The periphrastic bilingual verb construction as a marker of intense language contact. Evidence from greek, portuguese and maghribian arabic

Abstract

This chapter commences with some terminological notes. It deals with verbs from a superimposed language that function as embedded elements in community language discourse, referring to the typical unequal social-economic status of the bilingual speaker's languages. The chapter discusses the integration of foreign verbs and explains the distribution of the two common strategies: morphological integration and periphrastic constructions. Foreign verbs are combined with matrix language inflection in either of two ways: they are morphologically integrated and inflected with ML affixes (if any), or they are embedded in a periphrastic construction with an inflected ML verb. Some MLs, such as Magribian Arabic, Portuguese and Greek, allow for both solutions. A comparison of Magribian, Portuguese and Greek bilingual communities suggests that the periphrastic integration of foreign verbs is favored in situations of more intense contact with the superimposed language. Keywords: foreign verbs; Greek bilingual communities; Maghribian Arabic bilingual communities; matrix language; periphrastic bilingual verb construction; Portuguese bilingual communities