Language units

SPECIALIZATION It is a gradual process when a word passes from a general sphere to somespecial sphere of communication, e.g. 'case' has a general meaning'circumstances in which a person or a thing is'. It is specialized in itsmeaning when used in law (a law suit), in grammar (a form in the paradigmof a noun), in medicine (a patient, an illness). The difference betweenthese meanings is revealed in the context. The meaning of a word can specialize when it remains in the generalusage. It happens in the case of the conflict between two absolute synonymswhen one of them must specialize in its meaning to remain in the language,e.g. the native word 'meat' had the meaning 'food', this meaning ispreserved in the compound 'sweetmeats'. The meaning 'edible flesh' wasformed when the word 'food', its absolute synonym, won in the conflict ofabsolute synonyms (both words are native). The English verb 'starve' wasspecialized in its meaning after the Scandinavian verb 'die' was borrowedinto English. 'Die' became the general verb with this meaning because inEnglish there were the noun 'death' and the adjective 'dead'. 'Starve' gotthe meaning 'to die of hunger' . The third way of specialization is the formation of Proper names fromcommon nouns, it is often used in toponimics, e.g. the City - the businesspart of London, Oxford - university town in England, the Tower -originallya fortress and palace, later -a prison, now - a museum. The fourth way of specialization is ellipsis. In such cases primaraly wehave a word-group of the type 'attribute + noun', which is used constantlyin a definite situation. Due to it the attribute can be dropped and thenoun can get the meaning of the whole word-group, e.g. 'room' originallymeant 'space', this meaning is retained in the adjective 'roomy' and wordcombinations: 'no room for', 'to take room', 'to take no room'. Themeaning of the word 'room ' was specialized because it was often used inthe combinations: 'dining room', 'sleeping room' which meant 'space fordining' , 'space for sleeping'.

GENERALIZATION It is a process contrary to specializaton, in such cases the meaning of aword becomes more general in the course of time. The transfer from a concrete meaning to an abstract one is most frequent,e.g. 'ready' (a derivative from the verb 'ridan' - 'ride') meant 'preparedfor a ride', now its meaning is 'prepared for anything'. 'Journey' wasborrowed from French with the meaning 'one day trip', now it means 'a tripof any duration'. All auxiliary verbs are cases of generalization of their lexical meaningbecause they developed a grammatical meaning : 'have', 'be', 'do', 'shall', 'will' when used as auxiliary verbs are devoid of their lexical meaningwhich they have when used as notional verbs or modal verbs, e.g. cf. 'Ihave several books by this writer' and 'I have read some books by thisauthor'. In the first sentence the verb 'have' has the meaning 'possess',in the second sentence it has no lexical meaning, its grammatical meaningis to form Present Perfect.

METAPHOR It is a transfer of the meaning on the basis of comparison. Herman Paulpoints out that metaphor can be based on different types of similarity: a) similarity of shape, e.g. head (of a cabbage), bottleneck, teeth (of asaw, a comb); b) similarity of position, e.g. foot (of a page, of a mountain), head (ofa procession); c) similarity of function, behaviour e.g. a whip (an official in theBritish Parliament whose duty is to see that members were present at thevoting); d) similarity of colour, e.g. orange, hazel, chestnut etc. In some cases we have a complex similarity, e.g. the leg of a table has asimilarity to a human leg in its shape, position and function. Many metaphors are based on parts of a human body, e.g. an eye of aneedle, arms and mouth of a river, head of an army. A special type of metaphor is when Proper names become common nouns, e.g.philistine - a mercenary person, vandals - destructive people, a Don Juan -a lover of many women etc.

METONYMY It is a transfer of the meaning on the basis of contiguity. There aredifferent types of metonymy: a) the material of which an object is made may become the name of theobject , e.g. a glass, boards, iron etc; b) the name of the place may become the name of the people or of anobject placed there, e.g. the House - members of Parliament, Fleet Street- bourgeois press, the White House - the Administration of the USA etc; c) names of musical instruments may become names of musicians, e.g. theviolin, the saxophone; d) the name of some person may becom a common noun, e.g. 'boycott' wasoriginally the name of an Irish family who were so much disliked by theirneighbours that they did not mix with them, 'sandwich' was named after LordSandwich who was a gambler. He did not want to interrupt his game and hadhis food brought to him while he was playing cards between two slices ofbread not to soil his fingers. e) names of inventors very often become terms to denote things theyinvented, e.g. 'watt' , 'om', 'rentgen' etc f) some geographical names can also become common nouns through metonymy,e.g. holland (linen fabrics), Brussels (a special kind of carpets) , china(porcelain) , astrachan ( a sheep fur) etc.

ELEVATION It is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes better in the course oftime, e.g. 'knight' originally meant 'a boy', then 'a young servant', then'a military servant', then 'a noble man'. Now it is a title of nobilitygiven to outstanding people; 'marshal' originally meant 'a horse man' nowit is the highest military rank etc.

DEGRADATION It is a transfer of the meaning when it becomes worse in the course oftime. It is usually connected with nouns denoting common people, e.g.'villain' originally meant 'working on a villa' now it means 'a scoundrel'. HYPERBOLE It is a transfer of the meaning when the speaker uses exaggeration, e.g. 'to hate'(doing something), (not to see somebody) 'for ages'. Hyperbole is often used to form phraseological units, e.g. 'to make amountain out of a molehill', 'to split hairs' etc. LITOTE It is a transfer of the meaning when the speaker expresses affirmativewith the negative or vica versa, e.g. not bad, no coward etc.

