Make your mouth agua: idioms and the integrated hypothesis

• López, Luis ^[6] ; De Nicolás, Irati ^[1] ; Laanen, Rodi ^[2] ; Pouw, Charlotte ^[3] ; Sequeros-Valle, José ^[4] ; Parafita Couto, M. Carmen ^[5]
  1. [1] University of Chicago

     University of Chicago

     City of Chicago, Estados Unidos

     
  2. [2] Leiden University

     Leiden University

     Países Bajos

     
  3. [3] University of Amsterdam

     University of Amsterdam

     Países Bajos

     
  4. [4] University of Nebraska System

     University of Nebraska System

     Estados Unidos

     
  5. [5] Universidade de Vigo

     Universidade de Vigo

     Vigo, España

     
  6. [6] University of Illinois Chicago

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• Localización: Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, ISSN-e 1893-3211, Vol. 12, Nº. 1, 2023 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Monographic topic of 2023: the grammar of ellipsis), págs. 91-121
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Recent work argues that a bilingual linguistic system is fully integrated in one competence system and does not consist of two separate, autonomous systems as is commonly assumed (see Goldrick et al 2016, Grimstad et al 2014, López 2020, Riksam 2017). Here, we explore the organization of the lexicon within the integration hypothesis using data based on idioms and code-switching. The working hypothesis is that if the lexicons of a bilingual person are integrated in the sort of grammatical architecture presented in López (2020), one should be able to code-switch within the idiom and retain the idiomatic meaning. After a pilot study with a community of Papiamentu-Dutch bilinguals, we tested this hypothesis with two communities of bilingual code-switchers: Basque-Spanish, English-Spanish. The task consisted of choosing a meaning out of three choices for a range of sentences, some of which included code-switched idioms. Our results, by-and-large, confirm the hypothesis that code-switching does not destroy the integrity of the idiom.