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ENGLISH VERBS IN CHINESE: EVIDENCE FKM
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presented by
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ENGLISH VERBS IN CHINESE:
EVIDENCE FROM CONVERSATIONS
AND TELEVISION TALK SHOWS

By

Ling-Yu Lu

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Linguistics and Languages

1994

ABSTRACT
ENGLISH VERBS IN CHINESE:
EVIDENCE FROM CONVERSATIONS
AND TELEVISION TALK SHOWS
By

Ling-Yu Lu

The goal of this thesis is to describe the code-switching phenomenon of
English verbs in Chinese spoken by Chinese-English bilinguals. The Chinese
items which precede the English verbs govern them in certain particular ways,
which can be quite complex psycholinguistically.

In the first part of this study, background information about code-switching
and borrowing is reviewed. In the second part, the data are classified. In the last
part, hypotheses are presented and discussed, and conclusions are made.

Both the usage of the English verbs in the data collected and the pan of
speech of Chinese elements followed immediately by English verbs are
investigated on the basis of English War. From this, the frequency of
English-like forms versus non English-like forms occurring after the Chinese
lexemes can be determined.

The result Shows that Chinese-English bilinguals tend to use a great deal of
English plain verbs in their Chinese-English code-switching behavior. This
phenomenon also supports some of the code-switching constraints and principles

proposed by Pfaff (1979), Sridhar and Sridhar (1980) and Poplack (1980).

7a m; dew: W
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iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Dennis Preston, my thesis
advisor. He suggested my research topic, and he suffered the consequences.
Because of his immense bibliographical knowledge, I was spared many trips to the
library. He showed me how to classify my data, and gave me new and interesting
ideas about the differences between Chinese and English. Without his guidance
and encourgement, I would never have finished this thesis so quickly. He made
me feel worthy of my degree. I have always secretly thought of him as “Xiao3
M302 Luz.”

I would also like to thank Dr. Yen-Hwei Lin for her input into the analysis
of my data and for her comments on my hypotheses. I am greatly indebted to her
for giving me the opportunity to teach Chinese. This was one of the most
important experiences I had while living in the U. S. She taught me how to teach
Chinese, and by doing so, gave me valuable insight into my native language.

I also thank Dr. Grover Hudson for introducing me to the works of Appel
and Muysken, without which I could not have written this thesis. He also helped

Show me the methodology for writing and organizing a thesis.

iv

My indescribable thanks go to Freya Katkowsky, who spent many low-paid
hours in cafes and restaurants all over East Lansing proof-reading this thesis.

I am also grateful to my special friend, Mr. Chih-Chou Chao for severely
interrupting my thesis-writing by richly inspiring me to write modern Chinese
poetry. Although he is entirely responsible for delaying my thesis, his inspiration
caused me to publish two poems in the Central Daily News of Taiwan, which
made the delay forgivable.

My sincere appreciation also goes to Wendy Winkeljohn for her prayers for
me which all came true and all my friends who put up with me and helped me with

my life and studies.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables

List of Abbreviations

O.

1.

Introduction

Background

1.1

Code-Switching

1.2 Borrowing
1.3 Distinctions between Code-Switching and Borrowing
1.4 Distinguishing the Bilingual from the Monolingual'
in Code-Switching and Borrowing
Data Information
. Methods and Objectives

Data Classification and Discussion

4.1

Non-Finites
4.1.1 Infinitive Forms
4.1.2 -r'ng Form

4.1.3 Both Infinitive and -ing F onn

ix

ll

13

17

23

26

28

28

28

33

35

4.2

4.3

4.4

4.5

4.6

4.7

4.8

4.9

4.10

4.11

4.12

4.13

4.14

5. ba

5.1

5.2

5.3

5.4

5.5

5.6

Modals and Modal-Like Forms
Past Aspect

Progressive Aspect

Perfective Coverb

Passive Coverb

Do-Supports

rang and qu

Question Word

Imperative

First Person Habituals or Present
Second Person Habituals and Present
Third Person Singular

Third Person Plural

Infinitive Verbs

Modals and Modal-like Forms
Past Aspect

Perfective Aspect

First Person Habituals or Present

Third Person Plural

6. Conclusion

Vii

36

38

39

4O

42

44

45

45

46

47

48

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

55

57

Bibliography

viii

67

Table 1:

Table 2:

Table 3:

Table 4:

Table 5:

Table 6:

LIST OF TABLES

Summary of Chapter 4
Summary of Chapter 5
Tables 1 and 2 Combined

Sununary of Chapter 4 in Terms of English Plain Verbs
after the Chinese Elements

Stunmary of Chapter 5 in Terms of English Plain Verbs
after the Chinese Elements

Tables 4 and 5 Combined

ix

56

57

57

58

58

59

ASSOC
BA
BEI

CL
CRS
DUR
GEN
NOM
PFV

PL

3sg

 

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONSl

associative (-de)

ba

bei

classifier

Currently Relevant State (1e)
durative aspect (zhengzai/zai)
genitive (-de)

nominalizer (de)

perfective aspect (-1e)

plural (-men, -xie)

Question (ma)

Reduce Forcefulness (a, la, ye)

third person singular pronoun

1 The list of abbreviations is adopted from Li and Thompson’s terminology (1981: xxiii).

0. Introduction

Being a Speaker of both Chinese and English, I have noticed that a
significant nmnber of English elements are mixed in Chinese-English bilinguals’
discourse. Many studies suggest that lexical switching primarily involves nouns,
verbs, and adjectiVes. Universally, nouns are the most easily and frequently
borrowed category, while verbs, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions are
transferred in decreasing scale (Haugen, 1956, 1972; Pfafi‘, Poplack, 1979;
Gibbons, 1987; Lehiste, 1988; De Houwer, 1990; Myers-Scotton, 1993).

Code-switching studies have most frequently involved the switching of
nouns and adjectives. However, the focus of my thesis is on the code-swtiching
phenomenon of English verbs in Chinese. The way they enter Chinese sentences
is remarkable. All of the data contain only English verbs in Chinese sentences
uttered by bilingual Speakers. The data are classified into different categories,
which is determined by the part of speech of the preceding Chinese items.
Because of the occurrence of the preceding Chinese items, the English verbs are
governed in certain particular ways, which can be quite complex
psycholinguistically. Although all the lexemes after the Chinese elements are
English, that is, superficially English-like, they could not possibly be English-like
in the minds of the bilingual speakers. Hypotheses are made about the occurrence
of English verbs according to the frequency of their occurrence in these data. The

measurement used here to determine their status as either English-like or non

English-like is to take a close look at the preceding Chinese elements from the
point of View of English grammar.

Before stating the results, it is necessary to first survey the background
information about code-switching and borrowing and the difficulty which has
caused many debates over how to distinguish them. An important issue of
bilingualism is revealed afterwards due to a lot of arguments among scholars
concerning who is capable of making use of code-switching and/or borrowing.

In Chapter 1, the background information is given. Chapter 2 gives the
information about the data I have collected. Chapter 3 presents the method used to
analyze the data and the objective of this thesis. The data classifications are
Shown in Chapter 4 with hypotheses2 for the English verbs occurring next to the
Chinese elements within ‘Chinese’3 sentences. Special treatments about Chinese
ba sentences in which English verbs are inserted will be seen in Chapter 5.
Finally, Chapter 6 gives the conclusion drawn upon the code-switching

phenomenon of English verbs in the Chinese language.

 

2I am indebted to Dr. Yen-Hwei Lin, for comments on my Chinese data classifications and the
hypotheses for my data analyses through hours of communication.

3 Note that each English verb or verbal phrase seems to be embedded in every Chinese-based
sentence of these data, but this probably is not true from a psycholinguistic point of View, since it
might be that the bilingual speaker is underlyingly thinking of the English sentence structure for their
code-switching behavior especially when the word order or the phrase structure of both languages are
identical. This indication from the aspect of sentence structure actually implies that the Chinese-
English code-switching phenomenon is more complex than just word substitution.

1. Background

When two different cultures are interacting with each other, bilingualism, at
the linguistic level, has attracted a lot of attention from social scientists and has led
to many studies in code-switching (e.g., Rayfield, Weinreich, 1970; Blom &
Gumperz, 1972; Anisman, 1975; McClure, Scotton & Ury, 1977; Huerta, Timm,
1978; Pascasio, 1979; Baker, Poplack, 1980; Grosjean, Gumperz, Lipski, 1982;
Staczek, 1983), code-mixing (e.g., Ure, 1974; Espinosa, 1975; Kachru, Sridhar,
1978; Gibbons, 1979; Vaid, 1980; Gibbons, 1983; Appel & Muysken, 1987),
language shift (e.g., Weinreich, 1970; Fishman, 1976; Trudgill & Tzavaras, 1977;
Gal, 1979; Baetens Beardsmore, 1982; Veltrnan, 1983; Appel & Muysken, 1987;
Fishman, Verivaki, 1990; Fishman, 1991) and language choice (e.g., Parkin, 1971;
Scotton, 1976; Baetens Beardsmore, Grosjean, 1982; Gibbons, 1987; Preston,
1989; F ishman, 1991) in the bilingual community.

The subject of code-switching is receiving increasingly greater attention from
sociolinguists, social psychologists and bilingual educators. The term ‘code-
switching’, however, is difficult to define. The fact that every language borrows
lexical items from other languages has caused controversial distinctions between
code-switching and borrowing on the basis of arbitrary linguistic criteria, which has
brought about considerable discussion among researchers (W einreich, 1953; Heath,

1981; Baetens Beardsmore, 1982; Grosjean, 1982; Karttunen, 1985; Appel and

4

Muysken, 1987; Scotton, 1988c; Hamers and Blanc, 1989; Mougeon and Beniak,
1991; Treffers-Daller, 1991a; Myers-Scotton, 1992b, 1993).

In this chapter, the observations of code-switching and borrowing made by
researchers and traditional points of view on the distinction between code-switching
and borrowing are demonstrated in 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 respectively. Then a number of
explanations from scholars are provided about how these points of View can be
problematic and better solutions to distinguish code-switching from borrowing, as
suggested primarily by Myers-Scotton (1993). In section 1.4, some definitions made
by scholars regarding bilinguals contrasted with monolinguals in order to distinguish

carefully between code-switching and borrowing are shown.

