Published 2022-11-30
Keywords
- linguistic borrowing, etymology, semantic transformation, synchrony, diachrony.
How to Cite
Abstract
The paper deals with the origins of modern English vocabulary and shows the relevance of the influence of French on its modern state. The article makes a survey of scientific literature studying French heritage in English lexis. An overview of linguistic and historical data is provided to show the framework within which linguistic borrowing from French was made possible. A number of loanwords are mentioned that appeared under different historical circumstances. The article analyses borrowed words that kept their meaning they had in French, as well as those ones which experienced semantic transformation. The paper concentrates on the fact that frequency of English words having French roots is high enough in the novel by J. Grisham and they form a thick layer of common words. The article demonstrates, what kind of impact the change in culture-specific concepts had on the meaning of the words borrowed from French and highlights possible prospects of such kind of studies. The paper emphasizes semantic layers of loan words and shows that finance vocabulary, the vocabulary of law and politics and the vocabulary of health are closely connected with borrowings from French.
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References
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