Code-switching between Papiamento and Dutch was studied in bilingual parent–child reading sessions in Antillian migrant families (who were to some extent bilingual in Papiamento and Dutch) in the Netherlands. Mothers were asked to read three picture books to their child: one in Dutch, one in Papiamento, and one without text. The code-switching in the data is studied from three perspectives: its relation to bilingual competence, its structural properties, and the implications for language change through lexical borrowing. Our data confirmed the results of earlier studies, which found that intimate code-switching within the clause is characteristic of fluent bilinguals. In our study, this held in particular for knowledge of Papiamento. Structurally, the type of code-switching encountered was predominantly insertional (with Papiamento as the dominant language), thus conforming to the constraints proposed for this type of switching. The single Dutch words that were frequently inserted into Papiamento utterances by the mothers could easily be interpreted by the child as Papiarnento and are likely to become borrowings in the next generation. We conclude with some remarks about the functions of code-switching in our data.

This study examines the use and understanding of concordant (e.g., consequently, moreover) and discordant (e.g., rather, contrastively) adverbial conjuncts in the later part of the life span. The participants, 75 neurologically healthy young (mean age 21.8), middle-aged (mean age 51.7), and elderly (mean age 73.1) adults, were examined using procedures by Nippold, Schwarz, and Undlin (1992). Groups were matched for education level. The results indicate a significant decline in processing adverbial conjuncts in the elderly. Discordant adverbial conjuncts especially challenged the linguistic processing abilities of the elderly subjects. The age- related decline in processing adverbial conjuncts.appears to be a specific deficit in linguistic processing that is independent of problems in memory or the effects of exposure to sophisticated language forms.