Emerging Bilingual Speech: From Monolingualism to Code-Copying 9781474212168, 9780826497208

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Acknowledgments

First, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to two persons. The idea of writing this monograph came from Aneta Pavlenko in 2006. She encouraged my work and introduced me to the world of publishers, kindly helping with her advice. Intellectually, I owe a lot to Ad Backus who has read and commented on the first version of the manuscript and with whom I have had several wonderful opportunities to discuss at length various theoretical and empirical aspects of contact linguistics. I wish to thank my other colleagues at home and abroad. Their names are presented in alphabetical order. Peter Auer read and commented on Chapter 1; Martin Ehala provided me with useful recommendations while looking for a publisher; Pille Eslon gave relevant advice on correspondence between Estonian analytic verbs and their monolingual Russian equivalents; Kapitalina Fedorova helped me immensely with Russia’s Russian (i.e., monolingual) equivalents and commented on Chapters 4 and 5; Leelo Keevallik advised on contact-induced language change (CILC) in pragmatics; Helle Metslang and Kadri Muischnek shed light on everything concerning Estonian analytic verbs; Mart Rannut was my adviser in the matters of Estonia’s sociolinguistic situation; Matthew Talboo edited my English; Emel Türker kindly made available her articles that contained relevant examples of mixed copying in idiomatic VP; Jüri Viikberg helped with the sources on indigenous Russian minority; Suzanne Wertheim read the chapters that concern discourse-pragmatics in language contacts; Anastassia Zabrodskaja frequently provided valuable examples of bilingual speech from her fieldwork. Without the friendly and helpful staff of the Continuum Publishing, this work could not have been completed. I am grateful to Colleen Coalter, Jennifer Lovel and Gurdeep Mattu for answering my queries and providing guidance. Last but not least, I thank my husband Jürnas Kokla and my daughter Noemi Kokla for their support and interest in my work. Our constant home conversations on linguistics, language contacts in general and Estonian sociolinguistics in particular helped to create the atmosphere necessary for writing a monograph of this kind.

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List of Abbreviations

ACC ADES ADJ ALL CILC CN COND DIM EL FEM FUT GEN ILL IMP IMPF IMPS INES INF INSTR LOC MASC MLF N NEUT PL PART PREF PRTC REFL SG SUF TRANS TRANSL

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accusative adessive adjective allative contact-induced language change compound noun conditional diminutive elative feminine future genitive illative imperative imperfect impersonal inessive infinitive instrumental locative masculine matrix language frame noun neuter plural partitive prefix participle reflexive singular suffix transitive translative

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Transliteration of Russian

Cyrillic

Transliteration

Cyrillic

Transliteration

а б в г д е ё ж з и й к л м н о п

a b v g d e/je jo ž z i j k l m n o p

р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я

r s t u f x c č š šč ’’ y ’ é ju ja

These transliteration rules are applied throughout the book, except in cases when Russian personal names have appeared in English-language publications in a different version. In such cases, the orthography of personal names in citations and in the bibliography has been preserved. Estonian-language items appear in standard Estonian spelling, unless indicated otherwise.

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Introduction

General remarks Recent decades have witnessed a considerable growth in studies on various aspects of contact-induced language change. However, there is little agreement on terms and approaches. One of the most debated aspects is the role of sociolinguistic factors in contact-induced language change (CILC) and in nonmonolingual speech in particular. Some scholars believe that sociolinguistic factors are not important at all or less important for the outcome of contactinduced language changes (Treffers-Daller 1999) while yet others argue that without considering sociolinguistic factors, both societal and individual, it is impossible to adequately explain and predict CILC (Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991, Thomason 2001, Johanson 1993, to name just a few). Also, there has been a lot of debate on the issue of structural constraints on contactinduced changes in general and on code-switching in particular; however, there is little consensus here as well, as a lot of counterevidence has been presented against every constraint proposed in the literature. Still the idea that code-switching and CILC is constraint-governed remains attractive for some researchers. This book is not about code-switching or code-mixing, neither is it about constraints. The aim is the exploration of the recent and rapid CILC in Estonia’s Russian as spoken in Tallinn. The two languages are not related: Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of Uralic languages and Russian is East-Slavic. In the view of almost complete monolignualism of Soviet era Russian migrants, the changes in linguistic awareness and the emergence of non-monolingual Russian after the collapse of the USSR in 1991 are especially striking. These include both the overt use of Estonian-language lexical material (usually referred to in the literature as “borrowing”, “code-switching”, “code-mixing”) and of Estonian morphosyntactic patterns (often called “convergence” or “contactinduced structural change”), that is, when not a single Estonian-language item is overtly employed but the underlying structure is clearly Estonian. Both – “borrowing” and “convergence” – are closely interconnected (see also Backus 2005). The link becomes especially visible in the cases when Estonian severalword items (constructions, idioms, fixed expressions, analytic verbs, compound

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nouns, etc.) serve as a model for the local Russian, and where in the construction some Estonian lexical items are preserved yet some are rendered into Russian, while the collocation and complex meaning remain Estonian (e.g., Estonian käisin väljas “(I) went out” > local Russian xodila väljas “ibid”). The same applies in the equivalents of certain types of Estonian compound nouns: the complex meaning of the item, combinability rules (word order) and the modifier come from Estonian and the head is Russian. Because of this connection I believe that it is methodologically useful to consider contact-induced changes in the lexicon (“borrowing”/“code-switching” in traditional terms) and in morphosyntax (“convergence”) within the same terminological framework. For these reasons I employ code-copying framework developed by Johanson (1992, 1993, 1998, 1999, 2002a, b, c). The framework accounts for a more complex input in multilinguals and non-first generation speakers of L2, thus providing a possibility to avoid monolingual bias. In addition to this, I will elaborate on this model and show its possible application in explanations as to why some units (nouns, pragmatic particles, adjectives and sometimes numerals) tend to be globally copied (“borrowed”) while others (verbs) are more likely to be selectively copied (“semantic, morphosyntactic transfer etc.”).

The data The current study is a result of observation, analysis and conceptualization of contact-induced changes in Estonia’s Russian during the period from approximately 2000 up to 2007. Radical changes in the sociolinguistic situation after the disintegration of USSR and the restoration of the independent Estonia in 1991, such as redefinition of the status of Estonian and Russian, conceptualization and reconceptualization of identities, rapid bilingualization of some segments of the Russian-speaking population, the emergence of bilingual speech, on the one hand, and the availability of fascinating data on the other have been a source of inspiration for writing at first a series of research articles and then the current book. In addition to that, the present research is a result of theoretical considerations on the nature of contact-induced change and on a variety of existing research paradigms, models, and views on bilingual speech. The availability of data in this case means that to obtain them one does not have to plan a long-term expedition neither does one need to elaborate the strategies of finding a common ground with members of the speech community in order to carry out interviews. In Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, bilingual data are to be found everywhere: conversations in trams and cafés, interactions over the counter, lectures and seminars at Tallinn University, bilingual or officially Russian monolingual (but in reality non-monolingual) TVshows that can be easily recorded, advertisements, public information – it is all

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there. Being a balanced Estonian-Russian bilingual myself, living inside or, at least, pretty much close to the language environment I am interested in, and having had the opportunity to follow the development of the sociolinguistic situation from point zero (the beginning of the 1990s) up to the present moment is a tremendous asset for discovering and obtaining relevant empirical data. It has to be stressed that here we deal with a new type of sociolinguistic situation and the data. Up to now, the mainstream of contact linguistics research has concentrated either on the contacts between indigenous languages and big ‘intruder’ (mainly European) languages or between majority languages and languages of immigrant minorities. As it will be shown, Russians in the postSoviet space form a very different type of community which, at least in some of the post-Soviet countries, is gradually changing their status of numerically minor but privileged monolingual imperial/colonizing population group. It will be argued that within the post-Soviet context the Baltic countries exhibit clear trends of bilingualization of formerly monolingual Russian-speaking population, while this is not necessarily the case in the whole of the former Soviet Union. The data come from the following sources: z 60 hours of recorded Russian-language or bilingual TV broadcasts on

Estonian TV (2001–2007); z about 200 encounters in markets, shops, banks, streets, sometimes involving

my own active participation (e.g., playing a role of a monolingual Estonian-speaker); z printed matters such as Russian-language or bilingual advertisements, booklets issued by banks, shops, companies, and other client information, and the newspaper Linnaleht (2007) that is published in Tallinn in both languages and distributed for free; z my field-notes; z metalinguistic conversations about the nature and scope of changes in Estonia’s Russian, students’ attitudes to changes, perception of different varieties, private language planning and, last but not least, ‘why Russians use Estonian words when they speak Russian’ with my students (both Estonians and Russians) at Tallinn University.

The structure of the book The book comprises six chapters. Chapter 1 outlines the current situation in contact linguistics research as a set of oppositions: formal vs. sociolinguistic approach, macro vs. microsociolinguistics, and established vs. emergent bilingualism. It is demonstrated how monolingual bias is often invisibly present in

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explanations of CILC, bilingual speech, and overall sociolinguistic dynamics. Given that, I explain the choice of code-copying framework as a theoretical model. Chapter 2 deals with the sociolinguistic situation of Estonia and the dynamics of its Russian-speaking population. It is explained why Russian population of the post-Soviet countries is somewhat akin to former monolingual colonizers in postcolonial/postimperial settings and for these reasons differs from immigrants in Western Europe, USA, Canada, and Australia, and from indigenous minorities. However, the Russian-speaking population in Estonia at present does not form a homogenous group with the same linguistic profile, strategies of identity construction and attitudes. The recent decade has witnessed a rapid bilingualization of certain Russian-speakers’ groups (mostly, but not exclusively younger people) and, as a consequence, changes in selfidentification (“Estonian Russians”), intra- and inter-ethnic communication patterns, and, last but not least, in the Russian language as spoken in Estonia. Chapter 3 describes the code-copying framework and its terminological and conceptual apparatus, and explores similarities and differences between this and other contact linguistics framework. To an extent, Johanson’s framework neatly corresponds to contact-induced grammaticalization model elaborated by Heine and Kuteva (2005), but of course is not identical to the latter, as the two models focus on different aspects of contact-induced change. The rest of Chapter 3 deals with the question why some types of language items tend rather to be copied globally (corresponds to “borrowing”) and others selectively (i.e., only some properties, such as semantic, combinational, etc. are copied). It appears that nouns, adjectives, discourse-pragmatic words, and numerals that are likely to be globally copied are either semantically specific (Backus 2001) or prominent at the discourse level, while verbs (most likely to be copied selectively into Estonia’s Russian) do not usually possess such characteristics. Multiple word items (idioms, conversation formulae, analytic verbs, compound nouns) allow for more variation in this respect and are often subjects to mixed copying (like in the example above where the main verb is Russian and the particle, as well as the complex meaning, come from Estonian). In Chapter 4, three case studies are presented: patterns of copying of Estonian compound nouns, analytic verbs, and discourse-pragmatic words. Discoursepragmatic words are frequently reported to be prone to “borrowing” (Matras 1998, also see references in Wertheim 2003), that is, to global copying. In addition, it will be shown that in some situations (material similarity; multiple word items like pragmatic formulas) discourse-pragmatic words are subjects to selective copying as well. A possible explanation will be provided why some units are more prone to global copying than others. In Chapter 5, it is argued that not only individual items or items of certain kinds (e.g., compound nouns) may be copied but whole patterns of communication, oral and written, can be created via copying as the main mechanism.

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Three patterns are under consideration. The first is jocular relexification, a special jocular register for Russian-to-Russian communication, where every Estonian stem is globally copied onto Russian morphosyntactic frame. The second is co-called market discourse (since it is employed in the market for Russian-to-Estonian communication) where semantically specific items (nouns, numerals, discourse markers) are globally copied from Estonian while the rest remains in Russian. Lastly, code-copying framework is applied to written communication (newspapers, advertisements, public information, sings, and labels): rendering of Estonian-language items in the original is treated as global copying and transliteration as selective copying. It is described what Estonian-language items are a subject to what degree of copying (global, selective and mixed). The final Chapter 6 presents a summary and conclusions.

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Chapter 1

Theoretical background: combining structural and sociolinguistic factors

1.1

Defining the approach: three oppositions

This study is dedicated to contact-induced language change (CILC) in a former monolingual community (Russians in Estonia) that has been in the process of bilingualization for the past 15 years. The current case study might contribute to a general understanding of CILC for at least two reasons. First, it is a situation of rapid multilingualization that has a very clear starting point in the years 1989–1990 (attempts to change the language situation in Estonia and to undo the consequences of the Soviet language policy). To date, there are few studies on CILC in these types of communities, that is, in the post-Soviet countries. It will be shown that most of the Russians in Estonia and in other post-Soviet countries are neither an autochthonous nor an immigrant minority, and, therefore, sociopolitical and sociocultural causes underlying their emergent bilingualism differ from those in “classical” situations. Second, the study looks into the complexity of CILC, which involves the interplay of micro and macrosociolinguistic and structural factors, and the often disregarded importance of “private” language planning. In what follows, I will explain my theoretical approach and the reasons for my preference of the code-copying model. Metaphorically speaking, there are three oppositions, or fields of tension, that define the approach to the topic: formal linguistic vs. sociolinguistic orientation, macrosociolinguistics vs. microsociolinguistics, and established vs. emergent bilingualism. The debate on what determines CILC has a long history. As Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) demonstrate, the debate on what can and what cannot be borrowed in the course of language contact or what the primary factors determining the result of language change are goes back to the nineteenth century (Schuchardt-Müller controversy). Although our knowledge of the nature of language contacts has immensely improved and the body of empirical data has expanded, the debate is not yet settled. To date, there is a disagreement between those who believe in the overall relevance of structural and typological factors over sociolinguistic factors and, vice versa, those who stress that the sociolinguistic factors determine the character of changes.

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Certain branches of sociolinguistics, too, have an interest in language contacts and in the sociocultural conditions under which language maintenance, language change, and language shift may occur. In reality, contemporary sociolinguistics includes a variety of methods and approaches that have little in common except for the basic assumption that language variation and change is linked to various societal factors. There is a tentative division between micro and macrosociolinguistics, whereas a precise border between the latter and some types of sociological or political science research is impossible to draw. The approaches in question have different focuses: macrosociolinguistics typically investigates large segments of a population and looks into general sociolinguistic processes and tendencies, while microsociolinguistics is qualitative and emphasizes the importance of individual speakers or small microcommunities. The two opposed positions, the formally oriented vs. sociolinguistic approach, and microsociolinguistic vs. macrosociolinguistic approach are closely linked to the question of monolingual bias, that is, an (implicit) assumption that monolingualism is normal and unmarked and that languages have clear borders and may be treated as discrete entities. Such a view on the nature of bilingualism and bilingual speech is more often than not characteristic of formal linguistic and macrosociolinguistic studies where phenomena that do not fit into two monolingual varieties are disregarded or described as marginal or deviant. The third opposition is probably as “loaded” as the previous two but not often discussed explicitly. It is an opposition between established and emergent bilingualism and on CILC as a result thereof. It is not clear what number of years would be necessary to describe a sociolinguistic situation as established. Traditional historical linguistics is usually interested in changes that are both established and macrosociolinguistic (i.e., apply to an entire speech community). I will further explain in what way a study on emergent multilingualism may be productive. After the discussion on the three oppositions, I will clarify my theoretical framework choice and the departure points of the current study.

1.2 What determines CILC? Structural vs. sociolinguistic factors The idea that, speaking of linguistic causal factors, language change in general and CILC in particular is strictly constraint-governed is not new. Although a great amount of empirical evidence speaks against straightforward universal constraints (see numerous examples and discussion in Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991; also Johanson 1993, 1999, 2002c), the view that structures and typological characteristics of languages in contact determine what can happen

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Theoretical Background

3

remains popular. For instance, it has been argued that bound morphemes, let alone entire paradigms, are not likely to be borrowed (Weinreich 1953: 43–44). In code-switching research, a somewhat similar claim is known as the bound morpheme constraint (Poplack 1980): allegedly, code-switching cannot take place within a word between a stem and an affix. However, in the view of abundant counterevidence from numerous contact situations this constraint cannot be upheld (Clyne 1987; Thomason 1997, 2001).

1.2.1

Constraints on CILC

In their critical accounts of the proposed restrictions that are assumed to govern CILC, Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) and Johanson (2002c: 35–37) provide a comprehensive overview of the relevant literature. Both studies distinguish between the following three types of constraints: those based on typological similarities, implicational universals, and on markedness. It was widely believed (and is still believed by some scholars) that only similar structures can be borrowed (Meillet 1921: 87; Givón 1979: 26; see overview and discussion in Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991: 14–15). According to Weinreich (1953), there exists a “complex resistance to interference” in languages, that is, there are some elements of structure that, in his opinion, cannot be borrowed. Johanson (2002c: 36) notes that, in light of this argument, the mutual impact occurring between Turkic and Indo-European languages would have been impossible. In reality, however, grammatical elements and even grammatical categories are transferred between Turkic and non-Turkic languages (see, e.g., Csató 2002 on the morphosyntax of Karaim in Lithuania; Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991; and Johanson 2002c: 59–60 on Turkish function words in Anatolian Greek dialects; Wertheim 2003 on Russian conjunctions in Tatar). This is not to deny that material and structural similarity may facilitate transfer under appropriate sociolinguistic circumstances (see Clyne 2003: 162–183). Also, it has been observed that convergence is likely to start in subsystems that are not identical but nevertheless share similarity (Backus 2004: 180; Sánchez 2004, so-called Functional Convergence Hypothesis). However, this does not entail that structural similarity is a necessary prerequisite of borrowing. It is sufficient to recall a textbook example of the village of Kupwar in India where three languages – Urdu, Marathi (both Indic), and Kannada (Dravidian) – display a striking uniformity in structures, phonetics, and semantics, while preserving their distinct lexicon (Gumperz and Wilson 1971). This uniformity is a result of a long history of language contacts and interaction, or, in other words, the gained similarity in structures is the result of intensive convergence. Put differently, the case of Kupwar demonstrates that initially quite different structures may become more similar. Also, the notion of the establishment of cross-linguistic equivalents between structures needs clarification. It has to

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be stressed that the equivalence between structures of different languages is established by speakers, not by linguists, that is, the perception of equivalence relations is subjective (Johanson 2002c: 57). Jakobson (1938) is more cautious by claiming that contact-induced structural changes correspond to developmental tendencies in a given language. It is particularly difficult to prove or disprove this assumption because of its post hoc character: if a subsystem of language A has changed under the impact of language B, one would claim that this was possible because the change in question corresponded to the internal developmental tendencies of A anyway (see more counterargumentation in Johanson 2002c: 37). The assumption that non-lexical features cannot be borrowed before lexical (Moravcsik 1978) is an implicational constraint. In a similar but more refined fashion, Field (2002: 43) suggests that if a language X borrows agglutinating and/or inflectional affixes from Y, it has already borrowed function words and content morphemes. However, Thomason (2000) partially questions the validity of the claim proposed by Kaufman and herself earlier in 1988 that in a language maintenance situation, borrowing of non-basic vocabulary precedes borrowing of everything else. Imagine a community with a high linguistic awareness in which borrowing (i.e., import of foreign material) is stigmatized. Nevertheless, the importation of structural features does occur even then because non-lexical properties are less visible to a layperson. One implication that derives from the hypothetical example in Thomason (2000) is that quite often the effects of conscious corpus planning and speakers’ awareness are underestimated. The case of Modern Standard Estonian shows the extent of deliberate manipulation with inflectional and derivational morphology (see Raag 1998). For instance, the entirely new essive case was (re)introduced into Estonian at the beginning of the twentieth century as the result of conscious language planning efforts (Grünthal 2003: 287). On the other hand, recall the example of Kupwar where differences in lexicon are consciously upheld while the morphosyntax of the languages in question has become similar through mutual convergence. There has been a great deal of theorizing on whether CILC leads to simplification (lesser markedness) or to complexity (greater markedness) (see overview in Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991: 22–34). For instance, Weinreich (1953: 41) believes that a pattern containing relatively free and invariant morphemes would eventually win over, thus implying the simplification in the structure of a formerly more complex language. Among his examples, he refers to the loss of pronominal suffixes in Estonian and their replacement by pronominal constructions under Germanic influence (Weinreich 1953: 41–42).1 Needless to say, there are counterexamples where languages in a contact situation acquire inflectional morphology; for instance, Anatolian Greek has acquired Turkish phonic features, syntactic patterns, and some inflectional markers (Dawkins 1916, quoted from Johanson 2002c: 59–60; Thomason and

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Kaufman 1988/1991: 215–222). Loss or acquisition of inflectional morphology (and loss or acquisition of structural features in general) depends on factors other than purely typological or structural characteristics: in the cited example, the language with a more complex inflectional morphology is sociolinguistically dominant and prestigious. Clyne (2003: 124–130) refers to several case studies of language contacts that demonstrate loss or considerable shrinking of inflectional morphology (mainly, grammatical case endings). However, in all the mentioned cases languages with rich inflectional morphology (Hungarian, Finnish, Polish, and Serbo-Croatian) are immigrant languages, whereas English in the United States and Australia is sociolinguistically dominant. Therefore, despite obvious differences between the immigrant languages, the contact situations in question, Clyne (2003) posits, have an important common characteristic, namely, English as the prestigious language of the local majority. On the contrary, Sarhimaa (1999: 136) concludes from the data on Finnish-English code-switching (based on Halmari 1997), that if a language has a rich inflectional morphology this tends to be preserved. It has to be added that “simplification” in morphology may lead to complications in functions and in perception. Therefore, it is not entirely clear what different researchers mean by simplification: is it a change that simplifies perception or acquisition? Aikhenvald (2001) argues against the notion of simplification and stresses that different sociolinguistic situations effect typologically similar languages in a different way. Contrary to the popular belief that language contacts bring about “simplification” and “deterioration” (i.e., loss of forms and structures), she demonstrates that a relationship of sociocultural dominance is decisive to the outcome: indeed, language contact that involves dominance may (but does not have to) lead to structure loss within a short period of time, while the lack of dominance (more or less symmetrical relationship) may involve leveling and adjustment. In a similar spirit, Johanson (2002b) indicates that even rather extensive changes in structure do not give evidence of language death or “decay” (let alone cause it); thus, as he hypothesizes, languages do not die of “structuritis”.2 Even seriously endangered languages with a tiny number of speakers can acquire grammatical features (see Johanson 2002b and references therein). Thus, one of the proximate causes of language loss is not “structural simplification” but the disruption in intergenerational transmission that is accompanied by a shift to another language. In that case, the cause is clearly sociopsychological, rather than grammatical in nature. Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) believe that, although the notion of markedness and naturalness is useful, it is not clearly defined, and may mean different things to different researchers (see also Clyne 2003: 98–99). Stolz (2001) points to the evidence from minor languages (i.e., with a number of speakers below one million) that is often overshadowed by facts from Standard Average European languages, and concludes that in this light our understanding of

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markedness should be revised: for instance, it appears that languages with SVO word order are less common than usually assumed.

1.2.2

Constraints on code-switching

Although constraints on CILC and constraints on code-switching are not the same, the spirit of the constraint-based approach to CILC and code-switching is similar, since much of the code-switching research has been dominated by the movement towards the formulation of universally valid constraints which would allow to predict what kind of switches are impossible in principle. As recent studies (especially Backus 2005) show, code-switching frequently leads to CILC, and for that reason I will briefly mention, some methodological problems that arise from the attempts to postulate general constraints on code-switching. An impressive body of literature has been dedicated to various constraints. There is a profound and continuing disagreement concerning the (universal) validity of constraints and abundance of models, approaches, and terms. Clyne (2003: 70) even describes the situation around code-switching terminology as “troublesome.” Indeed, “code-switching,” “code-mixing,” “code-alternation,” and so on mean different things to different researchers. Clyne (2003: 70–91) summarizes several of the most influential frameworks and constraints on code-switching: Matrix Language Frame model (MLF) (Myers-Scotton 1993a; Myers-Scotton and Jake 1995) and its newer version, 4M (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2000), equivalence constraint and free morpheme constraint (Poplack 1980; Poplack and Meechan 1995, 1998), government morpheme constraint (Di Sciullo, Muysken, and Singh 1986), the minimalist approach (MacSwan 1999), three types of bilingual speech (Muysken 1995, 2000) and some others. There is counterevidence to all these constraints (see discussion on the supposed universality of constraints in Clyne 1987, an overview in Sarhimaa 1999: 123–148, on the violation of the constraints in Russian-Estonian code-switching see Verschik 2002). Muysken (2000: 25) has changed his opinion and discarded the government morpheme constraint theory arguing that the proposed constraints should rather be considered as tendencies. In the same spirit, Halmari (1997) calls for a more flexible and probabilistic approach rather than a rigorously constrained view. Testing the validity of various constraints proves indeed to be methodologically useful, for it broadens our understanding of grammatical structures and of the relations between grammar and lexicon; however, in my view, categorical claims that exclude the possibility of certain code-switching types cannot be upheld (see Johanson 1993: 210–211; Thomason 1997, 2000). It is safer to claim that in a given community certain instances of code-switching between varieties A and B do not occur. It does not follow from this that the particular kind of code-switching (or any particular structure, construction, collocation, etc.) is impossible in principle (MacSwan 2005; see discussion in

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Verschik (2006)). Scholars with a primary background in formal linguistics look for regularity and universality and, at the same time, tend to underestimate sociolinguistic and attitudinal factors including speakers’ creativity. Note that Thomason (1997, 2001) considers change by deliberate decision as one of the mechanisms of CILC. Similarly, Golovko (2003) suggested that intentional code-switching may have different structural characteristics as compared to “natural” code-switching. Discussion of strengths and weaknesses of the mentioned models remains outside the scope of the current study. In the discussion of monolingual bias, I will briefly touch upon MLF as one of the most elaborated code-switching models.

1.2.3

The importance of sociolinguistic factors

The factors necessary for CILC to occur are complex and not exclusively structural in nature. Implicit claims on the importance of sociolinguistic factors sporadically appeared in earlier literature (Kiparsky (1938), quoted from Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991: 35) is but one example). Weinreich (1958) provides a more detailed discussion on the subject: Yiddish and German are genetically related languages that share many structural characteristics and material properties (lexicon), but the impact of Slavic on Yiddish and on Colonial German in Russia is different, since the contacts between varieties of Slavic and the two languages in question occurred under different social conditions. Unfortunately, this paper is known to a relatively narrow circle of scholars in Yiddish linguistics. Still, prior to Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) there was little if any systematic discussion or theorizing on the primary importance of sociolinguistic factors. Probably, Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) are the first scholars in contact linguistics who explicitly stated that it is the sociolinguistic history of the speakers that determines the degree and direction of CILC. In their view, sociolinguistic factors, such as intensity and length of contact, the degree of cultural pressure, the prestige of varieties involved, and speakers’ awareness and attitudes tend to outweigh structural incompatibilities. Nevertheless, some scholars with a background in formal or generative linguistics are not convinced by the evidence provided by Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) and adhere to the claim that structural factors are decisive. According to the Principle of System Compatibility and the Principle of System Incompatibility (Field 2002: 40–41), a form-meaning is borrowable only if it conforms to the morphological structure of the recipient language. This looks like a reformulation of earlier statements concerning preferable avoidance of structural conflict between languages in contacts. Treffers-Daller (1997, 1999) explicitly stated her disagreement with the basic theoretical assumptions of Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) and

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attempted to prove her claim on the basis of data from contact situations between varieties of Romance and Germanic languages in two different locations, Strasbourg and Brussels. According to her, the contact situations are different but the outcome is fairly similar. This was followed by a detailed discussion in a special issue of Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (1999, v. 2 (2)). Both scholars of formal orientation (Poplack and Meechan 1999) who insist on the primary importance of structural factors, and those who claim that the outcome of CILC is mostly determined by the sociolinguistic setting (Beeching 1999; Sebba 1999; Singh 1999; Stolz 1999; Thomason 1999; Winford 1999) find that “the case was not made.” The prestige of French in the two localities and language shift it caused is enough to account for the similarities (Singh 1999: 89). Also, an important consideration seems to have been overlooked by Treffers-Daller (1997, 1999), namely, the fact that both communities in question are highly literate. Stolz (1999: 93) points out that, in contrast to Treffers-Daller, non-English case studies in Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) concentrate on pre-literate or partly literate societies, a fact that may affect the outcome of language contact. In a similar vein, Beeching (1999: 81) emphasizes that it is colloquial Brussels French rather than Standard French that should be looked into. Thus, the case was not made and it may be said that researchers of both “persuasions” maintained their respective positions. Probably, the difference in opinions is caused by their scholarly background (formal linguistics and generative grammar vs. anthropology, dialectology, and sociolinguistics) and a general view on language. In a broader sense, the tension between the two schools of thought is traceable back to a certain opposition between structuralism that focuses on systematicity and regularities on the one hand and, on the other hand, classical dialectology, one of the predecessors of sociolinguistics. This is not an attack against structuralist principles as such but an objection against treating language as a homogenous entity (see an early criticism by Weinreich, Labov and Herzog 1968). It appears to be a matter of Weltanschauung (world-view), among other things: is (synchronic) variation and change central to our understanding of language or is it just something marginal that even hinders research on language as a complex but a homogenous system? My own position is that sociolinguistic factors have primary importance for CILC, although they alone do not cause CILC. This does not mean that structures do not matter at all, or that CILC is chaotic; but, based on my research and by my own experience as a multilingual person,3 I am not convinced that CILC exclusively or even mostly depends on structural factors or is strictly constraint-governed. Consider just one example: prior to the restoration of Estonia’s national independence in 1991, Soviet-era newcomers to Estonia (i.e., ethnic Russians, Russian-speakers) remained monolingual. For that reason, Estonian had virtually no impact on Russian (except for occasional lexical borrowing). However, the situation has radically changed since the beginning

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of the 1990s. The languages “have been there” for a considerable period of time; the demographic makeup of the country (i.e., the proportion of Russianspeakers in the population) has changed very little since the last years of the Soviet rule, yet one can speak about idiolects or even entire varieties of local Russian that are more or less influenced by Estonian (see Chapter 2). This is clearly a result of changes in the overall sociolinguistic or sociocultural situation and linguistic awareness, and structural properties of the languages in question are not relevant for the fact that starting from a certain point, Estonian has a unidirectional impact on Russian. Or, as Jacobs (2005: 271) nicely renders it in his discussion on Yiddish-Slavic language contacts, the languages present in the “sociolinguistic soup” remained the same, only the “recipe” changed.

1.2.4

Monolingual bias

The belief in universally valid constraints and disregard for sociolinguistic factors appears to be related to monolingual bias which may be defined as a complex of overt or covert views on language as a clearly definable, homogenous and discrete entity, and as the conceptualization of monolingual language use as unmarked. As was made explicit by several critics of Treffers-Daller (1997, 1999), many studies on CILC and code-switching in particular take a standard monolingual variety as a point of departure. Auer (2007) ascribes this to the course of the development of modern linguistics where mainstream research was interested in bilingualism inasmuch as bilingualism had to do with “imperfect” language acquisition. Bilingual talk was viewed as belonging to the level of parole and thus not as important as phenomena of langue. Conscious or unconscious use of standard monolingual varieties as the frame of reference ignores the fact that most standard languages are constructs based either on a deliberate compromise between varieties (Yiddish) or a choice of one regional variety over another (Modern Standard Estonian as based on northern dialects). Rather frequently, the formally oriented approach is based on a tacit agreement that any item, be it a word or a morpheme, is ascribable to a particular variety. However, Backus (1999), Milroy and Muysken (1995), Muysken (2000: 41–46), and Le Page (1992) decisively object to what may be called a monolithic view on language (Muysken terms it as “language fortress”). Evidence from multilingual communication and the rise of mixed (in another terminology, high-copying) varieties run counter to the belief that any item can be traced to a particular linguistic system (“English,” “Russian,” “X”). This is beautifully expressed in the title of the article by Le Page (1992): “You Can Never Say Where a Word Comes from.” Contacts between closely related varieties often give rise to so-called compromise forms that belong to a “third system” (Romaine 1995/2000: 160). The ambiguity of items arising as the result of contact between such varieties has been sufficiently considered in the in-depth

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case studies on closely related languages (Bilaniuk 2005 on Russian and Ukrainian; Riionheimo 2002 on Estonian and Ingrian Finnish). As Clyne (1967, 2003) has demonstrated, compromise or ambivalent items can facilitate code-switching. However, the emergence of new ambivalent items is not exclusively restricted to (closely) related varieties. I have written elsewhere on the ambiguity of certain newly created lexical items in Russian-Estonian language contacts (Verschik 2004a: 433), whereas the items do not belong to either monolingual variety and, yet, have become conventionalized in a given microcommunity. Sometimes the ambiguity of such items is the result of deliberate linguistic creativity (Verschik 2005b). A pioneering study by Sarhimaa (1999) illuminates an astounding diversity of what can tentatively be called non-monolingual codes in Karelian-Russian contacts: in addition to “pure” varieties of Karelian and Russian, several mixed codes can be observed; a Finnish-influenced code (Finnish-Karelian) and, depending on the degree of Russian impact, three other codes (Neo-Karelian, Russian-Karelian, and Karussian). Recent studies in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) recognize the complexity in the assignment of items to a particular language in bilinguals. Thus, De Angelis (2005) has shown that the assignment of lexical items to a certain language is not necessarily the same for an L2 user and a linguist: a speaker of L2 may employ an item commonly ascribed to a system other than L2 (or even non-existent in any monolingual variety), not as part of conscious avoidance strategy but precisely because the item in question is assigned to L2 in that speaker’s idiolect of L2. This leads to the further question: who is the ultimate authority in delimiting and defining a “code”? (Alvarez-Cáccamo 1998; Meewis and Blommaert 1998). Here, a linguist, a layperson belonging to the speech community, and a layperson who is an outsider may all provide different answers. To my mind, it is not always possible to answer this question in a clear-cut manner. To a great extent, whether a variety is perceived by its speakers to be autonomous or not depends on many factors: the language planning climate, language awareness, spread of literacy, and so on. In other words, in the terms of Le Page and TabouretKeller (1985), communities may be more or less focused (i.e., with a clear understanding of norms and boundaries) or diffused. Researchers such as Cook (1999), Pavlenko (2002), and Romaine (1995/2000) stress the fact that multilingualism is cognitively more complex than monolingualism, that is, a bilingual is not a mere sum of two monolinguals. Grosjean (1995: 261–262) has developed a psycholinguistic approach to bilingualism where instead of two monolingual varieties and mixtures thereof he speaks about situational continuum which induces a particular language mode. Monolingual mode is at one end of the continuum, bilingual mode is on the other, and there exist a myriad of intermediate points.

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However, monolingual bias is an implicit assumption underlying many proposed constraints on CILC and code-switching because by default two monolingual varieties act as a point of reference in such constraints (i.e., purported avoidance of structural incompatibility and conflicting word order, etc.). Assumed structural conflict between different patterns in the two languages may be viewed as such only from the point of view of a monolingual speaker. Also, monolingual bias in the discussion of possible differences between oneword switches and lexical borrowings has led many researchers (starting from Weinreich 1953) to claim that morphological integration (i.e., the assignment of system morphemes of the basic, or matrix, language and further functioning of the inserted element according to the morphosyntactic rules of the host system) is characteristic of borrowing. The opposite view is expressed by MyersScotton who claims that any code-switched element is integrated into ML, but so-called bare (unintegrated) forms are allowed, too.4 The existence of a strict division between borrowing and code-switching seems methodologically problematic, for there are no clear criteria for the distinction (Eliasson 1990; Thomason 1997). That is why some scholars (Lauttamus 1991; Myers-Scotton 1993a; Thomason 1997) postulate a continuum between the two phenomena. This is a reasonable approach; however, even then clear distinctions are not always possible: it may seem to be safe to claim that if monolingual speakers use a certain item, this is a borrowing, but what if there are no monolingual speakers in a given community? (Sarhimaa 1999: 128 quoting Stenson 1991: 573). Even “deep” linguistic categories can be affected by contact. Leisiö (2001a) discusses the integration of Finnish nouns (with a focus on gender assignment) into the morphosyntactic frame of Russian by indigenous Russian minority members. Although she does not use the concept of monolingual bias, her conclusions are clear: the bilingual speakers’ intuition differs from that of monolingual speakers and the perception of “foreign” elements and, therefore, their treatment is also different. Contrary to the claim by Poplack, Pousada and Sankoff (1982), integration of Finnish nouns is not entirely conditioned by structural properties: even if Finnish nouns neatly fit into various Russian declension classes, they tend to be assigned to the so-called universal masculine gender. Significantly, there are no monolingual speakers of Russian in the community. Leisiö (2001a) stresses that integration or non-integration may depend on the type of language community and its stability. Most recent studies by Auer and Muhamedova (2005) and Auer (2007) demonstrate that the MLF model and its refined version, the 4M model, though useful on a descriptive level, also suffer from monolingual bias. First, MLF deals with “classic bilingualism,” that is, a case when a speaker can produce well-formed utterances in both languages. It is not entirely clear what the criteria of well-formedness are (monolingual grammars?). Besides, an ability to

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produce well-formed utterances (according to respective monolingual grammars) does not automatically mean that such utterances are necessarily produced in all situations. The notion of a composite matrix language (ML) (i.e., where the morphosyntactic frame comes from more than one source), introduced by Bolonyai (1998) and later adopted by Myers-Scotton (2002), provides a more nuanced view and enables to accommodate the data from the speakers who are not “classic code-switchers.” Nevertheless, as Rusakov (2003) points out, composite ML as described in Myers-Scotton (2002) is characterized as a deviation from the “desired target language” that occurs because of the lack of “sufficient access” to that language. According to Rusakov (2003), this may be correct for cases of language attrition in individual speakers but not in cases where whole languages (such as varieties of Romani) that have undergone convergence and where the existence of target languages is doubtful. I posit that the understanding of composite ML as “deviations” from a “desired target language” is another example of monolingual bias because such a view presupposes a failed striving for the monolingual version of L2 (see Cook 1997 on monolingual bias in SLA research where it is assumed by the mainstream that L2 learners wish to become indistinguishable from “target language speakers” but fail to do so). Similar criticism was expressed by Boussofara-Omar (2003: 36–37). As stated in the study by Auer and Muhamedova (2005), monolingual codes are not always identifiable with a ML which sets the grammatical frame and an embedded language (EL), or the language of insertions. In theory, both ML and EL islands have to be well formed. However, this rule is systematically violated in Russian-Kazakh and Russian-Uighur code-switching. From the point of view of Russian monolingual grammar, EL islands (Russian) violate the rules: Russian nouns and adjectives do not agree in gender or adjectives lose gender markers altogether. Both Kazakh and Uighur, Turkic languages, are genderless. From this, Auer and Muhamedova conclude that ML (Kazakh) governs EL islands (Russian). Yet the speakers are as a rule balanced KazakhRussian (or Uighur-Russian) bilinguals who are able to speak a version of Russian more or less approximating the monolingual variety where deviations from the traditional, “correct” gender assignment and gender agreement between nouns and adjectives in NP do not occur. Thus, the exact identity of EL with monolingual Russian is questionable. Therefore, a bilingual’s intuition may substantially differ from that of a monolingual, and what is considered as a structural conflict from a formalist point of view is not perceived as such by the speakers or by scholars favoring a more flexible approach. Changes in the speaker’s intuition may in the long run lead to a greater acceptance of items, forms, and structures that are at odds with monolingual norms. Acceptance, in turn, facilitates even further changes. The speaker’s attitudes, changes by deliberate decision and bilingual creativity may prove crucial here (Thomason 1997, 2001).

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Theoretical Background

1.3 1.3.1

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Macro vs. microsociolinguistics

General considerations

The aim of macrosociolinguistic approaches is the investigation of the overall dynamics of sociolinguistic processes (preferred languages, language choice, language loyalty, ethnolinguistic vitality) in a given community. As mentioned above, some types of macrosociolinguistic research are hardly distinguishable from studies in sociology and political science. In what follows I am going to argue that significant and valuable as it is, macrosociolinguistic studies may create a distorted picture if not paralleled by microsociolinguistic investigation. It appears that, while microsociolinguists often look into the work of macrosociolinguists to achieve a general view of the sociolinguistic dynamics of a community and to look for explanations of patterns they find, macrosociolinguists seldom turn to microsociolinguistic literature. Spolsky (1998: 8–9) expresses a justified concern in his statement that a certain tension exists between the two types of sociolinguistic research. Let us examine a well known claim by Fishman (1967) that a society does not need two languages for exactly identical functions. In some cases, this may be true; still, the universal validity of the claim is problematic. From a purely functionalist point of view, it may indeed be enough for one language to be strictly linked to a certain domain. However, “does not need” is not the same as “does not have” or “does not use.” Language choice is not always dictated by practical considerations, that is, people acquire and use languages they do not “need.” As it is now known from bilingualism research, the question of whether an individual is able to keep his/her languages apart (on a cognitive level) cannot be answered in a straightforward yes-or-no-manner; thus, even if such a separation of domains is desirable, it is not always strictly followed on an individual level. A community consists of individuals that have individual attitudes, preferences, language skills, and so on. As Pavlenko (2003, 2006a) claims, in a bilingual speaker different languages may evoke different emotions and, in addition to purely functional considerations, it appears logical that the use of language A and not language B with other speakers with a similar linguistic profile may be dictated by emotional or even esthetic values the speakers attach to each of his/her languages. Large-scale quantitative studies are not able to deal with these matters; rather, this is a domain of a microsociolinguistic, more ethnographically oriented approach. For his criticism of the view which strictly associates a particular language with a particular type of activities Auer (1995: 117–118) chooses an example of English-Spanish bilingual conversation as given by Fishman (1971: 37 ff.) and provides an alternative analysis. A boss dictates a business letter in English to his secretary and then switches to Spanish to discuss a Puerto Rican parade. According to Fishman, the switch can be explained by the change of the topic

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because in the community there exists a systemic correlation between speech events and language choice (English = formal, Spanish = informal). Auer (1995: 118) argues that, in reality, the relationship between languages and speech activities is more complex, and many speech activities are not necessarily linked to a particular language. In the instance of Puerto Rican Spanish-English bilingual conversation as described by Fishman (1971) it is possible to imagine that the superior speaks to his secretary in Spanish or English all the time. As Auer (1995: 118–119) renders it, even in speech activities that tend to be realized more often in one language, the prediction of language choice may only be probabilistic. In the neighboring field of SLA and bilingualism studies, Blackledge and Pavlenko (2001) and Pavlenko (2002) criticize the so-called sociopsychological research paradigm (represented, e.g., by Giles and Johnson 1987; Tajfel 1974, 1981) and point out that the relationship between language skills and ethnic group membership, or between a language and a group membership is not as straightforward as suggested by the advocates of sociopsychological approach. Allegedly clear concepts such as “identity,” “in-group,” “out-group,” and “native speaker” are themselves in need of an explanation. To a certain extent, this criticism is also applicable to the macrosociolinguistic strand of research. For example, Clyne (2003: 57) shows in a similar fashion that the ethnolinguistic vitality model (Bourhis 2001) is suited only for a particular type of sociolinguistic situations that he refers to as binary systems, that is, when there is a choice between two dominant languages or in the case of a stable minority. The widely discussed markedness model in code-switching (Myers-Scotton 1993b, 1998b) explains language choice as derived from social motivations. In this framework, the speakers have “rights and obligations set” and also an understanding of markedness. Depending on the situation and interlocutors, the community has a set of rules that determines language choice. A decision to code-switch may be unmarked (i.e., following the rules) or marked. In the latter case, code-switching would express hostility, irony, distance, and so on (Clyne 2003: 42). The model has been criticized (Auer 1998; Meewis and Blommaert 1994) on, among other things, the grounds that it is not based on empirical facts. The model is not universally applicable because in certain speech communities, there is no clear understanding of markedness and the reason for code-switching is the creation of contrasts (Auer 1998). The markedness model is also monolingually biased: it provides no explanation for utterances that cannot be assigned to a particular monolingual variety. Auer (1998: 9–13) analyzes an example from the data presented earlier by MyersScotton in her treatment of the markedness model (1993b) and, using the interactionist approach, arrives at different conclusions. What in the view of Myers-Scotton is the refusal of an appeal to solidarity by using the “out-group” languages Swahili and English instead of Lwidakho, is, in Auer’s interpretation, a case of language negotiation which is resolved by a subsequent accommodation by one of the participants (Auer 1998: 10). According to Auer, general

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knowledge about the role particular languages play in a given society is not enough for the interpretation of particular utterances or interactions.

1.3.2

Understanding multilingualism

Another problem with many macrosociolinguistic studies is a narrow understanding of multilingualism. As mentioned above, languages are assumed to have particular, well-defined functions that do not overlap. Bilingualism (multilingualism) is often viewed either as a transitional stage in language shift or in a series of dichotomies such as in- vs. out-group communication, minority vs. majority language, home vs. school domain, public vs. private sphere, and so on. According to this approach, languages are perceived as clearly definable self-contained entities. However, not every community has such a strict division of labor between languages; neither are the notions of “identity,” “preferred language,” “language proficiency,” “variety,” “majority,” or “minority” static and well-defined categories. For instance, the terms “majority” and “minority” cannot be maintained in the post-Soviet settings exactly in the same way as they are traditionally used in the research on immigrant communities or autochthonous minorities (see Chapter 2). Clyne (2003: 21) describes a set of problems that arise from censuses and questionnaires. It is well known that answers often depend on the way questions are formulated. Most of all, it concerns the concept of mother tongue. It has been demonstrated by Skutnabb-Kangas (1984, 2000) that the definition of mother tongue in multilingual speakers depends on various criteria (proficiency, origin, frequency of use, self-identification, and external identification). Earlier qualitative studies (e.g., Hewitt 1986, 1992) and some recent studies, such as Fraurud and Boyd (2006) demonstrate that borders between varieties in a multilingual setting and the notion of mother tongue become increasingly blurred. Still, very often the underlying assumption in macrosociolingusitic research is that a person has one mother tongue and a fixed identity. However, it became clear from qualitative research (starting from Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985) that identities are fluid and dynamic, as well as the perception of in- and out-group (Lantolf and Pavlenko 2001). There are varieties that do not have native speakers in the sense that they are nobody’s first and single language. Johnstone (2000) is right in her claim that (socio) linguistic theory usually pays little attention to a “linguistic individual”: it is a set of conceptualizations of language in general rather than of particular speakers that use a language. Rampton (1990) shows that the concept of native speaker is in fact obscure and can be understood differently in different contexts. A speaker can participate in several speech communities and identify with both of them, or with one of them, or, so to say, to “pick and mix,” for instance, s/he can identify with both languages but only with one culture, and so on. The following example from my field-work with Yiddish-speakers in Estonia illustrates the

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“pick and mix” option: a speaker proficient in Yiddish, Estonian, Russian, and German described himself as a Jew who identifies himself with the Russian language, German literature, and Estonian art. Finally, the notion of language crossing (Rampton 1995) and the paradoxical acquisition of immigrant varieties by the mainstream speakers (Auer and Dirim 2003; Dirim and Hieronymus 2003), as well as the emergence of ethnolects (Clyne 2000; Clyne, Eiskovits and Tollfree 2002; Kostinas 1998) give evidence into the complexity and even unpredictability of linguistic behavior. In the first case, the speakers behave in an unexpected way and acquire (to varying degrees of mastery) a variety that they are not “supposed” to master and do not need for practical reasons, or modify their own variety to achieve particular pragmatic and social goals (see Cutler 1999 on the use of AAVE features by white Americans). In the case of ethnolects, stigmatized “immigrant” varieties nevertheless are often preserved and modified, and the mainstream speakers may consciously or unconsciously utilize ethnolectal features (Androtsopoulos 2001).

1.3.3

Questionnaire data on language use and language-naming problems

Similar to microsociolinguistic research, macrosociolinguistic research often makes use of self-reported data. While self-reported data provide important insights on how the speakers view themselves, their own languages, and other languages, this alone is not enough. It has to be stressed that the speakers’ perception of their variety and its place among other varieties is often shaped and reshaped by the current language ideologies and language-planning climate, for example, by a tacit assumption that a person has one mother tongue and one ethnic identity that remains unchanged during one’s lifetime. An additional complication is that the speakers (as laypersons, not linguists) lack a meta-language to describe the entire range of their language use practices, let alone language change. While laypersons often have some sensitivity towards the use of foreign lexical material, known as code-switching/code-mixing, and lexical borrowing in the literature (“we mix languages,” “we use some words from X in our Y ”), CILC in grammar and in pragmatics is less accessible for observation and description. This again supports the idea that in addition to surveys and questionnaires it is necessary to have a solid body of empirical data emerging from the observation of language use by individuals. In the case of post-Soviet communities, macrosociolingusitc and sociological research clearly prevails (see Pavlenko 2006b for a general overview and Verschik 2005a for Estonia). Thus, Laitin (1998, 2003) claims that one possible scenario is the assimilation of Russian-speakers into Estonian society. An alternative scenario if Russians in Estonia will not succeed in acquiring Estonian

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suggests that English will probably become a lingua franca in Russian-toEstonian communication in Estonia. Ponarin (2000) argues against this claim and points out that Russians (and non-native speakers of Estonian) are discouraged to use Estonian by mainstream speakers of that language. Unfortunately, the arguments of both researchers are not based on actual language interaction and are at odds with the linguistic reality. First, the notion of “assimilation” is not clear. Is it language shift with a partial preservation of a group identity or is it accompanied by a complete culture shift (analogous to language shift), or is it accompanied by the construction of a new identity? And, if we accept for a moment the idea of all the Russian-speakers shifting to Estonian, what kind of Estonian will they end up with? Will it be Standard Estonian or an ethnolect? If the latter occurs, will it influence the mainstream version of Estonian? Second, although the choice of English as lingua franca may indeed sometimes occur in Russian-to-Estonian communication, there are no facts indicating that English is becoming a default choice; instead, there is increasing evidence of the acquisition of Estonian by Russians. In Estonian society, there is no “exclusion discourse” or “linguistic gate keeping” (Pavlenko 2002: 289) that would discourage non-native Estonian speech (although non-native Estonian is a novelty); on the contrary, there is a concern that non-native speakers do not have enough opportunities to practice their Estonian. While in some communities “mixing” is a strongly stigmatized practice and, according to some self-reported information, the speakers try to avoid it, the denial of code-switching is a fact that tells something of linguistic culture (i.e., sets of believes held in a community about its language, linguistic norms, “good” or “bad” language, and so on, Schiffman 1997) rather than of actual linguistic behavior. However, even if a community has a set of unwritten rules prescribing when and where which language is to be used, keeping two or more language systems apart in an individual may be problematic. As Thomason (1997, 2001) has explicitly stated, use of two different varieties for two different purposes in different settings (code-alternation) may in the long run lead to the same result as code-switching, namely, to the emergence of new forms and, subsequently, changes in grammar. Clearly, these changes are not detectable with the exclusive utilization of the macrosociolinguistic approach. Another important issue is that of the interpretation of figures in surveys and censuses. For instance, based on the most recent census in Estonia (2000) one would conclude that both major ethnic groups, Estonians and Russians, are characterized by a high language loyalty: 98% in each ethnic group claimed their “ethnic language” as their mother tongue. This is true to a certain measure. But, does the label “Russian” refer to the same variety as used ten or fifteen years ago? In some speakers, the answer would definitely be yes, but investigations into linguistic behavior shows that there are speakers of Russian as L1 whose speech reflects the increasing impact of Estonian at all levels,

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morphosyntax included. Instead of “Russian” there is a whole range of varieties: some of them approximate to Standard Russian as spoken or written in Russia, while some demonstrate Estonian-like features and sound “strange” to monolingual Russians. So, in a sense, this is a question about the extent to which a “language” is or is not equal to itself after a period of time. In the case of “revitalization” and/or radical interference by language planners, this question becomes theoretically significant (see discussion in Zuckermann 2003, 2006 on the distinction between Hebrew and Israeli and on the discourse of “revitalization” of Hebrew). As we have seen, language labels may be misleading. Often a community preserves the same label for a variety, although CILC or radical language planning has affected and reshaped the variety to a great extent (cf. then Estonian language in the second part of the nineteenth century and after a considerable de-Germanization in syntax and lexicon). The problem of monolingual bias in the macrosociolinguistic approach is closely linked to the problem of language-naming. Léglise and Migge (2006: 314) express a justified concern with the fact that language-naming conventions are rarely investigated in much detail. Additional difficulties arise when a variety does not have a written tradition, but even in societies with long-established literary traditions the situation may be complicated because non-standard varieties are held in low esteem and “do not count.” Nonetheless, even if a non-standard or a non-monolingual variety has its own name, the label is often misleading. Thus, surzhik, a label for a lowprestige “mixture of Ukrainian and Russian,” is used for referring to any kind of in-between variety. Again, the use of microsociolinguistic methodology allows Bilaniuk (2004, 2005) to claim that there are several varieties concealed behind the label: different varieties are used by urban or rural populations, Ukrainians, Russians, and so on. The varieties in question have somewhat different linguistic features: they occupy a different position on Auer’s (1999) continuum between code-switching and more stabilized, conventionalized alternate uses of languages which he refers to as a fused lect. To complicate the matter even more, there is also Standard Russian as spoken in Ukraine and Russian with a Ukrainian accent, which are not identical varieties. Meewis and Blommaert (1998) are correct in their criticisms of MyersScotton’s markedness model where bilingual codes are considered to equally correspond to two monolingual varieties. They show that what might look like two separate codes is, in fact, one single code for the speakers (cf. the title of the article by Dirim and Hieronymus (2003): “For me it is like we all speak one language”; see also Alvarez-Cáccamo 1998). Still, it would be problematic to rely in all instances on the speakers’ authority: the case of surzhik demonstrates that if the speakers tend to stigmatize a “mixture” and view it as a deterioration that occurs under the pressure of a larger and more powerful language (Russian, in this case), then the speakers would probably under-differentiate

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19

and use one single label for everything they perceive as “impure.” Therefore, without thorough qualitative microsociolinguistic research, the differences, say, between rural surzhik used by Ukrainians and contemporary urban surzhik as used by Russian-speakers who wish to master Ukrainian would not have been established. The consolidation of all non-standard or “mixed” varieties under the same label constitutes the other side of the coin, that is, monolingual bias, where two discrete varieties are considered normal and everything that deviates is designated by a single term. Thus, qualitative differences often exist within what seems to be roughly the same variety, as in the case of surzhik, and these subtleties tend to remain invisible if only macrosociolinguistic research tools are applied. Auer (1998: 3) identifies the gap that exists in code-switching research between purely grammatical and macrosociolinguistic approaches and finds that a microsociolinguistic (in his case, an interactionist) line of inquiry would fill in the gap. Probably, this is true of all research on language contacts: a purely grammatical view on CILC traditionally disregards sociolinguistic factors, while the macrosociolinguistic approach describes very general processes and seldom gives attention to particular instances of linguistic behavior, multilingual speech, linguistic creativity, language play, intentionally introduced changes, and so on. It has to be emphasized that several processes usually take place at the same time in one community: CILC, language shift, and the rise of new varieties, which makes the situation even more complex. The question is not about choosing one type of research over others: after all, researchers have different interests and different priorities. It is rather a matter of presenting a balanced overall picture through the utilization of multifarious approaches. So far, in the research on post-Soviet contact situations, studies in language policy and the overall language situation clearly prevail.

1.4

Established vs. emergent bilingualism

The third opposition to be considered is probably not as tense and not as clearly pronounced and dealt with in the linguistic literature as the first two. Rather, the main area of interest lies in the study of the spread of innovations and changes (also contact-induced; Croft 2000; Heine and Kuteva 2005). In individual studies on CILC some authors do emphasize that, for instance, the treatment of imported noun stems into the ML depends on whether bilingualism is emergent and monolingual speakers exist in the community. Thus, in the previously mentioned case study by Leisiö (2001a) it has been demonstrated that the strategies of gender assignment in Finnish nouns within the Russian matrix do not exclusively depend on the structural characteristics, that is, whether the noun in question fits into one of Russian declension classes. This fact is explained by societal factors: the contact situation is not new, and

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the community has no monolingual speakers remaining. In the similar spirit, Budzhak-Jones and Poplack (1997) have discovered differences in the treatment of English nouns in first- and second-generation Ukrainian immigrants in Canada: morphological integration is not obligatory in the speech of the second generation. Backus (2001) found that insertional code-switching prevails in first generation Turkish immigrants in Holland as opposed to non-first generation bilingual speakers. Auer (1999) provides a model illustrating the dynamics of code-switching and claims that in established bilingual situations it can become grammaticalized and conventionalized, thus loosing any pragmatic significance. The general question whether and how exactly CILC and linguistic behavior in emergent bilingual situations differs probably deserves more attention. There have been some attempts to deal with the problem. Johanson (1999: 54–55) emphasizes the need to distinguish between “young and older contact situations.” Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) and later Thomason (2001) mention the intensity and length of contact as factors affecting CILC in rather general terms. As noted by Backus (2005), for some reasons, certain contact phenomena are usually studied synchronically (code-switching) and others diachronically (contact-induced structural changes). To a certain extent, this can be explained by the nature of the phenomena in question, as structural change is usually believed to appear when contact has lasted for longer periods of time. Still, the import of new lexical items (code-switching) is at least partly responsible for structural change (Backus 2005; Muysken 2000, especially in congruent lexicalization). Probably, the question, “what minimal duration of contact is required for structural changes to appear?” cannot be answered in a precise manner. In his triangle model, Muysken (2000) seeks (although implicitly) to establish links between three types of code-switching and the intensity of language contacts. He assumes that congruent lexicalization, if not occurring between closely related varieties, presupposes more intensive and prolonged contacts that enable convergence between structures of the varieties, so that the new common structure can be filled in with the lexical material from either variety. However, to substantiate the claim, more empirical evidence is required because the terms “intensive” and “long-term” are relative in their nature. Proficient bilingualism is usually not expected to develop on a massive scale in newer contact situations (although some individuals may become highly skilful bilinguals quicker than others). At the same time, numerous studies and models deal with data from balanced bilingual speakers. For instance, earlier versions of MLF are restricted to situations of “classic” code-switching where the speaker is able to produce well-formed utterances in both languages (Clyne 2003: 81). This implies that code-switching in bilinguals who are not as proficient or code-switching in the initial stages of language contact may follow different rules.

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Field (2005) brings into focus the importance of the simultaneous acquisition of two languages in CILC. Changes that are produced by bilinguals who have acquired both languages simultaneously may not be acceptable to other types of bilinguals. This point deserves more attention because in some communities simultaneous bilingualism is common while in others it is more the exception. Probably, the existence of a considerable group of such bilinguals gives evidence to more or less established bilingual practices, as opposed to the situation of emergent bilingualism. Traditionally, structural borrowing is believed to be characteristic of a more advanced stage of bilingualism. Thus, Field (2005: 353) concludes that, although the borrowing of word order patterns is one of the easiest types of changes in language shift situations (Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991: 54–55), the imitation of word order patterns requires a certain level in structural knowledge of L2 that is beyond the minimal knowledge of individual words. On the other hand, Thomason (1997, 2001, 2003) shows that even a passive familiarity with a variety may account for some changes. It seems logical to expect the impact of passive familiarity mostly when bilingual practices are in their nascent stages and when only a tiny segment of speakers is highly proficient in the L2. This would apply to new contact situations (recent immigrants) and to Russian-speakers in the Baltic countries. The emergence and proliferation (or decrease) of contact-induced innovations should be considered, as well. Johanson (2002c: 60) speaks of ephemeral copying, that is, contact-induced innovations that merely appear at the discourse level and will not be conventionalized in future. This is akin to Thomason’s (2001: 130) treatment of ephemeral innovations and of ephemeral bilingual speech that emerge in a very tiny microcommunity (teenage Dutch speakers who are proficient in English) without further proliferation into the wider speech community (Thomason 2001: 215). If these changes would never become a part of general use, then it is most probable that they would never be attested. As we shall see in further chapters, conventionalization is a crucial concept for Johanson; other scholars have proposed different labels for the same phenomenon, for instance, entrenchment (Backus 2005: 319) and propagation of innovations, or altered replication (Croft 2000). Auer’s (1999) grammaticalization of code-switching, that is, the development stage of a mixed variety where code-switching loses its pragmatic meaning and becomes obligatory, is somewhat akin to the mentioned terms. If a contact situation has crystallized and changes conventionalized, the chances to learn something about ephemeral innovations that have been discarded are low. According to Backus (2005: 316), if a change is registered, it is already underway. On the other hand, if even one single speaker produces an innovation only once, it is sufficient to claim that the uttered innovation is possible in principle; in theory, it can potentially turn into a permanent change (Thomason 2003: 694). Therefore, in the course of investigations on emergent

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vs. stable bilingual situation one may discover instances of CILC that later will possibly become obsolete. In this light, a test of grammaticality and acceptability in a situation of established bilingualism would probably yield different results than in emergent bilingual settings. In any case, a retrospective picture of a contact situation may be difficult or even impossible to obtain (Thomason 2003: 693). Backus (2005) brings into inquiry linguistic awareness and the speakers’ conscious behavior in their introduction of changes (intentionality). Intentionality is especially prominent in producing and re-producing lexical innovations, while innovative structures and patterns usually “slip in” unconsciously (Backus 2005: 317). It appears that the more entrenched an innovation is the less intentional is its use. This would mean that intentionality is especially characteristic of emergent bilingual behavior and speech. I believe that the introduction of structural changes can also be intentional because some bilingual speakers are more conscious of their linguistic choices than others and deliberately engage in private language planning that is not limited to the lexicon. Probably, one would expect such a conscious behavior in emergent bilingualism when rules and conventions are just in the making. In a similar spirit, Thomason (2003: 700) emphasizes the importance of “negotiation” in an emergent contact situation. “Negotiation” is one among seven mechanisms of contact-induced change (Thomason 1997, 2001, 2003); the concept is akin to that of accommodation and is connected to two other mechanisms, code-alternation, and L2 acquisition strategies (Thomason 2003: 700). It is not a deliberate negotiation but rather a change in features, patterns, and so on that speakers believe to approximate the corresponding patterns of L2 and to be understandable to their conversation partners. If the speakers are not very proficient bilinguals, the result may be quite different from the original pattern in L2. All above-mentioned examples demonstrate that bilingual speech in an emergent contact situation may have certain distinctive features that can disappear in future when the situation becomes stable. Thus, close scrutiny on emergent bilingualism would shed some light on the process of habitualization and conventionalization (or, in another terminology, entrenchment). Emergent bilingualism provides a valuable opportunity to research into the propagation of changes. It has to be mentioned that several post-Soviet contact situations, particularly in the Baltic countries and in the Ukraine, are cases of emergent bilingualism where Russians are becoming bilingual. In all these cases, the circumstances accompanying bilingualization differ from those described in “classical” studies on immigrant and minority communities. Unlike in “classic” settings where mainstream speakers usually do not possess command of an immigrant/minority variety, the indigenous population has some proficiency in Russian that dates back to the period of Soviet domination. On the contrary, Russian-speakers were

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previously monolingual, and that is changing now. Also, the above-mentioned “classic” code-switching that implies the ability to produce well-formed utterances in both languages (somewhat similar to Weinreich’s (1953) “ideal bilingual”) is probably not the most typical example of code-switching in the emerging bilingual speech of Russians in the Baltic countries. Most probably, a sociolinguistic portrait of a bilingual speaker (see Franceschini 1998 for the concept) in the mentioned setting would differ from what is usually described in the studies on code-switching and bilingual communication (Verschik 2004a).