PHRASEOLOGY The vocabulary of a language is enriched not only by words but also byphraseological units. Phraseological units are word-groups that cannot bemade in the process of speech, they exist in the language as ready-madeunits. They are compiled in special dictionaries. The same as wordsphraseological units express a single notion and are used in a sentence asone part of it. American and British lexicographers call such units'idioms'. We can mention such dictionaries as: L.Smith 'Words and Idioms',V.Collins 'A Book of English Idioms' etc. In these dictionaries we can findwords, peculiar in their semantics (idiomatic), side by side with word-groups and sentences. In these dictionaries they are arranged, as a rule,into different semantic groups. Phraseological units can be classified according to the ways they areformed, according to the degree of the motivation of their meaning,according to their structure and according to their part-of-speech meaning.

WAYS OF FORMING PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS A.V. Koonin classified phraseological units according to the way theyare formed. He pointed out primary and secondary ways of formingphraseological units. Primary ways of forming phraseological units are those when a unit isformed on the basis of a free word-group : a) Most productive in Modern English is the formation of phraseologicalunits by means of transferring the meaning of terminological word-groups,e.g. in cosmic technique we can point out the following phrases: 'launchingpad' in its terminological meaning is 'стартовая площадка' , in itstransferred meaning - 'отправной пункт', 'to link up' - 'cтыковаться,стыковать космические корабли' in its tranformed meaning it means-'знакомиться'; b) a large group of phraseological units was formed from free word groupsby transforming their meaning, e.g. 'granny farm' - 'пансионат дляпрестарелых', 'Troyan horse' - 'компьюторная программа, преднамеренносоставленная для повреждения компьютера'; c) phraseological units can be formed by means of alliteration , e.g. 'asad sack' - 'несчастный случай', 'culture vulture' - 'человек,интересующийся искусством', 'fudge and nudge' - 'уклончивость'. d) they can be formed by means of expressiveness, especially it ischaracteristic for forming interjections, e.g. 'My aunt!', ' Hear, hear !'etc e) they can be formed by means of distorting a word group, e.g. 'odds andends' was formed from 'odd ends', f) they can be formed by using archaisms, e.g. 'in brown study' means 'ingloomy meditation' where both components preserve their archaic meanings, g) they can be formed by using a sentence in a different sphere of life,e.g. 'that cock won't fight' can be used as a free word-group when it isused in sports (cock fighting ), it becomes a phraseological unit when itis used in everyday life, because it is used metaphorically, h) they can be formed when we use some unreal image, e.g. 'to havebutterflies in the stomach' - 'испытывать волнение', 'to have greenfingers' - 'преуспевать как садовод-любитель' etc. i) they can be formed by using expressions of writers or polititions ineveryday life, e.g. 'corridors of power' (Snow), 'American dream' (Alby)'locust years' (Churchil) , 'the winds of change' (Mc Millan). Secondary ways of forming phraseological units are those when aphraseological unit is formed on the basis of another phraseological unit;they are: a) conversion, e.g. 'to vote with one's feet' was converted into 'votewith one's f eet'; b) changing the grammar form, e.g. 'Make hay while the sun shines' istransferred into a verbal phrase - 'to make hay while the sun shines'; c) analogy, e.g. 'Curiosity killed the cat' was transferred into 'Carekilled the cat'; d) contrast, e.g. 'cold surgery' - 'a planned before operation' wasformed by contrasting it with 'acute surgery', 'thin cat' - 'a poor person'was formed by contrasting it with 'fat cat'; e) shortening of proverbs or sayings e.g. from the proverb 'You can'tmake a silk purse out of a sow's ear' by means of clipping the middle ofit the phraseological unit 'to make a sow's ear' was formed with themeaning 'ошибаться'. f) borrowing phraseological units from other languages, either astranslation loans, e.g. ' living space' (German), ' to take the bull by thehorns' ( Latin) or by means of phonetic borrowings 'meche blanche'(French), 'corpse d'elite' (French), 'sotto voce' (Italian) etc. Phonetic borrowings among phraseological units refer to the bookish styleand are not used very often.

SEMANTIC CLASSIFICATION OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS Phraseological units can be classified according to the degree ofmotivation of their meaning. This classification was suggested by acad.V.V. Vinogradov for Russian phraseological units. He pointed out threetypes of phraseological units: a) fusions where the degree of motivation is very low, we cannot guessthe meaning of the whole from the meanings of its components, they arehighly idiomatic and cannot be translated word for word into otherlanguages, e.g. on Shank's mare - (on foot), at sixes and sevens - (in amess) etc; b) unities where the meaning of the whole can be guessed from themeanings of its components, but it is transferred (metaphorical ormetonymical), e.g. to play the first fiddle ( to be a leader insomething), old salt (experienced sailor) etc; c) collocations where words are combined in their original meaning buttheir combinations are different in different languages, e.g. cash andcarry - (self-service shop), in a big way (in great degree) etc.

