Inglise leksikoloogia kordamisküsimuste vastused
LEXICOLOGY
1. Size of English vocabulary
1) Old English – 50,000 to 60,000 words Vocabulary of Shakespeare
OE – homogeneous; 1/3 of the vocabulary has survived • 884,647 words of running text
About 450 Latin loans (Amosova) • 29,000 different words (incl. work, working,
Viking invasions added 2,000 worked, which are counted here as separate
2) Middle English – 100,000 – 125,000 words)
English becomes heterogeneous (Norman French, • 21,000 words
English, Latin), hybrid of Germanic and Romance
languages
Norman French influence – about 10,000 words, 75 %
are still in use (Baugh)
Latin influence continues
3) Early Modern English – 200,000 – 250,000
English becomes a polycentric language; polyglot,
cosmopolitan lang...