Exploring Mixed Copies: Evidence From English-Estonian Bilingual Speech
Abstract
Recently, contact linguistics has become increasingly interested in multiword units. At the same time, the code-copying framework (CCF) includes the notion of mixed copies (MCs) that are in-between global copies (‘borrowing’) and selective copies (‘structural change’) and illustrate the transition between the lexicon and grammar. The research question is: What types of MCs occur in English-Estonian bilingual speech? The data were transcribed, and MCs identified, annotated, and classified according to their structure. English items were searched for in Estonian dictionaries to establish their Estonian equivalents or conventionalization of such items. The frequencies of MCs and their Estonian equivalents were also searched on Google to determine whether the MCs occur outside the corpus. Three datasets were analysed: written texts from 44 blogs (385,124 tokens), spoken data from 10 vlogs (117,555 tokens), and 8 podcasts (77,277 tokens). Quantitative analyses of the various MC types were conducted, followed by a qualitative analysis of representative examples. Compound nouns constitute the majority of MCs, followed by idioms, phrasal compounds, and a small number of compound verbs. No frame-changing MCs (i.e., MCs resulting in grammatical change) were attested. Since compound nouns and analytic verbs occur in both languages, structural similarity may be a facilitating factor in copying. The notion of MCs is not widely used. Research typically focuses on particular types of items (e.g., compound nouns or verbs); here, however, the question is reversed: which types of items yield MCs? It was established that the proportion of MCs in the data is comparable to that of selective copies. Within MCs, the globally copied element renders the remaining part more specific, highlighting the importance of meaning in contact-induced language change. MCs are also present on the Estonian internet and, in some cases, outnumber their Estonian equivalents, if such equivalents exist.