Vol. XXVII Nr. 1
DOI: 10.31178/BWPL.27.1
Special issue: Syntax in heritage language acquisition: The view from Romanian
Editors: Anamaria Bentea and Elena Soare
Anamaria Bentea and Elena Soare
Syntax in heritage language acquisition: The view from Romanian
Anamaria Bentea and Theodoros Marinis
Complex syntactic structures in the heritage language vs. the majority language: A comprehension study with Romanian-German bilinguals
Abstract: This study investigated the comprehension of subject and object which-questions in both the heritage language (Romanian) and the societal language (German) of eighteen bilingual children with ages between five and eleven. Using an offline picture-matching task, the study assessed whether the bilingual children use morphological cues, like differential object marking, case marking, and number agreement to overcome the difficulties associated with the comprehension of object which-questions even in monolingual acquisition (Bentea 2017, Friedmann et al. 2009, Roesch & Chondrogianni 2016). The study shows that the Romanian-German bilingual children exhibit a subject-object asymmetry in both their heritage and societal language. However, children appear to use morphological cues differently. In Romanian, the differential object marker did not eliminate comprehension difficulties and a number mismatch did not significantly impact offline interpretation. In contrast, in German, case marking, but not number, played a significant facilitative role, especially when marked on both noun phrases.
Keywords: comprehension, which-questions, Differential Object Marking, case marking, number agreement
Bianca-Elena Babei-Popa
Differential object marking in child heritage Romanian: Is language change accelerated under conditions of language contact?
Abstract: Language acquisition can drive language change. Incipient changes tend to get amplified to rates higher than those in the input (Cournane 2019). According to some authors, such amplification is accelerated under conditions of language contact (Kupisch & Polinsky 2021). Other authors argue that not every type of language change is accelerated under conditions of language contact (Avram et al. 2021a,b, 2023a). This study aims to contribute to this debate investigating the acquisition of differential object marking (DOM) in child heritage Romanian in Italy. The Romanian DOM system is undergoing a change, from a system which allows two DOM markers to one which uses exclusively one of them. The data come from a corpus of 52 narratives of child heritage speakers of Romanian. Results indicate that child heritage speakers do not advance the language change attested in contemporary Romanian, supporting the view that not every language change in progress gets amplified in language contact situations.
Keywords: language change, child heritage Romanian, differential object marking
Larisa Avram, Alexandru Mardale and Elena Soare
Anaphoric biases of null and overt pronominal subjects in child heritage Romanian
Abstract: This study investigates intra-sentential pronominal subject resolution in ambiguous forward anaphora contexts by 7- and 10-year-old heritage Romanian-French bilinguals compared to age-matched monolingually raised Romanian children living in the homeland. The data come from a binary sentence picture matching task which assessed the interpretation of (3rd person singular) null and overt pronominal subjects in while clauses as well as the role of differential object marking on pronominal anaphora resolution. The 7-year-olds did not distinguish between the two subject types and had a subject bias irrespective of the nature of the embedded subject. The 10-year-old group distinguished between the two subject types but the distinction was significant only when the object in the matrix clause was differentially marked. They had a target-like subject bias with null anaphoric pronouns and no bias with overt anaphoric pronouns. These results indicate that in spite of input reduction after onset of schooling the child heritage speakers show progress with respect to pronominal anaphora resolution. The comparison with age-matched monolingually raised Romanian children living in the homeland revealed a similar delay and a similar response pattern. At age 10, antecedent choice with overt pronominal subjects is not adult-like with any of the two groups. One single difference was found. The 10-year-old monolingual children distinguished more categorically between null and overt pronominal subjects. The delay is accounted for in terms of the hybrid behaviour of overt pronominal subjects in Romanian and early inability to integrate different information sources in the processing of anaphora resolution, a phenomenon at the interface between syntax and discourse pragmatics.
Keywords:pronominal anaphora resolution, null pronominal subject, overt pronominal subject, differential object marking, heritage Romanian-French bilinguals
Mihaela Pîrvulescu and Elena Valenzuela
The use of generic subjects by Romanian heritage language speakers in multilingual contexts
Abstract: This study examines the use of plural nouns in generic contexts among heritage speakers of Romanian growing up in an English-dominant context in Canada and acquiring French as a third language through the French Immersion program. Building on cross-linguistic research on genericity, we investigate whether these children produce target-like plural noun forms in Romanian compared to English and French, and whether their performance reflects cross-linguistic influence or factors tied to heritage language maintenance. Sixteen heritage Romanian children and five Romanian-dominant controls completed elicitation tasks in all three languages, testing both generic and specific contexts. Statistical analyses revealed significant differences across languages, with Romanian showing the lowest accuracy, particularly in generic contexts, and English showing near-target performance. These results provide new empirical evidence from a rarely studied population, highlighting the vulnerability of heritage morphosyntax to dominant-language structural patterns. The findings underscore the importance of heritage language input and the potential for typologically related languages, such as French, to support heritage language maintenance.
Keywords: heritage language acquisition, genericity, bare plurals, cross-linguistic influence, language dominance, typological relatedness, trilingual acquisition, French immersion, language maintenance, morphosyntax
Silvina Montrul
Heritage language acquisition: Contributions from Romanian children
R E V I E W S
Silvina Montrul. Native Speakers, Interrupted. Differential Object Marking and Language Change in Heritage Languages. (Reviewed by Irina Stoica)