Programs and Proposalsin Codeswitching Research:

Unconstraining Theories of Bilingual Language Mixing

Jeff MacSwanArizona State University

Overview of the Talk• Central claims

– CS research has evolved into two distinct research programs• The Constraint-oriented Program• The Constraint-free Program

– The constraint-free program is the more promising path for future research in CS

• Outline– The search for a constraint-free solution in CS– The lexicalist solution available in the Minimalist Program

• The model• Some sample analyses

– A taxonomy of research programs (Lakatos, Feyerabend)– Directions for future research in CS

What is Codeswitching?• Codeswitching, or CS for short, is a speech style in which

fluent (i.e., simultaneous) bilinguals move in and out of two (or more) languages.

• Topics in the literature– Social motivation / grammatical constraints– Intersentential / intrasentential

• Codeswitching is structured (i.e., rule-governed)1. Los estudiantes have seen the Italian movie

‘The students have seen the Italian movie’2. *Los estudiantes habían seen the Italian movie

‘The students have seen the Italian movie’

• The research question– What is the underlying structure?

What do we mean by “constraint”?

• Descriptive sense– Codeswitching is constrained in the descriptive

sense– Some patterns are well-formed, others are not

1. My big brother va a comer con nosotros.2. *He va a comer con nosotros.

• Theoretical sense– In the theoretical sense, a constraint is a principle or

rule of grammar that bars one or another structure.

Constraint-oriented Approach

Grammar1Grammar2Codeswitching

Constraints

Codeswitched Utterances

Constraint-free Approach

Grammar1Grammar2

Codeswitched Utterances

• Research Agenda– Nothing constrains CS apart from the

requirements of the mixed grammars.• No CS-specific mechanisms are permitted

– So, CS is the free union of two grammars, with no regulatory grammatical mechanisms permitted.

Constraint-free Approach

The Search for a Constraint-free Solution in the History of CS

• Pfaff (1979)– “It is unnecessary to posit a third grammar to account for the utterances

in which the languages are mixed.”• Poplack & Sankoff (1981)

– “What is more consistent with the data is simply to allow the possibility that in the uttering of a sentence, the rules used to construct its constituents may be drawn at times from one monolingual grammar and at times from another.”

• Woolford (1983)– “There is no need to propose any sort of third, separate code-switching

grammar.”• Lipski (1985)

– “… gratuitous meta-structures [should] be avoided whenever possible, and … bilingual language behavior [should] be described as much as possible in terms of already existing monolingual grammars.”

The Search for a Constraint-free Solution in the History of CS

• Di Sciullo, Muysken & Singh (1986)– CS “can be seen as a rather ordinary case of language use, requiring

no specific stipulation.”• Clyne (1987)

– CS may be “governed by the kinds of structural constraints applying to monolingual performance.”

• Belazi, Rubin & Toribio (1994)– CS is “constrained solely by Universal Grammar.”

• Mahootian & Santorini (1995)– “… codeswitching sequences are governed by exactly the same

principles of phrase structure as monolingual sequences.”

Characteristics of Proposed CS Constraints

• Researchers directly confront the formal limitations of the grammatical mechanism, then reluctantly but explicitly introduce CS-specific devices.– Sankoff & Poplack (1981)

• The constraint or analytic framework is left inexplicit or is not adequately developed.– Woolford (1983)– Mahootian & Santorini (1996)

• Researchers develop CS-specific mechanisms but argue that they are vacuously available to monolinguals too.– Di Sciullo, Muysken & Singh (1986)– Belazi, Rubin & Torbio (1994)– Myers-Scotton (1993); Jake, Myers-Scotton & Gross (2006)

Sankoff and Poplack’s (1981)Equivalence Constraint

• Sankoff and Poplack sought to implement the Equivalence Constraint– Codes will tend to be switched at points where the surface

structures of the languages map onto each other.

• They noticed that free union of phrase structure grammars would yield ungrammatical results

NP → Det Adj N (English PS rule)NP → Det N Adj (Spanish PS rule)

• Generates• *The casa white (‘The white house’)• *The house white

PS and Lexical Insertion Rules in CS

N Adj

the

la

house

casa

NP

Det

White

blanca

Adj → white

Adj → blanca

Det → the

Det → la

N → house

N → casa

….

