Theory English

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1. Lexicology as a branch of linguistics. The subject matter and tasks of lexicology

Linguistics is a science about a natural human language in general. The main branches of linguistics are phonology, lexicology, grammar, stylistics and others.

Lexicology (from Greek words: lexis - word, lexikos - pertaining(віднос) to word, and logos - learning, science) studies the vocabulary of a given language. The subject-matter of lexicology is the word, its morphemic structure, history, meaning and its stylistic value. So, lexicology is the study of words. The knowledge of lexicology provides us with a clear understanding of the laws of vocabulary development and helps to master the language. One can hardly acquire a perfect command(вільне володіння) of English without having knowledge of English lexicology. The main tasks of lexicology are to determine:

1) the general characteristics of the English word-stock in its modern state;

2) the specific features and structural patterns of English words;

3) productive and non-productive types and means of word-building;

4) the complex nature of word-meaning and the modern methods of its research;

5) the stylistic peculiarities of the English vocabulary;

6) the changes that the English vocabulary underwent(пройшов) in its historical development;

7) the vocabulary resources of Modern English (synonyms, antonyms, etc.);

8) English phraseological units.

We can not acquire a perfect command of English without having knowledge of all the above-mentioned things.

2. The main methods of lexicological research

As a branch of linguistics lexicology has its own methods of scientific research of lexical units. Methods of scientific investigation used in linguistic studies have always been closely connected with the general trends in the science of language. Thus, for instance, in the beginning of the XX-th century vocabulary studies were mainly concentrated on historical problems. So, the historical and comparative method became very popular in studying languages. Later linguistics developed the typological study of languages.

Then B. de Courtenay and F. Fortunatov in Russia and F. de Saussure in Switzerland developed the systematic approach to language.

The American school of descriptive linguistics developed the distributional розподільний analysis and the immediate constituents analysis безпосередніх складових(the IC-analysis).

The theory of transformational grammar, a new linguistic theory, appeared in the 50-s of the XX-th century. The theory has brought transformational analysis.

To sum it up in brief, the main methods of linguistic research widely applied by lexicology in recent times are the historical and comparative method, the typological study of language, the systematic approach to language, distributional analysis often accompanied by substitution tests, the IC-analysis, transformational analysis, contrastive method, componential analysis, statistical techniques, contextual analysis, etc.

3.The place of lexicology among other sciences

Lexicology is connected both with linguistic sciences (phonology, grammar, stylistics and language history) and non-linguistic sciences (philosophy, psychology and history).

It is but natural that all branches of linguistics should be organically related. Thus, phonology will always help us in studying the phonetic peculiarities of words that come from other languages; then, again, it is phonology that helps us to explain the appearance of some words alike in form but different in meaning, etc.

Lexicology makes use of the information provided by the history of the language. Changes in the word-stock of the language, the appearance and disappearance of certain word-building elements in the process of language development, the productivity of different ways of vocabulary enrichment, etc. may be well followed only on the basis of a profound(глибокий) historical study. A systematic vocabulary description is hardly possible without some information provided by stylistics, which treats of selection among different linguistic forms. The study of the vocabulary leads us to the observation that some words are neutral and colourless in tone, but other words have a distinctly literary or poetic flavour, which may be colloquial(розмовний), humorous, vulgar, slangy, childish, stilted, technical and so on. E.g. Farewell! (poetic), Adieu! (humorous), Good-bye! (neutral), Ta-ta! (familiar), So long! (conversational). All these words literally mean the same, but they are unequal stylistically. Interaction(взаємодія) between lexicology and grammar is the most important. For example, the categories and types of word-formation which characterize the present-day English linguistic system are largely dependent upon its grammatical structure.

The interrelation взаємозв'язок between vocabulary and grammar is not less characteristic in making new words through conversion which has existed at all stages of the language development and has flourished most in Modern English. A converted word develops a meaning of its own and diverges (відрізнятися) so far from its original function that it is left to be an independent word, a homonym, e.g.

House (n) = building, dwelling, house (v) = to contain.

4. The structure of lexicology

We should distinguish between general, special, historical, descriptive, contrastive, computational обчислювальний and applied lexicology. The general study of words and vocabulary is known as general lexicology. The description of the characteristic peculiarities in the vocabulary of a given language is the subject-matter of special lexicology. The latter is based on the fundamental principles of general lexicology, which forms a part of the general science of language.

Historical lexicology makes a study of the vocabulary as a system, whereas descriptive lexicology describes the vocabulary in its modern state.

Contrastive lexicology investigates the word-stock of different languages with the aim of revealing( виявлення )the genetic affinity (генетична схожість) of languages, their structural and semantic differences and similarities.

Computational lexicology is that branch of computational linguistics which is concerned with the use of computers in the study of the vocabulary.

Applied lexicology mainly embraces the following 4 spheres: lexicography, translation, linguistic pedagogy and speech culture.

