Native lexemes in etymological doublets of contemporary English

Abstract

The study aims to identify diachronically identical lexemes in contemporary English that are classified as native (non-borrowed) units and have not been previously described in scientific literature. The paper considers the current definition of an etymological doublet, identifies the main categories of borrowings and the proportion of native words in contemporary English, and analyzes the structural and semantic characteristics of native English words of common origin. A classification of the identified etymological doublets according to the number of components is also carried out. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that it provides the first detailed description of a class of etymological doublets in contemporary English that includes native components of Old English origin. As a result of the research, it is shown that lexical units of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) origin have been preserved in contemporary English with a certain degree of lexico-semantic, phonetic, and morphological divergence. The relationship between these lexemes is manifested at the level of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic roots, as well as independent, fully formed Old English etymons. Moreover, the formation of etymological doublets is not due to the phonetic derivation of modern English words. The author proposes to distinguish seven formations of genetically related vocabulary in the English language that have not been previously described in the scientific literature: the triplet “red – ruddy – rust”, as well as the doublets “neighbour – nigh”, “frost – freeze”, “flood – flow”, “beaver – bear”, “yea – yon”, “clench – cling”, “health – hale”.

Research materials

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2. Beaver // Etymology online. https://www.etymonline.com/word/beaver
3. Clench // Etymology online. https://www.etymonline.com/word/clench
4. Clinch // Etymology online. https://www.etymonline.com/word/clinch
5. Flood // Etymology online. https://www.etymonline.com/word/flood
6. Frost // Etymology online. https://www.etymonline.com/word/frost
7. Neighbour // Etymology online. https://www.etymonline.com/word/neighbour
8. Red // Etymology online. https://www.etymonline.com/word/red
9. Hale // Etymology online. https://www.etymonline.com/word/hale
10. Yea // Etymology online. https://www.etymonline.com/word/yea
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About this article

Publication history

• Received: September 7, 2025.
• Published: October 30, 2025.

Keywords

• английская этимология
• исконная английская лексика
• этимологическое тождество
• этимологический дублет
• English etymology
• native English vocabulary
• etymological identity
• etymological doublet

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