Лабораторная работа №8

English wordstock

Topics for discussion in class

1. Historical changes in English wordstock.

Questions and assignments

1. Write out from the text examples of native English words, French (or Latin) and Scandinavian borrowings and trace them back to the Middle English or Old English periods.

2. Analyse the word-building elements in the following words and comment on their origin:

favourable, miscalled, nominally, recall, good-natured

3. Account for the etymological layers in the English word-stock which you discover in the text by describing the relevant events in the history of Britain.

4. Speak of phonetic marks and components in the morphological structure of the word helping to distinguish etymological layers in the English word-stock.

5. Give examples from the text of hybrids with different etymological components.

6. Read and translate the text given below into Modern English / Russian. Make a complete phonetic, grammar and vocabulary analysis of the text following the models of Seminar 6 and Seminar7.

William Shakespeare,

Sonnets, ab. 1600

Another form of literary work at which Shakespeare excelled was the writing of sonnets, lyric verse fashionable in Elizabethan England. It is justly said that there were few poetic compositions of any author or age that have evoked so much admiration as Shakespeare's sonnets. Most of them were probably written between 1593 and 1599 and were first published as a collection in 1609.

Sonnet № 153

Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep:

A maid of Dian's this advantage found,

And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep

In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;

Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love

A dateless lively heat, still to endure,

And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove

Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.

But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,

The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;

I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,

And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,

But found no cure: the bath for my help lies

Where Cupid got new fire — my mistress's eyes.

Лабораторная работа №9

Vocabulary layers

Topics for discussion in class

1. Geographical expansion of English in the course of history.

2. Etymological strata in New English vocabulary and their historical explanation.

3. Influence of Latin on English in different periods.

4. Influence of the French language on English in different periods.

5. Latin and French word-building elements in English.

Questions and assignments

1. From what languages and when did the English language received the following words:

orange, receive, street, chess, kiln, sovereign, potato, fetish?

Prove your point of view.

2. Give five examples each of Latin words borrowed to English directly and via French and state the time of the borrowing.

3. What are word-hybrids? Give examples of word-hybrids consisting of three or more elements different by origin.

4. Read and translate the text given below into Russian. Make a grammar and vocabulary analysis of the text following the model of Seminar 7. Pay particular attention to foreign word-building elements.

Ch. Dickens, "David Copperfield",

a. 1850

Charles Dickens (1812—1870), the son of a government clerk, underwent in early life, as the result of his family's poverty resulting from his father's imprisonment, experiences similar to some of those depicted in "David Copperfield", and received little education. He became newspaper reporter of debates in the House of Commons and contributed to other periodicals, the articles that were subsequently republished as "Sketches of Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People" (1836—37). These were immediately followed by "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club", where Dickens reached the plentitude of his power and achieved success and financial ease. "David Copperfield" appeared in monthly numbers in 1849—50. Later Dickens was to write of it: "Of all my books I like this the best."

Extract from Chapter 4

Shall I ever forget those lessons! They were presided over nominally by my mother, but really by Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were always present, and found them a favourable occasion for giving my mother lessons in that miscalled firmness, which was the bane of both our lives. I believe I was kept at home for that purpose. I had been apt enough to learn and willing enough, when my mother and I had lived alone together. I can faintly remember learning the alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I look upon the fat black letters of the primer, the puzzling novelty of their shapes, and the easy good nature of O and Q and S seem to present themselves again before me as they used to do. But they recall no feeling of disgust or reluctance. On the contrary, I seem to have walked along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book, and to have been cheered by the gentleness of my mother's voice and manner all the way. But these solemn lessons which succeeded those, I remember as the death-blow at my peace, and a grievous daily drudgery and misery. They were very long, very numerous, very hard — perfectly unintelligible, some of them, to me — and I was generally as much bewildered by them as I believe my poor mother was herself.

Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back again.