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Evidence for insertional codemixing: mixed compounds and French nominal groups in Brussels Dutch
In this paper we analyse mixed compounds, such as legume+winkel âvegetable shop, greengroceryâ and winter+paletot âwinter coatâ which contain a French and a Dutch element, and French nominal groups, such as carte dâidentitĂ© âidentity cardâ, and journal parlĂ© âradio newsâ, which bilingual speakers from Brussels frequently insert into Brussels Dutch utterances. Using Muyskenâs (2000) typology of bilingual speech, we claim that the mixed compounds and the nominal groups display the characteristics of insertional code-mixing. In addition, some evidence for the existence of a continuum between borrowing and code-switching can be obtained from these examples. As the multimorphemic units that are inserted into Dutch are neither single words, nor full constituents, their status in the lexicon raises interesting issues for researchers interested in the interface between syntax and the lexicon (see also Backus 2003). We try to argue that nominal groups such as carte dâidentitĂ© and journal parlĂ© are probably best seen as lexical templates or constructional idioms (Booij, 2002b). The insertion of French constructional idioms in Brussels Dutch represents an innovation in the lexical patterns that are available to speakers of this language, which is highly relevant for theories of language change