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Seminararbeit
Englisch

Universität zu Köln

2017

Celina K. ©
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Language mixing patterns-

Discussed on the basis of light verbs


1. Abstract


This thesis is about the investigation of the underlying pattern that the alternate use of two or more language varieties in a conversation may follow. To be more precise, it is about the discussion of two possible grammatical approaches to observe the patterns on word-level code-switching with focus on two different theories. It is exemplified mainly on the proposals of Myers-Scotton and Jake and on the contributions made by MacSwan, González-Vilbazo and associates.

Thus the latter one, can be seen as an attempt to underline that constraint-free generative approaches are superior to the Matrix Language Model theory (MLF) originated by Myers-Scotton and her colleagues. Both approaches should be presented here, ponting out their key characterisics and their advantages in the field of research on code-switching. Additionaly, the aim of this paper is to present the respectively critique of mainly the constraint-based approach made by their opponents.

Especially with regard to the attempt of González-Vilbazo and López to contrast the two models on the basis of light verbs in code-switching, the minimalist approach should be presented in practise. Finally a recent distiction in the field of light- verbs is contributed by Alexiadou´s observation in order to show how lively and various the research of mixing languages is nowadays and how much work still remains to be investigated in future.


2. Code-switching – A general overview


Code-switching (CS), is the term that is used to describe the alternate variation of two or more linguistic varieties used in the same conversation or sentence in bilingual speech1.

Basically code-switching can be divided into two types: intersentential and intrasentential, the former kind denoting the switch occuring between sentences and change in topics or participants. The other type, intrasentential, occurs when the alternation of languages is within sentence boundaries, implying a kind of language mixing and the active use of both (or even more) languages at the same time.

The history of the research of code-switching has undergone various periods that have shown how complex code-switching is and how difficult it is to cover the whole phenomenon. Starting with the work of Gumpertz and his associates in the 1960s2, the interest in CS increased enormously in the following decades. The preceding meaning, that CS was: “The introduction of elements from one language into the other means merely an alternation of the second language, not a mixture of the two3 was soon discarded and credability was started to be paid to the significance and the benefits studying CS.

As a result, an enormous amount of research started to be devoted to different aspects of CS and a lot of studies focused on CS were published in the following years. Still today, bilingualism and code-switching research cover a great area in linguistics.

In the course of investigation of code-switching it has become clear that code-switching is a multifaceted phenomenon and that it can be observed from different perspectives and sub-disciplines.

Some main approaches for observation can, according to Gardner-Chloros, be broadly subdivided as follows:

  1. Sociolingusitic/ ethnographic descriptions of CS situations. These represent the majority of studies of CS.

  2. Pragmatic/conversation analytic approaches. These rely on identifying the meanings brought about by CS in conversation, for example through following, or avoiding, the language choices of interlocutors (preference organization).

  3. Grammatical analyses of samples of CS and the search of underlying rules, models and explanations to explain the patterns found.These have developed largely as a separate tradition from the sociolinguistic and the pragmatic.4


Fragmented in these sub-divisions, researchers realised very quickly that linguistic forms and practices are interrelated and that there are no strict divisions between them. Practising code-switching, embodies not only variation, but links between linguistic form and language used as social practice. Research from a linguistic and psycholinguistic perspective has focussed on understanding the nature of the systematicity of code-switching, as a way of revealing linguistic and potentially cognitive processes.

Additionaly, research on the psychological and social dimensions of code-switching has largely been devoted to answering the questions of why spakers code-switch and what the social meaning of code-switching is for them.

So far, throughout the course of research, one of the main proposed aspect is, that it is necessary to consider all these forms of analysis and that, indeed, it is that possibility that is one of the most compelling reasons for studying code-switching, since such a link would permit the development and verification of hypotheses regarding the relationship among linguistic, cognitive and social processes in a more general way (Heller, Pfaff 1996).

In the following section the focus will be on the grammatical properties of CS, highlighting two major approaches of intrasentential CS that have controversial outcomes on possible language mixing patterns.


