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Contents

Chapter I. How is Vocabulary learned?

1.1 How important is vocabulary

1.2 How are words selected

1.3 Conveying the meaning

Chapter II. How to present vocabulary

2.1 Presenting vocabulary

2.2 How to illustrate meaning

2.3 How to explain meaning

Chapter III. How to put words to work

3.1 Decision — making tasks

3.1.1 Identifying words

3.1.2 Selecting tasks

3.1.3 Matching task

3.1.4 Sorting activities

3.1.5 Ranking and sequencing

3.2 Games

Chapter IV. Teaching word parts word chunks

4.1 Teaching word formation and word combination

4.2 A lexical approach

4.3 Teaching lexical chunks

4.4 Teaching phrasal verbs

4.5 Teaching idioms

Conclusions

Bibliography

Chapter I. How is Vocabulary learned?

1.1 How important is vocabulary

Teaching English vocabulary is an important area worthy of effort and investigation. Recently methodologists and linguists emphasize and recommend teaching vocabulary because of its importance in language teaching. Vocabulary is needed for expressing meaning and in using the receptive (listening and reading) and the productive (speaking and writing) skills. «If language structures make up the skeleton of language, then it is vocabulary that provides the vital organs and the flesh» (Harmer)

Vocabulary is not a syllabus, i.e., a list of words that teachers prepare for their learners to memorize and learn by heart. Memorizing may be good and useful as a temporary technique for tests, but not for learning a foreign language. Language students need to learn vocabulary of the target language in another way. If we are really to teach students what words mean and how they are used, we need to show them being used together in context. Words do not just exist on their own; they live together and they depend upon each other. Therefore, teaching vocabulary correctly is a very important element in language learning. Correct vocabulary instruction involves vocabulary selection, word knowledge and techniques.

1.2 How are words selected

In the past, teachers used to select and present vocabulary from concrete to abstract. Words like ‘door’, ‘window’, ‘desk’, etc., which are concrete, used to be taught at beginning levels. However, words like ‘honesty’, ‘beauty’ etc., which are abstract words, used to be taught at advanced levels because they are not «physically represented» in the learning/teaching environment and are very difficult to explain.

Nowadays methodologists and linguists suggest that teachers can decide and select the words to be taught on the basis of how frequently they are used by speakers of the language. That is, the most commonly used words should be taught first (Harmer).

We can get information about which words will be most useful for learners of English by looking at frequency counts of vocabulary. Usually a vocabulary count is done by making a list of the words in a particular text or group of texts and counting how often and where they occur. Some of the more recent counts have used computers to list the words and count their frequency (Nation).

Besides that, teachers can decide which words are useful and should be taught to their learners on the basis of semantics. This means, that the word is more useful if it covers more things than if it only has one very specific meaning. For example, the word ‘book’, which is taught at beginning levels, has wider usage than the words ‘notebook’, ‘textbook’, etc. Furthermore, Nation says that frequency and coverage are not enough to be used when teachers select and prepare a word list for learners of English. So he suggests other criteria, such as language needs, availability and familiarity, regularity and ease of learning or learning burden.

Teachers can help their learners enrich and increase their vocabulary. They can also help the learners to build a new store of words to select from when they want to express themselves. If any learner can handle grammar correctly, that does not mean that he can express himself fluently unless he has a store of words to select from. Therefore, teachers are a very important factor in selecting and teaching English vocabulary, and they have to design vocabulary syllabi according to their learners’ needs. As a result, “teachers vocabulary work can be directed toward useful words and can give learners practice in useful skills».

The selection of words which are to be taught to the students is a very important procedure in the language learning process. However, the word selection process doesn’t mean that the students will be fluent in expressing themselves in English upon learning that list, i.e., what students need to know regarding vocabulary is the word meaning, the word use, the word formation and the word grammar.

1.3 Conveying the meaning

When conveying the meaning to the students, teachers should teach their students that a word may have more than one meaning when used in meaning, different contexts. For example, the word «book» has at least twelve different meanings when used in context. It has eight meanings as a noun, two meanings as a verb and three different meanings when used with prepositions as phrasal verbs. One may say «I booked my ticket three days ago»; another «I booked him for speeding» and so on (Harmer).Teachers should make the teaching learning vocabulary process clear and easy for their students when conveying any meaning; otherwise the student may feel bored and become fed up with learning vocabulary.

The meaning of words can be communicated in many different ways. Nation suggests that teachers can convey meaning to their students by demonstration or pictures (using an object, using a cut out figure, using gesture, performing and action, photographs, blackboard drawings or diagrams and pictures from books) and by verbal explanation (analytical definition, putting the new word in a defining context, and translating into another language). Besides that, teachers should involve their students in discovering the words’ meanings by themselves and let them make efforts to understand words’ meanings. When the students are involved in discovering meaning, they will never forget those meanings and they will be able to express themselves fluently.

When a single word has various meanings, the teacher should decide which meanings are to be taught first, i.e., the teacher must decide which meanings occur most frequently and which meanings the learners need most. As a result, the students will be motivated, and gradually they will build their own store of words which will be a basis for communication at any time.

Teaching vocabulary is not just conveying the meaning to the students and asking them to learn those words by heart. If teachers believe that the words are worth explaining and learning, then it is important that they should do this efficiently. Teachers should use different techniques and activities in teaching English vocabulary to motivate the learners, enrich their vocabulary and enable them to speak English properly.

Chapter II. How to present vocabulary

2.1 Presenting vocabulary

We looked at possible sources of vocabulary input, including vocabulary books, readers, dictionaries and corpora. A motivated and self-directed learner might be able to acquire a large vocabulary simply by using these resources. However, many learners sign up for language courses in the expectation that, at least some of the time, they will be presented with language, rather than having to go out and find it for themselves. By presentation, we mean those pre-planned lesson stages in which learners are taught pre-selected vocabulary items. Of course, incidental vocabulary teaching can occur at other times of the lesson, as when a text or a discussion throws up unfamiliar vocabulary. In this chapter, however, we will be mainly concerned with ways vocabulary can be formally presented in the classroom. But many of the issues are relevant to the informal teaching of vocabulary as well.

At the very least learners need to learn both the meaning and the form of a new word. We shall deal with each of these components in turn. But it’s worth pointing out that both these aspects of a word should be presented in close conjunction in order to ensure a tight meaning-and-form fit. The greater the gap between the presentation of a word’s form and its meaning, the less likely that the learner will make a mental connection between the two.

Let’s say the teacher has decided to teach a related set of words — for example, items of clothing: shirt, trousers, jacket, socks, dress, jeans. The teacher has a number of options available. First, there is the question of how many words to present. This will depend on the following factors:

the level of the learners (whether beginners, intermediate, or advanced);

the learners’ likely familiarity with the words (learners may have met the words before even though they are not part of their active vocabulary);

the difficulty of the items — whether, for example, they express abstract meanings.

Consider how you would present each of the following six sets of words. What do you think would be the most appropriate means of presenting them? (E.g. visual aids, a situation, real objects, etc.)

2.2 How to illustrate meaning

An alternative to translation – and an obvious choice if presenting a set of concrete objects such as clothes items – is to somehow illustrate or demonstrate them. This can be done either by using real objects (called realia) or pictures or mime. The use of realia, pictures and demonstration was a defining technique of the Direct Method. The Direct Method, in rejecting the use of translation, developed as a reaction to such highly intellectual approaches to language learning as Grammar-Translation. Here, for example, is advice for teachers from a popular Direct Method course of the 1940s:

HOW TO TEACH THE NAMES OF OBJECTS

The usual procedure is as follows.

The teacher first selects a number of objects, in batches of say from 10 to 20. […] The objects may be:

(a) those that are usually found in the place where the lesson is given, e.g. door, window, knife, match, book; or parts of the body or articles of clothing;

(b) those collected specially for the purposes of the lesson, e.g. a stick, a stone, a nail, a piece of wire, a piece of string etc;

(c) those represented by pictures, such as those printed on picture cards or wall charts, or by rough drawings on the blackboard.

The teacher shows or points to each object in turn and names it. He says the name clearly (but naturally) three or four times. […] When the pupils have had sufficient opportunity to hear the words and sentences (and to grasp their meaning) they are called upon to say them. In the first instance they may repeat them after the teacher …

(from Palmer H, The Teaching of Oral English, Longman)

Visual aids take many forms: flashcards (published and home-made), wall charts, transparencies projected on to the board or wall using the overhead projector, and board drawings. Many teachers collect their own sets of flashcards from magazines, calendars, etc. Especially useful are pictures of items belonging to the following sets: food and drink, clothing, house interiors and furniture, landscapes/exteriors, forms of transport plus a wide selection of pictures of people, sub-divided into sets such as jobs, nationalities, sports, activities, and appearance (tall, strong, sad, healthy, old, etc).

2.3 How to explain meaning

Of course, reliance on real objects, illustration, or demonstration, is limited. It is one thing to mime a chicken, but quite another to physically represent the meaning of a word like intuition or become or trustworthy. Also, words frequently come up incidentally, words for which the teacher won’t have visual aids or realia at hand. An alternative way of conveying the meaning of a new word is simply to use words – other words. This is the principle behind dictionary definitions. Non-visual, verbal means of clarifying meaning include:

providing an example situation;

giving several example sentences;

giving synonyms, antonyms, or super ordinate terms;

giving a full definition.

All of the above procedures can be used in conjunction, and also in combination with visual means such as board drawings or mime. Although a verbal explanation may take a little longer than using translation, or visuals or mime, the advantages are that the learners are getting extra “free” listening practice, and, by being made to work a little harder to get to the meaning of a word, they may, be more cognitively engaged.

Chapter III. How to put words to work

3.1 Decision — making tasks

There are many different kinds of tasks that teachers can set learners in order to help move words into long-term memory. Some of these tasks will require more brain work than others. That is to say, they will be more cognitively demanding. Tasks in which learners make decisions about words can be divided into the following types, roughly arranged in an order from least cognitively demanding to most demanding:

• identifying

• selecting

• matching

• sorting

• ranking and sequencing

The more of these task types that can be performed on a set of words the better. In other words, an identification task could be followed by a matching task, which in turn could be followed by a ranking task.

3.1.1 Identifying words

Identifying words simply means finding them where they may otherwise be “hidden”, such as in texts.

Here, for example, are some identification tasks relating to the text Fear of Flying. Give the learners the text and ask them to:

• Count the number of times plane(s) and train(s) occur in the text.

• Find four words connected with, flying in the text.

• Find five phrasal verbs in the text.

• Find eight comparative adjectives in the text.

• Underline all the words ending in -ing in the text.

Ask them to read the text, then turn it over, and then ask:

• “Did the following words occur in the text?”

busy crowded fast dangerous uncomfortable dirty convenient inconvenient noisy

• “Now check the text to see if you were right.”

Identification is also the process learners apply in tasks in which they have to unscramble anagrams (such as utis, snaje, eti — for suit, jeans, tie), or when they have to search for words in a ‘word soup’, such as the following (also from Language in Use):

1 What are these clothes in English? The answers are all in the word square.

3.1.2 Selecting tasks

Selecting tasks are cognitively more complex than identification tasks, since they involve both recognising words and making choices amongst them. This may take the form of choosing the “odd one out”, as in this task (again, based on the lexical set of clothes).

Choose the odd one out in each group

Note that with this kind of activity, there is no “righ” answer necessarily. What is important is that learners are able to justify their choice, whatever their answer. It is the cognitive work that counts – not getting the right answer.

Here is another open-ended selection task, with a personalised element

from Greenall S, Reward Pre-Intermediate, Macmillan Heinemann

3.1.3 Matching task

A matching task involves first recognising words and then pairing them with – for example – a visual representation, a translation, a synonym, an antonym, a definition, or a collocate. As an example of this last type, here is a verb-noun matching task.

Here is a vocabulary activity from a beginners’ course (Mohamed S and Acklam R, The Beginners’ Choice, Longman), consisting of two stages. Devise at least three further stages which would require learners to ‘put the words to work’ – both receptively and productively.

Look at the picture below and number the parts of the body.

hair 2. head … foot … nose … eye … leg … knee … finger … mouth … hand toe … shoulder … face … arm … back ear … stomach …

3.1.4 Sorting activities

Sorting activities require learners to sort words into different categories. The categories can either be given, or guessed. Here is an example of the former (from Thornbury S, Highlight Pre-Intermediate, Heinemann).

Word field: characteristics

Put these adjectives into two groups – positive and negative

Here is an activity in which learners (at a fairly advanced level) decide the categories themselves:

Put these words into four groups of three words each. Then, think of a title for each group.

goal net piece club racket shoot board green

court hole pitch referee check serve tee move

Now, can you add extra words to each group?

3.1.5 Ranking and sequencing

Ranking and sequencing activities require learners to put the words into some kind of order. This may involve arranging the words on a cline: for example, adverbs of frequency {always, sometimes, never, occasionally, often, etc). Or learners may be asked to rank items according to preference:

Imagine you have just moved into a completely empty flat. You can afford to buy one piece of furniture a week. Put the following items in the order in which you would buy them:

fridge bed desk dining table sofa

wardrobe chair dishwasher bookcase cooker

washing machine chest of drawers

Now, compare your list with another student and explain your order. If you were sharing the flat together, would you agree? If not, make a new list that you both agree about.

Any sequence of activities – from starting a car to buying a home – lends itself to the same treatment. Here, for example, is a task that focuses on the language of air travel (from Garton-Sprenger J and Greenall S, Flying Colours 2, Heinemann):

Work in pairs. Think about what people do when they travel by plane. Put the actions below in the correct column.

3.2 Games

While the tide of this chapter is “How to put words to work”, it would be wrong to suggest that vocabulary learning has to be all work and no play. Language play, including word games, has a long history. Children of all cultures seem to enjoy games of the “I spy …” or “Hangman” type, and there is a long tradition of adult word games, a number of which have been adapted for television. Most first-language word games transfer comfortably to the second-language classroom.

Word clap: Students stand or sit in a circle, and, following the teacher’s lead, maintain a four-beat rhythm, clapping their hands on their thighs three times (one-two-three …) and then both hands together (four!). The game should start slowly, but the pace of the clapping can gradually increase. The idea is to take turns, clockwise, to shout out a different word from a pre-selected lexical set (for example, fruit and vegetables) on every fourth beat. Players who either repeat a word already used, or break the rhythm – or say nothing – are “out” and the game resumes without them, until only one player is left. The teacher can change the lexical set by shouting out the name of a new set at strategic points: Furniture! Nationalities! Jobs! etc.

Categories: Learners work in pairs or small groups. On a piece of paper, they draw up a number of columns, according to a model on the board, each column labelled with the name of a lexical set: e.g. fruit, transport, clothes, animals, sports. The teacher calls out a letter of the alphabet (e.g. B!), and to a time limit (e.g. three minutes), students write down as many words as they can beginning with that letter in the separate columns {banana, berry; bus; bikini, blouse; bear, bat; baseball, basketball…). The group with the most (correct) words wins.

Noughts and crosses: Draw two noughts and crosses grids on the board:

One is blank. In the other each square is labelled with a category, or with nine different phrasal verb particles {up, on, off, in, back, etc), or nine different affixes {un-, non-, -less, -tion, etc). Prepare a number of questions relating to each category. For example (if the class is monolingual): How do you say “tamburo” in English? Or, What is the opposite of “shy”? Divide the class into two teams: noughts and crosses. The object is to take turns choosing a category and answering a question in this category correctly so as to earn the right to place their team’s symbol in the corresponding position in the blank grid. The winning team is the first to create a line of three (noughts or crosses), either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally.

Coffeepot: This is a guessing game. One learner answers yes/no questions from the rest of the class (or group) about a verb that she has thought of, or that the teacher has whispered to her. In the questions the word coffeepot is used in place of the mystery verb. So, for example, students might ask Do you coffeepot indoors or outdoors? Is coffee potting easy or difficult? Can you coffeepot with your hands? etc. If the verb that the student has selected is yawn the answers would be: Both indoors and outdoors; It’s easy; No, you can’t, but you might use your hands … To make the game easier a list of, say, twenty verbs can be put on the board and the person who is ‘it’ chooses one of them. This can also be played in pairs.

Back to board: This is another guessing game, but this time the student who is ‘it’ has to guess a word by asking the rest of the class questions. The student sits facing the class, back to the board; the teacher writes a recently studied word or phrase or idiom on the board, out of sight of the student. The student asks different students yes/no or either/or questions in order to guess the word. For example: Helga, is it a verb or a noun? (A verb.) Dittmer, is it an action? (No.) Karl-Heinz, is it something you do with your mind? (Yes.) … etc. To make the game easier, the words chosen can be limited in some way – e.g. all phrasal verbs; all character adjectives, and so on.

Chapter IV. Teaching word parts word chunks

4.1 Teaching word formation and word combination

We looked at some of the principles of word formation in English. We noted that words can be formed by the addition of prefixes and suffixes – a process called affixation. (The word affixation is itself an example of the result of adding affixes to the root fix.) We also saw how, by compounding, two or more words can join up to make one. Thus: black + board = blackboard. Or, new words can be created by a process called conversion, when a word that in one context is one part of speech (such as a noun), in another context can be enlisted to serve a different function (such as a verb). Hence, you may have heard the relatively recent term to board as in The teacher boarded the new words and the students wrote them down.

Then again words can cluster (but not join up) to form multi-word units – loosely called chunks – that behave as if they were single words. For example, alongside black, the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English lists: black and white, black and blue, black sheep, in the black and to black out. (This last is an example of a phrasal verb.) Many chunks have an idiomatic meaning – that is to say the meaning of the chunk as a whole is not directly inferrable from the individual words: He’s the black sheep of the family; you’ve introduced a red herring, etc.

The way bits of words combine, and the way words themselves can be combined, is a constant source of difficulty for learners. Errors of the following types are common:

Affixation errors

There are uncountless ways to bring happiness to my life thanks to the internet.

After finishing the paragraph and reading it again, I felt unsatisfy. I think that my real and only knowledgements are in the vocabulary.

Compounding errors

In London I took a two floor bus and of course crossed the city in the highest floor.

I saw my dog died in a box’s shoes.

Errors of multi-word units

We have also a buses network.

Sometimes dog isn’t the best man’s friend.

Collocation errors

I don’t like when I do mistakes.

Some teachers are strict they put us a lot of homework and exams.

Phrasal verb errors

She used to go to school with her maid, and a maid was picking up her from school.

There are some days that the better it’s stay in bed and don’t get up you.

Idiom errors

I have no more money. So most of time I just watch shops’ window.

I don’t like to blow my own horn, but my grammar knowledge and my vocabulary are quite good.

In responding to these kinds of problems, there are two possible approaches.

You can either

teach rules, or

expose learners to lots of correct examples

A rule-based approach starts by isolating and highlighting any relevant patterns or regularities. Take word formation, for example. In a rule-based approach, words can be grouped and presented according to the manner of formation (affixation, compounding, conversion, etc). Within these categories finer distinctions can be made. So, of the words formed by affixation we can select those formed by the addition of prefixes, and this group can be narrowed down further to those that have a negative meaning. The way these words are formed can then be described in general terms in the form of a rule – or ‘rule of thumb’. Here is an example of such an explicit rule statement (from Gude K and Duckworth M, Proficiency Masterclass, OUP):

Here, on the other hand, is a table which suggests – but doesn’t explicitly state – a rule about noun and verb endings:

from Naunton J, Think First Certificate, Longman

A similar approach is used with word collocations, wherever a general tendency can be identified. Here, for example, is a coursebook extract that focuses on the difference between make and do combinations:

VOCABULARY

Make or do?

1 Read the following sentences carefully.

Last night I tried to do my homework. However, I kept making mistakes because the man upstairs was doing his exercises and making a noise.

Make usually means to create, bring into existence, or produce a result.

Do usually means to perform an action. However, there are exceptions to this ‘rule’, as you will see in Exercise 3.

from Bell J and Gower R, Intermediate Matters, Longman

One problem with a rule-based approach is that the scope of the rule is not always clear. How many, and which, adjectives can be turned into verbs by the addition of -en, for example? Sweet and fresh — yes, but wet and dry? There is the added problem of the lack of one-to-one match between forms and categories. For example, in- and un- both express negation (uncertain, inactive), but in- can also be used with the meaning of in, or within (as in inclusive). And when do we use in-, as opposed to un- or non- or dis-, to convey negation? How, for example, does the learner know whether to use unsatisfied, dissatisfied, insatisfied or nonsatisfied ?

