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Case Marking in Hindi as the Weaker Language.
Silvina Montrul1, Archna Bhatia2, Rakesh Bhatt1
1Department of Spanish and Portuguese/Department of Linguistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States.
Frontiers in Psychology
|April 4, 2019
Summary
Language dominance impacts Hindi case marking knowledge in bilinguals. Balanced bilinguals performed better than English-dominant ones, while L2 learners and heritage speakers showed weaker Hindi case marking skills.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Psycholinguistics
- Second Language Acquisition
Background:
- Hindi exhibits a complex split-ergative case marking system.
- Understanding bilinguals' knowledge of Hindi case marking is crucial for linguistic theory.
- Factors like language dominance and age of acquisition (AoA) may influence morphological knowledge.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how language dominance affects Hindi case marking knowledge in bilingual speakers.
- To compare case marking proficiency across balanced bilinguals, English-dominant bilinguals, L2 learners, and heritage speakers.
- To explore the roles of dominant language transfer, AoA, and input in acquiring Hindi morphology.
Main Methods:
- Comparative study of Hindi-English bilinguals with varying dominance levels.
- Assessment of oral production and acceptability judgments for case marking.
- Analysis of balanced bilinguals, English-dominant bilinguals, adult L2 learners, and heritage speakers.
Main Results:
- Balanced bilinguals demonstrated superior knowledge of Hindi case marking compared to English-dominant bilinguals.
- L2 learners and heritage speakers exhibited similar, lower levels of Hindi case marking proficiency.
- An exception was observed in the marking of direct objects with -ko, particularly concerning specificity.
Conclusions:
- Language dominance significantly modulates the knowledge of Hindi case marking.
- AoA and input factors likely play a role in the acquisition of Hindi morphology, especially when it is the weaker language.
- Further research is needed to fully understand the interplay of these factors in bilingual language development.
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