The foreign component in the English vocabulary

English vocabulary is composite and varied. In its 15 century history English happened to come in long and close contact with a number of foreign languages. As a result, many foreign words were borrowed. The source of borrowing is applied to the language from which the loan word was taken into English. The origin of borrowing refers to the language, to which the word may be traced,

e.g. paper < Fr. papier < Lat. papyrus < Gr. papyrus

French is its source of borrowing, Greek is its origin.

Sometimes the word borrowing is used in a wider sense, and is extended onto the so-called translation-loans (or calques) and semantic borrowings.

Criteria of borrowings:

• phonetical

• grammatical

• lexical

The phonetical criteria are strange sounds, sound combination, position of stress and the correlation between sounds and letters.

e.g. wal tz (G.), ps ychology (Gr.), communi qué (Fr.)

The initial position of sounds [v], [z] or the letters x, j, z is a valid sign that the word is borrowed, e.g. v olcano (It.), v accine (L.), j ungle (Hindi), zinc (G.)

The morphological structure of the word and its grammatical forms also indicate that the word is adopted from another language,

e.g. the suffixes in the words neuro sis (Gr.), violoncel lo (It.);

the irregular plural forms: bacteria < bacterium (L.), papyri < papyrus (Gr.)

You can recognize such words by certain suffixes, prefixes, endings.

Latin Affixes Suffix -ion e.g. communion, legion, opinion, union Suffix -tion e.g. relation, revolution, starvation, temptation Suffix -ate e.g. appreciate, create, congratulate Suffix -ute e.g. att’ribute, contribute, constitute, distribute Suffix -able e.g. detestable, curable Suffix -ate e.g. accurate, graduate Suffix -ant e.g. arrogant, constant Suffix -ent e.g. absent, decent, evident Suffix -or e.g. major, minor, junior, senior Suffix -al e.g. cordial, final, fraternal, maternal Suffix -ar e.g. lunar, solar, familiar Remnant suffix - ct e.g. act, conduct, collect Remnant suffix -d(e) e.g. applaud, divide, exclude, include Prefix dis- e.g. disable, distract, disown, disagree

French Affixes Suffix -ancee.g. arrogance, hindrance Suffix -encee.g. consequence, patience Suffix -mente.g. appointment, experiment Suffix -agee.g. courage, marriage Suffix -esse.g. tigress, lioness, adventuress Suffix -ouse.g. curious, dangerous, joyous, serious Prefix en- e.g. enable, enslave  

Borrowed element

Celtic: 5^th – 6^th c Latin: 1^st group 1^st c BC 2^nd group 7^th c AD 3^rd group the Renaissance period Scandinavian: 8^th c AD French: Norman borrowings 11^th – 13^th c Parisian borrowings – 17^th c Renaissance time Greek: Renaissance Italian: Renaissance time and later Spanish: Renaissance time and later German Indian Russian  

Why arewords borrowed?

Дата добавления: 2015-08-21