9 Polish newcomers acquiring questions and questioning in a local dialect
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Karen P. Corrigan
Abstract
This chapter uses a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews to investigate usage of inversion in embedded questions in Northern Irish English by both local and Polish newcomer youngsters. The current study is presented in the context of the origins of the construction in Northern Irish English, as well as parallel constructions in Polish. We show that the biggest predictor of inversion is question type, whereby yes/no questions are inverted more often in embedded contexts than wh-questions are, and argue that this empirical finding favours a theoretical analysis that treats the two question types as syntactically distinct. We then discuss our findings in the context of language acquisition in multilingual settings.
Abstract
This chapter uses a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews to investigate usage of inversion in embedded questions in Northern Irish English by both local and Polish newcomer youngsters. The current study is presented in the context of the origins of the construction in Northern Irish English, as well as parallel constructions in Polish. We show that the biggest predictor of inversion is question type, whereby yes/no questions are inverted more often in embedded contexts than wh-questions are, and argue that this empirical finding favours a theoretical analysis that treats the two question types as syntactically distinct. We then discuss our findings in the context of language acquisition in multilingual settings.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
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Part 1: Sociosyntactic theory
- 1 Introduction 1
- 2 Sociosyntax and the weight of the linguistic within sociolinguistics 25
- 3 Spelling out grammatical variation 59
-
Part 2: Sociosyntactic evidence
- 4 Comparative relativizers in American English: A puzzle from the margins of like 97
- 5 Variation and the English participle/preterite relation 125
- 6 Constructing syntactic dialect maps of American English 163
-
Part 3: Sociosyntactic approaches
- 7 “People widnae understand that, wint they no?”: Negative anchor tag questions in northern British Englishes 193
- 8 A snapshot of the emerging because-X construction 227
- 9 Polish newcomers acquiring questions and questioning in a local dialect 257
- Index
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
-
Part 1: Sociosyntactic theory
- 1 Introduction 1
- 2 Sociosyntax and the weight of the linguistic within sociolinguistics 25
- 3 Spelling out grammatical variation 59
-
Part 2: Sociosyntactic evidence
- 4 Comparative relativizers in American English: A puzzle from the margins of like 97
- 5 Variation and the English participle/preterite relation 125
- 6 Constructing syntactic dialect maps of American English 163
-
Part 3: Sociosyntactic approaches
- 7 “People widnae understand that, wint they no?”: Negative anchor tag questions in northern British Englishes 193
- 8 A snapshot of the emerging because-X construction 227
- 9 Polish newcomers acquiring questions and questioning in a local dialect 257
- Index
