The Syntax-Pragmatics Interface in Heritage Languages

The Use of anche ("Also") in German Heritage Speakers of Italian

Bibliographic Data

ID5899999
AuthorsJan Casalicchio (0000-0003-0927-2865, University of Palermo, corresponding author), Manuela Caterina Moroni (0000-0003-1006-2355, University of Bergamo, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume8
Issue2
Pages104
Publication date2023-04-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguages (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/languages8020104
OpenAlexW4362699051
LanguageEN
References cited43

This paper deals with the use of anche ("also") by German heritage speakers of Italian ("IHSs"). Previous research showed that anche and its German counterpart auch share many features but also display language-specific characteristics. According to previous research on bilingualism, heritage speakers show cross-linguistic influence ("CLI") when a linguistic phenomenon is at the syntax-pragmatics interface and there is a partial overlap in the two languages at stake. Therefore, we expect the use of anche in IHSs to be influenced by CLI. By analysing data from a semi-spontaneous corpus, we investigate the production of anche in order to understand which factors shape the grammar of the IHSs. Our results indicate that a subset of IHSs uses anche in the same way as in homeland Italian. The other informants display CLI effects of different types: on the one hand, they have two positions in the clausal structure for anche dedicated to different syntactic-pragmatic contexts, as in German, and they overextend the use of anche as a modal particle. On the other hand, the intonational properties of anche are not affected by CLI

German · Grammar · Heritage language · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Pragmatics · Syntax · Computer Science · Linguistic Studies and Language Acquisition · Multilingual Education and Policy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology