Romanian has a peculiar rule which prohibits the overt realization of definiteness marking in DPs consisting only of D0 and N0 in the complement position of most prepositions, called “article drop”. We investigate this phenomenon from a diachronic and comparative point of view. Similar phenomena are found in Albanian, Macedonian and some Rhaeto-Romance varieties, but in these varieties the rule is more limited in scope (it is restricted to locative PPs, and also to certain nouns in Rhaeto-Romance). Article drop is a common Romanian phenomenon, being found in the South-Danubian Romanian dialects as well as since the oldest attestations of Romanian. In the other Balkan languages, it may be a structural borrowing from Aromanian (Prendergast 2017). In Romanian, the prepositions exempt from article drop are those that never had locative uses or had predominant non-locative uses, which indicates an origin in locative PPs. Moreover, person-referring nouns are sometimes exempt from article drop, to a larger extent in Old Romanian and Aromanian than in Modern Romanian (where only name-like definites are exempt from the rule). We propose that article drop emerged from the reanalysis of a semantically-conditioned phenomenon into a syntactically-conditioned rule. We identify the origin of article drop in an oscillation between definite marking and zero marking in ‘weak definites’ (in the sense of Carlson & Sussman 2005; cf. Engl. at school, in jail). Weak definites often occur in locative PPs, tend to disallow modification and are usually inanimate. These properties correspond to the conditions of application of the article drop rule, as evinced by our diachronic and diatopic survey.
The purpose of the article is to contribute to the explanation of the emergence of negative concord in Romance languages. We discuss the hypothesis of Chiara Gianollo (2018) who shows that the relevant factors are the projection NegP (which emerged in Late Latin) and the new properties (also from Late Latin) of the negative indefinites (i.e. scalarity, emphasis of focus and suspension of the negation force). Gianollo shows that the loss of both focus emphasis and scalarity,coupled with,the grammaticalization of the negative feature of indefinites, produced in the early stages of most Romance languages indefinites that are existentials in the scope of negation. We show that this is just one evolution in the Romance area, because in Balkan Romania, negative indefinites in negative concord are universal quantifiers that outscope negation. This presupposes that negative indefinites in Balkan Romania did not lose scalarity or the focus emphasis. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the emergence of negative concord in Romance are therefore only two: the existence of the NegP projection and (in the case of negative indefinites) the grammaticalization of their negative feature. Scalarity and emphasis of focus, instead, are factors of variation in the realization of negative concord, as they may or may not be preserved by Romance languages.
Deverbal nominalization, that is, the linguistic process through which a verb is turned into a noun/noun phrase by the addition of a (zero) suffix (e.g. examination < (to) examine or smile < (to) smile), has attracted a lot of interest from numerous scholars, thus, it has been the subject of thorough investigation over the last few decades. This interest dates back to Chomsky’s (1970) preliminary remarks on nominalizations but receives special attention due to, first and foremost, Grimshaw’s (1990) tripartite division of derived nominals into complex event, simple event and result nominals. The distinction proposed in this seminal work has become so foundational that it has not only generated keen interest in the deeper understanding of this phenomenon (cf. Borer 2012, Alexiadou & Borer 2020 a.o.) but also prompted syntacticians and semanticists to go beyond English and bring forward novel data from a wide variety of genealogically unrelated and typologically distinct languages. The book under review here, the slightly revised version of the author’s doctoral dissertation defended at the University of Bucharest, is one of these cross-linguistic works, which aims to delineate and characterize the parameters that underlie the differences between the system of deverbal nominalization in English and Romanian.
This study explores segmental emphasis in Ajlouni Jordanian Arabic. It addresses the lack of research on children’s production of emphatic segments. Twenty schoolchildren read 48 minimal pairs thrice, with 96 tokens analyzed per child. The study used F1, F2, and F3 at vowel onset, middle, and offset, confirming that emphasis is marked by higher F1 and lower F2. Emphasis interacts with target consonant position (PTC), vowel quality, and length. Emphasis is influenced by the segment's proximity to vowels. Emphasis affects the low vowel /a/ with significant F2 lowering; back vowels show less F2 lowering. Short vowels exhibit more pronounced emphasis than long ones, visible in F1 and F2 changes. Other interactions support these findings: front vowels have more effect on F2 onset, and short vowels consistently have a greater F2 effect at offset than long vowels, particularly for PTC by vowel length interaction, highlighting greater acoustic prominence for short vowels.
