Disagreement in Agreement

Disagreement in Agreement A study of grammatical aspects of codeswitching in Swedish/Persian bilingual speech Leyla Nas...

Author: Leyla Naseh Lotfabbadi

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Disagreement in Agreement A study of grammatical aspects of codeswitching in Swedish/Persian bilingual speech

Leyla Naseh Lotfabbadi

Department of Linguistics Stockholm University

Doctoral dissertation 2002 Department of Linguistics Stockholm University 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

© 2002 Leyla Naseh Lotfabbadi ISBN 91-7265-499-6 Printed by Akademitryck AB, Edsbruk 2002

iii Abstract For three decades now, linguists have attempted to study the grammatical rules and constraints that govern codeswitching (i.e. the alternating use of two or more linguistic codes in the course of a single conversation). This dissertation pursues an explanation for Swedish/Persian codeswitching in terms of language typological differences. The idea that the contrasting typological properties of the language pair may limit the probability of switches lies at the heart of this dissertation. The codeswitching data used in this dissertation were collected from tape-recordings of spontaneous conversations involving teenage Swedish/ Iranian bilingual speakers in Stockholm. Analyses of data provide evidence that typological differences in the concrete subject-verb agreement relation (AGR), further complicated by a distinction in verb affixation and verb compounding, would limit the probability of switches. However, the data are indicative of a general process of bilingual verb formation. Verb compounding is a very productive process in Persian. A central typological effect of the Swedish/Persian contact situation is the restructuring of the pre-existing structure of Persian complex verbs, which results in the creation of many novel Swedish/Persian bilingual complex verbs. Swedish/Persian bilingual speakers make extensive use of these bilingual verbs and other alternative codeswitching options to neutralize the constraints when there are conflicts in the grammars. A crucial assumption that this dissertation makes and argues for throughout is that these alternative options are not strategies; rather they are unconscious processes attributable to unconscious linguistic knowledge, i.e., to aspects of Universal Grammar. In addition to exploring the influence of typological differences, another major concern of this dissertation is to examine whether restrictions predicted by recent theories of codeswitching are compatible or incompatible with the present Swedish/Persian codeswitching data. As it turns out, none of these proposals captures generalizations observed in the data. A conclusion to be drawn from this is that empirical predictions made regarding a limited pair of languages do not faithfully represent the range of switches occurring in cross-linguistic data.

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CONTENTS Abbreviations.................................................................................................ix List of Tables .................................................................................................. x Acknowledgements........................................................................................xi 1 Goals and scope of work............................................................................ 1 1.1 Introduction............................................................................................... 1 1.2 The past as a precondition to accept the present....................................... 4 1.2.1 Immigrants in Sweden ........................................................................... 5 1.2.2 Iranian immigrants in Sweden ............................................................... 8 1.3 Codeswitching phenomena ..................................................................... 14 1.4 The present study .................................................................................... 20 1.4.1 Some definitions .................................................................................. 22 1.4.2 Subjects................................................................................................ 22 1.4.3 Data collection procedures................................................................... 27 1.4.4 Transcription of data ............................................................................ 28 1.5 Codeswitching types and interspeaker differences ................................. 28 1.6 Summary................................................................................................. 32 2 Grammatical approaches to codeswitching........................................... 35 2.1 Introduction............................................................................................. 35 2.1.1 The development of codeswitching research ....................................... 35 2.2 Linear order approach: Poplack’s Equivalence Constraint..................... 37 2.3 The Subcategorization Principle ............................................................. 39 2.4 Theory-based models of codeswitching constraints ............................... 40 2.4.1 Woolford’s Phrase Structure Congruence Model ................................ 43 2.4.2 The Government Constraint................................................................. 44 2.4.3 The Functional Head Constraint .......................................................... 47 2.5 Matrix language approaches to codeswitching ....................................... 51 2.5.1 Joshi’s Asymmetry and Closed Class Items Constraint....................... 52 2.5.2 Myers-Scotton’s Matrix Language Frame Model................................ 53 2.6 Mahootian’s Null Theory of Codeswitching .......................................... 60 2.7 Discussion: The crucial role of congruence............................................ 61 2.8 Codeswitching vs. Borrowing................................................................. 63 2.9 Conclusion .............................................................................................. 67 3 Persian grammar and a few characteristics of Swedish ....................... 71 3.1 Introduction............................................................................................. 71 3.2 Persian word order .................................................................................. 71 3.3 Swedish and Persian word order............................................................. 74 3.4 Swedish nominal morphology ................................................................ 75 3.5 Persian nominal morphology .................................................................. 76

vi 3.5.1 Plural markers ...................................................................................... 77 3.5.2 Markers of definiteness........................................................................ 78 3.5.3 The indefinite suffix -i ......................................................................... 81 3.6 The ezâfe particle (-e ezâfe) .................................................................... 82 3.7 Pronominal clitics ................................................................................... 83 3.8 The Persian verb and verb phrase ........................................................... 85 3.9 The Swedish verb system........................................................................ 88 3.10 Persian compound verbs ....................................................................... 90 3.10.1 Recent analyses of compound verbs .................................................. 91 3.10.2 A productive process.......................................................................... 94 3.11 Summary............................................................................................... 94 4 Single word insertions ............................................................................. 97 4.1 Introduction............................................................................................. 97 4.1.1 The matrix language ............................................................................ 98 4.2 The grammatical dimensions of single word insertions.......................... 99 4.3 Swedish bare infinitive verbs in Persian ............................................... 105 4.3.1 Innovation .......................................................................................... 109 4.3.2 Typical Swedish/Persian complex verbs............................................ 114 4.3.3 Complex verbs as areal features ........................................................ 115 4.3.4 Constraints of mixing account for bilingual verb formation.............. 117 4.4 Swedish nouns in Persian...................................................................... 119 4.4.1 Swedish nouns in object position....................................................... 120 4.4.2 Swedish nouns inside quantifier and determiner phrases .................. 121 4.4.3 Swedish nouns inside prepositional phrases ...................................... 123 4.4.4 Swedish nouns in subject position ..................................................... 124 4.5 Swedish adjectives in Persian ............................................................... 125 4.6 Swedish adverbs in Persian................................................................... 128 4.7 Summary............................................................................................... 130 5 Swedish phrases and clauses in Swedish/Persian speech ................... 133 5.1 Introduction........................................................................................... 133 5.2 Phrasal insertions .................................................................................. 134 5.3 Interclausal codeswitches...................................................................... 138 5.3.1 Coordinated clauses ........................................................................... 138 5.3.2 Swedish clauses as afterthoughts ....................................................... 140 5.3.3 Subordinate clauses............................................................................ 142 5.3.4 Double subject constructions ............................................................. 148 5.4 Other switches....................................................................................... 149 5.5 Alternation of languages in turn-taking ................................................ 150 5.6 Summary............................................................................................... 152 6 Towards explaining Swedish/Persian codeswitching.......................... 155 6.1 Introduction........................................................................................... 155 6.1.1 Towards explaining Swedish/Persian codeswitching ........................ 156

vii 6.1.2 Disagreement in agreement................................................................ 159 6.1.3 Constraint of switching between NEG and the verb.......................... 162 6.1.4 Alternative codeswitching patterns.................................................... 163 6.2. Analyzing the data in terms of the models of codeswitching .............. 166 6.2.1 Poplack’s Equivalence Constraint and Woolford’s Model................ 166 6.2.2 The Free-Morpheme Constraint......................................................... 169 6.2.3 The Subcategorization Principle ........................................................ 170 6.2.4 The Government Constraint............................................................... 172 6.2.5 The Functional Head Constraint ........................................................ 182 6.2.6 Joshi’s model ..................................................................................... 187 6.2.7 Myers-Scotton’s Matrix Language Frame model (MLF) .................. 190 6.2.8 Mahootian’s model ............................................................................ 195 6.3 How codeswitching models account for the data.................................. 197 6.4 Major facts about the Swedish/Persian codeswitching ......................... 199 6.5 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 201 7 Discussions and final conclusions ......................................................... 203 7.1 Introduction........................................................................................... 203 7.1.1 Taking morphological differences seriously...................................... 203 7.1.2 Strategy or unconsciously selected option ......................................... 204 7.1.3 Semantic compatibility and innovation ............................................. 205 7.1.4 The division of labor between lexicon and syntax............................. 206 7.1.5 Persian influence on semantic-pragmatic interpretation .................... 208 7.1.6 Interspeaker-related differences......................................................... 209 7.1.7 The impact of sociolinguistic factors on bilingual behavior.............. 210 7.2 Contribution of the study and suggestions for future research ............. 211 Bibliography .............................................................................................. 213

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ABBREVIATIONS AGR ASP COMP COMPR CL Clitic.Pro CP DEF DET DEM DP EL EMPH Ez IMPF Indef INFL IP ML NEG PL PP Pres PSPT Q RFL Subj V VP 1Pl 1Sg

agreement aspect complementizer comparative Persian number classifier (-tâ) clitic pronoun complementizer phrase definite determiner demonstrative determiner phrase embedded language emphatic Persian ezâfe particle (-e, -ye) Persian imperfective prefix (mi-) indefinite inflection inflection phrase matrix language negation element plural marker prepositional phrase present tense Persian past participle suffix (-e) quantifier reflexive pronoun Persian subjunctive prefix (be/bo-) verb verb phrase 1-person plural 1-person singular

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LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1 Number of foreign citizens and Swedish citizens born outside Sweden ......................................................................................... 24 Table 1.2 Specifications of the subjects in the study in 1996....................... 32 Table 4.1 Swedish single words in Persian .................................................. 99 Table 4.2 Swedish nouns and adjectives with and without Persian markers ....................................................................................... 104 Table 4.3 Swedish nouns with Persian markers ......................................... 104 Table 4.4 Single word insertions in Kristoffer’s data................................. 105 Table 4.5 Swedish/Persian complex verbs ................................................. 113 Table 4.6 Swedish adjectives with Persian inflection................................. 125 Table 4.7 Swedish adjectives and nouns in predicative phrases................. 128 Table 4.8 Swedish adverbs in Persian ........................................................ 128 Table 5.1 Coordinating conjunctions in Persian/Swedish speech .............. 139 Table 5.2 Distribution of coordinating conjunctions .................................. 140 Table 5.3 Distribution of Persian and Swedish subordinating conjunctions................................................................................ 142 Table 5.4 Codeswitches at the clause boundaries....................................... 149 Table 5.5 Distribution of Swedish phrases and clauses in Persian ............. 152

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation represents the outcome of several years of work. There are people who have helped and inspired me throughout to bring it to completion. All such people deserve thanks. No doubt there may be errors or imperfections that still remain – and I alone am responsible for these. The special and deepest gratitude goes to Professor Östen Dahl as my teacher and the advisor for this study at the Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University. When I was faced with problems, I directed all my complaints to Östen Dahl. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Professor Östen Dahl in many respects: for listening to me in the face of difficulties, for his generosity of time, for reading and commenting on my dissertation over the past several years, and for his expert constructive opinions. And above all I feel greatly indebted to Östen Dahl for my intellectual development as a linguist and researcher in linguistics. The second person I would like to express my special thanks to is Ad Backus. I am greatly indebted to Ad for his involvement, his significant role, and his generosity of time. Ad provided careful and thoughtful comments on the entire manuscript leading to refinements in chapter six. In addition I have benefited from Ad’s support and encouragement in the face of difficulties. Thanks Ad. I am deeply obliged to you and owe you a lot. Professor Carol Myers-Scotton offered valuable advice and insightful suggestions on issues relevant to the 4-M model and.system morpheme principle and do verb constructions. I cordially thank her for all these. I wish also to thank Professor Myers-Scotton for her interest in the data and for encouraging me to publish the dissertation. I am also grateful to Simin Karimi at the University of Arizona. Simin has provided me with valuable suggestions that have made me more confident in analyzing the data. Her immediate answers to many email conversations in order to clarify my questions have been of great help. Thank you, Thank you Simin! Almeida Jacqueline Toribio read and commented on the drafts at earlier stages and provided me with valuable feedback. In addition Jacqueline’s support and encouragement have inspired me the entire time I was writing this dissertation. Thank you Jacqueline! Helena Halmari also read a draft of chapters 6 and 7, correcting some errors and offering some comments. I am grateful to Helena not only for her contribution to this thesis but also for her support and for being there when I needed her, devoting her time to me when she had no time for herself. Thank you Helena! Professor Masja Koptjevskaja-Tamm, with her constructive criticism, brought important questions to my attention leading to clarifications and refinements throughout. Many thanks Masja.

xii I would also like to thank Shahrzad Mahootian for her comments on the first draft of chapters 1-4. Special thanks to Mark Sebba for his generosity in providing me with copies of his work. It will be immediately clear to the reader that this dissertation owes a special intellectual debt to Professor Pieter Muysken. Muysken’s insights have deeply influenced my views and color my arguments. Reading Professor Muysken’s books and analyses have made me more confident about expressing my own ideas. I feel greatly indebted to Professor Muysken in terms of the content of this dissertation and my own intellectual development as a linguist and researcher in codeswitching. I also wish to thank Professor Kenneth Hyltenstam at the Center for Research on Bilingualism. During my first years as a doctoral student, Kenneth Hyltenstam was my adviser and the first to bring the topic of codeswitching to my attention. Although things changed and I could not have the privilege of working with Kenneth, I wish to thank him for his kind advice and encouragement in the first years of my research in bilingualism. I have also benefited from insights contributed by Hendrik Boeschoten and Jeffrey MacSwan. Conversations with Hendrik Boeschoten at Tilburg University and with Jeffrey MacSwan in international symposiums on bilingualism in England have been enriching. I am also greatly indebted to my teachers at home at the Department of Linguistics, Teheran University. The most exciting part of my education in linguistics at Teheran University goes back to many years ago. It was in Dr. Rezaii’s classes, when I first learned to read the stories of the old kings in their own writing, Xate Mixi. Thanks Dr. Rezaii, Dr. Bateni, Dr. Milanian and Dr. Ashraf Sadeghi for your excellent teaching. In Stockholm at the Department of Linguistics, I had the pleasure of studying with Professor Jan Anward, and Professor Björn Hammarberg. I am greatly indebted to them for excellent teaching. Especially, I would like to acknowledge the intellectual and moral support I received from Professor Jan Anward during the period he was the director of the Department. Thank you Jan Anward for caring about the well being of all the people who worked with you either employed or unemployed. Thank you for asking us consistently how we feel and what we need. Thank you, Thank you! There are friends who deserve thanks. Ulla Sundberg at the Department of Linguistics gave me moral support when I was faced with difficulties. Thank you Ulla for your care and for your support. My thanks also go to friends and my fellow students Eva Lindström, Ulrika Kvist Darnell, Tove Gerholm and Jennifer Spenader at the Department of Linguistics. Eva Lindström devoted her time to help me with the lay out of the dissertation. I am especially indebted to Eva. Without Eva’s help this work would have lacked the fine appearance and the neat tables. Thank you

xiii Eva. And thanks to Jennifer for always being there to answer language queries Special thanks also to Susan Long for checking my English and Reza Arjmand for his skill in typesetting which has greatly improved the layout of this dissertation. My deepest gratitude also goes to my dear friend Gunilla Colliander for her moral support. Thank you Gunilla. I will always remember the New Year’s Eves that we shared looking at the sparkling sky and wishing each other a Happy New Year. I will always wish you a Happy New Year wherever I am. There is no doubt that without my 19 fabulous subjects, Swedish/ Iranian girls and boys this work would not have come into existence. Thank you all. Thanks also to the home language teachers who put me in contact with the young Swedish/Iranian bilingual speakers. Most of all, I am indebted to the emotional support of my sisters, Pouran, Parvaneh, Parichehr, Farzaneh and my brother Parviz Naseh and my sweethearts: my nephew Kristoffer in Sweden and nephews Peyman, Saman and Arman in Teheran, my nieces Susan, Shadi, Pani, Shirin and Sara, my brothers-in-laws and Afsaneh. Thank you for being there for me. I love you and I miss you. Thanks to my mother Cobra and my father Safer-Ali Naseh for love and for teaching me to be patient and have courage and strength to overcome the difficulties. Rest in peace.

To my sisters and brother for their wisdom, love and support

Chapter One

Goals and scope of work

1.1 Introduction This dissertation offers a study of grammatical aspects of codeswitching observed in Swedish/Persian bilingual speech. Codeswitching can be seen as a bilingual speech act where two or more linguistic codes are used in the course of a single conversation. Such a bilingual behavior is considered by some to be a creative device, by others to be a sign of imperfect language acquisition. I believe that switching back and forth between languages is a skill, one based on bilingual abilities. Research in codeswitching (hereafter CS) has been carried out by scholars from a wide range of disciplines with different approaches and perspectives. Indeed, few characteristics of bilingual speech have inspired as much scholarly research as codeswitching (cf. Toribio 2001). A large number of studies on codeswitching have drawn mainly on two approaches: one narrowly linguistic, the other sociolinguistic. Within sociolinguistic studies of codeswitching, the phenomenon is generally analyzed in terms of social motivation and meaning. Sociolinguists have employed interpretative frameworks to analyze the social and meaningful intentions associated with CS. The linguistic perspective has seen codeswitching as an ideal area for testing hypotheses regarding grammatical and structural rules that govern bilingual speech production. A general interest shared by a large number of researchers investigating grammatical aspects of codeswitching since the 1970s has been discovering structural constraints that govern codeswitching. Since then, a large number of hypotheses have appeared in the literature formulating these restrictions. The earlier studies proposed that codeswitching is restricted by different language-specific constraints. The proposals introduced in the early 1980s were more general and were largely concerned with the role of linear ordering in codeswitching. More recent discussions of codeswitching have explored the constraints in terms of two distinct traditions. One tradition has introduced codeswitching data into the discussion of Universal Grammar, as

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Disagreement in Agreement

advanced in the Chomskyan principles and parameters framework and the Minimalist Program (1981,1986, 1995). A second approach has developed a cognitive processing model of codeswitching production that is parallel to models of speech production in monolinguals. This approach looks at codeswitching as a cognitively-based operation of an abstract nature (MyersScotton 1993b [1997], which will be referred to as DL 1993 in this book). Another new insight discussed in the current codeswitching literature is the idea that codeswitching is constrained by the same principles that are operative in monolingual speech (Mahootian 1993; Belazi et al. 1994; MacSwan 1997). Research in codeswitching currently shows a trend towards pluralism and a growing consciousness that not only grammatical principles, but also a complexity of extralinguistic factors may play a role in each codeswitching situation. At the present stage, the field of research may be characterized by new perspectives that aim to explore what alternative mixing strategies are available and perhaps constraints are relative to a particular strategy (cf. Muysken 2000). The work introduced in this dissertation is also an attempt to explore the rules and principles that govern codeswitching practices. The bilingual speech used for the analyses of this work involves two typologically dissimilar languages, Swedish and Persian. While the dissertation is mainly concerned with grammatical aspects of codeswitching, the ethnolinguistic and sociolinguistic factors influencing speaker’s bilingualism have not been ignored. As a member of the Iranian community in Stockholm, I have personally been in contact with Swedish/Iranian bilingual speakers and have heard extensive codeswitching among teenagers. It is not surprising that nowadays, given the growing numbers of immigrants in Sweden, one can hear Finnish, Spanish, Turkish, Polish, Arabic, Persian, Russian and a number of other languages spoken along with Swedish in the same conversation. As was said, we generally refer to such bilingual behavior as codeswitching. We also hear that Swedish enriched with non-native speakers’ accents is a mode of interaction in the schools among young people. Without a doubt, no complete understanding of bilingualism can be achieved without a discussion of these sociolinguistic issues. As well as providing a grammatical view of Swedish/Persian codeswitching, the work also offers a sociolinguistic survey of the relationship between macro-level societal and micro-level interactional conditions. The aim is to link the micro-level communicative factors with broader questions of social relations and social organization in support of the argument that negative or positive influences from the majority culture have significant impact on bilingual behavior of teenage Iranian immigrants in Sweden. The work introduced in this dissertation could therefore be viewed as a linguistic and a sociolinguistic explanation of bilingualism.


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Grammatical facts of codeswitching cannot be identified and explained without understanding the effects of language typology. Given that Persian and Swedish are typologically distant, it follows that typological differences influence the way the two languages can be mixed. As noted by Muysken (1995, 2000) more recent studies of codeswitching constraints are characterized by relating two observations: “(a) different switch patterns are found in different contact situations; (b) the differences are related, at least in part, to typological characteristics of the languages involved”. This idea will be pursued throughout the dissertation. The studies of codeswitching since the 1970s provide us with a number of insights and proposals on constraints in codeswitching. There has been disagreement on the nature and description of the constraints, and people who have explored this field are seldom certain. However, earlier proposals have been verified and there has been substantial development in the field of research. This study reviews the literature on codeswitching constraints and evaluates the empirical predictions of a selection of the models that have been most influential and have generated a great deal of debate. The results of these evaluations in terms of the present data suggest that some proposals hold true for a range of codeswitches but cannot explain the other cases. I believe that many such contrasts have to do with typological differences found cross-linguistically. A general picture that has emerged from the present codeswitching data suggests that speakers make use of alternative codeswitching options to neutralize the constraints when there are conflicts in grammars. This implies that if the requirements of the mixed Persian/Swedish grammars are satisfied, then nothing constrains the CS mechanism. Mahootian (1993) and Belazi, Rubin and Toribio (1994) also propose that a basic conflict in the requirements of the mixed grammars is responsible for ungrammaticality in codeswitching. And more recently, MacSwan (1997), taking a Minimalist approach to CS, draws the same conclusion, that “nothing constrains codeswitching apart from the requirements of the mixed grammars”. The dissertation attempts to ascertain that the interplay of sociolinguistic factors, pragmatics, syntax, semantic and language typology is taken into account. The contribution that this study, hopes to make by focusing on typologically unrelated languages is: (a) to shed some light on the impact of typological differences on codeswitching; (b) to provide additional insights regarding the theory of codeswitching. In pursuing the goals of this dissertation, the next few sections of this chapter will address the micro-level interactional and macro-level societal factors which tend to be somehow influential in a Swedish/Persian language contact situation. The second part of the chapter will return to research in codeswitching and will briefly outline a few sociolinguistic and

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structural approaches. The remaining sections will introduce the goals of the study, the subjects and the methodology. Chapter two offers an outline of different approaches to codeswitching constraints. In general, all these surveys of constraints fall into six major groups. The chapter outlines the proposals that have been most popular in each group and have raised the most debates in the literature. The second part of this chapter will touch on the controversial issue of borrowing versus codeswitching. Chapter three presents an outline of Persian grammar. A few grammatical features of Swedish are also outlined briefly. The aim is to present the grammatical features which have bearing on the analyses of data. Chapter four will introduce the data for single word insertions. Special attention will be given to the formation of Swedish/Persian bilingual complex verbs. One major issue that is discussed in this chapter is that specific requirements of the Persian verb system that cannot be fulfilled by the Swedish system are driving forces behind the formation of these bilingual verbs. Chapter five will introduce the data for multi-word phrasal insertions and switches occurring at the clause boundaries. Chapter six is concerned with two main issues: (a) highlighting typological features that have a significant impact on Swedish/Persian codeswitching, and (b) establishing a relationship between the differences in these features and the codeswitching properties observed in the present data. The different approaches to CS constraints are taken up again in this chapter and are evaluated in terms of the data. The chapter closes with a summary highlighting the major facts characterizing the data and a conclusion. Chapter six then may be seen as the core of the study. Finally, chapter seven brings together all the major findings that have emerged from the earlier discussions and offers suggestions for future research. 1.2 The past as a precondition to accept the present As mentioned in the introduction, for a proper understanding of the bilingualism and language use behavior of a given immigrant population, we need to examine the micro-level interactional and macro-level societal factors which link the background conditions to the present. The fact is that the immigrant population adjusts to the new inputs and current needs of their new country depending on the conditions they have faced in the past. In the following sections, I will provide a general description of Swedish society and its policy in regard to the immigrant population, followed by the background and present situation of the Iranian immigrant population in Sweden.


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1.2.1 Immigrants in Sweden Multi-ethnicity and multilingualism as a result of immigration are new phenomena in Swedish society. Until recently, Sweden was ethnically and linguistically homogenous compared to other nations in Western Europe. Hyltenstam and Arnberg (1988:475) reported that “compared with a number of European and other countries, the majority population of Sweden is composed primarily of one ethnic group with few foreign elements”. In the 1950s, following the Second World War, Sweden became an attractive country for immigrants who sought work in the West. The largest groups of these labor market immigrants came from Finland, the former Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey. The early pattern of economic migration was succeeded by a pattern of social and political migration. From the second half of the 1960s and particularly during the 1980s, large groups of immigrants from Latin America, the Middle East, the Far East and Africa moved to Sweden mainly for political and social reasons. This wave of migration was received by Swedish society with intolerance and puzzlement. Sweden’s experience with immigration and multiculturalism had been very limited. Today, in 2002, Swedish society has become more accustomed to this cultural diversity. However, as shown by Graham & Khosravi (1997), the intolerance of the majority group, which conceals a lack of ‘certainty and trust’, has not yet been totally overcome. For instance, Arabs and Serbs are the least popular immigrant groups in Sweden (SIFO 1993). The Arabs’ low standing may reflect anti-Muslim sentiments, which are relatively strong in Sweden. The attack on a mosque in Trollhättan outside Gothenburg in 1993 and bomb threats in the spring of 1995 against a basement which was being used as a mosque in Stockholm are two incidences which reveal current public fears and anti-Muslim sentiments (Graham & Khosravi 1997). Geographic distribution of immigrants Immigrants can be found all over the country, from the north to the south. A large number of these populations are concentrated in urban areas and in big cities like Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. Immigrants in Stockholm are concentrated in dense immigrant populated suburbs like Rinkeby, Tensta, Hjulsta, and Akalla, in the northwest, and Skarpnäck and Botkyrka to the south of Stockholm. A small number of Iranian immigrants who emigrated before the 1980s and have been able to transfer their assets to Sweden have established better economic conditions. This group, which is in the minority, live in prestigious areas like Täby and Danderyd.

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The distribution of immigrant populations in particular suburbs has gradually created an ethnically segregated situation in Stockholm. Even the Swedish language spoken by some immigrants residing in Rinkeby (one of the suburbs heavily populated by immigrants) is labeled Rinkebysvenska ‘Rinkeby Swedish’. Rinkebysvenska has been described as a dialect or pidgin-like variety of Swedish which is used by certain immigrants who have spent many years in suburbs like Rinkeby (Kotsinas 1989). As Kotsinas reports (1989:71), immigrant children living in areas populated by immigrants such as Rinkeby are exposed to a linguistic environment which is different from that of children living in more monolingual Swedish-speaking areas. Kotsinas asserts that, as a result, teenage groups exposed to this diversified linguistic environment use varieties of Swedish which are slightly different from standard Swedish, especially in informal conversation. There is however no scientific evidence to support the concept of Rinkebysvenska. According to Stroud and Wingstedt (4-5/1989), the concept only contributes to creating utanförskap (‘outsideness’) for aliens and is used as a tool for segregation. Stroud and Wingstedt point out that: “public interest and focus on Rinkebysvenska as a language variety mirrors a sort of fear of the influence of immigrants on the language and this is a very common attitude in Western society where language functions as a national unifying factor”. There is an obvious risk, according to Stroud and Wingstedt, that Rinkebysvenska will become a concept with the same negative value and potentially stigmatizing consequences as the concept of “semilingualism”. The latter concept is associated with the “bad”, “defective” Swedish of immigrant minorities in Sweden. In 1968 Hansegård introduced the notion of semilingualism in the discussion in Sweden. The term halvspråkighet (semilingualism), which refers to the imperfect learning of two languages, was used to characterize the poor knowledge of both Finnish and Swedish of Finnish-speaking children in Tornedalen. Hansegård claimed that the children’s skills in the mother tongue would have important implications for their achievement in school. He recommended that a child’s primary-school education be given in his or her native language. According to Hansegård, insufficient skills in the child’s mother tongue would lead to semilingualism (poor knowledge of both languages). The notion of semilingualism has been a major factor in political and educational arguments in favor of creating language classes taught in the student’s mother tongue. Sweden’s policy with respect to immigrant rights and the nativelanguage classes is briefly described in the next section.


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Immigrant rights: native language instruction Sweden’s policy regarding immigrant and minority rights is explained in relation to three main objectives: equality, freedom of choice and partnership. Freedom of choice has entitled immigrants to maintain their home language and to use it in all necessary and desired situations which are demanded by the linguistic environment. Based on this policy, all immigrant students whose mother tongue is other than Swedish are entitled to receive native language instruction during their pre-school, primary, secondary and upper secondary school education. The goal of this program, which was enacted by the Swedish parliament in the “Home Language Reform Bill” in 1977, is to provide the opportunity for individual immigrants to develop and maintain their home language. As shown by Sahaf (1994), Paulston (1988) argues that the purpose was to provide “active bilingualism” and was developed in respect to two central questions: 1. Whether or not the mother tongue should be used in instruction and if so, 2. What form mother-tongue instruction should take: bilingual or monolingual (Ibid. p 503) (Adopted from Sahaf 1994) The general research findings on the two questions above led to the selection of the mother-tongue class model. Bilingual teachers who are familiar with the student’s mother tongue and ethnic background teach these classes. The instruction program focuses on the special language needs of each individual immigrant child. Since the early nineties the state has made considerable cuts in the budgets allocated to native-language programs. The National Board of Education, which was the body responsible for organizing and financing the program, has also been abolished. At the present time, municipalities are responsible for the cost of the classes. Paulston (1988) predicts that neither the very liberal Swedish educational language policies of mother-tongue instruction nor the low Swedish tolerance of cultural differences will succeed in preserving the mother tongues of immigrants over a few generations. According to Paulston, access to public schools and thus to the national language as well as the availability of jobs will pave the way for assimilation of immigrant minorities and shift these minority languages.

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1.2.2 Iranian immigrants in Sweden Iranian contact with Western culture began in Iran in the 17th century. The oil economy was the primary reason for opening the borders to the West and the influence of Western culture. Emigration was not a relevant phenomenon in Iran until the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980. The war (1980-1988) brought about such disastrous consequences for the country that a large percentage of the population was enforced to emigrate abroad. It can be argued that large-scale emigration to the United States or Western Europe in early 1980’s is a new phenomenon which began with the Iran-Iraq war. The largest population of Iranian immigrants resides in the US. The majority of Iranians in Sweden and in other countries are members of well-educated upper middle-class or middle-class families from urban areas. The high-economic cost of fleeing Iran meant that only middleclass and upper middle-class families could afford to emigrate. This constitutes a difference between Iranians and labor migrants from other countries who migrated to Sweden during the 1950s and 1960s, as well as with many other refugee groups who have arrived since the early 1970s. The categories of Iranian immigrants in Sweden and the reasons for emigrating since the mid-1980s have changed considerably compared to those of pre-war emigration. Pre-war emigration was generally for education or entrepeneurship. Post-war emigration involved a combination of different social, political and economic factors. Generally, the majority of post-war Iranian emigrants are either young men who fled the war or political refugees. The great majority of post-war Iranian immigrants arrived in Sweden during the mid-1980s. In 1979, the number of Iranians residing in Sweden was only 2,200, the majority being visiting students. In 1983 they numbered 4,554 (Lithman 1988:224). In 1997, there were 54,000 Iranians in Sweden, including children born in Sweden with Swedish citizenship (Graham & Khosravi 1997). The figure in 2001 was 60,000. History and language Iranian history, language and culture are deeply rooted in ancient civilization. The history of Iran dates back nearly three thousand years. It was at the beginning of the first millennium B.C. that Iranian tribes settled the plateau of Iran. Persian, the official language of Iran, also emerged nearly three thousand years ago from Indo-European origins. The name Persian (Farsi) is based on the summer capital of the Achaemenians’ dynasty (591-331 B.C.) in an area known as Pars in what is now southern Iran. The name Pars was later arabicized to Fars.


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After the Achaemenians, whose official language was Old Persian, the Persian language evolved under the succeeding empire, that of the Sassanids (c. A.D. 225-651), whose official language was “Pahlavi”, a western dialect derived from Middle Persian. Evidence and documents of Iranian languages are only available for two most important branches: Old Persian and Avestan. Old Persian is the name of the language spoken in Pars during the dynasty of the Achaemenian kings. The oldest historical traces of Old Persian are 27 inscriptions of the battles and victories of these kings, from Cyrus the Great (521-486 B.C.) to Ardeshir III (359-338 B.C.). These inscriptions are carved on sides of mountains in the cities of Hamedan and Kermanshah in the western Iran (Khanlari 1994). The most important and extensive inscriptions are those of King Darius the Great at Bistun and Persepolis. The inscriptions carved on mountains are written in three languages: Old Persian, which was the kings’ mother tongue, the Elamite language and Babylonian. During the first half of the nineteenth century, European scholars succeeded in understanding these inscriptions. The most important sources of information about social thought in ancient Persia are the traditions of the Zoroastrian religion, which are recorded in Avesta, the religious book of the Zoroastrians. Iran’s ancient history also reflects a great variety of influences from many other cultures such as that of the ancient Greeks. The influence of the ancient Greeks begins with the fall of the first Persian Empire, when Alexander the Great conquered Iran in 330 B.C. The Arab occupation of Iran in 641 A.D. also had an impact on the Iranian culture and religion. The Arabic-speaking Muslim ruling classes and the culture of the Abbasid court in Baghdad were dominant in Iran between the seventh to tenth centuries. As Dorian (1981) puts it, “language in a fascinating way is inter-woven with other important factors of social life, including education, politics, religion, and nationalistic movements”. Although Iranians believed in the ideology of Islam and accepted it as the official religion of the country, the Arab occupation could not conquer the Persian language. Nationalistic sentiments resisting the dominance of Arabic protested against the dominance of this language. For the first time, Iranian nationalists far from Baghdad, in the city of Khorasan in northeast Iran, led the movement against the power of Arabic. By the eleventh century Persian once again dominated over Arabic. After the Arab conquest between the seventh to ninth centuries, Persian reemerged in its modern form of “Pahlavi” mixed with words borrowed from Arabic. The influence of Arabic in Persian is reflected in the enormous number of Arabic words borrowed into the Persian lexicon. However, Persian has survived against the power of Arabic as the official and dominant language of the country over the past eleven centuries. Other Iranian lan-

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guages like Kurdish and Baluchi are also spoken in the west and east of the country. Turkic languages such as Azeri in the northwest, Ghouchani and Turkmenian in the northeast, and Qashqaii in the southwest are also widely spoken. The religious minorities speak Armenian and Georgian. However, the means of instruction in public schools across the country is Persian, while Arabic and English are taught in schools as second languages. The social conditions prevailing in the lives of Iranians in Sweden According to Fishman (1991) the nature of threats to ethnic languages in the United States results from the difficulties faced by all American minorities in adjusting or regulating themselves to the ethno-linguistic influences imposed from the dominant American cultural environment. The threats are not essentially different from those experienced by other minority languages if they are spoken by speakers who are socially regarded as belonging to low status groups and confront an inhospitable climate in their host countries. Fishman asserts that, in general, the more prestigious status a group has, the greater its economic and political control is over its own culture, and if it has a strong tradition and history which it prides itself on, as well as an ethnic language which has value, then the greater the chances are that the group will survive as a distinct ethno-linguistic group. As mentioned previously, many Iranians in Sweden come from wellto-do, highly-educated families from Tehran or other large cities in Iran. Graham & Khosravi (1997) describe the Iranians as follows: “they resemble Westerners in certain aspects of social life such as ambition, degree of travel to different countries, good command in speaking English, style of dressing, and so on”. The authors claim that this picture of Iranians is puzzling for Swedes. They expect to see Iranians as backward orthodox Muslims. As they phrase it, “Swedes do not know much about Iran and in their eyes Muslims are generally associated with the character of backwardness”. The old Persian history and culture, along with the rather wealthy position Iran has in the Middle East, give Iranians the character of an ethnic group that is not conscious of its social identity. Iranians also have high ambitions and expectations that may not be fulfilled in their new country. Adopting Fishman’s (1989) definition of immigrant groups, Iranian immigrants may fall into the group of “disappointed ethnic pro-elite, who discourage language shift and favor language maintenance”. Iranians in Sweden believe that they have been treated as secondhand marginal members of society. They make the following comments in reaction to their low standing in Sweden:


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We are always black heads ‘svartskallar’ in the eyes of Swedes. We can never make a career and are isolated all the time (adopted from Graham & Khosravi 1997). Or: Discrimination exists in this society... I broke off my college studies because I did not want to work with Swedes. It felt oppressive (adopted from Graham & Khosravi 1997). According to Giles, Giles et al. and Turner and Giles (1977, 1981,1983), when subordinate group members find that their social status is lower than the out-group, they may use group strategies rather than individual strategies in order to achieve a more positive social identity. The group might assimilate into the dominant group culturally and linguistically or they may enter into direct social competition with the out-group. Iranian immigrants in Sweden and the younger generation in particular believe that their subordinate status has potential to improve. Through indirect social and academic competition with the out group, they attempt, to change the negative views that are attached generally to the invandrare (‘immigrants’) in Sweden. To Iranian parents whose main reason for emigration to Sweden was the prosperity of their children, loyalty to their ethnic cultural values and opposition to the dominance of Swedish culture are of high value. There is much in Swedish social relations concerning the life style of youths that is not appreciated by parents. They advise their children to respect and to be loyal to their own cultural values. Youths adopt more of the Swedish values than their parents would like, but still respect the parents’ interests. In Iranian families it is natural that family goals take the place of individual ones. Individual decisions will be rejected if they are in conflict with those of other members of the family and particularly the parents (Hoseini 1997). Nonetheless, most minority groups are, above all, pragmatic and this usually implies some degree of assimilation. In other words, feelings of dissatisfaction with Western life do not mean rejecting all Western values. Parents realize that a combination of values from both sides is of use for the success and fortune of the younger generation and advise them to draw benefits from both sides. This implies that collective strategies adopted by parents and young people can be seen as a way to assimilation but also as resistance against assimilation. The influence of social networks on the use of Persian Variation in the linguistic behavior of immigrant communities may correspond to two factors: a) residing in an area densely populated by immigrants, and b) the network ties of each individual speaker. Network ties are defined

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as people with whom we make friends and whom we depend on for moral and social support. The importance of the residential area and the establishment of network ties for the survival of an ethnic language has been given great emphasis in the literature. Fishman (1991), studying the situation of Spanish as well as two other minority languages (Navajo and Yiddish) in the US, finds that the survival of these languages is in danger in quite different ways. According to Fishman, residential concentration and the establishment of network ties between the younger and older generations play significant roles in the survival of these threatened languages. In the case of Iranian immigrants, the social ethnic ties between families are very strong. The majority of the population has established network ties mainly with other Iranians. This would mean that the use of Persian in intragroup communication goes over Swedish. However, the Iranian speech community has accepted that young speakers may use both languages in intra-peer-group communication. This also implies that codeswitching is a socially accepted speech style among younger speakers. Nevertheless, even among young people, social networks, classmates, friends and neighbors operate as a norm maintenance mechanism and constrain the language behavior of those who tend to go beyond the norms of the group. This suggests that blame is placed on the choice of Swedish in situations where the group considers it over-using and that the speaker is accused of ignoring his identity and of being Swedish-like. The situation is promising and positive in the sense that it would encourage bilingualism in these groups and may lead to the maintenance of Persian for a longer period of time than is expected. Fishman (1991) predicts that “so long as the minority group uses its ethnic language in intragroup communication and the majority language is employed for interaction with the majority, the situation indicates the progress towards the groups’ bilingualism rather than the shift of their language”. The strength of the ties with the country of origin is also very important. Many Iranian families keep strong ties with relatives in Iran through travel. In recent years the national airline of Iran, Iran Air has provided facilities for travelling to Iran via cheap, non-stop direct flights between Tehran and Stockholm. As Ad Backus mentions (p.c.), the contacts with the home country make young people aware of monolingual norms and slow down the language convergence processes. For instance, older Norwegian immigrant communities in the US did not have much contact with their country of origin, and started diverging towards a new norm, a new dialect of Norwegian, within a generation.


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The influence of macro-level institutional support Macro-level societal factors are very influential in the survival of ethnic minority groups and in determining the overall strength of the group. In this regard representation of an ethnic group in the media, in education, government, religion and culture are thought to be crucial. The Swedish State’s policy with respect to freedom of choice of the mother-tongue in an appropriate language environment, and mother-tongue instruction for immigrant and ethnic minority groups are regarded as positive factors which reflect the state’s support of minority languages. Swedish State radio and private radio channels run by Iranians broadcast daily programs in Persian. In addition, Iranian National Television runs an international channel in Tehran that broadcasts programs in Persian, English and French to Europe and the United States for Iranians abroad. The existence of radio and television programs in ethnic languages clearly promotes language learning and encourages language maintenance (Giles 1977; Fishman 1991). The Swedish media’s treatment of immigrants has been partly positive and partly negative. It has been negative in the sense that the occurrence of a very limited event has been generalized to all immigrant groups (cf. Sahaf 1994). It has been positive in the sense that in early 2001 a Swedish daily paper (Svenska Dagbladet) published several articles about the background and present conditions of the Iranian population in Sweden and has discussed in a positive way that the population has made remarkable social and educational progress. The positive and negative impacts of micro-level and macro-level factors of the language contact situation are attested in Sahaf’s (1994) sociocultural survey of the problems affecting the bilingualism of 28 Iranian upper secondary school immigrant students in Sweden. Sahaf finds traces of a cultural dualism (mini-culture in his terminology) among young Iranians which emerge from a combination of both ethnic and majority values. As noted by Sahaf (1994:217): ...Iranian students in Sweden desire to maintain their heritage culture and language skills as well as their identity as Iranians. Meanwhile, they believe that immigrants, if they want to keep their equilibrium with their ecosystem, can no longer be attached solely to one definite value system. Sahaf’s survey reveals that the lack of contact with their ethnic group or the lack of any positive influence of ethnic values results in three distinct diverse or heterogeneous groups of young Iranian immigrants. According to Sahaf, the group who could not keep a balance between the power of the two systems due to the lack of positive influence from their ethnic value systems

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and those of the host country is insecure and feels rootless. Those students, who fall in this group, because of their insufficient acquisition of Swedish, were most likely to drop out of school. A second group who adopted more values from the majority culture than its ethnic culture is emotionally unstable, depressed and suffer from identity confusion. The third group, the successful group, could establish a balance between the power of the majority’s cultural values and their home values. Aspects of cultural dualism were found in this group. They identified themselves as ‘The Iranian Immigrants in Sweden’ but not as ‘Iranians’ alone (Sahaf 1994). In sum, under what circumstances a person wishes to stay bilingual, or reject one language in favor of another, depends partly on the influence of micro-level interactional factors like the community’s speech norm, residential area, social network ties, and partly on positive or negative influences from the majority culture. Sahaf’s survey shows that individuals who have found their future in pragmatism and combined positive values from both cultures are the successful group. The balanced type of bilingualism develops among this culturally balanced group. The present study is concerned with the bilingual behavior of the young teenage Iranian immigrants who may fall into Sahaf’s successful group. The following sections will take up codeswitching phenomena, followed by presenting the goals of the study, the subjects and the methodology. 1.3 Codeswitching phenomena The earliest definition of codeswitching dates back to Weinreich (1953:73), who gives a situational character to it and defines the ideal bilingual as an individual: who switches from one language to the other according to appropriate changes in the speech situation (interlocutors, topic, etc), but not in unchanged bilingual situation, and certainly not within a single sentence. In more recent studies of CS, it has been thought that codeswitching goes beyond what Weinreich proposed in 1953 as the “use of the two languages alternately” and even occurs within a sentence (cf. Pfaff 1997). With respect to structural forms of codeswitching, there is general agreement with the division proposed by Poplack (1980). According to Poplack codeswitching may be intersentential, intrasentential or may involve syntactically independent switching of tags. Within the realm of intrasentential switching, depending on the aims and interests of researchers, different terms have been used to refer to this type of switching. For instance, Poplack (1980), Sankoff and Poplack (1981), Woolford (1983), Joshi (1985) and


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Stenson (1990) use the term codeswitching to refer to intrasentential codeswitching. The term code-mixing is also sometimes used to refer to intrasentential switching. DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh (1986) use the term code mixing for intrasentential codeswitching. Muysken (1995, 2000) has used the term “code-mixing” to refer to all cases where lexical items and grammatical features from two languages appear in one sentence, reserving the term codeswitching for language alternation. For Muysken language alternation may take place in the middle of a clause as well (Muysken 2000:4). The status of intrasentential codeswitching has been greatly disputed. Some linguists viewed it as indicative of imperfect language acquisition, interference, or poor socio-linguistic behaviors (cf. Toribio 2001). However, based on subsequent studies, it is now universally held that intrasentential codeswitching is rule-governed, systematic and reflects the operation of underlying syntactic principles. As mentioned in the introduction, the primary purpose of structural studies of codeswitching since the 1970’s has been to explore the grammatical constraints that restrict codeswitching forms. In general, research exploring these constraints has undergone three stages since 1970 (cf. Muysken 2000). The earlier studies (from the 1970s) proposed that codeswitching is restricted by different language-specific constraints (Pfaff 1979). The objective of more recent work (starting from around 1980) has been to find universal explanations when looking for grammatical constraints (Poplack 1980; Sankoff and Poplack 1981; Sridhar & Sridhar 1980; Woolford 1983, 1985; Joshi 1985; DiSciullo, Muysken, and Singh 1986; Myers-Scotton 1993b, [Afterword 1997], 1999; Belazi et al. 1994; Santorini & Mahootian 1995; MacSwan 1997). In analyses of codeswitching from the early 1980s, the notion of grammatical equivalence played an important role. One of the crucial assumptions made in 1980 (Poplack 1980) is that the equivalence between the grammars of the two languages facilitates bilingual codeswitching. However, this assumption has met with cross-linguistic challenges. In recent years considerable attention has been devoted to exploring codeswitching in the context of Chomsky’s Principles and Parameters Theory (1981,1986). This line of analysis was initiated by Woolford (1983) in a generative model for codeswitching and was followed by DiSciullo et al. in the Government Constraint Model (1986) and by Belazi et al. in the Functional Head Constraint Model of Codeswitching (1994). Mahootian (1993) also proposed a Null Theory of Codeswitching in generative terms. Thus far, a precise formulation of mechanisms governing CS has not been developed. The proposals have been refined and elaborated, yet there is still no agreement with respect to general properties of the process. As was stated in the introduction, at the present stage scholars are looking for new perspectives. As Muysken (2000) phrases it, “what alterna-

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tive mixing strategies are there and are constraints perhaps relative to a particular strategy?” What makes codeswitching even more problematic is its multi-faceted nature. Variation in the bilingual speech communities with respect to speech norms, language use behavior, and typological characteristics of languages involved manifests itself in codeswitching and leads to variation in switching patterns (Poplack et al.1988; Muysken 1995, 2000; Halmari 1997). Muysken (1995, 2000) suggests that the study of codeswitching can contribute to resolving one of the crucial questions in modern linguistics: the division of labor between the lexicon and the grammar of a language. The question to be investigated is to see to what extent CS patterns derive from the interaction between the two lexicons and to what extent they do from the general rules of the languages. Muysken therefore explores the implications of the study of code-mixing for a central hypothesis that he introduces as below: All differences between languages are ultimately lexical in nature. A particular language results from the interaction between the specific properties of a particular lexicon and a set of universal linguistic principles. All parameters can be derived from lexical properties, and in many cases these are properties of functional categories. (Muysken 2000:37) Following Muysken’s hypothesis, differentiation between languages results from “different ways in which two autonomous modules, the lexicon and the grammar, interact” (2000:51-52). Muysken’s point is that, many word meanings in the content lexicon are relatively constant across languages, whereas there are great differences in the degree of lexicalization and grammaticalization of semantic dimensions as functional categories, and lexical forms are rather different. The conclusion proposed by Muysken is that “syntax is operant within lexical structures, but is constrained by their possibilities”. Codeswitching patterns attested in Swedish/Persian bilingual speech clearly testify to the fact that we can not reduce differences between the two languages to the lexicon. We need both the syntax and the lexicon to understand the data. One source of evidence is Persian/Swedish complex verbs. The interaction between the semantics of the direct object and its syntactic position in the regular subject-verb construction as opposed to the object in native Persian or Swedish/Persian bilingual complex verbs provide evidence that we need both syntactic and semantic explanations. Ghomeshi and Massam (1994) take evidence from this contrastive position of objects in Persian


