Italian Loanwords in English: A Linguistic Journey

Posted on Aug 23, 2024 in French

Italian Borrowings in English

Musical Terms

  1. Concert [It. concerto, f. concertare]:
    1. Accordance of sounds; a (harmonious) combination of voices, instruments, etc.
    2. Agreement in a plan or design; union formed by such agreement; accordance, harmony.
    3. A musical performance in which several performers take part.
  2. Concerto [It., f. concertare]: A composition for various combinations of instruments. Now, a composition for one, or sometimes more, solo instruments accompanied by orchestra.
  3. A cappella a. & adv. phr. [It. = in chapel style.]: Of choral music or choirs: unaccompanied.

Everyday Words

  1. Parasol [It. parasole, f. as para- + sole sun.] n.:
    1. A light portable screen carried to give shade from the sun, esp. a small light umbrella, often ornamental or gaily coloured. Also gen, a thing providing shade from the sun.
  2. Bankrupt n., a., & v. [It. banca rotta lit. ‘bench (or table) broken’, infl. by Fr. banqueroute and assim. to L ruptus broken.] adj.:
    1. Insolvent; undergoing legal process of bankruptcy.
    2. fig. At the end of one’s resources; destitute or bereft of (a quality etc.).
  3. Manifesto [It., f. manifestare]: A public declaration or proclamation; esp. a printed declaration or explanation of policy issued by a monarch, State, political party or candidate, or any other individual or body of individuals of public relevance.
  4. Paparazzo Pl. -zzi /-tsi/: A (freelance) photographer who pursues celebrities to take their pictures.
  5. Cappuccino n. Pl. -os. [It.: see capuchin.]: (A cup of) coffee with milk, esp. made with espresso coffee and topped with white foam.
  6. Espresso Pl. -os. [It. (caffè) espresso, f. espresso squeezed, pressed out, f. L expressus: see express a., adv., & n.]:
    1. Coffee made by forcing steam through ground coffee beans.
    2. A coffee bar etc. where such coffee is sold.

Word Formation Processes

Clipping

Clipping refers to the shortening of some word while the original meaning is retained. Clipping does not create lexemes with new meanings, but lexemes with a new stylistic value. Clippings appear as a rather mixed bag of forms abbreviated from larger words, which, however, share a common function, namely to express familiarity with the denotation of the derivative. Thus, lab is used by people who work in laboratories, demo is part of the vocabulary of people who attend demonstrations.

There are 3 types:

  • Foreclippings: the last part of the word is kept, e.g., site (website), plane (airplane), burger (hamburger), phone (telephone).
  • Back-clippings: the first part of the word is kept: e.g., pop (popular music), croc (crocodile), ad (advertisement).
  • Ambiclippings: the middle of the word is kept: e.g., flu (influenza), fridge (refrigerator).

The term also includes compounds which have just one of the elements clipped as for example autochanger < automatic record changer or op art < optical art. In a clipping compound, the first part of both words is represented in the new word, sitcom < situational comedy (clipping compound). Some of the most products of clippings are nouns: Liz < Elizabeth.

Compounding

Joining 2 words to produce a new form: e.g., girlfriend, bookcase, textbook, waterbed, breakfast, SIM card, chain-smoke, cashflow, haemo-philia (neoclassical c), jackknife, nuke (nuclear weapon), sky(adj)-blue(n).

Onomatopoeia

Words whose sound suggests their meaning: e.g., clang-of a bell, click, murmur, whisper, woof, croack(v), doo, cock-a-doodle.

Blending

Process of joining 2 words together by taking parts of both words and combining the parts into a new whole. The result is a blend: e.g., breakfast+lunch > brunch, motor/boat+hotel > mo/boatel, smoke+fog > smog, Spanglish, aquarobics, Merkozy, Fanzine < fan+magazine, white+wigger, sci-fi < science+fiction, boom+hoist, smack+mash, goat+sheep > geep, sheep+goat > shoat, karaoke < jananase (kara)+English.

Backformation

Creating new forms by removing affixes from the existing words. It’s the opposite of derivation. Ex: baby-sit (Backf) < babysitter (deriv), televise < television, greed < greedy, automation < automate, action < act, scavenger, malingerer (nouns ending in –er). A kind of derivation in reverse, in which a supposed affix is removed from a word, chain-smoke (backf) < chain-smoker (der).

Derivation

Forming new words by combining derivational affixes or bound bases with existing words, as in teleplay, re-ask, re(prefix)-create (base word)-nomy (suffix).

