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The rolling snowball: lone English-origin lexical items in Guernésiais

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2023

Mari C. Jones Open the ORCID record for Mari C. Jones [Opens in a new window]
Mari C. Jones*
Affiliation:
French Section, Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, University of Cambridge and Peterhouse, Cambridge, UK
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Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Long-term contact with English has led to the presence in Guernésiais of a considerable number of lone English-origin lexical items (Jones, 2015). Although the presence of such items was being noted as far back as the nineteenth century, this is the first study to analyse and document them systematically. Using extensive original data, it examines these lexical items in relation to each part of speech and discusses their use in Guernésiais in the broader context of language contact. The study also considers whether, and how, lone English-origin lexical items become assimilated phonologically and morphosyntactically and whether frequency and motivation have a bearing on their usage.

Résumé

Résumé

Le contact de longue durée avec l’anglais a conduit à la présence en guernésiais d’un nombre considérable d’éléments lexicaux isolés d’origine anglaise (Jones, 2015). Bien que la présence de ces éléments ait été notée dès le dix-neuvième siècle, cette étude est la première à les analyser et à les documenter de manière systématique. À l’aide de nombreuses données originales, elle examine ces éléments lexicaux en relation avec chaque partie du discours et discute de leur utilisation en guernésiais dans le contexte plus large du contact linguistique. L'étude examine également si, et comment, les éléments lexicaux isolés d’origine anglaise sont assimilés sur le plan phonologique et morphosyntaxique et si la fréquence et la motivation ont une influence sur leur utilisation.

Keywords

GuernseyNormanLexisEnglish-origin lexical itemlanguage obsolescencecodeswitchingborrowingChannel IslandsGuernésiaislanguage contact
Type
Article
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , July 2024 , pp. 155 - 179
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

1. Introduction

When two languages are used by the same speech community, linguistic evidence of this contact is commonly present (Thomason and Kaufman, Reference Thomason and Kaufman1988). Matras and Sakel (Reference Matras and Sakel2007) distinguish what they term “MAT borrowing”, defined as “when morphological material and its phonological shape from one language is replicated in another language” (Sakel, Reference Sakel, Matras and Sakel2007:15) from “PAT borrowing”, defined as “where only patterns of the other language are replicated i.e. the organisation, distribution and mapping of grammatical or semantic meaning, while the form itself is not borrowed” (Sakel, Reference Sakel, Matras and Sakel2007:15). Footnote 1 The present study offers a detailed examination of MAT borrowing, specifically, lone English-origin lexical items, in contemporary Guernésiais, the Norman language spoken in Guernsey. Although the presence of such lexical items is well attested in Guernésiais (cf. Jones, Reference Jones2015), this is the first study to analyse them systematically using extensive and original data. It examines them in relation to each part of speech and discusses their use in Guernésiais in the broader context of language contact.

Guernsey’s Norman speech community has been in contact with English since the installation of a small garrison on the island to protect against the threat of a French attack after the Channel Islands became formally annexed to the English Crown in 1259. Though initially small, the garrison grew steadily as Guernsey’s strategic significance as a military base increased when England became more involved in wars outside its shores. During the Napoleonic Wars, for example, almost 6,000 men were stationed in the island, whose local population at the time was recorded as 16,155: the troops inevitably brought tradespeople and other locals into contact with English. From the nineteenth century, trade with England, in particular the development of the horticultural industry, integrated Guernsey’s economy firmly with that of the UK and the improvement of regular communication by sea allowed tourism to be set on a serious footing, bringing thousands of people from the UK to the Channel Islands each year. Language contact was accompanied by cultural contact, with English customs being adopted, many local streets being renamed (from French Footnote 2 to English) and English influence becoming increasingly visible in Guernsey’s architecture. During the Second World War, the evacuation to the UK of over half of Guernsey’s population prior to the island’s occupation by German military forces also brought islanders – very abruptly – into contact with English, with many of the evacuated children growing up with English, rather than Norman, as their mother tongue. Since the War, immigration from the UK, associated with the expansion of Guernsey’s off-shore finance industry, now its largest employer, has resulted in UK-born individuals representing nearly one quarter of Guernsey’s population.Footnote 3 Today, English is spoken fluently by all 63,448 residents and dominates every domain of island life. Speaker-numbers of Guernésiais, not recorded officially since the 2001 Census, are estimated at no more than a few hundred, most of whom are elderly.

As a result of this extensive and long-term contact, lone English-origin lexical items permeate contemporary Guernésiais. Their presence was noted as far back as the nineteenth century, with one guidebook to Guernsey commenting on how amusing it was “to wait for the English words to peep out of so different a language” (Anonymous, 1847). A contemporary travel writer observed “It [Guernésiais] is a good old dialect, which, during the last century, at least, has proceeded in a steady course of gathering, like a rolling snowball, from everything it encountered, and increasing its vocabulary by various compounds of Latin, Welsh, Scotch, German, English, and Italian, added to the original stock, which was Norman French” (Lane-Clark, Reference Lane-Clark1880:1). That English-origin lexical items were used frequently in the everyday language of the nineteenth century may be seen from their inclusion in a large body of Guernésiais translations of the Bible and theatre dating from this time (see (1) and (2)).

  1. (1) Et n’allouait pouin aie guiablles de dire qui l’couniesaie ‘And did not allow the devils to say that they knew him’ (Mark 1.34).

  2. (2) Sharre auve li meme et donne a tes paeuples ‘Share with himself and give to your people’ (Mahomet, Voltaire, 1.4).

(Jones, Reference Jones2008:107-109)

2. Methodology

The data analysed in this study were collected from interviews with 46 native speakers of Guernésiais, most of whom – in keeping with the overall demographics of this particular speech community, had close connections to agriculture and farming. All speakers were fluent in Guernésiais although it was not necessarily still their main everyday language. For logistical and ethical reasons, the data presented were collected before the Covid-19 pandemic. Footnote 4 Given the advanced degree of language contact in the speech community (as stated in §1, all speakers of Guernésiais are also fluent in English: no monolinguals remain) and the cessation of intergenerational transmission (Jones Reference Jones2015:§4.2), with most speakers aged over 65 at the time the data were collected, it was not possible to consider usage related to proficiency in English, intensity of contact, age or social stratification.Footnote 5 All interviews were conducted by myself and in Guernésiais and took the form of free conversation. In an attempt to obtain naturalistic data and to lessen the observer’s paradox (Labov, Reference Labov1972:32), I was accompanied at all times by a fluent speaker of Guernésiais who was well known to the people being interviewed and who often took the lead in the conversation, a strategy which has, in other contexts, proved an effective way of enhancing the elicitation of casual speech, especially in cases where the researcher is not a native speaker of the variety under investigation (Turpin, Reference Turpin1998:223; Milroy and Gordon, Reference Milroy and Gordon2003:75; Bowern, Reference Bowern and Hickey2010:351). Involving a research assistant also made it possible to use social networks to locate speakers (cf. Milroy, Reference Milroy1987), a strategy whose effectiveness has been demonstrated in other studies made of Norman (see Jones, Reference Jones2001, Reference Jones2015).

A language takes lexical items from another language when it lacks a word for a particular referent – in other words, when there exists a referential gap (such as in the case of the words pizza, taken by French from Italian, or alligator and sushi, taken by English from, respectively, Spanish and Japanese) (cf. Hock, Reference Hock1991:408; McMahon, Reference McMahon1994:201). However, this can also occur when a native word for the referent in question does exist but, for reasons of culture or prestige, speakers opt to use instead a form from another language (such as with French soldat, taken from Italian despite the presence of indigenous soudart) (cf. Hock, Reference Hock1991:409; McMahon, Reference McMahon1994: 202; Jones and Singh, Reference Jones and Singh2005:31–32). Lexical items with both these motivations were examined.

