Cross-linguistic similarities and differences in bilingual acquisition and attrition: Possessives and double definiteness in Norwegian heritage language

This study investigates possessives and modified definite DPs in a corpus of heritage Norwegian spoken in the US. Both constructions involve variation in Norwegian – two word orders for possessives (pre- and postnominal) and two exponents of definiteness (a prenominal determiner and a suffix) – whil...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Bilingualism (Cambridge, England) England), 2018-08, Vol.21 (4), p.748-764
Main Authors: ANDERSSEN, MERETE, LUNDQUIST, BJÖRN, WESTERGAARD, MARIT
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adults
attrition
Attrition (Research Studies)
Bilingualism
bilinguals
Children
complexity
Corpus analysis
cross-linguistic difference
cross-linguistic influence
cross-linguistic overcorrection
cross-linguistic similarity
double definiteness
English
English language
frequency
Grammar
Heritage language
Humaniora: 000
Humanities: 000
Language Acquisition
Language attrition
Language Dominance
Language proficiency
Linguistics
Linguistics: 010
Monolingualism
Multilingualism
Norwegian
Norwegian language
Nouns
possessives
Pragmatics
Reference (Semantic)
Spoken language
Språkvitenskapelige fag: 010
Suffixes
Syntax
VDP
Word Order
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Summary:This study investigates possessives and modified definite DPs in a corpus of heritage Norwegian spoken in the US. Both constructions involve variation in Norwegian – two word orders for possessives (pre- and postnominal) and two exponents of definiteness (a prenominal determiner and a suffix) – while English only has one of these options. The findings show that a large majority of the heritage speakers overuse the structures that are maximally different from English structures, i.e., postnominal possessors and single suffixal definiteness marking. We argue that their production pattern is the result of cross-linguistic overcorrection (CLO). In addition, a small group of the heritage speakers show signs of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) and overuse the English-like structures in both constructions. These speakers also have a slightly lower proficiency in the heritage language. Our findings are discussed in terms of previous research on monolingual and Norwegian–English bilingual children.
ISSN:1366-7289
1469-1841
1469-1841
DOI:10.1017/S1366728918000330