The reason of appearance of borrowed words in English vocabulary

The reason of appearance of borrowed words in English vocabulary

Whenever two idiolects come into contact, one or both may be modified. In face-to-face communication, either speaker may imitate some feature of other's speech; when the contact is indirect, as in reading, the influence can of course pass only in one direction. The feature which is imitated is called the model; the idiolect (or language) in which the model occurs, or the speaker of eat idiolect is called the donor; the idiolect which acquires something new in the process is the borrowing idiolect. The process itself is called `borrowing', but this requires some cautions.

Does not have to be paid back; the donor makes no sacrifice and does not have to be asked for permission. Indeed, nothing changes hands: the donor goes on speaking as before, and only borrower's speech is altered [13, 805-813].

From this definition, we see that the conditions for borrowing are present constantly, as a natural accompaniment of every use of language except genuine soliloquy. In the contact of idiolects A and B, the changes that borrowing will actually occur depend on several factors, one of which is the unlikely, since neither speakers is apt so divergent that the speakers cannot understand each other, borrowings is equally unlikely. Between the two extremes we fined the situations in which borrowing is more probably. In practice, these situations can be classed roughly into two types. In one type, the two idiolects share a common core; under these conditions we speak of dialect borrowings. In the other, there is no common core but rather some degree of bilingualism or semi-bilingualism; in this case we speak of language borrowing. The mere contact of idiolects A and B does not guarantee that one will borrow from the other. For borrowing to occur, say from B to A, two conditions must be met:

The speaker of A must understand, or think he understands, the particular utterance in idiolect B which contains the model.

The speaker of A must have some motive, overt or convert, for the borrowings.

The first condition need notdetail us long. Our reference must be toapparent rather then genuine understanding, because in many known instances there is really some measure of misunderstanding.

The second is more difficult. We cannot profit from idle speculation about the psychology of borrowers, but must confine ourselves to such overt evidence as at hand. This may lead much surer of those which we do discern. These are two in numbers: prestige and need-filling.

The prestige motive people emulate those whom they admire, in speech-pattern as well as in other respects. Upper-and middle -class Englishmen, in the days after the Norman Conquest, learned French and used French expressions in their English because French was the language of the new rulers of the country.

Sometimes the motive is somewhat different: the imitator does not necessarily admire those whom he imitates, but wishes to be identified with them and thus be treated as they are. The results are not distinguishable, and we can leave to psychologists the sorting out of the fine shades of differences.

The prestige motive is constantly operative in dialect borrowings; it becomes important in language borrowing only under special conditions. When spekes of two different languages live intermingled in a single region, usually one of the languages is that spoken by that in power: this is the upper or dominant languages, and the other is the lower. Such a state of affairs has most really by peaceful migration. The prestige factor leads to extensive borrowings from the dominant language into the lower. Borrowings in the other direction are much more limited and largely ascribable to the other principle motive.

The Need-filling Motive the most obvious other motive for borrowing is to fill a gap in the borrowing idiolect. New dialects, new objects and practices, bring new words into a language. Tea, coffee, tobacco, sugar, cocoa, tomato have spread all over the world in recent times, along with the objects to which the words refer. Typhoons and monsoons have not spread, but direct or indirect experience with them has.

Immigrates to the United States in the last seventy-five years have drawn heavily on English for new words, partly on the prestige basis and partly for need-filling purpose: the two motives must often be mingled, and we cannot always say which was more important in a given instance [14, 384-388]. In exchange, however, American English has acquired only a spare scattering of need filling loans from the various languages of the immigrants: delicatessen, hamburger, from immigrant German; chili con carne, tortilla from Mexican Spanish; spaghetti from Italian to stick to the sphere of humble foodstuffs.

If a local dialect gains ascendancy for political and economic reasons, then one expects extensive borrowings from that dialects have to be explained and usually, if the records are not too scanty, explanation on the need-filling basis is possible.

1.3 Potential of the borrowings in English language

The vocabulary of politics continues to grow. The following words were added to it in the 18th century: minister, ambassador (in literature first used in 1709), ministry, Premier, Prime Minister, party (with the word used in its present meaning). Administration, budget, estimates also appear at this time. At the end of 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century some of the vocabulary of the French Revolution entered the English language, for example, aristocrat, democrat and the old word despot acquired its present meaning; despotism was enlarged from `the rule of a despot' to mean any arbitrary rule of unlimited power.

Among other words should be mentioned royalism, revolutionary, revolutionize, conscription. Section, in its geographical use, and the 19th century word sectional, are derived from the division of France into ekectoral sections under the Directorate.

