Three main periods in the history of the English language

According to the direction we distinguish the following types of assimilation:

1. Regressive assimilation: the sound changes due to the influence of the following sound, e.g. ten bikes. Another example of regressive assimilation is reflected in the English spelling system - in the four variants of the French negative suffix in:

in-	im-	il-	ir-
indifferent	impossible	illegal	irregular

It takes place in rapid native speaker’s speech:

/s/+/j/ =/∫/, e.g. horseshoe, his shirt

/z/+/j/=/ʒ/, hosiery.

With a stop C, a final /t/ or /d/ may assimilate to a following initial /p/, /k/, or /b/, /g/.

good boy	good girl	at peace	pet kitten
/b:/	/g :/	/p:/	/k:/

 

It can be in informal speech, e.g.

Could you give me a call?       Let me do that for you.

/m:/     /m:/

2. Progressive assimilation: the C changes because of he influence of the preceding C, e. g. lunch score articulated with /s/ becoming /∫/ under the influence of /t∫/. They can be in some contractions, e.g. it’s, that’s.

3. Coalescent assimilation is a type of reciprocal assimilation: the first C and the second C in a cluster fuse and mutually condition the creation of a third C with features from both original Cs.

E.g.:

t + j = /ʧ/  Is that your dog?, virtue, statue

d + j = /dʒ/  Would you mind moving? education, during

s + j = /∫/     issue, He is coming this year.

z + j= /ʒ/  Does your mother know that you are out?

 

25. Склад як невід’ємна частина слова (The syllable as an integral part of the word).

The syllable is a group of sounds that are pronounced together. The problem of the syllabic structure of words has two aspects:

1) syllable formation

2) syllable division/separation.

Articulatorily, the syllable is the minimal articulatory unit of the utterance.

Auditorily, the syllable is the smallest unit of perception.

Phonologically it is a structural unit which consists of a sequence of one or some phonemes of a language in numbers and arrangements permitted by the given language.

Phonologically it performs three functions:

1. The constitutive function: syllables constitute words through the combination of their stress- loudness, duration-length, pitch-tone.

2. The distinctive function: the difference in the place of a syllabic boundary differentiates the meanings of the words and phrases: e.g. my 'train — might 'rain

3. The identificatory function: the listener can understand the exact meaning of the utterance only when the correct syllabic boundary is perceived: e.g. peace talks—pea stalks

Every language has its own common patterns in which the phonemes are arranged to form syllables.

 

26. Типи складів в англійській мові за розміщенням голосних і приголосних (Types of the syllables in English according to the placement of vowels and consonants)

According to the placement of vowels and consonants the following types of syllables are distinguished:

Placement of VOWELS	Placement of CONSONANTS
open: the V is at the end , such a S is articulated with the opening of the mouth by the end: e.g. they, wri-ter	covered at the beginning: the C is at the beginning of the syllable: e.g. tie
closed: which end in C, at the end of such a S the mouth is closed: e.g. hun-dred, hat	covered at the end: the C is at the end of a S: e.g. on

The commonest types of the syllable in English are VC; CVC. E.g.: it, on, cat, big, etc

Most of the words of old English origin are of one syllable. The limit for the number of syllables in a word in English is 8, e.g. incomprehensibility.

 

27. Типи складів в англійській мові за за положенням у слові (Types of the syllables in English according to the position in a word)

Syllables can be also designated

1) by the position in the word:

from the beginning - INITIAL, MEDIAL, FINAL , e.g.:  

tre -   men -  dous

initial                      medial  final

from the end - ULTIMATE (останній), PENULTIMATE (передостанній/другий від кінця), ANTEPENULTIMATE (третій від кінця), e.g.  

tre -   men -  dous

antepenultimate         penultimate ultimate 
2) by the position in relation to stress:

PRETONIC, TONIC, POSTTONIC (Any syllable which is not tonic is ATONIC/ненаголошений).

e.g.  tre -   men -  dous

pretonic                     tonic        posttonic 

 

28. Природа словесного наголосу в англійській мові (The nature of English word stress)

Word stress (WS) can be defined as the singling out of one or more syllables in a word, which is accompanied by the change of the force of utterance, pitch of the voice, qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the sound which is usually a vowel.

The analysis of WS can be carried out according to the following parameters:

1) the nature of English word-stress;

2) its degree and syllabic location;

3) its functions;

4) basic stress patterns of the English words.

Phoneticians claim that at least four different factors are important in making a syllable prominent. They are: loudness, the length of the syllable, pitch and quality.

