Pub Date : 2021-09-30DOI: 10.1163/19552629-14010008
A. Ralli
In this paper, I deal with verb borrowing in a language-contact situation involving Greek as target and Romance and Turkish as source languages. More particularly, I discuss the reasons and techniques that make verbs of typologically and genetically different languages to be accommodated in a uniform way within the same linguistic system, and verbs of the same donor to be integrated in a different manner within the same recipient. I try to provide an explanation for the observed divergences and similarities by appealing to an interplay of linguistic and extra-linguistic factors. For the purposes of this study, evidence is drawn from both written and oral sources from five Greek dialectal varieties: Grekanico, Heptanesian, Pontic, Aivaliot and Cypriot.
{"title":"Contrasting Romance and Turkish as Source Languages: Evidence from Borrowing Verbs in Modern Greek Dialects","authors":"A. Ralli","doi":"10.1163/19552629-14010008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-14010008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In this paper, I deal with verb borrowing in a language-contact situation involving Greek as target and Romance and Turkish as source languages. More particularly, I discuss the reasons and techniques that make verbs of typologically and genetically different languages to be accommodated in a uniform way within the same linguistic system, and verbs of the same donor to be integrated in a different manner within the same recipient. I try to provide an explanation for the observed divergences and similarities by appealing to an interplay of linguistic and extra-linguistic factors. For the purposes of this study, evidence is drawn from both written and oral sources from five Greek dialectal varieties: Grekanico, Heptanesian, Pontic, Aivaliot and Cypriot.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78104826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.1163/19552629-13030009
Nikolay Hakimov, A. Backus
The influence of usage frequency, and particularly of linguistic similarity on human linguistic behavior and linguistic change in situations of language contact are well documented in contact linguistics literature. However, a theoretical framework capable of unifying the various explanations, which are usually couched in either structuralist, sociolinguistic, or psycholinguistic parlance, is still lacking. In this introductory article we argue that a usage-based approach to language organization and linguistic behavior suits this purpose well and that the study of language contact phenomena will benefit from the adoption of this theoretical perspective. The article sketches an outline of usage-based linguistics, proposes ways to analyze language contact phenomena in this framework, and summarizes the major findings of the individual contributions to the special issue, which not only demonstrate that contact phenomena are usefully studied from the usage-based perspective, but document that taking a usage-based approach reveals new aspects of old phenomena.
{"title":"Usage-Based Contact Linguistics: Effects of Frequency and Similarity in Language Contact","authors":"Nikolay Hakimov, A. Backus","doi":"10.1163/19552629-13030009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-13030009","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The influence of usage frequency, and particularly of linguistic similarity on human linguistic behavior and linguistic change in situations of language contact are well documented in contact linguistics literature. However, a theoretical framework capable of unifying the various explanations, which are usually couched in either structuralist, sociolinguistic, or psycholinguistic parlance, is still lacking. In this introductory article we argue that a usage-based approach to language organization and linguistic behavior suits this purpose well and that the study of language contact phenomena will benefit from the adoption of this theoretical perspective. The article sketches an outline of usage-based linguistics, proposes ways to analyze language contact phenomena in this framework, and summarizes the major findings of the individual contributions to the special issue, which not only demonstrate that contact phenomena are usefully studied from the usage-based perspective, but document that taking a usage-based approach reveals new aspects of old phenomena.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88275927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.1163/19552629-bja10018
E. Goria
As is well-known, code-mixing is particularly frequent at clause boundaries and with elements expressing pragmatic meaning. However, most of the literature has focussed on switching of simple elements such as conjunctions and discourse markers. This paper, in contrast, analyses clause peripheral switching involving two complex constructions: left dislocations and pseudo-clefts. The data are from English-Spanish bilingual conversations recorded in Gibraltar. A great majority of the bilingual constructions in the corpus belong to a few types occurring with a restricted set of lexical items. A vast amount of such highly recurrent strings in the data confirm the hypothesis that complex multi word strings that are switched together constitute units in code-mixing, i.e. they are processed as single lexical items.