Other pattern-highlighting techniques involve the use of texts and include the following:

learners are given a text and asked to search for and underline all compound nouns, negative prefixes, multi-word units, etc.

learners find words in a text that are derivations. For example, ‘Find three words in the text that are derived from sense …’

learners classify these derivations according to which part of speech they are

learners categorise underlined words in a text according to a common affix, or according to the word formation principle they exemplify (compounding, conversion, etc.)

The more of these kinds of operations the learner does the better, since (as we saw in the last chapter) the more decisions the learner makes about a word the greater the depth of processing.

A great advantage of working from texts is that the words that are to be focused on are already in context, hence their meanings may be clearer than if presented as isolated words in a list. Also, and perhaps more importantly, the shared context will bring words together that are commonly associated. In the following text, for example, there are a number of words associated with time, crime and the law.

An approach to focusing on these features might be:

• Ask students to read the text and to answer comprehension questions to gauge level of understanding. For example:

The maximum time you can be detained without charge is:

a 24 hours b 36 hours c 60 hours

You can be detained for 36 hours only if:

a a serious arrestable offence has been committed,

b a magistrate gives permission,

c further questioning is necessary.

• Ask learners (working together and using dictionaries) to underline all words relating to legal processes, and to categorise these according to a) people, b) processes.

• Ask them to use dictionaries to make verbs for these nouns: limit, detention, charge, offence, questioning, suspect, and to make nouns of these verbs: arrest, detain, commit, extend, secure, preserve. Which of the verb forms can take -able to form an adjective?

• Ask them to circle all time expressions with numbers and note the prepositions used in each case.

• Ask learners to identify the verbs that fill these slots: ______a person

without charge; _________an offence; __________a suspect in custody;

_______a suspect before a magistrate; ___________a time limit.

• Ask learners to rewrite the passage in ‘plain English’, e.g. as if they were explaining it to a friend. Alternatively, ask them to translate it into their own language.

• Learners then use the rewritten (or translated) passage as a basis for reconstructing the original text. They then compare the reconstruction with the original.

• A follow-up activity might be to ask learners to research and summarise this aspect of the legal system in their own country (respecting, of course, their cultural sensitivities).

Note that this text, although short, is difficult and the tasks would be achievable only by quite advanced learners. Nevertheless, the same tasks could be adapted to much easier texts, and used at lower levels.

To summarise, then: the teaching of the grammar of word formation and word combination can be approached from two directions: early instruction in the rules, or the learning of a quantity of vocabulary items from which these rules are slowly distilled. We have looked at the case for a midway position that recognises the need for early exposure but at the same time accepts that consciousness-raising through focused attention can speed up the process of ‘getting a feel for it’. Plentiful exposure plus consciousness- raising is a key principle underlying what has come to be known as a lexical approach.

4.2 A lexical approach

A lexical approach to language teaching foregrounds vocabulary learning, both in the form of individual, high frequency words, and in the form of word combinations (or chunks). The impetus for a lexical approach to language teaching derives from the following principles:

• a syllabus should be organised around meanings

• the most frequent words encode the most frequent meanings and

• words typically co-occur with other words

• these co-occurrences (or chunks) are an aid to fluency

A syllabus organised around meanings rather than forms (such as grammar structures) is called a semantic syllabus. A number of theorists have suggested that a syllabus of meanings – especially those meanings that learners are likely to need to express – would be more useful than a syllabus of structures. For example, most learners will at some time need to express such categories of meaning (or notions) as possession or frequency or regret or manner. Simply teaching learners a variety of structures, such as the present simple or the second conditional, is no guarantee that their communicative needs will be met. The present simple, for example, supports a wide range of meanings (present habit, future itinerary, past narrative, etc), some of which may be less useful than others. Wouldn’t it be better to start with the more useful meanings themselves, rather than the structure?

A semantic syllabus – i.e. one based around meanings – is likely to have a strong lexical focus. The following sentences, for example, all involve the present simple, but they express different notions. These notional meanings are signalled by certain key words (underlined):

Does this towel belong to you? (possession)

How often do you go to London? (frequency)

I wish I’d done French, (regret)

Exercise is the best way of losing weight, (manner)

Words like belong, often, wish and way carry the lion’s share of the meaning in these sentences: the grammar is largely padding. A lexical approach argues that meaning is encoded primarily in words. This view motivated two coursebook writers, Dave and Jane Willis, to propose that a lexical syllabus might be the best way of organising a course. The Willises believed that a syllabus based around the most frequent words in the language would cover the most frequent meanings in the language. Accordingly, they based their beginners’ course around the 700 most frequent words in English. They used corpus data (i.e. computer banks of naturally occurring text – see page 68) to find out how these words ‘behaved’ – that is, the kinds of words and structures that were associated with these high frequency words.

For example, an extremely common word in English is way. According to COBUILD corpus data, it is in fact the third most common noun in English (after time and people). An analysis of corpus data shows that way is used to express a variety of meanings:

(after Willis D, The Lexical Syllabus, Collins)

Using corpus data, they then studied what kinds of grammatical structures way was typically found with – i.e. its syntactic environment. For example, the first use of way in the table above (meaning ‘method or means’) is commonly found in association with this pattern:

way + of + -ing a useful way of raising revenue the different ways of cooking fish

The next step was to devise teaching materials that illustrated these meanings and patterns, bearing in mind that the starting point was not the pattern itself, but the meaning (method, means), and its frequency, as evidenced in the high frequency of the word way.

4.3 Teaching lexical chunks

So far we have been talking about lexical chunks as if they were a single al chunks undifferentiated category. But there are different types of chunks and different degrees of ‘chunkiness’. Of the different types, the following are the most important for teaching purposes:

collocations – such as widely travelled; rich and famous; make do with; set the table

phrasal verbs – such as get up; log on; run out of; go on about

idioms, catchphrases and sayings – such as hell for leather; get cold feet; as old as the hills; mind your own business; takes one to know one

sentence frames – such as would you mind if… ?; the thing is …; I’d… if I were you; what really gets me is …

social formulae – such as see you later; have a nice day; yours sincerely

discourse markers – such as frankly speaking; on the other hand; I take your point; once upon a time; to cut a long story short…

Within these categories further distinctions can be made in terms of fixedness and idiomaticity. Fixed chunks are those that don’t allow any variation: you can say over the moon (to mean ecstatic) but not under the moon (to mean not ecstatic). Nor over the full moon, over the sun, etc. Many chunks are semi-fixed, in that they allow some degree of variation. Nice to see you is semi-fixed in that it allows lovely, good, wonderful, etc. in the nice slot, and meet, talk to, hear from, etc. in the see slot.

Some chunks are transparent in that the meaning of the whole is clear from their parts, as in the case of as old as the hills and to knock down. Others are much more idiomatic: to spill the beans and to knock off (meaning to steal). Neither fixedness nor idiomaticity are absolute values, however. Rather there is a cline from very fixed to very free, and from very idiomatic to very transparent. Phrasal verbs are a case in point. Some phrasal verbs are syntactically flexible: I’ll bring up the paper or I’ll bring the paper up. Others are not: I can’t tell the twins apart but not I can’t tell apart the twins. Moreover, the combination bring up has a range of meanings, some literal (I’ll bring up the paper), some semi-idiomatic (Don’t bring that subject up again) and some very idiomatic (They brought their children up to speak Italian).

The ability to deploy a wide range of lexical chunks both accurately and appropriately is probably what most distinguishes advanced learners from intermediate ones. How is this capacity developed? Probably not by learning rules – as we saw with word formation, the rules (if there are any) are difficult to learn and apply. A lexical approach is based on the belief that lexical competence comes simply from:

frequent exposure, and

consciousness-raising

To which we could perhaps add a third factor:

memorising

Classroom language provides plentiful opportunities for exposure to lexical chunks. Many learners are familiar with expressions like I don’t understand and I don’t know long before they have been presented with the ‘rules’ of present simple negation. By increasing the stock of classroom phrases, teachers can exploit the capacity of chunks to provide the raw material for the later acquisition of grammar. Many teachers cover their classroom walls with useful phrases and insist on their use whenever an appropriate opportunity arises. A sampling of phrases I have noticed on classroom walls includes:

What does X mean?

How do you say X?

What’s the (past/plural/opposite, etc.) of X?

Can you say that again?

Can you write it up?

How do you spell it?

I’m not sure.

I’ve forgotten.

I left it at home.

I haven’t finished yet.

It’s (your/my/his) turn.

You go first.

Here you are.

Pass me the …

Let’s have a break.

etc.

The repetitive nature of classroom activity ensures plentiful exposure to these chunks. This is vital, because occasional and random exposure is insufficient. Many learners simply aren’t aware if a combination is one that occurs frequently (and is therefore a chunk) or if it is a one-off. Nevertheless, there is more chance of encountering instances of chunking in authentic text than in text that has been ‘doctored’ for teaching purposes.

This is yet another argument for using authentic texts in the classroom, despite the difficulties often associated with them.

Here, for example, is an extract from a fairly well-known authentic text:

Yo, I’ll tell you what I want what I really really want,

So tell me what you want what you really really want

I’ll tell you what I want what I really really want,

So tell me what you want what you really really want

I wanna I wanna I wanna I wanna I wanna really really really wanna

zigazig ha

If you want my future, forget my past,

If you wanna get with me, better make it fast

Now don’t go wasting my precious time

Get your act together we could be just fine …

If you wannabe my lover, you gotta get with my friends

Make it last forever, Friendship never ends

If you wannabe my lover, you have got to give,

Taking is too easy but that’s the way it is.

What d’ya think about that? Now you know how I feel.

Say you can handle my love, are you for real?

I won’t be hasty, I’ll give you a try

If you really bug me then I’ll say goodbye

(from Wannabe by the Spice Girls)

Like many pop songs, the lyrics of this song are rich in lexical chunks, including sentence frames (I’ll tell you what I…; what I really [really] want [is …]; If you wanna … better …; If you really, then I’ll …), collocations (wasting my precious time; last forever; taking it… easy; give you a try), and catchphrases (better make it fast; get your act together; that’s the way it is; are you for real?).

How could you use the above song text? Essentially, the approach need not be very different from the approach to the legal English text on page 110. That is:

check understanding of text (for example, by eliciting a paraphrase or translation of the text)

using transcript, set tasks focusing on features of words in combination

Examples of such tasks might be:

• Underline all contractions. Decontract them (i.e. wanna = want to)

• Find examples of these sentence patterns in the song:

… tell… what…

If you … imperative …

If you … you have got to …

If you … then I’ll…

• Write some more examples, using these patterns, that would fit the theme of the song.

• Use examples from the song to show the difference between tell and say.

Here are some more ideas for teaching collocation:

Learners sort words on cards into their collocational pairs (e.g. warm + welcome, slim + chance, golden + opportunity, lucky + break, mixed + reception, etc). Use the same cards to play pelmanism. Or they sort them into binomial pairs (pairs of words that follow a fixed sequence and often have idiomatic meaning such as hot and cold, to and fro, out and about, sick and tired). Or into groups, according to whether they collocate with particular ‘headwords’: e.g. trip (business, day, round, return, boat), holiday (summer, family, public, one month, working) and weekend (long, every, last, next, holiday). Follow up by asking learners to write sentences using these combinations.

Read out a list of words: learners in groups think of as many collocations or related expressions as they can. The group with the most collocations wins a point. Good words for this include parts of the body (face, head, back, foot, hand), colours (red, green, blue, black, etc.) and opposites, such as weak/strong, narrow/wide, safe/dangerous, old/young, etc.

Fill in a collocational grid, using dictionaries, to show common collocations. For example, here’s a very simple (and completed) one for wide and broad.

Ask learners to prepare ‘collocation maps’ of high frequency words and their collocates. Words like have, take, give, make and get lend themselves to this kind of treatment. They are often used in combination with nouns to form an expression which has a meaning of its own, as in have a look, take a break, give advice, make an appointment, so that the verb itself has little or no independent meaning. For this reason, they are called delexical verbs. Here, for example, is a collocation map for have, which shows its range of collocations organised into meaning categories:

Learners can either create their own maps using dictionaries or add to an existing map, as this task (also from Cutting Edge Intermediate) suggests:

Because of the two-part nature of collocations, any matching activities lend themselves to work on them. Similarly, odd one out tasks are useful. For example:

Finally, as a general approach to the teaching of lexical phrases and collocation, the following advice is sound:

Become more aware of phrases and collocations yourself.

Make your students aware of phrases and collocations.

Keep an eye on usefulness and be aware of overloading students.

Feed in phrases on a ‘little but often’ basis.

Introduce phrases in context, but drill them as short chunks.

Point out patterns in phrases.

Be ready to answer students’ questions briefly.

Keep written records of phrases as phrases.

Reinforce and recycle the phrases as much as you can.

(from Cutting Edge Intermediate Teachers’ Book, Longman)

4.4 Teaching phrasal verbs

Phrasal verbs are another instance of the fuzziness at the boundary between words and grammar. They are particularly problematic for learners both because of their lexical meanings (which are often idiomatic) and their grammatical form. Here is how phrasal verbs are often grouped, according to their grammar:

2 There are four types of phrasal verb.

Type 1: intransitive e.g. come to (recover consciousness) These don’t take an object.

Type 2: transitive inseparable e.g. look into (investigate) These must take an object which always comes after the verb.

Type 3: transitive separable e.g. put off (postpone) The object can either come between the verb and the particle or after the verb. If we use a pronoun then it must go between.

Type 4: three-part, e.g. put up with (endure) These are always transitive inseparable.

from Naunton J, Think Ahead to First Certificate, Longman

Traditional approaches to the teaching of phrasal verbs have tended to focus on these rules. Hence, when phrasal verbs are presented they are categorised according to whether they are Type 1, Type 2, etc. They are also often grouped according to their lexical verb (that is, the word that carries the major share of the meaning): get up, get back, get off, get over, etc, and exercises are designed to test the learner’s knowledge of the difference. For example:

Use phrasal verbs with get to complete these sentences:

1 I can’t ________ how much Julia has changed: it’s amazing!

Excuse me, I want to ________ at the next stop.

The concert was cancelled so I’m going to see if I can ___________ my money ___________.

Typical exercise types used in the teaching of phrasal verbs include:

sentence gap-fills (as the example above)

re-phrasing: e.g. changing the verb in the sentence (e.g. depart) to a phrasal verb that has a similar meaning (e.g. set off)

matching: e.g. matching the phrasal verb with its synonym

More recently, exercise types have focused on the meanings of the particles – a particle being the adverb or preposition component of the phrasal verb (in, back, off, around, etc). A focus on particles aims to sensitise learners to the shared meanings of a group such as carry on, drive on, hang on, go on and come on. Here, for example, is an exercise sequence that deals with the particle down:

4.5 Teaching idioms

We’ve seen that many phrasal verbs are idiomatic – in that their meanings are not easily unpacked from their component parts. Knowing the meaning of put and up allows us to interpret the sentence I put up a shelf in the kitchen. But this knowledge is not much help in unpacking either I put Luke up for the weekend or I put up with Luke for the weekend. Both these last examples are idiomatic. Idiomaticity exists at both the single word and multi-word level. Individual words can be used figuratively, as in This plan doesn’t grab me; The kitchen is a pigsty; I can’t unpack the meaning of this idiom. More typically, idioms are formed from collocations, and vary from being both very fixed and very idiomatic (smell a rat; the coast is clear) to being both less fixed and less idiomatic (explode a myth/theory, etc; run a business/theatre, etc).

Idioms present problems in both understanding and in production. They are difficult to understand because they are not easily unpacked, and they are difficult to produce because they often allow no variation. Few errors sound more comical than an even slightly muddled idiom (e.g. I don’t want to blow my own horn, instead of I don’t want to blow my own trumpet). Moreover, many idioms have a very narrow register range, being used only in certain contexts and for certain effects. They therefore need to be approached with a great deal of caution, and most teaching guides recommend teaching them for recognition only.

Traditional teaching approaches tend to group idioms together according to some category, and present them in sets. But, as with phrasal verbs, teaching a set of idioms that are notionally related – such as idioms associated with parts of the body (down at heel, put your feet up, foot the bill, toe the line, etc.) – would seem to be a sure recipe for confusion. It’s not difficult to imagine what could go wrong: put your heels up, toe the bill, etc. More typically, idioms are grouped by theme. For example, the expressions under the weather, off colour, run down and out of sorts are all synonymous with ill. But again, if these are being taught for production, the potential for confusion is high.

As with phrasal verbs, a more effective and less perilous approach might be simply to teach them as they arise, and in their contexts of use. That is, to treat them as individual lexical items in their own right, without making a song and dance about them. Since idioms tend to cluster together, certain text types are often very rich in them. In this extract (from Sugar) idioms (including idiomatic phrasal verbs) are underlined.

Eastenders

Martin gets a big wake-up call this month when Mark is taken seriously ill. How will he cope knowing his big bro’s days could be numbered and will Nicky stick by him through thick and thin?

Home and Away

Tom offers to pay for Justine’s courses in the city with the money 1 earned from acting in the commercial. What a sweetie, eh? However, Justine isn’t that impressed, and feels that Tom’s cramping her style. Ho can she let him down gently?

Coronation Street

The Mike, Mark and Linda triangle’s still going strong, and sparks are beginning to fly between Linda and Mark’s new girlie, Claire. Eeek! Things aren’t too good over at the Platt’s either.

Emmerdale

Mark is annoyed when neither of his parents make it to the parent evening … how embarrassing! Richie lends Sarah a shoulder to cry on after yet another bust-up with Jack. Will those two ever get on?

To use a text like this in class, learners could be set the task of working 01 the underlined idioms from either their form or their context. For example, going strong is easily unpacked from its components. Sparks are beginning to fly is less obvious, but its negative connotation can be deduced from what follows (Eeek! Things aren’t too good…). Showing learners how to work on idiomatic meaning from these kinds of clues can not only contribute t passive vocabulary knowledge but can improve reading skills as well.

Conclusions

There is more to words than simply ‘words’. In this chapter we have seen:

how parts of words combine in systematic ways to form whole words

how whole words combine in systematic ways to form chunks

But, the fact that these combinations are systematic does not mean that the teaching of word formation or of word combination should necessarily be rule-based. The systems may be too complicated or too irregular to be of much use to learners, either for receptive or productive purposes.

Instead, an approach that combines frequent and contextualised exposure with consciousness-raising may work best. This is recommended for the teaching of:

composite words

collocations

phrasal verbs

idioms

Conclusions

In this term paper we have looked the implications of findings for the teaching of vocabulary:

Learners need tasks and strategies to help them organize their mental lexicon by building networks of associations – the more the better;

Teachers need to accept that the learning of new words involves a period of “initial fuzziness”;

Learners need to wean themselves off a reliance on direct translation from their mother tongue;

Words need to be presented in their typical contexts so that learners can get a feel for their meaning, their register, their collocations and their syntactic environment;

Teaching should direct attention to the sound of new words, particularly the way they are stressed.

In this work we have looked the ways the teacher can make the presentation of vocabulary maximally effective, both in terms of word form and word meaning. Some of the conclusions reached include the following:

establishing the meaning of a new word first and when presenting its form is a standard approach;

translation is an economical way of presenting meaning but may not be the most memorable;

illustrating meaning is effective but is limited to certain kinds of words;

explaining meaning verbally is time-consuming but can be effective if explanations are kept clear and simple;

the spoken form can be highlighted through the giving of clear models, the use of phonemic script, and repetition;

the written form should not be withheld too long;

learners should be actively involved in the presentation.

Bibliography

A.S.Hornby. Oxford Student’s dictionary of current English. Oxford. oxford University press, 1984. – 770 p.

Методика викладання іноземних мов в середніх навчальних закладах. Підручник для студентів вищих закладів освіти. – К. Лен світ, 2002. – 328 с.

Scott Thornbury. How to teach vocabulary. – Longman. 2002. – 185 p.

School Research Paper

Student:
Jakoubson Julia
Grade: 9 “A”
School №9
Teacher Gorbacheva M.V.

Kolomna 2003.

Contents

Pages
Introduction…………………………………………………………….3
I. Old English……………………………………………………………3-17 a). Celtic Tribes…………………………………………………………3-4 b). The Romans…………………………………………………………4-10 c). Germanic Tribes…………………………………………………….10-15 d). The Norman French………………………………………………..15-16
II. Middle English……………………………………………………….16-19
III. Mordent English……………………………………………………20-22
Conclusion……………………………………………………………….22-24
List of Literature………………………………………………………..26
Supplement………………………………………………………………27

Introduction.

