Morphological and syntactic code-switching in the speech of an Arabic-English bilingual child

Abstract

The present paper investigates morphological and syntactic code-switching in the speech of an Arabic-English bilingual child living in an Arab country, Jordan. It attempts to reveal the main features of this speech, the strategies employed to achieve switching, and the factors triggering the switch. The study also compares and contrasts the case under investigation with switches made by other bilingual, e.g., English-French and English-Spanish, children. Features and strategies shared with other bilingual children and others unique to the subject in this study are indicated. In the area of morphology, techniques and strategies like affixing the Arabic definite article, objective and possessive pronouns, some tense and aspect verbal inflections, and a few enclitic prepositions like bi- in' to English words are most noticeable. Other strategies including using English definite and indefinite articles with Arabic nouns, prefixing English negative un- to Arabic verbs, and suffixing the possessive -s and the -s of the plural to Arabic nouns are also common. Many of these techniques seem to violate the 'Free Morpheme Constraint' stipulated by Poplack (1978,1980). In the field of syntax, mixing Arabic and English word-order, be-deletion, using English subjective and objective personal pronouns with Arabic verbs, using English possessive and demonstrative determiners with Arabic nouns, and widespead mixing between English and and its Arabic equivalent wa are most remarkable. Many of these techniques violate Poplack's (1980) second constraint, namely, the 'No Equivalence Constraint'.