Основы теории английского языка. Листунова Е.И. - 9 стр.

fluids of the body which, according to the proportions of their mix-
ture, determined a man’s temperament) has long gone, but left this
word behind to take on a different meaning. It is not long since atom
meant what it meant to the Greeks — what could not further be
divided. The word can no longer mean that, but we retain it. Inertia,
conservatism will ensure that a word remains in the vocabulary, but
change of meaning will be enforced by the non-conservative elements
in man himself.
                                           Anthony Burgess. Words.
      V.
      Read the following extracts and discuss the changes in the mean-
ing of the word ‘nice’.
      The Concise Oxford Dictionary:
      nice, a. & adv. 1. Fastidious, dainty, hard to please, of refined or
critical tastes; precise, punctilious, scrupulous, particular (must not
be too ∼ about the means). 2. Requiring precision care, tact, or dis-
crimination (a ~ experiment, question, point, negotiation). 3. Minute,
subtle (a ~ distinction, shade of meaning). 4. Attentive, close (a ~inqui-
ry, observer). 5. Delicately sensitive, discriminative, or deft (a ~ ear,
judgement, hand; weighed in the ~ st scales, lit. or fig) 6. (colloq.)
Agreeable, attractive, delightful, well-flavoured, satisfactory, kind,
friendly, considerate, generally commendable (often iron., as here is
a ~ mess). 7. (and) satisfactorily, as the house stands ~ & high, car is
going ~ & fast, this is a ~ long one...
       VI.
       Supply the following passage with a sufficient number of examples.
       Of the linguistic changes due to the more obvious types of con-
tact the one which seems to have played the most important part in
the history of language is the borrowing of words across linguistic
frontiers. This borrowing naturally goes hand in hand with cultural
diffusion. An analysis of the provenience of the words of a given lan-
guage is frequently an important index of the direction of cultural
influence. Our English vocabulary, for instance, is very richly strati-
fied in a cultural sense. The various layers of early Latin, mediaeval
French, humanistic Latin and Greek and modern French borrowing
constitute a fairly accurate gauge of the time, extent and nature of the
various foreign cultural influences which have helped to mold English
civilization. The notable lack of German loan words in English until a

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