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- Volume 16, Issue, 2016
Linguistic Variation - Volume 16, Issue 1, 2016
Volume 16, Issue 1, 2016
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Acquisition of a rural variety
Author(s): Julie Robertspp.: 12–33 (22)More LessGlottal stop is a widely reported phenomenon in the United Kingdom, but it has been rarely studied in the United States. The current study follows up on work on this feature in a wide age range of speakers in Vermont. Currently the speakers comprise thirty-six children ages 2;6 to 5 from this same location. In addition to demonstrating that these children have acquired the phonological constraints, as well as the full range of allophones of /t/, the results provide a lens through which to explore other issues of language acquisition and language variation, most notably, the boundary between dialectal and developmental variation. In general, it is argued that sociolinguistically conditioned variation adds empirical as well as theoretical value to studies of phonetically and phonologically conditioned variation and acquisition of the phonological system by first language learners.
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Identity, ideology, and attitude in Syrian rural child and adolescent speech
Author(s): Rania Habibpp.: 34–67 (34)More LessThrough ethnographic investigation, this study shows that the different linguistic behavior of girls and boys in the village of Oyoun Al-Wadi in Syria is due to gendered linguistic ideologies and attitudes that are utilized in different ways to project gendered (feminine or masculine) and spatial (local or supralocal) identities. Social meanings are gleaned from the naturally occurring speech of 72 speakers aged 6–18 and 29–57 to illuminate the ideologies and attitudes that result in inter- and intra-speaker variation between and among boys and girls and highlight the importance of both the community of practice and the speech community in investigating linguistic variation. The study also highlights the growth of the children’s sociolinguistic competence and their awareness from a very young age of the ideologies and attitudes that exist in their community and their capability to build on them. The results of this awareness are highly observed in preadolescents, particularly boys.
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Distributions of case allomorphy by multilingual children
Author(s): Carmel O'Shannessypp.: 68–102 (35)More LessWhen a new linguistic code emerges and stabilizes, what are the roles of children and adults in leading and consolidating the changes? This question lies at the intersection of child language acquisition and contact-induced language change. Adults and children have played different roles in the development of a new mixed code, Light Warlpiri, spoken in a Warlpiri community in northern Australia that arose from code-switching practices among bilinguals. Elements from typologically dissimilar languages are combined systematically in the new language, with verbal and nominal structures derived from different sources. Verbal morphology is from English/Kriol (which have fixed nominative-accusative word order patterns), with the addition of some innovations, probably brought in by speakers who were then children. Nominal case morphology is from Warlpiri (with ergative-absolutive case-marking, and flexible word order). But Light Warlpiri shows redistributions of case suffix allomorphy derived from Warlpiri. The paper shows the emerging case-marking patterns in Light Warlpiri, and tracks the roles played by children and adults in the changes.
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Third person singular -s and event marking in child African American English
Author(s): Brandi L. Newkirk-Turner and Lisa Greenpp.: 103–130 (28)More LessThis paper discusses 3rd person singular -s in the language of three- to six-year-old developing AAE speakers, in relation to early stages of zero 3rd person singular -s (Øs) and overt s marking. Data include a sentence repetition task and a story retell task. The speakers’ 3rd person singular -s and Øs marking are examined as a function of age, verb type, allomorph, and verb coordination. Analyses are presented to support the claim that the 3rd person singular marker -s is not part of the AAE grammar although children produce the marker in certain contexts. The speakers’ 3rd person singular -s and Øs marking are also discussed in relation to the optional root infinitive stage and the Multiple Grammars approach.
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Acquiring language from variable input
Author(s): Alison Henrypp.: 131–150 (20)More LessThisi paper considers the impact of morphosyntactic variation in the input on the language acquisition process. In particular, it studies the acquisition of variable subject-verb agreement and variable negative concord by children acquiring the Belfast dialect of English. It finds that, given variation in the input, children can acquire more than one grammatical variant, although both do not necessarily emerge at the same time in the case of negative concord, forms without negative concord emerge in the children’s language before the use of negative concord is used. It is also found that the proportion of each variant in a child’s output matches the proportion in the input they receive.
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A typology of Bantu subject inversion
Author(s): Lutz Marten and Jenneke van der Wal
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Unspeakable sentences
Author(s): Liliane Haegeman
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