Following other studies, a wide definition of “lone English-origin lexical item” has been adopted. This includes well-established, dictionary-attested loans, which would not be likely to be instantly perceived by all speakers as English-origin (e.g. allouaïr ‘to allow’), and nonce items that only appear once in the corpus (e.g subsidy) (cf. Poplack, Sankoff and Miller, Reference Poplack, Sankoff and Miller1988; Poplack, Reference Poplack2018:28). To limit its focus, the study only considers i) lone English-origin lexical items and compounds and ii) frozen expressions acting as a unit and thereby functioning as single lexical items. Both i) and ii) occur in otherwise Guernésiais discourse (cf. Turpin, Reference Turpin1998: 224; Poplack, Reference Poplack2018:41). Each different lone English-origin lexical item is classed as a “type” and all occurrences of the same lone English-origin lexical item are considered tokens of the same “type” (cf. Poplack, Reference Poplack2018:42; Poplack, Sankoff and Miller, Reference Poplack, Sankoff and Miller1988). Multi-word English fragments are not considered (i.e. what would be codeswitches [unmixed donor languages constituents] in Poplack (Reference Poplack2018)’s terms and inter-sentential codeswitches for Myers-Scotton (Reference Myers-Scotton1993:3)).

Lone English-origin lexical items in contemporary Guernésiais are likely to represent a mixture of borrowings and single-word intra-sentential codeswitches (Jones, Reference Jones2015:143–154; Winford, Reference Winford2003:126–167; Turpin, Reference Turpin1998; Poplack and Meechan, Reference Poplack, Meechan, Milroy and Muysken1995:224). Drawing a distinction between such forms is not straightforward and, as Poplack and Meechan (Reference Poplack and Meechan1998:127–128) point out, many studies have been written advancing different facets of this debate. To summarise these briefly, according to studies such as Poplack and Meechan (Reference Poplack and Meechan1998) and Poplack (Reference Poplack2018), although intra-sentential codeswitches and borrowings may bear some resemblance in their surface manifestation, codeswitches conform to the grammar of the donor language (i.e. the morphosyntax of the donor language is retained) whereas borrowings (whether established or nonce) conform to the grammar of the recipient language. They therefore consider most lone English-origin lexical items to be borrowings on the grounds that they pattern in the same way as their indigenous base-language counterparts. Myers-Scotton, however, sees all nonce borrowings as intra-sentential codeswitches in (donor language – recipient language) mixed constituents, arguing that, when mixed constituents are accessed, interaction of the two grammars necessarily occurs at an abstract level (Reference Myers-Scotton2002:154–155). She further argues that all such forms occur as part of the same developmental continuum (Myers-Scotton, Reference Myers-Scotton1993:63) so that, from a synchronic point of view, there is no need, strictly speaking, to distinguish between borrowings and intra-sentential codeswitches (Myers-Scotton, Reference Myers-Scotton2002:153) (cf. also Thomason, Reference Thomason, Janda and Joseph2003 and van Coetsem, Reference Van Coetsem2000). Matras (Reference Matras2009:110), Thomason (Reference Thomason2001:133) and others also see borrowings and intra-sentential codeswitches as related points on a continuum rather than in terms of a sharp dichotomy. Rottet (Reference Rottet, Szlezák and Szlezák2019:199), for instance, argues that “la binarité traditionelle emprunt – alternance codique est simpliste et ne reflète pas la complexité réelle des communautés profondément bilingues” and Gardner-Chloros writes “[a]t a synchronic level, there is no failsafe method of distinguishing between loans and codeswitches, as only time can tell if a loanword is more generally adopted over time” (Reference Gardner-Chloros and Hickey2010:186). It is intended, in future research, to explore questions of this kind in relation to Guernésiais and it is hoped that the extensive data presented for the first time in this study will be of interest to the debate. However, given the lack of published data on the lexis of Guernésiais, before research can focus on the different “statuses” of these lone English-origin lexical items, it is first necessary to establish a clear picture of their nature and usage. An attempt has been made to offer some illustration of the way in which these data could potentially inform such a debate during the discussion of noun pluralisation (§3.3.1.2.).

In order to make the Guernésiais data accessible to readers more familiar with French than with Norman, the lone English-origin lexical items are transcribed phonetically but the the utterance (with the lone English-origin lexical item in bold) is given an orthographic rendering based on the (largely French-based) spelling system used in the Dictiounnaire Angllais-Guernésiais (De Garis, Reference De Garis1982, hereafter DAG: the only contemporary dictionary of Guernésiais).

3. Analysis

3.1. Hierarchy of lone English-origin lexical items

The Guernésiais corpus contained 652 types (2,157 tokens) of lone English-origin lexical items. As Table 1 reveals, a clearly demonstrable “hierarchy” was present, with nouns far more likely to be borrowed than any other part of speech and adverbs and discourse markers far less likely.

Table 1. Lone English-origin lexical items in the Guernésiais corpus by part of speech

This is directly comparable to the now almost canonical borrowability scale put forward by Haugen (Reference Haugen1950: 224) for Norwegian and Swedish immigrant speech in the US and, within the French-speaking context, to Poplack’s Ottawa-Hull corpus (Reference Poplack2018:48), King’s (Reference King2000) study of the French of Prince Edward Island, Péronnet’s work on the French of New Brunswick (Péronnet Reference Péronnet1989) and Flikeid’s (Reference Flikeid1989) study of Acadian French in Nova Scotia. It also correlates broadly with that proposed more recently by Matras (Reference Matras, Matras and Sakel2007:61) on the basis of 27 different languages. Footnote 6 In this respect, therefore, despite the advanced degree of language shift, Guernésiais usage seems to conform to commonly observable borrowing patterns. 154 of the 652 English-origin types were recorded in the DAG, suggesting therefore that approximately one quarter of the English-origin lexical items in the data are established or generally accepted forms. In line with other studies such forms, that are “included in the standard lexicography of the receptor language” (Zenner and Kristiansen, Reference Zenner, Kristiansen, Zenner and Kristiansen2014:4), are termed “listed” (L) (cf. Muysken, Reference Muysken2000:71; Poplack, Sankoff and Miller, Reference Poplack, Sankoff and Miller1988; Deuchar, Reference Deuchar2020).

3.2. Frequency

Poplack, Sankoff and Miller (Reference Poplack, Sankoff and Miller1988) and Poplack (Reference Poplack2018) usefully distinguish lone English-origin lexical items by their frequency and by whether they are used by a single speaker or by several different speakers. By adapting their framework in accordance with the different sizes of the corpora, the lone English-origin lexical items in Guernésiais were divided into the following five categories:Footnote 7

  • a) Widespread lone English-origin lexical items (w).

Lone English-origin lexical items uttered once or more by more than 5 speakers – in other words, lexical items that seem to have achieved a certain level of recognition within the speech community (Hasselmo, Reference Hasselmo1969; Mackey, Reference Mackey1970; Poplack and Sankoff, Reference Poplack and Sankoff1984):

  1. (3) Nou’va par pleine /pleɪn/ ‘We go by plane.’Footnote 8

  2. (4) Nou’n’tait pas allouaïs /aluɑj/ d’allaïr à la maïr ‘We weren’t allowed to go to the sea.’

Total number of types in the corpus: 53.

