20. Assimilation of borrowing (types of assimilation)

The process of adoptation of borrowed words to the laws of the borrowing language is called assimilation. There’re 3 types of assimilation: 1)phonetic; 2)grammatical; 3)lexical.

1)Phonetic: when a borrowing enters a new language system all the elements of its phinetic structure undergo some changes. The most important are the changes in sound form and stress. Sounds that are alien to the borrowing language are fitted into the scheme of sound. Familiar sounds or sound combinations the position of which is alien to english are replaced by some other sounds or sound combinations to adopt the words to the norms of english. Shift of stress. As is known in english the accent is on the 1^st syllable of a word => when french or latin words were borrowed into middle english the accent was gradually transfered to the 1^st syllable. Thus the nouns honour & reason and analagous words were accented on the same principal as native father, mother. Shift of stress is usually a long process. Some words still retain their native stress (machine, technic, police, but technical).

2)Grammatical: change of grammatical categories & paradigms. Borrowings lose their former grammatical categories, drop their foreign inflexions and acquire new grammatical categories & paradigms by analogy with other words of the borrowing language (Ex: sputnik). But there’re some words in modern english that for centuries retain their foreign inflexions. A large group of borrowed terms in english adopted in the 16^th century or later have preserved their original plural inflexion to this day (phenomenon – phenomena; datum - data).

3)Lexical: when a word is borrowed into another language as a rule its semantic structure undergoes great changes. Polysemantic words are adopted only in 1 or 2 of their meanings. Thus the word “tembre”, which has a number of meanings in french was borrowed into english as musical term only. The word “cargo” highly polisemantic in spanish was adopted only in 1 of its meanings. In the process of its historical development a borrowing may aquire new meanings that are not to be found in the former semantic structure (Ex: move in modern english has developped the following meanings: to propose at a meeting; to change to different living quaters; mix with people, that the french muvoir hasn’t). Umbrella, which was borrowed in the meaning of parasol, sunshade from italian ombrella come to denote a similar object for protection from rain.

21. Synonyms

Synonymy is one of modern linguistics' most controversial problems. The very existence of words traditionally called synonyms is disputed by some linguists; the nature and essence of the relationships of these words is hotly debated and treated in quite different ways by the representatives of different linguistic schools. Even though one may accept that synonyms in the traditional meaning of the term are somewhat elusive and, to some extent, fictitious it is certain that there are words in any vocabulary which clearly develop regular and distinct relationships when used in speech.The duality of synonyms is, probably, their most confusing feature: they are somewhat the same,

and yet they are most obviously different. Both as aspects of their dual characteristics are essential for them to perform their function in speech: revealing different aspects, shades and variations of the same phenomenon.

Here the second synonym in each pair is quite obviously and intentionally contrasted and opposed to the first: "... smile, not grin." Yet, to grin means more or less the same as to smile, only, perhaps, denoting a broader and a rather foolish smile. In the same way to swagger means "to walk", but to walk in a defiant or insolent manner. Mumbling is also a way of speaking, but of speaking indistinctly or unintelligibly. Synonyms are one of the language's most important expressive means. The above examples convincingly demonstrate that the principal function of synonyms is to represent the same phenomenon in different aspects, shades and variations. A carefully chosen word from a group of synonyms is a great asset not only on the printed page but also in a speaker's utterance. The skill to choose the most suitable word in every context and every situation is an essential part of the language learning process.

Synonymy is associated with some theoretical problems which at present are still an object of controversy. Probably, the most controversial among these is the problem of criteria of synonymy. To put it in simpler words, we

are still not certain which words should correctly be considered as synonyms.Traditional linguistics solved this problem with the conceptual criterion and defined synonyms as words of the same category of parts of speech conveying the same concept but differing either in shades of meaning or in stylistic characteristics. A group of synonyms may be studied with the help of their dictionary definitions (definitional analysis). In this work the data from various dictionaries are analysed comparatively. After that the definitions are subjected to transformational operations (transformational analysis). In this way, the semantic components of each analysed word are singled out.

Synonyms are defined as words which are interchangeable at least in some contexts without any considerable alteration in denotational meaning. The only existing classification system for synonyms was estab-

lished by Academician V. V. Vinogradov, the famous Russian scholar. In his classification system there are

three types of synonyms: ideographic (which he defined as words conveying the same concept but differing in shades of meaning), stylistic (differing in stylistic characteristics) and absolute (coinciding in all their shades of meaning and in all their stylistic characteristics). In conclusion, let us stress that even if there are some synonyms

which are interchangeable, it is quite certain that there are also others which are not.