3. Grammatical Aspects of CS


Approaches considering grammatical issues have been one of the most fertile branches of CS.5 The interest being put on the role that grammar can play an important role for the understanding of CS and help to expose universal regularities which underlie it.:

When sentences are built up with items drawn from two lexicons, we can see to what extent the sentence patterns derive from interaction between these two lexicons.”6

The central question that researcher´s who are concerned with grammatical apects ask to answer is: “What is the nature of the cognitive control that must underlie rapid switches from one language to another?” Some psycholinguists turn to studies of bilingualism because they consider that “the presence of two languages provides a lens into the way that cognitive systems interact that cannot otherwise be seen in research that is restricted to speakers of a single language”.7

The three major grammatical approaches in CS, primarily specialising on CS at the intrasential level (below sentence boundaries), can thus be distinguished into: the variationist, the generativist and the production approaches, each focusing on special features of CS.8

The first considerable grammatical approach implies the necessity of constraints of a universal nature on where switching could occur, due to the findings that switches did not occur at random points in the sentence9.


3.1. Variationist Approach


In Shana Poplack´s seminal research on New York Puerto-Ricans CS in 1980, she found out that there are two restrictions on where in an utterance a switch can occur. Considering her findings, in the development of following research, two constraints were formed in her tradition. The free morpheme constraint (example a) suggests that switches cannot occur after a bound morpheme, wheras the equivalence constraint (example b) claims that CS cannot occur at points in the sentence where the structure of the two languages differ.

  1. *eat-iendo

  2. Tell Larry que se calle la boca.10


Poplack´s work nourished the interest in the field of constraints and has been widely discussed and also undermined by numerous examples from other researchers11.


3.2. The matrix Language Frame (MLF) and the 4-M model


In 1985 Klavans and Joshi proposed that CS consists of a “frame” or “matrix” into which elements of another language could be embedded.12

Under this assumption, Myers-Scotton and her colleagues developed 1993 a grammatical model, calling it matrix Language Frame (MLF) model, which since then can be seen as the mainstream approach to identify bilingualism production. It was the first framework that also considered constraints, providing a role for the different types of morphemes in CS. The MLF model is based around the concept that language processing is involving the construction of a frame and that in all CS there is a dominant language, called “base” or Matrix Language (ML). The other langugage that is inferior to the ML is embedded (EL) in the Matrix Language.

According to Myers-Scotton, the ML provides the system morphemes (closed-class items) in the sentence, while the EL is the supplier of the content morphemes (open-class items).

The EL´s content morphemes are specifically marked as assigning or receiving thematic roles; for example, nouns receive roles and the majority of verbs assign them. The ML´s system morphemes do not allocate or take thematic roles.

The unequal roles of the languages in the MLF it is said, can be characterised as asymmetry.

Furthermore, the MLF model is based on two principles that operate as hypotheses about the participation of the different languages involved in CS:


1. The Morpheme Order Principle states that morpheme order within the bilingual clause comes from only one language and this language is identified as the ML.

2. The System Morpheme Principle states that one type of system morpheme must come from only one of the participating language and this language is identified as the ML.13


The MLF model has been heavily criticised by other researchers14 and as a result it has been revised more than once15 since it was established. One of the revisions led to the presentation of the 4-M model16 which classifies morphemes in terms of their syntactic roles and serve as a hypothesis about how they are activated in language production.

Early system morphems (SM) and two types of late system morphemes, bridges and outsiders. These categories, it is claimed, are to be related to the process of language production and are differently activated throughout this process. It is emphasised that the 4-M model contains a further division. Content morphemes and early SMs group together as conceptually-activated, as opposed to late system morphemes, which are structurally-assigned.

This belief implies, as it is said, that conceptually-activated is the outcome of the speaker´s pre-linguistic intentions, which then activate the language-specific semantic-pragmatic feature bundles that become lemmas in the mental lexicon. Lemmas are defined as “abstract features that underlie surface level morphemes18. Following this, content morphemes are said to be "directly elected", while early SMs that may accompany them on the surface are "indirectly elected".

