External means of enriching vocabulary

Prefixes

Internal means of enriching vocabulary

Vocabulary

The vocabulary of Old English was rather intensive. It is said to have contained about 50 000 words. These words were mainly native words. They could be divided into a number of strata.

The oldest stratum was composed of words coming from the Common Indo-European parent tongue.

Many of these words were inherited by English together with some other Indo-European languages from the same common source, and we shall find related words in various Indo-European languages. Compare:

Old English New English Latin Russian

mōdor mother mater мать

niht night nox ночь

neōwe new novus новый

Another layer, relatively more recent, was words inherited by English and other Germanic languages from the same common Germanic source. You will find them in many languages, but only those belonging to the Germanic group. Compare:

Old English New English Germanic

eorðe earth Erde

land land Land

sæ sea See

findan find finden

As it known, there are two principal ways of enriching the vocabulary –internal means- those that are inherent in the languageitself, and external means, which result from contacts between people. The English-speaking people of that period mainly used internal means of enriching the vocabulary to adapt their language to the expression of more varied or new notions.

In old English affixation was widely used at a word-building means.

There were very many suffixes, with the help of which new nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs were formed:

Noun suffixes of concrete nouns:

-ere fisc+ere (fisher) denoting the doer

-estre spin+ester (spinster) of the action

- adjectives suffixes

-isc Engl+isc (English)

-ful car+ful (careful)

Mis-mis + dæd (misdeed)

un- un+cuð (uncouth)

Word composition

sæ+ man (seaman)

ĩc+ceald (ice-cold)

As we understand, borrowings into a language are a result of contacts with other nations. The Germanic tribes had but few contacts with other nations at the beginning of A.D., consequently the number of borrowed words was not great. The main borrowings that we can single out were Latin and Celtic.

-Latin borrowings

The first stratum of borrowings are mainly words connected with trade. Many of them are preserved in Modern English, such as:

pound, inch, pepper, cheese, wine, apple, pear, plum, etc.

The second stratum of words was composed of loan Latin borrowed on British soil from Romanized Celts. Those words connected with building and architecture, s preserved nowadays:

tile, street, wall, mill, etc.

The third stratum of Latin loan words borrowed after the introduction of the Christian religion:

bishop, devil, apostle, monk.

The words which were not connected with religion:

master, school, palm, lion, tiger, plant, astronomy, etc.

-Celtic borrowings

Down (the downs o Dover), binn (bin-basket)

Some Celtic roots are preserved in geographical names, such as:

kil- (church –Kilbrook) ball(house –Ballantrae), esk (water- river Esk).

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11