Word classes in english and russian

26.
Types of synonyms and antonyms in eng and rus.

27. Euphemisms and taboos
in eng and Rus.

28.
figurative meanings of words in eng and rus.

29.
typology of word fromation16.

Every word in different lang-es
has 2 sets of forms. 1) word-changing form buikt with the help of
word-changing morphemes

Ex.
Дом – дома – домов , town
– towns.

2)
word-buildings set which is formed with the help of word-building
morpheme, which change the meaning of a root morpheme:

Ex.
Teach-teacher, дом-домик.

In English a
root morpheme usually consists of the stem of a word. But in other
flexional lang-es roots don’t coincide with the stem. According to
their structure words in 2 lang-es may be divided into the following
types:

1. Root
   (R) when a word consists of a root morpheme only.

2. R+suffix
   = this type is both productive in both lang-es. The most productive
   suffixes of nouns denoting the doer of the action are

Ex. Suffix – er, — or, ess,
-nik.

In russ
suffixes –тель,
-щик,
-чик
are productive.

Less
productive S of nouns in Eng –ship, -hood, -dom.

In Rus –у,
-ок,…

In Riussian
there’s a great number of S with some emotive or expressive charge
–чик,
еньк,
ка,
ик,

In Eng the
meaning of such S is usually rendered with the help of word
combinations.

2 ) the most productive S in Eng
– abke, -full, -less

In
Rus
–ов, -ист, — оват, -ск,

Prefixal type Prefix+Root

Prefixes are
more productive in verbs. The most productive in Eng is re- which
corresponds in Russian to пере-.
In Adjectives the most productive is Un- rendered with Не-
in Rus.

Prefixal-suffixal type
prefix+root+suffix.

Characteristic of both parts of
speech in both lang.

Non-affixal
type of word-building. The most productive model is Noun – verb.
This type embraces a great number of derivative words in Eng.

Ex. A walk – to walk.

In Rus it is less productive.
Some grammarians distinguish the same model

The Verb into
a Noun – (ходить
– ход)

A Noun –
into verb ( глаз
– глазеть)

A noun in
Instrumental case changes into an Adverb. Любоваться
ранним утром. Утром мы пошли на речку.

A Noun is
formed from attributive word-combinations Ex. Столовая
комната – столовая. Военный человек –
военный.

30. Typology of compound words

31. Types of bilinguism

32. Types of language interference

3. Comparative phonetics and typology

Phonetics as we know studies the
way how sounds are produced and comprehended. The function of sounds
is examined by another linguistic discipline phonology. These terms
are taken in European linguistics, but Americans use the term
phonology to both phonetics and phonology. There are different
aspects of sounds:

1. Articulatory
   phonetics
   – studies how sounds are organized at which location and in which
   manner a sound is produced.

2. Acoustic
   phonetics
   – examines the length frequency and pitch of sounds. Special
   instruments are required to measure and analyze the sounds while
   they travel via the channel.

3. Auditory
   phonetics –
   studies what happens inside the ear and brain when sounds are
   finally received. It is also interested in our ability to identify
   and differentiate sounds.

Articulatory phonetics

It
concentrates on studying how sounds are produced in the human vocal
track – that is manner of articulation and place of articulation.
The production of any sound involves the movement of ear. Speech
sounds are produced by pushing lung air through the opening between
the vocal cords. Such sounds are called – pulmonic sounds. Sounds
may be produced when the air is pushed out, they are called igressive
sounds. The majority of sounds in languages of the world are produced
by pulmonic igressive air stream mechanism.

Sounds fall
into two major classes consonants and vowels. Sounds differ according
to the voicing location and manner of production. Any change of these
factors may alter a sound. If the stream of air leaves the vocal cord
unhinged the resulting sound is a vowel; if the stream of air is
abstracted, gets some obstruction (is blocked) the resulting sound is
a consonant. Consonants can be voiced and unvoiced – p t k –
unvoiced, b d g – voiced. Sounds like p t k are known as
explosives, because they are accompanied by explosure. Fricatives are
sounds which may be prolonged in pronunciation as — s f v , and
aspirate is a sound made by breathing immediately after explosure.
Consonants in both languages are classified according to the organs
which take part in their production. They may be made by teeth, the
gums, the hard and a soft palate and the lips. The consonant made by
both lips – is called bilabial w b p m , бпм.
A consonant made by the low lip articulating against the teeth is
called labia-dental – f v – ф
в.
A consonant made by the blade of the tongue which touches upon the
upper teeth – is called dental th th –т
з
д.
Vela-consonants are made by the back of the tongue being pressed
against the velum – k g – к
г
. When we pronounce sound “L” the stream of air passes on both
sides of the tongue, so this sound is called lateral or side-sound.
In both languages sounds M N are nasals, when air passes through the
nose.

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КОМИТЕТ ПО ОБРАЗОВАНИЮ
МУНИЦИПАЛЬНОГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ ГОРОД ДОНСКОЙ
МУНИЦИПАЛЬНОЕ БЮДЖЕТНОЕ ОБЩЕОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ
«СРЕДНЯЯ ОБЩЕОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНАЯ ШКОЛА № 14»

ПРОЕКТ

«СЛОВООБРАЗОВАНИЕ»

Выполнена ученицей 9 Б класса
МБОУ «СОШ № 14»
Яблочкиной Татьяной Геннадьевной
Руководитель —
Учитель английского языка
Лоськова Людмила Витальевна

                                                  Донской
                                                     2013

                                 Content

1. Introduction……………………………………………………………3

2. Main part:

2.1 Word-building…………………………………………………….4

2.2Conversion………………………………………………………5-6

2.3Composition…………………………………………………….7-8

2.4 Change in stress in a word and Affixation…………………………..9-10

3. The vocabulary and word-building means in Old English………20-25

4. Conclusion………………………………………..…………………26

       5. Vocabulary……………………………………………………………27

6. References……………………………………………………………28

                                                 1. Introduction

There is no doubt that the English language today is the most widely used language for international communication. Words and expressions are born, live for a short time and then die or find their place in English vocabulary according to the temporary or permanent nature of the phenomena they describe. Indeed, if no new words were to appear, it would be a sign that the language was moribund.

Therefore, the vocabulary of the English language like any other is constantly changing. This happens several ways. First, by borrowing from other languages​​ and, second, with the help of word formation.

That’s why the aim of my work is to learn different ways of forming words and compare them with the methods of forming words in Russian and in Old English.

There are various types of word building processes in English. Let us discuss the most important of them.

                                                         2. Main part

                                       2.1 WORD-BUILDING 

Word-building is the process of forming words by combining root and affixal morphemes according to certain patterns specific for the language (affixation, composition), or without any outward means of word formation (conversion, semantic derivation).

In English, there are several ways of word formation:

1) conversion (the formation of new words without changing their spelling and pronunciation)
2) composition (the formation of a new word by adding two words in one word)
3) change in stress in a word (and receive a new word the other part of speech)
4) affixation (the process of forming a new word by the addition of a morpheme or affix to word)

                                            2.2 Conversion

Conversion is transferring a word from one part of speech to another without the use of an affix. This way of building new words is most typical of English as compared with Russian.

There may be various directions of conversion:

• a verb may come from a noun: word  — to word, bicycle — to bicycle, master — to master, house  — to house , water — to water;
• a noun may come from a verb: a try, a drive, a drive-in; that’s a must;
• an adjective may be converted to a noun: a round, a monthly, the bitter;
• an adjective may be changed to a verb: to empty, to better, to calm down;
• adverb to noun: Yesterday was my birthday;
• a structural word may be converted to a noun: too many ifs and buts;

Compound words and phrases may also be converted: to dog’s-ear — загибать уголки страниц; a would-be president – будущий президент; free-for-all — соревнования, дискуссия и т. п., в которых может участвовать любой; situps — приседания.
 Root conversion takes place in Russian too, but it is not as characteristic there as it is in English, and is usually accompanied by other word building processes. For example, круглый (adj) – круг (n) – кругом (adv) – вокруг (prep) – округлять (v). In this case conversion is used along with stem reduction and affixation. Mostly, conversion in Russian is a process of changing noun to adverb: утром, шагом, осенью; adjective to noun (based on ellipsis): столовая, рабочий, учащиеся; participle to noun: раненный – раненый; noun to grammatical word: в связи с, в заключение, etc.

It should be kept in mind that not all the meanings of a word are carried through into the derivative form. Therefore, a translator should be careful about the equivalent. For example, the noun paper has several equivalents: бумага, газета, научная работа. However, the verb to paper refers only to the first of these, which is manifested in its collocation. Lecturers and editors may paper their rooms. – Преподаватели и редакторы могут оклеивать свои комнаты обоями. But they cannot *paper their audiences and readers. The verb to paper has no equivalent correlating with the second and third meanings of the noun.

                                            2.3 Composition

Composition is a unit of vocabulary which consists of more than one lexical stem functioning as a single item, with its own meaning and grammar.

English compounds are formed mostly in the agglutinative way, that is by joining directly two or more stems: two-year-old, chewing-gum, doorknob, widespread, earthquake. Unfortunately, orthography is not a foolproof criterion to signal a compound.  

The parts of a word may be linked by a hyphen (fire-light), written without a space (moonlight), or stand separately (candle light). Note that American English uses fewer hyphens than does British English: cell yell (loud talking into a cellular telephone), ego wall (wall with framed awards, diplomas, and pictures of a person with famous people).
It is typical of English to make a compound out of a phrase, with subordinate links between the elements: son-in-law, jack-of-all-trades, day-to-day (rare in Russian: сумасшедший); coordinate links: hide-and-seek.        

To translate a new compound, especially one not included in the dictionary, it is necessary to analyze syntactic relations between the compound elements and their meanings. These relations may be as follows:

• subject to verb: earthquake (the earth quakes), headache; землетрясение, снегопад;
• verb to object: scarecrow (scares crows), sightseeing; водомер, бракодел;
• attribute relations: goldfish, postman; чернозём, голубоглазый;
• adverbial relations: much-improved (improved a lot), night-flying (flying at night); вышеупомянутый, долгоиграющий.

When the meaning and grammatical relations of the compound elements are clear, it is possible to look for a proper means of translation. It may be:

• another compound: tax-payer – налогоплательщик; law-abiding – законопослушный;
• analogue: hangman – палач; homesick – ностальгический; childcare – детский сад; air-headed – ветер в голове;
• calque: waterbike – водный мотоцикл; breathtaking – захватывающий дыхание. Compounds with object and adverbial relations between the elements are often translated in the reverted linear order: tax-free – свободный от налогов; far-advanced – продвинутый вперед; home-grown vegetables – овощи, выращенные дома;
• half-calque: pop-star – поп-звезда; surfspeak – язык серфистов;
• explication and extension: flypaper – липкая лента от мух; gravity-challenged – не способный прыгнуть высоко.

