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Lecture 12

The Origin of English Words

I.Native Words

Native words, though they constitute only 30% of the English vocabulary, are the most frequently used words.

Native words are subdivided into twop groups: Indo-European and Common Germanic.

The oldest layer of words in English are words met in Indo-European languages. there are several semantic groups of them:

a)words denoting kinship: father (Vater, pater), mother (Mutter, mater), son (Sohn), daughter (Tochter);

b)words denoting important objects and phenomena of nature: the sun (die Sohne), water (Wasser);

c)names of animals and birds: cat (Katze), goose (Gans), wolf (Wolf);

d)names of parts of a human body: heart (Herz);

e)some of the most often used verb: sit (sitzen), stand (stehen);

f)some numerals: two (zwei), three (drei).

A much larger group of native vocabulary are Common Germanic words (German, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic). Here we can find the nouns: summer, winter, storm, rain, ice, ground, bridge, house, life, shoe; the verbs: bake, burn, buy, drive,hear, keep, learn; the adjectives: broad, dead, deaf, deep.

Native words have a great world-building capacity, form a lot of phraseological units, they are mostly polysemantic.

II.Borrowings

More than two thirds of the English vocabulary are borrowings. Mostly they are words of Romanic origin (Latin, French, Italian, Spanish). Borrowed words are different from native ones by their phonetic structure, by their morphological structure and also by their grammatical forms. It is also characteristic of borrowings to be non-motivated semantically.

English history is very rich in different types of contacts with other countries, that is why it is very rich in borrowings.

Borrowings can be classified according to different criteria:

a)according to the aspect which is borrowed;

b)according to the degree of assimilation;

c)according to the language from which the word was borrowed.

III.Classification of Borrowings According to the Borrowed Aspect

There are the following groups: phonetic borrowings, translation loans, saemantic borrowings, morphemic borrowings.

Phonetic borrowings are the most characteristic ones in all languages. They are called loan words proper. Words are borrowed with their spelling, pronunciation and meaning. then they undergo assimilation, each sound in the borrowed word is substituted by the corresponding sound of theborrowing language. In some cases the spelling is changed. The structure of the word can also be changed. The position of the stress is very often influenced by the phonetic system of the borrowing language. The paradigm of the word, and sometimes the meaning of the borrowed word are also changed. Such words as labour, travel, table, chair, people are phonetic borrowings from French; apparatchik, nomenklatura,sputnik are phonetic borrowings from Russian; bank, soprano, duet are phonetic borrowings from Italian; lobby, Ostarbaiter, iceberg are phonetic borrowings from German.

Translation loans are word-for-word (or morpheme-for- morpheme)translations of some foreign words or expressions. The notion is borrowed from a foreign language bur it is expressed by native lexical units. to tale the bull by the horns (Latin), fair sex (French), collective farm (Russian).

Semantic borrowings are such units when a new meaning of the unit existing in the language is borrowed: there are semantic borrowngs between Scandinavian and English, such as the meaning to live for the word to dwell which in Old Englishhad the meaning to wander.

Morphemic borrowings are borrowings of affixes which occur in the language when many words with identical affixes are borrowed from one language into another, so that the morphemic structure of borrowed words becomes familiar to the people speaking the borrowing language: goddes (native root + Romanic suffix -ess), uneatable (English prefix un- + English root + Romanic suffix -able).

IV. Classification of Borrowings According to the Degree of Assimilation

The degree of assimilation of borrowings depends on the following factors:

a)from what group of languages the word was borrowed (if the word belongs to the same group of languages to which the borrowing language belongs it is assimilated easier);

b)in what way the word is borrowed: orally or in the written form (words borrowed orally are assimilated quicker);

c)how often the borrowing is used in the language (the greater the frequency of its usage, the quicker it is assimilated);

d)how long the word lives in the language (the longer it lives, the more

assimilated it is).

Accordingly, borrowings are subdivided into: completely assimilated, partly assimilated, non-assimilated (barbarisms).

Completely assimilated borrowings are not felt as foreign words in the language. Completely assimilated verbs belong to regular verbs: correct –

corrected. Completely assimilated nouns form their plural by means of s-inflexion: gate – gates. In completely assimilated French words the stress has been shifted from the last syllable to the first one: capital, service.

