7

Etymological Characteristic of the Modern English Vocabulary

Etymology is the origin of words.

A borrowed word is a word taken from another language and modified in phonetic shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of the English language.

A native word is one that belongs to the original English stock, as known from the earliest available manuscript of the OE period.

Native words:

1. Indo-European stock

2. Common Germanic origin

 terms of kinship: father, mother, daughter, brother, son

 words naming the most important objects and phenomena of nature: sun, moon, star, wind, hill, water, wood, tree, stone

 names of animals and birds: bull, cat, crow, goose, wolf

 parts of the human body: arm, ear, eye, foot, heart

 some frequent verbs: bear, come, sit, stand

 the adjectives of this group denote concrete physical properties: hard, quick, slow, red, white

 most numerals

Words of the native word-stock are for the most part characterized by:

1. A wide range of lexical and grammatical valency

2. High frequency value

3. Developed polysemy

4. They are often monosyllabic

5. They show great word-building power

6. They enter a number of set-expressions

Borrowed words

source of borrowing vs origin of borrowing

translation loans and semantic borrowings.

e.g. swan song from Germ. swanen gesung

masterpiece – meisterstuck

surplus value – mehrwehrt

a populist – народник

a collective farm – колхоз

a state farm – совхоз

Semantic loan is used to denote the development in an English word of a new meaning due to the influence of a related word in another language.

“Dwell” – “to wander about” (under the influence of Scandinavian - “to live”).

difficult to tell an old borrowing from a native word.

e.g. cheese, street, wall, wine belong to the earliest Latin borrowings.

The initial position of the sounds [v], [G], [Z] is a sign that the word is not of native stock.

e.g. vacuum (Lat.), valley (Fr.)

The initial [Z] occurs in comparatively late borrowings.

e.g. genre (Fr.)

The letters j, x, z in initial position and in combinations as ph, kh, eau in the root indicate the foreign origin of the word.

e.g. philosophy (Gr.), physics (Gr.), khaki (Ind.), beau (Fr.)

x is pronounced [ks] in words of native origin and [gz] in words of Latin origin.

e.g. six, exist

ch is pronounced [C] in native words and early borrowings; [S] – in late French borrowings; [k] – in words of Greek origin.

e.g. child, chair; machine, parachute; echo, epoch, chemist.

There are some suffixes and prefixes that show that the word is borrowed.

e.g. concentrate, disagree

The Celtic Elements in the English Vocabulary

Old Celtic borrowings which entered the English stock: bannock (пресный коржик), bin (корзина), brat (мальчик, проказник), down (дюна), dun (тёмно-коричневый).

In geographical names: Britain, the Thames etc.

In other periods from living Celtic languages (Scottish, Irish, Gaelic)there were borrowed such words: clan (клан), whisky, slogan, tory (meant ирландский работник).

career, cloak, carpenter, ear, to carry, clock.