Further we should mention the following words: bureaucracy, centralize, centralization, counter-revolution, decade ( a period of ten days substituted for the week in the French Republican calendar of 1793. In English the word means `a period of ten years'), demagogic demoralize, diplomatic, fraternization, fussilade, guillotine (Guillotine, the name of a physician at whose suggestion the instrument was employed in 1789. In English it is also the name of various cutting machines, e.g. a machine for cutting the edges of books, paper, etc., a machine for cutting sheet metal, an instrument to cutting the tonsils (surgical) :indifferentism, interpellation, monarchism, nationalize, nationalization, propaganda, propagandism, propagandist, reaction repulsion exerted by a body in oppositionto the pressure of another body.

We must also mention the 18th contribution to the vocabulary of literature. Literature itself only acquired the sense of literary production in this century, or old words that acquired their present meanings 1700 and 1800, maybe mentioned copyright, editor, novelist, magazine, publisher, the verb to review and, last but not least, the press. With the Romantic Movement at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, and the increased interest in the past, many old and half-forgotten words were revived; e.g. bard (1450), chivalry, chivalrous, minstrel (1297), etc. The 19th century has provided the English language with a multitude of different terms, among which scientific and technical terms are especially numerous. In many cases these terms are of international currency, e.g.telephone, telegraph, television, radio, etc[15,158-164].

The most striking thing about our present-day civilization is probably the part which science has played in it. We have only to think of the progress which has been made in medicine and the sciences auxiliary to it, such as bacteriology, biochemistry and the like, to realize the difference that marks off our own day from that of only a few generations ago in everything that has. We have learned the names of new drugs like aspirin, iodine, insulin, morphine, strychnine. All these words have come into use during the nineteenth, and in some cases, the twentieth century. In almost every other field of science the same story could be told.

The 20th century permits us to see the process of vocabulary growth going on uder our eyes, sometimes it would seem, at an accelerated rate. At the turn of the century we get the word questionnaire and in 1904 the first hint of television. In 1906 the British launched a particular battleship named the Dreadnought, and the word `dreadnought' passed into popular use for any warship of the thermos-bottle (in English thermos-flask). This is the period when many of the terms of aviation that have since become so familiar first came in- aircraft, airman, aeroplane (in American airplane),autogiro, biplane, dirigible, hydroplane, monoplane. About 1910 we began talking about the futurist and postimpressionist in art. At this time (after the world war) profiteer and in America prohibition arose with specialized meanings. Only yesterday witnessed the birth (in America) of air-conditioned, brain truet and technology, and tomorrow will witness others as the exigencies of the hour call them into being.

1.4Classification 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 of the borrowing language. In some cases the spellingis 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: labor, travel, table, chair, people are phonetic borrowings from French; apparatchic, nomenclature, sputnik are borrowings from Russian; bank, soprano, duet are phonetic borrowings from Italian etc. [16, 114-117]

Translation loans are word-for-word (or morpheme-for-morpheme) translations of some foreign word expressions. In such cases the notion is borrowed from a foreign language but it is expressed by native lexical units, `to takethe bull by the horns'(Latin), `living space'(German) etc. Some translation loans appeared in English from Latin already in the Old English period, for example Sunday (solis dies)

There are translation loans from the language 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 havetwo relative languages which have common words with different meanings, for example 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 `''' for the word' gift' which in Old English had the meaning `'

Semantic borrowing can appear when an English word borrowed into some other language, developed there a new meaning and this meaning was borrowed back into English, for example `brigade' was borrowed into Russian and formed the meaning `a working collective', `'. 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, for example we can find a lot of Romanic affixes in English word-building system, that is why there are a lot words- hybrids in English where different morphemes have different origin, for example `goddes', `beautiful' etc.

1.5Classification 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 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 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, more than assimilated it- is.

Accordingly borrowings are subdivided into: completely assimilated, partly assimilated and non-assimilated (barbarisms) [17, 368-372]

Completely assimilated borrowings are not as foreign words in language , the French word `sport' and the native word 'start'. Completely assimilated verbs belong to regular verbs, for example correct-corrected. Completely assimilated nouns form their plural by means of s-inflection, for example 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, if it is polysemantic, for example the Russian borrowing `sputnik' is used in English only in one of its meaning.

Partly assimilated borrowings are subdivided into the following groups:

Borrowings non-assimilated semantically, because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from the language of which they were borrowed, for example sari, sombrero, taiga, kvass etc.

Borrowings non-assimilated grammatically, for example nouns borrowed from Latin and Greek retain their plural forms (bacillus-bacilli, phenomenon-phenomena, datum-data, genius-genii etc.