  • b) Occasional lone English-origin lexical items (o).Footnote 9

Lone English-origin lexical items used more than once but fewer than 5 times in the corpus and by more than one speaker:

  1. (5) I’peut affectaïr dauve mes tablets /tæbləts/ ‘It can affect my tablets.’

  2. (6) Énne cruise /kru:z/ au Caribbean ‘A cruise in the Caribbean.’

Total number of types in the corpus: 121.

  • c) Idiosyncratic lone English-origin lexical items (i).

Lone English-origin lexical items uttered frequently by a single speaker but not by any other speaker:

  1. (7) I’soulait s’n allaïr yodellaïr /jəʊdlɑj/ ‘He used to go yodelling.’

  2. (8) Les daeux teams /ti:m/ ‘The two teams.’

Total number of types in the corpus: 30.

  • d) Recurrent lone English-origin lexical items (r).

Lone English-origin lexical items uttered more than 5 times in the corpus, though not necessarily by as many speakers:

  1. (9) Nou’n’pouvait pas faire des sentences /sɑ̃tɑ̃:s/ en Angllais ‘We couldn’t make sentences in English.’

  2. (10) A’maettait l’robish /rɔbɪʃ/ dans la shed ‘She put the rubbish in the shed.’

Total number of types in the corpus: 18.

  • e) Nonce lone English-origin lexical items (n).

Momentary, “one-off” lone English-origin lexical items uttered by a single speaker and which only appear once in the corpus:

  1. (11) I’n’voulait pouin ses chips /tʃɪp/ ‘He didn’t want his chips.’

  2. (12) All’a meetaï /mitɑj/ aen haomme ‘She has met a man.’

  3. (13) J’avais ma scarf /skɒ:f/ passequ’il’tait gniet ‘I had my scarf because it was night-time.’

Total number of types in the corpus: 430. Footnote 10

The broad “hierarchy” of part-of-speech borrowability found in the corpus overall (§3.1.) was also found to apply within each individual category:

Widespread (types)

Nouns: 37; Verbs: 10; Adjectives: 4; Adverbs: 1; Discourse markers: 1.

Occasional (types)

Nouns: 94; Verbs: 18; Adjectives: 9.

Idiosyncratic (types)

Nouns: 25; Verbs: 4; Adjectives: 1.

Recurrent (types)

Nouns: 15; Verbs: 1; Adjectives: 1; Adverbs: 1.

Nonce (types)

Nouns: 335; Verbs: 46; Adjectives: 38; Adverbs: 11.

From the above, it can be seen that nonce lone English-origin nouns account for the largest category by far, making up more than half the lone English-origin lexical items in the corpus.

While the speech sample analysed for this study may be considered representative of the Guernésiais speech community as a whole, somewhat inevitably, it cannot match it exactly. For this reason, a category assigned to a given lone English-origin lexical item in the corpus can necessarily only serve as its statistical descriptor within this particular study rather than as a definitive descriptor within the Guernésiais language in general. A lone English-origin lexical item that is widespread in the corpus may reasonably be assumed to be widespread within the wider speech community since, in such a bilingual community, the stocks of lone English-origin lexical items of any two speakers are likely to contain at least a few words in common, especially if there exists a referential gap (cf. Poplack, Sankoff and Miller, Reference Poplack, Sankoff and Miller1988:83; Poplack, Reference Poplack2018). However, the same will not necessarily hold true for other categories. For example, although a lone English-origin lexical item labelled “nonce” in the corpus might also be momentary in the context of the wider speech community, it could also be that, by chance, the referent denoted by that particular lexical item was simply not talked about much during the corpus interviews, thereby leading to its labelling as “nonce” for the corpus even though it may prove more frequent within the wider speech community (cf. Poplack, Sankoff and Miller, Reference Poplack, Sankoff and Miller1988:95). As will be seen (for example in §3.3.2.1.), nonce English-origin lexical items in the Guernésiais corpus do not display any intrinsic properties – other than frequency of use – that distinguish them from other categories of English-origin lexical items (cf. Bouchard, Reference Bouchard2023:4).

3.3. Parts of speech

3.3.1. Nouns

Nouns are the lexical items with most lexical content (Weinreich, Reference Weinreich1968; Muysken, Reference Muysken1984; Poplack, Reference Poplack2018:49) and cover the most differentiated inventory of labelling concepts, objects and roles (Matras, Reference Matras2009:168). As discussed in §3.1., nouns represent the most common lone English-origin lexical items in Guernésiais (506 out of 652 types: 37 widespread, 94 occasional, 25 idiosyncratic, 15 recurrent, 335 nonce) (cf. Matras, Reference Matras2009:167). They are the easiest English-origin part of speech for Guernésiais to accommodate since nouns are, structurally, relatively less well integrated into the recipient discourse. As can be seen from the above examples, some nouns are phonologically assimilated into Guernésiais (9), (10), whereas others (5), (6), (8), (11), (13) are not. Variable integration between 2 tokens of the same type (i.e. where some tokens of a type are produced with Guernésiais phonology and other tokens of the same type with English phonology) was most common with so-called “international” words. For example, télévisiaon (12 tokens) was assimilated phonologically in 9 cases (/televizijaõ/) but its “English” pronunciation (/telɪviʒən/) was maintained in 3 cases. No clear overall pattern emerged, however, as most “international” words in the corpus were nonce lexical items. As examples, recitâtiaon, processiaon and conversâtiaon were assimilated to Guernésiais phonology (/rɛzitasjaõ/, /prosɛsjaõ/, /kɔ̃vɛrsɑsjaõ/), whereas invâsiaon and programme kept their “English” pronunciation (/ɪnveɪʒən/, /prəʊgræm/).

3.3.1.1. Gender

All Guernésiais nouns have grammatical gender (Tomlinson, Reference Tomlinson2008:4), meaning that all lone English-origin nouns in Guernésiais must be assigned as either masculine or feminine for purposes of specification (i.e. articles, demonstratives) and agreement. However, unlike languages such as Italian and Spanish, gender in Guernésiais is not suggested by a word’s phonological “shape”. Footnote 11 In theory, therefore, most lone English-origin nouns stand an equal chance of being assigned either masculine or feminine gender in Guernésiais.

In French, most lone English-origin nouns are assigned the unmarked masculine gender (Wise, Reference Wise1997:93). Some lone English-origin nouns are also assigned masculine gender in Guernésiais (where, like in French, the masculine is also unmarked): examples include lunch (w), ouayeur (o), lorry (w), pénni (o), sacepàn (o), wireless (o), carre (w) (all of which are listed) and bookcase (n), carving (i), spelling (n) (all unlisted). However, many lone English-origin nouns are also assigned the (marked) feminine gender: examples include listed lexical items such as (aero)pleine (w), choppe (w), gaume (w), picture (w), grappe (w). Feminine gender assignation was particularly common with unlisted nonce nouns: examples include football, scarf, lighthouse, kitchen, jelly, handbag, library, fruitcake and highlight. Moreover, some less widespread (and unlisted) English-origin nouns were assigned different genders by different speakers. Examples include (14) – (21):

  1. (14) Noufait, ch’tait aen joke /dʒowk/ ‘Not at all, it was a joke’ (m) (r).

  2. (15) Ch’tait sa p’tite joke /dʒowk/ ‘It was his little joke’ (f) (r).

  3. (16) Ouécque mon shed /ʃed/ est ‘Where my shed is’ (m) (o).

  4. (17) A’maettait l’robish dans la shed /ʃed/ ‘She put the rubbish in the shed’ (reproduced from (10) above) (f) (r).