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to argue for the view that “semantic features associated with different syntactic positions cannot be overtly projected from the lexicon”. Other patterns attested in Swedish/Persian bilingual speech also provide evidence that differences in phrase structures play an important role and have a bearing on codeswitching patterns. I will take up these issues in chapter 4 and 7. Codeswitching vs. borrowing A serious problem in this field of research over the last three decades has been demarcation between codeswitching and borrowing. Some years ago, when I first collected data on codeswitching, I tried to distinguish which single Swedish words in Persian utterances are borrowings and which ones are codeswitches. Making such a distinction by employing a clearly established criterion was impossible. There was a wide range of proposals and ambiguous cases, and there was no explicit criterion available according to which I could base such distinctions. Problems in distinguishing between codeswitching and borrowing began when some researchers excluded the single-lexeme forms from codeswitching and counted them as borrowings. The term borrowing refers to alien language items that have been integrated to the recipient language (Poplack 1980). The traditional criteria for distinguishing between borrowing and codeswitching, which have been used by Poplack et al. (1980, 1981), are syntactic, morphological and phonological integration in the recipient language. Lexical items, which are syntactically, morphologically and phonologically adapted to the recipient language, are counted as borrowings. However, it is not clear whether morphologically assimilated but phonologically unassimilated items should be treated as instances of codeswitching or borrowings (cf. Halmari 1997:176). Myers-Scotton refutes morphological, phonological and syntactic integration criteria on the grounds that the degree of integration of borrowing forms is not useful in distinguishing codeswitching forms from borrowing. Myers-Scotton (DL 1993) proposes that codeswitching or borrowed forms are subject to the same production procedures, but that their outcomes are different. She asserts that the most reliable criteria for distinguishing a difference in the statuses of codeswitching and borrowing forms are their absolute and relative frequency. As she phrases it, “codeswitching forms have little recurrence value while borrowing forms have absolute frequency”. This work follows Myers-Scotton (DL 1993) in that borrowing forms and codeswitching forms fall across a continuum, and then gradually over time may spread across the speech community as borrowings. Codeswitching versus borrowing and the nonce borrowing phenomenon will be

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discussed in chapter 2. Here it suffices to mention that for the purposes of this study, all constituents switched from one language to the other will be treated as instances of codeswitching. However, names and culture-specific words (e.g. tunnelbana ‘subway’, midsommar ‘midsummer’ and so on) that are recurrently used by Iranians in Sweden either monolingual or bilingual are excluded from the count of the present data. The specifics of integration also depend on the structure of the languages involved. Swedish single words in the present data might be partially or fully integrated in Persian morphosyntax. Should words that are syntactically integrated but morphologically unintegrated be treated as codeswitches or borrowings? In defining codeswitching and borrowing, this sort of difference is not taken into account. A number of inserted single Swedish words in the present data are bare infinite verbs that are syntactically integrated in Persian and occur along with the Persian auxiliary kardan ‘to do’. The relatively high occurrence of these Swedish bare infinitive verbs in Persian speech can be taken as a good indication that along the time continuum they may become fully accepted borrowings in Persian and be used by both monolingual and bilingual speakers. Before that happens and considering that at this point of synchronic contact between Persian and Swedish only bilingual speakers make use of these single Swedish words, they are treated in this study as codeswitches. Sociolinguistic approaches to codeswitching As was mentioned in introduction, research in codeswitching has been carried out by researchers from different disciplines with diverse approaches and perspectives. Within broadly linguistic studies of codeswitching, the main interest has been to explore the grammatical aspects of phenomena. The social and communicative significance of codeswitching has been well discussed by sociolinguists (Gal 1979; Gumperz 1982). This group of scholars posit that, in any given bilingual community, codeswitching may be a norm of communication conveying a number of communicative intentions or it may just be a mode of conversation encoding common purposes. John Gumperz (see, for example, Gumperz 1971, 1982) stands out as the most influential figure in the study of interactional aspects of bilingualism (cf. Wei 1994). Gal (1979), and Myers-Scotton (Markedness Model 1993a), among others, are also influential in studying the intentional and communicative purposes associated with codeswitching behavior. A selection of these authors’ work is reviewed in the following. In the study of social meaning and discourse functions of language choice carried out by Blom & Gumperz (1972) in the Norwegian village of Hemnesberget, two varieties of the same language system were used to convey two social values and relationships. Villagers alternated between the use of the two language varieties depending on the situation. In formal situations


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they used Bokmål (a standard Norwegian variety), whereas in situation of closeness and intimacy they chose Ranamål (the local variety used for daily conversation). According to Blom & Gumperz such type of choices between two language and two varieties of the same language show a direct relationship between the language and its social dimension. Blom & Gumperz also found that in some situations, with the setting and interlocutor unchanged, alternation between the two varieties was used as a symbol or “metaphor” to express a special social meaning in interpersonal relationships. They characterized the villagers’ language choices as situational and metaphorical. The work along these lines has grown both in scope and in sophistication. Gal (1979) has analyzed speaker language choice and language alternation behaviors from a micro-interactional perspective. According to Gal, “the association of the use of different languages with social groups and their activities means that the use of one language or variety of one language in most activities will be normal, culturally accepted and therefore unmarked, while the other varieties will appear to be unusual”. Gal (1979) asserts that listeners usually take such language choices as meaningful and interpret them as indicators of a speaker’s communicative intention and emotion. Gumperz (1982) links the social symbolism of metaphorical alternation between the two languages to the interactional behavior of ethnolinguistic minority groups in out-group and in-group contacts. Gumperz makes a distinction between the “we code”, which relates to the choice of languages in ingroup relations, and the “they code”, which relates to the choice of language in out-group relations. Each choice is used as a metaphor that reflects the special interactional intentions of speakers. Myers-Scotton (1993a) has also developed a Markedness Model of Codeswitching in which codeswitching is a symbol of speaker intention. The idea is that codeswitching or language alternation could be the unmarked choice for interaction or a marked choice to express a special intention. The key word in the model is “expected”. Unmarked choices are expected and do not produce any special effect. In contrast, marked choices are unusual, unexpected and encode the speaker’s social disapproval. Such a set of explanatory principles, which assign meaning and intention to the speakers’ purposes, are interesting although they may face a major problem cross-culturally. The difficulty lies in the fact that interpretation of a speaker’s intention in every culture requires a proper understanding of the implicit content. Duranti (1988) argues that “the role assigned to the speaker’s intentions in the interpretation of speech varies across societies”. According to Grice (1975), utterances succeed in conveying more information than is explicitly expressed by the words used. Kempson (1988) explains that a speaker may use a sentence to convey information quite independent of the content of her utterance. The question then is this: can we re-

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liably predict the speaker meaning and intentions when we have little experience of the conversational principles and pragmatics of the speech society? Similarly, as shown by Blom & Gumperz, the choice of the mother tongue over the majority language in every interaction situation involving immigrant bilinguals indicates that speakers want to identify themselves as belonging to the same ethnic group. In the speech situations that the present codeswitching data are recorded from, conditions of intimacy and closeness dominated. The young Iranian bilingual speakers of this study used Persian as their means of interaction without negotiating what language is to be used. The reason Persian was preferred to Swedish is obvious. The speakers belonged to the same ethnic group, understood each other and shared the same codes and principles of interpretation. These circumstances support the view that the sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic factors of the speech situation often determine which language will be the matrix language of conversations. This discussion is taken up again in addressing the matrix language of codeswitching. The next sections introduce the goals, subjects and methodological issues. 1.4 The present study This dissertation explores linguistic properties of bilingual utterances in which a single sentence is built up with constituents or clauses drawn from both languages. A constituent is defined as “any syntactic unit, either a lexical item (e.g. a noun) or a phrase (e.g. a prepositional phrase)” (Muysken 2000:61). The central question to be addressed in this study is how the grammatical properties of typologically distant languages like Persian and Swedish interact in bilingual speech. This question raises a second one: what type of grammatical constraints held for Swedish/Persian CS? This work will employ a direct research strategy to search for these questions. A key assumption that this study makes and argues for throughout is that contrasting typological properties of Persian and Swedish may limit the probability of switches. The focus is on verb systems. Differences between Persian and Swedish with respect to agreement inflection on the verb, which I believe is crucial to the way in which the languages mix, is taken as the starting point to argue that conflicts in verb paradigms have impact on Swedish/Persian codeswitching. Exploring language typological differences will be further extended to the semantic-syntactic structure of Persian complex verbs as opposed to the Swedish system. The aim of these typological investigations is assigning weight to characteristics of Persian system that are important to its role in language contact and codeswitching.


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In addition to exploring the influence of typological differences, another major concern of this work is to examine whether restrictions predicted by the different models of codeswitching constraints are compatible or incompatible with the present codeswitching data. To achieve this, the next chapter will review nine sources that have proposed constraints and principles on codeswitching. The focus of this review will be on Poplack’s (1980, 1981), Joshi’s (1985), Woolford’s (1983, 1985), DiScuillo, Muysken and Singh’s (1986), Myers-Scotton’s (DL 1993, [Afterword 1997]), Mahootian’s (1993) and Belazi, Rubin and Toribio’s (1994) models. Halmari’s work (1997) and MacSwan’s (1997) minimalist perspective on codeswitching will also be discussed briefly. As has emerged from earlier discussions, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic studies of language contact situations generally agree that in each situation of interaction when immigrant bilinguals are involved, the choice of the speaker’s mother tongue over the majority language indicates closeness and group belonging. In the present codeswitching data, Persian is the matrix language of conversations while Swedish constituents are embedded in a Persian frame or occur at the boundary of a Persian clause. The use of Persian as the matrix language is motivated by sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic factors of speech situation. The young bilingual subjects in this study, ‘Iranian immigrants in Sweden’ use the Persian language to express the beliefs, cultural values, and expectations that they share together with respect to their group membership. Researchers who consider it necessary or reasonable to assign a matrix language to CS have proposed different criteria to define this language. Joshi (1985) for instance assigns a matrix language to CS sentences on the basis of a parsing procedure from left to right. Joshi claims that the unidirectionality of switches in his Marathi/English data imposes structural constraints on codeswitching. Myers-Scotton (DL1993, [Afterword 1997]), also working from a matrix language perspective, suggests that one of the criteria for determining the matrix language is that inflections and most of the system morphemes (= functional elements) are provided by the matrix language. Myers-Scotton relates this to the structural dominance of the matrix language. It is not the purpose in this study to make a distinction between the matrix and the embedded language for every single instance of codeswitching. The rationale behind this is that the present Swedish/Persian codeswitching data is predominantly insertional, which – combined with the notion of asymmetry describes most of the patterns. However, a number of codeswitches are interclausal. A switched Swedish phrase or a full clause may occur at the periphery of the preceding Persian clause. In these cases and also where more complex insertions are involved, inflection on the finite

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verb is taken as the criterion to determine which language is the matrix language. 1.4.1 Some definitions Since codeswitching is a by-product of bilingualism and by definition involves bilingual speech and bilingual speakers, some of the key terms that are used throughout the dissertation to refer to a bilingual speaker and to bilingual codeswitched constructions are defined here. First of all, this study refers to a Swedish/ Persian bilingual speaker as a person who uses the two languages on a daily basis and appears to have verbal fluency in Swedish and Persian. As mentioned in section 1.3, various terminologies have been used in the literature to refer to codeswitching forms, depending on the particular interests of the researcher. However, there is general agreement with Poplack’s proposal in terms of the divisions made for intersentential and intrasentential codeswitching. The term codeswitching is used in this study as a general term to refer to intrasentential, interclausal and intersentential codeswitching. The term mixing is also used for the general process of mixing. The term “intrasentential codeswitching” is used where Swedish constituents occur within the boundaries of a Persian sentence. The term “insertion” refers to cases where a single Swedish word or a Swedish phrase is embedded/inserted in the overall structure of Persian (cf. Muysken 2000). A portion of codeswitches in the data corpus consists of Swedish phrases that occur at the periphery of a Persian matrix clause or are full clauses that follow the preceding Persian clause. The term “interclausal codeswitching” is used to refer to this type of codeswitches, reserving the term “language alternation” for cases where the speaker alternates between languages in turn-taking. The term “intersentential CS” will be used to refer to switches between two sentences. One methodological issue also needs to be clarified at this point. It may occasionally be mentioned that some type of mix is grammatical, acceptable or odd-sounding. These judgments are based on my own Swedish/ Persian bilingual intuitions. Acceptability is determined in terms of Persian. We may have two mixes. One is acceptable in terms of Persian and one is not. 1.4.2 Subjects The codeswitching data for the aims of this dissertation were collected from tape-recordings of spontaneous conversation involving young Swedish/Iranian bilingual speakers. It is crucial that all subjects used in codeswitching research are fluent bilinguals and are selected from communities in which codeswitching is not a stigmatized behavior (cf. MacSwan 1997).


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As was pointed out earlier, in the Persian speech community from which the subjects of this study were selected, codeswitching among young teenage groups is not socially stigmatized. However, some participants were used to codeswitch more than others. Two kinds of data data were collected from three different groups: (i) recordings of spontaneous speech involving 19 young bilingual speakers (ii), note-taking for the spontaneous speech of an individual young bilingual speaker, (iii) note-taking and observations of codeswitching behaviors in an older group. Approximately 11 hours of spontaneous speech was recorded from conversations among the above 19 speakers in informal gatherings (lasting between 60-90 minutes in each session). Recordings were performed during the spring terms of 1993-1996. At the time of the recordings, these young speakers were attending upper-secondary school at five different Swedish high schools (upper secondary schools) in Stockholm. The ages of the subjects at the time of recording ranged from 17-24 years. The conversations were first recorded at Tensta High School in Tensta. Tensta is a suburb in the northwest of Stockholm populated by immigrants. My first contact with the young students at Tensta High School goes back to spring term 1992, when I prepared a preliminary sociolinguistic survey of the language contact situation between Persian and Swedish. This preliminary survey served to sketch an overall view of Swedish/Iranian young groups, their language use behavior and their social network contacts. Conversations of the second group were recorded at Åsö and Skärholmen High Schools. Åsö is located in downtown Stockholm and Skärholmen is in a southern suburb of Stockholm. The students studying in these schools live in areas stretching from downtown Stockholm to its southern suburbs. Downtown Stockholm has a relatively small immigrant population (see Maria-Gamla Stan in table 1.1). The third group of young subjects was studying at the upper secondary level at Åva High School in Täby, a suburb north of Stockholm. Täby differs from other suburbs in that the immigrant population living in Täby is considerably smaller than in suburbs like Tensta. This implies that immigrant students at Åva High School in Täby had more contact with the young Swedes using the majority language than Tensta students did. Finally, the fourth group of subjects was recorded at Vilunda High School in Upplands-Väsby. Upplands-Väsby is also a suburb populated by immigrants and is located north of Stockholm. Table 1.1 below gives an overview of the number of foreign citizens and Swedish citizens born outside Sweden in the areas where the data were recorded:

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Disagreement in Agreement Table 1.1 Number of foreign citizens and Swedish citizens born outside Sweden Location % Spånga-Tensta 41.1 Skarpnäck 18.1 Skärholmen 36.4 Maria-Gamla Stan 13.8 Täby 13.7 Upplands-Väsby 21.6 (Source: Utredning och Statistikkontoret, Invandrare 1998)

As table 1.1 illustrates, Tensta reports the highest percentage of immigrant population, whereas Täby reports the lowest. All the bilingual speakers from the suburbs, who were recorded, were either school friends or relatives residing in the same or in neighboring areas. Most of these young boys and girls also socialized together outside school. Each of these teenage students also received instruction in their mother tongue at school. Jacqueline Toribio (p.c.) mentions that the situation itself can affect CS. Speakers will “relax their taboos” against ungrammatical switching. I do not agree with Toribio on this point because the CS behavior of the young subjects in this study, in each social setting and in each recording session, suggests their sensitivity to grammatical principles. It is true that they were close school friends and even socialized together in their free time outside of class; nevertheless, their intimacy had no effect on relaxing their CS behavior. The bilingual CS utterances were well-formed and grammatical. All these 19 young subjects form a fairly homogeneous group. They were fluent speakers of Persian and Swedish. The majority of them had completed an average of five years of formal education at Persian schools in Iran. They used both languages on a daily basis. Persian was the language of conversation at home with their parents and other family members. Swedish was the means of instruction at the Swedish schools where they received their formal education. They all had attained the upper-secondary level of education and could complete their school assignments in Swedish. Although they were fluent speakers of both languages for daily informal interactions, some of them could not achieve the same level in terms of writing skills. The young subjects’ parents came from the same ethnic background. All of the recorded subjects excluding Beh (No. 9 in table 1.2) were born and raised in Iran. At the time of the recordings, the length of residence in Sweden among the groups varied between 9-13 years.


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There were certain differences between the boys and girls with respect to their socialization and leisure-time habits. Boys were more engaged in sports, whereas girls spent their free time with their girlfriends or with their parents and people from their parents’ generation. As was mentioned, the majority of these young bilinguals socialized within their own ethnic group. One effect of socializing within the group was that it probably provided more opportunities for mixing the two languages. Kristoffer In addition to the 19 speakers above, a set of data was collected intermittently by taking notes on the spontaneous speech of one young speaker, my nephew Kristoffer. Kristoffer has had continual exposure to both language systems since infancy. However, his network ties are predominantly Swedish. I have been observing Kristoffer’s use of languages since he was six years old. Kristoffer has not received any formal education in Persian, but his spoken proficiency over time has reached the level of a fluent Persian speaker. Aged 12 until 17, he made extensive use of single Swedish words or phrases in a Persian base in speaking to his mother or me. However, Kristoffer’s codeswitches were slightly different from those of the other young speakers in that the insertions in a Persian base involved more complex Swedish phrases that share identical phrase structure with Persian. Now 19, Kristoffer’s codeswitching behavior is in the process of transition, moving from more complex insertions towards separateness of languages with little or no influence from Swedish. This means that the influence of Swedish in Persian speech is shifting towards a more balanced type of bilingualism. Selecting a group of teenage subjects There were two reasons for selecting a group of teenage Persian students. One main reason was that I assumed codeswitching is a common mode of interaction among young bilingual speakers. The young students received six hours of education in Swedish on a daily basis. They also socialized six hours a day with their own group at the school. This implies that both languages were used simultaneously on a daily basis. I assumed that exposure to such a bilingual environment would probably lead to a mixing of languages. A second reason was that I assumed young speakers could be innovators. Indeed traces of innovation were found in the bilingual speech of these teenage speakers in terms of the formation Swedish/Persian bilingual verbs.

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The older group of subjects To examine the way in which parents’ generation may mix the languages in conversation made me to collect data from four older Iranians aged 37-47. My contact with these four speakers was based on our friendship ties. These bilingual speakers are born in Iran and moved to Sweden at around the age 30. Three of them speak Persian at home with their family and use Swedish on a daily basis at work. The other speaker uses Swedish with his family and at work. The youngest member of this group (at 37) has received 12 years of formal education in Iran and has been in Sweden for less time than the others. Unlike the other three older speakers, who were not used to mixing languages, this speaker sometimes used a single Swedish word or Swedish phrases in Persian utterances. The three older members of this group have received higher education at Iranian and Swedish universities in Iran and Sweden. The length of residence in Sweden among these three speakers varied between 17-25 years (in 1996). This implies that they have been exposed to both a Persian and Swedish linguistic environment longer than the teenage groups. All the members of the older group socialized with both the Persian- and Swedishspeaking communities. One of these speakers is married to a Swede, and consequently has established closer ties with a Swedish social network than with a Persian network. However, he also socializes now and then with his Persian friends. The rest of the group has established closer network ties mainly with Iranians, although they socialize with Swedish friends as well. It is interesting to note that none of these three older Iranians were used to switching to Swedish in Persian discourse. There are different reasons that might impede bilinguals from codeswitching. One reason is that codeswitching has been a speech style that has been socially stigmatized. The negative views associated with codeswitching serve as a control mechanism and prevent bilinguals from codeswitching. What force creates this stigma among some bilinguals could be prescriptivism. That is, one language has a higher value than others. In the case of immigrant bilinguals, it can also be a loyalty to their heritage, culture and language and the desire to maintain their ethnic identity that prohibit the mixing of languages. As was mentioned, in the Persian speech community in Sweden, codeswitching is not socially stigmatized behavior. Especially it is an acceptable speech style among the younger group. However, if their parents’ generation use the same style as the young speakers, they will draw attention to their linguistic behavior and might be accused of ignoring their Iranian identity. Such attitudes probably prevent the older generation from codeswitching unless they have to. It has also been seen that in general teachers, lawyers, doctors, etc do not commonly codeswitch.


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1.4.3 Data collection procedures As established previously, all the 19 recorded speakers received nativelanguage instruction at the time of the recordings. Therefore they were most accessible in their native-language classes. Native Persian bilingual teachers offer instruction to all immigrant children at the kindergarten, primary, secondary and upper-secondary levels. Although the instruction is not obligatory, most young Iranian immigrants show a great interest in receiving formal education in Persian. Native-language teachers assisted me in getting in touch with the students. The teachers also informed me as to which speakers were known to switch back and forth between languages. In each recording session, 4-5 girls and boys took part in conversations. All of the subjects were aware that they were being recorded but they were unaware of the linguistic purposes. I explained to the students that I did not tend to evaluate their language proficiencies, but rather that I was interested in hearing how young Iranians cope with the cultural and social conditions of life in their new country. This explanation probably made the speakers feel relaxed and less conscious of the way they spoke. The topics of conversation tended to focus on cultural and social differences between Sweden and their native country. The notion of “the observer’s paradox” identified by Labov (1972:209) refers to linguistic research attempting to discover how people talk when they are unobserved while data are obtained through systematic observation. Labov mentions that we can always assume that when people know that they are observed, their speech style changes from more casual to more formal. I tried to minimize this risk. The fact that I was Iranian and a member of the community was of great advantage. Poplack (1980) points out that the most important factor in a data-collecting situation is the ethnicity of the interlocutor. Naturally, there was a reasonable degree of respect and formality between the young speakers and me. Nevertheless, for a number of reasons my presence was not an obstacle in promoting formality in the speech situation. The main reason was that data collecting did not have the character of a formal interview. Speakers were allowed to speak freely about whatever they wanted. Another important reason was that all the participants in the conversations were school friends/neighbors and even relatives. When speakers know each other and are friends, the atmosphere will be informal and conversations will be spontaneous (a version of Labov’s observer’s paradox). Another reason was that the conversation topics generated such exciting debates and opposite views between girls and boys that my presence and use of the tape-recorder were ignored. As the data reveal, in many cases speaker freely talks about love and relations between girls and boys, even though the tape recorder is on. It should be kept in mind that in Persian

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culture it is a taboo to speak about love unless you are very close friends. These examples disclose several factors that confirm: • Conversations were spontaneous • The presence of tape recorder had no effect on spontaneous speech and codeswitching behavior • My presence was quite natural and did not create formality in the speech situation 1.4.4 Transcription of data As this research work is concerned with the syntactic structure of codeswitching sentences, a great deal of caution was taken in capturing monolingual utterances before and after the part that was switched. I was careful to ensure that each inserted constituent or sequence of words switched at the periphery of a clause could be analyzed in its relevant context. To pursue this goal the following procedures were employed to transcribe the data. Tape-recorded conversations were transcribed. The conversations were checked against the written transcripts to make sure that none of the bilingual parts of the speech were dropped. If only a single Swedish word was inserted in the Persian utterance, the single word along with the preceding and the following fragment were also transcribed. Hence, each inserted element could be analyzed in its relevant discourse context. After transcription, single Swedish words were classified according to their word class and their syntactic distribution in Persian. Switched Swedish clauses were also transcribed along with the preceding Persian clause. 1.5 Codeswitching types and interspeaker differences In the first conversation session with each young group, it was evident that the insertion of single Swedish words or phrases in a Persian frame is the most common mode of codeswitching. The direction of switching was predominantly Persian-Swedish-Persian. Conversation began in Persian, Swedish constituents were inserted in Persian, and Persian was then taken up again. Although insertions were relatively common, mixing at the clause level also occurred quite frequently. However, this type of codeswitching was not common among all the speakers. Of the 19 recorded speakers, only two girls and two boys switched to Swedish at the clause level. There are a number of factors that account for the variation in codeswitching patterns. One important factor is the structure of the languages involved. Since in our case codeswitching was predominately asymmetric, insertion was the recurrent type. Another factor is attitude. As was men-


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tioned, the young subjects (excluding Kristoffer) constitute a relatively homogeneous group. The attitude factor was the same for all these young speakers. The fact that they could reach the upper secondary level of education in the Swedish system suggests that they could establish a balance between the power of the majority’s cultural values and norms and their ethnic ones. Adopting Sahaf’s (1994) distinctions between the younger groups, we could say that these Swedish/Iranian bilingual speakers were a successful group who were motivated to keep a balance between the use of two linguistic systems and were ambitious, aiming to study at a Swedish university. A third factor relevant to codeswitching patterns is language choice behavior. In general no significant differences were observed with respect to language choice (excluding two girls) or speaking skills in Persian and Swedish. All the recorded speakers used Persian at home and in interaction with their Iranian peer groups, while they were active users of Swedish at school and in a wide range of other occasions. This implies that they spoke both languages fluently. When asked to self-evaluate their bilingual competence, these young speakers stated that they speak both languages “with no problem”. However, this study will not draw any conclusion about the overall bilingual proficiencies of the speakers. The problem is that there are no clearly defined criteria by which bilingual proficiency can be measured (cf. Nortier 1990). The possible relation between codeswitching patterns and bilingual proficiency is also an important and complex issue. Poplack (1980) suggests that codeswitching behavior may be used to measure bilingual ability. She asserts that intrasentential codeswitching implies a greater degree of competence in the two language systems, whereas intersentential switches do not generally necessitate grammatical competence in both. Singh (1994) also uses codeswitching patterns as a criterion to measure the informants’ bilingualism. Singh shows that intrasentential codeswitching cannot be taken as a reflection of high bilingual proficiency, but he claims that patterns of codeswitching/mixing will indicate whether we can speak of the informants’ bilingualism or not. As shown by Singh, code-mixing is really rather uncommon amongst fluent bilinguals if we define “fluent” as meaning very competent. Singh’s perfect bilingual informants do not indulge much in codemixing and his very competent bilinguals only switch in interdiscourse/sentential positions. According to Singh, the “true bilinguals” among his Indian/English informants in Canada do not generally codeswitch at all, and when they do, they use parentheticals and things like âccâ ‘O.K.’ As emerged from earlier discussions, age is apparently a decisive factor in the Persian speech community in Sweden in predicting the occurrence of codeswitching. This implies that we should distinguish between age groups with respect to bilingual speech style. As was stated earlier, while codeswitching is a common, socially accepted speech style among the

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younger group, it is uncommon among their parents’ generation. This statement is confirmed by finding that the subjects in the older group of this study (excluding the youngest member of the group) very rarely switched to Swedish unless they were expressing a lexical concept that has no exact counterpart in Persian (e.g. bearbeta sorgen ‘to work with your grief’). This contrasts with Poplack, who did not find age to significantly influence codeswitching. If we make a distinction among the younger speakers with respect to codeswitching type, it follows that four speakers, Reza, Beh, Pan and Av (see table 1.2) primarily switch to Swedish at clause boundaries and also make use of single word insertions. The other speakers use single word or phrase insertions which would fit more easily into the matrix language. In the case of typologically dissimilar languages like Persian and Swedish, obviously, structural mapping of the languages at the clause level is the “difficult” switch type. This means that Av, Reza, Beh, and Pan produced the “difficult type” of switches. However, I avoid using codeswitching types as a tool to measure bilingual proficiencies since other speaker-related factors (i.e. psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic factors) may also be involved and need to be properly examined; otherwise it would be difficult to make reliable judgments. Kristoffer takes an intermediate position between these two subgroups. As earlier mentioned, Kristoffer’s codeswitching behavior is slightly different from the others in that there are more complex insertions from Swedish in the Persian structure. As stated previously, codeswitching was uncommon among the three older members of the older group. They used Swedish for teaching and educational purposes and could certainly draw attention to their language skills in all communicative functions either in Persian or in Swedish. Nonetheless, they very seldom mixed the languages. On the basis of these variations in codeswitching behavior, we could say that the subjects of the present study fall into four subgroups: (a) Speakers who insert a word or a phrase in Persian matrices (b) Kristoffer, who used more complex insertions from Swedish in the Persian structure (c) Speakers who switch at clause boundaries (d) Older speakers who avoid codeswitching In sum, the most common type of codeswitching among the young subjects (including the youngest member of the old group) of this study is insertional. Amongst group (a), speaker No. 7 (see table 1.2) is the one who completed three years of formal education in Iran. He produced syntactically correct,


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well-formed Persian sentences with short pauses while single Swedish words were inserted in a Persian frame. Av, Pan, Reza, and Beh codeswitched at the clause level. Av and Pan also alternated between languages in turn-taking. Recipients of these turns, in contrast, consistently answered in Persian. This contrastive choice of languages in consecutive turns proceeded throughout the conversations as an agreed mode of interaction between these two girls and the rest of the speakers. What is interesting is that none of the participants in the conversations drew attention to this contrastive choice of languages. Apparently, other speakers were used to the language alternation behavior of Av and Pan. In this sense, the choices were unmarked and conveyed no special meaning. Av and Pan also took more turns. Note that Beh, who falls into this group, was born in Sweden. He has learned Persian by speaking with his Persian peer-group friends, who persuaded him to speak Persian. At the time of recording he was also receiving formal education in native-language classes. With respect to Kristoffer’s codeswitching behavior, I agree with Singh (1994) in that perfect bilinguals do not really codeswitch unless they want to do so. I do not claim that Kristoffer is a perfect bilingual; however it is important to note that he has had continual exposure to both linguistic systems since infancy and now, at the age 19, avoids mixing languages. Backus and Heijden (1998) show that although older groups of Turkish/Dutch bilinguals have higher proficiency in Dutch than children, the pattern of intrasentential CS used by children is similar to that of fluent bilinguals. The codeswitching patterns of subjects in this study also give evidence that speakers do not in fact differ from one another in any linguistically notable way. All speakers use grammatical constructions with no errors. The only variation in the young subgroups is seen in the divergent CS types. Table 1.2 gives an overview of the younger and the older group of Iranians whose language use and codeswitching behavior were recorded and analyzed for the purposes of this dissertation. Recall that Kristoffer’s spontaneous conversations were collected via note-taking. As for the older group, only a few cases of codeswitching were noted in telephone conversations with the youngest member of the group.

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Disagreement in Agreement Table 1.2 Specifications of the subjects in the study in 1996 No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Name Naz Av Reza Pan Ars Sha Esf Mari Beh Nil Em Ham Far Farz Mor Hos Ali Ash Roh Kristoffer Zoh Pour Meh Saii

Age 23 22 24 22 21 21 19 22 19 22 24 21 23 23 23 26 22 21 23 14 37 45 45 47

Sex F F M F M F M F M F M M M F F M M M M M F F M M

R–S 9 9 12 9 9 9 9 10 Born 10 12 9 10 10 10 13 10 9 9 Born 9 15 20 23

S–I 7 6 5 6 5 5 3 6 5 5 5 6 6 6 7 5 5 7 12 Univ Univ Univ

R–S: Length of residence in Sweden (in years) S–I: Length of formal education (in years) in Persian schools in Iran Univ: University education 1.6 Summary This chapter has provided a sociolinguistic description of Swedish society and its policy in regard to its immigrant population. At various points, it was discussed that the sociolinguistic evidence suggests that positive or negative effect of macro-level societal and micro-level interactional factors are of significance for bilingualism of teenage Iranian immigrants in Sweden. The second part of this chapter has briefly discussed and reviewed a selection of grammatical and sociolinguistic approaches to the study of codeswitching. The research questions, the subjects and the methodology were introduced in the remainder sections.


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The next chapter will outline the most influential and popular linguistic studies of codeswitching, which have proposed constraints and principles on codeswitching with diverse perspectives and approaches. These models will provide the framework for the data analysis in chapter 6.

Chapter Two

Grammatical approaches to codeswitching

2.1 Introduction In the 1970s and 1980s, it occurred to researchers that codeswitching might not be just an accidental behavior and that various structural constraints may impose restrictions on switching. Since then most of the research in the field has been concerned with exploring the constraints and grammatical principles underlying codeswitching behavior (e.g. Pfaff 1979; Poplack 1980; Gumperz 1982; Bentahila & Davies 1983; Woolford 1983; Joshi 1985; DiSciullo, Muysken & Singh 1986; Nishimura 1986; Romaine 1989; MyersScotton DL 1993, [Afterword 1997], 1999; Mahootian 1993, Mahootian and Santorini 1995; Belazi, Rubin and Toribio 1994; Toribio and Rubin 1996; Backus 1996; Halmari 1997; Bhatt 1997; Boeschoten and Huybregts 1997, 1999; MacSwan 1997). This chapter outlines a selection of these grammatical approaches to CS that have been most influential and have generated the most discussion in the literature. The models outlined in this chapter offer guidance for the work in this dissertation. In chapter six the empirical predictions of these approaches will be evaluated in terms of the Swedish/Persian codeswitching data. One very controversial question in the field of research has been demarcation between codeswitching and borrowing. The present chapter also offers a critical overview of the criteria that have been used to distinguish the two phenomena. 2.1.1 The development of codeswitching research For three decades now, linguists have proposed a number of ideas on the type of constraints that may impose restrictions on codeswitching. Most of the studies from the 1970s proposed construction-specific constraints. These early studies were unrelated to linguistic theories, although they provide us with insights into the different types of codeswitching constraints (cf.

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Muysken 2000). In the early 1980s, the proposals were more general and based largely on the role of linear ordering. These proposals were primarily concerned with Spanish-English data, but other language pairs such as French-Arabic, and Hindi-English were also tested. According to the linear order proposals, CS is blocked where the word order of the languages involved is different. Pfaff (1979:314) for instance proposed that surface structures common to both languages are favored for switches. Poplack (1980, 1981), following the same line, introduced the Equivalence Constraint. Simultaneously, other researchers like Bentahila and Davies (1983) suggested that codeswitching is constrained by subcategrization rules. This model was formulated by simply invoking the subcategorization restrictions of the languages involved in codeswitching. A third group of researchers (Woolford 1983; DiSciullo, Muysken, and Singh 1986; Belazi, Rubin and Toribio 1994), working within the generative grammar framework, proposed syntactic conditions that permit possible CS and disallow impossible ones. Belazi, Rubin and Toribio (1994) pursue the view that constraints on codeswitcing are driven by the same principles that are formulated under current syntactic theories to explain the syntactic structures of monolingual grammar. Mahootian (1993), also working within the generative grammar framework, proposed another alternative. She claimed that codeswitching is not constrained by any special rules but by the general principles of phrase structure that govern monolingual sequences. Joshi (1985) and Myers-Scotton (DL 1993) proposed constraints on codeswitching from a matrix language perspective. Joshi was the first to systematically explore the importance of asymmetry between two languages in codeswitching. Myers-Scotton, also working from a matrix language perspective, has explored the functional separation of the two languages in bilingual interaction through language production models. And more recently, Boeschoten and Huybregts (1997, 1999) and MacSwan (1997) have studied codeswitching phenomena in the framework of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program (1995). In general, all these approaches to CS constraints may fall into six groups: a. b. c. d. e.

Linear order approach Subcategorization model Theory-based models Matrix language approaches No specific model of constraints (pursuing the idea that no specific rules or principles that lie outside the grammars of the languages involved constrain CS). f. A minimalist approach


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The following sections outline the proposals that have been most popular in each group and have raised the most debates in the literature. 2.2 Linear order approach: Poplack’s Equivalence Constraint As mentioned earlier, studies of codeswitching in the 1970s proposed construction specific constraints on codeswitching. In 1980, Poplack (1980) introduced a more systematic investigation of bilingual data and codeswitching constraints. Working with the Spanish-English codeswitching of Puerto Ricans in New York City, Poplack recognized that codeswitching occurs largely at sites of equivalent constituent order. Poplack stresses that the linear equivalence between the languages at the point of the switch is important. In other words, according to Poplack, nonequivalent surface configurations of elements at the switch point block switching. She formalized her hypothesis in the Equivalence Constraint Model of Codeswitching as in the following: Code switches will tend to occur at points in discourse where juxtaposition of L1 and L2 elements does not violate a syntactic rule of either language, i.e., at points around which the surface structures of the two languages map on to each other. (Poplack 1980:586) The Equivalence Constraint attracted a great deal of attention in the literature and many counterexamples, often involving typologically distant languages, were raised. A view that was also proposed by Poplack (1980) along with the Equivalence Constraint and has generated a great deal of criticism since then is that codeswitching between two languages produces a third grammar in which the lexicon and grammatical categories of both languages are involved. Bentahila & Davies (1983) were among the first researchers to recognize the problem of the Equivalence Constraint and introduced counterexamples from Arabic/French CS data. In Arabic, adjectives follow the noun. There are some adjectives in French which must precede the noun. According to the Equivalence Constraint, a switch is only possible where an adjective follows a noun since this is the only position common to both languages. However, Bentahila & Davies claimed that the following example is perfectly acceptable: (2:1) c'est le seul ustad ‘it is the only teacher’ (French/Moroccan Arabic, Bentahila and Davies 1983:319)

38


Stenson (1990) also shows that in her Irish/English codeswitching data switching between Irish noun-adjective phrases and English adjective-noun phrases as in the following example is possible: (2:2) do gheansi deas pink your

sweater

nice

‘Your nice pink sweater’ (Irish/English, Stenson 1990) Nishimura (1986) presents examples from Japanese/English (SOV/SVO) data in which switching takes place between constituents with different syntactic orders in the two languages as in the following example: (2:3) Only small prizes MORATTA NE (MN) Verb get

(past)

‘(We) got only small prizes, you know.’ (Japanese/English, Nishimura 1986) Myers Scotton (DL 1993: 28) offers African counterexamples from Swahili with a head-first NP, with English requiring a head-last NP as in the following example: (2:4) Anaonekana kama mi mtu innocent ‘He looks like (he) is an innocent person’ (Swahili/English, Myers-Scotton DL 1993) Indeed all of these counterexamples, as well as those from the data in the present study clearly show that the Equivalence Constraint does not hold true for switching between typologically different or even typologically similar languages. Hence, it cannot be regarded as a universal constraint on codeswitching. Halmari (1997:79-80), for instance, shows that word order equivalence between language pairs such as Finnish/English does not automatically lead to switching between major constituent breaks. According to Halmari, the following hypothetical sentence, which would confirm the prediction of the Equivalence Constraint, was judged as unacceptable: (2:5) *otan the bookmark... ‘I'll take the bookmark...’


39

As a result of studies involving Puerto Rican codeswitching in New York, Poplack proposed in her 1980 paper an additional principle of codeswitching: The Free Morpheme Constraint. This constraint prohibits a switch between a stem and a bound morpheme from another language. The Free Morpheme Constraint was applicable to Spanish and English code-switching. However, counterexamples were found for this constraint as well (Eliasson 1989; Stenson 1990; Halmari 1997). Eliasson (1989) finds a number of mixed forms in Maori/English data consisting of an English base with one or more Maori affixes. The following examples are adopted from Eliasson: (2:6) a. Helptia ‘be helped’ b. Changedngia ‘was changed’ (Eliasson 1989) Example (a) is a simple verb in the passive and (b) is an inflectionally composite form. Eliasson, appealing to Maori/English data, questions the reliability of Poplack’s Free Morpheme Constraint. Some researchers have suggested that Free Morpheme Constraint is only compatible with non-agglutinative languages. Yet counterexamples from non-agglutinative languages have also ruled out this constraint. The Free Morpheme Constraint is compatible with the non-mixing of Swedish verb stems with Persian verbal morphology and vice versa in the present data. However, many counterexamples are found for the Free Morpheme Constraint where Swedish noun stems and adjectives mix with Persian bound morphemes. These counterexamples are introduced in chapter six. The notion of equivalence in the surface structure, which was explored in earlier works (Pfaff 1979; Poplack 1980; Sridhar and Sridhar 1980), was further examined at more abstract levels. Bentahila and Davies were among the first researchers to argue that more abstract level equivalencies between languages involved in codeswitching account for switchability. The next section outlines Bentahila and Davies’s principle. 2.3 The Subcategorization Principle Bentahila and Davies (1983) found that in the French/Arabic codeswitching data, switching between the two languages occurred regardless of surface structure differences. In other words, Arabic-French data show no constraint

40


relevant to the difference of surface structures at the switch point; rather the possibility of codeswitching between Arabic and French was limited by subcategorization restrictions. Hence, Bentahila and Davies proposed that the subcategorization of a word would determine what elements from either language could appear in the phrase that is headed syntactically by that word. Note that application of the notion of subcategorization in Bentahila and Davies’s work is equal to sisterhood, although they do not mention this (cf. Mahootian 1993). The Subcategorization Principle is formalized as follows: “all items must be used in such a way as to satisfy the [languageparticular] subcategorization restrictions imposed on them”. For instance, in Arabic all adjectives are subcategorized as postnominal. According to the Subcategorization Principle, example (a) is possible, while (b) is not because it violates the subcategorization rule: (2:7) a. un professeur /aDim ‘a teacher excellent’ b. *un /aDim professeur ‘an excellent teacher’ (Arabic/French, Bentahila and Davies 1983) Bentahila and Davies’s Subcategorization Principle is greatly credited for its explanatory power. Other investigations were also influenced by this principle (e.g. Myers-Scotton DL 1993; Mahootian 1993). 2.4 Theory-based models of codeswitching constraints Some of the scholars inspired by the Chomskyan principles and parameters approach introduced CS data into the discussion of Universal Grammar and proposed syntactic conditions for codeswitching within the framework of generative grammar (Chomsky 1981, 1986). In the version of generative grammar that emerged in the 1980s, grammatical relations such as “government” and “binding” were important and led to the development of “Government and Binding” or GB theory. The notion of government defined in GB theory is as follows: Government: X governs Y if and only if (a) X is a governor; and (b) X c-commands Y and Y c-commands X. X and Y above correspond to any phrasal head (N, V, P, A …).


41

In the GB framework, the rules of syntax generate S-structures (surface structures). The components of the S-structure then are interpreted in (PF) phonetic form and in (LF) logical form. Figure 2.1 below demonstrates each level. Figure 2.1: The GB Framework Syntax (D-structure)

S-structure

PF

LF

In this theory of syntax, Universal Grammar (UG) was taken to be comprised of principles universal for all languages and parameters. Woolford (1983) and DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh (1986) were the first to formulate the constraints in terms of grammatical relations defined using syntactic trees. The explanatory power of theory-based proposals increased, as more alternative work become available. Mahootian (1993) used a tree-adjoining grammar (TAG) to explain CS, and Belazi, Rubin and Toribio (1994) proposed the Functional Head Constraint, proffered as a general principle of Universal Grammar. Some of the explanations for CS in the late 1990s fall within the framework of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program (Boeschoten & Huybregts 1997, 1999; MacSwan 1997). MacSwan’s analyses developed for Spanish/ Nahuatl codeswitching are restricted to mechanisms made available in the Minimalist Program. In the 1990s, Chomsky made minimalism (i.e. the requirement of minimizing the theoretical and descriptive apparatus used to describe language) the cornerstone of linguistic theory (Radford 1997). Some of the important characteristics of the Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory, which was developed by Chomsky (1995), are outlined below (adopted from MacSwan 1997). In the Minimalist Program, parameters are restricted to the lexicon. Phrase structure is also derived from the lexicon. The two central components of the model are: CHL, a computational system for human language, which is presumed to be invariant across languages, and a lexicon, to which idiosyncratic differences observed across languages are attributed. The Minimalist framework is illustrated in figure 2.2 below (adopted from MacSwan 1997).

42


Figure 2.2: The Minimalist Framework Lexicon (Rules of Word Formation) Select Numeration Overt Component (Computational System) Spell-Out PF

LF

The morphological properties of lexical items play a major role in the Minimalist Program. Each lexical item introduces features into the derivation, and these features must be checked. Feature checking mechanism has become central in the Minimalist Program. According to Chomsky (1995), the lexical categories of verb and noun are drawn from the lexicon with all of their morphological features, and these features must be checked in appropriate positions. The functional elements T and Agr, which, using Chomsky’s term are called V-features, are responsible for incorporating the features of the verb. The function of Vfeatures of an inflectional element I is to check the morphological properties of the verb, which are selected from the lexicon. Chomsky (1995) offers two assumptions if it happens that features mismatch, as in the following: a. Features cannot be checked under feature mismatch b. If features mismatch, the derivation is canceled. Works that discuss codeswitching in a minimalist framework rely heavily on the requirements of the lexical elements. MacSwan (1997, 1999) argues that a very important aspect of the Minimalist Program is that all syntactic variation is associated with the lexicon, and this opens a new way to approach


43

codeswitching. Operating from a minimalist perspective MacSwan posits the following: Codeswitching may be seen as the consequence of mixing two lexicons in the course of a derivation. The items may be drawn from the lexicon of either language to introduce features into the numeration, which must then be checked for convergence in just the same way as monolingual features must be checked (MacSwan 1997) Boeschoten & Huybregts (1997, 1999), also working from a minimalist perspective, posit that in the spirit of minimalism the differences between languages involved in codeswitching reduce to lexical differences. The grammar of CS (largely) reduces to the grammar of monolingual derivations, postulating nothing beyond the requirements of the monolingual derivation. As Boeschoten & Huybregts (1999) phrase it, “asymmetries in CS grammar reduce to asymmetries in functional categories and inflectional morphology (interpretability, feature strength) of the individual CS languages”. It is not the goal of this study to explore the constraints in terms of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program, but taking evidence from the data, I agree with Boeschoten & Huybregts that asymmetries in unified grammars are reduced to asymmetries in certain functional categories. However, it is not solely the differences in functional categories that have important bearings on the present Swedish/Persian codeswitching data. Other contrasting typological properties seem to be decisive as well. I will come back to this discussion in chapters 6 and 7. Now let us to look more closely at the models exploring the constraints in generative terms. 2.4.1 Woolford’s Phrase Structure Congruence Model Woolford is one of several researchers who attempted to explain the constraints within the generative grammar framework and in terms of GB theory. In Woolford’s model (1983), the two monolingual grammars cooperate in codeswitching but none of the rules of the two languages are changed. Woolford (1983) posits that, where the two languages share common phrase structure rules, lexical items can be freely drawn from either language to fill terminal nodes created by PS rules common to both languages. Where the PS rules or word orders are different, switching is prohibited. Thus, applying any rule of the two languages can generate a sentence, as long as they are compatible. Woolford’s Phrase Structure Congruence Model accounts well for CS between Spanish and English, which share fairly similar grammars. According to Woolford (1983), the model of Spanish/English codeswitching

44


that she introduces gives support to two assumptions of Chomsky’s (1981) formulation of GB theory: the constituent structure of NPs under X-bar theory and lexical projection of portions of the constituent structure under VP1. In X-bar theory it is assumed that a lexical head governs its complements in the phrase of which it is the head, and that INFL governs its subject when it contains AGR. A fundamental principle of syntactic representation in GB is the Projection Principle. The following is Chomsky’s (LGB, 29) formulation of this principle. Later he revises it to include thematic structure as well: Projection Principle: Representations at each syntactic level are projected from the lexicon, in that they observe the subcategorization properties of lexical items. Although Woolford’s assumptions are based on the operation of principles of formal syntax, her predictions run into difficulties where mixing within incongruent phrases (e.g. noun-adjective vs. adjective-noun phrases) become possible. As mentioned, DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh (1986), working in the generative grammar framework, also proposed constraints on codeswitching in terms of a government model, as outlined below. 2.4.2 The Government Constraint In the government perspective on codeswitching similar to Bentahila and Davies’s (1983) proposal, the relation between a lexical element and its syntactic environment plays an important role. DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh (1986) proposed the Government Constraint in terms of the syntactic theory of GB. Government is a traditional grammatical notion in GB theory. In the Government Constraint Model, switches are constrained at Sstructure by the government relationship which holds between adjacent items. DiSciullo et al. claim that switching between a lexical head (N, A, V, P) from one language and any phrase from another language is blocked if a government relationship holds between them. The notion of government is defined in DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh’s model, as explained below:

1

In X-bar theory the nodes are linked in the same hierarchical projection of a lexical head X (where X can equal N, V, A, P, Adv, I, or C). The topmost node has the most bars while other Xs that follow the top node progressively have fewer bars. The value conventially assigned to a feature is called [BAR].


45

X governs Y if the first node dominating X also dominates Y, where X is a major category N, V, A, P and no maximal boundary intervenes between X and Y. DiSciullo, Muysken, and Singh claim that there can be a neutralizing element such as a determiner intervening between the governor and governed element which would make it possible to mix the languages in a government relation. Thus, they introduce the notion of language index carrier. They postulate that, where the governed element includes a “language index carrier, Lq-carrier” in the language of the governing element, then switching between the governed element and the governor would be possible. For instance, in give the book, the determiner the is the highest lexical element in the governed DP the book. The Government Constraint predicts that codeswitching between give and book would be possible if the (language carrier) is in the language of verb (see also 6.2.4). DiSciullo et al. (1986) tested the Government Constraint using Italian-French, Italian-English and Hindi-English CS as well as previously reported Spanish-English data. Although the Government Constraint seems attractive in grounding codeswitching constraints in a larger theory of language, it makes incorrect predictions when tested on cross-linguistic data. Stenson (1990) for instance tests the Government Constraint using her Irish/English data and finds a number of switches that are not compatible with the predictions of the model. As Muysken (2000:24) points out, in particular Nortier’s Moroccan Arabic-Dutch codeswitching data (1990) are damaging for the Government Constraint. Nortier’s data show that switching between verb and direct object is permissible, as below, whereas the Government Constraint disallows such types of mixes: (2:8) anaka-ndir

intercultureel werk.

