Evidence of Lexical Re-Borrowing in the Spoken English of First Generation Finnish-Australians

English understanding of the word. Another example of substitution comes from the French cul-de-sac, which is often used in preference to no through road, or dead end because cul-de-sac is perceived to be more prosaic in form. The borrowed item sauna is an example of semantic addition to the English language. In English we had no other word to adequately describe this concept. In this we see a typical case of addition being used to express a new concept for the recipient culture found borrowing the word. Yet another example of addition borrowing from Finnish is kantele, which is a special musical instrument akin to a harp. Other, more common, sources of addition often come from food. English has borrowed heavily in this semantic field. For instance, espresso, cappuccino, pizza, camembert and brie are all well-known cases of borrowed words from other languages. They are also all cases of addition. Other examples of more established, hence usually less recognised, loans include tulip (Turkish), sky (Scandinavian) and yacht (Dutch). To this point, I have only concentrated upon typology but we also need to consider other factors when discussing lexical borrowing, such as the social and cultural determinants of borrowing and grammatical constraints. Weinreich (1953) provides several reasons why words may be borrowed: (1) cultural influence; (2) rare native words are lost and replaced by foreign words; (3) two native words sound so much alike that replacing one by a foreign word resolves potential ambiguities; (4) there is a constant need for synonyms of affective words that have lost their expressive force; (5) through borrowing, new semantic distinctions may become possible; (6) a word may be taken from a low-status language and used perjoratively; and, (7) a word may be introduced almost unconsciously, through intensive bilingualism (Appel &C Muysken 1987, 165-166). In relation to grammatical constraints, general consensus has it that certain categories of the lexicon are more easily and frequently borrowed than others. Sanskritist William Dwight Whitney (1881) suggested the following hierarchy: