Lastly, in terms of phrasal verbs, the data revealed that there were no marked differences in the relative frequency with which emergent and dynamic bi/multilinguals used phrasal verbs in mixed verbs. However, unlike the youngest speakers who only employed phrasal verbs that were school-related, more proficient bi/multilinguals employed phrasal verbs when speaking about a variety of domains (e.g., jobs, home, school, etc.).
In the ensuing sections, I discuss the implications that these findings have on our current understanding of (i) the frequency of mixed verbs in CS varieties, and (ii) the role of bilingual proficiency in the creation and propagation of linguistic innovations among child versus adult code-switchers.
5.1. Frequency of Mixed Verbs in CS Varieties
In the present corpus, none of the speakers’ mean proportions of mixed verbs constituted 50% or more of total verb production (see
Table 3 and
Table 4). The distribution of mixed verbs ranged from 6–124 tokens and percentagewise in relation to total verb production from 2.1%–28.1%. Even though the token frequency of mixed verbs among Northern Belize consultants seemed notably high in comparison to speakers from other contact situations (e.g., [
19,
31]), its frequency in relation to Spanish verbs in the present corpus was consistently low.
In previous work, Myers-Scotton and Jake [
51] point out that switching a verb may carry a higher production cost than switching a noun given that verbs play multiple grammatical roles in the construction of bilingual clauses. Unlike nouns, for instance, verbs assign thematic roles. According to Myers-Scotton and Jake, the grammatical roles that verbs play may explain why in several bilingual corpora, nouns have been found to be the most frequently switched elements, whereas verbs are much less frequently switched. In support of Myers-Scotton and Jake’s view, data from Northern Belize show that even among bi/multilinguals who engage in dense CS practices, verbs are not as frequently switched as nouns.
On the contrary, nouns can be so frequently switched that mixed determiner phrases can be greater than the corresponding number of monolingual Spanish determiner phrases employed in naturalistic discourse (for quantitative analysis of mixed determiner phrases in Northern Belize CS, see Balam in press [
52]). This illustrates not only the very frequent switching of nouns in Northern Belize bi/multilingual discourse, but it highlights the clear difference in terms of the pervasiveness with which nouns and verbs are switched. Data from Northern Belize suggest that whereas mixed determiner phrases can be quantitatively unmarked
12 in CS communities [
52], mixed verbs typically remain marked (
i.e., they constitute the minority of tokens in relation to overall verb production) even in cases of intense language contact.
It is important to note that even though the use of bi/multilingual language practices in Northern Belize has drastically increased in the past decades due to more intense language contact and higher levels of proficiency in English and Kriol [
2,
35,
36,
52], only the use of mixed verbs has increased but not the use of other strategies to borrow/switch verbs. For instance, the use of indirect insertions (e.g.,
chequear ‘to check/grade school work’) has remained very limited (for similar results in Spanish/English CS in New Mexico, see Wilson Vergara and Dumont [
5]). This supports the observation that across bilingual corpora, mixed verbs are more frequently used than direct verb insertions/switches [
51] (p.11). At the same time, however, mixed verbs remain constrained in the frequency with which they are used in naturalistic CS.
One factor that may favor the cross-generational use of mixed verbs is precisely the hybrid structure of these constructions. Mixed verbs may seem to require more “integrational effort” [
13], but this strategy is actually more parsimonious [
3] and productive than other verb borrowing/switching strategies. Importantly, ‘
hacer + V’ is not subjected to the same phonological restrictions that indirect insertions are subjected to. To illustrate, consider Sobin’s [
53] study on verb borrowings in Texas Spanish. In the 41 established borrowings he identifies, more than 68% are derived from English words ending either in the voiceless alveolar stop /t/ (e.g.,
trostyar ‘to trust’), the voiceless velar stop /k/ (e.g.,
kukyar ‘to cook’) or the voiceless bilabial plosive /p/ (e.g.,
waypyar ‘to wipe’), whereas no loanblend is derived from an English verb ending in a vowel or glide. Thus, whereas English verbs ending with voiceless plosives and other consonants are integrated into Spanish, words ending with vowels, diphthongs, and glides are seemingly blocked from being integrated into the Spanish
–ar verb class (e.g.,
hizo agree ‘he/she agreed’
versus *
agreear/agreeió;
hizo identify ‘he/she identified’
versus *identifayar/identifaió). Since mixed verbs are not morphophonologically integrated into Spanish, they are not subjected to the same phonological limitations. In this regard, ‘
hacer + V’ facilitates the rapid and effortless switching attested among skilled code-switchers.
In addition, mixed verbs may be a universally preferred CS strategy in verb phrases because they are malleable to further innovation and optimization of available syntactic, semantic and lexical resources. As the Northern Belize data have shown, mixed verbs offer the kind of working ground that allows code-switchers to exploit linguistic creativity; in contrast, other strategies (e.g., direct insertions) are more limited in this regard due to their inherent lack of hybrid morphological structure.
5.2. Bi/multilingual Proficiency and Morphosyntactic Innovation
Findings from this study strongly suggest that speakers’ level of bi/multilingual proficiency is an important factor in the use of mixed verbs and the emergence of linguistic innovation. It must be highlighted that Wichmann and Wohlgemuth’s [
27] view that lower levels of bilingualism result in the use of mixed verbs are supported by child bilingual data but not post-adolescent and adult data. Crutchley’s [
54] recent analysis of narratives from 14 Panjabi/English bilingual children showed that mixed verbs were especially attested among ‘beginner bilinguals’ with limited bilingual competence. These beginner bilinguals generally produced utterances that were less grammatically complex than those attested among more proficient bilingual children who primarily produced monolingual Panjabi utterances and less mixed verbs. In Crutchley’s [
54] (p. 20) view, the type of CS among beginner bilinguals “exploit[ed] the simplest structures on offer in both languages”, but it was not associated with grammatical complexity and/or morphosyntactic innovation.
The situation with adolescent, post-adolescent and adult bi/multilinguals presents a different scenario. Elsewhere I have argued that particularly high levels of bi/multilingual proficiency catalyze the use and evolution of mixed verbs (for relevant discussion, see Balam [
2]). The present data confirm that the most simplistic use of mixed verbs was attested among adolescent, freshman or sophomore high school students (
i.e., emergent bilinguals with the lowest levels of bi/multilingual proficiency). In terms of ‘
hacer + V’ production, this was evidenced in the fact that the relative frequency of mixed verbs was the lowest among adolescents. At the syntactic level, this was evidenced in adolescents’ non-usage of mixed verbs with passive, control or copulative verbs. At the lexico-semantic level, this was evinced in their incorporation of phrasal verbs in mixed verbs that specifically pertained only to the school domain.
In previous work, the use of phrasal verbs has been found to be associated with proficiency [
56] and/or fluency [
57] in English. For instance, in her study on the production of phrasal (transparent and non-transparent) verbs by 29 native Spanish-speaking adult ESL students of three different levels of proficiency, Gaston [
56] (p.20) found that an increase in English proficiency corresponded with “an increased understanding of the syntax and semantics” of phrasal verb usage. It is not surprising, therefore, that among more proficient bi/multilinguals, we find not only a higher level of syntactic complexity in speakers’ discourse (as evidenced through argument structures), but we also find the incorporation of phrasal verbs that relate to a wider variety of semantic domains. Thus, an increase in bi/multilingual proficiency seems to be accompanied by corresponding changes in the semantic nature rather than the frequency of mixed verbs containing phrasal verbs.
The cross-generational data in Balam [
2] and the present study’s results show that ‘
hacer + V’ has developed from less complex to more complex syntactic and pronominal contexts (
i.e., from intransitive and transitives to passives and control verbs; from accusative clitics to other pronominal forms). We can posit, therefore, that higher rather than lower levels of bi/multilingual proficiency have contributed to this evolution [
2]. To this, we can also add that the more frequent use of ‘
hacer + V’ is specifically associated with frequent CS. In their study, Wilson Vergara and Dumont [
5] found that speakers who produced the most bilingual IUs were also the speakers who particularly employed ‘
hacer + V’, suggesting that skilled code-switchers who frequently engage in CS are precisely those who employ ‘
hacer + V’ the most.