1.1 Code—Switching

Although code-switching itself, a central part of bilingual discourse, has
produced a great number of interesting effects on two or more languages which
come in contact, the exact meaning of the term remains controversial and ill-
defined. (The definitions of the ‘bilingual’ will be shown in 1.4 below.) The
following statements illustrate several researchers’ opinions on code-switching:

“[Code-switching is] the alternate use of different languages”
(Haugen, 1956).

“. . . [code-switching] is code alternation within the same discourse”
(Diebold, 1963: 56).

“The most likely explanation is that [a bilingual] has the capcity to
activate the L2 system, carry out the semantic encoding, the
selection of words and the syntach organization while more or less
mechanically producing in L1 material which has aiready been
prepared for production” (Macnamara, 1967: 70).

“‘Code-switching’ has become a common term for alternative use of
two or more languages, varieties of a language, or even speech
styles” (Hymes, 1974: 103).

“We define code-switching as the use of two or more linguistic
varieties in the same conversation or interaction. . . . The varieties
may be anything from genetically unrelated languages to two styles
of the same language.” (Scotton and Ury, 1975: 1)

“[Code-switching is] the alternation of two languages” (Valdes
Fallis, 1976).

“ . code-switching is the use of more than one language by
communicants in the execution of a speech act” (Di Pietro, 1977:
275)

“A perfect bilingual may switch from language to language during a
conversation. This phenomenon is called code-switching; again, in
the ideal case all aspects are switched simultaneously.” (Baetens
Beardsmore, 1982: 2)

“. . . I will define code-switching as the alternate use of two or more
languages in the same utterance or conversation . . .” (Grosjean,
1982 145) v

“[Code-switching iS] the use of two languages in one sentence”
(Appel and Muysken, 1987: 172).

“. . . code-switching [is] the alternate use of two languages by the
same speaker during the same speech event” (Lehiste, 1988: 22).

6

“Codeswitching4. . . is the selection by bilinguals or multilinguals of

forms from an embedded variety (or varieties) in utterance of a

matrix variety during the same conversation” (Myers-Scotton, 1993:

3). ‘ ‘

“Code-switching is the juxtaposition of sentences or sentence

fragments, each of which is internally consistent with the

morphological and syntactic (and optionally, phonological) rules of

the language of its provenance” (Poplack, 1993: 5).

From the above thirteen statements, it is easy to see that code-switching is
defined very differently by SEveral scholars. These definitions range from an
identification of code-swtiching as the use of two languages in one sentence or
during the same speech event to the use of two or more languages in the same
conversation, interaction, utterance or speech act. Many scholars have claimed
that ‘true’ code-switching involves more than one lexeme, although Poplack and
Sankofi’ (1988: 1178) have shown that borrowed forms or nonce forms used by
Tamil/English and Finnish/English bilinguals are typically Single lexemes showing
morphological and syntactic integration into their native languages (Tamil &
Finnish). In other words, not only can code-switching be a Single word but also a

phrase, a clause or a sentence (Clyne, 1967; Shaffer, 1978; Grosjean, 1982; Appel

and Muysken, 1987; Gibbons, 1987; Poplack, Sankoff, and Miller, 1988).

 

4 Unlike many other writers who hyphenate the term or prefer the term code-mixing, Myser-
Scotton prefers to write codeswitching as one word, “since only one aspect of codeswitching will
be characterized as actually involving the switching of the codes involved, and even this one aspect
is better referred to as a switching of the underlying psycholinguistic procedures which yield the
surface structures” (preface, i). In this thesis, code-switching and code-mixing are used
interchangeably.

Myers-Scotton (1993) divides code-switching into intersentential code-
switching, and intrasentential code-switching. The former “involves switches from
one language to the other between sentences; that is, a whole sentence (or more
than one sentence) is produced entirely in one language before there is a switch to
the other language(s) in use in the conversation,” while the latter “occur[s] within
the same sentence or sentence fragment”5 (p. 3-4). However, other researchers
(Appel and Muysken, 1987 : 118; Poplack, 1993: 5) think code-switching may
occur at three various levels of linguistic structure: (1) Tag-swithing serves as a
token Of the bilingual character of a unilingual sentence and is named emblematic
switching by Poplack (1980). This includes tags, exclamations, or parenthetical
remarks in another language. For example, well, anyway, and ok are often spoken
at the beginning of Chinese-English sentences by monolinguals with ahnost no
English competence. (2) Intersentential switching occurs between sentences. (3)
Intrasentential or Sentential switching occurs in the middle of a sentence. This
type is also called code-mixing. Researchers like Kachru (1978) and his
associates, and Swigart (1992) prefer to use code-mixing as a term for
intrasentential switching. Myers-Scotton criticizes this for failing to distinguish

code-switching from code-mixing (1993: 24).

 

5 Based on the truth that there are indwd Single code-switching lexemes occurring or embedded
within one sentence, Weinreich’s (1970) statement is evidently erroneous: “the ideal bilingual
switches from one language to the other according to appropriate changes in the speech situation
(interlocutors, topics, etc.), but not in an unchanged speech situation, and certainly not within a
single sentence” (p. 73, italics mine).

When code-switching originating from the embedded language in the
matrix language6 takes place, it is necessary to take the main language into
consideration. Appel and Muysken (1987) say:

Psycholinguistically it makes most sense to think of the base [main]

language as the dominant language of the bilingual speaker making

the switch, since that language is the most important one in

determining his verbal behaviour. Sociolinguistically, however, the

notion of base language may be defined as the language in terms of
which the discourse situation is defined, the unmarked linguistic

code in a particular setting. Grammatically, the base language may

be the one imposing a particular constraint for a particular case of

switching if the notion makes any sense at all. (p. 121-22)

Researchers have not always adopted the notion of a main language. Weinreich
(1970) was of the opinion that both the speaker and the listener can usually
describe which, among the languages they are using, is the base language.
According to Myers-Scotton’s terminology, the main language is the matrix
language (ML) in code-switching utterances. She defines (1993) the features of
the matrix language as “the overall greater frequency of ML morphemes” (p. 173)
and “the more dominant language, across the community, in terms of the number
of types of interaction in which it is the more socially unmarked choice. More

specifically, the ML is the language more unmarked for the specific type of

interaction in which the CS utterances occur” (p. 67). Scotton (1988a) also claims

 

6 Myers-Scotton (1993) refers to the matrix language as “the ‘principal’ language in CS [code-
switching], the one ‘around which something develops’ ”, while the embedded language is “fixed
finnly in a surrounding mass” (p. 3). She says (1991) that both languages have unequal roles
participating in code-swtiching; that is, “The Matrix language (ML) is more activated and the
occurrence of its morphemes is freer than that of the Embedded language(s) (EL).”

that the frequency of an unmarked choice is greater than marked choices.
Linguists often determine the main language by examining which language is
uttered more and by investigating the content items (e. g., nouns, verbs or
adjectives), the system items (e.g., deterrniners, prepositions), and the word order.
The task, however, is not always as simple as expected, as Grosjean has
mentioned (1982), since bilinguals also switch from language to language within
the same utterance when a third participant or more is approached, or when the
topic or the Situation changes. Furthermore, “bilinguals also switch back and forth
between languages within one semantic domain . . . , especially in communities
where code-switching is extremely frequent and practically a norm (as among
Puerto Ricans in East Harlem)” (p. 320-21). Built on the fact that it is far from
easy to determine the principal language being used and that it is insufficient to
merely examine the bilingual’s utterances and question them, further studies are
needed.

Finally, it is essential to note that, first, Lance (1975: 144) claims that the
reason for switching from one language to the other is not simply because the
bilingual speaker has vocabulary gaps in one language or the other; rather, the
speaker may know words in both languages for the concept, and a specific word or
phrase is just more readily available than others and closest to the tip of the

tongue. Second, code-switching between two languages is not entirely random or

arbitrary but does have certain constraints (Gurnperz and Hernandez, 1971; Clyne,

10

1972; Tirnm, 1975; Lipski, 1977; Kachru, 1978; Pfaff, 1979; Sridhar and -Sridhar,
1980; Poplack, 1980; 1981; Sankofi’ and Poplack, 1981; Myers-Scotton, 1993).
Pfaff makes a statement (1979: 314) that “surface structures common to both
languages are favored for switches . . . .” Sridhar and Sridhar (1980: 412) propose
their Dual-Structure Principle about their constraint on linear ordering as follows:
The internal structure Of the guest [embedded] constituent need not
conform to the constituent structure rules of the host [matrix]
language, so long as its placement in the host sentence obeys the
rules of the host language.
Poplack also formulates the ‘equivalence constraint’:
Code-switches will tend to occur at points in discourse where
juxtaposition of L1 and L2 elements does not violate a syntactic rule
of either language, i.e., at points around which the surface structures
of the two languages map onto each other. According to this simple
constraint, a switch is inhibited from occurring whithin a constituent
generated by a rule from one language which is not Shared by
another (1980: 586).
That is to say, “when the phrase structure rules (that specify word order) of both
languages are identical, switching is possible; otherwise, it is not” (W-oolford,
1983)
Aside from the equivalence constraint, Poplack (1980) also frames the Free
Morpheme Constraint: no switch may take place between two morphemes which

are morphologically bound to each other. This claim can be supported by the

hypothesis that is made about the use of English plain forms of the verbal part of

11

verbal phrases in Chinese-English code-switched sentences. See Chapter 6

Conclusion.

1.2 Borrowing

Based on standard usage in Linguistics, borrowed forms are the same as
loans (Myers-Scotton 1993: 164). Poplack (1993: 5) states that borrowing is the
adaption of lexical material to the morphology and syntax and usually, to the
phonological patterns of the recipient language. She also distinguishes loandwords
from nonce (used only once) borrowings. The former is defined as “the full
linguistic integration, native—language synonym displacement, and widespread
diffusion, even among recipient-language monolinguals,” whereas the latter need
not satisfy the diffusion requirement, and their occurrences have no predictability,
although they show the same patterns of morphological and syntactic integration
but little phonological integration as established loanwords.

From Myers-Scotton’s point of View, borrowing includes two forms: core
borrowing forms and cultural borrowing forms. The status and occurrence
frequency of the core borrowing forms are identical to those of the code-switching
forms. They may minimally appear once or twice in a discourse with no
predictability as to their recurrence. Having no relation to code-switching, cultural
borrowing forms, however, can be predicted by their high relative frequency that

they occur to stand for new concepts or objects as opposed to the indigenous forms

12

of the matrix language. They often come into the matrix language suddenly, for
they are responsible for filling gaps.7 Their encoding in the matrix language can
be handled by paraphrasing or calquing (1993: 169, 206).