In Russian compounds, stems are mostly joined by a linking vowel, —e- or –o-: пароход, дикорастущий, землемер, кораблестроение. An English compound may also have (though not very often) a linking element, mostly the consonant –s- (sportsman, statesman, spokesman), and occasionally vowels –o-, —a-, -i- (washomat, sportsarama, pluridimensional)– though the cases with the linking vowel belong rather to stem reduction than to stem composition.

                        2.4 Change in Stress in a Word and Affixation

Many nouns have the same form with verbs, but differ in emphasis. Usually in nouns emphasis on the first syllable and the relevant verbs — the second: export (экспорт) — to export (экспортировать) present (подарок) — to present (дарить).

There are two major types of word-building affixes in English and Russian:

• prefixes, that is, affixes which occur before the root of a word: re-team, miscommunication, hypermarket;
• suffixes, which occur after the root: rankler, ranklee, shopin, donkey-philes.

A third possible type of affix, infix, occurring within the root, is not used frequently either in English or in Russian. In the Russian language, linguists also single out postfixes, such as affixes after the ending, e.g., -ся (разрастаются).

English does not have affixes in large numbers – only about 50 common prefixes [including international ones, like a- (amoral), pro- (prosocialist), auto- (autobiography), non- (nonfan), etc.], and somewhat fewer suffixes. In Russian, affixation is a predominant way of making new words.

Russian prefixes are most typical of verbs, as they help to specify an aspect modification of the action: вмять, измять, намять, помять, подмять, примять, размять. In English, these verbs mean respectively to dent, rumple, beat, muss, crush, trample down, mash.

The prefixes are attached to the root of the word at the beginning, and the suffixes — at the end. Words formed by prefixes or suffixes, unlike simple words called derivatives.

Prefixes and suffixes can be attached to various parts of speech, changing the basis of the words: happy (счастливый) — unhappy (несчастный) — happiness (счастье) — happily (счастливо); help (помощь) — helper (помощник) — helpful (полезный) — helpless (беспомощный).

The most commonly used prefixes and their meanings:

1. Prefix with value “снова ”,  “вновь”, “пере”:

re-	to construct (строить) — to reconstruct (перестроить), to read (читать) — to reread (перечитать), to write (писать) — to rewrite (переписать)

2. Prefixes that give the opposite meaning to the word:

un-	to dress (одеваться) — to undress (раздеваться), to tie (связывать) — to untie (развязывать)
dis-	to appear (появляться) — to disappear (исчезать)
de-	formation (формирование) — deformation (деформация)
anti-	fascist (фашист) — anti-fascist (антифашист)
counter-	attack (атака) — counterattack (контратака)
contra-	to  contradict (противоречить, возражать)

3. Prefixes that have a negative valure:

a-	amoral (аморальный, безнравственный)
ab-	absent (отсутствующий),  abnormal (ненормальный)
un-	kind (добрый) — unkind (недобрый)
in-	ability (способность) — inability (неспособность)
ir-	regular (регулярный) — irregular (нерегулярный)
il-	legal (легальный) — illegal (нелегальный)
dis-	honest (честный) — dishonest (нечестный)
mis-	to understand (понимать) — to misunderstand (неправильно понять)
non-	interference (вмешательство) — non-interference (невмешательство)

4. Prefixes that are relevant “сверх”, “пере”, “чрезмерно”:

over-	to pay (платить) — to overpay (переплатить)
super-	human (человеческий) — superhuman (сверхчеловеческий)
ultra-	short (короткий) — ultra-short (ультракороткий)
extra-	extraordinary (необычный)

5.        Prefixes that are relevant “между”, “взаимно”:

со-	existence (существование) — co-existence (сосуществование)
inter-	national (национальный) — international (интернациональный)

6.        Prefixes that are translated as

 a) “перед”:

рге-	war (война) — pre-war (довоенный), historic (исторический) — prehistoric (доисторический)
fore-	to foresee (предвидеть)

b)        “после”:

post-

war (война,) — post-war (послевоенный), revolutionary (революционный)

c)        “недостаточно”, “недо-“:

under-

to pay (платить) — to underpay (оплачивать низко, т.е. недостаточно  оплачивать, недоплачивать)

d)        “под”:

sub-	division (разделение) — subdivision (подразделение)

e)        “экс”, “бывший”:

ex-	champion (чемпион) — ex-champion (бывший чемпион)

f)        само-, авто-

auto-

autobiography (автобиография), automatic (автоматический)

g)        полу-

semi-

semifinal (полуфинал), semicircle (полукруг)

h)        через-, транс-

trans-

transatlantic (трансатлантический)

i)        вверх, кверху, наверху

up-	upstairs (вверх по лестнице), upside (верхняя часть)

j)        двойной, два, дважды

bi-	bilingual (двуязычный), bi-monthly (выходящий два раза в месяц)

k)        имеющий дело с книгами

bibli(o)-

bibliography (библиография)

l)        относящийся к жизни

bio-	biography (биография)

m)        второстепенное значение

by-	by-street (переулок, улочка)

n)        много-, мульти-, поли-

multi-	multicolored (многоцветный), multimillionaire (мультимиллионер)
poly-	polyglot (полиглот), polytechnic (политехнический)

o)        второстепенное значение

by-	by-street (переулок, улочка)

7. The prefix verb, with a value of “делать”:

en-	large (большой) — to enlarge (увеличивать, делать больше), force (сила) — to enforce (принуждать, настаивать)

Basic suffixes nouns:

1. Suffix denoting membership in the political direction of the profession and the nation:

-ist	Communist (коммунист), Marxist (марксист}, materialist (материалист);
-an	historian (историк), librarian (библиотекарь), musician (музыкант)
-ian	Russian (русский), Bulgarian (болгарин)

