Where do they belong?

Classifying lone English-origin nouns in Igbo discourse

Ejike Eze

Sun. 11-1:05 C

Determining the status of single word incorporations from one language into the discourse otherwise of another as in (1) has becomes notoriously contentious in language contact research.

(1) A na- acho inwet confession n' aka ha (2/138)

C1 AUX-want INF get confession PREP hand they

"One wants to get a confession from them"

Is this phenomenon, to be treated as Codeswitching (CS) or borrowing and what models should be used to effect such differentiation?

This paper contributes to this issue by examining the patterning of lone English-origin nouns in otherwise Igbo contexts extracted from a corpus of naturally occurring vernacular speech of 16 adult bilingual speakers of Igbo and English. Assuming the operational definition of CS and borrowing in (Poplack 1993). I attempt to ascertain the status of such nouns by applying the quantitative method incorporated in the variationist framework and using syntactic and semantic diagnostics.

The syntactic diagnostic compares patterns of nominal modification among the lone English-origin nouns and the nouns in each monolingual context. Igbo has no overt definite article (although definiteness is sometimes indicated with the use of demonstratives which follow the noun). All nominal modifiers including adjectives, possessives and quantifiers also follow the noun. English, on the other hand, possesses definite determiners. This and all other modifiers are preposed to the noun. There are therefore several areas of categorical non-equivalence in the NP structures of Igbo and English, which should affect CS between them. To determine whether English-origin stretches occurring at these sites are indeed CS, we first compare the noun modifiers usage of the lone English-origin nouns with should show patterns similar to that of monolingual English nouns of multiword segments, but not monolingual Igbo. If on the other hand they are borrowings, their patterns should be similar to that of Igbo, but not English or multiword fragments.

The semantic diagnostic examines the behavior of generics in the three corpora. In Igbo, bare nouns typically receive generic interpretation. In English, a generic reading is usually indicated morphologically or with determiners. If the lone English-origin nouns are being treated as if they were CS, they should pattern with the English-origin nouns and unambiguous CS. If they pattern with Igbo nouns, on the other hand, this would be an indication that they are borrowings.

Preliminary results indicate that the lone English-origin nouns in otherwise Igbo context pattern as if they were being treated by the speakers as borrowings and not CS. Lone English-origin nouns tend to surface bare, as do monolingual Igbo nouns, in contrast both to monolingual English nouns and multiword fragments. Lone English-origin nouns also co-occur with other modifiers at a frequency paralleling that of only monolingual Igbo. Moreover, all modifiers follow lone English-origin nouns, a pattern that is clearly Igbo. In contrast, all modifiers of monolingual English nouns as well as nouns in multiword fragments precede. Finally, lone English-origin nouns also pattern with monolingual Igbo nouns in terms of genericness.

All of these lines of evidence taken together suggest that the lone English-origin nouns have been borrowed into Igbo. These findings not only contribute to disambiguating the status of lone items in other-language discourse, they bring to light further evidence that CS and borrowings pattern differently and therefore must be distinguished.