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In:Theoretical Issues in the Languages of the Caucasus
Edited by Ümit Atlamaz, Ömer Demirok and Balkız Öztürk
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 294] 2026
► pp. 118–143

Chapter 4
Preference for transparency and locality in Heritage Laz

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Abstract
This study investigates the dialectal variation and linguistic change of the aspectual system in three different Laz varieties with a special focus on heritage speakers. The reanalysis of the aspectual system in the heritage varieties is shown to be regulated by locality effects in that sensitivity to more local (voice-dependent) triggers of allomorphy on the Aspect head is maintained while root-based sensitivity is neutralized. The simplified resultant aspectual system exhibits a one-to-one mapping between form and meaning, after one of the available imperfect markers has been reanalyzed to carry a specified aspectual meaning. Patterning with crosslinguistic heritage grammars (Polinsky 2018), heritage Laz grammar is thus shown to be regulated by Principle of Transparency (Aalberse et al. 2019).
Article outline
  • 1.Distributional facts on imperfective markers in PL
  • 2.Previous theoretical analyses for the m-set imperfective markers
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Distribution of m-set markers in baseline AL, FL, and PL
    • 4.2Distribution of m-set markers in heritage AL and FL
  • 5.Spelling out the imperfective aspect markers
    • 5.1Imperfective markers in Baseline Laz
    • 5.2Imperfective markers in heritage Laz
  • 6.Factors driving the aspectual change in heritage Laz
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Author queries
  • Notes
  • References
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