5.3 Ways of forming phraseological units

A.V. Koonin classified phraseological units according to the way they are formed, pointing out primary and secondary ways of forming phraseological units.

Primary ways of forming phraseological units are those when a unit is formed on the basis of a free word-group:

a) most productive in Modern English is the formation of phraseological units by means of transferring the meaning of terminological word-groups, e.g. launching pad, to link up;

b) a large group of phraseological units was formed from free word-groups by transforming their meaning, e.g. granny farm, Troyan horse;

c) phraseological units can be formed by means of alliteration, e.g. a sad sack, culture vulture, fudge and nudge;

d) they can be formed by means of expressiveness, especially it is characteristic for forming interjections, e.g. My aunt! Hear, hear!;

e) by means of distorting a word group, e.g. odds and ends;

f) by using archaisms, e.g. in brown study;

g) by using a sentence in a different sphere of life, e.g. that cock won’t fight;

h) by using some unreal image, e.g. to have butterflies in the stomach, to have green fingers;

i) by using expressions of writers or politicians in everyday life, e.g. corridors of power, American dream, the winds of change).

Secondary ways of forming phraseological units are those when a phraseological unit is formed on the basis of another phraseological unit. They are:

a) conversion, e.g. to vote with one’s feet → vote with one’s feet;

b) changing the grammar form, e.g. make hay while the sun shines → to make hay while the sun shines;

c) analogy, e.g. curiosity killed the cat → care killed the cat

d) contrast, e.g. acute surgery → cold surgery;

e) shortening of proverbs and sayings, e.g. you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear → a sow’s ear;

f) borrowing phraseological units from other languages, either as translation loans, e.g. living space (German), to take the bull by the horns (Latin);

or by means of phonetic borrowings, e.g. sotto voce (Italian), corpse d’elite (French).

6. Etymological analysis of modern english vocabulary Outline

6.1 Etymological characteristics of the English vocabulary.

6.2 Words of native origin.

6.3 The foreign component in the English vocabulary.

6.4 Assimilation of borrowings.

6.5 Etymological doublets.

6.1 Etymological characteristics of the vocabulary

Etymology is the study of the origin of words. English vocabulary consists of two layers – the native stock and the borrowed stock of words.

Native words comprise only 30% of vocabulary but the native words form the bulk of the most frequent words. The native element in English embraces a large number of high-frequency words: the articles, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliaries, words denoting everyday objects and ideas.

6.2 Words of native origin

A native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock (native element), as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period.

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

Native words are characterized by:

• significant range of lexical and grammatical valency,

• high frequency value

• developed polysemy

• monosyllabic

They show a great word-building potential and enter a number of set expressions. The grammatical structure is essentially Germanic and they remained unaffected by foreign influence.

Native words:

(1) the Indo-European core stock

(2) Common Germanic origin, i.e. of words having parallels in German, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic, etc., but none in Russian, French, and Ukrainian.

(1) the Indo-European element is words of roots common to all or most all languages of the Indo-European group.

The words having cognates (words of the same etymological root, of common origin) in the vocabularies of different Indo-European languages form the oldest layer.

They denote elementary concepts without which no human communication would be possible.

The Indo-European element:

a) family relations / kinship terms, e.g. father, mother, brother, son, daughter, widow

b) parts of the human body, e.g. foot, nose, heart, knee, breast, heel, elbow

c) animals, birds, fish, insects, e.g. cow, swine, donkey, goose, bat, bee, calf, bull, raven, sheep, wolf

d) plants, e.g. tree, birch, corn, barley, wheat, willow, walnut, garlic, oak,

e) time of day, e.g. day, night

f) names of natural phenomena, e.g. sun, moon, star, snow, rain, wind

g) numerous adjectives denoting common qualities and properties, e.g. red, new, glad, sad, cool, dark, sweet, young, light

h) the numerals from one to a hundred

i) pronouns –

• personal (except they which is a Scandinavian borrowing)

• demonstrative

j) numerous verbs, e.g. be,stand, sit, eat, know

k) some place names, e.g. marsh, meadow, hill, land, acre, cliff

l) names of things of everyday life, instruments, clothes, buildings,

e.g. nail, needle, rake roof,

hammer, yard, box, boat,

hat, jar, knife, spoon,

shed, shelter

The Germanic element represents words of roots common to all or most Germanic languages. Some of the main groups of Germanic words are the same as in the Indo-European element, cf.: Star: Germ. Stern, Lat. Stella, Gr. aster

Stand: Germ, stehen, Lat. stare, Ukr. стoяти

English proper words. These words stand quite alone in the vocabulary system, e.g. bird, boy, girl, lord, lady, woman, daisy, always.