Exercises in lexicology

Derivational compounds or pseudo-compounds are all subordinative and fall into two groups according to the type of variable phrases that serve as their bases and the derivational means used:

a) derivational compound adjectives formed with the help of the highly-productive adjectival suffix-ed applied to bases built on attributive phrases of the A+N, Num + N, N+N type, e.g. long legs, three corners, doll face. Accordingly the derivational adjectives under discussion are built after the patterns [(a+n) + -ed], e.g. long- legged, flat-chested, broad-minded;[(num + n) + -ed], e.g. two-sided, three-cornered;[(n+n) + -ed], e.g. doll-faced, heart-shaped.

b) derivational compound nouns formed mainly by conversion applied to bases built on three types of variable phrases-- verb-adverb phrase, verbal-nominal and attributive phrases.

The commonest type of phrases that serves as derivational bases for this group of derivational compounds is the V + Adv type of word-groups as in, e.g., a breakdown, a break-through, a cast-away, a lay-out. Semantically derivational compound nouns form lexical groups typical of conversion, such as an act or instance of the action, e.g. a holdup--'a delay in traffic' from to hold up--'delay, stop by use of force'; a result of the action, e.g. a breakdown--'a failure in machinery that causes work to stop' from to break down--'become disabled'; an active agent or recipient of the action, e.g. cast-offs--'clothes that the owner will not wear again' from to cast off--'throw away as unwanted'; a show-off--'a person who shows off' fromto show off--'make a display of one's abilities in order to impress people'. Derivational compounds of this group are spelt generally solidly or with a hyphen and often retain a level stress. Semantically they are motivated by transparent derivative relations with the motivating base built on the so-called phrasal verb and are typical of the colloquial layer of vocabulary. This type of derivational compound nouns is highly productive due to the productivity of conversion.

The semantic subgroup of derivational compound nouns denoting agents calls for special mention. There is a group of such substantives built on an attributive and verbal-nominal type of phrases. These nouns are semantically only partially motivated and are marked by a heavy emotive charge or lack of motivation and often belong to terms as, e.g., a kill-joy, a wet-blanket--'one who kills enjoyment';a turnkey--'keeper of the keys in prison';a sweet-tooth--'a person who likes sweet food'; a red-breast--'a bird called the robbin'. The analysis of these nouns easily proves that they can only be understood as the result of conversion for their second ICs cannot be understood as their structural or semantic centres, these compounds belong to a grammatical and lexical groups different from those their components do. These compounds are all animate nouns whereas their second ICs belong to inanimate objects. The meaning of the active agent is not found in either of the components but is imparted as a result of conversion applied to the word-group which is thus turned into a derivational base..

These compound nouns are often referred to in linguistic literature as "bahuvrihi" compounds or exocentric compounds, i.e. words whose semantic head is outside the combination. It seems more correct to refer them to the same group of derivational or pseudo-compounds as the above cited groups.

This small group of derivational nouns is of a restricted productivity, its heavy constraint lies in its idiomaticity and hence its stylistic and emotive colouring.

Questions:

What are compounds?

What are the structural peculiarities of compounds?

What are the phonetical peculiarities of compounds?

What are the graphical peculiarities of compounds?

What are semantic peculiarities of compounds?

Prove that compounds possess structural meaning.

Give examples of compounds with polysemantic structure.

Give examples of completely motivated, partially motivated and non-motivated compounds.

What are the principles according to which compounds can be classified?

What is the classification of compounds according to degree of semantic independence?

What is the functional classification of compounds?

What is the classification of compounds according to means of composition?

What is the classification of compounds according to types of basis?

Shortening and Other Minor Types

R.S. Ginzburg, A Course in Modern English Lexicology, §9. Various Ways of Word-Creation [pp. 187-191]

New words in different notional classes appear also as a result of various non-patterned ways of word creation. The two main types of non-patterned word-creation are: I. Various ways of transformation of a word-form into a word usually referred to as lexicalization and II. Shortening which consists in substituting a part for a whole. Shortening comprises essentially different ways of word creation. It involves 1. transformation of a word-group into a word, and 2. a change of the word-structure resulting in a new lexical item, i.e. clipping.

I. Lexicalization. Due to various semantic and syntactic reasons the grammatical flexion in some word-forms, most often the plural of nouns, as in, e.g. the nounsarms, customs, colours, loses its grammatical meaning and becomes isolated from the paradigm of the words arm, custom, look. As a result of the re-interpretation of the plural suffix the word-formarms, customs developed a different lexical meaning 'weapons' and 'import duties' respectively. This led to a complete break of semantic links with the semantic structure of the wordsarm,customand thus to the appearance of new words with a different set of grammatical features. It must be noted that there is no unanimity of opinion on whether all such items should be viewed as new words or only as new meanings. Different approaches to the problem are connected with the border-line between polysemy and homonymy and many individual cases are actually open to doubt.

Essentially the same phenomenon of lexicalization is observed in the transition of participles into adjectives. The process is also known as adjectivization. It may be illustrated by a number of adjectives such astired, devoted, interesting, amusing, etc. which are now felt as homonymous to the participles of the verbsto tire, to marry, etc.

