Linguistic Interference and Convergent Change 9783110816365, 9789027934147

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JANUA LINGUARUM STUDIA MEMORIAE NICOLAI VAN WUK DEDICATA edenda curai C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD Indiana University

Series Maior, 99

LINGUISTIC INTERFERENCE AND

CONVERGENT CHANGE by

V. JU. ROZENCVEJG

1976 MOUTON THE HAGUE

PARIS

© Copyright 1976 Mouton & Co. B.V., Publishers, The Hague No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

ISBN 9 0 279 3 4 1 4 2

Printed in the Netherlands

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1

The Linguistic Description of Interference

5

The Linguistic Description of Convergent Change of Languages in Contact List of Abbreviations

32 54

INTRODUCTION BASIC CONCEPTS. FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM. POSSIBLE APPROACHES.

I. The following basic concepts and terminology are necessary in order to deal with the questions treated in the present essay. Language contact. Language contact is defined as speech communication b e tween two language communities. The contact of dialects with one another or with their common supradialectal language will not be examined here. Although these contacts may be described in the same terms as bilingual contacts, there are various other considerations which argue for a separate, special examination of interdialectal contact. Language contact may occur between two or more language communities. What we know about multilingual contacts leads us to suppose that they can be described linguistically in much the same way as bilingual contacts. The contact language. The language in which language contact is manifested is called the contact language. There are two possibilities here. 1) The contact language is the language of one of the communities in contact. Which one depends on the conditions of speech communication in the given society. 2) The contact language belongs to neither of the communities in contact. In this case the contact language is a mediator language. The mediator language is usually a natural language, living or dead, but it may be, especially where written communication is concerned, an artificial language. We will not consider the very rarely observed case of contact where one of the interlocutors speaks in one language and the other answers in a different one. Bilingualism. We will call the knowledge of two languages and the switching from one language to another depending on the conditions of speech communication bilingualism, and the person who uses two languages in this manner will be referred to as a bilingual (speaker or listener). By 'knowing two languages' we do not mean that the grammar and vocabulary of the bilingual must coincide fully with the grammar and vocabulary of a native speaker from each of the communities involved. Nor do we mean that a bilingual will speak his second language as fluently as a native speaker. We regard bilingualism as a continuum stretching from a very elementary knowledge of the contact language (in this case the bilingual's second language) to complete fluency in it. Interference. Interference is the bilingual's breaking of the rules of equivalence between the languages in contact as manifested in his speech by deviations from the norm.

2

Convergence. Convergence (= convergent change) is a change in the contact languages which can be described linguistically as the assimilation of the characteristics of their signata and signans and the rules for using them and which can be interpreted historically as the result of contacts. Divergence is a change in contact languages which leads to the differentiation of the characteristics of their signata and signans and the rules for using them. 2. Within the broad range of problems of contacts, which includes sociological, ethnographic, and psychological questions, we will stress as the main, strictly linguistic problem the description of speech communication as it takes place between contacting multilingual communities. We will be primarily interested in describing linguistically the change and restructuring of language - that instrument of human communication - that occur when speakers of different languages must communicate and their communication is hampered by the particular structure of the "instruments" of their respective communities. Since change (the process itself and not the result) cannot be directly observed, the linguist can only try to create a model of the change. His task here is twofold. First, he must construct, based on observations of the speech of bilinguals, a system of equivalences between the signata and signans of the contact languages which ideally will describe how the bilingual correlates his native and non-native languages. In other words, the first task is to describe interference. Secondly, the linguist must establish the sequence of changes which result in the assimilation and convergence of the characteristics and rules of the contact languages. Again, ideally, this sequence will follow the real chronological sequence of change due to contacts. (2) Thus the second task is to describe convergence. The logical relationship of these two tasks is obvious: in both cases we are attempting to model the adaptation of languages to communicative conditions made difficult by contact. But whereas in the case of interference we are describing temporary and reversible changes, in the case of convergence we are dealing with changes which have become finalized and qualitative. It is in this sense we understand the opposition of interference in speech to interference in language, (3) or the opposition of interference when switching from one language to another to the integration of the two contact languages. (4) Rephrased in different terminology, we are dealing with the continuum of changes that affect contact languages, or, the dialectic of the process of language contacts, the shift from quantitative to qualitative changes. In our conception of the linguistic problems of contacts this subject is delimited in principle from both psychology and sociology. However, this does not preclude but rather presupposes the necessity for conducting complex (linguistic, experimental-psychological, and sociological) investigations in order to explain how the bilingual learns, stores in his memory, and correlates languages as well as the way in which languages function in a bilingual society. 3. There are two possible opposing viewpoints in the linguistic study of contacts: each of the contact languages can be examined from the initial state of the process of change (phenomena are noted which show the divergence of each language from the original state), or on the other hand, the contact languages can be examined from the final state of change, from their convergence (phenomena which show the approach to this final state will be noted). The first approach assumes that the contact languages are diverging, the second that they are converging. Note that the convergent description is directional: it supposes that the contact languages are moving in a definite direction, namely

3

towards similarity and convergence. Generally speaking both these trends were already evident in 19th century linguistics. However, it was the former, the description of the divergency of languages, that reigned. Comparative-historical investigations stimulated the development of criteria and methods for identifying those features in cognate languages which could be traced to a common source and those which had been introduced from outside. However, 'foreign' features drew attention only insofar as they did not fit into the general scheme of genetic reconstruction. The work of Franz Miklosich is a classic illustration of this: the common features of the Balkan languages (Bulgarian, Rumanian, modern Greek, Albanian, and to a certain extent Serbian) were regarded by Miklosich as individual peculiarities of each of these languages which separated them from genetically related languages (Bulgarian from the Slavic languages, Rumanian from the Romance languages). The problem of contacts was posed differently at the beginning of the 20th century by linguists who were interested in contemporary language processes and for whom the surrounding multilingual environment offered the opportunity of studying the phenomena of language interaction in the field. This movement was headed by Baudouin de Courtenay and Schuchardt in Europe and Boas in America. In 1900 Baudouin de Courtenay formulated a new concept of comparative linguistics which included, along with the comparative-historical comparison of genetically related languages and the typological comparison of languages independent of their kinship and historical ties, the idea that "two or more linguistic areas may be compared without regard to their historical origin if they show similar linguistic phenomena as a result of their territorial proximity." (6) He also proposed a new type of comparative grammar: "A most rewarding topic for study along these lines would be a comparative grammar of the Slavic and Baltic languages . . . as representatives of both the IndoEuropean and Finno-Ugric languages. Of equal interest would be comparative studies of the Slavic and Uralo-Altaic languages, . . . of the West Slavic dialects and the neighbouring German dialects (including the German literary language), . . . of the South Slavic, Roumanian, Albanian, and modern Greek languages, etc." (7) H. Schuchardt also advanced similar ideas. Schuchardt's major discovery here was the law stating that speech communication between two language communities leads, due to the difficulty of communicating under these conditions , to the convergent restructuring of both contact languages along the lines of simplification. What was new in Schuchardt's idea was not so much the opposition of convergence to divergence as the realization that the convergence of languages is a natural and necessary manifestation of the communicative function of language. (8) The convergent approach to the phenomena of language contact can easily be followed in the work of those scholars who developed Baudouin de Courtenay's idea of the unity of comparative-historical, typological, and areal descriptions of languages. Soviet linguistic studies of the 1920's and 1930's can be singled out in this regard, especially the well-known work of L. V. Scerba and E. D. Polivanov. (9) Scholars of the Prague Linguistic Circle also made a significant contribution to the study of language convergence. The Prague Circle extended the notion of Sprachbund advanced by Baudouin de Courtenay and discussed questions of phonological and grammatical interference. (10) The most recent works in the area of contacts, those in particular of A. Martinet (11) and the well-known monograph by U. Weinreich, Languages in Contact, N. Y . , 1953, are methodologically grounded in the functional school. V. V. Ivanov's theory of linguistic contacts was also developed within this

4

tradition. Using the concepts of modern science and synthesizing the latest results of applied linguistics, V. V. Ivanov has formulated the notion of linguistics as a general theory of relationships between languages, including language contacts. (12) Thus two equally feasible but opposing viewpoints on language contacts are being developed: linguists are investigating phenomena of language contact either as evidence of the divergent change of the respective languages or, on the other hand, as evidence of the convergent development of languages, independent of their genetic relationships. We shall pursue the second of these approaches.

