Code Copying

Book excerpt: This book presents Lars Johanson’s Code-Copying Model, an integrated framework for the description of contact-induced processes. The model covers all the main contact linguistic issues in their synchronic and diachronic interrelationship. The terminology is kept intuitive and simple to apply. Illustrative examples from a wide range of languages demonstrate the model’s applicability to both spoken and written codes. The fundamental difference between ‘take-over’ copying and ‘carry-over’ copying is given special value. Speakers can take over copies from a secondary code into their own primary code, or alternatively carry over copies from their own primary code into their variety of a secondary code. The results of these two types of copying are significantly different and thus provide insights into historical processes.