In narrow language contact, sociolinguistically weaker systems give way in order to avoid ambiguities, i.e. in case both the standard language and the regional variant possess 'signifiants' that resemble each other on the expression side whereas their semantic contents would contradict each other. Examples from Zimbrisch, a German dialect once spoken in Northern Italy, are given: the Venetian form of the Italian 'peggio' has led to the elimination of the Zimbrisch equivalent for the German 'besser' which had come to sound like its own antonym.