Lexicalization is a long, gradual historical process which synchronically results in the appearance of new vocabulary units.

II. Shortening. Distinction should be made between shortening which results in new lexical items and a specific type of shortening proper only to written speech resulting in numerous graphical abbreviations which are only signs representing words and word-groups of high frequency of occurrence in various spheres of human activity as for instance,RD forRoad andSt forStreet in addresses on envelopes and in letters;tu for tube, aer for aerial in Radio Engineering literature, etc. English graphical abbreviations include rather numerous shortened variants of Latin and French words and word-groups, e.g.:i.e. (L. id est)--'that is';R.S.V.P. (Fr.--Repondez s'il vous plait)--'reply please', etc.

Graphical abbreviations are restricted in use to written speech, occurring only in various kinds of texts, articles, books, advertisements, letters, etc. In reading, -many of them are substituted by the words and phrases that they represent, e.g.Dr. = doctor, Mr.=mister, Oct. =October, etc.; the abbreviations of Latin and French words and phrases are usually read as their English equivalents. It follows that graphical abbreviations cannot be considered new lexical vocabulary units.

It is only natural that in the course of language development some graphical abbreviations should gradually penetrate into the sphere of oral intercourse and, as a result, turn into self-contained lexical units used both in oral and written speech. That is the case, for instance, with a.m. ['e?'em]--'in the morning, before noon';p.m. ['pi:'em]--'in the afternoon';S.O.S. ['es 'ou 'es] (=Save Our Souls)--'urgent call for help', etc.

1. Transformations of word-groups into words involve different types of lexical shortening: elipsis or substantivization, initial letter or syllable abbreviations (also referred to as acronyms), blendings, etc.

Substantivization consists in dropping of the final nominal member of a frequently used attributive word-group. When such a member of the word-group is dropped as, for example, was the case with a documentary film the remaining adjective takes on the meaning and all the syntactic functions of the noun and thus develops into a new word changing its class membership and becoming homonymous to the existing adjective. It may be illustrated by a number of nouns that appeared in this way, e.g.an incendiary goes back toan incendiary bomb, the finals tothe final examinations, an editorial toan editorial article, etc. Other more recent creations arean orbital (Br. 'a highway going around the suburbs of a city'),a verbal ('a verbal confession introduced as evidence at a trial'),a topless which goes to three different word-groups and accordingly has three meanings: 1) a topless dress, bathing suit, etc., 2) a waitress, dancer, etc. wearing topless garments, 3) a bar, night-club featuring topless waitresses or performers.

Substantivization is often accompanied by productive suffixation as in, e.g.,a one-winger fromone-wing plane,a two-decker fromtwo-deck bus orship; it may be accompanied by clipping and productive suffixation, e.g.flickers (coll.) fromflicking pictures, a smoker fromsmoking carriage, etc.

Acronyms and letter abbreviations are lexical abbreviations of a phrase. There are different types of such abbreviations and there is no unanimity of opinion among scholars whether all of them can be regarded as regular vocabulary units. It seems logical to make distinction between acronyms and letter abbreviations. Letter abbreviations are mere replacements of longer phrases including names of well- known organizations of undeniable currency, names of agencies and institutions, political parties, famous people, names of official offices, etc. They are not spoken or treated as words but pronounced letter by letter and as a rule possess no other linguistic forms proper to words. The following may serve as examples of such abbreviations:CBW = chemical and biological warfare,DOD = Department of Defence (of the USA), ITV -- Independent Television, Instructional Television,SST = supersonic transport, etc. It should be remembered that the border-line between letter abbreviations and true acronyms is fluid and many letter abbreviations in the course of time may turn into regular vocabulary units. Occasionally letter abbreviations are given 'pronunciation spelling' as for instance dejay (= D.J. = disc jokey),emce (== M.C. = master of ceremonies) in which case they tend to pass over into true acronyms.

Acronyms are regular vocabulary units spoken as words. They are formed in various ways:

1) from the initial letters or syllables of a phrase, which may be pronounced differently a) as a succession of sounds denoted by the constituent letters forming a syllabic pattern, i.e. as regular words, e.g.UNO['ju:nou] = United Nations Organizations;NATO ['neitou] = North Atlantic Treaty Organization,UNESCO [ju:'neskou];laser ['le?s?] = light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation;radar ['re?d?] = radio detection and ranging;BMEWS['bi:mju:z] = Ballistic Missile Early Warning System; b) as a succession of the alphabetical readings of the constituent letters as in, e.g.,YCL['wa?'si:'el] = Young Communist League;BBC ['bi:'bi:'si:l = British Broadcasting Corporation; MP ['em'pi:] = Member of Parliament;SOS I'es'ou'es] = Save Our Souls.

2) Acronyms may be formed from the initial syllables of each word of the phrase, e.g.interpol = inter/national pol/ice;tacsatcom = Tactical Satellite Communications;Capcom = Capsule Communicator (the person at a space flight centre who communicates with the astronauts during a space flight).

3) Acronyms may be formed by a combination of the abbreviation of the first or the first two members of the phrase with the last member undergoing no change at all, e.g.V-day = Victory Day;H-bomb= hydrogen bomb; g-force = gravity force, etc.