2. Suffix teaching, theory, the quality of:

-ism	marxism (марксизм), heroism (героизм)

3. Suffix denoting a person, his occupation or job title:

-ег	to teach (учить) — teacher (учитель)
-or	to direct (руководить) — director (руководитель)
-ee	employee (служащий), refugee (беженец, эмигрант)
-eer	auctioneer (аукционер)

 4. Suffix indicating the result of the:

-ment	achievement (достижение), agreement (согласие), government (правительство)
-ade	lemonade (лимонад), blockade (блокада)

5. Suffixes

а)        state:

-hood	brotherhood (братство), childhood (детство), manhood (мужественность)
-ship	dictatorship (диктатура), friendship (дружба), leadership (руководство)
-cy	accuracy (точность)
-acy	infancy (младенчество), supremacy (превосходство)

b)        action:

-age	shortage (нехватка), marriage (брак, супружество), voyage (путешествие)
-ing	hunting (охота),  crossing (пересечение,  перекресток),  living (житье)
-ence	silence (молчание), difference (различие)
-ance	importance (важность), resistance (сопротивление)
-tion	collection (собрание, коллекция), dictation (диктант, диктовка)
-ition,  -ation	competition (соревнование), hesitation (сомнение, колебание)
-sion	decision (решение)
-al	removal ( удаление), arrival (прибытие), refusal (отказ)

c)     quality:

-dom	freedom (свобода), kingdom (королевство), wisdom (мудрость)
-ness	coldness (холод),  darkness  (темнота),  kindness (доброта), weakness (слабость)
-ty	activity (активность), safety (безопасность)

d) occupation or status:

-ery	bakery (булочная), surgery (кабинет хирурга), cookery (кулинаxрия)

f) occupation, branch of science:

-ics	physics (физика), politics (политика)

Basic suffixes adjectives:

1. Suffix forming nouns from adjectives and designating national identity or degree of quality:

-ese	Chinese (китаец, китайский), Japanese (японец, японский)
-ish	red (красный) — reddish (красноватый), child (ребенок) — childish (ребячливый, детский)

2. Suffixes to form adjectives and verbs indicating the presence of quality:

-ive	to act (действовать) — active (активный), to talk (разговаривать) – talkative (разговорчивый)
-ent	to differ (различать) — different (различный)
-ant	to observe (наблюдать, замечать) — observant (наблюдательный)

3. Suffix forming nouns from adjectives and denoting the presence of quality:

-ic	base (основа) — basic (основной), economy (экономика) — economic (экономический)
-al	centre (центр) — central (центральный)
-ful	culture (культура) — cultural (культурный), beauty (красота) — beautiful (красивый)
-ous	peace (мир) — peaceful (мирный), fame (слава) — famous (знаменитый)
-у	cloud (облако) — cloudy (облачный), sun (солнце) — sunny (солнечный)

4. Suffixes forming adjectives from different parts speech and denoting

а)        quality:

-аrу	element (элемент) — elementary (элементарный)
-огу	illusion (иллюзия) — illusory (обманчивый, иллюзорный)

b)        the ability to do anything:

-able	to change (изменить) — changeable (изменчивый)
— ible	to eat (есть) — eatable (съедобный), reason (разум) — reasonable (разумный)

c)        lack of quality:

-less

useless (бесполезный), windless (безветренный)

The main verb suffixes:

-ate	active (активный) — to activate (активизировать)
-en	short (короткий) — to shorten (укоротить)
-fy, -ify	pure (чистый) — to purify (очищать), simple (простой) — to simplify (упрощать)
-ize	character (характер) — to characterize (характеризовать)

Basic adverb  suffixes:

Adverb forming suffixes of

а) adjectives, sometimes — nouns, ordinal numbers and participles:

-ly	bad (плохой) — badly (плохо), part (часть) — partly (частично)

b) nouns and adverbs and indicating the direction of :

-wards	North (север) — northward(s) (к северу, на север), after (после) — afterwards (впоследствии, позже, потом)
-ward	home (дом, домой) — homeward (к дому, по направлению к дому)

3. The vocabulary and word-building means in Old English

(OE English)

The OE vocabulary was almost purely Germanic (PG); except for a small number of borrowings, it consisted of native words inherited from PG or formed from native roots and affixes.

Native words

Native OE words can be subdivided into a number of etymological layers from different historical periods. The three main layers in the native OE words are:

a) common Indo-European (IE)  words;

b) common Germanic words;

c) specifically OE words.

Words belonging to the common IE layer constitute the oldest part of the OE vocabulary. Among these words we find names of some natural phenomena, plants and animals, agricultural terms, names of parts of the human body, terms of kinship, etc.; this layer includes personal and demonstrative pronouns and most numerals. Verbs belonging to this layer denote the basic activities of man; adjectives indicate the most essential qualities.

The common Germanic layer includes words which are shared by most Germanic languages, but do not occur outside the group. Being specifically Germanic, these words constitute an important distinctive mark of the Germanic languages at the lexical level. This layer is certainly smaller than the layer of common IE words. Semantically these words are connected with nature, with the sea and everyday life.

The third etymological layer of native words can be defined as specifically OE, that is words which do not occur in other Germanic or non-Germanic languages. These words are few, if we include here only the words whose roots have not been found outside English: OE clipian ‘call’, OE brid (NE bird) and several others. However, they are far more numerous if we include in this layer OE compounds and derived words formed from Germanic roots in England, e.g. OE wīfman or wimman (NE woman) consists of two roots which occurred as separate words in other OG languages, but formed a compound only in OE.