{"title":"Complex Items and Units in Extra-Sentential Code Switching. Spanish and English in Gibraltar","authors":"E. Goria","doi":"10.1163/19552629-bja10018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-bja10018","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000As is well-known, code-mixing is particularly frequent at clause boundaries and with elements expressing pragmatic meaning. However, most of the literature has focussed on switching of simple elements such as conjunctions and discourse markers. This paper, in contrast, analyses clause peripheral switching involving two complex constructions: left dislocations and pseudo-clefts. The data are from English-Spanish bilingual conversations recorded in Gibraltar. A great majority of the bilingual constructions in the corpus belong to a few types occurring with a restricted set of lexical items. A vast amount of such highly recurrent strings in the data confirm the hypothesis that complex multi word strings that are switched together constitute units in code-mixing, i.e. they are processed as single lexical items.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82189496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.1163/19552629-bja10028
Nikolay Hakimov
This article explores the role of usage frequency in the structure of language mixing by the application of corpus-linguistic and statistical methods. The goal of the study is to reveal that the frequency of a lexical item and the frequency with which it occurs with other items account for its use in bilingual speech. To achieve this goal, I analyze German monolingual and German-Russian mixed adjective-modified nominal constituents in otherwise Russian discourse in a corpus of Russian-German bilingual speech collected from fluent bilinguals in Russian-speaking communities in Germany. My findings show that many of German nominal constituents, also called embedded-language islands, are recurrent A-N combinations. However, in the absence of sequential associations between the involved words, the adjectives may be realized in Russian or in German. In light of this evidence, I suggest two mechanisms underlying the production of embedded-language islands: retrieval of a multiword chunk and co-activation.
{"title":"Lexical Frequency and Frequency of Co-Occurrence Predict the Use of Embedded-Language Islands in Bilingual Speech: Adjective-Modified Nominal Constituents in Russian-German Code-Mixing","authors":"Nikolay Hakimov","doi":"10.1163/19552629-bja10028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-bja10028","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article explores the role of usage frequency in the structure of language mixing by the application of corpus-linguistic and statistical methods. The goal of the study is to reveal that the frequency of a lexical item and the frequency with which it occurs with other items account for its use in bilingual speech. To achieve this goal, I analyze German monolingual and German-Russian mixed adjective-modified nominal constituents in otherwise Russian discourse in a corpus of Russian-German bilingual speech collected from fluent bilinguals in Russian-speaking communities in Germany. My findings show that many of German nominal constituents, also called embedded-language islands, are recurrent A-N combinations. However, in the absence of sequential associations between the involved words, the adjectives may be realized in Russian or in German. In light of this evidence, I suggest two mechanisms underlying the production of embedded-language islands: retrieval of a multiword chunk and co-activation.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78107824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.1163/19552629-13030002
Hanna Lantto
This article compares the monolingual Basque predicative constructions with bilingual Basque-Spanish predicative constructions. The speech data for the study were collected in the Greater Bilbao area of the Basque Country between 2005 and 2012. The results suggest that code-switching may trigger the convergence of predicative constructions and have a significant impact on the general word order patterns. The monolingual predicative constructions in the data mostly follow the canonical Basque sxv word order (~81%), but the bilingual predicative constructions diverge from this word order in that the predicative element is located in a post-verbal position, as in Spanish (~80%). The Spanish lexical elements seem to be strongly associated with the corresponding Spanish construction, the word order of which is then applied to otherwise Basque predicative constructions. I explain the predominance of the Spanish word order in the bilingual constructions by a combination of processing-related factors and sociolinguistic factors.
{"title":"Emergence of a Bilingual Grammar: Word Order Differences in Monolingual Basque vs. Bilingual Basque-Spanish Predicative Constructions","authors":"Hanna Lantto","doi":"10.1163/19552629-13030002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-13030002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article compares the monolingual Basque predicative constructions with bilingual Basque-Spanish predicative constructions. The speech data for the study were collected in the Greater Bilbao area of the Basque Country between 2005 and 2012. The results suggest that code-switching may trigger the convergence of predicative constructions and have a significant impact on the general word order patterns. The monolingual predicative constructions in the data mostly follow the canonical Basque sxv word order (~81%), but the bilingual predicative constructions diverge from this word order in that the predicative element is located in a post-verbal position, as in Spanish (~80%). The Spanish lexical elements seem to be strongly associated with the corresponding Spanish construction, the word order of which is then applied to otherwise Basque predicative constructions. I explain the predominance of the Spanish word order in the bilingual constructions by a combination of processing-related factors and sociolinguistic factors.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86947378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.1163/19552629-13030003
K. Rottet
The English verb-particle construction or phrasal verb (pv) has undergone dramatic semantic extensions from the expression of literal motion events (the ball rolled down the hill) – a pattern known as satellite-framing – to idiomatic figurative uses (the company will roll out a new plan) where selection of the particle is motivated by Conceptual Metaphors. Over the course of its long contact with English, Welsh – also satellite-framed with literal motion events – has extended the use of its verb-particle construction to replicate even highly idiomatic English pv s. Through a case study of ten metaphorical uses of up and its Welsh equivalent, we argue that this dramatic contact outcome points to the convergence by bilingual speakers on a single set of Conceptual Metaphors motivating the pv combinations. A residual Celtic possessive construction (lit. she rose on her sitting ‘she sat up’) competes with English-like pv s to express change of bodily posture.
英语动词-助词结构或动词短语(pv)经历了戏剧性的语义扩展,从字面运动事件的表达(球滚下山)——一种被称为卫星框架的模式——到习惯的比喻用法(公司将推出一项新计划),在这种用法中,助词的选择是由概念隐喻驱动的。在其与英语的长期接触过程中,威尔士语——同样带有文字运动事件的卫星框架——扩展了其动词-助词结构的使用,甚至复制了非常地道的英语动词动词组合。通过对up及其威尔士语对等词的十个隐喻用法的案例研究,我们认为这种戏剧性的接触结果表明双语者在一组概念隐喻上趋同,从而激发了动词动词组合。一个残存的凯尔特所有格结构(例如:she rose on her sitting ' she sit up ')与英语中的pv相竞争,以表达身体姿势的变化。
{"title":"Directional Idioms in English and Welsh: A Usage-Based Perspective on Language Contact","authors":"K. Rottet","doi":"10.1163/19552629-13030003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-13030003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The English verb-particle construction or phrasal verb (pv) has undergone dramatic semantic extensions from the expression of literal motion events (the ball rolled down the hill) – a pattern known as satellite-framing – to idiomatic figurative uses (the company will roll out a new plan) where selection of the particle is motivated by Conceptual Metaphors. Over the course of its long contact with English, Welsh – also satellite-framed with literal motion events – has extended the use of its verb-particle construction to replicate even highly idiomatic English pv s. Through a case study of ten metaphorical uses of up and its Welsh equivalent, we argue that this dramatic contact outcome points to the convergence by bilingual speakers on a single set of Conceptual Metaphors motivating the pv combinations. A residual Celtic possessive construction (lit. she rose on her sitting ‘she sat up’) competes with English-like pv s to express change of bodily posture.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":"42 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74401417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.1163/19552629-13030001
Anja Gampe, Antje Endesfelder Quick, Moritz M. Daum
It is well established that L2 acquisition is faster when the L2 is more closely related to the learner’s L1. In the current study we investigated whether language similarity has a comparable facilitative effect in early simultaneous bilingual children. The similarity between each bilingual child’s two languages was determined using phonological and typological scales. We compared the vocabulary size of bilingual toddlers learning different pairs of languages. Results show that the vocabulary size of bilingual children is indeed influenced by similarity: the more similar the languages, the larger the children’s vocabulary.
{"title":"Does Linguistic Similarity Affect Early Simultaneous Bilingual Language Acquisition?","authors":"Anja Gampe, Antje Endesfelder Quick, Moritz M. Daum","doi":"10.1163/19552629-13030001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-13030001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000It is well established that L2 acquisition is faster when the L2 is more closely related to the learner’s L1. In the current study we investigated whether language similarity has a comparable facilitative effect in early simultaneous bilingual children. The similarity between each bilingual child’s two languages was determined using phonological and typological scales. We compared the vocabulary size of bilingual toddlers learning different pairs of languages. Results show that the vocabulary size of bilingual children is indeed influenced by similarity: the more similar the languages, the larger the children’s vocabulary.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":"1576 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86509047","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.1163/19552629-bja10027
Barbara E. Bullock, Jacqueline Serigos, Almeida Jacqueline Toribio
This work applies computational tools that have been used to model loanwords in newspaper corpora to an analysis of a loan translation in an oral bilingual corpus. The explicit goal of the contribution is to argue that a specific collocation found in a corpus of Spanish spoken in Texas, agarrar+NP (e.g., agarrar ayuda), is a loan translation that is calqued on English get+np support verb constructions (e.g., get help). We base our argument on the frequency and the linguistic distribution of the nonconventional usage within and between corpora and on the factors that favor its use. Our findings show that the overall frequency of agarrar is the same in Spanish in Texas as it is in the benchmark monolingual corpus of Mexican Spanish but that it is used differently in the two varieties, a difference that has grammatical, as well as semantic, ramifications.
