idiomatic as well, e.g. to burn one’s boats,to vote with one’s feet, to
take to the cleaners’ etc.
Very close to such units are word-groups of the type to have a glance, to
have a smoke. These units are not idiomatic and are treated in grammar as a
special syntactical combination, a kind of aspect.
c) phraseological repetitions, such as : now or never, part and parcel ,
country and western etc. Such units can be built on antonyms, e.g. ups and
downs , back and forth; often they are formed by means of alliteration, e.g
cakes and ale, as busy as a bee. Components in repetitions are joined by
means of conjunctions. These units are equivalents of adverbs or adjectives
and have no grammar centre. They can also be partly or perfectly idiomatic,
e.g. cool as a cucumber (partly), bread and butter (perfectly).
Phraseological units the same as compound words can have more than two
tops (stems in compound words), e.g. to take a back seat, a peg to hang a
thing on, lock, stock and barrel, to be a shaddow of one’s own self, at
one’s own sweet will.
SYNTACTICAL CLASSIFICATION
OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS
Phraseological units can be clasified as parts of speech. This
classification was suggested by I.V. Arnold. Here we have the following
groups:
a) noun phraseologisms denoting an object, a person, a living being, e.g.
bullet train, latchkey child, redbrick university, Green Berets,
b) verb phraseologisms denoting an action, a state, a feeling, e.g. to
break the log-jam, to get on somebody’s coattails, to be on the beam, to
nose out , to make headlines,
c) adjective phraseologisms denoting a quality, e.g. loose as a goose,
dull as lead ,
d) adverb phraseological units, such as : with a bump, in the soup, like
a dream , like a dog with two tails,
e) preposition phraseological units, e.g. in the course of, on the stroke
of ,
f) interjection phraseological units, e.g. «Catch me!», «Well, I never!»
etc.
In I.V.Arnold’s classification there are also sentence equivalents,
proverbs, sayings and quatations, e.g. «The sky is the limit», «What makes
him tick», » I am easy». Proverbs are usually metaphorical, e.g. «Too many
cooks spoil the broth», while sayings are as a rule non-metaphorical, e.g.
«Where there is a will there is a way».
BORROWINGS
Borrowing words from other languages is 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 characterisitic 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 Cristianity, Scandinavian and Norman conquests of the
British Isles, the development of British colonialism and trade and
cultural relations served to increase immensely 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 abundunt as it was before. All the more so, English
now has become a «giving» language, it has become Lingva franca of the
twentieth century.
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.
(In this classification only the main languages from which words were
borrowed into English are described, such as Latin, French, Italian.
Spanish, German and Russian.)
CLASSIFICATION OF BORROWINGS ACCORDING TO THE BORROWED ASPECT
There are the following groups: phonetic borrowings, translation loans,
semantic borrowings, morphemic borrowings.
Phonetic borrowings are most characteristic in all languages, they are
called loan words proper. Words are borrowed with their spelling,
pronunciation and meaning. Then they undergo assimilation, each sound in
the borrowed word is substituted by the corresponding sound of the
borrowing language. 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: labour, travel, table, chair, people are phonetic
borrowings from French; apparatchik, nomenklatura, sputnik are phonetic
borrowings from Russian; bank, soprano, duet 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), «fair sex» ( French),
«living space» (German) etc. Some translation loans appeared in English
from Latin already in the Old English period, e.g. Sunday (solis dies).
There are translation loans from the languages of Indians, such as: «pipe
of peace», «pale-faced», 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». Or else the meaning «дар» , «подарок» for the word
«gift» which in Old English had the meaning «выкуп за жену».
Semantic borrowing 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
formed the meaning «a working collective«,»бригада». This meaning was
borrowed back into English as a Russian borrowing. The same is true of the
English word «pioneer».
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. «goddess», «beautiful» etc.
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, cf 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 last but one.
Semantic assimilation of borrowed words depends on the words existing in
the borrowing language, as a rule, 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. sari, sombrero, taiga, kvass etc.
b) borrowings non-assimilated grammatically, e.g. nouns borrowed from
Latin and Greek retain their plural forms (bacillus - bacilli, phenomenon -
phenomena, datum -data, genius - genii 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 intervocal position as allophones of sounds
/f/ and /s/ ( loss - lose, life - live ). Some Scandinavian borrowings have
consonants and combinations of consonants which were not palatalized, e.g.
/sk/ in the words: sky, skate, ski etc (in native words we have the
palatalized sounds denoted by the digraph «sh», e.g. shirt); sounds /k/
and /g/ before front vowels are not palatalized e.g. girl, get, give, kid,
kill, kettle. In native words we have palatalization , e.g. German, child.
Some French borrowings have retained their stress on the last syllable,
e.g. police, cartoon. Some French borrowings retain special combinations
of sounds, e.g. /a:3/ in the words : camouflage, bourgeois, some of them
retain the combination of sounds /wa:/ in the words: memoir, boulevard.
d) borrowings can be partly assimilated graphically, e.g. in Greak
borrowings «y» can be spelled in the middle of the word (symbol, synonym),
«ph» denotes the sound /f/ (phoneme, morpheme), «ch» denotes the sound
/k/(chemistry, chaos),«ps» denotes the sound /s/ (psychology).
Latin borrowings retain their polisyllabic structure, have double
consonants, as a rule, the final consonant of the prefix is assimilated
with the initial consonant of the stem, (accompany, affirmative).
