Criteria of borrowings in English

Though borrowed words undergo changers in the adopting language, they preserve some of their former peculiarities for a comparatively long period.

In some cases the pronunciation of the word, it’s spelling and the correlation between sounds and letters show I waltz [wo:lz] (Ger.), psychology (Gr.), souffle (Fr.), buffet (Fr.).

The initial position of the sounds [v, dз, з] of the letters (x, j, z) is a sure sign that the word has been borrowed, e. g. volcano (It.), vase (Fr.), vaccine (L.); jungle (Hindi), gesture (L.), giant (O. Fr.); zeal (L.), zero (Fr.), zinc (Fr.), etc.

The morphological structure of the word and its grammatical forms may also bear witness to the word being adopted from another language. Thus, the suffixes in the words neurosis (Gr., pl. neurosis) and violoncello (It.) betray the foreign origin of the words. The same is true of the irregular plural forms: Fr. beau [bou] (sing.)- beaux [bouz] (pl.); Lat. bacterium (sing.)- bacteria (pl.); Gr. parenthesis (sing.) - parentheses (pl.).

Last but not least is the lexical meaning of the word. Thus, the concept denoted by the words ricksha (w), pagoda (China) make us suppose that we deal with borrowings

Sometimes the form of the word and its meaning in Modern English enable us to tell the immediate source of borrowing. For instance, if the digraph ch is sounded as [ ], the word is a late French borrowing: echelon, chaufeur, chauvinism, chief. If ch stands for [k], it came through Greek: archaic, architect, chronology, chaos, Crimea. If ch pronounced as [t ], it is either early borrowing (chase (O. Fr),cherry (L.), Chime (Lat.),chauffer or a word of Anglo-Saxon origin (choose, child, chin).

Assimilation of borrowing.

All the changes that borrowed words undergo may be divided into 2 groups:

1) Changes specific of borrowed words only. For example, the consonant combinations [pn], [ps], [pt] in the words: pneumatics, psychology, Ptolemy of Greek origin were simplified into [n], [s], [t] since they were never used in English, in the initial position. For the same reason the initial [ks] is changed into [z] as in Gr. Xylophone [‘zailefoun], Xerox.

2) Changes that are characteristic of both borrowed and native words. For example, early borrowing [straekt] (strect in Modern English), disk (Mn. Eng. dish) were a adopted to the norms in Middle English.

Russians linguists distinguish phonetic, grammatical and lexical assimilation of borrowings. Phonetic assimilation means changes in sound form add stress. For instance, the long [e] and [ε] in recent French borrowings, quite strange to English speech rendered with the help of [ei]-communique, cafe, etc. The German spitz [spits], was turned into English [spits].

Grammatical assimilation -when borrowed words are acquired new grammatical categories and paradigms by analogy with the other English words: cf. Rus. sputnik,-s,sputnik's, etc. But, considerable group of words adopted in the 16th century preserved their original plural inflexion: phenomenon-phenomena (L.),addendum-addenda (L.),parenthesis— parentheses,(Gr.). Others have 2 plural forms vacuum (L.)- vacua, vacuums; etc.

Lexical assimilation - when semantic structure of the borrowed word undergoes some changes (it takes 50-100 years). Polysemantic words are usually adopted only in one or 2 of the meaning. Thus, the words cargo and cask, highly, polysemantic in Spanish were adopted in one of the meaning "the goods carried in a ship" and "a barrel for holding liquids" respectfully".

Interrelation between native and borrowed elements in the English language

If the estimation of the role of borrowings is based on the study of words recorded in the dictionary, it's easy to over-estimate the effect of the foreign words, as the number of native words is extremely small compared with the number of borrowings recorded.

The only true way to estimate the relation of the native to the borrowed element is to consider the two as actually used in speech. If one counts every word used, including repetitions, in some reading matter, the proportion of native to borrowed words will be quite different. On such a count, every writer uses considerably more native words, than borrowings. Shakespeare, for example, has 90 %, Milton 81 %, Tennysom 88%. It has been estimated, that less, than 50 words, all of them native words, suffice for more than half our needs. This shows how important is comparatively small nucleus of native words.

Note

Speaking about the role of the native element in the English language linguists usually confine themselves to the small Anglo-Saxon stock of words, which is estimated to make 25-30% at the English vocabulary.

56. The Origin of English Words (Происхождение английских слов).

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