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Constraints on Language Mixing: Intrasentential Code-Switching and Borrowing in Spanish/English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Carol W. Pfaff
Carol W. Pfaff*
Affiliation:
Freie Universität Berlin
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Abstract

Mixture of Spanish and English, whether in isolated loan words or in code-switching of clauses and sentences, while socially motivated, is subject to clear linguistic constraints. Quantitative analysis of mixing in conversations of Mexican-Americans suggests specific functional constraints to express tense/aspect/mood and subject/object relationships, as well as structural constraints which permit only surface structures which are grammatical in both languages. Resolution of structural conflict plays a key role, so that lexical cores trigger longer phrasal switches if they govern rules which create non-shared surface structures. The relative frequency of mixes without structural conflict is constrained by discourse function.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , June 1979, pp. 291 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © 1979 by Linguistic Society of America

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