Words of native origin

A native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock (native element), as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period.

A loan word, borrowed word or borrowing is a word taken over from another language and modified in phonemic shape, spelling, paradigm or meaning according to the standards of the English language.

Native words are characterized by:

• significant range of lexical and grammatical valency,

• high frequency value

• developed polysemy

• monosyllabic

They show a great word-building potential and enter a number of set expressions. The grammatical structure is essentially Germanic and they remained unaffected by foreign influence.

Native words:

(1) the Indo-European core stock

(2) Common Germanic origin, i.e. of words having parallels in German, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic, etc., but none in Russian, French, and Ukrainian.

(1) the Indo-European element is words of roots common to all or most all languages of the Indo-European group.

The words having cognates (words of the same etymological root, of common origin) in the vocabularies of different Indo-European languages form the oldest layer.

They denote elementary concepts without which no human communication would be possible.

The Indo-European element:

a) family relations / kinship terms, e.g. father, mother, brother, son, daughter, widow

b) parts of the human body, e.g. foot, nose, heart, knee, breast, heel, elbow

c) animals, birds, fish, insects, e.g. cow, swine, donkey, goose, bat, bee, calf, bull, raven, sheep, wolf

d) plants, e.g. tree, birch, corn, barley, wheat, willow, walnut, garlic, oak,

e) time of day, e.g. day, night

f) names of natural phenomena, e.g. sun, moon, star, snow, rain, wind

g) numerous adjectives denoting common qualities and properties, e.g. red, new, glad, sad, cool, dark, sweet, young, light

h) the numerals from one to a hundred

i) pronouns –

• personal (except they which is a Scandinavian borrowing)

• demonstrative

j) numerous verbs, e.g. be,stand, sit, eat, know

k) some place names, e.g. marsh, meadow, hill, land, acre, cliff

l) names of things of everyday life, instruments, clothes, buildings,

e.g. nail, needle, rake roof,

hammer, yard, box, boat,

hat, jar, knife, spoon,

shed, shelter

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, cf.: Star: Germ. Stern, Lat. Stella, Gr. aster

Stand: Germ, stehen, Lat. stare, Ukr. стoяти

English proper words. These words stand quite alone in the vocabulary system, e.g. bird, boy, girl, lord, lady, woman, daisy, always.

Дата добавления: 2015-08-21