15. English Etymology (native words, borrowed words).

- The etymology is the study of lexical history. It investigates the origins of individual lexemes, the relations they have had to each other, and how they have changed in meaning and in form to reach their present state.

- Native vocabulary. Many lexemes have always been there – in the sense that they arrived with the Germanic invaders, and have never fallen out of use. They stand for fundamental things dealing with everyday objects and things, e.g. domestic life: house,door, floor; calendar: sun, day, month; adjectives: black, wide, long; verbs: fly, drink, be. prepositions: above, about..

- The fact that most of these words are short and concrete has often been noted as a major stylistic feature of the Anglo-Saxon lexicon. Native words belong to the original English word-stock and are known from the earliest Old English manuscripts. It is customary to subdivide native words into those of the Indo-European stock (having cognates in the vocabularies of all or almost all Indo-European languages) and those of the common Germanic origin (having cognates only in Germanic languages, but not in Romance, Slavonic or other languages). Words having cognates in the vocabularies of different Indo-European languages form the oldest layer, denoting elementary concepts without which no human communication would be possible. That they fall into definite semantic groups (Antrushina 2000:54): e.g. terms of kinship: mother, son; landscape: summer, sun, wind, wood; animals: cat, goose; parts of body: hand, foot, bone; verbs: sit (sitzen), know, come, know; most numerals also belong here: 1-8,10, hundred.

- A much bigger part of this native vocabulary layer is formed by words of the common Germanic stock, i.e. of words having parallels in German, Norwegian, Dutch, but none in Russian or French. It contains a greater number of semantic groups, e.g.: nouns of general character: bridge, chicken, god, cheek, ice. verbs: burn, send, hear; adjectives: sick, grey, free. adverbs and pronouns: all, each, self. prepositions: after, by, up.

- The English proper element is opposed to the above-mentioned groups: the words are specifically English having no cognates in other languages standing alone in the vocabulary system of Indo-European Languages: bird, boy, girl, lord, lady, woman, daisy, always.

- Foreign borrowings. Whenever two languages come into contact, one or both may be modified. The feature which is imitated is called the model; the language in which the model occurs, or the speaker of that language, is called the donor; the language which acquires smth new in the process is the borrowing language. So, when one language takes lexemes from another, the new items are usually called loan words or borrowings. The number and character of borrowings do not only depend on the historical conditions, on the nature and length of the contacts, but also on the degree of the genetic and structural proximity of languages concerned. The closer the languages the deeper is the influence. Borrowings enter the language in 2 ways: through oral speech (by immediate contact between the people) and through written speech (by direct contact through books).To distinguish types of borrowings existing in the Modern English it is necessary to consider changes borrowings have undergone in the English language and how they have adapted themselves to its peculiarities. So, the adaptation of loan words (or assimilation) must be considered as a way of their interaction with the system of the language as a whole. The term “assimilation” of a loan word in used in Modern English Lexicology (Prof. J.V.Arnold, R.S.Ginsburg) to denote a partial or total conformation to the phonetical, graphical and morphological standards of the receiving language and its semantic system. The degree of assimilation depends upon the length of period during which the word has been used in the receiving language, upon its importance for communication purpose and its frequency.

Prof. D.I.Kveselevich suggests the following three groups of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation:

1. completely assimilated borrowings (denizens) that follow English phonetical, grammatical and graphic standards and do not seem foreign in origin, e.g. call, face, husband, street, table, take, etc.

2. partially (or partly) assimilated borrowings (aliens) which fall into four subgroups:

a) not assimilated semantically because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from which they come (i.e. units of specific national lexicon), e.g. sombrero, shah, sheikh, toreador, hrivna;

b) not assimilated grammatically, e.g. nouns of Latin of Greek origin which retain their original plural forms: crisis – crises, phenomenon – phenomena;

c) not assimilated phonetically, e.g. accent on the final syllable (machine, police), sounds that are not standard for the English language (// – regime, bourgeois), variation in pronunciation (boulevard, restaurant);

d) not assimilated graphically, e.g. final consonant is not pronounced (ballet, buffet), diacritic mark is kept (cliché), French digraphs are retained in spelling (bouquet, naive).

3) unassimilated borrowed words and phrases (barbarisms) which preserve their original spelling and other characteristics, always corresponding English equivalents and, therefore, are not indispensable in English, e.g. ciao, persona grata, affiche, eureka, etc.

- The Celtic Element in the English Vocabulary. Especially numerous among the Celtic borrowings were place names, names of rivers, hills. For instance, the names of the rivers Thames, Avon, originate from Celtic words meaning “river” and “water”. Town names include Dover “water”, Eccles “church”, London (a tribal name), Kent (meaning unknown). Some Celtic words survived in English in some geographical names: aber -- Aberdeen, dun - Dundee, Dunstable, Dunbar, Dunbarton; inch- Inchcape, Inchcolon; inver-Inverary, Inverness.Some English personal names have Celtic origin: Arthur, Donald, Evan etc. A few Celtic words which have acquired international currency: budget, career, clan, flannel, mackintosh, plaid, tunnel.

- The Classical Element in the English Vocabulary.

Latin loans in Middle English : Administration and law: client, conspiracy, legal, summary; Science and learning: comet, equator, history, simile; Religion: limbo, memento; General: combine, depression, nervous.

The simultaneous borrowing of French and Latin words led to a highly distinctive feature of Modern English vocabulary – sets of three items all expressing the same fundamental notion differing slightly in meaning or style, e.g. kingly /royal/ regal and rise /mount/ ascend where the Old English word is usually the more popular one, with the French more literary, and the Latin word more learned.

Greek words that came into English through the medium of Latin include: allegory, anaesthesia, chaos, dilemma. Modern scientific and technical terms of Greek origin are nearly all of international currency. Greek coming via French include: centre, character, chronicle, machine. The following came directly from Greek, though some are combinations unknown in classical times: pathos, telegram, xylophone. Also there were borrowings from French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

Renaissance loan words in English from Latin and Greek: anonymous, appropriate, catastrophe, impersonal, monosyllable, parasite, pneumonia, tonic, transcribe, utopian, vacuum, virus.

Completely assimilated Latin borrowings in English: animal, box, butter, cap, cheese, cook, cross, cup;

Greek borrowings: analysis, botany, comedy, chorus, democracy, dialogue, epilogue, episode, metaphor;