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What is the “Nonce Borrowing Hypothesis” anyway?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2011

MARGARET DEUCHAR  and
JONATHAN R. STAMMERS
MARGARET DEUCHAR*
Affiliation:
ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice, Bangor University
JONATHAN R. STAMMERS
Affiliation:
ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice, Bangor University
*
Address for correspondence: Margaret Deuchar, ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory and Practice, Bangor University, College Road, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2DG, Wales, UKm.deuchar@bangor.ac.uk
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Abstract

In this rejoinder to Shana Poplack's response to Stammers & Deuchar (this issue), we argue that our reformulation of the nonce borrowing hypothesis (NBH) to include specific reference to frequency was needed in order to make the hypothesis more precise and testable. Furthermore, in order to test the assumption that codeswitching (CS) and borrowing (B) are two distinct categories, it was necessary to suspend this assumption in our study. This led us to find support for a possible CS/B distinction, but not for the categorical integration of all borrowings regardless of frequency. In discussing our methods, we maintain that soft mutation is an appropriate measure of morphosyntactic integration in Welsh, and is no more purely phonetic than any other morphosyntactically triggered process.

Type
Authors response
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , July 2012 , pp. 649 - 650
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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