I I-am-doing

intercultural

work.

(Nortier 1990:131) Switching between subject and verb, which the model permits, occurs less frequently in Nortier’s data than switching between object and verb. DiSciullo et al. do not include INFL as a governor, and predict that since no government relation holds between the subject phrase and a VP, switching between subject and verb would thus be possible. Belazi et al. (1994) have criticized DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh’s Government Model on the grounds that it is too restrictive and makes incorrect predictions, although they agree with these scholars that the relevant constraints on CS should be stated in hierarchical terms. Belazi et al.’s Tuni-

46


sian Arabic/French data show only a subset of places where codeswitching under the government relation is impossible. The Government Constraint has been given greatest support by Halmari (1997), who tests it with Finnish/English data. According to Halmari, a slightly modified form of the Government Constraint can provide a structural explanation for her Finnish/English data. She claims that the determiner-like elements together with Finnish morphology function as the Lq-carriers in the governed elements. As such, the requirement of the Government Constraint is satisfied and the switch would be acceptable and fluent (1997:110). Halmari (1997:211) suggests that languages with rich inflectional systems need to retain their morphological features in codeswitched sentences because this morphology is inherent in the marking of government relations. She shows that the Government Constraint can account for the grammaticality of the following sentence if the Finnish case-morphology as the Lq-carrier is added to the English noun: (2:9) Tehokas siivousryhmä effective cleaning crew

clean

+as

+i

+VM +past 3sg

building +in +ACC

‘An effective cleaning crew cleaned the building’ (Finnish/English, Halmari 1997) Halmari (1997:114) notes that when the Finnish verb, or an English verb stem showing Finnish verb morphology, assigns the Finnish accusative case to its object DP, the sentence is acceptable. Ungrammaticality arises when the language of the case assignor and the case mismatch. The Government Constraint model is compatible with the present data in some cases if we assume that Persian morphology occurring with the Swedish governed element, similar to Halmari’s Finnish/English data, functions as the Lq-carriers of the governor and accounts for switchability in a government relation. Nonetheless, a switch between a Persian governor and a Swedish governed element is allowed even in the absence of an Lq-carrier in the language of the governor. What this contrast suggests is that adopting a notion like Lq-carrier does not prove to be a necessary and definite condition to explain the codeswitches occurring under the government relation. Muysken (2000) points out that, the Government Constraint as it is formulated is inadequate because it ignores the crucial role of functional categories. According to Muysken, many of the empirical problems with the Government Constraint would be resolved, if they incorporated functional elements as governors.


47

The Government Constraint still is valued for offering principled arguments similar to what GB theory posits for monolingual syntactic structures. Functional elements as governors are incorporated in Belazi, Rubin and Toribio’s (1994) Functional Head Constraint model, outlined in the next section. 2.4.3 The Functional Head Constraint The principle component of Belazi, Rubin and Toribio’s Functional Head Constraint Model (FHC) is that functional heads (i.e. quantifier, negation element, modal and INFL) determine the overall structure. Belazi, Rubin and Toribio (1994) assume that the strong relation that exists between a functional head and its complement imposes a constraint on switching between such heads and their complements. The premises of FHC are the following: Abney (1987) posits that there exists a special relation between a functional head and its complement which in Abney’s terminology is called f-selection. Belazi et al. assume that f-selection (selection by functional categories) is one member of a set of the feature-checking process which is proposed by Chomsky (1995). Belazi et al. assume that language checking is a specific application of the more general process of feature checking. They assume that “a functional head requires that the language feature of its complement match its own language feature, just as it might require some other feature of its complement to match its own corresponding feature”. The effects of the featurechecking process in its application to the language feature of functional heads and their complements are formulated in the Functional Head Constraint Model of Codeswitching (1994), as below: The language feature of the complement f-selected by a functional head, like all other relevant features, must match the corresponding feature of that functional head. (Belazi et al. 1994) Belazi et al. predict that switching between a functional head like determiner (Det) and its complement NP, between quantifiers (Q) and NP, between inflection (INFL) and VP, between COMP and its IP complement and between NEG and VP is disallowed. The Functional Head Constraint accounts for analysis of Belazi et al.’s CS data. For instance, Belazi et al. (1994) show that in the following examples a switch between quantifier and its complement NP is disallowed: (2:10) a. Ktib wrote.he

dix

livres

ten

books

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b. *Ktib

/ašra livres

wrote.he ten

books

‘He wrote ten books’ (Tunisian Arabic/French CS data, Belazi et al. 1994) They also show that switching between NEG and its complement VP is disallowed as in example(c) below: c. *Ana I

ma

l/aim-š

NEG it.like-NEG

‘I don’t like it’ Belazi et al. predict that in contrast to a restriction on switching between a functional head and its complement, switching between a lexical head (V, P) and its complement occurs quite freely. Note that at this point Belazi, Rubin and Toribio’s analysis differs completely from DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh (1986). Switch sites, which are free for Belazi et al., are blocked under the Government Constraint Model. For instance, switching between V and its object complement is a possible switch point for Belazi et al., whereas in DiSciullo et al.’s model, it is blocked by the government relation that holds between them. Halmari (1997) provides counterexamples to the FHC from her Finnish/English data, where, as illustrated in the following example, switching between the determiner and its complement is possible: (2:11) Luen yhde+n (I) read one+ACC

magazine +n +ACC

(Finnish/English codeswitching, Halmari 1997) According to Halmari, the grammaticality of the above type of sentences relates to the rich system of Finnish case morphology and is explained in terms of the government role of the verb. Halmari’s data present counterexamples to the FHC, but she does not believe that this would be enough evidence to refute the FHC entirely. Muysken (2000) posits that the main reason for violation of the Government Constraint and Functional Head Constraint is that categorical equivalence undoes the effect of government restrictions. The idea that codeswitching is permissible whenever there is categorical equivalence is brought up in much of the codeswitching literature (Myers-Scotton 1993; Mahootian 1993; Muysken 1995, 2000; Sebba 1998). Belazi et al. also offer a second principle for codeswitching: The Word Grammar Integrity Corollary. According to this principle, a word obeys the grammar of the language from which it is drawn. The Word


49

Grammar Integrity Corollary follows Chomsky’s (1993) principle which presupposes that lexical entries are associated with morphological and syntactic features. Belazi et al. posit that: “given that this is true for all lexical entries in all languages, thus it must be true for CS as well” (1994:232). In support of the Word Grammar Integrity Corollary principle, Belazi et al. (1994:232) show that switching is possible in (a) below, because Tunisian Arabic adjectives are postnominal and the adjective is correctly placed in postnominal position. But (b) is not possible because the grammar of French is not satisfied with the placement of its adjective in (b). The French adjective belle ‘nice’ is a member of French prenominal adjectives: (2:12) a. J’ai I have

une

voiture

mizyaena

a

car

nice

‘I have a beautiful car’ b. */and-i karhba at-I

car

belle nice

‘I have a beautiful car’ (Tunisian Arabic-French; Belazi et al. 1994) Notice that in their Word Grammar Integrity Corollary principle Belazi et al. predict a grammatical restriction on codeswitching between adjectives and nouns which is similar to the Equivalence Constraint and the prediction of the Phrase Structure Congruence Model. The Word Grammar Integrity Corollary principle requires that both the adjective and the noun obey the grammars of their respective languages. The Equivalence Constraint and Woolford’s Phrase Structure Congruence Model also rule out switching between adjectives and nouns in languages with pre- and postnominal adjectives. As shown by Mahootian (1993), the predictions made by Belazi et al. run into counterexamples from Persian/English, English/Marathi and Irish/English codeswitching and a few other pairs of languages. Santorini and Mahootian (1995) also reject the Word Grammar Integrity Corollary on the grounds that “it reduces in effect to the Equivalence Constraint”. Belazi et al. go on further to hypothesize that balanced and unbalanced bilinguals demonstrate different behavior in CS and the speaker’s level of competency affects codeswitching patterns. They claim that the CS behavior of balanced bilinguals provides evidence for UG-based constraints, i.e. f-selection. Mahootian (1993) has criticized this hypothesis as well. She argues that if we are dealing with universals, then the speakers’ level of competence should not affect the ‘quality’ of switching. Toribio and Rubin (1996:216) also show that the codeswitching behavior of competent bilinguals demonstrates the constraints which are

50


guided by proper syntactic principles. They assert that proficient bilinguals, who possess advanced competence in the two language systems, show CS behavior which would be ascribed to unconscious linguistic principles, i.e. to aspects of the learners’ bilingual competence, specifically the Functional Head Constraint. In Toribio and Rubin’s view, the codeswitching of bilingual children will not be guided by syntactic principles such as the Functional Head Constraint. Köppe and Meisel’s work (1995) on child bilinguals suggests that the appearance of the functional category INFL seems to account for major qualitative changes like the transition from the mixing of ‘function words’ to the mixing of lexical categories (especially nouns). This study also shows that the acquisition of grammatical constraints on CS is related to the development of syntax in general. As shown by Toribio (2001), Meisel (1994) has interpreted these types of findings as being indicative of the fact that “syntactic constraints on CS can only operate once the child has acquired adequate knowledge of the functional categories that define structural coherence”. Toribio (2001) explores when and how learners acquire knowledge of the abstract principles that license grammatical sequence and disallow ungrammatical strings for intrasentential code alternations. I agree with Toribio and Rubin in that the level of competence plays a role in codeswitching patterns. However, I do not see speaker’s competence will have impact on the quality of codeswitching. If we assume that the underlying linguistic competence of codeswitchers is the same as that of monolinguals, then less competent bilingual speakers would obey the same grammaticality and well-formedness principles as more competent speakers do. Indeed a picture that has emerged from the codeswitching behavior of the younger subjects in the present work suggests that this is a correct assumption. The speakers’ bilingual proficiencies have not been measured, but the data provide evidence that all the young bilingual speakers utter wellformed grammatical bilingual utterances. The only difference between the speakers is seen in the diversity of CS patterns. There is a single case of codeswitching at the clause boundary in the present data (see example 5:24) that gives support to Belazi et al.’s claim that the codeswitching behavior of competent bilinguals demonstrates constraints which are guided by proper syntactic principles. This is the one case in the entire corpus where the speaker fails to combine the two linguistic systems at the boundary of switching from a Persian relative pronoun to a Swedish clause that follows it. This single case of ungrammaticality and failure of the speaker to match the two clauses at the site where they are not compatible suggests that codeswitching is especially constrained after a Persian relative pronoun. If we consider that the Persian relative pronoun (i.e. ke ‘that’) is a functional head, the ungrammaticality of codeswitching here gives support to FHC. Note also that the same speaker (Av) was capable of


51

adjusting all other Swedish clauses with a preceding Persian clause. Given that no ungrammatical codeswitches (other than this single case) were found in the data may suggest that any speaker could intuitively recognize that certain types of mixes are grammatical but that others are ungrammatical. In the latter case they make use of alternative codeswitching patterns to avoid ungrammaticality. This state of affairs leads us to assume that intuitions about the grammaticality of codeswitching and alternative codeswitching patterns that account for grammaticality form part of the bilingual speaker’s unconscious linguistic competence. This is an important finding especially for the CS theories that more or less correspond to the current models of monolingual grammar. The central and guiding question addressed in these theories is whether regularities underlying CS behaviors are attributable to unconscious linguistic knowledge, i.e., to aspects of Universal Grammar (Woolford 1983; Belazi, Rubin and Toribio 1994; Mahootian 1999, Toribio 2001). Universal grammar as introduced by Chomsky (1981) into discussion is a set abstract and general principles assumed to be adequate for characterizing the core grammars of every natural language. Interestingly, Toribio (2001) explores the same type of unconscious principles that the present study has discovered in the linguistic behavior of Swedish/Iranian bilingual speakers, in the codeswitching behavior of Spanish-English bilinguals. As she writes (2001: 206), “bilinguals are not taught how to codeswitch; and yet, just as monolingual native speakers of Spanish and English have an intuitive sense of linguistic well-formedness in their language, Spanish-English bilinguals are able to rely on unconscious principles in distinguishing between permissible and unacceptable code-switches”. Toribio (2001) further explores whether the syntactic coherence and cooccurrence restrictions that are attested in bilingual codeswitching should be characterized with reference to Universal Grammar. 2.5 Matrix language approaches to codeswitching Matrix language approaches to constraints differentiate the roles of the two languages from a processing and psycholinguistic point of view (Joshi 1985; Myers-Scotton DL 1993, [Afterword 1997]). The idea behind a matrix language approach to constraints is that certain functional elements are realized in the matrix language and consequently this language imposes certain constraints on codeswitching. Joshi (1985) first systematically discussed these issues, subsumed under asymmetry and Closed Class Items Constraint. Joshi’s insights were later used in part by Myers-Scotton (DL 1993) to explain her model of language production, introduced as the Matrix Language Frame Model of CS (MLF). Myers-Scotton explains the constraints in terms of lexical access and language processing. The MLF model also makes

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an important distinction between system (=function) and content morphemes. These models are outlined in the following sections. 2.5.1 Joshi’s Asymmetry and Closed Class Items Constraint Joshi (1985), based on his study of CS between English and Marathi, proposes that switching between the constituents of the two languages occurs only in one direction: from the matrix to the embedded language. According to Joshi, this asymmetric switching rule can be regarded as a constraint on codeswitching. Joshi’s differentiation between the matrix and embedded language was based on speaker “judgement”. Speakers judged which language the CS sentences “come from”. Many critics have objected that making a distinction between the roles of the two languages requires more reliable criteria than just speaker judgement. In the Persian/Swedish codeswitching data discussed in this study, sociolinguistic reasons motivate the asymmetry. Asymmetry in this case means Persian is the matrix language and Swedish is embedded in Persian. Given that language plays an important role in establishing and challenging a group’s sense of cultural and ethnic identity, for the immigrant subjects in the present work, the use of Persian as the matrix or basic language of conversation symbolizes the individual’s sense of ethnic belonging. If we look at the mirror-image situation, for native speakers of Swedish living in Iran, the matrix language would be Swedish and the embedded language Persian. However, in addition to sociolinguistic reasons and asymmetry, there may be linguistic reasons dependent on the typology of the languages involved that may limit the probability of mixes. I will take up this question in chapter 6. Asymmetry seems to be characteristic of codeswitching in many language contact situations. For instance, the overall pattern of codeswitching in Marathi/English, Swedish/English, Estonian/Swedish and Finnish/ English tends to be unidirectional (cf. Halmari 1997). However, asymmetry as a universal constraint on codeswitching is questionable. Crucial to Joshi’s work is the Closed Class Items Constraint. Joshi (1985:195) posits that other than the closed class items, all major categories such as N can be switched. The Closed Class Items Constraint is formulated as follows: Closed class items (e.g. determiners, quantifiers, prepositions, Possessives, Aux, tense helping verbs, etc.) can not be switched. Joshi’s Closed Class Items Constraints is somewhat similar to Belazi et al.’s (1994) predictions in the Functional Head Constraint Model. Both predict


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that switching between functional elements/closed class items like COMP, INFL, DET and their complements is blocked. However, Belazi et al.’s data do not support Joshi’s claim that switching between a closed class item such as a preposition and its complement is prohibited. According to Joshi, the ill formedness of (c) (Marathi ML and English EL) suggests that a Marathi postposition cannot follow an English noun. Notice that Marathi has postpositions while English has prepositions: (2:13) a. kâhi khurcyâwar some chairs.on

b. kâhi chairs-war c. *some chairs-war some chairs-on

‘On some chairs’ (Joshi 1985) Belazi et al. suggest that the ungrammaticality of switching in (c) is due to the constraints on the directionality of Case assignment. An English NP looks to its left for Case just as an English noun looks to its left for simple adjectival modification. According to Belazi et al. (1994:233), in (c) the Marathi Case assigner assigns case to the left and it is placed to the right, but the English NP is not satisfied. As Mahootian (1993) points out, Joshi does not account for the example in (c) in terms of the Closed Class Items Constraint and admits that case is problematic. Myers-Scotton’s (DL 1993) Matrix Language Frame Model (MLF) is also based on the idea that there is an asymmetrical relation between a matrix language and an embedded language in codeswitching. The model also predicts that the system morphemes (= functional elements) are realized in the matrix language. The next section will outline this model. 2.5.2 Myers-Scotton’s Matrix Language Frame Model Myers-Scotton takes her insights from Joshi’s (1985) asymmetry model. However, independent motivation for the major arguments of the MLF comes from psycholinguistic models of language production. Myers-Scotton largely follows Levelt’s (1989) discussions of language production. Myers-Scotton (DL 1993) assigns a major role distinction between the two languages involved in CS. The highlights of this model are two major principles:

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Disagreement in Agreement a. The morpheme order principle b. The system morpheme principle.

Myers-Scotton proposes that the language labeled as the matrix language (ML) plays the dominant role in the codeswitching process and is responsible for constructing the morphosyntactic order of the codeswitching sentences. The other language labeled the embedded language (EL), is less active and plays a restricted role in CS. This major role distinction between the two languages means that, while constituents from both languages occur in mixed sentences, the matrix language morphemes occur more frequently and constitute the grammatical frame of the CS sentences. The ML constituents are classified in the model as ML islands and are defined as well-formed constituents of ML. EL islands should be lexically and grammatically well-formed morphemes of the EL and must consist of at least two lexemes/morphemes in a hierarchical relationship. Single morphemes of the EL are not islands. The placement of EL islands follows well-formedness requirements of the ML but not the EL. Myers-Scotton & Jake (1995) distinguish another type of EL island. These EL islands are defined as “internal” EL islands. Internal EL islands follow the well-formedness rules of the EL but occur as intermediate constituents within ML’s maximal projections. Division of the roles between ML and EL not only means that ML dictates the morphosyntactic structure of the CS sentences, but also that all the productive system morphemes (= functional elements) come from the ML. It is important that morpheme order and productive system morphemes (= functional elements) come from the same language. Another major distinction, which is of great importance in the MLF model, is differentiation of system morphemes from content morphemes. The following sections briefly outline this distinction and then introduce the major principles characterizing the Matrix Language Frame Model (MLF). Distinction between system and content morphemes Since demarcation between function and content words with regard to their syntactic behavior (like the membership of prepositions and pronouns) is cross-linguistically problematic, Myers-Scotton has used universally applicable criteria to define these categories. Three properties differentiate content versus system morphemes. These are [+/– Quantification], [+/–Thematic Role-Assigner] and [+/– Thematic-Role Receiver]. Myers-Scotton assumes that: A. Any lexical item or affix which is a member of a syntactic category which involves quantification across variables


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and thus shows the [+Quantification] property is a system morpheme. B. Any categories which show the [–Quantification] property but have either the [+Thematic Role-Assigner] or [+Thematic-Role Receiver] property are content morphemes. (Myers-Scotton, DL 1993:100) As noted above in (B), any categories which show the [–Quantification] feature are potential content morphemes. Verbs, for instance, show -Quantification and +Thematic Role-Assigner properties and hence are content morphemes. Nouns, on the other hand, carry –Quantification and +Thematic-Role Receiver properties and are also content morphemes. Nouns, adjectives and most verbs are typical content morphemes (MyersScotton DL 1993:7). These lexical categories constitute the predicateargument structure and thus they either receive or assign thematic roles. A lexical item which fails to receive or assign a thematic role is not a content morpheme. Some prepositions only assign case and not thematic role and thus are not content morphemes (e.g., English of in Department of Linguistics). The copula and some do verbs also do not assign thematic roles and thus are not content morphemes. System (= Function) morphemes do not receive or assign thematic roles, but these categories pick out individuals or events, and thus a characteristic feature of most system morphemes is the [+Quantification] feature. Articles, quantifiers, specifiers, possessive adjectives and inflectional morphology are system morphemes. Degree adverbs such as very are system morphemes as well. [ Quantification ] is also seen as a property of other categories such as tense and aspect, which involve quantification across events. The occurrence of morphemes in ML+EL constituents depends on whether they are system or content morphemes. The model assumes that system morphemes come from only one of the languages, the matrix language, but content morphemes come from both languages. The interrelated hypotheses As was stated previously, two major principles are crucial in the MLF model in constructing the ML+EL constituents: a. The morpheme order principle: The ML determines the surface morpheme order (reflecting the surface syntactic relations) in ML+EL constituents. (Myers-Scotton & Jake 1995)

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Disagreement in Agreement b. The system morpheme principle: The ML supplies all system morphemes (i.e. productive inflections and function words) in ML+EL constituents. (Myers-Scotton DL 1993)

The system morpheme principle also predicts that syntactically relevant EL system morphemes will not occur in CS sentences containing matrix and embedded language constituents. However, syntactically relevant ML system morphemes will occur. The Blocking Hypothesis proposed by Myers-Scotton (1993) blocks all EL content morphemes which are not “congruent” with the matrix language to appear in ML+EL constituents (Myers-Scotton DL 1993: 120). The Blocking Hypothesis is formulated as follows: c. The Blocking Hypothesis: In ML+ EL constituents, a blocking filter blocks any EL content morphemes which is not congruent with the ML with respect to three levels of abstraction regarding subcategorization. (Myers-Scotton DL 1993:120) The other interrelated hypothesis is the EL Island Trigger Hypothesis, which makes predictions for special cases when an EL morpheme appears in ML. d. The EL Island Trigger Hypothesis: Whenever an EL morpheme appears which is not permitted under either the ML Hypothesis or the Blocking Hypothesis, the constituent containing it must be completed as an obligatory EL island. (Myers-Scotton DL 1993:7) Myers-Scotton & Jake (1995) later elaborated on and slightly revised the MLF model predictions. Myers-Scotton (DL 1993) explains CS in terms of bilingual language production and lexical access, while Myers-Scotton & Jake largely deal with the conceptual and functional levels of bilingual language production. They propose that at the conceptual level intentions are “bundled” into semantic and pragmatic features associated with lexemes. At the functional level of bilingual language production. “morphosyntactic directions encoding the predicate-argument structure are activated”. Myers-Scotton’s model has been criticized on a number of grounds. The main criticism against the model is in terms of the rigidity of the notion of ML and the criteria used for distinguishing system morphemes from con-


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tent morphemes. Muysken (2000:161) is critical of the use of these criteria for a number of reasons. One such reason, as Muysken points out, is “redundancy”. As mentioned before, Myers-Scotton uses three criteria to distinguish between the status of elements as system or content morphemes. That is, a plus or minus setting for the [Quantification] feature, a plus or minus setting for the [Thematic Role-Assigner] feature and a plus or minus setting for the [Thematic Role-Receiver] feature. Muysken posits that the use of the [Quantification] feature is redundant because the last two features alone make the relevant distinction. A second problem according to Muysken is that “it is not easy to see how the classification into system and content morphemes carries across languages”. An important change that Myers-Scotton has made in the MLF model since it was first presented is the unit of analysis. In MLF (1993b), the implied unit of analysis is the sentence, and intraclausal CS was the subject of study. Now in the updated version (Afterword 1997), the CP (X Max of COMP) is the unit of analysis. A CP may be a full sentence or not. A CP is qualified as a mixed CP if it contains an ML + EL constituent, and a larger ML + EL constituent may contain either ML or EL islands. Myers-Scotton posits that, as the domain of analysis, a CP allows for more precision in testing the constraints. The ML controls grammatical configurations within all constituents in a mixed CP. A more recent development in Myers-Scotton’s work is the 4-M Model. The 4-M Model (Myers-Scotton [1997]1999, Myers-Scotton and Jake 2000) is a new sub-model of MLF and is indeed a redefined version of the content vs. system morpheme opposition. According to the new classification of morphemes in the 4-M model, there are three types of system morphemes vs. content morphemes. The three types of system morphemes are: 1) Early system morphemes 2) Late system morphemes: bridges and outsiders Examples of morpheme types in the 4-M Model are given below (Bold = content morpheme; underline = early system morpheme; CAPS=LATE BRIDGE system morpheme; italics=late outsider system morpheme): Bora looks at the burglar. He never gets any money. Bora bites the burglar. Stella is the friend OF Bora. (Myers-Scotton 1999) According to Myers-Scotton (1999) “the early system morphemes are always realized without going outside the maximal projection of the content

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morphemes that elects them”. That is, they depend on the content morpheme with which they occur (see also discussion of 4-M model in 6.2.7). The notion of congruence The notion of congruence and matching processes is central to studies of codeswitching and one of the most relevant notions for linguistics in general. Along the lines explored in Myers-Scotton’s model, one prerequisite for codeswitching is the congruence between embedded language (EL) and matrix language (ML) morphemes. In Myers-Scotton’s model, two levels of congruence are of particular importance. These levels have the same status in both languages and take or assign the same thematic roles. The first level is related to the categorical congruence between system and content morphemes. If a syntactic category is not in congruence with the same category in another language (a system morpheme in one language but a content morpheme in another), according to the Blocking Hypothesis, the EL content morpheme cannot occur in ML+EL constituents. For instance, if pronominal forms are clitics in ML (according to MLF, clitics are system morphemes) and there are free-form pronouns (content morphemes) in the embedded language (EL), ML clitics occur in ML+EL constituents but not the EL’s freeform pronouns (content morphemes). The second level of incongruency which blocks an EL content morpheme in ML+EL constituents relates to thematic role assignment. If EL content morphemes are not congruent with ML morphemes with regard to subcategorization related to thematic-role assignment, such morphemes cannot occur in ML+EL constituents. According to Myers-Scotton’s criteria, some prepositions are content morphemes because they assign a thematic role. For instance, the preposition for in English assigns the thematic role of beneficiary or goal to John in I bought the book for John. Therefore it is a content morpheme and is +[Thematic Role-Assigner], and as a content morpheme it can appear in ML+EL constituents. But in Swahili the thematic roles of beneficiary or goal are assigned by the verb. A counterpart for English for in Swahili might be the suffix in verbal assembly, which is a system morpheme and therefore not congruent with the English preposition. MyersScotton predicts that this suffix as a system morpheme comes from the matrix language Swahili and not from English, which replaces it with a preposition (DL 1993: 123). Myers-Scotton & Jake (1995) go on to examine the notion of congruence in terms of matching between the ML and EL at three levels of the complex lexical structure. These three levels include the lexical-conceptual structure (semantics and input for pragmatic readings), the predicateargument structure (relations between verbs, prepositions and their arguments), and morphological realization patterns (surface requirements for


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well-formedness, including word order), or some combination of these three levels (1995: 996, 1997: 249). Myers-Scotton & Jake (1995:995) posit that formation of EL islands (well-formed constituents of the embedded language in the ML) can result from some type of congruence problems between the language pair at some levels. These levels can be both the semantic/pragmatic level and the predicate-argument level. For instance, one reason for the occurrence of EL islands might be that the speaker’s intentions with regard to the lexicalconceptual structure could not be adequately realized in the ML. It will be shown in chapter six, that this prediction does not hold true for the occurrence of Swedish islands in a Persian structure. As can be seen in the data, it is not always the case that embedded language (Swedish) islands come about because there is a problem of congruence at some level. Many Swedish islands (excluding the ADJ-N phrases) occur in Persian simply because they match the monolingual Persian counterparts at the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic level (see discussion of EL islands in 6.2.7). The notion of congruence has also been a focus of Muysken’s work. Muysken (1995) argues that recognition of categorical equivalence by a bilingual speech community not only will have an immediate influence on codeswitching patterns but can also be the first step in the process of syntactic convergence. As he puts it, “we may need to look at the notion of equivalence not only from a grammatical perspective but also from a psycholinguistic dimension”. Sebba (1998) develops a notion of congruence which differs from earlier proposals. Sebba abandons syntax for sociolinguistic aspects of codeswitching and highlights the importance of the nature of the community’s bilingualism. According to Sebba, in communities where language contact has a long history, the languages are more “congruent” than in communities where language contact is more recent. Sebba does not take any specific approach as regards the syntax of codeswitching. He maintains that any element of language L1 may be replaced by a congruent element from the other language, L2, if one exists. According to Sebba, the elements of the two languages are congruent if they have similar syntactic functions, are phonologically similar and share similar semantic properties. Sebba also holds that a bilingual speaker “creates congruence” between the two mixing languages, if necessary by making adjustments to the monolingual norms. He posits that the speaker might use adjustment possibilities like harmonization, neutralization, and compromise to create congruence. Myers-Scotton (p.c.) is opposed to Sebba’s position that speakers “create congruence”. Her argument is that congruence is not ‘built up’; rather the structures of the language pair are given. It may be that a specific language pair can use a compromise strategy (such as do verb constructions),

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but do verb constructions may be universally available in some sense. It is not something that the language pair “invents” on the spot. I would say that since the speaker has at least some knowledge of both languages in her/his mind, he/she would be able to create connection between the two systems. To interpret the Swedish/Persian case, it seems plausible to assume that there is a kind of checking mechanism in a bilingual’s processing system that establishes equivalence if there is such a possibility. Empirical evidence for this argument comes from the formation of bilingual complex verbs in the data. The point is that not only does a neutral verb occur where congruence might be affected by use of a finite verb, but formation of a bilingual verb also accounts for the creation of a kind of semantic compatibility with a concept that is expressed in Persian lexicon through the use of a complex predicate. This allows us to posit that speakers actually make a comparison and establish equivalence if possible. This review ends at this point by stressing that the virtue of the MLF model is its focus on functional elements and predicting that these elements should come from the matrix language. Mention has been made throughout this dissertation that differences in certain functional categories prove to be decisive for the Swedish/Persian bilingual speech and impose certain constraints on codeswitching. The problem, though, is that Myers-Scotton’s criteria for demarcation between system and content morphemes cannot easily be applied cross-linguistically. This question will be taken up again in chapter 6. 2.6 Mahootian’s Null Theory of Codeswitching Not all accounts of CS propose a specific model of constraints. Mahootian (1993) takes the position that codeswitching is not governed by any special constraints or mechanisms that lie outside the grammars of the codeswitching languages. She provides counterexamples to various formulations of constraints on CS and maintains that CS sequences are not subject to structural constraints beyond the general principles of phrase structure that govern monolingual sequences. Mahootian claims that CS follows the same principles and derivational constraints that produce monolingual utterances. There is no difference if a single bound morpheme, a single word or an entire phrase is switched from one language to the other. Mahootian (1993) formalized her hypothesis as a Null Theory of Codeswitching. In this Null Theory of CS, the role of heads is important. Word order equivalence is not a prerequisite for the CS to be possible. The heads impose their syntactic rules and determine the phrase structure configuration of their complements. Mahootian claims that her model accounts for VP internal switches, switches within determiner phrases (DP), quantifier phrases (QP), and prepositional phrases (PP), as well as switches between


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COMP and IP, switches involving conjunctions and switches between free and bound morphemes. Mahootian (1993) uses a tree-adjoining grammar (TAG) to explain the codeswitching data. TAG formalisms encode branching direction by proposing the existence of “auxiliary trees”, partial structures which represent a complement to the left or right of its head, depending on the language under consideration. In 1995, Santorini and Mahootian, based on the head-complement relationships and the testing of a broad range of language pairs, proposed the following principle: The language of a head determines the phrase structure position of its complements in CS just as in monolingual contexts. (Santorini and Mahootian 1995). Later focusing on the more general properties of syntactic heads, Mahootian and Santorini (1996) slightly modify the principle proposed in 1995. The new principle is formalized as below: Heads determine the syntactic properties of their complements in codeswitching and monolingual context alike. (Mahootian and Santorini 1996). Mahootian and Santorini’s predictions account for a range of single Swedish word insertions in Persian. I will apply Mahootian and Santorini’s principles to the data in chapter 6. At this point I close reviewing the literature with a discussion. 2.7 Discussion: The crucial role of congruence The various models of codeswitching outlined in the preceding sections attempt to formulate how linguistic systems interact when languages are mixed. Each work chooses a framework to formulate principles on codeswitching and ends up with a series of different codeswitching patterns and strategies. No conclusion can be drawn here about how well they account for cross-linguistic data. A general conclusion with respect to the present data will be presented in chapter six. Yet, comparing the different models in terms of the options chosen to specify the constraints yields the following picture: • The option is a system of rules which is derived from surface equivalence or phrase structure congruence • The option is lexical categories • The option is functional elements • The option is grammatical properties.

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The observation that codeswitching occurs when the well-formedness conditions of the switched items are met appears in the work of Poplack (1980) and Woolford (1983). The choice of lexical elements as imposing constraints on codeswitching appears in a government perspective on codeswitching. DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh (1986) incorporate lexical elements as governors and pose constraints on switching between a lexical head and its complement. The closed class items /system morphemes (=functional elements) capture the spirit of Joshi’s system (1985), Myers-Scotton’s (1993) MLF model and Belazi et al.’s Functional Head Constraint model. Hypotheses based on the role of functional elements in codeswitching end up by proposing a number of different constraints that these elements impose on codeswitching. Joshi posits that certain closed class items should be realized in the matrix language and consequently this language imposes several constraints. Myers-Scotton, working from the perspective of the MLF model, predicts that system morphemes should be realized in the matrix language. Bentahila and Davies (1983) also adopt the idea that demonstratives are governing heads. This is an idea that is also incorporated in the Functional Head Constraint. Belazi et al. assume that determiners, auxiliaries, complementizers, etc. are functional heads and impose language-specific constraints on their syntactic environment. Mahootian and Santorini (1996) focus on the head-complement relation and well-formedness. The language of a head determines the syntactic properties of its complements in CS just as in a monolingual context. In many of these approaches to codeswitching, some notion of “congruence” or “equivalence” of grammatical categories either explicitly or implicitly is used to explain where switching takes place. Poplack (1980), Bentahila and Davies (1983), Woolford (1983), Joshi (1985), Myers-Scotton (1993[1997]), Mahootian (1993), and Belazi, Rubin and Toribio (1994) explicitly show that possibilities for codeswitching are determined by congruence. For instance, Joshi’s asymmetric model allows corresponding categories to be switched at any point of derivation from the matrix language to the embedded language (cf. Sebba 1998). Joshi’s correspondence categories imply “equivalent” categories. Woolford allows switches at the phrase structure level where the order of constituents is “identical”. In Bentahila and Davies’s Subcategorization Model, more abstract level equivalencies between the languages involved also account for switchability. Mahootian (1993) posits that “if two languages have comparable phrase structure labels so that there is phrase structure label congruence, switching may occur”. Belazi, Rubin and Toribio assume that “a functional head requires that the language feature of its complement match its own language feature, just as it might require some other feature of its complement to match its own corresponding feature”.Belazi, Rubin and Toribio’s “fea-


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ture matching rule” is another form of “equivalence”. The notion of “congruence” is also clearly central to the works developed by Myers-Scotton (DL 1993 [Afterword 1997]) and Myers-Scotton and Jake (1995). Muysken (1995, 2000) has also analyzed the phenomenon of equivalence both from the linear and the categorical perspective. According to Muysken (2000:58), one can think of recognition of categorical equivalence in a bilingual speech community as the first step towards syntactic convergence. What is interesting is that so many insights and proposals point to the same issue, the crucial role of congruence in language contact and codeswitching. Muysken (2000) also comes to the conclusion that the many constraints in the literature are definable in terms of four primitives. Based on these four primitives, Muysken posits that there are asymmetric insertion, symmetrical alternation and congruent lexicalization models. Consequently, according to Muysken, some of the major research in the field addresses either unidirectional compatibility checking in terms of categorical equivalence or bidirectional compatibility checking in terms of linear equivalence. The next section will turn to the distinction between codeswitching vs. borrowing. 2.8 Codeswitching vs. Borrowing Differentiating CS from borrowing has been a subject of great controversy among researchers of CS. Scholars who agree to make a distinction argue that each of these phenomena is subject to different constraints and conditions (Eliasson 1989; Sankoff et al. 1990). Many scholars also agree in theory that there is a need to distinguish the two. However, in practice there is no agreement on a reliable criterion to make such a distinction. As discussed previously in chapter 1, among the researchers who make a distinction between CS and borrowing are Poplack, Sankoff and their associates (1980, 1981), who, using Spanish/ English CS data, found three types of integration of items (phonological, morphological and syntactic) in the recipient language. There may be syntactic integration, only phonological integration or no integration at all. The fourth possible type, which is a combination of syntactic, phonological and morphological integration constitutes borrowing. Poplack later found that phonology is not a reliable criterion for differentiating borrowing from codeswitching. She suggested that only morphological and syntactic integration should be considered in determining whether codeswitching or borrowing has occurred, and even these may not be sufficient in any given sentence. Thus far, Poplack and Meechan (1995) have defined borrowing as follows:

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Disagreement in Agreement The adaptation of the lexical material to the morphological and syntactic (and usually, phonological) patterns of the recipient language.

Other scholars argue that bilingual speakers do not differentiate between CS and borrowing; neither are they distinguishable operationally (MyersScotton DL 1993). Myers-Scotton claims that borrowing arises originally as codeswitching and borrowed forms and CS forms fall across a continuum. It is simply that the two forms differ in terms of their frequency. In MyersScotton’s view, the borrowed forms have a “higher frequency”, whereas the CS forms are considered “lower frequency forms”. However, she admits (DL 1993:16) that frequency counts are “arbitrary” means for dealing with the definition. She also posits that there are two types of borrowing: a) cultural and b) core borrowing forms. Cultural borrowing forms (B) indicate objects or concepts which are new to the matrix language culture (i.e. the concept of the Swedish word sambo ‘unmarried partner’, which is new to Persian culture). In contrast, core borrowed lexemes are taken into the language even though the matrix language has equivalent lexemes to express the relevant concepts. This would mean that core borrowings have a different status from cultural borrowing (B) forms but are identical to CS forms. Myers-Scotton therefore suggests that ‘cultural’ forms should not be counted as CS forms. In Myers-Scotton’s view, a lexical item expressing an object or concept new to the culture is automatically considered a borrowed form, even if it occurs only once in the corpus. Another phenomenon, which is brought up again in discussions about borrowing vs. codeswitching, is the nonce borrowing hypothesis. Nonce borrowing was first introduced by Haugen in 1950 and was recently taken up by Sankoff and Poplack (1984, 1988, 1990). A nonce borrowing may be defined as: An incorporation from another language uttered a single time by a single speaker in some reasonably representative corpus. (Sankoff et al. 1990) Sankoff & Poplack (1988) reintroduced the notion when counterexamples were found against the Equivalence and Free Morpheme Constraints. Poplack et al. (1987) argued that “it is not clear how the Free Morpheme Constraint might operate in a situation where English and highly inflected or agglutinative languages interact”; hence further parameters might be involved. Sankoff and Poplack (1988) later reformulated the nonce borrowing hypothesis as in the following:


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An inflection from one language on a word from the other could automatically be classified as a nonce loan rather than a violation of the free morpheme constraint, while one of a bilingual pair of words on each side of a prohibited, nonequivalent boundary could also be considered a nonce loan rather than as participating in a violation of the equivalence constraint. Sankoff et al. (1990) defend the notion of nonce borrowing in their study of Tamil/English codeswitching. For instance, they show that the following example is a case of nonce borrowing in which content words from English occur with Tamil morphology and syntax: (2:14) Religion-uDaya main purpose vantu oru supernatural being-la oru (gen)

(filler) a

(loc) a

belief create PaNNaratu. Do(inf)

‘The main purpose of religion is to create belief in a supernatural being.’ (242/M) (Tamil/English nonce borrowing, Sankoff et al.1990) Sankoff et al. (1990) also treat the English nouns inserted in the object position of Tamil sentences as borrowings. They argue that the presence of the Tamil accusative marker (suffix -ei or -e) on preverbal direct objects of English origin suggests that “these English single words are morphologically and syntactically integrated borrowings, if only for the nonce”. After testing the Tamil/English data, Sankoff et al. claimed that they had developed “operational criteria” to distinguish CS from borrowing. They held that nonce borrowings, like established loans, are morphologically and syntactically integrated into the host language, but codeswitches are not. Mahootian (1993) argues that nonce borrowings must be shown to be loanwords. She provides several pieces of evidence that shows they are not and that they behave just like codeswitches. Nishimura’s (1986,1997) Japanese/English data also provide examples of full English NPs used in the Japanese that are marked with the Japanese accusative marker o. More recently, Poplack and Meechan (1995) discussed another phenomenon in the language contact situation: the constituent insertion. Poplack & Meechan observed that in Fongbe/French discourse data, French multiword fragments indicate the internal constituency of French, but occur at syntactic boundaries compatible with Fongbe. These insertions correspond to what they have defined as constituent insertion. They posit that “to qualify as a constituent insertion, the French constituent should be embedded in

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Fongbe syntax while retaining the internal structure of French”. For instance, according to this criterion, embedding of a Swedish ADJ-N phrase in a Persian frame as in (2:15) should be regarded as a case of constituent insertion. The Swedish modifier fast and its modifying noun fit the Swedish internal structure but are embedded in a syntactic slot compatible with Persian: (2:15) barâye in for

ke

fast

förhållande ne-

this COMP permanent relationship

mi-

xân

NEG- IMPF- want 3Pl

‘Because they don’t want permanent relationship’ Constituent insertion is indeed similar to what Myers-Scotton has identified as Internal EL Islands (DL 1993). Internal EL islands follow wellformedness rules of the EL but occur as intermediate constituents within ML’s maximal projections. If we adopt Myers-Scotton’s criteria, we can say that the embedded Swedish ADJ-N phrase in Persian as in (2:15) is an Internal EL Island. The distinction between codeswitching and borrowing is still subject to disagreement. The problem is that, when we cannot base our distinction on definite, unified criteria, there seems little reason to differentiate codeswitching from borrowing. As discussed in chapter 1, this study follows Myers-Scotton’s position that borrowings and codeswitches fall across the same continuum and gradually, across the time, they may become fully accepted borrowings. On empirical grounds as well, it is not the goal to take morphological integration as an argument for borrowing. A general pattern that has emerged from the present data suggests that the longer stretches of Swedish words embedded in Persian undergo the same processes of morphosyntactic integration as the single words do. Furthermore, single Swedish words are not always integrated in Persian morphology. Consider the examples below:2 (2:16) a. âdam

injâ

samma känsla-ro

na

one

here

same

NEG -has-3 Sg

feeling-râ

-dâr-e

‘One does not have here the same feeling’ b. yek a

förhållande-ro to in relationship-râ

sen na-bâyad

jeddi

gereft

in this age NEG-should serious took

‘One should not consider that a relationship is serious at this age’

2

Note that in the data exemplified in this dissertation [â] indicates a low back vowel in Persian, while [a] indicates a low front vowel.

Grammatical approaches to codeswitching c. stämning atmosphere

-eš

-o

-Clitic.Pro-râ

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mi-g-im IMPF-say-1Pl pres

‘We talk about its atmosphere’ d. az

suedi-hâ

respekt mi-xâh-im

from Swede-PL respect

IMPF-want-1Pl

‘We want respect from Swedish people’ Notice that the Swedish full NP in (2:16a) like the single words in (2:16b) and (2:16c), is integrated in Persian morphosyntax and occurs with the Persian definite direct object marker râ. Given that a full NP is morphologically integrated in Persian, as a single word, it follows that morphological integration cannot be taken as a definite criterion for differentiating codeswitches from borrowings. As far as the extent of morphological integration of Swedish words is concerned, as noted above, certain Swedish words are integrated and others like respekt in (2:16d) are not. However, Swedish words are always perfectly integrated syntactically in Persian. As was argued previously (see 1.3), it is not clear in the literature whether syntactically integrated but morphologically unintegrated words should be taken as codeswitches or borrowings. There is yet one more reason for not counting single words as borrowings. Single Swedish words embedded in Persian are neither culturespecific nor established borrowings in the mental lexicon of the speaker. Speakers might use the borrowed words without any awareness that they are borrowed from another language. For instance, many monolingual Persian speakers in Iran use the word réglage in Persian without the slightest awareness that it is borrowed from French. Thus, it may be useful to think of borrowing as a phenomenon that has been memorized and established in the mental lexicon of a speaker. In addition, as emerged from earlier discussions (see 1.3), Swedish names (names of foods, public places etc.) and culturespecific words that are used by all the Iranians, whether bilingual or monolingual, are excluded from the present codeswitching data. 2.9 Conclusion This chapter has outlined a number of grammatical approaches to CS that have formulated constraints and principles for codeswitching. It was discussed that, while Poplack has focused on the importance of surface structure equivalencies, more recent theories have invoked their assumptions on the operation of principles of formal syntax. Woolford (1983), working within the generative grammar framework, has proposed the Phrase Structure Congruent Model of CS. Bentahila & Davies (1983) and DiSciullo Muysken and Singh. (1986) have motivated their hypothesis by emphasizing the importance of the “relations between a lexical element and its syntactic

68


environment”. Bentahila & Davies (1983) have proposed the Subcategorization Principle. DiSciullo et al. (1986), in a generative framework, have formalized the Government Constraint. Belazi, Rubin and Toribio (1994) have used the general process of f-selection and feature checking brought up in Chomsky’s (1995) Minimalist Program to develop the ‘Functional Head Constraint’. MacSwan (1997, 1999) and Boeschoten & Huybregts (1997, 1999) have explored codeswitching phenomena from a minimalist perspective. MacSwan argues that all syntactic variation is associated with the lexicon and this offers a new way to approach codeswitching. Boeschoten & Huybregts (1997, 1999) also posit that in the spirit of minimalism the differences between the languages involved in codeswitching reduce to lexical differences. The grammar of CS (largely) reduces to the grammar of monolingual derivations, suggesting that there is nothing beyond the requirements of the monolingual derivation. Mahootian (1993) has introduced an alternative analysis in a Null Theory of CS in which the role of the heads is important. She posits that in codeswitched sentences phrase structure is projected directly from the lexicon, with each lexical item projecting its own language-specific syntactic requirements. Joshi’s focus on closed class items and Myers-Scotton’s focus on functional elements as governors for CS have provided insights in explaining constraints in terms of a matrix vs. embedded language of codeswitching. Several hypotheses have explicitly addressed the notion of congruence and have used it as a factor to explain constraints. Myers-Scotton & Jake for instance propose that variations in congruence in the three abstract levels of language restrict and therefore structure choices in codeswitching. Muysken (1995) emphasizes the importance of both categorical and linear equivalencies. Sebba (1998), on the other hand, abandons syntax in favor of sociolinguistic aspects of CS and believes that congruent categories are relative to the particular language pair in a particular community. All the accounts outlined in this chapter seem to provide counterexamples when applied to cross-linguistic data. However, all these insights deserve to be valued for their important contribution to the field of research. Given that a complexity of factors plays a role in CS, there is thus far no adequate explanation of CS regularities accounting for cross-linguistic data. Nonetheless, considerable progress has been made and every new proposal has offered greater understanding of the facts. As Muysken (2000) suggests, “the evidence seems to point towards probabilistic statements, linked to different language pairs and contact situations”. As will be shown in chapter 6, Joshi’s, Myers-Scotton’s and Belazi, Rubin and Toribio’s models capture some basic insights which correctly account for the present Swedish/Persian CS data. The advantage of these mod-


69

els for us is their focus on functional categories and that fact that these categories impose constraints on codeswitching. As Muysken (2000) points out, “functional categories are responsible for most of the specific properties of individual languages and impose restrictions on their structural environment”. Mahootian and Santorini’s principles also are compatible with insertional type of the present codeswitching data. As mentioned earlier, empirical predictions of the CS models outlined in this chapter are taken up again and will be applied to the Swedish/ Persian codeswitching data in chapter 6. The next chapter offers a descriptive presentation of Persian grammar together with a few characteristics of Swedish grammar. This presentation is intended to help produce a solid understanding of the Persian/Swedish codeswitching data.

