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- Volume 2, Issue, 2012
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism - Volume 2, Issue 4, 2012
Volume 2, Issue 4, 2012
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Code-switching between an OV and a VO language: Evidence from German–Italian, German–French and German–Spanish children
Author(s): Veronika Jansen, Jasmin Müller and Natascha Müllerpp.: 337–378 (42)More LessThe present article investigates intra-sentential code-switching in French/Italian/Spanish-German bilingual children. The main question is what determines the syntax of code-switching in OV/VO structures and subordinate clauses. While in the domain of OV/VO, neither the language of the lexical verb nor that of the modal/auxiliary verb determines the structure of code-switched utterances, the complementizer seems to be decisive for the syntax of code-switching in subordinate clauses. The present approach focuses on the relevance of the functional head C in code-switching, claiming that the syntax of code-switched OV/VO structures is influenced by the language of a (covert) C-head, while it does not depend on the language of T or V. Our approach can explain the variability of OV/VO in code-switching data and supports the observations by Belazi, Rubin, and Toribio (1994), Cantone (2007), Chan (2003; 2007), and González-Vilbazo and López (2012) that functional categories play an important role for the syntax of code-switching.
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Knowing versus producing: The acquisition of grammatical gender and the definite determiner in Dutch by L1-TD, L1-SLI, and eL2 children
Author(s): Brigitta Keij, Leonie M.E.A. Cornips, Roeland van Hout, Aafke Hulk and Joanne van Emmerikpp.: 379–403 (25)More LessDutch nouns are divided into two groups according to grammatical gender which is, among others, marked on the definite determiner: common nouns take the definite determiner de and neuter nouns take the definite determiner het. This study is unique in systematically investigating the acquisition of grammatical gender and the definite determiner in the production and knowledge data of the same Dutch children. Three groups of children were examined: (i) typically developing monolinguals (L1-TD: 6;7–9;11), (ii) monolinguals with Specific Language Impairment (L1-SLI: 8;4–12;0), and (iii) typically developing bilinguals, who are early second language learners (eL2: 6;7–10;0). The three groups of children reveal different stages in discovering that de and het cover the gender paradigm. At comparable ages, the L1-TD children have completed this paradigm discovery; however, the eL2 children have not yet completed it, and the L1-SLI children are only at the first stage of the discovery of the gender paradigm.
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Knowledge of English verb phrase ellipsis by speakers of Arabic and Chinese
Author(s): Roger Hawkinspp.: 404–438 (35)More LessEnglish verb phrase ellipsis (VPE) involves both syntactic and discourse information. The present study investigates knowledge of these properties by L1 speakers of Arabic and Mandarin Chinese. Three issues are addressed. Can the participants acquire syntactic properties of VPE that differ from their L1s and are under-determined by positive evidence? Can they acquire all of the syntactic properties of VPE that differ from their L1s? Can they successfully integrate their knowledge of the syntax of VPE with discourse information determining felicity? Results from a sentence completion judgement task are broadly consistent with the L2 participants having Universal Grammar (UG)-constrained grammars for VPE, and with their being able to successfully integrate syntactic representations with discourse information. A persistent problem with an uninterpretable feature is discussed, as are the implications of the findings for the claim that VPE involves gradient grammaticality.
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The phonetics of insertional code-switching: Suprasegmental analysis and a case for hyper-articulation
Author(s): Daniel Olsonpp.: 439–457 (19)More LessThis study investigates the phonetic production of Spanish-English insertional code-switches, constituents of an embedded language inserted within a discourse of a matrix language. While previous research on the phonetics of code-switching has focused exclusively on the segmental properties, the current study provides a detailed examination of the suprasegmental features of code-switched tokens, including pitch height and duration. Code-switched productions are compared with non-code-switched tokens, and results indicate that insertional code-switched tokens are produced with a degree of hyper-articulation, evidenced by an increase in pitch height and duration. The results are discussed within Hyper- and Hypo-articulation Theory, drawing on the notion of a decreased local probability incurred by insertional code-switches.
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