Code-Switching: Unifying Contemporary And Historical Perspectives 3030346668, 9783030346669, 9783030346676

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments......Page 6
Contents......Page 8
Abbreviations......Page 10
List of Figures......Page 11
Chapter 1: Introduction......Page 12
References......Page 19
Chapter 2: Understanding the Grammar of Mixed Language......Page 22
2.1 The Study of Code-Switching Structures......Page 25
2.1.1 Constraint-Based Approaches......Page 26
2.1.2 The MLF Model: Relevant Detail......Page 30
2.1.3 Critical Voices......Page 34
2.2 Historical Multilingualism and Code-Switching......Page 37
2.2.1 Studying Historical Mixed Texts: A Contrastive Overview......Page 38
2.2.2 Challenges of Mixed Language Manuscripts......Page 41
2.2.3 Exploring the Diachronic Trajectory of Code-Switching......Page 43
References......Page 45
Chapter 3: Early English Code-Switching......Page 49
3.1 Mixed Language Sermons......Page 50
3.2 Variation Within the Noun Phrase......Page 59
3.2.1 Data and Methodology......Page 60
3.2.2 The Curious Case of Case Marking......Page 62
3.2.3 Three Quirky Examples......Page 64
3.3 Stability Within the Verb Phrase......Page 71
3.3.1 Data and Methodology......Page 75
3.3.2 The Pivotal Role of the Finite Verb......Page 76
3.3.3 Two Morphological Riddles......Page 81
3.3.4 Intermediate Summary......Page 84
References......Page 85
Chapter 4: Code-Switching Across Time and Space......Page 88
4.1 Assessing the Results......Page 89
4.2 Theoretical Implications......Page 92
4.3 Outlook......Page 96
References......Page 98
Index......Page 101

Citation preview

NEW APPROACHES TO ENGLISH HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

Code-Switching Unifying Contemporary and Historical Perspectives Mareike L. Keller

New Approaches to English Historical Linguistics Series Editors Sara Pons-Sanz School of English, Communication and Philosophy Cardiff University Cardiff, UK Louise Sylvester Department of English, Linguistics and Cultural Studies University of Westminster London, UK

The field of historical linguistics has traditionally been made up of the theoretical study of the various levels of linguistic analysis: phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary and semantics. However, scholars have increasingly become aware of the significance of other methods of applied/ culturally aware research which were initially introduced to examine present day English, e.g. stylistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, code-­switching and other language contact phenomena. This has produced exciting new avenues for exploration but has inevitably led to specialization and fragmentation within the field. This series brings together work in either one or several of these areas, thus enabling a dialogue within the new conceptualization of language study and English historical linguistics. The series includes descriptive and/or theoretical work on the history of English and the way in which it has been shaped by its contact with other languages in Britain and beyond. Much of the work published in the series is engaged in redefining the discipline and its boundaries. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15079

Mareike L. Keller

Code-Switching Unifying Contemporary and Historical Perspectives

Mareike L. Keller Anglistik IV University of Mannheim Mannheim, Germany

New Approaches to English Historical Linguistics ISBN 978-3-030-34666-9    ISBN 978-3-030-34667-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34667-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: duncan1890 / Getty Images This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

This little book has emerged out of several years of post-doctoral research on code-switching in historical texts. It could not have come together without the professional feedback and friendly encouragement of a number of people and the support of different organizations. I want to express my gratitude above all to Patrick Horner for his remarkable edition of MS Bodley 649 and his helpful comments on my first steps toward this book, as well as to the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, for providing me with a searchable PDF version of this edition. I am very grateful to Rosemarie Tracy for access to the data collected for the project “Sprachkontakt Deutsch-Englisch: Codeswitching, Crossover & Co” (DFG project number 5466620) and permission to use examples. All images from MS Bodley 649 are reproduced by kind permission of The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford. Images from Balliol MS 149 are reproduced by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford. In this context I also thank librarians Daryl Green and Anne Chesher from Magdalen College, Oxford, and Amy Boylan from Balliol for providing me with images of their unique manuscripts and assisting me during my onsite research. My deep thanks go to Herbert Schendl, Richard Ingham, and Theresa Biberauer for their open-minded interest, giving me the confidence to present my ideas to a wider audience; Marigold Norbye for introducing me to the secrets of paleography and for helping me to solve some of the most challenging paleographical riddles in my data; the series editors, Sara Pons-Sanz and Louise Sylvester, for inviting me to write this little book, and for their careful feedback on the manuscript; the reviewers of the book v

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

proposal for their insightful suggestions and comments; the editorial team at Palgrave Macmillan for their expert advice and assistance; and last but not least my mother and my brother for their unfaltering support during the writing process, helping me to organize my thoughts and keeping me focused on my goal.

Contents

1 Introduction 1 References 8 2 Understanding the Grammar of Mixed Language11 2.1 The Study of Code-Switching Structures14 2.1.1 Constraint-Based Approaches15 2.1.2 The MLF Model: Relevant Detail19 2.1.3 Critical Voices23 2.2 Historical Multilingualism and Code-Switching26 2.2.1 Studying Historical Mixed Texts: A Contrastive Overview27 2.2.2 Challenges of Mixed Language Manuscripts30 2.2.3 Exploring the Diachronic Trajectory of Code-­ Switching32 References34 3 Early English Code-Switching39 3.1 Mixed Language Sermons40 3.2 Variation Within the Noun Phrase49 3.2.1 Data and Methodology50 3.2.2 The Curious Case of Case Marking52 3.2.3 Three Quirky Examples54 3.2.4 Intermediate Summary61 vii

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CONTENTS

3.3 Stability Within the Verb Phrase61 3.3.1 Data and Methodology65 3.3.2 The Pivotal Role of the Finite Verb66 3.3.3 Two Morphological Riddles71 3.3.4 Intermediate Summary74 References75 4 Code-Switching Across Time and Space79 4.1 Assessing the Results80 4.2 Theoretical Implications83 4.3 Outlook87 References89 Index93

Abbreviations

CP Complementizer phrase CS Code-switching DP Determiner phrase EL Embedded language IP Inflectional phrase ML Matrix Language MLF Matrix Language Frame (model)

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Abbreviations in Medieval manuscripts (Balliol MS 149, detail from f. 31r) Fig. 3.1 Vernacular verse in mixed language sermon. (Balliol MS 149, detail from f. 35v) Fig. 3.2 Medieval Latin and Middle English mixed sermon. (MS Bodley 649, f. 23r) Fig. 3.3 Intentional empty space in medieval manuscript. (MS Bodley 649, detail from f. 23r) Fig. 3.4 Generic suspension sign and expunctuation. (MS Bodley 649, detail from f. 23r) Fig. 3.5 Verb forms in mixed language clause. (Balliol MS 149, detail from f. 34r) Fig. 3.6 Language of copula verb in mixed language clause. (Balliol MS 149, detail from f. 31v)

31 43 46 48 55 68 70

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Abstract  This chapter introduces the reader to the topic of code-­switching as a diachronic phenomenon and shows that using more than one language in one single communicative event was just as common in multilingual communities of the Middle Ages as it is now. It describes the structural approach to the data taken in this book as a way of determining which features of code-switching are variable and which ones are stable across time. Lastly, it addresses the issue that modern and historical studies of code-switching could benefit from both mutual inspiration and collaborative projects. Keywords  Code-switching • Middle English • Latin • Morphosyntax • Language change One of the skills that sets humans apart from other living beings on this planet is the ability to express complex thoughts through words combined into sentences. In many of the most powerful countries of the Western world, speakers are expected to form their sentences out of words from one language at a time, especially in formal situations. Yet I am sure most of my readers have at times participated in or overheard conversations

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where the participants keep changing languages, between as well as within sentences (1):1 (1) Dann ha’m wir in die Zeitung geschaut, dann war da ein Verwaltungsposten uh- da oben in (…) und-uh des Haus war oben, des waren unten like three garages, weil’s einmal a firehouse war, und oben war a grosse Wohnung, und die ham’mer dann kriegt, but we had to clean/ I had to clean the house across the street weil die Leut bloss a paar Mal im Monat am Wochenende kommen sind, I cleaned the house and Harry had to do the repairs on the house and paint, und hat ‘s Gras schneiden müssen.2 Then we checked the newspapers, then there was a job in administration uh-up there in (…), and-uh the house was above, below were like three garages, because it used to be a firehouse, and above was a big apartment, and we got that, but we had to clean/ I had to clean the house across the street because the residents came only a few times a month for the weekend. I cleaned the house and Harry had to do the repairs on the house and paint, and he had to cut the lawn.3

This effortless alternation between languages is typical of code-­switching discourse where fluent bilinguals use the whole range of their linguistic resources instead of limiting themselves to only one language.4 Most of the time this seemingly unrestricted back and forth between languages is 1  The excerpt in (1) is taken from a conversation between a German American and her American-born bilingual niece; see Tracy and Lattey (2010) for a description of the corpus and the project (Sprachkontakt Deutsch-Englisch: Code-switching, Crossover & Co, DFG project number 5466620). 2  There are many pros and cons to any annotation scheme for linguistic data, depending on the core objective of the text as well as on the needs of the readership. My priority for this publication was legibility. Therefore visual language tagging is simplified, and I have decided not to use additional marking for ambiguous words or morphemes. If relevant for the interpretation of the data, homophonous and/or visual diamorphs are pointed out in the main text. All examples follow this simplified language tagging scheme: One language is rendered in roman and the other in italics, in the original texts as well as in the translations. Bold is used to highlight individual words or phrases that are the focus of the discussion. For the sake of clarity, all examples taken from other sources (editions, papers, manuscripts) have been adapted to this scheme. 3  Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own. 4  Following the convention in Myers-Scotton (2002), in this book the label bilingual refers to any person speaking two or more languages.

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observed in casual oral discourse. In writing, which is normally acquired in a setting where monolingual texts are read and also expected to be produced,5 it is rarer, but we find it as well, for example, in informal genres like diaries and personal letters. The excerpt from a personal letter in (2) does not contain any visual cues indicating language affiliation of the individual words in the handwritten original. (2) sure damals wurde alles fest gebaut, aber nach den Jahren & Bewohnern mei—Ich bewundere die J.—da ist sie frohen Mutes & zuversicht, wir schaffen es schon, my habe ich mir gedacht, ja in wieviel Jahren! Ich sagte noch zu G. You know what that cost on heating! Those high ceilings? Well wir wollen Solar heating rein machen lassen! (Tracy/Lattey Corpus, letters) Sure, back then everything was built solidly, but after so many years and tenants, my—I admire J.—she is so happy and confident, we will manage, my, I thought to myself, but how long will it take! I also said to G, You know what that cost on heating! Those high ceilings? Well, we want to put in Solar heating!

Code-switching inside and between sentences is by no means a recent phenomenon. We have historical documents giving evidence of code-­ switching as it was written down centuries ago. A well-known example is the conversations that Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Church, had with friends and students at his dinner table in the early sixteenth century. During these conversations, many theological questions were discussed. A number of people from Luther’s circle had asked permission to take notes. These notes were later written up and shared with others. In the transcripts we find many passages that are surprisingly similar in form to what we know from modern oral and written code-switching (3). (3) Das ist peccatum in Spiritum Sanctum. Sic kompt man ex secunda tabula in primam. Quando autem sentis, es sey vnrecht, vnd machst bos gewissen draus, hoc non est peccatum in Spiritum Sanctum; sed quando peccatur vnd macht noch ein gutt gewissen draus, hoc est peccatum in Spiritum Sanctum. (Luther 1912: 168) 5  Sebba (2013: 100) addresses this phenomenon as “hegemonic monolingualism, an ideology which legitimates only texts which conform to the norms of a single (usually named and standardised) language.”

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This is a sin against the Holy Spirit. Thus you get from the second tablet to the first.6 When you feel that something you did is wrong and it causes you to have a bad conscience, then this is not a sin against the Holy Spirit. But if someone sins and still has a clear conscience, that is a sin against the Holy Spirit.

Until the middle of the twentieth century, neither oral nor written codeswitching was recognized as worthy of serious linguistic investigation, as it was primarily regarded as flawed language produced by incompetent speakers or writers. This misconception appears to be quite old. Even Luther himself, a highly educated and eloquent man, was accused of not knowing Latin properly when he freely mixed it with German during a scholarly dispute.7 In an entirely Latin letter to his friend Georg Spalatin dated 14 January 1518 (4), Luther comments on the incident: (4) Is est Vir ille, qui ubique iactat usque hodie me adeo fuisse convictum, ut nec latinum verbum nec vernaculum respondere potuerim. Nam quia mixtim (ut fit) vernacula lingua digladiabamur, omni fiducia pronunciavit me nescire latinum verbum. (Luther 1930: 301) This is the same man who goes around boasting everywhere that today I was so utterly refuted that I could respond neither in Latin nor in the vernacular. Just because we fought mixed (as usual) with the vernacular, he seriously declared me ignorant of Latin.

This comment of an Early Modern active bilingual confirms that conducting a conversation in two languages was the norm in his circle. It is rare to find this kind of contemporary commentary on oral code-switching in earlier times. Many historical bilingual texts that have survived do not contain any direct information about the social context in which they were produced; often, we do not even know the identity of the author or the scribe. Consequently, the texts do not lend themselves easily to a sociolinguistic investigation, which interprets the formal aspects of the data in the light of carefully collected metadata about the speakers. However, a primarily structural analysis can still be carried out successfully with little to no metadata. This book illustrates what a solid structural analysis of his6  Here, Luther refers to the two tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments that Moses received on Mount Sinai. The first tablet contains rules about man’s relationship to God, and the second tablet regulates relationships between people (Exodus 20, 2–17). 7  See also Stolt (1969, 2014) and Hiebsch (2002: 22–23).

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torical mixed texts can reveal about code-switching in its diachronic dimension. The potential of historical texts to shed light on code-­switching across time has already been pointed out by Schendl (1996: 50) but has so far received little scholarly attention. The analysis of a collection of mixed sermons in Chap. 3 brings out the systematic differences and similarities between historical bilingual writing and modern bilingual conversations. Once we have a clearer understanding of code-switching structures both in the past and in the present, we can begin to determine which features are variable and which ones are stable across time. In recent years, interest in the multilingual history of the English language has steadily increased. As a consequence, a once marginal branch of historical linguistics has become a regular topic of conferences and publications, addressing a wide range of text types and also different types of language interaction. However, awareness of this interesting field has been limited to an exclusive circle of specialists, and the body of literature on historical code-switching consists primarily of specialized journal publications and collections of essays (Trotter 2000; Schendl and Wright 2011; Jefferson and Putter 2013; Pahta et al. 2017). Handbooks and textbooks have yet to appear. The demand for societies promoting the study of historical code-switching is only just emerging, and with it an appreciation of the potential that historical multilingual texts offer for answering general linguistic questions. In this context Schendl and Wright (2011: 28) point out the need to relate the study of historical code-switching to language change, bilingualism, language processing, theoretical grammatical frameworks, but also manuscript studies and history. Studies of modern and historical language mixing have so far existed side by side and not noticeably benefited from each other. To date, there are an impressive number of papers on modern oral code-switching, complemented by some fairly recent textbooks and handbooks. Most surveys of code-switching do not address it as a diachronic phenomenon at all. One notable exception is a textbook by Gardner-Chloros, which briefly mentions the fact that code-switching can be found in medieval texts (Gardner-Chloros 2009: 20).8 Conversely, some articles on historical code-switching do discuss their data with reference to theoretical frameworks adapted from the study of modern code-switching (e.g. Schendl 8  Additionally, Gardner-Chloros (2017) pursues the question why as of yet there has been so little interaction and mutual inspiration between historical and modern bilingual studies in the field of sociolinguistics.

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2000, 2013; Halmari and Regetz 2011). Unfortunately, occasional mismatches between modern theory and historical data have led individual researchers to claim that historical mixed texts need their own, separate theory, quite distinct from current theoretical approaches to code-­ switching (McLelland 2004; Auer and Muhamedova 2005). I strongly disagree, and I very much wish to convince readers of this book that there are good reasons for my claim that modern approaches to code-switching will help to unlock the secrets of historical texts, and that in return, historical bilingual documents provide a rich testing ground for current theories. The goal of this book is to advance an integrated approach to the study of code-switching, showing what can be gained from a consistent theoretical approach to both oral data and historical documents. It can be read quickly, and I hope that insight into a theory-driven approach to code-­ switching and examples of its application to historical written data will inspire closer collaboration between synchronic and historical code-­ switching research projects. The main topic of the investigation is grammatical morphemes in bilingual speech and writing, since research into modern code-switching has revealed that these are essential to understanding underlying constraints that distinguish frequent mixing patterns from less frequent and very rare ones. Therefore the book focuses on structural linguistics, and the analysis builds  on a morphosyntactically-­ based model, namely the Matrix Language Frame Model (MLF Model; Myers-Scotton 2002). However, sociolinguistic factors also need to be considered for proper interpretation of the data. The mixed texts discussed in this book are from fourteenth-century England. The linguistic situation in which they were created was complex, partly due to the changing functions of the three most prominent languages—Latin, French, and English. During the thirteenth century, English had gradually replaced (Anglo-) French in many domains and extended its functional range, while Latin remained as the language of the church and of higher education, first being taught as a second language and then serving as the medium of education for advanced studies (Thomas 2004: 68). This created a diglossic situation, where the choice of language was dependent on the situation. Even people with English as their common mother tongue could use Latin to communicate with each other in specific situations where Latin was regarded as the unmarked choice (Markedness Model, Myers-Scotton 1993; Schendl 1996: 51). The status of Latin and the mode of its acquisition play a decisive role in code-switching patterns where Latin is mixed

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with a vernacular language. Thus in order to understand code-switching patterns in the past and their diachronic trajectory, the book endorses an interdisciplinary approach, which includes expert knowledge in a number of domains: historical linguistics for assessing the target structures, paleography for interpreting the mixed manuscripts, sociolinguistics for making informed judgments about possible language-external influences on language-­mixing behavior, code-switching theory for comparing historical and modern data, psycholinguistics for explaining the connection between bilingual language processing and morphological form, and grammatical theory for integrating the characteristics of bilingual speech and writing into our general understanding of human language. Through the use of two languages whose grammatical systems are sometimes in contrast to each other, bilingual data can shine a light on the nature of linguistic structures which are not so easy to observe in monolingual data. As Toribio (2017: 214) puts it, “mixed language data […] permits the possibility of combinations of formal properties that are precluded in the examination of a single language, e.g., contrasting rich vs. poor verbal and nominal agreement morphology and contrasting SVO vs. VSO word order, among others.” The book is structured as follows. In Chap. 2, the reader is introduced to the study of code-switching from a structural perspective concerned with the morphosyntactic characteristics—that is the “grammar”—of bilingual speech and writing. The MLF model is explained within the context in which it was developed. An introduction to the processing component of the MLF model, the so-called 4-M-Model, explains basic assumptions about the relation between morphological form and language processing in bilingual language production.9 Section 2.2 introduces the study of historical bilingualism and relates it to the structural approach to modern oral code-switching. Section 2.2.2 then discusses some of the challenges of working with historical texts which are well known to historical linguists and philologists but might be unfamiliar to theoretical linguists and experts in bilingual studies. They are addressed explicitly in order to raise awareness of the crucial role of original manuscripts in 9  Findings from code-switching studies have implications for monolingual processing as well, because bilingual and monolingual language processing are not fundamentally different. Observed differences concern speed of access and executive control rather than basic cognitive processes. For more detailed information, see for example Paradis (2004), Bialystok and Craik (2010), Hayakawa and Marian (2019).

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e­ stablishing the precise morphosyntactic characteristics of historical code-­ switching. In Chap. 3, the MLF model is put into practice. After an introduction to a collection of Latin and Middle English mixed sermons from fourteenth-century England, Sect. 3.2 shows how the MLF model can be successfully used as a tool for assessing the structural differences characteristic of noun phrases in historical data where Latin is mixed with a vernacular language. In Sect. 3.3, a parallel study of mixed verb phrases explores the crucial role of the finite verb in mixed clauses and points out the striking structural similarity between historical written code-switching and bilingual speech as found in modern corpora.10 Throughout Chap. 3, selected examples illustrate why a close examination of the original manuscripts is essential in obtaining a reliable basis for testing or creating any hypothesis on historical written material. The discussion in Chap. 4 relates the empirical findings from Chap. 3 to the theoretical issues raised in Chap. 2. Here, special attention is drawn to the prestige of Latin and its mode of acquisition in medieval times in order to explain the structural differences between modern-day oral and historical written code-­ switching. The chapter concludes with an outlook, raising a number of related questions that can be pursued with the interdisciplinary approach illustrated in this book.

References Auer, Peter, and Raihan Muhamedova (2005). ‘Embedded Language’ and ‘Matrix Language’ in Insertional Language Mixing: Some Problematic Cases. Italian Journal of Linguistics 17(1): 35–54. Bialystok, Ellen, and Fergus I.M.  Craik (2010). Cognitive and Linguistic Processing in the Bilingual Mind. Current Directions in Psychological Science 19(1): 19–23. Gardner-Chloros, Penelope (2009). Code-Switching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gardner-Chloros, Penelope (2017). Historical and Modern Studies of Codeswitching: A Tale of Mutual Enrichment. In Multilingual Practices in Language History: English and Beyond, edited by Päivi Pahta, Janne Skaffari, and Laura Wright, 19–36. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Halmari, Helena, and Timothy Regetz (2011). Syntactic Aspects of Code-­ Switching in Oxford, MS Bodley 649. In Code-Switching in Early English, 10  Freely available recordings and transcripts of bilingual conversations from several corpora are provided by BilingBank at https://talkbank.org.

