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This volume explores a wide range of structural phenomena in typologically diverse heritage languages using current Minimalist theoretical approaches. Heritage languages have been the focus of extensive research in the last three decades; by virtue of their inherent diversity stemming from initial learning conditions, they pose significant challenges to traditional methods of linguistic description that rely on uniform conceptions of what 'knowledge of language' should be. Despite the existence of inter- and intra-speaker variation in the grammars of heritage languages, there are also significant shared development trends and structural outcomes that cannot be considered to be purely circumstantial. The studies presented in this volume illustrate the practicality and usefulness of subjecting domains of heritage language syntax to rigorous formal analysis.
The chapters also have implications for theory-building efforts within the current Minimalist landscape; they force a reassessment of our understanding of the ideal speaker-hearer (Chomsky, 1965) in the context of bi- and multi-competent individuals and communities. In line with recent trends in contemporary Minimalism that largely eschew the notion of traditional parameters and an enriched view of Universal Grammar, the integration of heritage languages into syntactic theory adds an important piece of the puzzle relating to linguistic competence. The volume also in some respects calls for a re-evaluation of the prevailing stance that the syntax of heritage languages is predominantly immune to significant decay or change.
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This volume explores a wide range of structural phenomena in typologically diverse heritage languages using current Minimalist theoretical approaches. The chapters show that the integration of these languages into syntactic theory adds an important piece of the puzzle relating to linguistic competence.
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List of abbreviations
List of Contributors
Heritage languages and syntactic theory: An introduction
Part I Linguistic theory and language variation
1: Roberta D'Alessandro;Luigi Andriani;Alberto Frasson;Manuela Pinto;Luana Sorgini;Silvia Terenghi: Microcontact and syntactic theory
2: Esther Rinke;Cristina Flores: Systematic and predictable variation in heritage grammars: The role of complexity, diachronic change, and linguistic ambiguity in the input
Part II Sentence structure
3: Maria Polinsky: Heritage language gaps
4: Oksana Laleko: Word order and prosody in the expression of information structure
Part III The Verb Phrase
5: Artemis Alexiadou;Vasiliki Rizou: Non-active Voice in heritage Greek
6: Michael T. Putnam: The shape and size of defective domains: Non-finite clauses in Pennsylvania Dutch
Part IV The DP
7: Alberto Frasson: Parallel changes in pronominal clitic systems: A view from heritage Romance and Slavic
8: Terje Lohndal;Yvonne van Baal: The DP layer in heritage Norwegian: Vulnerability and nominal architecture
References
Index
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Roberta D'Alessandro is Professor of Linguistics / Syntax and Language Variation at Utrecht University. She has recently concluded an ERC project on Microcontact, from which this volume has emerged. She has published on heritage language syntax and syntactic (micro-)variation, impersonal pronouns, and the syntax-phonology interface in journals including Glossa, Theoretical Linguistics, Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, and The
Annual Review of Linguistics. She is currently Head of the Linguistics section at Utrecht University. Michael T. Putnam is Professor of German and Linguistics at The Pennsylvania State University. He has published widely in generative
approaches to Germanic morphology and syntax and bilingualism, with his work appearing in journals such as Bilingualism: Language and Cognition and The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics. He has a special interest in heritage varieties of Germanic languages spoken throughout the world. He is currently the Director of the Linguistics Program and Associate Director of the Center for Language Science at Penn State. Silvia Terenghi is Assistant Professor of
Multilingualism at Utrecht University. She carried out her PhD research within the ERC-funded Microcontact project, where she investigated the syntax of indexicality in heritage and attrited Italo-Romance varieties, with specific
reference to demonstrative forms. Her main research interest lies in syntactic variation and change in both contact contexts and diachrony and the results of her research have been presented at a range of conferences and in journals including Glossa, Journal of Historical Syntax, and Languages.
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Advances and improves upon long-standing theoretical treatments of syntactic phenomena
Presents and analyses extensive empirical data from Heritage Languages
Shows how formal analysis of the syntax of Heritage Languages can inform current Minimalist theory
An open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780198876182
Publisert
2025-03-27
Utgiver
Vendor
Oxford University Press
Høyde
234 mm
Bredde
156 mm
Aldersnivå
UP, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
272