Лекции по "Английскому языку"

Etymological survey of the English word-stock

1. Definition of terms native, borrowing, translation loan, semantic loan.

2. Words of native origin and their characteristics.

3. Foreign elements in Modern English. Scandinavian borrowings, classical elements-Latin and Greek, French borrowings, Ukrainian-English lexical correlations.

4.  Assimilation of borrowings. Types and degrees of assimilation.

5. Etymological doublets, hybrids.

6. International words

Working Definitions of Principal Concepts.

Etymologically the vocabulary of the English language is far from being homogeneous. It consists of two layers - the native stock of words and the borrowed stock of words. Numerically the borrowed stock of words is considerably larger than the native stock of words. In fact native words comprise only 30 % of the total number of words in the English vocabulary but the native words form the bulk of the most frequent words actually used in speech and writing. Besides the native words have a wider range of lexical and grammatical valency, they are highly polysemantic and productive in forming word clusters and set expressions.

Borrowed words (or loan words or borrowings) are words taken over from another language and modified according to the patterns of the receiving language.

In many cases a borrowed word especially one borrowed long ago is practically indistinguishable from a native word without a thorough etymological analysis (street, school, face). The number of borrowings in the vocabulary of a language and the role played by them is deter-mined by the historical development of the nation speaking the language. The most effective way of borrowing is direct borrowing from another language as the result of contacts with the people of another country or with their literature. But a word may also be borrowed indirectly not from the source language but through another language, When analysing borrowed words one must distinguish between the two terms - "source of borrowing" and "origin of borrowing". The first term is applied to the language from which the word was immediately borrowed, the second - to the language to which the word may be ul-timately traced e.g. table - source of borrowing - French, origin of bor-rowing - Latin elephant - source of borrowing - French, origin-Egypt convene - source of borrowing - French, origin-Latin. The closer the two interacting languages are in structure the easier it is for words of one language to penetrate into the other.

The are different ways of classifying the borrowed stock of words.

First of all the borrowed stock of words may be classified according to the nature of the borrowing itself as borrowings proper, translation loans and semantic loans.

Translation loans are words or expressions formed from the elements existing in the English language according to the patterns of the source language (the moment of truth - sp. el momento de la verdad).

A semantic loan is the borrowing of a meaning for a word already existing in the English language (e.g. the compound word shock brigade which existed in the English language with the meaning "аварійна бригада" acquired a new meaning "ударная бригада" which it borrowed from the Russian language.

Latin Loans are classified into the subgroups:

1. Early Latin Loans. Those are the words which came into English through the language of Anglo-Saxon tribes. The tribes had been in contact with Roman civilisation and had adopted several Latin words denoting objects belonging to that civilisation long before the invasion of Angles, Saxons and Jutes into Britain (cup, kitchen, mill, port, wine).

2. Later Latin Borrowings. To this group belong the words which pene-trated the English vocabulary in the sixth and seventh centuries, when the people of England were converted to Christianity (priest, bishop, nun, candle).

3. The third period of Latin includes words which came into English due to two historical events: the Norman conquest in 1066 and the Renaissance or the Revival of Learning. Some words came into English through French but some were taken directly from Latin (major, minor, intelligent, permanent).

4. The Latest Stratum of Latin Words. The words of this period are mainly abstract and scientific words (nylon, molecular, vaccine, phenomenon, vacuum).

Norman-French Borrowings may be subdivided into subgroups:

1. Early loans - 12th - 15th century

2. Later loans - beginning from the 16th century.

The Early French borrowings are simple short words, naturalised in accordance with the English language system (state, power, war, pen, river) Later French borrowings can be identified by their peculiarities of form and pronunciation (regime, police, ballet, scene, bourgeois).

 

The Etymological Structure of English Vocabulary

The native element

I. Indo-European element

II. Germanic element

III. English proper element (brought by Angles, Saxons and Jutes not earlier than 5th c. A.D.)

The borrowed element

I. Celtic (5th - 6th c. A.D.)

II Latin

1st group: lst c. B.C.

