Italian Borrowings

Cultural and trade relations between Italy and England brought many Italian words into English. The earliest Italian borrowing came into English in the 14-th century, it was the word «bank» /from the Italian «banko» - «bench»/. But mostly Italian is famous by its influence in music and in all Indo-European languages musical terms were borrowed from Italian: alto, , solo, duet, trio, quartet. Among the 20-th century Italian borrowings we can mention: gazelle, incognitto, autostrada, fiasco, fascist etc.

Spanish Borrowings Spanish borrowings came into English mainly through its American variant. There are the following semantic groups of them:

1.trade terms: cargo, embargo',

2/names of dances and musical instruments: tango, rumba, habanera, guitar,

3/names of vegetables and fruit: tomato, potato, tobbaco, cocoa, banana, apricot etc.

Germanic Borrowings English belongs to the Germanic group of languages and there are borrowings from Scandinavian, German and Holland languages, though their number is much less than borrowings from Romanic languages.

Scandinavian Borrowings By the end of the Old English period English underwent a strong influence of Scandinavian due to the Scandinavian conquest of the British Isles. Here we have such nouns as: bull, cake, egg, kid, knife, skirt, window etc, such adjectives as: flat, ill, happy, low, odd, ugly, wrong, such verbs as : call, die, guess, get, give, scream and many others.

German Borrowings There are some 800 words borrowed from German into English. Some of them have classical roots, e.g. in some geological terms, such as: cobalt, zink, quarts. There were also words denoting objects used in everyday life which were borrowed from German: iceberg, lobby, rucksack, Kindergarten etc. In the period of the Second World War the following words were borrowed: SS-man, Bundeswehr, gestapo and many others. After the Second World War the following words were borrowed: Berufsverbol, Volkswagen etc.

Russian Borrowings .Among early Russian borrowings there are mainly words connected with trade relations, such as: rouble, copeck, pood, sterlet, vodka, sable, and also words relating to nature, such as: taiga, tundra, steppe etc.

There is also a large group of Russian borrowings which came into English through Rushian literature of the 19-th century, such as: duma, zemstvo. volost etc, and also words which were formed in Russian with Latin roots, such as: nihilist, intelligenzia, Decembrist etc.

After the Great October Revolution many new words appeared in Russian connected with the new political system, new culture, and many of them were borrowed into English, such as: collectivization, udarnik, Komsomol etc. and also translation loans, such as: shock worker, collective farm, five-year plan etc.

41. Phraseological Units: definition & classifications

PUs are defined as non-motivated word-grous that cannot be freely made up in speech but are reproduced as ready-made units. The essential features of PUs are stability of the lexical components & lack of motivation.

Vinogradov’s thematic classification (based on the principle of semantic cohesion btw the components of the PU):

1) phraseological combinations have partially changed meaning. They are motivated & contain 1 component used in its direct meaning (bossom friends);

2) phraseological unities have completely changed meaning. They are motivated. The metaphor on which the shift of meaning is based is clear (to play the 1^st fiddle);

3) phraseological fusions have completely changed meaning. They are non-motivated, specific for every l-ge & don’t lend themselves to literal translation (to dance attendance).

Arnold’s structural principle of classification is based on the ability to perform the same syntactic functions as words: 1) verbal: to see how the land lies; 2) substantive (functioning like nouns): skeleton in the cupboard; 3) adjectival: safe & sound; 4) adverbial: once in a blue moon; 5) interjectional: bless my soul; 6) set expressions (functioning like prepositions): on the ground.

Classification by Smirnitskiy combines the structural & semantic principles. PUs are grouped according to the number & semantic significance of their constituent parts: 1)one-summit units which have 1 meaningful constituent (to give up); 2)two-summit or multisummit which have 2 or more (common sense).

Koonin’s structural-semantic principle according to the function in communication: 1)nominative (the root of the trouble); 2) nominative-communicative (to break the ice); 3) interjectional (a pretty kettle of fish); 4) communicative which are represented by proverbs & sayings.

Koonin’s classification according to the way of formation:

1) primary ways are those when a unit is formed on the basis of a free word group: a) by means of transferring the meaning of terminological word group (to link up – познайомитися); b) free word groups formed by transforming the meaning (granny farm – дім пристарілих); c) alliteration (a sad sack – нещасний випадок); d) by using archaisms (in brown study – невеселі думки); e) by means of distorting a word group (odds & ends); f) by using a sentence in a different sphere of life (that cat won’t jump); g) using an unreal image (to have green fingers); h) using expressions of writers or politicians in everyday life (the wind of change).

2) secondary ways are those when a PU is formed on the basis of another PU & the are: conversion, changing the grammar form, analogy, contrast, shortening of proverbs & sayings, borrowing of PUs from another l-ges.