Portmanteau Constructions, Phrase Structure, and Linearization

Abstract

In bilingual code-switching which involves language-pairs with contrasting head-complement orders (i.e., head-initial vs. head-final), a head may be lexicalized from both languages with its complement sandwiched in the middle. These so-called “portmanteau” sentences (Nishimura, 1985, 1986; Sankoff et al., 1990, etc.) have been attested for decades, but they had never received a systematic, formal analysis in terms of current syntactic theory before a few recent attempts (Hicks, 2010, 2012). Notwithstanding this lack of attention, these structures are in fact highly relevant to theories of linearization and phrase structure. More specifically, they challenge binary-branching (Kayne, 1994, 2004, 2005) as well as the Antisymmetry hypothesis (ibid.). Not explained by current grammatical models of code-switching, including the Equivalence Constraint (Poplack, 1980), the Matrix Language Frame Model (Myers-Scotton, 1993, 2002, etc.), and the Bilingual Speech Model (Muysken, 2000, 2013), the portmanteau construction indeed looks uncommon or abnormal, defying any systematic account. However, the recurrence of these structures in various datasets and constraints on them do call for an explanation. This paper suggests an account which lies with syntax and also with the psycholinguistics of bilingualism. Assuming that linearization is a process at the Sensori-Motor (SM) interface (Chomsky, 2005, 2013), this paper sees that word order is not fixed in a syntactic tree but it is set in the production process, and much information of word order rests in the processor, for instance, outputting a head before its complement (i.e., head-initial word order) or the reverse (i.e., head-final word order). As for the portmanteau construction, it is the output of bilingual speakers co-activating two sets of head-complement orders which summon the phonetic forms of the same word in both languages. Under this proposal, the underlying structure of a portmanteau construction is as simple as an XP in which a head X merges with its complement YP and projects an XP (i.e., X YP → [XP X YP]).

Integrated, Not Isolated: Defining Typological Proximity in an Integrated Multilingual Architecture

“…Here we make the prediction that the difficulty to compress linguistic information into a common bilingual grammar consisting of source grammars that differ on at least one level of linguistic information, will lead to a higher degree of doubled structures. A preliminary survey of the nascent literature on doubled-elements in code-switches supports our hypothesis (see e.g., Chan, 2009 , 2015 ; Goldrick et al, 2016a , and references therein). In contrast, we anticipate that doubled elements in hybrid representations will be far less likely in outputs when the source grammars exhibit higher degrees of (near) typological overlap.…”

“…With respect to the syntax, we propose two separate verb phrases (VP1 and VP2, respectively) that overlap where the modal verbs from each respective language appear at the edge of each VP based on the preference associated between the source grammar home of the verb and the VO- vs. OV-preference 7 . The lexical verb gerek “to leave” serves as the anchor of these overlapping VPs (see e.g., Chan, 2008 , 2009 , 2015 ; Goldrick et al, 2016a for similar arguments). We propose that there is an additional level of structural (i.e., syntactic) overlap with respect to the determiner/noun phrase (D/NP), with the noun Hippie serving as the anchor.…”

The future of code mixing research: Integrating psycholinguistic and formal grammatical theories

“…Finally, while strongly activated blend states are rare, the resulting doubling constructions are not anomalous ( pace Poplack & Torres Cacoullos); they exhibit reliable, structurally driven patterns that theories must account for (Chan, 2015; Hicks, 2010).…”

Doubling in Wolof-French Bilingual Speech

“…Several studies have dealt with explanations for why doubling occurs in codeswitching (e.g., Poplack et al 1989, Sankoff et al 1990, Azuma 1993, Myers-Scotton 1993, Nishimura 1995, Sankoff 1998, Amuzu 2009). But a structurally-oriented analysis of this phenomenon has later started with Hicks (2012Hicks ( , 2015, Chan 2015, Muto (2015 among others.…”