2 The original stock of English words

By the native (origin) words we mean words which were not borrowed from other languages but represent the original stock of this particular language. The native words are further subdivided diachronically into : Indo-European element, Germanic element and English proper element.

By the Indo-European element are meant words of roots common to all or most languages of the Indo-European group. This layer is the oldest one. English words of (his group fall into definite semantic groups. Among them:

1) family relations: father, mother, brother, son, daughter;

2) parts of the human body: arm, ear, foot, heart, nose, lip;

3) names of animals and birds: bull, cat, crow, goose, wolf, cow, swine;

4) plants: tree, birch, corn;

5) time of day: day, night;

6) heavenly bodies: sun, moon, star;

7) numerous adjectives: red, new, glad, sad, hard, quick, slow, white;

8) phenomena of nature: wind, water, wood, hill, stone, tree;

9) the numerals from 1 to 100;

10) pronouns: personal (except they which is a Scandinavian borrowing) and demonstrative;

11) numerous verbs: be (cf. R. быть), stand (cf. R.стоять ), sit (cf. R. сидеть), eat (cf. R. есть), know (cf. R. знать).

A much bigger part of this native vocabulary layer is formed by words of the Germanic element which represent^ words of roots common to all or most Germanic languages. Some of the main groups of Germanic words are the same as in Indo-European element:

1) parts of the human body: head, hand, finger, bone;

2) animals: bear, fox, calf;

3) plants: oak, fir, grass;

4) phenomena of nature: rain, frost, storm, ice;

5) seasons of the year: summer, winter, spring (autumn is a French borrowing);

6) landscape features: see, land, ground;

7) human dwelling and furniture: house, room, bench;

8) sea-going vessels: boat, ship;

9) adjectives: green, blue, grey, white, small, thick, high, old, good;

10) verbs: see, hear, speak, tell, say, answer, make, give, drink.

The English proper element is dated by the 5^th century A.D. These words have another distinctive feature, they have no cognates in other languages: e.g. boy, bird, girl, lord, lady, woman, daisy, always.

The English proper element also contains all the later formations, that is words which were made after the 5' century according to English word-building patterns both from native and borrowed morphemes. For example, the adjective beautiful built from the French borrowed root and the native suffix belongs to the English proper clement.

3. The distinction of the terms "source of borrowing", "origin of borrowing", "translation loans", "semantic loans".

By the tern: "source of borrowing" we mean the language from which the loan word was taken into English,By the term "origin of borrowing" we mean the language to which the word may be traced. e.g. paper< Fr. papier, Lat. papyrus< Gr. papyros

In this example we can see that the source of borrowing is French but the origin of borrowing is Greek.

Alongside we distinguish translation and semantic loans. Translation loans are words and expressions formed from the material already existing in British language but according to patterns taken from another language, by way of literal morpheme -for - morpheme translation. It is quite obvious that is only compound words: e.g. wall newspaper :: Russ. стенная газета first dancer:: Ital. prima-ballerina

The term "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. For example, the English word pioneer is meant "one who is among the first". But under the influence of the Russian word it has come to mean "a member of the Young Pioneer's Organization".

Another example, the word gift in Old English meant "a ransom for woman" and in Scandinavian it meant "married couple".