This section will first introduce the notion of Matrix Language
vs. Embedded Language in mixed utterances and then go on to identify three types of verb systems found in South Asian languages—simple verbs, conjunct/Light Verbs and compound verbs. The distinction between Light Verbs and compound verbs is imperative since a (verb + verb) matrix language sequence can occur in monolingual grammars of South Asian languages in compound verb constructions. However, such a combination is not permitted in “Conjunct”/Light Verb constructions (LVCs) in monolingual grammars.
Section 2.1 attempts to exemplify three types of verb constructions before underscoring the distinction between monolingual and bilingual grammar with reference to Light Verbs. A later section will detail the creativity of bilinguals while focusing on the LVC in switched verbs and in that it will describe the mechanism underlying Light Verbs in LM and offer a principled explanation toward this end.
2.1. Light Verbs: Mixed and Single Language Construction
Before we attempt to account for the structural properties of the LVC in mixed and single language constructions, it is imperative to introduce the distinction between matrix and embedded languages since this distinction is crucial to an understanding of LM (code-switching/mixing), which is the key focus of this paper. Perhaps we should add that such a distinction is motivated by descriptive considerations rather than by theoretical motivations [
20].
In most cases of code-switching, it is possible to identify one of the two languages involved as playing a more dominant role than the other. As is customary in much of the code-switching research literature, we will refer to the dominant language in code-switched utterances as the
matrix language (ML) and to the non-dominant language as the
embedded language (EL). Thus, in example (2), Hindi is the matrix language and English is the embedded language.
1. | Monolingual Hindi |
| vo | uskii | arzii-ko | pasand | kar-egaa. |
| he | his/her | application-OBJ | like (N) | do-will-MAS-SG |
| ‘He will like his/her application.’ |
2. | Code-switched Hindi-English |
| Election commission | uskii | application-
ko | reject | kar-egaa. |
| | his/her | -OBJ | | do-will-MAS-SG |
| ‘The election commission will reject his/her application.’ |
Interestingly, even if English words outnumber Hindi words in (2), in the examples of Hindi-English bilingual mixing Hindi is the matrix language and English is the embedded language in these two-language switched sentences. The matrix language, Hindi, supplies the Tense/Agreement ending. These examples illustrate the LVC in Hindi in which the Hindi verb karnaa ‘to do’ represents a non-content or dummy verbal element. Such a construction is called a Light/“Conjunct” Verb construction.
In addition to Light Verbs, Hindi and other South Asian languages have two other types of verb constructions, which are termed simple verbs and compound/serial verbs. Sentences (3) and (4) exemplify the case of simple verbs and compound verbs, respectively.
3. | Monolingual Hindi: Simple Verb Construction |
a. | vo | kitaab | paRh-egaa | |
| he | book | read-will-MAS-SG |
| ‘He will read the book.’ |
| |
b. | * vo | kitaab | paRh | kar-egaa. |
| he | book | read | do-will-MAS-SG |
| ‘He will read the book.’ |
| |
4. | Monolingual Hindi: “Compound” or “Serial” Verb Construction |
| vo | kitaab | paRh | le-egaa. | |
| he | book | readta | take-will-MAS-SG | |
| ‘He will read the book (for his benefit).’ |
Notice in (3b), the use of a dummy/Light Verb karnaa ‘to do’ with a lexical verb (paRh ‘read’) is not permitted.