Borrowings non-assimilated phonetically. Here belong words with the initial sounds /v/ and /z/, for example voice, zero. In native words these voiced consonants are used only in the intervocalic 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 for example /sk/ in the words: sky, skate, ski etc(in native word we have the palatalized sounds denoted by the digraph `sh', for example shirt); sounds /k/ and /g/ before front vowels are not palatalized for example girl, get, give, kid, kill, kettle. In native words we have palatalization, for example German, child. Some French borrowings retain special combinations of sounds, for example /a:3? In the words: camouflage, bourgeois, some of them retain the combination of sounds /wa:/ in the words: memoir, boulevard.

Borrowings can be partly assimilated graphically, for example in Greek 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) nad `ps' denotes the sound /s/ (psychology)( see Appendix 2).

Latin borrowings retain their polysyllabic 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, for example consonants `p','t' `s' is not pronounced at the end of the word (buffet, coup, and debris), and Specially French combination of letters `eau' /ou/ can be found in the borrowings: beau, chateau, trousseau. Some of digraphs retain their French pronunciation: `ch' is pronounced as /sh/, for example chic, parachute, `qu' is pronounced as /k/ for example bouquet, `ou' is pronounced as /u:/, for example rouge; some letters retain their French pronunciation, for example `I' is pronounced as /i:/, for example chic, machine; `g' is pronounced as /3/, for example rouge.

Modern German borrowings also have some peculiarities in their spelling: common nouns are spelled with a capital letter for example Autobahn, Lebensraum; some vowels and digraphs retain their German pronunciation, for example `a' is pronounced as /a:/ (dictat), `u' is pronounced as /u:/ (Kuchen), `au' is pronounced as /au/ (Hausfrau), / is pronounced `ei' (Reich); some consonants are also pronounced in the German way, for example `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/(Kutchen).

Non-assimilated borrowings (barbarisms)narenborrowings which are used by Englishmen rather seldom and are non-assimilated, for example addio (Italian), tete-a-tete(French), dolce vita(Italian) duende (Spanish) an home a femme (French), gonzo (Italian) etc.

The role of loan words in the formation and development of English vocabulary is dealt with in the history of the language. It is there that the historical circumstances are discussed under which words borrowed from Latin, from Scandinavian dialects, from Norman and Parisian French and many other languages, including Russian, were introduced into English. Lexicology, on the other hand, has in these connection tasks of its own, being chiefly concerned with the material and results of assimilation.

The main problems of etymology and borrowed words as they concern the English language are comprehensively and consistently treated. It deals with these issues mainly in terms of word sameness reflecting his methodological approach to word theory [18, 456-485]

In the present paragraph attention must be concentrated on the assimilation of loan words as a way of their interaction with the system of the language as a whole. The term assimilation of a loan word is used to denote a a partial or total conformation to the phonetically, graphical and morphological standards of the receiving language and its semantic system. The degree of assimilation depends upon the length of period during which the word has been used in the receiving language, upon its importance for communication purpose and its frequency. Oral borrowings due to personal contacts are assimilated more completely and more rapidly than literary borrowings, i.e. borrowings through written speech.

A classification of loan words according to the degree of assimilation can be only very general as no rigorous procedure for measuring it has so far been developed. The following three groups may be suggested: completely assimilated loan words, partially assimilated loan words may be subdivided depending on the aspect that remains unaltered, i.e. according to whether the word retains features of spelling, pronunciation, morphology or denotation (when the word denotes some specific regalia) that are not English. The third group form part of the English vocabulary, because they occur in speech only, but do not enter the language.

Completely assimilated loan words are found in all the layers of older borrowings. They may belong to the first layer of Latin borrowings, e.g. cheese, street, wall or wine. Among Scandinavian loan words we find such frequent nouns as husband, fellow, gate, root, wing; such verbs as call, die, take, want and adjectives like happy, ill, low, odd and wrong. Completely assimilated French words are extremely numerous and frequent. Suffice it to mention such everyday words as table and chair, face and figure, finish and matter. A considerable number of Latin words borrowed during the revival of learning are at present almost indistinguishable from the rest of the vocabulary. Neither animal nor article differs noticeably from native words. The number of completely assimilated loan words follow all morphological, phonetical and as dominant words in synonymic groups. They take an active part in word-formation. Moreover, their morphological structure and motivation remain transparent, so that they arre morphologically analyzable and therefore supply the English vocabulary not only with free forms but also with bound forms, as affixes are easily perceived and separated in series of loan words that contain them. Such are , for instance, the French suffixes -age, -ance, -ment, and English modification of French -eese and -fier,which provide speech material to produce hybrids like shortage, godless, hindrance, specify and endearment. The free forms, on the other hand, are readily combined with native affixes, e.g. pained, painful, painfully, painless, painlessness, all formed from pain Fr. Peine Lat. Poena Gr. Poine `penalty'. The subject of hybrids has already been dealt with in the chapter on derivation [19, 106-107].

