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and Greek origin such as words with the morphemes
-tron
used chiefly in
the field of electronics, e.g.
mesotron, cyclotron, etc.; tele-,
e.g.
tele-
cast, telelecture, telediagnosis, -in,
e.g.
protein, penicillin; -scope,
e.g.
iconoscope, oscilloscope; meta-,
e.g.
meta-culture, metaprogram;
para-
meaning ‘related to, near’, e.g.
paralinguistic, parabiospheric;
video-,
e.g.
videodisk, videophone,
etc.
But though these words consist of borrowed morphemes they cannot
be regarded as true borrowings because these words did not exist either in
the Greek or in the Latin word-stock. All of them are actually formed ac-
cording to patterns of English word-formation, and many function in
Modern English as new affixes and semi-affixes.
1
Words with some of
them can be found in the vocabulary of various languages and reflect as a
rule the general progress in science and technology.
It is noteworthy that a number of new affixes appeared in Modern
English through different types of borrowing. This can be exemplified by
the Russian suffix
-nik
which came within the words
sputnik, lunnik
and acquired the meaning of ‘one who is connected with something’, but
which under the influence of
beatnik
2
acquired a derogatory flavour and
is now a slang suffix. It is used to denote ‘person who rejects standard
social values and becomes a devotee of some fact or idea’, e.g.
FOLK-
NIK, protestnik, filmnik,
etc. The prefix
mini-
is now currently used
with two meanings: a) ‘of very small size’, e.g.
minicomputer, minicar,
mini war, ministate,
and b) ‘very short’, as in
minidress, minicoat,
miniskirt,
etc.; the prefix
maxi-
was borrowed on the analogy of
mini-
also in two meanings: a)'very large’, e.g.
maxi-order, maxi-taxi,
and b)
‘long, reaching down to the ankle’, e.g.
maxicoat, maxi-dress, max-
ilength.
The suffix
-naut
is found in,
e.g., astronaut, aquanaut, lunar-
naut,
etc.
Numerous borrowed root-morphemes remain bound in the vocabulary
of Modern English but acquire a considerable derivative force and func-
tion as components of a specific group of compounds productive mainly
in specialised spheres, e.g.
acoust(o) — acousto-optic, acousto-
electronics; ge(o)-, e.g. geowarfare, geoscientist, multi-
e.g.
multi-
cultural, multi- directional, multispectral, etc.; cosm(o)-,
e.g.
cos-
modrome, cosmonautics, cosmonaut,
etc.
2) T her e ar e t r u e b o r r o w i n g s fr om diff er ent la n-
gua ges as well. They, as a rule, reflect the way of life, the peculiarities
of development of the speech communities from which they come. From
the Russian language there came words like
kolkhoz, Gosplan, Kom-
somol, udarnik, sputnik, jak,
etc.
The words borrowed from the German language at the time of war re-
flect the aggressive nature of German fascism, e.g.
Blitzkrieg
3
,
Wehr
macht
4
, Luftwaffe
5
.
1
See
C. Barnhart.
A Dictionary of New English, 1963 — 1972. Longman, 1973. p,
316; see also
Э. М. Медникова, Т. Ю. Каравкина,
op. cit.
2
See ‘Word-Structure’, § 3, p. 92.
3
‘aggressive war conducted with lightning-like speed and force'
4
‘Germany’s armed forces'
5
‘the air force of the Third Reich'
192
As most of these words remain unassimilated in present-day English,
they are all the time felt as foreign words and tend to drop out from the
language.
3) L o a n - t r a n s l a t i o n s also reflect the peculiarities of the
way of life of the countries they come from, and they easily become stable
units of the vocabulary, e.g.
fellow-traveller, self-criticism, Socialist
democracy, Worker’s Faculty,
etc. which all come from the Russian
language.
Semantic extension of words already available
in the language is a powerful
source of qualitative growth and development of the vocabulary though it
does not necessarily add to its numerical growth; it is only the split of
polysemy that results in the appearance of new vocabulary units thus in-
creasing the number of words.
1
In this connection it should be remem-
bered that the border-line between a new meaning of the word and its lexi-
cal homonym is in many cases so vague that it is often difficult to state
with any degree of certainty whether we have another meaning of the
original word or its homonym — a new self-contained word,
2
e.g. in the
verb
to sit-in
— ‘to join a group in playing cards’ and a newly recorded
use of
to sit-in
— ‘to remain unserved in the available seats in a cafe in
protest against Jimcrowism’, or ‘to demonstrate by occupying a building
and staying there until their grievances are considered or until the demon-
strators themselves are ejected' — the meanings are so widely apart that
they are definitely felt as homonyms. The same may be said about the
word
heel
(sl.)
— ‘a traitor, double-crosser’ and
heel
— ‘the back part of a
human foot’. On the other hand, the meaning of the verb
freeze
— ‘to
immobilise (foreign-owned credits) by legislative measures’ and its further
penetration into a more general sphere seen in to
freeze
wages and the cor-
related compound wage-freeze is definitely felt as a mere development of
the semantic structure of the verb
(to) freeze.
