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Contact and Calquing Stefano Manfredi CNRS, Sedyl Chapter 29 Contact and calquing Stefano Manfredi CNRS, SeDyL The notion of calquing refers to the transfer of semantic and syntactic patterns de- prived of morphophonological matter. By providing examples of lexical and gram- matical calques in a number of Arabic dialects and Arabic-based contact languages, this chapter identifies ways to relate the process of calquing to Van Coetsem’s psy- cholinguistic principle of language dominance. 1 Introduction In its simplest definition, calquing is a type of contact-induced change in which a word or sentence structure is transferred without actual morphemes (Thoma- son 2001: 260). Calques are sometimes called loan translations, as they typically represent a word-by-word (or morpheme-by-morpheme) translation of a lexeme or a sentence from another language. Heath (1984: 367) labels this process “pat- tern transfer” and distinguishes it from “matter borrowing” which is instead linked to the integration of morphophonological material. Ross (2007), for his part, points out that that calquing can also have important grammatical effects, and he considers it a necessary precondition for contact-induced morphosyn- tactic restructuring (what Ross calls “metatypy”). Broadly speaking, we can distinguish two types of calquing: lexical calquing, which entails the transfer of semantic properties of lexical items, and grammat- ical calquing, which instead implies the transfer of the functional properties of morphemes and syntactic constructions. Using Ross’s words (2007: 126), lexical calquing consists of remodelling lexical “ways of saying things”, whereas gram- matical calquing consists of remodelling grammatical “ways of saying things”. Despite this fundamental difference, lexical and grammatical calquing share a Stefano Manfredi. 2020. Contact and calquing. In Christopher Lucas & Stefano Manfredi (eds.), Arabic and contact-induced change, 625–641. Berlin: Language Sci- ence Press. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.3744557 Stefano Manfredi single cause: bilingual speakers’ need to express the same meaning in two lan- guages (Sasse 1992: 32). This also means that everything that expresses meaning (i.e. morphemes, lexemes, and constructions) can, in principle, be a source of calquing. Focusing mainly on the transfer of linguistic matter, Van Coetsem (1988) does not overtly mention the possibility of transfer of lexical and grammatical mean- ings through calquing. The present chapter thus aims at relating contact-induced changes produced by calquing to the principle of language dominance as postu- lated by Van Coetsem. 2 Contact-induced changes and calquing 2.1 Lexical calquing According to Haspelmath (2009: 39), a lexical calque is a lexical unit that was created by an item-by-item translation of the source unit. This type of contact- induced change occurs as bilingual speakers reorganise the lexicon of one of their languages to match the semantic organisation of the other (Ross 2007: 132). Adopting the psycholinguistic standpoint of language dominance, Winford (2003: 345) regards lexical calquing as a subtype of lexical borrowing, which is a com- bination of recipient language (RL) lexemes in imitation of source language (SL) semantic patterns. In contrast, I will show that, though lexical calquing can eas- ily be triggered by RL-dominant speakers, it can also be a product of imposi- tion via SL agentivity. In order to do this, I will mainly focus on calquing of compound nouns. A compound noun is here defined as a series of two or more lexemes, which is semantically conceived as a single unit. Each component of the compound can function as a lexeme independent from the other(s), and may show some phonological and/or morphological constraints within the compound when compared to its isolated syntactic usage (Bauer 2001). Against this back- drop, I will specifically discuss noun–noun compounds, as they represent the more uniform phenomenon of nominal compounding in the world’s languages Pepper (forthcoming). As we will see, the transfer of the semantics of compound nouns does not imply any morphosyntactic change in Arabic, as calqued com- pounds are typically adjusted to fit RL morphosyntactic patterns. Generally speaking, lexical calquing through borrowing can occur in indirect contact situations characterized by a very low degree of bilingualism. This is be- cause RL monolinguals can also be agents of lexical borrowing (Van Coetsem 1988: 10). Typical instances of lexical calquing via RL agentivity are related to the transfer of the semantic patterns of English compound nouns in modern Arabic 626 29 Contact and calquing dialects. This kind of transfer is linked to the expansion of the non-core Arabic lexicon for expressing previously unknown concepts. A prime example is the English calque lōḥit il-mafatīḥ ‘keyboard’ (lit. ‘the board of keys’) in Egyptian Arabic (Wilmsen & Woidich 2011: 9). Here, it can be clearly seen that the trans- fer of the semantic organization of the SL compound noun does not affect the morphosyntax of the RL, as