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Classification of borrowings according to the borrowed aspect

There are the following groups: phonetic borrowings, translation loans, semantic borrowings, morphemic borrowings.

 Phonetic borrowings are the most characteristic ones in all languages; they are called loan words proper. Words are borrowed with their spelling, pronunciation & meaning. Then they undergo assimilation; each sound in the borrowing 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 stress is very often influenced by the phonetic system of borrowing language. The paradigm of the word, & sometimes the meaning of the borrowed word are also changed. Such words as labour, travel, table, chair, people are phonetic borrowings form French; apparatchik, nomenklatura, sputnik are phonetic borrowings from Russian; bank, soprano, duet are phonetic borrowings from Italian; Autobahn (автострада), iceberg, lobby (обрабатывать членов конгресса, парламента) are phonetic borrowings from German 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), living space (German), collective farm (Russian) 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 & English, such as the meaning to live for the word to dwell (обитать, жить) which in Old English had the meaning to wander (бродить, странствовать). Or else the meaning дар, подарок for the word gift, which in Old English had the meaning выкуп за жену.

Semantic borrowings can appear when an English word was borrowed into some other language, developed there a new meaning & this new meaning was borrowed back into English, e.g. brigade was borrowed back into Russian & acquired 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 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 wordbuilding system, that why there are a lot of word-hybrids in English where different morpheme have different origin, e.g. goddess (богиня, королева красоты) (native root + Romanic suffix –ess), beautiful (French root + English suffix –ful), uncomfortable (English prefix un- + Romanic root + Romanic suffix –able), unmistakable (English prefix un- + English prefix mis- + Scandinavian root + Romanic suffix –able) etc.

Classification of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation

Borrowings are subdivided into completely assimilated, partly assimilated & non-assimilated (barbarisms).

Completely assimilated borrowings are not felt as foreign words in the language, c.f. the French word sport & 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 (перемещен) from the last syllable to the first one, e.g. capital, service.

Semantic assimilation of borrowed words depends on the words existing in the borrowing language. As a rule, borrowed word doesn’t 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 & notions peculiar to the country from the language of which they were borrowed, e.g. sari, sarafan (clothing), taiga, steppe (nature), kvass, borshch (food), rajah, tsar (foreign titles), troika (foreign vehicles), rupee, zloty, (money of different countries) etc;

b)  borrowings non-assimilated grammatically, e.g. some nouns borrowed from Latin & Greek retain their plural forms: phenomenon – phenomena, datum – data.

c)   borrowings non-assimilated phonetically, e.g. voice, zero. Some Scandinavian borrowings have consonants & combinations of consonants which were not palatalized, e.g. [sk] in the words: sky, skate, ski etc. [k] & [g] in the words: girl, get, give, kid, kill, kettle.

Some French borrowings have retained their stress on the final syllable, e.g. police, cartoon. Some French borrowings retain special combinations of sounds, e.g. [a:] in the words camouflage, some of them retain the combinations of sounds [wa:]: bourgeois.

In many cases it isn’t the sound but the whole pattern of the word’s phonetic make-up that is different from the rest of the English vocabulary, as in some of the Italian & Spanish borrowings: incognito, macaroni, opera, soprano & tomato, potato, tobacco;

d)  borrowings can be partly assimilated graphically, e.g. 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, ps denotes the sound [s] (psychology).

Non-assimilated borrowings (barbarism) are borrowings which are used by Englishmen rather seldom & are non-assimilated, e.g. addio (Italian), tet-a-tet [`teita:`teit] (French), dolche vita (Italian), a femme (French), ad libitum (сколько угодно), ciao (Italian), coup d’etat [`ku:dei`ta:] (государственный переворот) & many others.

 

Etymological Doublets

Sometimes a word is borrowed twice from the same language. As a result, we have two different spellings & meaning but historically they came back to one & the same word. Such words are called etymological doublets. Two words at present slightly differentiating in meaning may have originally been dialectal variants of the same word. Thus, we find in doublets traces of Old English dialects. Examples are whole in the old sense of healthy & hale (здоровый). Both came from Old English hal. Hale came from a Northern dialect.

In English there are some other groups of etymological doublets:

                              Latino-French doublets

Latin         English from Latin        English from French

       unica                  inch                                     ounce

        moneta               mint                                        money

        camera               camera                                    chamber

                                      Franco-French doublets

             (doublets borrowed from different dialects of French)

               Norman                                                Paris

               Canal                                                    channel

               Catch                                                    chase

               Castle                                                   chateau

                                   

Scandinavian-English doublets

               Scandinavian                                        English

Skirt                                                                              shirt

Scabby (паршивый)                                                      shabby (поношенный)

Screech (хриплый)                                                        shriek (вопль)

There are also etymological doublets which were borrowed from the same language during different historical periods, such as French doublets. From the French word genteel – любезный, благородный developed etymological doublets: gentle – мягкий, вежливый & genteel - благородный. From the French word gallant etymological doublets are: `gallant – храбрый & ga`llant – галантный, внимательный.

Sometimes etymological doublets are the result of borrowing different grammatical forms of the same word, e.g. the comparative degree of Latin super was superior (лучший) which was borrowed into English with the meaning high in quality or rank. The superlative degree (Latin supremus) in English supreme (верховный, высший) was borrowed with the meaning outstanding, prominent. So superior & supreme are etymological doublets formed from different grammatical forms of the Latin adjective super.

                                    

International Words

As the process of borrowing is mostly connected with the appearance of new notions, which they serve to express, it is natural that the borrowing is seldom limited to one language. Words of identical origin that occur in several languages as a result of simultaneous or successive (последовательный) borrowings from one ultimate (первоначальный) source are called international words.

International words play an especially important part in different terminological system including the vocabulary of science, industry & art. The origin of this vocabulary reflects the history of world culture. E.g. the mankind’s debt to Italy is reflected in the great number of words connected with architecture, painting & especially music. Here we can mention Italian words which have become international: concert, opera, piano & many others.

The rate of change in technology, political, social & artistic life was greatly accelerated in the 20^th century & so the number of international lexical units increased greatly, e.g. we can mention a number of words connected with the development of science: antenna, antibiotics, automation, cybernetics, gene, etc.

The international word-stock is also growing due to the influx (приток) of exotic borrowed words like anaconda, bungalow, orang-outang.

We find numerous English words in the field of sport: football, out, match, tennis, time, ring, boots & many others. There are English international words referring to clothing: pullover, sweater, tweed, shorts, leggings etc.