We can surmise, therefore, that speakers with higher levels of bi/multilingual proficiency are the ones who employ ‘
hacer + V’ in the most innovative ways. In the case of Northern Belize, only speakers with higher levels of bi/multilingual proficiency employed passive mixed verbs, which were unattested among the eldest [
2] and youngest consultants. Furthermore, these speakers capitalized on the semantic productivity and polysemy of phrasal verbs (for relevant discussion, see Balam and Prada Pérez [
23]); hence, revealing the creative manipulation of the structure and meaning of English phrasal verbs and idiomatic expressions.
Doǧruöz and Backus [
42] (p. 58) underscore that in the process of
copying (in the sense of Johanson [
58], this refers to the importation of elements from another language), speakers’ perception of semantic equivalence plays a key role, “[particularly] where speakers perceive a transparent link between translation equivalents.” From examples such as (13) and (15), it is clear that speakers with higher levels of bi/multilingual competence engage in this search for semantic equivalence, which then results in the production of innovative, hybrid structures that combine different elements from their languages. Thus, the exploitation of similarities between language varieties, which Gardner-Chloros and Edwards [
59] (p. 108) argue takes place in CS, particularly occurs among post-adolescent and adult bi/multilinguals who frequently engage in CS.
In previous work some scholars have associated linguistic creativity and innovation specifically with children or adolescents. For example, in their Minimalist analysis of mixed verbs in German/Spanish CS, González-Vilbazo and López [
6] assert that the use of structures such as ‘
hacer + V’ reveals that speakers are not necessarily restricted to the available features in the component grammars. They argue that this kind of linguistic creativity is evident in cases such as Creole genesis and the formation of sign languages, where features which are absent from the input languages child speakers are exposed to emerge. In their view, “children resort to ingredients provided by Universal Grammar that are absent from the input” [
6] (p. 846). González-Vilbazo and López suggest that novel forms of ‘
hacer + V’ emerge among bi/multilingual children. Moreover, in previous sociolinguistic research, adolescents have been described as the ‘movers and shakers’ in linguistic change [
60,
61]. Eckert [
61] views adolescents as key players in the process of language change and phonological innovation.
Data from Northern Belize CS, however, show that precisely because of the fundamental import of bi/multilingual proficiency in the use of mixed verbs, children and adolescents may actually be limited in their ability to engage in the kind of “conceptual work” Sebba [
43] refers to when he notes that code-switchers are able to actively build congruence or switch junctures in CS (for relevant discussion, see Edwards and Gardner-Chloros [
21]). In previous work, Balam [
2] (p. 95) found that ‘double
hacer’, the most innovative yet infrequent type of mixed verb (e.g.,
No he hecho learn
hacer cook
nada ‘I have not learnt how to cook anything’; …
que no haga choose
hacer study business ‘…that s/he doesn’t choose to study business’), was only attested among highly proficient post-adolescent and adult speakers. If we consider the fact that adolescents in the present sample did not use innovative forms of mixed verbs (passive, copulative and control structures), then more than likely ‘double
hacer’ did not emerge among them. Instead, these “unconventional constructions” (in the sense of Doǧruöz and Backus [
42]), seem to be an early stage of propagation among highly proficient bi/multilinguals who more frequently employ ‘
hacer + V’.
We also cannot attribute novel kinds of mixed verbs such as ‘double
hacer’ or passive mixed verbs to the eldest generation, as this generation had limited proficiency in English and produced very few mixed verbs in comparison to the younger generations [
2]. There is no doubt, therefore, that the more frequent and innovative use of Spanish/English mixed verbs in Northern Belize is a phenomenon that took place within the last four to five decades. If we take CS as reflective of a high degree of bilingual competence [
62,
63,
64,
65,
66], then it follows that morphosyntactic innovations in this context emerged precisely among highly proficient adult code-switchers who were able to most creatively exploit the available resources in their rich linguistic repertoire (for relevant discussion, see Muysken [
67]). The fact that previously unattested forms (e.g., ‘
hacer + V’ in passive and control structures) emerged in the absence of structural equivalents in the component languages reveals the element of creolization that characterizes mixed verbs [
30]. In generative terms, it shows that adult code-switchers may resort to and creatively use the “ingredients” or principles provided by Universal Grammar (for relevant discussion, see Bhatia [
68]).