While the Tense-Agreement ending (-egaa) is attached to the dummy verb ‘do’ in (1) and (2), it is attached to a lexical verb (paRh ‘read’) in the simple verb construction as in (3a). In the compound verb construction in (4), however, the main verb (paRh ‘read) is attached to the second verb (le ‘take’). In other words, there is a sequence of two lexical verbs. Such a construction is called a compound/serial verb construction. In a compound verb construction, two or more than two lexical verbs are employed (paRh ‘read’ and le ‘take’). As is self-evident from the English gloss in (4), the compound verb interpretation is not a mere conjunction of two lexical verbs. The main content in a compound/serial verb construction is rendered by the first verb (V1) while the second verb modifies the first verb; in this case it induces an interpretation in which the subject is understood as the beneficiary of the act. The general schema of the compound verb construction is presented in (5) below:
5. Monolingual Hindi: Compound Verb or Serial Verb Schema
V1 | V2 | Shades of Meaning |
[Any verb; open set] | [restricted set of verbs] | |
paRh ‘read’ | lenaa ‘take’ | read for one’s own benefit |
paRh ‘read’ | denaa ‘give’ | read for someone else’s benefit |
paRh ‘read’ | baiThanaa ‘sit’ | read in a sloppy/accidental fashion |
paRh ‘read’ | Daalnaa ‘put into’ | read aggressively |
The treatment of the compound verb construction in LM is outside the scope of this paper. Instead, we will restrict ourselves to the Light Verb phenomenon. However, what is imperative for the purpose of this paper is to underscore a distinction and contrast between monolingual Compound Verbal clustering on one hand and the code-switched (i.e., language-mixed) verb + verb clustering in bilingual grammar.
2.2. The Light Verb Construction (LVC)
Consider now examples (6)–(9).
6. | Monolingual Hindi |
| merii | patnii | saaRii | cun-egii | |
| my | wife | Saree | choose-Fut.3.Sg.Fem | |
| ‘My wife will choose a Saree.’ |
| |
7. | Hindi-English code-switching (illformed) |
| * merii | patnii | saaRii | choose-egii | |
| my | wife | Saree | choose--Fut.3.Sg.Fem | |
| ‘My wife will choose a Saree.’ |
| |
8. | Monolingual Hindi (illformed) |
| * merii | patnii | [vp saaRii | cun(-na)] | kar-egii | |
| my | wife | Saree | choose (Inf) | do-Fut.3.Sg.Fem | |
| ‘My wife will choose a Saree.’ |
| |
9. | Hindi-English code-switching |
| merii | patnii | [vp saaRii | choose] | kar-egii | |
| my | wife | Saree | choose | do-Fut.3.Sg.Fem | |
| ‘My wife will choose a Saree.’ |
As expected, example (6)—monolingual Hindi—shows no ill-formedness when the Hindi Tense/Agreement element—
-egii- is suffixed to the Hindi verb stem
cun-. Example (7) shows that the Hindi Tense/Agreement element cannot be suffixed directly to the switched English verb
choose. Example (9)—we return to (8) in a moment—shows that the presence of the stem of the semantically Light Verb
kar-naa ‘to do’ (underlined) allows the occurrence of the switched verb
choose, the Tense/Agreement element
-egii being attached to the light-verb stem
kar-. As the ill-formedness of example (8) shows, the occurrence of the Light Verb
kar-naa is restricted to structures in which the verb has been switched. Note that
kar- ‘do’, like
ho- ‘be’,
aa- ‘come’, and a number of other verbs, lacks the full semantic content of a verb like Hindi
cun- or English
choose. Jespersen [
21], Cattell [
22], and others refer to verbs like
kar- as “semantically light” or simply “light” verbs. Henceforth, we therefore refer to the construction exemplified by (9)—in which the verb is switched and the Light Verb -
kar—occurs as “the Light Verb Construction.”
As is well-known, Hindi is not alone among South Asian languages in showing the LVC. As examples (10) and (11) show, this construction is found in cases of code-switching with other South Asian languages as the matrix language.
10. | Panjabi-English [11] (p. 129) |
| ma | apnii | language | learn | kar-ni | |
| I | own | language | learn | do-1.Sg.Des | |
| ‘I want to learn my own language.’ |
11. | Tamil-English [12] (p. 21) |
| naan | inda | pustagatte | finish | paNNiTTeen |
| I | this | book | finish | doVBP-PERF-PST-1SG |
| ‘I finished this book.’ |
In fact, South Asian languages are not the only ones that exhibit this structure. Consider examples (12)–(15).
12. | Turkish-Dutch [23] |
| foturaf | kijken | yapi-yor-lar | | |
| photograph | look-at | do-PRS-PL | | |
| ‘They are shooting photographs.’ |
| |
13. | Navajo-English [24] |
| Nancy | bich’i | show | anileeh |
| Nancy | to.3 | show | make.2 |
| ‘You show it to Nancy.’ |
| |
14. | Warlpiri-English [25] |
a. | grow | jarri | mi |
| grow | become | Nnpst |
| ‘To grow.’ |
b. | hold | mani |
| hold | make |
| ‘To hold.’ |
| |
15. | Spanish-English [26] (see also Pfaff [27]) |
| Pues | ellos | hacen | get | along |
| Well | they | do.3SG | get | along |
| ‘Well they get along.’ |
In addition to these language pairs, the following are also reported in the literature as exhibiting this structure (matrix language first): Philippine Creole Spanish-
English [
28], Philippine Creole Spanish-
Tagalog [
28], Shona-
English [
29]. For further examples, see [
30], this volume.
2.3. ‘Conjunct’ Verbs and the Light Verb Construction (LVC)
Before proceeding to an analysis of the LVC, we will consider a related construction in Hindi—the structure traditionally termed the ‘Conjunct Verb Construction’ as exemplified in (16)–(19) below with both monolingual Hindi and code-switched Hindi-
English exemplars.
16. | Monolingual Hindi |
| merii | patnii | [NP saaRii | kii | pasand] | kar | -egii |
| my | wife | Saree | of | liking | do | -Fut.3.Sg.Fem |
| ‘My wife will take a liking to a Saree.’ |
| |
17. | Code-switched Hindi-English |
| merii | patnii | [NP saaRii | kii | choice] | kar | -egii |
| my | wife | Saree | of | choice | do | Fut.3.Sg.Fem |
| ‘My wife will choose a Saree.’ |
| |
| |
18. | Monolingual Hindi |
| ye | davaaii | [AP mujh | ko | acchaa] | kar | -egii |
| this | medicine | me | to | better | do | Fut.3.Sg.Fem |
| ‘This medicine will make me better.’ |
| |
19. | Code-switched Hindi-English |
| ye | davaaii | [AP mujh | ko | better] | kar | -egii |
| this | medicine | me | to | better | do | Fut.3.Sg.Fem |
| ‘This medicine will make me better.’ |
The examples in (16)–(19) exhibit the main properties of what is traditionally referred to as the “Conjunct Verb” Construction. In each case an NP or AP functions as the complement of the verb kar-naa. Traditionally, the head of the complement is termed the ‘Pre-verb’ of the construction and the form of kar-naa is termed the ‘Operator Verb.’ Hence, we may represent the structures of the sentences in (16)–(17) and (18)–(19) as shown under (20).
20. The Conjunct Verb Construction
Pre-verb | Operator Verb |
… [NP … N] | kar + Tense/Agreement |
… [AP … A] | kar + Tense/Agreement |
Note that ‘N’ may be a deverbal noun, as in examples (1) and (16), suggesting that these monolingual constructions might be equivalent to the bilingual cases in which the complement of kar ‘do’ is a verb, but this is not the case as the contrast in acceptability in (8) and (16) shows.
Additional Operator Verbs in this construction include other semantically Light Verbs like ho-naa ‘to be’, ban-naa ‘to be made’, aa-naa ‘to come’, paR-naa ‘to fall’, and de-naa ‘to give’.
It might be thought that the
kar -construction in (9) above is a straightforward instance of the LVC. However, the grammaticality values of (8) and (9) indicate otherwise. Examples (6–9) are repeated below as (21)–(24), respectively, with relevant structure added for convenience.
