OF THE ENGLISH WORD-STOCK
1. Native words. Words of native origin and their characteristics.
2. Borrowings. Classification of borrowings according to the borrowed aspect: phonetic borrowings, translation loans, semantic borrowings, morphemic borrowings.
3. Classification of borrowings according to the degree of assimilation: completely assimilated, partly assimilated and non-assimilated (barbarisms). Classification of borrowings according to the language from which the word was borrowed: Romanic borrowings (Latin borrowings, French borrowings, Italian borrowings, Spanish borrowings); Germanic borrowings (Scandinavian borrowings, German borrowings, Holland borrowings). Etymological doublets.
Exercises to Seminar 9
I. Word Origins. Look up the words listed below in a dictionary which gives word origins. Classify them as NATIVE, LATIN, GREEK or EXOTIC.
| chaos | chocolate | complex | deprecate | gradient |
| hand | hurricane | husband | mammoth | renovate |
| robot | telegraph | tooth | trauma | tree |
II. Word Histories. Look up the following words in a dictionary which gives word origins. Trace the history of each word as completely as possible.
Example: sherbet Turkish < Persian < Arabic (< = 'from')
| a. sugar | d. hurricane |
| b. chocolate | e. bizarre |
| c. robot | f. horde |
III. Greek and Latin Roots. For each underlined root below, decide whether it originally comes from Greek or from Latin. Indicate which letter in the root provides the clue.
| chrys alis | re no vate | tele graph | psych ic |
| equ al | homo nym | vis ual | chao s |
| kilo meter | hom onym | ferr ous | helico pter |
IV. Test (Multiple Choice Questions)
1. In the Old English period, English borrowed a lot of words from ________.
A) Latin B) Old French C) Greek D) Germany
2. In the Middle English period, English borrowed a lot of words from ________.
A) Latin B) Old French C) Greek D) Germany
3. At the beginning of the Modern English period, English borrowed a lot of words from ________.
A) Latin B) Old French C) Greek D) Germany
4. In its historical development the English language adopted words from almost every known language, especially from ______.
A) Latin, German and French
B) Latin, Greek and French
C) Latin, Greek and Dutch
D) Latin, German and Spanish
5. The English vocabulary has grown from 50,000 to 60,000 words in Old English to the tremendous number of over ______ words today.
A) 100,00 B) 500,000 C) 1,000,000 D) 5,000,000
6. The vocabulary of Old English contains some fifty or sixty thousand words, which were chiefly _______.
A) Celtic B) Old Norse C) Anglo-Saxon D) Latin
7. The English language from ________ to the present is called Modern English.
A) 450 B) 1100 C) 1600 D) 1800
8. Middle English began with the ________ conquest of England in 1066.
A) Greek B) Norman C) Danish D) Roman
9. The history of English begins with the conquest of what is now England by the Angles, Saxon and the ________.
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A) Scandinavians B) Danes C) Jutes D) Norsemen
10 Most Latin borrowings came into English through ________.
A) German B) Dutch C) French D) Celtic
V. Quiz
Where Ya From, Buckaroo? A Word-Origin Quiz
Even the most ordinary words often have extraordinary histories. Take this quiz and find out how much you know about the words we use every day.
1. What is the original literal meaning of halibut?
a) "Holy fish" b) "Protruding eyeballs" c) "Facing the sun"
2. The word assassin comes from:
a) Asininus, a Roman senator murdered in AD 43
b) An Arabic word for hashish users
c) Europe's historically tumultuous Alsace region
3. The word buckaroo comes from:
a) The Spanish word for cowboy
b) Billy Buck, an early rodeo star
c) A slang term for a payment to a farm laborer
4. The word cliché comes from:
a) A character satirized in Punch magazine
b) An Urdu word meaning parable
c) The sound made by a printing plate
5. What is the original meaning of guerilla?
a) "Freedom fighter" b) "Little war" c) "Gorilla"
6. Which object is most closely related to fascism's etymological origins?
a) A U.S. dime b) A fedora c) A hedgehog
7. Which creature's name means river horse?
a) The sturgeon b) The donkey c) The hippopotamus
8. What does orangutan mean?
a) "Orange ape" b) "Man of the jungle" c) "Grape ape"
9. The word parasite was originally closest in meaning to:
a) "Dinner guest" b) "Teenager" c) "Vampire"
10. The word sarcasm comes from:
a) A Greek word meaning "to tear flesh"
b) A Sanskrit word meaning "opposite"
c) A Latin word meaning "to open a gap"
11. The word paparazzi derives from:
a) A type of camera
b) The name of an Italian tabloid
c) A character in a film
12. What does tycoon mean?
a) "Great ruler" b) "Well driller" c) "Railroad tie"
VI.Can you guess where each of the words listed below has been borrowed from?
| Words borrowed | Source language |
| barbecue | |
| bouillabaisse | |
| chocolate | |
| curry | |
| frankfurter | |
| molasses | |
| moussaka | |
| paella | |
| smorgasbord | |
| spaghetti | |
| tea | |
| tomato | |
| coyote | |
| gnu | |
| jackal | |
| jaguar | |
| kangaroo | |
| kiwi | |
| macaw | |
| mammoth | |
| merino | |
| orang-utan | |
| springbok |
VII. Each of the following sets of words are related etymologically. What meaning links them? Which letters carry that meaning?
a. direct, regal, regular, rule
b. cellar, conceal, hell, supercilious
c. kin, genus, pregnant, germ.
Recommended Literatur :
I.V. Arnold. The English Word. ., 1986, pp. 304314.
R.S.Ginzburg. A course in Modern English Lexicology. ., 1979, pp. 209231.
G.B.Antrushina. English lexicology. ., 1999, pp. 3458.
