Branches of linguistics. Synchronic vs diachronic approaches to the language study. Lexicology – ‘the science of the word’ Lexicon

-common nouns survived in regional dialects:

bard (Gael.& Ir.) ‘poet, minstrel’, loch (Gael.& Ir.) ‘lake’, plaid (Gael.) ‘blanket’, corgi (Welsh cor ‘dwarf’ + gi/ci ‘dog’), whiskey  ‘water of life’, dunn ‘grey’, cross;

-via Romanic languages:

car < Norm.Fr. carre < L. carrum, carrus, orig. ‘two-wheeled Celtic war chariot’ < Gaulish *karros;
8. Scandinavian loan-words(8-11 c.AD) in Modern English.

-Total number – appr. 900 words; about 700 belong to Stand. E.

-Features:

/k/ and /g/ before e and i, e.g. give, kid, get, gift;

/sk/ in the initial position, e.g. sky, skill, score, skin, skirt;

-nouns: anger, bag, band, bank, bull, calf, cake, dirt, egg, fellow, fog, knife, leg, loan, law, neck, root, ransack, sister, wing, window;

-adjectives: awkward, flat, happy, ill, low, loose, odd, rotten, scant, sly, silver, tight, ugly, wrong;

-verbs: cast, call, clip, die, gasp, get, give, guess, raise, seem, scare, scowl, seem, smile, take, thrive, want;

-pronouns: they, their, them, themselves, though, both, same.

-Legal terms (together with military terms reflecting the relations during the Danish raids and Danish rule represent the earliest loan-words):husband – originally ‘a house holder’, one who owns a house; fellow – originally ‘one who lays down a fee, as a partner or shareholder’;

-Place-names:

-thorp ‘village’ as in Althorp;

-by ‘farm / town’ as in Derby, Rugby;

-toft ‘piece of land’ as in Sandtoft;

-ness ‘cape’ as in Inverness, Loch Ness;

-Forming elements:

are (pr. tense pl. to be), -s (pr. tense, 3rd p. sg)
9. French elements in the English vocabulary. Features of French borrowings. Periods of borrowings from French.

-Norman French (XI- XIII c.) – a northern dialect of French: calange, warrant, warden, reward, prisun, gaol

-Parisian French (XIII-XVI c.) – the prestige dialect:

challenge, guarantee, guardian, regard, prison, jail