The subsystem of loanwords in English: Properties, categorisation, prototypicity and representation

This study highlights the linguistic specificities of loanwords and uses a theoretical model based on the assumption that the English lexicon is composed of different subsystems. Loanwords have specific phonological, letter-to-sound, semantic, morphological, segmental and syntactic properties that distinguish them from the items of the other subsystems. The first part of the study lists these properties and illustrates them with examples taken from dictionary data (Wells [2008]). The formation of the loanword subsystem is thus a product of the dynamic interaction between different linguistic systems (Dabouis & P. Fournier [2022]). The emergence of this subsystem reveals that the theoretical framework for loanwords is rooted in the principles of interaction, categorisation and gradience. The second part of the study proposes a conceptual and dynamic representation of the subsystem, mainly grounded in cognitive linguistic theory (Culioli [1990]; [1999a]; [1999b]; Lakoff [1987]; Taylor [1998]). The category of loanwords is represented by a set whose centre concentrates the prototypical and defining parameters of the category, and from which items that fall within this class are identified. A loanword is more or less close to the prototypical form according to the number of parameters it activates. The notions of gradience and boundary are essential in the conceptualisation of the system, because they contribute to defining the concept of loanword as a category based on a continuum. Less-prototypical elements of the subsystem are defined by a lower concentration of defining characteristics and may even shift to other subsystems. The theoretical model proposed in this study is grounded in the principles of prototypicity, gradience, and boundary and provides a dynamic representation of the loanword category, while also addressing the limitations of linguistic categorisation.