Why do people all over the world learn foreign languages? Perhaps because the world is getting smaller, in a way: nations are more closely linked with each other than ever before, companies operate world-wide, scientists of different nationalities co-operate, and tourists travel practically everywhere. The ability to communicate with people from other countries is getting more and more important. And learning foreign languages broadens your horizons, too!
Before learners of a foreign language are able to communicate, they have to acquire many skills. They must learn to produce unfamiliar sounds. They must build up a vocabulary. They must learn grammar rules and how to use them. And, last but not least, they must develop listening, speaking, reading and writing skills and learn how to react in a variety of situations.

All people like to travel. Some travel around their own country, others travel abroad. Some like to travel into the future, others prefer to travel into the past. While I was working out my research paper and reading many books on English history, I had an exciting trip into a remote past. It was a fantastical journey our Imaginary Time Machine and a Magic Wand. The Time
Machine took me into the depth of the centuries, into the very early history of Britain. I waved the Magic Wand and the words began to talk, they disclosed to me their mysteries, I discovered secrets hidden in familiar things. In other words, you will be a witness of making of
English.

I. Old English. (450-1100)

a). Celtic tribes.

Make a first turn of the Time Machine and you will find yourself on the
British Isles in the time of the ancient inhabitants, the Celts. The Celts were natives of the British Isles long before the English. The Celts had their language, which is still spoken by the people living in the part of
Britain known as Wales. And though many changes happened on the British
Isles, some Celtic words are still used in the English language.

Two thousand years ago there was an Iron Age Celtic culture throughout the
British Isles. It seems that the Celts, who had been arriving from Europe from the eighth century BC onwards, intermingled with the peoples who were already there. We know that religious sites that had been built long before the arrival of the Celts continued to be used in the Celtic period.
For people in Britain today, the chief significance of the prehistoric period (for which no written records exist) is its sense of mystery. This sense finds its focus most easily in the astonishing monumental architecture of this period, the remains of which exist throughout the country. Wiltshire, in south-western England, has two spectacular examples:
Silbury Hill, the largest burial mound in Europe, and Stonehenge. Such places have a special importance for anyone interested in the cultural and religious practices of prehistoric Britain. We know very little about these practices, but there are some organizations today (for example, the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids – a small group of eccentric intellectuals and mystics) who base their beliefs on them.

The Celts preserved their language in some parts of Britain, but they did not add many words to the English vocabulary. Those, that are in use now, are mostly place-names: names of regions, towns, rivers. The Celts had a number of similar words to name rivers, like: Exe, Esk, Usk. All of them come from a word meaning water (uisge). Later this word was used to name a strong alcoholic drink made from barley or rye. It was first called “water of life”. The word changed its from and pronunciation, and today at restaurants in the West one can see on the menu among other spirits whisky, a Celtic word formerly meaning water.

b). The Romans.
One more turn of our Time Machine and it took me into the 1st century of our era. At that time Romans came into Britain, they ruled the country for
400 years. So, you can guess that many Latin words came later into the
English language through Celts, because, as you know, Romans spoke Latin.
The Roman province of Britannia most of present-day England and Wales. The
Romans imposed their own way of life and culture, making use of the existing Celtic aristocracy to govern and encouraging this ruling class to adopt Roman dress and Roman language. The Romans never went to Ireland and exerted an influence, without actually governing there, over only the southern part of Scotland. It was during this time that a Celtic tribe called the Scots migrated from Ireland to Scotland, where they became allies of the Picts (another Celtic tribe) and opponents of the Romans.
This division of the Celts into those who experienced Roman rule (the
Britons in England and Wales) and those who did not (the Gaels in Ireland and Scotland) may help to explain the development of two distinct branches of the Celtic group of languages.
The remarkable thing about the Romans is that, despite their long occupation of Britain, they left very little behind. To many other parts of
Europe they bequeathed a system of law and administration which forms the basis of the modern system and a language which developed into the modern
Romance family of languages. In Britain, they left neither. Moreover, most of their villas, baths and temples, their impressive network of roads, and the cities they founded, including Londinium (London), were soon destroyed or fell into disrepair. Almost the only lasting reminder of their presence are place-names like Chester, Lancaster and Gloucester, which include variants of the Roman word castra (a military camp).
Roman rule lasted for 4 centuries. There are many things in Britain today to remind of the Romans: wells, roads, walls.

To defend their province the Romans stationed their legions in Britain.
Straight roads were built so that the legions might march quickly. Whenever they were needed, to any part of the country. These roads were made of several layers of stones, lime, mortar and gravel. They were made so well that they lasted a long time and still exist today. Thomas Hardy dedicated his poem to Roman roads. Here is the beginning.

THE ROMAN ROAD

The Roman road runs straight and bare

As the pale parting line in hair

Across the health. And thoughtful men

Contrast its days of now and then,

And delve, and measure, and compare,

Visioning on the vacant air

Helmed legionaries who proudly rear

The eagle as they pace again the Roman road…

One of the roads has a name – “KATLING STREET”. It is a great Roman road extending east and west across Britain. Beginning at Dover, it ran through
Canterbury to London, thence through St.Albans, Dunstable, along the boundary of Leicester and Warwick to Wroxeter on the Severn. The origin of the name is not known and there are several other sections of the road so called. In the late 9th century it became the boundary between English and
Danish territory.
To guard their province against the Picts and Scots who lived in the hills of Scotland the Romans built a high wall, a military barrier seventy-three miles long. It was called “Hadrian’s Wall” because it was built by command of the Emperor Hadrian. Long stretches of “HADRIAN’S WALL” have remained to this day.
In the capital of Britain you can see the fragments of the old London wall built by the Romans.
What really happened in AD 61? In AD 61 the king of the Celtic tribe Iceni died. Before he died he had named Roman Emperor Nero as his heir. He hoped that this would put his family and kingdom under the Emperor’s protection.
But the result was the exact opposite of his hopes. His kingdom was plundered by centurions, his private property was taken away, his widow
Boadicea was flogged, his daughters were deprived of any rights, his relatives were turned into slaves. Boadicea’s tribe rose to rebellion.
Boadicea stood at the head of a numerous army. More than 70,000 Romans were killed during the revolt. But the Britons had little chance against an experienced, well-armed Roman army. The rising was crushed, Boadicea took poison to avoid capture.
Her monument on the Thames Embankment opposite Big Ben remind people of her harsh cry: ”Liberty of death” which has echoed down the ages.
Some of the English words relating to meals are of Latin origin, they were borrowed from the Romans in ancient times. The Romans in the period of their flourishing and expansion came into contact with the Germanic tribes, or the Teutons, who later moved to Britain and formed there the English nation. The Romans were a race with higher civilization than the Teutons whom they considered barbarians. They taught the Teutons many useful things and gave them very important words that the forefathers of the English brought with them to Britain and that remained in the English language up to now. Kitchen and table are Latin words borrowed in those far-off days, that show a revolution in culinary arrangements; dish, kettle and cup also became known to the Teutons at that time.
The early words of Latin origin give us a dim picture of Roman trades traveling with their mules and asses the paved roads or the German provinces, their chests and boxes and wine-sacks full of goods that they profitably bargained with the primitive ancestors of the nowadays English.
Wine was one of the first items of trade between the Romans and the
Teutons. That’s how this word came into use.
The Teutons knew only one fruit – apple, they did not grow fruit trees or cultivated gardens, but they seem to have been eager to learn, for they borrowed pear, plum, cherry.
The Teutons were an agricultural people, under the influence of the Romans they began to grow beet, onion.
Milk was one of the main kinds of food with the Teutons, but the Romans taught them methods of making cheese and butter for milk.
Among other culinary refinements that came to the Teutons from the Romans are spices: pepper, mint.
Judging by the Latin borrowings of that period the ancestors of English were very much impressed by Roman food, weren’t they?

The word “calendar” came to us from Latin. In the Latin there was a word
“calendarium”. It meant “a record-book”. Money-lenders kept a special book, in which they recorded to whom they lent money and how much interest they will get. This book was called “calendarium” because interest was paid on the “Calends”. By the Calends the Romans named the first day of each month.

Time passed, the old meaning was forgotten. “Calendar” began to mean the record of days, weeks, months within a year.
This is a story of the word “calendar”. But the story of how a calendar was made is still more interesting indeed. We know that a calendar provides an easy way to place a day within the week, month or year. But it is not easy to make a calendar. The trouble is that the length of a year is determined by the length of time the earth takes to revolve once on its own axis. But the earth does not take an equal number of days to complete its year. It needs 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds. Obviously you cannot divide a day of 24 hours into that. And the problem is further complicated because the month is determined by the length of time it takes the moon to go around the earth, which is 29 Ѕ days into 365 ј days, minus 11 minutes and 14 seconds. The result is that most calendars were messes.
The English got their calendar from the Romans. But at first the Romans had a very bad calendar. They had ten month of varying length, and then they added enough days at the end to make the year right. Besides the politicians changed the length of the months as they wished. They could change the length of the month to keep themselves in office longer and to leave less time for their opponents. I can’t imagine that somebody will reduce June, July, August to two weeks each, and will take away more than half my summer vacation? Will you like that? Of course, not.
The calendar varied so much that by the time of Julius Caesar January came in August.
Meanwhile a very good calendar had been worked out in Asia Minor and was in use in Egypt. Julius Caesar, a great Roman emperor, changed it a little to fit the Roman customs and introduced it in Rome. This calendar was called after him “the Julian Calendar”. As a matter of fact, Caesar only gave the orders; he had the advice of a Greek astronomer named Sosigenes. This calendar worked well for hundred years. But it provided only for exact figure of 365 days a year and an extra day in every four years, it did not count minutes and seconds. So, once more, the calendar year was getting farther and farther from the year of the earth’s revolution around the sun.
Then in 1582 another change of calendar took place. The Roman Pope Gregory
XII suppressed ten days in 1582 and started new calendar. The English people adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1752. And for a time all dates were given two ways: one for the New Style, one for the Old Style.
Now nobody uses the Old Style any more, but of course the calendar is not quite accurate yet. Still it will be a long time before we have to add or subtract another day.
The year is divided into months and every month has its own name. Now we’d like to investigate how the names of months appeared. But first, let’s think of the word “month” itself.
A month is a measure of time. It is a very old word. It goes back to Indo-
European base. Long time ago people probably- had only three measures of time — year, which was the four seasons; a day which was the period from one sunrise to the next; and a month, which had the period from one moon to the next.
So, the Indo-European base “me-“ came into Old English, and became “mona”.
The word meant «a measure of time». Then it began to mean “moon”, since the moon measured time. Later suffix «-th» was added to the end of the word; the word «monath» meant the period of time which the moon measured. Still later the English people dropped the «a» and called it «month”.

And now, stories of the names of months. The Modem English names for the months of the year all come from the Latin. But before the English people adopted the Latin names they had their native names. And, in fact, in some cases the native names are more interesting than the Latin ones.

The first month of the year is January. January is the month of Janus.
Janus was a Roman God of the beginning of things. Janus had two faces: on the front and the back of the head. He could look backwards into the past and forward to the beginning year. January is a right name for the first month of the New Year, isn’t it? On the New Year eve we always think of what we have done in the past year and we are planning to do better in the
New Year.

Now, the Old English had its own name for January. It was “Wulf-
Monath», which means “month of wolves». To-day England is thickly populated and a very civilized country and it is hard, to imagine that their was a time when wolves roamed the island. In the cold of the deep winter they would get so hungry they would come into the towns to look for food, and so January was called “the month of the wolves».

The name of February comes from the Latin “februa” — «purification». It was a month when the ancient Romans had a festival of purification.

Before the English adopted the Latin name, they called this month
“Sprate-Kale-Month”. “Kale” is a cabbage plant, «sprote» means to sprout.
So, it was “the month when cabbages sprout”

March is a month of Mar’s, the Roman God of war. March was the earliest warm time of the year when the Romans could start a war. Before the time of
Julius Caesar the Roman year began with March which was then the first month of the year.

The Old English name for March was «Hlyd-Monath», which means «the month of noisy winds». March in Britain often comes with strong winds. By the way, this explains the saying: «If March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb».

There are a few stories about the meaning of the name “April”! The most spread one is a pretty story that the month was named from a Latin word
“aperire» – “to open”. It is a month when buds of trees and flowers begin to open.

The English before they adopted the Latin names, called April «Easter-
Monath”, the month of Easter.

“May” is named for the Roman goddess of growth and increase, Maia. She was the Goddess of spring, because in spring everything was growing, flourishing, increasing.

The English name is not so poetic. They called the month «Thrimilce», which means something like “to mi1k three times”. In May the cows give so much milk that the farmers had to milk them three times a day.

Month of «June» was so called after the Junius family of Rome, one of the leading clans of ancient Rome. Besides, the Roman festival of Juno, the
Goddess of Moon, was celebrated on the first day of the month.

We think of June as the month of brides and roses, but to the Anglo-
Saxons it was «Sere-Monath», the “dry month”.

“July” is the month of Julius Caesar. The month began to be called that in the year when Julius Caesar was killed.

The English called July “Maed-Monath”, “meadow month”, because the meadows are in bloom in July.

Now, comes “August”. This month was once called “sexillis”, as it was the sixth month from March, with which, as you remember, the year once opened. It was then changed into August in honour of the Roman emperor
Augustus Caesar, the nephew of Julius Caesar. This man was chosen by Julius
Caesar as his heir, he took the name Caesar, and was given the title
“Augustus” by the Roman Senate. This month was “a lucky Month” for Augustus
Caesar. By the way, Augustus refused to have fewer days in his month of
August than there were in the month of July. So he borrowed a day from
February and added it to August; that is why August has 31 days.

The Old English name for August was «Wead-Monath», the month of weeds.
You know, the Old English word «weed» meant vegetation in generale.

“September”, “October”, “November” and “December” are just «seventh»,
«eighth», «ninth» and «tenth» months of the year. You remember that before the Romans changed their calendar, March was the first month.

The English had more descriptive names for these month. September was called «Harfest-Monath», «the harvest month». October was «Win-Monath»,
«the wine month». November was «Bloo-Monath», because in November the
English sacrificed cattle to their gods. December was “Mid-Winter-Monath”, because this month was the middle month of winter.

C). Germanic tribes.

At the beginning of the 5th century the Romans left the islands, they had tо save their own country from barbarians. If you want to know what events followed after that, turn on the Time Machine again. So, here we are, in the 5th century, This is the time of the birth of the English language. Тhe
Germanic tribes of Angles, Sаxоns and Jutes invaded thе misty fertile island. Some of the native Britons were killed, mаnу others fled from the invaders «аs from fire» into the hillу parts of the country. Anglеs, Saxons аnd Jutes spread all over the fertile lаnds of the Isles. Gradually thеу bесаmе one nation — English. They developed one language — English. As historians write, «thе English language arrived in Britain on the point of а sword»! The реорlе оf that timе of thе history аrе called Аng1о-Sахоns, their language is оld English оr Ang1о-Saxon as well.
Тhе next destination оf оur Тimе Масhinе is the 7th century, when
Christiаnity was introducеd in Britain, monasteries with sсhools аnd libraries were set uр all оver thе соuntry. Тhе English language was considerably enriched bу the Latin woгds.
Now, with the help of the Тimе Масhinе we’ll fly over into the 8th сеntuгу.
Аt this time the ancient Scandinavians, cаlled the Vikings, began to гаid
Britаin. Тhе Vikings continued thеir wars with the English until the timе the Ang1о-Saxоn king Alfred thе Great made а treaty with them аnd gave them а раrt of the country, that was саlled «Danelaw». Тhе Vikings settled thеrе, married Еnglish wives аnd bеgan peaceful life on the territory of
Britain. Later military conflicts resumed again, but by the 11th century they were over. The influence of these events оn the English lаnguagе was great, indeed. А lаrge number of Scandinavian words саmе intо Еnglish from
«Danes» as thе Ang1o-Saxons called all the Vikings.
One reason why Roman Britannia disappeared so quickly is probably that its influence was largely confined to the towns. In the countryside, where most people lived, farming methods had remained unchanged and Celtic speech continued to be dominant.
The Roman occupation had been a matter of colonial control rather than large-scale settlement. But, during the fifth century, a number of tribes from the north-western European mainland invaded and settled in large numbers. Two of these tribes were the Angles and the Saxons. These Anglo-
Saxons soon had the south-east of the country in their grasp. In the west of the country their advance was temporarily halted by an army of Celtic
Britons under the command of the legendary King Arthur. Nevertheless, by the end of the sixth century, they and their way of life predominated in nearly all of England and in parts of southern Scotland. The Celtic Britons were either Saxonized or driven westwards, where their culture and language survived in south-west Scotland, Wales and Cornwall.
The Anglo-Saxons had little use for towns and cities. But they had a great effect on the countryside, where they introduced new farming methods and founded the thousands of self-sufficient villages which formed the basis of
English society for the next thousand or so years.
The Anglo-Saxons were pagan when they came to Britain. Christianity spread throughout Britain from two different directions during the sixth and seventh centuries. It came directly from Rome when St Augustine arrived in
597 and established his headquarters at Canterbury in the south-east of
England. It had already been introduced into Scotland and northern England from Ireland, which had become Christian more than 150 years earlier.
Although Roman Christianity eventually took over the whole of the British
Isles, the Celtic model persisted in Scotland and Ireland for several hundred years. It was less centrally organized, and had less need for a strong monarchy to support it. This partly explains why both secular and religious power in these two countries continued to be both more locally based and less secure than it was elsewhere in Britain throughout the medieval period.
Britain experience another wave of Germanic invasions in the 8th century.
These invaders, known as Vikings, Horsemen or Danes, came from Scandinavia.
In the ninth century they conquered and settled the extreme north and west of Scotland, and also some coastal regions of Ireland. Their conquest of
England was halted when they were defeated by King Alfred of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex. This resulted in an agreement which divided England between Wessex, in the south and west, and the “Danelaw” in the north and east.
However, the cultural differences between Anglo-Saxons and Danes were comparatively small. They led roughly the same way of life and spoke two varieties of the same Germanic tongue (which combined to form the basis of modern English). Moreover, the Danes soon converted to Christianity. These similarities made political unification easier, and by the end of the 10th century England was one kingdom with a Germanic culture throughout.
Most of modern-day Scotland was also united by this time, at least in name, in a Gaelic kingdom.
Paopla in Anglo-Saxon times. Living uncomfortably close to the natural world, were wall aware that though creation is inarticulate it is animate, and that every created thing, every “with”, had its own personality.
The riddle is a sophisticated and harmless for of invocation by imitation: the essence of it is that the poet, by an act of imaginative identification assumes the personality of some crested thing — an animal, a plant, a natural force.
The specialists consider that they know not enough about The Exeter Book collection of riddles. Ridding was certainly a popular pastime among the
Anglo-Saxons, especially in the monasteries, and there are extant collections (in Latin, of course,) from the pens of Aldhelm, Bishop of
Sherborne, Tatwin, Archbishop of Canterbury and others.
The provenance and genesis of the collection are unknown, and from internal evidence one can only draw the modest conclusion that the ninety-five riddles were not written by one man.

In English a student and the little black circle in the center of the eye are both called “pupils”? And the connection between them is a doll. Both the words came into the English language through French from the Latin. In
Latin there was a word “pupa” – “a girl”, and “pupus” – “ a boy”. When the
Latin ending “illa” was added to “pupa” or “pupus”, the word meant “ a little girl” or “ a little boy”. Since little girls and little boys went to school, they became “pupils”.

