Units of Language Mixing: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective

Abstract

Language mixing is a ubiquitous phenomenon characterizing bilingual speakers. A frequent context where two languages are mixed is the word-internal level, demonstrating how tightly integrated the two grammars are in the mind of a speaker and how they adapt to each other. This raises the question of what the minimal unit of language mixing is, and whether or not this unit differs depending on what the languages are. Some scholars have argued that an uncategorized root serves as a unit, others argue that the unit needs to have been categorized prior to mixing. We will discuss the question of what the relevant unit for language mixing is by studying word-internal mixing in Cypriot Greek-English, English-Norwegian, Greek-English, Greek-German, and Spanish-German varieties that have been reported in the literature based on data from judgment experiments and spoken corpora. By understanding and modeling the units of language mixing across languages, we will gain insight into how languages adapt to each other word-internally, and what some possible outcomes of language contact are in the minds of speakers.

Lessons From Neuro-(a)-Typical Brains: Universal Multilingualism, Code-Mixing, Recombination, and Executive Functions

“…Though the issue is not uncontroversial (see for example, Tsiplakou et al, 2016;Leivada et al, 2017;7 It is not clear in the literature I've consulted whether such mixing occurs at the morphemic level (e.g., a root and its affix being pronounced by the intonation of two different languages). Alexiadou and Lohndal, 2018), MacSwan (2005a, p. 5) claims that code-mixing at the phonological level is ruled out under his PF Disjunction Theorem (see also MacSwan, 2005b for discussion). Space limitation prevents me from exposing his arguments here, but the relevant point is that the tentative model in Figure 1 is compatible with the observations in the literature: the apparent absence of code-mixing at PF in neuro-typical populations, but not in neuro-atypical ones.…”

“…MacSwan's (2005a,b) PF filter bans word-internal mixing which does occur, as already discussed in the literature, and as the data surveyed here (e.g., examples 3, 6) further attest to. In an approach to mixing based on Distributed Morphology, Alexiadou and Lohndal (2018) argue that bilinguals have access to a default mechanism that allows the integration of roots from one language to the morphology of another (e.g., German roots to Greek morphology) 8 . According to these authors, "the bilingual speaker in view of the fact that she has more [vocabulary items] at her disposal will pick an overt realization, if a default such realization is available.…”

“…Recombination is responsible for variation within and across individuals because S-learners develop different versions of the bundles of features mapped onto specific lexical items (cf. Alexiadou and Lohndal, 2018). In principle, every acquired lexical item relates to seven potential competing variants.…”

The Morphophonology of Intraword Codeswitching: Representation and Processing

“…Furthermore, using phonological integration as the sole deciding factor for borrowings vs. CS (as is the case with [itiendo] and similar examples in the literature) is not optimal given that, at the mixed word level, borrowings can be phonologically indistinguishable from CS (i.e., they both demonstrate integration). For more discussion, see González-Vilbazo and López (2011), Poplack and Dion (2012), Bessett (2017), Grimstad (2017), Alexiadou and Lohndal (2018), among others.…”

“…In this section, we have provided an overview of the foundational work on intraword CS. While most (if not all) work on ICS agrees that there are certain restrictions on the ways in which morphological and phonological elements from different languages can be combined, a clear consensus as to what those restrictions are has not been reached (see also Alexiadou and Lohndal, 2018). In an attempt to clarify these restrictions, we have consolidated examples of word-internal CS from over 22 language pairs, which we present and discuss in the following section.…”