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A formal production-based explanation of the facts of code-switching

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2003

DAVID SANKOFF
Affiliation:
Centre de recherches mathématiques, Université de Montréal

Abstract

We construct a production model of code-switched discourse, in order to explain empirical observations about switch point distribution, well-formedness of monolingual fragments, conservation of constituent structure and lack of constraint between successive switch points. The two monolingual grammars are modeled by congruent context-free phrase structure grammars. Each code-switched sentence makes alternate reference to two virtual monolingual sentences, one in each language, and, in the immediate vicinity of switch points, to their constituent structures. Imposing conservative conditions on when a constituent should be labeled as to language, and invoking a constraint against real-time “look-ahead” from one code-switch to the next, we prove that the existence of a consistent tree labeling, easily monitored by the speaker, implies a constraint on local equivalence of constituent order in the two languages around a switch point. This constitutes an explanation, without invoking a “code-switching grammar”, of the observed tendency for equivalence-point code-switching.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1998 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Research supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The author is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.