Exploring the focus-morphology interface: morpho-syntactic aspects of non prosodic focus : Selected Proceedings of the 2007 Mid American Linguistics Conference

This paper claims that a constraint-based theory (i.e, OT) can best account for the many manifestations of Focus in typologically diverse languages. We propose an interaction between Discourse Representation Theory (hereafter DRT) (Kamp, 1981; Kamp and Reyle, 1993) and Optimality Theory (OT) (Prince and Smolensky, 1993/2004) to best account for these facts, maintaining that constraint-ranking is the best way to achieve a descriptive and explanatorily adequate analysis of natural data. In particular, we provide a novel sketch of a theoretical account of natural languages that mark Focus morphologically but not prosodicall

Investigating Gender Assignment Strategies in Mixed Purepecha–Spanish Nominal Constructions

Purepecha has no grammatical gender, whereas Spanish has a binary masculine–feminine system. In this paper we investigate how early sequential Purepecha–Spanish bilinguals assign gender to Purepecha nouns inserted into an otherwise Spanish utterance, using a director-matcher production task and an online forced-choice acceptability judgement task. The results of the production task indicate a strong preference for masculine gender, irrespective of the gender of the noun’s translation equivalent, the so-called “masculine default” option. Participants in the comprehension task were influenced by the orthography of the Purepecha noun in the -a ending condition, leading them to assign feminine gender agreement to nouns that are masculine in Spanish, but preferred the masculine default strategy again in the -i/-u ending condition. The absence of the “analogical criterion” in both tasks contrasts with the results of some previous studies, underlining the need for more comparable data in terms of task type. Our results also highlight how task type can influence the choices speakers make, in this context, in terms of the choice of grammatical gender agreement strategy. Task type should therefore be carefully controlled in future studies

Code-switching within the noun phrase: Evidence from three corpora

　 Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: This study aims to improve our understanding of common switching patterns by examining determiner–noun–adjective complexes in code-switching (CS) in three language pairs (Welsh–English, Spanish–English and Papiamento–Dutch). The languages differ in gender and noun–adjective word order in the noun phrase (NP): (a) Spanish, Welsh, and Dutch have gender; English and Papiamento do not; (b) Spanish, Welsh, and Papiamento prefer post-nominal adjectives; Dutch and English, prenominal ones. We test predictions on determiner language and adjective order derived from generativist accounts and the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) approach. Design/methodology/approach: We draw on three publicly available spoken corpora. For the purposes of these analyses, we re-coded all three datasets identically. From the three re-coded corpora we extracted all monolingual and mixed simplex NPs (DetN) and complex NPs with determiners (determiner–adjective–noun (DetAN/NA)). We then examined the surrounding clause for each to determine the matrix language based on the finite verb. Data and analysis: We analysed the data using a linear regression model in R statistical software to examine the distribution of languages across word class and word order in the corpora. Findings/conclusions: Overall, the generativist predictions are borne out regarding adjective positions but not determiners and the MLF accounts for more of the data. We explore extra-linguistic explanations for the patterns observed. Originality: The current study has provided new empirical data on nominal CS from language pairs not previously considered. Significance/implications: This study has revealed robust patterns across three corpora and taken a step towards disentangling two theoretical accounts. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of comparing multiple language pairs using similar coding.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

El book or the libro? Insights from acceptability judgments into determiner/noun code-switches

Objectives/research questions:We used two types of acceptability judgments to experimentally test the predictions of two theoretical models of code-switching regarding the surface realization of the determiner in nominal constructions: lexicalist approaches within the Minimalist Program (MP) versus the Bilingual NP Hypothesis within the Matrix Language Frame Model (MLF).Methodology:Two separate groups of 40 early Spanish-English bilinguals evaluated the acceptability of sentences with code-switches between the determiner and the noun that reflected the predictions of the MP model, the MLF, of both or none. The first group rated them on a Likert scale, while the second group performed a two-alternative forced-choice acceptability task (2AFC).Data and analysis:Ratings from the Likert ratings were subjected to an analysis of variance while results from the 2AFC were analyzed using Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgment.Conclusions:Both experiments yielded converging evidence supporting the predictions of the MLF. Results from the 2AFC provided a more detailed picture that suggests also a (smaller) contribution of the language of the determiner.Originality:This is the first study to use acceptability judgments to directly contrast the predictions of these major theoretical models regarding switches between determiner and noun. An additional novelty is the use of the 2AFC and Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgment, which yielded a more detailed picture than the more commonly used Likert-scale ratings.Implications:Our results provide further support for Eppler, Luescher, and Deuchar’s recent claim that we can only advance our understanding of grammaticality in code-switching if we combine the insights of the different frameworks rather than considering them in isolation.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Gender assignment strategies among simultaneous Spanish/English bilingual children from Miami, Florida

Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Using two-alternative force choice tasks and Thurstone's law of comparative judgments for code-switching research

This article argues that 2-alternative forced choice tasks and Thurstone's law of comparative judgments (Thurstone, 1927) are well suited to investigate code-switching competence by means of acceptability judgments. We compare this method with commonly used Likert scale judgments and find that the 2-alternative forced choice task provides granular details that remain invisible in a Likert scale experiment. In order to compare and contrast both methods, we examined the syntactic phenomenon usually referred to as the Adjacency Condition (AC) (apud Stowell, 1981), which imposes a condition of adjacency between verb and object. Our interest in the AC comes from the fact that it is a subtle feature of English grammar which is absent in Spanish, and this provides an excellent springboard to create minimal code-switched pairs that allow us to formulate a clear research question that can be tested using both methods

Contrasting code-switching theories: insights from Kaqchikel-Spanish code-switched nominal constructions

Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Él code-switches more than tú y yo: new data for the subject pronoun-verb switch constraint

Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Cross-linguistic influence in bilingual grammars: Evidence from gender assigment in unilingual Dutch and mixed speech

This study reports on grammatical gender assignment in elicited production data from heritage speakers of Turkish, Papiamento, and Spanish in the Netherlands. We selectively target the nominal domain, consisting of a determiner, a noun, and an adjective. Previous studies have demonstrated gender to be vulnerable in bilingual acquisition (e.g., Gathercole & Thomas 2005; Mitrofanova et al. 2018). The presence of grammatical gender in one language may affect gender assignment in the other language, suggesting cross-linguistic influence (Egger, Hulk & Tsimpli 2018; Eichler, Jansen & Müller 2013; Kaltsa, Tsimpli & Argyri 2019). In this chapter, we investigate the role of cross-linguistic influence from the heritage language onto the societal language by comparing three HLs that differ in terms of the properties of the nominal domain, including gender. Determiner phrase (DP) constructions consisting of a determiner, noun, and adjective were elicited by means of a director-matcher task (Gullberg, Indefrey &Muysken 2009), which was performed both in a unilingual Dutch mode, and in a code-switching mode. The results show that all groups tend to overgeneralize the common gender in the Dutch unilingual mode. Strikingly, heritage speakers of Spanish performed more target-like than the Papiamento and Turkish speakers, which is probably related to the fact that Turkish and Papiamento do not have a grammatical gender system, whereas Spanish distinguishes masculine and feminine gender in the DP. As for code-switching from Dutch to the HL, we observe a similar preference for the common gender, such that most speakers tend to assign common gender to nouns that are inserted from their respective HLs into Dutch DPs. Some speakers also apply a gender assignment strategy based on the translation equivalent of the noun in Dutch, or produce a postnominal adjective construction with an uninflected adjective. An analysis of extra-linguistic variables demonstrated that in both the unilingual and the code-switching mode, gender assignment strategies seem to be determined to some extent by the degree of dominance of the societal language