The subject of this study is the influence which Dutch has had on Papiamentu. The first chapter deals with the history of the Benedenwindse Eilanden of the Netherlands Antilles in order to explain the reason for the "mixed" nature of the language. The second chapter is devoted to the influence which the various component parts of the population have had or may have had on the language. It further shows how Papiamentu developed from a pidgin into a Creole and subsequently into an independent language. This growth is demonstrated by statements from writers on the language. The third chapter concerns in particular the Dutch element in Papiamentu. After a short description of the various categories in which Dutch influence is apparent, an analysis is made of the presence of words and expressions from those categories in Ora Solo Baha, a collection of children's stories by Pierre Antoine Lauffer. In this analysis attention is given to the lexicon as well as to syntactic caiques. Words and expressions have been explained not only on the basis of present-day Dutch, but, as far as possible, also in the light of their occurrence in earlier forms of Dutch, the seventeenth-century language, or in the West Frisian and Zealandic dialects, as well as in colloquial Dutch. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

Glattochronology is a branch of linguistics which attempts to provide dates for a historical relationship between languages, as well as to establish degrees of lexical relationship. In much the same way as carbon 14 dating provides dates for archaeological finds, glottochronological analysis is a technique utilized to estimate linguistic prehistory. The hypothesis that a proto Balto-Slavonic language has existed in prehistoric times is tested in this paper. This test is based on the cognate count, which reflects the cognation, in percentages, of corresponding lexical forms in both languages. The validity of the results obtained in the cognate count is dependent on the method of determination of cognation. Therefore, only an extremely rigorous approach, in the comparison of corresponding farms in Latvian and Russian, can be accepted as a reasonably valid method of determining true cognation. The corpus of the cognate count consists of 207 items in either language. Each item is formed by corresponding free morphemes in both Latvian and Russian, and is designated as either a positive, or a negative item, depending on the cognation of the corresponding forms. The results of the cognate count are then processed according to the accepted glottochronological methods. According to the results obtained, it was concluded that the hypothesis, claiming a prate Balto-Slavonic language, had to be rejected due to insufficient evidence for such a language. It also appeared that a substantial increase in sample size could furnish this type of investigation with mare reliable results. The conclusions reached indicate that the determination of a genetic relationship between languages, with the aid of the glattochronological technique, tends to be inconclusive. It appears that glattochronological analysis is a valuable method for use in the determination of degrees, of relationship between languages. The results obtained from this type of analysis should be utilized in correlation to results obtained by other disciplines in an endeavour to reconstruct prehistory, as dates obtained via this technique should be viewed as not absolute but rather as relative measurements. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

This creative project is a textbook which has only one objective: to improve the Spanish vocabulary.The method consists of showing a group of Greek and Latin elements such as roots, prefixes and suffixes. It will be possible with this list to derive a large quantity of Spanish words and special terminology. It will be possible also to study some linguistic phenomena concerning semantic changes.The exercices are systematized in order to present words which are necessary for the students to learn. They will have to recognize these elements in different sentences and, at the same time, they will have to deduce their meaning from the context.

Please read the abstract after page x in the 00front part of this document / Thesis (DLitt (German))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Modern European Languages / unrestricted

Italian loadwords in Libyan Arabic have not received the attention and concern they deserve despite their number, high frequency, and wide use by all Libyans at all levels for more than one and a half centuries. This study attempts to record as many Italian loanwords in Libyan Arabic as possible as reported by the Libyan students and their spouses in the United States, to establish a linguistic criterion for the identification of these loanwords in Libyan Arabic, to determine the semantic adaptations they have undergone, and to verify their recognition and use by the students and their spouses. A list of 1000 words suspected to be Italian loanwords were collected through direct observation of Libyan speech, including my own as a native speaker of the dialect, by use of informants and intensive reading. The words were then checked against their possible native models in Italian through the use of Italian dictionaries and consultation with native Italian speakers, most of whom are linguists or language teachers. The list was reduced to 682 words, which were used in the questionnaire sent to 290 Libyan students and their spouses in the United States. From the 148 replies to the questionnaire, it is found that on the average 75% of the respondents know all the 684 words and 58% of them use them. About 82% of the loanwords have literary or colloquial Arabic equivalents. About 55% had presumably entered Libyan Arabic or Libyan Arabic speakers were exposed to them during the 1911-1970 period, which marks the Italian occupation of Libya, 5% between 1832-1910, and 5% between 1970-1985. About 93% of the Italian loanwords are nouns, 7% adjectives, 1% verbs, 0.8% adverbs, and 0.5% interjections. Meanings of most of the loanwords are more pervasive in Italian than in Libyan Arabic. It was also found that most of the loanwords had adopted Arabic grammatical rules for tense formation and inflection for number or gender.

