Structural patterns. In the course of its development the English language has borrowed a considerable number of words from other languages

NOTES

In the course of its development the English language has borrowed a considerable number of words from other languages, which have greatly increased the English vocabulary. The largest group of borrowed words are of French and Latin origin. There are also borrowings from the Scandinavian languages, from Spanish, Italian, Russian and other languages.

For example, in the text alongside words of Anglo-Saxon origin like father, son, wife, to live, to see, to hear, old, young and many others we find a lot of words that come from French: humour, miserable, hotel, challenge, accuse, arrive, regard, credit, reply, retire and others.

There are also borrowings which come direct from Latin. These are anxious, interrupt, interior. The words monotony, enthusiasm are of Greek origin. The word veranda came into English from Hindustani.

In some cases borrowings may be easily recognized through peculiarities of pronunciation (memoir), spelling (naïve, façade), morphological structure (phenomenon - pl phenomena, crisis - pl crises). In many cases borrowings have become so assimilated in English that one has to make use of a dictionary to find out their true origin. Such is the case with these words from the text: place, air, car (Fr), ugly, take, ill (Scan), mile, street, station (Lat)

1. Sentences with before-clauses

At the station, before she had time to leave the car, the station-master came out and spoke to her.

In complex sentences with a subordinate clause of time introduced by the conjunction before in which both actions refer to the past we find the following combinations of tense forms:

Principal clause	Before-clause
a) The Past Indefinite	the Past Indefinite
b) The Past Perfect	the Past Indefinite
c) The Past Indefinite	the Past Perfect

These combinations show different time relations between the action of the adverbial clause and that of the principal clause.

a) He appointed the date for our meeting long before he came to the city.

Он назначил день нашей встречи задолго до того, как приехал в наш город.

This combination shows that the action of the principal clause precedes that of the subordinate clause. In Russian the subordinate clause is introduced by the conjunctions до того как, прежде чем; перед тем как.

b) They had not gone four miles before they saw it was going to rain.

Они не прошли и четырех миль, как увидели, что будет дождь.

The Past Perfect in the principal clause indicates that the action is not completed before the other action takes place. In Russian sentences we find the expressions не успели, не успев or the structure не... и, как (когда).

с) I discovered the news before I had been in the house for an hour.

Я узнал эту новость, не успев пробыть и часа в доме.

The Past Perfect in the subordinate clause shows that the action is not completed before the action of the principal clause takes place. The verb in English is not negative, but it is rendered in Russian by a negative form.

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