Third factors in language design: the view from Heritage Languages

The workshop "Third Factors in Language Design: the view from Heritage Languages" will be held in Paris (Inalco) on June 6 2025. It is organized within the IRN project "Heritage Languages in Europe" (CNRS & University of Paris 8).

The workshop will take place in hybrid mode.

Invited speakers: Roberta D'Alessandro & Sivia Terenghi (University of Utrecht)

Organizers: Elena Soare (Univ. Paris 8 & CNRS), Alexandru Mardale (Inalco & CNRS) and Larisa Avram (Univ. Bucharest)

General description

Since Chomsky’s (2005) seminal paper on language design, the role of factors not specific to the faculty of language (third factors, henceforth F3) has been addressed in a growing number of generative studies. These factors “have the flavor of the constraints that enter into all facets of growth and evolution” (Chomsky 2007). They include principles of data analysis, of structural architecture (e.g. efficient computation) and developmental constraints (Chomsky 2005). General cognitive principles involved in the acquisition of language and “properties of the human brain that determine what cognitive systems can exist” (Chomsky 2007) have also been tentatively included in the inventory. Once F3 explicitly became part of language design, the course of inquiry has shifted from “how much must be attributed to UG”  in order to account for language acquisition and language variation to “how little can be attributed to UG” with a focus on the interaction between UG and F3 principles (see van Gelderen 2022).

In spite of real progress, however, the inventory of F3 principles is still a tentative one. Little is yet known about the division of labour between UG principles and F3 principles (see, for example, the case of Minimal Search, Economy) or whether F3 assumed to be relevant to both language and other cognitive domains operate similarly across the board. A related issue is whether variation in (linguistic) experience might be reflected in the relevance and the significance of particular third factors. The extent to which such variation might exist could be clarified by studies of language development triggered by various types of linguistic experience.   

A recent exploratory area for generative grammar has been the one of heritage languages (HL). HL are acquired in the family in contact with another language, the environmental one (Montrul 2008, 2016, 2023, Benmamoun et al. 2013, Polinsky 2018, a.o.). They are L1 languages, acquired and used in “restrictive environments” (Rothman 2007) in language contact situations. Input amount and frequency of use generally decrease in later stages of acquisition, leading to a gradual weakening of the HL. Given the specificity of the linguistic experience involved, the study of HL could shed light on the interaction between linguistic experience and F3. However, this research angle has been poorly addressed so far in the literature.

This workshop aims to investigate the role of F3 in the development of HL and their interaction with UG principles and linguistic experience.

The questions we seek answers to include, but are not limited to:

Can the study of HL shed light on the inventory of F3?

Are there F3 which are more relevant/significant to HL development and maintenance?

Can this specific relevance/significance be traced to characteristics of the linguistic experience involved in HL?

How do these F3 interact with UG principles?

Can the study of HL contribute to our understanding of how much can be attributed to F3 in the account of language acquisition and language variation?

References

Benmamoun, E, S. Montrul & M. Polinsky, 2013, „Defining an “ideal” heritage speaker: Theoretical and methodological challenges”. reply to peer commentaries. Theoretical Linguistics 39(3-4). 259–294.

Chomsky, N. 2005. Three factors in language design. Linguistic Inquiry 36.1: 1–22.

Chomsky, N. 2007. Approaching UG from below. In Uli Sauerland and Hans-Martin Gärtner (Eds.), Interfaces + Recursion = Language, 1–29. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Chomsky, N. 2015. Problems of projection: Extensions. In Elisa Di Domenico et al. (Eds.), Structures, Strategies, and Beyond, 3–16. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

van Gelderen, E. 2022. Third Factors in Language Variation and Change. Cambridge University Press.

Montrul, S., 2008, Incomplete Acquisition in Bilingualism: Re-examining the Age Factor. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Montrul, S., 2016, The acquisition of heritage languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Montrul, S., 2023a, „Heritage languages: language acquired, language lost, language regained”. Annual Review of Linguistics, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-030521-050236

Polinsky, M. 2018. Heritage Languages and their Speakers. Cambridge University Press.