John Benjamins Publishing Company
Contradictory parameter settings in one mind
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Abstract
This paper reports a case study of Mandarin-Norwegian bilingual boy born into a Mandarin-speaking immigrant family in Norway. Mandarin and Norwegian are typologically distinct languages and presumably have contradictory parameters in the domains of finiteness and word order, the focal areas of the present study. The study explores whether there is cross-linguistic influence in the domains of finiteness and word order, leading the Mandarin-Norwegian bilingual child to lengthy periods of ungrammatical outcomes in Norwegian or a path of acquisition distinguishable from that of monolingual Norwegian children in relevant respects. The data are drawn from 5 files of a longitudinal corpus, when the boy was aged between 5;11 and 6;11. The production data indicate that the informant has essentially the same type of abstract linguistic system as Norwegian monolinguals, though limited cross-linguistic influence can be observed in word order and in markings of M-finiteness (i.e. morphological finiteness expressed as verbal inflection; term due to Lasser, 1997: 77).
Abstract
This paper reports a case study of Mandarin-Norwegian bilingual boy born into a Mandarin-speaking immigrant family in Norway. Mandarin and Norwegian are typologically distinct languages and presumably have contradictory parameters in the domains of finiteness and word order, the focal areas of the present study. The study explores whether there is cross-linguistic influence in the domains of finiteness and word order, leading the Mandarin-Norwegian bilingual child to lengthy periods of ungrammatical outcomes in Norwegian or a path of acquisition distinguishable from that of monolingual Norwegian children in relevant respects. The data are drawn from 5 files of a longitudinal corpus, when the boy was aged between 5;11 and 6;11. The production data indicate that the informant has essentially the same type of abstract linguistic system as Norwegian monolinguals, though limited cross-linguistic influence can be observed in word order and in markings of M-finiteness (i.e. morphological finiteness expressed as verbal inflection; term due to Lasser, 1997: 77).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
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Part I: Finiteness: underlying relations
- Finiteness and Pseudofiniteness 47
- The Split T Analysis 79
- Universals and variation 93
- Finiteness, inflection, and the syntax your morphology can afford 121
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Part II: Morphosyntactic exponents of (non-)finiteness
- Agreement is not an essential ingredient of finiteness 171
- Non-finiteness in Saamáka 189
- Finiteness and response particles in West Flemish 211
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Part III: Finiteness in language acquisition
- Word order and finiteness in acquisition 257
- The influence of phonological factors on the expression of finiteness by children learning Dutch as their first and second language 287
- Contradictory parameter settings in one mind 309
- Index 343
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
Part I: Finiteness: underlying relations
- Finiteness and Pseudofiniteness 47
- The Split T Analysis 79
- Universals and variation 93
- Finiteness, inflection, and the syntax your morphology can afford 121
-
Part II: Morphosyntactic exponents of (non-)finiteness
- Agreement is not an essential ingredient of finiteness 171
- Non-finiteness in Saamáka 189
- Finiteness and response particles in West Flemish 211
-
Part III: Finiteness in language acquisition
- Word order and finiteness in acquisition 257
- The influence of phonological factors on the expression of finiteness by children learning Dutch as their first and second language 287
- Contradictory parameter settings in one mind 309
- Index 343
