Morphological Mixing in a Contact between Finnish and Estonian

• Published in: Lahivordlusi/Lahivertailuja Vol. 20; pp. 218 - 239
• Main Author: Riionheimo, Helka
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Finnish
• Published: 01.01.2010
• ISSN: 1736-9290

This article examines the morphological & morphophonological mixing that occurs in a contact between two Finnic languages, Finnish (the Ingrian Finnish dialect) & Estonian. Morphology & morphophonology are generally considered resistant to cross-linguistic interference & especially bound morphemes are rarely transferred in language contacts. The contacts between cognate languages represent an exception in this respect & when the contacting languages are genetically closely related & morphologically rich, there are fewer constraints to morphological borrowing. Morphological mixing is defined here as a phenomenon where morphemes from two different languages are combined within a single word form & in the Finnish-Estonian context, it results in hybrid forms where there is no clear switch from one code to another but the elements blend together. It appears that morphological mixing emerges spontaneously during speech processing by bilingual speakers. The morphological blends seem to result from two mechanisms, the use of productive inflectional processes & the analogical formation based on a large cross-linguistic network of Finnish & Estonian words & word forms. Adapted from the source document