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Prepositional phrases and case in North American (heritage) Icelandic

Dehé, Nicole and Kupisch, Tanja LU (2021) In Nordic Journal of Linguistics 45(3). p.254-280
Abstract
The paper investigates the use of PPs, specifically prepositions and the case marking on their DP arguments, in moribund North American (heritage) Icelandic (NAmIce), using data from a map task experiment. Since prepositional phrases combine semantic properties with morpho-syntactic properties, PPs allow us to investigate the relative vulnerability of both domains at once. Our results show that while the prepositional inventory of NAmIce is not reduced as compared to Modern Icelandic, the choice of prepositions is subject to crosslinguistic influence from the dominant language English. For case, we find an increase in the use of nominative and accusative case at the expense of the dative; prepositions may take over case functions too. Our... (More)
The paper investigates the use of PPs, specifically prepositions and the case marking on their DP arguments, in moribund North American (heritage) Icelandic (NAmIce), using data from a map task experiment. Since prepositional phrases combine semantic properties with morpho-syntactic properties, PPs allow us to investigate the relative vulnerability of both domains at once. Our results show that while the prepositional inventory of NAmIce is not reduced as compared to Modern Icelandic, the choice of prepositions is subject to crosslinguistic influence from the dominant language English. For case, we find an increase in the use of nominative and accusative case at the expense of the dative; prepositions may take over case functions too. Our results are in line with previous research on case in heritage languages as well as studies on language change, while partially contradicting the assumption that loss is reversely related to acquisition. (Less)
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author
and
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
case, heritage speakers, Icelandic, prepositional phrases, semantic roles
in
Nordic Journal of Linguistics
volume
45
issue
3
pages
27 pages
publisher
Cambridge University Press
external identifiers
  • scopus:85115193353
ISSN
0332-5865
DOI
10.1017/S0332586521000184
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
bbf1a6ea-0622-41ad-b624-b2b783a73fb8
date added to LUP
2024-11-22 18:40:30
date last changed
2025-04-04 15:27:16
@article{bbf1a6ea-0622-41ad-b624-b2b783a73fb8,
  abstract     = {{The paper investigates the use of PPs, specifically prepositions and the case marking on their DP arguments, in moribund North American (heritage) Icelandic (NAmIce), using data from a map task experiment. Since prepositional phrases combine semantic properties with morpho-syntactic properties, PPs allow us to investigate the relative vulnerability of both domains at once. Our results show that while the prepositional inventory of NAmIce is not reduced as compared to Modern Icelandic, the choice of prepositions is subject to crosslinguistic influence from the dominant language English. For case, we find an increase in the use of nominative and accusative case at the expense of the dative; prepositions may take over case functions too. Our results are in line with previous research on case in heritage languages as well as studies on language change, while partially contradicting the assumption that loss is reversely related to acquisition.}},
  author       = {{Dehé, Nicole and Kupisch, Tanja}},
  issn         = {{0332-5865}},
  keywords     = {{case; heritage speakers; Icelandic; prepositional phrases; semantic roles}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{3}},
  pages        = {{254--280}},
  publisher    = {{Cambridge University Press}},
  series       = {{Nordic Journal of Linguistics}},
  title        = {{Prepositional phrases and case in North American (heritage) Icelandic}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0332586521000184}},
  doi          = {{10.1017/S0332586521000184}},
  volume       = {{45}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}