ORLAPUBS P. L79: DECEIVED BY CALQUES

(Cf. further C.-J. N. Bailey, Essays on time-based linguistic analysis
(Oxford University Press [1996], Ch. 10.)

Linguists who approach classification and history from a non-systematic view are misled by calques from the language on the ground (e.g. Anglo-Saxon) in the grammar of the ruling class (those speaking Norman French) . . . with the result that they misclassify the result. Calques are borrowings of functor and other words from the language of a powerless populace into the system of the language of those in power--all of the nobility in Norman England, and all but one of the bishops. This approach is the one to make use of if you embrace the prevalent error that function words are not borrowed . . . or the error that, even if function words borrow, they provide a sufficient basis for classifying a language Assuming the more logical contrary, one would not be misled by the which for the French relative pronoun laquelle (Anglo-Saxon had no parallel, but the words are from Anglo-Saxon) . . . or by in place of, for the sake of, on behalf of, etc. for the Romance compound prepositions of Old and current French (Anglo-Saxon basically lacked these--using for in the examples just adduced.. All of the words in the foregoing examples are from the Anglo-Saxon of the populace. It is sociolinguistically inconceivable that their tongue should prevail over that of the ruling classes.
What happens when diverse languages of this sort meet in a population is that function (and some other) words calque the formations of the language of those in power. English is said to have 28% of its vocabulary from Anglo-Saxon. The pronunciation remains that of the larger, politically impotent populace. All of this is seen in the daughter languages of modern English--Bislama, Krio, Tok Pisin, Hawai'ian Creole, Bajian, Gullah, etc.

When languages like Portuguese and Spanish--having the same grammar but not the same pronunciation--come together, as in the Sephardic Jewish populations of Eastern Europe (after fleeing from the Inquisition in Iberia), a creole does not result. Studies by Prof. Eduardo Faingold do not make it clear which pronunciation becomes dominant--the French-like pronunciation of Portuguese (with nasal vowels, etc.,) or the Greek-like pronunciation of Spanish. Spanish has the consonant system of Greek as well as a tonal accent rather than a stress accent like that of Portuguese; but then Spain was populated by Greek-speakers during several centuries of Byzantine rule before it fell under Islamic rule. (During the Spanish hegemony of the Netherlands, Spanish passed on its "Arabic sound" [jota] to the Dutch [where "g" had already become Plattdeutsch "j" in all environments] .) Borrowing any phenomenon usually ends up in less-restricted environments in the borrowing language than in the lending language.

One should logically give more weight to what is unborrowable--not words (lexical items). An example is. the change of attributive longer in "a much longer table" to predicative "a table longer by two metres" . . . paralleling French "une plus longue table" : "une table plus longue de deux mètres." But the list/classification mentality ignores systems . . . with the resulting errors of that approach.