Cover not available
Article published In:
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 6:3 (2016) ► pp.227–261

Objects of transitive verbs in Italian as a heritage language in contact with German

| University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
| University of Wuppertal, Germany
| University of Wuppertal, Germany

This paper seeks to close a gap in the ongoing research on heritage languages (HL), their acquisition, and the nature of transfer in HL with a study on a hitherto understudied language combination, namely Italian heritage speakers (HS) raised in Germany with two native languages. The current study compares data from spontaneous speech of these HS with speech data from native speakers of Italian who immigrated to Germany as adults with German as L2, and Italian monolinguals. Analyses of Italian objects reveal that the HS show native knowledge about lexical options of object omissions and their pragmatic identification, and of object clitic use. The results indicate no evidence for covert transfer with regard to Italian object realization types. Finally, the study leads to the conclusion that Italian HS differ in fewer investigated aspects from Italian monolinguals than L1/L2 speakers.

Keywords: adult bilingualism, heritage language, Italian, German, objects, transfer
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Object system in Standard Italian and German
    • 2.1Object realizations
      • 2.1.1Lexical objects
      • 2.1.2Pronominal objects
      • 2.1.3Left and right dislocation
    • 2.2Object omission
  • 3.Research questions and hypotheses
  • 4.Participants
    • 4.1The monolingual Italians
      • 4.1.1Socio-economic factors
    • 4.2The L1/L2 speakers
      • 4.2.1Socio-economic factors
      • 4.2.2Language proficiency
      • 4.2.3Language balance
    • 4.3The Italian HS
      • 4.3.1Socio-economic factors
      • 4.3.2Language proficiency
      • 4.3.3Language balance
  • 5.Methods
    • 5.1Spontaneous speech data
    • 5.2Statistics
  • 6.Results
    • 6.1Description of the results
      • 6.1.1Object realization vs. omission
        • 6.1.1.1Direct objects
        • 6.1.1.2Indirect objects
        • 6.1.1.3Exemplary analysis: omissions with specific verbs
      • 6.1.2Object realization types
        • 6.1.2.1Direct objects
        • 6.1.2.2Indirect objects
      • 6.1.3Clitic placement
        • 6.1.3.1Direct objects
        • 6.1.3.2Indirect objects
    • 6.2Comparative survey of the results
      • 6.2.1Analysis of differences between the monolinguals and the bilinguals
      • 6.2.2Analysis of differences between the L1/L2 speakers and the HS
  • 7.Discussion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 May 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.13041.div
References
Abraham, W., & Wiegel, A.
(1993) Reduktionsformen und Kasussynkretismus bei deutschen und niederländischen Pronomina. In W. Abraham, & J. Bayer (Eds.), Dialektsyntax (pp. 12–49). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alarcón, I.V.
(2011) Spanish gender agreement under complete and incomplete acquisition: early and late bilinguals´ linguistic behavior within the noun phrase. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14(3), 332–350. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Allan, D.
(2004) Oxford Placement Test 1- Test Pack. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Arencibia Guerra, L.
(2008) Sprachdominanz bei bilingualen Kindern mit Deutsch und Französisch, Italienisch oder Spanisch als Erstsprachen. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Wuppertal.Google Scholar
Benmamoun, E., Montrul, S., & Polinsky, M.
(2013a) Heritage languages and their speakers: Opportunities and challenges for linguistics. Theoretical Linguistics, 39(3–4), 129–181.Google Scholar
(2013b) Defining an ‘ideal’ Heritage Speaker: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges. Reply to Peer Commentaries. Theoretical Linguistics, 39(3–4), 259–294.Google Scholar
Birkner, K., Henricson, S., Lindholm, C., & Pfeiffer, M.
(2012) Grammar and self-repair: Retraction patterns in German and Swedish prepositional phrases. Journal of Pragmatics, 441, 1413–1433. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bossong, G.
(2008) Die romanischen Sprachen. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.Google Scholar
Cazzoli-Goeta, M., Rothman, J., & Young-Scholten, M.
(2008) Cross-disciplinary investigation of heritage language variation. GLOW Newsletter, 601.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N.
(1995) Categories and transformations. In The Minimalist Program (pp. 219–394). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cinque, G.
(1990) Types of A‘-Dependencies. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Di Venanzio, L., Schmitz, K., & Rumpf, A.-L.