1) If one of the syllables in the ‘nonsense’ word ba: ba: ba: ba: is made louder, that syllable is heard stressed;

2) If one of the syllables in the above-given ‘nonsense’ word ba: ba: ba: ba: is made longer, that syllable is heard stressed;

3) If one of the syllables in the ‘nonsense’ word ba: ba: ba: ba: is said with high pitch, that syllable is heard stressed;

4) If one of the vowels in the ‘nonsense word’ is changed, e.g. ba: bi: ba: ba, the ‘odd’ syllable bi: will be heard as stressed.

In sum, pitch, loudness, and duration and quality make a syllable prominent in a word.

 

29. Типи словесного наголосу в англійській мові (Types of English word stress)

І). Types of English word stress according to its degree. One of the ways of differentiating the prominence of syllables is the degree of stress. The majority of British phoneticians (D. Jones, R. Kingdon, A. C. Gimson among them) and Russian phoneticians (V. A. Vassilyev, J. Shakhbagova ) consider that there are three degrees of word-stress in Eng1ish:

•    primary – the strongest
• secondary – the second strongest, partial, and
• weak – all the other degrees.

The syllables bearing either primary or secondary stress are termed stressed, while syllables with wear stress are called unstressed.

The stress in a word may be on the last syllable, the ult; on the next-to-last (the second from the end), the penult; on the third syllable from the end, the antepenult; and a few words are stressed on the fourth syllable from the end, the pre-antepenult.

2.) Types of English word stress according to its position. Languages of the world which make a linguistic use of stress fall into one of the two broad types:

1) fixed lexical stress;

2) free lexical stress.

Fixed lexical stress is locating the word-stress predominantly on a given syllabic location in the word.

Free lexical stress is allowing much more freedom for placement the stress.

The languages with fixed lexical stress are: Tatar, French, Finnish, Czech, Polish, etc.

The languages with free lexical stress are: Dutch, English, Greek, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish, Swedish, etc.

On the first	On the second	On the third	On the fourth, etc.
׳mother 'озеро	o'ccasion noгóда	employ 'ее мoлoкó	exami ׳nation кoмyнiка́цiя

 

30. Функції словесного наголосу в англійській мові (English word stress functions).

Word stress in a language performs the following functions:

1. The CONSTITUTIVE function: it organizes the syllables of a word into a language unit having a definite accentual structure. The word does not exist as a lexical unit without word stress.

2. The IDENTIFICATORY function: correct lexical stress enables the listener to decode the information in verbal communication adequately, while misplaced word stresses prevent understanding.

3 The DISTINCTIVE/CONTRASTIVE function: word stress alone is capable of differentiating the meanings of words or their forms. There are about 135 pairs of words of identical orthography in English which can be either as nouns  or as verbs, e.g.: 'import (noun) -im'port (verb), 'insult (noun) –in'sult (verb).

 

31. Onomatopoeia as one of the phonetic expressive means

Onomatopoeia is a combination of sounds which aims at imitating natural sounds: wind wailing, sea murmuring, rustling of leaves, bursts of thunder. Words which represent this figure of speech have aural similarity with the things they describe: buzz, roar bang, hiss, sizzle, twitter, pop, swish, burble, cuckoo, splash. Animal calls and sounds of insects are evoked onomatopoeically in all languages. For example, cock-a-doodle-do! is the English representation for the crowing of a cock. Interestingly, the Ukrainians and the French represent this imitation as кукуріку and cocorico correspondingly, which is significantly different from the English variant. Although logic tells us that the roster’s cry is the same across the world. It means that onomatopoeia is not an exact reproduction of natural sounds but a subjective phenomenon.

Onomatopoeia is used for emphasis or stylistic effect. It is extensively featured in children’s rhymes and poetry in general.

 

32. The synonymous phenomenon in the English language

Synonyms are words belonging to the same part of speech, differing in sound form, and possessing one or more identical or nearly identical (similar) denotational meanings.

There are two types of synonyms:

• ideographic synonyms which differ in shades of meaning, e.g. to shake – to tremble – to shiver – to shudder – to quiver – to quake; fast – rapid – swift – quick, etc.
• stylistic synonyms which differ in stylistic characteristics, e.g. father – parent – dad (daddy) – papa – governor; to eat – to partake – to wolf – to lay in, etc.

In most cases the synonymic group includes both ideographic and stylistic synonyms, e.g. to begin (neutral) – to commence (bookish) –  to start (neutral) – to initiate (bookish).

Absolute synonyms, quite alike in their meanings and stylistic colouring, and, therefore, interchangeable in all contexts, are very rare, e.g. fatherland – motherland – homeland; word-building – word- formation, compounding – composition.