Acronyms and Initialisms

  • Acronym: a word is formed from the initial segments of words, or by combining initial letters or parts of series of words: e.g., UNESCO, AIDS, AWOL, TWOC, NATO, TESOL, Email, Radar.
  • Initialism: When a letter is difficult to pronounce: e.g., NFL, BBC, WWW, NFL, FBI, FC, WHO, ID, TV, PR, FAQ.

Affixation

Form words by adding affixes to morphemes. prefixation (un-,dis-), suffication (-ish,-ness): e.g., sing-er, un-real. –ers suffix

Conversion

Creation of a word. Applied to the words identical in their phonetic but referring to different parts of speech (to jump – a jump). Noun becomes verb, (butter, vacation, up) verbs become nouns (guess, spy), phrasal verbs become nouns (to print out, take over), verbs become adjectives (see through, stand up). Conversions from adjectives to nouns and vice versa are both very common and unnotable in English; much more remarked upon is the creation of a verb by converting a noun or other word (e.g., the adjective clean becomes the verb to clean). Jackniffe, phone, brown-nose, nuke, post-mark.

Phrasal Words

In a compound, the first word is usually stressed, while in noun phrase the 2nd is stressed: e.g., jack-by-the hedge, has been, forget-me-not, jack of all trades, wannabe, lily of the valley.

Idioms

Multiple words units based on a metaphor: e.g., lone wolf, brown-nose, lay/set the table, couch potate, the apple doesn’t fall from the tree.

Collocations

The occurrence of two or more words within a short space of each other in a text; multiple word units: e.g., lay/set the table, drink and drive, mix and match, moan and groan, toss and turn, grin from ear to ear, brake to a helt, bob/dunk/dip for apples, see a reason, choose carefully, in accordance with.

Irreversible Binomials and Trinomials

  • Irreversible Binominal: e.g., Spick and span, a knife and fork, foot and mouth disease, hammer and sickle.
  • Irreversible Trinomial: e.g., Every Tom, Dick and Harry.

Affixes

Affixation, an affix is attached to a base, which may be simple (as in full, the base to which –ness is attached to yield fullness), or complex (like meditate, the base to which pre- is attached to yield premeditate). “In English, words with as many as three suffixes (e.g. organ-iz-ation-al, profess-or-ship-s, authent-ic-at-ing, lead-er-less-ness) are unusual.

Affix: decontextualize, reorganize, premodify, counterargument.

Suffixes: feminize, mercurate, selectivity, signification, employee.

Hyponyms, Hypernyms, and Meronyms

  • Hypernym (generic term): A word with a broader meaning.
  • Hyponym (subordinate): A word with a narrower or more specific meaning that comes ‘under’ another wider or more general meaning. For example, rose and flower: ‘rose is a flower’. rose – hyponym, flower – hyperonym.
  • Co-hyponyms: A group of hyponyms of a hyperonym: e.g., chair, desk, table, stool: co-hyponyms; furniture – hyperonym.
  • Meronomy (part of): A term that refers to a part of something.
  • Holonomy (whole relation): A term that refers to the whole of something. For example: trunk, branch, handle (palo de) – meronyms: tree, broom (escoba) – holonym.
  • Metonymy (contiguinity): Using one entity to refer to another that is related to it. For example: The ham sandwich is waiting for his check. (referring to the person who ordered the ham sandwich). Other examples: tongue, brown-nose, dick, white/blue-collar, the tube (TV).

Language Shift vs. Language Change

Language Shift

Language shift is when the speakers of a language (the speech community) shift from one language to another. Like, when the Irish people gave up their language and shifted to English. That is language shift.

Language Change

Language change is basically different changes within a language, whether that can be sound changes, loanwords, semantic changes, etc…

Epenthesis Vowel

Epenthesis vowel (language change) occurs when 2 sounds change place. It’s basically the placement of a vowel where there was not one previously. An epenthetic vowel is a vowel that is inserted somewhere to facilitate pronunciation, like the Spanish e- before consonant clusters with s (e-spero, e-spanol), if it’s at the beginning of a word, it’s also called prothesis. In Russian there is”koshk” ‘cat’, the genitive plural deletes the -a at the end… but”kosh” isn’t easy to pronounce (even for Russians), so the genitive plural is”koshe”, and the -e- is the epenthetic vowel. Russian. ljublju < > jubju; three < > third.

Folk Etymology

Definition

Folk etymology, a case of reanalysis, is used to refer to a change in the form of a word caused by erroneous popular beliefs about its derivation. It is not usually a transparent form and it has consequences as the pronunciation changes.

Examples

  • In English, sparrow-grass was a dialectal form of asparagus.
  • Cockroach was borrowed from Spanish cucaracha but was folk-etymologized as cock + roach.
  • Estonian Aula `place of honour’ < au-la < au (honour) + la (place name).