Emergence of a Bilingual Grammar: Word Order Differences in Monolingual Basque vs. Bilingual Basque-Spanish Predicative Constructions



: Lantto Hanna

Publisher: BRILL

: 2021

: Journal of Language Contact

: JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE CONTACT

: J LANG CONTACT

: 13

: 3

: 636

: 662

: 27

: 1877-4091

: 1955-2629

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-13030002

: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/66941283


This article compares the monolingual Basque predicative constructions with bilingual Basque-Spanish predicative constructions. The speech data for the study were collected in the Greater Bilbao area of the Basque Country between 2005 and 2012. The results suggest that code-switching may trigger the convergence of predicative constructions and have a significant impact on the general word order patterns. The monolingual predicative constructions in the data mostly follow the canonical Basque sxv word order (similar to 81%), but the bilingual predicative constructions diverge from this word order in that the predicative element is located in a post-verbal position, as in Spanish (similar to 80%). The Spanish lexical elements seem to be strongly associated with the corresponding Spanish construction, the word order of which is then applied to otherwise Basque predicative constructions. I explain the predominance of the Spanish word order in the bilingual constructions by a combination of processing related factors and sociolinguistic factors.

Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 20:10