The Universal Consistency Hypothesis and the Prediction of Word Order Acquisition Stages in the Speech of Bilingual Children

Language ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Lujan ◽  
Liliana Minaya ◽  
David Sankoff
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Universal Consistency

scholarly journals The Development of Subject Position in Dutch-Dominant Heritage Speakers of Spanish: From Age 9 to Adulthood

Languages ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
van Osch ◽  
García González ◽  
Hulk ◽  
Sleeman ◽  
Aalberse
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Heritage Speakers Of Spanish ◽  
Language Literature

This exploratory study investigates the knowledge of word order in intransitive sentences by heritage speakers of Spanish of different age groups: 9-year-olds, 13-year-olds and adults. In doing so, we aim to fill a gap in the heritage language literature, which, to date, has mainly focused on adult heritage speakers and preschool bilingual children. The results from a judgment task reveal that child- and adolescent heritage speakers do not entirely resemble monolingual age-matched children in the acquisition of subjects in Spanish, nor do they assimilate adult heritage speakers. The data suggest that several different processes can occur simultaneously in the acquisition of word order in heritage speakers: monolingual-like acquisition, delayed acquisition, and attrition. An analysis of the influence of extraneous variables suggests that most of these effects are likely to be the consequence of quantitatively reduced input in the heritage language and increased input in the majority language.

scholarly journals REANALYSIS IN ADULT HERITAGE LANGUAGE

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Polinsky
Keyword(s):  
Life Span ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Child Language ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
English Dominant

This study presents and analyzes the comprehension of relative clauses in child and adult speakers of Russian, comparing monolingual controls with Russian heritage speakers (HSs) who are English-dominant. Monolingual and bilingual children demonstrate full adultlike mastery of relative clauses. Adult HSs, however, are significantly different from the monolingual adult controls and from the child HS group. This divergent performance indicates that the adult heritage grammar is not a product of the fossilization of child language. Instead, it suggests that forms existing in the baseline undergo gradual attrition over the life span of a HS. This result is consistent with observations on narrative structure in child and adult HSs (Polinsky, 2008b). Evidence from word order facts suggests that relative clause reanalysis in adult HSs cannot be attributed to transfer from English.

Clitic placement in Spanish–English bilingual children

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANA TERESA PÉREZ-LEROUX ◽  
ALEJANDRO CUZA ◽  
DANIELLE THOMAS
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Elicited Imitation ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Clitic Placement

Can transfer occur in child bilingual syntax when surface overlap does not involve the syntax-pragmatics interface? Twenty-three Spanish/English bilingual children participated in an elicited imitation study of clitic placement in Spanish restructuring contexts, where variable word order is not associated with pragmatic or semantic factors. Bilingual children performed poorly with preverbal clitics, the order that does not overlap with English. Distinct bilingual patterns emerged: backward repositioning, omissions (for simultaneous bilinguals) and a reduction in forward repositioning bias. We conclude that transfer should be defined in lexical terms as the result of priming effects leading to shifts in lexical items.

The combination of words in compound nouns by Spanish-Japanese bilingual children: Transfers in unambiguous structure

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 256-274
Author(s):  
Aya Kutsuki
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Research Subjects ◽  
Compound Nouns ◽  
Nominal Compounds ◽  
Linguistic Transfer

Aims and Objectives: The current study’s aim was to test the ambiguity and dominance theories of transfer by examining compound noun production and comprehension by bilinguals acquiring Spanish and Japanese, as the word order of nominal compounds in these languages is always reversed, making them grammatically and theoretically unambiguous. Methodology: Ten Spanish-Japanese bilingual preschoolers completed production and comprehension elicitation tasks. Data and Analysis: The research subjects’ reversal rates were compared with those of age- and vocabulary-matched Japanese monolinguals. Findings/Conclusions: The results demonstrate that transfers occur from Spanish to Japanese in both production and comprehension, and that there are no dominance effects on the degree of cross-linguistic influence. Originality: There have been no previous studies on cross-linguistic transfer in Spanish-Japanese bilingual children. Significance/Implications: Transfer and directionality are not affected by relative vocabulary level; the concept of dominance should be (re)considered carefully especially for young bilinguals whose language inputs are greatly imbalanced and variable. Moreover, what is considered grammatically unambiguous by adults may be ambiguous for children acquiring such knowledge bilingually, which raises the need to consider structures in both languages as affecting the acquisition of language in young bilinguals.