(2012) Objektrealisierungen und -auslassungen bei transitiven Verben im Spanischen von Herkunftssprechern in Deutschland. Linguistische Berichte, 2321, 437–461.Google Scholar
Domínguez, L.
(2009) Charting the route of bilingual development: Contributions from heritage speakers´ early acquisition. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13(2), 271–287. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Erwin, D., & Fedele, M. T.
(2011) Modern Neapolitan Grammar/Grammatica napoletana odierna. 2nd Edition. Retrieved on 16 February 2014, from [URL].
Fischer, S., & Rinke, E.
(2013) Explaining the variability of clitic doubling across Romance: a diachronic account. Linguistische Berichte, 2361, 455–472.Google Scholar
Flores, C. M.
(2012) Differential effects of language attrition in the domain of verb placement and object expression. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15(3), 550–567. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gabriel, C., & Müller, N.
(2005) Zu den romanischen Pronominalklitika: Kategorialer Status und syntaktische Derivation. In G. Kaiser (Ed.), Deutsche Romanistik - Generativ (pp. 161–180). Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Kohler, K.
(1995) Einführung in die Phonetik des Deutschen. 2nd Edition. Berlin: Schmidt.Google Scholar
Kuchenbrandt, I., Kupisch, T., & Rinke, E.
(2005) Pronominal Objects in Romance: Comparing French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish. Working Papers in Multilingualism, Series B. Hamburg: University of Hamburg.Google Scholar
Kupisch, T.
(2012) Specific and generic subjects in the Italian of German-Italian simultaneous bilinguals and L2 learners. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15(4), 736–756. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2013) A new term for a better distinction? A view from the higher end of the proficiency scale. Theoretical Linguistics, 39(3–4), 203–214.Google Scholar
Monachesi, P.
(1993) Object clitics and clitic climbing in Italian HPSG grammar. In Proceedings of the sixth conference on European chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (pp. 437–442). Utrecht: University of Utrecht. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S.
(2004) Subject and object expression in Spanish heritage speakers: A case of morpho-syntactic convergence. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7(2), 125–142. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008) Incomplete acquisition in bilingualism: Re-examining the age factor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2010a) Current issues in heritage language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 301, 3–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2010b) How similar are adult L2 learners and Spanish heritage speakers? Applied Psycholinguistics, 31(1), 167–207. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S., & Bowles, M.
(2009) Back to basics: Incomplete acquisition of Differential Object Marking in Spanish heritage speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12(3), 363–383. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mougeon, R., Nadasdi, T., & Rehner, K.
(2005) Contact-induced linguistic innovations on the continuum of language use: the case of French in Ontario. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 8(2), 99–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Müller, N., & Hulk, A.
(2001) Crosslinguistic influence in bilingual language acquisition: Italian and French as recipient languages. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 4(1), 1–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Müller, N., Schmitz, K., Cantone, K., & Kupisch, T.
(2006) Null arguments in monolingual children – A comparison of Italian and French. In V. Torrens, & L. Escobar (Eds.), The Acquisition of Syntax in Romance Languages (pp. 69–93). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Müller, N., Kupisch, T., Schmitz, K., & Cantone, K.
(2011) Einführung in die Mehrsprachigkeitsforschung. 3rd Edition. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Nagy, N., Aghdasi, N., Denis, D., & Motut, A.
(2011) Null subjects in heritage languages: Contact effects in a cross-linguistic context. Selected Papers from NWAV 39. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, 17(2).Google Scholar
Pascual y Cabo, D., & Rothman, J.
(2012) The (il)logical problem of heritage speaker bilingualism and incomplete acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 33(4), 450–455. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pires, A., & Rothman, J.
(2009) Disentangling sources of incomplete acquisition: An explanation for competence divergence across heritage grammars. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13(2), 211–238. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Platz-Schliebs, A., Schmitz, K., Müller, N., & Merino Claros, E.
(2012) Einführung in die Romanische Sprachwissenschaft. Französisch, Italienisch, Spanisch. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Polinsky, M.
(1997) American Russian: Language loss meets language acquisition. In W. Browne, E. Dornsich, N. Kondrashova, & D. Zec (Eds.), Annual Workshop on Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: The Cornell Meeting (1995) (pp. 370–406). Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publishers.Google Scholar
(2006) Incomplete acquisition: American Russian. Journal of Slavic Linguistics, 141, 191–262.Google Scholar
Polinsky, M., & Kagan, O.