The main branches of lexicology are semasiology, etymology, onomasiology, phraseology and onomastics.

Semasiology studies word-meaning and the classification of changes in the signification of words and forms, viewed as normal and vital factors of linguistic development.

Etymology studies the origin or derivation of a word as shown by its analysis into elements, by pointing out the root upon which it is based.

Onomasiology is the study of the principles and regularities закономірності of the specification of things and notions by lexical and lexico-phraseological means of a given language.

Phraseology is the branch of linguistics specializing in word-groups which are characterized by stability of structure and transferred meaning.

Onomastics studies proper names and it is subdivided into anthroponymy (a science about people's names), toponymy (a science about geographical names) and ethnonymy (a science about peoples' names).



5. The morphemic analyses of the word

Morphological structure of words can be determined by special synchronic method known as the analysis into immediate безпосередній and ultimate constituents (ICs and UCs).This method is based on the binary principle. It means that the analysis proceeds in stages, and at each stage the word or a part of it is segmented into immediate constituents. Such successive segmentation results in ultimate constituents that defy any further division, e.g.

a) denationalize (v):

1) denationalize > de/nationalize;

2) nationalize > national/ize;

3) national> nation/al.

6. The morphological structure of the English word. Morphemes and their classification

The fundamental unit of language is a word. Being the most elementary unity of sound and meaning a word nevertheless falls into smaller meaningful structural units which are called morphemes. Morphemes do not occur as free forms but only as constituents of words. Yet they possess meanings of their own.

The notion and the term“morpheme” was suggested by Beaudouin de Courtenay in 1881. The word morpheme is one more term which linguistics owes to Greek

From the semantic point of view all morphemes are divided into two large classes: root morphemes (or roots) and affixational morphemes (or affixes). The root is the primary element of the word, its basic part which conveys its fundamental lexical meaning. For example, end- and boy- are the roots in the following groups of words: end, ending, endless, unending, endlessness and boy, boyhood, boyish. There exist many root morphemes which coincide with root words, e.g. man, son, desk, tree, red, black, see, look, serve, etc.The affixes, in their turn, fall into prefixes which precede the root (e.g. unhappy, rewrite, discover, impossible, misbehavior, etc.) and suffixes which follow the root (e.g. friendship, peaceful, worker, teaching, realize, calmly, etc.). The affixes in the above examples are derivational affixes serving to make new words and conveying lexico-grammatical meaning. It should be mentioned that prefixes in Modern English are always derivational (e.g. read - reread, arrange - disarrange, happy - unhappy, ''convenience - inconvenience, etc.). As for suffixes, they are either inflectional or derivational. Inflectional suffixes (or inflections) are morphemes serving to make different forms of one and the same word and conveying grammatical meaning, e.g. love - loves - loved, live - lives - lived. Inflectional suffixes are studied by grammar. The part of the word without its inflectional suffix is called a stem. Stems that coincide with roots are known as simple stems, e.g. boy' s, trees, roads, books; reads, looks, seems, etc. Stems that contain a root and one or more affixes are derived stems, e.g. teacher's, misfires, governments, etc. Вinary stems comprising two simple or derived stems are called compound stems, e.g. school-boyish, etc. From the structural point of view morphemes fall into 3 types: free morphemes, bound morphemes and semi-bound morphemes. A free morpheme can stand alone as a word, e.g. friendly, friendship (cf.: a friend); boyish, boyhood (cf.: a boy). So, a free morpheme, is, in fact, a root. Bound morphemes occur only as constituent parts of words, e.g.a) depart, dishonest, unhappy;b) freedom, greatly, beautiful, c) receive; exsist, conclude, occlude, include, exclude.

Bound morphemes are, in fact, of three types: prefixes, suffixes and bound bases. Bound bases are morphemes which serve as stems for derivation but which never occur as free forms, e.g. structure, construct, destruct, etc. Semi-bound morphemes can function both as affixes and as free morphemes, i.e. words. E.g. after, half, man, well, self and after-thought, half-baked, chairman, well-known, himself. Positional variants of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment are called allomorphs. Thus, for instance, the allomorphs of the prefix in- (insane) are il- before l (illegal), im- before bilabials: b, m, p (impossible) and ir- before r (irregular, irrational).

7. The structural types of English word

In Modern English there are 4 structural types of words depending on the difference of their morphemes.

I. The words consisting of only one root-morpheme are known as simple words (or root words), e.g. man, sky, gem, dean, aim, pear, swig, self, long, short, big, look, sit, stand, see, etc. Simple words predominate in speech communication.

II. The words consisting of a root and one or more affixes are known as derived words (похідні) (or derivatives), e.g. development, journalist, quickly, friendship, personify, greenish, discover, imperfect, unable, undo, disagreement, indifference, reproductive, etc. Derived words are extremely numerous in the English vocabulary. They rate second in frequency after simple words.

