Ergative marking in Basque-Spanish and Basque-French code-switching

• Irantzu Epelde Cendoya ^[1] ; Bernard Oyharçabal ^[1]
  1. [1] CNRS-IKER UMR 5478
• Localización: Zeitschrift für Katalanistik: Revista d'Estudis Catalans, ISSN-e 2199-7276, ISSN 0932-2221, Nº. 33, 2020, págs. 77-98
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The paper presents the case of ergative marking in code-switching (CS) in the spontaneous speech of Basque bilinguals from either side of the French-Spanish border. Here the focus will be on intrasentential CS. Basque is an ergative-absolutive language while French and Spanish are nominative-accusative languages. According to the naturalistic data collected in the Basque Country, Basque speakers, when switching intrasententially during a conversation, show some clear patterns in the use of the ergative in CS: they use the determiner as the main trigger in ergative marking, as can be clearly observed when the determiner is a French/Spanish one. When it appears on the left of the noun following the French/Spanish pattern, the subject winds up with no ergative marker and the CS is acceptable in any case.