But “pupilla”, a little girl, also meant “a doll”. It is easy to understand why, isn’t it? Now, if you look into the pupil of someone’s eye when the light is just right, you can see your reflection. Your figure, by the way, is very, very small like a tiny doll. The Romans named the black circle in the eye “pupilla” because of the doll they could see there. And the word came into the English as “pupil” as well. And thus, we have in the English language two words that are spelt the same and have the same origin, but mean different things: “pupil” – a student, and “pupil” – a black circle in the center of your eye.
Professor casts a quick glance at the wall and noticed a map there. “This map is made of paper. But the word itself meant cloth once. This word came into English from Latin, the Latin mappa was cloth. First maps were drawn on fabrics. In Latin the combination of the words appeared: mappa mundi –
“cloth of the word”. It was the first representation of the world as a drawing on the cloth. Later maps began to be made of paper, but the word remained.
By another route the same word came into English for the second time. In
Late Latin this word was corrupted into nappa, and later, through French, it entered the English language with the new meaning of napkin.”
“When a teacher asks you a question. She expects you will give a correct answer. Answer is a very strange word. Its spelling makes no sense until you know its origin. This is a very old word. In Old English the noun was andswaru and the verb – andswearing. So, you see, it consisted of two parts: and and swear. The word and at that time meant against; swear meant to give a solemn oath. In the youth of the English language andswaru was “ a solemn oath made against an accusation”. A man had to pronounce a solemn in reply to an accusation, to prove that it is wrong. In the course of historical development the word lost its solemnity and it means now a reply, to reply. Any little child answer you back today.”
Professor History remarks, “ I see that some of you write with a ballpoint pen, others with a pencil, and there are some who write with a fountain pen. So, you can’t do without ink, after all. A simple three-letter word ink comes from a nine-letter ancestor that meant a branding iron. And now a few steps away from the skill of writing towards the skill of healing wounds. When we have a wound we cauterize it, we burn it with heat or with a chemical in order to close it and prevent it from becoming infected. The ancient Greeks used to cauterize a wound as we do, and the grandparent word of cauterize is kauterion, a branding iron. The Greek not only sealed wounds with heat, but they used much the same process in art for sealing fast the colours of their painting. It was customary then to use wax colours fixed with heat or, as they expressed it, encauston, burned in. In
Latin this word changed to encaustum, and it became the name for a kind of purple ink that the emperors used when they signed their official documents. In Old French encaustum became enque. English adopted the word as enke or inke, that is how today we have our ink, coloured liquid used for writing or printing.”
“The start of spoken language is buried in mystery and in a tangle of theories,” Professor History begins his lecture. “The history of written language also disappears in the jungles, in the deserts and far fields of unrecorded time. But at least the words that have to do with writing tell us much about the early beginning of the art and the objects that were used to record the written symbols.
The word write was spelled writan in Old English. It first meant to scratch, and it is exactly what the primitives did on their birch-bark or shingles with sharp stones and others pointed instruments. In the more sophisticated lands that surrounded the Mediterranean the papyrus plant was used instead of the bark of the trees; as you already know, that gave us the word paper.
Pen with which we write now, in its Latin form penna, meant a feather and in some ancient collections you can still see quill pens. And pencil that we hold inherits its name from the Latin penicillum, meaning a little tail, and this refers to the time when writing was done with a tiny brush that looked indeed like a little tail.
The term letter designating a written symbol, a letter of the alphabet is thought to be relative to the Latin word linere, to smear, to leave a dirty mark on some surface. Isn’t it a good description of some of the early writing?
But what is written should be read. In read we have an odd little word, from the Old English raedan, which meant first to guess, to discern. And again it is just what you had to do to interpret what was scratched on wooden shingles. Anything that had to be interpreted was called a raedels.
Later on people began to think that the word raedels was a plural because of the “s” on the end. A new singular, raedel was formed and here is the ancestor of our word riddle. Finally the word read took on its modern meaning: if you can read, you have the ability to look at and understand what is written.
Of course the basis of all writing is language. But it is first of all, a spoken activity, and hence this noun is derived from a word referring to the organ of speech primarily involved. In this case it is the French word language, which goes back to the Latin lingua, tongue. The English, though, retained their native word to name that soft movable part inside your mouth whish you see for tasting and licking and for speaking”, a tongue.
Sometimes you may hear the word tongue used in the meaning of language, but it is an old-fashioned and literary use.
If you want to read what is written in a foreign language, you need a dictionary. The term dictionary comes from the Latin word dictio, from dico, say or speak. A dictionary is really a record of what people say, of the pronunciation, spellings, and meanings that they give to words.”
In Old English there was a different word with which the Englishmen called bread, it was half. But then as a result of the Vikings invasion and
Scandinavian influence on the English language a new word of the same meaning entered the English vocabulary from Scandinavian: cake. Since the
English had already their own word (half), they started to use the word cake for a special type of bread. First it referred to a small loaf of bread of flat and round shape. From the 15th century it began to mean sweet food, as it does now.
To the Scandinavians, living in Britain, called their bread by the word brauth. The English had a similar word – bread meaning a lump, a piece of bread. Under the influence of the Scandinavian language the word bread widened its meaning and began to mean bread in general, while the word loaf
(from Old English half) narrowed its meaning, now it is a large lump of bread which we slice before eating.
The Great Englishman Caxton, who introduced printing in Britain in 1476, wrote in a preface to one of the books about a funny episode with egg. The thing is that in Old English the word egg had a different form which spelled as ey in Middle English; its plural form was eyren. And again the
Scandinavians brought with them to Britain their word egg. It first spread in the northern English dialects, the southerners did not know it and used their native word.
Caxton tells the readers that once English merchants from the northern regions were sailing down the Thames, bound for the Netherlands. There was no wind and they landed at a small southern village. The merchants decided to buy some food. They came to a house and one of them asked a woman if she could sell them eggs. The woman answered that she did not understand him because she did not know French. The merchant became very angry and said that he did not speak French either. Then another merchant helped. He said they wanted eyren, the woman understood him and brought them eggs.
For rather a long period of time two words existed in Britain: a native
English word eyren was used in the South, and the Scandinavian borrow eggs in the North. The Scandinavian word has won after, as you can see.

D). The Norman French.

I made another excursion into the past. The Time Масhinе has саrried me into the 11th century, into the year of 1066. An аwful picture ореns before my eyes: а great battle at Hastings, the English king Наrold is killed, the
English are defeated, the Norman invaders have won а victory. Тhe Normans саmе frоm across the British Сhannеl, from the part of France called
Normandy. Тhеу conquered the English under the head of their leader, Duke
William, who later got the name of William the Conqueror. Тhе Normans brought into Britain not оn1у their king, but their French language as well. So it еxplаins why there are so many French words in the English vocabulary.
The successful Norman invasion of England in 1066 brought Britain into the mainstream of western European culture. Previously most links had been with
Scandinavia. Only in Scotland did this link survive; the western isles
(until the thirteenth century) and the northern islands (until the fifteenth century) remaining under the control of Scandinavian kings.
Throughout this period the English kings also ruled over areas of land on the continent were often at war with the French kings in disputes over ownership.
Unlike the Germanic invasions, the Norman invasion was small-scale. There was no such thing as a Norman area of settlement. Instead, the Norman soldiers who had been a part of the invading army were given the ownership of land – and of the people living on it. A strict feudal system was imposed. Great nobles, or barons, were responsible directly to the king; lesser lords, each owing a village, were directly responsible to a baron.
Under them were the peasants, tied by a strict system of mutual duties and obligations to the local lord, and forbidden to travel without his permission. The peasants were the English-speaking Saxons. The lords and the barons were the French-speaking Normans. This was the beginning of the
English class system.
The existence of two words for the larger farm animals in modern English is a result of the class divisions established by the Norman conquest. There are the words for the living animals (e.g. cow, pig, sheep), which have their origins in Anglo-Saxon, and the words for the meat from the animals
(e.g. beef, pork, mutton.), which have their origins in the French language that the Normans brought to England. Only the Normans normally ate meat; the poor Anglo-Saxon peasants did not!
The strong system of government which the Normans introduced meant that the
Anglo-Norman kingdom was easily the most powerful political force in
British Isles. Not surprisingly therefore, the authority of the English monarch gradually extended to other parts of these islands in the next 250 years. But the end of the thirteenth century, a large part of eastern
Ireland was controlled by Anglo-Norman lords in the name of the English king and the while of Wales was under his direct rule (at which time the custom of naming the monarch’s eldest son the “Prince of Wales” began).
Scotland managed to remain politically independent in the medieval period, but was obliged to fight occasional wars to do so.

II. Middle English. (1100-1500)

The English which was used from about 1100 to about 1500 is called Middle
English. The cultural story of this period is different. Two hundred and fifty years after the Norman Conquest, it was a Germanic language (Middle
English) and not the Norman (French) language which had become the dominant one in all classes of society of England. Furthermore, it was the Anglo-
Saxon concept of common law, and not Roman law, which formed the basis of the legal system.
Despite English rule, northern and central Wales was never settled in great numbers by Saxon or Norman. As a result the (Celtic) Welsh language and culture remained strong. Eisteddfods, national festivals of Welsh song and poetry, continued throughout the medieval period and still take place today. The Anglo-Norman lords of eastern Ireland remained loyal to the
English king but, despite laws to the contrary, mostly adopted the Gaelic language and customs.
The political independence of Scotland did not prevent a gradual switch to the English language and customs in the lowland (southern) part of the country. First, the Anglo-Saxon element here was strengthened by the arrival of many Saxon aristocrats fleeing the Norman conquest of England.
Second, the Celtic kings saw that the adoption of an Anglo-Norman style of government would strengthen royal power. By the end of this period a cultural split had developed between the lowlands, where the way of life and language was similar to that in England, and the highlands, where
(Celtic) Gaelic culture and language prevailed – and where, because of the mountainous landscape, the authority of the king was hard to enforce.
It was in this period that Parliament began its gradual evolution into the democratic body which is it today. The word “parliament”, which comes from the French word parler (to speak), was first used in England in the thirteenth century to describe an assembly of nobles called together by the king. In 1295, the Model Parliament set the pattern for the future by including elected representatives from urban and rural areas.
Many food names in English are French borrowings. After the Norman Conquest under William the Conqueror (1066) French words began to enter the English language increasing in number for more than tree centuries. Among them were different names of dishes. The Norman barons brought to Britain their professional cooks who showed to English their skill.
Learners of the English language notice that there is one name for a live beast grazing in the field and another for the same beast when it is killed and coked. The matter is that English peasants preserved Anglo-Saxon names for the animals they used to bring to Norman castles to sell. But the dishes made of the meat got French names. That is why now we have native
English names of animals: ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, and French names of meals from whose meat they are cooked: beef, veal, mutton, pork. (By the way “lamb” is an exception, it is a native Anglo-Saxon word). A historian writes that an English peasant who had spent a hard day tending his oxen, calves, sheep and swine probably saw little enough of the beef, veal, mutton and pork, which were gobbled at night by his Norman masters.
The French enriched English vocabulary with such food words as bacon, sausage, gravy; then: toast, biscuit, cream, sugar. They taught the English to have for dessert such fruits as: fig, grape, orange, lemon, pomegranate, peach and the names of these fruits became known to the English due the
French. The English learned from them how to make pastry, tart, jelly, treacle. From the French the English came to know about mustard and vinegard. The English borrowed from the French verbs to describe various culinary processes: to boil, to roast, to stew, to fry.
One famous English linguist exclaimed: “It is melancholy to think what the
English dinner would have been like, had there been no Norman Conquest!”
The period of Middle English is the time of the fast development of English literature. The greatest poet of the 14th century was Geoffrey Chaucer. He is often called the father of English poetry, although, as we know, there were many English poets before him. As we should expect, the language had changed a great deal in the seven hundred years since the time Beowulf and it is much easier to read Chaucer than to read anything written in Old
English. Here are the opening lines of The Canterbury Tales (about 1387), his greatest work:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures swote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote

When April with his sweet showers has stuck to the roots the dryness of March…
There are five main beats in each line, and the reader will notice that rhyme has taken the place of Old English alliteration. Chaucer was a well- educated man who read Latin, and studied French and Italian poetry; but he was not interested only in books. He traveled and made good use of his eyes; and the people whom he describes are just like living people.
The Canterbury Tales total altogether about 17,000 lines – about half of
Chaucer’s literary production. A party of pilgrims agree to tell stories to pass the time on their journey from London to Canterbury with its great church and the grave of Thomas a Becket. There are more than twenty of these stories, mostly in verse, and in the stories we get to know the pilgrims themselves. Most of them, like the merchant, the lawyer, the cook, the sailor, the ploughman, and the miller, are ordinary people, but each of them can be recognized as a real person with his or her own character. One of the most enjoyable characters, for example, is the Wife of Bath. By the time she tells her story we know her as a woman of very strong opinions who believes firmly in marriage (she has had five husbands, one after the other) and equally firmly in the need to manage husbands strictly. In her story one of King Arthur’s knights must give within a year the correct answer to the question “What do women love most?” in order to save his life. An ugly old which knows the answer (“to rule”) and agrees to tell him if he marries her. At last he agrees, and at the marriage she becomes young again and beautiful.
A good deal of Middle English prose is religious. The Ancren Riwle teaches proper rules of life for anchoresses (religious women) how they ought to dress, what work they may do, when they ought not to speak, and so on. It was probably written in the thirteenth century. Another work, The Form of
Perfect Living, was written by richard rolle with the same sort of aim. His prose style has been highly praised, and his work is important in the history of our prose. john wycliffe, a priest, attacked many of the religious ideas of his time.
He was at Oxford, but had to leave because his attacks on the Church could no longer be borne. One of his beliefs was that anyone who wanted to read the Bible ought to be allowed to do so; but how could this be done by uneducated people when the Bible was in
Latin? Some parts had indeed been put into Old English long ago, but
Wycliffe arranged the production of the whole Bible in English. He himself translated part of it. There were two translations ! 1382 and 1388), of which the second is the better.
It is surprising that Wycliffe was not burnt alive for his attacks on religious practices. After he was dead and buried, his bones were dug up again and thrown into a stream which flows into the River Avon (which itself flows into the River Severn):

The Avon to the Severn runs,

The Severn to the sea,

And Wycliffe’s dust shall spread abroad,

Wide as the waters be.
An important Middle English prose work, Morte D’Arthur [= Arthur’s Death], was written by sir thomas malory. Even for the violent years just before and during the Wars of the Roses, Malory was a violent character. He was several times in prison, and it has been suggested that he wrote at least part of Morte D’Arthur there to pass the time.
Malory wrote eight separate tales of King Arthur and his knights but when
Caxton printed the book in 1485 (after Malory’s death) he joined them into one long story. Caxton’s was the only copy of Malory’s work that we had until, quite recently f1933-4;. a handwritten copy of it was found in
Winchester College.
The stories of Arthur and his knights have attracted many British and other writers. Arthur is a shadowy figure of the past. but probably really lived.
Many tales gathered round him and his knights. One of the main subjects was the search for the cup used by Christ at the East Supper. (This cup is known as The Holy Grail. Another subject was Arthur’s battles against his enemies, including the Romans. Malory’s fine prose can tell a direct story well, but can also express deep feelings in musical sentences. Here is part of the book in modern form. King Arthur is badly wounded:
Then Sir Bedivere took the king on his back and so went with him to the water’s edge. And when they were there. close by the bank, there came a little ship with many beautiful ladies in it; and among them all there was a queen. And they all had black head-dresses, and all wept and cried when they saw King Arthur.

III. Modern English (1500-to the present day)

By the beginning of 20th century, Britain was no longer the world’s richest country. Perhaps this caused Victorian confidence in gradual reform to weaken. Whatever the reason, the first twenty years of the century were a period of extremism in Britain. The Suffragettes, women demanding the right to vote, were prepared both to damage property and to die for their beliefs; the problem of Ulster in the north of Ireland led to a situation in which some sections of the army appeared ready to disobey the government; and the government’s introduction of new types and levels of taxation was opposed so absolutely by the House of Lords that even
Parliament, the foundation of the political system, seemed to have an uncertain future in its traditional form. But by the end of the First World
War, two of these issues had been resolved to most people’s satisfaction
(the Irish problem remained) and the rather un-British climate of extremism died out.
The significant changes that have taken place in this century are dealt with elsewhere in this book. Just one thing should be noted here. It was from the beginning of this century that the urban working class (the majority of the population) finally began to make its voice heard. In
Parliament, the Labour party gradually replaced the Liberals (the
‘descendants’ of the Whigs) as the main opposition to the Conservatives
(the ‘descendants’ of the Tories). In addition, trade unions managed to organize themselves. In 1926, they were powerful enough to hold a General
Strike, and from the 1930s until the 1980s the Trades Union Congress (see chapter 14) was probably the single most powerful political force outside the institutions of government and Parliament.
From about 1600, explorers, adventurers, settlers and soldiers went out from Britain to found settlements and colonies overseas. They took the
English language with them. At the height of their power, during the 19th century, the British could claim that the sun never set on their Empire.
Today almost all the countries of the old Empire have become independent.
However, most of them are now members of the Commonwealth of Nations, and
English continues to be an important language for them.
After the Second World War the United States became what Britain had been in the 19th century: politically and economically one of the most powerful nations in the world. As its power spread, so the English language spread.
Five hundred years ago they didn’t speak English in North America. The
American Indians had their own languages. So did the Inuit (often called
‘Eskimos’) and Aleuts in Canada. So did the Aborigines in Australia, and the Maoris in New Zealand.
The English arrived and set up their colonies. And then other people came from all over the world, bringing many different languages and cultures.
The USA has the biggest mixture of all: it is often called a ‘melting pot’ of cultures. In 1619 a small ship arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, with twenty slaves from Africa. For over two hundred years, the Americans imported, bought and sold African slaves. Today there are over 29 million black Americans living in the USA.
In 1848 the population of the United States was still very small. Then two important things happened: they discovered gold in California and a new law, the Homestead Act, gave free land to farmers. Suddenly millions of immigrants came to America, ‘The Land of Opportunity’.
At first they were English, Irish, German and Scandinavian. Then Italians,
Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Russians and Poles came. Most immigrants came because economic conditions at home were bad. But there were also other problems in Europe. About three million Jews came to the USA between 1880 and 1910 because of religious persecution in Russia and other countries.
Today the USA is still much richer than most of its neighbors. Its most recent new citizens are many Spanish-speaking people from Puerto Rico,
Mexico and South America.
The population of Britain is only about 58 million. But throughout the world English is spoken by over 700 million people.
About 350 million people speak English as their first language in 12 countries such as Britain, the USA. Canada Australia. New Zealand. South
Africa.
About 300 million use English as a second or official language in over 60 countries, for example, in India. They usually use it when doing business, or when completing official documents and forms.
It is estimated that at least 100 million people throughout the world use
English fluently as a foreign language.
There are over 3.000 languages in the world. So why has English become so widely spoken?
Today the English language is almost the same all over the world. You can tell a person’s nationality from their accent — Australian, Scottish,
Canadian and so on. But the words are more or less international.
It’s strange that the differences in Britain itself are greater than those between Britain and other English-speaking countries. For a Londoner, it’s easy to understand an American, but quite difficult to understand the dialect of Newcastle in the North of England!
But not many people speak dialects in Britain these days. A hundred years ago (before radio and television) all ordinary working people did. In Emily
Bronte’s book Wuthering Heights the old man Joseph speaks Yorkshire dialect:
“Take these in tuh t’maister, lad. Un’ bide theare. Aw’s gang up tuh my awn rahm.” (Take these in to the master, boy. And stay there. I’m going up to my own room.)
Don’t worry. Joseph doesn’t say very much in the book — the rest is in normal English!
In a country like New Zealand, English is the first language. In fact it’s the only language for most people. About 100,000 Maoris have their own language, but they also speak English. Most of this book is about countries where English is the first language – Canada, Ireland, the USA and so on.
But in more than sixty other countries English is a second language. The government, business and universities use it. Some of the people, but not all, speak it well and use it for certain parts of their lives.

IV. Conclusion.

I enjoy learning English, it is really great’ I like to learn new words, to look up in the dictionary their meanings. English grammar is difficult, but
I try hard to understand it, to learn the rules, to put them into practice.
I think it is very interesting to read English books, newspapers, magazines. I came to know a lot of exciting facts and new things. It is like a new world where you can enter if you know the language.
English folklore is very rich. I believe, it is good to know English proverbs and tongue-twisters, English rhymes and limericks. English sayings and songs.
When you learn tongue-twisters, it helps you to improve your phonetics.
I know quite a number of them. Here is a good one:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper:
A peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked:
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper
Where’s the peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked!

This one is my favorite:
A thatcher of Thatchwood went to Thatchet a-thatching
Did a thatcher of Thatchwood go to Thatchet a-thatching?
If a thatchcr of Thatchwood went to Thatchet a-thatching
Where’s the thatching the thatcher of Thatchwood has thatched?

While writing my research paper report I had to read a lot of books on
English History I came to know a lot of English folk songs, they are simple and nice. Some of them help me to learn words. Solomon Grundy is a folk song it helps you to remember the days of the week. It is a sad song/ but 1 the same it’s funny too.

Solomon Grundy

Born on Monday

Christened on Tuesday

Married on Wednesday

Ill on Thursday

Worse on Friday

Died on Saturday

Buried on Sunday

This is the end

Of poor old Solomon Grundy.
English proverbs are useful in many situations. Here are a few examples.
When there’s a will, there’s a way. Or: All’s well that ends well. No sweet without sweat. Lend money and lose a friend. East or West, home is best.
English jokes are very funny. They often laugh at nationalities of the
British Isles. Here is a typical one. “An Englishman, a Scotsman and an
Irishman were alone on a desert island.” One day the Englishman found an old bottle. He broke it and out came a genie. The genie said: “I’ll give you and your friends three wishes. But choose well, because you may have only one wish each” “My wish is quite simple”, — said the Englishman, —
“I wish to be taken home”. “Your wish is my command”, — said the genie, and the Englishman disappeared. “Yes, I’d like the same”, — said the
Scotsman. And in a minute he was at home as well. Then the genie turned to the Irishman. “And what about you? What’s your wish?” The Irishman thought a little and then said: “I’m very lonely without my friends. I wish they were back here with me.”
English literature has very rich traditions. English poetry is well known in the world best Russian poets translated English poetry into Russian. But of course, when you study English it’s a pleasure to learn English poems in the original. My favorite poem is “If by R. Kipling. I think, he gives very good advice for the young people in this poem.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are loosing theirs and blaming it on you*
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master:
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim.
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same.

You can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build them up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginning
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them; “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, out non much;

If you can *ill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Yes, to learn English is such a fun, indeed!!!

List of Literature

1. Speak Out 3/2001 – pages 2-4 Издательство «ГЛОССА».

2. Борисов В.С., Борисова Л.М. «Английский не для всех»

3. Mark Farrell «The World Of English» England Longman 1995.

4. James O’Driscoll «Britain» Oxford University England Press 1995.

5. «Treasures Of Historical English» Борисова Л.М.

6. «History And Mystery Of The English Words» Борисова Л.М.

7. G.C. Thorney «An Outline Of English Literature» England Longman 1984.

Supplement
|OE |Gothic |Description; Position; |Examples |
| | |Pronunciation | |
|a |a |Short back vowel; Mainly in open |macian (to |
| | |syllables, when the following one|make), habban |
| | |contains a back vowel; English |(to have) |
| | |cup | |
|б |ai |Long back [a] vowel; In any kind |stбn (a stone),|
| | |of syllables; English star |hбtan (to call)|
|ж |a |Short back vowel; Met mainly in |dжg (a day), |
| | |closed syllables, or in open |wжter (water) |
| | |ones, if the next syllable | |
| | |contains a front vowel; English | |
| | |bad | |
|ж ‘ |й, б |Long back vowel; as Gothic й |stж ‘ lon |
| | |found only in some verbal forms, |(stolen), hж ‘ |
| | |as Gothic б is the result of the |lan (to cure) |
| | |so — called i — mutation; German | |
| | |za «hlen | |
|e |i, ai, a|Short front vowel; as Gothic i, |sengean (to |
| | |ai noticed only in some |sing) |
| | |infinitives, otherwise is result | |
| | |of the mutation of i; English bed| |
|й |у |Long front [e] vowel; resulted |dйman (to |
| | |from the i — mutation of у; |judge) |
| | |German Meer | |
|i |i, ie |Short front vowel; can be either |bindan (to |
| | |stable or unstable, the unstable |bind), niht — |
| | |sound can interchange with ie and|nyht (a night) |
| | |y; English still | |
|н |ie |Long front [i] vowel; also stable|wrнtan (to |
| | |and unstable (mutating to э); |write), hн — hэ|
| | |English steal |(they) |
|o |u, au |Short back vowel; English cost |coren (chosen) |
|у |o |Long back [o] vowel; English |scуc (divided) |
| | |store | |
|u |u, au |Short back vowel; used only when |curon (they |
| | |the next syllable contains |chose) |
| | |another back vowel; English book | |
|ъ |ъ |Long back [u] vowel; English |lъcan (to look)|
| | |stool | |
|y |u |Short front vowel; i — mutation |gylden (golden)|
| | |of u; German fu» nf | |
|э |ъ |Long front [y] vowel; i — |mэs (mice) |
| | |mutation of ъ, German glu «hen | |
|a. |o |A special short sound met only |monn (a man) |
| | |before nasals in closed syllables| |

Contents.

I. Introduction_______________________________2.

II. Theoretical part___________________________4.

III. Practical part_____________________________32.

IV. Conclusion______________________________36.

V. Bibliography_____________________________37.

VI. Appendix I______________________________39.

VII. Appendix II_____________________________40.

VIII. Appendix III____________________________43.

IX. Appendix IV_____________________________46.

X. Appendix V ______________________________48.

XI. Appendix VI_____________________________51.

XII. Appendix VII____________________________53.

I. Introduction.

This diploma paper is the logic continuation of course paper. The choice of a theme of this paper is caused by the small studying of this question by way of teaching it in primary school. The word-formation, as one of branches of lexicon, is a difficult and volumetric question, therefore requires the careful studying. The basic theme of this paper is the question on conversion, as the most productive way of a word-formation however the other kinds of formation of new words: prefix and suffix word- formation, also are mentioned. The special place is allocated for productivity of adjectives of a colourmarking. Having the rather large ability to formation the new words it is interesting the fact, that formed from them by any of ways of a word, it is more often nouns, formed on conversion, have a tendency to enter into the structure of various phraseologies, phraseological word combinations, that speaks about connection between phraseological and word-formation systems of the language.

The paper consists of two basic parts: theoretical and practical ones, which examine one problems, but from the different corners of sight. The theoretical part includes some subitems. At first it is necessary to tell some words about the term «word», which is the main one in the paper and should be definite. The term «word» is taken to denote the smallest independent unit of speech susceptible of being used in isolation. Also it is impossible to disregard the definition of the field of word-formation.
The mention about affix (suffix and prefix) word-formation in the paper is not casual, the conversion is more productive way, in comparison with them, because the formation of new words on conversion is possible practically from any part of speech, including prepositions and proper names. Speaking about the abilities to a word-formation of colourmarking adjectives, it is necessary to note three ways, on which this process passes: The suffix, conversion word-formation and the word addition way , though the more often
English language prefers a word combination. Also the formation of derivative verbs on conversion is typical for the English language.

Having analysed some courses of studying the foreign language it was interesting to find out, that the conversion is not mentioned at all there, though, being one of the most productive ways of a word-formation, could be a good way of updating the child’s active and passive vocabulary. Taking into account the opportunities, which are given by the knowledge of this way of formation the new words, it is easy to estimate a role of studying this material at school, it is natural that the beginning of presenting some items of this phenomenon to children is necessary to start from that moment, as soon as the children would have the sufficient lexical base for this purpose. It is possible to consider the third year of training as the most successful moment for the beginning of presenting the essence of this phenomenon to children. For confirmation of this hypothesis three experiments were spent: ascertaining, forming and control ones, with group of children studying the English the third year. By the purpose of all these experiments was to establish: have the children a representation about this phenomenon, can they acquire the offered information, is it possible to develop the skill of using such words in their speech .

It would be desirable to note the works of some authors, which were used in this work, such as: “English word-formation” by L. Bauer, “The categories and types of present day word-formation” by H. Marchand, “The word-formation abilities of colourmarking adjectives in modern German languages” by M. Jirmunskaya.

II. Theoretical part.

The term «word».

The term «word» should be defined. It is taken to denote the smallest independent, indivisible unit of speech, susceptible of being used in isolation. A word may have a heavy stress, thought, some never take one.
To preceding the ‘infinitive’ never has a heavy stress, but it is a word as it can be separated from the verbal stem by an adverb (as in to carefully study). A composite may have two heavy stresses so long as it is not analyzable as a syntactic group. There is a marked tendency in English to give prefixes full stress thought they do not exist as independent words.
Indivisible composites such as arch-enemy, crypto-communist, unlucky, therefore are morphological units whereas combination, like stone, wall, gold watch, are syntactic groups. As for the criterion of indivisibility, it is said that the article a is a word as IT can interpolate words between article and substantive (a nice man, a very nice man, an exceptionally gifted man). But a as in aglitter can’t be separated from the verb stem with which it forms a group and therefore is not a free morpheme (word).
With regard to the criterion of usability, it must not be assumed that all words can be used by themselves, in isolation. It is in the very nature of determiners like the article the to be used in conjunction with the word they determiners.

Definition of the field of word-formation.

Word-formation is that branch of the science of language which studies the patterns on which a language forms new lexical units, i.e. words. Word- formation can only treat of composites which are analyzable both formally and semantically. The study of the simple words, therefore, insofar as it is an , unmotivated sign, has no please in it. It is a lexical matter. A composite rests on a relationship between morphemes though which it is motivated. By this token, do-er, un-do, rain-bow are relevant to word- formation, but do, rain, bow are not.

Conversion.

Conversion is the change in form class of a form without any corresponding change of form. Thus the change whereby the form napalm, which has been used exclusively as a noun, came to be as a verb (They decided to napalm the village) is a case of conversion.

The exact status of conversion within word-formation is unclear.
For some scholars (Marchand/10/) conversion is a brunch of derivation, for others (Koziol /Marchand/10/) it is a separate type of word-formation, on a level with derivation and compounding. Whether this distinction has any real effect on the structure of a theory of word-formation is not clear.

Conversion is frequently called zero-derivation, a term which many scholars prefer (Adams, Jespersen, Marchand/1,5,8/). Most writers who use both terms appear to use them as synonyms (although Marchand/10/ is an exception). However, as Lyons/9/ points out, the theoretical implications of the two are rather different. Cruber/2/, for example, argues that to treat ordinary derivation and zero-derivation differently in the grammar is to lose a generalization, since both involve changes of form class, but claims that they can only by treated the same way, if a zero-affix is permitted. Otherwise, he says, derivation can be treated as a rule-governed process, but zero-derivation can’t be; that is, the relation between some napalm and to napalm and other similar pairs must be, considered to be totally coincidental Lyon’s/9/ own view (as noted by Matthews) is that in cases of so-called zero-derivation, an identity operation can be said to have been carried out between the base and the new lexeme. This means that there is a process linking the two lexeme, napalm, lent that this process defines the form of the derived lexeme as being identical to the form of the base. This is also more or less the line taken by Matthews himself, when he speaks of a ‘formation involving zero operation’. The theoretical dubiousness of speaking of zero affixes in language leads Bauer/2/ to prefer the theoretical position enshrined in the term ‘conversion’, especially when this can be given a dynamic interpretation, and that term will be used exclusively from now (on in this book). It should, however, be noted that this is an area of dispute in the literature. For a comprehensive review of the literature on conversion and a discussion of the implication of talking in terms of zero-derivation, the reader is referred to Pannanen.

Productivity.

Conversion is an extremely productive way of producing new words in
English. There do not appear to be morphological restrictions on the forms can undergo conversion, so that compounds, derivatives, acronyms, blends, clipped forms and simplex words are all acceptable inputs to the conversion process. Similarly, all ford classes seem to be able to undergo conversion, and conversion seems to de able to produce words of almost any form class, particularly the open form classes (noun, verb, adjective, adverb ). This seems to suggest that rather than English having specific rules of conversion (rules allowing the conversion of common nouns into verbs or adjectives into nouns, for example) conversion is a totally free process and any lexeme can undergo conversion into any of the open form classes as the need arises. Certainly, if there are constraints on conversion they have yet to de demonstrated. The only partial restriction that it is award of is that discussed by Marchand. Marchand/10/ points out that derived nouns rarely undergo conversion, and particularly not to verb. This is usually because of blocking. To take one of Marchand’s/10/ examples, a derived noun like arrival will not de converted into a verb if that verb means exactly the same as arrive, from which arrival is derived. In cases where blocking is not a relevant concern, even derived nouns can undergo conversion, as is shown by the series a sign > to sign > a signal > to signal and to commit > commission > to commission.

The commonness of conversion can possibly be seen as breaking down the distinction between form classes in English and leading to a system where there are closed sets such as pronouns and a single open set of lexical that can be used as required. Such a move could be seem as part of the trend away from synthetic structure and towards analytic structure which has been fairly typical of the history of English over the last millennium.
This suggestion is, of course highly speculative.

Conversion as a syntactic process.

Conversion is the use of a form which is regarded as being basically of one form class as though it were a member of a different form class, without any concomitant change of form. There are, however, a number of instances where changes of this type occur with such ease and so regularly that many scholars prefer to see that as matters of syntactic usage rather that as word-formation.

The most obvious cases are those where the change of form class is not a major one (such as from noun to verb or adjective to noun ) but a change from one type of noun to another or one type of verb to another. The clearest example of this type is the use of countable nouns as uncountable and vise versa. In some tea, tea is used as an uncountable noun, while in two teas it is used as a countable noun; goat is normally a countable noun, but if a goat is being eaten it is quite in order to ask for a slice of goat, where goat is used as an uncountable noun. In general, given a suitable context, it is possible to use almost any noun on either way: for example, when the Goons took part in a mountain-eating competition, it would have been perfectly possible to ask whether anyone wanted some more mountain, using mountain as an uncountable noun. Similarly, proper nouns can be easily used as common nouns as in Which John do you mean? or The
Athens in Ohio is not as interesting as the Athens in Greece. Intransitive verbs are frequently used as transitive verbs, as in He is running a horse in the Derby or The army flew the civilians to safety. Finally, non- gradable adjectives are frequently used as gradable adjectives, as in She looks very French or New Zealander are said to be more English. Such processes are very near the inflectional end of word-formation.

Another case where it is not completely clear whether or not conversion is involved is with conversion to adjectives. This depends crucially on how an adjective is defined. For some scholars it appears to be the case that the use of an element in attributive position is sufficient for that element to be classified as an adjective. By this criterion bow window, head teacher, model airplane and stone well all contain adjectives formed by conversion formed by conversion. However, it has already been argued that such collocations should be seen as compounds, which makes it unnecessary to view such elements as instances of conversion. Quirk suggest that when such elements can occur not only in attributive position but also in predicative position, it is possible to speak of conversion to an adjective. On the basis of:

*This window is bow

This teacher is head

*This airplane is model

This wall is stone

they would thus conclude that, in the examples above, head and stone but not bow and model have become adjectives by conversion. But this introduces a distinction between two kinds of modifier which is not relevant elsewhere in the grammar and which masks a great deal of similarity. It is therefore not clear that this suggestion is of any great value. This is not meant to imply that conversion to an adjective is impossible, merely that it is least controversial that conversion is involved where the form is not used attributively. Where the form is used attributively, criteria for concluding that conversion has taken place must be spelled out with great care. Apart from those mentioned, possible criteria are the ability to be used in the comparative and superlative, the ability to be modified by and very, the ability to be used as a base for adverbial -ly or nominal -ness suffixation. It must be pointed out that very few adjectives fit all these criteria.

Marginal cases of conversion.

There are cases of change in form class from a verb to a noun and from a verb to an adjective which do not involve any affixation, but which are not clearly instances of conversion. These are cases there is a shift of stress, frequently with a concomitant change in segmental form, but no change in the morphophonemic form (or in the orthography). Established examples of verb >noun shift kind are abstract, discount, import, refill, transfer Gimson/2/, and of verb > adjective shift: abstract, frequent, moderate, perfect. There is a certain amount of evidence that, at least in some varieties of English, these distinction are no longer consistently drawn, and such examples are becoming clear cases of conversion.
Nevertheless, the pattern is still productive, particularly so in the nominalization of phrasal verbs: established examples are show off, walr- over and recent examples are hang-up, put-down.

There is also a kind of partial conversion where a noun ending in a voiceless fricative (but excluding / /) is turned into a verb by replacing the final consonant with the corresponding voiced fricative. The process is no longer productive. Examples are belief / believe, sheath / sheathe, advice / advise.

Clear cases of conversion.

The least clear cases of conversion have been considered first, but there are innumerable perfectly clear cases. For many types a variety of subclassifications is possible. Thus instances of noun > verb conversion can be classified according to whether the noun shows location (to garage the car ) or instrument ( to hammer a nail ) and so on, or according to formal criteria of whether the base is simplex or complex and so on. No attempt is made below to distinguish of these kinds.

The major kinds of conversion are noun > verb, verb >noun, adjective > noun and adjective >verb. Established examples of noun > verb conversion are to badger, to bottle, to bridge, to commission, to mail, to mushroom, to skin, to vacation. Recent examples are to chopper, to data-dank, to leaflet, to network, and to trash. Established examples of verb >noun conversion are a call, a command, a dump, a guess, a spy and recent examples are a commute, a goggle, and an interrupt. Established examples of adjective > verb conversion are to better, to dirty, to empty, to faint, to open, to right and a recent example is to total (a car). Established examples of adjective >noun conversion are relatively rare and are frequently restricted in their syntactic occurrence. For example, the poor cannot be made plural or have any other determiner. Less restricted examples are a daily, a regular, a roast. This type seems to have become much more productive recently, and recent examples includes a creative, a crazy, a double, a dyslexic, a gay, a given, a nasty.

Prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, interjections and even affixes can all act as bases of conversion, as in shown by to up (prices), but me no buts, the hereafter, to heave-no (a recent example) and a maxi (this might be a case of clipping). Moreover, most of these form classes can undergo conversion into more than one form class, so that a preposition down, for example, can become a verb (he downed his beer), a noun (he has a down on me) and possibly an adjective (the down train).

Extrocentric phrase compounds might also be classified here as instances of conversion of whole phrase. Established examples where the phrase acts as a noun are an also-ran, a forget-me-not, a has-been and a recent examples as a don’t-know. An established example where the phrase acts as an adjective is under-the-weather.

Derivation by a zero-morpheme.

The term ‘zero-derivation’.

Derivation without a derivative morpheme occurs in English as well as mother languages. Its characteristic is that a certain stem is used for the formation of a categorically different word without a derivative element being added. In synchronic terminology, they are syntagmas whose determinatum is not expressed in the significant (form). The significate
(content) is represented in the syntagma but zero marked (i.e. it has no counterpart in form): loan vb ‘(make up) loan’, look substantive is ‘(act, instance of) look(ing)’. As the nominal and verbal forms which occur most frequently have no ending end (a factor which seems to have played a part in the coining of the term ‘conversion’ by Kruisinga/8/) are those in which nouns and verbs are recorded in dictionaries, such words as loan, look may come to be considered as ‘converted’ nouns or verbs. It has become customary to speak of the ‘conversion’ of substantive adjectives and verbs.
The term ‘conversion’ has been used for various things. Kruisinga/8/ himself speaks of conversion whenever a word takes on function which is not its basic one, as the use of an adjective as a primary (the poor, the
British, shreds of pink, at his best). He includes quotation words (his «I don’t knows») and the type stone wall (i.e. substantives used as preadjuncts). One is reminded of Bally’s ‘transposition’. Koziol/10/ follows Kruisinga’s/8/ treatment and Biese/4/ adopts the same method. Their standpoints is different. The foregoing examples illustrate nothing but syntactic patterns. That poor (presented by the definite article, restricted to the plural, with no plural morpheme added) can function as a primary, or that government, as in government job, can be used as preadgunct, is a purely syntactic matter. At the most it could be said, with regard to the poor, that an inflectional morpheme understood but zero marked. However inflectional morphemes have a predominantly function character while the addition of lexical content is of secondary importance.
As for government job the syntactic use of primary as a preadjunct is regularly unmarked, so no zero morpheme can be claimed. On the other hand, in government-al, -al adds lexical content, be it ever so little:
‘pertaining to characterizing government’. Therefore governmental is a syntagma while government (job) is not. That the phrase jar-off can be used as a preadjunct is again a syntactic matter. Characterized adverbs do not develop such functions in any case. We will not therefore, used the term conversion. As a matter of fact, nothing is converted, but certain stem are used for the derivation of lexical syntagmas, with the determinatum assuming a zero form. For similar reasons, the term ‘functional change’ is infelicitous. The term itself doesn’t enter another functional category, which becomes quite evident when it is considered the inflected forms.

Endings and derivation.

In inflected languages the derivant and derivative usually have a characteristic nominal or verbal ending. But, ending are not derivative morphemes. When English was still a more amply inflected language, the present type existed, but inflectional differences were more in evidence.
Cf. the OE verbs besceopian, fugelian, gamenian, hearmian, freon
(freogian), dernian and their respective bases besceop, fugol, and the weakening of ending was little bearing on this subject. With regard to denominate derivation, however, it is interesting to note that the levelling of endings brought about the loss of distinction in ME between the OE conjugations. The -an of ryth-an as well as the -ian of loc-ian resulted in -en. This reducted the number of patterns for denominal verbs to one.

Derivation connection between verbs and nouns.