According to Haugen’s (1956: 59-60) terminology, there are three different
types of borrowing with regard to the distinction between importation and
substitution. (1) Loanwords are the most common type without any morphemic
substitution but only importation from the other language, such as the use of ‘chic’
in English, and integrated morphologically and phonetically into the base
language. (2) Loanshifts occur without any morphemic importation but total
substitution; so to Speak, when a new concept or Object from the donor language is
represented entirely with a new grouping of words or morphemes already existing
in the recipient language, the forms representing that concept or object still remain
native to the donor language. A well-known example is ‘wolkenkrabbe’ in Dutch,
‘gratte-ciel’ in French, ‘wolkenkratzer’ in German and ‘rascacielos’ in Spanish.
They are all based on English “skyscraper”, but rather than borrowing the English
word ‘skyscraper’, the morphemes ‘sky’ and ‘Scraper’ are translated into the
recipient languages (Baetens Beardsmor, 1982: 47; Appel and Muysken, 1987:

165). (3) Loanblends are the cases including ‘hybrids’ where only one part

 

7 Sridhar and Sridhar (1930; 409) comment that ‘fill[ing] gaps’ is one of the ways to differentiate
code-mixing/code-switching from borrowing. The meaning is that in code-mixing, “the mixed
elements [core borrowings] do not necessarily ‘fill gaps’ in the host language,” while it holds
generally for the borrowing forms (cultural borrowings) that they Often do ‘fill gaps.”

I3

is morphemically imported from another language, and the other belongs to the
base language. For example, the English morpheme [guru] of ‘gum tree’ has been
imported into Australian German in [gumbaurn], but the local German [baum] has
been substituted for ‘tree’ (Grosjean, 1982: 313). This classification has been
regarded by some researchers as rather confusing (e.g., Appel and Muysken, 1987:
164)

It is generally believed that when the bilingual decides to switch codes if
the interlocutor is also bilingual, he or she may also borrow words from the other
language to commrmicate and integrate them phonologically, morphologically and
syntactically into the base language. The results of the borrowing process reveal
that both borrowings (or loanwords) and code-switches tend to be content words
which carry most of the semantic, pragmatic and cultural information, take the
same inflections and occupy the same syntactic Slots as corresponding base-
language words. But, since both code-switching and borrowing undergo the same
morphosyntactic procedures of the base language during production, it seems

impossible to distinguish them.

1.3 Distinctions between Code-Switching and Borrowing
Appel and Muysken (1987) imply that we can use the concepts of langue
and parole introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure to distinguish code-switching

from borrowing; namely, “in abstract terms borrowing involves the integration of

14

two languages at the level of langue, and code mixing integration at the level of
parole” (p. 121). The traditional criterion for distinguishing borrowing and code-
switching is that borrowed forms are those which are morphologically and
syntactically integrated into the base language. but Show little phonological
integration, while code-switched elements are not integrated (e. g., Weinreich,
1953; Haugen, 1956; Hasselrno, Mackey, 1970; Lance, 1975; Grosjean, 1982;
Lehiste, 1988; Poplack, 1993) This distinction, however, yields mixed results and
is problematic. Appel and Muysken (1987: 172) point out two reasons: (1) “There
may be different degrees of phonological adaptation for borrowed items.” (2)
Whether or not all non-adapted items are conspicuous cases of code-mixing is not
evident. Myers-Scotton (1993) argues that sharpening the distinction between
code-switching and borrowing by claiming that the “processes and how they
undergo morphosyntactic procedures in language production” is poorly grounded
because there is the possibility of partial/incomplete morphological integration for
both borrowed and code-switched forms. She found much existing evidence that
all borrowed forms are not completely morphologically integrated into the matrix
language (e.g., semi-leamed nouns borrowed into English from Latin and Greek
without taking regular English plurals, such as datum or data/data or
syllabus/syllabi, and the short of entry into the traditional Bantu ‘people’ classes
for borrowed forms for persons in Swahili). As for singly occuning borrowings

which are bare forms without inflections, they Show incomplete morphological

15

integration by not being realized at all the requisite system morphemes of the
matrix language (p. 183-91).

Myers-Scotton initially advocated the absolute and relative frequency of
occurrence as the only criterion which holds in [all cases to differentiate code-
switching and borrowing. She (1993) writes that:

It has long been recognized that a distinguishing characteristic of

CS [code-switching] forms is that they occur possibly only once, and

certainly not frequently, meaning that they have no predictability.

And, of course, if a B [borrowing] form has been integrated into the

ML to encode a particular concept, its occurrence can be predicted,

at least part of the time and for some groups, when that concept

comes up. (p. 194)

It is hence predictable that borrowed forms occur with more relative
frequency than code-switched forms. Although relative frequency is a reliable
measuring criterion by which the status of borrowings and code-switches
originating from the embedded language can be established in many cases, Myers-
Scotton remarks that methodological issues will turn out to be a problem, for it is
admittedly arbitrary to decide how much relative frequency is enough.

In order to deal with the problem of frequency, Myers-Scotton found
another way by changing the focus from the borrowed form based on the three-
occurrence rule (a borrowed form is the one which occurs in a relatively large
corpus at least three times) to the point of view of the code-switched form: “It is

not that a B form must recur to be a B form; it is that a CS form must not recur in

order to be a CS form,” that is, code-switched forms are those “lexemes encoding

16

core concepts and occuning no more than twice in a relatively large corpus”
(1993: 204-205).

To try to differentiate code-switching from borrowing, Myers-Scotton
hypothesizes that “While the CS form may undergo many or all of the same ML
morphosyntactic processes as the B form (and indigenous ML forms), the CS form
is not entered in the ML mental lexicon”8 (p. 192). For this, she provides with
two types of evidence to support this claim: (1) code-switched forms with their
lack of predictability, and (2) the bilingual versus monolingual status. Myers-
Scotton suggests that code-switched forms are characterized by the principle that
they occur probably only once or twice and, of course, less frequently compared to
borrowed forms, which encode foreign concepts or objects, occur with high
relative frequency and are integrated into the matrix language. Therefore, the
relative lack of predictability can be treated as an important criterion in
designating code-switches in comparison with borrowings. She also emphasizes
that it is necessary to define a Speaker as bilingual or monolingual based on the
general observation that monolinguals do not use code-switched forms but
borrowed forms in the base language in terms of her hypothesis that borrowed
forms are part of their ML mental lexicon (p. 193-94). This consideration may

affect the decision of labelling the forms that a Speaker is using as code-switches

 

8 Levelt (1989) defines the mental lexicon as “the store of information about the words in oue’s
language” (p. 6).

17

or borrowings. Since it is elusive and not clear who is monolingual and who is not
from the perspective of the language and from the Speaker’s own individual point
of View, section 1.4 introduces the definitions given by several scholars mainly

from a bilingual’s standpoint as opposed to a monolingual’s.

1.4 Distinguishing the Bilingual from the Monolingual in Code-Switching and
Borrowing

From the perspective of language choice, as Ervin-Tripp (1968) says, “A
speaker [monolingual or bilingual] in any language community who enters diverse
social situations normally has a repertoire of speech alternatives which Shift with
situation” (p. 197). (For the situational switching, see below.) Monolinguals can
only shift from one variety/style to another within one language;9 for instance,
from formal to informal, whereas bilinguals can not only switch between two
languages when Speaking to other bilinguals but can also change among varieties
in a language when speaking to their monolingual counterparts. Gumperz (1972)
likewise claims that the way in which bilinguals alternate between two languages
is much the same as the way in which monolinguals choose among styles of a

single language. “Where this is the case, the difference between monolingual and

 

9 Some sociolinguistic investigators (Swain, 1972; Hymes, 1974; Scotton and Ury, 1977) claim
that code-switching is not only a crucial phenomenon in bilingual studies but also a natural output
of monoglots, which is related to the style-shift and the degree to which the monolingual is formal.

18

bilingual behaviour thus lies in the choice of linguistic symbols for socially
equivalent processes” (Gumperz, 1967: 48).

According to Blom and Gumperz (1972), there exist two types of code-
switching. (1) Situational switching is influencedhby the setting, participants and
topic. “The notion of Situational switching assumes a direct relationship between
language and social situation” (p. 424). This case has been studied by Scotton and
Ury (1975) showing that the multilingual residents of Kenya use difi‘erent
languages to change the social distance between the interlocutors in one
conversation. (2) Metaphorical switching is not heavily governed by the social
situation. As Blom and Gumperz state:

“Characteristically, the situations in question allow for the enactment

of two or more different relationships among the same set of

individuals. The choice of either (R) [the local dialect Ranarnal] or

(B) [the standard Bokrnal] alludes to these relationships and thus

generates meanings which are quite similar to those conveyed by the

alternation between ty and vy in the examples from Russian literature

cited by Friedrich (Chapter 9). We will use the term metaphorical

switching for this phenomenon” (p. 425).

This sort of switching has been documented by Lindhohn and Padilla (1978) from
a Spanish-English bilingual child and by Sebba and Wootton (1984) between
London English and London Jamaican.

The two types of code-switching, proposed by Blom & Gumperz, are

confusing. Dr. Dennis Preston said (personal communication) that metaphorical

code-swtching and situational code-switching differ mainly in what ‘motivates’;

I9

namely, in metaphorical switching, the switching motivation comes fiom the
speaker (inside) to shift his/her speech style from one to another in order to convey
his/her own specific meanings to the listener during the discourse, whereas in
situational switching, the switching motivation comes from the situation (outside)
so that the speaker has to vary his/her speech style from one to another when the
situation is changed during the discourse. The style of both types of switching can
be transferred from formal to informal or vice versa.

