Cover not available
Part of
Historical Linguistics 2022: Selected papers from the 25th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Oxford, 1–5 August 2022
Edited by Holly Kennard, Emily Lindsay-Smith, Aditi Lahiri and Martin Maiden
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 369] 2025
► pp. 264–279

The semantics of word borrowing in late medieval English

A preliminary investigation

| University of Westminster
| University of Westminster
| University of Westminster
| University College London
The paper presents a pilot study investigating the extent of sense sharing between loanwords in Middle English and their etyma in French and Latin, undertaken as part of a new three-year project. Fifty loanwords have been examined, with all senses in the borrowing and donor language(s) recorded using the major historical dictionaries. These have been standardised and mapped onto a framework using the categories of the Historical Thesaurus of English (Kay et al. 2022) to allow comparison. Our main results show that polysemy is nearly always mirrored but complete semantic overlap is rare; that senses unique to Middle English are common but short-lived; and that figurative senses are almost never borrowed into Middle English without the original literal senses.
Keywords: loanwords, polysemy, Middle English, French, Latin
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Methodology
    • 1.1Collating the main loanword dataset
    • 1.2Selecting the data for the pilot study
    • 1.3Comparing senses across borrowing and donor languages
  • 2.Results
    • 2.1Polysemy
      • 2.1.1Semantic overlap
      • 2.1.2Loanword senses unique to Middle English
    • 2.2Figurative senses: Metaphor and metonymy
      • 2.2.1‘Native’ versus ‘borrowed’ figurative senses in Middle English
      • 2.2.2Literal versus figurative senses
    • 2.3Narrowing and broadening
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
References (16)
References
Allan, Kathryn. 2014. An inquest into metaphor death: Exploring the loss of literal senses of conceptual metaphors. Cognitive Semiotics 5(1–2). 291–311. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2015. Lost in Transmission? The sense development of borrowed metaphor. In J. Diaz Vera (ed.), Metaphor and Metonymy Through Time and Cultures, 31–50. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Durkin, Philip. 2014. Borrowed words: A history of loanwords in English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2018. Exploring the penetration of loanwords in the core vocabulary of Middle English: Carry as a test case. English Language and Linguistics 22(2). 265–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Durkin, Philip & Kathryn Allan. 2016. Borrowing and copy: A philological approach to Early Modern English lexicology. In Anita Auer, Victorina González-Díaz, Jane Hodson & Violeta Sotirova (eds.), Linguistics and literary history: In honour of Sylvia Adamson, 71–86. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ingham, Richard. 2021. Polysemy and borrowing: An investigation of French loans in Middle English. In Robert Kieltyka (ed.), Studies in the Evolution of the English Language, 207–26. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Ingham, Richard & Louise Sylvester. 2017. Bilingual Thesaurus of Everyday Life in Medieval England, University of Glasgow. [URL]
Kay, Christian, Marc Alexander, Fraser Dallachy, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels and Irené Wotherspoon (eds). 2022. The Historical Thesaurus of English, 2nd edn, version 5.0 (Glasgow: University of Glasgow), available at 〈[URL]〉 [accessed 16 Jan. 2023].
Kilgarriff, Adam. 1997. I don’t believe in word senses. Computers and the Humanities, 31(2). 91–113. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Molina, Clara. 2008. Historical dictionary definitions revisited from a prototype theoretical standpoint. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 6. 1–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schendl, Herbert. 2000. Linguistic aspects of code-switching in medieval English texts. In David Trotter (ed.), Multilingualism in later medieval Britain, 77–92. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.Google Scholar
Smith, Jeremy J. 1996. An Historical Study of English: Form, Function, Change. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sylvester, Louise, Megan Tiddeman & Richard Ingham. 2022a. Lexical Borrowing in the Middle English period: A multi-domain analysis of semantic outcomes. English Language and Linguistics 26(2). 237–61. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2022b. Semantic shift in Middle English: Farming and Trade as test cases. Transactions of the Philological Society 120(3). 427–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2023. Lexical replacement, retention and borrowing in Middle English: a case study. In Gabriella Mazzon (ed.), Language contact and the History of English: Processes and Effects on Specific Text-Types, 165–87. (Austrian Studies in English) Berlin: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Trotter, David. 2017. Middle English in contact: Middle English creolization. In Laurel J. Brinton and Alexander Bergs (eds.), The History of English Vol. 3: Middle English, 224–38. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar