History of Foreign Words in English

The constant development of industry, agriculture, trade and transport bring into being new objects and new notions. Words to name them are either borrowed or created from material already existing in the language and it often happens that new meanings are thus acquired by old words.

II. THE OPPOSITION OF STYLISTICALLY MARKED AND STYLISTICALLY NEUTRAL WORDS

II.1 FUNCTIONAL STYLES AND NEUTRAL VOCABULARY

The extra-linguistic factors influencing usage and development of language constitute one of the crucial problems of linguistics. They are dealt with in sociolinguistics and linguostylistics. The first, i.e. sociolinguistics, is primarily interested in variations in language according to uses depending on social, educational, sex, age, etc. stratification, in social evaluation of speech habits, in correlation of linguistic facts with the life and attitudes of the speaking community. Linguostylistics studies the correlation of speech situation and linguistic means used by speakers, i.e. stratification according to use and hence -- different functional styles of speech and language. Our concern' in the present chapter is linguostylistics.

In a highly developed language like English or Russian the same idea may be differently expressed in different situations. On various occasions a speaker makes use of different combinations open to him in the vocabulary. Part of the words he uses will be independent of the sphere of communication. There are words equally fit to be used in a lecture, a poem, or when speaking to a child. These are said to be stylistically neutral and constitute the common core of the vocabulary. They are characterized by high frequency and cover the greater portion of every utterance. The rest may consist of stylistically coloured words. Not only does the speaker's entire experience determine the words he knows and uses but also his knowledge of his audience and the relationship in which he stands to them (i.e. the pragmatic aspect of communication) governs his choice of words. He says: perhaps, jolly good and I've half a mind to ... when speaking to people he knows well, but probably, very well and / intend to ... in conversation with a stranger.

The English nouns horse, steed, gee-gee have the same denotational meaning in the sense that they all refer to the same animal, but the stylistical colouring is different in each case. Horse is stylistically neutral and may be used in any situation. Steed is dignified and lofty and belongs to poetic diction, while gee-gee is a nursery word neutral in a child's speech, and out of place in adult conversation.

Stylistically coloured, therefore, are words suitable only on certain definite occasions in specific spheres and suggestive of specific conditions of communication. Dictionaries label them as colloquial, familiar, poetical, popular and so on. The classification varies from dictionary to dictionary.

The very term style is open to more than one interpretation. The word is both familiar and ambiguous. "The Oxford English Dictionary" records it in twenty-seven different meanings. Primarily style is a quality of writing; it comes by metonymy from Latin stilus, the name of the writing-rod for scratching letters on wax-covered tablets. It has come to mean the collective characteristics of writing, diction or any artistic expression and the way of presenting things, depending upon the general outlook proper to a person, a school, a period or a genre. One can speak not only of Dickens's or Byron's style, but also of Constable's and Christopher Wren's, of classical, romantic, impressionistic style in literature, painting and music, of epic or lyrical style and even of style in clothes and hair-do.

The term s t у 1 i s t i с s for a discipline studying the expressive qualities of language is attested in "The Oxford English Dictionary" from 1882. F. de Saussure's disciple Ch. Bally modelled his ideas of style on a structural conception of language and started that branch of stylistics which has for its stated aim the task of surveying the entire system of expressive resources available in a particular language.

FUNCTIONAL STYLES AND REGISTERS

Linguistically afunctional style may be defined as a system of expressive means peculiar to a specific sphere of communication.

The lexicological treatment of style in the present chapter will be based on the principle of lexical oppositions. Every stylistically coloured word presupposes the possibility of choice, which means that there must exist a neutral synonym to which it is contrasted, e. g. steed : : horse. The basis of the opposition is created by the similarity of denotational meaning, the distinctive feature is the stylistic reference. A stylistic opposition forms part of an extensive correlation of oppositions, because for a style to exist there must be a considerable set of words typical of this style. Therefore stylistical oppositions are proportional oppositions:

eve ire _ maiden _ main morn slay steed

evening anger girl ocean morning kill horse

It is also possible to consider oppositions between whole sets of words, i.e. oppositions between styles.

The broadest binary division is into formal and informal (also called colloquial) English. The term formal English will be used in what follows to cover those varieties of the English vocabulary (there are also peculiarities of phonetics and grammar, but they do not concern us here) that occur in books and magazines, that we hear from a lecturer, a public speaker, a radio announcer or, possibly, in formal official talk. These types of communication are characteristically reduced to monologues addressed by one person to many, and often prepared in advance. Words are used with precision, the vocabulary is elaborate; it is also generalized -- national, not limited socially or geographically. Informal vocabulary is used in personal two-way eve-ry-day communication. A dialogue is assisted in its explicitness by the meaningful qualities of voice and gesture. The speaker has ample opportunity to know whether he is understood, the listener can always interrupt him and demand additional information, i.e. there is constant feedback. The vocabulary may be determined socially or regionally (dialect).

The opposition of stylistically neutral and stylistically marked words is a binary privative opposition.

