Abstract
AbstractThis study examines the morphosyntactic constraints on Cree-English intrasentential codeswitching involving mixed nominal expressions to test the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model. The MLF model is one of the most influential frameworks in the field of contact linguistics used in the study of grammatical aspects of codeswitching and other contact-induced phenomena. The three principles associated with MLF, viz., the Matrix Language Principle, the Asymmetry Principle and the Uniform Structure Principle, were tested on data consisting of 10 video recordings (constituting of 323 tokens of English nouns in mixed utterances) collected from the speech of a Cree child, aged 04;06 - 06;00. The data is drawn from Pile’s (2018) thesis which is based on the data collected from the Chisasibi Child Language Acquisition Study (CCLAS). The results of the analyses suggest general support for the three principles since, in the entire data set, not a single counter example has been recorded. The Cree-English bilingual data appears asymmetrical in structure, where the Matrix Language, namely Cree, provides morpheme order and outsider late system morphemes, and consequently, is responsible for the well-formedness and morphosyntactic frame of bilingual clauses..
Highlights
Northern East Cree is one of the Algonquian languages spoken by 365 people (Statistics Canada, 2017) in Canada from Alberta to Labrador, in the communities of Wemindji, Chisasibi, and Whapmagoostui (Junker, Mackenzie & Brittain, 2012)
The data of this paper is drawn from Pile’s (2018) thesis which is based on the data collected in the Chisasibi Child Language Acquisition Study (CCLAS), a longitudinal naturalistic study that documents the language of North East Cree-speaking community of Chisasibi, Quebec from September 2005 to April 2007 3
4 Findings and implications CT As may be clear from the preceding discussion, the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model is a comprehensive approach for explaining the grammatical properties of the Cree-English codeswitching
Summary
Joshi (1985:190-191) indicates that codeswitching is not a random interference of one language with the other, but it is a systematic interaction between two grammatical systems, these systems are called the ML which “the mixed sentence is coming from” and the EL. The USP: A given constituent type in any language has a uniform abstract structure, and the requirements of wellformedness for this type must be observed whenever the constituent appears. Providing a more elaborated and concise analysis of Joshi’s argument of the nonswitchability of closed class items, Myers-Scotton and Jake (2000) introduce the 4-M (four morpheme) model. Under this model, the content/system morphemes are similar to open/closed class constituents, but the system morphemes are further divided into three subtypes, namely, early system morphemes, bridge late system morphemes and outsider late system morphemes. The structures of the Matrix Language are always preferred, but some Embedded Language structures are allowed if certain conditions are met (Myers-Scotton 2002: 8-9). RETRACTED A more detailed discussion about how these principles apply to Cree-English data is given in subsequent sections in this paper
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