Lectures in Contrastive Lexicology of the English and Ukrainian Languages

e.g.: to tread/walk on air; to close/shut books; to draw a red herring across the trail/track; to come to a fine/handsome/nice/pretty pass; to sail close/near to the wind; to crook/lift the elbow/the little finger.

Grammar variants are also possible.

e.g.: to get into deep water = to get into deep waters; to pay nature’s debt = to pay the debt of nature.

Examples of quantitative variants can also be found: to cut the Gordian knot = to cut the knot; to lead somebody a dance = to lead somebody a pretty dance.

Lexico-grammar variants are also possible: to close/shut a /the door/doors on/upon/to somebody.

Interjective phraseological units are represented by: by George! By Jove! Good heavens! Gracious me!

Communicative phraseological units are represented by proverbs and sayings.

e.g.: Rome was not built in a day. An apple a day keeps a doctor away. That’s another pair of shoes. More power to your elbow. Carry me out.

3. Synonyms in Phraseology

Synonymy in phraseology has been greatly enriched by various processes of the meaning shift, by the influx of foreign words and phrases.

Absolute synonyms which have the same meaning and connotation are comparatively rare.

e.g.: over head and ears = up to the neck;

a pretty kettle of fish = a nice pair of shoes;

байдики бити – давати горобцям дулі.

Relative synonyms denote different shades of different degrees of common meaning:

e.g.: to come to a conclusion; to jump at a conclusion; to leap at a conclusion.

There is every reason to establish a stylistic differentiation of synonyms. The synonyms of a particular phrase are not always interchangeable with that phrase as their use depends on the linguistic situation, the audience addressed, the speaker’s attitude towards the subject. Some of them are stylistically neutral, others have an emotional connotation. In stylistic synonyms the difference is not so much in the meaning as in the emotional colouring.

e.g.: word of honour (neutral) – as I live by bread (colloquial);

to be in high spirits (neutral) – to be on high ropes (colloquial);

заснути вічним сном (neutral) – простягти ноги (colloquial).

4. Antonyms in Phraseology

Antonyms can be opposed to each other in their concrete meanings.

e.g.: an old sea wolf – a young calf of a mate; вбити собі в голову – викинути з голови, набитий гаманець – вітер у кишенях свистить.

The elements of the phraseological units-antonyms are expressed by the same part of speech.

e.g.: safe and sound – dead and gone; dead from the neck up – as wise as a serpent, макітра розуму – пустий лоб.

It is not investigated yet whether it is possible to use the negative particle not to form an antonym. We can use the negation in to step into somebody’s boots but we cannot use it in the expression to take a leaf from somebody’s book though it has the same meaning. In the Ukrainian language it is possible to use a negation in the following examples: велике цабе – невелике цабе, з легким серцем – з нелегким серцем.

5. Proverbs, Sayings

A proverb is a short familiar epigrammatic saying expressing popular wisdom, the truth or a moral lesson in a concise and imaginative way. Proverbs have much in common with phraseological units because their lexical components are also constant, their meanings are traditional and mostly figurative and they are introduced into speech ready-made. That is why some scholars following V.V. Vinogradov think proverbs must be studied together with phraseological units. Another reason why proverbs must be taken into consideration together with phraseological units is that they often form the basis of phraseological units.

A proverb is always a sentence. Very often they are realised in superphrasal units.

Proverbs may have different contents.

War is condemned: War is sweet to them who know it not. War is the sport of kings.

Fools are laughed at: Fools grow without watering. He who is borne a fool is never cured.

Lazy-bones are criticised: Idleness is the root of all evil.

Proverbs teach to be economical: A penny saved is a penny gained. Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves.

Proverbs teach to work hard: He that will eat the kernel must crack the nut. He that would eat the fruit must climb the tree. He that would catch fish must not mind getting wet. He would search for pearls must dive below.

Grammatical Structure of Proverbs

1. Simple affirmative sentences.

Appetite comes with eating. A cat may look at a king. Money makes the mare go. A little pot is soon hot. The voice of one man is the voice of no one. Друзі пізнаються в біді.

2. Simple negative sentences.

You cannot judge a tree by its bark Plenty is no plague. Hungry bellies have no ears. Нема науки без муки.

3. Compound sentences.

God sends meat and the devil sends cooks. Nothing venture, nothing gain. Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper. За морем тепліше, та вдома миліше. Від меча рана загоїться, а від лихого слова – ніколи.

4. Complex sentences.

He is lifeless that is faultless. He that lies down with/sleeps with dogs must rise up with fleas. If the things were to be done twice all would be wise. As the fool thinks, so the bell clinks. Хто мусить, той і каменя вкусить. Шануй свою голову, бо друга не виросте.