French borrowings which came into English after 1650 retain their
spelling, e.g. consonants «p», «t», «s» are not pronounced at the end of
the word (buffet, coup, debris), Specifically French combination of letters
«eau» /ou/ can be found in the borrowings : beau, chateau, troussaeu. Some
of digraphs retain their French pronunciation: ‘ch’ is pronounced as /sh/,
e.g. chic, parachute, ‘qu’ is pronounced as /k/ e.g. bouquet, «ou» is
pronounced as /u:/, e.g. rouge; some letters retain their French
pronunciation, e.g. «i» is pronounced as /i:/, e,g, chic, machine; «g» is
pronounced as /3/, e.g. rouge.
Modern German borrowings also have some peculiarities in their spelling:
common nouns are spelled with a capital letter e.g. Autobahn, Lebensraum;
some vowels and digraphs retain their German pronunciation, e.g. «a» is
pronounced as /a:/ (Dictat), «u» is pronounced as /u:/ (Kuchen), «au» is
pronounced as /au/ (Hausfrau), «ei» is pronounced as /ai/ (Reich); some
consonants are also pronounced in the German way, e.g. «s» before a vowel
is pronounced as /z/ (Sitskrieg), «v» is pronounced as /f/ (Volkswagen),
«w» is pronounced as /v/ , «ch» is pronounced as /h/ (Kuchen).
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 (Spanish), an homme a
femme (French), gonzo (Italian) etc.
CLASSIFICATION OF BORROWINGS ACCORDING
TO THE LANGUAGE FROM WHICH THEY WERE BORROWED
ROMANIC BORROWINGS
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. At this time the Latin
alphabet was borrowed which ousted the Runic alphabet. These borrowings
are usually called classical borrowings. Here belong Latin words: alter,
cross, dean, and Greek words: church, angel, devil, anthem.
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. These words
were not used as frequently as the words of the Old English period,
therefore some of them were partly assimilated grammatically, e.g. formula
- formulae. Here also belong such words as: memorandum, minimum, maximum,
veto etc.
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, aspirin), in chemistry
(acid, valency, alkali), in technique (engine, antenna, biplane, airdrome),
in politics (socialism, militarism), names of sciences (zoology, physics) .
In philology most of terms are of Greek origin (homonym, archaism,
lexicography).
French borrowings
The influence of French on the English spelling.
The largest group of borrowings are French borrowings. Most of them came
into English during the Norman conquest. French influenced not only the
vocabulary of English but also its spelling, because documents were written
by French scribes as the local population was mainly illiterate, and the
ruling class was French. Runic letters remaining in English after the Latin
alphabet was borrowed were substituted by Latin letters and combinations
of letters, e.g. «v» was introduced for the voiced consonant /v/ instead of
«f» in the intervocal position /lufian - love/, the digraph «ch» was
introduced to denote the sound /ch/ instead of the letter «c» / chest/
before front vowels where it had been palatalized, the digraph «sh» was
introduced instead of the combination «sc» to denote the sound /sh/ /ship/,
the digraph «th» was introduced instead of the Runic letters «0» and « »
/this, thing/, the letter «y» was introduced instead of the Runic letter
«3» to denote the sound /j/ /yet/, the digraph «qu» substituted the
combination «cw» to denote the combination of sounds /kw/ /queen/, the
digraph «ou» was introduced to denote the sound /u:/ /house/ (The sound
/u:/ was later on diphthongized and is pronounced /au/ in native words and
fully assimilated borrowings). As it was difficult for French scribes to
copy English texts they substituted the letter «u» before «v», «m», «n» and
the digraph «th» by the letter «o» to escape the combination of many
vertical lines /«sunu» - «son», luvu» - «love»/.
Borrowing of French words.
There are the following semantic groups of French borrowings:
a) words relating to government : administer, empire, state, government;
b) words relating to military affairs: army, war, banner, soldier,
battle;
c) words relating to jury: advocate, petition, inquest, sentence,
barrister;
d) words relating to fashion: luxury, coat, collar, lace, pleat,
embroidery;
e) words relating to jewelry: topaz, emerald, ruby, pearl ;
f) words relating to food and cooking: lunch, dinner, appetite, to roast,
to stew.
Words were borrowed from French into English after 1650, mainly through
French literature, but they were not as numerous and many of them are not
completely assimilated. There are the following semantic groups of these
borrowings:
a) words relating to literature and music: belle-lettres, conservatorie,
brochure, nuance, piruette, vaudeville;
b) words relating to military affairs: corps, echelon, fuselage,
manouvre;
c) words relating to buildings and furniture: entresol, chateau, bureau;
d) words relating to food and cooking: ragout, cuisine.
Italian borrowings.
Cultural and trade relations between Italy and England brought many
Italian words into English. The earliest Italian borrowing came into
English in the 14-th century, it was the word «bank» /from the Italian
«banko» - «bench»/. Italian money-lenders and money-changers sat in the
streets on benches. When they suffered losses they turned over their
benches, it was called «banco rotta» from which the English word «bankrupt»
originated. In the 17-th century some geological terms were borrowed :
volcano, granite, bronze, lava. At the same time some political terms were
borrowed: manifesto, bulletin.
But mostly Italian is famous by its influence in music and in all Indo-
European languages musical terms were borrowed from Italian : alto,
baritone, basso, tenor, falsetto, solo, duet, trio, quartet, quintet,
opera, operette, libretto, piano, violin.
Among the 20-th century Italian borrowings we can mention : gazette,
incognitto, autostrada, fiasco, fascist, diletante, grotesque, graffitto
Spanish borrowings.
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,
guitar;
c) names of vegetables and fruit: tomato, potato, tobbaco, cocoa, banana,
ananas, apricot etc.
GERMANIC BORROWINGS
English belongs to the Germanic group of languages and there are
borrowings from Scandinavian, German and Holland languages, though their
number is much less than borrowings from Romanic languages.
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