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Words can be classified from the point of view of their origin. They can be native and borrowed (See the previous chapter).
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Special Literary Vocabulary
a) Neologisms
Neologisms are words and expressions used for new concepts that appear in the course of the language development, new meanings of the already existing words and new names of old concepts.
Neologisms appear all the time. The words table, sky once were neologisms. But soon they became vital and widespread to be felt neologisms. Names of different fruit, species were new names of new concepts (pea, cherry, pepper). The introduction of Christianity brought with it a great number of new concepts and words (church, candle). The Norman Conquest also contributed to the enrichment of the English vocabulary (army).
The development of industry, the development of technology, new inventions caused the appearance of new words (film, television, self-starter).
A great number of neologisms appeared during the periods of great social upheavals (machine, bank, investment).
After the Bourgeois Revolution in France there appeared such words as bureaucracy, revolution, regime, terrorism.
After World War I such neologisms as blackout, camouflage, air-raid appeared.
After World War II such words as H-bomb, the UNO, cold war entered the language.
In the 70-s of the 20th century neologisms were connected with all spheres of life: computerization (multi-user, neurocomputer, liveware, telepost, telebanking,
finger-print) ; exploration of space (space-bike, cargo-module, link-up); development of the arts (soft art, action painting, kinetic art; development of cinema, TV, video (inflight videosystem, satellite-delivered show, kidvid); theatrical art (theatre of absurd, son et lumiere, revolve); social development (the Lib movement, libbie). In the 70s libbies declared that the English language discriminated women. As a result of it the names denoting occupations and containing the element man underwent some changes. The word cameraman was substituted by operator, fireman – fire-fighter, chairman – chairperson, policeman – police officer. Even in church the word mankind was substituted by people. At the same time the names of women’s professions were changed: stewardess – flight attendant, nurse – male nurse, male secretary. He/she in written speech is used when both sexes are meant. S/he variant is less frequently used.
In the 80-s – 90-s of the 20th century neologisms were connected with lifestyles (belonger, ladies who lunch, theme pub); computerisation (laptop, to back up, to toggle); economics (sunrise industry, sunset industry, dawn raid); music (acid house, MTV, New Age music); mass media (video nasty, video piracy, tabloid television); art (crossfader, body-popping); medicine (to burn out, PWA, ME); education (baker day, City technology college ; fashion (body conscious, leisure wear); cookery (jacket crisp, tapas, yarg).
New semi-affixes were registered: -driven/led (market-led, design-driven); -friendly (environment-friendly, student-friendly); -something (thirty-something, fifty-something); -ware (software, hardware, wetware); -wise (power-wise, money-wise); loadsa- (loadsamoney, loadsabonuses).
Neologisms can be divided into three groups: neologisms proper in which the novelty of the form is combined with the novelty of the contents (audiotyping, bio-computer, thought-processor); transnominations which combine the novelty of the form with the meaning which was already rendered by another form (sudser, big C, bail-out); semantic innovations in which a new meaning is rendered by a form which already exists in the language (bread, drag, gas).
The English language enriches its vocabulary at the expense of borrowings but it happens not so frequently as it was in the Middle Ages or during the period of Renaissance. From the receiving language it turned into the language that gives. It is connected with the fact that it became the language of international communication. Borrowings constitute about 7,5% of all neologisms. The main source of borrowings is French (cinematheque, petit dejeuner). But there appeared a new tendency to borrow words from Japanese (zazen), Yiddish (nudge, zoftig, shlep).