5. Imperative sentences.

Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs. Look before you leap. Don’t cross the bridges before you come to them. Не брудни криниці, бо схочеш водиці. Вмієш казати, вмій і мовчати.

6. Interrogative sentences.

Can the leopard change his spots? What can you expect from a hog but a grunt?

A.V.Koonin suggests the following classification of Еnglish proverbs:

1.      Proverbs with the constant dependence of their elements.

They are the most wide-spread. Their characteristic feature is that they are monosemantic.

e.g.: A burnt child dreads the fire. A great ship asks deep waters.

 2. Proverbs with the constant-variant dependence of their elements. Among them there are proverbs with lexical variants.

e.g.: Every cloud has a/its silver lining. The parson/priest always christens his own child first. Rats desert/forsake/leave a sinking ship.

Grammar variants are represented by the following examples: Constant dropping wears away/will wear away a stone. Small rain lays/will lay great dust.

There are proverbs with quantitative variants: First catch your hare then cook him = First catch your hare. There is no rose without a thorn = No rose without a thorn.

Some lexico-grammar variants have been registered: A burden of one’s choice is not felt = The burden one likes is cheerfully borne. Do in Rome as the Romans do = When at Rome do as the Romans do. Still waters run deep = Still waters have deep bottoms. There are spots even in the sun =There are spots on the sun.

Sayings

Sayings are communicative phrasal units of a non-proverbial character.

They can be represented by affirmative sentences: The answer is a lemon. The world is a small place. That is a horse of another colour. All is fish that comes to his net. Часом густо, а часом і пусто. Сорока на хвості принесла.

Interrogative sentences: Do you see any green in my eye? What’s the good word? Where do you hail from?

Negative sentences: Не нашого поля ягода. Не святі горшки ліплять.

Imperative sentences: Carry me out! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

THE ETYMOLOGY

1. The native element and borrowed words.

2. Causes and ways of borrowing words.

3. Criteria of borrowings in English.

4. The Celtic element in the English vocabulary.

5. The classical element in the English language.

6. The Scandinavian element in the English vocabulary.

7. The Norman-French element in the English vocabulary.

8. Various other elements in the vocabulary of the English and Ukrainian languages.

9. False etymology.

10.Types of borrowings.

1. The Native Element and Borrowed Words

The most characteristic feature of English is usually said to be its mixed character. Many linguists consider foreign influence, especially that of French, to be the most important factor in the history of English. This wide-spread viewpoint is supported only by the evidence of the English word-stock, as its grammar and phonetic systems are very stable and not easily influenced by other languages.

To comprehend the nature of the English vocabulary and its historical development it is necessary to examine the etymology of different layers, the historical causes of their appearance, their volume and role and the comparative importance of native and borrowed elements in enriching the English vocabulary.

According to their origin words can be native and borrowed. A native word is a word which belongs to the original English stock as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period.

Native words are further subdivided into the words of the Indo-European stock and those of the Common Germanic origin. The words having cognates in the vocabularies of different Indo-European languages form the oldest layer. It has been noticed that they readily fall into definite semantic groups. Among them we find terms of kinship (mother, father, son, daughter), names of animals and birds (cat, wolf, goose), parts of human body (arm, eye). Some of the most frequent verbs belong to this word stock: come, sit, stand. Most numerals are also of the Indo-European origin.

A bigger part of the native vocabulary consists of the words of the Common Germanic word stock. Such nouns as summer, winter, rain, ice, hat; the verbs to bake, to buy, to make, to meet; the adjectives deaf, dead, deep are of the Common Germanic origin. Most adverbs and pronouns also belong here.

Together with the words of the Common Indo-European stock the Common Germanic words form the bulk of the most frequent elements used in any style of speech.

Characteristic Features of the Native Vocabulary

1. The words are monosyllabic: sun, wood, break.

2.      They are polysemantic: hand – 1. Part of the human body. 2. Power, possession, by a responsibility.3. Influence. 4. Person from whom news comes. 5. Skill in using one’s hands. 6. Person who does what is indicated by the context, performer. 7. Workman. 8. Share in activity. 9. Pointer, indicator. 10. Position or direction. 11. Handwriting. 12. Signature. 13. Number of cards held by a player. 14. Unit of measurement. 15. Applause by clapping.

3. They are characterised by high frequency.

4. Native words are usually found in set-expressions.

5. Verbs with post-positions are usually native: to look for, to look after.

6. They are characterised by a wide range of lexical and grammatical valency.

7. If words begin with wh, wr, tw, dw, sw, sh. th; if at the end they have dge, tch,nd, ld; if the roots have ng, aw, ew, ee, oo they are native.

