Cross-linguistic influence does not occur in all
grammatical domains:
evidence from grammatical gender
in code-mixed DPs
Petra Bernardini
Lund University
ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Outline of the talk
1. Introduction: Code-mixing as a window to cross-linguistic
influence
2. Gender at the Lexicon/Syntax interface
3. The Bilingual Language Faculty
4. Previous studies on code-mixing and the acquisition of gender
in Bilingual First Language Acquisition
5. Predictions
6. Claims
7. Results
8. Conclusions
9. References
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
1. code-mixing as a window to crosslinguistic influence
• code-mixing (here: the merging of two syntactic elements, head
and XP)
• in the language production of three longitudinally studied ItalianSwedish children, 2L1
• The acquisition of grammatical gender
• Question: is there cross-linguistic influence in the acquisition of
gender and can codemixed DPs tell us something about it?
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Code-mixing as a window to crosslinguistic influence
Code-mixing
• It appears in many but not all
2L1 corpora
• It appears to be more
frequent in the weaker
language (Bernardini &
Schlyter, 2004, see
references quoted there)
Cross-linguistic influence
• It might be domain-specifik,
i.e. It might be constrained to
appear only at the
syntax/pragmatics interface
M&H (2001)
• It might depend on language
dominance (Lanza, 199X))
and/or amount of input
Bernardini & Schlyter)
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Code-mixing as a window to crosslinguistic influence
Is it safe to say that code-mixing is a kind of cross-linguistic
influence?
Maybe:
code-mixing may be used as a strategy to develop the
weaker language, although the two languages develop
separately (B&S) and cross-linguistic influence too (i.e.
Acceleration (Paradis & Genesee, 1996)
But, how do we tell them apart?
-s plurals in English/German 2L1, for ex. (Kupisch, 2009)
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
2. Gender at the Lexicon-Syntax interface
• Gender is both lexical assignment and grammatical
agreement (disregarding semantic gender agreement)
• It is therefore an abstract lexical feature (assignment) of
the noun that project in someway in syntax in order to be
grammaticaly checked (agreement)
• Gender never appears in isolation in the languages of the
world, but always parasites on something else in the
languages that has gender (Greenberg, 1966) (projection)
• The question is on which other feature it parasites
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Gender in Italian: in the lexicon
• Nouns are subdivided lexically in two gender classes: masculine and
feminine;
• The gender of the noun can be seen on the ending of the lexical entry
noun;
• In Italian, gender manifests itself on the same morpheme as number;
• The indefinite and the definite article are free morphemes;
• It is marked both in the indefinite and in the definite DP
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Gender in Italian
(1)
Una casa rossa/la casa rossa ‘a red house/the red house’
f.
f.
f. /f.
f.
f.
(2)Delle case rosse/le case rosse ‘red houses/the red houses’
f.pl.indef f.pl. f.pl./ f.pl.def f.pl. f.pl.
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Gender in Italian: checking in syntax
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Gender in Swedish: lexicon
• Swedish nouns are not ‘visibly’ marked for gender, but they are subdivided in
gender classes;
• COMMON GENDER=N-Gender, since the article ends in -n (en/-(e)n)
• NEUTER GENDER= T-Gender, since the article ends in t (ett/-(e)t)
• Gender is not marked by the same morpheme as number on the noun, but
together with the indefiniteness/definiteness morphemes (4);
• The indefinite article is a free morpheme but the indefinite one is a bound
morpheme, enclitic to the noun;
• Only the noun of the definite DP is marked for gender, by the enclitic definite
article (5)
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Gender in Swedish
• (5) a. en
bok ’a book’ b. flera böcker ‘more books’
•
a indet. C book
several book-s PL
•
c. ett
bord ‘a table’ d. flera bord ‘several books’
•
a-indet. N table
more PL table
• (6) a. boken
’the book’
•
book-det.c.
•
•
c. bordet
’the table’
table-det. N
b. böckerna
’the books’
book-pl.-det. N
d. borden
table-det. N
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’the tables’
Gender in Swedish: adjectives
Different forms indefinite/definite
(7)a. en
gammal
gata b. den
gamla
gatan
an-indet. old(indet.) road
the-det.C old(det.) road-det.C
Different forms Common/Neuter
(8)a. Ett gammalt hus
b. Det
gamla huset
an-ind. Old N house
The-def. N old house-def. N
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Gender in Swedish: checking in syntax
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Gender at the Lexicon-Syntax interface
Bessler, Cummins, Nadasdi & Roberge (1993)
”We refer to this level as the Lexicon-Syntax Interface, or LSI. The function of the LSI
is to process lexical items drawn from the lexicon so that they may be treated in syntax.
