Bare participle forms in the speech of Lithuanian Yiddish heritage speakers: multiple causation
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Anna Verschik
Abstract
The article is concerned with bare participle forms instead of full-fledged past tense (the auxiliary hobn/zajn + past participle) produced by two young male speakers of Lithuanian Yiddish. In Yiddish, the past tense is more or less isomorphic to the German Perfekt and covers the functions of both perfect and imperfect. The speakers acquired Yiddish and Lithuanian simultaneously in their childhood. Remarkably, in Lithuanian, present perfect auxiliary is optional. The phenomenon of omission can be explained within at least two paradigms: incomplete L1 acquisition (especially in heritage language speakers) and contact linguistics (contact-induced language change). In this article I argue that there are possible multiple explanations because it is unclear how to draw a strict line between incomplete acquisition and contact-induced language change. Comparison with Levine's study on incomplete acquisition of Yiddish demonstrates that the present informants are fluent, strongly identify with Yiddish and produce no non-target past participles. At the same time, the speech of the informants exhibits Lithuanian impact in phonetics and non-core morphosyntax. While limited input does play a role, it is unclear whether and where the border between incomplete acquisition and contact-induced structural change can be drawn.
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Lessons from Judezmo about the Balkan Sprachbund and contact linguistics
- The problem of Judeo-French: between language and cultural dynamics
- Let my people know!: towards a revolution in the teaching of the Hebrew Bible
- Nathan Birnbaum's The tasks of Eastern European Jews
- Unity of the German component of Yiddish: myth or reality?
- Slavic influence in Eastern Yiddish syntax: the case of vos relative clauses
- Veiling knowledge: Hebrew sources in the Yiddish sermons of ultra-orthodox women
- Home language usage and the impact of Modern Hebrew on Israeli Hasidic Yiddish nouns and noun plurals
- Bare participle forms in the speech of Lithuanian Yiddish heritage speakers: multiple causation
- A pragmatic and idiomatic Yiddish substrate of Modern Hebrew: insights from translations of Sholem Aleichem's Tevye
- The Folkshuln of America
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Lessons from Judezmo about the Balkan Sprachbund and contact linguistics
- The problem of Judeo-French: between language and cultural dynamics
- Let my people know!: towards a revolution in the teaching of the Hebrew Bible
- Nathan Birnbaum's The tasks of Eastern European Jews
- Unity of the German component of Yiddish: myth or reality?
- Slavic influence in Eastern Yiddish syntax: the case of vos relative clauses
- Veiling knowledge: Hebrew sources in the Yiddish sermons of ultra-orthodox women
- Home language usage and the impact of Modern Hebrew on Israeli Hasidic Yiddish nouns and noun plurals
- Bare participle forms in the speech of Lithuanian Yiddish heritage speakers: multiple causation
- A pragmatic and idiomatic Yiddish substrate of Modern Hebrew: insights from translations of Sholem Aleichem's Tevye
- The Folkshuln of America
