Latin borrowings in the epoch of Renaissance

The mixed character of the English vocabulary facilitated an easy adoption of words from Latin. Many of these belong to certain derivational types. The most easily recognizable are the following:

verbs in –ate, derived from the past participle of Latin verbs of the 1st conjugation in -are: aggravate, irritate, abbreviate, narrate.

verbs in –ute, derived from the past participle of a group of Latin verbs of the 3rd conjugation in –uere: attribute, constitute, pollute, and from the Latin deponent verb sequi with various prefixes: persecute, execute, prosecute.

verbs derived from the past participle of other Latin verbs of the 3rd conjugation: dismiss, collect, affect, correct, collapse, contradict.

verbs derived from the infinitive of Latin verbs of the 3rd conjugation: permit, admit, compel, expel, produce, also introduce, reproduce, conclude, also include, exclude.

adjectives derived from Latin present participles in –ant and –ent. verbs of the 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th conjugation: arrogant, evident, patient.

adjectives derived from the comparative degree of Latin adj. with the –ior suffix: superior, junior, minor.

It is often hard or even impossible to tell whether a word was adopted into English from Latin or from French. Thus, many substantives in –tion are doubtful in this respect.

39.Old English adjective, adverb, numeral.

Adjectives

Forms of the OE adjective express the categories of gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), number (sing. and plur.), and case (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and, partly, instrumental).

Every adjective can be declined according to the strong and to the weak declension. The strong declension of adjectives as a whole is a combination of substantival and pronominal forms. The pronominal forms are obviously element of the system.

The weak declension of adjectives does not differ from that of nouns, except in the genitive plural of all genders, which often takes the ending –ra. Blæcra.

The comparatives are declined as strong adjectives, the superlatives rarely take the forms of the strong declension and mostly follow the weak declension.

Earm (poor) earmra earmost

Several adjectives have suppletive forms of comparative and superlative:

Zod (good) betera bets

yfel (bad) wiersa wierest

Numerals cardinal

Numerals from 1 to 3 are declined. Numerals from 4 to 19 are usually invariable, if used as attributes to a substantive, but they are declined if used without a substantive. Numerals denoting tens have their genitive in –es or –a, -ra, their dative in –um. Numbers consisting of tens and units are denoting in the following way: 22 twa and twentiz, 48 eahta and feowertiz.

Ordinal

The ordinal numerals are declined as weak adjectives. Numerals containing both tens and units are axpressed in the following way: 22 twa and twentizoða or ōðer eac twentizum, 48^th-eahta and feortizoða or eahtoða eac feowertizum.

Adverb

Some OE adverbs are primary, that is, they have not been derived from any other part of speech, while others are secondary, derived from some other part of speech. Among the primary adverbs there are many pronominal words, such as hwonne (when), hwæк (where). Much more numerous are the secondary adverbs, derived from substantives or adjectives. Sometimes some case form of a substantive or an adjective becomes isolated from the declension system and becomes a separate word.

Degrees of comparison.

Adverbs whose meaning admits of degrees of comparison derive them by means of the same suffixes that are used as degrees of comparison of adjectives –r for the comparative, and –st for the superlative. These suffixes are preceded by the vowel –o: wide (widely) widor widost

Some adverbs derive their comparative without any suffix, by means of mutation of the root vowel: lonz (long) lenz, feorr (far) fierr.

40. French Loan-word 12 – 19 c.

Loanwords are words adopted by the speakers of one language from a different language.

French. Law and government :attorney, bailiff, chancellor, chattel, country, court, crime,defendent, evidence, government, jail, judge, jury, larceny, noble,parliament, plaintiff, plea, prison, revenue, state, tax, verdict.Church :abbot, chaplain, chapter, clergy, friar, prayer, preach, priest,religion, sacrament, saint, sermon

Nobility: baron, baroness; count, countess; duke, duchess; marquis, marquess;prince, princess; viscount, viscountess; noble, royal

(contrast native words: king, queen, earl, lord, lady, knight, kingly,

queenly)Military:army, artillery, battle, captain, company, corporal,

defense,enemy,marine, navy, sergeant, soldier, volunteer

Cooking :beef, boil, broil, butcher, dine, fry, mutton, pork, poultry, roast,salmon, stew, veal.Culture and luxury goods:art, bracelet, claret, clarinet, dance, diamond, fashion, fur, jewel,oboe, painting, pendant, satin, ruby, sculpture.Other:adventure, change, charge, chart, courage, devout, dignity, enamor,feign, fruit, letter, literature, magic, male, female, mirror,pilgrimage, proud, question, regard, special

Also Middle English French loans: a huge number of words in age, -ance/-ence, -ant/-ent, -ity, -ment, -tion, con-, de-, and pre-.