The semantic connection is
felt between the meanings of such words as
hot:
1)
(mus.) ‘
having an
elaborate and stimulating jazz rhythm’ 2)
(financ.) ‘
just isued’ and 3)
(sl.)
‘
dangerous because connected with some crime’ as in the phrase
hot
money; to screen
— ‘to classify by means of standardised test, to select
methodically’ (cf. the original meaning of the verb
(to) screen
— ‘to sepa-
rate coal into different sizes’, ‘to pass through a sieve or screen’). All these
meanings may serve as further examples of qualitative growth of Modern
English vocabulary.
A great number of new meanings develop in simple words which be-
long to different spheres of human activity. New meanings appear mostly
in everyday general vocabulary, for example a
beehive
— ‘a woman’s
hair style’;
lungs
(n pl.)
— ‘breathing spaces, such as small parks that
might be placed in overpopulated or traffic-congested areas’;
a bird
—
‘any flying craft’;
a vegetable
— ‘a lifeless, inert person’;
clean
(sl.)
—
free from the use of narcotic drugs’;
to uncap
(sl.)
— ‘to disclose, to re-
1
The above cited counts show that new meanings of the words already existing in the
language and new homonyms account for 1/4 of the total number of new items.
2
See ‘Semasiology’, § 4, p. 47 ; ‘Various Aspects...’, § 12, p. 195 — 196.
7 № 2776
193
§ 1 1 . Semantic Extension
veal’. There is a strong tendency in words of specialised and terminologi-
cal type to develop non-specialised, non-terminological meanings as, for
example, the technical term feedback that developed a non-terminological
meaning ‘a reciprocal effect of one person or thing upon another’,
pa-
rameter
that developed a new meaning ‘any defining or characteristic fac-
tor’,
scenario
— ‘any projected course or plan of action’. It is of interest
to note that many new meanings in the sphere of general vocabulary are
stylistically and emotively non-neutral and marked as colloquial and slang,
for example
juice
(US sl.)
— ‘position, power, influence; favourable
standing’;
bread
(sl.)
— ‘money’;
straight
(sl.)
— ‘not deviating from the
norm in politics, habits; conventional, orthodox’, etc.
On the other hand scientific and technical terminological meanings ap-
pear as a result of specialisation as in, e.g.,
read
(genetic)
— ‘to decode’;
messenger
— ‘a chemical substance which carries or transmits genetic
information’.
New terminological meanings also appear as a result of expansion of
the sphere of application, i.e. when terms of one branch of science develop
new meanings and pass over to other branches, e.g. a general scientific
term s y s t e m
(n)
in cybernetics developed the meaning ‘anything con-
sisting of at least two interrelated parts’; logic acquired
in
electronics the
meaning ‘the logical operations performed by a computer by means of
electronic circuitry’;
perturbance
in astronomy — ‘disturbances in the
motions of planets’, etc.
It should be noted that new meanings appear not only as a result of
semantic development of words but also as a result of semantic develop-
ment of affixes. Thus, the adjectival prefix a- in such adjectives as
awhir
=
whirring;
aswivel
=
swivelling;
aclutter
=
cluttered;
aglaze
=
glazed
developed a new meaning similar to the meanings of the participles but
giving a more vivid effect of the process than the corresponding non-
prefixal participles in -ing and -ed.
The prefix
anti-
developed two new meanings: 1) ‘belongng to the hy-
pothetical world consisting of the counterpart of ordinary matter’, e.g.
anti-matter, anti-world, anti-nucleus,
etc.; 2) ‘that which rejects or re-
verses the traditional characteristics’, e.g.
anti-novel, anti-hero, anti-
electron,
etc.; the prefix
non-
developed a new meaning ’sham, pre-
tended, pseudo’, e.g.
non-book, non-actor, non-policy,
etc.
1
It follows from the foregoing discussion that the principal ways of en-
riching the vocabulary of present-day English with new words are various
ways of productive word-formation and word-creation. The most active
ways of word creation are clippings and acronyms. The semantic devel-
opment of words already available in the language is the main source of
the qualitative growth of the vocabulary but does not essentially change
the vocabulary quantitatively.
1
See С
Barnhart,
op. cit. 194
NUMBER OF VOCABULARY UNITS
IN MODERN ENGLISH
Linguists call the total word-stock of a language its lexicon or vocabu-
lary. There is a notion that a so-called unabridged dictionary records the
unabridged lexicon, that is all the words of the language. But the lexicon
of English is open-ended. It is not even theoretically possible to record it
all as a closed system. The exact number of vocabulary units in Modern
English cannot be stated with any degree of certainty for a number of rea-
sons, the most obvious of them being the constant growth of Modern Eng-
lish word-stock especially technical terms of the sciences which have
come to influence our modern society. As one of the American lexicogra-
phers aptly puts it we could fill a dictionary the size of the largest un-
abridged with names of compounds of carbon alone.