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edited by Herbert Schendl and Laura Wright, 115–154. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Hayakawa, Sayuri, and Viorica Marian (2019). Consequences of Multilingualism for Neural Architecture. Behavioral and Brain Functions 15(1): article no. 6. Hiebsch, Sabine (2002). Figura Ecclesiae: Lea Und Rachel in Martin Luthers Genesispredigten. Münster: LIT. Jefferson, Judith, and Ad Putter, eds. (2013). Multilingualism in Medieval Britain (c. 1066–1520): Sources and Analysis. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. Luther, Martin (1912). D.  Martin Luthers Werke. [Abt. 2]. Tischreden Bd. 1. Graz: Akad. Dr.-u. Verl.-Anstalt. Luther, Martin (1930). D. Martin Luthers Werke. [Abt. 4]. Briefe Bd. 1. Graz: Akad. Dr.-u. Verl.-Anstalt. McLelland, Nicola (2004). A Historical Study of Codeswitching in Writing: German and Latin in Schottelius’ Ausführliche Arbeit von Der Teutschen HaubtSprache (1663). International Journal of Bilingualism 8(4): 499–523. Myers-Scotton, Carol (1993). Social Motivations for Codeswitching: Evidence from Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Myers-Scotton, Carol (2002). Contact Linguistics: Bilingual Encounters and Grammatical Outcomes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pahta, Päivi, Janne Skaffari, and Laura Wright, eds. (2017). Multilingual Practices in Language History: English and Beyond. Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Paradis, Michel (2004). A Neurolinguistic Theory of Bilingualism. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Schendl, Herbert (1996). Text Types and Code-Switching in Medieval and End Early Modern English. Vienna English Working PaperS (VIEWS) 5: 50–62. Schendl, Herbert (2000). Syntactic Constraints on Code-Switching in Medieval Texts. In Placing Middle English in Context, edited by Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen, Päivi Pahta, and Matti Rissanen, 67–85. Berlin and New York: Mouton De Gruyter. Schendl, Herbert (2013). Code-Switching in Late Medieval Macaronic Sermons. In Multilingualism in Medieval Britain (c. 1066–1520), edited by Judith Jefferson and Ad Putter, 153–169. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. Schendl, Herbert, and Laura Wright, eds. (2011). Code-Switching in Early English. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Sebba, Mark (2013). Multilingualism in Written Discourse: An Approach to the Analysis of Multilingual Texts. International Journal of Bilingualism 17(1): 97–118. Stolt, Birgit (1969). Luther sprach ‘mixtim vernacula Lingua’. Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie 88: 432–435. Stolt, Birgit (2014). Luthers beliebte Tischreden und Probleme ihrer Neuausgabe. Theologische Literaturzeitung: Monatsschrift für das gesamte Gebiet der Theologie und Religionswissenschaft 88: 136–145.

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Thomas, Margaret (2004). Universal Grammar in Second-Language Acquisition: A History. London: Routledge. Toribio, Almeida Jacqueline (2017). Structural Approaches to Code-Switching: Research Then and Now. In Selected Papers from the 45th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Campinas, Brazil, edited by Ruth E.V. Lopez, Juanito Ornelas de Avelar, and Sonia M.L. Cyrino, 213–234. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Tracy, Rosemarie, and Elsa Lattey (2010). ‘It wasn’t easy but irgendwie äh da hat sich’s rentiert, net?’: A Linguistic Profile. In Dimensionen Der Zweitsprachenforschung—Dimensions of Second Language Research: Festschrift Für Kurt Kohn, edited by Michaela Albl-Mikasa, Sabine Braun, and Sylvia Kalina, 53–73. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto. Trotter, David A., ed. (2000). Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain. Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer.

CHAPTER 2

Understanding the Grammar of Mixed Language

Abstract  This chapter provides a general overview of the structural approach to code-switching and familiarizes novice readers with key publications in the field. It explains the details of Myers-Scotton’s Matrix Language Frame model and discusses them critically. The second part (Sect. 2.2) expands the view to studies in historical bilingualism and points out common challenges of working with historical mixed language texts. It concludes with enumerating the mutual benefits of collaboration between historical linguistics, contemporary code-switching research, and general linguistics. Keywords  Bilingualism • Code-switching • Morphosyntax • Matrix Language Frame model • Historical linguistics Code-switching is a subfield of bilingualism research which itself can be further divided into various branches, depending on the core questions of the investigation. One of the oldest branches has developed within the field of sociolinguistics. Here, the main questions pursued concern the social factors which influence, facilitate, or prohibit the use of more than one language within specific speaker groups (Gibbons 1987; Giles and Ogay 2007). It also investigates the reasons why speakers use one or another language in a specific situation or context (Auer 1995, 1998). A

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different branch is interested primarily in the linguistic structures of mixed language discourse. Here, the focus lies on the form of bilingual speech, mostly its syntax and morphology. One of the core concerns of structural investigations into code-switching (CS) is the question of whether there are any structural constraints on the form of bilingual utterances—like a grammar that mandates which structures are possible in language mixing. This is the approach pursued in this book. However, a clear cut between the sociolinguistic and the structural approach to code-switching is, in my opinion, neither possible nor beneficial. Structural variation—to the extent that it correlates with specific contexts—is highly relevant for a sociolinguistic analysis, and a structural analysis can deliver more fine-grained results if it takes into account information about the speakers and their communicative contexts. Code-switching research is an expanding field, and disputes about nomenclature abound. I will not recapitulate the details here, but instead address some central terms that often cause misunderstanding or misinterpretation. First, the term code-switching has no clear definition accepted by the majority of researchers in the field (see Gardner-Chloros 2009: 10–13), and with the increasing popularity of the topic, the exact target of code-­ switching research has become more and more diluted. In her early publications, Myers-Scotton (1997: 47) defines code-switching as the “use of two or more languages in the same conversation, usually within the same conversational turn, or even within the same sentence of that turn.” This definition subsumes several kinds of code-switching. In this book, only one specific form of code-switching is discussed and analyzed, namely the so-called classic code-switching. It has been defined by Myers-Scotton as a variety of overt language mixing “in which empirical evidence shows that abstract grammatical structure within a clause comes from only one of the participating languages” (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2009: 337). In order to engage in classic code-switching, speakers must be fully proficient in one of their languages (namely, the language that provides the grammatical frame of a clause), but they do not have to be equally proficient in the other participating language(s) (Myers-Scotton 2002: 25). Many skilled code-switchers can easily hold a conversation in either of their languages, and if asked to do so, they can clearly tell their languages apart, lexically and structurally. Thus classic code-switching is not a consequence of insufficient knowledge of one or the other language but rather an

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a­ dditional option available to fluent bilinguals.1 Myers-Scotton contrasts classic code-switching, where speakers have two discrete languages at their disposal, with situations in which two varieties have fused into one, so that now there is only one composite matrix with its own composite grammar (see Myers-Scotton 2002: 100).2 Myers-Scotton’s competence- and production-­ centered definition of code-switching differs from the function-­based definition maintained by Auer (1998), who reserves the term code-switching for instances where the switch from one language to another is in itself meaningful at a specific point in a conversation. If the switch itself is not meaningful locally but the switching back and forth between languages is, Auer calls this language mixing. Throughout this book the term language mixing will be used alongside and synonymous with code-switching. The term code-switching is maintained primarily to facilitate retrieval of information in Myers-Scotton’s works.3 A recurrent key term in structural approaches to code-switching is constraint, a condition limiting the mixing patterns of two languages in one clause. One goal of constraint-based approaches is to use bilingual clauses to catch a glimpse of the general processing mechanisms underlying the production of human language which are also present in monolingual language but become more easily noticeable when two languages interact (see Belazi et al. 1994; Myers-Scotton 2002: xi). Beginning in the early 1980s, several sets of constraints were put forward, and every one of them was soon met with criticism and counterexamples (see Sect. 2.1). At least partly, this was a consequence of not really defining the target variety. Languages can be mixed in many different ways, and certain constraints may be specific to certain types of language mixing. This idea has been carefully laid out in Muysken (2000), where he classifies types of language mixing according to structural and societal characteristics. A term that often appears along with code-switching is lexical borrowing. The structural approach pursued by Myers-Scotton does not differentiate between code-switching and borrowing, arguing that in actual speech 1  See footnote 1 in Rubin and Toribio (1995: 177) on code-switching structures produced by fluent bilinguals compared to mixed structures produced by other speaker groups. Ehinger and Lattey (unpublished) demonstrate that code-switching increases fluency rather than decreasing it. 2  In the context of historical linguistics, this phenomenon is addressed in Wright (1999, 2011), describing a composite of Anglo-Latin, Anglo-Norman, and Middle English. 3  See Myers-Scotton (2002: 3) for an explanation of why she prefers the term code-switching over mixing.

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or written data, you cannot tell with certainty whether a word is a borrowing or a code-switch (Myers-Scotton 2002: 153). Poplack (2018: 141– 57) argues strongly in favor of the distinction and regards borrowing and code-switching as two phenomena that can and should be clearly differentiated. For the line of argument laid out in this book, a detailed assessment of the difference between borrowing and code-switching is peripheral, so it will not be discussed any further.4 However, for studies of language change, concerning, for example, the influence of Latin on the development of English, the difference between borrowing and code-switching would have to be addressed and defined. The remainder of this book discusses a number of phenomena using some of the terminologies of generative grammar (e.g. functional head, maximal projection, phi features). These are essential for understanding the theoretical underpinning of the case studies and the main point of this book—parallels between modern and historical code-switching. I abandoned my initial plan to introduce and explain them here because I only use them descriptively and I am not challenging or discussing any of them critically in this book. However, all of the relevant terms are explained very well in freely available resources like Wikipedia and Glottopedia, and clear definitions and further references are given in standard linguistic dictionaries (e.g. Bussmann 2006).

2.1   The Study of Code-Switching Structures Since its beginning, the study of code-switching structures has revolved around constraints predicting which mixing patterns should be expected and rated grammatically acceptable by speakers, and which ones should be ruled out.5 The fundamental premise of the constraint-based approach is that “not just ‘anything structural’ can happen in contact situations”

4  A purely theoretical, Minimalist explanation of why code-switching and borrowing can be subsumed under the same theory can be found in Jake et al. (2002). 5  Just as monolinguals, bilinguals are often capable of verbalizing their introspections regarding grammatical acceptability. In reacting to a code-switched text, one participant in Toribio (2001a) states, “For example, the last sentence, ‘When Snow White bit into the apple, she calló desvanecida al suelo,’ that I wouldn’t say it, it doesn’t sound right. I would probably say, ‘When [Snow]White bit into the apple, ella se calló al suelo.’ Or, ‘She fell desvanecida al suelo’ (p. 412)” (Toribio 2017: 215).

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(Myers-Scotton 2002: xi).6 Over the past decades, it has become clear that constraints on code-switching structures should be viewed as probabilistic rather than absolute (see Kootstra 2015: 50). As Schendl (2002: 70) puts it, [w]e should be aware that code-switching involves a range of speakers with different degrees of competence in the languages involved, so that absolute regularity would be a surprise. The concept of the ‘ideal bilingual speaker’ is hardly of any use in the investigation of code-switching in general and of syntactic constraints on code-switching in particular.

Instead of rigidly delimiting which structures are grammatical, the purpose of constraints should be to determine which structures are frequent, which ones are less frequent but still likely to occur, and which structures are rather unlikely. The following section (Sect. 2.1.1) offers a brief outline of the development of the constraint-based approach to code-­ switching, both oral and written, making reference to some seminal works which were most influential in the development of the field. For a deeper insight into each individual approach, the reader is referred to the original publications. 2.1.1  Constraint-Based Approaches The following pages recapitulate the decisive steps in the development of structural models and constraints.7 One of the most widely known seminal papers is Poplack (1980), who presents an empirical study of code-­ switching among the Spanish–English bilingual population in New York City. She proposes two basic constraints on the linear order of elements in code-switching, the first one pertaining to morphology and the second one to syntax. The free morpheme constraint: Codes may be switched after any constituent in discourse provided that constituent is not a bound morpheme. The equivalence constraint: Code-switches will tend to occur at points in discourse where juxtaposition of L1 and L2 elements does not violate a 6  For the opposite position that, in principle, language contact can lead to any possible outcome, see Thomason and Kaufman (1988). 7  More details are provided in Muysken (2000: 12–19)

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syntactic rule of either language, i.e. at points around which the surface structure of the two languages map onto each other. (Poplack 1980: 585–586)

These two constraints were an early attempt at establishing order and predictability within a seemingly random phenomenon, and the paper triggered the search for something like a “grammar” of code-switching—a search which is still ongoing. It was followed by many others that tried to either refine or disprove the constraints, and examples contradicting Poplack’s claims were soon reported (e.g. Bentahila and Davies 1983; Belazi et al. 1994). Di Sciullo et al. (1986) took Poplack’s idea of structural constraints from the linear to the hierarchical and proposed a government constraint based on the generative notion of c-command.8 It predicts that the language of a maximal projection is determined by the language of the syntactic element that governs it.9 The government constraint was soon challenged, and counterexamples were published (see Dussias and Courtney 1994 for a review). This dynamic of proving and disproving a constraint, often on the basis  of isolated examples, has been a long-­ standing hallmark of the constraint-based structural approach to code-­ switching, which is why Toribio (2017: 228) once more urges to the community to “redress the ‘culture of example and counterexample’ that has pervaded structural approaches to language mixing—no sooner is an analysis put forward based on decontextualized examples than another such counterexample is produced to dismantle it.” In 1993 Myers-Scotton published her first version of what was to become the most widely known and most hotly disputed constraint-based model, the Matrix Language Frame model (MLF model). One of the basic tenets of the model is the asymmetric distribution of languages in code-­ switching. This means that in a mixed clause there may be vocabulary from two different languages, but there is always only one dominating 8  For an explanation of c-command, a government relation between syntactic nodes, see for example Adger (2003: 92–97). 9  In the generative X-bar scheme, the topmost projection of a syntactic head X is called its maximal projection. It is always a complete syntactic constituent, or phrase (XP). MyersScotton (2002: 7) explains: “The term ‘maximal projection’ highlights organizational aspects more than the term ‘constituent’ does. The point is that even though constituents also can show hierarchical structure, they do not necessarily have to be complete phrases (i.e. maximal projections). […] ‘Constituent’ was the main term used in Myers-Scotton (1993a); more use of ‘maximal projection’ now does not indicate any new orientation” (Myers-Scotton 2002: 7).

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grammar.10 Consequently, the MLF constraints limit the structure of mixed constituents, predicting that word order and grammatical morphemes signaling argument structure have to come from only one language, which is then called Matrix Language (ML). (Details of the model are laid out below in Sect. 2.1.2.) Soon after the introduction of the MLF model, Belazi et  al. (1994) proposed streamlining the idea of a matrix language with the main principles of contemporary generative grammar (X-bar theory) and introduced the notion of functional heads to the constraint-­based approach.11 Their functional head constraint rules out language switches between functional heads and their complements, reasoning that the feature checking between a functional head and its complement also includes checking of a language feature which needs to match for the derivation to succeed. Although there are many examples of switches between functional heads and their complements (see e.g. Dussias and Courtney 1994), the basic idea behind their hypothesis, recognizing the pivotal role of functional heads for the morphosyntactic structure of mixed clauses, is fundamental to the later development of the MLF model. It also holds the key to the parallels I see between modern and historical code-switching and the diachronic stability of basic mixing constraints. Jake et al. (2002) introduced the Uniform Structure Principle (USP), which holds that bilingual clauses and constituents in classic code-­ switching have a single abstract, but uniform, grammatical frame. They contend that the USP, which also underlies monolingual clauses, is 10  A surprisingly early reference to this asymmetry can be found in Paul (1920: 392): “Die Mischung wird auch bei dem Einzelnen nicht leicht in der Weise auftreten, dass seine Rede Bestandteile aus der einen Sprache ungefähr in gleicher Menge enthielte wie Bestandteile aus der andern. Er wird vielleicht, wenn er beide gleich gut beherrscht, sehr leicht aus der einen in die andere übergehen, aber innerhalb eines Satzgefüges wird doch immer die eine die eigentliche Grundlage bilden, die andere wird, wenn sie auch mehr oder weniger modifizierend einwirkt, nur eine sekundäre Rolle spielen.” [Translation MK: “Even in the individual speaker, the mixture will not easily happen in a way in which his speech contains elements of the one language in an equal amount to the elements of the other language. He might, if he is equally competent in both, very easily transition from one into the other, but within one sentence structure one of them will still always build the true basis; the other one will, even if it acts in a more or less modifying manner, only play a secondary role.”] 11  In generative syntax, functional heads stand in opposition to lexical heads. Lexical heads are typically content words and carry most of the semantics of a clause. Functional heads carry features that are needed to establish syntactic relations between lexical heads to form a grammatical sentence, for example agreement between subject and verb. The functional heads and their projections relevant for the discussion in this book are the determiner phrase (DP), the inflectional phrase (IP), and the complementizer phrase (CP).

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r­esponsible for the asymmetric distribution of languages in code-switching. They show how the then current version of Minimalist grammar, which puts the weight of the derivational process on interpretable and uninterpretable features, is also applicable to bilingual data.12 The only necessary amendment to Minimalism would have been to include “matrix language” as a theoretical concept, arguing “that the notion of ML is the realization of a more universal requirement that the abstract grammatical features of one language provide the frame for a CP [complementizer phrase]” (Jake et al. 2002: 70).13 In 2005, this proposal sparked an interesting scholarly dispute about the need for a specific grammatical theory of code-switching, and particularly the need for a matrix language, in successive volumes of Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (MacSwan 2005a, b; Jake et al. 2005). MacSwan argued for a Null Theory of codeswitching, maintaining that code-switching is no different from any other language, and that no rules beyond the ones inherent in universal grammar are needed to describe it (see MacSwan 1999). He holds that mismatches of features inherent to the lexical elements cause particular derivations to crash. Myers-Scotton and colleagues responded that monolingual clauses also have an underlying abstract grammatical frame, that is, a matrix language, but that due to a lack of contrast it remains unused and therefore not visible.14 In other words, “[the ML construct] is derived from the Uniform Structure Principle and is the abstract grammatical frame structuring any constituent; it is simply vacuously transparent in monolingual data” (Jake et al. 2002: 72). In order to explain their position, Myers-Scotton and Jake have since been refining the details of their model. There are no essential changes to the basic model proposed in 1993; it is rather the formulations that have changed. The next section 12  The MLF model is generally regarded as the brainchild of Carol Myers-Scotton, but substantial credit for the theoretical refinement is also due to Janice Jake, who added the generative aspect and together with Myers-Scotton developed the 4-M-Model and the Abstract Level Model (see Myers-Scotton 2002: xiii). 13  “The term CP refers to the specific type of maximal projection or constituent, projection of Complementizer. The CP is at the highest level in a tree of syntactic structures. It follows that CPs contain other constituents or maximal projections, such as NPs, VPs, and the like. Both independent and dependent clauses are CPs.” (Myers-Scotton 2002: 8); “The term CP is superior to ‘clause’ because clause is ambiguous between something with the status of IP and something that includes the complementizer” (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2000: 1071). 14  “[W]hen two or more varieties are in contact, their structures are often exposed in a way not obvious when a language is examined through monolingual data alone.” (Myers-Scotton 2002: xii)

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presents the details of the MLF model which will be used in Chap. 3 as a yardstick for comparing modern and historical mixed language data. 2.1.2  The MLF Model: Relevant Detail The MLF model was first proposed in 1993. It has since experienced several amendments, but its basic tenets have remained constant. The object of the model is “to show how surface realizations (i.e. production) are linked to how language is structured (i.e. competence)” (Myers-Scotton 2002: 14). At the core of the model lies the assumption that in code-­ switching the distribution of languages is asymmetrical: [P]sycholinguistically, the bilingual’s two or more languages do not achieve equal activation in bilingual speech. Decisions (largely unconscious) made at the prelinguistic conceptual level result in one language dominating (the Matrix Language sets the grammatical frame of such speech). The less dominant language (the Embedded Language) participates largely by supplying lexical elements that are integrated into that frame. (Myers-Scotton 2002: 16)

Hence, both languages can contribute lexical elements to a bilingual clause, but only the ML may supply the morphosyntactic frame; the Embedded Language (EL) “is not involved in projecting hierarchical relations” (Jake et  al. 2002: 79). The indexing of semantic roles is always realized with ML means and is the key feature of classic code-switching (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2009: 346). It is important to understand right away that in contrast to the way the term is used by other researchers, within the MLF model Matrix Language means an abstract, grammatical concept and not any specific language, although in classic code-switching it is “largely isomorphic with a single language” (Myers-Scotton 2002: 22). In other words, in classic code-switching the Matrix Language is identical in structure with one of the two participating languages. The reference unit of the MLF model is the bilingual clause, or more precisely, the bilingual CP (Myers-Scotton 2002: 8), and the ML-EL distinction applies only within one CP at a time. The ML can change many times in the course of one conversation, but not within one CP (Myers-­ Scotton 2002: 64). In this sense, the ML is fundamentally different from the dominant language of an individual, the majority language in a community, or from the language the largest part of a text is written in.

