6. Etymology of lexical Units. Etymological Doublets

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. Etymological theory recognizes that words originate through a limited number of basic mechanisms, the most important of which are borrowing (i.e., the adoption of "loanwords" from other languages); word formation such as derivation and compounding; and onomatopoeia and sound symbolism, (i.e., the creation of imitative words such as "click"). Lexical units (also lexical items or lexical entries) are the basic elements of the lexicon (also vocabulary) of a natural language.

Etymological doublets.

Doublets are two words which were derived from the same basic word but by different routs. They differ in sound-form and meaning. The main source of etymological doublets in English is Latin language.

There are two reasons of the process:

1. One word was borrowed directly from Latin and the other – from French (major)

2. Words borrowed twice (discus → disc → dish, disk) (camera-chamber) (skirt-shirt)

7. Types of Borrowings

Borrowing – 1) (process) 2) (result) a loan word, borrowed word – a word taken over from another language and modified in phonemic shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of the English language. The following types of borrowings can be distinguished:

- loan words proper (собственно заимствования) – the sound-form and the meaning are borrowed together (sky – Scandinavia, to dance – French).

- borrowed word-building morphemes – first a number of words with the morpheme is taken from another language, then the morpheme begins to form new words (-able-Latin; -ment-French; -ism-Greek).

- translation loans (кальки) – patterns taken from another language are formed with native English material (Lingua materna – mother-tongue)

- semantic loans – a new sense of an English word that appeared under the influence of a related word in another language (reaction; to move (change))

- word coins (произведенные) from Latin and Greek – are formed to denote new notions or inventions using Latin or Greek words (telephone)

8. Types of Word-building

All morphemes are subdivided into two large classes: roots (or radicals} and affixes. The latter, in their turn, fall into prefixes which precede the root in the structure of the word (as in re-read, mis-pronounce, un-well) and suffixes which follow the root (as in teach-er, cur-able, diet-ate).

English is a very flexible language and you can build on your vocabulary and learn how to make new words.

One way of doing this is to add prefixes (such as dis, pre or co) before the word. Here's a list of common prefixes with their meanings and some examples.

anti (= against)

antibodies, anti-social

auto (self)

autonomous, autobiography, automobile

bi (= two)

bicycle

co (= with)

cooperate, coordinate

contra (= against)

contradict, contravene

You can also make new words from the words you already know by using different endings. For example, "The person who employs me has a fast car". You can make this sentence simpler, by replacing "the person who employs me" with "my employer". This gives you "My employer has a fast car."

In English you can make nouns from verbs (to employ gives employer and employee). You can also make verbs from nouns or adjectives: government gives to govern, modern gives to modernise and so on.

Here are some common word endings:

Nouns

-er /- or: a person who does something

adviser / advisor, teacher, learner

-ment: result of action

improvement, advancement

-age

marriage

-y

photography

Verbs

-ify

falsify, modify

-ise

modernise

Adjectives

-ful

awful, wonderful

-able / ible

comfortable, terrible

Conversion (from V to N) is sometimes referred to as an affixless way of word-building or even affixless derivation. Saying that, however, is saying very little because there are other types of word-building in which new words are also formed without affixes (most compounds, contracted words, sound-imitation words, etc.).

Verbs can also be made from adjectives: to pale, to yellow, to cool, to grey.

Sound-Imitation (Onomatopoeia1) are made by imitating different kinds of sounds that may be produced by animals, birds, insects, human beings and inanimate objects. In England ducks quack and frogs croak, for English cats mew or miaow (meow). The same can be said about cows: they moo.

The term COMPOUNDING is here used to refer to word building by the combination of one word and a prefix or of two full-fledged words.( is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem.)

Derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine.