Abstract
This article offers a brief bibliographic overview and, on this basis, outlines an illustrated typology of linguistic borrowing in which the main criterion is the level where the foreign element belongs: formal (both graphic and phonetic), morphological, semantic, lexical, syntactic, phraseological, and pragmatic. In addition, two cross-categories are devised: degree of modification of the foreign model and degree of novelty of the foreign form. This typology refers in particular to present situations of cultural borrowing from English to the Romance languages; therefore, special attention is paid to the importance of contemporary English as a model for Western languages.
Highlights
Global objections to the validity of a classification of linguistic borrowing are taken by Els Oksaar: on one side, we cannot devise a general typology of borrowing on the basis of a few Western languages; on the other, successive attempts to classify borrowing are felt to be partial and imperfect, "because of the insufficiency of the present systems to cover most of the possibilities of the process and of the results of linguistic integration" [494]
Bloomfield [461]. b) Classifícations according to the kind of hierarchy between the varieties of speech affected: borrowing between national languages versus "dialect borrowing" in Bloomfield [444-45]. c) Formal classifícations based upon the degree of modification of lexical units of the source or model language. This leads to the classical distinction between "loanword" and "loan translation'V'calque" used by Germán scholars such as Werner Betz, and later refined by American descriptivists such as Uriel Weinreich and Einar Haugen, who distinguish "importation", "substitution", and "loanblends'V'hybrids," a mingling of both means (Weinreich 50-53 and Haugen 21220). d) Classifícations according to the level or sub-system of the target/receiving language affected by a given fact of interference
We consider the above-mentioned proposals, that is, typologies of borrowing according to the linguistic level affected, to be the most efficient attempts of classification for several reasons: 1. This kind of typology is quite comprehensive and allows for the explanation of many particular instances of interference and borrowing, partially solving the objection taken by Oksaar regarding the insufficiency of the current typologies [494]
Summary
Despite these remarks on the heterogeneity of classifícations of borrowing, we can reduce this diversity to four basic types: a) Classifícations according to the kind of relationship between the affected languages: "cultural borrowing" versus "intímate borrowing" according to L. C) Formal classifícations based upon the degree of modification of lexical units of the source or model language This leads to the classical distinction between "loanword" and "loan translation'V'calque" used by Germán scholars such as Werner Betz, and later refined by American descriptivists such as Uriel Weinreich and Einar Haugen, who distinguish "importation" (straight loanword), "substitution" (loan-translation, loanshift), and "loanblends'V'hybrids," a mingling of both means (Weinreich 50-53 and Haugen 21220). This scholar distinguishes eight categories in relation to eight levéis of a linguistic system: phonological borrowing, prosodic borrowing, graphematic borrowing, morphemic borrowing (transference of bound morphemes), morphological borrowing (transference of morphological patterns), semantic borrowing (transference of sememes), lexical borrowing (transference of lexemes), and syntactic borrowing (transference of syntactic rules). Humbley goes on to mention the following categories: graphic and phonetic borrowing, morphological borrowing, semantic borrowing, lexical borrowing, syntactic borrowing, and phraseological borrowing [53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64]
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