The term privative opposition is used to denote an opposition in which the distinctive feature is present in one member and absent in the other. The feature is said to m a г к the opposition. The member characterized by the presence of the distinctive feature is the marked member. The other one is called the u n-marked member. In an equipollent opposition the members differ according to the changes in the distinctive feature.

Another opposition within the stylistically marked words contrasting formal and informal diction is also a privative binary opposition. Further subdivision can be only equipollent. In an adequate classification the definitions of various classes must be based on the same kind of criteria, and so we continue to adhere to spheres of communication.

The stylistically formal part of the vocabulary, chiefly but not exclusively used in written speech, is composed of special terminology (further subdivided according to various specific branches of knowledge and art in which it is used), learned words common to all fields of knowledge, official vocabulary used in documentation and business or political transactions and, lastly, poetic diction including lofty words.

According to some linguists there is also a belles-lettres style, but as literature is not confined to one particular sphere of human experience, different functional styles may be made use of in a literary text. Also the style of one writer is characteristically different from that of another, so that it is literary stylistics and not linguostylistics that has to deal with it.

Many authors abroad prefer the division according to medium into spoken English and written English which is misleading, because in reality the division goes between private and public speech, so that a lecture is much nearer a book in vocabulary than a conversation, although both are spoken.

The informal part is traditionally subdivided into literary colloquial (cultivated speech), familiar colloquial, low colloquial (illiterate speech), argot and slang.

Other terms widely used by English linguists for systematic vocabulary variations according to social context, subject matter and professional activity are register and domain. These include the language of science and law, advertising and newspaper reporting, church worship or casual conversation, etc.

The speakers adapt their utterance to the degree of formality the situation demands and to subject matter. This ability is referred to as code-switching.

LEARNED WORDS AND OFFICIAL VOCABULARY

In addition to terms, a text on some special problem usually contains a considerable proportion of so-called learned words, such as approximate n, commence v, compute v, exclude v, feasible a, heterogeneous a, homogeneous a, indicate v, initial a, internal a, miscellaneous a, multiplicity n, respectively adv. This layer is especially rich in adjectives.

The main factor at the bottom of all problems concerning style is the concept of choice and synonymy in the widest sense of the word. All learned words have their everyday synonyms, which may seem either not dignified enough for scientific usage or less precise.

The layer also has some other purely linguistic peculiarites. It has been noted, for instance, that the learned layer of vocabulary is characterized by a phenomenon which may be appropriately called lexical suppletion. This term is used for pairs like father n : : paternal a; home n : : domestic a; lip n : : labial a; mind n : : mental a; son n : : filial a; sun n : : solar a, etc. In all these cases a stylistically neutral noun of native origin is correlated with a borrowed relative adjective. The semantic relationship between them is quite regular. All these adjectives can characterize something through their relation to the object named by the noun. There exist also adjectives of the same root produced by derivation, but they are qualitative adjectives; besides, only some of them (like fatlierly, peaceful) show the regular semantic pattern, others (like homely 'simple', 'plain') show irregular semantic derivation.

The learned vocabulary comprises some archaic connectives not used elsewhere: hereby, thereby, whereby, hereafter, wliereafter, thereafter, hereupon, whereupon, thereupon, herein, wherein, therein, herewith, therewith. It also contains double conjunctions like moreover, furthermore, however, such as, and group conjunctions: in consequence of inasmuch as, etc. There may be an abundance of obsolete connectives elsewhere, but in learned and official speech they are especially frequent.

There are some set expressions used in scientific and other special texts: as follows, as early as, in terms of, etc. By way of example a short quotation from a linguistic text by W. Graff may be helpful: Such a description would be in terms of historical development and of empirical conditions such as the relative position of the components, the morphological and syntactical treatment, accentual relations, systematic structure and contrast....

When the occasion is formal, in official documents and business correspondence some words may be used which in ordinary conversation would have a pretentious or jocular ring. A short list of these is given below with the corresponding stylistically neutral words in brackets: accommodation (room), comestibles (food), conveyance (carriage), dispatch (send off), donation (gift), emoluments (pay), forenoon (morning), obtain (get), summon (send for), sustain (suffer), etc. The objectionable variants of these vocabularies have received the derogatory names of officialese and journalese. Their chief drawback is their triteness: both are given to cliches.

POETIC DICTION

Any word or set expression which is peculiar to a certain level of style or a certain type of environment and mood will become associated with it and will be able to call up its atmosphere when used in some other context. There is no such thing as one poetic style in the English language. The language a poet uses is closely bound with his outlook and experience, with his subject-matter and the message he wants to express. But there remains in English vocabulary a set of words which contrast with all other words, because, having been traditionally used only in poetry, they have poetic connotations. Their usage was typical of poetic conventions in the 18th century, but since the so-called Romantic Revolt in the first quarter of the 19th century poetic diction fell into disuse. These words are not only more lofty but also as a rule more abstract in their denotative meaning than their neutral synonyms. To illustrate this layer, suffice it to give some examples in oppositions with their stylistically neutral synonyms. Nouns: array : : clothes; billow : : wave; brine : : salt water; brow : : forehead; gore : blood; main : : sea; steed : : horse; woe : : sorrow. Verbs: behold : : see; deem : : think; hearken : : hear; slay : : kill; trow : : believe. Adjectives: fair : : beautiful; hapless : : unhappy; lone : : lonely; murky : : grim; uncouth : : strange. Adverbs: anon : : presently; nigh : : almost; oft : : often; whilom : : formerly. Pronouns: thee : : thou; aught : : anything; naught : : nothing. Conjunctions: albeit : : although; ere : : before.