III. The words consisting of two or more stems are known as compound words (or compounds), e.g. fruitcake, bridesmaid, snow-white, forget-me-not, pick-me-up, lily-of-the-valley, good-for-nothing, , stay-at-home, mum-to-be, lady-killer, , etc. Words of this structural type are produced by the way of word-building called compounding (or composition). Compound words do not amount to much in frequency. In the existing word-stock, compound nouns constitute 15 per cent. The number of compounds in the language is steadily growing.

IV. The words in which phrase components are joined together by means of compounding and affixation are known as derivational compounds(складно похідні), e.g. broad-shouldered, oval-shaped, fair-haired, bald-headed, grey-eyed, hot-tempered, , open-minded, chicken-hearted, etc. Derivational compounds are the words combining the features of compounds and derivatives. They are formed when a suffix or a prefix is added to a compound word (or a compound stem), e.g. left-hand/ed, left-hand/er, sight-se/er, house-wif/ery, etc.



8. Native words (питомі) in the English language

Etymologically the vocabulary of the English language is far from being homogenous(однорідний). It consists of two layers - the native stock of words and the borrowed stock of words. Numerically the borrowed stock of words is considerably larger than the native stock of words.

Native words are the words of the English word-stock which belong to the following etymological layers of the English vocabulary: a) words of common Indo-European origin; b) words of Common Germanic word-stock; c) purely Anglo-Saxon words.

By the Indo-European element are meant words of roots common to all (or most) languages of the Indo-European group. The words of this group denote elementary concepts without which no human communication would be possible. The following groups can be identified.

1. Family relations: father, mother, brother, son, daughter.

2. Parts of the human body: foot, nose, lip, heart.

3. Animals: cow, goose.

4. Plants: tree, corn.

5. Time of day: day, night.

6. Heavenly bodies: sun, moon, star.

7. Numerous adjectives: red, new, glad, sad.

8. The numerals from one to a hundred.

9. Pronouns - personal (except “they” which is a Scandinavian borrowing) and demonstrative.

10. Numerous verbs: be, stand, sit, eat, know.

The Germanic element represents words of roots common to all or most Germanic languages. Some of the main groups of Germanic words are the same as in the Indo-European element.

1. Parts of the human body: head, hand, arm, finger, bone.

2. Animals: bear, fox, calf.

3. Plants: oak, fir, grass

4. Natural phenomena: rain, frost.

5. Seasons of the year: winter, spring, summer.

6. Landscape features: sea, land.

7. Human dwellings and furniture: house, room, bench.

8. Sea-going vessels: boat, ship.

9. Adjectives: green, blue, grey, white, small, thick, high, old, good.

10. Verbs: see, hear, speak, tell, say, answer, make, give, drink.

Here are some examples of English proper words: bird, boy, girl, lord, lady, woman, daisy, always.

9. Borrowed words in the English language

Borrowing words from other languages has been characteristic of English throughout its history. More than two thirds of the English vocabulary are borrowings. Mostly they are words of Romanic origin (Latin, French, Italian, Spanish). Borrowed words are different from native ones by their phonetic structure, by their morphological structure and also by their grammatical forms. It is also characteristic of borrowings to be non-motivated semantically.

English history is very rich in different types of contacts with other countries, that is why it is very rich in borrowings. The Roman invasion, the adoption of Christianity, Scandinavian and Norman conquests of the British Isles, the development of British colonialism and trade and cultural relations served to increase the English vocabulary. The majority of these borrowings are fully assimilated in English in their pronunciation, grammar, spelling and can be hardly distinguished from native words.

English continues to take in foreign words, but now the quantity of borrowings is not so abu(а)ndant (рясний) as it was before.

Borrowings can be classified according to different criteria: a) according to the aspect which is borrowed, b) according to the degree of assimilation, c) according to the language from which the word was borrowed.

10. Classification of borrowings according to the language from which they were borrowed

I. Romanic borrowings in the English vocabulary

a) Latin borrowings

Among words of Romanic origin borrowed from Latin during the period when the British Isles were a part of the Roman Empire, there are such words as: street, port, wall etc. Many Latin and Greek words came into English during the Adoption of Christianity in the 6-th century. These borrowings are usually called classical borrowings. Here belong Latin words: cross, dean, and Greek words: church,angel,devil,anthem.гімн

Latin and Greek borrowings appeared in English during the Middle English period due to the Great Revival of Learning. These are mostly scientific words because Latin was the language of science at the time. Classical borrowings continue to appear in Modern English as well. Mostly they are words formed with the help of Latin and Greek morphemes. There are quite a lot of them in medicine (appendicitis(апендесайсис), aspirin), in chemistry (acid, valency), in technique (engine,), in politics (socialism,), names of sciences (zoology, physics). In philology most of terms are of Greek origin (homonym, archaism, lexicography).

b) French borrowings

Norman-French borrowings had come into English at different times. The most important historical event which has left a lasting mark on the composition of the English lexicon is the Norman Conquest(завоювання)of Britain in 1066.

