Grammatical Assimilation of English Loan Words in Modern Ukrainian

Abstract.

THE GRAMMATIC ADAPTATION ENGLISH BORROWINGS IN THE MODERN UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE

Lada Pryima

Department of Foreign Languages with Latin and Medical Terminology, Ukrainian Medical Stomatological Academy, Poltava, Ukraine.

Abstract

Background: The author studies the notion of borrowing adaptation, its main forms, levels and stages. Grammatical adaptation is viewed as a critical part of integrating a new loan word into the recipient language. The key features of the grammatic adaptation of nouns, adjectives, and verbs have been discussed extensively.

Purpose: to examine the peculiarities of grammatic adaptation of English borrowings in the modern Ukrainian language.

Results: One of the key characteristics of noun adaptation is acquiring a grammatical gender which is associated with the terminal sound of the word stem (namely, a vowel or a consonunt) as well as its lexical meaning. Another key point is the inclusion of an English borrowing into the grammatical paradigm of number (i.e., forming singular and plural forms). Finally, the representation of the category of case in nominal English borrowings has been studied in the paper. A special category of nouns that do not produce inflected forms has been identified and explained.

The adjectival borrowings are considered from the point of view of their principal morpho­logical and structural characteristics. Some challenging issues concerning adjectival structures in English and Ukrainian have been discussed. It has been suggested that using English adjectival structures undermines the purity of the Ukrainian language from a grammatical standpoint. Some examples of such constructions have been provied and explained.

Finally, some morphological features of grammar adaptation of verbs have been considered in great detail such as verb conjunction types and main word building components that correspond to borrowed English verbs. A dominant conjunction type and most productive verb suffixes have been identified.

Some rare cases of partially adaptable English borrowings as well as non-adaptable ones have been examined at the end of the article.

Discussion: In conclusion it can be said that the process of grammatical adaptation of borrowings involves them taking on proper grammatical characteristics such as gender, case, number, conjunction type, and many others. While most English borrowings have been successfully integrated into the grammatical system of the Ukrainian language, some partially adapted ones still remain due to their intrinsic properties. The further research may involve studying structural and derivational patterns of English borrowings as well as their lexical and stylistic features in different discourse types.

Keywords: English borrowings, loan words, adaptation, grammar, morphology.

Vitae. Lada Pryima is a Lecturer of Department of Foreign Languages with Latin and Medical Terminology at Ukrainian Medical Stomatological Academy. Her areas of research interests include text linguistics, grammar studies, ESL teaching strategies, English borrowings, phraseology and cognitive linguistics.

Correspondence: lada993@ukr.net

Article.

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