俄英语同源词考信

An Investigation of Russian-English Cognates

俄英语同源词指俄语和英语中具有共同词源的词,包括两个部分:一是俄语和英语共有的原始印欧语词,二是俄语和英语共有的来源于其他语言的词。俄英语同源词具有一定的数量规模,本研究已考实4000余对俄英语同源词,占俄语中外来词的近五分之一。俄英语同源词的主要语源为拉丁语、希腊语和法语,其中的绝大多数属名词词类,约六分之一为术语词。俄英语同源词的语义既可能相同又可能相异,约三分之二在保存着语义联系的同时,存有语义差异。认识和掌握俄英语同源词,一方面有助于利用其相似性联系,促进两种语言词汇学习的正迁移作用;另一方面,有助于利用其语义差异避免误解或误用造成的负迁移影响。

Russian-English cognates refer to words that have common etymological origins shared by Russian and English.Given that there is mounting evidence pointing to the potential influence of cognates on second or foreign language learning,it would be necessary,and of practical value,to conduct a finegrained analysis on Russian-English cognates.This study offers a detailed analysis of more than 4000 Russian-English cognates,accounting for about one fifth of the total loan words in Russian.Results indicate that RussianEnglish cognates can be roughly categorized into two types.The first type consists of words in Russian and English that originate from the IndoEuropean language,and the second type consists of words in Russian and English that boast origins in other languages.It is further revealed that Russian-English cognates mainly originate from Latin,Greek,and French,and the majority of them are nouns,with about one sixth being terminological words.In addition,about two thirds of Russian-English cognates are semantically different,although a handful of them retain semantic connections.