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French–Dutch bilinguals do not maintain obligatory semantic distinctions: Evidence from placement verbs*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2013

INGE ALFERINK  and
MARIANNE GULLBERG
INGE ALFERINK*
Affiliation:
Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen/International Max Planck Research School for Language Sciences
MARIANNE GULLBERG
Affiliation:
Lund University
*
Address for correspondence: Inge Alferink, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, afdeling Taalwetenschap, Postbus 9103, 6500HD Nijmegen, The Netherlands[email protected]
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Abstract

It is often said that bilinguals are not the sum of two monolinguals but that bilingual systems represent a third pattern. This study explores the exact nature of this pattern. We ask whether there is evidence of a merged system when one language makes an obligatory distinction that the other one does not, namely in the case of placement verbs in French and Dutch, and whether such a merged system is realised as a more general or a more specific system. The results show that in elicited descriptions Belgian French–Dutch bilinguals do not maintain two distinct categories in one of the languages, resulting in a more general semantic system in comparison with the non-contact variety. They do not uphold the obligatory distinction in the verb nor elsewhere despite its communicative relevance. This raises important questions regarding how widespread these differences are and what drives these patterns.

Keywords

functional bilingualsplacement verbsFrenchDutchconvergence
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 22 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

*

This research was supported by the Centre for Language Studies (Radboud University Nijmegen) and the Academy Chair awarded to Pieter Muysken by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW) as well as by the MPI for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen. We are grateful to Eef Ameel, Tine van der Camp, Laurence Mettewie, Laurence Meurent, Marie-Eve Michot, and Laëtitia Piscone for assistance with data collection. We also thank Pieter Muysken, Ellen Ormel, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this paper and Gerrit Jan Kootstra for statistical advice.

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