Lecture 8

Main trends in the replenishment of the English vocabulary

About 85% of OE words died out, though the total number of items in the English lexicon has been multiplied by tens in ME and NE.

It has been claimed that the total number of words in Modern English is estimated to be between 400,000 and 600,000, and many of them have more than one meaning! The nearest language in word count is French with a mere (as in 'a restricted amount', rather than a lake) 150,000.

About 70% of Modern English vocabulary is represented by loan words which have been borrowed from 87 languages. Despite this the language is still basically Germanic and most basic words are still derived from Old English. Taking the body as an example, whilst we may have French spirit, our body still has English arms, legs, hands, feet, head, eyes, ears, nose and mouth, plus brain, liver, lungs.

Most of the increase in the English word stock in ME and NE came from borrowing. By the beginning of the 14th c. English lexicon has been enhanced by a thousand Scandinavian words, by about 10 thousand of French borrowings. In particular there were numerous Latin contributions to English, along with a handful of words from other languages, European and non-European in ME.

Chronologically, the first significant new source of loan words was Scandinavian.

Historical Background of Modern English Spelling

1. Principles of English Orthography. Causes of spelling difficulties in Modern English.
2. Historical development of English Spelling.

a) Old English period

b) Middle English period

c) New English period

I. The English Orthography is based on some definite principles. If we compare the spelling of the following words milk, milked, know/acknowledge, cent/psychology, die/dye we’ll see that different principles are working.

1) The word milk is spelt exactly as it is pronounced, that is each phoneme has its letter-counterpart in the alphabet (milk: 4 phonemes, 4 graphemes). In such cases of exact correspondence between pronunciation and spelling the latter is based on phonetic principle, and the spelling is called phonetic.

2) The spelling of the word milked doesn’t exactly correspond to its pronunciation [milk t ]. The same forms are fixed, clapped, copied etc. The ending – ed is historically determined, for it is a graphic representation of suffix [d] ([t]) of the Past Tense forms and Participle II forms. If this ending is added to a non-English root or some non-existing root a reader/speaker will, for sure, perceive this form as a Past Tense or Participle II form. E.g. Our planet has been sputniked already several times.

So, in such cases when the spelling of the whole word or of some part of it doesn’t correspond to its pronunciation, but vividly reflects its relation with other morphemes, we say that spelling is based on morphological principle.

The essence of morphological principle in other words may be explained as follows: any morpheme of the word (prefix, suffix, root) while used in other of its word-forms always keeps the same graphic image, though may be pronounced differently.

3) In order to spell the word know correctly we should:

- either remember that it is not based on phonetic principle (that is: 1) we cannot write no; 2) the sound n must be spelt with the digraph kn; 3) the sound o – with the help of the digraph ow)

- or we should have a look at its historical development (that is: 1) in OE it was spelt like cnawan; 2) in OE it was pronounced as [knāwan]; 3) in OE k was pronounced before n; only in the 17^th century it stopped being pronounced when the spelling was already fixed; 4) the digraph ow emerged only in MidE for the newly appeared diphthong ou which descended from OE ā+w).

In such cases we say that the spelling of such words cannot be explained by the norms of Modern English but historically. It is based on historical principle. Other examples are take, knife, delight, scent, quick, busy, ache, thorough etc.

Historical spelling may be explained only while comparing the ModE word with its OE or MidE counterpart. The number of such words is stable, and, moreover, with the course of time it became less numerous, for some historical spellings disappeared with the disappearance of the words, or some were simplified. E.g. thirdborough – міський констебль, wough (simpl. woe) – горе, скорбота.

4) In order to spell such words as cent, or psychology correctly it is not enough to know the spelling rules according to which some variants are possible, like sent, scent, cent or sikology, cicology, sicology.

The spelling of cent (meaning цент) is explained by its etymology, for it descended from Latin centum –сто.

The spelling of psychology also may be explained by its etymology, from Greek, where we have the word psukhe – душа, життя.

So, in such cases when the spelling is explained only by the peculiarities of the original language but not English, we speak about etymological principle.

5) The meanings of the words die and dye are not the same, though their pronunciation is identical (whole-hole, night-knight, scent-cent etc.). So, when the spelling serves as a means of differentiating the meanings of the words which sound the same, this spelling is based on differentiating or hieroglyphic principle.

Note: In ModE two- and polysyllabic words there exist a relation btw different principles of spelling.

1) If the main form of the word is based on phonetic principle, but its suffix is spelt according morphological, we’ll have a phonetico- morphological principle. E.g.: short-s, short-age, short-er.

2) In the word acknowledge we deal with historical (know)- morphological (ledge) principle.

3) In the words like analysis and analytic we speak about etymological-morphological principle.