1

THE LINGUISTIC DESCRIPTION OF INTERFERENCE

Psychologists distinguish two types of bilingualism according to the relation between the two languages in the consciousness of the bilingual. Coordinative bilingualism exists if the bilingual speaks both the languages equally well and can shift from one to the other as the communicative situation demands. Subordinative bilingualism exists if the bilingual speaks his native language fluently and subordinates the secondary, non-native language. (13) The mutual adaptation of languages under the conditions of speech communication hampered by interference is of primary importance for the theory of language contacts. This does not mean we are not interested in modeling the speech behaviour of the coordinate bilingual. The tasks involved differ in principle: in coordinative bilingualism the two languages are related at the deep level of signifying the situation, the speaker proceeds from the deep level to the text and vice versa according to the rules of whichever language the situation requires, whereas subordinative bilingualism may be represented by a system of equivalences in which the rules relating the two languages are altered. We can show the difference, albeit in a simplified form, with the following examples : (1) Roditeli darjat synu svoj do m '(The) parents are giving to (their) son their home'. (2) Les parents donnent au fils leur maison 'The parents are giving to (their) son their home'. Sentences (1) and (2) refer to the same event in Russian and French. We must describe this equivalence, or in other words, specify the rules for shifting from one language to the other. A direct equivalence cannot be established between the significant elements, for example, between the words of (1) and (2): the French parents may also correspond to the Russian rodstvenniki 'relatives', (over) * translator's note: (donner may mean either darit' 'to give as a gift' or davat' 'to give' (whether the giving is gratuitous or not is not specified),) and so on. Neither can a direct equivalence be established on the sentence level: a French sentence with the same structure but a different lexical content may correspond to a different Russian sentence. Possessive relationships are expressed quite differently in Russian and French (leur maison - svoj dom): if possession is morphologically expressed the Russian sentence must indicate whether the object (dom) belongs to the subject (Roditeli) of the predicate or to some third party. This difference in signata is expressed by the opposition of the reflexive personal pronouns to the p e r sonal possessive pronouns. (Compare On daet svoju knigu 'He gives his (belonging to the subject) book' and On daet ego knigu 'He gives his (belonging to someone else not mentioned) book'.) In addition, Russian requires that we denote the person and number of the owners (when using personal pronouns), and the number and gender of the objects (when using either personal or r e flexive pronouns). (14) French does not require that these signata be dis-

6

tinguished (compare il donne son livre which means both on daet svoju knigu and on daet ego knigu), but it does require that we choose between possessive determinatives on the one hand, and possessive pronouns on the other, as well as distinguishing the person and number of the owners and number and gender of the objects (compare il donne son livre, je donne le mien, on daet svoju (ego) knigu, ja daju svoju (moju) 'He gives his book, I give mine'). However, the distinction between the French and Russian ways of denoting possession by means of reflexive and nonreflexive relationships applies only to the morphological expression of possession. It will cease to exist if the signatum expressed by the Russian reflexive possessive pronoun and the French determinative or pronomial form is expressed lexically rather than morphologically. For example: (3) Roditeli darjat s.ynu dom, kotoryj im prinadlezit '(The) parents give to (their) son (the) home which to them belongs'. (4) Les parents donnent au fils la maison qui leur appartient 'The parents give to (their) son the house which to them belongs'. Periphrases (3) and (4) differ significantly from sentences (1) and (2) because an expression peculiar to each of the languages for conveying a certain semantic relationship has been replaced by a means of expressing this relationship common to both languages. As a result a more direct equivalence is e s tablished between certain signata of the two languages. A similar transformation reaching all the way down to the level of elementary meanings can be used to bring the lexemes into a closer relationship. For example: (5) Otec i mat' dajut synu v dar dom, kotoryj oni imejut '(The) father and mother give to (their) son as a gift (the) home which they have. ' (6) Le père et la mère font don au fils de la maison qu'ils ont 'The father and the mother make the gift to (their) son of the home which they have'. By representing syntactic relationships in terms of functional-semantic syntactic relationships rather than by sentences written in terms particular to the individual languages we can reveal the single deep structure they express. (15) (See Diagram 1): Diagram 1 Pred

Here SI is the agent, S2 the first object, S3 the second object, the arrows indicate subject (1) and object (2, 3) predicative relationships, the attributive relationship is expressed by the predicate related to the first object (imet', avoir) and the identity of the subject and object of this predicate with the subject and object of the main predicate (davat', faire) is indicated by the dotted lines. We can represent the system of equivalences between sentences (1) and (2) (again in a very simplified form) as a kind of semantic lexicon where the signata are compared with their means of expression in Russian and

7 French. Table 1 is an example of such a lexicon: Table 1 Signata

(Signifiers) Signans French Russian

'Male parent in relation to children'

otec

père

' Female parent in relation to children'

mat'

mère

'Male offspring in relation to parents'

syn

fils

'Building for human habitation'

dom

maison

'To have'

imet'

avoir

'To cause to have' (trans.)

davat'

donner

'To cause to have free of charge' (trans. )

davat' v dar

faire don

'Conjunction'

i

et

'Agentive relationship' 'First object relationship' 'Second object relationship'

1 1 1

1 | 1 1 1 |

1 1 1

Pred.

SI

Pred.

SI

Pred.

S2

Pred.

S2

Pred.

S3

Pred.

S3

Note that the signata are here arbitrarily denoted by English words. These elementary meanings could have been represented by some other semantic transcription. This is an important point since the system of equivalences we have constructed differs from the system of equivalences between signata and signans in English (or Russian or French): in relation to Russian and French our equivalences represent a third system, another language, where two signans unambiguously denote the same signatum. The relationships expressed in the Russian sentence (1) and in the French (2) may be represented in terms of this third system by a deep-structure tree diagram whose arrows denote syntactic relationships and whose nodes contain the Russian and French signans. (Diagram 2) The relationship of the third system to the other two can be logically represented as follows (Figure 1). Figure 1

where R = Russian, F = French.

8

Diagram 2 davat'v dar faire don

Obviously the third system is formed by the intersection of the Russian and French systems. Here two distinctive properties of the system of equivalences which characterizes coordinative bilingualism should be noted. First the s y s tem of equivalences is not derived from a direct relation of Russian and French texts, but from the transformations of these texts in each of the respective languages resulting in Russian and French texts which have the same (common) signatum, much like internal reconstruction precedes external reconstruction in comparative-historical comparisons. (16) Note that such a transformation of signata can be effected only by breaking them down into their smaller semantic components: only smaller, elementary signata can be commensurate since they are more or less completely lacking in formal linguistic specificity and individuality. Second, our system of equivalences is also intermediate in the sense that it describes a shift from one language to another through a deep lexical-syntactic structure which lacks the idiosyncracity of the other two languages. Based on the assumption that each of the languages has been modeled separately (in other words, that we know the rules which the coordinative bilingual uses to construct and perceive texts in each of his languages), we can describe his speech behaviour linguistically as follows. As the bilingual analyzes , in other words, as he perceives speech in either of the two languages, he elucidates the meaning of the communication by breaking it down into the deep syntactic structure and its semantic notation; and as he synthesizes (as he speaks), he forms his thought into a similar semantic notation and deep syntactic structure and from this shifts to a text in the output language required by the situation. The shift from one language to another takes place only through a system of equivalences at the deep level of semantic representation (i.e. our intermediate system). This kind of a model assumes that an intermediate system of equivalences can be established between the two language systems, in other words, that the same thought can be expressed in both contact languages. This can only be true in a general sense: the transformations required to shift from one language to another cannot be carried out without some loss of meaning, e s pecially in the expression of such fundamental and idiosyncratically organized categories in each language as time, space, causality, and so on. Before turning to the question of subordinative bilingualism we should add