Foreign elements in the OE vocabulary

Although borrowed words constituted only a small portion of the OE vocabulary – all in all about six hundred words, — they are of great interest for linguistic and historical study. OE borrowings come from two sources: Celtic and Latin.

Borrowings from Celtic        

There are very few Celtic loan-words in the OE vocabulary, for there must have been little intermixture between the Germanic settlers and the Celtic in Britain. Though in some parts of the island the Celts population was not exterminated during the WG invasion, linguistic evidence of Celtic influence is meager. Abundant borrowing from Celtic is to be found only in place-names. The OE kingdoms Kent, Deira and Bernicia derive their names from the names of Celtic tribes. The name of York, the Downs and perhaps London have been traced to Celtic sources. Various Celtic designations of ‘river’ and ‘water’ were understood by the Germanic invaders as proper names: Ouse, Esk, Exe, Avon; Thames, Stour, Dover also come from Celtic. Many place-names with Celtic elements are hybrids; the Celtic component, combined with a Latin or a Germanic component, makes a compound place-name, e.g.: Celtic plus Latin: Man-chester, Win-chester, Lan-caster; Celtic plus Germanic: York-shire, Corn-wall, Devon-shire, Canter-bury.

Latin influence on the OE vocabulary

Latin words entered the English language at different stages of OE history. Chronologically they can be devided into several layers.

The earliest layer comprises words which the WG tribes brought from the continent when they came to settle in Britain. Contact with the Roman civilization began along time before the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Early OE borrowings from Latin indicate the new things and concepts which the Teutons had learnt from the Romans. They pertain to war, trade, agriculture, building and home life. Among the Latin loan-words adopted in Britain were some place-names made of Latin and Germanic components, e.g. Portsmouth, Greenport, Greenwich. The next period of Latin influence on the OE vocabulary began with the introduction of Christianity in the late 6th c. and lasted to the end of OE. Numerous Latin words which found their way into the English language during these five hundred years clearly fall into two main groups:

1) words pertaining to religion

2) words connected with learning.

The Latin impact on the OE vocabulary was not restricted to borrowing of words. There were also other aspects of influence. The most important of them is the appearance of the so-called “translation-loans” – words and phrases created on the pattern of Latin words as their literal translations. The earliest instances of translation-loans are names of the days of the week found not only in OE but also in other Old Germanic languages. OE Mōnan-dæз (Monday) ‘day of the moon’, L Lunae dies.

Word-building means in Old English

Word Structure

According to their morphological structure OE words fell into three main types:

1) simple words (“root-words”) containing a root-morpheme and no derivational affixes, e.g. land, зōd.

2) derived words consisting of one root-morpheme and one or more affixes, e.g. be-зinnan.

3) compound words, whose stems were made up of more than one root-morpheme, e.g. mann-cynn.

Ways of word-formation

OE employed two ways of word-formation: derivation and word-composition.

Word-derivation

Derived words in OE were built with the help of affixes: prefixes and suffixes; in addition to these principal means of derivation, words were distinguished with the help of sound interchanges and word stress.

Sound interchanges

The earliest source of root-vowel interchanges employed in OE word-building was ablaut or vowel gradation inherited from PG and IE. Ablaut was used in OE as a distinctive feature between verbs and nouns and also between verbs derived from a single root. The gradation series were similar to those employed in the strong verbs: rīdan v – rād n [i:~a:], NE ride, raid. Many vowel interchanges arose due to palatal mutation; the element [i/j] in the derivational suffix caused the mutation of the root-vowel; the same root without the suffix retained the original non-mutated vowel, e.g.:

a) nouns and verbs: fōd – fēdan (NE food – feed)

b) adjectives and verbs: full – fyllan (NE full – fill)

c) nouns and adjectives: long – lenзþu (NE long, length).

Word stress

The role of word accentuation in OE word-building was not great. Like sound interchanges, the shifting of word stress helped to differentiate between some parts of speech being used together with other means. The verb had unaccented prefixes while the corresponding nouns had stressed prefixes, so that the position of stress served as an additional distinctive feature between them.

Prefixation

Genetically, some OE prefixes go back to IE prototypes, e.g. OE un-, a negative prefix. Many more prefixes sprang in PG and OE from prepositions and adverbs, e.g. mis-, be-, ofer-. Prefixes were widely used with verbs but were far less productive with other parts of speech. The most frequent and probably the most productive OE prefixes were: ā-, be-, for-, fore-, зe-, ofer-, un-. The prefix modified the lexical meaning of the word, usually without changing its reference to a part of speech, e.g. spēdiз – unspēdiз. Some prefixes, both verbal and nominal, gave a more special sense to the word and changed its meaning very considerably, e.g.: weorðan – for-weorðan v, forwyrð n (become, perish, destruction). Some prefixes had a very weak of general meaning bordering on grammatical, e.g. зe-, the commonest verb orefix, conveyed the meaning of result or completion and was therefore often used as a marker of the Past Participle – sittan — зe-sett.

Suffixation

Suffixation was by far the most productive means of word derivation in OE. Suffixes not only modified the lexical meaning of the word but could refer it to another part of speech. Suffixes were mostly applied in forming nouns and adjectives, seldom – in forming verbs. Etymologically OE suffixes can be traced to several sources: old stem-suffixes, which had lost their productivity, but could still be distinguished in some words as dead or non-productive suffixes; derivational suffixes proper inherited from PIE and PG; new suffixes which developed from root-morphemes in Late PG and OE in the course of morphological simplification of the word. The old stem-suffixes cannot be regarded as means of derivation in OE. Their application in word derivation can be best shown in reconstructed, pre-written forms of weak verbs.

