CODE-SWITCHING IN THE CONTEXT OF UDMURT-RUSSIAN BILINGUALISM (BASED ON VERB FORMS)

On the one hand, code switching as a linguistic phenomenon is a speaker’s transition from one language to another in the process of verbal communication, depending on the conditions of communication; on the other hand, it is the interaction of structures and structural elements of two languages. Its implementation in speech is due to a number of reasons: extralinguistic (external), intralinguistic (linguistic proper), psycho-physiological. The main purpose of this article is to identify the structural types as well as lexical and semantic characteristics of code switching, based on verb forms in the speech of native Udmurt speakers in the context of Udmurt-Russian bilingualism. In the course of the study, it was found that, in contrast to the nominal parts of speech, verbs are less susceptible to the phenomenon of code-switching. The matrix (Udmurt) language is characterized by three types of inclusion of verb forms from the donor language: a) the use of an auxiliary verb (light verb strategy); b) indirect insertion, characterized by the attachment of special morphological markers; c) semantic borrowing. In terms of lexical and semantic characteristics, the phenomenon of code switching in the context of Udmurt-Russian bilingualism is most typical of verbal units reflecting the practical and spiritual (mental, emotional, volitional) activities of people. This proves the important role of the psycho-physiological factor in the emergence of switching codes.

ЗА ЕДНА ТЕНДЕНЦИЯ В СЛОВОРЕДА В ЧАСТНИТЕ ВЪПРОСИ В СЪВРЕМЕННИЯ БЪЛГАРСКИ ЕЗИК / ON A TENDENCY IN THE WORD ORDER OF CONTENT QUESTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY BULGARIAN

The word order in content questions in Bulgarian is largely determined by the information structure of the sentence, whereby the wh-word most commonly assumes the position immediately preceding the verb and the subject is located after the verb. In recent years the author believes to have observed a growth in the frequency of content questions in which the subject precedes the verb, as is usual in declarative sentences. If this is the case, it may be due to the waxing influence of English, where an auxiliary verb usually precedes the subject in content questions (inversion), but the main verb retains its place after the subject. A study was conducted on a provisional corpus of 138 thousand content questions beginning with an initial adverbial wh-word защо ‘why’, как ‘how’, кога ‘when’ (докога ‘until when’, откога ‘since when’) or къде ‘where’ (докъде ‘up to where’, закъде ‘due where’, накъде ‘whither’, откъде ‘whence’) extracted from original Bulgarian as well as translated texts, mostly fiction. The material shows a tangible correlation between the source language of the translated texts and the frequency of inversion in content questions: it is most common in translations from Romanian and much rarer in translations from Turkish, with the original Bulgarian texts occupying a middle position. In the translations from English, which prevail in the corpus in terms of number, the frequency of questions without inversion increases over time. This supports the hypothesis about the influence of English on Bulgarian with respect to the word order in content ques-tions. Keywords: Bulgarian, interrogative sentences, word order

Entre unité et diversité linguistique : Quelle approche pour le Cameroun ?