Intuitively, then, the LSI is the level of grammar responsible for what is generally
referred to as inflectional morphology. The LSI associates unordered bundles of
features to lexical items. A checking mechanism applies in syntax to ensure a match
between syntactically relevant feature specifications and morphological specifications.
The lexical items contextualized in a syntactic representation through X-bar theory are
then processed through the interface level between syntax and Phonological Form,
where language-particular templates, of the kind devised by Bonet 1991 ensure that the
representation satisfies the principle of Full Interpretation at PF. Otherwise, the
representation crashes at PF.”
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
3. The bilingual language faculty
MacSwan (2000)
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Previous studies on code-mixing and the acquisition of gender in
Bilingual First Language Acquisition
Cantone & Müller (2007) and Cantone (2007)
• the gender of the code-mixed DP will be that of the noun and gender will be
checked grammatically (Gender is a lexical inherent feature of the noun that
does not project in syntax
• Four German/Italian bilingual longitudinal child corpora
• 85% of code-mixed DPs confirm this hypothesis
Bernardini (2004)
• Gender is a lexical inherent feature of the noun that does project in syntax by
being hosted by another functional head, which differ cross-linguistically
• The gender of the code-mixed DP will fail to be checked
• Two bilingual children whose data followed this pattern
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Questions regarding previous studies
1. Where the Swedish data to few to give a complete
picture?
Answer: probably, that’s why it should be studied more
2. Does the language combination matter in the code-mixing
of gender?
Answer: probably, but we have to look at more language
combinations to be sure
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Problems with different gender system
combinations in code-mixing
a. Italian French
la
mer (F)
b. Italian German
?
meer (N)
c. Italian English
?
sea
d. Italian Swedish
?
Hav (N)
French Italian (two genders, the same)
le
mare (M)
German Italian (two/three genders,
+/the same
der
mare (M)
English Italian (two genders/no gender)
the
mare (M)
Swedish Italian (two genders/not the same)
?
mare (M)
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What do we mean by grammatical gender
and what does the child know about it?
• Markdness: frequency?
• Labels: ”Masculine” ”Feminine” but ”Neuter” ”Common”
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Previous studies on the acquisition of
gender, (a couple of them)
• Easy for 2L1children, compared to adults (Andersson
(1993), Chini (1995), Granfeldt (2003), Bernardini (2004),
etc.)
• Easy for monolingual Italian children (Chini, 1995)
• More difficult for bilingual German/French/Italian children
disregarding language balance, but more easy with Italian
(Kupisch et al.)
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Evidence and predictions for or against
cross-linguistic influence in the acquisition
of gender in 2L1
CROSS-LINGUISTIC
INFLUENCE
• the determiner in the mixed DP
will have the gender value of the
equivalent noun in the other
language.
• bilingual children would be
expected to behave differently
from monolingual children,
presumably
making
more/different gender errors,
than their monolingual peers.
NO CROSS-LINGUISTIC
INFLUENCE
• the determiner of the mixed DP
will not have gender, i.e. it will
be produced in the
unmarked/default value
• bilingual children will acquire
gender with the same amount
and the same type of gender
errors as their monolingual
peers.
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Claims
We claim that cross-linguistic influence is not possible in the
bilingual acquisition of gender in Swedish and Italian since:
• Gender is a lexical feature of the noun;
• Bilingual children’s lexicons are represented separately;
• Gender is projected in syntax by being hosted by a functional
head that varies cross-linguistically;
• Italian and Swedish do not have the same gender system,
gender is projected hosted by different functional heads in the
two languages.
