AUTHOR=Wu Junru , Zheng Wei , Han Mengru , Schiller Niels O. 

TITLE=Cross-Dialectal Novel Word Learning and Borrowing

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 12 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.734527

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2021.734527

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=To study the cognitive processes underlying cross-dialectal novel word borrowing and loanword establishment, in a Standard-Chinese-to-Shanghainese (SC-SH) auditory lexical learning and borrowing experiment, SC-SH bi-dialectals were compared with SC monolectals as well as bi-dialectals of SC and other Chinese dialects (OD) to investigate the influence of short-term and long-term linguistic experience. Both comprehension and production borrowings were tested. This study found that early and proficient bi-dialectism, even if it is not directly related to the recipient dialect of lexical borrowing, has a protective effect on the ability of cross-dialectal lexical borrowing in early adulthood. Bi-dialectals tend to add separate lexical representations for incidentally encountered dialectal variants, while monolectals tend to assimilate dialectal variants to standard forms. Bi-dialectals but not monolectals use etymologically related morphemes between the source and recipient dialects to create nonce-borrowing compounds. Dialectal variability facilitates lexical borrowing via enriching instead of increasing learners’ short-term lexical experience. Individuals’ long-term bi-dialectal experience as well as their short-term exposure to each specific loanword may collectively shape the route of lexical evolution of co-evolving linguistic varieties.