Native Element in the English Vocabulary

English Vocabulary: General Considerations

- the native stock of words (25-30%) – words known from the earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period; they were brought to the British Isles from the continent in the 5th century AD by the Germanic tribes of the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes;

- the borrowed stock of words (70-75%) – words taken over from other languages and modified in phonetic shape, spelling, paradigm or / and meaning according to the standards of the English language.

Native Element in the English Vocabulary: Characteristic Features

n high frequency value: 80% of the 500 most frequent words;

n monosyllabic structure: eye, red, head, sun, door, help etc.;

n a wide range of lexical and grammatical valency: to raise / bend / bow / shake / bury one’s head; clear / cool / level head; above one’s head; in one’s head etc.;

n developed polysemy: head (n.): 1) the part of the body; 2) the mind or brain; 3) ability; 4) a leader; 5) side of the coin etc.;

n great word-building power: headed, heading, headache, header, headline, to behead etc;

n enter a number of set expressions: heads or tails; head over heels, to keep one’s head above water, from head to toe etc.

Native Element in the English Vocabulary

Words of Indo-European stock have cognates in the vocabularies of different Indo-European languages:

§ terms of kinship: mother, father, son, brother, daughter etc.;

§ parts of the human body: foot, nose, eye, heart etc.;

§ names of animals and birds: bull, swine, goose, fish, wolf, cat etc;

§ names of plants: tree, birch, corn etc.;

§ names of celestial bodies: sun, star, moon etc.;

§ calendar terms: day, year, month etc.;

§ names of domestic objects: home, house, door, stool, floor etc.;

§ common verbs: be, go, do, have, see, sit, think, help, love, kiss, drink, bear, eat, ask etc.;

§ common adjectives: hard, slow, wide, long, dark, red, white etc.;

§ numerals: one, two, three … hundred;

§ pronouns: I, my, that etc.

Words of Common Germanic stock have cognates only in other Germanic languages, e.g. Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic, etc. Their areal distribution reflects the contacts between the Germanic tribes at the beginning of their migration:

n common nouns: hand, sand, earth, sheep, fox, bath, child, winter, rain, ice, house, life, bridge, rest etc.;

n common verbs: make, starve, sing, come, send, learn, can, buy, drive, burn, bake, keep, meet etc.;

n common adjectives: green, brown, cold, dead, deaf, deep, damp, thick, high, old, small etc.;

n adverbs: behind, much, still, well, yet etc.;

n pronouns: we, he, you, it, self etc.

Words of proper English stock do not occur in other Germanic or non-Germanic languages:

n words whose roots have not been found outside English, e.g. bird;

n compounds and derived words formed from the Germanic roots in England, e.g.

woman (O.E. wifman) < wife + man;

lord (O.E. hlāford) < loaf + weard (‘keeper’);

lady (O.E. hlāfdiʒe) < loaf + knead (‘bread-kneading’); sheriff (O.E. scirʒerefa ‘chief of the shire’).

Дата добавления: 2015-07-10