ABSTRACT
As noted in 1.32C, evidence of borrowing of words between two languages generates an inference of contact between speech communities. While the content of the borrowed vocabulary often provides direct evidence for the cultural areas of contact, the quantity and types of borrowed material may provide evidence of the intensity, range, and dynamics of contact. In the present context, intensity of contact refers to the degree of social integration among groups in contact (4.2); range or extent of contact refers to the proportion of each group which is involved in contact, or the numbers and kinds of sociolinguistic situations affected by contact (4.3); the dynamics of contact refer to the processes of change in the context of the interrelations among the speech communities in contact (4.4).
