4. Assimilation of Borrowings

The process of adaptation of loan words to the phonetical, graphical and morphological standards of the receiving language and its semantic system is called assimilation of loan words. In accordance with it linguists distinguish phonetic, grammatical and lexical assimilation of borrowings.

1. Phonetic assimilation comprises changes in sound form and stress. Sounds that were alien to the English language were fitted into its system of sounds. The French long [e:] and [є:] in recent French borrowings alien to English speech are rendered by the diphthong [ei]: matinée, café, fiancé. Sounds or sound combinations the position of which was strange to the English language were replaced by other sounds or sound combinations according to the norms of the English language as in the examples of the German Spitz [şpitz] which turned into [spitz]. The accent (stress) was gradually transferred to the first syllable, especially in French borrowings: `honour, `reason.

2. Grammatical assimilation. As soon as words from other languages are introduced into English, they lose their former grammatical categories and paradigms and acquire new grammatical categories and paradigms by analogy with English words. For example, the Russian word 'спутник', borrowed by English lost grammar forms of the Russian language and acquired the English ones: sputnik, sputnik's, sputniks, sputniks'.

However, there are some words in Modern English that have retained their foreign inflections. A group of borrowed nouns from Latin and Greek, all of them terms or formal words adopted in the 16 c. and later have preserved their original plural inflections to this day: Latin: datum – data, referendum – referenda, addendum – addenda, genus – genera, alumnus – alumni; Greek: criterion – criteria, phenomenon – phenomena, analysis – analyses, thesis – theses, crisis – crises. Other borrowings of the same period have two plural forms – the foreign one and the new one which appeared due to assimilation: formula – formulae/formulas, genius – genii /geniuses, vacuum – vacua /vacuums, virtuoso – virtuosi /virtuosos.

To grammatical assimilation also belongs the process of simplification of morphological structure of borrowed words. Borrowings that were composite in structure in the foreign language appeared in English as indivisible simple words. The French s'aunter ‘walk in a leisurely way’ consists of three morphemes, while in English saunter has a simple morphological structure. Italian diminutive suffixes -etto, -otto, -ella, -cello in words stiletto, ballot, umbrella, violoncello cannot be distinguished without special historical analysis.

3. Lexical assimilation. When a word is taken over into another language, its semantic structure as a rule undergoes changes:

1) Polysemantic words are usually adopted in one or two of their meanings. Thus the word timbre which has a number of meanings in French was borrowed into English as a musical term only. Also cargo that has a number of meanings in Spanish was adopted only in one meaning ‘the goods carried in a ship’.

2) In some cases we observe specialization and generalization of meaning. In the word hangar borrowed from French the meaning became more specialized, denoting ‘a building where airplanes are kept’, in French it meant just ‘shed’. We observe generalization of meaning in case of Italian umbrella ‘sunshade’ whereas in English it also serves as protection from the rain.

3) A borrowing sometimes acquires new meanings that were not to be found in its former semantic structure. For example, the verb move developed the meanings ‘change one’s flat’, ‘mix with people’ and others that the French prototype ‘mouvoir’ does not possess.

4) Usually the primary meaning of a borrowed word is retained throughout its history but sometimes it becomes a secondary meaning, e.g. Sc. feolage > fellow, was borrowed in the meaning ‘comrade, companion’, which was primary, later this primary meaning was replaced by the meaning ‘a man, or a boy’.

5) Another phenomenon which must receive special attention is the formation of derivatives from borrowed word-stems and affixes. Due to intense borrowing there appeared a lot of hybrids – words different elements of which are of etymologically different origin: happiness (happi- of Sc. origin + -ness – a native suffix), shortage, goddess (short-, god- are of native origin + -age, -ess – suffixes of French origin), ill-tempered (ill- Sc., temper- Fr., -ed – native English)