SFB Colloquium
Time:
04.12.2008, 14:00
Place:
G300
Pronominal
anaphora resolution in bilingual speakers: the wider picture
Recent
research has focused on the concept of ‘interface’ between syntax and other cognitive
systems as a predominant locus of instability in bilingual language development.
Some specific interface phenomena, such as the use and interpretation of subject
pronouns in null subject languages, have been found to be unstable in different
bilingual populations, including early simultaneous bilingual children,
near-native L2 speakers, and L1 speakers in a situation of attrition from a
second language. Furthermore, subject pronouns have been shown to present optionality not only in bilingual speakers of two languages
that have different settings of the null subject parameter (e.g.
Italian-English) but also in speakers of two typologically similar null subject
languages (e.g. Italian-Spanish, Greek-Spanish). Other interfaces, in contrast,
are problematic only for speakers of particular language combinations. Some
researchers have come to the provisional conclusion that subject pronouns
involve an ‘external’ syntax-discourse interface that imposes processing costs
in integrating the multiple types of information involved in the appropriate
selection of a particular pronominal form: exceeding the processing resources
available favors the use of a ‘default’ option (i.e. the overt pronoun in
Italian; see e.g. Belletti, Bennati
& Sorace 2007; Sorace
& Filiaci 2006). This explanation seems to
undermine the alternative hypothesis (suggested e.g. by Tsimpli
et al. 2004) that crosslinguistic influence from the
most to the least economical language may be at the root of the observed overextension
of overt pronouns. I will discuss both these interpretations in the light of
the available experimental evidence, pointing out that cross-linguistic
influence and general effects of handling two languages may not be mutually
exclusive factors. The performance of bilinguals with respect to subject
pronouns may therefore involve a more complex combination of linguistic and
processing factors than previously assumed.
Back to the main page