1.5

In search of a model

Now I am going to formulate the departure points for the current study: z

z

z z

z

z

Although sociolinguistic factors do not cause CILC, they are responsible for the direction, intensity, and character of changes. The CILC is not determined only by the structural properties of languages in contact. On the other hand, macrosocilinguistic large-scale studies often overlook individual and linguistic creativity, multiple identities, and speakers’ awareness. The microsociolinguistic approach is able to fill the gap between purely linguistic and macrosociolinguistic study. Both purely formal and macrosociolinguistic approaches frequently have a monolingual bias. Languages are considered as clearly definable entities; models do not explain rules, patterns, and items that do not belong to either monolingual (standard) variety. In the emergent forms of bilingualism, passive familiarity and intentionality in the use of innovations, as well as “negotiation” probably play a greater role than in established bilingualism. It is particularly important that emergent bilingualism provides an opportunity of a closer monitoring of changes. Until now, there are few microsociolingusitic studies concerning the postSoviet contact situation. Some claims made by sociologists and political scientists concerning the dynamics of language attitudes, identities, and future scenarios in the Baltic countries may prove to be wrong when juxtaposed with the empirical evidence from ethnographic/microsociolinguistic research. This is a type of contact situation that differs from traditional minority or immigrant settings. Unlike in “classic” settings where mainstream speakers usually do not have a command of an immigrant/minority variety, the indigenous population has some proficiency in Russian that dates back to the period of Soviet domination. The current study is focused on the process of a rapid bilingualization within a decade.

As approaches and methodologies in language contact and sociolinguistic research differ to a great extent, it is most probably impossible to elaborate a

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general model or a theoretical framework acceptable to all schools of thought. Yet, some kind of a framework that includes both structural and sociolinguistic factors and is free from monolingual bias is desirable. Terminology poses a problem, too. Until now, I have been using traditional contact linguistics terms “borrowing,” “code-switching,” “transfer,” “convergence,” and so on. At first glance, it seems that these concepts are much more clearly defined than those used in the sociopsychological approach (“identity,” “in-group,” etc.) which were discussed in Section 1.3. Nonetheless, the terminology in question is unsatisfactory for at least two reasons: first, these are (often inadequate) metaphors that live their own life and in the long run affect our understanding; second, and maybe as a consequence of the first circumstance, for different researchers these terms mean different things. As a result, new, supposedly better and more precise terms, are constantly coined, but the issue remains unsolved. In my opinion, a suitable theoretical framework that addresses all abovementioned issues does exist. Namely, this is the code-copying framework elaborated by Johanson (1993, 1999, 2002a, c). The framework is relatively unknown outside Turkologist circles. Recently, in his treatment of relations between code-switching and structural language change, Backus (2005) described the main tools of the model to a wider audience of scholars. Also, Heine and Kuteva (2005) make use of some of Johanson’s postulates and terms in their grammaticalization model. The strong points of the mentioned framework are as follows. It has a clear and flexible terminological apparatus. Vague or loaded terms like “marked language choice,” “borrowing,” “code-mixing,” “transfer,” “interference” are avoided. The framework considers both sociolinguistic and structural factors and is applicable to a wide range of contact situations. It allows following the dynamics of all varieties involved and accounts for what is called convergence in traditional terms and also for the emergence of new varieties of L1 and L2, including ethnolects and further transformations thereof. From a theoretical point of view, there are at least two important considerations. First, the codecopying framework is not constraint-based and is not concerned with any kind of constraints on CILC. Second, it does not treat separately processes occurring in lexicon (traditional code-switching and borrowing) and in grammar (convergence, “composite matrix language,” etc). Third, it is adequate for the description and analysis of all kinds of non-monolingual speech production. I will show in Chapter 3 how this holistic approach is useful and how CILC in my case study can be analyzed in the terms of the code-copying framework.

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Chapter 2

Emerging multilingual communication: Russian in Estonia, Russian and Estonian, Estonia’s Russian

This chapter provides an overview of the sociolinguistic situation in Estonia with a focus on Russian and Russian-speakers. For a more comprehensive and detailed account on Estonia’s history see Raun (2001). First, I will present a brief sociolinguistic history of Estonia and explain how the Soviet-era Russianspeaking population differs from indigenous minorities and immigrant communities. Then I will describe the ongoing differentiation within what is vaguely called the “Russian-speaking community” and changes in language attitudes, self-perception, and the linguistic repertoire therein in the postSoviet epoch. In the third section, I will focus on the emergence of bilingual communication during the past decade.

2.1

A brief sociolinguistic history

2.1.1 From the first Russian settlers to the “Russian-speaking population” The first Russian settlers, mostly merchants and craftsmen, arrived in the territory of Estonia during the Livonian War (1558–1583). From the seventeenth century onwards, settlements of Russian fishermen and peasants appeared in the eastern regions of Estonia (Külmoja 2000: 84; Must 2000: 8). Russian Old Believers form a distinctive group whose arrival in Estonia dates back to the second part of the seventeenth century. From the end of the seventeenth and well into the eighteenth century, Russian Old Believers who had not accepted the Russian Orthodox Church reform of 1653, started looking for an escape from persecutions in Russia and settled on the western coast of Lake Peipus. Thus, the population of this area became diverse and was made up of the following groups: Estonians (mostly Lutherans), Russian Orthodox Christians, and Russian Old Believers. Both groups of Russians were proficient in Estonian to a certain degree. Since the seventeenth century until the present, Old Believers form a very distinct ethnoconfessional community and try to maintain distinct community borders, and the impact of Estonian on their Russian

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is therefore not as profound as on the variety spoken on the northern coast of Lake Peipus, who are not Old Believers (Berg 1999, Külmoja 1999). Estonia became a part of the Russian empire after the Great Northern War (1700–1721). In the nineteenth century some urban Russian population emerged but this did not affect the overall demographic picture in any significant way. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century the Tsarist government tried to implement the policy of russification (mid-1880s–1905) directed both against the Baltic German nobility and the Estonian majority. The policy was doomed to fail because neither Germans nor Estonians would accept Russian as a higher status language and symbol of high culture. The policy was not implemented in a systematic fashion, as officials often disagreed about its objectives (Raun 2001: 79–80). In a sense, russification came too late to succeed in Estonia. By that time Estonians, the local majority, had already exhibited a high degree of national awareness and formed their proto-elites, while modern Estonian literature, theater, and press were rapidly developing. The achievements in the sphere of language planning and modern Estonianlanguage literature were impressive. The Estonian middle class was beginning to form and the share of Estonians among the urban population was on the increase. Estonia became an independent state in 1918. After the Russian revolution of 1917 some Russian émigrés settled there. Overall, Estonia was fairly homogenous ethnically: Estonians constituted about 90 percent of the population and Russians formed the largest minority (approx. eight per cent). The former elites, Baltic Germans, and Russians, lost their privileged position and were considered as ethnic minorities like Swedes, Jews, Latvians, Roma, and others. Secondary education was available also through the medium of Russian, while Estonian was a compulsory subject in all non-Estonian schools. Russians had a wide network of cultural institutions, media, social clubs, and philanthropy organizations. However, neither of the named Russian-speaking communities gave rise to the present substantial Russian-speaking population of Estonia. In 1940, all three Baltic states were occupied by and incorporated into the Soviet Union. The subsequent Nazi invasion (1941–1944) and the second Soviet occupation (1944–1991) resulted in the near complete demise of Estonia’s indigenous minorities (Baltic Germans, Swedes, Jews, Roma; see M. Rannut 2004: 12; Tiit 1993). The Soviet authorities strived toward the russification of non-Russian parts of the Soviet empire, although their policies and goals were often camouflaged by internationalist rhetoric and impressively sounding but fictional declarations of space for nation-building (recall the slogan “National in form, socialist in content”). This especially concerned the Baltic republics, the least loyal to the Soviet cause. To integrate Estonia economically with the rest of the Soviet Union, numerous industrial enterprises were established, especially for the needs of all-union

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industry. Typically, the labor force for such enterprises would be recruited among Russian-speakers elsewhere in the Soviet Union. The authorities overtly and covertly encouraged the settlement of Russian-speakers by creating jobs and better housing facilities for the newcomers. Due to their later incorporation into the “Soviet family of peoples,” the living standard in the Baltic republics was somewhat higher than elsewhere in the USSR. The material culture that existed in these Republics was perceived as “European” or “Western,” and thus created within the USSR an image of the “Soviet West.” The Russians settled mainly in urban areas: in Tallinn and in the towns of northeast. Thus, ethno-demographically, three different regions gradually emerged: bilingual Tallinn, the predominantly Russian-speaking northeast, and the rest of the country, which remain predominantly Estonian-speaking. Despite the many important sociopolitical changes that have occurred since 1991, the ethnodemographical differences between the aforementioned regions are retained and remain relevant.

2.1.2

Population dynamics and the failure of russification

During the Soviet occupation, the percentage of Russians was constantly on the increase and reached 30.3% in 1989 (according to the last Soviet census of 1989). The share of Estonians was dramatically dropping, and in the northeastern county of Ida-Virumaa they in fact constituted a minority in their own homeland (about 20% in Kohtla-Järve and only 3–4% in Narva; see details in M. Rannut 2004). Russian supplanted Estonian in the strategically important functional domains of public administration such as banking, police, railway, navy, and aviation. However, despite these steps undertaken by the central authorities and despite of demographic russification (i.e., the constant influx of Russian-speakers), russification in terms of undermining the prestige of Estonian and the establishment of Russian as the single “high” variety failed. In this respect, the outcome of russification policies differs greatly across the former Soviet Union, and the reasons for such a diverse development cannot be discussed here in detail (see an excellent overview by Pavlenko 2006b and case studies by Bilaniuk 2005 on Ukraine; Korth 2005 on Kyrgyzstan; Raun 2001; M. Rannut 2004, 2006; Ü. Rannut 2005 on Estonia; and Wertheim 2003 on Tatarstan). The failure of russification policies in Estonia has played a substantial role in the formation of the present sociolinguistic situation, and I am going to briefly outline the reasons for that failure. Contrary to the expectations of the central authorities, the prestige of Russian among Estonians remained low. As it is known from various language shift studies, a very often cited prerequisite for a language shift is low esteem of the language among the members of an ethnic group and a belief in the inferiority of one’s own language (see discussion in Wertheim 2003 on Tatarstan). The non-acceptance of the official prestige hierarchy and, subsequently, the

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formation of an oppositional identity is a distinguishing feature of the Baltic countries where neither titular ethnicities nor their elites became russified (cf. Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, partly Ukraine). The reasons for this development are manifold. First, the rejection of the official language hierarchy was not merely a declarative act of defiance. Prior to the loss of statehood, Estonian had functioned as a language of sophisticated literature and academia, public administration, courts, churches, higher education, the military, banking, trade, and so on. In other words, the society was not in need of any other “high” language because Estonian was adequately equipped for all the functions of a modern nationstate. The importance of this circumstance becomes especially clear when the situation in the Baltic countries and, say, in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, or Tatarstan are compared. In the Baltic countries, Russian entered the picture when the titular languages had already developed all necessary registers and terminology to become a true bulwark against the “intruder” language. The ability to function in vital “high” domains added to the prestige of Estonian and substantiated the claim that no other language beside Estonian was needed. This is a crucial factor because a high degree of ethnic self-consciousness alone cannot help resist the “intruder” if certain important registers and terminology are lacking or underdeveloped. If a language is “under-equipped” and there is no time left for corpus and status planning because another powerful language, for example, Russian, is imposed, chances are great that no matter how conscious the speakers of the titular language are Russian (or any other “intruder”) has no serious competitor in the mentioned domains. Gradually, the titular language becomes associated with “rural,” “backward,” or “old-fashioned” people, as was the case with many languages of the peoples that inhabited the Soviet Union (e.g., see Bilaniuk 2005 on the difficulties of status shift Ukrainian faces precisely for the above mentioned reasons).1 Second, it is important to keep in mind that, to the majority of the Estonian population, Russian was considered as the language of the aggressive subjugator. The constant influx of Russian-speakers was perceived as a threat to the survival. In this light, the protection and maintenance of the Estonian language became one of the main elements of defensive nationalism and the construction of oppositional identity (Jaffe 1999). Thus, the Estonian language continuously maintained a high prestige among its speakers throughout the Soviet period. The situation in the Estonian SSR consisted, therefore of two competing language hierarchies: the official Soviet one and that of the Estonians. Needless to say that the anti-Soviet feelings could not be openly voiced and the resistance against russification, albeit strong, had to be expressed in other ways. The declaration of proficiency (or, rather, non-proficiency) in Russian in the census of 1979 is a remarkable example of this silent resistance. Raun (2001: 210) observes that the self-reported decline in the proficiency (from 28.3% claiming to know Russian in 1970 to 24.1% in 1979) is not credible by any objective means.

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Without doubt, the indigenous Russians, described in the beginning of this section, form an ethnic minority, while remaining numerically and otherwise marginal within the Russian-speaking population. However, the notion of minority cannot be applied to the Soviet-time newcomers who considered Estonia as an integral part of their “great socialist homeland.” Although it is hard or even impossible to suggest what period of time is necessary for an ethnic group to have resided in a country to qualify for a minority, it is clear that the post-WW2 settlers have too short a history in Estonia, in order for the label to be effectively applied (see Viikberg 2000 on Estonia’s minorities and definition problems). A point worthy of note is that the indigenous Russian minority dissociates itself from the Soviet-time newcomers, sometimes employing the terms “Russian” for self-description and “Soviet” for the description of the latter group. Neither the traditional notions of “immigrants” nor “guest workers” are adequate and appropriate in the Baltic context. An immigrant makes a conscious decision to settle in a foreign country and to take the consequences: to get used to an unfamiliar setting, to acquire at least a working knowledge of a new language, to learn about cultural realities and customs of the host country. In other words, an immigrant consciously crosses the state border. All this does not apply in our case because in the mind of the newcomers no such border existed. The newcomers grew up in a spirit of Soviet propaganda that advertised the legitimate unity of the USSR and constantly promoted Russian at the expense of other languages. Non-Russians were expected to master Russian while Russians enjoyed the right to remain monolingual. That is why very few bothered to learn any Estonian. In summation, Estonia developed two separate, even polarized communities that did not interact to any great degree and had little interest in each other. Russian was a compulsory subject in all Estonian-medium schools; however, it would be wrong to claim that Estonians were all proficient in Russian. An ability to interact in Russian was dictated by occupational and practical needs. Bilingualism was characteristic of those Estonians who had to interact with Russians on an extensive basis or who worked in the public sphere. Only in northeastern Estonia, where Russians had become a majority, was the proficiency in Russian crucial to daily life. As stated earlier, most of the Soviet-time settlers remained monolingual. Officially, Estonian was taught in Russian-medium schools as a subject, yet this was a mere formality, because Russians were in fact not expected to learn the language to use it. As communication between the two groups was limited and, while, according to the popular perception, “everybody knew Russian anyway,” there was no motivation for non-Estonians to use Estonian. One of the side effects of the Soviet domination is the russification of so-called third ethnicities, that is, neither Russians nor Estonians who had only a minor share in the population. Except for the members of indigenous minorities, non-Russians would typically send their children into Russian-medium schools.

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As education in languages other than Russian or Estonian was not available, they had to choose between a Russian and an Estonian future for their children and usually opted for the former, probably because they had already reached some proficiency in Russian as a lingua franca, while Estonian remained completely unfamiliar to them.

2.1.3

Collapse of the Soviet Union and (re-)defining of Russian-speakers

Radical changes came with the general liberalization of the Soviet Union toward the end of the 1980s. The Baltic republics immediately seized at the opportunities provided by perestroika and opted for a complete break away from the Soviet empire.2 The Estonians’ strive for the reestablishment of national independence was obvious, and the first Language Law of 1989, although rather declarative, was of great symbolic value (see M. Rannut 2004 on language legislation in Estonia). It sought to restore the linguistic balance and to ensure the possibility of Estonian-language communication anywhere in the territory of Estonia. In 1991, the existence of the Republic of Estonia was restored de facto, with Estonian as the sole official language of the state. The reaction to the Language Law and to the restoration of national independence varied among different sets of the Russian-speaking population. According to Mart Rannut (1994), in the late 1980s and early 1990s three groups could be distinguished on the bases of their attitudes: (1) those who identified themselves with the Soviet Union and perceived the Language Law as an alleged violation of human rights; (2) those who remained indifferent if the changes would not affect their economic situation; (3) those who supported the independence and acknowledged the symbolic significance of the Estonian language. It has to be noted that the transition from the previous dominant status to an ordinary status on a par with other, numerically smaller, ethnic groups such as Tatars, Armenians, Ukrainians, and others was a dramatic and traumatic experience for many. After 1991, the language situation in the Baltic countries attracted a large number of researchers interested in language policy, societies in transition, and post-communist studies (see Kolstø 1999; Laitin 1998; Smith 1998 to name just a few major contributions). However, language policy and minority rights issues continue to dominate the research agenda (Pavlenko 2006b: 90 and references therein).3 According to Pavlenko (2006b: 90), the changing status of Russian also raises several theoretical challenges. As stated above, Russians in the post-Soviet countries cannot be equated with minorities in the traditional sense. There is an ongoing debate over the terms “diaspora” and “post-colonial” (see discussion and summary in Pavlenko 2006b). The term “diaspora” appears too general and vague because it refers to all Russians living outside Russia regardless of the reasons and conditions of their migration. The concept of “near abroad,” frequently used in Russian political discourse and sometimes in

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academic publications, is politically charged and is perceived as offensive in the Baltic states: it is implied that the post-Soviet countries are not viewed as a “real” abroad but legitimately remain in the sphere of Russia’s economic, political, and cultural influence. I find helpful the notions of majoritized minority (Russians) and endangered minoritized majority (non-Russians), suggested by Skutnabb-Kangas (1992). These terms reflect two dimensions: the number of Russians and non-Russians and the privileged status of Russian. Obvious differences between the Soviet Union and colonial empires of the past notwithstanding, the notion of post-colonial setting may also be helpful. Although the Soviet Union was formally a federal state that consisted of so-called union republics, the central authorities implemented a systematic and centralized policy of economical and cultural integration of the newly acquired territories. Ozolins (2002) uses a somewhat similar descriptive term: postimperial. In the long run, some segments of the Russian-speaking population in Estonia may acquire characteristics of an immigrant minority and even an indigenous minority (M. Rannut 2004).

2.2 2.2.1

Growing heterogeneity among Russian-speakers

Proficiency in Estonian and different language environments

At present, Russians do not form a homogenous group; in fact, the Russians of Estonia are considered to be the most heterogeneous Russian population in the territories formerly under the rule of the USSR. In the words of Vihalemm and Masso (2002: 185), this is “actually not a community but a relatively diffuse assemblage of people differentiated by their future aims, social capital, and cultural and political allegiances” (see also Kirch and Kirch 1995; Kolstø 1999; Melvin 1995; Smith 1998; Vetik 2002). According to the 2000 census, the whole population of Estonia was 1,370,053. Few Russians left Estonia after 1991, but due to the general decrease in birth rates the share of Russians in the population was 25.6% (or 351,178), as of the 2000 census. Among Russian-speakers, the proficiency in Estonian has significantly increased: in 1989 only 15% of Russians claimed to know Estonian as opposed to 44.5% in the census of 2000. Although the census does not define proficiency and the data are anonymous and self-reported, these figures can nevertheless be interpreted as an “act of identity” (recall the previous example where Estonians chose to declare the lack of proficiency in Russian). The previously mentioned ethno-demographical distinction between the bilingual capital Tallinn, Russian-dominant (demographically russified) northeastern Estonia and the overwhelmingly Estonian-speaking rest of the country remains sociolinguistically relevant. Ülle Rannut (2005) has investigated the impact of language environment on the proficiency in Estonian among Russianspeaking schoolchildren. Her study reveals four types of language environments

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in Estonia: (1) bilingual Tallinn where Russian-speakers constitute slightly less than a half of the population; (2) northeastern Estonia where Estonians have become a minority numerically; (3) other urban localities where the concentration of Russians is less than 30%; and (4) rural areas with scattered Russian population. The language environment, combined with attitudes toward the Estonian language and motivation to master it, is a crucial factor that determines success in the acquisition of Estonian by Russian-speaking schoolchildren. In the environments of (3) and (4) the importance of high-level Estonian proficiency is never questioned, while in the northeast some people still believe that Estonian has too few speakers to be worth learning. In this respect Tallinn is the most interesting location for a sociolinguistic study due to a great diversity in attitudes and for the large number of possibilities for multilingual communication. The degree of proficiency in Estonian and a practical need to use it varies greatly among the population of Tallinn. Ülle Rannut (2005) has registered two different patterns within the same language environment. In some districts of the city, such as Lasnamäe and Põhja-Tallinn, Russian-speakers prevail. Many of them effectively disregard Estonian-speakers and mentally create a completely monolingual linguistic landscape in a similar fashion as the inhabitants of the northeastern towns of Narva, Sillamäe, and Kohtla-Järve do. At the same time, the very same people may occasionally state that a good command of Estonian gives better chances on the job market. In other words, this is a somewhat paradoxical position that can be summarized as follows: “one has to know Estonian since it is the state language but personally I do not need it because I have no need to interact with Estonians.” The other behavioral pattern within the same language environment reveals completely different attitudes: parents send their children to Estonian-medium schools; young Russian-speaking university students do not fear spending most of their time in a highly Estonianized environment and studying all subjects in Estonian, and feel free while communicating with their Estonian peers. In (3) and (4), a Russian-speaker cannot rely on the knowledge of Russian among the local majority because these areas have not been demographically russified during the Soviet era; hence, the proficiency in Russian was not an every-day necessity for the Estonian-speaking local majority. In Tallinn, however, a considerable segment of those whose first language is Estonian possesses a working knowledge of Russian. This may be crucial for the shaping of multilingual communication patterns (see Chapter 5 and discussion in Verschik 2007b). The restructuring of the school system and curricula contributes to the growing diversity as well. Prior to 1991, Estonian- and Russian-medium schools were bastions of their respective ethnolignuistic identities. Today, bilingual and immersion education programs are available and increasingly popular. Some Russian-speaking parents even choose Estonian-medium schools for their children and, as Raud (2004) explains, are actively Estonianizing their children.

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According to Mart Rannut (2006), the role of Russian- and Estonian-medium schools in Estonian society is currently in transition. During the Soviet era, Estonian-medium schools were a bastion of the Estonian language and identity; with the exception of non-numerous members of indigenous minorities (Tatars, Jews), the students in these schools were ethnic Estonians. Ethnic Russians, together with other non-Russian settlers from other parts of the Soviet Union (Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Armenians, Russian-speaking Jews, and other so-called third ethnicities) attended Russian-medium schools for the reasons described earlier in this chapter. Nowadays Russian schools are gradually becoming a “shelter” for the Russian language and ethnic identity, whereas Estonian schools accept students from various ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. The students of Russian-medium schools constitute slightly less than 40,000, and their number is steadily decreasing by 4–5% a year (M. Rannut 2004). It remains to be seen whether and how this trend would possibly affect the intergenerational transmission of Russian in Estonia. According to Pavlenko (2006b: 90), this is a largely neglected area within the studies on post-Soviet language dynamics. Laitin (1998) argues that in the course of the implementation of derussification policies, the titular groups in various parts of the former USSR are actively un-learning Russian and excluding it from the repertoire of their children. He refers to this phenomenon as to “de-skilling.” However, it is not as straightforward as Laitin claims. What he views as “un-learning” may be considered as a restoration of a balance. In Estonian-medium schools Russian is just one of the foreign languages offered, which is on a par with English, German, French, and so on (note that by law every school has to provide a teaching of at least two foreign languages and the choice of languages to be learned is made by a particular school and parents). In other words, only those who feel such a need or have a genuine interest in the language and culture master Russian. In the public sphere, especially in Tallinn, Russian is often used in advertising and in shop transactions. All major companies, banks, chainstores, cell-phone operators, and numerous municipalities issue information in Russian and often have a Russian version of their websites. Flyers and information sheets have a Russian version and are easily accessible. Bilingual labels, signs, advertisements, and booklets are a fascinating subject for a sociolinguistic research. A working knowledge of Russian is considered an asset or is even required in some companies in Tallinn. In the northeast, the knowledge of Russian continuously remains crucial for everyday communication.

2.2.2

Complexity of identity expressions

Without doubt, the proficiency in Estonian among Russians has increased. However, it appears that growing self-identification with Estonia is not unambiguously linked to a good command of the language. Vihalemm (2002a) has

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investigated a group of young city dwellers, a segment of Russian-speaking urban population that is upwardly mobile and consciously identifies itself with Estonia. Probably, this development is at least partly explicable through the considerable economic success of Estonia (Panagiotou 2001)4 and membership in EU that has provided a myriad of new opportunities. Vetik (1995) makes the explicit claim that the rapidly growing Estonian economy is to a great extent responsible for the social and civic reorientation that has occurred among Russian-speakers. A good knowledge of Estonian is considered as symbolically important: young city dwellers acknowledge Estonian as the symbol of Estonian statehood and the desirable benefits of association with the Estonian nation. Nevertheless, this new civic identity does not always go hand in hand with a high proficiency in the language. In addition to that, several authors, both in Estonia (Bassel and Bojkov 2000; Fiškina 2000) and abroad (Fein 2005) are actively using the term “Estonian Russians” (éstonskije russkije in Russian and eestivenelased in Estonian) – a label that has been spontaneously coined by Russian-speakers and found its way into scholarly publications as a cover term. For instance, Fiškina (2000) notes that Russians of Estonia should not be considered as just Russians but particularly as Estonian Russians. The label “Estonian Russians” is of popular origin and may be viewed as a way of conceptualization and designation of a new identity. As Vihalemm and Masso (2004: 47) note, the category of Estonian Russians includes both ethnocultrual and territorial dimensions, and every second Russian-speaker describes him- or herself as an Estonian Russian. The mentioned self-categorization is more frequent among persons with higher education. The notion “Estonian Russians” has gained currency and is widely employed both in scholarly and non-scholarly circles in Estonia. It is not entirely clear in what way Estonian Russians and young city dwellers constitute different categories of the Russian-speaking population, whether they partly coincide, and what the correlation between the upwardly mobile city dwellers (Vihalemm 2002a) and the notion of “Estonian Russians” is. It is not known either, if and how the degree of the proficiency in Estonian is relevant for the two categories, especially in view of Vihalemm’s (2002b) statement that the instrumental value of Estonian remains ambiguous. I would suggest that Estonian Russians represents a broader category that includes any Russian-speaker who views himself or herself as different from Russia’s Russians in whatever respect (language use, customs, etiquette, material culture, cuisine, etc.). Knowledge of Estonian is not a necessary characteristic of Estonian Russians, nor do they all believe that extensive proficiency in Estonian is required if one lives in this country. Probably, Estonian Russians is a general and somewhat vague notion, while the symbolic appreciation of Estonian and a firm belief in the importance of fluency in this language for a successful career among young city dwellers makes the latter group distinct from the rest of the population. Upwardly mobile young city dwellers would thus qualify as Estonian Russians,

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while claiming that Estonian Russians are synonymous with young city dwellers would be erroneous. The category of Estonian Russians brings to attention the fact that there are many spheres of life (and language is but one of them) in which one can perform an “act of identity.” There are great possibilities starting from one’s appearance – a declaration made by a choice of clothing, accessories, or a haircut – and ending with material culture, cuisine, and the celebration of certain holidays. The time of New Year celebration is a fine indicator: in some districts of Tallinn (especially Lasnamäe) one can observe fireworks and people celebrating in the street already at 11 p.m. (which corresponds to midnight Moscow time), while in other districts this does not happen. This is a deeply symbolic act and its message is clear: association with one or the other country or with both (i.e., celebrating New Year twice). Alternatively, consider sports. In general, Estonia’s success in international sports creates a basis for positive self-identification with the country (MetuzaˉleKangere and Ozolins 2005 make the very same observation concerning Latvia). Ethnic Russians successfully represent Estonia in international sports and play on Estonian teams. Some of them are proficient in Estonian and give interviews in this language, serving therefore as role models. The following example is rather eloquent. Prior to the football match between Estonia and Russia (which was conceptualized as a symbolic battle by many) in 2004, a member of the Estonian team, an ethnic Russian, gave a lengthy interview on TV news. His Estonian was reasonably fluent, albeit with an accent. He gave a thorough explanation of the game strategy, referring to Russia’s team as “they” and Estonia’s team as “us.” Noteworthy, some Russian-speaking football fans supported Russia and some supported Estonia. Finally, Estonia won the game, while the only goal in the match was scored by an ethnic Russian (M. Rannut 2006). Another area where one can observe the dynamics of identity is the naming practices among Estonia’s Russians. Hussar (2002, 2004), an expert in Estonian onomastics, has found that the local Russians prefer names that can be interpreted both as Russian and Estonian: Kristina, Veronika, Artur, and so on. Such practice of giving “ambiguous” names that can be considered both as Russian or non-Russian is more frequent in Estonia than it is in Russia. Sometimes a person is given an Estonian name while its Russian version is used at home, that is, unofficially, for instance, Katrin turns into the Russian equivalent Jekaterina, or Katja when spoken in the home environment (diminutive from the former). Choosing Estonian-language user-names by Russian-speakers in internet communication in Russian-language forums and chat-rooms is a tendency that also qualifies as an act of identity: kiisu “pussy-cat,” kaunitar “beauty,” neiu “maiden,” Tuhkatriinu “Cinderella,” lahe “cool,” Esta “an Estonian woman’s name,” reminiscent of Éstonija, the name of the country in Russian, which certainly evokes associations with Estonia. In that way, Russians from Estonia

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would immediately recognize each other and may even create a separate topic for in-group communication. Fein (2005) explores how local Russians (who refer to themselves as Estonian Russians) conceptualize the differences between themselves and the Russians of Russia. There are differences in habits, behavior, concepts of politeness, communication practices, and in many other spheres. For instance, Russians of Russia appear too open, too emotional, and too loud in the opinion of many Estonian Russians (Fein 2005: 338). Her informants claim that they are treated as outsiders by Russians in Russia and sometimes even abused as “traitors.” Unfortunately, Fein does not indicate a degree of proficiency in Estonian in her work. Apparently, there is no correlation between selfidentification as “Estonian Russian” and a good command of the Estonian language. In my own experience, young upwardly mobile Russians in Tallinn often prefer to work or to dwell in Estonian environments, regardless of their proficiency in Estonian. Let us consider the following example. I was selling my flat, and a Russian-speaking man in his late twenties came to see it. He greeted me in Estonian. He spoke Estonian very slowly and paused to search for the right words or appropriate forms. Then he asked whether he could continue in Russian, and we switched to Russian, although he constantly inserted Estonian lexical items. I will return to this and other types of bilingual speech in Chapter 5; what is relevant here is that producing anything close to monolingual Estonian was too difficult for him, but nevertheless, he tried to display politeness in a way available to him. Then he asked me about the neighbors, whether they were Estonians or Russians. The neighbors in the next flat were Estonians. I was curious, how this mattered to him. He replied that he preferred Estonian neighbors because in that case one can be sure that it will be quiet and nobody will casually drop in at the wrong moment to engage in unwanted conversation. Probably, the man was drawing on a popular stereotype of Estonians: quiet, hard working, rational, never revealing too much about their personal life, and never intruding. Without a doubt, for this young man, the stereotype was positively marked.5 Later, I had a chance to hear the same preferences articulated by other young Russians. Thus, there exist multiple ways for making a statement concerning one’s identity and numerous occasions where such a statement can be made.

2.2.3

Variation in linguistic repertoires and a portrait of a bilingual Russian

Let us turn now to everyday communication between Russians and Estonians. Vihalemm (2002b: 206–207) claims that the instrumental value of the Estonian language has remained ambiguous, which explains why, as she believes, the communication between Estonians and Russians tend to occur mainly in Russian.

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Still, this seems too general and too categorical a claim for several reasons. To begin with, Ülle Rannut (2005) has demonstrated in her qualitative study that the value of Estonian depends on the language environment (and, in the case of schoolchildren, from the parents’ attitudes). In the rural or small-town setting where Russian-speakers are scattered and isolated, already the practicalities and the needs of everyday life require a good proficiency in Estonian. For a microsociolinguist, patterns of Russian-to-Estonian communication appear more subtle and diverse than just two monolingual varieties. This is especially true of Tallinn where people with various degrees of proficiency in Estonian and Russian interact on an everyday basis in institutions, over the counter, in banks, markets, universities, and so on. Another question a microsociolinguist might ask is what kind of Russian (Estonian) the speakers use. As I have pointed out in Chapter 1, actually produced utterances may not be classifiable as belonging to the respective monolingual varieties or even to learner varieties of L2. This theoretical assumption is confirmed through my own experience of fieldwork and multilingual communication in Tallinn (Verschik 2005a, b). In this connection, it is important to give a closer look at a speaker of Estonian as L2. What characteristics does such a bilingual speaker have? This question is relevant in the light of what Franceschini (1998) presents as a portrait of a “code-switch speaker.” Here I am adopting a broader view and include all kinds of non-monolingual speech (also without overt use of foreign lexical material). Through the portrait comparison as suggested by Franceschini, the differences between the immigrant and traditional minority context in Western Europe on the one hand and the Baltic countries on the other become obvious. Note that the Baltic situation is utterly different from the rest of the post-Soviet context, as well. Franceschini (1998: 57) grounds her discussion on the body of literature on code-switching (mostly among adolescents) and concludes that there exist more or less prototypical cases. In more prototypical cases, such speakers have the following sociolinguistic features: young age, being a member of an ethnic minority, belonging to a low social class, having strong “ethnic” group identity, and possessing a multilingual background. I have written elsewhere (Verschik 2004a: 344–345) that, probably, only one of these characteristics – young age – is to some extent valid in Estonia. A speaker of Estonian as L2 or, as I prefer to refer to him/her, a bilingual speaker whose repertoire includes Estonian and Russian, is indeed a young person who is likely to have received some instruction in Estonian as L2 at school. At work, s/he is regularly exposed to Estonian (except for language environment (2) in northeast Estonia). If s/he is currently a university student, then the instruction is given in Estonian or partly in Estonian. As I was told by several Russian students at Tallinn University, young Russians who have a command of Estonian serve as mediators of news and information to their parents

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whose Estonian is poor, who do not read Estonian-language press, and never watch Estonian TV programs. In language environments (3) and (4), a bilingual speaker can also be a middle-aged person, for it is harder to lead a completely monolingual life in regions where Estonian and Estonians dominate and one cannot rely on a residual knowledge of Russian among the local majority. Interestingly, in Tallinn there are middle-aged Russian-speakers who do not try to produce anything approximating the “target language” but instead make use of a number of compromise strategies that involve incorporation of some Estonian lexical material. Thus, although a bilingual speaker would be typically of young age, this may vary in different regions of the country and depend on the definition of a bilingual speaker. The following feature mentioned by Franceschini (1998) as characteristic of a multilingual speaker is membership in an ethnic minority. In some localities (including Tallinn), there is residual knowledge of Russian among Estonians, that is, among the majority. But, as we already know, the term “minority” is not applicable to the Russian population in the post-Soviet states in the traditional way. It may mean a numerical minority but recall that in some regions Russians outnumber the autochthonous population. In general, the multilingualization of Russians is not a general tendency in the entire post-Soviet space: here the Baltic countries set a pattern that makes them notably different from the rest, but even in the Baltic region it is a very recent phenomenon. Belonging to a lower social class is also questionable. Probably, the concept of social class as it is used in sociolinguistic research conducted in Englishspeaking societies or in Western Europe cannot be applied to the post-Soviet societies.6 Anyway, as far as Estonia is concerned, bilingual speakers can compete for better jobs and positions; they have higher salaries and are better off than Russian monolinguals (M. Rannut 2006). Recall the category of young city dwellers described in Vihalemm (2002a): these are upwardly mobile people who probably are most exposed to Estonian. At the same time, as mentioned in Chapter 1, a high degree of proficiency in a language is not a necessary prerequisite for multilingual speech. Therefore, those Russian-speakers who have a limited proficiency in Estonian and work in professions that require just a minimal fluency in the language (salespersons, waiters, etc.) may also be bilingual speakers. Thus, although the command in Estonian differs greatly across the so-called Russian-speaking community, bilingual speakers probably exist in every stratum of society. Generally speaking, ethnic (ethnolinguistic) and socioeconomic borders in Estonia do not coincide. Among the features attributed to bilingual speakers, the most arguable is a strong sense of ethnic identity. As discussed in Chapter 1, identities are rather fluid and dynamic, especially in times of social and political changes. Taking into account the heterogeneous character of Russian-speakers in Estonia on

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the one hand and the emerging new civic self-identification of young city dwellers on the other, I would doubt the significance of strong ethnic identity in the profile of a multilingual speaker. Several sociologists claim that, on the contrary, preservation of Russian ethnic identity and links with Russia (civic and cultural identity) are not considered by many young Russians as important, and the Russian-speaking population will become even less clearly definable as a group (Melvin 1995; see also discussion and references in Vihalemm 2002a: 170–171). Iris Pettai (2001) found in a survey, conducted by the Estonian Open Society Institute, that among her respondents only half cared about their Russian ethnic identity and about 10% sought total “assimilation” (apparently, including language shift) into the Estonian community. It sounds logical that people of the older generation and Russian citizens prevailed among the former group and youngsters in the latter. In this survey, 50% of respondents wished their children to become Estonianized. A recent microsociolinguistic study on a group of Russian-speaking students of Tallinn University (Zabrodskaja 2006a) seems to confirm the findings of the sociologists. All respondents in her study speak Russian as their first language and as their home language, but all of them stated in the questionnaire that they do not identify themselves with Russia, and that the maintenance of Russian culture is not very important to them. Implicitly, they all conveyed the thought that it is impossible for them to speak the same kind of Russian as in Russia simply because they live in Estonia, a different country with different realities, and that the “purity” of their Russian does not concern them. Overall, with the exception of the tiny indigenous minority, multilingualism is new to the Russians of Estonia. The recent census data (2000) reveal the difference between Estonians and Russians in their proficiency in foreign languages (although a full proficiency was not required to answer the question positively, see 2000.a. rahva ja eluruumide loendus 2000: 11, 16). Among Estonians, 68.2% claimed to be proficient in Russian, 35.2% in English, 16.6% in Finnish, and 14.4% in German. For Russians, the figures are as follows: 44.5% are proficient in Estonian, 17.7% in English, and only 5.4% know German and 1.6% Finnish. According to the census, command of Estonian and English among Russians closely correlates with age: older Russians are less likely to know any Estonian or other foreign languages. Therefore, it is hard to speak of the multilingual background of bilingual speakers. This is, to put it figuratively, the first generation of bilingual speakers. The differences between the sociolinguistic characteristics of bilingual speakers in Estonia and the findings of Franceschini (1998) are summarized in Table 2.1. As it follows from Table 2.1, there are considerable differences between the portraits of bilingual speakers from prototypical immigrant/minority communities and those from Estonia. In the following section, I will concentrate on

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Table 2.1 Sociolingusitic characteristics of bilingual speakers Sociolingusitic characteristics of bilingual speakers 1. Young age

Prototypical bilingual speaker

Bilingual speaker in Estonia

+

±

2. Membership in an ethnic minority

+

?

3. Low social class

+

–

4. Strong ethnic identity

+

?

5. Multilingual background

+

–

the conditions in which bilingual communication emerges. It will be shown that, compared to well-researched cases in Western Europe, there are distinctive characteristics here, too.

2.3

Emerging bilingual communication

The heterogeneity of Russian-speakers in Estonia is an established fact for sociologists. Jakobson (2002: 183) argues that the systematic construction of any collective identity, uniting all Russians in Estonia, failed for various reasons, the pre-existing heterogeneity of the Russian-speakers being one of these. However, we do not know much about how exactly this sociocultural diversity within one ethnic group corresponds to the group’s linguistic repertoire. Looking at regional, demographical, and attitudinal differences and the impact of various language environments, it would be reasonable to assume that linguistic repertoire is not the same across the Russian-speaking community. In this section, I will describe the features characteristic of the emergent bilingual communication in Tallinn: the novelty of the contact situation, the lack of a visible “purity discourse” in both speech communities, and emergent strategies of bilingual communication (non-reciprocal bilingualism, paradoxical politeness, and some others). Finally, I will briefly discuss the notion of “Estonia’s Russian” and how Russian-speakers perceive their Russian in light of Russian of Russia.

2.3.1

Perception of non-monolingual varieties

In general, after nearly fifty years of isolation from the rest of the world and of Russian monolingualism, non-native versions of Estonian, as well as compromise versions, are perceived as a novelty. Watching a Russian-dominant official giving an interview in Estonian for Estonian TV news elicits comments: “See how s/he speaks! Those who wish to learn Estonian cope nicely with it! And never mind the accent!” Although nowadays in Estonia, especially in Tallinn,

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there are learners of Estonian other than Russians, the latter constitute a vast majority among the new users of Estonian. So far, within the Estonian mainstream, there are no negative attitudes toward learners’ varieties of Estonian or toward various compromise strategies that do not even attempt to approximate or imitate monolingual Estonian. This probably has to do with the changes in the corpus-planning climate. Prior to 1991, Estonian corpus planning was somewhat purist and definitely defensive. Given that Estonian-speakers had no power and no say in status planning, a strict corpus-planning strategy was the only available means to facilitate the maintenance and protection of Estonian (mostly from the impact of Russian which was tacitly but unanimously perceived as a threat). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, some scholars (especially Hint 1991) tried to demonstrate the “harm of Russian impact” on Estonian morphosyntax. As de-russification was an ultimate goal in language ideology and language policy, it seemed logical to set an objective of the elimination of the Russian impact from the language itself. However, Hint’s arguments were not convincing (see critical analysis by Ehala 1994 and Hasselblatt 2000), and one may say that throughout the Soviet occupation the goals of the defensive corpus planning have been accomplished: some lexical items of Russian origin notwithstanding, Russian had no significant impact on Estonian morphology, syntax, or pragmatics. Literarily, there was almost nothing to purge out. At present, when Estonians control status planning and acquisition planning, and official legislation guarantees the official status of the language, there is no need for strict corpus planning. Moreover, in a democratic state it is inconceivable and undesirable to have total control over text production, so corpus planning is based on recommendation rather than strict prescription. Now that Russian is no longer perceived as a threat, neither are learners’ varieties of Estonian.7 There is no clearly articulated feeling within the Estonian mainstream that non-native accented speech would eventually negatively affect Estonian. The existence or the lack of “purity discourse” in the language-planning climate of titular languages in the former Soviet Union appears to be relevant to the research on CILC. A short reference to other post-Soviet settings would serve as a useful illustration here. Compared to the situation described in the in-depth case studies such as Bilaniuk (2005) on Ukraine and Wertheim (2003) on Tatarstan, Estonia differs in this respect. For instance, the Ukrainian mainstream is concerned with the impact of Russian on Ukrainian and is trying to reverse the partial language and prestige shift that took place during the Soviet era. There are numerous attempts to implement a systematic corpusplanning policy aimed against so-called surzhik, a cluster of highly stigmatized mixed Russian-Ukrainian varieties. Similarities between the two closely related languages facilitate “interference” which Ukrainian language planners seek to eliminate. In Tatarstan, the Tatar-speakers feel threatened by asymmetrical bilingualism (all Tatars are bilingual in Russian, while Russians remain monolingual)

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and those who are linguistically aware try to fight the impact of Russian (mostly on the lexical level). Interestingly, voices for the maintenance of the purity of Standard Russian are not audible in Estonia. It is the changed (i.e., no longer privileged) status of Russian that is hard to accept for some people rather than an increasing discrepancy from the standard. Only professional teachers of Russian as L1 and L2 and teachers in Russian-medium schools are more linguistically aware and express concern about the state of Russian, which is understandable in the view of their profession. However, Russian purism does not play any substantial role for young upwardly mobile Russians. For instance, nobody has explicitly articulated a need for “official” Russian-language equivalents to Estonian lexical items, which indicate the nature of societal and cultural realities. Most probably, young upwardly mobile Russians are rather indifferent toward the growing impact of Estonian. I will turn to the question of how young Russians feel about changes in their Russian (i.e., CILC) later in this section. All in all, the absence of defensive (and obsessive) purity discourse (which can be interpreted as a step in the direction of more diffused communities in the terms of Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985) on both sides probably facilitates the emergence and further spread of innovations and new patterns of bilingual communication.

2.3.2

New patterns of Russian-to-Estonian communication

Compared to well-researched cases of bilingual speech in minority and immigrant communities, there is one particularly significant distinction. In Estonia, non-monolingual speech (especially code-switching) has emerged in sociolinguistic circumstances that are very different from those usually found and described in classical studies. If in classical studies multilingual speech is an attribute of internal communication within an immigrant or minority community, here it appears also as a compromise strategy for Russian-to-Estonian communication when one is not able or not confident enough to produce anything approximating monolingual Estonian. Thus, there are two sets of Russianspeakers who engage in non-monolingual speech: proficient speakers of Estonian within their group and the Russian-speakers who seek compromise strategies in Russian-to-Estonian communication. In classical studies, it is immigrants and minorities who are multilingual and majorities who are usually monolingual; therefore, it is logical that multilingual communication is to be found first and foremost within an ethnic group (with the notable exception of language crossing situations (Rampton 1995, 1998) or cases of spontaneous acquisition of minority languages by members of mainstream (Auer and Dirim 2003, Dirim and Hieronymus 2003)). In our case, it is the need to communicate across the ethnic boundaries that is, to a considerable extent, responsible for the emergence of bilingual speech. Gradually, patterns of bilingual communication that involve the use of Estonian lexical items (usually referred to

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as code-switching) become internalized in Russian-to-Russian communication (in addition to the patterns existing in micro-communities of highly proficient bilingual speakers). First, in the new sociolinguistic situation, monolingual Russian speech in Russian-to-Estonian communication is not considered as desirable or proper anymore. Although those who are not confident enough in their Estonian may still rely on the residual knowledge of Russian in Tallinn, they nevertheless try to convey politeness and/or to ensure that their Estonian interlocutors understand them. Non-reciprocal bilingualism, as Bilaniuk (2005) calls it, is an option of bilingual communication where everyone speaks his or her language and is understood by the partner. However, even then starting and ending the conversation in Estonian (using Estonian greetings, discourse words, etc.) is a frequently applied strategy (see also Vihalemm 2002b). A completely different pattern is so-called “paradoxical politeness” (Verschik 2005b) where the participants symbolically exchange their languages, that is, “I speak your language and you speak mine.” Thus, an ethnic Estonian uses Russian and a Russian replies in Estonian. So far, I have observed paradoxical politeness to take place between speakers who are familiar with each other. This pattern requires some ability to produce meaningful utterances in L2 but full proficiency is not necessary (see details in Chapter 5). All the mentioned types of bilingual speech (understandably, with the exception of paradoxical politeness) have gradually become a part of Russian-toRussian interaction. While exploring an emergent bilingual situation, a researcher has some advantages: s/he is perhaps more confident in the chronology of changes. It sounds unusual for a linguistic research study to indicate the exact time (the year or even the month) of the first occurrence of an innovation, nevertheless, it is possible in our case. I first registered instances of alternational code-switching in a Russian-to-Russian conversation in early spring of 2005 in Tallinn. Shortly after that, I had a chance to witness paradoxical politeness for the first time. Later, I had opportunities to register more and more such instances. As Backus (2005) observes, when an innovation is registered, it means that the change is already underway. Therefore, probably the changes had started earlier than 2005 and became frequent and visible enough to be observed by a researcher (or a linguistically aware outsider) approximately at that time. One may ask whether there exists any connection between language crossing (Rampton 1995) and the use of Estonian in compromise strategies, such as a symbolic “appropriation” of the Estonian language in paradoxical politeness and in Russian-to-Russian interaction. The notion of a liminal space is central for language crossing (Rampton 1995, 1998, 1999): there has to be a general understanding of which language belongs to which group. Crossing constitutes, therefore, the use of a variety which is not considered as “belonging” to the speaker (Rampton 1998: 291). It occurs in situations when the existing social reality is temporarily suspended (play, joking, irony). Another important

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characteristic of crossing, according to Rampton (1998: 298, 308), is the relative inaccessibility of and a rather poor proficiency in the variety one briefly adopts. Although the memory of two separate polarized linguistic communities is very much alive in certain linguistic environments and, to some extent, the sense of clear borders may exist in the mind of the speakers of both languages, still, one cannot probably use the notion of crossing in the same sense, as Rampton understands it. To illustrate the meaning of crossing, Rampton (1998: 308) employs Bourdieu’s (1991) idea of heretical discourse, that is, crossing has to be a challenge to the established norms. However, the society expects Russian-speakers to acquire at least a working knowledge of Estonian and to use it. Therefore, Russian-dominant bilingual speakers are “legitimate,” albeit a new phenomenon. Also, inaccessibility is not the case here because the language is taught in kindergartens, schools, and universities and there are various kinds of courses available to adult learners. Thus, bilingual speech or non-native Estonian is conceptualized as a novelty but not as a violation or a temporary suspension of a symbolic border. The instance of paradoxical politeness may have some common characteristics with crossing, but at this stage I am hesitant to equate these two phenomena, although there is a sense of an unexpected language use (hence the label “paradoxical”). Crossing presupposes an element of playfulness which is not necessarily present in paradoxical politeness: it appears as to resemble a casual interaction where the participants do not seem to be consciously violating the existing conventions. The internalization of Estonian and bilingual communication patterns mostly remain invisible to an ordinary Estonian-speaker. Unlike in some reported cases of native speakers’ negative reaction toward the appropriation of their variety by outsiders (see Cutler 1999 on the disapproval of the use of AfricanAmerican Vernacular English by white adolescents), there is no negative reaction here but rather a sincere astonishment: apart from specific lexical items referring to Estonian culture, customs, food, political and economical realities, and so on, why would they need Estonian if they have Russian? Many Estonians appear to be puzzled when they discover that Estonian lexical items are used in Russian-to-Russian communication or when two Russians switch to Estonian in a casual situation (impact other than lexical is not easily detectible for laypeople). Until now, the internalization in question is practically invisible to mainstream Estonian-speakers. Two recent examples illustrate it. In autumn of 2005, I was teaching a regular course in sociolinguistics to MA students in Tallinn University. To give the students a better idea of the multilingual reality around us, one of the assignments was to collect and to analyze instances of bilingual communication (involving any languages). I provided guidelines on where and how such material can be collected in Tallinn and presented some examples from my own fieldwork. I analyzed a simple

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interaction where one Russian speaker (a middle-aged woman) addressed her peer with the Estonian greeting tere “hello”, and mentioned that it had become conventionalized to such an extent that even Russian monolinguals use it without any irony. This example provoked a reaction from a student who exclaimed, “excuse me, but I don’t believe you, this simply cannot be, what would they need the Estonian greeting for?” Some other students were amused but in general shared this sentiment. I recommended paying a closer attention to nonmonolingual speech practices that monolingual speakers simply are unaware of. When the time came for students to present their examples in class, the same student confessed that, after having overheard just a couple of Russianto-Russian interactions he encountered the very same lexical item I had presented as an example in class. The other example also comes from Tallinn University. A young Russianspeaking woman who is rather proficient in Estonian has recently joined the faculty to carry out a project on possibilities in bilingual education. In the course of her work she often interacts with another female researcher who is also Russian-dominant. Language usage in the university in general (apart from official situations, such as seminars and lectures that are held normally in Estonian but in some cases also in English or Russian) and at the department of Estonian philology in particular is not regulated, and there are no obstacles of any kind for the two young women to communicate in Russian or partly in Russian. Nevertheless, they conversed only in Estonian. When an Estonianspeaking colleague heard them having a casual conversation in Estonian, she was curious and later asked one of them why two Russians would talk in Estonian when they could speak Russian. The answer was that, although it seems natural for Russians to interact in Russian, they nevertheless automatically started communicating in Estonian (regardless of their level of proficiency) and do not see any reason for changing this practice.8 This case nicely illustrates the shift in the attitudes that has occurred during the past decade. It becomes clear that the degree of proficiency in a language is not necessarily decisive in terms of language choice. It is the symbolic appreciation of Estonian that is important and that different speakers try to demonstrate this in a variety of ways, ranging from near-native versions of Estonian as a preferred language to sporadic usage of isolated lexical items. Intermediate strategies signaling this appreciation appear not only in oral communication but also in signs and advertising, namely through the use of compromise orthography where Russian lexical items are transliterated with Latin characters according to the rules of Estonian spelling (see Chapter 5).

2.3.3

Conceptualizing new varieties of Russian and new identities

The next relevant question concerns the changes in perception, that is, what ordinary Russian-speakers think about Russian in Estonia: whether it is already different from Russia’s Russian and if yes, in what respect. Apart from lexical

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innovations that appear quite quickly in a contact situation, there is CILC that may be obvious to a linguist but not to a layperson (see discussion in Chapter 1). Although the speakers’ ideas about what is happening in the language may be vague and even erroneous, nevertheless, they communicate a message that a linguist cannot ignore (see Preston and Niedzielski 2003 on folk linguistics and Schiffman 1997 on linguistic culture). Recall that the speakers’ awareness and attitudes can play a decisive role in the spread and conventionalization of CILC. Asking speakers whether their language has become different seems especially reasonable when one is seeking to establish a possible connection between the dynamics of identities and language change. In an earlier study (Verschik 2006), I dealt with the perception of a certain type of Estonian-influenced convergent forms in local varieties of Russian. The informants came from two localities (37 from each), Tallinn and the northeastern town of Kohtla-Järve. I was interested not only in their assessments of forms that are at odds with monolingual Russian but also in their judgment as to whether Russian in Estonia is different from Russia’s Russian. Regardless of their proficiency in Estonian and opportunities to use that language, all informants but two middle-aged females from Kohtla-Järve agreed or strongly agreed that Russian in Estonia is different. When teaching Russian-speaking students at Tallinn University, I always ask the question and always get more detailed answers than just yes or no. Usually young Russians tend to assess Russian in Estonia as different either because of frequent switches to Estonian (“we use a lot of Estonian words, we cannot help it because we live in a different reality”) or because of an allegedly different pronunciation. While the validity of the former statement can be easily confirmed by any observer, I am not sure whether the latter statement can be substantiated by any objective evidence. When asked to specify, students would produce more or less the same type of story with minor variations about their or their good friends’ trip to Russia and the comments their “accent” elicited from the locals there.9 Interestingly, no one seems to mention differences in morphosyntax or semantics. It is clear that more subtle cases of CILC in Russian such as changes in morphosyntax, semantics, and pragmatics are not immediately visible to a layperson. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that at least some young Russians do try to conceptualize both existing and imaginable differences through the means of narratives about languages (Barkhuizen and de Klerk 2006; Fialkova and Yelenevskaya 2003). Conceptualization and re-conceptualization of linguistic and non-linguistic differences appear to be a circular process. At first, one notices non-linguistic differences between Russia’s Russians and oneself (in behavior, etiquette, and so on), further drawing on stereotypical images of Russians and Estonians and marking the latter positively. Then one may start looking for distinctive linguistic features that would provide a justification for the establishment of a separate identity. This will, in turn, further stimulate the

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realization and conceptualization of any kind of distinctions and the search for the proof thereof in non-linguistic spheres. The last point to be considered here is related to the problems of language naming (briefly discussed in Chapter 1). Although many Russian-speakers emphasize their changing identity by the popular term “Estonian Russians,” there is not (yet?) any popular label for the local variety of Russian. From a linguists’ point of view it is too early to speak about a single fully crystallized variety. It is highly possible that such a variety will never emerge. Russian-speakers exhibit a diverse linguistic repertoire: some speak monolingual Russian that is hardly distinguishable from colloquial version of Standard Russian in Russia; some are fluent in Estonian and are trying to do their best in keeping the two languages apart; there are speakers that use compromise varieties as a register of communication outside their ethnic group; there are those whose Russian speech exhibits Estonian impact on morphosyntax, semantics, and pragmatics, without much use of Estonian lexical items. Still, the need for a cover term for new phenomena for the sake of convenience is understandable. Surprisingly, such a cover term (in Estonian) spontaneously came from the editors of the Estonian-language academic journal Keel ja Kirjandus (Language and Literature) where I have published several papers on CILC in the local varieties of Russian. One of my articles (Verschik 2005c) was advertised on the cover of the journal as liitsõnad eestivenes “compounds in Estonian Russian” (literally, eestivene consists of eesti “Estonian,” “of Estonia” + vene “Russian”), whereas I had never suggested any term for the reasons given above and carefully used neutral descriptions such as varieties of Estonia’s Russian, local varieties of Russian in Estonia, and so on. The editorial board consists mainly of scholars with a background in Estonian linguistics and Estonian literature. They probably coined this term by analogy with the well-known soomerootsi “Finland Swedish” (soome “Finnish,” “of Finland” + rootsi “Swedish”). It is most probable that the label will be further used in Estonianlanguage scholarly papers: it sounds perfectly natural in Estonian and it corresponds to the term eestivenelased “Estonian Russians.” Note that the latter has a Russian-language parallel éstonskije russkije “Estonian Russians” discussed earlier in this chapter; apparently, both Russian- and Estonian-speakers have spontaneously and independently coined the label for the segment of the ethnic group whose identity is in the process of transformation, but not for the variety or varieties of Russian that is changing as well. Thus, the transformation of some segments of the Russian-speaking population in Estonia is obvious to sociologists. Models of linguistic behavior and linguistic repertoire have become more diverse and complex, and, although a popular label for local Russian has not been coined, there is an understanding that both the people and their language are not the same as during the Soviet era. Language narratives and conceptualization of the distinct character of local Russian speech show that “something is in the air.”

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Chapter 3

Code-copying framework and copiability

In the current chapter, I will be focusing on the code-copying framework and present my understanding of the connection between the degree of copying (global, selective, or mixed), the type and characteristics of a linguistic item (i.e., nouns, verbs, discourse markers, fixed expressions; bound or unbound, concrete or abstract), and the relevance of a particular item at the discourse organization level. In the course of analysis, it will be shown that semantic specificity (Backus 2001) is important as well. Further discussions within the chapter will reveal why, instead of traditional borrowability hierarchies, it is more productive to speak about how the semantic/pragmatic prominence of a given item is related to the degree of copying or, in other words, the working hypothesis is that semantically/pragmatically prominent items are likely to be globally copied. First, in Section 3.1, I will touch upon terminology problems that arise from more or less established yet imprecise or misleading metaphors such as “borrowing,” “transfer,” “mixing,” “interference,” and so on. I will then discuss a possible alternative provided by the code-copying framework (Johanson 1992, 1993, 1998, 1999, 2002a, b, c) and the importance of a holistic approach that takes into consideration several fundamental dimensions of language contact (synchronic and diachronic aspects, micro- and macrosociolinguistics, monolingual and non-monolingual speech etc.). I will briefly mention models that, to some extent, express similar ideas concerning the emergence and spread of innovations (Croft 2000; Heine and Kuteva 2005). The notion of cross-linguistic equivalence will be given attention as well. Johanson acknowledges the importance and the subjective character of cross-linguistic equivalence, but it is Heine and Kuteva (2005) who have exhaustively elaborated on the concept. Then, in Section 3.2, I will turn to the terms and procedures of the framework proper (based on Johanson 1992, 1993, 1999, 2002a, b, c) and, when appropriate, discuss the differences in the understanding and treatment of the terms “insertion,” “code alternation,” “adaptation” by Johanson on the one hand, and Auer, Myers-Scotton, and Muysken on the other. Thereafter, the question of what facilitates copying and what is likely to be copied will be addressed in Section 3.3. Finally, in Section 3.4, I will introduce my three-component model

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that seeks connection between (1) structural/material properties; (2) the meaning and prominence of an item at the discourse level; and (3) the degree of copying.

3.1

General considerations

As already mentioned in Chapter 1, in the field of contact linguistics there exists a wide array of terms, concepts and models, but there is a great deal of disagreement between researchers concerning their meaning and possible applicability. This is partly explicable by the conceptual differences between various views on the nature of language contacts (e.g., whether the process and the result of the contacts is strictly constraint governed or not), and partly by the distinct traditions and methods in synchronic vs. diachronic and micro vs. macrosociolingusitic research. In addition, the same terms (“code-switching,” “convergence,” “code alternation”) have different meanings for different scholars and to avoid misinterpretation one often has to operationalize or to redefine a particular term for the purpose of a given research (“In the current paper, under the term ‘code-mixing’ I understand . . .” etc.). Certain terms are rejected in contact linguistics as non-neutral and charged (interference), but are in use in other fields (SLA, language pedagogy, etc.). A more neutral cover term, “cross-linguistic influence,” that is gaining currency in bilingualism and SLA research does not imply that divergence from monolingual norms are deviations or flaws. Probably, “cross-linguistic influence” more or less covers the same range of meanings as CILC in the neighboring area of contact linguistics. Both are transparent and adequate cover terms, however, they do not reveal what kind of procedure exactly takes place in the course of contacts. The difficulties related to terminology are very similar to the problem of the adequacy of the metaphors upon which the terms are based.1 For instance, if one discusses “fusion” (Matras 1998), does this refer to the cognitive process that takes place in the mind of a bilingual speaker, or does it describe what happens to the two varieties in question? It appears that metaphors, more often than not, affect how we perceive and understand the supposedly concrete concepts to which they refer and can often blur our comprehension thereof. In the first systematical treatment of code-copying and related issues, Johanson (1992, the English version 2002c: 8) points out the inadequacy of certain traditional terms (this is concurrent with Clyne 2003, who expresses his concern with the terminological and conceptual fog, which persists in the field of code-switching research). First, the very general and widely used term “borrowing” implies that something is taken from one language and (temporarily) added to another. If, in the same vein, we continue the analogy, one may ask whether the language that acquires an item has to return it after a

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period of time. Initially, borrowing referred to the import (another metaphor!) of lexical items; occasionally, clarifications and explanations were added when CILC on language levels other than lexicon was under consideration (“loan phonology,” “loan syntax,” “structural borrowing” etc., cf. Weinreich 1953; Haugen 1950). For some reason, a terminological and conceptual division has emerged between the treatment of contact effects in lexicon and in other language subsystems (see discussion in Backus 2005). Recently, the usefulness of this division was questioned by several scholars in the field of contact linguistics (Backus 2005 on the connection between code-switching and language change; Backus 2003b, 2006 on the insertion of complex lexical items, i.e., constructions, expressions that consist of several lexical items, or, in other words, “lexical chunks”; Clyne 1967, 2003 on triggering and facilitation in transfer). An analysis of non-monolingual speech reveals that divisions between lexicon, grammar, and meaning (including pragmatics) are not clear-cut. A possible explanation for the narrow meaning ascribed to “borrowing” lies in the old belief shared by some even today that grammar cannot be borrowed at all or if, then only infrequently (see Chapter 1). I will return to the connection between various subsystems of language in Section 3.2 in the discussion on the relationship between copying and frame-changing, or restructuring (Johanson 2002a: 301). Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) differentiate between borrowing and interference through shift as two distinct processes that occur respectively in the situation of language maintenance (i.e., a language is changed through contact with another language, but maintained) and in that of language shift. Borrowing is understood as any import (material properties, rules, structures, patterns, lexical items, etc.) from L1 to L2. As mentioned earlier, Thomason and Kaufman argue that under appropriate circumstances, anything can be borrowed and many others echo this opinion (Chapter 1). A broader definition of borrowing helps, to a certain extent, to consider all kinds of CILC in any subsystem of language as parts of the same process; on the other hand, the unfortunate metaphor of borrowing (i.e., depriving one language of an item/ property and addition of the very same item or property to another language) remains. Another problematic term is interference, coined by Weinreich (1953). At present, there is a tendency in contact linguistics to avoid the term due to its monolingual bias (i.e., the implication that we deal with a kind of deviation from either of the two monolingual norms) and negative connotations (i.e., something that should be avoided). An attempt made by SLA scholars to distinguish between the negative impact of L1 labeled as interference and a positive impact, labeled as transfer, is not helpful in the study of CILC, because contact linguistics takes a fundamentally different approach and is not concerned with the degree of approximation to or deviation from a monolingual norm.