9

that in linguistic studies of contacts there is usually little attention devoted to coordinative bilingualism. This is understandable not only because coordinative bilingualism is a rare phenomenon, but also because the description of each of the contact languages is a separate problem in its own right just as their comparison is basically a problem for language typology. However, the linguistic description of coordinative bilingualism is important in modeling the speech behaviour of professional representatives of this type of bilingualism, and in the creation of a linguistic theory of translation. (17) There is also reason to suppose, on the other hand, that feedback from linguistic studies on human translation and attempts at machine translation will cast significant light on our concept of the mechanism of coordinative bilingualism. In turning to the linguistic description of subordinative bilingualism we ought to make clear our assumption that in this type of bilingualism the shift from one language to the other will proceed partially in accord with the rules of equivalence between them, but basically by means of deviation from them, in other words, under conditions of interference. Therefore, as in the case of coordinative bilingualism, the third or intermediate system includes signata shared by both languages as well as some common rules for shifting from these signata to the equivalent signans. However, since interference is the dominant factor in subordinative bilingualism, the intermediate system will for the most part be a compromise oriented towards the convergence of the two languages. This leveling of signata, signans, and the rules of analysis and synthesis can be described in two ways. First, certain entities of the content and expression systems along with the rules for using them characteristic of one of the languages will be transferred wholesale to the other. Second, signata and signans which contain features characteristic of only one of the languages will be eliminated. This second leveling begins with the elimination of signata and signans containing features characteristic of the native language alone and their replacement by signata and signans which have features in common with those of the non-native (secondary) language. This change is accompanied by a corresponding change in the rules for analyzing and synthesizing messages. When the contact language is the non-native language, changes in its characteristics and rules will be caused mainly by the first means of leveling. The first means of leveling explains the natural tendency of the subordinative bilingual to construct a message in the non-native language (his secondary language) according to the rules of his native language (the primary language) and hence to force his own rules, his own language, upon the native listener. However, when the contact language is the speaker's native language its characteristics and rules are leveled largely by the second means. This second means explains the tendency of the native speaker of the contact language to synthesize messages according to rules which the non-native listener can understand, to adapt his language to the requirements of communication in a contact situation thereby making it easier for the listener to understand him. Naturally such rules and the units of content and expression which they use cannot be overly complicated or idiomatic. It is easy to see that these two methods of assimilating the contact languages to one another are contradictory. By changing the signata, signans, and the corresponding rules for synthesis (speaking) of the contact language for the benefit of the non-native speaker we are making it more difficult for the native listener to analyze (understand) the message; on the other hand, by changing the signans, signata, and the corresponding rules of the contact language in order to make the message easily understandable to the non-native listener we are making it more difficult for the native speaker to synthesize (speak) his own language. In other words, by the first means we lay the burden of

10

contact and effort necessary to achieve mutual understanding on the listener, and by the second we burden the speaker by forcing him to adapt his speech to the speech habits of the listener. This is a real contradiction characteristic of the communicative process as complicated by bilingualism. (As we know well this also occurs to a certain degree in communication between different native speakers of the same language.) The solution to this contradiction is a compromise. The way this compromise is reached, that is, which of the languages in contact (or both) will adapt and restructure itself, and the degree to which this convergent reconstruction will take place basically depends on the contact situation. Thus the system of equivalences of subordinative bilingualism differs from that of coordinative bilingualism in the following respects: a) in the convergent change of equivalences, even to the extent of the assimilation of one language by the other; b) in the tendency toward optimalization (from the communicative standpoint) of the rules for analyzing and synthesizing messages; c) in weak determinism, the fragility of the system, the fluctuation of rules and of the signans and signata used by them. We will illustrate these differences with the same example we used in our discussion of coordinative bilingualism. As you will recall the situation involved was that described by the Russian sentence (1) Roditeli darjat synu svoj dom and the French (2) Les parents donnent au fils leur maison. The Russian-French subordinative bilingual (Russian is native, French is nonnative) might denote this situation with the French sentence (7)* Les parents donnent au fils sa maison. This sentence differs from (2) in that a singular form of the French pronomial adjective (sa) which does modify its noun (maison) according to the number of its owners (Les parents, pi.) has been used to express the reflexive relationship that is denoted in Russian by a reflexive pronoun (svoj). Sentence (7) therefore is not constructed according to the system of equivalences which applies to coordinative bilingualism but according to another system which we may represent in simplified form in Table 2. One can see quite easily that the shift from one language (Russian) to the other (French) has been carried out without transforming the signata within the language: the equivalences are established not on the deep level between signata which are shared by both languages, but on the surface level directly between words and parts of the sentence. In this case the speaker's own first language (Russian) signata form the basis of the equivalence. According to this principle of surface transfer the rules for forming the attributive possessive relationship by a personal pronoun agreeing with the first object (maison) in number and gender are transferred directly from Russian grammar to the French sentence even though the signata are expressed morphologically. There is a direct shift from the means of expressing syntactic r e lationships in the primary language (Russian) to their expression in the secondary language (French). This is a model of the speech behavior of a bilingual who is familiar with neither the lexicon of the secondary language (lexical semantics, morphological and syntactic properties of lexemes, combination of lexemes), nor with the rules for paraphrasing in that language, nor with the rules of syntactic and morphological synthesis, and hence must for the most part rely on the rules of his native language plus some of the surface structural properties of the secondary language in constructing his utterance. However, the question arises: will not such a change in the grammar of the secondary language lead to the construction of sentences which cannot be

11

Table 2 Signans

Slgnata

Russian

French

'Parents'

roditeli

parents

'Son'

syn

fils

'Home'

dom

maison

'To give'

darit' Possessive Pronoun: personal reflexive 1

donner

Possessive relationship: transitive reflexive Subject relationship

Possessive Pronoun: personal 1 V

V First object relationship V Second object relationship V

Prep.+S

analyzed according to the rules of this secondary language ? In other words, will the native speaker of French with whom our Russian-French bilingual is presumably speaking understand a sentence constructed this way ? Introducing a redundant semantic feature into the secondary language (in this case the opposition of possessive relationships with respect to the feature of transitivity-reflexitivity) does not usually prevent mutual understanding. However, since the signans (sa) which has been chosen to represent this signatum is functionally opposed to another signans (leur) in French, this opposition is violated. Although the Russian-French subordinative bilingual has tried to denote the reflexivity of the possessive relationship with the feminine singular of the French possessive pronomial adjective sa (which, in accord to the model of the Russian reflexive possessive svoj, he has made to agree with the object of possession la maison in number and gender), he has also allowed the denotation of a non-reflexive possessive relationship to remain (since in order to refer to the subject, the French possessive pronomial adjective would have to agree with Les parents in number and person, i . e . leur, third person plural rather than sa, third person singular would be used). This is a model of speech behavior in which two different thoughts, 'Roditeli darjat synu svoj dom' 'The parents are giving their son their (the parents') home' and 'Roditeli darjat synu ego dom' 'The parents are giving their son his (belonging to some third party) home', are expressed by the same French sentence (7)* Les parents donnent au fils sa maison. But from the viewpoint of the native French listener, sentence (7) is opposed, so far as possessive relationships go, to sentence (2) Les parents donnent au fils leur maison which means 'Roditeli da jut synu ix dom' 'The parents are giving their son their (belonging to some other persons not mentioned) home' and ' Roditeli dajut synu svoj dom' 'The parents are giving their son their (the parents')

12 home'. Let us consider this second point of view more closely. As we have said, it is essential to consider the role of the native listener who is trying to analyze the speech of the non-native speaker in order to arrive at an adequate description of subordinative bilingualism and interference. After all, the problem lies not only in what the speaker wishes to say and the difficulties which he encounters in forming his thought with the resources of the nonnative language; also important is how the listener understands the message. However, it turns out that the system of equivalences in Table 2 supposes a 'French' grammar which generates sentences like (7)* Les parents donnent au fils sa maison and thus comes in conflict with the grammar of a monolingual native speaker of French in which it is not necessary to indicate whether or not the home which the parents are giving to their son belongs to them or to some other subject, but where it is necessary to indicate the person and number of the owners and the number and gender of the objects. If we designate the French language which is secondary for the Russian-French bilingual as RF2 and the French of the monolingual speaker as F1 then we can express this opposition as follows (Table 3). Table 3 RF 2 Les parents donnent au fils sa maison.

F1

Les parents donnent au fils leur maison; Les parents donnent au fils sa maison.