All acronyms unlike letter abbreviations perform the syntactical functions of ordinary words taking on grammatical inflexions, e.g. MPs (will attack huge arms bill),M.P's (concern at...). They also serve as derivational bases for derived words and easily collocate with derivational suffixes as, e.g.YCLer (= member of the YCL);MPess(= woman-member of Parliament);radarman, etc.

Blendings are the result of conscious creation of words by merging irregular fragments of several words which are aptly called "splinters." Splinters assume different shapes--they may be severed from the source word at a morpheme boundary as intransceiver (=transmitter and receiver),transistor (= transfer and resistor) or at a syllable boundary like cute (from execute) inelectrocute, medicare (from medical care),polutician (from pollute and politician) or boundaries of both kinds may be disregarded as inbrunch (from breakfast and lunch),smog (from smoke and fog),ballute (from baloon and parachute), etc. Many blends show some degree of overlapping of vowels, consonants and syllables or echo the word or word fragment it replaces. This device is often used to attain punning effect, as infoolosopher echoing philosopher; icecapade (= spectacular shows on ice) echoing escapade; baloonatic (= baloon and lunatic).

Blends are coined not infrequently in scientific and technical language as a means of naming new things, as trade names in advertisements. Since blends break the rules of morphology they result in original combinations which catch quickly. Most of the blends have a colloquial flavour.

2. Clipping refers to the creation of new words by shortening a word of two or more syllables (usually nouns and adjectives) without changing its class membership. Clipped words, though they often exist together with the longer original source word function as independent lexical units with a certain phonetic shape and lexical meaning of their own. The lexical meanings of the clipped word and its source do not as a rule coincide, for instance,doc refers only to 'one who practices medicine', whereasdoctor denotes also 'the higher degree given by a university and a person who has received it', e.g.Doctor of Law, Doctor of Philosophy. Clipped words always differ from the non-clipped words in the emotive charge and stylistic reference. Clippings indicate an attitude of familiarity on the part of the user either towards the object denoted or towards the audience, thus clipped words are characteristic of colloquialspeech. In the course of time, though, many clipped words find their way into the literary language losing some of their colloquial colouring. Clippings show various degrees of semantic dissociation from their full forms. Some are no longer felt to be clippings, e.g.pants (cf. pantaloons), bus (cf.omnibus), bike (cf.bicycle), etc. Some of them retain rather close semantic ties with the original word. This gives ground to doubt whether the clipped words should be considered separate words. Some linguists hold the view that in case semantic dissociation is slight and the major difference lies in the emotive charge and stylistic application the two units should be regarded as word-variants (e.g.examandexamination, lab andlaboratory, etc.).

Clipping often accompanies other ways of shortening such as substantivization, e.g.perm (from permanent wave),op (from optical art), pop (from popular music, art, singer, etc.), etc.

As independent vocabulary units clippings serve as derivational bases for suffixal derivations collocating with highly productive neutral and stylistically non-neutral suffixes -ie, -er, e.g.nightie (cf. nightdress), panties, hanky (cf. handkerchief). Cases of conversion are not infrequent, e.g.to taxi, to perm, etc.

There do not seem to be any clear rules by means of which we might predict where a word will be cut though there are several types into which clippings are traditionally classified according to the part of the word that is clipped:

1) Words that have been shortened at the end--the so-called apocope, e.g.ad (from advertisement),lab (from laboratory),mike (from microphone), etc.

2) Words that have been shortened at the beginning--the so-called aphaeresis, e.g.car (from motor-car),phone (from telephone), copter (from helicopter), etc.

3) Words in which some syllables or sounds have been omitted from the middle--the so-called syncope, e.g.maths (from mathematics), pants (from pantaloons),specs (from spectacles), etc.

4) Words that have been clipped both at the beginning and at the end, e.g.flu (from influenza),tec (from detective),fridge (from refrigerator), etc.

It must be stressed that acronyms and clipping are the main ways of word-creation most active in present-day English. The peculiarity of both types of words is that they are structurally simple, semantically non-motivated and give rise to new root-morphemes.

Questions:

What is lexicalization?

Give examples of adjectivization.

Prove that lexicology is not concerned with graphical abbreviations.

What is substantivization?

What is the difference between acronyms and letter abbreviations?

What are the ways of forming acronyms?

Give examples of blendings.

What is clipping?

What are the types of clipping?



Non-Productive Ways of Word-Building

R.S. Ginzburg, A Course in Modern English Lexicology, §4. Productivity of Word-Formation Means [pp. 112-113]

Some of the ways of forming words in present-day English can be resorted to for the creation of new words whenever the occasion demands--these are called productive waysof forming words, other ways of forming words cannot now produce new words, and these are commonly termed non-productive or un-productive. For instance, affixation has been a productive way of forming words ever since the Old English period; on the other hand, sound-interchange must have been at one time a word-building means but in Modern English […] its function is actually only to distinguish between different classes and forms of words.

