Eric Hoekstra

Een voorbeeld van gecamoufleerde taalbeïnvloeding: samenstellingsvormen van sjwasubstantieven in het Fries

Frisian nouns ending in schwa (henceforth: schwa nouns) like brege (‘bridge’) show unpredictable behaviour when used as a fi rst member of a nominal compound. In some cases the schwa is retained (e.g. bregeman ‘bridge man’), in other cases the schwa can or must be dropped (e.g. busjild ‘pocket money’, from buse ‘pocket’). Athough there are no fi xed rules two factors turn out to be crucial: the (non)optionality of the schwa in the simplex word (e.g. brege ‘bridge’ vs mis(se) ‘church mass’) and the similarity to the Dutch synonymous counterpart (e.g. F. skoalle, D. school ‘school’). In a particular subset of the data the interaction of these two factors has a non-trivial and surprising effect on Frisian word formation.

The minimal and short-lived effects of minority language exposure on the executive functions of Frisian-Dutch bilingual children

Various studies have shown that bilingual children need a certain degree of proficiency in both languages before their bilingual experiences enhance their executive functioning (EF). In the current study, we investigated if degree of bilingualism in Frisian-Dutch children influenced EF and if this effect was sustained over a 3-year period. To this end, longitudinal data were analyzed from 120 Frisian-Dutch bilingual children who were 5- or 6-years-old at the first time of testing. EF was measured with two attention and two working memory tasks. Degree of bilingualism was defined as language balance based on receptive vocabulary and expressive morphology scores in both languages. In a context with a minority and a majority language, such as the Frisian-Dutch context, chances for becoming proficient in both languages are best for children who speak the minority language at home. Therefore, in a subsequent analysis, we examined whether minority language exposure predicted language balance and whether there was a relationship between minority language exposure and EF, mediated by language balance. The results showed that intensity of exposure to Frisian at home, mediated by language balance, had an impact on one of the attention tasks only. It predicted performance on this task at time 1, but not at time 2 and 3. This partially confirms previous evidence that the cognitive effects of bilingualism are moderated by degree of bilingualism and furthermore reveals that substantial minority language exposure at home indirectly affects bilingual children’s cognitive development, namely through mediation with degree of bilingualism. However, the findings also demonstrate that the effect of bilingualism on EF is limited and unstable.

A longitudinal study on the gradual cognate facilitation effect in bilingual children’s Frisian receptive vocabulary

ABSTRACT This longitudinal study investigated to what extent the acquisition of cognates among bilingual children depends on the degree of cross-language similarity and intensity of exposure to the tested language, and whether children’s sensitivity to cognates with different degrees of cross-language similarity changes over time. For three consecutive years, 120 Frisian-Dutch bilingual children were tested on their Frisian receptive vocabulary. The sample was split into three groups that differed with respect to intensity of exposure to Frisian at home. In the receptive vocabulary task, cross-language similarity was systematically manipulated through four cognate categories, differing in their degree of overlap between Frisian and Dutch. The results showed a gradual cognate facilitation effect for children with a low intensity of exposure to Frisian. The higher the degree of cross-language similarity, the better their performance. This implies that the co-activation of the two languages depends on the degree of cross-language similarity. Over time, their performance improved the most on non-identical cognates with a cross-linguistic phonological regularity between Frisian and Dutch. This suggests that as they grow older, children with a low intensity of exposure to Frisian become better at recognizing regularities in the overlap of the Frisian and Dutch phonological systems.

Three-Verb Clusters in Interference Frisian: A Stochastic Model over Sequential Syntactic Input.