Object–verb and verb–object in Basque and Spanish monolinguals and bilinguals

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andoni Barreña ◽  
Margareta Almgren
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Everyday Language ◽  
Formal Instruction ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Preschool Setting

The aim of this article is to analyse the acquisition of object–verb/verb–object word order in Spanish and Basque by monolinguals (L1), early simultaneous bilinguals (2L1) and successive bilinguals, exposed to their second language before ages 5–6 (child L2). In this study, the second language (child L2) is acquired naturalistically, in a preschool setting with no formal instruction for the Basque L2 speakers and by environmental contact for the Spanish L2 speakers. Spanish and Basque are differentiated by their canonical word order as subject–verb–object and subject–object–verb, respectively. In Spanish, the subject–verb–object order is predominant (almost exclusive) in narrative contexts, whereas in Basque, both object–verb and verb–object word orders are possible in these contexts for pragmatic reasons, with a similar use in everyday language. The productions of a few L1 and 2L1 subjects are analysed longitudinally within the 1;06–3;00 age span. Cross-sectional data from 49 subjects who developed a child L2 are analysed at ages 5 and 8. The results reveal that the bilingual children apply the same syntactic patterns as the monolinguals in their respective languages independently of 2L1 or child L2 acquisition.

Cross-linguistic influence in word order

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Jasmijn Esther Bosch ◽  
Sharon Unsworth
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Quantitative Difference ◽  
Qualitative Difference ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Language Dominance ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Versus Main ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

Abstract The present study investigated cross-linguistic influence (CLI) in the word order of Dutch-English bilingual children, using elicited production and acceptability judgment tasks. The goal was to examine whether monolingual and bilingual children produced and/or accepted V2 word orders in English, as in * Yesterday painted she an apple. We investigated whether the likelihood of CLI was related to language dominance, age at testing, and the degree of surface overlap (i.e., V2 word orders with auxiliaries versus main verbs). Even though none of the participants produced V2 word orders in English, in the acceptability judgment task bilingual children were more likely to accept V2 word orders than monolingual peers. Whilst monolinguals sometimes accepted V2 word orders with auxiliaries, bilinguals did so significantly more often (constituting a quantitative difference) and with main verbs, too (implying a qualitative difference). Therefore, we conclude that CLI can occur independently of surface overlap and that it can lead to both quantitative and qualitative differences between bilinguals and monolinguals. The likelihood of CLI was predicted by language dominance, but not by age. Some bilinguals still accepted V2 word orders at age ten, suggesting that in some cases CLI may be more persistent than previously thought.

Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous Cantonese–English bilingual children's comprehension of relative clauses

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 438-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
EVAN KIDD ◽  
ANGEL CHAN ◽  
JOIE CHIU
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Error Analyses ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Subject And Object

The current study investigated the role of cross-linguistic influence in Cantonese–English bilingual children's comprehension of subject- and object-extracted relative clauses (RCs). Twenty simultaneous Cantonese–English bilingual children (Mage= 8;11, SD = 2;6) and 20 vocabulary-matched Cantonese monolingual children (Mage= 6;4, SD = 1;3) completed a test of Cantonese RC comprehension. The bilingual children also completed a test of English RC comprehension. The results showed that, whereas the monolingual children were equally competent on subject and object RCs, the bilingual children performed significantly better on subject RCs. Error analyses suggested that the bilingual children were most often correctly assigning thematic roles in object RCs, but were incorrectly choosing the RC subject as the head referent. This pervasive error was interpreted to be due to the fact that both Cantonese and English have canonical SVO word order, which creates competition with structures that compete with an object RC analysis.

Processing strategies used by Basque-French bilingual and Basque monolingual children for the production of the subject-agent in Basque

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 514-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Duguine ◽  
Barbara Köpke
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Competition Model ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Cue Validity ◽  
Processing Strategies ◽  
Case Marker ◽  
Different Ages ◽  
The Subject

Abstract We sought to describe the strategies used by 2L1 and L2 Basque-French bilingual children and monolingual Basque children to express subject-agent function in a free elicitation context in Basque. Based on a three-year longitudinal study, the analysis focused on transitive constructions requiring a subject-agent noun marked for ergative case. The results showed that the children mastered production of the ergative case marker at different ages, and used different psycholinguistic strategies to refer to the subject-agent. The majority of the bilingual children favoured topological strategy (i.e., marking of the subject-agent in the first position through subject-verb-object word order). However, the children with L1 Basque seemed to engage more in morphological strategy, through the use of the nominal ergative suffix. These data allowed us to discuss variations in the performance of bilingual children in light of the cue cost and cue validity concepts elaborated by the Competition Model applied to language production.

Comparing error frequencies in monolingual and bilingual acquisition

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 173-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNICK DE HOUWER
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
The Other ◽  
Functional Category ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Basic Argument

Natascha Müller's article concerns the acquisition of word order in German subclauses by young bilingual children. Müller's basic argument as I understand it runs as follows:(1) In the acquisition of word order in German subclauses some children make errors and others do not;(2) there are some monolingual and some bilingual children who do not make errors;(3) there are some monolingual and some bilingual children who do make errors, and the errors are qualitatively similar for monolingual and bilingual children;(4) when children do make errors, they occur more frequently in bilingual than in monolingual children;(5) the errors in both monolingual and bilingual children are due to the misprojection of a separate functional category;(6) in addition, the errors in bilingual children (but not in monolingual children) are due to influence from the other language they are simultaneously acquiring. The reason for positing this is that bilingual children's errors are more frequent than monolingual children's errors.

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