Incomplete Acquisition Research Articles

Някои наблюдения върху усвояването на евиденциалността в българския език като втори от носители на английския език

Second language acquisition of grammatical evidentiality in Bulgarian is studied through analyzing the spoken language use of a number of native English speakers. The category is found unstable at the higher levels of language proficiency, which indicates incomplete acquisition. There are cases of probable full acquisition which the current analysis cannot confirm. Suggestions regarding the role of the linguistic worldview are put forward.

Assessment of Minimal Residual Disease in a Phase 1b Study of Once-Weekly Carfilzomib Combined with Lenalidomide and Dexamethasone in Patients with Multiple Myeloma

Assessment of Minimal Residual Disease in a Phase 1b Study of Once-Weekly Carfilzomib Combined with Lenalidomide and Dexamethasone in Patients with Multiple Myeloma

Assessing Rhotic Production by Bilingual Spanish Speakers

Due to its articulatory precision, the Spanish rhotic system is generally acquired in late childhood by monolingually-raised (L1) Spanish speakers. Heritage speakers and second language (L2) learners, unlike L1 speakers, risk an incomplete acquisition of the rhotic system due to limited Spanish input and possible phonological interference from English. In order to examine the effects of age of onset of bilingualism and cross-linguistic influence on bilinguals’ rhotic productions, twenty-four adult participants (six sequential bilingual heritage speakers, six simultaneous bilingual heritage speakers, six L1 Spanish speakers, six L2 Spanish learners) were audio recorded in a storytelling task and a picture naming task. The alveolar taps [ɾ] and alveolar trills [r] produced in these tasks were examined according to duration of the rhotic sound and number of apical occlusions. Results showed that the sequential bilinguals, but not the simultaneous bilinguals or the L2 learners, patterned similarly to the L1 Spanish speakers in their production of taps and trills. Neither heritage group produced the English alveolar approximant [ɹ]; the L2 learners, on the other hand, did produce [ɹ] when speaking Spanish. The results of this study suggest that early language input can affect the production of sounds that are acquired in late childhood.

Reduplication in Abui: A case of pattern extension

This paper studies the effect of ongoing contact on the Abui reduplication system. Abui, a Papuan indigenous minority language of eastern Indonesia, has been in contact with the regional lingua franca, Alor Malay (Austronesian), for around 50–60 years. Throughout this period, contact with Alor Malay has affected different age groups in different ways across various levels of grammar. Here we compare Abui reduplication across four age groups: (pre)adolescents, young adults, adults, and elders, and show how the function and distribution of reduplication in the Abui spoken by younger speakers is affected by a combination of morphological PAT borrowing and lexical borrowing from Alor Malay. The changing patterns are first applied to the domain in which the two languages overlap: existing Abui verb reduplications become more Alor Malay-like with respect to their function, form, and productivity. The borrowing of an additional function of reduplication is analyzed as a type of complexification in Abui, while at the same time, Abui reduplication itself is demonstrated to also show simplification in terms of form. We argue that this change is induced by decades of stable bilingualism, and is further enhanced by the fact that reduplication is a universal morphological operation and can emerge spontaneously in language contact situations. Thus, the emerging trends reported here are explained by both borrowing from Alor Malay as well as incomplete acquisition of Abui.

Input limitations in a diffuse linguistic setting: Observations from a West African contact zone

