[PLing] CfP: ÖLT-workshop "Native vs. Borrowed Word Formation in Synchrony and Diachrony", 05-08-Dec-2025, Klagenfurt

[Martina Werner]

Workshop at 49. Österreichische Linguistiktagung: Native vs. Borrowed 
Word Formation in Synchrony and Diachrony

Date: 05-Dec-2025 - 08-Dec-2025
Location: Klagenfurt, Austria
https://linguistlist.org/issues/36/1839/

Submission Deadline: 01-Oct-2025

Coexistence of borrowed and native word formation morphology is a 
widespread if not universal characteristic of languages (Matras & Sakel 
2007; Gardani, Arkadiev & Amiridze 2015). In many cases, foreign derived 
morphemes occupy specific lexical strata or registers, reflecting a 
compartmentalisation into native and borrowed subsystems (Matras 2009). 
For example, English word formation features both native Germanic and 
borrowed Latinate suffixes (e.g., -ness vs. -ity, respectively), whereby 
some of the latter ultimately became productive on native bases.

In this workshop we aim to bring together insights on how the contrast 
between native and borrowed word formation morphology is reflected in 
speakers’ knowledge of grammar. We are interested in the process of 
integration of morphologically complex words during language contact, 
the incorporation of borrowed word forming mechanisms in the recipient 
language, as well as in the consequences for the synchronic grammar and 
lexicon. The focus is on the theoretical analysis of the relevant 
phenomena. We welcome contributions from different theoretical 
frameworks on topics which include but are not limited to the following:

- Is the distinction between native and borrowed items part of the 
grammatical knowledge of speakers? How insightful is it to view this 
coexistence in terms of competition or rivalry?
- What drives the speakers’ perception of ‘nativeness’ and what are the 
consequences for the process of morphological integration?
- How do languages integrate borrowed word forming morphology from 
different languages (e.g., Latinate and English borrowing in German), 
and how does this give rise to different “strata” of word formation 
patterns?
- How universal are the various proposed “borrowability scales” and what 
is their status in the different theoretical approaches to word 
formation?
- What are the differences in the integration or nativization of 
borrowed morphemes between different morphological types (e.g. 
compounding vs. derivation vs. inflection) and what might be the 
morphological reason behind these empirical differences?
- How do borrowed categorizers (e.g. -ier- in German, -eer- in Dutch 
etc.) arise?
- How do borrowed affixes become native-like diachronically?
- Is there a difference between the development of borrowed vs. native 
morphology during L1 acquisition at different diachronic stages of 
‘integration’?
- Why do languages differ w.r.t. the importance of ‘nativeness’ for 
morphological productivity and if so, how is this distinction best 
modelled?
- What role does prescriptism play w.r.t. what counts as ‘native’ or 
‘borrowed’ and w.r.t. morphological productivity?

Submission Guidelines:
Presentations should follow a 20-minute talk + 10-minute discussion 
format. Abstracts must be between 150 and 300 words in length. All 
abstracts should include references and adhere to the formatting 
conventions of the Unified Style Sheet for Linguistics 
(https://clas.wayne.edu/linguistics/resources/style).

Please submit your abstract by 1 October 2025 to:
borrowing.workshop at gmail.com

Workshop Organizers:
Laura Grestenberger
(laura.grestenberger at univie.ac.at)
Gianina Iordăchioaia
(gianina.iordachioaia at uni-graz.at)
Veronika Mattes
(veronika.mattes at uni-graz.at)
Marko Simonović
(marko.simonovic at uni-graz.at)
Martina Werner
(martina.werner at univie.ac.at)

References:
Gardani, F., Arkadiev, P., & Amiridze, N. (Eds.). (2015). Borrowed 
morphology. De Gruyter Mouton.
Haugen, E. (1950). The analysis of linguistic borrowing. Language, 
26(2), 210–231. https://doi.org/10.2307/410058
Johanson, L., & Robbeets, M. (Eds.). (2012). Copies versus cognates in 
bound morphology. Brill.
Matras, Y. (2009). Language contact. Cambridge University Press.
Matras, Y., & Sakel, J. (Eds.). (2007). Grammatical borrowing in 
cross-linguistic perspective. Mouton de Gruyter.
Mithun, M. (2012). Morphologies in contact: Form, meaning, and use in 
the grammar of reference. In M. Vanhove, T. Stolz, A. Urdze, & H. Otsuka 
(Eds.), Morphologies in contact (pp. 15–36). Akademie Verlag.
Myers-Scotton, C. (2002). Contact linguistics: Bilingual encounters and 
grammatical outcomes. Oxford University Press.
Seifart, F. (2013). AfBo: A world-wide survey of affix borrowing. 
Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Retrieved 
from https://afbo.info
Thomason, S. G., & Kaufman, T. (1988). Language contact, creolization, 
and genetic linguistics. University of California Press.
Weinreich, U. (1953). Languages in contact: Findings and problems. 
Linguistic Circle of New York.


-- 
PD Dr. Martina Werner
Institut für Germanistik, Abt. Sprachwissenschaft
Universitätsring 1
A-1010 Wien
https://germanistik.univie.ac.at/personen/werner-martina/