Ukrainian-English lexical correlations

Lexical correlations are defined as lexical units from different languages which are phonetically and semantically related. The number of Ukrainian-English lexical correlations is about 6870.

The history of the Slavonic-German ties resulted in the following correlations: beat - бити, call - голос, day - день, widow - вдова, young - юний.

Beside Ukrainian-English lexical correlations the Ukrainian language contains borrowings from modern English period e.g. брифінг, короткий інструктаж - briefing', диск-жокей, ведучий програм - disk-jockey; естеблішмент, організація суспільно-державних установ країни -establishment; хіт парад, конкурс популярних пісень - hit parade та інші.

Assimilation is the process of changing the adopted word. The process of assimilation of borrowings includes changes in soundform, morphological structure, grammar characteristics, meaning and usage.

Phonetic assimilation comprises changes form and stress. Sounds that were alien to the English language were fitted into its scheme of sounds, e.g. In the recent French borrowings cafe the long [e] is rendered with the help of [ei]. The accent is usually transferred to the first syllable in the words from foreign sources.

Grammatical adaptation is usually a less lasting process, because in oder to function adequately in the recipient language a borrowing must completely change its paradigm. Though there are some well-known exceptions as plural forms of the English Renaissance borrowings - datum pi. data, criterion - pi. criteria and others.

The process of semantic assimilation has many forms: narrowing of meanings (usually polysemantic words are borrowed in one of the meanings); specialization or generalization of meanings, acquiring new meanings in the recipient language, shifting a primary meaning to the position of a secondary meaning.

Completely assimilated borrowings are the words which assimilated completely in other language. They take an active part in word-formation.

Partially assimilated borrowings are the words which lack one of the types of assimilation. They are subdivided into the groups:

1. Borrowings not assimilated semantically (e.g. shah, rajah). Such words usually denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from which they came.

2. Loan words not assimilated grammatically, e.g. nouns borrowed from Latin or Greek which keep their original forms (datum - data, phenomenon -phenomena).

3. Loan words not completely assimilated phonetically. These words contain peculiarities in stress, combinations of sounds that are not standard for English (machine, tobacco).

4. Loan words not completely assimilated graphically (e.g. ballet, cliche).

Barbarisms are words from other languages used by the English people in conversation or in writing but not assimilated in any way, and for which there are corresponding English equivalents, e.g. ciao Italian — good-bye English.

The borrowed stock of the English vocabulary contains not only words but a great number of suffixes and prefixes (-age, -ance, -ess, -ment).

In many cases one and the same word was borrowed twice either from the same language or from different languages. This accounts for the existence of the so called etymological doublets like canal - channel (Latin - French), balsam -balm (Greek - French).

International words. There exist many words that were borrowed by several languages. Such words are mostly of Latin and Greek origin and convey notions which are significant in the field of communication in different countries. Here belong names of sciences {philosophy, physics, linguistics), terms of art {music, theatre, drama, artist, comedy), political terms {politics, policy, progress). The English language became a source for international sports terms {football, hockey, cricket, rugby, tennis).