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Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) discuss interference in a more general sense as a cover term for CILC in general. Within CILC, borrowing and interference through shift (in language shift) are distinguished. That is, in a narrow sense, interference refers to the process that occurs in language shift (interference through shift, impact L1 > L2) as opposed to borrowing (in language maintenance, L2 > L1); in a broader sense, any contact-induced change is covered by that term. In Thomason (1997: 182), interference is understood as “any change in a language whose entire or partial source lies in the linguistic properties of another language.” Thus, from the very onset, both in Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) and in Thomason (1997), interpretations of interference as a deviation or some kind of undesirable development are avoided. Thomason (2001: 96) acknowledges that Johanson is right in his argument for the replacement of the term “borrowing,” however, she continues to use it. In Thomason (2003: 688), the terms “(linguistic) interference” and “contactinduced change” are used interchangeably. There is no doubt that the distinction between language maintenance and language shift is of great theoretical and practical importance. This is because different subsystems of language are the first to be affected in maintenance and shift; however, the usefulness and the precision of the terms “interference” and “borrowing” can be questioned for the reasons presented above (misleading metaphors, disturbing connotations). And although the argument by Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) that the changes L1 > L2 and L2 > L1 start at different subsystems of language, it is significant in an analysis of CILC, the operation that occurs in the speaker’s mind is essentially the same in both types of impact, namely, the imitation of L1 (or L2) items and properties. Thus, as Russian-Estonian contact data have shown, a purely linguistic analysis of utterances without the explicit knowledge of the functioning of a particular situation and linguistic profile of the speakers cannot always reveal whether we deal with imposition (speakers of Russian as L1 copy from Estonian) or adoption (speakers of Estonian as L1 have a residual knowledge of Russian and extensively copy from L1 into L2), because the resulting copies appear identical (for the discussion see Verschik 2007b). Winford (2005) arrives at the conclusion that terms like “borrowing,” “interference,” “substratum influence,” and “transfer,” common for SLA research and contact linguistics, are inadequate because they obscure the classification and analysis of CILC results. However, his argument is different from that of Johanson. Winford (2005) is concerned about the fact that the same terms refer both to the process and to the results of language contacts. His approach is based on Van Coetsem’s (1988) distinction between borrowing (transfer from L2 to L1) which is termed “recipient language agentivity” and imposition (from L1 to L2), that is, “source language agentivity.” Van Coetsem understands transfer as any kind of cross-linguistic impact. The direction of transfer is

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always from a source language (SL) to a recipient language (RL); if the RL is L1 for a speaker, then we have borrowing (RL agentivity), and if, vice versa, the SL is L1, we have imposition (SL agentivity). In other words, borrowing is understood as a transfer to the language in which the speaker is most proficient. In imposition, the direction of the transfer is from a primary language to L2. To some extent, Van Coetsem’s and Johanson’s approaches are similar: both call the impact L1 > L2 “imposition.” However, instead of “borrowing,” Johanson utilizes the term “adoption” (impact L2 > L1, see Section 3.2) and “transfer” is rejected as a misleading metaphor.2 It has to be noted that in situations of symmetrical bilingualism and in highly proficient balanced bilinguals, the distinction between adoption and imposition cannot be upheld. To avoid the undesirable connotations of “interference,” Clyne (2003: 76) proposed a different term, namely, “transference,” which is defined as the “take over” of a form, feature, or construction from another language. He further distinguishes between the terms “transference”, which he defines as the process, and “transfer”, which is the product of the action (Clyne 2003: 76 ff.). In combination with the adjectives “lexical,” “syntactic,” “lexico-syntactic,” and so on, the transference model achieves a considerable amount of flexibility and provides a uniform terminological framework for the description and analysis of CILC in all language subsystems, thus bringing together grammar, lexicon, and pragmatics, which is a methodological advantage. However, although the disturbing connotations of “deviation” and “imperfect acquisition” are avoided, the underlying metaphor nevertheless implies that something is taken away from one variety and given to another. There is yet another difficulty associated with Clyne’s model, namely, the lack of clear criteria for distinction between transference and convergence, the terms that are applied to fairly similar instances of CILC (see Verschik 2006: 385). Convergence and its role in the code-copying framework will be considered in Section 3.2. For the same reasons as in previous cases (erroneous metaphors), Johanson (2002c: 8) rejects the notions of the donor language and RL. One can also add the term “target language” to the collection of attractive but obscuring metaphors: as Pavlenko (2002) points out, in many cases, L2 is not a target for learners/speakers, for they do not always wish to achieve a native (-like) proficiency in that language or to be thought of as members of that speech community (recall the discussion in Chapters 1 and 2). Another metaphor that is the subject to an ongoing terminological and conceptual debate is code-switching/code-mixing. Many would agree that a switch between varieties is not what is occurring in bilingual speech. Boeschoten (1999: 63, footnote 1) even labels code-switching as a “very bad” term. In his opinion, mixing is better, because, in reality, no switch occurs either between the languages or on the cognitive level. However, I believe that “mixing” is still problematic for at least two reasons. First, some researchers (e.g., Kachru 1978) use it to refer to the alternate use of varieties within a sentence (“intra-sentential code-switching” to use yet

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another term), while “switching” designates the alternate use at an intersentential level (“inter-sentential code-switching”). At the same time, Muysken (2000) employs “code-mixing” as a general term (while the term “codeswitching” is used by some for the very same function) and “code-switching” in a more narrow sense for “the rapid succession of several languages in a single speech event” (Muysken 2000: 1). Under the umbrella of code-mixing he describes three prototypical cases: insertion (isolated language B-items within language A frame), alternation (longer stretches of B within A), and congruent lexicalization (when as the result of mutual or asymmetric impact or due to the close genetic relationship between varieties the morphosyntactic frames of the varieties A and B are/have become more alike and therefore can be filled in with lexical items from either code). Thus, what is “switching” for some scholars is “mixing” for others, and vice versa. Second, the metaphor “mixing” is employed in the description of a particular type of contact languages, namely, mixed languages: new varieties that arise through contacts in certain circumstances (Bakker and Mous 1994; Matras and Bakker 2003 and references therein). Mixed languages are understood as a certain language type that emerges only in specific sociolinguistic situations (and not everywhere and out of any contact situation) and has particular (qualitative and quantitative) structural characteristics; thus, it appears that the word “mixing” cannot be used impressionistically as a reference to any kind of incorporation of foreign material. Usually, there exists a division of labor, so to say, between the languages that contribute to the formation of a mixed language, for instance, the so-called grammar-lexicon split where grammar comes from one source and a considerable bulk of lexicon from the other. Or, a noun phrase from one and a verb phrase from the other (for a description of a number of well-researched cases and terminology see Bakker 2000; Bakker and Mous 1994; Matras and Bakker 2003: 1–12). Nevertheless, the notion of mixing or mixture is used both in the very label “mixed languages” and for the characterization of some types of bilingual speech (“mixed speech,” “code-mixing,” etc.). Therefore, the question whether a connection exists between code-mixing and mixed languages and whether the former may lead to the emergence of the latter sounds entirely logical. To complicate the matters even more, Auer (1999) describes the evolution of bilingual speech as a movement along the continuum that starts with codeswitching and via code-mixing arrives over a period of time to a conventionalized fused lect.3 Some interesting and useful distinctions between the development of mixed languages and the cases that fit into Auer’s model are described in Deumert (2005). The so-called mixed language debate (Matras and Bakker 2003) remains outside the scope of my research; here I just wish to stress that while the problem of a possible connection itself between frequent “code-switching” and the emergence of mixed languages is of a certain theoretical and methodological importance, it is to some extent obscured by the similarity and vagueness of the terms “code-mixing” and “mixed languages.”

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Instead of the much argued nevertheless still unclear metaphors of switching and mixing4 Johanson (1993, 2002c) has proposed the concept of copying. This metaphor, in several respects, is of greater precision than those discussed earlier in this section. To begin with, it accurately describes what kind of mental operation a speaker performs: s/he does not “import” or “take over” anything from another language but actually imitates a pattern, an item, a combination, or an expression from that language. It is central to the codecopying model, that a copy is never identical to the original. Johanson argues that two varieties remain autonomous (thus, there is no “mixing”). I will return to this in Section 3.2 in the discussion on the concepts and procedures of Johanson’s framework. The second reason why the coinage is successful is that one single term sufficiently covers a broad range of contact-induced phenomena, for instance other language items in the lexicon (“code-switching” and “borrowing”), foreign combinational patterns (word order, collocations, etc.), and rules (morphosyntactic convergence). The operation that brings about these changes on different levels and in different subsystems of language is essentially the same, that is, copying from one code into another. The term “copying” is applicable to the processes of language contacts in both directions (L1 > L2 and L2 > L1). The greatest asset of the model is its holistic approach: the theoretical framework is aimed at the inclusion of all types of non-monolingual speech. It views language contacts in a broader perspective that incorporates both sociolinguistic and structural factors. While Johanson pays considerable attention to the structural and typological characteristics of the varieties in contact, he stresses that these cannot be separated from the psycho- and sociolinguistic aspects (Johanson 1999: 38–39). This is in accordance with Backus (2005: 320) who places social factors among ultimate causes of changes and suggests that these factors strongly influence the development of varieties in contact, while structural features and typological characteristics are proximate causes. Creativity is acknowledged in the framework as a prominent factor in language contacts. Linguistic creativity is one of the forces responsible for language change, be it in monolingual or bilingual situations. Johanson (1999: 36) is convinced that creativity has to be accounted for and that the framework is able to demonstrate the “creative aspects of code-copying phenomena.” In Johanson (2002c: 2), any language is viewed “as a historically developed creative technique sui generis that develops, applies, and alters the rules of linguistic production” (see also Csató 1999: 342). This point of view is shared by Heine and Kuteva (2005: 7, 34–37), who treat linguistic creativity as an integrate part of contact-induced grammaticalization. Apparently, certain contactinduced changes show a high level of the speakers’ creativity and awareness (e.g., “playing with language,” which is a much more common phenomenon in bilingualism, than it is usually believed) cannot be predicted on the basis of

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the structural characteristics of the languages involved (for some instances of bilinguals’ creativity in Estonia’s Russian see Verschik 2005b). The framework addresses the importance of individual instances of codecopying (i.e., the micro level) for the general picture of CILC. Language contacts occur in the mind of a bilingual speaker and subsequently lead to the emergence of new items, patterns, combinations, and so on; any innovation may potentially spread further, enter the linguistic repertoire of the entire speech community, and become conventionalized (Johanson 1999: 38). Thus, the model considers both micro and macro dimensions as important for the analysis and explanation of CILC. The connection between synchronic and diachronic aspects is described in dynamic terms as a chain of successive changes. The dimension of emergent vs. established copies is included as well. Johanson (1999: 48–49) emphasizes the significance of emergent synchronic CILC, or, as he states, the importance of current language encounters. On the theoretical level, he distinguishes between momentary and conventionalized copies, although practically, the distinction is fraught with difficulties. One can only speak of conventionalized copies at the speech community level (i.e., when a copy is conventionalized in most idiolects), otherwise particular idiolects can be in different states (some copies are conventionalized in one idiolect but are new in another). Interestingly, in their analysis of contact-induced grammaticalization Heine and Kuteva (2005: 40–41) express a very similar view that actual language use (“performance,” parole) is instrumental for the understanding of the processes that happen to the structure. In certain circumstances, CILC can affect monolingual situations as well (Johanson 1999: 38). Clyne (2003: 90) states that the code-copying framework is broader than others, more useful as a diachronic theory, but presents no arguments to support this opinion. This contradicts Johanson’s description of his objectives and his claim that synchronic and diachronic aspects of CILC are dealt with within the unified terminological and conceptual framework (Johanson 1999: 38). Some contact-induced innovations are more successful than others, that is, some “catch on” and are independently introduced by many bilingual speakers. Indeed, from a diachronic perspective, we are able to register successful innovations (propagations) that have entered the general use. However, I fail to see why an emergent synchronic contact situation cannot be described in the terms of the code-copying model. The only difference between the synchronic and diachronic dimension in code-copying is that in the former we are not always able to predict exactly what copies will become a part of the general linguistic repertoire. As Backus (2005: 316) elucidates, it would be imprecise to declare that we study innovation because if an innovation does not catch on, it is not propagated and cannot be registered. If, on the other hand, we notice a change, it means that it has already become propagated to some extent.

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Thus, empirically, one can never show what has been just produced for the first time. Muhamedowa (2006: 13, 14) makes a different and more precise observation than Clyne (2003), saying that, first, the framework encompasses both synchronic and diachronic dimensions and, second, that compared to Muysken (2000), Johanson’s model is not limited to synchronic contacts: the framework has been applied to the Turkic-Slavic or Turkic-Iranian language contacts that have a long history. The framework can accurately account for the emergence of contact varieties (including ethnolects) and new norms (including monolingual ones). It is thus free from monolingual bias. The development of new varieties and constant diversification of the linguistic repertoire in multilingual situations is taken into account. Johanson (1999) emphasizes that certain high-copying varieties may become specific registers and coexist with monolingual varieties or varieties with little copying. For instance, what is known about the dynamics of many ethnolects, that is, their emergence in the process of language contacts and possible development into distinct registers/identity markers (Androutsopoulos 2001; Benor 2000; 2004; Clyne 2000; Jacobs 2005: 303 ff.; Kachru 1982; Kostinas 1998), fits well into the code-copying framework (see Verschik 2007a on the application of the framework to ethnolect formation). Noteworthy here is that the framework shares a number of concepts with some other recent theoretical models (although there may be differences in the labeling of these concepts), first and foremost with Heine and Kuteva (2005). Heine and Kuteva (2005) acknowledge the importance of the codecopying model for their own theory of contact-induced grammaticalization. To describe the process of how a (contact-induced) innovation gains currency, Heine and Kuteva (2005) employ the term “replication,” a notion that is very similar to copying. In the theoretical framework of Heine and Kuteva (2005: 2), the term “replication” is not used for the analysis of the contact-induced emergence of new lexical items; the authors concentrate on the analyses of the effects that language contacts have on grammatical structure. Heine and Kuteva (2005: 7) explicitly note that their use of “replication” is akin to Johanson’s “copying.” There are other terms that are similar across the two models, especially “model language” and “replica language,” terms originating from Weinreich (1953) but applied in a broader sense by Heine and Kuteva (2005: 2). Model language and replica language respectively correspond to Johanson’s model code and replica, or basic, code. The choice of these terms for both models reveals the shared understanding that nothing is taken away or added. Both models imply that the product of copying/replication is not identical to the original. Last but not least, replication and copying are believed to be “essentially creative acts” (Heine and Kuteva 2005: 7, especially 34–37 on creativity in grammatical replication). In contrast to Johanson, however, they do not reject the term “borrowing” as such (Heine and Kuteva 2005: 7). Although in their model, links between lexicon and grammar or, to put it more precisely, between

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“borrowing” and contact-induced grammaticalization are acknowledged, their study is not concerned with “borrowing” or “code-switching,” and the term itself is not discussed or questioned. This is because the main interest of Heine and Kuteva (2005) lies in the area of grammar and structural properties, while Johanson is interested in all types of copying in contact situations. Similarly to Heine and Kuteva (2005), Croft (2000), among other things, is concerned about how an innovation (including contact-induced one) gains currency and subsequently may develop into an established change. Croft’s evolutionary approach and Johanson’s code-copying framework focus on different aspects of language change, and, as far as the genetic classification of “mixed” varieties is concerned, they part company; still, Croft and Johanson do share the view on the spread of innovations. Croft (2000) makes use of the term “replication” that refers to every instance of use of a form, item, and so on (he prefers a cover term “lingueme”). His approach is close both to grammaticalization theory (Hopper and Traugott 2003) and to some ideas in cognitive linguistics (Langacker 2000) (see a detailed discussion in Backus 2005: 316–317). When an innovation emerges, the speakers always have a choice between the old and the new item/structure/pattern. Every choice in favor of the innovation contributes to the spread of this innovation. This process is labeled propagation, or altered replication. Normal (identical) replication means that innovations are absent and older patterns are being reproduced. Additionally, Croft distinguishes between normal vs. altered replication. Altered replication, on the contrary, refers to the choice of an innovative pattern (or a copy, speaking in Johanson’s terms). Selection, which is a prerequisite to any replication, depends on the social values of the variants in question, that is, prestige, the relations between the speakers and so on (Croft 2000: 32). For Croft (2000: 5), the distinction between an innovation and its propagation is crucial for an adequate understanding of language change. Turning back to the earlier discussion in this section on synchronic and diachronic aspects in the codecopying framework, it may be added that encompassing synchronic and diachronic phenomena in one theory of (contact-induced) language change is another common feature in Croft’s (2000: 5) and Johanson’s approach. Propagation may occur over a very long period of time; still, cases of rapid propagation are not unknown. The degree to which a linguistic item is known to the speaker or, as Croft (2000: 236) calls it, psychological routinization of the recognition and production of a linguistic item, is labeled entrenchment (following the use of the term in cognitive linguistics, Backus 2005: 317; Langacker 1987, 2000). Thus, an innovation starts on an individual level and may either become more entrenched through every instance of its use (propagation) or remain ephemeral and die out. In Johanson’s terminology, this can be rendered as follows: an innovation starts as a momentary copy and under favorable circumstances may undergo habitualization and conventionalization (see Section 3.2).

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In sum, Heine and Kuteva (2005: 6) believe that Johanson’s framework is the most refined when dealing with CILC. Indeed, it combines simple terminology with a great degree of flexibility and is useful for the description of rather diverse contact situations. It provides not only new terminology but also a new understanding of the process of CILC.

3.2

Terms and concepts

In this section, the terms and concepts related to the code-copying framework will be presented. When appropriate, I will supply examples from my data to illustrate various instances of code-copying. In what follows, I will briefly discuss the determination of the basic code and the adaptation of the copies (so-called integration). Probably, all researchers in language contacts would agree that prior to copying a speaker needs to establish a cross-linguistic equivalence between items. As stated earlier, Johanson (2002c: 57) stresses the subjective nature of equivalence: it may be different for the speakers and for linguists. As the notion of equivalence is extensively elaborated in the theory of contact-induced grammaticalization by Heine and Kuteva (2005: 219–233) and as it sheds some light on the dynamics of copying, it will be discussed below. Notably, contact-induced effects that can be observed in writing (“written code-switching,” the use of compromise orthography, etc.) should be incorporated into a general theory of CILC because they are part and parcel of the development process of non-monolingual varieties, although the tradition of synchronic investigation of bilingual speech is focused on oral and not written texts. Conventions and mechanisms of copies’ adaptation may differ from those in the oral communication. Since Russian and Estonian use different alphabets, an investigation of code-copying becomes particularly fascinating. In the current chapter, I will briefly discuss how the terms of the code-copying framework can be applied to CILC in written texts; the topic will be considered in greater details in Chapter 5. The development of non-monolingual varieties is closely linked to two aspects: convergence (e.g., see an in-depth study by Silva-Corvalan 1994/2000), sometimes referred to as frame-changing in Johanson (1999: 49, 53; 2002a: 300–301) and the habitualization/conventionalization of copies. The latter is a gradual process, and some copies may never reach the status of a new norm. As noted above (Chapter 1), in this respect a study on emergent bilingualism may bring important empirical data into focus.

3.2.1

Codes and types of code interaction

The varieties in contact are designated as codes. The definition of codes is based on their sociolinguistic status. Johanson (2002c: 5) lists the following

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factors that are important for social dominance: political, economical, cultural, and numerical superiority along with firm roots in the contact area. Of course, this is a very general list of factors that may vary in different situations. Thus, the code A is called the sociolinguistically weak code and B the strong code. In many studies on the synchronic aspects of CILC, the A code is typically an immigrant or minority language (L1, primary code) and B is the language of the majority (L2, secondary code). Note that the point of departure in the model is the sociolinguistic relationship between the codes and not proficiency in A and B (this is different from Van Coetsem 1988). A change in proficiency may occur (e.g., the knowledge of B develops over a period of time), especially in non-first generations, but this does not necessarily imply a change in sociolinguistic dominance. If it is necessary to distinguish between speakers of B as L2 and those who speak B as L1, then it is possible to introduce the respective digits: B2 refers to the sociolinguistically dominant code as spoken by primary speakers of A, while B1 means that the same code is L1 for the sociolinguistically dominant population (Johanson 2002a: 290–291). Similarly, it is possible to distinguish between A1 and A2. Thus, with the help of the digits and letters it is possible to show both the sociolingustic dominance and proficiency/order of acquisition.5 One of the codes serves as a model for copying and the other code onto which the copying occurs is a basic code. Depending on the direction of copying, both codes A and B may serve as a basic or as a model code (recall similar terms of replica code and model code in Heine and Kuteva 2005). The complexity of CILC manifests itself, among other things, in the simultaneous occurrence of several processes, that is, copying from A1 to B2 and from B2 to A1 in the same speakers. Thus, code-copying is not unidirectional. Similarly, the assumption of unidirectionality in code-switching is contested by Bentahila and Davies (1998) and Jacobson (2001) who demonstrate that an equality of two varieties contributing to bilingual speech is possible in proficient bilinguals. While Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) are probably right that global copying (lexical borrowing and code-switching) usually occurs in B2 > A1 and selective copying in A1 > B2 (either acquisition of or shift to B2), I believe that, at a micro level, even at the initial stages of bilingualism, codeswitching (global copying in Johanson’s terms) is not strictly and necessarily unidirectional. It is not uncommon that even a speaker with a limited proficiency in Estonian copies Estonian lexical items into his/her Russian; at the same time, there is evidence that while speaking Estonian such a speaker may draw on his/her Russian for a variety of reasons, for instance, filling in a so-called lexical gap or due to specific connotations that a particular Russian-language lexical item has. Of course, when global copying from A2 to B1 takes place and the speaker is interacting with speakers of B1, s/he runs a risk of not being correctly understood (especially if the partner is a completely monolingual

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speaker of Estonian). Nevertheless, sometimes the smoothness and fluency of interaction is more important for effective communication than understanding the exact meaning of every single lexical item. Based on the data from Russian-Estonian bilingual communication, it is safe to claim that global copying in both directions does occur in speakers with a rather limited knowledge of Estonian. Consider (1), a typical instance of global code-copying (insertional code-switching) where A1 is Russian and Estonian is B2 and the direction of copying is B2 > A1. A female student of Tallinn University addresses her co-student of the same background. The language of their interaction is Russian but both are proficient in Estonian. Estonian items are in bold characters. (1) Ty smotrela cˇto v õppekava napisano? you looked what in syllabus written “have you looked what is written in the syllabus?” Example (2) is modified from Zabrodskaja (2006b: 157–158). This is an instance where lexical items are being copied A1 > B2. It is an excerpt from the conversation between three speakers: an Estonian-speaker (E) who has some proficiency in Russian, a highly proficient bilingual (PB), and a Russiandominant speaker (R) who tries nevertheless to speak Estonian. The three women are eating at the school cafeteria: (2)

E:

Noh, so

kuidas maitseb? how tastes

“so, how does it taste?” PB: Kala eriti ei fish especially not

maitse. Liiga soolane, taste too salty

vist. probably.

“the fish is not very tasty. Probably, too much salt” R:

Ei not

ole is

soljonaja. Otšen’ salty very

daže even

väga very

magus. sweet

“Not salty. On the contrary, very sweet” R is not very proficient in Estonian and the choice of the adjective in her second utterance reveals this fact (magus “sweet” instead of expectable maitsev “tasty”). Nevertheless, her first utterance is initially attempted in Estonian. The adjective “salty” has a similar form in both languages (Estonian soolane, Russian soljonaja). Probably, the similarity here facilitates the global copying (see Clyne 2003: 162–175 on lexical facilitation) and the subsequent use of Russian in her second utterance (note, however, that she alternates back to Estonian after two words in Russian). This is a complicated case where global copying facilitates

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alternation into Russian, which is followed by another alternation into Estonian. Anyway, example (2) shows that the speaker with a limited command of Estonian (B2) draws on global lexical copying from her first language, Russian (A1), while trying to converse in Estonian. Similarly, in the case of non-lexical impact (types of copying other than global, to be considered further in Section 3.2.3), there is no reason to assume that morphosyntax or combinational properties cannot be copied bi-directionally. Importantly, Heine and Kuteva (2005: 13) advocate the view that there is no principle difference between the patterns of contact-induced grammaticalization in L2 > L1-replication and in L1 > L2-replication, although the contactinduced process is dependent on the sociolinguistic setting in which it occurs. Thus, at an individual level, all types of copying may occur in both directions (although it is not always the case). We have seen that the basic code is not always the code that the speaker is most fluent in. The establishment of the basic code will be considered below in the Section 3.2.4. Both A and B may serve as a basic/model code. The basic code, in Johanson’s model, is to be determined at the clausal level.

3.2.2

Copy and original

A fundamental assumption in the code-copying framework is that a copy is never identical to its model/original (Johanson 2002c: 9). Even if a degree of accommodation to the rules of the basic code (morphosyntactical, combinational, phonic adjustment) is minimal and the copy is maximally true to the original, the copy and the original are not the same. This matter seems to raise objections; for instance, Muhamedowa (2006: 13, footnote 12) dedicates some space to the analysis of the code-copying framework and finds this proposition controversial. She supports her argument by quoting Backus (1996: 85) and states that by definition, the copy is identical to the original. At risk of introducing another metaphor, I wish to clarify this with the following example. Suppose you are making copies with a copying machine. You can enlarge, shrink, or blend parts from different originals, or you can just place the original into the machine and press the “copy” button. Even if the copy has all properties of the original (i.e., identical in the sense that all characteristics of the original have been preserved unchanged), the copy itself is not the original. Thus, no matter how many items or their properties are being copied from the model code into the basic code, the codes A and B remain autonomous: there is no “mixing,” “embedding,” or “juxtaposition” (Johanson 1999: 39). From this, it follows that if we observe the processes occurring to a variety as a whole, this variety A will never turn into B, no matter how intensive copying from B to A may be. According to Johanson (1999: 39), copies become a part of the code into which they are inserted. Cognitively, there may be various degrees of overlapping or “merger between two mental structures” (Johanson 2002a: 286), but this

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should not be understood as “fusion” of codes. A copy becomes a part of the basic code.6 Heine and Kuteva (2005: 121) also deal with the question of whether a copy is identical to its original. Although their study does not consider instances other than the replication of grammatical meaning and grammatical categories, their answer is the same as Johanson’s: replica categories do differ from the respective model categories. A situation in which speakers use more than one code in a single conversation is termed code interaction. It is a general heading that includes the following types (Johanson 1999: 39): (3)

code-copying per se (intra-clausal);

(4)

code alternation: (a) extra-clausal; (b) intra-clausal.

Code-copying is an intra-clausal phenomenon, since the code-copying framework is mostly elaborated at the intra-clausal level. Code alternation (4) is “shifting from one code to another.” Extra-clausal code interaction (4a) is a change of code between the clauses, while intra-clausal code interaction (4b) occurs when items from one code are inserted into the clause of another code without any accommodation (Johanson 1993: 200, 1999: 39). In more traditional terminology, the latter are sometimes called “plain switches.” In general, code alternation implies alternate choices of codes (Johanson 2002a: 287). Code alternation, as understood by Johanson, is probably akin to Clyne’s (2003: 74–75) transversion. Clyne distinguishes between “code-switching” (or lexical transference in his terminology) that refers to isolated other-language lexical items and, on the other hand, longer intra- or extra-clausal monolingual or nearly monolingual stretches. Similar to Johanson, Clyne argues that, in the case of transversion, a speaker “crosses over” into the other language rather than transfers items thereof into the basic language.7

3.2.3

Item’s properties and degrees of copying

A linguistic item possesses a global block of properties: material, semantic, combinational, and frequential. If the entire segmental unit with all its properties has been copied, this is termed as global copying. As mentioned above, this corresponds to code-switching/lexical borrowing in other theoretical frameworks. In the code-copying framework, a stem copied from B together with derivational and inflectional morphology is a global copy. A stem from B that takes on A-inflectional morphology is a global copy, as well. The degree of morphological “integration” is not relevant here (see Section 3.2.8), and examples (5a), (5b), and (5c) show various instances of global copying from

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Estonian into Russian (Estonian käibemaks “turnover tax” is phonically adapted and becomes kjabemaks): (5a)

B-stem + A-inflectional morphology Éto bud-et bez kjajbemaks-a this FUT-3SG without turnover tax-GEN “this will be without turnover tax” cf. Estonian käibemaks “turnover tax” (conversation in the travel agency Neiris, Tallinn, July 2002)

(5b) B-stem + B-inflectional morphology I cˇto vot ét-i ohvri-d mog-ut polucˇi-t’ ot menja and what here this-PL victim-PL can-3PL get-INF from I: GEN “and what these victims can get from me” (Estonian TV, 27.02.2005, Unetus/Bessonnica ; an excerpt from the conversation about helping the victims of domestic violence) (5c) B-stem without any inflectional morphology (so-called “bare form”) podderžk-u xoroš-uju polucˇi-l-i ot Integratsioonifond-? support-ACC good-ACC receive-PAST-PL from Integration Foundation “(we) have received support from the Integration Foundation” cf. expected genitive: Russian fond “foundation” (NOM)—fond-a (GEN) (Estonian TV, 11.03.2002, Kolmas sektor/Tretij sektor) It is also possible to copy only certain qualities of a linguistic item (e.g., only semantic properties); this is called selective (non-segmental) copying (Johanson 2002a: 291–292). Depending on what properties have been copied in selective copying, one may speak of material, semantic, combinational, and frequential copying. Material copying implies the copying of phonic features, accent, and phonotactic patterns. In Estonia’s Russian, this often concerns the Estonianlike realization of common or similar internationalisms (mostly by moving the stress: instead of the Russian [per´iod] there is the Estonian-like [peri´o:d] “period of time,” see more examples in Zabrodskaja 2006a). Semantic copying means the copying of denotative or connotative content elements of a model code. In traditional terminology, this can be understood under the labels “calque” and “loan translation.” Interestingly, grammatical meaning can be copied as well (Johanson 2005). Heine and Kuteva (2005: 99) point out that what tends to be described as lexical polysemy, in fact, frequently appears to involve a development from lexical to grammatical uses of an item. Heine and Kuteva (2005: 113–114) quote Aikhenvald (2002: 182), who shows that interrogative pronouns may easily turn

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into relative pronouns in the process of contact-induced grammaticalization: on the model of Portuguese, speakers of Tariana use interrogative words as relative pronouns. This is a rather common development in many languages that are in contact with Standard Average European languages. In Estonian, interrogative words are identical to relative pronouns, and this relation is copied into some varieties of Estonia’s Russian, both in spontaneous communication and in oral or written translations from Estonian (newspapers, TV news, advertising; Külmoja 1999: 522). Normally, Russian has a special set of relative pronouns that are not identical to interrogative words; however, if the subject is a demonstrative pronoun, the marker of the relative clause is the same as the interrogative word. Consider (6a), where the relative pronoun kto “who” is identical to the question word kto? “who?”: (6a)

Tot, that

kto who

cˇita-l, read-PAST

znaj-et. know-3SG

“that who has read (it), knows” In other cases, a special relative pronoun kotoryj (kotor-aja FEM, kotor-oje NEUT) “which,” “who” is used: (6b)

Cˇelovek, person

kotoryj which

cˇita-l, read-PAST

znaj-et. know-3SG

“a person who has read (it), knows” Thus, a limited pattern as in (6a) exists in Standard Russian, but due to the impact of Estonian, the grammatical meaning has been copied on the model of Estonian kes “who?” “who” and mis “what?”, “what” as in (7a): (7a) Ja obšcˇa-l-a-s’ so svo-imi I communicate-PAST-FEM-REFL with own-INSTR PL sokursnik-ami, kto proše-l ét-u programm-u classmate-INSTR PL who undergo-PAST this-ACC program-ACC “I have talked to my classmates who have done the program” (Estonian TV, 10.02.2005, Unetus/Bessonnica) Compare to Estonian (7b) and monolingual Russian (7c): (7b) Suhtle-si-n oma kursusekaaslas-te-ga, kes communicate-PAST-1SG own classmate-PL-INSTR who on selle programm-i läbi-nud be: 3 this: GEN program-GEN undergo-PAST PRTC “id.”

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Code-Copying Framework and Copiability (7c) Ja obšcˇa-l-a-s’ I communicate-PAST-FEM-REFL sokursnik-ami, kotory-je classmate-INSTR PL who-NOM PL programm-u program-ACC “id.”

65

so svo-imi with own-INSTR PL proš-l-i ét-u undergo-PAST-PL this-ACC

Combinational copying refers to either phrase and complement structures, word-internal morphemic patterns or external combinability with other units (as in example 7a). Combinational copying is manifested by changes in word order, new rules for lexical subcategorization, new rules for morphosyntax, and so on (Johanson 1993: 213–214). Copying of pragmatics occurs in different degrees as well. Global copying of pragmatic markers is a well-known phenomenon, many times described in the contact linguistic literature (e.g., Matras 1998; Maschler 1998, 2000; Wertheim 2003). In addition to this, there is the possibility of selective copying: what looks on the surface like semantic or semantic + combinational copying may in fact include copying of pragmatic functions. For instance, an Estonian pragmatic formula that is used in the beginning of a phone conversation by the caller siin X “X is speaking” (literally, “here X”) has been copied into local Russian as zdes’ X “id.”, cf. monolingual Russian govorit X (literally, “speaks X”) or simply éto X “this is X.” Note that not only the meaning and combination has been copied but also the pragmatic value, that is, the range of possible contexts of use, as well. Probably, it is impossible to draw a strict division between semantic/semantic + combinational copying on the one hand and the copying of pragmatics on the other. Selective copying of Estonian discourse-pragmatic words will be discussed in Chapter 4. Finally, frequential copying means changes in the frequency patterns of already existing basic code elements. According to Heine and Kuteva (2005: 44, 47–50), an extension in the use of a preexisting pattern or collocation is even more common than the emergence of an entirely new pattern. Constructions, formulaic and fixed expressions, idioms, entire clauses and other items that are longer than one word can be copied either globally or selectively. It is important that so-called lexical chunks (Backus 2003b) are treated within the same theoretical framework as isolated items (see Backus 2006 on research traditions that apply different theoretical frameworks to “insertional switches” and “alternational switches”). A complex item can be copied as complex solid blocks (globally) or selectively. It is also possible that a part of the complex is copied globally and another part selectively. If this is the case, it is called mixed copying (Johanson 1993: 215). Haugen (1972: 85) has labeled it as loan-blend. Not only compound lexical items but also analytical formations, constructions, conventionalized collocations, and idiomatic expressions may serve as models for mixed copying. I will

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show in Chapter 4 that certain Estonian compound nouns and analytic verbs are often a subject to mixed copying. Example (8a) is a case of mixed copying of an analytic verb pähe õppima “to learn by heart.” In (8a), a student explains to me in Russian how she has prepared for the test: (8a)

Ja I

vsjo all

pähe head: ILL

ucˇi-l-a learn-PAST-FEM

“I learned everything by heart” (Tallinn University, November 2006) This is not just a global lexical copy of an isolated Estonian item pähe (head: ILL) “into the head,” but the entire complex verb + noun: ILL is a copy of the Estonian construction pähe õppima “to learn by heart,” a conventionalized collocation of the verb õppima “to learn, to study,” and the illative (directional internal local case) form of the noun pea “head” (literally, “to learn into the head”), while the modifier noun is copied globally. The whole combination of items as a fixed set does not exist in monolingual Russian (cf. 8b), where the idiomatic expression ucˇit’ naizust’ (literally, “to learn out of lips”) is the generally accepted form. Consider also monolingual Estonian (8c). (8b)

(8c)

monolingual Russian Ja vsjo naizust’ I all out of lips “id.” monolingual Estonian Õppi-si-n kõik learn-PAST-1SG all “id.”

ucˇ i-l-a learn-PAST-FEM

pähe head: ILL

The notion of mixed copying is significant in the code-copying framework. It sheds light on what types of collocations are copied and how function markers (inflectional morphology, adpositions etc.) can be first copied as part of a mixed copy (Johanson 1999: 51). Instances of mixed copying will be discussed in Chapter 4. Johanson’s typology of copying is distinct from those proposed in other frameworks (Haugen 1972; Muysken 2000; Myers-Scotton 1993a; Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991; Weinreich 1953). Yet it shares some features with Clyne (2003: 89–90) and especially with Heine and Kuteva (2005: 2; the latter do not consider lexical items). Their typology of linguistic transfer, albeit terminologically different, corresponds to the typology proposed by Johanson (1993, 1999, 2002a, c), as presented in (9):

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Code-Copying Framework and Copiability (9) a. b. c. d.

Heine and Kuteva (2005: 2) Kinds of linguistic transfer

Form (sounds or combinations of sounds) Meanings (including grammatical meanings) Form-meaning units/combinations thereof Syntactic relations (order of meaningful elements) e. Any combination of (a) through (d) f. –

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Johanson (2002c: 11–19) Types of copying Material Semantic/combinational Global Combinational Combinational/mixed Frequential

It is believed that global copying is primary (Johanson 1993: 211) in the sense that it appears already at early stages of bilingualism. Selective copying is claimed to appear at a later stage; it is more common in the speech of the second generation. This is in accordance with the borrowing scale (in language maintenance) proposed in Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) and in Thomason (2001) that postulates that mainly lexical impact of B2 on A1 will occur at the first stages of language contact. In a similar fashion, there are attempts in the literature on code-switching to establish the correspondence between types of code-switching (insertional vs. alternational) according to the degree of bilingualism and the time of residence in a given country (first and non-first generations of immigrants; Backus 2001; Muysken 2000). Further on, Johanson (1993: 211) argues that selective copying appears at more advanced stages of acquisition and differences between the original and copies are often less marked (which does not exclude adaptation and restructuring). Apparently, all this is applicable to a traditional immigrant setting where one can clearly distinguish between different generations acquiring L2. However, as argued in Chapter 2, the situation of Estonia’s Russians is more ambiguous. That is why I am hesitant to make a categorical claim that selective or mixed copying does not appear at all in the speakers who are not very proficient in Estonian. At present, the degree of proficiency in Estonian and the wish/need to use that language differs extensively across the Russian-speaking population. Some semantic and combinational copies (this especially concerns the copying of Estonian compound nouns, see Verschik 2004b) have become more or less conventionalized. Also, it is important that Russian monolinguals and not very proficient bilinguals interact with Russians who are highly fluent in Estonian and spend most of their time in an Estonian-speaking environment (e.g., university students). Thus, more proficient speakers of Estonian have their version of Russian that exhibits all types of copying, and the less proficient ones may copy from that version of Russian and not necessarily directly from Estonian (however, the latter option should not be excluded either). Johanson (1999: 42) stresses that the establishment of the source of copying is crucial. As mentioned earlier, it is not always possible to determine the ultimate

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source of copying (recall Section 3.1 and Verschik 2007b); here I just wish to remind the reader that the bilingualization has been relatively rapid and types of copies from L2 other than global can be attested in the speech of not very proficient bilinguals as well. Some additional aspects of code-copying have to do with written texts. As mentioned in the previous chapters, sociolinguists and contact linguists are seeking to incorporate research on bilingual advertising, sociolinguistics of orthography, L2 writing, and written code-switching into the field. Noteworthy, Clyne (2003: 116–117) includes graphemic transference into his framework. Heine and Kuteva (2005: 250–252) point out the role of written discourse in contact-induced grammaticalization. Apparently, it is possible to postulate without a threat to the integrity of the code-copying framework that when written texts are under consideration, in addition to the mentioned properties (material, semantic, combinational, and frequential), an item has graphic properties which can also be subject to copying. Introducing graphical aspect is especially relevant because the languages in this study use two different alphabets. Russian-language newspapers, written advertising, flyers, and booklets tend to globally copy names of firms, companies, enterprises, institutions, that is, to reproduce the lexical items in question in their original Estonian spelling (global copying that includes graphic properties), while personal names are transliterated into Russian (selective copying according to conventionalized rules of transliteration from Estonian into Russian). In addition to these two options, there exists a range of in-between possibilities in use between the two alphabets. In signs and advertising, Russian lexical items (including proper names but not only) may be rendered in Estonian spelling. The reasons for this lie in communication goals and vary depending on whether the author is an Estonian-speaker or a Russian-speaker, but the ultimate goal is often a compromise of sorts. Moreover, there may be differences in writing for more or less official purposes. It appears that there have already emerged certain unwritten conventions in copying. Cases of codecopying in written texts will be considered in Chapter 5.

3.2.4

Determining the basic code

Studies on code-switching and bilingual speech are often concerned with determination of the basic code. It appears that there is no agreement upon a definition or criteria for the determination of the basic code. Some researchers distinguish between the language of individual sentences and the language of the whole interaction: Nortier (1990: 158) calls them the base language and the matrix language respectively, and Moyer (1998) labels them the main language and the base language respectively. Therefore, it is clear that determining the basic language (in traditional models) depends on the choice of a unit

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of analysis (Gardner-Chloros and Edwards 2004: 120). In the MLF model, the ML is claimed to provide the frame of the utterance (Myers-Scotton 1993a). In earlier versions of the model, the ML was determined at the discourse level and the decisive criterion was the number of morphemes: the language that provides more morphemes is the ML. According to some scholars (Alvarez-Cáccamo 1998; Meewis and Blommaert 1998), in complex cases of dense and conventionalized code-switching, codes cannot be equated to monolingual varieties, one of the reasons being the speakers’ perception of their way of speaking as a single code. Sometimes the determination of the ML is impossible according to this criterion (some examples can be seen in Sarhimaa 1999). Bentahila and Davies (1998: 31) show that, based on the number of morphemes, some conversations tend to change the ML several times. The MLF model in its earlier version was not fit to deal with convergence (Clyne 2003: 83). In view of such evidence and to account for convergence, the ML was redefined as determinable at the clausal level and the notion of composite ML (where the lexical structure originates from several sources) was introduced (Myers-Scotton 2002: 22).8 Clyne (2003: 89) equates Johanson’s notion of basic and model code to Myer-Scotton’s ML and embedded language, respectively. Although the concepts in the two models bare some similarity, this cannot be done without reservations, and the parallel between the terms of the two models is only approximate. One of the reasons for such reservations is that, according to Johanson (1993: 199–200; 1999: 42), purely quantitative considerations are not decisive. According to Johanson, “language indexing” is more applicable on the clausal level (i.e., compatible with Croft’s (2000) approach and with the refined MLF model). However, unlike the ML in Myers-Scotton (2002: 66), basic code in the code-copying framework is not an abstract theoretical concept but a descriptive notion. The basic code is defined as a code which provides function markers. For the determination of the basic code, non-copied elements are decisive (Johanson 2002a: 303 refers to a similar argument by Gal (1979:81)). Function markers, such as finite predicate markers, case markers with generalized meanings, tense and aspect markers, certain pronouns and auxiliaries are considered to be the least (globally) copiable, although their copying is not impossible in principle. Johanson argues that a clause can be A-coded despite a high amount of B elements. As an illustration, he discusses highly Romanized registers of English and Classical Ottoman registers abundant in Persian-Arabic lexical copies (Johanson 1999: 42). Still, there are more and less prototypical cases. Code-determination may be problematic in early bilingualism when two languages are being acquired simultaneously and inflectional morphology has not yet developed. Johanson (2002a: 290) quotes Deuchar and Vihman (2002) who describe two-word utterances consisting of one function and one content word in early bilingual children.

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Probably, in addition to the situation of early bilingualism, there are other cases where code-assignment poses difficulties, for example, copying from and into closely related varieties (Clyne 2003: 164–165, 185 ff.; Riionheimo 2002 on Ingrian Finnish and Estonian contacts). If and when two unrelated varieties have achieved a degree of structural isomorphism either as the result of bidirectional or unidirectional impact, a possible outcome is what Muysken (1995, 2000) calls congruent lexicalization: a similar underlying structure can be filled in with lexical items from either language. This can occur at the idiolectal level and at the community level, as well. In such cases, one may expect rather dense copying of various degrees and the determination of the basic code would be an impossible task. Interestingly, functions, categories, grammatical markers are reported to be more often copied selectively than globally (Aikhenvald 2002: 12; Heine and Kuteva 2005: 249). This is a relevant point for further discussion in Section 3.4. Aikhenvald (2002) distinguishes between indirect and direct diffusion of changes in grammatical categories. Indirect diffusion roughly corresponds to the selective copying of function markers and direct diffusion to the global copying. The global copying of function markers is usually considered to be less common but not unusual or impossible (see Johanson 1993: 205–206 on B markers in A, i.e., Persian, Arabic, and Slavic function words in various Turkic languages). Johanson (1999: 50–51) suggests a tentative diachronic order in the adoption of function units (free or bound): (10a) as a part of a global copy (so-called solid B complexes): per se “by/in itself ” from Latin; (10b) copied globally as isolates and first appear within mixed copies: German in puncto Kultur “with respect to culture”; (10c) selectively copied semantic and combinational properties (solid A complexes): Norwegian i og for seg “by/in itself” (from English by/in itself ). Johanson (1999: 50) mentions that the evolution from (10a) to (10c) is an often observed line of development. This suggests that function markers appear first in global copies and later can be copied selectively. Probably, this path of development is not universal (recall the criterion for code-determination and aforementioned claim concerning function markers by Aikhenvald 2002 and Heine and Kuteva 2005). Extensive selective copying of almost all functions and grammatical meanings of B as in (10c) may lead to the fundamental restructuring of B, as, for instance, was the case in Sri Lankan Portuguese (Bakker 2006).9 Thus, to summarize, in some cases, the basic code cannot be unambiguously defined on the criterion of non-copied grammatical markers even at the clausal level. It cannot be assigned on purely quantitative criteria (i.e., the variety that

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provides the majority of function markers). Monolingual varieties of A and B cannot be taken as a yardstick because, in situations of intensive contact, we have to ask exactly what varieties of A and B we are dealing with (see Section 3.2.10 on the development of A and B).

3.2.5

Insertion of copies

In the code-copying framework, a copy of a model code item or property is inserted onto equivalence position in the basic code (see description of insertion in Johanson 1993: 204–205, 1999: 40, 2002c: 293–294). Despite similarity in the terms, Johanson’s understanding of insertion differs from that of Muysken (1995, 2000). In code-switching research, insertion (or, in the terms of Myers-Scotton (1993a) embedding) designates a stem or a lexical item that is “switched”. Thus, in other theoretical frameworks, insertion does not refer to what happens to an item’s non-lexical properties that are traditionally considered under the heading of convergence, transference (Clyne 2003), composite ML (Myers-Scotton 1997), and so on. Therefore, the concept of insertion in other frameworks is by definition limited to what Johanson calls “global” and sometimes “mixed copying.” On the contrary, in the code-copying framework, any copy from the model code may be inserted, which is not tantamount to the “embedding” of content morphemes into the morphosyntactic matrix of the basic code. That is, in the code-copying framework, all types of global, selective, and mixed copies are viewed as inserted into the basic code. Insertion as understood by Johanson is a broader concept that designates any placement of copies into the slots of the basic code that have been established through the subjective perception of cross-linguistic equivalence. Insertion is an operation by which all types of copies (global, mixed, selective) “end up” in the basic code.

3.2.6

Equivalence

As noted, copies are inserted into equivalence positions in the basic code. Johanson (2002c: 57) stresses that equivalences between lexical items, categories, constructions, and meanings in two languages are established by speakers and are, therefore, subjective in their nature. Johanson does not dedicate much space to the analysis of equivalence between the codes, and for that reason I am going to refer to an elaborated treatment of equivalence presented in the study of contact-induced grammaticalization by Heine and Kuteva (2005: 219–233). The researchers point out that equivalence can be understood in a variety of ways and have different manifestations. They distinguish between structural isomorphism vs. translational equivalents and semantic similarity vs. morphosyntactic equivalence. Structural isomorphism means one-to-one correspondence in the morphosyntactic and/or semantic structure of a category, while

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translational equivalent is defined on the basis of speaker’s behavior and translation conventions (Heine and Kuteva 2005: 221, 222). Semantic similarity may concern quite different structures and thus lead to the establishment of cross-linguistic equivalence (Heine and Kuteva 2005: 224). Thus, a strict correspondence (isomorphism) between the structures is not necessary for copying to evolve. This echoes Johanson’s (2002c: 11) observation that insertion can occur where no actual typological equivalence is obtained. It is not clear how exactly a type of equivalence is chosen in each instance of copying. Sometimes several types can be employed simultaneously. For instance, an existing but marginal conventional translational equivalent in language A that is structurally similar or identical to a construction in B can be used in a wider context under the impact of B in such a way that it gradually replaces translational equivalents that lack structural similarity with the original. For example, conventionalized Russian-language translational equivalents of some Estonian compound nouns of the type N GEN + N NOM are constructions consisting of a relative adjective + noun, as in (11a). Here the order of the stems in Russian (ADJ + N), that is, modifier + head corresponds to that in Estonian, a left-branching language: (11a)

Estonian Russian

kohv-i-tort “coffee cake” coffee-GEN-cake kofej-n-yj coffee-ADJ-MASC NOM SG

tort cake

“id.”

There are other conventional translational equivalents where Estonian compound corresponds to a prepositional phrase or to a construction N NOM + N GEN (the word order is reverse in Russian). In that case, the order of the stems is different from Estonian, as in (11b)

Estonian Russian

saate-kava “broadcasting program” broadcasting: GEN-program programma peredacˇ-Ø “id.” program broadcasting-GEN PL

The choice of translational equivalents is often dependent on conventions. Thus, the reason why in monolingual Russian a relative adjective *peredacˇnyj “of broadcasting, having to do with broadcasting” (cf. kofejnyj “of coffee”) from the noun peredacˇa “broadcasting” is not used, is a matter of norms and habits rather than of the structural properties of this particular item. However, an established convention may be violated in favor of increasing structural (and, subsequently, semantic) similarity, in our case, the same order of the stems (see Verschik 2004b), so that a relative adjective that corresponds to Estonian

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modifier precedes the head noun such as in (12a).10 The range of meaning of the relative adjective is narrower than that of the corresponding Estonian noun in the genitive (kohvi-); and in monolingual Russian, the existing feminine adjective kofejnaja (“of coffee,” “having to do with coffee”) cannot occur in the contexts like (12a). (12a) kofej-n-aja coffee-ADJ-FEM NOM SG “coffee break”

pauza break

Compare with Estonian in (12b) and possible monolingual Russian in (12c): (12b) Estonian kohv-i-paus coffee-GEN-break “id.” (12c)

monolingual Russian11 pereryv dlja break for “id.”

kofe coffee

It has to be noted that copies which exhibit structural isomorphism/similarity with the original often can be at odds with monolingual semantics and semantic transparency. Consider another copy of an Estonian compound noun in (13a) where the order of stems is the same as in Estonian: (13a) prodaž-n-yj sale-ADJ-MASC NOM SG “sales manager”

rukovoditel’ manager

The Estonian model is in (13b): (13b) müüg-i-juht sale-GEN-manger “id.” The meaning of the relative adjective prodažnyj in example (13a) “of sale, having to do with sales” (< prodaža “sale”, “marketing”) is in principle possible in some monolingual Russian collocations but not as it appears in (13a). Combined with a noun that designates a person, the meaning of the given

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adjective in monolingual Russian is “corrupted” (i.e., somebody that can be sold and bought; unscrupulous and dishonest): (13c)

meaning in monolingual Russian prodažnyj rukovoditel’ “corrupted manager”

In Standard Russian, the equivalent of Estonian in (13b) is a prepositional phrase (13d): (13d)

monolingual Russian menedžer po manger on “sales manager”

prodaž-am sale-DAT PL

Thus, in the process of copying, the considerations of structural isomorphism/ similarity may sometimes win over semantic transparency and conventional translational equivalence. Here the relative adjective construction, existing in monolingual Russian but with a more restricted context of use (i.e., minor use pattern in the terms of Heine and Kuteva (2005: 44 ff.) under the impact of Estonian tends to be chosen over other options, probably because of a greater formal similarity to the Estonian model. Cases like (12a) and (13a) and the copying of Estonian compound nouns will be discussed in Chapter 4 (see also Verschik 2004b, 2005c). As Boeschoten (1999) argues, the understanding of equivalence as based on the rules of two monolingual varieties cannot be maintained. Eventually, equivalence in the sense of structural isomorphism may be achieved through copying.

3.2.7

Imposition vs. adoption

Depending on the direction of copying, the process is either imposition or adoption. If the model code A is the speakers L1 and B is the basic code (the direction of copying is A1 > B2), then it is called imposition. Traditionally, the core of SLA research is concentrated on imposition (the direction of crosslinguistic influence L1 > L2). If the direction of copying is B2 > A1, then this is adoption (“borrowing” or “structural borrowing” in traditional terminology). Synchronic research in contact linguistics is interested in adoption, while, from a diachronic perspective, a solid body of contact linguistic literature is dedicated to imposition in the sense of “substratum influence.” Note that in the code-copying framework the codes are designated in such a way that the relations of sociolinguistic dominance are clear from the onset. Although, to a greater extent, synchronic research on CILC is focused on A1, that is, typically on an immigrant or minority language, a different situation, albeit less typical,

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is also possible: namely, when the speakers of B1, that is, of sociolinguistically dominant variety B, have a certain command of A2. In that case, one may expect imposition B1 > A2, whose results look identical to those of B2 > A1. This option should be not overlooked: recall, for example, that in Tallinn there are native speakers of Estonian with some command in Russian, and copying B1 > A2 is, so to say, present on the linguistic scene. Language contact situations may be immensely complex and, thus, rendering it in Johanson’s terms, both imposition and adoption may co-occur in the same speakers. From a slightly different perspective, scholars in bilingualism and SLA such as Pavlenko and Jarvis (2002) also mention the bi-directionality of transfer as a relevant factor in cross-linguistic influence. The current study is mainly focused on adoption from Estonian (B2) to Russian (A1), or, to put it slightly differently, in the direction E(stonian)2 > R(ussian)1. Imposition E1 > R2 may play a certain role, especially in the propagation of innovations (Verschik 2007b). Heine and Kuteva (2005: 237–238), referring to several case studies, show that discussions on the topic of directionality have been extremely controversial. Nonetheless, in many cases the direction of contact-induced replication can be unambiguously determined. Adoption or, in the terms of Heine and Kuteva (2005), L2 > L1-replication, usually takes place in sociolingustically dominated languages, such as minority and immigrant languages, where dominant codes are major languages or lingua francas. Heine and Kuteva (2005: 238) point out that this kind of replication also concerns situations of extensive asymmetrical bilingualism, where speakers of the basic code are proficient in the model code. Imposition, or L1 > L2-replication, takes place in all kind of situations where L2 is used, lingua francas and pidgins included (Heine and Kuteva 2005: 239). Of course, in the situation where former monolingual speakers seek to acquire Estonian, the imposition R1 > E2 is expectable. However, this does not imply that the imposition will in any case affect the mainstream variety of A (Estonian in this case). At present, there has been no tangible impact of learners’ varieties on mainstream Estonian.12 Heine and Kuteva (2005: 239) believe that contact-induced grammaticalization in the case of imposition requires less time to evolve than in the case of adoption. Although the claim is limited to grammaticalization and does not include other types of copying/replication, I believe that under favorable sociolinguistic circumstances, the process of adoption may start rather rapidly, and this is not limited to the global copying of L2 lexicon. For instance, copying of semantic properties, as well as mixed copying, is frequent and habitualized in Estonia’s Russian. If the term “grammaticalization” assumes a certain degree of conventionalization, then, of course, it is too early to speak of general conventionalization of copies in all Russian-speakers. In the long run, it would be instructive to investigate what kind of non-lexical copies will eventually become conventionalized.

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Thus, it is always important to keep bi-directionality in mind, since the same code may serve both as a model and as a basic code. A fairly complex history of Turkish-Greek language contacts in Anatolia (Brendemoen 1999 and references therein) provides a convincing illustration to this claim. Another case where the dominant and dominated switched positions several times (probably, involving a series of language shift) is that of indigenous Russian in Estonia, which has to be investigated in the light of modern contact linguistics.13 In a synchronic contact situation where some speakers of B1 have a degree of proficiency in A2, the results of adoption A2 > B1 (or, in our case, E2 > R1) and imposition B1 > A2 (E1 > R2) may be fairly similar, especially in selective copying. This concerns especially the copying of Estonian collocations and morphosyntax (Verschik 2007b). A third outcome of language contacts is called code-shift (Johanson 1999: 42), a term similar to the traditional term language shift. This means that the basic code A1 is not maintained, and the shift to B2 takes place. Subsequently, a variety of B becomes L1 (the basic code). It is not (yet?) relevant for Russians in Estonia and for that reason code-shift will not be dealt with here.

3.2.8

Adaptation and accommodation of copies

Numerous frameworks dealing with CILC give a lot of attention to the “integration” of foreign-origin items into the basic code. Johanson (1993: 218–219) warns that there are different types of “integration” (material, morphosyntactic, etc.) and that the boundaries between integrated and non-integrated items generally remain vague. Integration is often understood as the addition of inflectional morphology of the basic code to an item globally copied from the model code. In some models, the treatment of a lexical item according to the morphosyntactic rules of the basic code is considered a criterion of conventionalization (“code-switching” vs. “borrowing” vs. “nonce borrowing,” Poplack 1980). However, sporadically appearing global copies are known to take the inflectional morphology of the basic code (“insertional code-switching” or prototypical “content morpheme” that takes “system morphemes” from the ML in Myers-Scotton’s MLF model) and, on the other hand, proficient bilinguals do not necessarily apply full morphosyntactic integration to globally copied items (Leisiö 2001a on Finnish nouns in the Russian matrix). In Johanson’s view (1993: 219), the addition of inflectional morphology from the basic code cannot serve as the single indicator of a more advanced stage of development. It is also important that a global copy that has not received any inflectional morphology from the basic code may nevertheless be phonically adjusted, and vice versa. I will deal with inflectional morphology later in this section. In an earlier work on code-copying, Johanson (1993: 207–208) prefers two terms to “integration,” namely, material reshaping and grammatical modification.

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Material reshaping (phonic adaptation) can be relatively strong in the first stages of copying. Still, there is no one-to-one correlation between the degree of reshaping and the duration of the contacts/degree of proficiency in the second language. Grammatical modification corresponds to “morphosyntactic integration” (addition of function markers of the basic code). In a later work (Johanson 2002a: 295–297), slightly different terminology is suggested. Global copies may be (but not necessarily) morphologically adjusted (interpreted in the terms of the morphosyntactic categories of the basic code); this is called accommodation. Copies are adapted to a smaller or a greater degree to fit the basic code, which entails modification in material, semantic, combinational, and frequential properties. It is important that the degree of adaptation is not necessarily dependent on the degree of proficiency in L2. There always exists a continuum that has the maximal possible adaptation at the one end and the “true reproduction” at the other (Johanson 2002a: 296). Adaptation of copies helps to decrease the “structural conflict” between the basic and the model code.14 The following utterance (14a) is an example of a complete morphological accommodation. It is possible to globally copy an Estonian stem and add Russian prepositions with inflectional morphology, as in (14a) (this is usually referred to as “insertional code-switching” in other frameworks): (14a) v in

naš-em our-LOC

osakond-e department-LOC

tako-go such-GEN

net no

“we do not have this in our department” (Spring 2005, conversation between two students in Tallinn University) (14b)

monolingual Russian v naš-em otdeleni-i in our-LOC department-LOC “id.”

tako-go such-GEN

net no

Significantly, sometimes grammatical accommodation is not just an approximation in the direction of the basic code but a strategy that produces convergent forms (Romaine 1995/2000: 159–160). This concerns, for instance, language pairs where one language has prepositions and the other case markers. Johanson (1993: 209, 1998: 330) describes how globally copied prepositional phrases involving etymologically non-Turkic prepositions are inserted in positions which entail Turkic case marking: in Tebriz Azerbaijani, prepositional phrases take Turkic case morphology to occur adverbially within Azerbaijani clauses. In Tajik-Uzbek contacts, this occurs in the opposite direction. A similar development has also been observed in Russian-Finnish contacts (Leinonen 1994), where Russian prepositions precede Finnish nouns with Finnish case markers. The preposition comes from Russian and the Estonian stem retains

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Estonian case markers. Such “double marking” of the semantics of spatial relations occurs also in (15a): (15a) bumag-u paper-ACC

prines-u bring-1SG

iz from

kriminaal-hoolduse-st criminal-supervision-EL

“I will get the paper from the probation supervision (department)” (Conversation in the street, Tallinn, autumn 2003) Compare with monolingual Estonian in (15b) and monolingual Russian in (15c): (15b)

Estonian too-n bring-1SG “id.”

(15c) bumag-u paper-ACC “id.”

paber-i paper-GEN

kriminaalhoodluse-st criminal-supervision-EL

prines-u iz bring-1SG from

kriminal’n-ogo criminal-GEN

nadzor-a supervision-GEN

According to Auer (1999: 328), who quotes an example of double marking similar to (15a) from Boeschoten and Backus (1997: 57), this strategy is characteristic of a more advanced stage of proficiency in two languages (the “codemixing” stage as opposed to the earlier stage of “code-switching” and the later stage of “fused lects” in his terminology). I do not have evidence either to prove or to disprove this claim. Note, however, that the strategy employed in example (15a) is just one adaptation option. Yet another strategy is the omission of the preposition before the Estonian noun in an oblique case. Consider (16a), where a Russian-dominant speaker is outraged by the unfair behavior of some candidates in local elections. The Estonian noun in the inessive (internal local case) is not preceded by the Russian preposition v “in”: (16a) no but

on by-l valimis-liidu-s, predstavlja-l . . . he be-PAST election-coalition-INES represent-PAST

“but he was a member of the election coalition, he represented . . .” (Estonian TV, 20.10.2005, Unetus/Bessonnica; an excerpt from a conversation about local elections) (16b)

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Estonian aga ta ol-i valimis-liidu-s, esinda-s . . . but s/he be-PAST election-coalition-INES represent-PAST “id.”