Norman-French loans in the English vocabulary may be subdivided into two main groups: 1) early loans - 12 - 15^th centuries; 2) later loans - beginning from the 16^th century.

The early borrowings from French were simple short words. This will be seen from an examination of the number of common monosyllabic words derived from early French, e.g. age, air, arm, bolt, breeze, cage, calm, cape, car, case, cause, cell, chain, chance, chief, claim, clear, close, corpse, course, court, crime, cry etc. All these words have become an integral part of the language, being as truly a part of common speech as words native by origin. Examples of the naturalization of French words in English may be given in numbers. a) words stressed in French on the final syllable are now stressed in English on the first syllable, e.g. capital, danger, final, probable, etc.; b) words with the long [i:] sound like [ai], e.g. design, fine, line, lion, price; According to one estimate the number of French words adopted during the Middle English period was slightly over 10,000. Of these, about 75 percent have survived and are still used in present-day English. lexicology morphological word

Most words pertaining to law are of French origin, e.g. accuse, court, defendant, fee, felony, heritage, judge, justice, justify, penalty, plaintiff, privilege, session, suit, advocate, inquest, sentence, barrister etc.

terms relating to military for instance, army, arms, admiral, assaultbattle, dart, dragon, soldier, troops , victory, war etc.

There is a predominance of French words in the vocabulary of cookery, which is shown by a great many words, such as: lunch, dinner, appetite, to roast, to stew, to boil, to fry, soup, toast etc.

We shall find a very large number of French words denoting different objects that make life enjoyable, e.g. comfort, flower, fruit, pleasure, leisure, delight, ease etc.

Among French borrowings there are also such semantic groups of words: a) words denoting family relations: parent, cousin, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece; b) words relating to fashion: luxury, coat, lace, pleat, embroidery; c) words belonging to jewelry: topaz, emerald, pearl; d) words relating to state government: administer, empire, state, government people, nation, crown, power, e) words connected with the church: blame, lesson, pray, service, etc.

We should also mention the 18-th century installment to the vocabulary of literature, e.g. novelist, publisher, magazine, editor etc.

c) Italian borrowings

We also find large scale borrowings in the English vocabulary from other Romance languages, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

Italian was the source of many borrowed words in the English vocabulary at different periods. During the first two centuries of the Early Modern linguistic period (1476-1776), the words borrowed from Italian were distributed evenly рівномірно between words having to do with everyday life, military activities, architecture, and the arts. From that period English has inherited artichoke, gondola, fresco, balcony, opera and others.

In the 17-th century some geological terms were borrowed from Italian into English: volcano, granite, bronze, lava. At the same time some political terms were borrowed from Italian, too: manifesto

Italian is considered a very important contributor to English, especially to music, the other arts, and cuisine. Many music terms are direct borrowings from Italian : adagio, allegretto, andante (помірно), bravo, concerto, moderato, pianissimo etc.

The addition of the Italian musical terms to English illustrates well the importance of innovation, leadership, and prestige to the composition of the vocabulary.

To cuisine, Italian's contributions are evidenced by these representative examples: cappuccino, espresso, mozzarella, pizza, ravioli, spaghetti,

Among the 20-th century Italian borrowings we can mention: gazette, incognito, autostrada, fiasco, fascist, dilettante, grotesque, graffiti, latte, Mafioso etc.

d) Spanish and Portuguese borrowings

Spanish has made one of the major contributions to English vocabulary. Its influence began to be felt in the 16-th century, at a time when Spain was a world power in conflict with the English Crown. Early borrowings from Spanish include: armada (воєнний флот), guava (фрукт), potato, cargo, masquerade, siesta etc.

Some 18-th century loans from the Spanish and Portuguese languages are: albino (альбінос), banjo (муз інст), banana cocoa, fandango (танець), alpaca (тварина) etc.From these languages the English language also adopted: alligator, cannibal, canoe, canyon, corral, coyote, hurricanemesa, mosquito, ranch, taco, tornado, tortilla, vigilante, hasta la vista до зустрічі, hasta luego до скорого etc.

From Portuguese English also borrowed such words as: banjo, Madeira. Borrowings from the Spanish language are characteristic of English throughout its history. For historical reasons, most of the Spanish loanwords in English are specific to American English, constituting one of its most distinctive характерний features when compared with British English. So, we can say that some Spanish borrowings came into English mainly through its American variant. There are the following semantic groups of them: a) trade terms: cargo, embargo; b) names of dances and musical instruments: tango, rumba, habanera, flamencoc) names of vegetables and fruit: tomato, potato, tobacco, cocoa, ananas, apricot; d) names of animals: alligator, alpaca, armadillo, mosquito etc. It should be mentioned that nowadays words from Spanish exist in English practically in all spheres of life

II. Germanic borrowings in the English Language

a) Scandinavian borrowings

One of the major influences on the early vocabulary and grammar of English comes from its North Germanic neighbours. From the 8^th century until the 11^th century, the Anglo-Saxons were subjected піддаватися to a series of attacks and invasions by Scandinavian seafarers.

