Complete acquisition in the heritage language: Evidence from indefiniteness in Turkish

Authors : Gülsen YILMAZ, Antje SAUERMANN

Pages : 813-847

Doi:10.29000/rumelide.1286008

View : 12 | Download : 5

Publication Date : 2023-04-26

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :This study investigates whether adult Turkish heritage speakers are able to refer to entities in discourse as required by semantic contexts. The focus is on the contrasting properties of Turkish insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(L1); and German insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(L2); with respect to semantics of indefiniteness, i.e., specificity and partitivity. Turkish morphologically distinguishes between specific/nonspecific and partitive/nonpartitive contexts on the indefinite direct object while German does not. We hypothesized that the Turkish heritage speakers would overgeneralize the unmarked form insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(bir noun); since this is the default form used in German regardless of the context and also acceptable in all contexts in Turkish. We further hypothesized that, if they ever opt for the case marked form insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(bir noun+acc);, they would also do so incorrectly in nonpartitive and nonspecific contexts. Turkish heritage speakers living in Germany insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(n= 35); could dissociate semantic contexts and made similar preferences to those of monolingual native speakers of Turkish insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(n= 30);. Our findings suggest that native language insert ignore into journalissuearticles values(L1); can develop despite early onset of the L2 and be maintained on a par with monolingual norms despite the presence of competing structures in the L2. We will discuss how insights from heritage language development can contribute to discussions about the bilingual’s ability in L1; and limits and possibilities of bilingualism.
Keywords : heritage grammar, indefiniteness, specificity, partitivity