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Article published In: Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism
Vol. 5:2 (2015) ► pp.180–214

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Syntactic restructuring in heritage grammars

Word order variation in Moundridge Schweitzer German

 | Universität Mannheim
 | Pennsylvania State University
Published online: 10 July 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.5.2.02hop
In order to elucidate the structure of heritage grammars, this paper presents an analysis of word order variation in Moundridge Schweitzer German (MSG), a moribund heritage variety of German spoken in South Central Kansas. Based on elicited production data and an acceptability judgment task, we show that the current state of the MSG grammar maintains the asymmetric German verb-second (V2) and verb-final (V-final) word-ordering closely tied to specific pragmatic information associated with clause-types and complementizers. Extensive contact with English does not lead to adoption of English word order; rather, it occasions restructuring of German word order within the constraints of German syntax. We model these findings in a syntactic analysis following recent proposals by Putnam, M., & Sánchez, L. (2013). What’s so incomplete about incomplete acquisiton? – A prolegomenon to modeling heritage language grammars. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 31, 478–508. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar and . (2011). Reanalysis in adult heritage language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 331, 305–328. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar that challenge the notion of ‘incomplete acquisition’ as a way to conceptualize heritage language acquisition.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Effects of language contact and major issues in heritage syntax
    • 2.2Moundridge Schweitzer German as a heritage variety
  • 3.German word order
    • 3.1The acquisition of word order in (standard) German and dialect varieties
    • 3.2Subordinate clause word-order in German language islands
  • 4.Experiments
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Spontaneous production data
      • 4.2.1Procedure
      • 4.2.2Results
      • 4.2.3 dass-clauses
      • 4.2.4 weil-clauses
      • 4.2.5Temporal complementizers
      • 4.2.6Relative clauses
    • 4.3Experiment: Acceptability judgment task
      • 4.3.1Materials
    • 4.4.2Procedure
    • 4.4.3Results
  • 5.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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