Are Etymological and Stylistic Characteristics of Words Interrelated?

The answer must be affirmative. Among learned words and terminology the foreign element dominates the native.

It also seems that the whole opposition of "formal versus informal" is based on the deeper underlying opposition of "borrowed versus native", as the informal style, especially slang and dialect, abounds in native words even though it is possible to quote numerous exceptions.

In point of comparing the expressive and stylistic value of the French and the English words the French ones are usually more formal, more refined, and less emotional. “to begin” – “to commence”, “to wish” — “to desire”, “happiness" — “felicity”.

English words are much warmer than their Latin synonyms, they don’t sound cold and dry: “motherly” — “maternal”, “fatherly” — “paternal”, “childish” — “infantile", “daughterly” — “filial”, etc.

General theory of borrowings

· Native element and borrowed element

· Stages of assimilation

· Etymological doublets

· Calques

· International words

Native element

1.) Indo-European element

2.) Germanic element

3.) English proper element

Indo-European element

moon - луна, tree - дерево, brother - брат, mother - мать, do - делать, be - быть, new - новый, that - тот, me - меня, two – два

Indo-European vocabulary is linked to:

family relations, parts of the human body, animals, plants, time of day, heavenly bodies, a number of adjectives, the numerals from one to a hundred, pronouns (personal and demonstrative), a number of verbs

Germanic element

sand - sand, (Norw.); earth - jord; make - machen (German); find - fine (Norw.); boat - båt, broad - bred, drink - drikke (Norw.), trinken (Germ.)

English proper element

bird, woman, lord, lady, sheriff

Etymological hybrids

Hybrids - words consisting of a native and a borrow morpheme. EG: beauty|ful – исконная часть (suffix), заимств. (root), eat|able – наоборот

Stages of assimilation

· Fully assimilated words

· Partially assimilated words

· Unassimilated words

#3 English vocabulary as a system.

We speak differently in different situations. The way we speak and the choice of words depend on the situation in which the processes of communication is realized. There are different situations, EG: teacher- student, manager-boss.

As we are speaking about the functions of all this words in different situations we have to define “functional style”.

Under a “function style” we understand language means peculiar to a specific sphere of communication.

The basic vocabulary is the central group of the vocabulary, its historical foundation and living core. That is why words of this stratum show a considerably greater stability in comparison with words of the other strata, especially informal.

Basic vocabulary words can be recognised not only by their stylistic neutrality but, also, by entire lack of other connotations (i. e. attendant meanings). Their meanings are broad, general and directly convey the concept, without supplying any additional information.

EG: begin-start-commence; child-kid-infant

The words begin and child are neutral and the rests are stylistically marked their usage is restructed to some specific communicative situations.

Neutral words are very important in the lang. They form the so-called basic vocab. They can be used every day, every where and by everybody, both in oral and written speech. These words make the processes of communication possible.

Levels of language usage.

Each of us employs a different level of usage (word choice) depending upon whether we are speaking or writing, upon who are our audience, upon the kind of occasion, etc. Different levels of usage are combinations of cultural levels and functional varieties. Included generally in such levels are dialect, ungrammatical speech, slang, illiteracies, and even colloquial language, as well as technical terms and scientific expressions.

• formal speech

• informal speech

Formal vocabulary.Formal words are used in the so-called formal situations: giving a lecture, writing a business letter.

a) bookish or learned words.

These words are used in written speech, in the books, that we read.

They may be met in the authors narrations, descriptions.

Learned word are used in oral speech as well, mostly in the speech of well educated people. We must remember that the overuse of bookish words makes our speech absurd, rediculars and just funny.

b) scientific-prose words.

These words are used to express scientific concepts and ideas. There are many terms and set phrases among them.

c) Archaic words.

Archaisms are words or word combinations which are partly or completely out of use today.

EG: the word nay=no; eve=evening; morn=morning

Archaisms are different from historisms. The archaisms are words denoting objects and phenomena that have come out of use. EG: hansom – вид экипажа у которого кучер сидит сзади на высоте.

d) Professional terminology are words that belong to special scientific professional or trade terminological systems.

Informal vocabulary. Informal vocabulary is used when speaking with friends, relatives, acquaintance.

There are several sub-groups in this group:

1) Colloquial words. They in their turn are divided into literary-colloquial, familiar-colloquial, and low- colloquial.

Literary-colloquial words do not break the norms of the language. We use these words in our everyday speech. EG: He has caught a cold.

Many of the clichés belong to this group: EG: Благодарю Вас! Thank you! Thanks.

These word are also use in fiction. They are used in the speech of the characters and in modern books, literature, in the author’s narration.

Familiar-colloquial words sound rude. They are colorful and expressive. They’re used by the young people, who want to be grown up and want to be independent and by those people whose cultural and educational background is poor. EG: I’m fed up with it – я сыт по горло.