Chapter Three

Persian grammar and a few characteristics of Swedish

3.1 Introduction A description of grammatical properties of codeswitching cannot proceed in the absence of a grammatical description of languages involved. This chapter is concerned with this issue. The aim is to highlight the features that are of relevance to the study of codeswitching reported in this dissertation. To achieve this, the following sections present a descriptive view of contemporary Persian grammar and a brief description of the Swedish system Various aspects of this overview will be important when the data are introduced in chapters 4, 5 and analyzed in chapter 6. 3.2 Persian word order Persian and Swedish are typologically distant, though historically related languages. As is well known, Persian is a member of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family, and Swedish belongs to the Germanic language group of the same family. In principle any typological differences may be of significance for the grammatical interaction of languages involved in codeswitching. However, what originally started out as a typological endeavour, was the crossclassification of languages in terms of basic word order. Therefore I begin with the Persian word order. The canonical word order of Persian is SOV. Although verb final, it exhibits head-initial word order in noun-genitive, noun-adjective, and preposition-noun phrases as well as noun-relative clauses. Demonstratives, numerals, any measure or any kind in contrast precede the head noun (e.g. do no/ qâli ‘two kind carpet’). Persian is also a language with a mixed structure. Spoken Persian has an underlying SOV structure, although in general exhibits free word order for certain mixed structures. Persian should therefore be seen as a non-

72


rigid language, in contrast to strictly rigid languages such as Japanese (Karimi 1994: 43-73). The complete canonical unmarked constituent order that is proposed for phrasal arguments in Persian sentences is (cf. Karimi 1994): (S)

(PP)

(O) V

Note that the parentheses in this formula indicate the optionality of subject pronouns, indirect objects and direct objects. Persian is a pro drop language; as with other pro drop languages, the agreement inflection on the verb refers to the properties of the null subject. Objects (direct and indirect) can also occur on the verb as pronominal clitics, in which case the clitic object follows the agreement inflection. The examples in (3:1b), (3:1c) and (3:1d) exhibit the cases where the subject can be dropped and the object can be replaced by the clitic suffix eš/š. Note that râ (o) is the definite direct object marker and marks the direct object as definite. (3:1) a. man be un goft-am I

to

S

PP V

her said-1Sg

‘(I) told her/him’ b. goft-am-eš

V

told-1Sg-Clitic.Pro

‘(I) told her/him’ c. un-o did-i?

SV

he-râ saw-2Sg

‘Did you see him/her?’ d. did-i-š?

V

saw-2Sg-Clitic.Pro

‘Did you see him/her?’ The order of the main and subordinate clauses shows a number of variations as a result of movement processes. Movement rules Dislocation as a strategy for topicalization can be used for constituents of the main clause such as noun phrases. Noun phrases can be dislocated to either sentence-initial or sentence-final position. As illustrated in the following


73

example,1 the object NP has moved to sentence-initial position as a topical phrase: (3:2) a. natija-ro be-eš result-râ

goft-am

to-Clitic.Pro told-1Sg

‘I told her/him the result’ In (3:2b) the object phrase is dislocated to sentence-final position: b. natija-ro goft-am be-eš result-râ told-1Sg to-Clitic.Pro

‘I told her/him the result’ Adverbs can also be topicalized with râ without moving. Indirect objects are topicalized when they move to initial position. Movement into initial position can topicalize adverbs of time, manner and place. Adjectives cannot be topicalized, and verbs are moved into initial position for contrastive emphasis rather than for topicalization, as is shown below. Verb preposing According to the verb preposing rule, the verb carrying the inflectional morphology appears in sentence-initial position. As mentioned before, verb preposing expresses contrastive emphasis (cf. Mahootian 1997). For instance, in (3:3) the speaker intends to emphasize that he/she has told her/him the result, in contrast with that the speaker perhaps not having told him/her yet: (3:3) a. goft-am natija-ro be-eš told-1Sg result-râ to-Clitic.Pro

‘I told him/her the result’ Application of the verb preposing rule is limited to main clauses, because in a subordinate clause it would result in an awkward string. Note that râ in (3:3) is employed as a gloss for the definite direct object marker. In spoken language, depending on the phonological environment, râ may appear as -o/ro.

1

In some examples Persian words and affixes are written in bold when they are in focus.

74


Main clause topicalization According to Karimi (1994:57), main clause topicalization is best exemplified by emphatic constructions. Note the following example: (3:4) dânešju-â ke

dars

student-PL EMPH lesson

ne-mi-xun-an NEG-IMPF-read-3Pl

‘As for students, they don’t study’ The noun phrase dânešju-â preceding the emphatic complementizer ke is topicalized in (3:4). This type of topicalization is blocked in subordinate clauses. 3.3 Swedish and Persian word order Unlike Persian, which is a verb-final pro-drop language, Swedish is a nonpro-drop language with a verb-second constraint. The basic order of Swedish is VO at the clause level, and the general order of the noun phrase is possessive DP > attributive adjective > noun > other attributes (Josefsson and Platzack 1998). Differences and similarities of the language pair in terms of word order are shown in the following chart: Persian word order

Swedish word order

SOV

SVO

The order of NPs is illustrated below: Persian NP

Swedish NP

noun > adj > possessive pro

possessive pro > adj > noun

Note that the demonstrative, number, kind and measure precede the noun in both languages. A prominent characteristic of Swedish is that it allows any major constituent, such as an object, an adverbial, a predicate or even a clause functioning as object or adverbial appear in initial position. The subject in these cases, according to the Swedish inversion rule, is obligatory and immediately follows the finite verb. As Hammarberg & Viberg (1977) write, “What is interesting about the Swedish system is that word order signals the syntactic role in a much more ‘sophisticated’ manner than simply by sticking to one single order between S, V and O”. While the basic unmarked order has the SVO sequence in Swedish, the preposing and inversion rules also


75

allow OVS and XVSO order in main clause statements. X in XVSO represents any single major constituent that appears in initial position. The following examples illustrate where the languages have identical word order: (3:5) Persian (SOV) mi-dun-am ke un xune ast

Swedish (SVO) jag vet att han är hemma

IMPF-know-1Sg that

I know that he

he

home is

‘I know that he is at home’

is

at home

‘I know that he is at home’

The non-rigid character of spoken Persian allows surface reorderings that result to word order sequences congruent with that of Swedish. As exemplified below, surface reordering in both languages involves verb preposing. Again, the râ (o) in Persian marks the direct object as definite. (3:6) Persian XVSO (spoken) diruz xarid Reza mâšin-o

i går

Swedish XVSO köpte Reza bil-en

Yesterday bought Reza car-râ

yesterday

‘Yesterday Reza bought the car’

‘Yesterday Reza bought the car’

bought Reza car-DEF

In (3:7), surface reorderings show movement of the object NP to initial position in both languages as well as verb preposing in Persian: (3:7) Persian OVS (spoken) mâšin-o xarid Reza car-râ

bought Reza

‘As for the car, Reza bought it’

bil-en

Swedish OVS köpte Reza

car-DEF bought Reza

‘As for the car, Reza bought it’

Note that OVS in Persian is an instance of topicalization (or focus) and verb movement, and is therefore a marked order. Unlike Persian, as Simin Karimi notes (p.c.), OVS in Swedish is an instance of XVY order, which is an unmarked order in the matrix clause (as it is in all Germanic languages that exhibit the V2 phenomenon). 3.4 Swedish nominal morphology Swedish nouns are inflected for number, case and definiteness. In Swedish, unlike in Persian, it is obligatory to indicate number. The plural forms of

76


nouns are expressed by means of different endings according to declension. For instance, in the Swedish noun phrase pojk-ar-na-s rum ‘the boys’ room’, the noun pojke ‘boy’ is inflected with (a) the plural ending -ar, (b) the definite suffix article for the plural referent -na, and (c) the genitive ending -s. Adjectives in Swedish agree in number, definiteness and gender with the modified noun. The most common way to mark definiteness in Swedish is to use a suffixed definite article which takes the form -en or -et depending on whether the noun is of “uter” or “neuter” gender. Nouns in Swedish are grouped into two genders, uter and neuter; the first group is marked by the enclitic definite article -en (e.g. bok-en ‘the book’), while the second group is marked by the enclitic definite article -et (e.g. bord-et ‘the table’). 3.5 Persian nominal morphology Persian nouns have no gender. In the basic noun phrase structure of Persian, the stem form can appear with a plural marker such as -hâ, the indefinite marker -i and the definite direct object marker -râ. These markers occur with the stem in sequences as exemplified in the following. For instance, in (38a) the indefinite suffix -i occurs with a noun and in (3:8b) it is used with the plural marker -hâ to mean some: (3:8) a. ketâb-i book-Indef

‘a book’ b. ketâb-hâ-i book-PL-Indef

‘some books’ In (3:38c) the direct object marker râ is used with the noun to mark it definite: c. ketâb-o book-râ

‘the book’ d. ketâb-hâ-ro book-PL-râ

‘the books’ Markers occurring in noun phrases are described in the following sections.


77

3.5.1 Plural markers Plural markers in Persian are not confined to Persian markers alone. In the two centuries following the introduction of Islam in Iran, a set of Arabic plural markers was also borrowed into Persian. Foreigners learning Persian should therefore learn not only the Persian plural markers but also the set of complex Arabic markers which may appear with Persian or borrowed Arabic nouns. However, the Persian plural markers -hâ and -ân appear frequently with Persian and Arabic nouns. The plural marker -hâ, in addition to functioning as a plural marker with count nouns, also expresses increase or extent with mass nouns (i.e. âb-hâ ‘waters, plenty of water, all kind of waters’). The plural marker -ân is mostly used in written language and appears with animate and certain inanimate nouns, e.g. doxtarân ‘girls’, deraxtân ‘trees’. Unlike Swedish or English, plurals in Persian have a more limited function. Furthermore, marking the plural is not always obligatory. Plurals in spoken and written language must be marked on nouns carrying specific reference. Specific reference indicates that the noun is identifiable by the speaker although it does not have to be identifiable by the hearer (Mahootian 1997). For instance, in the following examples, the noun is marked with -hâ (â) since it is specific in both (3:9a) and (3:9b). The examples cannot be interpreted as ‘some guests came’ or ‘some girls went to the school’: (3:9) a. mehmoon-â

umad-an

guest-PL

came-1Pl

‘The guests came’ b. doxtar-(h)â raft-an girl-PL

madrese

went-3Pl school

‘The girls went to the school’ When numerals precede the noun, the condition for using the plural marker is neutral, and the noun is not marked for plural. Note the example below: c. do-tâ

mâšin dâr-am

two-CL car

have-1Sg

‘(I) have two cars’ A number of classifiers are also used in Persian with count nouns. The most common classifier is -tâ ‘fold’. The classifier -tâ immediately follows the numeral and can occur with the plural marker on a specific noun. In the following example, the classifier -tâ immediately follows the numeral:

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Disagreement in Agreement (3:10) do-tâ danešju burs

gereft-an

two-CL student

received-3Pl

scholarship

‘Two students got scholarship’ Other classifiers such as jeld ‘volume (for books)’, ra/s ‘head’ (for horses, sheep, etc.) and dune ‘grain/seed’ also follow the numeral and precede the noun (-dune occurs with ye ‘one’ as in ye-dune doxtar ‘one girl’ and can appear with any singular count noun). 3.5.2 Markers of definiteness The markers of definiteness in Persian can be classified as below: (a) The object/definiteness/specificity marker râ (b) The suffix-e (the use of this marker is restricted to spoken language) (c) Demonstratives In the following sections, each of these markers is described in detail. The definite direct object marker râ In Persian the direct object appears with a marker -râ, which indicates that the NP is definite (in both the spoken and written language). In the written language râ appears as a free morpheme. In the spoken language, depending on the phonological environment, it may appear as /ro/o (r may be dropped after a consonant) attached to the noun. For the purposes of this dissertation, the form râ will be employed as a gloss for the spoken ro/o: (3:11) a. ketâb-ro xarid-am book-râ

bought-1Sg

‘I bought the book’ All objects that are inherently definite, such as proper names and demonstrative pronouns, appear with râ. If the dative marker be ‘to’ is preposed to the object, then in spoken language definiteness is marked on the object by the definite suffix -e. Demonstratives may also precede the noun as in: b. be-un doktor-e

etminân dâr-am

to-that doctor-DEF trust

‘I trust that doctor’

have-1Sg


79

Most Persian grammarians have identified râ as the marker of definite direct objects. Recent studies of râ show that râ has more than one function and even occurs with the indefinite marker -i, as in the following example: c. muzu/-i

-ro peyda kon o

subject-Indef

-râ

find

do

benevis

and write

‘Find a subject and write it’ Note also that certain classes of names do not always require râ, as in the example below: d. fârsi balad-am fârsi

know-1Sg

‘I know Farsi (Persian)’ In what are apparently definite cases where one would expect râ, it does not occur: e. bim-e ân-∅ fear-Ez that

dâr-am

ke…

have-1Sg that

‘I am afraid that …’ Other findings also suggest that râ occurs with adverbial phrases of temporal and spatial extension (e.g. hâlâ emruz ro bad begzarun ‘Now today let’s just have a bad day’). The semantic-syntactic function of the Persian morpheme râ has been the subject of much debate among Persian linguists. The analyses developed by Karimi (1990) indicate that râ, in addition to marking the specific accusative case, also follows specific noun phrases other than direct objects. Karimi argues that râ is not only an accusative marker in Persian but is indeed a specificity marker. In the example given below, there are two NPs followed by râ, which illustrates that râ appears twice in the same clause. According to Karimi, the construction would be ungrammatical if râ were only a direct object marker: (3:12) a. mâšin-o dar car-râ

door

-eš-o

bast-am

-Clitic.Pro-râ

closed-1Sg

‘As for the car, I closed its door’ (Karimi 1990) In example (3:12b) râ occurs with an adverbial NP modifying an intransitive verb:

80

Disagreement in Agreement b. šab-e

piš-o

night-Ez last-râ

aslan na-xâbid-am at all NEG-slept-1Sg

‘As for last night, I didn’t sleep at all’ (Karimi 1990) Mahootian (1997:200) agrees with Karimi that râ has more than one function. However, she maintains that the primary function of râ is to mark the definite direct object. She places object noun phrases on a scale of most definite to least definite. When an object NP is clearly definite râ must be used, and if it is clearly unspecific râ is not used. Based on these two classifications Mahootian claims that, if râ marks noun phrases that are not completely definite, those NPs are still definite in that they refer to some delimited class of objects. For the purposes of this dissertation râ is treated as the direct object marker marking the object as definite. The use of this Persian marker with Swedish nouns occurring as the direct object of a Persian verb, in addition to its syntactic-semantic function, has also a pragmatic effect on the proper interpretation of Swedish/Persian bilingual speech. The definite marker -e and the demonstrative ân In spoken language, when a noun refers to a specific entity and is known to the hearer, it takes the definite/specific suffix -e as in the case below: (3:13) a. mard-e man-DEF

umad came

‘The man came’ As mentioned earlier, the use of the definite marker -e is restricted to spoken language, where it is obligatory. In literary language the demonstrative ân ‘that’ precedes the noun and marks it as definite as in the following example. Note that in literary language âmad replaces umad ‘came’: b. ân

doxtar âmad

DEM girl

came

‘That girl came’ Observe that the suffix -e in spoken Persian is not in complementary distribution with demonstratives (Mahootian 1997). Note the following example: c. un

doxtar-e umad

DEM girl-DEF came

‘That girl came’


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Note also that, as illustrated in (3:14), generic reference is not marked for definiteness, either in written or spoken language: (3:14) rubâh makkar ast fox

swindler is

‘Fox is a swindler’ 3.5.3 The indefinite suffix -i The suffix -i indicates indefiniteness (in spoken and written language) and occurs with count and mass nouns as well as with singular and plural nouns. The function of -i, as Windfuhr (1979) states, is “restriction of selection out of a generic unit or out of a plurality”. Note the examples below: (3:15) a. Qazâ-i xord

‘He ate some thing/ he ate a non-specified food’

b. Ketâb-i xarid

‘He bought a book/ a non-specified book’

c. Ketâb-hâ-i xarid

‘He bought (some non-specified) books’

The suffix -i with NPs like those in the examples above indicates that the NP is referential but indefinite. The indefinite -i may also occur with the definite object marker râ/ro/o, as in the following example. Note that the NP in (d) is indefinite but specific: d. ketâb-i

-ro xarid-am

book-Indef -râ

bought-1Sg

‘I bought a (specific) book’ The indefinite suffix -i may also occur with the numeral yek ‘one’ as below: e. yek ketâb-i-ro a

xarid-am

book-Indef-râ bought-1Sg

‘I bought a (specific) book’ In addition to the markers identified above, there is a linker particle in Persian known as -e ezâfe (lit. addition -e) which is an extremely productive means for modifying nouns as well as linking other nonverbal heads and their complements (cf. Mahootian 1997). The function of this Persian linker will be explained in the following section.

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3.6 The ezâfe particle (-e ezâfe) Ezâfe is a linker in Persian and phonologically realized as an unstressed [e] ([ye] after a vowel. It has no representation in Persian orthography but occurs in speech between the head of the phrase and the modifying elements that follow it. Ezâfe has been a topic of research for both traditional Persian grammarians and modern linguists (See Samiian 1994 for analyses of ezâfe). The traditional Persian-Arabic analysis of ezâfe was based on the recognition of the logical relationships between the attributed and attributing part of the construction in a noun phrase linked by ezâfe. Ezâfe links the head noun to an adjective (phrase), noun (phrase), adverb (phrase), prepositional phrase or infinitive. Ezâfe also links adjectives, quantifiers and prepositional heads to their complements. The use of ezâfe in NPs and prepositional phrases is demonstrated in the following sections. Ezâfe in NPs In noun-adjective phrases, ezâfe links the head noun to its adjective modifier as in the example below: (3:16) a. doxtar-e qašang girl-Ez

pretty

‘Pretty girl’ It also occurs between the head noun and prepositional phrase modifier: b. ârâmeš-e qabl

az

tufân

silence-Ez before of

storm

‘The silence before the storm’ In the following example ezâfe links the head noun to its genitive noun phrase complement: c. ârezu-ye sara wish-Ez Sara

‘Sara’s wish’ When more than one right-branching modifier or complement appears, -e ezâfe is realized before each phrasal category and is phonologically connected to its modifying noun. Note the following example:

Persian grammar and a few characteristics of Swedish d. šab-hâ-ye

rošan-e tâbestân-e

night-PL-Ez light-Ez

summer-Ez

83

sued Sweden

‘Sweden’s light summer nights’ Ezâfe in prepositional phrases In the prepositional phrase, the ezâfe is realized between the preposition and the noun phrase that follows, as in the example below: e. bedun-e

šak

without-Ez doubt

‘no doubt, without doubt’ Note that ezâfe is not realized with all prepositions. There are two groups of prepositions in Persian. One group consists of bare prepositions that never take ezâfe (e.g. az ‘from, of, made of, than, out of’, bâ ‘with’, dar ‘at, in, into’ etc.). For instance, the following prepositional phrase does not require e-ezâfe: f. az

sued

From Sweden

tâ dânmark to Denmark

The other group of prepositions consists of ezâfe prepositions. This group is divided into two types. One type must occur with ezâfe. The ezâfe prepositions exemplified below take an obligatory ezâfe: h. pošt-e dar i. bedun-e j. barâ-ye

‘behind the door’ ‘without’ ‘for’

The second type of ezâfe prepositions either take ezâfe or appear without ezâfe. For instance, the following prepositions take an optional ezâfe: k. bâlâ-(ye) kuh l. ru-(ye) miz

‘up the mountain’ ‘on the table’

Note that the meaning of prepositions like tu-(ye), ru-(ye), bâlâ-(ye) is the same whether they are used with or without ezâfe. 3.7 Pronominal clitics It is common in Persian to express possessive pronouns by attaching a pronominal clitic to the noun. Pronominal clitics alternate with independent possessive pronouns such as man ‘my’ tow ‘your’ and u ‘her/his’. For

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instance, the possessive pronoun to ‘your’ in ketâb-e to ‘your book’ can be replaced by the clitic -et as is used in ketâb-et ‘your book’. While independent personal pronouns are always topical, the corresponding clitics in contrast are non-topical. The set of pronominal clitics is presented below with examples: (3:17) Sg. Pronominal clitics

Example

Meaning

-am (1Sg) -et/at (2Sg) -aš/eš (3Sg)

ketâb-am ketâb-et ketâb-eš

‘My book’ ‘Your book’ ‘His/her book’

(3:18) Pl. Pronominal clitics

Example

Meaning

-emân (1Pl) -etân (2Pl) -ešân (3Pl)

ketâb-emân ketâb-etân ketâb-ešân

‘Our book’ ‘Your book’ ‘Their book’

As shown in 3.2, clitic pronouns can also be attached to the verb to replace the direct object as in (3:19a): (3:19) a. diruz yesterday

did-am-eš saw-1Sg-Clitic.Pro

‘Yesterday (I) saw him/her’ Pronominal clitics may also attach to prepositions to replace the object of the preposition. For instance, the object (i.e. Sâmân) in (3.19b) is replaced in (3:19c) by the clitic pronoun eš: b. be sâmân goft-am to

saman told-1Sg

‘I told Saman’ c. be-eš

goft-am

to-Clitic.Pro told-1Sg

‘I told him’ Clitic possessive pronouns and independent possessive pronouns are used in both written and spoken language, whereas clitic objects are widely used in spoken language.


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3.8 The Persian verb and verb phrase As was stated earlier, Persian is a verb-final language. Arguments of the verb, like the object and PP, precede it while sentential arguments of the sentence as exemplified in (3:20) occur in post-verbal position: (3:20) Farzaneh goft ke bâyad zood beFarzaneh

said

that must

r-im

early Subj- go-1Pl

‘Farzaneh said that we should go early’ Persian verbs are inflected for tense, aspect, mood, number and person. Grammarians posit that the major distinguishing feature of the Persian verb system is most likely aspect (cf. Windfuhr 1979). Tense/aspect forms are derived from either the present stem or the past stem. The past stem itself is derived from the infinitive form by dropping the ending -an. This is illustrated in the example below: (3:21) Infinitive

Past stem

First person singular

xord-an ‘to eat’

xord ‘ate’

xord-am ‘I ate’

The present stem is also derived from the infinitive. There is no transparent, consistent morphological relationship between the infinitive and the present stem in the Persian verb system, although a few patterns are predominant (Mahootian 1997). For instance, the -idan class (202 verbs which have the ending -idan in the infinitive form) is the most common class of Persian verbs (Moinfar 1978). As is exemplified in (3:22a) below, -idan has been dropped from the infinitive to yield the present stem. The present stem is then prefixed with the imperfective mi- and suffixed with the first person singular clitic morpheme -am. The example in (3:22b) is selected from the -ftan class of verbs (consisting of 6 verbs). Note that the -ftan of the infinitive is dropped while other vowel alternations occur: (3:22) Infinitive

Present stem

First person Sg present

a. david-an ‘to run’ b. raft-an ‘to go’

dav ro

mi-dav-am mi-rav-am

The past participle is derived from the past stem by adding the past participle suffix -e to the stem e.g., goft ‘said’ and goft-e (ast) ‘He/she has said’. All

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perfect forms are periphrastic and use different forms of the verb budan ‘to be’ as in below: (3:23) a. xord-e

ast

ate-PSPT is

‘He/she has eaten’ b. xord-e

bud

ate-PSPT was

‘He/she had eaten’ In spoken language, the present perfect allows copula deletion in the third person singular, as below: c. xord-e

(ast)

ate-PSPT (is)

‘He/she has eaten’ d. raft-e

(ast)

went-PSPT (is)

‘He/she has gone’ The prefix miGrammarians generally identify the prefix mi- as a marker of imperfective aspect. The prefix mi- is added to the present stem in the present and to the past stem in the past as is exemplified in (3:24): (3:24) a. mi-bin-i IMPF-see-2Sg

ke

dâr-am

kâr

that

have-1Sg

work IMPF- do-1Sg

mi-

kon-am

‘You see that I work/am working’ b. sued Sweden

zendegi milife

kard-am

IMPF- did-1Sg

‘I was living in Sweden’ Subjunctives There are only two subjunctives, the present and the perfect. The present subjunctive is marked by the prefix be- (e.g. be-xar-am ‘that I buy’), and the perfect subjunctive is marked by bâš ‘be’. Note that the present tense of the verb “to be” is expressed either through the clitic form, hast ‘exist’, or


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through the present stem bâš. As illustrated in (3:25), bâš is commonly used in subjunctive and imperative constructions: (3:25) a. fekr

mi-

kon-am did-e bâš-am

thought IMPF- do-1Sg

seen

Subj-1Sg

‘I think (that) I may have seen’ b. sâket bâš quiet be

‘Be quiet’ The use of bâš in the simple present is restricted to literary contexts as in the following: c. negarân mianxious

bâš-am

IMPF- Subj-1Sg

‘I am anxious’ Subject agreement One of the typological characteristics of Persian is that verbs agree with their subject in person and number. However, number agreement in the verb depends on whether the subject is inanimate or animate. With inanimate subjects, using the plural suffix with the predicate is optional. Note that in (3:26a) below the verb is inflected for the plural, while in (3:26b) it is in the singular. Nonetheless, both forms are grammatical: (3:26) a. barg-hâ mi-riz-an leave-PL IMPF-fall-3Pl

‘The leaves are falling’ b. barg-hâ mi-riz-e leave-PL IMPF-fall-3Sg

‘The leaves are falling’ With animate subjects, the use of singular and plural suffixes on the predicate is obligatory. Note the examples in (3:27): (3:27) a. (man) did-am (I)

‘I saw’

saw-1Sg

88

Disagreement in Agreement b. (mâ) did-im (we) saw-1Pl

‘We saw’ The simple present and past personal endings of Persian verbs are illustrated in the following chart. Note that the third person singular ending in the past is zero (e.g. goft ‘he/she said’), while the third person plural ending is -and (e.g. goft-and ‘they said’). (3:28) a. Verb stem Present Past Perfect

Sg. endings -am -i -ad -am -i Ø -e-am -e -e-ast

-im-im-e-im

PL. endings -id -and -id -and -e-id -e-and

The following examples exhibit the inflectional paradigm for the past and past perfect tenses of the verb raftan ‘to go’: b. raft-am went-1sg

‘I went’ c. raft-e-im went-PSPT-1Pl

‘We have gone’ I will next take a brief look at the Swedish system. 3.9 The Swedish verb system The infinitive, present, past and supine are principal parts of the Swedish verb system. This implies that all forms may easily be derived from these parts of the system. The infinitive of the majority of Swedish verbs ends in -a (e.g. arbeta ‘to work’, äta ‘to eat’). Tense is indicated by means of verbal inflection. The present tense of almost all verbs ends in -r (e.g. arbetar ‘works’), and the past tense of the majority of verbs ends in -de or -te (e.g. arbetade ‘worked’, köpte ‘bought’). The verbs can be grouped into weak and strong group depending on the past tense forms. The supine is used with forms of the auxiliary verb ha ‘have’ to form the present perfect and past perfect tenses (e.g. jag har köpt en bil ‘I have bought a car’, jag hade köpt en bil ‘I had bought a car’).


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The four inflectional forms of the Swedish verb arbeta ‘to work’ are illustrated in the following chart: (3:29) Infinitive arbeta

Present arbetar

Past arbetade

Supine arbetat

The infinitive functions either as a verb together with a modal auxiliary or as a noun. Note the examples below: (3:30) a. vi ska we will

spela fotboll play

football

b. att spela fotboll to

play

football

är roligt is fun

‘Playing football is fun’ Conjugations in Swedish The verb system includes three conjugations of weak verbs (I, II, III) and one conjugation of strong verbs (IV). This classification into four conjugations is an attempt to reduce and simplify a great number of different patterns of inflection. Weak verbs add an inflectional ending to the stem, (e.g. arbeta ‘to work’, arbetar/arbetade ‘works/worked’). Strong verbs add no inflectional ending in the past but undergo vowel changes in the stem (e.g. dricka ‘to drink’, dricker/drack ‘drink/drank’). Some examples are given in the following chart: (3:31) a. Weak past tenses: Conjugation Infinitive I arbeta ‘to work’ II köra ‘to drive’ III sy ‘to sew’

Past tense arbetade ‘worked’ körde ‘drove’ sydde ‘sewed’

b. Strong verbs: Conjugation IV

Past tense bjöd ‘invited’

Infinitive bjuda ‘to invite’

Unlike Persian verbs, verbs in Swedish do not inflect for person-number and aspect. This distinction plays a significant role in codeswitching.

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3.10 Persian compound verbs In Persian, there is a very productive form of verb compounding. A lexical item that can be an adjective, adverb, preposition, participle or noun is preposed to an auxiliary verb to yield a compound verb. The pre-verbal element of the compound verb bears the semantic content while the auxiliary verbs (e.g. kardan ‘to do’, šodan ‘to become’, dâštan ‘to have’ etc.) or a set of simple verbs design verbal inflection. Compound verbs are also one of the important areal linguistic features of modern Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi etc. Some examples of Persian compound verbs are given below: (3:32) Noun + help verb dars xândan kâr kardan rang zadan guš dâdan

(lit. lesson to read) (lit. work to do) (lit. paint to hit) (lit. ear to give)

‘to study’ ‘to work’ ‘to paint’ ‘to listen’

(3:33) Adjective/adverb + help verb tamiz kardan bidâr kardan bidâr šodan aqab raftan

(lit. clean to do) (lit. awake to do) (lit. awake to become) (lit. back to go)

‘to clean’ ‘to awake’ tr ‘to be awake’ intr ‘to go backward’

(3:34) Preposition + help verb bar âmadan

(lit. up to come)

‘to come up’

As mentioned, compound verbs are generally formed by combining a nonverbal element and an auxiliary verb like kardan, šodan or a small set of other simple verbs. Some early researchers maintained that there are functional/syntactic differences between kardan and šodan. More recently, Bateni (1969) has tried to differentiate between the syntactic functions filled by šodan as a neutral verb in compound constructions and its usage as a passive verb in passive constructions. Bateni’s functional/syntactic analysis of šodan in terms of immediate constituents shows that šodan ‘to become’ functions as a passive verb when it is postposed to a verb (e.g. košte šod ‘became killed, was killed’). When occurs as the right most element of a compound verb (i.e. postposed to nouns, adjectives, adverbs or nominalized


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forms of verbs, prefixes or noun phrases of different complexity), it functions as a neutral verb (i.e. delxor šod ‘became annoyed’). 3.10.1 Recent analyses of compound verbs Some traditional Persian grammarians have hinted at the distinct status of compound verbs as opposed to regular object-verb constructions. In more recent analyses, there has been considerable agreement among Persian and non-Persian linguists over extent to which the preverbal element bears a thematic relation to the verb. Some of these recent analyses are outlined below. Mohammad and Karimi’s analysis (1992) account for the contrast between the status of the complex verb as opposed to that of regular objectverb constructions. The following examples are adopted from Mohammad and Karimi: (3:35) a. Kimia zamin xord Kimea earth

collide.3Sg

‘Kimea fell’ b. Kimia ketâb Kimea book

xarid bought

‘Kimia bought book’ c. kimia ye ketâb-i

xarid

Kimea one book-INDF bought

‘Kimia bought a book’ For Mohammad and Karimi, the sentence in (a) is a complex predicate, while (b) and (c) contain verb-object phrases. Ghomeshi and Massam (1994) take a unified approach and consider all compounds like those in (3:35a) and (3:35b) above to be the same. Ghomeshi and Massam (1994) argue that the N+V sequences in (a) and (b) are phonologically one word. The only difference between these two sentences and (c) is aspectual. The indefinite markers ye and -i indicate this aspectual difference and correlate with the phrasal nature of the object in (c). For Ghomeshi and Massam, the event is more bounded in (c). Mohammad and Karimi also demonstrate how the verbal elements of Persian compound verbs are ‘light’ verbs in the sense of Jespersen (1954). The authors argue that light verbs show three properties:

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Disagreement in Agreement • They are semantically empty. • They do not bear a thematic relation to the pre-verbal element. • The subcategorizational framework of light verbs is dissimilar to that of heavy verbs.

Mohammad and Karimi maintain that light verbs take different types of complements depending on the nominal element in the complex predicate, whereas heavy verbs take a direct or indirect object. For instance, the verb xord in (3:35a) is semantically an empty verb and, together with the preverbal element zamin ‘earth’, would mean ‘fell down’. As a heavy verb xord means ‘ate’ and takes an object. Mohammad and Karimi also show that in (3:35d) below no thematic relation holds between the verb dâd and the nominal guš. The nominal element guš ‘ear’ is the structural direct object of the verb and can be separated by a number of elements such as a negation element or the Persian prefix mi-: d. Kimia

be râdio guš dâd

Keamia

to

radio ear gave

‘Keamia listened to the radio’ (Mohammad and Karimi 1992) Observe that while dâd in (3:35d) is a light verb, in (3:36a) below is a heavy verb and shows a different thematic relationship to its internal argument. Here, ketâb and Sara are the Theme and the Goal of the dâd: (3:36) a. pâni be sara ketâb dâd Pani

to

Sara

book gave

‘Pani gave (a) book to Sara’ The structure in (3:36b) supports Mohammad and Karimi’s analysis of Persian complex predicates. The authors show that, the nominal element of the complex predicate, a nonspecific NP, appears as the sister of the verb, receiving structural Case. The specific direct object in the SPEC of the VP receives inherent Case under government:


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(3:36b) VP

SPEC NP [+Specific] [Inherent case]

V'

PP

V'

NP V [–Specific] [Structural Case] (Adopted from Mohammad and Karimi 1992) Meshkotod-Dini (1994) suggests a simple criterion for distinguishing the status of a verb in a complex predicate from that of a verb in an object-verb construction. Meshkotod-Dini (1994: 159) posits that the combination of a noun/adjective and a verb in a compound verb would function as one semantic unit, while the verb by itself would not have the same semantic implication. In other words, the complex predicate as a semantic unit differs considerably in meaning from the meaning of its constituents. For instance, guš dâdan (lit. ear to give) is a complex predicate, though functions as a semantic unit meaning ‘to listen’, while dâd in the object-verb construction in (3:37b) is a heavy verb which means ‘gave’. Note the two examples below: (3:37) a. guš dâd ear gave

‘(He/she) listened’ b. ketâb dâd book gave

‘(He/she) gave a book’ While in (3:37a) dâd ‘gave’ by itself, in the absence of guš, does not mean ‘listened’, in (3:37b) as a heavy verb retains its own meaning.

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3.10.2 A productive process Verb compounding is very productive. Since the seventh century, the Persian nominals of compounds have been replaced by Arabic nominals borrowed into Persian. Some examples of Arabic/Persian compound verbs are given below: (3:38) a. harâsat kardan b. t/lim dâdan c. takzib kardan

(lit. guarding to do) (lit. teaching to give) (lit. denying to do)

‘to guard’ ‘to teach’ ‘to deny’

More recently alien verbs from West European languages such as French and English have also been used with the Persian auxiliary kardan ‘to do’ to yield bilingual complex verbs i.e. edit kardan ‘to edit’, type kardan (lit. typing to do), delete kardan ‘to delete’ and so on. As Windfuhr (1979) puts it, “this old process of creating new verbal predicates is still productive; in fact it is virtually the only productive one, steadily innovating, accompanied by gradual change from syntactically rather free periphrastic constructions to fixed compounds”. Bilingual verb compounding is also a productive process in Swedish/Persian contact situation. A central aspect of this process is restructuring of pre-existing structure of Persian complex verbs. The mechanism is based on that the speakers create a form-meaning mapping between the Swedish and Persian verb systems that deviates from the Persian convention and involves some degree of innovation. The result of this restructuring is many novel bilingual complex verbs that account for the innovative use of language in adjusting the verb systems. In chapter 4, the formation of these bilingual complex verbs is discussed in depth. 3.11 Summary This chapter outlined the major descriptive characteristics of Persian grammar and a few features of the Swedish system. The purpose has been to highlight the differences and similarities that might have implications for Swedish/Persian bilingual speech. As shown, there are language-specific differences in verb systems that are crucial and may have important bearing on codeswitching. Two other major differences are noted in nominal morphology. In Swedish, unlike Persian, adjectives agree in number, definiteness and gender with the modifying noun. Swedish nouns are also inflected for number, case and definiteness. In contrast, nouns have no gender in Persian and marking the plural is not always obligatory. However, differences in nominal morphology have no bearing on codeswitching. Swedish constituents (excluding


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verbs) that are inserted in a Persian frame follow Persian principles and often are affixed with Persian nominal morphology. For instance, pronominal clitics that can attach in Persian to nouns as possessive pronouns, to prepositions as complements and to verbs as direct objects, attach frequently to Swedish nouns and adjectives and serve the same function as they do in Persian. The next two chapters introduce the data.

Chapter Four

Single word insertions

4.1 Introduction In this chapter I introduce the data for single word insertions. Insertion was previously defined as the embedding/insertion of a Swedish single word or phrase in the overall structure of Persian (cf. Muysken 2000). As discussed in chapter 2, some scholars (see 2.8) maintain that single words that have been integrated in the morphosyntax of the matrix language should be treated as borrowings and should be distinguished from codeswitches (Poplack 1980). As was established earlier, it is not the goal in this dissertation to make a distinction between codeswitching and borrowing. I shall pursue the line of reasoning that single words first occur as codeswitches and gradually, over time, may become fully accepted borrowings. Similarly, Backus (1996) does not distinguish between codeswitching and borrowing for his Turkish/Dutch codeswitching data. He argues that, from the perspective of speaker motivations, even a single word insertion could be a real codeswitch. Jacqueline Toribio (p.c.) suggests that it is necessary to make a distinction between codeswitching and borrowing because there is no syntactic constraint on single word insertions. This could be true; however depending on the contrasting typological properties of the languages involved, even insertion of categories of single words may not be totally free. For instance, as shown by Muysken (2000:55), in the mixed language Michif, French verbs are very rare (Bakker 1997), while in some varieties of Quechua 35 percent of all Spanish borrowed items are verbs. Muysken explains that in Michif Cree verbal morphology practically constrains the integration of French elements. In Quechua, the highly regular agglutinative morphology facilitates incorporation. In the data studied here while Swedish nouns are the most frequently inserted category of words, finite verbs or verb stems do not occur as single inserted elements in Persian. This chapter takes the first step in explaining why there is such a restriction.

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The chapter is divided into seven sections. The notion of the matrix language is discussed in sub-section (4.1.1). Section (4.2) characterizes the grammatical dimensions of insertions. Sections (4.3), (4.4), (4.5), and (4:6) introduce the data, and section (4.7) closes the chapter with a summary. 4.1.1 The matrix language The notion of a matrix language has generally been discussed with respect to insertions. Some researchers assign a matrix language in conversations where codeswitching involves non-equivalent languages. Sridhar and Sridhar (1980), Joshi (1985), Klavans (1985), Nishimura (1986) and Myers-Scotton (DL1993) distinguish between the matrix language and embedded language of CS. However, not all researchers of codeswitching consider that it is necessary to assign a matrix language to the codeswitching sentences (e.g. Sankoff and Poplack 1980; Woolford 1983). The kind of criteria used to identify the matrix language differs in various codeswitching data. As shown in chapter 2, Joshi (1985), based on his Marathi-English codeswitching data, identifies the matrix language of conversations in terms of asymmetry constraint. Joshi claims that closed class items, e.g. determiners, quantifiers, prepositions, possessives, Aux, tense and auxiliary verbs cannot be switched. Klavans (1985) claims that the inflection on the finite verb would determine the matrix language. Myers-Scotton (DL1993) assumes that the matrix language (ML) plays a dominant role in codeswitching and is responsible for dictating the morphosyntactic order of codeswitching sentences. The other language, labeled the embedded language (EL), plays a restricted role and is less active. The division of roles between ML and EL also means that all the system morphemes, e.g. quantifiers, specifiers, and inflectional morphology, come from the ML. Muysken (2000:67) posits that even from the perspective of the government model (DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh 1986), a notion of base or matrix language is present in the sense that: “each governing element (e.g. verb, preposition, auxiliary) creates a matrix structure, namely its maximal projection”. According to Muysken, the inflection on the finite verb would often determine the matrix language, whereas the complementizer would determine the matrix language in subordinate clauses. As was noted, assigning a matrix character to one of the languages involved in codeswitching is not based on an agreed criterion since there is no such criterion. In the unidirectional type of codeswitching that we have in the present data, it is not difficult to see that Persian is the matrix language and Swedish is embedded in Persian. As emerged from earlier discussions, a number of social and psychological factors in any speech situation often determines which language will be the matrix language of the conversation. In


99

speech situations involving bilingual immigrants, actual usage of the ethnic language often reflects intimacy, shared identity and group belonging. In general, no matrix language is assigned to the bilingual codeswitched sentences for analyses of the data. However, where it is necessary to make a clear distinction, the inflection on the finite verb is used as a criterion to identify which language is the matrix. This implies that the definition of the matrix language for the purposes of this work is based on the interaction of sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic and grammatical factors. 4.2 The grammatical dimensions of single word insertions Swedish single words in a Persian frame are generally nouns, bare infinitive verbs and adjectives. Single nouns alone account for 47 % of the total single word insertions. Bare infinitive verbs always occur in VPs along with the Persian inflected auxiliary verb kardan. In some cases Swedish nouns and adjectives occur in combination with Persian copula verbs e.g. budan ‘to be’; in other cases they appear as predicative affixed with Persian bound copula morphemes. As shown in table 4.1 below, out of a total of 421 Swedish single words found in the entire corpus (excluding Kristoffer’s data), as many as 199 words are nouns and 91 words are bare infinitive verbs. Recall that the names of foods, places, and culture-specific words like midsommar ‘midsummer’, julafton ‘Christmas eve’, pappaledig ‘parental leave of absence’, and so on which are used by all Iranians, either bilingual or monolingual, are excluded from this count. Table 4.1 Swedish single words in Persian Type Single nouns Infinitive verbs Compound nouns Adjectives Adverbs Conjunctions Others Total

N 199 91 15 87 21 3 5 421

% 47 21 4 21 5 1 1 100

Insertions are often integrated in the recipient language morphology. Recipient language morphological markers on inserted elements are found when there is switching for instance, between English and an agglutinative

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language such as Finnish (Halmari 1997) or between Turkish and Dutch (Backus 1993, 1996). Poplack et al. (1987) find that English elements are morphologically integrated in Finnish and receive affixes from Finnish. These elements are described by Poplack et al. (1988) as nonce borrowings (see 2.8 for a discussion of nonce borrowing). Halmari (1997), also working with Finnish/English data in the US, demonstrates how English words are assimilated in Finnish morphosyntax. Halmari, however, takes a different position from Poplack et al. in that she treats the English words as codeswitches and not borrowings. In her view, codeswitched sentences in her data become acceptable when Finnish case morphology is added to the English noun. English verbs also become morphologically assimilated into Finnish morphosyntax and assign a Finnish case to their object DP. Boyd et al. (1991) also find that in Finnish/Swedish CS data, a majority of the Swedish items which should have received morphological markings are marked with Finnish (ML) inflections or derivations rather than Swedish ones. In the present data, a Swedish constituent (a lexical item (e.g. a noun) or a phrase (e.g. a prepositional phrase)) may receive all the required Persian morphological markers or may be inserted in Persian without any such markers if Persian requires so. Nonetheless, what is common to all inserted Swedish single words or phrases (e.g., PPs) in Persian is that they are placed in appropriate syntactic slots and behave as if they were Persian. For instance, nouns occur in the object position of Persian verbs or follow a Persian determiner. The Swedish adjectives also obey Persian principles and occur postnominally. The data exemplified below characterize how the Swedish words are integrated totally or partially in Persian morphosyntax. As noted, in some cases a Swedish constituent may be integrated in Persian morphosyntax, while in other cases it is only integrated in Persian syntax. For instance, what we see in (4:1a) characterizes that the Swedish noun framtid ‘future’ behaves like a Persian noun. It is inserted in the appropriate syntactic position in Persian and receives two markers from Persian: (a) a clitic pronoun, the suffix eš, and (b) the object marker râ (o). Recall that râ marks the direct object as definite. In spoken language, it may be realized as ro/o, depending on the phonological environment. Note that the clitic pronoun -eš (š) in (4:1a) is attached to the Swedish noun as a possessive pronoun:3 3

All the switched Swedish constituents exemplified in this dissertation are marked in italics and are written in bold. Persian affixes attached to Swedish words are also sometimes written in bold when they are in focus, as in the examples above. All the Swedish-Persian examples have been provided with English glosses and translations unless the gloss happens to be identical to the translation, in which case only the gloss is provided.

Single word insertions (4:1) a. âdam one

az

ne-mi-

tun-e

101

framtid-eš-

o

NEG-IMPF- can-3Sg future-Clitic.Pro -râ

hâlâ be-g-e

from now

Subj-say-3Sg

‘One cannot say now what will happen in the feature’ In (4:1b), a Swedish noun is linked to its modifying possessive pronoun through the Persian e-ezâfe. Note also that the other Swedish element is affixed with a Persian bound copula morpheme: b. rektor-e

mâ ke râsist-e

principle-Ez our that racist-Copula.3Sg

‘Our principle who is racist’ In (4:1c), the Swedish noun is integrated in the Persian morphosyntax through the use of a Persian determiner. Note also that Persian definite direct object marker râ marks it as definite: c. yek förhållande-ro to in a

relationship-râ

sen na-bâyad jeddi

gereft

in this age not-should serious took

‘One should not consider that a relationship is serious at this age’ In (4:2a), a Swedish adjective is suffixed with the Persian bound copula morpheme -an: (4:2) a. xob

pas

falsk-an

pesar-â

well

then

false-Copula.3Pl

boy-PL

‘Well then boys are false’ In (4:2b), a Swedish adjective is suffixed with the Persian comparative marker -tar: b. swedi-hâ xeili trygg-tar

zendegi mi-kon-an

Swede-PL much safe-COMPR life

IMPF-do-3Pl

‘Swedish people live much more safely’ In the examples above and in all other cases where Swedish nouns or adjectives occur in a Persian frame, Persian principles are respected. In neither situation does the use of Persian inflection and/or the definite direct object

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marker râ with Swedish constituents result in an ungrammatical construction. In (4:3) below, Swedish noun is placed in the same syntactic position its Persian equivalent would otherwise be placed. Here, the Swedish noun bears no affixes from Persian. It should be mentioned that all insertions lacking the Persian morphology are grammatical because they follow the principles of Persian: (4:3) a. az

suedi-hâ

respekt mi-xâh-im

from Swede-PL respect

MPF-want-1Pl

‘We want respect from Swedish people’ In two cases, Swedish nouns are marked twice for the plural, with both a Swedish and a Persian plural marker. As illustrated below, a Swedish noun in object position is double-marked with the Swedish plural marker -or and the Persian plural marker -hâ. Note that the majority of Swedish nouns that end in -a take the plural ending -or and drop the -a before the plural ending (i.e. fråga / frågor): b. ye ccand tâ a

frågor-â-i

porsid-an

number CL questions-PL-Indef asked-3Pl

‘They asked a number of questions’ In other cases, Swedish nouns obey Persian principles and occur in Persian in the singular form. See the example below: c. idé man bâ idea my

with

idé-ye

bacce-hâ yeki ni-st

idea-Ez

child-PL

one

NEG-is

‘My idea isn’t the same as the other pupils’ idea’ In a Swedish monolingual context corresponding to (4:3c), the Swedish idé modifying the plural noun bacce-hâ ‘children’ would be marked for plural (e.g. idéer ‘ideas’), whereas in the example above idé follows Persian principles and occurs in the singular. In (4:4) below, a Swedish compound noun småföretagare ‘owners of small firms’ is integrated in the Persian morphosyntax: (4:4) a. Mona barâye småföretagare Mona

for

xub

kâr kard

small.firm.owners good job did.3Sg

‘Mona did a good job for owners of small firms’


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A monolingual Persian sentence corresponding to (4:4a) is exemplified in (4:4b) below. Note that the counterpart to the Swedish compound noun småföretagare would be an NP in Persian in which the noun is linked to its modifiers through the ezâfe particle, e.g. sâhebân-e šerkat-hâ-ye kuccek ‘owners of small firms’: b. Mona barây Mona

xub

for

sâheb-ân-e

šerkat-hâ-ye

owner-PL-Ez firm-PL-Ez

kuccek small

kâr kard

good job did

‘Mona did a good job for owners of small firms’ The examples above show that morphosyntactic integration of Swedish single words (excluding verbs) in Persian is achieved through the use of Persian bound copula morphemes, the comparative suffix -tar (in the case of adjectives) or pronominal clitics. Swedish nouns in the direct object position also receive the Persian definite direct object marker râ. In one case, even a Swedish infinitive compound verb was suffixed with a Persian clitic pronoun. Note that as (4:4c) illustrates the Persian pronominal clitic e.g. -š (eš) occurs with the Swedish compound infinitive verb as direct object: c. polisanmäla-š

kard-im

police+ to report-Clitic.Pro did-3Pl

‘We reported him to the police’ In two cases, a Swedish noun occurs with its own definite marker (i.e. -et/en) as in below: d. moqe-e

bombârân-â

majbur bud-im be-r-im

at time-Ez bombardment-PL had to

were-1Pl Subj-go-1Pl

be källar-en to

basement-DEF

‘During bombardments we had to go to the basement’ Table 4.2 below gives an overview of Swedish single words that either receive Persian inflectional morphology and/or the definite direct object marker râ or lack Persian markers.