2nd group: 7th c. A.D.

3d group: the Renaissance period

III. Scandinavian (8th -11th c. A.D.)

IV. French

1. Norman borrowings: 11th - 13th c. A.D.

2. Parisian borrowings: (Renaissance)

V. Greek (Renaissance)

VI. Italian (Renaissance and later)

VII. Spanish (Renaissance and later)

VIII. German

IX. Indian and others

Ukrainian - English lexical correlations

Lexical correlations are defined as lexical units from different languages which are phonetically and semantically related. The number of Ukrainian-English lexical correlations is about 6870.

The history of the Slavonic-German ties resulted in the following correla-tions: beat - бити, call - голос, day - день, widow - вдова, young -юний.

Semantically Ukrainian - English lexical correlations are various. They may denote everyday objects and commonly used things; brutal -брутальний, cap - капелюх, cold - холодний, ground - грунт, kettle -котел, kitchen - кухня, lily - лілія, money - монета (назва походить від латин. Moneta ''богиня домашнього добробуту), quart - кварта, sister - сeстра, wolf- вовк etc. Some Ukrainian - English lexical correlations have common Indo-European background: garden - город, murder - мордувати, soot - сажа.

Beside Ukrainian - English lexical correlations the Ukrainian language con-tains borrowings from modern English period e.g. брифінг, короткий інструктаж - briefing; диск-жокей, ведучий програми - disk-jockey; ескапізм, ухилення від соціальних проблем - escapism; істеблішмент, організація суспільно-державних установ країни - establishment; хіт парад, конкурс популярних пісень - hit parade; кітч, халтура - kitch; мас-медіа, засоби масової інформації - mass media; серіал, багатосерійна телепередача - serial.

Assimilation is the process of changing the adopted word. The process of assimilation of borrowings includes changes in soundform morphological structure, grammar characteristics, meaning and usage.

 

Phonetic assimilation comprises changes in sound form and stress. Sounds that were alien to the English language were fitted into its scheme of sounds, e.g. In the recent French borrowings communique, cafe the long [e] and [e] are rendered with the help of [ei]. The accent is usually transferred to the first syllable in the words from foreign sources.

The degree of phonetic adaptation depends on the period of borrowing: the earlier the period is the more completed is this adaptation. While such words as "table", "plate" borrowed from French in the 8th - 11th centuries can be considered fully assimilated, later Parisian borrowings (15th c.) such as regime, valise, cafe" are still pronounced in a French manner.

Grammatical adaption is usually a less lasting process, because in or-der to function adequately in the recipient language a borrowing must completely change its paradigm. Though there are some well-known exceptions as plural forms of the English Renaissance borrowings - datum pl. data, criterion - pl. criteria and others.

The process of semantic assimilation has many forms: narrowing of meanings (usually polysemantic words are borrowed in one of he meanings); specialisation or generalisation of meanings, acquiring new meanings in the recipient language, shifting a primary meaning to the position of a secondary meaning.

Completely assimilated borrowings are the words, which have under-gone all types of assimilation. Such words are frequency used and are stylistically neutral, they may occur as dominant words in a synonymic group. They take an active part in word-formation.

Partially assimilated borrowings are the words which lack one of the types of assimilation. They are subdivided into the groups: 1) Borrow-ings not assimilated semantically (e.g. shah, rajah). Such words usu-ally denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from which they came.

2) Loan words not assimilated grammatically, e.g. nouns borrowed from Latin or Greek which keep their original plural forms {datum - data, phenomenon - phenomena).

3)Loan words not completely assimilated phonetically. These words contain peculiarities in stress, combinations of sounds that are not standard for English {machine, camouflage, tobacco).

4) Loan words not completely assimilated graphically (e.g. ballet, cafe, cliche).

