This study examines the processing of two putatively problematic intra-sentential code-switching configurations, following subject pronouns and interrogatives, in a bilingual speech community in which there are no confounding grammatical differences. The languages are Ecuadoran Quichua and the mixed language known as Media Lengua, consisting of the entire Quichua morphosyntactic system but with all lexical roots replaced by their Spanish counterparts. In eye-tracking processing experiments utilizing the visual world paradigm with auditorily presented stimuli, Quichua–Media Lengua bilinguals identified the languages more quickly after pronouns and interrogatives than after lexical items, while acknowledgement of code-switches after pronouns and interrogatives was delayed in comparison with switches following lexical items. The facilitation effect of pronouns and interrogatives evidently provokes a surprise reaction when they are immediately followed by items from another language, and this relative delay may play a role in the low acceptability of code-switched utterances that otherwise violate no grammatical constraints.
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Field-Testing Code-Switching Constraints: A Report on a Strategic Languages Project
The present article provides an overview of ongoing field-based research that deploys a variety of interactive experimental procedures in three strategically chosen bilingual contact environments, whose language dyads facilitate a partial separation of morphosyntactic factors in order to test the extent to which proposed grammatical constraints on intra-sentential code-switching are independent of language-specific factors. For purposes of illustration, the possibility of language switches between subject pronouns and verbs is compared for the three bilingual groups. The first scenario includes Ecuadoran Quichua and Media Lengua (entirely Quichua syntax and system morphology, all lexical roots replaced by Spanish items; both are null-subject languages). The second juxtaposes Spanish and the Afro-Colombian creole language Palenquero; the languages share highly cognate lexicons but differ substantially in grammatical structures (including null subjects in Spanish, only overt subjects in Palenquero). Spanish and Portuguese in north-eastern Argentina along the Brazilian border form the third focus: lexically and grammatically highly cognate languages that are nonetheless kept distinct by speakers (both null-subject languages, albeit with different usage patterns). Results from the three communities reveal a residual resistance against pronoun + verb switches irrespective of the subject-verb configuration, thereby motivating the application of similar techniques to other proposed grammatical constraints.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1749310
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10090426
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Languages
- Volume:
- 4
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2226-471X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 7
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/languages4010007