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In monolingual Russian, the prepositional phrase is as follows: (16c) v in

vyborn-om electoral-LOC

sojuz-e coalition-LOC

“in the election coalition” Johanson (1993: 217) mentions a possible suspension of function marking but does not discuss it at length. In the global copying of Estonian nouns into Russian, it often happens that the copied items do not receive function markers (“non-integration”, “bare forms”). Of course, on the one hand, Russian does have a class of indeclinable nouns into which foreign origin words are assigned that do not fit into the declension system. It is generally believed that the habit of not declining such nouns has emerged from the speech of educated people fluent in foreign languages (Comrie, Stone, and Polinsky 1996). In uneducated and dialectal speech, on the contrary, there used to be a tendency to reshape the nouns in accordance to the existing declension classes. The latter strategy is not accepted in Modern Standard Russian, written or spoken. On the other hand, even those Estonian nouns that can be easily reinterpreted in terms of Russian declension classes do not always receive Russian inflectional morphology. This is not linked to “structural conflict” or completely different referential meanings of Estonian items and their equivalents in Russian. Although it may be argued that Russian prepositions already communicate the concrete meaning and case markers are therefore optional, purely structural considerations cannot provide an explanation as to why Russian inflectional morphology is not added. Also, the suspension of Russian case markers may occur in instances where no preposition is required and both languages have a noun in an oblique case (see example with the genitive in Verschik 2002: 252). Whether such a noun takes or does not take on Russian inflectional morphology, probably depends on speakers, their habits, intentions, and linguistic awareness. In example (17a), the Estonian noun linnavalitsus “municipal government” does not receive Russian inflectional morphology (instrumental case marker), although the given noun ends with a consonant and can be reinterpreted as a masculine noun of the second declension: (17a) konkurs organizovan . . . sovmestno s linna-valitsus-Ø competition organized together with municipal-government-? “the competition was organized in cooperation with the municipal government” (Estonian TV, 06.04.2001, Sputnik)

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Theoretically, the noun linnavalistus “municipal government” could receive a Russian instrumental ending (recall a similar example (14a)), as in (17b): (17b) s with

linna-valistus-om municipal-government-INSTR

“with the municipal government” So far, I have examined various examples of the addition and suspension of case markers, but there are aspects of accommodation associated with gender assignment (see Leisiö 2001 and extensive references therein). The question of the full morphosyntactical accommodation (both case and gender assignment) of Estonian nouns cannot be considered here. There are cases where gender is assigned but inflectional morphology is not added. Probably, based on formal criteria, the degree of grammatical accommodation cannot be predicted. As for phonic adaptation, there are different options as well, often dictated by situational and pragmatic goals. In (18), the speaker, a host on a bilingual TV show, is reasonably proficient in Estonian, and speaks with a small Russian accent. Still, judging his Estonian language skills, it is clear that he is aware of the stress rule in Estonian compound nouns: the first component has the main and the second the secondary stress. If a compound is completely phonically adapted to fit the rules of Russian, the basic code, then it tends to have only one stress on the second component. The compound elustandard “living standard” (elu “life” + standard “standard”) contains a common internationalism. In Estonian, standard “standard” has the stress on the first syllable, while in Russian the word is standart with the stress on the second syllable. In a discussion about health care and living standards in Estonia, an Estonian-speaking guest utters the word elustandard “living standard” and the host disagrees with him and makes an ironic comment: (18) nu well u at

u at vas you

vas you takoj such

galstuk tie normal’nyj normal

takoj krasivyj, možet byt’, such nice can be elustandart [elustandárt] living standard

“well, you have such a nice tie, may be your living standard is quite normal” (Estonian TV, 25.09.2003, Unetus/Bessonnica) The noun in question is realized with the maximal possible degree of phonic adaptation into Russian (the case marker is not required in this syntactic position). The common internationalism is pronounced in its Russian form. Knowing the situation, the background information and intentions of the

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speakers, we can arrive at the conclusion that the degree of adaptaion here was the result of a conscious linguistic behavior. In general, proficient bilinguals do not necessarily always pronounce A-items according to the rules of A and global copies from B according to the rules of B, nor do they always seek a complete phonic adaptation of B-items within the A frame. Whatever the case is, it is important that in the course of adoption (B2 > A1) the speakers’ judgment on what is acceptable, what needs accommodation/adaptation, and what is a preferable degree of accommodation/ adaptation may gradually grow different from that of monolingual speakers. This can be sketched out as follows: (19)

a. Speakers of A1 intensively use B2. b. This results in code-copying (adoption) B2 > A1. c. Types of A different from monolingual A emerge (non-monolingual speech). d. Gradually, the speakers’ linguistic intuition changes. e. The perception of acceptability and grammaticality changes.15 f. Previous strategies of adaptation are modified. g. Linguistically aware speakers can choose between various degrees of adaptation, depending on their pragmatic goals.

At more advanced stages of bilingualism, global copies are not necessarily becoming more like the originals in the model code, as far as their material properties are concerned (Johanson 1993: 208), although such a development cannot be excluded altogether. In the adoption B2 > A1, both global and especially selective copying often leads to the frame-changing of A.

3.2.9 Frame-changing and convergence The convergence of the basic code and the model code is achieved through the process of global and selective copying (Johanson 1999: 52). The terms “convergence” and “frame-changing” are used interchangeably in the codecopying framework. The term “convergence” is widely used in contact linguistics but there are differences between researchers concerning its meaning and range of application. In SLA and bilingualism research, the tradition is to speak of transfer or interference in different types of bilingual speakers rather than of convergence. Bullock and Toribio (2004: 91) assume that the reason for this is the “emergent” character of structural similarities between a bilingual’s two grammars that appears ephemeral. They argue for a broader application of the term because synchronic processes may ultimately lead to convergence. Johanson (1999: 53) holds the same view: the convergence, or frame-changing, has both synchronic and diachronic dimensions. The fact that it may be a synchronic, emergent process is not an indication of its irrelevance or non-serious character.

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It is often argued as to whether or not a unidirectional change that results in the increase of structural similarities may be called convergence. The problem is addressed in a systematic way by Heine and Kuteva (2005: 11), Bullock and Gerfen (2004), and Bullock and Toribio (2004), who point out that the term is understood in the literature in two different ways. For some scholars, convergence means a reciprocal increase in similarities (Silva-Corvalán 1994/2000; Thomason 2001), while others claim that convergence may be also understood as change affecting only one of the languages that often arises in situations of asymmetrical bilingualism where one language has a higher status (Clyne 2003; Myers-Scotton 2002). Johanson (1999: 53) does not discuss the question of directionality. Implicitly, however, it can be derived from his description that unidirectional convergence is considered as an instance of convergence: “[l]anguage history offers innumerable examples of codes converging syntactically in the direction of another code . . .” (emphasis added). In general, the prototypical case considered in the code-copying framework is that of the asymmetrical sociolinguistic status of codes. In my opinion, a restricted understanding of convergence as an exclusively bidirectional process is less useful. In that case, situations of asymmetric bilingualism, differing sociolinguistic statuses of languages in contact and non-reciprocal impact (very much like the present situation of Russian in Estonia) would be in need of another cover term. Bullock and Toribio (2004: 91) conclude that the directionality of convergence is not so important after all. What is more important, in their view, is how convergence differs from other types of CILC. Bullock and Toribio (2004: 91) adopt the following definition: Convergence is “the enhancement of inherent structural similarities found between two linguistic systems.” This echoes the Functional Convergence Hypothesis, proposed by Sánchez (2004), stating that convergence occurs in peripheral and somewhat similar but not identical areas of morphosyntax. According to the definition suggested by Bullock and Toribio (2004: 91), the emergence of a completely new category, pattern, grammatical meaning, combination that had not existed prior to the contact does not belong under the heading of convergence. The authors stress that convergence differs from “interference” and “transfer” in the sense that these two imply “the imposition of a structural property from a foreign source language.” Despite the distinct character of preexisting similarities vis-à-vis completely new features that were previously absent, it is not easy to unambiguously make the distinction between the two types. In other words, as Backus (2004: 180) suggests, this is a problem of differentiation between system-altering (changes in the inventory of categories and grammatical morphemes) vs. system-preserving changes (changes in the distribution). If a previously non-existent grammatical meaning is copied and expressed with the grammatical resources of the basic code, one may classify it

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both as an addition (new feature) and as a restructuring (i.e., the new grammatical meaning is attributed to an old pattern of the basic code). Let us now turn to the links between global copying and convergence. Clyne (2003: 79–80) introduces a distinction between transference and convergence. The former refers to the incorporation of foreign material (function markers) and the latter to the approximation of a language’s morphosyntax to that of another language (structural isomorphism without a direct import of foreign items). In the terms of the code-copying framework, this translates into global copying and selective copying respectively. Thus, in the words of Clyne (2003), L2 function markers in L1 are classified as transference and not convergence. However, there is a close connection between the two. In this respect, the approach chosen by Clyne (2003) differs from Johanson (1999: 52) who says that both global and selective copying lead to the convergence of the basic code and the model code (the effect is not just the addition of a lexical item but also morphosyntax and semantic structures). The question here is not so much about the subsystems of languages that become affected (already existing similarities vs. similarities achieved by the “importation” of a completely new structure) but mainly in the distinction between transference and convergence. The problem is that global copying may facilitate selective combinational copying and in that way contribute to the increase of structural similarities (this is admitted in Clyne (2003: 162–192) and elaborated in the terms triggering and facilitation; see also discussion on transference vs. convergence in Verschik 2006). We already know that grammatical markers may be globally copied as a part of a solid complex (lexical chunks). Thus, an isolated item, be it a lexical item or grammatical marker, often happens to be copied together with its combinational properties (e.g., word order). Backus (2005) and Toribio (2004) discuss at length the connection between code-switching (global copying of lexical items) and CILC including convergence. There is evidence that the global copying of isolated lexical items (“code-switching”) as well as mixed copies of constructions, fixed expressions, analytic verbs, and so on may affect the grammatical frame of the basic code. For instance, let us analyze an example where the globally copied toponym Pae (the name of a street in Tallinn) enables Estonian-like word order in the noun phrase. Recall that in Estonian the modifier in genitive always precedes its head, while the modifier in genitive follows the head in Russian. Example (20a) comes from the official website of a Russian-medium gymnasium in Tallinn (http://www.pae.tln.edu.ee/ajalugu_rus.php, accessed on 31.12.2007): (20a) Pae gimnazija Pae: GEN gymnasium “gymnasium of Pae”

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In Standard Russian, there are two possibilities: either classify Pae as a nondeclinable noun and place it after the head (technically speaking, no marking is required as the noun is non-declinable) as in (20b) or derive an adjective from the noun and place it before the head, as in (20c): (20b) gimnazija gymnasium “id.”

Paé Pae: GEN

(20c) Paé-sk-aja Pae-ADJ-FEM SG NOM “id.”

gimnazija gymnasium

Compare with Estonian in (20d): (20d) Pae Pae: GEN “id.”

gümnaasium gymnasium

However, quite frequently, (20a) is the preferred option. Instances of copying as in (20a) are very frequent in compounds or compound-like constructions where the modifier in the genitive is an Estonian toponym, a name of a company, a personal name and so on (Verschik 2004b). To render this in Clyne’s terms, lexical transference leads to morphosyntactic convergence. Thus, global copying of a single lexical item facilitates the copying of word order from Estonian. The division of labor between global copying and selective copying is not, therefore, always clear. For that reason, it appears appropriate to include some types of global copying in the treatment of the emergent convergence, because structural changes may be facilitated by global copies (cf. Clyne’s triggering and facilitation in transfer) that affect the combinational properties of items in the basic code (see also examples in Boeschoten 1999: 69). According to Johanson (2002a: 301), frame-change occurs in the following three ways: (1) global copying of function units; (2) selective copying of the semantic and combinational properties of function units; (3) selective copies of combination patterns (new equivalence patterns are created). Probably, mixed copies may be added to the list: mixed copying serves as a bridge between global copying and selective copying. It has been discussed in contact linguistic and SLA/bilingualism literature whether unidirectional convergence is associated with attrition of L1. There are two extreme positions, one equating convergence with attrition and the other stating that what happens in attrition cannot be called convergence (see overview in Bullock and Gerfen 2004: 103). Bullock and Gerfen (2004: 103) take a middle position: convergence may occur in attrition but not every case

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of convergence is an unambiguous indicator of attrition. Convergence is not tantamount to simplification, loss, and reduction. This is in accordance with Johanson’s position on the “structuritis fallacy” (Johanson 2002b). Moreover, recent studies by Schmid (2002, 2004) reveal the complexities of the L1 attrition process and highlight its social, emotional, and individual aspects that make attrition distinct from just any other case of contact-induced restructuring in morphosyntax.

3.2.10

Development of new varieties

The code-copying framework presents the process of code interaction as dynamic and permanently developing. Extensive copying and the subsequent frame-changes (convergence) may lead to the development of new varieties. As copying is bidirectional, one can expect the emergence of new varieties of both codes. In the code-copying framework, the varieties of A are termed Alpha-lects and those of B Beta-lects (Johanson 1993: 202; 1999: 45–47). Even a modest amount of copying is sufficient to postulate a variety different from monolingual A. Alpha- and Beta-lects do not have to be crystallized and conventionalized to be distinguished from the monolingual codes A and B, respectively. Johanson (1993: 202) claims that first-generation varieties of Turkish among the diaspora are in principle different from monolingual Turkish. Beta-lects are, for instance, “learner varieties” of B or ethnolects. The input in non-first generation speakers is complex: depending on the communication needs, a speaker may make use of several, monolingual and nonmonolingual varieties. Alpha- and Beta-lects can thus be used as registers, solidarity and identity markers in non-first generation speakers (Johanson 1993). Therefore, at each stage the basic code and the model code have to be established anew (Johanson 2002a: 300; see also Kachru 1982 for discussion on different varieties of English as models for copying). For instance, it is likely that monolingual Russian-speakers are exposed to Alpha-lects spoken by bilingual speakers. Also, some Estonian-dominant speakers have a level of proficiency in Russian and produce Alpha-lects (through the imposition B1 > A2) that may serve as model codes, as well.

3.2.11

Habitualization and conventionalization of copies

Several researchers have coined terms to designate emergent vs. generally accepted changes (see Backus 2005: 318, footnote 10 on a variety of terms proposed by different scholars). To a certain extent, this echoes the distinction between parole and langue. Note, however, that innovations in speech should not be viewed as some kind of “unserious” or irrelevant development (recall discussion on convergence in Section 3.2.9). Using the concept of entrenchment (the degree to which a linguistic element is known) from cognitive linguistics and usage-based theory (Croft 2000;

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Langacker 1987), Backus (2004: 179) notes that if a speaker has to choose between two patterns/elements, the indigenous one and the foreign one, the latter receives its degree of entrenchment from two sources: its use in L1 and in L2. The degree of entrenchment is determined by frequency of use. Thus, we can speak of different degrees of entrenchment of a particular item/ property. In a similar vein, Heine and Kuteva (2005: 40) distinguish between use patterns (less conventionalized) vs. grammatical/functional categories (more conventionalized). In the model of bilingual speech evolution, Auer (1999) proposes different stages in the conventionalization of code-switching (he calls it grammaticalization). When a pattern of code-switching is grammaticalized, it becomes obligatory and ordinary, and the contrast between new and old items fades away. In the code-copying framework, copies may develop along the two different lines: from structurally less integrated to more integrated and from momentary to habitualized and conventionalized copies (Johanson 1999: 47). As it was discussed in Section 3.2.8, in the view of changes in the speakers’ intuition the copies may develop from more integrated to less integrated (Leisiö 2001a). The difference between “code-switching” and “borrowing” is in the degree of habitualization/conventionalization and not in the degree of its integratedness. I will return to this later in the current section. In the code-copying framework, sporadic and ephemeral copies are called “momentary copies.” They occur as an innovation in discourse. If they are successful, they have a chance to become habitualized. Habitualization refers to an increase in the frequency and regularity of use and the acceptance of copies in individual use. Conventionalization occurs when new norms are accepted within the speech community (Johanson 1999: 47), and the term represents quantitative differences in how widespread the copy is (Johanson 2002c: 10). The continuum from momentary use through habitualization and conventionalization represents successive stages in diachronic development. The distinction suggested by Johanson between habitualization and conventionalization is useful because it helps to illustrate the gradualness of the developments. Some copies, of course, never achieve habitualization and conventionalization. The final stage of development is termed the “monolingualization” of the copy, that is, the copy has entered the speech repertoire of monolinguals (Johanson 1999: 48). Note, however, that monoligualization of a copy does not necessarily occur in every speech community even if the copy is regularly used and conventionalized. The reason for this is that some communities do not have any monolingual speakers left. As far as varieties of Russian in Estonia (Alpha-lects) are concerned, the situation is interesting because there are even two different sets of monolingual speakers that can be used as a point of reference: those Russians who have no proficiency in Estonian and never use the language

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(their number is decreasing, as the time passes) and Russians of Russia. The zero-point is, so to say, the onset of bilingualization among Estonia’s Russians in the early 1990s. Already at present, certain habitualized and conventionalized selective copies (i.e., those that do not contain overt Estonian lexical items or morphemes) are either unintelligible to Russia’s Russians or sound “strange” (Verschik 2004b). Returning to the distinction between “code-switching” and “borrowing,” one can say that it is a distinction in the degree of habitualization. Code-switching can be translated into the language of the code-copying framework as momentary global copying and borrowing as conventionalized global copying. Frequency should be not equated to conventionalization: patterns and items frequently used in B are not necessarily copied into A and conventionalized. A greater degree of material reshaping and morphosyntactic adaptation (“integration”) is not indicative of habitualization (see Eliasson 1990; GardnerChloros and Edwards 2004: 111; Johanson 1993: 211; Thomason 1997). For instance, the Estonian toponym Narva is conventionalized in monolingual Russian as a noun belonging to the first declension class (feminine and masculine nouns with the ending -a). The last vowel of the stem is reinterpreted as the Russian ending -a, and the noun is declined as a regular first declension noun: Narv-y (genitive), Narv-e (dative), and so on (cf. Russian part-a “desk,” genitive part-y, dative part-e). As the town of Narva is situated in the northeast, the Russian-dominant area, and Russians make up to 95% of the population, the name of the town is frequently used in local (monolingual) Russian. I have never encountered the toponym without inflectional markers in the speech of Russians. Although this may eventually change, for now it is safe to claim that the Russian-like morphological integration of the toponym is conventionalized. Now consider another Estonian toponym Valga (a town on the border with Latvia). In Estonian the two toponyms belong to the same declension type; analogically to Narva, the final -a theoretically permits reinterpretation according to the rules of Russian declension and its assignment to the same first declension class. However, contrary to the structural consideration, this is not what always occurs. The toponym Valga, even if phonically more or less adapted, occurs without any morphological adaptation both in the speech of proficient and not so proficient bilinguals, as in (21a) and (21b) respectively: (21a) Jesli if gde-nibud’ somewhere

ja I tam there

byl was v in

by COND Võru Võru

gde-nibud’ v Valga ili somewhere in Valga-? or

“if I were somewhere in Valga or, let us say, somewhere in Võru” (Estonian TV, 27.01.2005, Dilemma; a Russian-dominant young man)

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Example (21b) comes from a conversation between two Russian-speakers at a railway station market in Tallinn. The salesperson and the client are middle-aged Russian females. The client is asking where particular merchandise comes from. (21b)

Client:

A éto éstonskij-e ? and this Estonian-PL NOM “are these from Estonia?” Salesperson: Da, iz Valga yes from Valga-? “yes, these are from Valga” (Railway Station market, January 2006)

If the speakers in (21a) and (21b) would have decided to treat the toponym Valga as Narva is conventionally treated, the prepositional phrases would be as follows: (21c) v Valg-e in Valga-LOC “in Valga” (21d) iz Valg-i from Valga-GEN “from Valga” Thus, examples (21a) and (21b) show that, at various stages of code development, rules of reshaping/adaptation may differ as the speakers’ intuition changes with the increase in copying (Section 3.2.8). From a diachronic perspective, copies that became habitualized or conventionalized may possess different characteristics at different stages.

3.2.12

Summary

A significant advantage of the code-copying model is that all types of copying are considered within the same terminological framework (Johanson 1993: 200–201). The framework is not constraint-based. It distinguishes between various degrees of copying and between the degree to which an item/property is known to speakers (entrenchment, or habitualized and subsequent conventionalization). The degree of morphosyntactic accommodation to the basic code and the degree of material reshaping are not decisive factors in conventionalization. Synchronic changes and emergent copies are not dismissed as unserious or irrelevant because they reflect a certain stage in the code development. The framework stresses the connection between various types of copying

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(global, mixed, and selective). This is a dynamic approach that takes into consideration convergence (frame-changing) and the development of nonmonolingual varieties, that is, Alpha-lects and Beta-lects. The framework has some terminological and conceptual similarities with Heine and Kuteva’s (2005) model of contact-induced grammaticalization.

3.3

What is copied most? Attractiveness and salience

The answer to the question in the title of this section is that anything can be copied under appropriate sociolinguistic circumstances; however, certain items and properties are likely to be copied before others. Johanson (1993: 210–211, 2002c: 8, 55 ff.) states that all proposed constraints on CILC are mere tendencies and cannot be taken as universally valid rules. In the same spirit, Heine and Kuteva (2005: 79, 108) argue that any feature can be a subject to contactinduced grammaticalization and even a minor use pattern potentially can be replicated. However, the absence of universal constraints does not mean that CILC is chaotic. To establish what items and properties are susceptible to copying, Johanson (2002c: 41–50) launched the concept of “attractiveness.” The more attractive an item or feature is, the greater probability is that it will be easily copied. Less attractive features are more stable and more impervious to copying (see also Backus 2005: 319). Traditionally, the following features are usually considered as attractive: analyticity, autonomy, semantic transparency (the so-called “1:1 principle” in which relationships between form and meaning are straightforward, see references in Johanson 2002c: 45), ease of perception, ease of acquisition, the degree of structuredness (i.e., how strongly an element is integrated within a subsystem), degree of abstraction in grammatical meaning, degree of openness of individual subsystems, and so on. Based on these criteria, attractive are analytic and/ or semantically transparent constructions. Early acquired features in L1 are thought of as less attractive. Specific rather than abstract meaning, relatively weak integration within the subsystem (unbound morphemes), belonging to open word classes (i.e., rather nouns than conjunctions) are all believed to be attractive, as well. However, in light of contradicting evidence from various contact situations, it is possible to say that these are only tendencies or, as Johanson (2002c: 48) puts it, at best certain rules of thumb. In my data, the copying of Estonian analytic constructions, such as analytic verbs and compound nouns, is indeed productive. As for semantic transparency (see also Backus 2005: 323), this is not always the case in the copies of analytic verbs and compounds: as argued in Section 3.2.6, the emerging structural and semantic isomorphism may outweigh (monolingual) semantic transparency. Ease of perception and ease of acquisition may be different in L1 and in L2 acquisition. Moreover, I believe

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that these factors are dynamic in bilingual speakers. Analytic verbs are acquired relatively late in L1 Estonian and they are not easily acquired by Russian schoolchildren that study Estonian as L2 at school: Vanem (2006) explains that Russian schoolchildren tend to acquire the range of meanings of the main verb but not that of the particle and not that of the entire construction.16 Nevertheless, analytic verbs are copied, probably first by more fluent bilinguals. The copying of bound morphemes is not unknown in the history of language contacts: for instance, all Latvian verbal prefixes have been globally copied into Livonian which, being a Finnic language, had not known prefixation prior to the contact with Latvian (Sivers 1971; Suhonen 1990: 95). Openness vs. closedness of a subsystem is relevant to a degree but ample evidence from different contact situations show that certain conjunctions are easily copied (Matras 2005; Wertheim 2003 to name just few studies). The example of the Latvian verbal prefixes fits here, too, as the prefixes constitute a closed class. Also, certain characteristics listed here may be valid for imposition and not for adoption (Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991). Johanson (2002c: 52–53) argues that in adoption it is not the characteristics of B elements but the degree of their cohesion with preexisting A structures that may prevent copying. He concludes then that the equation structuredness = stability cannot be upheld because copying does have an impact on the structure. Given that, Johanson calls for the relativization of the whole concept. Attractiveness can be relativized in two ways: first, it should include the typological characteristics of the languages in contact (i.e., the degree of similarity across the systems) and, second, sociolinguistic factors. Typological similarity between elements or entire subsystems increases the chances for copying. Apparently, there is a connection between relative attractiveness as understood by Johanson and facilitation in transfer in the terms of Clyne (2003). Similarity in shape often facilitates selective copying (Johanson 1993: 215). Thus, common internationalisms and similar derivation suffixes are attractive (see examples of copying in Verschik 2004b, 2005b). According to Johanson (2002c: 54), core morphosyntax is less likely to be copied at the initial stages of contact, not because function markers are often bound morphemes, but rather due to the low probability of typological correspondence between structures in two languages. However, similarity is not a necessary prerequisite for copying. Different structures and patterns are known to be copied as well (see evidence from Turkic-Iranian language contacts, Johanson 1998). Under circumstances of sociolinguistic dominance, asymmetric bilingualism and cultural pressure, even relatively unattractive features can be copied. Copying itself increases similarities between the codes, thus facilitating further copying (snowball effect). This is in accordance with Clyne’s concept of facilitation (Clyne 2003: 111 ff.) and, in some sense, with Muysken’s (1995, 2000) concept of congruent lexicalization.

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In a later paper of his, Johanson (2002c: 309) applied the concept of salience to his code-copying framework. The concept is not entirely new; it is used in various fields of linguistics, such as dialectology, L1 acquisition, SLA, cognitive linguistics, and others. Salience in this context means cognitive or perceptual prominence, that is, to what degree the speakers are aware of an item, meaning, or structure. Kerswill and Williams (2002) discuss salience as used in modern dialectology (Trudgill 1986) and arrive at the conclusion that the concept has to be relativized to avoid circular reasoning (e.g., if salience is equated with a high frequency, then it can be said that an item is salient because it is frequently used and it is frequently used because of its salience). According to Kerswill and Williams (2002), relativization of salience means the inclusion of sociolinguistic factors. They propose a three-component model that is based on the following principles: salience is only relevant in the case of dynamic linguistic phenomena (language acquisition or change); salience depends on language-internal factors; language-external factors are all-important (Kerswill and Williams 2002: 105–106). It is possible to speak of different dimensions of salience, namely, salience of form, meaning, and function. For instance, Johanson (1999: 51) mentions salience of function in noun-like adpositions. His explanation is that the most copiable function units are those which are more salient due to a relatively specific meaning and often also a more elaborated shape. Again, salience is different in L1 and L2 acquisition and is dynamic in its nature. The dynamic nature of salience in monolingual speakers is elaborated in the Graded Salience Hypothesis (Giora 1997, 2003). Kecskes (2006) applies the findings of Giora (2003) to L2 acquisition situations and points out that, for example, metaphoric meaning tends to be more salient than non-metaphoric meaning for L1 speakers but not necessarily for L2 speakers (Kecskes 2006). Probably, the difference in salience of meaning in L1 and L2 explains the fact that the complex meaning of some Estonian analytic verbs is not easily acquired by schoolchildren in Russian-medium schools (Vanem 2006). At the same time, this may be different for more fluent bilinguals because selective or mixed copying of Estonian analytic verb does occur. As to the shape, Estonian analytic verbs and especially compound nouns are probably salient: Russian does not have the same form for the expression of meaning, and the mentioned analytic constructions are highly productive and frequent in Estonian. More precisely, the analytic structures “stand out,” so to say, in the sense that they are easily perceived and recognized but, on the other hand, their reproduction at the initial stages of bilingualism may be difficult (this concerns mostly analytic verbs; so far, there are no studies on the acquisition of Estonian compound nouns). I suppose that it is safe to claim ex post facto that if a structure or a combination is copied, this is evidence of its attractiveness and/or salience.

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Thus, attractiveness is “a code-internal predisposition for copying” (Johanson 2002a: 309) and salience is perceptual or indicative of cognitive prominence. Apparently, an item or a property may be both attractive and salient. Johanson discusses attractiveness and salience without any systematic reference to the degree of copying, except for occasional remarks. For instance, it is claimed that analytic constructions are psycholinguistically attractive for global copying (Johanson 2002c: 44). This hypothesis has to be checked; I will return to this in Section 3.4.4 and in Chapter 4. Johanson (2002c: 40) argues that interjections and formulaic expressions are susceptible to global copying as well and that global copying of function units is a common phenomenon, contrary to the claims of the super-stability of grammar (Johanson 1999: 49). Tense, aspect and mood are claimed to be less copiable function markers: in fact, Johanson (2002c: 47) believes that these are the most stable. However, there are some signs of erosion in the aspectual opposition in Russian (the deletion of aspectual opposition is rather advanced in the indigenous Russian varieties, Mürkhein 1969: 262–263)17. On the other hand, Heine and Kuteva (2005: 121) state that certain types of categories are likely to emerge, such as new tense and aspect markers, adpositions, case markers, conjunctions, discourse markers, definite and indefinite articles, and so on. Probably, Johanson speaks of the stability of mood and aspect opposition in A code and Heine and Kuteva have in mind the emergence of new categories. The degree of copying should be considered as well; this is a question that has received little if any attention. If a category is easily copied/replicated, does this refer to the new grammatical meaning expressed with the resources of the basic code or to the new function marker as well? In other words, we should ask not only what is likely to be copied but also whether there is any correlation between the degree of copying and characteristics of linguistic items and categories. In what follows, I will reconsider traditional hierarchies of “borrowability”. The order of copying (cf. traditional claims that lexicon is copied first and that “structural borrowing” in language maintenance cannot be independent but is mediated by borrowed lexical items) will be dealt with in Chapter 4. As argued earlier (Chapter 1), I agree that anything can be copied but the question is what kind of linguistic items are likely to be copied globally, selectively, or yield mixed copies.

3.4 3.4.1

Borrowability and copiability

Borrowability hierarchies

The problems of borrowability have received significant scholarly attention from various research perspectives: historical linguistics, contact linguistics, typology, areal linguistics, and so on. Several borrowing hierarchies have been proposed by a number of scholars (Field 2002; Haugen 1950; Van Hout and

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Muysken 1994; Weinreich 1953 to name just few). Despite attempts to move away from allegedly universal claims to probabilistic claims based on structural characteristics of particular languages in contact (i.e., Field 2002), few borrowability scales emphasize the primary importance of sociolinguistic factors (Thomason 2001; Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991). Structural aspects that most frequently serve as the basis of various borrowability hierarchies are as follows: open vs. closed classes, concrete meaning vs. abstract meaning, free vs. bound item, peripheral vs. core grammar, content words vs. functional words, and so on. Hierarchies in question deal with the case of adoption (language change + language maintenance situation).18 According to Curnow (2001: 417), three main types of hierarchies have been developed. Haugen (1950) considers only lexical items, while Ross (1988: 12) suggests that members of “open set” are more easily borrowed (see discussion in Curnow 2001: 417–419). The type of hierarchy proposed by Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) is different because borrowing is claimed to be dependent on social factors, such as the type of contact situation, intensity of contacts, and the speakers’ attitudes. Haugen (1950: 224) suggests the following hierarchy, based on data from American Norwegian and American Swedish: (22)

nouns < verbs < adjectives < adverbs, prepositions, interjections

Compared to Haugen (1950), Singh (1981, cited in Van Hout and Muysken 1994: 41 and Field 2002: 35) places verbs after adjectives, while nouns remain among the most borrowable items: (23)

nouns < adjectives < verbs < prepositions

The hierarchy presented in (23) belongs to the same type as proposed by Haugen (1950). Field (2002: 38) summarizes the hierarchies of lexical items and grammatical items and suggests his own hierarchy where the degree of autonomy is a decisive factor. (24)

content item < functional word < agglutinating affix < fusional affix

As (24) is similar to grammaticalization cline, Field (2002) assumes a connection between the latter and borrowability. Compared to previous studies, Field (2002) argues that the borrowability scale is always relative, depending on the structures of the languages in contact. According to his Principle of System Compatibility, “any form or form-meaning set is borrowable from a donor language if it conforms to the morphological possibilities of the recipient language with regard to morphological structure” (Field 2002: 41).

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A different point of view is advocated by Curnow (2001: 419 ff.), who suggests that even if we admit that there are tendencies rather than strict constraints, a wide range of factors is an impediment to the developments of constraints or hierarchies. While constraints to borrowing may be developed in particular contact situation, it is hardly possible to elaborate a borrowability hierarchy that is universally valid. The obstacles for developing a universal hierarchy are various: social, political, and cultural contexts, borrowing vs. substratum influence, multiple causation, and some others. He even argues that attempts to develop such a hierarchy are futile and “should perhaps be abandoned” (Curnow 2001: 434). His position is similar to that of Campbell (1993) and Thomason (1997, 2001). Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) propose a borrowing scale that differs from the borrowability hierarchies in the sense that it is more elaborated and tries to establish a correlation between the subsystems of language affected and sociolinguistic factors such as duration and intensiveness of contact, the spread of bilingualism, the degree of cultural pressure, and so on. However, it should be noted that contact situations where the speakers try to avoid foreign lexicon provide good examples where borrowing hierarchies are effectively outweighed by social and cultural factors (Thomason 2000 on Montana Salish; De Smit 2006: 26 and references therein on the Finnish language reform of the nineteenth century). A notable fact is that verbs usually never precede nouns in these hierarchies, that is, it is considered less borrowable. This is explained by the fact that nouns have a more specific meaning and require less morphosyntactic integration than verbs. Thus, verbs tend to have more “structure” than nouns (recall criteria of attractiveness in Section 3.3). In some cases, highly synthetic (and incorporating) verbal morphology may inhibit the borrowing of verbal stems (Bakker 1994: 21; Field 2002: 36). As Curnow (2001: 416) claims, the seemingly simple statement that verbs are not easily borrowed can be interpreted in several ways. Is it difficult to borrow a verb because it is highly “structured” in the original language, because it will end up in a highly inflected word class, or due to lexical-semantic considerations (abstract meaning)? Probably because of its low position in borrowing hierarchies, loan verbs have remained relatively unexplored. Wichmann and Wohlgemut (in press) call for a systematic investigation of loan verbs and, drawing on various studies on different contact situations, propose a verb borrowing typology. The lexical borrowing of verbs (either stems or stems together with derivational and grammatical affixes) is understood as the primary aim of their study. Wichmann and Wohlgemut (in press) make use of Muysken (2000, Chapter 7), but their typology is more detailed. They distinguish between four major types: the light verb strategy, indirect insertion, direct insertion, and paradigm transfer. In Muysken’s (2000) classification, the first type is divided into three subtypes, the second and the third are considered as one, and the fourth is ignored.

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The light verb strategy involves a verb with the meaning “to do,” “to make,” and so on. The light verb enables the grammatical accommodation of the copied verb, for instance, in the Turkish example yapmak “to do,” etmek “to make, to do.” Johanson (1993: 207, 209) refers to instances of this strategy in the Turkish of Germany anmelden yap- “to register” (< German anmelden “id.”) and in Soviet Uzbek ocˇirit’ zaynyat qil- “to hold the place in a queue” (< Russian zanjat’ ocˇered’ “id.”). Indirect insertion refers to the addition of verbal suffixes to the copied stem. This is a necessary prerequisite to the application of normal inflectional patters, for instance, Finnish –oi- in the internationalism maksim-oi-da (stem-SUFINF) “to maximize.” Direct insertion is understood as a process whereby the verb is inserted directly without affixes, as in local Russian maksa-t’ (pay-INF) “to pay” from the Estonian stem maksa- “pay.”19 The fourth type, paradigm transfer, is considered rare. Inflectional morphology is “borrowed” along with the stem and maintains its functions. The type occurs to be difficult to distinguish from “occasional word-level code-switching” (Wichmann and Wohlgemut, in press). Indeed, the verbal stem with its inflectional morphology may appear as part of a constituent which is globally copied or as a one-word global copy that is not analyzed, like in (25) where one female student informs her friend: (25) po-š-l-a domoj PREF-go-PAST-FEM home “I am going home to sleep”

maga-ma sleep-INF (Tallinn University, autumn 2006)

The occurrence of the Estonian verbal stem together with the infinitive marker, as in (26), does not imply, of course, that the infinitive marker or even the whole set of verbal affixes and markers have been conventionalized. Finally, Wichmann and Wohlgemut (in press) propose the following hierarchy of what they call “loan verb integration” to be tested in future research: (26) light verb strategy < indirect insertion < direct insertion A1. Speaking of chronology, I have encountered copying of analytic verbs later than compound nouns. The zero point is the beginning of the 1990s; it is safe to claim that copying of compound nouns was usual at latest in the late 1990s (I do not have systematic data from an earlier period of the contact situation),

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whereas the first cases of analytic verbs copying appear in my data in 2004–2005. Chronologically, copies of Estonian discourse-pragmatic words appear slightly before the copies of analytic verbs or roughly at the same time. However, it will be shown in Section 4.5 that there are two sociolinguistically different sets of speakers who copy Estonian discourse-pragmatic words into their Russian and, probably, there is some difference in the chronology of the appearance of Estonian discourse-pragmatic markers in their speech. It will be demonstrated that discourse-pragmatic words are subject to selective copying as well.

4.1

Copying in Estonia’s Russian: A general overview

Speaking in very general terms, copying from Estonian has affected lexicon (including discourse-pragmatic words), semantics, and non-core morphosyntax (combinability properties such as changes in collocations, government, word order). Usually the starting point for the description of the impact of B on A is the characterization of CILC in different subsystems of language A (lexicon, morphosyntax, and so on); however, it is possible to choose another point of departure, namely, the degree of copying. Quite predictably, global copying appears in non-basic vocabulary (mostly nouns and more seldom adjectives). As pointed out earlier in Chapter 3, semantic specificity accounts for occasional global copying of verbs. Lower numerals, which are typically viewed as belonging to the basic vocabulary, are often globally copied in contexts where they are semantically specific (prices and quantities in the marketplace). Global copying of pragmatic markers will be discussed in Section 4.5. Bound function markers are frequently globally copied together with the stem (see examples in Chapter 3). However, in deliberate manipulations, bound function markers appear as single B morphemes in otherwise A-coded utterances, as in (1a), taken from Ozernova (2005: 18). The following is a humorous interaction between students: (1a)

po-š-l-i kuri-t’-ta-ma PREF-go-PAST-PL smoke-INF-TRANS-INF “let’s go to smoke” (Tallinn University, spring 2005)

Compare to monolingual Russian in (1b) and Estonian in (1c): (1b)

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monolingual Russian po-š-l-i kuri-t’ PREF-go-PAST-PL smoke-INF “id.”

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(1c)

Estonian läh-me go-2 PL “id.”

suitse-ta-ma smoke-TRANS-INF

Copying of bound function markers as presented in (1a) does not occur frequently or regularly in the data but deserves attention. As this is an instance of language play and deliberate manipulation, I assume that such copying requires a profound knowledge of the model code’s morphosyntax. Compound nouns (to be discussed in Section 4.3), as well as fixed expressions may be globally copied, although this may vary for several reasons, one of them being that the more items a collocation or construction contains, the more possibilities there are for variation. Lack of a conventionalized translation equivalence or untranslatability (from a monolingual point of view) may favor global (or mixed) copying of fixed expressions. Nevertheless, untranslatability per se is not an obstacle for selective copying (Chapter 3, Section 3.2.6 and examples therein). A fixed expression may be globally copied when the copy occurs for the first time, but when the speaker wishes to speak monolingual Russian (e.g., as a host in Russian-language TV show), s/he is more likely to choose selective copying. The absence of global copies creates the illusion that the speaker is using “plain Russian.” Selective copying of a fixed expression (in fact, word for word translation of the collocation) may immediately follow the global copy of that expression, as in (2). The choice of the global copy in this instance is explicable by a different referential meaning of the Estonian expression: (2)

Plats puhta-ks, kak govorj-at éstonc-y, mesto ocˇisti-t’ place clean-TRANSL as speak-3PL Estonian-PL place clean-INF “to clean up the place, as Estonians say, to clean up the place” (Estonian TV, 07.05.2001, Pressklub/Pressiklubi)

In Russian, ocˇistit’ mesto “to clean up the place” is a collocation that does not have the same connotation and referential meaning as it has in Estonian. In Estonian, plats puhtaks “(to make) the place clean” was a slogan originating from the political party Isamaa (Pro Patria) in the 1992 elections. The slogan implied that the Soviet-time functionaries and their politics would have to leave. The bilingual speaker in (2) did not refer to the political connotation as such, but rather to the common knowledge exemplified by this Estonian expression. Typically, material copying is expectable in common or nearly common internationalisms (bilingual homophones, Clyne 2003: 164–165). Mostly, it concerns stress, that is Estonian-like [lóto] “lottery” < Estonian loto “id.” instead of monolingual Russian [lotó], or [kónspekt] “lecture notes” < Estonian konspekt “id.,” cf. Russian [konspékt].1 Global copies may preserve Estonian vowel

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quality and quantity to a different extent; in this way compromise forms may emerge. Thus, the Estonian word jaanipäev “St. John’s day, midsummer day” can be completely adjusted to the rules of Russian pronunciation and sound as [jcnip’áiv], that is, with the shortened and reduced vowel in the first syllable, one stress and combination of a palatalized consonant and a vowel instead of a front vowel following a non-palatalized consonant. There is a continuum between this and completely Estonian-like realizations, for instance, [ jaanip’áiv], [ jaanip’áev], and so on. In frequent conversations between young proficient bilingual students and myself, the students have expressed the opinion that Estonian intonation has affected the intonation of Russian-language TV news. This impression has to be proved or disproved by a special study; the hypothesis itself seems plausible because newsreaders and reporters are more or less proficient bilinguals. Semantic copying occurs mainly in verbs and, to a smaller extent, in adjectives, seldom in nouns. Frequently used Estonian verbs with a wide range of meanings such as käima “to walk,” “to attend,” panema “to place,” “to put,” saama “to get, to receive,” tegema “to do, to make,” “to pass (an exam),” tulema “to come,” võtma “to take” are primary candidates for semantic copying. This type of copying, as exemplified in (3a), occurs frequently both in oral and written speech and often remains unnoticed to the speaker. Estonian panema “to put” has a wide range of meanings, from concrete to abstract, while the primary meaning of Russian verb postavit is “to put (vertically).” This is but one example which also illustrates differences between Estonia’s Russian that qualifies as an Alpha-lect and monolingual Russian of Russia. In (3a), a young female, a proficient bilingual salesperson, says to the client about adding vanilla sauce to a piece of pie: (3a) ja uže sous po-stavi-l-a I already sauce PREF-put-PAST-FEM “I already added the sauce” (Tallinn, 05.01.2007, a coffee shop in Viru Keskus) The client, a young tourist from Russia, was amazed and silently looked at the speaker. The latter commented that this is how the meaning is rendered in Estonian. The client explained that he was from Russia and this is not how they speak there. In Standard Russian, a possible equivalent would have a more narrow concrete meaning as in (3b): (3b)

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monolingual Russian ja uže sous I already sauce “id.”

na-li-l-a PREF-pour-PAST-FEM

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The verb in the example (3a) is a semantic copy of Estonian panema “to put,” “to place,” as in (3c): (3c)

pan-i-n put-IMPF-1 SG “id.”

juba already

kaste-t sauce-PART

The case of (3a) may be considered as purely semantic copying, that is, the extension of meaning on the model of the Estonian equivalent, but there are cases where semantic and combinational copying are inseparable, as in copies of Estonian compound nouns and analytic verbs. The basic code ends up with a new collocation, whose entire meaning is not the sum of the components’ meanings but itself is a copy. This is also true of fixed expressions, including pragmatic formulas, such as the self-introduction of the caller at the beginning of a phone conversation in (4a): (4a)

zdes’ X here X “X is speaking”

Compare to monolingual Russian in (4b) and Estonian in (4c): (4b)

(4c)

monolingual Russian éto (govor-it) this (speak-3 SG) “id.”

X X

Estonian siin X here X “id.”

Combinational copying manifests itself in the change of government patterns in the basic code, for instance, the choice of directional and separational cases instead of static ones: unlike in Russian, in Estonian you leave the keys “onto” the table (directional), rather than “on” the table, and you find the notebook “from” your bag (separational), not “in” your bag (see details in Verschik 2006). Even some monolingual or linguistically aware bilingual speakers often are not able to detect a new meaning that has emerged as the result of semantic copying, whereas the government that is explicitly at odds with the rules of the monolingual grammar is easier to spot. Nevertheless, there is evidence of acceptance among some Russian-speakers of copied government rules in this type of verbs (Verschik 2006).

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As mentioned earlier in Chapter 3, example (7a), in certain function words semantic copying goes hand-in-hand with the copying of grammatical meaning (contact-induced grammaticalization). On the model of Estonian, question words assume the role of the relative clause marker. Mixed copying occurs in fixed expressions, compound nouns, and analytic constructions. If an analytic verb is a mixed copy, the globally copied item is the modifier, as in example (8a), Chapter 3 (pähe ucˇila “learned by heart” < õppisin pähe “id.”). Semantically specific Estonian nouns such as toponyms, names of firms and companies, brands, and so on are copied together with their combinability properties (word order), as Pae gimnazija “Pae gymnasium” < Pae gümnaasium “id.” (Chapter 3, example (20a)). A general overview of subsystems of the Russian language affected by copying and of different degrees of copying are presented in Table 4.1: Table 4.1 Copying E2 > R1: degree of copying and subsystems affected by copying Degree of copying

Items and structures copied from Estonian into Russian

Global

non-basic nouns discourse-pragmatic words compound nouns semantically specific verbs (less frequently than nouns) idioms and fixed expressions stem + function marker bound function markers (in deliberate manipulations)

Selective

Material: intonation; shape of similar internationalisms: stress, quality, and quantity of Estonian vowels Semantic: mostly verbs, more seldom adjectives and nouns Semantic + combinational: constructions (compound nouns, analytic verbs, fixed expressions, certain discourse-pragmatic words, pragmatic formulas) Combinational: government (e.g., separative and directional government in verbs vs. Russian static government) Grammatical meaning: question word = relative clause marker

Mixed

analytic verbs (particles globally copied) constructions, idioms, fixed expressions compound nouns semantically specific nouns + word order in NP

As can be observed in Table 4.1, compound nouns are subject to all types of copying and analytic verbs yield mixed and selective copies. The impact of Estonian has affected lexicon, semantics, pragmatics, and non-core morphosyntax. The following Section 4.2 deals with a possible chronology of copying

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and seeks to place the present case into a general scale of contact-induced change.

4.2

Chronology of copying and Wertheim’s three-stage model

It is assumed that there is a connection between borrowing scales and the chronology of borrowing. Based on empirical evidence from numerous studies, there is a consensus that non-basic lexicon is borrowed first and all other types of borrowing appear only after some non-basic lexical items have been borrowed (Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991). However, the question whether so-called “structural borrowing” (selective copying) may be independent from “lexical borrowing” is answered differently by different researchers. For instance, Winford (2005: 387) believes that “structural borrowing” (selective copying) cannot occur independently of “lexical borrowing” except in situations of profound and long-established bilingualism. Similar views that structure can be affected only as a consequence of lexical borrowing have been expressed elsewhere in the literature (King 2000: 82–83). Indeed, global copies are crucial for the copying of material properties, that is, new combinations of sounds, new allophones, tones, and so on appear first in global copies. In addition, if syntax and lexicon are considered as extremes on a continuum (as it follows from grammaticalization theory), then it would be artificial to create a clear boundary between the two.2 Analyzing the case of Prince Edward Island French as presented by King (2000), Winford (2005: 393) explains the structural impact of English on the local variety of French not as the result of the adoption of English features by the speakers of French, but rather as an imposition of English structural features onto local French by speakers of English as L1. This may be a reasonable explanation for that particular linguistic situation: a variety of A2 spoken by the native speakers of B1 can play a certain role in spreading and conventionalization of copies (Verschik 2007b). Although global and mixed copying may indeed be an intermediate step toward selective copying (see Backus 2005; Johanson 2002c: 19 on mixed copies that contain function markers), the argument presented by Winford (2005) in this form appears too extreme and too categorical. Winford (2005), following Van Coetsem (1988), defines dominance in terms of proficiency and not in the terms of power and prestige of a particular language, as Johanson does. But most probably, sociolinguistic domination should be kept in mind for the reason that copying from the language associated with power and functioning in prestigious domains (strong code in Johanson’s terms) is highly expected. Quoting Van Coetsem (1988: 87), Winford (2005: 394) states that the greater proficiency in both languages a speaker has, the fuzzier the borderline between imposition and “borrowing” is. Otherwise, he maintains, the direct impact of L1 on the structure of L2 is unlikely. Still, it remains unclear what exactly the

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degree of proficiency in both languages should be to enable “direct structural borrowing.” It is fairly difficult (if not impossible) to prove this claim and I fail to see why “direct structural borrowing” cannot occur in adoption. Instead, I would rather say that global copying in adoption B2 > A1 has an impact on the structure of A1; however, not every instance of contact-induced changes in the structure of A1 is necessarily due to global copying from B2 (see counter-arguments to King 2000 and Winford 2003, 2005 summarized in De Smit 2006: 24–26). From Winford (2005) it is not clear whether semantic copying should be classified under structural impact. Johanson (2002c: 40) suggests that semantic copying appears at a relatively early stage in contact situations. As argued earlier, semantic copying may have an impact on structure as well (recall question words in the role of relative pronouns). As far as the combinational and semantic properties of linguistic items are concerned, evidence from Estonia’s Russian implies that, although “borrowing” of lexical items chronologically precedes “structural borrowing,” the latter is not necessarily mediated by the former. For example, copying of combinability rules (verbal government, collocations) occurs in speakers of Russian as L1 who communicate with Estonians, the latter having no proficiency in Russian (e.g., at Tallinn University and other educational and public institutions). Such Russian-speakers are not exposed or are minimally exposed to varieties of Russian spoken by Estonians (i.e., to imposition E1 > R2) simply because they are confident enough in their Estonian and insist on using the language with Estonians.3 In their speech, selective copying from Estonian into Russian occurs in contexts where no Estonian lexical items are present. In addition to this, there exists one more pathway for the spread of selective copying B2 > A1 without the mediation of global copying. More often than not, studies on CILC deal with oral communication. Nevertheless, written communication and the production of non-monolingual written texts should be included in the scope of research as well, especially in societies where both speech communities are highly literate and both varieties have an established literary tradition, as it is in the case of Russian and Estonian. Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991: 78–80) mention translations from the prestigious languages of religious texts into vernaculars as a possible pathway for structural influence. It may be said that translation is selective copying par excellence. The impact occurs through the written medium without “actual oral bilingualism” (Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991: 78). It is logical that the global copying of lexical items (unless these are culture-specific words from B lacking in A) would hardly occur in translations, whereas the copying of morphosyntax and semantics is highly probable. Cases like these are described in the contact linguistics literature, see for instance Wexler (1987: 8, 99–113) on morph-for-morph translation of eight books of Bible from Hebrew into a variety of East Slavic (so-called Codex 262).

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Most probably, selective copying brought about by translation is not limited to the situations listed by Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) or Wexler (1987), where the model code has a distinguished literary tradition and prestige and the basic code has not. For instance, public information, websites, press digests, information sheets, advertisements, and many other types of non-fiction text are created first in Estonian and then translated into Russian, and numerous Russian-language texts are thus secondary in their nature. This is one of the pathways for selective copying (mostly semantic and combinational) to occur and even to become habitualized. The bilingualization of Russian-speakers started in early 1990s and is rapidly progressing. Bilingualism is therefore increasing both intensively (the degree of proficiency in Estonian) and extensively (the number of absolute monolinguals is dropping). Are then 10 or 15 years a long or a short period for a contact situation to develop? If it is assumed that 15 years is a relatively short period for contact duration, then it may be claimed that, in addition to global and semantic copying, some types of combinational copying, such as the copying of argument structure, word order, collocations, analytic constructions, all of which are often at odds with monolingual Russian grammar, appear at a relatively early stage of contacts. Probably, it is extremely difficult to unambiguously establish the chronology of copying even within such a short period of time, because changes are likely to affect several subsystems of language simultaneously and because translation necessary for certain types of discourse (like bilingual advertising, subtitles, etc.) elicits selective copying. In addition to this, each speech community has speakers with different sociolinguistic profiles, preferences, wishes, and abilities to use their L2, and with different degrees of linguistic awareness. While some Russians have minimal contact with Estonian, others have quickly achieved a high proficiency in the language and spend most of their time in Estonian-language environments, interacting most often with Estonian monolinguals and other bilinguals like themselves. Change in linguistic intuition, as considered in Chapter 3, example (19), is not merely a cognitive process. Croft (in press) shows that cognitive aspects of language are connected with social ones, meaning that cognition is linked to a speaker’s experience. This implies, among other things, that some speakers exhibit earlier and more cognitive “maturity” and susceptibility to selective copying than others. For instance, speakers whose occupation requires highly proficient use of the Estonian language (students majoring in Estonian as a second language, teachers of Estonian in Russian-medium schools, translators, etc.) frequently engage in translating (i.e., selective copying) from Estonian. Such individual’s linguistic intuition is likely to have changed. For instance, in an earlier study of mine (Verschik 2006), teachers of Estonian as L2 demonstrated the highest acceptance of a certain type of selective copying in VPs. We cannot yet draw conclusions concerning habitualization and conventionalization of all copied items/patterns, but the present sociolinguistic situation favors further bilingualization among the Russian speaking community. Taking into

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consideration the general idea that some language items/patterns tend to be copied before others, it would be methodologically useful to view the present contact situation in terms of general CILC chronology/borrowability scales to be able to revisit it later and to draw conclusions concerning the speed and characters of change. For that purpose, I will view my data within the scales elaborated by Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) and the model proposed by Wertheim (2003). In my data, no bound function markers are globally copied separately from stems (except for clearly intentional reasons, as in (1a)). Nevertheless, at present, the contact data exhibit all degrees of copying from Estonian into Russian. In Section 4.1, I mentioned global copying of Estonian discoursepragmatic words. Although they are known to be frequently “borrowed,” usually they are not considered as a diagnostic feature in borrowing scales, even in highly elaborated ones such as Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991). The general idea shared by many is that in adoption (borrowing in language maintenance in the terms of Thomason and Kaufman) content words belonging to non-basic vocabulary are copied first and non-lexical properties are copied later at more advanced stages of bilingualism/intensity of contacts/cultural pressure. However, discourse-pragmatic words are among the most frequently copied, yet some of them may be claimed to belong to the basic vocabulary (e.g., greetings). As proposed by Wertheim (2003: 214 ff.), discourse-pragmatic words should be viewed as a separate word class distinct from content morphemes and system morphemes. Wertheim (2003) modifies the scale by Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) by adding the additional dimension of discourse-pragmatic words. Wertheim (2003: 214) stresses that her model is applicable primarily to languages whose functional domains are contracting, like Tatar in Tatarstan. First, I will present the stages of the model and then I will discuss whether and how the model can be applied to Russian in Estonia. Stage 1 in the terms of Wertheim (2003: 216, 324) roughly corresponds to Stage 1 in Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991): (5) Stage 1: only content words are copied (“borrowed”) into A; neither a great number of bilinguals nor a high proficiency in B is required. In comparison to Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991), Stage 2 is slightly different because discourse-pragmatic words are included as a separate class (Wertheim 2003: 217, 324–325). As discussed in Chapter 3, the importance of the discourse-pragmatic level has been pointed out, implicitly or explicitly and in somewhat different terms, by Johanson (2005) and Matras (2005). (6)

Stage 2: there is a “reasonable” level of proficiency in B and a sufficient number of bilinguals; discourse-pragmatic words are copied (“borrowed”)

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and used for the same functions as in B. Discourse-pragmatic words are associated with “composite morphosyntax.” Although the literature is abundant with convincing case studies, there is no evidence that discourse-pragmatic words are always copied (although it is the case in my data and in another study by Zabrodskaja 2006a). The notion of “composite morphosyntax” is somewhat unclear (recall that the code-copying framework does not use the term). More precisely, it refers to more or less habitualized selective and mixed copying. It is assumed that global copying of discourse-pragmatic words may affect morpohsyntax (e.g., copying of conjunctions into Turkic languages that originally have very few conjunctions, see Johanson 1998: 118; Wertheim 2003: 178) to be able to draw general conclusions concerning the impact that the copying of discourse-pragmatic words may have on morphosyntax, more empirical evidence is needed. As Estonian and Russian morphosyntax do not differ as radically as that of the Turkic languages and Russian, the (expected) impact of Estonian discourse-pragmatics would not lead to a profound frame-changing and restructuring. Stage 3 in Wertheim’s (2003: 217, 326–327) model corresponds to Stages 3, 4, and 5 in Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991). (7)

Stage 3: the proficiency in B and bilingualism is spread among the primary speakers of A even to a greater extent than at the previous stage. Further, more deep impact of B on the structure of A can be observed (copying of grammatical words and structure).

Based on the overview in Section 4.1, it can be assumed that instances of copying from Estonian into Russian more or less correspond to Stage 2 in both classifications (Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991; Wertheim 2003). Now I will turn to the question whether Wertheim’s model is applicable to the present case and to what degree it is universal. Wertheim (2003: 214) points out that the languages she considers in her study are contracting minority languages. She argues that the “code-mixing” (global copying) of discourse-pragmatic words occurs even in registers that are otherwise free of “code-mixing.” The languages in question have the following characteristics in common: first, they are being lexically and structurally influenced by a sociolinguistically dominant language and have lost at least one prestigious domain to that language; second, some of the languages have speakers that emphasize the preservation of “purity”; third, there must be a segment of population highly competent in the sociolinguistically dominant language (this enables non-lexical impact of B on A); fourth, the population speaking the influenced language may be contracting, that is, undergoing a multigenerational language shift (Wertheim 2003: 214–215).

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In Chapter 2, I stressed the fact that sociolinguistic dominance, prestige, and proficiency in Russian and local indigenous languages are not the same across the post-Soviet space. The first criterion (impact of a sociolinguistically dominant language) is fulfilled because Russian in Estonia is indeed being influenced by Estonian. Although all copied items/properties cannot be argued to have substituted for their native equivalents (or to have become obligatory in certain contexts) and become conventionalized in all segments of the Russian-speaking community, non-monolingual speech and writing is an everyday reality. Copying has affected the structural, semantic, and combinational properties of Russian. The decrease in the number of domains may be a controversial issue. First, what looks in the case of Tatar and other contracting autochthonous languages as a shrinking of domains, can be interpreted not as a loss of domains by Russian but as restoration of Estonian in domains “captured” by Russian during the occupation. Compared to the Soviet era, Estonian has regained the domains of state and municipal administration, the army, navy, aviation, banking, and the police. Second, Russian is the powerful official language of an equally powerful neighbor, the Russian Federation. In this respect, the sociolinguistic situation of Russian is very different from that of Tatar that has no official status outside Tatarstan. In the long run, however, what matters is that in contrast to the sociolinguistic situation of Soviet-occupied Estonia, several important and prestigious domains have become Estonianized and Estonian is the official language, whereas Russian, although widely used in advertising, press, and public sector, is not. As stated in Chapter 2, there is no significant “purity” discourse directed against the impact of Estonian. This is different from endangered or contracting indigenous languages that are turning into minority languages on their own territory, as Tatar is. The third condition, the existence of speakers highly competent in the sociolingustically dominant language, is fulfilled as the number of bilingual Russians is steadily increasing. As far as the fourth criterion, the contracting population of speakers, is concerned, at the moment it appears that language loyalty is high (recall that 98% of Russians claimed Russian as their mother tongue in the census of 2000). Nevertheless, tendencies in secondary education, such as growing preference of Estonian-medium or bilingual schools to monolingual Russian-medium schools, may be symptomatic of undergoing changes. It may be too early to make any sound judgment on the topic of language shift, and it is not clear whether the shift will take place in future and to what extent. The fulfillment of the criteria proposed by Wertheim (2003) in Estonia’s Russian can be summarized in (8) as follows: (8)

a. Structural and lexical impact B2 > A1, coupled with the loss of domains

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b. Existence of “purity discourse” c. Existence of highly proficient bilinguals (A1/B2) d. Contracting population of A1 speakers

_ + ?

Thus, two criteria (8a) and (8c) are fulfilled, while (8b) is not, and (8d) remains unclear. The question whether Wertheim’s model is entirely applicable in this case remains open; on the other hand, the overall picture of copying (Section 4.1) is indeed reminiscent of Stage 2 in Wertheim (2003) and in Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991). The latter describe this stage as “slightly more intense contact: slight structural borrowing” (Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991: 74). Among copied lexical items, there are some function words (conjunctions and various adverbial particles), while structural impact can be found in minor phonological, syntactic and lexical semantic features and in combinability rules. Russian-Estonian contact data suggest that Stage 2 may follow Stage 1 in a relatively short period of time. It is not clear whether a precise chronology of selective and mixed copying can be reconstructed. As the case study of compound nouns will demonstrate, semantic copying may be closely linked to the copying of collocations, that is, combinational copying.

4.3

Compound nouns

The discussion of the compound nouns (hereafter CN) copying is based on an earlier study of mine (Verschik 2004b, 2005a). In the present section, I will present the main findings (patterns of copying) but suggest a slightly different approach, choosing the degree of copying as a starting point and stressing the varying semantic specificity in different patterns. Copies of CN show a considerable degree of habitualization and even conventionalization, thus increasing the difference between Estonia’s Russian and Russia’s Russian. In the earlier study, two monolingual Russian-speakers from Russia were asked to evaluate 60 real utterances (taken from interactions, Russian-language TV news and talk-shows, advertisements, subtitles etc.) containing copies of CN, and it became clear that certain type of CN copies sound “strange,” ungrammatical, unconventional, or unintelligible to them. My further observations of communication between Estonian Russians and Russians from Russia have confirmed that copies of CN may be misinterpreted or misunderstood by the latter (see Chapter 3, endnote 11 and example (18a) in the current chapter). Section 4.3 is organized in the following way. First, a brief characterization of Estonian CN will be presented. Then conventional, the Russian equivalents of Estonian CN will be outlined, followed by the description of copying patterns found at present in the local variety of Russian. All patterns will be considered in the light of semantic specificity, degree of copying, productivity, and acceptability/intelligibility to Russian-speakers from Russia.