21. | Monolingual Hindi |
| merii | patnii | [VP saaRii | cun ] | -egii |
| my | wife | Saree | choose | -Fut.3.Sg.Fem |
| ‘My wife will choose a Saree.’ |
| | |
22. | Hindi-English code-switching |
| * merii | patnii | [VP saaRii | choose ] | -egii |
| my | wife | Saree | choose | -Fut.3.Sg.Fem |
| ‘My wife will choose a Saree.’ |
| |
23. | Monolingual Hindi |
| *merii | patnii | [VP saaRii | cun (-naa)] | kar | -egii |
| my | wife | Saree | Choose (-Inf) | do | -Fut.3.Sg.Fem |
| ‘My wife will choose a Saree.’ |
| |
24. | Hindi-English code-switching |
| merii | patnii | [VP saaRii | choose ] | kar | -egii |
| my | wife | Saree | choose | do | -Fut.3.Sg.Fem |
| ‘My wife will choose a Saree.’ |
As the unacceptability of example (23) indicates, if the “complement” of kar- in these structures is a VP and the head of the “complement” is a Hindi verb, then (unlike the parallel structures in (16) and (18) containing NPs and APs with a Hindi noun or adjective as head) the string is ill-formed. This suggests that the status of kar- in (18)–(19) is quite different from that of kar- in (23). In fact, the complementarity of the distribution of kar- in these structures (it is present only when a switched verb appears) suggests that it is inserted in the course of the derivation of, e.g., (24) to save the derivation from being blocked. This explains the mechanism that makes embedded language verb ‘choose’ + matrix language dummy verb a very productive process, while the pairing of matrix verb and matrix dummy verb as in (23) is ruled out by the monolingual grammar.
2.4. Code-Switching and the Light Verb Construction (LVC)
Let us now turn to a theoretical analysis of the LVC referred to above from the perspective of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program [
31].
In explaining the acceptability values of (21)–(24), we may take (25) as exhibiting the “normal” operation of Verb affixation and formulate the problem of providing a principled account of these data in terms of questions (26a–c).
25. Structure for sentences (21)–(24)
26. Questions
a. | Why is the derivation of (22) blocked? |
b. | Why is the derivation of (24) well-formed? |
c. | Why is the derivation of (23) blocked? |
Adopting standard assumptions in the Minimalist Program concerning “articulated INFL” and its accompanying structure [
32] as shown in (25), we take the Numeration of all four sentences in (21)–(24) to include a representation in which the VPs
saaRii cun- and
saaRii choose are the complements of the functional element Tense/Agreement realized by the suffix
-egii as indicated in (25).
What answers does grammatical theory provide for Question (26a) concerning the unacceptability of example (22)? One logical possibility is that the unacceptability of (22) falls under the Free Morpheme Constraint [
33]. However, the Hindi-
English forms in (27) below, which are quite typical, indicate that this constraint does not operate generally in Hindi.
27. Hindi-
Englisha. | selfish-pan | ‘selfishness’ |
| widow-pan | ‘widowhood’ |
b. | doctor-nii | ‘female doctor’ |
| judge-nii | ‘female judge’ |
c. | pen-daan | ‘pen holder’ |
| perfume-daan | ‘perfume bottle’ |
A condition that has been proposed and independently justified within the framework of the Minimalist Program [
31] that would exclude example (22) is the Functional Head Constraint (FHC) of Belazi, Rubin, and Toribio [
34], which is stated as follows: ‘The language of the complement f-selected by a functional head, like all other relevant features, must match the corresponding feature of the functional head’ [
33] (p. 228). The f-selection relation, as characterized by Abney [
35] (p. 56), is the syntactic relation between a functional head and its complement. Functional heads include (but are not limited to) complementizers, inflectional elements like tense, aspect, and agreement markers, modal auxiliaries, negative elements, quantifiers,
etc. Given the structure in (25) where the functional element
-egii f-selects the complement VP containing
cun- or
choose as its head, and assuming that forms are marked with the grammar from which they originated
-egii and
cun are marked [+Hindi] and
choose is [-Hindi], the FHC excludes the switched form
choose in (22) while allowing the unswitched
cun- in (21).
The additional examples in (28)–(30) demonstrate the consistency of the operation of the FHC in the verbal complex of Hindi. The functional heads relevant to the operation of the FHC are the Tense/Agreement element
-egii (repeated here for convenience) in the (a) examples, the Modal Aux
sak- ‘can’ in the (b) examples, and the Progressive element
-rah- in the (c) examples. In each case the functional head is underlined.