The sociolinguistic background of multilingual rural societies in West Africa and the prevailing conditions of language transmission are quite different from those found in most immigrant situations in the Global North. In the case focused upon here, the target language itself is under constant pressure from other, more dominant contact languages, and the usual repertoire of a fully competent speaker already involves a larger number of language sources and internal variations. This article explores the verbal behaviour of three speakers of the endangered language Pana (Gur/Niger-Congo; Mali/Burkina Faso) who experienced varying degrees of interrupted language transmission in earlier life times. They were all brought up in situations where only one of the parents spoke Pana as a first language and where it was not part of their general linguistic environment. The speakers find themselves now in a setting where local people prefer Pana and consider it the most appropriate code for village dwellers in community-internal communication. Accordingly, the speakers under scrutiny struggle with the communicative obligations and try to cope with their usually fully competent conversation partners’ expectations. The presented analysis of discourse data shows the manifold and complex linguistic and social implications of such a situation. It will be argued that it is correspondingly difficult to disentangle general language contact phenomena from variation introduced through incomplete second-language acquisition. Furthermore, the data strongly suggests that the background of a diffuse linguistic system and a relatively unfocused society entails a greater liberty for the scrutinized speakers’ communicative possibilities. Regarding norm adherence, the partners in discourse seem to stretch the acceptance of linguistic variation to the very limits of the already diffuse linguistic system as long as social conduct and behavioural norms of communication are respected.

Examining possible sources of L2 divergence at the pragmatics interface: Turkish accusative in the end-state grammar of L1 Russian and L1 English users of L2 Turkish

The Interface Hypothesis (IH) postulates that interface structures are potentially vulnerable to incomplete acquisition in the end-state L2. Two plausible explanations have been suggested as possible causes of the L2 divergence at the interface: (1) the interaction between two competing grammatical systems, and (2) differences between monolinguals and bilinguals in integrating information from different domains in L2. This study aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the interface phenomenon and to examine the extent to which L1 interference might account for L2 divergence at the interface. To this end, the study examines the use of Turkish accusative case (AC) in the end-state L2 grammar of L1 Russian and L1 English advanced users of L2 Turkish. The findings provide additional evidence for the IH and suggest that L2 divergence at the interface is likely to reflect more differences between monolinguals and bilinguals in integrating information from different domains rather than L1 interference.

Yiddish–Lithuanian bilingualism: Incomplete acquisition, change through contacts, or both?

Aims and Objectives/Purposes/Research Questions: Studies on incomplete first language (L1) acquisition emphasize restricted input, the low prestige of heritage/immigrant/minority languages, and age of acquisition as significant factors contributing to changes in L1. However, it is not always clear whether it is possible to distinguish results of incomplete acquisition and contact-induced language change. This article deals with two Yiddish–Lithuanian bilinguals who acquired both languages at home (recorded in 2010 and 2011). The focus of the article is the absence of the Yiddish past tense auxiliary in both informants and the replacement of Yiddish discourse-pragmatic words by their Lithuanian or English equivalents in the speech of the second informant. Design/Methodology/Approach: Qualitative analysis of the speech of two Yiddish–Lithuanian bilinguals. Data and Analysis: Two sets of recordings analyzed for the past tense use and other features mentioned in Yiddish attrition studies. Findings/Conclusions: Restricted input is to be considered as a factor in any case. However, it is argued that phenomena reported in the heritage language literature are often the same as in the contact linguistic literature: impact on non-core morphosyntax, prosody, and word order are usually mentioned as primary candidates of contact-induced structural change. Based on purely linguistic phenomena, it is not possible to distinguish between the results of acquisition under the conditions of limited input and in other contact situations where limited input is not necessarily the case. Many features of the informants’ Yiddish are a result of Lithuanian impact. Originality: Yiddish–Lithuanian early bilingualism is extremely rare nowadays. The data and analysis contribute to a general understanding of the interplay between contact-induced language change and limited input. Significance/Implications: Unlike what is often presumed, it is not always possible to make comparisons to monolinguals or balanced bilinguals because monolingual speakers of Yiddish do not exist.

Sparse Analyzer Tool for Biomedical Signals.

