A lexical item that is of the “grammatical” type (which type includes at least conjunctions and adpositions) cannot be included in the set of properties borrowed from a language unless the rule that determines its linear order with respect to its head is also included.
Standardized
When function words are borrowed (especially adpositions and conjunctions), their ordering relative to their co-constituents will be the same as in the donor language.
Keywords
language contact, borrowing, order, adposition, conjunction
A possible counterexample may be found in Amharic (Semitic, Afro-Asiatic). Its preposition kä ‘from, than’ was probably borrowed from some Cushitic language where, according to the Cushitic pattern, it must have been a suffix. (Hetzron 1980: 256)
