Contact-induced hybrid clause combining strategies (HybriX)

• Applicant: Cem Keskin, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 554319180

In this project, I investigate, building on my previous research, hybrid subordinate clauses that emerge when languages come in contact. By the term ‘hybrid subordinate clauses’ I mean subordinate clauses (e.g., relative clauses) that blend two systems of combining clauses, one system native to the language in which the hybrid subordinate clauses are used and the other system taken from another language. The issue of hybrid subordinate clauses is an interesting one as it sheds light on language change that happens when languages come into contact. A mechanism, which I would like to study, takes apart different systems of forming sentences and recombines them in combination in several different ways. By mixing properties of different systems, this mechanism produces constructions which resemble each other and compete with one another, with the winners spreading in use and leading the change in language. Hybrid subordinate clauses were known to exist since at least Menz (1999), Bayer (2001), or Matras (2003), but our understanding of the range of the patterns that they form and their relevance for language change during language contact is just emerging, having begun with my investigation in Keskin (2023). In other words, there is a gap in research in this area, and work is called for that investigates how hybrid subordinate clauses come about under the pressures of language contact, and how they form a pool of competing constructions that form the foundation of language change. The first task of the proposed project that will address this gap in research is to supplement and consolidate the existing data from Balkan Turkic and Turkish as spoken in Germany and the US by collecting data from Romeyka (spoken in northeastern Turkey) and Gagauz (spoken in Moldova). The next two main tasks are the following: (i) describing the overall picture presented by hybrid subordinate clauses in these languages, in order to establish general patterns and correlations that hold across them, as well as the differences that differentiate them; (ii) offering explanations by answering such questions as how and why hybrid subordinate clauses come about, whether they originate in individual speakers or in groups of speakers, and which factors determine their form.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants