Code-switching in an Erzya–Russian bilingual variety

In this paper, I study mixed code-switched structures in bilingual discourse in the Erzya-Russian code-switching (ERCS) variety on the basis of unstructured interviews. I argue that the matrix language frame model (Myers-Scotton 2002) cannot be applied to this variety, as the matrix language of the clauses cannot be identified unambiguously. I focus on verbal constructions, numeral phrases, and time expressions, which are the most typical cases of composite structures having a bilingual grammatical frame. The analysis of these constructions shows that ERCS clauses have a composite matrix language and display traces of the language mixing phase on Auer’s 1999 continuum.