It follows that productivity of word-building ways, individual derivational patterns and derivational affixes is understood as their ability of making new words which all who speak English find no difficulty in understanding, in particular their ability to create what are called occasional words or nonce-words. The term suggests that a speaker coins such words when he needs them; if on another occasion the same word is needed again, he coins it afresh. Nonce-words are built from familiar language material after familiar patterns. Needless to say dictionaries do not as a rule record occasional words. The following words may serve as illustration: (his) collarless (appearance), a lungful (of smoke), a Dickensish (office), to unlearn (the rules), etc.

The delimitation between productive and non-productive ways and means of word-formation as stated above is not, however, accepted by all linguists without reserve. Some linguists consider it necessary to define the term productivity of a word-building means more accurately. They hold the view that productive ways and means of word-formation are only those that can be used for the formation of an unlimited number of new words in the modern language, i.e. such means that "know no bounds" and easily form occasional words. This divergence of opinion is responsible for the difference in the lists of derivational affixes considered productive in various books on English Lexicology.

Recent investigations seem to prove however that productivity of derivational means is relative in many respects. Moreover there are no absolutely productive means; derivational patterns and derivational affixes possess different degrees of productivity. Therefore it is important that conditions favouring productivity and the degree of productivity of a particular pattern or affix should be established. All derivational patterns experience both structural and semantic constraints. The fewer are the constraints the higher is the degree of productivity, the greater is the number of new words built on it. The two general constraints imposed on all derivational patterns are--the part of speech in which the pattern functions and the meaning attached to it which conveys the regular semantic correlation between the two classes of words. It follows that each part of speech is characterized by a set of productive derivational patterns peculiar to it. Three degrees of productivity are distinguished for derivational patterns and individual derivational affixes: l) highly-productive, 2) productive or semi-productive and 3) non-productive.

Productivity of derivational patterns and affixes should not be identified with frequency of occurrence in speech, although there may be some interrelation between them. Frequency of occurrence is characterized by the fact that a great number of words containing a given derivational affix are often used in speech, in particular in various texts. Productivity is characterized by the ability of a given suffix to make new words.

In linguistic literature there is another interpretation of derivational productivity based on a quantitative approach. A derivational pattern or a derivational affix are qualified as productive provided there are in the word-stock dozens and hundreds of derived words built on the pattern or with the help of the suffix in question. Thus interpreted, derivational productivity is distinguished from word-formation activity by which is meant the ability of an affix to produce new words, in particular occasional words or nonce-words. To give a few illustrations, the agent suffix -er is to be qualified both as a productive and as an active suffix: on the one hand, the English word-stock possesses hundreds of nouns containing this suffix (e.g. driver, reaper, teacher, speaker, etc.), on the other hand, the suffix -er in the pattern v+-er>N is freely used to coin an unlimited number of nonce-words denoting active agents (e.g., interrupter, respecter, laugher, breakfaster, etc.).

The adjective suffix -ful is described as a productive but not as an active one, for there are hundreds of adjectives with this suffix (e.g. beautiful, hopeful, useful, etc.), but no new words seem to be built with its help.

For obvious reasons, the noun-suffix -th in terms of this approach is to be regarded both as a non-productive and a non-active one.

Questions:

What are productive and non-productive ways of forming words?

What are occasional words?

Prove that productivity is relative in many aspects.

Historical Changeability of Word-Structure

R.S. Ginzburg, A Course in Modern English Lexicology, §13. Historical Changeability of Word-Structure [pp. 105-106]

Neither the morphemic nor the derivational structure of the word remains the same but is subject to various changes in the course of time. Changes in the phonetic and semantic structure and in the stress pattern of polymorphic words may bring about a number of changes in the morphemic and derivational structure. Certain morphemes may become fused together or may be lost altogether. As a result of this process, known as the process of simplification, radical changes in the structure of the word may take place: root-morphemes may turn into affixational or semi-affixational morphemes, polymorphic words may becomemonomorphic, compound words may be transformed into derivedor even simple words.There is no doubt, for instance, that the Modern English derived nounfriendshipgoes back to the Old English compoundfreondscipe in which the componentscipe was a root-morpheme and a stem of the independently functioning word. The present-day English suffixes-hood, -dom, -like are also known to have developed from root-morphemes. The nounhusband is a simple monomorphic word in Modern English, whereas in Old English it was a compound word consisting of two bases built on two stemshus-bond-a.

Sometimes the spelling of some Modern English words as compared with their sound-form reflects the changes these words have undergone. The Modern English wordcupboard judging by its sound-form ['k?b?d] is a monomorphicnon-motivated simple word. Yet its spelling betrays its earlier history. It consisted of two bases represented by two monomorphic stems [k?p] and [b?:d] and was pronounced ['k?p?b?:d]; it signified 'a board to put cups on'; nowadays, however, having been structurally transformed into a simple word, it denotes neithercup norboard as may be seen from the phrases likea boot cupboard, a clothes cupboard. A similar course of development isobserved in the wordsblackguard ['blжg?:d] traced to ['blжck ?g?:d],handkerchief ['hж?k???f] that once was ['hжnd?k?:?if], etc.

In the process of historical development some word-structures underwent reintergretation without radical changes in their phonemic shape; thereare caseswhen simple root-words came to be understood as derived consisting of two ICs represented by two individual items, e.g.beggar, chauffeur, editor. The reinterpretation ofsuch words led to the formation of simple verbs liketo edit, to beg, etc.

