Chapter 5 - Changes

Summary

Borrowings in informal American English exhibit various modifications. Phonological changes involve the modification of their pronunciation to conform to the phonological rules of American English. Orthographical changes feature the change in spelling of borrowed expressions, with various stages of respelling or other modifications. Morphological changes include addition or removal of lexical material via standard wordbuilding processes such as lengthening or shortening. Semantic changes involve figuration and accompanying semantic shifting. Grammatical changes involve conversion in the part of speech. Finally, stylistic changes involve modification in the original register of informal borrowings which may shift their stylistic status in American English; while most borrowings exhibit no such change and retain their informal status, there are several exceptions.