PATTERN BORROWING IN LEXICAL SEMANTICS: SOME EMPIRICAL OBSERVATIONS

The article deals with pattern borrowing in lexical semantics. In this case, a lexeme of one language copies a polysemy pattern from a contact language. The discussion is based on the data from my fieldwork with some Uralic languages spoken in Russia and strongly influenced by Russian (along with the influence of other indigenous languages, which is present in some cases). Data from local varieties of Russian which are undergoing contact-induced changes are also considered. The analysis of field data is complemented by corpus material. On the basis of several case studies, I discuss possible arguments for pattern borrowing (innovation for the recipient language; the existence of another pattern for the same meaning in the recipient language; sociolinguistic factors related either to the language/dialect in general or to the speaker’s background). Some methodological issues are considered, such as assessing the typological distribution of a pattern in question; distinguishing between pattern borrowing and simplification; semantic and collocational differences between the lexemes in the source language and in the recipient language; tracing the direction of possible borrowing.