Sometimes it is not the word as a whole that is poetic but only one of its variants. It may be semantic: the words fair, hall, flood and many others have among their meanings a poetical one. It may be also a phonetical variant: e'en : : even; morn : : morning; oft : : often.

In the 18th century the standards of poetic diction were rigorously observed and the archaic ingredient was considered not only appropriate but obligatory. This poetic diction specialized by generations of English poets was not only a matter of vocabulary, but also of phraseology, imagery, grammar and even spelling. Traces of this conservative tendency may be observed in the 19th century poetry. They may either heighten the emotional quality of the expression or create an ironical colouring by juxtaposing high style and trivial matter.

In the following stanza by G.G. Byron conventional features of poetic language can be interpreted both ways:

I've tried another's fetters too With charms perchance as fair to view; And I would fain have loved as well. But some inconquerable spell Forbade my bleeding breast to own A kindred care for ought but one.

("Stanzas to a Lady on Leaving England")

COLLOQUIAL WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS

The term colloquial is old enough: Dr Johnson, the great English lexicographer, used it. Yet with him it had a definitely derogatory ring. S. Johnson thought colloquial words inconsistent with good usage and, thinking it his duty to reform the English language, he advised "to clear it from colloquial barbarisms". By the end of the 19th century with Neo-grammarians the description of colloquial speech came into its own, and linguists began to study the vocabulary that people actually use under various circumstances and not what they may be justified in using.

As employed in our time, the adjective colloquial does not necessarily mean 'slangy' or 'vulgar', although slang and vulgar vocabulary make part of colloquial vocabulary, or, in set-theoretical terminology, form subsets contained in the set we call colloquial vocabulary.

The term literary colloquial is used to denote the vocabulary used by educated people in the course of ordinary conversation or when writing letters to intimate friends. A good sample may be found in works by a number of authors, such as J. Galsworthy, E.M. Forster, CP. Snow, W.S. Maugham, J .B. Priestley, and others. For a modern reader it represents the speech of the elder generations. The younger generation of writers (M. Drabble for instance) adhere to f a-miliar colloquial. So it seems in a way to be a differentiation of generations. Familiar colloquial is more emotional and much more free and careless than literary colloquial. It is also characterized by a great number of jocular or ironical expressions and nonce-words.

Low colloquial is a term used for illiterate popular speech. It is very difficult to find hard and fast rules that help to establish the boundary between low colloquial and dialect, because in actual communication the two are often used together. Moreover, we have only the evidence of fiction to go by, and this may be not quite accurate in speech characterization. The basis of distinction between low colloquial and the two other types of colloquial is purely social. Everybody remembers G.B. Shaw's "Pygmalion" where the problem of speech as a mark of one's social standing and of social inequalities is one of the central issues. Ample material for observation of this layer of vocabulary is provided by the novels of Alan Sillitoe, Sid Chaplin or Stan Barstow. The chief peculiarities of low colloquial concern grammar and pronunciation; as to the vocabulary, it is different from familiar colloquial in that it contains more vulgar words, and sometimes also elements of dialect.

Other vocabulary layers below the level of standard educated speech are, besides low colloquial, the so-called slang and argot. Unlike low colloquial, however, they have only lexical peculiarities. Argot should be distinguished from slang: the first term serves to denote a special vocabulary and idiom, used by a particular social or age group, especially by the so-called underworld (the criminal circles). Its main point is to be unintelligible to outsiders.

The boundaries between various layers of colloquial vocabulary not being very sharply defined, it is more convenient to characterize it on the whole. If we realize that gesture, tone and voice and situation are almost as important in an informal act of communication as words are, we shall be able to understand why a careful choice of words in everyday conversation plays a minor part as compared with public speech or literature, and consequently the vocabulary is much less variegated. The same pronouns, prop-words, auxiliaries, postpositives and the same most frequent and generic terms are used again and again, each conveying a great number of different meanings. Only a small fraction of English vocabulary is put to use, so that some words are definitely overworked. Words like thing, business, do, get, go, fix, nice, really, well and other words characterized by a very high rank of frequency are used in all types of informal intercourse conveying a great variety of denotative' and emotional meanings and fulfilling no end of different functions. The utterances abound in imaginative phraseology, ready-made formulas of politeness and tags, standard expressions of assent, dissent, surprise, pleasure, gratitude, apology, etc.

