ERIC Number: EJ1258377
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Jul
Pages: 30
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
EISSN: N/A
Case Marking and Word Order in Greek Heritage Children
Chondrogianni, Vasiliki; Schwartz, Richard G.
Journal of Child Language, v47 n4 p766-795 Jul 2020
This study examined the linguistic and individual-level factors that render case marking a vulnerable domain in English-dominant Greek heritage children. We also investigated whether heritage language (HL) children can use case-marking cues to interpret (non-)canonical sentences in Greek similarly to their monolingual peers. A group of six- to twelve-year-old Greek heritage children in New York City and a control group of age-matched monolingual children living in Greece participated in a production and a picture verification task targeting case marking and (non-)canonical word order in Greek. HL children produced syncretic inflectional errors, also found in preschool monolingual children. In the comprehension task, HL children showed variable performance on the non-canonical OVS but ceiling performance on the SVO conditions, which suggests influence from English. Linguistic factors such as case transparency affected comprehension, whereas child-level factors such as proficiency and degree of (early) use of Greek influenced performance on both modalities.
Descriptors: Greek, Native Language, Children, Preadolescents, Bilingualism, Foreign Countries, English, Grammar, Word Order, Error Patterns, Comprehension, Individual Characteristics, Language Proficiency, Language Usage
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: New York (New York); Greece
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A