![]() ![]() ![]() The competition this word shows with native synonyms, especially bear, is surveyed, and the systemic pressures that may have facilitated its widespread adoption are explored, as well as the points of similarity it shows with some other borrowings into the core vocabulary of Middle English in particular, the hypothesis is advanced that a tendency towards isomorphism in vocabulary realizing basic meanings may be a significant factor here. The article then looks in detail at a particularly striking example identified using this list: the verb carry, borrowed into English in the late fourteenth century from Anglo-Norman, and found with some frequency in its modern core meaning from the very beginning of its history in English. This is adopted for the possibility it provides for taking an empirically based approach to identifying at least a proportion of those loanwords that have most impact on the core lexicon. This article takes as its starting point the extent of borrowing in Middle English among the hundred meanings included in the Leipzig–Jakarta List of Basic Vocabulary, a recently developed tool for exploring the impact of borrowing on basic vocabulary on a cross-linguistic basis. ![]()
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