The following extract from the play "An Inspector Calls" by J.B. Priestley can give ample material for observations:

BIRLING (triumphantly): There you are\ Proof positive. The whole story's just a lot of moonshine. Nothing but an elaborate sell. (He produces a huge sigh of relief.) Nobody likes to be sold as

badly as that -- but -- for all that (He smiles at them

all.) Gerald, have a drink.

GERALD (smiling): Thanks. I think I could just do with one now.

BIRLING (going to sideboard): So could I.

Mrs BIRLING (smiling): And I must say, Gerald, you've argued this very cleverly, and I'm most grateful.

GERALD (going for his drink): Well, you see, while I was out of the house I'd time to cool off and think things out a little.

BIRLING (giving him a drink): Yes, he didn't keep you on the run as he did the rest of us. I'll admit now he gave me a bit of a scare at the time. But I'd a special reason for not wanting any public scandal just now. (Has his drink now, and raises his glass.) Well, here's to us. Come on, Sheila, don't look like that. All over now.

Among the colloquialisms occurring in this conversation one finds whole formulas, such as there you are, you see, I'm most grateful, here's to us; set expressions: a lot of moonshine, keep sb on the run, for all that; cases of semi-conversion or typical word-groups like have a drink (and not drink); give a scare (and not scare); verbs with postpositives: cool off, think things out, come on; particles like just and well. Every type of colloquial style is usually rich in figures of speech. There is no point in enumerating them all, and we shall only note the understatement: a bit of a scare, I could just do with one.

The above list shows that certain lexical patterns are particularly characteristic of colloquialisms. Some may be added to those already mentioned.

Substantivized adjectives are very frequent in colloquial speech: constitutional 'a walk', daily 'a woman who comes daily to help with household chores', also greens for 'green leaf vegetables', such as spinach, cabbage, etc., and woollies 'woollen clothes'.

A large number of new formations is supplied by a process combining composition and conversion and having as prototypes verbs with postpositives: carry-on 'way of behaving', let-down 'an unexpected disappointment', make-up 'cosmetics'.

One of the most modern developments frequent in colloquial style are the compounds coined by back-formation: the type to baby-sit (from baby-sitter) is often resorted to.

It is common knowledge that colloquial English is very emotional.1 Emotions find their lexical expression not only in emphatic adverbs and adjectives of the awfully and divine type, or interjections including swear words, but also in a great number of other lexical intensifiers. In the following example the feeling named by the novelist is expressed in direct speech by an understatement: Gazing down with an expression that was loving, gratified and knowledgeable, she said, "Now I call that a bit of all right." (Snow)

In all the groups of colloquialisms, and in familiar colloquial especially, words easily acquire new meanings and new valency. We have already observed it in the case of the verb do in / could do with one meaning 'I would like to have (a drink)' and originally used jokingly. Make do is a colloquialism also characterized by fixed context; it means 'to continue to use old things instead of buying new ones, to economize'. Other peculiarities of valency of the same verb are observed in such combinations as do a museum, or do for sb, meaning 'to act as a housekeeper'. Verbs with postpositives are used in preference to their polysyllabic synonyms.

Such intensifiers as absolutely, fabulous/fab, grand, lovely, superb, terrific and the like come readily to the speaker's lips. Getting hackneyed, they are apt to lose their denotational meaning and keep only their intensifying function. The loss of denotational meaning in intensifiers is also very obvious in various combinations with the word dead, such as dead sure, dead easy, dead right, dead slow, dead straight.

As these adverbs and adjectives become stale other expressive means may be used. Here is an example of heated argument in literary colloquial between the well-bred and educated personages of CP. Snow's "The Conscience of the Rich":

"// you're seriously proposing to print rumours without even a scrap of evidence, the paper isn't going to last very long, is it?"

"Why in God's name not?"

"What's going to stop a crop of libel actions?"

"The trouble with you lawyers," said Seymour, jauntily once more, "is that you never know wlien a fact is a fact, and you never see an inch beyond your noses. I am prepared to bet any of you, or all three, if you like, an even hundred pounds that no one, no one brings an action against us over this business".

« The subject has been dealt with in the previous chapter but a few additional examples will not come amiss.

Carefully observing the means of emphasis used in the passage above, one will notice that the words a scrap, an inch, even are used here only as intensifiers lending emphasis to what is being said; they are definitely colloquial. But they have these properties due to the context, and the reader will have no difficulty in finding examples where these words are neither emphatic nor stylistically coloured. The conclusion is that some words acquire these characteristics only under certain very definite conditions, and may be contrasted with words and expressions that are always emotional and always colloquial in all their meanings, whatever the context. On earth or in God's name, for instance, are colloquial and emotional only after some interrogative word: Why in God's name .... Why on earth Where in God's name .... Where on earth What in God's name.... What on earth..., etc. A typical context is seen in the following extract: The man must be mad, sitting out there on a freezing morning like this. What on earth he thinks he is doing I can't imagine (Shaffer). On the other hand, there exist oaths, swear words and their euphemistic variations that function as emotional colloquialisms independent of the context. The examples are: by God, Goodness gracious, for Goodness sake, good Lord and many others. They occur very often and are highly differentiated socially. Not only is there a difference in expressions used by schoolboys and elderly ladies, sailors and farmers but even those chosen by students of different universities may show some local colour.

