Cover not available
Part of
Cross-linguistic Influence in Bilingualism: In honor of Aafke Hulk
Edited by Elma Blom, Leonie Cornips and Jeannette Schaeffer
[Studies in Bilingualism 52] 2017
► pp. 127–152

Cross-lectal influence and gender marking in bilectal Venetan-Italian acquisition

| University of Konstanz
| University of Hamburg

We study dialectal influence and gender marking in 25 bilectal children and 11 adults speaking Italian and Venetan, based on an elicited production task (EPT) in each of the two varieties. The children are between 5 and 11 years old and vary with respect to their reported use of the dialect at home. The results of the EPT show that the children produce only Italian DPs in the Italian experiment, while producing Italian, Venetan and mixed DPs in the Venetan experiment. However, regardless of the amount of dialect use, children follow the gender assignment rules of Italian and Venetan in both monolingual and mixed DPs.

Keywords: bilectal acquisition, Venetan, Italian, nominal gender, mixing
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Gender in Italian and Venetan
  • 3.Research questions and expectations
  • 4.Participants
    • 4.1Self-reported use of the dialect
    • 4.2Language choice in a picture description task
  • 5.Study of gender assignment and gender agreement
    • 5.1Stimuli and method
    • 5.2Results
      • 5.2.1Italian
      • 5.2.2Venetan
      • 5.2.3Summary
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.52.07kup
References
Belloni, S.
(1991) Grammatica veneta. Battaglia Terme: La Galiverna.Google Scholar
Bianchi, G.
(2013) Gender in Italian–German bilinguals: A comparison with German L2 learners of Italian. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16(3), 538–557. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bottari, P., Cipriani, P., & Chilosi, A. M.
(1993–94) Protosyntactic devices in the acquisition of Italian free morphology. Language Acquisition, 3, 327–369. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brandi, L., & Cordin, P.
(1981) Dialetti e italiano: Un confronto sul parametro del soggetto nullo. Rivista di Grammatica Generativa, 6, 33–87.Google Scholar
(1989) Two Italian dialects and the null subject parameter. In O. Jaeggli, & K. J. Safir (Eds.), The null subject parameter (pp. 111–142). Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cantone, K. F., & Müller, N.
(2008) Un nase or una nase? What gender marking within switched DPs reveals about the architecture of the bilingual language faculty. Lingua, 118(6), 810–826. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chierchia, G.
(1997) Partitives, reference to kinds and semantic variation. Proceedings of SALT, 7, 73–98. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chini, M.
(1995) Genere grammaticale e acquisizione. Aspetti della morfologia nominale dell’italiano L2. Milano: Franco Angeli.Google Scholar
Cornips, L., & Hulk, A.
(2006) External and internal factors in bilingual and bidialectal language development: Grammatical gender of the Dutch definite determiner. In C. Lefebvre, L. White, & C. Jourdan (Eds.), L2 acquisition and creole genesis. Dialogues (pp. 355–378). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cortelazzo, M.
(1999) Itinerari dialettali veneti. Padova: Esedra.Google Scholar
Egger, E., Hulk, A., & Tsimpli, I. -M.
(2016) Cross-linguistic influence in the discovery of gender: The case of Greek-Dutch bilingual children. Ms., Universities of Reading, Amsterdam and Cambridge.Google Scholar
Eichler, N.
(2011) Code-Switching bei bilingual aufwachsenden Kindern: Eine Analyse der gemischtsprachlichen Nominalphrasen unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Genus. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Flege, J.
(1987) The production of “new” and “similar” phones in a foreign language: Evidence for the effect of equivalence classification. Journal of Phonetics, 15, 47–65.Google Scholar
Gawlitzek-Maiwald, I., & Tracy, R.
(1996) Bilingual bootstrapping. Linguistics, 34, 901–926.Google Scholar
Genesee, F.
(1989) Early bilingual development: One language or two? Journal of Child Language, 16, 161–179. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Genesee, F., Nicoladis, E., & Paradis, J.
(1995) Language differentiation in early bilingual development. Journal of Child Language, 22, 611–631. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hager, M.
(2014) Genuserwerb bei mehrsprachig aufwachsenden Kindern. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Bergische Universität Wuppertal.Google Scholar
Hulk, A., & Cornips, L.
(2006) Between 2L1- and child L2 acquisition: An experimental study of bilingual Dutch. In C. Lleó (Ed.), Interfaces in multilingualism (pp. 115–138). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hulk, A., & Müller, N.
(2000) Cross-linguistic influence at the interface between syntax and pragmatics. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3, 227–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hulk, A., & Van der Linden, E.
(2010) How vulnerable is gender? In P. Guijarro-Fuentes, & L. Domínguez (Eds.), New directions in language acquisition: Romance languages in the generative perspective (pp. 107–132). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Kehoe, M.