the word order of the English nominal juxtaposition is reversed to fit the Arabic construct state. Lexical calquing can also take place in prolonged contact situations, as testified by numerous Italian compounds in Maltese. A singular case of mixed calquing is that of wiċċ tost ‘shameless person’ (lit. ‘tough face’) deriving from the Ital- ian compound faccia tosta ‘shameless person’ (lit. ‘tough face’) (Aquilina 1987). On the one hand, the first lexical item of the compound presents an Arabic phonological form while expressing semantic properties associated with the lex- eme ‘face’ in Italian. On the other hand, the second lexical item clearly results from the borrowing of the adjective tosto ‘hard, tough’ retaining both the Ital- ian phonological matter and semantic properties. The mixed nature of this com- pound brings to the fore the complementary relationship between RL and SL agentivity and shows that it is not always a trivial matter to distinguish between imposition and borrowing. However, Maltese also gives evidence of genitive com- pounds in which both lexical components have an Arabic phonological form cou- pled with Italian semantic properties. This is the case of the compound nouns saba’ ta’ sieq ‘toe’ calqued on the Italian dito del piede ‘toe’ (Pepper forthcom- ing). Such instances of lexical calquing clearly mirror semantic properties of SL lexemes and they most plausibly result from borrowing via RL agentivity (cf. Lucas & Ćeplö, this volume). Ḥassāniyya Arabic, for its part, presents many compound nouns that are tradi- tionally analysed in terms of substratum interference from Zenaga Berber (Taine- Cheikh 2008; 2012). Also in this case, the transfer of the semantic properties of the SL does not produce any morphosyntactic change in Arabic, as we can see in the pairs of examples in (1) and (2). (1) a. Ḥassāniyya Arabic (Taine-Cheikh 2008: 126) kṛaʕ lә-ɣṛab foot def-crow ‘aquatic herbaceous plant’ (lit. ‘crow’s foot’) b. Zenaga Berber (Taine-Cheikh 2008: 126) að̣aʔṛ әn tayyaḷ foot gen crow ‘aquatic herbaceous plant’ (lit. ‘crow’s foot’) 627 Stefano Manfredi (2) a. Ḥassāniyya Arabic (Taine-Cheikh 2008: 126) sayllāl lә-ʕrāgib ripper def-ankle.pl ‘honey badger’ (lit. ‘ripper of ankles’) b. Zenaga Berber (Taine-Cheikh 2008: 126) amәssäf әn ūržan ripper gen ankle.pl ‘honey badger’ (lit. ‘ripper of ankles’) Taine-Cheikh (2008: 126) stresses that it is somewhat difficult to trace back the origin of these compounds. Accordingly, she speaks of a process of conver- gence between the two languages, rather than determining the direction of the se- mantic transfer. However, it should be observed that these compound nouns are not attested in other spoken varieties of Arabic. Furthermore, since at least the mid-twentieth century, Berbers in Mauritania have been gradually loosing com- petence in Zenaga, in favour of Arabic (Taine-Cheikh 2012: 100), while Zenaga is rarely acquired as second language by Ḥassāniyya Arabic speakers. In such a context, the most probable agents of contact-induced change were former Berber- dominant speakers who gradually shifted to Arabic. Thus, it seems plausible that the transfer of the semantic properties of Zenaga compounds has been achieved through imposition, rather than through borrowing. Nigerian Arabic also shows interesting instances of lexical calquing as a con- sequence of a longstanding contact with Kanuri, a Nilo-Saharan language widely spoken in the Lake Chad area. Owens (2015; 2016) gives evidence of the transfer of the semantic properties of numerous compound nouns including the lexeme ṛās ‘head’. Similar to the previous instances of compound calquing, the integra- tion of Kanuri semantic patterns does not affect the Arabic morphosyntax, aswe can see in the pairs of examples in (3) and (4). (3) a. Nigerian Arabic (Owens 2016: 69) ṛās al-bēt head def-house ‘roof’ (lit. ‘head of house’) b. Kanuri (Owens 2016: 69) kǝla fato-be head house-gen ‘roof’ (lit. ‘head of house’) 628 29 Contact and calquing (4) a. Nigerian Arabic (Owens 2016: 65) ṛās al-qalla head def-corn ‘tassel’ (lit. ‘head of corn’) b. Kanuri (Owens 2016: 65) kǝla argǝm-be head corn-gen ‘tassel’ (lit. ‘head of corn’) According to Owens (2016: 65), Kanuri–Arabic bilingualism, with Arabic be- ing a minority language, would have been the foremost factor underlying the transfer of these compound nouns into Nigerian Arabic. He further stresses that Kanuri is the main source of compound nouns in a number of other minority languages in the area (e.g. Kotoko, Glayda, and Fulfulde) and that there is lit- tle evidence of Kanuri to Arabic shift in the region (Owens 2014: 147). However, the fact that Kanuri represents the majority language of northeastern Nigeria, does not shed light on the transfer mechanism lying behind lexical calquing in Nigerian Arabic. This is because speakers can be linguistically dominant in a so- cially subordinate language (Winford 2005: 376). In fact, such contact settings are closely tied to SL agentivity, as the youngest bilingual generations tend to impose semantic features from their dominant language (i.e.
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