Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- An introduction to the textbook
- Chapter One Word origins
- Chapter Two The background of English
- Chapter Three Composition of the Early Modern and Modern English vocabulary
- Chapter Four Smaller than words: morphemes and types of morphemes
- Chapter Five Allomorphy, phonetics, and affixation
- Chapter Six Replacement rules
- Chapter Seven Deletion rules and other kinds of allomorphy
- Chapter Eight Fossilized allomorphy: false cognates and other etymological pitfalls
- Chapter Nine Semantic change and semantic guesswork
- Chapter 10 The pronunciation of classical words in English
- Appendix I An introduction to dictionaries
- Appendix II Morpheme list
- Index
Chapter 10 - The pronunciation of classical words in English
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- An introduction to the textbook
- Chapter One Word origins
- Chapter Two The background of English
- Chapter Three Composition of the Early Modern and Modern English vocabulary
- Chapter Four Smaller than words: morphemes and types of morphemes
- Chapter Five Allomorphy, phonetics, and affixation
- Chapter Six Replacement rules
- Chapter Seven Deletion rules and other kinds of allomorphy
- Chapter Eight Fossilized allomorphy: false cognates and other etymological pitfalls
- Chapter Nine Semantic change and semantic guesswork
- Chapter 10 The pronunciation of classical words in English
- Appendix I An introduction to dictionaries
- Appendix II Morpheme list
- Index
Summary
Unassimilated classical words
English contains classical words and phrases of two types:
(1) Those that have been fully assimilated into English, and have simply become English words (all the early borrowings, also most borrowings during and before the Renaissance); and
(2) True classical words that are either recognizably recent borrowings, or words and phrases fossilized in legal or scientific language.
The bulk of this book has been concerned with the former group, the words of classical origin that are now fully assimilated into English, and this chapter will be no exception. Before turning to the main topic, however, it may be useful to deal with the second group and recount briefly how unassimilated classical words and phrases are pronounced in English. The issue with these is: to what extent does one try to reproduce or simulate “authentic” Latin pronunciation? There are five traditional methods of Latin pronunciation found in modern times: (1) the classical Ciceronian, (2) the Italian, (3) the Continental, (4) the British, and (5) the American. The British system, though the one most commonly recorded in dictionaries, including some American dictionaries, is not in fact the one most commonly used in American English. It is, however, strongly favored in Britain. The essence of the British system is that not only the consonants but also the vowels are pronounced completely as they would be in a similar English word.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- English WordsHistory and Structure, pp. 163 - 176Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001