Chapter published in:
The Acquisition of Gender: Crosslinguistic perspectivesEdited by Dalila Ayoun
[Studies in Bilingualism 63] 2022
► pp. 209–242
Chapter 9Cross-linguistic influence in bilingual grammars
Evidence from gender assignment in unilingual Dutch and mixed speech
Janet Grijzenhout | Heritage Linguistics Lab, HERLING | Leiden University, Centre for Linguistics, LUCL
M. Carmen Parafita Couto | Heritage Linguistics Lab, HERLING | Leiden University, Centre for Linguistics, LUCL | Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, LIBC
Deniz Tat | Heritage Linguistics Lab, HERLING | UiT The Arctic University of Norway | Leiden University, Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
This study reports on grammatical gender assignment in elicited production data from heritage
speakers of Turkish, Papiamento, and Spanish in the Netherlands. We investigate the role of cross-linguistic influence
from the heritage language onto the societal language by comparing three heritage languages that differ in terms of
the properties of the nominal domain, including gender. Determiner-adjective-noun constructions were elicited by means
of a Director-Matcher task (Gullberg, Indefrey, & Muysken, 2009), which
was performed both in a unilingual Dutch mode, and in a code-switching mode from Dutch to the heritage language. The
results show that all groups tend to overgeneralize the common gender in the Dutch unilingual mode. Strikingly, the
performance of heritage speakers of Spanish was more target-like than the Papiamento and Turkish speakers, which may
be due to the fact that Spanish is the only language that has a grammatical gender system. In code-switching mode,
most speakers tend to assign common gender to inserted nouns, but some speakers also apply a gender assignment
strategy based on the translation equivalent of the noun in Dutch, or produce a postnominal adjective construction
with an uninflected adjective. An analysis of extra-linguistic variables demonstrated that gender assignment
strategies seem to be determined to some extent by the degree of dominance in the societal language.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The nominal domain in Dutch, Spanish, Turkish and Papiamento
- 3.The Turkish-, Spanish- and Papiamento-speaking communities in the Netherlands
- 4.Dutch gender in bilinguals
- 5.Gender in code-switching
- 6.Research questions and hypotheses
- 7.Methodology
- 7.1Procedure
- 7.2Materials
- 7.3Participants
- 7.4Coding
- 8.Analysis and results
- 8.1Unilingual Dutch mode
- 8.1.1Extralinguistic variables
- 8.2Code-switching mode
- 8.2.1Extralinguistic variables
- 8.1Unilingual Dutch mode
- 9.Discussion and conclusion
-
Acknowledgements -
Notes -
References
Published online: 20 January 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.63.09van
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.63.09van
References
Aalberse, S., & Weerman, F.
in
preparation). The feature [+count] in pronominal
reference. University of Amsterdam.
Aalberse, S., & Hulk, A.
Aalberse, S., Backus, A., & Muysken, P.
Audring, J.
Baayen, R. H., Davidson, D. J., & Bates, D. M.
Backus, A.
Backus, A., Doğruöz, A. S., & Heine, B.
Balam, O.
Balam, O., Lakshmanan, U., & Parafita Couto, M. C.
Bellamy, K., Parafita Couto, M. C., & Stadthagen-Gonzalez, H.
Benmamoun, E., Montrul, S., & Polinsky, M.
Berkum, J. J. van
Blom, E., Polišenská, D., & Weerman, F.
Boers, I., Sterken, B., Osch, B. van, Parafita Couto, M. C., Grijzenhout, J., & Tat, D.
Boumans, L. P. C.
Caroll, S.
Central Bureau of Statistics
[CBS]
(2019, June 24). Population;
sex, age, migration background and generation. Retrieved
on 10
June from https://opendata.cbs.nl/statline/#/CBS/en/dataset/37325eng/table?ts=1614200262031
Cinque, G.
Clyne, M., & Pauwels, A.
Cornips, L.
Cornips, L., & Hulk, A.
Cornips, L., Hulk, A., Reijers, C., & González, P.
Depuydt, C.
Egger, E., Hulk, A., & Tsimpli, I. M.
Eichler, N., Jansen, V., & Müller, N.
Gathercole, V. C. M., & Thomas, E. M.
Geeraerts, D.
Gullberg, M., Indefrey, P., & Muysken, P.
Heusinger, K. von, & Kornfilt, J.
Houwer, A. De
Hulk, A., & Cornips, C.
Hulk, A., & van der Linden, E.
Irizarri van Suchtelen, P.
Jacobs, B.
Jake, J. L., Myers-Scotton, C. & Gross, S.
Kaltsa, M., Tsimpli, I. M., & Argyri, F.
Kraaikamp, M.
Królikowska, M. A., Bierings, E., Beatty-Martínez, A. L., Navarro-Torres, C., Dussias, P. E., & Parafita Couto, M. C.
(2019) Gender
assignment strategies within the bilingual determiner phrase: four Spanish-English communities
examined. Paper presented at the 3rd Conference on
Bilingualism in the Hispanic and Lusophone World (BHL), Leiden, The
Netherlands, 9–11 January.
Kupisch, T., Müller, N., & Cantone, K. F.
Liceras, J. M., Fuertes, R. F., Perales, S., Pérez-Tattam, R., & Spradlin, K. T.
Meisel, J. M.
Mitrofanova, N., Rodina, Y., Urek, O., & Westergaard, M.
Montrul, S.
Munarriz-Ibarrola, A., Ezeizabarrena, M. J., Castro Arrazola, V. de, & Parafita Couto, M. C.
Ortega, L.
Osch, B. A. van
Otheguy, R., & Lapidus, N.
Paolieri, D., Cubelli, R., Macizo, P., Bajo, T., Lotto, L., & Job, R.
Parafita Couto, M. C., & Gullberg, M.
Parafita Couto, M. C., Munarriz, A., Epelde, I., Deuchar, M., & Oyharçabal, B.
R Development Core
Team
Rodina, Y., Kupisch, T., Meir, N., Mitrofanova, N., Urek, O., & Westergaard, M.
Rodina, Y., & Westergaard, M.
Schwartz, M., Minkov, M., Dieser, E., Protassova, E., Moin, V., & Polinsky, M.
Severing, R., & Verhoeven, L.
Szagun, G., Stumper, B., Sondag, N., & Franik, M.
Tat, D.
Treffers-Daller, J.
Unsworth, S., Argyri, F., Cornips, L., Hulk, A., Sorace, A., & Tsimpli, I. M.