1
There are many
points of interest closely connected with the problem of the number of vo-
cabulary units in English, but we shall confine ourselves to setting down in
outline a few of the major issues:
1)
divergent views concerning the nature of vocabulary units and
2)
intrinsic heterogeneity of modern English vocabulary.
Counting up vocabulary units we usually
proceed from the assumption that the English
lexicon comprises not only words but also
phraseological units. The term “phraseological unit” however allows of
different interpretation.
2
If the term is to be taken as including all types of
set expressions, then various lexical items ranging from two-word groups
the meaning of which is directly inferred from the meaning of its compo-
nents, e.g.
to win a victory, to lose one’s balance,
etc. to proverbs and
sayings, e.g.
It Is the early bird that catches the worm, That is where
the shoe pinches,
etc. have to be counted as separate lexical units on a par
with individual words. Thus in the case of
to win
a victory we must record
three vocabulary units: the verb
to win,
the noun victory and the phrase-
ological unit
to win a victory.
If however we hold that it is only the set
expressions functioning as word-equivalents are to be treated as phrase-
ological units,
to win a victory
is viewed as a variable, (free) word-group
and consequently must not be counted as a separate lexical item. The re-
sults of vocabulary counts will evidently be different.
Another debatable point closely connected with the problem of the
number of vocabulary units in English is one of the least investigated prob-
lems of lexicology — the border-line between homonymy and polysemy
when approached synchronically and divergent views concerning lexico-
grammatical homonymy.
3
If identical sound-forms, e.g.
work
(n)
and
work
(v)
are considered to be different grammatical and semantic variants
of the same word, they are accordingly treated as one word. This concep-
tion naturally tends to diminish the total number of
1
See
Horman A. Estrin
and
Donald V. Mehus,
The American Language in the 1970s,
USA, 1974. See also
C. Barnhart,
op. cit.
2
See ‘Word-Groups and Phraseological Units’, § 11, p. 74.
3
See ‘Semasiology’, §§ 37-39, pp. 43 — 47.
195
§ 12. Some Debatable Problems of
Lexicology
vocabulary units in English. In some cases of lexical homonymy the
boundary line between various meanings of one polysemantic word and
the meanings of two homonymous words is not sufficiently sharp and
clear and allows of different approaches to the problem.
1
Thus, e.g., words
like
fly
— ‘a two-winged insect’ and
fly
— ‘a flap of cloth covering the
buttons on a garment’ may be synchronically treated as two different
words or a s differ ent mea ni ngs of t he sa me wor d.
2
Next comes the problem of w o r d a n d w o r d v a r i a n t s . If,
for example, we consider the clippings
doc, prof,
etc. as variants of the words
doc-
tor, professor,
etc., we must count
prof
and
professor,
doc
and
doctor
as two
words having each two variants. If, however, we regard them as different
words having each of them its sound-form and ’semantic structure, we shall
count them as four separate words.
There is one more point of interest in connection with the problem of
the number of words that should be mentioned here. Paradoxical as it may
seem a great number of lexical items actually used by English-speaking
people cannot practically be counted. These words are usually referred to
as “occasional”, “potential” or “nonce-words". The terms imply that vo-
cabulary units of this type are created for a given occasion only and may
be considered as but “potentially” existing in English vocabulary. They
may be used by any member of the speech community whenever the need
to express a certain concept arises. These are derived and compound words
which are formed on highly productive and active word-building patterns.
3
Some of these word-formation patterns and affixes are so active and pro-
ductive as “to make even a representative sampling beyond our re-
sources".
4
In fact the suffix
-er
, e.g., may be added to almost any verbal
stem to form a noun denoting the agent of the action. If we count up all the
words that may be formed in this way, the number of vocabulary units will
be considerably magnified.
It is clear from the above that the divergent views concerning the na-
ture of basic vocabulary units cannot but affect the estimate of the size of
English vocabulary in terms of exact figures.
Modern English vocabulary is not homoge-
neous, and contains a number of lexical units
which may be considered “non-English” and “not modern". It follows that
in estimating the size of vocabulary very much depends on our under-
standing of the terms mode r n and E n g l i s h . Let us begin with the
analysis of the term E n g l i s h v o c a b u l a r y u n i t s . If we
compare words of the type
Luftwaffe, regime, garage, sputnik,
we shall
see that the borderline between ‘non-assimilated’ borrowings which make
up part of English vocabulary and foreign or alien words is not always
sharp and distinct.
5
1
See ‘Semasiology’, §§ 32-34, pp. 39 — 42.
2
Compare the different approaches to this word in the
Concise Oxford Dictionary,
1957 and the
Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English,
1956.
3
For illustrative examples see ‘Various Aspects...’, § 8, p. 184 — 187.
4
See
C. Barnhart,
op. cit., Explanatory Notes, p. 15.
5
See ‘Etymological Survey ...’, §§ 1, 6, 11, pp. 160, 165, 171.
196
§ 13. Intrinsic Heterogeneity of
Modern English