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Disagreement in Agreement Table 4.2 Swedish nouns and adjectives with and without Persian markers

Type Swedish single nouns Swedish compound nouns Swedish adjectives Total

With Persian markers 75 3 32 110

Without Persian markers 122 12 55 189

Double marking

Total

2 0 0 2

199 15 87 301

The figures in the table suggest that 38% of a total of 199 Swedish single nouns, 20% of 15 compound nouns and 37% of a total of 87 adjectives receive Persian inflectional morphology or the Persian definite direct object marker râ. The rest are nouns, adjectives or compound nouns that lack Persian markers. As was mentioned, all insertions that lack Persian morphology are grammatical. Table 4.3 gives a detailed overview of the occurrence of Persian inflectional morphology, the e-ezâfe particle and the definite direct object marker râ, with Swedish nouns. Table 4.3 Swedish nouns with Persian markers Type Swedish nouns with the Persian plural marker hâ Swedish nouns with Persian copula bound morphemes Swedish nouns with the Persian ezâfe Swedish nouns with Persian pronominal clitics Swedish nouns with the Persian object marker râ Swedish nouns with the Persian suffix -i (indicating [–definite] and [+specific]) Total

N 11 12 18 13 14 7 75

The figures in table 4.3 illustrate that the Persian e-ezâfe linking the noun to its modifier is most frequent and the definite direct object marker râ ranks second. The goal in presenting the syntactic or morphosyntactic integration of Swedish single words here is to characterize the grammatical dimensions of the insertions. As was stated previously in chapter 2, the present work does not take the morphosyntactic integration as a criterion for distinguishing the status of borrowings from codeswitchings. This contradicts Poplack et al.’s position, which takes morphosyntactic integration as the criterion for defining borrowing.


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Swedish single words in Kristoffer’s data As was mentioned in chapter 1, one set of codeswitches was collected by the occasional taking of notes from the spontaneous speech of my nephew Kristoffer in ordinary situations at home. The recurring insertions in Kristoffer’s data through to the age 17 consist of both more complex phrases and prototypes that are found in the speech of the majority of young speakers (single nouns and bare infinitive verbs). Table 4.4 below gives an overview of single word insertions in Kristoffer’s data. Phrasal insertions are demonstrated in the next chapter. Table 4.4 Single word insertions in Kristoffer’s data Type Swedish single nouns (match, bibliotek) Swedish single nouns with Persian inflection and/or râ (ledare-šun, kusin-am, tröja-hâ-râ) Swedish attributive adjectives with Persian bound morphemes and the object marker râ (o) (bluz-e randig-am-o) Swedish single words with Swedish and Persian plural markers (frågor-hâ, lådor-hâ) Swedish bare infinitive verbs (ändra, avgå, borra, hjälpa, fortsätta, prova) Swedish infinitive verbs with a particle Compound nouns (medelklassfamilj) Conjunctions (innan ‘before’) Swedish pronouns (några ‘several’) with a Persian determiner Total

N 2 5 1 2 6 2 1 1 1 21

As the table shows, the use of Swedish nouns and infinitive verbs is fairly equal in Kristoffer’s data. Of a total of 21 Swedish single words, five words are single nouns with Persian inflectional morphology and/or the definite direct object marker râ, two are single bare nouns, two are nouns with double plural markers, 6 are bare infinitive verbs, and 2 are infinitive verbs with a particle. These 6 bare infinitive verbs and 2 infinitive verbs with a particle are included in the count for table 4.5 which gives an overview of the total complex bilingual verbs in the entire corpus. Other figures are not included in the other tables. 4.3 Swedish bare infinitive verbs in Persian So far, I have shown how Swedish nouns and adjectives are syntactically or morpho-syntactically integrated in Persian structure. What is needed here is

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an exploration of the way Swedish verbs are used in Persian. This is the central topic that I will address in the following sections. As was stated earlier, Swedish single words are not always totally integrated in Persian morphosyntax. Some words take Persian bound morphemes and/or the definite direct object marker râ, while other words occur without any Persian marker. And, in some cases the Swedish noun retains its own definite marker when inserted in Persian. Nevertheless, all the inserted Swedish constituents are perfectly integrated in Persian syntax. As for Swedish verbs, there are no cases where a verb stem is used with Persian inflection or an inflected verb occurs as a single element in Persian. There is, however, one way of incorporating Swedish verbs in the Persian system. The data are indicative of a general process of bilingual verb formation. The Swedish/Persian codeswitching allows for the creation of bilingual complex verbs through the addition of a Swedish bare infinitive verb to a Persian inflected auxiliary, a morphological possibility that facilitates Swedish neutral verbs to be integrated in Persian system. The Swedish bare infinitive verb in combination with kardan yields a Swedish/Persian bilingual complex verb in which kardan serves to carry the inflectional markers for aspect, tense and agreement, while the Swedish bare infinitive verb bears the semantic content. As discussed in chapter 3, verb compounding is a very productive process in Persian. This productivity is evidenced by the fact that the preverbal element of compound verbs is not restricted to native Persian. There are also Arabic/Persian compound verbs in which Persian nominals of compound verbs are replaced by Arabic nominals. Swedish has no compound verb construction equivalent to Persian compound verbs. There is four main groups of verbs in Swedish which are characterized by four patterns of endings. These patterns require rather complicated rules that are totally different from the Persian system (see also 3.9). As shown in chapter 3, in Persian a lexical item that is a noun, adjective, adverb, preposition or participle can be preposed to an auxiliary verb like kardan ‘to do’, šodan ‘to become’, dâštan ‘to have’ and many other help verbs to yield a complex verb. Some examples are illustrated below: (4:5) a. javâb dâdan

(lit. answer to give)

‘to answer’

b.delxor šodan

(lit. annoyed to become)

‘to become annoyed’

Meshkotod-Dini (1994) maintains that, in most cases the leftmost component of the compound verb refers to a specific “manner” or “action”, whereas the auxiliary or the help verb refers to making/doing that manner or action. For


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instance, in rang zadan (lit. paint + to hit) ‘to paint’, rang ‘paint’ refers to a specific manner, while zadan ‘to hit’ describes the occurrence of that manner. The auxiliary kardan ‘to do, to make’ may also be used to indicate the occurrence of an action as in gerye kardan ‘to cry, to do crying’. Again, gerye ‘cry’ refers to an action, whereas kardan describes that action. There are also Arabic/Persian compound verbs formed by an Arabic nominal added to a Persian auxiliary verb as in the example below: (4:6) be xodâ esteqâse to

God

begging

mi-kon-am IMPF-do-1Sg

‘I beg/pray God’ Investigating the structure of compound verbs and the multitudes of syntactic-semantic relationships between the components of these verbs has been the focus of investigation by Persian and non-Persian grammarians and linguists since 1883 (cf. Windfuhr 1979). The lexicon, word classes, the syntax of the leftmost element and the grammar of simple verbs as opposed to their function in compounds are only a few of the aspects that have been explored in an effort to understand compound verbs. Windfuhr argues that Telegdi (1955) may be regarded as the major modern-era contributor to our understanding of compound verbs. Telegdi identified ‘compound verbs’ as syntactic units. In recent years a number of alien verbs from West European languages (e.g. French and English) that usually carry new concepts associated with the transfer of technology from the West have also appeared with the Persian inflected auxiliary verb kardan. Bilingual complex verbs such as cancel kardan ‘to cancel’, edit kardan ‘to do editing’, delete kardan ‘to delete’ and so on have been created in Iran by Persian monolinguals. The Persian kardan, which is a transitive verb and takes a direct object, is very productive in the formation of bilingual complex verbs. As was said, Swedish/Iranian bilinguals in Sweden and even monolinguals in Iran generally select the auxiliary kardan to integrate alien verbs in the preexisting structure of Persian complex verbs. However, in contrast to native Persian, where the leftmost element of the complex verb can be a noun, adjective or participle, bilingual Swedish/Persian complex verbs have only one lexical element from Swedish added to the left of kardan, and that is a bare infinitive verb. Thus, although the structure already exists in Persian, the Swedish/Persian pattern specifically tends to incorporate a bare infinitive verb from Swedish. The syntactic and semantic investigation of Persian compound verbs has demonstrated that a considerable portion of what have been called compound verbs is not compound at all. One major question in analyzing the

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complicated grammar of complex verbs is deciding how to treat N+V compounds. Ghomeshi and Massam (1994) demonstrate that in Persian, direct objects could be marked in four ways to show four semantic distinctions. The direct object may appear with the object marker râ indicating that the object NP is definite, as in the following example: 1. mâšin-ro xarid-am car-râ

bought-1Sg

‘I bought the car’ The object NP may be marked with the indefinite suffix -i indicating that the NP is referential but indefinite as in the example below: 2. mâšin-i xarid-am car-Indef bought-1Sg

‘I bought a car’ The object NP may occur with both of the above markers, in which case the NP is indefinite but specific, as in example (3) below: 3. mâšin-i-ro xarid-am car-Indef-râ bought-1Sg

‘I bought a (specific) car’ In the fourth case, as exemplified in (4) below, the object NP appears without any marker and forms a unit with the verb. 4. mâšin xarid-am car

bought-1Sg

‘I car-bought’ Ghomeshi & Massam (1994) take the differences between direct object NPs that are case-marked and objects that are unmarked as support for their argument that there is a crucial semantic difference between the object in constructions where the object is nonreferential and other constructions where the object is case-marked. Note that in example (4) above, the noun does not function as argument of the verb, but seemingly modifies the action described by the verb. In other words, the noun loses its argument status and composition as a noun and the verb functions as an intransitive predicate. As discussed in chapter 3, Mohammad and Karimi’s analysis (1992) of complex verbs also suggests that there are two distinct object positions in Persian. The nominal element of the complex predicate, a nonspecific NP, occurs as the sister of the verb receiving structural Case, while the specific


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direct object in the SPEC of the VP receives inherent case under government. Following Mohammad and Karimi’s (1992) analysis, it can be posited that Swedish bare infinitive verbs in Swedish/Persian complex verbs are the structural direct object of the Persian auxiliary verb kardan, which is semantically empty and in some cases is separated from the Swedish bare infinitive verb by a number of elements such as the Persian negation or the imperfect aspect prefix mi-. This approach to the analysis of bilingual complex verbs suggests that these verbs are distinct from regular object-verb constructions and also supports the view that syntax is independent from lexicon. Specifically, the interaction between the semantics of the direct object and its canonical syntactic position in the regular object-verb construction, in contrast with the meaning of the object in a complex predicate, provides evidence that a change in the relationship between the verb and the object results in a different semantic interpretation for different constructions (cf. Ghomeshi and Massam). 4.3.1 Innovation Muysken (2000) has analyzed the compound verbs in a corpus of bilingual speech for different language pairs. He contends that there are basically four types of bilingual complex verbs that fall into one of the following groups: a. The new verb is inserted into a position corresponding to a native verb, in its adapted form or not b. The new verb is adjoined to a helping verb c. The new verb is a nominalized complement to a helping verb d. The new verb is an infinitive and the complement of a native auxiliary (Adopted from Muysken 2000:184) As was mentioned earlier, for Swedish/Persian bilingual verbs it is predominantly Swedish bare infinitive verbs that are preposed to the Persian auxiliary kardan. There was only one case where a Swedish adjective was preposed to kardan and seven cases where a Swedish noun was combined with the Persian auxiliary verb dâštan ‘to have’, e.g. erfarenhet dâštan ‘to have experience’. These two patterns are identical to that of native Persian complex verbs. As exemplified by Muysken (2000), in some bilingual verbal compounds, inflections are attached to an alien stem, either directly as in the Dutch past participle ge-zoom-d, or to an adopted form (e.g. Dutch offr-er-en from French offr-ir ‘offer’). According to Muysken, this is a case of insertion inside the word. This type of insertion inside a verb does not occur in

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the present data. As shown earlier, there is only one single case in the entire corpus where a Persian pronominal clitic -š (eš), serving as direct object, is attached to a Swedish infinitive compound verb. The example is repeated below: (4:7) polisanmäla-š

kard-im

police + to report-Clitic.Pro did-3Pl

‘We reported him to the police’ While insertion inside the verb stems does not occur in the present data, insertion inside Swedish noun stems occurs repeatedly. The question of why such a contrast arises will be addressed in chapter six. Muysken also posits that code-mixing with respect to the verbal system is often innovative in the sense that the leftmost member of the verbal compound is not identical to the monolingual pattern of compound verbs. For instance, in Punjabi/English mixed compounds (Romaine, 1995), there are combinations of English verbs with Punjabi auxiliary verbs, e.g. appreciate k´rna ‘do appreciate’, whereas in Punjabi monolingual compound verbs, the leftmost element must be a noun. Muysken suggests that the predominance of verbs in Punjabi/English bilingual compounds is an innovation (2000:210). This view of “innovation” is also consistent with the formation of Swedish/Persian bilingual complex verbs in the present codeswitching data. We can speak of innovation, because creation of new bilingual verbs deviates from Persian linguistic convention. As earlier mentioned, the leftmost element of the complex verb in a native Persian construction can be a noun, preposition, adjective etc., but can absolutely not be a verb. We can say that there is a restructuring of form-meaning mapping in the new bilingual complex verbs that deviates from Persian norms, despite that speaker attempts to conform it to Persian convention. This process is similar to what Croft (2000:118) describes as “Form-Function Reanalysis”. He argues that although the speakers intended actions are towards conformity to convention, but “the result is innovation, an unintended consequence”. As is illustrated in the following examples, the formation of bilingual verbs in each case corresponds to a counterpart complex verb in Persian, although Persian does not allow a verb to be placed in the leftmost position of a complex predicate.


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(4:8) mâ ro xub

behandla mi-kon-an

agar jämföra

us

to.treat

if

râ well

IMPF-do-3Pl

kon-i

to.compare do-2Sg

‘They treat us well if you compare’ Note that the bilingual sentence in (4:8) is composed of two bilingual complex verbs. In each case a Swedish bare infinitive verb occurs to the left of the Persian auxiliary, whereas in a Persian counterpart verb this element would be a noun. For instance, raftâr ‘behavior’ is a counterpart to behandla in the first bilingual verb and moqâyese ‘comparison’ corresponds to jämföra in the second bilingual verb. Other examples of Swedish/Persian bilingual verbs are given below: (4:9) a. mâ az

Täby flytta

kard-im

we from Täby to move did-1Pl

‘We moved out from Täby’ b. tu klâss diskutera miin class to discuss

kon-im

IMPF- do-1Pl

‘We discuss in the class’ c. âdam one

mitun-e lita

be- kon-e be-ešun

can-3Sg to trust Subj do-3Sg to-Clitic.Pro

‘One can trust them’ A counterpart to each of the bilingual complex verbs in (4:9) above would also be a complex verb in Persian, e.g. asbâb keši kardan ‘to move’, bahs kardan ‘to discuss’ and e/temâd kardan ‘to trust’. Again, the leftmost element of the Persian complex verbs is in each case a noun. As can be seen in the above examples, the main function of kardan as the morphological head of the construction is to integrate its Swedish component in the Persian verbal system. As was mentioned earlier, there are only two exceptions to this general pattern of bilingual verb compounding. In one case, a Swedish adjective (e.g. besviken ‘disappointed’) is preposed to kardan, and in seven cases a Swedish noun is used in combination with Persian verb dâštan ‘to have’. As illustrated in (4:10) below a Swedish adjective is preposed to Persian kard-i (lit. did-you): (4:10) man-o besviken

kard-i

me-râ

did-2Sg

disappointed

‘You made me disappointed’

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In the following examples a Swedish noun is preposed to the Persian auxiliary verb dâštan ‘to have’: (4:11) a. to yek you one

ansvar

dâr-i

responsibility have-2Sg

‘You have a responsibility’ b. bâ with

doxtar iruni girl

förhållande na-dâšt-am

Iranian relationship

NEG-had-1Sg

‘I didn’t have any relationship with Iranian girls’ c. man faqat az I

only

injâ

from here

erfarenhet dâr-am experience

have-1Sg

‘I only have experience from here’ As Simin Karimi suggests (p.c.), the examples in (4:11a), (4:11b) and (4:11c) can be best analyzed as complex verbs since the nonverbal element can not be scrambled (except within the V-bar) nor can the verb be passivized. A counterpart Persian verb to (4:11a) would be masuliat dâri (lit. responsibility have you), to (4:11b) would be râbete nadâštam (lit. relationship not had I), and to (4:11c) would be tajrobe dâram (lit. experience have I). In some cases as in (4:12a), (4:12b), and (4:12c), a Swedish bare infinitive bearing a particle is inserted in Persian along with that particle: (4:12) a. applesin-â-ye orange-PL-Ez

xod-emun

klämma ihop

RFL-Clitic.Pro

squeeze

mi-

kon-im

together IMPF- do-1Pl

‘Our own oranges, we squeeze them together’ b. na,

stanna

NEG, stay

kvar ne-mi-kon-e left

NEG-IMPF-do-3Sg

‘No, it will not remain’ c. ye xurde slappna av mi-kon-im a

little

relax

of

IMPF-do-1Pl

‘We will relax a little’ Note that the infinitive verb + particle sequence as exemplified above is a fixed combination in Swedish and represents a single entry in the mental lexicon. The bilingual verb klämma ihop kardan in (4:12a) matches the Persian complex verb beham fešâr dâdan (lit. together squeeze give) ‘squeeze together’. The counterpart Persian complex verbs to the infinitive verb +


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particle + kardan in (4:12b) and (4:12c) would be bâqi mândan (lit. remaining to stay) ‘to remain’ and esterâhat kardan (lit. resting to do) ‘to rest’. In her Finnish-English corpus, Poplack (1987) finds that in the ‘vicinity of nonce loans’ prepositions that are required internal to English are categorically absent’. In the present data, the strictly subcategorized preposition of a Swedish constituent is sometimes dropped and sometimes retained. For instance, the Swedish bare infinitive verb lita + its strictly subcategorized preposition på, e.g. lita på ‘trust in’, is very often inserted in Persian as a single element and its preposition på is left out. When på is used like a socalled verbal particle, receiving heavy stress, it appears with the verb. See the example below: (4:13) Ali, bero

på mi-kon-e

Ali, depend

on

IMPF-do-3Sg

‘Ali, it depends’ A counterpart to the Swedish infinitive verb and its particle in (4:13) would be a nominal in Persian. The nominal would combine with the auxiliary verb dâštan ‘to have’ to yield a complex verb (e.g. bastegi dâre ‘depending has’). Nonetheless, the bilingual complex verb in (4:13) semantically conveys the same message as its Persian counterpart does. All in all, there is a total of 115 bilingual complex verbs in the entire corpus. Table 4.5 below gives an overview of these bilingual verbs according to their type and frequency. The indexes S and P indicate Swedish and Persian. Table 4.5 Swedish/Persian complex verbs

Type Infinitive verb(S) + kardan(P) Infinitive verb + particle(S)+ kardan Adjective (S)+ kardan Noun(S)+ dâštan(P) Total

N 97 10 1 7 115

Only once was a Swedish finite verb found in a Persian VP in combination with kardan as in (4:14) below. Note that the Swedish verb äger is a finite verb; nevertheless, the Persian kardan bears the NEG element, the imperfective prefix mi-and the subject-verb agreement suffix -im:

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Disagreement in Agreement (4:14) magar

nesf-e livsmedel-hâ-ye Täby ro

isn’t that half-Ez food-PL-Ez

Täby râ

mâ äger we possess

ne-mi-kon-im NEG-IMPF-do-1Pl

‘Isn’t it that we possess half of Täby’s food shops’ The use of double verb inflection in (4:14) is ungrammatical. A finite verb cannot govern another finite verb. This single Swedish finite verb probably occurred accidentally in Persian. There are no other similar cases in the entire corpus. 4.3.2 Typical Swedish/Persian complex verbs One of the popular Swedish bare infinite verbs inserted recurrently in Persian is klara ‘to manage, to make it’. The Swedish klara in combination with kardan ‘to do’, substitutes for the Persian complex verb az ohde bar âmadan ‘manage to do, come out from the task’. I would say that the semantic functions filled by klara and the structural simplicity of klara in combination with kardan, compared to its Persian counterpart, make it a suitable candidate for insertion in Persian. Apparently, young Swedish/Iranian speakers prefer to switch to klara + kardan rather than use the Persian counterpart. The Swedish infinitive verb anpassa ‘to adjust’ also seems to be a favorite candidate for insertion. As is the case with klara, anpassa is also often used by the young speakers instead of its counterpart word tatbiq ‘adjustment’, which is an Arabic borrowing in Persian. The following examples illustrate the use of the cases above: (4:15) emtehân-o klara

mi-

exam-râ

IMPF- do-1Sg

to pass

kon-am

‘I would pass the exam’ (4:16) man xod-am-o I

bâ

RFL-Clitic.Pro-râ with

mohit

anpassa

environment to adjust

kard-am did-1Sg

‘I have adjusted to the environment’ Two other such typical Swedish bare infinitive verbs recurring in Persian with kardan are: (a) styra + kardan ‘to dominate’ replacing Persian riâsat kardan, hâkem budan ‘to dominate’


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(b) flytta + kardan ‘to move’ replacing Persian asbâb keši kardan ‘to carry your stuff’ We might say that klara kardan, styra kardan and flytta kardan represent three typical and productive types of Swedish/Persian bilingual verb innovation. The Swedish bare infinitive verb fika ‘to drink tea/coffee’ also recurs in Persian. See the example below: (4:17) bâ dust-am

fika

kard-am

with friend-Clitic.Pro

to.drink coffee

did-1Sg

‘I drank coffee with my friend’ In Swedish fika can be both a verb and a noun ‘to drink’ or ‘a drink’. As a noun, it refers to coffee, tea or a cold drink that could be served with cakes, candy and so on. The Swedish fika is expressed in Persian through the use of two complex verbs, ccâi xordan ‘to drink tea’, and qahve xordan ‘to drink coffee’. 4.3.3 Complex verbs as areal features Thomason and Kaufman (1988), working with “light to moderate structural interference”, propose that “the features incorporated from one language to the other are more likely those which typologically fit well with corresponding features in the recipient language” (1988:54). According to these authors, Mayan languages do not borrow verbs because their elaborate inflectional structure makes it difficult to incorporate foreign verbs into the system. But it is common to borrow a Spanish infinitive used with the Mayan auxiliary verb ‘do’. A Spanish infinitive in combination with a Mayan auxiliary creates a syntactic verb functioning as a lexeme (Thomason and Kaufman 1988:349). In a widely different set of other language pairs (Surinam Hindustani/English, Muysken 1987; Turkish/Dutch, Backus 1996; Maori/English, Eliasson 1989; Punjabi/English, Romaine 1989; Marathi/English, Joshi 1985; Tamil/English, Sankoff et al. 1990; Dutch/Moroccan Arabic, Nortier 1990), complex verbs are also typically formed by using alien bare verbs accompanied by an inflected host language verb which is the equivalent of do. The bare verbs provide the semantic content while do or the equivalent verb from the host language carries any necessary inflections. A bare form might be a nominal form of the verb, a stem or an infinitive form. For instance, Nortier (1990) finds that in her Dutch/Moroccan data Dutch infinitive verbs are usually used in Moroccan Arabic sentences. According to her, in one case the speaker even tried to avoid a finite form by using the Moroccan

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Arabic auxiliary, whereas neither Dutch nor Moroccan Arabic generally uses an auxiliary in that case. Backus (1996) shows that in Dutch/Turkish CS as well, the Dutch infinitive and the Turkish auxiliary yap- ‘find each other’. As he puts it, “The infinitive and yap- need each other, as they cannot function on their own. The infinitive must be verbalized in order to impose its profile on the clause; and the auxiliary needs the infinitive (or some other nominal complement) in order to acquire full meaning” (1996:280). Romaine (1998 [1995]) shows that in Punjabi/English contact, the Punjabi verbs k´rna and hona ‘to do’ are particularly susceptible to being used in the construction of new complex verbs. The following examples are cited from Romaine (1995): (4:18) a. m´ apni language learn k´rni ‘I want to learn my language’ b. guilt feel hona do

Romaine (1989:120) writes that this general pattern of restructuring compound verbs in Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu etc. is regarded as an areal feature of language contact in South Asia. For example, in Hindi different styles drawing on Sanskrit, Persian and English are distinguished, at least through the use of mixed compound verbs. Englishization is used in administrative, political and technological contexts while Persianization occurs in a legal context. Sanskritization is found in literary criticism and philosophical writing: Sanskritized daya karna

‘to pity’

Persianized rahm karna

‘to pity, to have compassion’

Englishized pity karna

‘to pity’

(Adopted from Romaine 1995) The data from other language contact situations also show that in a geographical area extending from Turkey to India bilingual speakers use compound verb restructuring as their commonplace strategy.


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As for Swedish/Persian bilingual complex verbs or the combination of an alien verb from a West European language with the Persian auxiliary kardan, the V-V compounding is not simply a mechanism already used in Persian. As was stated previously, formation of these bilingual verbs could be seen as a productive process that deviates from Persian linguistic norm and accounts for the innovative use of language. 4.3.4 Constraints of mixing account for bilingual verb formation As mentioned earlier, Muysken’s (2000) analysis of compound verbs in a corpus of bilingual speech from different language pairs shows that various factors lead to the choice of four types of verb compounding strategies. Muysken also raises many important questions of principle for the outcome of bilingual complex verbs. As he phrases: “is there such a thing as a special bilingual grammar needed, or is the collaboration of the two contributing grammars in accordance with general principles or constraints of mixing sufficient to account for the patterns found?” A straightforward answer to these questions with respect to the bilingual verbs of the present data is that constraints of mixing account for formation of this bilingual grammar. The rationale behind this statement is that the creation of Swedish/Persian bilingual verbs is a typological feature of the language contact situation that accounts for the morphosyntacticsemantic adjustment of the two verb systems. Persian is one of the languages that cannot or will not take alien inflected verbs into its system. The strongest structural factors that explain this are dissimilarities in verb systems. The formation of bilingual verbs attests to the need for existence of a special bilingual grammar, given that the lack of congruence in “verb paradigms” is neutralized. The Swedish “verb paradigm” is clearly “poor” in fulfilling Persian requirements in terms of aspect and agreement features. Along with the congruence problem in verb paradigms, there is also a strong semantic reason that explains why these bilingual verbs are needed. As was mentioned in chapter 3, there are a large number of complex verbs in the Persian lexicon, i.e. rang zadan (lit. paint to hit) ‘to paint’, guš dâdan (lit. ear to give) ‘to listen’ etc., that inflect by means of an auxiliary/help verb added to a non-verbal element bearing the semantic content. Such verbs, although complex, act as if they are single semantic-syntactic units. Contrasting with these complex verbs, there is a group of verbs that inflect directly, e.g. xândan ‘to read’, raftan ‘to go’ etc. Persian complex verbs have no parallel in the Swedish system. To reiterate, the non-verbal element + auxiliary/help verb is a fixed combination in Persian that represents a single entry in the mental lexicon of a Persian speaker. A Swedish verb stem directly affixed with Persian inflection cannot fully express a concept that is expressed in the Persian lexicon through the

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use of a complex predicate. The reason is that the Swedish verb is only one component of a complex lexical structure that forms a fixed semanticsyntactic unit in Persian. What I want to say here is that, there is an equivalent complex verb operating in the mental lexicon of a Persian speaker, and the occurrence of each bilingual verb corresponds to the morphosyntactic-semantic function of that verb, although not exactly in terms of the lexical status of the leftmost component. As it was shown, a Swedish/ Persian bilingual verb that emerges from the V-V combination is not lexically identical with a Persian complex verb in terms of the leftmost component. However, there is a semantic connection between the Swedish bare infinitive verb and the non-verbal component of a counterpart Persian complex verb. One might wonder that how a typical Swedish verb (for a Swedish concept) can have any equivalent in Persian. Consider that many word meanings in the lexicon are relatively constant across languages (cf. Muysken 2000:52). Note also that semantic compatibility is relevant when the Swedish bare infinitive verb replaces a concept that has an equivalent semantic implication in Persian. I am not saying that a semantic concept specific to Swedish culture is compatible with a concept that is expressed in Persian through a complex predicate. What I try to say is that Swedish bare infinitive verb in combination with kardan replace a semantically compatible concept that is expressed in Persian lexicon through the use of a complex predicate. It is never the case that a Swedish bare infinitive verb is used for concepts that are expressed in Persian by a directly inflected verb. There is no evidence in the data showing that the speaker says for instance springa kardam ‘lit. run did I’ or äta kardam ‘lit. ate did I’. Consider that the counterpart to Swedish springa ‘to run’ and äta ‘to eat’ are directly inflected verbs in Persian. This view of semantic compatibility is indeed supported by empirical evidence from two sources: the bilingual verbs attested in this work and the codeswitches that I have heard in the Swedish/Iranian speech community in Stockholm. I would say that speakers actually do make a comparison and find this semantic connection. Weinreich (1968) calls this connection Interlingual Identification. That is the speaker has a potential ability to link the system-internal elements of two distinct linguistic systems by virtue of their external properties: semantic/functional in the case of grammatical/lexical unites (cf. Croft 2000:146). Croft (2000:146) argues that “interlingual identification is the establishment (possibly temporary) of a cognitive link between the corresponding linguemes of the two languages with respect to their identity in substance”. Croft explains that Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca (1994) call the external properties ‘substance’ in contrast with linguistic form. As Croft puts it “according to Bybee et al., interlingual identification forms connections be-


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tween forms in the two linguistic systems in the speaker’s mind through a common external substance”. In the case of Swedish/Persian bilingual verbs creating a connection between the knowledge of the two systems seems to be much influenced by the mental representation of Persian. Given the differences between the verb systems in terms of verb paradigms and the distinction in affixation and verb compounding, we might posit that bilingual verbs are needed for two reasons. The first is that language pair cannot share verbal inflections. Second, Swedish verbs directly inflected with Persian inflection cannot properly express a concept that is expressed in Persian lexicon through the use of a complex predicate. One major finding in this study is that without the formation of these bilingual verbs, codeswitching between Persian and Swedish would be highly constrained. Thus, the conclusion to be drawn at this point is that constraints of mixing account for this pattern of bilingual V-V compounding. I will next focus on the syntactic and morphological dimensions of other insertions (nouns, adjectives and adverbs). 4.4 Swedish nouns in Persian Swedish single words in Persian are mainly nouns (see table 4.1& 4.4). As shown earlier (see table 4.2 & 4.3), 38% of Swedish noun insertions take Persian clitic suffixes, plural markers, and the definite direct object marker râ and/or are linked to their complement/s through the Persian linker e-ezâfe. In other cases, the Swedish noun is inserted in Persian as a bare noun or occurs with its own definite marker suffix (i.e. -et/-en). However, as was mentioned, a common feature of single word insertions in Persian is that they are perfectly integrated in Persian syntax. Note the two examples below. In (4:19a), the Swedish noun occurs as the object complement of a Persian preposition. In (4:19b), the Persian ezâfe links the Swedish head noun to its Persian complement: (4:19) a. agar âdam to kö if

one

in queue

visâd-e stood-PSPT

‘If one has stood/stands in the queue’ b. stämning-e atmosphere-Ez

madres-emun

xeili xarâb

school-Clitic.Pro very

destroyed

šod-e became-PSPT

‘Our school’s atmosphere has become very bad’ The distribution of Swedish nouns according to their syntactic function in Persian is illustrated in the following sections.

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4.4.1 Swedish nouns in object position Swedish single nouns function in a range of insertions as the direct object of a Persian verb and take the Persian definite direct object marker râ. The Persian râ occurs not only with Swedish single nouns in the direct object position of Persian verbs, but also with full Swedish object NPs (i.e. samma känsla râ ‘the same feeling’). The direct object marker râ primarily serves to express a syntacticsemantic function in Persian and marks the direct object as definite. In codeswitching also as can be seen in the data exemplified below, râ often occurs with the Swedish object NPs of Persian verbs. I would say that the message would not semantically be expressive if the object were not marked with râ. Note the examples below: (4:20) a. un religion-o he

religion-râ

ziâd dust dâr-e much like

has-3Sg

‘He likes religion a lot’ b. xod-eš RFL-Clitic.Pro

material-o mimaterial-râ

zâšt

IMPF- put

‘He himself was used to handing out the material’ c. man hamun vetenskap-o qabul dâr-am I same science-râ accept have-1Sg ‘I accept science as well’ In (4:20d) below, the Swedish noun, in addition to the Persian clitic possessive pronoun suffix -eš, is also marked with the object marker râ (o): d. mâ stämning-eš-o

mi-g-im

we atmosphere-Clitic.Pro-râ IMPF-say-1Pl

‘We talk about its atmosphere’ Recall that pronominal clitics in Persian can attach to nouns as possessive pronouns (i.e. -eš in the example above) and to verbs as direct objects. In (4:21) below, a Swedish proper noun occurs as the direct object of a Persian verb. The Swedish noun here is double marked with its own Swedish definite marker suffix -et as well as with Persian definite direct object marker râ: (4:21) man högskoleprov-et-o I

dâd-am

high school exam-DEF-râ gave-1Sg

‘I took the university admission exam’


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There is a perfect counterpart in Persian that corresponds to Swedish proper noun högskoleprov (i.e. emtehân-e vurudi-e dânešgâh ‘university admission exam’). In Iran, as in Sweden, emtehân-e vurudi-e dânešgâh is organized at the national level to admit qualified applicants to educational programs at universities across the country. As is the case with högskoleprovet in Sweden, in Iran also the exam is held on certain days all over the country. Given that högskoleprov does not denote something to Iranians which is unique to the Swedish culture, it is not excluded from the count of the data. Note also that according to the criteria used by scholars who make a distinction between codeswitching and borrowing, this Swedish proper name is a codeswitch because it retains the Swedish morphology (i.e. the definite marker suffix -et). Backus (1996), working with Turkish/Dutch codeswitching, also states that proper nouns show similar behavior with respect to morphosyntactic integration in the ML and should not be excluded from the codeswitching data. The use of this Swedish proper noun in Persian serves to demonstrate how a Swedish noun is double marked with a Persian and a Swedish definite marker. Double definite marking of the data, as in högskoleprov-eto, is not, however, categorical. In some cases, the Swedish noun drops its own definite marker suffix -et/-en, and receives Persian bound morphemess, and /or Persian definite direct object marker râ. 4.4.2 Swedish nouns inside quantifier and determiner phrases Swedish nouns are often inserted in Persian quantifier or determiner phrases through the use of a Persian quantifier or a determiner. Recall from chapter 3 that, demonstratives, numerals, classifiers and measures in Persian precede the noun. Swedish demonstratives, measures and numerals are also prenominal. It is obvious that speakers will mix languages more easily when there is categorical and linear order equivalence. As illustrated in (4:22) below, there are a number of mixes occurring between Persian numerals, Persian quantifiers and Swedish nouns: (4:22) a. se

tâ

föreläsare hast

three CL lecturer

exists/is

‘There are three lecturers’ b. se

tâ

parallellklass dâr-im

three CL parallel class

have-1Pl

‘We have three parallel classes’ The plural is marked in Swedish when there is a numeral, but in Persian the noun phrase is not marked for plural even if there is a plural. This implies

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that the Swedish compound noun parallellklass in (4:22b) follows the Persian pattern and is not marked for the plural even though there is a numeral, whereas in Swedish it would be marked for the plural. Note that föreläsare in (4:22a) has identical plural and singular forms in Swedish. In (4:23a) a Persian determiner is used with a Swedish noun: (4:23) a. šâiad

bâbâ ne-mi

perhaps

Dad

âmad

NEG-IMPF come

yek grill a

be-xar-e

grill(shop) Subj-buy-3Sg

‘Perhaps it could not happen that Dad buys a grill (shop)’ In (4:23b) a Swedish noun follows a Persian quantifier. The Swedish compound noun is plural-marked here with the Persian plural marker -hâ. The use of a plural marker in this case follows the Persian rule which provides that: “a counted or countable plural whether in the predicate, object or not, is obligatory marked by -hâ in the presence of overt or covert modification” (Windfuhr 1979): b. magar

nesfe

isn’t.that half

livsmedel-hâ-ye

Täby ro

food (shop)-PL-Ez Täby râ

mâ äger we possess

ne-mi-konim NEG-IMPF-do?

‘Isn’t it that we possess half of Täby’s food (shops)?’ In the following example, a Persian determiner modifies a Swedish noun. Note that here the Swedish noun kurs has dropped its own definite article suffix -en. The use of kurs instead of kursen fits the Persian pattern. The Persian demonstrative in ‘this’ preposed to kurs marks it as definite: (4:24) a. tu in

kurs

xeili-hâ rad šod-an

in this course many-PL fail became-3Pl

‘Many are dropped in this course’ The Swedish monolingual counterpart to the example above would be as in (b) below. It could also be på denna kurs ‘in this course’ without any suffixed definite article in Swedish: b. på den in

this

här

kurs-en

here

course-DEF

The use of Persian determiners and quantifiers with Swedish nouns as in the examples above is compatible with Myers-Scotton’s prediction (DL 1993)


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that function words and particles must be from the matrix language, in this case Persian. 4.4.3 Swedish nouns inside prepositional phrases Although Persian and Swedish share a common PP rule (i.e. both are headinitial), as (4:25) illustrates, only once was a Swedish preposition från ‘from’ inserted in Persian, whereas the vast majority of prepositions were realized in Persian: (4:25) a. do tâ

dust

two CL friend

dâr-am

yeki från englis

have-1Sg one

from England

yeki från kordestan one

from Kordestan

‘I have two friends one from England one from Kordestan’ Joshi (1983) and Myers-Scotton (DL 1993) predict that EL prepositions would not occur in ML because they are closed class items/system morphemes and the ML should supply these morphemes. As was said, this prediction is perfectly compatible with the present data. Prepositions are largely realized in Persian. As illustrated in (4:25b), a Persian preposition occurs within the Swedish/Persian mixed PP, but not the Swedish one. Note that the Persian clitic pronoun -ešun ‘their’, serving here as a possessive pronoun, is attached to Swedish NP complement: b. tu temperament-ešun

ni-st

in temperament-Clitic.Pro NEG-is

‘It isn’t their nature’ In (4:25c) below, the preposition also comes from Persian. Note also that the Swedish NP complement occurs here with its own definite article suffix. The Persian equivalent noun to Swedish källar-en would not be marked for definiteness in this context: c. moqe-e

bombârân-â

majbur bud-im

at time-Ez bombardment-PL had to

were-1Pl

be-r-im Subj-go-1Pl

be källar-en to

basement-DEF

‘Under bombardments we had to go to the basement’ According to Myers-Scotton’s more recent classification of system morphemes in the 4-M model (1999, 2000), the Swedish definiteness suffix -en in källaren is an early system morpheme which is elected by its content

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morpheme källare. As earlier mentioned, inserted Swedish content morphemes do not always retain their definite marker (see kurs instead of kursen in example 4:24a). Myers-Scotton does not see this as problematic. As she states (p.c.) there is no reason why the Swedish noun must retain its own definite marker since it is the EL. 4.4.4 Swedish nouns in subject position In 17 cases Swedish nouns were inserted in Persian as a lexical subject. Some examples are illustrated below: (4:26) a. killar do boys

tâ

two

säsong

CL season

bištar na-dar-an more

NEG-have-3PL

‘Boys don’t have more than two seasons’ b. ungdomar

parccam

young.people flag

zadan hama-ro

mi-koš-an

hit

IMPF-kill-3PL

everybody-râ

‘Young people raise a flag and kill everybody’ As was the case with Swedish nouns occurring in object position, Swedish nouns in subject position may also be affixed with a Persian bound morpheme. In (4:26c) the Persian pronominal clitic, serving as a possessive pronoun, is attached to the Swedish lexical subject. Note also that the same clitic, serving as the direct object, is attached to the Persian verb e.g., košt-eš ‘killed-it’: c. ägar-aš

košt-eš

owner-Clitic.Pro

killed-Clitic.Pro

‘Its owner killed it’ In (4:26d) the Swedish lexical subject is plural-marked with the Persian plural morpheme -hâ. A Swedish noun in predicate position is also suffixed with a Persian bound copula morpheme: d. râsist-hâ xeili idiot-an racist-PL

very

idiot-3Pl

‘The racists are real idiots’ In (4:26e), the Swedish lexical subject rektor is marked for plural with the Persian plural morpheme -hâ (â): e. rektor-â

hamašun mard-an

principal-PL all

‘Principals are all men’

man-3Pl


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4.5 Swedish adjectives in Persian Swedish adjectives were inserted in Persian in 87 instances (see table 4.1). The majority of these adjectives were used predicatively. The data reported from other language pairs also show that switched adjectives occur more often in predicative position (Treffers-Daller 1994). As was the case with nouns, Swedish adjectives are also often but not always affixed with Persian bound morphemes. Of a total of 87 Swedish adjectives, as many as 32 (37%) are affixed with Persian inflectional morphology, which is often a bound copula morpheme. The type and frequency of Persian inflections occurring with Swedish adjectives are presented in table 4.6. Table 4.6 Swedish adjectives with Persian inflection Type of markers Bound copula morphemes Comparative markers and copula morphemes (e.g. smart-tar-im ‘we are smarter’) Total

N 23 9 32

A Persian bound copula morpheme that is often attached to Swedish adjectives is the clitic -e ‘is’. Note that in Persian (spoken language), the copula verb ast ‘is’ in the present third person singular is expressed through the use of the clitic -e which is suffixed to the predicate. The examples in (4:27) illustrate this: (4:27) a. be-nazar-e

man âzâdi-hâ

to-opinion-Ez my

lagom-e

freedom-PL just.right-Copula 3Sg

‘In my opinion freedoms are just right’ b. sued Sweden

xeily liberal-e very

liberal-Copula 3Sg

‘Sweden is a very liberal country’ As was stated in chapter 3, in Swedish, unlike Persian, adjectives have to agree with the noun in number. Nevertheless, Swedish adjectives in Persian respect Persian principles and occur in the singular, even though the modifying noun could be in the plural. For instance, in (4:28) the Swedish predicate, according to Persian rules, is used in the singular, whereas in a monolingual Swedish context it would be in the plural (i.e. stolta ‘prouds’). The

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Swedish predicate stolt is suffixed with the Persian bound copula morpheme -an: (4:28) a. xeili ham stolt-an very

also

proud-Copula-3Pl

‘They are also very proud’ Again, in (4:28b) the Swedish adjective is used in the singular, whereas in a corresponding Swedish monolingual context it would be in the plural: b. pesar-hâ-ye boy-PL-Ez

swedi

hame

Swedish all

ärlig-an honest-Copula 3 Pl

‘All Swedish boys are honest’ In (4:28c), the Swedish adjective is suffixed with two Persian bound morphemes, the comparative morpheme -tar and the bound copula morpheme -an: c. dar Täby snobbig-tar-an in

Täby snobbish-COMPR-Copula 3Pl

‘The people living in Täby are more snobbish’ The examples above provide evidence that insertion of Swedish adjectives in Persian is free and follows the Persian N-ADJ order. The occurrence of a Persian adjective with a Swedish noun or vice versa in Persian order runs counter to codeswitching models that predict switching between the adjective and noun in languages with pre-and post-nominal adjectives is impermissible. In one case a Swedish noun and its attributive adjective were inserted in Persian N-ADJ order as in (4:29). Note also that Persian -e ezâfe links the Swedish noun to its attributive adjective: (4:29) tu iran lektion-e religion dâšt-im in iran lesson-Ez

religion

had-3Pl

‘We had religion class in Iran’ In some cases, a Swedish attributive adjective is inserted in Persian along with its modifying noun in Swedish order. This type of phrasal insertions are introduced in the next chapter. As was said, Swedish adjectives are often affixed with Persian bound morphemes. In seven cases the adjective remains uninflected but oc-


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curs with a Persian copula verb (e.g. budan and hastan ‘to be/ to be (there)’). Examples of this are given below: (4:30) a. ya/ni

bâyad neutral bâši

it means should neutral

be-2Sg

‘It means that you should be neutral’ b. mona

ke xeili klantig bud, ia/ni

mona

that very

kard

ziâd smart na-bud

did.3Sg very

clumsy

smart

was,

kâri

ke

it means work that

NEG-was

‘Mona was very clumsy, it means that what she did was not smart’ c. ba/zi-hâ some-PL

tu xun-ešun

ni-st

in blood-Clitic.Pro NEG-is

otrogen unfaithful

bâš-an be-3Pl

‘It isn’t in some people’s blood to be unfaithful’ d. do tâ

az

two CL of

soâl-hâ

yek

question-PL a

kami little

känslig bud-an sensitive were-3Pl

‘Two of the questions were a little sensitive’ Like adjectives, in 12 cases Swedish nouns in predicative position were affixed with a Persian bound copula morpheme. As we see in (4:30e), a Swedish noun is affixed with a Persian bound copula morpheme, the suffix -am: e. man ateist-am I

atheist-Copula.1Sg

‘I am an atheist’ Table 4.7 below gives an overview of the use of the Persian copula verb budan ‘to be’ and Persian bound copula morphemes with Swedish adjectives and nouns in predicative phrases.

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Disagreement in Agreement Table 4.7 Swedish adjectives and nouns in predicative phrases

Type Swedish adjectives with the Persian copula verb budan ‘to be’ Swedish adjectives with Persian bound copula morphemes Swedish adjectives with the comparative suffix -tar and Persian bound copula morphemes Swedish nouns with Persian bound copula morphemes Total

N 7 23 9 12 51

As the table shows, Swedish predicative adjectives and nouns in predicative phrases occur largely with Persian bound copula morphemes. 4.6 Swedish adverbs in Persian Adverbs occurred far less frequently than adjectives. A total of 21 Swedish adverbs were found in the entire corpus. Table 4.8 gives an overview of the insertion of adverbs according to their type and frequency. Table 4.8 Swedish adverbs in Persian Type Simple adverbs of time Degree adverbs Adverbs indicating direction Manner adverbs Sentence adverbs Total

N 3 3 1 13 1 21

Some examples of these types are given below. In (4:31a), a Swedish time adverb is inserted in Persian: (4:31) a. bâ with

dust-â-m

ibland

friend-PL-Clitic.Pro

sometimes IMPF-go-1Pl

mi-r-im

bio movie

‘Sometimes I go with my friends to the movie’ In (4:31b) a Swedish temporal adverb occurs adjunct to the Persian compound verb zendegi kard-im ‘we lived’:


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b. injâiee ke ziâd länge zendegi kard-im place

that very

long

life

did-1Pl

‘The place where we lived a long time’ In (4:31c) a Swedish adverb indicating direction is embedded in a Persian frame: c. mo/lem material-o teacher

mi-

material-râ

zâšt

IMPF- put

ke âdam

vardâr-e

that one

take-3Sg

framme front

‘The teacher put the material in front of us so that we could take it’ Swedish manner adverbs were inserted in Persian as in below: (4: 32) a. daqiqan vâse mâ tvärtom šod-e exactly

for

us

reverse

became-PSPT

‘It has become just the reverse for us’ Adding the suffix -t to an adjective is a common way of forming adverbs in Swedish. Such adverbs were inserted in Persian in four cases. An example of this is shown in (4:32b) below: b. suedi-hâ

riktigt cci

Swede-PL really

hast-and

what are-3Pl

‘What the Swedish people really are’ Adding the suffix -vis or -en to an adjective which ends in -lig would also produce an adverb in Swedish, e.g. egentligen ‘actually’ (Dahl 1982). The Swedish adverb egentligen, derived from egentlig, was inserted in Persian as a sentence adverb once. See the example below: c. âdam one

mi-bin-e

egentligen hame

ne-mi-tunan

IMPF-see-3Sg

actually

NEG-IMPF-can-3P

all

‘One finds that actually not everybody can’ The example in (4:33) below shows the double use of a Swedish adverb: (4:33) a. bâ with

hâš samman

bâš-e

her together

be-3Sg together

tillsammans

‘Be together with her together’

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Note that samman and tillsammans are different, though synonymous, words. I close introducing the data for single word insertions with a summary of major findings. 4.7 Summary This chapter aimed to introduce the data for single word insertions. The largest category of Swedish words in Persian is nouns, while bare infinitive verbs and adjectives also occur relatively frequently. A general picture that has emerged, characteristic of insertions, is that Persian grammar governs the structure of bilingual codeswitched sentences and Swedish words obey Persian principles. Insertion of single Swedish words (excluding finite verbs) often but not always shows adaptation to Persian morphology through the use of Persian bound copula morphemes, the comparative marker -tar, the plural marker -hâ and the indefinite marker -i. Swedish nouns in direct object position receive the Persian definite direct object marker râ. Swedish nouns are also linked to their complements through the use of the Persian linker the -e ezâfe particle. In some cases Swedish words are double-marked for the plural, with a Swedish and a Persian plural marker. A further case of double marking was noted on a Swedish proper name double-marked with its own definite marker suffix as well as the Persian definite object marker râ. In other cases, the Swedish noun drops its own definite marker (i.e. suffix-et /-en) and is affixed with Persian bound morphemes in predicative phrases. It also happens that the Swedish noun retains its own definite marker. Although inserted Swedish words do not always occur with Persian morphology, they are perfectly integrated in Persian syntax. The syntactic integration of Swedish nouns in Persian is sometimes achieved through the use of Persian functional elements that are free forms, e.g. the demonstrative in ‘this’ and the determiner yek ‘a’. Another major finding in the present codeswitching data is that the insertion of Swedish single words is not completely free. One piece of evidence is provided by the absence of Swedish finite verbs and verb stems in Persian structure. It was argued that the Persian verb system has the kind of properties that can not easily be replaced by those of the Swedish system, and this is why Swedish finite verbs or verb stems do not occur as a single inserted element in a Persian frame. In a reasonable sampling of cases, it was shown that there is a strong tendency towards insertion of Swedish bare infinitive verbs that are integrated in the Persian verb system through the Persian auxiliary kardan. The use of these Swedish bare infinitive verbs with kardan yields a number of bilingual Swedish/Persian complex verbs that, while complex, act as if they are single semantic-syntactic units.


