Basic vocabulary borrowing (was: IE "Urheimat" and evidence from Uralic linguistics)

[Ante Aikio]

This is a correction to my previous message. The comment below was based
on my crude misunderstanding of J. Simeon's message, which I apparently
read too hastily. So, my apologies - please ignore the following:

> This is irrelevant. .................... most speakers
> find it hard to perceive even obvious borrowings as e.g. Finnish pelaa-
> 'to play' < Swedish spela, Finnish (s)kaappi < Swed. skåp.

Instead:
It seems to me that one reason why basic vocabulary is not loaned as 
easily is not that it's "too basic" but that it's not expressive
enough. At least based on my own observations, speakers seem to borrow
more or less expressive vocabulary more freely than non-expressive; and
when non-expressive vocabulary is loaned it easily becomes expressive
(e.g. English place gives Finnish slang /pleissi/ 'a place with some
"action" (e.g. a bar, a night club)') So perhaps often when basic
vocabulary is replaced it's first borrowed as pejorative / expressive
etc. and then later becomes non-expressive, replacing the original term?

 - Ante