§10 Borrowing

Borrowing as a means of replenishing the vocabulary of present-day English is of much lesser importance and is active mainly in the field of scientific terminology. It should be noted that many terms are often made up of borrowed morphemes, mostly morphemes from classical languages ²

1) The present-day English vocabulary, especially its terminological layers, is constantly enriched by words made up of morphemes of Latin

1 See 'Introduction', § 5, p. 10; 'Various Aspects .', § 12, p. 196.

² See 'Etymological Survey', § 5, p. 164.

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and Greek origin such as words with the morphemes -tron used chiefly in the field of electronics, e.g. mesotron, cyclotron, etc.; tele-, e.g. telecast, telelecture, telediagnosis, -in, e.g. protein, penicillin; -scope, e.g. iconoscope, oscilloscope; meta-, e.g. meta-culture, metaprogram; para- meaning 'related to, near¹, e.g. paralinguistic, parabiospheric; video-, e.g. videodisk, videophone, etc.

But though these words consist of borrowed morphemes they cannot be regarded as true borrowings because these words did not exist either in the Greek or in the Latin word-stock. All of them are actually formed according to patterns of English word-formation, and many function in Modern English as new affixes and semi-affixes.¹ Words with some of them can be found in the vocabulary of various languages and reflect as a rule the general progress in science and technology.

It is noteworthy that a number of new affixes appeared in Modern English through different types of borrowing. This can be exemplified by the Russian suffix -nik which came within the words sputnik, lunnik and acquired the meaning of 'one who is connected with something', but which under the influence of beatnik¹ acquired a derogatory flavour and is now a slang suffix. It is used to denote 'person who rejects standard social values and becomes a devotee of some fact or idea', e.g. folk-nik, protestnik, Klmnik, etc. The prefix mini- is now currently used with two meanings: a) 'of very small size', e.g. minicomputer, minicar, mini-war, ministate, and b) 'very short', as in minidress,minicoat, miniskirt, etc.; the prefix maxi- was borrowed on the analogy of mini- also in two meanings: a) 'very large¹, e.g. maxi-erder, maxi-taxi, and b) 'long, reaching down to the ankle', e.g. maxicoat, maxi-dress, maxilength. The suffix -nautis found in, e.g., astronaut, aquanaut, limarnaut, etc.

Numerous borrowed root-morphemes remain bound in the vocabulary of Modern English but acquire a considerable derivative force and function as components of a specific group of compounds productive mainly in specialized spheres, e.g. acoust(o)—acousto-optic, acousto-electronics; ge(o)-, e.g. geowarfare, geoscientist, multi- e.g. multi-cultural, multi-directional, mottispectral, etc.; cosm(o)-, e.g. cosmodrome, cosmonautics, cosmonaut, etc.

2) There are true borrowings from different languages as well. They, as a rule, reflect the way of life, the peculiarities of development of the speech communities from which they come. From the Russian language there came words like kolkhoz, Gosplan, Komsomol, udarnik, sputnik, jak, etc.

The words borrowed from the German language at the time of war reflect the aggressive nature of German fascism, e.g. Blitzkrieg », Wehr-

1 See C, Barnhart. A Dictionary of New English, 1963—1972. Longman, 1973. p, 316; see also 3. M. MednuKoea, T. 10. KapasKtma, op. cit.

² See 'Word-Structure', § 3, p. 92.

³ 'aggressive war conducted with lightning-like speed and force' ⁴ 'Germany's armed forces' ⁵ 'the air force of the Third Reich'

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As most of these words remain unassimilated in present-day English, they are all the time felt as foreign words and tend to drop out from the language.

3) Loan-translations also reflect the peculiarities of the way of life of the countries they come from, and they easily become stable units of the vocabulary, e.g. fellow-traveller, self-criticism, Socialist democracy, Worker's Faculty, etc. which all come from the Russian language.

