Israeli Russian: Case morphology in a bilingual context

The current study investigates case morphology development in a bilingual context. It is aimed at investigating potential mechanisms driving divergences in heritage language grammars as compared to the baseline monolingual standards. For the purposes of the study, 95 bilingual and monolingual children and adults were compared. Bilinguals residing in Israel acquired Russian from birth, while the age of onset of Hebrew varied. The participants completed a production task eliciting accusative case inflections. Both child and adult heritage speakers of Russian with early age of onset of Hebrew (before the age of 5) showed divergences in the production of the accusative case inflections as compared to monolingual Russian-speaking controls (adult and child), whereas grammars of Israeli heritage Russian speakers with later ages of onset of Hebrew, after the age of 5, were found to be intact. On the basis of Russian in contact with Hebrew, the study discusses how heritage language grammars differ from the baseline grammars of monolingual speakers and which mechanisms are associated with heritage language ultimate attainment. The effects of the age of onset and cross-linguistic influence from the dominant societal language are discussed as potential factors affecting the acquisition / maintenance of linguistic phenomena in heritage language grammars.

Child Heritage Language Development: An Interplay Between Cross-Linguistic Influence and Language-External Factors

The current study investigated the mechanisms of heritage language (HL) development with a focus on case morphology. First, the effects of cross-linguistic influence (i.e., the influence of the properties of the societal language (SL) on the acquisition of the HL) was assessed by performing bilingual vs. monolingual, and between-bilingual group comparisons (Russian–Dutch vs. Russian–Hebrew bilinguals). Russian, Hebrew, and Dutch show differences in the marking of the accusative (ACC) and genitive (GEN) cases, and these differences were used as a basis for the evaluation of cross-linguistic influences. Second, the study evaluated the contribution of language-external factors such as chronological age, age of onset of bilingualism (AoO), languages spoken by the parent to the child (only HL, only SL, both HL and SL), and family language type (both parents are HL speakers, mixed families). Finally, we assessed how language-external factors might potentially mitigate the effects of cross-linguistic influences in bilinguals. Russian-Dutch bilinguals from the Netherlands (n = 39, MAGE = 5.1, SD = 0.8), Russian-Hebrew bilinguals from Israel (n = 36, MAGE = 4.9, SD = 0.9) and monolingual Russian-speaking children (n = 41, MAGE = 4.8, SD = 0.8), along with adult controls residing in the Russian Federation, participated in the study. The case production of ACC and GEN cases was evaluated using elicitation tasks. For the bilinguals, the background data on individual language-external factors were elicited from the participants. The results show that case morphology is challenging under HL acquisition—case acquisition in the HL is impeded under the influence of the properties of the SL. This is evident in the lower performance of both bilingual groups, compared with the monolingual controls who showed ceiling performance in the production of target inflection in the ACC and GEN contexts. More specifically, the acquisition of morphology is hindered when there are differences in the mapping of functional features (such as with Russian-Hebrew bilinguals) and/or the absence of this feature marking (such as with Russian-Dutch bilinguals). But the findings also point to the involvement of language-external factors as important mitigators of potential negative effects of cross-linguistic influence. In summary, HL development is an intricate interplay between cross-linguistic influence and language-external factors.

Case as an Anaphor Agreement Effect: Evidence from Inuktitut

The Anaphor Agreement Effect (AAE) is the cross-linguistic inability for anaphors to co-vary with Φ-agreement (Rizzi 1990; Woolford 1999), with languages making use of a variety of strategies that conspire to circumvent this effect. In this short paper, I identify and confirm a prediction arising from two previous observations by Woolford (1999) concerning the scope of the AAE, based on new evidence from Inuktitut (Eastern Canadian Inuit). I propose that anaphors in Inuktitut are lexically specified as projecting additional syntactic structure, spelled out as oblique case morphology; because Φ-Agree in Inuktitut may only target ERG and ABS arguments, encountering an anaphor inevitably leads to failed Agree in the sense of Preminger (2011, 2014). I moreover argue that this exact AAE pattern is previously unattested, yet is predicted to arise given the range of existing strategies. Finally, this paper provides evidence against previous detransitivization-based approaches to reflexivity in Inuktitut (e.g. Bok-Bennema 1991).

