英语词汇学教程课件第4章English-Lexicology-4上

1、English LexicologyLecture FourEnglish LexicologyLecture FourNative English VocabularyNative English vocabulary is made up of Anglo-Saxon words. This category consists of words that were used by the Germanic invaders and are still used in Modern English. Most of them are the common words of the langu

2、age.Native English VocabularyNativAnglo-Saxon words are generally short and concrete; e.g. parts of the body (arm. bone, chest, ear. eye, foot, hand, heart), the natural landscape (field, hedge, hill, land, meadow, wood), domestic life (door, floor, home, house), the calendar (day, month, moon, sun.

3、 year), animals (cow, dog, fish, goat. hen. sheep, swine), common adjectives (black, dark, good, long, white, wide), and common verbs (become, do, eat, fly, go, help, kiss. live. love, say, see, sell, send, think). Anglo-Saxon words are generallThe Celtic language did not have any serious impact on

4、English. Firstly, in the Old English period, only a handful of Celtic words were borrowed, and just a few have survived into modern English, sometimes in regional dialect use, e.g. cumb (deep valley), binn (bin), carr (rock). The Celtic language did not haA few Celtic words of this period derive ult

5、imately from Latin, brought in by the Irish missionaries, e.g. assen (ass), ancor (hermit). Some placenames are Celtic-based. For example, there are river names such as Avon (river), Don. Exe, Ouse, Severn, Thames, Trent, Usk and Wye. Town names include Bray (hill), Dover (water), Eccles (church), K

6、ent, Leeds, London, York, and the use of caer ( fortified place as in Carlisle) and of pen (head, top, hill as in Pendle). A few Celtic words of this perSecondly, in the seventeenth century, a few more Celtic words were introduced into English from Irish Gaelic - brogue, galore, shamrock, tory - and

7、 later on: banshee, blarney, colleen. There are no more than two dozen Celtic loanwords in all. Secondly, in the seventeenth cWords from Anglo-Saxon are the most frequently used in the English language. The most frequent two hundred words in both British (BrE) and American English (AmE) consist most

8、ly of one syllable. There are a few two-syllable words (40 in AmE. and 24 in BrE) and a handful of trisyllabic forms (3 in AmE, and 2 in BrE). Only AmE has a single four-syllable item, the word American itself. Words from Anglo-Saxon are theFor the 10,000 most frequent words in English, nearly 32 pe

9、r cent have their origin in Old English. The hundred most frequently used items are almost all from Anglo-Saxon. For the 10,000 most frequent wHowever, the relative frequency of words varies not only according to text types but also according to the stylistic level. Generally speaking, formal style

10、and specialized language use a greater proportion of foreign loans than does everyday conversation. In English, many foreign words have been assimilated to the pronunciation and spelling of English. However, the relative frequencMajor Influences on Englishthe Scandinavian influencethe Norman Conques

11、tthe Latin influence. Major Influences on EnglishtheThe Scandinavian InfluenceAbout three hundred years after the West Germanic tribes had settled in England, there was another wave of invasions, this time by Scandinavians. These people included not only Danes, but also Swedes and Norwegians. Accord

12、ing to Myers (1992), the dialects they spoke belonged to the Northern division of Germanic. They differed greatly from the dialects of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. The Scandinavian InfluenceAbouIn spite of differences in pronunciation, most of the root words were enough alike to be recognizable. T

13、he difficulty caused by differences in inflection was partly solved by dropping some of the inflections altogether and being broad-minded about the others. Spelling was not much of a problem, because most people could not read or write, and those who could spelled as they pleased. There were no dict

14、ionaries to prove them wrong.In spite of differences in proAlthough these Danes moved in on the English and dominated them politically for a time, the two peoples settled down together without much attention to their separate origins, and the languages mingled. On the whole, English rather than Dani

15、sh characteristics won out, but many of the words were so much alike that it is impossible to say whether we owe our present forms to English or Danish origins. Sometimes both forms remained, usually with a somewhat different meaning. Although these Danes moved in Thus we have shirt and skirt, both

16、of which originally meant a long, smock-like garment, although the English form has come to mean the upper part, and the Danish form the lower. Old English rear and Danish raise are another pair - sometimes interchangeable, sometimes not.Thus we have shirt and skirt, The effect on English of the Dan

17、ish conquest was not great. However, hundreds of Danish words came into English, but the structure of English was not fundamentally disturbed. The following are some examples of English words that have come in through Danish.Ale, anger, call, cast, cow, dwell, egg (verb), fellow, flat, gain, gust, h

18、ansel, hap, hit, husband, hustings, ill, irk, kid, law, meek, odd, plough, quandary, ransack, score, scrap, scrape, shallow, skill, skin, sky, slouch, swain, take, thrall, thrift, tiding, ugly, want, windlass, window.The effect on English of the DThe Norman ConquestIn 1066, the Normans conquered Eng