This thesis has aimed to set out the classification and word production of foreign-inspired Chinese terms (FICT) within the language system of modern Chinese. FICT refers to a group of vocabulary items in Chinese as a recipient language, where formation is motivated by foreign entities or concepts and designated by some foreign words, but no established foreign elements are in fact transferred from the donor language. The thesis establishes a group of terms identified as a particular category of Chinese borrowings according to the motivation of word production, concerning human bodily perception and cognition experience of foreign entities or concepts. Chinese borrowing is categorized as four types: phonic loans, semantic loans, loan blends and FICT, based on the motivation of sound, form and meaning of foreign words, and sensory perception and cognition of foreign entities and concepts. Cognitive semantics, adopted as an approach in the thesis, is a study of mind and its relationship with embodied experience and culture. Employing language as a key methodological tool for uncovering conceptual organization and structure, this study explores the methods of FICT word production, such as sensory perceptual and metaphorical production in terms of principles of cognitive semantics within the Chinese language system. The various types of Chinese borrowings are analysed in terms of the theory of categorization, and FICT in particular are examined under the semantic model proposed here. It is hoped that the thesis is able to open a new approach to the investigation of Chinese loan words and the process of FICT word production within cognitive semantics. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / English / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

This thesis has explored English loan words in modern Japanese, in terms of phonological aspects and attempted to find the causes for the sound change in the English words when they were incorporated into Japanese. This thesis has also exemplified differences between English and Japanese sound systems and syllabic systems. In addition, the thesis has discussed causes for ellipsis of loan words and ten principles governing the occurrence of ellipsis and, finally, the thesis touched upon limitation of ellipsis.

L'influence italianisante de la Renaissance sur la culture frangaise est telle qu'elle a laissé ses traces non seulement sur le vocabulaire de l'architecture du XVIe s. mais aussi sur celui de 1'architecture moderne et voire, plus généralement, sur le lexique français. Et pourtant, malgré 1'influence incontestable de l'italien sur le vocabulaire français de 1'architecture, il ne reste au XXe s. qu'une trentaine--au maximum—de termes d'architecture empruntés à l'italien au XVIe siècle. Les spécialistes de la langue ont déjà examiné de près 1'influence du lexique italien sur le français à l'époque de la Renaissance: Ferdinand Brunot, Bartina Wind et T. E. Hope—entre autres—ont publié d'excellentes études dans ce domaine. Tout en nous appuyant sur les études de ces éminents linguistes, nous avons souhaité éviter une simple répétition; par conséquent, nous avons poursuivi une étude approfondie sur un vocabulaire particulier: le vocabulaire de 1'architecture. Nous avons d'abord dépouillé les textes de Brunot et de Hope pour établir une liste de termes d'architecture empruntés par le français àl'italien au XVIe siècle. Ensuite, nous avons vérifié dans les ouvrages lexicographiques modernes — ici, le .T.L.F. et le .Robert—pour déterminer si ces emprunts ont survécu jusqu'à nos jours. Nous pouvions être certain que ces termes font partie du lexique français du XXe siècle. Contrôlant la classification de Hope par 11exament de la section étymologique de chaque entrée du T..LF, nous avons aussi pu établir le fait que les mots dans notre liste étaient introduits en français comme termes d'architecture. En même temps, notre consultation du TLF et du Robert nous a fourni un aperçue général de 1'évolution sémantique des emprunts. Ensuite, nous avons consulté les ouvrages lexicographiques les plus importants depuis le XVIIe s. pour tracer 1'évolution sémantique de chaque mot. A partir du résultat de nos recherches, nous avons établi la répartition suivante: (i) quatre emprunts qui ont eu une expansion sémantique (viz., ARCHITECTS, ARCHITECTURE, ISOLE et FAÇADE); (ii) quatre autres emprunts qui ont évolué mais seulement à l'intérieur du vocabulaire de 1'architecture (viz., BALDAQUIN, APPARTEMENT, BALCON et ARCADE); et (iii) tous les mots qui n'ont pas changé de sens ou qui ont subi très peu d'évolution sémantique depuis leur introduction en français (Appendice A-2). Nous avons réservé une étude détaillée à chaque mot dans les deux prèmieres sections--retraçant l'origine et 1'évolution sémantiques du mot et, dans la mesure du possible, les circonstances historiques ou culturelles où le mot se trouvait. Nos études nous ont conduit à la conclusion que la langue n'accepte pas de façon égale les emprunts faits dans un certain domaine ou pendant une certaine époque. Certains des emprunts s'intègrent totalement au lexique, en acquérant d'autres acceptions et en sortant du domaine qui les aintroduits: ils acquièrent finalement un sens figuré; ce groupe est très petit. Le deuxième groupe consiste en des emprunts qui ont garde leur emploi principal de terme d'architecture mais que l'usager moyen de la langue reconnaitra et employera. A la différence du premier groupe, cependant, les mots du deuxième groupe ne possèdent pas d'acception au figuré. Le dernier groupe est composé d'emprunts qui restent strictement des termes techniques; l'usager moyen ne les employerait pas et, sans doute, n'en connaitraît même pas le sens. A en croire le résultat de notre travail, ce dernier groupe constitue la majorité des emprunts. Finalement, nous nous sommes apergu que l'histoire et la culture d'un peuple laissent souvent leurs traces sur 1'évolution sémantique d'un mot. Dans les études consacrées à ARCHITECTE et ARCHITECTURE, nous avons inclu pour chaque siècle les changements culturels, historiques ou politiques les plus importants dans l'histoire de la France et de 1'Europe et lés avons lies de façon logique aux changements sémantiques. Donc, nous avons pu suivre de près l'histoire parallèle de la langue française et du peuple français. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate