The processing of bilingual (switched) compound verbs: Competition of words from different categories for lexical selection

Mehdi Purmohammad,Jubin Abutalebi,Constanze Vorwerg

doi:10.1017/s1366728921001103

Abstract

AbstractThis paper investigates the production of Persian–English bilingual compound verbs (BCVs) of the type [VERB+VERB]. In this type of code-switched structure, a lexical verb from the donor language English is combined with a light verb from the native language Persian. We tested the hypothesis that in Persian–English BCVs English verbs occupy the nominal slots of monolingual Persian complex predicates of the type [NOMINAL+VERB]. Two methodologies were used. A conversational-corpus analysis confirmed our predictions that Persian–English BCVs have translation-equivalent Persian compound verbs, that the English verbs denote the same action as the nominal constituents of those monolingual constructions, and that the support verbs tend to correspond in both types of compound verbs. A bilingual picture-word interference experiment provided evidence suggesting that English verbs interfere with the production of the nominal constituents of complex Persian verbs in Persian-bilingual speakers. We conclude that words from different word categories can compete for lexical access.

Highlights

Bilingual language production – a field combining the two previously perhaps most neglected topics of psycholinguistic research (Costa & Santesteban, 2006) – has experienced a substantial increase in the number of studies devoted to it in the last two decades
We study the production of bilingual compound verbs (BCVs) in Persian– English bilinguals, in order to examine whether the English verb competes with and ‘replaces’ the Persian nominal in those bilingual constructions
The main question addressed is whether English single verbs compete with Persian nominals denoting ACTIVITY in the bilingual production of compound verbs, paving the way to an insertion of an English base verb in the nominal slot of a native Persian complex verb. If this is the case, we should expect that (1) Persian–English BCVs produced in bilingual conversation have corresponding translation-equivalent native compound verbs, (2) that the English base verbs denote the same ACTIVITY as the Persian nominal constituents, and (3) that the support verbs used in the BCVs tend to correspond to their native counterparts

Summary

Introduction

Bilingual language production – a field combining the two previously perhaps most neglected topics of psycholinguistic research (Costa & Santesteban, 2006) – has experienced a substantial increase in the number of studies devoted to it in the last two decades. A linguistic structure that gives rise to questions about the role of grammatical category in bilingual language production is the compound verb code-switch, i.e., the BILINGUAL COMPOUND VERB (BCV). Bilingual compound verbs are complex predicates that consist of a ‘light verb’ from the matrix language and a ‘lexical verb’ (non-finite) from the donor language. Bilingual [verb+verb] compound verbs have been observed to occur in all bilingual varieties “from Colombo to Athens” (Muysken, 2016), involving matrix languages such as Tamil, Greek, and Hindi; they are found in Bilingual Navajo (Schaengold, 2004) and Spanish–English code-switching communities in Belize (Balam, 2015) and New Mexico (Wilson & Dumont, 2015)

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