Many lexical expressions of modality may be also referred to colloquialisms, as they do not occur anywhere except informal everyday intercourse. Affirmative and negative answers, for instance, show a wide range of modality shades: definitely, up to a point, in a way, exactly, right-o, by all means, I expect so, I should think so, rather, and on the other hand: / am afraid, not or not at all, not in the least, by no means, etc. E. g.: Mr Salter's side of the conversation was limited to expressions of assent. When Lord Copper was right he said, "Definitely, Lord Copper"; when he was wrong, "Up to a point." (Waugh) The emotional words already mentioned are used as strong negatives in familiar or low colloquial: "Have you done what he told you?" "Have J hell\" The answer means 'Of course I have not and have no intention of doing it Or: "So lie died of natural causes, did he?" "Natural causes be damned. The implication is that there is no point in pretending the man died of natural causes, because it is obvious that he was killed. A synonymous expression much used at present is my foot. The second answer could be substituted by Natural causes my foot, without any change in meaning.

Colloquialisms are a persistent feature of the conversation of at least 90% of the population. For a foreign student the first requirement is to be able to differentiate those idioms that belong to literature, and those that are peculiar to spoken language. It is necessary to pay attention to comments g iven in good dictionaries as to whether a word is colloquial (colloq.), slang (si.) or vulgar (vulg.).

To use colloquialisms one must have an adequate fluency in English and a sufficient familiarity with the language, otherwise one may sound ridiculous, especially, perhaps, if one uses a mixture of British and American colloquialisms. The author has witnessed some occasions where a student used American slang words intermingled with idiomatic expressions learned from Ch. Dickens, with a kind of English public school accent; the result was that his speech sounded like nothing on earth.

SLANG

Slang words are identified and distinguished by contrasting them to standard literary vocabulary. They are expressive, mostly ironical words serving to create fresh names for some things that are frequent topics of discourse. For the most part they sound somewhat vulgar, cynical and harsh, aiming to show the object of speech in the light of an off-hand contemptuous ridicule. Vivid examples can be furnished by various slang words for money, such as beans, brass, dibs, dough, chink, oof, wads; the slang synonyms for word head are attic, brain-pan, hat peg, nut, upper storey; compare also various synonyms for the adjective drunk: boozy, cock-eyed, high, soaked, tight and many more. Notions that for some reason or other are apt to excite an emotional reaction attract as a rule many synonyms: there are many slang words for food, alcohol drinks, stealing and other violations of the law, for jail, death, madness, drug use, etc.

Slang has often attracted the attention of lexicographers. The best-known English slang dictionary is compiled by E. Partridge.

The subject of slang has caused much controversy for many years. Very different opinions have been expressed concerning its nature, its boundaries and the attitude that should be adopted towards it. The question whether it should be considered a healthful source of vocabulary development or a manifestation of vocabulary decay has been often discussed.

It has been repeatedly stated by many authors that after a slang word has been used in speech for a certain period of time, people get accustomed to it and it ceases to produce that shocking effect for the sake of which it has been originally coined. The most vital among slang words are then accepted into literary vocabulary. The examples are bet, bore, chap, donkey, fun, humbug, mob, odd, pinch, shabby, sliarn, snob, trip, also some words from the American slang: graft, hitch-hiker, sawbones, etc.

These words were originally slang words but have now become part of literary vocabulary. The most prominent place among them is occupied by words or expressions having no synonyms and serving as expressive names for some specific notions. The word teenager, so very frequent now, is a good example. Also blurb -- a publisher's eulogy of a book printed on its jacket or in advertisements elsewhere, which is originally American slang word.

The communicative value of these words ensures their stability. But they are rather the exception. The bulk of slang is formed by shortlived words. E. Partridge, one of the best known specialists in English

It is convenient to group slang words according to their place in the vocabulary system, and more precisely, in the semantic system of the vocabulary. If they denote a new and necessary notion, they may prove an enrichment of the vocabulary and be accepted into standard English. If, on the other hand, they make just another addition to a cluster of synonyms, and have nothing but novelty to back them, they die out very quickly, constituting the most changeable part of the vocabulary.

Another type of classification suggests subdivision according to thesphereof usage, into general slang and special slang. General slang includes words that are not specific for any social or professional group, whereas special slang is peculiar for some such group: teenager slang, university slang, public school slang, Air Force slang, football slang, sea slang, and so on. This second group is heterogeneous. Some authors, A.D. Schweitzer for instance, consider argot to belong here. It seems, however, more logical to differentiate slang and argot. The essential difference between them results from the fact that the first has an expressive function, whereas the second is primarily concerned with secrecy. Slang words are clearly motivated, с f. cradle-snatcher 'an old man who marries or courts a much younger woman'; belly-robber 'the head of a military canteen"; window-shopping 'feasting one's eyes on the goods displaced in the shops, without buying anything'. Argot words on the contrary do not show their motivation, с f. rap 'kill', shin 'knife', book 'a life sentence'.