  5. (18) J’li dounn’rai mon jacket /dʒækɪt/ ‘I’ll give her my jacket’ (m) (o).

  6. (19) Ch’est sa bllànche jacket /dʒækɪt/ ‘It’s her white jacket’ (f) (o).

  7. (20) Pourtchi qué tu n’stayes pas chu weekend ? /wi:kend/ ‘Why don’t you stay this weekend?’ (m) (o).

  8. (21) A’viant pâssaïr sa weekend /wi:kend/ ‘She comes to spend her weekend’ (f) (o).

In order to test whether, as found in the French of Ottawa-Hull (Poplack, Sankoff and Miller, Reference Poplack, Sankoff and Miller1988:66), gender assignment became less variable as a lone English-origin noun increased in frequency, the gender of the 20 most widespread lone English-origin nouns in the corpus was examined (Table 2). Footnote 12

Table 2. Gender assignment of the 20 most frequent lone English-origin nouns in the Guernésiais corpus

aIn this study, touriste is considered to be a lone English-origin noun rather than a native word of Guernésiais. The Dictionnaire Jersiais-Français describes its cognate in the Insular Norman of Jersey (Jèrriais) as being “d’introduction récente” (Le Maistre Reference Le Maistre1966:319) and, although it is most frequently pluralised via an oikomorphological strategy (see §3.3.1.2 and, specifially, Table 3), in the present corpus this noun is never integrated into Guernésiais phonologically and is always given an “English” pronunciation (/tʊərɪst/).

The lone English-origin nouns visiteur, German, touriste and picture were always used in the plural and without an accompanying variable adjective, which meant that it was not possible to determine which gender these words were being assigned. Of the remaining 16, 9 showed complete gender agreement across speakers. However, despite their frequent use, 7 lone English-origin nouns were assigned both masculine and feminine gender – and, in the case of djob and carre, different genders were assigned by the same speaker at different points in the same interview ((22) – (25)).

  1. (22) I’print son prumier djob /dʒɒb/ ‘He took his first job’ (m).

  2. (23) Il a acouore sa maesme djob /dʒɒb/ ‘He still has his same job’ (f).

  3. (24) Aen carre /kɒ:/ qui est pâssaï à draïvaïr ‘A car that is passed to drive’ (m).

  4. (25) J’ai acataï ma carre /kɒ:/ en Anglléterre ‘I bought my car in England’ (f).

It seems therefore that, in Guernésiais, for some nouns, more widespread usage determines a conventionalised gender (cf. bosse) which, for listed forms, usually corresponds to that documented in the DAG (cf. greenhouse, piti, choppe, chaoux, groweur, guaine, radio, télévisiaon, traffic) but, for others, gender remains variable despite their widespread use (cf. holiday, span, byke, djob, carre). Moreover, the gender most frequently assigned to a noun in the corpus did not always correspond to its listed gender (cf. djob, carre, bosse, radio).

3.3.1.2. Number

The expression of plurality requires speakers either to retain English plural morphology alongside the English-origin noun or else use a native strategy (cf. Turpin, Reference Turpin1998:228). Inflectional morphemes are generally considered to be less open to transfer than derivational morphemes (Matras, Reference Matras, Gardani, Arkadiev and Amiridze2014:1) however, plural morphemes seem something of an exception (Roseano, Reference Roseano2014:3; Gardani, Reference Gardani, Johanson and Robbeets2012; Matras, 2012:17). Roseano describes three strategies for pluralising borrowed nouns (Reference Roseano2014:5-6). The oikomorphological strategy (described as the highest level of integration) occurs when other-language nouns “behave” morphologically like native nouns, forming a plural in the same way as in the recipient language (for example, English cactus - cactuses, fungus – funguses, formula – formulas, index - indexes). The lowest level of integration, or the xenomorphological strategy, is when the inflectional morpheme of the donor language is maintained (in other words, MAT borrowing) (for example, English cactus – cacti, fungus – fungi, formula – formulae, index – indices). The third strategy, allomorphological integration, occurs when plurals are formed neither as in the recipient language nor as in the donor language (for example, Chilean Spanish mall – mall cf. Castillo Fadic, Reference Castillo Fadic2002:486-487) (Roseano, Reference Roseano2014:6). Roseano claims that, where a language has only one strategy for pluralising other-language nouns, it will be oikomorphological (Reference Roseano2014:7). Xenomorphological plurals are described as being typical of many bilingual societies and are seen as the “Trojan horse” that makes other inflectional morphological borrowing possible (Roseano, Reference Roseano2014:1, 6).

Guernésiais traditionally marks plurality in several ways. Where a singular noun ends in a vowel, plurality is usually marked by lengthening this vowel: cat /kɑ/ ‘cat’ – cats /kɑ:/ ‘cats’. Where a singular noun ends in a consonant, plurality is marked by a phonologically null morpheme, and number is expressed by an accompanying determiner lé père /l pejr/ ‘the father’ – les pères /lɛ: pejr/ ‘the fathers’ (cf. Tomlinson, Reference Tomlinson2008:5). A small number of nouns have irregular plurals involving an /ɛ/- /jo:w/ (é – iaux) singular - plural opposition (cf. baté /batɛ/ ‘boat’– batiaux /batjo:w/ ‘boats’) (Tomlinson, Reference Tomlinson2008:5). Footnote 13 In the corpus, 380 out of the 591 tokens of plural lone English-origin nouns (64%) bore “Guernésiais” plural-marking (the oikomorphological strategy) - examples include pénnis /pɛni:/ (o, L), pictures /pɪktyr/ (w, L) and greenhouses /grinaʊs/ (w, L). 211 out of the 591 tokens (36%) featured plural morphology borrowed from English (the xenomorphological strategy) – examples include flats /flæts/ (r), carres /kɑ:z/ (w, L), Germans /dʒɜ:rmənz/ (w) and freesias /fri:ʒəz/ (o, L). Poplack (Reference Poplack2018:52) found a similar majority tendency for oikomorphological plurals (92%) in the Ottawa-Hull corpus and Turpin’s findings for Acadian French were, respectively, 58% oikomorphological and 52% xenomorphological (Reference Turpin1998:230). English ablaut plurals were sometimes maintained in Guernésiais (the grandchildren /lɛ: græntʃɪldrən/ - o, xenomorphological: 3 tokens) and sometimes not (the policemen /lɛ: pəli:smən/ - o, oikomorphological: 4 tokens). The fact that the latter form, with a plural definite article but no ablaut, is produced by speakers who are also fluent in English and therefore familiar with the vowel change, is evidence that, despite the advanced degree of language shift in Guernsey, Guernésiais morphological patterns can still hold strong. Turpin documents similar instances of plurals formed oikomorphologically and with no ablaut for Acadian French, describing them as forms which are only partially integrated into the recipient language (Reference Turpin1998:230).

Although the plural of some lone English-origin nouns (such as greenhouse (w, L), holiday (w), cottage (w), bathing suit (o)) were consistently formed according to the same (oikomorphological) strategy across the speech community, in certain cases different speakers (26)–(31), or indeed the same speaker (32)–(37), were found to adopt different pluralisation strategies with the same nouns:

  1. (26) J’n’ai jomais ôimai les bananas /bənɑ:nə/ ‘I have never liked bananas’ (o, oikomorphological).

  2. (27) Les bananas /bənɑ:nəz/ ’taient acouore dans les choppes ‘Bananas were in the shops again’ (o, xenomorphological).

