Doctoral Dissertation Research: Recovering Ergativity in Heritage Samoan

人类语言可以根据它们在句子中标记语法主语和宾语的方式分为两类。宾格语言，如英语、西班牙语和日语，标记主语和宾语；作格语言，如Kaqchikel，Inukitt和Samoan，标记及物动词的直接宾语，其方式与不及物动词的主语相同。作格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宾格语言，但宾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很晚的时候就获得了作格能力，这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，如果主要的社会语言是宾格，那么童年时母语是作格的传统说话者在作格方面尤其困难。因此，许多作格语言面临着失去这一决定性特征的危险。本论文项目调查了如何通过向传统萨摩亚人提供旨在增加他们作格知识的有针对性的协议来加强作格能力。该项目有助于我们了解人类语言的一个重要属性，即作格能力，以及一个庞大的(未得到充分研究的)学习群体，即讲遗产的人。它还加深了我们对太平洋的一种重要语言：萨摩亚语的理解。实验将由夏威夷大学的博士生Grant Mugututi&amp；a进行，三组学习者(母语学习者、二语学习者、二语学习者)将参与一系列针对词法作格(CASE)和句法作格(关系从句，wh疑问句)的实验。通过增加指令和测试之间的时间长度来测试恢复的作格能力的持久性。比较二语使用者和传统使用者的问题是，作格能力的提高是否归因于儿童作为(传统)儿童所获得的知识，而测试格、相对化和wh-问题则是研究形态作格能力是否转移到句法作格能力。

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.