Regarding professional words that are used by representatives of various trades in oral intercourse, it should be observed that when the word is the only name for some special notion it belongs not to slang but to terminology. If, on the other hand, it is a jocular name for something that can be described in some other way, it is slang.

There are cases, of course, when words originating as professional slang later on assume the dignity of special terms or pass on into general slang. The borderlines are not always sharp and distinct.

For example, the expression be on the beam was first used by pilots
about the beam of the radio beacon indicating the proper course for the
aircraft to follow. Then figuratively be on the beam came to mean 'to
be right', whereas be off the beam came to mean 'to be wrong' or 'to be
at a loss'. »

A great deal of slang comes from the USA: corny, cute, fuss-pot, teenager, swell, etc. It would be, however, erroneous to suppose that slang

Slang is a difficult problem and much yet remains to be done in elucidating it, but a more complete treatment of this layer of vocabulary would result in an undue swelling of the chapter. Therefore in concluding the discussion of slang we shall only emphasize that the most important peculiarities of slang concern not form but content. The lexical meaning of a slang word contains not only the denotational component but also an emotive component (most often it expresses irony) and all the other possible types of connotation -- it is expressive, evaluatory and stylistically coloured and is the marked member of a stylistic opposition.

To this list the 20th century words masher and teddy-boy could be added. There seems to be no new equivalent in today's English because such words as mod and rocker (like beat and beatnik) or hippy and punk imply not only, and not so much a certain way of dressing but other tastes and mental make-up as well. Mods (admirers of modern jazz music) and more sportive rockers were two groups of English youth inimical to one another. The words are formed by abbreviation and ellipsis: mod< modern jazz; rocker<rock'n roll; beat, beatnik<beat generation; punk<punk rocker.

2.2 THE ORIGIN OF ENGLISH WORDS

An important distinctive feature which has not been discussed so far in this book is that of origin. According to this feature the word-stock may be subdivided into two main sets. The elements of one are native, the elements of the other are borrowed.

A native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock, as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period. A loan word, borrowed word or borrowing is 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 native words are further subdivided by diachronic linguistics into those of the Indo-European stock and those of Common Germanic origin. The words having cognates in the vocabularies of different Indo-European languages form the oldest layer. It has been noticed that they readily fall into definite semantic groups. Among them we find terms of kinship: father, mother, son, daughter, brother, words naming the most important objects and phenomena of nature: sun, moon, star, wind, water, wood, hill, stone, tree; names of animals and birds: bull, cat, crow, goose, wolf; parts of the human body: arm, ear, eye, foot, heart, etc. Some of the most frequent verbs are also of Indo-European common stock: bear, come, sit, stand and others. The adjectives of this group denote concrete physical properties: hard, quick, slow, red, white. Most numerals also belong here.

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, Icelandic, etc., but none in Russian or French. It contains a greater number of semantic groups. The following list may serve as an illustration of their general character. The nouns are: summer, winter, storm, rain, ice, ground, bridge, house, shop, room, coal, iron, lead, cloth, hat, shirt, shoe, care, evil, hope, life, need, rest; the verbs are bake, bum, buy, drive, hear, keep, learn, make, meet, rise, see, send, shoot and many more; the adjectives are: broad, dead, deaf, deep. Many adverbs and pronouns also belong to this layer.

Together with the words of the common Indo-European stock these Common Germanic words form the bulk of the most frequent elements used in any style of speech. They constitute no less than 80% of the 500 most frequent words listed by E.L. Thorndike and I.Lorge.

Words belonging to the subsets of the native word-stock are for the most part characterized by a wide range of lexical and grammatical valency, high frequency value and a developed polysemy; they are often monosyllabic, show great word-building power and enter a number of set expressions.

For example, watch<OE wzeccan is one of the 500 most frequent English words. It may be used as a verb in more than ten different sentence patterns, with or without object and adverbial modifiers and combined with different classes of words. Its valency is thus of the highest. Examples (to cite but a few) are as follows: Are you going to play or only watch (the others play)? He was watching the crowd go by. Watch me carefully. He was watching for tlie man to leave the house. The man is being watched by tlie police.

The noun watch may mean 'the act of watching', 'the guard' (on ships), 'a period of duty for part of the ship's crew', 'a period of wakefulness', 'close observation', 'a time-piece', etc.

Watch is the centre of a numerous word-family: watch-dog, watcher, watchful, watchfulness, watch-out, watchword, etc. Some of the set expressions containing this root are: be on the watch, watch one's step, keep watch, watchful as a hawk. There is also a proverb The watched pot never boils, used when people show impatience or are unduly worrying.