The first linguistic link between Viking and Anglo-Saxons is found in the large number of Scandinavian place names in the northern and eastern parts of England, as many as 1,400. These are place names ending in -by “settlement” (Carnaby, Ellerby,), -thorpe “hamlet”село (Barleythorpe, Grimsthorpe, Hamthorpe,), -thwaite “clearing”ділянка лісу (Hampsthwaite, Hunderthwaite, Husthwaite As the lexicon is the language layer most responsive to socio-political and cultural changes in the history of a nation, it is easy to see why English borrowed almost 1,000 words from Scandinavian between the 8^th and the 11^th centuries.

Scandinavian borrowings in English from the period between the 9^th and the 12^th centuries are common words such as bag, call, cast, die, fellow, knife, hit, root, skin, sky, ill, unit, wrong, the prepositions till and fro (as in “to and fro”), and the pronouns they, them, their.

b) German borrowings

English has borrowed many words from German. Some of those words have become a natural part of everyday English vocabulary (kindergarten), while others are primarily intellectual, literary, scientific (zeitgeist дух часу), or used in special areas, such as gestalt форма in psychology. Some of these German words are used in English because there is no true English equivalent:schadenfreude тріумфування.There are some 800 words borrowed from German into English. There were also words denoting objects used in everyday life which were borrowed from German: iceberg, lobby, rucksack etc. In the period of the Second World War the following words were borrowed: Gestapo and many others.

The other borrowings from German are: dunk, feldspar, noodle, schnitzel, zwieback etc. Among the 20th century German loanwords we can mention: strafe, delicatessen, hamburger, hausfrau, kindergarten, Oktoberfest, Volkswagen etc.

German borrowings can be divided into three main groups, plus a separate group of German-related words borrowed into American English via Yiddish.

The three groups are:

1) Pennsylvania Dutch words, that were usually first recorded before the middle of the 19th century, and generally apply to food and way of life.

2) Mainstream German borrowings, that were generally first recorded between 1850 and 1915 or so. They often relate to education and way of life.

3) The third group of German borrowings contains those terms from the two World Wars that are related to war and military strategy.

c) Dutch borrowings

Holland and England have had constant interrelations for many centuries and more than 2000 Holland borrowings were borrowed into English. Most of them are terms and were mainly borrowed in the 14-th century, such as: skipper, pump, keel, dock, deck палуба, leak and many others. Some of them were borrowed into Russian as well, e.g. шкипер, киль, док, риф.

In general Dutch borrowings in English may be divided into the following semantic groups: 1) Shipping and nauticall морські terms: buoy, commodore, cruise, yacht, smuggle; 2) Art: landscape, sketch; 3) War: holster 4) Food and drink: brandy, cookie, waffle; 6) Other: boss, dollar, drill, dike.

There are many different ways through which Dutch words have entered the English language. Some of the more common ways include:

1) Through trade and seafaring;

2) Via the New Netherlands settlements in North America;

3) Due to contact between Dutch / Afrikaans speakers with English speakers in South Africa;

4) French words of Dutch / Flemish origin have been adopted into English.

In a survey by Joseph M. Williams in “Origins of the English Language” it is estimated that about 1 % of English words are of Dutch origin.

III. Slavic borrowings in the English language

a) Russian borrowings

Besides two main groups of borrowings (Romanic and Germanic) there are also borrowings from a lot of other languages. We shall speak about Russian borrowings, borrowings from the language, which belongs to Slavic languages.

There were constant contacts between England and Russia and they borrowed words from one language into the other. Among early Russian borrowings there are mainly words connected with trade relations, Russian cuisine, and some other things, such as: babushka, balalaika, banya, kasha, kvass, matryoshka, samovar, and also words relating to nature, such as: taiga, tundra, steppe etc.

There is also a large group of Russian borrowings which came into English through Russian literature of the 19-th century, such as: duma, zemstvo, volost, etc, and also words which were formed in Russian with Latin roots, such as: nihilist, intelligenzia, Decembrist etc. After the Great October Revolution many new words appeared in Russian connected with the new political system, new culture, and many of them were borrowed into English, such as: bolshevik, collectivization, Komsomol, tovarishch, Kremlin, Kalashnikov, etc and also translation loans, such as: five-year plan etc.