Questions:

What changes in word-structure can simplification cause?

Give examples of words that changed their structure in the course of time.



Seminar 8. Etymology

Words of Native Origin

R.S. Ginzburg, A Course in Modern English Lexicology, Word of Native Origin [pp.162-164]

Words of native origin consist for the most part of very ancient elements--Indo-European, Germanic and West Germanic cognates. The bulk of the Old English word-stock has been preserved, although some words have passed out of existence. When speaking about the role of the native element in the English language linguists usually confine themselves to the small Anglo-Saxon stock of words, which is estimated to make 25--30% of the English vocabulary.

To assign the native element its true place it is not so important to count the number of Anglo-Saxon words that have, survived up to our ways, as to study their semantic and stylistic character, their word-building ability, frequency value, collocability.

Almost all words of Anglo-Saxon originbelong to very important semantic groups.They include most of the auxiliary and modal verbs (shall, will, must, can, may, etc.), pronouns (I, you, he, my, his, who, etc.), prepositions (in, out, on, under, etc.), numerals (one, two, three, four, etc.) andconjunctions (and, but, till, as, etc.). Notional words of Anglo-Saxon origin include such groups as words denoting parts of the body (head, hand, arm, back, etc.), members of the family and closest relatives (father, mother, brother, son, wife), natural phenomena and planets (snow, rain, wind, sun, moon, star, etc.), animals (horse, cow, sheep, cat), qualities and properties (old, young, cold, hot, light, dark, long), common actions (do, make, go, come, see, hear, eat,etc.), etc.

Most of the native words have undergone great changes in their semantic structure, and as a result are nowadays polysemantic, e.g. the word finger does not only denote a part of a hand as in Old English, but also 1) the part of a glove covering one of the fingers, 2) a finger-like part in various machines, 3) a hand of a clock, 4) an index, 5) a unit of measurement. Highly polysemantic are the wordsman, head, hand, go, etc.

Most native words possess a wide range of lexical and grammatical valency. Many of them enter a number of phraseological units, e.g. the wordheel enters the following units:heel over head orhead over heels-- 'upside down';cool one's heel--'be kept waiting';show a clean pair of heels, take to one's heels--'run away',turn on one's heels-- 'turn sharply round', etc.

The great stability and semantic peculiarities of Anglo-Saxon words account fortheir great derivational potential. Most words of native origin make up large clusters of derived and compound words in the present-day language, e.g. the wordwood is the basis for the formation of the following words: wooden, woody, wooded, woodcraft, woodcutter, woodwork and many others. The formation of new words is greatly facilitated by the fact that most Anglo-Saxon words are root-words.

New words have been coined from Anglo-Saxon simple word-stems mainly by means of affixation, word-composition and conversion.

Some linguists contend that due to the large additions to its vocabulary from different languages, English lost much of its old faculty to form new words. The great number of compound and derived words in modern English, the diversity of their patterns, the stability and productivity of the patterns and the appearance of new ones testify to the contrary. Such affixes of native origin as -ness, -ish, -ed, un-, mis- make part of the patterns widely used to build numerous new words throughout the whole history of English, though some of them have changed their collocability or have become polysemantic, e.g. the agent-forming suffix -er, which was in Old English mostly added to noun-stems, is now most often combined with verb-stems, besides it has come to form also names of instruments, persons in a certain state or doing something at the moment.

Some native words were used as components of compounds so often that they have acquired the status of derivational affixes (e. g. -dom, -hood, -ly,over-, out-, under-), others are now semi-affixational morphemes.

It is noteworthy that to the native element in English we must also refer some new simple words based on words of Anglo-Saxon origin. Words with a new non-derived stem branch off from primary simple words as a result of simplification of some derivatives in a cluster of words and their semantic isolation, as inking, kind n,kind a andkin n, from which all of them were derived (cp. OE.cynin?, cynd, cynde, cyn), orbless and bleed derived fromblood(cp. OE.bledsian, bledan, blod). Sometimes a word split into two or more words with different forms and meanings (i.e. etymological doublets) due to the difference in function and stress, as is the case withoff andof (from OE.of which was stressed as an adverb and unstressed as a preposition). Dialectal forms of a word may develop into independent words, as inone andan (< OE.an), wholeandhale (< OE.hal). New root-words based on Anglo-Saxon words also came into being with the rise of homonyms owing to the split of polysemy.

The semantic characteristics, stability and wide collocability of native words account for their frequency in speech. However there are some words among them which are now archaic or poetic (e.g.lore, methinks, quoth, whilom, ere, welkin, etc.), or used only as historical terms (e.g.thane, yeoman denoting ranks,stocks -- 'an instrument of torture', etc.).

What has been said above shows that the native element has been playing a significant role in the English language. To fully estimate the importance of the native element in English, it is essential to study the role of English derivational means and semantic development in the life of borrowings, which will be dwelt upon in the sections below.

Questions:

What is the place of native words in the lexical system of Modern English?

Give semantic characteristic of native words.

Prove that native words possess a wide range of lexical and grammatical valency.