Crucially, findings from Northern Belize reveal that language change takes place during language use [
69], and that adult grammars are flexible rather than fixed. Therefore, “both innovation and propagation of language change…occur in language use by adult speakers” [
70] (p. 59). It is through language use among skilled code-switchers who fluidly engage in a wide range of bi/multilingual language practices that morphosyntactic innovations emerge and subsequently conventionalize. Bybee ([
69] (p. 535) rightly emphasizes that “there is a general misconception among linguists and others than language change takes place during language acquisition” when in reality, children are not in a social position to have the kind of influence on adults so as to generate language change (for relevant discussion, see Bybee [
71]; Croft [
70]). To this, we can add that children and adolescents in bi/multilingual communities, while being proficient in their native languages, are simply not in the best position to effect morphosyntactic change as they are still in a nascent stage of dynamic bi/multilingualism. My view is that while children can acquire canonical forms of mixed verbs (
i.e., light verb alongside verb infinitive) and use ‘
hacer + V’ with more conventionalized argument structures (
i.e., transitives and intransitives), they do not use more innovative mixed verbs (e.g., mixed verbs in passive or control structures) until they have a certain level of bi/multilingual proficiency to naturalistically produce these forms.
It is only among highly skilled post-adolescent and adult code-switchers that speakers exploit the most complex structures in their linguistic repertoire, which allows them to create novel switch sites (e.g., mixed verbs in passive and control structures), build structural congruence between verb equivalents (e.g., merging English phrasal verbs and Spanish middle voice as in (13) where ‘slip off’ and
descarrilarse yield ‘
se hacen slip off’) and encode their speech with semantic nuances (e.g., reciprocity, reflexivity,
etc.). Bhatia and Ritchie [
63] (p. 20) remind us that “language mixing is indispensable for creativity and is the defining feature of the bilingual mind/brain.” Certainly, this “defining feature” is especially instantiated among post-adolescent and adult code-switchers who frequently engage in dense CS practices in contexts where bi/multilingual language practices are not only unmarked but valued as well.
In sum, although the prevalence and productivity of mixed verbs are licensed at the societal level, they are clearly capitalized on at the idiolectal level. Speakers with higher levels of bi/multilingual proficiency are precisely those who employ more innovative forms of ‘hacer + V’. At the same time, however, it must be underscored that higher levels of bi/multilingual proficiency alone do not translate to the pervasive use of mixed verbs. Older speakers who were less predisposed to the use of mixed verbs (i.e., Dynamic bi/multilingual Group 1) reported a higher proficiency in English than in NBS, yet their production of ‘hacer + V’ was markedly lower in comparison to other adults; revealing that there are dynamic bi/multilinguals in Northern Belize who make limited use of mixed verbs even after they become more proficient in English. On the other hand, there is another group of dynamic bi/multilinguals that makes extensive use of mixed verbs in switched discourse. It is this group which most likely comprises the locus of morphosyntactic innovation and change in Northern Belize.
Undoubtedly, the present study’s findings support the notion that intra-sentential CS can indeed serve as a vehicle of language innovation and change, a view held by several researchers [
20,
72,
73]. In particular, as it relates to mixed verbs, highly proficient post-adolescent and adult code-switchers are the ushers of cross-generational morphosyntactic change. Findings also support the view that the grammar of CS is emergent [
67] and flexible in nature, and novel CS structures that cannot be attributed to any of the component languages may develop [
30], particularly in contexts where CS is valued as an everyday communicative resource. Syntactic hybridity, therefore, is not an oddity, but a natural outcome of CS contexts where social conditions allow this language practice to flourish across time. This paper makes a call for further research on bi/multilingual contexts where CS is not stigmatized at a socio- linguistic and political level, as we are most apt to learn about the complex and dynamic nature of CS precisely from these contact communities (for relevant discussion, see Bhatia and Ritchie [
74]).