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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: Plurals
Message-ID: <D12qsH.FqL@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <D0ypwB.IKG@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <D11zuE.IFF@inter.NL.net> <19DEC94.11813889.0031@music.mus.polymtl.ca>
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 1994 20:12:16 GMT
Lines: 44

In article <19DEC94.11813889.0031@music.mus.polymtl.ca> Alexander Kiefer <KA00@music.mus.polymtl.ca> writes:
>>Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>>It's very common for languages to borrow words from their
>>>ancestors.  [...] French is full of Latin loanwords, or Hindi of
>>>Sanskrit ones.  Such words can be recognised by the fact that they
>>>haven't undergone the phonetic changes that they would've done, had
>>>they been inherited.  [...]
>
>I think that usage of "loanword" is too general and misleading.

Why?  How is borrowing a word from Latin into French different from
borrowing a word from English or Arabic?  It is a different language.

>Certain loanwords could be designated rather as nontransformed words.

Nontransformed words?  What are those?  (Is this a concept that is
being defined specifically for this particular case?)

>That the word doesnt undergo transformation is not a necessary reason
>for it to be a loanword.

I'm sure you mean `is not necessarily a reason'.  Maybe not, if you
can explain how and why the word has escaped transformation and why it
happens that such `nontransformed words' occur in languages whose ancestors
are also used to one degree or the other by their speakers.  Does Albanian
have any nontransformed words?

>Also, considering language as a continuum of dialects with differing
>transformational rules, the above "definitions" of loanwords are
>quite arbitrary.

May we have a definition of `loanword' from you then?

>If OED contains 70% of words not currently in use, does their
>reintroduction count as loanwords?

Yes, if they are being (re)introduced into what is recognised as a
language different from the English of the _OED_.

-- 
`Release Jesus wi this mob hangin aroon?  Nae chance!'  (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk, iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