The virtual (software) instrument with a statistical analyzer for testing algorithms for biomedical signals’ recovery in compressive sensing (CS) scenario is presented. Various CS reconstruction algorithms are implemented with the aim to be applicable for different types of biomedical signals and different applications with under-sampled data. Incomplete sampling/sensing can be considered as a sort of signal damage, where missing data can occur as a result of noise or the incomplete signal acquisition procedure. Many approaches for recovering the missing signal parts have been developed, depending on the signal nature. Here, several approaches and their applications are presented for medical signals and images. The possibility to analyze results using different statistical parameters is provided, with the aim to choose the most suitable approach for a specific application. The instrument provides manifold possibilities such as fitting different parameters for the considered signal and testing the efficiency under different percentages of missing data. The reconstruction accuracy is measured by the mean square error (MSE) between original and reconstructed signal. Computational time is important from the aspect of power requirements, thus enabling the selection of a suitable algorithm. The instrument contains its own signal database, but there is also the possibility to load any external data for analysis.

How secondary school students may benefit from linguistic metaconcepts to reason about L1 grammatical problems

In L1 grammar teaching, teachers often struggle with the students’ conceptual understanding of the subject matter. Frequently, students do not acquire an in-depth understanding of grammar, and they seem generally incapable of reasoning about grammatical problems. Some scholars have argued that an in-depth understanding of grammar requires making connections between concepts from traditional grammar and underlying metaconcepts from linguistic theory. In the current study, we evaluate an intervention aiming to do this, following up on a previous study that found a significant effect for such an approach in university students of Dutch Language and Literature (d = 0.62). In the current study, 119 Dutch secondary school students’ grammatical reasonings (N = 684) were evaluated by language teachers, teacher educators and linguists pre and post intervention using comparative judgement. Results indicate that the intervention significantly boosted the students’ ability to reason grammatically (d = 0.46), and that many students can reason based on linguistic metaconcepts. The study also shows that reasoning based on explicit underlying linguistic metaconcepts and on explicit concepts from traditional grammar is more favored by teachers and (educational) linguists than reasoning without explicit (meta)concepts. However, some students show signs of incomplete acquisition of the metaconcepts. The paper discusses explanations for this incomplete acquisition.

DETECTION AND EXTRACTION OF WATER BOTTOM TOPOGRAPHY FROM LASERBATHYMETRY DATA BY USING FULL-WAVEFORM-STACKING TECHNIQUES

Abstract. Airborne LiDAR bathymetry allows an efficient and area-wide acquisition of water bottom points in shallow water areas. However, the measurement method is severely limited by water turbidity, impending a reliable detection of water bottom points at higher turbidity or in deeper water bodies. This leads to an incomplete acquisition of the water bottom topography. In this contribution, advanced processing methods are presented, which increase the penetration depth compared to the original processed data and enable a reliable extraction and detection of bottom points in deeper water bodies. The methodology is based on the analysis of correlated neighborhood information assuming a steady water bottom. The results confirm a significantly higher penetration depth with a high reliability of the additionally extracted water bottom points along with a larger coverage of the water bottom topography.

TERMINOLOGY CHOICE IN GENERATIVE ACQUISITION RESEARCH

AbstractPascual y Cabo and Rothman (2012) and Kupisch and Rothman (2018) argue against the use of termincompleteto characterize the grammars of heritage speakers, claiming that it reflects a negative evaluation of the linguistic knowledge of these bilingual speakers. We examine the reasons for and against the use of “incomplete” across acquisition contexts and argue that its use is legitimate on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Our goal is to present arguments for using the term, not to evaluate the scientific validity of incomplete acquisition over other possible accounts. Although our conclusion is that the term should not be abandoned, we advocate a position whereby researchers consider the possible negative impact of the terminology they use and how they use it. This position aims to resolve the tension between the need to prioritize scientific effectiveness and the need to avoid terminology that can be negatively misconstrued by the general public.