2. Causes and Ways of Borrowing into English

In its fifteen century long history recorded in written manuscripts the English language happened to come in long and close contact with several other languages, mainly Latin, French, Old Norse. The great influx of borrowings from these sources can be accounted for by a number of historical causes. Due to the great influence of the Roman civilisation Latin was for a long time used in England as the language of learning and religion. Old Norse was the language of the conquerors who brought with them a lot of new notions of a higher social system – developed feudalism – it was the language of upper classes, of official documents from the middle of the 11th century to the end of the 14th century.

In the study of the borrowed element in English the main emphasis is as a rule placed on the Middle English period. Borrowings of the later periods became the object of investigation only in recent years. These investigations show that the flow of borrowings has been steady and uninterrupted. The greatest number of them has come from French. A large portion of them (41) is scientific and technical terms.

The number and character of borrowings do not only depend on the historical conditions, on the nature and length of contacts but also on the degree of the genetic and structural proximity of the languages concerned. The closer the languages the deeper and more versatile is the influence. Thus under the influence of the Scandinavian languages, which were closely related to Old English, some classes of words were borrowed that could not have been adopted from non-related or distantly related languages.

Borrowings enter the language in two ways: through oral and written speech. Oral borrowing took place chiefly in the early periods of history, whereas in recent times written borrowing gained importance. Words borrowed orally are usually short and they undergo more changes in the act of adoption. Written borrowings preserve their spelling.

Borrowings can be borrowed through transcription (football, trailer, jeans), transliteration (cruise, motel, club). Besides there can be loan words (blue stocking, collective farm).

3. Criteria of Borrowings in English

Though borrowed words undergo changes in the adopting language, they preserve some of their former peculiarities for a comparatively long period. This makes it possible to work out some criteria for determining whether the word belongs to the borrowed element.

In some cases the pronunciation of the word, its spelling and the correlation between sounds and letters are an indication of the foreign origin of the word: waltz (German), psychology (Greek). The initial position of the sounds [v], [dz], [z] or of the letters x, j, z is a sure sign that the word has been borrowed : vase (French), jungle (Hindi), gesture (Latin).

The morphological structure of the word and its grammatical forms may also show that the word has been borrowed. The suffixes in the words neurosis (Greek), violoncello (Italian) betray the foreign origin of the words. The same is true of the irregular plural forms bacteria, media, phenomena.

The lexical meaning of the word can show the origin of the word. Thus the concept denoted by the words pagoda (Chinese), kangaroo (Australian) make us suppose that we deal with borrowings.

These criteria are not always helpful. Some early borrowings have become so thoroughly assimilated that they are unrecognisable as adoptions without a historical analysis: chalk (Latin), ill (Scandinavian), car (French).

Sometimes the form of the word and its meaning in Modern English enable us to tell the immediate source of borrowing. Thus, if the digraph ch is sounded as [ ] the word is a late French borrowing (echelon) ; if it is sounded as [k] the word came from the Greek language (archaic); if it is pronounced as [t ] it is either an early borrowing or a word of the Anglo-Saxon origin.

4. The Celtic Element in the English Vocabulary

When the invading Anglo-Saxon tribes came to the British Isles and encountered the aboriginal population, the latter did not influence Anglo-Saxon to any serious extent – these were not more than some 10-12 Celtic words. Besides not all of them were originally Celtic. No historian as yet has explained the reason why the Celtic traces in the English vocabulary have been so slight. One of the explanations may be that before the Anglo-Saxons came Britain had been under Roman oppression for about four centuries and the native Celtic population must have been greatly reduced by the Roman invaders. The Roman legions left Britain to defend their capital from the advancing Goths. At the approach of the new invaders the Britons fled to Wales and Cornwall, the Celtic tribes of Ireland accepted the English language and the Celtic tribes of Scotland were influenced in their speech by the Northern form of English. Now the Celtic tongues exist in the form of Welsh, Irish, Gaelic and Highland Scotch and exercise their influence upon the local dialects.

The Celtic element includes such words as crag (rock), dun (greyish-brown), down (hill). There are some geographical names like Kent, Avon (river), Dover (water). Celtic elements are found in such place names as Duncombe, Helcombe ( cum – canyon), Llandaff (llan – church), Inverness (inver – river mouth). Some of the early Latin, French, Spanish borrowings came through Celtic (cloak, car, clock, carry).

On the whole, Celtic borrowings in the English language can be considered of the least importance.

