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dc.contributor.advisorTroike, Rudolphen_US
dc.contributor.authorDussias, Paola Eulalia, 1962-
dc.creatorDussias, Paola Eulalia, 1962-en_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-04-18T09:43:54Z
dc.date.available2013-04-18T09:43:54Z
dc.date.issued1997en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10150/282384
dc.description.abstractThe Functional Head Constraint (Belazi, Rubin and Toribio, 1994) states that codeswitching is not allowed between a functional head and its complement. This predicts that switches between determiners and noun phrase complements, complementizers and inflected clausal (IP) complements, and auxiliaries and verb phrase complements should be ungrammatical. Conversely, the proposed constraint predicts that verb-complement and preposition-complement switches should be grammatical. This study tested four of these five predictions, using codeswitched Spanish/English sentences which met or violated the Functional Head Constraint. The subjects were Spanish-English bilinguals who had learned both languages before the age of six and who use both languages in their daily lives. Data were collected using the Response-Contingent Matching Task (Stevenson, 1992). Subjects read a sentence displayed on a computer screen and press a button when the reading is completed. They then read a second sentence aligned below the first one and press one of two buttons to indicate whether the two sentences on the screen are the SAME or DIFFERENT. Grammaticality of the codeswitch was established by comparing reading times on all SAME sentences. The sentences that violated the Functional Head Constraint were expected to receive significantly longer reading times than the sentences which comply with the constraint. The results obtained do not support the predictions made by the Functional Head Constraint, but do confirm the validity of the task procedure. The findings are compared with naturalistic data and are interpreted using the Minimalist Theory of Chomsky (1991 and 1992).
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherThe University of Arizona.en_US
dc.rightsCopyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.en_US
dc.subjectEducation, Bilingual and Multicultural.en_US
dc.subjectLanguage, Linguistics.en_US
dc.titleSwitching at no cost: Exploring Spanish-English codeswitching using the response-contingent sentence matching tasken_US
dc.typetexten_US
dc.typeDissertation-Reproduction (electronic)en_US
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Arizonaen_US
thesis.degree.leveldoctoralen_US
dc.identifier.proquest9738970en_US
thesis.degree.disciplineGraduate Collegeen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineSecond Language Acquisition and Teachingen_US
thesis.degree.namePh.D.en_US
dc.identifier.bibrecord.b37474613en_US
refterms.dateFOA2018-06-24T19:25:10Z
html.description.abstractThe Functional Head Constraint (Belazi, Rubin and Toribio, 1994) states that codeswitching is not allowed between a functional head and its complement. This predicts that switches between determiners and noun phrase complements, complementizers and inflected clausal (IP) complements, and auxiliaries and verb phrase complements should be ungrammatical. Conversely, the proposed constraint predicts that verb-complement and preposition-complement switches should be grammatical. This study tested four of these five predictions, using codeswitched Spanish/English sentences which met or violated the Functional Head Constraint. The subjects were Spanish-English bilinguals who had learned both languages before the age of six and who use both languages in their daily lives. Data were collected using the Response-Contingent Matching Task (Stevenson, 1992). Subjects read a sentence displayed on a computer screen and press a button when the reading is completed. They then read a second sentence aligned below the first one and press one of two buttons to indicate whether the two sentences on the screen are the SAME or DIFFERENT. Grammaticality of the codeswitch was established by comparing reading times on all SAME sentences. The sentences that violated the Functional Head Constraint were expected to receive significantly longer reading times than the sentences which comply with the constraint. The results obtained do not support the predictions made by the Functional Head Constraint, but do confirm the validity of the task procedure. The findings are compared with naturalistic data and are interpreted using the Minimalist Theory of Chomsky (1991 and 1992).


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