STRUCTURAL CLASSIFICATION OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS Prof. A.I. Smirnitsky worked out structural classification ofphraseological units, comparing them with words. He points out one-topunits which he compares with derived words because derived words have onlyone root morpheme. He points out two-top units which he compares withcompound words because in compound words we usually have two rootmorphemes. Among one-top units he points out three structural types; a) units of the type 'to give up' (verb + postposition type), e.g. toart up, to back up, to drop out, to nose out, to buy into, to sandwichin etc.; b) units of the type 'to be tired' . Some of these units remind thePassive Voice in their structure but they have different prepositons withthem, while in the Passive Voice we can have only prepositions 'by' or'with', e.g. to be tired of, to be interested in, to be surprised at etc.There are also units in this type which remind free word-groups of the type'to be young', e.g. to be akin to, to be aware of etc. The differencebetween them is that the adjective 'young' can be used as an attribute andas a predicative in a sentence, while the nominal component in such unitscan act only as a predicative. In these units the verb is the grammarcentre and the second component is the semantic centre; c) prepositional- nominal phraseological units. These units areequivalents of unchangeable words: prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs ,that is why they have no grammar centre, their semantic centre is thenominal part, e.g. on the doorstep (quite near), on the nose (exactly), inthe course of, on the stroke of, in time, on the point of etc. In thecourse of time such units can become words, e.g. tomorrow, instead etc. Among two-top units A.I. Smirnitsky points out the following structuraltypes: a) attributive-nominal such as: a month of Sundays, grey matter, amillstone round one's neck and many others. Units of this type are nounequivalents and can be partly or perfectly idiomatic. In partly idiomaticunits (phrasisms) sometimes the first component is idiomatic, e.g. highroad, in other cases the second component is idiomatic, e.g. first night.In many cases both components are idiomatic, e.g. red tape, blind alley,bed of nail, shot in the arm and many others. b) verb-nominal phraseological units, e.g. to read between the lines , tospeak BBC, to sweep under the carpet etc. The grammar centre of such unitsis the verb, the semantic centre in many cases is the nominal component,e.g. to fall in love. In some units the verb is both the grammar and thesemantic centre, e.g. not to know the ropes. These units can be perfectlyidiomatic as well, e.g. to burn one's boats,to vote with one's feet, totake to the cleaners' etc. Very close to such units are word-groups of the type to have a glance, tohave a smoke. These units are not idiomatic and are treated in grammar as aspecial syntactical combination, a kind of aspect. c) phraseological repetitions, such as : now or never, part and parcel ,country and western etc. Such units can be built on antonyms, e.g. ups anddowns , back and forth; often they are formed by means of alliteration, e.gcakes and ale, as busy as a bee. Components in repetitions are joined bymeans of conjunctions. These units are equivalents of adverbs or adjectivesand have no grammar centre. They can also be partly or perfectly idiomatic,e.g. cool as a cucumber (partly), bread and butter (perfectly). Phraseological units the same as compound words can have more than twotops (stems in compound words), e.g. to take a back seat, a peg to hang athing on, lock, stock and barrel, to be a shaddow of one's own self, atone's own sweet will.

SYNTACTICAL CLASSIFICATION OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS Phraseological units can be clasified as parts of speech. Thisclassification was suggested by I.V. Arnold. Here we have the followinggroups: a) noun phraseologisms denoting an object, a person, a living being, e.g.bullet train, latchkey child, redbrick university, Green Berets, b) verb phraseologisms denoting an action, a state, a feeling, e.g. tobreak the log-jam, to get on somebody's coattails, to be on the beam, tonose out , to make headlines, c) adjective phraseologisms denoting a quality, e.g. loose as a goose,dull as lead , d) adverb phraseological units, such as : with a bump, in the soup, likea dream , like a dog with two tails, e) preposition phraseological units, e.g. in the course of, on the strokeof , f) interjection phraseological units, e.g. 'Catch me!', 'Well, I never!'etc. In I.V.Arnold's classification there are also sentence equivalents,proverbs, sayings and quatations, e.g. 'The sky is the limit', 'What makeshim tick', ' I am easy'. Proverbs are usually metaphorical, e.g. 'Too manycooks spoil the broth', while sayings are as a rule non-metaphorical, e.g.'Where there is a will there is a way'.

BORROWINGS Borrowing words from other languages is characteristic of Englishthroughout its history More than two thirds of the English vocabulary areborrowings. Mostly they are words of Romanic origin (Latin, French,Italian, Spanish). Borrowed words are different from native ones by theirphonetic structure, by their morphological structure and also by theirgrammatical forms. It is also characterisitic of borrowings to be non-motivated semantically. English history is very rich in different types of contacts with othercountries, that is why it is very rich in borrowings. The Roman invasion,the adoption of Cristianity, Scandinavian and Norman conquests of theBritish Isles, the development of British colonialism and trade andcultural relations served to increase immensely the English vocabulary. Themajority of these borrowings are fully assimilated in English in theirpronunciation, grammar, spelling and can be hardly distinguished fromnative words. English continues to take in foreign words , but now the quantity ofborrowings is not so abundunt as it was before. All the more so, Englishnow has become a 'giving' language, it has become Lingva franca of thetwentieth century. Borrowings can be classified according to different criteria: a) according to the aspect which is borrowed, b) according to the degree of assimilation, c) according to the language from which the word was borrowed. (In this classification only the main languages from which words wereborrowed into English are described, such as Latin, French, Italian.Spanish, German and Russian.)

CLASSIFICATION OF BORROWINGS ACCORDING TO THE BORROWED ASPECT There are the following groups: phonetic borrowings, translation loans,semantic borrowings, morphemic borrowings. Phonetic borrowings are most characteristic in all languages, they arecalled loan words proper. Words are borrowed with their spelling,pronunciation and meaning. Then they undergo assimilation, each sound inthe borrowed word is substituted by the corresponding sound of theborrowing language. In some cases the spelling is changed. The structure ofthe word can also be changed. The position of the stress is very ofteninfluenced by the phonetic system of the borrowing language. The paradigmof the word, and sometimes the meaning of the borrowed word are alsochanged. Such words as: labour, travel, table, chair, people are phoneticborrowings from French; apparatchik, nomenklatura, sputnik are phoneticborrowings from Russian; bank, soprano, duet are phonetic borrowings fromItalian etc. Translation loans are word-for-word (or morpheme-for-morpheme )translations of some foreign words or expressions. In such cases the notionis borrowed from a foreign language but it is expressed by native lexicalunits, 'to take the bull by the horns' (Latin), 'fair sex' ( French),'living space' (German) etc. Some translation loans appeared in Englishfrom Latin already in the Old English period, e.g. Sunday (solis dies).There are translation loans from the languages of Indians, such as: 'pipeof peace', 'pale-faced', from German 'masterpiece', 'homesickness','superman'. Semantic borrowings are such units when a new meaning of the unitexisting in the language is borrowed. It can happen when we have tworelative languages which have common words with different meanings, e.g.there are semantic borrowings between Scandinavian and English, such as themeaning 'to live' for the word 'to dwell' which in Old English had themeaning 'to wander'. Or else the meaning 'дар' , 'подарок' for the word'gift' which in Old English had the meaning 'выкуп за жену'. Semantic borrowing can appear when an English word was borrowed into someother language, developed there a new meaning and this new meaning wasborrowed back into English, e.g. 'brigade' was borrowed into Russian andformed the meaning 'a working collective','бригада'. This meaning wasborrowed back into English as a Russian borrowing. The same is true of theEnglish word 'pioneer'. Morphemic borrowings are borrowings of affixes which occur in thelanguage when many words with identical affixes are borrowed from onelanguage into another, so that the morphemic structure of borrowed wordsbecomes familiar to the people speaking the borrowing language, e.g. we canfind a lot of Romanic affixes in the English word-building system, that iswhy there are a lot of words - hybrids in English where different morphemeshave different origin, e.g. 'goddess', 'beautiful' etc.