With respect to both denominal verbs (type loan verb f. loan substantive) and deverbal substantives (type look substantive f look verb) it can be seen that as early as Old English a derivational connection existed between the present-infinitive stem of weak verb on the one hand and the stem of nouns on the other. As for deverbal substantive, there was some competition in the early stages of the language. Like other Germanic languages, Old English had strong verbs that were connected with substantives containing an ablaut vowel of the verb (ridan/rad, bindan/bend, beran/bora). However , this derivational type was unproductive so far back as Old English. The present-infinitive stem of strong verbs came to be felt to represent the derivative basis for deverbal substantives in exactly the same way as did the corresponding stem of weak verbs: ride verb/ride substantive=look verb/look substantive. But this contention of
Biese’s/4/ needs qualification: ‘these facts indicate the resistance should by strong verbs to the process of converting them into nouns before, owing to the introduction of weak inflections, a distinct idea of a universal verb-stem had been developed’. Many of the verbs had weak forms that derived substantives at an early date have either never had weak forms are rare or later than the substantives. Verbs such as bite, fall, feel, fold, freeze, have, grind, hide make steal, tread are cases in point. This goes to show that the existence of weak verb forms is incidental to the rise of a derivational connection between the present infinitive stem of strong verbs and the stem of substantive.

This derivational connection is partly due to class where a strong verb and a substantive of the same root existed in OE and where phonetic development resulted in closely resembling forms for both in ME. OE for, faru was fare by the end of the 12th century while the corresponding OE verb faran had reached the stage of faren or fare about the same time.
Other examples of pairs are bidan ‘stay’/bid ‘delay, dwelling place’, bindan ‘bind’/bind ‘band, tie’, drincan ‘drink’/drinc, drinca ‘drink’, fleotan ‘float’/fleot ‘place, where water flows’, helpan ‘help’/help, hreowan ‘rue’/hreow ‘rue’, slepan ‘sleep’/sl p, slep ‘sleep’. The derivational relation as it have been described them were fully established around 200.

Zero-derivation as a «specifically English process».

It is usually assumed that the loss of ending gave rise to derivation by a zero morpheme. Jespersen/7/ gives a somewhat to simplifying picture of its rise and development . ‘As a great many native nouns and verbs had…come be identical in form…, as the same things happened with numerous originally French words…, it was quite natural that the speech- instinct should take it as a matter of course that whenever the need of a verb arose, it might be formed without any derivative ending from the corresponding substantive’. He called the process ‘specifically English’.
As a matter of fact, derivation by a zero morpheme is neither specifically
English nor does it start, as Jespersen’s/7/ presentation would make it appear when most ending had disappeared. Biese’s/4/ study shows quit clearly that it began to develop on a larger scale at the beginning of the
13th century , i.e. at a time when final verbal -n had not yet been dropped, when the plural ending of the present was not yet -en or zero, and when the great influx of French loan words had not yet started. Bauer/2/ doesn’t think that the weakening of the inflectional system had anything to do with the problem of zero derivation. Stems are immediate elements for the speaker, who is aware of the syntagmatic character of an inflected form. He therefor has no trouble in connecting verbal and nominal stems provided they occur in sufficiently numerous pairs to establish a derivational pattern. In Latin which is a highly inflected language, denominal verbs are numerous: corona/coronare, catena/catenare, lacrima/lacrimare; cumulus/cumulare, locus/locare, truncus/truncare, nomen, nomin-/nominare; sacer/sacrare. In Modern Spanish there are full sets of verbal ending (though in the declension only gender and number are expressed) both types of zero-derivation are very productive. The weakening of the inflectional system in English, therefor , can’t have much to do with development of zero-derivation.

On the other hand, it cannot be denied that despite the relative productivity of corresponding derivational types in other languages, the derivative range the English patterns, that of denominal verbs, is still greater. The explanation of this seems to de that English, unlike Latin,
French, Spanish, or German, never had any competitive types. So, whenever a derivation was made nouns, it followed the one pattern that existed, i.e. derivation by zero morpheme. The only derivative morphemes PE has for denominal verbs are -ate, -ize, -ify. They have restricted range of derivative force: -ate is latinizing and leaned, -ify is learned while -ize is chiefly technical. All three derive almost exclusively on a Latin morphologic basis. The suffixal type dark-en was not originally a deadjectival pattern; in any case, it would have to a certain extent rivaled the type idle verb f. Idle adjective only. Derivation by a morpheme, esp. The type loan verb f. Loan substantive, must therefore be considered the norm and is quite naturally very strong in English. In
German, there are many competitive types. It is bath mutated and unmutated verbs (faul-en, hart-en, draht-en, haut-en). There are also denominal verbs with a derivative morpheme ( stein-ig-en, rein-ig-en; with a foreign morpheme telefon-ier-en, lack-ier-en ). In addition, German makes use of the prefixes be-, er-, ver-. Such types as ver-rohen, ver-jung-er, vergrosser-n; er-kalt-en, er-leichter-n; be-end-ig-en, be-herz-ig-en, ver- eid-ig-en have no counterparts in English. English be- has never played a serious role in denominal derivation. Nor has the type em-bed ever become productive to any larger extent. The productivity of the type loan verb f.
Loan substantive seems to be thus reasonably for. The deverbal type look substantive f. Look verb has been less prolific and is partly bound up with certain syntactic patterns of grouping. For this, it is do had competitive patterns. There are the suffixal types arriv-al, break-ade, guid-ance, improve-ment, organiz-ation and the verbal substantive type writ-ing though the latter has now chiefly role of deriving action nouns proper. This is the reason why so many zero-derivatives from verbs of Latin and French origin, coined the 15th and 16th centuries, were subsequently replaced by suffixal derivatives in -al, -age, -ance, ment. «After 1650 the suffix formation have completely gained the upper hand of the direct conversion of the disyllabic and trisyllabic words derived from French and Latin verbs»(Biese/4/).

Zero-derivation with loan-words.

As for Latin and French words and derivation from, there are comparatively few derivatives before (Biese/4/). French words were for some time felt to be foreign elements and were not «converted» with the same ease as native stems were. The phenomenon is in no way different from the one it is observed with derivation by suffixes. Loan words remain strangers for a time, and it usually takes time before a derivation type is applied to a heterogeneous class of words. Zero — derivation was facilitated by the eo-existence of borrowed substantives and verbs., as anchor substantive a
880 (=L) / anchor verb e 1230 (the OED has doubts, but F ancrer is recorded in the 12th e., as Bloeh ). Account substantive 1260/verb 1303, change substantive 1225/verb 1230, charge substantive 1225/verb 1297, cry substantive 1275/verb 1225, dance substantive 1300/verb 1300, double adjective 1225/verb 1290, doubt substantive 1225/verb 1225, poison substantive 1230/verb 13.., rule substantive 1225/verb 1225.

There are quite a few verbs with French roods for which no French verbs are recorded and which may accordingly be treated as zero derivatives: feeble verb 1225/adjective 1175, hardy verb 1225/adjective
1225, master verb 1225/substantive a 1000, pool verb 1275/adjective 1200, saint verb 1225/substantive 1175. On the other hand, the substantive grant
1225 may be derived from the verb grant 1225. It is only after 1300 that the process of zero-derivation is as firmly rooted with French as with native words. Though French originals for later English words may occur, it is just as safe to consider them as derivatives, as centre verb 1610 fr, centre substantive 1374, combat verb 1564 fr, combat substantive 1567 (or the reverse), guard verb 1500 fr, guard substantive 1426 and others.

Words of Scandinavian origin were more easily incorporated than French words, and derivation occurs as early as the 13th c.: trist «trust», boon
«ask as a boon, pray for», brod «shoot, sprout», smithy «make into a smithy» a.o. (see Biese /4/).

The illustration of various types.

Type loan verb fr. loan substantive

(desubstantival verbs.)

Many PE verbs. go back to OE : answer (andsharu / andswarian), blossom
(blostm / blostnian), claw (clawu / clawian), fish (fisc / fiscian), fire
(fyr / fytian), harm (hearm / hearmian),wonder (wundor / wundrian), bill
«strike with the bill, peck», ground «bring to the ground», loan (1240), back (OE), butter (OE), experiment (ME), lamb (OE), night (OE), piece (ME), pit «cart into a pit»(OE), plank (ME), plate (ME), plow, plough (OE), plague (ME), priest (OE), promise (ME), prose (ME), ridge (OE), rivet (ME), rode (ME), root (EME), sack (OE), sauce «season» (ME), scale (ME), screen
(ME), shoulder (OE), side (OE), silver (OE), sponge (OE), spot (ME), story
(ME), streak (OE), summer (OE), table (ME), thong (OE), tin (OE), veil
(ME), winter (OE), all before 1500.

Angle «run into a corner» (ME), balance (ME), butcher (ME), cipher
(ME), cloister (ME), coffin (ME), collar (ME), colt «run wild as a colt»
(ME), cipher (ME), fancy (1465), fin (OE), gesture (ME), girdle (OE), glove
(OE), gossip (OE), grade (1511), husk (ME), kennel (ME), knob (ME), ladle
(OE), latch (ME), launder (ME), lecture (ME), libel (ME), mother (OE), neighbor (OE), place (ME), pole (ME), riddle «speak in riddles» (OE), shell
(OE), shop (ME), star (OE), stomach «be offended» (ME), sun (OE), vision
(ME), all 16th century blanket (ME), casket (1467), lamp (ME), leaf (OE), pilot (1530), race «run» (ME), soldier (ME), all 17th century Capture
(1541), diamond (ME), onion (ME), stocking (1583), tour (ME), all 18th century Scrimmage (1470), shin (OE), signal (ME), torpedo (1520), vacation
(ME), wolf «eat like a wolf» (OE), 19th century, major 1927.

It would be difficult to give a complete list of derivatives as there is an ever growing tendency verbs from substantives without derivative morphemes. A few recent are service, contact (1929), audition, debut, package, chairman, page, date (1928), process (1945), waitress (1946), pressure (not in OED or Spl.), feature (rec., as in the play features).
Mencken/11/ gives many more, most of which are, however, hardly used.

It is likewise useless to try a classification to sense-groups, as there is no class-denoting formative. The verb may denote almost any verbal action connected with the basis of the underlying substantive. The verb bed has or has had the meanings «spread a bed», «put to bed» (with various implications), «go to bed», «sleep with», and there are more technical meanings. Bladin/5/ had already pointed out that «every action or occurrence can be designated by a verb derived from the very noun the idea of which most easily enters the mind of the person wanting to state a fact», and if Jespersen/7/ says that «it is difficult to give a general definition of the sense-relation between substantive and de-substantival verbs», this is rather an understatement. It may be recognized certain groups, as «put in …», «furnish, cover, affect …», but it should be noted that each of these senses is only one the many which the same verb has or may have. Biese/4/, therefore, makes no attempt at classification, and he is certainly right in doing so. It may, however, be worthy of note that the privative sense as in dust «remove the dust (from)» is frequent only with technical terms denoting various kinds of dressing or cleaning.
Exs are bur wool or cotton, burl cloth, poll, pollard trees, bone, gut, scale fish.

The meaning of a certain verb is clear in a certain speech situation.
That brain means «smash the b.»,can «preserve in cans», winter «pass the winter», is a result of given circumstances which establish the bridge of understanding between the speaker and the person or persons spoken to.

There are derivatives from proper names, as boycott 1880 (orig. spelt with a capital, from the name of Captain Boycott who was first boycotted),
Shanghay 1871 ‘drug and press on board a vessel’, Zeppelin 1916 ‘bomb from a zeppelin’ (also clipped = zap).

Some verbs often occur in the -ing substantive only (originally or chiefly), while finite verb forms or infinitives are not or rarely used, as hornpiping ‘dancing a hornpipe’ (no verb rec.), slimming, orcharding
‘cultivation of fruit trees (no verb rec.). Dialling ‘the art of construction dials’, speeching, electioneering, engineering, parlamenteering, volunteering are the original forms. Converted cpds with
-monger for a second-word are current only in the -ing form (merit- mongering, money-mongering etc.). Innings are not matched by any other verb form, nor are cocking ‘cock-fighting’, hopping ‘hop-picking’, moon-shining
‘illicit distilling’ and others.

Type idle verb fr. idle adjective. (deadjectival verbs).

To the OE period go back bitter, busy, cool, fair, fat, light, open, right, yellow (obs black, bright, dead, strong, old).

From the period between about 1150 and 1200 are recorded obs sick
‘suffer illness’, soft, low (obs meek, hory, hale). The following date from the period between about 1200 and 1300 (Biese/4/ has included the
Cursor Mundi in this period): black, brown, loose, slight, better, blind
(obs hardly, certain, rich, wide, broad, less). From the 14th century are recorded ready, clear, grey, sore, pale, full, dull, round, gentle,
English, tender, perfect (obs able, sound, weak, unable, honest, noble).
From the 15th century purple, stale, clean, from the 16th century shallow, slow, quiet, empty, bloody, idle, equal, dirty, parallel (and many other now obs words, as Biese/4/ points out). The 17th century coined crimson, giddy, worst, blue, gallant, shy, tense, ridicule, unfit, ruddy (and many how obs words. Biese/4/). From 18th century Are recorded net ‘gain as a net sum’ 1758, total (once 1716, then 1859), negative, northern (said of landscape), invalid ‘enter on the sick-list’, queer ‘cheat’ , from the
19th century desperate ‘drive desperate’, stubborn, sly ‘move in a stealthy manner’, chirk ‘make cheerful’, gross ‘make a gross profit’
1884, southern (said of wind), aeriform, true. From our century there are such words as pretty, wise, lethal, big.

Usually, deadjectival verbs denote change of state, and the meaning is either ‘become …’ or ‘make …’. Intransitive verbs with meaning ‘be…’
(as idle, sly, equal) from quite a small group. Some verbs have a comparative or superlative as root: better, best, worst, perhaps lower.

Type out verb fr out particle (verbs derived from

locative particles).

Derivation from locative particles is less common than the preceding types. In Old English there are yppan, fremman (with i-mutation from up, fram), framian, utian. Later are over ‘to master’ 1456, obs under ‘cast down’ 1502, off ‘put off’ 1642, down 1778, nigh ‘draw near’ 1200, thwart
1250, west ‘move towards the west’ 1381, south 1725, north 1866, east 1858.

These words, however, are not very common (except out and thwart).

Type hail verb fr hail interjection (verbs derived

from minor particles).

Derivation from exclamation and interjection (most of there onomatopoeias) is more frequent. It will, however, be noted that many of these conversions have undergone functional and formal changes only without acquiring a well — grounded lexical existence, their meaning merely being
«say…, utter the sound…». Exs are hail 1200, nay «say nay, refuse»
13.., mum 1399, obs. Hosht «reduce to silence» etc., whoo (16th century), humph (17th century), encore, dee-hup (to a horse), pshaw, halloa, yaw
(speak affectedly», hurrah (18th century), tally-ho (fox-hunting term), boo, yes, heigh-ho «sigh», bravo, tut, bow-wow, haw-haw, boo-hoo «weep noisily» etc. (Biese/4/ also Jespersen/7/).

The meaning ‘say…’ may occur with other words also when they are used as exclamation or interjections, as with iffing (other verb forms are not recorded), hence ‘order hence’ (obs., 1580). And it may be reckoned here all the words of the type sir ‘call sir’.

From about 1600 on, geminated forms also occur as verbs. A few have been mentioned in the foregoing paragraph; others are snip-snap
(1593),dingle-dangle, ding-dong, pit-pat (17th century), pitter-patter, wiggle-waggle (18th century), criss-cross, rap-tap, wig-wag (19th century) etc.

The limits of verbal derivation.

Derivation from suffixed nouns is uncommon. Biese’s/4/ treatment of the subject suffers from a lack of discrimination. He has about 600 examples of substantives and adjectives; but the ‘suffixes’ are mere terminations. Words such herring, pudding, nothing, worship are not derivatives. The terminations -ace, -ice, -ogue, -y (as in enemy) have never had any derivative force.

Theoretically it would seem that the case of a suffixal composite such as boyhood is not different from that of a fill compound such as spotlight.
But obviously the fact that suffixes are categorizes generally prevents suffixal derivatives from becoming the determinants of pseudo-compound verbs. There are very few that are in common use, such as waitress (rec.), package (rec., chiefly in form packaged, packaging), manifold OE
(obsolescent today), forward 1596, referee 1889, such adjectives as dirty, muddy. Many more are recorded in OED (as countess, patroness, squiress, traitress ‘play the…’, fellowship, kingdom a.o.).

Another reason seems to be still more important. Many of the nominal suffixes derive substantives from verbs., and it would be contrary to reason to form such verbs as arrival, guidance, improvement, organization when arrive, guide, improve, organize exist. Similar consideration apply to deadjectival derivatives like freedom or idleness. The verb disrupture is recorded in OED (though only in participial forms) but it is not common.
Reverence is used as a verb, but it is much older (13.., 1290) than the verb revere (1661). It should also be noted that the alternation revere/reverence shows characteristics of vowel change and stress which are irregular with derivation by means of -ance, -ence. For same reason reference is not a regular derivative from refer, which facilitated the coinage reference ‘provide with references’ etc. 1884.

There are no verbal derivatives from prefixed words either. The verb unfit ‘make unfit’ 1611 is isolated.

Type look substantive fr. look verb (deverbal

substantives).

Deverbal substantives are much less numerous than denominal verbs. The frequency-relation between the two types has been approximately the same in all periods of the language. An exception is to be made for the second half of the 13th century «when the absolute number of conversion-substantives is larger that of the verbs formed from substantives» (Biese/4/).

Form the 13th century are recorded (unless otherwise mentioned in parentheses, the resp. Verbs are OE) dread (1175), have, look, steal, weep, call (1225), crack, ‘noise’, dwell, hide, make, mislike, mourn, show, spit,
‘spittle’, stint, wrest ‘act of twisting’ a.o.

From the later ME period are recorded (indications in parentheses refer to the respective verbs) fall (OE), feel (OE), keep (OE), lift (ME), move (ME), pinch (ME), put (ME), run (OE), snatch (ME), sob (ME), walk
(OE), wash (OE).

From the 16th century date craze (ME), gloom (ME), launch (ME), push
(ME), rave (ME), say (OE), scream (ME), anub (ME), swim (OE), wave (OE); from the 17th century contest (1579), converse (ME), grin (OE), laugh (OE), produce (1499), sneeze (1493), take (ME), yawn (OE); from the 18th century finish (ME), hand (OE), pry (ME), ride (OE), sit (OE). From the 19th century fix (ME), meet (OE), shampoo (1762), spill (OE).

As for the meaning of deverbal substantive, the majority denote the act or rather a specific instance of what the verbal idea expresses quote, contest, fall, fix, knock, lift etc. This has been so from the beginning
(Hertrampf and Biese/4/). «The abstract nouns, including nouns of action, are not only the most common type of conversion-substantives; they are also those of the greatest importance during the early periods of the development of conversions» (Biese/4/). «The conversion-substantive used in a personal or concrete sense are, especially in the earlier stages, of comparatively slight importance» (ib.).

Concrete senses show mince ‘minced meat’, produce ‘product’, rattle
‘instrument’, sprout ‘branch’, shoot ‘branch’, shear ‘shorn animal’, sink
‘sewer’, clip ‘instrument’, cut ‘passage, opening’, spit ‘spittle’, stride
‘one of a flight of steps’.

Sbs denoting the result of the verbal action are catch, take, win
‘victory’, cut ‘provision’, find, melt ‘melded substance’, snatch ‘excerpt from a song’ e.c.

Place-denoting are fold, bend, slip, wush ‘sandbank’, dump etc.

Sbs denoting the impersonal agent are draw ‘attraction’, catch (of a gate, a catching question etc.), sting ‘animal organ’, tread ‘part of the sole that touches the ground’, do, take-in, all ‘tricky contrivance’, wipe
‘handkerchief’ sl etc.

There are also number of substantives denoting a person. OE knew the type boda ‘bode’ (corresponding to L scriba, OHG sprecho) which in ME was replaced by the type hunter. Several words survived, however, as bode, help
(OE help), hint (the last quotation in OED is from 1807), and they are occasional ME formations, as ally 1380 (if it is not rather French allie); but could be apprehended as formed after the type. Obs. Cut (a term of abuse) 1490 does not seem to have any connection with the verb cut, and scold ‘scolding woman’ 1200 is doubtful, the verb is first quoted 1377.

The word wright, which now occurs only as a second-word of cpds (cart- wright etc.) is no longer apprehended as an agent noun (belonging to wolk).
Otherwise all deverbal substantives denoting a personal agent are of Modern
English origin, 16th century or more recent. The type probably came into existence under the influence of the types pickpocket and runabout. Exs are romp ‘child or woman fond of romping’ 1706, flirt 1732, crack ‘cracksman’
1749 (thieves’ sl), bore ‘tiresome p.’ 1812, sweep ‘chimney sweeper’ 1812, coach ‘tutor, trainer’ 1848 (misleadingly classed in OED, as if from substantive coach), discard ‘discarded person’. The great number of depreciative terms is striking.

