Article published in:
Stability and Divergence in Language Contact: Factors and Mechanisms
Edited by Kurt Braunmüller, Steffen Höder and Karoline Kühl
[Studies in Language Variation 16] 2014
► pp. 141–162

Stability in Chinese and Malay heritage languages as a source of divergence

| Universteit van Amsterdam
| Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
This article discusses Malay and Chinese heritage languages as spoken in the Netherlands. Heritage speakers are dominant in another language and use their heritage language less. Moreover, they have qualitatively and quantitatively different input from monolinguals. Heritage languages are often described in terms of change. This article focuses on three types of stability in heritage speakers: stability in form, based on two case studies on progressive and definite marking, stability in function, based on a study on classifiers in Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, and stability in form and meaning based on a study on the non-completion of the grammaticalization process of punya. We relate (non)- change to the influence of the dominant language as well as to more general effects of bilingualism.
Published online: 26 November 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.16.07aal
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