From the aspect of bilingualism, Poplack (1979) writes that “Code-
switching is a verbal skill requiring a large degree of competence in more than one
language, rather than a defect arising from insufficient knowledge of one or the
other” (p. 72). Baetens Beardsmore (1982) maintains that code-switching takes
place given the minimal bilingual community which must exist. It means that “at
least two interlocutors must share the same pair of languages.” Switching from
one language to another would more likely not occur if only one of the speakers is
bilingual (p. 42). As above information noted, it seems quite evident that only
bilinguals can do the switching from one language to another in a bilingual
community, although they may also borrow words from another language. But
how to define a bilingual? Witness the following statements:

“In the extreme case of foreign language learning, the speker

becomes so proficient as to be indistinguishable from the native

Speakers round him . . . . In the cases where this perfect foreign-

language leaming is not accompanied by loss of the native language,

it results in bilingualism, native-like control of two languages.”
(Bloomfield, 1933: 55-56)

20

[Grosjean (1982: 232) states:] “For him [Macnarnara], a bilingual is
a person who possesses at least one language Skill [speaking
listening, reading or writing] even to a minimal degree in a second
language, for example, a native speaker of Swahili who speaks
English but who never learned to read and write it" (Macnamara,
1967a).

“A true bilingual is someone who is taken to be one of themselves by
the members of two different linguistic communities, at roughly the
same social and cultural level” (Thiery, 1978: 146).

“. . . I would like to define a bilingual as a person who is able to
produce grammatical sentences in more than one language”
(Baetens Beardsmore, 1982: l).

“The ‘true’ bilingual, that is, the person equally fluent in two
languages, could be characterized as having no permanent
interference”lo (Grosjean, 1982: 300).

“. . . both languages are regularly accessed in normal interaction, and
in the stable bilingual communities . . . , speakers [bilinguals]
typically make use of both languages with the same interlocutors, in
the same domains, and within the same conversational topic”
(Poplack, 1993: 3).

 

10 Grosjean (1982: 300) classifies interferences into four domains: pronunciation, spelling,
syntax, and words and idiomatic expressions. It is reported (Baetens Beardsmore, 1982: 113) that
both early (pre-adolescence) and late bilinguals may carry out code-switching and that early
bilinguals often demonstrate easier interference-free output in their utterances, although the reason
why is hard to explain.

21

The ‘true’ bilinguals that Thiery had studied are the ones who had learned
their two languages before the age of fourteen, had been taught in both languages,
had spoken both at home, and had moved from one language community to
another during school years. Strikingly, these bilinguals can speak either language
without any accent. There is no interference shown from either language when
they are talking to monolinguals. Grosjean once tested a number of monolingual
college students by asking this question: “If someone told you that X was bilingual
in English and French, what would you understand by that?” Grosjean reports
that:

“The most frequent response (36 percent) was that X Speaks both

languages fluently, followed by X speaks English and French (21

percent), and by X understands and speaks English and French (18

percent). The same question asked of a group of bilinguals gave

very similar results: speaking the two languages was the most

frequent response (46 percent), followed by speaking the two

languages fluently (31 percent)” (1982: 231)

He then asked both groups to rate the importance of a number of factors for
definitions of bilingualism. 1 indicates not important and 5 very important.
Among the factors, “fluent in two languages” was given a mean rating of 4.7 by
monolinguals and 4.4 by bilinguals, “having both speaking and writing fluency in
two languages” was given a rating of 4.0 by monolinguals and 3.6 by bilinguals,
and “equal fluency in two languages” was rated 3.7 and 4.1 by two groups

respectively (p. 231). Grsojean concluded from both groups’ evaluation that

fluency is the most important factor to describe a bilingual speaker. He stresses

22

once more that “a bilingual will develop his or her languages to the level of
fluency that is needed for communication. . . . Once the bilingual has attained a
stable level of fluency (and is no longer learning one or the other language), he or
she may well continue to produce deviations in bilingual speech, but these rarely
interfere with communication” by affecting the interchange of meaning (p. 307).
In the end, he advances a crucial note from his survey that “monolinguals differed
most fiom bilinguals on the very question of language use,” for “fluency in each of
the four basic skills in the two languages is determined primarily by language use,
and in turn, language use is determined by need” (p. 236).

The investigation is, of course, quite narrow for defining a true bilingual.
Since “lexical borrowing and code-switching are quite simply the result of the
bilinguals’ need to communicate with one another” (Grosjean, 1982: 330), it
becomes indispensable to confirm first the definition of bilinguals, then the forms
a bilingual is using as code-switches or borrowings can be possibly ascertained

and measured.

2. Data Information

To study the occurrence of English verbs in Chinese by Chinese-English
bilinguals, data was collected from conversations in the United States primarily
between Chinese students and professors, both from mainland China and Taiwan,
and television talk shows recorded only in Taiwan.

The Chinese students in America include undergraduates in difierent majors
and graduates in different areas. Three of my informants are American Chinese
undergraduates who immigrated to the United States when they were seven or
eight years of age and who mainly speak Mandarin Chinese with their family
members whenever at home. Two of them speak Chinese extremely frequently
with nearly no problem communicating with native Chinese from mainland China
and Taiwan, while the other uses Chinese less frequently. All these three do not
have strong reading and writing abilities in Chinese, but they are still included in
the data called ‘Chinese native speakers.’ A small number of conversations are
obtained from Taiwan in which most of the interlocutors were English majors who
have graduated from universities and are working in schools or trade companies.

A majority of the speakers are not fluent in speaking English due to the fact
that they spend most of their time with their native counterparts. The only time
they speak English is either in school or with their American classmates discussing

papers and homework assignments. Some of them have American fiiends, but the

23

24

number is rather limited. All the speakers involved range in age from 19 to 40.
Over eighty percent of the informants are females.

Almost all the conversations involving the Chinese speakers in America
happened under very natural and unarranged situatiOns without any indication that
data were being collected. All of the data regarding the English verbs in Chinese
are gained from every complete sentence uttered by speakers during their
discourses which were not recorded. They were either written down immediately
after English verbs were used in sentences during the conversation, or kept in mind
as much as possible and written down as soon as the speakers left. The latter
means was used most often, since it always embarrassed the informants after they
were told what was being written down, which may affect the attitudes that the
speakers have toward code-switching. One problem was that my overconcentrated
listening attitude (not on what they said but on what English verbs they used and
what Chinese items appeared before them) often made the informants
uncomfortable and reluctant to speak. The other problem was that some of the
informants felt uncomfortable when personal sentences were written down. This
is also why a tape recorder was not used.

Not only do Single English verbs occur in the Chinese sentences of these
data, but, of course, English verbal phrases also take a big portion of the data
corpus. “English verbs in Chinese,” the topic of this thesis, involves entire English

verbal phrases in Chinese as well. This expression actually indicates a Single

25

English verb and the verbal part of an English verbal phrase at the same time.
“English verbs” refers to both English verbs and verbal phrases, for they are not
discussed separately in this thesis. Meanwhile, for the code-switching
phenomenon of English verbs in Chinese, the terms ‘switch’, ‘borrow’ and ‘mix’
are used interchangeably, based on the truth that it is impossible to draw clear-cut
lines among them.

In these data where each sentence carries either an English verb or an
English verbal phrase, there are 475 sentences containing English verbs and 229
sentences containing English verbal phrases. That is to say, 475 English verbs and
229 English verbal phrases are there in these data. In other words, there are in

total 704 verbal units in 704 sentences collected in these data.

3. Methods and Objectives

In an entire corpus of 704 verbal units in 704 sentences in the data, all the
verbs following the Chinese elements are classified into fourteen different
categories (see Chapter 4). The usage of the EngliSh verbs is investigated on the
basis of English grammar. The part of speech of Chinese words followed
immediately by English verbs is also determined from the point of View of English
grammar. From this, the frequency of one form versus the other can be
determined; that is to say, the frequency of English-like forms versus non English-
like forms occuning after the Chinese lexems. For example, the occurrence of the
English verb imagine alter the Chinese word keyi (can/may) is considered English-
like, because the part of speech of keyi is classified as a modal in English, and
there is nothing wrong at all to have a plain English verb after a modal in terms of
English grammar, whereas it is considered non English-like ' if the English verb
bargain is said after the Chinese xiang (want), since xiang in Chinese is classified
as an infinitive verb in English, and it is not allowed in English to have two verbs
in a row without putting an infinitive marker to in between.

A superficial number of the frequency of English-like verbal forms
occurring in the Chinese sentences will be proVided after each category with
specific and disputable examples presented. Discussions will go next for each
category. For several categories which imply interesting and problematic notes,

hypothses will be Offered for further study.

26

27

Since there is very little research done on Chinese-English code-switching,
especially on the aspect of English verbs in Chinese, one of the main goals of this
study is to demonstrate the intriguing phenomenon of English verbal codes
switched in Chinese and some of the properties that English verbs bear which are
considerably triggered by the underlying information of the Chinese lexemes
occurring before/after them, and vice versa. On the other hand, the frequency of
English-like verbs occuning in Chinese sentences, based on the data collected, is

the quantitative goal of this study.

4. Data Classification and Discussion

From the 704 sentences that have been collected, all the Chinese words
goveming the English verbs or verbal phrases are classified into the following
main fourteen categories. Whether the English verbs in Chinese are English-like

or not is determined by English grammar.

4.1 Non-Finites
4.1.1 Infinitive Forms
In this category, the following Chinese forms control the occurrence of
English verbs which immediately follow them:
jie (lend, borrow), qing (please), Shi (is), wangji (forget), xiwang
(hope), xuyao (need), you (have), young (use), zhao (find), da
dianhua (make phone calls), meiyou banfa (has no ways), meiyou
biyao (has no need), etc., and verbs expressing willingness like
xiang/yao (want), yuanyi (be willing).
Examples:
(1) ni na ba yaoshi ji_e wo duplicate yi xia
you that CL key lend I duplicate a while

Would you lend me that key to duplicate?

hao bu hao?
good not good

(2) ni keyi fang ji ge yingwen gt_r balance yi xia.

you can put several CL English to balance a while
You can put in some English to balance (this situation).

28

29

(3) xiwang mg zhe ge dong xi La_i introduce yixie culture.
hope use this CL east west come introduce some culture
We hope to use this to introduce some culture.

(4) zhe ji zhang ni ke bu keyi l_)a_ng wo copy
this several CL you can not can help I copy
Can you copy these pages for me?

yi xia?
a while

(5) zhe zhuyao sfl compare culture differences.
this mainly be compare culture differences
This is mainly to compare culture differences.

(6) zuihao neng L02 liang ge laoshi go through.
better can have two CL teacher go through
It is better to go through instruction from two teachers.

(7) wo xiang drop na yi ke.

I want drop that one course
I want to drop that course.

