A History of the Spanish Lexicon: A Linguistic Perspective

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1 Oxford Scholarship Online You are looking at 1-10 of 87 items for: keywords : teleonomy linfam linhist A History of the Spanish Lexicon: A Linguistic Perspective Item type: book acprof:oso/ This history of the Spanish lexicon is written from the interacting perspectives of linguistic and cultural change and in the light of advances in the study of language contact and lexical change. The book describes the language inherited from spoken Latin in the Iberian Peninsula during six centuries of Roman occupation and examines the degree to which it imported words from the languages of which only Basque survives of pre-roman Spain. It then shows how Germanic words were imported either indirectly through Latin or Old French or directly by contact with the Visigoths. The book describes the importation of Arabisms following the eighth-century Arab conquest of Spain, distinguishing those documented in medieval sources from those adopted for everyday use, many of which survive in modern Spanish. It considers the influence of Old French and Old Provençal and identifies late direct and indirect borrowings from Latin, including the Italian elements taken up during the Renaissance. After outlining minor influences from languages such as Flemish, Portuguese, and Catalan, the book examines the effects on the lexicon of contact between Spanish and the indigenous languages of South and Central America, and the impact of contact with English. The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages Adam Ledgeway and Martin Maiden (eds) Published in print: 2016 Published Online: August 2016 ISBN: eisbn: Item type: book acprof:oso/ This book is as an essential tool for both Romance linguists and general linguists which brings together leading recent international scholarship in individual Romance varieties and from different theoretical frameworks and approaches, showing how each may cast new and necessary light Page 1 of 6

2 on the other. It offers a detailed structural treatment of all the individual Romance varieties and Romance-speaking areas (including standard, non-standard, dialectal, and regional varieties of the Romània continua and the Romània nova), as well as a comparative treatment of major topics, issues, and case studies across different areas of the grammar of the Romance languages. Organized along thematic lines into 10 Parts, the Guide brings together a rich variety of comparative indepth studies in Romance linguistics organized according to different grammatical phenomena, different approaches, and different language groupings, specifically dealing with 1: The making of the Romance languages; 2: Typology and classification; 3: Individual structural overviews (of Romance languages, dialects, and linguistic areas); 4: Comparative overviews (in turn divided into: Phonology; Morphology; Syntax; Semantics and pragmatics; Sociolinguistics); 5: Issues in Romance phonology; 6: Issues in Romance morphology; 7: Issues in Romance syntax; 8: Issues in Romance syntax and semantics; 9: Issues in Romance pragmatics and discourse; and 10: Case studies (in turn divided into the following subsections: The nominal group; The verbal group; The clause). Lexical borrowings from the New World acprof:oso/ This chapter examines the entry and subsequent diffusion and incorporation of New World vocabulary from the native languages of the New World into early modern Spanish. In the New World, speakers of Spanish encountered languages with which they had not even a minimum degree of familiarity. At the outset communication was at best rudimentary. Early borrowings from these languages entered Peninsular Spanish via written reports from the New World. The overwhelming majority of indigenous lexical items that entered Peninsular and New World Spanish are nouns designating realities of the local physical terrain, flora, fauna, foods, dress, customs, indigenous social organization, etc. Only a relatively small number of words from the New World took root in Spain. The proposed New World origin of some items (e.g. tabaco, poncho) remains controversial. Page 2 of 6

3 Anglicisms in Spanish acprof:oso/ This chapter examines Anglicisms, the most recent lexical stratum in Spanish. Most such items entered Spanish only after In the contemporary language, English constitutes the most frequent source of neologisms in European and American Spanish. Many have not had time to adapt to the phonological and orthographic norms of Spanish, and thus remain as unintegrated borrowings. Anglicisms often take the form of semantic loans or calques. Most Anglicisms entered through written sources. In the spoken language, they entered Spanish not only through direct contact between speakers of the two languages, but also through movies, lyrics of popular American music, and the Internet. The influx of Anglicisms has worried speakers and writers concerned with the integrity of Spanish. Especially pernicious in their view are those Anglicisms that coexist alongside and threaten to displace signifiers already present in the language for the concepts at issue. Some final thoughts acprof:oso/ This chapter offers a summary of this book s findings with regard to the issues raised in Chapter 1. The Latin/Spanish continuum has been receptive throughout its history to the incorporation of loanwords resulting from oral and written language contact. Any analysis of the impact of loanwords must rest on a base of solid etymologies. A study of cross-linguistic trends observable in loanwords may help evaluate hypotheses that identify a specific lexical item as a loanword. This chapter offers thoughts concerning the grammatical category of loanwords, the rivalry between loanwords and items already present in the language, their diffusion through the speech community, and their subsequent integration, vitality, and survival. Page 3 of 6