We recall that the sentence in RF2 means here both 'The parents are giving their son their (the parents') home' and 'The parents are giving their son his (belonging to the son or to some third party) home' while the first sentence in F1 means 'The parents are giving their son their (the parents') home' and 'The parents are givingtheir son their (belonging to some other persons not mentioned) home' and the second 'The parents are giving their son his (the son's) home' and 'The parents are giving their son his (belonging to some third party) home'. Such a system of equivalences is clearly convergent but to a degree which from the communicative standpoint is far from optimal. In addition, the intermediate system which provides the rules for synthesizing messages in RF2 is fragile and suffers from weak determinism. Therefore the system must be reorganized. If we are modeling a situation where the contact language is French exclusively, and French has prestige, then the reorganization of the intermediate system will be accomplished at the expense of RF2. To put it simply, when forced to communicate with monolingual French speakers, Russian-French subordinative bilinguals will in time learn and adopt the French rules for categorizing possessive relationships. This, of course, will mean abandoning, in speaking French, their own Russian system of categorization. The intermediate system shown in Table 2 is therefore only adequate for describing interference at the beginning stage of RussianFrench subordinative bilingualism. Let us assume, however, that the contact language can be Russian as well as French, in other words, that we will need to describe both Russian-French and French-Russian interference. As far as possessive relationships go an intermediate system that is oriented to French should model the speech behavior of speakers whose language does not have the reflexive—non-reflexive opposition: i . e . , the French speaker will construct the Russian sentence

13 Roditeli dajut s.ynu ix dom rather than . . . svoj dom. If we designate the s e c ondary Russian of the French-Russian bilingual as FR2, and the Russian of the monolingual Russian speaker as R l , Table 4 will be the result. Table 4 R

1

FR

2

Roditeli darjat s.ynu svoj dom '(The) parents are giving (their) son their (the parents') home'; Roditeli darjat synu ix dom Roditeli darjat s.ynu ix dom '(The) parents are giving (their) son their (belonging to some other persons) home'.

Les parents donnent au fils leur maison 'The parents are giving (their) son their (the parents' or belonging to some other p e r sons) home';

Les parents donnent au fils sa Les parents maison donnent au fils sa maison 'The parents are giving (their) son his (the son's or belonging to some third party) home1.

This table greatly oversimplifies the m a t t e r , particularly in relation to Rl and F l . Note f i r s t of all that Russian Grammar requires the r e f l e x i v e — n o n reflexive opposition only with a third person subject, in other words, a subject who is not a participant in the speech act (compare J a darju synu svoj (moj) dom 'I am giving my son my home'. Vy darite synu svoj (vas) dom 'You a r e giving your son your home'. In addition, attributive possessive relationships may be expressed lexically as well as morphologically. The pronominal f o r m s a r e replaced and the reflexive—non-reflexive opposition is neutralized (compare Roditeli d a r j a t synu dom, kotoryj im prinadlezit '(The) parents are giving (their) son the home which to them belongs'). The same thing applies to the expression of possessive relationships in French. Finally, after having considered the question of synonymy in expressing p o s sessive relationships and assuming that there is communication between monolingual speakers of French and Russian as well as between RussianFrench and French-Russian subordinative bilinguals we can replace the s y s tem of equivalences shown in Table 4 by that shown in Table 5. The system of equivalences and the rules which generate a continuum of sentences s i m i l a r to that of Table 5 are weakly determined. It is also i m portant to note the other properties which characterize the convergent change of the two languages, in particular the tendency toward assimilation and the optimalization of r u l e s . In fact, an examination of Table 5, which of course does not show all the means the two languages have for expressing the given possessive relationship reveals that in R l and FR2, that i s , in the speech of monolingual Russian speakers and in the Russian of French-Russian subordinative bilinguals there is one very similar or common way of expressing this particular possessiveness by lexical means (see Table 5, Rlc) and FR2b) ). The same is t r u e f o r monolingual French speakers and Russian-French subordinative bilinguals (see Flc) and RF2b) ). It follows t h e r e f o r e that the

Table 5 FR 2

R1

a) Roditeli daiut synu svoi dom '(The) parents are giving (their) son their (the parents') home'; Roditeli daiut synu ix dom '(The) parents are giving (their) son their (belonging to some other persons) home',

b) Roditeli darjat synu svoi dom '(The) parents are making a gift to (their) son (of) their (the parents') home'.

c) Roditeli darjat synu dom, kotoryi im prinadlezit '(The) parents are making a gift to (their) son (of the) home which (to) them (the parents) belongs'; Roditeli daiut synu dom, kotoryi oni imejut '(The) parents are giving (their) son (the) home which they (the parents) have'.

a) Roditeli daiut s.ynu ix dom '(The) parents are giving (their) son their (belonging to some other persons) home.'

b) Roditeli dajut synu dom, kotoryi im prinadlezit '(The) parents are giving (their) son (the) home which (to) them (the parents) belongs'; Roditeli dajut synu dom, kotoryj oni imejut '(The) parents are giving (their) son (the) home which they (the parents) have'.

French-Russian bilingual can 'reach an agreement' with the native Russian without forcing the latter to adapt himself to a French morphological rule for expressing the required thought (possessive relationship) (see FR 2a) ) or without himself being forced to learn ('borrow') the corresponding Russian rule (see Rla) ). The French-Russian bilingual can compromise with Russian by abandoning those French rules which lead to an idiomatic means of expression (see Fla), b) ) in favor of rules which are similar or even shared by the two languages and which generate utterances which can be understood by the monolingual Russian listener (see FR2b) ). Naturally the RussianFrench bilingual can take the same task. Instead of transferring Russian rules to French (see RF2a) ), he may use those Russian rules which will generate French sentences very close to those generated by a native speaker of French (see PF2b) ). We might add that the system of equivalences and the corresponding rules for synthesizing a text shown in Table 5 are based on a more adequate linguistic apparatus (the meaning-text model) which describes speech behaviour as the shift from meaning to text and text to meaning (18) than that used in compiling Table 2 which was based on an elementary bilingual lexicon and surface syntax. The example we have cited here illustrates the system of equivalences associated with subordinative bilingualism, that is, the shift from language to language under conditions of interference. We distinguish two types of interference. The first, as can be seen from an analysis of Table 5, is characterized linguistically by the transfer of the rules of one of the contact languages (usually the native language) to the intermediate (or third) system which r e lates the two language systems; the second, by the elimination (from this inter-

15

Table 5 (cont.) RF2

F1

a) Les parents b)Les parents donnent au fils font don au fils de leur maileur maison son ' The parents are giving 'The parents (their) son make a gift their (the to (their) son parents' or be- of their (the longing to some parents' or other persons) some other home' ; persons) home'. Les parents donnent aufils sa maison 'The parents are giving (their) son his (the son's or belonging to some third party) home'.

c)Les parents donnent au fils la maison qui leur appartient ' The parents are giving (their) son the home which (to) them (the parents) belongs' ; Les parents donnent aufils la maison qu'ils ont 'The parents are giving (their) son the home which they (the parents) have'.

a) Les parents donnent au fils sa maison 'The parents are giving (their) son his (the son's or belonging to some third party) home'.

b)Les parents donnent au fils la maison qui leur appartient 'The parents are giving (their) son the home which (to) them (the parents) belongs' ; Les parents donnent au fils la maison qu'ils ont 'The parents are giving (their) son the home which they (the parents) have'

mediate system) of those rules of the native and non-native languages that are not common to both languages. The first type of interference we will call direct interference; the second, indirect. In our example direct interference is illustrated by the following sentences: Russian-French Les parents donnent au fils sa maison (instead of leur maison), French-Russian Roditeli dajut synu ix dom (instead of svoj dom) while indirect interference is illustrated by: Les parents donnent au fils la maison qu'ils ont and Roditeli dajut synu dom, kotoryj oni imejut. In terms of normative grammar the difference between direct and indirect interference is that direct interference causes mistakes, whereas indirect interference usually only causes deviation from the stylistic norm. However, a sentence can be correctly constructed syntactically, properly formed morphologically, and in accord with orthographic (orthoepic) rules, and still be incorrect. If we examine the sentences cited in Table 5 Roditeli dajut synu ix dom (FR2a) ) and Les parents donnent au fils sa maison (RF2a) ) without considering the intended meaning but rather from the standpoint of French and Russian grammar, then these sentences are absolutely correct. However, they are in fact wrong since they express something other than what the speaker had in mind. Since such situations often arise in the description of bilingualism, we need a more exact definition of sentence correctness. Obviously the concept of 'grammaticality' used in transformational grammar is not applicable to descriptions of interference phenomena. Chomsky-type grammars model only the grammatical generation of sentences but not their synthesis and analysis. That is, such grammars do not model the speech behavior of the individual who constructs and perceives utterances. They do