28. | Monolingual Hindi |
a. | merii | patnii | [VP saaRii | cun ] | -egii |
| my | wife | Saree | choose | -Fut.3.Sg.Fem |
| ‘My wife will choose a Saree.’ |
| |
b. | merii | patnii | [VP saaRii | cun ] | sak | -tii | hai |
| my | wife | Saree | choose | can | -3.Sg.Fem | is |
| ‘My wife can choose a Saree.’ |
| |
c. | merii | patnii | [VP saaRii | cun ] | -rah- | -ii | hai |
| my | wife | Saree | choose | Prog | -3.Sg.Fem | is |
| ‘My wife is choosing a Saree.’ |
| |
29. | Code-switched Hindi-English (without kar) |
a. | * merii | patnii | [VP saaRii | choose] | -egii |
| my | wife | Saree | choose | Fut.3.Sg.Fem |
| ‘My wife will choose a Saree.’ |
| |
b. | * merii | patnii | [VP saaRii | choose] | sak | -tii | hai |
| my | wife | Saree | choose | can | -3.Sg.Fem | is |
| ‘My wife can choose a Saree.’ |
| |
c. | * merii | patnii | [VP saaRii | choose ] | -rah- | -ii | hai |
| my | wife | Saree | choose | Prog | -3.Sg.Fem | is |
| ‘My wife is choosing a Saree.’ |
| |
30. | Code-switched Hindi-English (without kar) |
a. | merii | patnii | [VP saaRii | choose] | kar | -egii |
| my | wife | Saree | choose | do | -Fut.3.Sg.Fem |
| ‘My wife will choose a Saree.’ |
| |
b. | merii | patnii | [VP saaRii | choose] | kar | sak | -tii | hai |
| my | wife | Saree | choose | do | can | -3.Sg.Fem | is |
| ‘My wife can choose a Saree.’ |
| |
c. | merii | patnii | [VP saaRii | choose] | kar | -rah- | -ii | hai |
| my | wife | Saree | choose | do | Prog | -3.Sg.Fem | is |
| ‘My wife is choosing a Saree.’ |
We turn now to question (26b)—why is example (24) well-formed? We propose that the grammar of Hindi includes an operation that inserts the Light Verb
kar- as the carrier of the Tense/Agreement element
-egii, thereby neutralizing the functional character of
-egii. This operation, then, acts as a Last Resort to save a derivation that would otherwise be blocked by the FHC. Thus, this operation is analogous to Chomsky's independently motivated analysis of the
do-support phenomenon in English [
31] and in accordance with a general condition on Last Resort as characterized in Chomsky [
31], however these conditions are ultimately formulated. That is, a step in a derivation (e.g.,
do-insertion) is legitimate only if it is necessary for well-formedness (that is, had the step not been taken, the derivation would not have been well-formed).
Question (26c)—that concerning the ill-formedness of (23)—has a natural answer within Chomsky’s Economy Framework [
31]; see [
16]. Because the derivation of (23) is well-formed without the application of
kar -insertion, that operation cannot apply in its derivation in accordance with Chomsky’s economy conditions on derivations as described above.
Summarizing, the phenomena exemplified in (21)–(24) receive a natural account within Universal Grammar under Minimalist assumptions. Of course, the Functional Head Constraint as formulated here is not the only formal mechanism to account for this innovation in bilinguals, other approaches are also possible. One such approach is proposed by Myers-Scotton’s matrix language frame (MLF) model [
29] (p. 82); however, an analysis based on such an approach is subject to serious limitations; for more details see [
1]. One cannot exclude the possibility that the Minimalist Program framework proposed by MacSwan [
20,
36] can rule out any constraint to the mixed system. However, any approach or a framework of analysis has to account for the following two-step mechanism of permitting the integration of the Embedded Language verb into the bilingual grammar of Hindi-English bilinguals.
31. Two-Step Mechanism
Step 1: The Embedded Language verb appears in its stem form
Step 2: The dummy verb from the Matrix language (–do insertion) is subject to Tense/Agreement marking.
Even verbs such as ‘to look down upon’ undergo the same process.
32. | Hindi-English |
| kissii | par | bhii | look down upon | na | kiijiye |
| someone | on | even | | not | do-POL. IMP. |
| ‘Please do not look down upon any one.’ |