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Two Types of Functional Transfer in Language Contact
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The aim of this article is to examine one kind of cross linguistic influence, or transfer, in language contact situations. This is “functional transfer”, defined as applying the grammatical functions of a morpheme from one language to a morpheme in another language that does not normally have these functions. With regard to language contact, most reported instances of this kind of transfer concern the creation of a new grammatical morpheme in an expanded pidgin or creole, resulting from the use of a lexical morpheme of the lexifier (here the recipient language, RL) with semantic and syntactic properties of a grammatical morpheme of the substrate language(s) (here the source language(s), SL). Another kind of functional transfer, however, results in an already existing grammatical morpheme in the RL being used with semantic properties, but not syntactic properties, of a grammatical morpheme in the SL that speakers perceive as equivalent. Thus, the two types of functional transfer differ in that the first entails morphological augmentation while the second involves functional alteration of an existing morpheme. Other differences between the two types of transfer are that certain constraints appear to apply to the first type but not to the second. In addition, the first type of transfer, as opposed to the second, does not commonly occur in the process of second language acquisition. Explanations proposed for these distinctions concern different strategies used for morphological expansion in the development of a contact language. Different contact languages can be placed along a continuum based on the prevalence and type of functional transfer.
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Typological constraints on verb integration in two Australian mixed languages 1 , 2
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Abstract Gurindji Kriol and Light Warlpiri are two mixed languages spoken in northern Australia by Gurindji and Warlpiri people, respectively. Both languages are the outcome of the fusion of a contact variety of English (Kriol/Aboriginal English) with a traditional Australian Aboriginal language (Gurindji or Warlpiri). The end result is two languages which show remarkable structural similarity. In both mixed languages, pronouns, TMA auxiliaries and word order are derived from Kriol/Aboriginal English, and case-marking and other nominal morphology come from Gurindji or Warlpiri. These structural similarities are not surprising given that the mixed languages are derived from typologically similar languages, Gurindji and Warlpiri (Ngumpin-Yapa, Pama-Nyungan), and share the Kriol/Aboriginal English component. Nonetheless, one of the more striking differences between the languages is the source of verbs. One third of the verbs in Gurindji Kriol is derived from Gurindji, whereas only seven verbs in Light Warlpiri are of Warlpiri origin. Additionally verbs of Gurindji origin in Gurindji Kriol are derived from coverbs, whereas the Warlpiri verbs in Light Warlpiri come from inflecting verbs. In this paper we claim that this difference is due to differences in the complex verb structure of Gurindji and Warlpiri, and the manner in which these complex verbs have interacted with the verb structure of Kriol/English in the formation of the mixed languages.
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The Phoneme /o/ in Opoja Albanian: Albanian-Slavic Contact and the Slavic Jers
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The phoneme /o/ is often present in the Albanian dialect of Opoja in environments where it is absent elsewhere in Albanian. This paper explains /o/ in Opoja by reference to the Slavic substrate present in that area of Kosovo. Language shift from Slavic to Albanian took place in the late 16th and 17th centuries in Opoja, and I argue that during this process, Slavic /o/ was identified with Albanian /ə/. This identification was facilitated by the fact that the Slavic dialect of Opoja lay directly on a major isogloss of a crucial sound change in Slavic: the loss of hyper-short high vowels, also known as the jer shift. To the south of Opoja, the Slavic dialect of Gora has /o/ and /e/ from these hyper-short high vowels (known as jers in the Slavic literature), but to the north, the dialect of Prizren shifted both vowels to /ə/. This allowed Albanian /ə/ to be identified with the Slavic jer reflexes, which were then imposed on Albanian during the process of language shift.
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A Quantitative Analysis of Code-switching in the Arabic-Romance Kharjas
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This paper studies code-switching between Andalusian Arabic and Romance in the kharjas, the closing verses of the muwashshahaat poems. These poems, dating from the 11th to the 14th centuries, were composed in Classical Arabic, while the kharjas were written in two languages of Al-Andalus: Andalusian Arabic and Romance. The purpose is to investigate to what degree the structural aspect of code-switching in the kharjas conforms to descriptions in the current literature on code-switching in bilingual communities and what that tells us about the degree of bilingualism in Al-Andalus. The 43 kharjas (Corriente, 2008) present a total of 104 code-switches: 82 intra-sentential, 13 word-internal and 9 inter-sentential. The base language in the majority of cases is Romance: 73 % of the switches occurred from Romance to Arabic. Cross- tabulations of the direction of the switch, lexical category of the switched parts and what immediately precedes and follows them show statistically significant relationships, indicating that the code-switches found in this corpus are not the result of a random process of language mixing resulting in “an outlandish and deliberately unsophisticated patois” (Monroe, 1974:31). A study of the intra-sentential code-switches also contributes to an explanation of the behavior of the Arabic definite article, al- and its allomorphs, in Arabic loanwords.
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Du contact entre les langues au clivage dans la langue. Vers une anthropologie renouvelée *
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The major aim of this paper is to offer an account of some results of investigations on language contact. I also aim at deconstructing the notion of ‘language contact’ going beyond the notion of ‘contact’. I attempt to analyze contact inside a language rather than contact between languages. This is reflected in the term ‘splitting’, as a way of approaching a new set of issues and breaking new grounds. My empirical base lies beyond an exocentric view whose objective is to capture the essence of mixed languages or the dynamics of multilingual situations. I take an endocentric stance, focused on the construction of signs and the process of construction of meaning within the general space of signification. My further objective is to propose a new dynamic view of semiotics, closely linked to the notions of boundary, system and representations as they are, reconditioned and simultaneously resulting from a predetermined analytic process. This has a potential of coming close to a Humboldtian perspective on the dynamic of languages, and of language.
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John H. McWhorter. 2011. Linguistic simplicity and complexity: Why do languages undress? Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. 338 pp.
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This review article consists of three parts: a presentation of McWhorter’s book, an evaluation of the book, and a proposal for a systematic metric for one version of the notions of simplicity and complexity in languages. McWhorter’s basic thesis, that creoles have simpler grammars than their lexifier languages and simpler grammars than languages transmitted through acquisition in childhood, must begin with rigorous definitions of the terms ‘simplicity’ and ‘complexity’. The paper proposes a way to measure simplicity and complexity. Whether the notions of simplicity or complexity have a heuristic value remains an open question.
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Book Reviews
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Philippe Maurer. The former Portuguese Creole of Batavia and Tugu (Indonesia), 2011, vi + 352 pages. London and Colombo: Battlebridge Publications
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Peter Siemund. Linguistic universals and language variation, 2011, 400 pages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, (Trends in Linguistics 231).
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