grammatical constraints and motivations for - University of the ...

Joshi (1985) (cited in Myers-Scotton, 1993b), on the other hand, states that all
major categories except closed class items can be switched. Therefore, items such
as determiners, quantifiers, possessives, auxiliaries, and tense may not be
switched.
In a study on Spanish/English codeswitching, Gumperz and Hernandez-Chavez
(1975) (cited in Appel & Muysken, 1987) demonstrated that switching is possible
between a head noun and a relative clause and also between a subject and a
predicate in a copular construction. The following example was provided for
switching between a head noun and a relative clause:
... those friends are friends from Mexico QUE TIENEN CHAMAQUITOS
(that have little children)
This rule seems to be applicable to English/Afrikaans switching if the above
example is translated as follows:
… those friends are friends from Mexico WAT KLEIN KINDERS HET
(that have little children)
Here the entire relative clause is switched, appearing in Afrikaans. In my
opinion, bilingual speakers would judge this as a valid switch.
Timm (1975) (cited in Appel & Muysken, 1987: 22) proposed that “subject and
object pronouns must be in the same language as the main verb” and also that “an
auxiliary and a main verb and an infinitive must be in the same language.” If the
former constraint is applied to English/Afrikaans codeswitching, the examples
below would not be considered grammatical:
* HY (he) says
* SY (she) goes
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