NABOR - Native vs. Borrowed Morphologies: The Case of Trojan Horse Participles in Senhaja Amazigh (Berber)
How does the bilingual brain handle grammar from two languages at once? This question lies at the heart of the NABOR project. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the project explores how speakers of Senhaja Amazigh (Berber) and Arabic in Morocco process borrowed grammar. Unusually, Senhaja has adopted Arabic participles (including roots and agreement markers), creating ‘Trojan Horse participles’. These are used alongside native forms in a structure known as co-morphology, where native and foreign grammatical systems operate in parallel. NABOR investigates whether these forms are processed differently from traditional morphological borrowing. Through narrative analysis and psycholinguistic experiments, the project offers new insights into a rarely studied linguistic phenomenon in the field.
Understanding how morphologies from different languages co-exist in the bilingual brain is a central testing ground for theories of language in the brain. NABOR investigates the differences in interpretation and processing of native vs. borrowed morphologies in the context of language contact among bilingual speakers of Senhaja Amazigh (Berber) and Arabic in Morocco. Strikingly, Senhaja has borrowed a whole morphological word class, Arabic participles, used among other to express TAM (Tense, Aspect, Modality). We call them “Trojan Horse participles” as they are borrowed with lexical content (roots) and agreement inflection (morphology). To describe situations akin to this, Gardani 2021 uses the term co-morphologies. Here, two morphologies are used in parallel: one with native, and one with foreign lexicon. NABOR investigates whether co-morphologies are psycholinguistically different (in processing) from morphological borrowing, where foreign morphology spreads to the native lexicon. To what extent are identical chunks of grammar shared by two languages processed as belonging to one grammar? We will tackle this question on the basis of Senhaja TAM constructions employing participles. Such participles present an important testcase for understanding how bilingual grammar is organized. It is rare that linguists can study co-morphologies in the field. Various tests will be run to investigate the processing of co-morphologies. We will perform semantic analysis on narrative production, and psycholinguistic experiments on the processing of morphological agreement. This will provide a window into questions of grammar representation. Previous research on bilingual processing has focused on codeswitching, while the psycholinguistic status of co-morphologies has not been studied. The research questions are new, and fill a gap in our understanding of bilingual cognitive realities, while also expanding our understanding of underdocumented morphological systems.
Members:
Financial/grant information:
Funded under Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), Grant agreement ID: 101203464
EU contribution: € 267 418,56