The semantic development of borrowed derivational morphology
Change and stability in French-English language contact
This study investigates the effects of borrowing on the semantics of a derivational suffix. It presents a case
study that compares the borrowed Middle English suffix -ery to Middle French -erie, paying
special attention to their respective semantic structures and analysing them with semantic maps. The semantic structure of the
borrowed suffix -ery is very similar to that of its origin -erie and there is no evidence for
semantic reduction as a result of the borrowing process. This stability is linked to sociolinguistic aspects of the contact
situation. Substantial semantic changes do occur in the recipient language after the suffix has become an established word
formation process, however. On the basis of empirical data, this paper makes a contribution to the study of derivational semantics
and contact linguistics by proposing a methodology for the analysis of the semantic structure of (borrowed) derivational
morphology.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Derivational morphology and semantics
- 3.Borrowing derivational morphology
- 4.The suffixes -erie and -ery
- 4.1Data and methodology
- 4.2The Middle French suffix -erie
- 4.3The Middle English suffix -ery
- 4.4The Present Day English suffix -ery
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
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