7 - Differential Object Marking in Hindi as a Heritage Language

Summary

This chapter asks whether DOM—which is a vulnerable grammatical area in Spanish in the United States—is also vulnerable in Hindi as a heritage language. The results of the study presented in this chapter show that some Hindi heritage speakers also display omission of DOM in all tasks. But unlike what was found for the Spanish-speaking Mexican immigrants in the Spanish study discussed in the previous chapter, there is no indication of ongoing language change in the Hindi spoken in the homeland nor apparent signs of attrition of DOM in the Hindi-speaking adult immigrant group. The sociolinguistic characteristics of the Hindi/Urdu-speaking population in the United States is discussed. The results of the linguistic background questionnaire and the linguistic tasks (oral narrative task, elicited production task, written task, bimodal acceptability judgment task, auditory/written comprehension task) are presented and discussed.