One more group of Russian borrowings is connected with perestroika, such as: glasnost, nomenklatura, apparatchik, perestroika etc.

b) Ukrainian borrowings

English words of Ukrainian origin are words in the English language which were borrowed or derived from the Ukrainian language. Some of them may have entered English via Russian, Polish, Yiddish, or some other language. They may have originated in other languages, but are used to describe notions related to Ukraine. Some are regionalisms, used in English-speaking places with a significant Ukrainian Diaspora population, especially Canada, but all of these have entered the general English vocabulary. For example, baba (grandmother or old woman), bandura (a stringed musical instrument), borshch (beat soup), Cossack , Hetman (a Cossack military leader), holubtsi (Canadian English, cabbage rolls), hopak (a traditional dance), kasha (porridge), paska (Canadian English, a decorated Easter bread, also paskha, a rich dessert with curd cheese and dried fruit), pysanka (a decorated Easter egg), varenyky (boiled dumplings with potato or meat inside) etc.

11. Classification of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation

The degree of assimilation of borrowings depends on the following factors:

a) from what group of languages the word was borrowed (if the word belongs to the same group of languages to which the borrowing language belongs it is assimilated easier),

b) in what way the word is borrowed: orally or in the written form (words borrowed orally are assimilated quicker),

c) how often the borrowing is used in the language (the greater the frequency of its usage, the quicker it is assimilated),

d) how long the word lives in the language (the longer it lives, the more assimilated it is).

Accordingly borrowings are subdivided into: completely assimilated, partly assimilated and non-assimilated (barbarisms).

Completely assimilated borrowings are not felt as foreign words in the language, c.f. the French word sport and the native word start. Completely assimilated verbs belong to regular verbs, e.g. correct - corrected. Completely assimilated nouns form their plural by means of s-inflexion, e.g. gate - gates. In completely assimilated French words the stress has been shifted from the last syllable to the first one, e.g., service. A borrowed word does not bring all its meanings into the borrowing language if it is polysemantic, e.g. the Russian borrowing sputnik is used in English only in one of its meanings.

Partly assimilated borrowings are subdivided into the following groups:

a) borrowings non-assimilated semantically, because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from the language of which they were borrowed, e.g. sarafan, taiga, steppe, borshch, kvass, rickshaw, zloty, etc;

b) borrowings non-assimilated grammatically, e.g. nouns borrowed from Latin and Greek retain their plural forms: phenomenon - phenomena etc;

c) borrowings non-assimilated phonetically. Here belong words with the initial sounds [v] and [z], e.g. voice, zero. In native words these voiced consonants are used only in the intervocalic position as allophones of sounds [f] and [s] (loss - lose, life - live).

d) borrowings can be partly assimilated graphically, e.g. in Greek borrowings y can be spelled in the middle of the word ( synonym), ph denotes the sound [f] (phoneme, morpheme), ch denotes the sound [k] (chemistry),

Non-assimilated borrowings (barbarisms) are borrowings which are used by Englishmen rather seldom and are non-assimilated, e.g. addio (Italian), tete-a-tete (French), dolce vita (Italian), duende an homme, a femme (French), gonzo, ciao (Italian) and many others.

12. Classification of borrowings according to the borrowed aspect

There are the following groups: phonetic borrowings, translation loans, semantic borrowings, morphemic borrowings.

Phonetic borrowings are the most characteristic in all languages, they are called loan words proper. Words are borrowed with their spelling, pronunciation and meaning. In some cases the spelling is changed. The structure of the word can also be changed. The position of the stress is very often influenced by the phonetic system of the borrowing language. The paradigm of the word, and sometimes the meaning of the borrowed word are also changed. Such words as: travel, table, chair, people are phonetic borrowings from French; bank, soprano, are phonetic borrowings from Italian etc.

Translation loans are word-for-word (or morpheme-for-morpheme) translations of some foreign words or expressions. In such cases the notion is borrowed from a foreign language but it is expressed by native lexical units: to take the bull by the horns (Latin), living space (German), collective farm (Russian) etc. There are translation loans from German: masterpiece, homesickness, superman.

Semantic borrowings are such units when a new meaning of the unit existing in the language is borrowed. It can happen when we have two relative languages which have common words with different meanings, e.g. there are semantic borrowings between Scandinavian and English, such as the meaning to live for the word to dwell which in Old English had the meaning to wander. Semantic borrowings can appear when an English word was borrowed into some other language, developed there a new meaning and this new meaning was borrowed back into English, e.g. brigade was borrowed into Russian and acquired the meaning a working collective, бригада. This meaning was borrowed back into English as a Russian borrowing.

Morphemic borrowings are borrowings of affixes which occur in the language when many words with identical affixes are borrowed from one language into another, so that the morphemic structure of borrowed words becomes familiar to the people speaking the borrowing language, e.g. we can find a lot of Romanic affixes in the English word-building system, that is why there are a lot of words-hybrids in English where different morphemes have different origin, e.g. beautiful (French root + English suffix -ful), uneatable (English prefix un- + English root + Romanic suffix -able) etc.