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According to Myers-Scotton, any language strives for uniformity of structures (Uniform Structure Principle; see Sect. 2.1.1). In order to achieve this uniformity, which is natural to any monolingual code, bilingual utterances are constructed as far as possible in accordance with the grammar of only one of the languages the bilingual speaker has at their disposal. This process follows two rules, or constraints: The Morpheme-Order Principle (MOP) In ML+EL constituents consisting of singly occurring EL lexemes and any number of ML morphemes, surface morpheme order (reflecting surface syntactic relations) will be that of the ML. The System Morpheme Principle (SMP) In ML+EL constituents, all system morphemes which have grammatical relations external to their head constituent (i.e. which participate in the sentence’s thematic role grid) will come from the ML. (Myers-Scotton 1997: 83)

The first constraint limits word order in bilingual constituents to that of the ML. The second constraint limits the occurrence of a specific type of morpheme to the ML and predicts that “all inflections come from only one of the participating languages” (Myers-Scotton 2002: 9). Thus, the ML of any concrete mixed clause is determined by looking at a clause and determining which of the languages supplies the word order and specific inflectional markers.15 In order to understand the idea behind the System Morpheme Principle, the 4-M-Model, short for Four-Morpheme-Model, needs to be included. Like the MLF model, the 4-M-Model was developed by Jake and Myers-Scotton. Maybe it is for this reason that the 4-M-Model is sometimes mistakenly assumed to be yet another model of code-switching. This it is not. It is a model describing the relationship between types of morphemes with respect to the level at which they are activated during language production,16 applicable to many aspects of linguistic research—for 15  Determining the ML is unproblematic as long as we are, in fact, dealing with a clear case of classic code-switching. As soon as we find outsiders from more than one language in the mixed constituents of the same clause, the issue becomes more complex. I have decided to discuss this issue only later, in Sect. 3.3, because its relevance becomes clearest in the context of finiteness marking on verbs. 16  In order to avoid confusion, it might be worth noting that Myers-Scotton is well aware of her unconventional use of the term “morpheme” within her models: “[R]eferences to ‘morphemes’ may refer to actual surface level morphemes, or references may be metaphori-

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example first-language acquisition, second-language teaching, aphasia— and also to classic code-switching (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2000). Its main hypothesis is that the abstract level of language production at which a morpheme is activated explains its frequency and distribution in code-­ switching (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2017: 341). The model divides morphemes into four types, depending on the abstract level at which they are accessed during language production.17 The first type is called content morphemes. Content morphemes are lexical words which can either receive or assign thematic roles. They are “the main elements conveying semantic and pragmatic aspects of messages” (Myers-Scotton 2002: 15). The other three types are called system morphemes. These are all grammatical elements and cannot receive or assign thematic roles. They “largely indicate relations between the content morphemes” (Myers-Scotton 2002: 15). In principle, the division of elements into content and system morphemes is nothing new. It merely formalizes “the universal division in language between the roles of content elements in the lexicon and grammatical elements” (Myers-Scotton 2002: 16) and helps to explain and predict the distribution of languages in code-switching. Under the 4-M-Model, system morphemes are subdivided further into early and late system morphemes.18 The early system morphemes are activated by their corresponding content morpheme at the conceptual level and contribute to the meaning of the proposition. An example of an early system morpheme is the plural morpheme on nouns. Late system morphemes only become salient at the level of the Formulator (see Levelt’s blueprint model of language production, 1989: 9, and its adaptation to code-switching in Myers-Scotton and Jake 2000). They are activated via the grammatical information sent to the Formulator by the content and early system morphemes which are needed to turn the individual lexical cal. The name ‘4-M model’ itself refers to morphemes in both senses of the term. Certainly, when referring to elements in regard to abstract procedures that precede surface realizations, the reference is metaphorical. That is, what are called ‘morphemes’ (in reference to how lexical elements are accessed) are really lemmas, not morphemes at all” (Myers-Scotton 2002: 17). 17  The Differential Access Hypothesis: “The different types of morpheme under the 4-M model are differently accessed in the abstract levels of the production process. Specifically, content morphemes and early system morphemes are accessed at the level of the mental lexicon, but late system morphemes do not become salient until the level of the Formulator” (Myers-Scotton 2002: 17). 18  “The descriptors ‘early’ and ‘late’ are not intended literally; we have nothing to say about activation times or sequences.” (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2015: 422).

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entries drawn from the mental lexicon into larger syntactic constituents (Myers-Scotton 2002: 18).19 The late system morphemes are again divided into two types. One type is called bridges. Bridges establish grammatical relationships between elements inside a maximal projection. The other type, so-called outsiders (short for outsider late system morphemes), establish grammatical relationships between maximal projections in a clause. Most typically, they are inflectional elements indicating the distribution of semantic roles via subject–verb agreement and grammatical case (Jake et al. 2002: 72). The following sentence illustrates the four different types of morphemes: Jim likes Sally’s eyes. In this sentence, Jim, Sally, eye, and like are content morphemes. They are selected from the mental lexicon when a speaker has decided what they want to say. If we just string them together, like Jim like Sally eye, people might still understand us, but in no variety of English would this be called a grammatical sentence. So, we need to add the grammar. According to the 4-M-Model, the plural -s (which in modern English is an early system morpheme) is added to the noun eye to complete the meaning of the sentence, assuming that the speaker did not want to talk about only one of Sally’s eyes. Next, we need to establish a link between Sally and eyes, making it clear that the eyes are Sally’s and not Jim’s. So, the possessive marker ’s (which is a bridge) is added. Lastly, Standard English requires an -s to express agreement between the subject (Jim) and the finite verb (like). This -s is an outsider. It establishes a grammatical link between the subject and the predicate. The fact that in the example all system morphemes have the same form has no deeper meaning. It serves to illustrate that the form is irrelevant. What distinguishes the types of system morphemes is the type of grammatical information they add to a clause. Coming back to the MLF model, it is only the outsiders which are constrained by the system morpheme principle, that is those morphemes that establish grammatical links between syntactic constituents in a clause. The system morpheme principle predicts that in mixed constituents with singly occurring EL morphemes, outsiders may only be supplied by the ML of the clause. As for the other three types of morphemes, content morphemes can be supplied easily by the EL. Early system morphemes can also be drawn from the EL, along with their lexical heads. Bridges can come from the EL, but most frequently they are supplied by the ML. This is to say that the likelihood of a type of morpheme

 For more details, see Myers-Scotton and Jake’s Abstract Level Model.

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being supplied by the ML increases in the following order: content morpheme > early system morpheme > bridge > outsider. In my opinion, the 4-M-Model fits in very well with the premises of generative grammar and the Minimalist Program. In the derivation, we have interpretable features, which are the ones rendered as early system morphemes. And we have uninterpretable features, which are rendered as late system morphemes (bridges and outsiders).20 For example, the finite verb needs to carry an ML system morpheme to realize the uninterpretable features of the ML (see Jake et  al. 2002: 87). If we assume that a bilingual constituent is well formed only if all uninterpretable features are checked with the same language tag (Uniform Structure Principle), the system morpheme principle does nothing more than to restrict the language tag to the ML during feature checking. In monolingual grammar the mechanism restricting the checking of uninterpretable features to only one language is also available, but because there is no contrasting EL, it remains unused and therefore invisible on the surface. 2.1.3  Critical Voices This section addresses three issues that, in my view, are responsible for much of the debate surrounding the MLF model. They concern (1) the target of the model; (2) the need for a matrix language to explain code-­ switching structures; and (3) the relation between the generative notion of functional heads and Myers-Scotton and Jake’s late outsider system morphemes. Many of the issues the research community has taken with the MLF model can be traced back to a misunderstanding concerning the variety of bilingual speech the model wants to describe. The predictions the MLF model makes about the structure of bilingual clauses are not intended to explain every possible manifestation of structure in bilingual speech or writing. They are targeted at one specific type of language interaction, namely intersentential classic code-switching as produced by bilinguals in a stable linguistic environment. Classic code-switching is characterized as the interaction of two languages which are represented as clearly distinct grammatical systems in the speaker’s mind. Before a model or a set of 20  In terms of Minimalist grammar, early system morphemes would be relevant for the interpretation of Logical Form at the syntax-semantics interface and late system morphemes would be relevant for the interpretation of Phonetic Form at the syntax-phonology interface.

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constraints is chosen to be tested against a dataset, it is essential to establish whether the model is actually appropriate for the type of data to be investigated. While it might be interesting to apply the MLF model to different kinds of bilingual speech for comparative reasons, unsatisfactory results might be due to the choice of the dataset rather than shortcomings of the model. In order to establish which type of bilingual data one is dealing with, I recommend Muysken’s typology of language mixing (Muysken 2000). Muysken states that a particular constraint may hold only for a particular type of language mixing. Interestingly enough, over time I have noticed quite a number of researchers siding strongly either with Muysken or with Myers-Scotton. I do not see the two approaches as contradicting each other in any fundamental way. Their goals are clearly different: Myers-Scotton is concerned with the structural constraints on classic code-switching, whereas Muysken describes different kinds of language-­ mixing phenomena in relation to the societies in which they occur. Both see code-switching as a window into fundamental structures of human language, because “what happens in contact phenomena tells us something about how language (with a big L) is organized.” (Myers-Scotton 2002: xi). And this is a running theme—maybe the main point—of my book as well. The second issue I want to address is the need for ‘matrix language’ as a theoretical concept in order to explain and predict code-switching structures. Whereas Myers-Scotton insists that the fundamental principle behind code-switching structures can only be adequately explained with the help of the ML-EL distinction, MacSwan holds that code-switching is one manifestation of human language and therefore no additional grammatical concept is needed to describe and explain its grammar (Null Theory of code-switching). In principle, I agree with MacSwan. Code-switching should not make our theory of language more complex by adding a mechanism that is only needed for code-switching. Making it explicit that monolingual sentences use a matrix language may seem to be complicating the theory. But in fact, a matrix language of the kind proposed by Myers-Scotton and colleagues significantly reduces the complexity of feature checking and hence contributes to the paramount goal of the Minimalist Program, parsimony. Additionally, although theoretically appealing, applying the Null Theory to empirical data confronts the researcher with a practical problem. Like Minimalism, the Null Theory is conceptualized as a program; a research agenda rather than a theory with testable hypotheses (MacSwan 2014: 25). Therefore, it does not offer

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clear constraints or predictions about the (non-)occurrence of particular structures that can be tested on a concrete code-switching dataset. The third issue that has caused misunderstanding and confusion concerns the generative concept of functional heads. There is a large overlap between outsider late system morphemes and the heads of functional projections, but it is not absolute. The reason for this is the assumption within the 4-M-Model that morpheme types are language-specific, depending on the grammatical categories expressed by a concrete morpheme. The head of the inflectional phrase (IP),21 which carries inflectional properties like tense and agreement, matches the late outsider on the finite verb. The head of the determiner phrase (DP) is more problematic.22 For example, the article in English is classified in the 4-M-Model as an early system morpheme because it only carries interpretable features (number, definiteness). Contrarily, an article in German also carries information on gender and case. As case links two syntactic constituents, the article in German is a late outsider.23 Classical Latin does not have an article, but in Medieval Latin the classical demonstrative pronouns are on their way to becoming articles (Beeson 1925: 19), so they can be interpreted either as phrases in the specifier position of the DP or as D heads. Myers-Scotton’s earlier works explicitly deny the determiner as the functional head of NP, stating that “[determiners] are not the functional heads of determiner phrases (DPs)” (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2000: 1060).24 In Jake et al. (2002), the object of the discussion is still the NP, but the term DP is often added in parentheses. In Myers-Scotton and Jake (2015), only DP is used. My own research, whether on modern or on historical data, did not make sense unless the DP was included as a functional projection. Its language-­specific morpheme status under the 4-M-Model makes integrating the MLF model with the Minimalist approach more challenging but also more 21  The inflectional phrase (IP) is the functional phrase above VP.  Its head carries inflectional properties like tense and agreement. The complement of the IP head is the verb phrase, the specifier of IP is the subject of the clause. 22  The DP Hypothesis: “[T]he noun phrase is headed by a functional element (i.e., “nonlexical” category) D, identified with the determiner.” (Abney 1987, abstract) 23  If early and late features are combined in one single morpheme, as is often the case in inflecting languages, the morpheme is assigned to the latest morpheme type. 24  The preface to Contact Linguistics (2002) explains that her first training was geared toward anthropology and sociolinguistics, rather than toward theoretical linguistics. I admit that even for me, who was introduced to generative syntax in my first year at university, accepting the determiner and not the noun as the head of the nominal complex took me a while.

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interesting because it offers opportunities for both sides to test and refine their assumptions about pivotal elements of linguistic structure. In addition to criticism by fellow scholars working on modern oral code-switching, there have also been critical voices concerning the MLF model from scholars working with historical bilingual and multilingual texts. The applicability of the MLF model to historical data has been called into question several times because specific characteristic features of historical code-switching did not seem to fit into the model, for example the occurrence of Latin case markers in mixed constituents inside German ML clauses (McLelland 2004; Auer and Muhamedova 2005). A genuine problem is also the fact that in medieval times, the concept of a standard language was not as prevalent as it is today. In some text types, Middle English, Anglo-Norman, and Medieval Latin are fused to a degree that defies the clear division of languages into ML and EL, which is at the heart of the MLF model.25 The model is not applicable to those texts as it is designed to capture the morphosyntactic regularities of classic code-­ switching and not of fused lects, no matter whether the data is contemporary or historical. Lastly, much of the published work on historical bilingualism pursues sociolinguistic questions which cannot be captured with a structural model. To put these issues in their proper context, the next section (Sect. 2.2) presents the current state of affairs in studies of historical multilingualism.

2.2   Historical Multilingualism and Code-Switching Modern code-switching research has so far mostly ignored historical texts as a possible source of information, either because authors are unaware of the existence of such texts or because they assume that these texts are nothing like the code-switching they normally work on. Therefore, most of the research on historical code-switching has come out of historical linguistics. Historical linguists, however, are rarely also specialists in mod25  In her article about code-intermediate phenomena in one such genre, namely medieval mixed language business texts, Wright (2002: 487) writes: “Concepts such as monolingualism, language purity, uniformity and correctness were absent and, in any case, pragmatically void. By contrast, concepts such as multilingualism, exploitation of material common to more than one language and accommodation (both lexical and grammatical) were essential for successful business practice.”

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ern bilingual studies. So, the two research branches have existed side by side without much interaction. In the following section I want to give a brief overview of the state of the art and the object of studies of historical bilingualism. Its aim  is to highlight unexplored links between historical and contemporary multilingual data and to offer some thoughts on how these can be employed to understand the diachronic trajectory of code-­ switching structures. 2.2.1  Studying Historical Mixed Texts: A Contrastive Overview Over the past years, one of the most frequent comments I have heard when presenting historical data within a modern code-switching framework is: “Historical data are different.” Yes, they are different, in several respects, and these differences clearly need to be taken into account (see Schendl and Wright 2011). And yet, I maintain that there are also parallels which, when explored systematically, enhance our understanding of bilingual speech as well as of fundamental features of human language. Let us start with the differences to show they need not be a barrier to learning from the parallels. The most immediate difference between modern and historical bilingual data is the medium. The vast majority of studies investigating contemporary bilingualism deals with speech data, often transcripts of oral conversations. There are also works on written code-switching (see collection of essays in Sebba 2012), investigating the differences and similarities attributable to the difference in medium, but these are few and far between. However, with the increasing possibility of gathering and analyzing social media content, research into written forms of language mixing has been gaining traction (e.g. Androutsopoulos 2013; Barasa 2016). Investigations of historical bilingualism are limited to written resources. When you first look at the literature, it is easy to think that there are many historical texts suitable for a structural investigation of code-switching patterns.26 However, at a second glance, you are very likely to find out that what is 26  Schendl (1996: 53) offers the following list of text types that include mixed texts for the Middle English and Early Modern English periods: “(a) Among the non-literary mixed texts […] we find: (i) sermons (ME, EModE); (ii) other religious prose texts (ME); (iii) legal texts (ME, EModE); (iv) medical texts (ME, EModE); (v) business accounts (ME, EModE); (vi) ‘private’ prose such as letters and diaries (EModE); (b) the main literary sources are (i) mixed or ‘macaronic’ poems (ME, EModE); (ii) longer verse pieces (ME, EModE); (iii) drama (ME); (iv) various prose texts (ME).”

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labeled as “bilingual text” is most often not the intimate mixture of languages you expect if you are looking for classic code-switching. There are very interesting historical and diachronic studies investigating parallel translations, glosses in Latin texts, or highly formulaic texts with predictable text elements in one or the other language. Of course, some of these, especially the last type, are clear instantiations of code-switching. However, in formulaic texts like court records or bounds, the switches are mostly intersentential, that is at sentence boundaries. The proportion of intrasentential code-switching in these text types is close to zero. So just as with modern code-switching, it is essential to first establish what kinds of bilingual text are available before making any decision about the tools and methods for analyzing them. If the focus lies on the morphosyntactic structure of modern and historical mixed language clauses, texts containing a significant amount of intrasentential code-switching are needed. As the number of historical texts with intrasentential code-switching is quite limited, it might not be surprising that research into historical bilingualism has so far focused primarily on other texts and text types, searching the data for clues to the social and pragmatic meaning of language contact. Nevertheless, there are also a small number of studies relating historical texts to modern code-switching and grammatical theory. These will be discussed in the remainder of this section. One of the crucial claims of the MLF model is that in mixed constituents, morphemes expressing case and agreement can only come from the ML of the clause. However, a common feature of historical texts mixing Latin with a vernacular seems to be the occasional occurrence of Latin EL case markers. This observation has led McLelland (2004) as well as Auer and Muhamedova (2005) to claim that the MLF model is not suitable to account for code-switching structures in texts with Latin as one of the participating languages. They reason that the social prestige of a language, in this case Latin, needs to be taken into account in order to explain the structural characteristics observed in medieval and early modern written code-switching. Consequently, they argue for an approach that includes sociolinguistic variables in addition to purely structural concerns. In his paper “Syntactic constraints on code-switching in medieval texts,” Schendl (2000: 67) addresses the key claim of this book, namely that historical bilingual texts are “important evidence for medieval speech behaviour, but also central data for the theoretical discussion of (possibly universal) syntactic constraints on code-switching.” He continues, stating that “these mixed-language texts deserve detailed linguistic study as the

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only surviving data for codeswitching in early England, even though it is written and not spoken data—but this applies to all medieval linguistic data alike” (Schendl 2000: 68). His paper advocates a systematic comparison of modern and historical data, which should help to test the descriptive adequacy and predictive force of theoretical models and to establish details concerning the diachronic stability and variation of code-switching patterns (Schendl 2000: 70). On the basis of one sermon from the collection in MS Bodley 649 and a number of fifteenth-century poems, he concludes that neither Poplack’s equivalence constraint (1980) nor the government constraint by Di Sciullo et al. (1986) seem to hold for the data, in contrast to the MLF constraints, which appear to license all the structures in his dataset. With respect to frequency Schendl finds differences between modern and historical data as well as between the different historical text types. These seem more probably attributable to medium and text type than to a genuine difference between code-switching constraints then and now. He concludes: “The small number of exceptional switching patterns do not so far justify any claim that medieval syntactic switching patterns were—on the abstract level of syntactic constituents— fundamentally different from those in modern speech” (Schendl 2000: 82). Since then Schendl has published several more papers on the topic of historical code-switching in relation to modern code-switching and grammatical theory. Halmari and Regetz (2011) present a study which is very similar to the two case studies in Chap. 3. They analyze mixed phrases from MS Bodley 649, a collection of Middle English and Latin mixed sermons, in terms of the MLF model. They conclude that the mixed phrases in MS Bodley 649 all obey the constraints proposed by the MLF model. However, their target structures are limited to Middle English insertions into Latin. Consequently, structures like mixed DPs containing Latin EL outsiders, which would immediately challenge the predictive force of the MLF model, are not considered. Keller (2017) contains a pilot study on adjectives in MS Bodley 649. It concludes that the MLF model is applicable to the data, but that some peculiarities like the frequent embedding of bare English EL adjectives and Latin EL case markers are features which distinguish the sermons from code-switching pattern commonly found in modern corpora. The findings presented in this paper are based only on Horner’s edition (2006) and thus do not verify whether the morphological details actually occur in this form in the MS. As one aim of this book is to advocate the inclusion

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of original manuscripts in studies of historical code-switching, the following sub-section points out some of the most common challenges of working with mixed language historical manuscripts. 2.2.2  Challenges of Mixed Language Manuscripts This section is aimed at readers who are not yet familiar with the specific challenges that working with often unedited historical sources pose to the researcher. A first challenge is that many medieval texts do not come with any direct information about their author or scribe. A sociolinguistic analysis, which normally includes metadata concerning the speaker/writer’s background, would have to remain speculative, as it would have to draw solely on textual clues. Furthermore, written text is in some ways not as rich as a recoding or a good transcript; for example, it does not contain any auditory clues. These can be very helpful for deciding whether a word is a fully integrated loanword or a nonce-borrowing (if you want to make this distinction at all). On the contrary, when transcribing oral recordings for a linguistic analysis, many subjective decisions need to be made during the transcription process, and inter-rater reliability often varies for items that are crucial for the analysis. With a written text, these issues do not arise. However, many medieval texts are preserved only as copies. The originals were lost a long time ago, and the copies are handwritten by different people, with different language skills and different intentions. As medieval manuscripts can be hard to decipher, it is tempting to rely on editions. If these are created by an experienced specialist, they can offer valuable explanations and background information. However, an edition is always an interpretation, and the decisions an editor makes when collating material from different copies for the preparation of a critical edition often run counter to the needs of a linguist.27 To illustrate the potential pitfalls, even without including any language mixing yet, (1) shows the first lines of the sermon Amore langueo as edited and translated in Wenzel (1994: 214). The edition uses Balliol MS 149 as its base text and three other copies of the same sermon to fill in gaps or to resolve ambiguities (Oxford Magdalen MS 93, Cambridge University Library MS Kk.4.24, and Dublin Trinity MS 277). The sermon begins with the theme of the 27  For example, for a structural linguistic investigation, a diplomatic edition where expansions of abbreviations are made visible would be more helpful than a standard edition where all abbreviations, especially for Latin, are silently expanded.

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Fig. 2.1  Abbreviations in Medieval manuscripts (Balliol MS 149, detail from f. 31r)

sermon and a reference to a bible verse, followed by an opening sentence that leads the congregation into the sermon (1). (1) Amore langueo, Canticorum 2 capitulo. Prolatiue potest dici sic. Karissimi, sicut manifeste vide[tis], in isto themate nonsunt nisi tantum duo verba, et in vtroque verbo sunt tantum tres sillabe. I languish with love, Song of Solomon, chapter 2. By way of a preview, we may say as follows. Dearly beloved, as you clearly see, in this theme are but two words, and in each word are but three syllables.

