Modeling Syntactic Change under Contact: The Case of Italiot Greek

Guardiano, Cristina; Stavrou, Melita

doi:10.3390/languages6020074

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…With the exception of explorations of the DP-internal syntax of indexical elements (see, among others, Guardiano and Stavrou 2021;Guardiano and Michelioudakis 2019), the behaviour of indexicality itself in contact, that is: how many deictic contrasts are attested within a given demonstrative system and whether these undergo a change in contact, has not been the object of systematic investigation to date. Nonetheless, the general understanding is that the encoding of indexicality in various contact settings is remarkably stable (see, a.o., Heine and Kuteva 2005;Friedman 2006;Matras 2009;Polinsky 2018), supporting the latter view.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstrative Systems Are Not Affected by Contact: Evidence from Heritage Southern Italo-Romance

Terenghi

2022

Languages

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Deictic information is present in every language; yet, there are significant differences as to how exactly such information is encoded, yielding different indexical systems across languages. The availability of cross-linguistic variation in indexical systems provides a window into the role of contact in shaping grammars: this work contributes to the discussion by investigating whether contact plays any role in determining the grammar of indexicality in heritage varieties. This study has a two-fold aim. Empirically, it investigates ternary demonstrative systems in heritage southern Italo-Romance varieties: on the basis of comprehension and production data, these systems are shown to be in the process of undergoing change. Theoretically, it underscores the insights that the combined microcontact and diachronic perspective provides for the understanding of variation and change in heritage languages: while, at face value, the elicited heritage data seem to indicate that demonstratives are affected by contact, pairwise comparisons across heritage varieties and diachronic observations lead to rejecting a plain contact-induced explanation and to conclude, instead, that deictic elements are largely unaffected by contact and that their change in heritage varieties is, rather, endogenous.

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Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstrative Systems Are Not Affected by Contact: Evidence from Heritage Southern Italo-Romance

Terenghi

2022

Languages

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“…Such a case has been discussed in the context of contact varieties of Greek involving determiner spreading, and also in Lohndal & Van Vaal (to appear) for determiner doubling in Heritage Norwegian. As discussed in Guardiano & Stavrou (2021) and references therein, in the Greek variety spoken in Salento in Southern Italy, adjectives appear in post-nominal position unlike what is the case in Standard Greek, where they appear in prenominal position (1a-1b). Moreover, as they point out, in definite DPs the adjective in post-nominal position is not preceded by an article, while this is obligatory in Standard Greek (1c), yielding determiner spreading.…”

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confidence: 99%

Feature-exponence mapping in language contact

Alexiadou

2024

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s (2024) contribution can be situated within the general context of recent work arguing that models of grammar which explicitly distinguish between underlying syntactic features and their morpho-phonological representation (exponence) are exceptionally well suited to analyze bi-and multi-lingual data. Specifically, it shows that such approaches can subsume the framework of feature reassembly developed in the 90s by Lardiere and colleagues in studies of L2 acquisition, and as a result feature reassembly becomes superfluous. The paper is couched with the Null Theory approach, according to which the same kind of theory accounts for the competence of Ln speakers, independently of the type of bilingual population these may belong to. In this, it departs from the view taken in López (2020), whose Minimalist Distributed Morphology model is applied only to balanced bilinguals. Such a limitation does not seem warranted, and the keynote does a great job in substantiating this.In what follows, I will comment on certain aspects of the contribution that provide food for thought. To begin with, the Null Theory is obviously very attractive, and we clearly see how theoretical progress can be made based on multilingual data. Feature reassembly affects first, functional heads and their sequence, and second, the realization of particular features. How could features and structure be affected? As discussed in the keynote, we have (a) expanding structures, i.e., cases where the L2 grammar has an additional functional projection that the L1 doesn't have, (b) expanding feature inventory, i.e., cases where the L2 grammar has an additional feature that the L1 one doesn't have, (c) feature splitting, i.e., cases where the feature in L2 may appear in a different position than in the L1, (d) expanding exponency inventory, i.e., cases where new exponents need to be acquired, and (e) acquiring new mappings, i.e., cases where the mapping between features and exponence may change. With respect to (a) and (b), it could be argued that if we assume that there is a universal feature pool, as is standard in Distributed Morphology, and/or a universal structure, as is standard in

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“…The evolution of demonstrative systems in contact has been largely investigated insofar as their DP-internal syntax in concerned. Available studies have mostly focused on contact-induced grammaticalisation of demonstrative forms (as determiners: Kupisch & Polinsky 2022;Aalberse et al 2017;Heine & Kuteva 2008; as pronouns: Kinn & Larsson 2022; among many others) and on the effects of contact on their linearisation within the DP and their co-occurrence with determiners (Guardiano & Stavrou 2021;Guardiano & Michelioudakis 2019;Zúñiga 2019;Moro 2016: 3.2.1;Gómez Rendón 2008: I, 5.3;among many others).…”

Section: Ternary Demonstrative Systems In Contactmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Languages encode deictic information in their demonstrative systems, but exactly which information is encoded is a matter of variation. The present dissertation explores this variation, with special attention to Romance demonstrative systems, and does so from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. Synchronically, the focus is on how the attested cross-linguistic differences can be formalised in featural and, more broadly, syntactic terms. This line of investigation results in the proposal of a novel internal structure for demonstrative elements that ties together a lower person-based component and a higher spatial-based one, overcoming the classic dichotomy between the two and affording the system a larger empirical coverage. Diachronically, the focus is on how the inventory of contrastive demonstrative forms changes in the different (micro-)diachronic stages of a given language, and more concretely on how it shrinks and why. Interestingly, this change only involves demonstrative forms, but not other deictic categories (personal pronouns, possessive forms, etc.). Based on novel generalisations concerning the patterns of change attested across Romance demonstratives and on the conclusions drawn from the synchronic investigations, this work proposes that larger demonstrative systems are unstable because of their featural complexity. The latter hinges on a bias towards monotonic derivations, which triggers feature loss and results in a smaller inventory of demonstrative forms. Additionally, a structural condition on feature loss is identified (as formalised in the Last in–First out principle), which accounts for the concrete patterns of reduction and for the asymmetry between demonstrative systems (unstable) and other indexical systems (stable).

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Modeling Syntactic Change under Contact: The Case of Italiot Greek

Cited by 5 publications

References 56 publications

Demonstrative Systems Are Not Affected by Contact: Evidence from Heritage Southern Italo-Romance

Demonstrative Systems Are Not Affected by Contact: Evidence from Heritage Southern Italo-Romance

Feature-exponence mapping in language contact

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