Morphosyntax and word order in majority English across heritage speakers

大多数英语传统使用者的形态句法和词序

• 批准号: 394837597
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Shanley Allen
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Fachgebiet Psycholinguistik und Sprachentwicklung
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Units
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2017-12-31 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/394837597?language=en
• 关键词: Morphosyntax; word; order; majority; English

In this project, we investigate novel grammatical patterns in the majority English productions of heritage speakers of German, Greek, Russian, and Turkish living in the U.S. We focus on the use of noncanonical morphosyntax and word order, highlighting structures relevant to internal interfaces and external interfaces. In the domain of morphosyntax, we explore grammatical morphology (internal interface between syntax and morphology) and referent introduction (external interface between syntax and information structure). In the domain of word order, we explore verb placement with respect to the direct object (internal interface between syntax and morphology) and the fronting of arguments to the left periphery of the clause (external interface between syntax and information structure). Consistent with RUEG’s overarching approach, we assess the impact of both register (informal vs. formal; spoken vs. written) and age (child, adolescent, adult). We further attempt to tease apart whether novel patterns are due to cross-linguistic influence from a particular heritage language, or rather are due to language contact in general, by performing three types of comparisons in collaboration with other RUEG projects: a comparison of patterns in majority English across the four heritage groups (German, Greek, Russian, Turkish), a comparison of patterns between majority English and majority German for the same heritage populations (Greek, Russian, Turkish), and a comparison of patterns in majority English with the corresponding patterns in each of the heritage languages. For Russian heritage speakers, we additionally compare the non-canonical use of word order vs. prosody to convey information structure, in cooperation with P7. To the extent possible, we also compare our results with parallel results from the literature on L2 English as spoken by L1 speakers of German, Greek, Russian, and Turkish. In sum, our results will contribute to our understanding of the contact-linguistic status of non-canonical patterns in the majority English of heritage speakers, the sources of their development, and their position within speakers’ broader repertoires of languages and registers.

在这个项目中，我们研究了生活在美国的德语、希腊语、俄语和土耳其语传统使用者的大多数英语作品中的新语法模式。我们重点关注非规范形态语法和词序的使用，突出了与内部接口和外部接口相关的结构。在形态句法领域，我们探索语法形态（语法与形态的内部接口）和指称引入（语法与信息结构的外部接口）。在词序领域，我们探索了动词在直接宾语方面的位置（语法和形态学之间的内部接口）和参数在子句左边缘的前面（语法和信息结构之间的外部接口）。与RUEG的总体方法一致，我们评估了语域（非正式与正式；口语与书面）和年龄（儿童，青少年，成人）的影响。通过与其他RUEG项目合作进行三种类型的比较，我们进一步试图梳理出新颖模式是由于特定传统语言的跨语言影响，还是由于一般的语言接触：比较四个文化遗产群体（德语、希腊语、俄语、土耳其语）中英语占多数的模式，比较相同文化遗产群体（希腊语、俄语、土耳其语）中英语占多数和德语占多数的模式，以及比较英语占多数的模式与每种文化遗产语言中相应的模式。对于俄语传统使用者，我们还与P7合作比较了非规范使用词序和韵律来传达信息结构。在可能的范围内，我们还将我们的结果与关于德语、希腊语、俄语和土耳其语母语者所说的第二语言英语的文献的平行结果进行了比较。总之，我们的研究结果将有助于我们理解非规范模式在大多数传统英语使用者中的接触语言地位，它们的发展来源，以及它们在说话者更广泛的语言和语域中的地位。