Noun suffixes are divided into suffixes of “agent nouns” (“nomina agentis”) and those of abstract nouns. Among the suffixes of “agent nouns” there were some dead, unproductive suffixes, e.g.: -a, as in the Masc. a-stem hunta; -end, originally the suffix of the Present Participle, e.g. OE fīend. Later it was replaced by -ere. OE agent nouns in -ere were derived from nouns and verbs: bōcere, fiscere. The nouns in -ere were Masc.; the corresponding suffix of Fem. nouns -estre was less common: spinnestre. Among suffixes of abstract nouns we can trace a productive suffix –nes/-nis: blindnis, beorhtnes. Another productive suffix, -ung/-ing, was used to build abstract nouns from verbs, e.g. earnian – earnung (NE earn, earning). A most important feature of OE suffixation is the growth of new suffixes from root-morphemes. To this group belong OE -dōm, -hād, -lāc and some others, e.g. frēodōm (NE freedom), cīldhād (NE childhood), wedlāc (NE wedlock). Adjectives were usually derived from nouns, rarely from verb stems or other adjectives. The most productive suffixes were -iз, an -isc, e.g. mōdiз ‘proud’(from mōd NE mood); mennisc ‘human’ (from man with the root-vowel [a]).

Word-composition

Word-composition was a highly productive way of developing the vocabulary in OE. As in other OG languages, word-composition in OE was more productive in nominal parts of speech than in verbs.

The pattern “noun plus noun” was probably the most efficient type of all: mann-cynn (NE mankind). Compound nouns with adjective-stems as the first components were less productive, e.g. wīd-sǽ ‘ocean’ (wide sea). Compound adjectives were formed by joining a noun-stem to an adjective: dōm-зeorn (“eager for glory”). The most peculiar pattern of compound adjectives was the so-called “bahuvruhi type” – adjective plus noun stem as the second component of an adjective, e.g. mild-heort ‘merciful’.

                                   4.  Conclusion

In my work I have learnt that English language like any other language has different types of word building.

• The most widespread is affixation.
• The least used is change in stress.
• There is no conversion and change in stress in Russian.
• There is affixation and word building like in Russian.
• There are less ways of affixation in English than in Russian.
• Russian prefix “не”has several variants in English.
• Some prefixes in English have several meanings in Russian.
• Compound words in English have differences from Russian ones.
• Modern ways of word building preserve the old forms.

                                       Vocabulary

Words	Synonyms	Translation
moribund	dying, expiring	умирающий
correlating		корреляция
functioning	running, operational	функционирующий
agglutinative	gluing, agglutinant	агглютинативный
directly	direct, immediately	непосредственно
chewing-gum		жевательная резинка
earthquake	quake, temblor, seism	землятрясение
beginning	outbreak, origin, rise	начало
commonly	commonly, ordinarily	обычно
subdivided	disaggregete	подразделяется
agricultural	farm, rural	сельскохозяйственный
semantically		семантически
loan-words		заимствованные слова
chronologically		хронологически
settle	lodge, settle down	поселиться
civilization	culture	цивилизация
invasion	inroad, irruption	вторжение
interchanges	exchange	обмениваться
peculiar	sui generis, idiomatic	своеобразный

                                        References

1. http://www.ranez.ru
2. http://www.translationjournal.net/journal/
3. rushkolnik.ru

List of Russian words similar to English (cognates)

Did you know that there are approximately 2000 words that are similar

in both Russian and English languages!

Yes, you heard it right! These words are called cognates — they sound almost the same and have the same meaning. As you can see, Russian and English are not completely alien languages as they both come from the same Indo-European language family. So, if you are just starting learning Russian language you already know at least 800 Russian words (because the rest are mainly medical or political terms we don’t use in everyday life).

And the good news is that many of these Russian-English similar words and cognates can be learned very quickly as the follow the same system of word formation. In simple words, their endings correspond to each other and as long as you know which Russian ending corresponds to its English equivalent, you can form these words easily.

You just need to pronounce them with a Russian pronunciation. Isn’t it amazing?

It is curious to see how languages are flexible and constantly evolving. Some of these words are cognates of the same Indo-European origin, others have been borrowed from languages, like German, French, English, Greek and Latin.

Ok, let’s begin! You can watch this video first to learn the main word endings of Russian-English cognates and check yourself by playing a game. After watching this video you will find more Russian-English similar words divided by topics down below (after a brief summary).

Free Russian Video Lesson — Russian words similar to English

Brief summary of the video «Russian-English cognates and similar words»

Pay attention to the endings of words. In some cases it is quite easy to form a Russian word from its English equivalent:

• English words which end in ‘TION‘, ‘CION’, ‘SION‘ are equivalent to Russian words ending with ‘ЦИЯ‘ or ‘СИЯ‘.

• English words ending with a letter ‘Y‘ correspond to Russian words ending with ‘ИЯ’ Example: ‘категория‘ = category (But it is not a general rule, so be careful).

• English words ending on ‘LOGY‘ and ‘TICS‘/’MICS’ are of Greek origin and havetheir equivalents in Russian language as ‘ЛОГИЯ‘ И ‘ТИКА‘/’МИКА’ accordingly.