  3. (28) A l’Eisteddfod, il’enactent souvent des plays /pleɪ/ ‘At the Eisteddfod [Guernsey’s main cultural festival], they often put on plays’ (o, oikomorphological).

  4. (29) All’écrit des plays /pleɪz/ et des sketchs ‘She writes plays and sketches’ (o, xenomorphological).

  5. (30) Il’avaient tous les carres Footnote 14 /kɒ:/ plloînes ‘They all had full cars’ (w, L, oikomorphological).

  6. (31) Tu n’peux pas draïvaïr des carres /kɒ:z/ en Serk ‘You can’t drive cars in Sark’ (o, L, xenomorphological).

  7. (32) Les pleines /pleɪn/ ’taient boutchies naturellement ‘Naturally, the planes were booked’ (w, L, oikomorphological).

  8. (33) Quànd nou-s oyait les pleines /pleɪnz/ ‘When we heard the planes’ (w, L, xenomorphological).

  9. (34) Les lorries /lɒri:/ faisaient aen amas d’camas ‘The lorries were making a lot of noise’ (w, L, oikomorphological).

  10. (35) Les lorries /lɒriz/ v’naient dauve l’baté ‘The lorries came on the boat’ (w, L, xenomorphological).

  11. (36) En Serk i’draïvent des tractors /træktə/ ‘In Sark, they drive tractors’ (w, oikomorphological).

  12. (37) Tous les groweurs avaient des p’tits tractors /træktez/ ‘All the growers had little tractors’ (w, xenomorphological).

Using one pluralisation strategy did not necessarily trigger the use of the same strategy within a given utterance (38)–(40):

  1. (38) All’écrit des plays /pleɪz/ et des sketchs /sketʃ/ ‘She writes plays and sketches’ (o, xenomorphological - n, oikomorphological) (reproduced from (29) above).

  2. (39) Nou-s a des raspberries /rɑ:zbri:/ et des logans /ləʊgənz/ ‘We have raspberries and logans’ (n, oikomorphological – n, xenomorphological).

  3. (40) Des fermiers /fɛrmje:/ et des groweurs /greʊərz/ ‘Farmers and growers’ (native noun, oikomorphological – w, L xenomorphological).

In order to determine whether frequency of usage had a bearing on the pluralisation strategy applied, the plurals of the 20 most frequent lone English-origin nouns were examined (Table 3).

Table 3. Pluralisation strategy used with the 20 most frequent lone English-origin nouns in the Guernésiais corpus

15 of the 20 most widespread lone English-origin nouns in the corpus occurred in plural form. Of these, 7 plurals were formed exclusively via the oikomorphological strategy. The plurals of 8 lone English-origin nouns were formed variably via both strategies but, unlike Turpin’s findings (Reference Turpin1998:231), none were formed exclusively via the xenomorphological strategy. It was striking that a large degree of variation in plural formation was found in such widespread English-origin nouns: indeed, 5 of the 8 nouns with varying plurals (byke, (aero)pleine, visiteur, carre, touriste) were established enough to be listed in the DAG. Since the Guernésiais speech community consists entirely of bilinguals, it may be that it is so easy to produce and to understand different plural forms of these nouns with reference to English – the other language in which both the speaker and interlocutor are fluent – that they remain beneath the notice of speakers to the extent that no pressure exists in favour of the establishment of a single “normalised” plural form.

At the other end of the frequency spectrum, unlisted nonce lone English-origin nouns in the corpus were found to occur with both oikomorphological plurals (examples include pies /paɪ/, cesspits /sɛspɪt/, boats /bəʊt/) and xenomorphological plurals (examples include earphones /iəfəʊnz/, meetings /mi:tɪŋz/, peatbags /pi:tbægz/). Interestingly, the lone English-origin plural form chips (n), a noun which speakers would presumably be more used to hearing (in English) in its plural rather than singular form, occurred with an oikomorphological plural (/sɛ: tʃɪp/) (see (11) above). This is further evidence that, despite the advanced degree of language shift, the morphological patterns of Guernésiais remain strong for its speakers.

In her study of Acadian French, Turpin suggests that, following Poplack, it may be possible to determine the status of lone English-origin nouns in otherwise French discourse by examining whether they are integrated both syntactically and morphologically into the recipient language (Reference Poplack and Meechan1998:221, 223). In other words, do they conform (i) to the grammar of French but not to that of English (in which case they are considered to be borrowings) or (ii) to the grammar of English but not to that of French (in which case they are considered to be intra-sentential codeswitches). In relation to plurality specifically, Turpin sees codeswitching as entailing both the presence of the English plural morpheme /s/, /z/ and the absence of the French determiner as, for example, in the utterance Il y avait une des filles qui avait spike heels (Turpin, Reference Turpin1998:229, after Béniak, Mougeon and Valois, Reference Béniak, Mougeon and Valois1985), where the lone English-origin noun is conforming to the grammar of English but not to that of French. In contrast, a lone English-origin noun is considered a borrowing if both a French article and a zero plural mark are present (Turpin, Reference Turpin1998:228) as, for example, in the utterance Des hatch-back ø de rouvert, c’était après de boire (Reference Turpin1998:229). The use of the French plural article in combination with the English affix /s/, /z/ is seen as indicating an intermediate degree of morphological integration.

As discussed, the Guernésiais corpus revealed a greater tendency overall to opt for oikomorphological plural marking. However, drilling down, the relative proportions of plural marking strategies were found to vary from one speaker to another (cf. Turpin, Reference Turpin1998:231). Although most speakers tended to favour the oikomorphological strategy (29 used this strategy for more than 60% of their English-origin noun plurals), some clearly did not (8 used the xenomorphological strategy for more than 60% of their English-origin noun plurals), and others showed no clear preference for either strategy (9 used both these strategies for fewer than 60% of their English-origin noun plurals). Indeed, 7 speakers used variable pluralisation strategies for the same word (cf. (32) – (37) above).Footnote 15 According to Turpin, such variation in strategy may suggest that, for some of these speakers, several of the /s/- or /z/-marked lone English origin nouns may be codeswitches at the equivalence site between the determiner and the noun.

Of all the plural lone English-origin nouns in the corpus, only 4 examples were found to fit Turpin’s definition of an intra-sentential codeswitch unambiguously, namely where, in otherwise Guernésiais discourse, they occurred with both the absence of a determiner and xenomorphological plural marking (41) – (44):

  1. (41) At least y en a bykes /baɪks/ ‘At least there are bikes’ (w, L).

  2. (42) I’craissaient spider plants /spaɪdə plɑnts/ ‘They grew spider plants’ (n).

  3. (43) Ch’tait rioqué holiday homes /hɒlideɪ həʊmz/ ‘It was nothing but holiday homes’ (n).

  4. (44) Ch’est privettes /prɪvɪts/ ‘They are privets’ (i, L).

3.3.2. Verbs

After nouns, verbs are usually placed highest in most borrowability scales (cf. §3.1.). The Guernésiais corpus contained 79 borrowed verbs (10 widespread, 18 occasional, 1 idiosyncratic, 1 recurrent, 46 nonce), some filling referential gaps ((45)–(49)) and others occurring as synonyms of native words ((50)–(54), where the native words are given in parentheses):

  1. (45) Les jonnes filles saont terjous à dietaïr /daɪətɑj/ ‘Young girls are always dieting’ (n).

  2. (46) J’n’peux pas crochetaïr /krəʊʃeɪɑj/ ‘I can’t crochet’ (n).Footnote 16

  3. (47) J’vais choppaïr /ʃowpɑj/ dauve mon carre ‘I go shopping in my car’ (w, L).

