Issues regarding the influence of a contact language: German influence on semantic change and stylistic values of the oldest Slovenian literary lexica (16th century)

Abstract

We aim to investigate (by way of theoretical principles and research methods of contact linguistics) semantic change affecting loanwords in comparison to the original German (or Latin, mediated through German) lexemes during the process of integrating into the Slovenian language system and the 16th century literary language. The result of language contact was the adoption of the meaning of a foreign word from the donor language (the so-called 'model') by the loanword in the borrowing language (the so-called 'replica'). Three possible meaning transfers have been noted. (1) The new meaning of the loanword in the borrowing language is the same as that of the original foreign lexeme (i.e. zero-development of meaning), e.g. antitrinitar (antitrinitarian), alkoran (alcoran), aloe/aloes, cenzura (censorship), dekan (dean), disputacija (disputation). The selected examples show that this group normally contains specialized lexemes, most commonly derived from classical languages or the Hochdeutsch, which came into contact with Slovenian for the first time in the 16th century. (2) The borrowing language only adopts one of the meanings of the foreign lexeme (semantic narrowing). The first stage of secondary adaptation (secondary semantic change) can occur at the very moment of reception, whereby a narrowing of the semantic field occurs; a lexeme, which originally holds a specialized (most commonly terminological) meaning, receives a more general meaning after determinologization, remaining in general use in the 16th century literary Slovenian, e.g. ara – 'a guarantee'. (3) During the second stage of secondary adaptation, the adopted lexeme assumes additional meanings (semantic expansion), which can occur regardless of the original foreign lexeme, e.g. činž (tribute). Translating a foreign lexeme by using the existing native term leads to its semantic expansion towards ambiguity. For instance,
the adjective čuden (strange) was used to translate the German lexemes wunderbarlich, wunderlich, unnatürlich, ungewohnt, gar wundersam, seltsam, abscheulich, due to which this adjective holds no less than five meanings and two submeanings in 16th century literary Slovene. Under the dominant influence of the donor language only some lexemes adopted connotative meanings. The analysis concentrates on the expressive use marked by expressive qualifiers ekspr., slabš., iron., evfem., vznes. in the upcoming Dictionary of 16th Century Literary Slovene. Most commonly connotative quality developed towards pejorative meaning, as in the case of some borrowed Christian terms, such as ceremonija (ceremony), menih (monk), nuna (nun), papež (pope), odpustek (pardon) etc. Suffixal diminutives were also influenced by the language of the original (usually German) but to a lesser than expected extent. The analysis of the limited number of examples (from A to D) showed that the morphological diminutive does not necessarily have diminutive semantic meaning, e.g. banderce 'flag' (nem. Fenlin, LB 1545, 1219), cafelc 'an acorn-like object that serves as a cork or pin' (nem. Zapflin, MTh 1603); it also showed that the diminutive suffix was not always adopted under the influence of the original, e.g. ahkerec 'oriel' (nem. Ercker, LB 1545, 1089), človeče (nem. mensch, LH 1566, III, LXIIIIb).

Linguistic analysis has confirmed that the semantic development towards ambiguity in both native lexemes and loanwords is one of the most important reasons for the relatively modest thesaurus of the 16th century literary lexica (just above 22.000 words), which may be attributed not only to the limited functional diversity of the literary lexica but also to the practicality of Protestant writers who, when faced with deficient capacity for reference, expanded the established native and foreign lexemes with new meanings, which proved easier and faster than forming new terms, calquing or excessive borrowing from foreign languages. The use of polysemy for creating denotata, regardless of the donor language influence, reflected the denotative creativity of the Slovene Protestant writers and the expressive potential of Slovene language.