Low-colloquial words are met in the speech of the illiterate people

EG: by the characters of “Pygmalion”

It should be noted that there is no strict boarder line between literary and familiar col., and fam. and low colloquial.

EG: familiar combinations: “awfully nice”, “not so bed”

Slang

Slangizms are a very interesting groups of words. One of the characteristics of slangizm is that they are not included into Standard English (EG: mug = face; trap = mouth)

Such words are based on metaphor, they make speech unexpected, vivid and sometimes difficult to understand.

Slang appears as a language of a subgroup in a language community. We can speak of black-americans’ slang, teenagers’ slang, navy and army slang. (Slang is used by different people of social or professional groups(widely spread in every day speech), special slang is futher subdivided into – University slang-teenager slang – sport slang).

#4 Morphological structure of a word

Word is the principal and basic unit of the language system, the largest on the morphologic and the smallest on the syntactic plane of linguistic analysis.

According to the number of morphemes words can be classified into monomorphic and polymorphic. Monomorphic or root-words consist of only one root-morpheme, e.g. small, dog, make, give, etc. All polymorphic word fall into two subgroups: derived words and compound words – according to the number of root-morphemes they have.

Derived words are composed of one root-morpheme and one or more derivational morphemes, e.g. acceptable, outdo, disagreeable, etc. (Words which consist of a root and an affix or several affixes are called derived words or derivatives and are produced by the process of affixation.)

Compound words are those which contain at least two root-morphemes, the number of derivational morphemes being insignificant.

There can be both root- and derivational morphemes in compounds as in pen-holder, light-mindedness, or only root-morphemes as in lamp-shade, eye-ball, etc.

The term morpheme is derived from Greek morphe “form ”+ -eme. The Greek suffix –eme has been adopted by linguistic to denote the smallest unit or the minimum distinctive feature.

The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of form. A form in these cases a recurring discrete unit of speech. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of single morpheme.

The morphemes, which make up new words are called lexical morphemes. The lexical morphemes may be roots and affixational (affixes morphemes)

Root morphemes are the semantic centre of the word.

As for affixes, they can be prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes stand in front of the root. Suffixes follow the root.

Morphemes can be free and bound. Root morphemes are free. They coincide with independent words, and can function in the sentence by themselves. EG: boyish (boy можно употреблять отдельно). Affixes are bound morphemes. They can’t function in the sentence alone. But: ladd|like, eat|able.(there are exist semi-sufficsis. –like,–able can be both suffices and independent words.)

The morphemic structure of the word may be studied on 2 levels: morphemic and derivational. The main unit of the morphemic level is morpheme. The main unit of the derivational level is the stem. It is that part of the word, to which grammatical flexions are added. (The stem is defined as that part of the word which remains unchanged).

According to the morphological structure of the word, all words (stems) may be devited into the following groups:

1.) simple (root) words. a hat, a boy.

2.) derived (производные) words (derivatives). They include root and affixal morphemes: ladylike, eatable, sunny.

3.) compound (сложные) words. They have two or more stems. EG: snow-fall, girlfriend.

4.) Compound derivatives (сложнопроизводные). They have two or more stems in their structure and derivational affixes. EG: film-goer

5.) Contracted compounds (сложносокращенные) In such words one of the stems is shortened. EG: TV-set

Conversion, derivation and composition are the most productive ways of word-building.

Conversion is a type of modern English word-building when a word from one part of speech is transformed into another part of speech (e.g. to hand – a hand).

Composition is the making of a new word by joining two or more stems together.

Structurally these words are classified into the following groups:

1.) простые сложные слова. neutral compounds, where the stems are joined together, without any linking element. EG: shop-window, badroom.

2.) морфологические слож. слова. morphological compounds, in which the stems are joined by a vowel or a consonant. EG: Anglo-Saxon, statesman, bridesmaid

3.) Синтаксич. слож. слова или компрессивы или телескопные. Synthetic compounds, in which stems are joined by a prepositions or by some other form-word. The formal sign is a hyphen. EG: mother-in-law, good-for-northing.

4.) Сложнопроизводные слова. Derivational compounds, in which the stems have affixes in their stems. EG: film-goer, blue-eyed.

5.) Сложносокращ. слова. Contracted compounds, in which one of the stems is shortened. EG: TV-set, sitcom.

Compound words are made of 2 derivational stems. The types of structure of compound words: neutral, morphological, syntactic.

In neutral compound the process is released without any linking elements (blackbird, shopwindow, sunflower.

Morphological – few in number. This type is non productive. Represented by words, where 2 stems are combined by a linking vowel/ consonant (Anglo-Saxon, statesman, craftsmanship).

