The Mixed Language Debate: Theoretical and Empirical Advances (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM], 145)

"Mixed Languages are speech varieties that arise in bilingual settings, often as markers of ethnic separateness. They combine structures inherited from different parent languages, often resulting in odd and unique splits that present a challenge to theories of contact-induced change as well as genetic classification. This collection of articles is devoted to the theoretical and empirical controversies that surround the study of Mixed Languages. Issues include definitions and prototypes, similarities and differences to other contact languages such as pidgins and creoles, the role of codeswitching in the emergence of Mixed Languages, the role of deliberate and conscious mixing, the question of the existence of a Mixed Language continuum, and the position of Mixed Languages in general models of language change and contact-induced change in particular. An introductory chapter surveys the current study of Mixed Languages. Contributors include leading historical linguists, contact linguists and typologists, among them Carol Myers-Scotton, Sarah Grey Thomason, William Croft, Thomas Stolz, Maarten Mous, Ad Backus, Evgeniy Golovko, Peter Bakker, Yaron Matras."

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks, as well as studies that provide new insights by approaching language from an interdisciplinary perspective.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

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The Study Of Mixed Languages / Yaron Matras And Peter Bakker -- Social Factors And Linguistic Processes In The Emergence Of Stable Mixed Languages / Sarah G. Thomason -- Mixed Languages And Acts Of Identity / William Croft -- Split (mixed) Languages As Contact Phenomena / Carol Myers-scotton -- Mixed Languages As Autonomous Systems / Peter Bakker -- Mixed Languages: Re-examining The Structural Prototype / Yaron Matras -- Language Contact And Group Identity / Evgeniy V. Golovka -- The Linguistic Properties Of Lexical Manipulation And Its Relevance For Ma'á / Maarten Mous -- Can A Mixed Language Be Conventualized Alternational Codeswitching? -- Ad Backus -- Not Quite The Right Mixture / Thomas Stolz. Edited By Yaron Matras, Peter Bakker. Includes Bibliographical References And Indexes. One seldom encounters a language that is not, in some way, mixed, in the sense that it has been influenced at some point in its history by another language, and employs some structure or form that derives from that language.