16 not therefore require an evaluation of the sentence relative to a given underlying meaning; it suffices to establish that the sentence is 'grammatical', in other words, that it can be generated by the grammar of the given language. For our purposes the traditional approach taken in foreign language teaching and in the practice of translation may be of some help. This approach distinguishes between a) sentences constructed according to the rules of the language being studied and corresponding to a given meaning; b) sentences constructed according to the rules of the language being studied but not corresponding to the given meaning; c) sentences not constructed according to the rules of the language being studied and not corresponding to the given meaning. Two features lie at the basis of these normative evaluations: grammaticality and semanticity. A sentence is defined as grammatical if it is in accord with the grammar of the given language; it is defined as semantically correct if it is in accord with an intuitively understood semantics (the output of a bilingual dictionary). Note that correspondence of the sentence to the required meaning is the basic criterion for evaluation (compare the 'semantic m i s takes' made in translations). However, the following reformulation seems necessary to make the definition of a correct sentence more precise. A sentence F in language A is correct with respect to meaning 'F' if it is generated according to the rules for synthesizing meaning ' F ' in the given language (in other words, if a native speaker recognizes F to be correct with respect to the underlying meaning). Sentence F in language A is grammatically correct if there is at least one meaning with respect to which it is correct (in other words, a meaning exists from which sentence F might be produced by means of the rules of synthesis of language A). Sentence F in language A is incorrect if it is impossible to indicate the meaning with respect to which F is g r a m matically correct. The concept of correctness defines the relationship of a sentence to a c e r tain underlying meaning but not to one speech situation or another (the topic under discussion, the interrelationship of the participants in the speech act, and so on). If we demand of a sentence not only correctness (c) and grammatical correctness (GC) but stylistic correctness (SC) as well, then we get the following possible combinations of correctness features: 1

2

3

4

5

c

+

+

-

-

-

GC

+

+

+

+

-

SC

+

-

+

-

-

According to these definitions the sentences Roditeli dajut synu ix dom and Les parents donnent au fils sa maison are incorrect with respect to the underlying meaning but are correct grammatically and stylistically. The sentences Roditeli dajut synu dom, kotoryj oni imejut and Les parents donnent au fils la maison qu'ils ont are grammatically and semantically correct, but stylistically incorrect. As we shall see, direct interference often occurs in texts that are incorrect on all three counts: semantically, grammatically, and hence stylistically. Both direct and indirect interference can occur on all levels of the synthesis and analysis of a text. Here we will deal primarily with questions of synthesis. Direct syntactic interference involves the transfer of the syntactic rules for

17

constructing a sentence from one language to the other (usually from the native to the non-native language). The linguistic literature on syntactic interference, which is quite small in view of the lack of theoretical discussion of the problem, deals with speech phenomena characteristic of the bilingual such as violations of the rules for forming syntagmatic relationships (agreement, government), the rules for organizing the simple or complex sentence, and especailly the rules of word order. The transfer (borrowing, imitation) of a syntactic model from another language (syntactic calquing) is often r e ferred to. Thus the English This woman loves the man in the speech of a German-English bilingual is described by Weinreich as a caique of the grammatical relationship expressed by the German Diese Frau liebt der Mann (The man loves this woman). (19) In terms of syntactic theories that distinguish deep syntactic relationships (functional grammatical relationships) from their surface expression (formation into a sentence), a syntactic caique can be described as the transfer from one of the contact languages to the other of the rules for going from deep to surface structure and/or the rules for the formation of the surface structure into a sentence, especially the rules of word order. Thus the sentences (8) Der Mann liebt diese Frau, (9) Diese Frau liebt der Mann express the same grammatical relationships, that is, they have the same deep structure: Diagram 3

where arrow 1 represents the subject (agentive) relationship and arrow 2 the object relationship. The difference between (8) and (9) apparently is that in (9) the object relationship is expressed with emphasis. Naturally the rules for going from the deep structure to sentences (8) and (9) and back, from the sentences to the deep structure, should contain the information that the agentive relationship is expressed by a syntagm consisting of 'a noun in the nominative plus the finite verb' governing it, that the object relationship is expressed by a syntagm consisting of a verb and a noun in the accusative, plus information about the linear distribution of the corresponding words in the sentence, or in this case the information that when an object is to be emphasized it will be put at the beginning of the sentence, preceding the verbpredicate, and will be pronounced with a special stress (in our example the stress falls on the deictic pronoun). Inversion of word order as a means of emphasis is possible in German (as in Russian) because case inflexion unambiguously distinguishes the object from the subject. In English, however, where differences in subject-object relationships are not expressed morphologically, inversion of word order as a means of logically segmenting the text or of emphasizing parts of the sentence is limited by special rules. The sentence This woman loves the man, constructed by the native speaker of

18

German by analogy with Diese Frau liebt der Mann, can be described as the result of transferring into English the German rule for forming a sentence from this particular subject-object deep-syntactic relationship (with emphasis on the object). In the case of Diese Frau liebt der Mann interference resulted in the construction of a sentence which was correct grammatically but incorrect with respect to the underlying meaning. Often, however, direct syntact interference leads to grammatically incorrect constructions as well. The grammatically incorrect French conditional clauses introduced by the conjunction si produced as a result of Russian-French interference are a good example. Although both Russian and French grammars require that a distinction be made between a real and a hypothetical action, they use different forms to do this and have different ways of correlating the modal features of an action with its temporal features. This system of equivalences is shown in Table 6: Table 6 Sign ans

Signata modal feature

temporal feature

Russian

Erench

Real

Future

Indicative mood, future tense.

Indicative mood, present tense.

Hypothetical

Present Future Past

Subjunctive mood, Subjunctive mood, past tense. past tense (imperfect); past tense (past perfect).

We get the following kinds of French sentences from Russians who have not mastered this system of equivalences: (10)* Si j'aurai le temps je viendrai 'If I'll have the time, I'll come' (instead of Si j'ai le temps je viendrai 'If I have the time I'll come). The Russian model is Esli u menja budet vremja, ja pridu 'If I have the time, I'll come', lit. 'If I'll have the time I'll come'. (11)* Si j'aurais le temps, je viendrais 'If I would have the time, I'd come' (instead of Si j'avais le temps, je viendrais 'If I had the time I'd come' and Si j'avais eu le temps, je serais venu 'If I'd had the time I would have come'). The Russian model is Esli by u menja bylo vremja, ja prisel by 'If I (had) had the time, I would (have) come', lit. 'If I would have (had) the time, I would (have) come'. Sentences (10) and (11) are semantically, grammatically, and hence stylistically incorrect. (10), however, can be understood since the temporal meaning of avoir in this position is neutralized, and its modal meaning is redundant: the indicative mood of the verb in the main clause indicates the reality of the action. (20) Indirect syntactic interference expresses itself in the simplification of the rules for transforming deep structures and results in the construction of sentences which are semantically and gramatically correct but stylistically incorrect. We will examine this type of interference in more detail since it has been studied even less than direct syntactic interference ('syntactic caiques'). Russian-French subordinative bilinguals usually do not construct infinitive

19 constructions introduced by a finite verb such as J e l'entends chanter une chanson russe. They express the equivalent idea either with a paratactic construction, such as J'entends, il chante une chanson russe, or with an attributive subordinate construction, such as J'entends qu'il chante une chanson russe. The sentences (12) J'entends qu'il chante une chanson russe 'I hear that he is singing a Russian song, i . e . I hear him singing a Russian song'. (13) J e l'entends chanter une chanson russe "I him hear to sing a Russian song, i . e . I hear him singing a Russian song' are surface-syntactic variants of the deep structure represented in Diagram 4: Diagram 4 entendre ( Près. indie. )

where P r . ( I s . ) denotes a first person singular personal pronoun, Pres. ind., the present tense of the indicative mood of the verb corresponding to P r . ( I s . ) ; P r . (3s.), a third person singular personal pronoun; s , the singular of the corresponding noun; and the arrows designate syntactic relationships: (1) subject, and (2) object. Our notation for (12) and (13) agrees with traditional conceptions. As early as 1874 Potebnja showed that the function of the infinitive in such sentences is to "serve as a secondary, dependent predicate." (21) Let us also recall that in his study of various types of nexus (including infinitival nexus) Jespersen noted that in the case of the sentence I like boys to be quiet, "It would be more correct to say that it is not boys that is the object, but the whole nexus consisting of the primary boys and the infinitive, exactly as it is the whole clause and not only the subject of it that would be the object if we were to translate it into I like that boys are quiet." (22) We could also cite Tesniere's syntax, in which infinitive constructions (IC) such as (13) and the equivalent constructions with subordinate clauses and finite verbs (FC) are treated as transformations ('translatifs') of the verb and verbal constructions into the object ('second actant') of the verb in the main clause. (23) Going from constructions IC and FC to the deep structure (analysis of the text) and vice versa (synthesis of the text) presupposes the existence of different sets of rules. Let us examine in the most general terms what the rules of synthesis must be. Since the first actant (actor) (henceforth referred to as SI) of the governing verb (henceforth, first predicate, PI) and the first actant of the verb governed by P I (henceforth referred to as the second predicate, P2) may or may not be the same, four cases are logically possible. The first actants of P I and P2 are the same and the construction is IC The first actants of P I and P2 are the same and the construction is FC The first actants of P I and P2 are different and the construction is IC

