Lending Credence to a Borrowing Analysis: Lone English-Origin Incorporations in Igbo Duiscourse  

Oleh:

Eze, Ejike

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: International Journal of Bilingualism (Full Text) vol. 2 no. 2 (Jul. 1998), page 183-201.
Topik: codeswitching; English-Origin borrowing; Igbo-English; loanword integration
Fulltext: 183-201.pdf (1.13MB)

Isi artikel

This paper offers an empirical analysis of data from natural Igbo-English bilingual discourse which demonstrates how the kvo most important manifestations of language contact, namely, codeswitching and borrowing, can be unambiguously and consistently distinguished. The paper focuses on showing how inherently ambiguous lone English-origin nouns and verbs, incorporated into otherwise lgbo discourse, can be assigned language membership, not solely on the basis of their surface appearance as has been the case in the literature, but only by situating the ambiguous forms in the context of the entire system. Using diagnostics such as vosvel harmony, inflection, and word order of verbs as well as modification structures of nouns, the paper demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt that lone English-origin items are distributed among syntactic slots in the same m y as native items of lgbo and differ from codeswitches to English nhich show distinct patterns. The inescapable conclusion is that the lone English-origin nouns and verbs in otherwise lgbo discourse cannot be classified as codeswitches but rather, must be considered to be borrowings.

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