Of 118 sentences in this category, there are 71 (60.17%) sentences
containing English-like verbal forms; that is, all of them appear in a plain form
after the Chinese items qu and lai, which mean to in English. The standard used
here to determine the English-like usage of English verbs occuning in the Chinese
sentences is to expect that there Should be a qu or lai in front of English verbs to
divide the previous Chinese infinitive forms. Examples like (2) and (3), for
instance, are considered English-like, while the rest (39.83%), in terms of English

grammar, are considered non English-like because of their lack of a Chinese form

qu or [at preceding another English verb. (None of the English verbs and verbal

30

phrases in these sentences begin with the English marker to.) Examples like (4)
are EngliSh-like, since in English grammar it is optional to have an infinitive
marker to (meaning qu or lot in Chinese) when English help occurs and another
English verb follows.

However, above is not as simple as it may seem at first. From the point of
View of both Chinese linguistics and psycholinguistics, these two percentages
given above can be rather problematic. First, the ‘infinitive verbs’, in terms of
English grammar, expressing willingness (e.g., xiang/yao: want, yuanyi: be
willing) are actually auxiliary verbs in Chinese grammar (Li & Thompson, 1981;
Cheng & Li, 1988). There would be no mistakes at all if a plain English verb
follows any of these auxiliary verbs. Out of the 108 sentences in these data, there
are 40 sentences (33.90%) containing this type of auxiliary verb, which actually
Should be put in 4.2 Modals and Modal-Like Forms, but, in terms of English
grammar, they belong to infinitive verbs and are regarded as non EngliSh-like
because they do not have an infinitive marker to before an English verb on the
surface.

Second, it is truly a psycholinguistic matter whether a Chinese infinitive
form in Chinese-English bilinguals’ minds is interpreted into English as only a
single verb or actually a verb plus to. That is to say, whether meiyou banfa is
interpreted as has no ways or has no ways to, and wangji as forget or forget to is

doubtable and unknown. If the latter is the case, it would be then considered non

31

EngliSh-like if qu and lai are added between the Chinese and English verbs, since
they become redundant in that position. Another interesting concern related to
bilingual psycholinguistic interpretation can be seen from the following examples:
(8) ta-men zuo wan yihou hai yao ’hui lai gen wo-men
BSg-PL do finish after also must back come with I-PL
After they finish, they have to come back and report to us.

report.
report

(9) wo zuotian cai g9 gen laoshi make appointment de.
I yesterday only go with teacher make appointment NOM
Not until yesterday did I go to the teacher to make an appointment.
(10) ta mei Shi jiu gr_r san wennuan happy yi xia.
35g not matter then go three warm happy a while
Whenever free, he would go to the bath house to enjoy himself for a
while.

According to English grammar, there needs to be a marker lai before report
in sentence (8) and a qu before make appointment in sentence (9). However, it
would sound weird and quite redundant to have two such similar items in a row in
these two sentences. There are 9 sentences of this kind in this category where the
Chinese verbs qu (go/go to) and lai (come/come to) propably fimction not only as
verbs, but also as the marker to at the same time. My hypothesis is that since qu
and lai have the same pronunciation for both parts of speech, the infinitive markers
qu and lai are deleted in these sentences to avoid repetition. Of the English items

in the 9 sentences cited so far, two of them are clearly non English-like; that is, (9)

and (10) above, where the verbal phrase should be make an appointment in the

32

former and happy is an adjective falsely used as a verb in the latter. However,
these errors are not the focus of this study.

Except for the 9 sentences mentioned above in which the absence of qu and
lot is possible for the sake of redundancy, all the other sentences collected in this
category and superficially considered non English-like from the point of View of
English grammar, in fact, freely allow the occurrences of qu and lai in Chinese. In
this kind of sentences, the Chinese infinitive forms immediately precede the
English verbs without the appearance of qu and lai are, we can say this way,
modal-like forms. Of course, they are not in parallel with English modals. It is
interesting to note that it is optional to have qu or lai between the modal-like
Chinese forms and the English verbs in Chinese-English code-switching sentences,
but it is prohibited in English to have a marker to between a modal and a plain
verb except for the two units of English modals like have to and ought to.

If qu is put in before the English verbs of sentences (6) and (7), for
example, a deeper distinction between them is that qu in (6) connotes ‘in order to’
in English, whereas qu in (7) is a simple infinitive complement. For the
convenience, (6) and (7) will be repeated as (11) and (12) below with the assumed
occurrence of qu:

(11) zuihao neng you liang ge laoshi gu go through.

better can have two CL teacher to go through
It is better to go through instruction from two teachers.

33

(12) wo xiang gr_r drop na yi ke.

I want to drop that one course
I want to drop that course.

Comparing (11) and (12) with English grammar, we can find that in
Chinese, no matter whether qu or lai implies the meaning of in order to or is just
an infinitive complement in English, it is always elective to have qu or lai,
depending on the context, to be put in between the Chinese infinitive forms and
the English verbs, while it is strictly needed in English to have to inserted between
two verbs no matter whether to is associated with the meaning of in order to or is
just an infinitive complement. A couple of serial verbs, however, are permitted in
colloquial English without the marker to, for instance, go see a movie and come

have dinner. Save for the small number of cases like these two, the occurrence of

to is strictly govemed in English.

4.1.2 -ing Form

The Chinese verb qu, corresponding to the English verb go, is classified in
this category since it controls the occurrence Of the English verb gerund switched
into Chinese. According to English grammar, if there is a verb following go, it
needs to be a gerund. In this category, only the English -ing forms occuning after
the Chinese verb qu are considered, while true nominal gerunds (e.g., “Fishing is

fun.”) are excluded. In my data, there are only 5 sentences of this kind associated

34

with the English structure go+ V+ing. 2 of them (40%) are regarded as English-
like, and the other 3 (60%) non EngliSh-like in terms of English grammar.
Examples:
(13) shang ci wo-men gt_r shopping deshihou ye you kan
last time I-PL go shopping when too have see

When we went shopping last time, we saw them, too.

dao ta-men.
anive 3sg-PL

(14) wo shang libaitian gen yi dui pengyou yiqi gt_r
I last Sunday with one bunch friend together go
I went picnicking with a bunch of friends last Sunday.

picnic.
picnic

Whether the speakers consciously know about the English rule that any
English action verbs after qu, meaning go in English, should be in an -ing form
when they are speaking is rather doubtable. It is possible that in speakers’ minds
the English -ing forms like (13) is simply treated as an English plain verb like (14).
If this is really so, perhaps the five sentences in this subcategory should be moved
up to 4.1.1 Infinitive Forms where the issue of the 9 special sentences like (8), (9)

and (10) are discussed.

35

4.1.3 Both Infinitive and -ing Form
Since the 10 sentences found in these data either embed an English -ing or a
plain verb right after the Chinese verb xihuan (like), the function of it is then
considered as the English lexeme like, which can preCede both an -ing form and an
infinitive form with an infinitive marker to in front. Among these 10 sentences, 3
(30%) are English-like since the English -ing forms like fishing and shopping are
uttered after xihuan, while the other 7 (70%) are non EngliSh-like because either
an -ing form is missing or a short of the infinitive marker qu or lai, corresponding
to to in English, occurs. Whether the interpretation of xihuan in speakers’ minds
is like or like to is unknown.
Examples:
(15) we xiansheng hen xihuan fishing.
I husband very like fishing
My husband likes fishing a lot.
(16) ta shizai hen xihuan complain.
3sg indeed very like complain
She indeed likes to complain a lot.
(17) ta hen xihuan show off.
35g very like Show off
He likes to show off a lot.
(18) mei ci ti dao ta de mingzi, wo jiu hen

every time mention anive 3sg GEN name I then very
Whenever his name is mentioned, I just like to make fun of it.

xihuan make fun of it.
like make fun of it

36

It is interesting to note that, although there is not yet enough of this type Of
data to prove it, there seems to be a trend toward having a single English -ing verb
after xihuan but hardly ever to have a gerund verb within an English verbal phrase.
In (17) and (18), the only two verbal phrases found in these data where the verbal
part (show and make) is not shown in an -ing form. I hypothesize that it would be
impossible to insert the English bound morpheme -ing after show and make if both
show off and make fun of it are underlyingly treated separately as single big verbal
units (the only difference from a single-occurring verb is that the one verbal unit is
longer), whereas it is easier to put an -ing form in for a single-occuning English
verb, for the speakers probably think underlyingly that a single -ing form is simply

a plain verb.

4.2 Modals and Modal-Like Forms

The following Chinese forms are classified as modal-like forms on the basis
of English grammar:

yinggai (should, ought to), bixu/yao/dei (have to), xuyao/yao (need to),

keyi (can,may), nenggou/neng (can), hui (will, would), zueihao (had better).
Examples:

(19) wo juede wo-men mggai exchange yi xia.

I feel I-PL should exchange a while
I think we should trade places for a while.

37

(20) ni-men km figure out lingwai yi ge fangfa.
you-PL can figure out another one CL way
You can figure out another way.

(21) wo-men zuihao stick to yi gc style.

I-PL better stick to one CL style
We had better stick to one style.

Out of 212 sentences collected in this category, there are 207 (97.64%)
sentences where the switched English verbs and verbal phrases immediately
following the Chinese modals are English-like forms; that is, all of them are bare
forms after modals. If we move the 38 sentences out of 4.1.1 in which the auxiliary
verbs expressing willingness are actually modals in Chinese, then from 252
sentences we will have 247 (98.02%) containing English-like forms after Chinese
modals. The other 5 sentences (1.98%) containing non English-like forms can be
observed from the following examples. It is quite possible that the three English
forms in the examples below are Simply considered to be plain verbs in the Speakers’
subconsciousnesses.

Examples:
(22) wo pa hu_i lost diao hen duo laoshi shangke jiang
I afraid would lost off very many teacher teach talk
I am afraid that I would miss many things that the teacher talks about
de dongxi

NOM stuff
in class.

38

(23) xingqiyi yao gei xuesheng kaoshi, hai m grading
Monday must give student test also must grading
On Mondays I have to test students and alao have to grade their

xuesheng de zuoye.
student ASSOC homework
homework.

(24) ni ma jiao ni m tender yidian!
you mother ask you must tender a little bit
Your mother asked you to be a little more gentle!

