ThemeV: The Old Engish grammar

Borrowings from Celtic
There are very few Celtic loan-words in the OE vocabulary, for there must have been little intermixture between the Germanic settlers and the Celtic in Britain. Though in some parts of the island the Celts population was not exterminated during the WG invasion, linguistic evidence of Celtic influence is meager. Obviously there was little that the newcomers could learn from the subjugated Celts. Abun­dant borrowing from Celtic is to be found only in place-names. The OE kingdoms Kent, Delra and Bemicia derive their names from the names of Celtic tribes. The name of York, the Downs and perhaps London have been traced to Celtic sources (Celtic dun meant 'hill'). Various Celtic designations of 'river' and 'water' were understood by the Germanic invaders as proper names: Ouse, Exe, Esk, Usk, Avon, Evan go back to Celtic amhuin 'river', uisge 'water'; Thames, Stour, Dover also come from Celtic. Some elements frequently occurring in Celtic place-names can help to identify them: -comb 'deep valley' inBatcombe, Duncombe, Winchcombe; -torr 'high rock' in Ton, Toraoss; -llan 'church' in Llan-daff, Llanelly; -pill 'creek' in Pi/lle, Huntspill. Many place-names with Celtic elements are hybrids; the Celtic component, combined with a Latin or a Germanic component, make a compound place-name; e.g.
Celtic plus Latin Celtic plus Germanic

Man-chester
Win-chester
Glou-cester
Wor-cester
Devon-port
Lan-caster
York-shire
Corn-wall¹
Salis-bury
Lich-field
Devon-shire
Canter-bury
Latin Influence on the Old English Vocabulary
The role of the Latin language in Medieval Britain is clearly manifest; was determined by such historical events as the Roman occupation of Britain, the influence of the Roman civilisation and the introduction of Christianity. It is no wonder that the Latin language exerted considerable influence on different aspects of English: the OE alphabet, the growth of writing and literature. The impact of Latin on the OE vocabulary enables us to see the spheres of Roman influence on the life in Britain.
Latin words entered the English language at different stages of OE history. Chronologically they can be divided into several layers.
The earliest layer comprises words which the WG tribes brought from the continent when they came to settle in Britain. Contact with the Roman civilisation began a long time before the Anglo-Saxon inva­sion
The adoption of Latin words continued in Britain after the invasion, since Britain had been under Roman occupation for almost 400 years. Though the Romans left Britain before the settlement of the West Teut­ons, Latin words could be transmitted to them by the Romanised Celts.
Early OE borrowings from Latin indicate the new things and con­cepts which the Teutons had learnt from the Romans; as seen from the examples below they pertain to war, trade, agriculture, building and home life.
Words connected with trade indicate general concepts, units of measurements and articles of trade unknown tothe Teutons before they came into contact with Rome: OE ceapian; ceap, ceapman and mansion, man~_oun~,, тащгге ('to trade', 'deal', 'trader', 'to trade', 'trading', 'trader') came from the Latin names for 'merchant' — caupo and mango.
Units of measurement and containers were adopted with their Lat­in names: OE pund (NE pound), OE ynce (NE inch) from L pondo and uncia OE mynet, mynetian ('coin', 'to coin'j.OE ftasce, ciest (NE flask, chest).
The following words denote articles of trade and agricultural prod­ucts, introduced by the Romans: OE win (from L vinum), OE butere (from L butyrum), OE plume (from L prunus), OE dese (from L caseus), OE pipor (from L piper), (NE wine, butter, plum, cheese, pepperjl
Roman contribution to building can be perceived in words like OE cealc, tiiele, coper (NE chalk, tile, copper). A group of words relating to domestic life is exemplified by OE cytel, disc, cuppe, pyle (NE kettle, dish, cup, pillow), etc.
Borrowings pertaining to military affairs are OE mil (NE mile) from L millia passuum, which meant a thousand steps made to measure the distance; OE weall (NE watt), from L vallum, a wall of fortifications erected in the Roman provinces.
4. The bulk of the OE vocabulary were native words. In the course of the OE period the vocabulary grew; it was mainly replenished from native sources, by means of word-formation.
According to their morphological structure OE words fell into three main types:

1. 
   simple words or words with a simple stem, containing a root-morpheme and no derivational affixes: land, singan, god (NE land, sing, good);
   
2. 
   derived words consisting of one root-morpheme and one or more affixes: be-ginnan, weorp-ung, ge-met-ing (NE begin, worthiness, meeting);
   
3. 
   compound words, whose stems were made up of more than one root-morpheme: mann-cynn, weal-geat, fewer-tiene (mankind, wall gate, fourteen).