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Part of
East and West of The Pentacrest: Linguistic studies in honor of Paula Kempchinsky
Edited by Timothy Gupton and Elizabeth Gielau
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 33] 2021
► pp. 93–106

Chapter 5
The complicated timeline of Spanish

Implications for lexical processing

| University of Iowa
| University of Iowa

Sound change is a dynamic process that shapes the phonology and lexicon of a language across a language’s history. The existence of loanwords and cultismos (learned forms) complicate this process. Not all words are equally subjected to sound change. In Spanish, cultismos and loanwords often exhibit characteristics that differ from derived words (words that underwent regular phonological sound changes in Spanish). In either instance, the resulting word differs from other items in the Spanish lexicon. We discuss the significance of loanwords and cultismos for the Spanish lexicon. We suggest that although they result in less regularity across the lexicon, there are also consistent patterns that arise. Through these ‘regular irregularities,’ speakers may build associations between lexical forms and possibly access them to facilitate lexical activation.

Keywords: lexicon, phonological change, lexical borrowing, doublets
Article outline
  • Preamble
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Irregularities abound
    • 2.1Cultismos
    • 2.2Words borrowed from other languages
      • Arabic
      • Nahuatl
      • English
      • French
  • 3.Regularities arise
    • Arabic
    • Nahuatl
    • English
    • French
    • Latin borrowings and cultismos
  • 4.Implications
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 10 May 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.33.05one
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