Definition of adstratum in English:
adstratum
nounPlural adstrata adˈstrɑːtəmˈadstrɑːtəm-ˈstratəm
Linguistics A language or group of elements within it that is responsible for changes in a neighbouring language.
Example sentencesExamples
- Thus, when I began to teach my spring term in French Linguistics, I began to explain superstratum, adstratum, and substratum phenomena as contamination phenomena due to various factors - social, elitist, and others.
- Since the Nadravians were immediately neighbours with Old Prussian tribes, they bear evidence of an admixture of Old Prussian elements, however, not from an Old Prussian substratum but rather from an adstratum.
- Romanian has many adstrata of linguistical accretions, but no one so far knows just how deep is the substratum.
- Such word-pairs suggest an adstratum of borrowings.
- I conclude with the remark that traceable East Baltic influence on West Baltic involves not diglossia, but merely adstrata and substrata.
Derivatives
adjective
Linguistics Even in those languages that are not contact-based special contact varieties can be observed through the influence of an adstrate or a substrate language.
Example sentencesExamples
- A possible influence of the substrate and adstrate Finno-Ugric languages formerly spoken in the area has been suggested by Western scholars, but in Russian dialectology it seems to be excluded a priori, except in a few studies.
- This provides a rationale for a hypothesis respecting adstrate development in the area.
Origin
1930s: modern Latin, from Latin ad 'to' + stratum 'something laid down'.