Differential effects of internal and external factors on the development of vocabulary, tense morphology and morpho-syntax in successive bilingual children

The present study investigates the effects of child internal (age/time) and child external/environmental factors on the development of a wide range of language domains in successive bilingual (L2) Turkish-English children of homogeneously low SES. Forty-three L2 children were tested on standardized assessments examining the acquisition of vocabulary and morpho-syntax. The L2 children exhibited a differential acquisition of the various domains: they were better on the general comprehension of grammar and tense morphology and less accurate on the acquisition of vocabulary and (complex) morpho-syntax. Profile effects were confirmed by the differential effects of internal and external factors on the language domains. The development of vocabulary and complex syntax were affected by internal and external factors, whereas external factors had no contribution to the development of tense morphology. These results are discussed in light of previous studies on the impact of internal and external factors in child L2 acquisition

The pragmatics of the modern Greek grammatical system

This thesis is primarily concerned with the Pragmatics of the Modern Greek (MG) grammatical system. A secondary aim is the investigation of the relationship between morpho-syntax, phonology and pragmatics’ related features which form part of the grammar, in allowing a speaker’s intention to be formulated into a linguistic expression. The term grammatical mood is used in this work as the category which includes ‘all grammatical elements operating on a situation/proposition, that are not directly concerned with situating an event in the actual world, as conceived by the speaker’ (Hengeveld 2004). Moreover, the analysis undertaken follows the framework provided by Hengeveld et al. (2007) of a systematic hierarchical classification of propositional and behavioural basic illocutions. Recent research has provided an extensive analysis of the syntax and semantics of the MG verb moods; this thesis focuses on the way illocution is codified in a speaker’s message, through the morphosyntactic and phonological choices the speaker has made. Based on morphosyntactic criteria, five MG grammatical moods are formally distinguished, namely the Indicative, the Subjunctive, the Imperative, the Prohibitive and the Hortative. Furthermore, the five prosodic contours available to a speaker when forming a linguistic expression are identified, which contribute to the specification of particular uses. The main contribution of this thesis is a systematic representation of the basic illocutions of MG based on markers that have an illocutionary impact, such as the Verb Mood, the Negation, the Clitic Placement, the Intonation Patterns and any Additional Segmental Strategies used by MG speakers. In addition to Theoretical Linguistics and Pragmatics, the findings could benefit several other disciplines, including natural language acquisition, first and second language teaching as well as natural language interfaces, human-machine interaction, speech processing systems, and on-line language learning systems

Production of tense marking in successive bilingual children: when do they converge with their monolingual peers?

Children with English as a second language (L2) with exposure of 18 months or less exhibit similar difficulties to children with Specific Language Impairment in tense marking, a marker of language impairment for English. This paper examines whether L2 children with longer exposure converge with their monolingual peers in the production of tense marking. 38 Turkish-English L2 children with a mean age of 7;8 and 33 monolingual age-matched controls completed the screening test of the Test of Early Grammatical Impairment (TEGI). The L2 children as a group were as accurate as the controls in the production of -ed, but performed significantly lower than the controls in the production of third person –s. Age and YoE affected the children’s performance. The highest age-expected performance on the TEGI was attested in eight and nine year-old children who had 4-6 YoE. L1 and L2 children performed better in regular compared to irregular verbs, but L2 children overregularized more than L1 children and were less sensitive to the phonological properties of verbs. The results show that tense marking and the screening test of the TEGI may be promising for differential diagnosis in eight and nine year-old L2 children with at least four YoE

The Indicative in Modern Greek

In this paper we investigate the illocutionary values of the Modern Greek Indicative mood. We discuss Indicative’s declarative uses, such as assertive, mirative, emphatic assertions uses and assertive uses in disguise (rhetoric questions). We also look at Indicative within an interrogative sentence type context and discuss polar interrogatives, content interrogatives and emphatic questions. We explore directive uses, such as hortatives. We further look at additional segmental marking, and refer in particular to requests for confirmation, mitigating questions, proffer and wondering uses of the Modern Greek Indicative

The Pragmatics of Prohibitive and Hortative in Modern Greek

In this paper we discuss the prohibitive and hortative in Modern Greek (MG) and consider the way they are related to Subjunctive (and Imperative). We argue that the particle μη(ν) acts as the MG prohibitive marker when used independently, i.e. when it is not proceeded by the subjunctive particle να. We show that the prohibitive functions involve preventives, negative warnings and emphatic prohibitions. Moreover, we discuss the hortative non-concessive uses of the particle ας, focusing on its propositional (wishes) and behavioural uses (indifference). We conclude by suggesting that μη(ν) and ας are of equal status to να

Acquiring clitics and determiners in child L2 Modern Greek*

The present paper explores the acquisition of third person direct object clitics and definite determiners by Turkish-speaking child L2 learners of Modern Greek. 66 Turkish-speaking children aged 7-12 and of five different proficiency levels were administered three tasks, in order to test the production of object clitics and the definite determiner. Furthermore, the production of phi-features and case was controlled for. Preliminary results show an initial omission of the two D-elements, but a later differentiation in their acquisition pattern, as clitic drop remains robust until later stages of acquisition. At the same time a hierarchical acquisition pattern of uninterpretable features is found (case, number>gender)