19、land. They, like the Danes, had originally come from Scandinavia. They had settled in northern France, and had given up their own language and learned to speak a dialect of French. For several centuries Normans, and other Frenchmen that they invited in later, held most of the important positions in

20、England, but the bulk of the population were still English. The Norman ConquestIn 1066, thMost of them never learned French, and eventually - though only after several centuries all the nobles and officials were using English. Norman French was a class language, never the speech of England. Three ma

21、in dialects of England at that time were Northern, Southern and Midland. Each writer chose the dialect of his section. Most of them never learned FreA good many French words had entered the English language; and most of the inflections that had survived the Danish pressure had dropped out, with a st

22、andard word order making up for their loss. The two changes took place together, and by the time of Chaucer the language had become enough like Modern English to be recognizable. The pronunciation was quite different and the spelling was not standardized. A good many French words had enow a student

23、can get at least a general idea of Chaucers meaning without special training, while he can no more read Old English than he can German or Latin, unless he has made a special study of it. now a student can get at leastSince Chaucers time, more endings have disappeared, and there have been other chang

24、es. The greatest development has been in the vocabulary. A considerable number of Chaucers words have dropped out of use, and a much greater number of new words have been added. Some of these new words have been made by compounding or otherwise modifying old ones, but most of them have been borrowed

25、 from other languages, particularly Latin.Since Chaucers time, more endThe Latin InfluenceThe Britons had been under Roman domination for about four centuries, and Celtic was intimately tinctured with Latin. Even before they came to England, the settlers had picked up a few Latin words, and they lea

26、rned others from the Christian missionaries who began to convert them in the sixth century. The Latin InfluenceThe BritonsThese early borrowings were taken directly into the spoken language, and most of them have now changed so that their Latin origins are not easy to recognize. Examples include str

27、eet, wine, bishop, priest, and church (the last three originally borrowed from Greek by the Romans).These early borrowings were taAfter the Norman Conquest, borrowings from Latin were enormously increased. French itself is directly descended from Latin, and we cannot always tell whether an English w

28、ord came directly from Latin or through French. Suspicion, for instance, could have come into English by either route. After the Norman Conquest, borEnglish has also borrowed words from many other languages, particularly Greek. We still do not know exactly how extensive the Anglo-Saxon borrowings ar

29、e from Latin through Celtic. English has also borrowed wordThe following is probably an authentic list of their borrowings from Latin through Celtic: Caester, Chester: Lat. caestrum (camp or fortified place); seen in such place-names as Chester, Gloucester, Exeter (for Excester ) , Doncaster.Coln: L

30、at. colonia (military settlement); seen in such place-names as Lincoln, Colne, Colchester.Port: Lat. portus (harbor); seen in such place-names as Porchester, Portsmouth, Davenport.Wick, wich: Latin vicus (a town or village); seen in such place-names as Wickham, Wigton.The following is probably an aF

31、rom 597 A.D to 1066 A.D., a variety of additional Latin words were introduced. Most of the following terms probably came into English between the 7th and 11th centuries.(1) Church terms of Latin origin: altar, candle, chalice, cowl, creed, cup, disciple, font, mass, nun, shrine, shrive, etc.(2) Chur

32、ch terms of Greek or Hebrew origin borrowed through Latin: alms, angel, anthem, amen, apostle, bishop, canon, Christ, church, clerk, deacon, devil, martyr, minister, monk, pope, priest, psalm, school, stole, etc.From 597 A.D to 1066 A.D., a v (3) Trade words and words for articles of commerce and ag

33、riculture: beet, box, cheese, fan, fork, kettle, linen, mat, mulberry, pease, pear, penny, poppy, pound, sock, spend, ton, etc.(4) Miscellaneous: ass, belt, castle, chalk, coulter, fever, fiddle, fennel, hemp, kitchen, lake, mill, noon, pillow, shambles, sickle, sole, tile, tunic, verse, dish, etc.

34、(3) Trade words and words forBorrowings in EnglishBorrowing is the process of imitating a word from a foreign language and, at least partly, adapting it in sound or grammar to the native language. The word thus borrowed is called a loanword or borrowing. English seems to have welcomed foreign words,

35、 especially from the Middle English period onwards. Borrowings in EnglishBorrowingContemporary English borrows from over 120 languages all over the world. English has borrowed more from French during this century than from any other language. Most of borrowings into English have been nouns, but there are some adjectives, verbs and interjections. Among the borrowed nouns having to do with food and drink are hummus (from Arabic), frijoles refritos (from Spanish for beans refried), nosh (from