Partly assimilated borrowings are subdivided into the following groups:

a)borrowings non-assimilated semantically, because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from the language of which they were borrowed: sari, sombrero (clothing), taiga, steppe (nature), rickshaw, troika(foreign vehicles), rupee, zloty, peseta (money);

b)borrowings non-assimilated grammatically: some nouns borrowed from Latin and Greek retain their plural forms – bacillus-bacilli, genius-genii;

c)borrowings non-assimilated phonetically, e.g. some French borrowings retained their stress on the final syllable or special combinations of sounds: police, cartoon, camouflage, boulevard;

d)borrowings partly assimilated graphically, e.g. in Greek borrowings ph denotes the sound [f] (phoneme, morpheme), ch denotes the sound [k]

(chaos, chemistry).

Non-assimilated borrowings (barbarisms) are borrowings which are used by Englishmen rather seldom and are non-assimilated, e.g. addio (Italian), têt-á- têt (French), duende (Spanish).

V.Classification of Borrowings According to the Language from which

They were Borrowed

a)Romanic borrowings (Latin and Greek). Zhey appeared in English during the Middle English period due to the Great Revival of Learning: memorandum, minimum, maximum, veto;

b)French borrowings: words relating to government – administer, empire; words relating to military affairs: soldier, battle; words relating to jurisprudence: advocate, barrister; words relating to fashion: luxary, coat; words relating to jewelry: emerald, pearl; words relating to food and cooking: dinner, appetite;

c)Italian borrowings: bank, bankrupt (the 14th century); volcano, bronze, manifesto, bulletin (the 17th century); various musical terms – falsetto, solo, duet; gazette, incognito (the 20th century);

d)Spanish borrowings: trade terms – cargo, embargo; names of dances and musical instruments – tango, rumba, guitar; names of vegetables and fruit;

e)Scandinavian borrowings. There are 700 of them. they are such nouns as bull, cake, egg, knife; such adjectives as flat, ill, happy; such verbs as call, die, guess; pronouns and connective words same, both, though; pronominal forms they, them, their;

f)German borrowings. There are 800 of them: geological terms – zink, quarts, gneiss; words denoting objects used in everyday life – kindergarten., lobby, rucksack; units borrowed in the period of the Second World War – SS-man, Luftwaffe, Bundeswehr; ; units borrowed after the period of the Second World War – Ostarbeaiter, Volkswagen;

g)Dutch borrowings. There are about 2000 of them. They were mainly borrowed in the 14th century: freight, skipper, pump (they are mainly nautical terms);

h)Russian borrowings: words connected with trade relations – sterlet, vodka, pood, copeck, rouble; words which came into English trough Russian literature of the 19th century – zemstvo, volost, moujik; words connected with political system – udarnik, collective farm, Soviet power, five-year plan.

VI. Etymological Doublets

Sometimes a word is borrowed twice from the same language. As a result, we have two different words with different spellings and meanings but historically they come back to one and the same word. Such words are called etymological doublets:

Latino-French doublets

Scandinavian-English doublets

Words of identical origin that occur in several languages as a result of simultaneous or successive borrowings from one ultimate source are called international words.

International words play an especially important part in different terminological systems including the vocabulary of science, industry and art. The origin of this vocabulary reflects the history of world culture. E.G. the mankind’s debt to Italy is reflected in the great number of words connected with architecture, painting and especially music. Here we can mention Italian words which have become international: allegro, andante, baritone, concert, barcarole.

The international word-stock is also growing due to the words connected with: the development of science – automation, cybernetics, gene; exotic words – kraal, orang-outang, anaconda; the words in the field of sport – football, out, match; the words referring to clothing – sweater, tweed, shorts.

Lecture 13

Classification of Language Units According to the Period of Time They Live in the Language

Words can be classified according to the period of their life in the language. We can have archaisms, words which have come out of active usage, and neologisms, words which have recently appeared in the language.

I.Archaisms and Historisms

Archaisms are words which are no longer used in everyday speech, which have been ousted by their synonyms. Archaisms remain in the language, but they are used as stylistic devices to express solemnity.

Most of these words are lexical archaisms and they are stylistic synonyms of words which ousted them from the neutral style: steed (horse), slay (kill), perchance (perhaps), betwixt (between). These lexical archaisms belong to the poetic style.

Whe the causes of the word‘s disappearance are extra-linguistic, e.g. when the thing is no longer used, its name becomes a historism. Historisms are very numerous as names for social relations, institutions, objects of material culture of the past. here belong such transport means as brougham, berlin, fly, gig; also such vehicles as prairie schooner, also such boats as caravel, galleon, and such weapons as breastplate, crossbow, arrow, vizor.

