Гос филология / Гос филология / 2. etymological characteristics

Etymology – is a branch of Ling-cs studying the origin of words, their change and development, structure, m-ng and usage. The term “Etymology” is derived from the Greek word – “etymo” – which means original m-ng of a word. According to the etymological principle the English voc-ry is usually divided into 2 classes: native words make up 30% of the English voc-ry and borrowed words. Native words are words which belong to the original word stoсk. Words adopted from foreign lang-ges are known as borrowed words. native words make up the greatest part of The Basic Word Stoсk – is the stable stoсk of the most frequently used 3 or 4 thousand words. Native occur in any spoken or written speech e.g. words of native origin include most of the conjunctions, numerals, prepositions, pronouns and strong verbs, the definite and indefinite articles. The native element in modern English is mostly monosyllabic but are usually polysemantic. They show great word building power and make up the majority of proverbs and set expressions, e.g. water – to water, watery, waterproof, waterfall, “blood is thicker than water” (свой своего не обидит); According to their origin native words may be divided into 3 groups: Indo-European; Common German; English words proper. Native words of the Indo-European origin are the oldest: Romanic, Slavonic, Germanic: father, mother, brother, son; nose, heart, foot; goose, wolf; to be, to eat, to sit, to stand; quick, slow, red; numerals of the Common Germanic Stork have parallels in the lang-ges of the Germanic group only: Dutch, German, Danish, such words as: hand; summer, winter, spring; storm, rain, ice; house, ship; hat, life, to go, to tell, to see, to hear, to drink, to sing, may, to have; all, each, such; here, there, near. The 3^rd group of native words is represented by English words proper: boy, girl, lord, lady, woman, bird, daisy, always.

Borrowings in the E V. There are many words in Eng that are of foreign origin. The original lang-ge to which the word may be traced is called the origin of borr-g, e.g. the word “infantry” (пехота) has French as its source of bor-g and Italian is its origin. Main groups of loan words in Eng are represented by borr-gs from Latin, Scandinavian and French.

Latin Borr-gs-are numerous in Eng. They constitute about a forth of the Eng voc-ry. Latin borr-gs may be divided into 3 groups: 1) ancient borr-gs which goes back as far as the 1^st century B.C. when the Anglo-Saxon tribes were still on the continent and came into contact with the Romans through trade. Of this period they are: dish, cup, butter, cheese, wine, cherry, plum, hare, spices, pepper, street, wall, kitchen. 2) Borr-gs which came to Britain in the 6^th & 7^th centuries when Christianity was introduced: alter, angel, bishop, , pope, Christ, school, 3) Words borrowed during the Renaissance in the 14^th: senior, major, minor, , music, area,. Most of them are only partially assimilated but Latin borr-gs of the 1^st 2 periods are completely assimilated borr-gs .

Scandinavian Borr-gs are over 650 words which denote common objects, properties and actions. Many Scandinavian words appeared in the Eng voc-ry: law, husband, fellow, sky, skin, wing, root, skill, anger, finger, to call, to want, , ill, , happy, they. A characteristic feature of Scan borr-gs is the preservation of the initial sounds [sk]=sk=sc: skirt, skill, scatter; or [g] before front vowels: get, give, forget, anger.

French Borr-gs are especially numerous in Eng. They may be divided into old borr-gs, and new. After the Norman conquest French became the official lang-ge in England. The 1^st French borr-gs were terms connected with war, court, law, soldiers, army, piece, government. 16^th century: chair, tabledinner, supper, soup, , joy, pleasure, comfort, dress. In the 17^th century there was a change in the character of Fr borr-gs. New borr-gs preserved their Fr forms as a rule: campaign, garage, ballet, machine.

Celtic Borr-gs are of historical importance for Eng. The whole number of Celtic words in Eng is 165 according to Walter Skeat’s counts: banner (булка домашнего хлеба), glad, loch/lock (lake). Celtic elements are mostly found in place names, e.g. aber (the mouth of the river) – Aberdeen; inch (an island) – Inchcape .

Assimilation of Borrowings. Assim-n is a process of adjusting in Phonetics & Lex-gy. There are 3 main types: 1. Phonetic Ass-n – the adjusting of the phonetic structure of a borrowed word to the phonetical system of the recipient lang. Loan words not assimilated phonetically retain their foreign pronunciation like most of the French borr-gs of the latest time, e.g. police, machine, ballet; 2. Gramm Ass-n – the adjusting of a borrowed word to the morphological standards of the receiving lang. Gramm-ly ass-ted loan words acquire Eng grammatical categories and paradigms, e.g. to count-counted-counting, sputnik-sputniks. 3.Lexical Ass-n – the adjusting of a borrowed word to the lexico-semantic system of the receiving lang. It means that a borrowed word may participate in WB and develop its semantic structure, e.g. sputnik – to out sputniks, sputnikists. There is group of words which are not completely ass-ted graphically, e.g. ballet, café (with diacritic mark). Degree of Ass-n depends on the follow factors: 1.The time of borr-g. The older the borr-g is, the more thoroughly it’s ass-ted; 2.The frequency of usage; 3. The way in which the word was adopted. Types. According to the degree of Ass-n, borr-gs are subdivided into: 1. completely ass-ted words. They correspond to all phonetic, morphological and semantic laws of Eng 2. partially assimilated. They’ve retained: a.foreign pronunciation (vase, restaurant) b. foreign morphological characteristics (datum – data) c. These are foreign realies which have no corresponding equivalents in Eng; 3. barbarisms (unassimilated borrowed words). These are foreign words used by Eng people in oral speech or in writing but not ass-ted in any way. They usually have corresponding Eng equivalents, e.g. “Chao” (Italian), “adio”.

Etymological doublets. Among borr-ed words in Eng, we find – international words – words, which come from the same source & are found in many different lang-ges at a given period of time. They express notions, belonging to science, technology, & everyday life. e.g. motor (Latin), kimono (Japan), coffee (Turkey). Many international words were constructed from Latin & Greek elements nowadays: telephone, television. Such words are called pseudo classical words. International words that come from Eng are: football, out, club,. International words of Russian origin in Eng are: tsar, rouble, vodka, sputnik.

Translation Loans are words & expressions formed from the material already existing in the Eng lang-ge but according to patterns taken from another lang-ge by way of literal morpheme-for-morpheme or word-for-word translation, e.g.: wall newspaper – stennaya gazeta (Russian), old believer, Red square, Winter Palace.

Semantic Borrowings are the expansion of the semantic structure of a word under the influence of correlated foreign one. It’s the bor-g of a m-ng from the semantic structure of the correlated foreign word, e.g.: the Eng word pioneer (explorer) under the influence of the new m-ng of the correlated Russian word (пионер) developed one more m-ng: a member of a young pioneer organization;