20

The first actants of PI and P2 are different and the construction is FC The realization of these four possibilities depends on the syntactic-semantic relationships between the first (governing) and second (governed) verbs: if two verbs whose properties necessarily require that their first actants either coincide or differ are combined, then the deep structure will usually give a surface IC structure rather than an FC structure (compare Je peux chanter 'I can sing' but not *Je peux que je chante 'I can that I sing', Je fais (laisse) chanter 'I have (let) them sing' but not *Je fais (laisse) qu'on chante 'I have (let) that they sing'); if however, verbs whose first actants may or may not coincide are combined, the deep structure will usually give an infinitive construction if the actants coincide and a finite construction if they do not (compare Je veux chanter 'I want to sing' but not *Je veux que je chante 'I want that I sing' and Je veux qu'il chante but not *Je le veux chanter). In formulating these rules we have to take into account numerous restrictions most of which are related to the semantic-syntactic properties of the governing and governed verbs. Thus verbs of perceiving (verba sentiendi) (entendre belongs to this group: see sentences (12) and (13) ) whose semantic properties condition non-identity of their own first actant and the first actant of the verb they govern, allow the formation of either an infinitive construction (13) or a finite construction (12). In a subordinate clause the subject-object relationships are explicitly and unambiguously denoted by finite forms of both the governing and governed verbs (compare J'entends qu'on chante une chanson russe "I hear them (someone) singing a Russian song'). This is not the case with an infinitive construction: given the inflected form of the infinitive, subject-object relationships must be denoted by the specific word order. The rules for going from the deep structure to an infinitive construction therefore include quite complex word order rules. Thus, for example, the first actant of an infinitive must follow the infinitive. Compare J'entends chanter Robert 'I hear to sing Robert: I hear Robert singing'. But this local rule conflicts with the general word-order rules of the French sentence, which require that the predicate be preceded by the subject and followed by the object. This conflict requires the creation of a new rule: the object of an infinitive will go in its regular position following the predicate and the infinitive will now be preceded by its subject. (Compare J'entends Robert chanter une chanson lit. 'I hear Robert to sing a song: I hear Robert singing a song'.) If, however, the subject of the infinitive is expressed by a pronoun, then the word order will change: the personal pronoun precedes the finite verb which governs the infinitive. (Compare Je l'entends chanter une chanson lit. 'I him hear to sing a song: I hear him singing a song'.) Even from this very general statement it is obvious that the rules for going from deep-syntactic structures to their corresponding sentences are very complex. First two sequences of rules may be applied (one for constructing subordinate clauses with finite verbs, the other for infinitive constructions) and our choice between them is restricted by the semantic-syntactic properties, of the verbs or, more generally predicate words that govern the infinitive. Secondly, when going from deep structure to an infinitive construction, we must apply numerous local word-order rules and combine them with the general word order rules of the French sentence simply because the infinitive does not denote the actant (or the time of the action). The rules for going from deep structure to a subordinate clause on the other hand are much simpler. Subordinate clauses differ from the corresponding paratactic constructions only in their conjunctions. (Compare J'entends, il chante 'I hear, he is singing' - J'entends qu'il chante 'I hear that he is singing'.) We have examined only the rules for going from the deep structure to the sentence, that is, rules of synthesis. Naturally, rules are also required to

21 go from subordinate clauses and the corresponding infinitive constructions back to the deep structure; in other words, there are two sequences of rules for syntactic analysis. It is quite easy to show that the rules for analyzing a subordinate clause are simpler than those for analyzing an infinitive construction. In fact, if we describe sentence (12) in terms of a dependency grammar we will get the tree shown in Diagram 5. Diagram 5 entends

chante il

chanson une

"Tusse

Obviously one can go from this surface-syntactic representation of the sentence structure to a deep, functional representation of syntactic relationships (see Diagram 4) merely by applying some very simple rules which basically involve changing the waywe denote syntactic relationships. However, in order to reveal the functional syntactic relationships of the infinitive construction (13), that is, in order to go from the surface-syntactic structure of the sentence represented by the tree in Diagram 6: Diagram 6 entends

i

/

une

chanson

\

russe

to the deep structure (Diagram 4) we need complicated rules, including rules to reveal the subject-object relationships, which are not explicitly and unambiguously expressed in the infinitive sentence. In order to give some idea of the complexity of these rules we will examine the following typical sentences: (14) Je veux chanter 'I want to sing', (15) J'entends chanter lit. 'I hear to sing: I hear them singing',

22

(16) J'entends chanter un chansonnier lit. 'I hear to sing a singer: I hear a singer singing', (17) J'entends chanter une chanson lit. 'I hear to sing a song: I hear them singing a song', (18) Je m'entends chanter cette chanson à Robert lit. 'I myself hear to sing that song to Robert: I hear myself singing that song to Robert', (19) Je m'entends chanter cette chanson par Robert lit. 'I to me hear to sing that song by Robert: I hear Robert singing that song to me', (20) Je m'entends chanter cette chanson lit. 'I to myself (myself) hear to sing that song: I hear myself singing that song or I hear them singing that song to m e ' . Although the surface-syntactic structures of sentences (14) and (15) are identical, the deep structure of (14) is that shown in Diagram 7 :

Pr.(ls.)

Diagram 7

Diagram 8

vouloir (Ind. p r . )

entendre

chanter I 1 P r . (Is.)

(the dotted line here indicates coreference of the subjects of the two verbs), while the deep structure of (15) is shown in Diagram 8 (where the word on represents the indefiniteness of the subject of the verb chanter. In order to reveal this difference the rules of analysis must make use of information about the syntactic-semantic properties of the verbs that introduce an infinitive construction. Sentences (16) and (17) also have identical surface-syntactic structures: however, in (16) the first actant of chanter is chansonnier, and in (17) it is some undetermined person. In order to reveal this difference in the analysis we have to use information about the meanings of the words chansonnier and chanson. In (18) the subject of the infinitive and the subject of the governing verb are the same person, whereas in (19) they are not: here the first actant of chanter is Robert. The rules for analyzing (18) and (19) require information about the prepositions a and par. Sentence (20) is a homonym. Two different deep structures correspond to it (Diags. 9 and 10). In order to discover which of these the speaker had in mind, in other words, to resolve the homonymity and understand the message, we need contextual information. This also applies to constructions in which the infinitive takes a subordinate clause introduced by the conjunction que. Compare: (21) Je m'entends chanter que la vie est belle lit. 'I to myself (myself) hear to sing that life is beautiful: I hear myself singing how beautiful life is and I hear them singing to me how beatiful life is. Note that in (20) and (21) homonymy arises only if the verb used in the infinitive has three valences. If it is monovalent or bivalent, homonymy does not occur. Compare:

23

Diagram 10

y V

entendre (Pr. ind.)

Pr.(ls.)

Pr.(ls.)

chanson

chanter

\ ¡/K \ \

N

on

—

chanson

Pr.(ls.)