CLASSIFICATION OF BORROWINGS ACCORDING TO THE DEGREE OF ASSIMILATION The degree of assimilation of borrowings depends on the followingfactors: a) from what group of languages the word was borrowed, if the wordbelongs to the same group of languages to which the borrowing languagebelongs it is assimilated easier, b) in what way the word is borrowed:orally or in the written form, words borrowed orally are assimilatedquicker, c) how often the borrowing is used in the language, the greaterthe frequency of its usage, the quicker it is assimilated, d) how long theword lives in the language, the longer it lives, the more assimilated itis. Accordingly borrowings are subdivided into: completely assimilated,partly assimilated and non-assimilated (barbarisms). Completely assimilated borrowings are not felt as foreign words in thelanguage, cf the French word 'sport' and the native word 'start'.Completely assimilated verbs belong to regular verbs, e.g. correct-corrected. Completely assimilated nouns form their plural by means of s-inflexion, e.g. gate- gates. In completely assimilated French words thestress has been shifted from the last syllable to the last but one. Semantic assimilation of borrowed words depends on the words existing inthe borrowing language, as a rule, a borrowed word does not bring all itsmeanings into the borrowing language, if it is polysemantic, e.g. theRussian borrowing 'sputnik' is used in English only in one of its meanings. Partly assimilated borrowings are subdivided into the following groups:a) borrowings non-assimilated semantically, because they denote objects andnotions peculiar to the country from the language of which they wereborrowed, e.g. sari, sombrero, taiga, kvass etc. b) borrowings non-assimilated grammatically, e.g. nouns borrowed fromLatin and Greek retain their plural forms (bacillus - bacilli, phenomenon -phenomena, datum -data, genius - genii etc. c) borrowings non-assimilated phonetically. Here belong words with theinitial sounds /v/ and /z/, e.g. voice, zero. In native words these voicedconsonants are used only in the intervocal position as allophones of sounds/f/ and /s/ ( loss - lose, life - live ). Some Scandinavian borrowings haveconsonants and combinations of consonants which were not palatalized, e.g./sk/ in the words: sky, skate, ski etc (in native words we have thepalatalized sounds denoted by the digraph 'sh', e.g. shirt); sounds /k/and /g/ before front vowels are not palatalized e.g. girl, get, give, kid,kill, kettle. In native words we have palatalization , e.g. German, child. Some French borrowings have retained their stress on the last syllable,e.g. police, cartoon. Some French borrowings retain special combinationsof sounds, e.g. /a:3/ in the words : camouflage, bourgeois, some of themretain the combination of sounds /wa:/ in the words: memoir, boulevard. d) borrowings can be partly assimilated graphically, e.g. in Greakborrowings 'y' can be spelled in the middle of the word (symbol, synonym),'ph' denotes the sound /f/ (phoneme, morpheme), 'ch' denotes the sound/k/(chemistry, chaos),'ps' denotes the sound /s/ (psychology). Latin borrowings retain their polisyllabic structure, have doubleconsonants, as a rule, the final consonant of the prefix is assimilatedwith the initial consonant of the stem, (accompany, affirmative). French borrowings which came into English after 1650 retain theirspelling, e.g. consonants 'p', 't', 's' are not pronounced at the end ofthe word (buffet, coup, debris), Specifically French combination of letters'eau' /ou/ can be found in the borrowings : beau, chateau, troussaeu. Someof digraphs retain their French pronunciation: 'ch' is pronounced as /sh/,e.g. chic, parachute, 'qu' is pronounced as /k/ e.g. bouquet, 'ou' ispronounced as /u:/, e.g. rouge; some letters retain their Frenchpronunciation, e.g. 'i' is pronounced as /i:/, e,g, chic, machine; 'g' ispronounced as /3/, e.g. rouge. Modern German borrowings also have some peculiarities in their spelling:common nouns are spelled with a capital letter e.g. Autobahn, Lebensraum;some vowels and digraphs retain their German pronunciation, e.g. 'a' ispronounced as /a:/ (Dictat), 'u' is pronounced as /u:/ (Kuchen), 'au' ispronounced as /au/ (Hausfrau), 'ei' is pronounced as /ai/ (Reich); someconsonants are also pronounced in the German way, e.g. 's' before a vowelis pronounced as /z/ (Sitskrieg), 'v' is pronounced as /f/ (Volkswagen),'w' is pronounced as /v/ , 'ch' is pronounced as /h/ (Kuchen). Non-assimilated borrowings (barbarisms) are borrowings which are used byEnglishmen rather seldom and are non-assimilated, e.g. addio (Italian),tete-a-tete (French), dolce vita (Italian), duende (Spanish), an homme afemme (French), gonzo (Italian) etc.

CLASSIFICATION OF BORROWINGS ACCORDING TO THE LANGUAGE FROM WHICH THEY WERE BORROWED ROMANIC BORROWINGS Latin borrowings. Among words of Romanic origin borrowed from Latin during the period whenthe British Isles were a part of the Roman Empire, there are such words as:street, port, wall etc. Many Latin and Greek words came into English duringthe Adoption of Christianity in the 6-th century. At this time the Latinalphabet was borrowed which ousted the Runic alphabet. These borrowingsare usually called classical borrowings. Here belong Latin words: alter,cross, dean, and Greek words: church, angel, devil, anthem. Latin and Greek borrowings appeared in English during the Middle Englishperiod due to the Great Revival of Learning. These are mostly scientificwords because Latin was the language of science at the time. These wordswere not used as frequently as the words of the Old English period,therefore some of them were partly assimilated grammatically, e.g. formula- formulae. Here also belong such words as: memorandum, minimum, maximum,veto etc. Classical borrowings continue to appear in Modern English as well. Mostlythey are words formed with the help of Latin and Greek morphemes. There arequite a lot of them in medicine (appendicitis, aspirin), in chemistry(acid, valency, alkali), in technique (engine, antenna, biplane, airdrome),in politics (socialism, militarism), names of sciences (zoology, physics) .In philology most of terms are of Greek origin (homonym, archaism,lexicography). French borrowings The influence of French on the English spelling. The largest group of borrowings are French borrowings. Most of them cameinto English during the Norman conquest. French influenced not only thevocabulary of English but also its spelling, because documents were writtenby French scribes as the local population was mainly illiterate, and theruling class was French. Runic letters remaining in English after the Latinalphabet was borrowed were substituted by Latin letters and combinationsof letters, e.g. 'v' was introduced for the voiced consonant /v/ instead of'f' in the intervocal position /lufian - love/, the digraph 'ch' wasintroduced to denote the sound /ch/ instead of the letter 'c' / chest/before front vowels where it had been palatalized, the digraph 'sh' wasintroduced instead of the combination 'sc' to denote the sound /sh/ /ship/,the digraph 'th' was introduced instead of the Runic letters '0' and ' ' /this, thing/, the letter 'y' was introduced instead of the Runic letter'3' to denote the sound /j/ /yet/, the digraph 'qu' substituted thecombination 'cw' to denote the combination of sounds /kw/ /queen/, thedigraph 'ou' was introduced to denote the sound /u:/ /house/ (The sound/u:/ was later on diphthongized and is pronounced /au/ in native words andfully assimilated borrowings). As it was difficult for French scribes tocopy English texts they substituted the letter 'u' before 'v', 'm', 'n' andthe digraph 'th' by the letter 'o' to escape the combination of manyvertical lines /'sunu' - 'son', luvu' - 'love'/. Borrowing of French words. There are the following semantic groups of French borrowings: a) words relating to government : administer, empire, state, government; b) words relating to military affairs: army, war, banner, soldier,battle; c) words relating to jury: advocate, petition, inquest, sentence,barrister; d) words relating to fashion: luxury, coat, collar, lace, pleat,embroidery; e) words relating to jewelry: topaz, emerald, ruby, pearl ; f) words relating to food and cooking: lunch, dinner, appetite, to roast,to stew. Words were borrowed from French into English after 1650, mainly throughFrench literature, but they were not as numerous and many of them are notcompletely assimilated. There are the following semantic groups of theseborrowings: a) words relating to literature and music: belle-lettres, conservatorie,brochure, nuance, piruette, vaudeville; b) words relating to military affairs: corps, echelon, fuselage,manouvre; c) words relating to buildings and furniture: entresol, chateau, bureau; d) words relating to food and cooking: ragout, cuisine. Italian borrowings. Cultural and trade relations between Italy and England brought manyItalian words into English. The earliest Italian borrowing came intoEnglish in the 14-th century, it was the word 'bank' /from the Italian'banko' - 'bench'/. Italian money-lenders and money-changers sat in thestreets on benches. When they suffered losses they turned over theirbenches, it was called 'banco rotta' from which the English word 'bankrupt'originated. In the 17-th century some geological terms were borrowed :volcano, granite, bronze, lava. At the same time some political terms wereborrowed: manifesto, bulletin. But mostly Italian is famous by its influence in music and in all Indo-European languages musical terms were borrowed from Italian : alto,baritone, basso, tenor, falsetto, solo, duet, trio, quartet, quintet,opera, operette, libretto, piano, violin. Among the 20-th century Italian borrowings we can mention : gazette,incognitto, autostrada, fiasco, fascist, diletante, grotesque, graffittoetc. Spanish borrowings. Spanish borrowings came into English mainly through its American variant.There are the following semantic groups of them: a) trade terms: cargo, embargo; b) names of dances and musical instruments: tango, rumba, habanera,guitar; c) names of vegetables and fruit: tomato, potato, tobbaco, cocoa, banana,ananas, apricot etc.

