Dochu A. The role of language contacts and lexical borrowing in forming thematic groups of words (with reference to English ornithonyms).

The author investigates, with the reference to the thematic groups of English ornithonyms, the factor of language contacting and borrowing in making up thematic groups of words. Combining both synchronic and diachronic aspects in her approach, she traces the influence of lexical borrowing on English ornithonymy from Old through New English and so establishes the corpus of borrowed bird names, further differentiated in loan words, loan-blends and loan-translations. She also classifies them according to their origin and time of borrowing, showing both their quantitative dynamics and ratio throughout the history of English. The other parameters of her analysis are the degree of phonetic, lexical, grammatical and graphic integration, the distinction of cultural (distant) loans and loans resulting from immediate contact, and the subsequent evolution of borrowings including their developing of secondary meanings and leaving their original thematic group.