Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T19:20:34.995Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

What's in a grammar? Modeling dominance and optimization in contact

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2013

DEVYANI SHARMA*
Affiliation:
Queen Mary, University of [email protected]

Extract

Muysken's article is a timely call for us to seek deeper regularities in the bewildering diversity of language contact outcomes. His model provocatively suggests that most such outcomes can be subsumed under four speaker optimization strategies. I consider two aspects of the proposal here: the formalization in Optimality Theory (OT) and the reduction of contact outcomes to four basic strategies.

Type
Peer Commentaries
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bhatt, R. M. (2000). Optimal expressions in Indian English. English Language and Linguistics, 4, 6995.Google Scholar
Bhatt, R. M., & Bolonyai, A. (2011). Code-switching and the optimal grammar of bilingual language use. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 522546.Google Scholar
Boersma, P., & Hayes, B. (2001). Empirical tests of the Gradual Learning Algorithm. Linguistic Inquiry, 32, 4586.Google Scholar
Bresnan, J., Deo, A., & Sharma, D. (2007). Typology in variation: A probabilistic approach to be and n't in the Survey of English Dialects. English Language and Linguistics, 11, 301346.Google Scholar
Herbert, R. K. (2002). The sociohistory of clicks in Southern Bantu. In Mesthrie, R. (ed.), Language in South Africa, pp. 297315. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hogeweg, L. (2009). Word in process: On the interpretation, acquisition, and production of words. Ph.D. dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen.Google Scholar
Kager, R. (1999). Optimality Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Koontz-Garboden, A. (2004). Language contact and Spanish aspectual expression: A formal analysis. Lingua, 114, 12911330.Google Scholar
MacSwan, J. (2005). Codeswitching and generative grammar: A critique of the MLF model and some remarks on “modified minimalism”. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 8, 122.Google Scholar
Mahootian, S. (1993). A null theory of code switching. Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Roberts, S. J. (2004). The role of style and identity in the development of Hawaiian Creole. In Escure, G. & Schwegler, A. (eds.), Creoles, contact, and language change: Linguistic and social implications, pp. 331350. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharma, D. (2005). Language transfer and discourse universals in Indian English article use. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27, 535566.Google Scholar
Sharma, D. (2009). Typological diversity in New Englishes. English World-Wide, 30, 170195.Google Scholar
Sharma, D. (2011). Return of the native: Hinglish in Britain. In Kothari, R. & Snell, R. (eds.), Chutnefying English, pp. 121. New Delhi: Penguin.Google Scholar
Wiltshire, C. (2006). Word-final consonant and cluster acquisition in Indian English(es). In Bamman, D., Magnitskaia, T. & Zaller, C. (eds.), Online proceedings supplement of the 30th Boston University Conference on Language Development (available online). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. [http://www.bu.edu/bucld/proceedings/supplement/vol30/]Google Scholar
Wiltshire, C. (forthcoming). Emergence of the unmarked in Indian Englishes with different substrates. In Filppula, M., Klemola, J. & Sharma, D. (eds.), The Oxford handbook of World Englishes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Woolford, E. (1983). Bilingual code-switching and syntactic theory. Linguistic Inquiry, 14, 520536.Google Scholar