Comparing the edition to the corresponding lines from the copy of the sermon held by Balliol College, Oxford (Fig. 2.1) shows why reference to the original MS is mandatory for understanding and assessing the morphological detail in a linguistic analysis. Medieval Latin is often heavily abbreviated, mostly in a systematic way. An editor usually expands these abbreviations according to a standard scheme, but depending on the neatness of the hand this requires experience and creative thinking. (2a) and (2b) show the differences between copies in Balliol MS 149 and Magdalen MS 93. (2) a. p(ro) latiue potest dici sic k(arissimi), sic(ut) ma(n)ifeste videntes in i(sto) themate non sunt n(isi) t(antu)m duo verba & in vtro(que) verbo sunt t(antu)m tres sillabe. (Balliol MS 149, f. 31r) b. p(ro)batine potest dici k(arissimi) sicut manifeste videtis in isto themate non sunt nisi duo v(er)ba. in vtroq(ue) v(er)bo sunt t(antu)m t(re)s sillabe. (Magdalen MS 93, f. 152r)

As this book is less about editing and more about the need for looking at the original manuscripts, I only want to point out one last detail: the first

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word of the address to the congregation. This word shows that the scribes or copyists produced several interpretations, ranging from prolatiue to probatine to pro latine. They all make some sense, and none is obviously right or wrong. Wenzel (1994) carefully noted this observation and similar ones in his edition. But then, who looks at all the footnotes in an edition? And who still uses printed books instead of easily accessible and searchable digital versions? These simple yet relevant questions lead to the last challenge I want to mention here: computational methods, which are increasingly popular in the humanities. With the steady increase in possibilities for optical character recognition (OCR) and automatic annotation, it is tempting to assume that with the right tools a medieval manuscript could be converted into a digital file, faithfully rendering all the features of the original. However, the amount of work that at this point in time has to go into preprocessing even edited bilingual data should not be underestimated. Just like creating a transcript from an oral recording or a critical edition of a text, it requires many subjective decisions. Also, during the normalization process necessary for using tools like lemmatizers, dictionaries, or language identifiers for bilingual texts, crucial paleographic details are lost. Furthermore, historical text collections, especially those containing intrasentential code-switching, are not large enough to allow for machine learning algorithms to produce reliable results (see Schulz and Keller 2016). Hence, despite the progress that is currently under way in the field of digital humanities, working with original manuscripts is currently the most reliable approach to historical mixed data. 2.2.3  Exploring the Diachronic Trajectory of Code-Switching Historical bilingualism has become a thriving research area over the past 20 years, just as studies in modern code-switching and related bilingual phenomena are still a highly active research area. However, there has been very little interaction or mutual inspiration. Generally, linguistics has become a vast field of research with many different branches. With the expanding possibilities for psycholinguistic experimenting, computational processing of natural language, and increasingly elaborate theoretical models, it is hard to keep track of all the developments in synchronic linguistics, especially if your research focus is primarily historical. Conversely, many students of synchronic linguistics are not exposed to historical data to a degree that would enable them to analyze Early English texts, espe-

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cially unedited manuscripts which require paleographic skills that are not part of a standard curriculum in linguistics. The trend for increasingly narrow research areas is ubiquitous. The amount of new publications even within a small research field is steadily growing, and it is hard to keep up to date even within one’s own academic comfort zone. However, I am convinced that interdisciplinarity can be more than just a trendy word, and that collaboration between related fields of linguistics can significantly increase our understanding of the nature of human language. Mutual awareness of research questions, data, methods, and findings between modern code-switching and historical bilingualism can only benefit all parties involved. Furthermore, a theory of language in general, which is the goal of the Minimalist Program, should hold up against any type of data, modern and historical. If it does not, we might have reason to rethink and refine certain details. Accordingly, a theory of code-switching, like the MLF model, can only gain in precision and credibility if it stands the test of historical data. Also, understanding the characteristics of code-­switching in a diachronic dimension can reveal new insight into language change, highlighting the elements that are variable under contact as well as those that are most resistant to change. Lastly, including the sociolinguistic factors that lead to specific formal characteristics of language mixing can help to reveal which features of code-switching and bilingualism are dependent on particular languages and sociohistorical settings, and which features are general and invariant. Muysken makes it very clear that he sees code-switching as a manifestation of general linguistic principles and no separate model of code-­ switching should be necessary. However, the challenge is “to account for the patterns found in terms of general properties of the grammar” (Muysken 2000: 3). I share the view that code-switching offers a window into basic elements and processes underlying human language as an abstract system, and that “[b]ilingual data provide some of the variation necessary to test what is central to language and what is more peripheral.” (Jake et al. 2002: 86). I personally find it intriguing to use mixed language data as a touchstone for general principles of human language. However, as there is still so little agreement as to what these universal, maybe innate, principles are, for the time being I think it is reasonable to work within a model that makes clear predictions, like the MLF model. In the light of the theoretical and practical considerations laid out earlier, the following chapter illustrates on the basis of a collection of Latin and Middle English mixed sermons how the MLF model can be applied to historical data.

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References Abney, Steven P. (1987). The English Noun Phrase in Its Sentential Aspect. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics. Cambridge, MA: MIT University, Dissertation. Adger, David (2003). Core Syntax: A Minimalist Approach. Oxford University Press. Androutsopoulos, Jannis (2013). Code-Switching in Computer-Mediated Communication. In Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication, edited by Susan Herring, Dieter Stein, and Tuija Virtanen, 667–694. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. Auer, Peter (1995). The Pragmatics of Code-Switching: A Sequential Approach. In One Speaker—Two Languages: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on CodeSwitching, edited by Lesley Milroy and Pieter Muysken, 115–135. New York: Cambridge University Press. Auer, Peter, ed. (1998). Code-Switching in Conversation: Language, Interaction and Identity. London: Routledge. Auer, Peter, and Raihan Muhamedova (2005). ‘Embedded Language’ and ‘Matrix Language’ in Insertional Language Mixing: Some Problematic Cases. Italian Journal of Linguistics 17(1): 35–54. Barasa, Sandra (2016). Spoken Code-Switching in Written Form? Manifestation of Code-Switching in Computer Mediated Communication. Journal of Language Contact 9(1): 49–70. Beeson, Charles Henry (1925). A Primer of Mediaeval Latin. An Anthology of Prose and Verse. Chicago, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company. Belazi, Hedi M., Edward J. Rubin, and Almeida Jacqueline Toribio (1994). Code Switching and X-Bar Theory: The Functional Head Constraint. Linguistic Inquiry 25(2): 221–237. Bentahila, Abdelai, and Eirlys E.  Davies (1983). The Syntax of Arabic-French Code-Switching. Lingua 59: 301–330. Bussmann, Hadumod (2006). Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics. London: Routledge. Di Sciullo, Anna Maria, Pieter Muysken, and Rajendra Singh (1986). Government and Code-Mixing. Journal of Linguistics 22(1): 1–24. Dussias, Paola E., and Ellen H. Courtney (1994). Que Es Un Good Code-Switch? Testing the Functional Head Constraint within Noun Phrases. The Arizona Working Papers in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching 2: 1–13. Ehinger, Anja, and Elsa Lattey (unpublished). ‘M-Because-Ähm Weil/Nee, Ich Will Ja Nich Englisch Sprechen’: Some Effects of Multilingualism on Speech Planning and Production. University of Tübingen, unpublished manuscript. Gardner-Chloros, Penelope (2009). Code-Switching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibbons, John (1987). Code-Mixing and Code Choice: A Hong Kong Case Study. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

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Giles, Howard, and Tania Ogay (2007). Communication Accommodation Theory. In Explaining Communication: Contemporary Theories and Exemplars, edited by Brian B.  Whaley and Wendy Samter, 293–310. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Halmari, Helena, and Timothy Regetz (2011). Syntactic Aspects of CodeSwitching in Oxford, MS Bodley 649. In Code-Switching in Early English, edited by Herbert Schendl and Laura Wright, 115–154. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Horner, Patrick (2006). A Macaronic Sermon Collection from Late Medieval England: Oxford, MS Bodley 649. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Jake, Janice L., Carol Myers-Scotton, and Steven Gross (2002). Making a Minimalist Approach to Codeswitching Work: Adding the Matrix Language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 5(1): 69–91. Jake, Janice L., Carol Myers-Scotton, and Steven Gross (2005). A Response to MacSwan (2005): Keeping the Matrix Language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 8(3): 271–276. Keller, Mareike (2017). Code-Switched Adjectives in Macaronic Sermons. In Studies in Language Variation and Change 2: Shifts and Turns in the History of English, edited by Elise Louviot and Catherine Delesse, 197–216. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Kootstra, Gerrit Jan (2015). A Psycholinguistic Perspective on Code-Switching: Lexical, Structural, and Socio-Interactive Processes. In Code-Switching Between Structural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, 39–64. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. Levelt, Willem J.  M. (1989). Speaking: From Intention to Articulation. Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. MacSwan, Jeff (1999). A Minimalist Approach to Intrasentential Code Switching. New York: Garland. MacSwan, Jeff (2005a). Codeswitching and Generative Grammar: A Critique of the MLF Model and Some Remarks on ‘Modified Minimalism’. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 8(1): 1–22. MacSwan, Jeff (2005b). Remarks on Jake, Myers-Scotton and Gross’s Response: There Is No ‘Matrix Language’. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 8(3): 277–284. MacSwan, Jeff, ed. (2014). Grammatical Theory and Bilingual Codeswitching. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. McLelland, Nicola (2004). A Historical Study of Codeswitching in Writing: German and Latin in Schottelius’ Ausführliche Arbeit von Der Teutschen HaubtSprache (1663). International Journal of Bilingualism 8(4): 499–523. Muysken, Pieter (2000). Bilingual Speech: A Typology of Code-Mixing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Myers-Scotton, Carol (1997). Duelling Languages: Grammatical Structure in Codeswitching. Oxford: Clarendon. Myers-Scotton, Carol (2002). Contact Linguistics: Bilingual Encounters and Grammatical Outcomes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Myers-Scotton, Carol, and Janice Jake (2000). Four Types of Morpheme: Evidence from Aphasia, Code Switching, and Second-Language Acquisition. Linguistics 38(6): 1053–1100. Myers-Scotton, Carol, and Janice Jake (2009). A Universal Model of CodeSwitching and Bilingual Language Processing and Production. In The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Code-Switching, edited by Barbara E. Bullock and Almeida Jacqueline Toribio, 336–357. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Myers-Scotton, Carol, and Janice Jake (2015). Cross-Language Asymmetries in Code-Switching Patterns: Implications for Bilingual Language Production. In The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Processing, edited by John W. Schwieter, 416–458. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Myers-Scotton, Carol, and Janice Jake (2017). Revisiting the 4-M Model: Codeswitching and Morpheme Election at the Abstract Level. International Journal of Bilingualism 21(3): 340–366. Paul, Hermann (1920). Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. Halle a.S.: Niemeyer. Poplack, Shana (1980). Sometimes I’ll Start a Sentence in Spanish Y TERMINO EN ESPAÑOL: Toward a Typology of Code-Switching. Linguistics 18(7– 8): 581–618. Poplack, Shana (2018). Borrowing: Loanwords in the Speech Community and in the Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rubin, Edward J., and Almeida Jacqueline Toribio (1995). Feature-Checking and the Syntax of Language Contact. In Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, edited by Jon Amastae, Grant Goodall, M. Montalbetti, and M. Phinney, 177–185. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Schendl, Herbert (1996). Text Types and Code-Switching in Medieval and End Early Modern English. Vienna English Working PaperS (VIEWS) 5: 50–62. Schendl, Herbert (2000). Syntactic Constraints on Code-Switching in Medieval Texts. In Placing Middle English in Context, edited by Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen, Päivi Pahta, and Matti Rissanen, 67–85. Berlin and New York: Mouton De Gruyter. Schendl, Herbert (2002). Mixed-Language Texts as Data and Evidence in English Historical Linguistics. In Studies in the History of the English Language. A Millennial Perspective, edited by Donka Minkova and Robert Stockwell, 51–78. Berlin and New York: Mouton De Gruyter. Schendl, Herbert, and Laura Wright (2011). Historical Background and Methodological and Theoretical Issues. In Code-Switching in Early English, edited by Herbert Schendl and Laura Wright, 15–45. Berlin: De Gruyter.

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Schulz, Sarah, and Mareike Keller (2016). Code-Switching Ubique Est—Language Identification and Part-of-Speech Tagging for Historical Mixed Text. In Proceedings of the 10th SIGHUM Workshop on Language Technology for Cultural Heritage, Social Sciences, and Humanities, 43–51. Berlin: Association for Computational Linguistics. Sebba, Mark, Shahrzad Mahootian, and Carla Jonsson, eds. (2012). Language Mixing and Code-Switching in Writing. Approaches to Mixed-Language Written Discourse. New York: Routledge. Thomason, Sarah Grey, and Terrence Kaufman (1988). Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Toribio, Almeida Jacqueline (2017). Structural Approaches to Code-Switching: Research Then and Now. In Selected Papers from the 45th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Campinas, Brazil, edited by Ruth E.V. Lopez, Juanito Ornelas de Avelar, and Sonia M.L. Cyrino, 213–234. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Wenzel, Siegfried (1994). Macaronic Sermons: Bilingualism and Preaching in Late-Medieval England. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Wright, Laura (1999). Mixed-Language Business Writing: Five Hundred Years of Code-Switching. In Language Change: Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, edited by Ernst Hakon Jahr, 99–118. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Wright, Laura (2002). Code-Intermediate Phenomena in Medieval MixedLanguage Business Texts. Language Sciences 24: 471–489. Wright, Laura (2011). On Variation in Medieval Mixed-Language Business Writing. In Code-Switching in Early English, edited by Herbert Schendl and Laura Wright, 191–218. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

CHAPTER 3

Early English Code-Switching

Abstract  In the light of the theoretical and practical considerations laid out in Chap. 2, this chapter illustrates on the basis of a collection of Latin and Middle English mixed sermons (MS Bodley 649) from early fourteenth-­ century England how the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model can be applied to historical data. Two parallel studies, one on noun phrases and one on verb phrases, provide an insight into the code-­switching patterns found in the sermons, with a focus on the differences and similarities between modern and historical code-switching. The first study shows which aspects of code-switching grammar are conditioned by the immediate sociohistorical environment and which features are typical of language mixing as a naturally occurring, general linguistic competence. The second study shows that even though individual languages are subject to continuous change, the pivotal grammatical anchor elements underlying most of the observed code-switching patterns remain surprisingly stable through the centuries. Keywords  Code-switching • Sermons • Latin • Middle English • Language change The goal of this chapter is to show examples of historical code-switching (CS) and to illustrate what can be gained from combining modern, data-driven code-switching theory with historical data in a systematic © The Author(s) 2020 M. L. Keller, Code-Switching, New Approaches to English Historical Linguistics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34667-6_3

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way. To this end, two case studies are presented which are meant to complement each other. The first study examines mixing patterns within and around the noun phrase, whereas the second one discusses mixing patterns inside the verb phase. The Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model serves as the theoretical foundation on which the line of argument is built. The case studies presented here are based primarily on a collection of mixed Middle English and Latin sermons in MS Bodley 649. Additionally, the mixed sermon Amore Langueo, preserved in four different copies (Oxford Balliol MS 149, Oxford Magdalen MS 93, Cambridge University Library MS Kk.4.24, and Dublin Trinity MS 277) is used to add information about variation introduced through copying, and to point out some paleographic features relevant to a thorough analysis of bilingual data. All original manuscripts were consulted to guarantee paleographic accuracy.

3.1   Mixed Language Sermons As described in Sect. 2.2.1, it is not easy to find a text type or even a single text from Early English containing a significant amount of intrasentential code-switching. The last part of one very long bilingual sentence from a mixed language sermon in MS Bodley 649 (f. 21v; Horner 2006: 109) given in Table 3.1 illustrates that not every instance of code-switching falls under the MLF constraints—not even every instance of intrasentential code-switching. Table 3.1  Intersentential code-switching and EL islands (MS Bodley 649, f. 21v) ML Clause

Type

1

L

Monolingual CP

2

L

3

E

4

L

5

E

(…) in tremendo iudicio Christus non appareat illi solum Helias set eciam Moises, non tantum demonstret ei his vtmast rigur but medle his mercy cum iusticia clamat sibi toto corde et dicit, “Domine, adiuua me,” sicut I tok to my prechynge

Bilingual CP with English EL island as direct object Bilingual CP with Latin EL island as prepositional object (preposition + ablative) Monolingual CPs with subordinate CP as clausal complement Bilingual CP with EL adverbial

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In this short sequence, we have five clauses, Clauses 1 and 4 are monolingual complementizer phrases (CPs), one of them Latin and one English. As the language switch here is between clauses and not within, they constitute instances of intersentential CS and are thus not subject to any code-­ switching constraints. Three clauses are mixed, two with English as the ML, one with Latin as the ML. Clauses 2 and 3 each contain an Embedded Language (EL) island, that is a full constituent in the embedded language. The clauses are mixed, but as all maximal projections are in themselves monolingual, the MLF constraints do not apply to them either. Clause 5 has English as its ML and contains a clause-initial Latin EL adverbial. It follows both MLF constraints as all outsiders and the word order are in accordance with the grammar of Middle English. Even if the example only provides one fairly commonplace and theoretically unrevealing instance of code-switching that can be used to test the predictions of the MLF model, most sermons in MS Bodley 649 contain several examples of more intricate language mixing.1 Moreover, sermons are a suitable text type for an investigation of language-mixing patterns for several reasons. First, sermons are generally intended to be preached. Thus their rhetorical structure is closer to oral language than, for instance the structure of a bond or a business account, both of which are written to preserve information and agreements in writing. Second, artful preaching includes, for example, the use of parallel constructions as well as repetition of key words and phrases. These are helpful for structural investigations because there are several instantiations of the same structure filled with different words and the same words recurring in different structures. For example, in sermon 25 (Horner 2006: 525–27), rotating on a wheel is used as a metaphor for life (1 a–e). (1) a. Quidam ar qwirlid vp subito super illam rotam (l. 136–137) b. Quidam ar hurlid doun de ista rota (l. 138) c. Mury hit were rotari super rotam (l. 146) d. Sublimiter rotabatur ipse super rotam honoris (l. 162) e. He hath be qwirlid super rotam honoris (l. 176)

This variation inside similar structures highlights recurring patterns, and it also helps to recognize set phrases, which behave differently to free 1  In contrast, the sermons edited in O’Mara (2002) contain almost exclusively intersentential mixes, mostly in the form of translated bible quotes.

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c­ ombinations of words in code-switching (see Backus 2006, Keller 2014). Third, many sermons were copied, and thus show interesting variation not only within one text but also between copies. Despite all the information we have about preaching and sermon composition in fourteenth-century England, we can still only speculate as to why one set of sermons in MS Bodley 649 was written down in a mixture of Latin and Middle English. Considering the fact that monolingual Latin sermons were still produced at the time, Wenzel (1994: 12) asks: Why, then, do we have these strangely mixed texts that linguistically are neither fish nor fowl? Did their authors or copyists perhaps lack alertness or intellectual vigor to write well in one or the other medium instead of slipping back and forth between them? Or were the men who produced these sermons so thoroughly bilingual, in both their written and spoken practice, that these mixed texts might have formed a natural linguistic medium for them?

The structure of many of the mixed passages suggests that the sermon authors were well aware of their own language switching. Many of the language mixing patterns in the sermons undoubtedly serve a rhetorical function, for example the repetition of words and parallel structures in (2): (2) Adiuua nos primo de tua sciencia in peril of þe see þat we periche not in þe flodis of vicious leuynge; adiuua nos secundo de tua omnipotencia in peril of wilde bestis þat þai slee vs not with mouth of malicius spekinge; set pro tercio, adiuua nos in peril of thefes þat þai spolie vs not of gode hope at oure last endinge. (f. 22r) Help us first by your knowledge that in the dangerous sea we do not perish in the floods of vicious living; help us second by your power that dangerous wild beasts do not slay us with the mouth of malicious speaking; and third, help us that dangerous thieves do not despoil us of good hope at our final ending. (Horner 2006: 109)

In (2) the theme of the sermon, Domine, adiuua me (“Lord, help me”), is expanded, the invocation is repeated three times in Latin, and the specific dangers that the audience needs saving from are supplied in English. This structure suggests rhetorical training and careful preparation rather than spontaneous language mixing. Similarly, the sermons often include little verses in the vernacular which summarize the theme. In modern

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­editions (Wenzel 1994; Horner 2006) these are set off from the rest of the text (3): (3) Vt ista ergo obprobria cedant nobis ad salutem anime, facies sibi istam oracionem: Lorde, blessed be þi name. For me þou suffred dispite and schame. As þou art ful of grace, The to serue gyfe me space. Tertium signum amoris languentis est quod qui languet ex amore se subtrahit a societate, quia nulla est sibi societas nisi tantum illius quem sic amat. Isto modo Christus ys alone, quia nullus cum eo remansit. MS Balliol 149, f. 35v (Wenzel 1994: 246)

Before I looked at the original pages of MS Balliol 149, I assumed that the verses were set off in the same or a similar way in the sermons. I had seen other mixed manuscripts that did this, and that sometimes even used a different color of ink for setting off verses. The verses were barely relevant for my research because they are their own little other-language islands, which are thematically, but not grammatically, connected to the surrounding text. But inspired by a workshop on visual pragmatics in historical mixed texts, I became curious and looked for the verses. The sight was unexpected (Fig. 3.1). In the manuscript, there is no indication of the text being bilingual, nor of it containing a little English verse in the middle of the Latin sermon prose. This shows that this sermon copy was not created to flaunt bilingual competence in writing. Instead, it suggests that the authors or scribes were fluent bilinguals, some maybe more fluent in English and others in Latin or in the language of their home country. This assumption is further ­supported by paragraphs of intricate code-switching of the kind ­commonly

Fig. 3.1  Vernacular verse in mixed language sermon. (Balliol MS 149, detail from f. 35v)

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observed in spontaneous oral code-switching as well as in bilingual writing not intended for publication (4). (4) Et vere non mirum, quia anterior pars fere submergitur in voragine auaricie and in synful wynnynge, pars posterior is al to-hurlid vento superbie and of hy beringe, et corpus nauis is nee ouerwelmyt with þe wawis luxurie, of lustis and of likinge. And indeed it is no wonder that the front part is almost submerged in the whirlpool of greed in and sinful gain, the back part is all tossed about by the wind of pride and by haughty appearance, and the body of the ship is almost submerged in the waves of luxury, of cravings and of pleasure.  (Horner 2006: 108–109)

The rhetorical structure of (4), which is characteristic of this type of sermon, is clearly visible. But in contrast to example (3), it does not correspond to the switch sites. Medieval sermons were probably not written down exactly in the form that they were preached, but Wenzel (2005: 19) comments that some elements in the sermons (e.g. direct address of the audience or rhetorical questions) “may indeed reflect actual preaching quite closely.” Historical bilingual texts showing this kind of intricate language mixing are often labeled as “macaronic” in reference books (library catalogs, sermon registers) and scholarly writing. The term was adopted from a specific type of bilingual poetry which consciously employs Latin inflections to achieve a comic effect.2 In macaronic poetry, language mixing is a stylistic device. According to Demo (2018: 34), a crucial feature of macaronic Latin is a substantial number of hybrid words—vernacular words with Latin inflections—as illustrated in (6). (6) Jungfras weibrasque singam, quae possunt corpore schoeno Et wortis blickisque behexere menschulos jungos.3 (Anonymous, Frauias, 1–7, as cited in Demo 2018: 37)

Hybrid words feature only marginally in mixed sermons like those in MS Bodley 649 or MS Balliol 149. They are also only rarely observed in 2  “Macaronic, originally, comic Latin verse form characterized by the introduction of vernacular words with appropriate but absurd Latin endings” (https://www.britannica.com/ art/macaronic). See Demo (2014) for a scholarly discussion of the term macaronic. 3  [Translation MK: Virgins and wives are singing, who with their beautiful bodies, words, and glances can charm young people.]

