Chinese-English Code-Mixing: A Case of Matrix Language Assignment

Abstract

A language assignment test was administered to Chinese-English bilingual speakers (N = 59) in Singapore to determine whether there exists a matrix language to a code-mixed sentence - a language whose morphosyntactic rules govern the syntactic structure of code-mixing (CM). Data drawn from natural conversations were analyzed. Results showed that the matrix language exists, that bilingual speakers can intuitively identify it, & that this matrix language authorizes the mixing of linguistic elements of the other language - the embedded language. Implications for CM syntactic structure & constraints are discussed.