Give examples native words that became archaic.

Borrowings. Causes and Ways of Borrowing. Criteria of Borrowings

R.S. Ginzburg, A Course in Modern English Lexicology, §5. Causes and Ways of Borrowing, §6. Criteria of Borrowings [pp. 164-166]

In its 15 century long history recorded in written manuscripts the English language happened to come in long and closecontact with several other languages, mainly Latin, French and Old Norse (or Scandinavian). The great influx of borrowings from these sources can be accounted for by a number of historical causes. Due to the great influence of the Roman civilization Latin was for a long time used in England as the language of learning and religion. Old Norse was the language of the conquerors who were on the same level of social and cultural development and who merged rather easily with the local population in the 9th, 10th and the first half of the 11th century. French (to be more exact its Norman dialect) was the language of the other conquerors who brought with them a lot of new notions of a higher social system--developed feudalism, it was the language of upper classes, of official documents and school instruction from the middle of the 11th century to the end of the 14th century.

In the study of the borrowed element in English the main emphasis is as a rule placed on the Middle English period. Borrowings of later periods became the object of investigation only in recent years. These investigations have shown that the flow of borrowings has been steady and uninterrupted. The greatest number has come from French. They refer to various fields of social-political, scientific and cultural life. A large portion of borrowings (41%) is scientific and technical terms.

The number and character of borrowed words tell us of the relations between the peoples, the level of their culture, etc. It is for this reason that borrowings have often been called the milestones of history. Thus if we go through the lists of borrowings in English and arrange them in groups according to their meaning, we shall be able to obtain much valuable information with regard to England's contacts with many nations. Some borrowings, however, cannot be explained by the direct influence of certain historical conditions, they do not come along with any new objects or ideas. Such were for instance the wordsair, place, brave, gayborrowed from French.

It must be pointed out that while the general historical causes of borrowing from different languages have been studied with a considerable degree of thoroughness the purely linguistic reasons for borrowing are still open to investigation.

The number and character of borrowings do not only depend on the historical conditions, on the nature and length of the contacts, but also on the degree of the genetic and structural proximity of languages concerned. The closer the languages, the deeper and more versatile is the influence. This largely accounts for the well-marked contrast between the French and the Scandinavian influence on the English language. Thus under the influence of the Scandinavian languages, which were closely related to Old English, some classes of words were borrowed that could not have been adopted from non-related or distantly related languages (the pronounsthey, their, them, for instance); a number of Scandinavian borrowings were felt as derived from native words (they were of the same root and the connection between them was easily seen), e.g.drop (AS.)-- drip(Scand.), true (AS)--tryst (Scand.); the Scandinavian influence even accelerated to a certain degree the development of the grammatical structure of English.

Borrowings enter the language in two ways: through oral speech (by immediate contact between the peoples) and through written speech (by indirect contact through books, etc.).

Oral borrowing took place chiefly in the early periods of history, whereas in recent times written borrowing gained importance. Words borrowed orally (e.g. L.inch, mill, street) are usually short and they undergo considerable changes in the act of adoption. Written borrowings (e.g. Fr.communique, belles-lettres, naivetй) preserve their spelling and some peculiarities of their sound-form, their assimilation is a long and laborious process.

Though borrowed words undergo changes in the adopting language they preservesome of their former peculiarities for a comparatively long period. This makes it possible to work out some criteria for determining whether the word belongs to the borrowed element.

In some cases the pronunciation of the word (strange sounds, sound combinations, position of stress, etc.), its spelling and the correlation between sounds and letters are an indication of the foreign origin of the word. This is the case withwaltz (G.), psychology (Gr.),soufflй (Fr.), etc. The initial position of the sounds [v], [d?], [?] or of the lettersx, j, z is a sure sign that the word has been borrowed, e.g.volcano (It.), vase (Fr.),vaccine (L.), jungle (Hindi),gesture (L.),giant (OFr.),zeal(L.),zero (Fr.),zinc (G.), etc.

The morphological structure of the word and its grammatical forms may also bear witness to the word being adopted from another language. Thus the suffixes in the words neurosis (Gr.) and violoncello (It.) betray the foreign origin of the words. The same is true of the irregular plural forms papyra (from papyrus, Gr.), pastorali(from pastorale, It.), beaux(from beau, Fr.), bacteria, (from bacterium, L.) and the like.

Last but not least is the lexical meaning of the word. Thus the concept denoted by the wordsricksha(w), pagoda (Chin.) make us suppose that we deal with borrowings.

These criteria are not always helpful. Some early borrowings have become so thoroughly assimilated that they are unrecognizable withouta historical analysis, e.g.chalk, mile (L.),ill, ugly (Scand.), enemy, car (Fr.), etc. It must also be taken into consideration that the closer the relation between the languages, the more difficult it is to distinguish borrowings.

Sometimes the form of the word and its meaning in Modern English enable us to tell the immediate source of borrowing. Thus if the digraph ch is sounded as [?], the word is a late French borrowing (as in echelon, chauffeur, chef); if it stands for [k], it came through Greek (archaic, architect, chronology); if it is pronounced as [?], it is either an early borrowing (chase, OFr.; cherry, L., OFr.;chime, L.), or a word of Anglo-Saxon origin (choose,child,chin).