4.3 Past Aspect
This category means that in a Chinese past-tense sentence which is
determined by the past time unit in the sentence or the speaker’s intent, the English
verb mixed in this type of sentence is expected to be past tense from the point of
View of English grammar. In 58 past tense sentences collected so far, 52 English
verbal items (89.66%) are plain forms, while the other 6 items (10.34%) are in the
past tense.
Examples:
(25) wo shang ci zhi pay 144 kuai.
I last time only pay 144 CL
Last time I just paid 144 dollars.
(26) yinwei wo assume ni hui zai 3!
because I assume you will at RF
Because I assumed you were in.
(27) Laoshi shuo wo did a good job ye!

teacher say I did a good job RF
The teacher said that I did a good job!

39

(28) jintian zaoshang chezi kai dao yiban broke down 1e.
today morning car drive to half broke down CRS
My car broke down on the way to school this morning.

Both did in (27) and broke in (28) are still possible for the speakers to

interpret underlyingly as two English bare forms.

4.4 Progressive Aspect
In Chinese, zhengzai/zai is a durative marker of activity verbs.
Corresponding to English, zai is just like an English verb ending -ing together with
the copula to express the durative nature of an event (Li & Thompson, 1981: 217).
To put it in another way, the structure of zai, in terms of English, is be +_-ing.
Examples:
(29) ta Q take a shower.
3sg DUR take a Shower
He is taking a Shower.
(30) wo _za_i wonder shibushi yinggai gei George 2.5.
I DUR wonder whether should give George 2.5
I am wondering whether we should give George 2.5.
(31) wo xianzai zhenggi struggling.
I now DUR struggling
I am now struggling.
Based on the above definition of the usage of zai, plain forms like (29) and
(30) are all EngliSh-like, since zai has already taken the copula together with the

bound morpheme -ing. Cases like (31) are considered non English-like, because

the ending -ing is redundant. However, this can be totally the other way around if

40

in speakers' underlying interpretation zai only corresponds to the copula without
the verb ending -ing. In 28 sentences of this kind, there are 7 sentences (25%) in
which verbs plus ending -ing are discovered, while the rest (75%) are not. Given
the figures (75%:25%), we may assume that the speakers interpret zhengzai/zai as

be +_-ing in English.

4.5 Perfective Aspect

This category is based on Chinese perfective aspect markers like the
perfective verb suffix -le, the adverb yijing (already), the negative perfective
adverb hai mei or hai meiyou (not yet), and the interrogative perfective adverb
lemei or lemeiyou, which always occurs at the end of a sentence. In 33 sentences
collected for this category, there are 5 verb items (15.15%) in English-like perfect
participle froms, while the remaining 28 (84.85%) are still plain forms. These,
again, are just superficial figures. Of the 5 verbs, which are English-like
participial forms, there are 3 in which the participial forms are the same as their
plain forms. In this case, therefore, it is impossible to tell whether the bilinguals
really know if the form they are using is a participle or just a plain verb. One
example of this will be given in (35) below.
Examples:

(32) wo l_r_ai_r_n_ei check out.

I still not check out
I have not checked out yet.

41

(33) ni check in lemei?
you check in yet
Have you checked in?
(34) wo yijing make a final decision, wo bu qu le.
I already make a final decision I not go CRS
I have already made a final decision. I am not going.
(35) wo ja'jing quit diao na ge gongzuo l_e.
I already quit off that CL job PFV
I have already quit that job.
(36) wo haoxiang yijing done l_e.
I seem already done PFV
It seems that I have already done it.

Superficially, the verb items like examples (32), (33) and (34) are
considered non English-like because they are expected to be in a participial form.
However, in the bilinguals’ underlying interpretation, whether those Chinese
perfective aspect markers correspond to the English perfective participial formula,
has/have+m-ed/en, is uncertain. But if that is what the bilinguals really interpret,
then the 27 plain verbs in these data ought to be considered English-like. The only
perfective participial verb in (36), except the four English verbal items which have
no tense distinction as in (3 5), should hence be counted as non EngliSh-like
because its participial form becomes redundant. However, since done is an
irregular participle, it is very possible that the speakers treat it just like a plain verb
without noticing at all its participial nature as they are speaking. Therefore, it is

difficult to assess the structure buried under the surface ofyijing done le in (36).

For this, we need certain special tests made for the bilinguals to discover the inside

42

story. Given the current percentage figures (84.38%: 15.62%), an early hypothesis
may be made that the bilingual speakers probably interpret the Chinese perfective
aspect markers as has/have+_-ed/en in their minds, and that is why a bare form

emerges on the surface.

4.6 Passive Coverb

In spoken Chinese, as Chao (1968: 703) indicates, “the bei construction is
usually limited to disposal verbs . . . , usually of unfavorable meaning.” In the bei
construction, the object stands for the agent; that is, the performer of the passive
voice sentence, while the patient, namely, the receptor, represents the subject of
the sentence (Lin, 1981: 248; Liu, Zheng and Liu, 1989: 478). See (37) below.
However, (3 7) is not the only form for the bei construction to occur. There are
several variations of (37). Examples like (38) and (40) demonstrate that the object
is brought immediately to the front of the main verb by a passive coverb bei when
the agent is absent (Wang, 1959: 31; Li and Thompson, 1981: 492).

In 45 sentences in this category, all the English verbs occur either after the
Chinese passive coverb bei or after the agent, which is placed in front of bei.
There is one sentence which has an implication of adversity without the realization
of bei. See example (39) below. Superficially, 17 (37.78%) sentences have
EngliSh-like passive verbs, and 28 (62.22%) have plain verbs. Like in 4.5, there

are also two cases where the English participles are the same as their plain forms,

43

e.g., (40) below. Given the percentage (62.22%) above, an assumption can be
made that the speakers probably often interpret bei as be+_-ed/en in English but
not so often as they do for the perfect forms described in 4.5 above.
Examples:
(37) shang ge yue de fangzu ni bei Housing
last CL month ASSOC rent you BET Housing

How much were you charged by Housing for last month’s rent?

charge duo shao qian?
charge much little money

(38) zhe ge zi de yisi yijing bei narrow down le.
this CL word ASSOC meaning already BEI narrow down PFV
The meaning of the word has been narrowed down.
(39) shiliu ke de tape zenme dou (lai) messed up 1e?
sixteen lesson ASSOC tape how all messed up CRS
How come the tape for lesson 16 is all messed up?
(40) wo xiansheng ruguo _b_ei put in jail, na jiu wan 1e!
1 husband if BEI put in jail that then finish CRS
If my husband is put in jail, then everything would be ruined!
In these data, there is one sentence which is left out of this category and
may be interesting to compare with (39):
(41) wo gaosu ta m2 jintian tied up. “ni qu zhao Fukushima!”
I tell 3sg 1 today tied up you go look for Fukushima
I told her that I was tied up today. “You go find Fukushima!”
Form the point of View of Chinese grammar, there is indeed a passive voice
in (39), which is confined to the indication of adverse message. (41) without the

occurrence of bei may be considered as a passive sentence in the first place.

44

However, the participial verbal phrase tied up, I think, is not associated with the
Chinese bei sentence structure but is probably performed by the speaker in an
underlying EngliSh-based phrase structure embedded in a Chinese sentence. The
phrase actually acts pretty much like an adjective instead, and its meanng can be
equivalent to the Chinese adjective phrase mang si le (busy to death). Likewise,

tied up can be a passive adjective, which is quite comrnom in English.

4.7 Do-Supports
In Chinese, the words which function just like do/does not in English are
bu/buyao and mei/meiyou. Examples will be given for these in (42) and (43). you
mei you in (44), which can express both a past and a perfective meaning, is put
into this category according to the content. In 38 sentences of this type, all the
English verbs (100%) are presented in a bare form.
Examples:
(42) yinwei you xie ren genban bu care.
because have some people basically not care
Because some people just do not care at all.
(43) qishi wo genban jiu mei improve wo de personality.

actually I basically just not improve I ASSOC personality
Actually, I did not improve my personality at all.

(44) ni you mei you propose yixie paper?
you have not have propose some paper
Did you propose some paper?

45

4.8 rang and qu
In this category, there are 18 sentences containing the Chinese verb rang,
meaning let in English. All the English items (100%) following it are English-like
plain infinitives in terms of English grammar. There is one sentence containing
the Chinese verb qu, meaning go/go to in English. The English item following it is
also a plain infinitive. In both standard and colloquial English, this sentence is
considered English-like. See (47) below.
Examples:
(45) shangke deshihou jiu rang xuesheng retell zheng ge gushi.
teach when then let student retell whole CL story
While in class, just let students retell the whole story.
(46) xia xueqi wo xiang Lang ni-men co-teach.
next semester I want let you-PL co-teach
Next semester I want to let you two co-teach.
(47) hi bei deng bao yihou you mei you gr; argue?

you BEI publish newspaper after have not have go argue
Did you go argue after your name was published in the newspaper?

4.9 Question Word

The Chinese question word zenme/zenmeyang (how/how to) is found in
these data placing before English verbs. Like 4.1.1, the standard used to determine
the English-like usage of the English verbs is to expect either qu or lai, functioning
as an infinitive marker to in English, to occur after the Chinese question word and

before the English verbs. Of the 26 sentences, only 5 (19.23%) embrace qu

46

between the Chinese question word zenme/zenmeyang and the English verbs,
while the other 21 (80.77%) are counted as non English-like due to the lack of qu
or lai appearing before the English verbs. Likewise, these cursory figures can be
entirely the other way around if zenme/zenmeyang is interpreted underlylingly as
how to rather than how by the speakers. Then qu in the five sentences may Show
repetition and redundance.
Examples:
(48) wo bu zhidao zenme gu clarify wo gang shuo de.
I not know how to clarify I just now say NOM
I do not know how to clarify what I said just now.
(49) yinwei wo bu zhidao yao zenmeyang behave ike a
because I not know must how behave like a

Because I do not know how to behave like a teacher.

teacher.
teacher.

4.10 Imperative

The 12 imperative sentences put in this category express either a command
or a suggestion, and the listener to whom the imperatives are addressed is always a
second person subject. All the English verbs after second person subject of the
sentences collected in these data are plain forms (100%).
Examples:

(50) n1; zai repeat yi bian hao bu hao?

you again repeat one time good not good
Would you repeat again?

