Remarks on Jake, Myers-Scotton and Grosss response: There is no Matrix Language

This research note presents reactions to Jake, Myers-Scotton and Gross’s (2005) response to MacSwan (2005), the latter offered as a response to Jake, Myers-Scotton and Gross (2002) and as a general critique of the MLF model of Myers-Scotton and colleagues. The note responds to the authors’ analysis of various linguistic examples and to their continued assertion that the MLF model (and “matrix language” concept in particular) is necessary to any successful analysis of codeswitching data. The authors’ critique of MacSwan’s (2005) analysis of some Spanish–English DP facts is shown to fail, demonstrating that there is no “matrix language”. The note advocates that researchers reject across-the-board constraints on codeswitching in favor of a research agenda which relies upon independently motivated principles of grammar for the analysis of bilingual language data, with no codeswitching-specific mechanisms permitted.