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Persian in general has a tradition of bilingual verb compounding in which the foreign elements are incorporated into the pre-existing structure of its compound verb construction (e.g. Arabic nominals replacing Persian nominals in compound verbs). It was discussed that the creation of Swedish/Persian bilingual complex verbs could be seen as an innovative productive process that deviates from Persian linguistic norm in that the leftmost component of the bilingual construction is predominantly a Swedish bare infinitive verb. In the traditional pattern, the auxiliary/help verb does not allow another verb to occur to its left. Only in a few cases where a Swedish noun occurs as the leftmost element of the complex verb, followed by a Persian help verb e.g. dâštan ‘to have’, is the bilingual complex verb identical to a native one. Another major issue argued here was that Swedish/Persian bilingual verbs are needed given that the formation of these verbs accounts for morphosyntactic-semantic adjustment of the two verb systems. Having shown how Swedish single words are inserted in Persian, Swedish multi-word switches are introduced next in chapter 5.

Chapter Five

Swedish phrases and clauses in Swedish/Persian speech

5.1 Introduction There are a fair number of Swedish multi-word switches in the present codeswitching data that are either two-word phrases embedded in a Persian frame or are full clauses occurring at the boundary of a Persian clause. There are also a few switches that are a bit more specific in terms of their frequency and occur only in the speech of one speaker (Kristoffer). The purpose of this chapter is to introduce data for these phrasal insertions and interclausal codeswitches. As discussed in chapter 1, the term interclausal codeswitching is used to refer to switches occurring at the clause boundaries. As emerged from earlier discussions (see 2.8), some researchers suggest that switches that are larger than one word are ‘true codeswitches’, but one-word switches are borrowings. To reiterate, it is not within the goals of this dissertation to distinguish codeswitches from borrowings. In analyzing the data, all Swedish single words or stretches of words will be treated as codeswitches. Switched Swedish clauses can include a coordinated clause, a subordinate clause, the complement of a Persian adverb or a clause introduced by a Persian relative pronoun. Swedish clauses that are coordinated with a preceding Persian clause through the use of a coordinating conjunction are classified as coordinated clauses. In some cases, the switched Swedish clause is neither embedded in Persian, nor coordinated with the preceding Persian clause; rather it is conjoined intonationally to the preceding Persian main clause. These types of switched Swedish clauses are classified as afterthoughts. It is relatively common that Swedish infinitive VPs introduced by a Persian COMP or a Persian modal occur at the periphery of a Persian clause. In two cases we have double-subject constructions in which a Swedish full clause follows a Persian subject phrase. Switched Swedish clauses generally

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follow preceding Persian clauses. A directionality effect is seen even in subordinate clauses. In five cases Persian subordinate clauses precede Swedish main clauses. There are also switched Swedish full clauses that are syntactically independent of the preceding Persian clause, although there is still thematic coherence in terms of their reference and action. Switched Swedish phrases or clauses may also be direct or indirect reported speech or repetitions. In some cases Swedish reported speech is a complement of the Persian verb goftan ‘to say’. This type of Swedish clause or phrases is introduced within the group of other switches. As was mentioned in chapter 1, codeswitching at the clause level is a not common type and occurs only in the speech of four speakers (Av, Pan, Reza, and Beh). The use of Swedish instead of Persian is mainly shown in the speech of two girls (Av and Pan). Av and Pan sometimes alternate between Persian and Swedish in turn-taking and address their interlocutors entirely in Swedish. In contrast, the interlocutors consistently answer entirely in Persian. However, Av and Pan’s choice of Swedish over Persian does not mean the dominance of one language over the other; rather it seems more likely that these two girls are used to speaking to their school friends in this way. Kristoffer makes no use of interclausal switches. This puts him in the same class as the other young speakers, whose codeswitching pattern involves prototypical insertions (Swedish nouns or bare infinitive verbs). However, as was stated in chapter 1, there are a bit more complex phrasal insertions in Kristoffer’s bilingual speech but not in that of the others. This chapter presents the data in order to characterize the corpus and to give the reader a general view of phrasal insertions and interclausal switches. These data are used further in chapter 6 to test the constraints. To begin with, the next section introduces phrasal insertions. 5.2 Phrasal insertions The following bilingual turn uttered by Kristoffer is a case of a complex phrasal insertion. Consider that Persian is the matrix language because the configuration of the codeswitched bilingual sentence and inflection on the verb are Persian (e.g. dâštan ‘to have’). As was established earlier, this study has adopted that inflection on the finite verb determines the matrix language. Klavans (1985) and Muysken (2000) also suggest that inflection on the finite verb could often determine the matrix language: (5:1) a. i on

torsdas

halv nio

Thursday

eight thirty carpentary had-1Sg

två fiol

dâšt-am, nästa

two violin had-1Sg

next

slöjd

dâšt-am, tio över

måndag konsert Monday

concert

ten over

Swedish phrases and clauses in Swedish/Persian speech dâr-am,

tu

have-1Sg, in

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salon-e bibliotek hall-Ez

library

‘On Thursday half past eight I had carpentry instruction, ten past two I had violin instruction; next Monday I have a concert in the library’s hall’ Note that the Swedish object NPs of Persian verbs respect the Persian OV order and occur in preverbal position. The Swedish ADJ-N order in nästa måndag ‘next Monday’ contradicts the Persian N-ADJ order; nonetheless insertion of this Swedish phrase in Persian imposes no ungrammaticality effect on the construction. Another pattern of Kristoffer’s bilingual speech is exemplified in (5:1b). Here, he has shifted to a different language halfway through the sentence. The sentence could be analyzed as consisting of two parts; the first part is Persian and the second part is Swedish. The second part shows a shared grammar with Persian. This implies that, while the second part is lexicalized by Swedish constituents, it could be Swedish in structure or Persian: b. farq

hast mellan

difference is

tulpaner

between tulips

o

ogräs

and

weeds

‘There is difference between tulips and weeds’ A monolingual Persian counterpart to the bilingual sentence in (5:1b) would be as in (5:1c) below. Note that the second part of the sentence in (c) shares an equivalent structure with the Swedish PP in the bilingual sentence in (b): c. farq difference

hast beine

lâle

is

tulip and weeds

between

va alaf

‘There is difference between tulip and weeds’ Other speakers often inserted Swedish phrases like NPs, PPs and AdvPs in a Persian frame. The data exemplified in (5:2), (5:3), (5:4), and (5:5) illustrate these insertions. Note that ia/ni ‘I mean, it means that’ in initial sentence position in the examples below is a discourse marker in Persian and has an emphatic effect in that it captures the listener’s attention: (5:2) ia/ni allmänt trevlig bâ ham ni-st-an mean general

nice

together NEG-Copula-3Pl

‘It means that they are not generally nice to each other’

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Disagreement in Agreement (5:3) Ia/ni extrem

rasist

ni-st

mean extreme

racist

NEG-Copula.3Sg

‘It means that he isn’t an extreme racist’ Muysken (2000: 61) proposes an interpretive principle for analysis of the constituent structure in codeswitching, termed the Adjacency Principle. This principle, as Muysken notes, is not absolute, but we can use it as an evaluation measure in the analysis of data. The Adjaceny Principle: If in a code-mixed sentence two adjacent elements are drawn from the same language, an analysis is preferred in which at some level of representation (syntax, processing) these elements also form a unit. (Muysken 2000) The Adjacency Principle could be used for the analysis of the two adjacent Swedish elements (i.e. allmänt trevlig and extrem rasist) in (5:2) and (5:3). As Östen Dahl suggests (p.c.), the adjacent words in allmänt trevlig and extrem rasist are intimate and frequently collocate. For instance, we cannot say extrem som rasist ‘extreme as (a) racist’. In (5:4) a Swedish PP is inserted in Persian as the object argument of a Persian verb: (5:4) mi-dun-e

ke un-o

för tidsfördriv mi-xâd

IMPF-know-3Sg

that her-râ

for killing time

IMPF-want.3Sg

‘She knows that he wants her for killing time’ In (5:5) a Swedish adverbial phrase is embedded in Persian: (5:5) mâ ne-mi-dun-im

ute på stan cce

we NEG-IMPF-know-1Pl out in

city

xabar-e

what news-Copula 3Sg

‘We don’t know what’s going on downtown’ Swedish phrases like those above also show linear order equivalence with the corresponding monolingual Persian phrases. The sequences in (5:2), (5:3), (5:4), and (5:5) could be Swedish in structure or Persian. These examples provide evidence that linear order equivalence makes it easier to fit the constituents from one language into the frame of the other. Muysken (1995, 2000) posits that three distinct processes are involved in codeswitching: in-


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sertion, alternation, and congruent lexicalization. According to Muysken’s definition, code-mixes that “show a largely shared structure (but not necessarily completely), lexicalized by elements from either language” are cases of congruent lexicalization. The examples in (5:1a) and (5:1b) fit well with Muysken’s definition of the congruent lexicalization type of codeswitching. As was said, this type of mixes occurs in Kristoffer’s bilingual speech but is not common in that of the others. Muysken (2000:276-7) takes the congruent lexicalization codeswitching type as an argument against views that give priority to the idea that syntactic and lexical processing are two kinds of processing in codeswitching (Myers-Scotton’s view). Muysken sees syntactic and lexical processing as a single process that goes on simultaneously and consequently leads to the congruent lexicalization type of codeswitching. Muysken argues that it is precisely the simultaneous access and presence of the two languages that make it possible to search for parallels between them. The evidence from the codeswitching behavior of the young subjects of this study seems to suggest that there is a correlation between the level of exposure to both languages and codeswitching type. We might assume that the reason the congruent lexicalization type of codeswitching occurs in Kristoffer’s speech but not in that of the others is a consequence of continued exposure to two linguistic systems since infancy. In other words, syntactic and lexical processing of the two languages is more simultaneously accessible to Kristoffer, who has had more continuous exposure to a bilingual environment since infancy than the others. However, this is a question that clearly needs further research. Although many cases of congruent lexicalization involve typologically somewhat similar languages, the pattern is reported for instance in Moroccan Arabic/Dutch codeswitching (Nortier 1990) as well. Swedish adjective-noun phrases in Persian Swedish phrases embedded in Persian do not always show shared structure with Persian. There are cases in which a Swedish attributive adjective is inserted in Persian along with its modifying noun in Swedish order. The Swedish ADJ-N order is incompatible with the Persian N-ADJ order; nevertheless, Swedish ADJ-N insertion is allowed because the requirement of the Persian verb, in terms of the position of its object argument, is fulfilled. Note the following examples: (5:6) a. barâye inke for

fast

förhållande ne-mi-xân

COMP permanent relationship

NEG-IMPF-want.3Pl

‘Because they don’t want a permanent relationship’

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Disagreement in Agreement b. mâ râje

be försvagade folk

we about to

weakened

sohbat ne-mi-kon-im

people talk

NEG-IMPF-do-1Pl

‘We do not talk about weakened people’ c. yek dålig stämning a

bad

atmosphere

beyne

suedi-hâ

va xâreji-hâ

hast

between Swede-PL and foreigner-PL exists

‘There is a bad atmosphere between Swedes and foreigners’ ADJ-N combinations in (5:6a) and (5:6c) are conventional chunks, while that in (5:6 b) is not. The examples above, which are clear cases of codeswitching, are also a clear argument against Poplack et al.’s distinction between borrowing and codeswitching based on syntactic integration. As we see here, codeswitches can be syntactically integrated in the recipient language like borrowings. 5.3 Interclausal codeswitches As can be seen in the data exemplified in the preceding sections, either a Swedish phrase lexicalizes a shared structure with Persian or retains its syntactic structure when it is embedded in Persian. In either case, embedded Swedish phrases respect Persian sisterhood relations and occur in syntactic positions that a Persian counterpart would otherwise occur in. A codeswitching type introduced next is interclausal, switching from one language to the other occurs at the clause level. As discussed in chapter 1 (see 1.5), in the case of typologically dissimilar languages like Persian and Swedish, the structural mapping of the language pair at the clause level because of the incompatibility in clause structures would be the “difficult” type. The data exemplified in the following sections reveal that even difficult mixes appear to be possible. 5.3.1 Coordinated clauses Coordinated clauses were often conjoined by a Persian conjunction. Swedish conjunctions occurred very rarely. A conjunction that often conjoins Persian clauses to the Swedish adjacent clauses is vali/valikan ‘but’. Valikan ‘but’ is an Arabic conjunction borrowed in Persian. Note the example in (5:7a): (5:7) a. šâiad perhaps

äkta bâš-e real

vali, de syns inte

be-3Sg but,

it

seen

NEG

‘Perhaps it is real, but it is not visible’ In (5:7b) a Persian main clause is conjoined with a Swedish VP through the Persian coordinating conjunction va (o) ‘and’. As can be seen, there is switching here back and forth between Persian and Swedish. The Swedish


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VP is embedded in Persian and Persian is then taken up again. Note that the Persian clause and the embedded Swedish VP share a common subject here: b. âdam one

bacce baš-e child

bâ

be-3Sg with

yeki samman

bâš-e

one

be-3Sg and

together

växer upp

med varandra,

un yâd-eš

grow up

with

that memory-Clitic.Pro

each other,

o

ne-mi-re NEG-IMPF-goes

‘If one is a child and grows up together with someone, that does not leave one’s memory’ Note also that the embedded Swedish VP in (5:7b) shares an identical syntactic structure with the corresponding VP in Persian. In the following example, a Persian conjunction, vali ‘but’, is inserted in a Swedish sentence. The Persian conjunction vali also has a pragmatic effect as a discourse marker in drawing attention to the utterance: (5:8) om du tar

henne för tidsfördriv

If

her

you take

for killing.time

vali du säger inte de but you say

not it

‘If you take her for killing time but you don’t say it’ In Nortier’s Moroccan Arabic/Dutch codeswitching data (1990), the Arabic conjunction walikan ‘but’ is also most frequent and is the one that conjoins two clauses that are both in the other language. As shown by Muysken (2000:114), according to de Rooji (1996), taking a discourse marker from another language has a pragmatic advantage in that the foreign nature of the element heightens its saliency. Table 5.1 and 5.2 below give an overview of the distribution of Persian and Swedish coordinating conjunctions in coordinated clauses. Table 5.1 Coordinating conjunctions in Persian/Swedish speech Persian conjunctions vali ‘but’ 7 pas ‘then’ 1 Total 8

Swedish conjunctions men ‘but’ 1 och ‘and’ 2 Total 3

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One reason for the use of Persian conjunctions instead of Swedish can be the directionality of codeswitching. As noted in the examples above, it is common that switched Swedish clauses follow Persian clauses. Table 5.2 gives an overview of the distribution of Persian and Swedish coordinating conjunctions in coordinated clauses, according to their type and frequency. Table 5.2 Distribution of coordinating conjunctions Clause 1 P S S P S P P

Conjunction vali vali vali pas och och men

Clause 2 S P S S P S S

N 5 1 1 1 1 1 1

P= Persian clause S= Swedish clause As shown in the table, the Persian conjunction vali ‘but’ occurs between a Persian and a Swedish clause five times. The same conjunction also occurs once between a Swedish and a Persian clause and is inserted in a Swedish sentence once. The Persian conjunction pas ‘therefore’ is also used between a Persian and a Swedish clause. The Swedish conjunction och ‘and’ occurs once between a Swedish and a Persian clause and appears once between a Persian and a Swedish clause. The Swedish conjunction men ‘but’ occurs only once. We can say that a Persian coordinating conjunction, and predominantly vali, is used more often to conjoin two clauses than a Swedish one. 5.3.2 Swedish clauses as afterthoughts There are 25 cases of Swedish clauses that are classified as afterthoughts. Note that Swedish clauses in (5:9), (5:10), (5:11), and (5:12) are not really embedded in Persian. They are afterthoughts and are juxtaposed with the Persian main clause: (5:9) bastegi

be xodet

depending to

dare, de man tänker själv

yourself has,

that one

think

‘It depends on yourself, on what one himself thinks’

self


141

(5:10) pesar-â xubtar bâzi mi-kon-an, boy-PL

play

IMPF-do-3Pl,

jag tycker dom är

jätte falska

I

better

think

they

are very

false

‘The boys play better, I think they are very false’ (5:11) xob un

kasi-ro xub

ne-mi-kone,

well

one-râ nice

NEG-IMPF-do, you can

that

du kan

vara en häxa be

a

witch

‘That doesn’t make you a nice person, you can be a witch’ (5:12) bâhuši

be storlek-e maqz

ertebât

na-

intelligence

to

relation

NEG- has-3Sg,

de

vet

alla

that

know everyone

size-Ez

brain

dâr-e,

‘Intelligence has no relation with the size of the brain, everyone knows that’ The Swedish clause in (5:13) below is probably added as an emphatic and is not really embedded in Persian. There are some switch types that are not common and are used by one or two speakers. The emphatic clauses in he present data fall into this category: (5:13) sambo bâš-e

bâ

partner be-3Sg with

yeki, leva

med

henne

one,

with

her

to live

‘To be a partner (unmarried) with someone, to live with her’ The switched Swedish clause in (5:14) is also an afterthought. What is interesting here is that a Persian single noun, hovviat ‘identity’, is inserted in the object position of the Swedish infinitive VP. Note that the rightward movement of the object as in the example below is also permissible in Persian: (5:14) xob unâ

suedi-an,

well they

Swedish-are we Iranian-1Pl, we must,

vi

måste, vi

we must

mâ irun-im,

måste tänka

we must

to think

vi

måste,

på hovviat of

identity

‘Well they are Swedish, we are Iranian, we must, we must, we must think of identity’

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5.3.3 Subordinate clauses As was said in the introduction, the directionality effect is even noted in subordination. In most cases Persian is the main clause, followed by a switched Swedish clause. In five cases the switched Swedish clause is the main clause, preceded by a Persian subordinate. In each case the Persian subordinate clause gives a warning or advice about the consequences of an action or attitude. Two of these Persian subordinate clauses are conditionals, two are temporal and one is a relative clause. The subordinating conjunction is not always in the language of the clause that it introduces. In four cases, the subordinating conjunction is a Swedish one and is part of a switched Swedish clause. In three cases, the subordinating conjunction is in Persian. Table 5.3 below gives an overview of the distribution of subordinating conjunctions. Table 5.3 Distribution of Persian and Swedish subordinating conjunctions Persian Conjunctions barâye in ke ‘because’ vâse in ke ‘because’ ke ‘that’

N 1 1 1

Total

3

Swedish Conjunctions eftersom ‘because’ därför att ‘because’ för att ‘because’ genom att ‘trough that’ Total

N 1 1 1 1 4

Swedish subordinate clauses with a Persian main clause Swedish subordinate clauses were embedded in Persian as IP complements or CP complements. The data exemplified below show that in (5:15), a Swedish subordinate infinitive construction is embedded in Persian by means of a Swedish PP. In (5:16), the subordinating conjunction and the clause that it introduces are also both in Swedish. Note that there is an error in the use of the Swedish preposition. The correct preposition would be på ‘on’ and not i as in ‘i tre månader’ in three months: (5:15) mixâ-i

be-g-am

want-you

Subj-say-1Sg how,

cce-juri, genom through

att inte that not

visa känslor för henne show feelings

to

her

‘Do you want me to say how, by not showing any feelings to her’

Swedish phrases and clauses in Swedish/Persian speech (5:16) bâhâš

da/vâš

with+her quarrel

mi-še

ccerâ

IMPF-becomes why,

inte

har

not

have quarreled

bråkat

för att

143

dom

because they

i

tre

in

three month-PL

månad-er

‘He quarrels with her, why, because they have not quarreled in three months’ In (5:17) the subordinating conjunction is in Persian (e.g. vâse inke ‘because, for that’), whereas the clause that follows is in Swedish: (5:17) xob vâse cci, then

for

vâse inke dom andra är

what for

that

they

others

äckliga

are repulsive

‘Then why, because others are repulsive’ As noted in (5:15) and (5:16) the subordinating conjunction is a part of the switched Swedish clause, while in (5:17) a Persian conjunction is used to introduce a Swedish clause. These examples provide evidence that subordinating conjunctions can from either language be easily used. Note also that the switched Swedish complement clause in (5:17) retains its Swedish SVO order. The use of the Persian conjunction has no effect on the syntax of the Swedish complement clause. Swedish complement clauses introduced by Persian adverbs Apparently, the boundary between a Persian adverbial conjunction and a Swedish clause is a favored switch site. Swedish clauses were embedded in Persian six times by means of a Persian adverb. These adverbs can best be analyzed as adverbial conjunctions rather than verbal modifiers. Note the examples: (5:18) a. suedi

barâm naturligt šod-e,

Swedish for.me natural

jag känner mig

säkrare

I

certain.more

feel

me

ba/d-eš-am

became-PSPT, besides

‘Swedish has become natural for me, besides, I feel more certain’.

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Disagreement in Agreement (5:19) ye ccizi be-

g-am,

aslan

tjejer

one thing Subj- say-1Sg, basically girls

svårt

å

förstå

varandra

difficult

to

understand

each other

och

killar har

and

boys

have

‘May I say something, basically it is difficult for boys and girls to understand each other’ In Swedish the word order after an initial adverbial phrase would be inverted (the verb-second constraint). Recall from chapter 3 that, while the basic unmarked order has the SVO sequence in Swedish, preposing and inversion rules also allow the OVS and XVSO orders in the main clause. Swedish complement clauses introduced by Persian adverbs in (5:18a) and (5:19) do not follow the Swedish verb-second constraint, implying that the Persian conjunction is not treated as a Swedish conjunction. A monolingual Swedish clause corresponding to (5:18a) would have inverted word order after the adverbial conjunction as below: efteråt

känner jag mig

säkra-re

afterward

feel

certain-COMPR

I

me

‘Afterward I feel more certain’ In (5:20) a Swedish clause is embedded in a Persian matrix sentence immediately after a Persian adverb: (5:20) fe/lan som det ser ut injâ-im, for now as

it

seems

here-1Pl

‘For the time being as it seems we are here’ Note that the Swedish phrase in (5:20) perfectly fits with the corresponding phrase in Persian. Swedish infinitive verb phrases embedded in Persian In some cases Swedish infinitive verb phrases follow a Persian modal auxiliary/modal at the periphery of a Persian clause as below: (5:21) a. pesar-â bayad bištar pul boy-PL

must

dâšte bâš-an tâ

be-tun-an,

more money have be-3Pl for Subj-able-3Pl

tillfredsställa

tjej-er-na

to satisfy

girl-PL-DEF

‘Boys must have more money in order to be able to please the girls’


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Note that in the example above the Swedish bare infinitive verb occurs where a complex predicate râzi kardan ‘to satisfy’ would occur in Persian. The Swedish infinitive VP retains its Swedish OV order. Now let us restructure the switched Swedish part of the example through the use of the Persian auxiliary kardan. As noted, in (5:21b) the inflected auxiliary kardan is added to the Swedish bare infinitive verb. The object NP is allowed to occur to the right or to the left of the Swedish/Persian V-V phrase: b. tâ

be-tun-an

tillfredsställa

for Subj-able-3Pl to.satisfy

be

kon-an

Subj do-3Pl

doxtar-â-ro girl-PL-râ

In (5:22) as well, the switched Swedish fragment is an infinitive VP embedded in Persian by means of a Persian modal: (5:22) neutral bâyad bâš-i, neutral

must

ia/ni

xudetun bâyad skapa

be-3Sg it.means RFL

egna

uppfattning-ar

your.own

opinion-PL

must

create

‘You must be neutral, it means that you must create your own opinions’ In (5:22) the switched Swedish infinitive VP also retains its Swedish order while a Persian modal intervenes between the Persian reflexive pronoun and the Swedish bare infinitive verb. In (5:23) below, the Swedish infinitive VP is embedded in Persian by means of a Persian COMP, ke ‘that’. Persian ke in addition to subordinate clauses introduces relative clauses as well. Again, the Swedish infinitive VP occurs where an inflected complex verb and its object would occur in Persian: (5:23) vaqti bâ ham zendegi mi-kon-an ne-mi-tun-an when together live

ke

IMP-do-3Pl NEG-IMPF-can-3Pl COMP

undvika varandra to avoid each other

‘When they are living together they cannot avoid each other’ Swedish infinitive verb phrases occurring at the periphery of a preceding Persian clause where a complex finite verb would occur in Persian provide further evidence that the typological differences between the language pair in terms of verb systems have bearings on codeswitching and call for the choice of specific options.

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Swedish clauses introduced by a Persian relative pronoun In (5:24) below, the Swedish stretches of words embedded in Persian are relative clauses introduced by the Persian relative pronoun ke. Note that the first two clauses are Swedish and the third (i.e. trevlig hast) is Persian. This is the only case in the entire corpus where Swedish clauses are embedded in Persian as relative clauses: (5:24) doxtar-e xub kasi-e ke bra girl-Ez

nice one-is

med folk, with

personlighet umgås

that good personality

socializes

trevlig hast

people nice

is

‘The nice girl is one that has a nice personality, socializes with people, is nice’ In (5:24) the first Swedish clause following the Persian relative pronoun is ungrammatical. The Swedish finite verb har ‘has’ which would occur immediately after the relative pronoun in a corresponding Swedish clause is left out. Note that the relative pronoun in a corresponding monolingual Persian clause would not select a verb to its right; instead, an NP follows the relative pronoun and the verb occurs in final position (i.e. ke šaxsiat-e xub dâre (lit. that personality good has)). Thus, we can say that the Swedish clause is behaving like Persian here. The ungrammaticality of the first Swedish clause here also suggests that codeswitching after a Persian relative pronoun for reasons related to the pressure of combining two linguistic systems in places where they are not compatible, is problematic. As is predicted by the Government Constraint, it seems harder to break up a relative clause (i.e. to have a relative pronoun from one language and the rest of the clause in the other) than other types of subordination. The codeswitching data reported from other language pairs also show that switching between the relative pronoun and the clause that it introduces is rare (Nortier 1990; Terffers-Daller 1994). The bilingual codeswitched construction in (5:24), however, is well formed, even though the first Swedish clause is ungrammatical. As mentioned earlier, the last clause in (5:24) is a Persian clause. Inflection on the Persian copula in sentence-final position suggests that the matrix language is Persian and that Swedish relative clauses are embedded in a Persian matrix sentence. Persian subordinate clauses with a Swedish main clause In five cases a Persian clause is subordinate to a Swedish main clause. In every case, the Persian subordinate clause precedes the Swedish main clause.


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In (5:25) and (5:26), a Persian conditional clause is subordinate to a Swedish main clause. Note that the Swedish main clause in (5:25) does not follow the Swedish verb-second constraint (i.e. har du fel). However, du har fel is not ungrammatical: (5:25) agar fekr kon-i

peydâ mi-

if

find

think do-2Sg

kon-i

du

har

IMPF- do-2Sg you

fel

have wrong

‘If you think you will find out, you are wrong’ (5:26) agar un yek ruzi be-fahm-e, if

då

she one day Subj-understand-3Sg, then

förlorar du henne lose

you her

‘If one day she finds out then you would lose her’ In (5:27) a Persian temporal clause is subordinate to a Swedish main clause: (5:27) vaqti az-aš

xaste

when of-Clitic.Pro tired

miš-e

om du

ska

förlora henne

if

will

lose

you

efter detta

become-3Sg after

that

känner du feel

you

her

‘When he becomes tired of her, after that you feel whether you will lose her or not’ The configuration of Swedish main clauses in (5:26) and (5:27) follows the Swedish verb-second constraint. Recall that the Swedish inversion rule allows the XVSO order as in (5:26) and (5:27). In (5:28a) the main clause is in Swedish and is preceded by a Persian relative clause. The two clauses are syntactically independent; however they share a semantic relationship with one another: (5:28) a. mâ ke umad-im sued we that came-3Pl

Sweden

vi

har

we have

fått flera möjlighet-er got more possibility-PL

‘We who have come to Sweden (live in Sweden), we have got more possibilities’ The bilingual speech in (5:28a) is a good example illustrating that, when there is a congruence problem in terms of subject-verb agreement marking and structural mapping, the separation of languages is a plausible option.

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A corresponding monolingual Persian sentence to (5:28a) would not require a pronominal subject in the second clause because the subject-verb agreement morpheme on the verb licenses the informative properties of the subject. Note also that in a Persian monolingual sentence, an object NP would occur where the Swedish subject pronoun (i.e. vi) occurs in (5:28a). As shown below, in the Persian monolingual sentence the agreement morpheme on the verb greft-im ‘we got’ would express the communicative intention referring to the subject. The use of the subject pronoun mâ has an emphatic effect: b. mâ ke umad-im sued we that came-1Pl

Sweden

emkân-ât-e

bištari greft-im

possibily-PL-Ez

more

received-1Pl

‘We who have come to Sweden (live in Sweden) got more possibilities’ Unlike Persian, a Swedish monolingual sentence corresponding to (5:28a) would require a subject pronoun in the second clause. 5.3.4 Double subject constructions In (5:29) and (5:30), we have two double subject constructions. In each case a full Swedish clause follows a Persian lexical subject. (5:29) suedi,

de flyter

Swedish, it

flows

bättre better

We might say that the Persian lexical subject suedi in (5:29) is a topical element, with the pragmatic effect of focus, whereas the Swedish pronominal de is the subject and is required by the Swedish grammar. In (5:30) a Swedish full clause also follows a Persian subject NP. Again, the Persian subject NP is a topical phrase which has the pragmatic effect, giving focus, whereas the Swedish subject pronoun is required by the Swedish grammar. Note that the Swedish clause in (5:30) shows a lexical error. The correct clause would be dom kommer inte å (att) ‘at’ ‘to’) låta er andas: (5:30) injâ hame-ye

doxtar-â, na-faqat

here

girl-PL,

all-Ez

NEG-only

irâni-hâ, Iranian-PL,

dom kommer

inte

låta

er

andas

they

not

let

you

breathe

come

‘Here all the girls, not only Iranians, won’t let you to breathe’


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An overview of codeswitches occurring at the clause boundary is given in table 5.4 and is broken down by type. Table 5.4 Codeswitches at the clause boundaries Types Swedish coordinated clauses Swedish afterthought clauses Swedish complement clauses introduced by Persian adverbs Swedish subordinate clauses Persian subordinate clauses with Swedish main clauses Persian relative pro+ Swedish clauses Infinitive VPs embedded with Persian modals Double subject constructions Total

N 12 26

% 19 40

7 7

11 11

4 1 4 4 65

6 1 6 6 100

A comparison of the switch types shown in table 5.4 suggests that Swedish afterthought clauses are the most frequent type (40%). One reason for the high occurrence of this type of clause might be that they are simply juxtaposed with Persian. The speaker simply says in Swedish what s/he thinks in relation to the preceding clause, but there is no need to adjust the two clauses syntactically. It can be concluded from table 5.4 that, apart from afterthoughts, subordinate clauses occur most often, whereas relative clauses introduced by a Persian relative pronoun are rare and problematic. Subordinated types also show that clauses introduced by an adverb or a subordinating conjunction are switched easily. Swedish infinitive verb phrases occurring at the periphery of a Persian clause are also fairly common. Table 5.4 also illustrates that all switch types have a lower frequency than the insertion of single nouns (47%), adjectives (21%) or bare infinitive verbs (21%). 5.4 Other switches The distribution of repetitions and different types of speech (i.e. direct and reported) are demonstrated in the following section in the group of other switches.

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Repetitions and reported speech Subordination to Persian verb of saying, repeating, and reporting takes clause or phrase complements in Swedish. The switched Swedish clause in (5:31) is a repetition of the preceding Persian clause and is conjoined with Persian intonationally: (5:31) az kojâ

šenid-i,

from where

heard-2Sg, where

var

har

du fått

have you got

dom tankarna those thoughts

‘Where did you hear that, where did you get those thoughts from’ In (5:32) below, a Swedish clause subordinates the Persian verb of saying (i.e goftan ‘to say’): (5:32) man mi-g-am, I

jag

IMPF-say-1Sg, I

är

född muslim

am born muslim

‘I say, I was born a Muslim’ In (5:33a), a Swedish slang expression is quoted in Persian: (5:33) a. beqol-e according-Ez

suedi-â

man yek kami rapp i

Swedish-PL I

a

little fast

käft-am

in jaw-1S.present

‘According to Swedish people I am a smart Alec’ The Swedish NP in (5:33b) below is embedded in Persian as reported speech by means of the Persian verb goftan ‘to say’: b. be âdam to

one

mi-g-an

jävla

blatte

IMPF-say-3Pl bloody wog

‘They say to you bloody wog’ The speech quoted above is a racial slur used in Sweden for immigrants. Such terms (e.g. svartskalle ‘black head’) have a high percentage of usage among young people and are fairly common quotes in the speech of immigrants. 5.5 Alternation of languages in turn-taking The speech type that is introduced in this section involves contrastive alternation between the use of languages in turn-taking. As was stated previously, only two speakers (Av and Pan) use solely Swedish now and then when they take turns, whereas their interlocutors consistently answer in Persian. This


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type of discourse, involving a contrastive choice between two languages, exhibits the following features: (a) The utterances are adjacent (b) Two speakers produce the utterances (c) In some cases the speech starts with the Persian discourse marker xob ‘well’ and continues in Swedish.Note the examples below: (5:34) Speaker A: hon tar de på allvar she

take it

on

seriously

‘She takes it seriously’ Speaker B: mi-g-am

in

allvar ni-st

IMPF-say-1Sg this

serious NEG-Copula.3Sg

‘Well, I tell her this is not serious’ (5:35) Speaker A: injâm hamin jur-e here

same

kind-Copula

‘Here it’s also the same’ Speaker B: nej inte no

not

lika

mycket, de är

same much,

it

is

inte

lika

not

same much

mycket

‘No not that much, it is not that much’ In the following examples Persian xob ‘well/so/all right’, which is pragmatically neutral, occurs in sentence-initial position as a logical connector. What is called tag-switching, extra-sentential codeswitching or emblematic switching in the literature (Poplack 1980) could involve elements like the Persian xob. As shown by Muysken (2000:99), tag switches often come from another language. The Persian xob also occurs frequently in Swedish speech, as in the examples below: (5:36) a. xob, du well, you

måste tänka must

to.think

b. xob, varför skulle dom ha well, why

should they

de så

have it

so

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Mougeon and Beniak (1991) predict that switched discourse organizers like English so in the French spoken in Ontario may start out as codeswitches and then, through repetition, become loanwords. If Mougeon and Beniak’s prediction is correct, xob may also gradually over time become a loanword in Swedish. I close introducing Swedish multi-word switches with a table and a summary of major findings. Table 5.5 gives an overview of the distribution of Swedish phrases and clauses in Swedish/Persian codeswitching data studied here. Table 5.5 Distribution of Swedish phrases and clauses in Persian Type Phrasal insertions Clause-level switches Other switches Complex insertions Total

N 19 65 15 3 12

% 19 64 14 3 100

As table 5.5 illustrates, the interclausal switch type is the most frequent type compared to other multi-word switches. A total of 19 phrasal insertions were found in Persian. Complex insertions (involving sequences with more than two Swedish words) were found only in Kristoffer’s data. Cases of language alternation in turn-taking (51 cases) are not included in the table above because only Av and Pan alternated languages in taking turns. Furthermore, this type of alternation is not interclausal. As can be seen in the examples, language alternation, more importantly, indicates how two speakers alternate between languages in intra-peer group interaction. 5.6 Summary Based on the codeswitching data introduced in this chapter, the Persian/ Swedish corpus can be characterized as a corpus in which several patterns of multi-word switches occur to different extents. These patterns include phrasal insertions, more complex insertions and switches that occur at the clause level. The complex insertion type occurs but is not found in the speech of all the speakers. Switches occurring at the periphery of a Persian clause are the most frequent type among four speakers. A few generalizations emerge from the data introduced in this chapter. Apparently, the boundary between a Persian modal auxiliary/modal and a Swedish infinitive VP complement is a favored switch site. In four cases the Swedish stretch is an infinitive VP that follows a Persian modal/modal


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auxiliary. The Swedish infinitive VP occurs where an inflected complex verb and its object complement would occur in Persian. In other cases a Swedish full clause follows a Persian full clause. These autonomous clauses still have a semantic relationship with one another, even though each clause retains its syntactic integrity. The reason for not classifying this type of clause level switch as intersentential is their semantic dependence on one another. There are also double subject constructions in which a full Swedish clause follows a Persian lexical subject. In brief, while Persian influence on the insertional type of CS is significant, each language retains its syntactic integrity in the interclausal type. Switched Swedish complement clauses are fairly common. Switching between Persian COMP and Swedish CP complements occurs freely. Switched Swedish CP complement clauses tend to have the COMP in Persian rather than in Swedish. The use of Persian coordinating conjunctions outweighs the use of Swedish ones for reasons related to the directionality of codeswitching. In subordinate clauses, the conjunction may be realized in either language. The directionality effect is noted in subordinate clauses as well. Persian subordinate clauses also precede Swedish main clauses. Interclausal switching is problematic when a relative clause is involved. This is attributable to the variation in the clause structure of the language pair and to the speaker’s planning difficulties. Finally, language alternations in turn-taking do not show Persian-dominant asymmetry. Sometimes at turn-taking points, when the entire speech changes to Swedish, the Persian discourse marker xob ‘well’ is used as a logical connector to begin Swedish speech. The goal of introducing the data in the preceding and the present chapter was to give the reader a fairly clear idea of the character and structure of Persian/Swedish codeswitching. The next chapter brings these data together and analyzes them in terms of research questions and empirical predictions of models of codeswitching that were outlined in chapter 2.

Chapter Six

Towards explaining Swedish/Persian codeswitching

6.1 Introduction The main purpose of this chapter is to analyze the data in terms of the research questions and to generalize the facts that account for the Swedish/ Persian codeswitching studied here. The presentation of data in the preceding chapters has shown how Swedish single words, phrases and clauses mix with Persian in bilingual speech. The absence of Swedish finite verbs as a switched single element and the non-occurrence of certain switch types raise a number of questions that need to be explored. This chapter will try to explain why there are such restrictions and what features of Persian, distinct from features of Swedish, impose constraints on the mixed grammars. An idea that has been adopted in recent works (Woolford 1983; Mahootian 1993; Belazi et al. 1994; MacSwan 1997) is that any correct approach to codeswitching will not look to codeswitching constraints outside the relevant mixed grammars. The reason is simple. Given that bilingual mixes reflect the effects of interaction between the grammars of the languages involved, it follows that the richest vein of readily available evidence which we have about the linguistic properties of codeswitching lies in unified grammars. The chapter is divided into five major sections. The goal in subsections 6.1.1, 6.1.2, and 6.1.3 is to establish a relationship between typological differences and the restrictions that these differences may impose on mixing. Sub-section 6.1.4 will draw a conclusion in terms of the above issues and will discuss the usage of alternative codeswitching options that account for switchability. In section 6.2 the empirical predictions of the codeswitching models outlined in chapter 2 will be evaluated against the data. Section 6.3 provides a clear picture of how these models account for the data and concludes the discussions with introducing a probabilistic perspective. Section 6.4 highlights the major facts characterizing the data. Finally, section 6.5 closes the chapter with a conclusion.

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6.1.1 Towards explaining Swedish/Persian codeswitching The data introduced in the previous chapters reveal that there are several types of codeswitching in Swedish/Persian bilingual speech, although they occur with varying frequencies. We have single-word insertions, phrasal insertions and switches that occur at the clause level. Such divergent bilingual mixes suggest that codeswitching between Persian and Swedish is relatively free. Swedish grammar is incompatible with Persian with respect to the position of nouns and adjectives; nonetheless this incompatibility has no bearing on mixing. A Swedish noun appears before a Persian adjective, or a Swedish adjective appears postnominally to modify a Persian noun. Even in one case as illustrated in (6:1a) below, a Swedish noun and its attributive adjective occur in Persian order. As shown in the preceding chapters, a characteristic feature of Persian is that a linking -e (i.e. the -e ezâfe particle) links the head of the phrase to the modifying element. In codeswitching, also as exemplified in (6:1), the ezâfe links the head noun to its attributive adjective: (6:1) a. tu iran in Iran

lektion-e religion dâšt-im lesson-Ez

religion

had-3Pl

‘We had religion class in Iran’ As shown in chapter five, in some cases, a Swedish attributive adjective is embedded in Persian along with its modifying noun. The Swedish ADJ-N configuration is not compatible with the Persian N-ADJ configuration. Nevertheless, the placement of Swedish ADJ-N phrases in Persian is permissible because the Persian well-formedness requirement in terms of its object position is respected. Example (5:6b) is repeated below in (6:1b): b. mâ râje we about

be försvagade folk to

weakened

sohbat ne-mi-kon-im

people talk

NEG-IMPF-do-1Pl

‘We do not talk about the weakened people’ The switchability of a Persian verb and its Swedish object NP also suggests that OV vs. VO configuration of the language pair has no influence on mixing. Codeswitching is constrained in a relative clause construction where a Swedish clause is introduced by a Persian relative pronoun, suggesting that combining two linguistic systems in places where they are not incompatible is especially problematic in relative clause constructions. Although bilingual mixes of the present data provide evidence that identical word order is not a prerequisite for switchability, it is obvious that linear order equivalence facilitates the insertion of Swedish constituents in the Persian structure. This is evidenced by frequent switches within DPs and PPs and the embedding of entire Swedish PPs in Persian. However, as it


157

turns out, certain mixes do not show up at all. Such cases are evidenced in the following: • The absence of a Swedish finite verb as a single switched element in Persian • The absence of a mix between a Swedish verb stem and Persian inflection • The absence of a mix between Swedish NEG elements and Persian verbs In the search for grammatical constraints, it is methodologically desirable to determine how sociolinguistic factors influence the structure of codeswitching. As discussed in the previous chapters, we have sociolinguistically motivated asymmetry in the present data. The asymmetry is such that Swedish constituents are inserted in the Persian matrix sentence or occur at the boundary of a Persian clause, but there are rarely cases where Persian insertions occur in a Swedish base. The absence of Swedish finite verbs in the Persian structure then may be viewed as dependent on sociolinguistic factors (the asymmetric nature of the codeswitching). However, it needs to be seen whether there are, in addition to sociolinguistic reasons, purely linguistic reasons that prohibit a Swedish inflected verb be inserted in Persian or a verb stem similar to a noun stem or an adjective be affixed with the Persian inflection. As Muysken (2000:95) points out, “through morphosyntactic restrictions, code-mixing possibilities involving one language pair are more limited than those involving another language pair”. For instance, as shown by Hasselmo (1974), in Swedish/American bilingual speech an English verb stem similar to a noun stem takes Swedish inflection: Kid-ar-na collect-ar

green-a stamp-ar

kid-PL-DEF collect-TENSE green-PL stamp-PL

‘The kids collect green stamps’ (Swedish/English codeswitching, Hasselmo 1974) Halmari (1997) also shows that in her Finnish/American English codeswitching data, English verbs become morphologically assimilated into Finnish morphosyntax and assign Finnish case to the object DP. In the Swedish/Persian codeswitching studied here, neither Swedish nor Persian verb stems take the inflection of the other language. Even in the interclausal type of codeswitch, as shown in chapter 5, Swedish verbs occur in the infinitive form at the periphery of a preceding Persian clause, but not as an inflected verb. Thus, while there is no doubt that sociolinguistic reasons motivate the asymmetry, and asymmetry involves a matrix language, it may be of limited usefulness focusing entirely on the sociolinguistic view and asymmetry to explain the probability or non-probability of switches. Myers-

158


Scotton even suggests that the ML could change during a sentence (DL 1993:70). From a syntactic perspective as well, not all accounts of codeswitching consider the matrix language to be a relevant constraint. For instance, Halmari (1997) and Mahootian (1993) do not advocate such a notion. Therefore, in addition to sociolinguistic considerations, we need an account that provides how different possibilities and patterns are chosen in specific language pairs. As reported by Muysken (2000:166), Van Hout and Muysken (1994) carried out a statistical regression analysis for the probability of Spanish lexical and functional element borrowings in Bolivian Quechua. Van Hout and Muysken’s analysis revealed that paradigmaticity and inflection in the donor language (Quechua) were the strongest structural factors in the probability of Spanish borrowings in Quechua. Muysken has also stressed that the results they obtained are not meant to be independent of this particular language pair. According to Muysken, quite different factors may turn out to be decisive in other language pairs, depending on various sociolinguistic factors and different contrasting typological properties. The relation between categorical and linear equivalence is also crucial. For instance, Swedish and English show linear and categorical equivalence. Finnish and English show linear equivalence, but not categorical equivalence (Finnish has overt case marking). Persian and Swedish show neither linear equivalence in canonical word order, nor are they equivalent in terms of the overt agreement marking on the verb; they should thus provide contrasts to the codeswitching languages mentioned above in terms of the switchability of verb stems and inflections. What surely needs to be explored then is the extent to which other factors related to specific properties and typological characteristics of the languages involved may limit the probability of switches. As Muysken suggests (2000:53), exploiting typological differences can lead to new, more directed research strategies in codeswitching research. Hypothesis Guided by the questions addressed earlier, the present dissertation, aims to explore whether typological differences are operative in Swedish/Persian codeswitching and may limit the probability of switches. In accordance with this objective, the study adopts the following working hypothesis: Restrictions attested in the present Swedish/Persian codeswitching correlate with typological differences in certain functional categories and with differences in verb systems in terms of distinction in affixation and verb compounding.


159

To defend this hypothesis, the morphological typology of verbs and Persian complex verbs as opposed to the Swedish verb system are treated as diagnostic yardsticks to show that specific requirements of the Persian verb system impose certain constraints on switching and, preclude Swedish verb stems from being integrated in Persian through direct affixation using Persian inflection. These issues were briefly discussed in chapter 4 in connection with bilingual verbs, however they are taken up again in this chapter for further analyses, arguments, and overall conclusions. Again, the arguments and invented examples presented in the following sections are not meant to ignore sociolinguistic reasons, but rather suggest that in addition to sociolinguistic reasons, there are typological differences that call for specific explanations. 6.1.2 Disagreement in agreement In Chomsky’s Minimalist Program (1995), an important assumption is that the morphological system is different in kind from syntactic operation. The Minimalist Program assumes that morphologically complex elements like walked and went are stored in the lexicon along with features associated with their inflectional morphology. Chomsky (1995:20) adopts the position that “processes internal to the lexicon (redundancy rules) form the word walk with the properties [walk] and [past] already specified”. These morphological principles of word formation must be highly language-specific; past tense, for instance is patterned differently for English and Persian, usually ed for English and -0 for third person singular past in Persian. This implies that language-specific requirements would be represented in the morphology. Thus, in a minimalist perspective, a conflict in language-specific requirements is just a conflict of lexical features. As was stated in chapter 1, it is not the goal of this dissertation to explore codeswitching phenomena from a minimalist perspective. However, we could say that differences generating a conflict in the language-specific requirements of Persian and Swedish are attributable to a conflict in lexical properties, and these properties are functional categories. Clearly, as Halmari mentions (p.c.), syntactic relations determine this too. A problem of congruence in functional categories is shown in the verb paradigms. One morphological characteristic of the Persian verb system is that an overt inflection on the verb identifies and licenses the properties of the subject (excluding the third person singular in the past, which has a null agreement morpheme). A further feature of the Persian verb paradigm is aspect, which is shown in the verb by the prefix mi-. These sets of features associated with Persian verbal morphology (i.e. aspect and agreement) are not overtly present in the Swedish verb paradigm. Thus, one typological difference with respect to verbs that may limit the probability of switches is linked to the functional categories AGR and ASP.

