A course In Modern English Lexicology

§ 1 1 . The Role of Native
and Borrowed Elements
was meagre. In the Middle English period
there was an influx of loans. It is often contended that since the Norman conquest borrowing has been the chief factor in the enrichment of the English vocabulary and as a result there was a sharp decline in the productivity of word-formation.1 Historical evidence, however, testifies to the fact that throughout its entire history, even in the periods of the mightiest influxes of borrowings, other processes, no less intense, were in operation — word-formation and semantic development, which involved both native and borrowed elements.
If the estimation of the role of borrowings is based on the study of words recorded in the dictionary, it is easy to overestimate the effect of the loan words, as the number of native words is extremely small 1 See ‘Etymological Survey ...’, § 3, p. 162.
171
compared with the number of borrowings recorded. The only true way to estimate the relation of the native to the borrowed element is to consider the two as actually used in speech. If one counts every word used, including repetitions, in some reading matter, the proportion of native to borrowed words will be quite different. On such a count, every writer-uses considerably more native words than borrowings. Shakespeare, for example, has 90%, Milton 81 %, Tennyson 88%.1 This shows how important is the comparatively small nucleus of native words.
Different borrowings are marked by different frequency value. Those well established in the vocabulary may be as frequent in speech as native words, whereas others occur very rarely.
The great number of borrowings in English
§ 12. Influence of Borrowings left some imprint upon the language. The first effect of foreign influence is observed in the volume of its vocabulary. Due to i t s history the English language, more than any other modern language, has absorbed foreign elements in its vocabulary. But the adoption of foreign words must not be understood as mere quantitative change.
Any importation into the lexical system brings about semantic and stylistic changes in the words of this language and changes in its synonymic groups.2
It has been mentioned that when borrowed words were identical in meaning with those already in English the adopted word very often dis-placed the native word. In most cases, however, the borrowed words and synonymous native words (or words borrowed earlier) remained in the language, becoming more or less differentiated in meaning and use. Cf., e.g., the sphere of application and meaning of feed and nourish, try and endeavour, meet and encounter.
As a result the number of synonymic groups in English greatly increased. The synonymic groups became voluminous and acquired many words rarely used. This brought about a rise in the percentage of stylistic synonyms.
Influence of Borrowings on the Semantic Structure of Words. As a result of the differentiation in meaning between synonymous words many native words or words borrowed earlier narrowed their meaning or sphere of application. Thus the word stool of Anglo-Saxon origin, which in Old English denoted any article of furniture designed for sitting on, under the influence of the French borrowing chair came to be used as the name for only one kind of furniture.
Due to borrowings some words passed out of the literary national language and have become dialectal, as ea поток воды (ОЕ. ēа — поток
воды, река), heal, hele — скрывать, покрывать (ОЕ. helan), etc.
Another instance of foreign influence upon the semantic structure of some English words is s e m a n t i c b o r r o w i n g , i.e. the borrowing of meaning from a word in a foreign language. This often takes place in English words having common roots with some words in another language (international words today reflect this process best), e.g. the 1 O. F. Emerson. The History of the English Language. N. Y., 1907, p.
126.