47

(51) ruguo ni juede yinggai zhe yang, m’ jiu go for it.
if you feel should this way you then go for it
If you think it should be this way, you just go for it.

4.11 First Person Habituals or Present
In this category, the English verbs (100%) after first person subject in the
31 sentences are all plain forms.
Examples:
(52) hao, hao, hao, we apologize!
good, good, good, I apologize
0k, 0k, Ok, I apologize!
(53) _va jiushi make sure eryi, mei bie de Shi.
I just make sure only not other ASSOC matter
I am just making sure, nothing else.
(54) wo-men yinwei zhu zai yiqi, suoyi chang chang
I-PL because live at together so often Often

Because we live together, we often cook together. .

yiqi cook.
together cook

4.12 Second Person Habituals or Present

The English verbs (100%) collected in the 20 sentences of this category
are all bare forms after second person subject.
Examples:

(55) _n_i zongshi attack wo de character!

you always attack I GEN character
You always attack my character!

48

(56) Q tai care le cai hui zhe yang la!
you too much care CRS then would this way RF
Because you care too much. That is why!

4.13 Third Person Singular

In the 19 sentences collected for this category, all the subjects are third
person singulars. However, there are 4 English verbs (21.05%) with the presence
of ‘s’ for third person singular subject. 78.95% do not mark the verb.
Examples:

(57) yanjing xiao duo duo shao shao implies zhe ge
eye small much much little little implies this CL
Small eyes more or less imply that this person is comparatively

ren xingxong bijiao xiazhai.
person bosom comparatively narrow
narrow-minded.

(58) zhe you zen yang? zhe zhong Sm happens a lot!
this again how way this kind matter happens a lot
SO what? This kind of thing happens a lot!

(59) t_a pay ni ma?

3sg pay you Q
She pays you?

(60) zhe zhong Shi jianzhi sound stupid!
this kind thing simply sound stupid
This kind of thing just sounds stupid!

49

4.14 Third Person Plural
The subjects of the 14 sentences in this category are third person plurals.
All these English verbs (100%) after third person plural subjects are unmaked or
plain forms.
Examples:
(61) youde xuesheng g-rne_n hai care fenshu, keshi youde
some student 3sg-PL still care score, but some
Some students would care about the score, but some Simply do not care
genban bu care.

basically not care
at all.

(62) zhe yang ta-men jiu rongyi concentrate.
this way 3sg-PL then easy concentrate
By this way, they can concentrate easily.

5. ba

The chief reason that the ba construction is different from the passive bei
sentence is that the ba construction conveys an active voice. Since the ba
construction is quite a unique structure in Mandarin, it is very difficult, in many
occasions, to convey the exact meaning of the original ba sentence in clear
English. Because of this reason, all 17 ba sentences are assembled together in this
chapter and are classified on the basis of the above categories. In the ba
construction, the preposition ba and its direct object,11 which is the person or
object disposed of, are always placed before a transitive verb. This verb, in
Chinese-English bilingual sentences, is always switched by an English transitive
verb (see the sentence constructions in the 6 categories below). In the bilingual
speech, according to all 17 ba sentences, the ba construction is never changed
when the verb is replaced by an English verb. The 17 ba sentences are grouped

into the following six categories:

 

11 According to Zou (1993: 716), the direct object of BA is the preverbal NP, which is “the
logical object of the transitive verb but the surface object of BA.”

50

51

5.1 Infinitive Verbs

The three Chinese infinitive verbs jiao (ask), bang (help) and lai (come) are
found in the 3 ba sentences of these data. The main sentence construction in this
category is:

s_ubj_ect Chinese infinitive verb ba direct object En ish verb
Examples:

(63) w_o hui jig ta-men ba zhe ge gushi retell kan kan.

I will ask 3sg-PL BA this CL story retell see see
I will ask them to retell this story.

(64) .119. Shi yao bang ni ba _z_he ge position gei hold

I be want help you BA this CL position GEI hold
I want to help you hold this position.

zhu.
stay

(65) ta-men shuo yao jiao jingcha l_a_i ba wo xiansheng
3sg-PL say want ask police come BA I husband
They said they were going to ask the police to come (to/and) put
put in jail.
put in jail
my husband in jail.
Because of the difficulty of translating ba sentences into English precisely,
it is given an English translation corresponding to the original Chinese meaning as
close as possible by removing the preposition ha and inserting its direct object

alter the English verb or the verbal part of an English verbal phrase. An

approximate translation is presented in the third line of each example.

52

(63) is apparently considered non English-like, since observing from the
English translation in the third line, there is no qu or lai functioning as an
infinitive marker in English between jiao (ask) and retell. However, it is not easy
to tell whether the interpretation of jiao is just ask or ask to in English by the
bilinguals. The English verb hold in (64) is considered English-like because of the
previous infinitive verb bang (help). According to Chinese grammar, (64) can still
be a well-fonned sentence without the element gei, which is placed before hold
and indicates “the effect of strengthening the disposal function of the ba
construction” (Li and Thompson, 1981: 482). (65) is considered English-like
since from the aspect of colloquial English, it is optional to have lai (come) and

put in jail in a row without to or and (see the translation in the third line).

5.2 Modals and Modal-Like Forms

The Chinese modals found in this category are keyi (can), yinggai (should,
ought to) and yao (must, have to). After the Chinese modals, all the English verbs
are English-like bare forms (100%). The main sentence structure for the 8 ba
sentences collected in this category is:

flue—ct Chinese mock] ba direct object English verb
Examples:

(66) ni lgu' ba zhe ci km extend yi xia.

you can BA this time test extend a while
You can extend this test a little bit.

53

(67) Hi yinggg' ba ni ganggang shuo de zai define
you should BA you just now say NOM again define

You should explain again a little better what you said just now.

yi xia.
a while

5.3 Past Aspect

According to the speakers’ content, the only 3 sentences collected below
are non English-like, for the English verbs are not past tense. The main sentence
structure is:

m ba direct object English verb

(70) actually expresses an event that took place both in the past tense and
the perfective tense. Since the aspect is optional, it is placed in this category.
Again, the approximate translation is given in the third line by eliminating the
preposition ba and placing its direct objects, which are underlined below, after the
English verb paraphrase in (68) and verbal phrase go over in (70).
Examples:

(68) na zhi zhu Shenme ye bu ting jiu ba

that CL pig what too not listen then BA
That pig did not listen at all and then just rejected that girl.

na ge nuhai gei reject le.
that CL girl GEI reject CRS

54

(69) wo zhishi ba g-xie zu_ozhe shuo de shaowei
I only BA that-PL author say NOM a little bit
I just paraphrased a little bit those said by the author.

paraphrase yi xia eryi.
paraphrase a while only

(70) wo jintian ba sheng ci dou go over 1e yi xia.

I today BA new word all go over PFV a while
Today I went over the new words for a while.

5.4 Perfective Aspect

Only one sentence in this category contains a tense marker you mei you,
which can express both a past and a perfective event. It is determined to be put
here because, according to the speaker, you mei you conveys a perfective meaning
as opposed to a past event. (71) is superficially non English-like due to the bare
form of point out after the Chinese perfective aspect marker you mei you. Of
course, what the bilingual Speakers really interpret the English perfective participle
is still unknown. But observing from the data collected in 4.5 Perfective Aspect,
although they are not ba sentences, and given by the current figure showing the
high frequency in the use of bare forms of English verbs in 4.5 (84.38%), it may
be assumed here in 5.4 that the speakers possibly interpret the perfective aspect

marker you mei you in the only ba sentence in this category as has/have +_-ed/en.

55

The ba-sentence structure is:
s_ub_ie_ct you mei you ba direct object En ish verb
Example:
(71) wo bu zhidao you mei you ba 'wo de key point
I not know have not have BA I ASSOC key point

I do not know whether I have pointed out my key point?

point out chu lai?
point out out come

5.5. First Person Habituals or Present
The only sentence collected in this category is English-like, because the
English verb of the sentence is a plain form. The sentence structure is :
first person subject ba direct object English verb
Example:
(72) men chang chang ba yi 4e fixed term refer dao

I-PL often often BA one CL fixed term refer anive
We often refer a fixed term to another meaning.

lingwai yi ge yisi.
other one CL meaning

5.6 Third Person Plural
In this category, there is only one sentence which has an English-like plain

verb after third person plural subject in the ba-sentence structure:

third person plural subject ba direct object English verb

 

56

Example:

(73) yinwei ta-men ba data transfer guoqu deshihou cai hui
because 3sg-PL BA data transfer cross when then will
Because that is what will happen when they transfer the data there.

zhe yang.
this way

6. Conclusion

To summarize Chapters 4 and 5 from a superficial observation in terms of
English grammar, the following Tables 1 and 2 Show statistical figures of the
frequency of English-like and non English-like verbs after the Chinese elements in
each category. Table 3 is a combination of Tables 1 and 2 with the items shared

only.

Table 1: Summary of Chapter 4 from a superficial observation

 

 

Classifications Number of Sentences English-Like Verbs Non English-Like Verbs
Non-finites
Infinitive forms 118 71 47
-ing form 5 2 3
Both infinitive &
-ing form 10 3 7
Modals & modal-like
forms 212 207 5
Past aspect 58 6 52
Progressive aspect 28 7 21
Perfective aspect 33 S A 28
Passive aspect 45 17 28
Do-supports 38 38 0
rang & qu 18 18 0
Question word 26 5 21
Imperative 12 12 0
First person
habituals or present 31 31 0
Second person
habituals or present 20 2O 0
Third person singular 19 4 15
Third person plural 14 14 0

 

57

58

Table 2: Summary of Chapter 5 from a superficial observation (ba sentences only)

 

 

l sifications Number of Wish-Like Verbs Non Engljsflf$e_V_er_b§

Infinitive verbs 3 2 1

Modals & modal-like

forms 8 ,8 0

Past aspect 3 O 3
Perfective aspect 1 O 1

First person

habituals or present 1 1 0

Third person plural 1 1 O

 

Table 3: Tables 1 and 2 combined (shared items only)

 

C_lassifica_flons Number of Sentences Engwlmbbn—Brgmmghs
Infinitive verbs 121 73 48

Modals & modal-like

forms 220 215 5

Past aspect 61 6 SS
Perfective aspect 34 5 29

First person

habituals or present 32 32 0

Third person plural 15 15 0

 

From the perspective of English plain verbs without any affixation, the
following tables 4 and 5 smnmarize the number of English plain verbs after the
Chinese elements in each category in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5. Table 6 is a

combination of Tables 4 and 5 with the items shared only.