Questions:

Why does English have so many borrowed words?

What are the ways of borrowing?

Give examples of borrowed words that can be recognized by their:

phonetic peculiarity;

spelling peculiarity;

morphological peculiarity;

meaning peculiarity.

Assimilation of Borrowings

lexicology homonymy syntagmatic morphology

R.S. Ginzburg, A Course in Modern English Lexicology, §7. Assimilation of Borrowings, §8. Phonetic, Grammatical and Lexical Assimilation of Borrowings, §9. Degree of Assimilation and Factors Determining it [pp. 166-170]

It is now essential to analyse the changesborrowings have undergone in thelanguage and how they have adapted themselves to its peculiarities.

All the changes that borrowed elements undergo may be divided into two large groups.

On the one hand there are changes specific of borrowed words only. These changes aim at adapting words of foreign origin to the norms of the borrowing language, e.g. the consonant combinations [pn], [ps], [pt] in the wordspneumatics, psychology, Ptolemey of Greek origin were simplified into [n], [s], [t], since the consonant combinations [ps], [pt], [pn], very frequent at the end of English words (as insleeps, stopped, etc.), were never used in the initial position. For the same reason the initial [ks] was changed into [z] (as in Gr.xylophone).

The suffixes-ar, -or, -ator in early Latin borrowings were replaced by the highly productive Old English suffix -ere, as in L.Caesar> OE. Casere, L.sutor> OE. sutere.

By analogy with the great majority of nouns that form their plural in-s, borrowings, even very recent ones, have assumed this inflection instead of their original plural endings. The formsSoviets, bolsheviks, kolkhozes, sputniks illustrate the process.

On the other hand we observe changes that are characteristic of both borrowed and native words. These changes are due to the development of the word according to the laws of the given language. When the highly inflected Old English system of declension changed into the simpler system of Middle English, early borrowings conformed with the general rule. Under the influence of the so-called inflexional levelling borrowings likela?u, (MnE. law),feola?a (MnE. fellow), strжt (MnE. street), disc(MnE. dish) that had a number of grammatical forms in Old English acquired only three forms in Middle English: common case and possessive case singular and plural (fellow, fellowes, fellowes).

It is very important to discriminate between the two processes--the adaptation of borrowed material to the norms of the language and the development of these words according to the laws of the language.

This differentiation is not always easily discernible. In most cases we must resort to historical analysis before we can draw any definite conclusions. There is nothing in the form of the wordsprocession andprogression to show that the former was already used in England in the 11th century, the latter not till the 15th century. The history of these words reveals that the wordprocession has undergone a number of changes alongside with other English words (change in declension, accentuation, structure, sounds), whereas the wordprogression underwent some changes by analogy with the wordprocession and other similar words already at the time of its appearance in the language.

Since the process of assimilation of borrowings includes changes in sound-form, and morphological structure, grammar characteristics, meaning and usage Soviet linguists distinguish phonetic, grammatical and lexical assimilation of borrowings.

Phonetic assimilation comprising changes in sound-form and stress is perhaps the most conspicuous.

Sounds that were alien to the English language were fitted into its scheme of sounds. For instance, the long [e] and [?] in recent French borrowings, alien to English speech, are rendered with the help of [e?] (as in the wordscommunique, chaussee, cafe).

Familiar sounds or sound combinations the position of which was strange to the English language, were replaced by other sounds or sound combinations to make the words conform to the norms of the language, e.g. Germanspitz [?pits] was turned into English [spits]. Substitution of native sounds for foreign ones usually takes place in the very act of borrowing. But some words retain their foreign pronunciation for a long time before the unfamiliar sounds are replaced by similar native sounds.

Even when a borrowed word seems at first sight to be identical in form with its immediate etymon as OE.skill< Scand.skil; OE.scinn<< Scand.skinn; OE.ran< Scand.ran the phonetic structure of the word undergoes some changes, since every language as well as every period in the history of a language is characterized by its own peculiarities in the articulation of sounds.

In words that were added to English from foreign sources, especially from French or Latin, the accent was gradually transferred to the first syllable. Thus words likehonour, reason were accented on the same principle as the nativefather, mother.

Grammatical Assimilation. Usually as soon as words from other languages were introduced into English they lost their former grammatical categories and paradigms and acquired newgrammatical categories and paradigms by analogy with other English words, as in

им. спутникCom. sing. Sputnik

род. спутникаPoss. sing. Sputnik's

дат. спутникуCom. pl. Sputniks

вин.спутникPoss. pl. Sputniks'

тв.спутником

предл.оспутнике

However, there are some words in Modern English that have for centuries retained their foreign inflexions. Thus a considerable group ofborrowed nouns, all of them terms or literary words adopted in the 16th century or later, have preserved their original plural inflexion to this day, e.g.phenomenon (L.) --phenomena; addendum (L.) -- addenda; parenthesis (Gr.) -- parentheses. Other borrowings of the same period have two plural forms -- the native and the foreign, e.g.vacuum (L.) -- vacua, vacuums, virtuoso (It.)--virtuosi, virtuosos.

