Linguistic paper abstracts

Workshop on

Linguistic Universals and
Language Variation (UniVar)




13/14 July 2007


University of Hamburg
Research Centre on Multilingualism

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A satisfactory and illuminating treatment of language variation remains an
immensely challenging task for linguistic theorizing. The workshop aims to
contribute towards this discussion by exploring the role of linguistic
universals for bringing order into the apparent chaos of variation.

Language variation can be observed in different domains of language and
linguistics. The workshop will inter alia be concerned with cross-linguistic
variation, language internal variation, variation across dialects and
sociolects, learner language variation and variation as a result of language
contact.

Linguistic universals are highly theory dependent and can hardly be
discussed outside a specific model or framework. The two major strands of
linguistic research in which universals of language are currently discussed
can broadly be characterized as either functionalist-inductive or formalist-
deductive. Each of these frameworks has developed its own conceptions of
universals and modes of explanation (system-external versus system-
internal). The workshop specifically hosts contributions that look across
this theoretical divide.

The topic of the workshop accommodates presentations of various kinds.
Presentations are inter alia concerned with theoretically challenging
phenomena of variation, the modelling of variation, the explanation of
variation phenomena, the relationship between universals and domains of
language and linguistics in which variation arises, variation and standard as
well as the role of variation in language change.
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Programme





Workshop on

Linguistic Universals and
Language Variation (UniVar)


University of Hamburg
13/14 July 2007

Sonderforschungsbereich 538 Mehrsprachigkeit
Max-Brauer-Allee 60
22765 Hamburg
Phone: 004940-42838-6937/-6432
Fax: 004940-42838-6116
Mail: sfb538@uni-hamburg.de



Organizer
Peter Siemund
Correspondence Address: peter.siemund@uni-hamburg.de, Mobile: 0177-
2807999


Conference fee
10 €; reduced: 5 €

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Programme...................................................................................................................... 3
Abstracts.......................................................................................................................... 5
Ezel Babur & Solveig Kroffke.................................................................................... 5
Adriana Belletti........................................................................................................... 7
Holger Diessel............................................................................................................. 8
Cristina Flores............................................................................................................. 9
Michele Loporcaro.................................................................................................... 12
Guido Mensching...................................................................................................... 14
Shana Poplack........................................................................................................... 16
Jochen Rehbein ......................................................................................................... 17
Esther Rinke & Tanja Kupisch ................................................................................. 18
Peter Siemund & Michaela Hilbert........................................................................... 20
Sali A. Tagliamonte .................................................................................................. 21
Information about the Research Centre on Multilingualism ................................... 23
Maps............................................................................................................................... 24
Useful Information ....................................................................................................... 26
List of Contributors...................................................................................................... 27
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Programme

Friday, 13 July
09.00
Peter Siemund
Opening of Workshop
09.00-10.00
Sali Tagliamonte
Variation as a Window on Universals
10.00-11.00
Michele Loporcaro
A Euroversal in a Global Perspective: Auxiliation and Alignment
11.00-11.30
Coffee break

11.30-12.30 Jochen
Rehbein
Reflexions on the Universality of Finiteness
12.30-13.30
Peter Siemund &
Linguistic Universals and Varieties of English
Michaela Hilbert
13.30-15.00
Lunch

15.00-16.00
Esther Rinke & Tanja
Article-possessor Complementarity in the History of Italian and
Kupisch
Portuguese
16.00-17.00
Guido Mensching
Syntactic Variation in Romance: A Minimalist Approach
17.00-17.30
Coffee break

17.30-18.30
Holger Diessel
Cross-linguistic Asymmetries in the Positioning of Subordinate
Clauses
19.30 Dinner



Saturday, 14 July
09.00-10.00 Shana
Poplack
Using
Linguistic Variation to Model Language Change
10.00-11.00
Cristina Flores
Syntactic Variation and Language Attrition. The Case of
Portuguese-German Returnees
11.00-11.30
Coffee break

11.30-12.30
Ezel Babur & Solveig
Deficits in Morpho-syntax as the Universal Phenotype of Specific
Kroffke
Language Impairment – Verbal Morphology in Turkish and German
(Bilingual) SLI Children
12.30-13.30
Adriana Belletti
Kinds of Language Variation between Comparison and Acquisition
13:30
Peter Siemund
Closing Remarks