13. Lexical meaning of the word and its types

Lexical meaning reflects its bones with the object it names. The lexical meaning presents the indissoluble нерозривний of the general and the particular. The word table cares not only the general concept of a piece of furniture, but also of a concrete object, a round or square table, a large or a small table. The lexical meaning is a semantic element recurrent повторюваний in all the forms of the word. For instance, the word forms come, comes, came have different grammatical meaning of tense, mood, person, but in each of these forms there's one and the same semantic element denoting the process of movement. The lexical and grammatical aspects make up the word meaning, and neither can exist without another.

One should distinguish 3 types of lexical meaning: Nominative is the basic meaning of a word, which refers to objects of extra linguistic reality in a direct way and reflects their actual relations. The Nominative meaning includes denotational meaning and connotational meaning. Denotation is the expression of the direct meaning proper of the word without any emotive evaluation or stylistic cover. For example, if you look up the word snake in a dictionary, you will discover that one of its denotative meanings is "any of numerous scaly лускатий, legless reptiles having a long, cylindrical body and found in most tropical and temperate regions." Connotation is the supplementary expressive meaning which is added to the word's main meaning and which serves to express all sorts of emotional, expressive, evaluative overtones. The connotations for the word snake could include evil or danger.

1. Syntactically conditioned meaning which manifests itself. This is often the case. F.ex. in syntactic structures governing by their prepositions before objects. The book treats of poetry - в книзі говориться про поезію. Ask me another ! - Не питайте мене!

2. Phraseologicaly bound meaning which is idiomatic and manifests itself only in certain phraseological meaning: small potatoes( дрібниці ),to spend money like a water (транжира), tall story (брехня)

14. Causes of changes in word meaning

The meaning of a word can change in the course of time. The causes of semantic changes can be extra-linguistic and linguistic: the change of the lexical meaning of the noun pen was due to extra-longuistic causes. Primarily pen comes back to the latin word penna (a feather of a bird). As people wrote with goose pens the name was transferred to steel pens which were later on used for writing. Still later any instrument for writing was called a pen. On the other hand, causes may be linguistic, e.g. the conflict of synonyms when a perfect synonym of a native word is borrowed from some other language one of them may specialize in its meaning. The noun tide in Old English was polysemantic and denoted time, season, hour. When the French words time, season, hour were borrowed into English they ousted the word tide in these meanings. It was specialized and now means regular rise and fall of the sea caused by attraction of the moon. The meaning of a word can also change due to ellipsis: the word-group a train of carriages had the meaning of a row of carriages, later on of carriages was dropped and the noun train changed its meaning, it is used now in the function and with the meaning of the whole word-group.

15. Semantic groups of english words : synonyms, antonyms, homonyms and paronyms

Synonyms are words belonging to the same part of speech, differing in sound form, and possessing one or more identical or nearly identical (similar) denotational meanings (e.g. looking-glass/mirror, fatherland/homeland, etc.) They are usually arranged into synonymic groups or sets. The number of words of synonymic group is not strictly limited. It may range from 2 to 10 words.

Thus, we devide synonyms into the following groups: ideographic, stylistic.

Ideographic synonyms denote different shades of meaning or degrees of a given quality. They sometimes called relative synonyms,e.g. beautiful, fine, handsome, pretty, pleasant;different, various; large, great, huge, tremendous, colossal

Stylistic synonyms are differ in usage and style,e.g. doctor (official), doc (familiar),examination (official), exam (coll.), to commence (official), to begin (coll.).

Each group of synonyms comprises a synonymic dominant - the unit possessing the most general meaning of the kind, e.g. to shine: to flash, to blaze, to gleam, to glisten, to sparkle, to glitter, to shimmer, to glimmer.

Antonyms are defined as words of the same category of parts of speech which have contrasting meaning,e.g. hot - cold, light - dark, up-down, happiness - sorrow.Antonyms fall into two main groups:Root or absolute antonyms (those which are of different roots). These are words regularly contrasted as homogeneous однорідний sentence members connected by copulative сполучний, disjunctive розділовий conjunctions, or identically used in parallel constructions, in certain typical configurations (typical context). E x He was alive - not dead (Shaw) You will see if you were right or wrong Uffixal antonyms (those in which special uffixes or their absence expresss semantic opposition : useful - useless, hopeful - hopeless, happy - unhappy).

