This master’s thesis elucidates the profound influence French exerted on English after the Norman Conquest by focusing on French borrowings in Middle English. The first part encompasses the theory of borrowing, namely various types of borrowing, prerequisite factors behind borrowing, integration of borrowings into the recipient language and diverse borrowing classifications. Then follows an overview of the development of French and English languages and the linguistic influences having allowed the moulding of these two languages, which are illustrated by several literary excerpts from various periods, indicating their development. Later, the thesis describes the reciprocal linguistic influence of English and French and the linguistic situation in the Middle English period in England. This is followed by a thorough overview of French borrowings in Middle English. First, the distinction between Central-French and Norman-French borrowing is explained, and then the thesis subdivides borrowings into non-lexical borrowings, namely graphic, morphological, phonetic and syntactic borrowings, and lexical borrowings. The latter brings into focus the number of French borrowings in this period, the English semantic fields French mainly impacted and the consequences which can be observed in Middle English subsequent to French borrowing. The empirical part draws attention to the analysis of ten different groups of French words pertaining to the same suffix which were borrowed into Middle English in this period. Its intention is to find to what extent French (Norman-French or Central-French) loanwords were subjected to importation and substitution once introduced into Middle English and understand where the differences between Present-Day French and English forms of the selected words derive from.
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