Loanword Phonology, Morphology, and Semantic Change – Comprehensive Notes

Every language has a unique phonological (sound-pattern) system that dictates
- Which individual sounds (phonemes) are permitted.
- How those sounds may combine into larger units: syllables → morphemes → words → phrases → clauses → sentences → discourse.
Phonotactics = language-specific constraints on possible sound sequences.
- Ex.: Sinhala and Tamil both possess the individual consonants /m/, /r/, /a/, … but the cluster mr at word-initial position is Tamil-only, not Sinhala.

Faithful pronunciation – preserve the donor language’s sounds.
Nativization – replace or modify donor sounds so they fit recipient phonotactics.

Phenomenon	Example	Explanation
Segment substitution	English /f/ in “pharmacy” → Sinhala speakers historically used /p/ (“parmasi”)	Sinhala lacked /f/; speakers substituted the closest native sound.
Vowel epenthesis	English “school” /skuːl/ → Sinhala “iskole”	Sinhala disallows initial CC clusters; inserted vowel /i/ solves the violation.
Accent-driven reshaping	Italians, Indians, Vietnamese pronounce English loanwords with their own phonotactics	Illustrates cross-linguistic variability of adaptation.

If a donor sound has no near equivalent in the borrower’s inventory, adaptation may be hard or impossible (e.g.
Vietnamese speakers lack voiced bilabial fricative /β/ → consistent substitution).

Recipient languages sometimes grammaticalize a native verb with minimal lexical meaning (a light verb) to host borrowed nouns.
- Sinhala: study karanava, play karanava, drive karanava – native karanava “do” loses lexical force and merely supplies tense/aspect/agreement.
- Japanese: Chinese noun benkyō “study” + native verb suru “do” → benkyō-suru “to study.” Similar: hitto-suru “make a hit,” dhoraibu-suru “drive.”
Properties of light verbs
- Carry little or no semantic content.
- Supply grammatical morphology (tense, voice, politeness, etc.).
- Productive host for countless loan-verb formations.

Highly inflectional borrowers (Sinhala, Tamil, many Indo-European languages) must place loan nouns into number, case, gender paradigms.
English → Sinhala example
- Tamil singular noun koko borrowed into Sinhala was re-analysed as plural (analogy with Sinhala plural suffix ‑o).
- Speakers then back-formed a new singular koka, showing paradigm pressure.
English → English (Classical): retention of donor plurals creates morphological irregularity.
- Greek/Latin: phenomenon/phenomena, index/indices, crisis/crises, formula/formulae.
- Usage evolution: data once plural of datum; now treated as singular (“this data is…”). Result: loss of transparent plural marking.

Loan integration can “disturb” the receiver’s regular morphology (vacillating plural marking, gender assignment mismatches, etc.).

Languages do not only gain words; they also lose them.
- Approx. 60\% of Old-English vocabulary is now gone.
- Sinhala: archaic saralu “spoon” no longer used.

Semantic change = alteration of meaning over time. Two broad domains:

Lexical categories – nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.
Functional categories – complementizers, determiners, auxiliaries (e.g.
English that; Sinhala kiela).

Type	Direction of Change	Classic Examples
Broadening (Generalization)	Narrow → wider meaning	aunt: father’s sister → any parental sister.
Narrowing (Specialization)	Broad → narrower meaning	meat: any food → animal flesh; deer: any wild animal → specific species.
Amelioration	Negative/neutral → positive	pretty: tricky/sly → attractive; nice followed similar path.
Pejoration (Degeneration)	Positive/neutral → negative	silly: happy/fortunate → foolish; Sinhala tho shifted similarly.
Weakening (Semantic Bleaching)	Strong literal → weaker/less forceful	soon: immediately → in the near future.
Semantic Shift (Replacement)	Old meaning lost; new unrelated meaning acquired	immoral: once “non-customary” → now “against ethics.”
Metaphor	Concrete → abstract via resemblance	high → “on drugs,” “high spirits.”
Metonymy	Association-based transfer	(not exemplified directly in lecture but covered in reading).

Meanings rarely jump from one totally unrelated sense to another overnight; they evolve step-by-step through the above mechanisms.

Diachronic corpora/documents – Compare usage across centuries.
Dictionary comparison – Same lemma in 16^{th}- vs 21^{st}-century dictionaries.
Track frequency & collocational changes to see sense drift.

Pronunciation of loanwords depends on sociolinguistic factors (prestige, identity); e.g.
Italians replicate Italian phonotactics when saying English words, whereas Sinhala speakers often aim for closer approximation.
Lack of close phonetic match in recipient language may cause stable substitutions (Vietnamese b vs p example).
Morphological strategies used with loanwords can reveal:
- Pressure of analogy (koko → koka).
- Retention vs domestication of donor morphology (Latin plurals in English).
Semantic change studies provide insight into cultural and cognitive shifts.
Both lexical gain (borrowing, coinage) and lexical loss need to be addressed under lexical change for exams.

Builds on prior lectures in phonology (phonotactics), morphology (word-formation, inflectional paradigms), and syntax (complementizers, clause structure).
Light-verb constructions link to earlier discussion of grammaticalization (lexical item > functional element).

Choice between faithful vs nativized pronunciation can mark identity, solidarity, or prestige.
Borrowing often reflects power relations (English loans in Sinhala vs Sinhala loans in English uncommon).
Loss of lexical items may coincide with cultural change or language endangerment.

Master definitions + examples for each phonological, morphological, and semantic process.
Prepare language-specific illustrations (Sinhala, Tamil, English, Japanese) – examiners value locally grounded data.
For semantic change, remember the direction (broader/narrower, positive/negative, concrete/abstract).
Review light-verb diagnostics: minimal semantics, high productivity, carries inflection.
Practice classifying new examples you encounter into the correct change type.