Loanword Typology: Verbal Borrowings

1. Loanword Typology: Verbal Borrowings Jan WOHLGEMUTH Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig

2. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Basic goal: contribute to improving the methodology for testing hypotheses about historical relatedness between languages

3. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Basic goal: contribute to improving the methodology for testing hypotheses about historical relatedness between languages • Means: systematic studies of attested diachronic changes in languages worldwide:  typology of language change

4. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Basic goal: contribute to improving the methodology for testing hypotheses about historical relatedness between languages • Means: systematic studies of attested diachronic changes in languages worldwide:  typology of language change • Paths of change • Rates of change • Degree of stability of grammatical and lexical items • Effects of language contact

5. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Two projects in Leipzig:

6. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Two projects in Leipzig: • Handbook of Sound Change (Juliette Blevins)

7. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Two projects in Leipzig: • Handbook of Sound Change (Juliette Blevins) • Handbook of Lexical Borrowing (Martin Haspelmath & Uri Tadmor)

8. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Handbook of Lexical Borrowing (Martin Haspelmath & Uri Tadmor) Basic questions: • What kinds of borrowings are common, what kinds are unusual? Under what circumstances? • What is the direction of borrowing?

9. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Degree of lexical borrowability • Which word meanings are likely to be borrowed, and which are likely to resist borrowing?

10. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Degree of lexical borrowability • Which word meanings are likely to be borrowed, and which are likely to resist borrowing? • Thomason & Kaufman (1988: 77): “With a minimum of cultural pressure we expect only lexical borrowing, and then only nonbasic vocabulary.”

11. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Degree of lexical borrowability • Which word meanings are likely to be borrowed, and which are likely to resist borrowing? • Thomason & Kaufman (1988: 77): “With a minimum of cultural pressure we expect only lexical borrowing, and then only nonbasic vocabulary.” Borrowing of basic vocabulary starts with (3) on the borrowing scale:

12. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Degree of lexical borrowability • Which word meanings are likely to be borrowed, and which are likely to resist borrowing? • Thomason & Kaufman (1988: 77): “With a minimum of cultural pressure we expect only lexical borrowing, and then only nonbasic vocabulary.” Borrowing of basic vocabulary starts with (3) on the borrowing scale: (1) Casual contact; (2) slightly more intensive contact: (3) more intense contact; (4) strong cultural pressure: (5) very strong cultural pressure

13. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Degree of lexical borrowability “basic vocabulary” intentionally left undefined by Thomason & Kaufman.

14. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Degree of lexical borrowability “basic vocabulary” intentionally left undefined by Thomason & Kaufman. Often defined as the list of “basic” words by Swadesh.

15. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Degree of lexical borrowability “basic vocabulary” intentionally left undefined by Thomason & Kaufman. Often defined as the list of “basic” words by Swadesh. Swadesh’s list is based on intuitions, not on any systematic research.

16. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Degree of lexical borrowability “basic vocabulary” intentionally left undefined by Thomason & Kaufman. Often defined as the list of “basic” words by Swadesh. Swadesh’s list is based on intuitions, not on any systematic research.  Lexical borrowability needs to be studied empirically in a systematic fashion using a world-wide sample of languages,

17. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Implementation • Study based on a fixed list of lexical meanings.

18. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Implementation • Study based on a fixed list of lexical meanings. • An adapted version of the 1300-word list of the Intercontinental Dictionaries Series (IDS), based on Buck 1949.

19. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Implementation • Study based on a fixed list of lexical meanings. • An adapted version of the 1300-word list of the Intercontinental Dictionaries Series (IDS), based on Buck 1949. • Comparison across a wide range of languages. • Over 30 languages from all continents, each covered by one contributor, who will create a data set and a discussion chapter

20. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Implementation • Study based on a fixed list of lexical meanings. • An adapted version of the 1300-word list of the Intercontinental Dictionaries Series (IDS), based on Buck 1949. • Comparison across a wide range of languages. • Over 30 languages from all continents, each covered by one contributor, who will create a data set and a discussion chapter; e.g. Christopher Schmidt: Japanese

21. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Implementation • Study based on a fixed list of lexical meanings. • An adapted version of the 1300-word list of the Intercontinental Dictionaries Series (IDS), based on Buck 1949. • Comparison across a wide range of languages. • Over 30 languages from all continents, each covered by one contributor, who will create a data set and a discussion chapter; e.g. Christopher Schmidt: Japanese • Each data set will identify each word as borrowed or not borrowed, giving the source language if applicable.

22. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Planned results • For each lexical meaning, the cross-linguistic percentage of loanwords will be established. The ranking yields a list from the most resistant to the most borrowable of the ca. 1300 meanings.

23. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Planned results • For each lexical meaning, the cross-linguistic percentage of loanwords will be established. The ranking yields a list from the most resistant to the most borrowable of the ca. 1300 meanings. • If the sample is representative, this ranking may indicate a structural universal of borrowing.

24. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Planned results • For each lexical meaning, the cross-linguistic percentage of loanwords will be established. The ranking yields a list from the most resistant to the most borrowable of the ca. 1300 meanings. • If the sample is representative, this ranking may indicate a structural universal of borrowing. • Influence of degree of contact as well as structural properties of the recipient languages on the types of word borrowed can be tested for.

25. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Planned results (cont’d) • Further generalizations from the literature can be tested, e.g.:

26. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Planned results (cont’d) • Further generalizations from the literature can be tested, e.g.: • “The most frequent lexical items are more resistant to [being replaced by a] borrowing than the rarer items.”

27. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Planned results (cont’d) • Further generalizations from the literature can be tested, e.g.: • “The most frequent lexical items are more resistant to [being replaced by a] borrowing than the rarer items.” • “Content words are more easily borrowed than function words.”

28. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Planned results (cont’d) • Further generalizations from the literature can be tested, e.g.: • “The most frequent lexical items are more resistant to [being replaced by a] borrowing than the rarer items.” • “Content words are more easily borrowed than function words.” • “Different parts of speech show different susceptibility to borrowing (e.g. verbs are more resistant to b.)”

29. The Leipzig Loanword Typology Project • Planned results (cont’d) • Further generalizations from the literature can be tested, e.g.: • “The most frequent lexical items are more resistant to [being replaced by a] borrowing than the rarer items.” • “Content words are more easily borrowed than function words.” • “Different parts of speech show different susceptibility to borrowing (e.g. verbs are more resistant to b.)” ... to what extent?

30. Verbal borrowings • Objective:

31. Verbal borrowings • Objective: • A typology of verbal borrowing patterns

32. Verbal borrowings • Objective: • A typology of verbal borrowing patterns • A typology of social, grammatical and lexical parameters affecting the borrowability of verbs

33. Verbal borrowings • The database:

34. Verbal borrowings • The database: • Filemaker™Pro 7 database

35. Verbal borrowings • The database: • Filemaker™Pro 7 database • Currently > 120 examples from > 50 language pairs; goal: at least 200 different language pairs from all continents

36. Verbal borrowings • The database: • Filemaker™Pro 7 database • Currently > 120 examples from > 50 language pairs; goal: at least 200 different language pairs from all continents • Incorporating typological and other meta-information for all languages involved

37. Verbal borrowings • The database: • Filemaker™Pro 7 database • Currently > 120 examples from > 50 language pairs; goal: at least 200 different language pairs from all continents • Incorporating typological and other meta-information for all languages involved • Including information on the productivity of borrowing patterns

38. Verbal borrowings • The database: • Filemaker™Pro 7 database • Currently > 120 examples from > 50 language pairs; goal: at least 200 different language pairs from all continents • Incorporating typological and other meta-information for all languages involved • Including information on the productivity of borrowing patterns • Including information on contact situations

39. Verbal borrowings • Metadata collected: • Contact situation and estimated date of borrowing

40. Verbal borrowings • Metadata collected: • Contact situation and estimated date of borrowing • Attitude of recipient language speakers towards borrowings

41. Verbal borrowings • Metadata collected: • Contact situation and estimated date of borrowing • Attitude of recipient language speakers towards borrowings • Productivity and frequency of loan verb adaptation pattern(s) in the recipient language

42. Verbal borrowings • Metadata collected: • Contact situation and estimated date of borrowing • Attitude of recipient language speakers towards borrowings • Productivity and frequency of loan verb adaptation pattern(s) in the recipient language • Lexical status of the borrowing (insertion, replacement, synonym)

43. Verbal borrowings • Metadata collected: • Contact situation and estimated date of borrowing • Attitude of recipient language speakers towards borrowings • Productivity and frequency of loan verb adaptation pattern(s) in the recipient language • Lexical status of the borrowing (insertion, replacement, synonym) • Reliability / accuracy of the information

44. Verbal borrowings • Metadata collected (cont’d): • Typological information on both languages (data from the WALS database)

45. Verbal borrowings • Metadata collected (cont’d): • Typological information on both languages (data from the WALS database) • Geographical location of donor and recipient language (from the WALS database)

46. Verbal borrowings • Loan verb embedding patterns

47. Verbal borrowings • Loan verb embedding patterns • Direct insertion (no morphological adaptation)

48. Verbal borrowings • Loan verb embedding patterns • Direct insertion (no morphological adaptation) • Indirect insertion (adaptation by affixation etc.)

49. Verbal borrowings • Loan verb embedding patterns • Direct insertion (no morphological adaptation) • Indirect insertion (adaptation by affixation etc.) • Light verb strategy

50. Verbal borrowings • Loan verb embedding patterns • Direct insertion (no morphological adaptation) • Indirect insertion (adaptation by affixation etc.) • Light verb strategy • Paradigm insertion (borrowing of verb + inflection)