A congruence approach to the study of bilingual compound verbs in Northern Belize contact Spanish

Abstract

Attested in a wide variety of contact situations, bilingual compound verbs (BCVs) have baffled linguists, as they are innovative hybrid constructions that appear superfluous. In the current study, we examine BCVs in Northern Belize, where Spanish/English language alternation occurs alongside the pervasive use of Belizean Kriol, Belize’s lingua franca. We analyze Northern Belize code-switchers’ acceptability judgments and use of BCVs in oral production to determine whether stativity and/or verb frequency constrain the incorporation of BCVs as previously contended. The quantitative analysis of acceptability judgments and 553 canonical BCVs from 25 adolescent and 18 post-adolescent speakers revealed that BCVs are not constrained by stativity or verb frequency. We contend that although there are syntactic constraints, bilinguals’/multilinguals’ use of their linguistic resources is largely dependent on social factors (Sebba 1998). In the case of Northern Belize, where speakers do not perceive code-switching as illegitimate but rather embrace it and associate it with their mixed, multiplex identity, positive attitudes to non-standard varieties may have paved the way for the ubiquitous use of BCVs. The availability of a native Spanish/Mayan BCV model may have also catalyzed the process. BCVs in Northern Belize merit further investigation as they are innovative structures with Creoloid features that reflect code-switchers’ creative ability to capitalize on structural parsimony.

Introducing the Special Issue: Mixed Verbs and Linguistic Creativity in Bi/Multilingual Communities

“…We were initially drawn to the study of these mixed verb constructions as they allow us to examine not only how bi/multilinguals seamlessly integrate their languages but how they creatively abstract away from pre-existing structures and/or patterns to devise novel ones. We know that a distinctive characteristic of mixed verbs is that they often evince structural features that cannot be easily attributed to one language or another; hence, revealing the flexibility, dynamism, and creativity of CS [3,[8][9][10].…”

Notes on the History and Morphosyntactic Characteristics of Spanish in Northern Belize

“…Thus, this characteristic of NBS is striking in light of Lipski's (2005: 2) contention that intrasentential CS occurs at a higher frequency and density among speakers of U.S. varieties of Spanish than among speakers of contact Spanish varieties in Gibraltar and Belize. Particularly in the case of Belize, recent findings suggest otherwise (see Balam, 2013a;Balam et al, 2014). The use of BCVs seems more conventionalized and ubiquitous in Northern Belize rather than in other Spanish/English communities in New Mexico and Texas.…”

“…As (7) exemplifies, BCVs are bilingual constructions where the Spanish light verb hacer 'do/make' is the carrier of number, tense, aspect and mood features, whereas the lexical verb is the bearer of the semantic content. Although BCVs constitute a potential universal property of CS (Edwards & Gardner-Chloros, 2007), in Spanish/English contexts, these structures have only been attested in Southwest U.S. Spanish (Jenkins, 2003;Vergara Wilson, 2013) and Belizean Spanish (Fuller Medina, 2005;Balam, Prada Perez & Mayans, 2014). Noteworthy is that 'hacer + V' was an existing phenomenon in Yucatan Spanish (e.g.…”

“…Crucially as well, BCVs have extended to a variety of syntactic contexts in NBS, more varied than what has been attested in New Mexican Spanish (e.g. see Vergara Wilson, 2013;Vergara Wilson & Dumont, 2014), suggesting that 'hacer + V' has become more grammaticalized in Northern Belize (for an analysis of acceptability judgments and use of 553 BCVs in Northern Belize, see Balam et al, 2014) than in other Spanish/English bilingual communities in Southwest U.S. The ubiquitous use of BCVs in NBS is evidenced not only in a wide variety of verb type contexts (i.e.…”

“…Examples provided were extracted from elicited oral production data from 10 adolescent speakers and naturalistic oral production data collected via semi-structured interviews with 25 adolescent consultants and 18 post-adolescent consultants. All consultants were native Spanish/English and/or Spanish/English/Kriol code-switchers from Northern Belize (see Balam, 2013b andBalam, Prada Pérez, &Mayans, 2014 for further details on speakers' linguistic profiles and patterns of language use).…”