Classification of the vocabulary according to the period of time.

Neologisms

The vocabulary of any language constantly changes. New notions appear and new words come to the language to name them. On the other hand, some notions and things become outdated and the words that denote them drop out of the language. In the former case we speak about neologisms, in the latter about obsolete and archaic words.

Sometimes a new name is introduced for a thing or notion that continues to exist, and the older name disappears. Still many new words come into a language and function there as its permanent units. N.Gvishiani gives such recent examples as hypertext, compact video etc. The term neologism appeared in the 18^th century (1755) in French from which it came to English in the 19^th century (after 1800) for denoting new words and notions.

I.V.Arnold defines n eologisms as words or set expression, formed ac­cording to the productive structural patterns or borrowed from another language and felt by the speakers as something new.

Neologisms have a close link with a certain time period, which is taken arbitrary. In recent years some scholars chose the end of World War II, others the start of space exploration or some other important moment.

Among foreign scholars E.Partridge and Fowler [] studied neologisms.

The spheres in which new words most frequently appear are: science and technology(according to E.M. Dubenets mostly from computing technologies), medicine, social sphere and economics and everyday life(mostly clothes).

1) computers a) types of computers: super-computer, multi-user. b) parts of computers: hardware, software, gimmicks (additional parts of acomputer) c) computer language: Fortran, basic; d) work on computers: to computereize, to blitz out(to ruin data in a computer`s memory).

2) social sphere and economics: youthquake (rebellions among young people); pussy-footer (a politician ready to compromise), belonger (a conservative person of the middle class), yuppi (young professional people).

3 ) everyday life a) food: starter (hos d`oeuvres ), macrobiotics (raw vegetables); b) clothing: catsuit (a clinging suit;камбинезон); hipster (a skirt(trousers) with the belt on hips; completenik (a long sweater for trouthers), bloomers (lady`s sport trousers); c) footwear: thongs (open sandals, d) bags: sling bag(a bag with a long belt).

Neologisms can come into a language in different ways. 1) absolutely new words can be built according to some patterns for denoting new objects (proper neologisms). 2) already existing words can develop new meanings and be used for denotind new objects (semantic neologisms) 3) a new word can appear for an old object (transnomination).

1)Proper neologisms are most frequent, which is also connected with science development: e.g. to telework ( to work at home, using a computer), telecommuter (a consultant, connected with the firm by a computer). 2) Semantic neologisms can develop in 2 ways. a) the old meaning of the word can disappear and the word can be used only in the new one, e.g. sophisticated equipment; “ sophisticated” meant “artificial”. The word retains the old meaning, but a new one appears, e.g. summit, mafia -any society, cosmetic -deceiving .3) transnomination is often used to create a word with emotial connotation, such words are mostly colloquial, for example slang, professional words etc. e.g. air-brained -light-minded, burned-out -deadly-tired.

According to the way of formation neologisms can be classified into phonological, syntactical and borrowings.

1) phonological neologisms are made of sound or imitate sounds, e.g. zizz -to sleep short, to whee -to be excited.

2) syntactical neologisms can be morphological and phraseological. The former are often compound words, e.g. long-timer – a person whoworks for the same company long, snack-abuse -eating too much of snacks; but may be formed by means of usual suffixes added to new stems, e.g. filmdom -cinemaworld, standee - a passenger standing in transport, gloomster -pessimist. Conversion is quite frequent, e.g. to orbit the moon, to garage a car, to service a car. Phraseological neologisms are to nose out -learn, a whiz kid -a young man, successful in his career.

3) borrowings come from different languages, e.g. Japanese- karaoke, karoshi (death caused by overworking).

A new word can be accepted into the language and stop being new, or it may vanish from the language. It may serve as a basis for further word-formation, e.g. zip -an imitative word denoting a certain type of fastener is not new, but its derivatives are, e.g. to zip (to zip from one place to another) and the corresponding noun zipper.

Obsolete and archaic words

In the stock of the words of the language there are those which may drop out of the language altogether. There are three terms we speak about in this connection: obsolete words, archaisms and historisms (historical words). The disappearance of words may be caused by linguistic factors, when a new name appears for an old notion. It is often difficult to say whether such words still belong to the present-day English vocabulary or they are obsolete. Sometimes names for obsolete notions remain in the language in their figurative meaning.

I.R. Galperin distinguishes 3 stages in the aging process of words.

1) obsolescent words, which are in the stage of gradually passing out of general use. Here, in his opinion, belong morphological forms, which were used in the earlier periods of the development of the language, pronouns: thou-thee, thy, thine;the verbal endings:est, eth (he maketh);the verb-forms: art.

To this category of words belong many French borrowings: to emplume- to adorn with feathers;garniture - furniture.

2) obsolete words, which have already dropped out of use but are still recognized by native speakers: nay– no;methinks - it seems to me.

3) archaic words proper are words no more recognizable in modern English. e.g. troth – faith; losel - a lazy fellow. I.V. Arnold gives it in a different way.In her opinion,when a word is no longer in general use but not absolutely obsolete, we call it an archaism.

There is another class of words, which is called historical (historisms). They should not be confused with archaic. Here not the words, but the phenomena themselves (denotations, referents)have disappeared from today`s life. e.g.: yeomen, manor etc. Historical words have no synonyms, but archaic words have been replaced by modern synonyms. In scientific style the use of such words will bear no stylistic function. But in historical novels the above groups have their stylistic function and are used mostly in the creation of a realistic historical background. On the whole the characters of historical novels speak the language of the period the writer lives in, and his task is colour the language with archaic forms, which will be interlaced with the texture of the modern sense.

W. Scott was a master of creating historical colour in his novels. He managed to introduce several elements more or less obsolete and it was enough to convey the desired effect. Archaic words are also used in poetry (many poetic words are archaic) and for satirical purposes.

Archaic words can be found in the style of official documents as terms of some special field of activity, e.g. law, diplomatic relations etc.