Yiddish–Lithuanian bilingualism: Incomplete acquisition, change through contacts, or both?

2020 ◽  
pp. 136700692093266
Author(s):  
Anna Verschik
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Change ◽  
First Language ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
L1 Acquisition ◽  
Significant Factors ◽  
Incomplete Acquisition

Aims and Objectives/Purposes/Research Questions: Studies on incomplete first language (L1) acquisition emphasize restricted input, the low prestige of heritage/immigrant/minority languages, and age of acquisition as significant factors contributing to changes in L1. However, it is not always clear whether it is possible to distinguish results of incomplete acquisition and contact-induced language change. This article deals with two Yiddish–Lithuanian bilinguals who acquired both languages at home (recorded in 2010 and 2011). The focus of the article is the absence of the Yiddish past tense auxiliary in both informants and the replacement of Yiddish discourse-pragmatic words by their Lithuanian or English equivalents in the speech of the second informant. Design/Methodology/Approach: Qualitative analysis of the speech of two Yiddish–Lithuanian bilinguals. Data and Analysis: Two sets of recordings analyzed for the past tense use and other features mentioned in Yiddish attrition studies. Findings/Conclusions: Restricted input is to be considered as a factor in any case. However, it is argued that phenomena reported in the heritage language literature are often the same as in the contact linguistic literature: impact on non-core morphosyntax, prosody, and word order are usually mentioned as primary candidates of contact-induced structural change. Based on purely linguistic phenomena, it is not possible to distinguish between the results of acquisition under the conditions of limited input and in other contact situations where limited input is not necessarily the case. Many features of the informants’ Yiddish are a result of Lithuanian impact. Originality: Yiddish–Lithuanian early bilingualism is extremely rare nowadays. The data and analysis contribute to a general understanding of the interplay between contact-induced language change and limited input. Significance/Implications: Unlike what is often presumed, it is not always possible to make comparisons to monolinguals or balanced bilinguals because monolingual speakers of Yiddish do not exist.

The speakers of minority languages are more multilingual

2021 ◽  
pp. 136700692110231
Author(s):  
Nina Dobrushina ◽  
George Moroz
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
First Language ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Community ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Research Questions

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The paper tests the hypothesis that the larger the population of language speakers, the smaller the number of second languages mastered by these speakers. Design/methodology/approach: We match the size of the population of 29 Dagestanian languages and the number of second languages spoken by the speakers of these languages from 54 villages, and run a Poisson mixed effects regression model that predicts the average number of second languages spoken by speakers from first-language communities of different size. Data and analysis: Data for this study comes from two sources. The information on the population of Dagestanian languages is based on the digitalized census of 1926. The information on the number of second languages in which the residents of Dagestan are proficient is taken from the database on multilingualism in Dagestan (4032 people). Findings/conclusions: The study supports the hypothesis that the size of language population is negatively correlated with the multilingualism of the language community. Originality: The paper is the first to test the correlation between the size of language population and the level of multilingualism of its speakers using statistical methods and a large body of empirical data. Significance and implications: Population size is a factor that could have influenced patterns of language evolution. The population is interrelated with other factors, one of which is long-standing multilingualism. The methodological lesson of this research is that there is a difference in the level of multilingualism within a range of populations where the largest was about 120,000 people. Limitations: The data is limited to one multilingual region. The revealed correlation probably does not hold for areas where language communities do not interact with their neighbors and even speakers of minority languages can be monolingual, or for the territories where many people migrated and the area where a language is spoken was discontinuous.

A Japanese child's use of stative and punctual verbs

1987 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary A. Cziko ◽  
Keiko Koda
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Process ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Early Use ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Present Progressive

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the use of stative, process, punctual, and non-punctual verbs by a child acquiring Japanese as a first language between the ages of 1;0 and 4;11 in an attempt to find evidence for two of Bickerton's (1981) proposed language acquisition universals, which form part of the language bioprogram hypothesis of language acquisition. As predicted by Bickerton's state-process hypothesis, it was found that all sampled present progressive verb forms occurred with process verbs while these forms were never used with stative verbs. Also, with only one exception, all omissions of present progressive forms occurred with the early use of ‘mixed’ verbs, i.e. verbs which behave syntactically as process verbs in Japanese but are nonetheless semantically stative. However, contrasting with Bickerton's hypothesis that children initially use the past tense to mark punctuality, no relationship between past tense use and punctuality was found.

scholarly journals What do Reviewers Look for in an Original Research Article?