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Results
• Agreement between determiner, adjectives and nouns
were studied in three Italian/Swedish children
• Lina, Lukas, Annika (Longitudinally studied, Ages 2-3;5)
• All three acquire gender in Italian with an agreement and
assignment error % below 5%
• Annika and Lukas, same in Swedish
• Lukas’ few errors in Swedish consist in using -n gender
instead of -t gender
• Code-mixed DPs constitue a low but interesting %
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Results
Lukas and Lina only code-mix in one direction: determiner in
the stronger language and noun in the weaker language
Lukas’ Total DPs with determiner Italian: 127, 5 gender err
Swedish: 537, gender err
below 10
Lina’s Total DPs with determiner Italian: 204, 2 gender err
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Results
Annika
4 files studied: ages 2;11 (code-mixes found) and 3;10 (no c.mixes)
Age 2;10 (MLU: ITA 2.9 SWE 3.9)
Total DPs with determiner: Italian: 58, 1 gender err
Swedish: 67, 1 gender err
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Annika 2;11: Gender errors and code-mixed
DPs
Total gender errors: 2
Quella elefante
’that-F elephant-M’
En
skor
’a-C shoes-PL’
Total code-mixed DPs:
ITA files: 3
il
sitrone
IT
SWE/IT
’the-M LEMON
la nyckelpiga
IT SWE
The-F ladybird-C
SWE files: 2
Sin
coperto
SWE
IT
’his-C
’blanket-M+ending-O
instead of -a’
i
svanzi
IT
SWE/IT
’the-M tail-PL/M-IT
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Lukas, 2:0-3;7: Gender in code-mixed DPs
(1:2) Lukas
a. en
casetta
[ett hus (n)](2;1, Sw MLU, 1.7; It MLU 1.1)
b. är det en pera?
[ett päron (n)]
(2;1, Sw MLU, 1.7; It
MLU, 1.1)
‘is this(n) a(c) pear?’
d. den
är en coltello [en kniv (c)]
(2;2, Sw MLU, 2.3; It
MLU, 1.1)
‘that one(c) is a(c) knife’
e. en
crotodillo [en krokodil(c)]
(2;7, Sw MLU, 2.9; It
MLU 1.7)
f. ‘a(c) crocodile’
g. den andra macchinen [den andra bilen(c)] (2;7,21, Sw MLU, 2.8, It
MLU, 2.2)
’the other(c) car-DET(c)’
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Lukas, 2:0-3;7: Gender in code-mixed DPs
h. denna
’this(c)
la macchina [denna(c) bilen(c) (2;7,21, Sw MLU, 2.8,
It MLU, 2.2)
the
car’
i. denna här macchina
’this one here
[denna här bil(c)] (2;7,21, Sw MLU, It
MLU, 2.2)
car’
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Lina, 1;8-3;7: Gender in code-mixed DPs
a. un ben
[ett ben(n)]
‘a leg’
b. il mio bok
[min bok(c)]
(2;2, It MLU, 2.4, Sw
MLU, 1.1)
(2;10,5, It MLU,
2.7, Sw MLU, 1.2)
’the my book’
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Conclusions
• The Swedish/Italian 2L1 children do not make any gender errors
that are different from those that monolingual children make, nor
more errors;
• in most cases they use the ’unmarked’ gender on the
determiner of the mixed DP;
• These data might support the idea that gender would be absent
in code-mixed DPs were Swedish and Italian are involved since it
projects by different functional heads in syntax;
• There is however one case where the gender of the determiner is
that of the noun ’la nyckelpiga’ (Feminine+Common)
• We need more data of languages with different gender systems!
• We need data of adult bilinguals code-mixed DPs
• Elicitation test on gender assignment/agreement is needed
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Selected References
Bernardini, P. (2004) L’acquisizione dell’italiano come prima e seconda (madre)lingua):
indagine longitudinale sulla sintassi del DP. Études romanes de Lund, 71. Phd Thesis.
Lund Univeristy.
Bernardini, P. & Schlyter, S. (2004) “Growing syntactic structure and the weaker language:
the Ivy hypothesis.” Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7 (1), 49-69.
Bessler, P. , Cummins, S, Nadasdi, T. & Y. Roberge (1993) “The Lexicon-Syntax Interface.”
Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol 12.
Cantone, K. & Müller, N. (2007). Un nase or una nase? What gender marking within switched
DPs reveals about the architecture of the bilingual language faculty. Lingua 118 (2008),
810-826.
Cantone, K. (2007) Code-switching in Bilingual Children (Studies in Theoretical
Psycholinguistics). New York: Springer.
Hulk, A. and Müller, N. (2001) Bilingual first language acquisition at the interface between
syntax and pragmatics. Bilingualism, Language & Cognition, 3(3) 227-244.
MacSwan, J. (2000) ”The Architecture of the Bilingual Language Faculty: evidence from
intrasentential codeswitching. Bilingualism: Language & Cognition, 3(1). XX-XX.
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009
Thank you!
petra.bernardini@rom.lu.se
Lund university / Språk- och litteraturcentrum// Petra Bernardini/ISB7 Utrecht 2009