II.Neologisms

At the present moment English is developing very swiftly and there is so called neology blowup. The two greatest influences on the formation, adaptation

and use of English words over the last forty years have been the United States of America and the progress of different branches of science and means of communication: television, cinema and printed material.

New words can appear in speech of an individual person who wants to express his idea in some original way. This person is called originator. New lexical units are primary used by university teachers, newspaper reporters.

Neologisms can develop in three main ways. a lexical unit existing in the language can change its meaning to denote a new object or phenomenon. In such cases we have semantic neologisms, e.g. the word umbrella developed the meanings авиационное прикрытие, политическое прикрытие. A new lexical unit can develop in the language to denote an object or pfenomenon which already has some lexical unit to denote it. In such cases we have transnomination, e.g. the word slum was first substituted by the word ghetto, then by the word-group inner town. A new lexical unit can be introduced to denote a new object or phenomenon. In this case we have a proper neologism, many of them are cases of new terminology.

III.Semantic Groups of Neologisms

1.We can point out the group of neologisms connected with computerization:

a)new words used to denote different types of computers: PC, super-computer, multi-user;

b)new words used to denote parts of computers: hardwear, softwear, monitor, display, key-board;

c)new words used to denote computer languages: BASIC, Algol, FORTRAN;

d)new words used to denote notions connected with work on computers: to blitz out, to computerize, computerization.

2.In the sphere of liguistics we have such neologisms as: machine translation, interligual and many others.

3.In the sphere of biometrics we have computerized machines which can recognize characteristic features of people seeking entrance: finger-print scanner, eye-scanner, voice verification.

4.In the sphere of machine computers we have the following neologism teleminatory unit.

5.With the development of social activities neologisms appeared as well. yuthquake, pussy-footer, Euromarket, Eurodollar, Europol.

6.In the modern English society there is a tendency to social stratification, as a result there are phraseologisms in this sphere as well: belonger –

представитель среднего класса, приверженец консервативных взгдядов.

There are also abbreviations: muppie (middle-aged urban professional people), gruppie (grown up …).

7.There are a lot of immigrants now in the UK. As a result neologisms partial and non-partial were formed.

8.In the language of the teenagers there are the following neologisms: Drugs! (OK!), sweat, branch, task.

9.With the development of professional jargons a lot of words ending in speak appeared in English: artspeak, sportspeak, video-speak, cable-speak, education-

speak.

10.There are semantic neologisms belonging to everyday life: starter, macrobiotics, longlife milk, fridge-freezer, hamburgers (food); catsuit, slimster, string (clothing); thongs, backsters (footwear); bumbag, sling bag, maitre (bags).

IV. Ways of Forming Neologisms

According to the ways neologisms are formed they can be classified into: phonological neologisms, borrowings, semantic neologisms and syntactical neologisms. Syntactical neologisms are divided into morphological (wordbuilding) and phraseological (forming word-groups).

Phonological neologisms are formed by combining unique combinations of sounds. they are called artificial: yeck/yuck (interjections used to express repulsion). These are strong neologisms.

Strong neologisms include also phonetic borrowings: perestroika (Russian), solidarnosc (Polish), geige (Chinese perestroika).

Morphological and phraseological neologisms are usually built on patterns existing in the language, therefore they do not belong to the group of strong neologisms.

Among morphological neologisms there are a lot of compound words of different types: free-fall (резкое падение курса акций), rubber-neck (a tourist who remains in the coach and is not curious about the country), call-and-recall (вызов на диспансеризацию), bioastronomy (search for life on other planets), bugger-mugger (secrecy), x-rated (about films terribly vulger and cruel), Amerenglish (American English), tycoonography (a biography of a business tycoon).

There are also abbreviations of different types: resto, teen, dinky (dual income no kids yet), HIV, SINK (single independent no kids), nimby (not in my backyard).

There are many neologisms formed by means of affixation: pro-life (prohibiting abortions), slimster, folknik, disimprove.

Phraseological neologisms can be subdivided into phraseological units with transferred meaning: to buy into (to become involved), fudge and dudge (avoidance of definite decisions) and set non-idiomatic expressions: boot trade, pathetic wage, a whizz kid (a very clever and ambitious young man, who makes a quick progress in his career).