ENGLISH IN THE USA

1. ENGLISH IN THE USA SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS

3. SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS • Lexical characteristics • Phonetical characteristics • Grammatical characteristics • Orthographical characteristics.

4. 1.LEXICAL CHARACTERISTICS • Borrowings from other languages (Native American, Dutch, Spanish, French etc.); • Words or meanings that are archaic or dialectal elements in Great Britain; • Words that changed their meaning or received a supplementary meaning in American English; • Words formed on the territory of the USA through composition, derivation, conversion, abbreviation etc.

5. Borrowings from other languages • Borrowings from the Spanish language: alligator, creole, pickaninny, fiesta, plaza, poncho • Borrowings from the German language: wiener, hamburger, schnitzel, semester, seminar, loafer • Borrowings from the languages of the black slaves: banjo, jazz, juba, jukebox, voodoo

6. Borrowings from the Native American languages: hominy, pone, mackinaw, papoose, squaw, sagamore, possum , raccoon Borrowings from the French language: prairie, voyageur, professor, bureau, calumet Borrowings from the Dutch language: boss, cookie, cruller, dollar, hook, to snoop, spook, waffle, dope, Yankee

7. Archaisms andprovincialisms Many words in the American English became obsolete or disappeared from the literary language of England. Examples: fall, accommodations, pig, slim, to guess, maybe, to develop, shade, mad, sheepman, to quit, etc.

8. Changes of meaning • the generalization of meaning: to visit somebody, barn, to extend, date, vacation, store • the specialization of meaning: Corn, Sidewalk, Subway, Convention, Message • changes of meaning based on euphemisms: landscape architect (gardener), shoetrician, sanitary officer, tonsorial artist (hairdresser), to make a reservation (to book a room), locomotive (engine), stenographer (short-hand writer), elevator (lift) etc.

9. Words formed on the territory of the USA • Composition: peanut, bullfrog, catfish, tenderfoot (poor man), self-made man, self-culture, dead-beat (lazy), babysitter, playboy,disk jockey, taxi dancer • Derivation (affixation): prefixes e.g. anti-, super-, semi-, near-; suffixes e.g. –ize, -ee, -ery, -teria;

10. Conversion: transitions from nouns to verbs e.g. to scalp, to tomahawk, to room, to shine, to muscle; transitions from verbs to noun e.g. divide, combine, frame-up, probe Abbreviation: aphaeresis e.g. cute (acute), most (almost), phone, quake (earthquake); apocope e.g. ad, auto, co-ed, gas; other abbreviated words e.g. V.I.P., U.S.A.F, NASA, radar, TB, ACE etc.

11. 2.PHONETICAL CHARACTERISTICS Differences between the two languages regarding the pronunciation of several sounds: • ris alwayspronounced in American English • [æ] instead of [ɑː] before [f, θ, s] and before [s, f] + consonant or [m, n] + consonant e.g. class, grass, fast, after, example, aunt • [u:] instead of [ju:] e.g. duty, student, tube, new, nuclear, during • [ɒ] instead of [ɔ]e.g. crop, stop, lot, not, conflict, novel • the voicedt e.g. better, butter, matter, pity, water

13. 3.ORTHOGRAPHICAL CHARACTERISTICS The orthographical characteristics of American English consist of substitutions and simplifications: • –or instead of –our: ardor, harbor, humor • –er instead of –re: center, fiber, liter, meter • –ize (-yze) instead of –ise: civilize, organize, analyze • –se instead of –ce: practise

14. – ense instead of –ence: defense, offense, pretense sk instead of sc: skeptic, mollusk i instead of e in the prefixes en- and em- : to inclose, to indorse, to inquiry y instead of i: gayety, gypsy, dryly l instead of ll: councilor, traveler, woolen, marvelous; p instead of pp: kidnaped, worshiped; s instead of ss: focused; –e, -ue, -me are eliminated at the ending of some words as envelop (the noun), catalog, dialog, prolog, gram;

15. 4.GRAMATICAL CHARACTERISTICS Regarding the parts of speech, certain differences were recorded: • The article: somearticles do not appear in certain adverbial phrases or in those that contain the adjective all: e.g. the day after tomorrow, all morning, the indefinite article precedes half before the words hour, minute, dozen, million e.g. a half-dozen policemen

16. The noun: Many words are used in American English only at their plural: accommodations, candies, foods, cramps etc. others only at their singular: coal, inning etc. The analytic genitive is replaced by the synthetic genitive: e.g. the agreement's application, Senate's committee, • The adjective: The degrees of comparison are realized more in a synthetic form: honester, solider, wonderfullest etc. Many adjectives receive the function of an adverb: careful, strange, wrong etc.

17. The adverb: It is used to intensify or to form some new verbs: to beat up, to shut down; • The preposition: Many prepositions are used in another way than in British English: around the corner, aside from, back of, different than, aside of, on the train etc. • The conjunction: The omission of some conjunctions occur sometimes: after the verb to go followed by and + another verb, the conjunction and is omitted in some cases e.g. Go take care of him.

18. The pronoun: The Americans have the tendency to maintain the form whom in the situations in which the English have replaced it with who e.g. Who are you with? Before a relative clause, the one(s) is more frequent than that (which), that (who). The numeral: There is a tendency to use forms as nineteen hundred not only for years but also for objects and people The verb: The synthetic conjunctive is used in a greater extent in the USA: I'm only asking you do your duty! Sometimes would corresponds with should (especially in rhetorical questions: How would I know?) The verb to quit – quitted – quitted is often used as to quit – quit – quit.

19. BIBLIOGRAPHY • Brene C., Derochette F., Honders J., Salmon C., About British and American Life, Wahle, Liége, 1978, pp. 9-26 • Iarovici Edith, Engleza Americana, Editura Stiintifica, Bucuresti, 1971, pp. 7-258