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Luther’s Table Talk, a large collection of seventeenth-century mixed language transcripts of theological discussions between Martin Luther and his followers. Thus the most characteristic feature of macaronic poetry does not appear to be a hallmark of historical mixed prose. Contrarily, the morphology in the sermons is very similar to classic code-switching as described and defined by Myers-Scotton. Because of this theoretically significant difference, I would rather not call the sermons macaronic, just mixed. However, the reader should keep in mind that the term macaronic is recognized widely as a cover term for historical language mixing, so if you search for literature concerning historical mixed texts, the keyword “macaronic” is quite likely to help tracking down useful information. The collection of mixed language sermons in MS Bodley 649, which is the basis for the studies presented later in this chapter, is preserved as a unique copy.4 Based on names and events mentioned in the sermons, Wenzel (2005: 85) estimates the date of composition of the original between 1415 and 1421. The bound collection consists of i +  216  +  ii leaves of parchment, with one quire missing. The first set (f. 1–133; Wenzel 2005: 84) contains 23 mixed and two purely Latin sermons. Only the mixed sermons are considered here. The MS is written in one hand in cursive Anglicana/Secretary. The specific brown color of the ink suggests that the MS was written at Oxford University (Horner 2006: 3). Figure 3.2 shows one page from MS Bodley 649, sermon 4 (Domine, adiuua me). Thematically the sermons revolve around sin and repentance, as most of them were created for the Lent season (Wenzel 2005: 84). They show that their author was a good rhetorician with conservative Catholic views: In addition to their linguistic interest, these texts reveal a highly skilled practitioner of the scholastic sermon, a staunch defender of traditional religious belief and practice (especially in the roles of clergy and laity), one who is capable of rhetorical flourishes aimed at spiritual conversion but who also bluntly and repeatedly attacks the Lollards as the cause of evil in England and jingoistically celebrates King Henry V as the heaven-sent deliverer of the Church and the realm. (Horner 2006, preface)

4  Versions of sermons 5, 12, 15, and 19 also appear in MS Laud misc. 706, dated about 50 years later. Wenzel (2005: 85–86) comments that MS Bodley 649 is older but MS Laud misc. 706 has text where MS Bodley 649 has empty spaces, which suggests that MS Laud misc. 706 is not a copy of MS Bodley 649 but that both are copies of a common ancestor. For a more detailed description of the MS and its possible origin, see Horner (2006: 3–6).

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Fig. 3.2  Medieval Latin and Middle English mixed sermon. (MS Bodley 649, f. 23r)

Based on the forms of address in the mixed sermons, Wenzel (2005: 85) suggests that the audience to whom the sermons were delivered consisted of both clergy and laypeople, who, in a university setting like Oxford, would have had a good command of Latin.5 5  The two entirely Latin sermons in the first set have different topics and are most likely addressed exclusively to the clergy (Wenzel 2005: 85).

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With medieval manuscripts we often do not have the kind of metadata that we expect from a study of modern code-switching. In most cases, information about the author or scribe has been lost (see Owst 1965). In the case of MS Bodley 649, the preacher who actually delivered the sermons might have been John Paunteley, a Benedictine monk trained at Oxford (Horner 2006: 6  +  preface) and later working at St. Peter’s in Gloucester (Briggs 2016: 306). According to the Oxford Statute 1432, Oxford preachers had to hand in written copies of their sermons for the theology students within a week of the delivery (Owst 1965: 234). This suggests that a sermon might only have been written out in detail after it had been delivered. Wenzel (1994: 160, 2005: 84) suggests that the scribe who wrote down the sermons in MS Bodley 649 could have been a John Swetstock, about whom nothing further is known.6 As the sermon collection bears clear marks of copying, it is justified to assume that the person who copied them was not the author. This could be taken as grounds to discard the texts as corrupt, too corrupt perhaps to offer any reliable insight into code-switching structures. However, some of the most interesting information on bilingual processing—which in my view is highly relevant for the interpretation of code-switching patterns—can be gained from hesitations, slips of the tongue, and reformulations. I see the errors and corrections in a written text as definitely different in origin but as similar in value for understanding the process of bilingual text creation. In the MS we find several types of corrections, apparently all by the same scribe. Words or phrases are expunctuated (7) during writing, or scratched out (8) at a later point, leaving an empty space with visible scratch marks: (7) Quilibet attendat ad istam f̣ạḅụḷạṃ flebilem historia(m). (f. 53r) (8) obstinati fuerint in malicia [ scratch marks ] ad exemplum aliorum. (f. 13r)

In (8), the context in addition to the scratch marks, tells us that there is no text missing. More frequent, however, are lines with empty spaces but without scratch marks (Fig. 3.3). Here, the scribe has left space with the intention of filling in words later. The context shows that the sentence is incomplete. Furthermore, words can be accidentally duplicated. I assume

6  F. 48r shows the abbreviation “q(uod) Io S” at the end of sermon 7 (f. 48r). According to one of Haines’ sources (1972: 144), the full name was found on f. 8 but has now faded so much that it cannot be verified. Maybe modern spectroscopy could be of help here.

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Fig. 3.3  Intentional empty space in medieval manuscript. (MS Bodley 649, detail from f. 23r)

we have all produced sentences like (9) and maybe even submitted them for publication without noticing the mistake: (9) Be þou neuer so seke so seke quod langues in mortali lecto. (f. 52v)

Details like these might seem trivial, but in my opinion they are essential for understanding the exact make-up of a text as well as the importance of consulting the original MS in addition to an edition. An editor tries first of all to make the text accessible. He or she may decide to add or omit details for the sake of clarity. In most cases this is very helpful for understanding the message of a text, as well as its macrostructure. But in some instances it can skew the results of a linguistic analysis. Take for example the following sentence from Horner’s edition (10a): (10a) Si vis nauigare sauelich in istis maribus et euadere hec pericula (Horner 2006: 521)

On looking at the MS (10b), we find that the verb nauigare is missing and that many of the words contain regular medieval abbreviations, expanded here in brackets: (10b) Si vis sauelich i(n) ist(is) marib(us). et euad(er)e h(ec) p(er)icula (f. 129r)

As is his job, the editor has filled in the missing word to the best of his knowledge and indicated in a footnote that the word is missing from the MS. If you work with the edition very carefully, you will notice the footnote and handle the clause accordingly. However, if a concordance tool or more sophisticated software is used to extract target structures, the footnote might easily get disconnected from the target word, and the findings will be skewed. Furthermore, example (4) shows that many of the ­elements which are crucial for the structural study of mixing patterns are heavily abbreviated in the original and then “streamlined” by editors,

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whose primary intent is an interpretation of the content and not a faithful rendering of each and every slip of the pen or other copying error. The sermons in MS Bodley 649 have been the object of several scholarly publications, either exclusively or in combination with other bilingual texts from medieval England. The earliest ones focus on the content (Owst 1965; Haines 1972). Wenzel (1994) provides an invaluable hand-list of mixed sermons and a typology of language mixing based on linguistic criteria. He focuses on the distribution and function of English elements, a strategy based on the observation that the primary language of the mixed sermons is mostly Latin, which is also the Matrix Language (ML) of most mixed clauses. The sermons he classifies as type c, among them those in MS Bodley 649, are the ones of interest for assessing structural characteristics of historical code-switching. They contain a significant number of English elements which constitute “syntactically integrated parts of bilingual prose sentences” (Wenzel 1994: 22). Wenzel (1994) also contains an edition of sermon 7 from MS Bodley 649. Horner (2006) presents an edition of all 23 mixed sermons in MS Bodley 649, including a modern English translation. Halmari and Regetz (2011) analyze English insertions in ten sermons from MS Bodley 649 in terms of syntactic positions and government relations. As Middle English non-pronominal determiner phrases (DPs) are not inflected for case anymore, there are no EL outsiders that could potentially conflict with the predictions of the MLF model. In my presentation of the data, I am including Latin insertions into a Middle English matrix, because this is where a conflict can be expected, namely Latin EL case markers in English ML clauses.

3.2   Variation Within the Noun Phrase At a first glance, the language distribution inside a mixed DP can seem fairly unpredictable, even if the rhetorical structure is straightforward, as illustrated in (11) (Sermon 9, f. 55v, Horner 2006: 239): (11) Hic ambulant rapaces leones superbie, vorax vrsus gule, þe gredi lupus auaricie, þe wile fox decepcionis et falsitatis. Here prowl the rapacious lions of pride, the voracious bear of gluttony, the greedy wolf of avarice, the wily fox of deception and falsehood.

In this one sentence, we have four DPs, describing four dangerous beasts living in the desert that is our world. The first and the second DP are

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c­ompletely in Latin (rapaces leones superbie, vorax ursus gule), and the third DP (þe gredi lupus auaricie) is a combination of English determiner and adjectival pre-modifier with a Latin noun and post-modifying genitive attribute. The fourth DP (þe wile fox decepcionis et falsitatis) is in English, with a complex Latin genitive attribute. The question underlying the following analysis of DPs in mixed language sermons is: Can all mixing patterns inside and around DPs be explained within the MLF model? And if not, what other tools can we use to get a clear picture of DPs in historical code-switching? 3.2.1  Data and Methodology The mixed DPs analyzed in the following have been extracted from 23 mixed language sermons from MS Bodley 649 (104,842 orthographic words as calculated by AntConc; Anthony 2018). The collection process included several steps: first, a machine-readable PDF of Horner’s edition (2006) was preprocessed manually and then annotated automatically for language and parts of speech (see Schulz and Keller 2016). With a customized version of the search and visualization tool ICARUS,7 all mixed DPs were extracted and compiled in a spreadsheet. Then they were annotated manually for further features needed to perform the analysis (ML of the clause containing the mixed DP, language of head governing the DP, case). To make sure that no targets were missed due to flaws in the automatic annotation, the resulting targets were checked manually against the full text in the edition. Suspicious targets and all of the targets that are presented here as examples were double-checked manually in the original MS at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. As a last step, the sample was reduced to 200 mixed DPs, where each of the components (determiner, pre-modifier, head, and post-modifier) is simple, that is, it does not include a coordinated structure.8 The following ten items illustrate the target structures in the final list. Middle English forms are given in italics, Latin forms in roman. The mixed DP is given in bold. 7  ICARUS: Interactive platform for Corpus Analysis and Research tools, University of Stuttgart, https://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/forschung/ressourcen/werkzeuge/icarus. html 8  Excluded from the reduced sample were mixed DPs like pulcrum templum et solenne, where we have a pre-modifier and a coordinated post-modifier, which could be Anglo-Latin, Anglo-French, or Middle English. The 13 excluded items were saved in a separate file.

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(12) Isti falsi billeberers nolunt narrare (S3, p. 87)9 These false bill-bearers do not want to tell (13) nostri chiualus milites mortui sunt (S1, p. 29) our chivalrous knights are dead (14) Isti crafti clariouns qui venient post me (S2, p. 69) These skillful players who will come after me (15) sanat dedlich sekenes sicut medicus alwytty (S5, p. 135) he heals deadly sickness like an omniscient doctor (16) venerabile nomen Iesus est lux briȝt schynyng (S5, p. 133) the venerable name Jesus is a light brightly shining (17) þis worldly honour is a sliper res and an eluylich10 (S8, p. 217) this worldly honor is a slippery thing and mysterious (18) he is verus gide ad desperacionem (S7, p. 195) he is (a) true guide to despair (19) þe scharp gladius est signum sue iusticie (S8, p. 221) the sharp sword is the sign of his justice (20) þe nurchinge sol curatorum with his bemis al brennyng (S7, p. 189) the nourishing sun of curates with its beams all burning (21) his louynge cor erat perforatum acuta lancea (S9, p. 253) his loving heart was pierced with a sharp lance

Copula constructions, which are predominant in the ten examples here, are not a particularly typical environment for mixed DPs; the example clauses were selected on the basis of their length and suitability for showing the range of different language combinations inside and around mixed DPs. We can see that there are no immediately obvious restrictions on the possible linear orderings in which words from two languages can be combined in the sermons. However, if we want to assess the data in the light of the MLF model, we also need to look at hierarchical structures, particularly those that have the potential to contradict the two MLF constraints— the Morpheme Order Principle and the System Morpheme Principle (see Sect. 2.1.2). The Morpheme Order Principle, which states that word order in mixed constituents must meet the word order constraints of the ML, is supported: the individual components of mixed DPs follow unmarked ML word order. For example, postposed modifiers only occur in Latin ML constructions.11 In contrast, the System Morpheme Principle,  Number of sermon, followed by page number in Horner (2006).  In this clause, only the phrase a sliper res was included in the final analysis, because all coordinations had been excluded. 11  Post-position is possible but restricted in Middle English (see e.g. Trips 2014). 9

10

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which predicts all late outsider system morphemes to be supplied by the ML, is not always supported. To elucidate this matter, we will now turn our attention toward the general tendencies and some noteworthy peculiarities of case marking in mixed DPs. 3.2.2  The Curious Case of Case Marking Case on EL elements in the mixed DPs is marked (or left unmarked!) according to three different strategies which will now be examined and explained in detail. The first strategy, which is well-known from modern code-switching, is to insert English EL lexemes as bare forms12 into a Latin ML frame (22): (22) cape istum wild fire contricionis (S2, p. 73) take this wild fire of contrition

The embedded Middle English adjective and noun are inserted into the Latin matrix clause as bare forms and show no case marking. This is not all that surprising if you take into account that Middle English no longer required morphological case marking at the time the sermons were composed. English bare forms are by far the most frequent variant of embedded nouns in the sermons, and they are also observed in many modern bilingual  communities where English is one of the languages used. In code-switching terms they are marked because they render the NP incomplete in terms of ML grammar. Nevertheless, they are allowed under the MLF model because they do not contain EL late outsiders. The second strategy, also known from modern code-switching, is adapting an EL element into an ML morphosyntactic frame (23). This strategy produces the kind of hybrid word which is typical of macaronic verse: (23) emenda tu-um clock-um (S1, p. 37) adjust your clock

12  “Bare forms are Embedded Language content morphemes that lack the requisite Matrix Language system morphemes that would make them well-formed in a Matrix Language frame.” (Myers-Scotton 2002: 21). As ME has lost almost all inflection, ME bare forms are complete without any additional inflection in ME. The point with respect to the MLF model is that they are not complete in term of the Latin ML grammar.

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In modern CS we find this pattern as well, especially in cases where items from a language with little morphology are integrated into a language with rich inflection. Russian easily and frequently integrates English words (established loans and nonce-borrowings alike) by adding Russian inflectional markers (Gregor 2003: 138–41.). This kind of morphological (and often also phonological) adaptation to the recipient language is well-­ known from studies of loanword development. Established loans that are used freely by monolingual speakers tend to lose their donor language morphology over time. Nevertheless, inflecting EL lexemes with ML morphological means is extremely rare in MS Bodley 649. The example given under (2) has been cited before in several papers (Halmari and Regetz 2011: 140; Schendl 2017), and I am citing it again because no unambiguous alternative could be found. In any case, adapting a lexeme to ML morphology is in line with the predictions of the MLF model. The third variant of language mixing within the DP involves retaining EL case morphology, usually on the noun or on the entire NP (24): (24) and fro þe hiest puncto honoris þai wer put to þe lowest. (S8, p. 219) and from the highest point of honor they were put to the lowest.

This mixing pattern might easily strike a code-switching researcher as unusual, because it is seldom reported from modern oral data and it clearly contradicts the MLF model. The ML of the clause is English, into which the Latin sequence puncto honoris is inserted. The genitive attribute honoris is strictly speaking not problematic because the genitive marker is a bridge, connecting two elements within a maximal projection (in this case the NP). Bridges are unlikely to come from the EL, but they do not violate the System Morpheme Principle (SMP). However, the NP head puncto contains an ablative marker, which is a late outsider as it connects the mixed DP—which in itself is a maximal projection—with its governing preposition fro. Overall, the sample of 200 mixed DPs contains 11 items with overt EL case markers,13 that is they are not frequent in the data, especially if you consider that many of the monolingual DPs produced by our bilingual scribe could or maybe even should have been added to the total number of DPs, further reducing the percentage. 13  Some more can be explained as EL islands, internal EL islands, or instances of case syncretism where the accusative is isomorphic with the nominative and thus there is no clear case marker.

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Nevertheless, ­occasional Latin EL inflection on nouns definitely is a characteristic feature of historical CS which needs an explanation (see the discussion in Chap. 4). From the discussion here, we can tell that most mixed DPs in MS Bodley 649 are in line with the predictions of the MLF model, a claim I have also made in Keller (forthcoming). But as the main point of this book is not only to test the MLF model but to show how an interdisciplinary approach can deepen our understanding of linguistics in general and of code-switching structures in particular, I now want to proceed from the clear and quantifiable cases to three thought-provoking issues I have encountered during my work on historical mixed sermons. The first example illustrates how some riddles introduced through our reliance on digital corpora and editions can be resolved with the help of the original manuscripts and insight into scribal practice in the Middle English period. The second concerns the reliability of translations and language tags, showing how theoretical considerations can help us to spot errors and find ways to correct them. The third example addresses a conflict between the MLF model and the Minimalist approach to code-switching data, explaining how historical data can be used to question and refine both. 3.2.3  Three Quirky Examples When I first analyzed the mixed DPs in MS Bodley 649 on the basis of a semi-automatically annotated digital version of the edition (Horner 2006; Schulz and Keller 2016), I was quite surprised by the following sentence: (25) Iste ventus hath hurlid sore in þe see and made magnam tempest and al to-clatter partes nauis nostre. (S4, p. 113) This wind has howled strongly in the sea, produced a great storm and completely destroyed this part of our ship.

In the edition, we have a clear case of a Latin EL outsider (magn-am) in a Middle English ML clause. Finding an embedded Latin noun with Latin case morphology is odd enough in terms of code-switching theory. But a lone embedded adjective? This seemed even more outlandish and made me wonder whether historical written code-switching was maybe too different from modern oral code-switching to justify an analysis within the same theoretical framework. Lone embedded adjectives are rarely reported from modern oral data, and I had not encountered any at all in my analysis of many hours of oral code-switching data (Keller 2014). According to

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Myers-Scotton (2002: 132), “very few Embedded Language adjectives modifying Matrix Language nouns occur in codeswitching corpora, possibly because of congruence problems at all levels.” In a pilot study of the sermons in MS Bodley 649 I had established that they contain an unusually high number of embedded English adjectives (see Keller 2017), which are unproblematic for the MLF model because they do not contain late outsiders. But an inflected Latin EL adjective just did not seem right. After some discussion with colleagues and several attempts to find a theoretical solution based on the Minimalist notion of feature checking, I finally decided that I needed to get hold of the original to look at the phrase (Fig. 3.4). The curious DP reads mag? ṭẹṣt ̣ tempest?. There are several things to be said about this little snippet. First, the adjective that contains the suspicious accusative ends with a general suspension sign, which leaves the decision what it stands for to the reader. It is used frequently in the sermons, normally for well-known words. However, all 21 other abbreviated forms of magnam in the MS appear as magnā, which is the canonical way of abbreviating a final nasal consonant. None of them modifies an English noun; they are all part of monolingual DPs. This suggests that the scribe was not too sure about the adjective ending in this particular phrase, even though the word itself is frequent and does not appear to cause any difficulties in monolingual phrases. Following the strange abbreviation are the letters t-e-s-t, with expunctuation markers below. Probably the scribe was copying the next word, made a mistake and decided to erase it. The following word spells tempest?, with the same generic suspension mark at the end. This could be read as Middle English tempest, the way Horner (2006: 113) resolved it, or as Medieval Latin tempestatem. If we go along with Horner’s transcription, we have a mixed DP which violates the SMP as the case marker on the adjective comes from the EL.  If we instead decide for tempestatem, the DP is a monolingual EL island, and the SMP does not apply. What does this leave us with concerning our EL case markers and the language of the words? First, it illustrates that not everything that at the first glance seems like a violation of a code-switching constraint necessarily is one. Second, it shows that even in MS Bodley 649, which is generally a text where

Fig. 3.4  Generic suspension sign and expunctuation. (MS Bodley 649, detail from f. 23r)

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Medieval Latin and Middle English are clearly distinguishable, there are words that cannot be assigned with certainty to one or the other language because the suspension system is used to obfuscate or merge some grammatical distinctions (see Wright 2011).14 Third, it confirms that a scholarly edition of a handwritten text is not intended as a basis for a precise morphosyntactic analysis. Case endings in early manuscripts are regularly abbreviated, often according to a simple scheme. As many abbreviations are fairly straightforward, modern editorial practice suggests that they are to be silently expanded in an edition (cf. Honkapohja 2013 for a critical evaluation of the practice). Also, editors have the freedom to adjust anything that they consider to be a common mistake or slip of the pen in the original. This is a well-established and useful and practice, as the point of a semi-diplomatic edition is to make a text accessible to a larger readership. An edition is an interpretation of a text, aiming at the transmission of a coherent narrative rather than a faithful rendering of each and every scribal error. However, this means that if our research interest is focused on morphological detail, we must look at the original manuscript, or, if we cannot access it, at least at a digital image.15 The second issue I want to address here concerns language assignment and illustrates how potential errors can be spotted with the help of theoretical considerations. In his edition of mixed sermons Wenzel (1994) marks elements he interpreted as English in bold. Horner (2006) does not do this, but in most cases his translation of the text shows his interpretation. The following sequence, along with its translation, is taken from Horner (2006: 304–07): (26a) þe \melleus/ ros inuidie fere extinxit totum. þe melleus ros, vt experiencia docet, est dulcis vt mel. (…) þis mixtus melleus ros mundiose loquele adeo durauit inter nos quod fructus et flores, senex et iuuenis, illo inficiatur. 14  The phenomenon of merging two forms from different languages into one form that can be used for both is common in modern oral code-switching as well. In the context of medieval manuscripts Wright (2011: 203) notes: “The overlapping of two or more codes into forms which are simultaneously both creates what Muysken (2000: 133) calls ‘homophonous diamorphs,’ perhaps better described in written texts as visual diamorphs.” 15  More and more libraries are digitizing their archives. You can put in a request that a MS you are interested in should be given priority. Also, the costs are much lower, and the quality of digital images is brilliant compared to the black-and-white microfilm images that were the norm until not very long ago.

