Pronominal usage in Cite Duits, a Dutch-German-Limburgish contact variety

This article aims to contribute to the debate on mixed languages by discussing the use of subject pronouns in Cité Duits, a contact variety composed of features of three structurally related varieties, i.e. Belgian Dutch, German and the Limburgian dialect Maaslands. This in-group variety, now on the cusp of disappearing, developed among the locally-born children of immigrant coalminers in a segregated mining district in Belgian-Limburg in the 1930s. By examining frequency distribution, phonological-lexical variation and the position of the pronoun to the finite verb and complementizer, I demonstrate that pronominal forms exhibit a remarkable degree of homogeneity. I argue that, in contrast to contexts of code-switching where speakers make use of more than one pronominal system, Cité Duits exhibits a rather regular pattern of language mixing in pronouns, yielding a stable paradigm with conventionalized forms on a mixed language basis. Accordingly, the use of these forms is no longer optional, which points towards a stabilized variety. The analysis is based on data from audio recordings (340 minutes) of spontaneous-like interactions collected by a method of sociolinguistic interview in 2012/13 and 2015/16.