Le Cameroun est considéré comme une Afrique en miniature. Cette caractéristique lui est attribuée du fait de sa diversité humaine faite de communautés culturelles quasi représentatives des composantes sociales disséminées à travers le continent noir. À en croire plusieurs sources écrites, il compte au-delà de 250 groupes ethniques et linguistiques dont la cohabitation est un fait. Toutefois, l’histoire du pays témoigne de temps en temps des ressentiments ou des heurts entre communautés voisines, toutes animées par une tendance à l’ethnocentrisme au point où il convient de se demander si la pluralité culturelle que connaît ce pays ne serait pas une entrave à sa bonne marche. Dans un contexte où des voix s’élèvent pour préconiser l’adoption d’une langue ou d’un corpus de langues pour en faire le verbe auxiliaire pour les Camerounais, alors même que les langues officielles que sont l’anglais et le français sont des objets de désaccord entre les concitoyens, une préoccupation à enjeux anthropologiques se dégage. Sacrifier la pluralité au profit d’une unité linguistique avec son caractère réducteur des richesses culturelles est-il envisageable, et à quel prix ? La réflexion que mène cet article explore les atouts et inconvénients de la diversité culturelle du Cameroun et la confronte à l’éventualité de réduire à un dénominateur commun, des expressions culturelles que le hasard des circonstances a rassemblées pour la construction du dessein national. À travers une démarche de type qualitatif et au moyen d’entretiens guidés réalisés auprès de trente individus provenant des dix régions du pays et appartenant à différents groupes ethniques, la perception qu’ont les Camerounais de diverses générations de la configuration multiculturelle de leur pays et des enjeux que celle-ci représente est questionnée. Par une approche déductive d’analyse, il s’est agi d’entrevoir ce à quoi un Cameroun réduit à une ou à quelques langues pourrait ressembler. Cameroon is considered a miniature Africa by many researchers and other thinkers. This characteristic is given due to its human diversity made up of cultural communities that are almost representative of the social components scattered throughout the black continent. According to several written sources, there are more than two hundred and fifty (250), ethnic and linguistic groups whose cohabitation remains a fact. However, from time to time, the history of the country bears witness to resentment or clashes between neighboring communities, all of which are driven by this very human impulse of ethnocentrism, to the point where we have to ask ourselves whether the cultural plurality of this country might not be an impediment to the smooth running of the nation. In a context where voices are being raised to advocate the adoption of a language or a corpus of languages as an auxiliary verb for Cameroonians, even though the official languages of English and French are the subject of disagreement among fellow citizens, a concern with anthropological stakes emerges. Is sacrificing plurality in favor of a linguistic unit with its reductive character of cultural wealth conceivable, and at what cost? This article explores the strengths and drawbacks of Cameroon's cultural diversity and confronts it with the possibility of reducing to a common denominator, cultural expressions that have been brought together by chance, for the construction of the national project. That is to say, through a qualitative approach and guided interviews conducted with thirty individuals spread throughout the ten administrative regions of the country and identified from different ethnic groups, the perception of Cameroonians of various generations of the multicultural configuration of their country and the challenges it represents is investigated. Through a deductive approach of analysis, it is a question of glimpsing what a Cameroon reduced to one language or some languages could look like.

Cyclic Selection: Auxiliaries Are Merged, Not Inserted

Traditional approaches to verbal periphrasis (compound tenses) treat auxiliary verbs as lexical items that enter syntactic derivation like any other lexical item, i.e. via Selection/Merge. An alternative view that has received much attention in recent years is that auxiliary verbs are not base-generated but rather inserted in a previously built structure (i.a. Bach 1967; Embick 2000; Arregi 2000; Cowper 2010; Bjorkman 2011; Arregi and Klecha 2015). Arguments for the insertion approach to auxiliaries include their last-resort distribution and the fact that, in many languages, auxiliaries are not systematically associated with a given inflectional category (the "overflow" distribution discussed in Bjorkman 2011). In this paper, I argue against the insertion approach. First, I demonstrate that the overflow pattern and last-resort distribution follow from Cyclic Selection (Pietraszko 2017)—a Merge-counterpart of Cyclic Agree (Béjar and Rezac 2009). And second, I show that the insertion approach makes wrong predictions about compound tenses in Swahili, a language with overflow periphrasis. Under the approach advocated here, an auxiliary verb is a verbal head externally merged as a specifier of a functional head, such as T. It then undergoes m-merger with that head, instantiating an external-merge version of Matushansky’s (2006) conception of head movement.

SURFACE STRATEGY TAXONOMY: GRAMMATICAL ERRORS ANALYSIS IN THE THIRD-SEMESTER STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE ESSAY

English and Indonesian are grammatically different. The difference proves that the rules and the application of grammar are the difficult problems in writing English. Based on previous preliminary research, many Third-Semester students of English Education Study Program had problems using grammar. This is supported by the results of unstructured interviews by researcher against students. Then students made mistakes they cannot correct called errors. As English Education students, they must have good competence in all language skills to become a good English teacher. In the future, students will teach writing effectively if they master the grammatical understanding.This research’s objectives were to find: (1) The the types of grammatical errors based on surface strategy taxonomy found in students’ descriptive essay,(2) The dominant grammatical error based on surface strategy taxonomy found in students’ descriptive essay,(3) The factors causing students made grammatical error in writing descriptive essays.To achieve the objectives, a qualitative method is used. Data collected by observation, interview and documentation from students’ descriptive essay worksheet then analyzed using error analysis.The findings of the research: (1) Grammatical errors are Misformation (3rd Person Singular, Plural, Auxiliary Verb, Dictionaries, Preposition, Conjunction, Pronoun, Singular, Simple Present Tense, Simple Past Tense), Omission (Simple Present Tense, Agreement, Auxiliary Verb, Plural, Article, Pronoun, Conjunction, Preposition, Adverb), Addition (Simple Additions, Double Marking), Misordering (Adjective, Pronoun, Auxiliary Verb). (2) The dominant grammatical error is Misformation with 47.05% from 170 errors. (3) The factors causing error are Interlingual and Intralingual.