  4. (48) A’lectureaït /lɛktʃərɛ/ dans l’University ‘She was lecturing at the University’ (o, L).

  5. (49) I’machine gunnait /məʃi:n gønɛ/ les haommes ‘He machine gunned the men’ (o).

  6. (50) Il’éprouvent à la reviveaïr /rɪvaɪvɑj/ ‘They are trying to revive it’ [i.e. the language] (n) (ravigottaïr).

  7. (51) I’startirent /stɑ:rti:r/ l’affaire en 1936 ‘They began the matter in 1936’ (w, L) (c’menchier).

  8. (52) J’ôime aen p’tit knittaïr /nɪtɑj/ dans l’arleuvaïe ‘I like to knit a bit in the afternoon’ (o) (ouvraïr).

  9. (53) Tu peux hireaïr /haɪərɑj/ aen baté ‘You can hire a boat’ (n) (louaïr).

  10. (54) I’travellait /trævlɛ/ dans la bosse tous les jours ‘He travelled in the bus every day’ (o) (viagier).

3.3.2.1. Morphological assimilation

Lone English-origin verbs must acquire Guernésiais inflectional morphology in order to be conjugated. As Bouchard found in her 2023 study of English-origin verbs in Québec French (cf. also Poplack, Reference Poplack2016, Reference Poplack2018), most are structurally assimilated into the most regular verb conjugation (which, in Guernésiais, bears the infinitival ending -aïr). Examples from the corpus include chewaïr /tʃɪuɑj/ ‘to chew’ (n), draïvaïr /draɪvɑj/ ‘to drive’ (o, L), r’tireaïr /rɪtaɪərɑj/ ‘to retire’ (o, L), choppaïr /ʃɒpɑj/ ‘to shop’ (w, L), dietaïr /daɪətɑj/ ‘to diet’ (n), settlaïr /setlɑj/ ‘to settle’ (o, L), treitaïr /tri:tɑj/ ‘to treat’ (o, L), meetaïr /mi:tɑj/ ‘to meet’ (n), knittaïr /nɪtɑj/ ‘to knit’ (o), rentaïr /rentɑj/ ‘to rent’ (n), slidaïr /slaɪdɑj/ ‘to slide’ (o). However, verbs whose stem, sometimes via phonological assimilation, ends in a palatal are usually incorporated within the Guernésiais -er conjugation: examples from the corpus include souitchier /swɪtʃje/ ‘to switch’ (o, L), tchôtcher /tʃotʃe/ ‘to choke’ (o, L), djotcher /dʒotʃe/ ‘to joke’ (o, L), coutcher /kutʃe/ ‘to cook’ (n, L), crusher /krɔʃe/ ‘to crush’ (n). Lone English-origin verbs were formally indistinguishable from each other in terms of their inflectional morphology regardless of their frequency in the corpus (cf. Poplack, Sankoff and Miller, Reference Poplack, Sankoff and Miller1988:68) and, as (55)–(62) illustrate, they are conjugated in an identical way to native verbs (cf. Poplack, Reference Poplack2018:125 and Bouchard, Reference Bouchard2023:4 who found that nonce borrowings could be integrated into Québec French even if uttered just once and by a single speaker). This supports Dauzat’s claim (Reference Dauzat1927) that morphological elements often withstand pressure from contact.

  1. (55) Sais pas coume tchi qu’vous pronounceaïz /prənaʊnsɑj/ chéna (2pl. present) ‘I don’t know how you prononce that’ (n).

  2. (56) Ch’tait en djotchànt /dʒotʃẽ/ (present participle) ‘It was said in a jokey way’ (o, L).

  3. (57) Nou’shiftera /ʃɪftra/ pas (3sg. future) ‘We won’t shift’ (n).

  4. (58) All’a meetaï /mitɑj/ aen haomme (3sg. present perfect) ‘She has met a man’ (n) (reproduced from (12) above).

  5. (59) Nou’les peelait /pi:lɛ/ et les mettait dans les carres (1pl. imperfect) ‘We peeled them and put them in the cars’ (n).

  6. (60) Quand startis /starti/ l’école (1sg. past definite) ‘When I started school’ (w, L).

  7. (61) I’pressit /presi/ lé wrong boutaon (3sg. past definite) ‘He pressed the wrong button’ (n).

  8. (62) I’ dranirent /drɑni:r/ les courtis (3pl. past definite) ‘They drained the fields’ (n, L).

Sometimes, the Guernésiais morphological ending was found to attach to an unmodified English root: lectureaïr /lɛktʃərɑj/ ‘to lecture’ (n, L), cheataïr /tʃi:tɑj/ ‘to cheat’ (i, L), travellaïr /trævəlɑj/ ‘to travel’ (o), peelaïr /pi:lɑj/ ‘to peel’ (n) or, particularly with more established, listed lone English-origin verbs, sometimes the stem was also modified: tchôtcher /tʃotʃe/ ‘to choke’ (o, L), stonnaïr /stɔnɑj/ ‘to (with)stand’ (n, L), patcher /pɑtʃe/ ‘to pack’ (o, L), allouaïr /aluɑj/ ‘to allow’ (w, L).

3.3.2.2. Phonological assimilation

Listed lone English-origin verbs often showed less phonological integration of the stem than the forms recorded in the DAG. For example, although listed as tchêtaïr (suggesting the pronunciation /tʃɛtɑj/) ‘to cheat’, the form produced during the interviews showed less evidence of assimilation (63). Similarly, évacuaïr (/evakwɑj/) ‘to evacuate’, lecteuraïr (/lɛktørɑj/) ‘to lecture’, pâtchi (/pɑ:tʃi/) ‘to park’, and bllâmaïr (/bjɑmɑj/) ‘to blame’ (64)–(67):

  1. (63) Nou’n’ les cheaterait /tʃi:tərɛ/ pas ‘We wouldn’t cheat them’ (i, L).

  2. (64) Y en avait aen amas qui évacuaitit /ɪvækueɪti/ ‘There were many who evacuated’ (w, L).

  3. (65) Il s’en va lectureaïr /lɛktʃərɑj/ à l’University dé Southampton ‘He’s going to lecture at Southampton University’ (n, L).

  4. (66) Il avait parkaï /pɒ:kɑj/ l’môto ‘He had parked the car’ (o, L).

  5. (67) Ch’n’est pas les écoles qui saont blameaïes /bleɪmɑj/ ‘It’s not the schools which are blamed’ (o, L).

Poplack and Sankoff (Reference Poplack and Sankoff1984) describe such variable integration of lone other-language lexical items as occuring when those lexical items are newly incorporated in the recipient language. Mougeon and Béniak, on the other hand, report that Haugen (Reference Haugen1953) “found that bilinguals could “touch up” the form of older nativised loanwords to bring them more in line with donor-language phonology” or even “reborrow” them, and they provide compelling evidence of the phonological “denativisation” of loanwords as a minority language community undergoes language shift over successive generations (Reference Mougeon, Béniak and Dorian1989:304–306). The fact that, in the Guernésiais corpus, vacillation was found in both listed and less established forms seems to corroborate Mougeon and Béniak’s view that “the answer is not as simple as … only incipient loanwords are able to show variable phonological integration” (Reference Mougeon, Béniak and Dorian1989:307). As all speakers are fluent in both languages, the degree of phonological integration is presumably a matter of choice. If listed lone English-origin lexical items can be considered as forms which have been accepted by the speech community to the extent that they have to all intents and purposes “become part” of Guernésiais, then their use with non-assimilated stem-forms suggests that speakers may be sourcing lexical items such as (63)–(67) “afresh” from their English mental lexicon, presumably in a similar way to nonce lexical items. In such a fully bilingual community, differently integrated forms are, of course, all readily understood.

