英语词汇的来源

第十单元英语词汇的来源

一、英语的谱系关系和发展阶段

练习一

1. The OE vocabulary, estimated at the size of 50 000 to 60 000 words, is almost purely Germanic. Although some 85% of it are no longer in use, those that survive all belong to the basic word stock of Modern English.

2. While compounds made up of native elements were particularly prevalent, OE also made generous use of prolific Anglo-Saxon affixes (many of them are now used rarely or not at all) to form new words.

3. Owing to the Christianising of Britain and the Vikings’invasions the relatively few borrowings are mainly Latin and Scandinavian. Some 500 Latin words, many of which have to do with religious life, appear in English writings. At least 900 everyday words of Scandinavian origin have survived in modern Standard English.

练习三

1. Changes in the ME period are more extensive and fundamental than at any time before or since. Together with a simplification of the sound system and the grammar (the general reduction of inflections) that have changed English from an inflectional language into an analytic one, a large part of the OE word stock have been replaced by French equivalents since the Norman Conquest.

2. The total number of French words adopted in the ME period was slightly over 10 000, of which about 75% are still in use. The borrowing reached its height between 1250 and 1400, covering mainly the fields of government, church, law, arms, fashion, food and social life..

3. The wealth of easily acquire borrowings (mainly French, also including those from Latin and from the Low Countries) weakened the OE habits of forming words with native elements through derivation and compounding. Many OE prefixes and suffixes gradually lost their vitality or even disappeared, whereas a number of French or Latin affixes were introduced into the language as new resources for word formation.

练习六

1. Whereas the further loss of inflections has caused greater dependence on fixed word order, radical sound changes, the Great Vowel Shift in particular and the weakening of unaccented vowels have contributed much to the chaotic character of English spelling and the inconsistency between spelling and pronunciation. Yet the most understanding feature of Modern English is the rapid and intense growth of its vocabulary.

2. Under the impact of the Renaissance there began the large scale adoption of foreign words through books. Over 10 000 new words entered the English language at the time. Although a large majority were learned words taken from Latin and Greek, there were words borrowed from many other languages, the most important of which were French, Italian and Spanish.

3. The 18th century and the early 19th century saw the overseas exploration of the British Empire. The most obvious effects of English expansion are to be seen in the vocabulary as thousands of new words poured into the English language from almost the entire inhabited world.

4. Beginning with the middle of the 19th century and still going on apace is the fertile coinage of scientific, technical, scholarly, commercial and political terms that have unprecedentedly swelled the English vocabulary.