Adaptation of verbs borrowed from Spanish in the speech of descendants of Ukrainian immigrants living in South America

Abstract

The paper discusses models and strategies for the adaptation of verbs borrowed from Spanish into the migrant dialects of the Ukrainian language spoken in South American countries. There are models in which the Spanish verb is borrowed with the Spanish infinitive ending and without it. The reasons behind choosing one of the models in the speech of descendants of Ukrainian immigrants are investigated. It is stated that one must take into account a set of criteria that affect this process (the frequency of lexemes, their semantics, the number of syllables, etc.). The paper identifies new types of adaptation of borrowed verbs that have not been previously discussed in linguistic publications. The cases of bare use of verbal lexemes in the speech of informants are also analyzed. Examples of the aspect pairs from borrowed Spanish verbs are discussed. This category is in the process of grammaticalization. In some cases, when forming an aspect pair with a prefix, informants apply prefixes inherent to the respective verbal prototypes in their native dialect. The copying of verb control from both Ukrainian and Spanish when using a borrowed verb is also attested. Using the example of the Ukrainian-Spanish bilingualism in the migrant community living in South American countries for a little more than a century, we have the opportunity to observe the changes that occur in the Slavic verbal system under the influence of the dominant Romance language.