For the sake of convenience it is repeated here the examples of such personal deverbal substantives as form the second-words of cpds: upstart
1555, by-blow 1595=obs. By-slip 1670 ‘bastard’, chimney-sweep 1614, money- grub 1768, shoeblack and bootbleck 1778, new-come ‘new arrival’ 1577, bellhop, carhop rec.

The formation if deverbal substantives may be considered from the angle of syntactical grouping. No doubt there are different frequency-rates for a word according to the position which it has in a sentence. Biese/4/ has devoted a chapter to the question and has established various types of grouping which have influenced the growth of the type. It can be seen that deverbal substantives frequently occur in prepositional groups (to be in the know), that type are often the object of give, make, have, take (less so of other verbs), that only 11% of the examples show the deverbal substantives as subject of the sentence and that they are frequently by adjuncts. The most important patterns are ‘(be) in the know’ and ‘(have) a look’. Exs of the first type are phrases such as in the long run, upon the go, with a thrust of his hair, after this sit, for a tell, for the kill, for the draw, of English make, at a qulp, etc.

As for the t. ‘(have) a look’, «the use of phrasal verbs with conversion-substantives may be said to be a very marked feature during all periods from early ME up to the present time. As shown by these quotations, the origins of this use may be said to go back as far as the OE period»
(Biese/4/). Exs are; have a wash, a smoke, a swim, a chat etc., give a laugh, a cry, a break, a toss, a whistle, the chick, the go-by etc., take a ride, a walk, a swim, a read, the lead etc., make a move, a dive, a bolt, a bow etc. etc.

It will be interesting to compare zero-derivatives with the -ing substantives. Historical speaking there is no longer a competition so far as the formation of common substantives is concerned. The number of new- formed -ing substantives has been steadily decreasing since the beginning of the MoE period. According to Biese/4/ the figures for newly introduced
-ing substantives, as compared with zero-derivatives of the same verbs, are as follows: 13th century = 62, 14th = 80, 15th = 19, 16th =12, 17th century
=5, 18th century =2, 19th century =0. Biese/4/ has obviously considered the rise of new forms only, but the semantic development of -ing substantives.
Otherwise his figures would have been different. Any verb may derive an
-ing substantive which can take the definite article. The -ing then invariably denotes the action of the verb: the smoking of the gentlemen disturbed me. The zero-derivative, as compared with the ing, never denotes the action but gives the verbal ideal in a nominalized form, i.e. the notional content of the verbal idea (with the secondary implication of the idea ‘act’): the gentlemen withdrew for a smoke. «In their use with phrasal verbs -ing forms have become obsolete, whereas there is an ever increasing number of conversion substantives used in conjunction with verbs like make, take etc….»(Biese/4/). On the other hand, common substantives in ing are now chiefly denominal, denoting something concrete, chiefly material which eliminates ing as a rival for zero-derivatives. According to Biese/4/ this distinction is already visible in the early stages of conversion. Biese/4/ points out that a prepositional substantive following a substantive is almost always a ‘genitivus subjectivus’ (the grind of wheels), whereas the same type of group following an -ing substantive is most often a
‘genitivens objectivus’ which is certainly an observation to the point, as it shows the verbal character of the -ing substantives as compared with the more nominal character of zero-derivatives.

A few instances of semantically differentiated derivatives are bother/bothering, build/building, proceeds/proceedings, meet/meeting, set/setting, turn/turning, bend/bending, find/finding, sit/sitting, cut/cutting, feel/feeling, paint/painting.

Sometimes deverbal substantives are only idiomatic in the plural: it divers me the creeps (the jumps), turn on the weeps A sl, have the prowls A sl, the bends ‘caisson disease’, for keeps ‘for good’.

An apparent exception are derivatives from expressive verbs in -er
(type clatter) and -le (type sparkle) which are pretty numerous (Biese/4/), but in fact most of these verbs are not derivatives in the way verbs in
-ize or -ify are, because few simple verbs exist alongside of the composites. These words are better described as composites of expressive elements, so the suffixes are not categorizes.

Derivation from prefixed verbs is restricted to composites with the prefixes dis-, mis-, inter-, and re- (see the respective prefixes). With other prefixes, there have only been attempts at nominal derivation.
Biese/4/ has befall, beget, begin, behave, belay, belove, beseech, bespeak, bestow, betide, betrust as substantives. But they were all short-lived and rare. With the exception of belay 1908, a technical term, none seems to be in use today.

Biese/4/ has established a so-called detain- type, i.e. substantives derived from what he considers to be prefixed verbs. It do not seen the point of this distinction as one could analyze very few of his 450 words or so. The majority are unit words.

Zero-derivation and stress.

It shall now be made a few remarks about such types as have not been treated in this chapter. The stressing tendencies differ according to whether the basis is a unit word or a composite, also according to whether derivation is made from a noun or a verb.

Nominal derivation from composite verbs involves shift of stress.
Examples are the types runaway / blackout, overthrow, interchange, misfit, reprint which are derived from actual or possible verbal composites with the stress pattern —. The process has not yet come to an end which will explain that the OED, Webster and others very often give stress indications which no longer tally with the speech habits of the majority. Many cbs of the blackout type and all the substantives of the types misfit and reprint are stressed like the verbs resp. Verbal phrases in OED.

Of prefixal types only verbs with inter-, mis- and re- have developed stress-distinguished substantives. No similar pairs exist for neg. un- (no verbal type exists, anyway), reversative un-, be-, de- (be- and de- are only deverbal).

Verbs derived from composite substantives do not change their stress pattern. Cp. such verbs as backwash, background, afterdate, by-pass, counterweight, outlaw, outline, underbrush which are forestressed like their underlying nominal bases. This also explains the fluctuation in the stressing of counter- verbs, as counter-sign, counter-sink, stressed like the substantives though the verbal stress pattern is middle stress/heavy stress.

With unit words the current tendency is to retain the stress of the underlying basis in deverbal nouns as well as in denominal verbs. We may call this homologic stressing. Bradin/5/ had stated the fact for denominal verbs without, however, discussing the problem as to the obvious exceptions, while Jespersen/7/ speaks of ‘such an important thing in ford- formation as the stress-shifting in record substantive and verb’.

To a certain extent, it is a stress distinction between nouns and verbs which are otherwise homophonous. This distinctive stress pattern occurs chiefly with disyllabic words, record substantive / record verb. examples are contract, accent, affix, infix, prefix, suffix, augment, impress, concert, contrast, convert, escort, essay, export, object, subject, project, present, progress, protest, survey, torment, transfer.

The number of non-shifting examples is much greater, however. It will be first given instances of forestressed words with homologic stress: comment, compact, exile, figure, plaster, preface, prelude, prison, quarrel, climax, focus, herald, process, program, triumph, waitress, rivet, segment, sojourn, turmoil, contact, ‘bring or come into contact’, congress
‘meet in a congress’, incense ‘burn incense’, probate. To these may be added such verbs as are felt to be derived from a substantive and therefore forestressed like the underlying bases, at least in AE: accent, conflict, concrete (as in concrete a wall, also in OED), contract (as in contract a document), digest (as digest a book), export, import (prob. originating in contrastive stressing), recess (as recess a wall), survey (in certain senses), torment (frequent), transfer (the regular stressing as a railway team).

The group of non-shifting endstressed words is considerably larger.
Unit words beginning with de-, dis-, re- are especially numerous. Examples are: accord, advance, assent, attack, decay, delay, defeat, dispatch, despute, escape, exclaim, (as a deverbal substantive ‘presenting position of a rifle’), precise, relax, remove, repay, reform, support (Biese/4/).

On the other hand, it is found instances of distinctive stressing in
AE: address, conserves, discard, discharge are often heard with forestress when substantives, also relay and research; reject substantive with forestress is the only pronunciation possible. Of these, relay and research may be explained as reinterpretations after the t. reprint substantive
/reprint verb; reject is perh. influenced by subject, object, project, traject. In any case, this tendency towards distinctive stress in deverbal substantives is weak as compared with that towards homologic stress.

To sum up: the tendency with denominal verbs is to give them the stress of the underlying nominal basis, which has in many cases led to homologic stress with all or part of the verbal meanings versus older distinctive stress. Deverbal substantives, on the whole, show the same inclination to homologic stress. But there is also a weak tendency towards distinctive stress, though chiefly in AE. As for the tendency toward stress distinction between nominal and verbal homophones pointed out by
Jespersen/7/, it was perhaps vaguely on the analogy of composites that it came into existence. The original stress with these loans from French or
Latin was on the last syllable (F absent, L abstract(um)), so verbs retained this stress all the more easily as many native verbs were so stressed: become, believe, forbid, forget, mislead etc., whereas almost all disyllabic native substantives, unit words as well as composites were forestressed (the few contrary examples such as unhealth, unrest, untruth, belief hardly count against the overwhelming majority). This may have led to a tendency towards forestress with non-native disyllabic substantives too. But what has taken on the character of a strong derivative device with composites has proved much weaker with unit words on account of their entirely different structure. Further development seems to point in the direction of homologic stressing.

Combination of the type hanger-on may be mentioned here. As they are functionally characterized by the suffix -er, the absence of stress shift is only natural. The stress pattern of the underlying verbal phrase is retained.

The abilities in production new words from colourmarcking adjectives.

The world around of us is the world of colour and paints, for which a variety of combinations and shades is characteristic. The colour is one of properties of objects of the material world and is perceived as the realized visual sensation. The adjectives are used as a special part of speech serving for a colour designation . The word-formation serves for a designation of colour shades of adjectives, and also for the parts of speech formed from them. Between that, the word-formation aspect of lexic has remained indifferently, word-formation relations inside this layer, with its originality, deserves the attention by way of their description and study in the language.

The word-formation is a system, which unites grammatical and lexical, that speaks about its enterlevel character and allows to apply the complex approach to the investigated phenomena. Essence of grammar of a word- formation suffix, which signals about the belonging a derivative word to this or that part of speech and defines its paradigm, confirms this idea.
Also, on the basic purpose, which consists in creation of a new word and updating of the vocabulary , the indissoluble unity of a word-formation and lexicon is shown. Besides the word-formation, having own sphere of research, studies word-formation resources and processes conducting to creation of word-formation models, and also condition of functioning and filling the lasts.

As the adjectives of a colourmarking concern to the most ancient layer of lexicon, at their analysis there was necessary to pay attention to the facts of diachronic, and also to consider an originality of the given group of words, which is allocated with the various symbolic. This circumstance finds the reflection in formation of portable meanings which are included in lexical-semantic structure of initial adjectives, and influences the lexical filling of word-formation models their derivatives.

The study of lexical-semantic structures of colourmarking adjectives has shown unusual connection of colour and noncolour meanings, variety of their shades, the influence of the nonlanguage validity on semantics of a word. It was established, that the contextual environment of colourmarking adjectives has the large importance for the adequate description of their lexical-semantic structures.

The word-formation model is closely connected to word-formation paradigm. Each adjective has own paradigm having unequal extent and various morpheme filling of models, included in it. On the basis of research of each separate paradigm, it is possible to deduce the generalized word- formation paradigm of the given group of words, which is characterized by presence constant, basic, facultative and even “unique” participants, that is shown in the limits of the language.

The word-formation can be made:

1) inside one part of speech: A+suf=A1

2) by a transposition: — A+suf=N,

— A+suf=V,

— A+suf=D,

— V+suf=N,

where A — initial adjective, suf — word-forming suffix, A1, N, V, D — derivatives: adjective, noun, verb, adverb.

1. A+suf=A1.

The basic suffixes -ish, -y are the constant and obligatory members of general word-formation paradigm, i.e. enter into the paradigm of each adjective.

2.1 A+suf=N.

-ness is the conducting suffix here. The abstract nouns belong to this model in the English language: blueness.

Other derivatives, in which formation the various suffixes take part, are facultative, i.e. can be found in paradigm of one or two adjectives.

The presence of the facultative members depends on portable and minor meanings which are included in lexical-semantic structure of initial lexises. So in a derivative noun “blueism” one of meanings of the adjective
“blue” — «интеллектуальный», «ученый», «премудрый» etc. is realized, and the suffix -ism introduces in the semantics of the derivative the generalized meaning.

The portable meaning of an adjective “green” — «неопытный», «незрелый» is shown in the appropriate derivatives – “greener, greenie” — carriers of this quality. It is necessary to note, that paradigmatic lines can have unequal extent because of the facultative members. “Green — greenness, greenery, greenth, greenage, greener, greenie, greenlet, greening, greenling”.

Speaking about the semantic of the derivatives it is necessary to note that their polysemantic is in the direct dependence on character of lexical- semantic structure of an initial basis. Depending on a context the suffix noun “blueness “ one of the meanings of motivating adjectives realizes: « синева, лазурь, синий цвет » (blue – “синий, голубой” -the actualizing of the basic colour meaning), «синяк» ( the actualizing of minor meaning),
«ученость, премудрость, интеллектуальность» (blueism), ««непристойность»
(blue-joke — « неприличная, непристойная шутка » — the actualizing of portable meaning).

The realization of the model A+suf=N is connected to redistribution of semas and one-radical parts of speech in semantic structure. General- categorical sema of that part of speech, in which the initial lexis was transposed — here it is a sema of a subject inherent by a noun, become the basic one. After it, semas, subordinated to it: abstract, concrete and animate, follow, depending on character of a derivative noun. Only then the general-categorical sema of an initial adjective — sema of an attribute settles down.

2.2 A+suf=V.

The suffix verbs formed from colourmarking adjectives, carry facultative character (redden, blacken, whiten) and differ by the ramified lexical-semantic structure. Its size is defined not only because of entrance simultaneously of semas of transitivity and intransitivity in it, but also due to more various lexical semantics. The given model also is characterized by redistribution of semas, which occurs at a verbal transposition. The conducting place is occupied by a general-categorical sema of verbs – the sema of process, and also semas, subordinated to it, of transitivity and intransitivity. Only after them the sema of an attribute inherent in initial adjectives, follows.

2.3 A+suf=D.

This model is submitted in the English language by a suffix -ly, and the derivative adverbs are the constant members of the paradigm (bluely, brownly, greenly, yellowly).

2.4 V+suf=N.

In the English language this model is submitted by suffix nouns formed from verbs. To blue bluer « тот, кто воронит сталь ». The English deverbal nouns with a suffix -ing are characterized by constant participation in paradigm (blueing, browning, greening, redding, yellowing).

Besides the affix models, examining the word-formation opportunities of colourmarking adjectives the important role is played by models of an affixless wordmaking. They assume an obligatory transposition of parts of speech. If the distinctive feature of an affix word-making is the presence of a marker as a final word-forming suffix, then such marker is not present at the affixless (implicit) word-making. Because of its complexity the problem of an affixless word-making is examined from various points of view, and the ways for its solution are planned:

1. The word-formation means of this way of a word-making come to light;

2. The processes occurring at an affixless word-making, are examined in connection with typological features of the language and its morphological build;

3. The criteria for a synchronous establishment of a direction of a derivation are developed;

4. Various methods of the analysis are applied, supplementing each other.

Two basic models of an affixless word-making were allocated: A(N, A(
V.

The model A(N reflects the phenomenon of a substantivation.

The English language, where the category of a gender is absent, aspires to include various meanings in one lexeme structure and to expand volume of its lexical-semantic structure by that, at realization of this model. An indispensable condition of functioning derivative, formed on the given model, is the change of categorial semantics of a part of speech and redistribution of semas in their semantic structure. Besides an obligatory general-categorial sema of a noun -the sema of a subject, for the English derivative lexeme the entry in its structure simultaneously of semas abstract and concrete, animate and inanimateness etc. is peculiar, that is the specific feature of the English language. In the English language, with its analytical tendency, there is an aspiration to a full semantic filling of a word.

The character of semantic shifts occurring at realization of this model, can be explained with help of lexical-semantic structure, where the meaning contains, which is modified in appropriate derivatives. The nouns formed on this model, are included into the structure of various phraseologies: out of blue — is «неожиданно». It shows the connection of word-formation and phraseological systems of the language.

There is an interest in the cases when in a basis of phraseologies the various colour associations lay: to fire into the brown — « стрелять мимо цели, неметко ».

The comparison of models of an affix and affixless word-making shows, that the distinctive attribute of the lasts is in their poly-semantic not as in the appropriate suffix models , the most important feature is the opportunity of being included in various phraseologies.

A(V. The typological feature of these verbs is that they include the semas of transitivity and intransitivity in their lexical-semantic structure and it expand the categorial semantic because of it.

The portable meanings of the colourmarking adjectives find their reflections in the English verbs : to green « обманывать, мистифицировать
»( green « доверчивый, простодушный ».

The word addition has the wide circulation among the suffix and prefix word-formation during the all extent of development of the language.

The number of questions are allocated from all of problems concerning formation of complex words,: 1) the compatibility of the appropriate colourmarking adjectives with other categories of words; 2) what element of meaning, basic or portable, is realized there; 3) distribution of models of complex words in the parts of speech; 4) feature of their structure and functioning.

To typological criteria also belong: a) number of components forming a new word; b) a way of the connection components:

· full complete;

· is incomplete combined;

· connection with the help of service words;

c) A type of the semantic connection between the components of a complex word, which carries an attribute character in the examined models.

Complex nouns including the colourmarking adjective as one of the components, makes out the lexical groups of words. The names of plants, animal, minerals etc. concern to them. The complex words which in result of metonym carry from a part on whole serve the name of an animal or plant widely submitted among them : redbreast «малиновка». It, so-called,
«bahoovrihs». The group of words is also allocated, where the colourmarking adjectives, combining with the name of clothes, form » bahoovrihs «, used for calling the man: blue jacket «матрос». At the same time there is a number of differences in еру realization of models of complex nouns and their functioning. In the English language there are difficulties in the differentiation of complex word from word combination. It is depend on the nonexpressed morphological structure of the English word. Frequently
English language prefers word combinations: to look blue «выглядеть унылым
». Because of that the English language has a plenty of phraseological word combinations including colourmarking adjectives : blue devils «хандра», brown study « мрачное раздумье ». The increased

lexical-semantic structure with a metamorphosing of meanings is the characteristic feature of the English complex word : blue-cap «круглая плоская синяя шапочка (ее раньше носили в Шотландии)», «шотландцы», «лосось первого года жизни», «синица», «василек», «сорт пива».

The basic type of a complex word is two-componented, the basic way of connection of the components is full complete. The connection with the help of a connecting element is not very typically for the English language.

The models of complex adjectives including colourmarking adjectives as one of components, are present in the English language. As the basic part of speech expressing colour shades, are the adjectives, the basic attention is given to the appropriate complex adjectives. The English language, besides complex words, aspires to use the word combinations, and also derivative and radical lexemes: purple.

The formation of compound verbs on conversion is typical of the
English language: to bluestocking « быть синим чулком », to brownbag
(slang) « приносить в ресторан свою еду ». Last word is rather new, that speaks about the role of the given tendency in a word-formation of the
English language, it is also possible the further word-making — brown – bagger.

III. Practical part.

It is impossible to underestimate a role of studying of a word- formation in an primary school. As the teaching of foreign language should pass in complex, i.e. the studying English should include the basic directions: grammar, phonetics and lexicon, the importance of studying of word-formation aspect of lexicon becomes doubtless. The studying of conversion, which because of the extreme productivity is one of conducting ways of creation the new words in the English language, can become one of the ways of updating of the child’s vocabulary . Here it should be noted the importance of lexicon, in general, in studying of foreign language in primary school. The lexicon should be acquired in system, therefore the work above the child’s vocabulary should begin from the first day of studying English and proceed during the all period of training, day-to- day.

One of the basic principles of selection of lexicon in primary school is the common use, i.e. the opportunity of the using in the colloquial speech, hence, in the younger classes is not selected special lexicon as the words for studying. The very small quantity of time is allocated for acquaintance and training of that lexicon, which is not of a situation, necessary for creation of a dialogue.

The plenty of time is allocated for studying of a word, acquaintance with its meaning, its role in the sentence, in the system of language, however items of information about its formation and opportunity of formation new words from it are given, only if the speech goes about a word formed suffix, seldom prefix, way of a word-formation. The words formed on conversion, are simply showed, as two different parts of speech, that does not give an opportunity to children itself to make words, basing on the knowledge of this way of a word-formation. For comprehension of importance of this aspect of language it is necessary to address to a psychological linguistic nature of lexicon. You see in psychology the word is the complex activator, for example, at perception and understanding of oral and written speech, this complex speech action (at expression of thoughts). At understanding of a word the acoustical and visual analyzers will be involved, and this integrated approach promotes the best mastering. The dialogue in foreign language is rather difficult activity for the child. It occurs that, first, for the younger schoolboy it is much easier to communicate on the native language much and it is not clearly, why he should express in English, secondly, for this purpose it is necessary to make rather difficult mental operation — to choose the words, suitable on sense, from the vocabulary to construct the sentence grammatically correctly, observing thus the words order , i.e. to do so that to be understood. Becomes obvious, that the updating of the child’s vocabulary is one of the basic problem for the teacher, you see the word is a basic minimal unit of any language.