Typological Shift in Bilinguals’ L1: Word Order and Case Marking in Two Varieties of Child Quechua

We compare speech production and find morphosyntactic change among children and adolescents speaking two closely related varieties of Quechua in Cuzco, Peru, and Chuquisaca, Bolivia. Quechua languages traditionally employ Object-Verb (OV) word order in main clauses, but robust case marking permits other orders, especially to focalize new information through constituent fronting. In Chuquisaca, but not Cuzco, we find that schoolchildren often omit the accusative suffix -ta from direct objects while retaining a prosodic trace of -ta. In other varieties, loss of accusative marking is associated with a shift towards Verb-Object (VO) word order, as in Spanish. However, we find that Chuquisaqueños use more canonical OV and possessor-possessed order in declarative sentences than do Cuzqueños, who employ a wide range of word orders at the sentence level and deviate from the possessor-possessed norm for Quechua noun phrases. Our finding of more rigid word order in Chuquisaca highlights the complex factors contributing to typological shift in word order and morphology: Omission of case morphology places a greater burden on word order to identify grammatical roles. Further, we find that Chuquisaqueño schoolchildren alone have begun to use huk, “one,” to mark indefiniteness, perhaps to replace determiner-like functions ascribed to -ta and to obsolescent markers such as evidentials.

The Nominal Domain in Languages of the Caucasus

This chapter aims to address how Caucasian languages behave in terms of the dichotomy between noun phrases (NPs) and determiner phrases (DPs), dichotomy as specifically discussed in Bošković (2005, 2008, 2012). It uses comparative data from three Caucasian languages, namely, Laz, Abkhaz, and Kabardian. These three languages are chosen because typologically they make use of different strategies to express (in)definiteness. Abkhaz has definite and indefinite articles, while Pazar Laz is a language without articles. Kabardian, which also lacks articles, expresses definiteness and specificity through case morphology. Using Bošković’s own criteria, we show that, we shown that the NP/DP split is not enough to handle the differences among these languages. We propose that a new typology, one that allows for NP- and DP-languages as well as Kase Phrase (KP-) and null-DP-, languages is required to capture the properties of Abkhaz, Pazar Laz, and Kabardian. The chapter then discusses the implications of this new typology for the internal structures of the nominals in these three languages with a focus on what other functional projections are available and how they are ordered in the nominal domains.

The larva of Chaetopteryx rugulosa Kolenati 1848 (Trichoptera: Limnephilidae), with notes on ecology and zoogeography

This paper gives a description of the hitherto unknown larva of Chaetopteryx rugulosa Kolenati 1848 (Trichoptera: Limnephilidae). Information on the morphology of the larva is given, and the most important diagnostic features are figured. In the context of the known European Chaetopterygini and Stenophylacini species, the larva of C. rugulosa can be separated from morphologically close species by metanotal sclerite morphology, setation, the extension of the lateral fringe, and by case morphology.

A study on surface morphology and tension in laser powder bed fusion of Ti-6Al-4V

When reporting surface quality, the roughest surface is a reference for the measurements. In LPBF due to recoil pressure and scan movement, asymmetric surface is shaped, and surface roughness has different values in different measurement orientations. In this research, the influence of the laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) process parameters on surface tension and roughness of Ti-6AI-4 V parts in three orientations are investigated. To improve the mechanical properties, heat treatment was carried out and added to the designed matrix to generate a comprehensive data set. Taguchi design of experiment was employed to print 25 samples with five process parameters and post-processing. The effect and interaction of the parameters on the formation of surface profile comprising tension, morphology and roughness in various directions have been analysed. The main contribution of this paper is developing a model to approximate the melting pool temperature and surface tension based on the process parameters. Other contributions are an analysis of process parameters to determine the formation and variation of surface tension and roughness and explain the governing mechanisms through rheological phenomena. Results showed that the main driving factors in the variation of surface tension and formation of the surface profile are thermophysical properties of the feedstock, rheology and the temperature of the melting pool. Also, the results showed that while the value of surface tension is the same for each test case, morphology and the value of roughness are different when analysing the surface in perpendicular, parallel and angled directions to laser movement.

Adjacency and Case Morphology in Scottish Gaelic

Legate (2008) proposes that the postsyntactic component of the grammar plays an important role in morphological case phenomena. Therefore, it is predicted that postsyntactic processes like Linearization may affect morphological case assignment. I argue that this prediction is correct by demonstrating that prepositional case in Scottish Gaelic is assigned solely under linear adjacency with P. To account for this, I propose that Morphological Case Assignment is a postsyntactic process derivationally ordered after Linearization, as in Arregi and Nevins 2012 . This accounts for several typologically rare properties, such as the presence of closest conjunct case.