N Adj

NP

Det

Pick your PS rule

Pick your lexical insertion rule

Resulting structures

…

Sankoff and Poplack’s (1981)Equivalence Constraint

• The problem of lexical insertion– In the Aspects and early GB period, structures are

built from the top down, with lexical insertion postponed until well after the word order had been laid out.

– The language contributing the lexical items has strong consequences for the syntactic structure at the onset, but is not identified until the end, at lexical insertion.

Sankoff and Poplack (1981)

• Sankoff and Poplack’s solution– Superscripting or tagging convention of PS rules

• NP → Det Nsp:n Adjsp:adj

• the casa blanca

– Limitations• Ad hoc, does not follow from otherwise available properties

of the grammatical system.• Subscripting mechanism is not made explicit.

Woolford (1983)• “Phrase structure rules are drawn freely from both grammars during

the construction of constituent structure trees, but the lexicon of each grammar is limited to filling only those terminal nodes created by phrase structure rules drawn from the same language. Nevertheless, in the event that there are phrase structure rulescommon to both languages, such rules belong simultaneously to both languages. Lexical items can be freely drawn from either language to fill terminal nodes created by phrase structure rules common to both languages.”

• But there is no specification of the formal mechanisms!

The Government Constraint• Di Sciullo, Muysken & Singh (1986)• Government Constraint

– If Lq carrier has index q, then Ymaxq. – In a maximal projection Ymax, the Lq carrier is the

lexical element that asymmetrically c-commands the other lexical elements or terminal phrase nodes dominated by Ymax.

– Anti-government requirement on CS

The Government Constraint• Lexical insertion rule in Di Sciullo, Muysken & Singh

(1986)– “All elements inserted into the phase structure tree of a sentence

must be drawn from the same lexicon.”• Lexical insertion rule:

– If X governs Y, … Xq … Yq …– q indexes a category to a language-particular lexicon

• q is a “language index”• CS “can be seen as a rather ordinary case of language

use, requiring no specific stipulation” (Di Sciullo, Muysken & Singh, 1986).

• However, the “language index” is needed only in the case of CS, and is therefore a CS-specific device.

The Quest for a Constraint-free Approach

• Researchers in codeswitching have long acknowledged the preference for a constraint-free solution.

• The central problem– Late lexical insertion– How do you get the lexical items to line up with the right terminal

nodes in a P-marker?• A lexicalist solution

– In the Minimalist Program, lexical insertion occurs at the onset, and language-particular properties are carried along with each lexical item into the syntax.

– The problem of late lexical insertion disappears• No need to match languages up with their respective phrase

structure rules later on

The Minimalist Program

Lexicon(Rules of Word Formation,

Lexical Phonology)

Lexical Array (Numeration)

PF LF

Spell-Out

Select (CHL)

Overt Component (Merge, Move) (CHL)

Covert Component (Move) (CHL)

Phonological Component

(CHL)

Codeswitching in the Minimalist Program

Lexicon(Rules of Word Formation,

Lexical Phonology)

Lexical Array (Numeration)

PF LF

Spell-Out

Select (CHL)

Overt Component (Merge,

Move/Internal Merge) (CHL)

Covert Component (Move) (CHL)

Phonological Component

(CHL)

Lexicon(Lx)(Rules of Word Formation,

Lexical Phonology)

PF LF

Spell-Out

Select (CHL)

Covert Component (Move) (CHL)

Phonology(Lx) &Phonology(Ly) (CHL)

Lexicon(Ly)(Rules of Word Formation,

Lexical Phonology)

Monolingual Version

Bilingual Version

Overt Component (Merge,

Move/Internal Merge) (CHL)

Lexical Array (Numeration)

Switching in DPs

• Asymmetrical switching in Spanish-English DPs– los teachers (‘the teachers’)– *the casa (‘the house’)

What formal differences might separate Spanish and English DPs?

• Spanish has grammatical gender, English does not.