3.3.2.3. Bare forms

Bare forms (lone English-origin verbs with no overt Guernésiais inflectional morphology and therefore structurally unintegrated into the language) were also present in the corpus, although these were extremely rare (6/221 verb tokens): examples include (68)–(69). Such forms are also attested in the French of Québec (Bouchard, Reference Bouchard2023) and Louisiana (Picone, Reference Picone1994, Reference Picone, Nunnally, Sabino and Bernstein1997; Dubois and Sankoff, Reference Dubois, Sankoff, Auger and Rose1997; Rottet, Reference Rottet, Calvo, Minverini and Thibault2016, Reference Rottet, Szlezák and Szlezák2019; Root, Reference Root2018).

  1. (68) Nou pouvait wangle /wæŋgl/ l’affaithe ‘We could wangle the thing’ (n).

  2. (69) J’l’ai record /rikɔ:d/ ‘I recorded it’ (r, L).

In some cases, it was not possible to tell whether or not the Guernésiais verb had been integrated morphologically since any inflectional morphology would be phonetically null (cf. Poplack, Reference Poplack2016:391). See, for example, (70) – (73) (where the phonetically null morphology has been added orthographically).

  1. (70) Nou breed(e) /bri:d/ coum des lapins breed(ent) /bri:d/ ‘We breed like rabbits breed’ (n).

  2. (71) Ch’est les bànques qui control(ent) /kəntrəʊl/ tout ‘It’s the banks that control everything’ (o, L).

  3. (72) Saïs pas coum-tchi qu’tu spell(es) /spɛl/ chéna ‘I don’t know how you spell that’ (n).

  4. (73) Pourtchi qué tu n’stay(es) /steɪ/ pas chu weekend? ‘Why don’t you stay this weekend?’ (o) (reproduced from (20) above).

3.3.3. Adjectives

53 lone English-origin adjective types were present in the corpus (4 widespread, 9 occasional, 1 idiosyncratic, 1 recurrent, 38 nonce). Some were adapted phonologically (74)–(76) though many were not (77)–(80). Even though the adjectives of Guernésiais are marked for (masculine/feminine) agreement, gender was not detectable on any of these forms ((74)–(85) and specifically (81)–(85)) (cf. Poplack, Sankoff and Miller, Reference Poplack, Sankoff and Miller1988:68). The fact that many attributive adjectives are pre-posed may also be attributable to English influence (cf. Jones, Reference Jones2015:132–134).

  1. (74) J’sis clever /klɛvœr/ ‘I am clever’ (n).

  2. (75) La maïr ’tait roffe /rɔf/ ‘The sea was rough’ (o, L).

  3. (76) Ton père ’tait aen proper /prɔpœr/ Guernésiais ‘Your father was a proper Guernseyman’ (o).

  4. (77) I’creient qu’nou-s est backward /bækwərd/ ichin ‘They think that we are backward here’ (n).

  5. (78) Si ch’est wrong /rɒŋ/, ch’est wrong /rɒŋ/ ‘If it’s wrong, it’s wrong’ (o).

  6. (79) A’pâlait énne langue foreign /fɒrɪn/ ‘She was speaking a foreign language’ (n).Footnote 17

  7. (80) Ch’n’est pas free /fri:/ ‘It’s not free’ (n).

  8. (81) Ch’est mes show /ʃaʊ/ flleurs ‘They are my show flowers’ (o).

  9. (82) Ch’est des show /ʃaʊ/ batchaoux ‘They are show boats’ (o).Footnote 18

  10. (83) Ch’est aen nice /naɪs/ pair, enne nice /naɪs/ daume ‘They are a nice pair, a nice woman’ (w, L).

  11. (84) Il’aont fait énne spécial /speʃɑl/ affaire pour naons ‘They put on a special thing for us’ (o, L).

  12. (85) L’Eisteddfod, ch’est aen spécial /speʃɑl/ meis ichin ‘The Eisteddfod [Guernsey’s main cultural festival] is a special month here’ (o, L).

Apart from not showing gender agreement, lone English-origin adjectives were otherwise integrated morphosyntactically into Guernésiais in a similar way to native forms. (86)–(90), for example, demonstrate how they are modified by the same qualifiers (underlined).

  1. (86) Si-fait aen p’tit roffe /rɔf/, la hair ‘Yes indeed, the hair is a bit rough’ (o, L).

  2. (87) Ch’est aen amas nice /naɪs/ haomme ‘He’s a very nice man’ (w, L).

  3. (88) I’saont bian pus strict /strɪkt/ en Guernési ‘They are much stricter in Guernsey’ (n).

  4. (89) Nou-s est trop hygienic /haɪdʒi:nɪk/ ‘We are too hygienic’ (n).

  5. (90) Nou’n’est pas si posh /pɒʃ/ par ichin ‘We are not so posh around here’ (n).

3.3.4. Adverbs

Unlike in Poplack’s data (Reference Poplack2018:55), the 13 lone English-origin adverbs present in the Guernésiais corpus (1 widespread, 1 recurrent, 11 nonce) were all unadapted morphologically.

  1. (91) J’les mettais alphabetically /alfəbɛtɪkli/ ‘I placed them alphabetically’ (n).

  2. (92) Les gens d’visaient seriously /sɪriəsli/ ‘People were talking seriously’ (n).

  3. (93) Tout hauchit straightaway /streɪtəweɪ/ ‘Everything went up straightaway’ (n).

  4. (94) Nou-s a aen amas d’mots différents, obviously /ɒviəsli/ ‘We have many different words, obviously’ (n).

  5. (95) La maïr ’tait right /raɪt/ au mur ‘The sea was right up to the wall’ (w).

  6. (96) Nou-s est pusse at home /æt həʊm/ ichin ‘We are more at home here’ (n).

3.3.5. Discourse marker

The only example in the corpus of a lone English-origin discourse marker was the consecutive conjunction so, which was present in the speech of 14 interviewees (97)–(100). So is also borrowed in the variety of Insular Norman spoken in Jersey (Jèrriais) (Jones, Reference Jones2015:147).

  1. (97) J’sis Guernésiais so /səʊ/ quànd j’marris j’voulais restaïr ichin ‘I am from Guernsey so when I got married I wanted to stay here’ (w).

  2. (98) Les Germans voulaient qué dans l’école, ch’tait l’German so /səʊ/ l’affaire fut arrangiée ‘The Germans wanted it to be German at school so the thing was arranged’ (w).

  3. (99) I’voulait allaïr dans l’finance so /səʊ/ il est accountant ‘He wanted to go into finance so he is an accountant’ (w).

  4. (100) I’n’pouvait pas aver aen djob ichin so /səʊ/ i’retireit à chinquànte aens ‘He couldn’t get a job here so he retired at fifty years of age’ (w).

Mougeon and Béniak describe the use of so in Ontarian French as an example of core lexical borrowing occurring in a setting of intensive language contact. They suggest it “may serve to symbolise the advanced state of acculturation of bilingual speakers who experience high levels of contact with a superordinate language” (Reference Mougeon and Béniak1991:212). Put another way, so is used by active bilinguals who speak both varieties equally in a context which they term “unpatterned bilingualism” (Reference Mougeon, Béniak, Denning, Inkelas, McNair-Knox and Rickford1987:40). Thomason and Kaufman (Reference Thomason and Kaufman1988:74) consider such usage to be evidence that contact has intensified beyond the casual level (cf. Dawkins, Reference Dawkins1916; Sitaridou, Reference Sitaridou, Jones and Ogilvie2013).