Barbarisms are words from other languages used by the English people in conversation or in writing but not assimilated in any way, and for which there are corresponding English equivalents e.g. ciao Italian - good-bye English,

The borrowed stock of the English vocabulary contains not only words but a great number of suffixes and prefixes. When these first appeared in the English language they were parts of words and only later began a life of their own as word-building elements of the English language (-age, -ance,      -ess, -merit) This brought about the creation of hybrid words like shortage, hindrance, lovable and many others in which a borrowed suffix is joined to a native root. A reverse process is also possible.

In many cases one and the same word was borrowed twice either from the same language or from different languages. This accounts for the existence of the so called etymological doublets like canal - channel (Latin -French), skirt - shirt (Sc. - English), balsam - halm (Greek - French).

International words. There exist many words that were borrowed by several languages. Such words are mostly of Latin and Greek origin and convey notions which are significant in the field of communica-tion in different countries. Here belong names of sciences (philosophy, physics, chemistry, linguistics), terms of art (music, theatre, drama, artist, comedy), political terms (politics, policy, progress). The English language became a source for international sports terms (football, hockey, cricket, rugby, tennis)

 

Exercise 1.

Study the following passage, In which ways may the influence of a foreign language be exerted?

The influence of a foreign language may be exerted in two ways, through the spoken word, by personal contact between the two peoples, or through the written word, by indirect contact, not between the peoples themselves but through their literatures. The former way was more productive in the earlier stages, but the latter has become increasingly important in more recent times. Direct contact may take place naturally in border regions, or by the transference of considerable number of people from one area to another, either by peaceful immigration, settlement or colonisation, or through invasion and conquest. It may also take place, though to a more limited extent, through travel to foreign countries and through residence abroad, for trade or other purposes, of relatively small numbers of people.

The type of words borrowed by personal contact would undoubtedly at first be names of objects unfamiliar to the borrowers, or products and commodities exchanged by way of trade. If the contacts were maintained over a long period then ideas concerned with government, law, religion, and customs might be absorbed, and perhaps the names of these would be adopted. Only in the case of nations in relatively advanced stages of civilisation would there be much influence exerted through the written word; concrete objects would come first, then abstract ideas learnt from what might actually be seen from their effects in everyday life and abstract ideas through the indirect contact achieved by books would come much later

(J.A.Sheard. The words we use).

 

Exercise 2.

Explain the origin of the following words: father, brother, mother, dog, cat, sheep, wolf, house, life, earth, man, apple, live, go, give, begin, strong, long, wide, to, for, from, and, with, I, he, two, well, much, little.

 

Exercise 3.

Analyse the following words from the point of view of the type and degree of assimilation. State which words are: a)completeiy assimilated; b) partially assimilated; c) non-assimilated: prima-donna, ox, caftan, city, school, etc., mazurka, table, street, they, century, sky, wall, stimulus, reduce, cup, present.

 

Exercise 4.

Comment on the different formation of the doublets and on the difference in meaning, if any: balm-balsam, suit-suite, senior-sir, legal-loyal, skirt-shirt, emerald-smaragdus, major-mayor, pauper-poor, of-off, history-story, catch-chase.

 

Exercise 5.

The following are loan translations (calques). What do they actually mean in English. How and when are they used?

the moment of truth (Sp. el momenta de la verdad); with a grain of salt (L cum grano salis); famous case (Fr. cause celebre); master people (Gr herrenvolk). underground movement (Fr.L. mouvement souterrain); that goes without saying (Fr. cela va sans dire).

 

Exercise 6.

Read the following text. Find the international words. State to what sphere of human activity they belong. British dramatists.

In the past 20 years there has been a considerable increase in the number of new playwrights in Britain and this has been encouraged by the growth of new theatre companies. In 1956 the English Stage Company began productions with the object of bringing new writers into the theatre and providing training facilities for young actors, directors, and designers; a large number of new dramatists emerged as a result of the company productions Television has been an important factor in the emergence of other dramatists who write primarily for it; both the BBC and IBA transmit a large number of single plays each year as well as drama series and serials.