Doctoral Dissertation Research: Recovering Ergativity in Heritage Samoan

人类语言可以分为两类，根据它们如何标记句子中的语法主语和宾语。英语、西班牙语和日语等主格语言将主语与宾语区分开来; Kaqchikel、Inuktitut和萨摩亚语等作格语言将及物动词的直接宾语标记为不及物动词的主语。作格性被认为是语言的一个脆弱特征，因为作格语言可能会失去作格标记而成为作格语言，但作格语言很少成为作格语言。这种转变的发生是因为儿童在童年时期获得作格能力的时间相当晚，使得作格能力容易丧失。第二语言学习者在这方面有很大的困难，如果社会语言是作格，那么童年家庭语言是作格的传统语言使用者在作格方面会有特别的困难。因此，许多作格语言都有失去这一定义性特征的危险。本论文项目研究如何作格可能会加强遗产萨摩亚发言人的头脑中提出了一个有针对性的协议，旨在增加他们的知识作格。这个项目有助于我们理解人类语言的一个重要但研究不足的属性，作格性，以及大量（和研究不足）的学习人口，即遗产发言人。它还加深了我们对太平洋重要语言：萨摩亚语的了解。该研究方案和结果将对语言教学法产生重要影响，这些语言的目标语言具有脆弱的语法特征，如作格性&。a，一名夏威夷大学的博士生，并将涉及三组学习者（native，heritage，L2）在一系列实验中，针对形态作格和句法作格（关系从句，wh疑问句）在理解和产生中的作用。恢复的作格的持久性测试通过增加指令和测试之间的时间长度。比较L2扬声器和遗产扬声器地址是否在作格的增加是由于获得的知识（遗产）儿童，而测试情况下，相对化和wh-问题地址是否形态作格转换为句法作格。

Human languages can be split into two groups based upon how they mark the grammatical subject and object in a sentence. Accusative languages like English, Spanish and Japanese mark subjects distinctly from objects; ergative languages like Kaqchikel, Inuktitut and Samoan mark the direct object of a transitive verb in the same way as the subject of an intransitive verb. Ergativity is thought to be a fragile feature of language since ergative languages may lose their ergative marking and become accusative languages, but accusative languages rarely become ergative. This shift occurs because children acquire ergativity quite late in childhood, making ergativity susceptible to loss. Second language (L2) learners have great difficulty with it, and heritage speakers whose childhood home language is ergative have particular difficulty with ergativity if the dominant societal language is accusative. Thus many ergative languages are in danger of losing this defining characteristic. This dissertation project investigates how ergativity might be strengthened in the minds of heritage Samoan speakers by presenting them with a targeted protocol designed to increase their knowledge of ergativity. This project contributes to our understanding of an important though understudied property of human language, ergativity, as well as a large (and understudied) learning population, namely heritage speakers. It also furthers our understanding of an important language of the Pacific: Samoan. The research protocol and results will have important implications for language pedagogy that target languages with fragile grammatical features such as ergativity.The experiments will be conducted by Grant Muagututiʻa, a doctoral student at the University of Hawaii, and will involve three groups of learners (native, heritage, L2) in a series of experiments targeting morphological ergativity (case) and syntactic ergativity (relative clauses, wh-questions) in both comprehension and production. The durability of the recovered ergativity is tested by increasing the length of time between instruction and testing. Comparing L2 speakers and heritage speakers addresses whether the increase in ergativity is attributable to knowledge gained as (heritage) children, while testing case, relativization and wh-questions addresses whether morphological ergativity transfers to syntactic ergativity.