An Overview of Lexicological Influence through Language Contacts

Abstract

Language contacts can be studied in three directions: language acquisition; b) language borrowing; c) translation. In this project all of the three directions are investigated. The process of language borrowing is analysed on four levels: phonological, morphological, semantic, and syntactic. During the borrowing process, language model adaptation takes place. The adaptation of a model (a foreign word) shows two kinds of changes: primary and secondary changes, which take place on all four levels. The adaptation on the quoted levels is carried out according to the three types of transphonemisation (zero, compromise and free), three types of transmorphemisation (zero, compromise and complete) and according to the degree of change of meaning on a semantic level. In terms of impact languages have on one another, one has to assert that lexis and phonetics are the language branches most subject to changes. Syntax comes next, followed by morphology, which resists outer impacts the longest. People borrow not only words as such, but also full syntactic constructions. Today’s linguistics terms the phenomena as calques (or loan translations), derived from the French word calquer (“to copy”). It is a term used in comparative and historical linguistics to indicate the type of borrowing in which the morphemic constituents of borrowed words or phrases are translated into the equivalent morphemes of another language item by item. This division is essentially methodological due to inseparability of three linguistic realms within the linguistic sign, which, even when it comes to integration of lexical loans, stand in a link of mutual dependence and interaction.