The part played by borrowings in the vocabulary of a language depends upon the history of each given language, being conditioned by direct linguistic contacts and political, economic and cultural relationships between nations. English history contains innumerable occasions for all types of such contacts. It is the vocabulary system of each language that is particularly responsive to every change in the life of the speaking community. Nowhere, perhaps, is the influence of extra-linguistic social reality so obvious as in the etymological composition of the vocabulary. The source, the scope and the semantic sphere of the loan words are all dependent upon historical factors. The very fact that up to 70% of the English vocabulary consist of loan words, and only 30% of the words are native is due not to an inherent tolerance of foreign elements but to specific conditions of the English language development. The Roman invasion, the introduction of Christianity, the Danish and Norman conquests, and, in modern times, the specific features marking the development of British colonialism and imperialism combined to cause important changes in the vocabulary.

The term "source of borrowing" should be distinguished from the term "origin of borrowing". The first should be applied to the language from which the loan word was taken into English. The second, on the other hand, refers to the language to which the word may be traced. Thus, the word paper<Fr papier<Lat papyrus<Qx papyros has French as its source of borrowing and Greek as its origin. It may be observed that several of the terms for items used in writing show their origin in words denoting the raw material. Papyros is the name of a plant; с f. book<OE boc 'the beech tree' (boards of which were used for writing).

Alongside loan words proper, we distinguish loan translation and semantic loans. Translation loans are words and expressions formed from the material already existing in the British language but according to patterns taken from another language, by way of literal morpheme-for-morpheme or word-for-word translation. Examples are: chain-smoker : : Germ Kettenraucher; wall newspaper : : Russ стенная газета; (it) goes without saying : : Fr (cela) va sans dire; summit conference is an international diplomatic term, с f. Germ Gipfel Konferenz and Fr conference au sommet.

Loan translation is facilitated by the existence of formally related words, even though in other contexts and with a different meaning. E. g. Supreme Council as a synonym for Supreme Soviet.

The term "semantic loan" is used to denote the development in an English word of a new meaning due to the influence of a related word in another language. The English word pioneer meant 'explorer' and 'one who is among the first in new fields of activity'; now under the influence of the Russian word пионер it has come to mean 'a member of the Young Pioneers' Organization'.

The number of loan words in the English language is indeed so high that many foreign scholars (L.P. Smith, H. Bradley and others) were inclined to reduce the study of the English vocabulary to the discussion of its etymology, taking it for granted that the development of English was mainly due to borrowing. They seemed to be more interested in tracing the original source, form and meaning of every lexical element than in studying its present functioning and peculiarities. This view has been by now convincingly disproved by N.N. Amosova.

Although the mixed character of trie English vocabulary cannot be denied and the part of borrowing in its development is indeed one of great importance, the leading role in the history of this vocabulary belongs to word-formation and semantic changes patterned according to the specific features of the English language system. This system absorbed and remodelled the vast majority of loan words according to its own standards, so that it is sometimes difficult to tell an old borrowing from a native word. Examples are: cheese, street, wall, wine and other words belonging to the earliest layer of Latin borrowings. Many loan words, on the other hand, in spite of the changes they have undergone after .penetrating into English, retain some peculiarities in pronunciation, spelling, orthoepy, and morphology.

Thus, the initial position of the sounds [v], №3], [3] is a sign that the word is not of native stock. Examples are: vacuum (Lat), valley (Fr), voivode (Russ), vanadium (named by a Swedish chemist Selfstrom from ON Vanadis, the goddess Freya), vanilla (Sp), etc. The sound Ids 1 ma-be rendered by the letters g and /: gem<Lat gemma and jewel<OF jouel. The initial [3 ] occurs in comparatively late borrowings: genre, gendarme (Fr). The letters /', x, z in initial position and such combinations as ph, kh, eau in the root indicate the foreign origin of the word: philology (Gr), khaki (Indian), beau (Fr). Some letters and combinations of letters depend in their orthoepy upon the etymology of the word. Thus, x is pronounced Iks] and [gz] in words of native and Latin origin respectively, and [z] in words coming from Greek: six Isiks] (native), exist [ig'zist] (Lat), but xylophone (Gr) is pronounced I'zailafoun).

The combination ch is pronounced Щ 1 in native words and early borrowings: child, chair; [f] in late French borrowings: machine [тэ'Гкп], parachute l'p?eraju:t ], and [k] in words of Greek origin: epoch I'i:pok], chemist I'kemist], echo ['ekoul.

The phono-morphological structure of borrowings is characterized by a high percentage of polysyllabic words: company, condition, continue, government, important and the like are among the most frequent. Bound stems prevail.