Cur siar mhúineadh an Bhéarla i mbunscoileanna Gaeltachta: más mall is mithid

Bhí iliomad coiste, comhairle, agus coimisiúin a rinne iniúchadh ar an gcóras oideachais Gaeltachta i gcaitheamh na mblianta ó 1926 i leith. Tugadh neamhaird den chuid is mó ar mholtaí na dtuarascálacha éagsúla go dtí gur foilsíodh Curaclam Teanga na Bunscoile (An Chomhairle Náisiúnta Curaclaim agus Measúnachta, 2015) agus an Polasaí don Oideachas Gaeltachta (An Roinn Oideachais agus Scileanna, 2016). Ceadaítear tréimhse tumadh iomlán sa Ghaeilge den chéad uair de réir na moltaí sna cáipéisí sin. Ardaíonn sé seo ceisteanna do scoileanna Gaeltachta maidir le riachtanais oideachais teanga cainteoirí óga Gaeilge na Gaeltachta. Ar chóir múineadh an Bhéarla a thosú go luath do na cainteoirí seo ag aithint go maireann siad i ndomhan ina bhfuil an Béarla ceannasach? Déantar cur síos san alt seo ar an iniúchadh a rinneadh ar na moltaí éagsúla a rinneadh maidir leis an oideachas Gaeltachta agus ar an litríocht ábhartha le fáil amach an bhfuil bonn láidir oideachasúil faoin bpolasaí seo. Mhaígh Ó Duibhir agus Cummins (2012) go n-aistríonn scileanna áirithe teanga, ar nós scileanna litearthachta, ó theanga amháin go teanga eile. Más fíor sin, d’fhéadfaí a mhaíomh gur cuma cé acu teanga go dtéitear i ngleic léi ar dtús mar go n-aistreofar na scileanna ó theanga amháin go dtí an ceann eile. Léiríonn taighde eile le páistí Gaeltachta (7-12 bliain d’aois) ar chainteoirí dúchais iad, go bhfuil stór focal níos fairsinge acu sa Bhéarla ná mar atá sa Ghaeilge (Péterváry, Ó Curnáin, Ó Giollagáin, & Sheahan, 2014). B’fhéidir gur fianaise í seo go bhfuil sealbhú neamhiomlán i gceist do na páistí seo agus go rachadh sé chun sochair dóibh múineadh an Bhéarla a chur siar chun breis ama a thabhairt dóibh bonn níos seasmhaí a chur faoina gcumas Gaeilge. 
 Numerous committees, advisory bodies and commissions have investigated the Gaeltacht education system over the years since 1926. The recommendations of the resulting reports were on the whole ignored until the publication of the Primary Language Curriculum (National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, 2015) and the Policy for Gaeltacht Education (Department of Education and Skills, 2016). According to the recommendations in these documents, a total immersion period in Irish is permitted for the first time. This raises questions for Gaeltacht schools about the language education needs of young Irish speakers in their schools. Should the teaching of English commence early for these speakers recognising that they live in an English dominated world? In this paper, we describe an investigation of the various recommendations that were made about Gaeltacht education and the relevant literature to examine whether there is a strong educational rationale underlying this policy. Ó Duibhir and Cummins (2012) claimed that some linguistic skills, such as literacy skills, transferred from one language to another. If this is the case, it could be claimed that it does not matter which language is encountered first as the skills will transfer from one language to the other. Research by Péterváry, Ó Curnáin, Ó Giollagáin, & Sheahan (2014) involving native Irish-speaking Gaeltacht children (7-12 years) found that the children had a larger vocabulary in English than in Irish. This may be evidence that those children are experiencing incomplete acquisition and that they might benefit from a delay in the introduction of English in order to give them extra time to lay a firmer foundation for their ability in Irish.

On focus and weight in Spanish as a heritage language

AbstractPrevious research on heritage speaker (HS) bilingualism suggests, not without controversy, that certain properties of HSs’ grammars, mainly discursive properties, can result in divergent grammatical outcomes in adulthood be it as a result of incomplete acquisition or attrition. This study contributes to this line of research by examining whether HSs’ word order configurations with Spanish double object constructions reflect compliance with the pragmatic (End-Focus Principle) and syntactic related factors (End-Weight Principle) that regulate word order in Spanish. To this end, two groups of HSs with different proficiency levels in Spanish as well as a bilingual and a monolingual control group, all of Mexican origin, completed an acceptability judgment task. HSs’ performance on this task shows that their knowledge of the discursive nuances associated with constituent order remains as robust as their knowledge of the syntactic factors associated with this phenomenon. Our findings therefore suggest that this linguistic domain may not be subject to so-called incomplete acquisition or L1 attrition.

