Contact Linguistics: Bilingual Encounters and Grammatical Outcomes
Carol Myers-Scotton
Abstract
Contact Linguistics is a critical investigation of grammatical structures when bilingual speakers use their two or more languages in the same clause. Myers-Scotton examines major contact phenomena, such as lexical borrowing, convergence, attrition, mixed languages, and creole formation, but especially codeswitching. She argues that different contact phenomena result from the same grammatical principles and processes. They provide a set of limited options so that predictions are possible about expected outcomes, even if social milieux differ. She extends her earlier analysis of cod ... More
Contact Linguistics is a critical investigation of grammatical structures when bilingual speakers use their two or more languages in the same clause. Myers-Scotton examines major contact phenomena, such as lexical borrowing, convergence, attrition, mixed languages, and creole formation, but especially codeswitching. She argues that different contact phenomena result from the same grammatical principles and processes. They provide a set of limited options so that predictions are possible about expected outcomes, even if social milieux differ. She extends her earlier analysis of codeswitching under the Matrix Language Frame model and develops further the role of asymmetry and the Uniform Structure Principle in contact phenomena in general. Two new models make analyses more precise. The 4-M model of morpheme classification recognizes the abstract basis of four types of morphemes and their differential distribution across contact phenomena. The Abstract Level model proposes that new lexical elements are formed by splitting and recombining levels of abstract structure.
Keywords:
language contact phenomena,
codeswitching,
lexical borrowing,
convergence,
attrition,
mixed languages,
creole formation,
Matrix Language Frame,
4-M model,
Abstract Level model
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2002 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198299530 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2010 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198299530.001.0001 |
