can be used an adjective and „run‟ can also be a noun. There is a clear relationship between the word „death‟, „dead‟, „dying‟ and „die‟. Students also need to know suffixes and prefix work. Ho to make the word potent and expensive opposite in meaning? Why it is prefaced one with im- and the other with in-? There are two kinds of suffixes in English, inflectional and derivational. Students need to know how words are spelt and how they sound. Indeed the way words are stressed and the way that stress can change when their grammatical function is different – as with nouns and verbs, for example is vital of students are able to understand and use words in speech. Part of learning a word is learning its written and spoken form. From the description above, it shows that words can change their form such as a noun into a verb advice into advise, etc. so, knowing that can be helped by knowing how words are written and spoken. d. Word Grammar 18 Word grammar here started as a model of syntax, whose most distinctive characteristic is its use of dependency grammar, an approach to syntax in which the sentences structure is almost entirely contained in the information about individual words. Just as words change according to their grammatical meaning, so the use of certain words can trigger the use of certain grammatical patterns. To make a distinction between countable and uncountable nouns. The former can be both singular and plural. It can be said „one chair‟ or two chairs‟. The latter can only be singular, but can not be said „two furniture‟. This difference , then, has certain grammatical implications. „Chair‟ can collocate with plural verbs provide that it is pluralized whereas „furniture‟ never can unless it is the name of a pop group, for example. There are also nouns that are neither countable uncountable but which have a fixed form and therefore collocate only with singular or plural verbs, e.g. „people‟, „the news‟, „ mathematics‟, etc. 18 Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching New Edition, London: Longman,1991, p.157-158