• Suppose that Spanish and English φ-features differ as a set in this way:– Spanish: φ = {person, number, gender}– English: φ = {person, number}

Switching in DPs

• The CS construction is well-formed if the φ-set of N is included in the φ-set of D – Spanish D, English N

• D, φ = {person, number, gender} • N, φ = {person, number}

– *English D, Spanish N• D, φ = {person, number}• N, φ = {person, number, gender}

Analysis

• Accounting for the data– los teachers (‘the teachers’) case

• The φ-set of N is able to value the φ-set of D “in one fell swoop” because its members are included in D’s φ-set; the derivation converges.

– *the casa (‘the house’) case• The φ-set of N cannot find a corresponding φ-set

in D for feature valuation because N’s φ-set is not included in D’s φ-set; the derivation crashes.

New Questions Arise!

• Data– What are the facts for other language pairs with

similar gender systems (identical φ-sets)?– What are the facts for other language pairs dissimilar

gender systems (properly included φ-sets)? • Theory

– Is feature valuation satisfied under a subset relation rather than an identity relation?

– What other evidence might be used to probe this issue further?

CS in Restructuring Contexts

1. Finalmente si comincerà a costruire le nuove case popolari2. Finalmente le nuove case popolari si cominceranno a costruire

Finally si begin/fut to build the new houses people/gen‘Finally we’ll begin to build the new houses for the poor.’

3. Finalmente si otterrà di costruire le nuove case popolari4. *Finalmente le nuove case popolari si otterranno di costruire

Finally si get.permission/fut to build the new houses people/gen‘Finally we’ll get permission to build the new houses for the poor.’

• Rizzi’s (1983) analysis– comincerà in (1)-(2), but not otterrà in (3)-(4), triggers an optional

reanalysis of the verb as in [V V V].– Reanalysis of the constituents allows the object of the embedded

clause in an impersonal si construction to move to the subject position of the matrix clause; in (4) this promotion is barred because reanalysis cannot apply for otterrà.

CS in Restructuring Contexts

• Restructuring results in ill-formedness in CS– Italian

1. Si è dato un regalo 2. Un regalo si è dato

– Italian-French CS1. Si è donné un cadeau2. *Un cadeau si è donné

‘A gift is given’

• Language Switching in Negation Contexts (Spanish-Nahuatl)1. *No nitekititoc

‘I’m not working’2. Amo estoy trabajando

‘I’m not working’

• Independent evidence tells us– Spanish negation is a clitic on the verb– Nahuatl negation, like English, is not

• Generalization– CS in head movement contexts is ill-formed.

Negation and Restructuring

What is Head Movement?

T

T

T

D

ND

the [D, uN] man [N]

V [uD]

Vgreetedj

VP

D

ei

TP

D

Johni

V

ejgreeted moves to T by

head adjunction to value T’s φ-features.

XP Movement

T

T

e [T, uV]

D

ND

the [D, uN] man [N]

V’ [uD]

V

greeted [V, uD, uD]

VP

DP

ei

TP

DP

Johni

John moves into the specifier position of T

to value T’s case feature.

Codeswitching in Morphophonology

• We can’t switch before a bound morpheme (Poplack, 1980, 1981)*Estoy eat-iendo*Juan love-ó a Maria

• In fact, we can’t mix phonology within words at all.– Spanish: g → γ between vowels– English: o → [+round] word finally– English “ago” as [aγow] in Spanish-English is ill-formed.

• In work with Sonia Colina, we found that simultaneous Spanish-English bilinguals shifted suddenly from one phonology to another between word boundaries (Colina & MacSwan, 2003; MacSwan & Colina, 2006).

Phrasal affixation• English genitive -’s is a phrasal (XP) affix

– [Tom and Mary]’s house– [the man from Nebraska]’s hat

• Spanish-English (MacSwan, 2004)– Su novia’s coche está nuevo

‘His girlfriend’s car is new.’– Mi cuñado’s motorcycle is in the driveway

‘My brother’s-in-law motorcycle is in the driveway.’• Croatian-English (Hlavac, 2003)

– … imam, moja mamin’s sestra jet u i … sve moj tata’s family je sve u Zagreb …

… I have, my brother’s sister is here and … all my dad’s family is all in Zagreb …

No switching in Heads!

• How can we explain an apparent ban on codeswitching word-internally and in head movement contexts?– Broader descriptive generalization

• Codeswitching head-internally is ill-formed.– How can this descriptive generalization be

derived without appealing to codeswitching-specific constraints?