2012 ◽  
Vol 52 (186) ◽  
Author(s):  
P Ravi Shankar
Keyword(s):  
First Language ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Scientific Journals ◽  
Original Research Article ◽  
Research Publication ◽  
Active Voice ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Mesh Database

In this article common errors committed by authors especially those, whose first language is not English, while writing an original research articleis described. Avoiding common errors and improving chances of publication has also been covered. This article may resemble instruction to the author. However, tips from reviewer’s eyes has been given. The abstract is the section of the paper most commonly read and care should be taken while writing  this section. Keywordsare usedto retrieve articles following searches and use of words from the MeSH database is recommended.The introduction describes work already conducted in the particular area and briefly mentions how the manuscript will add to the existing knowledge.The methods section describes how the study was conducted, is written in the past tense and is often the first part of the paper to be written. The results describe what was found in the study and is usually written after the methods section.The discussion compares the study with the literature and helps to put the study findings in context. The conclusions should be based on the results of the study. The references should be written strictly according to the journal format. Language should be simple, active voice should be used and jargon avoided. Avoid directly quoting from reference articles and paraphrase these in your own words to avoid plagiarism Keywords: Original research, publication, reviewer, scientific journals.

Looking for contact-induced language change: Converbs in heritage Turkish

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 1035-1048 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dilek Turan ◽  
Elena Antonova-Ünlü ◽  
Çiğdem Sağın-Şimşek ◽  
Mehmet Akkuş
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Picture Story ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Description Task ◽  
Qualitative Analyses

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The aim of the study is to contribute to the debate about a possible contact-induced change in the heritage language and to examine whether there is contact-induced language change at the morpho-syntactic level in Turkish spoken in Germany. We focus on the perception and use of the converbs –Ip and –IncA in heritage Turkish. Design/methodology/approach: The perception and production of the converbs –Ip and –IncA by 30 German–Turkish bilinguals, who were born and have resided in Germany, are compared with those of the control group. Data and analysis: Two tasks are used in the study: a grammaticality judgement task and a picture-story description task. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are utilized. Findings/conclusions: The analysis of the perception of the converbs by the participants revealed that the bilinguals’ perception of the grammatical constructions with –IncA and of the ungrammatical constructions with –Ip and –IncA differed significantly from that of the monolinguals; however, the perception of the grammatical constructions with –Ip was found to be similar between the bilingual and monolingual groups. The analysis of the production of the converbs by the bilingual participants showed that they tended to use the converbs significantly less than the monolingual control group did. The qualitative analysis of the production task also revealed that there were several cases in the use of the converbs that could be considered as ungrammatical and/or unconventional.

The role of ambiguity in second language change: the case of Mozambican African Portuguese

2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 325-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Perpétua Gonçalves
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Language Change ◽  
First Language ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
European Norm ◽  
L1 Acquisition ◽  
Parameter Values

In this article, my point of departure is that language change is driven by acquisition, and I argue that the triggers for establishing the properties of language-specific grammars differ according to whether first language (L1) or second language (L2) acquisition is involved. The reason for this is that in L2 acquisition evidence about the target grammar may be ambiguous in ways which do not occur in L1 acquisition. To illustrate the argument, I present two case studies of Mozambican African Portuguese, a nonnative variety of Portuguese acquired during childhood by L1 speakers of Bantu languages. These case studies show that strings generated by the grammar of European Portuguese may trigger ‘wrong/new’ parameter values which, although nonexistent in the original grammatical system, are perfectly legitimate from the point of view of the speakers’ L1 grammars. In both cases, although the new parameter settings (NPSs) are not convergent with the target grammar, resetting is blocked because the new parameter values successfully analyse the input. The nonresetting of the ‘wrong/new’ parameter values in the direction of the target European norm can be attributed to the social context of language acquisition, where the original European model is considerably diluted, and the surface effects they set off appear to be denser since the L2 speakers are in the majority.

scholarly journals Aspectual interpretation of early verb forms in German

2003 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 3-25
Author(s):  
Dagmar Bittner
Keyword(s):  
Past Tense ◽  
Early Form ◽  
Basic Category ◽  
Aspect Hypothesis ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
The Past ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
L1 Acquisition ◽  
Hierarchical Relation