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Abstracts



Deficits in Morpho-syntax as the Universal Phenotype of Specific
Language Impairment: Verbal Morphology in a Turkish and German
Bilingual SLI Child
Ezel Babur & Solveig Kroffke
Universität Hamburg, Sonderforschungsbereich 538 Mehrsprachigkeit
In the present paper we deal with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in a
Turkish-German bilingual child, F., aged 6;5. While describing his
grammatical deficits in his first and his second language production
contrastively, we focus on the application of verbal morphology.
In a longitudinal study (Kroffke 2006), F.’s L2 production was
characterised by an overall slow second language development, lower
productivity and lower MLU scores. In contrast to the data of other
unimpaired successive-bilingual children with the same months of
exposure to German (ME), his language production shows remarkable
qualitative differences in the verbal domain. At 6;5, after ME 25, F.´s
German utterances are limited to SV(X) constructions, and he also
produces utterances with subject omission. The verbal inflections produced
show no assignment of subject-verb-agreement, and he over-generalises –Ø
and –en as default forms.
F.’s data in Turkish is also pointing towards a deviant language level.
At the age of 6;5, his MLU is very low (cf. Babur, Rothweiler & Kroffke
2007). His utterances are characterised by omissions of suffixation in
obligatory contexts in both the verbal and the nominal domain. While he
produces a number of verbal ‘bare stems’, he substitutes Turkish
tense/aspect marking with an (idiosyncratic) suffix –E/-I (observed in
Aksu-Koç & Ketrez 2003: 36; Ekmekçi 1982). Furthermore, these
utterances hardly contain any personal markers and the negation cannot be
completely expressed by suffix attachment –mE (cf. example. 1).

(1) F.
(6;5)
Ten hit gülü.
You never laugh-?
Target utterance:
(Sen) gülme(?).
You laugh-negator-(tense/aspect-personal marker)

In contrast to normally developing Turkish speaking children at the age of
3, F. omits more (-tense/aspect +personal) suffixes, that are essential
elements of inflected verbs in Turkish. He also over-generalises the –E/-I-
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form. The occurrence of this aspect would normally be interpreted as an
indicator for a very early stage of language acquisition comparable to
monolingual Turkish children at the approximate age of 2.
In this paper we discuss whether or not F.’s language production has to
be placed within the varying language acquisition profiles of Turkish-
German children. Furthermore we will claim that the verbal deficits in both
languages should be considered as indicators for the occurrence of
grammatical SLI in bilingual children and thus as a universal phenotype of
SLI in morpho-syntax.



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Kinds of Language Variation between Comparison and Acquisition
Adriana Belletti
Università di Siena
Areas of language variation will be considered from two different but
arguably complementary perspectives: language comparison and language
acquisition. It will be argued that acquisition constitutes a peculiar domain
where language variation can manifest itself. Stages in acquisition typically
manifest options of variation that are also exploited by different languages.
Within Principles & Parameters, as also implemented in minimalism,
language variation is seen as a relatively limited phenomenology, despite
apparent evidence to the contrary: languages vary within the limits that the
rigid invariable UG principles set. By comparing domains where variation
is manifested across languages, especially interesting when subtle
properties are considered, it emerges that variation is never random and
always limited. This line of research is one of the richest contributions to
the analysis of language variation by means of formally refined analytical
tools undertaken within a cognitive perspective to the study of human
languages. In the talk different empirical areas will be touched upon within
this approach, with the main aim of illustrating the similarity of variation in
both different languages and acquisition. It will be argued that language
acquisition in its different modes, monolingual L1, early and adult L2,
bilingual, SLI and other atypical forms, can provide peculiar and often
revealing means of language comparison. Different domains of possible
variation will be considered in this perspective ranging from the syntax and
pragmatics of pre-verbal and post-verbal subjects, relative clauses, the
domain of personal pronouns.
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Cross-linguistic Asymmetries in the Positioning of Subordinate
Clauses
Holger Diessel
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
This paper examines the positional patterns of subordinate clauses from a
cross-linguistic point of view. Subordinate clauses are commonly divided
into three basic types: relative clauses, complement clauses, and adverbial
clauses. The first part of the talk describes the positioning of the three types
of subordinate clauses based on a representative sample of about 50
languages. It is shown that the positioning of subordinate clauses correlates
with the ordering of head and dependent; but the correlation is not perfect.
Like the distribution of many other categories, the distribution of
subordinate clauses is skewed, i.e. it is asymmetrical; but interestingly, the
asymmetries are different for different types of subordinate clauses:
complement and relative clauses tend to follow the head, whereas adverbial
clauses tend to precede the head (i.e. the associated category). In the
second part of the talk I will offer an explanation for these patterns.
Specifically, I will argue that the positioning of subordinate clauses is
motivated by competing forces that affect the three different types of
subordinate clauses in different ways.



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