3.4. Motivation and usage

Having examined the lone English-origin lexical items found in the different parts of Guernésiais speech, this discussion concludes by examining how differently motivated English-origin lexical items are used within the contemporary speech community. Of the 30 most frequently used lone English-origin lexical items, 18 (17 nouns, 1 verb) filled a referential gap and 12 (9 nouns, 1 verb, 2 adjectives) were used despite the existence of an indigenous word (Table 4). In other words, lone English-origin lexical items with both types of motivation are common in Guernésiais.

Table 4. Motivation of the 30 most frequent lone English-origin lexical items in the Guernésiais corpus

Even when looking at the corpus more broadly, a particular type of motivation did not seem to correlate at all with the production of widespread lone English-origin lexical items, which occurred in 7% of “referential gap” contexts (19/288 types), compared to 9% of “prestige” contexts (34/364 types). The percentages of nonce lone English-origin lexical items with both motivations also proved similar (188/288 “referential gap” types (65%) and 250/364 “prestige” types (69%)). A lone English-origin lexical item’s degree of linguistic integration seemed equally unaffected by motivation, with one or more token of 121 of the 288 “referential gap” types in the corpus (42%) undergoing phonological and/or morphosyntactic assimilation compared to 160 of the 364 “prestige” types (44%).

As discussed in §3.1., 154 of the 652 lexical types (24%) were listed in the DAG. Of these, 64 (42%) filled a referential gap. Unlike motivation, listedness did seem to show some correlation with integration, with 115 of the 154 listed types (75%) showing phonological assimilation in at least one of their tokens compared to only 74 of the 498 unlisted types (15%). Interestingly, the 13 speakers making least use of lone English-origin lexical items (defined as producing fewer than 20 such lexical items during the first 20 minutes of the interview) tended to confine their usage to listed forms and usually assimilated them to the phonology and morphosyntax of Guernésiais (in other words, they treated them like “native” words). The 4 speakers who used most lone English-origin lexical items (defined as producing more than 60 such lexical items during the first 20 minutes of the interview) all used large numbers of nonce lexical items, seeming to consider any word of English as having the potential to be used in Guernésiais.Footnote 19 These speakers also displayed more of a tendency to treat lone English-origin lexical items phonologically as words of English.

4. Conclusion

Lone English-origin lexical items are present in Guernésiais for all the parts of speech analysed, with an overall “hierarchy” similar to that observed in other situations of language contact, namely that “content-heavy” lone English-origin lexical items (nouns and verbs) are more common than lone English-origin adjectives, adverbs and discourse markers. The fact that both phonologically assimilated and non-assimilated forms of the same lone English-origin lexical item are present in the corpus is probably because all speakers of Guernésiais are active bilinguals who speak both languages on a frequent basis. Speakers do not therefore have to rely on recalling the more established form of lone English-origin lexical items in order to be understood by their interlocutor and can instead “source” items spontaneously from their English mental lexicon. Nouns are assigned gender and plural morphology – although here again some variability is present, even with frequent lexical items – and most verbs acquire Guernésiais morphological endings. In contrast, English-origin adjectives, adverbs and the discourse marker so usually keep their “English shape”. The presence of these lexical items is commonly motivated by a referential gap but they also often occur as synonyms of Guernésiais words. Insofar as the items in the corpus are concerned, motivation has no apparent bearing on a lone English-origin lexical item’s likelihood of being listed in the DAG, suggesting that inclusion is based on a lexical item’s perceived sociolinguistic acceptance within the speech community rather than on being the only term available to denote a particular referent.

Competing interests

The author declares none.

Footnotes

1 The same distinction is termed “global copying” versus “partial copying” by Johanson (Reference Johanson1992) and “borrowing, code-switching” versus “transfer” by Treffers-Daller and Mougeon (Reference Treffers-Daller and Mougeon2005:95).

2 French was the sole official language of Guernsey until 1948.

3 See the Guernsey annual electronic census report 2022 URL: https://www.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=164619&p=0, retrieved 13 July 2023.

4 Since data collection involves conducting interviews indoors, the age of participants has made it inappropriate to conduct fieldwork in Guernsey during the past few years. This study therefore relies on data collected between 2010 and 2018.

5 For a discussion of the relative homogeneity of many speech communities where an obsolescent language is spoken, see Dorian (Reference Dorian1981).

6 The Guernésiais “hierarchy” also matches, in all but one respect, Muysken’s (Reference Muysken, Highfield and Valdman1981) analysis of the Spanish of Quechua speakers, the difference being that Muysken found adjectives to be more readily borrowed than verbs.

7 Given the greater size of the Ottawa-Hull corpus compared to the Guernésiais corpus (120 speakers compared to 46 speakers – 19,579 tokens compared to 2,157 tokens), the benchmark for a lone English-origin lexical item to be labelled as “widespread” was reduced from 10 tokens to 5 tokens and as “recurrent” from more than 10 times though not necessarily by as many speakers to more than 5 times though not necessarily by as many speakers.

8 In contemporary Guernésiais, the impersonal pronoun nou’ + 3sg. verb is used almost categorically to convey a 1pl. meaning (Jones, 2015:134–139).

9 This represents an additional category to those included in Poplack, Sankoff and Miller (Reference Poplack, Sankoff and Miller1988) and Poplack (2018).

10 For the nonce lone English-origin lexical items, the number of types is, of course, identical to the number of tokens.

11 Exceptions to this occur in some “international” words with a -tiaon ending in Guernésiais, which are usually feminine. However, the fact of being suggested by a lone English-origin noun’s “shape” does not guarantee that a particular gender will be assigned by all speakers: cf. for example the form aen conversâtiaon ‘a conversation’ (m.) produced during one of the interviews.

12 Matras (2009:73) also suggests that, once a word has spread, it will tend to follow fixed morphosyntactic integration patterns.

13 /ɛ/ - /ja:w/ in south-western Guernésiais (Jones, 2015:93-95).

14 Note that in this utterance, it is clear from the accompanying adjective pllôines (/pjɔ̃in/) (which is phonologically distinct from the masculine pllôins (/pjɔ̃ŋ/) that carre is assigned feminine gender (it is listed as masculine in the DAG).

15 It did not prove possible to establish any clear correlation between a speaker’s preferred pluralisation strategy and their social characteristics.

16 The indigenous verb would be croch’taïr /krɔʃtɑj/ (cf. DAG, p.39).

17 Although Jones (2015:133) documents a number of post-posed adjectives in the Insular Norman spoken in Jersey and Sark, the study does not record any for Guernésiais. Foreign therefore seems to be unusual in this regard.

18 In these utterances, show is not, strictly speaking, performing the role of an adjective in English, where both show flowers and show boats would be considered as noun + noun compounds.

19 As in the discussion of pluralisation strategies above (§3.3.1.2.), it did not prove possible to to establish any clear correlation between the frequency with which a speaker used lone English-origin lexical items and their social characteristics.

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Figure 0

Table 1. Lone English-origin lexical items in the Guernésiais corpus by part of speech

Figure 1

Table 2. Gender assignment of the 20 most frequent lone English-origin nouns in the Guernésiais corpus

Figure 2

Table 3. Pluralisation strategy used with the 20 most frequent lone English-origin nouns in the Guernésiais corpus

Figure 3

Table 4. Motivation of the 30 most frequent lone English-origin lexical items in the Guernésiais corpus