Etymological characteristics of the English vocabulary
Words of native origin. The main characteristics of native words. Groups of words of native origin.
As to the origin English words may be classified into two large sets: native and borrowed words. A native word is a word which belongs to the original English word stock, as known from the earliest available manuscripts of the Old English period. Native words being only30 percent of the English vocabulary are the most frequently used words as they constitute 80 percent of the 500 most frequent words compiled by Thorndyke and Longe (The Teachers’ Wordbook of 30,000 words. New York, 1959).
Native words comprise Indo-European, Common Germanic and English Proper.
The oldest layer of words in English are those of Indo-European origin, having common roots in all or most languages of Indo-European group. They denote elementary concepts without which no human communication is possible. There are several semantic groups in them :
1. Words denoting kinship, e.g. father (Vater, pater, padre), mother (Mutter, мать), son (Sohn, сын), daughter (Tochter, дочь), brother (Bruder, брат);
2. Words denoting parts of human body, e.g. foot (пядь), nose, lip, heart (сердце),ear, tooth, eye;
3. Words denoting animals, e.g. cow, swine, goose, wolf (Wolf, волк) ;
4. Words denoting plants, e.g. tree, birch (береза), corn (зерно);
5. Words denoting time of day, e.g. day, night;
6. Words denoting heavenly bodies and phenomena of nature, e.g. sun (die Sohne, солнце), moon, star, water (Wasser, вода),wind, wood, hill, stone;
7. Numerals from one to a hundred;
8. Numerous adjectives, e.g. red (cf. Ukr. рудий, R. рыжий),new, glad (гладкий), sad (сыт), quick, slow;
9. Pronouns – personal (except they which is a Scandinavian borrowing) and demonstrative;
10. Numerous verbs, e.g. be (быть), stand (стоять), sit (сидеть), eat (есть), know (знать).
A much larger group of native vocabulary are Common Germanic words (German, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic). They represent words of roots common to all or most Germanic languages. Some of the main semantic groups are the same as in words of Indo-European origin:
1. Words denoting parts of human body, e.g. head, hand, arm, finger, bone;
2. Words denoting plants, e.g. oak, fir, grass;
3. Words denoting animals, e.g. bear, fox, calf;
4. Words denoting natural phenomena, e.g. rain, frost, storm, flood, ice;
5. Words denoting periods of time and seasons of the year, e.g. time, week, winter, spring, summer;
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6. Words denoting landscape features, e.g. sea, land, ground, earth;
7. Words denoting human dwellings and furniture, e.g. house, room, bench;
8. Words denoting sea-going vessels, e.g. boat, ship;
9. Adjectives, e.g. green, blue, grey, white, small, thick, high, old, good;
10. Verbs, e.g. see, hear, speak, tell, say, answer, make, give, drink, bake, buy, drive, keep, learn, meet, rise, send, shoot;
11. Words denoting artefacts and materials, e.g. bridge, shop, coal, iron, lead, cloth;
12. Words denoting abstract notions, e.g. care, evil, hope, life, need;
13. Adverbs, e.g. down, out, before;
14. Words denoting articles of clothes, e.g. hat, short, shoe.
English Proper words in contrast to Indo-European and Common Germanic words can be approximately dated, words of this group appeared in the English language not earlier than the 5th century, they are specifically English having no cognates in other languages. Some examples of English Proper words are: bird, boy, girl, lord, lady, woman, daisy, always. The English Proper element also contains all the later formations, i.e. words which were made after the 5th century according to English word-building patterns both from native and borrowed morphemes, e.g. ‘beautiful’ built from the French borrowed root and the native suffix belongs to the English Proper words. It is natural that the number of such words is immense.
Most of the native words have undergone great changes in their semantic structure and as a result are nowadays polysemantic, e.g. the word ‘finger’ denotes not only a part of a hand as in Old English but also 1) the part of a glove covering one of the fingers; 2)a finger-like part in various machines; 3) a hand of a clock; 4) an index; 5) a unit of measurement. Most of words of the native origin are highly polysemantic.
Most native words possess a wide range of lexical and grammatical valency. Many of them enter a number of phraseological units, e.g. the word ‘heel’ enters the following units: ‘heel over head’ or ‘head over heels’; ‘ cool one’s heel’; show a clean pair of heels’; take to one’s heels’; turn on one’s heels’ etc.
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Besides, the great stability and semantic peculiarities of native words account for their great derivational potential. Most words of this group make up large clusters of derived and compound words in the present-day language, e.g. the word ‘wood’ is the basis for the formation of the following words: ‘wooden, woody, wooded, woodcraft, woodcutter, woodwork’ and many others.
On the whole, the native element has been playing a significant role in the English language due to the fact that the native words are marked by stability, specific semantic characteristics, wide collocability, great derivational potential, wide spheres of application and high frequency value.
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