Universal #1895
Legacy number: 1895
| Number | 1890 |
| Original | No non-lexical language property can be borrowed unless the borrowing language already includes borrowed lexical items from the same source language. |
| Standardized | IF anything grammatical is borrowed, THEN there is a borrowed lexical item from the same source language. |
| Keywords | language contact, borrowing |
| Domain | all-encompassing |
| Type | implication |
| Status | diachronic |
| Quality | absolute |
| Basis | languages mentions in Moravcsik 1978e |
| Source | Moravcsik 1978e: 110 |
Discussion
Counterexamples
According to Ferguson, intonation patterns may be possible counterexamples: they do get borrowed, at least on the level of idiolects, without lexical items having previously been taken over, such as in the speech of tourists visiting foreign-speaking countries which often shows transfer of the foreign intonation pattern into native speech. Moravcsik, however, knows of no evidence to indicate that the borrowing of intonantion may precede in time the borrowing of lexical items in the context of language-to-language borrowing as well.
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