Вопрос 10 development of english vocabulary

Old English period. The OE vocabulary is mainly homogeneous (purely Germanic). Loan words are insignificant part of it. Among the native words we can distinguish the following 3 layers:

1. common IE words that describe natural phenomena, plants, animals, agricultural terms verbs of man activities adjectives etc.

2. common Germanic words: words of nature, sea, everyday life

3. special English words – not found in any other language. They are very few. (the verb “dipian” means to call is one of them)

Ways of developing the vocabulary

The OE vocabulary developed in 2 ways:

1. by forming new words from elements existing in the language

2. by taking words from other languages

In OE the first way is more important. So there are 3 main types of word building in OE:

1. morphological – that is creating new words by means of morphological elements.

2. syntactical – building new words from syntactical group

3. semantic – building new words by using existing words in new meaning.

Morphological word building is subdivided into 2 types: affixation and composition.

Middle English period

Vocabulary developed in the ME both by internal processes by borrowing words and word building morphemes from other languages.

In the sphere of internal development we may note such facts as deriving new words by means of affixation and development of meaning in accordance with social life development.

A considerable part of the vocabulary was common to English and Scandinavian dialects. Some words are easily recognized due to Scandinavian initial consonants: sk (skill, sky, skin, skirt)

Scandinavian elements became part of many geographical names. In many cases a Scandinavian word are different from its English counterparts only in small details. It is difficult to decide what actually happened whether the English word changed under Scandinavian influence.

In the Renaissance period – development of science art culture and interest in ancient civilizations brought Latin and Greek borrowings. Many French words appeared due to contacts with Europe and France. In the 16 century the mixed character of the vocabulary became quite obvious. Elements of different origin were combined into a complex system. Intimate ties between elements of different origin are confirmed by numerous hybrid formations, that are words consisting of a native root and a borrowed affix or vice versa.

According to Smith – the development of English vocabulary was mainly due to borrowings. But the leading role in the history of English vocabulary belongs to word formation and semantic changes which absorbed and remodeled the vast majority of loan words according to its own standards. So sometimes it’s difficult to say whether the word is native or borrowed.

11. The developemnt of dialects & other englishes

Old Eng. dialects.

Early ME dialets. L ME dialects. London dialect.

NE period.

Expansion of the English language from the 17^th to 19^th centuries outside Great Britain.