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Estonian CN N GEN + N NOM and N NOM + N NOM

Compounding is a productive means of derivation in Estonian. Compound Noun in Estonian is divided into two main classes: (1) based on coordination or copulative (e.g., sekretär-masinakirjutaja “secretary-typist”); and (2) based on subordination, or determinative (e.g., kohvitass “coffee cup”). I will focus on the latter group. The modifier section in a determinative CN can be any part of speech (see classification in Erelt et al. 1995: 460–491 and Verschik 2004b for summary in English); however, nouns are considered to be the most frequent modifiers (Erelt et al. 1995: 458). I am interested in CN with modifiers such as N NOM, like vasktoru “copper tube” (vask “copper” + toru “tube”) and N GEN SG, like õppekava “syllabus” (õppe study: GEN “study” + kava “program”). In addition to this, I will consider CN whose modifier is an abbreviation, like in m-makse “payment by mobile phone” (m- < mobiil “mobile phone” + makse “payment”) or a foreign stem that is not used as an autonomous word, like makromajandus “macroeconomics” (makro- “macro” + majandus “economics”). This type is productively copied and close to the N NOM + N NOM type. Compounding as a means of derivation is both productive and economic. However, the semantics of some CN is not transparent, that is, the meaning of CN is not the sum of the components’ meanings. The modifier in the nominative can express shape (tornmaja “high building” < torn “tower” + maja “building”), material (siidkleit “silk dress” < siid “silk” + kleit “dress”), or time (kevadlill “spring flower” < kevad “spring” + lill “flower”). The meaning of a modifier in the genitive may remain opaque as well, and for this reason the meaning of unusual or rare CN may remain unclear without background knowledge, for instance, veeleid (vee GEN “water” + leid “finding”) may be interpreted both as “discovery of water” and “something found in the water.” The function of the same modifier may differ in combinations with different heads. Consider õunamahl “apple juice,” õunauss “apple worm,” and õunaaed “apple-tree garden,” where the modifier in the genitive õuna (NOM õun “apple”) expresses respectively source, place, and quality. If a modifier in the genitive designates an object or possessor, a CN is not much different from a corresponding NP: alusepanija “founder” or aluse panija “id.” (alus “base” > aluse GEN + panija “that who puts or places something”); vennanaine “brother’s wife” or venna naine “id.” (vend “brother” > venna GEN + naine “wife, woman”). If the genitive has a meaning other than as an object or possessor, such a CN is transformable into a NP or a prepositional phrase: siidisall “silk scarf” > siidist sall, literally “scarf from silk” (modifier siidi-st silk-EL). A proper name or a toponym in the genitive can also serve as a modifier, as in (9): (9) võta-Ø Tartu-asja-d kaasa take-IMP Tartu-thing-NOM PL with “take the things that you have brought from Tartu” or: “take the things that you will need in Tartu”

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As (9) demonstrates, the exact meaning of the CN remains unclear without an extra-linguistic knowledge. Proper names and toponyms as modifiers are highly semantically specific, which is relevant for global copying, as it will be discussed in Section 4.3.3. Compared to (monolingual) Russian, there are important distinctive features. First, compounding is not at all as productive in Russian. According to the analysis of non-fiction texts (Päll, Totsel, Tukumtsev 1962: 81 ff.), in Estonian, CN constitute up to 60% of all autonomous words, while in Russian it is only 4 to 6%. In fiction texts, the figure for Russian is even lower. Second, the components of Estonian CN are rather autonomous (Päll, Totsel, Tukumtsev 1962: 81 ff.). If two CNs have one common component (either a modifier or a head), it is enough for this component to be mentioned once, as in (10c): (10a) vask-toru copper-tube (10b) raud-toru iron-tube (10c) vaskja raud-toru copper and iron-tube “copper (tube) and iron tube” In Russian, only foreign components of CN of the type makro- “macro,” bio“biological,” radio- “radio,” and so on exhibit the same kind of autonomy: tele- i radioprogrammy “TV and radio broadcastings” is possible but not *samo- i vertoljot “plane and helicopter”< samoljot “plane” (sam “self” + infix –o- + ljot “to fly” (stem)) + vertoljot “helicopter” (vert- “to spin” (stem) + infix –o- + ljot “to fly” (stem)).

4.3.2

Conventional Russian equivalents of Estonian CN

To date, only two studies have dealt with Estonian CN and their Russian equivalents. The first one is a section in the classical textbook of Estonian-Russian contrastive grammar by Päll, Totsel and Tukumtsev (1962), where some space is dedicated to derivation. The second one is Leemets (1982), carried out in the tradition of contrastive analysis and with implications for bilingual lexicography. Of course, both studies describe standard varieties and established conventions. Of the two studies, Leemets (1982) is more systematic and detailed. According to her, the main types of Russian equivalents of Estonian CN (N NOM + N NOM and N GEN + N NOM) are as follows (Leemets 1982: 9): attributive constructions ADJ + N, non-transformable into constructions N NOM + N GEN (in Russian, the modifier in genitive follows the head); constructions N NOM + N GEN, non-transformable into attributive constructions;

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prepositional phrases that express goal, cause, source; attributive constructions transformable into prepositional phrases/constructions N NOM + N GEN. These options are respectively represented in (11a) through (11d): (11a) non-transformable attributive constructions Estonian suve-maja “summer cottage” summer: GEN-house Russian let-n-ij dom-ik summer-SUF-MASC NOM house-DIM *dom-ik let-a house-DIM summer-GEN

“id.”

(11b) non-transformable N NOM + N GEN Estonian saate-kava “broadcast program” broadkast: GEN-progarm Russian progamma peredacˇ-Ø “id.” program broadcast-GEN PL * peredacˇ-n-aja programma broadcast-SUF-FEM NOM program (11c) prepositional phrase Estonian male-mäng “game of chess” chess: GEN-play Russian igra v šaxmat-y “id.” play in chess-ACC PL (11d) transformable constructions Estonian porgand-i-mahl “carrot juice” carrot-GEN-juice Russian morkov-n-yj sok ~ sok iz carrot-SUF-MASC NOM juice juice from

mokov-i “id.” carrot-GEN

According to Leemets (1982), other types of Russian equivalents (compounds, nouns with suffix derivation, nouns equal to root morpheme) are marginal in comparison to the aforementioned types. Thus, most frequently, Russian equivalents of Estonian CN are constructions. What is important here is that not all cases of transformability/non-transformability are clear-cut. Consider nontransformable attributive constructions, as in (11b). The non-transformability is more based on convention than on the fact that an adjective cannot in principle be formed from the noun peredacˇa “broadcast.” Leemets (1982: 10) acknowledges the fact that constructions expressing goal, purpose, or material, as in (11d), are usually mutually transformable but the rule is not universal and its applicability is not one hundred percent predictable. In other words, (monolingual) Russian equivalents of Estonian CN are frequently dependent

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on conventions. However, in the case of shift from complete monolingualism, different sociolinguistic factors, such as change in sociolinguistic dominance, growing proficiency in the sociolinguistically dominant language, and emergent bilingual speech may contribute to the reshaping of the existing conventions and the creation of new ones. It is also important that numerous concepts and objects designated by CN in Estonian appeared after 1991, for instance, mobiiltelefon “mobile phone,” maksuamet “inland revenue office,” käibemaks “turnover tax,” ainepunkt “credit point (in university subjects),” and many others. The influx of new concepts and realities has been taking place since the late 1980s in Russia as well; however, to the best of my knowledge, there are no forces in Estonian society that are concerned with the local Russian-language corpus-planning and would try to impose equivalents and terms from Russia’s Russian or to create “official” Russian equivalents for terms that are specific to Estonia. Young bilingual speakers often emphasize that they live in a reality different from that of Russia and therefore are not in need of “appropriate” equivalents.

4.3.3

Patterns of copying

As shown in Table 4.1, Estonian CN are subject to various degrees of copying. The overall sociolinguistic situation favors copying and bilingual speech; in addition to that, certain structural factors are relevant for the copying of CN. It will be shown that copies of certain CN, mainly those containing similar internationalisms, instead belong to a continuum between global and mixed copying, depending on their realization (i.e., copying of material properties). As expected, common internationalisms are attractive and, in the words of Clyne (2003), facilitate copying, even if only one component of a given CN is an internationalism and the other is an Estonian stem non-intelligible to monolingual speakers. The analyticity tendency in modern Russian, mentioned by several scholars (Comrie, Stone and Polinsky 1996; Kostomarov 1996; Zemskaja 1996), namely, the increase in the number of indeclinable nouns and adjectives, facilitates some patterns of mixed copying. Each pattern will be analyzed and discussed below. Global copying. As stated earlier, global copying is likely to happen when the copied item is semantically specific. When both components of a CN come from Estonian (i.e., these are not recognizable common internationalisms), the CN is copied as a whole, as exemplified in (12a and b): (12a) ostu-keskus “shopping center” > ostukeskus “id.” buying: GEN-centre cf. monolingual Russian torg-ov-yj centr trade-SUF-MASC NOM center

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(12b) käibe-maks “turnover tax” > kjaibemaks “id.” turnover: GEN-tax cf. monolingual Russian nalog s oborot-a tax from turnover-GEN In (12a) and (12b), Estonian CN designate semantically specific concepts. The examples show that semantic specificity is relative and not constant in all sociolinguistic situations: these very terms are not specific per se (especially ostukeskus “shopping center”). Economics terms (like e.g., käibemaks “turnover tax”) entered everyday life only after the socioeconomic circumstances had changed and Soviet planned economy disappeared, so that financial and economic issues became relevant for laypeople. This coincided with the independence of the Estonian Republic and the restoration of Estonian in the domains of banking and trade. It is most likely that Russian-speakers get their first experience in this sphere of life in Estonian. Probably, the reasons for the global copying of CN are not much different from the global copying of any other lexical items. Apparently, one deals here with the individual copying of particular items and not with the copying of a pattern. Compared to monolingual Russian equivalents, the formation of Estonian CN is economic, especially in (12b) where Russian has a prepositional phrase. Of course, as any overt use of foreign lexical items, global copies of CN are unintelligible to monolingual Russians from Russia. This type includes also CN where both components are internationalisms: the modifier is in its Estonian shape (and often in genitive) while the head is almost identical in the two languages (Estonian info “information,” which is an abridged form of informatsioon “information,” and Russian informacija “id.”), as in (12c): (12c) info-punkt “information center” > information: GEN-point

infopunkt “id.”

It is not easy to find a “correct” monolingual Russian equivalent conveying the same meaning (Fedorova 2007: p.c.). A possible equivalent is based on different principles: (12d)

N NOM + N GEN okno informaci-i “id.” window information-GEN

Mixed/global copying. The following pattern (13a) and (13b) fits into the continuum between mixed and global copying. Either one or both components of a CN are internationalisms similar or almost identical to the forms in

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both languages. In (13a) and (13b), only the head is internationalism, while the modifier is not: (13a) haige-kassa “medical insurance fund” > xajgekassa “id.” sick-cashier An unambiguous monolingual Russian equivalent to (13a) is probably lacking because the system of medical insurance in Russia differs from that in Estonia (Fedorova 2007: p.c.). The speakers are aware of common internationalisms which help to set equivalence and facilitate copying despite the fact that an Estonian lexical item functions as a modifier. Copying of such CN is productive not only due to the common internationalisms functioning as bilingual homophones (Clyne 2003: 164–165), but also for the reasons of derivational transparency and derivational economy, which is true in the cases of globally copied CN as well. For instance, Estonian välis-minister (outer + minister) “foreign minister” is shorter than the Russian conventional equivalent ministr inostrannyx del “id.” (literally, “minister of foreign affairs”). Probably, an average Russian-speaker would know the monolingual equivalent for välisminister, for it is hardly a semantically specific term. However, other CN of this type, belonging to a more advanced terminology in technology, finances, banking, administration, education and so on, may indeed be semantically specific. Consider (13b) where the following two copied items, xoneregistr < Estonian hooneregister “building register” and kinisturegistr < kinnisturegister “land register” are smoothly incorporated into the speech of a TV host who comments on transactions with real estate: (13b) Ne razdelen ni po xone-registr-u, ni po not divided not according building-register-DAT not according kinistu-registr-u land-register-DAT “not divided either according to the building register or to the land register” (05.12.2001, Estonian TV, Teadmiseks/K svedeniju “For your knowledge”) The common internationalism Estonian register/Russian registr can be easily accommodated (integrated) into the Russian morphosyntactic frame (hence the dative marker). Both copied items are highly semantically specific, not only because the items are special terms, but apparently also because the laws regulating real estate and land ownership differ from country to country. Thus, the speaker may be completely unaware of the monolingual Russian equivalents (not that this hinders communication). Copies of CN of the type presented in (13a) and (13b) are unintelligible to monolingual Russian-speakers from Russia.

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Depending on the pronunciation (i.e., degree of material copying), items belonging to this pattern may be either closer to global copies or to mixed copies. Very often, the realization of the head (internationalism) is a compromise between two monolingual norms. In spring 2004, I witnessed a dialog between two young people in a bank. The client, a young Russian-speaking male was asking for some information from a bank employee, an Estonianspeaking woman. They were speaking partly in Russian, partly in Estonian. Needless to say, during the interaction, all banking terms (semantically specific items) occurred in Estonian. Unfortunately, it was not possible to record the dialog; however, one feature was striking, namely, variation in the realization of the Estonian CN viitenumber “reference number” (reference: GEN + number). At first, the client (a speaker of Russian as L1) went for viitenomer “id.,” cf. Russian nomer “number.” The Estonian-speaking employee used the Estonian version viitenumber, cf. Estonian number “number.” After having mentioned the item several time in each utterance, a compromise form emerged: viitenumer. Mixed copying. Mixed copying occurs in the following three patterns: (1) the modifier is a common internationalism in its Estonian version as in lotomagazin “lottery shop” < Estonian loto-pood “id.” who (e.g., the stress is on the first syllable (lóto “lottery” vs. Russian lotó “id.”)); in Russian, the internationalism belongs to the class of indeclinable nouns; (2) the modifier is an Estonian proper noun, toponym, or name of a brand, like in Meieri tvorog “curd manufactured by the company called Meieri” < Estonian Meieri kohupiim “id.”; (3) the modifier is an international or Estonian abbreviation, as in e-pravitel’stvo “egovernment” < Estonian e-valitsus “id.” In the first pattern, the modifier is an internationalism indeclinable in Russian. The increasing number of indeclinable nouns is a manifestation of growing analyticity in modern Russian. The modifier belongs either to the class of indeclinable nouns (of foreign origin) such as kofe “coffee,” lobbi “lobby” or to so-called analytic adjectives. The latter term was proposed by Panov (1968, v. 3: 120) for two categories of items: (1) international and foreign stems that are not used as autonomous words but only as components in compounds (e.g., avto- “auto,” bio- “bio,” geo- “geo,” stereo- “stereo”); and (2) abridged stems of Russian adjectives that participate in so-called stump-compounds (of the type gosplan “state plan” < gosudarstvennyj plan), like gor- < gorodskoj “municipal,” gos- < gosudarstvennyj “of state,” sov- < sovetskij “soviet,” and some others (see also Zemskaja 1992: 59). Similarly, Comrie, Stone and Polinsky (1996: 309) point out the productivity of what they call hyphenated compounds (type of kreslo-krovat´ “sleeper sofa,” literally “armchair-bed”). During the last decade of the twentieth century, the class of analytic adjectives has considerably expanded, especially in light of the massive copying of terminology from English (see Kitajgorodskaja 1996 on economics terminology). Thus, modern Russian is experiencing an influx of

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words like biznes-plan “business plan,” tajm-cˇarter “time charter,” internet-sajt “internet site” under the impact of English. Kitajgorodskaja (1996: 193) even considers biznes- “business” as belonging to the class of analytic adjectives (although biznes is a long-established copy from English and is declinable when used as an autonomous word). Analytic adjectives are combinable with Russian stems, for instance, internet-stranica “internet site” (internet + page).4 In this respect, the principles of English and of Estonian compounding do not differ. For instance, English business-plan and Estonian äriplaan “business plan” (äri “business, trade” + plaan “plan”) are based on the same model. Probably, cases of copying like (14) have a multiple causation: overall increase in analyticity and wide use of analytic adjectives (also of English origin) on the one hand and, on the other hand, exposure to Estonian where compounding is a productive means of derivation. (14) loto-pood “lottery shop” > loto-magazin “id.” lottery-shop lottery-shop cf. monolingual Russian (?)5 magazin loterej-i shop lottery-GEN The collocation and the order of the stems in loto-magazin do not exist in Standard Russian. Note that the internationalism loto “lottery” has stress on the first syllable, like in Estonian (and unlike in Standard Russian), and it may be argued that loto is a globally copied element of the CN. Monolingual speakers from Russia considered this type of copies as “strange,” although they were aware of similar English-based compounds. Estonian impact, while clearly not the single factor, should not be rejected merely because of the internal analyticity tendency (see Johanson 2002a: 286 on external causation that is often unjustly rejected when an internal explanation exists). The second pattern, subject to mixed copying, was briefly considered in Chapter 3, example (20a). It is to some extent similar to (13a) and (13b) where the modifier is of Estonian origin. The difference is that the modifier in the pattern to be considered is a proper noun, a toponym, a name of a firm, a brand, and so on The head is either an internationalism in its Russian form or any other Russian noun. As argued in Chapter 3, the proper noun makes a given CN highly semantically specific. Consider (15a) where the name of the bank includes a common internationalism pank/bank: (15a) Hansa-pank “a name of a bank in Estonia” > Xanzabank Hanseatic: GEN-bank In (15b), the head is a Russian noun and the modifier is a toponym Toolse. Orthographically, Estonian originals consist of two separate words or two words

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separated by a hyphen but in principle they do not differ from the compounds N GEN + N NOM (recall CN with modifiers expressing object or possessor in 4.3.1): “Toolse bread” (brand name) > bread

(15b) Toolse leib Toolse: GEN

Tolse xleb Toolse bread

This pattern is productive because the given type of the items refers to goods and products widely used in everyday life both by speakers of Russian as L1 and by Estonians that occasionally speak Russian as L2. Standard Russian has two ways of rendering such constructions: the formation of an adjective from the proper noun or placing the proper name after the head and giving it a status of a brand name, as in (16a) and (16b) respectively: (16a) Rakvere viineri-d > Rakvere-ski-je/ Rakver-ski-je sosisk-i Rakvere sausage-NOM PL Rakvere-SUF-NOM PL sausage-NOM PL “a kind of sausage produced in Rakvere” (16b) sosisk-i sausage-NOM PL “id.”

Rakvere Rakvere (would be indeclinable in Russian)

The speakers, however, prefer to copy Estonian word order, as in (16c): (16c) Rakvere Rakvere “id.”

sosisk-i sausage-NOM PL

A postpositional modifier as in (16b) sounds somewhat official and would hardly be chosen in informal speech. The option (16a) seems to be available only if and when an adjective derived from a proper name is conventionalized in monolingual Russian relatively long ago, for instance, Tallinn > tallin-sk-ij (Tallinn-SUF-MASC NOM) “of Tallinn, referring to Tallinn” or Tartu > tartu-sk-ij (Tartu-SUF-MASC NOM) “of Tartu, referring to Tartu.” An adjective Rakvere > rakvere-sk-ij/ rakver-sk-ij would be less common than tallinskij and tartuskij, let alone tolse-sk-ij (?) that is merely hypothetical. Probably, a proper name facilitates the perception, that the whole collocation is idiomatic, or even turns it idiomatic by definition. The patterns as exemplified in (15a) and (15b) have become conventionalized and are used by Russian-speakers with a various degree of proficiency in Estonian. Due to the use of proper names as modifiers, the CN in question have somewhat special status for the speakers. The monolingual speakers from Russia assessed instances like (15a) and (15b) as “unacceptable in good language” and, due to the proper names, as something “typically Estonian.”

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The third pattern comprises CN where the modifier is an Estonian or international abbreviation and the head is a common noun (including internationalisms). The modifier is copied globally and the head selectively. Consider (17a): (17a) ID-kaart “identity card” > ID-karta “id.” ID-card The pattern itself is not uncommon in the Russian of Russia (see previous discussion of analyticity): abbreviations, mainly from English, function as modifiers. Estonian has this type of CN (recall 4.3.1) and frequently a particular combination of an abbreviation and a proper noun is not a rendition of an internationalism (like e-mail > Estonian e-post “e-mail”) but an Estonianlanguage original item and a subject to mixed copying, as in (17b): (17b) m-makse “payment made by mobile phone” > m-platjož “id.” m[obile]-payment In (17b), m- is abbreviation from Estonian mobiil “mobile,” “mobile telephone,” whereas in monolingual Russian the given abbreviation is unknown. It has to be added that in pronunciation, Estonian names in Roman characters are preferred, even if it is an international abbreviation like ID “identity” or IT “informational technology.” Starting from the late 1980s to the beginning of the 1990s, the English names of Roman characters are preferred in Russia, cf. ID frequently pronounced as [i-de] or even [i:-de:] in Estonia and [aj-di] in Russia. In example (17c), the head is not an internationalism: (17c) e-valitsus “electronic government” > e-pravitel’stvo “id.” e[lectronic]-government Examples such as (17a), (17b), and (17c) were assessed by the monolingual speakers as unusual. With some reservations, a particular example such as (17a) ID-karta “ID-card” where the collocation is not completely alien was perceived as acceptable but restricted to certain domains, for instance economics, politics, and technology. One would expect that not the pattern itself but the collocations specific to local use are unfamiliar to the speakers from Russia; nevertheless, they emphasized that both the pattern and the collocations sounded “strange.” Example (17c) may be considered as semantically specific (Estonia has a reputation as a country with highly advanced informational technology, e.g., the documentation and information for government meetings is stored and managed electronically, hence e-valitsus “e-government”) and may also be a subject to global copying in some speakers. It is difficult to suggest any monolingual Russian equivalent here.

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In written Russian-language texts, proper names, as in (15b), and abbreviations as in (17a) and (17b) often preserve their original spelling in Roman characters (see Chapter 5). Thus, it is a case where the code-copying framework can be applied to writing. Written equivalents of the aforementioned CN are mixed copies as well. The graphic aspect of code-copying will be discussed in Chapter 5. Selective copying. Selective copying yields the following three patterns: the combination of a relative adjective (i.e., an adjective that designates a feature by linking it to a subject or another feature and derived from a noun with the help of affixation)6 and a noun, the construction N NOM + N GEN and, finally, the construction N GEN + N NOM. As mentioned in Section 4.3.2, the first two patterns (whether mutually transformable or not) represent the most frequent conventional equivalents of Estonian CN. However, copied collocation would often have a different meaning in monolingual Russian or even be considered impossible by monolingual speakers. Thus, this is an instance of CILC where the resources of the basic code, namely, the mentioned constructions, are perceived by the speakers as the basis of equivalence (see Chapter 3, Heine and Kuteva 2005: 219–233 on equivalence). Either a new collocation together with its meaning is being copied onto the preexisting construction or only a new meaning from the model code. Sometimes the formation of “unusual” adjective occurs as well. Example (18a) is a copy that comprises both a new collocation and a new meaning: (18a) laua-telefon “house phone” > na-stol’-n-yj telefon “id.” table: GEN-phone on-table-SUF-MASC NOM phone cf. monolingual Russian stacionar-n-yj telefon~ gorod-sk-oj telefon stationary-SUF-MASC NOM phone city-SUF-MASC NOM phone The relative adjective nastol’nyj “something that is on the table” < stol “table” is widely used in Russian in collocations like nastol’naja lampa “table lamp,” nastol’naja kniga “favorite, often re-read book” (literally, “table book”) and some others. However, the collocation as presented in (18a) is unusual for monolingual speakers from Russia and the meaning is not clear. In summer 2006, during a stay in Russia I witnessed a dialog between a young bilingual Russian-speaker from Estonia and a Russian-speaker from Russia. The former asked whether she could make a call from a house phone rather than from her mobile phone. Being a fluent speaker of Estonian, she mentioned nastol’nyj telefon (literally, “table phone”) and was asked what she meant by that. The bilingual speaker realized and admitted that she did not know a “proper” Russian word but used a copy that is conventional in Estonia.

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A collocation usual from a monolingual point of view but with a copied meaning is presented in (18b): (18b) moe-turg “fashion market” > mod-n-yj rynok “id.” fashion: GEN-market fashion-SUF-MASC NOM market The CN in (18b) referred to a fashion show organized by young designers, students of Estonian Art Academy. The monolingual Russians understood (18b) as “popular market,” that is, a market that is trendy or fashionable among young people. In monolingual Russian, the relative adjective modnyj “fashionable, popular” does not have a meaning “having to do with fashion industry.” A monolingual Russian “correct” equivalent is a construction N NOM + N GEN PL rynok mod (literally, “market of fashion”). Finally, an unconventional relative adjective is used in (18c): (18c) pankrot-i-haldur “bankruptcy manager” > bankrot-n-yj upravljajušcˇij “id.” bankruptcy-GEN-manager bankrupt-SUF-MASC NOM manager cf. monolingual Russian anti-krizis-n-yj upravljajušcˇij anti-crisis-SUF-MASC NOM manager Attributive constructions as equivalents to CN are productive, one of the probable reasons being that the construction itself is a native Russian one. This creates a “monolingual illusion” in speakers and, especially, in translators. The formation of relative adjectives is not structurally restricted; recently, the formation of relative adjectives has become productive in comparison to qualitative adjectives. Zemskaja (1996: 124–125) explains this as a product of the influx of new terminology, in which case relative adjectives are derived from new stems by means of affixation. As mentioned earlier, the derivation and use of relative adjectives is often a matter of convention. Relative adjectives express a wide range of meanings (possession, material, goal, cause, and others), and the same adjective may have a different meaning in different collocations. For instance, in Russian kofejnaja cˇaška “coffee cup.” the adjective kofejnaja (< kofe “coffee”) designates purpose and in kofejnyj tort “coffee cake” an ingredient (material). The “correct” semantics of a new collocation may thus remain opaque for a speaker who does not know the convention or is accustomed to a different convention. This explains why monolingual speakers from Russia assessed instances of this pattern as “understandable but strange.” Some CN of the types as shown in (18a), (18b), and (18c) can be globally copied as well. For instance, pankrotihaldur “bankruptcy manager” in (18c) is semantically specific and a new concept (there were no bankruptcy managers

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during the Soviet era!) and thus is a good candidate for global copying. A choice between selective vs. mixed copy may depend on a variety of factors, one of them being the division between written and oral communication. In writing one would naturally prefer to avoid overtly foreign lexical items (although this may be different for proper nouns, names of companies, etc.), hence, selective copying would be expectable. The same applies to texts that are translations from Estonian (digests of Estonian press for local Russianlanguage press, news, advertising, information about goods and products). As pointed out earlier, the construction N NOM + N GEN in Russian is one of the regular and conventional equivalents of Estonian CN. However, as crosslinguistic equivalence is subjective in its nature, a bilingual speaker, especially in the situation of emergent bilingualism, reinterprets the existing conventions. Thus, recent selective copies N NOM + N GEN are in fact collocations possible in monolingual Russian but with different semantic (and sometimes also frequential) properties in Estonia’s Russian. The new composite meaning is therefore not a sum of the components’ meaning but also a copy from Estonian. Consider (19a): (19a) majandus-direktor “managing director” > direktor xozjajstv-a management-director director management-GEN cf. monolingual Russian zavedujušcˇij xozjajstv-om ~ zavxoz [conventional stump-compound] administrator management-INSTR The concept expressed by the CN is not new in monolingual Russian and the conventional equivalent does exist. In such a case, it is logical that any deviation from the convention, that is, the replacement of zavedujušcˇij “administrator” by a near synonym director “director” and the subsequent choice of government (genitive instead of instrumental) signals a novel unit. That is why the monolingual speakers in the experiment understood director xozjajstva as “director of (a particular) enterprise, firm, etc.” Although they could not point to any violation of Russian grammar, there was still a feeling that “something was wrong.” The choice of N NOM + N GEN is less frequent in the copying of Estonian CN, possibly because of prevailing patterns of mixed and global copying, and because attributive constructions (with the formation of a relative adjective) are more productive as equivalents. However, in non-spontaneous discourse, that is, in written translations, subtitles, and so on, the pattern in question seems more likely to appear. This leads to the “piling up” of several genitives (some of them in copies of compounds). It is true that genitive chains are not uncommon in some official registers or Russian. Probably, this is one of the possible reasons why genitives tend to “pile up” in translations of the news and

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subtitles rather than in oral speech. However, when one genitive in the chain is part of a copy of CN, the meaning is obscure to monolingual Russian speakers, such as in (20a): (20a) ocˇen’ važno zna-t’ svo-i danny-je very important know-INF own-ACCPL data-ACC PL registr-a naselenij-a register-GEN population-GEN “it is very important to know one’s data according to the population register” (18.02.2007, Russian-language Estonian TV news, subtitles) The copy of the Estonian compound rahvastikuregister “population register” is, as expected, registr naselenij-a (register + population-GEN). In the given syntactic position, the phrase modifies the noun dannyje “data,” that is, literally, “data of register of population.” In Estonian, the number of modifiers in the genitive is not limited and two or three consecutive nouns in the genitive are considered as normal. The Estonian original of (20a) is given in (20b): (20b) on väga tähtis teada oma rahvastik-u-registr-i be: 3 very important know: INF own population-GEN-register-GEN andme-i-d data-PL-PART “id.” In monolingual Russian, example (20a) sounds clumsy and somewhat unnatural. The range of meanings expressed by the genitive in Russian is apparently narrower than in Estonian, and monolingual Russian-speakers would rather opt for a prepositional phrase to avoid the ambiguity. To sum it up, Külmoja (2000) describes the “piling up” of genitives as a distinct feature of some discourses in Estonia’s Russian but does not link this to Estonian CN. The last pattern of selective copying to be discussed occurs extremely rarely in my data. In 2004 I had only one example of N GEN + N NOM (Verschik 2004b), now I have two. It will become clear that the cases are somewhat ambiguous. In Russian, the genitive is post-nominal as a rule (Timberlake 1993: 860). In noun phrases, N NOM + N GEN the genitive may express the following meaning: (1) partitive (kusok xleb-a “a piece of bread” piece + bread-GEN); (2) determiner, including possession (telefon drug-a “friend’s telephone” pone + friend-GEN), subject, object, source; (3) descriptive meaning (content, quality, etc.) (Leisiö 2001b: 94–95). However, colloquial Russian does allow genitive inversion (i.e., the genitive precedes the nominative) in certain contexts. The inversion is pragmatically conditioned by a wish to bring the most important

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item into the first position (Zemskaja 1987: 150–151). Leisiö (2001b: 93) argues that an analysis of the semantics of the genitive in such cases reveals the meaning of possessor: (21a) Éto brat-a vešcˇ-i this brother-GEN thing-PL “these are (my) brother’s things” Compare to (21b) with a pragmatically neutral word order: (21b) Éto vešcˇ-i brat-a this thing-PL brother-GEN “these are (my) brother’s things” Leisiö (2001b) has investigated the impact of Finnish word order on the Russian of indigenous minority speakers. The sphere of use of the genitive modifier in Finnish exceeds that of Russian, and in Finnish, the modifier can be a part of a compound (both claims apply to Estonian as well). She concluded that the influence of Finnish on the Russian genitive construction is most discernible in the sphere of determiner genitive, especially the genitive expressing the possessor and the subject (Leisiö 2001b: 96). As my examples of genitive construction use are rather scarce, I cannot draw any firm conclusions. Consider (22a) where a client wishes to use a new service provided by a mobile phone operator: one can register a frequently used phone number as a friend’s number and get a discount on the calls. (22a) Ja xocˇu oformit’ drug-a nomer I want register friend-GEN number “I would like to register the number as a friend’s telephone number” (Spring 2005, Tallinn, conversation between a client and mobile phone company operator) The example (22a) follows the Estonian word order conventions (22b): (22b) sõbr-a-number friend-GEN-number “friend’s number” As (22a) is taken from a conversation, one may consider the genitive inversion characteristic of colloquial Russian, as shown in (21a). On the surface, the genitive appears to express the possessor. However, in this particular context I am inclined to ascribe the meaning of quality to the genitive: the emphasis is not on the phone number belonging to a certain friend but rather on the

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assignment of a particular status (provided by the mobile operator) to a frequently dialed phone number. Theoretically, the company could have coined another label for the concept. In the same vein, some companies even give a discount on frequent calls to another country indicated by a client as sõbr-a-riik (friend-GEN-state), something that can be loosely translated as “friend-state.” Probably, this and (22a) are idiomatic and highly specific collocations whose semantics is opaque. The opacity is partly conditioned by the specificity and partly by the wide range of meanings expressed by the Estonian genitive (recall Section 4.3.1). The other example of the prepositional genitive was discussed in my earlier article (Verschik 2004b: 106). It is a name for the Russian-language summary of an Estonian local newspaper Põhja-Tallinna sõnumid “News of North Tallinn” and is as follows: (23) Põhja-Tallinn-a izvesti-ja North-Tallinn-GEN news-PL “news of North Tallinn” As Põhja-Tallinn is the name of a district in the city, this is a toponym and can be classified as (15a), (15b), and (16c) as a case of mixed copying where the modifier is a proper noun. However, this instance has some distinct features. First, unlike in relatively unknown toponyms such as Toolse, Standard Russian does have a conventional relative adjective tallin-sk-ij “of Tallinn” derived from Tallinn, so at least theoretically the choice of the relative adjective strategy was available as well (something like pyxja-tallinnskije izvestija). Second, and probably most important, the genitive form accidentally coincides in the two languages: both Estonian and Russian yield genitive Tallinn: Tallinn-a. In Russian, the toponym ends with a consonant, thus, it is easily assigned to the second declension class, masculine gender which has –a as a marker of the genitive (cf. Russian NOM voron “crow”: GEN voron-a). Example (23) was considered by the monolingual speakers as “funny” and “wrong.” Probably, they were able to identify the genitive maker and thus were aware of the “deviant” word order.

4.3.4

Discussion

As argued in the previous section, Estonian CN are frequently copied and all degrees of copying are possible. Common internationalisms facilitate copying, including mixed copying. Depending on the speaker’s skills, speech situation, and pragmatic goals, they are able to move along a continuum between mixed and global copies and create compromise forms (recall example viitenumber/ viitenomer/viitenumer “reference number”). Attributive constructions consisting of a relative adjective agreeing with a noun appear to prevail over other patterns of selective copying. Attributive constructions are structurally closer to the model code in the sense that the

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order of stems is preserved and some degree of structural isomorphism is achieved. Attributive constructions prevail among the other ways of selective copying. It is interesting that Estonians who speak Russian as L2 tend to establish the equivalence between Estonian CN/constructions N GEN + N NOM and Russian attributive constructions. An anecdotal but telling example comes from my daughter (a speaker of Estonian as L1): in a shop, she jokingly referred to a mirror in the fitting room (Estonian proovikabiin, Russian primerocˇnaja kabina, literally, “trying-on cabin”) as kabin-n-oje zerkalo (cabinSUF-NEUT NOM + mirror) and continued in Estonian: kabinnoje zerkalo on imelik “the cabin mirror is strange.” The mentioned attributive construction sounds unusual in monolingual Russian. Instead of the relative adjective construction, one would expect a prepositional NP: zerkalo v kabin-e (mirror in cabin-LOC) “mirror in the cabin.” In Estonian, kabiin-i-peegel (cabin-GENmirror) ~ kabiini peegel “id.” would be perfectly acceptable. It is an instance of a CN whose meaning is totally dependent on the context. This instance of copying suggests that Estonian analytic constructions (CN among them) are attractive both in cases of adoption (E2 > R1) and imposition (E1 > R2).

4.4

Copying of analytic verbs

In this section, the copying of Estonian analytic verbs will be considered. First, referring to important studies on analytic verbs, such as Hasselblatt (1990), Muischnek (2006b), Rätsep (1973, 1980), I will briefly describe the structure of Estonian analytic verbs and the degree to which they are idiomatic. Second, the relation between analytic and synthetic verbs will be treated. Third, I will turn to the copying proper and discuss what kind of analytic verbs is copied into Russian. Only selective and mixed copying occurs in analytic verbs. Finally, parallels with the copying of analytic verbs/fixed verbal constructions in other languages (from Norwegian to Turkish, see Türker 2000) will be drawn.

4.4.1

Estonian analytic verbs

Analytic verbal constructions in Estonian comprise several types: so-called particle verbs (known as ühendverbid in Estonian) where a main verb is modified with a particle or an adverb, for instance ära minema “to go away” (away + go); VP-idioms (sometimes called phrasal verbs, or expression verbs, the term modeled on the Estonian term väljendverbid) that consist of a verb and a noun, adjective or pronoun, such as arvesse võtma “to take into account” (accountILL + take), haigeks jääma “to fall ill” (ill-TRANSL + to remain); constructions verb + non-finite verb: teada saama “to learn” (to know + to get); constructions verb + finite verb: mine jookse koju “go run home” (for English-language description see Erelt 2003: 101–102). I will concentrate on the first two types, that is, particle verbs and VP-idioms.

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Historically speaking, the particle verb in Estonian is believed to be a copy from German (Hasselblatt 1990 uses the term Lehnübersetzung “loan translation” in his description). Not only copies of particular analytic verbs but also the pattern itself has been completely internalized and even the de-Germanizing efforts of Estonian corpus planners such as Johannes Aavik were not able to eradicate analytic verbs (Hasselblatt 1990: 27 and references therein on Aavik’s and his opponent’s, Andres Saareste’s, views concerning the verbs). Estonianspeakers of today do not realize the “foreign” origin of analytic verbs and form them even when a modifier is semantically redundant, for instance, ette ennustama “to forecast” (ahead + to forecast). Such forms are looked down upon and classified as non-standard by language planners and editors, but this does not prevent various speakers from using “redundant” particles. In general, modern Estonian exhibits increasing analyticity (Erelt and Metslang 1998). The most recent research on VP-idioms in Estonian is that by Muischnek (2006b). She discusses the idiomatic status of Estonian VP-idioms, drawing on Rätsep (1973, 1978, and 1980). Rätsep views VP-idioms as idiomatic constructions (this clarification may seem redundant but the idiomatic status of such analytic verbs is not evident from the Estonian term väljendverb, literally, “expression verb”); as for particle verbs, some of them are idiomatic and some are not (Rätsep 1973: 26). For instance, the following two particle verbs have the same particle and both main verbs express movement: alla käima “to deteriorate” is idiomatic (down + to go), whereas alla kukkuma “to fall down” (down + to fall) is not. Rätsep (1973: 25) acknowledges that sometimes the borderline between the co-occurrence of verbs and nouns on the one hand and VPidioms on the other is unclear. In a similar way, Muischnek (2006b: 27) stresses that idioms are defined in a variety of ways in the literature and proposes the following continuum which I present here with slight modifications: (24)

IDIOM opaque transparent

COLLOCATION semi-idiom non-idiomatic collocation

Idiomatic particle verbs like alla käima “to deteriorate” are usually transparent idioms, while non-idiomatic ones like ära minema “to go away” are nonidiomatic collocations. Opaque idioms cannot be understood based on their components; the components have limited combinability. For instance, in Estonian the verb in the prototypical phrasal verb is not combinable with the plural, and the rules of total/partial object do not apply to the nominal component, neither can it be modified or relativized (see details in Muischnek 2006b: 13). For instance, Estonian aru saama “to understand” is a typical opaque idiom that consists of the noun aru “sense, intelligence” in the partitive and the verb saama “to get, to receive.” However, one cannot say *aru, mille ma saan (literally, “sense that I get”) or *saan aru-d (get sense-NOM PL).

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Transparent idioms can be understood if one intuitively knows how the most common metaphors function (Muischnek 2004: 575), for instance, sõna võtma “to take floor” (literally, “to take word”), although the combinability of the components is limited (like in the case of aru saama). The strict borderline between opaque and transparent idioms cannot be drawn because the perception of these constructions may differ in different speakers. In semi-idioms only one component has a meaning specific for this particular expression, for instance, the Estonian viina viskama “to drink booze” consists of viina “vodka” (partitive) and viskama “to throw.” According to Muischnek (2006b: 26), semi-idioms can be treated as a type common both to idioms and collocations. Non-idiomatic collocations include some support verb constructions, also called light verb constructions. Support verb construction is a verb-complement pair in which the verb has little lexical meaning, and much of its semantic content is obtained from a complement, often a de-verbal noun. Depending on combinability, support verb constructions can be further subdivided into collocational constructions and free verbal constructions. The elements of the former group have somewhat limited combinability, for instance, sõna andma “to give one’s word” (word + to give). Free verbal constructions typically include support verbs like tegema “to do” or sooritama “to carry out,” or for instance, tööd tegema “to work” (literally, “to do work”). The continuum approach seems reasonable because a combination of a verb and an adverb/particle/nominal form in Estonian has the potential of becoming a more or less fixed expression with a different meaning. For instance, in certain contexts, the Estonian koos käima (the adposition koos “together” + the verb käima “to walk, to go”) may have a literate meaning “to go with somebody” (i.e., käisime seal koos “we went there together”) but gradually a complex, figurative meaning “to date, to have a love affair” has emerged. Verbs with a broad meaning such as tegema “to do,” panema “to put, to place,” saama “to get, to receive,” jääma “to remain, to stay” can easily become grammaticalized and function as support verbs (also known as light verbs); later combinations of such verbs and modifiers become grammaticalized and the whole construction acquires a meaning that is not a sum of the components’ meanings (i.e., the co-occurrence gradually become fixed). Sildvee (2000) describes the process of grammaticalization and subsequent lexicalization of Estonian verbal constructions into particle verbs and VP-idioms. Thus, co-occurrences of verbs and particles/nominal forms have the potential of gradually turning into fixed expressions and full-fledged analytic verbs. Based on the fact that both VP-idioms and particle verbs are fixed expressions (idiomatic or not), Muischnek (2006a: 51) suggests a cover term “verb-based fixed expressions” (verbikesksed püsiühendid). I will continue using the term “analytic verbs” as a general term, clarifying when necessary whether it is a VPidiom or a particle verb and to what degree it is idiomatic.

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4.4.2

Analytic verbs vs. synthetic verbs in Estonian

Before dealing with the copying of analytic verbs, the relationship between analytic and synthetic verbs should be explained. In some cases, analytic verbs (especially VP-idioms) do not have a synthetic counterpart. The following classification describing connections between analytic and synthetic verbs can be proposed: (25a) Analytic verbs that are derived from synthetic verbs and render the meaning of the latter more concretely: minema “to go”—ära minema “to go away” (away + to go); lugema “to read”—läbi lugema “to complete reading” (through + to read). In (25a), synthetic verbs merely name the action in general without any reference to its starting or ending point, while an added particle/noun/adjective/ pronoun gives an additional (terminative, inchoative) meaning. The adverb ära “away” has grammaticalized in Estonian as a perfectivization marker (Metslang 2001; Pihlak 1985). Pairs of analytic and synthetic verbs as in (25a) correspond to Russian perfective/imperfective aspectual pairs (Eslon 2004: 98), for instance the Estonian lahendama and the Russian rešat’ “to solve” (imperfective, no indication of result) vs. ära lahendama and rešit’ “to get something solved” (perfective, the action has a result). Or, to give an example of a perfectivizing prefix in Russian, compare the Estonian jooksma and Russian bežat’ “to run” to the Estonian üle jooksma and the Russian pere-bežat’ “to run across.” Such analytic verbs have not been copied into Russian; this suggests that, apparently, copying does not involve at all the grammatical category of aspect.7 For this reason, the highly complex topic of Russian aspect will not be considered in the current study. (25b) Analytic verbs have a new complex meaning that cannot be considered as a mere concretization of the meaning of the corresponding synthetic verb. For instance, the meaning of pähe õppima “to learn by heart” (head: ILL + to learn, literally, “to learn into the head”) has a new meaning as compared to õppima “to study, to learn.” This applies to particle verbs as well, as illustrated by the earlier example of käima “to go, to walk” vs. alla käima “to deteriorate.” In instances like (25b), the meaning of an analytic verb is more or less idiomatic, which is not the case in (25a). Equivalents of such analytic verbs in Standard Russian cannot be described as belonging to a particular pattern: Russian equivalents may be idioms, verbs with and without prefixes, and so on. Unlike in (25a), there is no aspectual opposition involved in Russian equivalents. An Estonian analytic verb of this type, for instance, ette võtma “to undertake” (ahead + to take)

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corresponds both to the Russian imperfective predprinimat’ and the perfective predprinjat’ “id.,” whereas the choice of an aspect depends on a particular context. (25c) An analytic verb is synonymous to a synthetic verb, whereas no new meaning emerges, for instance, tööd tegema “to work” (work-PART + to do) and töötama “id.,” haigeks jääma “to fall ill” (ill-TRANSL + to stay) and haigestuma “id.” The above-mentioned examples reveal that the stem of the corresponding synthetic verb and that of the nominal component is the same. The verbal component of these analytic verbs is a support verb with a broad meaning. If there is any difference between an analytic verb as in (25c) and its synthetic equivalent, it is of a stylistic nature. For example, haigestuma sounds more official and appropriate for documents rather than for normal spoken language. (25d) An analytic verb is not derived from a synthetic verb and has no synthetic pair: aega võtma “to take time” (time-PART + to take), haiget saama “to get hurt” (ill-PART + to get). Such analytic verbs are VP-idioms that have developed into semi-idioms or into idioms (opaque or transparent). Russian equivalents may be different in character: fixed expressions, idioms, and single verbs. Of the four types of Estonian analytic verbs, three are subject to copying into Russian (25b, 25c, and 25d). Among about twenty (types, not tokens) copied analytic verbs, VP-idioms prevail. This implies that the copying of analytic verbs is a particular case among a general tendency to copy fixed expressions and idioms. In general, a wide range of Estonian idioms is being copied into Russian, that is, not only analytic verbs but also constructions of various types, fixed expressions, and figurative speech, including proverbs. At the same time, the copying of analytic verbs and verb-based fixed expressions is not a mere introduction of new, previously unknown individual idioms: it affects combinability rules (government in VP, collocation of different linguistic items) and semantics, since the complex figurative meaning of a fixed expression is copied as well.

4.4.3

Copies of analytic verbs

Most often, analytic verbs yield selective copies. The absence of global copies is explicable with a more abstract meaning of the verb compared to noun and the relatively low semantic specificity of the former (see Chapter 3). Possibly, the more the length of the to-be-copied element and/or its internal complexity, the bigger the chance of selective copying is. Mixed copies occur as well,

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whereby some verbs display variation in the degree of copying. In this section, I will describe patterns of copying, starting from selectively copied analytic verbs (three patterns) and ending with mixed copies. Copies vary in their “acceptability” in monolingual Russian: some copies result in collocations that are possible in monolingual Russian but have a different meaning, while others are unintelligible to monolingual Russians or even violate the rules of Russian grammar. Selective copying. The pattern described in (26) does not affect the combinability rules of Russian-language items; copying has an impact on the meaning only: (26) Copying produces collocations of Russian verbs and adverbs/nouns/ prepositions possible in Standard Russian. Unlike in Estonian, these collocations are not idiomatic in monolingual Russian and do not have the same figurative meaning. In this case, both Estonian particle verbs and VP-idioms serve as a model for copying. The copied figurative meaning is usually expressed in Standard Russian by other means: either by single verbs or by fixed expressions. Let us consider (27) where a middle-aged woman, fluent in Estonian, describes her parents’ youth: (27) Oni xod-i-l-i vmeste they go-SUF-PAST-PL together “they used to go on date” (Estonian TV, 23.03.2005, Ekspedicija Russkogo muzeja Éstonii “expedition of Estonia’s Russian Museum”) In monolingual Russian, there is a construction xodit’ s kem-libo (literally, “to go with somebody”) with the same meaning, which is characteristic of teenagers’ speech. In general, the collocation xodit’ vmeste is not lexicalized in Russian and the meaning is the sum of the components’ meanings, that is “to go together.” To a monolingual speaker (27) sounds somewhat unclear. Estonian fixed expression koos käima “to date” (together + to walk) falls into the type of constructions described in (25b), that is, a collocation of a verb and an adverb that has developed a new complex meaning. Thus, koos käima is not just a form of the synthetic verb käima “to walk.” Copies of particle verbs such as üles tõusma “to wake up” (up + to rise) > vstavat’ naverx “id.” (to rise + up), cf. monolingual Russian vstavat’ “id.” and pealt vaatama “to observe” (from above + to look) > smotret’ sverxu (to look + from above), cf. monolingual Russian nabljudat’ “id.” and a support verb construction similar to phrasal verb tööd tegema “to work” (to do work) > delat’

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rabotu “id.,” cf. monolingual Russian rabotat’ “id.,” together with (27), belong to the same type (25b). The collocations that emerge as the result of copying have a non-figurative, concrete meaning (in the case of particle verbs, spatial meaning) in Standard Russian. Consider the instance of copying in (28a) where in a bilingual TV program a relatively fluent speaker of Estonian complains about the lack of labor force in Estonia: (28a) ne v tom not in this kto by who COND “the problem would work”

problema, cˇto netu rabot-y, seicˇas problema, problem that no work-GEN now problem ét-u rabot-u dela-l this-ACC work-ACC do-PAST is not that there is no work, the problem now is: who (19.01.2006, Estonian TV, Bessonnica/Unetus)

Compare to monolingual Russian (28b) and Estonian (28c): (28b)

monolingual Russian seicˇas problema, kto by rabota-l now problem who COND work-PAST “the problem now is: who would work”

(28c)

Estonian praegu on probleem, kes se-da töö-d tee-ks now be: 3 problem who this-PART work-PART do-COND “id.”

Notably, the collocation delat’ rabotu is possible in Russian but it refers to carrying out a particular working task, not just working in an abstract sense. In the given context, the speaker is concerned with the fact that there is a lot of workplaces in Estonia and a shortage of labor force, that is, of people who could work in general. The next copying pattern is described in (29): (29) Copied constructions are not possible in monolingual Russian: they are not overtly ungrammatical but the co-occurrence of the particular items is unusual. Either Russian uses a different idiom/fixed expression to convey the same meaning or the copy of the modifier is redundant. Constructions whose copying fits into (29) are Estonian full-fledged VPidioms and less idiomatic collocations. In (30a), the Estonian phrasal verb peast teadma “to know by heart” (head-EL + to know) is copied as znat’ iz golovy “id.”

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(to know + from head-GEN), whereas monolingual Russian employs a different idiom to express the same meaning, as in (30b): (30a) Ona vse stix-i iz golov-y znaj-et she all poem-NOM PL out head-GEN know-3 SG “she knows all poems by heart” (Spring 2005, conversation between two students at Tallinn University) In monolingual Russian, there are two expressions with the same meaning; both of them include the verb znat’ “to know.” One option is znat’ naizust’ where the adverb is a frozen prepositional phrase, literally meaning “out of lips” and used only in a couple of idioms. The second is a fixed expression znat’ na pamjat’ “to know from memory.” (30b)

monolingual Russian Ona vse stix-i znaj-et naizust’ ~ na pamjat’-Ø she all poem-NOM PL know-3 SG out of lips ~ on memory-ACC “id.”

Compare to Estonian in (30c): (30c)

Estonian ta tea-b s/he know-3 SG “id.”

kõik all

luuletuse-d poem-NOM PL

pea-st head-EL

Given that the Estonian elative, the internal separational local case, corresponds to the Russian prepositional phrase iz + genitive, one can see that the speaker produces some kind of isomorphism (structural and/or semantical). In monolingual Russian, (30a) sounds “strange,” although the meaning may be derived on the basis of a general trend according to which the word “head” becomes a metaphor for intelligence, wisdom, and memory. In fact, Russian and Estonian have a number of similar idioms with somatic lexicon (described at length in Vakk 1970). The Estonian semi-idiomatic collocation eskamit tegema “to pass examination” (examination-PART + to do) is selectively copied as shown in (31a). (31a) dela-t’ ekzamen-Ø do-INF exam-ACC “to pass examination” (frequently heard at Tallinn University)

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Compare with monolingual Russian in (31b): (31b) s-dava-t’ ekzamen-Ø PREF-give-INF exam-ACC “id.” (literally, “to give away the/an exam”) As shown in (31b), Russian has a different fixed expression. It may very well be that the similar internationalism facilitates copying. It would be reasonable to consider (31a) as a copy of the entire fixed expression, not just as a semantic copy of the verb tegema “to do.” Although verbs with a wide range of meanings, such as tegema “to do,” panema “to place, to put,” saama “to get, to receive,” and some others are frequently subject to semantic copying, the verb in (31a) is a part of a fixed expression. Moreover, the semi-idiomatic expression includes an easily recognizable, albeit not identical, internationalism Estonian eksam/ Russian ekzamen “exam” which facilitates the establishment of cross-linguistic equivalence between eksamit tegema and sdavat’ ekzamen and promotes copying. For that reason, I believe that the whole expression should be considered as copied. I will return to (31a) later in the next section. Both Estonian and Russian have verbal constructions where a modifier is optional or even redundant (recall non-standard but frequently used Estonian ette ennustama “to forecast” instead of ennustama). Estonian has a fixed expression (which may develop into a full-fledged phrasal verb) endale saama “to get (finally), to end up with” (literally, “to get to oneself”) where the pronoun endale “to oneself” (self-ALL) is optional, although endale saama is more concrete than just saama. Similarly, in Russian a verb sometimes co-occurs with an adverb that is semantically redundant and is optional, such as vernut’sja nazad “to return” (to return + back). It is enough to say vernut’sja “to return” to express the same meaning. However, compared to Russian, Estonian has a stronger tendency where a collocation of a verb and its modifier develops into a verb-based fixed expression or into an analytic verb. The verb endale saama is a frequent subject to copying; this occurs both in oral and written communication. Consider copying in (32) where a reporter describes complexities of Russian-Estonian border agreement: (32) tak Rossija i polucˇi-l-a sebe sapož-ok Saatse so Russia and get-PAST-FEM self: DAT boot-DIM Saatse “so this is how Russia ended up with a boot-shaped piece of land named Saatse” (24.03.2005, Estonian TV, Dilemma) In Standard Russian the main verb polucˇi-l-a’ “received” would be sufficient; the verb is not combinable with the reciprocal pronoun sebe which is

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redundant here. Copies of the verb endale saama appear in written texts as well, typically in subtitles or in translations from Estonian, as in (33a). (33a) kaka-ja partij-a polucˇ-it sebe prezident-a which-FEM NOM party-NOM get-3 SG self: DAT president-ACC “which party will get a president” (26.04.2006, Estonian TV, subtitles, Bessonica/Unetus) Compare to the Estonian original in (33b): (33b) milline poliitiline jõud enda-le presidend-i which political force self-ALL president-GEN “what political force will get a president”

saa-b get-3 SG

Like in (32), the collocation sounds “strange” but the redundant pronoun does not obscure the meaning of the whole utterance and of the verb polucˇit’ “to receive” in particular. The copy fits nicely into the notion of a minor used pattern (Heine and Kuteva 2005) that undergoes expansion due to CILC. The third copying pattern produces collocations even further removed from monolingual Russian: (34) As the result of copying, collocations emerge that are impossible in monolingual Russian, often ungrammatical and unintelligible to monolingual speakers. Even if grammatical rules (verbal government) are not overtly violated, copied items that are combinable in the model code (Estonian) are not combinable in Standard Russian. Let us consider the following instance (35a).8 The Russian-dominant speaker in the TV program describes somebody’s complicated life-story. The Estonian particle verb kõrvale jätma “to disregard, to ignore, to leave aside” consists of the adposition kõrvale “aside” and the main verb jätma “to leave” (transitive). (35a) i rebjonk-a ostavi-l-i v storon-u and child-ACC leave-PAST-PL in side-ACC “and the child was disregarded” (16.01.2001, Estonian TV, Cˇetyre vremeni goda/Neli aastaaega “four seasons”) Compare to Estonian in (35b): (35b) ja and “id.”

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laps child

jäe-t-i leave-IMPS-PAST

kõrva-le aside-ALL

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In Estonian, many adpositions are frozen grammaticalized local case forms of nouns. Historically, kõrvale “aside” is allative (directional external local case) from kõrv “ear.” The verb jätma “to leave” (transitive), together with verbs like unustama “to forget,” kaotama “to loose,” and some others, require directional cases (literally, you leave the keys onto the table). This is considered to be a distinctive feature of Estonian as compared to Indo-European languages (Erelt et al. 1995: 51). In Russian, however, a modifier of the corresponding verb ostavit’ “to leave” (transitive) has to be in the locative, or prepositional, case expressing static meaning, therefore, answering the question where ? not where to ? In this light, the use of the accusative case as in (35a) is ungrammatical because the prepositional phrase v + accusative expresses a directional meaning (where to? ). However, even the choice of the “right” case (locative) would not ease the understanding of the utterance by a monolingual speaker. Unlike in Estonian, the collocation in Russian is not idiomatic and would be interpreted at a face value. In Chapter 3, example (8a) illustrated mixed copying of the phrasal verb pähe õppima “to learn by heart.” I have come across a selective copy of the same verb. The copy is at odds with combinability rules in monolingual Russian (recall also a selective copy of a similar verb peast teadma “to know by heart” in (30a) in the current chapter). Consider (36a): (36a) vy-ucˇ-u vsjo v golov-u PERF-learn-1SG all into head-ACC “I will learn everything by heart” (Autumn 2006, a student to her friend at Tallinn University) Compare to monolingual Russian in (36b) and to Estonian in (36c): (36b)

(36b)

monolingual Russian vy-ucˇ-u vsjo PERF-learn-1SG all “id.” Estonian õpi-n learn-1SG “id.”

kõik all

naizust’ ~ out of lips

na on

pamjat’-Ø memory-ACC

pähe head: ILL

As mentioned earlier, Russian uses a different idiom whose first component is “to learn” as in Estonian but the second component differs (see above). The verb “to learn” in Russian cannot have a modifier with a directional meaning, that is, one cannot learn anything into anywhere. Example (36a) reveals that the same analytic construction can yield both selective and mixed copying.

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Some other copying instances that fit into (34) display no violation of Russian grammar (in the sense that prepositions and cases are “right”), yet the items constituting the collocation are not semantically combinable in Russian. In the next example (37a) the Estonian analytic verb tagasi helistama “to call back” (back + to call) is selectively copied into Russian (example taken from Ozernova 2005: 45): (37a) Ja ne mog-u seicˇas govorit’, po-zvonj-u sama I not can-1SG now to talk PREF-call-1SG myself tebe nazad you: DAT back “I cannot talk now, I will call you back myself ” (2005, Tallinn, middle-aged Russian-speaking woman talking on her mobile) As it is clear from the glossing in (37a), the Russian verb pozvonit’ “to call” has a perfectivizing prefix. However, aspect (perfectivized present tense form that indicates reference to future events in Russian) is not relevant here because the copied particle verb tagasi helistama “to call back” belongs to the type (25b): analytic verbs that have a new complex meaning as compared to corresponding synthetic verbs, whereas the modifier does not express aspect. In Standard Russian, (po)zvonit’ nazad is impossible semantically and combinationally. In Russian, one can say (po)zvonit’ + DAT (to call whom), (po)zvonit’ + adverb of time (to call when), and so on. To convey the meaning “to call back,” Russian has prefixed verbs pere-zvonit’ (perfective) and pere-zvanivat’ (imperfective), where the prefix pere- means “anew, again.” In the next example (37b), the verb tagasi helistama “to call back” is copied as a combination of the Russian prefixed verb perezvonit’ and the adverb of place nazad “back”: (37b) Nado jej nazad pere-zvoni-t’ necessary she: DAT back PREF-call-INF “It is necessary to call her back” (Autumn 2006, conversation between students in Tallinn University) This is a remarkable example which suggests the salience of Estonian analytic verbs to Russian-speakers. The meaning expressed by the Russian prefix has faded for the speaker, whereas it is explicit in the Estonian autonomous adverb tagasi “back.” Mixed copying. Estonian analytic verbs and fixed expressions that are developing into analytic verbs are subject to mixed copying as well. There is a single pattern of mixed copying where the verb is copied selectively and the

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modifier globally. The reason why the copying occurs this way and not the other way around (globally copied verb + selectively copied modifier) is apparently due to higher semantic specificity of the modifier than of the verb. It is the modifier that changes the overall meaning, that is, saama “to get” vs. aru saama “to understand” (literally, “to get sense”) vs. üle saama “to overcome, to get over” (over + to get) vs. kätte saama “to receive” (perfective, literally, “to get into the hand”), and so on. It is understandable that mixed copies are unintelligible to monolingual speakers. Recall example (8a) in Chapter 3, Section 3.2.2, which is a mixed copy of the idiomatic phrasal verb õppisin pähe “(I) learned by heart” (learned + head: ILL) that yields ucˇila pähe “id.” (Russian learned + Estonian head: ILL). The utterance was produced by a Russian-speaker whose proficiency in Estonian is relatively low. Still, it is not easy to establish a connection between the degree of copying and the knowledge of the model code by speakers. In my experience, proficient speakers of Estonian produce mixed copies of analytic verbs as well. Consider (38a), taken from Ozernova (2005: 46) and Estonian in (38b): (38a) vcˇera välja-s xodi-l-a yesterday out-INES go-PAST-FEM “yesterday I went out” (2005, proficient female speaker of Estonian at Tallinn University) (38b)

Estonian eile yesterday “id.”

käi-si-n go-PAST-1SG

välja-s out-INES

The adverb väljas “out” is a grammaticalized inessive form from the noun väli “field.” The Estonian verb käima “to go, to walk, to frequent” requires a modifier in the inessive, internal local static case (answers the question where ?). In Russian, the verb xodit’ “to go” is directional (answers the question where to ?). Thus, in the given mixed copy, Estonian combinability rules (verb government) have been retained. The Estonian verb is idiomatic, meaning not just leaving the building but also going places, communicating with people, and so on. In Russian, the prefixed verb vyxodit’ (imperfective) “to go out” (literally, out-go) may be argued to have a similar idiomatic meaning in some contexts but it is not as clear as in Estonian. In the present tense, it is possible to say the following (38c) which has figurative meaning: (38c) Ja nikuda ne vy-xož-u I nowhere not PREF-go-1SG “I don’t go out anywhere”

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However, in most contexts, the verb vyxodit’ “to go out” cannot be used without an adverbial of place or time. For instance, the word-for-word rendition of (38a) in (38d) sounds somewhat strange: (38d) (Ja) vcˇera (I) yesterday “I went out yesterday”

vy-xodi-l-a (?) PREF-go-PAST-FEM

The use of vyjti “to go out” (perfective) is impossible without an adverbial. Thus, the Russian verb vyxodit’/vyjti “to go out” is more context-sensitive and has a weaker idiomatic meaning than the corresponding Estonian particle verb väljas käima “id.” Backus (2005: 331–332) shows that certain idioms/fixed expressions cannot be selectively copied. Some idioms are translatable (selectively copiable) and some are not. It is not easy to unambiguously define translatability because translatability is closely linked to conventions and to equivalence (to translate, one has to establish equivalence between items in two languages), whereas the latter is subjective and can be interpreted in different ways (recall Chapter 3, Section 3.2.6). Does “untranslatable” mean the lack of a conventional equivalent or the lack of structural/semantic isomorphism between the items in two monolingual varieties? The examples of selective copying considered in this section provide evidence that the newly established structural and/or semantic isomorphism may win over conventional “translation equivalents.” It remains to be seen whether all cases of mixed copying in analytic verbs have to do with untranslatability in the sense of lacking any sort of equivalence. As shown in (36a), some variation between mixed and selective copying is possible in analytic verbs. Probably, translatability has to be viewed in gradual terms, as there are more or less prototypical cases. One of the more prototypical untranslatable idioms is instantiated in (39a). In Estonian, eksmatrikuleerima means “to expel (from university)”. To say that one is expelled from the university (passive meaning), in official style the impersonal form is used: ta eksmatrikuleeri-t-i (he expelIMPS-PAST) “s/he was expelled.” Informal styles make use of the support verb construction eksmatti saama “id.” with the literal meaning “to get/receive exmatriculation.” Russian-language information sheets for students (at least at Tallinn University) have a pseudo-internationalism eksmatrikulirovat’ modeled on Estonian eksmatrikuleerima, while the support verb construction eksmatti saama is copied in informal speech as shown in (39a): (39a) polucˇi-t’ eksmat-Ø receive-INF expulsion-ACC “to get expelled”

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Standard Russian does not have anything similar. As we already know, Russian has idioms and fixed expressions corresponding to some Estonian analytic verbs but in general, Estonian clearly has a greater degree of analyticity of verbs, lexicalization potential of collocations, and support verb constructions. The verb saama “to get, to receive” in Estonian is sufficiently grammaticalized and frequently functions as a support verb, which cannot be said of the Russian polucˇat’ “id.” Standard Russian uses iskljucˇit’ for “expel” but lacks a support verb construction employing a noun derived from the verb. Probably, selective copying in (39b) with a noun iskljucˇenije “expulsion” is theoretically possible but sounds strange and unintelligible and, to the best of my knowledge, does not occur: (39b) polucˇi-t’ receive-INF “id.”

iskljucˇenij-e (?) expulsion-ACC

From a theoretical point of view, it is important not only to register and analyze the occurrence of linguistic items but also to explain non-occurrence. The utterance in (39b) is opaque for a monolingual speaker (but as we know from previous examples, this does not prevent copying). The Russian verb iskljucˇit’ and the noun iskljucˇenije have several meanings: “to expel,” “to make an exception,” “to eliminate” and “expulsion,” “exception,” “elimination” respectively. The establishment of equivalence is subjective, and apparently, the speakers are unable to draw parallels between iskljucˇenije and eksmatt because, as opposed to the Russian noun, the Estonian one has a narrow and concrete meaning which probably seems too distant from the range of meanings provided in Russian. Therefore, the given idiom may be considered as untranslatable and this might have favored mixed copying.

4.4.4

Discussion

Compared to the copying of CN, the copying of analytic verbs is much less productive and less frequent. As discussed earlier in Chapter 3, verbs tend to have a more abstract meaning than nouns and are not prominent at the pragmatic level; therefore, verbs are not the first candidates for global copying. The structural distance between the two languages, as far as analytic verbs are concerned, is significant: some similar idioms notwithstanding, Russian lacks constructions that would be completely structurally isomorphic with Estonian analytic verbs. However, structural difference per se is not an obstacle to copying. Probably, a relatively modest occurrence of the copies of analytic verbs is due to the fact that more time is required for bilingual’s language intuition to change in such a way that a new equivalence between the items of the model code and those of the basic code could be established.

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Chronologically speaking, copying of CN (whether selective, mixed, or global) precedes that of analytic verbs (the fist occurrences of which in my data are from 2004–2005). Nevertheless, it seems that Estonian analytic structures are salient and attractive to a Russian-speaker. Example (37b) demonstrates that the meaning of the prefix in the synthetic verb perezvonit’ “to call back” becomes opaque but is salient in the autonomous adverb nazad “back,” copied from Estonian tagasi “id.” It is not clear how copying of analytic verb corresponds to the degree of proficiency in Estonian. Apparently, proficient bilinguals are more likely to copy analytic verbs but there is no evidence that less proficient speakers cannot do this. The instance of mixed copying as shown in (8a), Chapter 3, exemplifies a compromise when a non-proficient speaker did not wish to talk to me in completely monolingual Russian. As described in Section 4.4.3, selective copies of analytic verbs are likely to appear in translations from Estonian. Probably, instances of “radical” copying that violate grammar rules, as described in (34), and mixed copies would not appear in translations that are supposed to be monolingual texts at least in theory. Note that written translations are usually edited. Still, borderline cases of copying (collocations acceptable in Standard Russian but lacking a figurative meaning, redundant modifiers, and so on) have a greater chance of “slipping in” despite the editor’s efforts. The hypothesis that analytic verbs are attractive can be supported by the fact that analytic verbs have been copied in Russian as spoken by the indigenous minority in the area of the lake Peipus (Heiter 1977: 203 ff.; see discussion of her example in Verschik 2006: 398). A systematic comparative investigation of what is copied in the both contact-situations would contribute to a better understanding of attractiveness. Interestingly, the cases of mixed copying analyzed in the previous section have parallels with other contact situations and other language pairs. Türker (2000) discusses the mixed copying of Norwegian VPs that are idioms or fixed expressions into the local variety of Turkish. These are instances very similar to (38a) and (39a): A Norwegian verb is copied selectively and the nominal part of the fixed expression globally. Copied collocations are non-existent in Standard Turkish where a different conventional expression is used. In addition to similar patterns of mixed copying (i.e., a semantic copy of the verb plus a global copy of the modifier and not vise versa), I found a similar construction (semi-idiom in the terms of Muischnek 2006a) copied both in Norwegian Turkish and Estonian Russian. Türker (2000: 179) discusses the mixed copy eksamen-a çıkacam “I’ll enter (the) exam,” modeled on Norwegian å gå opp til exam, literally, “to go up to examination” (Standard Turkish sınava girece—im). Example (31a) deals with the copy of the Estonian semi-idiom with the same meaning “to pass an exam.”

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The difference between the Turkish and the Russian copies of the idiom with the same meaning is in the degree of copying. The choice of mixed copying for the former and selective copying for the latter is partly explicable by the fact that Russian and Estonian have a common (not identical but similar) internationalism ekzamen/eksam, while Turkish and Norwegian do not. Still, we encounter an idiom in both cases and perhaps it is the semantic specificity of the modifier that favors its global copying (recall (39a) where the nominal part eksmatt “expulsion” is untranslatable into Russian). Why then do mixed copies of analytic verbs and fixed expressions similar to them contain a semantic copy of the verb and a global copy of the particle/ nominal part of the construction? Additional evidence for the pattern comes from Hasselblatt (1990). In contrast to Estonian where analytic verbs have become fully conventionalized, purism in Finnish corpus planning has eradicated the “loan translations” of analytic verbs (Hasselblatt 1990: 47 and references therein). Nevertheless, Hasselblatt (1990: 18) mentions that after having spent some time in Germany, Finnish-speakers tend to copy the German idiomatic expression los sein “to be wrong” (literally, “to be loose”). By the way, the idiomatic verbal construction has a precise equivalent in Estonian (but not in Finnish), namely, the particle verb lahti olema (loose + to be) with the very same idiomatic meaning. Thus, nichts ist los “nothing is wrong,” “nothing is the matter” (literally, “nothing is loose”) is rendered in the following way where the particle is a global copy: (40)

ei ole mitään not be nothing “nothing is wrong”

los loose

The examples from different contact situations discussed here confirm that analytic constructions are attractive indeed and that the patterns of analytic verbs/idiomatic VPs mixed copying tend to be similar. A possible explanation may be that there are common trends in the perception of analytic verbs: it is the modifier that makes an analytic verb different from its synthetic counterpart. It is clear that more evidence is needed for further generalizations; nevertheless, the parallel between mixed copying patterns in Russian, Turkish and Finnish is obvious.

4.5

Copying of discourse-pragmatic words

Copying of discourse-pragmatic words has been widely reported from different contact situations (Hlavac 2006; Keevallik 2006a, b; Maschler 1994, 1998, 2000; Matras 1998, 2005; Salmons 1990; Stolz and Stolz 1996; to name just few).

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Maschler (1994) distinguishes between denotative and metalinguistic language; Fraser (1996) proposes a similar division between propositional language and “everything else.”9 Wertheim (2003: 160) employs the term “discourse-pragmatic words” to refer to what Maschler (1994) calls metalinguistic language. Wertheim (2003: 160) states that her term is more neutral, as it does not focus exclusively on either side of the dialog. I share this view and follow Wertheim’s terminology here. Maschler (1994: 359) argues that metalanguage, as opposed to denotative language, is iconic and for that reason is similar across different languages. According to Matras (1998, 2000, 2005), the reasons for copying of discourse pragmatics are not only of sociolinguistic but also of cognitive origin. While it is known empirically that discourse-pragmatics comes from a sociolinguistically dominant language, Matras (1998) stresses the cognitive aspect. In his view, discourse-pragmatics (he prefers the term “utterance modifiers”) belongs to what he calls automatic linguistic gestures. A bilingual speaker experiences a considerable cognitive pressure that can be relieved through fusion, that is, by having a single set of metalinguistic items. Wertheim’s (2003) approach to Russian discourse-pragmatic words in Tatar is based on theoretical frameworks proposed by Maschler (1994) and Fraser (1996). Discourse-pragmatic words is a cover term that includes not just prototypical discourse markers but also other items (conjunctions, adverbs, interjections, markers of modality, question words, etc.) that are of primary importance for shaping, directing, and controlling the discourse. In the Estonian linguistic tradition, Hennoste (2002) expresses a similar idea and labels this class of words as particles by extending the meaning of the term “particle” (partikkel) generally accepted in Estonian linguistics. Wertheim (2003: 182) subdivides Russian discourse-pragmatic words into three categories that are further classified into smaller subcategories. The three categories are: (1) markers of discourse structure and force; (2) interactional performatives; and (3) evaluatives. In the current section (4.5), I am going to follow the mentioned classification of discourse-pragmatic words for the following two reasons. First, the classification is clear and employs simple terminology. Second, based on the literature (mainly on the contacts of Turkic languages) and on her own field work on Tatar, Wertheim analyzes several cases of copying within the same terminological framework, providing thus a comparative overview of discourse-pragmatic words in different contact situations (i.e., copying from Polish into Karaim, from Turkish into Asia Minor Greek, from Persian and Arabic into Tatar, from Russian into Uzbek). I believe that a comparative view on copying of discoursepragmatic words could be methodologically useful. Judging from the wealth of data described and analyzed by different scholars, copying of discourse pragmatics appears to be a frequent tendency (see especially Matras 2005). The attractiveness of discourse-pragmatics and certain similarities notwithstanding, the results of copying in the contact situations presented by Wertheim (2003) are not identical.

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The differences may be partly conditioned by structural reasons, for example, frame-changing consequences for the basic code in certain cases (copying Russian conjunctions into Turkic languages) and the lack of such profound restructuring in others (Swedish discourse-pragmatics in Swedish Estonian, Keevallik 2006a, b). Similar but not identical lists of copied discourse pragmatic words as presented by Wertheim (2003: Appendix F) suggest that one should look for differences in the sociolinguistic setting as well: the intensity of contact, preferences in speech communities, the character of interaction between the speakers, and other sociolinguistic factors probably matter here. In contrast to the case studies considered in the literature, copying of discoursepragmatic words does not occur only in the interactions between the primary speakers of the basic code, that is, in Russian-to-Russian communication. In Russian-to-Estonian interaction, Russian-speakers not confident in their ability to produce anything approximating monolingual Estonian would employ copying of Estonian discourse pragmatics and by these means “dilute” their Russian speech to communicate politeness. Probably, interactional perfomatives are the best candidates for this function. To the best of my knowledge, the contact linguistics literature mostly deals with the global copying of discourse-pragmatics; nevertheless, selective copying takes place, too. Copying of functions, material, and combinational properties of Swedish discourse-pragmatics into a variety of immigrant Estonian is considered by Keevalik (2006a) at length. There are similar developments in my data, and selective copying of discourse-pragmatic words will be discussed as well. It is too early to speak of fusion (in the sense of Matras 1998) in Estonia’s Russian as a whole: Estonian discourse-pragmatic words have not (yet?) replaced the native ones. Nevertheless, even sporadic copying is symptomatic, and I will show that some discourse-pragmatic items, namely, interactional prerformatives have become habitualized, conventionalized, and even monolingualized (i.e., used in Russian-to-Russian communication by speakers with a relatively modest degree of proficiency in Estonian).

4.5.1

Global copying

As mentioned before, my analysis of globally copied Estonian discourse-pragmatic words is based on the classification suggested by Wertheim (2003: 182).

4.5.1.1.

Markers of discourse structure and force

The first group, markers of discourse structure and force, is subdivided in the following way: (41)

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Markers of discourse structure and force: a. subordinating discourse markers: b. coordinating discourse markers: -

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Emerging Bilingual Speech c. contrastive discourse markers: a(ga) “but, and,” siiski “still, nevertheless” d. markers of metacommentary and deixis: kuule “listen,” oot(-oot) “wait,” no(h) “well,” kõik “that’s it,” nii “so.”10

As shown in (41c) and (41d), only contrastive discourse markers and markers of metacommentary and deixis are represented in my data. Estonian contrastive discourse markers are combinable with some markers of metacommentary and deixis, emphasizing the latter, for instance, aga muidugi “but certainly,” kuule siiski “listen nevertheless.” Such a combination is instantiated in example (42). A Russian-dominant host in a bilingual program is talking about a new film with a guest. Somehow, the interlocutors switch to another topic but after a while the host wishes to return to the main subject: (42) aga siiski o kino but still about cinema “but let us nevertheless talk about the cinema” (23.11.2001, Estonian TV, Sputnik) In principle, either aga “but” or siiski “still” would be sufficient on their own to signal the separation between the topics. Two contrastive discourse markers in a row intensify the contrast. The Estonian conjunction aga “but, and” is often pronounced as a in casual speech. The realization makes it identical to the Russian conjunction a “but, and” with a similar but not entirely coinciding range of meaning. The material similarity across the items of the two languages facilitates selective copying (to be discussed below); it also makes instances of bilingual speech where several copies of varying degrees co-occur in the same utterance difficult for interpretation because the item a may very well belong to either codes. Consider (43) where the conjunction is followed by the shared internationalism konspekt “lecture notes” whose material properties (the stress on the first syllable, see discussion in note number 1 of the present chapter) have been copied from Estonian. The speaker in (43) is a female student majoring in Estonian as a foreign language, is Russian-dominant but reasonably fluent in Estonian. (43) A konspekt [kónspekt] u tebja zdes’ ? and lecture notes at you: GEN here “have you got your lecture notes with you?” (Autumn 2006, Tallinn University) Both monolingual varieties would use a(ga)/a in this context; bilingual speakers who spend a considerable amount of time in an Estonian-speaking

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environment would easily discover the similarity between the Russian a “but, and” and the informal use of a instead of aga in colloquial Estonian. The realization of the next item, konspekt “lecture notes,” with the stress on the first syllable, has become habitualized at least in the speech of students. Thus, the conjunction and the common internationalism in (43) may both be interpreted as copies from Estonian. Another option would be to consider a “but, and” as a Russian item and konspekt “lecture notes” as a habitualized copy that is characteristic of a specific variety of Russian, an Alpha-lect. The absence of copied subordinating and coordinating conjunctions on the one hand and the presence of contrastive conjunctions on the other is in need of an explanation. According to a cognitive explanation offered by Matras (2005), compared to addition, contrast is more prone to fusion. In other words, contrast appears by its nature to be more prominent at the level of shaping and directing the discourse. Probably, for subordinating and coordinating conjunctions to be copied, a longer period of time/more proficient bilinguals is needed because such conjunctions are more embedded in the grammatical structure. Among the discourse-pragmatic words listed in (42d), metacommentary and deixis, there are finite verbs like kuule “listen” (IMP 2SG of kuulma “to listen”), oot(-oot) < oota “wait” (IMP 2SG of ootama “to wait”) (see Keevallik 2003 on Estonian finite verb forms developing into particles). The Russian equivalents slušaj “listen” (found in Tatar, Wertheim 2003: Appendix F) and znacˇit “that is, thus” have undergone the same development from finite verbs. Russian pogodi “wait” (IMP SG of pogodit’ “to wait”) and postoj “id.” (IMP SG of postojat’ “to stand for a while”) are frozen finite verb forms as well, however, their function differs somewhat from that of Estonian oot(-oot) (to be considered later in this section). These and the remaining items in the list (muidugi “of course,” nii “so,” kõik “that’s it” and no(h) “well, so”) occupy roughly the same position in the sentence in the two languages, and copying does not create word-order conflict. The example of the Estonian kuule “listen” is presented in (44a). The speaker is an older Russian male not proficient in Estonian but wishing to avoid using monolingual Russian. He definitely violates politeness rules by using the familiar second person singular imperative kuule “listen” (instead of kuulge “listen” IMP 2PL, but even that would be too much in an interaction over the counter between unfamiliar people11) and kallis “dear” (which is considered highly intimate in Estonian) when speaking to the cashier at the bus station.12 However, even if the choice of address is wrong from the point of view of (monolingual) politeness, the speaker “gets right” the semantics of kuule “listen” which is similar to that of Russian slušaj “id.” In Russian, slušaj “listen” has the same function of selecting the new speaker and the next topic (Grenoble 1998: 157). The speaker (S) conveys the meaning and gets a response from the

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cashier (C), an Estonian-dominant female who speaks Russian with a considerable accent: (44a)

S: Kuule, kallis, a v Narv-u jest’ listen dear and into Narva-ACC be: 3SG “listen, dear, is there an express to Narva?”

ékspress? express

C: Da, devjat’ tridcat’. Yes nine thirty “yes, at nine thirty” (Tallinn bus station, 03.04.2002) The speaker’s turn in monolingual Russian would not require any changes in word order or in syntactic structure, although “dear” is pragmatically marked and characteristic of elderly speakers with little formal education talking to younger people. (44b)

monolingual Russian: Slušaj, milaja, a v listen dear and into “id.”

Narv-u Narva-ACC

jest’ be: 3SG

ékspress? express

As in the case of Estonain a(ga) “but, and” and Russian a “id.,” the Estonian no(h) “well, so” is very similar to the Russian nu “id.” In the following example (45a) a highly proficient bilingual speaker discusses dishonest practices during the local elections where several candidates bribed ordinary people to get their vote. He introduces the Estonian noh “well” between two monolingual Russian clauses. Three dots (. . .) mark a hesitation pause: (45a) golosova-l, opuska-l svoj bjulleten’, polucˇa-l sto vote-PAST put-PAST own ballot receive-PAST hundred dvadcat’ pjat’ kron . . . noh, cˇto my mož-em sdela-t’? twenty five crown well what we can-2PL do-INF “would vote, would insert his/her ballot, would receive one hundred and twenty five crowns . . . well, what can we do?” (20.10.2005, Estonian TV, Bessonica/Unetus) In monolingual Russian, the particle nu “well, so” would be used at the same point in the utterance and would have the same function as Estonian noh, that is, to sum up or to express a conclusion (Grenoble 1998: 183; Vasilyeva 1972: 101). Consider monolingual Russian in (45b): (45b) golosova-l, opuska-l vote-PAST put-PAST

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svoj own

bjulleten’, ballot

polucˇa-l receive-PAST

sto hundred

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Case Studies in Code-Copying dvadcat’ twenty “id.”

pjat’ five

kron . . . nu, crown well

cˇto what

157

my we

mož-em can-2PL

sdela-t’? do-INF

The speaker in (45a) is a young male, a fluent bilingual with Russian as L1. While his Estonian is marked with some Russian accent, his Russian is often realized with Estonian intonation. Not only does he clearly pronounced noh instead of nu but the prosodic realization (falling intonation) of the particle was strikingly Estonian. Thus, the particle in (45a) cannot be mistaken for the Russian nu. This case is reminiscent of the copying of Swedish prosodic features of discourse-pragmatic words onto similar Estonian items, described in Keevalik (2006a: 124–125), for instance, mm (expression of agreement or confirmation of attention on the part of the hearer) has a rising contour in Swedish and in Swedish Estonian, which sounds strange to Estonian-speakers from Estonia. Copying of Estonian oot “wait” and kõik “that’s it” is considered in the following examples, (46a) and (47) respectively. In (46a), oot “wait” signals a short time-out needed by the speaker for the recollection. The excerpt is taken from a conversation between two females, Russian-dominant but fluent speakers of Estonian, a young university instructor, and a first-year student in Tallinn University.13 The language of the conversation is Russian. The instructor (I) wishes to know how students spend their free time and asks whether the student has visited any museums in Tallinn. The student (S) hesitates and then gives a negative answer: (46a)

I: A v muzej-e by-l-a? but in museum-LOC was-PAST-FEM “have you been to a museum?” S: Oot . . . net wait no “wait . . . no”

Standard Russian has etymologically similar (i.e., imperative forms) particles pogodi “wait” and postoj “id.” (literally, “stand for a while”), but their function and scope of use differ from those of oot(-oot). In Russian, pogodi and postoi mark interruption and the speaker’s wish to interfere, while the Estonian oot (-oot), depending on the context, either has the same function or signals the speaker’s need for a time-out, as in (46a). For the latter function, monolingual Russian uses either the hesitation particle mm or the partial repetition of the interlocutor’s utterance, as in (46b): (46b)

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monolingual Russian Question: A v muzej-e and in museum-LOC “have you been to a museum?”

by-l-a? was-PAST-FEM

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Emerging Bilingual Speech Answer: (Mm . . .) v muzej-e? Net mm in museum-LOC no “mm . . . to a museum? No”

The following example demonstrates the use of kõik “that’s all, that’s it.” In (47), a Russian-speaking TV program host uses alternatively Russian i vse “that’s it” (also registered in Tatar) and Estonian kõik “id.”: (47) i vse, i kõik, vy gotov-y and all and all you ready-PL “and that’s it, you are ready” (19.12.2000, Estonian TV, Cˇetyre vremeni goda/ Neli aastaaega “four seasons”) Note that (47) does not originate from a talk show where speech is spontaneous. The mentioned TV program is officially a Russian-language monolingual program, usually dedicated to a particular person and combines interviews with the author’s own narrative behind the screen. This means that the material is usually edited and “slips of the tongue” can be eliminated, which, however, does not happen in (47). The example comes from the author’s comment behind the screen and not from an interview. On these grounds, I believe that (47) instantiates a deliberate double marking of the same function for intensification purposes. Wertheim (2003: 196) has registered double marking in interactional performatives (like Tatar sau-bul “so long” immediately followed by Russian poka “id.”). She draws parallels to other endangered languages where a similar phenomenon has been observed (Wertheim 2003: 296, footnote 16). A possible explanation is that the speakers of contracting languages do not feel that the action of leave-taking is “properly” completed until the performative is repeated in the majority language. Clearly, this is not the case of Russian in Estonia in general and in (47) in particular. Double marking of interactional performatives occurs in my data as well but for different reasons (to be discussed below). In (47) double marking serves to increase expressivity and to demonstrate the speaker’s emotional involvement. The Russian particle tak “so, well” serves a variety of discourse functions, such as signaling boundaries in topical units and tracking local-level topics (Grenoble 1998: 17). Similarly, the Estonian nii “id.” is classified as boundary particle (Hennoste 2002: 71). In the following example (48), the speaker is a Russian-dominant middle-aged saleswoman in a small yarn shop in Tallinn. She is serving a client and is looking for plastic bags to pack the purchase, discovers the bags hanging right behind her back, accepts money, and places the notes in the register box while talking to herself and commenting her own actions.

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(48) Kus on mešocˇki? Aa, za špinoj . . . Za spinoj kak za where are bags o, behind back behind back like behind stenoj . . . [places two crowns note] Nii, kaksik sjuda wall . . . Well, two crowns note here “where are the bags? O, they are behind my back. Behind my back, like behind the wall. Well, let’s put two crowns note here” (24.06.2006, Tallinn, yarn shop in Viru Keskus shoping centre) The speaker is talking to herself but is definitely aware of the presence of other people (her colleague, the client, and myself). She is trying to be creative and quickly introduces a rhyme: za spinoj “behind the back” and za stenoj “behind the wall.” After a pause, she performs a new action (placing the note) and accompanies it with a comment that starts with the Estonian nii “so, well.” The following word, kaksik “two crowns note,” is yet another instance of bilingual creativity. The word kaksik is derived from the Estonian numeral kaks “two,” whereas the derivational suffix –ik is a bilingual homophone with a variety of meanings in both languages (in Russian, it is one of the diminutive markers). The word kaksik already exists in monolingual Estonian and means “twin” or “double.”14 Thus, material properties have been copied and a new meaning created. The item kaksik with the meaning “two crowns note” has become conventionalized among Russian-speaking salespersons in Tallinn. For that reason, I would interpret nii not as introducing a short alternation to Estonian but as a global copy introducing the Russian clause.

4.5.1.2

Interactional performatives

Estonian interactional performatives (greetings, farewells, expressions of gratitude, and so on) are the most frequently copied discourse-pragmatic words in Russian. Like some of metacommentary and deixis markers, interactional perfomatives are widely employed in Russian-to-Estonian communication even if the Russian interlocutor is not proficient in Estonian. In this case, the most natural Estonian items to be chosen by the Russian-speaker would be conversation starters, greeting and farewell formulas, and words that express gratitude and agreement (i.e., interactional performatives). Note that interactional performatives are likely to be learned first and are highly frequent. Interactional performatives that appear in my data are as follows: tere “hello” (often reduplicated as tere-tere “hello-hello”), aitäh “thank you,” suur tänu “many thanks,” palun “please,” head aega “goodbye,” kalli-musi “bye” (an intimate farewell word, literally, “dear-kiss”; also possible as kalli, kalli-kalli, musi-kalli, musimusi, musi or even kalli-kalli, musi-musi with the same meaning and pragmatic value).15

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The word commonly used for greeting, tere “hello” (also used as tere-tere), has become conventionalized in Russian-to-Russian communication as well. I have heard all the mentioned interactional perfomatives in Russian-to-Russian conversations in Tallinn starting from 2005; however, so far only tere “hello” can be claimed to have fully conventionalized in monolingual use. According to Ozernova (2005: 17), even in the northeast where Russian-speaking population prevail, a conversation between a customer and a salesperson (both Russian-speakers) frequently starts with tere: (49) Tere! Ja mog-u vam hello I can-1SG you: DAT “hello, can I help you somehow?”

kak-nibud’ how-some

pomocˇ’ ? help: INF

In (49), tere “hello” opens the conversation between two Russian-speakers who are not familiar with each other. In (50), a middle-aged Russian-speaking female meets someone at the Tallinn University Academic Library she knows and starts talking to that person. (50) Tere-tere, milaja! “Hello-hello, dear!” (Spring 2005, Tallinn University Academic Library) After that, the conversation continues in Russian. The interactional performatives palun “please” and aitäh “thank you” often appear in the same conversation and are subjects to double marking, however, for reasons different from those discussed in Wertheim (2003: 296) and mentioned earlier in the current chapter. In over the counter communication, double marking of the kind palun-požalujsta/požalujsta-palun “please,” aitähspasibo “thank you” usually signals a salesperson’s disposition to speak both languages if needed. In (51), a Russian-dominant male solicits business at the marketplace, repeating everything in two languages to a potential buyer. (51)

Požalujsta-palun, please-please

sukkpüksid-kolgotki pantyhose-pantyhose (Spring 2005, Tallinn Railway Station market)

In (51), the salesperson invites customers to his counter without knowing what language preference a particular customer has. Thus, the utterance is addressed to everybody and to nobody in particular. This is different in (52), where the speaker is a host in a Russian-language TV program. Officially, this is not a bilingual but Russian-language TV show, and Russian-speakers are the target audience, at least in theory. In reality, however, the difference is difficult

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to maintain. Double marking is present in this case as well, apparently, for the purpose of emphasis: (52)

Spasibo vam, gospodin V., za to, cˇto ob’’jasnili svoju tocˇku zrenija. Suur tänu, spasibo. “thank you, mister V, for explaining your point of view. Many thanks, thanks” (18.10.2002, Estonian TV, Sputnik)

The last interactional performative to be considered is kalli-kalli, musi-musi in (53).The expression is perceived as intimate and marks the end of a conversation. Unlike in (44a) where the speaker’s use of the intimate kuule, kallis “listen, dear” violates Estonian politeness rules, the use of kalli-kalli, musi-musi is entirely appropriate in (53). Two young females are in the tram, interacting in Russian. One of them is preparing to get off at the next stop and ends the conversation in the following way: (53)

Nu vse, kalli-kalli, musi-musi! well all dear-dear kiss-kiss “well, that’s it, goodbye, my dear” (Spring 2006, Tallinn)

According to the data presented by Ozernova (2005: 28), kalli-kalli and its variants have become spread both in Tallinn and northeastern Estonia. Although, compared to the pragmatically neutral and extremely frequent tere “hello” this interactional performative can be used in a much narrower range of situations, its habitualization and conventionalization among non-proficient speakers of Estonian as L2 suggests interactional performatives (especially greeting and farewell markers) are attractive for copying.

4.5.1.3

Evaluatives

In Wertheim’s (2003: 182) classification of discourse-pragmatic words, evaluatives are further subdivided into the following categories: general evaluatives (“how” in the sense “how was the party?”), positive evaluation (“fine,” “well done!”), negative evaluation (“how awful!”), epistemics (“probably, maybe”), hedges (“almost,” “a little”), evaluation of degree (“overly,” “even,” “completely”), evaluation of time (“soon,” “already”), and evaluation of relationship to reality (“in general,” “usually”). In my data, the following types of evaluatives are present: (54)

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Global copies of Estonian evaluatives in Russian a. positive evaluation: selge “clear,” hästi “fine” b. negative evaluation: kahjuks “unfortunately”

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c. hedges: lihtsalt “simply, just” d. evaluation of relationship to reality: jaa/jah “yes,” ei “no,” loomulikult “naturally,” muidugi “of course.” In Wertheim (2003: 189), “of course” is assigned to metacommentry and deixis. As both Russian konecˇno “of course” and Estonian muidugi “id.” have at least two different functions, admission and confirmation, a clarification is needed. In a sentence like of course, he is not very intelligent but he knows his job the discourse-pragmatic word of course expresses admission; whereas in the following sentence of course he knows what he is doing it expresses confirmation. Based on that, I am inclined to assign the admissive “of course” to metacommentary and deixis and confirming “of course” to evaluatives (more precisely, to evaluatives of relationship to reality). In my data, muidugi “of course” is present in the latter function only. Example (55) illustrates the use of selge “clear.” The speaker is the same as in (44a), a middle-aged Russian-dominant male with a poor proficiency in Estonian who uses Estonian discourse-pragmatic words as a means to step away from monolingual Russian. In (44a), he violated Estonian politeness conventions but in (55) the use of Estonian items is pragmatically correct (possibly because the rules here are more transparent than the conventions of address terms in another language). (55) Nu, davajte togda do Kohtla-Järve. Selge. so give then till Kohtla-Järve clear “so, give me then (the ticket) to Kohtla-Järve. It’s clear” (03.04.2002, Tallinn bus station) The following interaction (56) is an example of Russian-to-Russian communication. Two evaluatives, kahjuks “unfortunately” and ei “no” appear in the short excerpt. It is a bilingual TV talk show with two hosts (a Russian-dominant and an Estonian-dominant) and the audience which is free to use either language. A young female teacher (T) of Estonian as a second language at school, an ethnic Russian with a high proficiency in Estonian, complains that her students only wish to receive a certificate but not to use the language. She speaks Estonian and the Russian-dominant host (H) interferes: (56)

H: U mnogix jest’ éto tahtmine? “do many (students) have this wish?” T: Ei. “no” H: Kak vam kažetsja? “how does it appear to you?”

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T:

Kahjuks. “unfortunately” H: Pocˇemu? “why?” (31.03.2005, Estonain TV, Bessonnica/Unetus) At this point, the conversation continues in Russian. The pragmatic reasons for the use of Estonian discourse-pragmatic items may be manifold and cannot be dealt with here. What is important about (56) is the internalization of items other than highly semantically specific nouns in Russian-to-Russian communication. The following excerpts (57) through (60) illustrate the use of various Estonian evaluatives in Russian-to-Russian interaction. A Russian-speaking mother addresses her little boy who is jumping between the seats in the tram: (57)

Lihtsalt vy-jd-i just out-go-IMP “just get away from there”

otsjuda from here (22.04.2006, Tallinn, tram no. 1)

A conversation between two young Russian-speaking females: (58) Oi, jaa, tam ved’ telefon smeni-l-i oh yes there but phone change-PAST-PL “oh yes, but the phone number has been changed there”16 In a shoe store, a young couple is choosing shoes. The young woman (W) wishes to look for something else but her partner (P) persuades to try on the pair she is holding in her hands: (59)

W:

P:

Posmotr-im lucˇše drug-ije. Look-2PL better other-ACC PL “let us better look for something else” Ei. Ja tebe govorj-u, primer’! no I you: DAT tell-1SG try on: IMP “no, I am telling you, try these on” (January 2006, department store at Rocca-al-Mare Keskus, Tallinn)

Finally, (60) is an excerpt from a conversation between the already mentioned Russian-dominant host (H) of a bilingual TV talk show and a young

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Russian-speaking kindergarten teacher (T) who has been talking only in Russian up to this point. (60)

H: Vot tak vot, da? this so this yes “so this is how it goes, yes?” T: Loomulikult . . . a . . . éto že roditel’-sk-aja zarplata naturally but this just parent-SUF-FEM NOM salary “naturally . . . but . . . this is the parents’ salary” (10.11.2005, Estonian TV, Bessonica/Unetus)

The last example (61) to be considered in the current section is the copy of Estonian muidugi “of course, certainly.” The participants are a Russian-dominant female bilingual (R), a salesperson in the marketplace, and an Estoniandominant male bilingual (E), her client. The speakers are familiar with each other and exchange greetings in Estonian. Note that in this interaction R speaks Estonian and E speaks Russian. They have a working command of each other’s native language and speak with some accent. (61)

E: Éto dieticˇeskije jajca? this diet eggs “are these diet eggs?” R: Muidugi. “of course” E: Vse kak polagajetsja? all like supposed “everything is like it has to be, isn’t it?” R: Muidugi. “of course” E: Bez želtogo? without yellow “no yolk?” R: Muidugi. “of course (not)” (11.09.2005, Tallinn, Railway Station market)

Similar to (44a), example (61) illustrates the copying of discourse-pragmatic words in Russian-to-Estonian communication. In (44a), the choice of Estonian kuule “listen” was a part of the speaker’s strategy to demonstrate her knowledge of some Estonian items. In (61), R has a fluency in colloquial Estonian and theoretically, the interaction could have occurred in Estonian. On the other hand, since E is sufficiently fluent in Russian, the whole conversation could have happened in Russian. However, R prefers Estonian. All her turns

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are identical and consist of the single Estonian discourse-pragmatic word muidugi “of course.” Her choice of Estonian discourse-pragmatics is an instance of what I call paradoxical politeness (see Verschik 2005b: 419), a type of Russianto-Estonian interaction where both speakers have a certain command of each other’s first language and symbolically exchange the languages: “I speak your language and you speak mine.”17 As Burt (1992: 173) stresses, if the speakers are proficient in each other’s native languages and have not yet established a routine of communication, any choice is pragmatically ambiguous. In Estonia, however, this type of interaction often takes place between people who know each other and are most likely to have developed a pattern of communication. One may wonder whether (61) is relevant here at all, since R’s all turns consist of an isolated Estonian word which is not inserted into a Russian-language utterance. The given example is nevertheless important for two reasons. First, it demonstrates that Russian-to-Estonian communication may occur in a variety of ways, ranging from “real” Estonian to compromise strategies as in (44a). Second, it reveals that, due to their semantics, certain discoursespragmatic words take on, so to say, communicative weight and become conventionalized first in Russian-to-Estonian interaction and later in Russian-to-Russian interaction.

4.5.2

Selective copying

As mentioned in Section 4.5.1, discourse-pragmatic words may be subject to selective copying. This especially concerns materially similar items (bilingual homophones): Keevallik (2006b) demonstrates the copying of Swedish intonation, distribution patterns, reduplication of pragmatic markers, and copying of the whole pragmatic organization of a turn in an interaction. In what follows, I am going to consider three examples of selective copying, more or less of the type analyzed in Keevallik (2006a, b). The material similarity between the Estonian contrastive conjunction aga (in causal speech a) “and, but” and the Russian contrastive conjunction a “id.” was considered in Section 4.5.1.1. As in cases explored by Keevallik (2006a, b), material similarity facilitates copying of functions. According to Päll, Totsel and Tukumtsev (1962: 411–414), the distribution of Estonian a(ga) and Russian a is similar but not identical. In Russian, a is used if the part of the utterance following the conjunction does not invalidate the part preceding the conjunction, for instance: molodoj, a umnyj “young but intelligent” (i.e., one does not exclude the other). Thus, a expresses contrast but not opposition. If, however, the purpose is to stress opposition or contradiction between the parts, another contrastive conjunction no “but” is to be used (Päll, Totsel and Tukumtsev 1962: 413): on v éto vremja vsegda doma, no segodnja jego net “at this time he is always at home but today he is out,” that is, being out at a particular time is perceived by the speaker as a deviation from the established routine.

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In Russian, the meaning of no is narrower than that of a (Russkaja grammatika 1980: v. II, 623). Differently from the Russian a, this reservation does not concern the Estonian a(ga). The functions of the Estonian conjunction roughly cover those of both the Russian a “and, but” and no “but.” The copying of functions of Estonian a(ga) onto Russian a is demonstrated in example (62a). (62a) mnogo obešcˇaj-ut, a ne vypolnjaj-ut a lot promise-3PL and not fulfill-3PL “they promise a lot but do not fulfill” (17.11.2005, Estonian TV, Bessonica/Unetus) Compare to monolingual Russian in (62b) and to Estonian in (62c): (62b)

(62c)

monolingual Russian mnogo obešcˇaj-ut, a lot promise-3PL “id.” Estonian luba-vad promise-3PL “id.”

palju, much

no but

aga but

ne not

ei not

vypolnjaj-ut fulfill-3PL

täida fulfill

Example (62a) is akin to those analyzed by Keevallik (2006b: 122–124) where Estonian and Swedish discourse-pragmatic words are fairly similar (Estonian ah soo and Swedish jasså “really,” Estonian ei and Swedish nej “no” and some others). The second example to be considered is that of selective copying where the model item and its copy lack any material similarity. The development of verb forms into discourse-pragmatic words occurs in many languages, Estonian and Russian among them. Sometimes the same verb forms become grammaticalized in both the languages, for instance, kuule “listen” and slušaj “id.” (see Section 4.5.1.1), but this is not always the case. The Estonian palun “please” (literally, “I ask”) is first person singular present tense form of paluma “to ask.” Standard Russian has požalujsta for “please,” whereas prošu (1SG of prosit’ “to ask”) is isomorphic with the Estonian palun and has a different, somewhat narrower idiomatic meaning of “go in” (said while opening the door before somebody and inviting/letting somebody in). Note that the Russian prošu with the meaning “go in” is used without the preceding personal pronoun ja “I.” In the following example (63), a salesperson in the marketplace invites potential customers to her counter. The salesperson is a middle-aged female

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with a working command of Estonian. She would turn to a customer who, in her opinion, is a speaker of Estonian, saying palun “please,” while a Russian speaker would be addressed as follows: (63)

ja proš-u I ask-1SG “please”

In this manner, the speaker would systematically address Russian-speaking clients. Apparently, she believes the individual to be Russian-speaking. However, in the given situation (inviting clients to sample the goods) the utterance in (63) sounds strange in Standard Russian. If it is an invitation to enter the room, then the pronoun ja “I” is redundant (the conventional way to express the meaning is prošu). In combination with the pronoun ja it would be understood at a face value as “I ask,” which is clearly not what is meant in this situation. The last example to be analyzed in this section is a selective copy of the Estonian gratitude formula aitäh + personal pronoun in allative, for instance aitäh teile “thank you” (literally, “thank to you”). It has the same meaning and connotation as plain aitäh “thank you.” In Standard Russian, a conventional equivalent is spasibo “id.” If, however, a personal pronoun is added, like in spasibo tebe “thank to you: DAT SG” or spasibo vam “thank to you: DAT PL,” the connotation changes: it becomes an expression of affection and personal gratitude. In the situation to be described in (64), a bilingual salesperson (S) who speaks Estonian with a slight Russian accent asks in Estonian a Russianspeaking client (C) whether the latter could find the exact sum required to pay for the goods. The client murmurs something unintelligible and starts looking for money in her purse. Then she repeats her question in Russian. (64)

S:

Sada krooni nelikümmend senti leiate? “could you find hundred crowns forty cents?” C: [murmurs, unintelligible] S: Sto kron sorok sentov najdete? “could you find hundred crowns forty cents?” C: [hands money over to S] S: Spasibo vam [falling Estonian-like intonation] thank you: DAT PL “thank you” (Tallinn, second-hand store Humana in Viru Keskus shopping center, October 2005)

The excerpt (64) suggests that for some Russian-dominant bilinguals, Estonian has become the default language of communication over the counter: the

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salesperson addresses the client in Estonian, although prior to the conversation the latter was chatting with her friend in Russian in the presence of the salesperson. The lack of an adequate response on the part of the client is interpreted as a signal to speak Russian. Again, this is a case of “monolingual illusion”: no Estonian lexical items occur but the selective copy spasibo vam is present. Not only the structure and semantics of Estonian pragmatic formula aitäh teile is copied but prosodic characteristics as well.

4.5.3

Discussion

As it is known from the literature, discourse-pragmatic words are frequently copied from a sociolinguistically/pragmatically dominant language. Nevertheless, the current situation of copying is interesting in two respects: (1) different sets of speakers who copy Estonian discourse-pragmatics and (2) the abundance of markers of evaluatives and interactional performatives, coupled with relatively infrequently copied conjunctions. Unlike in a classical majority/minority situation, pragmatically relevant elements are being copied by two different sets of speakers: more or less proficient bilinguals on the one hand and speakers who cannot produce anything approaching monolingual Estonian and use Estonian discourse pragmatics as a compromise strategy. The first set, fluent Russian-Estonian bilinguals, corresponds more or less to the speakers described in the literature (e.g., TatarRussian bilinguals in Wertheim 2003 or Swedish Estonians in Keevallik 2006a, b). Matras (1998, 2005) argues that fluent bilinguals experience considerable cognitive pressure that can be relieved through fusion, that is, having one system of discourse-pragmatic words that come from a pragmatically (and sociolinguistically) dominant language. However, the reasons for copying in the second set of speakers may be different. In this case, copying of Estonian discoursepragmatic words is consciously employed as a communicative strategy across the ethnic boundaries. It is not a cognitive load but, so to speak, a pragmatic load they serve to relieve. Apparently, the second group of speakers would copy discourse-pragmatic words of certain types. We have seen that greetings and expressions of gratitude are more likely to be copied by such speakers. The attractiveness of the mentioned items probably lies in the very semantics of interactional perfomatives and certain evaluatives: these discourse-pragmatic words are best for communicating politeness, solidarity, common goals, and so on. Matras (2005) states that “utterance modifiers” are automatic linguistic gestures. It may be argued that some of them (interactional perfomatives, evaluatives) are more automatic than others (conjunctions). In fact, according to Matras (2005), conjunctions do not form a homogenous group as far as their copiability is concerned, that is, contrast is more prone to copying than addition. Another factor facilitating the copying of certain discourse-pragmatic words in compromise strategies is

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their early acquisition by L2 learners. Words for “hello,” “goodbye,” “thank you,” “please,” “fine,” and so on, are likely to be learned in the very beginning. A supportive argument is the conventionalization and monolingualization of the most frequent interactional perfomatives in the regions where Russianspeakers dominate. This leads us to the second aspect, the prevalence of interactional performatives and evaluatives in the both sets of speakers. The given sociolinguistic situation is that of emergent contacts. The zero-point is more or less known and further observations would help to understand the chronology of copying. It may be hypothesized that interactional performatives and some frequent evaluatives are likely to be copied first, followed by markers of deixis and metacommentary and less frequently encountered evaluatives and conjunctions. The further monitoring of the dynamics of Estonian-Russian language contacts would help either to prove or to disprove the hypothesis.

4.6

Summary

It can be claimed that Estonian analytic constructions (CNs and analytic verbs) are attractive/salient for Russian-speakers in the given sociolinguistic situation. While keeping in mind that attractiveness, salience, and semantic specificity are relative concepts (recall Chapter 3), I refer to the derivational transparency of Estonian CN and their semantic specificity. It was shown that often derivational transparency wins over semantic opacity. In selective copying, attributive constructions with relative adjectives prevail. This and other productive patterns of copying reveal that by copying the Estonian order of stems (modifier + head) the speakers (unconsciously) achieve structural isomorphism, often at the expense of monolingual Russian conventions. As expected, common internationalisms favor copying, mixed copying in particular. The assessment of copied CN as “strange” and “ungrammatical” by Russian monolinguals from Russia and misunderstandings arising from the use of selectively copied CN in communication between Russian-Estonian bilinguals and Russians from Russia indicate the difference in linguistic awareness and intuition among bilingual speakers. The fact that analytic verbs are not copied globally at this stage confirms my hypothesis (Chapter 3) that verbs in the two languages require a considerable degree of morphosyntactic integration and are more seldom semantically specific than nouns. On the other hand, Estonian analytic verbs are subject to other types of copying, selective and mixed, which may be an argument in favor of the attractiveness of Estonian analytic verbs for Russian-speakers. It is not clear whether a considerable proficiency in both codes is necessary for the copying of analytic verbs because some copies come from non-proficient speakers of Estonian. It was shown that the copies are “remote” from monolingual Russian to a different degree: some just have idiomaticity that is not present in

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Russian, while some are unintelligible to monolingual speakers and are at odds with grammatical rules of Standard Russian. In mixed copying, the modifier is globally copied. A similar tendency has been discovered in Norwegian Turkish and, probably, this is also true of Finnish spoken by German-Finnish bilinguals in Germany. It remains to be seen whether we deal here with a universal tendency in the mixed copying of analytic verbs and verb-based idiomatic constructions. Copying of Estonian discourse-pragmatic words into Russian has not reached the stage where copies have substituted the native equivalents. Copying of Estonian discourse-pragmatic words by two sets of speakers with different sociolinguistic profiles and striking prevalence of evaluatives and interactional perfomatives among copied items suggest that some discourse-pragmatic words are copied earlier. Compared to copying in Dromari (Matras 2005) where we encounter an established contact situation or, in other words, the results of long-term contacts, our case is that of emergent bilingualism that allows to observe the process. The evidence from Russian confirms the hypothesis that contrast is more attractive to copying than addition (Matras 2005). Copying of discourse-pragmatic words as a diagnostic criterion in Wertheim’s model is probably not universally valid but still applicable in a wider range of cases than contracting minority languages, as demonstrated in the current chapter. In this respect, empirical evidence from other Baltic countries would be helpful for a better understanding of the role discourse-pragmatic words play in CILC.

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Chapter 5

Code-copying and patterns of bilingual communication

In the current chapter, I intend to take a closer look at such instances of codecopying which are turning into distinct patterns of bilingual communication. Thus, we are not dealing here with the copying of individual items/constructions, no matter how frequent or attractive (like the copying of compound nouns or analytic verbs), but with consciously shaped communication strategies where the choice of elements to be copied is closely linked to pragmatic goals and where the speaker’s intentionality is explicit. The three patterns to be discussed are termed jocular relexification, “market discourse,” (MD), and copying of graphic properties. The first pattern is employed in Russian-to-Russian communication, the second in Russian-to-Estonian communication. The latter is tentatively termed “market discourse” (Verschik 2005b: 424–425) because it is typical in interactions in the marketplace between Russian-dominant salespersons, not confident enough to speak Estonian, and Estonian-dominant or Estonian-monolingual clients. Apparently, MD can be made use of outside the market setting as well but this would be less typical. The third pattern is the copying of graphic properties. In Chapter 3, I suggested that when written texts are under consideration, items have graphic properties in addition to material, semantic, combinational, and frequential ones. I will discuss some copying tendencies in official and not so official signs, price tags, announcements, and written advertisements. In Chapter 4, we have seen that intentionality plays an important role in global copying of interactional performatives by Russians with a poor proficiency in Estonian. This instance of copying was considered under the more general heading of copying of discourse-pragmatic words. In the current chapter, it will be viewed in a slightly different context. Estonian interactional performatives are not the only one category of items globally copied in MD: semantically specific items, such as names of goods, some numerals, and adjectives expressing essential qualities or speakers’ attitudes are copied as well. In Chapter 4, I briefly outlined so-called paradoxical politeness, a pattern of Russian-to-Estonian communication where the speakers symbolically exchange languages and choose the dominant language of their partners (“I speak your language and you speak mine”). In the code-copying framework, stretches of

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monolingual or near-monolingual speech are referred to as intra-clausal or extra-clausal code alternation (Johanson 1999: 39, 2002a: 287, see Chapter 3, Section 3.2.2), that is, the speaker reaches over to the other language and, strictly speaking, these are not cases of code-copying but of code alternation. There are of course borderline cases when the turns uttered by Russiandominant speakers are one-word long (see the turns in example (61), Chapter 4, that consist of a single Estonian discourse-pragmatic word muidugi “of course” in). Although there is no doubt that here we deal with a pattern of bilingual communication, prototypical instances of paradoxical politeness would rather be better described as a kind of code alternation and will not be considered in this chapter.

5.1

Jocular relexification

Relexification has been widely discussed in the literature on creoles and especially mixed languages formation (e.g., Bakker 1998 on Para-Romani varieties; Bakker and Van der Voort 1991; Lefebvre 1998 on relexification as a process in the emergence of creoles; Muysken 1981, 1997 on Media Lengua); it has been claimed that some other languages, for example, Yiddish and Ivrit (known also as Modern Hebrew or Israeli Hebrew) have emerged through relexification as well (Wexler 1991, 2002). The link between “lexical borrowing” (habitualized/conventionalized global copying) in bilingual speech and the typically observed lexicon-grammar split is a much disputed issue that remains outside the scope of this study (see Matras and Bakker 2003). Matras (2000: 82–83) compares “lexical borrowing” that on the surface looks similar, to relexification (or, as he prefers to call it, lexical reorientation) and arrives at a conclusion that, unlike “borrowing,” relexification is wholesale. Backus (2000) concurs with this view: although some instances of “insertional code-switching” or, in other terms, globally copied content morphemes within the morphosyntactic frame of a basic code, structurally look very much like the systematic replacement of all or nearly all content morphemes in certain types of mixed languages, the rate of “vocabulary replacement” in code-switching is never as high as in mixed languages. Clearly, the case to be presented in this section is not related to mixed languages; only the mechanism of relexification is shared. Here Estonian stems are globally copied onto the Russian morphosyntactic frame. The term “jocular relexification” points to the intentional employment of the mechanism for certain pragmatic purposes. According to my experience, jocular relexification is not a frequent phenomenon; careful consequent copying of every content morpheme from Estonian is hardly imaginable in an ordinary everyday interaction, no matter how proficient Russian-speakers are in Estonian and how much global copying their

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speech exhibits. I have observed jocularly relexified utterances only as an element of Russian-to-Russian communication between young people who know each other well and have enough proficiency in Estonian to be capable of grammatical analysis necessary for relexification. Relexification has been discussed in the literature together with other forms of conscious manipulation of language resources. The importance of deliberately employed devices has been acknowledged for secret languages (e.g., Lekoudesch, see Matras 2000: 83), urban youth slang (Mous 2003), and mixed languages (Golovko 1994, 2003; Matras and Bakker 2003). In his insightful article, Golovko (2003: 179) presents a picture of laypeople as “grammarians” and lists several instances of deliberate changes introduced by bilingual speakers. The first device mentioned by him is global copying of derivational suffixes, namely, diminutives from the model code, whereas the whole utterance except for the suffix remains in the basic code (Golovko 2003: 180). In Aleut folksongs, the Russian diminutive suffix –(j)ušk- tends often to be incorporated into the Aleut sentence. Interestingly enough, I have regularly encountered the very same Russian suffix (in a slightly modified form) in utterances randomly produced by Estonian teenagers who learn Russian as a foreign language at school: (1)

Aga kui ole-ks kõrge kvaliteet-uški, but if be-COND high quality-DIM “but if it were of a high quality, would you buy it?”

osta-ksi-d? buy-COND-2SG (Tallinn, 24.10.2005)

The second device is global copying of grammatical markers both bound and unbound. The example of Estonian verbal suffix and infinitive marker in otherwise Russian clause, analyzed in Chapter 4 (example (1a)) pošli kurit’ta-ma “let’s go to smoke” is reminiscent of instances presented in Golovko (2003: 181–182). He refers to examples provided by Perekhval’skaya (2001), according to whom, the combination of the Russian past tense marker –l- and feminine marker –a is occasionally copied onto Udighe utterances. Thus, the whole utterance is in Udighe except for –la “past tense” (Perekhval’skaya 2001; quoted from Golovko 2003: 182): (2)

Gaend’ousa pala-wa siki-la, su: gakpi-la lazy floor-ACC wash-PAST sun cover-PAST “a lazy [woman] washed the floor – the sun covered [with clouds]”

The third case of lexico-grammatical engineering discussed by Golovko (2003) can be characterized in the terms of the code-copying framework as

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very dense global copying in the everyday speech of bilinguals and in macaronic songs as well. Macaronic songs are of special interest here for at least two reasons: first, by definition, these are the result of conscious manipulations; second, the resources of at least two languages are employed for explicitly humorous purposes. In the terms of Muysken (1995, 2000), texts of macaronic songs can be roughly subdivided into two groups depending on their structural characteristics. There are either instances of code alternation (e.g., after each stanza/line/clause) or insertions. Both alternations and insertions can be of varying density. Needless to say, alternation can be illustrated by dozens of examples from folklore. To show how alternation works with Russian and Estonian, I am referring to Ariste (1981: 67–68) who cites the first stanza from a humorous macaronic song with the alternation between two or, in another version, even three languages: German-Estonian in (3a) and German-Estonian-Russian in (3b) (German is underlined, Estonian in boldface and Russian in italics). (3a) Eine-s Tag-es taht-si-n ma über Strasse kõndi-ma one-GEN day-GEN want-PAST-1SG I across street walk-INF “one day I wanted to go for a walk across the street” (3b) Eine-s Tag-es taht-si-n ma über Strasse vstreti-t’-sja one-GEN day-GEN want-PAST-1SG I across street meet-INF-REFL “one day I wanted to go dating across the street” The following well-known Estonian-Russian bilingual song (4) (also mentioned in Ariste 1981: 68) starts with the alternation but at some point it looks more like insertions because every other lexical item belongs to a code different from that of the preceding item. The question of the determination of the basic code also remains unresolved in the middle of the stanza. Every stem has inflectional morphology from the same code. Narva, the name of a town on the Estonian-Russian border, is an ambivalent item. Its classification as belonging to one or the other code can be determined only on the basis of its phonetic realization that depends on the speaker/performer: (4) Vihm-a voola-b kak s vedr-a, rain-PART flow-3SG like from bucket-GEN varsti bud-et Narva, soon FUT-3SG Narva mil-yj ütle-s: nicˇego, dear-MASC NOM say-PAST 3SG nothing sin-d või-b näha harva. you-PART can-3SG see: INF infrequently “it is raining cats and dogs/soon we will arrive to Narva/darling says: no problem/I can see you infrequently”

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Relexification (lexical reorientation) is discussed by Golovko (2003: 192–196) separately from other phenomena of bilingual creativity. Through the mechanism of relexification stems that are globally copied from the model code B receive the inflectional morphology of the basic code A (prototypical insertions, or, in the terms of Myers-Scotton 1993a, EL content morphemes + ML system morphemes). Of course, if the basic code has relatively little inflectional morphology (as German does in example (5)), there will be relatively few if any bound grammatical morphemes coming from that code. As discussed in Chapter 3, the determination of the basic code may be more or less problematic; according to Johanson (1993, see Chapter 3), function words permit the determination of what the basic code of the entire clause is. In (5) the division of labor between content and function words is pretty straightforward. Example (5) originates from a paper written by Šcˇerba (1974: 72), referred to by Golovko (2003: 195). It is an excerpt from the speech of the St. Petersburg German community whose roots in Russia date back to the seventeenth century. Although Šcˇerba calls the example “anecdotal,” it is rather telling. One content morpheme, bring “bring” has not been relexified; in general, the utterance is perceived as a German one because of the function words: (5)

bring die banka mit varen’je bring ART jar with jam von der polka im cˇulan from ART shelf in storage-room “bring a jar with jam from the shelf in the storage-room”

While both Russian and Estonian have substantially developed inflectional morphology, it is important to distinguish between the two following cases. The first one is instantiated in example (4), particularly in the lines varsti budet Narva, milyj ütles: nicˇego “soon we will arrive in Narva, darling says: no problem” where every next item comes from the other code and where Estonian lexical items preserve Estonian markers and Russian items Russian ones. The second case (to be illustrated by examples further in this section) exhibits the lexicon-grammar split: content morphemes come from Estonian and function words/markers from Russian. I consider only the latter as jocular relexification. In summation, Golovko (2003: 190) emphasizes creativity and the playful character of “folk linguistic engineering” that leads to conscious language change. He provides two versions of the same song, one is “mixed” and the other is in plain Russian (Golovko 2003: 187). According to him, deliberate manipulations may lead to results different from those of non-deliberate CILC (Golovko 1994: 118). Probably, more empirical evidence is needed to substantiate this claim; yet, the fact that “usual” copying of content morphemes does not reach the extent of deliberate copying in mixed language creation/humorous

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registers may be an argument in favor of this idea. He characterizes deliberate relexification as a productive linguistic mechanism that works in a variety of situations (Golovko 2003: 192). Let us turn now to Estonian-Russian examples of jocular relexification. Humorous stereotyping of Estonian speech in the vicinity of Narva, a town on the border with Russia, renders an impression of ordinary Estonian-speakers from other areas that the variety spoken in the region has “a lot of Russian words”. I heard (6a) and the accompanying comments in the mid-1980s from an old lady in Tartu (example (6a) below). Of course, no matter how much habitualized global copies from Russian there might be in the (now almost obsolete) regional variety of Estonian or in the individual speech of Estonians in that area, such a systematic relexification has never been attested. The example (6a) exhibits consequent global copying of Russian stems (with their subsequent adaptation to the rules of Estonian phonology, i.e., the rendition of initial voiced consonants as de-voiced, shift of the stress on the first syllable in truuba “chimney,” etc.) onto the Estonian morphosyntactic frame: (6a)

Kirpiits-i savood-i truuba tõmiita-b brick-GEN factory-GEN chimney smoke-3SG “the chimney of the brick factory is smoking”

Compare to in Russian (6b) and Estonian in (6c): (6b)

Russian Truba chimney “id.”

(6c)

kirpitcˇ-n-ogo zavod-a dym-it brick-SUF-MASC GEN factory-GEN smoke-3SG

Estonian Telliskivi brick: GEN “id.”

tehas-e factory-GEN

korsten chimney

suitse-b smoke-3SG

When I heard jocular relexification “in real life”, that is, not as a stereotyped speech, some twenty years later, it immediately reminded me of example (6a), only that now it was vice versa: Russian provided the morphosyntax and Estonian the lexicon and the speakers were Russian-dominant bilinguals from Tallinn. In (7a), a female student makes a humorous reference to a long and probably boring lecture she has just attended: (7a)

Ja vsj-u loeng-u pro-kula-l-a I all-ACC lecture-ACC through-listen- PAST-FEM “I have listened to the entire lecture”

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The insertion of a verb stem (in this case kuula- “listen,” phonetically adapted to Russian as kula-) is noteworthy because, as pointed earlier, single verbs are seldom globally copied. Definitely, the speaker exhibits a profound knowledge of the two monolingual grammars and high analyzing skills: this especially concerns the Russian prefixed verb. The Estonian verb stem ends in -a; generally speaking, any final vowel of an Estonian verbal stem can be reinterpreted as one of the Russian verbal suffixes (-a-, -e-, -i-, -u-, -o-) that usually follow the stem and precede the infinitive marker -t’.1 A comparison to the monolingual Russian in (7b) shows that Russian morphosyntax has been retained: (7b)

Ja vsj-u I all-ACC “id.”

lekcij-u lecture-ACC

pro-sluš-a-l-a through-listen-SUF-PAST-FEM

In Estonian, the utterance would be rendered as follows: (7c) Kuula-si-n terve listen-PAST-1SG entire: GEN “id.”

loeng-u lecture-GEN

ära PERFECTIVIZER

The following example of jocular relexification (8a), also heard from students in Tallinn University, is similar to (7a): (8a) Raamat-u nado pro-pikenda-t’. book-ACC need PREF-extend-INF “the book (i.e., the deadline in the library) should be extended” (8b)

Russian Knig-u book-ACC “id.”

nado need

pro-dl-i-t’ PREF-extend-SUF-INF

Compare to possible Estonian equivalents in (8c) (8c)

Estonian Raamatu-t book-PART “id.”

pea-b must-3SG

pikenda-ma extend-INF

In some instances, relexification goes hand in hand with the reanalysis of the stems from the lexifier. Estonian lexical items may be subject to reanalysis to fit into the morphosyntactic frame of Russian. For instance, in (9a) it is the Estonian infinitive form söö-ma “to eat” and not the stem söö- which takes on

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the Russian infinitive marker –t’ (this may be considered as a case of double marking where the same function is rendered with the markers coming from two codes and following one another). Square brackets are used in the glossing to show both the borders between the Estonian stem and the marker and the new, reinterpreted stem that takes on Russian inflectional morphology. The verbal stems have undergone phonetic adaptation (läh- > ljax- “go” and söö- > sjo- “eat”). Compare jocular relexification (9a) and monolingual utterances (9b) and (9c): (9a)

Po-ljax-a-l-i sjo-ma-t’ PREF-go-SUF-PAST-PL [eat-INF]-INF “let’s go to eat” (heard at various times in Tallinn University)

(9b)

Russian Po-š-l-i jes-t’ PREF-go-SUF-PAST-PL eat-INF “id.”

