ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that how language pairs behave in code-switching (CS) provides evidence for certain types of salient congruence between languages. Many language production models include three levels; these are the conceptual, functional, and positional levels. The decision of the interlocutors in a discourse to use intrasentential CS is based on social, psychological, and structural factors. The language production model sketched is specifically designed to accommodate “system decisions” regarding congruence. The particular semantic and pragmatic features associated with each lemma entry form its own specific lexical-conceptual structure. As indicated, the model assumes a universal set of semantic and pragmatic features that are available for the lexical-conceptual structuring of lemmas; yet, it also expects their presence and conflation to vary cross-linguistically. A number of examples illustrate the nature of semantic/pragmatic features encoded in lexical-conceptual structure and how their conflation into SP feature bundles may differ cross-linguistically.