Early SMs occur with content morphemes, which are claimed to be their heads. They further function as an elaborator of the meaning of their heads. Examples for Early SMs are: plural affixes and also determiners.

On the other hand structurally-assigned means that late SMs are not prominent until the level of the “formulator” (in language production). It is pointed out that at this level larger phrases and clauses are assembled and that this work is done by late SMs19.

The MLF model today is still a prinicpally used model in the field of research. Nevertheless it obviously includes some fuctional weak spots that other researches revealed while applying it in their own investigations. Some of the main criticism should be considered in the following section of this paper.


3.2.1. Criticisim on the MLF model


The work of Myers-Scotton is the result of an enduring process that is on-going for more than 20 years now. In the course of the development of her models, they have undergone several revisions and changes. The problems that her opponents were revealing are mainly issued with inaccuracies concerning the definition and contraries demonstrated by counterexamples.

Some counterexamples illustrated that the two langauages are been equally represented and that some morphemes could not explicitly be assigned to one particular language20.

Furthermore, it remains unclear what a relevant unit within which to count morphemes might be. Problems were revealed, that arise, when utterances are segmented into clauses and their influence on the outcome of the ML.21

In addition to this, the division between function and content words appeared to be problematic, too. It was illustrated that there are at least four different criteria relevant to this classification in different languages and that the distiction itself does not operate identically in every language.22

At a psycholinguistic level, according to the 4-M model, Myers-Scotton et al. predicted that the system morphems are directly related and variably activated within the process of language production, contact and change. Critics find fault with this criteria, saying that the “only evidence that these morphemes are the product of mental processes consists in pointing to instances where they are treated differently in different instances of CS” and that there is no proposal for the constitution of their different status.23 The connection between the ML that is claimed to be “activated” in the brain and the grammatical frame, it is said, is not evidently proved.24

Summing up all these issues, it becomes obvious that the MLF model is a very controversial theory in the field of CS research. Even if it can be seen as an attempt to combine grammatical framework with psycholinguistic (production) and sociolinguistic (rational choice) factors, it still gives causes to complaint and grounds discontent among researchers.

As pronounced opponents to the MLF model theory, generative approaches reject any constraints and declare Chomsky´s Minimalist Program as the key program to analyse language mixing varieties. In the following passage there should be a closer look at their approaches.


3.3. The generative approach


The generativist approach is mostly characterised by the attempt to adopt the Minimalist Program (Chomsky) as a formal template for the analysis of CS. Chomsky distinct between E-language, covering all utterances that can be made in a speech community and I-language, meaning some abstract element of the mind of the person who is familiar with the language.


In the Minimalist Program there are two components of grammar: CHL, a computational system for human langugage, believed to be invariant across languages, and a lexicon to which the idiosyncratic differences observed across languages are attributed. An operation Select picks lexical items from the lexicon and introduces them into a Lexical Array (LA), a finite subset of the lexicon used to construct a derivation.Merge takes items from the LA and forms new, hierarchically arrangend syntactic objects.”27


Mac Swan and his associates claim that the Minimalist Program provides an opportunity for implementing a rich, constraint-free approach, where nothing constraints CS apart from the requirements of the mixed grammars.28 Instead of languages, Mac Swan argues, the MP generates it´s structure from lexical items that together with lexical insertion (Select) take place at the outset.

Within this highly abstract model, the phological component, it is said, to map the structure to Phoentic Form (PF) and the semantic component generates its Logical Form (LF).29

To demonstrate his assuptions, Mac Swan uses examples of asymmetrical switches in DP´s; of the DP-internal word order and of pronominal and lexical subjects.31

Noteworthy, MacSwan remarks that the agenda for a real constraint- free approach to CS should not be seen as a theory, but rather a program for CS research that could help establishing further theories or proposals which disallow CS specific devices. He argues, with regard to the repetious criticism of the MLF model theory and their corrections, that the constraint-based approaches to identify overarching constraints have become “exhausting” and the “(MLF) program appears sterile.”32

Additionaly, he refuses the comparison between the two theories and accredit the MLF-oriented researchers for continuously attempting to disprove the other side by stating counterexamples.33

In the following section of this work, in order to make the theoretical and abstract UG34 more plausible, the minimalist approach should be demonstrated in practise. Therefore I will refer to an applied proposal concerned with light-verbs by González-Vilbazo and López.