Syntactic – formed of segments of speech preserving articles, prepositions, adverbs. Mother-in-law (Syntactic compounds represent specifically English word structure. They are formed from segments of speech describing typical relations).

Productivity is the ability of the affixes to form new words at a certain period.

Affixes can be classified into productive and non-productive.

By productive ones we mean the affixes which take part in deriving new words in this particular period of language development.

Less productive ways of word-building: shortening=contraction

· Phone = telephone

· Fence = defence

· Vac = vacation

· Hols = holidays

· Ads = advertisements

· BBC = British Broadcasting Corporation

· M.P. = Member of Parliament

Non-productive is morphological compound.

Back formation a verb is produced from a noun by subtraction (вычитание) bagger – to bag, babysitter – to babysit

“Stone wall” problem

The problem is: “Is the “stone wall” a compound or a word combination. The answer depends on how we treat the first component. If we understand it as a noun stem then it is a compound. If the first component is an adjective it’s a word combination. The generally accept point of view is that “stone wall” is a specific type of compound, so called unstable compound.

There are several criteria which help us distinguish between a compound and a word combination:

1.) Semantic criterion. A compound denotes one notion a word combination, denotes two or several or more notions. EG speech sound – it’s a sound of phoneme (1 notion), a difficult sound (2 notion)

2.) Phonetic criterion – in a compound there is one stress, in a word combination there are two stresses. EG: ,black’board, ‘blackboard.

3.) Morphological criterion – a compound has single grammatical framig a word combination doesn’t have such a quality. EG: a spring day-spring days.

4.) Syntactical criterion. We can always enlarge a word combination by inserting a word. EG: a tall boy- a tall handsome boy, stone and concrete wall.

Shortening is a process of the substituting a part for a whole. There are different types of shortened words. In clippings one of the parts of the word is cut off EG: phone (from telephone)-the begging of the word is shortened. Food Mart (from Market)-the middle of the word is shortened. Ed(itor)-редактор – the end of word is shortened.

There are abbreviations which consists of the initial letters of words. EG: NATO, MP-member of parliament. Some time abbreviation are read as words. NATO, VIP.

Shortened words of different kinds are often met in newspaper styles.

Blending (стяжение) - Is blending part of two words to form one word (merging into one word), combining letters/sounds they have in common as a connecting element. Smoke + fog = smog, Breakfast + lunch = brunch, Smoke + haze = smaze (дымка)

- addictive type: they are transformable into a phrase consisting of two words combined by a conjunction “and” smog → smoke & fog

- blending of restrictive type: transformable into an attributive phrase, where the first element serves as modifier of a second. Positron – positive electron, Medicare – medical care

#5 The semantic structure of a word.

The internal structure of the word, or its meaning, is nowadays commonly referred to as the word's semantic structure. This is certainly the word's main aspect.

The branch of linguistics, which specializes in the study of meaning, is called semantics.

Lexical semantics deals with a language's lexicon, or the collection of words in a language. It is concerned with individual words (unlike compositional semantics, which is concerned with meanings of sentences.) (the study of the meaning of words and phrases and the relationships between them)

The modern approach to semantics is based on the assumption that the inner form of the word (its meaning) presents a structure, which is called the semantic structure of the word.

The semantic structure of the word does not present an indissoluble unit nor does it necessarily stand for one concept. Most words convey several concepts and thus possess the corresponding number of the meanings. A word having several meanings is called polysemantic and the ability of words to have more than one meaning is described by the term polysemy.

The meaning of the word is made up of the grammatical and lexical meaning. (Two trends in modem semantics)

Grammatical meaning is the meaning in terms of grammar. Grammatical meaning refers to that part of meaning which indicates grammatical relationships or functions, such as tense meaning, singular meaning, etc.

Lexical meaning is studied on two levels: paradigmatic and sintagmatic.

On the syntagmatic connection, the connection of the word with other words in the system of the language are studied.

On Syntagmatic level the linear connections of words in speech are studied. (in the sentence, in the text). On this level we study combinability of words. EG: John (he, young man) came in (comes)

Paradigmatic connection include: synonymy, antonymy and hyponymy

Lexico-semantic paradigm

Synonyms are words which belong to the same part of speech and the same thematic group, and are so close semantically that to use the correct in speech we must know their shade of meaning and stylistic connotation.

Antonymy. Words belonging to the same part of speech identical in speech expressing contrary or contradictory notion.

Hyponymy. The meaning of the word which is general includes the meanings of a group of other words; EG: furniture (a table, a chair…)

Semantical components

Lexical meaning (semantical component). Comparing word forms of one word we observe that lexical meaning is identical in all forms of the words. Eg.: the word forms “go, goes, went, going, gone” possess different grammatical meaning of tense, person..., but one and the same component denoting the process of movement.

• denotational component

• connotational component