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6. FINDINGS<br />

–(at)ion is the only alternative available for verbs ending in –ise, –ate, and –fy, whereas<br />

the native suffix –ing can be added to all bases.<br />

6.2.1. The influence of translation on the acquisition of Romance nominalizations<br />

Gotti (2006: 675), among many others, has claimed that translation may favour borrowing.<br />

The aim of this section is to examine if this factor really plays a role in the increasing use<br />

of Romance nominalizations in scientific texts. For this task, the category of surgical<br />

treatises has been singled out, since there are among its texts two translations from French<br />

and Latin originals, namely, de Vigo’s Most excellent workes of chirurgerye and<br />

Chauliac’s Qvydos qvestions. The number of Romance nominalizations in these texts will<br />

be compared with their number in native texts from the same category in order to check<br />

whether significant differences are found.<br />

Table 19. Influence of translation on borrowing. Normalized frequencies per 10,000<br />

words. (Translations from Latin or French in red)<br />

Period Title Romance<br />

nominalizations<br />

E1<br />

(1500-1560)<br />

E2<br />

(1560-1640)<br />

E3<br />

(1640-1710)<br />

Handy warke of surgery 8 (14.6)<br />

Most excellent workes of chirurgerye 24 (44.4)<br />

Institution of a chirurgian 44 (81.1)<br />

Qvydos qvestions 39 (72.1)<br />

Whole art of chyrvrgerie 87 (159.8)<br />

Chyrvrgians closet 20 (38.6)<br />

Workes of that famous physitian 69 (126.4)<br />

Of wounds 74 (134)<br />

Novum lumen chirurgicum 76 (139.7)<br />

The data in Table 19 show that, except for E3, in which the number of Romance<br />

nominalizations is very similar in all texts, the amount of Romance nominalizations varies<br />

enormously from text to text. Surprisingly, none of the translations, with normalized<br />

206

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