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The charming rose of envy has almost extinguished all of it. The honey rose, as experience teaches, is sweet as honey. (…) This mixed honey rose of worldly speech has endured so long among us that fruit and flowers, old and young, are infected by it.

The combination of an English determiner (þe/þis), the Latin adjective melleus and the noun ros is repeated three times in close succession in sermon 11. In the first sentence, the mixed DP in the manuscript reads þe ros inuidie, and the adjective melleus is added in the margin, with the typical sign (∨) indicating that it was accidentally left out and should be inserted in the line. In contrast to other manuscripts, the scribe did not indicate where exactly he wanted the word to be inserted. But as the next sentence contains the sequence þe melleus ros, there is no reason to doubt that it should be inserted exactly where Horner put it. For the MLF model, this mixing pattern is not problematic. The ML is Latin and the embedded Middle English elements, þe/þis and ros, do not contain late outsiders. But still, when I came across it, the construction seemed very unusual to me, first because it contains a Latin adjective embedded between an English determiner and noun in Latin ML clause, and second because it was the only DP where an English determiner was followed by Latin adjective, an issue which I will discuss in more detail later. I could have let the example pass as the one exception to the rule that English determiners are not immediately followed by Latin overtly case-marked adjectives. However, based on my experience with idioms and collocations in code-switching (Keller 2014, 2020), I suspected that melleus ros could be a collocation. My first idea was that melleus could be an adapted Latinate form that had become part of the name of a specific type of rose, maybe used only metaphorically in sermons. However, a search in Middle English texts and reference works yielded no results. Only then did I realize that the mistake had been introduced into the equation much earlier. In the sermon, ros is not a rose but the Latin word for dew. Ros melleus is honeydew, a sticky, sugary substance produced by bugs. In the sermon it is used as a metaphor for flattering words that can cover evil intent. If we use honeydew instead of sweet rose, the translation of the passage would be: (26b) þe \melleus/ ros inuidie fere extinxit totum. þe melleus ros, vt experiencia docet, est dulcis vt mel. (…) þis mixtus melleus ros mundiose loquele adeo durauit inter nos quod fructus et flores, senex et iuuenis, illo inficiatur.

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The honeydew of envy has almost extinguished all of it. Honeydew, as experience teaches, is sweet as honey. (…) This mixed honeydew of worldly speech has endured so long among us that fruit and flowers, old and young, are infected by it.

Horner’s oversight was most probably triggered by the context, which uses a number of plant metaphors. After having established that ros is Latin and not English, the structural details of the mixed DP need to be reconsidered. Instead of an inserted adjective we now have a lone English determiner as the functional head of a seemingly Latin NP. In terms of MLF constraints, the construction is acceptable because it does not violate Latin word order, nor does it contain an EL outsider. Yet the combination is still peculiar in code-switching terms. A lone English determiner at the beginning of a DP in a Latin ML clause is an unusual sight. It made me wonder whether melleus ros was a “normal” Latin NP. In Early Modern Latin books on horticulture, the phrase is usually rendered with the modifier in post-position, as ros melleus. In the sermon, where it occurs three times in a Latin ML clause but with an English determiner, it is melleus ros. I could not find evidence of ros melleus in classical Latin texts or dictionaries. Mildew and honeydew are referred to by other terms such as rubigo. As users of Medieval Latin created many new words in the field of biology, I suspect that ros melleus might be such a medieval creation, as such it might be perceived as language-neutral.16 The last issue I want to address is based on the observation that the simple A-N collocation melleus ros is preceded by an English definite article. But the third occurrence, mixtus melleus ros, which contains an additional modifying adjective and appears to be more literal in meaning, is preceded by the English demonstrative pronoun þis. Under the 4-M-Model, both the Middle English article and the demonstrative are early system morphemes, selected indirectly by the NP head ros. For the demonstrative, this seems odd to me. I do not see why a Latin noun would activate an English early system morpheme in a Latin ML clause, even if this does not violate the System Morpheme Principle. Here, Minimalist grammar offers a solution. At the first glance, the structure should be rejected, because the determiner is predicted to come from the language 16  It does not appear to have been a common term in Medieval England, though. The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources lists both melleus and ros, but the text examples do not contain them as a collocation.

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with more grammaticalized phi features, that is Latin. But if a demonstrative is regarded as a maximal projection, it can only occupy the specifier position of DP (see Alexiadou et al. 2007: 105–09). The DP head would thus remain empty. I suggest that an empty DP head—and any other empty position—is language-neutral. Consequently, the DP as a whole can be processed as Latin in a Latin ML clause. I am not sure this is my final answer, but the point of this example has hopefully become clear. It has shown how a small structural incoherence can provoke a closer investigation which revealed a mistake in language assignment. It confirms once more how a thorough understanding of code-switching patterns common in modern oral conversations helps to detect and resolve incongruences between theory and data. The third example revolves around the problem of interpreting a mixing pattern, or rather, an apparent mixing constraint in the dataset. When I used the Excel filter function to spot possible correlations between the features for which I had annotated the data, I noticed that in a mixed DP consisting of the linear sequence (overt) determiner–adjective–noun, an English determiner is always followed by an English adjective, never by a Latin one, independent of whether the ML of the clause is English (ex. 27 and 28) or Latin (ex. 29 and 30). (27) A blisful rex comus to þe (S14, p. 369) A blissful king comes to you (28) put away (…) þis sori cecitatem desperacionis (S18, p. 447) put away (…) this sorrowful blindness of despair (29) Cepit sibi þe trusti scutum paciencie (S5, p. 139) he took for himself the trusty shield of patience (30) þoru þis mevynge verbis ista mulier cepit confortacionem (S5, p. 151) through these moving words this woman took comfort

In my sample of 200 mixed DPs, this rule applies even for the DPs that violate the SMP because the NP head shows Latin EL case inflection. This suggests that even if the sociohistorical context promotes a variant that violates a code-switching constraint, the new variant is still subject to structural restrictions. How can we explain this? If we look for information on adjectives in studies of modern code-switching, we do not find much, as switching between a determiner and an adjective seems to be avoided in speech (Myers-Scotton 2002: 132). There is more information about language selection concerning the determiner as the functional head. In a

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study on contemporary code-switching within the noun phrase, Parafita Couto and Gullberg (2019: 698) write: “For the language of the determiner, generativism predicts that the determiner is provided by the language with more grammaticized/phi features. The MLF account instead predicts that the determiner is provided by the matrix language and determined by finite verb morphology.” This is not wrong, but it may be misleading. The SMP predicts that late outsiders can only come from the ML. If we equate outsiders with (the inflectional part of) functional heads, we can say that the determiner as the functional head of the DP has to come from the ML. However, this is only true if the determiner is a late outsider. According to the 4-M-Model, the Middle English definite article is an early system morpheme. Thus, it can be supplied by the EL. In contrast, a Medieval Latin demonstrative, which is increasingly being used as an article, is classified as a late outsider because it carries case features. Does this mean that an English determiner can occur in any environment, whereas a Latin one is restricted to Latin ML clauses? Actually, we find all variants. The language of the determiner cannot be predicted by the ML of the clause. If the generative prediction is correct, we should not find an English determiner above a Latin noun because Latin has more grammaticalized phi features. This prediction is not supported by the data either. The only pattern that seems consistent is that the English determiner appears to be more restricted than any other element in the sample of mixed DPs. An additional confounding factor for a theoretical approach based on a steady-state generative grammar is the decision about which element can serve as the DP head. In the fourteenth century, Middle English had already developed an obligatory article in the head position of DP, whereas Latin was in the process of developing one. In Medieval Latin the demonstrative pronouns were not as clearly distributed as they had been in Classical Latin (Beeson 1925: 19). They were used more and more as determiners (Dinkova-Bruun 2011: 301), a development which was completed in the modern Romance languages. Research on language change suggests that language contact can promote the development of shared structures. And it is a well-known fact that structures which are shared by both languages are preferred in intrasentential code-switching. Thus, in a Middle English and Medieval Latin mixed text, the number of Latin demonstrative pronouns in the position of articles might be higher than in a purely Medieval Latin text, simply because this increases structural congruence. The issue of constraints on DP elements is obviously multifaceted, and its exploration requires more space and would most

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probably benefit from a collaboration between specialists of different branches of linguistics. I decided to include the issue here in order to illustrate that pursuing it from several theoretical angles and with practical experience concerning different data types can push each approach to its limit and ultimately help to increase its explanatory and predictive potential. 3.2.4  Intermediate Summary Previous studies of noun phrases in historical code-switching came to the conclusion that the MLF model cannot adequately describe and explain them because it predicts that all case markers in a bilingual constituent are supplied by the ML. However, Latin EL case markers appear to be a common characteristic of historical texts where Latin is mixed with a vernacular. The goal of this study was to identify the recurring mixing patterns within DPs and to compare them against the predictions of the MLF model. The data revealed that DP-internal mixing is frequent but mostly limited to the insertion of English EL bare forms which do not violate the System Morpheme Principle. Nevertheless, in 5% of all mixed DPs, EL case markers on nouns occur. They do not occur on lone inserted adjectives or determiners. This suggests that the language of the functional head (the determiner) is pivotal to establishing structural coherence within a bilingual clause, whereas the marking on the lexical head (the noun) is variable. The variability might be a consequence of social factors like the prestige of Latin.

3.3   Stability Within the Verb Phrase The first case study has revealed that the DP allows for internal variation under contact. It appears to be susceptible to extralinguistic factors like the prescriptive force of Latin. In the second case study I want to turn the reader’s attention to mixing constraints concerning the verb phrase and ask: How stable or how resilient is the inflectional phrase (IP) in contact situations? In the light of the findings on mixed DPs (Sect. 3.2), this study also investigates whether the IP level shows a similar underlying mixing pattern, for example whether the late outsider on the lexical head shows variation and contact influence but the functional head is more restricted. The main assumption behind my approach to mixed language data is that code-switching, just like any other human language, is rule-based. This

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means there are constraints limiting the form of mixed units. The target structures are analyzed within the MLF model, which posits that the syntactic frame of a bilingual clause, including word order and certain grammatical morphemes like case markers but also finiteness markers, is provided by only one of the participating languages, which is called the Matrix Language (ML). A second language, called the Embedded Language (EL), can supply additional lexical items (see Sect. 2.1.2). There are a few studies dealing exclusively with noun phrases in historical code-switching (e.g. Wright 2010; Ingham 2013; Schulz and Keller 2016; Keller 2017), but to date I have not come across one that focuses specifically on verb phrases. Studies of modern, mostly oral code-­ switching also target verbs less often than nouns, partly because the design for psycholinguistic experiments needs to be more complex, but also because lone embedded nouns or NPs occur much more frequently than lone embedded verbs in most corpora of naturally occurring codeswitching (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2014: 3–4). On the diachronic scale this is reflected in the fact that nouns are borrowed much more frequently than verbs. To explain the focus of structural studies of modern oral code-­switching on nouns rather than on verbs, Myers-Scotton and Jake (2014: 8) write that “the variety of EL verb forms in CS initially did not seem amenable to generalizations.” They suggest that the variability perceived in connection with EL verb forms on the surface was a reflection of all the ways different languages have for marking grammatical categories (tense, aspect, transitivity, etc.). These varied surface phenomena were perceived as so salient that they veiled the general pattern underlying the surface variability, namely that all lone embedded EL verbs appear to be non-finite forms (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2014). Another regularity Myers-Scotton and Jake (2014: 8) suggest is that EL finite verbs do not occur with additional ML finiteness marking.17 Both claims match my experience with modern conversational code-switching data, in corpora or in daily interaction. If EL verbs are integrated into an ML frame, they normally do not bring along any of their own finiteness markers, but instead the EL provides a bare verb stem which takes ML morphology to  satisfy all the grammatical requirements of the ML such as tense, 17  This statement relates to the occurrence of so-called double morphology on code-switched nouns, where a noun occurs with two plural markers, one from the EL plus one from the ML, for example Taschens > German Tasche (‘bag’) + German plural marker -n + English plural marker -s.

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t­ ransitivity, the expression of argument structure, aspect, mood, etc. The following examples from oral conversations show how the German verb fahren (here: “go”) loses its infinitive marker -en to fit into an English matrix (31) and how an English verb takes on the Spanish suffix required to form a negated imperative (32). (31) Ich sage: “Na, let’s fahr’ nach England wegen deine Geschwister und die alle.” (Keller 2014: 219) I say, “Well, let’s go to England ‘cos of your siblings and them all.” (32) Juana, no pushes Elmo en mi house (I, 3;1.17) ‘Juana, don’t push Elmo in my house’ (Arias and Lakshmanan 2005: 105)

Myers-Scotton and Jake (2014) provide a varied sample from different language pairs to illustrate this phenomenon of adaptation of EL verbs to an ML frame. Before we look at the data in order to determine the structural patterns of verbs, we need to address a crucial issue in more detail than was necessary before: How do we determine the ML of a clause? According to the MLF constraints, word order and all late outsider system morphemes in a mixed constituent must come from only one language, the ML. Hence, the ML is the language that provides word order and all outsiders. This is unproblematic as long as both constraints are met. But as we have seen in the DP study, there are cases where not all outsiders are provided by the ML. How can we determine the ML in such cases? Several scholars who recognized the asymmetrical distribution of languages in code-switching and the ensuing need for the ML-EL distinction as a theoretical concept have proposed that the language of the inflectional marker on the finite verb should determine the ML of the clause (see Klavans 1985; Boumans 1998; Meakins 2011). This approach works well in practice because generally the inflection of the finite verb is supplied by the ML of the clause. However, equating the ML with the language of the finite verb a priori excludes the possibility of an EL finite verb.18 And if we want to test whether EL finite verbs occur or not, we need a definition of ML that 18  In historical texts with Latin as one of the participating languages, we have the additional challenge that the finiteness marker on the verb might be suspended and hence could not be used to determine the ML. Therefore, more than one indicator for determining the ML of a clause is essential. There are, of course, clauses or entire texts showing a composite matrix rather than a clear ML-EL distinction. These are not the target of the MLF model.

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allows for the occurrence of EL finite verbs—if only hypothetically. The MLF model provides such a definition because the ML is defined as the language that provides not only the inflection on the finite verb but also the entire grammatical frame of a clause, including word order, argument structure, and the morphemes that express them (i.e. all late outsiders, on verbs and on nouns). In response to the problem that arises if the language of the inflection on the finite verb is taken as the only basis for identifying the ML of a clause, Myers-Scotton (2002: 61) explains: It is true that in many data sets, the inflections on the tensed main verb in a mixed constituent do come from the Matrix Language; that is, this statement is observationally adequate, if only for those data sets. However, it does not achieve explanatory adequacy because it ignores the general pattern in the entire mixed constituent. Instead, the Morpheme Order and System Morpheme Principles capture this generalization because not just inflections on tensed main verbs must come from the Matrix Language, but also other system morphemes of the type specified by the System Morpheme Principle (the type called ‘late outsiders’ under the 4-M model).

In other words, equating the ML only with the language of the finite verb is empirically useful, but as a theoretical approach fails to recognize that, generally, all morphosyntactic means of expressing argument structure are projected by the ML grammar. Thus, both MLF constraints are needed in precisely the form they are given to determine the ML of a clause. I keep coming back to the issue of how to determine the Matrix Language, wondering from time to time whether Myers-Scotton’s definition is circular or not, especially when I am doing research on verbs. For now I will accept it and let the data reveal if the definition holds descriptive and explanatory value for the mixed verb phrases we find in historical code-switching. Psycholinguistic studies investigating bilingual speech production have argued repeatedly that the production cost of integrating EL verbs is much higher than that of integrating EL nouns. This suggests that not switching verbs would be the easiest solution for the bilingual speaker. However, the main reason for using words from a second language is the same for nouns as for verbs—they sometimes just express best what a speaker wants to convey: “Nonfinite EL verbs occur because they better satisfy the speaker’s intentions regarding semantic and pragmatic meaning than ML finite verbs.” (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2014: 1). So, on the conceptual level, an EL verb may best express the speaker’s intentions. On the

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level of the formulator, integrating verbs appears to be a challenge because they need to be adapted the requirements of the ML grammar. In modern code-switching data, verbs are switched or embedded less frequently than nouns, although the ratio between switched nouns and switched verbs can vary significantly between language pairs: “Unlike EL nouns, EL verbs occur only infrequently in some language pairs, although very often in other pairs, as noted above. This makes their switching something of a puzzle” (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2014: 5). Furthermore, the morphological integration strategies also vary, not only between language pairs but also between speaker communities. In many corpora EL verbs in finite positions show ML finiteness marking as well as other grammatical marking (aspect, transitivity, etc.) that is required by the ML to make an IP well-formed. However, in the historical mixed sermons from MS Bodley 649 and Balliol MS 149, this strategy of word-internal language mixing is not used at all. This mirrors the findings from the DP study where hybrid nominals are also extremely rare. What does occur are mixed verb phrases in periphrastic constructions where the finite verb is from one language and its non-finite complement is from the other. The following sections focus on these mixed constituents to show general rules and tendencies and to highlight the decisive role of the finite verb in the construction of clausal structure. 3.3.1  Data and Methodology The verb phrases analyzed in the following have mostly been extracted from MS Bodley 649 and the mixed sermon Amore Langueo (Oxford Balliol MS 149, Oxford Magdalen MS 93, Cambridge University Library MS Kk.4.24, and Dublin Trinity MS 277). In generative terms, the target structures are clauses with an auxiliary as the IP head and an infinitive or participle as the VP head. In contrast to the DP study, where the search was limited to mixed targets, this time all monolingual and bilingual clauses containing an auxiliary and a dependent non-finite verb were extracted with AntConc (Anthony 2018) via simple word searches from a manually corrected machine-readable version of Horner (2006) and Wenzel (1994).19 Queries were performed for all word forms of the Latin modal verbs posse, debere, velle, malle, nolle, plus forms of esse as an 19  An online introduction to search tools like AntConc and a tutorial within in the context of historical linguistics is available at http://bwcloud-108-031.bwcloud.uni-mannheim.de.

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auxiliary. For Middle English, searches were performed for all forms (mostly spelling variants) of can, must, may, might, shall, should, and could.20 Additionally, all occurrences of have and be were extracted automatically from the dataset. All targets were checked manually and only those hits with the verb forms in the position of modal or tense auxiliaries were kept.21 The reduced set was compiled in a spreadsheet and all elements of the clause were annotated manually for language (Middle English or Latin; ambiguous forms were marked as such). The clauses were split up into syntactic functions (subject, object, adverbial) and phrasal components (finite verb, non-finite verb) in order to filter the data for specific target structures (e.g. all items with a Latin modal followed by a Middle English infinitive) and to visualize mixing patterns in terms of language distribution across syntactic constituents. The data analysis is primarily qualitative in nature, as the goal of this study is to discover underlying code-switching patterns in verb phrases. And I agree that to this end, “[c]ounting the number of examples produced is generally not the point; demonstrating patterns in the data is” (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2014: 3). 3.3.2  The Pivotal Role of the Finite Verb The main claim of Myers-Scotton and Jake (2014) is that in mixed clauses all lone inserted EL verbs are non-finite. In deontic constructions with a modal verb like can and must in Middle English or debere and posse in Latin and an infinitive complement, the dataset contains lone inserted Latin infinitives in English ML clauses (33–34) as well as lone inserted English verbs in Latin ML clauses (35–36). (33) þou most fateri þin offense and þi synne (S4, p. 105) you must confess your offence and your sin (34) þer can no man cauere per alium (S8, p. 219) no man can beware for another (35) numquam deberent scumphit suos inimicos […] (S18, p. 437) 20  Other possible Middle English modal verbs like need or dare we excluded, whether because absent or because the results were dubious or uninformative. For Latin, forms like opportet or licet or necesse habeo were considered but then dropped, mostly because formally they are rather different from ME modals. 21  Word forms of auxiliary have in the dataset are Middle English haue, ha, has, hast, hath, hathe, han, had, hade, hadde, hat, and the reduced form a. Occurring word forms of auxiliary be are Middle English ar, art, be, is, was, wes, wer, were.

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they would never conquer their enemies (36) nullus hostis potuit wynne nec vicium impugnare (S24, p. 513) that no enemy was able to win or vice attack

In contrast to embedded nouns and adjectives, we do not observe different strategies for the morphological embedding of EL verbs into an ML frame. All EL verbs are embedded in their canonical EL infinitive form. For Middle English this equals the bare form, as infinitive markers had mostly disappeared from English by the time the sermons were produced.22 The Latin embedded infinitives all retain their Latin infinitive markers (active or passive). There are no instances of adaptations to ML morphology as we find in other code-switching datasets (see examples 31 and 32). This is not a general feature of historical code-switching. As in modern code-switching, morphological adaptation of EL verbs seems to be a matter of community norms rather than of grammatical restrictions. In addition to lone embedded verb forms, we also find coordinations of English EL infinitives (37) and even coordinations of one ML and one EL infinitive (38). In those, the second coordinated infinitive is accompanied by another EL element, so strictly speaking they would have to be classified as EL islands, because the EL elements show structural dependence via EL grammatical means. But nevertheless, these EL constructions also contain only non-finite forms. (37) nec hostis aliqua cautela guerre potest illud wynne vel asaile it (S24, p. 505) nor can an enemy by any trick of war win or assail it (38) Iste ramus non potest flecti ne be crocud (S7, p. 181) This branch cannot bend or be twisted

An example from Balliol MS 149 (Fig. 3.5, transcribed as example 39) also shows that the EL verb form ben in the position of the non-finite complement of the ML finite verb voluit is an infinitive rather than an EL present tense form. In this clause the finite verb, the word order, and all case markers are in Latin, that is Latin is the ML. The English EL insertion contains 22  If you are not happy with calling bare Middle English forms infinitives, maybe because they have no overt infinitive marker and could in principle also be bare forms or present tense forms, you might instead want to say that EL verb forms only occur in positions where the ML frame requires a non-finite verb form and do not carry any EL finite markers. This would not change the argument.

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Fig. 3.5  Verb forms in mixed language clause. (Balliol MS 149, detail from f. 34r)

three non-finite verb forms (an infinitive and two coordinated past participles). Visually, there is nothing that indicates that the clause is bilingual. (39) Et [quare]23 voluit Christus sic ben yprykkyde & hastid in itinere suo? (Wenzel 1994: 236) And [why] did Christ want to be thus pricked and hastened on his way?

So far, all EL verbs seem to be non-finite, the hypothesis of Myers-­Scotton and Jake (2014) is supported by the data, and constructions with modal auxiliaries show no obvious difference between Latin inserted into an English ML and English inserted into a Latin ML. However, if we look at periphrastic constructions containing the Middle English tense auxiliary have, structural parallels to mixed DPs become visible. As a quick reminder, in MS Bodley 649 a Middle English determiner as the functional head of a mixed DP only precedes an English adjective, never a Latin one. Nouns as the lexical heads appear unrestricted and can even violate the System Morpheme Principle by retaining their EL case markers. Inside the IP we can observe a similar limitation: the English tense auxiliary have only takes a Middle English past participle as its complement. All 104 mono- and bilingual clauses containing have as tense auxiliary show the same pattern: an English tense auxiliary form of have accompanied by an English non-­finite past participle as its complement. This pattern is independent of the language of the other syntactic constituents in the clause, which are either English or Latin EL islands (40–43). (40) he hath qwyt Deo (S25, p. 525) he has treated God (41) He hath be qwirlid super rotam honoris (S25, p. 527) He has been whirled up on the wheel of honor (42) nouelli droueris ha þrow so oftyn þe pibbil oppressionis (S15, p. 411) new drivers of livestock have so often thrown the stone of oppression (43) celestis aquila hath stiffid vndique nidum nostrum (S9, p. 235) the heavenly eagle has strengthened our nest on every side  The word quare is omitted in MS Balliol 149 but is present in all other copies (Wenzel 1994: 236). 23

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The restriction applies even for the combination of modal verb, tense auxiliary, and infinitive where the auxiliary have is itself an infinitive: (44) a litel penown Anglici militis sculd a frayed in campo totum exercitum regni. (S8, p. 217) a little banner of an English soldier would have frightened an entire country’s army in the battlefield.

The sermons do not show any equivalent constructions in Latin, because in the early fourteenth century periphrastic tense marking was not yet common in Romance languages. Forms of habeo, which are now regular tensemarking auxiliaries in French (avoir), Spanish (haber), and other Romance languages were only just developing.24 There is, however, a structural, if not always functional-semantic, parallel between the Middle English auxiliary be and the Medieval Latin esse. In Middle English, the auxiliary can mark perfective tense but in our data it only marks passive voice. The Medieval Latin esse marks perfective tenses but is increasingly used in other functions (Sidwell 1995: 362). In the data we find that, like have, be as an auxiliary only occurs along with an English past participle (45–46). (45) þe fidris diuiciarum ar blowen away (S9, p. 237) the feathers of riches are blown away (46) gladii in hominum vaginis et moneta in eorum bursis ar maltoun sine lesione vagine uel burse (S10, p. 291) swords in the scabbards of men and money in their purses are melted without harm to the sheath or the purse

Again, there is no immediate correlation with the ML of the clause or the language of any other constituents. As with have, the pattern can also be observed when the auxiliary be occurs as an infinitive after a Latin ML finite verb (47), as well as after an English ML finite verb (48). (47) Istud castrum nequit be vndurmyned (S1, p. 39) This fortress cannot be undermined (48) Istud scutum hath be schot at acute per diabolum et eius ministros (S6, p. 163) This shield has been shot at fiercely by the devil and his ministers 24  Note, however, that in Medieval Latin the classical modal verbs were increasingly used as tense markers, paralleling the development of English willan into the future marker will. Also, habere was used as a (deontic) modal, parallel to Modern English have to, and as a future marker (see Sidwell 1995: 362–363)

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Out of 181 targets with be as a tense auxiliary, 179 show this close tie between the Middle English auxiliary and its participle complement. If the auxiliary is English, the participle is as well. Two targets do not follow this pattern (49–50): (49) Ideo qui fuisti diu demonis pleyfere and be cecatus, accuses isto modo teipsum. (S13, p. 355) So you who for a long time have been the devil’s plaything and been blindfolded, accuse yourself in this way. (50) Primo dixi quod genus Ade was punitus with a bollinge dropsy que fecit ipsum sitibundum et fetidum. (S18, p. 441) First, I said that the race of Adam was punished with a swelling dropsy that made him thirsty and foul.

Latin esse only occurs once followed by an EL participle. Here, that pattern is reversed (51). (51) Et sic donec he rede him þat smote him, erit blindfeld stille and hold in pro lusore. (S13, p. 355) And so, until he picks the one who struck him, he will be blindfolded still and made to play the game.

At this point it would be interesting to discuss the difference between a copula construction with a predicate participle and a perfective construction. Nevertheless, I only want to point out that in code-switching the copula seems to be more flexible than other verbal elements with respect to the ML of the clause. The sermon Amore Language shows this quite nicely. Where the Balliol copy (Fig.  3.6; 52a) has a Latin copula, the Magdalen copy (52b) has an English one at the switch point from Latin to English. (52) a. Carissimi mei michi vide(tur) q(uod) r(aci)onabilit(er) possum. dicere q(uod) ista dies est a. blisfulday & est a. carfulday. [Transliteration Balliol copy]

Fig. 3.6  Language of copula verb in mixed language clause. (Balliol MS 149, detail from f. 31v)

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b. K(arissimi) m(ei) r(aci)onabilit(er) vide(tur) dice(re) q(uo)d iste dies ys a blisfull day & a sorwfull day. [Transliteration Magdalen copy] c. Carissimi mei, michi videtur quod racionabiliter possum dicere quod ista dies est a blisful day et est a carful day. (Wenzel 1994: 216)

Wenzel (1994: 216) uses the Balliol copy as his base text and hence has est in the text (52c) and ys in the footnote. The punctus before blisful day and carful/sorwful25 day indicates a short pause, to remind the preacher to put special emphasis on the English inserts. This kind of intonational flagging is common in monolingual Medieval sermons.26 In this case we see how structural and functional aspects can go hand in hand because the bilingual text gives the preacher the opportunity to flag his key point (the dual nature of the death of Christ on the cross) twice—through intonation and through a language switch. All in all, it appears that pure functional elements like Middle English have and be as markers of tense and/or voice seem to be restricted to complements from the same language, whether this is the ML or the EL of a mixed clause. The same restriction appears to hold for shall and should, as the 63 occurrences in MS Bodley all occur with an English infinitive complement. For Medieval Latin, no conclusions can be drawn; periphrastic tense markers are too low in number in the sermons to warrant any generalizations. Modal auxiliaries, which have more semantic content than periphrastic tense markers, appear to be more flexible, also taking other-­ language complements. 3.3.3  Two Morphological Riddles As in the description of DPs earlier (Sect. 3.2), I want to conclude the study with two observations that are not easily grasped with a simple rule. The first one concerns finite EL verb forms, and the second addresses the theoretical question of how to classify the infinitive marker according to the 4-M-Model. Both need more than just specialist knowledge in one field and show that combining structural and socio-pragmatic considerations yields more informative results than either approach on its own. 25  The Magdalen copy has sorwfull instead of carful. In Middle English these were synonyms, and in the sermon both serve as an antonyms to blisful. 26  Punctuation (literally: pointing) in Medieval texts was used as a guide for reading texts like sermons out loud. The convention of using stops and commas on syntactic grounds, as we do today, was not developed and standardized before Early Modern times.

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In the following passage from the sermon Amore Langueo (Balliol MS 149, f. 37r) as edited and translated by Wenzel (1994: 256–57), we have a series of English EL lexical verbs referring to the moment immediately after Christ died on the cross (Gospel of Matthew 27; 51). The sermon describes this as one in a series of miracles that caused rocks to burst and split open. (53) Quintum mirabile fuit quod petre cisse sunt, quia sicut [dicit] euangelium, tempore mortis Christi petre to-borstoun et saxa to-clouen. Et adhuc \dicunt/ peregrini qui ibi fuerrunt quod adhuc apparent cissure saxorum qui illo tempore erant to-cleuen. “Heu ergo,” dicit [Bernardus], “quod durissime petre to-borstoun in signum doloris Christi, et cor peccatorum factum de carne non potest cindi ad penitenciam et ad dolendum pro morte sui Saluatoris!” The fifth miracle was that the rocks burst open, for as the gospel says, at the time of Christ’s death the rocks burst open and boulders were split. Modern pilgrims who have been there say that the traces of rocks that were split at that time can still be seen. “Alas,” says Bernard, “that the hardest rocks burst open in sign of Christ’s suffering, while the heart of a sinner, made of flesh, cannot be rent in penance and grief at its Savior’s death!”

The English finite EL verb forms to-borstoun and to-clouen do not fit the pattern we see in the rest of the sermon and also in MS Bodley 649. Here Myers-Scotton and Jake’s (2014) claim that all lone embedded EL verbs are non-finite appears to fail three out of four times. The fourth time we have a Latin ML auxiliary, which makes the construction well-formed in terms of the MLF model and fits the prediction about EL verbs. But what about the rest? I suggest that in this case rhetorical function was paramount, to the point that grammatical considerations were at least partially suspended. The sermon author did not use the EL verbs for lack of knowledge of the Latin equivalents, which is obvious through his use of petre cisse sunt (“the stones were ripped apart”) and cissure saxorum (“cracks of the rocks”) in the same passage. I suspect that the EL verbs were known to the congregation from an English translation or paraphrase of Matthew 27: 51, which is a key scene for people of Christian faith, because at this moment even the non-believers who are present at the scene understand that Christ was the son of God. The Wessex Gospels have “& syo eorðe befode & stanes to-burston” [translation MK: and the earth shook, and

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the rocks fractured]. Maybe embedding the pivotal words in the vernacular helped to create the desired dramatic effect by triggering a more vivid image of the passing of Christ on the cross. We cannot be certain. But we can take from this example that a combination of a sound theoretical approach combined with awareness of the sociohistoric context can offer insights that either one on its own might overlook. The last issue is a puzzle to which I have no definite answer, even though I have been pondering it repeatedly over the past years. Myers-­ Scotton and Jake (2014) present numerous EL verbs enriched with ML grammatical elements. Many of them are Modern English verbs which, as infinitives, would not require any morphological marking in English. So all that is needed to adapt them to the ML frame is adding ML morphology. However, there are also languages where the infinitive is marked morphologically, like Latin, Old English, French, or German. Does the infinitive marker have to be clipped off before the verb can be inserted into the slot of finite or a non-finite verb in an ML frame, or can it stay? In example (25), given earlier and repeated here as (54), the German infinitive marker -en is clipped off, even though English does not require its own overt infinitive marking. (54) Ich sage: “Na, let’s fahr’ nach England wegen deine Geschwister und die alle.” (Keller 2014: 219) I say, “Well, let’s go to England ‘cos of your siblings and them all.”

This is not an isolated case. French verbs embedded into Dutch show the same phenomenon (Treffers-Daller 1994: 110). However, in other-­ language pairs, the EL infinitive ending remains (see Myers-Scotton and Jake 2014). In the sermons we do not find hybrid verb forms, so we cannot say anything about them. But we do find EL infinitives, and without exception they retain their Latin EL infinitive marker. How can this be so different? According to the MLF model, only late outsiders must come from the ML. Early system morphemes and bridges are more likely to be supplied by the ML, but they can also come from the EL. So, as long as we agree that infinitive markers are not late outsiders, both variants are in agreement with the MLF constraints. Myers-Scotton and Jake (2014) must regard all inflectional affixes on non-finite verb forms as something other than outsiders, because they do not object to their occurrence as EL forms in ML clauses. True to the 4-M-Model, they

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write that “[o]f course the nature of the infinitive is not necessarily the same across languages” (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2014: 8). In other words, an infinitive marker could be a late outsider in some languages, which might result in it being clipped off, but not in others. And maybe it is not only infinitive markers that need to be classified differently across languages: maybe also finite and other non-finite forms are not all of the same type across languages. This question is not limited to historical data. But it shows how historical data can add valuable empirical evidence that can help us question and refine our theoretical approach to the grammar of language mixing. 3.3.4  Intermediate Summary Studies of modern code-switching suggest that mixing patterns in and around verbs are more complex than those concerning the DP.  In the sermons we do not find any hybrid verb forms, that is the verbs are never adapted to the ML morphology. The avoidance of word-internal mixing is not a general feature of historical code-switching but seems to be a general feature of this text set. Therefore, the focus in this study was put on verb phrases containing an auxiliary, working with the assumption that all finite auxiliaries are supplied by the ML.  The analysis of mixed clauses with Middle English or Latin auxiliary constructions has confirmed that in mixed data lone embedded verb forms are comparatively rare, much rarer than lone embedded nouns. Furthermore, all lone inserted EL verbs are non-finite participles or infinitives. Thus, the historical data fully support the claim made by Myers-Scotton and Jake (2014) that all lone EL verbs are non-finite. With respect to the types of auxiliaries, it appears that the propensity for phrase-internal mixing between the auxiliary (IP head) and the lexical verb (VP head) depends on the degree of grammaticalization of the auxiliary and the grammatical information it expresses. A fully grammaticalized, pure tense auxiliary like Middle English have does not allow for a Latin participle complement. The auxiliaries be and esse can take an EL participle as their complement if they are used to express tense and/or voice. However, here it is very hard to distinguish copula use from auxiliary use. Modal verbs, which in Middle English cumulatively express tense and mood and in Latin tense, mood, and voice, are more open to EL infinitive complements. As in mixed DPs, the language of the functional head appears to be pivotal for establishing structural coherence within the bilingual clause.

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References Alexiadou, Artemis, Liliane Haegeman, and Melita Stavrou (2007). Noun Phrase in the Generative Perspective. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Anthony, Lawrence (2018). AntConc (version 3.5.7). Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. Arias, Raquel, and Usha Lakshmanan (2005). Code Switching in a SpanishEnglish Bilingual Child: A Communication Resource. In ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism, edited by James Cohen, Kara T.  McAlister, Kellie Rolstad, and Jeff MacSwan, 94–109. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Backus, Ad (2006). Units in Code Switching: Evidence for Multimorphemic Elements in the Lexicon. Linguistics 41(1): 83–132. Beeson, Charles Henry (1925). A Primer of Mediaeval Latin. An Anthology of Prose and Verse. Chicago, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company. Boumans, Louis (1998). The Syntax of Codeswitching: Analysing Moroccan Arabic/ Dutch Conversations. Tilburg: Tilburg University Press. Briggs, Charles F. (2016). Moral Philosophy and Wisdom Literature. In The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature: Volume 1: 800–1558, edited by Rita Copeland, 299–322. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Demo, Šime (2014). Towards a Unified Definition of Macaronics. Humanistica Lovaniensia 63: 83–106. Demo, Šime (2018). Macaronic Latin. When Language Goes Wild. Cursor 14: 34–37. Dinkova-Bruun, Greti (2011). Medieval Latin. In A Companion to the Latin Language, edited by James Clackson, 284–302. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Gregor, Esma (2003). Russian-English Code-Switching in New York City. Frankfurt am Main: Lang. Haines, Roy M. (1972) ‘Wilde Wittes and Wilfulnes’: John Swetstock’s Attack on Those ‘Poyswunmongeres’, the Lollards. Studies in Church History 8: 143–153. Halmari, Helena, and Timothy Regetz (2011). Syntactic Aspects of CodeSwitching in Oxford, MS Bodley 649. In Code-Switching in Early English, edited by Herbert Schendl and Laura Wright, 115–154. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Honkapohja, Alpo (2013). Manuscript Abbreviations in Latin and English: History, Typologies and How to Tackle Them in Encoding. Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English 14: online. Horner, Patrick (2006). A Macaronic Sermon Collection from Late Medieval England: Oxford, MS Bodley 649. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Ingham, Richard (2013). Language-Mixing in Medieval Latin Documents: Vernacular Articles and Nouns. In Multilingualism in Medieval Britain (c.

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1066–1520), edited by Judith A. Jefferson and Ad Putter, 105–121. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. Keller, Mareike (2014). Phraseme im bilingualen Diskurs: “All of a sudden geht mir ein Licht auf”. Frankfurt am Main: Lang. Keller, Mareike (2017). Code-Switched Adjectives in Macaronic Sermons. In Studies in Language Variation and Change 2: Shifts and Turns in the History of English, edited by Elise Louviot and Catherine Delesse, 197–216. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Keller, Mareike (2020). Phrasemes in Bilingual Speech: Clues to the Processing of Complex Lexical Items. In Formulaic Language and New Data: Theoretical and Methodological Implications, edited by Natalia Filatkina, Sören Stumpf, and Christian Pfeiffer. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Keller, Mareike (forthcoming). Developing a Structural Template for Historical Code-Switching. In Historisches Codeswitching mit Deutsch, edited by Erika Glaser, Michael Prinz, and Stefania Ptashnyk. Berlin: De Gruyter. Klavans, Judith L. (1985). The Syntax of Code Switching: Spanish and English. In Selected Papers from the XIIIth Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, Chapel Hill, N.C., 24–26 March 1983, edited by Larry D. King and Catherine A. Maley, 213–231. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Meakins, Felicity (2011). Case-Marking in Contact: The Development and Function of Case Morphology in Gurindji Kriol. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Muysken, Pieter (2000). Bilingual Speech: A Typology of Code-Mixing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Myers-Scotton, Carol (2002). Contact Linguistics: Bilingual Encounters and Grammatical Outcomes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Myers-Scotton, Carol, and Janice Jake (2014). Nonfinite Verbs and Negotiating Bilingualism in Codeswitching. Implications for a Language Production Model. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 17(3): 511–525. O’Mara, Veronica M. (2002). Four Middle English Sermons: Edited from British Library MS Harley 2268. Heidelberg: Winter. Owst, Gerald Robert (1965 [1926]). Preaching in Medieval England: An Introduction to Sermon Manuscripts of the Period c. 1350–1450. New  York: Russell & Russell. Parafita Couto, Maria Carmen, and Marianne Gullberg (2019). Code-Switching Within the Noun Phrase: Evidence from Three Corpora. International Journal of Bilingualism 23(2): 695–714. Schendl, Herbert (2017). Aspekte des Codeswitchings im Englischen Mittelalter. Keynote lecture presented at Internationale Tagung an der HAW, 16–17. November 2017, “Historisches Codeswitching mit Deutsch”, Heidelberg. Schulz, Sarah, and Mareike Keller (2016). Code-Switching Ubique Est—Language Identification and Part-of-Speech Tagging for Historical Mixed Text. In Proceedings of the 10th SIGHUM Workshop on Language Technology for Cultural

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Heritage, Social Sciences, and Humanities, 43–51. Berlin: Association for Computational Linguistics. Sidwell, Keith (1995). Reading Medieval Latin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Treffers-Daller, Jeanine (1994). Mixing Two Languages, French-Dutch Contact in a Comparative Perspective. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Trips, Carola (2014). The Position Proper of the Adjective in Middle English. In Adjectives in Germanic and Romance, 73–94. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wenzel, Siegfried (1994). Macaronic Sermons: Bilingualism and Preaching in Late-Medieval England. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Wenzel, Siegfried (2005). Latin Sermon Collections from Later Medieval England: Orthodox Preaching in the Age of Wyclif. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wright, Laura (2010). A Pilot Study on the Singular Definite Articles Le and La in Fifteenth-Century London Mixed-Language Business Writing. In The AngloNorman Language and Its Contexts, edited by Richard Ingham, 130–142. Woodbridge: Boydell. Wright, Laura (2011). On Variation in Medieval Mixed-Language Business Writing. In Code-Switching in Early English, edited by Herbert Schendl and Laura Wright, 191–218. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

CHAPTER 4

Code-Switching Across Time and Space

Abstract  This chapter weaves together the theoretical considerations laid out in Chap. 2 and the empirical findings presented in Chap. 3. The aim of this chapter is to connect the dots, that is to consolidate the different facets of the study of historical code-switching texts. First, the findings of the two case studies in Chap. 3 are summarized. Then an approach to the theoretical modeling of historical code-switching based on the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model is presented, which is designed to capture the observed variability and stability of language-mixing patterns. It allows us to see clearly (a) which features are peculiar to historical code-switching in general, (b) which features are peculiar to a specific type of historical code-switching, and (c) which features of code-switching remain stable through the centuries. The chapter concludes with an outlook on possible future steps that could be taken to further the study of historical bilingualism and collaboration with experts in modern code-switching research. Keywords  Code-switching • Language change • Nouns • Verbs • Morphosyntax After an introduction to modern code-switching research in Chap. 2 and an illustration of its application to historical data in Chap. 3, this chapter discusses the findings and their implications for code-switching theory as

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well as for more general questions about language processing and language change. We begin with a short review of theoretical basics, questions, hypotheses, and claims. In this book code-switching, like any other language, is assumed to have a grammar in terms of a set of rules. These rules need to be followed in order to make a mixed clause interpretable. As in any other language these rules can be broken from time to time, whether intentionally or not, which means that they are probabilistic rather than absolute (Kootstra 2015: 50). This book deals exclusively with classic code-switching as produced by bilinguals who have two clearly separable grammatical systems at their disposal. Classic code-switching is defined as a variety of language mixing where the abstract structure of a clause is supplied by only one of the participating languages. The Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model (including its processing component, the 4-M-Model) was used to determine similarities and differences between modern and historical code-switching data to establish whether historical code-switching can be adequately described and explained within a structural model developed for modern oral code-switching. Previous studies had claimed that a purely structural approach, in particular the MLF model, falls short of explaining the characteristics of historical code-­ switching as it does not consider sociolinguistic variables which might influence the code-switching patterns. In order to evaluate the hypotheses of the MLF model as well as the counterevidence provided in previous publications, the studies of mixed determiner phrases (DPs) and inflectional phrases (IPs) in Chap. 3 analyze the patterns and peculiarities of mixed clauses in a set of sermons from fourteenth-century England. In Sect. 4.1, their findings are summarized and discussed in view of the patterns we know from modern code-­ switching data. Section 4.2 addresses implications of the findings for current theories of classic code-switching and general linguistics. Section 4.3 concludes with an outlook on possible future research areas with a focus on interdisciplinary collaboration, including paleography as an invaluable traditional discipline and digital humanities as one of the hotbeds of current innovation in modern as well as in historical linguistics.

4.1   Assessing the Results One goal of this book was the application of a modern, structural model of code-switching to historical data in order to show how a systematic comparison with code-switching patterns reported from modern data can

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help to understand the characteristics of code-switching in historical texts. The detailed investigation of mixed determiner phrases in a set of fourteenth-century sermons (Sect. 2.2) has revealed that most of the mixing patterns inside DPs conform to the predictions of the MLF model. Out of 200 mixed DPs consisting of at least a modifying adjective and a noun, 170 contain one or more Middle English words inserted as bare forms into a Latin Matrix Language (ML) clause. A further 19 DPs contain Latin insertions in the nominative or neuter accusative, which is formally identical with the nominative. I have decided to count these as bare forms on formal grounds (neither Embedded Language [EL] nor ML oblique case markers) even though theoretically for Latin the stem and not the nominative might be considered the only “true” bare form.1 In any case, the high frequency of bare forms in mixed DPs means that 95% of all mixed DPs in the sermons are covered by the provision of the MLF model which states that bare forms—that is, forms that may be incomplete with respect to ML grammar but do not contain any EL inflectional markers— are allowed. The System Morpheme Principle only disallows overt EL inflection; an absence of inflection is tolerated. Still, from a theoretical point of view, bare forms are not an optimal solution because they lack the morphological features required by the ML and thus make clause structure less uniform. Bare forms usually occur as a compromise strategy for embedding EL nouns if morphosyntactic congruence between ML and EL is perceived by the speaker/writer as too low for complete morphosyntactic adaptation of the EL material to the ML grammar (Myers-Scotton 2002: 21). In addition to the 190 bare EL forms, the sermons contain ten mixed DPs whose inserted Latin EL elements clearly show Latin case marking.2 As the System Morpheme Principle predicts all case markers to come from the ML of the clause, these case-marked EL elements clearly violate this principle. The occurrence of Latin EL case markers has been reported from other historical texts where Latin is mixed with a vernacular (McLelland 2004; Auer and Muhamedova 2005). It has been suggested that the reason for the persistence of EL Latin case markers is the status of Latin as the language of higher education in medieval times. I agree that the social prestige of a language can influence code-switching structures  See McFadden (2014) for a discussion of stem versus nominative.  This number excludes genuinely underspecified or ambiguous cases like magnam historiam or melleus ros discussed in Sect. 3.3. 1 2

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and that this is not captured by a purely structural analysis. Rather, the sociohistoric context in which the texts were created needs to be included in a thorough interpretation of linguistic data. We do not have any written testimony telling us about the sermon authors and their language attitudes. But we do have information about the role of Latin in the society of early fourteenth-century England. Latin was a second language—albeit often an early one—learned via instruction from other second-language speakers (Thomas 2004: 68). The lessons were characterized by a strong focus on grammatical correctness according to the rules of Classical Latin, which is most probably reflected more strongly in writing than in speech. Dinkova-­ Bruun (2011: 284) explains: How people spoke in both periods would inevitably influence what they wrote, but the pull towards correctness and grammaticality would always be strong, particularly in later times. Imitators of the Classical elegance of expression, as well as authors striving towards linguistic virtuosity abound in the Middle Ages, but so also do the ones whose grasp of the grammatical rules was obviously tenuous.

Consequently, a likely reason for the persistence of Latin EL case marking in ML clauses is the fear of being ridiculed for producing faulty Latin, especially as “morphological rules are the first to be mastered by the student and the easiest to correct by the teacher” (Dinkova-Bruun 2011: 297). At this point I want to emphasize that it is the combination of structural and functional considerations which makes this interpretation possible. The MLF model offers a structural template against which the specifics of a particular text become visible. Once the structural analysis has revealed that EL case markers are unusual in the light of modern code-­ switching patterns, the functional approach helps us to determine possible language-external causes. In contrast to the variation observed in the DP, all target structures in the IP domain appear to be in line with the MLF constraints and we see no direct violations. The agreement marker on the finite verb has to be supplied by the ML of the clause (even if its phonological realization is zero), and EL verbs can only appear as non-finite forms. In the sermons word-internal mixing is not a common strategy for adapting EL material into ML structures, thus EL verbs occur only in the positions available for ML non-finite verb forms like infinitives or participles. This impressive diachronic consistency of patterns on the IP level suggests that the finite

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verb is a pivotal element of the bilingual clause. Expressions of subject– verb agreement marking between syntactic constituents can change drastically, as evidenced by the development from Old English to Modern English or Latin to modern Romance, yet despite this, the constraints regulating the expression of subject–verb agreement marking in code-­ switching has remained unchanged.

4.2   Theoretical Implications The results of the empirical studies prompt the question: In which ways can the observed variability within the noun phrase and the stability within the verb phrase promote our understanding of code-switching in its diachronic dimension? The Uniformitarian Principle, which can be used to assess mechanisms of language change, states that forces influencing linguistic form in the past can be inferred from looking at the forces influencing linguistic form in the present (Labov 1994: 21–23). However, Labov cautions that this principle does not accommodate for differences in sociohistoric settings. This caveat holds a vital clue to understanding the locus of variation in code-switching patterns: structures that are influenced by social conventions are essentially unpredictable. In the following I propose an approach that employs the difference between expected and unexpected structures in order to assess systematically which aspects of code-switching are diachronically most stable and which ones are open to variation and change. Based on an analysis of a set of various historical mixed texts, Schendl (1996: 61) addresses the need for a systematic assessment of different text types from different historical periods and settings in order to advance the study of code-switching: An important goal of future research will be to detect possible differences in the switching strategies and functions between different genres and text types as well as in different sub-periods of English. For this, separate analyses of groups of texts (according to domains, genres, text types, periods) have to be carried out; in a second step, comparative analyses of these groups should follow to provide insights into the diachronic development and historical functions and patterns of switching. The comparison of such historical and diachronic data with data from modern studies of CS may cast some light on possible universal tendencies of switching and thus contribute to a deeper understanding of this wide-spread contact phenomenon.

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I see this goal of compiling and organizing the different manifestations of multilingualism in historical texts as paramount to the progress of the field. I have worked with modern and historical code-switching data within different theoretical contexts (Construction Grammar, Dependency Grammar, earlier Generative and then Minimalist Grammar, as well as diverse functional approaches). As my primary interest concerns linguistic structure and its relation to language processing and language as a human competence, I kept coming back to the MLF model, because it makes clear and testable predictions regarding structural regularities, and it offers explanations for its predictions on the basis of established language processing mechanisms which are shared by monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual speakers. As shown in Chap. 3, the model holds substantial predictive and explanatory potential for historical mixed texts. Thus, in the light of my previous experience I propose using the MLF model as a template against which we can compare as many historical mixed texts as possible, including different text types, language pairs, and time periods (see Keller, forthcoming). This comparison can show us how exactly texts differ from each other and from one common yardstick, shedding light on a number of key questions: 1. Which structures are peculiar to a particular type of historical code-switching? 2. Which structures are common to particular text types? 3. Which structures recur in relation to a language or language pair? 4. Which structural features remain stable across time? As the MLF model is aimed specifically at classic code-switching in stable bilingual situations, pronounced differences between a text or text type and the predictions of the model can be employed as an indicator that we are not dealing with classic code-switching but with another type of language interaction, especially for texts where we have little to no information about the type of bilingualism of the speaker group in which the text was produced. For example, the business accounts analyzed and discussed in Wright (1999, 2011) show more features of a fused lect or a composite matrix than of classic code-switching. Furthermore, comparing mixed texts from different periods can highlight the diachronic trajectory of code-switching patterns and reveal which elements of a clause are realized uniformly across time and which ones are susceptible

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to periodic variation. Wright (2017) has compared mixed business texts from various periods and shown that morphological adaptation of English EL material to a Latin ML decreases over time. The systematic comparison can be realized exclusively within historical linguistics but can also reach beyond as it facilitates comparability with modern codeswitching data where we often have more information about the sociolinguistic setting. Detailed and comparable assessments of language interaction across different text types, language pairs, and time periods are a necessary precondition for understanding code-switching as a synchronic phenomenon (in the past as well as in the present) and the diachronic dimension of code-switching as a ubiquitous contact phenomenon. Once we have a substantial body of comparable datasets, we can use it as a basis for determining which features of code-switching grammar as a linguistic system in its own right are particularly robust and which ones are more vulnerable to language-external influences. The data from MS Bodley 649 for example suggests that the tense marker on the finite verb does not allow for any variation, either in modern or historical code-switching. Additionally, it confirms the claim that in historical data with Latin as one of the two participating languages, Latin case inflection on nouns and adjectives in mixed constituents is determined by social norms rather than by grammatical constraints. I am convinced that more studies conducted with the MLF model as a template will add up to a detailed map of features which will show what is stable and what is flexible. A diachronic comparison could also reveal interesting new insights regarding the question of which types of systematic variation lead to language change and which ones are ephemeral. The notorious Latin EL case markers for example are quite a noticeable deviation from the structures predicted within the MLF constraints. However, a systematic analysis reveals that they are comparatively infrequent and do not exceed the percentage of rule-­violations calculated by Mindt (2002) for any corpus of natural language.3 Furthermore, the occasional occurrence of Latin case markers in Middle English clauses vanishes again without a trace, supporting the claim that in contrast to 3  Mindt (2002: 201–211) demonstrates that in any corpus of natural language there are 2–5% exceptions to any prescriptive rule, due to online processing errors, idiosyncrasies, or variation/language change.

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other morpheme types, late outsider system morphemes like case markers are highly unlikely to be adopted into another linguistic system (Myers-Scotton 2008; Seifart 2012). The findings presented in Chap. 3 also provoke a number of new questions. Some of them do not directly concern the topic of this book, a comparison of modern and historical code-switching, but reach into more general questions of linguistic structure. For example, the investigation of mixed DPs has revealed internal mixing constraints concerning the functional DP head. The data suggest that in MS Bodley 649, an English article can only be followed by an English adjective and not by a Latin one. The presence, absence, and language of determiners in code-switching have been discussed at length in the literature on modern code-switching, and so have the limitations on embedded adjectives. Obviously, this issue is not limited to historical data, but I maintain that historical data can be used as an additional angle from which to approach it, for example in terms of language processing. According to the 4-M-Model, an English article is most often an early system morpheme, that is, it is activated at the level of the Conceptualizer, whereas the Medieval Latin demonstrative-­ article hybrid is a late outsider because it also marks case, and it is thus activated at the level of the Formulator. Articles in code-switching, historical as well as modern, are also an interesting subject for assessing the differences and similarities between the MLF model and Minimalist theory. According to Minimalist grammar, the article is always located under D and is the functional head above NP. Within the 4-M-Model, an article can be interpreted differently, cross-linguistically as well as within English, depending on the context: The article the is an early system morpheme when it encodes definiteness, as in Miles liked the book I gave him on his birthday. Yet the is a late system morpheme in some collocations. For example, in American English, Lena is at the store simply means Lena is shopping and does not pick out a specific store. It is simply a bridge (perhaps bleached from a once-early system morpheme). (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2000: 1066)

Pursuing the consequences of this theoretical problem goes beyond the scope of this book, but I hope this small impression shows the potential historical code-switching data offer for the further exploration of current theoretical questions.

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4.3   Outlook Bilingual speech and writing in its historical and diachronic perspective is a promising field of research which is continuously gaining traction through individual publications as well as through research projects, networks, and conferences, for example the collaborative project Multilingual Practices in the History of Written English (MultiPract) at the University of Tampere (2012–2016), conferences like Internationale Tagung Historisches Code-Switching mit Deutsch at the Academy of Sciences Heidelberg (2017) or Understanding Multilingual Sermons of the Middle Ages: Forms, Methodologies, and Challenges at the Austrian Academy of Sciences Vienna (2018), and the research network Medieval English (ca. 600–1500) in a Multilingual Context (MEMC). In this final section I want to point out some research directions that I think would make useful contributions to the study of historical code-­ switching and help to increase awareness of its relevance for bilingual studies and linguistics in general. Over 20 years ago, Schendl (1996: 53) pointed out that “[u]nfortunately, there is still no inventory of mixed-­ language texts and text types available, and it is not always an easy task to find them.” This situation has not changed, but with today’s possibilities regarding online collaboration and data sharing, creating a dynamic open online inventory could be realized, and references to newly discovered mixed text could be added as they are discovered. The site could be modeled after The Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub, a resource providing different types of information on Anglo-Norman.4 The core component would not be a dictionary but an inventory of texts. A related project could be the digitization of mixed texts. However, this requires significant personal and financial resources and would have to be realized within a larger project group. As I hope to have shown with my analyses in Chap. 3, a digital edition would need to contain images of the original manuscripts along with a diplomatic edition and maybe a modern translation. It could be modeled after the resource currently being created at Manchester University within the project Image to Text: Mary Hamilton papers.5 This project uses the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) annotation scheme, which is flexible enough to allow for customized tags capturing the peculiarities of historical mixed texts. In order to include the functional aspect of code-switching 4 5

 The Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub is available at http://www.anglo-norman.net/.  Image to Text is available at http://www.projects.alc.manchester.ac.uk/image-to-text/.

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in the annotation, inspiration can also be drawn from the TEI-tagged Electronic Repository of Greater Poland Oaths (e-ROThA), which includes the development of an annotation scheme for written codeswitching with a focus on the metalinguistic and text-­organizing functions of code-switching (see Kopaczyk et  al. 2016).6 Copyright regulations for unpublished manuscripts which have hindered digital editions of historical texts in the past might be easier to tackle now, as more and more manuscripts are being digitized by the holding libraries. Consequently, images accompanying digital online editions could be hosted by the copyright holders, with newly created linguistically annotated edited texts providing links to the respective sites.7 If any of the existing TEI-based annotations schemes should be adapted to editing more bilingual texts with the option for a structural analysis in mind, additional annotation layers like tags for parts of speech (POS tags) or language would be very useful for a linguistic analysis and a comparison with other monolingual or bilingual corpora. This leads to a further challenging project, namely the (semi-)automatic annotation of historical mixed texts. Schulz & Keller (2016) present an approach to semi-­ automatized annotation of MS Bodley 649. What started out as an enthusiastic little side project soon turned out to be Pandora’s box of digital humanities, as the sermons mercilessly revealed the whole array of flaws in the current approaches to natural language processing: small dataset, semi-diplomatic edition, no publicly available dictionaries of Middle English and Medieval Latin for lemmatization, bad or no treebanks, genuine difficulties with Latin POS tagging that have not yet been solved for monolingual texts, etc; see also Çetinoğlu et al. (2016) and Toribio (2017: 225). I suspect that this situation will be similar for other historical mixed texts, which suggests that automatic annotation might have to be put on hold until tools are advanced enough to handle them. But even if we have to wait for computational approaches to be good enough to handle non-normative small text sets, there is still plenty to do. As Schendl (1996: 53) points out, the analysis of a small set of mixed historical text types “seems to indicate that some of the syntactic and functional differences in the switching strategies of these texts may be typical of certain genres or text types, though this hypothesis will have to be  The ROThA project is available at https://rotha.ehum.psnc.pl/.  An example of a recently digitized mixed sermon Amore Langueo in Balliol MS 149 can be viewed at https://www.flickr.com/photos/balliolarchivist/sets/72157627107696303/. 6 7

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substantiated by further research on a much larger corpus.” As proposed in Sect. 4.2, the characteristics of historical code-switching, in England and beyond, could be carved out by compiling the results from previous papers on different texts and text types and evaluating them against one common yardstick, for example the MLF model.8 In addition to revealing structural patterns, this comparison should also be used as a tool for separating morphosyntactic from socio-pragmatic factors, a step that would go beyond the capacity of the MLF model and tap into additional theoretical approaches. There are still many things that could and should be addressed in the context of code-switching as a diachronic phenomenon, and I am well aware of many, many gaps in my account which may have opened up more questions than it has answered. I am convinced that collaboration between the different branches of multilingual studies holds powerful unmined potential for enhancing our understanding of code-switching, and I hope that this book can help to promote an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to exploring the interaction of languages as a synchronic and diachronic phenomenon.

References Auer, Peter, and Raihan Muhamedova (2005). ‘Embedded Language’ and ‘Matrix Language’ in Insertional Language Mixing: Some Problematic Cases. Italian Journal of Linguistics 17(1): 35–54. Çetinoğlu, Özlem, Sarah Schulz, and Ngoc Thang Vu (2016). Challenges of Computational Processing of Code-Switching. In Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Computational Approaches to Code Switching, 1–11. Austin, TX: Association for Computational Linguistics. Dinkova-Bruun, Greti (2011). Medieval Latin. In A Companion to the Latin Language, edited by James Clackson, 284–302. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Keller, Mareike (forthcoming). Developing a Structural Template for Historical Code-Switching. In Historisches Codeswitching mit Deutsch, edited by Erika Glaser, Michael Prinz, and Stefania Ptashnyk. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kootstra, Gerrit Jan (2015). A Psycholinguistic Perspective on Code-Switching: Lexical, Structural, and Socio-Interactive Processes. In Code-Switching Between 8  Using the MLF model in its current form would have the advantage of comparability with a wide range of studies dealing with modern oral data, but this is not mandatory. The choice of Model eventually depends on the focus of interest of the researcher or research group.

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Structural and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, 39–64. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. Kopaczyk, Joanna, Matylda Włodarczyk, and Elżbieta Adamczyk (2016). Medieval Multilingualism in Poland: Creating a Corpus of Greater Poland Court Oaths (ROThA). Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 51: 9–35. Labov, William (1994). Principles of Linguistic Change, Volume 1: Internal Factors. Oxford: Blackwell. McFadden, Thomas (2014). Why Nominative Is Special: Stem Allomorphy and Case Structures. Paper presented at the GLOW37, Brussels. McLelland, Nicola (2004). A Historical Study of Codeswitching in Writing: German and Latin in Schottelius’ Ausführliche Arbeit von Der Teutschen HaubtSprache (1663). International Journal of Bilingualism 8(4): 499–523. Mindt, Dieter (2002). What Is a Grammatical Rule? In From the COLT’s Mouth … and Others: Language Corpora Studies—In Honour of Anna-Brita Stenström, edited by Leiv Egil Brevik and Angela Hasselgren, 197–212. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. Myers-Scotton, Carol (2002). Contact Linguistics: Bilingual Encounters and Grammatical Outcomes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Myers-Scotton, Carol (2008). Language Contact: Why Outsider System Morphemes Resist Transfer. Journal of Language Contact, THEMA 2: 21–41. Myers-Scotton, Carol, and Janice Jake (2000). Four Types of Morpheme: Evidence from Aphasia, Code Switching, and Second-Language Acquisition. Linguistics 38(6): 1053–1100. Schendl, Herbert (1996). Text Types and Code-Switching in Medieval and End Early Modern English. Vienna English Working PaperS (VIEWS) 5: 50–62. Schulz, Sarah, and Mareike Keller (2016). Code-Switching Ubique Est—Language Identification and Part-of-Speech Tagging for Historical Mixed Text. In Proceedings of the 10th SIGHUM Workshop on Language Technology for Cultural Heritage, Social Sciences, and Humanities, 43–51. Berlin: Association for Computational Linguistics. Seifart, Frank (2012). The Principle of Morphosyntactic Subsystem Integrity in Language Contact: Evidence from Morphological Borrowing in Resígaro (Arawakan). Diachronica 29(4): 471–504. Thomas, Margaret (2004). Universal Grammar in Second-Language Acquisition: A History. London: Routledge. Toribio, Almeida Jacqueline (2017). Structural Approaches to Code-Switching: Research Then and Now. In Selected Papers from the 45th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Campinas, Brazil, edited by Ruth E.V. Lopez, Juanito Ornelas de Avelar, and Sonia M.L. Cyrino, 213–234. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Wright, Laura (1999). Mixed-Language Business Writing: Five Hundred Years of Code-Switching. In Language Change: Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, edited by Ernst Hakon Jahr, 99–118. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Wright, Laura (2011). On Variation in Medieval Mixed-Language Business Writing. In Code-Switching in Early English, edited by Herbert Schendl and Laura Wright, 191–218. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Wright, Laura (2017). On Non-Integrated Vocabulary in the Mixed-Language Accounts of St Paul’s Cathedral, 1315–1405. In Latin in Medieval Britain, edited by Richard Ashdowne and Carolinne White, 272–298. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Index1

A Adjectives, 54–61 B Bare form, 52, 52n12, 81 Borrowing, 13, 14 C Code-switching, 2, 12, 13 classic, 12, 13 historical, 3–4 intersentential, 28, 40, 41 intrasentential, 28 rhetorical function of, 42, 72 terminology, 12 Collocation, 57 Constraint, 13, 15–20, 58 probabilistic, 15 violation of, 55

D Differential Access Hypothesis, 21n17 Diglossia, 6 E Embedded Language (EL), 19 EL island, 40, 41 F Feature checking, 23 4-M-Model, 7, 20–23 (late) bridge, 22 content morpheme, 21, 21n17 early system morpheme, 21n17 (late) outsider, 22 system morpheme, 21n17 Functional head, 25 Minimalist Program, 23, 58

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) 2020 M. L. Keller, Code-Switching, New Approaches to English Historical Linguistics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34667-6

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INDEX

G Grammaticalization, 74 L Language mixing, see Code-switching Latin, 81, 82 prescriptivism, 82 prestige of, 81 M Manuscript, 30 abbreviations, 31 digitization, 32 edition, 29 paleography, 30–32 silent expansion, 56 transcription, 30 Matrix language (ML), 18, 19 composite matrix, 13 determining the, 63–64 Matrix Language Frame Model (MLF model), 6, 16, 19–23 critique of, 23–26 Morpheme-Order Principle, 20 System Morpheme Principle, 20 MS Bodley 649, 45, 45n4, 46, 49 metadata, 47

N Nouns, 50 case marking, 52–54 DP structure, 50 Null Theory, 18, 24 S Sermons, 39–45 macaronic, 44–45 preaching, 41–44 Standard language, 26 U Uniformitarian Principle, 83 Uniform Structure Principle (USP), 17, 20 V Verbs, 61 auxiliary, 65 copula, 70 finiteness, 62, 65 infinitive, 63, 65, 71 IP structure, 65–69 modal, 65–66 periphrastic, 68