Ioana Stoicescu’s book brings to our attention new and valuable data in a language that has perhaps been stud ied to a lesser extent from the perspective of the acquisition of lexical aspect. To add to its interest to the reader, the book also includes two chapters containing an overview of the literature on telicity itself on the one hand and its acquisition on the other.
Language acquisition can drive language change. Incipient changes tend to get amplified to rates higher than those in the input (Cournane 2019). According to some authors, such amplification is accelerated under conditions of language contact (Kupisch & Polinsky 2021). Other authors argue that not every type of language change is accelerated under conditions of language contact (Avram et al. 2021a,b, 2023a). This study aims to contribute to this debate investigating the acquisition of differential object marking (DOM) in child heritage Romanian in Italy. The Romanian DOM system is undergoing a change, from a system which allows two DOM markers to one which uses exclusively one of them. The data come from a corpus of 52 narratives of child heritage speakers of Romanian. Results indicate that child heritage speakers do not advance the language change attested in contemporary Romanian, supporting the view that not every language change in progress gets amplified in language contact situations.
The last thirty years have seen the emergence and burgeoning of the field of heritage languages and linguistics (Montrul & Polinsky 2021, Polinsky 2018, Rao 2024) and, naturally, the acquisition of heritage languages (Montrul 2008, 2016, Rinke et al. 2019). Heritage languages are socio-politically minority languages that are acquired in a bilingual and multilingual context, simultaneously or as a first language (sequential bilingualism), under pressure from the socio-politically majority language. Immigrant languages in the diaspora, minority historical languages in diverse territories, and aboriginal languages in America, Australia, Northern Europe and Asia can be heritage languages, depending on their circumstances. A significant body of linguistic research on heritage languages has focused on major standard languages in the diaspora, such as Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Russian, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi and Arabic, to name just a few, and on the language of second-generation immigrants, also known as heritage speakers. The early interest in this young adult bilingual population (Silva-Corvalán 1994, Polinsky 1997, Song et al. 1997) arose from the observation of marked differences in the proficiency and structural changes observed in the grammars of these speakers compared to the grammars of the first-generation immigrants, i.e., the parents of the heritage speakers who immigrated in adulthood and were full speakers of their native linguistic variety. These patterns were also found for Romanian as a heritage language in the United States (Montrul et al. 2015).
This study investigated the comprehension of subject and object which-questions in both the heritage language (Romanian) and the societal language (German) of eighteen bilingual children with ages between five and eleven. Using an offline picture-matching task, the study assessed whether the bilingual children use morphological cues, like differential object marking, case marking, and number agreement to overcome the difficulties associated with the comprehension of object which-questions even in monolingual acquisition (Bentea 2017, Friedmann et al. 2009, Roesch & Chondrogianni 2016). The study shows that the Romanian-German bilingual children exhibit a subject-object asymmetry in both their heritage and societal language. However, children appear to use morphological cues differently. In Romanian, the differential object marker did not eliminate comprehension difficulties and a number mismatch did not significantly impact offline interpretation. In contrast, in German, case marking, but not number, played a significant facilitative role, especially when marked on both noun phrases.
In Native Speakers, Interrupted. Differential Object Marking and Language Change in Heritage Languages, Silvina Montrul explores the topic of language change under conditions of language contact, through the lens of heritage language acquisition. More specifically, the author focuses on the use of differential object marking (henceforth DOM) by heritage speakers of Spanish, Hindi and Romanian, all living in the USA, in an innovative cross-linguistic and cross-generational study.
This study examines the use of plural nouns in generic contexts among heritage speakers of Romanian growing up in an English-dominant context in Canada and acquiring French as a third language through the French Immersion program. Building on crosslinguistic research on genericity, we investigate whether these children produce target-like plural noun forms in Romanian compared to English and French, and whether their performance reflects crosslinguistic influence or factors tied to heritage language maintenance. Sixteen heritage Romanian children and five Romanian-dominant controls completed elicitation tasks in all three languages, testing both generic and specific contexts. Statistical analyses revealed significant differences across languages, with Romanian showing the lowest accuracy, particularly in generic contexts, and English showing near-target performance. These results provide new empirical evidence from a rarely studied population, highlighting the vulnerability of heritage morphosyntax to dominant-language structural patterns. The findings underscore the importance of heritage language input and the potential for typologically related languages, such as French, to support heritage language maintenance.
