Core vocabulary, borrowability and entrenchment: a usage-based onomasiological approach
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[1] KU Leuven
KU Leuven
Arrondissement Leuven, Bélgica
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- Localización: Diachronica: International Journal for Historical Linguistics = Revue Internationale pour la Linguistique Historique = Internationale Zeitschrift für Historische Sprachwissenschaft, ISSN 0176-4225, Vol. 31, Nº 1, 2014, págs. 74-105
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
It is often claimed in contact linguistics that core vocabulary is highly resistant to borrowing. If we want to test that claim in a quantitative way, we need both a quantitative measure of coreness and a method for quantifying borrowability. We suggest here a usage-based operationalization of coreness in terms of entrenchment, and of borrowability in terms of onomasiological success. Applying these measures in a corpus-based study on the use of English person reference nouns in Dutch, we show via a multivariate statistical analysis that there are indeed clear indications of an inversely proportional relationship between the success of the English nouns and the degree of coreness/entrenchment of the concept lexicalized by the loanwords.