(9c)

Estonian Läh-me go-2PL “id.”

söö-ma eat-INF

The reanalysis does not take place in every Estonian verb in jocular relexification (cf. (7a, 8a) where the Russian verb morphology is added to the Estonian stem). Theoretically, adding the infinitive marker straight to this particular stem is possible (hence, hypothetical sjot’) but this does not occur probably because one-syllable infinitives in Russian usually end with –at’ (spat’ “to sleep”), -it’ (pit’ “to drink”), -ocˇ’ (mocˇ’ “can”) or –ecˇ’ (pecˇ’ “to bake”) but not with –ot’/jot’. Thus, sjot’ would probably not sound “right” to the Russian-speakers. Another instance of reanalysis in jocular relexification concerns a noun. A possible reason for the reanalysis is the frequency of certain forms. For example, it is likely that the inessive form kodu-s “at home” is used more often than the nominative kodu “home.” Thus, kodus “at home” has been reinterpreted as the new stem to which Russian inflections can be added. The following utterance (10a) originates from Ozernova (2005: 53); although she does not use the notion of jocular relexification, her example nicely fits under this heading and the underlying mechanism is the same as in (7a), (8a), and (9a): (10a) Po-lax-a-l-i PREF-go-SUF-PAST-PL “let’s go home”

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po to

kodu-s-am [home-INES]-DAT PL

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As expected, a comparison to monolingual Russian in (10b) demonstrates that the Russian morphosyntax has been entirely preserved. Russian employs the construction po + dative that has a distributive meaning, that is, it is assumed that there is a group of people each of whom has a home and would eventually go to his/her respective homes. (10b)

Russian Po-š-l-i PREF-go- PAST-PL “id.”

po to

dom-am home- DAT PL

The corresponding utterance (10c) in Estonian is constructed differently: the directional verb “to go” is followed by the noun kodu “home” in the illative, the directional internal local case. A similar construction is possible in standard Russian, as well (pošli domoj); however, Estonian does not have a construction with a distributional meaning similar to that in (10b) but only a VP with the illative, internal local directional case: (10c)

Estonian Läh-me koju go-2PL home: ILL “id.”

It goes without saying that jocular relexification requires a good deal of linguistic awareness and analytic skills on the part of the speaker. However, it is not easy to decide what a minimal degree of proficiency in both languages is required in order for the speakers to be able to engage in jocular relexification. The following example (quoted from Ozernova 2005: 52) comes from an otherwise Russian-language conversation between two Russian schoolchildren who enter the bus and discuss who would pay the fare: (11a) U tebja rax-i, ty at you: GEN money-NOM PL you: SG “you have the money, you are paying”

maks-uj-eš’ pay-SUF-2SG

Compare to Russian in (11b) and Estonian (11c): (11b)

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monolingual Russian U tebja den’g-i, at you: GEN money-NOM PL “id.”

ty you: SG

plat-iš’ pay-2SG

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(11c)

Estonian Sul you: ADES SG “id.”

on be: 3

raha, money

sina you: SG

maksa-d pay-2SG

As the background of the speakers is not known, we simply have no idea about their proficiency in Estonian or what kind of school they attend: a Russian-medium school where Estonian is a subject, an Estonian-medium school, or a bilingual school. Whatever the educational and linguistic background of the speaker may be, the utterance (11a) produced by this young schoolchild reveals the refined grammatical intuition and capacity of reanalysis. In Estonian, raha “money” is singular, while in Russian it is plurale tantum (hence, den’gi in the nominative plural). The last vowel of the Estonian stem is reinterpreted as a Russian ending and thus the new stem to which the plural ending is added will be rax- (cf. Russian mux-a “fly” and NOM PL mux-i “flies”). The Estonian verb maksma “to pay” belongs to the conjugation type where verbs have two stems: a consonant-ending (infinitive) stem maks- and a vowelending (present tense) stem maksa-. Theoretically, both of them can serve as a new stem in relexification.2 The subsequent adaptation to any of the Russian verb classes (i.e., the choice of a verbal suffix that precedes the infinitive marker –t’) depends on the choice of the stem. The speaker in (11a) has chosen the consonant-ending stem maks- and thus the relexified verb is reinterpreted as a maks-ova-t’ (1SG maks-uj-u, 2SG maks-uj-eš’ etc.), cf. Russian ris-ova-t’ “to draw,” 1SG ris-uj-u, 2SG ris-uj-eš’, 3SG ris-uj-et. Based on the instances of jocular relexification considered in this section, it seems reasonable to ask the following question: what types of linguistic items become relexified and which do not. In very general terms, content morphemes have a high chance to be relexified, whereas function words/markers remain in Russian (hence, lexicon-grammar split). So far, we have evidence of the relexification of Russian verbs and nouns. As argued before, global copying of verbal stems in “ordinary,” non-specific bilingual speech occurs much more seldom for the reasons discussed in Chapter 3 (lesser morphosyntactic autonomy, more abstract meaning, and lesser prominence at the discourse level). However, this is different in consciously manipulated bilingual speech patterns, such as jocular relexification. Adjectives are lacking in my jocular relexification data and, thus, no judgment can be passed on their susceptibility to jocular relexification, although I cannot see any reason why they cannot be relexified (for the sake of comparison, in “ordinary” bilingual speech adjectives are globally copied more often than verbs). In any case, examples (7a), (8a), (9a), (10a), and (11a) also shed some light on the items that are not relexified: in addition to bound grammatical markers

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and affixes, these are function words such as modal verbs (nado “need”), prepositions (po “along,” u “at,” and pronouns (ja ‘I’, ty “you 2SG,” tebja “you 2SG GEN,” vsja “entire FEM”). The division between function and content words is not always clear-cut and may differ across different languages3; probably, the judgment of linguists may sometimes be at odds with that of bilingual speakers who are engaged in jocular relexification. As far as this pattern of bilingual speech is concerned, the division between function and content items is subjective and a matter of perception by the speakers. Of course, more evidence of jocular relexification is needed to draw firm conclusions; alongside the question what and how is relexified the question what remains unchanged (not relexified) is not less important.

5.2

“Market discourse”

In an earlier paper (Verschik 2005b: 424) I suggested the term “market discourse” (MD) because the pattern of bilingual communication to be discussed in this section can be detected mostly in the marketplace and shops.4 Unlike jocular relexification that, to the best of my knowledge, appears only in Russianto-Russian interaction, MD is a strategy for Russian-to-Estonian interaction. I will show that the patterns have different structural properties or, to render it more accurately, different elements are globally copied from Estonian. Russians-speakers whose repertoire includes MD are characterized by low if any communicative skills in Estonian. Their knowledge of the language is often passive or they simply do not feel confident enough to produce anything approximating monolingual Estonian. Market discourse has emerged as a compromise between poor ability to speak Estonian and the wish to avoid monolingual Russian in the interaction with Estonian-speaking clients. At a first glance, MD resembles relatively dense global copying (“codeswitching”). A more careful look at instances of MD reveals that only items of certain type are copied from Estonian, namely, nouns, sometimes adjectives, numerals, and discourse-pragmatic markers (interactional performatives and evaluatives), whereas all other items remain in Russian. In slightly different terms, MD looks like “insertions” and not “alternations.” To the best of my knowledge, selective copying does not occur in MD. Globally copied items do not take on the inflectional morphology of either language. Possible exceptions to this rule are Estonian-language items that are not analyzed and copied in their most frequently occurring forms as a whole, such as nominative plural or constructions numeral (except üks “one”) + noun in the partitive singular (üks kott “one bag” but kolm kotti “three bags”). First, I will analyze some examples of MD and then discuss why only items belonging to the mentioned categories are copied.

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In (12a) a saleswoman is espousing the high quality of her cranberries to a customer. The customer is just looking at the cranberries on the counter and is silent. (12a) ocˇen’ xoroši-je, värske i väga magus very good-NOM PL fresh: NOM SG and very sweet: NOM SG “very good (berries), fresh and very sweet” (Railway Station Market, 06.12.2003) Probably, the adjective xorošije “good” (NOM PL) refers to the hyperonym jagody “berries,” because kljukva “cranberry” is a singulare tantum noun in Russian and the plural form does not exist. The remaining adjectives and the adverb väga “very” with the intensifying meaning are global copies from Estonian. The adjectives remain in the nominative singular, although the plural form would be expected because the first adjective describing the superb quality of the cranberries is in the plural. Unlike in Russian, in the given context the names of berries are possible only in the plural form in Estonian, hence jõhvika-d NOM PL “cranberry.”5 The monolingual Russian and monolingual Estonian versions of the utterance should be as in (12b) and (12c) respectively: (12b)

monolingual Russian ocˇen’ xoroši-je, sveži-je i ocˇen’ sladki-je very good-NOM PL fresh-NOM PL and very sweet-NOM PL “id.”

(12c)

Estonian väga hea-d, värske-d ja väga magusa-d very good-NOM PL fresh-NOM PL and very sweet-NOM PL “id.”

From (12a) we see that the globally copied items from Estonian do not receive any grammatical markers, in the given case, the plural nominative, although the first adjective xorošije “good ones” is in the plural and, so to say, sets the pattern. Thus, the syntactic relations between the items in the sentence are either expressed by Russian markers and function words (the plural ending, the conjunction i “and”) or are omitted. In example (13a), the function marker preceding the global copy is missing. If the sentence were “well-formed,” either the Russian preposition za “for” or the Estonian postposition eest “id.” would be required. The speaker in (13a) is a middle-aged Russian-speaking saleswoman who probably cannot speak Estonian. A customer approaches and inspects loaves of bread displayed on the counter. The saleswoman utters: (13a) Eil-ne. yesterday-ADJ

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Jesli bude-te bra-t’, if will-2PL take-INF

ot-da-m away-give-1SG

kuus six

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kroon-i crown-PART “(this is) yesterday’s, if you take it, I will give it away for six crowns” (Railway Station market, 07.07.2003) Presumably, the numeral phrase kuus krooni “six crowns” has been globally copied as a whole entity. Such copying is probably facilitated by the frequent occurrence of the construction numeral + noun and occurs most frequently in the marketplace (in connection with quantities, prices, measures, etc.). Besides, it is hardly imaginable that a person who is not capable of forming a grammatical sentence in Estonian would know the rules regulating the use of the partitive singular with numerals. Let us look at the absence of any pre- or postposition between the verb otdam “I will give away” and the numeral phrase kuus krooni “six crowns.” Monolingual Russian is in (13b): (13b)

Russian ot-da-m za šest’-Ø away-give-1SG for six-ACC “I will give away for six crowns”

kron-Ø crown-ACC PL

If, however, the preposition is omitted and no other markers are present, theoretically there is a risk that utterance (13a) would be interpreted at a face value, i.e., “I will give away six crowns,” cf. Russian in (13c): (13c)

Russian ot-da-m šest’-Ø kron-Ø away-give-1SG six-ACC crown-ACC PL “I will give away six crowns”

Still, the situational context simply does not allow for such an interpretation because it would be unthinkable that the saleswoman would simply give away six crowns to the customer. The monolingual Estonian version would be as follows: (13d) Eil-ne. Kui võta-te, anna-n ära kuue yesterday-ADJ if take-2PL give-1SG away six: GEN kroon-i eest crown-GEN for “(this is) yesterday’s, if you take it, I will give it away for six crowns” Thus, despite the lack of some “necessary” (from a monolingual point of view) markers, the utterance (13a) is intelligible to the customer. So far we

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have seen globally copied adjectives and numeral phrases (numeral + noun). The next instance of MD in (14a) contains a global copy of the pragmatic formula üks hetk “one moment.” The customer, a young Estonian-speaking woman (W), wishes to know the price of a suit. However, nobody is behind the counter, and a middle-aged Russian-speaking saleswoman (S) from the counter nearby volunteers to find the right salesperson: (14a)

W: Öel-ge palun, kui palju maksa-b see kostüüm? tell-IMP 2PL please how much cost-3SG this suit “tell me please how much is this suit” S: Seicˇas. Znaje-te cˇto? Üks hetk, ja po-zov-u now know-2PL what one moment I PREF-call-1SG müüja-? salesperson-? “one moment, you know what? One moment, I will fetch the salesperson” (Railway Station market, 10.12.2002)

No grammatical markers are added to the global copy müüja “salesperson.” Russian case morphology is missing (cf. Russian prodavec ”salesman,” accusative prodavc-a; prodavšcˇica “saleswoman,” accusative prodevšcˇic-u). In Estonian, the object in the sentence “I will fetch the salesperson” must be in the genitive. The noun müüja belongs to the declension type where the nominative and the genitive are identical, hence monolingual Estonian in (14b): (14b) Kutsu-n müüja call-1SG salesperson: GEN “(I will) call/fetch the salesperson” However, it is hardly the case that the salesperson in (14a) is aware of the fine points of Estonian object case grammar (the correct choice between the partial object in the partitive and total object in the nominative or the genitive is considered as one of the most difficult skills in acquisition of Estonian as L2). Probably, the speaker knows only the nominative singular form and this is enough to convey the meaning. Let us observe instances (13a) and (14a) from the viewpoint of their intelligibility to an Estonian-speaker. Even if the Estonian-speaker does not know any Russian and is not able to grasp the meaning of the non-copied elements, s/he can nevertheless understand the general idea. Discourse-pragmatic words communicate politeness and help to focus the attention. The copied elements—nouns, numerals, and adjectives—are central to the understanding in communication over the counter, whereas verbs and VPs are not. Imagine a

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magic cloth that covers all Russian-language items and leaves only the global copies. In that case, example (13a) would look like this: (15)

Eilne. yesterday’s

Kuus six

kroon-i crown-PART

Of course, this is a face-to-face conversation on very concrete issues (selling and buying particular goods); the merchandise are on display, so that both the customer and the salesperson can point to them when needed (i.e., the participants in (13a) both know what kind of bread is meant); the interaction is accompanied by gestures and glances that facilitate understanding. Thus, only semantically specific and pragmatically important items are globally copied. Recall my proposition concerning the relative nature of semantic specificity (see Chapter 3): names of goods may be semantically specific in some contexts and types of interaction and non-specific in others. The same concerns qualities: probably, magus “sweet” may be thought of as an item belonging to the basic vocabulary and, therefore, not likely to be copied by speakers who are not fluent bilinguals, but being an important quality of the given merchandise (cranberry), this item becomes semantically specific and central to the conversation in (12a).6 In contrast, verbs, pronouns, prepositions, and so on are not semantically specific in this type of communication and not relevant for the achievement of pragmatic goals. Theoretically, there is a probability for verbs with the meaning “to sell,” “to buy,” “to pay,” “to cost” to be globally copied; nevertheless, I have never come across any copied verbs in MD, be it global or selective copying. The next example (16) comes from a conversation between a Russiandominant salesperson (S), a female in her forties, and a middle-aged Estoniandominant female customer (C). The latter has a working command of Russian (nevertheless, she speaks with a heavy Estonian accent) and communicates with the saleswoman in Russian (except for the first turn in Estonian). Although the saleswomen can communicate in Russian with this client whom she apparently knows, she nevertheless tries to stick to MD and opts for monolingual Russian only when matters different from selling and buying goods are discussed. (16)

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C: Palun se-da please this-PART “this ketchup, please” S: Palun. “please”

ketšupi-t. ketchup-PART

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Emerging Bilingual Speech C: Éto sam-yj ostr-yj? this most-MASC NOM spicy-MASC NOM “is this the spiciest?” S: Da, sam-yj ostr-yj. A vot nuudli-d, yes most-MASC NOM spicy-MASC NOM and here noodleNOM PL vot ne xot-ite pähkli-d? here not want-2PL nut-NOM PL “yes, this is the spiciest. And here are noodles, and don’t you want nuts?” C: Spasibo, jest’ navalom. thanks be: 3SG plenty “thank you, I have plenty” S: A vot ocˇen’ vkusno-je pecˇen’j-e, kaer-a-helbe-d and here very tasty-NEUT NOM cookie-NOM oat-GENcereal-NOM PL s dobavlenij-em nisu-klii. with adding-INSTR wheat-bran “and here are very tasty cookies, oat cereal with added wheat bran” [The conversation on other topics continues for some time in monolingual Russian] S: Aitäh, kolmteist kolmkümmend. “thank you, thirteen thirty” C: Palun. [hands over the money] “here you are” (Railway Station market, 25.01.2005)

Not all nouns and adjectives in the speech of S are copies from Estonian. The second utterance of S (“this is the spiciest”) is probably a mere echoing of the customer’s utterance. However, all items copied are nouns, numerals, and interactional performatives (“please,” “thank you,” etc.). The Estonian nouns pähklid “nuts,” nuudlid “noodles,” kaerahelbed “oat-cereals” are in the nominative plural (the latter two are pluralia tantum nouns in Estonian). From the viewpoint of monolingual Estonian, all nouns are in the nominative case, be it plural or singular, whereas the rules of Estonian monolingual grammar have been violated (in some syntactic positions other cases are expectable, e.g., the partitive in the negative sentence). All copied nouns are semantically specific in this conversation (especially nisuklii “wheat bran” that even some monolingual speakers of Estonian would not know). I have had many chances to observe the speech of the saleswoman and her interactions with Estoniandominant (or Estonian-monolingual) customers; she actively advertises her goods, speaks quickly, enjoys talking to her customers and, in my view, is a real expert in MD.

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For certain Russian-speakers who are able to speak some Estonian, MD has become a special register. Recall from Chapter 2 a young Russian-dominant male who came to see my apartment: he was able to speak Estonian but, apparently, he was not very confident. Having learned that I am a balanced bilingual, he switched into Russian but probably thought that this was “unfair” and modified his speech in such a way that it sounded like MD (see examples in Verschik 2005b: 424–425). The following interaction (17) confirms my earlier observation that MD may become a register. The interaction is interesting at least for two reasons. First, here the client (C) engages in MD. She is a Russian-dominant female, probably in her forties. The salesperson (S) is a young Estonian-dominant female who is fluent in Russian but makes some minor mistakes. The interaction takes place not in the market but in a popular shopping center in the center of Tallinn where the personnel are required to have a working command of both Estonian and Russian (many speak English and Finnish as well). As a client, C is entitled to choose a preferred language of communication: theoretically speaking, she could have spoken “plain Russian” but this was not the case. Second, she was accompanied by an Estonian-speaking man (approximately of her own age) to whom she communicated entirely in Estonian during their stay in the shop and after they had left it. (17)

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C: [points at a pair of shoes] Skaži-te, éto zamenitel’? tell-IMP 2PL this imitation “tell me, is this artificial (leather)?” S: Net, éto lak. no this lacquer “no, this is lacquer” C: Oi jaa-jaa-jaa! [picks up another pair of shoes, examines it] o yes-yes-yes “o yes!” A sorokov-oj razmer jest’ ? Nelikümmend? and fortieth- MASC NOM size be: 3SG forty “and is there size forty? Forty?” S: [looks up in the computer] Net, tol’ko éto i tridcat’ vos’m-oj. no only this and thirty eighth-MASC NOM “no, only this one and size thirty eight” C: [disappointed] Tol’ko kolmkümmend kaheksa. A éto tocˇno ne only thirty eight and this really not kunst-nahk? art-leather “thirty eight only. But are you sure this is not artificial leather?”

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Emerging Bilingual Speech S: Éto lak, éto mod-n-oje sejcˇas. This lacquer this fashion-SUF-NEUT NOM now “this is lacquer, this is fashionable now” (Tallinn, Viru Keskus shopping center, Seppälä store, 14.04.2007)

Thus, the client in (17) is clearly capable of producing “well-formed” sentences in Estonian, but she did not communicate in monolingual Estonian to the salesperson. On the other hand, she tried to avoid monolingual Russian, although this was an available option. After having asked in Russian about sizes, she immediately repeated the numeral “forty” in Estonian. It is interesting that the Estonian-dominant speaker in (17) did not deviate from monolingual Russian. Again, global copies from Estonian are semantically specific items, central to the conversation (nouns and numerals) and the discoursepragmatic particle jaa “yes” repeated three times. To summarize, items which are less likely to become semantically specific in this type of interaction and which are less autonomous and require more morphosyntactic integration are not copied. Non-copied elements are mostly verbs, pronouns, and prepositions. Selective copying, characteristic especially of verbs in other types of bilingual speech and writing, does not appear at all. There are no examples of mixed copying either. I suggest that in theory mixed copying would be possible in compound nouns where one component is a common internationalism. Such mixed copies are favored and some of them have even become a part of monolingual repertoire. As suggested in Chapter 3, items important for the organization of the discourse have a high chance to be globally copied. As argued in Chapter 4, discourse-pragmatic words (especially interactional performatives) are copied because they enable the effective communication politeness, the willingness to cooperate, and also probably because they are usually acquired earlier and are known even to people who have a very low proficiency in Estonian. Now let us briefly discuss the speech patterns of the other participant at whom MD is directed. In an earlier paper (Verschik 2004a: 444–445) I made assumptions concerning how the second participant, an Estonian-dominant or Estonian-monolingual speaker, may respond to MD. Three options were outlined: (1) responses in MD, that is, utterances with the properties as in the examples analyzed above; (2) a more or less monolingual version of either language; and (3) an utterance with the properties that mirror MD, that is, semantically specific items and discourse-pragmatics copied from Russian, while the rest is Estonian. Interestingly enough, so far I have observed only (2), that is, either Russian or Estonian.7 It would be instructive to find out why it is so. Of course, a possibility remains that the remaining options (1) and (3) are marginal and/or exist in the groups of speakers I have not yet encountered.

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Graphic properties and their copying

General considerations

In the two previous sections of the current chapter two patterns of oral bilingual communication were considered. The patterns have a different sociopragmatic distribution: they are used in different situations and for entirely different communicative purposes. Jocular relexification is employed by speakers who have at least a working command in Estonian and a basic knowledge of the structures of both languages. It is an in-group register for Russian-toRussian interaction only. In contrast, MD is a compromise strategy for Russianto-Estonian communication, favored by those who are not proficient in Estonian. For the above-mentioned reasons, the patterns have different structural properties; still, they share one common characteristic: both in jocular relexification and in MD we know who the “author” and the “audience” are. However, it will be shown that in some types of written bilingual communication, especially in labels that consist of one or two words, the direction of copying and the basic code/model code cannot be unambiguously established in all cases. In the present section, I will apply the code-copying framework to some patterns that occur in the following types of bilingual writing: classified sections in Russian-language newspapers, labels in the marketplace, signs, and various written advertising or informative material (issued by banks, supermarkets, and various institutions). This is by no means a comprehensive overview of Russian-Estonian bilingual writing but a qualitative analysis of the most common patterns: (1) Estonian lexical items reproduced in the Estonian original orthography in a Russian-language text (global copying); (2) Estonian lexical items transliterated into Russian in a Russian-language text (selective copying); (3) various instances of mixed copying; (4) transliterated Russian lexical items. The latter pattern concerns isolated lexical items (e.g., one-word labels) or single sentences (in advertisements). The establishment of the basic code and the direction of copying may prove difficult here if the sociolinguistic background and linguistic dominance of the author is unknown, especially if we deal with one-word labels and signs. If the author is Estonian-dominant, this would be a case of selective copying from Russian (plus semantic, material and combinational properties, minus graphic properties). If the author is Russian-dominant, this would also be selective copying but then only graphic properties are copied from Estonian. Except from instances of mixed copying, I have no examples of the global copying of Russian lexical items (the rendition in the original orthography) in Estonian-language texts. It is possible that such copying exists in other types of writing (e.g., fiction) and is not characteristic of signs, labels, and advertisements.8

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It has to be noted that during the Soviet era, all Estonian-language items (toponyms, proper names, names of brands, institutions, etc.) had to be transliterated into Russian in Russian-language publications. Thus, no items in Roman characters in Russian-language texts were allowed. Estonian-language texts remained “pure” as well, with the possible exception of Russian-language utterances in fiction, if there were any. All this has to do with the general language-planning climate in USSR where total control over the text production went hand in hand with the strict following of existing Russian orthographic conventions. The Estonian humanitarian intelligentsia tried to resist russification and “contamination” of the Estonian language that could have occurred through “direct translations from Russian” and, inasmuch as it was possible, no deviations from the current norms of Standard Estonian were tolerated. The situation has substantially changed during the past decade, one reason being the undesirability/impossibility of totalitarian control over the text production in a free society. Various aspects of multilingual writing, such as code-switching, orthography, and “mixed” advertising have attracted a number of scholars who look at the phenomena related to multilingual writing from different theoretical perspectives. For example, studies on multilingual linguistic landscapes in the larger urban centers of Western Europe, the United States, and Japan seek to explore the use of language in its written form in the public sphere (see discussion of various definitions in Gorter 2006: 1–2; also see Backhaus 2007 for an in-depth study of linguistic landscapes in Tokyo). Lee (2006) has shown that English in Korean television commercials, including in the written mode as well, is a tool for the construction of modernity and modern identities (see also Martin 2002 on English in French advertisements and Piller 2001, 2003, 2006 on various theoretical aspects of multilingual advertising). The approach used by Sebba (2000) and Jaffe (2000) is that of the sociolinguistics of orthography. The approach in question is applicable to bilingual situations as well. Wertheim (2003: 105 ff.) discusses interconnection between the choice between Roman vs. Cyrillic vs. Arabic characters for Tatar and complex issues of ideology, national and religious identity, and “language purity” in modern Tatarstan. A highly relevant study is that by Angermeyer (2005) who explores script choice and combinations of Cyrillic and Roman characters in Russian American classified advertisements and other printed matter. He presents an overview of the previous explorations in the field of multilingual writing (Angermeyer 2005: 495), mentioning terms such as “graphical transplantation” (Gazda 1998: 163) and “graphological code-switching” (Banu and Sussex 2001: 54). Angermeyer (2005: 493–494, 504) claims that a lexical item is not necessarily attributable to particular languages and that it is the choice of script through which the authors choose to attribute a given item. The authors of a bilingual

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text try to integrate both languages either through transliteration of Englishlanguage items into Cyrillic/Russian-language items, by combining both alphabets in the same text, or through the blending of the two alphabets. The latter strategy is exemplified in some 1-800-numbers: 1-800-ADBOKAT, cf. Russian адвокат advokat “lawyer”); 1-800-DOKTOR-4, cf. Russian доктор doktor “doctor” (Angermeyer 2005: 519–520). The strategy is based on the use of partially overlapping inventories of letters. The following shared characters B, C, H, P, X, Y have a different phonetic value in English and Russian, while the A, E, K, M, O, T have the same phonetic value in the two languages (Angermeyer 2005: 521). Angermeyer (2005) has examined constraints that govern the alphabet choice and claims that there exists a parallel between constraints in written and spoken phenomena. He compares transliteration to borrowing and interference, and the alternation of alphabets to code-switching (see also his current project description at http://homepages.nyu.edu/~psa208/philipp/ KPACOTA.html, accessed on 01.01.2008). The very same phenomena (transliteration, alternation of alphabets and blending) are present in written advertisements, labels, and newspaper texts in Estonia. Blending in the sense of Angermeyer (2005) or other combinations of characters from two alphabets occurs less frequently,9 while the remaining two strategies are widely used. Some related cases are mentioned in Clyne (2003: 79) where graphemic transference is defined “the transference of phonemegrapheme relations,” for instance, the rendition of German as by second generation German-speakers in Australia. My terminology differs from that of Angermeyer (2005) and Clyne (2003) because of the choice of the code-copying framework. In the following description, I will not discuss the existence of constraints that are linked to the alphabet choice because this topic requires separate research; instead, I will concentrate on the types of copying that appear in Russian-Estonian bilingual writing.

5.3.2

Estonian lexical items in the original: global copying

Global copying of lexical items in Roman characters has become widespread in Russia as well. Nevertheless, according to Külmoja (1999: 520–521), the general impression is that Estonia’s Russian-language newspapers and other printed matters have a higher proportion of items in Latin characters, a fact which is explicable in light of the current language situation and domination of Estonian in many spheres of life.10 Officially, no regulations or recommendations exist concerning the use of Estonian orthography for Estonian-language items in Russian-language texts. It appears that some conventions have gradually emerged without any explicit elaboration or discussions of the rules. For instance, names of firms, companies, frequently used abbreviations, institutions, and sometimes street names

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are copied together with their graphic properties both in advertising and in longer non-fiction texts, such as newspaper articles, client information brochures, and so on. Example (18) originates from the Russian-language section of the magazine Mõte that is distributed among the clients of a certain mobile phone operator in Estonia. The sample contains the name of a service package Ärimees “businessman” and a standard Estonian abbreviation FIE (< füüsilisest isikust ettevõtja) “self-employed person.” In this and following examples, the first line is rendered as in the original, followed by transliteration for the readers’ convenience. (18) К пакету Ärimees могут подключиться только K paketu Ärimees mogut podključit’sja tol’ko юридические лица и FIE. juridičeskije lica i FIE. “only corporate bodies and self-employed persons can subscribe to the Ärimees service package” (Mõte, winter 2007, p. 40) Although derived from a common noun ärimees “businessman,” the name of the service package has a special status for speakers because, as a product name, it becomes unique and specific. Such lexical items are the best candidates for global copying in general and there are high chances that global copying thereof will occur in writing as well. As stated earlier, many Russianspeakers would not know the Russian equivalents to highly specific terms in the field of economics and public administration, so the term füüsilisest isikust ettevõtja “self-employed person” and its standard abbreviation FIE is known better than the Russian term individual’nyj predprinimatel’ “id.” The following example (19) is an excerpt from a classified advertisement for a cosmetics school in Tallinn. The name of the school and its address (street name) are globally copied. The abbreviation mnt comes from maantee “highway, road.” (19) Проф. обучение макияжу в Kesklinna Stiili Meigikool [. . .] Prof. obučenije makijažu v Kesklinna Stiili Meigikool Диплом, место работы. Narva mnt 7A-204 Diplom, mesto raboty. Narva mnt 7A-204 “professional make-up course at Kesklinna Stiili Meigikool. Certificate, job. Narva road 7A-204” (Linnaleht paper in Russian, 16.11.2007, p. 11) However, unlike in the global copying of the names of brands, firms, institutions, and certain abbreviations, no convention has (yet) emerged concerning

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street names. As we shall see in the next Section 5.3.3, street names are frequently subject to selective copying.

5.3.3

Transliteration of Estonian lexical items: selective copying

The transliteration of Estonian-language items into Russian can be treated as selective copying in terms of code-copying framework: the properties of Estonianlanguage items, except for graphic ones, are being copied into Russian. As stated earlier, the choice between global and selective copying depends on an unwritten convention; for instance, personal names always tend to be transliterated. Street names, however, are subject to both global (example (19)) and selective copying; examples of both can be easily found in the same issue of a newspaper. Example (20) comes from a Russian-language newspaper article. In the original, the name of the person in question is spelled as Hannes Rumm. (20) Производством газеты руководит Ханнес Румм. Proizvodstvom gazety rukovodit Xannes Rumm. “Hannes Rumm supervises the production of the newspaper” (Linnaleht paper in Russian, 30.03.2007, p. 3) So far, I have not registered any deviations from the convention for the transliteration of personal names. This convention is adhered to in the subtitles on Russian-language TV broadcasts as well: the personal name of a speaker appears in transliteration (selective copy), followed by his/her affiliation in Estonian orthography (global copy). When street names are subject to selective copying, Estonian common nouns that are components of the names like tee “road,” maantee “highway,” or puiestee “boulevard,” and their respective abbreviations t, mnt, and pst are transliterated as well, despite the fact that these items and their abbreviations are unknown in monolingual Russian.11 This is illustrated in example (21) which is an excerpt from an advertisement for a cleaning job: (21) Место работы: Mesto raboty: Estonian original:

Сыпрузе пст. 3/ Мустамяэ теэ 43. Sypruze pst. 3/ Mustamjaé teé 43. Sõpruse pst., Mustamäe tee (Linnaleht paper in Russian, 30.03.2007, p. 10)

It appears that semantically specific common nouns may be selectively copied (transliterated) as well, although such examples are infrequent. One such rare example (22) can be found at the web site of the Juhkentali Gümnaasium, a Russian-medium secondary school in Tallinn, where the Estonian term

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infojuht “person responsible for IT, software, organization of computer training in institutions” (from info “information” + juht “manager, director”) is systematically ransliterated into Russian (http://server.juhkentali.tln.edu.ee/info/ news/ accessed on 03.01.2008). All announcements made on the school web site by infojuht are preceded by his family name, first name, patronymics, and his title: (22) Владимир Михайлович Vladimir Mixajlovitš cf. Estonian infojuht

Григорьев Grigorjev

(инфоюхт) (infojuxt)

Selective copying of Estonian-language items through the means of transliteration may be consciously employed for humorous purposes. In that respect, the following example (23) is very unlike the previous examples (20) and (21) which belong to serious genres (newspaper articles, job advertisements). Example (23) comes from a Russian-language TV program Sputnik that ran on Estonian TV in the late 1990s until 2004. As the main language of the program was Russian, Estonian subtitles were provided; when Estonian-speaking guests participated, subtitles were in Russian. Sometimes playful subtitles accompanied the appearance of new speakers in the studio or commented on the conversation. Occasionally, such humorous subtitles consisted of brief Estonian sentences transliterated into Russian, as in (23): (23) Катрин Сакс ряэгиб ээсти “Katrin Saks is speaking Estonian”

кеэлес (Estonian TV, Sputnik, 23.11.2001)

cf. Estonian Katrin Saks “id.”

räägib

eesti

keeles

The host, a fairly proficient bilingual with L1 Russian, asked questions in Russian, the guest, a speaker of Estonian as L1, answered in the same language but at some point chose to speak Estonian. The humorous subtitle appeared on the screen exactly at this moment and signaled the alternation to Estonian. Interestingly, the subtitle followed the established conventions of the transliteration of Estonian into Russian; thus, Estonian ää rendered as яэ in Cyrillic and Estonian ee as ээ or as еэ, depending on its position within the word. Example (23) reveals that manipulations of orthography (selective copying that involves transliteration) may be productively employed for certain pragmatic functions (humor, play, compromise, etc.).

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Mixed copies

Similar to spoken bilingual interaction, mixed copying appears in writing as well. Mixed copying in writing means that the combination of items is copied from the model code and one of the elements constituting this combination is globally copied (not transliterated). In speech, mixed copies are characteristic of certain types of compound nouns (Chapter 4, Section 4.3.3) where the modifier is a proper name, a toponym designating a brand, or an abbreviation. In writing, mixed copying occurs in the same types of compound nouns (see also examples (15a), (15b), (16c), (17a), (17b), and (17c) in Chapter 4). Example (24) is a fragment of an information sheet that is placed in almost every tram, bus, and trolleybus in Tallinn. The sheet comprises instructions in Russian and Estonian concerning how so-called ID-tickets can be purchased. The ticket is called ID-pilet in Estonian because it is a virtual ticket to be purchased via the internet or mobile-phone and because its validity is checked by insertion of a passenger’s ID-card into a special electronic device. The very first line of the Russian-language part of the information sheet reads as follows: (24)

Езди по ID-билету Jezdi po ID-biletu “ride with ID-ticket”

The mixed copy in (24) corresponds to the same copy in oral speech (see Chapter 4, similar example (17a) with the same globally copied part ID-karta “ID card”< Estonian ID-kaart “id.”). The information sheet contains another example of mixed copying: Estonian m-makse “payment by mobile phone” (m < mobiiltelefon “mobile phone”) is realized in writing as follows: (25) m-платёж m-platjož “payment by mobile phone” The abbreviation is unknown in the Russian of Russia; the same can be said about the whole compound. While the capital letter M is shared by both alphabets, the lower case letter differs (Estonian m and Russian м). In (25), the lower case letter is rendered in its Estonian version, being thus a global copy. Estonian toponyms, brand, and firm names that are modifiers in compound nouns (or constructions N NOM + N NOM and N GEN + N NOM resembling

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compounds), described at length in Chapter 4, are highly likely to be globally copied in writing. For instance, one of the leading banks in Estonia is called Hansapank in Estonian (Hansa “Hanseatic” + pank “bank”) and, depending on the degree of copying, its rendition in Russian speech ranges from a more or less Estonian realization to the completely adapted form Xanzabank. In writing, too, there exists variation: global copying (thus, Hansapank), selective copying (transliteration with or without hyphen between the components Ханза-банк or Ханзабанк or Ханса-банк), and mixed copying, where the component Hansa retains its original spelling: (26) Hansa-банк Hansa-bank In general, in constructions of the type “brand name + item,” whether following Estonian word order (like in Hansapank) or not, Estonian-language items tend to be globally copied (original orthography preserved). Literally hundreds of examples can be found on a daily basis in Russian-language information sheets, newspapers, advertisements, and signs in the market. In (27), a certain kind of curds (produced by the company called Meieri) appears on the Russian-language advertisement of a supermarket as follows: (27) Meieri творог Meieri tvorog “Meieri curds” cf. Estonian Meieri kohupiim “id.” Kostandi (2000: 192) calls attention to this kind of use of Roman characters and claims that this is a “local peculiarity” in the Russian-language advertising and provides several examples very much like (27). Some cases of mixed copying occur in informal writing, such as “unofficial” signs and labels in the marketplace where Russian-dominant salespersons would casually scribble the name of a product and the price on a piece of cardboard without thinking twice how to render it in “proper Estonian” or “proper Russian.” These are signs where the name of the product consists of two-three words and can be viewed as a kind of collocation. One of the words is rendered in Estonian and in Estonian orthography, whereas the second, a Russian-language item retains its orthography: (28a) küpsis овсяные küpsis ovsj-an-yje cookie oatmeal-SUF-NOM PL “oatmeal cookies” (Railway Station market, 31.03.2004)

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Interestingly, in (28a) there is a lack of agreement in number between the Estonian noun küpsis “cookie, cookies” (singular) and the Russian adjective ovsjanyje “of oatmeal” (plural). In Estonian, both singular küpsis and plural küpsised are possible in this context, probably, combined with a particular brand name, the singular form sounds more natural (e.g., küpsis Täheke “cookies named Täheke”) because it designates a particular brand as such. When the modifier designates substance (i.e., oat, bran, etc.), the plural is also possible (see 28c). In monolingual Russian pečenje “cookie, cookies” is singulare tantum, so the adjective in the plural appears really out of place. The word order follows the monolingual Russian convention: in price tags, official lists of products, and so on the noun precedes the adjective (otherwise, especially in speech, the word order is reverse). Compare (28a) to monolingual Russian in Cyrillic (28b) and to Estonian in (28c): (28b)

monolingual Russian печенье овсяное pečenje ovsj-an-oje cookie oatmeal-ADJ-NOM NEUT “id.”

(28c)

Estonian kaer-a-küpsis(-e-d) oat-GEN-cookie(-STEM FORM-PL) “id.”

A similar, but somewhat different example is (29a) where the Russianlanguage noun сушка suška “small bagel” is transliterated into Estonian according to the existing transliteration conventions and its modifier is in Estonian and in Estonian orthography: (29a) suška mooni-ga small bagel poppy-INSTR “small bagel with poppy-seed” (Railway Station market, 30.04.2003) Compare to monolingual Russian in (29b) and Estonian in (29c): (29b)

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Russian сушка suška small bagel “id.”

с s with

маком mak-om poppy-INSTR

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(29c)

Estonian rõngik small bagel “id.”

mooni-ga poppy-INSTR

The examples of mixed copying (28a) and (29a) suggest that it is a kind of compromise, an in-between strategy between the two languages. Unlike the examples with abbreviations and proper nouns, these examples do not have systematic and regular features, and little if any predictions can be made in the case of spontaneous casual writing of signs.

5.3.5

Russian items in Estonian transliteration: different directions of copying

Russian items in Estonian transliteration are a relatively recent phenomenon, in any case, more recent than all other types of copying considered in the Section 5.3. The global copying of certain Estonian items in Russian-language texts was usual already in the mid-1990s (Külmoja 1999), while the earliest examples of transliteration into Estonian in my data originate from 2001–2002. This is relevant for the further discussion concerning what the direction of copying is in every particular case because this type of transliteration is employed both by Russian- and Estonian-speakers, although for different pragmatic purposes. Again, in one- or to-word signs the establishment of the direction of copying may prove impossible without extra-linguistic knowledge of a certain kind. Transliteration of Russian items into Estonian does occur in Russian-speakers whose proficiency in Estonian is rather low. They may feel, however, that monolingual Russian is out of place in certain situations and would try to elaborate a compromise strategy. It sounds improbable that, say, salespersons in the marketplace where communication is informal would systematically consult Russian-Estonian dictionaries. They would seek the advice of their Estonian colleagues or just produce something like (30) on a piece of cardboard: (30) tomatõ cf. Russian томаты tomaty “tomatoes” (NOM PL), Estonian tomatid “id.” (Railway Station market, April 2002) The lexeme for “tomato” is similar in the two languages (cf. Estonian tomatid “tomatoes” NOM PL); however, the author of the sign might even not be aware of this. Still, s/he is remarkably aware of the transliteration conventions according to which Russian ы corresponds to Estonian õ. Example (31) is very similar to (30):

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(31) losos ~ lossos cf. Russian лосось “salmon”, Estonian lõhe “id.” (Railway Station market, December 2001) Two versions of transliteration are presented in (31). The first version is a character-for-character copying while the second treats the Russian word in strict accordance with the conventions that prescribe to transliterate Russian с between two vowels as ss in Estonian to ensure the pronunciation is close to the original (e.g., Russian family-name Власов is to be transliterated into Estonian as Vlassov). Thus, the knowledge of transliteration conventions may vary among speakers/writers but the general message they are sending to Estonian-speakers is the same: “we do not know how to render it in your language but rendering it in your alphabet will help you to read.” Example (32)12 comes from a different situation but conveys the idea of compromise similar to (30) and (31). The example appears in a more complicated and subtle context than spontaneously composed signs in the market, namely, in a Russian-language questionnaire concerning environmental problems in Tallinn. The questionnaire had been designed by the Department of Social Sciences at Tallinn University and randomly distributed among the inhabitants of Tallinn. Depending on one’s linguistic preference, one received either the Estonian or Russian version of the questionnaire. Several Russian-language questionnaires were filled either completely or predominantly in Estonian. One such questionnaire attracted my attention because the respondent, a middle-aged male, upset about the state of the environment in the city, alternated several times between the languages and put down the following sentence in the end of the questionnaire in the box for suggestions and comments, rendering Russian words in Estonian transliteration: (32)

Gospodi, pomogi cf. Russian Господи, помоги “Lord, help us all!”

nam

vsem!

нам

всем!

Apparently, the author of (32) is more proficient in Estonian than salespersons in the market: he was capable of answering some questions in flawless Estonian. Still, although his knowledge of Estonian gives him a greater freedom of choice (two monolingual varieties plus numerous possibilities of copying, alternation between the languages etc.), the underlying message in (32) is the same kind of compromise strategy as in (30) and (31): “I am not sure how to render it in your language but I am using your orthography.” When Estonian-dominant speakers/writers or anonymous writers who represent institutions and publications associated with the domain of Estonian

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(popular magazines, successful chain-stores and banks, announcements of concerts and Estonian-language theater plays) engage in the transliterating of Russian lexical items into Estonian, the reasons and pragmatic goals are different from what has been described so far, even if the result looks identical. Transliteration may be a compromise whose message is: “We say it in your language but we are more comfortable with our own alphabet.” For instance, from 2004 on the Viru Keskus, one of the most popular shopping centers in Tallinn, introduces its summer sales campaign Moelõige “fashion cut” with a large advertisement where the word “sales” or “discount” is repeated in several languages, including Russian. Example (33) reproduces the advertisement. The order of languages is as follows: Estonian, Finnish, English, Swedish, and Russian. (33)

allahindlus ale cf. Russian скидка “sale,” “discount”

sale

rea

skidka

In (33), the message is addressed to a broader audience, the natives of the city and numerous tourists coming mostly from Finland and Scandinavia. In the poster announcing a week of Russian cinema (example 34), the purposes of transliteration into Russian are of a slightly different nature. Probably, the designers of the poster wished to present the message partly in Russian (stylization, strive for some sort of authenticity) but in a manner that would be easily understandable to those who do not know the Russian language. (34) Russkoje kino “Russian cinema” cf. Russian русское кино (Tallinn, July–August 2005) From a theoretical point of view, the problem of the direction of copying and determination of the basic code in isolated words or sentences remains, if linguistic dominance and the sociolinguistic profile of the speaker-writer are not known and no other clues (like surrounding text amidst which the transliterated item appears) are provided.

5.4

Summary

The current chapter dealt with copying in patterns of bilingual communication. The patterns examined in this chapter—jocular relexification, market discourse, copying of graphic properties—have varying distribution patterns depending on the “speakers/writers” degree of proficiency in Estonian, their pragmatic goals, and communication partners/intended audience.

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Jocular relexification is a type of global copying used by more or less proficient bilinguals for in-group communication. On the surface, jocular relexification bears similarity to utterances in languages with a lexicon-grammar split (Estonian stems, Russian inflectional morphology and function words). However, this is not a usual way of communication between bilingual Russians but a special humorous register. The utterances are highly intended and differ from the norm, no matter how dense copying is. Here semantic specificity and relevance at the discourse organization level is irrelevant because all stems are globally copied from Estonian, regardless of their semantic or pragmatic properties. Market discourse is a compromise strategy employed mostly by Russian salespersons in the market (hence the name). The speakers try to depart from monolingual Russian through global copying from Estonian. The items copied from Estonian are not just any lexical items but those semantically specific for communication over the counter (nouns, adjectives, numerals) and items responsible for discourse organization (mainly interactional performatives that allow to communicate politeness and willingness for cooperation). Verbs and VP are never copied because they lack semantic specificity and do not matter on the discourse level, which is an argument in favor of my hypothesis that semantic specificity and relevance at discourse level promotes global copying. The application of the code-copying framework to written texts is an innovation. According to Külmoja (1999: 520), during the Soviet era the Estonian language had to be transliterated and never appeared in the original, probably, for the ideological reasons of “language purity.” Now this practice has changed (global copying); in addition, Russian-language items appear in Estonian transliteration (selective copying). The latter is employed in very different situations and for different purposes, ranging from compromise in the marketplace to an intentional devise elaborated by poster designers. Mixed copying of graphic properties appears as well. However, in some cases we know nothing about the linguistic dominance of the writer and, when a lexical item is isolated, it is impossible to pass any judgment concerning the direction of copying. To sum up, Golovko (2003: 190) assumes that “fluid code-switching” (i.e., dense global code-copying) represents a diffused (in the sense of Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985) concept of language. If he is right, then the emergent patterns of bilingual communication, especially those involving a good degree of deliberate manipulation of the resources of both languages, are in accordance with my suggestion (Chapter 2) that the Russian-speaking community has become more diffused as compared to the Soviet era.

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Chapter 6

Conclusions

In the current book, the code-copying model (developed and elaborated by Johanson 1992, 1993, 1999, 2002a, c) was chosen for the exploration and explanation of the recent contact phenomena in Estonia’s Russian and in the emerging patterns of bilingual speech. The decisive argument for the choice of the model was its freedom from monolingual bias. The model allows viewing all kinds of non-monolingual speech production within the same terminological framework. Thus, the contactinduced processes occurring in the lexicon (“borrowing,” “code-switching”) on the one hand and, in morphosyntax and semantics, on the other, are describable as various manifestations of the same procedure; that of copying. This allows avoiding the somewhat ambiguous term “borrowing” that has somewhat different meanings for different researchers. The same applies to the terms “code-switching,” “code-mixing,” “transference,” “code-alternation,” and others. The underlying procedure both in imposition (L1 > L2) and in adoption (L2 > L1) is imitation, that is, copying. Although as a rule imposition and adoption start in different subsystems of language (Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991), it is assumed that the procedure is the same: copying. An additional strong point of Johanson’s model is the incorporation of sociolinguistic factors and the distinction between sociolinguistic dominance and dominance in language proficiency. The framework deals with and distinguishes between dominance in the sense of linguistic skills and in the sense of language status (strong code vs. weak code). Such a distinction allows for a more precise and accurate description (i.e., a weak code may be L1 for some speakers and L2 for others simultaneously). Since a linguistic item possesses a complex set of properties (material, semantic, combinational, and frequential), copying manifests at different degrees (global vs. selective copying). Copying of collocations/fixed expressions/idioms reveals that some elements of a complex linguistic item can be copied globally and some selectively, whereas the semantic unity of the complex is preserved (see also Backus 2003b, 2006). This is referred to as mixed copying, which manifests in the copying patterns of some Estonian compound nouns (CN) and analytic verbs into Russian. The more elements a construction has, the

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more variation in copying is possible, and the more likely that selective or mixed copying will be the case. While, of course, there is no one-to-one correspondence and “translatability” between this and other models in contact linguistics, the code-copying model shares, to a degree, the understanding of some aspects of CILC with certain other theoretical models in the field. First and foremost, the model is free of monolingual bias, which is still very much present in various fields of linguistics, sociolinguistics included (Auer 2007; Backus 1999). The choice of the clausal level as a unit of analysis is compatible with Croft (2000) and with later versions of MLF (Myers-Scotton 2002). Also, Croft (2000) and Johanson have a similar view on the destiny of innovations: the former speaks of normal vs. altered replication and propagation, the latter of habitualization of copies and possible subsequent conventionalization. The importance of sociolinguistic factors in CILC has been acknowledged and theorized upon by many researchers (starting from the now classical Thomason and Kaufman 1988/1991). The highlighting of individual linguistic creativity parallels the views of Golovko (1994, 2003), Croft (2000), Heine and Kuteva (2005), Thomason (1997). Probably, the conceptual and terminological apparatus of the code-copying model resembles mostly that of the contact-grammaticalization model (Heine and Kuteva 2005), with the mere exception that Heine and Kuteva (2005) do not consider changes on the lexical level. Both Heine and Kuteva (2005) and Johanson (1992, 1993, 1999) stress the importance of cross-linguistic equivalence as a correspondence subjectively established by the speakers. The elaborated notion of equivalence (Heine and Kuteva 2005) successfully complements the code-copying framework. The distinction between structural equivalents on the one hand and translational conventional equivalents on the other sheds light on what happens in some types of selective copying L2 > L1. The copying of an L2 item’s combinational and semantic properties creates structural and semantic isomorphism that may win over a traditional translational equivalence, even at the expense of semantic transparency. Thus, the increasing choice of Russian constructions with relative adjectives in the copying of Estonian CN over conventional translational equivalents (if such exist) achieves the same order of the stems as in Estonian (modifier + head), whereas the new copy either sounds “funny” from a conventional point of view or is semantically opaque. One of the key-points in the code-copying model, that is, the possibility of analysis of all types of non-monolingual speech and all types of copying with the help of the same terminological and conceptual framework, has led me to the revisiting of the borrowability problem. While analyzing my data, I had to account for the fact that very little global copying occurred in the verbs. It has been widely reported in the literature that nouns are the most borrowable items (there are minor differences between various hierarchies but nouns

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always precede verbs on the borrowability scale), so one may decide that there is nothing new in my findings. However, as I was thinking in the terms of the code-copying framework, I realized that verbs are rather susceptible to other types of copying, that is, selective (copying of semantic and/or combinational properties) or mixed copying, in the case of verbal-based fixed expressions and analytic verbs. On the other hand, the literature is abundant with evidence of the copying of discourse-pragmatic words or, more generally, of elements that are prominent at the discourse level (e.g., Aikhenvald 2007; Maschler 1994; Matras 2005; Wertheim 2003). This has led to the reformulation of the traditional question (i.e., what is borrowed most) and to the elaboration of the three-component probabilistic model. Instead, the question to be asked is rendered in the following way: how (1) formal characteristics of an item (i.e., belonging to a certain word class etc.) and (2) its importance at the discourse level are linked to the (3) degree of copying. I assume that pragmatically prominent autonomous items are likely to be globally copied, while bound items of low importance on a discourse level are candidates for selective copying. Bound but pragmatically important items may be copied both selectively and globally. Constructions have a potential for mixed copying, and the more items a construction contains, the more options there are for variation in the degree of copying. My hypothesis is confirmed by the empirical evidence of adoption E2 > R1 (case studies in Chapter 4 and “market discourse” in Chapter 5). The possible exceptions to the model are threefold: semantic specificity (favoring global copying), similarity in shape (common internationalisms), and speakers’ intention (avoidance of overt other-language items or, vice versa, copying every content morpheme onto the morphosyntactic frame of another language). As demonstrated in Chapter 5 (the study of jocular relexification), conscious “playing with the language” overweighs the consideration of semantic specificity and prominence at the discourse level. The code-copying framework deals with two somewhat related concepts, attractiveness, and salience. Attractiveness means susceptibility to copying. Johanson (2002c) argues that, although it has been claimed that analytic structures are attractive, attractiveness is a relative notion and depends on the typological characteristics of the languages in a given contact situation. Salience refers to the cognitive prominence of an item, that is, the degree to which an item “stands out.” Based on the research on salience by sociolinguists (Kerswill and Williams 2002) and scholars in second language acquisition (Kecskes 2006), I assume that salience should also be understood in relative terms. In the view of abundant copies of CN, it is safe to claim that Estonian CN are attractive for Russian-speakers, one of the reasons being that, like analytic forms in general, these possess derivational transparency. In addition, Estonian CN often tends to be semantically specific. Apparently, CN are also salient for Russian speakers, because in the Russian language, compounding is a marginal type of noun derivation. Significantly, relative adjectives, existing in Russian but not universally

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derivable, are perceived as equivalent to Estonian modifiers. Constructions with relative adjectives have become productive in selective copying. This tendency is in accordance with the Functional Convergence Hypothesis (Sánchez 2004) and with the notion of “minor use pattern” (Heine and Kuteva 2005). The copying of Estonian analytic verbs shows a somewhat different tendency in the sense that they are not subject to global copying. This is explicable in the terms of my three-component model (syntactically bound items, not prominent at the discourse level, and seldom semantically specific). Instead, analytic verbs are subject to selective (semantic and combinational) and mixed copying. In mixed copying the particle makes a particular analytic verb different from its synthetic counterpart and, for that reason, it is the particle/modifier/ complement that is globally copied. Similar observations have been undertaken for Norwegian Turkish (Türker 2000), which suggests that this might be a more general tendency, explicable by cognitive reasons (salience). It is the particle/ complement that makes all the difference between synthetic vs. analytic verbs/ verb-based fixed expressions or between different analytic verbs with the same main verb. The copies of Estonian analytic verbs differ in their degree of departure from monolingual Russian (collocations possible in monolingual Russian but lacking figurative meaning; collocations not possible in monolingual Russian but in accordance with the combinability rules; collocations unintelligible in monolingual Russian and at odds with the combinability rules; mixed copies containing overt “foreign” elements—items modifying the verb). The global copying of Estonian pragmatic markers has been gaining ground. This is in accordance with the evidence from other language pairs and various contact situations. As the study by Wertheim (2003) has revealed, discoursepragmatic words should be considered as a separate class in addition to content and system morphemes. According to this approach, the evidence of discoursepragmatic words copying may be indicative of a certain stage of CILC (i.e., a more advanced stage of contacts where there is a “reasonable” level of proficiency in B and a sufficient number of bilinguals). In Wertheim’s research, the copying of discourse-pragmatic words from a sociolinguistically dominant language is associated with the “composite morphosyntax.” This claim is probably not universally applicable because the structural distance between Russian and Estonian is not as great as between Turkic languages and Russian (so that the copying of conjunctions does not have a radical impact on the morphosyntax). However, even in this case, the distinguishing discourse-pragmatic words as a separate class is theoretically useful because it allows a superior overview of the chronology of CILC. The discourse-pragmatic words copied into Russian are mostly interactional perfomatives, evaluatives, and, to a lesser extent, contrasting conjunctions. Apparently, interactional perfomatives are attractive for copying even in nonproficient bilinguals. A possible explanation is the fact that interactional perfomatives and some frequent evaluatives are among the first L2 words to be acquired. The copying of contrasting conjunctions confirms Matras’s (2005)

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assumption that contrast is more prone to copying. What makes the current copying situation distinct from those usually described in the literature is the fact that the copying of Estonian discourse-pragmatic words occurs in two different sets of Russian-speakers: (1) more or less proficient bilinguals (as usually described in the literature); and (2) speakers with a limited command of Estonian who deliberately copy Estonian discourse-pragmatic word to communicate politeness and solidarity in Russian-to-Estonian communication. The selective copying of discourse-pragmatic words has been seldom considered in the literature. However, as Keevallik (2006a, b) has shown, selective copying of pragmatics is part and parcel of CILC. As in many other cases of selective copying, it is facilitated by the material similarity of discourse-pragmatic words across two languages. Pragmatic formulas, consisting of several words, appear to be good candidates for selective copying. Communication needs, pragmatic goals, and individual/attitudinal factors are responsible for the emergence of entire copying patterns. These are not just instances of copying of the individual lexical items/properties of an item. Jocular relexification resembles well-known cases of the so-called lexicongrammar split (Matras and Bakker 2003); it functions as an in-group pattern of communication and is highly deliberate, requiring a good knowledge of both grammars and a considerable linguistic awareness. In contrast to this, “market discourse” is available to speakers with a very modest proficiency in Estonian. The characteristics of market discourse (global copying of Estonian nouns, semantically specific adjectives, numerals and discourse-pragmatic words and the striking absence of selective copying) fit well into the three-component model: only semantically specific items and items prominent at the discourse level (discourse-pragmatic words) are subject to global copying. This pattern is employed as a communication strategy across ethnic and linguistic borders. The code-copying model is applicable to written communication as well. Sociolingusitics has recently developed an interest toward (multilingual) orthography (Sebba 2000), advertising (Piller 2001, 2003, 2006), and to linguistic landscapes (Backhaus 2007; Gorter 2006). Keeping in mind Johanson’s intention to consider all phenomena of non-monolingual speech within the same theoretical framework, I decided to apply the framework to the developments in Russian-Estonian bilingual (or bilingual in the monolingual disguise) public signs or in the convention of transliteration/non-transliteration of Estonianlanguage items such as the names of firms, companies, street addresses, personal names, and so on. Transliteration into Cyrillic can be treated as selective copying and the retention of the original spelling as global copying; mixed copying is present as well. Transliteration of Russian-language items into Estonian is a somewhat unexpected development, but it is an effective stylization device or just a compromise strategy, employed both by Estonians and Russians. Overall, the data used in this study come from a fascinating contact situation, the likes of which have not yet been thoroughly described in the contact

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linguistics literature. Here, in a post-imperial setting, a considerable segment of a previously privileged monolingual colonizing population is becoming bilingual. Needless to say, such a scenario is not characteristic of the entire post-Soviet space but takes place mostly in the Baltic countries. A striking feature is the absence of purity discourse aimed against the users of Estonian as L2 in the Estonian mainstream on the one hand, and of clearly formulated purity discourse aimed against the Estonian impact on the local Russian, on the other. The linguistic behavior of many Russian-speakers in Tallinn shows that the community has become more diffused (Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985) and heterogeneous. This is accompanied by the changes in linguistic intuition and the increasing acknowledgement of the distinct character of Estonia’s Russian. One of the best illustrations to this is the following rather entertaining example. In 2002, a Russian-language TV-journalist discussed in the talk-show Press-klub “press-club” the new citizenship law of Russia. Prior to this, it had been relatively easy to acquire Russian citizenship but in the new version at least five years of residence was required. Referring to a possible dilemma that a Russianspeaker in Estonia might have—whether to avoid learning Estonian and move to Russia or to stay in Estonia and learn the language (which is commonly believed to be extraordinarily difficult for speakers of Russian as L1), the journalist stated: Prožit’ pjat’ let v Rossii tjaželeje, čem vyučit’ éstonskij jazyk “it is harder to live in Russia for five years than to acquire Estonian” (Estonian TV, Press-klub, 24.04.2002). Thus, more and more Russian-speakers gravitate toward a new sociolinguistic profile and are more and more involved in producing bilingual speech.

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Notes

1 1

2

Theoretical background: combining structural and sociolinguistic factors

Weinreich is correct in the case of Estonian, yet one may ask why pronominal suffixes were retained in Finnish which is structurally similar to Estonian and has also developed under a considerable Germanic (Swedish) influence. Apparently, the choice of more straightforward, transparent, and invariant structures is not always the most likely course of development. The force of language awareness and corpus planning should not be underestimated: a striving for “authenticity,” that is, a programmatic intention to purge features of foreign or allegedly foreign origin, was characteristic of many language planners in the late nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The retention of pronominal suffixes in Finnish is very likely to be a result of conscious efforts by corpus planners. Modern Standard Finnish can be considered as a partially artificial amalgam of stock from different dialects (Laakso 2001: 205). Modern Standard Estonian was deGermanized in many respects (Raag 1998). Consider also Jonas Jablonskis’s suggestions on preferred patterns of derivation in Standard Lithuanian and his objection against analytic formation (compound nouns, etc.) as imminently inauthentic (Rinholm 1990). For some reason, the idea that endangered languages obligatorily lose structures is rather popular. In my paper on the dynamics of article use in Estonian Yiddish (Verschik 2003), I referred to earlier studies that highlight syncretism and greater analyticity in the nominal system of northeastern Yiddish dialects (the merger of the accusative and the dative, the loss of the neuter gender) on the one hand and to the situation of general multilingualism in the community and contact with Estonian, a genderless and article-less language, on the other. These factors lead to sporadic deletion of both the definite and indefinite article in the dialect. An anonymous reviewer asked me how much morphology has survived in Estonian Yiddish because the developments I described appeared to him/her as symptomatic of language loss and “structuritis.” Apparently, s/he was aware of the situation of Yiddish in general. One may reasonably ask, what about analytic languages, in this case? Yiddish is more analytic than Modern German, and some dialects of Yiddish have more analyticity than others. Maybe a drift to analyticity is erroneously equated to a “loss of structures” when one deals with endangered languages. However, a drift to analyticity is present in many languages (Modern Standard Russian among them) that are not endangered. Would one as well speak of “structuritis” in this case?

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Notes 3

4

209

Traditional linguistic research usually does not consider introspective data because such data would be at odds with the requirement of “objectiveness.” Self-reported data collected from informants/laypersons (information on language use, mother tongue, linguistic preferences, etc.) are permitted, however. Many scholars in the field of language contacts and bilingualism are bilingual themselves; nevertheless, their intuition and internal bilingual speech is seldom reflected in their scholarly writings. Dewaele (2006) has brought into focus the possible theoretical significance of the investigation on introspective code-switching. This may bring about a body of valuable empirical evidence. Bare forms are allowed if there is an incompatibility between the embedded and matrix language: however, my earlier paper on Russian-Estonian code-switching (Verschik 2002) discusses bare forms (Estonian stems without Russian case endings) that appear even when there is no syntactic conflict and the stem can be easily assigned to a Russian declension class and integrated into the Russian matrix.