II. The main difficulty of ModE spelling is the non-correspondence between phonetic and graphic representation od words, that is between how the word is pronounced and how it is spelt. There are some reasons for this.

The main one is that the spelling of the majority of English words was established in the 13-15 centuries and at the end of MidE was fixed in printed texts (remember: introduction of printing). But later, during 15-18 centuries phonetic system underwent essential changes: new phonemes appeared, some changed, some disappeared forever.

Logically, with the changes in pronunciation one could expect the corresponding changes in spelling (e.g. introducing new letters to express new phonemes, or excluding some letters which expressed “mute” sounds, or substituting some letters in case they undergo changes). But nothing of this kind happened in English orthography.

Let’s take such an example. In OE the word boc was pronounced [bōk]. So, the spelling, as we see, corresponds to the pronunciation. Only the length of o was not marked anyhow. In MidE to mark the long o the digraph oo was introduced, and c was marked by the French letter k which didn’t exist in OE alphabet. In such a way this word acquired a new spelling book which more exactly corresponded to its OE pronunciation [bōk]. When in late MidE (15^th cent.) long ō shifted into long ū, the spelling book was already fixed in English texts. So, nowadays we have the discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation of this word. A bit later, again, in the 18^th cent. long [u:] shortened in the position before [k] and some dental consonants. Since that time, digraph oo means short u, though we see that non-correspondence between – ook (spelling) and [uk] (pronunciation) is vivid. Other examples are look, hook, took etc.

Take another example. The words house and cow in OE were spelt like hūs and cū which corresponded to their pronunciation [hu:s] and [ku:]. In MidE for a long sound ū the digraph ou was borrowed from French. But when ū was final in the word the digraph ow was used (some linguists say that w when final looked more beautiful than u). So, in MidE the spelling of these words was complicated, because one vowel ū was spelt in two ways: ou and ow. Note, that their pronunciation was not changed. During 15-16^th cent. long ū shifted into diphthong [au], but the spelling, already fixed in the texts, didn’t change.

One more point is that the spelling of hous acquired a final neutral letter - e [ə] to indicate the length of the root-vowel. As a result, the non-correspondence btw pronunciation and spelling became greater than before. It is naturally, if a student knows Latin alphabet and hears the diphthong au, he tries to spell it like au, but not as ou or ow. That is considered to be a mistake of any learner of English.

Another bright examples of pronunciation and spelling non-correspondence are the words like night. All becomes clear when you look into historical development of this word.

In OE it was pronounced [niх’t] and spelt like niht. In MidE, to spell [х] and [х’] the digraph gh was introduced (night). Later the palatalized sound [х’] disappeared and simultaneously the preceding vowel lengthened. As a result, the word night became to be pronounced [ni:t], but the spelling with gh was already fixed in texts. Other examples: right [ri:t], might [mi:t], light [li:t]. In early NE long [i:] shifted into diphthong [ai] (according to the Great Vowel Shift), and these words acquired modern pronunciation [nait], [rait], [mait]. Moreover the sound ai became to be spelt as a trigraph igh.

So, the existence of a great number of non-pronounced elements, and a lot of digraphs, trigraphs and polygraphs may be explained, on one hand, by the disappearance of some sounds out of phonetic system of English, and, on the other hand, by the disappearance of some sounds out of pronunciation of the words (analogous by their sound-structure). These digraphs, trigraphs and polygraphs entered the English graphic system as additional means for graphic representation of some phonemes. E.g.: wr for [r], wh for [w], [h], kn, gn for [n], igh for [ai], augh for [o:], etc.

The appearance of non-pronounced elements may be also explained by some other reasons:

1) In some cases such elements were introduced into the words which in MidE had simple spelling, in order to point the kinship btw English and other classic languages like Latin and Greek. E.g.: ModE adventure < OFrench aventure (compare: Latin adventuras); ModE rhyme < OFrench rime (compare: Greek rhuthmos).

2) In earlyNE some elements appeared “by mistake”, that is were wrongly considered to originate from some language. E.g.: in words like night, right digraph gh before t is not pronounced. By analogy this gh was introduced before t into some French words, where originally such sounds didn’t exist (compare: French délit > ModE delight). Such spelling is considered to be phonetically unjustified.

3) The most difficult to spell are the words of etymological spelling. This is determined by such a fact that English, as a Germanic language, during 14 centuries of its development borrowed a great number of words from Greek, Latin, French, Scandinavian, Spanish and other languages, and during the last 2 centuries – a lot of words from Eastern languages. The majority of borrowings preserved their original spelling, but pronunciation changed, for they began to be pronounced according to the norms of English. That’s why words with etymological spelling are considered to be the most difficult to remember and spell.

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