Projects

"Trajectories of Verb–Subject Word Order: Evidence from historical linguistics and heritage language grammars" (DFG-funded FOR 5157 SILPAC II: sub-project C3). 

Cassarà A. (PI) & van Dijk C. (PI), planned

The project investigate

common trajectories of change in the past and in heritage language (HL) grammars. Its starting point is the mapping hypothesis from acquisition to change that complex, late-acquired linguistic structures - particularly those at the syntax-discourse interface (Sorace, 2011) - are more vulnerable to be lost than earlier-acquired core syntactic properties (e.g., Rinke et al., 2024). Consequently, patterns of language change observed in the past may be mirrored in ongoing and future language change (e.g., Kupisch & Polinsky, 2022). Project C3 leverages this link by exploring the role of input in language change, the central research objective of SILPAC. 

With this goal in mind, we systematically compare the trajectory of verb-subject (VS) word order change in a language where change has already happened (from Old to Middle French) with variations in the VS order in a language where change might potentially be ongoing (Italian). To this end, we focus on HL speakers of Italian. Changes that may only be incipient or marginal in a standard language may be amplified in HL acquisition due to a combination of factors, such as the lack of normative pressure, reduced HL exposure, and cross-linguistic influence from the societal language (SL) (e.g., Polinsky & Scontras, 2020). As such, HL data can serve as a magnifying glass through which future trajectories of diachronic change in the standard language may be anticipated (Kupisch & Polinsky, 2022). Project C3 draws on this hypothesis to investigate the underlying sources of language change. 

"BIANC" Bilingualism In Acquisition And Change (funded by the University of Stuttgart and the TU Braunschweig)

Cassarà A. (PI) & van Dijk C. (PI), ongoing

The project investigates short-term and long-term outcomes of structural priming in speakers of a language variety that has been into close contact with another language for over generations. Specifically, it focuses on the variety of Italian spoken in the Aosta Valley, an officially bilingual region where both Italian and French are present in everyday communication (Raimondi, 2006). Of particular interest to our study are differences between Italian and French in auxiliary selection and focus realization. 

The outcomes of this study will shed light on contact-induced language change in a language variety that has been in sustained contact with another language for centuries and on a potential mechanism of language change, namely cross-linguistic structural priming. As such, this study directly puts proposals about the role of structural priming in language contact settings to the test and, crucially, goes beyond the level of the individual bilingual speaker.