Frequent borrowings in the Belarusian, Russian and Slovenian languages: semantic and thematic features

Authors

  • Nina B. Mechkovskaya Belarusian State University, 4 Niezaliežnasci Avenue, Minsk 220030, Belarus

Keywords:

frequency dictionaries, national corpora, frequency lexical borrowings, the continuant of the prototype lexeme, recipient language, semantics of frequency borrowings
Supporting Agencies
The author expresses her sincere gratitude for the research solidarity to Dr. Andreja Zhele, professor at the University of Ljubljana, and Dr. Andrej Perdich, researcher at the Institute of Slovenian Language Fran Ramovsz of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, thanks to which she had access to the electronic version of the List of Thousands of Frequently Used Slovenian Words Gigafida 2.0.

Abstract

The study of borrowings in the first thousand words in frequency dictionaries and/or corpora of the Belarusian, Russian and Slovenian languages showed that quantitative differences between languages in the ratio of borrowings and primordial words are due to the time of creation of dictionaries and the genre-stylistic features of their sources and therefore do not reflect the real ratio borrowings and original vocabulary in a separate language. However, the semantic-thematic and pragmatic features of frequency borrowings in three languages show that the relative volume of borrowings in language and speech decreases in the direction from the Belarusian language to Russian and further to Slovenian. The prevalence of borrowings in a language is the greater, the less specific and thematically are conditioned in it the borrowings. Belarusian and Russian borrowings in thematic and partly pragmatic aspects are not separated from the native vocabulary or are not as strongly separated as borrowings in the Slovenian language.

Author Biography

  • Nina B. Mechkovskaya, Belarusian State University, 4 Niezaliežnasci Avenue, Minsk 220030, Belarus

    doctor of science (philology), full professor; professor at the department of theoretical and Slavic linguistics, faculty of philology

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Published

2021-03-10

Issue

No. 1 (2021): Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philology

Section

Linguistics

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How to Cite

[1]
Mechkovskaya, N.B. 2021. Frequent borrowings in the Belarusian, Russian and Slovenian languages: semantic and thematic features. Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philology. 1 (Mar. 2021), 25–35.