L. Bloomfield points out that English possesses a great mass of words (he calls them "foreign-learned" words) with a separate pattern of derivation. Their chief characteristic is the use of certain accented suffixes and combinations of suffixes: ability, education. Another feature, according to L. Bloomfield, is the presence of certain phonemic alterations, such as [v]--Ip]--It]:receive : : reception : : receipt; or [ail--[xj: provide : : provident; and Iz]--13]: visible : : provision. There are also prefixes which mark certain words as foreign-learned, as for instance: ab-, ad-, con-, de-, dis-, ex-, in-, per-, pre-, pro-, re-, trans-. These prefixes themselves show peculiar phonetic alternations: con-centrate, but col-lect, cor-rect. Such words contain bound forms for which it seems sometimes quite impossible to set up any definite semantic value. Examples are: conceive, deceive, perceive, receive or attend, contend, distend, pretend; adduce, conduce, deduce, induce, produce, reduce.

ASSIMILATION OF LOAN WORDS

The role of loan words in the formation and development of English vocabulary is dealt with in the history of the language. It is there that the historical circumstances are discussed under which words borrowed from Latin, from Scandinavian dialects, from Norman and Parisian French and many other languages, including Russian, were introduced into English. Lexicology, on the other hand, has in this connection tasks of its own, being chiefly concerned with the material and the results of assimilation.

The main problems of etymology and borrowed words as they concern the English language are comprehensively and consistently treated in Professor A.I. Smirnitsky's book on lexicology. Professor A.I. Smirnitsky deals with these issues mainly in terms of word sameness reflecting his methodological approach to word theory.

In the present paragraph attention must be concentrated on the assimilation of loan words as a way of their interaction with the system of the language as a whole. The term assimilation of a loan word is used to denote a partial or total conformation to the phonet-ical, 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. Oral borrowings due to personal contacts are assimilated more completely and more rapidly than literary borrowings, i.e. borrowings through written speech.

Л classification of loan words according to the degree of assimilation can be only very general as no rigorous procedure for measuring it has so far been developed. The following three groups may be suggested: completely assimilated loan words, partially assimilated loan words and unassimilated loan words or barbarisms. The group of partially assimilated words may be subdivided depending on the aspect that remains unaltered, i.e. according to whether the word retains features of spelling, pronunciation, morphology or denotation (when the word denotes some specific realia) that are not English. The third group is not universally accepted, as it may be argued that words not changed at all cannot form part of the English vocabulary, because they occur in speech only, but do not enter the language.

I. Completely assimilated loan words are found in all the layers of older borrowings. They may belong to the first layer of Latin borrowings, e. g. cheese, street, wall or wine. Among Scandinavian loan words we find such frequent nouns as husband, fellow, gate, root, wing; such verbs as call, die, take, want and adjectives like happy, ill, low, odd and wrong. Completely assimilated French words are extremely numerous and frequent. Suffice it to mention such everyday words as table and chair, face and figure, finish and matter. A considerable number of Latin words borrowed during the revival of learning are at present almost indistinguishable from the rest of the vocabulary. Neither animal nor article differ noticeably from native words.

The number of completely assimilated loan words is many times greater than the number of partially assimilated ones. They follow all morphological, phonetical and orthographic standards. Being very frequent and stylistically neutral, they may occur as dominant words in synonymic groups. They take an active part in word-formation. Moreover, their morphological structure and motivation remain transparent, so that they are morphologically analysable and therefore supply the English vocabulary not only with free forms but also with bound forms, as affixes are easily perceived and separated in series of loan words that contain them. Such are, for instance, the French suffixes -age, -ance and -ment, and the English modification of French -esse and -fier, which provide speech material to produce hybrids like shortage, goddess, hindrance, speechify, and endearment. The free forms, on the other hand, are readily combined with native affixes, e. g. pained, painful, painfully, painless, painlessness, all formed from pain<.Fr peine<.Lat poena >Gr poine 'penalty'. The subject of hybrids has already been dealt with in the chapter on derivation (see p.p. 106-107).

Completely assimilated loanwords are also indistinguishable phonetically. It is impossible to say judging by the sound of the words sport and start whether they are borrowed or native. In fact start is native, derived from ME sterten, whereas sport is a shortening of disport vt<OFr (se) desporter 'to amuse oneself, 'to carry oneself away from one's work' (ultimately derived from Lat portare 'to carry'). This last example brings us to the problem of semantic assimilation. This problem deserves far more attention than has hitherto been given to it. Its treatment has been limited so far to passing remarks in works dealing with other subjects. The first thing that needs stressing is that a loan word never brings into the receiving language the whole of its semantic structure if it is polysemantic in the original language. And even the borrowed variants are for the most part changed and specialized in the new system.

The wordsport can serveasan illustration. It had a much wider scope in Old French denoting pleasures, making merry and entertainments in general. It was borrowed into Middle English in this character but gradually acquired the additional meaning of outdoor games and exercise, and in this new meaning was borrowed into many European languages and became international. This process of semantic specialization in borrowing is even more evident in such loan words from Russian as Soviet and sputnik, whose Russian prototypes are polysemantic. In the light of current ideas, it is convenient to classify and study loan words as oppositions of the words as they exist in the receiving language with their prototypes in the source language, on the one hand, and with words of the same lexico-grammatical class or (depending on the level chosen) of the same morphological or phonetical pattern in the receiving language.