3. Etymological survey of the English lexicon.

Etymology is the study of lexicon history, it investigates the origin of individual lexemes, how they have changed. In every modern language there are native and borrowed words. As for English language many scientist consider the foreign influence to be the most important factor in the development of the Eng. language. There are more borrowed words in English than in any other European language. So we speak of the mixed character of the English vocabulary. It contains the native element and the borrowed elements. The native element includes Indo-European, Germanic element and English proper element: boy, girl, lord, lady – proper English word. By the native element we mean words which were not borrowed from other languages. The number of native words is rather small, about 25%-30%. About 70% of words are borrowed. This fact gave ground to the assumption that English is not a Germanic language, but a Romano-Germanic language The native words are subdivided into those of Indo-European origin and those of Common Gmc origin. Words of Indo E origin fall into categories: terms of kinship (father, mother, son) words naming import phenomenon of nature (sun, moon, stsr, wind) names of animals and birds (cat, bull, wolf) parts of human body (arm, eye, foot) verbs (come, sit) most numerals. A much bigger part of the native voc is formed by words of the common Gmc origin. The nouns (summer, shop, house, room, evil) verbs (bake, burn, buy, drive, hear) Native words are often monosyllabic and show great word-building power and are used in many expressions. The term “borrowing” may mean the process of borrowing and the result of the process-the word itself. The term source of borrowing means the language which from the word was taking into English. EG: delicious was taken from French so, French is the source of borrowing.

The term origin of borrowing denotes the language to which the word may be traced. EG: the word “school is a Latin borrowing. (It comes from Latin) of greek origin. It means that to Latin (it) came from Greek. “to adore” came from French. There are different reasons for borrowing words, linguistic and extra linguistic (historic) reason. Historic reasons include wars and conquest and peaceful contacts as well. The main linguistic reason are the following: 1.) a gap in vocabulary. EG: potato, tomato were borrowed from Spanish, when these vegetables were brought to the British island. So, the word were borrowed together with notions which they denoted. 2.) To present the same notion in a new aspect, from a different point of view. EG: The French word “to adore” was added to native words “to like” and “to love”, to denote the strongest degree of the process. This type of borrowing enlarge groups of synonyms. The classification of English borrowings includes more than ten groups. The main groups of borrowing are: - Latin- borrowings from French- borrowing from Scandinavian Translation-loan(s) (калька) – are borrowings which are made up by means of literally translating words and word combinations. EG: from the Russian language: пятилетка – five-year plan. from German: Wunderkind – wonder child. from Italian: prima ballerina – first dancer. Doublets are words which have the same origin were derived by different routes from the same word but they are different in phonetic shape and in meaning. Doublets appeared in English in different ways. 1) One of the pair may be a native word and the other a borrowed one. EG: the word “shirt” is a native one. “skirt” was borrowed from Scandinavian. (одежда) 2) Both the words are borrowed, but from different languages. EG: senior (from Latin) sir (from French) 3) Both the words are borrowed from one of the same language, but at different period of time. EG: catch (Normandy French) – кавалерия. chase (Parisian Language) – рыцарство (ch-показывает о более позднем происхождение) 4) Shortening may bring to life etymological doublets. EG: history and story, defense and fance.

International words are the words, which borrowed by several language, among international words are names of sciences (phonetic, physics, political terms, sports, name of fruits, foods) French borrowings. Administrative words: state, government, parliament, council, power. Legal terms: court, judge, justice, crime, prison. Military terms: army, war, soldier, officer, battle, enemy. Educational terms: pupil, lesson, library, science, pen, pencil.