GERMANIC BORROWINGS English belongs to the Germanic group of languages and there areborrowings from Scandinavian, German and Holland languages, though theirnumber is much less than borrowings from Romanic languages. Scandinavian borrowings. By the end of the Old English period English underwent a strong influenceof Scandinavian due to the Scandinavian conquest of the British Isles.Scandinavians belonged to the same group of peoples as Englishmen andtheir languages had much in common. As the result of this conquest thereare about 700 borrowings from Scandinavian into English. Scandinavians and Englishmen had the same way of life,their culturallevel was the same, they had much in common in their literature thereforethere were many words in these languages which were almost identical, e.g. ON OEModern E syster sweostersister fiscr fisc fish felagi felawefellow However there were also many words in the two languages which weredifferent, and some of them were borrowed into English , such nouns as:bull, cake, egg, kid, knife, skirt, window etc, such adjectives as: flat,ill, happy, low, odd, ugly, wrong, such verbs as : call, die, guess, get,give, scream and many others. Even some pronouns and connective words were borrowed which happens veryseldom, such as : same, both, till, fro, though, and pronominal forms with'th': they, them, their. Scandinavian influenced the development of phrasal verbs which did notexist in Old English, at the same time some prefixed verbs came out ofusage, e.g. ofniman, beniman. Phrasal verbs are now highly productive inEnglish /take off, give in etc/. German borrowings. There are some 800 words borrowed from German into English. Some of themhave classical roots, e.g. in some geological terms, such as: cobalt,bismuth, zink, quarts, gneiss, wolfram. There were also words denotingobjects used in everyday life which were borrowed from German: iceberg,lobby, rucksack, Kindergarten etc. In the period of the Second World War the following words were borrowed:Volkssturm, Luftwaffe, SS-man, Bundeswehr, gestapo, gas chamber and manyothers. After the Second World War the following words were borrowed:Berufsverbot, Volkswagen etc. Holland borrowings. Holland and England have constant interrelations for many centuries andmore than 2000 Holland borrowings were borrowed into English. Most of themare nautical terms and were mainly borrowed in the 14-th century, such as:freight, skipper, pump, keel, dock, reef, deck, leak and many others. Besides two main groups of borrowings (Romanic and Germanic) there arealso borrowings from a lot of other languages. We shall speak about Russianborrowings, borrowings from the language which belongs to Slavoninclanguages. Russian borrowings. There were constant contacts between England and Russia and they borrowedwords from one language into the other. Among early Russian borrowingsthere are mainly words connected with trade relations, such as: rouble,copeck, pood, sterlet, vodka, sable, and also words relating to nature,such as: taiga, tundra, steppe etc. There is also a large group of Russian borrowings which came into Englishthrough Rushian literature of the 19-th century, such as : Narodnik,moujik, duma, zemstvo. volost, ukase etc, and also words which were formedin Russian with Latin roots, such as: nihilist, intelligenzia, Decembristetc. After the Great October Revolution many new words appeared in Russianconnected with the new political system, new culture, and many of them wereborrowed into English, such as: collectivization. udarnik, Komsomol etcand also translation loans, such as: shock worker, collective farm, five-year plan etc. One more group of Russian borrowings is connected with perestroika, suchas: glasnost, nomenklatura, apparatchik etc.

ETYMOLOGICAL DOUBLETS Sometimes a word is borrowed twice from the same language. As theresult, we have two different words with different spellings and meaningsbut historically they come back to one and the same word. Such words arecalled etymological doublets. In English there are some groups of them: Latino-French doublets. Latin English from Latin English from French uncia inchounce moneta mintmoney camera camerachamber Franco-French doublets doublets borrowed from different dialects of French. Norman Paris canal channel captain chieftain catch chaise Scandinavian-English doublets Scandinavian English skirt shirt scabby shabby There are also etymological doublets which were borrowed from the samelanguage during different historical periods, such as French doublets:gentil - любезный, благородный, etymological doublets are: gentle - мягкий,вежливый and genteel - благородный. From the French word gallantetymological doublets are : 'gallant - храбрый and ga'llant - галантный,внимательный. Sometimes etymological doublets are the result of borrowing differentgrammatical forms of the same word, e.g. the Comparative degree of Latin'super' was 'superior' which was borrowed into English with the meaning'high in some quality or rank'. The Superlative degree (Latin'supremus')in English 'supreme' with the meaning 'outstanding','prominent'. So 'superior' and 'supreme' are etymological doublets.

SEMASIOLOGY The branch of lexicology which deals with the meaning is calledsemasiology. WORD - MEANING Every word has two aspects: the outer aspect (its sound form) and theinner aspect (its meaning) . Sound and meaning do not always constitute aconstant unit even in the same language. E.g. the word 'temple' may denote'a part of a human head' and 'a large church' In such cases we havehomonyms. One and the same word in different syntactical relations candevelop different meanings, e.g. the verb 'treat' in sentences: a) He treated my words as a joke. b) The book treats of poetry. c) They treated me to sweets. d) He treats his son cruelly. In all these sentences the verb 'treat' has different meanings and we canspeak about polysemy. On the other hand, one and the same meaning can be expressed by differentsound forms, e.g. 'pilot' , and 'airman', 'horror' and 'terror'. In suchcases we have synonyms. Both the meaning and the sound can develop in the course of timeindependently. E.g. the Old English /luvian/ is pronounced /l^v / in ModernEnglish. On the other hand, 'board' primariliy means ' a piece of wood sawnthin' It has developed the meanings: a table, a board of a ship, a stage, acouncil etc. LEXICAL MEANING - NOTION The lexical meaning of a word is the realization of a notion by means ofa definite language system. A word is a language unit, while a notion is aunit of thinking. A notion cannot exict without a word expressing it in thelanguage, but there are words which do not express any notion but have alexical meaning. Interjections express emotions but not notions, but theyhave lexical meanings, e.g. Alas! /disappointment/, Oh,my buttons!/surprise/ etc. There are also words which express both, notions andemotions, e.g. girlie, a pig /when used metaphorically/. The term 'notion' was introduced into lexicology from logics. A notiondenotes the reflection in the mind of real objects and phenomena in theirrelations. Notions, as a rule, are international, especially with thenations of the same cultural level. While meanings can be nationallylimited. Grouping of meanings in the semantic structure of a word isdetermined by the whole system of every language. E.g. the English verb'go' and its Russian equivalent 'идти' have some meanings which coincide:to move from place to place, to extend /the road goes to London/, to work/Is your watch going?/. On the other hand, they have different meanings: inRussian we say :'Вот он идет' , in English we use the verb 'come' in thiscase. In English we use the verb 'go' in the combinations: 'to go by bus','to go by train' etc. In Russian in these cases we use the verb 'ехать'. The number of meanings does not correspond to the number of words,neither does the number of notions. Their distribution in relation to wordsis peculiar in every language. The Russian has two words for the English'man': ' мужчина' and 'человек'. In English, however, 'man' cannot beapplied to a female person. We say in Russian: 'Она хороший человек'. InEnglish we use the word 'person'/ She is a good person'/ Development of lexical meanings in any language is influenced by thewhole network of ties and relations between words and other aspects of thelanguage.

