The syntax of Moroccan Arabic/French and Moroccan Arabic/Standard Arabic code switching
Contact between different speech communities represents one breeding ground for change and accommodation which can affect the forms as well as the functions of language. Code switching (CS), as one result of this contact situation, is an important site to display the dominance of one language over another, or to witness the resolve of a speech community to incorporate another language so as to satisfy their needs, be them syntactic, lexical or pragmatic. The aim of this thesis is to trace down the formal manifestations of this type of language negotiation whereby switching occurs between two or more languages. It will be shown that, in a CS situation, collision of languages is highly regularised by specific syntactic features. A number of different models to CS structural constraints are considered, and one particular approach based on the analysis of selectional properties of the functional heads is advocated; this I will call the Functional Parameter Constraint (FPC). The underlying assumption of the FPC, which owes it theoretical motivation to recent syntactic research (e. g. Abney 1986, Ouhalla 1991, Chomsky 1995), is that interlanguage parameters, as opposed to language universals, constrain CS. Parameters
Aabi, Mustapha
Linguistics
The syntax of Moroccan Arabic/French and Moroccan Arabic/Standard Arabic code switching. Contact between different speech communities represents one breeding ground for change and accommodation which can affect the forms as well as the functions of language. Code switching (CS), as one result of this contact situation, is an important site to display the dominance of one language over another, or to witness the resolve of a speech community to incorporate another language so as to satisfy their needs, be them syntactic, lexical or pragmatic. The aim of this thesis is to trace down the formal manifestations of this type of language negotiation whereby switching occurs between two or more languages. It will be shown that, in a CS situation, collision of languages is highly regularised by specific syntactic features. A number of different models to CS structural constraints are considered, and one particular approach based on the analysis of selectional properties of the functional heads is advocated; this I will call the Functional Parameter Constraint (FPC). The underlying assumption of the FPC, which owes it theoretical motivation to recent syntactic research (e. g. Abney 1986, Ouhalla 1991, Chomsky 1995), is that interlanguage parameters, as opposed to language universals, constrain CS. Parameters
syntax arabic_french arabic standard_arabic code_switching contact different speech_community represent breeding ground change accommodation affect form well function_language code_switching contact_situation important site display dominance language another witness resolve speech_community incorporate another_language satisfy need syntactic lexical pragmatic aim_trace formal manifestation type language negotiation whereby switch occurs two_language show situation collision language highly specific syntactic_feature number_different model structural constraint consider one_particular base analysis selectional property_functional head advocate call functional parameter constraint underlie assumption owe theoretical motivation recent syntactic chomsky interlanguage parameter oppose language_universal constrain parameters