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13 - Etymology. What makes it important for contemporary lexicology? The role and place of borrowings in English word-stock.

Etymology (Gr) - etymon ("true science") + legein ("speak")

Etymology is the branch of Lexicology which studies the source of borrowing and the origin of Ws, the processes of adopting new Ws.

Motivation for studying etymology: the memory can not be overloaded with Ws, you may learn by associations.

The etymology of a word refers to its origin and the historical roots of the term as a linguistic form. Etymology, in general, is the theory and study of the origins and history of linguistic form., it’s a science of true sense of a w, studies the origin, history and changes in the meaning of the word.

Studies the following problems:

1) native ws and borrowings

2) assimilation& its types and degrees

3) ways of enriching E w-stock.

English wordstock is rich and of mixed character: 70% of words are borrowings!

e.g. money < OFr monei < Latin. moneta

Chronological periods of English:

- Old English 5-11 c AD (Anglo-Saxon)

- Middle English 1066 (The Norman conquest)* - 15 c AD

- The New English (1475) - Modern English

According to origin all the words are divided into 2 sets: native and borrowed.

Native words fall into 3 layrs:

1) wors of Indo-European stock have cognates (words of the same origin) in different Indo-European languages

e.g. members of family (mother, brother, son, daughter), parts of body (arm, eye, foot, heart), periods of time (night, day), animals (cat, wolf, goose), numerals.

2) words of Germanic origin have parallels in German, Norwegian, Sweish, Dutch, Icelandic... (cow, horse, fox, winter, summer, shop, iron, deep, good, green..)

3) words of Anglo-Saxon origin (later than the 5th century AD) have NO cognates: bird (OE bridd), dog (OE dogca), boy, girl, daisy, lord, lady, always.

These are basic words in English, most frequent: 80% (be, have, i, you, she, should..)

BORROWING is the process and result of adopting words, word-groups and parts of words always within the words

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.

English is called the recipient language as it "receives" the word the "giving" language is sourse.

paper (E) < papier (Fr.) < papyrus (Lat.) < papyros (Gr.) The sourse of borrowing is French. The origin is Greek.

Loan translations - words and expressions formed in the recepient language acc to the pattern of the sourse:

mother tongue < lingua materna (Lat)

sweet life < dolce vita (It)

hand-to-hand < mano a mano (Sp)

WHY ARE WORDS BORROWED?

1) to fill the gaps in the vocabulary (butter, plum, beet, karaoki, sushi)

2) to show a new shade of meaning > synonyms: love, like + admire, adore (Fr)

3) blind borrowings (no one knows why)

WHAT HAPPENS TO BORROWINGS?

  • Assimilation

the adaptation of borrowed words to the new linguistic environment

It is determined by 3 factors:

1) the nature of contacts

2) the time of adoption

3) the degree of genetic proximity

Type of assimilation:

- complete (perfectly assimilated)

- partial

(name objects which dont exist)

(not assimilated grammatically: datum-data, nucleus - nucleai)

(not assimilated phonetically: garage-party)

(not graphically assimilated: cafe, queue, picturesque)

- Barbarisms (not assimilated at all): curriculum vitae (Lat), carte blanche (Fr), siloviki (R), ciao (It)

English continues to take in foreign words , but now the quantity of borrowings is not so abundunt as it was before. All the more so, English now has become a «giving» language, it has become Lingva franca of the twentieth century.