Interference Frisian (IF) is a variety of Frisian, spoken by mostly younger speakers, which is heavily influenced by Dutch. IF exhibits all six logically possible word orders in a cluster of three verbs. This phenomenon has been researched by Koeneman and Postma (2006), who argue for a parameter theory, which leaves frequency differences between various orders unexplained. Rejecting Koeneman and Postma’s parameter theory, but accepting their conclusion that Dutch (and Frisian) data are input for the grammar of IF, we will argue that the word order preferences of speakers of IF are determined by frequency and similarity. More specifically, three-verb clusters in IF are sensitive to: their linear left-to-right similarity to two-verb clusters and three-verb clusters in Frisian and in Dutch; the (estimated) frequency of two- and three-verb clusters in Frisian and Dutch. The model will be shown to work best if Dutch and Frisian, and two- and three-verb clusters, have equal impact factors. If different impact factors are taken, the model’s predictions do not change substantially, testifying to its robustness. This analysis is in line with recent ideas that the sequential nature of human speech is more important to syntactic processes than commonly assumed, and that less burden need be put on the hierarchical dimension of syntactic structure.

Attraction between words as a function of frequency and representational distance: words in the bilingual brain

Abstract Bilingual speakers store cognates from related languages close together in their mental lexicon. In the case of minority languages, words from the dominant language often exert influence on their cognates in the minority language. In this article, we present a model describing that influence or force of attraction as a function of frequency and of (dis)similarity (representational distance). More specifically, it is claimed that the strength of the force of attraction of one word upon another is (among others) a function of their frequencies divided by their formal dissimilarity. The model is applied to the distribution of nouns derived from adjectives in Frisian, where the suffix -ens competes with -heid. Of these two suffixes, Frisian -heid is similar to Dutch -heid, whereas Frisian -ens does not have a similar counterpart in Dutch. The model predicts that Frisian derived nouns of which the adjectival bases are similar in form and meaning to Dutch will occur more often with -heid and less often with -ens. It also predicts that this effect will be stronger as the words involved are more frequent. Our findings make it possible to verify the model’s quantification of the influence of Dutch words on their cognates.

Verbal Working Memory Is Related to the Acquisition of Cross-Linguistic Phonological Regularities

Closely related languages share cross-linguistic phonological regularities, such as Frisian -âld [ͻ:t] and Dutch -oud [ʱut], as in the cognate pairs kâld [kͻ:t] – koud [kʱut] ‘cold’ and wâld [wͻ:t] – woud [wʱut] ‘forest’. Within Bybee’s (1995, 2001, 2008, 2010) network model, these regularities are, just like grammatical rules within a language, generalizations that emerge from schemas of phonologically and semantically related words. Previous research has shown that verbal working memory is related to the acquisition of grammar, but not vocabulary. This suggests that verbal working memory supports the acquisition of linguistic regularities. In order to test this hypothesis we investigated whether verbal working memory is also related to the acquisition of cross-linguistic phonological regularities. For three consecutive years, 5- to 8-year-old Frisian-Dutch bilingual children (n = 120) were tested annually on verbal working memory and a Frisian receptive vocabulary task that comprised four cognate categories: (1) identical cognates, (2) non-identical cognates that either do or (3) do not exhibit a phonological regularity between Frisian and Dutch, and (4) non-cognates. The results showed that verbal working memory had a significantly stronger effect on cognate category (2) than on the other three cognate categories. This suggests that verbal working memory is related to the acquisition of cross-linguistic phonological regularities. More generally, it confirms the hypothesis that verbal working memory plays a role in the acquisition of linguistic regularities.

On the Origin and Development of an Embedded V-Initial Construction in Frisian

Frisian features an embedded V -First construction, which is semantically equivalent to an infinitival clause. The construction comes in two varieties. The coordinated variety involves a clause functioning as a second clause of a coordination in the scope of a modal verb. It used to feature an infinitival verb until it started to appear in the 18th century with (unambiguously) imperative verbs. The subordinated variety involves a clause functioning as a verbal argument. It developed out of the coordinated variety in the 18th century. The grammatical properties of both varieties of this construction in present-day Frisian are presented and understood as a result of their origin and subsequent development out of a coordinate construction in Old Frisian. To the extent that the analysis is successful, it provides support for the notion ‘construction’ and for examining the origin and evolution of constructions, as is customary in construction grammar (Goldberg 2006, Givon 2009).