A heritage language, also known as “family language”, “home language”, or “native language”, represents a minority language acquired through naturalistic exposure within the home, but in a context where a different language is the majority societal language (Rothman 2009, Montrul 2008, 2016, 2022a, b, 2023, Benmamoun et al. 2013, Polinsky 2018, a.o.). In other words, the language spoken in the home, and possibly within a smaller community, differs from the dominant language used by the broader society. Children acquiring heritage languages are heritage speakers of these languages. They are typically early bilinguals, simultaneous or successive, depending on the timing of acquisition of the two languages. These can be acquired either simultaneously from birth or successively, when the heritage language is acquired as the first language (L1) and the societal language is acquired later as second language (L2). Heritage speakers differ greatly in their profiles and can be either second generation immigrants (so children of first-generation immigrants and who are born in the new country), or immigrant children, who immigrate to the new country before puberty (Montrul & Polinsky 2021). For instance, a child born to Romanian immigrant parents in Paris or a child who immigrated at the age of nine with the family from Cluj-Napoca to Munich, would grow up as heritage speakers of Romanian in France and Germany, respectively.
This study investigates intra-sentential pronominal subject resolution in ambiguous anaphora contexts by 7- and 10-year-old heritage Romanian – French bilinguals compared to age-matched monolingually-raised Romanian children living in the homeland. The data come from a binary sentence picture matching task which assessed the interpretation of (3rd person singular) null and overt pronominal subjects in while clauses as well as the role of differential object marking on pronominal anaphora resolution. The 7-year-olds did not distinguish between the two subject types and had a subject bias irrespective of the nature of the embedded subject. The 10-year-old group distinguished between the two subject types but the distinction was significant only when the object in the matrix clause was differentially marked. They had a target-like subject bias with null anaphoric pronouns and no bias with overt anaphoric pronouns. These results indicate that in spite of input reduction after onset of schooling the child heritage speakers show progress with respect to pronominal anaphora resolution. The comparison with age-matched monolingually-raised Romanian children living in the homeland revealed a similar delay and a similar response pattern. At age 10, antecedent choice with overt pronominal subjects is not adult-like with any of the two groups. One single difference was found. The 10-year-old monolingual children distinguished more categorically between null and overt pronominal subjects. The delay is accounted for in terms of the hybrid behaviour of overt pronominal subjects in Romanian and early inability to integrate different information sources in the processing of anaphora resolution, a phenomenon at the interface between syntax and discourse pragmatics.
This study investigates the effects of explicit instruction in derivational morphology on English vocabulary acquisition among Dutch high school students. Forty-two learners participated in a pre-test/post-test intervention comparing two approaches: Focus on Forms (FoFs), emphasizing systematic teaching of ffixes, and Focus on Form (FoF), embedding affixes in communicative contexts. Mixed-factor ANOVA analyses revealed no significant overall effects of instructional type or time, though task type significantly influenced outcomes. Students consistently performed worse on derivation tasks than on decomposition or sentence completion, with prefixes posing greater challenges than suffixes. These findings highlight the cognitive complexity of productive morphological tasks and the need for more targeted, sustained instruction.The study underscores that while explicit morphological teaching may not yield immediate gains across all tasks, it illuminates task- and affix-specific difficulties that must be addressed in vocabulary pedagogy.
The goal of this paper is to provide a short state of the art review of third language (L3) acquisition research from a generative point of view . I present som e of the most important theoretical models of morphosyntactic transfer along with the results of exemplar studies that test them. R esearch in this field of study is most interested in tracing transfer, identifying its source(s) first language ( L1 and/or second language ( L2 and determining its nature facilitative or non facilitative in the process of a ttaining proficiency in L3 see Rothman et al. 2019). Experimental results indicate that both previously acquired languages (L1 and L2) can be transfer red in a facilitative and non facilitative manner , approving or contradicting some of the proposed models of transfer. I conclude that there is a need for more research, testing the models across different language combinations and thus providing answers t o the questions raised by th e field.
This paper is an effort to explore issues pertaining to pronunciation instruction in Egypt, from the perspective of Egyptian EFL learners and teachers, with an emphasis placed on: views on pronunciation performances, expectations from their lecturers/students and study programmes, challenges faced in learning/teaching English pronunciation, desired proficiency standards and attitudes towards English and the specific items taught, the influence of mother tongue, as well as views on what participants would like to see applied in textbooks and classrooms (e.g. organised activities, behaviour, approaches, methods, etc.). Recommendations based on questionnaire responses by both learners and teachers can be summarised as follows: (i) ensuring the qualifiedness of teachers, lecturers and educators in general (e.g. by seeking a TEFL-related qualification alongside a relevant university degree as position requirements), (ii) teaching English in English for more exposure to the target language content, (iii) minimising teacher-centered classroom performance and allocating most of the class time for student participation and involvement, (iv) directing efforts towards creating an engaging and motivating environment for both teachers and learners by refraining from employing traditional outdated teaching methods that may lead to eliminating chances of effective communicative interaction, (v) applying assessment methods that prioritise development over scores to enhance students’ creativity and critical thinking skills, (vi) integrating the element of pronunciation in the teaching of other language skills, (vii) ensuring the cultural appropriacy and appeal of the study materials to meet the expectations of learners, address the actual teaching/learning objectives and suit the particular EFL context in question.
