Language switching constraints: more than syntax? Data from Media Lengua

This study investigates the relationship between intra-sentential codeswitching restrictions after subject pronouns, negative elements, and interrogatives and language-specific syntactic structures. Data are presented from two languages that have non-cognate lexicons but share identical phrase struc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Bilingualism (Cambridge, England) England), 2017-08, Vol.20 (4), p.722-746
Main Author: LIPSKI, JOHN M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acceptability
Antecedents
Behavior Patterns
Bilingualism
Code switching
Colleges & universities
Environment
Grammar
Judgment
Language Classification
Language contact
Lexical semantics
Linguistic Borrowing
Morphemes
Nouns
Person
Phrase Structure
Pronouns
Psychological Patterns
Quechua language
Semantics
Spanish language
Structural Grammar
Syntactic structures
Syntax
Verbs
Wh phrases
Word Order
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Description
Summary:This study investigates the relationship between intra-sentential codeswitching restrictions after subject pronouns, negative elements, and interrogatives and language-specific syntactic structures. Data are presented from two languages that have non-cognate lexicons but share identical phrase structure and syntactic mechanisms and exactly the same grammatical morphemes except for pronouns, negators, and interrogative words. The languages are the Quichua of Imbabura province, Ecuador and Ecuadorian Media Lengua (ML), consisting of Quichua morphosyntax with Spanish-derived lexical roots. Bilingual participants carried out un-timed acceptability judgment and language-identification tasks and concurrent memory-loaded repetition on utterances in Quichua, ML, and various mixtures of Quichua and ML. The acceptability and classification data show a main effect for category of single-word switches (significant differences for lexical vs. interrogative, negative, and for acceptability, pronoun) and repetition data show significant differences between lexical vs. interrogatives and negators. Third-person pronouns (which require an explicit antecedent) also differ significantly from lexical items. Logical-semantic factors may contribute to code-switching restrictions.
ISSN:1366-7289
1469-1841
DOI:10.1017/S1366728916000468