Etymology and Loanwords in the English Language

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Introduction

First of all I want to explain why I have chosen this topic to present. When I was learning English language at school I was always curious why this or that word was pronounced differently and somehow strange. My teacher was trying to do her best and explain but anyway I was always dissatisfied. Now as I am a student and I am learning English language thoroughly I have a great chance to discover for me many things and to give answers to those questions that were disturbing me so much. I am also a future teacher and I should know everything about English. The topics of my presentation are etymology and loanwords. As etymology is a study about word origin, their changes for certain period I hope I can get much from this presentation. On the other hand etymology is very interesting and makes you to go deeper and deeper in the study of words.

Theoretical survey

Etymology ( ստուգաբանություն ) is one of the main branches of Lexicology. It helps us to study the history of words , their origin , how they have changed their meaning , spelling, pronunciation, which is their ancestral form , the assimilation of English vocabulary with others and so on. As every branch of linguistics etymology also has many methods which are used to study the word origin. The methods are : philological research, dialectological data, comparative method, sementic change.

Philological research is a method which help to underdtand changes of word form and meaning whit the help of older texts.

Dielectological data is a method which shows that the meaning and form of the word can be changed between dialects.

The comparative method is very effective ...

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...from other languages and accepted in that language.

• Borrowing are classified according to deggree of assimilation, and according to the borrowed aspect.

• There are many word in English borrowed from different languages and one of the main source of English loanword borrowed from French.

• French borrowings are about 30 % of English word stock.

• French borrowing are classified according to the semantic group and largest of them are cooking, food, fruit and vegetables.

• This presentation is very informative for me and educational.

Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology#Methods

http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words04/structure/borrowed.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_French_origin

http://gendocs.ru/v39849/?cc=3

Г.Б.Антрушина, О.В.Афанасьева. Лексикология английского языка. - М. Изд. Дрофа. 1999

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