Лексикология английского языка. Учебник

The I-E E includes words of roots common to all or most languages of the E-U group. E words of this group denote elementary concepts without which no human communication would be possible, e.g.

I Family relations: father, mother, brother, son, daughter.

II Parts of the human body: foot, nose, lip, heart.

III Animals: cow, swine, goose.

IV Plants: tree, birch, corn.

V Time of day: day, night.

VI Heavenly bodies: sun, moon, star.

VII Numerous adjectives: red, new, glad, sad.

VIII Numerals (1-100)

IX Pronouns – personal (except they), demonstrative.

X Numerous verbs: be, stand, sit, eat, know.

The GE represents words of roots common to all or most Germanic languages. Some of the main groups are the same as in the I-E E.

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I Parts of the human body: head, hand, arm, finger, bone.

II Animals: bear, fox.

III Plants: oak, fir, grass.

IV Natural phenomena: rain, frost.

V Seasons: winter, spring, summer.

VI Landscape features: sea, land.

VII Dwelling, furniture: house, room, bench as well as adjectives and verbs.

The EPE is opposed to the first 2 groups: these words are specifically English having no cognates in other languages unlike the words of I-E and G groups.

e.g., Stand: stehen (Germ.), stare (Lat.), стоять (R), stha- (Snscr.)

N words possess such properties which make them dominant units of nomination:

1. They name vitally important fields of human activity (thus, semantically they are leading).

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2.They are distinguished by high polysemy which makes them indispensable for communication.

3.Morphemically they are simple words (mostly root

words).

4.They are characterized by high derivational potential thanks to their morphemic simplicity and semantic importance.

5.High frequency value due to their semantic value, w-b ability and stylistic neutrality.

6.They take part information of phraseological units (e.g., to kill two birds with one stone; It is an early bird that catches the worm).

7.Free lexical collocability and unlimited syntactic

behaviour.

All these features making up a complete portrait of a N unit reveal its basic importance and key-role in the formation and development of EV.

3.

The BC is not homogenious and includes the following groups.

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Latin borrowings

1st group (1st century B.C.)

Most of the territory known as Europe is occupied by the Roman Empire. The Germanic tribes living in the continent are primitive cattle breeders. Their tribal languages contain only Indo-European and Germanic elements. Having come into a peaceful contact after a number of wars with the Romans, they gain knowledge of new and useful things:

-new food: butter, cheese, cherry, pear, plum, pea, pepper, beet, plant

-cup, kitchen, mill, port, wine

-Trade: wine, pound

This group of borrowings from spoken Latin besides enriching Germanic tribal languages was destined to become the earliest group of borrowings in the future English language.

Celtic borrowings (5th-6th A.D.)

When several of the Germanic tribes migrated across the English Channel to the British Isles, they were confronted by the Celts, the original inhabitants of the Isles. Under the military

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pressure they gradually yielded most of their territory retreating to the North and South-West. Through their numerous contacts with the defeated Celts, a number of Celtic words assimilated into English:

-bald, down, druid, bard, cradle;

-place names, names of rivers, hills (Avon, Exe, Esk, Usk originate from Celtic ‘river’ and ‘water’);

London (Llyn-dun) – fortress on the hill over the river.

Latin borrowings

2nd group (7th century A.D.)

This period was connected with the spread of christianity and the Christianization of England. The borrowings from church Latin indicated:

-persons, objects and ideas associated with church and religious rituals: priest, bishop, monk, nun, candle;

-educational terms: school, scholar, magister.

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Scandinavian borrowings (8th – 11th century A.D.)

appeared as a result of several Scandinavian invasions:

-call, take, cast, die, law, husband, window, loose, ill, low, weak, they;

-initial sk-: sky, skill, skin, ski, skirt.

-In geographical names: by (Derby) – деревня, thorp

(Althorp) - деревушка, toft (Lowestoft) -

отгороженное место.

Some words changed their meaning under the influence of Scandinavian words: bread (O.E. piece), dream (O.E. joy).

French borrowings

Norman borrowings (11th – 13th c. A.D.)

After the defeat of the English in the Battle of Hastings in 1066 there started the period of the Norman Conquest. England became a bi-lingual country and words from the Norman dialect penetrated every aspect of social life. Since the 11th century 57% of English vocabulary were borrowed.

-administrative words: state, government, parliament, council, power;

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-legal terms: court, judge, justice, crime, prison;

-military terms: army, war, soldier, officer, battle, enemy;

-educational terms: pupil, lesson, library, science, pen, pencil;

-terms of everyday life: table, plate, saucer, dinner, supper, river, autumn, uncle.

The borrowed words were terms, bookish words while the E. equivalents were used in spoken language.

e.g., deep – profound, do – act, begin – commence, wish

– desire, help – aid, harm – injury, come – arrive, speech – discourse.

By the 15th century all French borrowings were assimilated.

Parisian borrowings (Renaissance) came from the Parisian dialect of French: regime, routine, police, machine, ballet, scene, technique, etc. They preserved French spelling and pronunciation.

Italian borrowings

-trade, financial operations: bank, bankrupt;

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-military terms: alarm, colonel;

-art: studio, balcony, fresco;

-music: cello, piano, violin, bass, soprano, opera, sonata;

-poetry: canto (песнь), stanza;

-Italian proper words: gondola, umbrella, casino, volcano, macaroni, to manage, medico.

Spanish borrowings

-trade terms: cargo, embargo;

-objects of trade: banana, cocoa, chocolate, cigar, potato, tomato, tobacco;

-natural phenomena, plants and animals: coyote, cockroach, hurricane, tornado;

-military terms: armada, guerilla;

-Spanish proper: Negro, matador, mulatto.

-

Dutch borrowings

-shipbuilding: cruise, dock, yacht.

-painting: easel, etch, landscape.

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Russian borrowings (not numerous)

-development of trade with the Moscow state (16-18 c.): rouble, tsar, copeck, samovar, astrakhan, zakouska, troyka, vodka;

-words of the period of Socialism: soviet, bolshevik, komsomol, kolkhoz, collective farm, five-year plan.

4 a)

The great influx of borrowings from different sources can be accounted for by a number of social/ historical and linguistic causes. In the study of the borrowed element in English the main emphasis is as a rule placed on the Middle English period. Borrowings of later periods became the object of investigation only in recent years. Their study showed that the flow of borrowings has been steady and uninterrupted.

When two nations come into close contact, certain B are a natural consequence. The nature of the contact may be different. It may be wars, invasions or conquests when are imposed upon a conquered nation. There also periods of peace

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when the process of B is due to trade and international cultural relations. In these cases we speak of a social nature of B.

The number and character of borrowings do not only depend on the historical conditions, on the nature and length of the contacts, but also on the degree of the genetic and structural proximity of languages concerned. The closer the languages, the deeper and more versatile is the influence. This largely accounts for the well-marked contrast between the French and the Scandinavian influence on the English language.

Linguistic causes are many-sided.

1) Sometimes a word is B to fill a gap in the voc-ry which lacks such words.

E.g., Latin butter, plum, Spanish potato, tomato.

2) In other cases, it is borrowed because it represents the same notion in some new aspect, supplies a new shade of meaning or a different emotional colouring. This type of B enlarges groups of synonyms and enriches the expressive resources of the vocabulary.

E.g., N friendly – Lat. Cordial, N wish – Fr. desire, N love, like – Lat. admire, Fr. adore.

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