Contact-induced grammaticalization

2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 366-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Matthews ◽  
Virginia Yip
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
First Language ◽  
Community Level ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Developmental Processes ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Substrate Influence ◽  
Grammatical Functions

It is widely acknowledged that developments in bilingual individuals parallel, and ultimately underlie, those taking place in the course of contact-induced change. In this paper we address the poorly understood relationship between the individual and community-level processes, focusing on the process of grammaticalization in circumstances of language contact and the corresponding developmental processes in bilingual acquisition. The phenomena chosen for discussion are drawn from Singapore Colloquial English (SCE) and from the Hong Kong Bilingual Corpus (Yip & Matthews 2000, 2007). Parallel developments in SCE and bilingual acquisition are analysed as cases of contact-induced grammaticalization as defined by Heine and Kuteva (2003; 2005), with some modifications. The emergence of already as a marker of aspect presents a case of ‘ordinary’ contact-induced grammaticalization, while the development of grammatical functions of give represents a case of replica grammaticalization. One implication of these findings is that bilingual first language acquisition is a possible route for substrate influence, both in general and specifically in the development of contact languages such as pidgins and creoles.

scholarly journals Unbalanced bilingual acquisition as a mechanism of grammatical change

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEPHEN MATTHEWS ◽  
VIRGINIA YIP
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Change ◽  
First Language ◽  
Community Level ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Grammatical Change ◽  
The Individual

Bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA) has been considered a possible mechanism of contact-induced change in several recent studies (Siegel, 2008, p. 117; Satterfield, 2005, p. 2075; Thomason, 2001, p. 148; Yip & Matthews, 2007, p.15). There is as yet little consensus on the question, with divergent views regarding both BFLA at the individual level and the implications for language change at the community level.

Bilingual first language acquisition at the interface between syntax and pragmatics

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 52-78
Author(s):  
Natascha Müller
Keyword(s):  
Computational Complexity ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Complex Analysis ◽  
First Language ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Fluency ◽  
Language Mixing ◽  
Crosslinguistic Influence

The present article provides an overview of some recent research in bilingual first language acquisition with special reference to Romance languages. It addresses two language contact phenomena, language mixing at the lexical level and crosslinguistic influence at the syntactic level. For both contact phenomena, there is evidence that they are unrelated to language dominance (as measured in terms of MLU). Language mixing is negatively correlated with the number of utterances per minute, a measure for language fluency. Cross-linguistic influence at the syntactic level is due to computational complexity which is caused for example by the invasive interplay of pragmatics and syntax. This kind of interplay will be discussed on the basis of the presence or absence of the null-subject property, comparing Italian and German, and by studying the presence or absence of object clitics, comparing French and German. Since cross-linguistic influence affects bilingual individuals to different degrees (sometimes referred to as individual variation), we discuss the assumption that the degree to which the influence manifests itself differs as a function of fluency (measured in words produced per minute). The more fluent the child is in the language with the computationally complex analysis, the less the effect of cross-linguistic influence. In sum, the language which exhibits influence is determined by computational complexity as defined, for example, by the invasive interplay between pragmatics and syntax. The degree of manifestation of the influence depends on fluency in the computationally complex language.

Sandwich EPP hypothesis: Evidence from child Finnish

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pauli Brattico ◽  
Taija Saikkonen
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Determiner Phrases ◽  
Grammatical Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
T System

It is well-known that grammatical movement is somehow linked to functional heads. There is less agreement on the excact nature of this correlation. According to one view, phrases are moved to the specifier positions of functional heads because functional heads attract them. According to another view, movement is not triggered by functional heads alone, but depends on the larger grammatical context. For instance, one such proposal says that T (tense) becomes attractive only when selected by finite C (complementizer), while V becomes attractive when selected by v* (transitivizer). What attracts phrases are therefore the C–T system and the v*–V system as a whole, not the individual functional heads; moved phrases are then sandwitched between the two heads. In this article, we present evidence in favor of this view by looking at first language acquisition. The data shows that in child Finnish, subject determiner phrases (DPs) move into the position of grammatical subject if and only if the full complementizer system has matured. Movement to the (Spec, TP) subject position therefore depends on the presence of C.

Infant-Directed Speech Effects in Adult Artificial Grammar Learning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krisztina Sára Lukics ◽  
Ágnes Lukács
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
Artificial Grammar ◽  
Combined Effect ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Grammar Learning ◽  
Learning Rates

First language acquisition is facilitated by several characteristics of infant-directed speech, but we know little about their relative contribution to learning different aspects of language. We investigated infant-directed speech effects on the acquisition of a linear artificial grammar in two experiments. We examined the effect of incremental presentation of strings (starting small) and prosody (comparing monotonous, arbitrary and phrase prosody). Presenting shorter strings before longer ones led to higher learning rates compared to random presentation. Prosody marking phrases had a similar effect, yet, prosody without marking syntactic units did not facilitate learning. These studies were the first to test the starting small effect with a linear artificial grammar, and also the first to investigate the combined effect of starting small and prosody. Our results suggest that starting small and prosody facilitate the extraction of regularities from artificial linguistic stimuli, indicating they may play an important role in natural language acquisition.

Acquiring “Knowledge”—An Alternative Model

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avner Baz
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
First Language ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Method Of Cases ◽  
Striking Fact

The chapter argues that empirical studies of first-language acquisition lend support to the Wittgensteinian-Merleau-Pontian conception of language as against the prevailing conception that underwrites the method of cases in either its armchair or experimental version. It offers a non-representationalist model, inspired by the work of Michael Tomasello, for the acquisition of “knowledge,” with the aim of showing that we could fully account for the acquisition of this and other philosophically troublesome words without positing independently existing “items” to which these words refer. The chapter also aims at bringing out and underscoring the striking fact that, whereas many in contemporary analytic philosophy regard and present themselves as open and attentive to empirical science, they have often relied on a conception of language that has been supported by no empirical evidence.

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