(2015) Cross-linguistic interaction: A retrospective and prospective view. In E. Babatsouli, & D. Ingram (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 2015 (pp. 141–167). [URL] (20 December, 2016).
Klaschik, E.
(2013) Bidialektaler Spracherwerb in Venetien am Beispiel von Genus und Subjektklitika. Unpublished MA thesis. University of Hamburg.Google Scholar
Klaschik, E., & Kupisch, T.
(2016) Overt and null subjects in the two varieties in Venetian-Italian school-children. Lingue e Linguaggio, 15, 169–198.Google Scholar
Kupisch, T.
(2007) Determiners in bilingual German-Italian children: What they tell us about the relation between language influence and language dominance. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 10(1), 57–78. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kupisch, T., Müller, N., & Cantone, K.
(2002) Gender in monolingual and bilingual first language acquisition: Comparing Italian and French. Lingue e Linguaggio, 1, 107–149.Google Scholar
Lundquist, B., Rodina, Y., Sekerina, I. A., & Westergaard, M.
(2016) Gender change in Norwegian dialects: Comprehension is affected before production. Linguistics Vanguard, 2(1), 69–83.Google Scholar
Marcato, C.
(2004) Il Veneto. In M. Cortelazzo, C. Marcato, N. De Blasi, & G. P. Clivio (Eds.), I dialetti italiani: Storia, struttura, uso (pp. 297–328). Torino: UTET.Google Scholar
Moscati, V., & Tedeschi, R.
(2009) The delay of Italian Past Participle Agreement. In J. Chandlee, M. Franchini, S. Lord, & G. M. Rheiner (Eds.), BUCLD 33: Proceedings of the 33th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 379–390). Boston, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Pellegrini, G. B.
(1977) Studi di dialettologia e filologia veneta. Pisa: Pacini.Google Scholar
Pierantozzi, C.
(2009) La relazione di accordo nel DP misto nel bilinguismo infantile precoce. Tesi di dottorato. Università di Urbino.Google Scholar
Poletto, C.
(1993) La sintassi del soggetto nei dialetti italiani settentrionali. Padova: Unipress.Google Scholar
(1995) The diachronic development of subject clitics in North-Eastern Italian dialects. In I. Roberts & A. Battye (Eds.), Clause structure and language change (pp. 295–324). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Radford, A., Kupisch, T., Köppe, R., & Azzaro, G.
(2007) Concord, convergence and crash-avoidance in bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 10, 56–122. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reich, H. H., Roth, H. -J., & Gantefort, C.
(2008) Der Sturz ins Tulpenbeet. Deutsche Sprachversion. Auswertungsbogen und Auswertungshinweise. In T. Klinger, K. Schwippert, & B. Leiblein (Eds.), Evaluation im Modellprogramm FÖRMIG (pp. 209–237). Münster: Waxmann.Google Scholar
Rodina, Y., & Westergaard, M.
(2015a) Gender agreement in bilingual Norwegian-Russian acquisition: The role of input and transparency. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 227–244. <DOI logo> (20 December, 2016)Google Scholar
(2015b) Grammatical gender in Norwegian: Language acquisition and language change. Journal of Germanic Linguistics, 27, 145–187. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schwarze, C.
(1988) Grammatik der italienischen Sprache. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Serratrice, L.
(2000) The emergence of functional categories in bilingual first language acquisition. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Tsimpli, M., & Hulk, A.
(2013) Grammatical gender and the notion of default: insights from language acquisition. Lingua, 137, 128–144. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Unsworth, S.
(2013) Assessing the role of current and cumulative exposure in simultaneous bilingual acquisition: The case of Dutch gender. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 16, 86–110. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Westergaard, M.
(2009) The Acquisition of Word Order: Micro-cues, Information Structure and Economy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zamboni, A.
(1988) Venezien/Veneto. In G. Holtus, M. Metzeltin, & C. Schmitt (Eds.), Lexikon der romanistischen Linguistik (Bd. 4, pp. 517–538). Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 5 other publications

Klassen, Rachel, Björn Lundquist & Marit Westergaard
2023. L1 Grammatical Gender Variation through the Representation in the Lexicon. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 52:2 ► pp. 359 ff. DOI logo
KUPISCH, Tanja, Natalia MITROFANOVA & Marit WESTERGAARD
2022. Phonological vs. natural gender cues in the acquisition of German by simultaneous and sequential bilinguals (German–Russian). Journal of Child Language 49:4 ► pp. 661 ff. DOI logo
Perpiñán, Sílvia & Silvina Montrul
2023. Does your regional variety help you acquire an additional language?. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 13:5 ► pp. 663 ff. DOI logo
Rodina, Yulia, Tanja Kupisch, Natalia Meir, Natalia Mitrofanova, Olga Urek & Marit Westergaard
2020. Internal and External Factors in Heritage Language Acquisition: Evidence From Heritage Russian in Israel, Germany, Norway, Latvia and the United Kingdom. Frontiers in Education 5 DOI logo
Sanfelici, Emanuela & Maja Roch
2021. The Native Speaker in Italian-Dialects Bilingualism: Insights From the Acquisition of Vicentino by Preschool Children. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.