(22) Je m'entends discourir que la vie est belle lit. 'I myself hear to discourse that life is beautiful: I hear myself expounding on the beauty of life'. Obviously the valences of the verb used in the infinitive must be considered in constructing the rules of analysis. From the examples we have cited it becomes obvious that in order to analyze infinitive constructions we need numerous irregular and special rules which make use of information about the syntactic and semantic properties of the main predicate, the infinitive itself, and in some cases, about the context. (24) Thus we see that two different sequences of rules are required for both the synthesis and analysis of sentences such as (12 and (13) and that infinitive clauses are significantly more complex than the equivalent subordinate clauses. This explains the natural tendency of both native and non-native speaker alike to sacrifice variety in expressing the syntactic relationships and to replace complex infinitive constructions by the simpler subordinate constructions. The rules for going from deep to surface structure and back, that is, the rules for syntactic synthesis and analysis, will thus be simplified. This kind of structuring constitutes the essence of indirect syntactic interference. Its most extreme manifestation is the linear expansion of deep structure in a strictly fixed order without any use of inflexion to denote syntactic relationships. Thus the grammatical relationships represented in Diagram 4 would be formulated as: (23) *Moi entendre lui chanter chanson russe 'Me hear he sing Russian song 1 . Such broken speech is often observed in subordinative bilingualism, especially in its beginning stages. Syntactic constructions of this sort are as universal as the mimicry and gesturing typical of this stage of bilingualism. Under c e r tain conditions these constructions become regular. Thus sentences such as (23) are normal in Creole French languages. Syntactic simplification may be less than total, that is, it may not be necessary to exclude all morphological means for denoting syntactic relationships. Thus even if Russian-French subordinative bilingualism retains simple sentences such as (24) J'entends 'I hear', (25) II chante une chanson Russe 'He is singing a Russian song', and includes rules for constructing sentences such as (12) in its syntax, the elimination of the rules for synthesizing and analyzing the corresponding in-

24

finitive clauses still represents a significant syntactic simplification in spite of the fact that such a simplified syntax still preserves word inflection rules. The tendency toward such simplification of syntax will increase if RussianFrench bilingualism is combined with French-Russian bilingualism since infinitive clauses such as (13) do not occur in Russian. Morphological interference is usually indirect. Direct morphological interference, in particular the transfer of inflexional rules from one of the contact languages to the other is a very rare occurrence. Direct morphological interference can be observed in the bilingualism of a small linguistic community which has been exposed, over a long period of time, to the impact of a politically, economically, and culturally more powerful community. When direct morphological interference is observed, the community has already reached the stage of bilingualism where it is abandoning its own language in favor of the language of the more powerful community. Istro-Rumanian, a language spoken by around 1000-1500 people of Romance descent living in the eastern part of Istria (northwest Yugoslavia) is a good example of this kind of a linguistic island in the process of changing its language. The entire Istro-Rumanian population is bilingual. Croatian Cakavian dialects are used not only in community life, local administration, and the schools, but in the family as well. Children learn Croatian before they begin school. As a result of a long period of bilingualism (RumanianCroatian contact has gone on for some seven centuries) Istro-Rumanian is more replete with Slavicisms than any other Rumanian dialect. This includes direct morphological interference, especially in the speech of young people. Thus the younger generation of Istro-Rumanians distinguish singular from plural not on the Rumanian model which uses the alternation of hard and soft stem final consonants, but on the model of Serbo-Croatian: the plural of polysyllabic masculine nouns is formed with the -e inflexion (corresponding to the Croatian -ovi (-evi) ), the plural of monosyllabic masculine nouns with the -ure inflexion (the Croatian ^-inflexion) (compare lug 'wolf', lupure 'wolves'). (25) Rules governing gender have also been borrowed from Croatian. In IstroRumanian the category of gender includes only the masculine-feminine opposition as opposed to Serbo-Croatian, in which neuter nouns are also distinguished. Traditionally neuter nouns borrowed from Croatian have been a s similated into Istro-Rumanian as feminines (compare Serbo-Croatian greblo, sito, vedro and Istro-Rumanian grebla, sita, vadra). However, the younger generation of Istro-Rumanians forms such nouns according to the rules of the Croatian neuter and makes them agree with adjectives also inflected as neuters: in their speech one hears such expressions as srebo-i grevo (drago) 'silver is heavy (expensive)'. Phenomena of direct interference can be noted in the morphology of the Istro-Rumanian verb as well, in particular in the category of aspect. In contrast to Rumanian, in which aspectual meanings are non-grammatical, IstroRumanian has forms expressing aspect according to Serbo-Croatian rules and by means of Serbo-Croatian formal devices. This phenomenon is again most widespread among the young. Thus iteration is denoted by the internal -av (-iv) inflexion which is of Croatian origin (compare the pairs da 'to give (perfective)' - davei 'to give (imperfective)', ahmeta 'to study (perfective)' artmetavei 'to study (imperfective)'). Perfective is opposed to imperfective: for this purpose members of the older generation use a Croatian prefix on a Rumanian stem. Compare the pairs: torce 'to spin (imperfective)' latra 'to bark (imperfective)'

— potorce 'to spin (perfective)' — zalatra 'to bark (perfective)'.

In the speech of younger Istro-Rumanians this same opposition is formed by

25

means of suppletism. Either a word borrowed from Croatian is opposed to an Istro-Rumanian word to express the perfective, or a pair of words is borrowed from Croatian. Compare: torce 'to spin (imperfective)' — spredi 'to spin (perfective)' predi 'to spin (imperfective)' — spredi 'to spin (perfective)'. Internal inflexion such as scoci-, scakgj- by analogy with the Croatian scocitskakat 'jump' (perfective - imperfective) is rarely used to distinguish the a s pects . There is a general rule obvious in these examples: direct interference occurs in the expression of categories which lie on the boundary of the lexicon and morphology, or to use Sapir's more precise terminology, in the expression of concrete concepts on the one hand, and concrete-relational concepts on the other. There is moreover a notable tendency to replace concreterelational meanings - gender, number, tense, and aspect - with concrete meanings which denote the signatum explicitly and as unambiguously as possible. This tendency is a clear indication that the participants in the contact are trying to avoid the idiosyncratic inflexional means of both languages. As in the case of indirect syntactic interference, indirect morphological interference does not attract the investigator's attention as forcefully as direct morphological interference. Naturally therefore indirect interference has been studied less. Let us recall, however, that as early as 1819 Grimm noted that the collision of two languages leads to grammatical loss. The mechanism of this phenomenon apparently 'works' as follows: to make it easier for the listener to understand the message the speaker makes a substitution: signans whose analysis would require the knowledge and skill for automatically (unconsciously) segmenting word forms by means of complex morphological and morphophonological rules are replaced by signans not requiring the application of such rules. Morphological means of denotation are replaced by syntactic or lexical means. In our discussion of the types of interference we have already given an example of the replacement of morphological by lexical means (see Table 5). The second means of simplification, observable to a greater or lesser degree in all cases of linguistic contact, is to replace synthetic forms by analytic forms. We have in mind here not only the simplification of verb forms, (26) but 'analytic declension' as well, the complete or partial replacement of the inflectional denotation of syntagmatic relationships by analytic means. It is well known that such replacement occurred in the Balkan languages. Only Serbo-Croatian, which does not belong to the Balkan language Sprachbund, has a complete set of inflexions for denoting basic syntactic relationships. In Albanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, modern Greek, and Rumanian these r e lationships are denoted not so much by case government as by prepositional or prepositionless government, word order, and special means (by a connecting article, pronomial antecedent). Thus all the Balkan languages express the subject and object relationship by the same (direct) case without a preposition. Bulgarian and Macedonian also do not morphologically distinguish between the indirect object and the attribute, while Albanian, Rumanian, modern Greek (and Serbo-Croatian) do distinguish morphologically the second object and the attribute, but not the subject and first object. The Balkan languages generally tend toward the following rules for the morphological expression of deep syntactic-semantic relationships: the subject and first object relationship are expressed by a noun in a direct case without a preposition, and the second object and attributive relationships by a noun in the indirect case without a preposition (or a noun in the direct case with a preposition). Thus the Russian sentences