Each group of synonyms comprises a synonymic dominant – the unit possessing the most general meaning of the kind:

to shine :: to flash – to blaze – to gleam –  to glisten – to sparkle – to glitter – to shimmer – to glimmer.

 

33. The traditional classification of homonyms in English

Words identical in form but quite different in their meaning and distribution are called homonyms.

The traditional formal classification of homonyms is as follows:

I. Absolute homonyms which are identical both in sound and spelling, e.g. ball (м’яч) :: ball (бал).

ІІ. Partial homonyms subdivided into:

1) Homographs which are identical in spelling but different in sound, e.g. bow /bou/ (лук) :: bow /bau/ (ніс корабля);

2) Homophones which are identical in sound but different in spelling, e.g. fir (ялинка) :: fur (хутро);

Homonyms may be classified by the type of their meaning. In this case one should distinguish between:

1) Lexical homonyms which belong to the same part of speech, e.g. club n. (клуб) :: club n. (кийок);

2) Grammatical homonyms which belong to different parts of speech, e.g. horse n. (кінь) :: hoarse a. (хрипкий);

3) Homoforms which are identical only in some of their paradigm constituents, e.g. scent n. :: sent v. (Past Indefinite and Past Participle of send); seize v. :: sees (Pr. Ind. , 3d p. sing. of see), etc.

From the viewpoint of their origin, homonyms are divided into etymological and historical.

Etymological homonyms are words of different origin. Their formal coincidence is the result of various factors: phonetical changes in native and borrowed words, changes in spelling, etc.

E.g. OF bas >ME base I (підлий)

L. basis>OE base >ME base II (основа, підвалина)

Historical homonyms are those which result from disintegration (split) of polysemy. At present there is not any connection between their meanings, e.g.: nail (ніготь) ::nail (цвях) > OE naeg(e)l.

 

34. Contraction as one of the ways of shortening

There exist two main ways of shortening: contraction (clipping) and abbreviation (initial shortening).

Contraction. One should distinguish between four types of contraction:

• Final clipping, i.e. omission of the final part of the word, e.g.: doc (for doctor), mag (for magazine), vegs (for vegetables), Al (for Albert), Nick (for Nickolas), Phil (for Philip), etc.
• Initial clipping, i.e. omission of the fore part of the word, e.g.: phone (for telephone), plane (for aeroplane), story (for history), van (for caravan), Fred (for Alfred), etc.
• Medial clipping,  i.e. omission of the middle part of the word, e.g.: maths (for mathematics), fancy (for fantasy), specs (for spectacles), etc.
• Mixed clipping, where the fore and the final parts of the word are clipped, e.g.: tec (for detective), flu (for influenza), fridge (for refrigerator), Liz (for Elizabeth), etc. 

 

34. Abbreviation as one of the means of word formation in English

Abbreviations or initial shortenings are words produced by shortening the ICs (immediate constituents of phrasal terms up to their initial letters. Abbreviations are subdivided into 5 groups:

1) Acronyms which are read [red] as ordinary words, e.g.: UNO /’ju:nou/ (for United Nations Organization), NATO /’neitou/ (for North Atlantic Treaty Organization), etc.

2) Alphabetic abbreviation in which letters get their full alphabetic pronunciation and a full stress, e.g.: USA /’ju:es’ei/ (for the United States of America), B.B.C. /’bi:’bi:’si:/ (for the British Broadcasting Corporation),

3) Compound abbreviations in which the first IC is a letter (or letters) and the second a complete word, e.g.: V-day (< Victory day), L-driver (< learner-driver), etc.

4) Graphic abbreviations which are used in texts for economy of space. They are pronounced as the corresponding unabbreviated words, e.g.: Mr. (for Mister), m. (for mile), Co (for Company), X-mas (for Christmas), etc.

5) Latin abbreviations which sometimes are not read as Latin words but as separate letters or their English equivalents, e.g.: i.e. /ai’i:/ - that is, a.m. /ei’em/ - before noon, in the morning, e.g. – for example, etc.

 

35. Conversion as one of the means of affixless derivation

Conversion is a special type of affixless derivation. A newly-formed word acquires a paradigm and syntactic functions different from those of the original word.

As a result the two words are homonymous. They have the same morphological structure and belong to different parts of speech. As a matter of fact, all parts of speech can be drawn into the word-building process of conversion. Its derivational patterns are varied, the most widespread among them being N → V (a noun is converted into a verb), V → N (a verb is converted into a noun), A → V (an adjective is converted into a verb. For example:

N → V:  a face – to face, a walk – to walk,

                a tube – to tube, a pen – to pen.

V → N:  to make – a make, to bite – a bite,

                to smoke – a smoke, to talk – a talk.

A → V:  narrow – to narrow, empty – to empty.