(2007) Heritage languages in the ‘wild’ and in the classroom. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1(5), 368–395. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Putnam, M., & Sánchez, L.
(2013) What's so incomplete about incomplete acquisition? A prolegomenon to modeling heritage language grammars. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 3(4), 476–506. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, L.
(1986) Null Objects in italian and the theory of pro. Linguistic Inquiry, 17(3), 501–557.Google Scholar
Rothman, J.
(2007) Heritage speaker competence differences, language change and input type: inflected infinitives in Heritage Brazilian Portuguese. International Journal of Bilingualism, 11(4), 359–389. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2009) Understanding the nature and outcomes of early bilingualism: Romance languages as heritage languages. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13(2), 155–163. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rothman, J., & Treffers-Daller, J.
(2014) A Prolegomenon to the Construct of the Native Speaker: Heritage Speaker Bilinguals are Natives Too! Applied Linguistics, 35(1), 93–98. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sachs, L., & Hedderich, J.
(2009) Angewandte Statistik. Methodensammlung mit R. 13th Edition. Dordrecht u.a.: Springer.Google Scholar
Schiering, R.
(2002) Klitisierung von Pronomina und Artikelformen. Eine empirische Untersuchung am Beispiel des Ruhrdeutschen. Arbeitspapier, 441. Institut für Sprachwissenschaft. Köln: Universität zu Köln.Google Scholar
Schmitz, K.
(2006) Zweisprachigkeit im Fokus. Der Erwerb der Verben mit zwei Objekten durch bilingual deutsch-französisch und deutsch-italienisch aufwachsende Kinder. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Schmitz, K., & Müller, N.
(2008) Strong and clitic pronouns in monolingual and bilingual acquisition of French and Italian. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 11(1), 19–41. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Serratrice, L., Sorace, A., & Paoli, S.
(2004) Crosslinguistic influence at the syntax–pragmatics interface: Subjects and objects in English–Italian bilingual and monolingual acquisition. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7(3), 183–205. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, C.
(1994) Language contact and change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sorace, A.
(2000) Differential effects in the L1 syntax of L2 near-native speakers. In C. Howell, S. A. Fish, & T. Keith-Lucas (Eds.), Proceedings of the 24th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 24–47). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Tedeschi, R.
(2006) The Acquisition of object clitics in Italian: Data from an elicited production task. Annali Online di Ferrara - Lettere, 21, 31–42.Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I.
(2001) LF-Interpretability and language development: a study of verbal and nominal features in Greek normally developing and SLI children. Brain and Language, 771, 432–448. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tsimpli, I., Sorace, A., Heycock, C., Filiaci, F., & Bouba, B.
(2003) Subjects in L1 attrition: Evidence from Greek and Italian near-native speakers of English. In B. Beachley, A. Brown, & F. Conlin (Eds.), Proceedings of the 27th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 787–797). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Tsimpli, I., Sorace, A., Heycock, C., & Filiaci, F.
(2004) First language attrition and syntactic subjects: A study of Greek and Italian near native speakers of English. International Journal of Bilingualism, 81, 257–277. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Valdés, G.
(2000) Spanish for native speakers: AATSP professional development series handbook for teachers K-16 (vol. 11). New York: Harcourt College Publishers.Google Scholar
(2005) Bilingualism, heritage language learners, and SLA research: Opportunities lost or seized? The Modern Language Journal, 89(3), 410–426. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Caloi, Irene, Adriana Belletti & Cecilia Poletto
2018. Multilingual Competence Influences Answering Strategies in Italian–German Speakers. Frontiers in Psychology 9 DOI logo
Caloi, Irene & Jacopo Torregrossa
2021. Home and School Language Practices and Their Effects on Heritage Language Acquisition: A View from Heritage Italians in Germany. Languages 6:1 ► pp. 50 ff. DOI logo
Scherger, Anna-Lena
2018. German dative case marking in monolingual and simultaneous bilingual children with and without SLI. Journal of Communication Disorders 75 ► pp. 87 ff. DOI logo
Schmitz, Katrin, Laura Di Venanzio & Anna-Lena Scherger
2016. Null and overt subjects in Italian and Spanish heritage speakers in Germany. Lingua 180 ► pp. 101 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.