Morphological adaptation

Translations

adattamento morfologico | adaptation morphologique | morphologische Anpassung

Article

Like in the case of phonological adaptaion, morphological adaptation is one of the formal processes that affect a word when it is borrowed from a different language. Depending on its morphological typology, the target language will require the borrowed word to possess grammatical features that allow it to be morphosyntactically employed. Therefore, if a word is borrowed, e.g., by an inflected language, it will be assigned features that allow inflection under all required categories: it will receive a grammatical gender and, if different inflectional paradigms are available, it will also be included in an appropriate paradigmatic series. Conversely, if a word if borrowed by an isolating language, its morphology would be deleted upon transfer to the target language.

Morphological adaptation is particularly interesting in the study of borrowing scenarios, because several languages tend to select specific classes to which they preferably assign loanwords. Furthermore, the way morphology is adapted can be indicative of the date of acquisition of a loanword, in case the diachrony of the target language involved a shift in its morphological system.