Structural variants of identical lexical units in American and British English

It is common knowledge that British English and American English are variants of the same language, however, there are a number of differences between them. Although the number of these differences is gradually reduced with the advent and development of the so-called Transatlantic English, they are still significant and cannot be ignored when mastering the English language. [6; 4]

There are two main types of lexico-semantic differences: differences in the external, material side of lexical units with a common meaning -differences in the plan of expression and differences in the meaning of lexical units with a commonality of their external side - differences in the plan of content. Members of oppositions of the first kind will henceforth be called lexico-semantic analogues, and members of oppositions of the second kind -lexico-semantic divergent.

Considering this type of oppositions, the members of which are called lexico-semantic analogues, it should first of all be noted that the comparison of lexical units united on the basis of semantic commonality in the presence of discrepancies in terms of content requires taking into account the fact that the compared units are elements of a single macro system.

One gets the impression that the lexical units given in the left column are Americanisms, equivalent to the units located in the right column and belonging exclusively to the British variant. In reality, the situation is much more complicated, and it is impossible to draw parallels between the lexical units of the American and British variants, similar to those on which bilingual dictionaries are built, that is, parallels based on the semantic equivalence of units of different systems. [7; 129]

First of all, it is necessary to specify those cases when, in British and American usage, not different words and not differences in the system of lexical meanings are opposed to each other, but those varieties that Professor A. I. Smirnitsky called structural variants of the same word. Among these variants, first of all, lexico-morphological or word-forming ones stand out, i.e. words differing only in word-formation affixes, but identical in their lexical meaning. [7; 96]

The spelling of nouns borrowed from Greek in -logue (-log) also differs, as well as a number of words borrowed from French:

British Eng.    American Eng.

analogue      analog catalogue     catalog dialogue      dialog prologue     prolog monologue monolog

This difference is not universal. For example, the nouns camber, chamber, which are written through -er in the American and British variants, and the noun timbre (timbre), which differs graphically from the homonymous timber (forest) in both variants.

In British English, verbs ending in -l double it before -ing, -ed, -er, -ery, -or, -ist, whether their last syllable is stressed or not. In American English, the letter l is doubled only when the stress falls on the last syllable.

British English:

travel: travelling / traveled traveling / traveled cancel: cancelling / cancelled canceling / canceled rebel: rebelling / rebelled rebelling / rebelled compel: compelling / compelling compelling / compelling

In British English, most verbs ending in -ise are also written with -ize (with the exception of disyllabic verbs such as surprise and the verbs advertise and analyse, which are written only with -ise in British English). In American English, these verbs are written with the -ize suffix. For example: apologise / apologize computerize / computerize/ computerize criticize / criticize/ criticize mechanize / mechanize/ mechanize organize / organize/ organize specialize / specialize/ specialize

The group of lexico-semantic divergents includes words that show known differences in their semantic structure with a common sound shell. The noun faculty has common English meanings “ability, gift; power, law" are combined with the American "teaching staff". lexico-semantic variants of words.

Similar differences are revealed in those cases when one of the lexico-semantic variants of a particular word is Briticism.

If we take as an example such words as market, dumb, convention and to fill, then we will see that they all represent a combination of American and common English lexico-semantic variants. A characteristic feature of all these words is their absence of meanings characteristic of Br. Eng. On the other hand, words like leader and stall lack Am. Eng.-specific meanings. Their British lexico-semantic variants are combined with common English.

There is also such a category, which includes discrepancies that appear in the semantic structure of such words as faculty, which, in addition to the above American and common English meanings, also has a meaning specific to the British version and corresponding to our “faculty, educational department”.

There are also oppositions of divergents with bilateral local marking. It is this kind of lexical units that most often serve as a source of misunderstanding. For example, the source of misunderstanding is the presence of two locally marked divergents in the word saloon - Americanism “bar, pub” and Briticism “closed type car”.

A special case of bilaterally marked divergents are words in which the American and British meanings coincide with each other as a generic and specific concept. So, for example, the verb to ship coexists the American meaning “to transport by any means of transport” and the British “to transport by sea”. A similar correlation of lexical-semantic variants is also observed in the noun aisle, which in British English means “passage between chairs in a church”, and in American English “any passage between seats or chairs (in a movie, theater, bus, plane, etc.)”.

A special group should be singled out those bilaterally marked oppositions in which there are no common English lexico-sematic variants. This includes the noun dresser, which only has British and American lexico-sematic variants (“kitchen cabinet” in the British version and “dressing table” in the American version).

Much less often there are cases of the absence of a semantic connection between divergents, that is, cases of complete homonymy. For example, the word muller “a dreamer, a thoughtful person” is an Americanism homonymous with the Common English muller “pestle, mortar”. The absence of a semantic connection between divergents does not allow us to consider them as variants of the same word. [7; 144]

In the lexicon of the literary English language there are many words and set phrases denoting various objects and phenomena characteristic of the areas of the American variant or the British variant. This includes designations of a number of realities connected with the state and political system of the USA and Great Britain, with their public life and social structure, with national sports, life, etc. For example, let’s take lexical units from socio-political vocabulary: USA - electoral college - “electoral college”, selectman - “local government official”; Great Britain - division - “a method of dividing voting in parliament”; from everyday vocabulary: America - drugstore - “drug store with a snack bar; Britain - trifle – “the name of the cake.”

"Экономика и социум" №4(95) 2022