Competition at the Left Edge: Left-Dislocation vs. Topicalization in Heritage Germanic

The present work analyses left dislocation (LD) in Heritage German and Heritage Norwegian as a phenomenon of the left periphery of the clause. Fieldwork conducted from the 1940s through the 2010s shows both a robust maintenance of verb second (V2) and that pragmatically-conditioned copy left dislocation (CLD) occurs in complementary distribution with V2 in these heritage languages (HLs), and in ways that are consistent with the pre-immigration, homeland varieties. This study therefore unifies CLD and bare topic constructions (BTCs) under a single structure, in which the resumptive pronoun is either overt (CLD) or covert (BTC), with CLD being restricted to instances where there is either a pragmatic condition (e.g., emphasis, contrast, topic shift) or an interlocutor (e.g., narration). Infrequently, some speakers employ CLD in the absence of these conditions, where BTC would otherwise be expected. The authors propose that this change is motivated diachronically as the reanalysis of specifiers as heads, under the Avoid Silent Heads (ASH) principle (Eide 2011; cf. van Gelderen 2007), and consistent with the tendency for (heritage) speakers to prefer overt heads to covert ones (Polinsky 2018). Such change corresponds with the lexicalization of formerly pragmatically-conditioned XPs as obligatory heads.publishedVersio

How Deep is Your Syntax? Heritage Language Filler-Gap Dependencies

This paper explores transfer of parasitic gap (p-gap) constructions from English into German by heritage speakers in Wisconsin. Kathol (2001) argues that German lacks ‘true’ p-gap constructions compared to English. Engdahl (1983:73/2001) introduces an accessibility hierarchy of domains in which p-gaps are accepted: (1) Engdahl’s accessibility hierarchy for occurrence of MGCs (partial) most accessible least accessible manner adv. \u3e temp. adv. \u3e purpose clauses \u3e that, than \u3e when, because \u3e relative clause [untensed domains] [tensed domains] The licensing of p-gaps may thus be variable in several regards, including across complement vs. relative vs. adjunct clauses, and more basically between tensed and untensed domains. We probe whether the licensing strategies for p-gaps of a dominant L2 (English) can affect an incompletely-acquired L1 (German) that does not license such gaps and, if so, whether such strategies follow Engdahl’s hierarchy. The presence of p-gaps would support the work of Grosjean (2008), whose view predicts that English syntax may surface (i.e., ‘seep through’) in spoken German if English has become the dominant language for an individual. Our results support the theory of ‘grammatical seeping’, and our speakers in general behave in accordance with the predictions of Engdahl’s hierarchy. They produce p-gaps in English-to-German translations relatively frequently in manner clauses, often in temporal clauses and rarely in relative clauses. In temporal clauses we find considerable syntactic restructuring. In the least accessible context, relative clauses, speakers restructure more fundamentally, in order to eliminate the gapping environment altogether

Competition at the Left Edge: Left-Dislocation vs. Topicalization in Heritage Germanic

The present work analyses left dislocation (LD) in Heritage German and Heritage Norwegian as a phenomenon of the left periphery of the clause. Fieldwork conducted from the 1940s through the 2010s shows both a robust maintenance of verb second (V2) and that pragmatically-conditioned copy left dislocation (CLD) occurs in complementary distribution with V2 in these heritage languages (HLs), and in ways that are consistent with the pre-immigration, homeland varieties. This study therefore unifies CLD and bare topic constructions (BTCs) under a single structure, in which the resumptive pronoun is either overt (CLD) or covert (BTC), with CLD being restricted to instances where there is either a pragmatic condition (e.g., emphasis, contrast, topic shift) or an interlocutor (e.g., narration). Infrequently, some speakers employ CLD in the absence of these conditions, where BTC would otherwise be expected. The authors propose that this change is motivated diachronically as the reanalysis of specifiers as heads, under the Avoid Silent Heads (ASH) principle (Eide 2011; cf. van Gelderen 2007), and consistent with the tendency for (heritage) speakers to prefer overt heads to covert ones (Polinsky 2018). Such change corresponds with the lexicalization of formerly pragmatically-conditioned XPs as obligatory heads

Competition at the Left Edge: Left-Dislocation vs. Topicalization in Heritage Germanic

The present work analyses left dislocation (LD) in Heritage German and Heritage Norwegian as a phenomenon of the left periphery of the clause. Fieldwork conducted from the 1940s through the 2010s shows both a robust maintenance of verb second (V2) and that pragmatically-conditioned copy left dislocation (CLD) occurs in complementary distribution with V2 in these heritage languages (HLs), and in ways that are consistent with the pre-immigration, homeland varieties. This study therefore unifies CLD and bare topic constructions (BTCs) under a single structure, in which the resumptive pronoun is either overt (CLD) or covert (BTC), with CLD being restricted to instances where there is either a pragmatic condition (e.g., emphasis, contrast, topic shift) or an interlocutor (e.g., narration). Infrequently, some speakers employ CLD in the absence of these conditions, where BTC would otherwise be expected. The authors propose that this change is motivated diachronically as the reanalysis of specifiers as heads, under the Avoid Silent Heads (ASH) principle (Eide 2011; cf. van Gelderen 2007), and consistent with the tendency for (heritage) speakers to prefer overt heads to covert ones (Polinsky 2018). Such change corresponds with the lexicalization of formerly pragmatically-conditioned XPs as obligatory heads

Germanic heritage languages in North America: Acquisition, attrition and change

This book presents new empirical findings about Germanic heritage varieties spoken in North America: Dutch, German, Pennsylvania Dutch, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, West Frisian and Yiddish, and varieties of English spoken both by heritage speakers and in communities after language shift. The volume focuses on three critical issues underlying the notion of ‘heritage language’: acquisition, attrition and change. The book offers theoretically-informed discussions of heritage language processes across phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics and the lexicon, in addition to work on sociolinguistics, historical linguistics and contact settings. With this, the volume also includes a variety of frameworks and approaches, synchronic and diachronic. Most European Germanic languages share some central linguistic features, such as V2, gender and agreement in the nominal system, and verb inflection. As minority languages faced with a majority language like English, similarities and differences emerge in patterns of variation and change in these heritage languages. These empirical findings shed new light on mechanisms and processes