{"title":"Exploring a Loan Translation and Its Consequences in an Oral Bilingual Corpus","authors":"Barbara E. Bullock, Jacqueline Serigos, Almeida Jacqueline Toribio","doi":"10.1163/19552629-bja10027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-bja10027","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This work applies computational tools that have been used to model loanwords in newspaper corpora to an analysis of a loan translation in an oral bilingual corpus. The explicit goal of the contribution is to argue that a specific collocation found in a corpus of Spanish spoken in Texas, agarrar+NP (e.g., agarrar ayuda), is a loan translation that is calqued on English get+np support verb constructions (e.g., get help). We base our argument on the frequency and the linguistic distribution of the nonconventional usage within and between corpora and on the factors that favor its use. Our findings show that the overall frequency of agarrar is the same in Spanish in Texas as it is in the benchmark monolingual corpus of Mexican Spanish but that it is used differently in the two varieties, a difference that has grammatical, as well as semantic, ramifications.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81654765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-22DOI: 10.1163/19552629-bja10026
Bruno Estigarribia
Previous studies view the use of Guarani grammatical morphemes in Paraguayan Spanish simply as grammatical borrowings (if one focuses on the morphosyntactic status of mixed forms) or as an ill-defined “interference”. But so far there has been no examination of the bilingual planning mechanisms that license and constrain these language mixes. In this paper, I explore the idea that the emergence of grammatical borrowings can be explained by message conceptualization procedures that are influenced by asymmetries in each language’s cognitive dominance. This work thus contributes to our understanding of language contact by applying what we know about language processing and utterance planning to explaining the outcomes observed in language mixing. In so doing, I hope to facilitate a tighter integration between the psycholinguistic planning and language contact literatures.
{"title":"A Speech Planning Account of Guarani Grammatical Borrowings in Paraguayan Spanish","authors":"Bruno Estigarribia","doi":"10.1163/19552629-bja10026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-bja10026","url":null,"abstract":"Previous studies view the use of Guarani grammatical morphemes in Paraguayan Spanish simply as grammatical borrowings (if one focuses on the morphosyntactic status of mixed forms) or as an ill-defined “interference”. But so far there has been no examination of the bilingual planning mechanisms that license and constrain these language mixes. In this paper, I explore the idea that the emergence of grammatical borrowings can be explained by message conceptualization procedures that are influenced by asymmetries in each language’s cognitive dominance. This work thus contributes to our understanding of language contact by applying what we know about language processing and utterance planning to explaining the outcomes observed in language mixing. In so doing, I hope to facilitate a tighter integration between the psycholinguistic planning and language contact literatures.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78192034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-11DOI: 10.1163/19552629-bja10023
Ogechi Florence Agbo, I. Plag
Deuber (2006) investigated variation in spoken Nigerian Pidgin data by educated speakers and found no evidence for a continuum of lects between Nigerian Pidgin and English. Many speakers, however, speak both languages, and both are in close contact with each other, which keeps the question of the nature of their relationship on the agenda. This paper investigates 67 conversations in Nigerian English by educated speakers as they occur in the International Corpus of English, Nigeria (ice-Nigeria, Wunder et al., 2010), using the variability in copula usage as a test bed. Implicational scaling, network analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis reveal that the use of variants is not randomly distributed over speakers. Particular clusters of speakers use particular constellations of variants. A qualitative investigation reveals this complex situation as a continuum of style, with code-switching as one of the stylistic devices, motivated by such social factors as formality, setting, participants and interpersonal relationships.
Deuber(2006)调查了受过教育的尼日利亚皮钦语口语数据的变化,发现没有证据表明尼日利亚皮钦语和英语之间存在连续的语言。然而,许多说这两种语言的人都说这两种语言,而且两种语言彼此联系密切,这使得他们之间关系的性质问题一直被提上议程。本文调查了尼日利亚国际英语语料库(ice-Nigeria, Wunder et al., 2010)中受过教育的说话者用尼日利亚英语进行的67次对话,并将联词使用的可变性作为测试平台。隐含尺度、网络分析和层次聚类分析表明,变体的使用并不是随机分布的。特定群体的说话者使用特定的变体群。一项定性调查表明,这种复杂的情况是一种风格的连续体,语码转换是一种风格手段,受到形式、环境、参与者和人际关系等社会因素的影响。
{"title":"The Relationship of Nigerian English and Nigerian Pidgin in Nigeria: Evidence from Copula Constructions in Ice-Nigeria","authors":"Ogechi Florence Agbo, I. Plag","doi":"10.1163/19552629-bja10023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-bja10023","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000\u0000Deuber (2006) investigated variation in spoken Nigerian Pidgin data by educated speakers and found no evidence for a continuum of lects between Nigerian Pidgin and English. Many speakers, however, speak both languages, and both are in close contact with each other, which keeps the question of the nature of their relationship on the agenda. This paper investigates 67 conversations in Nigerian English by educated speakers as they occur in the International Corpus of English, Nigeria (ice-Nigeria, Wunder et al., 2010), using the variability in copula usage as a test bed. Implicational scaling, network analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis reveal that the use of variants is not randomly distributed over speakers. Particular clusters of speakers use particular constellations of variants. A qualitative investigation reveals this complex situation as a continuum of style, with code-switching as one of the stylistic devices, motivated by such social factors as formality, setting, participants and interpersonal relationships.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72965378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}