§ 11. Semantic Extension Semantic extension of words already available in the language is a powerful source of qualitative growth and development of the vocabulary though it does not necessarily add to its numerical growth; it is only the split of polysemy that results in the appearance of new vocabulary units thus increasing the number of words.' In this connection it should be remembered that the border-line between a new meaning of the word and its lexical homonym is in many cases so vague that it is often difficult to state with any degree of certainty whether we have another meaning of the original word or its homonym—a new self-contained word,² e.g. in the verb to sit-in—'to join a group in playing cards' and a newly recorded use of to sit-in—'to remain unserved in the available seats in a cafe in protest against Jimcrowism¹, or 'to demonstrate by occupying a building and staying there until their grievances are considered or until the demonstrators themselves are ejected'—the meanings are so widely apart that they are definitely felt as homonyms. The same may be said about the word heel (si.)—'a traitor, double-crosser' and heel—'the back part of a human foot¹. On the other hand, the meaning of the verb freeze—'to immobilize (foreign-owned credits) by legislative measures' and its further penetration into a more general sphere seen in to freeze wages and the correlated compound wage-freeze is definitely felt as a mere development of the semantic structure of the verb (to) freeze. The semantic connection is felt between the meanings of such words as hot: I) (mus.) 'having an elaborate and stimulating jazz rhythm' 2) (financ.) 'just Jsued' and 3) (si.) 'dangerous because connected with some crime' as in the phrase hot money; to screen—'to classify by means of standardized test, to sdect methodically' (of. the original meaning of the verb (to) screen—'to separate coal into different sizes', 'to pass through a sieve or screen'). All these meanings may serve as further examples of qualitative -growth of Modern English vocabulary.

A great number of new meanings develop in simple words which belong to different spheres of human activity, New meanings appear mostly in everyday general vocabulary, for example a beehive — 'a woman's hair style'; lungs (n pl]—'breathing spaces, such as small parks that might be placed in overpopulated or traffic-congested areas'; a bird— 'any flying craft'; a vegetable—'a lifeless, inert person'; clean (si.)— free from the use of narcotic drugs'; to uncap (sl.)— 'to disclose, to re-

¹ The above died counls shew that new meanings of the words already existing in the language and new homonyms account for 1/4 of the total number of new items.

² See 'Semasiology'. § 4, p. 47 ; 'Various Aspects...', § 12, p. 195—196.

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veal. There is a strong tendency in words of specialized and terminological type to develop non-specialized, non-terminological meanings as, for example, the technical term feedback that developed a non-terminological meaning 'a reciprocal effect of one person or thing upon another', parameter that developed a new meaning 'any defining or characteristic factor¹, scenario—'any projected course or plan of action'. It is of interest to note that many new meanings in the sphere of general vocabulary are stylistically and emotively non-neutral and marked as colloquial and slang, for example juice (US si.)—'position, power, influence; favourable standing'; bread (si.)—'money'; straight (si.)—'not deviating from the norm in politics, habits, conventional, orthodox', etc.

On the other hand scientific and technical terminological meanings appear as a result of specialization as in, e.g., read (genetic)—'to decode'; messenger—'a chemical substance which carries or transmits genetic information*.

New terminological meanings also appear as a result of expansion of the sphere of application, i.e. when terms of one branch of science develop new meanings and pass over to other branches, e.g. a general scientific term system (n) in cybernetics developed the meaning 'anything consisting of at least two interrelated parts'; logic acquired in electronics the meaning 'the logical operations performed by a computer by means of electronic circuitry'; perturbance in astronomy— 'disturbances in the motions of planets', etc.

It should be noted that new meanings appear not only as a result of semantic development of words but also as a result of semantic development of affixes. Thus, the adjectival prefix a- in such adjectives as awhir = whirring; aswivel = swivelling, aclutter = cluttered; aglaze = glazed developed a new meaning similar to the meanings of the participles but giving a more vivid-effect of the process than the corresponding non-prefixal participles in -ing and -ed.

The prefix anti- developed two new meanings: 1) 'belongng to the hypothetical world consisting of the counterpart of ordinary matter', e.g. anti-matter, anti-world, anti-nucleus, etc.; 2) 'that which rejects or reverses the traditional characteristics', e.g. anti-novel, anti-hero, anti-electron, etc.; the prefix non- developed a new meaning 'sham, pretended, pseudo', e.g. non-book, non-actor, non-policy, etc.¹

It follows from the foregoing discussion that the principal ways of enriching the vocabulary of present-day English with new words are various ways of productive word- format ion and word-creation. The most active ways of word creation are clippings and acronyms. The semantic development of words already available in the language is the main source of the qualitative growth of the vocabulary but does not essentially change the vocabulary quantitatively.

