
- •Etymological Characteristic of the Modern English Vocabulary
- •Indo-European stock
- •Common Germanic origin
- •Borrowed words
- •The Celtic Elements in the English Vocabulary
- •The Scandinavian Elements
- •Latin borrowings
- •The Norman – French Elements
- •Assimilation of Loan Words
- •Etymological Doublets
- •International Words
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:
Indo-European stock
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:
A wide range of lexical and grammatical valency
High frequency value
Developed polysemy
They are often monosyllabic
They show great word-building power
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.