Assimilation of borrowings
• Completely assimilated borrowings
• Partially assimilated borrowings
• Unassimilated borrowings (barbarisms)
Completely assimilated borrowed
words
• follow all morphological, phonetical and
orthographic standards of the English
language
E.g. cheese (the word of the first layer of
Latin borrowings), husband (Scand.), face (Fr.),
animal (the Latin word borrowed during the
revival of learning).
Partially assimilated borrowed words
• borrowings not completely assimilated
graphically
E.g. the final consonant is not pronounced:
ballet, buffet; with diacritic mark: café, cliché.
Specifically French digraphs (ch, qu, ou, etc.):
bouquet, brioche.
Partially assimilated borrowed words
• borrowings not completely assimilated
phonetically.
E. g. the accent on the final syllable: machine,
cartoon, police; sounds that are not standard for
the English language: [ʒ] – bourgeois, prestige,
regime.
• borrowings not assimilated grammatically. E. g. :
crisis – crises, phenomenon – phenomena.
Partially assimilated borrowed words
• borrowings not assimilated semantically
denote:
- Foreign clothing: sari, sombrero
- Foreign titles and professions: shah,
rajah, toreador
- Foreign vehicles: rickshaw
- Foreign food and drinks: pilau (Persian плов), sherbet
Unassimilated borrowings or
barbarisms
This group includes words from other
languages used by English people in
conversation or in writing but not assimilated in
any way, and for which there are corresponding
English equivalents.
E. g. the Italian addio, ciao (‘good bye’), the
French coiffure (‘hairstyle’), ennui (‘boredom’).
The degree of assimilation depends
on :
• the time of borrowing
• frequency of use
• the way in which the borrowing was taken
over into the language (orally, through
writing)
Etymological doublets
Etymological doublets are two or more
words originating from the same etymological
source, but differing in phonetic shape and
meaning.
E. g. shirt (Eng.) – skirt (Scand.)
Sources of etymological doublets
• Native word + borrowed word: shirt (Eng.) –
skirt (Scand.); shrew (Eng.) – screw (Scand.)
• Both words are borrowed from different
languages which are historically descended
from the same route: captain (Lat.) – chieftain
(French) (вожак, главарь), senior (Lat.) – sir
(French), canal [kə'næl] (Lat.) – channel
(French).
Sources of etymological doublets
• Both words are be borrowed from the same
language but in different historical periods:
travel (Norman borrowing) – travail (Parisian
borrowing) (тяжелый труд, работа), corpse
[kɔːps] (Norman borrowing) (труп) – corps
[kɔː] (Parisian borrowing) (корпус, войсковой
соединение), hospital (Lat.) – hostel (Norman
French) – hotel (Parisian French).
Sources of etymological doublets
• Both words are native, but one of them
originates from the other: history – story,
phantasy – fancy (иллюзия, воображение,
каприз), defence – fence, shadow – shade.