2 Emerging multilingual communication: Russian in Estonia, Russian and Estonian, Estonia’s Russian 1

2

3

As it became clear from several papers presented at the colloquium on Russian as a lingua franca in the former Soviet Union at the 16th Sociolinguistic Symposium, many post-Soviet countries (Kazakhstan, Tadzhikistan) and republics within the Russian Federation (such as Tatarstan) cannot afford radical de-russification. The reason is that the titular languages do not have sufficiently developed registers for functioning in official domains because these domains were formerly reserved for Russian (see also Pavlenko 2006b). Due to favorable social, historical, and demographic situations, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians had an opportunity to start dealing with corpus planning problems, that is, with the development of modern standard languages and construction of modern nations, as early as the second part of the nineteenth century. Indeed, the Act of the Supreme Soviet (Parliament) of the Estonian SSR of 16 November 1988, that declared the legislation of Estonia superior to that of the USSR in the territory of Estonia, can be viewed as the first decisive legal action that was to lead to the ultimate break away from the USSR within less than three years. A discussion on the literature dedicated to language policy and language legislation problems in Estonia and in the Baltic countries in general is outside the scope of the present study. Some Western and Russian authors who write on the topics (Kolstø 1999; Laitin 1998; Romanov 2000) imply that the language requirements and citizenship legislation in the Baltic countries discriminate against the “Russian minority” and that human rights are violated. However, as Ozolins (2003) posits, the existing European norms and legislation have simply not been designed to deal with this kind of situation. As mentioned, the transition from privileged to ordinary status and the very idea of making effort to master another language, albeit on elementary level only, was hard to accept for many. As Kirch and Kirch and Tuisk (1997) stress, reorientation in the economy (privatization, etc.) was not

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210

4

5

6

7

8

Notes

linked either to ethnic or linguistic criteria. Still, one may ask whether it is fair to protect the rights of the former colonizers to remain monolingual while everybody else is supposed to learn and speak their language. The point is made sufficiently clear in the following joke: Who is a nationalist? A person who speaks two or more languages. And who is an internationalist? A person who speaks only one language (for a slightly different version of the joke see Bilaniuk 2005: 90–91). Estonian citizenship and language legislation is not based on ethnic criteria. To be eligible for Estonian citizenship, one must have command of the language on A2 (elementary) level. See M. Rannut (2004) for a comprehensive analysis of the Estonian language policy; on the Baltic countries in general see contributions in Hogan-Brun (2005). Panagiotou’s (2001) is an insightful paper that explains Estonia’s present economic success not only as the result of a careful and systematic policy but also by the fact that Estonia, in his opinion, was the republic least economically and culturally integrated into the Soviet Union. Among other indicators of low degrees of integration, he mentions a considerable degree of cultural awareness and conscious resistance to russification. There are popular stereotypes of Russians as open and easygoing people and of Estonians as reserved and phlegmatic people. Openness is sometimes interpreted as intrusiveness and reservation as coldness. In Russian modern folklore, there exists a special type of joke about “hot-tempered Estonian guys” (gorjačije éstonskije parni) that portray Estonians as phlegmatic, too calm, and too slow. Note that the same qualities may be marked positively or negatively. Historically, the aristocracy in Estonia was of foreign origin (mainly German). The old-fashioned class society showed signs of disintegration in the late nineteenth century, and the share of Estonians among urban dwellers was steadily increasing. After 1918, Estonia became a republic where old class differences were not upheld. Modern Standard Estonian was designed and planned as the language of all Estonian people. The educational system was concerned with the accessibility of Modern Standard Estonian to all speakers, ethnic minorities, and regional dialect speakers. The position taken by language planners and educators was clearly egalitarian. The Soviet society, at least in theory, was supposed to eliminate class differences. At present, Estonian still does not have sociolects. Residual dialectal features may be treated as regional accents but they do not have a sociolectal meaning, and neither are they stigmatized. As a whole, the languageplanning climate in the society has become much more liberal; as Hennoste (1999) renders it, the model of “totalitarian” language planning is not desirable anymore. The community has become more diffused in terms of Le Page and Tabouret-Keller (1985). There are voices against the growing impact of English or, in more general terms, of the Indo-Europeanization of Estonian among laypeople and some literati. However, the topic is emotionally loaded and, as there are no systematic studies, it is not clear whether and what domains or registers of Estonian are affected. It is possible that the serious (i.e., neither playful nor ironic) and regular use of Estonian in Russian-to-Russian communication may be a rather exceptional development in the post-Soviet space. An educated guess based on the general knowledge of the sociolinguistic situation would be that one can expect a similar

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Notes

9

pattern in Latvia and Lithuania, but there are no case studies to confirm or to disprove this assumption. This is not the case in Ukraine (Bilaniuk 2006, personal communication [henceforth p.c.]). For the sake of comparison, it is worth mentioning that during the Soviet era, Estonian-to-Estonian communication in Russian was unimaginable. Outside the Baltic region where the impact of russification was stronger and language shift was underway among some segments of the titular populations, the use of Russian within non-Russian ethnic groups certainly occurred. Wertheim (2003) indicates that Tatar-to-Tatar communication in Russian happens all the time in urban Tatarstan. I believe that the most interesting version of the stories about the distinct accent is the following. In major Russian cities, museums and theaters give a considerable discount to the residents of Russia while foreigners have to pay a higher price for the tickets. It seems that asking a ticket in perfect Russian would do the job. However, as I am often told, Estonia’s Russians do not pass the test, an “accent” is detected in their speech and they are not eligible for the discount. This version is remarkable because the narrator has a clear economic motivation to pass for a Russian from Russia on the one hand but, on the other hand, refers to an “objective” judgment, thus emphasizing that the differences between the two varieties do exist. One may say that the narrator is seeking confirmation of the distinct character of Estonia’s Russian (in addition to non-linguistic differences) and conveying the following message: no matter how one tries, the distinct character of our Russian is an established fact, confirmed by Russians of Russia.

3 1

2

3

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Code-copying framework and copiability

Another side of this is that many terms in sociolinguistics sound like ordinary words (bilingualism, language mixture, borrowing, language death) and for that reason are often used by laypeople in everyday life. I am grateful to Nikolay Vakhtin (2006: p.c.) for this observation. Apparently, as references to Johanson’s papers are absent from Winford’s (2005) bibliography, the latter is not aware of Johanson’s work. I find that Johanson’s terminology is more user-friendly than that of Van Coetsem (1988). In a sense, Johanson is more consequential in his rejection of inadequate metaphors (transfer, borrowing, recipient language, donor language). Probably, the crux of the matter is Johanson’s view that whatever the amount of copying, nothing is taken or given away and nothing is received. Copying is understood as imitation. Winford (2005) argues that “borrowing” is imitation but imposition is not. However, it depends on one’s point of view: imposition can be considered imitation because in the process of copying the speaker (unconsciously) imitates patterns, combinations, constructions, and so on existing in his/her L1. I concur with Bakker (2003) and Backus (2003a) that it is extremely unlikely that frequent code-switching may cause the emergence of mixed languages. Backus (2003a) doubts that the conventionalization of alternational switching is possible and, therefore, only insertional code-switching is compatible with the grammarlexicon split that is found in many mixed languages. Alternatively, Thomason and Kaufman (1988/1991) and Thomason (2001) see mixed languages as a specific

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case of language maintenance where L2 material is gradually added, or that of language shift where L1 material is retained. See also McConvell and Meakins (2005) who argue against Bakker (2003). For an overview of various positions in the debate see Matras and Bakker (2003:12–17). Deumert (2005) argues that mixed languages and fused lects in Auer’s sense arise in a different way. Croft (2000: 209 ff.) speaks of hybridization that refers to hybrid utterances (“codeswitching” and “code-mixing”) and to hybrid languages that are subdivided into true hybrid languages that emerge when the parent languages are closely related varieties and into mixed languages when the contributing varieties are not related (Croft 2000: 212–221). As for varieties that, according to some researchers, do not fit into the genetic tree model (pidgins, creoles, mixed languages), Johanson’s (2002a: 256–258) position is that no matter how high amount of copying may be in a variety, its genetic affiliation is to be determined on the basis of function markers (tense, case, aspect, prepositions) that are less susceptible to copying and are likely to be retained (although, he admits that there are highly complicated cases where some morphology has been globally copied). In other words, core syntax is decisive. For that reason, function markers are also crucial for the determination of the basic code. Still, elsewhere Johanson (1999: 60) speaks of “abruptive” situations that may even break the genetic connections, for instance, pidgins that, in the terms of the code-copying framework are treated as Beta varieties (i.e., varieties of B) that are not the primary code for anybody. I am not going to take further the issues of genetic affiliation and contact effects (see Aikhenvald 2007 for a detailed overview) because these topics are not relevant for the very recent bilingualization of Russians in Estonia. It is interesting that in the Estonian scholarly tradition of modern contact linguistics (which is a very recent one) the initially proposed term ümberlülitumine (Ariste 1981: 63), literally meaning “switching over,” has fallen into disuse. Instead, koodivahetus (code-GEN + change) is used (apparently, the first one to use this term was Viikberg (1989)), most probably modeled on the Finnish koodinvaihto (code-GEN + change); thus, both literally mean “code change.” The underlying metaphor implies an alternate use of two codes in a broad sense; therefore, at least in Estonian, there is no need to distinguish between “switching” and “mixing.” It appears that the Estonian word koodivahetus may serve as a cover term. For code alternation in the sense of Thomason (1997), that is, use of two varieties in different settings or with different people, I have coined the term koodivaheldus (code-GEN-alternation, Verschik 2001). Probably, only three or four scholars write in Estonian on contact linguistics and multilingual communication, and the very same people are responsible for the coinage of the Estonian-language equivalents to the relevant terms. Of course, there are speakers whose dominant language and acquisition order cannot be unambiguously determined. The letters and digits refer to more or less prototypical cases. The autonomous nature of the code should not be misinterpreted as an argument for monolingual bias. Johanson (1999: 38) stresses that his model is designed for the analysis of all kinds of non-monolingual speech. Through the process of copying, a code may develop into something distinct from its original, pre-contact monolingual version. Still, the autonomy of the systems may be disputed from the

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positions of cognitive linguistics because if there is fusion on the cognitive level (and Johanson admits that), then one may ask how non-monolingual speech is not affected by the cognitive fusion. As mentioned earlier, code alternation means different things in different theoretical frameworks. Clyne (2003: 74–75) clarifies the relation between his transversion and Muysken’s (1995, 2000) terminology: transversion covers both Muysken’s alternational code-switching and congruent lexicalization. The change of the dominant language and, subsequently, of the matrix language is termed as matrix language turnover (Myers-Scotton 1998). Johanson (2002a: 253–254) finds the scenario of gradual replacement of “system morphemes” of A by those of B, that is, that the increase of copied material itself may lead to a gradual shift of the basic code very unlikely. Sri Lankan Portuguese (Bakker 2006: 137–138) is a remarkable illustration of how grammatical meaning and syntactic relations may be massively copied, while the global copying of foreign grammatical markers (both free and bound) is almost non-existent. The language changed from being analytic, prepositional, and SVO to agglutinative, postpositional, and SOV, making use of Portuguese elements to express Tamil grammatical categories. According to Johanson (1999: 53), code-assignment in high-copying varieties that have undergone a significant restructuring may be complicated, but the general principle remains the same: the frame-providing code may be determined on the basis of less copiable elements. For now I disregard the copying of a common internationalism, Estonian paus “pause,” break” and Russian pauza “break.” Estonian paus is used in a broader range of contexts than Russian pauza, for instance, coffee break can be referred to as paus in Estonian but not in monolingual Russian. Needless to say, a similar internationalism facilitates copying. I am talking here about a possible monolingual Russian equivalent because in Russian of Russia there is a tendency to use a global copy from English kofebrejk < coffee break. In summer 2006 in Russia, I witnessed an amazing interaction between a doctoral student of mine who is highly proficient in Estonian and a scholar from Russia. The student wished to have an update on the program and asked whether the lecture would take place after the coffee break: posle kofej-n-oj pauz-y (after coffee-ADJ FEM-GEN SG break-ACC). At first, the Russian colleague did not understand the request and asked after a brief pause: éto posle kofebrejk-a? (this after coffee break-GEN) “you mean, after the coffee break?” Of course, an impact of imposition R1 > E2 on E1 may be the case in some microcommunities. Theoretically, the impact of E2 varieties on the mainstream Estonian may be possible in a longer perspective if the sociolinguistic circumstances favor this. There exist a number of studies on the indigenous varieties of Russian spoken in the coastal area of the Lake Peipus (Heiter 1968a, b, 1977; Mürkhein 1969, 1973). However, these are purely descriptive papers which concentrate on lexical borrowing and “Estonian influence” but do not discuss contact phenomena in any modern contact linguistics framework. Note that in some syntactical positions, no morphological “integration” is required. For instance, in Russian masculine nouns of the second declension and all nouns of the third declension have zero ending in nominative singular, and

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inanimate nouns in the same declension classes have identical form of nominative and accusative. However, certain speakers are highly aware of the monolingual norm and would try to fight the effect of B2. There are always less and more purist speakers. A relative difficulty in the acquisition or, to render it more precisely, production of Estonian analytic verbs is partly explicable with the teaching methods and language environment. Ülle Rannut (2005: 142–147) has found that Russian schoolchildren in immersion schools and in Russian-medium schools tend to use main verbs without particles instead of analytic verbs; however, it is not the case in those Russians who have attended Estonian-medium school or communicate with Estonians outside school. Speaking in terms of the code-copying framework, “deletion” of a category, meaning, or opposition is a result of copying, only that the model code does not have the distinction and, so to say, the non-distinction is copied in that case (Johanson 1993: 206). This is by no means a comprehensive review on hierarchies. Borrowability hierarchies have been frequently discussed in the literature (for references see Aikhenvald 2007: 3, footnote 2; Curnow 2001; Field 2002: 34–40). The example of maksat’ “to pay” or, in another version, maks-ova-t’ (pay-SUF-INF) “id.” is more complicated than it appears at the first glance. In addition to Estonia’s Russian, the verb has been conventionalized in colloquial Russian in Latvia and, to some extent, of St. Petersburg. Latvian has the verb maksāt “to pay” that is a global conventionalized copy from a Finnic source. Thus, the ultimate source of copying is Finnic and the proximate source is Latvian. In St. Petersburg, the source for the copy may very well be the Finnish stem maksa- (infinitive maksaa “to pay”) rather than the Estonian vowel stem maksa- (which coincides to the imperative 2SG) or the consonant stem maks-ma (stem-INF) for the following reasons. During the Soviet era, St. Petersburg used to be (and still remains) a popular destination for Finnish tourists. Under the conditions of a planned economy, a great shortage of many goods was usual, and trade considered illegal by the authorities flourished. Finnish tourists were a target of illegal traders who would often acquire the minimum Finnish lexicon necessary for trade and exchange. These facts demonstrate that the detection of the model for copying may be difficult and not always possible. As Wertheim (2003: 154) points, there is an astounding array of terminology in this area (discourse markers, discourse particles, pragmatic particles, utterance modifiers etc.). There are more and less prototypical members of the group. It is extremely difficult to provide a precise definition because the items in question belong to different grammatical classes, such as conjunctions, particles, adverbs, and question words. Their common feature is that they belong to the metalinguistic level rather than the denotative level of discourse (Wertheim 2003: 154 ff.).

4 1

Case studies in code-copying

Strictly speaking, the current norm of Standard Estonian prescribes the pronunciation with the stress on the second syllable [konspékt]. However, apart from

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obvious foreign origin items, the stress in Estonian is on the first syllable and there is a prominent tendency that can be observed everywhere, including the speech of highly educated people in official settings: the stress in foreign words of a certain type often moves to the first syllable. The pronunciation konspekt [kónspekt] “lecture notes,” protsent [prótsent] “percentage, percent” and even variant [váriant] “option,” “variety” is becoming common and sounds natural. I am grateful to Ad Backus (2007: p.c.) for this argument. During my seminar titled “Bilingual Individual” for MA students (Spring 2007, Tallinn University) the question of exposure to different contact varieties was discussed several times. Out of the five students taking this course, only one is a speaker of Estonian as L1, while the rest are proficient bilinguals (R1/E2). All bilingual students reassured me that, although they realize that they might have some accent or can be otherwise identified as primary speakers of Russian, they insist on using Estonian, even in situations when they are clients and are entitled to speak/write Russian. When possible, they try to make an explicit statement about their language choice; for instance, in banks where asking clients to choose a preferable language of communication is a routine procedure (one can choose between Estonian, Russian, or English). Needless to say, all of them have chosen Estonian. At the same time they feel that their Russian is affected by Estonian but do not view it as a problem. The bilingual students, most of whom work as teachers of Estonian in Russian-medium or immersion schools, are representative of young upwardly mobile Russians who spend most of their time communicating in Estonian with Estonians or in non-monolingual varieties of Russian with bilinguals like themselves. In the view of an increasing tendency of non-agreeing prepositional modifier in modern Russian, Kostomarov (1996) applies the term izafet from Turkic linguistics. Kostandi (2000: 192) refers to Kostomarov (1996) and mentions that the tendency (including the “deviant” word order) is especially prominent in Russian-language press of Estonia under the impact of Estonian. Again, the monolingual equivalent may be problematic because in Russia lottery tickets are not sold in special shops (Fedorova 2007: p.c.). Russian grammarians classify adjectives into qualitative (e.g., krasnyj “red,” jarkij “bright”) and relative adjectives (metalličeskij “metallic” < metall “metal,” sadovyj “having to do with garden” < sad “garden”); the latter group is also subdivided into several subgroups (Russkaja grammatika 1980: v. I, 540–541). In contrast to qualitative adjectives, relative adjectives usually do not have either gradation or short forms. The boundary between the two classes is fuzzy and relative adjectives may acquire semantics and grammatical features of qualitative adjectives (the opposite process is also possible). Estonian does not have the grammatical category of aspect. Rätsep (1957) emphasizes that Estonian does not express aspectual meaning by regular means, although certain verbal suffixes (-ata-, -uta-, -i-, -a-) point to a process, repeated action, duration, and so on. In pairs where an analytic verb expresses aspectual meaning, particles/nominal component roughly corresponds to Russian perfectivizing prefixes: läbi lugema “to complete reading” (through + to read), cf. pro-čitat’ “id.” (through-read). However, it would be erroneous to view Estonian analytic verbs as strict equivalents to Russian prefixed perfective verbs. In Russian, new imperfective

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verbs can be derived from prefixed perfective verbs: pisat’ “to write” (imperfective) > zapisat’ “to write down” (perfective) > zapisyvat’ “to make notes” (imperfective). In addition to prefixation, Russian has other means of perfectivization (affixation, suppletion). Certain verbs in Russian are perfectiva tantum or imperfectiva tantum. I have discussed this example in an earlier paper of mine (Verschik 2006: 395) where the stress was on the copying of verbal government rather than on analytic verbs per se. The division between propositional language and pragmatic language as outlined by Fraser (1996) belongs to a theoretical framework different from Maschler (1994) and is focused on the speaker. In addition to the markers of discourse structure and force considered in the current section, Zabrodskaja (2006a: 744) mentions Estonian tähendab “that is, that means.” Etymologically, it is a finite verb form (3SG of tähedama “to mean”) that has the semantics and the functions similar to those of Russian značit “id.” (3SG of značit’ “to mean”): it initiates repair or signals reformulation. In some Estonian-speakers, the singular form kuule “listen” (or even more reduced kule) has become generalized for all purposes (Keevallik 2007: p.c.). However, it is unlikely that the Russian-speaker in (44a) is aware of such subtleties; probably, kuule is the only form available to him. In Russian, elderly and non-educated people tend to address strangers (especially those younger than themselves) in second person singular and to use pragmatic formulas like slušaj, milyj/milaja “listen, dear.” Although the pattern is marginal and limited to that particular category of speakers, it exists in Russian. In Estonian, this would be considered extremely rude. However, the cashier in (44a) understands that the pragmatic goal here is not to offend her but exactly the opposite. I am grateful to Anastassia Zabrodskaja (Tallinn University) for providing me this example. The whole interaction is presented in Verschik (2007b: 95). Estonian lexical items with the derivational suffix -ik (a bilingual homophone) are frequently subject to bilingual creativity: Russian-speakers employ one of Russian meanings of the suffix (very often the diminutive meaning) and preserve the meaning of the Estonian stem, creating in this way a new meaning (Verschik 2005b). In addition, Zabrodskaja (2006: 744) mentions the markers of conversation end olgu (literally, “let it be”) and olgu siis “let it be then” that belong to the group of interactional performatives. In my data, I do not have instances of olgu or olgu siis. I am grateful to Anastassia Zabrodskaja for this example (2006: p.c.). I have chosen the term “paradoxical politeness” because in Estonia, after nearly fifty years of Russian monolingualism this behavior appears rather unexpected and unusual.

5 1

Code-copying and patterns of bilingual communication

Estonian loeng “lecture” yields the genitive form loeng-u which incidentally has the same vowel as the Russian accusative ending of the first declension -u. The Estonian genitive singular is morphologically unmarked: historically speaking,

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nominative forms have often been subjected to various changes while the genitive singular exhibits the stem from which all oblique cases in the singular (except the partitive) are derived (see Viitso 2003: 32, 38). However, all this may be irrelevant for the speaker who establishes the equivalence between Estonian loeng “lecture” and Russian lekcija “id.” and creates the new form loeng-u on the basis of the Russian accusative form lekcij-u. Of course, there are borderline cases where some globally copied stems in jocularly relexified sentences are habitualized/conventionalized. In Chapter 3, endnote 19, I mentioned that both maks-ova-t’ (derived from the infinitive stem maks-) and maks-a-t’ (derived from the present tense stem maksa-) are conventionalized copies. It is impossible to establish whether the speaker in (11a) draws on the conventionalized copy or, so to say, reinvents it. Be it this or the other way round, utterance (11a) does not deviate from what would be expected in jocular relexification, that is, from the lexicon-grammar split, disregarding the degree of habitualization of some items. Bakker (2000: 29) notes that in “intertwined languages” content words typically originate from one language and bound morphemes from another with “some crosslinguistic variation as to the origin of free grammatical markers such as pronouns, demonstratives and the like.” It is clear that in bigger and more “fancy” stores and banks, not to mention official institutions, a good proficiency in Estonian is required from employees who work with clients. The unwritten rule states that one has to conform to the language choice of the client. Thus, it can be said that market discourse is confined to informal interaction over the counter in places where patterns of communication are not restricted by any regulations (in contrast to this, banks usually ask their clients to indicate the preferred language of communication). Modern standard Estonian has several semantic groups of pluralia tantum nouns, including substances, such as kliid “bran,” tangud “groats,” and objects with a collective meaning (i.e., consisting of two or more similar components), such as püksid “trousers,” käärid “scissors.” However, some singularia tantum nouns refer to substances as well, for instance, jahu “flour,” piim “milk,” and so on. In some cases, singularia tantum nouns may have plural forms that have a different lexical meaning: jahu “flour” refers to the substance and the NP erinevad jahud (both the noun and the adjective are in the nominative plural) means “different sorts of flour” (Erelt et al. 1995: 61–62). Similarly to that, one can say jõhvikas “cranberry” in the abstract meaning (i.e., the specie): jõhvikas on tervisele kasulik “cranberry is good for your health,” that is, cranberry as such. The singular form does not refer to a single berry. Otherwise, the plural form is obligatory: osta-n jõhvika-i-d (buy1SG cranberry-PL-PART) “I (will) buy (some) cranberry.” From a theoretical point of view, it would be instructive to explore possible links between semantic specificity and attractiveness. Occasionally, the Russian of Estonian-dominant speakers has some Estonian discourse-pragmatic words. I assume that this happens unconsciously because Estonian is their pragmatically dominant language (Matras 1998, 2005) and otherwise the speakers strive for a monolingual version of Russian. Similarly, Russian discourse-pragmatic words sometimes “slip in” to the Estonian of Russiandominant speakers who are not very proficient in Estonian. Wertheim (2003: 218, footnote 2) observes that in her experience with several bilingual speakers

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of English as L2 discourse-pragmatic words from the first (preferred) language are what are removed last from their L2. Note, however, that this is strikingly different from Russians for whom Estonian has become pragmatically dominant and/or who deliberately use Estonian discourse-pragmatic words as a part of compromise strategy in Russian-to-Estonian communication. Of course, in Tallinn, especially in the Old Town, one can see short signs and advertisements in three or more languages, for instance: juuksur (Estonian) – kampaamo (Finnish) – hair-dresser (English). Sometimes Russian in its original orthography is present as well. However, it is not entirely clear how such multilingual signs should be treated in the terms of code-copying framework. Very recently (Spring 2007) I found an example of the combination of Roman and Cyrillic characters in an advertisement of a play based on Dostoyevski’s novel Besy (Demons, or The Possessed in a different translation). The play was created and staged by the Estonian director Hendrik Toompere in the Estonian Drama Theater in Tallinn. In the Estonian translation, the title of the novel is Sortsid. The title of the play was rendered in the following way: SORTSИД, the two last characters being in Cyrillic. The characters и and д (capital letters И and Д respectively) do not belong to the group of partly or completely overlapping letters. The Russian word бесы besy “demons” and Estonian sortsid “id.” do not have anything in common either in their phonetic realization or in their spelling. Apparently, the decision to render the Estonian the stem formant i and the plural ending d in Cyrillic has to do with the wish to manifest “Russianness”/Russian origin of the play. The contrast between the two alphabets combined within a single word is sharp and attracts attention. Apparently, global copying (i.e., the retention of the original orthography of “foreign” lexical items) plays different roles in Russia and in Estonia. In the former case, items in Roman characters are probably associated with the modern economy and technical progress, the West and so on. In Estonia’s Russian texts, globally copied items refer to everyday reality and to the fact that the country is not monolingual. Interestingly, this does not concern the word tänav “street,” abbreviated as tn., which is seldom copied in oral speech and in writing (so far I have never come across written examples of its copying). I am grateful to Anastassia Šmõreitšik (Tallinn University) for bringing this example to my attention.

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Index

Introductory note References such as “178–9” indicate (not necessarily continuous) discussion of a topic across a range of pages. Wherever possible in the case of topics with many references, these have either been divided into sub-topics or the most significant discussions of the topic are indicated by page numbers in bold. Because the entire volume is about emerging bilingualism and contact-induced language change, the use of these terms as entry points has been minimized. Information will be found under the corresponding detailed topics.

4M model 6, 11 abstract meaning 94, 101–2, 139, 149, 180, 217 and concrete meaning 93 and specific meaning 89 accommodation 14, 61–2, 76–81 accusative 145, 184, 208, 214, 216–17 acquisition ease of 5, 89, 214 L1 91 L2 91 order of 59 of structural features 5 acts of identity 31, 35 adaptation 48, 58, 76–81, 176, 180 adjectives and borrowing/copying 93, 100–1, 107, 109, 111, 129, 181, 186 Estonian 60, 171 and jocular relexification 180 and market discourse 206 Russian 12, 74, 84, 121–2, 127, 182, 197, 215 adoption 74 and borrowability hierarchies 93

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and borrowing 115 and code-copying 81 and direct structural borrowing 113 of function units 70 and imposition 51–2, 76, 90, 104, 112, 202 adpositions 66, 91–2, 97, 101, 145 adverbs 93, 135, 140, 142–3, 146, 152, 214 affixation 129–30, 216 Aikhenvald, A. Y. 5, 63, 70, 96–8, 100, 204, 212, 214 Alpha-lects 85–6, 89, 109, 155 alphabets 58, 68, 191, 195, 199, 218 altered replication 21, 57, 203 alternation 53, 61, 174, 181, 194 ambiguity 9–10, 132 ambivalent items 10, 174 analytic adjectives 125–6 analytic constructions 89, 91–2, 102, 106, 111, 114, 145, 151 analytic verbs and aspectual meaning 215 attractiveness 150, 169 chronology of copying 91, 106–7 complex meanings 138 copying 89–90, 106–7, 135–51, 169

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analytic verbs (Cont’d) and copying of CN 149–50 and de-Germanization 136 Estonian 90, 135–6, 138, 143, 151 Finnish 151 and global copying 106, 169 and main verbs 214 mixed copying 66, 83, 111, 135, 146–8, 150–1, 170, 202, 204–5 perception 151 and proficiency 150 Russian equivalents 138 selective copying 139, 148, 150, 205 semantic and combinational copying 110–11 and semantic transparency 89 structural distance between languages 149 and synthetic verbs 138–9, 151, 205 terminology problem 137 analyticity 89, 126, 149, 208 Angermeyer, P. S. 190–1 Ariste, P. 174, 212 aspectual opposition 92, 138 assimilation 16–17, 39 attitudes 7, 13, 30, 32, 45, 93, 103, 105, 171 parental 37 attractiveness 89–92, 106, 150, 152, 168–9, 204, 217 attributive constructions 120–1, 130–1, 134–5, 169 see also compound nouns (CN) attrition 84–5 Auer, P. 9, 11–14, 16, 18–21, 42, 48, 53, 78, 86, 203 autonomous items/words 101–2, 104, 119–20, 125, 204 Backus, A. 3, 6, 9, 20–2, 24, 43, 48, 50, 57, 65, 89, 99–100, 211 Bakker, P. 53, 70, 94, 172–3, 206, 211–13, 217 basic code accommodation/reshaping 83–5, 88, 153 and code-shift 76

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determination 61, 174–5, 189, 200, 212 discourse-pragmatic words 153 equivalences 71, 129, 149 and frequential copying 65 function markers 77 government patterns 110 and imposition 74 inflectional morphology 76, 175 insertion of copies 71 insertional code-switching 172 integration of foreign-origin items 76 and model code 56, 59, 61, 75–6, 81–3, 85, 173, 189 new collocations 110 and prestige 114 Bentahila, A. 59, 69 bi-directionality 61, 75–6 Bilaniuk, L. 10, 18, 27–8, 41, 43, 210–11 bilingual communication 44 and code-copying 171, 201, 216, 218 emergent strategies 40 market discourse 101, 171, 181–8, 200–1, 206, 217 new patterns 42 non-reciprocal bilingualism 43 bilingual creativity 12, 159, 175, 216 bilingual speakers changes introduced by 173 characteristics 13, 23, 37–40 cognitive pressures 98 cognitive processes 49, 55 and discourse-pragmatic words 217 innovations introduced by 55 intuitions 11 and jocular relexification 181 linguistic awareness 129, 154, 169 linguistic choices 22 and monolingual speakers 85 and semantic copying 110 terminology problems 81 bilingual speech 2, 6, 22, 44, 59, 68, 172, 188, 202 and bilingual scholars 209 and code-switching 23 and code-switching/mixing 52 and copying of verbal stems 180 emergence 42

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Index and fused lects 53 and jocular relexification 181 and material similarity 154 research tradition 58 sociolinguistic circumstances 42, 122 types 36, 43, 53 bilingualism 8–10, 21–3, 94–5, 208–9 and bilingual scholars 209 and choice of strategies 95 established 22–3 and global copying 67, 81 and imported noun stems 19 and language acquisition 9 and language shift 15 nature of 2 and “playing with language” 54 pre-independence situation 29 progression 114 psycholinguistic approach 10 and structural borrowing 21 terminology 49, 211 and use of innovations 23 Blackledge, A. 14 Boeschoten, H. 52, 74, 78, 84 Bolonyai, A. 12 borrowability 92–3, 97, 203 hierarchies 92–4, 214 scales 93, 204 bound morphemes 3, 90, 100–1, 217 Bourdieu, P. 44 Boussofara-Omar, N. 12 Boyd, S. 15 Budzhak-Jones, S. 20 Bullock, B. E. 81–2, 84 Burt, S. M. 165 Campbell, L. 94 chronology 43, 106–7, 111–12, 118, 205 CILC see Introductory Note class, closed 90, 93, 97–8 clausal level 61, 69–70, 203 Clyne, M. 3, 5–6, 10, 14–16, 20, 52, 56, 62, 69, 83–4, 90, 191 code-alternation 6, 17, 22, 48–9, 62, 172, 174, 202, 212–13 code-copying 81

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241

and bilingual communication patterns 171, 201, 216–18 case studies 106–70, 214 directionality 59 framework 24, 48–105, 105, 116, 129, 171–3, 189, 191, 193, 201, 203–4, 211–14, 218 as intra-clausal phenomenon 62 model 1, 54–6, 88, 202–3, 206 terminology problems 49, 76 three-component model 100 and written texts 68 code-mixing of discourse-pragmatic words 116 and mixed languages 53, 212 prototypical cases 53 terminology problem 6, 24, 49, 53, 202 code-switching 16, 20, 83, 190, 213 and alternation of alphabets 191 alternational 43 and bilingual speakers 20 bilingual speakers 23 and borrowing 11, 86–7 bound morpheme constraint 3 classic 20, 23–4 and code-alternation 17 constraints on see constraints, on codeswitching conventionalized 69 and convergence 83 denial of 17 and determination of basic code 68 and emergence of mixed languages 53, 211 facilitation 10 Finnish-English 5 fluid 201 and fused lects 18 grammaticalization 21, 86, 99 graphological 190, 209 insertional 20, 60, 71, 76–7, 172, 211 intentional 7 intra-sentential 52 introspective 209 markedness model 14 and market discourse 181

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code-switching (Cont’d) and mixed languages 172 models 7, 19–20 natural 7 nouns 100 occasional word-level 95 prototypical cases 37 Russian-Estonian 103 in Russian-to-Russian communication 43 and structural change 20, 24 synchronic study 20 terminology 6, 24, 49, 52–4, 57, 62, 76, 202 types 20, 67 and unidirectionality 59 violation of rules 12 written 58, 68, 190 codes basic see basic code and code interaction types 58–62 convergence 82 defining 10 dominant 59, 75, 104 equivalence between 71 mixed 10 model 85 monolingual 12, 85 non-monolingual 10 strong, 59, 112, 202 and varieties 18, 69 weak 59, 202 cognitive linguistics 57, 85, 91, 213 collocations 108, 126, 143 copying 66, 114, 118, 129–30, 140, 144, 202 equivalences 131 extension in use 65 idiomatic 127 lexicalization potential 149 new 110 opaque 134 perception 128 and semi-idioms 137 use of adjectives 130 combinability 137 conventions 102

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external 65 limited 136–7 properties 102, 107 rules 113, 118, 139–40, 145, 147, 205 combinational copying 63, 65, 67, 101, 110–11, 114, 118, 205 combinational properties 61–2, 70, 77, 83–4, 113, 117, 153, 171 common internationalisms 80 see also internationalisms attractiveness 90, 122 and copying 104, 108, 124–5, 134, 155, 188, 213 common nouns 128, 193 complements 137, 205 complex meanings 91, 138, 140, 146 composite matrix language 12, 24, 69, 71 composite morphosyntax 97, 116, 205 compound nouns (CN) attractiveness 204 and attributive constructions 130 chronology of copying 106 copying 73, 89, 91, 103–4, 106, 111, 118–35, 171, 195 equivalences 72 global copying 108, 123, 126 internationalisms 123–4, 188 mixed copying 66, 111, 129, 188, 194–5, 202 salience 204 semantic and combinational copying 110–11, 118 stress rules 80 compromise strategies 38, 41–3, 165, 168, 189, 198–9, 201, 206, 218 Comrie, B. 79, 122, 125 congruent lexicalization 20, 53, 70, 90, 213 conjunctions borrowability 97 and contact-induced grammaticalization 101 contrasting 205 copying 90, 154–5, 168–9, 205

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Index and discourse organization 99 selective copying 165 constraints on alphabet choice 191 to borrowing 94 on CILC 3, 6, 11, 24, 89 on code-switching 6–7, 11 contact-induced grammaticalization 54–8, 61, 64, 68, 71, 75, 89, 101, 104, 111, 203 and code-copying model 56–7 and equivalence 58, 71 and imposition 75 and linguistic creativity 54 and written discourse 68 contact-induced language change see Introductory Note contact linguistics 7, 74, 203, 212 and borrowability 92 terminology 24, 49–51, 81 content morphemes 4 copying 172, 175, 204 and discourse-pragmatic words 115 embedding 71 prototypical 76 relexification 180 content words 69, 93, 115, 181, 217 contracting languages 98, 116–17, 158, 170 conventionalization 21, 112 of alternational switching 211 and attitudes 46 decisive factors 88 and grammaticalization 75 and habitualization 22, 57, 85–8, 114, 118, 161, 203 and monolingualization 169 and morphosyntactic rules 76 conventionalized collocations 65–6, 102 conventions 22, 44, 58, 72, 120–2, 130–1, 148, 162, 191–4, 198, 206 convergence 3, 12, 20, 24, 49, 52, 58, 69, 71, 81–5, 89, 96 Cook, V. 10, 12 copiability 48–105, 168, 211

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copying of analytic verbs see analytic verbs of compound nouns see compound nouns degrees of 48–9, 62, 92, 97, 100, 102, 104–7, 111, 115, 118, 134, 140, 147, 151, 195, 204 dense global copying 174, 181 direction of 59–60, 74, 189, 198, 200–1 of discourse-pragmatic words see discourse-pragmatic words frequential 62–3, 65, 67–8, 131, 171, 202 of functions see functions, copying global see global copying grammatical meaning 62–4, 101, 213 of graphic properties see graphic properties graphic properties 68, 171, 189–201 mixed see mixed copying overview 107–12 selective see selective copying creativity 7, 10, 19, 23, 54–6, 175 Croft, W. 19, 21, 48, 57, 69, 85, 114, 203, 212 Csató, E. A. 3, 54 cultural pressure 7, 90, 94, 115 Curnow, T. J. 93–4, 97, 214 Cyrillic characters, 190, 191, 194, 197, 206, 218 dative 87, 124, 179, 208 Davies, E. E. 59, 69 de-russification 41, 209 deliberate manipulation 4, 103, 107–8, 111, 173–5, 201 demographic factors 9, 26–7, 31–2, 40, 209 denotative language 63, 97, 152, 214 derivation 119–21, 126, 130, 208 derivational transparency 124, 169, 204 Deuchar, M. 69 Deumert, A. 53, 212 deviations 12, 49–52, 131, 165, 190, 193 Dewaele, J. M. 209

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direct diffusion 70 direct selective copying see selective copying direct structural borrowing see structural borrowing direction of CILC 7, 23 of contact-induced replication 75 of copying 59–60, 74, 189, 198, 200–1 of transfer 51–2 directionality 75, 82 see also bi-directionality; direction discourse level 21, 49, 69, 98, 100, 104–6, 180, 201, 204–6 discourse markers 96–7, 101–2, 153 terminology 214 discourse organization 98, 104, 201 discourse-pragmatic words 97–8 classification 152, 161 copying 101, 115–16, 151–69, 170–1, 184, 188, 204–6, 217 development from verb forms 166 global copying 98, 106, 115–16, 153 material similarity across languages 206 selective copying 107, 153, 165 semantic and combinational copying 111 terminology 152 types copied 168, 205 as word class 106, 115, 205 discourse structure 152–9, 216 Dixon, R. M. W. 96, 98 domains 13, 99, 123, 128, 199, 209–10 prestigious see prestige shrinking of 117 dominant codes 59, 75, 104 dominant language 14, 97–8, 101, 116–17, 122, 152, 168, 171, 189, 200–1, 205, 212–13, 217 donor language 93 terminology problem 52, 211 double marking 78, 158, 160–1, 178 dynamics 24, 56 of article use 208 of code-switching 20 of copying 58 of identity 23, 35, 46

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of language contacts 169 of sociolinguistic processes 13 embedded language 12, 69 see also Matrix Language Frame model embedding 61, 71 see also Matrix Language Frame model emerging bilingual speech see Introductory Note entrenchment 21–2, 85–6, 88 equivalence 4, 71–4, 148–9, 203 of constructions 129, 135, 217 subjectivity of 4, 58 Estonian Russians, as term/category 34–6, 47 ethnic minorities 26, 29, 37–8, 40, 210 ethnolects 16–17, 24, 56, 85 evaluatives 152, 161–2, 168–70, 181, 205 expression verbs 135–6 external identification 15 see also mother tongue facilitation in transfer 50, 83–4, 90 Fein, L. 34, 36 Field, F. 4, 7, 21, 92–4, 214 figurative meanings 137, 139–40, 147, 150, 205 finite verbs 135, 155 Finnish 39, 95, 133, 151, 170, 200, 208 Fishman, J. A. 13–14 Fiškina, J. 34 foreign languages 33, 39, 79, 154, 173 formal characteristics 100, 104, 204 formal linguistics 7–8 Franceschini, R. 23, 37–9 Fraser, B. 152, 216 Fraurud, K. 15 frequential properties 62, 68, 77, 131, 171, 202 function markers 92, 111 and basic code 69, 71, 212 copiability 69 copying 66, 70, 101 and genetic affiliation 212 global copying 70 and mixed copies 112

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Index and morphosyntactic integration 77, 90 and non-integration 79, 182 and transference 83 function units 70, 84, 92 global copying 84, 92 function words, copying 3–4, 70, 98, 111, 118 functions, copying 165–6 fused lects 18, 53, 78, 212 fusion 49, 62, 98, 152–3, 155, 168, 213 gender 134, 208 agreement 12 assignment 11–12, 19, 80 markers 12 genitive Estonian 72–3, 83–4, 106, 119–21, 123, 125, 135, 183–4, 195, 216–17 Russian 83–4, 87, 129, 131–4, 142, 154 Gerfen, C. 82, 84 Giora, R. 91 Givón, T. 3 global copying 153–9 and alternation 60 analytic constructions 92, 102 block 103 and borrowing 96 chronology 67 compound nouns 108, 123, 126, 131 and convergence 83–4 definition 62 dense 174, 181 derivational suffixes 173 and direct diffusion 70 directionality 59–60 discourse-pragmatic words 98, 106, 115–16, 153, 206 factors favouring 101–3, 107, 120, 122 function markers 70 function units 84, 92 grammatical markers 70, 83, 173, 182, 184, 213 and graphic properties 68 habitualized/conventionalized 87, 172

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245

interactional performatives 171 items susceptible to 100 and jocular relexification 172, 176, 200 lexical items 83, 113, 189, 191–2 and market discourse 201 and mixed copying 123 momentary 87 non-basic vocabulary 107 pragmatic markers 65, 107 and selective copying 83–4 and semantic specificity 122, 128, 131, 151, 204 and structure 113 and transliteration 198, 206, 218 verbs 149, 180, 203, 205 Golovko, E. V. 7, 173, 175–6, 201, 203 government morpheme constraint 6 grammatical markers, global copying 70, 83, 173, 182, 184, 213 grammatical meaning 82–3, 89, 92, 101, 111 copying 62–4, 101, 213 selective copying 70 semantic and combinational copying 67 grammatical modification 76–7 grammaticalization 21, 24, 86, 93, 112, 137 adpositions 145 adverbs 138, 147 and code-switching 20–1, 86 collocations 102 contact-induced see contact-induced grammaticalization verbs 137, 149, 166 graphic properties 68, 171 copying 68, 171, 189–201 habitualization 22, 57, 85–7, 114, 118, 161, 203 habitualized/conventionalized global copying 87, 172 Halmari, H. 5–6 Hasselblatt, C. 41, 135–6, 151 Haugen, E. 50, 65–6, 92–3 Heine, B. 19, 24, 48, 54–8, 63, 70, 72, 75, 89, 92, 96, 203

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246 Heiter, H., 102, 150, 213 Hennoste, T. 152, 158, 210 heterogeneity among Russian-speakers 31–40 Hint, M. 41 Hogan-Brun, G. 210 Hussar, A. 35 identity 14–15, 17, 23–4, 33–6, 38, 45–7, 128 idiolects 9–10, 55 idiomatic expressions/collocations/ constructions 65–6, 127, 134–8, 140, 145, 147, 151 idioms 65, 102, 111, 136–9, 141–2, 145, 148–51 opaque 136 transparent 136–7 imitation 21, 51, 97, 187, 202, 211 immigrant languages 5, 74–5 immigrants 21–2, 29, 37, 42, 59, 67 imperfective 138, 146–7, 215–16 imposition 51–2, 74–6, 82, 85, 90, 104, 112, 202, 211 independence, impact 8–9, 30 see also national independence (of Estonia) indigenous minorities 25, 29, 31, 33, 133, 150 indirect diffusion 70 infinitive markers 95, 103, 173, 177–8, 180 inflectional markers 4, 87 inflectional morphology 63, 69, 80, 175, 181 acquisition/loss 4–5 of basic code 76, 174–5 copying 62, 66 and paradigm transfer 95 Russian 77, 79, 178, 200 insertion, direct/indirect 94–5 insertional code-switching 20, 60, 71, 76–7, 172, 211 integration 11, 58, 62, 76, 87, 99, 210, 213 morphosyntactic 76–7, 94, 102, 169, 188

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Index intentional manipulation 103–4 intentionality 7, 22–3, 101, 103, 105, 171, 201 interaction Russian-to-Estonian 153, 165, 181 Russian-to-Russian 43, 45, 163, 165, 181, 189 interactional performatives 152–3, 159–61, 216 see also discourse-pragmatic words attractiveness 168, 205 copying 169, 171, 181, 186, 188, 205 and discourse organization 201 double-marking 158 markers 168 prevalence 169–70 interference 3, 24, 41, 48–52, 81–2, 96, 191 internationalisms 63, 111, 122–6, 128, 143, 213 see also common internationalisms intonation 109, 111, 157, 167 intuition 11–12, 81, 86, 114, 169, 180, 207, 209 of bilingual speakers, 11 Jacobs, N. 9, 56 Jacobson, R. 59 Jakobson, R. 4 Jakobson, V. 40 jocular relexification 103, 176–81, 189, 204, 206, 217 and global copying 172, 176–81, 200 Johanson, L. 48, 54–8, 61–2, 67, 69, 71, 85–6, 90, 92, 211 Johnstone, B. 15 Kaufman, T. 1–5, 7–8, 20–1, 50–1, 93, 113, 115–16, 118 Kecskes, I. 91, 204 Keevallik, L. 151, 153, 155, 165–6, 168, 206, 216 Kerswill, P. 91, 204 King, R. 112–13 Kirch, A. and M. 31, 209 Kolstø, P. 30–1, 209

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Index Kostandi, J. 196, 215 Kostomarov, V. G. 122, 215 Külmoja, I. 25–6, 64, 132, 191, 198, 201 Kupwar 3–4 Kuteva, T. 19, 24, 48, 54–8, 63, 70, 72, 75, 89, 92, 96, 203 Laitin, D. 16, 30, 33, 209 language awareness see linguistic awareness language contacts 2–3, 5, 8, 19 and code-shift 76 and code-switching 20 and copying 1, 67, 90 methodologies 23, 48–9, 51, 54–6, 58, 209 and simplification 5 language death 5, 211 language environments 31, 33, 37–8, 40 language legislation 30, 209–10 language loyalty 13, 17, 117 language maintenance 2, 4, 50–1, 67, 92–3, 115, 212 language planners 18, 136, 208, 210 language planning 4, 10, 18, 26 climate 10, 16, 41, 190, 210 private 1, 22 totalitarian 210 language policy 1, 19, 30, 41, 209–10 language shift 19, 50–1, 117 and assimilation 17, 39 and bilingualism 15 and language maintenance 51, 212 multigenerational 116 and prestige 8, 27 and russification 211 and sociocultural conditions 2 languages contracting 98, 116–17, 158, 170 official 28, 30, 117 playing with 54, 204 preferred 13, 15, 45, 187, 217 titular 28, 41, 209 Turkic 12, 56, 70, 90, 116, 152–3, 205 Le Page, R. 9–10, 15, 42, 201, 207, 210 Leemets, H. 120–1 Léglise, I. 18 Leisiö, L. 11, 19, 76, 86, 132–3

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247

lexical chunks 50, 65, 83, 96, 100, 102 lexical items, global copying 83, 113, 189, 191–2 lexical polysemy 63 lexicalization, congruent 20, 53, 90, 213 lexicon copying 54, 75, 92, 107, 111, 202 differences 4 and grammar 6, 24, 50, 52–3, 56, 103, 112 and jocular relexification 176 and other language levels 50 and private language planning 22 shared 7 light verbs 94–5, 137 linguistic awareness 9–10, 22, 79, 206 degrees of 4, 114, 169, 179 linguistic creativity see creativity linguistic intuition see intuition linguistic repertoire 25, 36, 40, 47, 55–6 linguistics cognitive 57, 85, 91, 213 formal 7–8 loan translations 63, 136, 151 macrosociolinguistics 1–2, 13–19, 23, 48 majority 28–9, 38, 42, 59 local 5, 26, 32, 38 terminology problem 15 manipulation, deliberate 4, 103, 107–8, 111, 173–5, 201 markedness 3–6, 14 markers 70, 101, 178, 183 case 77, 80, 134 conversation end 216 discourse structure 153–9 evaluatives 168 infinitive 95, 103, 173, 177–8, 180 metacommentary 154 modality 152 relative clause 64, 111 verbal 95 market discourse 101, 171, 181–8, 200–1, 206, 217 Maschler, Y. 65, 97–8, 151–2, 204, 216 material reshaping 76–7, 87–8

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material similarity 3, 101, 104, 154, 165–6, 206 Matras, Y. 49, 53, 65, 90, 98–100, 104, 115, 151–3, 168, 170, 172–3 matrix language 11–12, 19, 68–9, 71, 76, 175, 209, 213 composite 12, 24 Matrix Language Frame model (MLF) 6–7, 11, 20, 69, 76, 203 McConvell, P. 212 Meakins, F. 212 Meillet, A. 3 meta-language 16, 99, 152 metacommentary, markers 154 metaphors 24, 48–54, 61, 142, 212 microsociolinguistics 1–2, 13–19, 23, 39, 97 Migge, B. 18 Milroy, L. 9 minority languages 42, 59, 74, 117 mixed codes 10 mixed copying 65–6, 97, 102, 111, 125–6, 128, 134, 202 analytic verbs 66, 83, 111, 135, 146–8, 150–1, 170, 202, 204–5 chronology 118 and code-copying framework 66 compound nouns 66, 111, 122, 129, 188, 194–5, 202 as compromise strategy 197 constructions 105, 204 facilitation 122, 134, 169 frequency 75 and global copying 71, 112, 123 modifiers 170 and proficiency 67 and selective copying 84, 91, 116, 145, 151, 203–5 and transliteration 206 written texts 189, 194–6 mixed languages 53, 172–3, 211–12 mixing 17, 48, 52–4, 61, 212 ML see matrix language modality markers 152 model codes 74–7, 134, 147, 149 and Alpha-lects 85 and attributive constructions 134

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and basic code 59, 69, 77, 81, 83, 149 and combinability 144 copying 61, 71, 76, 129 determination 85 global copying 81, 173, 175 and imposition 74 mixed copying 194 prestige 114 and proficiency 75 proficiency 147 semantic copying 63 Modern Standard Estonian, see Standard Estonian momentary global copying 87 monolingual bias 2, 7, 9–12, 23–4, 56, 202–3, 212 and “interference” 50 and language naming 18–19 monolingual codes 10, 12, 85 monolingual speakers 81, 122 attitudes/understanding/ knowledge 11, 45, 126–9, 134, 140, 144–5, 147, 149, 170, 186 different sets of 86 existence/absence of 11, 19–20, 86 former 75 and salience 91 monolingual varieties 10, 12, 18, 56, 71, 148, 154, 199 and codes 69 phenomena which do not fit 2, 10, 14, 37, 74 and situational continuum 10 standard 9 morphemes, bound 3, 90, 100–1, 217 morphosyntactic integration 76–7, 94, 102, 169, 188 morphosyntax 18, 176 changes in 46–7, 85, 96, 202 and convergence 82–3 copying 61, 65, 76, 113, 116 mother tongue 15–17, 117, 209 Muhamedova, R. 11–12 Muischnek, K. 135–7, 150 multigenerational language shift 116 multilingual background 37, 39–40

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Index Must, M. 25, 116, 177, 210 Mürkhein, V., 92, 213 Muysken, P. 6, 9, 20, 48, 53, 56, 66–7, 70–1, 71, 90, 93–4, 172, 174, 213 Myers-Scotton, C. 6, 11–12, 14, 18, 48, 66, 69, 71, 76, 82, 175, 203, 213 names personal 68, 84, 193, 206 proper 68, 99, 119–20, 127, 129, 190, 195 street 191–3 national independence (of Estonia) 9, 31 negotiation 22–3 nominative 63, 72, 106, 119–21, 123, 127, 129–32, 182, 184, 186, 195, 213–14 plural 180–2, 186, 198, 217 non-monolingual speech 37, 42, 50, 54, 103, 117, 203, 206, 212–13 non-monolingual varieties 40–2 non-reciprocal bilingualism 40, 43 non-transformable attributive constructions 121 Nortier, J. 68 nouns common 128, 193 proper 125–8, 131, 134, 198 numerals 171, 181, 183–4, 186, 188, 201, 206 official languages 117 opaqueness 119, 134, 136–7, 139, 149–50, 203 openness (of a subsystem) 89–90 oppositional identity 28 oppositions 1–2 aspectual 92, 138 orthography 68, 189–90, 194, 196, 199, 206, 218 see also Cyrillic characters; Roman characters; transliteration Ozolins, U. 31, 35, 209 Päll, E. 120, 165 Panov, V. M. 125 particle verbs 135–8, 140–1 particles 90, 99, 111, 135–6, 151–2, 155–7, 205, 214

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249

partitive 132, 136–7, 181, 183–4, 186, 217 Pavlenko, A. 10, 13–17, 27, 30, 33, 52, 75, 209 perception 5, 15–16, 69, 127, 181 changes in 45–6, 81, 151 differences in 137 ease of 89 of equivalence relations 4 of foreign elements 11 simplification 5 perfective 138, 146–8, 216 personal names, see names personal pronouns 166–7, 181 Pettai, I. 39 phonic adaptation 77, 80 playing with language see also jocular relexification 54, 204 plurals 136, 180, 182, 186, 196–7, 217–18 Polinsky, M. 79, 122, 125 Ponarin, E. 17 Poplack, S. 3, 6, 8, 11, 20, 76 Pousada, A. 11 pragmatic formulas 65, 102, 110–11, 206, 216 pragmatic markers, global copying 65, 107 pragmatics 52, 97–9 changes in 16, 41, 46–7, 111 copying 65, 206 pre-independence situation 8–9 preferred languages 13, 15, 45, 187, 217 prefixation 90, 216 prefixed perfective verbs 215–16 prepositional phrases 72, 74, 77, 79, 88, 119, 121, 123, 132, 145 prepositions 77–9, 93, 140, 146, 181, 183, 185, 188, 212 prestige 5, 7–8, 27–8, 57, 112–14, 116–17 private language planning 1, 22 probabilistic continuum, see threecomponent model 100–1 proficiency and borrowing 113 and copying 76, 115–16, 150, 169, 171, 205 desired level 52 and double marking 78

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250

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proficiency (Cont’d) in Estonian 31, 33–4, 36–8, 59, 67, 114, 127, 162, 188, 200 in foreign languages 39 and jocular relexification 173, 179–80 and language choice 45 and market discourse 101, 206, 217 and multilingual speech 38 and perception of Russian in Estonia 46 and reshaping 77 in Russian 22–3, 28–30, 60, 85 and sociolinguistic dominance 59, 104, 112, 117, 122, 202 and transliteration 198 pronominal suffixes 4, 208 pronouns 69, 97, 135, 138, 185, 188, 217 personal 166–7, 181 relative 64, 102, 113 proper names 68, 99, 119–20, 127, 129, 190, 195 proper nouns 125–8, 131, 134, 198 propositional language 152, 216 purity discourse 40–2, 103, 117–18, 207 qualitative adjectives 130, 215 questionnaires 15–16, 39, 199 Rampton, B. 15–16, 42–4 Rannut, M., 30, 31, 33, 35, 38, 210 Rannut, Ü. 27, 31–2, 37, 214 Raud, R. 32 Raun, T. 25–8 relative adjectives 72–3, 129–31, 134, 169, 203–5, 215 relative clause markers 64, 111 relative pronouns 64, 102, 113 relexification 172–3, 175–6, 178, 180 jocular see jocular relexification replication 56–7, 62, 75 altered 21, 57, 203 Romaine, S. 9–10, 77 Roman characters 128–9, 190–1, 196, 218 see also orthography; transliteration Ross, M. D. 93, 98

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russification 26–9, 190, 210–11 salience 89–92, 106, 146, 169, 204–5 Salmons, J. 98, 151 Sankoff, D. 11 Sarhimaa, A. 5–6, 10–11, 69 Schiffman, H. 17, 46 schools 33, 37, 44, 90, 162, 173, 180, 214 Sebba, M. 8, 190, 206 Second Language Acquisition studies 10, 14, 49, 75, 81, 91 selective copying 63, 65, 70, 76, 113, 129, 132, 140, 165–8, 189 analytic verbs 139 attributive constructions 134–5, 169 and borrowing 96 chronology 67 and contact-induced grammaticalization 101 discourse-pragmatic words 107 facilitation 90, 154, 206 factors favouring 105 fixed expressions 108 and global copying 59, 81, 83–4, 97, 100, 102, 153, 193, 202, 204 grammatical meaning 70 and hierarchies 96 and indirect diffusion 70 and interference 96 and market discourse 181, 185, 188 and mixed copying 84, 91, 112, 116, 145, 148, 151, 203–5 pragmatics 206 relative adjectives 205 street names 192–3 and structural borrowing 112 susceptibility to 114 and translation 113–14, 148 and transliteration 193–4, 206 and untranslatability 108 written texts 131 self-identification 15, 33, 35–6, 39 self-reported data 16, 209 semantic copying 63, 65, 67, 84, 96, 101, 109–11, 113–14, 117–18, 133, 143, 150–1, 168, 204–5 semantic properties 63, 68, 75, 77, 113, 189, 203, 215

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Index semantic similarity 71–2 semantic specificity 48, 99–100 and attractiveness 217 and compound nouns 118 compound nouns 169 and global copying 101, 103, 107, 122, 128, 131, 147, 151, 201, 204 relative nature 123, 169, 185 verbs 201 semantic transparency 73–4, 89, 203 semantics changes in 46, 96 of collocations 134 of compound nouns 119 differences 46 impact of Estonian 47, 107, 111, 131, 139, 165 of interactional performatives 168 of spatial relations 78 semi-idioms 137, 139, 150 see also idioms Sildvee, K. 137 similarities and convergence 3, 82–3 and global copying 60 and interference 41 material 3, 101, 104, 154, 165–6, 206 and selective copying 90 and semantic transparency 74 in shape 103–5, 204 structural 3, 72, 81–3 simplification 4 and convergence 85 in morphology 5 in structure 4–5 Singh, R. 6, 8, 93 single verbs 139–40, 177 singulare tantum nouns 182, 217 Skutnabb-Kangas, T. 15, 31 sociolinguistic factors 7 and attractiveness 90 and borrowability 93–4, 153 importance in CILC 203 and Johansons model 202 and relativization of salience 91 and shift from monolingualism 122 and structural factors 1–24, 208–9

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251

sociolinguistic history 7, 25 sociolinguistics 1–2, 7–9, 24, 44, 54, 96, 100, 152, 203 Soviet era 1, 22–3, 26–7, 32–3, 41, 47, 117, 131, 190, 201, 210–11, 214 speech communities 2, 10, 14–15, 21, 40, 52, 55, 86, 113–14, 153 Spolsky, B. 13 Standard Estonian 4, 9, 17, 208, 210, 214 standard monolingual varieties 9 Standard Russian 64, 74, 84, 109, 126–7, 134, 138, 140–1, 143–4, 146, 149–50, 157, 166–7, 170 maintenance of purity 42 and varieties 18, 47 Stolz, C. 98, 151 Stolz, T. 5, 8, 98, 151 Stone, G. 79, 122, 125 street names 191–3 structural borrowing 50, 74, 92, 106, 112–13 structural characteristics 5, 7, 19, 53, 55, 93, 174 structural conflict 7, 11–12, 77, 79 structural factors 7–8, 24, 54, 122 and sociolinguistic factors 1–24 structural features 4–5, 54, 112 structural isomorphism 70–1, 73–4, 83, 135, 169 structural similarities 3 support verb constructions 137, 140, 148–9 support verbs 137, 139, 149 synchronic phenomena 8, 48–9, 55–7, 59, 74, 81 synthetic verbs 135, 138–9, 146 system morphemes 11, 76, 115, 175, 205, 213 Tabouret-Keller, A. 10, 15, 42, 201, 207, 210 terminology problems code-copying 49, 76 code-mixing 6, 24, 49, 53, 202 code-switching 6, 24, 49, 52–4, 57, 62, 76, 202 contact linguistics 24, 49–51, 81

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terminology problems (Cont’d) discourse markers 214 discourse-pragmatic words 152 donor language 52, 211 interference 24, 48–52 majority 15 transfer 24, 48, 50–2, 81, 211 Thomason, S. G. 3–4, 7–8, 11, 20–2, 50–1, 67, 93–4, 113, 115–16 three-component model 48, 91, 100–1, 105, 205–6 titular languages 28, 41, 209 Toribio, A. J. 81–3 totalitarian language planning 210 Totsel, E. 120, 165 transfer and borrowing 51–2 and convergence 82 direction 51–2, 75 facilitation 3, 50, 84, 90 terminology problem 24, 48, 50–2, 81, 211 transference 52, 71, 83, 191, 202 translational equivalents 71–2, 203 translations 64, 113–14, 131, 144, 150, 218 transliteration 68, 191–5, 197–200, 206 see also Cyrillic characters; Roman characters and global copying 198, 206, 218 and selective copying 193–4, 206 transparency, semantic 73–4, 89, 203 transparent idioms 136–7 Treffers-Daller, J. 7–9 Tuisk, T. 209 Tukumtsev, G. 120, 165 Türker, E. 135, 150, 205 Turkic languages 12, 56, 70, 90, 116, 152–3, 205 Turkish 85, 95, 135, 150–2 typological characteristics 2, 54 Ukrainian 10, 18–20, 28, 41 utterance modifiers 98, 152, 168, 214

variation 40 in copying 102, 105, 108, 148, 195, 203–4 in linguistic repertoires 36, 40 verbal constructions 135, 137, 143, 151 verbal markers 95 verbal stems 94–5, 101, 103, 177–8, 180 verbs analytic see analytic verbs expression 135–6 finite 135, 155 global copying 149, 180, 203, 205 grammaticalization 137, 149, 166 light 94–5, 137 Russian 96, 140, 180 semantic specificity 201 single 139–40, 177 support 137, 139, 149 synthetic 135, 138–9, 146 Verschik, A. 6–7, 10, 16, 23, 32, 37, 43, 46–7, 51–2, 101–2, 110, 216 Vetik, R. 31, 34 Vihalemm, T. 31, 33–4, 36, 38–9, 43 Vihman, M. M. 69 Viikberg, J. 29, 212 Weinreich, U. 3–4, 7–8, 11, 23, 50, 56, 66, 93, 208 well-formed utterances 11–12, 20, 23 Wertheim, S. 41, 65, 90, 97–101, 106, 115–18, 152–3, 155, 158, 160–2, 190, 204–5, 211, 214, 217 Wertheim’s model 97, 116, 118, 170 Wexler, P. 113–14, 172 Wichmann, S. 94–6 Williams, A. 91, 204 Winford, D. 8, 51, 96–7, 112–13, 211 Wohlgemut, J. 94–6 written texts 58, 64, 68, 79, 113, 129, 131, 143–4, 150, 171, 175, 189–91, 201, 206 see also orthography; transliteration Yiddish 7, 9, 16, 172, 208

Van Coetsem, F. 51–2, 59, 97, 112, 211 Vanem, L. 90–1

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Zabrodskaja, A. 39, 60, 63, 102, 116, 216 Zemskaja, J. A. 122, 125, 130, 133

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