International vocabulary in synchrony and diachrony (French stratum)

The present article examines international lexicon of the French origin in English and Russian. Lexical unitswere studied at the level of both the form and the content. Integration processes in all spheres of life determine the role of internationalwords that are recognized forms of expression of major concepts of modern culture. The study of the functioning of international wordsis a part of the language system study. International words are lexical items, similar in their graphic and phonetic forms, and, as a rule,having common semantics; such units exist in no less than three languages, which are not closely related. The French language, in itsdevelopment, proved to be one of the most active sources of the vocabulary enrichment of other languages; for example, it has made anenormous contribution to the English vocabulary, and influenced the Russian vocabulary. For centuries, people have borrowed its wordsin the process of historical contacts. Over 2000 lexical items of the French origin constitute the fund of international vocabulary. Interms of entering the French words, the most productive period was the 13th-14th centuries. The Russian language was also in contactwith the French language. Most of the units we studied entered the Russian language in the 18th century. The overwhelming majority ofthe studied words are polysemantic in the source language as well as in the recipient languages. In each case, one can see a differentdirection of semantic variation. The Russian language is characterized by borrowing French words in one of its secondary meanings, andthe formation of a large number of new meanings is not observed. In English, as a rule, the basic lexical meanings of the source languageare preserved and new ones had been developed. In all the three studied languages (including French), there are internationalwords of the French origin, which are similar in their form, but varying in their content, they are called false equivalents. In the field ofphonetics, French international words experienced some changes associated with accentuation. Most of the studied units in the Englishlanguage took the Germanic type of accentuation, i.e., with the stress on the first syllable. In the Russian language, which has free accentuation,we can observe a variety of changes. As for the graphic adaptation of French international words in English, there were nodifficulties due to the use of Roman alphabet by native speakers. In the Russian language, the sounding of borrowed French words istransferred in the Russian orthography by means of the Cyrillic alphabet. The morphological adaptation in English and Russian languagesis characteristic of the words having a positive or a negative activity. Thus, French international words were differently adaptedin the recipient languages.

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