Completely assimilated loan words are also indistinguishable phonetically. It is impossible to say judging by the sound of the words sport and start whether they are borrowed or native. In fact start is native, derived from ME sterten, whereas sport is a shortening of disport Fr. deto amuse oneself', ` to carry oneself away from one's work' (ultimately derived from Lat portare `to carry'). This last example brings us to the problem of semantic assimilation. Ths problem deserves far more attention than has hitherto been given to it. Its treatment has been limited so far to passing remarks in works dealing with other subjects. The first thing that needs stressing is that a loan word never brings into the receiving language the whole of its semantic structure if it is polysemantic in the original language. And even the borrowed variants are for the most part changed and specialized in the new system.

The word sport can serve as an illustration. It had a much wider scope in Old French denoting pleasures. Making merry and entertainments in general. It was borrowed into many European languages and became international. This process of semantic specialization in borrowing is even more evident in such loan words from Russian as Soviet and sputnik, whose Russian prototypes are polysemantic. In the light of current ideas, it is convenient to classify and study loan words as oppositions of the words as they exist in the receiving language with their prototypes in the source language, on the one hand, nad with words of the same lexica-grammatical class or (depending on the level chosen) of the same morphological or phonetically pattern in the receiving language.

Specialization is primarily due to the fact that the receiving system has at its disposal words for the older notions, and it is only the notion that needs a new name. Even so, the borrowing of a new word leads as a rule to semantic changes in words already existing in the language. The interaction of linguistic and extra linguistic, i.e. political, economical and cultural factors in this has been investigated [20, 178-179].

The conformity of the completely assimilated loan words to morphological patterns of the English paradigms may be illustrated by Scandinavian loans taking the plural ending -s; eggs, gates, laws; or Latin loan verbs with dental suffix of the Past indefinite and Participle II: acted, corrected, disturbed.

To illustrate the frequency of completely assimilated words it is sufficient to mention that many of them are included in the list of 500 most frequent words are : act (Lat), age(F), army(Fr), bill(Lat), case(Fr), die(Scand) [21, 202-205].

The second group containing partially assimilated loan words can be subdivided into subgroups. The oppositions are equipollent.

Loan words not assimilated semantically, because they denote objects and notions peculiar to the country from which they come. They may denote foreign clothing: mantilla, sombrero; foreign titles and professions: shah, rajah, sheik, bei, toreador; forign vehicles: caique (Turkish), rickshaw (Chineese); food and drinks: pilaw (Persian); sherbet(Arabian); foreign currency:krone(Denmark), rupee(India), zloty (Poland) peseta(Spain), rouble(USSR), etc.

Loan words not assimilated grammatically, for example, nouns borrowed from Latin or Greek which keep their original plural forms: bacillus-bacilli; crisis-crises; formula-formulae; index-indices;phenomenon-phenomena. Some of these are also used in English plural forms, but in that case there may be a difference in lexical meaning, as in indices-indexes.

Loan words not completely assimilated phonetically. The French words borrowed after 1650 afford good examples. Some of them keep the accent on the final syllable: machine, cartoon, and police. Others, along side with peculiarities in stress, contain sounds or combinations of sounds that are not standardnfor the English language and do not occur in native words. The examples are [3]-bourgeois, camouflage, prestige,regime,sabotage; {wa}-as in memoir, or the nasalized [a], [o]-melange. In many cases it is different from the rest of the vocabulary, as in some of the Italian and Spanish borrowings: confetti, incognito, macaroni, opera, sonata, soprano and tomato, potato, tobacco.

The pronunciation of words where the process of assimilation is phonetically incomplete will often vary, as in [`foiei] or [`fwaje] for foyer and [`bu:lva:] [`bu:hva:], [`bu:leva:], [`bu:lva:d] for boulevard [22,369-373].

Loan words not completely assimilated graphically. It is fairly large and variegated. There are, for instance, words borrowed from French in which the final consonant is riot pronounced, e.g. ballet, buffet, corps. Some may keep a diacritic mark: cafe, cliche. Specifically French digraphs (ch, qu, our, etc/) may be retained in spelling: bouquet, brioche. Some have variant spellings.