Лекции по "Лексикологии"

f) Fruits and foodstuffs imported from exotic countries often transport their names too and, being simultaneously imported to many countries, become international: coffee, cocoa, chocolate, coca-cola, banana, mango, avocado, grapefruit.

It is important to note that international words arc mainly borrowings. The outward similarity of such words as the E. son, the Germ. Sohn, and the R. cuh should not lead one to the quite false conclusion that they are international words. They represent the Indo-European group of the native element in each respective language and are cognates, i. e. words of the same etymological root and not borrowings. 

Are Etymological and Stylistic Characteristics of Words Interrelated

The centre of gravity of borrowed words in the stylistic classification is represented by two groups: learned words and terminology. In these strata the foreign element dominates the native It also seems that the whole opposition of "formal versus informal" is based on the opposition of borrowed versus native", as the informal strata, especially slang and dialect, abound in native words (even though it is possible to quote numerous exceptions).

Comparing the expressive and stylistic value of the French and the English words in such synonymic pairs as to begin - to commence, to wish - to desire, happiness - felicity. O. Jespersen remarks: "The French word is usually more formal, more refined, and has a less strong hold on the emotional side of life". It is even more obvious if we regard certain pairs within which amative word may be compared with its Latin synonym: motherly -maternal, fatherly - paternal, childish -infantile, daughterly -filial, etc. Motherly love seems much warmer than maternal feelings - which sounds dutiful but cold. The word childish is associated with all the wonder and vivid poetry of the earliest human age whereas infantile\$ quite dry. You may speak about childish games and childish charm, hut about infantile whereas infantile mind implies criticism.

The Etymological Structure of English Vocabulary. 

The native element Indo-European element Germanic element The borrowed element I. Celtic (5th-6th c.-A. D.) II. Latin 1.  St group: 1st c. B. C.     III. English Proper element (not earlier than 5th (c. A. D.) 2nd group: 7th c. A. D. 3rd group: the Renaissance period III. Scandinavian (8th - 11th c. A. D.) IV. French 1. Norman borrowings: 11 th — 1311 c A. D. 2. Parisian borrowings (Renaissance) V. Greek (Renaissance) VI. Italian (Renaissance and later) VII. Spanish (Renaissance and later) VIII. German IX. Indian X. Russian And some other groups

On a straight vocabulary count, considering the high percentage of borrowed words, one can classify English as a language of international origin or at least, Romance one (as French and Latin words obviously prevail.) Buy the native element in English comprises (составляет).

1.   a large number of high-frequency words like the articles, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliaries and also, words denoting everyday objects and ideas: e.g. house, child, water, go, come, eat, good bad. etc.).

2.   the grammatical structure is essentially Germanic and unaffected by foreign influence.

Now let us turn to the first column of the table representing the native element, the original stock of the English vocabulary. The column consists of three groups only the third being dated the words of this group appeared in the English vocabulary in the 5th c. or later, that is, after the. Germanic tribes migrated to the British Isles.

As to the Indo-European and Germanic they are so old that they cannot be dated.

The tribal languages of the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, by the time of their migration contained only words of Indo-European and Germanic roots plus a certain number of the earliest Latin borrowings.

The Indo-European elements are word of roots common to all or most languages of the Indo-European group. English words of this group denote elementary notions without which no human communication would be possible. The following groups can be identified:

I. Family relations: father, mother, brother, son, daughter.

II. Parts of the human body; foot (cf. R. пядь), nose, lip, heart.

III. Animals: cow, swine, goose.

IV. Plants: tree, birch (cf. R. 6epeзa), com(cf. R  зерно).

V. Times of day: day, night.

VI. Heavenly bodies: suit, moon, star.

VII. Numerous adjectives: red (cf. Ukr. рудий,  R  рыжий), new, g/ad(cfR гладкий), sad(cf. R сыт).

VIII. The numerals from one to a hundred.

IX Pronouns-personal (except they which is a Scandinavian borrowing), demonstrative.

X. Numerous verbs be(cf. R. быть), stand (cf. R стоять,), sit (cf. R сидеть), eat (cf. R ecть), know(cf.R, -

знать, знаю).

The Germanic element represents words of roots common to all or most Germanic languages. Some of the main groups of Germanic words are the same as in the Indo-European element.

I. Parts of the human body: head, hand, arm, finger, bone.

II. Animals: bear, fox, calf.

III. Plants: oak, fir, grass.

IV. Natural phenomena: ram, frost.

V. Seasons of the year: winter, spring, summer.

VI. Landscape features: sea, land.

VII. Human dwellings and furniture house, room, bench.

VIII. Sea-going vessels: boat, ship.

I.. Adjectives: green, blue, grey, white, small, thick-high, old, good. X Verbs: sec, hear, speak, fell, say, answer, make, give, drink.

The English proper element is opposed to the first two groups. Not only can it be approximately dated, but these words {being specifically English) have no cognates in other languages where as for Indo-European and Germanic words such cognates can always be found, as for instance, for the following, words of the Indo-European group.

Star:Germ.. Stem, Lat. Stella, Gr. aster .                         .

Sad:Germ. satt, Lat. satis. R сыт, Snscr. sa- 
Stand:Germ stehen  Lat stare. R стоять

Here are some examples of English proper These words stand quite alone in the vocabulary systems of Indo-European languages bird, boy, girl, lord, lady, woman.

Prof. A I Smirnitsky suggest the following approach to the problem of the etymology of the English language to consider as «native» all the words which may have existed in the English word stock of the Vll-th century, relying on the earliest available manuscripts.

The term «native»  will be applied to the word-stock as it existed in the Vll-th century and the term «borrowed» - or «loan-words» to the words introduced into English at a later date. At the same time we should distinguish between a) fully assimilated words whose foreign origin is discoverable only by etymological research, for example, to beg, interesting, judge, charm, mariner, courage, etc. and b) partially assimilated words, still felt as not native due to structural and semantic peculiarities, for example, chamois, picturesque, chateau, champagne, ^r7uge, etc. 

There are certain structural features which enable us to identity some words as borrowings and even to determine the source language. We have already established that the initial sk usually indicates Scandinavian origin. You can also recognize words or Latin and French origin by certain suffixes, prefixes of endings. The two tables below will help you in this.

1. Latin Affixes.

The suffix –ion The suffix -tion The suffix -ate The suffix- ute The remnant suffix - ct The remnant suffix - d(e)	Communion, legion, opinion, session, union. Relation, resolution, starvation, temptation, etc. Appreciate, create, congratulate, etc. Attribute, contribute, constitute, distribute, etc. Act, conduct, collect, connect, etc.  Applaud, divide, exclude, include, etc.
The prefix dis- The suffix —able The suffix -ate (it) The suffix -ant The suffix -ent The suffix -or The suffix –al The suffix -ar	Disable, distract, disown, disagree, etc. Detestable, enable, etc. Accurate, desperate, graduate, etc. Arrogant, constant, important, etc. Absent, convenient, decent, evident, etc Major, minor, junior, senior, etc. Cordial, filial, fraternal, maternal, etc. Lunar, solar, familiar, etc.

 

II. French Affixes.

The suffix -ance The suffix -ence The suffix –ment The suffix -age The suffix –ess The suffix -ous The prefix -en

Arrogance, endurance, hindrance, etc. Consequence, intelligence, patience, etc. Appointment, development, experiment, etc, Courage, marriage, passage, village, etc. Tigress, lioness, actress, adventuress, etc Curious, dangerous, joyous, serious, etc. Enable, endear, enact, enfold, enslave, etc.

-70 percent anomaly is

Modem scholars estimate the percentage of borrowed words, in the English vocabulary at 65 which is an exceptionally high figure: one would certainly expect the native element to prevail. This explained by the country's eventful history and by its many international contacts.

LECTURE 4. Word-building

Structurally words are divided into smaller units (morphemes). Morphemes are not free forms, but constituents of words, yet they have their own meanings. All morphemes are subdivided into 2 large classes: roots and affixes. The affixes fall into prefixes (reread, mispronounced, enrich, etc.) and suffixes (teacher, dictate, beautiful, interesting, etc).

Words which consist of a root and an affix (or several affixes) are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of word-building known as affixation, (or derivation).

