Hybridized Verbs in Urhobo - English Code-Mixing

Abstract

One of the outcomes of language contact is the emergence of intermediate forms which cannot be attributed to any of the two languages in contact at the surface structure level.  This is analogous to the biological process of hybridization.  The focus of this study is an analysis of hybridized verbs that emerge from Urhobo-English code-mixing.  Hybrid verbs are intermediate forms that cannot be fully identified with either Urhobo or English.  The two types of verbs discussed in this study are: first, the insertion of ‘bare’ verbs from English to Urhobo grammatical structure.  These uninflected verbs correspond to that of native Urhobo verbs since Urhobo is the matrix language and English is the embedded language based on Myers-Scotton’s (2002) matrix language frame.  Second is the adjoinment of Urhobo helping verbs, as well as Urhobo negative particle, to English main verb in the code-mixed structure.  The essay concludes that the bilingual verbs in this study constitute part of the structural basis of Urhobo-English code-mixing.

Keywords:hybridized verbs, code-mixing, code-switching, Urhobo/English, Grammatical aspects of code switching and multilingualism.