CS and Mental Architecture(current work with Sonia Colina)

• PF Interface Condition– Phonological input is mapped to the output in one step with no

intermediate representations.– Each set of internally ranked constraints is a constraint

dominance hierarchy, and a language-particular phonology is a set of constraint dominance hierarchies.

– Bilinguals have a separately encapsulated phonological system for each language in their repertoire in order to avoid ranking paradoxes, which result from the availability of distinct constraint dominance hierarchies with conflicting priorities.

– Every syntactic head must be phonologically parsed at Spell Out.

– Therefore, the boundary between heads (words) represents the minimal opportunity for codeswitching.

Codeswitching in Pronominal Contexts(current issue of Lingua, with Elly van Gelderen)

• Timm (1975)– “One of the strongest restrictions against switching applies to

pronominal subjects or objects ... and the finite verbs.”• Examples/data

1. *Yo fight all the time (‘I fight all the time’)

2. *Ellos fight all the time (‘they fight all the time’)

3. *Ella fights all the time (‘she fights all the time’)

4. Mi novia fights all the time (‘My girlfriend …’)

5. Mis amigos fight all the time (‘My friends …’)

Structure of pronouns

• Pronouns are heads (Ds, in particular)– Postal 1969, Abney 1987, Longobardi 1994,

Cardinaletti 1994, Cardinaletti and Starke 1996, Carnie 2000

• Lexical subjects are XPs (DPs, in particular)

DP Movement

T

T

e [T, uV]

D

ND

the [D, uN] man [N]

V’ [uD]

V

greeted [V, uD, uD]

VP

DP

ei

TP

DP

Mis amigosi

Mis amigos moves into the specifier

position of T.

Head Movement

T

T

T

D

ND

the [D, uN] man [N]

V [uD]

V

greetedj

VP

D

ei

TP

Ellosiej

Ellos moves to T by way of V.

D

D V

Analysis

• Lexical DPs move as XPs and land in the specifier position.

• Pronounds move as heads (Ds) and adjoin to T.

Test of Conjunction

• Test of conjunction– Only same-category elements can be conjoined

• Prediction– If a pronoun is conjoined with a lexical subject in

codeswitching contexts, its only option will be to move as a DP.

Data

1. Mis amigos y yo fight all the time(‘My friends and I fight all the time’)

2. Yo y mis amigos fight all the time(‘I and my friends all the time’)

3. Mis amigos y el fight all the time(‘My friends and he fight all the time’)

4. Mis amigos y ellos fight all the time(‘My friends and they fight all the time’)

New Questions Arise!

• How do the generalizations extend to other language pairs?

• How does CS behave in other classical head movement contexts?

• Is head movement phonological?

Two Research Programs in CS(gleanings from Cedric Boeckx, 2006)

• Research Program– A reseach program has a core, or “a logico-empirical

character” (Lakatos, Feyerabend)• Research programs are conceptual or theoretical

frameworks.• Research programs are not refutable per se, but rather

spawn theories or proposals which are individually testable and refutable.

– Two types of research programs• Degenerating programs

– A program is degenerating if the theories it spawns are generated only to account for known facts.

• Progressive programs– A progress program gives rise to new families of questions

which might have previously gone unnoticed or unasked.

The Constraint-oriented Program

• Efforts to devise theoretically viable constraintson CS have failed.

• Theories are proposed only to account for known facts and do not press us further.

• There are no empirically sustainable constraints on CS.

Constraint-free Program

• The constraint-free approach is progressive in that it gives rise to new families of questions which might have previously gone unnoticed or unasked.

• Proposals made within the Constraint-free Program should be tested, evaluated, extended, and refined through empirical and theoretical analysis.

• The constraint-free approach may be pursued in grammatical frameworks other than the Minimalist Program– Distributed Morphology (DM)– Optimality Theory (OT)– Etc

Directions for Further Research in CS

• Researchers should engage in the linguistic analysis of CS in a variety of language pairs, availing themselves only to those mechanisms independently available for the analysis of monolingual language.

• This new research program promises to inform our understanding of CS, the architecture of language in monolinguals and bilinguals, as well as other intriguing questions in bilingualism.

ASU Applied Linguistics Ph.D. Program

ASU Applied Linguistics Ph.D. Program