Derivational morphology

All living languages need constantly to renew and update their lexical stock. They may do so in two different ways: the first, lexical borrowing, involves taking words from another language and assimilating them according to the phonological and morphological rules of the ‘borrower’ language. All of these English words, for example, have been borrowed from other languages: robot (Czech); shampoo (Hindi); kangaroo (Guugu Yimidhirr: North Queensland, Australia); entrepreneur (French); rucksack (German). They are, for the most part, now so well assimilated that we no longer notice that they are borrowings: indeed, some estimates suggest that around 30 per cent of English words are ultimately of French or Norman French origin, the vast majority of which pass unnoticed.