Linguistic Interference and Convergent Change


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No detailed description available for "Linguistic Interference and Convergent Change".




Quechua-Spanish Bilingualism


Book Description

This book addresses how cross-linguistic interference is represented in the bilingual mind. Examining novel oral production data from older bilingual children representing two Quechua varieties, this research concludes that interference in the feature specification of functional categories leads to language change in a language contact situation, and links convergence, a common set of feature values for the same functional category in both languages to the activation of features related to the informational structure of the sentence. These mechanisms are illustrated in detail by the presence of overt determiners, canonical SVO word order and the absence of accusative marking in bilingual Quechua and by neutralization of case and gender distinctions in direct object pronouns as well as in the emergence of null pronouns with definite antecedents in bilingual Spanish.




Transfer and Interference in Language


Book Description

The topic of this bibliography in its broadest sense is the subject of a wide range of academic disciplines. Given these circumstances, the particular associations and connotations of the terms ‘transfer’ and ‘interference’ in each of these areas are legion, with resultant differences in meaning in the disparate literature on these subjects. And yet it is, in one way or another, contact and interaction of languages in the speaker/hearer and learner, in language acquisition contexts, as well as in society in general, which is basic to these two concepts throughout the various disciplines. The discovery of this basic unitary notion is surely one of the reasons for the new interest in these phenomena. In light of all this, a bibliography cannot at present avoid being highly/ selective in order to demarcate an interdisciplinary area of research in its own right and with its own status. The establishment of such an area is one of our main aims. The focus of interest in this bibliography, admittedly, is directed towards the psycholinguistics of language contact and interaction.




Historical Romance Linguistics


Book Description

This volume contains 17 studies on historical Romance linguistics within a variety of current theoretical frameworks; it includes studies on phonology, morphology and syntax, focusing solely or comparatively on all five 'major' Romance languages: French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish. An introduction by the eminent Romance Linguist Jürgen Klausenburger addresses the fit of these studies in the overall development of the field of historical Romance linguistics since the 19th century. The studies in this volume demonstrate an organic link between Malkiel's (1961) 'classic' definition of Romance linguistics and the field of Romance linguistics today, because just as scholars of the field in the 19th century successfully applied the dominant paradigm of (historical) linguistics of their time, Neogrammarian theory, so do the authors contained in the present volume avail themselves of current linguistic advances to achieve equally significant results.




The Handbook of Historical Linguistics


Book Description

The Handbook of Historical Linguistics provides a detailed account of the numerous issues, methods, and results that characterize current work in historical linguistics, the area of linguistics most directly concerned with language change as well as past language states. Contains an extensive introduction that places the study of historical linguistics in its proper context within linguistics and the historical sciences in general Covers the methodology of historical linguistics and presents sophisticated overviews of the principles governing phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic change Includes contributions from the leading specialists in the field




Convergence and Divergence in Language Contact Situations


Book Description

This book deals with the consequences of converging and diverging processes and their development in language contact situations. It provides insights into the various forms of language contact and the conditions under which bilingual speakers master their every-day life in bilingual communities. Its nine contributions cover both theoretical and typological aspects, such as the classification of languages, the role of language contact, linguistic complexity and spontaneous speech innovations, and convergence and divergence processes in translation, (morpho)syntax and phonology/phonetics. Taken together, these studies provide challenges for linguistic theories that generalize from situations of monolingualism suggesting instead that a sound linguistic theory cannot be a theory for just one single, isolated language but must be a theory for at least two languages. It must also account for the fact that some structures involved in contact situations are not kept apart but develop in such a way that the distance decreases between the languages involved.




Continuity and Change in Grammar


Book Description

One of the principal challenges of historical linguistics is to explain the "causes" of language change. Any such explanation, however, must also address the actuation problem: why is it that changes occurring in a given language at a certain time cannot be reliably predicted to recur in other languages, under apparently similar conditions? The sixteen contributions to the present volume each aim to elucidate various aspects of this problem, including: What processes can be identified as the drivers of change? How central are syntax-external (phonological, lexical or contact-based) factors in triggering syntactic change? And how can all of these factors be reconciled with the actuation problem? Exploring data from a wide range of languages from both a formal and a functional perspective, this book promises to be of interest to advanced students and researchers in historical linguistics, syntax and their intersection."




Contact Linguistics


Book Description

'Contact linguistics' provides an account of contact outcome theories, including the author's own. It has coursebook potential for advanced undergraduates and graduates.




Studies in Language


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