As proponents of the generative approach, Vilbázo-Gonzalez and López offer a contribution focused on “light verbs” in Spanish-German CS to underline their view that the generative approach is the better proposal for analysing intrasential CS.

They point out that many code-switching varieties include a light verb as part of their grammatical repertoire35. Light verbs are defined here as the result of the split of the clausal predicate into two distinct verb complexes. According to this, the first verb is stated to be a variant of ‘do’ and appearing fully conjugated. The second verb is occuring as a verbal infinitive or a bare root.

The conjugated word is referred to as the “light verb36.

González-Vilbazo and López, who collected their data mainly in a Spanish-German (`Esplugish`) speaking environment at the German School in Barcelona, demonstrate the presence of a light verb by the following example (1) including a Spanish light verb hacer (´do´) that selects the German lexical verb nähen in its infinitive form:


Juan does sew the shirt.

Juan sews the shirt.’


The hacer + V construction, it is said, presents some puzzles that appear in other code-switching pairs as well and at least one of them seems to appear in monolingual light verb constructions, too.

The next example, is referred to as assymetrical. It is said although the construction pattern is the same and only the languages change their roles, they were rejected by the Spanish-German students in Barcelona and appeared to be ill-formed.


Ex.2.) *Juan tut coser una camisa.

Juan did.3rd sew.inf a shirt

Juan sewed the shirt.’

In order to show that (2) may be investigated with the help of the Minimalist Program (MP) Gonzalez-Vilbazo et al. make use of the Chomskyan rule for phrase structuring and apply it on his example:


3 a.) [CP C [TP T [vP v [VP V . . .]]]]

3 b.) [CP C [TP Juan T [vP t(Juan) hizo [VP nähen das Hemd]]]]

did sew the shirt

Juan sewed the shirt.’


The clause consists, it is explained, of a lexical verb that is able to take an internal argument and one or more adjuncts, forming the lexical verb phrase (VP). The VP is itself selected by little v, a verbal category that additionally may insert the external argument. The resulting projection is referred here to as a vP. Next, the vP is selected by T and TP selected by C.

Then little v is considered the base for the verbal inflectional morphology and as a proof for this, serves the German suffix –ier which attaches to a bare root and the verbal morphology attaches to the resulting base. In languages such as English, according to González-Vilbazo and López, v has no phonological representation. They thus conclude that the infinitive morphology that attaches to the German verb, should be interpreted as “default morphology” because German does not allow bare roots to spell-out.37

With regard to the MLF model, the two researchers founds out that this theory is inappropriate to serve as an unrestricted model in different ways. For demonstrating their assumptions, they applied several `Esplugish` data on the Myers-Scotton´s model. The examples will be presented below.

González- Vilbazo et al. start from a premise that after a Spanish light verb, the complement appears in a VO order even though the components of the VP are German:


(4) Juan hizo flicken die Vespa.

Juan did repair the Vespa


Adopted to the rules of the MLF, it is claimed that in sentences like (4) the matrix language should be Spanish. It would follow that the rules and restrictions of Spanish should apply, hence the required VO order in the MLF.

They continue their proposal with the demonstration of two major faults in the MLFM account.

First they found out that the MLFM model misses the information that this VO order happens only when the lexical VP is governed by a light verb. Code switching between a Spanish lexical verb and a German complement clause, or between a Spanish lexical verb and a German complement DP, it is assumed, does not affect the internal structure of these constituents.

Further suspect in the requirements of the ML, arises as it is proved that in (5), the complement of the Spanish verb dijo has the verb final syntax of German clauses. In (6), the complement of the Spanish verb vio has the adjective + noun order of German DPs, not the noun + adjective order of Spanish DPs:


(5) a. Juan dijo dass Johannes klug ist.


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