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Borrowing and Contact-Induced Change

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Abstract

This chapter examines contact-induced changes in Greek. These changes are system-preserving and involve lexical borrowings that consist of loanwords and loanshifts. Loanwords combine Greek and English morphemes that inflect for gender, number, and case, whereas calques copy syntactic and semantic patterns in English. Diffusion of discourse patterns is also found in the data. Borrowings from English into Greek are motivated by intense contact with the English-speaking host community, and cultural pressure associated with the prestige of the dominant language.

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Correspondence to Angeliki Alvanoudi .

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Alvanoudi, A. (2019). Borrowing and Contact-Induced Change. In: Modern Greek in Diaspora. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90899-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90899-1_2

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90898-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90899-1

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