Pirtûkxaneya dîjîtal a kurdî (BNK)
Retour au resultats
Imprimer cette page

Language Interrupted


Nivîskar : John H. McWhorter
Weşan : Oxford University Press Tarîx & Cîh : 2007, New York
Pêşgotin : Rûpel : 323
Wergêr : ISBN : 978-0-19-530980-5
Ziman : ÎngilîzîEbad : 90x135 mm
Mijar : Zimannasî

Language Interrupted

Language Interrupted: Signs of Non-Native Acquisition in Standard Language Grammars

Introduction
Navajo as Default

1. The Problem

The concept elicits little objection when observed in passing. Dalby (1998, 391) hardly considers it a venturesome statement that “a lingua franca needs to be easy to grasp, and Malay has a more approachable structure than its relatives.” When Trudgill (1996, 8–9) proposes that Alpine Romansch and Faroese have accreted unusual and complex sounds because as isolated languages, they have rarely been subjected to adults’ diminished capacity for imitating unfamiliar phonetic segments, the argument is not received as controversial.


That is, that heavy second-language acquisition decreases structural complexity is thoroughly intuitive to most linguists on a certain level. Yet in response to a specific argument that non-native acquisition has rendered a given language less complex overall, linguists tend toward a visceral skepticism. This skepticism is founded upon an assumption considered a hallmark of informed linguistic thought, that human grammars are all equally complex. Some examples of this commonplace assumption among linguists include Edwards (1994, 90), Bickerton (1995, 67), O’Grady et al. (1997, 6), and Crystal (1987, 6–7). We are to keep in mind, for example, that English may appear a “simplified” Germanic language in lacking Icelandic’s inflectional paradigms, but has do-support, and a mixed phonology with different rules for Germanic words than Latinate ones.

Responses to complexity arguments are especially vehement when it is proposed that a creole language is less complex than older languages. Reactions tend to fall upon a cline ranging from sharp objections suspecting sinister sociopolitical motives (various writings of Michel DeGraff) to studious disinterest (e.g., Roberge 2003, 343: “I will not be losing any sleep over the coherence of the field if creoles are not a linguistically definable class”)...

Contents

1. Introduction / 3
2. Defining Grammatical Complexity / 21
3. Epistemological Caveats / 51
4. English / 59
5. Mandarin Chinese / 104
6. Persian / 138
7. Colloquial Arabic / 165
8. Malay / 197
9. A New Typology of Language Contact / 252

Notes / 277
References / 283
Index / 307

John McWhorter
Language Interrupted:
Signs of Non-Native Acquisition in Standard Language Grammars


Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further
Oxford University’s objective of excellence
in research, scholarship, and education.
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

Copyright © 2007 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
www.oup.com

Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McWhorter, John H.
Language interrupted: signs of non-native acquisition in standard language grammars /
John McWhorter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-530980-5

1. Typology (Linguistics). 2. Linguistic change. 3. Languages in contact. I. Title.
P204.M34 2007
415—dc22 2006051521

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

PDF
Destûra daxistina; vê berhêmê nîne.


Weqfa-Enstîtuya kurdî ya Parîsê © 2024
PIRTÛKXANE
Agahiyên bikêr
Agahiyên Hiqûqî
PROJE
Dîrok & agahî
Hevpar
LÎSTE
Mijar
Nivîskar
Weşan
Ziman
Kovar