Laura Aull’s book contains a list of figures, list of tables, acknowledgements, an introduction, followed by eight chapters, conclusion, afterword, notes, references and an index.
Negative bi- is the primary indicator of caritivity in Romani and has been invariably recognized as belonging to the pre-European component of the language. Most lexicographic sources and related studies trace it back to OIA वि vi- ‘un-’, but also acknowledge that an Iranian origin is plausible. In Romani, bi- can function as a preposition, non-verbal privative prefix, conjunction, and verbal prefix. This paper argues that these various constructions can be ascribed to different stages in the development of the language and to different contact scenarios. The limited set of verbs containing a reflex of OIA preverbal वि- vi- and the prototypical circumpositional bi…qo template correspond to an early proto-Romani stage (perhaps late MIA or apabhraṃśa), most certainly prior to the departure from the Indian subcontinent. Strongly adjectival compounds (prefixal bi…qo, bi- + adjectives, bi- + adjectival participles) are more likely to have arisen in a post-Indian context, as a result of contact with Persian or other Iranian languages. Finally, the use of bi as a conjunction with subjunctive verbs must be the result of a later, localized convergence within the Balkan Sprachbund. Drawing on the existing literature and the analysis of various Romani texts, the paper also attempts to disambiguate the morphological status of bi- in genitive nominal formations. The lexical-semantic approach proposed by Lieber (2004) and the picture of overlapping and competing negative prefixes in IE languages outlined by Wackernagel (2009) help explain the functional flexibility and diversity of this lone productive negative prefix as the result of subsequent semantic and functional reconfigurations in various contact scenarios.
Borg (1978) notes that 15th and 16th-century transcriptions of Maltese place names display the auxiliary vowels [a] or [i] inserted into word-medial consonant clusters. According to Borg (1978) the quality of the auxiliary vowel is phonologically conditioned: it is [a] in a back environment, but [i] elsewhere. On this analysis the auxiliary vowels [a] and [i] exhibit complementary distribution. The examination of records of Maltese, however, yields a more complex picture. Auxiliary vowels continue to occur relatively frequently in the 17th-century, as evidenced by archival records of the Roman Inquisition (Cassar 2005), Thezan’s (by 1647) dictionary, the place names in Abela (1647), and Skippon’s (1732) word list collected in 1664. On the strength of the evidence provided by 17th-century records, it is shown that: (i) Maltese resorted to three auxiliary vowels – [a], [ɪ] and [o]; (ii) phonological conditioning is less strict than hitherto assumed, with [ɪɪ] occasionally occurring in a back environment as well; (iii) left-to-right vowel copying also plays a role in determining the quality of the auxiliary vowel, whereby an /o/ preceding a back consonant determines the selection of [o]. Also, it is shown that the findings are compatible with the hypothesis of a direct link between Sicilian Arabic and Maltese.
This paper explores the epenthetic vowel quality in Dagbani loanwords adapted from English and Arabic within the Feature Geometry (FG) model of Clements & Hume (1995). The findings reveal that vowel epenthesis plays a pivotal role as a syllable repair strategy in Dagbani. Three distinct strategies, namely vowel harmony, local/consonantal assimilation, and default vowel epenthesis, were identified to account for the quality of epenthetic vowels in Dagbani loanwords. Default vowel insertion emerged as the primary strategy, with the insertion of the central high vowel /ɨ/ and the front high vowel /i/. Vowel harmony was employed when the intervening consonant was a liquid or dorsal, occurring in word-initial, word-medial, and word-final positions. Conversely, the consonantal assimilation strategy was applied primarily in word-final position. In the context of vowel harmony, only labial features were observed to harmonize, while the consonantal assimilation strategy entailed the spreading of both coronal (palato-alveolar) and labial features. Finally, a segmental representation is provided of the Dagbani place feature in borrowed words, in which both left-to-right and right-to-left feature spreading are attested
