Table Of ContentThe Syntax of Arabic
and French Code
Switching in Morocco
Mustapha Aabi
The Syntax of Arabic and French Code
Switching in Morocco
Mustapha Aabi
The Syntax of Arabic
and French Code
Switching in Morocco
Mustapha Aabi
Department of English Studies
Université Ibn Zohr
Agadir, Morocco
ISBN 978-3-030-24849-9 ISBN 978-3-030-24850-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24850-5
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Preface
Contact between different speech communities represents one breeding
ground for change and accommodation which can affect the forms as
well as the functions of language. Code switching (CS), as one result
of this contact situation, is an important setting in which to display the
dominance of one language over another, or to witness the resolve of a
speech community to incorporate another language so as to satisfy their
needs, be they syntactic, lexical or pragmatic. The aim of this book is
to trace the formal manifestations of this type of language negotiation
whereby switching occurs between two or more languages. It will be
shown that, in a CS situation, collision of languages is highly regular-
ized by specific syntactic features. A number of different approaches to
CS structural constraints are considered, and a model, the Functional
Parameter Constraint (FPC), based on the analysis of selectional prop-
erties of the functional heads is advocated. The underlying assumption
of the FPC, which owes its theoretical motivation to recent syntac-
tic research (e.g., Chomsky 1995; Ouhalla 1991, 1999; Ouhalla and
Shlonsky 2002; White 2003; Borsley 2016), is that inter-language
parameters, as opposed to language universals, constrain CS. Parameters
are restricted to the features of functional categories, given that their
v
vi Preface
lexical counterparts are conceptually selected entries which are drawn
from an invariant universal vocabulary, and, therefore, are not to be
parameterized (Chomsky 1995).
Three selectional properties for which functional categories can be
parameterized cross-linguistically are identified, namely c-selection,
m-selection and grammatical features. A corpus consisting of naturally
occurring data was collected to provide the empirical evidence to test
the tenets of the book. The inquiry undertaken has shown that selec-
tional requirements for Spec and complement largely account for code
switching patterns in the Moroccan situation.
Agadir, Morocco Mustapha Aabi
References
Borsley, R. 2016. Syntactic Theory: A Unified Approach, 2nd ed. London:
Routledge.
Chomsky, N. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ouhalla, J. 1991. Functional Categories and Parametric Variation. London:
Routledge.
———. 1999. Introducing Transformational Grammar: From Principles and
Parameters to Minimalism. London: Edward Arnold.
Ouhalla, J., and U. Shlonsky, eds. 2002. Themes in Arabic and Hebrew Syntax.
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
White, L. 2003. Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Acknowledgements
A special word of gratitude is due to Prof. Joseph Bell for his reading,
reviewing and editing which brought this book to its present shape. I
would also like to express my thanks to my family and to my friends
and colleagues for their unwavering support and encouragement. This
journey would not have been possible without the little big inspiration
of Rayan.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background and Motivation 1
1.2 Theoretical Framework 2
1.3 Organization of the Book 4
References 5
2 Defining Code Switching 7
2.1 Introduction 7
2.2 Interference, Borrowing and Code Switching 8
2.3 Code Switching: Diglossia or Bilingualism? 16
2.4 Code Switching: Alternational, Insertional or Fusional? 20
2.4.1 Switching Boundaries 21
2.4.2 Insertional Code Switching 24
2.4.3 Alternational Code Switching 27
2.4.4 Fusional Code Switching 29
2.5 Conclusion 31
References 31
ix
x Contents
3 The Moroccan Linguistic Profile 37
3.1 Introduction 37
3.2 Languages 38
3.2.1 Standard Arabic 38
3.2.2 Moroccan Arabic 41
3.2.3 French 42
3.2.4 Berber 43
3.3 Earlier Work on CS in the Moroccan Context 44
3.4 Conclusion 55
References 56
4 Different Proposals for Constraining Code Switching 59
4.1 Introduction 59
4.2 The Equivalence Model 61
4.2.1 The Equivalence Constraint 61
4.2.2 The Free Morpheme Principle 66
4.2.3 Nonce Borrowing: A Rescue for the
Equivalence and Free Morpheme Principles 69
4.3 The Matrix Model 72
4.3.1 System Morphemes in the MLF Model 74
4.3.2 Content Morphemes in the MLF Model 77
4.3.3 Word Order in the MLF Model 80
4.4 The Syntactic-Theory Model 83
4.5 Conclusion 90
References 91
5 Syntactic Theory and Code Switching: The Functional
Parameter Constraint 95
5.1 Introduction 95
5.2 Theoretical Framework of the FPC 96
5.2.1 Parameterization Theory 97
5.2.2 Functional Categories and Code Switching 104
5.2.3 Functional Categories vs. Lexical Categories 108
5.3 Setting the Parameters 113
5.3.1 The Syntax of Arabic and French 113
5.3.1.1 VSO/SVO Word Orders 113
Contents xi
5.3.1.2 Noun-Adjective Phrases 121
5.3.1.3 Adverbs 124
5.3.1.4 Prepositions 126
5.3.2 Code Switching Constraints 128
5.4 Conclusion 136
References 137
6 Introducing the Data and the Participants 141
6.1 Introduction 141
6.2 Looking for Fluent Bilinguals 142
6.3 Bilingual Groups in Morocco 143
6.4 Procedures of Data Collection 144
6.5 Data Sets of the Present Study 147
6.5.1 Data Set One 147
6.5.2 Data Set Two 148
6.5.3 Data Set Three 149
6.6 Data Selection and Transcription 150
6.7 Data Analysis 151
6.8 Conclusion 153
References 154
7 Code Switching Between Moroccan Arabic and French 157
7.1 Introduction 157
7.2 The Role of Functional Categories in Constraining
Moroccan Arabic/French Code Switching 158
7.2.1 Code Switching of DP 158
7.2.2 Code Switching of IP 173
7.2.3 Code Switching of CP 179
7.3 The Role of Lexical Categories in Constraining
Moroccan Arabic/French Code Switching 182
7.3.1 Code Switching of Prepositions 183
7.3.2 Code Switching of Adjectives 190
7.3.3 Code Switching of Nouns 194
7.3.4 Code Switching of Adverbials 197
7.4 Conclusion 199
References 200
