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5 - Morphology and Morphosyntax

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2018

Maria Polinsky
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
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Summary

There is an abundance of work on heritage speakers’ use of morphology, and this chapter has made an attempt to summarize the results by tracing general patterns within the embarrassment of empirical riches. Heritage speakers produce a great number of errors in morphology, but only some of those errors reflect fundamental shifts in their own grammar. Most of the problems can be attributed to online limitations, which somewhat resemble the issues found among other vulnerable populations—including child language learners and L2 learners. Morphological errors in heritage production are rarely due to transfer from the dominant language. The chapter identifiesd instances of overmarking and overgeneralization in heritage grammars, many of which are mostly found in production. Perceptually salient elements are better maintained and more readily noticed; they may also replace forms that are perceptually less salient. This generalization can help us make predictions about the fate of certain elements in a given heritage language. If there is a paradigmatic contrast between two elements in the language, then the perceptually salient element is likely to be retained.
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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  • Morphology and Morphosyntax
  • Maria Polinsky, University of Maryland, College Park
  • Book: Heritage Languages and their Speakers
  • Online publication: 20 July 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781107252349.006
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  • Morphology and Morphosyntax
  • Maria Polinsky, University of Maryland, College Park
  • Book: Heritage Languages and their Speakers
  • Online publication: 20 July 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781107252349.006
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Morphology and Morphosyntax
  • Maria Polinsky, University of Maryland, College Park
  • Book: Heritage Languages and their Speakers
  • Online publication: 20 July 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781107252349.006
Available formats
×