%0 Journal Article
%T Bora loans in Res¨ªgaro: Massive morphological and little lexical borrowing in a moribund Arawakan language
%A Frank Seifart
%J Cadernos de Etnoling¨¹¨ªstica : Estudos de Ling¨¹¨ªstica Sul-Americana
%D 2011
%I Cadernos de Etnolinguistica
%X This study analyzes the influence of Bora (Boran) on Res¨ªgaro (Arawakan), two languages of the Colombian-Peruvian Amazon region, using a newly discovered Res¨ªgaro wordlist from the 1930s (Manuel Mar¨ªa de Matar¨® no date), another wordlist from the late 1920s (Rivet & Wavrin 1951), and another from the early 1970s (Allin 1976:382-458). It shows that despite heavy structural and morphological influence (Aikhenvald 2001:182-190) Res¨ªgaro has borrowed relatively few lexical items, around 5% in all three sources. It also shows that the borrowing of entire sets of grammatical morphemes, including classifiers, number markers, and bound grammatical roots that is observable in contemporary Res¨ªgaro (Seifart 2011) goes back to at least the early 20th century. This suggests that this remarkable case of massive morphological borrowing is not merely an effect of language decay, linked to the current language endangerment situation of Res¨ªgaro, with only two surviving speakers.
%K language contact
%K morphological borrowing
%K lexical borrowing
%U http://www.etnolinguistica.org/mono:2