59

Table 4: Summary of Chapter 4 in terms of English plain verbs after the Chinese

 

 

elements

Class—ifications Nlflbef of Senflces EngfihflailMLEngigh Non-Plain Verbs
Non-finites .

Infinitive forms 118 116 2
-ing form 5 3 r 2
Both infinitive &

-ing form 10 7 3
Modals & modal-like

forms 212 207 5
Past aspect 58 54 4
Progressive aspect 28 21 7
Perfective aspect 33 31 2
Passive aspect 45 28 17
Do-supports 38 38 O
rang & qu 18 18 0
Question word 26 25 1
Imperative 12 12 0
First person
habituals or present 31 31 0
Second person
habituals or present 20 20 0
Third person singular 19 15 4
Third person plural l4 l4 0

 

Table 5: Summary of Chapter 5 (ba sentences) in terms of English plain verbs

 

 

after the Chinese elements
Classifications Number of Sgitences English Plain Verbs English Non-Plain Verbs
Infinitive verbs 3 3 0
Modals & modal-like
forms 8 8 0
Past aspect 3 3 0
Perfective aspect I 1 0
First person
habituals or present 1 1 0

Third person plural 1 1 O

 

60

Table 6: Tables 4 and 5 combined (shared items only)

 

 

Mations Number of SeIIEILces 51W Non-Plain Verbs
Infinitive verbs 121 119 2

Modals & modal-like

forms 220 215 5

Past aspect 61 57 4
Perfective aspect 34 32 2

First person

habituals or present 32 32 0

Third person plural 15 15 O

 

From Tables 4 and 5, it is justifiable to say that Chinese-English bilinguals
tend to use a great deal of English plain verbs in their Chinese-English code-
switching behavior. That is to say, they are apt to reduce the morpheme load of
English in their code-switching sentences. The reason is due to the fact that there
is no inflection in Chinese verbs and that the tense of a verb is determined by the
time word of a sentence, tense markers like 1e, yijing, hai meiyou, guo, zhengzai,
etc., and the speech content of the speaker. Appel and Muysken (1987: 87)
comment that simplification is often led by the second-language learners under the
influence of the first language.

Observing from Tables 4 and 5 in which 704 code-mixing sentences (687 in
Chapter 4 and 17 in Chapter 5) are collected so far, there are only 39 English
verbal items; namely, 6.12 per cent that are not plain forms. Among the 39
English non-plain verbal items, 26 (66.67%) are regular verbs and 10 (25.64%)

irregular verbs. These irregular verbs are broke (2), caught (1), did (I), done (1),

61

left (2), and 1031(3). Of the 26 regular verbs, 14 contain the morpheme -ing. It is
very possible that both the regular verbs with the morpheme -ing and the irregular
verbs are treated underlyingly as plain verbs by the bilingual speakers. The
remaining 3 items (two adjectives, happy in 4.1.1. Infinitive Forms and tender in
4.2 Modals and Modal-Like Forms, and one English prefix ‘e-’ in 4.9 Question
Word from the English word e-mail) that are not English verbs but are placed in a
verb position in Chinese.

For a precise interpretation, we would need to find out the deep structures
of Chinese infinitive verbs, the progressive aspect marker zhengzai/zai, the
perfective aspect markers like -le, yijing, hai mei, etc., the passive marker bei, and
the Chinese question word zenme/zenmeyang in terms of English structure. If we
could, we might understand why the bilingual speakers use such an overwhehning
number of plain verbs in their code-mixing behavior. Perhaps there is no answer
to this question for some speakers, because they may incorporate no English
structures; therefore, what they use are only borrowed forms. It is necessary to
notice that, in a bilingual speaker’s mind, a verbal phrase in English might be
treated as one whole verbal unit in Chinese. If so, it would be impossible to affix
any bound morphemes, in terms of English grammar, to such verbs in neither a
Chinese-syntax-built sentence nor an English-syntax-built sentence. For instance,
if check out is treated just as a verbal unit by the speakers (in terms of Chinese,

this verbal phrase is probably just a long verb, interpreted as ‘checkout’, in

62

speakers’ minds), then it is absolutely not permitted to insert a past or a perfective
verbal sufiix -ed or -en or a progressive verbal suffix -ing in the verb ‘checkout’.
Likewise, a third person singular verbal suffix -s cannot be inserted into the verbal
phrase figure out, either, if it is treated as a whole verb ‘figureout’ in speakers’
minds. And the speakers have no English models to suggesting suffixing to these
‘unitized’ forms, e.g., ‘figureouts’. The line of thinking supports the Free
Morpheme Constraint formulated by Poplack (1980) that “no switch may take
place between two morphemes which are morphologically bound to each other.”

However, Appel & Muysken mention that sometimes it is not quite possible
to maintain the original grammar in the process of relexification, particularly if
frmction words from the new language are introduced as well (1987: 156). None
of these data support this theory.

For the interesting phenomenon of Chinese-English code-switching, below
are another four sentences where the former two show English verbs switched in
Chinese-word-order sentences, while the latter two show both an English adjective
and a noun switched into the English word order which is embedded in Chinese
sentences.

Examples:
(74) wo xiang try try kan.

I think try try see
Iwanttotryit.

63

(75) ni shuo ta deserve bu deserve wo?
you say 3sg deserve not deserve I
Do you think he deserves me or not?

(76) ni de xin yijing yi ge libai late le.
you GEN letter already one CL week late PFV
Your letter has been already one week late.

(77) ta keyi gei ni yi ge ride.
35g can give you one CL ride.

He can give you a ride.

The four examples do not represent a clear-cut line where the speakers
either use Chinese-syntax-built sentences or Chinese English-snytax-built
sentences all the time in their code-switching behavior. Instead, the bilingual
speakers are rather likely to use one sentence structure and then the other back and
forth in their discourse or even half-and-half within a single code-switched
sentence. A good deal of these data and my personal experiences conversing with
the informants support this psycholinguistic idea: that it is scientifically diflicult to
determine which sentence structure in that language is used by the speakers.
However, examples (76) and (77) support the Dual-Structure Principle proposed
by Sridhar and Sridhar (1980) that as long as the placement of the embedded
constituent in the main language obeys the rules of the main language, it is not
really needed for the internal structure of the embedded switches to conform to the
constituent structure rules of the main language. That is to say, yi ge libai late 1e

in (76) and gei ni yi ge ride in (77) both follow the surface syntactic rule of

Chinese langugae. In (76), the structure of yi ge libai late 1e is quite similar to the

64

Chinese nominal phrase structure, accepted only in colloquial Chinese: yi ge libai
duo Ie (more than one week), though late is not semantically appropriate to occur
in such a position in Chinese sentence, whereas in (77) the syntactic structure of
gei m‘ yi ge ride is compatible with the Chinese word order: gei ni yi ben shu (give
you a book), though there is no fixed interpretation in Chinese for ride in such a
Chinese nominal position.

In addition, even though these are obvious replacements of Chinese
vocabulary with that of English, both the formal aspect and the frequency and
nature of usage in a particular community may result in the phenomenon of
integration. Baetens Beardsmore suggests that the more a particular term of
foreign origin is used in a bilingual’s speech (and also in that of the monoglot too),
the more integrated it must be (1982: 46). It is true that many English verbal items
in these data, e.g., call, copy, cut and pay, probably have already been integrated
into Chinese through the frequency of usage among bilinguals, especially when
there is a coincidence that two words sound so much alike. Ca in Chinese and cut
in English, ku in Chinese and cool in English, and hou (wait) in Chinese and hold
in English not only have similar pronunciations but also share the same meanings.
These are good examples that English words with sounds very similar to those
permitted in Chinese have little difficulty being adapted (Brown, 19752116; Appel
and Muysken, 1987: 126). Casagrande (1954/5) summarizes research on

American languages to support the idea that it is a gradual process for the

65

integration of borrowed elements, which may take generations. VanLoey (1958)
has noted that language shift can occur as fast as in three generations. In the first
generation, language A (the base or mother language) is exclusively used. In the
second generation, language B is used at the same time with language A by so-
called bilinguals. When the third generation arrives, language B becomes the
exclusive one to be used by monolinguals. In younger generations, I have noticed
that there are a large number of English words used by bilinguals or even
unilinguals which are being underlyingly treated as Chinese words through
American cultural influence; for example, some nominal items like CD, disco, E-
Mail, E.T., FAX, IBM, MBA, mile, MTV, NBA, party, PC, pizza, etc., some
profanity in English, and verbal items used in Chinese syntactic structure like cut,
call and pay, etc. For monoglots, these items can be pronounced in the English
way without knowing the English language (Grosjean, 1982:»292).

It has been mentioned earlier in Chapter 1 that there are governed rules (see
pages 9 and 10 ) for code-switching among languages which are in contact with
one another. Nearly all of the English verbs and verbal phrases switched in the
Chinese sentences, collected in these data and mentioned in Chapter 4, obey the
equivalence constraint defined by Poplack (1980) and supported by Woolford
(1983) in that they match the surface word order of the language of the verb and
the verbal phrase of the Chinese language. Code-switching is well-inclined to take

place when surface syntactic structures of both languages are common to each

66

other. Although examples (10) in 4.1.1 and (24) in 4.2 where both the English
adjectives happy and tender do not match the surface word order of the language
of the adjective in Chinese but correspond to the position of the Chinese verbs, it
is possible that the bilingual informants simply treat them as two English verbs
underlyingly, which would then match the language of the verb in Chinese. 12

The quantitative analysis of each category in both Chapter 4 and Chapter 5
is only a superficial observation of the occurrence of English verbs in Chinese, but
careful consideration should be given to the process of analyzing all these 'simple'
trouble makers. Especially, particular tests made for bilingual speakers are needed
to determine exactly their interpretations of the Chinese constructions in terms of

English grammar. Interesting results remain to be seen in the future.

 

12 This assumption is built upon the fact that in Chinese, adjectives can also function as verbs in
many cases. Examples:

(78) wo hen kuaile. (79) ta hen wenrou.
I very happy 3sg very gentle
I am very happy. She is very gentle.

Thus. the usage of the English adjectives happy and tender in Chinese sentences is probably under
the influence of the Chinese language.

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