Abstract
The Irish language is an indigenous minority language undergoing accelerated convergence with English against a backdrop of declining intergenerational transmission, universal bilingualism, and exposure to large numbers of L2 speakers. Recent studies indicate that the interaction of complex morphosyntax and variable levels of consistent input result in some aspects of Irish grammar having a long trajectory of acquisition or not being fully acquired. Indeed, for the small group of children who are L1 speakers of Irish, identifying which “end point” of this trajectory is appropriate against which to assess these children’s acquisition of Irish is difficult. In this study, data were collected from 135 proficient adult speakers and 306 children (aged 6–13 years) living in Irish-speaking (Gaeltacht) communities, using specially designed measures of grammatical gender. The results show that both quality and quantity of input appear to impact on acquisition of this aspect of Irish morphosyntax: even the children acquiring Irish in homes where Irish is the dominant language showed poor performance on tests of grammatical gender marking, and the adult performance on these tests indicate that children in Irish-speaking communities are likely to be exposed to input showing significant grammatical variability in Irish gender marking. The implications of these results will be discussed in terms of language convergence, and the need for intensive support for mother-tongue speakers of Irish.
Highlights
IntroductionGathercole and Thomas (2009) differentiated between bilinguals according to their levels of exposure to each language: they found that consistent lags between monolinguals and bilinguals in acquisition could be attributed to reduced exposure to that language on a daily basis
A floor effect was found for all child participants on Expressive Measure of Irish Morphosyntax (E-MIM) Subtest 1 and E-MIM Subtest 2, whereby less than 10% of nouns requiring an initial mutation were actively marked for gender assignment and less than 1% of nouns were marked for noun–adjective agreement
Grammatical gender marking following the definite article and in noun–adjective combinations appear no longer to be reliably marked in the variety of Irish spoken in Irishspeaking communities by child speakers, as well as adult speakers under the age of 55
Summary
Gathercole and Thomas (2009) differentiated between bilinguals according to their levels of exposure to each language: they found that consistent lags between monolinguals and bilinguals in acquisition could be attributed to reduced exposure to that language on a daily basis They argued that this shows that children need a quantitative “critical mass” of input in order to move from item-by-item learning of complex morphosyntax to system learning, if they are to master the more complex aspects of grammar that are typically acquired later in monolingual acquisition. Rodina and Westergaard (2017) noted the interaction of factors such as age of onset, input quantity and system transparency on the timing of acquisition of gender marking in two groups of Russian–Norwegian bilinguals in Norway They concluded that early age of onset does not compensate for reduced levels of input in the minority language, and can impact on the acquisition of even a transparent system. There is evidence that in high-exposure contexts, bilinguals do not always diverge from monolinguals showing slow acquisition of complex systems, but that where children receive lower levels of input, this reduced exposure can interact with the relative formal complexity of specific within-language features to impact negatively on rate of acquisition of that aspect of morphosyntax in that language
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