Lexical Language Contact Phenomena: A Combined Model Based on the Vocabulario español-guarani (18th century)

Abstract

The purpose of this work, which falls within the areas of lexicography (studying missionary linguistics) and sociolinguistics (studying cultural contact), is to analyse the linguistic and cultural contacts between Spanish and Guarani, based on lexicographic material extracted from the Vocabulario español-guarani by Pablo Restivo (1728). The basis of the analysis is provided by the names of animals—one of the ‘secular’ fields where the highest frequency of borrowings is found (Cerno & Obermeier 2013). The methodology applied is the Haspelmath model (2009) and the Gruda model (2018). The premise is that the arrival and work of the Jesuit missionaries created cultural contact that is reflected in the codified language and, in turn, in this dictionary of the time. The main contribution is a new combined model of lexical reflections in a situation of cultural contact that can be applied in the analysis of this kind of lexicographic work, while an additional section provides a presentation of Restivo’s work and its background.