Recently there have appeared many borrowings in the Ukrainian language: електорат, Інтернет, гіпсокартон, дилер, імідж.
b) Archaisms
Language is never stable. In the course of time the vocabulary changes by being supplemented with new words which come into being with the development of science and culture. A certain number of obsolete words usually drop out of the vocabulary of the language. Obsolete words pass out of use completely or remain in the language as elements performing purely historical descriptive functions. The disappearance of old occupations causes the disappearance of their old names. The names of such old occupations can be preserved as family names: Chandler (candle maker), Webster (weaver), Wright (worker). Archaic words can be preserved in proverbs: Many a little makes a mickel. The verb to read in the old meaning to interpret, to guess survived in to read a riddle. An old sense of favour (features, looks) survived in hard-favoured, ill-favoured, well-favoured. The preposition on was once common in the meaning because of. This meaning survives in on purpose, on compulsion. The preposition with originally meant against and now this meaning is preserved in withdraw, withstand. Archaic are the following adverbs: therefore, therefrom, wherein, thereon. Archaic are the participles ending in -en: drunken, gotten, washen.
Archaisms surviving in compounds, phraseological units are only partly understood as archaisms. Oft is not archaic when combined with present and past participles as in oft-recurring. Told is a survival of the Old English word tellan (to count) in all told.
In colloquial speech he word aught survives in for aught I know
(As far as I know).
Archaisms can be classified into lexical and grammatical. Lexical archaisms are words: woe (sorrow), nigh (near), aught (anything). Grammatical archaisms are old grammatical forms: thou (you), the -est inflexion for the 2nd person singular, -th for the 3rd person singular, the plural form of brother (brethren), tense forms like wilt, spake, builded.
Historisms belong to obsolete words. The causes of their appearance are extralinguistic. It is the denotatum that is outdated. They are very numerous as names for social relations and institutions and objects of material culture of the past. The names of ancient weapons, types of boats, types of carriages, instruments belong to historisms: battle axe, battering ram.
Archaisms differ from historisms in this respect that they are obsolete names for existing objects. Archaisms always have synonyms : to deem - to think, glee – joy.
Obsolete words survived as parts of compound words. The word gar, an old word for spear, survives in garlic, garfish. The word mara (incubus, an evil spirit) survives in nightmare.
One can also speak about obsolete meanings not only about obsolete words. Thus, to come used to mean to be seemly or becoming, to fall was used in the meaning of to move quickly. But these meanings are practically forgotten now.
Ukrainian archaic words are: чоло, перст, всує, ланіти, узріти. Смерд, війт, кожум’яка, плахта, аршин are historisms.
3. Special Colloquial Vocabulary
a)Dialects
The history of the English language begins with the incursions of the Germanic tribes in the middle of the 5th century. The Jutes came first and occupied the smallest territory (Kent and the Isle of Wight). The Saxons occupied practically all of England south of the Thames with the exception of the Jutish territories and Cornwall. They also occupied some territories north of the Thames. The Angles occupied the greater part of what is now England.
The first dialect that could lay claim to literary precedence was the Northumbrian, the language of the kingdom of Northumbria , including the north of England and the south of Scotland. Other dialects which had grown apart by the 8th century were Mercian, Saxon, Kentish. After the fall of Northumbria from its political supremacy Northumbrian sank to the position of a provincial dialect and under King Alfred in the 9th century the West Saxon dialect came to be predominant and was regarded as a literary language.
The Norman Conquest displaced the southern dialect of Wessex from the position of supremacy. The West Saxon sank to the level of other dialects.
The development of feudalism in England tended to create dialectical divergences of speech. During the 12th- 13th centuries there existed a number of dialects each of which had as much right as any other to be called the English language. During the Middle English period there existed the following dialects: Northern, Midland, Southern. The Northern dialect was the descendant of the Northumbrian dialect of Old English. Later a variety of the Northumbrian dialect was developed into the Scottish language. The Midland dialect was the descendant of the Mercian dialect of the Old English period. It was divided into two distinct varieties: East Midland and West Midland. The Southern dialect was spoken between the Thames and the English Channel. It was a descendant of the West Saxon dialect. Of these three dialects it was the Midland dialect that became the national language of the country. The reason that led to the predominance of the Midland dialect was a large territory which was most important economically, politically and culturally.