In the present paper, I will argue that even in a language like German, where the verb system does not contain a grammaticized aspect distinction, aspectual features do underlie the early form-function-mapping of verb forms in L1-acquisition. Furthermore, it will be argued that it is not only past tense forms that may receive an aspectual interpretation in early child language but also other forms of the verbal input. In the case of German, these are the forms of the present tense paradigm and the past participle. Showing and discussing various piecesof evidence for this assumption should strengthen the "aspect before tense" or "primacy of aspect" hypothesis. In general, the paper aims at a deeper understanding of the hierarchical relation between tense and aspect whereby aspect is the basic category and, therefore, aspectual features are the inevitable starting point of the acquisition of grammar.  

scholarly journals Target Variation as a Contributing Factor in TAML2 Production

2021 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 39-51
Author(s):  
Paz González ◽  
Carmen Kleinherenbrink
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
First Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Study Program ◽  
Student Groups ◽  
The Past ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Past Tenses

This study aims to clarify whether variation in the target language can influence its acquisition. More specifically, this study describes the acquisition of Spanish as a second language (L2) by examining the learning process based on (a) the first language (L1) of the learner and (b) which Spanish dialect is being learnt (the target). The phenomenon under scrutiny is the use of past tenses in the L2, as it has been proven to adequately measure the competence of the learner. Data from two L2 at-home-classroom student groups in the Netherlands, divided by either a European or Latin American oriented study program, has been collected. The task that they have made is a written narrative that elicits past verb forms in hodiernal and prehodiernal contexts. Our data shows a clear distinction in the preference of the past tense forms that each of the groups has, that can only be explained by looking at the Spanish variety which both program offers

Intergenerational Transmission of Ladino: Three Generations of Speakers in the Twenty-First Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 70-91
Author(s):  
Bryan Kirschen
Keyword(s):  
Intergenerational Transmission ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
First Century ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Sephardic Jews ◽  
The Past ◽  
Three Generations ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
Research Questions

This study examines language socialization among five women of a single family who all speak Ladino, an endangered language spoken by Sephardic Jews. These women, ranging from 32-88 years of age, represent three generations raised in different countries and exposed to a number of languages, including Turkish, Hebrew, Ladino, Spanish, and English. Given the rarity of intergenerational transmission of Ladino over the past century, this study asks the following research questions: 1) how the women in this study have been able to preserve their heritage language, Ladino, in spite of contact with other languages, and 2) how said contact with other languages has affected their production of Ladino. To address these questions, each informant participated in a sociolinguistic interview and a lexical elicitation task. An analysis of data reveals the unique circumstances that have allowed for the grandmother’s relative monolingualism in Ladino, and the different trajectories the language has taken among subsequent generations. Despite relative stability vis-à-vis proficiency in Ladino, data indicate points of contact between Spanish and Ladino among the youngest informants who acquired both varieties simultaneously during childhood. This research was conducted in 2018 among informants in both (Florida) United States and (Bat Yam) Israel.

scholarly journals acquisition of tense-aspect morphology and the regular-irregular debate

2003 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 195-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasuhiro Shirai
Keyword(s):  
Past Tense ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Mechanism Model ◽  
The Past ◽  
Single Mechanism ◽  
Early Use ◽  
Irregular Verbs ◽  
Dual Mechanism ◽  
L1 Acquisition

This paper reviews research on English past-tense acquisition to test the validity of the single mechanism model and the dual mechanism model, focusing on regular-irregular dissociation and semantic bias. Based on the review, it is suggested that in L1 acquisition, both regular and irregular verbs are governed by semantics; that is, early use of past tense forms are restricted to achievement verbs—regular or irregular. In contrast, some L2 acquisition studies show stronger semantic bias for regular past tense forms (e.g., Housen, 2002, Rohde, 1996). It is argued that L1 acquisition of the past-tense morphology can be accounted for more adequately by the single-mechanism model.  

Preverbation and narrativity in Lithuanian. The distribution of finite simplex and compound verbs in narrative main clauses

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 167-192
Author(s):  
Lea Sawicki
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Text ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
The Past ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Compound Verbs ◽  
Finite Verb

The article deals with the use of simplex and compound (prefixed) verbs in narrative text. Main clauses comprising finite verb forms in the past and in the past habitual tense are examined in an attempt to establish to what extent simplex and compound verbs exhibit aspect oppositions, and whether a correlation exists between the occurrence of simplex vs. compound verbs and distinct textual units. The investigation shows that although simple and compound verbs in Lithuanian are not in direct aspect opposition to each other, in the background text portions most of the verbs are prefixless past tense forms or habitual forms, whereas in the plot-advancing text portions, the vast majority of verbs are compound verbs in the simple past tense.  

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