Government and Codeswitching: Explaining American Finnish

292 Pages·1997·24.012 MB·English

by  Helena Halmari

GOVERNMENT AND CODESWITCHING
STUDIES IN BILINGUALISM (SiBil)
EDITORS
Kees de Bot Thom Huebner
University of Nijmegen San José State University
EDITORIAL BOARD
Michael Clyne (Monash University)
Kathryn Davis (University of Hawaii at Manoa)
Charles Ferguson (Stanford University)
Joshua Fishman (Yeshiva University)
François Grosjean (Université de Neuchâtel)
Wolfgang Klein (Max Planck Institut für Psycholinguistik)
Georges Lüdi (University of Basel)
Christina Bratt Paulston (University of Pittsburgh)
Suzanne Romaine (Merton College, Oxford)
Merrill Swain (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education)
Richard Tucker (Carnegie Mellon University)
Volume 12
Helena Halmari
Government and Codeswitching
Explaining American Finnish
GOVERNMENT AND
CODESWITCHING
EXPLAINING AMERICAN FINNISH
HELENA HALMARI
Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Halmari, Helena.
Government and codeswitching : explaining American Finnish / Helena Halmari.
p. cm. -- (Studies in Bilingualism, ISSN 0928-1533 ; v. 12)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
1. Code switching (Linguistics) 2. Government (Grammar) 3. Finnish language. 4. English
language. I. Title. II. Series: Studies in bilingualism ; vol. 12.
P115.3.H35 1997
306.4'4--dc21 97-13220
ISBN 90 272 4118 X (Eur.) / 1-55619-546-X (US) (Hb; alk. paper) CIP
© Copyright 1997 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA
To my parents, Hellä and Pauli Lindholm, who,
instead of Barbies, decided to buy me books.

Acknowledgements
I feel privileged to have this opportunity to express my gratitude to all those
who have either directly or indirectly helped me in bringing the present pro­
ject into conclusion. The first person I want to mention is William Ruther­
ford, whose encouragement, expertise, and wisdom have been crucial during
the process of formulating the ideas presented here. I also want to thank Jac-
quelyn Schachter for whose seminar I wrote my first paper on Finnish-
English codeswitching, and whose initial encouragement and insights have
inspired me to continue the investigation till today. I am also indebted to
Alicja Gorecka and Roger Woodard, who have both provided me with
valuable feedback and insightful suggestions, and to Abdesslam Elomari, on
whose knowledge, and willingness to share it I could always rely. I also want
to express my deep gratitude to Bernard Comrie and Edward Finegan. Not
only have they given me essential feedback on this particular project, but their
teaching and extensive research have taught me to put my own investigation
into a larger perspective of language typology and sociolinguistics.
One of the pleasures of working on a research project is getting to know
other people who are investigating the same or related problems. I want to
express special thanks to Carol Myers-Scotton, who has both commented on
my work and provided me crucial concrete help in acquiring some of the
needed literature. I am also grateful to Ad Backus, Rakesh Bhatt, Shahrzad
Mahootian, Maria Polinsky, Almeida J. Toribio, and Jeanine Treffers-Daller
for their willingness to share with me their most recent pieces of research on
codeswitching and language contact phenomena and for giving me a chance
to discuss my own work with them. The comments by Pieter Muysken have
been very valuable, and the encouragement by Anne-Marie Di Sciullo and
Wendy Smith has helped to keep up the spirit. I also want to thank Erika Mit­
chell for sharing with me not only her latest research but also her enthusiasm
Viii Acknowledgements
for the study of the structure of Finnish. I want to thank Anne Vainikka for
commenting on an earlier version of this work, and Sirje Hassinen for an­
swering my questions about Estonian. Robert Cooper has willingly provided
me his bilingual data, for which I am very grateful. My thanks go also to
those fellow Finns who share the interest of studying the language of Finns
abroad: Pekka Hirvonen, Jarmo Lainio, Timo Lauttamus, and Päivi Pietilä. I
also want to thank Kees de Bot, Thomas Huebner, and Kees Vaes at the Ben­
jamins for their help and patience during the process, as well as the anony­
mous reviewers for their valuable comments. It is needless to say that I alone
am responsible for whatever faults remain.
My Finnish American subjects made this study possible. They made the
long process of data gathering an extremely pleasant experience, and their
lively stories and juicy discourse shortened the long hours of transcribing.
Thank you for all the conversations and all the kahvipulla! I am especially
grateful to Lyyli M. Holman, whose contribution goes way back to the year
1972, when she taught me to understand both English and American Finnish.
Finally, thank you Ilkka, for putting up with all that frozen food. And
thank you, Jaakko, Iiris, and Irene, for bringing American Finnish to our
home.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations and Symbols xv
1. Searching for Answers 1
1.1. Introduction 1
1.2. The Goals and the Organization of the Present Study 6
1.3. Inter- and Intrasentential Switching 10
2. Defining Codeswitching: Methodological Problems 15
2.1. Introduction 15
2.2. Defining the Target of Codeswitching Research:
Some Basic Assumptions 15
2.2.1. Codeswitching and Codemixing 16
2.2.2. Codeswitching, Borrowing, and Nonce Borrowing 16
2.3. Matrix Language and Embedded Language 19
2.4. The Problem of 'Balanced Bilingualism' and
'Bilingual Fluency' 21
2.5. Patterns of Switching: An Example 23
3. Introducing the Subjects and the Data 33
3.1. Some Characteristics of Finnish 33
3.2. Earlier Work on Finnish-English Codeswitching 35
3.3. Subjects 36
3.4. Data 41
3.4.1. Introduction 41
3.4.2. The Speech Situations 41
X Table of Contents
3.4.3. Intrasentential Switching 42
3.4.3.1. Categories Excluded from the Main Discussion 44
3.4.3.2. Finnish-English Codeswitching: Describing
the Phenomenon 53
3.4.3.2.1. Switchable Constituents 55
3.4.3.2.2. Backtracking 57
3.4.3.2.3. Morphological Assimilation to
Finnish 59
3.5. Conclusion 65
4. What Constrains Intrasentential Codeswitching:
Different Proposals 67
4.L Introduction 67
4.2. A Descriptive Generalization: Asymmetry in Codeswitching 69
4.3. The Free Morpheme and the Equivalence Constraints 75
4.3.1. The Free Morpheme Constraint 75
4.3.2. The Equivalence Constraint 76
4.3.3. 'Nonce Borrowings': Rescue for the Free Morpheme
and Equivalence Constraints? 81
4.4. Myers-Scotton's Matrix Language Frame (MLF) Model:
A Lexically-based Approach 86
4.5. Belazi, Rubin, and Toribio: The Functional Head Constraint 91
4.6. The Role of Subcategorization, Congruence, and Lexicon 94
4.7. Conclusion 96
5. Finnish-English Codeswitching: Towards a Structural
Explanation 99
5.1. Introduction 99
5.2. Government and Codeswitching 100
5.2.1. Defining Government 101
5.2.2. Di Sciullo, Muysken, and Singh's Government
Constraint on Codeswitching 104
5.3. Why Do the Majority of Switches Show Certain
Properties? 107
5.4. Possible Trouble Spots for the Government Constraint? 110
5.5. Overt Constraints: Case-assignment and Agreement 113
5.6. Explaining the Switches 115