The dialect of London was the dialect of such cultural centres as Oxford and Cambridge. It was the form of speech native to Chaucer who wrote in the Midland dialect and contributed greatly to raising it to the position of superiority.
The dialectical peculiarities observed in some of the elements of the Modern English vocabulary go back to the dialects of Old English and to the subsequent dialectical division of the feudal epoch. Those Old English words that were not included into the most stable and widely used layer of the English vocabulary are often preserved in dialects: bairn (child), kemp (fighter). Sometimes dialectical words are not remnants of Old English words but corrupted words and expressions, such as nammut (lunch), gurt (great), zote (soft).
There are also borrowed words used only in dialects: bonny (pretty), tass (cup).
As far as grammatical peculiarities are concerned the following cases can be mentioned: the usage of I be in the South , I is in the North. In the South they use the interrogative and negative constructions without the auxiliary do.
There is one more dialect that enjoys a somewhat peculiar position for it can be met almost anywhere in English-speaking countries – Cockney. Its lexical, phonetical and grammatical peculiarities can be found in the speech of Eliza Doolittle in B.Shaw’s “Pygmalion”.
There are two kinds of ordinary Cockney: – the variety of Modified Standard speech which is the typical Cockney English of London, as spoken by educated middle-class people; - the variety of Modified Standard which is also heard in London but which is spoken by the semi-literate and quite illiterate.
There are several peculiarities of Cockney. In pronunciation speakers consistently drop the sound [h] where it ought to be heard and put in [h] where there is none: ’am an’ heggs (ham and eggs), I ’ate (I hate), in the hopen air (in the open air).
The substitution of [n] by [n] is quite a common thing: mornin’, goin’, puddin’.
The sounds [d] and [t] are also frequently dropped as in an’ (and), hobjec’ (object), nex’ (next).
The sound [w] is dropped : ekal (equal).
The diphthong shift is characteristic of Cockney: [ai] is used instead of [ei], [oi] instead of [ai], [au] instead of [ou].
The Cockney grammar exhibits several anomalies: I’s bin (have been); I ain’t (am not); I, we, you calls; we, you was; I has; he do.
In the Ukrainian language there are three groups of territorial dialects: northern, south-eastern, south-western. E.g.: in the northern dialect such words can be found as: коросліп (пролісок), веселуха (райдуга), хупавий (гарний), жалива (кропива), скот (худоба), но (але) are used in the south-eastern dialect. In the northern dialect such words as бараболя (картопля), стрий (дядько по батькові), банітувати (лаяти), пантрувати (стежити) are used.
b) Slang
By slang we mean words or phrases in common colloquial usage in some or all of their senses hanging on the outskirts of the literary language but continually forcing their way into it. On the other hand, the term is often applied to the words and phrases peculiar to people of some class or profession. Slang is often humorous, witty. It is more and more penetrating into the literary language. The slang word is a deliberate substitute for a word of the vernacular just as a nickname is a substitute for a personal name. Slang is unstable and it has no fixed meaning.
Slang can be of two types: general and special. General slang includes words that are not specific for any social or professional group: bean, block, dome, upper storey for a head; three sheets in the wind, half-seas-over, pin-eyed for drunk. Базар (розмова), здрейфити (злякатися), наїжджати (чіплятися, погрожувати, кльово (дуже добре) are used in the Ukrainian language.
Special slang is peculiar for some groups of people: university slang, football slang etc.
Special slang should be distinguished from terms. When the word is the only name for the special notion it belongs not to slang but to terminology. If the word is a jocular name for something that can be described in some other way it is slang. There are cases when words originated as professional slang later assumed the dignity of special terms or passed on into general slang. The expression to be on the beam was first used by pilots about the beam of the radio beacon indicating the proper course for the aircraft to follow. Then figuratively to be on the beam came to mean to be right and to be off the beam began to mean to be at a loss.
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