The Role of Defaults in the Acquisition of Basque Ergative and Dative Morphology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Austin
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Child Language ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Child Language Acquisition

The use of default agreement plays a key role in morphological theories from diverse perspectives, as well as in many analyses of child language acquisition. In this paper, the development of ergative and dative agreement and case in 20 bilingual and 11 monolingual Basque-speaking children between 2;00-3;06 years old is examined. I propose that the most commonly-produced errors in child Basque involve the substitution of unmarked absolutive forms for ergative and dative case and dative verbal morphemes; for independent reasons, the absolutive is considered to be unmarked inflection in adult Basque (Arregi and Nevins, 2012). These errors suggest that in early stages of morphological acquisition, children learning Basque use default forms which encode a subset of the morphemes as a “best match” to support their developing language when they are unable to produce or retrieve target forms.

scholarly journals Acquisition, Loss and Innovation in Chuquisaca Quechua—What Happened to Evidential Marking?

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 76
Author(s):  
Susan E. Kalt
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Child Language ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
Reverse Order ◽  
Related Variety ◽  
Child Language Acquisition ◽  
Statistical Studies ◽  
L1 And L2

Variation among closely related languages may reveal the inner workings of language acquisition, loss and innovation. This study of the existing literature and of selected interviews from recent narrative corpora compares the marking of evidentiality and epistemic modality in Chuquisaca, Bolivian Quechua with its closely related variety in Cuzco, Peru and investigates three hypotheses: that morpho-syntactic attrition proceeds in reverse order of child language acquisition, that convergence characterizes the emergence of grammatical forms different from L1 and L2 in contact situations, and that the Quechua languages are undergoing typological shift toward more isolating morphology. It appears that reportive -sis disappeared first in Bolivia, with eyewitness/validator -min retaining only the validator function. This finding seems to concord with reverse acquisition since it has previously been claimed that epistemic marking is acquired earlier than evidential marking in Cuzco. Meanwhile, Spanish and Quechua in nearby Cochabamba are claimed to mark reportive evidentiality via freestanding verbs of saying. I explore the reportive use of ñiy ‘to say’ in Chuquisaca as compared to Cochabamba and Cuzco and suggest the need for comparative statistical studies of evidential and epistemic marking in Southern Quechua.

Women in the history of linguistics

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Wendy Ayres-Bennett ◽  
Helena Sanson
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Central Section ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
History Of Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Of Women

This Introduction outlines the need for a ‘true history’ (Lerner 1976) of the role of women in the history of linguistics, which considers them on their own terms, and challenges categories and concepts devised for traditional male-dominated accounts. We start by considering what research has already been conducted in the field, before exploring some of the reasons for the relative dearth of studies. We outline some of the challenges and opportunities encountered by women who wished to study the nature of language and languages in the past. The geographical and chronological scope of this volume is then discussed. In a central section we examine some of the major recurring themes in the volume. These include attitudes towards women’s language, both positive and negative; women and language acquisition and teaching; and women as creators of new languages and scripts. We further explore women as authors, dedicatees, or intended readers of metalinguistic texts, as interpreters and translators, and as contributors to the linguistic documentation and maintenance. We consider how women supported male relatives and colleagues in their endeavours, sometimes in invisible ways, before reviewing the early stages of their entry into institutionalized contexts. The chapter concludes with a brief section on future directions for research.

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