Etymological structure of the English vocabulary.Native element.

Etymology is a brunch of lexicology, which deals with the study of the evolution of the English vocabulary. From etymological point of view we distinguish Native and borrowed vocabulary. Native vocabulary represents only 30% of all words and borrowed 70%. Native word is a word, which belong to the original English word stock.Native vocabulary consists of three groups: The Indo European Element, the Germanic and English proper.

By the Indo-European element are meant words of roots common to all (or most) languages of the Indo-Eu­ropean group. father, mother, brother, son, daughter. 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: head, hand, arm, finger, bone, bear, fox, calf, winter, spring, house, room,

The English proper ele­ment is opposed to the first two groups. For not only it can be approximately dated, but also these words have another distinctive feature: they are specifically English have no cognates in other lan­guages whereas for Indo-European and Germanic words such cognates can always be found, as, for in­stance, for the following words of the Indo-European group. English proper words: bird, boy, girl, lord, lady, woman, daisy, always.

16.Borrowings. The term borrowing is used in linguistics to denote the process of adopting words from other languages and also the result of this process, the language material itself. Borrowings can enter the language in two ways: through oral speech and through written speech. There are certain structural features, which enable us to identify some words as borrowings and even to de­termine the source language. Pronunciation sound combinations, position of stress, letters j, x, z in initial position, combination of ph, WH, eue, (zebra, waltz, zero),sk Spelling: psychology; Morphological structure: datum data; Polysyllabic: gavernment, constitution; Lexical meanings: perestroika, hashish

We have already estab­lished that the initial (sk) usually indicates Scandinavian origin. Latin affixes of nouns: the suffix (-ion): legion, opinion, etc French affixes of nouns:the suffix (-ance): endurance, hindrance, etc.; the suffix (-ence): consequence, patience, etc.; the suffix (-ment): appointment, development, etc.; the suffix (-age): courage, marriage, village, etc.; the suffix (-ess): actress, adventuress, etc. Latin affixes of verbs: the suffix (-ate): appreciate, create, congratulate, etc There are 2 conditions for borrowings. the user must understand it and to have a certain motive for it. Charles Hocket suggests 2 reasons: to fill the gap in the word stock and prestige motive. Here are some more examples of Latin borrowings of this period: cup (Lat. cuppa), kitchen (Lat. coquina), mill (Lat. molina), port (Lat. portus), wine (Lat. vinum). early Scandinavian borrowings: call, v., take, v., cast, v., die, v., law, п., husband,

Norman French borrowings. Administrative words: state, government, parliament, council, power. Legal terms: court, judge, justice, crime, prison. Military terms: army, war, soldier, officer, battle, enemy. Educational terms: pupil, lesson, library, science, pen, pencil.

CLASSIFICATIONS OF 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.

17.The process of Assimilation of borrowed words. 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 and non-assimilated (barbarisms). Completely assimilated borrowings are not felt as foreign words in the language, the French word «sport» and the native word «start»; regular verbs, e.g. correct -corrected.; nouns form their plural by means of s-inflexion, e.g. gate- gates. 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, e.g. sari, sombrero, kvass. b) borrowings non-assimilated grammatically, e.g. nouns borrowed from Latin and Greek retain their plural forms (phenomenon - phenomena, datum -data). c) borrowings non-assimilated phonetically. Here belong words with the initial sounds /v/ and /z/, e.g. voice, zero. In native words these voiced consonants are used only in the intervocal position as allophones of sounds /f/ and /s/ (loss - lose, life - live).

d) borrowings can be partly assimilated graphically, e.g. in Greak borrowings «y» can be spelled in the middle of the word (symbol, synonym), «ph» denotes /f/ (phoneme, morpheme), «ch» denotes /k/(chemistry, chaos),«ps» denotes /s/ (psychology). French borrowings e.g. consonants «p», «t», «s» are not pronounced (buffet, coup, debris), Specifically French combination of letters «eau» /ou/: chateau. ‘ch’ is pronounced as /sh/, e.g. chic, parachute, ‘qu’ as /k/ e.g. bouquet, «ou» as /u:/, e.g. rouge; «i» as /i:/, e,g, chic, machine; «g» as /3/, e.g. rouge. German borrowings: common nouns are spelled with a capital letter e.g. Autobahn, Lebensraum; some vowels and digraphs retain their German pronunciation, e.g. «a» is pronounced as /a:/ (Dictat), «u» as /u:/ (Kuchen), «au» as /au/ (Hausfrau), «ei» as /ai/ (Reich); some consonants are also, e.g. «s» before a vowel is pronounced as /z/ (Sitskrieg), «v» as /f/ (Volkswagen), «w» as /v/, «ch» as /h/ (Kuchen).

Non-assimilated borrowings (barbarisms) are borrowings which are used by Englishmen rather seldom, e.g. a ddio (Italian), tete-a-tete (French), dolce vita (Italian).Russian borrowings: rouble, kopeck.

18.International words. It is often the case that a word is borrowed by several languages, not just by one. Such words usually convey concepts, which are significant in the field of communication. They are called international. Many of them are of Latin and Greek origin. Most names of sciences are international (e. g. philosophy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, linguistics, lexicology). There are also numerous terms of art in this group: music, theatre, drama, tragedy, comedy, artist, primadonna, etc.; and the sports terms: football, volley-ball, baseball, hockey, cricket, rugby, tennis, golf, etc. It is quite natural that political terms frequently oc­cur in the international group of borrowings: politics, policy, revolution, progress, democracy, communism, anti-militarism. 20^th century scientific and technological advances brought a great number of new international words: atomic, antibiotic, radio, television, sputnik (a Russian borrowing). Fruits and foodstuffs imported from exotic coun­tries often transport their names too and become inter­national: coffee, cocoa, chocolate, banana, mango, avocado, grapefruit.

The similarity of such words as the English “son”, the German “Sohn” and the Russian “сын” 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.

19.Etymological Doublets Sometimes a word is borrowed twice from the same language. As the 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. In English there are some groups of them:

Latino-French doublets.

Latin - English from Latin - English from French

uncia – inch - ounce

moneta - mint - money

camera - camera - chamber

Scandinavian-English doublets: skirt – shirt, scabby - shabby

There are also etymological doublets which were borrowed from the same language during different historical periods, such as French doublets: gentil - любезный, благородный, etymological doublets are: gentle - мягкий, вежливый and genteel - благородный. Sometimes etymological doublets are the result of borrowing different grammatical forms of the same word, e.g. the Comparative degree of Latin «super» was «superior» which was borrowed into English with the meaning «high in some quality or rank». The Superlative degree (Latin «supremus») in English «supreme» with the meaning «outstanding», «prominent». So «superior» and «supreme» are etymological doublets.

Etymological triplets (i. e. groups of three words of common root) occur rarer, but here are at least two ex­amples: “hospital” (Lat.) — “hostel” (Norm. Fr.) — “hot el” (Par. Fr.), “to capture” (Lat.) — “to catch” (Norm. Fr.) — “to chase” (Par. Fr.).

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