¹ See C. Barahart, op. cit.

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NUMBER OF VOCABULARY UNITS IN MODERN ENGLISH

Linguists call the total word-stock of a language its lexicon or vocabulary. There is a notion that a so-called unabridged dictionary records the unabridged lexicon, that is all the words of the language. But the lexicon of English is open-ended. It is not even theoretically possible to record it all as a closed system. The exact number of vocabulary units in Modern English cannot be stated with any degree of certainty for a number of reasons, the most obvious of them being the constant growth of Modern English word-stock especially technical terms of the sciences which have come to influence our modern society. As one of the American lexicographers aptly puts it we could fill a dictionary the size of the largest unabridged with names of compounds of carbon alone.* There are many points of interest closely connected with the problem of the number of vocabulary units in English, but we shall confine ourselves to setting down in outline a few of the major issues:

1) Divergent views concerning the nature of vocabulary units and

2) Intrinsic heterogeneity of modern English vocabulary.

§ 12. Some Debatable Problems of Lexicology Counting up vocabulary units we usually proceed from the assumption that the English lexicon comprises not only words but also phraseological units, The term "phraseological unit" however allows of different interpretation.¹ If the term is to be taken as including all types of set expressions, then various lexical items ranging from two-word groups the meaning of which is directly inferred from the meaning of its components, e.g. to win a victory, to lose one's balance, etc. to proverbs and sayings, e.g. It is the early bird that catches the worm, That is where the shoe pinches, etc. have to be counted as separate lexical units on a par with individual words. Thus in the case of to win a victory we must record three vocabulary units: the verb to win, the noun victory and the phraseological unit to win a victory- If however we hold that it is only the set expressions functioning as word-equivalents are to be treated as phraseological units, to win a victory is viewed as a variable, (free) word-group and consequently must not be counted as a separate lexical item. The results of vocabulary counts will evidently be different.

Another debatable point closely connected with the problem of the number of vocabulary units in English is one of the least investigated problems of lexicology—the border-line between homonymy and polysemy when approached synchronically and divergent views concerning lexico-grammatical homonymy.³ If identical sound-forms, e.g. work (n) and work (v) are considered to be different grammatical and semantio Variants of the same word, they are accordingly treated as one word. This conception naturally tends to diminish the total number of vocabu-

1 See Harmon A. Esinn and Donald V. Mehus, The American Language in the 1970s, USA, 1974. See also C. Bamhart, op. cit.

² See 'Word-Groups and Phraseological Units', § 11, p. 74,

3 See -Semasiology', §§ 37-39, pp. 43-47.

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lary units in English. In some cases of lexical homonymy the boundary line between various meanings of one polysemantic word and the meanings of two homonymous words is not sufficiently sharp and clear and allows of different approaches to the problem.¹ Thus, e.g., words like fly—'a two-winged insect' and fly—'a flap of cloth covering the buttons on a garment¹ may be synchronically treated as two different words or as different meanings of the same word.²

Next comes the problem of word and word variants. If, for example, we consider the clippings doc, prof, etc. as variants of the words doctor, professor, etc., we must count prof and professor, doc and doctor as two words having each two variants. If, however, we regard them as different words having each of them its sound-form and semantic structure, we shall count them as four separate words.

There is one more point of interest in connection with the problem of the number of words that should be mentioned here. Paradoxical as it may seem a great number of lexical items actually used by English-speaking people cannot practically be counted. These words are usually referred to as "occasional", "potential" or "nonce-words". The terms imply that vocabulary units of this type are created for a given occasion only and may be considered as but "potentially" existing in English vocabulary. They may be used by any member of the speech community whenever the need to express a certain concept arises. These are derived and compound words which are formed on highly productive and active word-building patterns,³ Some of these word-formation patterns and affixes are so active and productive as "to make even a representative sampling beyond our resources". In fact the suffix -er, e.g., may be added to almost any verbal stem to form a noun denoting the agent of the action. If we count up all the words that may be formed in this way, the number of vocabulary units will be considerably magnified.

It is clear from the above that the divergent views concerning the nature of basic vocabulary units cannot but affect the estimate of the size of English vocabulary in terms of exact figures.