7. Etymological Characteristics of the English Vocabulary.

Words of native origin. The main characteristics of native words. Groups of words of native origin. Borrowings. Causes and ways of borrowings. Latin, Scandinavian and French borrowings. Assimilation of borrowings. Types of assimilation.

An important feature of Eng is its origin. Acc to it the Eng word-stock may be divided into 3 main groups:

• native words;

• borrowings;

• hybrids.

A native word is a word which belongs to the original Eng word-stock of Anglo-Saxon origin brought to the British Isles in the 5th с by the Germanic tribes. This group comprises words of the Indo-European origin which have cognates in the vocabularies of different Indo-European lang-s. The words of this group express the most vital, important concepts.

E.g. father, mother, son, moon, star, wolf, dream, cow, ear, tooth, eye, heart, etc.

Words of common Germanic origin – these words have parallels in German, Norwegian, Dutch; they contain most important & frequently used words: head, arm, summer, winter, storm, rain, ground, sea, house, bridge, room, hope, life, etc. And Eng words proper – they don’t have cognates or parallels in other lang-s. These words are few and stand quite alone in the system of Indo-European lang-s: bird, boy, girl, lady, board.

A borrowing is a word taken from another lang and modified in phonemic shape, …, paradigm or meaning acc to the standards of the Eng lang. Borrowings enter the lang in 2 ways:

1. through oral speech by direct contact btw people;

2. through written speech – books, newspapers, etc.

Oral borrowings took place in the early periods of history & therefore are fully assimilated. They have undergone considerable changes. E.g. chair (French).

Written borrowings preserve their spelling & some peculiarities of their sound or grammatical form.

A hybrid is a word consisting of one native & one foreign element: readable, eatable, where the root is native 7 the suffix –able is foreign.

Causes of Borrowings

Borrowings are the result of direct & indirect intercourse with several lang-s. The motives for borrowings are:

• the need feeling motive – words denoting notions, objects peculiar to one lang are borrowed into another: sputnik, sombrero, cheese, etc.

• the prestige motive – in the … the upper & middle class Englishmen learned French because it was the lang of the rulers.

Assimilation of borrowings denotes a partial or total conformation to the standards of the Eng lang. Borrowings can be:

• fully assimilated: E.g. Latin – cheese, butter, French – chair, face;

• partially assimilated – here belong words not assimilated grammatically: (datum – data); not assimilated phonetically (ballet, communiqué); not assimilated semantically (words denoting foreign clothing – sari, rajah, shah; foreign food - pilau )

• non-assimilated or barbarisms: E.g. adieu, ciao.

The most important borrowings are Latin, Scandinavian and French. There are 3 layers of Latin borrowings:

1. before the 5^th c … with the Romans a number of words denoting objects of trade were borrowed – wine, peach, butter; words denoting measure: pound, inch; building – street, castle, camp;

2. the 2d layer is connected with the introduction of Christianity (6-7^th cent-s) when religious terms came to being – altar, priest, candle, monk, etc.

3. the Renaissance period (14-15^th c-s) when scientific words were mostly borrowed – formula, criteria, maximum, etc.

Scandinavian borrowings are the result of direct intercourse btw Scandinavians & Anglo-Saxons. They were related lang-s, so many words differed only in endings: fisk – fisken, faron – fara. The Scandinavian element sk is still found in the words sky, skull, skin.

French borrowings:

The 1^st layer refers to the period of Norman conquest. After the Battle of Hastings in 1066 the Eng were defeated by the Normans and French (the Norman dialect) became the lang of state, law, school & official documents.

French enriched in following spheres:

1. administrative words – government, country, parliament, county;

2. feudal relations – prince, duke, count;

3. military terms – army, enemy, battle, war, peace;

4. legislation – court, justice, judge, jury;

5. religious terms – religion, abbey, saint;

6. literature & art – literature, art, architecture, poet;

7. everyday life words – table, chair, river, autumn.

The 2d layer refers to the Renaissance period. This time borrowings came from the Parisian dialect.

E.g. machine, regime, police, bourgeois, garage, ballet.

In the 18^th c after the French revolution the following words were borrowed: revolution, royalism, tyranny, bureaucracy.