All borrowings that were composite in structure in their native language appeared in English as indivisible simple words, unless there were already words with the same morphemes in it, e.g. in the word saunter the French infinitive inflexion-er is retained (cf. OFr.s'aunter),but it has changed its quality, it is preserved in all the other grammatical forms of the word (cf.saunters, sauntered, sauntering), which means that it has become part of the stem in English. The French reflexive pronoun s- has become fixed as an inseparable element of the word. The former Italian diminishing suffixes-etto, -otta, -ello(a), -cello in the words ballot, stiletto, umbrella cannot be distinguished without special historical analysis, unless one knows the Italian language. The composite nature of the wordportfolio is not seen either (cf. It.portafogli<porta -- imperative of 'carry' + fogli--'sheets of paper'). This loss of morphological seams in borrowings may be termed simplification by analogy with a similar process in native words.

It must be borne in mind that when there appears in a language a group of borrowed words built on the same pattern or containing the same morphemes, the morphological structure of the words becomes apparent and in the course of time their word-building elements can be employed to form new words. Thus the wordbolshevik was at first indivisible in English, which is seen from the formsbolshevikism, bolshevikise, bolshevikian entered by some dictionaries. Later on the word came to be divided into the morphological elementsbolshev-ik. The new morphological division can be accounted for by the existence of a number of words containing these elements(bolshevism, bolshevist, bolshevise; sputnik, udarnik, menshevik).

Sometimes in borrowed words foreign affixes are replaced by those available in the English language, e.g. the inflexion-us in Latin adjectives was replaced in English with the suffixes-ous or -al: L.barbarus>>> E.barbarous; L.botanicus> E.botanical; L.balneus> E.balneal.

Lexical Assimilation. When a word is taken over into another language, its semantic structure as a rule undergoes great changes.

Polysemantic words are usually adopted only in one or two of their meanings. Thus the wordtimbre that had a number of meanings in French was borrowed into English as a musical term only. The wordscargoandcask, highly polysemantic in Spanish, were adopted only in one of their meanings -- 'the goods carried in a ship', 'a barrel for holding liquids' respectively.

In some cases we can observe specialization of meaning, as in the wordhangar, denoting a building in which aeroplanes are kept (in French it meant simply 'shed') andrevue, which had the meaning of 'review' in French and came to denote a kind of theatrical entertainment in English.

In the process of its historical development a borrowing sometimes acquired new meanings that were not to be found in its former semantic structure. For instance, the verbmove in Modern English has developed the meanings of 'propose', 'change one's flat', 'mix with people' and others that the Frenchmouvoir does not possess. The wordscope, which originally had the meaning of 'aim, purpose', now means 'ability to understand', 'the field within which an activity takes place, sphere', 'opportunity, freedom of action'. Asa rule the development of new meanings takes place 50--100 years after the word is borrowed.

The semantic structure of borrowings changes in other ways as well. Some meanings become more general, others more specialized, etc. For instance, the wordterrorist, that was taken over from French in the meaning of 'Jacobin', widened its meaning to 'one who governs, or opposes a government by violent means'. The wordumbrella, borrowed in the meaning of a 'sunshade' or 'parasol' (from It.ombrella<ombra -- 'shade') came to denote similar protection from the rain as well.

Usually the primary meaning of a borrowed word is retained throughout its history, but sometimes it becomes a secondary meaning. Thus the Scandinavian borrowingswing, root, take and many others have retained their primary meanings to the present day, whereas in the OE. feolase (MnE.fellow) which was borrowed from the same source in the meaning of 'comrade, companion', the primary meaning has receded to the background and was replaced by the meaning that appeared in New English 'a man or a boy'.

Sometimes change of meaning is the result of associating borrowed words with familiar words which somewhat resemble them in sound but which are not at all related. This process, which is termed folk etymology, often changes the form of the word in whole or in part, so as to bring it nearer to the word or words with which it is thought to be connected, e.g. the French verbsur(o)under had the meaning of 'overflow'. In English -r(o)under was associated by mistake withround-- круглый and the verb was interpreted as meaning 'enclose on all sides, encircle' (MnE.surround). Old Frenchestandard (L.estendere -- 'to spread') had the meaning of 'a flag, banner'. In English the first part was wrongly associated with the verb stand and the word standard also acquired the meaning of 'something stable, officially accepted'.

Folk-etymologization is a slow process; people first attempt to give the foreign borrowing its foreign pronunciation, but gradually popular use evolves a new pronunciation and spelling.

Another phenomenon which must also receive special attention is the formation of derivatives from borrowed word-stems. New derivatives are usually formed with the help of productive affixes, often of Anglo-Saxon origin. For instance:faintness, closeness, easily, nobly, etc. As a rule derivatives begin to appear rather soon after the borrowing of the word. Thus almost immediately after the borrowing of the wordsputnik the wordspre-sputnik, sputnikist, sputnikked, to out-sputnik were coined in English.

Many derivatives were formed by means of conversion, as into manifesto (1748) <manifesto (It., 1644);to encore (1748) <encore (Fr 1712);to coach (1612) <coach (Fr., 1556).