Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:13:25.581Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The case of the nonce loan in Tamil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

David Sankoff ,
Shana Poplack  and
Swathi Vanniarajan
David Sankoff
Affiliation:
Université de Montréal
Shana Poplack
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
Swathi Vanniarajan
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Nonce borrowings in the speech of bilinguals differ from established loanwords in that they are not necessarily recurrent, widespread, or recognized by host language monolinguals. With established loanwords, however, they share the characteristics of morphological and syntactic integration into the host language and consist of single content words or compounds. Furthermore, both types of loanwords differ from intrasentential code-switching — alternate sentence fragments in the two languages, each of which is grammatical by monolingual standards from the standpoints of appropriate function words, morphology, and syntax. In a large corpus of Tamil—English bilingual speech, many words of English origin are found in objects governed by Tamil verbs and vice versa. The equivalence constraint on intrasentential code-switching predicts that no code-switch should occur between verb and object in an SOV/SVO bilingual situation, and hence that objects whose language differs from that of the verb must be borrowed, if only for the nonce. To verify this prediction, we compare quantitatively the distribution across various syntactic contexts of both native Tamil and English—origin complements of Tamil verbs, and find them to be parallel. But the strongest evidence in favor of the nonce borrowing hypothesis comes from an analysis of variable accusative and dative case marking in these complements, in which the English-origin material is shown, morphologically and syntactically, to be virtually indistinguishable from Tamil (nonpronominal) nouns. In addition, we present supporting evidence from the genitive, locative, and other cases and from nonce borrowings from Tamil into these speakers' English.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 1990 , pp. 71 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Annamalai, E. (1971). Lexical insertion in a mixed language. Papers from the Seventh Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society. 20–27.Google Scholar
Annamalai, E. (1975). Phonology of Tamil nouns. In Schiffman, H. R. & Eastman, C. M. (eds.), Dravidian phonological systems. Seattle: University of Washington Press. 122–179.Google Scholar
Asher, R. E. (1982). Tamil (Lingua Descriptive Studies, Volume 7). Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Bentahila, A. & Davies, E. (1983). The syntax of Arabic-French code-switching. Lingua 59:301–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berk-Seligson, S. (1986). Linguistic constraints on intrasentential code-switching: A study of Spanish/Hebrew bilingualism. Language 15:313–348.Google Scholar
Boeschoten, H. & Verhoeven, L. (1985). Integration niederlandischer lexicalischer Elemente ins Turkische: Sprach mischung bei Immigranten der ersten und zweiten Generation. Linguistische Berichte 98:347–364.Google Scholar
Bokamba, E. G. (1989). Are there syntactic constraints on code-mixing? World Englishes 8:277–293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bynon, T. (1978). Historical linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chana, V. & Romaine, S. (1984). Evaluative reactions to Panjabi/English code-switching. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 5:447–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
di Sciullo, A.-M.Muysken, P. & Singh, R. (1986). Government and code-mixing. Journal of Linguistics 22:1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eliasson, S. (1989). English–Maori language contact: Code-switching and the free-morpheme constraint. Reports from Uppsala University Department of Linguistics 18.Google Scholar
Gumperz, J. (1982). Conversational code-switching. In. Gumperz, J. (ed.), Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 59–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasselmo, N. (1972). Code-switching as ordered selection. In Finchow, E. et al. (eds.), Studies for Einar Haugen. The Hague: Mouton. 261–280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joshi, A. K. (1985). Processing of sentences with intrasentential code-switching. In Dowty, D. et al. (eds.), Natural language processing: Psychological, computational, and theoretical perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 190–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kachru, B. (1978). Toward structuring code-mixing: An Indian perspective. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 16:28–46.Google Scholar
Kachru, Y. (1968). An introduction to Hindi syntax. Urbana: University of Illinois, Department of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Kandiah, T. (1978). Standard language and socio-historical parameters: Standard Lankan Tamil. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 16:59–75.Google Scholar
Lehmann, W. (1973). Historical linguistics. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Lipski, J. M. (1978). Code-switching and the problem of bilingual competence. In Paradis, M. (ed.), Aspects of bilingualism. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam. 250–264.Google Scholar
Madaki, R. O. (1983). A linguistic and pragmatic analysis of Hausa-English code-switching. Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Mougeon, R.Beniak, E. & Valois, D. (1985). Variation in the phonological integration of loanwords in a bilingual speech community [Working paper]. Toronto: Centre for Franco-Ontarian Studies.Google Scholar
