It is hard ro imagine a language rhat has not borrowed words from some ether language, JUS! as there is no culture rhat has developed entire1y from scratch. At the same time it is amazing how this simple [act oflinguistic life is hard 10accept for the speakers ofthe language involved. English-speaking people tend 10scoffat the purist polides of some sectors of the French gcvernment, aimed at blocking the wave of foreign, mostly English, words entering inro French usage. Nonetheless, linguistic purism is extremely widespread and enjoys popuJar support in most counrries. Since vocabulary, as we noted in chapter 11, is per haps the most visible part ofa language, lexical borrowing is perceived as affecting the language in its very being.

This cbapter is devoted to the complex phenomenon of lexical borrowing. We begin by presenting a typology of borrowing phenomena. Then, in sectien 14.2, we look at social and cultural determinants of borrowing: why does one language take words from another one? A third issue is the grammancal conditions under which borrowing een take place. We condude with some further issues about the relerion between borrowing and other phenomena, in sectien 14.4.

Typology

In the simplest case, a word is borrowed as a whoie: borh sound and rneaning. Ifthis was the only possibility, not much would need to be said. Many other possibilities of lexical borrowing occur, however, forcing us to develop a more systematic approach. The most complex typology ofborrowing is due to Haugen (1950), who has managed to systematize a bitbene rather confusing terminology. The primary distinction introduced is rhe one between importaticn and substiuuion, Importation Involves bringing a pattern into the language, subatituticn involves replacing sernething from another language with a native pattem.