4 Language contact and the history of the Spanish lexicon: General and methodological questions acprof:oso/ This chapter stresses the need to study the introduction and incorporation of loanwords from a linguistic rather than a cultural perspective. This approach to loanwords in Spanish must deal with several issues. They include the extralinguistic relationship between the donor and recipient languages, donor-language- versus recipientlanguage-initiated borrowing, genetic relationship and typological affinities between the donor language and Spanish, transmission through speech or written texts, the legitimacy of the concepts of necessary and luxury loans, the semantics of loanwords, and the impact of loanwords on the phonology and derivational morphology of Spanish. The study of loanwords must rest on a base of accurate etymologies. Cross-linguistic tendencies observable in the grammatical categories and semantic fields of borrowings may help evaluate etymological proposals concerning possible loanwords. The chapter concludes with some observations on the recently completed Loanword Typology Project. The lexical impact of the pre-roman languages of the Iberian Peninsula acprof:oso/ This chapter examines Spanish words that entered the regional varieties of Hispano-Latin from the local pre-roman languages. Such words are one of the distinguishing features that characterize the Latin that underlies Hispano-Romance. Their study presents numerous difficulties, as little is known about the lexicon of these languages. These words entered Latin through direct oral contact with speakers of the local languages. Almost all relevant words designate concrete realities of the local terrain, flora, fauna, foods, dress, customs, etc. It is possible that many items represent lexical retentions by speakers of the pre- Roman languages as they acquired Latin. The rarity of primary verbs Page 4 of 6

5 and adjectives of pre-roman origin may suffice to call into question etymological hypotheses that propose such bases for words falling into these two categories. The Latin base of the Spanish lexicon 1 acprof:oso/ This chapter examines selected lexical features of the Latin of the Iberian Peninsula. Much of the inherited Spanish lexicon has cognate lexical items in other Romance languages outside the Iberian Peninsula. The retention of Latin vocabulary that fell into disuse elsewhere is another feature of the Spanish lexicon. Although some words may reflect the Latinity of the first Roman settlements in the Iberian Peninsula (218 BC), it would be inaccurate to characterize the Latin lexical base of Hispano- Romance as archaic. The Hispano-Latin lexicon retained lexical items that failed to survive elsewhere, and produced local lexical innovations. The lexical differentiation of Hispano-Latin with regard to other varieties goes back to the period of the Roman Empire. The chapter closes with discussion of some early Greek loanwords that may have entered Hispano-Latin from the Greek colony of nearby Marseilles. The Germanic component of the Spanish lexicon acprof:oso/ This chapter examines the impact of Germanic languages, primarily Gothic, on the Latin of the Iberian Peninsula. It may be inaccurate to talk about direct language contact between speakers of the Hispano- Latin/Hispano-Romance continuum and Gothic. The Latin of the Visigoths may have been characterized by the presence of Germanic lexical items retained during the (perhaps still ongoing) process of shift from Gothic to Latin. The majority of the Germanic roots found in Spanish entered as borrowings from other languages, especially medieval and modern varieties of Gallo-Romance. The etymological study of Germanic Page 5 of 6

6 loanwords illustrates the analytic importance of the distinction between the immediate source of a loanword in the recipient language and its more remote ancestry. The chapter concludes with an overview of the small number of (early) modern borrowings from Flemish and German. The Arabic component of the Spanish lexicon acprof:oso/ This chapter begins with an overview of the introduction of Arabic into the Iberian Peninsula in the early eighth century, the sociolinguistic nature of the resulting contact situation, and problems in quantifying the Arabic contribution to the lexicon. Arabisms entered Hispano-Romance through oral contact and written texts. Although most Arabisms are nouns, a significant number of adjectives (often expressing negatively valued states and qualities) and some primary verbs entered Hispano- Romance from Arabic. This chapter discusses several etymologically controversial Arabisms, the rivalry between Arabisms and referentially similar Romance lexical items, and Arabisms that fell into disuse toward the end of the medieval period as the prestige of Arabic began to wane. The chapter concludes by discussing the few Old Spanish Hebraisms that may reflect contact with the (written) language of the Spanish Jewish community. Page 6 of 6