5. The Classical Element in the English Language

By the classical element we mean Latin and Greek.

Lexicographers have estimated that approximately a quarter of the Latin vocabulary has been taken over by English. But Latin words are not a homogeneous layer. We must distinguish between those borrowed through the immediate contact at the early stages of the development of the language and those later borrowings that came through writing. The first are mostly monosyllabic and denote things of everyday importance while the latter are mostly polysyllabic bookish words. The first are completely assimilated: pea, wine, cup, line.

Borrowings of the 5th century have a military favour about them for the Romans built fortifications, military camps and roads: port, street, wall. All these words got completely assimilated in the English language. Many of the Latin borrowings of this period did not survive but they are sometimes retained in English place-names: Manchester (castra – camp), Greenwich, Harwich (vicus – village).

Taken together these two periods form the first stratum of Latin borrowings.

The second great stratum of Latin words came into English at the end of the 6th-7th centuries when the people of England were converted to Christianity. Since Latin was the language of the church many Latin words denoting religious concepts came into English: abbot, bishop, candle, mass, temple. Some words changed their meanings. Many Latin words borrowed at that period can be referred to other spheres of life, such as things of everyday life (cap, chest), names of vegetables and plants (beet, plant). Since monasteries were also cultural centres where books were written and translations made such words as school, verse were borrowed.

Another great influx of Latin words came through French after the Norman conquest. They are generally referred to as the 3rd stratum of Latin borrowings. Their original source is Latin and their immediate source is French.

The greatest stream of Latin borrowings poured into the English vocabulary during the period of Renaissance. At that time words belonging to the following spheres were borrowed: terms of philosophy, mathematics, physics (fundamental, vacuum), terms of law and government (alibi, veto), terms of botany (mallow, petal), topographical terms (equator, tropical).

Nowadays when there appears a need to coin some term it is coined from the existing Latin or Greek elements.

Greek borrowings are recognised by their specific spelling (ch – character, ph - philosophy, pn – pneumonia, rh – rhetoric, ist – socialist, ics – mathematics, osis – neurosis).

To a certain extent Greek borrowings were latinized in form with the change of the Greek u into Latin y, the Greek k into the Latin c. When the Latin c changed its pronunciation before e, i, y many Greek words were changed beyond recognition

( kuriakon – church, kyklos – cycle). Some Greek proper names are widely used in Great Britain (Margaret, Sophia, Irene). Many Greek words were borrowed during the period of Renaissance. They belong to the following lexico-semantic fields: literature and art (poet, comedy), lexicology (antonym, dialect, philosophy and mathematics (theory, thesis, diagram), medicine (diagnosis, rheumatism), physics (pneumatic, thermometer).

6. The Scandinavian Element in the English Vocabulary

The Scandinavian invasion of England which proved to be of linguistic importance began in the 8th century. In 1017 the Danes conquered the whole of England and reigned over up to 1042.

The Danish settlers intermingled with the native population. The fact of both languages being Germanic facilitated mutual understanding and word borrowings. That is why it is difficult sometimes to say whether a word is native or borrowed from Scandinavian. Words are sometimes considered to be of the Scandinavian origin if they were not met in Anglo-Saxon written documents up to the 11th century. Some examples of Scandinavian borrowings are the following: anger (OSc. angr – sorrow); gate (OSc. gata); sky (OSc. sky – cloud); want ( OSc. vant – lacking); to hit (OSc. hitta – not to miss); ill (OSc. illr – bad); ugly (OSc. uggligr – frightful).

In distinguishing Scandinavian words we may sometimes apply the criterion of sound such as [sk] – skill, scare, scream. The hard [g] and [k] sounds before i and e speak for the Scandinavian origin of the word since English words started having the palatalised [j] and [t ] sounds before i and e already in Old English. But these features are not always sufficient because sometimes we find [sk] in words of Latin, Greek or French origin or in Northern dialects.

Some English words changed their meanings taking on the meanings of the corresponding Scandinavian words: OSc. draurm – dream (OE dream – joy), OSc.– brauth – bread (OE bread – crumb, fragment).

Scandinavian settlements in England left their toponymic traces in a great number of place names: OSc. byr – village (Derby, Rugby); OSc. foss – waterfall (Fossbury, Fossway); OSc. toft – cite, plot of land (Brimtoft, Langtoft).

7. The Norman-French Element in the English Vocabulary

The French layer rates second to Latin in bulk. It has been estimated that English owes one fourth of its vocabulary to French. French borrowings penetrated into English in two ways: from the Norman dialect (during the first centuries after the Norman Conquest of 1066) and from the French national literary language beginning with the 15th century.

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