From Taxonomy to Typology: The Features of Lexical Contact Phenomena in Atepec Zapotec-Spanish Linguistic Contact

In this paper, I begin with an examination of what constitutes a borrowing from one language to another with particular reference to lexical borrowing. I develop a set of three aspects of words/lexemes that can serve as features within the context of borrowing and as a model for their representation to be used to account for lexical contact phenomena, and compare them with characteristics used in previous descriptions of these phenomena. I then apply a featural analysis to the currently accepted taxonomy in order to demonstrate its lack of consistency in arbitrarily excluding a part of the lexical results of cultural contact and in failing to distinguish crucial differences in the agentivity of change. I argue that, by using these features, the full scope of lexical contact phenomena can be described. Using a derived and coherent terminology, I apply the features to the results of Atepec Zapotec (AZ)-Spanish (Sp) contact and conclude with a discussion of possible uses of this typology in terms of other areas of contact linguistics