Muysken, P. (1990a). Concepts, methodology and data in language contact research: Ten remarks from the perspective of grammatical theory. In Papers for the European Science Foundation Network on concepts, methodology and data. Strasbourg: European Science Foundation. 15–30.Google Scholar
Muysken, P. (1990b). The intersection of the equivalence and government constraints. Paper presented at the University of Amsterdam workshop on code-switching, May 1990.Google Scholar
Myers-Scotton, C. & Azuma, S. (forthcoming). A frame-based model of code-switching. In Deaton, K. et al. (eds.), Papers from the 26th Chicago Linguistic Society Annual Meeting. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Nait M'Barek, M. & Sankoff, D. (1988). Le discours mixte arabe/français: des emprunts ou des alternances de langue? Revue canadienne de linguistique 33:143–154.Google Scholar
Nishimura, M. (1985). Intrasentential code-switching in Japanese and English. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Nortier, J. (1989). Dutch and Moroccan Arabic in contact: Code-switching among Moroccans in the Netherlands. Doctoral dissertation, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Pandharipande, R. (1986). Formal and functional constraints on code-mixing. New Delhi: International Congress of Sociology.Google Scholar
Pfaff, C. (1979). Constraints on language mixing. Language 55:291–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pintzuk, S. and Kroch, A. (1989). The rightward movement of complements and adjuncts in the Old English of Beowulf. Language Variation and Change 1:115–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, S. (1980). Sometimes I'll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en español. Linguistics 18:581–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, S. (1981). Syntactic structure and social function of code-switching. In Duran, R. (ed.), Latino discourse and communicative behavior. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. 169–184.Google Scholar
Poplack, S. (1985). Contrasting patterns of code-switching in two communities. In Warkentyne, H. (ed.), Methods V: Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Methods in Dialectology. Victoria: University of Victoria Press. 363–386.Google Scholar
Poplack, S. (1988). Language status and language accommodation along a linguistic border. In Lowenberg, P. (ed.), Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1987. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 90–118.Google Scholar
Poplack, S. & Sankoff, D. (1984). Borrowing: The synchrony of integration. Linguistics 22:99–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, S., Sankoff, D. & Miller, C. (1988). The social correlates and linguistic processes of lexical borrowing and assimilation. Linguistics 26:47–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, S., Sankoff, D. & Pousada, A. (1982). Competing influences on gender assignment: Variable process, stable outcome. Lingua 57:1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, S.Wheeler, S. & Westwood, A. (1989). Distinguishing language contact phenomena: Evidence from Finnish-English bilingualism. World Englishes 8:389–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prince, E. F. & Pintzuk, S. (1986). Bilingual code-switching and the open/closed class distinction. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Rivas, A. (1981). On the application of transformations to bilingual sentences (UMass Working Papers on Hispanic Linguistics and Bilingualism). Amherst: University of Massachuetts, Department of Spanish and Portuguese.Google Scholar
Romaine, S. (1986). The syntax and semantics of the code-mixed compound verb in Panjabi/English bilingual discourse. In Tannen, D. & Alatis, J. (eds.), Languages and linguistics: The interdependence of theory, data and applications. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. 35–50.Google Scholar
Romaine, S. (1989). Bilingualism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sankoff, D. & Mainville, S. (1986a). Code-switching of context-free grammars. Theoretical Linguistics 13:75–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sankoff, D. & Mainville, S. (1986b). Un modèle pour l'alternance de langue sous la contrainte d'équivalence. Revue Québécoise de Linguistique 15:233–246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sankoff, D. & Nait M'Barek, M. (1990). Dramatically contrasting language mixture strategies in two communities of fluent Arabic-French bilinguals. Paper presented at NWAVE 19,Philadelphia,October 1990.Google Scholar
Sankoff, D. & Poplack, S. (1981). A formal grammar for code-switching. Papers in Linguistics 14:13–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith-Stark, T. (1976). Jilotepequeño Pocomam texts. In Furbee-Losee, L. (ed.), Mayan Texts, International Journal of American Linguistics (Native American Text Series 1:72–87).Google Scholar
Sridhar, S. & Sridhar, K. (1980). The syntax and psycholinguistics of bilingual code-mixing. Canadian Journal of Psychology 34:407–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treffers, J. (1990). Towards a uniform approach to code-switching and borrowing. Paper presented at the European Science Foundation workshop on constraints, conditions and models in code-switching.London,September 1990.Google Scholar
Weinreich, U. (1953). Languages in contact. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Woolford, E. (1983). Bilingual code-switching and syntactic theory. Linguistic Inquiry 14:520–536.Google Scholar
Zentella, Ana C. (1982). Spanish and English in contact in the United States: The Puerto Rican experience. Word 33:41–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zvelebil, K. V. (1983). Word-borrowing and word-making in modern South Asian languages: Tamil. In Fodor, I. & Hagège, C. (eds.), Language reform, vol. III. Hamburg: Buske Verlag. 431–440.Google Scholar