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

or ‘suiwer’ by the audience – ‘kuier’ (turn 79), ‘bespreek’ (turn 85), ‘bederf’ (turn
123), ‘besef’ (turn 125), ‘herlewe’ (turn 314) and ‘herinner’ (turn 504).
It is important to take into account that one of the host’s major communicative
goals is to make sure that he is understood. Therefore, common words are used,
rather than unfamiliar ones, to ensure that the audience is able to understand. In
addition, the host also needs to maintain a comical, informal tone and thus avoids
words which are seldom heard by his listeners in their everyday conversations.
The major constraint related to past tense verbs is the free morpheme constraint,
proposed by Poplack (1980). This constraint proposes that switching should not
occur if it results in a single word having morphs from more than one language.
The data suggests otherwise, as the host shows continuous violation of this
constraint, switching without hesitation and without difficulty. Below are
counter-examples from the discourse, in which the Afrikaans past tense prefix,
{ge}, is used with an English present tense verb:
Table 11: Use of Afrikaans past tense prefix with English present tense verbs
Turn Mixed verb Afrikaans equivalent
14 ge-navigate gevaar
55 ge-lug gesleep
57 ge-argue geargumenteer
71 ge-decide besluit
119,410 ge-fine beboet
162 ge-check no single- word equivalent
182 ge-dump no single- word equivalent
343 ge-blowdry no single- word equivalent
390 ge-fire no single- word equivalent
421,532 ge-share gedeel
625 ge-clash gebots
738 ge-horticulture no single- word equivalent
78