Lemma congruence for lexical-conceptual structure

As shown in Figure 1, at the conceptual level the speaker makes appropriate choices about the semantic/pragmatic feature bundles (i.e. pieces of information) that he/she intends to convey. However, although, as generally assumed, there is a universal set of semantic/pragmatic features available for the lexical-conceptual structuring of lemmas, there is cross-linguistic variation in the presence and conflation of these features. Thus, the EL lemmas activated by the semantic/pragmatic feature bundles chosen at the conceptual level must be sufficiently congruent with those of the counterparts of the ML in order for ICS to occur. Most ICS instances studied in this paper show sufficient congruence between the EL and ML lemmas which support the existing lexemes in both languages.

As commonly observed, bilingual speakers may switch to another language either intersententially or intrasententially in a discourse. In other words, codeswitching may become part of bilingual speakers’ daily practice or natural speech patterns (Li 1996,

involved may differ in their lemmas at the level of lexical-conceptual structure, and it is this type of difference which motivates ICS. In terms of lemma congruence between the languages involved, if such a difference is only partial, there is still sufficient cross-linguistic congruence. This paper suggests that a partial difference at the level of lexical-conceptual structure is one of the major reasons why certain morphemes are switched from the EL as chosen.

(Chinese/English)

(25) Wo xiawu qu jian wode advisor. Wo bu neng he ni I afternoon go see my I not can with you yiqi qu mall le.

together go PART/AFFIRM

‘I’m going to see my advisor this afternoon. I can’t go to the mall with you.’

(26) Zhu zai zheili hen fangbian, meitian you school live PREP/LOC here very convenient everyday have

bus.

‘It’s very convenient to live here since there is a school bus every day.’

(27) Wo you liang-fen paper mingtian bixu jiaoshangqu, ke

I have two-CL tomorrow must turn in but

wo xianzai yi-fen hai mei finish ne.

I now one-CL yet not PART/AFFIRM

‘I have two papers [which] I must turn in tomorrow, but at the moment I haven’t finished one yet.’ (= (1))

In (25) an English advisor assumes more responsibilities than a Chinese advisor.

In the academic setting, an English advisor is a professor or instructor who gives advice or counsel to students regarding their academic progress, improvement, course requirements and sequential arrangements, thesis or dissertation writing, and so on. In addition, most English advisors are those who recommend their students to the job market or professional agencies. Though Chinese has the equivalent word daoshi (‘advisor’), it does not necessarily mean that a daoshi assumes the same responsibilities as an English advisor. In China only a graduate student may have a daoshi, whose only or main responsibility is to guide the student in writing his/her thesis or dissertation. In (26) a school bus in English means a bus mainly for transporting students to and from a school. In China the equivalent word xiaoche (‘school bus’) usually only transports a school’s sports or performance team or

equipment. In (27) paper in English may mean any written piece of work, such as an article, a report, an essay or a composition, but the Chinese equivalent word zhi (‘paper’) itself only means a piece of paper to wrap things up in or to write something on.

(Japanese/English)

(28) Anata wa registration o shimashi-ta

you PART/TOP PART/OBJ do-PAST

ka?

PART/INTERROG

‘Have you done your registration?’

(29) Futatsu no bedroom ga ate, hitori, Maria

two POSS PART/NOM COP one person

to iu ko wa hitori de one bedroom

and call person PART/TOP one person PREP/by

o mot-te imasu yo.

PART/OBJ have-PROG AUX PART/AFFIRM

‘We have two bedrooms. One person, called Maria, has one bedroom.’

In (28) the speaker switches to registration for the possible reason that in Japanese universities/colleges, though students must register for the courses to take, they are not free to select the courses which they are interested in taking. The speaker may choose the English word to express his/her intended meaning more accurately. In (29) the speaker switches to bedroom for the possible reason that the concept of bedroom is relatively new to Japanese. A traditional Japanese room is often used not only for sleeping but also for eating, studying, entertaining guests, or for other daily family activities.

As observed in the above examples, bilingual speakers may switch to particular lexical items of another language at a certain point during a discourse most probably because of cross-linguistic differences in language-specific lemmas underlying the lexical-conceptual structure. As assumed in this paper, although any language is capable of expressing its speakers’ semantic and pragmatic intentions, lexicalization patterns are language-specific (cf. Talmy 1985). As observed by Li (1996), Nishimura

intended meaning. In other words, when the language cue specifies a particular language at a certain point of bilingual speech production, the lexical item in that language receives activation. de Bot and Schreuder (1993) assume that bilingual speakers are able to separate different language systems and to mix them for their communicative intentions. This paper explains (see Figure 1) that bilingual speakers are able to do so by making language choices in the preverbal message. This means that conceptual information and the language cue must work together in activating appropriate language-specific lemmas in the bilingual mental lexicon to serve bilingual speakers’ communicative intentions