26

(26) J a daju knigu ucitelja moego syna "I am giving (the) book of (the) teacher of my son', (27) J a daju knigq ucitelju moego syna 'I am giving (the) book to (the) teacher of my son', (28) J a daju knigu ucitelja moemu synu 'I am giving (the) book of (the) teacher to my son' may all be expressed by the Bulgarian (29) Az davam knigata na ucitelja na sina mi and in Rumanian (30) Eu dau c a r t e a profesorului fiului meu. (27) The syntactic homonymy of these sentences can only be eliminated by introducing a pronomial antecedent to denote the second object thus separating this relationship from the attributive relationship or by word o r d e r , that i s , by making the second object precede the f i r s t object, or by a combination of these two methods. Compare the Rumanian sentences (31) Eu dau cartea profesorului fiului meu, (32) Eu (li) dau profesorlului cartea fiului meu, (33) Eu (li) dau fiului meu cartea profesorului, which correspond respectively to the Russian sentences (26), (27), and (28). The most drastic simplification of nominal inflexion took place in Bulgarian and Macedonian, followed by Rumanian, Albanian, and modern Greek. As we have already said, this simplification did not take place in Serbo-Croatian, or more precisely, it did not take place in the literary language which is characterized by a well-developed system of declension. It is significant, however, that in Serbo-Croatian dialects as well as in the Slovenian ones b o r dering with Italian, Rhaetoromance, and South German, and especially in those dialects in contact with North-Macedonian and West-Bulgarian dialects, inflexion is also simplified. The weakening of inflexion and the partial r e placement of the inflectional means of expressing syntactic relationships by analytical means which can be observed in the modern Torlak, Prizrenotimok and Banat dialects of Serbo-Croatian (28) give us the chance to observe in the field the p r o c e s s of morphological interference among Balkan languages: what is a fluctuation h e r e has become an i r r e v e r s i b l e mutation in the Balkan languages. We have already spoken about the tendency towards optimalization c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of linguistic change under contact conditions. This tendency shows up on all levels of indirect interference, especially on the morphological level. Creole languages are most instructive in this respect. L. Hjelmslev even ventured the hypothesis that " . . . the grammatical system of Creole languages (the inventory and configuration of basic morphemes) is an optimal g r a m m a t i cal s y s t e m . " (29) Recently conducted investigations of creole languages (30) show that f r o m the communicative standpoint this hypothesis has validity. The widespread conception of these languages as systems in which African g r a m m a r is combined with a Romance (Portugese, Spanish, French) lexicon is clearly mistaken. Creole languages, even m o r e so than the m e m b e r s of the Balkan Sprachbund language, may be satisfactorily described as systems with a simplified g r a m m a r , especially insofar as morphology is concerned. The almost complete absence of both verbal and nominal inflexion in these languages suffices to prove the point.

27

Phonological interference has been traditionally described in t e r m s of 'sound shifts' which cause the non-native speaker to speak with an 'accent'. The shift from native to non-native language according to a system which violates equivalences naturally does not result in the direct t r a n s f e r of phonemes but r a t h e r in a phonetic realization of the phoneme of the secondary language that disrupts its phonemic system. The distorted phonetic r e a l i z ation does not differentiate features which are phonemic in the secondary language and non-phonemic in the p r i m a r y language, and does differentiate features which are functional in the p r i m a r y language even though they a r e non-phonemic or redundant in the secondary language. (31) One must make a distinction between interference in perceiving speech in the secondary language from interference in speaking that language. It has long been established by empirical observation and experimental investigation alike that a listener will not distinguish any sound features not also c h a r a c teristic of his own phonological system. (32) The phonological system of a speaker's native language also leads him to underdifferentiate and overdifferentiate a given articulatory feature when speaking the non-native language. Weinreich has proposed the following table of probable erroneous equivalences (see Table 7). (33) If a certain sound in a certain environment is characterized by a feature common to both the p r i m a r y (native) and secondary (non-native) languages, then the articulation of this sound in the secondary language will be c o r r e c t (+) or incorrect (-) depending on whether this feature is always present, sometimes present, or never present: Table 7 In the sound of the secondary language Always

In the sound of the p r i m a r y language always sometimes never (free variation) +

(unpredictable error) Sometimes (free variation) Never

+

+

(predictable error) +

+ (predictable error)

(unpredictable error)

As one can see f r o m the table the probability of interference equals zero if the common feature is either always present or always absent in the given sound and in the given environment in both languages, and equals 1 if such a feature is always present in the sound of the p r i m a r y language and never in the sound of the secondary or if the feature is never present in the sound of the p r i m a r y language and always present in the sound of the secondary language. It is m o r e difficult to predict and describe interference if a certain sound feature in the p r i m a r y language is not phonemic, and its occurrence depends on the context; while in the other, secondary language, this feature is either always absent or always present in the corresponding sound and in a particul a r environment. Here the system of correspondences between the two contact languages must reflect a compromise between the contradictory r e q u i r e ments of both sides. The pronunciation of French voiced consonants by native speakers of German, especially the South German dialects, is a good example. The voiced-voiceless opposition is phonemic in French, where it has a very

28

great functional load, but non-phonemic in German. It is therefore natural that the native speaker of German pronounces French occlusive-plosive consonants according to the rules of German, thereby disrupting the opposition between the voiceless series of occlusives - (p), (t), (k), and the voiced series - (b), (d), (g). However, since this pronunciation makes it difficult for the native French listener to understand what is being said, the opposition between voiced and voiceless must be reconstructed by means of some other feature. We can see this kind of a transfer of 'one's own' rules and the concurrent simplification of the rules of the secondary language at work in the GermanFrench bilingualism of Alsace. The consonant system of the Alsatian dialect spoken in the village of Blaesheim (near Strasbourg) can be described as (34) bf ds ds b d g m n

f s s v

v

x h 5

1 r The main difference between this system and the French consonant system is the lack of the voicing correlation: in the dialect described by Marthe Philippe the occlusive series is represented only by the lax voiceless (b), (d), (g). French, however, as we have said, requires the voiced-voiceless opposition. A compromise must then be effected between the two contacting languages: a native speaker of one of the German dialects pronounces the French (p), (t), (k) with aspiration, i . e . (bh), (dh), (gh), and the French (b), (d), (g) not as voiced plosives but as his own voiceless (b), (d), (g) when these consonants precede a stressed vowel at the beginning of a word. In other words, the French beau pot is pronounced (bobho) rather than (bo)po, c6te as (ghod) rather than (ko:t). Thus the voiced-voiceless opposition is replaced by the opposition of pure voiceless to aspirated voiceless and the correlation based on voice is replaced by a correlation based on aspiration. In intervocalic position this opposition is realized by rules of stress. In the Blaesheim dialect the canonical form of the lexeme allows only one stressed vowel, which may either be preceeded or followed by an unstressed vowel with the invervocalic consonant being either after the stressed vowel or before an unstressed a or i_. Since a French lexeme may have several vowels, only the last of which is stressed, and since several lexemes may form a single rhythmical group whose stress falls only on the last syllable (the potentially stressed vowels remain unstressed), the native speaker of this Alsatian dialect deals with these lexemes and rhythmical groups in the following manner: if it is a lexeme (or rhythmical group) of no more than three syllables, it will be pronounced as a sequence of single syllable stressed lexemes, and the French voiceless occlusive which precedes the stressed vowel will be aspirated; if the French word has more than three syllables the Alsatian speaker removes the stress from one of the syllables and replaces the corresponding vowel with an unstressed (a), while pronouncing the voiceless occlusive as though it were his own. Thus prepare is pronounced (brebhare) and préparateur is pronounced (brebaradhpr). The opposition which the speaker of the German dialect makes between pure and aspirated voiceless occlusives cannot be realized at the end of the word. Therefore he must find another means to express the voicedvoiceless opposition which distinguishes between French words such as vide 'empty' and vite 'quick'. This is done by pronouncing the occlusives unvoiced but lengthening or not lengthening the preceeding vowel according to whether

29 the occlusive is voiced or voiceless in French. Thus vide is pronounced (vid), while vite becomes (vid). The feature of voice is thus replaced by the feature of length which is non-functional in French. The Alsatian GermanFrench bilingual also uses this same feature of length to differentiate the spirants: (v) and (f), (z) and (s), (3) and (J) are not distinguished, the voicedvoiceless opposition is realized in the length-shortness of the preceding vowel. Thus ruse 'ruse' and russe "Russian' are pronounced (rils) and (rlis) respectively. Philippe represents the consonantal system of the Alsatian-French dialect spoken in Blaesheim in general form as: b

d

m

n

g

s s

f v, w

h j,co

1 r It might seem at first glance that this system is a reduced version of the primary German dialect of Blaesheim which the same author depicts as: bf ds ds b d g m

n

f 11

s

s

x h

v

j

1 r In fact we observe not only a similarity of the inventory, but also a deep restructuring of the phonological system of the contact languages. First we have to take into account the change in the French vowel system as manifested by the Alsatian-French bilingual: (35) French Vowel system

Vowel system of the German Blaesheim dialect

1.

i

ti

u

1.

2.

e

oe

0

2.

oe

0

3.

3. 4.

e

a

a

i

U i e 8

4.