12. Structure and functions of syllables in English.

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. Syllables have internal structure: they can be divided into parts: onset and rhyme; within the rhyme we find the nucleus and coda. Not all syll have all parts; the smallest possible syll contains a nucleus only. A syll may or may not have an onset and a coda.

Onset - the beginning sounds of the syllable; the ones preceding the nucleus. These are always consonants in English. Rhyme is the rest of the nucleus. The nucleus is the essential part of a syllable and it is a vowel in most cases, although the consonants [l, m, n, r] can also be nucleus of a syll. Ex: read, trap, flop, strap. The coda comprises the consonant sounds of syllable that follow the nucleus.

Auditoryly the syllable is the smallest unit of perception. A syllable can be formed by a vowel: (V); by a vowel and a consonant: (VC); by a consonant and a sonorant (CS). V — types of syllable called uncovered open, err

VC — types of syllable called uncovered closed, eat

CVC — types of syllable called covered closed,pit

CV — types of syllable called covered open, 

The syll performs three functions: constitutive, distinctive, identificatory. They are closely connected.

1. constitutive function. Syl-s constitute words, phrases, sentences through the combination of their prosodic features: loudness – stress, pitch-tone, duration – length and tmpo. Syl-s can be stressed, unstressed, high, mid, low, rising, falling, long and short. All these features constitute the stress pattern of words, tonal and rhythmic structure of an utterance

2. distinctive function. There are many combinations in English that differ from each other by means of the difference in the place of the syllabic boundary: a name — an aim, ice cream — I scream.

3.Identificatory Function. This function is connected with the pronunciation of the speaker. The listener can understand the exact meaning of the utterance only if he perceives the correct syllabic boundary —my train мой поезд — might rain возможен дождь.

The main features of s-s are:

-a s constructed on the basis of contrast of it constituents(c-v)

-a s is a chain of phonemes of varying length

-the nucleus of a s is a vowels, the presence of consonant is optional

The main functions are constitutive (it lies in its ability to be a part of word) and distinctive (is characterized by its ability to differentiate word and word-forms)

13. The Etymology of English words (words of native origin, borrowings).

Etymology is a brunch of linguistics that studies the origin and history of words tracing them to the earliest determinable source. The etymological structure of the Eng. vocab-ry consists of the native and borrowed elements.

English vocabulary contains immense number of foreign and origin words. Appearance of borrowed words depends on historical factors.

Words of the native element may be divided into 3 groups: Indo-European, Germanic, English-proper element. I. words appear in English vocabulary in 5^th century or later. Ex: father, mother, son, daughter, foot, nose, lip, heart, day, night, numbers from 1 to 100. G. groups are head, arm, hand, finger, bear, fox, grass, rain, frost, house, room, and green, blue, grey. English-proper – words of the same etymological root of common origin. Ex: the word ‘finger’ doesn’t only denote a part of hand as in old English, but also the part of glove covering one of the fingers; a hand of a clock; an index. Also phraseological units enter in this group: upon the heels – попятам.

Borrowings enter the L. through 2 ways: oral and written speech.

1. Completely assimilated borrowed words. They follow all morphological, phonetical and orphological standarts. Comp.assim.words are found in all the layers of older borrowings.

-cheese (the first layer of Latin borrowings)

-husband (Scan)

-face (Fr)

2. Partially assimilated borrowed words. They are subdivided into four groups:

a)Non-assimilated semantically (sari, sombrero,shah,kvass)Because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country.

b)Non-assimilated grammatically. E.g. nouns borrowed from Latin and Greek have kept the original plural forms: crisis-crises, phenomenon-phenomena.

c)Non-assimilated phonetically: some of French borrowings keep the accent on the final syllable: machine, cartoon, police.

d)Not completely assimilated graphically: phoneme, morpheme(ph-f); ballet,buffet(Fr);Psycology(ps-s)

3.Barbarisms or unassimilated borrowings.This group includes words from other L.used in conversation or in writing but non-assimilated in any way.E.g.: addio,ciao(It)-‘good-bye’