A Robust Data Interpolation Based on a Back Propagation Artificial Neural Network Operator for Incomplete Acquisition in Wireless Sensor Networks

The data space collected by a wireless sensor network (WSN) is the basis of data mining and data visualization. In the process of monitoring physical quantities with large time and space correlations, incomplete acquisition strategy with data interpolation can be adopted to reduce the deployment cost. To improve the performance of data interpolation in such a scenario, we proposed a robust data interpolation based on a back propagation artificial neural network operator. In this paper, a neural network learning operator is proposed based on the strong fault tolerance of artificial neural networks. The learning operator is trained by using the historical data of the data acquisition nodes of WSN and is transferred to estimate the value of physical quantities at the locations where sensors are not deployed. The experimental results show that our proposed method yields smaller interpolation error than the traditional inverse-distance-weighted interpolation (IDWI) method.

When Bilingualism is the Common Factor: Switch Reference at the Junction of Competence and Performance in Both Second Language and Heritage Language Performance

In this paper we take a closer look at the oft-touted divide between heritage language speakers and adult second language (L2) learners. Here, we explore whether some properties of language may display general effects across different populations of bilinguals, explaining, at least partially, why these two groups show some common differences when compared with monolinguals. To test this hypothesis, we adduce data from two unique populations of bilinguals: a moribund variety of heritage German spoken in southwestern Kansas (Moundridge Schweitzer German) and L2 adult learners of Spanish. Empirically, we investigate whether the confound of switch reference adds an additional cognitive burden to these bilinguals in licensing object control predicates in the former and referential subject pronouns in the latter. Our preliminary findings support the view that overarching concepts such as incomplete acquisition cannot capture the variability observed in these populations, thus further supporting approaches that interpret findings such as these to be the result of specific variables.

The optional Spanish subjunctive mood grammar of New York City heritage bilinguals

Carried out within a variationist-sociolinguistic framework, this study seeks to gain a better understanding of the underlying mood grammar of second-generation heritage bilinguals in New York City (NYC). To that end, we compare optional subjunctive use in the speech of 26 second-generation heritage bilinguals to that of 26 of their first-generation counterparts. Based on usage patterns observed in both generations, a total of ten linguistic contexts are identified as subjunctive optional, i.e., where the subjunctive and the indicative alternate. Results stemming from quantitative analyses show that generation conditions optional subjunctive use, suggesting the presence of two distinct generational groups in our corpus. Furthermore, two internal variables are found to be statistically significant for both cohorts: linguistic context and rank order; whereas only one external variable is significant for the bilingual heritage speakers: level of English skill. Finally, we take a critical approach to challenge widely-accepted notions surrounding heritage languages, namely simplification, attrition and incomplete acquisition, concluding that all three lack the theoretical means to accurately describe the complex bilingual situation in NYC.

Factors of variation, maintenance and change in Scandinavian heritage languages

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: I investigate variation and change in heritage languages, focusing on descendants of 19th-/early 20th-century North Germanic immigrant languages in America. A battery of predictors (e.g. token frequency, language attitude) are compared against a baseline grammar, something often framed in terms of ‘transfer’, ‘incomplete acquisition’ and ‘attrition’. I examine which particular changes have been attributed to which factors. Design/methodology/approach, data and analysis: I synthesise and draw new conclusions from previous research on heritage Scandinavian. Findings/Conclusions: Relevant factors belong to two main categories: those favouring maintenance and those more likely to trigger change. Factors that support maintenance are structural ones (typically syntax, phonology and morphology), frequency of use and external factors. Factors that contribute to change are articulation, language attitudes and a series of cognitive aspects: incomplete acquisition and attrition, transfer and convergence, processing, memory, complexity and overgeneralisation. Originality: I undertake a comparative synthesis of patterns of change and non-change from baseline varieties. Significance and implications: This opens a door to investigating how factors correlate, what causal connections can be found and what levels of language are affected by what factors.

