How to borrow a bound morpheme? Evaluating the status of structural interference in a contact between closely-related languages

This article has a twofold aim: firstly, to evaluate on the basis of a structural analysis of language contact data whether the observed Estonian-based pattern is gaining an integrated status in immigrant Ingrian Finnish, and secondly, to discuss the ways in which morphological borrowing may occur between languages. It is concluded that the use of the pattern probably exemplifies a mixing of the two morphological systems during speech processing rather than represents a permanently borrowed feature. Il also becomes evident that applying the intermediate categories proposed for lexical borrowing (vis. code-mixing and nonce borrowing) is problematic, and it is suggested that the intermediate stage between code-switching and structural borrowing may be termed code-blending. All in all, the article shows that grammatical borrowing and its mechanisms differ from lexical borrowing and ought to be investigated in their own right.