160


Ouhalla (1991:155) also provides theoretical support for the importance of INFL in codeswitching. He argues that variation in the clause structure of different languages is restricted to a difference in the order of a limited set of functional categories, namely AGR, TNS and NEG. According to Ouhalla, these functional categories play a crucial role in determining grammatical processes and consequently are crucial for word order variations across languages. Using invented examples, I try to show here how clashes between the incongruent INFL features of Persian and Swedish would yield odd, unacceptable mixes if a Persian verb stem were affixed with Swedish INFL. For instance, in the following example a Persian verb stem suffixed with the Swedish verb inflection -er sounds odd. As was said word-internal insertions as in (a) did not occur in the present data. INFL was realized in the language of the ML (Persian). However, the purpose of presenting this example is to consider the type of situation that distinguishes Persian from other languages in terms of verb-internal insertion: (6:2) a. *(man) dav-er (I)

run-present

‘I run’ A monolingual Persian example corresponding to the above example would be: b. (man) mi-dav-am (I)

IMPF-run-1Sg

‘I run’ Note that in example (b), the prefix mi-, representing the imperfect aspect, is attached to the verb stem. The Persian verb would also be inflected for person and number in agreement with the subject. What makes (a) sound odd is the fact that neither the subject-verb agreement feature of the Persian verb nor its aspect feature is shown in the Swedish verb inflection. The Swedish INFL only exhibits the tense feature. Consider also that a parametric variation in the two languages is the pro-drop character of Persian. This means that, as was explained earlier, the subject pronoun is often dropped in Persian (it occurs only for emphasis), while the subject-verb agreement morpheme on the verb licenses the subject’s identity. Swedish is not a pro-drop language. As such, the verb inflection on a Swedish verb cannot overtly express the informative properties of the Persian null subject.


161

The following is a reverse to example (a) as above and is illustrated for comparison. Here, Persian INFL features occur on a Swedish verb stem e.g., spring: c. (man) mi-spring-am (I)

IMPF-run-1Sg

‘I run’ What is interesting is that, although a Swedish verb stem with Persian inflection as in (c) would qualify as a finite verb, there are no such cases in the entire corpus where a Swedish verb stem is mixed with Persian inflection. Note that insertion models (Myers-Scotton DL 1993 [1997]) allow the INFL (=system morpheme) to be realized in the matrix language. Consider also that one of the inflections that freely attach to Swedish nouns and adjectives is verbal in nature. As shown in chapter 4, Persian bound copula morphemes freely attach to Swedish nouns and adjectives in predicative phrases, but not to verb stems. Thus, there should be some reason why Swedish verb stems, like noun stems, do not take Persian inflection, even though the Swedish verb in this case would qualify as a finite verb. We might assume that a noun stem or an adjective easily takes an affix from Persian because the requirement for this type of word-internal mixing is quite general. For instance, no conflict would arise if the Swedish adjective duktig ‘clever’ were to take a comparative marker from Persian or Swedish (e.g. Persian suffix -tar or Swedish suffix -are). By contrast, verbal systems differ with respect to the value of their intrinsic features. A verb belonging to the Swedish system may only have some of the relevant morphological properties corresponding to the Persian verb paradigm or, in the case of a completely irregular verb, none of them. What is needed then is to see to what extent there are morphological relations between the two verb systems. In this respect, in addition to verb paradigms, exploring the differences related to distinction in affixation and verb compounding becomes relevant as well. As was explained in chapter 4 (4.3.4), there are two classes of verbs in Persian. A class of verbs, e.g. dav ‘run’, inflect directly. Contrasting with these verbs are complex verbs which inflect by means of a help/auxiliary verb added to the preverbal element. This typological characteristic of the Persian verb system in terms of adistinction in affixation and compounding is crucial to its role in language contact and codeswitching. Now let’s see how this typological feature would affect verb-internal insertions in Persian/ Swedish codeswitching. In the following invented example, a Swedish infinitive verb is inflected with Persian inflection:

162

Disagreement in Agreement d. *be professor-â-ye to professor-PL-Ez

jadid gratulera-am new

to.congratulate-1Sg

‘I congratulated the new professors’ The Swedish infinitive verb inflected with Persian inflection as demonstrated above is understandable to a Swedish/Persian bilingual speaker, although it sounds odd. What makes it odd is the fact that, as discussed in chapter 4, a Swedish verb directly inflected with Persian inflection cannot fully replace a semantic concept which is expressed in Persian lexicon through the use of a complex predicate, in this case tabrik goftam (lit. congratulation said+I). Consider that tabrik in combination with goftam, as a syntactic-semantic unit representing a single entry in the mental lexicon of a Persian speaker would express the meaning of congratulation. The Swedish verb stem with Persian inflection is only one component of a complex predicate and thus cannot adequately express the concept of tabrik goftan ‘to congratulate’. The monolingual Persian sentence corresponding to the example above would be the following. Note also that the INFL features of the verb goft-am ‘to say’ (Lit. said I) indicate that the null subject is in the first person singular: e. be professor-â-ye to

professor-PL-Ez

jadid tabrik

goft-am

new

said-1Sg

congratulation

‘I congratulated the new professors’ The examples above are intended to show that in addition to the difference in terms of the concrete subject-verb agreement marking on the verb, the organization of the lexicon and the concepts expressed via Persian complex verbs also play a crucial role in codeswitching and may limit the probability of mixes. In other words, Persian complex verbs have semantic features associated with syntax that cannot be easily replaced by a Swedish verb directly inflected with Persian inflection. However, the question remains why Swedish verbs, e.g. spring ‘run’, which have a directly inflected counterpart in Persian, do not take Persian inflection either. Does this situation call for a strict separation of nominal and verbal systems? I have no answer to this question. 6.1.3 Constraint of switching between NEG and the verb Dissimilarity of the language pair with respect to the position of the functional category NEG may also impose a ban on mixing Swedish negation with Persian verbs. Negation elements are always initial in Persian. In Swedish negation is postposed to the verb in the main clauses and is preposed to the finite verb in subordinate clauses. The following Swedish examples exhibit both cases:

Towards explaining Swedish/Persian codeswitching (6:3) a. duktiga svenskar smart

Swededs

163

visar inte känslor show NEG emotions

‘Smart Swedes do not show emotions’ b. vi som inte är svenskar, vi visar känslor we who

NEG are Swedish,

we show emotions

‘We who are not Swedish, we show emotions’ In codeswitching between the language pair as illustrated in (6:3c) and (6:3d) below, the Persian negation prefix na- is not directly attached to the Swedish bare infinitive verb, but occurs within a Swedish+Persian V-V phrase, prefixed to the Persian kardan: c. avbryta na-kon man-o interrupt NEG-do me-râ

‘Don’t interrupt me’ d. ru-š

fundera

na-kard-am

on-it thinking NEG-did-1Sg ‘I didn’t think about it’

In one case, the Persian negation element na ‘no’ occurred as a discourse marker with a Swedish infinitive verb and its particle, while the Persian inflected auxiliary verb kardan was negated with the Persian negation prefix ne-. Note the example in (6:3e) below: e. na, stanna no

stay

kvar ne-mi-kon-e left

NEG-IMPF-do-3Sg

‘No, it will not remain’ The Swedish negation element nej ‘no’ occurred as a quote in a Persian frame with no syntactic relation with the preceding or the following utterance. All together, we have no cases in the entire corpus where a Swedish negation element (i.e. nej ‘no’, inte ‘not’) directly occurs with a Persian verb. 6.1.4 Alternative codeswitching patterns The arguments presented in the preceding sections suggest that restrictions on codeswitching are essentially limited to the absence of certain mixes. These restrictions are instantiated in the absence of Swedish finite verbs as single switched elements, in the non-mixing of Swedish verb stems with Persian verbal morphology, and in the non-mixing of a Swedish negation

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element with a Persian verb. The evidence seems to point to a link between these restrictions and certain typological differences as follows: • The lack of AGR and ASP features in the Swedish verb paradigm • Variation in the language pair in terms of pro-drop parameter • Variation in the language pair in the arrangement of the functional category NEG. • The lack of congruence between the language pair in terms of distinction in affixation and verb compounding The problem of congruence has consequences for how the grammars would mix. As discussed in chapter 4 (see 4.3.3), in a wide range of codeswitching data reported in the literature, do verb constructions are used as a compromise strategy to avoid the conflict in the verbal systems. For instance, Joshi’s (1985) Marathi-English data suggest that the auxiliary verb kare ‘do’ bears the INFL features in codeswitched sentences. The language of kare ‘do’ matches the language of the subject NP. The variety of Turkish spoken in the Netherlands also employs the Turkish auxiliary verb yap- to nativize foreign verbs. This auxiliary roughly means “to do” or “to make” (Backus 1996:239). The Turkish auxiliary yap- forms compound verbs with native and non-native nouns. In much of codeswitching data in which the do verb constructions are found, the matrix language is verb-final. Language pairs in which the matrix language is verb-final and do verb constructions are attested include various Indian languages/English (both Indo-European and Dravidian), Turkish/Dutch and Japanese/English CS (cf. Myers-Scotton and Jake 1995). Nevertheless, do verb constructions also show up in language pairs where the matrix language is not verb-final (e.g. Nortier’s Moroccan Arabic/Dutch CS data 1990). Although in a number of codeswitching data the “do verb” is the only way to incorporate EL verbs, these languages are a mixed bag in regard to how many of them and which ones have MLs that are a pro-drop language. According to Myers-Scotton (p.c.), while there are some southern Bantu languages (Chichewa in Malavi and Shona in Zimbabwe) that also use do verb constructions (but not exclusively), these languages are not pro-drop. Arabic is pro-drop and it does not allow Arabic inflections on English verbs, but Arabic/English makes little or no use of the do construction. As shown by Jake (1999), English verbs typically cannot be inflected with Arabic verbal morphology when Arabic is the ML. According to Jake, two strategies are used in Arabic/English CS. It is most common that the entire English IP follows an Arabic element as in (a) below:

Towards explaining Swedish/Persian codeswitching a. ana

I don’t

165

like it

I

(Okasha 1995:1.22) A second strategy involves the use of the bare verb stem plus complements where an inflected verb would occur in monolingual Arabic as in (b): b. huwwi he

/ambiHaawil

get

early

retirement

try

‘Him, he’s trying to get early retirement’ (Okasha 1995: 2.33) According to Jake (1999), under the MLF model, the lack of congruence at the level of morphological realization patterns accounts for this type of EL islands. This implies that in Arabic/English switching, system morphemes under INFL must come from English. That is why an English IP island occurs in an Arabic-framed CP. As emerged from earlier discussions, there is a crucial typological difference between Persian and Swedish with respect to concrete subjectverb agreement inflection on the verb and also in terms of aspect feature. The problem of congruence in verb paradigms is further complicated by a distinction in affixation and verb compounding. Alternative codeswitching patterns show diagnostic features that suggest these language typological differences can be neutralized. As discussed in chapter 4 (see 4.3), the most common alternative pattern involves bilingual verb constructions. A content morpheme (a bare infinitive verb) from Swedish is added to the left of an inflected auxiliary (i.e. kardan ‘to do’) from Persian. Incompatibility of clause structures could also limit the possibility of switches at the clause level. However, as shown in chapter five, two codeswitching options are chosen to avoid the problem. In some cases, a Swedish infinitive VP occurs at the periphery of a Persian clause where a complex verb would occur in monolingual Persian. In other cases, where structural mapping of the language pair related to the variation in the clause structures is problematic, separating the languages is a plausible option. That is, the entire Swedish clause follows a Persian clause. In such cases the Swedish clause is syntactically independent of the preceding Persian clause, unless the two clauses share a semantic/pragmatic relationship with each other. The INFL features of each autonomous clause in such cases are realized in the language of the respective verb. What is puzzling is that all the bilingual speakers choose a relevant alternative codeswitching pattern to produce a well-formed grammatical bilingual construction when there is a problem of congruence. One might say that the bilingual speaker’s competence includes not only the ability to make

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the judgment that certain types of codeswitches are grammatical and certain types are ungrammatical, but also that they have a potential ability to judge how the grammars could be matched when there is a problem of congruence. As discussed in chapter 2, it may be that there is a checking mechanism in bilingual processing and once a problem comes up, speakers unconsciously choose a relevant alternative that accounts for neutralizing that specific problem. This state of affairs leads us to assume that the choice of an alternative codeswitching pattern is not a strategy but is a part of unconscious linguistic knowledge. Such an assumption may provide us with an interesting explanation for the puzzling question of the regularities underlying codeswitching behaviors. However, this is a question that should be explored further. 6.2. Analyzing the data in terms of the models of codeswitching So far, I have been concerned with two issues: (a) highlighting typological features that have a significant impact on Swedish/Persian codeswitching, and (b) establishing a relationship between the differences in these features and the codeswitching properties observed in the present data. However, as discussed in the literature review (see chapter 2), the rules and constraints that govern codeswitching can also be explored along the lines employed in the different models of codeswitching. As mentioned in chapter 2, these models are guidance for the work in this dissertation. I think one should not miss the opportunity to check the data with empirical predictions of these models. This is the topic I will explore in the following sections. In an effort to make clear how these models account for the present data, I go further on to evaluate the empirical predictions of the nine sources that I have outlined in chapter 2, in terms of the data. To begin with, in the next section I apply Poplack and Woolford’s predictions to the data. 6.2.1 Poplack’s Equivalence Constraint and Woolford’s Model As discussed earlier (see 2.2), Poplack (1980, 1981) and Sankoff & Poplack (1981) proposed two constraints on codeswitching: the Equivalence Constraint and the Free Morpheme Constraint. The Equivalence Constraint stipulates that switching is determined by the relationship between the surface structures of the languages involved in codeswitching. Under the Equivalence Constraint, codeswitching takes place at points where the surface structures of the language pair map onto each other; if the surface orders are different, switching is blocked. This implies that switches have no direct relationship with a phrase structure (cf. Mahootian 1993). A major problem with the Equivalence Constraint is its empirical adequacy. Many counterexamples are presented in the literature which violate the predictions as formulated in the model.


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Woolford (1983) is the first researcher who initiated exploration of codeswitching in the context of Chomsky’s Principles and Parameters theory (1981,1986). Using Spanish/English data, Woolford proposed in generative terms that when phrase structure rules overlap, insertion of lexical items from either language is possible; if phrase structures are different, lexical items are drawn only from the language for which the phrase structure is unique. One criticism leveled at Woolford’s (1983) proposal is that she still follows the same line that was used by Poplack to propose the Equivalence Constraint (a linear-order approach). In both models switching is possible if the two grammars have parallel linear orders. A range of the switches in the present codeswitching data poses problem for both the Equivalence Constraint and Woolford’s model. Given that Persian and Swedish do not share a similar word order with respect to the position of the verb and object, according to predictions of these models, we would expect that switching between a Persian verb and a Swedish object or vice versa would be impossible. However, despite the dissimilarities observed in the position of the verb and object, and noun and its adjective modifier, switches occur between verbs and objects, on the one hand, and between nouns and adjectives, on the other. Multi-word phrasal insertions, however, give support to Woolford’s predictions. As shown in (5.2), phrase structure equivalence accounts for the insertion of a number of Swedish phrases in Persian structure. For instance, in the example repeated below in (6:4), a Swedish PP is freely embedded in a Persian sentence. The Swedish PP in (6:4) shares an identical structure with the corresponding monolingual Persian PP. The sequences of words in (6:4) could be Swedish or Persian. As was mentioned (see 5.2), Muysken (2000) defines this type of code-mix (Muysken’s terminology) as congruent lexicalization. In the congruent lexicalization type of codeswitching, a shared structure can be lexicalized from either language: (6:4) farq

hast mellan tulpaner o

difference is

between tulips

and

ogräs weeds

‘There is difference between tulips and weeds’ Switching between a COMP and the CP that it introduces, and switches between a Persian determiner and Swedish NPs, are also compatible with Woolford’s theory. In (6:5), a Swedish CP complement is embedded in Persian by means of a Persian COMP: (6:5)

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Disagreement in Agreement xob

vâse cci,

then

for


what for

that

they

others

äckliga

are repulsive

‘Then why, because others are repulsive’ Woolford’s theory of matching PS rules also holds true for switching within PPs. In (6:6a) below, Persian ezâfe occurs between the Persian preposition and the Swedish noun. This is how it would be in monolingual Persian. Recall that Persian e-ezâfe has no representation in Persian orthography; however, it is phonologically realized and is heard between the head of the phrase and the modifying element. In (6:6a) Persian e-ezâfe links the head preposition to its object complement. Swedish and Persian PPs are not completely identical when eezâfe is realized between the preposition and its complement. Nonetheless, switching between the Persian preposition and Swedish noun as in the example below is permissible: (6:6) a. lebâs-et

tu-ye garderob-e

dress-Clitic.Pro in-Ez wardrobe-Copula.3Sg

‘Your dress is in the wardrobe’ In (6:6b), a switch between the head preposition and its Swedish noun complement is also allowed. The Persian preposition be ‘to’ in (6:6b) falls in the group of bare prepositions. As discussed in chapter 3, the use of ezâfe with this group is ungrammatical. As noted, there is no ezâfe between the preposition and its complement: b. be ambassad to

Embassy

zang zad-am ring

hit-1Sg

‘I called the Embassy’ The codeswitches above give support to Woolford’s model. Yet, as was said, one problem posed to the Equivalence Constraint and Woolford’s Phrase Structure Congruence model is noun-adjective mixes. The Equivalence Constraint and Woolford’s model disallow switching between a noun and its adjective if they have different constituent orders in the codeswitching languages. As shown repeatedly, the present data contradict this prediction. Switching between Swedish adjectives and Persian nouns or the reverse occurs freely regardless that the Persian N-ADJ order and Swedish ADJ-N order do not map onto each other. Poplack also stipulates a restriction on switching between a root and a bound morpheme: the Free Morpheme Constraint. The data reintroduced in the next section provide evidence that this constraint does not hold true with respect to word-internal mixes between Swedish noun stems and Persian


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bound morphemes. By contrast, the Free Morpheme Constraint accounts for the ban on switching between verb stems and the other language’s verbal morphology. 6.2.2 The Free-Morpheme Constraint The Free Morpheme Constraint (Poplack 1980, 1981) prohibits switching between a free and a bound morpheme of different languages. There are clear counterexamples to this constraint where Persian bound morphemes attach to Swedish nouns or adjectives. For instance, in (6:7a) a Persian bound copula morpheme (e.g. -an) is attached to a Swedish predicate: (6:7) a. suedi-â

artig-an

Swedish-PL polite-Copula.3Pl

‘Swedish people are honest’ In (6:7b), the Persian plural marker -hâ is attached to a Swedish NP and -e ezâfe (-ye after the vowel) links the NP to its modifier: b. livsmedel-hâ-ye Täby grocery-PL-Ez

‘groceries in Täby’ In (6:7c) a Swedish noun is suffixed with the Persian indefinite marker suffix -i: c. tröja-i

ke xarid-i

sweater-Indef that bought-2Sg

‘The sweater that you bought’ The Persian comparative marker is also attached to Swedish adjectives. In (6:7d) below, the Swedish adjective carries two Persian bound morphemes: the comparative marker -tar and the bound copula morpheme -im: d. mâ duktig-tar-im we smart-COMPR-Copula.1Pl

‘We are smarter’ A Persian clitic pronoun serving as possessive pronoun is attached to a Swedish compound noun in (6:7e)) below: e. immunförsvar-eš

za/if-e

immune+defense-Clitic.Pro weak-Copula.3Sg

170

Disagreement in Agreement ‘His/her immunity defense is weak’

As mentioned earlier in chapter 4, the example repeated in (6:7f) below is interesting in that the Persian clitic pronoun, serving as the direct object, occurs with a Swedish infinitive compound verb: f. polisanmäla-š

kard-im

police+to report-Clitic.Pro did-1Pl

‘We reported him to the police’ The derivation in example (6:7f) is illustrated in the following tree: S VP polisanmäla š

V kardim

As was stated previously, Poplack’s Free Morpheme Constraint accounts for the ban on switching between verb stems in one language and the verbal morphology of the other language. For instance, Swedish verb stems do not take Persian verbal morphology. Nor is there any occurrence of switches between a base and derivational morphology in the data. Derivational morphology involves word formation and often has limited productivity. Therefore derivational morphemes are less accessible to speakers and hence may not occur with root stems as switched items. Persian /English data (Mahootian 1993) and Halmari’s Finnish/English data (p.c.) also suggest the absence of mixing between a base and derivational morphology. Backus (p.c.) mentions that, whereas monolinguals coin new words with the help of derivational morphology, bilingual immigrant speakers just borrow, which probably leads to the decline in derivational morphology, i.e. it loses productivity. While Poplack’s Equivalence Constraint accounts for surface structure, Bentahila and Davies’s model which is evaluated in the next section proposes more abstract level equivalencies for switchability. 6.2.3 The Subcategorization Principle The Subcategorization Constraint (Bentahila and Davies 1983) shares the same grounds with the Government Constraint (DiSciullo et al. 1986). The


171

restrictions of both models are based on sisterhood relations that hold between lexical items in codeswitched sentences. As was mentioned in chapter 2, application of the notion of subcategorization in the subcategorization model is equal to sisterhood (cf. Mahootian 1993). Bentahila and Davies assert that: “all items must be used in such a way as to satisfy the [language-particular] subcategorization restriction imposed on them” (1983:329). Bentahila and Davies proposed this principle testing Moroccan-Arabic/French data. For instance, they allow for a switch where a French prenominal adjective is followed by an Arabic noun, but disallow switching where an Arabic adjective that subcategorizes as postnominal occurs before a French noun because the subcategorization rule for Arabic adjectives would be violated. The Subcategorization Principle holds true for the placement of Swedish constituents in Persian. However, in (6:8) the subcategorization rule for Swedish adjective is violated. The Swedish noun and its attributive adjective occur in Persian order, while the adjective should impose Swedish order: (6:8) tu iran

lektion-e religion dâšt-im

in Iran

lesson-Ez

religion

had-3Pl

‘We had religion class in Iran’ As shown in chapter 5, in some cases Swedish ADJ-N phrases are embedded in a Persian frame. In such cases the sisterhood relations of each language are maintained. For instance, the codeswitched sentence in (6:9) contains two lexicons, each having lexical items associated with a configuration feature. The embedded Swedish phrase retains the subcategorization rule for Swedish adjectives. Swedish adjectives subcategorize as prenominal. The placement of Swedish ADJ-N as the object of the Persian verb in turn satisfies Persian sisterhood relations with respect to the position of the verb argument: (6:9) mâ râje

be försvagade folk

we about to

weakened

sohbat ne-mi-kon-im

people talk

NEG-IMPF-do-1Pl

‘We do not talk about the weakened people’ Where switching occurs at the clause level as in (6:10), each clause independently determines its subcategorization frame:

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Disagreement in Agreement (6:10) pesar-â xubtar bâzi mi-kon-an, boy-PL

play

IMPF-do-3Pl,

jag tycker dom är

jätte falska

I

think

better they

are very

false

‘The boys play better, I think they are very false’ Two other models similar to that of Woolford (1983) posit constraints on codeswitching in terms of grammatical theories. The empirical predictions of these models are applied to the data in the following sections. 6.2.4 The Government Constraint As explained in chapter 2, DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh (1986) explore the codeswitching constraints in terms of the rules and principles related to the syntactic theory of Government and Binding (GB). DiSciullo et al. predict that under the head-complement relations of X-bar theory, switching between a governing and a governed element is prohibited unless the highest lexical element of the governed maximal projection includes a language index (Lq-carrier= Neutralizing element) in the language of the governing element. This implies that a lexical governor and the highest lexical element of the maximal projection that it governs must be in the same language. For instance, if the Lq-carrier of the direct object is a determiner, at least this element must be in the language of the verb. Other elements of the governed direct object can be from either language. It is only the highest lexical element of the maximal projection (the ‘Lq-carrier’) which should match the language index of its governor. For instance, in close the window, the verb governs the DP. As shown in the following tree, the determiner the is the highest lexical element in the governed DP the window, and will therefore be the language index carrier (Lq-carrier). A switch cannot take place immediately after the verb but can after the determiner, the, which should be in the same language as the governing verb. DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh argue that the language index carrier intervenes between the governor and governed element as a neutralizing element. VP DPq

Vq close

Dq the

NP window


173

The same principle should be satisfied if switching occurs between a preposition and its complement. The highest lexical element of the governed maximal projection needs to be in the language of the governor. For instance, in on the table, if we replace the table with the Swedish noun bord ‘table’, switching between the English preposition and the Swedish noun bord ‘table’ would be possible if DET matches the language of the governing preposition (e.g. on the bord); otherwise switching is ruled out. As for switching between a transitive verb and its object NP, since the object NP is governed by the verb, its language index (Lq-carrier) must be in the same language as the language of the verb. Otherwise switching between the verb and object NP would be impossible. On the contrary, DiSciullo et al. predict that switching between the subject NP and VP is possible because they are not in a government relation. DiSciullo et al. do not analyze INFL as a governor (1986:6). Thus, the government proposal rules out the switching of the following lexical elements if they are in a government relation with a head, and the highest lexical element of the governed maximal projection is not in the language of the governor (the subscripts a and b mark different languages): (a) Va / O b (b) Va / COMPb (c) Va / Det b (d) Va / Q b (e) Va / Prep b (f) Prep a / NPb (g) NPNa / Ab or NP Aa / Nb Codeswitching data reported from different language pairs show counterexamples to the Government Constraint. For instance, in Nortier’s Moroccan Arabic-Dutch codeswitching data (1990:175), switching between the verb and object and between the preposition and noun phrases is permissible. Stenson’s (1990) Irish-English data present examples showing that a government relation holds as a likely constraint of codeswitching; however, she also finds counterexamples to the Government Constraint. As shown by Halmari (1993, 1997), in Finnish-English data, Finnish case and agreement morphology tends to prevail. Halmari posits that in a government relation with Finnish as the governor and the English complement as the governed element, Finnish case or agreement markers function as Lq-carriers and occur with English complements. For instance, in the following example, the only Finnish element in the object DP is the Finnish partitive case morpheme, and this morpheme functions as the Lq-carrier. As such, the requirement of the Government Constraint is satisfied and switch-

174


ing between the Finnish governing case-assigner and the object DP is possible: mää oon I

koulu+ssa

joskus

pelannu basketball+ia

have school+INE sometimes played

basketball+PART

‘I have sometimes played basketball at school’ (Finnish-English codeswitching, Halmari 1997) Halmari makes some modifications to the Government Constraint and suggests that case and agreement morphology in languages with rich morphology can be language carrier-elements in governed phrases. Treffers-Daller (1994) employs similar lines to analyze TurkishGerman data. She slightly modifies Halmari’s proposal by adding that a governor determines the rules for case marking and the syntactic structure of its maximal projection. Although the government model allows for codeswitching between languages with dissimilar word order, clearly it shows some empirical problems when it is tested on the present data. As shown in chapter 4 (see table 4.3), Persian affixes often attach to Swedish nouns and adjectives. These affixes could be Persian verbal inflections, the plural marker -hâ, pronominal clitics, ezâfe particle, the comparative marker -tar or the Persian definite direct object marker râ. I assumed that such Persian affixes on Swedish constituents may function as the Lq-carriers, and as is predicted by the government proposal, would make it possible to switch between a Persian governor and its Swedish complement. In some cases, switching between a governor and its governed element occurs on the condition that there is an Lq-carrier in the language of Persian (the governor). However, as it turns out, even in the absence of an Lq-carrier, switching between a Persian head and its Swedish complements occurs easily. This state of affairs seems to suggest that language indexing is not a definite condition for switchability under a government relation. Now let us apply the Government model’s predictions to the data. Switching between the subject and the VP Under the line of analysis developed in GB theory, as Simin Karimi (p.c.) suggests, INFL is a governor in Persian and governs the subject in the SPEC of IP (Head/Specifier government) or in the SPEC of VP (c-command government). There is no government relation between the subject NP and VP. Note that DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh predict that since the subject is not governed by the verb, switching between subject NP and VP is hence free. We have some cases of switching between a Swedish lexical subject and Persian VP where the language of the INFL is Persian. By contrast, there is no switching between a Persian subject and a Swedish finite verb. The ab-


175

sence of this type of switching is attributable to sociolinguistic reasons and the unidirectionality of switching. Since the INFL is in Persian, the subject is also in Persian. Again, what I want to show here is that linguistic reasons can also explain why a Persian subject would not occur with a Swedish finite verb. As was established earlier (see 6.1.2), Swedish verbs do not overtly mark either person or number distinction, or the aspectual feature, whereas the Persian verb paradigm includes morphological marking for aspect and subject-verb agreement features. The variation in the language pair in terms of subject-verb agreement distinction is reflected in a further parametric difference between the two systems. Persian allows a null subject while Swedish does not. Taken together, all these differences suggest that agreement is a codeswitching constraint in Swedish/Persian codeswitching and may limit the probability of switching between a Persian subject and a Swedish finite verb. As discussed in chapter 3 (see 3.8 for the Persian verb and verb phrase), in Persian, the bound agreement morphemes -am /-im for first person singular/plural, -i /-id for second person singular/plural, and -and for third person plural occur in the verb and identify the properties of the animate subject. A switch between a Persian subject (excluding the third person singular in the past, which has a null agreement morpheme i.e. raft/ raft-im ‘S/he went/they went’) and a Swedish finite verb would raise confusion with respect to the identity of the subject. There is no AGR on the Swedish verb to identify the informative properties of the subject. To avoid the problem of congruence in AGR and in clause structures, separating the two clauses is a plausible option in codeswitching. As it was shown in chapter 5, in the example repeated in (6:11a) below we have a case of interclausal switching where each subject pronoun is in the language of its inflected verb. Note that the switched Swedish clause is syntactically independent of the Persian clause except that the two clauses share a semantic relation with each other. The Swedish subject pronoun here is a part of the switched Swedish full clause: (6:11) a. mâ ke umad-im sued, we that came-3Pl

vi

har

Sweden, we have

fått flera möjlighet-er got more possibility-PL

‘We who have come to Sweden (live in Sweden), we have got more possibilities’ As can be seen in (6:11b), a monolingual Swedish sentence corresponding to (6:11a) would require a subject pronoun in the second clause:

176


b. vi

som har

we that

kommit till Sverige, vi

have come

to

har

fått

Sweden, we have got

flera möjligheter more possibilities

‘We who have come to Sweden (live in Sweden), we have got more possibilities’ While the Swedish monolingual sentence in (6:11b) above would require a subject pronoun in the second clause, the Persian monolingual sentence would not because the agreement morpheme on the verb greft-im ‘we got/received’ would express the communicative intention referring to the subject. Note that in the monolingual Persian sentence in (6:11c), emkânat-e bištari (lit. possibilities more) would occur in a syntactic position where a Swedish pronominal subject has occurred in (6:11a) and (6:11b). Note also that the use of the Persian subject pronoun mâ ‘we’ has an emphatic effect: c. mâ ke we that

umad-im sued

emkân-ât-e

came-1Pl

possibily-PL-Ez more

Sweden

bištari greft-im received-1Pl

‘We who have come to Sweden (live in Sweden) got more possibilities’ Double subject constructions in the data provide further evidence that switching between a Persian lexical subject and a Swedish finite verb is constrained. As shown earlier in chapter 5, in the example repeated below, we have a double subject construction in which a Swedish subject pronoun dom ‘they’ follows a Persian lexical subject. The Persian lexical subject has a focus effect, while the Swedish subject pronoun is a part of the switched Swedish full clause. Note again that the speaker avoids mixing the Persian lexical subject with a Swedish inflected verb: (6:12) injâ hame-ye

doxtar-â, na-faqat

here all-Ez

girl-PL,

NEG-only

irâni-hâ, Iranian-PL,

dom kommer

inte

låta

er

they

not

let

you breathe

come

andas

‘Here all the girls, not only Iranians, won’t let you to breathe’ The data exemplified below support DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh’s prediction with respect to the Lq-carrier (neutralizing element). Here, Swedish lexical subjects occur with a Persian verb on condition that they have the Lqcarrier in Persian. Note that in the following example a Persian determiner, ye ‘one’, occurs with the Swedish lexical subject. In terms of the Government Constraint, the Persian determiner is the highest lexical element of the


177

governed maximal projection that occurs in the language of the INFL, and that accounts for switching here between a Swedish lexical subject and a Persian finite verb: (6:13) masalan

ye vakt visad-e

for.instance a

guard stand-PSPT

‘For instance, a guard stands there/has stood there’ In the examples that follow, Swedish lexical subjects do not occur alongside a Persian VP; rather a Persian pronominal clitic, serving as the possessive pronoun, intervenes between the lexical subject and VP. Thus, switching between the subject and INFL occurs again on condition that the lexical subjects have the Lq-carrier in Persian: (6:14) ägar-aš

košt-eš

owner-Clitic.Pro

killed-Clitic.Pro

‘Its owner killed it’ (6:15) Ledar-ašun

mi-xâd

avgå

leader-Clitic.Pro

IMPF-want

to.quit Subj-do-3Sg

be-kon-e

‘Their leader wants to quit’ Swedish pronominal subjects as single elements are never inserted in Persian. Generally, subject pronouns as single switched elements occur crosslinguistically very rarely. However, considering that Persian is a pro-drop language and overt pronoun subjects are only used for emphasis, the absence of Swedish pronominal subjects in Persian could be expected anyway. As was shown, in insertions Persian rules apply and such rules allow communicative intention referring to a subject to be expressed through the verb agreement morpheme rather than through the use of a subject pronoun. Jake (1994) posits that the category of pronoun is determined by language-specific differences. She shows empirically that the more freely occurring pronouns are the content morphemes in a language, while those occurring on a more limited basis are system morphemes. According to Jake, this is why EL pronouns occur much more in some CS data sets than in others (1994:279). She divides the class of pronouns into four distinct functional categories:

178 • • • •

Disagreement in Agreement Discourse emphatic pronouns (e.g. me, I wouldn’t do it) Dummy pronouns (e.g. it seems that) Indefinite pronouns (e.g. somebody is behind the door) Personal pronouns (I am leaving)

Backus (1996) has proposed an alternative semantic explanation for the absence of switched pronouns in the framework of cognitive grammar: the specificity hypothesis. According to Backus, pronouns do not have specific meaning (i.e. they are general in meaning), and that is why they are never used in CS. Switching between verb and object As shown in chapter 4 (see 4.4.1), Swedish nouns often occur in the object position of Persian verbs on condition that a Persian bound morpheme or the definite object marker râ is attached to the object NP. In such cases, switching between the verb and object fulfills the requirement of the government proposal in terms of the Lq-carrier. In one case, repeated in (6:16) below, the Swedish bare infinitive verb tänka and its strictly subcategorized preposition på occur with a Persian object complement hovviat ‘identity’. Switching between the verb and object in (6:16) also fulfills the requirement of the government proposal. The Swedish preposition på ‘on/to’ (Lq-carrier) intervenes as a neutralizing element between the Swedish bare infinitive verb and Persian object: (6:16) xob unâ

suedi-an,

well they


vi

måste, vi

we must

mâ irun-im,

måste tänka

we must

to think

vi

måste,

på hovviat of

identity

‘Well they are Swedish, we are Iranian, we must, we must, we must think of identity’ As exemplified in (6:17), we have other cases where switching between a Persian verb and its object complement occurs even in the absence of an Lqcarrier in the language of verb: (6:17) az suedi-hâ

respekt mi-xâh-im

from Swedish-PL respect

IMPF-want-1Pl

‘We want respect from Swedish people’


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In her Persian/English codeswitching data, Mahootian (1993) also shows that a Persian object NP follows an English verb or that an English object NP precedes a Persian verb. Note the examples: (6:18) a. I love xormâlu I

love

persimmon

(Persian/English, Mahootian 1993) b. Ten

dollars

dâd-e gave-PSPT

‘She has given ten dollars’ (Persian/English, Mahootian 1993) As was said, in the present data switching between the verb and object often occurs on condition that there is an intervening Lq-carrier in the language of the verb. However, the examples in (6:17) and (6:18) clearly provide evidence that the notion of language indexing does not prove to be a definite condition for switchability between a verb and its object complement. Switching between the COMP and a subordinate clause DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh (1986) predict that the COMP introducing a subordinate clause must be in the same language as the matrix verb. This prediction is compatible with the data. The Swedish CP complements tend to have the COMP in Persian rather than in Swedish. In (6:19) a Swedish CP complement is embedded in Persian by means of a Persian COMP: (6:19) xob vâse cci, then

for


what for

that

they

others

äckliga

are repulsive

‘Then why, because others are repulsive’ Note that the use of a complementizer in either language is optional and may be dropped to produce a sentence like (6:19b): b. man mi-g-am, I

jag är

IMPF-say-1Sg, I

född muslim

am born

muslim

‘I say, I was born a Muslim’ Mahootian (1993:108) presents examples of the Persian COMP governed by the English matrix verb as in the following:

180

Disagreement in Agreement (6:20) I was

implying

ke in

kâr dorost nist

that this act correct isn’t

‘I was implying that this isn’t right’ (Farsi/English, Mahootian 1993) As the Persian/Swedish example in (6:19) and Mahootian’s English/Persian example above suggest, the presence of a COMP from either language does not block codeswitching. However, it seems that for reasons having to do with the directionality of codeswitching and well-formedness, the use of a Persian COMP is preferred to a Swedish one. Switching within PPs Persian and Swedish PPs are both head-initial. The single-word insertions exemplified in chapter 4 provide evidence that switching between a Persian preposition and Swedish prepositional objects occurs freely. As was explained in chapter 3, there are two groups of prepositions in Persian: bare prepositions and ezâfe prepositions. Bare prepositions never take the e-ezâfe particle, while ezâfe prepositions can either take ezâfe or appear without it. We assume that the e-ezâfe particle intervening between the head preposition and prepositional object NP is a neutralizing element in terms of the Government Model. Under this assumption then, switches within PPs in which the Persian ezâfe links the preposition to its complement are not problematic for the Government Constraint and fulfill its requirement. Now let us see what the data tell us. In (6:21) below, switching between a Persian preposition and a Swedish object NP meets the condition required by the government proposal: (6:21) vaqti tu-ye

fantazi-ye

mardom be-re

when into-Ez imagination-Ez people

Subj-go.3Sg

‘When it enters into people’s imagination’ The Persian preposition in (6:21) is linked to its Swedish complement through ezâfe. We assume that ezâfe is the Lq-carrier of the governor, and thus switching between the head preposition and its complement is compatible with the government proposal. However, in the following case there is no ezâfe intervening between the Persian preposition and its Swedish complement:

Towards explaining Swedish/Persian codeswitching (6:22) b. ba/zi irâni-hâ

bâ

some Iranian-PL with

181

gäng-an gang-are

‘Some Iranians are with the group’ The Persian preposition bâ ‘with’ is a member of the group of bare prepositions that never take the ezâfe. Nor can we count on the Persian verbal suffix -an attached to the Swedish noun to be the Lq-carrier. As illustrated in (6:22b), the copula suffix -an occurs outside the prepositional phrase bâ gäng: (6:22b) VP

NP ba/zi iranihâ

PP bâ

INFL gäng

-an

Codeswitching in (6:22) is then a counterexample to the Government Constraint and provides evidence that switching takes place even in the absence of a neutralizing element. Hence, as has been said repeatedly, the occurrence of a neutralizing element in the language of the head does not seem to be a definite condition for codeswitching under a government relation. Note also that the use of ezâfe with tu in (6:21) is optional. The speaker could use the preposition without ezâfe. The meaning of the preposition is the same with or without the ezâfe. As discussed in chapter 2, Muysken (2000:25) maintains that the Government Constraint is clearly inadequate for two reasons. The main reason is that “categorical equivalence undoes the effect of the government relation”. A second reason according to Muysken is that the Government Constraint focusing on content words has ignored the crucial role of functional categories. Belazi, Rubin and Toribio’s (1994) Functional Head Constraint model, which will be evaluated in the following sections, also has the attraction of formalizing theory-based explanations for codeswitching. The focus of Belazi et al.’s model is on functional heads.

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6.2.5 The Functional Head Constraint Belazi, Rubin and Toribio (1994) take a different position from DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh in that they predict switching between a lexical head (a verb, a preposition, or a noun) and its complement is free, but switching between a functional head (Quantifier, NEG, Modal, COMP and INFL) and its complement is prohibited. As was stated in chapter 2, according to Belazi, Rubin and Toribio (1994), a functional head requires that the language feature of its complement match the language of the head. Belazi, Rubin and Toribio formalize their predictions in the Functional Head Constraint (FHC) model. Under the FHC model, switching between a functional head and its complement is not possible in the following cases: a. b. c. d. e. f.

COMP and its IP complement NEG and its complement VP A modal auxiliary and VP INFL and VP Stems and inflectional affixes Nom (intermediate between DP and NP and headed by Quantifiers, and numbers) and its complement NP.

An immediate problem for the FHC model is that there is not a clear, definitive definition of function words and of what should count as a functional head. Therefore, as noted by Muysken (2000), diagnosing the constraints in terms of functional elements would be a problematic issue. This problem arises in the present data when diagnosing the status of the Persian classifier tâ. I apply the FHC’s predictions to the data in the following sections. Restriction of switching between INFL and VP Belazi et al.’s prediction with respect to restriction on switching between INFL and VP correctly accounts for the present data. As discussed at the beginning of this chapter, in no case a Swedish VP occurs with Persian INFL or vice versa. However, the FHC does not hold true for switches between the COMP, quantifiers, determiner and their complements. These cases are shown in the following sections. COMP in the language of the governing head Belazi, Rubin and Toribio show that in Spanish-English and Tunisian Arabic-French data, the complementizer is in the language of the complement clause but not in the language of the governing head (1994:224). DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh in contrast, predict that COMP must be in the language of the governing head. As emerged from earlier discussions, com-


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plementizers as functional elements often are used from Persian. Swedish CP complements tend to have the COMP in Persian rather than in Swedish. As the example repeated below in (6:23) exhibits, a Persian complementizer is used to introduce two Swedish relative clauses: (6:23) doxtar-e xub kasi-e ke bra girl-Ez

nice one-is

med folk, with

personlighet umgås

that good personality

socializes

trevlig hast

people nice

is

‘The nice girl is one that has a nice personality, socializes with people, is nice’ In the example above the first Swedish clause that is introduced by the Persian relative pronoun (i.e. bra personlighet) is behaving like Persian because the Swedish verb har ‘has’, which would occur after the relative pronoun in a Swedish context, is left out. As was stated in chapter 5, the relative pronoun in Persian does not select a verb to its right in the context above, and this is why the Swedish verb har ‘has’ is left out. An important question one may ask here is whether the Persian relative pronoun ke can be analyzed as a functional head. In its use as a relative pronoun in a sentence such as (6:23), ke serves to introduce complement clauses and thus has the status of a pronominal complementizer. Muysken (2000:164) adopts a rough heuristic distinction between functional elements as shifters (i.e. pronouns, quantifiers, question words and quantifiers), functional categories proper, and linkers, which connect constituents and clauses. He cautions that “This distinction is theoretically questionable, at least in part, but it helps structure the data”. Following Muysken’s distinction, the Persian relative pronoun in the example above could be categorized a linker (i.e. a functional element) that introduces Swedish clauses. Simin Karimi (p.c.) also confirms that ke is a functional head in Persian. Myers-Scotton (p.c.) posits that COMP is a content morpheme and could therefore be from either language. However, she notes that while it is theoretically possible for COMP to come from either language, it generally does not. As she mentions for most data sets, it comes only from the ML. For example, in Arabic/English CS, the COMP is always from Arabic. And in Chichewa/English CS, the COMP is always from Chichewa (language of Malawi). Switching between quantifier and NP As shown by Belazi et al. (1994), Ritter (1991) has identified a functional category Nom, which is intermediate between DP and NP and is headed by quantifiers and numbers. Following Ritter (1991), Belazi et al. count quanti-

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fiers as functional heads and predict that switching between quantifiers and NPs is disallowed. The combination of Persian quantifiers and Swedish nouns is a permissible mix in the present data. For instance, in (6:24) a Persian quantifier along with the number classifier tâ occurs with a Swedish noun: (6:24) se tâ

parallellklass dâr-im

three CL parallel+class

have-1Pl

‘We have three parallel classes’ As was mentioned earlier, there is some controversy as to what should count as a functional head. I cite here two views from Persian linguists with respect to the status of the Persian number classifier tâ. Mahootian (1993) mentions in footnote 9 that “the function of Persian tâ seems to be wrapped up with degree of specificity and/or definiteness and requires further study”. According to Mahootian, tâ is most likely generated as part of NumP. Simin Karimi (p.c.) suggests that tâ is a number classifier and could not be a functional head. Taking these views into account, we might say that tâ is not a functional head in Persian and therefore, switching between tâ and a Swedish noun, as in (6:24), cannot be regarded as a counterexample to FHC. Switching between a modal auxiliary and VP Belazi et al. also consider modal auxiliaries to be functional heads and predict that switching between a modal auxiliary and VP is disallowed. They show that in the following example switching between Spanish and English is ruled out: (6:25) *the police officers have visto un ladron the

police

officers

have seen

a

thief

As shown in chapter 5, we have codeswitches where Swedish infinitival phrases occur as a complement to a Persian modal auxiliary. But we have no data with respect to switching between a Swedish modal auxiliary and a Persian VP. The data exemplified in (5:21) is repeated below. As can be seen a Swedish infinitive VP occurs as a complement to a Persian modal auxiliary: (6:26) pesar-â bayad bištar pul boy-PL

must

dâšte bâš-an tâ

be-tun-an,

more money have be-3Pl for Subj-able-3Pl

Towards explaining Swedish/Persian codeswitching tillfredsställa

tjej-er-na

to satisfy

girl-PL-DEF

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‘Boys must have more money in order to be able to please the girls’ Switching between stems and inflectional affixes Belazi, Rubin and Toribio treat inflectional morphemes as functional heads and predict that switching between stems from one language and inflectional affixes from another is disallowed. Recall that Poplack’s Free Morpheme Constraint also restricts codeswitching at some morphological level. As was the case with Poplack’s Free Morpheme Constraint, the ban on switching between stem and bound morphemes does not hold for switching between Swedish noun stems and Persian bound morphology. As illustrated in (6:27), a Persian clitic pronoun as direct object is attached to a Swedish noun stem. This type of word-internal insertion, as in (6:27), which often occurs in the present data, is a clear counterexample to Belazi et al.’s and Poplack’s prediction: (6:27) agar hesâb-e if

respekt-eš-o

consider-Ez respect-Clitic.Pro-râ

be-kon-i Subj-do-2Sg.present

‘If you consider her esteem’ A switch between a Persian noun stem and Swedish morphological markers (e.g. ayatoll-or-na ‘the ayatollahs’) is also often heard in Swedish monolingual speech, though it did not occur in the present data. By contrast, in the realm of verbs, Persian verbal morphology does not occur on a Swedish verb stem and vice versa. Belazi et al.’s syntactic account does not explain why nominal stems take the other language’s affixes, while verb stems do not. As emerged from earlier discussions (see 6.1.2), this contrast has to do with the very specific requirements of verbal systems. No specific rules are required for a mix between a noun stem and inflectional morphology. In contrast, verbal systems differ with respect to the value of their intrinsic features. Hence a verb stem with another language’s inflections has to be adjusted to very specific requirements of another verb system, and as such cannot be easily replaced. From a minimalist perspective (Chomsky 1993, 1995), it can also be posited that, since Swedish verbs – which have weak features – are in conflict with Persian verbs – which have strong features, a Persian verb stem will not take Swedish inflection. As shown by Halmari (1997:216), Backus (1992a) mentions that similar constraints may be found in languages with rich agglutinating case and agreement morphology. It is therefore not surprising that, as discussed in

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chapter 4, there are a number of languages for which only a “do construction” works because verbs in the matrix language cannot receive embedded language inflections. Switching between heads and modifiers As discussed in chapter 2, Belazi et al. propose a further principle on codeswitching: The Word-Grammar Integrity Corollary (WGIC), which accounts for the placement of modifying adjectives in codeswitching. According to this principle, switching between nouns and adjectives is possible if the grammars from which they are drawn match one another. In support of the WGIC principle, Belazi et al. present the following example and argue that Tunisian-Arabic adjectives are postnominal and in codeswitching as well, they must be placed postnominally. Hence, switching between the noun and adjective in the following example is ruled out because the French adjective belle ‘nice’, which is a prenominal adjective, does not obey the grammar of French and appears postnominally: (6:28) */nd-i karhba belle at-I

car

nice

‘I have a beautiful car’ The present data contradict the WGIC principle. According to Belazi et al’s prediction, since Persian and Swedish grammars are in conflict with respect to the position of nouns and modifiers, we should not expect a Persian modifier to occur with a Swedish noun or vice versa. However, Swedish nouns occur prenominally, followed by a Persian adjective, or as shown in (6:29), a Swedish adjective appears postnominally to modify a Persian noun: (6:29) bluz-e

randig-am-o mi-xâ-m

shirt-Ez

striped-Pro-râ IMPF-want-1Sg

‘I want my striped shirt’ Belazi et al. predict that, while switching between a functional element and its complement is ill-formed, switching between a lexical head and its complement is permissible. This prediction holds true for the data. The following cases of switching are permissible in Swedish/Persian codeswitching: • Switching between Persian adjectives and Swedish nouns or vice versa • Switching between a Persian verb and a Swedish noun object and vice versa (i.e. between a Swedish infinitive verb and a Persian noun object) • Switching between Persian prepositions and Swedish complements