Homonyms are words which are identical in sound and spelling or, at least at one of these aspects, but different in their meaning and distribution.e.g. bank, n - a shore, bank, n - an institution for receiving, lending, exchanging, and safe guarding money; fit, n - perfectly fitting clothes, fit, n - a nervous spasmThere are several classifications of homonyms. The traditional formal classification of homonyms is as follows: Full Homonyms are words identical in pronunciation and spelling,e. g. Ball (м'яч) - ball (бал), to bore (свердлити) - bore (нудна людина), to bark (гавкати) - bark (кора) Partial homonyms subdivided into:a) homographs - words different in sound and in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling, e.g. bow (лук) - bow (ніс корабля), lead (свинець) - to lead (вести), row (ряд) - row (прогулянка на лодці), tear (розрив) - tear (сльоза). b) homophones - words of the same sound but of different spelling and meaning, e.g. night (ніч) - knight (лицар), piece (шматочок) - peace (мир), rite (звичай, обряд) - to write (писати) - right (правильно), sea (море) - see (бачити) - C (літера алфавіту), bye (бувай) - by(біля), steel (сталь) - steal (красти).Paronym is an intermediate phenomenon between homonymy (identical sound-form) and synonymy (similar meaning).( e.x. course - cause, career - carrier, ingenious - ingenuous). They are always mistakenly interchange. They are one of the sourses of speech difficulties. They are regarded by the speech culture ( complement (додаток) - complement, physics - physique, preposition - proposition)

16. Main semantic structures of English words

There are 3 main semantic strucrures of English word:

1)monosemy (is the existence within one word of one word meaning. Monosematic words are comparatively few in number. They are scientific terms - bio-chemistry, linguistics, cybernetics, molecule, heater, engine)

2)polysemy (is the existence within one word of severeal word meaning. One of them is main (central) meaning while the rest are associated meaning (marginal). Polisemy is one of the characteristic features of English. It developes gradually and is characterizes both with the appearance of new meanings and loss of old ones. The general tendancy of modern English is to increase the total number of meanings. E.x. adj dull according to one of the vocabularies have 8 meanings - boring, not clear, not distinct, not sharp, not active, seeing and hearing badly)

3)semantic deffusion ( is observed in words with a very wide conceptual volume. Such words denote one concept but can name an indefinitely large number of objects. E.x . th word thing may denote any object of our thought. Semantic deffusion is also observed in words matter, point, case)

17. Extention and narrowing of the meaning of the English words

Most words begin as the specific names for things. Often this precise denotation is quickly lost and the word-meaning is extended and generalized. Extension розширення of meaning is one of the most common features in the history of word.

A widening sense should occur, it is necessary that common features of the several things denoted should be such as to form an important part of the description of each of them. A good example of extension of meaning is the word pipe, which originally meant a simple musical instrument, and afterwords was applied to other things resembling them in shape. So it became a general for hollow cylindrical body (e.x. the pipes, a water-pipe, to play a pipe, to smoke a pipe of piece). The modern meaning developed through transference based on the similarity of shape which finally led to considerable broadening of the range of the meaning.

e.x manuscript - smth written by heand - now any copy whether written or typed

pioneer - a soldier - now someone who goes first

journal - daily - any periodical publication

paper - a Egyptian plant - a document, a writing, a newspaper

Narrowing ( or specialization) of meaning is the process whereby (наслідком якого) a word of wide meaning acquires a narrower sense, in which it previously denoted ( e. x . meat originally meant food and drink in general but now it means a flash of the animal used as food)

Another examples of narrowing:

Bread - originally meant a fragment or a small piece;

Fruit - a product or smth enjoyed;

Girl - a young person of any sex;

Wife- simple woman;

Worm - any yupe of reptile or insect.

18. Elevation and degradation of the meaning of the English words

Elevation поліпшення or amelioration refers to the process by which words rise from humble beginnings to positions of importance. Some words early in their history signified something quite low or humble, but changed as time went by to designate something agreeable or pleasant. Take a common term nice for example. Its original meaning was 'ignorant', then changed to 'foolish' and now elevated to mean 'delightful, pleasant'. Marshal and constable meant a `keeper of horses', but now have risen to a 'high-ranking army officer' and 'policeman' respectively. More examples:

Word Old Meaning Elevated Meaning

angel messenger messenger of God governor pilot head of a state

minister servant head of a ministry

The characteristics of elevation can be summarized as follows: elevation = change from pejorative зневажливий to appreciative meaning from negative to positive meaning from unimportant to important meaning from negative to neutral meaning.

Degradation погіршення or of meaning is the opposite of semantic elevation. It is a process whereby words of good origin fall into ill reputation or non-affective words come to be used in derogatory зневажливий sense. Observation shows that it is much more common for word meanings to change in denotation from neutral to pejorative than it is for them to go the other way. Many words which were once names for the common people in the Middle Ages have taken on bad meanings. Churl used to be a 'peasant' or 'free man' has come to denote 'uncultivated or mean person'

Word Old Meaning Degraded Meaning

sillyтhappy foolish

knave boy dishonest person

cunning skillful sly

queen homosexual wife

The characteristics of degradation are summarized as follows: degradation/pejoration = change from appreciative to pejorative from positive to negative from important to unimportant from neutral to negative.

19. Morphological word-building

а) Affixation or derivation