Derived words are extremely numerous in the English vocabulary. Successfully competing with this structural type is the so-called root word which has only-a root morpheme in its structure. This type is widely represented by great number of words belonging to the original English stock or to earlier borrowings (house, room, book, work, port, street, table, etc.), and, in Modern English, has been greatly enlarged by the type of word-building called conversion (e. g. to hand, v. formed from the noun hand; to can, v. from can, n.; to pale, v. from pale, adj.; a find, n. from to find, v.; etc.).

Another wide-spread word-structure is a compound word consisting of two or more stems (e, g. dining-room, bluebell, mother-in-law, good-for-nothing). Words of this structural type are produced by the word-building process called composition.

The somewhat odd-looking words like flu, pram, lab, M. P, V-day, H-bomb are called shortenings, contractions or curtailed words and are produced by the way of world-building called shortening (contraction). The four types (root words, derived words, compounds, shortenings) represent the main structural types of Modern English words, and conversion, derivation and composition the most productive ways of word-building.

From the etymological point of view affixes are classified into the same two large groups as words; native and borrowed.

Some Native Suffixes

Noun-forming
-er -ness -jng -dom	Worker, miner, teacher, painter, etc. Coldness, loneliness, loveliness, etc. Feeling, meaning, singing, reading, etc. Freedom, wisdom, kingdom, etc.

 

-hood -ship -th ————————————— •— * —	Childhood, manhood, motherhood, etc. |Friendship, companionship, mastership, etc. Length, breadth, health, truth, etc
-ful -less -y Adjective-forming   -ish                               -ly                               -en -some	Careful, joyful, wonderful, senseless, etc. Careless, sleepless, cloudless, senseless, etc. Cozy, tidy, merry, snowy, showy, etc. English, Spanish, reddish, childish, etc. Lonely, lovely, ugly, likely, lordly, etc. Wooden, woollen, silken, golden, etc. Handsome, quarrelsome, tiresome, etc
Verb-forming             -en	Widen, redden, darken, sadden, etc.
Adverb-forming      -ly	Warmly, hardly, simply, carefully, coldly

Borrowed affixes, especially of Romance origin are numerous in the English vocabulary (lect. 3).

Affixes can also be classified into productive and non-productive types. By productive affixes we mean the ones, which take part in deriving, new words in this particular period of language development. The best way to identify productive affixes is to look for them among neologisms and so-called nonce-words, i. e. words coined and used only for this particular occasion.

"I don't like Sunday evenings: 1feel so Mon-duylsh". (Mondayish is certainly a nonce-word.).

One should not confuse the productivity of affixes with their frequency of occurrence. There are quite a number of high-frequency affixes which, nevertheless, are no longer used in word-derivation (e. g. the adjective-forming native suffixes -fill, -ly ; the adjective-form ing suffixes of Latin origin -ant, - ent, -a! which are quite frequent). 

Some Productive Affixes

Noun-forming suffixes	-or, -ing, -ness, -ism, -ist, -ance
Adjective-forming  suffixes	-y, -ish, -ed, -able, -less
Adverb-forming suffix	-ly
Verb-forming suffixes	-ize/-ise, -ate
Prefixes	un-, re-, dis-

Some Non-Productive Affixes

Noun-farming suffixes	-th, -hood
Adjective-forming suffixes	-ly, -some, -en, -ous, -ful
Verb-forming suffix	-en

Semantics of Affixes

Meanings of affixes are specific and considerably differ from those of root morphemes. Affixes have widely generalized meanings and refer the concept conveyed by the whole word to a certain category, The adjective-forming suffix -ful has the meaning of "full of ", "characterized by" (beautiful, careful) whereas -ish may often imply insufficiency of quality (greenish - green, but not quite; youngish - not quite young but looking it).

Conversion

Is sometimes referred to as an affixless way of word-building or even affixless derivation.

Conversion consists in making a new word from some' existing word by changing the category of a part of speech the morphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged. Conversation is universally accepted as one of the major ways of enriching English vocabulary with new words. It is particularly English way of word-building. Its immense productivity is considerably encouraged by certain features of modern English: analytical structure, simple paradigms of English parts of speech, a great number of one-syllable words. 

There are certain regularities in the group of verbs made from nouns some of the regular semantic associations are as indicated in the following list: