Neutrality in code mixing
Pieter C. Muysken · Radboud Repository (Radboud University) · 1987
The most important controversy in the study of syntactic constraints on code mixing concerns the question of whether these should be linear and/or structural in nature.Linear constraints generally involve the idea that mixing is allowed when the orders of both languages are respected.Structural constraints state that mixing is allowed when the requirements of structural 'coherence of both languages are respected.Here I want to argue that these views may in fact both be correct, and focus on ways of evading these constraints, by creating linguistic ally 'neutral' sites in the sentence, sites at which consequently switching becomes possible.I will illustrate the perspective that emerges with examples from French-Dutch (Treffers, 1987) and Moroccan Arabic-Dutch (Nortier, 1987) code mixing, all work done by the Amsterdam research group, and from other sources in the rapidly growing literature on code mixing.In section 1 I will explain in what way I am using the term code mixing, and what that entails.In sections 2 and 3 I look at the two principal types of constraints on code mixing proposed in the literature already mentioned above.Section 4 is dedicated to neutrality in code mixing. Code mixing