Linguistic Essence of the Process of Borrowing: French and English Language in Contact

The research presents linguistic aspects of the process of French borrowing, its main extralinguistic reasons and key stages, and other French borrowings that were adopted into the English language in the course of its development. Particular attention is paid to the definitions of borrowing as a lexicological phenomenon offered on account of various scholars and based on several lexicographic resources. The article also focuses on numerous French borrowings in contemporary English, their grammatical and structural nature. The suggested classification of the distinguished linguistic units is given after a Spanish linguist Capuz. The article includes the general outline on the subject of borrowings, various aspects of loan classifications. The core part of the research was the typology of linguistic borrowings, like formal, morphological, semantic, lexical, syntactic, phraseological, and pragmatic borrowings. The authors analyzed the most important periods in history, like Old English, Middle English, and Modern English. All periods can be characterized through means of typical for them words. In the course of analysis, the following types of French borrowings have been established: formal, morphological, semantic, lexical, syntactic, and phraseological. The English vocabulary stock was compiled from different semantic fields and historical periods, starting from the Old up to Present Day English.