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a given word came from French or whether it was taken straight from Latin. Words for which this difficulty occurs are those in which there were no special sound and/or spelling changes of the sort that distinguished French from Latin.

IV. Early Modern English Period (1500-1650)

The effects of the renaissance begin to be seriously felt in England. We see the beginnings of a huge influx of Latin, Greek French words, many of them learned words imported by scholars well versed in those languages. V. Modern English (1650-present)

Period of major colonial expansion, industrial/technological revolution, and American immigration.

Words from European languages.French: French continues to be the largest single source of new words outside of very specialized vocabulary domains (scientific/technical vocabulary, still dominated by classical borrowings).High culture :ballet, bouillabaise, cabernet, cachet, chaise longue, champagne,chic, cognac, corsage, faux pas, nom de plume, quiche, rouge, roulet,sachet, salon, saloon, sang froid, savoir faire.War and Military :bastion, brigade, battalion, cavalry, grenade, infantry, pallisade, rebuff, bayonetOther :bigot, chassis, clique, denim, garage, grotesque, jean(s), niche, shock.French Canadian: chowder

Louisiana French (Cajun) :jambalaya

41. OE vocabulary. Etymological survey.

Modern estimates of the total OE vocabulary range from about 30.000-100.000 words. The last digit is probably too high, but it depends on the treatment of polysemy and homonymy. Word etymology throws light on the history of the speaking community. The OE vocab. was almost purely Germanic; except for a small number of borrowings, it consisted of native words, inherited from Proto-Germanic or formed from native roots and affixes.

Native words can be subdivided into some etymological layers coming from different historical periods: 3 main layers in the native words:1)common Indo-European words. They constitute the oldest part of the OE vocab. Among these words:natural phenomena, plants, animals, agricultural terms, verbs denoting men’s activities, pronouns, numerals. E.g. ђæt, bēon, mōna, mōdor, ic.

2) Common Germanic words include words, which are shared by most Germanic languages, but do not occur outside the group. These words constitute an important distinctive mark of the Germanic lang. at the lexical level. Semantically these words are connected with nature, sea and everyday life. E.g. OE sand, OHG sant, O Icel sandr, NE sand. OE findan, OHG findan, GT finђan, O Icel finna, NE find.OE fox, OHG fuhs, GT -, O Icel -, NE fox.3) Specifically OE words do not occur in other Germanic or non-Germanic languages. These words are few, if we include here only the words whose roots have not been found outside English: OE clipian(“call”), brid(“bird”), swapian(“swathe”).But we can also put into consideration OE compounds and derived words formed from Germanic roots in England. E.g.hlāford, made of hlāf(NE loaf, R хлеб).O Icel deigja “knead” – lit. “bread-kneading”, NE lady.

42. Scandinavian influence.

The greater part of lexical borrowings from O Scand were not recorded until the 13^th c. The presence of the Scandinavians in the English population is indicated by a large number of place-names in the northern and eastern areas: more frequent are with such components:thorp-<village> e.g.Woodthorp; toft <piece of land>e.g.Brimtoft; ness<cape>e.g.Inverness.

The total number of Scandinavian borrowings in E. is estimated at about 900 words. It is difficult to define the spheres of Scand. borrowings: they mostly pertain to everyday life and don’t differ from native words.Only the earliest loan-words deal with military and legal matters: Late OE barda, cnearr,(different types if ships), cnif(NE knife), orrest(battle), lazu –law, hūsbonda-husband, the verb tacan – take. Everyday words: nouns: bag, band, cake, egg, seat, sky, window.adject.: happy, ill, odd, ugly, weak.verbs: call, die, hit, lift, take, want.

It is difficult to distinguish Scand. loans from native words, the only criteria-phonetic features: the consonant cluster [sk]:sky, skill; [k]&[g]: before front-vowels:kid, girth. But,still, these criteria are not always reliable. The intimate relations of the languages resulted also in phonetic modification of native words: give, gift.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1512