POLYSEMY The word 'polysemy' means 'plurality of meanings' it exists only in thelanguage, not in speech. A word which has more than one meaning is calledpolysemantic. Different meanings of a polysemantic word may come together due to theproximity of notions which they express. E.g. the word 'blanket' has thefollowing meanings: a woolen covering used on beds, a covering for keepinga horse warm, a covering of any kind /a blanket of snow/, covering all ormost cases /used attributively/, e.g. we can say 'a blanket insurancepolicy'. There are some words in the language which are monosemantic, such as mostterms, /synonym, molecule, bronchites/, some pronouns /this, my, both/,numerals. There are two processes of the semantic development of a word: radiationand concatination. In cases of radiation the primary meaning stands in thecentre and the secondary meanings proceed out of it like rays. Eachsecondary meaning can be traced to the primmary meaning. E.g. in the word'face' the primary meaning denotes 'the front part of the human head'Connected with the front position the meanings: the front part of a watch,the front part of a building, the front part of a playing card were formed.Connected with the word 'face' itself the meanings : expression of theface, outward appearance are formed. In cases of concatination secondary meanings of a word develop like achain. In such cases it is difficult to trace some meanings to the primaryone. E.g. in the word 'crust' the primary meaning 'hard outer part ofbread' developed a secondary meaning 'hard part of anything /a pie, acake/', then the meaning 'harder layer over soft snow' was developed, then'a sullen gloomy person', then 'impudence' were developed. Here the lastmeanings have nothing to do with the primary ones. In such cases homonymsappear in the language. It is called the split of polysemy. In most cases in the semantic development of a word both ways of semanticdevelopment are combined. HOMONYMS Homonyms are words different in meaning but identical in sound orspelling, or both in sound and spelling. Homonyms can appear in the language not only as the result of the splitof polysemy, but also as the result of levelling of grammar inflexions,when different parts of speech become identical in their outer aspect, e.g.'care' from 'caru' and 'care' from 'carian'. They can be also formed bymeans of conversion, e.g. 'to slim' from 'slim', 'to water' from 'water'.They can be formed with the help of the same suffix from the same stem,e.g. 'reader'/ a person who reads and a book for reading/. Homonyms can also appear in the language accidentally, when two wordscoincide in their development, e.g. two native words can coincide in theirouter aspects: 'to bear' from 'beran'/to carry/ and 'bear' from 'bera'/ananimal/. A native word and a borrowing can coincide in their outer aspects,e.g. 'fair' from Latin 'feria' and 'fair ' from native 'fager' /blond/. Twoborrowings can coincide e.g. 'base' from the French 'base' /Latin basis/and 'base' /low/ from the Latin 'bas' /Italian 'basso'/. Homonyms can develop through shortening of different words, e.g. 'cab'from 'cabriolet', 'cabbage', 'cabin'. Classifications of homonyms. Walter Skeat classified homonyms according to their spelling and soundforms and he pointed out three groups: perfect homonyms that is wordsidentical in sound and spelling, such as : 'school' - 'косяк рыбы' and'школа' ; homographs, that is words with the same spelling but pronounceddifferently, e.g. 'bow' -/bau/ - 'поклон' and /bou/ - 'лук'; homophonesthat is words pronounced identically but spelled differently, e.g. 'night'- 'ночь' and 'knight' - 'рыцарь'. Another classification was suggested by A.I Smirnitsky. He added toSkeat's classification one more criterion: grammatical meaning. Hesubdivided the group of perfect homonyms in Skeat's classification into twotypes of homonyms: perfect which are identical in their spelling,pronunciation and their grammar form, such as :'spring' in the meanings:the season of the year, a leap, a source, and homoforms which coincide intheir spelling and pronunciation but have different grammatical meaning,e.g. 'reading' - Present Participle, Gerund, Verbal noun., to lobby - lobby. A more detailed classification was given by I.V. Arnold. She classifiedonly perfect homonyms and suggested four criteria of their classification:lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, basic forms and paradigms. According to these criteria I.V. Arnold pointed out the following groups:a) homonyms identical in their grammatical meanings, basic forms andparadigms and different in their lexical meanings, e.g. 'board' in themeanings 'a council' and ' a piece of wood sawn thin'; b) homonymsidentical in their grammatical meanings and basic forms, different in theirlexical meanings and paradigms, e.g. to lie - lied - lied, and to lie -lay - lain; c) homonyms different in their lexical meanings, grammaticalmeanings, paradigms, but coinciding in their basic forms, e.g. 'light' /'lights'/, 'light' / 'lighter', 'lightest'/; d) homonyms different in theirlexical meanings, grammatical meanings, in their basic forms and paradigms,but coinciding in one of the forms of their paradigms, e.g. 'a bit' and'bit' (from ' to bite'). In I. V. Arnold's classification there are also patterned homonyms,which, differing from other homonyms, have a common component in theirlexical meanings. These are homonyms formed either by means of conversion,or by levelling of grammar inflexions. These homonyms are different intheir grammar meanings, in their paradigms, identical in their basic forms,e.g. 'warm' - 'to warm'. Here we can also have unchangeable patternedhomonyms which have identical basic forms, different grammatical meanings,a common component in their lexical meanings, e.g. 'before' an adverb, aconjunction, a preposition. There are also homonyms among unchangeablewords which are different in their lexical and grammatical meanings,identical in their basic foms, e.g. ' for' - 'для' and 'for' - 'ибо'.