The studying of conversion, as one of ways of a word-formation, will help to do the child‘s vocabulary more rich, to make his speech more expressive, and also to fill up passive and active vocabulary, by means of formation the new words himself. Now, reading, for example, a book, it will not be necessary to him to look for a word formed on conversion, in the dictionary, but to define its meaning, using the knowledge of this phenomenon of language. Especially, the nouns and verbs formed from adjectives of a colourmarking by this way, are included into structure of various phraseologies, where carry more often portable meaning.

Some courses, foreign and Russian were analysed, where English is taught, as foreign language. It is interesting to note, that the word- formation is not studied neither in primary, nor in secondary school, however, it is possible to find some items concerning this aspect of lexicon. Courses: Russian (English by Vereshchagina, Pretykina and Learning
English by Skulta) and foreign (Magic Time and Hot Line by Tom Hutchinson) have various methodical base, usually it is: some text books, teacher’s book, reading book , active book, audio cassettes. There is not any word about conversion in this courses, however, words formed in this way are given simply as different parts of speech, and the connection between them is not explained.

With the purpose of revealing a level of children’s knowledge about a conversion word-formation the ascertaining experiment was done, where children were offered to do the following task (see appendix 1). Every pupil have received individual card, in which a number of pairs sentences on English with translation and the missed words was given. The list of words was located below, from which it was necessary to choose a word, suitable on sense, and to insert it into the appropriate sentence. In 10 minutes the works were gathered. (Results of experiment see appendix 7, table 1)

For formation the skill of the conscious using words formed by a way of conversion ,in oral and written speech and also for acquaintance with its role in the English language the forming experiment including number of the tasks, promoting to achievement of this purpose was done. The final aim was not in remembering the term conversion and its definitions by the pupils, but in understanding of sense of the phenomenon, as one of the most productive ways of formation of new words in the English language. At the first stage, on an example of two sentences, using the leading questions, children come to a conclusion, that the same word can represent various parts of speech (see appendix 2). At the following stage was primary fastening of this material, i.e. the schoolboys were offered to explain the statement of this or that word in the sentence on an example of a material of ascertaining experiment (see appendix 3). The following task consist in the following: a number of adjectives of a colourmarking was offered to children who needed to translate them; it is quite natural, that the schoolboys have apprehended them as adjectives. Further before the younger schoolboys the dilemma was put: whether these words can have the pair, which would be the other part of speech without changing the form of the word. All children successfully have coped with this task, using the dictionaries, conclusion that these pairs of words illustrate the phenomenon of conversion, was made by schoolboys by themselves (see appendix 4). Further group of children was divided into the brigades, the individual word was offered to every one, with which they needed to do the following operations: to find out, one or several parts of speech can be represented by this word to prove it, it was necessary to make the sentences with these words and to explain an belonging the word to this or that part of speech. By the purpose of this task was to fix the pupils’s knowledge of this theme, and also to train in the using of these words in the sentence, in particular, and in speech in general (see appendix 4). At the following stage of generalization of the knowledge and fastening, automation of skill of the using the words formed on conversion the task consist in, that 1) to define a part of speech of the allocated words in the sentence, 2) to make the sentences similar by the given ones, 3) to define a part of speech of the words submitted outside of a context. The third part of the task is obviously impracticable, because it was given only the graphic form of a word, that in general ruled out any opportunity to differentiate it as part of speech. It is natural, that children have done only the two first parts of the task, last part has caused them the quite justified difficulties, and by the method of group work succeeded to come to the conclusion that the words given only in a graphic form, can designate different parts of speech, for the confirmation it the schoolboys had to use the dictionaries (see appendix 5). If to speak about the whole forming experiment, it is possible to note, that the children liked the tasks, they tried to do everything in time. Though this experiment did not put as the purpose the remembering the term conversion and its definitions by the children , however, almost all children used it in the demonstration and independent explanation.

The purpose of a check experiment was revealing the level of children’s knowledge . For this purpose the test was offered to the schoolboys, where answering on questions «yes», «no», they came to a certain pictogram, which designated the certain mark. The questions are made by a principle from simple to difficult, therefore children at first have apprehended this task, as a game (see appendix 6). The results of check have shown a rather high level of the knowledge (see appendix 7, table 2).

Considering the results of the done work, it is possible to come to conclusion that the studying of this theme regularly, can give quite acceptable results. Though there is no sufficient methodical base, which could help with formation of the skill of using the words formed on conversion in oral and written speech, mastering children of knowledge on this theme however is possible. As the adequate moment of a beginning studying of this phenomenon it is possible to consider the third year of training of foreign language in a primary school. The studying of this aspect of the English language promotes the enrichment of the child’s dictionary , and as it was spoken plays not the last role in studying of the language, forms the skill of independent work, develops such mental processes, as memory, logic thinking, ability to analyze and to compare.
The next years of training the deepening and expansion of this theme with a support on the items of information received in an elementary school is possible.

IV. Conclusion.

The examination of the works of some authors (Adams, Jespersen,
Marchand/1, 7, 10/), shows such problem, as the exact status of conversion within word-formation is unclear. For some scholars conversion is a brunch of derivation, for others it is a separate type of word-formation, on level with derivation and compounding. Whether this distinction has any real effect on the structure of a theory of word-formation. Most writers use both terms appear to use them as synonyms. However many authors agreed that the conversion is one of the most productive ways of a word-formation and is a lexical category, though many of them show it as a grammatical category too. Then the word changes the form class of a form without any corresponding changes of form, it accepts all grammatical attributes of this class. The significant productivity of conversion word-formation is shown also in ability of formation the new words practically from any part of speech, including prepositions. In the paper the models of conversion word-formation are submitted, such as: verb(substantive, verb(adjective, verb(locative particles, verb(interjections, substantive(verb. Examining the opportunities of formation the new words from adjectives of a colourmarking, it is possible to note, that they participate in suffix, conversion word-formation, and also form new words by word adding. And at any of these ways can be realized both direct, and portable meaning, and the words formed on conversion (more often nouns) can be included into structure of phraseologies.

The purpose of the put experiments of a practical part of this paper was achieved. Children have acquired the offered initial knowledge of a theme of a conversion word-formation, have learned to use such words in oral and written speech. Besides it, they have remembered the term
«conversion».

Taking into account the quite good results, received during the experiment, it is possible to plan the further ways of development of studying this way of word-formation at school and, in particular, in primary classes. The further studying of this phenomenon can be done by offering serially one of the models V(A, N(V etc. It is possible to predict the successful result of this studying,, and at the end, children would be able to find the examples of conversion word-formation and use them in oral and written speech

V. Bibliography.

1. Adams, V. An introduction to Modern English word- formation. Longman. 1973.

2. Bauer, L. English word-formation. Cambridge. 1983.

2. Bett, H. Wandering among words. Allemand. 1936.

3. Biese, Y. Origin and development of conversion in English.

Helsinki. 1941.

4. Brown, I. Just another word. Cape. 1943.

5. Bladin, V. Studies and denominative verbs in English. Uppsala.

1911.

6. Jespersen, O. A modern English grammar on historical principles.

Copenhagen. 1942.

7. Kruisinga, E. A handbook of present day English. Groningen. 1932.

8. Lyons, J. Introduction to theoretical linguistic. London. 1972.

9. Marchand, H. The categories and types of present day word- formation. Harrassowitz. 1960.

10. Mencken, H. The American language. New York. 1936.

11. Vallins, G. The making and meaning of words. Black, London. 1941.

12. Воронцова, Г. Очерки по грамматике английского языка. М. 1960.

13. Жирмунская, М. Л. Словообразовательные потенции прилагательных цветообозначения в современных германских языках. М., 1982.

14. Иванова, И. П. Христоматия по истории английского языка. Л.

1973.

15. Каращук, П. Словообразование английского языка. М. 1977.

17. Мешков, О. Словообразование в современном английском языке. М. 1976.

18. Сильницкий, Г (отв. ред.). Проблемы английского словообразования. Смоленск. 1976.

19. Смирницкий, А. История английского языка. М. 1953.

20. Смирницкий, А. Лексикология современного английского языка. М.

1956.

Dictionaries.

-Berg, P. A dictionary of new words in English. London. 1953.

-Jones, D. An English pronouncing dictionary. London. 1957.

-The Oxford pocket Russian dictionary. Oxford. 1994.

Appendix 1. Ascertaining experiment.

Цель: выявить уровень знаний учащихся об употреблении слов, образованных по конверсии.

Задание: вставить слова подходящие по смыслу вместо … в предложения.

1. She … very well. Она готовит очень хорошо.

She is a good … . Она хороший повар.

2. There is a small … room in this flat. В этой квартире есть маленькая квадратная комната.

There are a lot of parks and … in our city. В нашем городе много парков и площадей.

3. The bush of … grows under the window. Куст сирени растет под окном.

I have very beautiful … dress. У меня есть очень красивое … платье.

4. There are red and … flowers in the vase. В вазе стояли красные и желтые цветы.

Leaves … in autumn. Листья желтеют осенью.

Слова для справки: cook, round, violet, yellow, sweet, look, lilac, square.

Appendix 2. Forming experiment. Stage 1.

Цель всего формирующего эксперимента: сформировать навык сознательного употребления слов, образованных по конверсии, в устной и письменной речи.

Задачи:

1) образовательная:

. грамматическая: повторять употребление времен группы Simple и

Continuous;

. лексическая: привести детей к пониманию смысла изучаемого явления, пополнение активного словаря ребенка посредством знакомства с новыми словами, с конверсией, как одним из способов словообразования, посредством перевода некоторых слов из пассивного словаря в активный;

. фонетическая: тренировать в произнесении необходимых звуков, особенно звуков второй и третей группы сложности.

2) воспитательная: учить детей самостоятельно находить информацию, в т.ч. пользоваться словарями, воспитывать чувство взаимопомощи и взаимовыручки;

3) развивающая: развивать такие психические функции, как память, логическое мышление, произвольное внимание.

| | |примерные |
|этапы |содержание |ответы |
| | |учащихся |
|Основная|Look at the blackboard. Who can | |
|часть |read these sentences? | |
| |I like this sweet. | |
| |This apple is sweet. | |
| |Who can translate these |-мне нравится|
| |sentences? |эта конфета. |
| | |Это яблоко |
| | |сладкое. |
| |Right. Как вы думаете, почему |-потому что |
| |именно эти два слова выделены? |они |
| | |одинаковые. |
| |А я сейчас вам докажу, что это не | |
| |совсем так. Давайте внимательно | |
| |посмотрим, какой частью речи |Это |
| |является это слово в первом |существитель-|
| |предложении? |ное. |
| | |Это |
| | |прилагательно|
| |А во втором? |е |
| | | |
| |Так что же это получается, может |Нет, оба |
| |одно из них неправильное? |правильные. |
| | | |
| |Значит, действительно так бывает, | |
| |что одно и то же слово может | |
| |обозначать разные части речи. Это| |
| |бывает только в английском языке, |Мороженое –и |
| |или кто-нибудь знает подобные |прилагательно|
| |примеры и в русском? |е, и |
| | |существитель-|
|Вывод: | |ное. |
| | |В английском |
| | |языке, так же|
| |Значит, какой вывод мы можем |как и в |
| |сделать из того, что мы сейчас |русском есть |
| |выяснили? |такие слова, |
| | |внешне ничем |
| | |не |
| | |отличающиеся,|
| | |но |
| | |обозначающие |
| | |разные части |
| | |речи. |

Appendix 3. Forming experiment. Stage 2.

| | |примерные ответы|
|этапы |содержание |учащихся |
|Основна|Давайте вспомним ту работу, | |
|я часть|которую мы писали. Те слова, | |
| |которые нужно было вставить я | |
| |выделила другим цветом. Вам | |
| |нужно только объяснить, какой | |
| |частью речи они выражены и | |
| |почему вы так решили. |-здесь это слово|
| |1. She cooks very well. Она |является |
| |готовит очень хорошо. |глаголом, т.к. |
| | |обозначает |
| | |действие, |
| | |является |
| | |сказуемым и |
| |She is a good cook . Она |оканчивается на|
| |хороший повар. |s, а это |
| | |окончание |
| | |глаголов 3 л. н.|
| | |вр. |
| |2. There is a small square room|-это |
| |in this flat. В этой квартире |существи-тельное|
| |есть маленькая квадратная |, т.к. перед ним|
| |комната. |стоит артикль и |
| | |прилагательное. |
| | |-это |
| | |прилагательное, |
| |There are a lot of parks and |т.к. стоит перед|
| |squares in our city. В нашем |существительным |
| |городе много парков и |и говорит о том,|
| |площадей. |какая это |
| | |комната |
| | |- |
| | |существительное,|
| | |здесь оно |
| | |оканчивается на |
| |3. The bush of lilac grows |s, потому что |
| |under the window. Куст сирени |существительное |
| |растет под окном. |стоит во |
| |I have very beautiful lilac |множественном |
| |dress. У меня есть очень |числе. |
| |красивое сиреневое платье. |-существительное|
| |4. There are red and yellow |, обозначает |
| |flowers in the vase. В вазе |название |
| |стояли красные и желтые цветы.|растения. |
| | |-прилагательное,|
| |Leaves yellow in autumn. |т.к. обозначает |
| |Листья желтеют осенью. |признак |
| | |предмета. |
| | |-прилагательное,|
| | |т.к. обозначает |
| | |признак |
| |Давайте подумаем, почему вы не |предмета. |
| |справились с этим заданием |-глагол, т.к. |
| |раньше. Что нам еще раз |обозначает |
| |подтвердили эти предложения? |действие и в |
| | |предложении |
| | |является |
| | |сказуемым. |
| | | |
| |Такое превращение слова из | |
| |одной части речи в другую в | |
| |английском языке называется |-мы не знали о |
| |«конверсия». Посмотрите, какими|том, что |
| |частями речи может быть |одинаково |
|Итог: |обозначено одно слово? |написанные слова|
| | |могут обозначать|
| | |разные части |
| |Какими частями речи может быть |речи. |
| |одно и то же слово? Кто | |
| |запомнил, как называется это | |
| |явление? | |
| | | |
| | |Сущ. — глагол, |
| | |прил. –глагол, |
| | |прил. – сущ. |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |Конверсия. |

Appendix 4. Forming experiment. Stage 3.

|этапы |содержание |Примерные |
| | |ответы |
| | |учащихся |
|Основная |Скажите, все ли вы знаете об | |
|часть: |английских прилагательных, | |
| |обозначающих цвета? |-да. |
| |Посмотрите на доску, | |
| |прочитайте слова и переведите:| |
| | |-голубой, |
| |Blue, black, pink, yellow, |черный, |
| |violet, lilac. |розовый, |
| | |желтый, |
| | |фиолетовый, |
| | |сиреневый. |
| | | |
| |А теперь возьмите словари и | |
| |проверьте, нет ли у этих | |
| |слов, кроме этого значения | |
| |цвета, другие значения, |-небо, траур,|
| |выраженные другой частью речи?|гвоздика, |
| | |желтеть, |
| | |фиалка, |
| | |сирень. |
|Мини | | |
|вывод: | |У |
| |Какой вывод мы можем сделать? |прилагательны|
| | |х , |
| | |обозначающих |
| | |цвета тоже |
| | |встречается |
| | |такое явление|
| | |«конверсия». |

Stage 4.
|Работа в |Теперь вам нужно разделиться на| |
|бригадах.|бригады по три человека. | |
| |Задание будет общим, но слова | |
| |будут разные: | |
| |green, look, bath, dry. У | |
| |каждой бригады свое слово, с | |
| |ним нужно сделать следующее: | |
| |найти все его значения в | |
| |словаре, узнать, в роли каких | |
| |частей речи оно может | |
| |выступать, составить | |
| |предложения, в которых бы | |
| |отражались по возможности все | |
|Проверка:|значения. (15 мин.) | |
| |(один чел. из бригады читает | |
| |все значения, другой записывает| |
| |предло-жение на доске, | |
| |остальные-проверяют.) | |

Appendix 5. Forming experiment. Stage 5.

|Этапы |Содержание |примерные |
| | |ответы |
| | |учащихся |
|Повторение:|Что вы знаете о конверсии в | |
| |английском языке? |В английском |
| | |языке есть |
| | |такие слова, |
| | |которые, не |
| | |меняя формы, |
| | |могут |
| | |выражать |
| | |разные части |
| | |речи. |
| |Какими частями речи может быть | |
| |одно и то же слово? |Существительн|
| | |ое – глагол, |
| | |прилагательно|
| | |е – глагол, |
| | |прилагательно|
| | |е – |
| | |существительн|
| | |ое. |
| |С.р.:1)Указать часть речи | |
|Основная |выделенных слов: | |
|часть: |I heard a cry from the closed | |
| |door. | |
| |They cry because they can’t go | |
| |for a walk. | |
| |I have a very tasty fish for | |
| |dinner. | |
| |We are going to fish next | |
| |Sunday. | |
| |I don’t like when the weather | |
| |is cold. | |
| |The cold helps to safe food | |
| |fresh. | |
| |I like to dance. | |
| |We liked their dance. | |
| |2) Составить пару предложений, | |
| |чтобы слова hate – ненависть, | |
| |ненавидеть, hunt – охота, | |
| |охотиться, lift – лифт, | |
| |поднимать употреблялись в | |
| |первом предложении как | |
| |существительное, а во втором | |
|Проверка: |как глагол. | |
| |3) определить часть речи | |
| |следующих слов: round, fly, | |
| |harm, alarm. | |
| | | |
| |(дети проверяют работы друг |Сущ., прил. |
| |друга по образцу, написанному |Нет. |
| |на доске: 1. Сущ., гл., сущ., |Потому что |
| |гл., прил., сущ., гл., сущ). |это слово |
| |Второе задание я проверю сама. |может быть и |
| |А вот скажите мне, какой части |существительн|
| |речи слово round? |ым, и |
| |А можем мы определить часть |прилагательны|
| |речи? |м. |
| |Почему? | |
|Итог: | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| |Действительно вне контекста | |
| |мы не можем с точностью | |
| |сказать, какая это часть речи, | |
| |конечно, если перед словом | |
| |стоит артикль, то мы можем | |
| |сказать, что это | |
| |существительное. Если же дано | |
| |только графическое изображение| |
| |слова, мы не сможем | |
| |определить часть речи. | |

Appendix 6. Control experiment.

Цель: выявление уровня знаний учащихся по пройденному материалу.

Задачи:

1) образовательные:

. грамматическая: повторение времен группы Simple, Continuous;

. лексическая: проверка усвоения начальных сведений о явлении конверсии, контроль формирования навыка употребления таких слов;

2) воспитательная: воспитывать самостоятельность;

3) развивающая: развивать психические функции, такие как память, логическое мышление, произвольное внимание.

Детям предлагается следующий тест:

В английском языке слова могут обозначать не одну, а несколько частей речи (присутствует понятие конверсии).

Appendix 7. The results of Ascertaining and Control experiment.

| |Не справились с |Средний уровень. |Все выполнено |
| |работой. | |верно. |
|Количество | | | |
|человек из |9 |3 |0 |
|12. | | | |
|Количество в | | | |
|% от 100%. |75% |25% |0% |

| |Не справились с |Средний уровень. |Все выполнено |
| |работой. | |верно. |
|Количество | | | |
|человек из |1 |3 |8 |
|12. | | | |
|Количество в | | | |
|% от 100%. |8,3% |25% |6,7% |

————————
Это такие слова, как: clean, green, cook, orange.

Слово green является прилагательным.

Слово black может быть и существительным, и прилагательным.

A pink-«гвоздика, розовый»

Предложение: “ The leaves on this tree yellows in autumn.” построено правильно.

Pink перево-дится -«розовый».

Этот тест сложный для тебя?

Предложения: “My hat is violet.
I have a violet hat.” подтверждают выводы по нашей теме.

Yellow переводится, как желтый и как желтеть (to yellow).

A violet переводится, как «фиалка».

Предложение: «В сиреневой вазе стояла ветка сирени.» переводится так:
“There was a branch of lilac in the lilac vase”.

Blue может переводиться как «небо».

Оба выделенных слова являются прилагательными.

Первое выделенное слово- прилагательное, второе- существительное.

Неправильно, потому что оба выделенные слова являются существительными.