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As discussed in the sections above, Belazi, Rubin and Toribio’s predictions are compatible with the ban on switching between a Swedish verb stem and Persian verbal inflection. By contrast, the FHC is not compatible with switching between Swedish nominal stems and Persian bound morphemes. Nor did the Word-Grammar Integrity Corollary principle hold true. Recent works by Santorini and Mahootian (1996), MacSwan (1997) and Nishimura (1997) present counterexamples to the Functional Head Constraint that violate predictions as formulated by Belazi, Rubin and Toribio. While Toribio (2001) admits that such examples should not be hastily discounted, she is critical of research methodologies that are limited to performance data and reflect the speaker’s competence only indirectly. According to Toribio, given performance data alone, a researcher might reach conclusions that are non-linguistic. Toribio argues that in addressing codeswitching data in particular, the distinction between competence and performance is of great importance and, as such, recordings of spontaneous speech must be complemented by elicitation of speakers’ beliefs about ungrammatical sentences. There are no ungrammatical codeswitches (with one exception) in the present data that speakers could judge as being acceptable or not. As was stated in chapter 2, there is a single ungrammatical switch found in the entire corpus that actually gives support to Toribio and Rubin (1996). Toribio and Rubin posit that the codeswitching behavior of competent bilinguals demonstrates the constraints, which are guided by proper syntactic principles. Given that the same speaker was capable of organizing other interclausal codeswitches, but she failed to combine the two linguistic systems at the boundary of switching from a Persian relative pronoun to a Swedish clause that follows (see example 6:23), proves that even based on performance data we may reach to correct conclusions. The following sections evaluate the proposals that explain constraints from a matrix vs. embedded language approach to codeswitching. 6.2.6 Joshi’s model As discussed in chapter 2, in Joshi’s (1985) model, the focus is on the notion of asymmetry. Based on Marathi/English codeswitching data, Joshi proposes an asymmetry condition on codeswitching and claims that switches are asymmetrical from a matrix language to an embedded language but not vice versa. In Joshi’s model, codeswitching constraints are formulated in terms of (a) the asymmetry of the switching rule; (b) restriction on switching closedclass items (Closed Class Items Constraint). According to Joshi (1985), closed-class items like determiners, quantifiers, prepositions, possessives, Aux, tense, and helping verbs come from the matrix language. Joshi (1985:193-194) cites the following examples

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from his Marathi-English data to demonstrate which switches are grammatical and which ones are ruled out: (6:30) a. mula khurcyâ rangwtât ‘boys chairs paint’ b. mula

khurcyâ

paint

kartât do (+TENSE)

c. *mula khurcyâ paint d. *mula paint chairs Codeswitches corresponding to Joshi’s example (b) recur in the data. As shown previously (see 4.3), the use of a Swedish bare infinitive verb with the Persian inflected auxiliary kardan is a common mode of codeswitching in Swedish/Persian bilingual speech. Codeswitches corresponding to Joshi’s examples in (c) and (d) did not occur in the present data. As has been discussed earlier, a Swedish inflected verb does not occur in Persian as a single switched element. Switching between a Persian subject and a Swedish inflected verb is also constrained. Joshi claims that the asymmetric pattern of codeswitching imposes a constraint on codeswitching. As was stated in chapter 2, I do not agree with Joshi in this respect. The asymmetric direction of codeswitching where immigrant speakers are involved is determined by the psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic factors of the speech situation rather than by structural constraints. However, Joshi’s prediction that closed-class items should come from the matrix language is compatible with the data. A piece of evidence in support of Joshi’s (1985) prediction comes from the prepositions. Joshi predicts that a closed-class item like a preposition should be realized in the matrix language. This prediction holds true for the data. Persian prepositions were used predominantly (40 prepositions) with Swedish nouns. As exemplified in (6:31) below, a Swedish noun appears as the complement of a Persian preposition: (6:31) be ambasad zang zad-am to

Embassy

ring

hit-1Sg

‘I called the Embassy’ Only once is a Swedish preposition inserted in Persian as below:


(6:32) yeki från englis, one

189

yeki från yogoslavi

from England, one

from Yugoslavia

In line with Joshi’s prediction, clitic pronouns, Aux and tense come from Persian as well. Joshi also predicts that conjunctions should be in the matrix language. Insertion of a Swedish temporal conjunction (a closed-class item or a system morpheme) in Persian as in (6:33) poses a problem for Joshi’s Closed Class Items Constraint and Myers-Scotton’s System Morpheme Principle. The interesting thing here is that two functional elements (closed-class items in Joshi’s model and a system morpheme in Myers-Scotton’s model), one from Swedish and one from Persian, occur side by side to conjoin two Persian clauses: (6:33) vali man bastani

xarid-am

but I

bought-1Sg before that match

ice-cream

innan ke match šoru šod start

became

‘But I bought ice-cream before the match started’ The occurrence of two system morphemes in the example above can be explained by the fact that, as noted by Muysken (2000:173), the system morpheme effect could be the result of equivalence restrictions. Note that the combination of a Swedish temporal conjunction with a Persian COMP in (6:33) fits well with a counterpart phrase, e.g. gabl az inke (lit. before of this that) ‘before that’ in Persian. I would say that the speaker evidently does know that, and this is why he has used the Swedish innan with the Persian complementizer ke. As Muysken (2000:181) suggests, once there is equivalence, anything goes. In spirit, Joshi and Myers-Scotton (DL1993) both posit a distinction between the morphemes that should come from the matrix language and the morphemes that are switched from the embedded language to the matrix language. However, Myers-Scotton and Jake (2000:1060) oppose a word-based distinction of morphemes (Joshi’s open-class vs. closed-class items), or distinctions that are based on lexical categories (Abney’s (1987) distinction of thematic elements vs. functional elements) in codeswitching. Myers-Scotton and Jake (2000:1060) argue that such distinctions make the wrong predictions about the distribution of words or lexical categories. As they phrase it: “For example, in codeswitching data, some pronouns from the embedded language occur in mixed constituents, but others do not. Yet, according to these two distinctions, all pronouns are, at least at the primary division, members of the same category. All are closed-class items; they are all also functional elements. Yet, pronouns do not pattern

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uniformly”. Myers-Scotton has used the feature [+Thematic Role-Receiver] vs. [-Thematic Role-Receiver] to differentiate system morphemes from content morphemes. This criterion has been taken up by Myers-Scotton, who posits that free-form pronouns have the property of +Thematic RoleReceiver and thus are content morphemes. As noted by Muysken (2000:161), even Myers-Scotton’s criteria for distinguishing between system and content morphemes are problematic for a number of reasons. One such reason according to Muysken is that “it is not easy to see how the classification into system and content morphemes carries across languages”. What makes such distinctions even more problematic is the fact that languages may differ in their classification of elements as lexical and syntactic. As noted by Muysken (2000:158), “this poses special problems for the constraints on code-mixing in terms of the status of elements as functional or not”. The question of distinguishing the characteristics of the lexical and functional categories found in a language requires a number of investigations that are outside the scope of this work. I conclude this discussion here by emphasizing that Joshi’s prediction, that closed-class items are realized in the matrix language, proves to be compatible with the data. Closed-class items/functional categories are largely realized in Persian. However, as mentioned earlier, I do not agree with Joshi in that the asymmetric pattern of codeswitching imposes a constraint on codeswitching. 6.2.7 Myers-Scotton’s Matrix Language Frame model (MLF) As discussed in chapter 2, in her MLF model of codeswitching, MyersScotton assigns a major role distinction between the languages involved in codeswitching. The language labeled as the matrix language (ML) plays the dominant role and organizes the morphosyntactic structure of codeswitching sentences. The language labeled as the embedded language (EL) is less active. Division of the roles between ML and EL also means that all the productive system morphemes (=functional elements) come from the matrix language. The highlights of this model are two major principles: a. The morpheme order principle b. The system morpheme principle The soundness of Myers-Scotton’s System Morpheme Principle (see 2.5.2 for discussion of MLF model and system morpheme principle) is attested by many of the Persian+Swedish constituents featuring Persian system morphemes. According to Myers-Scotton, possessive adjectives and degree modifiers are system morphemes and should come from the ML (DL 1993:129).


191

She also points out that: “it may be, though, that in some languages possessive adjectives are not system morphemes.” According to Myers-Scotton (p.c.), the standard line of syntacticians on English seems to be that possessive adjectives can receive thematic roles (so that would make them content morphemes). However, she points out that in languages where the possessive adjective involves some agreement affixes, as it does in Persian, the possessive adjective is a system morpheme and should be realized in the matrix language. The present data support this prediction. Swedish nouns are often affixed with Persian pronominal clitics. As was shown previously, in one single case a Swedish infinitive compound verb was even affixed with the Persian clitic -eš (-š for vowel harmony). Again, recall that pronominal clitics in Persian, when they serve as possessive pronouns, are affixed to nouns and, when serve as the direct object, are affixed to verbs. The examples are reintroduced below: (6:34) a. stämning-eš-o

mi-g-im

atmosphere-Clitic.Pro-râ IMPF-say-1Pl

‘We talk about its atmosphere’ b. polisanmäla-š

kard-im

police+ to report-Clitic.Pro ‘We

did-1Pl

reported him to the police’

Myers-Scotton also predicts that degree modifiers come from the ML. This prediction is compatible with the data as well. Degree modifiers were largely realized only in Persian as in the example below. Note also that the Persian comparative bound morpheme -tar is attached to the Swedish adjective: (6:35) mâmân-am

ye zare sträng-tar-e

mum-Clitic.Pro a

little

strict-COMPR-Copula.3Sg

‘My mum is a little stricter’ Myers-Scotton also predicts that light verbs and copulas do not assign thematic roles; thus they are system morphemes and should come from the ML. The presence of the Persian auxiliary verb kardan ‘to do’, Persian INFL and Persian copulas in Persian-framed bilingual constructions also gives support to this prediction. As illustrated in (6:36) below, a Swedish nominal is suffixed with a Persian bound copula morpheme. The Persian bound copula morpheme licenses that the null subject is in the first person singular:

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Disagreement in Agreement (6:36) bosatt-am

injâ

settled-Copula.1Sg here

‘I am settled down here’ EL Islands Myers-Scotton & Jake (1995: 1012) have defined some EL switches as “Internal EL Islands”. Internal EL Islands satisfy the well-formedness requirement of the EL and occur within ML’s maximal projections and are governed by the morphosyntactic rules of the ML. This prediction holds true for Internal Swedish Islands in Persian. As illustrated in (6:37) below, a Swedish descriptive adjective is inserted in a Persian frame along with its noun. The Swedish phrase in (6:37) meets the conditions necessary to qualify as an Internal EL Island. It is well-formed, occurs within Persian maximal projection and is governed by the morphosyntactic rules of Persian (the ML): (6:37) râje be försvagade folk about to

weakened

sohbat ne-mi-kon-im

people talk

NEG-IMPF-do-1Pl

‘We do not talk about the weakened people’ However, Myers-Scotton and Jake’s criteria for formation of EL islands run counter to the formation of Swedish islands in Persian. Myers-Scotton & Jake (1995) posit that EL islands (well-formed constituents of the embedded language) come about in the ML because there is a lack of congruence between the languages at one of three levels (i.e. lexical-conceptual, predicateargument structure, and morphological realization pattern). Myers-Scotton (1997) states that the most frequent islands in some data sets result from the lack of congruence at the lexical-conceptual level. The outcome of Swedish islands in Persian does not give support to Myers-Scotton’s prediction. One piece of evidence comes from the data, as exemplified in (6:38) below: (6:38) ye medelklassfamilj

tu-ye Iran i

one middle+class+family in-Ez Iran

on

genomsnitt average

två bilar dâran two cars

have

‘In Iran a middle-class family has on average two cars’ Note that the Swedish phrase i genomsnitt två bilar (an EL island in terms of the MLF model) shows a shared semantic-syntactic structure with the corresponding phrase in Persian. A lack of congruence would occur where there is some morphosyntactic, semantic and/or pragmatic difference between the


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selected EL island and its ML counterpart. The Swedish phrase i genomsnitt två bilar is perfectly in congruence with the corresponding Persian phrase at these levels. There is neither the lack of congruence between the “morphological realization patterns” of the languages nor a lack of congruence at the other levels that accounts for the outcome of this Swedish island in Persian. I would say that this Swedish phrase is embedded in Persian simply because it perfectly fits with a counterpart phrase in Persian both at the level of syntactic structure and semantic implication. As shown in chapter 5, many phrasal insertions (excluding the Swedish ADJ/N phrases) show a shared syntactic/ semantic structure with their counterpart phrases in Persian. We might say that it is indeed the congruence that leads to the outcome of EL islands in Persian structure, but not the problem of congruence. The 4-M model More recently, Myers-Scotton (1999) and Myers-Scotton & Jake (2000) have introduced a new sub-model to the MLF model, namely, the 4-M model. In the 4-M model, morphemes fall into four categories: content morphemes and three types of system morphemes. These three types of system morphemes include early-system morphemes and two late-system morphemes, namely bridges and outsiders (see also 2.5.2). What the 4-M model adds to the MLF model is that the embeddedlanguage system morphemes occur in mixed constructions because these morphemes are often early-system morphemes that occur with their heads. But late-system morphemes (e.g. any and of in English) are vulnerable because they are not conceptually activated, and the speaker can convey intentions without them. Myers-Scotton posits that the occurrence of both matrix and embedded-language early-system morphemes with the content morphemes results in double morphology. She suggests that double morphology involves early-system morphemes and ‘mistiming’. Mistiming means that even though the frame of the constituent is under matrix-language control and does not call for an embedded language inflection (early-system morpheme), the early-system morpheme occurs with its content morpheme. According to Myers-Scotton & Jake (2000): “the reason that there is this mistiming is that early system morphemes occur in the same maximal projection as their content morpheme heads and, in fact, depend on the head for their form. When an embedded-language content morpheme is called, mistiming can occur”. Myers-Scotton (p.c.) states that it is easy to see how mistiming can occur for three reasons. Firstly, the content morpheme and its early-system morpheme are both conceptually activated. Secondly, the early-system morpheme completes the intended meaning conveyed by the content morpheme (they share a semantic/pragmatic bond), and finally they are in the same maximal projection.

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As shown in chapter 4, Swedish nouns are sometimes double-marked with a Persian and a Swedish marker. For instance, in (6:39) below a Swedish noun is double plural marked with a Swedish and a Persian plural marker: (6:39) ye ccand-tâ

fråg-or-â-i

porsid-an

a number-CL question-Pl-Pl-Indef asked-3Pl

‘They asked a number of questions’ In the example repeated below in (6:40), a Swedish proper noun also bears two definite markers, the Swedish definite marker suffix -et and the Persian definite direct object marker râ/o: (6:40) högskoleprov-et-o

dâd-am

university+exam-DEF-râ gave-1Sg

‘I passed the university exam’ Definiteness, however, is not a morphological marker always retained in inserted Swedish noun. For instance, inserted Swedish words like källar-en ‘the basement’ and turkbrud-en ‘the Turkish broad’ retain the Swedish definiteness marker suffix -en. While in other cases, Swedish content morphemes leave out what Myers-Scotton calls the early-system morpheme (e.g. the Swedish definite suffix -et/-en). In such cases the Swedish noun, depending on the context, either appears with the Persian râ or occurs in predicative phrases affixed with Persian copula bound morphemes. For instance, the Swedish noun käft-en ‘the jaw’ drops its own Swedish definite marker and is suffixed with the Persian bound copula morpheme -am as in rapp i käft-am (lit. I am fast in jaw) ‘I am a smart Alec’. Note that I am not saying cases above are counterexamples to the M4 model. Myers-Scotton does not claim that the embedded language earlysystem morpheme should be retained. However, the M-4 model’s criteria for the division between different types of system morphemes seem to be too opaque. As shown with Joshi’s model, prepositions were realized largely in Persian. Only in one case is a Swedish preposition, e.g. från ‘from’ inserted in Persian (see example 6:32). I cannot decide whether insertion of this Swedish preposition in Persian is a counterexample to the 4-M model or not because the criteria for the division between different types of system morphemes are too opaque. Although Myers-Scotton motivates a model of language production that makes powerful predictions and Myers-Scotton & Jake go on further to present a more differentiated view of morphology in terms of the 4-M model, many important questions remain. For instance, Muysken (1995,


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2000) questions why function morphemes should impose the matrix language if content morphemes drive production. On the same basis, an obvious question raised by this study is why do nouns and verbs behave differently in a bilingual’s processing system when both are content morphemes? The next section takes a look at Mahootian and Santorini’s principles. 6.2.8 Mahootian’s model As discussed in the literature review in chapter 2, Mahootian (1993), using her Farsi/English data and comparing codeswitching data reported from other pairs of languages, has proposed that “codeswitching is not constrained by any special rules which lie outside the grammars of the codeswitching languages”. She has used a tree-adjoining grammar (TAG) formalism to develop her proposal in a “Null Theory” of codeswitching. Santorini and Mahootian (1995) pose a principle on CS. According to this principle: The language of a head determines the phrase structure positions of its complements in codeswitching just as in monolingual contexts. (Santorini and Mahootian 1995) Later on Mahootian and Santorini (1996), focusing on more general properties of syntactic heads, slightly modify the principle above and pose the following principle: Heads determine the syntactic properties of their complements in codeswitching and monolingual contexts alike. (Mahootian and Santorini 1996) To provide evidence for the 1995 principle, Mahootian shows that in Persian/English CS, switching between a Persian head and its English complement is theoretically possible in the following sequences: (6:41) (1) the apples xord ‘ate the apples’ (2) xord the apples (3) ate sibhara (4) sibhara ate (Persian/English, Santorini & Mahootian 1995) Mahootian predicts that sequences such as in (4) will not occur because while Persian verbs can occur in left-headed as well as right-headed elementary trees, English verbs cannot occur in right-headed trees. According

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to Mahootian, since there is no derivation for (4), such sequences are expected not to occur. I assume that Swedish/Persian bilingual speakers, also using Swedish noun insertions, would produce sequences like the following, which correspond to Mahootian’s examples in (1) and (2): a. Swedish N + Persian V b. Persian V+ Swedish N Note that switching would occur between a Persian verb and its Swedish object complement in (a), according to Persian rules, and in (b), according to Swedish rules, although the verb-preposing rule in Persian also allows the verb to be moved to the left of the object. We also have a switch between a Swedish verb and a Persian complement corresponding to Mahootian’s sequence (3). As was shown before, in the example repeated in (6:42), a Persian noun, hovviat ‘identity’, occurs in the object position of a Swedish infinitive verb and its strictly subcategorized preposition på: (6:42) xob unâ

suedi-an,

well they


vi

måste, vi

we must

mâ irun-im,

måste tänka

we must

to think

vi måste,

på hovviat of

identity

‘Well they are Swedish, we are Iranian, we must, we must, we must think of identity’ Switching between the object and verb in Mahootian’s sequence (4) often occurs in the present data, although she predicts that sequences like (4) are expected not to occur. The data exemplified in (6:43) correspond to sequence (4). A Swedish bare infinitive verb and Persian inflected auxiliary occur to the right of a Persian direct object marked for definiteness with râ (o). The object-verb sequence in (6:43) corresponds to Mahootian’s sequence (4), although it is not exactly similar to Mahootian’s example because we have an infinitive verb + inflected auxiliary here: (6:43) mâmân man-o hjälpa ne-mi-kon-e mum

me-râ

to.help NEG-IMPF-do-3Sg

‘Mum doesn’t help me’ Mahootian and Santorini’s principles (1995,1996) hold true for the insertional type of the present codeswitching data. Given that codeswitching is predominantly asymmetric and Swedish constituents are embedded in Per-


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sian structure, it follows that a Persian head determines the phrase structure position of its Swedish complements. According to Muysken (2000), Mahootian’s approach is closer to Myers-Scotton’s system morpheme and morpheme order principle than might appear at first sight. Myers-Scotton (p.c.) is critical of Mahootian’s principle on the ground that it overpredicts. She argues that if you don’t have an ML, then the prediction is that there could be a switch in syntactic rules (and functional elements) with each head. In fact, that does not happen in real CS data. However, Mahootian’s proposal, that codeswitching is not governed by any special constraints that lie outside the grammars of the codeswitching languages, is a powerful explanation for codeswitching. I also believe that searching for answers by looking at the requirements of unified grammars is the right route. Now I close the discussions above with a summary of the results in the following section. 6.3 How codeswitching models account for the data As it stands, none of the proposals evaluated in this chapter properly covers all the codeswitches or captures generalizations observed in the present data. A picture that has emerged suggests that switches occur between verbs and objects and between nouns and adjectives, on the one hand, and between Swedish nouns and Persian affixes, on the other. A problem posed by the present data which calls the Equivalence Constraint into question is that dissimilarity of OV vs. VO order has no effect on codeswitching. Swedish object NPs appear to the left of the verb in a Persian context and Persian objects are switched to the right of the verb in a Swedish context. As for codeswitching between nouns and adjectives, a switch between a Swedish adjective and a Persian noun or vice versa is permissible despite the fact that Persian adjectives are postnominal and Swedish adjectives are prenominal. Hence, Poplack’s Equivalence Constraint, Woolford’s model of matching PS rules and Belazi et al.’s Word-Grammar Integrity Corollary principle are incompatible with the present codeswitching data. Woolford and Belazi et al. predict that switching between an adjective and a noun would not be permissible if the grammars mismatch. Woolford’s theory accounts for the embedding of Swedish PPs in Persian. In general, when phrase structure rules are common to both languages, switching occurs freely. Switching between Persian COMP and its Swedish CP complement also gives support to Woolford’s prediction. Bentahila & Davies’s (1983) Subcategorization Principle accounts for the data. Insertion of Swedish constituents in a Persian frame imposes no ungrammaticality effect since the Persian requirement in terms of its sister-

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hood relations is respected. However, in a single case where a Swedish noun and its adjective modifier were inserted in Persian order, the subcategorization rule for Swedish adjective was violated. Poplack’s Free Morpheme Constraint (1980) is incompatible with word internal insertions where Swedish noun stems mix with Persian bound morphemes. In contrast, it accounts for the ban on mixing between Swedish verb stems and Persian inflection. As was explained, typological differences in Persian and Swedish in terms of their morphosyntactic-semantic structure of verb systems are such that a Swedish verb has to conform to very specific requirements of Persian and thus cannot easily replace a Persian complex verb or be affixed with Persian inflection. By contrast, the requirement of a mix between a noun stem and inflectional morphemes is quite general. A noun stem could take a bound morpheme from either language without necessarily being fitted with the specific requirement of the other language. However, the question remains that why a Swedish verb, which has a directly inflected counterpart in Persian, does not take Persian inflection. DiSciullo, Muysken and Singh’s Government Constraint (1986) is compatible with a range of switches where there is an Lq-carrier (neutralizing element) in the language of the governor (i.e. between a Persian verb and its Swedish object NP). Yet there are other cases in which switching between a head and its governed element occurs freely even in the absence of an intervening Lq-carrier in the language of the governing head. Therefore, intervention of a neutralizing element does not seem to be a definite/ necessary condition for switchability in a government relation. Belazi et al’s (1994) Functional Head Constraint accounts for the restriction on switching between INFL and its VP complement, and between a Swedish NEG element and Persian verb. Nonetheless, the FHC is incompatible with switches between Swedish noun stems and Persian inflectional morphology. Again, the specific requirements of the Persian verb system in terms of AGR and ASPECT and distinction in affixation and verb compounding are essentially responsible for the ban on mixing between Swedish verb stems and Persian verbal inflection. Predictions of Joshi’s model and Myers-Scotton’s MLF model fit well with the present data in that bound copula morphemes, the auxiliary kardan, pronominal clitics, the definite object marker râ, INFL and the majority of prepositions are realized in Persian. The data revealed only a few counterexamples to Joshi’s Closed Class Items Constraint (e.g. the occurrence of the Swedish preposition från ‘from’ and the temporal conjunction innan ‘before’ in Persian). The arguments presented for the outcome of Swedish islands in Persian suggested that the major reason for the insertion of Swedish constituents forming an EL island in Persian is lexical-conceptual structure (semantic and input for pragmatic readings) and morphological realization patterns’ (sur-


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face requirements for well formedness) equivalence with a counterpart one in Persian. Hence, while Myers-Scotton and Jake (1995) predict that the lack of congruence at some levels accounts for the occurrence of an EL island in a matrix language frame, the present data show the opposite. Contrastive evidence from the data suggests that it is indeed the congruence that leads to the outcome of EL islands in Persian structure. A further effect of congruence was shown in occurrence of a Swedish system morpheme (temporal conjunction) along with a Persian system morpheme (COMP) in a Swedish/ Persian phrase that is equivalent to a monolingual phrase in Persian. Taking evidence from such cases I follow Muysken (2000) in that syntactic and semantic equivalence neutralize the effect of the system morpheme principle. This would mean that when there is equivalence any thing goes (cf. Muysken 2000). Mahootian and Santorini’s principles (1995,1996), predicting that the heads impose their syntactic rules and determine the phrase structure configuration of the complements also could explain the insertional type of switches. As was stated in the review of literature in chapter 2, all the codeswitching models that have been introduced throughout this dissertation are insightful and move us closer to understanding the codeswitching phenomena. The fact that theoretical and empirical predictions of these models cannot cover the full range of the switches and contrasts show up in crosslinguistic data is not surprising. As Treffers-Daller (1994) posits, constraints on codeswitching are not absolute, but have probabilistic value. As Muysken (1995: 184) points out “Absolute constraints that could be invalidated by as few as one counterexamples, are less appropriate for performance data, particularly data which arise from quite complex factors, not all of which are always under control”. Furthermore, as it has been much emphasized throughout this dissertation, typological differences found across languages have different bearings on different codeswitching data and consequently lead to different tendencies and patterns in mixing. Now at this point I briefly outline the major facts characterizing the data. 6.4 Major facts about the Swedish/Persian codeswitching The data presented in this dissertation can be characterized by several patterns of codeswitching, although to different extents. The major pattern is insertional. For sociolinguistically motivated reasons, Persian is the matrix language and Swedish single words are partially or fully integrated in Persian morphosyntax. The step after single word insertions is phrasal insertions. Structural mapping of certain phrases allows for insertions where Swedish lexicalizes a shared structure with Persian. Separation of the languages at the clause level is seen as a third pattern.

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We might say that on the whole the Swedish/Persian CS examined here is highly dependent on linear order congruence. Using empirical evidence from the data, it could be argued that where PS rules match, switching occurs freely and where Persian sisterhood relations are satisfied, even Swedish ADJ-N phrases contradicting the Persian N-ADJ configuration appear in Persian. Since the grammars are correlated with one another to build up bilingual constructions, it follows that mapping between lexical categories and syntactic distributions would facilitate codeswitching processes. Myers-Scotton (1997) predicts that when congruence is seriously disrupted, compromise strategies come into play. The formation of Persian/ Swedish bilingual complex verbs and the choice of other codeswitching options that neutralize the differences confirm that this is a correct prediction; however, a proposal suggested in this study is that these options are not strategies, but might be attributable to the unconscious linguistic knowledge of bilingual speakers. As Ad Backus also suggests (p.c.), the word “strategies” implies conscious decisions on the part of the speaker, while it is really the speaker’s linguistic system that forces him or her to use certain structures. Noun-adjective switches A question that remains unsolved for most of the codeswitching models is the matter of noun-adjective switches. As has been mentioned repeatedly, in the present data switching between a noun and an adjective is permissible. A preferable alternative that accounts for the switching of Swedish adjectives or nouns within Persian N-ADJ phrases might be a typological approach. Consider that the Persian N-ADJ order follows from the more general headinitial order found throughout the language and is consistent with implicational universals of word order. Moreover, noun-adjective mixes in Persian order may not be regarded as surprising, considering that codeswitching is asymmetric and the Persian syntactic pattern prevails. Although Swedish ADJ-N configuration does not fit the Persian NADJ order, even this type of Swedish phrase is embedded in Persian. It was shown that in such cases the bilingual Persian/Swedish construction containing a Swedish ADJ-N phrase involves two lexicons, each having lexical items associated with a configuration feature. Nonetheless, the embedding of a Swedish ADJ-N phrase within the maximal projection of the Persian head imposes no ungrammaticality effect because Persian sisterhood relations are respected. Evidence from the data set involving the use of Persian râ with a Swedish object also suggests that syntax, semantic and pragmatics interact to determine the propositional content of bilingual codeswitched sentences. It was shown that a Swedish/Persian bilingual construction involving a verb


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and a direct object is interpreted in the appropriate way if Persian râ occurs with the Swedish object NP, as it does in a monolingual Persian context. In sum, the major facts characterizing the data are the following: • Codeswitching between Persian and Swedish is relatively free. • Codeswitching constraints are not surface-related. However, the differences in clause structures have an impact on codeswitching patterns. • Typological differences in verb systems are responsible for the ban on switching between a Swedish verb stem and Persian inflection. • Swedish noun stems are freely mixed with Persian bound morphemes. • The most likely candidates to be inserted in Persian are Swedish nouns, bare infinitive verbs, DPs and PPs. • Directionality of the head and sisterhood relations is retained even when the complements and sisters to the head are constituents in the other language. • Persian heads assign appropriate case and morphological markers to their Swedish complements. • The difference in the phrase structures with respect to the position of NEG imposes a constraint on switching between a Swedish negation element and a Persian verb. • Morphosyntactic-semantic and pragmatic compatibility accounts for a wide range of phrasal insertions. • Formation of bilingual complex verbs accounts for morphosyntacticsemantic adjustments in the verb systems. • Codeswitching is constrained in relative clause constructions. 6.5 Conclusion While a range of alternative analyses of codeswitching evaluated in this chapter could explain a set of codeswitches, nonetheless, counterexamples were found in other cases. However, these results may not be regarded as surprising considering that that empirical foundations from which generalizations are drawn are limited to a few language pairs which do not represent well the range of bilingual speech behaviors and typological variations in languages involved. Analyses of codeswitching data along the lines explored in this dissertation shift the burden of work onto differences and similarities in the language pair. From an empirical point of view, main advantage of this approach is that it accounts for contrasts found in switchability: why Swedish noun stems and adjectives take Persian inflectional morphology, whereas Swedish verb stems do not take Persian inflection. Subject pronouns are rarely switched in codeswitching data. In the present data the absence of

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Swedish subject pronouns as single switched elements could be related to the pro-drop character of Persian as well. Since Persian is the matrix language, its rules allow for subject deletion. In sum, the main merit of this work is that contrasting typological properties are treated as yardsticks to show that certain morphosyntactic differences may limit the probability of mixes. The conclusion is obvious enough. As Mahootian (1993) and MacSwan (1997) also posit an explanation of codeswitching facts can be pursued independent of models that posit specific constraints on codeswitching.

Chapter Seven

Discussions and final conclusions

7.1 Introduction This dissertation offers a study of grammatical aspects of codeswitching observed in Swedish/Persian bilingual speech. Codeswitching can be seen as a bilingual speech act where two or more linguistic codes are used in the course of a single conversation. We know from previous research in the 1970s and 1980s that codeswitching is not an accidental behavior and that various structural constraints may impose restrictions on switching. With this in mind, the present study aimed to give an answer to two questions: (a) how the grammatical properties of typologically dissimilar languages like Persian and Swedish interact in bilingual speech, and (b) what type of grammatical constraints may impose restrictions on codeswitching. The key goal in this dissertation was establishing relationship between typological features and codeswitching properties typical for the present data. To achieve this goal, the work takes up several typological differences and hypothesizes that only these are crucial for interaction of grammars in codeswitching and may limit the probability of switches. The main proposal advanced in this work is that differences in concrete subjectverb agreement relation (AGR), aspect, position of NEG, and the syntacticsemantic structure of verbs, in particular, have significant implications for the Swedish/Persian codeswitching. This chapter recapitulates and discusses the important issues that have been touched upon throughout, and ends with suggestions for future research. 7.1.1 Taking morphological differences seriously One of the main issues that this study takes up and argues for throughout is that agreement (AGR) plays an important role and might be a codeswitching constraint in the data examined here. Persian is one of the inflected languages in which verbs inflect for tense, aspect and subject agreement. One widely accepted view is that in languages with AGR, the uniformity of the agreement paradigm plays a role in CS. A morphologically inflected verb

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paradigm also provides the possibility for the pro-drop (null pronominal) character of Persian. As is the case with pro-drop languages, in Persian, informative properties of the subject are also coded onto the verb through the subject-verb agreement morpheme. The Swedish verb paradigm has no overt subject-verb agreement morpheme. Another important factor that that has been highlighted in this work is that the differences in the organization of the lexicon with respect to concepts that are expressed in Persian through the use of complex verbs play a significant role in Swedish/Persian codeswitching. One class of verbs in Persian inflect directly by affixation – as opposed to complex predicates, which inflect by means of an auxiliary/help verb added to a non-verbal element. Such verbs, although complex, act as if they are single semantic-syntactic units. The Swedish system has no compound verb construction equivalent to Persian complex verbs. Given this, it has been argued that typological differences in the language pair in terms of distinctions in verb affixation and verb compounding play an important role in codeswitching and call for a specific explanation. The focus on differences in verb systems and in concrete subjectverb agreement marking does not mean the value of sociolinguistic reasons is ignored. At different points of the study, it has been mentioned that the present codeswitching data is predominantly asymmetric, and the asymmetric nature of codeswitching is motivated by sociolinguistic reasons. Asymmetry is such that Persian is the matrix language and Persian rules apply in insertions. From the insertion model’s point of view then, disagreement in agreement does not play a role because INFL is realized in Persian. However, the study has pursued the line of reasoning that simply saying asymmetry explains everything fails to account for the fact that the two grammars have very different characteristics in relation to verbal morphology and verb structure. And these differences have important implications for the unification of grammars in codeswitching. If this reasoning is along the right lines, then any adequate account of grammatical aspects of codeswitching, in addition to sociolinguistic factors, should provide a proper description of the syntactic-semantic roles which each language plays in the mixed bilingual grammar. 7.1.2 Strategy or unconsciously selected option One might expect that the problem of congruence in concrete subject-verb agreement marking, further complicated by a distinction in affixation and compounding and in the position of NEG would make it impossible to switch between the two verb systems or to adjust Persian negation with a Swedish verb. However, switching between the two incongruent verbal systems and using Persian negation with a Swedish VP were possible. How could this happen?


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One important characteristic of the present codeswitching data is that when there is a lack of correspondence between morphosyntactic-semantic features, the consequences are manifested in alternative codeswitching options, depending on the speaker’s mode of codeswitching. One such alternative codeswitching pattern is shown in the formation of Swedish/Persian bilingual complex verbs. A Swedish bare infinitive verb bearing the semantic content is added to the left of the Persian auxiliary kardan ‘to do’ bearing the NEG, ASPECT, AGR and TENSE features. The combination of a neutral verb from one system and an auxiliary verb from another adjusts morphosyntactic differences and accounts for the formation of Swedish/Persian bilingual complex verbs. When codeswitching occurs at the clause level, other options are chosen to avoid the problem of congruence in AGR and in variation in clause structure. For instance, where structural mapping of two linguistic systems is problematic given the incompatibility of clause structures, separation of languages is a plausible option. Given that alternative codeswitching patterns are selected to adjust the verb systems or to neutralize the problem of differences in clause structures, it is plausible to suggest that these alternative patterns are relevant to the set of restrictions on codeswitching. What is puzzling about the use of these codeswitching options is that all of the subjects, and even bilingual speakers who were born in Sweden and whose network ties are limited to the Swedish speaking majority, choose an option that results in the neutralization of a constraint. This finding seems to suggest that a bilingual speaker, like a native one, has the potential ability to make a grammaticality judgement between the two systems and unconsciously select an appropriate option where the problem of congruence in the grammars would produce a clash in mixing. Accordingly, we might argue that intuition about grammaticality might also include a judgement mechanism that forms part of the speaker’s bilingual competence. Thus, one might consider these options are not strategies but could be part of the regularities underlying CS behavior and attributable to unconscious linguistic knowledge, i.e. to aspects of Universal Grammar, but more research is necessary. 7.1.3 Semantic compatibility and innovation Another issue that this study takes up is that the creation of bilingual verbs either by monolingual Persian speakers in Iran or by Swedish/Iranian speakers in Sweden is an innovation. This view of innovativeness is supported by the fact that the formation of bilingual verbs deviates from Persian linguistic convention. It was shown that the leftmost component of a complex verb in a native Persian complex verb can be a noun, adjective, adverb, preposition or participle, but absolutely not be a verb. In Swedish/Persian bilingual verbs,

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the Persian auxiliary selects only one element from Swedish to its left and it is a bare infinitive verb. One obvious rationale which seems to favor the bilingual verbs is semantic connection with a concept that is expressed in Persian through the use of a complex predicate. It was shown that there is always a semantic connection between the leftmost component of the bilingual verbs attested in the data and the leftmost component of a counterpart complex predicate in Persian. It was discussed that the notion of innovation, which interests us here, is compatible with Croft’s (2000) view that innovation results in the reorganizing of linguistic knowledge based on the relation between form and meaning. Croft (2000: 118) argues that a grammatical construction, that is, a complex syntactic unit, is a fixed combination of smaller syntactic units. The construction as a whole is mapped onto a complex semantic structure. There is also a complex form-function mapping for the construction as a whole. Croft believes that speakers/ listeners have some leeway to reanalyze the form-function mapping in a grammatical construction. Croft calls this FormFunction Reanalysis. In Croft’s view, form-function reanalysis is a nonintentional mechanism for innovation. The intended actions of speakers are towards conformity to convention, but the result is innovation. In other words, innovations result from speakers attempting to conform to convention. Croft sees prior and current experiences of the form-meaning mapping, stemming from similar utterances in similar situations, as reconstructing the representation of the form-meaning mapping in the heads of speakers and listeners. This view of form-function reanalysis clearly is a good fit with reconstruction of bilingual complex verbs in codeswitching. Persian/Swedish bilingual speakers attempt to create a complex bilingual verb that semantically maps onto their concept of a Persian complex verb; the result is a construction that deviates from the Persian linguistic norm in terms of the representation of the form. What all this suggests is that Swedish/Persian bilingual verb compounding could be viewed as an innovation. 7.1.4 The division of labor between lexicon and syntax One of the crucial questions in modern linguistics is the division of labor between the lexicon and the grammar of a language. Given that the interaction between lexicons and the relation between lexical entries and the syntactic environment are both of significance in the discussion of codeswitching in the present work, it was argued that on empirical grounds both the lexicon and grammar play a role. We look at CS as the union of two grammars. Clearly, when a language pair shows variation in a set of typological features, the possibility exists that these variations affect the way the two systems can be mixed. The


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Swedish/Persian CS data attested in the present work provide evidence that in insertions bilingual constructions are made up of items drawn from the two lexicons, while sentence patterns derive from rules specific to Persian syntax. Given that the combination of two linguistic systems in places where they are not compatible is problematic (i.e. constraints on codeswitching in relative clause constructions), it follows that differences between the language pair cannot be reduced to lexical differences. Syntax is independent of lexicon. The Swedish lexicon is present but does not have any influence on the structure. Neither does a Persian functional head (i.e. COMP, subordinating conjunctions) affect Swedish syntax at the periphery of a clause. What the present study suggests is that we need both lexical and syntactic level explanations to understand the data. In other words, the sources of structures in CS can be more precisely defined by referring to both the lexicon and syntax. Indeed, any explanation of lexical entries that does not include an account of the syntax cannot hope to capture the complete picture of the processes relevant to the distribution or combination of lexical entries. Using syntax, it was shown that there is resistance to switching between Swedish NEG and a Persian verb or vice versa. Using the lexicon, it was argued that the non-occurrence of Swedish verb stems with Persian verbal morphology is attributable to the systemic differences in the organization of lexicons in expressing concepts associated with the complex verbs in Persian as opposed to Swedish system. Additional evidence that the syntax is independent of lexicon was shown in the position of the object in Persian complex verbs, as opposed to its canonical syntactic position in regular object-verb constructions. The Persian system tells us how a particular morphological pattern in object-verb relations results in a crucial semantic difference between the verb and object in constructions where the object is definite/referential and in constructions where the object is nonreferential. That is, the composition of an unmarked nonreferential noun and verb functions as a syntactic-semantic unit in a complex predicate, as opposed to regular object-verb constructions, where the object is referential. For the sake of clarity, I will again make use of examples. In the following example, the object NP is marked with the Persian plural marker -hâ and the definite object marker -ro indicating that the object is referential: (7:1) gol-hâ-ro

kâštam

flower-PL-râ

planted

‘(I) Planted the flowers’

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In the following example the object gol is not case-marked and is nonreferential: (7:2) gol

kâštam

flower planted

‘(I) Flower-planted’ There is a crucial semantic difference between the object position in (7:1), where it is referential, and in (7:2), where it is nonreferential. In (7:1) the object functions as the argument of the verb in a regular object-verb construction, while in (7:2) it loses its argument status and noun + verb composition functions as an intransitive predicate. It was shown that Ghomeshi & Massam (1994) find evidence in these contrasts to argue in favor of the view that “meaning is not inherently part of syntactic structure, rather it arises compositionally from the interaction of an autonomous syntax and a lexical item at the level of semantic interpretation”. This contrast was applied to the analysis of Swedish/Persian bilingual complex verbs. Following Mohammad & Karimi’s (1992) analysis, the Swedish bare infinitive verbs in the bilingual verbs were treated as the structural direct object of the Persian kardan, with the Swedish/Persian V+V composition functioning as a single syntactic-semantic unit. 7.1.5 Persian influence on semantic-pragmatic interpretation Beyond the interplay of grammatical principles, syntax and language typology, specific CS patterns may also be associated with different communicative parameters and principles. A bilingual construction is a composite of syntactic-semantic components with dual identity. We should specify the correspondences between elements of the syntactic structure of such a composite construction and the appropriate components of its semantic/ pragmatic interpretation. It was shown that, while the Swedish definite marker on the Swedish NP placed in the object position of a Persian matrix sentence marks it as definite, the Persian definite direct object marker postposition râ also appears on the Swedish NP and marks it as being definite. Thus, two markers occur side by side for the same function. Although the chief linguistic effect of Persian râ is to express a syntactic-semantic function and marks the direct object as definite, it more specifically creates a discourse-pragmatic coherence relation between the constituents of bilingual speech containing a Persian verb and a Swedish object. The particle râ is meaningless, although it completes the intended meaning conveyed in a relation between the verb and its direct object argument.


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The use of a Persian COMP to introduce a Swedish CP complement also has special syntactic-semantic-pragmatic effects on the information content of the utterance. Use of a Persian COMP creates a syntactic harmony between the Persian+Swedish constituents of bilingual speech. Pragmatically, it assigns a single Persian identity to the interpretation of the CP complement. This would mean that the Persian clause and the Swedish CP complement introduced by the Persian COMP are integrated in a single proposition. Why a Persian identity is preferred to a Swedish one is explained by sociolinguistic and psychological factors. It was discussed at different points that the young bilingual subjects in this study have used their ethnic language to express the values, beliefs, expectations and aspirations that they share with respect to their group membership, whereas Swedish is a guest in Persian. Certain bilingual constructions in the Swedish/Persian CS studied here are also interesting in that speakers display great ability in organizing discourse-pragmatic coherence when there are conflicts between syntactic and semantic-pragmatic classification of switches. These cases were attested in interclausal codeswitches. 7.1.6 Interspeaker-related differences The important finding in terms of the sociolinguistic aspects of codeswitching was that in the Persian speech community, age is a decisive factor in predicting codeswitching. The older group of subjects in this study did not codeswitch at all unless they were filling a lexical/conceptual gap. In contrast, codeswitching among young speakers is a common, socially acceptable speech style. It was not within the goals of this study to measure the relation between bilingual proficiencies and codeswitching types. However, considering that in the case of typologically dissimilar languages like Persian and Swedish, differences in the order of AGR and NEG result in the incompatibility of clause structures; then obviously codeswitching at the clause boundaries is the “difficult” type. Research findings also confirm that, while insertion of Swedish nouns, adjectives and bare infinitive verbs in the Persian matrix occurs recurrently, switching at the clause level is not a common type. Toribio & Rubin (1996) and Toribio (2001) propose that the codeswitching behavior of competent bilinguals demonstrates constraints which are guided by properly syntactic principles. Spontaneous bilingual speech produced by all the speakers in the present study suggests that there is sensitivity to syntactic principles. On the basis of evidence obtained from the data, it could be concluded that the structure of bilingual CS constructions and even the use of alternative codeswitching options are in most cases identical. Persian is the matrix language and Swedish constituents are either embedded in the appropriate syntactic position in Persian or occur at the

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boundary of a Persian clause. Only in one instance did a subject produce an ill-formed Swedish clause that gives support to Toribio & Rubin’s proposal. That is, at the transition boundary between a Persian relative pronoun and a Swedish clause, the Swedish verb was left out. The outcome of this ungrammaticality may not be regarded as surprising, considering that a Persian relative pronoun in the corresponding monolingual context would not select a verb to its right. It is however implausible to conclude that there is a correlation between bilingual proficiency and production of an ill-formed clause. The same speaker was capable of adjusting all other Swedish clauses to the preceding Persian clause. Neither is this type of violation of syntactic principles associated with the speaker’s pragmatic and sociolinguistic goals. There is no evidence to suggest that speakers employ ill-formed switching patterns for certain sociolinguistic purposes. All in all, the bilingual codeswitched constructions attested in the present work are well formed and grammatical. Does this finding suggest that, as Mahootian (1999) claims, codeswitching follows from the application of the same principles guiding monolingual language behavior? This is a question that clearly needs much more investigation which will provide interesting results for our understanding of language production processes. 7.1.7 The impact of sociolinguistic factors on bilingual behavior Although the main objective in this study has been to offer a linguistic study of grammatical aspects of codeswitching, the work has also been interested in examining how macro-level societal and micro-level interactional factors may have positive or negative effects on the speaker’s bilingualism. The effect of micro-level factors such as residential area, social network ties, and strength of ties with the country of origin was examined with respect to the present situation of the Iranian immigrant population in Stockholm. As for the young subjects of this study, it was shown that these young speakers (excluding one) were a relatively homogeneous group. The majority lived in residential areas with a relatively high number of other Persianspeaking Iranian immigrants. They associated more with people from their own background and less with Swedes. They retained their contacts with their home country either by travelling to Iran or visiting their relatives in Sweden. All of the subjects used Persian at home and in interactions with their Persian peer-group friends, while they were active users of Swedish at school and in a wide variety of circumstances. The general conclusion to be drawn is that this situation would most likely result in the group’s balanced bilingualism, rather than language shift.


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7.2 Contribution of the study and suggestions for future research There are few explorations of codeswitching constraints that focus entirely on typological differences of the languages involved. I hope that the results of this study provide useful insights for those scholars who wish to study codeswitching constraints in terms of language typology. The proposal advanced is that the nature of differences in the grammars determines the Persian/Swedish codeswitching typology. What is characteristic of this typology is that grammatical principles are not violated. Differences in the grammars could limit certain types of mixes. Nevertheless, the alternative options chosen by the speakers resolve conflicts and result in the well formedness and grammaticality of codeswitched constructions. The overall conclusion to be drawn from the present investigation of Swedish/Persian codeswitching is that sociolinguistic factors, language typology and discourse pragmatics are linked and reflect the multifaceted nature of the data, a fact that the present-day field of research accepts. As Muysken (1995) expresses it, the acceptance of multiple explanations is starting to win out. Finally, a few words on the direction of future research. In work dating back to the 1960’s, Chomsky has drawn a distinction between competence and performance. He maintains that language acquisition is an activity unique to human beings. In his view, language is independent of the rest of cognition. According to him, all languages have a set of grammatical properties that constitute a “Universal Grammar”. Although the operation of underlying principles in language faculty pioneered by Chomsky has been the focus of many works of research, this is probably a good point at which to state how little we actually know. The question raised in this study is this: Does the use of options to establish grammaticality in bilingual speech depend on unconscious cognitive abilities? A field of study might be opened up by exploring how alternative codeswitching options such as the one I have presented in this study (i.e. using bilingual complex verbs to neutralize the constraints) might relate to unconscious cognition in bilingual language processing. I am not qualified to speak with authority about matters of conscious and unsconcious cognition. However, it is seems to me that the complexity of studies related to the brain and mind are enormous and many disciplines are needed. It seems most likely that many limitations would come up. However, it is worth the try.

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