5. Borrowed Element in the English Vocabulary: Types of borrowings

Etymological doublets are pairs of words of the same language which share the same etymological basis but have entered the language through different routes; often diverge in currect meaning and usage. They may result from:

• shortening: defence – fence, appeal – peal; history – story;

• stressed and unstressed position of one and the same word: of – off, to – too;

• borrowing the word from the same language twice, but in different periods: jail (Par. Fr.) – goal (Norm. Fr.);

• development of the word in different dialects or languages that are historically descended from the same root: to chase (Northern Fr) – to catch (Central Fr); chart – card; channel (Fr) – canal (L); senior (L) – sir (Fr).

Borrowed Element in the English Vocabulary: Types of borrowings

Hybrids are words made up of elements from two or more different languages.

Patterns of hybrids:

• native affix (prefix or suffix) + borrowed stem: befool, besiege, beguile; graceful, falsehood, rapidly;

• borrowed affix + native stem: drinkable, starvation, wordage; recall, embody, mishandle;

• borrowed affix + borrowed stem + native affix: discovering;

• native affix + native stem + borrowed affix: unbreakable.

6. Assimilation of Borrowings

The term assimilation of a loan word is used to denote a partial or total conformation to the phonetical, graphical, and morphological standards of the receiving language and its semantic system.

The term type of assimilation refers to the changes an adopted word may undergo:

• phonetic assimilation;

• graphical assimilation;

• grammatical assimilation;

• semantic assimilation.

The degree of assimilation depends upon the period of time during which the word has been used in the receiving language, its communicative importance and frequency:

• completely assimilated loans;

• partially assimilated loans;

• non-assimilated loans (barbarisms).

Completely assimilated loan-words are found at all the layers of older borrowings: cheese, street, wall, wine; gate, wing, die, take, happy, ill, low, odd, wrong.

Partially assimilated loan-words:

• not assimilated semantically: sheik, sherbet;

• not assimilated grammatically: crisis – crises, formula – formulae;

• not assimilated phonetically: the final syllable is stressed (machine, cartoon, police); /ʒ/ - beige, prestige, regime; /wα:/ – memoir;

• not assimilated graphically: last consonant is not pronounced (ballet, buffet, debut); a diacritic mark (café, cliché); have specific diagraphs (bouquet, brioche).

Barbarisms are words not assimilated in any way and for which there are corresponding English equivalents: It. addio, ciao; Fr. tête-à-tête.

7. Borrowed Element in the English Vocabulary: Latin loans

Periodisation:

• Early Latin loans, e.g. cup, kettle, dish, plum, butter, wall etc.;

• Later Latin loans (Christianity), e.g. lily, pearl, palm, choir, library, fiddle, peach,marble;

• Latin loans in Middle English (the Norman conquest+the Renaissance), e.g. animal, legal, simile, gesture, spacious, interest etc.;

• The latest Latin influence, e.g. cf., i.e., ib., viz., etc.

Features of Latin loans:

• polysyllabic words with prefixes: commission, induction, accelerate;

• prefixes with final consonants: ad-, ab-, com-, dis-, ex-, in-, ob-: admix, abnormal, compare, disclose, inattention;

• reduplicated consonants: abbreviation, occasion, illumination, immobility, difference, opportunity, resurrection, assimilation;

• suffixes –ate, -ute in verbs: locate, irritate, abbreviate, execute;

• suffixes –ant, -ent, -ior in adjectives: reluctant, evident, superior;

• Latin plural endings are preserved: memorandum – memoranda; datum – data; formula – formulae, formulas; focus – focuses or foci.