The acquisition of relative clauses by Mandarin heritage language children

AbstractThis study examined the phenomena of incomplete acquisition, attrition, and protracted acquisition of the L1 in HL children by focusing on the comprehension and production of subject and object relative clauses (RCs) in Mandarin HL children. A cross-sectional design (study 1) and a longitudinal design (study 2) were both included. Our results showed that HL children were comparable to monolinguals for the comprehension of RCs in both study 1 and 2. For the production of RCs, although monolinguals outperformed HL children in study 1, HL children’s production of RCs was convergent with monolingual-like levels over time (study 2). We conclude that the reduced L1 input HL children receive in the host country does not necessarily lead to deficient acquisition of the L1. Perhaps for some complex structures in the L1 (e.g., RCs), HL children may need more time than monolingual children to accumulate the critical mass of input needed to acquire them.

Derivational complexity vs. transfer effects

Abstract We investigate whether non-target wh-questions in heritage Low German and L2 English speakers are due primarily to cross-linguistic transfer or the reduction of grammatical complexity in developing grammars as modelled by the Derivational Complexity Hypothesis (DCH, Jakubowicz 2005). Previous research shows that complex (i.e. cross-clausal) wh-dependencies pose more difficulty to child L1 and adult L2 learners than monoclausal dependencies (Jakubowicz & Strik, 2008; Schulz, 2011; Slavkov, 2015). To avoid complex dependencies, learners often use medial constructions where the wh-item surfaces once at the left periphery of the embedded CP and a second time at the left periphery of the matrix clause. Medial-wh is ungrammatical in English, though possible in German and its varieties, e.g. the low German Plautdietsch. In this study, we investigate the linguistic behavior of twelve (n = 12) bilingual Plautdietsch-English speakers in Southwestern Kansas, analyzing their production and judgments of wh-questions in both languages. In production and judgment tasks, we find that, in the L1, only heritage speakers produced medial-wh, while in L2 English, only late L2 learners produced medial-wh. This pattern cannot be due to transfer, since speakers produce medial-wh in only one of their languages. Instead, medial-wh surfaces as a mechanism to reduce syntactic complexity in the less dominant language, irrespective of whether it is the L1 or the L2 or whether it was acquired early or late. We argue that the DCH can account for grammatical restructuring in both heritage L1 speakers and late L2 speakers and discuss its potential as a metric of incomplete acquisition and attrition in bilingual syntax.

Effects of age and education on variable but native heritage grammars: Theoretical and empirical implications for the Null Subject Parameter

AbstractIn this contribution, we investigate the impact of language-internal and language-external factors on the parametrized grammatical domain of (null) subjects in adult Italian heritage speakers (HS, n=16). Based on empirical evidence from correlation analyses comparing these speakers´ spontaneous speech to monolingual Italians (n=10), we determine the kind and extent of variation in monolingual and bilingual adult end-state grammars. We will show that there is indeed a significant variation in the null subject production of the HS related to the factorsageandeducationwhich is, however, constrained to contexts of 1stgrammatical person. This observation cannot be taken to represent incomplete acquisition but rather a discourse and possibly situation-related competent behaviour. We propose that end-state HS grammars are characterized by a full grammatical and pragmatic competence, combined with a larger variation of language-externally determined preferences than monolinguals show. This does not call the native end-state competence of HS into question but opens the door for potential changes in future bilingual generations. We further discuss the implications for language acquisition theory and language change in terms of stability.