On the Nature of the French Verbal Forms in the Code-Switching of Songhay, Bamanan and Fulah Speakers of French

Abstract

Code-Switching is a process of bilingualism that involves the alternation of two languages in the course of a single conversation as a result of language contact phenomenon. This paper is about the conjugation of the verbal forms in the switches of bilingual Songhay-French, Bamanankan-French and Fulfulde-French speakers as pointed out in several studies by I. Abdoulaye (2013, 2016), M. Minkailou and I. Abdoulaye (2016, 2018), I. Abdoulaye and M. Minkailou (2017, 2019). The main objective of the present paper is to describe the verbal paradigm in the switches of these three different groups of francophone speakers according to the existing theories and models on Code-Switching and Code-Mixing constraints. Based on the Matrix Language Frame Model of C. Myers-Scotton (1993a, b), the paper aims at proposing and analysing a francophone alternative of grammatical constraint in code switching. The study uses secondary data collected from the research works cited above in which spontaneous and fresh conversations have been recorded, transcribed and translated into English in an oral corpus. The population of these three different investigations is heterogeneous consisting of bilingual Songhay, Bamanan and Fulah civil servants and university students. Examining the nature of the switches, the study purposely focuses on the intra-sentential code-switching, in which the participants alternate the two codes, inserting words from French into their respective native languages. Analysing the inflected forms of the French verbs embedded in Songhay, Bamanankan or Fulfulde codes, the study has revealed that all the switched verbs belong to the same verb form, the French past participle of the three verb groups (first, second and third). So, the study has concluded that this way of conjugating verbs in Code-Switching is typical to francophone second language leaners. This approach in Code-Switching that the authors are proposing as the Francophone Model of Switching Verbs is a result of linguistic transfer of L2 learners of French.