That-trace effects in Spanish-English code-switching

Abstract

Many languages, including English, exhibit a restriction on subject extraction over complementizers called the that-trace effect. Although extensively studied, this phenomenon remains a puzzle. Not all languages exhibit the effect; Spanish does not. Spanish also allows postverbal subjects, while English does not, which has been linked to the that-trace effect. Because Spanish/English differ in these properties, combining lexical items from both languages in a single derivation, as in code-switching, offers additional insight into the nature of the restriction. Two acceptability judgment tasks of Spanish/English code-switching reveal that a single Spanish functional head is insufficient to license either postverbal subjects or subject extraction. Instead, we argue, the that-trace effect and related properties arise from the interaction of two heads.

On the position of subjects in Spanish: Evidence from code-switching

“…First, though, it is worth noting that some (e.g., González-Vilbazo 2005) have contended that switches between C and T are not possible in general. However, such switches are accepted in judgments (Ebert & Hoot 2018;Sande 2018;Vanden Wyngaerd 2020) and attested (though rare) in corpora (Sankoff & Poplack 1981;Mahootian & Santorini 1996;Callahan 2004;Hebblethwaite 2007;Jansen, Müller & Müller 2012), as in (8-10), so we do not consider that hypothesis further.…”

Control Stimuli in Experimental Code-Switching Research

“…What is intriguing about CS is that this source of linguistic data can include combinations of linguistic features that either do not exist or are obscured in monolingual data. Taking advantage of this distinctive quality, syntactic research using CS data has been used to advance our understanding of all sorts of linguistic phenomena: adjective placement (Cantone and MacSwan 2009; de Nicolás and Robledo 2018), classifiers (Bartlett and González-Vilbazo 2010), gender assignment Delgado 2018;Liceras et al 2008), that-trace effects (Ebert and Hoot 2018), wh-movement (Ebert 2014), and word order (Finer 2014;López 2011, 2012;Jansen et al 2012), to name a few. The data used in such research has complemented the monolingual data related to the phenomena in question, resulting in a more robust dataset, which in turn has been able to support or negate various claims, or in some cases even develop new ones.…”

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

“…This includes Aguirre (1981, p. 304; 1985, p. 65) and Koronkiewicz (2014, pp. 83–99 for Spanish–English switches after subject pronouns, Ebert (2014, pp. 192–198) for Spanish–English switches after WH-interrogatives, Giancaspro (2013) for Spanish–English auxiliary-VP switches, and similar studies for other bilingual environments, in which as many as half of putative code-switching violations were accepted in judgment tasks.…”

“…What do subject pronouns, interrogative words, and sentential negators have in common? In some studies of intra-sentential code-switching, including the seminal analyses of Spanish–English bilingual speech, it has been claimed that switches immediately following these three categories are very infrequent and often provoke ambivalent reactions when presented for acceptability judgments (e.g., Ebert, 2014, Muysken, 2000; Peñalosa, 1980; Timm, 1975). Perhaps not coincidentally, items from these same three categories are rarely borrowed even in the most intense language contact situations, and almost never are entire paradigms borrowed.…”