SYNONYMS Synonyms are words different in their outer aspects, but identical orsimilar in their inner aspects. In English there are a lot of synonyms,because there are many borrowings, e.g. hearty / native/ - cordial/borrowing/. After a word is borrowed it undergoes desynonymization, becauseabsolute synonyms are unnecessary for a language. However, there are someabsolute synonyms in the language, which have exactly the same meaning andbelong to the same style, e.g. to moan, to groan; homeland, motherland etc. In cases of desynonymization one of the absolute synonyms canspecialize in its meaning and we get semantic synonyms, e.g. 'city'/borrowed/, 'town' /native/. The French borrowing 'city' is specialized. Inother cases native words can be specialized in their meanings, e.g. 'stool'/native/, 'chair' /French/. Sometimes one of the absolute synonyms is specialized in its usage and weget stylistic synonyms, e.g. 'to begin'/ native/, 'to commence'/borrowing/. Here the French word is specialized. In some cases the nativeword is specialized, e.g. 'welkin' /bookish/, 'sky' /neutral/. Stylistic synonyms can also appear by means of abbreviation. In mostcases the abbreviated form belongs to the colloquial style, and the fullform to the neutral style, e.g. 'examination', 'exam'. Among stylistic synonyms we can point out a special group of words whichare called euphemisms. These are words used to substitute some unpleasantor offensive words, e.g 'the late' instead of 'dead', 'to perspire' insteadof 'to sweat' etc. There are also phraseological synonyms, these words are identical intheir meanings and styles but different in their combining with other wordsin the sentence, e.g. 'to be late for a lecture' but 'to miss the train','to visit museums' but 'to attend lectures' etc. In each group of synonyms there is a word with the most general meaning,which can substitute any word in the group, e.g. 'piece' is the synonymicdominant in the group 'slice', 'lump', 'morsel'. The verb ' to look at' isthe synonymic dominant in the group 'to stare', 'to glance', 'to peep'. Theadjective 'red' is the synonymic dominant in the group 'purple', 'scarlet','crimson'. When speaking about the sources of synonyms, besides desynonymization andabbreviation, we can also mention the formation of phrasal verbs, e.g. 'togive up' - 'to abandon', 'to cut down' - 'to diminish'.

ANTONYMS Antonyms are words belonging to the same part of speech, identical instyle, expressing contrary or contradictory notions. V.N. Comissarov in his dictionary of antonyms classified them into twogroups : absolute or root antonyms /'late' - 'early'/ and derivationalantonyms / 'to please' - 'to displease'/ . Absolute antonyms havedifferent roots and derivational antonyms have the same roots butdifferent affixes. In most cases negative prefixes form antonyms / un-, dis-, non-/. Sometimes they are formed by means of suffixes -ful and -less. The number of antonyms with the suffixes ful- and -less is not verylarge, and sometimes even if we have a word with one of these suffixes itsantonym is formed not by substituting -ful by less-, e.g. 'successful'-'unsuccessful', 'selfless' - 'selfish'. The same is true about antonymswith negative prefixes, e.g. 'to man' is not an antonym of the word 'tounman', 'to disappoint' is not an antonym of the word 'to appoint'. The difference between derivational and root antonyms is not only intheir structure, but in semantics as well. Derivational antonyms expresscontradictory notions, one of them excludes the other, e.g. 'active'-'inactive'. Absolute antonyms express contrary notions. If some notionscan be arranged in a group of more than two members, the most distantmembers of the group will be absolute antonyms, e.g. 'ugly' , 'plain','good-looking', 'pretty', 'beautiful', the antonyms are 'ugly' and'beautiful'. Leonard Lipka in the book 'Outline of English Lexicology' describesdifferent types of oppositeness, and subdivides them into three types: a) complementary, e.g. male -female, married -single, b) antonyms, e.g. good -bad, c) converseness, e.g. to buy - to sell. In his classification he describes complimentarity in the following way:the denial of the one implies the assertion of the other, and vice versa.'John is not married' implies that 'John is single'. The type ofoppositeness is based on yes/no decision. Incompatibility only concernspairs of lexical units. Antonymy is the second class of oppositeness. It is distinguished fromcomplimentarity by being based on different logical relationships. Forpairs of antonyms like good/bad, big/small only the second one of the abovementioned relations of implication holds. The assertion containing onemember implies the negation of the other, but not vice versa. 'John isgood' implies that 'John is not bad', but 'John is not good' does not implythat 'John is bad'. The negation of one term does not necessarily impliesthe assertion of the other. An important linguistic difference from complementaries is that antonymsare always fully gradable, e.g. hot, warm, tepid, cold. Converseness is mirror-image relations or functions, e.g. husband/wife,pupil/teacher, preceed/follow, above/below, before/after etc. 'John bought the car from Bill' implies that 'Bill sold the car to John'.Mirror-image sentences are in many ways similar to the relations betweenactive and passive sentences. Also in the comparative form: 'Y is smallerthan X, then X is larger than Y'. L. Lipka also gives the type which he calls directional oppositionup/down, consiquence opposition learn/know, antipodal oppositionNorth/South, East/West, ( it is based on contrary motion, in oppositedirections.) The pairs come/go, arrive/depart involve motion in differentdirections. In the case up/down we have movement from a point P. In thecase come/go we have movement from or to the speaker. L. Lipka also points out non-binary contrast or many-member lexical sets.Here he points out serially ordered sets, such as scales / hot, warm,tepid, cool, cold/ ; colour words / black, grey, white/ ; ranks /marshal,general, colonel, major, captain etc./ There are gradable examinationmarks / excellent, good, average, fair, poor/. In such sets of words wecan have outer and inner pairs of antonyms. He also points out cycles, suchas units of time /spring, summer, autumn, winter/ . In this case there areno 'outermost' members. Not every word in a language can have antonyms. This type of oppositioncan be met in qualitative adjectives and their derivatives, e.g. beautiful-ugly, to beautify - to uglify, beauty - ugliness. It can be also met inwords denoting feelings and states, e.g. respect - scorn, to respect - toscorn, respectful - scornful, to live - to die, alive - dead, life - death. It can be also met among words denoting direction in space and time, e.g.here - there, up - down , now - never, before - after, day - night, early -late etc. If a word is polysemantic it can have several antonyms, e.g. the word'bright' has the antonyms 'dim', 'dull', 'sad'.