Modelling the frequency of loanwords in different semantic fields in core vocabularies (based on WOLD data)

The present paper focuses on the statistical modelling of loanword frequencies in different semantic fields of ten selected languages of the world. The main question addressed in this paper is whether the occurrence of loanwords in different semantic fields (data are from the WOLD project) can be modelled by a (simple) power model or not. Within the framework of synergetic linguistics, the basic idea is that the transfer and integration of loanwords is a statistically well-regulated process. In the absence of deductively found models (theoretically, also a birth-and-death process could be a suitable starting point), the proposed modelling aims to shed some new light on the underlying statistical tendencies in linguistic borrowing.