6. Copiability of (bound) morphology

It has often been observed that bound morphology is difficult to borrow. This paper examines this issue, expanding it to borrowing of grammatical elements in general. The semantic and/or pragmatic specificity is at the heart of explaining the copiability of at least content words, though it may also play a role when grammatical elements and patterns are copied. Frequency, hypothesized to be a factor of importance in the Code Copying Model, also plays a role in the explanation of copiability. To a degree, mixed copying combines these tendencies, as the globally copied elements make the meaning more, and the selectively copied elements tend to involve elements with general meaning, such as basic vocabulary items, functional morphemes and grammatical templates. Mixed copies involve a combination of various phenomena typical of language contact that are normally studied in isolation, which make them a fascinating topic for further research. Keywords:content words; Copiability; globally; language contact; mixed copies; mixed copying; morphology; pragmatic specificity; semantic specificity