• Many professions and job titles share the same ending in English and Russian:
  ER (eng) = ЕР (ru) like in designer (дизайнер);
  ER (eng) can also be transformed in ЁР in Russian like in partner (партнер); OR (eng) = ОР (ru) like in doctor (доктор); OR (eng) can also be transformed in ЁР in Russian like in actor (актёр);
  Less frequent is the ending EUR (eng) which is usually ЁР in Russian — shauffeur = шофёр.
  It is also the case for some words in a professional sphere.
  Examples: Factor = фактор, printer = принтер, etc.

• There are tons of Anglicisms (modern words borrowed from English language) which Russian people use everyday without even noticing it. You can even pronounce these words as they are and most Russian people will understand them

But be careful using them as an older generation (especially ‘babushkas’) might not understand you and even tell you some bad words (it’s a joke). Some really interesting examples of modern Anglicisms are the following:

ЮЗЕР = user; a Russian word for this is ‘пользователь’ (pól’zavatel’)

ПАССВОРД = password; a Russian word for this is ‘пароль’ (paról’)

КОУЧИНГ = coaching; a Russian word for this is ‘обучение’ (abuchéniye)

ОКЕЙ = ok; a Russian word for this is ‘хорошо’ (harashó)

ГОУ = let’s go; a Russian word for this is ‘пойдем’ (paidém)

УИКЕНД = weekend; a Russian word for this is ‘выходные’ (vyhadn’ýye) …and so many others that I am not going to give you because you need to learn more real Russian words! (even though many of them are also borrowed from other languages).

• The ending ‘IST’ of Greek origin means «one who does or makes» is equivalent to a suffix ‘ИСТ’ in words like «optimist» (оптимист), egoist (эгоист), journalist (журналист), etc.

• Many adjectives borrowed from English have the ending -НЫЙ: эмоциональный — emotional, интересный — interesting, серьёзный — serious.

Now let’s learn some most frequent Russian-English cognates and similar words.

Here is a list of Russian-English cognates divided by categories.

1. Work and business

Администрация [administrátsiya] – administration

Ассоциация [asatsiátsiya] — association

Бизнес [bíznes] — business

Брифинг [brífink] — briefing

Бюджет [byudzhét] – budget

Вакансия [vakánsiya] — vacancy

Дедлайн [dedláin] – deadline

Дело [délo] – deal, affair

Документ [dakument] — document

Интервью [interv’yú] — interview

Контракт [kantrákt] — contract

Клиент [kliyént] – a client

Компания [kampániya] – company

Коллега [kaléga] – a colleague

Концепция [kantséptsiya] – conception, concept

Корпорация [karparátsiya] -corporation

2. Education and Science

Академия [akadémiya] — academy

Аббревиатура [abreviatúra] — abbreviation

Анализ [anális] – analysis

Анатомия [anatómiya] — anatomy

Биология [bialógiya] — biology

География [geagráphiya] — geography

Геометрия [geamétriya] — geometry

Диссертация [disertátsiya] — dissertation

Информатика [infarmátika] — informatics

История [istóriya] – history

Колледж [kóledzh] – college

Литература [literatúra] — literature

Математика [matemátika] – mathematics

Педагогика [pedagógika] — pedagogics

Профессор [prafésar] – professor

Психология [psihalógiya] — psychology

3. Оccupations

Архитектор [arhitéktar] – an architect

Архитектура [arhitektúra] — architecture

Актёр [aktyór] – an actor

Актриса [aktrísa] – an actress

Аниматор [animátor] – an animator

Адвокат [advakát] – an advocate

Ассистент [asistént] – an assistant

Агент [agént] – an agent

Бизнесмен [biznesmén] – a businessman

Бизнесвумен [bizneswúmen] – a businesswoman

Гид [git] – a guide

Дизайнер [dizáiner] – a designer

Дизайн [dizáin] — design

Доктор [dókta] – a doctor

Журналист [zhurnalíst] – a journalist

Журнал [zhurnál] – journal

4. Media and communication (mainly words borrowed from English)

Аккаунт [akáunt] – account

Батарея [batare ́ya] – battery

Баланс [baláns] – balance

Блог [blok] — blog

Блоггер [blóger] – blogger

Видео [vídeo] – video

Вебсайт [websáit] — website

Браузер [bráuzer] — browser

Гуглить [gúglit’] — to google

Диск [disk] — disc

Девайс [deváis] — device

Дисплей [displéy] — display

Идея [idéya] — idea

Интернет [internét] — internet

Информация [infarmátsiya] — information

Контакт [kantákt] — contact

Кликать [klíkat’] – to click

Камера [kámera] — camera

Коммуникация [kamunikátsiya] — communication

Лайкать [láikat’] – to give likes on social media platforms

5. House and household supplies

Адрес [ádres] – address

Антенна [anténna] — antenna

Балкон [balkón] – balcony

Блендер [blénder] — blender

Ваза [váza] — vase

Вилла [vílla] — villa

Гараж [garásh] – garage

Комфорт [kamfórt] — comfort

Кондиционер [kanditsionér] – conditioner

Лифт [lift] – lift, elevator

Лампа [lámpa] — lamp

Миксер [míkser] — mixer

Туалет [tualét] — toilet

Тостер [tóster] — toaster

Терраса [terása] — terrace

Телефон [telefón] — telephone

Телевизор [televízor] — television set, TV

Холл [hol] – hall, hallway

Электричество [elektríchestvo] — electricity

6. City and Places

Автомобиль [avtamabíl’] – automobile

Арка [árka] – arc

Банк [bank] — bank

Барьер [bar’yér] – barrier

Индекс [índeks] – index

Контейнер [kantéiner] – container

Метро [metró] — metro

Павильон [pavil’yón] — pavilion

Парк [park] — park

Почта [póchta] — post

Парковка [parkóvka] — parking

Супермаркет [supermárket] — supermarket

Стадион [stadión] — stadium

Сквер [skver] — square, park

Станция [stántsiya] — station

Статуя [státuya] – statue

Территория [teritóriya] — territory

Трамвай [tramvái] – tramway

Такси [taksí] – taxi

Центр [tsentr] – centre

You can get a full list of 800 words with audio divided by topics in my SUPER guide on Russian-English cognates and similar words

You should get this guide for several reasons:

1) It will give you more confidence in learning Russian language, no matter

whether you are a beginner or an intermediate learner;

2) It is well-structured and provides the main categories of words that you

can instantly use in your speech (you will not find anything like this on the Internet, I have checked);

3) It is curious to see how languages are flexible and constantly evolving.

Some of these words are cognates of the same Indo-European origin, others have been borrowed from languages, like German, French, English, Greek and Latin.

Click this link to get a SUPER Guide on Russian-English similar words.

If you have recently started to learn Russian, you should absolutely download my free guide ‘Essential Russian Words and Expressions to Understand Spoken Russian’. This guide also contains audio files so that you can listen to these phrases on the go: while driving, walking, doing sport or brushing your teeth. Make sure that you repeat these phrases yourself and try to imitate my accent.

It’s also very important to know how to pronounce Russian words correctly as not every Russian letter is pronounced the same way as it’s written. There are certain Russian pronunciation rules that are really easy to learn.

Have you already checked my post on Russian-English false friends?

Then you are ready to take this test to check how well you know Russian-English cognates and false friends.

Test «Russian-English similar words and false friends»

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In English grammar, a word class is a set of words that display the same formal properties, especially their inflections and distribution. The term «word class» is similar to the more traditional term, part of speech. It is also variously called grammatical category, lexical category, and syntactic category (although these terms are not wholly or universally synonymous).

The two major families of word classes are lexical (or open or form) classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) and function (or closed or structure) classes (determiners, particles, prepositions, and others).

Examples and Observations

• «When linguists began to look closely at English grammatical structure in the 1940s and 1950s, they encountered so many problems of identification and definition that the term part of speech soon fell out of favor, word class being introduced instead. Word classes are equivalent to parts of speech, but defined according to strict linguistic criteria.» (David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2003)
• «There is no single correct way of analyzing words into word classes…Grammarians disagree about the boundaries between the word classes (see gradience), and it is not always clear whether to lump subcategories together or to split them. For example, in some grammars…pronouns are classed as nouns, whereas in other frameworks…they are treated as a separate word class.» (Bas Aarts, Sylvia Chalker, Edmund Weiner, The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2014)

Form Classes and Structure Classes

«[The] distinction between lexical and grammatical meaning determines the first division in our classification: form-class words and structure-class words. In general, the form classes provide the primary lexical content; the structure classes explain the grammatical or structural relationship. Think of the form-class words as the bricks of the language and the structure words as the mortar that holds them together.»

The form classes also known as content words or open classes include:

• Nouns
• Verbs
• Adjectives
• Adverbs

The structure classes, also known as function words or closed classes, include:

• Determiners
• Pronouns
• Auxiliaries
• Conjunctions
• Qualifiers
• Interrogatives
• Prepositions
• Expletives
• Particles

«Probably the most striking difference between the form classes and the structure classes is characterized by their numbers. Of the half million or more words in our language, the structure words—with some notable exceptions—can be counted in the hundreds. The form classes, however, are large, open classes; new nouns and verbs and adjectives and adverbs regularly enter the language as new technology and new ideas require them.» (Martha Kolln and Robert Funk, Understanding English Grammar. Allyn and Bacon, 1998)

One Word, Multiple Classes

«Items may belong to more than one class. In most instances, we can only assign a word to a word class when we encounter it in context. Looks is a verb in ‘It looks good,’ but a noun in ‘She has good looks‘; that is a conjunction in ‘I know that they are abroad,’ but a pronoun in ‘I know that‘ and a determiner in ‘I know that man’; one is a generic pronoun in ‘One must be careful not to offend them,’ but a numeral in ‘Give me one good reason.'» (Sidney Greenbaum, Oxford English Grammar. Oxford University Press, 1996)

Suffixes as Signals

«We recognize the class of a word by its use in context. Some words have suffixes (endings added to words to form new words) that help to signal the class they belong to. These suffixes are not necessarily sufficient in themselves to identify the class of a word. For example, -ly is a typical suffix for adverbs (slowly, proudly), but we also find this suffix in adjectives: cowardly, homely, manly. And we can sometimes convert words from one class to another even though they have suffixes that are typical of their original class: an engineer, to engineer; a negative response, a negative.» (Sidney Greenbaum and Gerald Nelson, An Introduction to English Grammar, 3rd ed. Pearson, 2009)

A Matter of Degree

«[N]ot all the members of a class will necessarily have all the identifying properties. Membership in a particular class is really a matter of degree. In this regard, grammar is not so different from the real world. There are prototypical sports like ‘football’ and not so sporty sports like ‘darts.’ There are exemplary mammals like ‘dogs’ and freakish ones like the ‘platypus.’ Similarly, there are good examples of verbs like watch and lousy examples like beware; exemplary nouns like chair that display all the features of a typical noun and some not so good ones like Kenny.» (Kersti Börjars and Kate Burridge, Introducing English Grammar, 2nd ed. Hodder, 2010)